Important work on fiscal year 2024 defense authorization and appropriations bills has been completed. Strategic and tactical issues are teed up and ready for negotiation to produce final bills that will serve the nation’s security and those who provide it. But, will it all be a waste of time, leading to a political budget impasse that damages the nation’s military competitiveness and global leadership… again?

With only 11 joint legislative days remaining until the end of the fiscal year, it is a good time to assess potential outcomes for this year’s budget. Despite recent debt ceiling negotiations providing a glimmer of hope that regular order for appropriations could be possible, signs are now trending in the opposite direction. Once again the defense budget faces the risk of a continuing resolution that would put our future military competitiveness and security at risk by freezing all new starts and locking spending in at FY23 levels.

But, unlike previous years when continuing resolutions (CRs) seemed inevitable, this year comes with additional consequences: An initial short-term CR might be among the less destructive outcomes on the table, as a doomsday scenario is lurking that would result in an effective 8.6 percent cut from requested defense funding levels for FY24. And this does not account for the ultimate failure, a potential government shutdown, for which even the preparation is costly.

Among the many potential budget outcomes, three scenarios are worth examining. The first (Scenario A– PB 2024) is that the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) budget caps survive and by Sept. 30 (or, with a short-term CR, Dec. 31), Congress passes all twelve appropriation bills — or an omnibus package of bills — that the president will sign.

The second (Scenario B – Full-Year Continuing Resolution (CR)/2023 Levels) is that Congress agrees, at some point before the end of the calendar year, to pass a full-year continuing resolution at FY23 levels, while repealing the revised sequester-like reductions in the current debt ceiling deal.

The final scenario (Scenario C – FRA Sequester) is the doomsday scenario for the Pentagon. In this scenario, and assuming there is no government shutdown, the appropriations bills are not passed by the end of the calendar year, Congress leaves the FRA sequester provision in place, and national defense spending is cut to the statutory cap of $849.78 billion (Table 1).

(Provided by the authors)

Under this third scenario, about $42 billion of defense discretionary funding would go to non-Department of Defense (DoD) agencies, leaving about $808 billion for DoD, much less than the $841 billion requested by the President and allowed by the budget deal. At the macro-level, using simple math, Table 2 depicts how funding would be allocated by service and by appropriation for the three scenarios.

(Provided by the authors)

The doomsday scenario (Scenario C) is even worse than the simple math indicates for three very important reasons. First, the 5.2 percent military and civilian pay raise is mandatory, so the funding would actually have to be resourced from within the caps to pay the estimated $15 billion needed for the military pay raise, while the civilian pay raise, estimated at roughly $10 billion, would come at the expense of readiness within the operating accounts. Second, military construction cannot be funded with a continuing resolution, therefore those funds disappear under Scenarios B and C. And finally, with inflation running about 3% per year, that effectively cuts another $24 billion in spending power below the FRA caps. Taking those three issues into account yields the following:

(Provided by the authors)

This doomsday scenario results in an actual defense budget that is 8.6 percent below the PB 2024 request or nearly $50 billion below current spending in a single year. It should also be noted that under the FRA, the required cuts do not need to start until April 2024, , packing the budget reductions into an even smaller window of execution.

Timing is very important. There is little chance Congress can pass appropriations by the end of the fiscal year and as such, they will have to rely on a series of short-term continuing resolutions. And, if history is any guide, these will go until the December holiday recess. During this October-December timeframe, DoD would be spending at the Scenario B reality adjusted level, losing close to $17 billion in buying power during just those three months. And, keep in mind, the White House has also submitted a $40.1 billion supplemental, of which $13.1 billion represents DoD requirements, further straining cash flow at the same time buying power is dwindling.

If Scenario C occurs and DoD loses $50 billion during FY24, a continuing resolution for FY25 would likely follow, given that it is an election year. That will exponentially compound the national security deficit, putting the United States in similar circumstances to those under the Budget Control Act from which we have never fully recovered.

With a war in Europe and continued escalating tensions with China, failing to approve budgets on time and at the FRA-agreed upon levels could be catastrophic for the readiness of the force. Maybe, if the appropriations are not completed on time, Congress should not get paid rather than taking our national defense hostage. That would be one reform on which most of America might agree.

Read more at Breaking Defense.

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On the evening of August 23rd, news broke of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death after Russian aviation officials listed him as a member on a flight that suspiciously crashed north of Moscow. On this episode of The Eastern Front, Giselle, Dalibor, and Iulia convene to discuss what Prigozhin’s death could mean for the Wagner group’s legitimacy, the stability of Putin’s regime, and the fate of the Russia-Ukraine War. Are the Russians able to achieve anything in Ukraine without Wagner? Does Prigozhin’s death signal the end of political infighting within the Kremlin? The co-hosts also continue to discuss the problems with the Biden administration’s stance on Ukraine, particularly its failure to link Ukraine’s victory to US national interests and how that could affect support for Ukraine in the upcoming presidential elections.

Show notes: Sign up for The Eastern Front’s bi-weekly newsletter here and follow us on Twitter here. “Ukraine’s Forces and Firepower Are Misallocated, US Officials Say,” New York Times.

The post Prigozhin’s Out. Now What? appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

In a shock, the scientific community is not especially mindful of the national interest with regard to China. One reason is naivety. Advocates of the agreement cite openness and principled cooperation, as if their counterparts can defy Xi Jinping’s attacks on transparency and drive for Communist Party supremacy. But the main reason is familiar: cooperation with China makes considerable resources available to advance one’s career, and any harm seems far away.

This is also the view of many US commercial entities. There are benefits to working with China, and costs are someone else’s problem. Perhaps the state-directed work of PRC scientists will be more helpful next time a viral mutation hits. On the commercial side, ask Motorola how that enticing cooperation worked out. Or American Superconductor, robbed by the PRC and whose share price has fallen 98 percent from its peak.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has compiled over 200 reported cases of Chinese espionage in the US since 2000. The list stops, for the moment, in February 2023. In March, Google disclosed a wave of PRC hacks of American networks. In May, the Department of Justice brought three criminal cases involving Chinese actors. Later that month, Microsoft disclosed a PRC cyber attack on American infrastructure.

There’s more but it seems pointless to document, because the US never does anything. Publicly disclosed sanctions against Chinese beneficiaries of stolen or coerced IP are almost non-existent (Trump administration tariffs were not aimed at beneficiaries and barely tied to IP at all). Naturally, the Chinese state, enterprises, and individuals have long seen this as a green light to continue. And continue they have.

There have been three decades of American failure on IP protection. It seems unfair to pick someone to blame – it’s everyone. Still, a bipartisan bill passed Congress requiring stronger penalties for stealing IP. President Biden signed it in January and . . . nothing. Implementing authority doesn’t seem to have been assigned, much less publication of governing regulations. Even when Congress acts, nothing happens?

The Science and Technology Agreement is no small thing. It’s just dwarfed by larger things. The generational effort by the PRC to acquire foreign innovation by whatever means is one of those. Estimates of American losses at $600 billion annually are too high, but $60 billion as an annual average may be too low. And it’s been going on for a long time. Cumulative losses have certainly breached $1 trillion and very possibly $2 trillion.  

Further, with the replacement of old cumbersome espionage techniques by hacks of entire networks, China has no reason to slow theft. The US has certainly not given China a reason, and our laughable IP “policies” are also much more important than the Science Agreement. Another trillion in American IP losses is on the way. This is the country we should practice open, principled cooperation with?

A major barrier to working with China is China. But another is our unwillingness even to enforce laws. To now, almost no one—policymakers, firms, researchers, and courts—has cared about IP. Given the attitudes of nearly all involved, it’s impossible to believe the Science and Technology Agreement can be improved in way that helps the US. The Biden administration doesn’t have the nerve but, six months from now, it would be better to cut the cord.

The post <strong>The Science Agreement with China, and IP</strong> appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

The focus on diversification within Asia, however, has meant that Mexico—America’s top trading partner and arguably its most important manufacturing partner—is being largely overlooked. This is a missed opportunity. The Western Hemisphere deserves more focus as Washington seeks to better secure the broader electronics supply chain. Building regional capacity offers a way to limit Asia-focused supply risks and, in the event of a major China-U.S. conflict, an intra-hemispheric supply chain would be much less susceptible to interference. Mexico would be a key place to start.

Although Mexico is not known for high-technology production, it is a critical player in major advanced manufacturing sectors such as autos, aerospace, and medical devices. The country already hosts several semiconductor assembly and packaging plants and has a high density of chip-intensive end users. Moreover, Mexico and the United States have a strong network of manufacturing relationships that could be readily adapted for some segments of the semiconductor supply chain. And its comparatively low-cost workforce is cheaper than China’s, by some measures, making investments in the country attractive for assembly work that is too costly to undertake in the United States. At the same time, unlike Asian partners, Mexico has a deep and long-standing free trade agreement with the United States that has withstood political controversy and presidential administrations of both parties. It also shares a 2,000-mile border and 48 land crossings, making it less vulnerable to logistical disruptions.

Continue reading here.

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Don’t get me wrong, when Americans vote next year, most won’t be thinking about Taliban forces marching into Kabul in 2021, horrific images of Afghans clinging to and then falling from departing U.S. military aircraft, or the 13 Americans killed by a suicide bomber at the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate. But those catastrophic moments indelibly shifted Americans’ opinions of Biden’s presidency.

Continue reading in The Washington Post.

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TMD Reporter Mary Trimble speaks with Michael Beckley, an associate professor of political science at Tufts University and a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, to explore the threats towards this alliance and the possible escalating conflicts in the Indo-Pacific region.

You can visit the podcast page here.

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• The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have both produced fiscal year 2024 defense bills, and while the Senate measure is bipartisan, the House bill is not.
• The Senate appropriations bill adds more money for defense-wide and Navy programs, while the House bill adds more funding for the Army and Air Force.
• Key conference issues, on top of wide discrepancies in funding priorities, include innovation and the agility of budget processes to support military competitiveness, industrial base and workforce initiatives, multiyear contracting, a large pay raise for enlisted personnel provided by the House, and the Senate’s inclusion of $8 billion above budget caps for emergency spending.

Read the PDF.

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have produced fiscal year (FY) 2024 defense spending bills.¹ Time for floor debate in both chambers has been scarce and will likely remain so in September, so these measures may proceed directly into conference negotiations, as has been the case in recent years. Similar to the authorization measures, the Senate defense appropriations bill was actioned on a bipartisan basis with a committee vote of 27–1, while the House bill was approved by committee on a partisan vote of 34–24.²

The most contentious issues for conference are likely to be those that do not directly relate to military  capability. This report does not focus on those issues but instead summarizes the Senate bill and highlights key commonalities and differences to be resolved with the House in the coming weeks.³

Read the full report.

Notes

1. Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024, S. 2587, 118th Cong., 1st sess. (2023); and Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024, H.R. 4365, 118th Cong., 1st sess. (2023).
2. House Committee on Appropriations, “Committee Approves FY24 Defense Bill,” press release, June 22, 2023, https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-approves-fy24-defense-bill; and Senate Committee on Appropriations, “Senate Committee Approves FY24 Defense Appropriations Bill,” press release, July 27, 2023, https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/minority/senate-committee-approves-fy24-sac-d-appropriations-bill.
3. Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, 2024, S. Rept. 118-81, 118th Cong., 1st sess., July 27, 2023, https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy24_defense_report.pdf; Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, 2024, H. Rept. 118-121, 118th Cong., 1st sess., June 27, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/118/crpt/hrpt121/CRPT-118hrpt121.pdf; Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024, H.R. 4366, 118th Cong., 1st sess. (2023); Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriation Bill, 2024, S. Rept. 118-43, 118th Cong., 1st sess., June 22, 2023, https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy24_milcon-va_reportpdf.pdf; and US Department of Defense, Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), “DoD Budget Request,” https://comptroller.defense.gov/Budget-Materials.

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America is immersed in sharp security competitions with Russia and China. For both countries, nuclear weapons are central to their programs for regional expansion and their preparations for a potential showdown with the US. As Washington and its rivals joust for influence around the Eurasian periphery, they will come face-to-face in crises where nuclear weapons cast ominous shadows. To safely navigate the next great-power nuclear crisis, America will need to learn the lessons of this one.

At first glance, the lesson might seem to be that nukes don’t matter. Nuclear weapons haven’t saved Moscow from its Ukrainian quagmire. They haven’t deterred Kyiv from fighting back fiercely, or prevented the US and its allies from waging a ferocious proxy war that has killed tens of thousands of Russian invaders. If nuclear weapons can’t give Russia a decisive edge against a smaller, weaker neighbor, then are they really so important?

The short answer is yes. Nuclear weapons have profoundly influenced the war in Ukraine, albeit in subtle and sometimes hidden ways.

Without nuclear weapons and nuclear threats, Russia might well have lost the war by now. And without the backing of a US nuclear arsenal harnessed to the security of Washington’s allies, Ukraine might have lost, because Russia could have more brutally coerced the countries whose aid is keeping Kyiv alive. Uncomfortable as it may be to recognize, the primary lesson of the Ukraine war is that nuclear coercion will be essential to prevailing in the rivalries that define our age.

***

As Russian troops streamed into Ukraine in February 2022, Putin issued a chilling warning: “Whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people, must know that the Russian response will be immediate and lead to the consequences you have never seen in history.” This was the first of many such threats Putin would issue, as part of his strategy to use nuclear coercion in the service of conventional aggression.

Since taking power two decades earlier, Putin had rebuilt Russia’s conventional military as a sword to be used against its smaller neighbors, while modernizing its nuclear forces as a shield against interference by a meddling superpower. The first time Putin invaded Ukraine, in 2014, he apparently prepared to raise Russia’s nuclear alert status to make sure Washington and its NATO allies stayed passive.

Putin’s vague nuclear threats in February 2022 were intended, likewise, to safeguard the spoils from what he thought would be a quick and easy victory. When the war went bad during late summer and fall, Putin again invoked Armageddon in a bid to freeze a deteriorating situation.

Putin and other Russian officials hinted at the use of nuclear or chemical weapons on the battlefield. In September, as Kyiv’s forces were liberating areas around Kharkiv and assaulting occupied Kherson, Putin announced plans to annex four Ukrainian regions. Russia would defend this land “with all the powers and means at our disposal,” he declared, adding that America’s use of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945 had created a “precedent” others might follow.

These warnings caused concern in Washington that Putin might indeed use nuclear weapons if the alternative was the collapse of his military and, perhaps, his regime. According to National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, US officials threatened unspecified “catastrophic consequences” if Russia went nuclear. Other countries, namely China and India, also nudged Putin back from the brink. The crisis passed, with Putin saying there was “no need” for dramatic measures, but the nuclear menace hasn’t gone away.

Russia has now announced plans to deploy nuclear weapons to neighboring Belarus. Putin’s toadies have warned that “every day” Western powers aid Ukraine “brings the nuclear apocalypse closer.” Russian analysts, presumably writing with the tolerance if not necessarily the support of the Kremlin, have argued that Moscow must wage limited nuclear war against the West to get its way.

Nuclear weapons are the most devastating tools humanity has created. Since February 2022, Russia has been trying to exploit the fear they sow to end this conflict on its own terms.

***

One might be forgiven for thinking it hasn’t worked. Putin’s bluster hasn’t stopped the West from giving Ukraine money arms, and intelligence. US officials publicly say their goal is to “weaken” Russia by subjecting it to catastrophic losses.

Nor did Putin’s threats freeze the conflict: To this day, Ukraine continues to assault the “Russian” territory Moscow annexed. Those threats haven’t even prevented Kyiv from attacking Russia itself, by bombing airfields, conducting drone strikes on Moscow, and sponsoring cross-border raids. Whenever Putin talks about employing nuclear weapons, in fact, he faces condemnation by the West and opposition from his own allies and neutrals — raising the prospect that using Russia’s arsenal would complete Russia’s isolation.

If events in Ukraine are any guide, nuclear weapons aren’t that effective for consolidating territorial conquest, if that conquest is deemed illegitimate by one’s enemy and most of the world. They’re hard to use in ways that make a decisive difference on the battlefield but aren’t so devastating that they elicit international opprobrium out of proportion to the military gain. Nuclear weapons may be good insurance against invasion, but they aren’t a foolproof guarantee that a country fighting for survival won’t hit back with attacks on a nuclear-armed aggressor’s soil. The war, in all these respects, has underscored the difficulty of using nuclear weapons to underwrite aggression, especially against an opponent that refuses to give in because it believes the stakes are existential.

The effects of nuclear weapons in Ukraine have been limited — but they are hardly nonexistent. In fact, Russia is successfully using nuclear weapons to coerce the US. And the US is using its own nuclear arsenal to coerce Russia right back.

***

The best way to isolate this impact is to consider two counterfactual scenarios. First, imagine a world in which the US had nuclear weapons and Russia didn’t. In this world, America would probably be less restrained in aiding Ukraine, because it would have less anxiety about a devastating Russian riposte.

US aid to Ukraine has been generous but carefully circumscribed. Washington has discouraged Kyiv from attacking Russian soil (especially if those attacks use US weapons), even though Ukraine has every legal and moral right to do so. President Joe Biden has held back tools, such as ATACMS rockets, that can reach into Russia, largely for fear of breaching Putin’s red lines. America has been ambivalent about the idea of Ukraine forcibly retaking Crimea, encouraging it to use a squeeze-and-negotiate strategy instead. Wisely or not, Washington has asked Ukraine to fight with one arm behind its back, out of concern about entering a perilous spiral with a nuclear-armed regime.

If Russia lacked nuclear weapons, the US would lack its single most powerful reason for this restraint. It would also have greater incentive to intervene directly, the surest and speediest path to Russian defeat.

If this seems improbable — Biden has made avoiding war with Russia the “north star” of his policy — it is at least partly because we have become so accustomed to the specter of mutual assured destruction. Absent that danger, would the US really tolerate a ghastly forever war in Europe’s second-largest country? One that has roiled global food and energy markets, fomented violent instability on NATO’s doorstep, and threatened the vital norm against territorial aggrandizement by force? One that had the potential to shatter the strategic equilibrium in Western Eurasia had Putin’s gambit succeeded? One that so evoked the 20th century’s darkest patterns of aggression and atrocity that some of America’s European allies compared the invasion to Hitler’s destruction of Czechoslovakia before World War II?

America has fought to turn back lesser challenges to regional and global stability than this — its interventions in the Persian Gulf and Balkans in the 1990s, for instance. If Washington and its allies had only to defeat a Russian conventional military that was already bogged down and degraded, they might well have done so, knowing that Putin had few good options to respond.

Nuclear weapons have thus played a vital holding-the-ring function for Moscow, allowing it to fight a constrained Ukraine rather than a larger Western coalition. Nukes haven’t won the war for Putin. They have, however, helped him avoid defeat.

***

Now consider a second counterfactual: One in which Russia had nuclear weapons and the US and NATO did not. In this scenario, Ukraine might well be struggling to keep fighting, because Moscow would be far better positioned to intimidate the countries sustaining it.

The amount of Western interference Moscow is tolerating in its fight against Ukraine is rather remarkable. The US and its allies have turned countries just across the border from Ukraine, especially Poland, into hubs for the delivery of vital weapons and training grounds for Kyiv’s forces.

Biden has erected a powerful shield — a nuclear shield — around these activities, by pledging to defend “every inch” of NATO territory from Russian attack. If Russia possessed could make nuclear threats that Washington and its allies could not answer, that shield would be much weaker.

It seems doubtful that a Russia possessing this advantage would simply watch as its army was bled to death by a ceaseless flow of materiel from abroad. During the Vietnam War, the US attacked communist sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia. In Afghanistan during the 1980s, Soviet forces periodically crossed into Pakistan to raid insurgent camps. Absent the strategic stalemate created by US nuclear weapons, Putin would surely be tempted to do likewise. And absent America’s extended nuclear deterrent, countries on NATO’s eastern front would be less likely to risk this scenario by incurring Putin’s wrath. Case in point: Earlier this year, Germany wouldn’t even permit re-export of its Leopard tanks to Ukraine without the explicit backing of its nuclear-armed superpower ally.

Russia’s inability to sever Ukraine from its Western backers doesn’t show the uselessness of nuclear weapons. It shows that nuclear coercion is working both ways. Nuclear weapons have probably helped rescue Ukraine from defeat — while also making Eastern Europe safer for the Kremlin’s brutal war.

***

One lesson from Ukraine, then, is that nuclear weapons — even when they aren’t used in battle — powerfully shape what happens in an ostensibly conventional fight. Another lesson is that the effects of these weapons are psychological at their core.

Russia’s nuclear capabilities haven’t changed since February 2022. But their impact on Western policy has changed, albeit subtly. Over the last 18 months, the US and its allies have gradually become bolder in giving Ukraine weapons — main battle tanks, F-16s, longer-range British and French missiles — that they were once more hesitant to provide. One reason for this is that Putin’s nuclear threats have been slowly losing credibility: The fact that he has so frequently brandished his bombs, without ever using them — even when Russian defenses around Kharkiv were crumbling — has caused Western officials to shed some earlier fear of escalation.

This dynamic raises an intriguing question: What would have happened had the West simply ignored Putin’s nuclear threats from the outset? In March 2022, Russian forces were stuck outside of Kyiv. The application of Western airpower would have devastated Putin’s overextended army. Putin’s only real recourse would have been limited nuclear strikes against targets in Ukraine or NATO countries in Eastern Europe.

Perhaps Putin would have chosen this option. Or perhaps he would have decided that losing a conventional war was better than starting a nuclear one. It’s hard to know what the US should have done in this instance for the same reason nuclear statecraft is always vexing: It requires us to climb inside the heads of our opponents and guess what they will do when the decisive moment comes, knowing that the price of guessing wrong could be utter catastrophe.

Yet the question requires asking, because the contest in coercion isn’t over. Barring some unexpected breakthrough on the battlefield, Ukraine will likely struggle to expel Russian forces without more — and more sophisticated — Western aid than it has received to date. It may not be able to convince Putin to call off the conflict until it has shown it can bring the fighting home to Russia in a more sustained, serious and politically damaging way.

It is even possible that at some point the US will have to choose between intervening militarily or letting Ukraine become a failed state, exporting refugees and insecurity to Europe for years to come. At some point, in other words, the US may be forced to test Russia’s red lines more aggressively or settle for an outcome that allows Putin to claim a very ugly, very partial victory.

An earlier generation of American policymakers would have understood this imperative well. During the early Cold War, the US repeatedly found itself in high-stakes nuclear crises with the Soviet Union. And it repeatedly threatened to wage nuclear war rather than see Moscow or its allies conquer Taiwan’s offshore islands, dislodge the Western powers from Berlin, or otherwise destabilize the global order.

“If you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost,” a respected secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, once explained. To modern ears, Dulles might sound like a maniac. At the time, most Americans agreed with him.

Perhaps America will be spared similar dilemmas in this round of global rivalry. But don’t count on it. In fact, if Ukraine is a precedent for how America handles crises with nuclear-armed great powers, the US is in big trouble in the Western Pacific.

One of the most important questions raised by this war is what Chinese President Xi Jinping makes of it. Maybe Xi has been impressed by the cohesion of the West and the subpar performance of an autocratic military — lessons that would reinforce the peace in the Taiwan Strait. Or maybe he has learned something different: That America won’t fight even a conventional war against a nuclear-armed rival.

Biden has said as much. “We will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine,” he declared in March 2022, because that would mean “World War III.” It’s not clear why the US would be more willing to risk nuclear war for Taiwan — another strategically important but distant democracy — than it was for Ukraine. It is clear that America’s strategy in Ukraine — provision of supplies and other support short of war — won’t work as well in sustaining an island that lacks friendly countries next door. So if the US won’t intervene directly if China attacks, say goodbye to a free Taiwan.

Biden understands this: It’s presumably why he has said, several times, that the US won’t stand aside if China attacks. But would it really be so crazy for Xi to conclude, with Ukraine in mind, that America’s actions speak louder than its words? Nuclear statecraft is replete with ironies. One of them is that deterring a future war in the Western Pacific may require convincing China not to draw too many conclusions from the current war in Ukraine.

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Senior Fellow Marc A. Thiessen discusses the first Republican debate on Fox News’ Faulkner Focus.

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Senior Fellow Elisabeth Braw discusses cultural tolerance and international relations on the Tallberg Foundation podcast.

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Today, AEI’s Foreign and Defense Policy team is commercially publishing Defending Taiwan: Essays on Deterrence, Alliances, and War (AEI Press, 2023) with new chapters as a much-needed policy primer.

To launch the book, please join AEI’s Kori Schake with AEI scholars Michael Beckley, Dan Blumenthal, and Mackenzie Eaglen to discuss how the past year has shaped America and Taiwan’s ability to defend the island from Chinese subjugation and what is needed moving forward.

Submit questions to Ben.Lefkowitz@aei.org or on Twitter with #DefendingTaiwan.

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Data Cutoff: August 22 at 5pm

Key Takeaways

1. The Kuomintang (KMT) is facing several internal disputes as the party falls further behind in the presidential election polls.
2. The flagship CCP journal Qiushi republished a February article by Xi Jinping on August 15 that emphasized “Chinese-style modernization.” This content of the publication and its reprinting indicates that the party aims to buttress support for spreading its political and economic governance models in formerly colonized countries.
3. The CCP outlet Red Flag Manuscript published an article on August 14 about the necessity of recapturing the spirit of “revolutionary patriotism” embodied by the Chinese military during the Korean War. The content of the article indicates that creating ideological alignment amongst PLA leadership is becoming increasingly necessary in order to prepare for future wars.

Taiwan Developments

This section covers relevant developments pertaining to Taiwan, including its upcoming January 13, 2024 presidential and legislative elections.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) Vice President and Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Lai Ching-te transited through the United States in on August 12 and August 16. ISW will produce a forthcoming follow-up article to the pre-transit August 9 publication.

The Kuomintang (KMT) is facing several internal disputes as the party falls further behind in the presidential election polls. A faction in the party sought and failed to replace the KMT Chairman Eric Chu, who risked drawing the KMT into another scandal. Several KMT officials also recently left the party and raised concerns over the KMT’s internal decision-making process.[1] An August 21 Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation Poll shows Hou as polling at 13.6 percentage points of support compared to the leading candidate, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Lai Ching-te, at 43.4 percentage points.[2] This is a change from July when Hou polled 20.2 percentage points while Lai polled 36.4 percentage points.[3]

• KMT Chairman Eric Chu publicly stated his support for Taiwan People’s Party Hsinchu Mayor Kao Hung-an after the Taipei District Prosecutors indicted her for corruption on August 14.[4] This angered KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih’s campaign manager Jin Pucong because he did not want the Hou campaign to become involved in the scandal.[5] A faction within the KMT also unsuccessfully submitted a proposal on July 19 to replace Chu as the party chairman.[6] Chu also stated in July that party “guns should be [focused] externally.”[7]
  
• Several local KMT officials have also left the party. Former Miaoli County Magistrate Hsu Yao-Chang left the KMT on August 22 criticizing the KMT’s “minority decision-making and backroom politics.”[8] Hsu previously caused controversy by stating that “we not only want the DPP to step down, we also want to take down the KMT” at a rally with Terry Gou.[9] Gou is an ROC billionaire who maintains a popular base of support in the KMT.

The failure of the KMT to address the internal disputes and regain its footing in the polls likely would deny the CCP its most preferred ROC presidential candidate to influence cross-strait policy. ISW assessed in May that the CCP is framing the ROC presidential election as a choice between peace and war, which provides the party leverage points over the cross-strait policy of the three major Taiwanese political parties.[10] ISW also assessed that this electoral framing would confer leverage over a KMT administration. It would enable the CCP to frame cross-strait economic integration and political dialogue on the PRC’s terms as necessary to maintain peace.[11]

China Developments

This section covers relevant developments pertaining to China and the governing Chinese Communist Party (CCP).https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-may-26-2023

The flagship CCP journal Qiushi republished a February article by Xi Jinping on August 15 that emphasized “Chinese-style modernization.” This content of the publication and its reprinting indicates that the party aims to buttress support for spreading its political and economic governance models in formerly colonized countries. Xi drew on the historical memory of Western modernization as one “full of bloody crimes such as war, slavery, [and] colonialism” that caused developing countries great suffering. He stated that China experienced “the tragic history of aggression and humiliation by Western powers” and will “never repeat [this] old path.”[12] Xi parlayed this shared historical memory of colonial grievance into a counter narrative that “Chinese-style modernization” is purely peaceful and economically responsible.[13] The timing of the release in the week before the ongoing BRICS summit, as well as the article’s harsh anti-Western tone, suggests the party’s aim was to degrade Western influence while exporting its own authoritarian model to developing countries.

The spread of CCP governance and economic influence in developing countries previously undermined the international definition of human rights in October 2022. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) successfully garnered votes from several African countries to help defeat a motion in the United Nations to debate human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. This came after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report on August 31, 2022, that assessed PRC actions in Xinjiang “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”[14] The PRC’s success in voting down the debate despite the report demonstrates the international implications for global governing norms that arise from the party’s authoritarian economic and political support in developing countries.

The CCP outlet Red Flag Manuscript published an article on August 14 about the necessity of recapturing the spirit of “revolutionary patriotism” embodied by the Chinese military during the Korean War.[15] The content of the article indicates that creating ideological alignment amongst PLA leadership is becoming increasingly necessary to prepare for future wars.

The article entitled “Carrying Forward the Great Spirit of the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea” discusses the heroism and patriotism of the Chinese People’s Volunteers (CPV). It also conveys the lessons on instilling a revolutionary mindset that the Chinese people should carry into the modern day.

The main audience of Red Flag Manuscript includes PLA leadership, CCP party theorists, and everyday party cadre. Readers of this article would likely recognize that its evaluations on the state of the modern PLA reflect several enduring self-criticisms that can be traced back to 2012 when Xi Jinping stated his intention to increase the PLA’s combat abilities across all services.[16] The most commonly mentioned weakness within PLA academic journals and publications such as PLA Daily is the lack of effective PLA leadership. One of the most commonly cited criticisms is known as the “Five Incapables,” which states that many PLA officers are not capable of judging situations, understanding the intentions of higher authorities, making operational decisions, deploying troops, or dealing with unexpected situations.[17] This description of many PLA officers as incapable of basic military leadership stands in stark contrast to the heroic historical figures discussed in the article. This contrast emphasizes how lacking modern PLA leaders are by comparison. As the article mentions, significant attention within the PLA has been given to reforming ideological education and political work to instill patriotic values in the ranks of PLA soldiers. While this may result in future generations of PLA leadership more closely adhering to party ideology, current educational reform efforts do not address the full extent of problems within current PLA leadership.

The article’s timing reflects the continued salience of these ideas and their current relevance to the PLA. In an October 2020 speech commemorating the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War, Xi Jinping characterized the war as a victory for China against U.S. injustice and imperialism.[18] According to Xi, the “martial spirit” displayed by the CPV should guide the Chinese people to overcome today’s challenges. Xi then reminded the audience that it is sometimes necessary to “use war to prevent war,” and use the military victory to win respect. The phrase “using war to prevent war” refers to the party’s idea that escalation and smaller conflicts can be useful tools in preventing a large-scale war.

The author of the article, Fan Jing, has researched theories of military political work on behalf of the Military Political Work Research Institute of the Academy of Military Sciences for many years.[19] The Academy of Military Sciences is a high-level research institute of the PLA, and the Military Political Work Research Institute conducts research concerning the political work done within the PLA. Fan has published over 60 articles on the subject, including a longer piece on the lessons of the Korean War published a year earlier.[20] While the general sentiment of these two pieces is similar, the first article provided a purely historical overview of the conflict, whereas the more recent article stated that the heroism of the past should characterize the PRC’s future actions as it works towards the goal of national rejuvenation.

[1] https://www.cna dot com.tw/news/aipl/202308220004.aspx

https://www.taiwannews dot com.tw/en/news/4975555

[2]https://www.tpof dot org/%e9%81%b8%e8%88%89/%e7%b8%bd%e7%b5%b1%e9%81%b8%e8%88%89/2024%e5%8f%b0%e7%81%a3%e7%b8%bd%e7%b5%b1%e9%81%b8%e6%83%85%e7%9a%84%e6%9c%80%e6%96%b0%e7%99%bc%e5%b1%95%ef%bc%882023%e5%b9%b48%e6%9c%8821%e6%97%a5%ef%bc%89/

[3] https://www.tpof dot org/%e9%81%b8%e8%88%89/%e7%b8%bd%e7%b5%b1%e9%81%b8%e8%88%89/2024%e5%8f%b0%e7%81%a3%e7%b8%bd%e7%b5%b1%e9%81%b8%e6%83%85%e7%9a%84%e6%9c%80%e6%96%b0%e7%99%bc%e5%b1%95%ef%bc%882023%e5%b9%b48%e6%9c%8821%e6%97%a5%ef%bc%89/

[4] https://www.taiwannews dot com.tw/en/news/4970674

[5] https://www.chinatimes dot com/realtimenews/20230815003675-260407?chdtv

[6] https://news.ltn dot com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/4369110

[7] https://udn dot com/news/story/123307/7297920?from=udn-catelistnews_ch2

[8]https://www.cna dot com.tw/news/aipl/202308220004.aspx

[9] https://www.taiwannews dot com.tw/en/news/4975555

[10] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-may-26-2023

[11] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-may-26-2023

[12] http://www.qstheory dot cn/dukan/qs/2023-08/15/c_1129801483.htm

[13] http://www.qstheory dot cn/dukan/qs/2023-08/15/c_1129801483.htm

[14] https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/2022-08-31/22-08-31-final-assesment.pdf

[15] http://www.qstheory dot cn/dukan/hqwg/2023-08/14/c_1129801706.htm

[16] http://www.xinhuanet dot com/politics/2014-10/13/c_127090941_11.htm

[17] http://www.81 dot cn/xxqj_207719/xxqj_207747/9532744.html

[18] http://www.xinhuanet dot com/politics/leaders/2020-10/23/c_1126649916.htm

[19] http://www.mod.gov dot cn/gfbw/gfjy_index/xjdx/4910509.html

[20] http://www.qstheory dot cn/dukan/hqwg/2021-10/27/c_1127999572.htm

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Please join AEI’s Eric Sayers and two former Indo-Pacific combatant commanders, Adms. Philip S. Davidson (ret.) and Harry B. Harris (ret.), to discuss the various threats, challenges, and opportunities the United States faces in the Indo-Pacific.

Submit questions to Connor.Fiddler@AEI.org.

The post Peace in the Pacific: A Conversation with Former Indo-Pacific Commanders appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

Distinguished Senior Fellow Danielle Pletka discusses the first GOP debate for the 2024 Republican primary on NBC’s Meet The Press.

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Should that lesson close the door on discussions of reparations for other countries? Said another way — despite this history, can reparations ever serve a positive purpose? 

Here, Germany also provides an example.  

After World War II, Germany paid reparations. They both paid briefly to the victorious powers, largely in terms of manufacturing plants and machinery, and they paid to the remnants of the Jewish community they slaughtered. On the 70th anniversary of the Luxembourg Agreement that governed German compensation to Holocaust survivors, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz explained that the compensation agreements were “an attempt to assume moral responsibility for the failure of morality – the attempt to ensure that it was not inhumanity that had the last word, but humanity.” 

Rather than symbolize punishment, Germany’s acquiescence to reparations signaled its acceptance that the old order was evil, and its desire for a new beginning. Nor was Germany alone in embracing reparations as a way to turn definitively against the past. Japan paid reparations, not only to the United States, but also to many of the Asian countries and island nations it had colonized.

Moving forward to the present, the international community’s unwillingness to demand reparations from Russia and Turkey, two of the most irredentist and aggressive countries today, means neither country has incentive to come to terms with its past. Perhaps this is why not only each country’s dictatorial leaders, but also the bulk of their populations, continue to embrace racist narratives and justify aggression against neighbors and domestic minorities.

Treating Russia with Kid Gloves

In his masterful 2015 tome Winter is Coming, Garry Kasparov countered the notion that the West mistreated Russia after the end of the Cold War, thus justifying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grievances. 

“Despite perpetual unfounded complaints about suffering humiliation at the hands of the victorious West, there was nothing in the way of reparations demanded by the winning side,” Kasparov noted, adding, “In fact, the United States and several other countries provided badly needed loan guarantees and other aid to Russia… Russia was even paid for bringing its troops back from Germany.” 

Putin owes his very career to the fact that there was no purge of Communist party officials or members of the Soviet intelligence apparatus. In this, post-war Russia stood in sharp contrast to the restrictions placed on Nazis and Schutzstaffel members after Germany’s World War II defeat, not to mention the de-Baathification process that disqualified top members of Saddam Hussein’s administration from the Iraqi political order after 2003. Removing nuclear weapons from each Soviet successor state except for Russia further privileged Moscow by preserving Russia’s power and prestige relative to the Soviet Union’s other former constituent republics.

It was by indulging the sense of entitlement that sits at the heart of Russian nationalism that the West encouraged Putin’s irredentism. The results manifested themselves first in Georgia in 2008, and later in Ukraine. Putin has now caused tens of billions of dollars in damages to Ukraine’s physical infrastructure alone. He is directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the displacement of millions. 

Putin is not special. He is not the first Kremlin leader to engage in such behavior. He openly models himself after Joseph Stalin, a man responsible for millions of Ukrainian deaths. The recent rehabilitation of Stalin’s image reinforces the absence of fundamental change in Russian culture.

Bypassing reparations after the Cold War for the damage the Soviets did to Eastern Europe and the Caucasus did not bring peace or encourage liberalism. Rather, it allowed a generation of Russians to avoid confronting their own historical record.

The Trouble With Turkey

The same is true for Turkey. Almost a century ago, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey upon the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Rather than acknowledge the Armenian genocide, Atatürk and his top lieutenants, many of whom were complicit in that act, denied it and criminalized its discussion. They also sought to erase Kurdish cultural identity, and they systematically destroyed or cloistered Istanbul and Izmir’s once-thriving Greek communities. 

At best, Turks engaged in whataboutism, arguing that the expulsion of Turks from the Balkans offset their slaughter of the Greeks. That displacement was tragic, but it was neither equivalent nor an excuse for Turkey’s continued aggression against Greece and Greek communities in the Aegean and on Cyprus. Whether under Kemalist governments or President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist dispensation, the Turkish government indoctrinates schoolchildren into an ethno-supremacist ideology. It then uses that ideology and false historical narratives to justify current aggression. Most recently, this manifested itself in the Turkish justification for an assault by its troops on British UN peacekeepers in Cyprus. 

Indeed, the more the West indulges Turkey and ignores the racism inherent in Erdogan’s actions, the more reckless Turkey’s behavior becomes — be it in Cyprus, Greece, Iraq, Syria, or with its support for the Islamic State. This is just one reason why any provision of F-16s or other heavy weaponry to Turkey is so dangerous.

What Should Reparations Look Like?

With its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia crossed the Rubicon. Its two-week blitzkrieg is now a frozen conflict that has cost Russia dearly. Still, Putin will never surrender, nor will he negotiate. Neither is consistent with his ideology or conducive to his survival. Russia traditionally defaults to wars of attrition; it believes time will be on its side in any frozen conflict. So Putin will pursue his folly until he dies. It is then that the West should not only demand “never again,” but should kneecap Russia’s ability to pursue its irredentist dreams. Crippling financial sanctions might backfire, as they did after World War I, but there is utility to territorial adjustments. This might mean expanding Ukraine’s boundaries to pay in land what Russians cannot pay in cash. Preventing further Russian aggression might also mean breaking Russia apart.

The same holds true for reparations from Turkey. Ankara has gotten away with murder for too long. A sense of impunity now fuels its aggression. While it is easy to suggest a historical statute of limitations should cancel any consideration of reparations for the Armenian Genocide, Turkey’s continued denial of it, and its aggression toward Armenians, suggest a change of tack is necessary. Not only Mount Ararat, but also Armenia’s historical capitals to the west, might revert to Armenian control. A stigma today surrounds discussion of such reparations, but Turkey’s behavior merits at least starting the conversation. Turks must know the consequences of their current course of action.

Turkey’s targeting of ethnic Greeks is no different, and last week’s attack on peacekeepers in Pyla should be the last straw. Europe and the West must end the notion that Cypriot unity is negotiable, and insist that Turkey pay the price for its abuse of Cypriot sovereignty. By any calculation, Turkey today owes Cyprus billions of dollars.

Nor should Erdogan get away with his growing aggression toward Greek islands in the Aegean. His dismissal of the borders set by the Lausanne Treaty opens the door for territorial adjustments going the other direction, up to and including sovereignty over Smyrna. This need not mean population transfer, but in the old city it could follow the model of Jordan’s de facto sovereignty over the Temple Mount despite Israel’s control over Jerusalem. 

Kurds, too, deserve compensation. Once upon a time, Kurds might have agreed to remain inside Turkey or as members of a loose confederation. Indeed, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party dropped its separatism more than a decade ago. Erdogan’s racism, however, has convinced young Kurds they have no future inside Turkey. They see Diyarbakir not as a provincial capital, but as a future national one. 

Russians and Turks may complain bitterly. Some might grow even more radical. But until these nations face the consequences of their actions, there can never be peace. It is neither sophisticated nor wise to ignore justice and accountability.

So long as Russia and Turkey remain unwilling to confront their pasts in the way Germany and Japan have done, conflict and war will remain the norm. Perhaps there can be an argument to minimize or even waive reparations when countries and populations are sincere about a new beginning, but Russia and Turkey do not meet that threshold. It is therefore time to end the stigma about forcing Russia and Turkey to pay reparations, perhaps through cash, and more certainly with territory.  

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Senior Fellow Elisabeth Braw discusses Wagner leader’s death in a plane crash on the Michael Medved Show.

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Senior Fellow Elisabeth Braw discusses domestic politics in Russia after Prigozhin on Times Radio

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But observers would be wise to temper their pessimism. War does not proceed in a linear fashion. Defenders can hold for a long time and then suddenly break, allowing an attacker to make rapid gains before the defense solidifies further to the rear. The Ukrainians aim to generate exactly this effect — and there is reason to think they can. Ukraine’s offensive push is far from over. In fact, it is still in the early stages — just 10 weeks into what is likely to last at least four more months.

Penetrating a modern defense in depth such as the Russians established in southern Ukraine is a tall order for any military. The U.S. military has done it twice in modern memory, both times against Iraq. In 1991, after pummeling the Iraqi forces for 39 days from the air, a U.S.-led coalition of 650,000 troops penetrated and outflanked Iraqi defenses, crushing the Iraqi military in 100 hours. In 2003, a smaller U.S.-led force destroyed a badly degraded Iraqi military within a few weeks.

Read more in The Washington Post.

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Much will be said about Prigozhin’s colorful life: from restauranteur to Putin person chef to mercenary leader and businessman. Many will say his death does not surprise: no one crosses Putin, an ex-KGB operative, and survives. The real question was whether Prigozhin’s end would come via polonium tea, a high rise elevator shaft, or a surprisingly rickety stair.

What Happens Next in Putin’s Russia? 

The question now is what next? Prigozhin inspired loyalty. How else can anyone explain the willingness of nine other people to get on an aircraft with a dead man walking?

There are three possibilities in the weeks to come that will determine Russia’s future.

The first is that Wagner shifts its loyalty to Putin. There has long been analysis that Prigozhin is more the figurehead and investor than the group’s leader. If Wagner leadership lays elsewhere, it may not be a stretch to accept that they might shift their loyalty to Putin. As the late Al Qaeda leader Usama Bin Laden once quipped, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” That logic holds true with Russia. Putin is undoubtedly strong, at least in the sense that he continues to call the shots and others continue to die as a result.

The second is that Wagner dissolves. This is less likely for two reasons: Wagner is a lucrative business. It has taken over the gold mines of the Central African Republic, and may soon get control over Niger’s uranium mines. The group also gives Putin plausible deniability for some of the dirty work he wants done.

The third is the most dangerous for Putin. Prigozhin was not alone in his June 2023 rebellion. Hundreds of battle-hardened Wagner veterans may feel they have no choice but to go to ground and avenge their late leader against the man who almost certainly ordered his death. If Russians worried about Ukrainian drones striking Crimea, Moscow, or other Russian cities, they may have just unleashed the Kraken. Putin may be out of reach as he hides behind the thick walls of his billion dollar-palaces, but not every Russian official is so lucky.

Imagine battle-hardened veterans hunting down policemen, mayors, deputies, and ministers throughout the country. Should Wagner go this route, it will slowly erode the foundation of Russia’s stability and bring a taste of civil war-era Lebanon to the country. Certainly, if Putin cronies begin to drop like flies, the image of invincibility surrounding the Russian leader will fade. The strong horse could become a hobbled pony.

Prigozhin may be dead, but Putin may soon come to rue his legacy.

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Show Notes:

–Robert’s webpage

–Robert’s new book, The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China

–Robert: “Order After Empire: The Roots of Instability in the Middle East”

–Robert: “Will America Share Rome’s Fate?”

–Frederick Kagan: “Biden Could Have Stopped the Taliban. He Chose Not To.

–Orlando Figes’ The Story of Russia

The post The Kaplan Chronicles appeared first on American Enterprise Institute - AEI.

While political partisans might refine spin and many Washington journalists accept the talking points, what matters is how Tehran perceives it. There is little doubt: Just as in 2016, Iranian officials see the payments as ransom.

The tragedy of today’s ransom scheme is that it was entirely predictable, the direct result of incentivizing hostage-taking. When radical Iranian students stormed the American embassy in November 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made maximalist demands. At first President Jimmy Carter resisted, but then, eager to resolve the crisis, he agreed to the Algiers Accords that pumped gold bullion into Iran’s cash-strapped economy and further lifted most trade sanctions. The result? Khomeini pumped that money into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which used it to fund Iran’s military, support its terror campaign, and organize what would become Hezbollah.

In 1983, Hezbollah not only blew up the U.S. embassy and barracks for U.S. peacekeepers, but it and other Iranian proxies also began a kidnapping campaign that ultimately netted two dozen Americans. While President Ronald Reagan had once criticized Carter for negotiating under fire, he turned around and emulated Carter. The result was a disaster. True, after trading arms for hostages, Hezbollah took a 15-month pause on kidnapping Americans, but after Reagan delivered the last promised shipment of arms, the group seized three Americans in the course of weeks.

Obama’s deals simply repeated the pattern. Rather than put Iran on the path of responsibility, his ransom reinforced and enabled its rogue behavior. Realism is not an excuse: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s ability to secure Xiyue Wang’s release absent any payment simply shows that standing up to blackmail can work.

The only difference between the hostage ransoms then and now is that, under Carter and Reagan, most of the hostages were diplomats, U.S. government employees, or academics. Today, many hostages are Iranian-Americans who ran interference for the Iranian government and criticized sanctions while trying to make their fortunes, only to run afoul of the Revolutionary Guards’ business interests . To pay ransoms for these businessmen far in excess of those paid to release Americans who were working on behalf of the United States adds insult to injury.

Questionable judgment, however, does not end there. While Obama flooded Iran’s coffers with cash, he left an American behind. Former FBI agent Bob Levinson died in Iranian captivity, though it is unclear when. Obama’s team saw his case as an inconvenience and, even though Iran was desperate for cash, the White House did not make the deal contingent on his return.

Today, President Joe Biden repeats the tragedy. While his officials applaud themselves for the release of five hostages, they remain silent about Jamshid “Jimmy” Sharmahd, who has been a hostage for three years. Sharmahd should be the priority: He did not travel voluntarily to Iran, but rather Iranian agents upset about his vocal opposition to the regime apparently kidnapped him while he was in transit in the United Arab Emirates. To ignore his case is to signal to Iran that it is open season on Americans anywhere in the world. Iran now learns the White House will leave Americans behind. Not only can hostage-taking bring financial windfalls, but being permitted to keep hostages also allows Iran to continue its humiliation of America.

Biden’s team has now left American hostages behind in Iran at least twice, and it left thousands of Afghans working alongside Americans to the Taliban’s mercy despite promises to relocate them to the United States. Biden may spin, but the truth is clear. Biden sees Americans’ freedom as an inconvenience as he succumbs to Iranian extortion.

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U.S. policy elsewhere in the region appears stuck in neutral, particularly in Southeast Asia. Five years ago, I suggested that the Donald Trump administration’s approach to the Indo-Pacific could be described as “a tale of two Asia policies” — the United States had been successful in some domains yet was failing badly in others. Today, this is still true. Regional leaders are deeply disappointed by America’s rejection of trade liberalization as well as its inconsistent diplomatic engagement. Biden’s head-scratching decision to skip this year’s East Asia Summit and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Indonesia will raise many eyebrows.

Read the full article at War on the Rocks.

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The PRC spends almost as much as the US does on defense, with far fewer global obligations. In what should shock political leaders, despite supporting a war to repel a Russian invasion in the middle of Europe and a commitment across two presidential administrations to arrest China’s strategy of global revisionism, the US defense budget as a percentage of GDP is at its smallest since before World War II. China has translated its decades-long period of economic growth into military power and has bought itself the world’s most lethal missile force, the world’s largest navy and “maritime militia.” Through a combination of military largesse and industrial policy, China is now “the top ship-producing nation in the world by tonnage.” 

China is already ahead of the US in hypersonic weapons and likely in certain military AI applications, and is vigorously competing in space and cyber where its military-civilian fusion program enables the mobilization of the civilian sector for military purposes. Thus, the very fact that PRC industries dominate the critical minerals processing sectors provides an added military advantage. China’s recent export controls on gallium and germanium showcase its willingness to weaponize critical minerals. China produces 60 percent of the world’s germanium and 80 percent of the world’s gallium, both of which are key to producing specialized electronics and semiconductors used in the defense industry.

My experience as a DoD official in charge of China and Taiwan policy back in the early aughts and a long-time China watcher is this: it is now popular to blame Xi Jinping for China’s aggression. But that is an all too convenient way to avert responsibility for ignoring the China threat as it gathered. The PRC’s military modernization program began in 1993 as a response to an assessment that the US was China’s main threat. The DoD already started putting out warnings in the form of reports on China’s military power in 2002. Over the last two decades, it has become clear that the Chinese Communist Party was looking not just to meet, but surpass US military power. It was already using its newfound might in the East and South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait under former General Secretary Hu Jintao in the first decade of the 21st century. It announced its commitment to building its global maritime power before Xi Jinping ascended. We did little to nothing about it. It is popular now to speak of a Washington’s China Consensus that has formed to counter China’s aggression. But for too long, the consensus across both political parties has been that China’s rise was peaceful, and that its growth in military might was all just part of a “natural” and benign adjunct to economic growth. Indeed, China was invited to participate in the provision of global public goods such as anti-piracy and anti-terror missions even as it worked to undermine the international system that provided those goods in the first place. 

We now face a rival peer competitor that is set to overtake us in relevant military power. The consequences are stark, as history is replete with dangerous examples of a global military balance shifting in a rival’s favor. Mackenzie Eaglen does us a service in calling attention to our inexcusable inattention.

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