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Foreign Policy Update

Russia Conducts Destructive Anti-Satellite Missile Test

On November 15, 2021, the Russian Federation recklessly conducted a destructive test of a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile against one of its own satellites.

This test has so far generated over fifteen hundred pieces of trackable orbital debris and will likely generate hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris.  The long-lived debris created by this dangerous and irresponsible test will now threaten satellites and other space objects that are vital to all nations’ security, economic, and scientific interests for decades to come.  In addition, it will significantly increase the risk to astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station and other human spaceflight activities.  The safety and security of all actors seeking to explore and use outer space for peaceful purposes has been carelessly endangered by this test.

The events of November 15, 2021, clearly demonstrate that Russia, despite its claims of opposing the weaponization of outer space, is willing to jeopardize the long-term sustainability of outer space and imperil the exploration and use of outer space by all nations through its reckless and irresponsible behavior.

The United States will work with our allies and partners as we seek to respond to this irresponsible act.  We call upon all responsible spacefaring nations to join us in efforts to develop norms of responsible behavior and to refrain from conducting dangerous and irresponsible destructive tests like those carried out by Russia.

New Sanctions Following Sham Elections in Nicaragua

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The United States is acting to promote accountability for Nicaraguan officials in the wake of the November sham election in Nicaragua.  This week, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions against the Nicaraguan Public Ministry and nine Nicaraguan government officials.

On November 7, the Ortega-Murillo government held an election that denied Nicaraguans their ability to vote in free and fair elections, following months of repression and the imprisonment of 39 individuals, including seven potential presidential candidates, opposition members, journalists, students, and members of civil society.  For years, the Ortega-Murillo government chipped away at Nicaragua’s democratic institutions and allowed corruption and impunity to reign.

As a result, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced sanctions against the Nicaraguan Public Ministry and nine Nicaraguan officials.  The Public Ministry played a primary role in the regime’s arrests of potential opposition presidential candidates, other leaders of civil society, the private sector, students, and journalists in advance of the elections. The U.S. Department of the Treasury designated the nine Nicaraguan officials pursuant to E.O. 13851 for being officials of the Government of Nicaragua or having served as officials of the Government of Nicaragua at any time on or after January 10, 2007.  These nine individuals facilitate the Ortega-Murillo regime’s repression, including its human rights abuses, or manage institutions that finance the undemocratic Ortega-Murillo regime or otherwise sustain it at the expense of the Nicaraguan people.  For a complete list of new sanctions, see the Treasury release.

With these new sanctions, the United States, joined by our international partners, continues to take concrete actions to respond to the Ortega-Murillo government’s attacks on civil liberties and free and fair elections.  We welcome that Canada and the United Kingdom also imposed targeted measures today.  As the OAS General Assembly made clear on November 12, under President Ortega and Vice President Murillo, the Nicaraguan government moves toward further isolation if it continues to undermine democracy and deny Nicaraguans their human rights.  We stand with the region in calling for a return to democracy in Nicaragua and the immediate and unconditional release of political prisoners.

Illustration: Pixabay

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China’s Vast Spy Network

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with the letter “C.” 

Remember the children’s guessing game? Today it is no longer solely a way to pass time on a long road trip. There is a new reality confronting the United States as “C” — China — expands and deepens it spy operations across the country. Under the Trump Administration FBI Director Chris Wray says it opened a new spy case against China every 10 hours. Today that number remains high with the FBI opening a new case of suspected Chinese spying every 12 hours. Less than a week ago the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced “A federal jury… convicted Yanjun Xu, a Chinese national and Deputy Division Director of the Sixth Bureau of the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, of conspiring to and attempting to commit economic espionage and theft of trade secrets. The defendant is the first Chinese intelligence officer to be extradited to the United States to stand trial.” He will not be the last as the US Government is ramping up efforts to constrain Chinese state-sponsored spying against American commercial interests and governmental entities.

Out of necessity the US developed a coordinated response to the Chinese threat which today includes over 50 government agencies that share information and investigative resources. According to a source inside the FBI, over 25 years ago China already had more than 5,000 suspected agents operating in the Washington, DC area alone. They were known as the xiǎo yú or “little fish,” (小) with each member of the school responsible for picking up a small bit of information that China then gathered and put together like pieces of a puzzle. Today that number may be much higher, and it certainly reaches across the entire nation.

“American culture is open and sharing, making it relatively easy for the Chinese government to acquire commercial intelligence. Often the technical guys don’t realize the danger when they share a small fact about their research… China collects from a lot of cutting-edge engineers,” according to one intelligence source.  The FY 2021 budget provides funding for a total of 978 FBI special agents across the entire Bureau making collaboration and coordination of its resources critical to pushing back against Chinese spying. 

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According to publicly available information, there were 160 incidents of spying against the United States since 2000. Of those, 24% occurred between 2000-2009 and 76% occurred between 2010-2021, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) survey. Eight-nine of these occurred after President Xi Jinping took power, CISC reports. In addition, the survey identified more than 1200 cases of intellectual property theft litigation brought by US companies against Chinese entities in either the US or Chinese legal systems. The total number probably is much higher. Bill Evanina, a former top-level official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said the  Yanjun Xu case “is going to be… used for decades as the proof that the Chinese Communist Party uses a whole of government approach to steal our technology.” 

Information released earlier this year by DOJ suggests that about 80% of all its economic espionage prosecutions would benefit the Chinese state and about 60% of all trade secret theft cases involve the coordination of theft with China.The CIA recently established the China Mission Center which, according to CIA Director William Burns, will refocus Agency efforts at countering the threat from China. That means recruiting and training people in the language and culture of China. It will take time and scarce resources. According to one former CIA agent, the ideal candidate would be a fluent Mandarin speaker, with an advanced degree in artificial intelligence. Hopefully, some of those American children who grew up innocently playing “I spy” will choose to serve their country as patriotic adults.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China

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Russians Test Satellite Killer

The final frontier… where no one has gone before… except that Russia has this week and it created a huge problem that will impact every nation on earth for years. 

On Monday US officials announced the discovery of a dangerous new debris field in space containing thousands of pieces of “space junk” ranging in size from tiny specks to several feet in width. Astronauts working in the International Space Station were forced to take shelter as a precaution. A minute part of the newly discovered debris cloud passing at more than 17,000 mph could have punctured the space station killing all on board. It originated from irresponsible state behavior when Russia tested a direct ascent, kinetic anti-satellite weapon known as an ASAT. By blowing up Kosmos 1408, one of its defunct satellites orbiting earth, Russia not only created more debris, but it also upped the ante in weaponizing space. 

At immediate issue is the increase in pieces of debris it knowingly added to an already overcrowded debris field. A single orbiting paint chip off a man-made object only 0.5 mm in diameter can puncture a space suit, according to Tim Nelson, writing in The Space Review. It happened in 1983 when a chip hit the Space Shuttle Challenger causing $50,000 worth of damage. It’s not an isolated incident. There are numerous cases of fragmentation debris destroying made-made objects in space. This summer a piece of debris 0.5 cm (0.2-inch) wide punched a hole clean through a robotic arm on the space station. 

Russia’s weapon test this week risks destroying global communication satellites that support GPS, communications systems, and weather forecasting satellites. The economic loss of GPS alone is estimated to cost the United States up to $1 billion a day, according to a June 2919 RTI study commissioned by the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). A 30-day outage during planting seasons for American farmers, according to NIST, could exceed $45 billion in a single month. Unlike the ASAT weapon, debris from a spacecraft deorbiting naturally burns up quickly just as ships at sea sink and debris from aircraft falls to earth. The weightless environment of space, however, enables even minuscule pieces of debris to orbit earth at high speeds for years. 

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Russia knew well in advance that the kinetic force of a high-velocity object destroyed by its ASAT weapon test this week would result in a debris field with a collisional cascading effect. An exhaustive 1989 study on space debris by Howard Baker points out that such debris can last “anywhere from a million to 10 million years.” The Kessler Syndrome, developed by NASA scientists Donald Kessler and John Gabbard, explains that reaching a critical mass of orbiting debris earth is being sped up as small pieces of debris hit each other and further divide into even more pieces. Each spec of debris, like that from the ASAT test this week, acts like a missile with impressive explosive power. Russia exponentially increased the chances of a future collision and moved the world dangerously closer to a time when space will be an unusable wasteland.                                                                                                                           

Simply calling on Russia to abide by the rules of customary international law is not enough to curb its behavior. In 1978 the Soviet Union accepted financial responsibility for the Kosmos 954 satellite incident in which Canada claimed damage. The punitive costs did not stop Moscow then and it won’t now. Stronger action is needed. Putin has moved Russia from responding to a presumed accidental collision over 40 years ago to an offensive weapons test in 2021 that poses a threat to the safety of the entire planet. With the future of state-to- state conflict moving into space, technology developed to track small objects now must be evaluated in a new light as it could be weaponized by nations such as Russia and China to attack satellites and cover up additional ASAT tests. International space law does not appear capable of changing Russian behavior. It is up to the leaders of the free world to hold Russia accountable. Putin needs to be made to recognize that the final frontier of space is the province of all mankind. 

Photo: International Space Station. jeopardized by debris from Russian ASAT test.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Thursday, she presents key updates on Russia.

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21st Century War

Bullets and bombs are still vital to winning wars, but just as airplanes and submarines revolutionized combat in the last century, artificial intelligence is doing the same in the 21st. Across the planet, from the Pentagon in Washington to researchers in the Middle East, specialists are looking at this worrisome new sphere of combat.  

Ehab Khalifa’s study on Military Cyber Threats found that “Cyber attacks have evolved from destroying and stealing data, to controlling weapons and infrastructure… An example of such cases are the Stuxnet and Flame virus that affected the Iranian nuclear program, and the successful operation to control American RQ-170 Drone by the Iranian authorities. With the development of cyber power to be a military doctrine in defense and attack strategies, it has become an indispensable factor in military operations, as cyber attacks could include espionage, military and strategic data stealing and corruption, denial of service attacks, or even control on command and control systems. It is also contributing to the reinvention of international relations tools and the rejoining of new security concepts, like cyber diplomacy, cyber warfare, and cyber intelligence.”

Attacks by hostile governments and criminal networks on civilian and Defense Department cyberspace assets are constant threats. As artificial intelligence grows in cyberspace and as it matures to enterprise scale, it, too, will become a target, said Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael S. Groen, the director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, speaking at the Billington CyberSecurity Summit.

“Our networks are a core piece of our warfighting architecture. Our networks are weapons, and, so, we have to treat them like weapons… we have to plan to protect them, make them resilient because everything that we’re going to do in an artificial intelligence or data-driven way will depend on the security [of] those networks,” he said.

As a result, the Pentagon has paid a lot of attention to network security, shoring up things like zero-trust architecture, cloud security, the transport layer, switching and routing.

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Adversarial AI has its own unique challenges like data poisoning, spoofing and deep fakes, according to General Groen. Detecting threats and anomalous activity on the network at high operating tempos, such as in warfighting, is important, he said. Artificial intelligence can aid humans in monitoring the network for threats. The Department of Defense (DoD) notes that doing so is a task that’s may be beyond the physical and mental ability of humans. DoD is working closely with U.S. Cyber Command, network managers and others to make this happen.

The department isn’t going to flip a switch and suddenly turn on AI, he according to the General.   It will use an incremental approach, starting AI at a small scale for the most pressing problems and then finding other ways to use AI to make processes work better in an ethical framework.

David McKeown, DOD’s chief information security officer and deputy chief information officer, noted  that seven “pillars” make up DOD’s cybersecurity architecture.

“The priority … is that we’re able to detect advanced persistent threats trying to attack our network, advanced persistent threats that have successfully hacked our networks and their lateral movements inside of our networks. The Pentagon has historically been very good at perimeter defenses, it has a lot of tools that it has deployed…We’re successful with 99.9% of all attack vectors. But there is this advanced capability that nation-state actors have [in which] they can get a foothold through a variety of means — phishing, brute force attacks on vulnerabilities that are on servers, web attacks and hacking the code. And once they get a foothold, what we’ve found over time is we have to struggle to find them and then finally, eradicate them from an app on the network and have confidence that they’re gone from the network.” 

Photo: Department of Defense

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U.S. Falling Behind in Nuke Arms

The Biden State Department has released information on the U.S. nuclear weapons.  In a statement, it noted that “Increasing the transparency of states’ nuclear stockpiles is important to nonproliferation and disarmament efforts, including commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and efforts to address all types of nuclear weapons, including deployed and non-deployed, and strategic and non-strategic.”

As of September 2020, the U.S. stockpile of nuclear warheads consisted of 3,750 warheads. This number represents an approximate 88 percent reduction in the stockpile from its maximum (31,255) at the end of fiscal year 1967, and an approximate 83 percent reduction from its level (22,217) when the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989.

From fiscal years 1994 through 2020, the United States dismantled 11,683 nuclear warheads. Since September 30, 2017, the United States has dismantled 711 nuclear warheads. Approximately 2,000 additional nuclear warheads are currently retired and awaiting dismantlement.

The number of U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons has declined by more than 90 percent since September 30, 1991.

The Biden Administration’s softer approach on nuclear weapons is not matched by the nation’s chief adversaries. A Heritage Foundation report notes that:

Despite the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (New START), Russia is able to increase its nuclear weapons stockpile both quantitatively and qualitatively. As Russia modernizes its nuclear forces and introduces new capabilities unconstrained by New START, the United States has just barely begun to modernize its aging legacy strategic systems. Russia is clearly seeking to gain a competitive nuclear advantage over the U.S. This is unacceptably dangerous. To ensure credible, direct, and extended nuclear deterrence against Russia, and to avoid crisis escalation to the nuclear level, the U.S. must complete its own nuclear modernization while engaging Russia diplomatically on strategic issues.

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An Atlantic Council analysis states that “The vast arsenal of nonstrategic nuclear weapons fielded by Russia, as well as its development of novel, exotic nuclear weapons, threaten the US-Russia nuclear balance. As great-power competition heats up, the United States faces plausible conflicts with China that would test the US nuclear deterrent.”

China has been the most active of the three major nuclear powers in expanding its atomic arsenal. Beijing is expected to at least double its weapons of mass destruction within the decade.

A Federation of American Scientists analysis found that China is building new nuclear missile silo fields. “The number of new Chinese silos under construction exceeds the number of silo-based ICBMs operated by Russia, and constitutes more than half of the size of the entire US ICBM force. The Chinese missile silo program constitutes the most extensive silo construction since the US and Soviet missile silo construction during the Cold War.The 250 new silos under construction are in addition to the force of approximately 100 road-mobile ICBM launchers that PLARF deploys at more than a dozen bases. …. If the new silos are loaded with the new MIRVed DF-41 ICBMs, then Chinese ICBMs could potentially carry more than 875 warheads (assuming 3 warheads per missile) when the Yumen and Hami missile silo fields are completed.”

Reuters quotes U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas Bussiere, the deputy commander of the U.S. Strategic Command which oversees the country’s nuclear arsenal: “China’s development of nuclear capabilities ‘can no longer be aligned with its public claim that it wants to maintain a minimum nuclear deterrent. There’s going to be a point, a crossover point, where the number of threats presented by China will exceed the number of threats that currently Russia presents.’”

Chart: U.S. State Department

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A Lack of Consequences

Throughout the four years of the Trump Administration, the greatest dirty trick in American politics tore the nation apart. Bringing the perpetrators to justice is vital.

In an attempt to ensure victory, Hillary Clinton’s campaign developed a wholly false charge of “Russian Collusion.”  Partisan elements in the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the media acted as co-conspirators. Democratic members of Congress, particularly Adam Schiff, played a leading role. Nancy Pelosi, in her role as Speaker of the House, supplied all the support necessary to keep the fraud going.

The Boston Herald editorial staff   said, regarding Schiff, “He used his position — replete with access to information and people in the know — to distribute wild accounts of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. The effect was to frighten and alarm millions of Americans, sowing division between neighbors, toxifying our discourse and raising anxieties. The Trump administration spent time and resources fighting off the fallacy that cursed them since day one and deprived the American people of a president who could devote his time and energy to the policies they had elected him to enact.”

There can no longer be any uncertainty that the whole move was completely made-up, and that the perpetrators were aware of it.  As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, “Americans expect that politicians will lie, but sometimes the examples are so brazen that they deserve special notice. Newly released Congressional testimony shows that Adam Schiff spread falsehoods shamelessly about Russia and Donald Trump for three years even as his own committee gathered contrary evidence.”

Eventually, The House Intelligence Committee released 57 transcripts of interviews it conducted in its investigation regarding the false charges

The committee found in 2017 that there was no evidence to support the charges against President Trump. To keep the conspiracy going, however, Adam Schiff blocked the release of the exculpatory evidence after he became the committee chairman in 2019. Despite clear and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Schiff knowingly and falsely alleged that had evidence verifying the phony charges.

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Some, such as Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Alabama) have demanded justice. When the fraud and the related Obstruction of Justice by Adam Schiff became clear, Palmer stated:

“The transcripts indicate that former Obama Administration officials and Committee Chairman Adam Schiff knew there was no proof of collusion. Yet, Schiff repeatedly touted this now discredited claim of a collusion…It is now clear that Adam Schiff lied to his colleagues, that he lied to the media, and that he lied to the American public. He refused to release the testimony transcripts from the witness interviews because he knew it would undermine him within his own caucus and with the media, and he knew it would completely discredit his investigation. This disclosure of his misrepresentation of the witness testimonies not only proves that there was no Russian collusion…”

The damage to the nation was incalculable. However, there is no discussion in the media, no action from the Justice Department, and no ongoing investigation from the FBI concerning those responsible. The Pulitzer Prizes won by the New York Times and the Washington Post in furtherance of Schiff’s fraud are a black eye on journalism as a whole.

Politics has always been a tough, go-for-the jugular endeavor. However, the outright lies, and the use of the machinery of federal government as vehicles to perpetuate them, is a devastating new low in U.S. politics, unlike anything that has ever been seen before.

A new election cycle is beginning as the nation gears up for 2022.  Great issues will be vigorously debated, and conflicting points of view will be strongly aired.  But the body politic has been so badly damaged as a result of the false charges that many Americans no longer have the slightest trust in either the candidates or the media that covers them.  That will only change when the guilty are prosecuted and punished.

Photo: Rep. Adam Schiff

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Foreign Policy Update

From the U.S. State Department

Armenian and Azerbaijani Ceasefire Holds

This week, the United States and the international community recognize the one-year anniversary of the ceasefire declaration that ended 44 days of intense fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the South Caucasus.  We extend our deepest condolences to the families of those killed and injured during the hostilities last year.  We call for the return of all remaining detainees, a full accounting of missing persons, the voluntary return of displaced persons to their homes, comprehensive humanitarian de-mining of conflict-affected areas, and access by international humanitarian organizations to those in need.  We also call for an investigation into alleged human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law.

The United States remains committed to promoting a secure, stable, prosperous, and peaceful future for the South Caucasus region.  U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Erika Olson is currently in the region to discuss bilateral issues with all three countries and to explore opportunities for regional cooperation.  We urge Armenia and Azerbaijan to continue and intensify their engagement including under the auspices of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs to find comprehensive solutions to all outstanding issues related to or resulting from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Cyberspace Trust and Security

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The United States supports the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, consistent with our position that all actors must do their part to promote an “open, secure, stable, accessible, and peaceful cyberspace.”  Our decision to support the Paris Call reflects the Administration’s pledge to renew America’s engagement with the international community, including on cyber issues.  We are committed to working alongside our allies and partners to uphold established global norms in cyberspace and ensure accountability for states that engage in destructive, disruptive, or destabilizing cyber activity.   

We welcome the Government of France’s leadership in bringing together a multi-stakeholder group of supporters – including states as well as private sector and civil society actors – around a shared commitment to safeguard the benefits the Internet provides all people.   As we face the global challenges of the 21st century – from COVID-19 to climate change – it is imperative we all do our part.  It is uniquely the role and responsibility of states to develop the norms, rules, and principles of responsible state behavior that promote security and stability in cyberspace.  The United States views the broadly framed language of the Paris Call in this light and interprets it consistent with our existing domestic and international obligations and commitments, including with respect to privacy and freedom of expression. 

For more than a decade, the United States, alongside France and many others, has championed a global framework of responsible state behavior in cyberspace, underpinned by the applicability of international law, adherence to voluntary peacetime norms of state behavior in cyberspace, and the development and implementation of practical confidence building measures.  This framework has repeatedly been endorsed by UN member states, most recently in the March 10, 2021, report of the Open-Ended Working Group in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security and the July 14, 2021, report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Advancing Responsible State Behavior in Cyberspace in the Context of International Security.  The United States’ support of the Paris Call does not mark a change in U.S. Government policy but rather reflects our continuing commitment to act responsibly and partner with likeminded states to promote stability in cyberspace.    

We also note the commitments of private sector actors who support the Paris Call to contribute to the future of a stable cyberspace by adhering to key principles relevant to their own unique roles.  Among other important efforts, the United States urges companies to take seriously their commitment to strengthen the security of digital processes, products and services, throughout their life cycle and supply chain.  We applaud the language in the Paris Call reaffirming the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online. 

Illustration: Pixabay

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What are China’s Intentions?

Sun Tzu wrote long ago that to see farther one must stand on higher ground. The 24-hour news cycle is producing an overload of information on China and its foreign policy since the spread of the Covid virus. That makes it more difficult to discern China’s long-term global agenda from its daily rhetoric. Clues to the CCP’s true intentions can be found in where Xi Jinping is spending the government’s money and in China’s ongoing military projects unrelated to its disinformation and propaganda campaigns. That news, perhaps, is the most troubling information to date. The senior Chinese leadership has for over a decade in closed CCP meetings, and in public, stated that it intends to remake the world in China’s image. Those statements support the current direction and technological advances made by China’s military. 

Western leaders do question whether China is planning to make serious naval moves in the Pacific in the near future. But how seriously does the Biden Administration take the Chinese threat? Set aside Beijing’s rhetoric on Taiwan for a moment to examine what military planning actions Beijing is taking that cost it time, money, and human resources. Earlier this week Space Wars reported that satellite imagery shows clearly that China has built full-scale outlines of “American warships including an aircraft carrier” as possible targets to practice killing the US Navy’s carrier battle groups. The massive American carriers are among the United States’ most powerful arsenal of weapons. Washington should assume this a long-term goal for Xi Jinping. Western intelligence agencies have known for years that China is spending a solid percentage of its military budget on developing advanced weapons systems, including anti-ship missiles that can sink American carriers, and nuclear-tipped hypersonic missiles capable of  traversing the south pole before landing on target inside the continental US. 

Images of an American carrier, a destroyer, and other US ships first showed up on satellite images in early 2019, but not in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of China where you would expect them. They were built in the middle of the country’s 390,000 square mile, Tarim Basin ballistic testing range in western Xinjiang’s Taklamakan Desert. This area, also known as East Turkestan, is on the east end of the contaminated region where China first conducted their Project 596 nuclear weapons tests in the mid-1960’s and is where many Uyghur minorities live today. Toward the end of the Trump Administration China began dismantling most of the site but after Biden’s election started rebuilding it. It was finished in September. 

The site appears to be more than propaganda as it contains highly sophisticated instrumentation poles that can be used to monitor advanced tests. Space War reports that according to a Pentagon report on China released last week, the PLA is “is currently on a major arms modernization drive… with many weapons designed to help neutralize the most important American warships in the event of a regional conflict.” The Pentagon report states that the DF-21D missile, which has a range of more than 930 miles has “the capability to conduct long-range precision strikes against ships, including aircraft carriers, out to the Western Pacific from mainland China….” In March, US Navy Admiral Philip Davidson told the US Senate that the employment [of the DF-21D] during a large-scale PLA exercise demonstrates the PLA’s focus on countering any potential third-party intervention during a regional crisis.” 

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On Tuesday Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng, who assumed his role in February with a portfolio that includes reforming the island’s military, stated that China is capable now of blockading Taiwan’s critical ports and airports to cut off key transport links and lines of communication. Taiwan’s biennial defense report released this week indicates that its military analysts view Beijing as dramatically strengthening its air, sea, and land strike capabilities against the island. The report, according to AFP, also warned that China is capable of striking all of Taiwan with its missile arsenal, including ballistic and cruise variants, and is beefing up its ability to launch amphibious assaults on the island. Most military analysts in Washington concur that it is not a question of if China will act, with many suggesting the remaining unknowns are when and where. 

China’s CCP faces many domestic constraints. Money prioritized and spent on offensive military programs takes away from what can be used to stabilize the economy through social welfare and other critical domestic programs. Lessons from Chinese military history, as taught by Sun Tzu, indicates that the CCP leadership knows to stand high on the hill to look farther down the path. That long view also should reveal to senior national security officials in the Biden Administration that Xi Jinping and the CCP recognize they must use military means at some point to retain their legitimacy with the population and to remain in power. Retaking Taiwan and/or delivering a serious blow to the US military has the potential to be the top option open to Xi Jinping and the CCP in the coming years. That knowledge should secure its position as a top priority danger to the free world.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Illustration: Pixabay

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Russia’s War Plans

The Chinese threat may be at the forefront of Western leaders’ minds this fall, but Putin’s Russia cannot be pushed safely to the far side and forgotten. Western political and military leaders need to assess Moscow’s ideas on contactless warfare and the use of high-precision weapons. Russia may have moved the country out of communism, but communist thinking has not moved out of the country. Roger McDermott, in a Jamestown Foundation report published this week, suggests that Moscow’s thinking about credible conventional hard-power capabilities remains preeminent among its military planners. “Unlike Western militaries, Russian military thought never abandoned its interest in large-scale inter-state warfare, which also features as part of the war types rehearsed and trained for in Russia’s annual strategic military exercises. This focus on the potential for large-scale inter-state conventional military conflict equally translates into Russian military thinking about the wars of the future,” he says. McDermott also points out that Putin is moving warfare to the next stage by adding capabilities beyond those needed for kinetic conflict.

Soviet military theorists typically planned for future wars. They are very good at it and this has not changed under Putin. Starting almost 13 years ago, Russia began a broad, conventional military modernization and reform program. Themes since that time, notes McDermott, have focused on how the character of war is evolving and, in particular, the roles played by high technology in the information age. Understanding Russian military policy and planning is taking on new significance in the US post-Afghanistan period. Moscow’s perception of the strategic threat it faces today is governed by two main concerns: information warfare (informatsionnoe protivoborstvo) and the application of advanced information technology in support of conventional war-fighting. This is the keystone for its network-centric warfare going into 2022. 

The late Russian Major General Slipchenko developed a 6th generation of warfare concept for fighting future wars. He argued for using precision weapons and information and electronic warfare to undermine or destroy the enemy’s economy with distance no-contact warfare. In proposing the idea, he moved Russian thinking from the concept of information warfare to information confrontation. Understanding the distinction is important as the United States faces increasing challenges from a belligerent China and other potential adversaries. Russia is raising information confrontation to a “category” of warfare and making it part of a constant and ongoing process. While it does not take away from Russia’s historic fear of invasion and the potential of facing a two-front war on its own territory or that of a nearby state. It alters the nature of conflict to a global scale. That should give democratic nations pause for concern. 

“Using information networks and assets, a planetary aggressor can provoke technogenic catastrophes in large economic regions and sections of the world. It is possible that after 2050, ecological weapons may also be developed for directed effects against countries’ mineral and biological resources, local areas of a biosphere (atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere), and climate resources in local areas of the Earth. It is important to mention that in next-generation warfare, starting with the sixth, man will not be the main target of a strike. He will be defeated indirectly, through other structures and systems associated with his life support,” according to Slipchenko. Russia’s highest form of military thinking encompasses the concept of non-contact warfare, McDermott says. Russian military thinking in 2022 will no longer be based on an understanding that war is only when people are fighting, and peace is when they are not. Russian military planners are preparing for future wars where there is no kinetic fighting. Forecasting war is seen by Russia as an increasingly complex process of gaining superiority over an adversary through modern advances in technology. Putin will continue to build his conventional and nuclear forces, but they are only part of the equation. Democratic nations must prepare for an ongoing threat from the former communist state.

In a Russian article on the evolution of the country’s military art in the 21st century, entitled “The Development of Modern Military Art in Terms of Military Systemology” its military authors say that  “In future wars, their nature and substance will be impacted by weapons designed on new physical principles. The nature and substance of future wars will be changed radically by space-based attack weapons, orbiting battle space stations (platforms), new weapons of improved destructive power, range, accuracy, and rate of fire, greater capabilities of reconnaissance and robot-controlled assets, automated weapons control, communication, and information warfare systems… 

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“Naturally enough, a forecast of future warfare drives us to the conclusion that wars will be resolved by a skillful combination of military, nonmilitary, and special nonviolent measures that will be put through by a variety of methods and forms and a blend of political, economic, informational, technological, and environmental measures, primarily by taking advantage of information superiority. Information warfare in the new conditions will be the starting point of every action now….”

The West can no longer be concerned solely about a nuclear attack from Russia. The probability of information confrontation is a real and present danger and here to stay for the foreseeable future.  

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Thursday, she presents key updates on Russia.

Photo: Submarines of the Northern Fleet practice torpedo firing at underwater targets in Barents Sea. (Russian Defence Ministry photo)

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A Worse Form of Corruption

Corruption has been, unfortunately, a consistent factor in politics in every time period, and in every political system. But the corruption that has plagued U.S. politics in the 21st century is a far more dangerous, far more insidious variety that threatens the very foundation of the nation.

It has metastasized to such a dangerous degree due the partisanship of the media that has, in the past, served as a check against corruption’s survival and growth. While neither side of the ideological divide has been blameless, the reality that leftist politicians have their offenses hidden, excused, or obscured allows them to get away with far more both in quantity and in the seriousness of their harmful actions.

The trend escalated in earnest during the Obama Administration. In a move largely ignored by many major media sources, A federal agency violated the Constitution, was unlawfully used for partisan purposes, and refused to comply with a court order to cease and desist in its illegal actions. That was the essence of a verdict by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2016, in a case involving the targeting of groups that merely disagreed with the Obama Administration’s political perspectives. Thirty-eight non-profit organizations from twenty-two states were subjected to violations of their First Amendment rights. Information obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that officials “orchestrated a complex scheme to dump conservative and Tea Party non-profit applicants into a bureaucratic ‘black hole.’ Another 294 pages of documents … also recently released by Judicial Watch further establish that ‘top IRS officials in Washington, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew that the agency was specifically targeting ‘Tea Party’ and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public…”

The media also did not dwell on offenses such as Hillary Clinton’s financial gain from her approval, as secretary of state, of the sale of uranium, the basic ingredient of nuclear weapons, to Russia. The Biden Justice Department has found time to attack parents disagreeing with politicized curricula, but has been absurdly reluctant to move on Hunter Biden’s financial ties to the China.

The most salient example remains, of course, the fraud perpetrated on the American public during the 2016 campaign by the Clinton campaign.  The “Russian collusion” charges against the Trump election team were wholly fabricated.

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Lee Smith, writing for The Federalist reported in 2018 that “Half the country wants to know why the press won’t cover the growing scandal now implicating the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice, and threatening to reach the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and perhaps even the Obama White House. After all, the release last week of a less-redacted version of Sens. Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham’s January 4 letter showed that the FBI secured a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to search the communications of a Trump campaign adviser based on a piece of opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The Fourth Amendment rights of an American citizen were violated to allow one political party to spy on another. If the press did its job and reported the facts, the argument goes, then it wouldn’t just be Republicans and Trump supporters demanding accountability and justice. Americans across the political spectrum would understand the nature and extent of the abuses and crimes touching not just on one political party and its presidential candidate but the rights of every American.”  It’s Smith’s belief that  “The Media Stopped Reporting The Russia Collusion Story Because They Helped Create It. The press has played an active role in the Trump-Russia collusion story since its inception. It helped birth it.”

Corruption that financially enriches politicians is bad, but actions by elected officials that threatens the stability of the Republic and the rights of each citizen is even worse.

The actions of the Biden Administration to diminish border controls and circumvent American immigration laws, in the belief that they will gain politically from the tidal wave, represent the ongoing nature of this apex of corruption.

Illustration: Pixabay