Friday News Roundup — Oct 21 2022
Friday greetings to you from Washington, D.C. There are 18 days until the election, and in many places, Americans are already going to the polls. The latest poll numbers have Republicans more confident about their prospects in the House, while the Senate forecast remains evenly divided. President Biden, for his part, has avoided many campaign stops this cycle, but appeared yesterday with Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate candidate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.
Across the Atlantic, the lights shone brightly on the political circus in the United Kingdom, and Joshua Huminski covers that in more detail in this week’s roundup. As the war in Ukraine continues, Russia has continued its drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian civil and energy infrastructure. Russia is increasingly using cheap Iranian weapons to strike at Ukraine and overwhelm its air defenses. Continued support for Ukraine became somewhat more of a political football on the Hill, however, when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy questioned continued support for Kyiv in an assumed Republican majority.
In the press this week, for the Diplomatic Courier, Joshua C. Huminski, the Director of the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs reviewed Benjamin Griffin’s “Reagan’s War Stories”. Few presidents understood the power of narratives better than Ronald Reagan. In Griffin’s telling, Reagan was a far more literary president than he is often perceived. Griffin explores how what the president read shaped and reflected his world view.
Joshua Huminski’s coverage of the latest political drama in London are followed by Emma Hanson’s and Robert Gerber’s analysis of the latest U.S.-EU data agreement and what it means for digital privacy and trade. Ethan Brown looks at what advances in networked platforms and their connectivity mean for the future of warfare. Veera Parko provides a brief update on the energy situation in Europe. As always, we wrap with news you may have missed.
Prime Minister Liz Truss Resigns
Joshua C. Huminski
On Thursday, the United Kingdom’s Liz Truss announced her resignation making her the shortest serving prime minister in the country’s history. After just 44 days in office, ten days of which were dominated by events related to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, Truss’ resignation caps off one of the most tumultuous periods in British political history. Announcing her resignation, Truss said, “I recognize that I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.” This is, perhaps, an understatement.
After her mini-budget provoked a near collapse of the United Kingdom’s financial markets and near parity of the pound to the dollar, she sacked her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, bringing Jeremy Hunt to serve as a steadying hand. He quickly took a U-turn on nearly every element of the prime minister’s budget. Separately, he has said he will not run for the prime ministership.
In quintessential British humor fashion, Truss failed to outlast a head of lettuce on which cameras were trained by the Daily Star. The quip emerged after the Economist suggested that she had the “shelf-life of lettuce”. The Daily Star took the suggestion literally and opened a webcam watching to see if a head of lettuce would outlast Truss. When it did, the lettuce had a bit of a celebration, with disco lights and all.
The day prior to her resignation saw a vote on fracking, a vote that was meant to be a vote of confidence in her premiership, descended into pandemonium as the Chief and Deputy Chief Whip resigned and then un-resigned, and MPs were man-handled to cast their votes on the issue in support of the prime minister. Her Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, also resigned on Wednesday allegedly after committing “a technical breach” of security rules. Indeed, her resignation was amongst the first shots in the salvo that led to the downfall of Truss.
Truss will remain the prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party through the next week until a successor is selected. The party raised the bar for candidacy from the support of 20 MPs to 100 MPs. In the event there are multiple candidate (a maximum of three candidates given the 357 MPs is possible), the MPs will down-select the candidates to two and hold a vote online to determine the next party leader and prime minister. If only one candidate reaches that bar, which is a distinct possibility, they will be the prime minister on Monday.
It is speculated that the decision to raise the bar and hand more control to MPs as opposed to party members is intended to limit the possibility of Boris Johnson, whom Truss succeeded, returning to 10 Downing Street. There are reports that the parliamentary Privileges Committee may begin hearings into Johnson’s conduct starting in November, which could affect his viability as a candidate and ability to govern if elected. He is believed to have cut a family holiday short to return to the United Kingdom to decide on next steps. Rishi Sunak, Johnson’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, and who Truss defeated in the recent election is favored by betting markets at the moment. Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons is also a possible successor.
Unsurprisingly, the Labour Party under Sir Keir Starmer is calling for a general election (as is the Financial Times) with Truss making the 5th prime minister in six years. After the economic chaos resulting from the mini-budget, Labour developed a 30 point lead over the Tories in polls. The next general election is due before January 2025 and an early election at this stage is extremely unlikely. The prime minister is empowered to call for an early election, but given their weakened position, they are unlikely to risk losing the majority to the Labour Party. Starmer could call for a vote of no confidence, but he does not have the votes to secure its passage. The Tories have a 71 seat working majority in the House of Commons.
The reality is that the Tories are riven with divisions, which will make governing even more difficult at a time when the country needs serious adult leadership and not political infighting. Truss’ own actions including acting as if the campaign were still running and ramming through her ill-thought economic plans through, as well as alienating Sunak supporters by keeping them out of the cabinet meant that she had little if any support from the outset within the House of Commons. To be sure she won the election amongst Tory party voters, but governing is far different than campaigning as she was quick to experience. For his part, Johnson’s supporters are loath to support Sunak given his role in the former prime minister’s departure. Indeed, the Financial Times Editorial Board captured it best saying, “The only thing that unites Conservatives MPs is the fear of a general election.”
While the Tory party chaos and the prime minister’s departure (lettuce included) provided a bizarre and fascinating sideshow, the problems facing the United Kingdom have not gone away. The country is facing an energy crisis in rising prices and looming blackouts. The pound has fallen to $1.12 to the dollar as of this writing. The National Health Service is in dire straits with increasing wait times and declining services. Mortgage rates are sky rocketing alongside a housing shortage, to say nothing of rising inflation and interest rates. Now the Tories will struggle to regain the markets’ confidence and trust after Truss’ appalling performance.
New Executive Order Seeks to Bolster E.U.-U.S. Data Transfer Agreement
Emma Hanson and Robert Gerber
The United States and the EU are one another’s largest overseas markets for digitally delivered services, and this vibrant trade is supported in large part by transatlantic data transfers. For example, Hertz needs to serve European customers, but the company might have its servers located in Reston, Virginia. Microsoft has Paris-based employees who need payroll services, and Facebook/Meta sells online ads in Spain. But since 2020 there has been effectively no legal framework in place for companies to transfer such data from the EU to the United States. That is because the European Court of Justice, in what is known as the “Schrems II” case, invalidated the “U.S.-EU Privacy Shield” data transfer framework, a U.S. Department of Commerce-managed program under which companies could conduct data transfers after agreeing to uphold certain rules for the collection and use of such data.
The court decided in 2020 that U.S. law enforcement surveillance programs did not offer what the court considered to be sufficient protections of EU persons’ fundamental privacy rights. To solve the legally ambiguous situation, U.S. and European Commission negotiators agreed on a new data transfer framework in March 2022. And to implement the terms of this agreement, President Biden issued an executive order (E.O.) on October 7 that seeks to address the European court’s concerns by setting certain limitations on U.S. intelligence agencies’ ability to access and use EU citizens’ personal data. Specifically, the E.O. defines that “signals intelligence activities shall be conducted only to the extent and in a manner that is proportionate to the validated intelligence priority for which they have been authorized… regardless of their nationality or wherever they reside.” The court’s second main concern was a purported lack of redress methods for EU citizens to challenge unlawful surveillance. The E.O. remedies this issue by adding a Civil Liberties Protection Officer (CLPO) to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The CLPO would investigate claims of unlawful surveillance and determine their validity. A new Data Protection Review Court within the U.S. Department of Justice could then affirm or disagree with the original decision and put in place their own remedial measures.
Negotiators produced a joint statement in March that stated “the new Framework marks an unprecedented commitment on the U.S. side to implement reforms that will strengthen the privacy and civil liberties protections applicable to U.S. signals intelligence agencies.” But the European Commission will still need to approve the agreement, after which the European Data Protection Board would issue a nonbinding opinion, members of the European Union would vote on the issue, and, finally, the European College of Commissioners would formally adopt the decision. This entire process could take five months. To complicate matters further, a future legal challenge in an EU member states court is not out of the question. EU courts may never be fully satisfied with privacy protections under U.S. surveillance laws. Some privacy experts have argued that European courts may be holding the United States to a higher standard than that which they apply to the law enforcement practices of EU member states themselves.
To reduce risk of litigation, U.S. tech companies could opt to store EU customer and employee data in data servers located within the EU — something which many European lawmakers and privacy advocates would certainly prefer. But multinational tech companies headquartered in the United States say this would upset their business model and create additional costs. One measure that could put the new framework on more solid ground- although it is not a silver bullet — would be for the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive data privacy legislation. This might enable the European Commission to issue an adequacy determination for the United States, such as that which Japan and Canada enjoy. Data privacy legislation has passed a House committee with bipartisan support, but Speaker Pelosi has not allowed the bill to come to a floor vote. To be sure, having a solid data transfer regime in place is not the only worry for U.S. tech companies operating in the EU market. They also oppose European digital tax proposals and new EU regulations on digital platforms that are scheduled to take force next year. This state of affairs means that members of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council have plenty of issues on their agenda, and privacy lawyers will continue to find their services in high demand.
The Networking of Warfare
Ethan Brown
The next major conflict that breaks out will be fought on networks, and won by whomever has the greatest ability to disrupt those networks. Of course one always hopes against the outbreak of a major war, but humanity is predictable, and reliably a poor decision-making body, meaning that this next war is pretty much inevitable. Of course, saying ‘networks’ implies or connotes computer networks — cyber — and while this is certainly a feature of our era of strategic competition, American and partner militaries are actually looking at networked systems of aircraft, weapons, sensors, and even people, as it prepares for that disturbingly inevitable outbreak.
The Army, for example, has made its plans for networked warfighting abundantly clear, briefed and demoed extensively during the recent Association of the U.S. Army conference and expo — “Disperse or Die, network and live” is what Lt. Gen. Milford Beagle from the Combined Arms Center briefed assembled attendants from the new Field Manual 3–0, “Operations”, which is literally the foundational doctrine on how the Army fights wars. What this manual states, in short, is that the entire battlefield is considered global, that all aspects of the warfighting machine are under adversary surveillance, and that no sector is beyond reach and influence of enemy weapons; in short, the ‘rear-echelon’, no longer exists.
This is especially true of expansive regions like INDOPACOM, where there is no contiguous battle-line. The environment is so large, so prohibitive to massing forces — the things one expects an Army to do — that any sort of congealing of troops is guaranteed to invite interdiction. Nothing is hidden from a geo-spatial intelligence and surveillance domain that employs space, electronic signals, and extreme long-range weapons. So the challenge is how to keep the fighting force (ours) synchronized to fight coherently while dispersed over hundreds or thousands of miles of ‘terrain’ that is neither held, nor can it be held by either antagonist? Networking the force through secured telecommunications that are also insulated or hardened against interference. Electronic warfare — signals disruption, spoofing, and otherwise interfering with an adversaries command and control, are the new weapons for enabling the ability to bring kinetic weapons to bear in an environment otherwise prohibiting the massing of fires.
Allies, too, are expounding on how to network and integrate over vast distances and prohibitive environments. Australia’s Air Forces have recently announced progress in its creation and implementation of its AIR6500 Joint Air Battle Management System (JABMS), a project being competitively bid upon by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. The initiative by Australian partners to network their air systems echoes precisely what the Army is efforting as well — dispersal without losing connection. Australia has a unique, though somewhat less prohibitive posture in the INDOPACOM, by simple reason of proximity, than the United States whose forward deployment of forces requires transit of the Pacific Ocean.
The Royal Air Force is in the earliest going for developing this integrated Joint C2 networking capability, but of note, the source code for this growing system of networks is Australian. Why does this matter? For one thing, export licenses of sensitive defense technology is often a sticking point for U.S. technology, especially the classified kind related to Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2). However, the development remains a surefire endeavor of the U.S.-based Lockheed and Northrop, and the source code is being written to integrate with more compartmentalized U.S. systems. But because of the Australian source-coding, it will allow export of this technology to other critical regional partners from Australia — these being Singapore and South Korea. The development of this system means the United States will be able to mesh networks with key partners, but still be able to insulate its holistic air C2 networks if necessary.
The efforts to advance networked warfare are not beholden to the Indo-Pacific either. The German Navy is leading the EU and NATO maritime forces in the integration of a new class of Electronic Warfare vessels, tentatively dubbed the F126 Frigate. Alfred Thayer Mahan-purists are surely rolling over in their graves thinking about a fleet of ships whose warfighting function is not with close and cannon, but with radio-waves and across the ionosphere. But that is precisely what the Munich-based company Rohde & Schwarz have begun developing — an integrated top-deck frigate replete with a suite of Radar Electronic Support Measures (RESM) and Counter Electronic Support Measures (CESM). Those ‘weapons’ are primed for one thing — breaking up the adversaries ability to communicate, coordinate, and vector weapons which rely on command and control architecture. Most impressively, this system employs machine-learning capabilities for the control apparatus, making the adjustment to radar and signal interference faster than a human hand could ever hope to perform. This vessel would, in theory, blank out an entire friendly fleet while disrupting communications or similar capabilities by, say, a Russian fleet intent on disrupting European maritime routes or coalition fleet maneuvers.
Not to be outdone by their ‘rivals’, France recently unveiled the design plans for its future nuclear-powered Aircraft Carrier, the “PANG” (Porte Avion Nouvelle Génération). The 82,000-tonne, 1,017ft-long ship will be crafted as an interoperable tool — meaning U.S. and other NATO aircraft who require catapult and arrester launch and recovery systems will be able to land on the PANG as if it were a Gerald R. Ford-class American aircraft carrier. This vessel will replace the active Charles de Gaulle-class aircraft carrier and indeed, will be a modular structural and device design to allow for immediate networking upgrades — fused with partners to ensure the ship can operate ‘alone’ as part of the hive.
Last week, I gave an overview of the Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy, a vectoring document two years in the waiting, and one that emphasizes integration, partnerships, and networked capabilities (alliances for shared security responsibilities). The outtakes from the Chinese Party Congress — an event where Party leader Xi Jinping has pivoted from a policy of economic growth to one of security — show that China is destined to sustain this potential collision course, even if neither China nor the United States want a conflict that would fundamentally damage the world order. That doesn’t mean they won’t prepare for it just as the United States and her allies are developing systems to deter such a possibility. Recent analytical data suggests that China’s military prowess is closing the capabilities gap with the United States, and it is foolhardy to think that any future war is a 1-v-1 engagement between two superpowers. Thus, building a networked warfighting inventory appears to be the Overmatch that the West is fully committed to across alliances to stave off that future conflict.
Europe´s gas dilemma
Veera Parko
On Tuesday October 18, the European Commission — the European Union´s executive branch — announced new emergency measures to support European countries in securing gas supply for the winter. Russia´s war in Ukraine has led Europeans to look for new solutions to address both the decreased supply and the price of natural gas. European leaders will discuss the proposals at a European Council summit meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
The proposed measures include, among others, a temporary price cap on gas and strengthening joint gas purchasing. Falling short of a full ban on imported gas, the European Commission proposes a temporary price cap on the EU´s benchmark natural gas trading hub, the Dutch Title Transfer Facility TTF, if gas prices rise excessively. In late August, the price of natural gas jumped to 341 euros per megawatt hour from around 45 euros a year earlier. EU countries remain split over the idea of an immediate cap on gas prices. A group of countries in Southern and Eastern Europe favor a price cap while others such as Germany and the Netherlands have concerns over security of supply issues.
In any case, winter is coming and European countries have to find a way to cope with less gas from Russia and high energy prices — as well as the political will to help other Europeans if needed.
News You Might Have Missed
NATO Official and Chinese Ambassador Clash Over the Arctic
The Chair of NATO’s Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer (Netherlands) delivered a speech at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland on October 15 during which he said NATO would respond to security threats from Russia and China in the Arctic with increased presence and domain awareness. He called Russia and China authoritarian states who “don’t respect our values and undermine the rules-based order.” During the Q&A session that followed, Chinese Ambassador to Iceland He Rulong, who was sitting in the audience, told the Admiral that his remarks were full of “arrogance and paranoia” and argued that China was a peaceful nation that respected sovereignty and which had a right to be present in the Arctic. Admiral Bauer responded to the Ambassador’s comment by clarifying that he did not say that China should be barred from the Arctic, but “If the intentions of China are opposing our values and interests and the rules-based international order, then NATO… has to take steps to make sure that we are able to deter and defend the threats that come from that direction,” Bauer then asked the ambassador that if China were a peaceful nation that respects sovereignty, why had China still not condemned Russia’s attack in Ukraine? Bauer’s retort drew applause from the audience. The Chinese ambassador responded that Beijing looks at the “Ukraine crisis” from the “international, historical and also the current [context] with the long-term perspective.” Former Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, who served as panel moderator, brought Bauer and the Ambassador together for a handshake when the event was over.
Chinese Diplomat Accused of Assaulting Hong Kong Protestor Outside Manchester Consulate
Chinese diplomats at the consulate in Manchester, England, were seen dragging Bob Chan, a Hongkonger now residing in the UK, onto consulate grounds and beating him before police intervened and broke up the assault. Chan was participating in a protest over the Hong Kong crackdown and Xi’s consolidation of power when he was seized and beaten. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly called the incident “unacceptable,” while former Conservative leader Ian Duncan Smith called for the expulsion of Chinese diplomats.
German Chancellor Supports Chinese Port Deal Despite Opposition
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has come under criticism for his suggestion that Chinese firm Cosco be allowed to go ahead with purchasing a stake in the Port of Hamburg. Reports indicate that despite concerns by all six ministries involved in reviewing the deal — and their recommendation that the deal be blocked — Scholz has chosen to go ahead. This has resulted in backlash from the political opposition, as well as members of his own coalition.
The views of authors are their own and not that of CSPC.