Friday News Roundup — January 22, 2021
Democracy’s Continued Test, Leadership Transition in Germany, On Deck at Foggy Bottom, Navalny Returns to Russia, Space Command to Huntsville
Happy Friday from Washington, DC. This week, we were thrilled to celebrate Inauguration Day. Regardless of one’s political views, the pageantry of our constitutional republic is an opportunity to feel rejuvenated as our government recreates itself. This year’s celebration was manifestly different. Attendees were seated six feet away from each other and masked and there were no onlookers on the National Mall. Beyond the Mall, there were thousands of extra National Guard troops enforcing a security zone in downtown Washington. Thankfully, there was no violence, but acknowledging that is another sign of how unusual 2021 is.
This week at CSPC, we hosted a discussion with Dr. Kathryn Stoner of Stanford University about her upcoming book Russia Resurrected, and video of that event will soon post on our YouTube page. Joshua reviewed the Spymaster of Baghdad, a look at Iraqis on the front lines of the shadowy fight against ISIS. Today, Ethan writes in The Hill about our shared responsibility for the state of our civic discourse—and for repairing it.
Next week, we will have two virtual events: First, on Monday, at 2:30 p.m. EST, CSPC Chairman Amb. Thomas Pickering will moderate a discussion on U.S.-Russia relations: the agenda for the Biden administration, New START, and arms control featuring panelists Olga Oliker, Program Director for Europe and Central Asia, International Crisis Group, and Pavel Podvig, Senior Researcher in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Program, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. Second, on Thursday, at 3:00 p.m. EST, we will host a discussion with Dr. Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and member of the George W. Bush administration, to discuss his book Fight House, which chronicles the rivalries within presidential administrations.
The transfer of power is an opportunity for taking stock of what has passed and what is coming, and that is what we will do in the Roundup this week. Dan looks at how we turn one page at the inauguration, while we wait to see how we confront major crises. Erica looks at another leadership transition, in Germany, and what life after Merkel means. Michael looks at what we can learn about President Biden’s foreign policy from the testimony of his Secretary of State nominee Tony Blinken. Joshua catches us up on Alexei Navalny, who has recovered from his assassination attempt by Russian agents and has returned to his home country, only to be detained by the police. Ethan analyzes the political game of musical chairs that now has Space Command singing “Sweet Home Alabama.” As always, we end with some news you might have missed.
Democracy on Display, Still Tested
Dan Mahaffee
The contrast in the images from the west front of the Capitol bookend a significant fortnight in American history. The January 6th images of the building being overrun by insurrectionists could not be more different than the scenes from January 20th, the orderly, democratic transition of power we witnessed this week. Beyond the pageantry, performance, and poetry, the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris displayed the successful transition of power, just weeks after it came close to being violently derailed. At a time when democracy is threatened at home and abroad, the civic rites of inauguration bookend administrations, while providing a respite from the daily struggle of political strife. They bolster our institutions at a time when they face many doubts. Now, with the Biden administration taking the reins and the 117th Congress seated, the next challenge for these institutions is to demonstrate that they can rise to the challenges they face.
At home, much remains for accountability and healing after the past four years and their historic coda. Our democracy and institutions find themselves in the middle of our partisan crossfire. The litany of lies about the 2020 election have fueled this distrust, but the roots of our polarization and deadlock existed long before President Trump and will continue on. The incentives of our politics, however, push our leaders away from compromise, as media echo chambers profit from keeping us divided. Social media hones these divides with algorithmic precision, sewing doubt at best and spewing disinformation at worse. Our faith in institutions, and our fellow Americans, is shaken, and we only set ourselves up for future disappointment if we only see politics as an arena in which to support your team, and anger the other, rather than a means to advance the common good.
On the global stage, democracy is also under assault from authoritarians and despots that applaud American weakness and division. The Chinese Communist Party holds up its model of technocratic authoritarian capitalism as an alternative to liberal democracy. Putin and his Kremlin inner circle seek to undermine our strengths and values, as democracy and the rule of law are barriers to self-enrichment. To see the transition of power between administrations is a reminder of the will of the people and the rule of law guide the transition of power, not the backroom dealings of politburos or a KGB fraternity.
The imagery of the transition of power is powerful, but the broader narrative will not be solved by just one day’s events, nor merely having new hands in executive posts. Past that imagery, we see the challenges ahead. The scenes of a masked inauguration remind us of the continued pandemic — with now over 400,000 Americans dead and a challenging time ahead, even with the promise of a vaccine rollout ahead. The barricades and National Guard troops demonstrated the security challenges of domestic terrorism, while the only true security incident of the inaugration — a fire at an underpass homeless encampment nearby the Capitol — was a juxtaposition of both our immense national power and deep economic inequality.
The pandemic, the economy, and our security are the shared challenges that go beyond our normal disagreements as Republicans and Democrats — addressing them is not only key for the wellbeing of the American people, but also a demonstration that our system of government, our democracy, can rise to the challenges of its time. Our fault lines and disagreements will not magically fade away, as much work remains to bridge our partisan divides. That said, there is an opportunity for our leaders to re-engage, and in good faith, if they are truthful with each other — and their constituents. The eyes of the voters, and the world, are on them, as they wait to see what the future of America might hold.
Life After Merkel
Erica Ngoenha
Last week, Germany got a glimpse of its next political era, and it turns out the future may just rhyme with the past. In a virtual party congress, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) selected Armin Laschet to lead the party as chairman. Laschet branded his candidacy as a continuation of Merkel’s style of governing. It is a testament to the Chancellor’s enduring popularity that even after 15 years in power the winning ethos for the party elections was continuity rather than change.
This was not an inevitable outcome. Though she has enjoyed much success during her time in office and a resurgence in popularity for her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chancellor Merkel’s embrace of refugees fleeing the Syrian war in 2015 triggered a leadership crisis that she never fully overcame. That decision led to rifts between the CDU and its sister party in Bavaria, the more conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), and helped fuel the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The backlash left the CDU squeezed on both sides, losing center ground to Germany’s Green party and the right flank to the AfD. Meanwhile, the party’s coalition partner in national government, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) was similarly losing ground, threatening the stability of the federal government. After a string of losses in key state elections, Merkel announced in 2018 that she would step aside as party leader while continuing in her role as Chancellor, though she promised she would not seek another term.
She carefully arranged her own succession plans, successfully championing former party secretary Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to replace her as party leader. Those plans ended in disaster after a poor CDU performance in a state election saw a brief marriage of the local CDU and AfD parties in a vote for state governor. While ultimately reversed, the move was a horrifying turn of events for party leaders who have refused, along with other major parties, to work with the AfD. The episode led to the political demise of Kramp-Karrenbauer just one year before Merkel was due to step down. As party leader, she would have been the CDU’s likely candidate for chancellor.
Instead, it will be Laschet taking the reins. The governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in Germany, Laschet ascends to the role as a moderate candidate with an eye towards Merkel’s middle-of-the-road governing style. His bet on Merkel’s continued appeal was boosted by her rise in popularity over the past year. Chancellor Merkel has always excelled at presenting herself as a steady hand in the face of uncertainty. Following the Kramp-Karrenbauer disaster, Merkel found herself on familiar footing as the world faced the coronavirus crisis. Her response to the pandemic and successful stewardship of Germany’s 2020 European Union Council presidency saw Merkel’s popularity return to pre-refugee crisis levels.
However, Laschet’s own uninspiring national poll numbers and his narrow defeat of traditional conservative Friedrich Merz, a fierce Merkel critic, for the party leadership post (the final tally was 52%- 48%) suggest that a Merkel-style of governing alone is no guarantee of success. Though tradition suggests that Laschet, as party leader, will serve as the joint CDU/CSU candidate for chancellor, the CSU has a popular young governor in Markus Söder who is rumored to be considering a run himself. The parties do not rely on a primary system like in American politics so Laschet will have to shore up his internal support to ward off Söder and ensure his candidacy for the chancellorship. Should he succeed, he will be considered the favorite going into the federal elections in September.
Foreign observers will be watching closely to see how Laschet fairs. Upon his election to party chair, many within the pro-Merkel international community breathed a sigh of relief seeing Laschet’s election as a guarantee that politics as usual will continue in Germany. However, critics have seized on his foreign policy positions, particularly regarding Russia and China, as a point of caution. He has repeatedly argued for stronger German cooperation with China and vocally opposed excluding Huawei from Germany’s 5G infrastructure. On Russia, he has made conciliatory remarks on a range of issues from Nord Stream 2 to the annexation of Crimea leading some detractors to label him as a Putin apologist. Laschet’s supporters have pushed back against the criticism and insist that he is prepared to hold China and Russia to account when necessary but will look for opportunities for cooperation on non-controversial issues.
Whoever ascends to the chancellorship, he or she will need to articulate Germany’s role in Europe and on the world stage even as they prepare to lead on domestic issues. With the formulation of the EU, Henry Kissinger famously quipped, “Who do you call when you want to speak to Europe?” Over time, the answer has become Angela Merkel. Particularly with the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, Germany is the most powerful force on the continent. As the world has moved from crisis to crisis, Merkel has been a constant throughout, outlasting her peers and serving as a stabilizing force. Her successor will not have the benefit of 15 years of experience, a reserve of international and domestic trust, and deep relationship with world leaders. Germany’s next chancellor will take the mantle in uncertain times with a pandemic still raging, lingering skepticism of U.S. commitment to the transatlantic relationship despite a change in administration, and changing geopolitical forces. Internally, he or she will likely be facing difficult coalition politics with the center left SPD party on the verge of collapse, a rising Green party eager to translate its popularity into political influence, a CDU under untested leadership, and a diminished but still present and dangerous AFD.
No singular person is irreplaceable, but filling Angela Merkel’s shoes will prove difficult both domestically and globally.
Reading the State Department Tea Leaves
Michael Stecher
Even before the pomp and ceremony began on the Capitol’s West Front on Wednesday morning, the Senate had already begun hearings to confirm President Biden’s first group of nominees for key cabinet posts. This process was delayed this year; it normally begins in early January so that nominees can be ready to take office on Inauguration Day, but that would have interfered with the work of ex-President Trump’s allies in the Senate pretending that Joe Biden would not become president. This week, the efforts to move nominations through began in earnest and the hearings provided some of the first tangible clues as to how the Biden administration will address the most pressing global issues.
The first nominee, Avril Haines, President Biden’s pick to be the Director of National Intelligence, was quickly confirmed by a vote of 84–10. Homeland Security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas has been put on hold by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) over policy concerns about immigration. There may be additional holds waiting in the wings for Mayorkas, but he is still likely to be confirmed after a 50-vote cloture motion eventually once Democrats control the Senate calendar. Treasury nominee Janet Yellen is expected to be confirmed later today. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin received a waiver from both the House and Senate that would allow him to serve despite not having been out of the military for the seven years as required by 10 USC §113 alongside his confirmation yesterday. State Department nominee Tony Blinken is also likely headed for a swift confirmation vote early next week.
Blinken’s hearing in particular gave the former Deputy Secretary of State an opportunity to explain what the initial views of the Biden administration are as they come to power this week. In some areas, Blinken offered polite disagreements with the conduct of the Trump administration foreign policy, but in others policy continuity is likely. The relationship with China was the issue that took up the most time during the hearing. Blinken made it clear that he believes that China is trying to become a global setter of norms, so when the United States withdraws from global engagements, China fills the void by default. This statement is also elliptically critical of the Trump administration’s attempts to deprioritize the United Nations and withdrawal from the World Health Organization.
Blinken made a particular point of describing the competition between “techno-democracies and techno-autocracies,” the different ways that states leverage information technology. He described the need to infuse technology with the values of free societies. U.S. policy will need to get much more mature in this area, including working with allies and developing a robust privacy framework, all of which will require support from Congress as well.
In the last days of the Trump administration, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took several policy actions that many — including in these pages — saw as attempts to bind the Biden administration’s hands or curry favor with domestic constituencies. On Taiwan, Pompeo announced a change in regulation that would remove the restrictions on U.S. diplomats interacting with their counterparts from Taiwan. Blinken stated that the Biden administration would fully support its legal commitments to promote Taiwan’s ability to defend itself from Mainland China and that he thought that the United States should work to allow Taiwan to participate in more international organizations, but he stopped short supporting the policy change.
He did, however, support the statement promulgated last week that recognized China’s actions in Xinjiang against the Uighur population as amounting to genocide. He also called for broadening import restrictions on goods made with slave labor in Xinjiang and exports to China that are supporting the government’s repression. He expressed an interest in working with Congress to take action to respond to China’s violations of Hong Kong’s autonomy, including creating a visa program for Hong Kong residents whose civil rights are being trampled.
The Trump administration also declared the Houthi movement in Yemen a foreign terrorist organization, which earned the most forceful condemnation from Blinken in his remarks. This declaration, he argued, does nothing to bring the conflict to a close, separate the Houthis from their Iranian sponsors, or help Yemeni civilians, but it does make providing humanitarian aid to displaced and vulnerable people much harder in Houthi-controlled areas. He also reiterated President Biden’s commitment to stopping U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort in Yemen.
Blinken offered somewhat muted support for the Abraham Accords, the series of agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, describing them as something to be built upon. He also voiced his support for working towards a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Somewhat surprisingly, he also promised Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) that the Biden administration would not reverse the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Iran was the area of broadest disagreement in the hearing. During the Obama administration, Blinken was among the key architects of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal. The JCPOA was never popular in Congress but Iran appears closer to a nuclear weapon now than when the deal was in place. Blinken proposed rejoining the JCPOA and using that a confidence-building measure that would allow for follow-on agreements covering ballistic missiles and support for terrorism, but, as expected, suggested that the first step towards this end would be Iran returning to compliance.
Russia received less attention from Senators during the hearing. Senator Paul (R-KY) voiced opposition to allowing Georgia into NATO, since Russia currently occupies part of that country, and there was widespread condemnation of Russian conduct towards Alexei Navalny, a dissident that the Russian secret service attempted to assassinate, but little else. Senator Romney (R-UT) was the only person to bring up India, but Blinken promised to continue the work of the Trump administration in building a closer relationship with India, though adding working together on climate change would be added. In an exchange with Senator Rubio (R-FL), Blinken supported the Venezuelan government under National Assembly leader Juan Guaido and opposed the Maduro regime, but noted that greater coordination would be needed with regional partners to produce results.
Blinken’s testimony represents the first in-depth description of the foreign policy priorities of the Biden administration. He appeared to receive high marks from Senators of both parties — though notably not Senator John Barasso (R-WY) who quoted the late Senator John McCain who opposed Blinken’s nomination to be Deputy Secretary of State in 2014, calling him “unqualified” and a “threat to the traditional interests and values that embody the United States of America, so I’m guessing he’s a “no” on the nomination. When Blinken takes office, likely next week, he will face a wide array of challenges in running the department, but he demonstrated on Tuesday that the Biden administration is ready to return U.S. foreign policy to normalcy.
Navalny Jailed in Russia, Still Swipes at Putin
Joshua C. Huminski
This week, Russian opposition figure, Alexei Navalny returned to Moscow after receiving treatment for alleged nerve agent poisoning blamed on the Kremlin. Russian authorities made good on their promise to arrest Navalny when he arrived back in Russia, detaining him for 30 days, on charges stemming from a three and a half year suspended sentence. Russia’s prison service alleges that he has repeatedly and routinely violated the terms of his parole and wants to convert the suspended sentence to time in prison. If approved, this would see him in prison through Vladimir Putin’s next presidential election.
Not content to go quietly into the night, Navalny’s opposition group released a nearly two-hour expose accusing Putin of extensive corruption, including owning a nearly $1 billion compound on the Black Sea. The YouTube video which has over 45 million views as of Thursday morning, includes blueprints, financial details, and photographs, and implicates a number of individuals, including an alleged daughter of Putin, fathered with a lover. The compound includes a Bond villain-esque escape tunnel, an “aquadisco”, wine cellar, game room, nightclub, ice rink, and more.
Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin denies the allegations, with Putin’s spokesperson calling the video “a con” and “nonsense”. He denied that Putin was the owner, but declined to say who owned the compound.
Navalny also issued a “wish list” of those he would like to see sanctioned for corruption including top Kremlin officials, facilitators, and those involved in his attack. It remains to be seen whether the West will act on this list, but it is another poke at the Russian establishment, and a particularly brave one when he is in custody.
Releasing such a pointed and targeted attack on Putin, and the sanctions list, whilst he is in jail is a significant risk. Russia’s judicial system often attempts to maintain the veneer of transparency and independence, but the boldness of the attack and the speed with which the hearing on his initial detainment was rushed through suggests that political pressure on the courts will be significant and hard to ignore.
That Navalny survived the poisoning poses a problem for Putin, as does his current detainment. Putin was loath to even utter Navalny’s name or dignify his existence. Yet, the Kremlin shut down Vnukovo airport into which Navalny was due to fly just prior to its landing due to technical issues with the snow plows, rerouting it to Sheremetyevo airport, while arresting supporters — including Navalny’s brother — who assembled at the original airport.
Navalny, while a notable figure, is not as well known in Russia as he is in the West. He doesn’t have an official party and does not sit in government. Many Russians see him as an opportunist or a tool of the West, often echoing Moscow’s talking points. According to the Levada Center, an independent pollster, only 20% of Russians support his actions and he has a 4% public trust rating, well below Putin’s 33 percent. Yet, he remains a thorn in the side of Putin with his “smart voting” initiative — backing candidates that stand the best chance of defeating United Russia candidates — and his repeated exposes of corruption. His return and the release of his latest video is extremely brave and certainly calculating. He could not have effected any change from outside of Russia, which is why he returned. Had he stayed in Berlin or emigrated to any number of other countries in Europe, he would have been nothing more than an exile, and certainly given more ammunition to the Kremlin to label him as a tool of the West and nothing more.
His case has become the latest wedge issue between European capitals and Moscow. In a joint statement, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania condemned his arrest calling it “completely unacceptable”. The statement also called for “restrictive measures” if he was not released. President Joe Biden’s incoming national security adviser took to Twitter saying, “The perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held accountable”. He added, “The Kremlin’s attacks on Mr Navalny are not just a violation of human rights but an affront to the Russian people who want their voices heard.” It is unclear what, if any, tools the West will have to compel Putin to adjust course. The attention Navalny’s case is getting is likely to be the best help he can receive. Putin can ill-afford to kill Navalny whilst he is in prison and cannot afford to have anything happen to him at this point.
Navalny was poisoned in August 2020, succumbing to the effects of the poison while on a return flight to Moscow. He was later evacuated to a hospital in Germany for specialist treatment, and later recovery. As if the saga could not become even more dramatic, Navalny managed to dupe one of the alleged poisoners to reveal details about the case. Navalny posed as an agent for Russia’s National Security Council and convinced Konstantin Kudryavtsev to disclose how he was poisoned. A CNN reporter, Clarissa Ward, also confronted one of the agents at his apartment.
That the attempt on Navalny failed is largely due to luck. Had the pilot not declared an emergency and landed early, had the medical team on-the-ground not suspected nerve agent and administered critical counter agents, and had he not been evacuated to Germany, Navalny in all likelihood would be dead. What is, however, surprising, is the fact that agents of the vaunted Russian intelligence services could be duped and tracked with such ease. This likely speaks more to the arrogance of the security services (as well as the tenacity of groups like BellingCat) and their sense of invulnerability.
What happens next will be interesting to watch. If Putin overreacts or the system overreacts on his behalf, it could create the villainous opposition figure Putin fears most. Protests are likely to happen — Navalny has called for them to take place on Saturday, which the Kremlin said would be illegal. The staying power of those protests remains to be seen as does Navalny’s reach from prison. Putin will need to tread carefully, especially with a view to the new Biden administration and in advance of September’s parliamentary elections. In the case of the former, it could be an early test of not only the administration’s policies towards Russia, but also its relations with European capitals. In the case of the latter, for Putin and United Russia, having Navalny out of the picture would likely limit his reach and undermine the efficacy of his “smart voting” initiative. There is certainly no one with his notoriety or reach that could continue his campaign on his behalf.
Space Command move elicits Congressional mud-slinging
Ethan Brown
Despite the conclusion that U.S. Space Command would settle into Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville, Alabama, lawmakers representing other space-affiliated defense posts are up in armsabout the impending command’s transition to its new permanent haunts. Lawmakers from Colorado, home of Peterson Air Force Base, a contender and host of nearly all of the DoD’s satellite command and control (C2) architecture, and Florida (Patrick AFB, home of the 45th Space Wing) decried the previous administration’s Alabama choice as ‘politically charged’, in the words of Colorado Springs Democratic Mayor John Suthers, who cited unnamed Air Force sources on the decision.
The Redstone choice, at first glance, has some politically charged merit. The state went red in the presidential election last year, while Colorado was on team Biden. Of course, Florida, who also voted for Trump, was initially a player in the Space Command move, but didn’t make former AF Secretary Barbara Barrett’s shortlist in November. The unfortunate reality is that charged political rhetoric isn’t going to magically vanish with the changing of administrations, and even less so with space and its component commands. Further, the move to Alabama comes at a time when all things in the defense enterprise are poised to go under a scrutinizing microscope with the Biden team.
Alabama was no wild card in the Space Command move however. Huntsville has been a staple in U.S. space development since we started tossing rockets beyond the mesosphere. In the 1950’s, just as the space race was heating up at the onset of the Cold War, German rocketeers led by Wernher von Braun chose the Alabama locale as their base of testing and development for the U.S. space program. Redstone Arsenal has long been a major cog, if not decisively dominating the space-enterprise pie, for much of its existence.
Of note, while the Space Command supports the entirety of the defense department, Redstone is an Army installation, it is important to realize that the Army is actually the biggest consumer of space bandwidth in the DoD, with nearly every soldier, artillery piece, vehicle and command center heavily reliant on GPS and satellite support. Redstone Arsenal’s roots reach back to World War Two. Originally a chemical development depot built to support the chemical warfare department (specifically, countering enemy chemical weaponry), the ‘Huntsville Arsenal’ soon incorporated missile defense and development, which gave way to the international ballistic missile programs that dominated much of the Cold War competition. As the higher reaches of defense spheres became critical battle grounds, the Missile Defense Agency became a tenant unit at Redstone, where it remains to this day.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has also called Redstone home for decades, going all the way back to answering President John F. Kennedy’s call to put a man on the moon, making it another important collaborator in the Space Command home selection. Many of the financial considerations overwhelmingly favor Alabama, where the value of a dollar surpasses Colorado in a much lower housing cost median. Coincidentally enough, however, the Bureau of Labor Statistics data (from November 2019 — November 2020) places Huntsville and Colorado Springs at nearly identical Current Employment Statistics (CES) at -2.1% and -2.7%, respectively [detailed industry estimates by employment/hours/earnings for non-farm payrolls]. There has been a pandemic afterall, so those statistics are not conclusively damning for either location.
So Alabama wasn’t chosen out of pure political bias, though it has certainly inspired mud to be slung between politicians. Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn (D) has since called the Redstone pick (and the subsequent move of the Space Commands footprint, including the aforementioned C2 architecture) a “material degradation to our National Security if the move is allowed to go through”, further calling on President Biden to overturn the decision immediately upon taking office. Alabama lawmakers, naturally, praised the decision and cited some of the aforementioned benefits as bonafides for Huntsville.
Big muscle movements for military commands are a particularly complicated affair. As an example, when the U.S. Army decided to transition “Old Ironsides” (1st Armor Division) from its haunts in Ansbach, Germany to Fort Bliss (El Paso, TX) in 2005, the command did not uncase its colors until May 13, 2011. Obviously, moving an entire division (17,000+ soldiers plus thousands of vehicles, aircraft, and artillery) across the Atlantic is a step up from the Colorado-Alabama connection. But SPACECOM is responsible for over 28,000 personnel across the world, most of which reside in Peterson AFB, and there is still the issue of the command & control architecture.
Moving the people is one thing, but replicating the ground stations, communications arrays, and secure command centers is a titanic movement in itself. As those Colorado lawmakers have inferred, we can’t risk dropping off the network for even a second as adversaries are challenging the United States in this domain with particular tenacity. If you haven’t heard, we are also in the middle of an administration changeover, with thousands of program managers and key personnel changing out across the policy and defense enterprises. On that note, Space Command will remain headquartered at Peterson AFB until 2023, as the move to Huntsville is not entirely final. With any big military move, an Environmental Impact Analysis is required, and those are hefty projects to put it mildly.
The overarching theme here is that the use of the military remains firmly entrenched in partisan bickering, and if nothing else, I’ve spent much of the last six months arguing vehemently against rhetoric with the military as a political pawn in party maneuvering. Despite the recent changes in our government, the defense enterprise remains firmly dangled between party squabbles. A rational course of action, and one that would benefit both parties while addressing the risk of a single hub of the space C2 architecture, is to find cost-cutting measures that allow money to replicate much of said architecture at the new location, with Redstone gradually reaching peak capacity, leaving Peterson AFB as the backup quarterback.
News You Might Have Missed
Rewriting American History
Sarah Naiman
On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the Trump administration’s 1776 Commission released a report outlining a philosophical approach to American history widely criticized as misleading and biased. Among its many offenses, the report commits egregious fallacies including equating progressivism with Italian fascism (because both wanted experts to manage the government), identifying proto-secessionist Senator John C. Calhoun with the contemporary left (because both promoted identity politics), and arguing that MLK would have opposed affirmative action (because it is a form of discrimination). Naturally, many prominent historians are denouncing this as agitprop. The Commission was formed in September 2020 by President Trump to combat alleged liberal indoctrination in schools and as a response to the New YorkTimes’s 1619 Project, an essay collection that highlighted the experience of Black Americans in American history. The Commission hoped to depict American strength and demonstrate that modern protestors (read agitators) are immoral actors attempting to denigrate our proud history. President Biden rescinded the 1776 Commission’s mandate on his first day in office.
Bitcoin Mining to Blame for Power Outages or Iranian Infrastructure?
Jaqueline Ruiz
Iranian officials are blaming Bitcoin mining at cryptocurrency farms for recent power outages and air pollution in Iran. Bitcoins, the individual units of currency, are created (“mined” in the parlance) by solving increasingly complex math problems that require large amounts of computing power — and electrical power. Iranian officials offered subsidized energy to officially licensed Bitcoin miners who could use the untraceable currency to evade U.S. and international sanctions. This has resulted in thousands of ‘illegal’ operations across the country that could also be to blame for the blackouts. Officials are now trying to crack down on the practice. The blackouts in Iran, however, could also be a result of aging infrastructure, mismanagement, and outdated power plants, but that would not reflect as well on the Iranian government.
Biden’s Immigration Policy Priority
Jaqueline Ruiz
After taking the oath of office on Wednesday, President Biden announced that one of his first actions as President would be to propose new legislation surrounding citizenship for undocumented immigrants. His proposal aims to create an immediate eight-year path to citizenship for individuals enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the Temporary Protected Status Program, as well as other groups. These new policies have already been drafted and will be implemented once President Trump’s more aggressive immigration policies are reversed by executive order. Biden has criticised Trump’s “unrelenting assault” on American values and plans to make this one of his first actions as President because he wants to “undo the damage”. Biden seeks to address the ongoing migration issues through a bipartisan lens that would require compromise from everyone in order to avoid a stalemate and restore dignity to America’s immigration system.
Chinese Hacking Group Complicit in Stealing Global Airline Passenger Data
Miles Esters
A Chinese state-sponsored hacking group has been linked to attacks on numerous airlines that stole data connected to passenger details. Last year, the Taiwanese cybersecurity company Cycraft published a report on the actions of this group, known as Chimera, detailing several attacks against Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. Recently, however, the NCC Group along with its subsidiary Fox-IT released an assessment describing that the hacks were larger in scope than previously envisaged and that Chimera also targeted the airline industry. In certain instances, the hackers stayed concealed within networks for upwards of three years before being discovered. It is yet unknown as to why the airline industry was targeted to steal passenger data however it is believed to be so that the Chinese government could “track the movements and communications of persons of interest” such as Uighurs, Chinese dissidents, and Taiwanese government officials. This recent revelation underscores not just China’s recent history of engaging in cyber attacks and espionage but also other adversarial state and non-state actors on a global scale.
The views of authors are their own, and not that of CSPC.