The art of communicating nuclear risk

Sara Z. Kutchesfahani, Tom Weis

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Mexican artist Pedro Reyes constructed a three-story inflatable mushroom cloud, Amnesia Atomica, to “put pressure on political leaders, policymakers, and global citizens by reminding them of the consequences of inaction.” Similarly, American artist Barbara Donachy installed 35,000 small clay missile replicas in her exhibit, Amber Waves of Grain, to depict the volume of the US nuclear arsenal. And Smriti Keshari and Eric Schlosser created The Bomb—a multimedia experience that immerses “the viewer within the story of nuclear weapons.” Even this publication relies on design when it presents the Doomsday Clock as a visual representation of “how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.”

Members of the public, policymakers, and scientists would be wise to look to artists, designers, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations that have successfully experimented with creative approaches to raising public awareness about nuclear risk.

One of us—Tom—teaches industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he helps students leverage design techniques on the topic of nuclear threats. One of Tom’s students, for example, designed a game that allows players to advance through virtual worlds while learning nuclear facts. Another student wrote a hip-hop song, “Forget what you know,” that considers what a nuclear winter might look like:

Do you see our future?

And if so, is there a chance of rain?

Do the clouds promise pain? Is the landscape unchanged?

Or should we keep our heads low, eyes closed, and pray in vain?

Over the past five years, Rhode Island School of Design students have been increasingly interested in design courses focused on security. And many students continue security-focused design work after graduation. For example, two recent graduates were selected as Global Security Design Fellows, a program that is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

West Point cadets and Rhode Island School of Design industrial design students discussing the future of conflict in urban environments. Credit: Tom Weis. Used with permission.

Tom has also worked on a nuclear-themed design project at Sandia National Laboratories. In a 90-minute exercise, he invited senior lab leaders to select one card from each of three trend categories: science and technology, the world order, and human geography. They were then asked to imagine a scenario in which the trends collided, after which they discussed how they might have anticipated and adapted to the scenario as individuals, a lab, and a nation. For example, in one imagined scenario from an outside expert, a lack of fresh water accelerated the construction of small nuclear reactors in the region, which in turn outpaced agencies’ abilities to monitor the reactors. Participants were encouraged to reframe questions and expand upon the narrative as they sought creative solutions. The Carnegie Corporation of New York saw value in this work and subsequently provided funding for a digital version of this activity to reach a wider audience.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has also demonstrated a willingness to try design methods as it works to address challenges in the nuclear field. In its 2020 Emerging Technologies Workshop, they enlisted designer Marco Steinberg to give the keynote. Steinberg shared insight from his design practice, including his view that innovation often relies less on new technology than on organizational change. The workshop sessions encouraged generative discussions that are deeply rooted in design practices. In one workshop, participants reconfigured their seating arrangement from one in which participants were all looking toward the front of the room to one in which they gathered in small groups—an arrangement that facilitated collective brainstorming. It was exciting to transform a space designed for lectures into one that fostered active work among participants.

In another design-meets-nuclear example, the N Square Fellows’ Voices in Action campaign offers policy analysts models for improved work cultures, professional development opportunities, and leadership and mentorship opportunities. The models offer a mix of formal and informal, structured and unstructured, and internal- and external-facing ways to acknowledge, amplify, celebrate, and challenge nuclear policy experts. The celebration model, for example, champions large successes such as individuals’ publications and media appearances as well as small successes such as an unusually quiet colleague who speaks up and ensures that they are heard. The models were designed to be flexible and adaptive, as a diversity of perspectives are needed to address problems.

When people pursue art and design projects, they are asked to observe, practice, listen, and ask questions without fear. This requires a mix of humility and bravery. But when the best practices of art and design are in place, participants can expect direct, specific, constructive, and collaborative feedback that encourages them to act—and get results. Members of the public, policymakers, and scientists concerned about nuclear threats might take note. To address the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to humanity, the world may need a creative solution.

US-Russian Cyber Stability Needs ‘Drunken Party’ Approach: Limits, Deterrence and Communication

Joseph S. Nye

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For two decades, Russia has proposed a cyber treaty at the U.N., and the U.S. has resisted it as unverifiable, in part on the grounds that there is often no difference between a cyber weapon and a harmless program except the unknowable intent of the user. Instead, experts from 15-25 countries have been gathering at the U.N. since 2004 to sketch cyber norms that can enhance stability. But shortly after Russia signed off on the 2015 U.N. Group of Governmental Experts report, which recommended refraining from attacks on “critical infrastructure,” Moscow seemed to violate the spirit of the document by allegedly launching cyberattacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid (a charge Russia has denied).

With mistrust high between the U.S. and Russia, it is not clear that normative agreements can really enhance cyber stability, especially without enforcement and deterrence. But there is a positive interaction to keep in mind: Norms can enhance deterrence. All too often international relations are modeled as a game of prisoner’s dilemma where each side has overwhelming incentives to cheat in a particular instance. But as political scientists have shown in computer tournaments with repeated games of prisoner’s dilemma, tit-for-tat reciprocity turns out to be the best strategy for players in the long run. Moreover, in the tacit bargaining that is involved, norms are useful points of salience. As Thomas Schelling has pointed out, in tacit negotiation, the parties may search for common points visible to both sides even if they are not explicitly articulated. And some norms—like not interfering with the “public core” of the internet, proposed by the non-governmental Global Commission on Stability in Cyberspace (of which I was a member)—are in the interest of all countries.

How Deep Is the North-South Divide on Climate Negotiations?

SINAN ÜLGEN

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At their core, climate negotiations continue to be shaped by equity concerns between postindustrial countries in the Global North and emerging economies in the Global South. The debate is largely over which countries have contributed most to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how the costs of mitigating and adapting to climate change should be shared. How effectively the principle of equity will be embodied in global efforts to combat climate change will help determine the scope and ambition of these efforts.

TALLYING PAST AND PRESENT EMISSIONS AMID EQUITY CONCERNS

Industrialized and postindustrialized nations are responsible for a great share of the historical carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the atmosphere today (see figure 1). The United States has emitted more carbon than any other country to date and is responsible for 25 percent of historical emissions. Next in line are the twenty-seven countries of the EU (plus the UK), which are responsible for 22 percent of global CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, China’s historical contributions are estimated to be around 12.7 percent. By contrast, India (3 percent) and Brazil (0.9 percent) have not been large contributors to global emissions in a historical sense. Similarly, the contributions of African countries (3 percent combined), relative to the continent’s population size, has also been very small.

In addition, the Global North continues to have much higher per capita emissions than much of the world even today (see figure 2). The United States ranked high among postindustrialized countries in 2019 with 16 tonnes of CO2 emissions per capita, just behind Australia (16.3 tonnes per capita) and ahead of Canada (15.4 tonnes per capita). The figures for Europe generally fall between 5 and 10 tonnes per capita depending on the country. Hydrocarbon-based economies like Russia and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council in the Persian Gulf like Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates also rank quite high, some of them even higher than countries in the Global North.

Equity concerns essentially stem from the asymmetry between countries’ emissions and their respective burdens to respond to climate change (including the costs of emissions mitigation, adaptation, and other impacts and risks). Most human-driven GHG emissions in the atmosphere are from economic activities performed in or for affluent countries. Yet a more significant burden of the impacts of climate change is carried by poorer nations weathering climate-induced environmental shocks.

A further dividing line in climate negotiations is a result of the contrast between past emissions and future emissions. While industrialized and postindustrialized countries in the Global North are responsible for the majority of past emissions, these countries led by the EU are implementing policies to reduce their GHG emissions. At the same time, the emissions of most developing nations (particularly China) remain on an upward trajectory. This second group of countries will not reach peak emissions for another decade at least. As a result, developing countries share the responsibility for reducing future emissions. These juxtaposed trends also create issues of generational justice.

These differences coupled with the immediacy of the effects of climate change also shape the diplomatic groups engaging in multilateral climate negotiations. Subgroups among countries in the Global South and issue-based coalitions of countries in the Global North and South have emerged on the basis of common concerns. Less developed economies and small island nations, which are already facing the existential threat of climate change, are demanding immediate answers from postindustrialized and developing countries alike. The members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are urging postindustrialized economies to embrace policies that reduce welfare losses in nations that rely on petroleum exports.

Although all uphold the principle that developed and developing countries have different responsibilities for mitigating carbon emissions, as established at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the four countries in the BASIC grouping split when Brazil and South Africa accepted greater responsibility than India and China. More recently, however, China announced in September 2020 (to widespread praise) its intention to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping further unveiled plans to curtail (or even end) Chinese funding for overseas coal power plans in September 2021. Yet the equity principle in the global debate over adjustments to climate change still leads to several important, commonly held policy positions among developing countries on mitigating GHG emissions, adapting to climate change, and financing the climate transition.

MITIGATING CLIMATE CHANGE

First, developing countries generally expect postindustrialized nations to lead efforts to reduce GHG emissions. In multilateral climate negotiations, India articulated the basic positions on climate change held by many emerging economies on the respective roles of developed and developing countries. As Sandeep Sengupta has put it:

First, the primary responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions . . . rested with the developed world. . . . Second, the emissions of developing countries were still very low and needed to grow to meet their future development [needs]. . . . Third, any formal agreement on climate change needed to provide for technology transfer and funds for developing countries to help them address this challenge.

Latin American countries have also regularly emphasized that their historical contributions to the problem of climate change are minimal and that developed countries therefore bear more responsibility for working to mitigate its effects and otherwise help developing countries adapt with financing, technology, and other resources. In Latin America, the term climate justice is used to express the need for developed countries to pay their environmental and ecological debt to developing countries affected by climate change and help them remedy its effects.

Meanwhile, African countries have emphasized their need to be free to pursue economic development at least to some degree through new and existing deposits of fossil fuels. These countries firmly believe that it is unjust for immediate and severe mitigating targets to be erected without any form of compensation or financial aid. The African continent has plenty of fossil fuels, but the global shift away from hydrocarbons may cause further economic losses. According to a United Nations University report, oil, gas, and minerals contribute to over half of African GDP and account for around 70 percent of African exports. As the global economy transitions to greener, more renewable energy systems, African countries with large deposits of fossil fuels will pay a high price for not extracting these resources, a price for which they believe they should be compensated.

In addition, African countries will increasingly face the social, economic, financial, and governance challenges of responding to climate disruptions. They believe that the Global North has failed to acknowledge the extent of this economic stunting and these structural inequities. Some of these countries are vulnerable and have few resources, so they require regional and international assistance. Despite these considerations, any mention of the special vulnerabilities of African countries was excluded from the text of the Paris Agreement. African countries have been attempting to rectify this ever since.

China has also backed the position of developing countries writ large, emphasizing the historical responsibilities of postindustrialized nations. At an April 2021 climate summit convened by U.S. President Joe Biden, Xi stated:

Developed countries need to increase [their] climate ambition and action . . . they need to make concrete efforts to help developing countries strengthen the capacity and resilience against climate change, support them in financing, technology, and capacity building, and refrain from creating green trade barriers, so as to help developing countries accelerate the transition to green and low-carbon development.

Yet China’s position on climate change remains controversial given its current and rising levels of carbon emissions. China reportedly emitted an estimated 27 percent of global GHG emissions in 2019—more than twice as much as the second-ranking country (the United States with 11 percent) and more than the combined emissions of all developed nations. China’s emissions ballooned by a factor of more than three in the past three decades, according to the Rhodium Group.

More generally, developing countries insist on the recognition of the UN-enshrined principles of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and “respective capabilities” between postindustrial and developing countries for reducing GHG emissions. This claim takes into account differences in countries’ historical contributions to global emissions as well as developing countries’ need to have flexible policy options for spurring economic development.

But the future paradigms of economic and urban development will likely be very different from past ones. As things stand, policymakers around the world lack a proper understanding of how development in a climate-disrupted world will look. It is difficult for many developing nations to craft policy responses to address this new reality and these uncertainties. Their development goals and strategies remain embedded in past experience, which in all likelihood will not provide an adequate vision to drive sustainable growth in the future.

ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Although developing countries have put equity concerns on the agenda for climate negotiations, postindustrialized countries have largely done the agenda setting, which thus far primarily has focused on mitigating climate change, as opposed to adapting to its effects through resilience. The vast majority of green finance is earmarked for climate mitigation initiatives, which lower emissions from existing sources. For example, according to San Bilal and Pamella Eunice Ahairwe, the European Investment Bank allocated only $432 million for climate adaptation, even as it poured more than ten times that amount (nearly $5.3 billion) into climate mitigation efforts. These mitigation-focused initiatives allow funders to earn solid returns on their investment. The benefits of decreasing those emissions are felt around the world, resulting in widespread societal returns. Funds to help communities adapt to and weather the effects of climate change, on the other hand, are often used for initiatives with more localized benefits. As a result, these projects typically have lower financial incentives and more concentrated societal benefits, making them less appealing to potential funders.

Yet developing nations want the disproportionate burden of weathering the impact of climate change and the costs of adaptation to take center stage in the climate debate. Emerging economies are calling on developed countries to honor their financial pledges and help them build resilience. Under the Paris Agreement, developed countries pledged to furnish $100 billion per year for climate action. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the pledged money actually flowing to developing countries may have reached nearly $80 billion in 2019. This figure nonetheless has been controversial. India has, for instance, raised issues with the skewed flows of climate financing. After all, the bulk of climate finance (more than 90 percent) continues to be tapped for climate mitigation even though developing countries need funds focused on adaptation.

FINANCING CLIMATE ASSISTANCE

The support of postindustrialized economies will be critical for helping developing countries—through financial assistance, capacity building, and technology—as the latter undergo a green transition.

Consider, for instance, how most of the obligations of African countries under the Paris Agreement are conditional on such support. The African Development Bank has estimated that African countries will need $20 billion to $30 billion per year for climate adaptation until 2030 or so. This amount could increase to $50 billion per year by 2050 even if temperature rises are kept in check (below 2 degrees Celsius), according to a 2015 UN report. Meanwhile, the acceleration of climate disruptions suggests that even the most advanced climate models still may be underestimating the pace and extent of climate disruptions.

A host of developing countries have explicitly tied the availability of climate finance to their mitigation ambitions. For example, in a 2019 report, the Indian government argued that in contrast to its significant needs, global financial flows to India were miniscule. The document explicitly tied India’s ability to meet its Paris Agreement obligations to access to climate financing, stating, “in order to respond to the worldwide call for stepping up climate actions, [there will need] . . . adequate provision of means of implementation to developing countries. Climate finance is a key pillar in enabling climate actions.

A welcome development has been the newfound enthusiasm of China and the United States for allocating more funding to help countries adapt to climate change. China has prioritized efforts to help the world’s least developed countries, such as African nations and small island states. Ahead of the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, Xi established the China South-South Climate Cooperation Fund to provide 20 billion renminbi ($3.1 billion) to help developing countries tackle climate change. Subsequently, at the summit itself, Xi elaborated on his commitment, stating that China would implement ten low-carbon industrial parks, 100 climate mitigation and adaptation projects, and 1,000 training opportunities on climate change for participants from developing countries. Climate policy is a pillar of Beijing’s charm offensive to increase its soft power worldwide as well as an economic policy aimed to enhancing market access for Chinese goods.

The EU and more recently the United States have been among the leading contributors to the instruments of climate finance. In 2019, the EU provided the largest share of external public funding for climate projects to the tune of 23.2 billion euros (about $26 billion). Meanwhile, Washington has promised to significantly increase its contributions to climate finance for developing nations to around $11 billion per year.

PRICING CARBON EMISSIONS

In addition to the prevailing divisions over mitigation responsibilities and climate finance allocations, another highly divisive issue between developed countries and the developing world is the potential impact of the carbon pricing schemes that several countries in the Global North are gradually implementing.

Postindustrialized countries view carbon pricing not only as a tool to raise additional public revenues but also as a way to account for the negative externalities of carbon emissions. To this end, some have suggested the creation of a global carbon pricing mechanism, in the form of a tax or an emissions trading system (ETS). With carbon taxes, regulators set a price on carbon by defining a tax rate on GHG emissions or the carbon content of fossil fuels, while emissions reductions depend on the corresponding measures taken by companies. For instance, the International Monetary Fund states that large GHG-emitting countries need to introduce a carbon tax of $75 per ton or more by 2030 to be consistent with the goal of limiting global warming.

An ETS—a cap-and-trade system—puts a ceiling on the total level of GHG emissions and allows firms with low emissions to sell their surplus allowances to those who emit more. Under an ETS, the market determines the price, while regulators determine the quantity of emissions reductions. The effectiveness of the ETS model remains debated, with some claiming that it allows larger polluters to continue polluting the atmosphere by acquiring emissions rights.

The chief strength of such a global price mechanism for carbon is its potential ability to shift the burden for mitigating the harm caused by climate change onto the market players that are responsible for this harm and can reduce it. Such mechanisms would encourage producers in all countries to adopt low- or zero-carbon technologies by sending an economic signal instead of dictating who should reduce emissions and how they should do so. Such price mechanisms would remove uncertainty for the private carbon-offset markets, which companies and individuals use to compensate for their emissions. Specifically, supporters claim that a price that is applied simultaneously in all countries may help level the international playing field.

Meanwhile, critics argue that global carbon pricing tends to treat inevitable and unavoidable emissions like electricity generation for consumption in poor households on par with other categories of emissions and fails to allocate emissions rights fairly between developing and developed countries. A global ETS would leave less room for developing economies to burn fossil fuels to meet their economic needs. The increase in energy costs that would arise from reduced fuel consumption in wealthier countries may curtail economic activity in markets that cannot absorb such price changes. In countries where the economic structures depend on energy-intensive activities that are heavily exposed to international competition, industries fear that competitive disadvantages in international markets could result in job losses.

For these reasons, developing countries tend to reject ETSs for sidelining the multilaterally agreed-upon international regime and establishing ad hoc norms. They view ETS schemes as protectionist measures at odds with the rules of international trade. They want multilateral negotiations to lead norm creation, as these focus not just on mitigation targets but also on minimizing subsequent welfare losses.

A second and more recent policy option discussed in developed countries is a domestic carbon tax levied together with border adjustments on imports from countries that do not impose an equivalent carbon duty on their producers. Led by the EU, supporters of this approach view it as an efficient way to let the consumers of postindustrial economies take responsibility for their GHG footprint both domestically and in the emissions of other countries. The underlying logic rests on an expectation that unilaterally imposed border adjustments would provide a building block toward global price mechanisms by incentivizing exporting countries to impose equivalent domestic carbon taxes to prevent companies from paying taxes at the importing country’s borders. Proponents propose that the revenue collected at the border could be channelled to overseas climate aid programs to prevent the mechanism from functioning as a de facto tariff.

From the perspective of developing countries, however, a carbon border-adjustment mechanism incorporates several pitfalls. A carbon tax may raise the price of energy-intensive products such as steel and cement, which would increase construction costs and imperil infrastructure projects in developing countries that import these products. When imposed only by the importing countries, domestic carbon pricing would hinder the competitiveness of exporters. Developing countries have less capacity to offer offsets to their companies in the industrial sectors that would suffer a resulting competitive disadvantage against international competition. Moreover, border adjustments can act as tariffs because if carbon taxes are imposed at the importing country’s border, rather than within the exporting country, the importing country gets to keep the tax revenue with no assurances over how the funds would be used. In light of these considerations, developing countries view these types of policies as a disguised form of protectionism.

CONCLUSION

Ultimately, the cleavages in international climate negotiations between the Global North and the Global South are driven by the need for an adequately ambitious global response to climate change. In other words, the current agenda of the Conference of Parties’ (COP) gatherings under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change may not be comprehensive enough to tackle this structural and critical challenge. COP meetings like the upcoming Glasgow Climate Change Conference in October and November 2021 provide a forum for exchanging views and deliberating about climate mitigation and adaptation.

But these global discussions need to be more open and ambitious and must account for the needs of developing countries, not just postindustrial ones. There are other important matters these deliberations cannot ignore. For instance, there is a need to address issues like climate-induced migrations and an overhaul of the international regime governing the treatment of refugees. These discussions should also include proposals to reform the intellectual property rights regime to incentivize a clean development agenda for the developing world. A fair settlement on the burdens of adjusting to the realities of climate change can only emerge if a broader policy agenda can be constructively promoted.

NSA Cyber Chief Spells Out Near-Term Priorities

BRANDI VINCENT

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Ensuring the U.S. has next-generation encryption necessary for the post-quantum era and reversing the recent increase in fallout from ransomware attacks are among National Security Agency cyber officials’ top areas of focus in the near-term.

“Six months ago, ransomware was not a huge priority for NSA. We had cybercrime elements being worked, but it was primarily viewed as a law enforcement issue and law enforcement had to lead. They still have that huge role,” NSA National Cybersecurity Directorate Director Rob Joyce explained on Wednesday. “But what we're doing is stepping up with a surge on ransomware issues to help the FBI, [U.S. Cyber Command], even things like the Treasury and State departments—because what we can do is we can inform their ability to get after the criminals.”

Joyce for decades has served in government cybersecurity and intelligence capacities, including in high-profile roles like special assistant to the president and White House cybersecurity coordinator. The directorate he now leads is only a couple years old and was formed partly to help the government track and eradicate foreign hacking campaigns and evolving cyber threats. He assumed his current position early this year, when his predecessor and close colleague Anne Neuberger was tapped to join President Joe Biden’s administration as the National Security Council’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology.

OPEC Stays the Course despite Rising Oil Prices

Ben Cahill

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The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies in OPEC+ are proceeding with their production plans despite the run-up in oil prices. On October 4 the group decided to continue adding 400,000 barrels per day (b/d) to the market each month, ignoring pressure from oil-importing states for greater volumes. For now, OPEC+ is shrugging off concerns over the economic impact of higher oil prices, perhaps mindful of a softer outlook for next year.

Q1: What happened at the OPEC meeting?

A1: OPEC+ is sticking with its plan to gradually add more volumes to the market as it unwinds the largest-ever production cut it instituted in April 2020. In July OPEC+ accommodated demands from some members for higher production quotas and targeted output increases of 400,000 b/d each month from August until April 2022, with slightly higher volumes in subsequent months. The group is on track to phase out its production cuts by next September but will leave some room for flexibility in the second half of 2022. Speculation that OPEC+ would open the taps and add more than 400,000 b/d in November proved to be unfounded. The group will meet again on November 4.

Facebook’s empire is beginning to crumble

Ross Clark

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When empires crumble they slide slowly at first, then the temple walls come crashing down. Facebook is not quite at the latter stage yet, but you can hear the creaking in the pillars and lintels. This week, the social media giant suffered two blows: an outage which took down its platform, along with Instagram and WhatsApp, and an expose by a disillusioned ex-employee who accuses the company of saying one thing about social responsibility in public – while behaving quite differently in private.

Many of us might not notice if Facebook suddenly wasn’t there. But it is a different story for the many businesses which have built their model on the back of selling via Facebook or Instagram. For them, Facebook is as important a part of their infrastructure as the postal service or telephone network was for previous generations. They rely on Facebook’s platforms being constantly available. Yet in the past the post sometimes failed and the telephone lines came down, and so too Monday’s few hours without Facebook – which the world endured, or enjoyed, according to your personal view – weren’t necessarily an existential threat to Facebook.

Deterrence Theory– Is it Applicable in Cyber Domain?

Maj Gen PK Mallick, VSM (Retd)

Introduction 

The Deterrence Theory was developed in the 1950s, mainly to address new strategic challenges posed by nuclear weapons from the Cold War nuclear scenario. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union adopted a survivable nuclear force to present a ‘credible’ deterrent that maintained the ‘uncertainty’ inherent in a strategic balance as understood through the accepted theories of major theorists like Bernard Brodie, Herman Kahn, and Thomas Schelling.1 Nuclear deterrence was the art of convincing the enemy not to take a specific action by threatening it with an extreme punishment or an unacceptable failure.

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Social Media in Violent Conflicts – Recent Examples

 Maj Gen PK Mallick, VSM (Retd)

Introduction

Alan Rusbridger, the then editor-in-chief of the Guardian in his 2010 Andrew Olle Media Lecture, stated, “News organisations still break lots of news. But, increasingly, news happens first on Twitter. If you’re a regular Twitter user, even if you’re in the news business and have access to wires, the chances are that you’ll check out many rumours of breaking news on Twitter first. There are millions of human monitors out there who will pick up on the smallest things and who have the same instincts as the agencies—to be the first with the news. As more people join, the better it will get. ”

The most important and unique feature of social media and its role in future conflicts is the speed at which it can disseminate information to audiences and the audiences to provide feedback.

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White House Quiet as U.S. Allies Rehabilitate Assad. Congress Should Not Be.

David Adesnik

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King Abdullah of Jordan spoke by phone on Sunday with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the first public contact between the two leaders since the conflict in Syria began in 2011. Their call marks the culmination of increasingly high-level contacts between the Syrian regime and its neighbors over the past two months, driven by a perception that the Biden administration tacitly supports Assad’s rehabilitation.

The Jordanian king met with President Joe Biden at the White House in July, where Abdullah reportedly pushed for a “road map to restoring Syrian sovereignty and unity.” Also in July, Arab diplomats began to press the Biden administration to let Syria participate in a multi-state deal to export gas and electricity to Lebanon, an arrangement that would require Biden to waive human rights sanctions mandated by the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019.

The following month, the United States informed the Lebanese government that it would approve the energy deal, including Syrian participation. Whereas its predecessor had enforced the Caesar Act aggressively, designating more than 100 individuals and entities in the latter half of 2020, the Biden administration has sanctioned only a handful of targets, none of which are economically significant.

What the War in Afghanistan Could Never Do

Adam Serwer

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Even in the context of war, attacking fleeing civilians is a depraved act. The Islamic State’s attack on Kabul’s airport during the American evacuation of Afghanistan, which killed nearly 200 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members protecting the facility, was bound to draw a military response. “The Kabul airport massacre compounds the humiliation of the botched Afghan withdrawal and will further embolden jihadists,” The Wall Street Journal editorialized.

Days later, the U.S. executed a drone strike on what it said was an ISIS operation that threatened the final evacuations out of Kabul—a strike General Mark Milley called “righteous.” Several weeks later, General Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. apologized, acknowledging that the strike had killed 10 civilians. “I offer my profound condolences to the family and friends of those who were killed,” McKenzie said on September 17. In early September, Ahmad Fayaz, a relative of one of those killed, told The Washington Post that the U.S. “always says they are killing [the Islamic State], al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but they always attack civilian people and children … I don’t think they are good people.”

After the deadly error in Afghanistan, maybe drones shouldn’t be used to kill at all

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Almost three weeks after a U.S. military drone attack supposedly killed an Islamic State terrorist in Kabul on Aug. 29, the Defense Department acknowledged a tragic error: The victim was a longtime Afghan aid worker. He died along with nine members of his extended family, including seven children.

Zamarai Ahmadi, the 43-year-old aid worker, was desperate to move to the United States with his family as Kabul fell to the Taliban amid the chaotic U.S. withdrawal. I know, because a few days before he died, I filed paperwork seeking his emergency evacuation.

The fact that Ahmadi was killed by the U.S. military even as he sought to gain refuge in the United States underlines how horribly things can go wrong with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for combat operations.

As a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, I know about the importance of force protection. The drone strike, three days after a car bomb at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service personnel, was intended to stop another attack. But I also know about targeting and the use of ordnance in combat — and the care with which operations are carried out when the lives of young men and women of the U.S. armed forces are on the line.

Pakistan got its way in Afghanistan. Now what?

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UNTIL 2013 Salma Tanveer ran a private school in a suburb of Lahore, Pakistan’s second biggest city. She and her husband, a civil engineer, were pious Muslims who had travelled to Mecca six times. Then things went wrong. The preacher in a local mosque accused her of blasphemy, claiming she had suggested that Muhammad might not have been the last of prophets. On September 27th a lower court in the city pronounced its verdict. Ms Tanveer is to be fined 50,000 rupees ($290), and also “hanged by her neck until death”.

That may never happen. So far no one sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan has actually been executed—although of the nearly 2,000 people charged with the crime since the law was made more ferocious in the 1980s, angry mobs have killed 128. In Ms Tanveer’s case it is the supposed experts who have run amok: in 2014 a panel of psychiatrists had declared her mentally ill and so unfit for trial, only to change its mind five years later.

Ms Tanveer’s situation is extreme, yet her predicament is in some ways a reflection of the peculiar, precarious balance that Pakistan itself has long sustained. In one avatar it is a nuclear-armed modern state that can hold elections, rely on scientific advice from highly qualified professionals and run courts where simple decency sometimes prevails. Yet its other face is a country of cruel and primitive laws, ill-educated mobs and people in power who are happy to make use of both.

Afghanistan Is No Treasure Trove for China

Matthew P. Funaiole

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In the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a popular narrative has emerged that paints the war-torn country as a geopolitical prize ripe for China to take. According to this logic, Beijing is greedily eying Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth, and Chinese policymakers are chomping at the bit to cut deals with the Taliban. Much of this concern is hyperbolic. Afghanistan is no treasure trove, and viewing it through the narrow lens of great-power competition with China constrains policy options in Washington.

Current discourse on China’s ambitions follows a familiar narrative. Foreign powers have long eyed Afghanistan’s mineral resources. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, imperial Britain and Germany performed large-scale geological surveys of the country. The Soviets conducted their own systematic surveys during the Cold War. More recently, the U.S. Defense Department released the findings of a 2010 study that concluded Afghan deposits of copper, rare earths, lithium, and various minerals could be worth more than $1 trillion.

Mining the Future, a special report by FP Analytics, is the first systematic and comprehensive assessment of China’s accumulation of control and influence over a range of critical metals and minerals, and the supply chains upon which the future of the high-tech industry depends. 

None of these powers marshaled the will to tap Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, but many analysts now speculate that, with the United States out of the picture, China may be the first to do so. This concern is somewhat understandable. Chinese companies use enormous quantities of mineral resources and hunger for more. China is already the world’s top producer of electric cars, and consolidating its advantage in that growing industry will require even larger amounts of lithium. Similarly, many industries critical to China’s push to become a science and technology superpower rely on rare earths, a collection of 17 minerals with unique chemical properties.

HOW NOT TO BUILD A STATE

Melissa Lee

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In the fall of 2001, just over a month after the first US troops arrived in the country, the United States and its allies seized control of Afghanistan, driving the Taliban from Kabul and out of power. Twenty years later saw the stunning reversal of the events of 2001: after a summer offensive that netted the Taliban territorial gains across the country, they captured Kabul on August 15, 2021. One minute before midnight on August 30, the last American troops departed Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on a C-17 cargo plane. After two decades of fighting that killed 2,461 US troops and more than one hundred thousand Afghans, and that cost American taxpayers some $824 billion, the longest war in American history had formally ended.

How did it go so wrong? Contrary to some accounts, the US intervention in Afghanistan was not doomed to failure. Rather, the fundamental mistake was to allow the intervention to transform from a narrowly defined counterterrorism mission to an expansive, ill-defined liberal state-building mission.

Twenty years of failed state building and an unhelpful detour in Iraq make it easy to forget that the United States had limited goals in the fall of 2001: kill Osama bin Laden, destroy al-Qaeda, and punish the Taliban for permitting al-Qaeda to base itself on Afghan territory. Even after bin Laden eluded the US military and its allies, escaping across the border into Pakistan, the United States could have stuck to the mission. Instead, it pivoted to a much broader goal: it sought to make Afghanistan inhospitable to terrorism in the future.

In Africa, Mercenaries Are Part of the Problem, Not the Solution

Howard W. French

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In 1997, after his longtime Western backers, Belgium and the United States, had abandoned him, Mobutu Sese Seko, the ruler of the country then known as Zaire, turned to mercenaries from Serbia and Ukraine in a desperate bid to beat back an accelerating insurgency.

In the middle of that war, I flew to Kisangani—the famous, centrally located river-port city that is a gateway to the vast country’s west—to watch the mercenaries drill Zairian troops and take up positions to repel an impending attack on the town. The mercenaries looked fearsome and seemed to have everything they needed to defend the city, from mortars and artillery to attack helicopters. The Zairian general in charge of the operation sounded sure of prevailing. “This is where their offensive ends,” he said of the Rwandan-backed rebels.

A day or two later, I flew back to Zaire’s capital, Kinshasa, drawn by urgent news there. As it happened, that was the day the rebels chose to attack Kisangani, and they made quick work of the government’s defense. “Around 7 P.M. all of the mercenaries disappeared from the hotel they were staying in, and next thing we knew all of the airplanes at the airport were in flames,” said a United Nations official I quoted in my report in the next day’s New York Times. “There have been bombs going off and lots of gunfire,” he added. “According to our information, the city is being looted right now.” A Zairian official I quoted in the same piece told me, “All of the generals have left Kisangani, by boat, by ground, by whatever means. Who knows what will happen here tomorrow?”

China could be ready to mount a 'full-scale' invasion of Taiwan by 2025, island's defense minister says

Eric Cheung

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(CNN)China could be capable of mounting a "full-scale" invasion of Taiwan by 2025, the island's defense minister said Wednesday -- days after record numbers of Chinese warplanes flew into Taiwan's air defense zone.

"With regards to staging an attack on Taiwan, they currently have the ability. But [China] has to pay the price," Chiu Kuo-cheng, the defense minister, told Taiwanese journalists on Wednesday.

But he said that by 2025, that price will be lower -- and China will be able to mount a "full-scale" invasion.

Chiu's comments came after China sent 150 warplanes, including fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers, into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) since October 1.

At a parliament meeting Wednesday, Chiu described cross-strait military tensions as "the most serious" in more than 40 years since he joined the military, Taiwan's official Central News Agency (CNA) reported.

Militarizing U.S.-China competition is fraught with danger

Minxin Pei

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The strategic competition between the United States and China is supposed to be a three-dimensional contest over security, economy and ideology.

In theory, maintaining a proper balance between these three main prongs seems both attractive and practicable, especially to Washington, which possesses significant advantages in all three domains.

In reality, unfortunately, security has a way of trumping economic and ideological competition because of its zero-sum nature and appeals directly to our survival instincts.

The latest manifestation of how security increasingly dominates U.S.-China strategic competition is the surprise announcement that the U.S. will share its nuclear-powered submarine technology with Australia so that Canberra can provide a more effective counterweight to China's burgeoning military power.

The dynamic in which security competition dominates great power competition is easy to understand but difficult to stop.

Maintaining a military advantage to deter an adversary is a basic tenet of national security strategy. As a result, each move taken to improve one's military capabilities has tactical or strategic merits, as in the case of equipping Australia with attack nuclear submarines.

However, cumulatively, individual measures aimed at underscoring the resolve and boosting the military capabilities of one country usually elicit countermeasures from its adversaries, inexorably shifting the center of gravity toward security competition. Militarizing U.S.-China competition only makes it look more and more like the Cold War.

With one rival's gain in military advantage a net loss for their adversary, who will respond then with their own military buildup, the only constraints on such an arms race are financial resources and technology.

In a full-blown arms race between the U.S. -- and its allies -- and China, Washington is likely to prevail because of the combined financial and technological heft. But a China armed to the teeth would still be a fearsome opponent. Even if an arms race favoring the U.S. achieved its strategic objective of deterring China, two other potential outcomes could unleash their own dangerous consequences.

The first would be the modernization and expansion of China's nuclear arsenal, which is currently a fraction of America's. Any significant increase in its nuclear capabilities by China would unavoidably force India to increase its own, a development that would surely motivate Pakistan to expand its nuclear arsenal as well.

The other likely consequence would be the spillover effects of an intensifying arms race on nuclear nonproliferation and control of the spread of destructive technologies. One competitor's efforts to arm its allies and partners to gain an advantage will give its opponent the motivation and justification to do the same.

Indeed, as security competition overshadows U.S.-China relations, it will be nearly impossible for them to cooperate even on issues of mutual interest, such as climate change and future pandemics. All bilateral issues will be viewed only through the lens of national security and evaluated in terms of whether modest cooperation might strengthen the other's security.

One simple but illustrative example is energy security, which is part of national security. Clean energy technologies will likely be grouped in the same category as other critical technologies -- and subject to stringent export controls -- at the expense of popularizing such technologies and reducing emissions.

Politically, national security hawks hold privileged positions in both political systems. In the U.S., they are entrenched in the military-industrial complex, Congressional pork-barrel politics and the right-wing media.

In China, the military guarantees the Communist Party's ability to hold onto power, while the emotional issue of Taiwan seldom fails to elicit neuralgic reflexes from a broad swath of elites and ordinary people alike. Their voices -- and their noisy opposition -- could doom even the most innocuous forms of bilateral cooperation.

Xi Jinping is displayed on a screen as Chinese battle tanks roll across during a parade in Beijing in September 2015; the military guarantees the Communist Party's ability to hold onto power. © AP

The last inevitable consequence of a fully militarized U.S.-China competition is the acceleration of economic decoupling. To be sure, this process is already well underway. Heightened antagonism due to increased military insecurity might therefore strengthen the case for cutting off economic ties altogether.

In the U.S., the argument that Washington must stop "strengthening the enemy" is likely to become more appealing, while the call to reduce America's economic leverage will sound increasingly compelling in China. As both countries take steps to harden their military security, their highly strained economic ties will deteriorate further.

Although this nightmare scenario is one most of us would want to avoid, unfortunately, it may be the one most likely to unfold in the years ahead, because when it comes to great power competition, the security imperative traditionally overwhelms all other considerations.

Great Britain and Germany had a higher level of economic interdependence on the eve of World War I than the U.S. and China today. In 1900, imports from the British Empire accounted for 21.5% of total German imports, while German exports to the British Empire accounted for 22.8% of its total exports.

In 2020, merchandise imports from China amounted to 18.6% of total U.S. imports, while imports from the U.S. accounted for only 6% of total Chinese merchandise imports.

But as we well know, as security competition came to increasingly dominate German-British rivalry, bilateral relations became so hostile that they triggered a catastrophic conflict that neither power wanted. The challenge for China and the U.S. today is not to repeat another such epic calamity.

Saudi Arabia-Bangladesh Relations: Development, Assistance And Economic Ties – OpEd

Pathik Hasan

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Bangladesh-Saudi Arabia relations officially began in 1976 when Saudi Arabia recognized Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign country, which gained independence in 1971. At present, the relations between the two countries are fraternal, strong and evolving. Although the Saudi government supported Pakistan during the Great War of Liberation in 1971, that attitude changed over time and Saudi Arabia became a close friend of independent Bangladesh by standing by the side of the people in various crises. In independent Bangladesh, diplomatic relations were first established between Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia centered on the Hajj.

In that communication, Saudi Arabia’s response to Bangladesh’s call also paved the way for new relations. Saudi Arabia provided financial assistance for the development of Bangladesh at different times. Saudi Arabia provides financial assistance and loans for the development of Bangladesh Railways, expansion of industrial, educational, scientific and technical knowledge, and development of communication systems. Besides, it plays an effective role in agriculture, flood control, housing construction, improving the living standards of the workers.

Trade relations:

Nakasone Now Sees Ransomware, Influence Ops As ‘National Security’ Threats

BRAD D. WILLIAMS

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WASHINGTON: The head of US Cyber Command and the National Security Agency said his idea of “national security” issues for the US in cyberspace has expanded, specifically now including ransomware attacks and online influence operations.

“When I was here two years ago, if someone asked me about ransomware, I would say that’s criminal activity, and the FBI handles ransomware,” Gen. Paul Nakasone said on Tuesday at the 2021 Mandiant Cyber Defense Summit. But now, “when ransomware affects critical infrastructure, it’s a national security issue,” he said, referencing the Colonial Pipeline incident and other ransomware attacks earlier this year.

Ransomware attacks may be primarily carried out by criminal gangs, but when they’re protected by the nation-states in which they live, that’s also a national security issue. Speaking alongside Nakasone and other Intelligence Community leaders last month, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said, “There is no evidence to suggest Russia is cracking down on ransomware operators [inside Russia]. We’ve seen no action. I’d say nothing has changed.”

Taiwan says U.S. commitment is 'rock solid' after Biden remark on China's Xi

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WASHINGTON/TAIPEI, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday Washington had reassured them that its approach to the island had not changed, a day after President Joe Biden said that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to abide by the "Taiwan agreement."

The Foreign Ministry said it had sought clarification from the United States about Biden's comments and were reassured the commitment to Taiwan was "rock solid" and that Washington will continue to help Taiwan maintain its defenses.

"Facing the Chinese government's military, diplomatic and economic threats, Taiwan and the United States have always maintained close and smooth communication channels," it said.

In his comments on Tuesday evening, Biden appeared to refer to a 90-minute call he held with Xi on Sept. 9 and the long-standing policy under which Washington officially recognizes Beijing rather than Taipei, as well as Taiwan Relations Act.

Biden’s era of ‘strategic competition’

DANIEL LIPPMAN, LARA SELIGMAN, ALEXANDER WARD and QUINT FORGEY

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Welcome to National Security Daily, your guide to the global events roiling Washington and keeping the administration up at night.

Make sure to join POLITICO on Thursday for our inaugural defense forum, where we’ll talk to the decision-makers in the White House, Congress, military and defense industry who are reshaping American power abroad and redefining military readiness for the future of warfare. Alex is moderating the China panel, so assure your spot now by registering here.

Programming Note: National Security Daily will not publish Monday, Oct. 11. We’ll be back on our normal schedule Tuesday, Oct. 12.

FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY –– Goodbye, “great power competition.” Hello, “strategic competition.”

A Defense Department spokesperson confirmed to our own DANIEL LIPPMAN and LARA SELIGMAN that the Pentagon will use the new phrase to describe its approach toward China — explicitly moving away from the Trump-era framework.

Predicting The Unpredictable

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When a ballistic missile is launched, its trajectory is very clear. Experts have spent decades learning the launch sites and flight paths of various threats so, once a threat is launched, they usually know where it will land and what will happen when it does.

But a newer and much more unpredictable threat has taken to the skies: unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), more commonly called drones. They’re maneuverable, they come in many types, and they can launch from anywhere. And, they have the U.S. Department of Defense seeking quickly deployable defenses.

Tailoring the response

There are five UAS categories, based on their ceiling, speed and size. Each group poses unique threats that require tailored responses. So, in 2020, the Defense Department set up a Pentagon team led by Army Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey to assess all classes of drones and examine the threats they pose to military bases and other critical infrastructure.