Quotes of the Day:

“I want our nation to be the most beautiful in the world. By this, I do not mean the most powerful nation. Because I have felt the pain of being invaded by another nation, I do not want my nation to invade others. It is sufficient that our wealth makes our lives abundant; it is sufficient that our strength is able to prevent foreign invasions. The only thing that I desire in infinite quantity is the power of a noble culture. This is because the power of culture both makes ourselves happy and gives happiness to others.” 

– Kim Koo, a Korean statesman and leader (1876 to 1949)

"Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior."

– Miyamoto Musashi

“To be clear, the Cold War is not a perfect analog for today's rivalries. Neither China, nor Russia is driven by an ideology as messianic as Soviet communism. Putin's Russia is a shadow of the Soviet Union, and China lacks the global military punch Moscow once possessed, even though it is a stronger economic competitor than the Kremlin ever was. There is far greater economic and technological interdependence, and a far more complex relationship, between America and China than ever existed between the Cold War superpowers. Moreover, the strategic context is different. Now, Russia and China are confronting a well-established, if beleaguered, international order. After World War II, the Soviet danger was so immense because there was no order; chaos convulsed much of the globe. We can't re-run the Cold War playbook in a very different world.” 

– Hal Brands

1. Four Warnings About the “Dark Quad”

2. US colonel claims Israeli special forces, American legionaries killed in Yemen

3. China’s Great Wall of Villages

4. How the culture wars poisoned American politics — and how to fix it

5. As Ukrainian Forces Grab Russian Territory, the Kremlin Maintains It’s No Big Deal

6. The State Department's Gaza Policy Has Failed

7. What Harris Learned Investigating Russian Interference

8. Trump Campaign Says It Was Hacked

9. Policy study calls for increasing US Marine force in northern Australia by 8 fold

10. Power Politics - United States vs. China

11. Palantir: Two Reasons Why I Believe It Is Just Getting Started

12. NATO states should abandon treaty banning the use of cluster munitions by John Nagl and Daniel Rice

13. How Ukraine’s incursion into Russia could change the war

14. Wartime need for drones would outstrip US production. There’s a way to fix that

15. In Secret Talks, U.S. Offers Amnesty to Venezuela’s Maduro for Ceding Power

16. Navy still bullish on lasers but widely-deployed directed-energy ship defense remains years away

17. New U.N. Cybercrime Treaty Could Threaten Human Rights

18. Navy SEALs dropped in on a nuclear-powered submarine in the Pacific, drilling for a higher-end fight

19. Walz’s China ties garner attention, provoke GOP criticism

20. China’s Nightmare: A Second Trade War With Trump

1. Four Warnings About the “Dark Quad”

I think we should adopt the Dark Quad for the axis of dictators, China, Russia, Irna, and north Korea. We (and me especially) are using "Axis" too much. We should try "Dark Quad."

I would add to Dr. Ford's remarks and provide four reasons why this "quasi-military alliance" has evolved in recent years: Fear, Weakness, Desperation, and Envy

They fear the growth of alliances and partner arrangements and organizations among the like minded democracies around the world. They fear the efforts to uphold the rules based international order which they want so much to undermine for their own purposes.

They are weak due to their inherent contradictions in political rule and their totalitarian rule makes them vulnerable to internal dissent and resistance. Their regimes are threatened and they must expend their "security capital" on internal security.

They are desperate for support (particularly Russia, north Korea, and Iran).

They envy the alliances and security and economic organizations that the like minded democracies have established. But they know they can never compete because they do not share the same values among themselves like the alliances share among like minded democracies. Their "alliances" are transactional and not values based.

I would recommend that the political warfare strategy (with emphasis on public diplomacy and information and influence) we need to counter the "Dark Quad" should base some of the key themes and messages from the above four reasons why the Dark Quad exists.

Excerpts:

It would probably be difficult to overstate the potential challenges that the “Dark Quad” presents to international peace and security – not to mention to our own country’s national security interests and those of our allies and partners, and indeed all who prize peace and wish to preserve their political autonomy as sovereign peoples. Time being short, I’ll mention just four big ones.

...

My four warnings are all related to the fact that the military quasi-alliance of the Dark Quad includes both the world’s only two nuclear-armed revisionist great powers and the world’s two most prominent nuclear proliferators.

....

So what, as the saying goes, could possibly go wrong? (A lot, obviously!) So, as a starting point, let me offer four warnings.

The Death Knell for Nonproliferation?

First, as a longtime nonproliferation diplomat, I should point out that the advent of the Dark Quad may sound a death knell for the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

...

Pooled Adversary Capabilities

My second warning has to do with the implications of the fact that the four members of the Dark Quad now increasingly have the opportunity to pool their capabilities in various ways against the three things they hate most: the United States, the other countries of the West, and the current rules-based international order.

...

The Challenge of Coordinated Aggression

But this modern “nightmare of coalitions” goes well beyond simply the problem of aggregate – and potentially “pooled” – capability. Growing Dark Quad cooperation also raises the potential problem of coordinated activity.

...

The Challenge to American Nuclear Weapons Posture

Not incidentally, I’ll also add – and this is my fourth warning – this cauchemar des coalitions also puts paid to some the more persistent shibboleths of post-Cold War U.S. nuclear weapons policy. 

Four Warnings About the “Dark Quad”

Dr. Christopher Ford • Jul 24, 2024

https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/four-warnings-about-the-dark-quad?utm

Below appears the text on which Dr. Ford based his comments at a symposium organized on July 23, 2024, on “Emergence of A New ‘Quad’: The Growing Entente Between China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran,” hosted by the National Institute for Public Policy.

newparadigmsforum.com

Thanks for inviting me to participate in this webinar on the “New Quad” of the brutal dictatorships of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. I myself prefer to think of these four as the “Dark Quad,” for in a sense they do form the perfect malevolently antithetical counterpoint to the valuable work of the real Quad – that is, the important quadrilateral dialogue between the developed democracies of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India.

It would probably be difficult to overstate the potential challenges that the “Dark Quad” presents to international peace and security – not to mention to our own country’s national security interests and those of our allies and partners, and indeed all who prize peace and wish to preserve their political autonomy as sovereign peoples. Time being short, I’ll mention just four big ones.

These remarks offer only my personal opinions, of course, and don’t necessarily represent the views of anyone else. They’re also pretty depressing, I suppose. But let me offer what insights I can.

My four warnings are all related to the fact that the military quasi-alliance of the Dark Quad includes both the world’s only two nuclear-armed revisionist great powers and the world’s two most prominent nuclear proliferators.

• Of the two proliferators, North Korea, of course, pursued nuclear weapons for years, signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in bad faith, immediately violated it, got caught, obtained a concessionary deal with the West in return for supposedly freezing its nuclear weapons work, violated that promise too, then pulled out of the NPT, and has since built itself a rapidly-growing and ever more sophisticated nuclear arsenal.
• For its part, Iran pursued nuclear weapons for years, got caught, faced international sanctions, obtained a concessionary deal with the West in return for temporarily delaying its nuclear progress, but is today busily at work enriching uranium and cementing its status as a so-called “latent” or “virtual” nuclear weapons possessor able to sprint toward weaponization at the drop of a hat.
• And the great power members of the Dark Quad are currently involved in their own nuclear build-ups. This means not just modernizing legacy systems, but more importantly also building entire new categories of delivery system, and apparently conducting secret low-yield nuclear testing. In Beijing’s case, it also means expanding the size and scope of the Chinese Communist Party’s nuclear arsenal at a truly shocking pace despite China already being, in relative terms, the most powerful it has ever vis-à-vis any potential adversary power since at least the 18th Century.
• But the problem doesn’t lie just in the capabilities of these four Dark Quad authoritarian dictatorships. They also exhibit grave behavioral pathologies far beyond just the internal brutalities of their ruling regime’s domestic repression.
• One of them, (Russia) is actively involved in a vicious war of aggression to capture and annex a neighboring democracy.
• Another (China) has been preparing itself for years to invade and destroy one of East Asia’s most vibrant democracies in Taiwan, even while also grabbing at bits and pieces of territory from other neighbors to the south.
• A third (Iran) continues to nurse destabilizing dreams of theocratic hegemony in the Middle East, and expresses this by actively subverting and attacking other countries in its region.
• And the fourth (North Korea) is ruled by a dynasty of reclusive dictatorial sociopaths who periodically lash out in violent affronts to the sovereignty and security of another vibrant East Asian democracy to their south.

So what, as the saying goes, could possibly go wrong? (A lot, obviously!) So, as a starting point, let me offer four warnings.

The Death Knell for Nonproliferation?

First, as a longtime nonproliferation diplomat, I should point out that the advent of the Dark Quad may sound a death knell for the nuclear nonproliferation regime. By that I don’t mean that it’s impossible for some rump, denuded shell of that regime to stumble along for a while. I hope it does, and there’s certainly still lots of important nonproliferation work that can still be done.

But with two veto-wielding Permanent Members of the U.N. Security Council and regional aggressors now in a de facto military alliance with the world’s two worst nuclear proliferators, it’s hard to see much real hope for the global nonproliferation regime being effective going forward. After all, the international community did a notably bad job of handling the challenges presented by the two proliferators of North Korea and Iran even back when there appeared to be a consensus among the great powers on the importance of nonproliferation. And now, now that Russia and China are putting the “pro” back into “proliferation”? You can probably forget it.

Pooled Adversary Capabilities

My second warning has to do with the implications of the fact that the four members of the Dark Quad now increasingly have the opportunity to pool their capabilities in various ways against the three things they hate most: the United States, the other countries of the West, and the current rules-based international order.

Part of the Dark Quad threat comes from the possibility of what might in some respects turn into a “pooled” adversary defense industrial base. We have seen from the Ukraine conflict that the requirements of modern, high-intensity conventional war in terms of equipment, materiel, and manpower are simply enormous. After decades of post-Cold War complacency and strategic myopia, however – years in which we assumed that our former strategic adversaries would “cooperate with us in diplomacy and global problem solving” and in which we built our national security strategy around the assumption that those powers were indeed “no longer strategic adversaries” at all – such productive capabilities are far beyond our current capacity to supply them.

Yet already China is helping equip and bankroll Russia’s war in Ukraine with financial support, technology, and other aid – thus recently eliciting a rare NATO rebuke of Beijing as a “decisive enabler” of Putin’s war of aggression – while North Korea supplies Russia with munitions with which to kill Ukrainians, and Iran likewise supplies drones. Russia, meanwhile, has promised to help North Korea with unspecified assistance, China and Russia have both helped Pyongyang evade U.N. sanctions for years, and China also funding Iran’s regional destabilization and aggressive missile program by buying Iranian oil.

We need, therefore, to be keenly aware of – and, if we can, move to counter – the threat that the Dark Quad will increasingly “pool” industrial and military capabilities in ways profoundly dangerous to the United States, our allies and partners, and indeed to any country with the bad fortune to have one or more of these predatory powers as a neighbor. This certainly doesn’t necessarily mean that I foresee some kind of quadripartite analogue to China’s own domestic “Military Civil Fusion” (MCF) strategy of trying in effect to erase all distinctions between the military and civilian sectors, for I can’t see anything that elaborate or ambitious being possible among the Dark Quad powers.

At the very least, however, the Dark Quad will likely do more in these regards than it ever has before – and potentially a great deal more. We in the United States are no strangers to seeing each of the Dark Quad powers as a threatening problem state in its own right, of course. Nevertheless, we haven’t yet gotten our minds around the possibility that their various different strengths as international malefactors could complement each other and become mutually reinforcing in a deliberately coordinated way.

From a deterrence and nuclear force posture planning perspective, U.S. planners are already struggling with the implications of the unprecedented challenge of facing two nuclear-armed near-peer adversaries at the same time. But the problem is bigger than that, also encompassing broader issues of Defense Industrial Base (DIB) capacity, critical supply chains, military-technological development, and even mobilizable manpower. (Already, for instance, Russian media have claimed that North Korean “volunteers” are being readied to be sent to Ukraine. How close might Dark Quad cooperation become in the future?)

It is not for nothing, after all, that the great 19th Century Prussian and then German statesman Otto von Bismarck referred in his memoirs to the “nightmare of coalitions” (“le cauchemar des coalitions”) when contemplating the possibility that his country’s potential enemies – and at that point he had Russia and Austria particularly in mind – might coordinate against it. As American strategists contemplate a Dark Quad world, we need to keep an analogous cauchemar always in mind.

The Challenge of Coordinated Aggression

But this modern “nightmare of coalitions” goes well beyond simply the problem of aggregate – and potentially “pooled” – capability. Growing Dark Quad cooperation also raises the potential problem of coordinated activity.

U.S. officials have long been worried about the possibility of opportunistic aggression by one or more problem powers if the United States were to end up in hostilities with another of them. (China, for instance, might move against Taiwan in an attempt to take advantage of the Americans being distracted by a campaign against Iran.) Needless to say, from a force posture, asset-allocation, and logistics perspective, this is already a formidable problem for defense planners. There are certainly sound reasons for concern, as my Missouri State University colleague Dave Trachtenberg has pointed out, that the U.S. Defense Department’s traditional “two-war” policy – namely, of being prepared for handle two simultaneous conflicts in different parts of the world – has been allowed to atrophy.

But the “nightmare of coalitions” raised by the Dark Quad goes beyond merely opportunistic aggression. What if there were active coordination? In a merely opportunistic aggression scenario, our various adversaries would implement military plans that had presumably been prepared independently, each according to its own logics. Even worse than that, however, would be a scenario in which our adversaries implement military plans that have been deliberately coordinated, and in which they do this in a synchronized way and with capabilities deliberately chosen in order to present us with the most horrendous challenge possible. That, needless to say, would be a very great threat indeed, and Trachtenberg is clearly right that we are today “ill-prepared to prosecute a two-war scenario, especially one involving Sino-Russian collaboration,” and things would be even worse with “three-bad guy” or “four-bad guy” scenarios. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

The Challenge to American Nuclear Weapons Posture

Not incidentally, I’ll also add – and this is my fourth warning – this cauchemar des coalitions also puts paid to some the more persistent shibboleths of post-Cold War U.S. nuclear weapons policy. For decades, since the beginning of the post-Cold War era, U.S. defense planners have relied upon our country’s unparalleled conventional military prowess as our first and best answer to adversary aggression, and president after president has promised to “reduce reliance upon nuclear weapons.”

The possibility of opportunistic aggression by members of the Dark Quad, however – let alone that of coordinated aggression – suggests the conceptual bankruptcy of this longstanding ambition by signaling the possibility that even our vaunted conventional might be unequal to the operational demands of multi-theater conflict against the Dark Quad.

Already, the coercive nuclear threats Russia has been making over Ukraine, grounded in the Kremlin’s huge superiority over NATO in lower-yield, theater-range nuclear delivery systems, have made clear our need to restore some loosely analogous capability of our own. This is why we in the Trump Administration developed the lower-yield W76-2 nuclear warhead and began to build the Submarine Launched Cruise Missile-Nuclear (SLCM-N), and it’s why Congress has very sensibly prevented the Biden-Harris Administration from foolishly canceling the latter program. And it may well be – especially as China follows Putin’s footsteps in developing ways to use its rapidly-expanding arsenal as an “offensive nuclear umbrella” under which to conduct regional aggression – that even these U.S. plans are not enough to restore deterrent stability.

But that’s a nuclear-centric threat. The Dark Quad “nightmare of coalitions” also raises the threat that – for the first time in a long while – the United States may be unable to rely purely upon its conventional military power even vis-à-vis conventional threats. We may not necessarily be there quite yet, but the day may be coming in which we might need theater nuclear weaponry to make up for potential conventional overmatch by a Dark Quad coalition.

Despite this, Biden-Harris Administration officials continue to mouth shopworn platitudes about our aim of “reducing reliance upon nuclear weapons.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but such statements are at this point, tragically, dangerous nonsense.

We some of this as recently as last month [June 2024], when National Security Council (NSC) Senior Director Pranay Vaddi told the Arms Control Association that the Biden Administration remains “committed to seeking … a world without nuclear weapons” and to “reducing the global salience of nuclear weapons.” His speech made headlines for his comment that if other powers are “unwilling to follow” our lead in reducing reliance upon nuclear weapons — and they “instead take steps to increase the salience of nuclear weapons – we will have no choice but to adjust our posture and capabilities to preserve deterrence and stability.” We “may reach a point in the coming years,” he said, “where an increase from current deployed numbers is required.”

Now, Pranay is a friend whom I’ve known for years from his previous service working on arms control issues as a career official at the State Department, and I like him personally. I also appreciate the importance of him giving notice to the Arms Control Association that the disarmament-focused framework around which they have constructed their conceptual universe is falling down around their collective ears.

Yet you may have noted Pranay’s careful conditionalities and his effort still to distance the Biden Administration from the real point. He said that “if” our adversaries don’t follow our lead, we “may” at some point need more nuclear weapons. But what he’s carefully not saying is what is, in fact, unfortunately all too true. Namely: (a) we’ve been trying that for many years, and our adversaries have not followed our lead in reducing reliance upon nuclear weapons; (b) our effort to “lead” a path toward disarmament has been at best wildly unsuccessful and perhaps even counterproductive; and (c) if we are to restore deterrent stability, we need – not “in the coming years,” but in fact now – more nuclear capabilities than we presently have.

These truths have, alas, been apparent for some while. Indeed, when I myself had Pranay’s current role in the Trump Administration NSC in 2017, I spoke to a nuclear disarmament group called the Ploughshares Foundation to roll out the findings of an internal NSC review of U.S. disarmament policy I had led, which concluded that the United States’ post-Cold War approach to disarmament had not produced the results it intended, that it had “run out of steam,” and that new thinking was therefore necessary. All that is even more true today, and the advent of the Dark Quad is simply driving this point home with painful acuteness.

I desperately wish this weren’t the case, but putting our heads in the sand about this during an election year is no way to meet the challenges with which our adversaries confront us.

-- Christopher Ford

newparadigmsforum.com

2. US colonel claims Israeli special forces, American legionaries killed in Yemen

Those damn retired Colonels. COlLMacgregor strikes again.

Video at the link: https://www.turkiyetoday.com/region/us-colonel-claims-israeli-special-forces-american-legionaries-killed-in-yemen-38381/

When I first read "Legionaires" in the headline I thought they meant Legionnaires which would be 5th Special Forces Group (AKA: The Legion).

US colonel claims Israeli special forces, American legionaries killed in Yemen - Türkiye Today

turkiyetoday.com

Douglas Macgregor, a former Pentagon advisor during Donald Trump’s administration, has claimed that a group of 70 Israeli Special Forces and American mercenaries were killed during a covert operation in Yemen.

Speaking in a recent interview, Col. Macgregor alleged that the group, primarily composed of Israelis, was detected by Russian satellites shortly after infiltrating Yemen. The information was reportedly relayed by Russia to Iran, who then informed the Houthis.

Macgregor stated, “The operation involved 70 personnel, including Israeli soldiers and some American mercenaries. After successfully infiltrating Yemen, they were likely tracked by Russian satellites. The Russians passed this intelligence to the Iranians, who immediately informed the Houthis via telegram.”

According to Macgregor, the group was ambushed and killed, with footage reportedly available of the aftermath.

He added that while most of the deceased were Israelis, some American mercenaries and possibly British contractors were also involved.

In response to Israel’s massacres in the Gaza Strip since October 7, the Houthis have targeted ships and Israeli vessels that pass through the Gulf of Aden and trade with Israel, putting trade in the Red Sea at risk. The coalition led by the U.S. and the U.K., with the support of Israel, is targeting the Houthis.

turkiyetoday.com

3. China’s Great Wall of Villages

Please go to the link to view this interactive story at the NY Times website.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/08/10/world/asia/china-border-villages.html?utm

China’s Great Wall of Villages

China has moved thousands of people to new settlements on its frontiers. It calls them “border guardians.”

By Muyi Xiao and Agnes Chang Aug. 8, 2024

Qionglin New Village sits deep in the Himalayas, just three miles from a region where a heavy military buildup and confrontations between Chinese and Indian troops have brought fears of a border war.

The land was once an empty valley, more than 10,000 feet above the sea, traversed only by local hunters. Then Chinese officials built Qionglin, a village of cookie-cutter homes and finely paved roads, and paid people to move there from other settlements.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, calls such people “border guardians.” Qionglin’s villagers are essentially sentries on the front line of China’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh, India’s easternmost state, which Beijing insists is part of Chinese-ruled Tibet.

Many villages like Qionglin have sprung up. In China’s west, they give its sovereignty a new, undeniable permanence along boundaries contested by India, Bhutan and Nepal. In its north, the settlements bolster security and promote trade with Central Asia. In the south, they guard against the flow of drugs and crime from Southeast Asia.

4. How the culture wars poisoned American politics — and how to fix it

You can listen to the report at the link or read the transcript below:

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/08/09/culture-wars-james-davison-hunter-politics

I think we need to recall E pluribus unum and remember that we should be embracing that as a fundamental American value even though we must still work through the contradictions and inconsistencies. It is unfortunate that we have become so afraid of and disrespectful to "the other."

HUNTER: I think the American project was a project embedded in the national motto of E pluribus unum, out of many. There was one diversity difference, not only racially and ethnically, but in terms of competing different religious beliefs, philosophical points of view, competing interests, difference constitutes our nation. And there was this not only a belief, but a hope and an aspiration that across our differences and in spite of our differences, there would be things that would hold us together, that would function as a kind of glue or an adhesive binding us together in that common project, a project of freedom, of equality.

Of toleration. That was the aspiration.

CHAKRABARTI: That is an aspiration that I fully believe in as a proud American. But the immediate, one of the immediate responses to the belief that this is one of the key ties that bind us together as citizens. Is that perhaps even though E pluribus unum was a founding idea of this country, we have never fully reached that, right?

It's still just an idea, right? That the whole project of America in fact, has been the slow and hard and painful work in bringing more people into that unum. And so in that case, though, how can we actually say that there's been this foundational belief in equality and solidarity in this country, if so much of the history of this nation has been pushed from the people from the outside who have been relegated to the fringes of society, trying to get into the center of American life.

HUNTER: That's right. The cultural sources of that vision, that aspiration, that out of many, there would still be one, and a kind of unity or solidarity around the ideals of freedom and equality, those cultural resources and the ideals themselves were plagued by inconsistencies and contradictions from the very beginning. It was an ethical vision for the reconstitution of public life in ways that would again, aspirationally, expand freedom, expand equality, toleration and so on. And yet those contradictions were present at the beginning. We promised freedom but denied freedom to huge swaths of the American public. We promised equality and yet denied equality.

Those contradictions were present from the very beginning, and the story of American political history and of our public life is in large part a story of working through those contradictions in ways that took a long time, that were painful, that were difficult, that were sometimes violent, but that ultimately were moving toward. A more complete and perfect union. So what's implied there is that any society, any civilization, any government depends upon a certain kind of solidarity, certain kind of adhesive that binds us together. And yet all solidarity defined by certain boundaries of who is in and who is out, who is included and who is excluded.

And in some respects, the argument I'm making is about the conflict over the course of American history, over those boundaries. Who is included and who is excluded. And I think what makes this story historically and ethically compelling is the fact that these boundaries are constantly evolving, they're constantly changing, and they're constantly contested, so that those who early in American history saw themselves included, now are beginning to feel excluded.

And so and groups that we never even imagined in public life is being part of the diversity of American society, are now arguing and claiming a space for themselves to be included. So the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion is part of the underlying history of American political life.

And those boundaries and the contestation of those boundaries are what defined so much of the American culture wars today.

How the culture wars poisoned American politics — and how to fix it

August 09, 2024Jonathan ChangMeghna Chakrabarti

wbur.org · by Jonathan Chang

More than 30 years ago, sociologist James Davison Hunter coined the term "culture wars." Since then, those wars have poisoned American politics.

How could we end America's culture wars?

Today, On Point: How the culture wars poisoned American politics — and how to fix it.

Guest

James Davison Hunter, professor of religion, culture and social theory at the University of Virginia. Executive director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.

Transcript

Part I

(MONTAGE)

NEWS #1: We want to turn now to the sharp rise in book bans in America's schools and libraries.

NEWS #2: Governor Doug Ducey signed into law bills targeting transgender and abortion rights. Inserting Arizona into the culture wars.

NEWS #3: Iowa lawmakers considered legislation preventing transgender females from participating in girls and women's sports.

NEWS #4: Monuments torn down or carted off by work crews. Symbols being reconsidered as a full and fast reexamination of America's checkered past is playing out in real time.

NEWS #5: Critical race theory. It is a debate dividing schools across the United States.

NEWS #6: And Republicans like former President Trump have been seizing on the issue in final campaign pitches.

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: America's Culture Wars. They've become so ubiquitous. It's hard to imagine a time where politics wasn't defined exclusively by a battle for America's soul. Perhaps that time never actually existed. And the story of this country is the story of a perpetual battle towards the ideal that is E pluribus unum, out of many. Back in 1991, sociologist James Davison Hunter popularized the phrase culture wars. It was in the title of his book called Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, where he argued that cultural issues were growing in importance in American politics. And now, more than 30 years later, Hunter himself is surprised by how right he was.

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America's culture wars have metastasized so that many groups believe they are in a maximalist battle against their own extinction. Whether it's far right natalists panicking over the declining white birth rate, or academic theorists popularizing the belief that words are violence, and that the very existence of disagreeable opinions constitute doing harm.

Hunter says that culture wars have so completely poisoned American politics that they've made authoritarianism dangerously attractive to too many. So what's the alternative? That's the question he explores in his new book, Democracy and Solidarity on the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis.

And he joins us now. Professor Hunter, welcome to On Point.

JAMES DAVISON HUNTER: Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: I feel like I talk on this show, we talk a lot about cultural issues. And I've never actually had a guest define what they mean by culture in America. So in the context of these culture wars, how would you define what culture is?

HUNTER: There are different ways of understanding culture, but I understand culture primarily as the frameworks of meaning and understanding that orient a person's life, and that guide the building and evolution of institutions. So it's both individual and collective. And out of those interpretations of the world around us, there are strategies of action. There are artifacts that are created. But it all comes down, I think, originally to the symbolic and expressive elements of a civilization. And how they provide, again, the frameworks for meaning, for understanding, for individual and collective life.

CHAKRABARTI: So can you give me an example or two of what you think the important symbolic elements of American cultural life or the project that is America would be?

HUNTER: I think the American project was a project embedded in the national motto of E pluribus unum, out of many. There was one diversity difference, not only racially and ethnically, but in terms of competing different religious beliefs, philosophical points of view, competing interests, difference constitutes our nation. And there was this not only a belief, but a hope and an aspiration that across our differences and in spite of our differences, there would be things that would hold us together, that would function as a kind of glue or an adhesive binding us together in that common project, a project of freedom, of equality.

Of toleration. That was the aspiration.

CHAKRABARTI: That is an aspiration that I fully believe in as a proud American. But the immediate, one of the immediate responses to the belief that this is one of the key ties that bind us together as citizens. Is that perhaps even though E pluribus unum was a founding idea of this country, we have never fully reached that, right?

It's still just an idea, right? That the whole project of America in fact, has been the slow and hard and painful work in bringing more people into that unum. And so in that case, though, how can we actually say that there's been this foundational belief in equality and solidarity in this country, if so much of the history of this nation has been pushed from the people from the outside who have been relegated to the fringes of society, trying to get into the center of American life.

HUNTER: That's right. The cultural sources of that vision, that aspiration, that out of many, there would still be one, and a kind of unity or solidarity around the ideals of freedom and equality, those cultural resources and the ideals themselves were plagued by inconsistencies and contradictions from the very beginning. It was an ethical vision for the reconstitution of public life in ways that would again, aspirationally, expand freedom, expand equality, toleration and so on. And yet those contradictions were present at the beginning. We promised freedom but denied freedom to huge swaths of the American public. We promised equality and yet denied equality.

Those contradictions were present from the very beginning, and the story of American political history and of our public life is in large part a story of working through those contradictions in ways that took a long time, that were painful, that were difficult, that were sometimes violent, but that ultimately were moving toward. A more complete and perfect union. So what's implied there is that any society, any civilization, any government depends upon a certain kind of solidarity, certain kind of adhesive that binds us together. And yet all solidarity defined by certain boundaries of who is in and who is out, who is included and who is excluded.

And in some respects, the argument I'm making is about the conflict over the course of American history, over those boundaries. Who is included and who is excluded. And I think what makes this story historically and ethically compelling is the fact that these boundaries are constantly evolving, they're constantly changing, and they're constantly contested, so that those who early in American history saw themselves included, now are beginning to feel excluded.

And so and groups that we never even imagined in public life is being part of the diversity of American society, are now arguing and claiming a space for themselves to be included. So the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion is part of the underlying history of American political life.

And those boundaries and the contestation of those boundaries are what defined so much of the American culture wars today.

CHAKRABARTI: Thinking through American history, I have to say that it's a little sobering that at least examples that I can think of in our past, our collective past, where those contests have been resolved, but not easily and frequently not without violence.

HUNTER: That's right.

CHAKRABARTI: And I want to talk with you about that in a moment, but we have about a minute or so before we have to take our first break here. I'm wondering, what do you think is different now? In terms of the intensity of America's culture wars, than in times past where those boundaries, as you were saying, were contested.

HUNTER: The earliest years of the culture war were operating within a cultural framework that I describe as the hybrid enlightenment. All of the great democratic revolutions of the 18th and 19th century were the offspring of the enlightenment. But in the United States, in America, it was a hybrid enlightenment that was every bit as religious as it was secular.

And it drew from these resources historically. Today I would say that there's largely been an abandonment of those resources, both on the right and on the left, in ways that I think are deformations of their own highest ideals. So that's one difference. Another difference, I think, is that the culture war has increasingly become a class war, as well. Economic resentments and alienation felt by the right is compounded by a cultural alienation. So those are two, I think, important differences.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Professor Hunter, I actually just want to go back for a second, for a moment to the analysis that you put forth in 1991 in your book, Culture Wars, where you talked about how the United States had basically since the '60s, but definitely through the '80s and early '90s entered this period where there was a divide in beliefs between two groups that you called the orthodoxy belief or those who believe in some kind of transcendent truth and progressive beliefs in terms of the ever evolving sense of what truth is.

And those two camps didn't necessarily fall neatly along party lines, which I thought was very important. But what I think is really fascinating is I've seen in interviews that you've given subsequently that you were surprised by how thoroughly culture wars have taken over American politics.

Why did that surprise you? Because it seemed that your 1991 analysis was pretty trenchant

HUNTER: Understood culture wars primarily against the backdrop of the sweep of 20th century politics. For most of the 20th century, we understood political conflict through the lens of political economy, and by that I mean through the lens of social class.

Through the lens of the conflict between labor unions and business interests, between corporations and the working class. Left and right defined themselves along those lines, but in the last third of the 20th century, conflict was being defined differently. And you would see these conflicts emerge.

As discreet issues, the conflict over abortion, of course, is the most important, but the conflict over funding for the arts, conflict over public education, what's taught and what's not taught. Conflict over the canon in higher education and so on. And I understood the culture war to be fairly comprehensive, and part of the goal of that book was to show how these discreet issues, in fact, were woven together.

In a conflict over what America has been, what it is, or at least understood to be now, and what it will become. It was a conflict over the meaning of America, but I mainly understood that in terms of the major institutions of public life, the media, of higher education and education more broadly, of the arts, of government itself, of law.

I think part of what has surprised me is that it was even more comprehensive than that. It spilled out of public life and into private life. I've seen articles about the culture war over gardening. I've seen reports about the culture war over food and restaurants and dog walking, and these conflicts at one level just seem trivial, but to the people who are involved, it feels like war.

It really does. These are not marginal experiences. These are, and again, it's because culture is ultimately about how we understand the nature of a good life and the nature of a good society. And when you have competing visions of a good life, and a good society, conflict almost always emerges from that, unless there's some kind of common assumptions.

CHAKRABARTI: But to me, it seems like the critical thing is that it's not that people just have competing visions of what constitutes a good life, but that there's almost this universal belief now that anyone, if your vision is different than mine, your vision is de facto wrong and evil and de facto a threat to my vision of what a good life is.

I think that's the extreme that we've come to, it makes it hard to even have one particular value that we can all rally around, which is, you know, a diversity of opinion, for example.

HUNTER: That's right. It is the cultural conflict goes so deep that the mere presence of someone with a different opinion or contrary opinion is viewed as an existential threat.

What do you do when you're in the presence of an existential threat? You cancel them. You want them gone. They are viewed as an intolerable presence and intolerable enemy. And I think those kinds of dynamics are present. I argue that the authoritarian impulse in our society becomes manifest in the attempt to address the absence of solidarity. If solidarity can't be generated organically, if it can't be found, and the warp and wolf of community life and of public life, if solidarity can't be generated in those ways, it will be imposed coercively.

And I'll just call to mind an observation made over a hundred years ago by Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said, between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but force. Again, if you perceive the world in such a way that the very presence of someone who holds different opinions, contrary opinions, who is willing to and eager to argue against what you believe, it creates an incendiary environment for politics. And so what we do is we hold those people in contempt and we refuse to even engage them, and I think that's part of the story right now.

In the early 1980s, early 1990s, people were still willing to engage each other. I'm not sure that the arguments got very far, but the very process of engaging each other was important. I think we've largely given up. There's an exhaustion. And that spells some trouble.

CHAKRABARTI: I'm trying to, I'm thinking of, what am I trying to say here about solidarity? Because like you were saying in the early, in the '80s and '90s, perhaps people were still willing to engage with each other.

But that's when we hear, but that's also when we hear the language or the beginnings of the language of this existential attack, right? Particularly from Christian conservatives who had a sense that their very beliefs, their way of life were under attack by an increasingly secular America.

And the thing is I think If we look back in time in the United States, and I know you won't disagree with this, but that there have always been Americans who rightfully have thought that their existences were under attack. It's just that they didn't, they did not possess the dominant voices in this country.

And so I think it is really just the biggest difference now, or one. ... And I'm not actually making light of this because it's important, but the difference now is that the people who previously were the arbiters of the institutions that brought the solidarity that you're talking about, are the ones who are feeling under attack.

No question about it. Much of the story of American public and political life over the course of the last 150 years or so is a story of the marginalization of conservative, but more broadly Christianity in general, but of conservative religion and conservative Christianity in particular, from the culture defining institutions of public life.

There was a time, of course, when Christianity infused not only our politics and our law, but our philanthropy, education, all of the major institutions of American public life. And again, the story is a story of increasing marginalization from very powerful institutions and I think that story can be told, the story of the scopes trial is a story where, in fact, William Jennings Bryan defending creationism won the case, legally.

But lost the case culturally, and from that the Christian understanding of the origins of humanity and of the world was ridiculed. It lost ground as something intellectually serious. And from the intellectual life, it moved to family values in the 1980s, in a way, family values were held in common through much of the 20th century, until the 1980s. And now even the conservative view of family life, of marriage, of how to raise children, even that was being marginal, and that Christian view is being marginalized. And so much of the current culture war was a response. A defensive response to the pluralization, to the diversifying view of these values of intimate life.

CHAKRABARTI: In that sense, were the culture wars and the extremist version that we are experiencing now in this country, were they almost inevitable? Because the United States, I see the United States as this glorious anomaly in terms of human history, right? This long term, right?

This long-term attempt to really form a cohesive, diverse, not just racially, but religiously and take your pick of beliefs diverse democracy, which fights against what I see as what had previously been the sources of solidarity in other human societies, right? Whether it's race or religion or a belief in a certain kind of government, we were trying to throw all that together here.

So were we doomed to have to enter these culture wars?

HUNTER: I don't know if we were doomed to the culture wars. I do think that there is something unique about America as a nation, we did not inherit a deep national identity. We didn't inherit deep class interests and a kind of class structure. We had to make it up as we went along, and the founders of the new republic understood America in those terms. All things were new. It was a new order for the ages, and they understood it as an experiment in freedom. And I think in some respects, we've become too complacent.

We simply came to the conclusion, I think for a long time, that things were moving along just fine, that we could solve. Look, Americans are pragmatic people. They're committed to fixing things, and yet America is far more diverse culturally, religiously, in identitarian ways, than the founders could have possibly imagined.

We live in a far more technologically complex society. And in a way, the experiment continues. And yet we've given up on working through those new challenges. Look, at the end of the day, whatever else democracy is, it's an agreement not to kill each other over our differences.

Rather, it's an agreement that we're going to talk those differences through, as deep as they may be. This is why political violence is so anathema within a democracy. Part of what makes our current moment so incendiary, and I think so challenging, is that we see not only within the American public, but within the political leadership, an unwillingness to do the hard work of talking through those differences. In a way, they've said, look, the only way forward is for the other side to just disappear.

And that's the one that touches on the existential issues that you've raised a number.

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah, because I guess what I'm trying, what I'm struggling with is trying to find an example in U.S. history where this ideal of being able to talk through differences to reach a kind of consensus was ever truly realized.

In previous interviews, for example, I've heard you talk about how what did it take in U.S. history to actually resolve the terrible Dred Scott decision, right? It took, eventually it took a Civil War, it took failed reconstruction, it took Jim Crow, it took the Civil Rights Movement, it took 100 years.

That is not a process of constructive conversation leading to consensus. It involved terrible destruction, didn't it?

HUNTER: It did. Yeah. And the Civil War was, one way of seeing the Civil War was the end of any kind of conversation about it. And it highlights a point that there was a 30 years culture war that preceded the Civil War.

And it was when they decided to stop talking, when certain states seceded from the union, they, and the word union is important here. They seceded from the solidarity of the United States that signaled that the conversation was over. And the only way to preserve the union was through war.

Yeah. And it was the bloodiest war in our history. And destruction was promiscuous. It was just, it was awful. So yeah ... it's a different moment. And we would never divide the nation in ways that are North and South or regional in that sense, because violence doesn't manifest itself that way in a late modern society.

wbur.org · by Jonathan Chang

5. As Ukrainian Forces Grab Russian Territory, the Kremlin Maintains It’s No Big Deal

But I wonder what Putin is saying inside the Kremlin. I would hate to be one of his officials bringing him the bad news.

As Ukrainian Forces Grab Russian Territory, the Kremlin Maintains It’s No Big Deal

Ukrainian thrust into Kursk raises questions about Russian military capabilities and where Putin’s red lines really lie

https://www.wsj.com/world/as-ukrainian-forces-grab-russian-territory-the-kremlin-maintains-its-no-big-deal-0cebb891?mod=hp_lead_pos8

By Yaroslav TrofimovFollow and Thomas GroveFollow

Aug. 10, 2024 3:25 pm ET

In the five days since Ukrainian forces pushed into Russia’s Kursk region, at least 76,000 Russian civilians have fled the fighting—some seen racing away in shrapnel-peppered cars. A tent city for refugees is being set up in the regional capital.

The first major foreign military invasion of Russian territory since World War II, the Ukrainian incursion caught Moscow by surprise. Kyiv’s forces have advanced at least 20 miles in from the border and raised a Ukrainian flag in the town of Sudzha.

Videos posted online show a column of Russian reinforcements taking heavy losses Friday near another town in the area, Rylsk, and Ukrainian troops released footage with well over a hundred Russian prisoners. At least three Russian combat helicopters have been shot down, according to Russian military analysts.

Still, on Russian TV—and in the Kremlin’s pronouncements—the tumultuous events of recent days are presented as nearly routine, with Ukrainian forces usually referred to as “saboteurs” who are “attempting” an incursion. President Vladimir Putin described the advance of Ukrainian armored units as “yet another large-scale provocation.” 

The chief of Russia’s general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, said no more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops were involved. Russia’s Defense Ministry later said 1,120 Ukrainian troops have been killed, sparking online ridicule of the defense establishment by Russian nationalist bloggers.

On Friday, the Russian government described activities in the border regions of Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod as a “counterterrorist operation,” giving them the same legal status as law-enforcement actions against Islamist extremist groups in the northern Caucasus.

This placed the fighting on the Ukrainian border under the overall command of the Federal Security Service, Russia’s domestic intelligence agency—rather than the military.

“There can be no rally around the flag effect for an authoritarian regime that is losing,” said self-exiled Russian political analyst Abbas Gallyamov, who used to be one of Putin’s speechwriters. “The authoritarian public only respects strength—if you win, you become more popular. But if you start losing, and the defeat in Kursk is obvious, then you remain alone and people don’t just turn away from you, they start hating and despising you.”

A satellite image shows a Sudzha border crossing in the Kursk region of Russia. Photo: 2024 Planet Labs Inc/Reuters

It was a wave of public outrage about the conduct of the war—and Russian combat losses—that fueled the most serious challenge to Putin’s rule so far, last summer’s brief mutiny by the Wagner paramilitary group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin. Wagner easily took the southern Russian city of Rostov and rolled virtually unopposed toward Moscow before aborting the uprising.

It appears that Russia has managed to slow down Ukrainian advances in Kursk, but it is nowhere near regaining the lost territory so far, and Russian military bloggers said Kyiv seized an additional Russian village, Plekhovo, on Saturday. “We must look at this situation with sobriety,” Russian lawmaker Andrey Gurulev, a retired lieutenant-general, told Russian TV as he pointed to the size of invading Ukrainian units. “We won’t be able to push them out quickly.”

The Ukrainian move into Sudzha followed a similar, but less successful, Russian cross-border offensive in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region in May. That operation prompted the U.S. and allies to relax longstanding restrictions on using Western-supplied weapons on Russian soil. Washington still maintains the ban on striking Russian targets outside border areas, such as military airfields, with American-supplied ATACMS missiles, out of fear of sparking escalation by the Kremlin. 

Putin’s muted reaction to the invasion of Kursk, however, raises questions about what red lines the Russian leader really has—and whether Western hesitation to arm Ukraine, a result of concerns about Russian escalation, was a strategic mistake.

“We have to see how the Russians respond, but this is an assault on its territorial integrity and ultimately sovereignty,” said John Foreman, a former U.K. defense attaché in Russia. “So the question is what is a red line.”

President Putin described the advance of Ukrainian armored units as ‘yet another large-scale provocation.’ Photo: Kremlin Pool/Zuma Press

For now, at least, there is no evidence of popular outrage directed at Putin outside the immediately affected areas of Kursk region. Russia’s hypernationalist war analysts are fuming about the failures of the Russian Defense Ministry. Some of them have demanded the firing of Gerasimov, and the return to the front of former Ukraine war commander Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was briefly detained and sidelined last year because of his ties to Prigozhin, and Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army who criticized the General Staff last year and is now in jail on corruption charges.

But this criticism is limited—in part because several hypernationalist commentators have been jailed or died in mysterious circumstances in the wake of the Wagner uprising. Just as the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk began, Russia tightened restrictions on YouTube and imposed curbs on the Signal messaging service, trying to contain the flow of information. 

“War has become so routine in people’s minds, that even such serious failures as the seizure of internationally recognized Russian territory is treated as something like: Meh, it happens,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and a former adviser at the Russian central bank. “I don’t think anything can mobilize Russian society at this point. Generally speaking, the Russian people have wanted and keep wanting the same thing: to be left alone.”

Women look at a house in Russia’s Belgorod region destroyed by recent Ukrainian strikes. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The events in Kursk aren’t completely unprecedented. There were brief incursions into Russia’s Belgorod region last year by Ukrainian-backed Russian fighters, including men from the Freedom of Russia Legion. But, unlike now, they never got past the immediate border villages, and were pushed out within a day or two.

Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian parliament member and now one of the opposition leaders affiliated with the Freedom of Russia Legion, said Putin’s Russian foes like him want to deploy to “liberated” areas of Kursk and set up a government there—but so far Ukraine’s government hasn’t approved such a step.

“These events can become the turning point of the war,” said Ponomarev, who survived a Russian drone strike on his home near Kyiv this month. “To end the war, we need political changes in Russia. And if there is liberated territory, we could create an alternative power there, and the agenda of political change will turn from hypothetical to real.”

While the Ukrainian offensive into the internationally recognized Russian territory might seem a dramatic turn of events to many in the West, it is less so in Russia because the Kremlin’s propaganda treats all of the fighting in the Ukrainian war as occurring on Russian soil. 

A photo taken from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry. Photo: Associated Press

Moscow, after all, announced the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine in the fall of 2022—and, from the point of view of the Russian constitution, there is no legal distinction between a Ukrainian offensive in Kursk or in occupied southern Ukraine.

The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations on Saturday said there were 76,000 registered refugees from affected areas of the Kursk region, though the total number of civilians who fled their homes was likely much higher. The total population of the Kursk region, home to one of Russia’s main nuclear power stations, is just over one million, with nearly half living in the regional capital. Putin announced after the invasion began that each person displaced from the border area will be eligible for a one-time payment of 10,000 rubles, or $115, a small sum even in Russia.

In the city of Rylsk, as few as 5,000 people out of 15,000 residents still remain as buses and private cars evacuate them to safety, according to district chief Andrey Belousov. The escapees are using a highway to Kursk that, according to Russian media, is already targeted by drones flown by advancing Ukrainian forces.

Women and children being evacuated from Rylsk in the Kursk region. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In a video posted on a Sudzha chat group shortly after the Ukrainian incursion, a crowd of local residents said they were forced to flee their homes carrying little more than the clothes they were wearing. In their appeal to Putin, they said they supported the war in Ukraine he unleashed in February 2022 but now had been left with nothing.

“Over the course of several hours our city was turned into rubble,” said one resident of the region around Sudzha, where most of the fighting took place. “Now we’ve had our land and homes taken from us and we escaped under fire.”

Appeals for evacuation assistance flooded local chat groups on Telegram, Russia’s most popular messaging app. Offers for housing in nearby cities, likewise came from volunteers looking to house the thousands of men, women and children who fled the fighting. In the main regional city of Kursk, lines formed downtown as tons of humanitarian aid from government and private organizations was distributed to evacuees.

In another video posted on the same local Telegram channel, a woman near lines for humanitarian aid who gave her name as Lyudmila said her pregnant daughter had been shot dead in Sudzha. “Where is our government?” she yelled. “Putin, help please! The villages are being flattened, but you probably don’t know about the horrors there.”

Humanitarian aid being collected for evacuated residents of the Russian border areas. Photo: Belkin Alexey/Zuma Press

The incident has seen criticism of Russia’s top military brass flare again, albeit cautiously. A defense ministry official and the commander of the Chechen-run Akhmat unit of special forces, Apti Alaudinov, has publicly pointed the finger at Russian generals, saying they likely had the intelligence about the attack but failed to do anything about it.

“Some leaders of the Defense Ministry kept lying and lying, and I think it turned out they ultimately lied to themselves,” Alaudinov, who is deployed in Kursk, said in an interview widely carried on Russian Telegram channels. “We’ll have to work hard in the coming weeks.”

The governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, Saturday tried to visit the village of Poroz to disprove Ukrainian claims of control, but said he couldn’t reach it because of the security situation.

“The troops now have to carry out their work,” Gladkov told the residents of another village some 3 miles away. “If things get worse, we’ll have to abandon this village. If you have children, you’ll have to take them away. If you have relatives nearby, you’ll also have to take them away.” 

As Gladkov was returning to Belgorod, he said, a car in front of his convoy was hit by a Ukrainian drone. He posted a video showing the aftermath of the strike.

A convoy of Russian Army trucks destroyed by a Ukrainian strike near Rylsk. Photo: Anatoliy Zhdanov/Associated Press

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com

6. The State Department's Gaza Policy Has Failed

State Department policy of administration policy? I do not recall the State Department (or DOD) as being an independent policy making body.  

I am not sure their prescriptions offer anything of substance. Like all foreign policy your mileage may vary. But they are offering a dire warning (that seems to fit their agenda).

Excerpts:

The assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran is not only an attempt to draw Iran and the United States into a war; it is also a sure-fire way to destroy cease-fire negotiations. Haniyeh, as the head of Hamas’s political wing based in Qatar, was one of the leading figures reportedly attempting to get concessions from Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader on the ground in Gaza.

Netanyahu rejects a two-state solution and instead seeks a perpetually inflamed Middle East enabling him to finish the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and annexation of the West Bank—and the U.S. government is letting the flames spread.

The Biden administration is well aware of the dangers Netanyahu poses. Yet instead of taking a firm line, using diplomatic leverage, such as military assistance, to rein these continuous escalations in, it continues to behave in a fearful and cowardly way—allowing an extremist foreign leader to determine whether the United States gets pulled into yet another disastrous war.

Washington is walking into this conflagration with its eyes wide open. As an 18-year veteran of the foreign service and a newcomer to the civil service, we fear that the damage to U.S. national security and diplomacy could be far worse than anything we’ve seen in recent history, including the global war on terrorism and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The State Department's Gaza Policy Has Failed

Two former U.S. officials on how Harris can repair Washington’s image in the Middle East.

By Hala Rharrit, a former U.S. diplomat, who served for 18 years with the U.S. State Department, before resigning in April 2024 in opposition to the Biden administration's Gaza policy, and Annelle Sheline, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center DC.

Foreign Policy · by Hala Rharrit, Annelle Sheline

• Foreign & Public Diplomacy
• Elections
• United States

August 9, 2024, 9:29 AM

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a war with Iran, as he clearly laid out in his address to the U.S. Congress last month. He returned to Israel emboldened to carry out that goal, seemingly certain of U.S. support—ordering the killing of a top Hamas official on Iranian soil just seven days later.

Following Israel’s July 31 assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken quickly asserted that Washington was “not aware of or involved in” the military operation. Yet given the high level of coordination, particularly intelligence sharing, between the United States and Israel, speculation is rife that the U.S. government was involved or at least condoned the action—as Iranian officials have suggested.

This perception is particularly widespread in the Middle East, which is still reeling from the images of U.S. legislators applauding Netanyahu, a man accused of war crimes in Gaza. Merely the perception of U.S. involvement in the assassination has an escalatory effect. This is not in the interests of the United States and threatens the American people.

The assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran is not only an attempt to draw Iran and the United States into a war; it is also a sure-fire way to destroy cease-fire negotiations. Haniyeh, as the head of Hamas’s political wing based in Qatar, was one of the leading figures reportedly attempting to get concessions from Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader on the ground in Gaza.

Netanyahu rejects a two-state solution and instead seeks a perpetually inflamed Middle East enabling him to finish the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and annexation of the West Bank—and the U.S. government is letting the flames spread.

The Biden administration is well aware of the dangers Netanyahu poses. Yet instead of taking a firm line, using diplomatic leverage, such as military assistance, to rein these continuous escalations in, it continues to behave in a fearful and cowardly way—allowing an extremist foreign leader to determine whether the United States gets pulled into yet another disastrous war.

Washington is walking into this conflagration with its eyes wide open. As an 18-year veteran of the foreign service and a newcomer to the civil service, we fear that the damage to U.S. national security and diplomacy could be far worse than anything we’ve seen in recent history, including the global war on terrorism and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Experts inside the State Department have been warning the administration for months that unconditional support for Israel was both a morally bankrupt decision and one that directly contradicted U.S. interests in the region. Yet we and our colleagues were sidelined and silenced, and now the United States is on the brink of being drawn into a wider war that does not serve the interests of American people.

Since Israel launched its full-scale assault following Hamas’s terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, commentators have asked whether senior U.S. officials have known what is happening in Gaza. The question implies that if they were watching the horrors that flooded social media, they would have to insist that Israel change its behavior or else withdraw U.S. support. Yet, as State Department spokesperson for the Middle East and North Africa region, Hala sent these images and videos to their inboxes every day: The State Department cannot claim it was unaware of what Israel, with U.S. arms, was doing to the civilian population of Gaza.

In April, in opposition to the Biden administration’s Gaza policy, Hala resigned from her latest assignment at the U.S. Consulate in Dubai. In March, Annelle resigned from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in protest of the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israeli military operations in Gaza.

Based on our experiences, the State Department is willfully ignoring the fundamental shifts occurring in the region as a result of unconditional U.S. support for Israel. Far too many people in the U.S. government are enabling a policy they recognize is wrong and illegal. This erroneous and dangerous decision-making is coming from the top and sending the message to all those below to fall in line or risk career consequences.

Biden, Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and White House Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk seem to think the United States can pursue this policy and face few long-term consequences, when in fact irreversible damage has been done and we are now on the brink of an outbreak of violence across the region. This is what Netanyahu seeks, with the support of more American boots on the ground in the Middle East.

By continuing to fund, arm, and defend Israel’s attacks on civilians in Gaza and other gross human rights violations, such as the obstruction of food, clean water, and medicine into Gaza, the Biden administration has destroyed U.S. credibility and gravely increased the national security threat to the United States. U.S. complicity is putting a target on the backs of U.S. diplomats and service members for potential retaliation, while it increasingly destabilizes the Middle East and North Africa.

Genuine pressure on Israel and Hamas to enact a Gaza cease-fire could dial down tensions across the region.

Indeed, Arab publics have been protesting for months. July 26 marked the 42nd consecutive week of Moroccans protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza. More than 4,000 miles away, protesters again took to the streets in Muscat, Oman, in support of Palestinians. Jordan has even more intense scenes of mass protests. This is alarming: Morocco and Jordan both have normalized relations with Israel, and until last October, public protest in Oman was exceedingly rare.

In October, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was forced to evacuate some personnel due to attacks related to the Gaza conflict. In January, three U.S. service members were killed at Tower 22 in Jordan near the Syrian border in response to U.S. support of Israel. Now, after seven months of relative calm, Iran-backed militias are again targeting U.S. troops. On July 25 and 26, militias launched rockets at U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria. On Aug. 5, rockets injured U.S. service members at a military base in Iraq.

U.S. intelligence officials have highlighted such threats for months. FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed concerns in October about possible threats to the United States, saying that groups such as al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Hezbollah were calling for attacks. In March, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines described a “generational impact on terrorism.” As of July, terrorist groups are using Gaza as a recruitment tool, according to the head of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Against this backdrop, State Department officials found it increasingly impossible to try to advance other aspects of U.S. policy, such as advocating for human rights. When meeting with members of civil society from North Africa, for example, department representatives would ask about the ways their governments were cracking down on fundamental freedoms. But these individuals would instead want to talk about Gaza and what the United States was enabling there.

State officials could only offer half-hearted assurances that the U.S. government was committed to cease-fire negotiations, a fiction belied by Biden’s dogged refusal to impose consequences on Israel, despite Netanyahu repeatedly rejecting cease-fire proposals. Similarly, when the State Department would ask representatives of Arab governments about political prisoners or restrictions on journalists, they would immediately respond with some version of, “How can you criticize us? Look at what you are doing in Gaza!” The Biden administration claimed that human rights would be central to its foreign policy; instead, it has destroyed U.S. diplomats’ ability to advocate for human rights.

The State Department has acknowledged this privately. A recently leaked internal document demonstrates that senior leaders at the department are aware that U.S. policy is irrevocably damaging U.S. credibility in the Middle East. Yet even though senior State Department officials received daily reports on Gaza and conceded the damage that unconditional U.S. support for Israel was doing to the United States’ standing in the region, their response was not to push back on the policy but rather enable it.

For example, in the role of spokesperson, Hala was repeatedly pressured to go out on Arab media and promote the policy, no matter the negative ramifications for the United States. She refused, not only because she felt it was morally wrong and a violation of U.S. and international law but also because it was causing intense backlash against the United States. As the conflict worsened, Hala observed an unprecedented rise in anti-American sentiment throughout the region, something she reported back to Washington with grave alarm. Even so-called liberal Arabs were disgusted by U.S. double standards. Yet the same abysmal talking points continued to be generated, and key policymakers refused to change tack.

Now, in the aftermath of Israel’s assassination of Haniyeh on Iranian soil and the resulting sabotage of Gaza cease-fire negotiations, everything could get much worse for the region and the United States. A wider war with Hezbollah, the Houthis, and a potential direct confrontation with Iran would be catastrophic, yet it would help Netanyahu’s political survival.

Washington can still choose another path forward—one that rejects continuous violence, indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians, and a cycle of revenge.

To prevent further escalation and make the prospect for diplomacy and peace a reality, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris needs to seek an end to the carnage and send a clear signal that the United States will not give unconditional support to an Israeli war against Hezbollah and Iran. She must insist on diplomacy and in her current role as vice president pressure the administration to avoid regional war. There may not be anything left of Gaza to save in six months’ time, and that is what Netanyahu is betting on.

Harris can correct course by insisting on the application of U.S. laws consistently and fairly when it comes to arms transfers. Applying U.S. laws and regulations (which the administration is currently in violation of) would prompt a conditioning of U.S. military aid to Israel in line with the Leahy laws, the Arms Export Control Act, and the Foreign Assistance Act. Based on its repeated, systematic, documented gross human rights violations and obstruction of U.S. humanitarian assistance, Israel is no longer eligible to receive U.S. security assistance.

Harris can make clear that she would use U.S. leverage to pressure Netanyahu to accept the cease-fire agreement. This would also enable Qatar and Egypt to pressure Hamas to make concessions and accept the deal, which it had previously accepted. Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran have all stated previously that they would not attack if Israel ended the violence and allowed aid into Gaza.

By making her stance clear now and taking concrete actions to insist on the application of U.S. laws, Harris would demonstrate her commitment to upholding the view of a majority of Americans who oppose Biden’s unconditional support for Israel and oppose sending U.S. troops to defend Israel from the consequences of its aggression. Her stance could also force Netanyahu to avoid further provocations.

Such a move would undermine extremists on all sides. Unfortunately, this cannot wait until November. If she does not act now, she risks U.S. national security and the outbreak of a catastrophic war in the Middle East that the United States would inevitably get dragged into.

By taking action now, in line with U.S. laws, Harris would strengthen the Democratic Party’s base and potentially bring back uncommitted and youth voters—without whom she could very well lose the election.

Foreign Policy · by Hala Rharrit, Annelle Sheline

7. What Harris Learned Investigating Russian Interference

Excerpts:

While the House Intelligence Committee Russia investigation was beset by political infighting, the Senate investigation remained bipartisan and largely free of public drama—something Harris has spoken fondly of.

“Every week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would walk into that wood-paneled room—no cameras, no public, no devices,” said Harris during a memorial service last year for the late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had been a long-standing member of the committee.

“Senators of both parties who would take off their jackets and literally roll up their sleeves, putting aside partisanship to discuss what was in the best interests of our national security,” she said.

Harris served on the Intelligence Committee, which, alongside the House panel, provides oversight of the sprawling U.S. intelligence community, throughout her four years in the Senate.

In 2018, Harris backed an amendment that would compel law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing the communications of American citizens inadvertently gathered under a controversial program that enabled intelligence agencies to conduct wide-ranging foreign electronic surveillance.

She also used the perch to stress the need for greater investments in election security in light of Russia’s attempt to sway the vote, co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation on election cybersecurity.

What Harris Learned Investigating Russian Interference

On the Senate Intelligence Committee, Harris had a front-row seat to Moscow’s meddling.

By Amy Mackinnon, a national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy.

Foreign Policy · by Amy Mackinnon

• United States
• Russia
• Amy Mackinnon

August 9, 2024, 9:51 AM

Three days after Kamala Harris was sworn into the Senate in early January 2017, the U.S. intelligence community released a stunning declassified report that concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an influence campaign meant to sway the previous year’s presidential election in favor of Donald Trump and undermine faith in U.S. democracy.

The revelations spurred three high-profile investigations into Russian election interference by lawmakers and special counsel Robert Mueller and would come to dominate headlines for much of the Trump presidency.

As a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which conducted a wide-ranging three-year investigation of Moscow’s interference efforts, Harris had a front-row seat to reams of highly classified material about Russian intelligence operations targeting the United States. The experience left a long-standing impression on the vice president, according to current and former aides who characterize it as a highly formative experience that left her with few illusions about Moscow’s intentions.

“I see those first few weeks as pivotal, because those were both her and Donald Trump’s first few weeks in Washington,” said Halie Soifer, who served as national security advisor to Harris in the Senate.

A Republican source familiar with Harris’s time on the committee said that during the Russia investigation, members were exposed to “borderline raw intelligence” on Moscow’s interference efforts, which they described as an eye-opening experience, even for long-standing members of the committee. “I think it was sobering for everyone,” said the source, who requested anonymity to share their insights.

The Senate’s final report, which spanned over 1,000 pages across five volumes, is generally regarded to be the most detailed look at aggressive Russian intelligence efforts to make inroads with the Trump campaign and to sway the election in favor of the former president.

The report did not reach a conclusion as to whether the Trump team had actively sought to collude with Moscow for its own advantage.

As part of its investigation, the committee reviewed over 1 million pages of documents and interviewed more than 200 witnesses.

While much of the day-to-day work of the probe was carried out by committee staffers, senators from both sides of the aisle have described Harris as a quick study whose advice on questioning witnesses was sought by seasoned committee staff, according to a 2019 BuzzFeed article.

In public hearings on both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, on which she also sat, Harris developed a reputation for her prosecutorial style as she interrogated senior members of the Trump administration.

“Members get out of it what they put into it, and she put a lot of time and energy and effort into it,” said the Republican source.

Former aides to the vice president have spoken of how her background as a lawyer also informs her view on foreign policy, placing particular emphasis on the importance of international laws and norms. In a 2019 interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, Harris described the U.S. role in building a “community of international institutions, laws, and democratic nations” as America’s biggest foreign-policy achievement since World War II.

While the House Intelligence Committee Russia investigation was beset by political infighting, the Senate investigation remained bipartisan and largely free of public drama—something Harris has spoken fondly of.

“Every week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would walk into that wood-paneled room—no cameras, no public, no devices,” said Harris during a memorial service last year for the late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had been a long-standing member of the committee.

“Senators of both parties who would take off their jackets and literally roll up their sleeves, putting aside partisanship to discuss what was in the best interests of our national security,” she said.

Harris served on the Intelligence Committee, which, alongside the House panel, provides oversight of the sprawling U.S. intelligence community, throughout her four years in the Senate.

In 2018, Harris backed an amendment that would compel law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing the communications of American citizens inadvertently gathered under a controversial program that enabled intelligence agencies to conduct wide-ranging foreign electronic surveillance.

She also used the perch to stress the need for greater investments in election security in light of Russia’s attempt to sway the vote, co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation on election cybersecurity.

Foreign Policy · by Amy Mackinnon

8. Trump Campaign Says It Was Hacked

The Trump campaign will not be (and likely has not been) the only target. Iran is likely not the only one employing hackers to interfere with the election.

it is going to get worse before it gets better. (or it may never get better)

These attacks should unite Americans. Anyone causing external election interference should be branded as an enemy of our federal democratic republic.

Trump Campaign Says It Was Hacked

GOP campaign alleges Iran could be responsible, saying documents were stolen by ‘foreign sources’

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-campaign-says-it-was-hacked-a3912e91?mod=latest_headlines

By Dustin Volz

Follow and Vivian Salama

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Updated Aug. 10, 2024 7:02 pm E

U.S. intelligence officials have said that Iran was seeking to harm Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in covert online influence operations. Photo: natalie behring/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—The Trump campaign said Saturday that some of its internal communications had been hacked and suggested Iran was responsible and seeking to undermine the former president’s prospects in the November election.

Documents belonging to the campaign “were obtained illegally from foreign sources hostile to the United States, intended to interfere with the 2024 election and sow chaos throughout our Democratic process,” Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said in a statement.

He cited recent statements from the U.S. government that accused Iran of seeking ways to prevent Trump from returning to the White House, including an alleged assassination plot. Cyber-threat research published Friday by Microsoft has also detailed Iran’s election hacking operations. 

It wasn’t clear how far-reaching the purported theft of private campaign material was or how potentially damaging any of it could be to Donald Trump, the Republican nominee. But the specter of a campaign hack by Iran could jolt the already tumultuous presidential campaign. Its public disclosure comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East and fears that Tehran and its allies are seeking retribution against Israel for a pair of recent killings against two militant leaders in the region. 

The Trump campaign didn’t provide direct evidence that Iran was responsible for the hack. Instead, it tied the hack to the new Microsoft cyber-threat research that laid out a range of election interference operations it said were linked to several different Iranian cyber groups, noting an observed increase in Iranian activity in recent months. 

Among its findings, Microsoft said that a group tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had successfully compromised an email account belonging to a former adviser to a U.S. presidential campaign.

Microsoft didn’t identify the former adviser or the presidential campaign, but said Iran used the compromised email account in June to send messages to a senior official still working for the campaign. Those sent messages contained a malicious link that could have been used to compromise the current campaign official, Microsoft said. Separately, the technology giant said another Iranian cyber group compromised an account owned by a “county-level government employee” in an unidentified swing state.

Microsoft declined to comment about the apparent Trump campaign hack. A spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation in a statement said it was “aware of the media reporting. We decline to comment further.”

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee. Photo: Alex Brandon/Associated Press

U.S. spy agencies said last month that Iran was attempting to harm Trump’s presidential campaign in covert online influence operations, fearing a return to power by the Republican nominee would inflame relations with Washington. The assessment, shared during a media briefing with reporters, updated an earlier view among intelligence agencies that Iran was chiefly seeking to promote chaos around November’s election and hadn’t demonstrated a clear preference.

The Trump campaign’s apparent confirmation of a campaign breach followed a report published Saturday afternoon by Politico that said the news outlet had been “receiving emails from an anonymous account with documents from inside Trump’s operation” since late July. The AOL email account went by “Robert” and declined to explain how it had acquired the campaign documents, according to Politico, which said it had confirmed the documents were authentic. Among the files were a research dossier on Trump running mate JD Vance that were based largely on public information and highlighted potential vulnerabilities, Politico reported.

Presidential campaigns are high-value hacking targets for foreign governments eager to glean any insights into a potential future administration. In 2008, Chinese hackers breached both the Obama and McCain campaigns and stole internal documents, U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged.

Sometimes the hacks of campaigns aren’t limited to intelligence collection. In 2016, hackers tied to the Kremlin hacked Democratic emails and later gave them to the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks, which multiple U.S. government investigations concluded was part of a broad, multipronged cyber operation ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin that was intended to harm Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and boost Trump’s electoral chances.

“Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want,” Cheung, the Trump campaign spokesman, said Saturday. In 2016, Trump publicly urged Russia to find Clinton’s emails and repeatedly referenced hacked Democratic emails that were published by WikiLeaks.

Cybersecurity expert Chris Krebs says voters should expect more efforts to ‘stoke fires in society and go after election systems.’ Photo: Jim Loscalzo – Pool Via Cnp/Zuma Press

“Someone is running the 2016 playbook,” Chris Krebs, a cybersecurity expert who ran the cyber wing of the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, said on X about the reported campaign hack. 

Krebs, who was fired by Trump after publicly disagreeing with the former president’s unsubstantiated assertions of election tampering in the 2020 contest, said voters should expect more efforts to “stoke fires in society and go after election systems.” But he cautioned against paranoia or distrust in the election process, explaining that more than 95% of votes are cast with a paper backup and that the U.S. has strong auditing procedures.

“But the chaos is the point,” Krebs said.

On Tuesday, law-enforcement officials said a Pakistani man with ties to Iran was charged with plotting assassinations of Trump and other politicians. Asif Merchant traveled to New York in April to recruit hit men to carry out his scheme but was foiled when one of the people approached reported him to the FBI and became an informant, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said. 

The indictment didn’t mention Trump by name, but it was unsealed weeks after U.S. officials said a threat against Trump from Iran prompted them to bolster security for the former president. 

Security had been stepped up at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., last month following revelations of a possible Iranian plot. A 20-year-old gunman tried to kill Trump at that rally, but officials said the attack was unrelated to the threat from Iran.

Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com and Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com

9. Policy study calls for increasing US Marine force in northern Australia by 8 fold

How many Marines can we afford to have stationed on the island continent down under?

Policy study calls for increasing US Marine force in northern Australia by 8 fold

Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · August 9, 2024

A U.S. Marine posts security during an air-assault exercise at Bloomsbury Airfield in Midge Point, Australia, June 28, 2023. (Stars and Stripes)

Australia should welcome a U.S. Marine Corps rotational force eight times the size of one that now spends six months each year near the northern city of Darwin, a conservative Australian think tank said in a recent report.

“The Australian government should open discussions with the US to host a rotational presence of a Marine Expeditionary Brigade potentially of around 16,000 personnel, bringing with it significant increased firepower and aviation assets,” the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Australia, recommended in a report released Wednesday.

Marines have been coming to Darwin annually since 2012. This year, 2,000 arrived in the northern Australian port city in March for the rotation.

Meanwhile, Australia and the United States - concerned about China’s rapid military build-up, threat to Taiwan and influence-building efforts in the region - are investing billions to enhance Australia’s northern military bases.

“A larger USMC presence in northern Australia offers the cheapest boost to deterrence Australia could possibly buy,” the Australian report states. “This approach compliments the American military strategy of dispersal through the Indo-Pacific and would add substantially to US and Australian capacity to train with and engage the armed forces of neighbouring countries.”

Multiplying the number of Marines in the Northern Territory may require overtures to other states in Southeast Asia, according to the report.

“We think a larger USMC presence would mostly be welcomed,” the report states. “It offers strategic reassurance to our closer South-east Asian neighbours and would be a welcome exercise and training partner.”

The think tank suggested increasing the rotational force between 2025 and 2028.

A larger Marine presence in northern Australia will require a significant expansion in building critical infrastructure in the territory, according to the report.

“We acknowledge that recent governments have started this process, but only stress that more needs to be done more quickly,” the report states. “The government needs to start a discussion with the private sector about the best way to speed and scale-up this exercise.”

Stars and Stripes emailed the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii on Friday seeking comment on the report. In response, the command forwarded the joint statement and fact sheet issued after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken conferred Tuesday in Annapolis, Md., with Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Defence Richard Marles and Minister of Foreign Affairs Penny Wong.

The documents do not mention a boosted Marine presence but state that the U.S. continues to “conduct more frequent rotational deployments to Australia across air, land, and maritime domains.”

The Northern Territory has plenty of room for more Marines, according to Grant Newsham, a retired Marine colonel and senior researcher with the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo.

“I believe the Marines are indeed looking to deploy more troops to Darwin and Northern Territory — and make more use of the superb training locations, but also the Darwin as a ‘launch point’ of sorts for operations up towards Southeast Asia and beyond,” he said by email Friday.

An expanded housing compound in Darwin was put to work during Pitch Black, a biennial exercise that began July 12 and ended Aug. 2. The exercise brought 4,400 personnel from 21 nations to the Northern Territory and neighboring Queensland.

The Australian military acquired Defence Accommodation Precinct – Darwin last year to house 4,270 Australian and international personnel during the exercise, according to an email Wednesday from Australian Defence Department spokeswoman Kate Hudspith.

“Another 300 members of Marine Rotational Force – Darwin were also housed at DAP-D during the exercise,” the email said.

The precinct, built for natural gas workers over a decade ago, includes air-conditioned rooms, a dining facility, bar, cafe, gym, convenience store, playing field, swimming pool, tennis court, beach volleyball court and indoor basketball court.

The facility means fewer military personnel need to stay in hotels in Darwin during the southern hemisphere’s colder months, which are the Northern Territory’s peak tourism season, the email said.

The compound can accommodate surges of Australian or allied military personnel, according to former Australian assistant defense secretary Ross Babbage.

In an emergency, other mining camp facilities in northern Australia could be pressed into service, he said by email Wednesday.

“Much of this accommodation is readily transportable,” he wrote. “This is, of course, in addition to the larger pool of civilian accommodation available in the Darwin area.”

Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · August 9, 2024

10. Power Politics - United States vs. China

Please go to the link to view the Comprehensive Power graphic.

Excerpts:

CONCLUSION

At the heart of competition lies the concept of national power, a multifaceted tool wielded by nations to protect and advance their interests on the international stage. In the current global power competition, the Indo-Pacific is a critical arena where the competition between the United States and China plays out, each vying for regional hegemony and the ability to shape the geopolitical landscape according to their strategic objectives.

The United States, with its long-standing post-World War II regional order, seeks to maintain its dominance in the Indo-Pacific through a network of alliances and partnerships, such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and its strategic positioning within the first island chain. By leveraging its military, economic, and diplomatic power, the U.S. aims to contain China’s growing influence and prevent it from projecting power beyond its immediate maritime boundaries. The U.S.'s efforts to balance power in the region are about maintaining its strategic advantage, sustaining access to the vast regional resources, and ensuring the stability of the global order it has helped to shape.

China, on the other hand, is determined to assert its influence and achieve regional hegemony. Driven by a mix of historical insecurities, demographic challenges, and economic ambitions, China’s approach to the Indo-Pacific is aggressive and expansive. The Belt and Road Initiative and its military modernization efforts underscore China’s commitment to securing vital sea lanes and extending its regional reach. This expansionist strategy generates friction with neighboring powers like India, Japan, and the United States.

The competition between these great powers in the Indo-Pacific is not merely about accumulating military might but about the broader application of national power. Economic influence, diplomatic engagement, and the ability to shape international norms are all critical components of this struggle. The Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index 2023 provides a detailed snapshot of how power is distributed across the region, highlighting the dynamic interplay between the various elements of national power. It shows that while China and the U.S. are the primary competitors, other regional actors, including India, Japan, and smaller Southeast Asian nations, play significant roles in shaping the outcomes of this competition.

The Indo-Pacific is a microcosm of the broader great power competition unfolding on the global stage. In all its forms, national power is the central axis around which this competition revolves. As China and the United States continue to vie for regional supremacy, the strategies they employ and the power they project will not only determine the future of the Indo-Pacific but also have far-reaching implications for global stability and order. The ongoing struggle between these two superpowers underscores the importance of understanding and measuring national power, as it is the key to navigating the complex and often volatile landscape of international relations in the 21st century.

Power Politics - United States vs. China

A Great Power Competition Report 

By Monte Erfourth – August 11, 2024

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/power-politics-united-states-vs-china?postId=9d393f9b-d964-48ad-af8b-c2419f25930c&utm

THE COMPETITION REPORT SERIES

The Strategy Central Great Power Competition report details the United States and China’s great power competition in the first half of 2024. It offers an analysis to help strategists grasp the current rivalry between these two superpowers regarding power, economics, military power, and diplomacy. This is the first of five segments covering each aspect of great power competition.  

The first topic for this report on great power competition is titled Power Politics. It will be an effort to explain what great power competition functions and its relationship to national power. It will then focus on the Indo-Pacific region, which stands at the epicenter of great power competition. While Europe remains a significant competitive landscape, the Indo-Pacific is where the strategic aspirations of China and the United States’ deeply intertwined power dynamics are most evident. This report leverages the Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index 2023 to reveal the power levels between nations in this pivotal region. For roughly the last decade, China's quest for regional hegemony has challenged the established order backed by the United States. The analysis extends beyond the dominant players to encompass the roles of lesser regional powers and small island states, whose geopolitical significance, though often underestimated, can significantly influence regional stability. By examining the nations ranked on the Total Power Index, this report aims to elucidate the strategic calculations and perceptions of power that shape the Indo-Pacific's complex and evolving security landscape.

UNDERSTANDING COMPETITION

The 2023 Joint Concept for Competition (JCC) has defined great power (strategic) competition as “a persistent and long-term struggle that occurs between two or more adversaries seeking to pursue incompatible interests without necessarily engaging in armed conflict with each other.” The JCC further explains that the normal and peaceful competition among allies, strategic partners, and other international actors who are not potentially hostile is outside the scope of this concept. This is a good description of how countries with hostility towards each other pursue interests, but missing pieces remain to fill the puzzle.

Cooperation, competition, and conflict reflect the degree of friction between national efforts as countries pursue influence and leverage for an advantage. The objective is to use advantages to advance and protect their interests.[i]  Where interests mutually converge, actors can cooperate; where interests collide, actors compete—sometimes to the point of conflict. Countries with different interests can both cooperate and compete in different areas at the same time. Additionally, countries view and rank interests differently; what may not be very important to one country could be very important to another, and the importance of an interest can change over time. The ability of actors to build influence and action leverage through the various tools of national power (Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economic) that establish and maintain advantage relative to others with divergent interests shape their behavior and determine their freedom of action in competition.

The name “great power competition” (from international relations theory) fits because a core feature of the international environment is the requirement for countries to apply the complete and comprehensive application of power necessary to advance and protect interests. Thucydides said it best: "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.”[ii] For both the weak and the strong, competing in the international arena requires gaining and maintaining enough power to influence other countries, which can create leverage. This leverage can, in turn, create an advantage in pursuing interests at the times and places that matter. This is a dynamic challenge that constantly evolves with geopolitical and technological developments. Today's competition can set the conditions for better peace, attain objectives short of war, and possibly set favorable conditions in the event of future conflict. This is the “great game,” as some 20th-century European powers dubbed it. Without power, a country is subject to the whims of those who have it.

Competition and conflict cannot be understood without power being the central topic. It is a failing of the NDS and the JCC that they do not make this clear. DIME gives us a quick way to say “elements of power,” but these are not static notions. They are in motion and contact with rivals at all times. Understanding the interplay and use of national power is vital to understanding what the U.S. can and should be doing to protect and advance interests. Prosperity, which includes lines of communication, markets, extractive goods, foodstuff, and other valuables, is a requirement to maintain and expand power. These resources are and have always been pursued by communities with some amount of power to survive and thrive. The international order is highly Darwinian but does show signs of Kantian civility in the international institutions established mainly after WWII.

American power is well understood in the international environment. Both state and non-state actors have adopted asymmetric approaches to compete effectively against the U.S. Some compete through spectacular acts of terrorism. Others work to dismantle international institutions and alliances. Others compete to advance influence campaigns through economic, diplomatic, and information channels and leveraging asymmetries of interest. Still, others compete by leveraging ambiguities in the security environment, using military means that elude existing deterrence models. These strategies of applied power to blunt U.S. power will create an advantage for the group or country in pursuit of their interests. 

This explanation of the dynamics of national power in the international environment allows for better insight into what happens when the United States uses DIME powers to pursue and protect interests. National security interests define strategic ends. All national elements of power must be applied to defend the homeland, expand prosperity, protect national values, and project national values. Power applied to these ends must be translated into clear and coherent political aims and specific objectives. A strategy so conceived must be achievable, acceptable, and effective to ensure the nation's well-being. In the upcoming section of Power Politics, we will delve into the dynamics of countries' relationships with each other and how they pursue their interests using their power.

POWER POLITICS

This report will use the Lowey Institute Total Power Index in the Asian Pacific for 2023 to show how developing power measures for nations can help understand the political strategies at play as each uses power to protect and pursue its interests. Lowey’s Institute’s Asia Power Index 2023 edition (https://power.lowyinstitute.org/report/) is an excellent tool to aid strategists in better understanding Asia's regional power distribution. The following discussion will repeatedly refer to the Total Power Index to frame the current state of competition play.

Great power strategies in the Indo-Pacific orient around the axis of tension between an ascendant China and the post-World War II regional order backed by the United States. China strives for regional hegemony, seeking privilege commensurate with its power to protect its interests and impose its will along its periphery. India and Japan balance the multipolar system; when aligned, they nearly match China in power. The Indo-Pacific members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad)” formation—India, Japan, and Australia—surpass China’s Power score. Lesser regional powers—South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia—face pressure between China and the U.S.-led effort to balance. It should not be assumed that a greater collective score translates into an absolute power advantage. Types, abilities, coordination, and a host of other factors determine the actual power advantage. Yet, real power has been achieved if the perception of collective or individual power is realized. If not, influence and leverage are diminished. Perception is central to deterrence theory. If a country does not fear another rival’s power, the likelihood of deterring the unafraid country is mostly nil.

Less powerful Indo-Pacific states also factor into the geopolitical design of the region, albeit in context-specific situations. For example, countries in the South China Sea—Vietnam, the Philippines, and Brunei—have modest comprehensive power relative to global and regional powers but influence negotiations surrounding the nascent South China Sea Code of Conduct agreement between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). North Korea, nuclear-armed and volatile, occasionally generates uniquely destabilizing effects in Northeast Asia. Mongolia, Nepal, and Bhutan are wedged between great powers with potential for competition and cooperation. Sri Lanka and the Maldives spread across the Indian Ocean, offering access along seaways vital to global trade.

Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos in Southeast Asia straddle the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, providing land and maritime throughways around the Strait of Malacca. These nations overlook the most crucial sea passage for China in the world. Approximately 90% of imports flow through the strait, and its vulnerability is behind the need for the Belt and Road Initiative. New Zealand’s position at the region’s southern edge limits its strategic impact, yet its Commonwealth ties and economic linkages provide it with limited relevance. Depending on context, these less powerful states can have an outsized effect on regional outcomes through trade and diplomacy.

The South China Sea is likely the most disputed within the Indo-Pacific region. It is a vital and resource-rich region and has been a longstanding flashpoint for territorial disputes, with China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan asserting overlapping claims. This area is strategically significant, as it serves as a critical maritime corridor for global trade, with an estimated $3.37 trillion worth of goods passing through its waters annually. Additionally, the sea is believed to hold vast oil and natural gas reserves, further intensifying the stakes for the involved nations.

China has been the most assertive in its claims, invoking the "Nine-Dash Line" to assert sovereignty over nearly 90% of the South China Sea. This claim is based on historical maps and documents, though it lacks international legal standing and has been challenged by other nations. China has bolstered its position through extensive land reclamation projects, constructing artificial islands equipped with military facilities, which has drawn international criticism and heightened tensions.

The Philippines, whose claims are based on proximity and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), has been at the forefront of challenging China's expansive claims. In 2016, the Philippines won a landmark case at The Hague, where an international tribunal ruled that China's claims had no legal basis. Despite the ruling, China has refused to recognize the decision, and the situation remains unresolved. The Philippines has alternated between challenging and seeking accommodation with China, reflecting its complex geopolitical calculations. China has pressured them by crowding Philippine waters with fishing militias and attacks by Chinese Coast Guard vessels, coupled with diplomatic pressure to capitulate to Chinese demands.

Vietnam, which has historical claims similar to China's, has also been vocal in its opposition to Beijing's actions. The country has engaged in military modernization and sought to strengthen its alliances, particularly with the United States and India, to counter China's growing influence. Vietnam's approach is marked by assertiveness and diplomatic engagement, aiming to protect its interests without provoking outright conflict. Inexplicably, China does not pressure Vietnam in a similar way to the Philippines.

Malaysia and Brunei have also staked claims in the South China Sea, though their approaches have been more subdued than the Philippines and Vietnam. Malaysia has opted for a quieter diplomatic strategy, maintaining good relations with China while still asserting its rights under international law. Brunei, the smallest claimant, has largely stayed out of the spotlight, quietly maintaining its claims without escalating tensions.

Taiwan, which controls the largest island in the South China Sea, Itu Aba, also claims most of the area, mirroring China's "Nine-Dash Line." However, Taiwan's involvement is complicated by its unique international status and focus on its security concerns in the Taiwan Strait. Consequently, Taiwan's approach has been more restrained, emphasizing the peaceful resolution of disputes.

The United States plays a significant role in the South China Sea disputes despite not being a claimant. Washington has repeatedly affirmed its interest in ensuring freedom of navigation in the region, a principle crucial to global trade. The U.S. conducts regular "freedom of navigation operations" (FONOPs) to challenge China's maritime claims and demonstrate its commitment to international law. Additionally, the U.S. has deepened its security partnerships with nations like the Philippines and Vietnam, providing military aid and conducting joint exercises to bolster their capabilities.

The South China Sea remains a highly contested and strategically crucial region, with overlapping claims creating complex geopolitical tensions. While each claimant pursues its interests through diplomacy, legal avenues, and military modernization, the United States plays a pivotal role in maintaining stability and countering China's assertiveness in the region. The situation remains fluid, with the potential for diplomatic breakthroughs and further escalation.

Expanding to the “Second Island Chain,” the Indo-Pacific is home to many geographically small island states with varying degrees of economic development, independence, and strategic relevance. Many states experience relations with great powers based on colonial associations or imperial reach, such as the United States with the Marshall Islands. Yet the resurgence of other regional powers—most notably, China—has provided alternatives for investment and support. Perhaps better than any other country, China has capitalized on the fact that every United Nations (UN) member state—no matter its power in the geopolitical system—has a vote in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and a voice on the international stage. In this context, even states with low power take on additional importance.

Great power competition in the Indo-Pacific is shaped by the United States' long standing as the regional hegemon and China’s insecurities that have not waned despite its historical growth in power and influence. Historical threats of invasion from without and instability from within, demographic and environmental pressures, challenging economic transformation, and the shadow of the “Century of Humiliation” provide a greater purpose for acting on those insecurities. China strives for regional hegemony, which manifests in a perceived need to project security across borders, dominate its near maritime environment within the first island chain, and secure its aortic sea lanes linking to the Middle East and Europe and those connecting the Americas. China’s approach generates friction with India and Japan, with which it shares land and maritime boundaries. Russia has limited reach in the Indo-Pacific but remains engaged in Northeast Asia and often supports Chinese initiatives, including the expansive Belt and Road Initiative. Germany and France also have limited leverage within the region but advance multilateral agendas to address shared challenges like climate change and reinforce architecture, such as ASEAN, to shape China’s rise. The U.S. seeks to contain China within the first island chain, which will prevent China from pushing its newly formed blue water navy into the Pacific, which would significantly pressure the U.S. domination of critical sea lanes of communication in the Pacific and possibly beyond. The United States seeks to balance Indo-Pacific power through its allies and partners and multilateral processes alongside its European peers.

CONCLUSION

At the heart of competition lies the concept of national power, a multifaceted tool wielded by nations to protect and advance their interests on the international stage. In the current global power competition, the Indo-Pacific is a critical arena where the competition between the United States and China plays out, each vying for regional hegemony and the ability to shape the geopolitical landscape according to their strategic objectives.

The United States, with its long-standing post-World War II regional order, seeks to maintain its dominance in the Indo-Pacific through a network of alliances and partnerships, such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and its strategic positioning within the first island chain. By leveraging its military, economic, and diplomatic power, the U.S. aims to contain China’s growing influence and prevent it from projecting power beyond its immediate maritime boundaries. The U.S.'s efforts to balance power in the region are about maintaining its strategic advantage, sustaining access to the vast regional resources, and ensuring the stability of the global order it has helped to shape.

China, on the other hand, is determined to assert its influence and achieve regional hegemony. Driven by a mix of historical insecurities, demographic challenges, and economic ambitions, China’s approach to the Indo-Pacific is aggressive and expansive. The Belt and Road Initiative and its military modernization efforts underscore China’s commitment to securing vital sea lanes and extending its regional reach. This expansionist strategy generates friction with neighboring powers like India, Japan, and the United States.

The competition between these great powers in the Indo-Pacific is not merely about accumulating military might but about the broader application of national power. Economic influence, diplomatic engagement, and the ability to shape international norms are all critical components of this struggle. The Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index 2023 provides a detailed snapshot of how power is distributed across the region, highlighting the dynamic interplay between the various elements of national power. It shows that while China and the U.S. are the primary competitors, other regional actors, including India, Japan, and smaller Southeast Asian nations, play significant roles in shaping the outcomes of this competition.

The Indo-Pacific is a microcosm of the broader great power competition unfolding on the global stage. In all its forms, national power is the central axis around which this competition revolves. As China and the United States continue to vie for regional supremacy, the strategies they employ and the power they project will not only determine the future of the Indo-Pacific but also have far-reaching implications for global stability and order. The ongoing struggle between these two superpowers underscores the importance of understanding and measuring national power, as it is the key to navigating the complex and often volatile landscape of international relations in the 21st century.

[i] This is described in The Competition Continuum, Joint Doctrine Note 19-1, June 2019 (https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/jdn_jg/jdn1_19.pdf).

[ii] https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191866692.001.0001/q-oro-ed6-00010932#:~:text=Thucydides%20c.&text=The%20strong%20do%20what%20they,weak%20suffer%20what%20they%20must.&text=Of%20the%20gods%20we%20believe,they%20rule%20wherever%20they%20can.

11. Palantir: Two Reasons Why I Believe It Is Just Getting Started

Please go to the link to view the graphics. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4712938-palantir-two-reasons-why-i-believe-it-is-just-getting-started?utm

it is not just providing analytic support to the IC and SOF anymore.

This must be one of the most successful IC spinoffs in the history of the CIA.

Palantir: Two Reasons Why I Believe It Is Just Getting Started (NYSE:PLTR)

seekingalpha.com

Palantir: Two Reasons Why I Believe It Is Just Getting Started (NYSE:PLTR) | Seeking Alpha

Dilantha De Silva

Summary

• Palantir Technologies Inc. is expanding beyond its traditional government contracts into unconventional business sectors, positioning itself as a leader in enterprise AI solutions.
• Although the U.S. and U.K. currently account for 75% of Palantir’s revenue, the company is targeting high-growth international markets in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
• Early adoption in sectors like precision agriculture and renewable energy is giving Palantir a first-mover advantage, potentially leading to accelerated revenue growth.
• Despite its high valuation, Palantir’s diversified growth strategy and expanding international presence suggest strong earnings potential.

Michael Vi

In February 2022, I turned bullish on Palantir Technologies Inc. (NYSE:PLTR) when the stock was trading around $13 as I believed the company’s valuation failed to reflect its true economic potential. In June 2023, during the early days of the AI stock market rally, I reiterated my buy rating for Palantir stock as I thought the company was well-positioned to emerge as a big winner of AI technology. The strong government sector performance and the industry recognition of Palantir’s technology were the main reasons behind my bullish stance back then. Palantir, since then, has delivered the promised goods, and Mr. Market has not been oblivious to this success, either.

Exhibit 1: Palantir quarterly revenue growth and stock price

FinChat

As Palantir transitions into an AI enterprise company with a focus on the commercial sector, I remain bullish for two main reasons.

1. The company’s expansion into unconventional business sectors.
2. The untapped global growth potential.

The objective of this analysis is to dive deep into these two growth avenues to evaluate how Palantir is positioning itself to enjoy a multi-year growth rally.

The Expansion Into New Business Verticals

Palantir, until recently, was known for its long-standing contracts with government agencies including the Department of Defense, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security. In the last few years, Palantir management has made a concerted effort to diversify the business through an expansion into the commercial sector. Commercial revenue has grown at a faster pace compared to government revenue in the last couple of years.

Exhibit 2: Palantir segment revenue

FinChat

Today, the company is expanding into several unconventional business sectors, where it is emerging as the leading enterprise AI solutions provider. These sectors include;

• Agriculture
• Climate change
• Public health
• Energy.

Palantir, at its core, is a data analysis company that enables its customers to analyze large data sets to make informed decisions. Today, the company is partnering with relevant stakeholders to improve the global food supply chain while building resilience to future food shortages. Palantir’s technology can be used to adopt precision agriculture, which focuses on optimizing available resources to maximize the yield while ensuring the safety of the soil. Predicting crop yields is a key part of the precision agriculture framework.

Exhibit 3: Precision agriculture cycle

Farm21

In 2022, Palantir partnered with the FDA through the 21 FORWARD Initiative in a $22-million deal to collaborate with regulators in their efforts to address food shortages through improved process and resource allocation efficiency.

According to Precedence Research, the global precision agriculture market will grow at a CAGR of 13% through 2032 to reach a value of $34 billion. The growing adoption of advanced data analytics by farmers is expected to be the primary driver of this market. This follows a broad trend where physical labor is now being replaced with new technologies that offer greater efficiency.

Exhibit 4: Precision agriculture market growth

Precedence Research

Palantir’s early inroads into the precision agriculture market will help the company enjoy first-mover advantages in the future as this technology goes mainstream globally. Palantir is also focused on improving the supply chain process by helping agricultural businesses achieve greater efficiencies through data analysis, which should lead to reduced food waste eventually.

Palantir’s growing interest in climate change initiatives will also be a long-term growth driver, with government agencies doubling down on climate change investments amid peer and policy pressures. The company is a member of the CO-WY-led team that received the U.S. National Science Foundation grant, which aims to create 22,000 new jobs. This grant will inject more than $1 billion into the economy by developing AI tools and other data analytics tools to fight climate change. Palantir’s data analytics tools can be used to model the impact of climate change and also to predict natural disasters. The company’s technology can also be used to monitor pollution levels and to allocate resources efficiently to prevent a global shortage of critical elements such as clean drinking water.

Palantir is expanding into public health care as well, which is another lucrative end market with a long runway for growth. The company is leveraging its existing relationships with government agencies to expand into new verticals, including public health.

Palantir played a key role during the Covid-19 pandemic by developing software tools to monitor the spread of the disease. Palantir’s Gotham and Foundry software was used by the CDC, NIH, and HHS in the U.S. while the UK NHS also used the software to gather and analyze data. Based on the successful collaboration during the pandemic, the CDC awarded Palantir a $443 million contract in December 2022 focusing on disease surveillance and outbreak response. This is just the start of a multi-year trend where Palantir will aggressively gain market share in the enterprise software market for public health. Below are some public health solutions offered by Palantir.

Exhibit 5: Palantir’s public health solutions

Palantir

Finally, Palantir is making inroads into the energy sector at a time when leading energy companies are aggressively investing in data analytics platforms to improve their efficiency while embracing renewable energy. The company has won several important contracts in the recent past. For example, in August 2023, Azule Energy, a joint venture created by BP plc (BP) and Eni SPA (E), selected Palantir Foundry to digitize the operations of its assets. Palantir’s expansion into this sector is coming at an opportune time, with Gartner estimating 40% of energy companies to face a 50% increase in capital expenditure by 2025 due to resource scarcity. Palantir’s solutions can be used in various stages of energy operations to optimize exploration, manage complex supply chains, and improve the efficiency of distribution networks.

Overall, Palantir’s expansion into non-traditional business sectors should open new doors for the company to grow in the next five years, leading to an acceleration in revenue growth.

The Untapped Global Growth Potential

Palantir generates the bulk of its revenue in the domestic market. In Q2, the United States accounted for 64% of total revenue, while the United Kingdom accounted for 11% of revenue. Other geographies accounted for just 25% of revenue, which suggests the company’s business is highly concentrated on one major market.

Exhibit 6: Palantir revenue by geography

FinChat

Palantir faced criticism in Germany back in 2023, but with the current political unrest in Europe, German officials are pressing for a return of the policy analysis platform Bundes-VeRA developed by Palantir, which was banned by a German court in early 2023. Commenting on the important role played by VeRA in identifying potential national security risks, the Chairman of the Association of German Criminal Police Officers Dirk Peglow said last March:

When defending against terrorist threats, the German security authorities are urgently dependent on bringing together the information available in the different data sets on relevant people across Germany as quickly as possible in order to identify networks, recognize attack plans and prevent their implementation. With Vera, existing knowledge deficits could be reduced to threatening situations.

Palantir, in a bid to tap into faster-growing markets in Asia, is expanding into innovative hubs such as South Korea and Japan, where digital transformation spending is expected to accelerate in the coming years. The company’s strategic partnership with Hyundai Heavy Industries Group forms the backbone of its expansion efforts in South Korea. The company is also expanding its presence in Latin America, especially in big economies such as Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.

These fast-growing markets, aided by robust infrastructure spending by government agencies, will create many new growth avenues for Palantir in the next decade. Early expansion into these markets to establish long-lasting relationships with government and commercial clients, in my opinion, is a prudent move that would unlock substantial value for long-term shareholders.

Takeaway

I invested in Palantir because of the strength of its government contracts and its diversification efforts into the commercial sector. A good understanding of Palantir’s expansion into unconventional business sectors and its growth potential in international markets has alleviated my concerns about Palantir’s expensive valuation (the company trades at a forward P/E of 82). Although the company is not cheaply valued, I am confident in its ability to create shareholder value through strong earnings growth in the foreseeable future.

Dilantha De Silva

Dilantha De Silva is an experienced equity analyst and investment researcher with over 10 years in the investment industry. He writes insightful articles for Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus, TipRanks, and ValueWalk, with a significant following on Seeking Alpha. Dilantha’s expertise spans across various sectors, with a particular focus on small-cap stocks that are overlooked by Wall Street analysts. He is a CFA Level III candidate and an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI). Dilantha has been featured on CNBC and Bloomberg, and his work has been prominently showcased on Nasdaq, Yahoo Finance, and other leading investment platforms. When not analyzing stocks and writing, Dilantha is involved in private equity transactions, including acquiring and managing businesses.

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of PLTR either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

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12. NATO states should abandon treaty banning the use of cluster munitions

NATO states should abandon treaty banning the use of cluster munitions

airforcetimes.com · by John Nagl and Daniel Rice · August 10, 2024

The recent geopolitical landscape, marked by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and return of great power competition, necessitates a reevaluation of NATO’s stance on cluster munitions.

Under the leadership of Jens Stoltenberg, NATO embraced the Convention on Cluster Munitions, or CMC, in 2008, which barred 124 member nations from stockpiling, using or manufacturing these weapons due to their indiscriminate nature and long-term humanitarian impact.

But the grinding continuation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the largest European conflict since WWII, and the looming threat from a Russian and Chinese “friendship without limits” demands a strategic shift.

As such, NATO’s future effectiveness in deterring Russian aggression hinges on withdrawing from the treaty and resuming the production and deployment of cluster munitions.

The defense of Europe in the face of Russian aggression requires a pragmatic approach that balances moral obligations with strategic necessities. The CMC, while noble in intent, has proven to be a strategic liability.

It is incumbent upon NATO’s new leadership to correct this course, ensuring that the alliance remains capable of defending its member states against present and future threats. Withdrawing from the CMC and reinstating the use of cluster munitions is a difficult but necessary decision to strengthen NATO’s defense posture and secure peace in Europe.

RELATED

Why the US is willing to send Ukraine cluster munitions now

Here is a look at what cluster munitions are, where they have been used and why the U.S. plans to provide them to Ukraine now.

By Tara Copp, AP and Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press

It also makes little sense to remain part of a convention on arms control when future arms control deals are unlikely.

The CMC limits NATO capabilities while giving Russia time to build and maintain a defense industrial base that is already well ahead of Europe. The European defense industry has already struggled to produce conventional munitions and re-orienting toward cluster munition production too late could prove disastrous.

NATO under Stoltenberg has had two-and-a-half years of war in Ukraine to lead NATO out of the CMC debacle and suggest that all members withdraw.

However, Stoltenberg’s leading role in the inception of the CMC highlights the inherent contradiction between arms control and deterrence. Weakening NATO’s deterrence capabilities through adherence to the CMC potentially emboldens Russia by making Europe more vulnerable, risking greater loss of life in the event of conflict.

Stoltenberg’s tenure as NATO’s secretary general is marked by a significant contradiction. His role in founding the CMC was driven by humanitarian concerns, but as the leader of NATO, he is responsible for deterring Russian aggression.

At the 2008 CMC, Stoltenberg was quoted saying that “the treaty places moral obligations on all states not to use cluster munitions.” and “banning cluster bombs took too long. Too many people lost arms and legs.”

Despite the CMC’s push for other NATO members to join, European states under more direct threat from Russia — like Finland, Poland, Estonia, and Latvia — have refused to join the convention, leading to a bifurcated NATO.

Stoltenberg, despite his opposition to cluster munitions, has repeatedly suggested that Russia will not stop at Ukraine.

“I think there’s no doubt that President Putin is trying to re-establish a sphere of influence to ensure that Russia has control over neighbor countries,” he said at the Wilson Center in June.

The CMC, while morally driven, has inadvertently weakened NATO, and arguing for a limitation of defensive capabilities despite highlighting the Russia threat to neighboring NATO is contradictory.

The moral inconsistency of Stoltenberg’s role in the CMC and as NATO general secretary is palpable. An organization created to avoid war through deterrence has abdicated its responsibility to provide the best possible defense. Stoltenberg’s inability to reconcile these opposing roles has left NATO in a precarious position, with some member states, like Lithuania, taking independent action to withdraw from the CMC and bolster their defenses.

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Putin says Russia has ‘sufficient stockpile’ of cluster bombs

In comments on the delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine from the U.S., Putin said Russia has not used cluster bombs in its war in Ukraine so far.

Lithuania’s recent decision to withdraw from the CMC with a decisive parliamentary vote highlights the growing divide within NATO. Eastern European countries, acutely aware of the Russian threat, see the need for cluster munitions as a critical component of their defense strategy. In contrast, Western European nations remain bound by the CMC, creating a rift that undermines NATO’s unity and operational effectiveness. Stoltenberg’s departure and the ascension of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to lead the alliance offers a crucial opportunity for new leadership to address this divide and establish a cohesive policy.

So far, Rutte has offered no statements on cluster munitions, but to solve the scattered NATO policy on their use, he should take seriously the opinion of NATO nations on Russia’s border.

The Tactical Importance of Cluster Munitions

The practical application of cluster munitions in Ukraine has demonstrated their strategic value. Turkey’s provision of Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM) to Ukraine proved pivotal in the Battle of Bakhmut, showcasing the lethal effectiveness of these weapons in multiple pivotal areas.

Cluster munitions can effectively cover large areas, making them ideal for targeting dispersed or moving troops and vehicles. Their dual-purpose nature allows them to be effective against a variety of targets, from light armor to personnel.

The United States approving cluster munitions transfers to Ukraine further underscores their necessity in modern warfare. The delay in providing these munitions due to political debates rooted in the CMC has cost lives and weakened Ukraine’s defense.

NATO members withdrawing from the CMC would not only unify the alliance’s stance but also send a clear signal to Russia regarding NATO’s resolve. The recent support for cluster munitions by Eastern European nations and the practical success observed in Ukraine provides a compelling case for this strategic shift.

Additionally, NATO must take a stand on cluster munitions as an organization, rather than Stoltenberg calling for “governments to decide, and not NATO as an alliance.” The mark of a great leader is the willingness to change positions at inflection points. The defense of Europe requires cluster munitions now, and in the future. This is not 2008.

The Role of China in the Geopolitical Landscape

Moreover, the evolving geopolitical landscape demands that NATO consider the broader implications of its defense strategies, particularly concerning China’s increasing relevance.

China’s strategic partnership with Russia, often described as a “friendship without limits,” has significant implications for NATO. This partnership extends beyond diplomatic support to tangible contributions to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. China has been accused of providing technology and economic aid that indirectly supports Russia’s military operations, thereby complicating the strategic calculations for NATO.

China’s stance on cluster munitions further underscores the need for NATO to reassess its position. China has refused to join the CMC, prioritizing its military capabilities over humanitarian concerns. This refusal allows China to maintain a robust arsenal that includes cluster munitions, which could potentially be used in future conflicts.

NATO must recognize that adhering to the CMC puts it at a strategic disadvantage not only against Russia but also against a rising China.

John Nagl is professor of Warfighting Studies at the U.S. Army War College.

Dan Rice is president of the American University of Kyiv and the co-president of Thayer Leadership at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

John and Dan are both Iraq War combat veterans. This article expresses their views and not those of the United States Army, the Army War College or the Department of Defense.

The authors would like to thank Army War College senior intern David Heiner of the University of Denver for his help in the research and editing of this article.

13. How Ukraine’s incursion into Russia could change the war

How Ukraine’s incursion into Russia could change the war

atlanticcouncil.org · by dhojnacki · August 8, 2024

GET UP TO SPEED

The August surprise came from Ukraine. Beginning on Tuesday, as many as a thousand Ukrainian troops reportedly crossed the border into the Kursk region in Russia, capturing an estimated seventeen square miles of territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the move a “major provocation,” while the Ukrainian government has largely declined to comment. The size and depth of the incursion adds a significant new dimension to the ongoing conflict. Below, our experts share their insights on the thinking in Kyiv and what could come next.

TODAY’S EXPERT REACTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY

• Daniel Fried (@AmbDanFried): Weiser family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former US assistant secretary of state for Europe
• John E. Herbst (@JohnEdHerbst): Senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former US ambassador to Ukraine
• Konstantin Eggert (@kvoneggert): Deutsche Welle Russian affairs analyst and program host
• Shelby Magid (@shelbyjmag): Deputy director of the Eurasia Center

The element of surprise

• “In a war where battlefield transparency is supposedly universal, the Ukrainians achieved surprise, demonstrating a Russian failure of intelligence and weakness along its border,” says Dan. “The attack thus upends the Kremlin narrative of inevitable Russian victory,” which “Kremlin propaganda deploys in Europe and the United States to advance its argument that Ukrainian resistance is useless and support for Ukraine futile.”
• “Even if Ukrainian forces are soon forced out of Kursk, this is a clear shot in the arm for Ukraine,” John tells us. In recent weeks, Russia has made advances in eastern Ukraine, but this incursion may now “force the Kremlin to relieve its current pressure on Ukrainian positions in the Donbas or north of Kharkiv.” If Ukrainian forces do establish defensible positions on Russian territory, then “Moscow will have to consider even more adjustments of its forces in Ukraine” and “a ceasefire in place” would be “less attractive to the Putin clique.”

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A rattled Russia and uplifted Ukraine

• As with the short-lived mutiny by Wagner Group mercenary leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin in June 2023, Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk revealed “the vacuousness and inefficiency of modern Russia’s governance system, based on corruption and fear,” argues Konstantin. “Even reports in Russian state media (which are generally upbeat) had to mention the evacuation of the population and hint at the intensity of the fighting,” while “pro-Kremlin Telegram channels paint a picture of a major strike that took Russia’s military and civilian authorities by surprise.”
• Dan notes that another risky and successful raid, George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River in December 1776, boosted troop morale and political support at a critical moment in the American Revolutionary War. Like Washington’s raid, Ukraine’s Kursk incursion reveals its “cunning, audacity, and tenacity against a superior foe” and could have “strategic significance,” Dan says.
• Ukrainians are closely following reports of the raid. “As a further sign of success and a morale boost for the exhausted Ukrainian troops and society, video is circulating of dozens of Russian troops surrendering to Ukrainian forces,” Shelby points out.
• For Ukrainians, it’s an opportunity to “show to Russia’s ruling class how vulnerable the country is,” Konstantin explains, noting that the situation has been made all the more urgent by the fact that the Kursk nuclear power plant is within reach of Ukraine’s forces. The incursion also “shows Kyiv’s determination to incorporate the politico-psychological warfare factor into purely military operations.”

What’s next?

• While some Ukrainians have characterized the raid as an effort to “seize and hold Russian territory as a bargaining chip in eventual negotiations, that seems a stretch,” according to Dan. “Raids are one thing, a full-scale offensive is another.” Shelby agrees, noting that “entering and seizing land is different than holding it.”
• It’s “highly likely” that part of Ukraine’s goal is to demonstrate its capability to its partners, observes John. Kyiv faced a months-long delay in receiving additional US aid, and continues to be restricted by US and German reluctance to provide more advanced weapons in large quantities and allow their use against strategic targets deeper inside Russia, he explains. The Kursk incursion, John maintains, “should be a reminder to the more timid Western leaders that Ukraine can win this war if we enable and allow them to win.”

14. Wartime need for drones would outstrip US production. There’s a way to fix that

Are we losing this "strategic competition?"

What is the incentive for the defense industry to produce cheaper (and better) drones than our competitors/adversaries?

Excerpt:

And despite their higher prices, U.S. drones are often not as good as their cheaper Chinese rivals.

Wartime need for drones would outstrip US production. There’s a way to fix that

The U.S. military needs to “mainstream” new operating concepts and get going with big orders, experts say.

By Sam Skove

Staff Writer

August 7, 2024

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

If the U.S. Army found itself at war, American manufacturers would struggle to produce the large number of high-quality small drones that the service would likely need—unless the Pentagon increases its support for drone producers, and soon.

Army leaders at all levels are racing to incorporate small drones into operations, drawing on lessons from Ukrainian battlefields where small quadcopter-type aircraft are being used to great effect and in extraordinary numbers.

Some two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian companies are building one million first-person-view drones a year for use as loitering munitions—and that’s not counting other types like the thousands of reconnaissance quadcopters that the military has bought or received. In May 2023, Ukrainian forces were reported to be expending some 10,000 drones a month.

U.S. firms likely aren’t making enough to replace even half of that. Estimates of total domestic monthly production include the mid-single-digit thousands (David Benowitz, who leads research at drone market firm DroneAnalyst) or the low four-figures (Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute).

“Until the U.S. military mainstreams operational concepts that demand large numbers of drones, production will remain at a relatively low level,” Clark said.

Currently, the Army has just one quadcopter program of record—that is, a program with a dedicated funding line in the budget—called Short Range Reconnaissance, or SRR. Two companies are currently competing to win SRR’s Tranche 2 contract: Skydio, which says it can make a total of 2,000 drones per month, and Teal, which says its production capacity is in the thousands.

These and other U.S. drone manufacturers would likely expand production capacity if they could win more sales, but the market is fiercely contested by Chinese firms—particularly DJI, which alone commands 70 percent of the global drone market, in part thanks to state funding.

“Over the last ten years, I’ve watched dozens of U.S. and allied drone companies go under in a market distorted by foreign subsidies,” Skydio CEO Adam Bry said in congressional testimony.

The Defense Department is a reliable customer of domestic drone companies, in that it generally requires its agencies to buy drones off its U.S.-only Blue List. But military buyers can move too slowly for start-up companies to thrive, said Ryan Gury, CEO of Performance Drone Works. The venture-capital backed PDW has found success, including getting its C100 drone on the military’s pre-vetted drone list.

Still, “It's really difficult for a startup to get into this space and it takes a lot of capital to get to the place that we're at,” Gury said in a February interview.

Such drones, meanwhile, are often far more expensive than their Chinese equivalents. U.S. drones approved for military use can cost three to five to times as much as Chinese drones with similar specifications, according to the Defense Innovation Unit.

In part, that’s because U.S.-made drone components can cost far more than Chinese components, said Soren Monroe-Anderson, co-founder of first-person-view drone company Neros.

“You end up paying, you know, 100 times more for a U.S. component that you would for a Chinese component,” he said.

Monroe-Anderson said Neros is working to keep costs “in the low four figures” by optimizing the drone’s design, and one day aims to make more of its own components. But that will take considerable money and knowledge. “It's a huge thing to try and take on.”

In some cases, the price may even be a barrier to soldiers flying them.

The Army’s program-of-record quadcopter cost $39,800 per drone for the first tranche of program, while drones in tranche two are expected to cost $65,000 apiece. Even the cheaper drones on the Blue List can clock in at $14,000.

One commander said the cost stresses his limited operational budgets as he tries to get units up to speed on this vital battlefield tool. Soldiers have expressed “heartache” over experimenting with expensive drones given the risk of breaking or losing them.

And despite their higher prices, U.S. drones are often not as good as their cheaper Chinese rivals.

“Products from Chinese manufacturers such as DJI and Autel are still able to perform better in almost every regard, making them the clear choice when purely price-to-performance ratio is a deciding factor,” said one Western drone consultant with experience advising Ukraine, who agreed to be quoted on background.

Skydio’s drones were frequently lost due to Russian jamming when they were first sent to Ukraine, although the company has since said that they’re learning from the experience and that Ukraine has requested thousands of their drones. Chinese drones are also frequently lost to jamming—but at $2,000 for, say, a DJI Mavic 3, they are more easily replaced.

“Timewise, matching a DJI product is probably impossible to do in the next years,” said Hendrik Bödecker, a drone industry analyst at European analytic company Drone Industry Insights.

Chinese drones’ performance is in part a product of the vast amount of human resources that their companies have invested in research. Of DJI’s 14,000 employees, about one-quarter work on research and development.

U.S. firms are far smaller. Drone industry group AUVSI counts just 13 groups in its “large” category of 500 or more employees. Chinese companies also benefit from vertical integration in their supply chain, said Benowitz, which allows them to control every component’s specifications.

The U.S. could theoretically look across the Atlantic for drones, but European firms are little better off.

“The average drone company in Europe has, like 20 employees,” said Bödecker.

Fixing the problem

If the U.S. wants to help the domestic drone industry, the solution is to stimulate the market through high demand, according to David Michelson, who leads the autonomy portfolio at the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit.

“The feedback I usually get [from vendors] is: ‘Don't tell me how to build a thing, just buy more’.” said Michelson.

By contrast, government involvement in the industry—such as making capital investments on behalf of companies—might dampen innovation while ultimately being a wasted investment if drone orders don’t come through, he said.

“If you make those capital investments and you're not building anything, you're not going to learn and become more agile and become more efficient,” Michaelson said.

Army leadership agrees: “I think once we start to show a demand for more of these, and people are producing them, the prices will continue to come down,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said during Defense One’s State of Defense event earlier this year.

But so far, the Short Range Reconnaissance program remains the Army’s only small-drone program of record. It has ordered 936 quadcopters from fiscal year 2023 through 2026, according to Army budget documents.

Other programs-of-record are being developed, and the Army has also requested $25 million from Congress to give to individual commanders to buy drones off the Blue List. That may put another 1,700 drones into the Army, assuming they purchase cheaper drones like the $14,000 Parrot Anafi. That also assumes that Congress approves the request and that commanders are interested.

The Army’s 2024 budget also includes $21.8 million to buy commercially available drones, but does not say which ones or how the money would be spent. The Army did not respond to a request for clarification in time for publication.

But the military will need to up its orders if it wants to catch up with China, said DroneAnalyst’s Benowitz.

An order of 1,000 to 2,000 drones could “significantly help justify investments that could ramp up production and potentially lower costs by investing at a component level,” he said. “However, it wouldn't be sufficient to significantly close the gap in capacity or price compared to China.”

Hudson’s Clark said drone companies with venture capital funding can invest more in production, but the low average price for individual drones means that companies that depend on sales may struggle.

“If the government buys a tranche of them, it's not a huge amount of money, which means it's difficult to capitalize new plants based on current cash flow,” he said.

Even companies with more resources aren’t necessarily well-positioned to make investments in some key components, “They can’t build their own chip-making plant,” said Clark.

If orders ever reach hundreds of millions of dollars, the U.S. “could do an immense amount,” to improve drone manufacturing, said Monroe-Anderson. Still, he agreed that China’s strong industrial base meant the U.S. couldn’t quickly catch up.

Clark added that national security is another reason for investing in the supply chain. “There’s components for these drones that are not readily available in the U.S. There’s going to be a concern: are we becoming dependent upon non-U.S. sources?”

While Clark pointed to investments in the submarine industrial base as a possible model for the drone industry, Benowitz recommended a policy like the CHIPS and Science Act, which provides tens of billions in federal incentives for semiconductor production.

Bödecker, of Drone Industry Insights, pointed to yet another potential solution.

“When you look at Ukraine, now, they are building insane capacities to build drones,” he said. After the Russian-Ukraine war ends, “there will be a production capacity that will in return address the European and maybe even North American market,” he said.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

15. In Secret Talks, U.S. Offers Amnesty to Venezuela’s Maduro for Ceding Power

I am sure he will accept this offer when Kim Jong Un accepts the offer of a dacha in Russia to step down from power. Maybe they can be neighbors.

In Secret Talks, U.S. Offers Amnesty to Venezuela’s Maduro for Ceding Power

Long-shot American attempt fueled by opposition effort to document strongman’s overwhelming defeat at the polls

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/in-secret-talks-u-s-offers-amnesty-to-venezuelas-maduro-for-ceding-power-e22b4821?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Juan ForeroFollow, Patricia Garip and Kejal VyasFollow

Aug. 11, 2024 5:30 am ET

BOGOTA—The U.S. is pursuing a long-shot bid to push Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to give up power in exchange for amnesty as overwhelming evidence emerges that the strongman lost last month’s election, people familiar with the matter said.

The U.S. has discussed pardons for Maduro and top lieutenants of his who face Justice Department indictments, said three people familiar with the Biden administration deliberation. One of the people said the U.S. has put “everything on the table” to persuade Maduro to leave before his term ends in January.

Another person familiar with the talks said the U.S. would be open to providing guarantees not to pursue those regime figures for extradition. The U.S. in 2020 placed a $15 million bounty for information leading to Maduro’s arrest on charges of conspiring with his allies to flood the U.S. with cocaine. 

The talks represent a flicker of hope for a Venezuelan political opposition that meticulously collected voter tallies showing its candidate, little-known former diplomat Edmundo González, defeated Maduro in a landslide in the July 28 election. Over the past two weeks, Maduro has jailed thousands of dissidents, maintained the military’s loyalty and tasked the Supreme Court, stacked with his handpicked allies, with resolving the election impasse, buying him time.  

Voters lined up next to Maduro banners outside a polling station in Caracas, Venezuela, during the election in July. Photo: Marcelo Perez del Carpio/Getty Images

International action may be the only avenue to force out Maduro, who over 11 years of authoritarian rule has overseen an economic implosion, diplomatic isolation and the exodus of nearly eight million Venezuelans—more than war-torn Syria and Ukraine. Maduro has given transnational gangs a safe haven, U.S. and Colombian officials say, and allowed Russia, China and other U.S. rivals to gain a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.

Maduro’s total grip on power stacks the odds against the Biden administration. The U.S. had made an amnesty offer to Maduro during secret talks in Doha last year, but the strongman declined to discuss arrangements where he would have to leave office, said people familiar with the matter. One person close to the regime said Maduro’s position hasn’t changed, for now.

Maduro has said that he’s open to talks as long as Washington shows him respect. At other times, he tells the U.S. to mind its own business. “Don’t mess with Venezuela’s internal affairs, that’s all I ask for,” Maduro said in a news conference Friday. 

Maduro has cracked down on protests since the election. Photo: Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Latin America’s three most populous countries—Brazil, Mexico and Colombia—are also involved in trying to resolve the standoff. U.S. officials want these countries—run by leftist leaders sympathetic to Maduro—to take a tougher stance than their current position of pressuring him to present evidence he won.

The U.S. has five months before Venezuela’s presidential inauguration to pull off a deal, and much depends on the outcome of the presidential election in November. 

A Donald Trump victory could squelch the talks if the former president revives his previous aggressive policies toward Maduro that began in 2019, when his administration leveled oil sanctions and supported a shadow Venezuelan government to topple the regime. 

Still Maduro mistrusts Washington, no matter who inhabits the White House, said people familiar with the sentiment in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. This includes the Biden administration, even though it had lifted most economic sanctions in the hope of fostering a free and fair July election. 

Maduro, next to his wife Cilia Flores, spoke to supporters in Caracas in the days after the election. Photo: Pedro Rances Mattey/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Focus on carrots, not sticks

So far, the talks have taken place virtually between Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s congress and a Maduro confidant, and Daniel P. Erikson, who directs policy toward Venezuela at the White House National Security Council. U.S. officials have signaled that they won’t force Western oil companies to leave Venezuela.

An NSC spokeswoman declined to comment on diplomatic engagements with Caracas. The U.S., she said, supports international efforts to demand transparency over the vote result and “will determine next steps based on our national interests and take action at the time of our choosing.” 

The Biden administration “is focusing on carrots, like offering to lift the indictments in exchange for transition talks, rather than sticks like sanctions,” said Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert at the Atlantic Council, the Washington think tank. 

Ramsey said Republicans could use the engagement with Maduro to attack the Democrats in an election year, which could be damaging if the U.S.’s efforts fall through.

Vote count persuaded U.S. to act 

The U.S. attempt to offer Maduro a face-saving option dovetails with the opposition’s strategy, which favors negotiations that would include guarantees for regime leaders and a transition to a González government. 

The U.S. talks wouldn’t be happening without the Venezuelan opposition’s monthslong preparations to document and make public the vote tally, which showed González won by almost 38 percentage points, collecting 7.3 million votes to Maduro’s 3.3 million. 

A man carries a protester suffering from the effects of tear gas used by police in Caracas during a demonstration against the official election result. Photo: Cristian Hernandez/Associated Press

Opposition leaders said they were sure Maduro would steal the election. He had already banned the most popular opposition leader, María Corina Machado, from running. 

They decided their best shot at documenting victory was to obtain the paper tabulation of the ballots that every Venezuelan voting machine emits, known as an acta. Venezuelan law requires actas be made publicly available. The opposition trained tens of thousands of poll watchers, who are permitted into voting stations to retrieve the actas, which look like a grocer’s receipt.

An opposition organizer said: “I told our poll watchers: ‘They can try to kill you but don’t leave the voting table until you have the actas.’” 

As the voting ended, poll workers noticed González was winning at station after station, even in the Caracas neighborhood called 23rd of January—a stronghold for the radical leftist movement that has ruled for a quarter-century. “We couldn’t believe it,” said one poll worker. 

Another poll worker across town was stunned as he saw Maduro losing in districts that had been “hyper-Chavista,” referring to the president’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chávez.

Police officers take cover from demonstrators during a protest in Caracas on July 29. Photo: Yuri Cortez/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Soldiers, who normally carry out the regime’s orders, did nothing to stop the opposition’s effort, the whole process amounting to a mini-rebellion against Maduro in a country where he controls every institution, including the National Electoral Council.

“They were happy,” the poll worker in 23rd of January said of the soldiers. “It was surprising.”

The poll watchers, using a QR code on the actas, sent the results electronically to the opposition. They also kept physical copies, posting many on social media.

Regime allies and the military managed to throw out some opposition poll watchers and seized actas in some voting stations. But it wasn’t enough to stop the flood of evidence.

Long after the voting ended, the regime was silent, even though the country’s modern electronic-voting system is designed to spit out results minutes after polls closed. It wasn’t until after midnight that the election council’s president, Maduro confidant Elvis Amoroso, said the president had won, citing no evidence.

Votes are counted after the polls closed. Photo: Raul Arboleda/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By then, the opposition was on its way to collecting 83% of the actas. Their tally showed González had won far more votes in every Venezuelan state and nearly 300 of 330 counties.

Jennie Lincoln, who oversaw the Carter Center’s effort to monitor the election, said Amoroso didn’t present station-by-station results, as required by electoral law, and still hasn’t. Without offering proof, the regime has said a North Macedonian hacker had breached the system, making it impossible to publicly share the actas.

“And the hacking,” Lincoln said, “it’s bogus.”

Amoroso didn’t explain how he determined Maduro had won, having never shown others at the election-council headquarters the actas on which the election outcome is based, said Enrique Márquez, a former presidential candidate who had a representative at the headquarters on election night. 

The results collected by the opposition were similar to pre-election surveys by independent pollsters and exit polls. The opposition digitized the actas and published them on a website accessible to any Venezuelan. “We were able to show the world the truth and what had happened in Venezuela,” Machado told The Wall Street Journal.

María Corina Machado now faces investigation by Maduro’s regime. Photo: Fabiola Ferrero/Bloomberg News

The regime response

From the presidential palace, Maduro, 61, has called the opposition’s strategy a coup and launched a crackdown, with his regime pledging to investigate Machado and González. 

As of the end of the week, Maduro said more than 2,400 dissidents and protesters had been arrested. 

National Guard troops and the regime’s paramilitary gangs, the motorbike-riding “colectivos,” have attacked protesters. Antigovernment activists have fled to Colombia, while hundreds of Venezuelans who had publicly come out against Maduro report that their passports have been annulled. The human-rights group Provea says 24 people have died.

“There will be no forgiveness,” Maduro warned his adversaries. Two prisons will be built to hold the new political prisoners, the president said, with many toiling away at hard labor. 

Voting records are displayed during a gathering organized by opposition leaders. Photo: Yuri Cortez/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Eric Farnsworth, a former American diplomat and analyst at the Council of the Americas policy group in Washington, said the election results stunned Maduro. Farnsworth said the strongman has signaled he’s willing to take Venezuela toward a more hard-line dictatorship, like that of Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega, where political killings are far more common and no dissent is brooked.

“He’s been shown to be unpopular and also illegitimate. How does he combat that? With further oppression,” said Farnsworth. “As a practical matter, it makes him more dangerous. That makes being in the opposition a very risky thing.” 

The regime has announced what it calls Operation Knock-Knock, which means a knock at the door at any hour and arrest. In one case that went viral, uniformed agents recently showed up at the home of a young man without a warrant. The proof of wrongdoing: a video of him protesting. 

“Inciting hate,” an agent told the family, showing them the video on his phone. Relatives demanded to see a warrant but the agent warned, “If you want to make this worse, we’ll make it worse,” before they took the man away. The family posted a video of the encounter online.

Maduro’s supporters took part in a march in Caracas on August 5. Photo: Yuri Cortez/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Maduro is trying to steer people from X and WhatsApp, ordering that Elon Musk’s company be blocked for 10 days and exhorting Venezuelans to deinstall WhatsApp to suppress information about the vote and the crackdown.

Machado said change can come if the opposition can keep its people on the streets. 

But there are consequences for those going up against Maduro, said Juan Barreto, a former Caracas mayor once closely aligned with the regime. After calling for the regime to release the actas, he infuriated his old comrades—some of whom are calling for his arrest.

“This is a moment to remain calm and have nerves of steel,” Barreto said. 

Maduro spoke from a balcony at the presidential palace in Caracas on July 30. Photo: Federico Parra/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Jenny Carolina González contributed to this article.

Write to Juan Forero at juan.forero@wsj.com

16. Navy still bullish on lasers but widely-deployed directed-energy ship defense remains years away

Are we sharing information with Korea and perhaps collaborating as they seem to be developing lasers to counter drones?

Navy still bullish on lasers but widely-deployed directed-energy ship defense remains years away

Quest gains urgency as enemy drones and missiles get better, cheaper, and more widely used.

By Patrick Tucker

Science & Technology Editor, Defense One

August 8, 2024

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

“I'm just frustrated that it's taking so long, but that's not due to lack of effort in trying,” said the commander of U.S. Navy Pacific surface warships, describing the service’s latest projects that seek practical anti-air defenses of pure energy.

One problem—in fact, “the No. 1 barrier,” according to Vice Adm. Brendan McLane of Surface Forces Pacific—is that there’s no commercial market for lasers powerful enough to down an incoming missile from miles away.

But the military’s own need for defenses that are less expensive and more flexible than interceptor missiles grows more urgent by the day. Offensive missiles and armed drones are getting cheaper, deadlier, and more widely used; witness the anti-shipping campaign in the Red Sea and the April 16 aerial attack on Israel.

To be sure, the Navy has deployed experimental and prototype lasers and other directed-energy weapons for more than a decade. Eight warships currently carry the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy, or ODIN, a small laser to blind the sensors of incoming drones and missiles. But it doesn’t do well against weapons that move really fast or lack optical sensors.

“We'll continue operational deployments and provide key data to inform our defensive efforts for that,” McLane said.

The Navy has higher hopes for the 120-kilowatt High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance, or HELIOS, even if enthusiasm has waned since a 2022 deployment aboard the destroyer Preble.

“We've tested it a few times. It hasn't turned out the way we want, yet,” McLane said. “We continue to partner with Lockheed Martin to kind of get it there. But the potential and the capability is impressive. It's going to be capable of counter-UAS, counter-ISR,” among other things.

The Navy is also working on a prototype 300-kilowatt laser with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The service “will continue the initiative by commencing testing and then development up to 500 kilowatts for further advanced technical understandings, experimentations,” said McLane.

Yet another effort is the Office of Naval Research’s High Energy Laser Counter-ASCM Program, a 300-kilowatt laser specifically designed to take out the sort of anti-ship missiles that Iranian-backed forces are shooting in the Red Sea. The service is trying to build a beam test site and hoping to demonstrate it on land next year.

“We hope to be able to transfer to our ships if they prove to be successful,” McLane said.

The Navy is also looking to test METEOR, a high-powered microwave weapon that can defend a wider area (but at shorter range) than narrow-beamed laser, on its ships as early as 2026.

But even if all of these efforts are successful, the Navy still has a ways to go before lasers play a more regular role in ship defense. It will be especially important to see how all those types of systems work together against a variety of threats.

“There's a lot of prototypes out there for both high-powered microwave and lasers. Right now, the issue is partially the maturity, but partially the [concepts of operation] of how it would work in terms of: how you would use a laser in conjunction with other things,” William LaPlante, the Pentagon’s chief buyer, told reporters on Wednesday. “All these things have to be used together, and they all have limitations, and they all have sweet spots.”

The bottom line, said LaPlante, is that getting new lasers and directed-energy weapons on ships is only the first step to making them effective.

“We're finding that there's a lot of promise in those systems. But they're not the only answer, and they're going to have to be part of a layered system of defenses."

McLane said the Navy is starting to think about that.

“We're still kind of with one piece of directed-energy equipment per ship as we're testing and learning. We haven't gone to the point where we can put multiple things on one ship to test the—as you suggest—like the layered defense of something. But I think in the next few years we should be able to get there.”

For now, the military will keep firing expensive missiles at cheap drones.

“We would welcome being able to bring systems in, but direct energy is not the panacea,” CENTCOM command Gen. Michael Kurilla told Congress in March. “I would tell you: what's worse than shooting a million-dollar missile on a $20,000 drone is that $20,000 drone hitting a $2 billion ship with 300 sailors on it.”

Audrey Decker contributed to this post.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

17. New U.N. Cybercrime Treaty Could Threaten Human Rights

Excerpts:

This treaty opens the door to violations of human rights and freedoms of speech, Hassan added. The adopted text defers to domestic law for human rights safeguards, “which means that people are subject to the whims of the laws of individual countries,” she said. Countries with poor records of those safeguards—who were also strong supporters of the treaty—include Belarus, China, Nicaragua, Cuba and Russia (an especially loud proponent).

The agreement could also potentially create transnational danger. “The treaty allows for cross-border surveillance and cooperation to gather evidence for serious crimes, effectively transforming it into a global surveillance network,” Rodriguez says. “This poses a significant risk of cross-border human rights abuses and transnational repression.”

Industry representatives from the Cybersecurity Tech Accord—a coalition that includes Microsoft, Meta and more than 150 other global technology firms—were concerned about the private sector’s ability to comply with the treaty. In January the coalition warned the agreement could compel Internet service providers to share data across jurisdictions, potentially in conflict with local laws. Nick Ashton-Hart, head of the Cybersecurity Tech Accord’s delegation to the treaty’s negotiations, says that it was regrettable the U.N. committee had adopted it despite its major flaws. “If it is implemented, the convention will be harmful to the digital environment generally and human rights in particular,” Ashton-Hart says. The treaty “will make the online world less secure and more vulnerable to cybercrime by undermining cybersecurity.”

New U.N. Cybercrime Treaty Could Threaten Human Rights

A recently adopted United Nations treaty could lead to invasive digital surveillance, human rights experts warn

By Kate Graham-Shaw

Scientific American · by Kate Graham-Shaw

NEW YORK CITY —The United Nations approved its first international cybercrime treaty yesterday. The effort succeeded despite opposition from tech companies and human rights groups, who warn that the agreement will permit countries to expand invasive electronic surveillance in the name of criminal investigations. Experts from these organizations say that the treaty undermines the global human rights of freedom of speech and expression because it contains clauses that countries could interpret to internationally prosecute any perceived crime that takes place on a computer system.

The U.N. committee room erupted in applause after the convention’s adoption, as many members and delegates celebrated the finale of three years of difficult discussions. In commending the adoption, delegates such as South Africa’s cited the treaty’s support for countries with relatively smaller cyber infrastructure.

But among the watchdog groups that monitored the meeting closely, the tone was funereal. “The U.N. cybercrime convention is a blank check for surveillance abuses,” says Katitza Rodriguez, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF’s) policy director for global privacy. “It can and will be wielded as a tool for systemic rights violations.”

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In the coming weeks, the treaty will head to a vote among the General Assembly’s 193 member states. If it’s accepted by a majority there, the treaty will move to the ratification process, in which individual country governments must sign on.

The treaty, called the Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes, was first devised in 2019, with debates to determine its substance beginning in 2021. It is intended to provide a global legal framework to prevent and respond to cybercrimes. In a July statement before the treaty’s adoption, the U.S. and fellow members of the Freedom Online Coalition described it as an opportunity “to enhance cooperation on combatting and preventing cybercrime and collecting and sharing electronic evidence for serious crimes" but noted that the agreement could be misused as a tool for human rights violations and called for its scope to be more precisely defined. (The U.S. Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Scientific American.)

The agreement is a reaction to major technological developments in the past few decades that allowed cyber threats to evolve at a rapid rate. In 2023 alone, more than 340 million people worldwide were affected by cybercrime, according to data from the Identity Theft Resource Center.

The years of deliberation over the long and complex treaty culminated in this week’s closing session of negotiations. Critics such as EFF and Human Rights Watch (HRW) argue the text’s scope is too broad, allowing countries to apply it to offenses beyond what were typically considered cybercrimes in the past. The Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, which went into effect in 2004, is the only other major international treaty to address cybercrime. It sought to criminalize a range of offences, including cyber-enabled crimes (such as online bank scams or identity theft) and cyber-dependent ones (such as hacking and malware), while still aiming to accommodate human rights and liberties.

But experts have expressed that the newly adopted treaty lacks such safeguards for a free Internet. A major concern is that the treaty could be applied to all crimes as long as they involve information and communication technology (ICT) systems. HRW has documented the prosecution of LGBTQ+ people and others who expressed themselves online. This treaty could require countries’ governments to cooperate with other nations that have outlawed LGBTQ+ conduct or digital forms of political protest, for instance.

“This expansive definition effectively means that when governments pass domestic laws that criminalize a broad range of conducts, if it’s committed through an ICT system, they can point to this treaty to justify the enforcement of repressive laws,” said HRW executive director Tirana Hassan in a news briefing late last month.

This treaty opens the door to violations of human rights and freedoms of speech, Hassan added. The adopted text defers to domestic law for human rights safeguards, “which means that people are subject to the whims of the laws of individual countries,” she said. Countries with poor records of those safeguards—who were also strong supporters of the treaty—include Belarus, China, Nicaragua, Cuba and Russia (an especially loud proponent).

The agreement could also potentially create transnational danger. “The treaty allows for cross-border surveillance and cooperation to gather evidence for serious crimes, effectively transforming it into a global surveillance network,” Rodriguez says. “This poses a significant risk of cross-border human rights abuses and transnational repression.”

Industry representatives from the Cybersecurity Tech Accord—a coalition that includes Microsoft, Meta and more than 150 other global technology firms—were concerned about the private sector’s ability to comply with the treaty. In January the coalition warned the agreement could compel Internet service providers to share data across jurisdictions, potentially in conflict with local laws. Nick Ashton-Hart, head of the Cybersecurity Tech Accord’s delegation to the treaty’s negotiations, says that it was regrettable the U.N. committee had adopted it despite its major flaws. “If it is implemented, the convention will be harmful to the digital environment generally and human rights in particular,” Ashton-Hart says. The treaty “will make the online world less secure and more vulnerable to cybercrime by undermining cybersecurity.”

Scientific American · by Kate Graham-Shaw

18. Navy SEALs dropped in on a nuclear-powered submarine in the Pacific, drilling for a higher-end fight

Hmmm.... I wonder what the SEALs have to say about this. I think the SEALs conduct more than underwater reconnaissance. What about underwater against against ships or other underwater targets? 

Excerpts:

Interestingly, the Navy doesn't work solely with SEALs. Army Green Berets, Marine Raiders, and Recon Marines also have a combat diver capability. Indeed, Marine Raiders were the first unit in the US military's history to use a submarine to get to their target for an assault against the Japanese garrison at Makin Island in 1942.

However, the main difference between these units and Navy SEALs is that the former use combat diving to get to the shore and conduct their normal mission sets, whereas the latter use combat diving to both get to the shore to attack enemy positions and conduct underwater reconnaissance.

Navy SEALs dropped in on a nuclear-powered submarine in the Pacific, drilling for a higher-end fight

Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou

Military & Defense

Stavros Atlamazoglou

2024-08-11T12:21:01Z

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West Coast-based Naval Special Warfare (NSW) operators conduct military dive operations and prepare to board the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Greeneville (SSN 772). Petty Officer 1st Class Alex Smedegard

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• The Naval Special Warfare community's role could be expanded in a conflict with China or Russia.
• Navy SEALs recently trained alongside the submarine USS Greenville in the Pacific.
• This type of training reflects efforts to prepare for a higher-end fight, in which waters may be highly contested.

In the event of a conflict with China or Russia, the Naval Special Warfare community is expected to have an even larger role than it had during the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns of the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

With the majority of the world covered by water, including oceans, lakes, and rivers, Navy SEALs and Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen (SWCC) operators are expected to be at the tip of the spear of the special operations community in a potential conflict with Beijing or Moscow.

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This community, however, will need to operate with conventional forces, such as submarine crews.

Earlier in the summer, Navy SEALs assigned to West Coast SEAL Teams worked with the Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Greeneville in fleet interoperability training to boost their ability to fight together in the maritime domain.

The SEALs flew in close to the submarine's position before conducting a military freefall parachute jump. They then used inflatable combat rubber raiding crafts to rendezvous with the sub at a designated location.

Petty Officer 1st Class Alex Perlman

"This training opportunity provided the submarine warfighters aboard USS Greeneville the opportunity to practice a unique capability," Navy Capt. Kenneth Douglas, the commanding officer of Submarine Squadron 11, said following the end of the exercise.

USS Greeneville is assigned Submarine Squadron 11 and would be, in the event of a conflict, tasked with sinking enemy warships and transport vessels, in addition to leveraging its ability to carry special operators.

"Expanding joint interoperability capabilities effectively demonstrates our asymmetric advantage on and under the world's oceans and I look forward to continued training events with our Naval Special Warfare operators," the sub's commanding officer said.

Petty Officer 1st Class Alex Smedegard

Submarine operations are a great option to clandestinely transport small teams of special operators close to a target. Regardless of the specific mission of the special operations team — it can be a special reconnaissance mission, direct action raid, sabotage operation, hostage rescue, or personnel recovery operation — submarine operations promise secrecy and security.

A war with China would involve a lot of naval action, and the combination of submarines and Navy SEALs could allow the US military to reach behind the Chinese lines and impose heavy costs as rapidly deployable and potentially deniable forces.

Petty Officer 1st Class Alex Perlman

Navy Capt. Blake L. Chaney, Commander, Naval Special Warfare Group 1, said after the recent exercise that "by synchronizing our operations, activities and investments, we not only bolster fleet lethality but also provide substantial value in securing access to either denied or contested areas."

The Navy's Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines are equipped with specialized compartments that can host special operators, as well as facilitate their ingress and egress from target areas.

Petty Officer 1st Class Alex Perlman

"We've always worked with Big Navy. GWOT made it harder to work with submarines, but I'm sure that's changed now," a former Navy SEAL operator who now works for the federal government told Business Insider.

"Submarine ops are great because they present a great way to approach a target. If everyone follows procedures, infiltrating to and exfiltrating from a target [through] a submarine is a great option to have," the former frogman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his sensitive work, added.

"Sub ops certainly present difficulties. There are strict procedures that everyone, crew and operators, need to follow to the letter. Otherwise, what would be an asset quickly becomes a liability," he said.

Petty Officer 1st Class Alex Smedegard

Frogmen always swim in pairs and tied with a rope so that no one gets lost or left behind. In January, Navy Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram showed how seriously SEALs take this when he jumped into the dark waters of the Arabian Sea after his teammate, Navy Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Christopher J. Chambers, slipped and fell as they were boarding a suspect Houthi vessel. Both frogmen died.

Interestingly, the Navy doesn't work solely with SEALs. Army Green Berets, Marine Raiders, and Recon Marines also have a combat diver capability. Indeed, Marine Raiders were the first unit in the US military's history to use a submarine to get to their target for an assault against the Japanese garrison at Makin Island in 1942.

However, the main difference between these units and Navy SEALs is that the former use combat diving to get to the shore and conduct their normal mission sets, whereas the latter use combat diving to both get to the shore to attack enemy positions and conduct underwater reconnaissance.

Business Insider · by Stavros Atlamazoglou

19. Walz’s China ties garner attention, provoke GOP criticism

I expect we will see a lot more inaccurate reporting about the Governor's military record and his work in China. These will likely be the major lines of attack.

I do not make this statement with any partisan political intent. But these two issues, especially the China issue, will have an impact on national security. But it does not appear that he was either a panda hugger or a panda mugger.

Walz’s China ties garner attention, provoke GOP criticism

By Eric Bazail-Eimil and Jared Mitovich

08/09/2024 05:13 PM EDT

Politico

Republicans say the Democratic vice presidential nominee will be too soft on Beijing.

As a member of Congress, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz established himself as an advocate for human rights in China and a critic of its government. | Carlos Osorio/AP

08/09/2024 05:13 PM EDT

Washington and Beijing are figuring out what to make of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s connections to China and how they might shape policy towards the U.S. adversary if he and Vice President Kamala Harris win in November.

At 25 years old, Walz taught in China at the same time as the Tiananmen Square protests, earning the nickname “Fields of China” among his students. He went there on a honeymoon with his wife, Gwen, and two groups of American high schoolers, and visited 30 more times in the years afterward. And in Congress, he established himself as an advocate for human rights in China and a critic of its government.

He’d be the first vice president to have lived in China since George H.W. Bush, who served as U.S. envoy to mainland China under President Gerald Ford.

This unusual resume for an American politician has attracted lots of attention. Columnists and analysts in both countries have dissected Walz’s record in recent days, parsing through his biography and his congressional work for clues on how he and Harris might approach Beijing amid continued tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea and other flashpoints.

Chinese pro-government journalist Chen Weihua wrote a piece in state-run newspaper China Daily on Thursday asking if Walz could restore “sanity” to U.S. policy towards China. Some activists and analysts in China voiced enthusiasm about Walz, pointing to his experiences in the country.

Republicans claim Walz is too soft on Beijing and, in some cases, suggest he may advance the Chinese government’s interests.

A pro-Trump super PAC posted an interview on X in which Walz gave as a member of Congress where he said he didn’t “fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship.” The Republican National Committee shared an old video of Walz saying he is “pretty friendly with China.”

The Trump campaign promoted a Fox News segment on social media that slammed him as “Great Walz of China.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) argued on X that “Walz is an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders.” And the Heritage Foundation alleged that Walz is compromised by Chinese government influence efforts, pointing to circumstantial ties with Chinese officials.

The Harris campaign says Republicans are “twisting basic facts and desperately lying to distract from the Trump-Vance agenda.”

“Throughout his career, Governor Walz has stood up to the CCP, fought for human rights and democracy, and always put American jobs and manufacturing first,” the campaign said in a statement. “Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will ensure we win the competition with China, and will always stand up for our values and interests in the face of China’s threats.”

Notably, Usha Vance, the wife of Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), also taught in China as part of an exchange program.

Behind the debate over what Walz’s China policy views might mean for the U.S.-China relationship is a genuine personal interest in the country that the Minnesota governor has nurtured over nearly his entire adult life.

After college, he won a Harvard-run fellowship to teach English and history in China’s Guangdong province from 1989 to 1990 — arriving in Hong Kong for orientation as pro-democracy demonstrations grew in Beijing and the government moved to crush the protests.

Walz remained deeply interested in the country. He married his wife on the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre — which he said was intended to commemorate the protesters — and honeymooned in China. As a teacher in Nebraska and Minnesota, he and his wife ran a small travel business that organized educational trips to China for American high school students. He was also a visiting fellow at the Macau Polytechnic University.

In Congress, Walz served on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a U.S. government watchdog that monitors human rights in China. He also met with the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan leaders. And Walz expressed support for Hong Kong democracy activists. He was the only House Democrat to co-sponsor the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act in 2017. The bill became law in 2019 after Walz left Congress.

Jeffrey Ngo, a pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong, wrote on X that Walz, “is perhaps the most solid candidate when it comes to human rights and China on a major-party ticket in recent memory — if not ever.”

Yet Walz only minimally commented on debates over aid to Taiwan and the future of the South China Sea in Congress. That leaves open questions about how he’d approach one of the biggest potential flashpoints with China.

Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program, said that Walz doesn’t come off as “naive” on China. But she’s interested in hearing more about Walz’s thoughts on Taiwan and other security challenges.

“I hope that whether it’s in the debates or in interviews going forward between now and our elections, that Governor Walz has an opportunity to clarify a bit about what his current thinking is about Taiwan,” Glaser said. “Then we won’t have to speculate.”

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Politico

20. China’s Nightmare: A Second Trade War With Trump

Except the American consumer pays for tariffs which should mean that consumers will stop buying Chinese goods. The question is what will replace the Chinese goods?

China’s Nightmare: A Second Trade War With Trump

China’s struggling economy is overly reliant on exports, making it more vulnerable to the punishing tariffs the Republican nominee is proposing

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/chinas-nightmare-a-second-trade-war-with-trump-363313ae?mod=latest_headlines

By Jason Douglas

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Aug. 10, 2024 9:00 pm ET

Donald Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a Group of 20 summit in Japan in 2019 in an effort to hash out bilateral issues. Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

SINGAPORE—China was bruised by its trade war with the U.S. under President Donald Trump, but ultimately bounced back. If Trump wins the White House in November, round two will be much tougher. 

The Republican nominee has said he would raise tariffs on Chinese imports to 60% or more if he wins this year’s presidential election. The economic damage to China would be much steeper than in Trump’s first term because the tariffs would be higher and China’s economy is much more vulnerable.

Trump “will be putting his elbow into the Chinese economy as it deflates,” said Matthew Gertken, chief geopolitical strategist at BCA Research. “They are more vulnerable.”

The trade war erupted in 2018 when Trump placed tariffs of up to 25% on $350 billion of imports from China—65% of the 2018 total—including solar panels, washing machines, steel and aluminum. China retaliated with tariffs of its own on U.S. goods.

Most economists say China got the worst of that trade fight, but the effect didn’t last. Its exports bounced back strongly during the pandemic as locked-down consumers in the West gorged on consumer electronics and other home comforts. 

Chinese exporters have since found new markets, aided by state support and low prices. China’s surplus in goods trade hit a monthly record in June of almost $100 billion, lifted by exports to the European Union and Southeast Asia. 

Except for exports, China is struggling

The export surge is a bright spot for an otherwise struggling economy. An epic property crunch is now in its third year. Burned by the property meltdown and lingering trauma of the pandemic, Chinese consumers are keeping a tight grip on their wallets. Local government finances are under severe strain, and private-sector confidence is in the doldrums. 

This reliance on manufacturing and exports leaves China much more sensitive to an escalation in the U.S.-China trade war. 

Patrick Zweifel, chief economist at Pictet Asset Management, estimates that if a Kamala Harris presidency stuck with the more selective tariff policy of the Biden administration, it might shave perhaps 0.03 percentage point off Chinese economic growth next year. 

Raise tariffs to 60% on all Chinese goods, as Trump has proposed, and the hit would be far larger, at perhaps 1.4 percentage points, which in his forecasts would pull growth in 2025 down to around 3.4% from an expected 4.8%.

UBS estimates that tariffs of 60% on U.S. imports of Chinese goods would hold back GDP growth by about 2.5 percentage points in the 12 months after imposition, though the drag could be just 1.5 percentage points if China takes offsetting actions.

A ship with cargo containers in Long Beach, Calif.; Trump has vowed to impose harsher tariffs on Chinese imports if elected this year. Photo: Allison Dinner/Shutterstock

Among those responses: Chinese policymakers could let its currency weaken further, extend tax rebates and other perks to exporters, and cut interest rates. They could try to force the U.S. to reconsider by retaliating, such as by raising tariffs on U.S. products, withholding supplies of critical minerals, and possibly selling U.S. assets, such as Treasurys, according to Goldman Sachs. 

Studies published by universities in China and Stanford University found Trump’s first round of tariffs not only pinched exports but squeezed corporate earnings, hurt business and consumer confidence and throttled investment and hiring. Economists say those effects would be repeated and amplified this time since Trump would impose tariffs on every Chinese import. 

Other countries are also raising barriers

Chinese firms’ profits are under pressure from feeble demand and chronic oversupply. Producer prices have been falling for almost two years. A firm operating on a profit margin of 5% or 6% couldn’t swallow 60% tariffs, said Nick Borst, director of China research at Seafarer Capital Partners, a California asset manager focused on emerging markets. 

Since 2018, China has reoriented some exports away from the U.S. and is selling more to developing economies. With the U.S. market effectively closed by a 60% tariff, China would be forced to sell even more to those other markets. But some, such as India, Brazil and Mexico, are now pushing back against Chinese imports out of concern for domestic jobs and industries.

“If China is basically locked out of the U.S. market…they are going to have to push their goods even harder onto other destinations. And other destinations may not tolerate that,” said Adam Slater, lead economist at Oxford Economics. 

China could defuse such tensions by building factories overseas to serve local markets. But China’s leadership has mixed feelings about overseas expansion, said Borst, given that it potentially means lower manufacturing employment back home.

Write to Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com