Friday News Roundup — January 15, 2021
January 6th Aftermath, Cause for Optimism, U.S. Navy Modernization, and Last Minute Administration News You May Have Missed
It’s Friday in Washington, D.C. A week on from the violence in the Capitol, the city remains very tense. The House of Representatives has already taken the extraordinary step of impeaching President Trump for allegedly inciting the assault on the certification of the Electoral College vote, but it is unlikely that the Senate will take any action before the presidential transition takes place on Wednesday. The House has also set up metal detectors at the Members entrance to the well of the House, a sign that the leadership believes that Members might actually be walking around the Capitol grounds armed.
Inauguration Day is usually a moment of unity, in which the new president makes a claim in front of his supporters to represent the entire country. This year, tragically, will be different. Those of us who live in the federal city are used to a heavy security presence — especially on Inauguration Day — but 20,000 National Guard troops and a security cordon that covers the entire National Mall is a step beyond. Leaders of various police forces have made it clear that they are concerned about the risk of violence in the coming days, around the nation, and we can only hope that the preparations to make sure that this celebration of the legitimacy of our democratic system can move ahead peaceably. The forecast on Wednesday calls for a mix of sun and clouds and a high in the upper 40s—and hopefully for a calming of our civil strife.
This week, a group of D.C.-area business leaders working with CSPC called for a range of reforms to address the political mal-incentives fueling partisan passions. Additionally, Joshua reviewed Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order by Kathryn E. Stoner, and Dr. Stoner will be joining us on Thursday, January 21st for a virtual book event at 10:30 a.m. EST. Register here to join us!
This week in the Roundup, we welcome our new class of interns for the Spring semester, Jacky Ruiz from the University of California Irvine, Sarah Naiman from Oberlin College, and Miles Esters from the George Washington University. We look forward to hearing more from them in the next few weeks. In addition, we bid farewell to another one of our interns, Thomas Triedman, who has been an invaluable contributor in these pages.
This week, Dan looks at the aftermath of the January 6th attack and the continued threat of domestic terrorism; Michael makes the case for (cautious) optimism; and Ethan examines how the U.S. Navy is adapting to emerging threats. As always, we end with some News You Might Have Missed, but this week there is a theme. Every time an administration changes over, the outgoing team tries to accelerate as many new pieces of policy as they can before their jobs come to an end. This year is no different, and we are highlighting some of those changes.
The Aftermath
Dan Mahaffee
From the surging mob of insurrectionists to the armed camp that is now Washington, D.C., over the past 10 days it has felt that democracy itself is under siege. The imagery of holding an invasion at bay stands in stark contrast to years past, when the nation’s capital stood ready to welcome inauguration revelers. Unlike past years, where security preparations for the inauguration or other major political events were focused largely on the threat from abroad, the danger today comes from within our own polity.
It is easy to think of the January 6th insurrectionists as a motley crew of whipped up rabble, when the reality is far more frightening. The seditious rioters came from a wide range of backgrounds — CEOs, lawyers, retired military officers, Olympic gold medalists — and were reflective of the conspiracy-theory fueled lurch to authoritarianism and extremism that have found fertile ground amongst Trump supporters, ground mendaciously fertilized and watered by President Trump, his political allies, and his media cheerleaders. Far from a mob whipped into a frenzy, there were coordinated and networked assaults on the Capitol; domestic terrorists with military and law enforcement experience, clad in matching kit, and using paramilitary equipment and tactics, coordinated their breaches of the Capitol; and the first-hand accounts, from D.C. Metropolitan Police called to reinforce the Capitol, tell of their brutality and zealotry of the insurrectionists.
From behind security barriers and with nearly a division worth of National Guard in the district, President Trump became the first president impeached for a second time, with House Democrats and ten House Republicans voting in favor of the impeachment article.
With the Senate not returning to session until January 19th, any trial would last well beyond after President Trump has left office. While Constitutional questions remain about whether impeachment applies only to current officeholders, impeachment is largely a political exercise, where the rules and “due process” are what the Senators agree upon.
While removal from office may be a moot point, there must still be consequences for a president who siccs a mob of his supporters on his Vice President and Congress. Even if one wants to parse the words of the speeches on January 6th, it is undisputed that President Trump was AWOL as a mob marching under banners with his name and face stormed the Capitol. Impeachment provides a path to banning Trump from holding future office, as may also Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which bans insurrectionists from Federal office.
While consequences for the president and inner circle will address the “head” of this anti-American, anti-democratic thought, it will not address the “heart” — the ideas that fuel these movements. First and foremost, lies about the 2020 election continue to reverberate, and many Republicans still refuse to acknowledge that Joe Biden legally, fairly, and legitimately won the 2020 election. Cries that impeachment would be divisive ring hollow when they come from a caucus that spins falsehoods delegitimizing the will of the voters so that they can further their careers and protect the ego of the defeated president.
The fact that many of the January 6th insurrectionists were already on Federal watchlists shows that law enforcement officials were aware of some part of the scope of the threat that day. At best, this was an intelligence failure. Hard questions must be asked about how our law enforcement and homeland security officials appraised the threat of domestic terrorism because political pressures shaped threat analysis, or, more worryingly, if efforts are hamstrung by institutional or individual sympathies for racist, nationalist, or militia movements. That insurrectionists in law enforcement thought they could flash their badge to enter the Capitol and the U.S. Capitol Police officers under investigation themselves are worrying signs. The idea that some Members of Congress were assisting the insurrection should alarm their colleagues — and, indeed, all Americans. Due to complacency, unpreparedness, or something more sinister, it was only the heroism of individuals, like Officer Eugene Goodman, that averted something far more tragic. The show of force we see now — with more troops in D.C. than Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria combined — shows the realization of the threat and that our most pressing terrorist threat is at home.
The insurrection could not stop the constitutional certification of the election. The Capitol has been cleaned; Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be inaugurated on January 20th; the National Guard will return home; and the barriers surrounding the Capitol will come down. Healing and unity can come when wrongdoers find justice and soon-to-be President Biden’s free and fair victory is wholeheartedly acknowledged. How we address the ideological challenge will remain. Following January 6th, a poll of Trump voters found that 64% of them agree that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.”
2021: The Case for Optimism
Michael Stecher
You would be forgiven for looking at the calendar in disbelief that we have turned over into 2021: the COVID-19 situation is worse than ever; the economy remains depressed; and the state of our politics is appalling. It is easier to believe that we are somehow trapped in the thirteenth month of 2020. Within the dark news, however, early Dawn reveals her rose-red fingers on the eastern horizon. The problems, divisions, and headwinds are still real and dangerous, but, for the first time in over a year, there are signs of hope and we should take note of them.
The COVID-19 outbreak remains the most important threat we face. While most of the national attention has been on last week’s insurrection and its aftermath, some time in the next two weeks, the United States will pass a grim threshold of 400,000 deaths from the pandemic. Since January 1, more than 36,000 Americans have died; there remain around 125,000 people hospitalized with the disease and COVID patients are dominating the intensive care capacity around the country, likely leading to worse health outcomes for other sick and injured people.
But the tide is beginning to turn on COVID. The number of hospitalizations is the most reliable indicator of the condition of the outbreak because there are more workers conducting COVID tests and filling out paperwork on weekdays, and they are strongly correlated with deaths. While the death count is still high and growing, the number of hospitalizations appears to be flattening. In both of the prior COVID spikes, flattening in the number of hospitalizations preceded a decline in deaths, and the same thing may be happening here.
At the same time, vaccinations also appear to be taking off. On Wednesday, 577,000 people received the first dose of the COVID vaccine. That is up from 325,000 a week ago. Big, populous states like New York and Florida are ahead of the curve, vaccinating people faster than new infections and the pace is still growing. After creating some onerous procedures in the early days, states are learning best practices and streamlining so that vaccines do not go to waste. In the coming weeks, the new Biden administration will likely accelerate this trend, taking a more hands-on role than the Trump administration has in guiding the national response.
The outbreak remains the most consequential economic story as well. Last month, overall employment in the United States fell overall for the first time since April, shedding 140,000 jobs in total. The underlying data were actually worse than that, and estimates of the long-term unemployment rate, discounting people who have been laid off for short periods because of the outbreak, ticked up to 8.6%. This data, however, is based on surveys that were taken before the passage of the most recent COVID relief bill and does not reflect the effects of vaccinations.
The declines were concentrated in leisure and hospitality services, exactly what you would expect if COVID was the primary economic driver. These economic sectors will be particularly “springy” once people are able to get out more. The personal saving rate — the amount of people’s income left over after expenses and taxes — remains elevated and will likely spike again as COVID relief spending comes back on-line. This will drive economic growth in 2021 once it can be unleashed.
The policy situation also presents economic opportunities in 2021. Narrow Democratc majorities in the House and Senate increase the likelihood of more fiscal stimulus: Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), the median Senator in a 50–50 Senate, will not be on board for Medicare for All, but he will probably support another round of COVID relief in the spring. Since the economy remains well below capacity, more stimulus spending will accelerate the recovery and there is not much evidence yet that it would lead to near-term inflation. The Goldman Sachs Economics team estimates that an additional $750bn of stimulus would boost GDP by 0.5 percentage points in the second quarter, 2.5 percentage points in the third quarter, and 1 percentage point in the fourth quarter.
While there is not much risk of inflation in the next year or two, beyond that timeframe there are signs that inflation might come back as a reality in our economic system, as opposed to the figment of our collective imagination it has been for the past 12 years. This is a good thing. The “yield curve” — the difference between short-term interest rates and long-term rates — has been getting steeper in recent weeks. This suggests that the bond markets expect that output will continue to grow and that prices will begin to catch up: we will get back into a normal business cycle for the first time since the Great Recession.
In order to do that, our political leaders will need to show that they have learned the lesson of the Great Recession and the Trump-era economy. In 2009, the new Obama administration wanted to keep the headline number of the stimulus bill below $1 trillion for political reasons, but as a result it ended up being too small. The Biden team is unlikely to repeat that mistake. Similarly, in 2015 the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates before the economy was back at full capacity; the result was a mini-recession. Over the last 4 years, unemployment has consistently been below what the Fed had historically considered “full employment” without much pressure on prices. Comments from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell makes it clear that he has noticed and will wait for prices to rise to put the brakes on the economy, rather than putting the brakes on too soon.
Even in our politics there are some signs of hope. Brave Republican Members of Congress stood up this week to proclaim that they are small-d democrats and are repelled by mob violence and insurrection. Right-wing radio networks have instructed hosts that continuing to peddle the “big lie” that the election was stolen is unacceptable. Big businesses have started to reassess how they support political candidates in the aftermath of the insurrection. Major technology platforms have signalled that they will apply some of the lessons of countering violent extremism that have proven successful against groups like ISIS to domestic political radicalization. For years, commentators have looked ahead to the “fever” on the political fringes finally breaking. This may not do it, and there will always be committed extremists looking to break into respectable politics, but there is hope that the incentives are there to rebuild guardrails.
It is too glib to say that the system worked in containing the damage posed to our way of life by Donald Trump’s extremism and the COVID-19 outbreak. The latter remains out of control and the former is still an extremely popular figure in his party, and either a likely candidate or kingmaker for 2024. Our economy and our politics still need to heal and that will take time and concerted effort in Washington, but there is now hope. It might not be here, but it is coming.
“No Target is Out of Range”
Ethan Brown
Part of what makes the study of great powers competition so enjoyable is the occasional video-game like manifestations of new technology. Many of us in the strategy community spent our childhoods enjoying such Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games as Warhammer40K, Age of Empires and the like (I defend that Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is still the best, because the Soviets acquire time-travel technology in that plotline). An integral concept behind these real time strategy games is the ability to constantly upgrade your production facilities and arsenal/inventory, with the intent of utterly overwhelming your adversary with firepower and the resources to keep pouring on hate until there is nothing left to resist.
The U.S. Navy appears to be a fan of such video games, as they are rapidly and relentlessly upgrading their Destroyer fleet on a new platform with a weapons inventory and adversary-deterrence capabilities that look straight out of an RTS-guide book. Last year, on the topic of maritime modernization, I looked at how the Navy is changing its fleet to accommodate the massive swaths of the Indo-Pacific theater, by developing self-supporting “Light Amphibious Warships” — essentially a smaller aircraft carrier capable of deploying a Marine Littoral Regiment and armed for bear. But I argued that hyper-modularity for amphibious warfare isn’t going to overcome the challenge of China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial construct, which covers the entire South China Sea. Enter the next-generation Destroyers.
The Tin Can of Maritime History
Naval inventories of course begin with the iconographic Aircraft Carriers, whose capacity for force projection and offensive firepower via their hosted aircraft squadrons altered the paradigm of naval warfare during World War II (brilliantly explored in Ian Tolls’s trilogy on the Pacific theater, my current reading and apropos for this column). Descending by size, the Battleships are next in the pecking order, bringing sheer offensive firepower to the mix, although these artillery-toting behemoths were removed from the U.S. inventory in the 21st century and technically, no modern fleet operates the titans. Next, Cruisers and Missile Frigates offer a combination of offensive firepower and defensive capabilities (albeit reduced in scale compared to the battleship). These mid-tier vessels combine increased speed and maneuverability over their larger counterparts with respectable punching prowess, who split mission roles between fleet defense and offensive force projection. The submarine is intended to provide reconnaissance and stealth pin-point striking capability owing to their navigability of the deep. Note that ‘Frigates’ are a fairly universal term which, depending on whose Navy it is, can also mean a Destroyer, and these smaller vessels can range anywhere from 8,000 to 16,000 tonnes, and there are simply too many varieties of each to quantify in detail within this space.
Finally, the Destroyer — small, swift, and nimble, who’s historical role has been fleet defense against adversarial submarines and air attacks, with reduced offensive capabilities aimed at supporting amphibious landings. The Destroyer then, may escape notice when considering modern naval fleets. Beyond the foray into science fiction imagery (especially the U.S. Navy’s Zumwalt-class Glide-Destroyer), these craft still patrol the edges of a horizon-spanning Carrier Task Group on tour, but their overall value in contending with something like the A2/AD defensive network is diminished due to the limited range of their weapons systems.
Powering up
In order to overcome such seemingly inherent limitations, the next generation of Destroyer-class vessels will be slightly bigger, with exponentially increased power-systems, avionics, cooling apparatus’, and finally — keeping with the RTS-game lede — advanced long-range weapon systems to include hypersonics and directed-energy weapons with electronic warfare suites. Two big items to take away from this assortment of capabilities, the first being an emphasis on cooling system upgrades. What is not common knowledge when it comes to navy topics is the need for keeping these ships cold, especially when you are talking about powering something as massive as a directed energy weapon system, and the radar capable of queuing and directing the firing solution for a hypersonic system. The First Law of Thermodynamics and the 2nd sub-law of heat transfer (conduction) requires that this kind of intense energy cannot be reduced, only transferred, so a cooling system able to offset (or conduct) such energy is going to be critical for ensuring successful implementation. Also, it keeps the ship from violently ripping itself apart during rapid heat conduction.
The second item of note is the directed-energy weapons. Current methods of warfare are ‘limited’ by the nature of ballistic weapons, wherein a projectile (missiles, rockets, artillery shells) of some sort must be projected from an apparatus through combustion or propellant delivery (or more archaically, gravity if we’re talking about traditional bombs). Directed-energy weapons are well beyond the spatial, logistical, and physical limitations of such neanderthalic methods of combat known to previous wars. The footprint reduction and multifaceted/modular uses make them a potential game-changer, beyond even the awesome effects of hypersonic systems. A huge plus — long range and concentration of force, which may be succinctly summarized as precision AND accuracy, two items for kinetic weapons that are often at odds with one another in combat. However, as noted, this type of system requires immense support architecture and is all but certain to be the main draw of the enhanced power systems and the subsequent cooling function (Ghost Fleet novel hat-tip). The cooling systems are the single-greatest challenge to directed-energy systems, and likely the driving force behind these vessels increasing in size.
Countering A2/AD
Rear Admiral Paul Schlise (commander, USN Surface Warfare Division), speaking on the new Destroyer concept, remarked:
As our adversaries push farther and farther from their shores we need a ship that can generate enough power to drive more sophisticated radars, electronic warfare systems, and directed energy weapons…a ship that will be able to competently operate inside adversary weapon engagement zones.
A high speed battle wagon capable of delivering devastating, small-footprint, precision firepower (and who can spoof an adversary’s Area Defense networks through a comprehensive electronic warfare system) is certainly an innovative take on augmenting the growing modular U.S. fleet.
One of the key takeaways from the Ian Toll trilogy was Imperial Japan’s dogmatic belief that naval battles can be drawn to a single, decisive engagement, where the stupefying firepower of the Yamato-class Super Battleships with their 18.1” guns could knock out an entire U.S. fleet from well beyond counter-fire range, effectively eliminating the threat to the Japanese Navy. The evolution of naval air power changed those paradigms, and the U.S. rapidly gained the upper hand through superior strategy and maritime upgrades. In this era’s dynamic theaters of maritime force project and countermeasures, the A2/AD construct is the veritable military nut that has been difficult to crack — created to keep the overwhelming firepower of the United States arsenal at bay. Swarming missile Tin Cans aligned with those self-supporting LAW’s aren’t the solution to the multilayered problem (and the Navy still needs to effectively plug into JADC2/All-Domain Ops efforts), but they are a cheaper and innovative alternative to building up maritime leviathans at risk for being high-payoff targets in a decisive sea-battle.
News You Might Have Missed
Pompeo Puts Cuba Back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism List
Jacky Ruiz
In its final days, the Trump administration is attempting to alter policies that will reduce the freedom of movement for the incoming Biden team. On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the State Department had designated Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism “for repeatedly providing support for acts of international terrorism in granting safe harbor to terrorists.” In 2015, President Obama had taken Cuba off of the list in an attempt to normalize relations with Cuba and reestablish embassies in Washington and Havana. Since taking office, however, President Trump has tried to undo the policy legacy of the Obama administration. This decision will also complicate U.S.-Cuba relations for President-elect Biden, since removing the designation and attempting to restore normal relations could have political consequences for Democrats in Florida.
Last-Minute Changes to US-Taiwan Policy
Sarah Naiman
During the eleventh hour of his tenure as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo disrupted traditional Sino-American policy by lifting restrictions on contact between diplomats from the U.S. and Taiwan. America’s policy towards Taiwan has always been partly absurd, since we are committed to ensuring the territory’s defense, but also that it is part of “One China”. Moreover, prior to the State Department’s freeze on all international travel this week, UN Ambassador Kelly Craft was scheduled to visit Taipei. Many are criticizing the last-minute policy revision as a political stunt. Historically, Taiwan has been a bipartisan issue, but Pompeo may expect Beijing to pressure the Biden administration to restore the restrictions, opening them up to charges of being soft on China. During a week of scrambling and last-minute policy changes throughout the Trump administration, the deregulation of relations with Taiwan is simply another attempt to change Pompeo’s lasting legacy as he exits public office.
White House Executive Order Focuses on Nuclear Power Systems for Space and Defense
Thomas Triedman
The White House released an executive order Tuesday that aims to promote the development of small nuclear reactors for space and defense purposes. Officials acknowledge that there will be a large difference between terrestrial micro-reactors designed for the Defense Department and the smaller systems designed for space; nevertheless, the report recommends that NASA and the Defense Department look for opportunities to work together. Within 180 days, the Secretary of Defense will have to have “establish[ed] and implement[ed] a plan to demonstrate” a usable micro-reactor as a backup generator at a military base. On the space front, the order directs the Energy Department to wrap up a three-year project to produce high-assay low enriched uranium, a potential fuel for space nuclear power systems. This fuel is more potent than low-enriched uranium while not presenting the global security issues of highly enriched uranium. It remains to be seen how the incoming Biden administration will choose to amend or implement this order.
U.S. Space Force Becomes 18th Member of U.S. Intelligence Community
Miles Esters
On January 8th, the United States Space Force became the newest member of the U.S. Intelligence Community. It is the first addition to the nation’s intel community since the DEA Office of National Security Intelligence became a member in 2006. Space Force’s Information, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) mission will be focused on monitoring “threats to U.S. satellites and other space-based assets.” The creation and subsequent integration of the Space Force ISR into the intelligence community underscores the U.S. reliance on space assets in support of terrestrial military and intelligence operations. In the last few years, Russia and China have aggressively developed various types of counter-space capabilities, including anti-satellite missiles and ground-based lasers that threaten the security and accessibility of the space domain. Chief of Space Operations General John Raymond said this was “a significant milestone, a clear statement that America is committed to a secure and accessible space domain.” The Space Force’s ISR will augment space domain awareness, safeguard the domain that is essential to the functioning of our society, and enhance America’s ability to defend its space system by providing technical intelligence on the advancements of our adversaries.
Trump Administration Slashes Protections for Northern Spotted Owl
Miles Esters
With less than a week remaining in office, the Trump administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a plan that would strip protections designed to protected the Northern Spotted Owl from more than three million acres of Pacific Northwest lands. These protections are designed to maintain the fragile forest ecosystem and canopies that are habitat for the owls—and many other species. The action by the administration comes after timber companies sued over the protections. While an initial agreement and settlement would have covered 200,000 acres, stripping 3,400,000 acres of protections goes beyond logging companies’ demands. The issued rule does not have any new scientific data or analysis of the impact on the owl—which wildlife experts believe could face extinction if this plan moves forward—but simply states that “the Secretary [of Interior] has exercised his discretion…based upon the best scientific and commercial data available.”