Friday News Roundup — February 2, 2024
This week reinforced the reality that attacks by Russia and Iran-backed militants against U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East, respectively, combined with China’s continued bullying of its neighbors in the Indo-Pacific, have created the most perilous geostrategic moment since the end of the Cold War.
At this moment of heightened peril, U.S. efforts to come to the aid of its democratic allies in Ukraine and Israel have been hampered by nearly unprecedented Congressional dysfunction. The Biden administration’s proposed aid package for both countries remains stalled in the House over brinksmanship on a deal to limit illegal immigration and better secure the southern border. House Republicans instead voted this week to advance their impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over policy disputes, which could make him the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached in nearly 150 years.
Tragically, this week also saw three U.S. soldiers killed in Jordan, and 40 other service members wounded, by Iranian-backed militants. That prompted President Joe Biden to pledge a retaliatory response at a time “of our choosing.” In related Middle East news, Biden this week also rdered broad financial and travel sanctions on Israeli settlers accused of violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, hoping to forestall an escalation of violence associated with fighting in the nearby Gaza strip between Israeli forces and Hamas terrorists responsible for the October 7, 2023 attack that killed more than 1,200 Jews. After allegations surfaced this week that members of a United Nations humanitarian agency serving Palestinians (UNRWA) were involved in that attack, the Biden administration temporarily suspended funding for the agency. UNRWA officials quickly fired the accused employees and launched an internal investigation.
In some rare good news, this week during an emergency European Union (EU) summit meeting on a stalled aid package for Ukraine, Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban folded. After weeks of thwarting the desperately needed $54 billion aid package as the lone holdout among 27 EU leaders, Orban finally relented and gave his approval. The breakthrough came after top EU officials reportedly warned Orban that they were considering the “nuclear option” of stripping him of his E.U. vote entirely. Regardless, the movement on aid came at an opportune time, with U.S. aid to Ukraine remaining stuck in Congress, and European officials determined to maintain a united front against Russia’s aggression.
Senior Fellow Ethan Brown covered a sobering story for Defense One this week, highlighting the growing cancer epidemic among combat veterans of the post-9/11 wars.
In this week’s Friday News Roundup we are highlighting the recent publication of CSPC’s annual report, a strategic blueprint for winning the next phase in the great power competition with China and Russia entitled “A Defining Moment in Geopolitics.” CSPC’s Kurt Johnston also takes a deep analytical dive into the recent Hindu-nationalist policies of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who in an election year is stoking Hindu-nationalist sentiment at the expense of India’s Muslim minority. Ethan Brown covers recent developments for the United States Air Force’s recent, growing push to integrate electric vehicle technology into its aerial fleet, and looks at the infrastructural challenges facing such critical technology.
A Defining Moment in Geopolitics
By CSPC Staff
With the presidential election cycle now underway, we are entering a defining stretch in America’s long political cycle. Presidential elections always serve as important markers, with nominees attempting to galvanize voters with competing visions for the country’s future. They are also inevitably divisive, as political tribes square off and seek to highlight the differences that separate us, rather than those that unify. Behind all the made-for-television spectacle and hoopla, and seemingly endless rallies and speeches, presidential elections are also defining moments: they set the nation’s course both domestically and geopolitically, with impacts that will reverberate for years to come.
To help the nation meet this defining moment, the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress (CSPC) has just released our annual report “A Defining Moment in Geopolitics,” highlighting steps we are taking to inform whoever is eventually elected to guide the country for the next four years. This strategic document is intended to prepare the next president and Congress to meet the challenges of an intensifying competition among major powers, and an unsettled world beset by conflict. The stakes in that global competition could hardly be higher, and it is one in which America must prevail.
As our report notes, At CSPC we have historically blended complimentary lines of effort in service to an overarching strategy. We thus regularly convene bipartisan officials from Congress and the Executive Branch with leaders from private industry and academia, searching for consensus and novel solutions to the challenges confronting the nation. We also engage regularly with the media, and provide expert analysis of the news of the day. Additionally, we focus each year on helping to prepare the rising generation of leaders, giving them the skills to understand complex issues, engage in civil debate, and appreciate public service. Finally, we identify and advocate for reforms to our political system to incentivize consensus-building. In all of these efforts, CSPC continues to embrace a spirit of bipartisanship, instinct for reaching across the political aisle, and deep expertise in matters of national security.
Electoral Reform
A world in crisis has once again highlighted the indispensable role of the United States as the globe’s preeminent economic power and the leader of the alliance of democracies. Yet our own democracy has been weakened by deep divisions in the body politic, and a downward spiral in our political discourse whose origins are mostly structural. The American people are fed a steady diet of disinformation and divisive rhetoric, and our political system is awash in dark money, pay-to-play politics, and gerrymandered electoral maps designed to favor one party over the other.
The hallmark of the American political experiment, however, is an instinct for continual self-improvement and national renewal, which are core values at the Center. To tackle our current challenges, CSPC has thus teamed with like-minded reform groups to form a “Fix the System” coalition driven not by partisan rancor, but rather by a bipartisan spirit of electoral reform. At CSPC we believe we must all dedicate ourselves as citizens to the hard work of reforming and strengthening our political system, and thus keep faith with the venerable tradition of preserving and passing along the bounties of the world’s oldest democracy to the next generation of Americans.
Great Power Competition
Attacks by aggressors against U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe, and China’s aggressive bullying of neighbors in the Indo-Pacific, have created the most perilous geostrategic moment since the end of the Cold War. With a tradition of deep analysis of national security trends, CSPC thus continues to bring historical context and innovative solutions to the emerging era of great power competition. Much of our work in this area falls under our “Project Solarium” programs designed to encourage new thinking to address major national security challenges. In each of our projects we convene stakeholders, and influential thought leaders and engage them in respectful dialogue that seeks to leverage emerging technologies and find novel solutions to the complex challenges facing our nation.
As part of our Project Solarium work CSPC has established a National Security Space Program, led by our Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs. In recent years the program has encouraged the Defense Department and U.S. Armed Services to fully leverage a revolution in commercial space launch capability. We believe in the year ahead U.S. Space Force will make major steps towards that goal, while further defining its role and scope of operations, with an overwhelming focus on defending America’s preeminent position in space.
In our Russia Project, CSPC has engaged noted experts in frank discussions with policymakers and lawmakers, proposing new ways to counteract a revanchist Russia’s attempt to reestablish an imperial “sphere of privileged influence” by force. In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we have promoted the establishment of a new Euro-Atlantic Security Architecture that builds on the recent expansion of NATO to include new members Finland and (soon) Sweden. While Ukrainian membership in NATO still seems far off, we believe alternative security guarantees such as those the United States has offered bilaterally to allies such as South Korea and Israel should be seriously considered. Regardless, Putin’s reckless aggression has clearly awoken NATO and the Euro-Atlantic alliance from its long, post-Cold War slumber.
The China Challenge
Much of our work on great power competition has naturally focused on an ascendant China in the Indo-Pacific. U.S.-China relations have been undermined in recent years by the global pandemic that began in China, by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s iron grip and hegemonic aspirations, and by a growing hawkishness towards Beijing in U.S. politics. We nevertheless applaud recent efforts by both Washington and Beijing to lower the diplomatic temperature and steer the relationship towards more manageable levels of tension. The paramount question in geopolitics as the world’s status quo and ascendant superpowers square off and look to an uncertain future is deceptively simple: how can this competition for power and global influence avoid escalating into conflict?
In that regard, CSPC has focused specifically on the race for “Geotech” supremacy in the advanced technologies that will shape the future, including Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, cyber, advanced microchip production and surveillance technologies. The Center has nurtured close partnerships with allies like Japan, and is reaching out to other democracies in the Indo-Pacific in this effort. We continue to support U.S. policymakers in their efforts to promote U.S. development and manufacture of critical strategic technologies, while also stressing that protecting our technological advantages cannot be allowed to come at the cost of American economic dynamism.
A Runaway Nuclear Arms Race
Our Nuclear Arms Control Project has highlighted current tensions along the U.S.-Russia-China axis that have prompted many experts and historians to draw parallels with the Cold War. Unfortunately, these rising tensions come at a time when the carefully constructed Cold War architecture of nuclear arms control and verification treaties, de-confliction agreements and open communications channels is near collapse. As military provocations and brinksmanship increase dramatically, the current era of major power competition starts to bear an alarming resemblance to the darkest early years of the Cold War, when missteps and miscalculations created potentially existential crises like the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War and the Cuban missile crisis, all of which pushed the major nuclear powers to the brink.
In recent years, CSPC has thus convened a group of notable arms control experts and Russia and China hands to recall some of the muscle memory from the construction of a nuclear arms control regime that kept the Cold War from going hot for decades. We also recently brought together key lawmakers and leaders from the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) to discuss these worrying trends, and the path towards greater strategic stability. As these experts have stressed, history will not judge kindly national leaders who added a runaway nuclear arms race to a historically volatile geostrategic landscape.
Indian PM Modi’s Hindu Nationalist Campaign
By Kurt Johnston
Ram Mandir is no ordinary Hindu temple. It is housed in Ayodhya, the doctrinal birthplace of Ram, one of Hinduism’s most revered deities. Recently it was consecrated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who declared last Monday’s ceremony “not merely a date but…the dawn of a new era.” Most controversially, it sits atop the rubble of Babri Masjid, a 16th-century mosque razed by Hindu nationalist rioters in 1992. The story of Ram Mandir, like Modi himself, is intertwined with religion and politics — a combination that some claim threatens Indian democracy.
The opening of Ram Mandir on January 22nd was a national celebration. Over 7,000 people attended the event in Ayodhya, with millions of Indians watching live television broadcasts. This fervor is expected to contribute to record tourism revenue, with some projections estimating that Ram Mandir will receive 100 million annual visitors. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reportedly invested $6 billion into Ayodhya’s infrastructure, including a new major airport, to meet increased demand. A Modi-led, privately-funded trust financed the temple after a 2019 decision by the Supreme Court of India. While the 2019 ruling also acknowledged the wrongful destruction of Babri Masjid and ordered the construction of a new mosque, the allocated plot of land sits empty.
This contrast is rooted in the region’s Hindu-Muslim conflict, which reached its zenith in 1992. Claiming that Babri Masjid was built on top of an ancient Hindu temple, mobs of Hindu nationalists stormed the mosque. In the aftermath of Babri Masjid’s destruction, thousands of Muslims were killed in riots across India. Hindu-Muslim relations in Northern India have been tense ever since. In 2002, 59 Hindu pilgrims died in a fire on a train returning to Gujarat from the temple site in Ayodhya. Gujarat’s state government, led at the time by future Prime Minister Modi, was blamed for inflaming tensions and promoting Hindu violence.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist volunteer group that promotes a paramilitary presence, led the 1992 clashes. The group is best known for Nathuram Godse, the RSS member who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Gandhi’s advancement of secular democracy clashed with the RSS’s hope to build the newly independent nation — after both British and Mughal rule — as an explicitly Hindu state. The modern RSS is represented politically by none other than the BJP party, both of which claim Narendra Modi as a member. While the RSS was exonerated from Gandhi’s murder, its influence has been revitalized under Modi.
As a result, the BJP government has consistently executed Hindu nationalist policies. In 2019, Modi forcibly reclaimed the northern regions of Kashmir and Jammu, revoking the “special status” granted to the states by the Indian constitution. The pair make up India’s only Muslim-majority region, and its Himalayan borders are disputed by Pakistan and China, creating the potential for a larger war if tensions continue to rise. Despite the security risks of Modi’s sectarian decision, India’s Supreme Court validated the policy last December.
Months after the Kashmir saga, the Indian parliament passed a bill that allows migrants fleeing persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh to apply for Indian citizenship after six years, reducing the naturalization process by five years. However, this change is conditional on religious beliefs, with Islam conspicuously absent from the list of permitted faiths. Critics argue that the bill defies India’s constitutionally mandated sectarianism by legally separating Muslim and non-Muslim immigrants.
These nationalist policies have contributed to Modi’s record-high popularity. According to a Pew Research poll in 2023, almost 80% of Indians view Modi “favorably” or “very favorably.” Modi’s popularity exceeds that of both the BJP and all democratic world leaders. India’s population is between 70% and 80% Hindu, and Modi’s platform caters to the 1.1 billion Hindus in the majority.
Over 200 million Muslims also live in India, however, and this sizable minority has seen its rights curtailed and its mosques destroyed. Many fear that a third term could exacerbate anti-Muslim sentiment. While the Modi government claims its policies are universal across all faith groups, its Hindu nationalist actions illustrate a clear bias against Islam.
Yet Modi’s popularity alone may not be enough to carry the BJP to victory in this spring’s national elections. INDIA, formed as an anti-BJP coalition led by the Congress Party, was perceived as a real threat to the BJP’s majority in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament. Modi’s concern is evident, and in December he led a fierce BJP campaign in five state elections. The opening of Ram Mandir is a continuation of this electoral push, in particular the BJP’s appeal to nationalist Hindu voters. By dismissing secular values, the BJP hopes to demonstrate its vision of India as a Hindu nation.
Ram Mandir is thus symbolic of Modi’s brand of Hindu nationalism. While religiously significant, the opening of the unfinished temple was a campaign rally disguised as a consecration. Much like the remains of Babri Masjid, India’s Muslim population has been trampled on. This spring’s elections are thus increasingly likely to not only secure the BJP’s third consecutive majority, but also cement the reality of an increasingly non-secular India — to the severe detriment of its Muslim minority.
The Air Force’s EV future
The ALIA eVTOL, testing flight at Duke Field, FL (Beta Technologies Photo)
Ethan Brown
This week, the United States Air Force agreed to terms to begin testing and development for a new breed of airframe: one powered by batteries instead of jet fuel and thrust vectoring.
While the idea of Electric Vehicles (EV) like commercial Tesla, Rivian et al, is not necessarily new to the DoD inventory — the Army has been considering Polaris EV all-terrain vehicles in recent years — suggesting that the world’s most powerful force (sorry Navy) incorporate this relatively new and heretofore utterly civilian technology into its fleet is striking. Drones and their emergent role in modern warfare — see novel uses in Ukraine for reconnaissance and adjusting artillery fire, or experimental applications in American wargaming — have similarly upended most assumptions about the efficacy of battery-powered systems in military roles.
The test platform made by Beta Technologies (Vermont) is called the ALIA eVTOL (Vertical Take-Off/Landing) aircraft. The concept of an electric system is one of dozens of such innovative and unique tech applications fielded under the AFWERX innovation development agency, as part of the Agility Prime program aiming to foster alternative flight systems for Air Force combat and support applications. AFWERX’s Agility Prime has dozens of these projects fielding varied platforms, aiming to bolster small business innovation and collaborative partnerships with commercial entities in an effort to control costs while still producing quality systems to meet end-user specifications (that, in itself, is a novel concept).
ALIA is not technically a vertical take-off platform, but provides an airlift option vastly more modular, smaller footprint, and adaptive compared to heavier cargo options like the C-130. During the recent exercise at Duke Field, Florida, the ALIA was used in conjunction with Air Force HH-60W II transport helicopters in a casualty-evacuation exercise. As an “aside,” ALIA successfully concluded the casualty transfer from an “austere” landing site, and then picked up a spare part for an F-35 needing service. ALIA did so with a crew of two, requiring a mere $5 in electricity costs; a C-130 with its crew of five would have required more than $1600 in JP-8 fuel to achieve the first lift alone.
Operational costs are the single-greatest tally on any military operational budget — which may seem odd when development of indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity contracts can balloon upwards of billions of dollars, like the F-35’s $14.4 billion overall block IV modernization contract — but it’s the life cycle of the aircraft and their manpower hours which dominate receipts, especially during peak warfighting activities. At that point, the contracts themselves had been signed long before, keeping the systems going continues to gouge appropriations. So the ability to field an EV for explicit, but modular purposes, is an exciting opportunity for the Air Force as it looks for ways to develop a more efficient and adaptive inventory.
The effort is not without drawbacks, however, and it does not source from the new aircraft, ALIA, or others like it being proposed and tested for myriad uses including flight, and importantly, maintenance of the fleet. The constraints for military EV application are eerily similar to the civilian world, where support infrastructure — chargers and grid ecosystems to manage immense volumes of stored electricity — are the biggest expense and not necessarily applicable to austere locations like combat outposts and austere landing zones.
The challenge lies in that charging and storage capacity; Beta Technologies developed a special-design Level III charger (the kind one would find at a Mall, parking garage etc, it fast-charges) to ready ALIA for flight within one-hour of being plugged in. The downside there, is that this kind of transfer power — using a 1000KW transforming into a 480-volt, 400-amp station — is enough to power over two hundred residential homes. That’s incredibly complex and high-yield infrastructure that does not yet compare to the iconic MC-130 which can land just about anywhere and open a fuel-blivet for ground refueling (not to mention mid-air refueling). So the launch of this new technology presents unique challenges which, while still an opportunity for new, smaller, adaptive flight platforms for Air Force use (ditto ground, maritime, and flight platforms for the Army and Navy/Marine Corps), many kinds still need to be hammered out.
The positive news is that for the American military and its commercial support contractors to explore, ruggedize, and achieve supportability (read: warzone sustainment through effective logistics) is not a new hurdle, and necessity is the mother of invention. Many contemporary, commercially-available innovations enjoyed around the world today have their roots and DNA in defense projects: the internet (or “ARPAnet” back in its Cold War heyday) was originally a tool for countering Soviet information narratives; satellite global positioning systems, now universal and found in seemingly every electronic device, was once a cast-off concept proposed by military engineers; the Epipen which people (like me) carry for bee stings and other allergies, again, was originally a military experiment.
So the fact that the rest of our commercialized society hasn’t figured out how to develop grid ecosystems to support the growing numbers of electric vehicles due to the strain on infrastructure doesn’t mean that the solutions aren’t out there. It just so happens that, for the consumers (in this case, highly-specialized pilots and aircrews) who need this technology, an unlikely opportunity has presented itself in a medium, perhaps unexpected, but critical to moving the DoD’s capabilities advantage forward. I’ve been arguing for years that the DoD has an opportunity to ensure its ability to overmatch strategic adversaries if it leans into exploring EV and other climate-conscious technology, and seeing ALIA take flight and prove — albeit under tightly controlled and myopic conditions — that EVs have a place in the future air inventory, indicates that revolutionizing vehicle technology at the hands of defense priorities could arrive sooner than expected.
News You May Have Missed
Biden Backs Pharma in Global Pandemic Treaty Negotiations
Greyson Hunziker
Patent protections for vaccines and other medicines are central to the discussion on a global pandemic treaty. Developing countries want limitations or waivers to patent rights during pandemics to ensure equitable access to crucial medical technologies. These nations do not have the capabilities and infrastructure of wealthier Western nations to develop and produce cutting-edge medicines. They also want compensation for providing data about infections used in developing tests, vaccines, and treatments. During the COVID-19 pandemic, President Biden supported patent waivers due to the severity and urgency of the situation, hoping this would aid developing countries’ production of vaccines. Domestically, he has advocated for Medicare price negotiations to lower drug prices.
On this issue, however, the Biden administration is siding with the drug companies in upholding patent protections. President Biden is not alone in taking this stance. Republicans and moderate Democrats agree with him, and Germany is a proponent of a similar view. Those against waiving patent rights argue that this would threaten the industry’s business model without helping developing countries. Patent protections are critical to the incentives, innovation, and investment required to develop and produce medical technologies rapidly, but simply giving developing countries patented information would not enable them to produce vaccines. Further negotiations are scheduled, and President Biden may have to make some concessions to reach an agreement.
Hungary Folds on Ukraine Aid with Threats to Economic Security
By Greyson Hunziker
The European Union approved €50 billion in financial aid to Ukraine. Hungary was the last of the 27 member states to get on board after holding out since December. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has a better relationship with the Kremlin than Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, making Hungary the most pro-Russian EU member. He claimed to be opposed to funding Ukraine because doing so is funding war rather than peace. A leaked document written by EU officials contained plans to sabotage Hungary’s economy if it did not agree to the aid package. The sanctions would seek to discourage investment and curb economic growth. Though many saw this as too extreme, the EU could have invoked a provision to strip Hungary of its vote. With rising tensions and these threats in mind, Brussels and Hungary were open to negotiation. Hungary wanted the option to veto further aid each year of this four-year funding package. Brussels managed to concede that there would be only an annual report and debate on the aid’s implementation and an optional review of the new budget at the two-year mark. Ultimately, it was a fold for Hungary, but Orbán can “proclaim victory at home by saying Hungary obtained a review.”
Greyson is an intern at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress