Indian Strategic Studies

30 December 2022

To Please the IMF, Sri Lanka is Cutting Troop Numbers

Rathindra Kuruwita

In early December, Sri Lankan media outlets announced that the Sri Lankan Army had decided to reduce troop numbers by 16,000. According to Sri Lanka’s libertarian-leaning publication, EconomyNext, President Ranil Wickremesinghe proposed to introduce a voluntary retirement scheme for troops in a bid to reduce military spending.

Sri Lanka is working on negotiating a $2.9 billion package from the IMF and several influential figures close to the government have been pressing for a reduction in military spending.

They argue that in recent decades, military spending has been excessive, reducing the residual supply of productive resources (that is, capital and labor) available for private and non-defense public investment, thereby weakening the economy, i.e., the depletion theory. The hypothesis is that lower rates of investment and economic growth are the effect of higher levels of military spending. Thus, the expected result of reduced military spending is greater investment and economic growth.

As I pointed out in a previous article, of the total defense allocation of $1.45 billion, $1.29 billion is for recurrent expenditure, mainly for the payment of troops. Only a fraction of the budget goes toward capital expenditure and any meaningful reduction of the defense budget cannot be made without a reduction in troop numbers. Defense spending is about 2 percent of the country’s GDP.

5 big questions China and Xi Jinping face in 2023

Lili Pike

Heading into 2022, some things were foreseeable: President Xi Jinping’s appointment to a third term at the October Communist Party Congress was all but assured, U.S.-China relations were bound to remain rocky, and a real estate crisis would continue to grip the nation.

But the main story of the year — China’s draconian zero-covid policy — was just beginning to take hold; few predicted how it would upend life for millions of Chinese people. And even fewer foresaw that China would — as a result — be hit with its most widespread protests in years.

Now, on the precipice of 2023, one thing is clear — how China handles the messy unwinding of zero-covid looks to be the most profound question facing the country as new year begins. Almost everything else, from the fate of the economy to the future of climate action, hinges to some degree on how smoothly — or not — the government and the nation move from harsh restrictions to a true reopening.

Our list leaves out key topics — from U.S.-China relations to potential breakthroughs on technologies like electric vehicle batteries and semiconductors — but it covers core questions involving the pandemic, internal politics and China’s economic growth (or lack thereof). The answers to these questions will have major reverberations in China, and they may well have impact all over the world.

China’s Afghanistan Strategy May Be In Trouble

Kabir Taneja

An attack on a hotel in central Kabul housing Chinese visitors and businesses by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) last week once again brought Beijing to the centre of the ‘new’ Afghanistan’s security problems, one that today is standing on a more precarious ground than it was a few months ago.

The ISKP has been filling in vacuums that, ironically, have been left behind by the Taliban as the latter continues its efforts to metamorphise from an insurgency and terror group to a state and political system seeking global recognition. Pro-ISIS propaganda publications targeting South Asia, such as ‘Voice of Khorasan’ which replaced, or subsumed, more hyper-local propaganda outlets such as ‘Sawt Al Hind (Voice of Hind)’ have upped their ante when it comes to anti-China rhetoric as part of extension of criticising the Taliban’s global outreach and the few developing relations it is trying to keep together. While for 20-years the Taliban built the rhetoric of the US presence in the country as an imperialistic conquest of their land and solidified their Islamist ideology around this war against crusaders, like the way it did against the erstwhile USSR, it today finds itself fighting against the likes of ISKP that see China from a similar lens. But of course, Beijing is not seen from a traditional imperial lens, but from an economic one, despite not yet putting in any notable amount of cash into the Taliban’s coffers.

Increased Iranian Terrorist Activities: Emphasis on Israeli and Jewish Targets

Yoram Schweitzer, Anat Shapira, Sima Shine

Over the past two years, about 13 terrorist attacks by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) against Israeli and Jewish targets were publicly revealed and foiled on four continents. In addition, attempts to attack former senior officials in the US administration and Iranian opposition targets in New York and London were thwarted. These events point to Iran’s focused activity in the use of terrorism in the international arena without being deterred by the results of this activity. Prominent in these events is the use of assassins and squads composed of foreign citizens with local assistance, which allows Iran plausible deniability. The brazen stance of IRGC operatives, with the approval of the Supreme Leader, reflects Iran’s intentions to avenge and even deter Israel and the United States from what Iran identifies as their aggression against it, and at the same time to deter exiled Iranian opposition members living in Western countries from their growing criticism of the regime in Tehran.

Iranian Activity against Jewish and Israeli Targets Abroad

Is A New Cold War On The Way?

Deedage Anwar

Around the course of the last several years, geopolitical tensions all over the world have increased. A great number of pundits are of the opinion that a new Cold War is on the verge of breaking out between the United States of America, the current global hegemon, the growing China, and Russia, the former superpower.

On the one hand, Russia’s military assertiveness in Ukraine and the wider Middle East, as well as China’s growing strategic and territorial claims in its neighborhood, appear to be challenging the foundational logic of the post-Cold War security order. This has led many analysts to wonder if we’re going back in time. It would appear that the recent deterioration in relations between the United States and China and Russia as a result of the COVID-19 breakout has given credence to the hypothesis that we are currently on the cusp of a new cold war. Anti-Western and anti-American attitude has arisen in both Moscow and Beijing in response to the fact that China and Russia pose the largest severe dangers to the security of the United States. In what ways are the escalating geopolitical confrontations between the United States, Russia, and China similar to the original Cold War that took place between Moscow and Washington.

China, The West, And The Future Global Order

Julian Lindley-French and Franco Algieri

The primary purpose of this article is to respectfully communicate to a Chinese audience a Western view of the future world order. China needs the West as much as the West needs China. However, the West has awakened geopolitically to the toxic power politics that Russia is imposing on Ukraine and China’s support for it. China is thus faced with a profound choice: alliance with a declining and weak Russia or cooperation with a powerful bloc of global democracies that Russia’s incompetent and illegal aggression is helping to forge. The West is steadily morphing into a new global Community of Democracies with states such as those in the G7, Quads, and Quints taking on increasing importance as centers of decisionmaking.2 All three groupings reflect an emerging implicit structure with the United States at their core, European democracies on one American geopolitical flank, with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and other democracies in the Indo-Pacific region on the other American geopolitical flank.

As shelling over Ukrainian cities continue, Putin claims he's ready for talks that could end the war. Others says he's bluffing or growing weary.

LAILA MAIDAN

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed he's ready for talks that could end the war in Ukraine but blamed the other side for refusing to come to the table, The Associated Press reported on Sunday.

In the statements, taken from a state television interview, Putin said that Russia is "prepared to negotiate some acceptable outcomes with all the participants of this process" but that "it's not us who refuse talks, it's them."

Putin further tried to justify Russia's actions by stating that Moscow has no other choice and that the Kremlin was defending Russia's national interests, the interests of its citizens, and people.

The Russian president has previously made comments about wanting to end the war. In September, he responded to criticism over the ongoing conflict by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during an in-person meeting in Uzbekistan, Reuters reported. Putin said, "I know about your position on the conflict in Ukraine, and I know about your concerns. We want all of this to end as soon as possible."

Kremlin Can't Stop Ukraine's Mounting Strikes Deep in Russia: Ex-Commander

NICK MORDOWANEC

Aformer Russian commander who played a pivotal role in the 2014 annexation of Crimea said Monday that Ukraine's increased strikes inside Russia cannot be stopped.

Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, known by the alias Igor Ivanovich Strelkov, posted on his Telegram page that older Soviet Union systems are not equipped to deal with enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the "massive use" of High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). Increased military assistance from NATO countries will also lead to "more frequent" attacks on strategic Russian facilities, he added.

"By the beginning of the current war, our air defense came up 'ready for the last colonial war,'" Gurkin wrote. "And, accordingly, now the enemy has the ability to 'cheaply and cheerfully' hit strategic targets in the depths of our territory, spending disposable kamikaze attack vehicles on this with the complete or partial inability of our air defense to resist them."

His warnings come following a report by the Russian Ministry of Defense that a Ukrainian drone targeting Russia's Engels-2 air base, located more than 350 miles from the nearest Ukrainian-controlled territory, was shot down at 1:35 a.m. local time Monday.

The Ghosts of Kennan: Lessons From the Start of a Cold War

Fredrik Logevall

We all read him, those of us who did graduate work in U.S. diplomatic history in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For although there were other important figures in modern U.S. foreign relations, only one was George Kennan, the “father of containment,” who later became an astute critic of U.S. policy as well as a prize-winning historian. We dissected Kennan’s famous “Long Telegram” of February 1946, his “X” article in these pages from the following year, and his lengthy and unvarnished report on Latin America from March 1950. We devoured his slim but influential 1951 book, American Diplomacy, based on lectures he gave at the University of Chicago; his memoirs, which appeared in two installments in 1967 and 1972 and the first of which received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; and any other publication he wrote that we could get our hands on. (I figured there was no skipping Russia Leaves the War, from 1956, as it won not only the same awards garnered by the first volume of his memoirs but also the George Bancroft Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize.) And we dove into the quartet of important studies of Kennan then coming out in rapid succession by our seniors in the guild—by David Mayers, Walter Hixson, Anders Stephanson, and Wilson Miscamble.

Even then, some of us wondered whether Kennan was quite as important to U.S. policy during the early Cold War as numerous analysts made him out to be. Perhaps, we thought, he should be considered an architect of American strategy, not the architect. Perhaps the most that could be said was that he gave a name—containment—and a certain conceptual focus to a foreign policy approach that was already emerging, if not indeed in place. Even at the Potsdam Conference in mid-1945, after all, well before either the Long Telegram or the “X” article, U.S. diplomats understood that Joseph Stalin and his lieutenants were intent on dominating those areas of Eastern and Central Europe that the Red Army had seized. Little could be done to thwart these designs, officials determined, but they vowed to resist any effort by Kremlin leaders to move farther west. Likewise, the Soviets would not be permitted to interfere in Japan or be allowed to take control of Iran or Turkey. This was containment in all but name. By early 1946, when Kennan penned the Long Telegram from the embassy in Moscow, the wartime Grand Alliance was but a fading memory; by then, anti-Soviet sentiment was a stock feature of internal U.S. policy deliberations.

Ukraine's Zelenskiy seeks India PM Modi's help with 'peace formula'

NEW DELHI, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday said he sought India's help with implementing a "peace formula" in a phone call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The conversation comes at a time when India is seeking to strengthen trade relations with Moscow while Western nations introduce new measures to limit Russia's funding of the war.

"I had a phone call with PM Narendra Modi and wished a successful G20 presidency," Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter. "It was on this platform that I announced the peace formula and now I count on India's participation in its implementation."

Zelenskiy asked the Group of 20 (G20) major economies last month to adopt Ukraine's 10-point peace formula and to end the war. India holds the G20 presidency for a year.

U.S. Colonel Training Zelensky Forces Accuses Soldiers of War 'Atrocities'

JON JACKSON

Andrew Milburn, a retired U.S. Marine colonel who spent months in Ukraine helping to train President Volodymyr Zelensky's forces, said during a recent interview that there had been "all kinds of atrocities" in Ukraine.

Milburn is the founder and CEO of The Mozart Group, a company composed mainly of former special operations soldiers that has provided services to Ukraine ranging from frontline training to medical evacuation and casualty care. Milburn named the company as a direct counterpoint to the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary outfit that shares its name with another famous composer.

Max Blumenthal, founder of The Grayzone website, posted a clip to Twitter on Monday of Milburn speaking last month on The Team House podcast.

The video, which was originally posted in full on the podcast's YouTube channel, shows Milburn continuing to express his support for Ukraine, saying working there has left him with a sense of purpose. However, he also called the country a "corrupt" society.

Mr. Zelensky Goes to Washington

Jack Detsch and Robbie Gramer

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting Washington hoping to shore up U.S. support for his country’s efforts to fend off a Russian military invasion and ask for more advanced weapons systems to maintain battlefield momentum against Moscow’s forces in eastern Ukraine.

Coming just a day after Ukraine’s wartime leader visited troops in the eastern city of Bakhmut, where a fevered battle is taking place with Russian forces in the Donetsk region, Zelensky met with U.S. President Joe Biden and will address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday afternoon, as Congress aims to wrap up a $1.7 trillion spending bill that includes billions more dollars in aid money for Ukraine.

The visit coincides with the administration’s announcement that it will send an additional $1.85 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including Patriot air defense systems and other munitions and equipment. The United States has sent Ukraine around $21.3 billion in military assistance since Russia launched its invasion in February. Zelensky is meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the top U.S. military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, alongside Biden this afternoon.

What you really need to know about that fusion news

Casey Crownhart

There’s been a fusion breakthrough. No, for real this time.

There are plenty of quips about fusion power, and there’s a reason that the technology has a bit of a “boy who cried wolf” reputation: researchers have been talking about using it to build limitless clean energy for decades, making big promises about commercial power plants being only a few years away. And so far, things haven’t quite turned out that way.

So when a news cycle about fusion starts calling something a “breakthrough,” many are understandably suspicious. We’ve entered into one of those news cycles, as a national lab reached a major research milestone, finally running a reaction that gave off more energy than contained in the lasers used to start it. So let’s talk about the announcement that sparked the most recent fusion hype, what it means, and what you should take away from it.

What is fusion power, and what's the hype about?

In a nutshell, fusion reactions generate energy by slamming atoms into each other until they fuse, releasing energy. (The sun’s core is powered by nuclear fusion, so in a way, I guess you could say solar power is a form of indirect fusion power?)

The Realist Guide to World Peace

Stephen M. Walt

It’s the holiday season, that brief period each year when we are encouraged to think about peace. Warring armies sometimes declare cease-fires at this time, and around the world different communities of faith are told that pursuing and preserving peace is a sacred duty. If we are fortunate, most of us will spend some part of the next few days enjoying the company of friends and family and trying to put humanity’s crueler instincts to the side, at least for the moment.

Let’s be honest: 2022 was not a good year for peace. In addition to a brutal and senseless war in Ukraine—a war that shows no signs of ending and could still get much worse—violent conflicts are still underway in Yemen, Myanmar, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Syria, and many other places. Although U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping managed a fairly cordial meeting at the G-20 summit in Bali in November, the two most powerful countries in the world remain divided on a host of important issues. Given the state of the world and the United States’ desire to remain the leading global power, it should surprise no one that the Senate just voted an 8 percent increase in the U.S. defense budget. Even formerly pacifist-leaning countries such as Germany and Japan took dramatic steps to rearm during 2022.

A year of economic warfare

David Uren

The world has witnessed the outbreak of economic warfare this year, quite unlike anything seen since the end of World War II.

The machinery of economic sanctions, which has been honed over decades against minor dictatorships, has been turned by the West on Russia with a ferocity never before applied to a major economy.

Russia has been using its role as the world’s largest energy exporter to strike back, curbing supplies to Europe as the northern winter approaches in the hope that freezing its citizens will persuade their governments to cut support for the Ukraine.

At the same time, Washington has choked the flow of US technology to China and is trying to enlist allies to do the same, with the objective of maximising the West’s technological lead and, implicitly, retarding China’s economic development.

China has not yet found ways to retaliate against the US but is continuing its campaign of economic intimidation against smaller nations, including Australia and Latvia, by closing its markets to selected exports.

Dear Electric Vehicle Owners: You Don’t Need That Giant Battery

WHEN HANS ERIC Melin thinks of battery waste, he imagines American driveways filled with electric vehicles. They look much like the gas-powered cars of yesterday, large and handsome and well-equipped: family-haulers, boat-towers, off-road ready. They also do things that those cars didn’t do, like go from zero to 60 in three seconds and travel 400 miles without emitting any carbon. The trade-off is that they carry a burden: a massive battery pack that can push the vehicles’ weight to over 10,000 pounds. Most of the time that pack is parked, or is being used to a fraction of its capabilities on school pick-ups or runs to the grocery store. Unless those cars are flying hundreds of miles down the open highway, which they rarely are, the precious atoms of cobalt, lithium, and nickel inside of them have very little to do.

In the United States, fewer than 5 percent of trips are longer than 30 miles. For a gas engine, that represents a portion of a fuel tank. For an EV, range is the result of a more complicated set of decisions about how to best use expensive, hard-to-obtain metals. Melin, an expert in battery recycling, is often asked by governments and automakers how those resources can be stretched. It would be nice if he could tell them that recycling materials from old batteries would do the job. But it can’t. Batteries can power cars for a decade or more, and with EV adoption and the size of the average vehicle increasing every year, old batteries can contribute only so much. So Melin’s suggestion: Start off with less. Use smaller batteries in the first place.

AI Is Now Essential National Infrastructure

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS evolving rapidly, with projects like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2, Google’s MINERVA, and DeepMind’s Gato all pushing new technological boundaries. Until now, national governments have been slow to adopt this cutting-edge technology. In 2023, however, the opportunities to provide effective, targeted, and affordable services to citizens will prompt them to finally embrace AI, making government more transparent, accessible and effective.

In some countries, AI is already being used to improve people’s interaction with the state. This year, the Estonian government launched a new AI-based virtual assistant called Bürokratt. Taking inspiration from Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, Bürokratt provides Estonians with a voice-based way to navigate key services provided by the state, such as renewing a passport or applying for benefits.

In Finland, a similar platform called AuroraAI was announced in 2018. It is part of a broader effort to provide Finns a personalized and autonomous service that helps them navigate various life stages, whether that be the birth of a child, marriage, or elderly care. This platform not only helps citizens interact with government departments, but also offers a proactive, concierge-like medical service that helps them renew prescriptions or even notifies them of new health risks.

Russia’s Electronic-Warfare Troops Knocked Out 90 Percent Of Ukraine’s Drones

David Axe

The Russian military’s failures in Russia’s wider war on Ukraine almost are too numerous to list.

Too many attacks along too many sectors, which thinned out Russia’s best battalions. Too few infantry to screen the tanks. Inflexible air support. Artillery batteries that bombarded too many empty grid squares. And perhaps most importantly: inadequate logistics for what would become a long, grinding war.

But it’s important to note where the Russians succeeded. If only to understand where Ukraine might need to improve its own forces. For a rare picture of Russian military competence, consider the Kremlin’s battlefield electronic-warfare troops.

Amid the chaos of the Russian army’s initial push into Ukraine starting in late February, it took a few weeks for the Russians to deploy their extensive jamming infrastructure. But once they did, they began deafening and confusing the Ukrainians’ most sophisticated systems—in particular, their drones—in numbers that surely startled Ukrainian commanders.

Why artificial intelligence needs to be on your mind in 2023

Ja'han Jones

The best advice I can give you for 2023 is to familiarize yourself with the concept of “artificial intelligence” and its impact on our everyday lives.

Today, so-called machine learning and AI factor prominently in daily activities. And in the wrong hands, this technology can wreak havoc on society.

To me, social media platforms have been the clearest example of this. Twitter and Facebook feeds, powered by artificial intelligence and controlled by some of the world’s wealthiest people, have bombarded users with politically opportunistic conspiracy theories, misinformation, and hatred.

These days, I tend to see the misery evoked by social platforms as an opportunity to highlight the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

But the trouble with AI isn’t limited to social media. Law enforcement agencies use artificial intelligence to “predict” (read: assume) where crimes will occur and who will commit them. Employers use AI to help them determine who they think will be the best fit for their workplace. And medical professionals use AI to help them make diagnoses and prescribe remedies.

The Cyber Defense Organizations Protecting Israel’s Critical Infrastructure and Related Challenges

SHIMAZU Takaharu

Source Link

Introduction

Israel was ranked as a Tier Two country on a three-tier scale in the International Institute for Strategic Studies (U.K.)’s “Cyber Capabilities and National Power: A Net Assessment” report published in June 2021. Standing below Tier One, which is comprised solely of the U.S., Tier Two includes the U.K., Canada, and Australia, all part of the Five Eyes alliance, as well as China, Russia, and France. The report lauds Israel for having created both a vibrant cyber eco-system as well as a relatively high level of preparedness and resilience in the private sectorthrough close cooperation between government agencies, private companies, academic institutions as well as international partners, led by the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD).1

On the other hand, the Israeli agencies responsible for cyber defense went through a decidedly disorderly transition reflecting numerous conflicting viewpoints before the civilian cyber defense posture of today was put in place, including its Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) policy. It has also been noted that there remain challengesto be resolved in terms of Israel’s cyber security policies, including both legal and privacy concerns.

How Ukraine’s 1st Tank Brigade Fought A Russian Force Ten Times Its Size—And Won

David Axe

The 1st Tank Brigade, arguably Ukraine’s best tank formation, didn’t just survive the brutal bombardment that preceded Russia’s wider invasion of Ukraine starting the early morning of Feb. 24.

The brigade fought back—hard.

The 1st Tank Brigade’s six-week defense of the city of Chernihiv, near the border with Belarus just 60 miles north of Kyiv, already was the stuff of legend when analysts Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, Jack Watling, Oleksandr Danylyuk and Nick Reynolds revealed incredible new details in a study for the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Russian commanders apparently assumed the 1st Tank Brigade would be an easy target on day one of the wider war. In the early morning hours of Feb. 24, Russian missiles and artillery struck the permanent garrisons of most of the Ukrainian army’s 20 or so active brigades.

But these brigades, including the 1st Tank Brigade, had dispersed. The Russian bombardment mostly destroyed empty buildings.

In Major Step, Space Force Takes Over All Military Satellite Communications

Mary Shinn

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Space Force has taken over all of the Department of Defense's military satellite communication functions, a major step in building the new service.

The Navy and the Army have transferred major satellite communication operations to the Space Force in an effort to consolidate training, operations, acquisition and other activities, according to a news release. The transfer marks the first time all military satellite communication functions have been consolidated under a single military service.

The Army's transfers were expected to include $78 million in operations, maintenance and 500 positions, the release said. As part of the consolidation, the Army transferred the Wideband Global SATCOM and Defense Satellite Communications System to the Space Force in August. The Wideband Global SATCOM system is considered the "backbone of the U.S. military's global satellite communications," according to the Space Force.

China Primer: The People’s Liberation Army (PLA)

Overview

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is the military arm of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’ or China’s) ruling Communist Party. Since 2018, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has referred to China as the “pacing” threat or challenge for the U.S. military. DOD reported in November 2022 that China’s leaders aim to use the PLA, in part, to “restrict the United States from having a presence in China’s immediate periphery and limit U.S. access in the broader Indo-Pacific region.” Members of Congress have responded in part by focusing on resourcing and conducting oversight of U.S.-China security competition.

PLA Organization Established in 1927, the PLA predates the founding of the PRC in 1949. The PLA encompasses four services: the PLA Army, PLA Navy, PLA Air Force, and PLA Rocket Force, as well as two sub-service forces, the Strategic Support Force, and the Joint Logistics Support Force. The Communist Party oversees these forces through its Central Military Commission, which in some respects is akin to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. This Commission also oversees a paramilitary force, the People’s Armed Police (which includes the China Coast Guard), and China’s militia forces. Xi Jinping, who serves concurrently as Communist Party general secretary and PRC president, also has chaired the Commission—which currently has six other members— since 2012.

The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2022

ANNABEL GUTTERMAN

Agood nonfiction book doesn’t just tell you something new about the world, it pulls you out of your place in it and dares you to reconsider what you thought you knew, maybe even who you are. The best nonfiction books that arrived this year vary in scope—some are highly specific, some broad and searching—but they all ask giant questions about loss, strength, and survival. In The Escape Artist, Jonathan Freedland underlines the power of the truth through the journey of one of the first Jews to escape Auschwitz. In How Far the Light Reaches, Sabrina Imbler reveals the ways marine biology can teach us about the deepest, most human parts of ourselves. From Stacy Schiff’s brilliant chronicle of Samuel Adams’ role in the American Revolution to Imani Perry’s illuminating tour of the American South, here are the 10 best nonfiction books of 2022.

10. The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, Stacy Schiff

29 December 2022

Takshashila Open SlideDoc - An Open Tech Strategy for India (A Working Draft)

Nitin Pai, Pranay Kotasthane, Bharath Reddy

Executive Summary

This is a working draft that we would like people to contribute to. In the spirit of open source, we invite contributors to build on and add to the ideas in this document. If you have any feedback or would like to contribute to any of the sections in this document, please contact us at research@takshashila.org.in or raise it as an issue on this GitHub repository.

"Open Tech" refers to technology that is transparent, inclusive and embodies the freedom to use, study, modify and redistribute to the maximum extent possible.

The definitions of open-source software, open standards, and open-source hardware are well understood. "Open Tech" is used as an umbrella term that includes all of these technology areas.

Open Tech can help India achieve techno-strategic autonomy, economic growth, technology leadership, and skill development. Transparency and inclusivity also help foster trust, broaden access to technology and further democratic values.

India's PLI vs China’s PLA: Can Delhi’s Strategic Use of Trade Thwart Beijing?

MANOJ KEWALRAMANI

The past three years have witnessed the emergence of a new pattern in the India-China relationship. With tensions along the disputed boundary escalating, New Delhi has increasingly chosen to respond with actions in the economic domain.

For instance, even before the standoff began in Eastern Ladakh in April 2020, the Indian government made prior approval mandatory for investments from the countries sharing land borders with India. Following the Galwan Valley clash, decisions were taken to ban Chinese apps on national security grounds and exclude Chinese vendors from India’s 5G ecosystem, and there has also been an intensification of investigations into Chinese enterprises.

In addition, there has been a growing discussion across the policy ecosystem in India about the potential of Chinese economic coercion, particularly with regard to critical sectors, and an emphasis on the need to boost local manufacturing. The Indian government’s Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes across 14 sectors with the aim of creating national manufacturing champions, is part of this effort.

The Taliban Can’t Win Friends or Influence People

Lynne O’Donnell

The Taliban are losing their grip on power in Afghanistan as attacks on diplomats and foreign nationals leave a trail of casualties and as border clashes threaten to spill into war. Investors are leaving the country in fear for their lives, scuppering what little hope there was of reviving the war-ravaged economy. Meanwhile, the United States continues to pour in millions of dollars with no clear idea of where the money goes.

On the country’s eastern border, Taliban gunmen trade fire with Pakistani soldiers, killing or wounding scores of people, including women and children, in recent weeks. Islamabad has effectively withdrawn its ambassador, Ubaid Ur Rehman Nizamani, after he was attacked at the embassy in Kabul on Dec. 2. Some commentators say the two countries are now at war. Two Russians were among six people killed in a suicide attack on their embassy in September. Clashes have erupted on Afghanistan’s border with Iran. Regional countries that were relieved to see the United States and NATO leave last August now worry about the flow of drugs, migrants, and left-behind U.S. weapons out of Afghanistan as the country nears collapse.

Bargaining Chips? Taiwan’s Economy May be its Best Defence

Alexander M. Hynd and Seamus Dove

Taiwan faces a range of economic and security challenges, but its advanced economy may prove its saving grace. Can semiconductors help keep Taiwan safe amid a rapidly changing geoeconomic landscape?

After US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial trip to Taiwan in August 2022, Beijing responded in a show of force, firing ballistic missiles and conducting military drills near the island. In Canberra, much has been made of these heightened security tensions, and hypothetical questions have emerged surrounding Australia’s strategic role in a potential cross-strait military conflict. But lost in the recent talk of Taiwan’s security is a forthright discussion of the island’s unique economic situation, and how this might shape the future of its 23 million inhabitants.

Unique Economic Challenges

Taiwan faces two great and interrelated economic challenges. First, its lack of official recognition by the vast majority of states puts obstacles in the way of the island’s economic empowerment. The infrastructure of statehood can play a crucial role in facilitating interstate trade. For example, “choice of law” rules in private international law determine which legal system is used to oversee contracts in international business. Due to its marginal position in international society, Taiwanese businesses are often required to seek contracts with their foreign counterparts under the law of other states, such as Singapore. By doing so, Taiwanese businesses are forced to abide by rules relating to procedure, enforcement, and arbitration that may not be in their interests.

China's chip industry fights to survive U.S. tech crackdown

TAIPEI/QUANZHOU -- In the southeastern Chinese port city of Quanzhou, a near-derelict factory hit by U.S. sanctions four years ago has discreetly come back to life.

Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. (JHICC), a memory chipmaker, had to halt operations after the U.S. accused it of stealing trade secrets in late 2018. But it has been gradually resuming production after a mysterious new client emerged.

JHICC's campus of sleek glass buildings looks stately again, its trees pruned and its lawn mowed since it reopened. Earlier this year, busloads of engineers and procurement and financial staff began arriving from the new customer to help the company restart production. They ask JHICC counterparts to call them by their English names, rather than their Chinese ones, in order not to draw attention to themselves, four people with knowledge of the situation told Nikkei Asia.

Their identities, however, are an open secret within JHICC. They come from Huawei Technologies, China's technology champion, whose chip supplies have been crippled for two years, a victim of U.S. sanctions imposed in 2020.

With Record Military Incursions, China Warns Taiwan and the U.S.

Amy Chang Chien and Chang Che

China sent a record number of military aircraft to menace self-ruled Taiwan in a large show of force to the Biden administration, signaling that Beijing wants to maintain pressure on Taiwan even as some tensions between the superpowers are easing.

The swarm of Chinese fighter jets, maritime patrol planes and drones that buzzed the airspace near Taiwan in the 24-hour period leading to Monday morning demonstrated Beijing’s appetite for confrontation with the United States over Taiwan, the island democracy China claims as its territory.

The military activity — which, according to Taiwan, included at least 71 Chinese aircraft — came days after President Biden’s latest move to expand American support for the island. Beijing has denounced the United States’ effort as an attempt to contain China and interfere in its domestic affairs.

Tensions over Taiwan have been rising in the months since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island in August, prompting Beijing to step up its activity in the area with several days of live-fire drills. China said that the exercise was aimed at honing its ability to conduct joint patrols and military strikes, but also made clear what the target was.

Why China’s attempt to set up more military bases abroad may run into rough weather

Air Marshal Anil Chopra

The sea-faring Europeans moved out to far-off lands in 17th and 18th centuries after the industrial revolution in search of natural resources. They initially set up facilities at port cities and then moved inland to colonise the nation. After World War II, the Americans and the Soviet Union build military bases across the globe to extend power and influence. Many other powers have set up smaller military bases overseas.

The rising global power China is now doing the same by using its surplus funds, offering financial inducements and using its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to extend influence and acquire military bases abroad. Notable among Chinese military bases is the Ream naval base in Cambodia, People’s Liberation Army Support Base at Djibouti, a military post in south-eastern Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan, and the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Golden Wheel Project that brings cooperation for positioning and supporting the DF-3 and DF-21 medium-range ballistic missiles in Saudi Arabia since the establishment of Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force in 1984.

A permanent Chinese military installation has come up in Equatorial Guinea on the Atlantic coast. China also has many police and intelligence posts across the globe. They also have research stations, coastal radars, space tracking stations in different parts of the world. Global geopolitics and local opposition continue to pose hurdles. Among its political messaging and global reach, China provides more troops to UN Security Council (UNSC) peacekeeping missions than all the other UNSC permanent members combined. Chinese state-owned enterprises already spend $10 billion on security globally, which includes hiring Chinese security support, ranging from regular military and civilian police to ‘private’ security companies.

China, Japan up military ante on the Nansei Islands

GABRIEL HONRADA

China has stepped up its naval and air drills around the Nansei/Ryukyu Islands, ratcheting tensions alongside a rapidly re-arming Japan.

Japan News recently reported that a Chinese carrier battlegroup spearheaded by the Liaoning has been conducting naval drills simulating an attack on the Nansei/Ryukyu Islands since December 16, with the exercises set to end on December 26.

The Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times identifies the ships as the Type 055 cruiser Lhasa, the Type 052D destroyer Kaifeng, the Type 903A replenishment ship Taihu, and the hull number 796 electronic reconnaissance vessel.

Japan News notes that the Type 055 and Type 052D are capable of land attacks and that the Liaoning’s air wing has started nighttime take-off and landing drills.

The report cites the Japanese Ministry of Defense saying that China’s carrier battle group entered the Western Pacific on December 16, passing through Okinawa and the Miyako Strait. The following day, the vessels were spotted 260 kilometers west-southwest of Okidaito Island, with Japan reportedly last spotting them 450 kilometers off Kitadaito Island.

Here’s What Will Happen to Qatar’s Billion Dollar Stadiums Now That the World Cup Is Over

ARYN BAKER

The men’s soccer world championship ended in Qatar on Dec. 18 with one of the most thrilling finals in the league’s 92-year history. It was a night of heart-stopping drama that went into overtime, and then some, ultimately ending with the coronation of Argentina as world champions. For Qatar, a gas-rich gulf nation with big ambitions and little in the way of a soccer tradition, it was a star-studded coming out party, marking its entry on the world stage by showing off its political and sporting event prowess. Qatar spent some $220 billion over 12 years getting ready to host the championships, shelling out $6.5 billion to build seven of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the world, and to renovate another. An untold number of migrant laborers imported to do the work died in the process. But as the athletes pack up their trophies and the last of the fans trickle home, what happens to the stadiums now that the party is over?

Giant sporting events are often memorialized by the white elephants they leave behind, massive stadiums that cost hundreds of millions in construction, require millions more in annual maintenance, and are rarely—if ever—used again to their full capacity. Cape Town’s 2010 World Cup stadium has become a cherished local landmark, but the occasional concert and $4-a-person tours are not enough to fund its constant repairs. Eight of the 12 stadiums built for Russia’s 2018 World Cup, spread across a country with a population of 143 million spanning 11 time zones, are faring a bit better by hosting local soccer teams and sporting events, but none of them are likely to recoup the cost of investment.

Biden Escalates The Economic War With China

Milton Ezrati

President Joe Biden has taken the dispute with China to new levels – far beyond anything done by or even proposed by his predecessor, Donald Trump. Before Trump, presidents tended to categorized America’s relationship with China as a kind of partnership. There were complaints about some Chinese practices but no action. Trump changed that. Characterizing China as an economic competitor, he imposed heavy tariffs on Chinese goods coming into this country. Biden has not only kept those tariffs in place, but he has also imposed export controls and visa limits as well as restrictions on investment flows. The recently passed CHIPS for America Act adds subsidies for domestic production of semiconductors into the mix.

When in 2018 Trump started to impose tariffs on Chinese goods, the commentariat and many academics were highly critical. Some argued that the levies would hurt the American economy more than they would China’s. That claim was always dubious, since sales in America are much more important to China than sales in China are to America. Others worried, as it turned out unnecessarily, that the tariffs would invite a crippling retaliation not only from China but from other nations as well. More telling in the environment of 2018 were the complaints that tariffs ran counter to the free trade and globalization on which elite opinion seemed to believe political liberalization and world economic prosperity rested.

Inside the monumental, stop-start effort to arm Ukraine

Karen DeYoung, Dan Lamothe and Isabelle Khurshudyan

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — Virtually every day, a line of 18-wheel trucks loaded with weapons or ammunition pulls up to a sprawling warehouse here nestled near an asphalt runway stretching nearly two miles. Drawn from U.S. military depots around the country, the lethal cargo is unloaded onto pallets that will be packed aboard cargo planes bound for Europe, the next stop on its journey to the front lines in Ukraine.

The constant tempo has evolved from choppy beginnings into precision choreography in the 10 months since Russia’s Ukraine invasion. Similar scenes are being repeated at bases and seaports up and down the East Coast as U.S. commitments surpass $20 billion in military support for a war in which the United States, at least officially, is not a participant.

“It’s all a steady flow on purpose,” Air Force Master Sgt. Christopher Mitcham said this fall as he supervised the activity in Dover. “You just understand that you’re at the mercy of what the mission needs.”

Both the mission and its needs have undergone a radical transformation since Russia’s full-scale invasion in late February, when the Biden administration provided minimal support for vastly outnumbered Ukrainian defenders. Since then, Washington has dug ever-deeper into its own arsenal and treasury to supply Kyiv with massive quantities of arms.

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