Month: March 2021

MYANMAR (BURMA) 

On February 1, 2021, the United States declared the overthrow of the democratically elected civilian government in Myanmar to be a coup. When asked by an American journalist at the March 4 State Department press briefing why the Biden Administration’s actions do not appear to be making a difference in the situation, the Spokesman, Ned Price, said President Biden has “asked the Chinese to help” but “…it’s not up to us to dictate what any other country does.” It appears the United States will be using the Biden Administration’s foreign policy strategy of leading from behind. 

Security forces killed as many as 24 people on March 3^rd in what appears to be the latest in a series of relatively peaceful protests by tens of thousands of Burmese citizens. Price condemned the killings and the use of violence against Burmese society. He pointed out that the State Department is aware of reports that the military has charged additional journalists with crimes and unjustly detained others. “We call on the military to immediately release these individuals and to cease their intimidation and harassment of the media and others who are unjustly detained for doing nothing more than their job, for doing nothing more than exercising their universal rights,” said Price. He claimed the US has taken a number of actions against the military junta, military leaders and military entities responsible for the coup and for related violence, including visa restrictions and asset blocking sanctions although none that appear to have had an impact on freedom of the press or repression in Myanmar.

IRAN

Asked if the US regrets the withdrawal of the European resolution to censor Iran over its in Vienna, or if Washington sees it as a good way to allow diplomacy to happen, State Department Spokesman Price said “…IAEA Director Grossi offered a proposal for Iran to address unanswered concerns regarding its nuclear program. The E3 decided, with the full support of the United States, that the best way to support the IAEA’s process was to refrain from putting forward the draft resolution at the meeting of the Board of government – Governors.” Price said the US wants to engage in “constructive dialogue” with Iran. Price says that diplomacy is the best recourse. He did not say why this would cause Iran would agree to give up its nuclear weapons program.

CHINA

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Throughout the tenure of the Trump Administration the State Department called China the greatest threat to the national security of the United States. Upon entering office, the Biden Department removed that designation from the State Department’s web site. At a press briefing this week the Department spokesman responded to a journalist’s question on China not by labeling the country a threat to the US but a “competitor.” Price said that  “…across the globe, we recognize this competitive relationship with China. Our strategy is one that seeks to compete and to outcompete with the Chinese across the board.” Responding to the same question Price went on to call Russia a “threat” to the US. It appears the Biden Administration is resetting US foreign relations with China and downgrading the security challenge it poses in the process.

AFGHANISTAN

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a PBS Newshour interview this week that the US has not “…made any decisions about the May 1st deadline to withdraw the remaining roughly 2,500 troops that are in Afghanistan.” He  pointed out that Washington is in close consultation with the US’ NATO allies and other countries in the region. The State Department, he said, is evaluating what further progress can be made on the agreements that the US reached with the Taliban under the Trump Administration. On March 3, the White House made public what it is calling an Interim National Security Strategic Guidance document, which says among other things, that “The United States should not, and will not, engage in ‘forever wars’ that have cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. 

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 Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in the just-released annual report of the alliance, addresses the role and need for a strong trans-Atlantic bond. These are his remarks.

In 2020, the Alliance – like the rest of the world – was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did the virus threaten our societies and economies, it also magnified existing security trends and tensions. But it did not prevent NATO from doing its job: our ability to defend the Euro-Atlantic area remains undiminished, and throughout the year, the Alliance worked to help save lives and keep our people safe.

Across NATO, almost half a million troops supported the civilian response to the pandemic. We delivered much-needed medical equipment and supplies, transported patients and medical personnel, secured borders and built field hospitals to treat many thousands of patients. We established a pandemic response plan, a stockpile of medical supplies and a trust fund for the purchase of urgently needed items. Ventilators and other equipment from the stockpile have been delivered to Allies and partners. Throughout the year, potential adversaries have been seeking to exploit the crisis to destabilise our societies and undermine our democracies. Based on polls commissioned by NATO in 2020, half the population of Allied countries thought security threats to their nation had increased due to the pandemic.

 Against this background, NATO’s priority has been to make sure the health crisis did not become a security crisis. We continued to deter aggression, to defend our Allies, and to project stability beyond Alliance borders, keeping our forces safe, vigilant and ready. We sustained our missions and deployments – from the battlegroups in the east of the Alliance, to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. And we continued to cooperate with a network of partner countries and international organisations to tackle common security challenges. At the same time, we are working to prepare the Alliance for the future.

We launched the NATO 2030 initiative, aimed at making our strong Alliance even stronger in an unpredictable world. One thing is certain: we can only keep our nations safe if North America and Europe work together, in strategic solidarity. The level of support for the transatlantic bond remains high, with 79 per cent of citizens believing that the collaboration between North America and Europe on safety and security matters is important. A strong transatlantic bond is the cornerstone of our security and the only way to tackle great challenges, including Russia’s aggressive actions, international terrorism, more complex cyber attacks, the rise of China, disruptive technologies and the security implications of climate change.

These challenges are too big for any country or continent to tackle alone. Not Europe alone, and not North America alone – but Europe and North America together. That is why at the NATO Summit later this year, we will set an ambitious and forward-looking transatlantic agenda to future-proof our Alliance.

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 First, we must reinforce the unity between Europe and North America, which derives from our promise to defend each other. Therefore, we must strengthen our commitment to our collective defence and fund more of deterrence and defence on NATO territory together. We must also strengthen our political unity, by committing to consult on all issues that affect our security, using NATO as the unique platform that brings Europe and North America together every day. To chart a common course going forward and reaffirm the fundamentals of our Alliance, we should also agree to update NATO’s Strategic Concept.

Second, we must broaden our approach to security. To keep our people safe, we need not only strong militaries, but also strong societies. So we need a more integrated approach to resilience, with concrete targets on issues such as critical infrastructure and communications, including 5G and undersea cables. We also need to maintain our technological edge, to remain competitive in a more competitive world. Lastly, we must protect the international rules-based order, which is being challenged by authoritarian powers. The rise of China is a defining issue, with potential consequences for our security, prosperity and way of life. That is why we should deepen our relationships with close partners like Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, and reach out to other like-minded nations around the world.

Protecting the rules-based order starts with protecting our values at home. So we must strengthen our democracies, bolster our institutions and recommit to our values.

We have a unique opportunity to open a new chapter in transatlantic relations. And we all have a responsibility to seize it.

Photo:  NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg

Throughout the centuries, military and political leaders around the world have read The Art of War. It is a classic about Chinese military strategy, deception, and tactics written in the 6^th century BC by General Sun Tzu. Today only a few recognize how applicable it is to long-term Chinese Communist Party leadership strategy. Beijing in 2021 follows Sun Tzu’s basic premises for winning in conflict. It is simple. “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” “All warfare is based on deception.” And, “in the mist of chaos, there is also opportunity.” These are just a few of Sun’s often quoted, and followed, passages.

China knows that currently it cannot face off with the US Navy on the high seas and win a decisive victory although, in relative terms it views the US as a declining power in comparison to China. Nor can China come close to surpassing the US in the number of allies it can rely on in a great power conflict. The CCP’s illiberal leadership does, however, have a medium- and long-term strategic plan to challenge the US-led, global status quo. Thanks in part to Sun Tzu’s advice, Beijing is unilaterally attempting to counter US influence militarily, politically, and economically. It is using a shotgun approach, inclusive of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. President Xi Jinping identified the first few decades of the 21^st century as China’s “window of opportunity” for obtaining global hegemon status and “remaking the world in China’s image.” Xi is not wasting time in moving forward toward his goals.

Ryan Hass, writing in the China Leadership Monitor, contends that in recent years “China appears to be pursuing a three-pronged medium-term strategy: maintaining a non-hostile external environment in order to focus on domestic priorities; reducing dependence on America while increasing the rest of the world’s dependence on China; and expanding the reach of Chinese influence overseas.” Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic we have seen China use the virus as an opportunity to speed up its global strategy. President Xi is intensifying China’s military aggressiveness in the South China Sea. He is trampling on the political rights of protesters in Hong Kong who now sit in its jails. Trade relations with the US and other Western democratic nations also are suffering. 

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A Chinese policy advisor during a private Track II meeting with a US official on the future of US-China relations last November, said that the CCP leadership believes it can no longer base its national plans on expectations of generally stable relations with the United States. Instead of direct confrontation China has chosen to enhance its economic self-sufficiency to offset repercussions from its aggressive foreign policy moves. China labels it a “dual circulation strategy.” Hass says this is to “reduce dependence on foreign suppliers through a domestic cycle of production, distribution, and consumption, alongside a separate cycle of external trade of goods and services.” This strategy is yet another affirmation that China’s intends to continue improving its domestic high technology sector in support of its long-term global ambitions. Has China deceived the world into believing it is a peaceful rising nation-state which will abide by the rules of the international norm-based system? The world is poised to see the emperor’s clothes really are invisible.

Daria Novak served in the Reagan State Department. Each Friday, she provides unique insights into China.

Illustration: Pixabay

Shortly before the end of the Trump Administration, the U.S. State Department reviewed the growing danger from China. We conclude our presentation of the Executive Summary of that Report.

A World-Class Military China’s economic might and technological prowess advance its development of a world-class military that is intended to rival and in the long-term surpass the U.S. military and those of its allies. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which owes allegiance to the CCP, is central to the party’s goal of empowering China to play the decisive role on the world stage. Following his selection in 2012 as CCP General Secretary, Xi Jinping intensified the PLA’s decades-long military modernization. Also named chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi used the 2012 Defense White Paper to direct the PLA to achieve a status “commensurate with” China’s “international standing.” On January 1, 2016, the PLA announced a comprehensive reorganization of its force structure, setting the military on a path of expansion that paralleled China’s economic advances, and which would enable it “to combat and win battles.”

 The CCP’s extensive military transformation exhibits China’s strategic intentions. The 2016 reorganization created five theater-based joint commands — akin to the United States’ geographic commands — and two functional commands. The responsibilities of the newly formed Strategic Support Force (SSF) include cyber and space operations and electronic warfare as well as psychological-warfare operations. The SSF, along with Joint Logistics Support Force, will enable the PLA to project military power over great distances and to contest “new military strategic commanding heights.” The 2016 reform elevated China’s nuclear forces, which Xi emphasizes are essential to China’s major-power status, from a subordinate command to a separate stand-alone military service. Accordingly, he called upon the PLA Rocket Force “to enhance its nuclear deterrents and nuclear counterstrike capabilities.”

Having undertaken these structural reforms, Xi used the 19th Party Congress in October 2017 to announce goals for the transformation of the PLA’s operations and capabilities. He directed the military to achieve mechanization, make strides in applying information technology, and improve its strategic capabilities. His goal is to complete the transformation of the PLA and the People’s Armed Police into “world-class forces by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the PRC’s founding.” 

China learned well from U.S. military success in the 1991 Gulf War and the military offset strategy the United States adopted in the 1970s to address the Soviet challenge.54 To counter the U.S. military’s technological advantage, PLA leadership developed an offset strategy of its own. Top officials in the U.S. Department of Defense have warned that the United States can no longer take for granted military superiority in East Asia.

China embarked on five distinct but mutually supporting lines of effort: 

• “Military-Civil Fusion” (MCF) to achieve the world’s most technologically sophisticated military by acquiring, including through illegal means, advanced and emerging technologies from the United States and from countries around the globe;

 • “Systems-destruction warfare” strategy — emphasizing attacks on command and control centers — to shut down enemy operational systems; • Vast arsenals of ground-based precision missiles to penetrate U.S. defenses; 

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• “Assassin’s Mace” capabilities to surprise the adversary from unexpected vectors; • Industrial dominance to attain world leadership in artificial intelligence.

China’s offset strategy has resulted in a form of asymmetric arms racing. Beijing has invested in large numbers of ground-based theater missiles, third- and fourth-generation aircraft carrying advanced standoff missiles, diesel submarines capable of dominating regionalwaters, counterspace and cyber capabilities, and an increasingly advanced nuclear arsenal. The PLA’s rapid progress in producing and deploying hypersonic missiles — designed to defeat U.S. and allied missile defenses — underscores Beijing’s determination to achieve asymmetric advantages. It does not appear that China is mirroring Soviet behavior by sprinting to quantitative nuclear parity, but evidence mounts that Beijing seeks to at least double the size of its nuclear forces and achieve a form of qualitative equivalence with the United States. 

Meanwhile, China has placed more satellites in space than any country other than the United States. Beijing is also working on a range of counter-space and anti-satellite capabilities designed to threaten U.S. nuclear and critical military command and control assets. The PLA demonstrated its progress in 2007 when it conducted a successful anti-satellite test, destroying a Chinese satellite operating in the same low-earth orbit as U.S. military-imaging satellites.

The PRC has also adopted non-military stratagems to complicate U.S. military operations. 

Previous administrations cited nonproliferation as a bright spot in U.S.-China cooperation, but the evidence belies the rosy assessments. Despite Chinese commitments, Iran, North Korea and Syria continue to obtain WMD material and technology from Chinese entities while using Chinese territory as a transshipment point. According to the State Department’s annual report on international compliance with arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament agreements, China “has failed to adhere to its November 2000 commitment to the United States not to assist ‘in any way, any country in the development of ballistic missiles that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons (i.e., missiles capable of delivering a payload of at least 500 kilograms to a distance of at least 300 kilometers).’” The report went on to note, “This failure to adhere to its November 2000 commitment is reflected in Chinese entities’ continued supply of items to missile programs of proliferation concern.” Beijing’s direct assistance to WMD proliferators declined after it signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1992. Yet China continues to support, or at least condone, the proliferation of WMD and missile capabilities in order to undermine the security of those whom the PRC considers regional or global adversaries.

While the PRC uses an offset strategy to advance its objectives in the first island chain — stretching from Japan to Taiwan to the northern Philippines to northern Borneo to the Malay Peninsula — CCP leadership and military strategists believe that AI and other emerging technologies will drive a revolution in military affairs that culminates in what they call “intelligent warfare.” By implementing a whole-of-system strategy and driving this revolution, the CCP hopes the PLA will achieve military dominance within the next 25 years. 

In the near-to-medium term, China will use its military capabilities, operational concepts, and overall doctrine to turn the U.S. military’s technological strengths in the Indo-Pacific into weaknesses by credibly threatening to deliver massive punishment against American powerprojection forces while thwarting the United States’ ability to provide reinforcement. This would signal to regional powers a fait accompli too costly to overturn. The PRC’s strategy is not only to prevail but also to demoralize America’s friends and partners by demonstrating that the United States cannot meet its security commitments in the region — at least not quickly or at an acceptable cost. This strategy is especially pertinent to Taiwan.

Photo: Chinese fighter aircraft (China Defence Ministry)

Shortly before the end of the Trump Administration, the U.S. State Department issued a significant analysis of the dangers posed by China. We present the Executive Summary of that report.

Awareness has been growing in the United States — and in nations around the world — that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has triggered a new era of great-power competition. Yet few discern the pattern in China’s inroads within every region of the world, much less the specific form of dominance to which the party aspires. 

The CCP aims not merely at preeminence within the established world order — an order that is grounded in free and sovereign nation-states, flows from the universal principles on which America was founded, and advances U.S. national interests —but to fundamentally revise world order, placing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the center and serving Beijing’s authoritarian goals and hegemonic ambitions.

 In the face of the China challenge, the United States must secure freedom.

China is a challenge because of its conduct. Modeled on 20th-century Marxist-Leninist dictatorship, the CCP eventually spurred rapid modernization and produced prodigious economic growth — thanks in no small measure to the party’s decision in the late 1970s to embrace free-market elements and to the decision by the United States and nations around the world to engage, and welcome commerce with, China. The party today wields its economic power to co-opt and coerce countries around the world; make the societies and politics of foreign nations more accommodating to CCP specifications; and reshape international organizations in line with China’s brand of socialism. At the same time, the CCP is developing a world-class military to rival and eventually surpass the U.S. military. These actions enable the CCP to credibly pursue the quest — proceeding outward through the Indo-Pacific region and encompassing the globe — to achieve “national rejuvenation” culminating in the transformation of the international order.

To understand China’s peculiar form of authoritarianism and the hegemonic goals to which it gives rise, it is necessary to grasp the intellectual sources from which China’s conduct springs: the CCP’s Marxist-Leninist beliefs and the party’s extreme interpretation of Chinese nationalism. 

Notwithstanding its authoritarian rule over PRC citizens and the threat it presents to freedom around the world, China under the CCP is marked by a variety of vulnerabilities. These begin with the disadvantages endemic to autocracy: constraints on innovation, difficulties forming and maintaining alliances, and costs arising from internal repression. They also include vulnerabilities specific to the PRC: economic instability; demographic imbalance; environmental degradation; persistent corruption; oppression of ethnic and religious minorities; daunting expenses incurred in monitoring, censoring, and indoctrinating 1.4 billion people in China; separation of the military, which is controlled by the party, from the people; and — particularly in the wake of the illness, death, and social and economic devastation wrought worldwide by the COVID-19 pandemic born in Wuhan — mounting international anger at the CCP’s contempt for human life, indifference to other nations’ well-being, and disregard for international norms and obligations.

Meeting the China challenge requires the United States to return to the fundamentals. To secure freedom, America must refashion its foreign policy in light of ten tasks. 

First, the United States must secure freedom at home by preserving constitutional government, promoting prosperity, and fostering a robust civil society, all of which nourish the civic concord that has always been essential to meeting the nation’s challenges abroad.

Second, the United States must maintain the world’s most powerful, agile, and technologically sophisticated military while enhancing security cooperation, grounded in common interests and shared responsibility, with allies and partners.

Third, the United States must fortify the free, open, and rules-based international order that it led in creating after World War II, which is composed of sovereign nation-states and based on respect for human rights and fidelity to the rule of law. 

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Fourth, the United States must reevaluate its alliance system and the panoply of international organizations in which it participates to determine where they fortify the free, open, and rulesbased international order and where they fall short.

Fifth, in light of that reevaluation, the United States must strengthen its alliance system by more effectively sharing responsibilities with friends and partners and by forming a variety of groupingsand coalitions to address specific threats to freedom while, in cooperation with the world’s democracies and other like-minded partners, reforming international organizations where possible and, where necessary, building new ones rooted in freedom, democracy, national sovereignty, human rights, and the rule of law.

Sixth, the United States must promote American interests by looking for opportunities to cooperate with Beijing subject to norms of fairness and reciprocity, constraining and deterring the PRC when circumstances require, and supporting those in China who seek freedom. 

Seventh, the United States must educate American citizens about the scope and implications of the China challenge because only an informed citizenry can be expected to back the complex mix of demanding policies that the United States must adopt to secure freedom.

Eighth, the United States must train a new generation of public servants — in diplomacy, military affairs, finance, economics, science and technology, and other fields — and publicpolicy thinkers who not only attain fluency in Chinese and acquire extensive knowledge of China’s culture and history, but who also attain fluency in the languages, and acquire extensive knowledge of the cultures and histories, of other strategic competitors, friends, and potential friends.

 Ninth, the United States must reform American education, equipping students to shoulder the enduring responsibilities of citizenship in a free and democratic society by understanding America’s legacy of liberty and also preparing them to meet the special demands of a complex, information-age, globalized economy for expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Tenth, the United States must champion the principles of freedom — principles that are at once universal and at the heart of the American national spirit — through example; speeches; educational initiatives; public diplomacy; foreign assistance and investment; sanctions in more difficult circumstances as well as other forms of non-military pressure; and, where the nation’s vital interests are at stake and all else has failed, military force. 

Grounded in America’s founding principles and constitutional traditions; invigorated by a bustling economy; undergirded by the world’s best-trained and best-equipped military; served by government officials who understand the American people and the American political system, recognize the diversity and common humanity of the peoples and nations of the world, and appreciates the complex interplay of ideas and interests in foreign affairs; and fortified by an informed and engaged citizenry — this multi-pronged approach will enable the United States to secure freedom.

The Report Concludes Tomorrow

Photo: China military M-117 attack helicopter (China Defence Ministry)

The growth of Russian power in the Mediterranean has grown too pronounced to be ignored. On land and sea, Moscow has established a dramatic military and diplomatic presence that threatens peace and stability throughout the region.

The comfortable illusion that the U.S. Navy’s 6^th fleet reigns supreme in that crucial portion of the globe has been dispelled, as Putin not only adds his own vessels to the area, but works with China to form a dramatic increase in influence. 

Both the sharp reduction in size of the U.S. Navy since 1990, and the as of yet unexplained tilt by the former Obama Administration towards Iran served to worsen the increasing threat.

Retired Italian Admiral Luigi Binelle Mantelli, quoted in the Euoberver believes that Moscow has gained a clear advantage on land and sea. “Russia is the pre-eminent naval power in the Mediterranean … [and] it has earned this role in the field…. In recent years, Russia has displayed a level of assertiveness that recalls the US during the golden days…[NATO is] no longer the deterring organization able and eager to show its muscles in the Mediterranean arena, as it did in the good old times.”

Moscow’s goal of gaining the upper hand in the Mediterranean Sea has motivated much of its actions in the region. A prime reason for Russia’s support of Syria’s dictator, for example, has been the protection of its key naval base in the Syrian port at Tartus.

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As December and 2020 drew to a close, the U.S. State Department summarized Putin’s growing strength in the area. It noted that “Russia continues to threaten Mediterranean stability In Syria, Russia supports the Assad regime whose war against its own people has added to regional instability, led to a protracted humanitarian crisis, and displaced half the population.  In Greece, we saw Russian diplomats expelled from the country in 2018 for undermining the Prespes agreement and meddling in Greek Orthodox religious affairs.  Wealthy Russians – many with connections to the Kremlin – have laundered billions of dollars through the Republic of Cyprus and Malta, distorting their domestic markets and spreading corruption. In Libya, Russia supported an assault on the Libyan capital, Tripoli, killing civilians and undermining the UN’s efforts to bring peace to the country.  It also continues to violate the UN arms embargo; blocked sanctions at the UN Security Council on Mohamed al-Kani, along with the Kaniyat militia, whose egregious violations of human rights are well documented; printed counterfeit Libyan dinars that have destabilized the Libyan economy; and via its proxy, Wagner, fuels the conflict.  The Libyan government’s release of two Wagner operatives caught undermining Libyan politics is just another example of how Russia uses mercenaries and political shenanigans rather than open democratic means to advance its interests.  The list goes on. Russia… only acts to advance its own interests to the detriment of the entire region.”

The Mediterranean Advisory Group of the Konrad Adenauer Stifung organization warns of the lack of coherent Western response to Moscow’s actions.

“As the West still debates whether Putin has a strategy for the region, it has yet to come up with its own strategic response to counter Russia’s influence in the region. Meanwhile, Moscow’s goals in the region appear to span beyond Syria, with Moscow’s growing alliance with Iran and its expanding influence in North Africa. Moscow is reinforcing its position in North Africa by consolidating and strengthening its traditional alliance with Algeria, and developing stronger relationships with Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia.

As Moscow continues its advance across the Middle East and North Africa, the US and different European countries disagree on what approach to take towards Russia and the region.”

Photo: Russian Navy’s Admiral Essen during maneuvers in the Mediterranean (Russian Defense Ministry)