03/14/2021 News & Commentary – National Security

News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs.

1.  Opinion | Our four nations are committed to a free, open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region (from the four leaders)

2.  FOCUS: Uncertainties linger over how U.S. promotion of Quad will play out

3. The Trick to Challenging China in the Post-Trump Era

4. He helped Trump bring American hostages home. Now he's working for Biden.

5. America Is Headed to a Showdown Over Taiwan, and China Might Win

6. The CIA Has Lots of Secret Ways to Get Russia's Best Weapons

7. IntelBrief: Emerging Terrorist Financing Threats and Trends

8. Five Chinese firms, including Huawei and ZTE, designated as threats to US national security

9. Three Lessons from the Past 365 Days of Online Misinformation

10. China arms for war, as Quad fights back

11. Why the Chinese Military Wants Magnetized Plasma Artillery (What?)

12. Air Force Special Operations Forces: Readying for a Russia or China War?

13. Could China's Belt and Road Lead to Its Undoing?

14. Marines apologize, will "adjust fire" after Twitter war of words over Tucker Carlson

 

1. Opinion | Our four nations are committed to a free, open, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region

The Washington Post · by Joe Biden, Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison and Yoshihide Suga · March 13, 2021

This seems like an unprecedented OpEd.  I wonder how much work this was for some key action officers trying to coordinate this. This took some amazing staff work behind the scenes.

 

2. FOCUS: Uncertainties linger over how U.S. promotion of Quad will play out

english.kyodonews.net 

Excerpts:

“Grossman said a summit meeting was "the next logical step" after foreign ministerial meetings began to be held from 2019, but noted that what has drawn the four countries closer together has been that they are "genuinely" concerned that "China's assertiveness continues to tick up throughout the Indo-Pacific."

An escalation in maritime disputes is feared in the East China Sea, where the Japanese-controlled, Chinese-claimed Senkaku Islands are located, with Beijing recently implementing a law that explicitly allows its coast guard to use weapons against foreign ships it sees as illegally entering China's waters.

India and China are at loggerheads over a disputed border region in the Himalayas, while Australia and China have seen a rise in trade tensions in the wake of the pandemic.

By working together, the four countries are expected to have a "significant amount of strategic heft," Grossman said, as can be seen from an agreement reached on Friday to supply up to 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses to the region by the end of 2022.

"India is the pharmacy of the world...in terms of manufacturing, and so vaccine distribution, if you have India involved, that's a really positive thing," he said.

 

3. The Trick to Challenging China in the Post-Trump Era

The National Interest · by Patrick Mendis · March 13, 2021

The subtitle says it all.  An interagency, whole of government, (whole of nation?) approach is required.  But of course we always say this.

Excerpts:

“It is hard to predict just how many American values will be sacrificed in doing business with China, but one thing must be made clear, this tolerance is not infinitely elastic as Biden articulated in his Foreign Affairs article. Certainly, the Biden White House is not completely departing from the Trump administration’s policies and congressional acts, rather reinforcing them with America’s enduring democratic values.

Much is still to be deliberated and worked out in the Biden White House’s National Security Strategy. Unlike the Trump administration’s evangelical foreign policy driven by nativism, the Biden administration needs a government-wide alignment in action to revitalize the position of American strength with a concerted effort “to engage with the world.” In that sense, Biden is correct to say, “America is back. Diplomacy is back. Alliances are back. But we are not looking back.”

In retrospect, the American experience of moralpolitik is living up to its founding convictions of freedom, equality, and liberty from one “inflection point” to another. By welcoming the “position of strength” embedded in the enduring advantages of American education, democracy and diversity, the United States is destined to overcome the strategic rivalry, or a threat posed by China, Russia, or any other country.”

 

4.  He helped Trump bring American hostages home. Now he's working for Biden.

news.yahoo.com · by Jenna McLaughlin · March 13, 2021

Roger does the SF Regiment and brotherhood proud.

He is the example that counters this ignorant position:

A DC think tanker (redacted) said on Twitter: Special Forces soldiers on the ground are amazing at their jobs. For that, they deserve our respect & gratitude. But they never see the big picture & should never be allowed near a strategic debate. With that, no flag officer in the US military disagrees.

An SF guy replies: Guys like this at least make it possible to understand why, after so many revolutionaries overthrow their governments, they then round up the "intellectuals" and line 'em up against a wall… - Mike Roof (SF guy who studies the strategy of revolution, resistance, and insurgency)

 

5. America Is Headed to a Showdown Over Taiwan, and China Might Win

Bloomberg · by Max Hastings · March 14, 2021

The referenced CFR 102 page report can be accessed here: 

Excerpts:

“Diplomatic dialogue between Washington and Beijing has almost broken down, not least because China’s representatives have become so rude and aggressive, apparently uninterested in compromises. There is no hope of a grand bargain between the two sides, but they need to get talking again, if only to clarify positions.

The best chance of deflecting a Chinese assault is surely not military. Even if the White House summoned the will to commit U.S. forces against Chinese aggression, they might not prevail in Xi’s backyard. The goal should be deterrence, with a focus on economic incentives for improved Chinese relations with the U.S. A forcible occupation of Taiwan would incur a massive cost to all parties.

Unfortunately, recent history — the oppression of Uighur Muslims in Western China, for example —suggests that Xi is willing to bear economic pain, and to shrug off international abuse, in order to assert and extend Chinese power. The world will be fortunate to escape a Taiwan showdown. Whether or not we accept Blackwill and Zelikow’s prescriptions, they are right that the U.S. needs urgently to dust off its options to meet a looming threat.”

 

6. The CIA Has Lots of Secret Ways to Get Russia's Best Weapons

The National Interest · by Michael Peck · March 13, 2021

 

7. IntelBrief: Emerging Terrorist Financing Threats and Trends

thesoufancenter.org · March 12, 2021

Excerpt:

“Terrorist groups have proven effective in seeking new means of enhancing their organizational and operational capabilities. Recent reports have indicated the persistence of online slave markets operated by ISIS and its supporters to continue to raise funds. This has been the subject of negotiations among governments who finally adopted a Security Council resolution enabling the designation of terrorists under sanctions for sexual violence and human trafficking to support terrorism; however, no real action has been taken on this front to date. Similarly, while the sale of arts and antiquities from conflict zones has long been recognized as a crime and an area terrorist groups have successfully capitalized upon, little has been done to implement related obligations with the same vigor as sanctions. However, in the United States earlier this year, Congress increased scrutiny of the antiquities market as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. As a result, regulators, who have long worried about the opaque nature of the antiquities trade, were empowered to design measures bring greater transparency to the sale of arts and antiquities. This also brings persons “engaged in the trade of antiquities, including an advisor, consultant, or any other person who engages as a business in the solicitation or the sale of antiquities,” under the scope of the Banking Secrecy Act. The evolution of terrorist and criminal groups over the past few decades has highlighted their resilience and creativity, but also the possibility that governments, the private sector, and civil society can be adaptive and responsive when needed; it is therefore critical to ensure that research and analysis allows policymakers and practitioners to stay one, or a few, steps ahead.

 

8. Five Chinese firms, including Huawei and ZTE, designated as threats to US national security

SCMP· by Owen Churchill  · March 13, 2021

This will spice up the meeting in Alaska.

 

9. Three Lessons from the Past 365 Days of Online Misinformation

inkstickmedia.com · by Laicie Heeley · March 11, 2021

The lessons:

LESSON #1: THE INTERNET IS EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING IS THE INTERNET

LESSON #2: DIGITAL MISINFORMATION OUTBREAKS CAN LOOK SMALL BUT BE BIG

LESSON #3: WE CAN’T REVERSE THE CONSEQUENCES OF PAST ONLINE MISINFORMATION OUTBREAKS

 

10. China arms for war, as Quad fights back

The Australian · by Greg Sheridan  · March 13, 2021

Excerpts:

“The positive agenda is real and should have regional and even global benefits. The size of the four economies combined — the US, Japan, India and Australia — means they have more than enough mass to ensure allied independence, even leadership, in critical technologies that will determine military and economic superiority in the future, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, rare earths minerals, and hypersonic weapons.

The Quad is not even officially called a security dialogue, it’s just a dialogue. However, the Malabar naval exercises, to which Australia was invited last year as a full participant, are effectively the Quads’ military exercises under another name.

The Quad is not a military alliance. The Quad is not everything. But it is a powerful emerging piece of regional architecture. The combined strategic hope of the Quad leaders is that they provide strategic balance by creating a series of incentives and disincentives for Beijing, which keep it away from military action in Taiwan, and elsewhere.

Much that Beijing does not like in the current environment it has created itself. India was cautious about the Quad until Beijing provoked a bloody border dispute. The Australian strategic class had for years been telling governments and business that the nation needed to diversify its economy away from China, but to no avail. A year of brutal and entirely gratuitous trade bullying by Beijing has now convinced the whole Australian nation of the need to diversify. The Biden administration is infinitely more hard-headed towards Beijing than the second Obama administration ever was. This is not because they were persuaded by the silver-tongued oratory of Trump. They were persuaded by the actions of Beijing.”

 

11. Why the Chinese Military Wants Magnetized Plasma Artillery (What?)

The National Interest · by Michael Peck · March 13, 2021

 

12.  Air Force Special Operations Forces: Readying for a Russia or China War?

The National Interest · by Kris Osborn · March 11, 2021

No mention of the enormous SEAD packages which would be required to support operations in the Russian or Chinese threat environments.

 

13. Could China's Belt and Road Lead to Its Undoing?

The National Interest · by Joseph M. Parent · March 14, 2021

Hmmm... one can only hope.

 

14. Marines apologize, will "adjust fire" after Twitter war of words over Tucker Carlson

Newsweek · by David Brennan · March 14, 2021

Watching this play out on Twitter has been interesting.  But some official service Twitter accounts have gone too far.  I wonder if they will be able to calibrate future responses to incidents like this.  They had better be prepared for this because Tucker Carlson and people like will continue to make these outrageous statements purely for entertainment purposes. It is a brave new world.

 

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“We must endure the ignorant to protect the liberty of the majority.”

- James D. Best, Tempest at Dawn

 

“Politics doesn’t mean playing deceitful and trickery games against the people, it means playing resourceful and organized games for the people.”

- Amit Kalantri

 

“To sum up: politically speaking, it is insufficient to say that power and violence are not the same. Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent.”

- Hannah Arendt, On Violence