Quotes of the Day:
"Strategy is the indispensable place of strength; it is our most important military resource. We must know how to employ it. To be sure, in the constant tension of the contest, its absence will prove a source of existential danger." (This was created by Ai interpreting Clausewitz)
-Codewitz@codewitz Artificial neural network trained on Clausewitz' “On War” deep-writing tweets. Feat.BonusBots thucy/bernardcodie/mach/sunny/Megatron. Created by @ElenaWicker
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."
- Eric Hoffer
"The answer is simple and stark: the PRC is a coercive, expansionist, hyper-nationalistic, militarily powerful, brutally repressive, fascist, and totalitarian state. According to retired U.S. Navy captain James E. Fanell, “The world has seen what happens when expansionis totalitarian regimes such as [the PRC] are left unchallenged and unchecked. In the world of this type of hegemon, people are subjects—simply property—of the state, and ideals such as democracy, inalienable rights, limited government, and rule of law have no place.”
- Kerry K. Gershaneck in Political Warfare: Strategies for Combating China’s Plan to “Win Without Fighting”
1. AUKUS: Winners And Losers – Analysis
2. Low-Level Commanders Need Authority to Counter Information Operations, Northcom Leader Say
3. FDD | Treasury Takes Aim at Ransomware and Illicit Cryptocurrency Trading
4. Opinion | No Wonder the French Are Angry
5. US unfairly targeting Chinese over industrial spying, says report
6. Japan welcomes Taiwan’s application to join TPP free trade deal
7. Lawmakers storm out of classified Afghanistan briefing after questions go unanswered
8. Biden’s nuclear agenda in trouble as Pentagon hawks attack
9. Advocates push for space on National Mall to honor Global War on Terror troops
10. Welcome Back to the Pentagon ....
11. The Quad Comes to Washington
12. Sweden progresses with two complementary strategies to deter an invasion
13. In Biden’s Foreign Policy, Friends and Foes Claim Echoes of Trump
14. Why the head of the IMF should resign
15. Opinion | To contain China, joining the Pacific trade pact might be more effective than new submarines
16. The 'Quad' is on the rise in Asia-Pacific: Game theory has a prediction about its future
17. U.S., allies becoming more assertive in their approach toward a rising China
1. AUKUS: Winners And Losers – Analysis
Excerpts:
Key takeaways for now
Western hypocrisy over nuclear proliferation and the key role of its armament merchants and supporting politicians in determining foreign policy is not only again exposed from this new military pact. North Korea, Iran, Turkey and a host of other countries wanting to join the nuclear weaponry club will have greater justification for crossing what the west has set up as an elastic red line.
As for Australian PM Morrison, he has instigated a new round of the cold war which has him pinning the target on his own country’s back as well as the backs of Asia and Pacific neighbours.
AUKUS: Winners And Losers – Analysis
Western hypocrisy over nuclear proliferation and the key role of its armament industry in determining foreign policy is again exposed
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his colleagues are today basking in the flag waving congratulations from patriotic and red-blooded Australians for his success in pulling off the AUKUS agreement to intensify military cooperation between Australia and its two western allies against what the trio have identified as their common enemy – China.
So how big and momentous a deal is it exactly?
According to former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott:
“This is a historic and important decision made by the Australian government. Historic because it overturns decades of strategic caution and announces to the world that we take national security seriously. Important because it acknowledges the scale of the strategic challenge from China and declares that Australia will play our part in meeting it.”
Hugh White, an academic from Canberra’s Australian National University, similarly noted that “the new agreement will make Australia the only non-nuclear armed country in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines”.
“That is a very big deal indeed…In the escalating rivalry between America and China, we’re siding with the United States and we’re betting they’re going to win this one.”
More critical Australians have denounced it as a big mistake with former Prime Minister, Paul Keating arguing that Australia’s sycophancy to the US was only damaging its own interests.
Weeks earlier Keating had chastised the government for leading Australia into a “Cold War” with China.
“Australia is a continent sharing a border with no other state. It has no territorial disputes with China. Indeed, China is 12 flying hours away from the Australian coast. Yet the government, both through its foreign policy incompetence and fawning compulsion to please America, effectively has us in a cold war with China.”
Clearly this advice is being ignored by Morrison who is committed to winning a coming kaki election where according to one Australian wag, he can show off to the electorate the new hair on his chest grown with US and British assistance.
Winners
Is Joe Biden the big winner? With the US tail between its legs from the Taliban inflicted ignominious Kabul retreat and numerous domestic challenges to overcome, he now can show off one achievement with the assistance of “that fella from down under”.
But is it such a big victory for the US? Available data confirms that the US has an overwhelming military superiority over China in the Indo Pacific and South China Sea regions. Although the number of US military bases in these two regions has not been publicly disclosed, what is known is that there is a very large number of US military bases ringing China. Around the world the US maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries with several hundred thousands of land, sea and air troops and other military personnel ready to take out any enemy.
The latest addition of Australian nuclear submarines and another military base does show that Biden is more macho than Trump in foreign policy. But it will not count at all in the US’s troubled national politics or enhance America’s national security. Rather the exercise smacks of nuclear overkill. The US has presently 400 intercontinental missiles. The warheads on the ICBMs only represent one quarter of deployed US strategic warheads. More than half of deployed US strategic warheads are mounted on submarine-launched missiles. The remainder are nuclear bombs and warheads on cruise missiles bunkers that can reach Beijing, Pyongyang and Moscow and nuke them into oblivion – several times over.
China, on the other hand, has one military base – not in Latin America or the Indo Pacific region but in Djibouti, Africa! Not only is China’s military power in land, sea and air much less than the US but its military budget is considerably smaller (see table).
Boris Johnson appears to be the bigger winner. This latest flying of the British flag in a region where it has been reduced from colonial giant to post-colonial third tier status may provide gratification and a sense of self-importance for the domestic audience. But more significant to the British power elite is the mouth watering US $90 billion contract that Morrison tore up and which the British armament industry and mass media are drooling over. The fact that it is Macron and France that this Anglophone initiative has killed off makes this perhaps the most important English victory over the French since the Battle Of Agincourt. To sooth French outrage but scarcely believable and more hypocritical to anyone who has followed British politics since Brexit is the British Prime Minister’s most recent declaration that “Our love of France is ineradicable.”
Losers
Notwithstanding the British PM’s “forever” love declaration and reminders from Australian leaders of how tens of thousands of Australians have died to defend France in past wars, France – as the big loser – will be looking for revenge. Gerard Araud, a former French ambassador to the United States, noted on twitter that the deal blind-sided France. “The world is a jungle,” “France has just been reminded of this bitter truth by the way the US and the UK have stabbed her in the back in Australia. C’est la vie.” Harsher words have come from France’s top officials. “There has been duplicity, contempt and lies,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian declared on France 2 television, adding relations with Australia and the United States were in “crisis”.”You can’t play that way in an alliance.”
The loss of the “contract of the century” submarine deal is not just a massive economic blow. It is also a huge political setback for French President Emmanuel Macron who is running for re-election next year. Further comments by Morrison and his cabinet members on the need for Australia to replace the ‘obsolete’ French designed Shortfin Barracuda program with a technologically superior British submarine have rubbed more salt into the open wound. Meanwhile, the French outrage has been greeted with disapproving and contemptuous feedback from the British and Australia public. A satirist commentator has pointed out that the major problem of the French design is that it could only go into neutral or reverse drive! These and similar comments in social media may yet come back to haunt the AUKUS partners. Expect interesting times ahead for British-French relations.
Beware the Unintended Consequences
Lord Peter Ricketts, former British ambassador to France has warned that the recall of ambassadors from the US and Australia by the French government is just “the tip of the iceberg”. According to him, “there is a deep sense of betrayal in France because this wasn’t just an arms contract. This was France setting up a strategic partnership with Australia and the Australians have now thrown that away and negotiated behind the backs of France with two Nato allies, the US and UK, to replace it with a completely different contract. I think for the French, this looks like a complete failure of trust between allies. Therefore, causing them to doubt, what is Nato for?”
This may yet turn out to be a case study for an introductory course on “Classic Foreign Policy Bungling and Disasters”.
Away from Nato, China has warned the three countries to “abandon the obsolete cold war zero sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical concepts and respect regional people’s aspiration and do more that is conducive to regional peace and stability and development – otherwise they will only end up hurting their own interests”.
Also shattered for now and for good is the campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific backed by New Zealand and countries of the Indo-Pacific region. Australian disregard and disdain for its “little brother” and the Pacific island nations has never been more obvious.
And in the contested South China Sea region, Indonesia and Malaysia in immediate responses have expressed deep concern over the arms race being intensified by the new tripartite military pact; and called on nations to avoid provoking a nuclear arms race as well as meet their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
Key takeaways for now
Western hypocrisy over nuclear proliferation and the key role of its armament merchants and supporting politicians in determining foreign policy is not only again exposed from this new military pact. North Korea, Iran, Turkey and a host of other countries wanting to join the nuclear weaponry club will have greater justification for crossing what the west has set up as an elastic red line.
As for Australian PM Morrison, he has instigated a new round of the cold war which has him pinning the target on his own country’s back as well as the backs of Asia and Pacific neighbours.
*Lim Teck Ghee, a former graduate of the Australian National University, is a political analyst in Malaysia. He has a regular column, ‘Another Take’ in The Sun, one of the nation’s print media.
2. Low-Level Commanders Need Authority to Counter Information Operations, Northcom Leader Say
MIssion command should be the foundation for information operations. We need to have the authority for action at the correct lowest level and not centralized at the highest levels as it is now if we want to act a the speed of information.
But we are so risk averse in the information and influence domain. It is easier to get permission to put a hellfire missile on the forehead of a terrorist than it is to get permission to put an idea between his ears.
We all should reflect on this excerpt:
"I think we need to be a little more aggressive," he said. "I think, right now, we should change the paradigm [for] the way we do information operations."
Right now, he said, information operations plans might go through a combatant commander, to the Defense Department, bring in the National Security Council and involve the White House as well, he said.
"That is a very slow process, and in the environment we're operating in right now ... in about 12 hours to 24 hours in the information space, you're irrelevant. It has moved on," he said. "I believe we need to flip that paradigm and push down, use mission command — the lanes in the road, the rules of the road — and allow commanders of the lower level to be able to execute within the mission environment that we're operating in to be more effective in real time."
Low-Level Commanders Need Authority to Counter Information Operations, Northcom Leader Say
How's the United States doing in its efforts to counter the information and propaganda campaigns waged by adversaries to undermine American democracy? Not so good, the commander of U.S. Northern Command said.
"I think we're getting, and I'm on the record, I think we're getting our rear end handed to us in the information space because we're so risk-averse in the environment that we operate in today," Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck said yesterday, during a presentation with the Air Force Association.
Cyber Ops
Personnel with the 175th Cyberspace Operations Group conduct cyber operations at Warfield Air National Guard Base, Middle River, Md., June 3, 2017.
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Photo By: J.M. Eddins Jr., Air Force
VIRIN: 170603-F-LW859-023A
The general said he thinks the United States must speed up its ability to respond if it's going to protect things like elections or prevent the spread of misinformation and propaganda by the likes of Russia and China.
"I think we need to be a little more aggressive," he said. "I think, right now, we should change the paradigm [for] the way we do information operations."
Right now, he said, information operations plans might go through a combatant commander, to the Defense Department, bring in the National Security Council and involve the White House as well, he said.
"That is a very slow process, and in the environment we're operating in right now ... in about 12 hours to 24 hours in the information space, you're irrelevant. It has moved on," he said. "I believe we need to flip that paradigm and push down, use mission command — the lanes in the road, the rules of the road — and allow commanders of the lower level to be able to execute within the mission environment that we're operating in to be more effective in real time."
More Than Nukes
Northcom is responsible for protecting the U.S. homeland — its people, national power and freedom of action. Right now, VanHerck said, more of that protection is dependent on nuclear power than what should be.
"Homeland defense today is too reliant on what I think is the foundation of homeland defense, and that is our nuclear deterrent and deterrence by punishment," he said. "But what that doesn't do for us is give us opportunities to deescalate early and deter earlier."
Deterrence with nuclear capabilities he said, while useful, are too escalatory in nature and other avenues must be looked at.
Ballistic Missile
A Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile replica stands at the front gate at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., June 10, 2019. The base hold two-thirds of the American nuclear triad.
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Photo By: Air Force Senior Airman Dillon J. Audit
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"What I'm trying to do is fill that gap and focus on a little bit of deterrence by denial," he said. "Ballistic missile defense is deterrence by denial. But I also believe hardening resiliency, or the way we project our force, creates deterrence options on a day-to-day basis."
The homeland defense of tomorrow, he said, won't look like what it does today. Getting there starts with changes to policy — which he said will need to involve civilian policy makers rather than uniformed military personnel.
"It needs to be our policymakers that decide what we must defend kinetically," he said. "And it's not everything. So I'm reaching out, trying to work through the department, trying to work through the interagency, to figure out what that is."
Certainly, he said, things like continuity of government, nuclear command and control capabilities, forward power projection capabilities, and the defense industrial base are included.
Beyond that, he said, homeland defense can also include things like resilience, deception and information operations. But those are not enough either. VanHerck said he wants to go even further to the left — meaning to get ahead of crises before they happen.
"I believe that takes a layered defense, a layered defense focused on forward capabilities," he said. "I don't want to be shooting down cruise missiles over the National Capital Region. I think we need to be partnered with [our] 11 combatant commands, allies and partners forward, to generate deterrence day-to-day, and then in crisis and conflict, utilize those capabilities to deter and defend forward before it becomes a threat to our homeland. That's where my homeland defense design is focused."
3. FDD | Treasury Takes Aim at Ransomware and Illicit Cryptocurrency Trading
Excerpts:
As part of a larger government effort, deploying Treasury’s most pointed economic tool can help combat ransomware and other illicit transactions that have blossomed in the age of cryptocurrencies. Treasury can shape market behavior and make it harder for bad actors to move illicit funds. In June 2021, the Justice Department revealed other tools to make ransomware unprofitable when it announced it had clawed back the profits from the May ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline by Russia-based hackers.
At the end of the day, hackers will keep launching ransomware attacks until they are no longer profitable. Decreasing ransomware’s profitability by making it harder to move money and by stripping hackers of their intake constitutes an important cost-imposition strategy. But the solution also entails convincing private companies to invest in cybersecurity and to build their resilience so that when hackers try to extort payments, victims can refuse to pay.
Long-term success in the fight against ransomware will occur only if the Biden administration follows through on Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo’s pledge on Tuesday that this is just the first of many actions to come.
FDD | Treasury Takes Aim at Ransomware and Illicit Cryptocurrency Trading
fdd.org · by RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery CCTI Senior Director and Senior Fellow Annie Fixler CCTI deputy director· September 23, 2021
The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday issued the first-ever sanctions against a virtual currency exchange platform, SUEX, for knowingly facilitating ransomware payments and other illicit financial transactions. Treasury’s action was a demonstration of long-held department policy that cryptocurrency exchanges are subject to the same anti-money laundering (AML) standards as formal financial institutions.
As a result of the sanctions, Washington will block SUEX’s ability to interact with the U.S. financial system, and international banks will likely cut off the exchange as well because of SUEX’s failure to prevent illicit transactions. While malicious actors often exploit unwitting exchanges to move their ill-gotten gains, SUEX facilitates illegal activities for its own profit, Treasury said. More than 40 percent of the transactions on SUEX occur between criminals, Treasury estimated, and the exchange has facilitated proceeds from at least eight ransomware groups.
The sanctions also demonstrate the department’s modus operandi of targeting smaller actors with limited ties to the United States to pressure larger ones into preventing illicit activity more assiduously. “Shutting down one exchange will not materially alter the threat landscape,” Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI) observed, but it is “an important demonstration of our resolve.”
Michael Phillips, co-chair of the Ransomware Task Force, a coalition of government agencies, private industry groups, and think tanks, noted that “sanctioning those bad actors puts pressure on actors who may be operating in a grayer space, who may [now] be inclined to start to invest in compliance.”
The Russia-based SUEX may indeed be a smaller target in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, but it “filled an essential niche” for converting “illicit crypto ransoms into real-world currency,” the blockchain intelligence and analytics firm TRM Labs explained in a Tuesday report on SUEX’s operations.
According to blockchain data platform Chainalysis, whose research Treasury used as part of its investigation into SUEX, 82 percent of all ransomware funds transit only five cryptocurrency exchanges. Chainalysis estimates that SUEX alone has received and facilitated tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency payments associated with ransomware and other cybercrime.
Treasury also issued updated guidance reminding companies that paying ransoms may run afoul of existing laws if Treasury has previously sanctioned the hackers or anyone else involved in the transaction. The guidance echoes other government requests for victims to work with law enforcement and not to pay ransoms, but includes a more explicit incentive: If Treasury discovers a nexus between the ransomware payment and a designated entity in the future that would lead to penalties against the company paying the ransom, the victim’s “full and ongoing cooperation with law enforcement both during and after a ransomware attack” will be a “significant mitigating factor.” In other words, Treasury is unlikely to take action against the company if it reported the cyber incident to law enforcement.
As part of a larger government effort, deploying Treasury’s most pointed economic tool can help combat ransomware and other illicit transactions that have blossomed in the age of cryptocurrencies. Treasury can shape market behavior and make it harder for bad actors to move illicit funds. In June 2021, the Justice Department revealed other tools to make ransomware unprofitable when it announced it had clawed back the profits from the May ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline by Russia-based hackers.
At the end of the day, hackers will keep launching ransomware attacks until they are no longer profitable. Decreasing ransomware’s profitability by making it harder to move money and by stripping hackers of their intake constitutes an important cost-imposition strategy. But the solution also entails convincing private companies to invest in cybersecurity and to build their resilience so that when hackers try to extort payments, victims can refuse to pay.
Long-term success in the fight against ransomware will occur only if the Biden administration follows through on Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo’s pledge on Tuesday that this is just the first of many actions to come.
fdd.org · by RADM (Ret) Mark Montgomery CCTI Senior Director and Senior Fellow · September 23, 2021
4. Opinion | No Wonder the French Are Angry
Excerpts:
This raises many difficult questions for Europe. On Monday, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, told CNN that the way France had been treated was “not acceptable.” But the reluctance of some European leaders to react publicly to the crisis reflects their uncertainty about how to deal with the United States and China. As tensions between the two powers continue to rise, European leaders might not have the luxury of ambivalence for very long.
The United States also has questions to answer. Does partnering with post-Brexit Britain in this delicate phase of its relationship with the European Union and humiliating the French contribute to the stability of Europe and the unity of the West? If Washington really wants its European allies to take charge of their neighborhood, is it ready to accept the concept of European sovereignty, including in defense procurement? And what does it want for the future of NATO?
Sensing growing doubts among some of their E.U. partners about America’s commitment, the French will now try to push for a more autonomous and more sovereign Europe, with increased capacities to act both militarily and diplomatically. But the illusion that the French could be America’s partner in a more balanced relationship under a Biden administration — allied, but not aligned — is probably lost.
The Anglosphere has a colorful expression for this illusion: punching above one’s weight. Tellingly, it does not translate easily into French.
Opinion | No Wonder the French Are Angry
Guest Essay
No Wonder the French Are Angry
Sept. 22, 2021
By
Ms. Kauffmann, the editorial director of Le Monde, writes extensively about European and international politics.
PARIS — Make no mistake. This is a crisis, not a spat.
The new partnership announced last week between the United States, Britain and Australia, in which Australia would be endowed with nuclear-powered submarines, has left the French angry and in shock. And not just because of the loss of their own deal, signed in 2016, to provide Australia with submarines.
French officials say they have been stonewalled and duped by close allies, who negotiated behind their backs. The sense of betrayal is so acute that President Emmanuel Macron has uncharacteristically opted to keep silent on the issue, delegating the expression of a very public rage to his otherwise quiet foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian. Asked on public television whether President Biden’s behavior was reminiscent of his predecessor’s, Mr. Le Drian replied, “Without the tweets.”
The fallout is about much more than a scrapped business deal, Gallic pride and bruised egos. This diplomatic bombshell has crudely exposed the unwritten rules of great-power competition, in which France cannot be a player unless it carries the weight of the European Union behind it. The past week has been about 21st-century geopolitics and the brutal adjustment of old alliances to new realities.
France considers itself a “resident power” in the Indo-Pacific region, a crucial battleground for the rivalry between America and China, because it possesses several islands and maintains four naval bases there. It developed its own strategy for the region in 2018 and has been pushing since then for the European Union to come up with a similar project. Ironically, the European Union’s Indo-Pacific strategy was presented on the very day the deal, known as AUKUS, became public. The plan was, of course, drowned out by the uproar.
Australia was key to the French strategy. Beyond the sale of submarines, France foresaw a partnership with Australia that would add an important pillar to its presence in the region. Now the whole plan is in shambles. In the French view, the new program set up by the Americans in Australia is so enormous, encompassing cybersecurity and intelligence, that it doesn’t leave room for any other initiative. To rebuild its regional strategy, France is now turning to India, with which it already cooperates closely.
At work here is a realignment of alliances in the region, rammed through by the United States with as much consideration for its allies as it showed in the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. The world order is mutating, alliances multiplying. The Anglosphere, tightened around the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, comprising America, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, is regrouping in the South Pacific. That leaves no space for continental Europeans, even though they have common interests.
It feels like a long time since Mr. Biden’s warm family reunion with his European allies at NATO headquarters in Brussels in June. Then, at Mr. Biden’s urging, leaders were united in declaring China a security risk, even though France and Germany objected that China was not part of the organization’s remit. Now, in the interests of countering that challenge, France has been cast aside.
The French don’t suspect the Biden administration of deliberately maneuvering to divide Europe — former President Donald Trump’s old trick — but they fault the new administration for misjudging the impact of its heavy-handed policy. American leadership, a French diplomat told me, is different from partnership. In Five Eyes, for example, there is one leader — the others are junior partners.
This raises many difficult questions for Europe. On Monday, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, told CNN that the way France had been treated was “not acceptable.” But the reluctance of some European leaders to react publicly to the crisis reflects their uncertainty about how to deal with the United States and China. As tensions between the two powers continue to rise, European leaders might not have the luxury of ambivalence for very long.
The United States also has questions to answer. Does partnering with post-Brexit Britain in this delicate phase of its relationship with the European Union and humiliating the French contribute to the stability of Europe and the unity of the West? If Washington really wants its European allies to take charge of their neighborhood, is it ready to accept the concept of European sovereignty, including in defense procurement? And what does it want for the future of NATO?
Sensing growing doubts among some of their E.U. partners about America’s commitment, the French will now try to push for a more autonomous and more sovereign Europe, with increased capacities to act both militarily and diplomatically. But the illusion that the French could be America’s partner in a more balanced relationship under a Biden administration — allied, but not aligned — is probably lost.
The Anglosphere has a colorful expression for this illusion: punching above one’s weight. Tellingly, it does not translate easily into French.
Sylvie Kauffmann (@SylvieKauffmann) is the editorial director and a former editor in chief of Le Monde.
5. US unfairly targeting Chinese over industrial spying, says report
Excerpts:
Asian-American civil rights groups have been raising concerns about the chilling effects of the FBI’s racial profiling of Chinese-American scientists for years. Numerous academic groups, scientific associations, and congressional representatives have joined calls to investigate—or rein in—the FBI and DOJ’s allegedly discriminatory investigations.
The tide may be turning. On September 9, a federal judge acquitted Anming Hu, a Chinese-Canadian academic and former professor at the University of Tennessee, of all counts of defrauding NASA on grant applications, three months after a jury was unable to reach a verdict on his case. In late July, the Department of Justice dropped the prosecutions of five other academic researchers in a single day; they had been accused of lying about connections to the Chinese military.
“The more we learn about the China Initiative, the more problematic it looks,” Lewis told MIT Technology Review in an email. “We need to keep making the case to the government that there is a better way. No one is saying protecting research security while mitigating concerns about bias will be easy, but it is critical.”
The Department of Justice has not yet responded to a request for comment.
US unfairly targeting Chinese over industrial spying, says report
A new study of economic espionage cases in the US says people of Chinese heritage are more likely to be charged with crimes—and less likely to be convicted.
September 21, 2021
For years, civil rights groups have accused the US Department of Justice of racial profiling against scientists of Chinese descent. Today, a new report provides data that may quantify some of their claims.
The study, published by the Committee of 100, an association of prominent Chinese-American civic leaders, found that individuals of Chinese heritage were more likely than others to be charged under the Economic Espionage Act—and significantly less likely to be convicted.
“The basic question that this study tries to answer is whether Asian-Americans are treated differently with respect to suspicions of espionage,” said the report’s author, Andrew C. Kim, a lawyer and visiting scholar at the South Texas College of Law Houston. “The answer to that question is yes. “
The study, which looked at data from economic espionage cases brought by the US from 1996 to 2020, found that just under half of all defendants were accused of stealing secrets that would benefit China. This is far lower than the figures laid out by US officials to justify the Department of Justice’s flagship China Initiative.
The study found that 46% of all defendants were accused of stealing secrets that would benefit China, while 42% of cases involved American businesses.
According to the report, 46% of defendants charged under the Economic Espionage Act were accused of activity that would benefit Chinese people or entities, while 42% of defendants were accused of stealing secrets that would benefit American businesses.
The numbers directly contradict much of the Justice Department’s messaging around the China Initiative, which was launched in 2018 to combat economic espionage. The department has stated publicly—for example, in the first line of its home page for the China Initiative—that 80% of its prosecutions would benefit the Chinese state, reflecting “theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history,” as FBI director Christopher Wray described it in 2020.
Since 2019, the program has largely targeted academic researchers.
“Strong evidence of charges with less evidence”
The report was based on an analysis of public court filings, as well as Department of Justice press releases, for all Economic Espionage Act prosecutions between 1996 and 2020. It’s an update of an earlier analysis, published in the Cardozo Law Review, which covered the period up to 2016.
Charges for “theft of trade secrets” and “economic espionage” were both included, with the “economic espionage” charge requiring proof of a “nexus to foreign entity” and accompanied by higher penalties. (These two categories make up only a portion of the charges under the China Initiative; Kim briefly mentions “false statements and process crimes,” and people have also been charged with grant fraud and lying on visa applications, among other crimes.)
Because demographic information and citizenship data is not included in court filings, Kim used names as proxies for race, and he used Google searches when names, like Lee and Park, were ethnically ambiguous. For citizenship, Kim noted that press releases often make prominent mention if a defendant is a “foreign national,” so he assumed that defendants were all citizens unless otherwise indicated.
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The report found that 89% of defendants with Western names who were charged with economic espionage were eventually convicted, versus 74% of defendants with Asian names.
Mike German, a former FBI special agent who is now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, sees the higher acquittal or dismissal rates as “strong evidence that the Justice Department is levying charges with less evidence, perhaps counting on the bias they’re fomenting with their anti-China rhetoric to get judges and juries to convict anyway.”
The report also found that while the number of economic espionage cases decreased under the Trump administration, Chinese and Chinese-American defendants were charged at higher rates. The number of cases brought by the Department of Justice fell from 105 during the Obama administration to 52 between 2016 and 2020. But more than half the defendants in cases brought under the Trump administration had Chinese names. This follows a trend that started in 2009, when Chinese names began overtaking Western names among those charged.
And despite the supposed focus on academics, only 3% of economic espionage cases in the study involved university workers. The top industries actually targeted for theft were technology (23%), manufacturing (21%), defense/energy (15%), and business (10%.) “‘This study suggests that the government is looking for spies in the place least likely to find them,” it says.
“Risks painting the whole race”
In what Kim described as one of the most important findings of the study, analysis found that the Department of Justice was more likely to publicize EEA cases that involved defendants with Asian names than EEA cases brought against defendants with Western names: 51% of Western defendants have DOJ press releases, compared with 80% of all Asian defendants and 83% of defendants with Chinese heritage. As Kim wrote, “Publicizing alleged crimes by a racial minority more than similar crimes committed by others risks painting the whole race as more prone to that criminal conduct than others.”
There are limitations in the study, as both the report itself and other researchers and close observers of the program have indicated. It does not cover all the potential charges under the China Initiative, and crucially, it also “does not help with the question of scale and scope of the threat related to China,” wrote Margaret Lewis, a law professor at Seton Hall Law School who has written about how connections to China have been criminalized, in an official response to the research.
She asks whether the low charge-to-conviction ratio for Chinese individuals and those of Chinese heritage reflects “a judicious culling of well-founded investigations … or an expansive dragnet that is creating enhanced suspicion at least in part because of people’s connectivity to the PRC?”
"The sheer magnitude of these disparities raises concerns that racial factors have caused our government to punish people of certain races more severely than others who committed similar crimes."
Andrew C. Kim, visiting scholar at the South Texas College of Law, Houston
The study doesn’t tell us. But this represents a limitation in the data that’s available, says Alex Nowrasteh, the director of immigration studies and the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, who earlier this year published his own research on espionage convictions.
“The problem with analyzing economic espionage is we don’t know the total universe of people who have [conducted] or have attempted economic espionage,” he says—only those that were caught.
Related Story
Anming Hu’s case was meant to be a victory for the “China Initiative,” a US effort to root out spies. Instead, it turned more attention on the FBI.
Kim says he suspects that racial bias, even if implicit, was at play:
“The sheer magnitude of these disparities raises concerns that racial factors have caused our government to punish people of certain races more severely than others who committed similar crimes. Implicit biases need not be conscious or even ‘racist’ to produce unfair racial disparities.”
Not everyone is convinced. “The government argues that disproportionate effects do not establish discriminatory intent—which is true—and, accordingly, it is not engaging in racial profiling,” wrote Lewis.
But, she added, “bias is not required to conclude that the China Initiative is fatally flawed.”
A chilling effect—and signs of a reversal?
Asian-American civil rights groups have been raising concerns about the chilling effects of the FBI’s racial profiling of Chinese-American scientists for years. Numerous academic groups, scientific associations, and congressional representatives have joined calls to investigate—or rein in—the FBI and DOJ’s allegedly discriminatory investigations.
The tide may be turning. On September 9, a federal judge acquitted Anming Hu, a Chinese-Canadian academic and former professor at the University of Tennessee, of all counts of defrauding NASA on grant applications, three months after a jury was unable to reach a verdict on his case. In late July, the Department of Justice dropped the prosecutions of five other academic researchers in a single day; they had been accused of lying about connections to the Chinese military.
“The more we learn about the China Initiative, the more problematic it looks,” Lewis told MIT Technology Review in an email. “We need to keep making the case to the government that there is a better way. No one is saying protecting research security while mitigating concerns about bias will be easy, but it is critical.”
The Department of Justice has not yet responded to a request for comment.
6. Japan welcomes Taiwan’s application to join TPP free trade deal
Japan welcomes Taiwan’s application to join TPP free trade deal
5:23 pm, September 23, 2021
Jiji Press
TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi welcomed on Thursday Taiwan’s filing of a formal application to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement.
“We’d like to welcome. We’ll respond from a strategic perspective, based on Japanese people’s understanding,” Motegi, now visiting New York, told reporters in an online interaction.
“The TPP sets high requirements in terms of market access and rules,” Motegi said. “There is a need to find out whether (Taiwan) is ready to completely fulfill them.”
Japan is among the 11 members of the TPP, signed in March 2018.
Before the meeting with reporters, Motegi held talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. During the talks, Motegi stressed the importance of the United States’ presence in the Indo-Pacific region and urged the country to return to the TPP.
In light of the establishment of a new security pact between the United States, Britain and Australia, or AUKUS, Motegi and Blinken agreed on the deepening of cooperation among allies and partners for realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Motegi also held talks with British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and exchanged opinions about negotiations on Britain’s joining the TPP.
7. Lawmakers storm out of classified Afghanistan briefing after questions go unanswered
Lawmakers storm out of classified Afghanistan briefing after questions go unanswered
CNN · by Kylie Atwood, CNN
(CNN)Multiple lawmakers angrily stormed out of a classified briefing with members of the Biden administration on Afghanistan on Wednesday morning, according to three sources familiar with the briefing.
The Republican and Democratic lawmakers grew frustrated after State Department, Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, and Office of the Director of National Security officials failed to answer their basic questions during the briefing for members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the sources told CNN.
State Department officials -- both privately and publicly -- continue to say that about 100 Americans are still in Afghanistan who want to get out. Some lawmakers have told CNN they do not understand that accounting, given the department has said that they evacuated more than 75 Americans from Afghanistan through evacuation efforts in the last few weeks. State Department officials have said that the dynamic situation on the ground is the reason they cannot give a more precise figure.
A State Department spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday that "as a general matter, we do not comment on communications with Congress, especially those conducted in a classified setting."
Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead" on Wednesday that "everybody walked out" from the meeting, and he questioned whether administration officials knew the number of Americans still in the country.
Read More
"You know, the fact is, I believe there's still hundreds of Americans still left behind enemy lines. The majority of the interpreters that you and I talked about did not get out," he said, in reference to Afghan interpreters who had worked for the US military, adding that he has received "horrific stories" from those in the country.
"I don't think they know all the answers, quite honestly," he said of the administration.
A Democratic aide told CNN that some of the members left Wednesday's classified briefing because there were Republican members who were not wearing masks in accordance with Covid-19 protocols. The aide added that many members are satisfied with the engagement from the State Department.
Evacuation flights continue to depart Afghanistan at a slow pace, including one over the weekend with more 21 US citizens on board. Officials say it takes a tremendous amount of work especially due to the coordination required between the US, Qatar and the Taliban to do background checks on people who do not have all the necessary documents.
The Biden administration's goal is to make the flights out of the country routine but that can only achieved when commercial flights are going in and out of the Kabul airport and it could take weeks before that happens, State Department officials say.
The planned efforts to coordinate between the State Department and private individuals or groups -- which came to fruition after initial tension between the two sides -- are now underway. The State Department holds twice weekly calls with the AfghanEvac coalition, and those involved describe the current situation as less chaotic that it initially was.
"I don't think we could get better coordination than what we are building now," said Shawn VanDiver, the founder of the Truman National Security Project San Diego Chapter who is leading the AfghanEvac effort. "We feel like we are part of the team and that we have a shared goal."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated Rep. Michael McCaul's involvement in the briefing.
CNN's Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis and Shawna Mizelle contributed reporting.
CNN · by Kylie Atwood, CNN
8. Biden’s nuclear agenda in trouble as Pentagon hawks attack
Personnel actions and organization changes have 2d and 3d order effects.
Excerpts:
“Our upcoming strategic reviews will play a critical role in laying the groundwork for this effort by allowing us to examine areas where we can make progress toward this goal,” she testified.
Tomero’s supporters said they hope that she finds another perch in the Biden administration when she departs the Pentagon next month, possibly at the National Security Council.
“My fear is it was an inside move to squeeze her out,” added Tierney, who said he has spoken to a number of her allies. “My concern is they don’t want to look at this in a reasonable way.”
Others are a bit more optimistic about the outcome of the nuclear review.
Jon Wolfsthal, who was Biden's special adviser for nuclear policy when he was vice president, said he thinks it’s possible that more senior Biden administration officials, including the president himself, will end up shaping the final product.
“It’s clear that Trump never saw or understood his own Nuclear Posture Review,” said Wolfsthal, who is now a senior adviser to Global Zero, a disarmament group. “When you have a president who doesn’t care or understand, the staff sets the NPR. Biden has a long history [on nuclear issues]. In that situation the personnel and the process is a little less important, The question is will he have time to put to this issue. That’s an open question and not one we’ll know for a few months.”
Biden’s nuclear agenda in trouble as Pentagon hawks attack
The ouster of a key ally overseeing nuclear and missile defense policy is setting up a showdown over costly modernization.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
09/23/2021 05:15 PM EDT
Updated: 09/23/2021 05:32 PM EDT
One of President Joe Biden’s leading allies in his decadeslong attempt to reduce nuclear weapons has lost a battle with the Pentagon’s hawks.
The ouster of Leonor Tomero, who questioned the status quo on nuclear weapons, signals the Biden administration’s ambitious agenda to overhaul America's nuclear policy might be in trouble.
Early in his administration, Biden installed national security officials intent on negotiating new arms control treaties and curtailing nuclear weapons spending. One of them was Tomero, a leading voice for nuclear restraint on Capitol Hill and in the think tank community, who was appointed to oversee the Nuclear Posture Review that will set the administration’s atomic weapons policy and strategy.
But officials with more traditional views on nuclear weapons, who promote a status quo agenda to include modernizing the land, sea and airborne legs of America’s nuclear arsenal, did not take kindly to Tomero’s progressive ideology, according to 11 current and former defense officials, as well as others with insight into the debate.
One current U.S. official who works on nuclear issues, when asked about Tomero, said he considers some of her positions dangerous in the face of Russian and Chinese nuclear advancements.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, described her as among "the arms controllers who used to seem naive but now seem irrational given what China and Russia are doing.”
“Her appointment was something that people were immediately resistant to,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a professor and nuclear weapons expert at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies and host of the podcast Arms Control Wonk. “People with very traditional views of nuclear weapons policy did not want someone in charge of the Nuclear Posture Review who might think differently about those issues.”
That clash spilled into public this month when Tomero, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy, was unceremoniously edged out in what the Pentagon is officially calling a “reorganization” after just nine months on the job.
The Pentagon’s new assistant secretary for space, a position Congress recently created, will absorb the responsibility for nuclear and missile defense, POLITICO first reported this week. Tomero’s position was eliminated as part of the reorganization.
Tomero did not respond to a request for comment.
“It's natural with any new administration, this one's not excepted, that we would want to reevaluate the organizational structure and make changes where we think is appropriate to support the secretary's priorities. And I think, again, without speaking to individuals, we're certainly doing that,” chief Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday when asked about Tomero’s ouster.
“We're going to continue to consider and include a wide range of viewpoints in the Nuclear Posture Review, including those from administration officials, military leaders, academics and all others,” he added.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council said the departure of one person won't affect the review.
"The nuclear policy review is being handled by a large group of experts from across the department. Overall, USD(P) owns it. The nuclear posture review isn’t reliant on one individual; to imply the review would somehow be skewed because of an individual’s departure is just incorrect," the spokesperson said.
But people familiar with the internal debate believe the move reflects a rebellion against her unorthodox views.
“Department of Defense insiders wanted nothing to do with anyone who wanted to carry forth Joe Biden’s views on nuclear modernization,” said former Rep. John Tierney, executive director of Arms Control and Nonproliferation, where Tomero was once a researcher before serving in government.
Tomero did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did the White House.
Experts now worry that her removal signals the Nuclear Posture Review will not fully consider alternative options for maintaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent that might be less costly or evaluate new ways to carry out nuclear strategy.
“The decision to fire Leonor suggests to me that the first draft of NPR is going to be a continuation of the line of thinking we saw in the Trump administration’s NPR,” Lewis said. “They have put themselves on the course that is a first draft that is 180 degrees to what Biden said on the campaign trail.”
Congressional staffers from both parties who are tracking the Nuclear Posture Review say they are still unclear why Tomero was pushed out, citing a lack of communication from the Pentagon.
The nuclear review completed in 2018 under former President Donald Trump backed several new weapons, including a new “low yield” warhead that has been introduced on submarines and development of a new nuclear-armed cruise missile. It also expanded the role of nuclear weapons to deter non-nuclear threats.
The U.S. is planning to upgrade the nuclear force to the tune of $634 billion over the next decade, according to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
As a former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden’s views on reducing the nuclear arsenal and seeking more international treaties to prevent their spread dates back decades.
One of his first decisions as president was to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia that limits deployed strategic arms on both sides to 1,550.
And during the 2020 presidential campaign, he also doubled down on a number of his positions. He restated his opposition to the new low yield warhead, saying “the United States does not need new nuclear weapons,” according to a candidate questionnaire that he filled out at the request of a disarmament group.
He also agreed that the United States should review the current ambiguity over whether it would use nuclear weapons first.
But Tomero’s departure signals the Pentagon’s review may not reflect Biden’s more ambitious agenda.
A former U.S. official who is privy to some of the internal debates said Tomero’s departure means there will be fewer officials inside the military establishment open to considering such alternative approaches to nuclear modernization and strategy.
“She was running a process that would have included alternative nuclear policy options and that’s not tolerable,” the former official complained, adding that her “openness to policy change overall” was causing friction.
Tomero has been open about her intent to re-examine the costly modernization of the nuclear arsenal — particularly replacements for the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles and the long-range standoff weapon — as well as America’s declaratory policy.
“Certainly that’s the objective of the president, is to find ways to reduce the role of nuclear weapons, and so we look forward to examining those issues, as part of our Nuclear Posture Review,” Tomero said in a May interview.
One of those potential policy changes is declaring a “no first use” policy that Biden has expressed openness to as a way to reduce the chances of miscalculation with potential nuclear adversaries.
Leading arms control advocates in Congress have been pushing legislation on no first use, including House Armed Services Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Tomero’s former boss when she was chief counsel of the panel.
Smith is also a leading proponent of reconsidering the nuclear modernization effort. He called on Biden in August to “take a hard look at whether every ongoing and planned effort is necessary.”
Tomero clearly shares some of those views. In May she insisted in testimony before Smith’s panel that the United States needs an upgraded nuclear arsenal to deter Russia and China, but also pledged that the Pentagon would seek ways to “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”
“Our upcoming strategic reviews will play a critical role in laying the groundwork for this effort by allowing us to examine areas where we can make progress toward this goal,” she testified.
Tomero’s supporters said they hope that she finds another perch in the Biden administration when she departs the Pentagon next month, possibly at the National Security Council.
“My fear is it was an inside move to squeeze her out,” added Tierney, who said he has spoken to a number of her allies. “My concern is they don’t want to look at this in a reasonable way.”
Others are a bit more optimistic about the outcome of the nuclear review.
Jon Wolfsthal, who was Biden's special adviser for nuclear policy when he was vice president, said he thinks it’s possible that more senior Biden administration officials, including the president himself, will end up shaping the final product.
“It’s clear that Trump never saw or understood his own Nuclear Posture Review,” said Wolfsthal, who is now a senior adviser to Global Zero, a disarmament group. “When you have a president who doesn’t care or understand, the staff sets the NPR. Biden has a long history [on nuclear issues]. In that situation the personnel and the process is a little less important, The question is will he have time to put to this issue. That’s an open question and not one we’ll know for a few months.”
Paul McLeary and Alexander Ward contributed to this report.
9. Advocates push for space on National Mall to honor Global War on Terror troops
The mall is only so big. Someday we are going to run out of space. What will future generations do?
Advocates push for space on National Mall to honor Global War on Terror troops
The U.S. military’s involvement in Afghanistan is now over, but advocates are working to make sure those deployments — and the fights still going on now — are never forgotten.
Veterans groups and lawmakers are pushing for Congress to approve a new Global War on Terror memorial on the National Mall as a permanent reminder of the last 20 years of conflict overseas, including Afghanistan, Iraq and other locations.
This week, the effort took a significant step forward with inclusion of language in the House draft of the annual defense authorization act, a massive military budget policy measure that has passed out of Congress annually for six decades.
Senate lawmakers also made a bid to approve the National Mall location in that chamber, but were blocked in efforts to fast-track the legislation. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa and herself a veteran of the Iraq War, said the move is needed to remind Americans of the sacrifices made by hundreds of thousands of troops in recent years.
RELATED
Lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to the idea of a Global War on Terror memorial, clearing the path for what is expected to be a years-long process of designing and building a tribute to the latest generation of veterans.
“I’ve heard from many Gold Star families who were distraught and disappointed about how things ended [in Afghanistan], and I want them to know that America is grateful, extremely grateful, for their service,” she said at a Capitol Hill rally Tuesday for the effort.
“This is common sense, it doesn’t cost a dime of taxpayer money, and it will honor our heroes of the Global War on Terror for years to come.”
Congress approved plans for a Global War on Terror Memorial in 2017, well before plans for a military exit from Afghanistan were underway. At the time, organizers argued that waiting until the end of the Global War on Terror before building the memorial was impractical, because of the open-ended nature of the conflict. There are still U.S. troops deployed around the world in this effort, including 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria
Since then, an independent foundation has worked on planning and fundraising for the project, with a goal of breaking ground on the project in the next few years, allowing veterans who fought overseas in the conflict to see the memorial in their lifetimes.
But the location of the memorial is still undecided. Supporters have long pushed for a spot on the National Mall, arguing that the significance of the site accurately reflects the importance of troops’ service in the recent wars.
However, in 2003 — just a few years after the war in Afghanistan began — Congress approved the Commemorative Works Act, which prohibited construction on the site. Lawmakers have made several exceptions to the rule since then, but need new legislation to do so.
On Tuesday, when Ernst tried to move that proposal, it was blocked by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee (which oversees issues surrounding construction on the National Mall.)
“I want the memorial to be built as quickly as possible,” he said. “In fact, I think it should be the National Park Service’s highest priority for approving new memorials. But it should be built following the same process that applies to all other memorials and commemorative works.
“I believe this precedent would reopen the fight to locate other memorials on the National Mall and create more controversy that will ultimately delay the construction of this memorial, which is much needed.”
Advocates disagree with Manchin’s stance.
“Now more than ever, the military community needs a place to gather to reflect, to heal, and to honor the significant contributions that this generation of warfighters and their families have made on behalf of Americans,” said Marina Jackman, president of the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation.
“We’re asking that this memorial be given the same consideration that the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial and Korean War Memorial have been given … More than 7,000 service men and women have given their lives in these wars. Their children deserve to come to the National Mall to see where their mom’s or dad’s sacrifice is honored.”
RELATED
The decision ends a three-year debate over the best location to honor troops who served in that conflict.
The inclusion of the location language in the authorization bill may provide a legislative path around Manchin’s objection, but the proposal will still have to survive negotiations with Senate defense lawmakers in coming months before it is finalized. Ernst and Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said they plan on pushing for a quicker stand alone measure in the days to come.
Advocates say they’ll continue their public campaign as well.
“We as the Gold Star family community will accept no less than the National Mall to honor our heroes and honor those who have fought,” said Jane Horton, whose husband, Spc. Chris Horton, killed in Afghanistan in September 2011.
“There is no better place … This is where we will teach about their stories and the hearts of American service members who served during our nation’s longest war.”
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
10. Welcome Back to the Pentagon ....
An interesting perspective. Lots of practical advice and wisdom here. But 5 tours in the Pentagon!
Welcome Back to the Pentagon ....
A few years ago, a member of the Secretary of Defense’s staff asked what I would tell a new staff-member returning to the Pentagon from a D.C. think tank. I offered the following story to differentiate between being “in government” and “observing the Pentagon” from the outside.
“Welcome back to the government and congratulations on your new position. It has been a few years since you left the previous administration. During that time, you have written some remarkably perceptive articles. Thought it might be useful for us to chat before you dive into the briefing books the staff prepared. So, I would offer three different sets of thoughts.
First my impressions on working in the Pentagon. Let’s start with your family. Wanted to make sure you have had that “important conversation” with your spouse and children. This position will likely preclude being home most mornings for breakfast and in the evenings for dinner. People underestimate the impact on your family given your lack of control over when you come and go. If you are mentally prepared for it, your spouse is onboard, and you can balance the work with showing up for your kids, it is doable, but it is not a trivial thing.
Next, welcome to the glass house. Please remember you are always being watched. Overnight you have become smarter, better looking and all your jokes will be funny. So be careful. Most everyone who knows you, or thinks they know you, will want something from you. That is just the way things go.
Your staff will enable all you do. Treat them well as many have seen 12 or more people cycle through your appointment, and a third that number of Secretaries. Benefit from their wisdom and experience by listening. Otherwise there will be those who tolerate you, those who patronize you, and those who ignore you, knowing they will outlast you.
Demonstrate restraint of both tongue and pen. Do not draft an email when angry. Instead handwrite that scathing note. Read it back to yourself and shred it. Before you send an email, ask how it would look in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times. Because it could. Finally, think about how you will speak to the press. Your words could be edited, taken out of context, and used to support a pre-existing conclusion.
Regrettably the environment has become more splintered and noxious. This has created fissures, sharper elbows, assumed motives, and had the predictable effect of lowering morale and effectiveness when our generation needs to engage in and win a great power competition that threatens our values, way of life, and people.
Make a daily effort to build an apolitical culture of “One team, one fight.” Bring together your staff, form bonds with different organizations with competing agendas, and restore teamwork. You will be disappointed by those who spurn your outreach and those who respond with leaks and small-minded back-biting. But by rising above it and persisting in building a winning, positive culture, what you suffer will be a small price to pay for what you can accomplish.
In collaborating across the U.S. government, it is important to remember we are all honorable men and women trying to do an honorable job. So remember your role is to provide best analysis, advice, and multiple options, and when delegated to your level, to make decisions in accordance with stated policy.
Pause and reflect each week on where we stand as a nation. Where we have been, and to ponder on what we may yet become. Your efforts will make a difference for over 320 million U.S. citizens, and our allies, partners, and friends. Don’t lose sight of the greater good you are enabling.
Second, let’s contrast the Pentagon and D.C. think tank pace of decision making. Your article assessing the Strategic Policy Review was spot on. You probably gathered everything written on the review. Then took pages of notes and comments, before setting it aside to catch up on your regular work at the think tank.
A few weeks later you wrote what we did wrong and then edited it. In all it took 6-12 weeks to write the clearest and most concise article on the strategic policy review. You identified every mistake we made and with 20/20 hindsight explained how we should have done better.
Now, back to reality. Each morning you will have to make 12 bad decisions, based on incomplete information, before lunch. The easy decisions were made several levels below you. Delaying a decision won’t work, as our enemies will not wait for us. After eating lunch at your desk while you catch up on reading, each afternoon you will have 12 more bad decisions, based on incomplete information, to solve before you go home. Add to this impromptu meetings, phone calls, and open testimony before Congress and the press. This will continue seven days a week, 365 days a year, until you get sick, get fired, or quit.
Occasionally, someone will bring you a stunning piece of intelligence. That will enable our government to outmaneuver and disadvantage our enemies for months, if not years. All you must do is give a press briefing on a new policy that reverses the administration’s publicly stated agenda. As a result, the media will mock you. The opposition party will excoriate you, and you will never be able to explain why.
During this a member of the outgoing administration will spend 6 to 12 weeks researching one of your decisions and write an expose on your near-sighted, inept, and unimaginative thinking.
Congress will schedule closed hearings to discuss your decision-making in a classified setting. Unfortunately, it will be a midterm election year and they will shift to open hearings and ask “the American people want to know…what were you thinking?”
Hopefully, you kept notes on those decisions. As that was the day you also sat with the Secretary for a counterpart meeting and then got caught in the rain and attended both a National Security Council Deputies and Principals meeting. So you sat in the JFK Conference Room in your soaked clothes for 2 hours discussing classified topics.
Third, it’s my belief that we have a pivotal role in improving the civil-military relationship along three lines of effort. The first is focused on the OSD civilians. Who provide their corporate knowledge and ability to work the internal system from the lowest to the highest, across sections and across government as well as often into allies and partners. Please recognize that unlike those posted in and out with each administration, many OSD civilians are here for the long term and hence their horizon may differ.
The second line of effort applies to the very bright people coming from the Think Tanks. The OSD civilians read and absorbed the lessons from your article on the strategic policy review. But they are neither stupid nor incompetent as some may believe. Rather they are doing their level best to support you and your predecessors in juggling serious issues every day. They are neither out to stop you nor inherently against you. But to provide advice and guidance formed on the basis of a long experience in government. While some of that advice may not be palatable, nonetheless it is fairly and honestly given. As it is advice, it’s up to you whether you take it, but your openness and willingness to consider it, will serve you better than dismissing it because it comes from the professional civil service and therefore “must be wrong.”
The third line of effort applies to how to deal with your military counterparts and aligns with the other lines of effort. They are professionals and are not against you. Their advice is that. But listen to it rather than dismiss it as military bias. Try to learn military jargon and customs. It may be a foreign language, but you will be a more effective team if you understand them. This is fundamentally about mutual respect and effectiveness. You can strengthen the team by meeting weekly with your counterpart for lunch. Doing this in your or their office has multiple benefits. It creates an informal yet regular forum for quiet consultation and collaboration over a friendly meal. Also, meeting in your office enables you to quickly respond to emergent tasking — and to inform your counterpart immediately.
Finally three thoughts on working during COVID-19. First, what investments will you make so you and your team can do unclassified and classified work from home? Second, during the lockdown only 5,000 people were daily working in the Pentagon, with little noticeable impact. Please keep that in mind when we are asked to identify efficiencies. Third, how will you counsel and treat those who refuse vaccination?
So welcome back to the Pentagon. Good luck with your studying this weekend. The staff is “all-in” to get you ready for testimony. You have your first murder-board on Monday at 7 AM.”
Cathal O’Connor served 32 years in the Navy, commanding at the warship, squadron, and strike group level. In five tours in the Pentagon, he served on the staffs of the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense. He works overseas in the National Security sector.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy or the Department of Defense.
Photo Description: The Pentagon, circa 1947.
Photo Credit: Library of Congress photo by Theodor Horydczak.
11. The Quad Comes to Washington
The Quad Comes to Washington
Foreign Policy’s flagship daily newsletter with what’s coming up around the world today. Delivered weekdays.
The summit caps a round of Asia-focused diplomacy for the White House and includes one-on-one meetings with the leaders of India and Japan.
By Colm Quinn, the newsletter writer at Foreign Policy.
A monitor displaying a virtual meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden (top L), Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison (bottom L), Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (top R) and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seen during the virtual Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) meeting, at Suga's official residence in Tokyo on March 12, 2021. Kiyoshi Ota / POOL / AFP
Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Quad leaders meet in Washington, a top U.S. diplomat resigns in protest of Biden’s Haiti deportation policy, and Chinese property giant Evergrande appears to miss a key interest payment, spooking markets.
If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here.
Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Quad leaders meet in Washington, a top U.S. diplomat resigns in protest of Biden’s Haiti deportation policy, and Chinese property giant Evergrande appears to miss a key interest payment, spooking markets.
If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here.
Biden Assembles the Quad
U.S. President Joe Biden is on a mission to project an image of unity and cohesion with three of the world’s largest economies today as he hosts the leaders of Australia, India, and Japan for a meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—the Quad—at the White House.
The summit, the first in-person gathering for the group since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, caps a busy few days of Asia-focused diplomacy for the White House following the agreement of the AUKUS defense pact with Australia and the United Kingdom last week. That focus is underlined by additional one-on-one meetings Biden holds today with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, a senior Biden administration official was keen to position the Quad within a “larger fabric of engagement” with the so-called Indo-Pacific region, and played down any military intentions for the group.
The summit is expected to conclude with the announcement of several initiatives designed to deepen relations between the four countries including student exchanges alongside plans to counter China’s domination of key industries like semiconductors and 5G networks.
Another dose? The Quad leaders will also be under pressure to deliver on vaccines after an initial agreement to provide one billion doses to Asian countries in March fell victim to India’s record COVID-19 surge weeks later, which led to a freeze on vaccine exports. New Delhi’s announcement earlier this week that it would restart exports by the end of the year makes a new vaccine declaration likely.
Any boost to Asia’s vaccine access would be welcome, the continent trails Europe as well as North and South America in vaccine doses, with 87 doses administered per 100 people compared to 97 per 100 in South America and 102 and 104 per 100 in North America and Europe, respectively. It’s still far ahead of Africa, where only 10 doses per 100 people have been administered.
So long, Suga. Although three of the four Quad leaders can expect to meet again soon, it’s the end of the line for Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who has decided against leading his party into new elections, likely to take place in November. The race to succeed Suga is itself a four-way affair, with vaccines minister Taro Kono and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida the leading candidates ahead of a Sept. 29 party vote.
India’s role. New Delhi’s slow embrace of Washington, though not formal allies, reflects new regional realities, C. Raja Mohan writes in Foreign Policy: “India’s presence in the Quad is the clearest affirmation that the problem in the East is about something else: the Chinese quest for hegemony driven by a massive power imbalance with its Asian neighbors.”
12. Sweden progresses with two complementary strategies to deter an invasion
Sweden progresses with two complementary strategies to deter an invasion
HELSINKI — A sharp increase in Sweden’s defense budget allocation will enable its military to move forward with implementing all core parts of the government’s “Total Defence 2021-2025″ plan.
The plan, which projects annual spending on defense to increase by $3.17 billion to $10.45 billion by 2025, is also buttressed by a parallel strategy to deepen the country’s pan-Nordic defense cooperation in partnership with Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Sweden spent (in current figures) about $5.43 billion on its military in 2016; $5.53 billion in 2017; $5.73 billion in 2018; $5.84 billion in 2019; and $6.45 billion in 2020.
The Total Defence concept was enabled when Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag, passed the namesake bill in December 2020, bringing the annual defense budget up to the $10.45 billion mark by 2025.
The bill laid down key objectives to achieving enhanced military capabilities through force reorganization, manpower strengthening and the procurement of big-ticket items such as modern weaponry that would add greater deterrent firepower to the military’s arsenal.
The Total Defence plan also incorporates goals to mobilize a rapid, resolute and sustained national defense response should Sweden’s territories come under threat or an attack. The concept is intended to deter any swift and aggressive armed attack against Sweden.
The plan acknowledges that in the event of an attack by a “major power,” the military’s land, air and naval forces will consolidate to launch intense defensive and offensive campaigns against enemy forces to both “buy time” and protect the country’s independence until military assistance arrives from regional and international partners.
Meanwhile, Sweden’s closer defense partnerships with neighboring Nordic states was reinforced Sept. 15 when the country signed a joint declaration on defense cooperation with Iceland. The joint declaration called for collaboration in countering new threats, such as those in cyberspace, and joint measures to combat hybrid threats.
The cooperation pact with Iceland forms an integral part of the solidarity-based security policy that Sweden will use to build defense partnerships with its neighbors, Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist said during a virtual signing of the Sweden-Iceland declaration. “The joint declaration underlines the shared intent of both countries to strengthen our defense cooperation on matters of mutual interest so that we can better respond to the evolving security environment,” Hultqvist said.
Defense cooperation between Sweden and its immediate neighbors is largely routed through the Nordic Defense Cooperation structure, which serves as a collaborative platform for common military and regional security-based initiatives.
Gerard O'Dwyer reported on Scandinavian affairs for Defense News.
13. In Biden’s Foreign Policy, Friends and Foes Claim Echoes of Trump
Actually we might assess that many of Trump's policies were variations of traditional US foreign policies just wrapped in some fiery rhetoric.
In Biden’s Foreign Policy, Friends and Foes Claim Echoes of Trump
News analysis
President Biden’s speech at the U.N. was a stark contrast to President Donald J. Trump’s. But it came amid complaints that some of Mr. Biden’s policy moves echoed his predecessor’s approach.
In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, President Biden said the United States was embarking on a new era of cooperative diplomacy to solve global challenges.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
By
Sept. 23, 2021
At the United Nations’ annual gathering of world leaders this week, President Biden and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke ambitiously about international cooperation and a new diplomatic approach for a post-Trump America.
But nearly all their diplomatic efforts at a pared-down U.N. General Assembly were shadowed — and complicated — by the legacy of President Donald J. Trump.
In a fiery address to the global body on Wednesday, President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran suggested that there was little difference between Mr. Biden and his predecessor, invoking their respective foreign policy slogans: “The world doesn’t care about ‘America First’ or ‘America is Back.’”
And in response to the ambitious targets Mr. Biden offered in his address to reduce global carbon emissions, an editorial in Beijing’s hard-line Global Times newspaper raised an all-too-familiar point for Biden officials: “If the next U.S. administration is again a Republican one, the promises Biden made will be very likely rescinded,” the paper wrote — a point the Iranians also made about a potential return to the 2015 nuclear deal that Mr. Trump abruptly exited.
In a news conference capping the week of diplomacy, Mr. Blinken offered a positive assessment. He said U.S. officials had met with counterparts from more than 60 countries and emphasized American leadership on climate and the coronavirus.
Asked about several recent criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, such as the Afghanistan withdrawal, stalled nuclear talks with Iran and diplomatic offense in Paris, the secretary of state said he had not heard such complaints directly in New York this week.
“What I’ve been hearing the last couple of days in response to the president’s speech, the direction that he’s taking us in, was extremely positive and extremely supportive of the United States,” Mr. Blinken said.
He spoke before departing a weeklong diplomatic confab that had cautiously returned in-person after the coronavirus pandemic forced a virtual U.N. event last year.
Many foreign leaders skipped this year’s gathering, including the presidents of Russia, China and Iran. Their absences precluded the drama of previous sessions around whether the president of the United States might have an impromptu encounter with a foreign rival. Mr. Biden made only a brief appearance, departing a few hours after his address on Tuesday.
In that speech, he depicted an America whose withdrawal from Afghanistan had turned a page on 20 years of war after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Now, he said, the United States was embarking on a new era of cooperative diplomacy to solve global challenges, including climate change, the coronavirus and rising authoritarianism.
The speech was a grand homage to internationalism and a stark contrast to Mr. Trump’s undiplomatic bluster. But it came amid growing complaints that some of Mr. Biden’s signature policy moves carried echoes of Mr. Trump’s approach.
A recent diplomatic fracas between the Biden administration and France carried echoes of the frustration NATO countries felt over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.Credit...Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times
French officials said they were blindsided by the U.S. submarine deal with Australia, a complaint for which Biden officials had no easy answer.
“This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr. Trump used to do,” Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister, told a French radio outlet, according to Reuters. “I am angry and bitter. This isn’t done between allies.”
That had eased some by Thursday, after Mr. Biden’s call with Mr. Macron and Mr. Blinken’s meeting with Mr. Le Drian. But the French diplomat’s statement suggested that the matter was not quite forgotten. “Getting out of the crisis we are experiencing will take time and will require action,” he said.
The flare-up with Paris might have been dismissed as an isolated episode but for its echoes of complaints by some NATO allies that Mr. Biden had withdrawn from Afghanistan without fully consulting them or alerting them to Washington’s timeline. Mr. Trump was notorious for surprising longtime allies with impulsive or unilateral actions.
Mr. Blinken protested that he visited with NATO officials in the spring to gather their views on Afghanistan, but officials in Germany, Britain and other countries said that their counsel for a slower withdrawal was rejected.
Biden allies say they find the comparisons overblown. But some admit that global concerns about whether Mr. Trump, or someone like him, might succeed Mr. Biden and reverse his efforts are valid.
“It’s absurd on its face for allies, partners or anyone to think that there is any continuity between Trump and Biden in terms of how they view allies, negotiate internationally or approach national security,” said Loren DeJonge Schulman, who worked at the National Security Counsel and the Pentagon during the Obama administration. “It’s a talking point, and it’s a laughable one.”
But Ms. Schulman added that other nations had valid questions about how, in the shadow of the Trump era, the Biden administration could make sustainable international commitments like a potential nuclear deal with Tehran and build more public support for foreign alliances.
“This can’t be a matter of ‘trust us,’” said Ms. DeJonge Schulman, who is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
It is not just irritated allies that have embraced the notion of a Biden-Trump commonality; adversaries have found it to be a useful cudgel against Mr. Biden. The Global Times, which often echoes views of the Chinese Communist Party, has said that Mr. Biden’s China policies are “virtually identical” to those of Mr. Trump.
They include Mr. Biden’s continuation of Trump-era trade tariffs, which Democrats roundly denounced before Mr. Biden took office but his officials quickly came to see as a source of leverage in their dealings with China.
Similarly, Iranian officials complain bitterly that Mr. Biden has not lifted any of the numerous economic sanctions that Mr. Trump imposed after he withdrew from the nuclear deal. Early in Mr. Biden’s presidency, some European allies urged the administration to lift some of those restrictions as a way to jump-start nuclear talks, but Biden officials declined to do so.
Last month, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, charged that “America’s current administration is no different from the previous one, because what it demands from Iran on the nuclear issue is different in words but the same thing that Trump demanded,” Mr. Khamenei’s official website quoted him as saying.
Now, after a monthslong pause in negotiations and the election of a new, hard-line government in Tehran, Biden officials are warning Iran that time is running out for a mutual return to the nuclear agreement.
Some Biden officials, without admitting much fault, say the work of diplomacy has been particularly difficult given that scores of experienced Foreign Service officers retired during the Trump administration. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, has also blocked dozens of Biden nominees to senior State Department positions and ambassadorships.
Mr. Biden is also encountering the Trump comparison in other settings, including on immigration.
“The question that’s being asked now is: How are you actually different than Trump?” Marisa Franco, the executive director of Mijente, a Latino civil rights organization, told The Times this week.
14. Why the head of the IMF should resign
Excerpts:
But although Ms Georgieva deserves sympathy, the episode does not sit easily with her present role at the IMF. The fund has an influential research department of its own. It is also the custodian of data standards for the world’s macroeconomic statistics. The head of the IMF must hold the ring while two of its biggest shareholders, America and China, confront each other in a new era of geopolitical rivalry. Critics of multilateralism are already citing this affair as evidence that international bodies cannot stand up to China. The next time the IMF tries to referee a currency dispute, or helps reschedule the debt of a country that has borrowed from China, the fund’s critics are sure to cite this investigation to undermine the institution’s credibility.
That is why Ms Georgieva, an esteemed servant of several international institutions, should resign. After China’s embarrassment was averted, she thanked a senior researcher for “doing his bit for multilateralism”. Now she too should do her bit for multilateralism by falling on her sword.
Why the head of the IMF should resign
A scandal over data and China has undermined her credibility
Sep 25th 2021
IN 2003 THE WORLD BANK launched a league table that assessed the ease of doing business in different countries around the world. By 2017 Li Keqiang, China’s prime minister, grumbled that his country was lagging behind its peers. At his urging, officials began freeing entrepreneurs from red tape—and crimson ink. They cut fees, streamlined approvals, and began to use electronic seals instead of the traditional ink stamp on many documents.
Listen to this story
China’s progress illustrates the power of the bank’s Doing Business rankings. Leaders have used them to motivate and monitor regulatory reforms, and like to boast about their country’s progress. The IMF cited the rankings last year in arguing for lending to Jordan. The data help guide investors. And they have informed 676 of the World Bank’s own projects (worth $15.5bn) in the past decade, according to an as-yet-unpublished internal evaluation.
But with that profile came pressure. A new investigation has found that bank staff improperly altered the scores of China and three other countries. They wanted to spare China an embarrassing fall in the rankings in 2017, just as its reforms were gathering steam. According to the investigation, the China tweaks were carried out at the behest of the bank’s then president, Jim Yong Kim, and his second-in-command, Kristalina Georgieva, who is now head of the IMF.
In a statement, Ms Georgieva has said she disagrees “fundamentally” with the findings and interpretation. In a meeting with IMF staff, she said she only asked bank researchers to triple-check the data. But the investigators found that she and the team explored a change in the bank’s method (ie, including only one city per country) to engineer a better result. And, according to the bank’s own review, the tweaks that were finally implemented introduced errors rather than removing them.
In her defence, it was her boss who initiated the extra tyre-kicking. She had the higher motive of strengthening multilateralism. Scope for discretion had crept into the Doing Business indicators as they grew more elaborate over time. And a senior researcher assured her he could “live” with the revised report, although it is likely that neither he nor she knew exactly what tweaks had been made.
It is also true that institutions like the bank suffer from an inherent tension between their diplomatic duties and their scientific aspirations, as Paul Romer, a former chief economist of the bank, has pointed out. Reconciling the two is always difficult. Once the Doing Business rankings became so politically important to the bank’s member countries, it should have brought in outside institutions, like think-tanks or universities, to help oversee them.
But although Ms Georgieva deserves sympathy, the episode does not sit easily with her present role at the IMF. The fund has an influential research department of its own. It is also the custodian of data standards for the world’s macroeconomic statistics. The head of the IMF must hold the ring while two of its biggest shareholders, America and China, confront each other in a new era of geopolitical rivalry. Critics of multilateralism are already citing this affair as evidence that international bodies cannot stand up to China. The next time the IMF tries to referee a currency dispute, or helps reschedule the debt of a country that has borrowed from China, the fund’s critics are sure to cite this investigation to undermine the institution’s credibility.
That is why Ms Georgieva, an esteemed servant of several international institutions, should resign. After China’s embarrassment was averted, she thanked a senior researcher for “doing his bit for multilateralism”. Now she too should do her bit for multilateralism by falling on her sword. ■
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Why Georgieva should go"
15. Opinion | To contain China, joining the Pacific trade pact might be more effective than new submarines
Excerpts:
The submarine deal is a big and smart strategic move. It plays to U.S. strengths, which are military and political. But what if the China challenge is fundamentally economic and technological? For the United States, rejoining CPTPP is politically difficult, but it might be strategically more important than about eight Australian submarines that may not begin to be deployed until 19 years from now.
Don’t take my word for it. Ash Carter, Obama’s defense secretary, said in 2015 that the United States joining the TPP was as important as deploying another (nuclear-powered) aircraft carrier in Asia. Kurt Campbell, now the top White House policymaker on Asia, went further that same year. “If we did everything right in Asia . . . and not get TPP, we can’t get a passing grade,” he said. “We can do everything wrong . . . and get TPP, and we have a B.” What if he was right?
Opinion | To contain China, joining the Pacific trade pact might be more effective than new submarines
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Fareed ZakariaColumnist Today at 7:33 p.m. EDT · September 23, 2021
On Sept. 15, the United States and Britain announced that they were signing an agreement with Australia to share technology for nuclear-powered submarines as part of a new “enhanced trilateral security partnership” to be known as AUKUS. This event was treated as big news around the world — and rightly so. It is a sign that the fulcrum of geopolitics has moved east and that Asia will be at the center of international affairs for decades to come.
The day after that announcement, however, came another that received relatively little coverage. China formally applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the successor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the trade pact negotiated and promoted by the Obama administration in large part to counter China’s growing economic dominance in Asia. (President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement three days after entering the White House.) Taken together, the two announcements show the complexity of the China challenge.
In the wake of Washington’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, many have commented on the United States’ short-term thinking, its mercurial foreign policy and its lack of staying power. But the AUKUS deal illustrates that, on the big issues, the opposite is true. For 15 years now, the United States has been gradually pivoting away from Europe and the Middle East and toward Asia.
During the Cold War, Europe was the central arena in which geopolitical competition took place. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States began shifting its gaze east. Despite the post-Cold War demobilization, Bill Clinton pledged to keep 100,000 troops in the Far East. Then came 9/11, which forced the United States to focus on the Middle East. But it kept one eye on Asia. President George W. Bush broke with decades of policy and “normalized” India’s nuclear program, largely to gain an ally to deter China. President Barack Obama came into office consciously articulating a pivot to Asia. The day after he announced the stationing of 2,500 U.S. troops in Australia, he declared, “The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.”
Trump’s own strategy toward China involved the usual personalized circus, zigzagging between slavish admiration for Chinese President Xi Jinping and attacks on the country over trade deficits and, later, for the coronavirus. But his administration followed and deepened the pivot strategy, withdrawing more troops from the Middle East and turning attention to the Pacific. It strengthened “the Quad” — a loose and mostly ineffective security dialogue among the United States, Australia, Japan and India — expanding military cooperation among the four nations, with an implicit goal of deterring China.
The crucial accelerator of the pivot to Asia has been China. Beijing’s belligerent foreign policy — a break from previous decades — has unnerved most of its neighbors. India was long the most reluctant member of the Quad, wary of alienating its huge neighbor to the north and in getting involved in a U.S. strategy to counter Beijing. But New Delhi dramatically changed its approach, especially after bloody skirmishes on the Indochinese border that gained Beijing nothing more than some frozen wasteland in the Himalayas.
Today, India readily engages in joint military exercises with the Quad and has banned Chinese involvement in various aspects of the Indian economy. Similarly, China’s imperious 14 grievances issued to Australia last year played a crucial role in pushing Canberra to search for a more robust deterrent against Beijing — and thus to ask the United States for nuclear-powered submarines.
And that brings me to China’s bid to join the CPTPP. Could it be a return to an older, more strategic Chinese approach that asserts Beijing’s influence using economic, technological and cultural means? Xi does not seem like a man who acknowledges error — but could it be that he is quietly attempting a course correction after seeing the disastrous results of his “wolf warrior” diplomacy? Could China actually join the CPTPP? It’s unlikely, since in key areas it remains a “nonmarket economy,” which is incompatible with the group’s requirements. But were it somehow to manage that process, it would be a remarkable move of jiu-jitsu. A trade and investment pact designed to combat Chinese influence would end up becoming one more platform in which China’s weight was paramount.
The submarine deal is a big and smart strategic move. It plays to U.S. strengths, which are military and political. But what if the China challenge is fundamentally economic and technological? For the United States, rejoining CPTPP is politically difficult, but it might be strategically more important than about eight Australian submarines that may not begin to be deployed until 19 years from now.
Don’t take my word for it. Ash Carter, Obama’s defense secretary, said in 2015 that the United States joining the TPP was as important as deploying another (nuclear-powered) aircraft carrier in Asia. Kurt Campbell, now the top White House policymaker on Asia, went further that same year. “If we did everything right in Asia . . . and not get TPP, we can’t get a passing grade,” he said. “We can do everything wrong . . . and get TPP, and we have a B.” What if he was right?
The Washington Post · by Opinion by Fareed ZakariaColumnist Today at 7:33 p.m. EDT · September 23, 2021
16. The 'Quad' is on the rise in Asia-Pacific: Game theory has a prediction about its future
A long read. Note the who's who of strategic thinkers/scholars at the end of the article.
Excerpts:
To get a sense of what's next, CNBC in February came up with a question — What is the future of the Quad? — and ran it through an advanced game theory model. The effort generated specific predictions about the four Quad nations, China and other countries and territories with a stake in the Indo-Pacific.
Game theory is an obscure concept to most people. In short, it tries to apply science to strategy. Game theorists construct models of situations involving competition between groups or individuals.
They then apply computing power to predict how individuals will interact in the model and what outcomes will be.
The use of game theory in CNBC's Quad project comes as policymakers, investors and the risk-management industry are trying to get more quantitative rigor into their forecasts — in line with the rise of quantitative analysis across other sectors including trading and investing. Globally, algorithms are being relied upon to do more and more.
But game theory is not magic. It has limitations, which you can read more about . Significantly, at least two of the policy analysts who helped build the model used for this report do not agree with some of the predictions it made.
The 'Quad' is on the rise in Asia-Pacific: Game theory has a prediction about its future
Published Thursday, September 23, 2021 6:03 AM EDT
Updated Friday, September 24, 2021 4:49 AM EDT
CNBC · by Ted KempPublished Wednesday, XX May 2019 12:00 AM ETUpdated XXX
The 'Quad' is on the rise in Asia-Pacific:
Game theory has a prediction about its future
Ships from the Royal Australian Navy, Indian Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, and the U.S. Navy participate in Malabar 2020 exercise.
Credit: AP | Getty Images
China remade itself into a giant economy, and more and more it enjoys the giant benefits that go with it: national confidence, diplomatic clout and military power.
Other big powers are paying attention. As China has shown new swagger in its dealings with the world, four big democracies — Australia, India, Japan and the United States — have formed a counterbalance.
The future of that "Quad" has tremendous significance, not just in the Indo-Pacific, but everywhere. Decision-makers, risk managers, investors, CEOs, and regular citizens increasingly are aware of rising stakes in a new, global balance of power.
The leaders of the world's biggest economies want to know what's next for the Quad.
A very complex computer algorithm may have delivered the answer.
On Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden will host Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of India, Scott Morrison of Australia and Yoshihide Suga of Japan at the White House for the first in-person Quad Summit.
They'll focus on "deepening our ties and advancing practical cooperation" on Covid-19, the climate crisis, technology, cyberspace and "a free and open Indo-Pacific," according to a White House statement.
As with just about every statement from the Quad, it makes no mention of China. But worries about China are at the root of the Quad. Since Xi Jinping became China’s leader in 2012, each of the four democracies has had serious run-ins with China on trade or territorial claims or both.
The "quadrilateral security dialogue" among Australia, India, Japan and the United States was once an informal, ongoing discussion between senior officials about naval cooperation. It's morphing into top-level strategic cooperation on tech, the global economy, security and the pandemic.
China objects to the Quad as an attempt to derail its rise as a global power.
“
China is increasingly hemming itself in. Whatever objectives it might harbor for the Indo-Pacific, it's getting in its own way.
Ali Wyne, senior analyst for Global Macro at Eurasia Group
"Forming closed and exclusive 'cliques' targeting other countries runs counter to the trend of the times and deviates from the expectation of regional countries," the country's foreign ministry said last week in response to the White House meeting. "It thus wins no support and is doomed to fail."
But even as it expresses confidence that the Quad will fail, Beijing takes aggressive actions that push the Quad countries closer together, according to several policy experts who spoke to CNBC.
"China is increasingly hemming itself in. Whatever objectives it might harbor for the Indo-Pacific, it's getting in its own way," said Ali Wyne, senior analyst for Global Macro at Eurasia Group.
To get a sense of what's next, CNBC in February came up with a question — What is the future of the Quad? — and ran it through an advanced game theory model. The effort generated specific predictions about the four Quad nations, China and other countries and territories with a stake in the Indo-Pacific.
Game theory is an obscure concept to most people. In short, it tries to apply science to strategy. Game theorists construct models of situations involving competition between groups or individuals.
They then apply computing power to predict how individuals will interact in the model and what outcomes will be.
The use of game theory in CNBC's Quad project comes as policymakers, investors and the risk-management industry are trying to get more quantitative rigor into their forecasts — in line with the rise of quantitative analysis across other sectors including trading and investing. Globally, algorithms are being relied upon to do more and more.
But game theory is not magic. It has limitations, which you can read more about . Significantly, at least two of the policy analysts who helped build the model used for this report do not agree with some of the predictions it made.
But in the world of game theory, at least, the model implemented for this report is a well-regarded one. The methods developed by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, of New York University and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, were used by the CIA on more than 1,200 projects in the 1980s.
According to a declassified CIA report published by Yale University Press in 1995, Bueno de Mesquita's former firm Policon had a 90% accuracy rate on predictions it made for the agency and generated greater detail than traditional analysis. Bueno de Mesquita claims a higher accuracy rate on projects undertaken for Fortune 500 clients since then.
Jonathan Grady, principal of start-up consulting firm The Canary Group and a protégé of Bueno de Mesquita, built the game theory model for this report. It was designed specifically to predict the Quad nations' future together in maritime security.
In consultation with Bueno de Mesquita, Grady gathered input from 37 policy experts and former government officials. You can see a list of them .
The model built for this report included almost 300 individual "players" — senior government officials and national institutions — spread among the Quad nations, China and 10 other countries and territories. CNBC's Quad project is the largest computation ever run by the Bueno de Mesquita model in its history — more complex than any projects undertaken for the CIA or corporate clients.
What follow are the model's predictions, and what political analysts say about them.
U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken participate in a virtual meeting with leaders of Quadrilateral Security Dialogue countries March 12, 2021.
Chinese President Xi Jinping with a naval honor guard.
The big Quad predictions
Three major forecasts covering roughly the next two years came out of the model, which was designed to focus on security and maritime issues:
- Leaders in Australia, India, Japan and the United States will become much more focused on Indo-Pacific security, and the countries will act in an increasingly coordinated way. However, they won't take any actions as a group that are more aggressive than they take already. For instance, they will not carry out naval exercises as a group within the South China Sea, which China claims as its own.
- Xi will pressure each of the Quad leaders separately in an effort to create a wedge between them, but none will respond to him. Some senior leaders in China, including within the military, will begin to favor a more conciliatory approach toward the Quad. But they'll run into hard nationalists at the top of the Chinese Communist Party. China will make no serious concessions to the Quad on its maritime claims.
- Other countries will align with the Quad or come close to its position on security, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore, France and South Korea. That could come in the form of joining naval exercises with some or all of the Quad countries, or openly supporting the group's security-related positions. Other countries, such as Vietnam, will edge closer to the Quad than they are now.
Experts who spoke to CNBC about the results agreed across the board with the first conclusion, that the Quad will strengthen as a group.
"The baseline conclusion about the Quad becoming a permanent part of the architecture of Asia is right. I think it's baked into the politics of the four countries," said Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia and Japan chair at bipartisan research organization CSIS. "It makes good politics in all four countries."
Part of the reason it makes good politics domestically in the Quad countries is that China has become more assertive toward each of them since Xi took over as leader.
The model's results "reinforce the extent to which China is its own principal challenger," said Wyne at Eurasia Group. "It is actively contributing to its own diplomatic and military encirclement."
Each of the Quad countries increasingly sees it as necessary to design everything from security agreements to supply chains that work around China.
Japan's central role
China often presents the Quad as a U.S.-dominated endeavor, and the Biden administration has certainly increased the United States' leadership role in the group. But the group is more complicated than that. Each Quad country has its own reasons to work with the others. Those reasons are increasing.
Take, for example, Japan.
China's rhetoric — as well as most U.S. media coverage on the Quad — overlooks the central role Japan and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have played in creating the group and keeping it alive.
For years, Japan has seen it as a good idea to build its circle of friends. India, in particular, makes sense from an economic perspective. Each country has something the other would like more of: Japan has capital and know-how, while India has booming growth and a growing population. And they're both democracies.
"From the economic point of view, Japan regards India as the most important future partner. Its population is growing, and it has a tremendous economic potential," said Narushige Michishita, professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
From a security perspective, the United States may be more cooperative with others under Biden than it was under former President Donald Trump, but its military is "globally deployed, while China's is regionally deployed," said Michishita. "So if two can't do the job, well, look at India. Add friends."
Disagreement on China predictions
The game theory forecasts about China's internal politics are the ones that generated the most interest among the experts who helped build the model — and the most disagreement.
"The China factor is the biggest bit of the story. It's the biggest uncertainty, it's the driving factor for everything," said Dhruva Jaishankar, executive director of Observer Research Foundation America. "If the takeaway is that this could lead to greater factionalism in the Chinese leadership, that for me is the headline."
The model did not predict that China would become friendly to the Quad concept — far from it. But it did indicate that different points of view will evolve within China's leadership.
The model predicted more conciliatory sentiment in parts of the foreign policy leadership and in parts of the Chinese military. However, officials on the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party will maintain firm inflexibility toward the Quad. That committee comprises the top leadership of the party.
China has never signaled division within its government when it comes to the Quad or, for that matter, much of anything else. China's foreign ministry last week positioned the Quad as being opposed to its development — and made clear its belief that China's development is good for Asia and the world.
"I want to stress that China is not only a major engine of economic growth in the Asia-Pacific, but also a staunch defender of regional peace and stability," said ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian. "China's development strengthens the force for world peace and is a boon for regional prosperity and development."
A lack of real visibility on Beijing's inner workings is what makes some policy experts dubious about the model's forecast.
"When I was in the White House, we could have told you who's who within China," said Michael Green, who worked for the U.S. National Security Council during the administration of George W. Bush. "It's much more opaque now."
Green suspects there's less debate within China now than there was before Xi came to power, and "people are afraid to give him bad news." Xi has a dominant position over the Standing Committee of the Politburo, Green pointed out, and he's the only civilian leader on the Central Military Commission. "It's very hard for the foreign minister to compete with him on grand strategy," he said.
Certainly Chinese intra-party politics include factions, and elements of the Chinese military may sometimes be at odds with the political leadership, according to Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. But those things are typical of countries everywhere. None of it means China has "independent power players," he said.
"Xi is very dominant, and soft-liners are not going to be able to challenge him," he said.
Even if Xi were to be swayed by officials counseling conciliation toward the Quad, his personal political situation may not allow it.
"Xi has gone so far down the road of militarization of the South China Sea and the promise of China greatness, China's rise to hegemony in the Indo-Pacific, and essentially the recovery of Taiwan, that he can't seriously moderate … without falling from power or risking it," Diamond said.
But the resistance China has encountered on economic, trade and territorial issues — even from countries that rely on Chinese trade — appears to have genuinely surprised Beijing.
"I think it speaks to … some elements of the Chinese Communist Party that their hawkish stance in recent years has been challenged, and quite resolutely challenged, by other countries," he said. "It's not something they can just do for free."
A massive fleet of fishing boats sets off for the South China Sea from Yangjiang, China, in August 2021. The South China Sea is one of the world's most commercially important bodies of water, home not just to fisheries but to critical global shipping lanes.
U.S. President Joe Biden, Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison at a virtual Quad meeting in March 2021, as seen at Suga's official residence in Tokyo.
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When I was in the White House, we could have told you who's who within China. It's much more opaque now.
Michael Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, CSIS
Kamala Harris in Hanoi, Vietnam, in August 2021. The U.S. vice president is seen increasing her focus on Indo-Pacific security issues and the Quad.
Other countries, other predictions
Sympathizing with the Quad doesn't require being in it.
The game theory model built by Jonathan Grady scrutinized a total of 15 countries and territories, all of them seen as influencing the Quad's future to one extent or another. The computation predicted that some of them will align themselves with the Quad on security issues or come close to doing so.
The United Kingdom, Canada and Singapore, the model said, will align with the Quad on maritime security. France and South Korea will come close to the Quad's position, though with less uniform agreement among their chief policymakers. Vietnam will edge toward the Quad without adopting its stance completely, according to the model. The Philippines will signal an alignment with the Quad, the model said, but President Rodrigo Duterte looks likely to move back toward China after national elections next year.
"This does not mean that France will diminish its commitment to the region, but any cooperation with the U.S. and Australia will be difficult in the near future given the anger of the French authorities," said Morcos, who worked previously for the French foreign service.
Still, the analysts who spoke to CNBC uniformly agreed that the Quad would find friends in both Asia and Europe. That prediction "reflects what I'm hearing from Korea, the military of the Philippines — and the Dutch, by the way," said Green of CSIS.
Those experts talked to CNBC — and Grady ran the model — before news last week that the United Kingdom will join a new security partnership with the United States and Australia that will, among other things, equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
As is typical, the three countries downplayed the notion that the partnership is aimed at China.
China was not convinced, calling the move "extremely irresponsible."
"Relevant countries should abandon the outdated Cold War zero-sum mentality and narrow-minded geopolitical perception, respect the will of the people of regional countries, and do more to contribute to regional peace, stability and development," said Zhao Lijian of China's Foreign Ministry. "Otherwise, they will only end up shooting themselves in the foot."
It gets harder for China to convincingly argue that the Quad is a front for U.S. efforts to obstruct its development when there's broadening support for the Quad on freedom of navigation, cybersecurity and other issues, Morcos said.
"For years it was able to describe such pushback as a U.S. reaction to China's rise and a form of concern in Washington that it's losing its hegemony in the region," said Morcos. "But the fact that more and more countries are joining these concerns is a demonstration to China that its behaviors are not acceptable to the international community at large."
Peter Jennings, the executive director of defense think tank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told CNBC's "Street Signs" that the deal wouldn't have happened if not for China's "aggressive and assertive policies."
The Quad is not an alliance
Two experts who helped populate the model and spoke to CNBC afterward said that a perhaps ironic strength of the Quad is that it is not, in fact, a military alliance.
Because they're usually ratified in a parliament or legislature, military alliances are heavily structured organizations. In important ways, that makes them more rigid than an informal grouping like the Quad.
Russia and Taiwan
That loose sort of non-alliance has a precursor: the one between China and Russia.
China and Russia do not have a formal alliance, but they frequently work in concert on international issues.
The game theory model indicated that elements in the Security Council of Russia will favor China softening its stance toward the Quad, but Russian President Vladimir Putin won't go that far. The Russian president, and Russia's leadership at large, were shown losing interest in the Quad as the game progressed.
Dhruva Jaishankar of Observer Research Foundation America doubts that Russia would deviate from China's position, noting that Russia is the weaker of the two countries and commercially dependent on China.
Taiwan is seen staying close to the Quad in terms of its policy positions, but its stance changed over the course of the game and became more flexible.
The game predicted that Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party would begin with an assertive attitude toward China overall, but over time, some members would soften their position.
The model identified divergence among DPP leaders when it comes to how hawkish Taiwan should be toward China. Perhaps significantly, President Tsai Ing-wen adopts a more conciliatory tone toward China than does Vice President Lai Ching-te, according to the forecast.
Kamala Harris
In the White House, the model predicted that Vice President Kamala Harris' focus on the Quad issue will sharpen and become "highly resolute, especially compared to other stakeholders in the White House," according to Grady. That's in the context of a White House that becomes more focused on Indo-Pacific security overall.
Vietnam and China have conflicting claims in the South China Sea, and Harris told officials in Hanoi that the United States and Vietnam should find ways to "pressure … Beijing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims."
China Foreign Minister Wang Yi followed behind Harris with his own visits to Vietnam and Singapore, as well as Cambodia and South Korea, about two weeks later.
"In some ways, she represents a bridge between the progressive and establishment Democrats," said Jaishankar. "If she starts adopting a position closer to President Biden and his advisors, that would obviously have implications for the Democrats' foreign policy over the next decade or so."
Afghanistan and 'America First'
Most analysts who spoke to CNBC held the view that the disastrous American withdrawal from Afghanistan would not hurt U.S. political efforts in the Indo-Pacific. On the contrary, they said Biden is making good on the "pivot to Asia" that the Obama administration talked about at length but could never make happen.
If America's partners in Asia are worried about anything, according to Ali Wyne at Eurasia Group, it's whether the United States will commit to Asia fully enough. They'll want to see the United States help shore up economic resilience in the region outside China, for example.
And, Wyne said, they will worry about whether Biden's policies survive the 2024 election.
The "America First" administration of Donald Trump was uninterested in multilateral agreements in general, and was indifferent or openly belligerent toward allies like South Korea and Germany in particular.
Beijing will be watching. As Chinese state media argued of the United States and Trump in 2019, "no one wants a partner that is arrogant, domineering and capricious."
The Quad's flexibility makes it easier for outside countries to cooperate with the Quad on one specific issue while ignoring another. It even allows the Quad countries themselves to pick and choose what they'll work on together.
"It's like a dimmer, not an off-on switch," said CSIS's Green. "It's a flexible tool, including who joins. It's flexible for a Korea or a New Zealand or a UK. If they decide they're upset with China, they can send a frigate to the next exercise."
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It's a flexible tool, including who joins. It's flexible for a Korea or a New Zealand or a UK. If they decide they're upset with China, they can send a frigate to the next exercise.
Michael Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, CSIS
The port at Busan, South Korea, in 2020. South Korea and Japan are especially dependent on shipping lanes that traverse the South China Sea, linking them to the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and beyond.
The USS Carl Vinson transits the Philippine Sea with two Japanese warship escorts.
The Quad and the global economy
China's central place in the world’s economy puts limits on how far an informal security arrangement like the Quad can go. But recent statements from the Quad and the White House, made in March and last week respectively, make clear the group's intention to work together in the economic arena.
The Quad's commitment to a "free, open rules-based order, rooted in international law" refers to trade as much as security. Freedom of navigation, probably the Quad's longest-running issue, is about trade goods and fishing fleets moving without obstruction on the high seas.
Michishita of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies argued that the Quad has to develop a mechanism for helping countries that are hit by Chinese trade sanctions — arguably Beijing's most potent political weapon, and one it has used at one time or another against Australia, Japan, South Korea and others.
China has massive clout on trade around the planet, including with each member of the Quad individually.
But the Quad countries have unique economic strengths. The United States remains the world's largest and most dynamic economy. Japan is the third-biggest economy and a technology power. India has a burgeoning economy, and it has made itself an indispensable part of the vaccine-manufacturing business. Australia, with a population of only 25 million, enjoys a trade surplus with China thanks to its critical natural resources and agricultural exports.
Goodman speculated that the Quad is trying to figure out how to "operationalize" those economic strengths. That would mean pioneering the technologies of the future such as semiconductors, biotech and artificial intelligence. Just as importantly, he said, it would mean setting the "rules, standards and norms" around those technologies.
The Quad wants to establish rules around the economy. That's what big, multinational groups do — or at least the ones that really matter, like the G-7 group of leading industrial nations and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, or APEC.
"Just in terms of analyzing the stuff going on here in Washington, there's no question the Biden administration has made a deliberate statement that the Quad and the G-7 are the two core organizing bodies that they're going to center their work on the global system around," said Matthew Goodman, who served in the Obama and Bush administrations and is now senior vice president for economics at CSIS.
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There's no question the Biden administration has made a deliberate statement that the Quad and the G-7 are the two core organizing bodies that they're going to center their work on the global system around.
Matthew Goodman, Senior Vice President for Economics, CSIS
How game theory works
Game theory uses computing and logic to predict what people will do when they're competing against each other. It creates a model that forecasts the decisions and counter-decisions within a scenario or "game" between those people, who are called "players."
How the model was built
The game theory model used to build the analysis for this report was designed by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a professor at New York University and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution who began developing his model in the late 1970s.
The Quad project focuses specifically on the maritime security part of the relationship between the United States, Japan, India and Australia. It doesn't forecast other Quad initiatives.
Jonathan Grady of Canary Group, a former student of Bueno de Mesquita, carried out in-depth interviews with 37 recognized specialists on the internal politics of the four Quad nations, China, and 10 other countries and territories. Included in the group were former government officials, political scientists, think tank analysts and others. (See , below.)
The Quad project first identified an "issue scale" — a ranked list of about 20 hypothetical outcomes for the Quad. The scale ranged between extremes: all the way from the Quad shutting down at one end, to an aggressive Quad that creates security guarantees for Taiwan at the other end.
The 'players'
The political specialists identified about 300 key "players" across the 15 countries and territories modeled. Most players were individuals, but some were institutions such as industry sectors or parts of the news media. The model "scored" where each of the players stands on the issue scale. It also scored each player on other key questions:
- How much influence do they have over the Quad's future?
- Joe Biden was ranked highest, and everyone else was scored off his baseline.
- How much do they care about the Quad issue in the first place?
- For example, U.S. National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell cares a lot, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is focused on the Quad much less.
- How flexible are they in their stance toward the Quad?
- For instance, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is more flexible about the Quad than is Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The Quad model was completed in August. It ran tens of millions of individual calculations, predicting exchanges between players over seven "rounds" before coming to its conclusion. Grady of Canary Group ran the model several times to check for consistency.
Criticism of game theory
Game theory has its critics.
Game theorists assume that people in competitive situations will behave rationally, or at least behave in ways they believe are rational, in order to achieve their goals.
Critics point out, however, that people ultimately are voluntary actors. Threats or incentives that normally produce one response in people will sometimes produce something quite different in others. Predictions about the actions of individuals don't rest on the same safe ground as, say, predictions about physics. The movement of particles can be predicted because particles don't have free will.
Game theory models have to simplify away some details because they can't mathematically factor in everything that might come into play. "That's what a model does by definition," said Richard Langlois, an economist at the University of Connecticut.
When you're talking about the future, Langlois said via email, "there may be new factors we haven't (and couldn't have) anticipated."
Such "qualitative" factors can't be modeled in a mathematical way.
Asked about that criticism by CNBC, Bueno de Mesquita agreed that qualitative factors play a part in any outcome. But he sticks by his model and its 90% success rate: "The part they play, according to the model's history, is under 10%," he said.
Perhaps the strongest criticism of game theory generally involves the information that goes into models.
Computer scientists have an expression — "garbage in, garbage out" — to mean that a computation is only as good as the data being crunched. A model's output is only as valid as its inputs.
The Quad project gathered information from some of the most respected policy and security experts in the world, and it stress-tested their estimates against each other.
"The folks that we have are really strong. There's not much higher quality you can get than what we have," said Grady of Canary Group. "This is high-quality in, and high-quality out."
Still, more than one of those contributors questioned how much anyone who's outside China's ruling circle can really understand about the inside of China's ruling circle. (Read more under .)
Experience teaches investors that it's a good idea generally to be skeptical about predictions. Political scientists, economists and stock pickers all predict the future, but anyone who's followed them closely enough knows they're often wrong.
But if nothing else, the use of game theory creates a starting point for people to begin to discuss the Quad and what it means.
"Nobody really knows what to talk about — key players, rigor in terms of who's involved," said Jonathan Berkshire Miller, a senior fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs and director of the Indo-Pacific program at the Ottawa-based Macdonald Laurier Institute.
"I think in a way, this is the discipline that this discussion needs."
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There's not much higher quality you can get than what we have, this is high-quality in, and high-quality out.
Jonathan Grady, Principal, The Canary Group
Meet the experts
Thirty-seven individuals contributed information that went into the Quad game theory model. All are recognized experts on the politics of at least one of the 15 countries that were modeled. Several are former government officials, some from senior leadership positions.
Of the 37 experts, 12 asked that they not be named as part of this report.
Bob Carr
Former foreign minister,
Australia
Larry Diamond
Senior fellow, Hoover Institution; professor, Stanford University
Alexander Downer
Former foreign minister, Australia; former Australian high commissioner to United Kingdom
Dean Dulay
Assistant professsor of Politics & History of Southeast Asia Singapore Management University
Joseph Felter
Research fellow, Hoover Institution; fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation; former U.S. Department of Defense
Avery Goldstein
Professor, University of Pennsylvania; director, Center for the Study of Contemporary China
Thomas Graham
Distinguished fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; managing director, Kissinger Associates; senior fellow, Jackson Institute of Yale University; former U.S. National Security Council
Michael Green
Senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair, CSIS; professor, Georgetown University; former U.S. National Security Council
Dimitar Gueorguiev
Associate professor, Syracuse University
Collin Koh Swee Lean
Research fellow, Rajaratnam School of International Studies; coordinator, United States Programme, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore
Dhruva Jaishankar
Executive director, Observer Research Foundation America
Philip Shetler Jones
Thematic coordinator, Enhancing Security Cooperation in and with Asia (ESIWA), European Union
Oriana Skylar Mastro
Center fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
Daragh McDowell
Research manager, Verisk Maplecroft
Narushige Michishita
Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Japan
Jonathan Berkshire Miller
Senior fellow, Japan Institute of International Affairs; director, Indo-Pacific Program, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Canada
Pierre Morcos
Visiting fellow, Europe, Russia and Eurasia Program, CSIS; former French Foreign Service
Thomas Pepinsky
Professor, Cornell University; nonresident senior fellow, Brookings Institution
Phillip Saunders
Director, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, National Defense University
Orville Schell
Arthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society
Su Chi
Former secretary-general, National Security Council, Taiwan; former minister, Mainland Affairs Council
Kharis Templeman
Research fellow, Hoover Institution; lecturer, Stanford University
Glenn Tiffert
Research fellow, Hoover Institution
Duy Trinh
Professional specialist, Niehaus Center for Globalization & Governance, Princeton University
Ali Wyne
Senior analyst, Global Macro, Eurasia Group
Credits
Writer: Ted Kemp
Editors: Matt Clinch, Joanna Tan and Mike Calia
Design and code: Bryn Bache, Yen Nee Lee
Images: AP, Getty Images
—Correction: This report has been amended to correct Dimitar Gueorguiev's job title.
CNBC · by Ted KempPublished Wednesday, XX May 2019 12:00 AM ETUpdated XXX
17. U.S., allies becoming more assertive in their approach toward a rising China
Conclusion:
“One thing is certain, that everyone is pivoting toward the Indo-Pacific,” said Garima Mohan, an Asia program fellow with the German Marshall Fund think tank.
U.S., allies becoming more assertive in their approach toward a rising China - LaPresse US
China bristles, UN chief warns China, US to repair 'completely dysfunctional' relationship
September 23, 2021
With increasingly strong talk in support of Taiwan, a new deal to supply Australia with nuclear submarines, and the launch of a European strategy for greater engagement in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. and its allies are becoming more assertive in their approach toward a rising China, the Associated Press reports
China has bristled at the moves, and the growing tensions between Beijing and Washington prompted U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the weekend to implore U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to repair their “completely dysfunctional” relationship, warning they risk dividing the world.
As the U.N. General Assembly opened Tuesday, both leaders chose calming language, with Biden insisting “we are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs,” and Xi telling the forum that “China has never, and will never invade or bully others or seek hegemony.”
But the underlying issues have not changed, with China building up its military outposts as it presses its maritime claims over critical sea lanes, and the U.S. and its allies growing louder in their support of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory, and deepening military cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
On Thursday, China sent 24 fighter jets toward Taiwan in a large display of force after the island announced its intention to join a Pacific trade group, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, that China has also applied to join.
On Friday, Biden hosts the leaders of Japan, India and Australia for an in-person Quadrilateral Security Dialogue for broad talks including the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, but also how to keep the Indo-Pacific, a vast region spanning from India to Australia, “free and open,” according to the White House.
It comes a week after the dramatic announcement that Australia would be dropping a contract for conventional French submarines in favor of an Anglo-American offer for nuclear-powered vessels, a bombshell that overshadowed the unveiling of the European Union’s strategy to boost political and defense ties in the Indo-Pacific.
“One thing is certain, that everyone is pivoting toward the Indo-Pacific,” said Garima Mohan, an Asia program fellow with the German Marshall Fund think tank.
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David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
