Friday News Roundup — July 30, 2021
Happy Friday from Washington, DC. This week saw the opening of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, which made for spellbinding viewing. The Select Committee still has a great deal of work to do to produce an authoritative report on that fateful day, but it was good to finally see that effort beginning. On the other side of Capitol Hill, the Senate voted to proceed to debate on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. There are still several hurdles that need to be cleared before it can become law, but this was an important step. In the coming days and weeks, it will be important to remember that many things that legislators say in public are designed to shape the understanding of the debate, rather than accurate assessments of their voting intentions.
This week, we hosted a great event with Jeffrey Manber, CEO of Nanoracks, Payam Banazadeh, Founder and CEO of Capella Space, and Brig. Gen. Steve Butow from the Defense Innovation Unit. Next week, we are hosting Gen John Hyten, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to talk about Transforming the U.S. Military for an Era of Great Power Competition. You can register for that event here.
In the Nikkei Asian Review, Glenn Nye and Dan looked at how an international coalition is growing to address China’s cyberattacks on the private sector. Joshua published two pieces this week. In The Hill, he wrote about the agreement between the U.S. and Germany on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and the need for a unified strategic vision for dealing with Russia. At Diplomatic Courier, he gave a rundown of recent spy novels for your beachside (or whatever) enjoyment this summer.
In the Roundup this week, Michael asks what it will take to finally put COVID behind us. Dan looks at how China is actively trying to decouple itself politically and economically from the broader world. Ethan argues that the United States needs more than just new tools to project power against a near-peer adversary. CSPC intern Annmarie Youtt argues that the time is not right for U.S.-China talks on nuclear arms control. As always, we end with some news you might have missed.
This is also a week of farewells as our three interns depart. Annmarie, Liam, and Maria, thank you so much for all your hard work these last few months. We must also bid fair winds and following seas to Michael, who is headed back into the federal bureaucracy. Michael, the Policy Team will not be the same without you.
Finally, as a note to our dear readers, we will be going on an August rotation, with the next roundups coming out on August 13th and 27th. We wish you the best for beach vacations, cabin trips, and however else you might escape the dog days of summer.
Delta Variant Opens New COVID-19 Chapter
Michael Stecher
For the entire time that I have been back in the Roundup pages, COVID has been the biggest and most important story. It is only fitting that this week, for my last submission一at least for now; as the Danish proverb goes, “It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future”一it has become clear that we are entering a new phase of the pandemic. Until very recently, America’s collective decision on COVID response appeared to be to take as little action as was possible to defeat the disease, but the emergence of the Delta variant appears to have upset that equilibrium. Some of the choices necessary to bring about the post-COVID world will be unpleasant, but they are now visible, for the first time in nearly 18 months.
When I say that the United States chose to pursue the minimally disruptive COVID response strategy, I do not mean to imply that no costs were imposed by government action. Closing schools in particular was incredibly disruptive, especially for lower income families and families of color. In general, however, the actual disruptions amounted to less than met the eye; many of the ones that were imposed were so poorly targeted that they had no impact on the spread of the virus, and even more fell into a category where the rules were essentially free to ignore. Even in New York, the first epicenter of COVID in the United States, masks are required on the subway, but compliance is dropping.
Now that vaccines are available, a lot of people have treated vaccination as an important thing for other people to do. In the media and especially on social media, the conversation is dominated by people who refuse to get vaccinated for ideological reasons: the people who think that the vaccine makes you magnetic, allows the government to track you with microchips, or, as always, is a conspiracy launched by a shadowy group of international Jews who are trying to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
Neither conspiracy mongering dead-enders nor supply constraints, however, can explain why less than half of DC residents between the ages of 18–49 have received even a single dose of the vaccine. Instead, this is a good example of the fact that many of the unvaccinated in the country are essentially volunteers. Carrots offered by local governments, like Ohio’s million dollar vaccine lottery, appear to have had an impact on these volunteers, but the stick offered by the Delta variant is an even greater inducement. The number of people receiving their first dose of the vaccine has arrested its months-long slide and has started to increase.
This growing sense that the unvaccinated will not be able to ride to the end of the pandemic for free is also shaking up the politics around COVID, allowing leaders to make choices that can get us the rest of the way. Nationwide, a majority of Americans in every age cohort over 18 has received at least one dose; for a bit of context, the vaccinated share of Americans 25–39 as of yesterday (57%) is an absolute majority and roughly the vaccination share of Americans 40–49 (59%) at the end of May.
We were too slow to stop the Delta variant from breaking out, unfortunately, and now all DC residents will be required to wear a mask indoors, as will workers at the Pentagon and other military facilities in areas of high spread. The big change, however, is the growing acceptance of vaccine mandates. Georgetown University is requiring that all students, faculty, and staff who want to access campus this fall submit proof of vaccination. So will both public university systems in California. State and local leaders on both coasts have announced requirements for public employees and medical workers to be vaccinated or be tested regularly. So have many large employers in the private sector. Even the National Football League is dialling up the pressure on players and coaches to get vaccinated.
Yesterday, President Biden announced a huge step in getting us to a post-COVID world, requiring that all civilian employees of the federal government be vaccinated, submit to frequent testing, or face as-yet-unannounced restrictions. More than 2 million people work for the federal government, but the more important factor is that this announcement will provide a template and political cover for governments and employers around the country to do the same. In order for this to work, the Food and Drug Administration will need to give final approvals to the vaccines, which has thus far been held up by bureaucratic processes, or the Department of Health and Human Services will need to amend their Emergency Use Authorizations to explicitly allow vaccine mandates, and I hope that people at those organizations are hurrying to do that.
All of this can happen because of the growing realization that explicitly anti-vaccine politicking is a loser of a position. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has offered some harsh words for the unvaccinated-by-choice (distinguishing them from “regular folks”), and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is using campaign funds to promote vaccination. Even in Arkansas, the state with the lowest vaccine uptake for seniors, more than ⅔ are fully vaccinated while cases are almost ten times higher than they were 2 months ago. Older Americans are more likely to be seriously affected by COVID and an overwhelming majority of them are vaccinated; it is as though this week, our political leaders remembered that they are also far more likely to vote, and the midterms are coming up fast. Vaccine hesitancy almost certainly will not go away, but this is a good sign that it will move back towards the fringes of our political discussion.
And that is good. If we want to ensure that the spread of the Delta variant does not prevent schools and businesses from safely reopening and operating, the free ride on vaccinations needs to end. Part of that will come from signalling from political leaders and a growing sense that everyone needs to be part of the team. Some of it, however, will require enforceable mandates from schools and employers. I would not feel comfortable signing off from the Roundup without gesturing towards CSPC’s mission of applying the lessons of history to the challenges of today, so here goes: enforced vaccination has a long history in this country, dating back to the Revolutionary War. It beat smallpox and polio, and mostly eradicated the measles. We have the opportunity to make COVID nothing more than an occasional cold, like the other coronaviruses currently affecting Americans; let’s take it.
The Decoupling of Minds
Dan Mahaffee
This week, Beijing continued with further crackdowns on the private sector, this time targeting the education industry — most notably the range of companies that offer tutoring and education services for Chinese students seeking to improve their test scores and expand their studies beyond the traditional curriculum and eventually pursue studies abroad. While there are some domestic political considerations behind this move, it serves as another reminder of how the Chinese Communist Party is pushing further state control of fields it sees as vital to its hold on power and ways to decouple from “foreign influence.”
Beijing’s regulators and party officials have targeted the Chinese education companies, a field once expected to make $76 billion in revenue by 2024. These companies prepare Chinese students for the range of examinations — especially the “gaokao” college examinations — and offer educational enrichment and tools like videoconferencing to connect Chinese students with overseas tutors for foreign language studies.
There are, of course, domestic factors behind this decision. The profitability and success of these companies reflected the pressure on young people in Chinese society, as well as the vast amounts spent by Chinese parents to give their child (often the only child) a leg up in their education. The cost of these programs was increasingly seen by party officials, as well as the Chinese public, as a barrier to young families having children.
At the same time, this also reflects the Chinese government’s work to further establish party control — in this case over curriculum — while also taking a stand against the “foreign influence” that could be pushed onto China’s future generations: dangerous ideas like political liberalism or human rights. Even in language study and foreign cultural exchange, the party is increasingly establishing redlines of what is acceptable. Furthermore, the measures put forth by Beijing aim to emphasize some fields, mainly STEM, at the expense of others, mainly the arts and humanities.
Like the crackdown on the major Chinese tech companies, Beijing is re-establishing state control over key industries, limiting foreign investment in a growing range of areas considered “sensitive” by the party, and setting the terms for what will be acceptable thought in China. It is another reminder of a decoupling being pursued on both sides of the Pacific, but now in a more earnest and focused manner in Beijing than that in the United States. In these areas, such as financial ties and educational exchanges, where we once assumed that further engagement would at least smooth ties with China, it is clear that Beijing is now focused on its own path, prescribing how business will be done, mainly with regard to the party’s interests.
For U.S. policymakers, it is a reminder that China also sees educational institutions as an area where there is a battle for influence. In the United States, our political conversation is usually focused on the potentially insidious role China can play on our campuses: Confucius Institutes that spread Communist Party propaganda; student groups that spy on potential dissidents among Chinese studying abroad; and even researchers who might steal advanced technology or trade secrets. This crackdown serves to remind us that the Chinese Communist Party fears these exchanges too because it allows many of their smartest and most ambitious young people to learn that the United States is not a dystopia of violence and exploitation; it is a mostly nice place full of mostly nice people. As someone who studied abroad in Shanghai, I know from my time there that the Chinese people are welcoming, creative, innovative, and enterprising, with deserved pride in their country and its accomplishments — yet face an intellectual aperture closing quickly as the party clamps down on independent thought, artistic expression, and any version of Chinese history counter to the party’s narrative.
We often talk about China’s mercantilist approach to the country’s efforts to supplant the United States as the linchpin of the international system. That approach fuels everything from attempts to set the rules of the road for advanced technology to predatory economic relationships through the Belt and Road Initiative. For the Communist Party, however, they recognize that the competition for influence over ideas is at least as important, which is part of the reason they are taking such draconian steps. Instead of coming in the hundreds of thousands to the United States every year, or even working with international tutors, Chinese students could attend Chinese universities, taught party-approved curriculum by “politically reliable” teachers — furthering the Party’s effort to build its version of a more Sinocentric world. Education may seem like a soft issue, but it is at the very forefront of Beijing’s efforts to place itself in a leadership position over how and what students are taught around the world.
Gen. Hyten: “[the new strategy] failed miserably”
Ethan Brown
It is a tried and true practice in academia, policy, and really anywhere that requires a professional product for dispersal/presentation — the red ink process. Sharpshooting, to use another moniker. This is as true for the defense department as it is for any professional, corporate, or business organization, indeed more so as the stakes are higher and in the era of strategic competition, where the United States cannot afford miscalculation on its capabilities when confronting peers and rivals. When I worked in USSOCOM, different operational groups who were developing ops plans would sometimes flesh out a full mission profile for a major muscle movement (like a Joint Forcible Entry or a counter-WMD operation), and the full brief would go to another tactical unit to be critiqued, harshly, in order to really perfect the final iteration. Problems were usually highlighted by red text or red pen, hence, red ink. This is the entire point of exercises, wargaming as it were — to figure out where and how a team/organization is vulnerable to changing environments and conditions. Success isn’t the point, the intent of these reviews are to fail, and fail hard.
General Hyten said as much earlier this week when, citing the highly-touted war game conducted last year, “without overstating the issue, [the new strategy] failed miserably”. Our colleague James Kitfield covered the exercise in depth, noting the Joint Forces unpreparedness to deter a complex, multifaceted Chinese sweep across the Pacific (which included a simulated first wave biological attack, apropos in the wake of the COVID pandemic), culminating in a complete loss of Taiwan in the maw of A2/AD (Anti-Access/Area Denial).
The doom and gloom of unpreparedness is exactly what the DoD needs in terms of a stark reality check. The United States spent 20 years engaged with an enemy that defied objective definition — a war on an ideology and not strictly a tangible enemy or organized force — indeed the very battlefield supremacy inculcated a dependence on systems, where decentralizing the warfighters competence was the only real gain of the war on terror.
That’s all very high-minded and abstract strategic theory, so in an attempt at summative brevity: the exercise postulated what DoD want its future integrated system — the Joint Warfighting Concept (acquisition, connectivity, delegable authority for cohesion’s sake, and industry innovation) — to do in response to adversary aggression in real time. This simulation presumes many architectural components which are not yet in place: a functional All-Domain Command and Control, fully manned fleets of 5th generation F-35’s plugged into said JADC2, not to mention waves of AI-enhanced drones capable of overwhelming Chinese Air Defense and ballooning the integrated data sharing system through its mesh network principles.
Bit of a pipe dream, whereas the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System is leading the pack on All-domain ops, fusion with Navy’s “Overwatch ‘’ and Army’s “Convergence” programs remain embryonic at best. Further, those F-35s templated in the exercise were Block 4’s, an iteration of the do-it-all fighter with advanced avionics that…don’t exist yet. Finally, near-autonomous drones like the Boeing Wingman (aka “Skyborg”), are at the earliest phases of development and flight validation, and wouldn’t you know it, they need a hardened, global data-sharing system the likes of which JADC2 is supposed to provide.
With all of that in context, and again citing James’ review of the war game, we are going to lose, fast, and indeed, per General Hyten, we did. Lieutenant General Clinton Hinote, U.S. Air Force Dep. Chief of Staff for Strategy and Integration, stated that “if the U.S. military doesn’t change course, [the loss of Taiwan to Chinese aggression] would present the American President with almost a fait accompli”. Those high-level assertions are often made ahead of acid tests, but this time, the prognostication bore fruit.
General Hyten’s piloting of this new strategy and its execution programs runs through the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, charged with resolving issues in implementation. This exercise simplifies the next conflict into four `functional battles’ — Information Advantage, JADC2, Joint Fires, and contested (denied) logistics. Despite A2/AD, the United States arsenal still has an advantage in weapons capabilities, but if Chinese intellectual theft in the tech community has taught strategic thinkers anything, it is that the tech advantage is no longer safe; thus, presumed Information Advantage must be taken with a grain of salt. Deterrence in the Cold War model isn’t going to work today, we (the United States in tandem with allies) are unlikely to spend the Chinese Communist Party into ruin like it did with the Soviets under President Reagan. Logistics then, could ultimately be the key to this fight. It is a winning strategy (see WWII Pacific operations), and the ability to sustain decentralized operations (a foundational tenet of American defense strategy) is likely to determine real-world success or failure. Gen. Hyten aptly pointed out the current detractor in the Joint Warfighting Concept lies in harnessing that technological innovation outside of the DoD — the private industry capable of advancing solutions that enable connectivity, information sharing, without rebuilding the battlespace supremacy dependence of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Maybe it’s just savvy politicking on General Hyten’s part, after all, he is (unfortunately) stepping down from his post in November. Rightly critiquing a system that isn’t yet through the development phase, one that has at some phases promised an approach and not a system (as I harshly criticized in an earlier roundup column), is part of his responsibility as the designee of future U.S. warfighting strategy. This pass/fail exercise was to be proof of concept, and the Red Team commander (a U.S. high-ranking military member chosen for aggression and experience to replicate a ruthless adversary) poked holes across the entire strategy. It shows an awareness that reliance on a system — any system — to respond to a competent, peer adversary isn’t overstating a miserable failure, it’s a rational conclusion that should light plenty of fires in stakeholders writ large.
Focus on the Big Picture, Not Arms Control, with China
Annmarie Youtt
This week, publicly available satellite imagery revealed 110 new missile silos for nuclear weapons in the eastern region of Xinjiang in China. These images are further verification of China’s increasing nuclear stockpile. The discovery of these silos call attention to the dead Chinese doctrine of a “minimum deterrent” nuclear strategy. China, under Xi Jinping, has taken a turn in increasing the production of nuclear arms, but the question is why? China is gearing up to start changing the world perspective of their nation, and this is just one part of that plan. As part of the Biden administration’s efforts to reengage with nuclear arms control, some commentators have suggested beginning to bring China into the nuclear arms control framework. Chinese President Xi Jinping has created an increasingly personalist autocratic regime; as long as his government is in power, arms control discussions are unlikely to be fruitful and engaging in them would be unwise.
Under Chinese doctrine, nuclear arms have historically been seen as weapons that deter attacks and are not a first use weapon. China maintained a fairly small arsenal for many years, but in recent years, China has begun to increase their nuclear stockpile. China is considered a nuclear weapons state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but their history of proliferation is deeply concerning. China believes they are set to become a new ruling power in economics, military, and technology. Xi sees adding to their nuclear arsenal as a logical step in that effort. The issue is that China is fundamentally an unstable nation that holds weapons that could wipe out the world and Xi’s efforts to centralize power has only made it more so. Xi Jinping has increasingly dominated China’s governing system to advance his own agenda. Under his leadership, China has repealed its commitments to preserve “one country, two systems” and the political liberties of Hong Kong. Within Mainland China, the regime has demonstrated its own brittleness, preventing Chinese citizens from erecting displays of public mourning for loved ones who die in natural disasters. Oppression and brittleness are mutually reinforcing because the nature of the current Chinese regime is so uniquely focused on dominating political life at home and abroad.
This need for control drives Xi’s every move: his internal need for dominance reflects the external need for international control. China is not interested in engaging in actions that promote strategic stability because Xi Jinping believes he can continue to grow China’s power while shrinking the U.S.’s and its allies’ power. The shift of countries’ view of China stays at the forefront of his agenda.
China in other areas of diplomacy has shown no interest in being constrained by multilateral talks and nuclear arms would not be different. In the past years, China has declared dramatic and illegal claims to territory in the South China Sea. They mocked international law by changing the geography of the region and ignored calls of other nations to back down. This is the closest conceivable parallel to the constraints that nuclear arms agreements would produce, and the evidence suggests that China views its own interest in growing its power as more important than treaties or international law. Negotiations that would only produce useless pieces of paper would be a waste of time and effort, and any concessions made in support of those goals would be a donation to a power that seeks to supplant us.
When countries enter into nuclear arms treaties or limitations, there must be a basic level of stability within the government and a recognition of the importance of a rules-based order. Xi Jinping created a structure within China that is cruel, unpredictable, and fueled by the need for control. China wants to change their place in the world order and has demonstrated a willingness to take extraordinary action to do so, and the US should not be okay with that. Building up their arsenal and fostering Xi’s agenda only lead the world and the US to understanding the challenges that lay ahead for relations with China. US involvement with China is different from other bad actors because there is no way to decouple from China like the way there is from other states. The US prides itself on freedom, yet we enter into business and production with a state that thrives on diminishing the dignity of its citizens and brainwashing them. The US needs to act to address these issues and show China that they will no longer ignore them.
Nuclear arms control is not the US’s main issue to address with China at this time. Xi continues to wield unchecked and oppressive power over his own people and threatening his neighbors. If the United States enters into an arms agreement with China, then there is distraction from the greater issues plaguing the country. The US needs to limit the toxic influence China is creating in regions of the world. They need to focus on freeing the Chinese people from their dictator. Ignoring this goal by focusing on nuclear arms glosses over the more important issues the world is facing with China. As a nation, the US must address the harmful culture Xi has created and let their nation know that America will not stand for anything but freedom.
China, under Xi’s rule, is determined to become the main actor on the world stage. The United States is now in a cross-roads of what it deems necessary to combat the increasingly dangerous dictatorship China has created. Many individuals deem that the necessary first step to protecting the United States and the world is to create some type of nuclear arms treaty with China. While this could eventually become a logical step, the first form of action should be addressing and condemning the dictatorship and oppressive state the country has become. Nuclear arms control is something that with time could come, but for now it will only distract from deeper more complex issues in China. The United States should place its focus on addressing the oppression and human rights violations perpetuated by Xi Jinping’s authoritarian regime — through economic and diplomatic channels.
News You May Have Missed
North Korea and South Korea Reopen Communications after a Year
Maria Ruiz Del Monte
On Thursday, South Korea and North Korea’s government offices announced the reopening of direct cross-border communications. The announcement took place after Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in agreed to restore mutual trust and promote reconciliation. In the last years, diplomatic efforts were made to improve the relations between both countries, particularly in the 2018 Korean border summit between both presidents. Still, the collapse of a second summit between Kim Jong-un and then-President Donald Trump, and the condemnation of South Korean activists for floating anti-regime propaganda leaflets across North Korea’s border prompted Pyongyang to cut off the communication hotline and all military and political communication links in June 2020. The timing of the overture suggests that the food crisis developing in North Korea could have provoked the reopening, as the border provides an avenue for humanitarian aid. For South Korea’s president, the restoration of the hotline could be a step for the improvement of the talks about dismantling North Korea’s nuclear and missile program and a chance to regain control of the peace process.
China Meets With Taliban, Stepping Up as U.S. Exits Afghanistan
Annmarie Youtt
This week Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Taliban leaders in Tianjin in an effort to urge them to restart their government after American forces depart in September. Minister Wang explained the important opportunity ahead for the Taliban politically and socially. Beijing has been in contact with the Taliban for many years and has stated that it has grown tired of the US’s involvement and failed attempts to create a level of security in the region. This public display comes right on the heels of the United States withdrawing troops from the region. China appears to be trying to filthe a space that was left by the United States, and insert its influence in the region. They will have to walk a very tight line of maintaining their relationship with the Afghan government while also creating relations with the Taliban.
United States Imposes Sanctions On Syrian Officials Surrounding Human Rights Abuses
Liam Miller
On Wednesday, the United States government imposed a slew of sanctions on numerous Syrian officials and affiliated groups due to human rights abuses that have been inflicted on the Syrian people. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the newly imposed sanctions target eight Syrian prisons, five Assad-regime officials who run the facilities, two militia groups and two militia leaders that have been implicated in numerous human rights violations and killings. The state of the prison facilities, which was documented by a defector of the Assad regime, captured the inhumane treatment endured by its prisoners. A separate statement from the Treasury Department also noted that an estimated 5,000 and 13,000 people have been executed at Saydnaya Military Prison, a facility operated by Syrian Military Intelligence between 2011 and 2015. Secretary Blinken then asserted that, “The world must renew its shared resolve to promote the dignity and human rights of all Syrians. The Assad regime must know that these steps are critical to any lasting peace of economic prosperity in Syria.”
The views of authors are their own and not that of CSPC.