The news that China is planning to divert the waters of the Yarlung Tsangpo (the upper stream of India’s Brahmaputra) to its water-starved Xinjiang province is hardly surprising. It has been a long-standing part of the grand South-North Water Transfer project conceptualised as early as in the 1950s by Mao Zedong and somewhat grandly restated in Li Ling’s 2005 book Tibet’s Water will Save China.5 December 2017
The Brahmaputra conundrum
The news that China is planning to divert the waters of the Yarlung Tsangpo (the upper stream of India’s Brahmaputra) to its water-starved Xinjiang province is hardly surprising. It has been a long-standing part of the grand South-North Water Transfer project conceptualised as early as in the 1950s by Mao Zedong and somewhat grandly restated in Li Ling’s 2005 book Tibet’s Water will Save China.MALI IS FRANCE’S AFGHANISTAN, BUT WITH A DIFFERENCE
STEPHANIE PEZARD AND MICHAEL SHURKIN
In a recent editorial in Le Monde, French journalist Christophe Ayad draws disturbing parallels between the French military operations in Mali — which will reach their five-year mark in January — and America’s involvement in Afghanistan. At first glance the comparison is compelling, and in some important ways, accurate. Yet these two interventions present some fundamental differences that make the Afghanistan case likely more intractable than Mali’s, and give reason for optimism in France.The Resurgence of Central Asian Connectivity
By Luca Anceschi
It is early September 2017 at the Dostyk border post, where southern Kyrgyzstan meets Uzbekistan’s Andijan region. Located only a few kilometers outside of Osh, Dostyk became instrumental in separating communities that were once united: until the summer, people could only cross it by producing a so-called telegramma – an official proof of invitation received from across the border. A lively ceremony is held to mark the reopening of Dostyk or, more precisely, the termination of this strict invitation-only policy. Local leaders from either side of the border and Kyrgyzstan’s deputy prime minister noted the progress made by bilateral relations in the preceding year, highlighting the benefits that a working border post may bring to the economies of the neighboring regions and, most importantly, the daily lives of local communities.New Era of China’s Development and Prospects for China-Russia Relations
Li Hui
I would like to thank Mr. Ivanov for his initiative, and members of the Russian International Affairs Council for organizing this event, which provides a platform for us to share views on the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and its influence, the development of China in a new era, and the prospects for Russia–China relations moving forwards.
China's Multinational Corporations
Only a decade ago, Chinese companies accounted for barely 1 percent of the world’s largest companies and multinationals. Today, their share has grown by more than tenfold. After mid-November, Alibaba again won the highest ecommerce sales day in history on China’s Singles’ Day beating last year’s record by almost 40 percent - hitting some $25.4 billion.In the United States, the 2016 combined Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales amounted to $6.5 billion, while Amazon’s 2017 Prime Day sales rose to $600 million to $1 billion range. Even combined, all of these revenues account for less than one-third of Alibaba’s Singles’ Day sales.Iran and Russia, Growing Apart
By Alex Vatanka
Today, the latest round of UN-brokered Syria peace talks begins in Geneva, with the goal of bringing President Bashar al-Assad and various armed opposition factions to a political settlement that could put an end to half a decade of civil war in the country. The Geneva talks come one week after another set of Syria talks, this time in Sochi. The November 22 gathering, which included some of the conflict’s key remaining players—Iran, Turkey, and Russia—was supposed to be a turning point in the issue of Syria’s future. At least that had been Tehran’s hope. Instead, the talks highlighted emerging fissures between Assad’s two main foreign backers, Iran and Russia, and even divisions within Iran between the civilian government of President Hassan Rouhani and the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
RUSSIA IS NOW PROVIDING NORTH KOREA WITH INTERNET: WHAT THAT COULD MEAN FOR CYBER WARFARE
Amid diplomatic fallout between North Korea and China, its only major trade partner, Russia is positioning itself to be a stronger North Korean ally, reaching out to provide North Korea with an internet connection. As a result, Russia may embolden North Korea to launch more destructive cyberattacks. Stronger cooperation between the two raises the possibility that they will even collaborate on cyberattacks themselves, which would be devastating for the international community.NORTH KOREA’S MILITARY CAPABILITIES
David Maxwell’s Comment: “As as aside, I just participated in a review of an unclassified DIA report on the North Korean Military that is based on the format of the old Soviet Military Reports. When it is published it will be able to serve as the authoritative common reference for discussing north Korea military capabilities. It will be of great use to students, researchers, staffers, and policy makers.”
Introduction
The Promise and Peril of Trump’s Cyber Strategy
BY JOSEPH MARKS
Is Donald Trump’s cybersecurity policy humming along at the 10-month mark of his administration, a rare space of continuity amid myriad shifts and realignments? Or is Trump blazing a new path that could set dangerous precedents in cyberspace and leave the internet more ungovernable in the future? The answer, according to cyber analysts and former officials in Republican and Democratic administrations, might be both. When it comes to basic management of the government’s cybersecurity responsibilities, they say, it might be difficult to distinguish Trump’s cybersecurity program from his predecessor’s.Destroyer of Worlds Taking stock of our nuclear present
By Elaine Scarry
In February 1947, Harper’s Magazine published Henry L. Stimson’s “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.” As secretary of war, Stimson had served as the chief military adviser to President Truman, and recommended the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The terms of his unrepentant apologia, an excerpt of which appears on page 35, are now familiar to us: the risk of a dud made a demonstration too risky; the human cost of a land invasion would be too high; nothing short of the bomb’s awesome lethality would compel Japan to surrender. The bomb was the only option.
What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages
By James Manyika, Susan Lund, Michael Chui, Jacques Bughin, Jonathan Woetzel, Parul Batra, Ryan Ko, and Saurabh Sanghvi
In an era marked by rapid advances in automation and artificial intelligence, new research assesses the jobs lost and jobs gained under different scenarios through 2030. The technology-driven world in which we live is a world filled with promise but also challenges. Cars that drive themselves, machines that read X-rays, and algorithms that respond to customer-service inquiries are all manifestations of powerful new forms of automation. Yet even as these technologies increase productivity and improve our lives, their use will substitute for some work activities humans currently perform—a development that has sparked much public concern.
Negotiating The EU's Future On Even Ground
by Adriano Bosoni
From its very inception, the European Union has depended on the alliance between France and Germany. The bloc's predecessor, the European Economic Community, formed with the principal goal of binding the two countries together so closely that another war on the Continent would be impossible. And from the 1950s on, a tacit agreement underlay their partnership: France was the main political and military power in the bloc, and Germany was the main financial supporter (paying for, among other things, onerous subsidies for French farmers). After German reunification in 1990, France even pushed for the creation of the euro as another way to strengthen Paris’ links with Berlin.NATO mulls 'offensive defense' with cyber warfare rules
Robin Emmott
A group of NATO allies are considering a more muscular response to state-sponsored computer hackers that could involve using cyber attacks to bring down enemy networks, officials said. The United States, Britain, Germany, Norway, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands are drawing up cyber warfare principles to guide their militaries on what justifies deploying cyber attack weapons more broadly, aiming for agreement by early 2019. The doctrine could shift NATO’s approach from being defensive to confronting hackers that officials say Russia, China and North Korea use to try to undermine Western governments and steal technology. “There’s a change in the (NATO) mindset to accept that computers, just like aircraft and ships, have an offensive capability,” said U.S. Navy Commander Michael Widmann at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, a research center affiliated to NATO that is coordinating doctrine writing.
Internet of Things Device Security and Supply Chain Management
By Stacia Lee, Jessica Beyer
From refrigerators (Brandom, 2016) to buildings, nearly everything in our everyday lives is connected to the Internet (Intel, n.d.). While the Internet of Things (IoT), provides valuable modern conveniences, it also raises new security concerns. Unlike rigorous national and international standards for aviation and automobile safety, or even an established “Good Housekeeping” seal for certain household products (Good Housekeeping, 2014) – there are no conventions dictating or communicating the security of IoT devices.
How Blockchain Technology Can Serve the Have-nots
Can the blockchain, a distributed ledger technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as the Bitcoin, be used to help millions of poor people gain access to financial services? Recent announcements by companies such as IBM and MasterCard suggest that it can, writes social venture capitalist Mir Haque in this opinion piece.Haque is the CEO of Aphaea Capital, a blockchain and cryptocurrency venture fund. Previously, he worked at McKinsey & Co., Deutsche Bank and Google. Haque also recently moderated the conference panel, ‘How Blockchain Can Advance Social and Economic Justice,’ at the 2017 Blockchain Economic Forum in New York.
A digital migraine? How the Americas can step up cybersecurity strategies
By: Aaron Mehta
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Making a cybersecurity policy for just one nation is difficult. Developing a joint agreement between two nations on digital issues represents a raging headache. Finding common ground about 33 nations? That’s essentially impossible. And yet, according to Brig. Gen. S.M. Lacroix, a Canadian officer serving as director general of the Secretariat of the Inter-American Defense Board, some sort of unified cybersecurity agreement among the countries in the Americas needs to be reached in the future.IoT is changing the meaning of ‘critical infrastructure’
By: Jessie Bur
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The proliferation of internet of things devices tied into critical industries such as transportation and healthcare is changing the perspective on what constitutes critical infrastructure, according to government and industry experts who spoke at the 2017 CyberCon. “The attack surface is going to expand greatly,” said Ret. Maj. Gen John Davis, vice president and federal chief security officer at Palo Alto Networks. “When we start connecting all of these other devices, like devices that are involved in life-saving functions – transportation, cars – when we start connecting these things, we’re opening up a whole different category of impact. I think we will put people’s lives at risk, and I think there will be tremendous impact to national security, economic prosperity, public safety. So, I worry about the direction that this is going in.”U.S. wargame highlights role of commercial space imagery in military conflicts
Rising military powers like Russia and China have built an elaborate network of sensors to monitor regions of the world that are of strategic importance to the United States. A mix of military and commercial surveillance and targeting technologies is helping both Russia and China extend the reach of their long-range weapons, undermining U.S. access and influence in regions such as Eastern Europe and the South China Sea.NATO mulls 'offensive defense' with cyber warfare rules
Robin Emmott
A group of NATO allies are considering a more muscular response to state-sponsored computer hackers that could involve using cyber attacks to bring down enemy networks, officials said. The United States, Britain, Germany, Norway, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands are drawing up cyber warfare principles to guide their militaries on what justifies deploying cyber attack weapons more broadly, aiming for agreement by early 2019. The doctrine could shift NATO’s approach from being defensive to confronting hackers that officials say Russia, China and North Korea use to try to undermine Western governments and steal technology.
How the Army hopes to accelerate decision-making
By: Mark Pomerleau
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If the Army wants to be successful in future conflicts, its senior leaders believe they will have to make decisions faster.
To help do that, the Army is trying to avoid the problems that have plagued the service in the last few years, including interoperability between IT, mission command systems and sensors. The concept called asymmetric vision/decide faster, or AVDF, is a philosophy of integrating systems at low technology readiness levels (TRL) as opposed to later in development, officials told C4ISRNET during a visit to the Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate at their Fort Belvoir facility.
4 December 2017
When Does a Geographic Space Become a Geostrategic Community?
By Robert Farley
The term “Indo-Pacific” has become an analytical hot potato. U.S. strategists and political leaders (including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) have increasingly used the term to describe the set of strategic relationships that structure behavior in from the Eastern Indian Ocean into the Western Pacific. The term effectively puts China, India, Japan, Australia, and the United States is the same geostrategic orbit, a move which would seem to work to the benefit of the United States.Responding to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor challenge
Harsh V. Pant
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has been attracting a lot of attention lately and for all the wrong reasons. Pakistan has reportedly rejected China’s offer of assistance for the $14 billion Diamer-Bhasha Dam, asking Beijing to take the project out of the $60 billion CPEC so that Pakistan can build the dam on its own. Because the project was in a disputed territory, the Asian Development Bank had refused to finance it. So China was keen to step in but Pakistan realized that the tough conditions being imposed by Beijing pertaining to the ownership of the project, operation and maintenance costs, and security of the dam would make the project politically and economically untenable. It gravitated, therefore, towards self-financing.WHAT A YEAR OF TRACK II DISCUSSIONS SAYS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF U.S.-PAKISTAN RELATIONS
MICHAEL KUGELMAN AND RAOOF HASAN
On May 1, 1960, an American spy plane — having taken off from an airbase in Pakistan — was downed over Soviet skies, sparking a major Cold War crisis. As tensions grew, the prominent public intellectual Norman Cousins, a friend of U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, invited a group of private American and Russian citizens to a meeting at Dartmouth College to discuss ways forward. This gathering, according to a 2011 Foreign Policy essay by Charles Homans, established a new form of diplomacy, known as Track II: discussions between nongovernment interlocutors meant to build trust and pursue cooperation during trying times for relations between countries. Track II dialogues have become a popular way for experts and former practitioners to try to lay the groundwork for smoother exchanges on official levels.Why German Companies Are Threatening to Retreat From China
By Charlotte Gao
On November 24, the Delegations of German Industry and Commerce in China (AHK China) – which represents the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce in China – issued a strong statement threatening to pull out of Chinese market if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues its attempt to interfere with foreign companies’ internal business. The statement said that the Delegations have received reports about attempts by the CCP to strengthen its influence in wholly foreign-owned German companies in China.Malhama Tactical Threatens to Put China in its Crosshairs
By: Alessandro Arduino, Nodirbek Soliev
In early August 2017, Malhama Tactical, an unusual militant group operating in Syria and sometimes labelled the “Blackwater of jihad,” issued a statement in which it hinted at a planned expansion into China and alluded to the experiences of China’s Uighur population in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang. The message is a departure from the group’s previous statements, which have been aimed at the Syrian government and its allies — Russia and Iran. It is likely only rhetoric, as the Malhama Tactical’s operations have so far been confined to the Syrian conflict, where its battle-hardened Chechen fighters have turned the training of young jihadists into a profitable business.
China’s Rising Coal Use Defies Forecasts – Analysis
By Michael Lelyveld
China is gradually transforming its economy and patterns of energy consumption, but it may be decades before citizens see dramatic improvements in air quality, according to a recent report. The finding this month by the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) came as an international group of climate scientists blamed an increase in China’s coal consumption for the first big rise in global greenhouse gas emissions since 2013. The warning from the Global Carbon Project of a two-percent jump in 2017 emissions coincided with the IEA’s release of its long-range energy forecast and its first in-depth China analysis in the past 10 years.The Four Faces Of China In Central And Eastern Europe – Analysis
By Michał Roman*
An American, a German, and a Chinese gentleman walk into a bar in Prague. The first two order a beer, and the bartender then turns to the Chinese man to ask, “What can I get you?” He simply replies, “The accounts please, I own the place.” FDI competition? Europe remains the leading source of FDI for Poland, the largest economy in the Central and Eastern European region, though China promises more (Sources: National Bank of Poland, Ministry of Development, Polish Investment and Trade Agency)There Have to Be Consequences For China
By Joseph Bosco
Pyongyang’s latest and most powerful missile test demonstrates that China has not delivered on North Korea, as Beijing apparently promised U.S. President Donald Trump it would. Instead, it continues to deliver for North Korea, ignoring or undermining the very sanctions it voted for in the U.N. Security Council. While some Chinese banks have cut ties with North Korean entities, plenty of illicit channels of trade and investment are allowed to provide ongoing life support to the regime. More important, Beijing continues to make clear to Washington, Pyongyang, and the world what its own geostrategic priorities are.
What Cyber Command learned from ISIS operations
By: Mark Pomerleau
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When Ash Carter, then the secretary of defense, tasked Cyber Command to turn its skill set against the Islamic State group, it was billed as the young command’s first true test. Since then, Cyber Command leaders learned how to better employ cyber capabilities, Brig. Gen. Timothy Haugh, director of intelligence at Cyber Command, said during a panel at CyberCon hosted by Federal Times in Arlington, Va., Nov. 28.Hezbollah’s Drone Program Sets Precedents for Non-State Actors
By: Avery Plaw, Elizabeth Santoro
On the afternoon of September 19, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) launched from an airstrip near the Syrian capital of Damascus flew into the demilitarized zone that separates the Syrian-controlled area of the Golan Heights from that which is controlled by Israel. The Israeli military scrambled jets and launched a patriot missile to intercept what it identified as a Hezbollah drone approaching Israeli airspace. The Patriot missile, its flight accompanied by two Israeli fighter jets, successfully intercepted the drone in the air (Haaretz, September 19). The debris fell inside the demilitarized zone, near the ruins of the Syrian city of Quneitra.
High-Technology Set to Dominate Russia’s Rearmament Program
By: Roger McDermott
Russia’s General Staff has stated that the active phase of its involvement in combat operations in Syria is drawing to a close, without any hint that this might involve withdrawing its forces or even entirely ceasing to conduct airstrikes. The complexity of the emerging post-conflict settlement, from Moscow’s perspective is further complicated by a growing anti-Iran coalition, which may well prove more challenging for the future security of the Middle East than the Kremlin’s largely successful effort to prop up the regime in Damascus (see EDM, November 27).
No Exit for Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom’s War in Yemen
By: Michael Horton
It has been more than two and half years since Saudi Arabia began its war in Yemen. The campaign named “Operation Decisive Storm” was supposed to be a short, sharp operation to defeat — or at least cow — Yemen’s Houthi rebels and reinstall its government in exile, but it has failed to achieve either of these objectives. Yemen’s impotent and largely discredited government continues its exile in Saudi Arabia, while the Houthis and their allies have retained control of northwest Yemen. The Saudi-led war has succeeded only in devastating a nation of 26 million and greatly empowering al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which wields growing influence in southern Yemen. Ironically, the Saudi-led war is the glue that keeps the alliance between the Houthis and their former enemy, Yemen’s ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, together.
Monkey Cage Analysis Why moderate Muslims come to support extremist groups
By Barbara F. Walter
Discarded shoes of victims remain Saturday outside al-Rawda mosque in Bir al-Abd in northern Sinai, Egypt, a day after attackers killed hundreds of worshipers. The assault was Egypt’s deadliest attack by Islamic extremists in the country’s modern history, a grim milestone in a long-running fight against an insurgency led by a local affiliate of the Islamic State group. Why do some extremist groups, such as the one that attacked Egypt’s al-Rawda mosque, thrive in today’s civil wars in ways that moderate groups have not? In 2016, Salafi-jihadist groups accounted for most of the major militant groups in Syria, half of all such groups in Somalia and a third of Iraq’s militant groups. How Cyber Gray-Ops Became the New Norm in the Middle East
LEVI MAXEY AND BENNETT SEFTEL
Cyber-enabled information operations in the Gulf, such as the one that seemingly spurred the ongoing feud between Qatar and its neighbors, represent the gray line between open conflict and backchannel disagreements that have proven difficult to respond to, according to experts who spoke at an event Wednesday co-hosted by The Cipher Brief and the Qatar-America Institute. Influence operations are an age-old tactic, but coupled with digital technology, they can uniquely lend privileged access to key communities, plausible deniability and a global audience.
Iranian, Hezbollah, and Yemeni Missile Threat
By Anthony H. Cordesman
No one can discount the threat of nuclear war, even when the threat is still materializing and remains far lower than some media reports would indicate. At the same time, it makes little sense to define the nuclear threat simply in terms of the range of ballistic missiles and the reliability of their reentry vehicles without considering all of the factors that shape the real-world effectiveness of such weapons, and why and how they might actually be used. Worse, it makes even less sense to focus on nuclear exchanges without regard to the broader strategic context in which such exchanges might take place.
Jumping the Nuclear "Gun"
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