Diplomacy & Crisis News

Michael Rubin

Colonialism, Africa

Just a decade ago, France held paramount influence in Africa. Today, its reach is in freefall and, with it, any pretension of being a global power.

Today, many Africans view the French as irrelevant if not persona non grata in many countries in which they once held sway. Earlier this month, for example, thousands of Malians celebrated the French ambassador’s expulsion in the capital city, Bamako. When French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called the elected military junta “illegitimate” and “out-of-control,” Malian military leaders ordered Ambassador Joel Meyer to depart the country.

This is not to say that Paris does not have a point: frustration with Bamako has grown steadily. French troops deployed to the West African country in January 2013 to fight a Tuareg insurgency that an Al Qaeda-affiliated group exploited to seize territory in the country’s north. While Mali was once one of Africa’s most democratic nations, it has spiraled into a morass of poor governance and insurgency feeding off each other. Recently, the Malian junta contracted out security to Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group, an outlet known to commit human rights abuses and pillage local resources. French troops, meanwhile, are on their way out from the country.

The French divorce from Mali is increasingly becoming the rule rather than the exception. Increasingly, France’s more-than-a-century-long diplomatic dominance in Africa is ending, and with it, France’s pretension of being a major player on the world stage.

Consider the Central African Republic: One year ago, rebels in the resource-rich, former French colony threatened to sack the capital Bangui. The United Nations, which has a robust peacekeeping force in the country, stood aside, as did France. Rwanda, with one-fifth the population of France and an army less than one-tenth the size of France’s, ultimately came to the rescue and stopped the rebel advance, pushing the Islamist rebels back into the hinterlands. From the locals’ perspective, French inaction compounded a betrayal marked by late President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s support for local dictatorship in exchange for a supply of Central African diamonds into French coffers. Although a generation of French policymakers have believed they could loot and run roughshod over the Central Africans, they have learned that Central Africans have long memories.

Then there is Rwanda itself. While Rwanda was originally a Belgian colonial possession, France treated it as its own following the country’s 1962 independence. French policy, however, was twisted. Declassified French archival documents and an assessment of newly-available sources now show beyond any reasonable doubt direct French complicity in the 1994 anti-Tutsi genocide. France’s motives? Distrust of Rwandans seeking greater ties to the Anglophone world as well as President Juvénal Habyarimana’s willingness (under whom Hutu militants planned the anti-Tutsi Genocide) to subordinate Rwandan interests and human rights to French requests. While Hollywood successfully depicted some of the horror of the 1994 genocide, the producers omitted French advisors training and even manning checkpoints with Hutu génocidaires. It is now clear there likely would have been no genocide in Rwanda had it not been for the cynicism of French president François Mitterrand.

Contemporarily, President Emmanuel Macron has said troops withdrawn from Mali will redeploy elsewhere in the Sahel. But it is unclear how long they will be welcome. Chadian president Idriss Déby’s death while fighting Islamist militants removed a stalwart French ally. However, Macron and the Quay d’Orsay’s support for Déby’s son Mahamat may backfire at the expense of future French influence. Burkina Faso, Niger, and other Sahelian countries watch their neighbors carefully. Momentum matters. They will not hesitate to kick France while it is down, especially if alternatives exist.

France’s unwillingness to recognize regional competition has also taken its toll. Djibouti, for example, was once France’s strategic backstop. Until a decade ago, Djibouti was home to the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion. It subsequently moved to the United Arab Emirates and then back to France. Meanwhile, China has become the dominant influence in the former French colony. Nor is China alone. Turkey is using anti-French, anti-colonialist rhetoric to cultivate former French colonies across Africa. In the most infamous example, Ahmet Kavas, the Turkish ambassador to Chad, lauded Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and accused French troops fighting them of being the real terrorists.

The hemorrhage in French influence is now obvious, but it has been in the works for years.

For Washington, two questions arise. The first is why France ignored warning signs, and whether something similar could happen to the United States’ influence. While the United States does not have a colonial legacy in Africa, it does have a history of supporting Cold War and Global War on Terror-era human rights abuses that Washington may have forgotten but locals in various countries have not. The second is the price of complacency. France should never have allowed China to out-compete it in Djibouti, nor should it have allowed Turkey to cultivate more influence in many Francophone countries than France itself.

Another question for American policymakers then becomes whether they are fine with China, Iran, and Turkey filling France’s leadership gap. Although the White House and the State Department may publicly deny something to that effect, both agencies appear unwilling to do anything to avoid a similar outcome.

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Reuters.

It was always interesting speaking with those who escaped tyranny when I began my studies. My intention was not to educate myself on the nature of those regimes nor even challenge those ideas in my youth, but to understand the effect on individuals who survived the physical and mental struggle of a failed society. I was told that in my country, everyone believed everything they were told by the Government, where as in her country of Czechoslovakia, no one trusted anything they Government ever said. This view of the world is meant to not only keep one’s life from becoming suspect to the tyranny of their Government, but also to maintain one’s own sanity in a place that was a physical and mental prison, designed to enshrine corruption above and beyond a person’s natural rights.

While literature classes in an English speaking atmosphere often encourages students to follow novels based on British traditions and society, it was more useful to me to study places similar to where my family originated from. With a diverse background also came a diversity of places that were subject to different types of tyranny. While these places differed greatly, tyranny often crushes one’s humanity in a similar fashion. The works of Czech author Milan Kundera was notable, as a person who wrote about life under Communism post the Prague Spring. As described by my colleague at the time, their society was one where people only communicated in whispers, and were weary of neighbours, friends and family as the secret police loomed over every action of every citizens. The beginning of tyranny was as interesting as its end, with Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago showing how the makers and helpers of society will always be turned into criminals by a One Party State, and with the Polish filmmakers Kieslowski’s film Blanc/White showing an emergence from a gray and dead Communist Poland at the end of the Cold War, with the spirit of Solidarnosc giving light to freedom of the country and the individual.

I found out once studying comparative policy between the EU and Latin America that Milan Kundera was popular as well in the South America. While not under Communism, many countries in Latin America also suffered from military dictatorships well into the late 80s and beyond. Despite there being little in common between Czech and Latin American culture on the surface, the isolation and torment of living under a dictatorship in Latin America in those years can be clearly understood by those living under Communism in places like Prague in 1968, Budapest in 1956, Warsaw and Gdansk in the early 80s and East Berlin in the late 80s.

Lessons from this era of tyranny is not lost in modern times. Some tenants of free thinkers are sacrosanct, and movements like Solidarnosc in Poland has proven that persistent, peaceful and coordinated protest movements can heal a society. Latin American academic Guillermo O’Donnell studied the transition of military dictatorships into democratic nations during his studies, and he showed that there are different aspects of democracies that need to all function in order to produce a healthy and free society. Institutions and grassroots movements need to be married to clear and unwavering property rights and an open society built on free speech. The basic rules of laws should never be suspended, as those with unchecked power will corrupt them without fail. A free media should in a manner be part of the checks and balances on a society, as when a media is controlled or works for the Government, they tend to decay the checks and balances instead of functioning to challenge those in power to ensure a free society.

Democracies work in order to create methods and guarantee rights so that citizens never have to live in silence. If a society is crumbling, a Government will promote individuals operating on a level of subsistence just to maintain their food, shelter and basic needs so opposing views remain powerless. The checks and balances function to relieve pressures in society so that citizens can be confident that a small, elite group cannot choose to extinguish their rights, their property and their lives. Without these values to release pressures and tensions in a democracy, a country will vacillate violently between oligopolies, kleptocracies, military dictatorships, and one party states. Democracy is not just about voting ever few years, its about being able to be a human and have a free voice in a multidimensional and institutionally healthy community.

Ethen Kim Lieser

Student Loan Debt, United States

Biden is forgiving student loans for those who attended certain for-profit Universities. 

In the Biden administration’s latest concerted effort to cancel student loan debt, the Department of Education has announced that it will wipe out $415 million in federal loans owed by nearly 16,000 borrowers who attended certain for-profit schools.

“The Department remains committed to giving borrowers discharges when the evidence shows their college violated the law and standards,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement on Wednesday. “Students count on their colleges to be truthful. Unfortunately, today’s findings show too many instances in which students were misled into loans at institutions or programs that could not deliver what they’d promised,” he continued.

To date, under Cardona, the department has canceled a total of roughly $2 billion in borrower defense claims from more than 107,000 individuals. “When colleges and career schools put their own interests ahead of students, we will not look the other way,” Federal Student Aid Chief Operating Officer Richard Cordray said in a statement.

“We are grateful to have strong enforcement and oversight partners, such as the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in Colorado, Illinois, and New Mexico. These offices provided key evidence that played a significant role in reaching the findings announced today. Moving forward, we intend to expand our collaboration with federal and state partners to serve students,” he added.

DeVry in Focus

One of those for-profit schools affected by the announcement is DeVry University, which was found to have misled prospective students from 2008 to 2015. The school falsely claimed that 90 percent of its graduates were able to land jobs in their particular fields of study within six months of graduation. However, in reality, the job placement rate was sitting at 58 percent, according to the Education Department.

Donna Shaults, a spokesperson for DeVry University, told CNBC that the school’s board and leadership have changed since the initial allegations. “Nonetheless, we do believe that the Department of Education mischaracterizes DeVry’s calculation and disclosure of graduate outcomes in certain advertising, and we do not agree with the conclusions they have reached,” she said.

Freezing Seizures

In recent weeks, the Education Department has also decided to freeze the seizures of tax refunds, Social Security, and other government payments involving federal student loans that are in default.

The department—in addition to other federal and state agencies—have the authority to collect on delinquent debt via the Treasury Offset Program, which was paused due to the coronavirus pandemic. That policy ends after May 1, but the Education Department will hold off on restarting collection for six months after the moratorium concludes.

“This policy means you won’t lose money from certain government payments, such as the child tax credit, Social Security payments, and tax refunds for the 2022 tax season,” the agency’s website says.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters 

Stephen Silver

Child Tax Credit, United States

Does the expanded child tax credit reduce poverty?

The expanded child tax, which was sent to American families for the last seven months of 2021, was part of the American Rescue Plan Act, a bill signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2021. The credit, which included direct payments to most American families between July and December, had an immediate effect in reducing childhood poverty and hunger. 

However, the credit expired at the end of last year, and when the Build Back Better spending package failed to pass the Senate, payments were paused indefinitely. But, last week, the White House held a “day of action” to encourage people to claim their benefits, while Senate Democrats continued to advocate for the credit’s revival. Yet, despite such measures, the credit’s future remains unclear.

CNBC looked at how families are being impacted by the loss of payments. 

ParentsTogether Action reported the result of a survey that found 57 percent of respondents said “it has been more difficult to meet their family’s basic needs” since the child tax credit payments stopped. A full 22 percent said they “have been unable to meet their family’s basic needs.” And more than 70 percent said it was “extremely important” for Congress to extend the credit. 

“Thanks to opposition from Senator Joe Manchin and all 50 Republicans, the Senate failed to pass the Build Back Better Act in December, effectively abandoning millions of American parents relying on the expanded Child Tax Credit to survive as the pandemic raged. Parents have used this money to pay for the basic necessities: food, housing, and childcare,” Justin Rubenn, co-director of ParentsTogether Action, said in the announcement. “Now, as the second missed payment approaches, millions of families are on the brink.” 

The Case For the Credit 

Also this week, Gary Cunningham, the CEO of Prosperity Now, penned an op-ed in The Hill,  calling for the expanded child tax credit to be restored because it reduced poverty in 2021. 

“Congress must now decide whether to leave American families and children with a broken promise of increased opportunity for financial well-being and equity or to act immediately by extending the CTC expansion,” Cunningham wrote. “We urge lawmakers to consider the negative impact the absence of the enhancement of this earned benefit would have on low-income and working families across the country and act accordingly.”

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Misinformation,

Federal stimulus checks were sent out twice in 2020 and again in 2021, as the government sought to deal with the continuing pandemic. However, no further rounds of stimulus checks followed after last spring’s American Rescue Plan Act. Now, a viral Facebook video is claiming another round is coming, but it’s been widely debunked.

Federal stimulus checks were sent out twice in 2020 and again in 2021, as the government sought to deal with the continuing pandemic. However, no further rounds of stimulus checks followed after last spring’s American Rescue Plan Act, and despite petitions from the general public and some support from members of Congress, it’s clear that neither the White House or the leadership in Congress has prioritized any other rounds of checks. 

Now, a viral Facebook video is claiming another round is coming, but it’s been widely and accurately debunked. One version of the video, from a Facebook account called Care First Homes, features an extremely crude video of President Joe Biden giving a speech over footage of him signing a bill. In a voice that sounds like that of an unskilled impersonator, Biden states that “some people in the country will start seeing those direct deposits in their bank accounts this weekend, and payments to eligible Americans will continue throughout the course of the next several weeks.” The words in the video don’t particularly match the way Biden’s lips are moving.

Alas, the video has been debunked, by Politifact, among other fact-checking outlets. “Americans expecting any such payment will be left disappointed, because the video is a fake and didn’t appear on any recent newscast,” Politifact said. The site also found that the video used in the Facebook post comes from a speech Biden delivered last November in Glasgow, Scotland, although it was about climate change, not stimulus checks. The clip of Biden signing something is from an executive order he signed in released to the chip shortage last February. 

It’s also clear from watching the videos that Biden is wearing neither the same color suit, nor the same tie. Politifact also found that the words attributed in the video to Biden were actually said by White House press secretary Jen Psaki in March 2021 after the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act.

Did Stimulus Lead to a Rise in Opioid Deaths? 

This week, Ohio’s attorney general, Dave Yost, touted a study finding a link between stimulus checks and opioid deaths. The peer-reviewed study will be published in the International Journal of Drug Policy in April. “Nobody knew that this correlation would exist. We know now. So as we think about emergency responses, it's important for us to ask how we design these programs, for example, what if it was spread out over time?” Yost said. That same attorney general, last spring, had sued the Biden Administration over the “tax mandate” in the American Rescue Plan Act. One local reporter, however, noted that the study’s conclusions are “much less definitive.”

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters 

Stephen Silver

Alabama CTC, United States

The bills, which would save families a total of $87 million, is now moving to the desk of Gov. Kay Ivey after passing nearly unanimously.

The expanded child tax credit, which expired at the end of 2021, was not renewed after the Build Back Better package supported by the Democrats failed to pass the Senate, thanks to opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) along with all fifty Senate Republicans.

Now, however, one state is moving towards passing a child tax credit of its own—and it's one of the reddest states in the country. 

According to WSFA, both houses of the state legislature in Alabama have passed what’s been described as “a tax break for families who received the federal child tax credit.” The bills, which would save families a total of $87 million, is now moving to the desk of Gov. Kay Ivey after passing nearly unanimously. 

“If you have two children, this is probably right around $200 that they will not pay,” Sen. Dan Roberts, sponsor of SB152 in the Senate, told WSFA. “They’ll get a tax credit on it and save them $200 in taxes.”

“One of the problems was that people were working, and their children were not in school. So they had to pay extra money to help somebody take care of their children while at work,” Rep. Jim Carns, the House sponsor, told the news outlet. 

According to AL.com, which cited the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), when the expanded child credit was passed at the federal level, 91 percent of Alabamians spent the money on “basic things such as food, clothing, rent, mortgage and utilities.” That percentage for most states was in the 1980s or 1990s, although in some parts of the country it was in the 1970s. 

“Extending the expanded credit and making the Child Tax Credit fully available on a permanent basis to families with low incomes would improve children’s lives in the near and long term and benefit society overall in important ways,” the CBPP report said. “Additional income is linked to better outcomes for children in families with low income, including better educational performance and attainment, higher earnings in adulthood, and better health, which can yield benefits for children and their communities over the course of their lives, studies show.”

Indeed, a report this week by the Center on Poverty & Social Policy at Columbia University found that while the enactment of the expanded child tax credit successfully reduced child poverty last year, the credit’s expiration caused it to rise again. 

“The monthly child poverty rate increased from 12.1 percent in December 2021 to 17 percent in January 2022, the highest rate since the end of 2020,” the Center’s report said, adding that the expiration put 3.7 million more children in poverty. 

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters
 

Ethen Kim Lieser

Inflation, United States

St. Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard warned Thursday that without central bank action on interest rates, inflation could become an even more serious issue going forward.

Much to the dismay of already cash-strapped, pandemic-weary Americans, it was recently reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) surged 7.5 percent in January year-over-year—the fastest rate witnessed since way back in February 1982.

Then, not to be outdone, the Producer Price Index (PPI)—which tracks average price changes the country’s producers get paid for their goods and services over time—steadily climbed higher 9.7 percent over the same period.

Even with such data points in hand, though, there still appears to be disagreements over what exactly is driving these inflationary pressures. Is it the American Rescue Plan that approved another round of stimulus checks and the enhanced child tax credit? Or perhaps higher consumer demand amid the ongoing supply chain crisis?

"There’s a confluence of factors—it’s both,” David Wessel, the director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, recently told NBC News.

"There’s a lot of things that pushed up demand and a lot that’s kept supply from responding accordingly, as a result we have inflation,” he continued.

Too Much Stimulus?

Wessel also noted that there is likely a link between surging demand and roughly $5 trillion worth of stimulus packages approved during the Trump and the Biden administrations.

Dean Baker, the co-founder of Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that the stimulus was necessary for the pandemic-hit economy, but it also propelled Americans to buy more products rather than services just as the supply chain was showing signs of fractures.

"I see it as secondary, but there’s no doubt it was a factor in driving inflation,” he told NBC.

Action Needed Now

Regardless of what’s exactly causing the higher prices, St. Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard warned Thursday that without central bank action on interest rates, inflation could become an even more serious issue going forward.

"We’re at more risk now than we’ve been in a generation that this could get out of control,” he said during a panel talk at Columbia University, per CNBC.

"One scenario would be … a new surprise that hits us that we can’t anticipate right now, but we would have even more inflation. That’s the kind of situation that we want to … make sure it doesn’t occur,” he continued, adding that “there’s been too much emphasis and too much mindshare devoted to the idea that inflation will dissipate at some point in the future.”

Legendary investor Charlie Munger also recently weighed in on the high stakes that are at play amid the current high-inflationary environment.

"Inflation is a very serious subject, you could argue it is the way democracies die,” the ninety-eight-year-old vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.

He also noted that it was only after years of inflation when “eventually the whole damn Roman Empire collapsed, so [the current situation] is the biggest long-range danger we have, apart from nuclear war.”

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters

 

 

Trevor Filseth

U.K. Visa Program, Europe

Russian influence looms large in the decision by the U.K. government to cancel its visa program that gives a direct pathway to legal residence within the country to foreign investors

The British government indicated on Thursday that it would end its “golden visa” program, which gives a direct pathway to legal residence within the United Kingdom to foreign investors, over concerns that the system was being taken advantage of by figures with connections to corruption and organized crime.

The Home Office made the announcement, claiming that the system had allowed for “corrupt elites to access the UK.” It added that the visas had, in some cases, led to security concerns, “including people acquiring their wealth illegitimately and being associated with wider corruption,” and indicated that the system was being shut down immediately and would not accept any further applicants.

Although the announcement did not single out any country for accusations of corruption, the decision is widely perceived to be aimed at Russia. Thousands of wealthy Russian emigres with connections to the country’s state-owned oil and gas companies live in London; many of them have ties to President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle, although some are political exiles opposed to the Kremlin.

The “golden visa” system, which was introduced in 2008, offered permanent residency to an investor and his or her family if he or she invested 2 million pounds, or $2.7 million, in the UK. Prior to the program’s shutdown, concerns had been raised that it made it easier for foreign investors to launder money, and Home Secretary Priti Patel framed the program as part of a broader crackdown on illicit finance, rather than as a political tool against Russia as part of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian crisis.

“I want to ensure the British people have confidence in the system, including stopping corrupt elites who threaten our national security and push dirty money around our cities,” Patel said, adding that the country’s immigration system would be reformed to prevent national security concerns but would maintain incentives for investment.

As Russian troops have built up along its border with Ukraine, fears of an invasion have led many European countries, including the UK, to craft sanctions policies for use against the Kremlin if Russia intervenes in Ukraine. To a large extent, prior sanctions policies have focused on blocking Russian oligarchs’ financial access to Europe rather than attempting to disrupt the livelihoods of ordinary Russian citizens.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday that the British government had decided to implement a variety of “tough sanctions against the Russian regime, against big Russian companies – organizations of strategic importance.”

“Also [by] making sure that we stop the raising of funds by Russian companies on London financial markets,” the prime minister added.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Prashanth Parameswaran

Pivot to Asia, Indo-Pacific

The weight of the U.S. commitment challenge now rests with the Biden administration as it embarks on implementing its Indo-Pacific strategy in Southeast Asia.

The Biden administration’s newly released Indo-Pacific strategy, which builds on the Trump administration’s work on the concept, directs the United States to strengthen its commitment to the Indo-Pacific and “firmly anchor” itself across the region. As Washington looks to do so in Southeast Asia, it should pay particular attention to sustaining its engagement, especially given its historical involvement in the region.

As I argue in my new book, Elusive Balances: Shaping U.S.-Southeast Asia Strategy, applying a “balance of commitment” approach to understanding U.S. policy towards Southeast Asia suggests that U.S. policymakers have found it challenging to calibrate between shifts in power, threats, and resources to increase American commitment in a sustained, calibrated way that reflects Southeast Asia’s growing importance over the past half-century. For instance, following the 9/11 attacks, terrorism consumed the George W. Bush administration’s Southeast Asia approach. Subsequently, Barack Obama’s desire to broaden Washington’s focus led U.S. policy to fall short on resourcing in some areas.

The weight of the U.S. commitment challenge now rests with the Biden administration as it embarks on implementing its Indo-Pacific strategy in Southeast Asia. While the combination of a tougher domestic consensus on China, deepening polarization, an ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and a string of other foreign policy issues, including Russia’s military maneuvers in Ukraine, is no doubt a contested context, there are steps that the Biden team can take to better manage this challenge across the economic, diplomatic, and security realms.

First, the Biden administration must find sustainable ways to enter into economic commitments with key Southeast Asian states. Historically, this has proven difficult with respect to trade pacts across multiple administrations, be it Bush’s bilateral approach that faltered with countries like Malaysia and Thailand, or the multilateral approach with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with four Southeast Asian countries—Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam—that failed to gain approval domestically.

The Biden administration’s recently-proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) offers a starting point for cooperation, particularly in realms like the digital economy where agreements are proliferating and there is an opportunity for a broader regional pact. Even if such sectoral agreements may not require congressional approval under the lapsed trade promotion authority, legislative involvement will be key to reassure partners that the rules and principles being negotiated are binding and durable.

Second, the Biden team should look at creative ways to find a more dispersed approach with respect to U.S. security personnel and equipment in Southeast Asia that extends beyond current locations, as it has begun to do with its Global Posture Review released last November. Sustainable progress in this area has proven challenging to date in spite of the acknowledgement by both Democratic and Republican administrations following the Cold War that a diversified presence will help insulate Washington from political changes in Thailand or the Philippines, as we saw with the closure of U.S. bases in Subic and Clark.

To be sure, basing-like arrangements per se may not gain much traction in parts of Southeast Asia. Yet looser agreements or less ambitious starting points, such as the prepositioning of certain U.S. equipment ahead of natural disasters, port visits for U.S. vessels, or even stopover points for multilateral, U.S.-led exercises covering areas like military medicine, would at least begin normalizing the notion of a more distributed U.S. security presence in Southeast Asia across a larger group of countries. To manage sensitivities, this could even leverage existing work by Southeast Asian countries and U.S. allies and partners in certain spaces within the region, be it the Mekong subregion or the Sulu Sea. 

Third, the Biden team should elevate and expand institutionalized diplomatic dialogues with Southeast Asian countries to ensure that their strategic importance in U.S. policymaking endures despite ebbs, flows, and imbalances across administrations. While the administration’s flood of cabinet-level officials to Southeast Asia during its first year of office is no doubt impressive, institutionalizing engagements would at the very least help limit the fallout on relationships if countries see reduced interest under future administrations. This is certainly possible given the reality that these ties often do not receive the same prioritization of key countries in other subregions, be it South Korea or India.

A major priority in this regard is the U.S.-Indonesia strategic partnership, which was initially started under President Barack Obama has since been relaunched under President Joe Biden. In addition to Indonesia’s traditional leadership role within Southeast Asia, Jakarta is also undergoing a period where foreign policy will be an elevated priority by circumstance, with Indonesia hosting the G-20 in 2022 and then the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2023, while also occupying the position of U.S.-ASEAN dialogue partner coordinator out to 2024.

The United States should also pay attention to smaller countries in Southeast Asia that have outsized importance. For example, Laos is at the forefront of U.S.-China competition in Southeast Asia but typically finds it more difficult to attract sustained attention from U.S. policymakers. Looking further out, gains in U.S.-Laos ties, if sustained in the next one to two years, could pave the way for an elevation of the U.S.-Laos comprehensive partnership when Laos inherits the ASEAN chairmanship in 2024, which could see Biden himself visit Laos for the round of Asian summitry to be held there.

Of course, building a sustained U.S. commitment in Southeast Asia is not without its challenges. The Biden administration will need to juggle the twin realities that the United States is a domestically-consumed global power and also one that is looking to be more involved in the Indo-Pacific more generally. Engaging some Southeast Asian states could also prove challenging, either due to their own domestic circumstances or their wariness about being dragged into the throes of intensifying U.S.-China competition.

Nonetheless, the momentum generated by the Biden administration in Southeast Asia during its first year, coupled with the clear approach set out in the Indo-Pacific strategy, offers a firm foundation to build a sustainable regional policy. An easing of the Covid-19 pandemic could also pave the way for more face-to-face interactions beyond existing plans for the first-ever U.S.-ASEAN Summit to be held in Washington, DC.

In a letter to the Heritage Foundation in 1986, Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew remarked that “Southeast Asians are more accurately aware of the uncertainties of U.S. policies than other regions of the world.” While that comment was far from surprising given the history of U.S. commitment to the region, one hopes that the Biden administration and others after it will be able to add at least a bit more certainty for Southeast Asian policymakers in the years to come.

Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran is a Fellow at the Asia Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars based in Washington, DC. His new book is Elusive Balances: Shaping U.S.-Southeast Asia Strategy.

Image: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris attends a roundtable at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore before departing for Vietnam on the second leg of her Asia trip, August, 24, 2021. Reuters.

Jeffrey Jeb Nadaner, Alexander B. Gray

Supply Chains, United States

It does America little good to win the innovation battle for the state-of-the-art if our military, ground transportation, and infrastructure grind to a halt for lack of the common essentials, including a reliable supply of semiconductors.

A recent Commerce Department survey found that U.S. manufacturers had only five days’ worth of the semiconductors needed to sustain production lines (compared to a roughly forty days-supply just three years ago). In 2021, many U.S. auto assembly lines nearly shut down from a global supply crunch on the semiconductors now ubiquitous in modern cars and much else in American life. All this following nearly two years of Covid-19-exacerbated shortages—first, medical equipment, then computer chips, and, more recently, consumer goods of all types.

Towards the end of last year, the Biden administration tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in response to rising gas prices. Whatever the merits of that decision, the existence of the stockpile provides a measure of both market and geopolitical stability. The federal government also maintains, with decidedly mixed success, stockpiles for personal protective equipment (created after 9/11 and nearly empty when Covid-19 began), critical minerals, and even helium. Nonetheless, given the dependencies revealed and accentuated by the pandemic, it is past time to consider expanding the scope of products and materials kept under strategic reserve—starting with semiconductors.

Until recently, the merits of stockpiling any manufactured product were a largely academic discussion. Global supply chains generally delivered on time and at an agreeable cost. Commercial businesses were geared to avoid excess at all costs. Popular management techniques called for ruthless efficiency, or “just in time” delivery, leaving the private sector—and the country—vulnerable to even short interruptions.

But times are changing rapidly, both geopolitically and economically. Should escalating tensions with China lead to a rapid decrease in semiconductor imports, America’s critical infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and even the basic capacity of the U.S. military to operate effectively would be dangerously degraded.

Recognizing these vulnerabilities, the U.S. Congress has recently considered legislation—including the CHIPS Act passing the Senate and the America Competes Act just introduced in the House—that will invest tens of billions of dollars to support U.S. semiconductor research, development, and production. These are important steps but will take multiple years and yet more investment to establish new production and supply systems (a new chip foundry is a multi-billion-dollar capital investment, in addition to the maze of regulations and other costs associated with any new industrial project in the United States.)

In the meantime, a dangerously high percentage of microelectronics products consumed in the United States are produced either in China (packaging and lower-end chips) or Taiwan and South Korea (more advanced semiconductors), which are potentially subject to Chinese coercion and blockade. The vulnerabilities apply not just to the advanced semiconductors found in nearly every new commercial and military system, but lower-value components like the surrounding packaging (98 percent of which is produced in Asia).

There is a basic supply and demand disconnect that cannot be addressed through the usual market forces and government incentives. We are confronted with a significant microelectronics problem in the present day. This cannot wait to be solved in the indefinite future.

To ensure an adequate supply of semiconductors of all types—from obsolete to legacy to leading edge—in the near term requires a strategic stockpile for microelectronics. It would, among other purposes, add an element of uncertainty and even deterrence to Chinese strategic calculations. The Chinese government can exert significant leverage over the United States by forcing a slow-down or outright halt to semiconductors imported from Asia. The known presence of significant domestic reserves would complicate those plans.

A concerted U.S. government effort would—via bulk purchases, tax incentives, or other policies—acquire and set aside up to a month’s worth of the most commonly used microelectronics items from existing sources. The priority would go towards products not being generated in large quantities already by commercial markets. Unlike the Defense Department’s other reserves, the semiconductor stockpile should be available to alleviate supply shocks impacting civil and commercial sectors. Additionally, microelectronics supply levels should be maintained irrespective of market or budget considerations—meaning it cannot be a profit center for the government.

While there is understandable hesitation to “militarize” such tasks, the Defense Department is a natural home for such a stockpile. The Pentagon’s stewardship of the National Defense Stockpile of critical minerals and metals has left much to be desired, as documented by the Biden administration’s supply chain report last year. Still, there is no denying the U.S. military’s proficiency at large-scale logistics, especially compared to the rest of the federal government. For example, it was the Pentagon that stepped in to ensure sufficient supplies of ventilators and other life-saving equipment at the onset of Covid-19 and led the effort to develop a vaccine for the virus.

Ultimately, it does America little good to win the innovation battle for the state-of-the-art if our military, ground transportation, and infrastructure grind to a halt for lack of the common essentials, including a reliable supply of semiconductors. Congress and the administration have a viable model upon which to base the solution.

Jeffrey Jeb Nadaner is Executive Director of SAFE Commanding Heights a bipartisan initiative to secure critical industrial supply chains, and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy.

Alexander B. Gray is a former Chief of Staff of the National Security Council and a Senior Fellow with SAFE Commanding Heights.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Huessy

Arms Control, Eurasia

Unless China can be persuaded to change its attitude toward transparency in its nuclear forces and deterrent policies, and that Russia and China both agree to seriously put all strategic and regional nuclear forces on the table for verifiable limits, arms control may go away as a major construct of U.S. deterrent policy.

Nuclear arms control has been a fact of U.S. strategic deterrent efforts since at least 1972 when the Nixon administration and Congress ratified the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the SALT I or Strategic Arms Limitation Talks agreement with the USSR. While the Johnson administration had started arms negotiation with the Soviet Union, the Glassboro Summit Conference did not produce an agreement.

The new impetus for the agreement came from the Soviet side, which in turn had been spurred by the Johnson administration’s push in 1967 for a limited or “thin” missile defense shield aimed at deflecting China’s new nuclear forces.

Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev called President-elect Richard Nixon and pushed for immediate discussions to ban all missile defenses. The Soviets were convinced that the “thin” missile defense was simply a clever means of masking America’s real intention: to build defenses against Soviet nuclear forces.

Nixon responded positively to Brezhnev’s outreach but offered a twist. He proposed the two countries negotiate an agreement on offensive nuclear forces as well, which the Soviets eventually accepted as they had been trailing the US in the scope of their nuclear forces.

The resulting ban on continental U.S. missile defenses (except for an allowed nominal deployment of 100 interceptors) and the SALT I Treaty started more than fifty years of arms control that has become an inextricable part of U.S. strategic deterrence.

While SALT was described as arms control, the treaty did allow a huge increase in deployed, in the field strategic (long-range) nuclear weapons, from roughly the 2,000 deployed at the time to around 10,000-12,000. What was limited were the total number of what were termed SNDVs, or strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, which included ballistic missiles at sea, on land, and on strategic nuclear bombers. At the time, the United States was just beginning to add multiple warheads to its arsenal of Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and Poseidon sea-launched missiles, which at the time both had only a single warhead each.

While the Poseidon had roughly the same range of the Polaris, it could carry upwards of fourteen warheads on each of the sixteen missiles on thirty-one submarines, with double the accuracy, giving the U.S. a hypothetical nuclear deterrent force of nearly 7,000 warheads, with somewhere around at least one-third on patrol at any time.

At the same time, 500 Minuteman III missiles were deployed between 1970 and 1975, with three rather than one warhead each, with improved accuracy and range. 450 Minuteman II missiles would remain in the force, having been first deployed in 1966. They were later taken off alert and removed from their silos in 1991 by then-President George H.W. Bush with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact.

Throughout the 1970s, U.S. total deployed warheads did markedly increase, but efforts to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including the MX missile, the Ohio-class submarine, the C-4 sea-launched ballistic missile, and the new B-1 and B-2 bombers and air-launched cruise missile, suffered from major funding delays and lack of support. The post-Vietnam era along with détente and peaceful coexistence narratives of U.S. foreign policy markedly reduced support for U.S. military spending, including nuclear modernization.

Like Sputnik in 1957, the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan stopped the downward spiral in U.S. defense spending. President Jimmy Carter proposed a defense increase of 6 percent in 1980 but it would not be until November 1981 that the United States announced a comprehensive nuclear modernization and arms control proposal designed to counter the worsening correlation of forces which the Soviets believed favored Moscow.

For example, the SALT II Treaty of 1979, pulled from Senate consideration by the Carter administration when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, allowed for a continued buildup in Soviet forces, even as SALT II supporters urged the United States to abide by its terms.

During much of the 1980s, Ronald Reagan warned about the growing imbalance between the United States and the Soviet Union when he spoke about Moscow’s growing military power, a key concern of the 1976 recreated Committee on the Present Danger.

But Reagan was not just pushing for more offense. He also supported two elements of a deterrent strategy that were new. He first supported missile defenses and saw defenses not as a substitute for deterrence—a criticism his opponents got wrong—but as a bulwark adding to deterrence, as well as major reductions in nuclear weapons, as opposed to the joint agreed to build up characterized by the SALT process.

In addition, Reagan was very cognizant by the 1980 presidential campaign that the Soviets were not abiding by their treaty commitments. Thus, Reagan would eventually adopt the phrase, “Trust but verify.”

By the late 1980s, the Soviets were deploying over 10,000 long-range or strategic nuclear weapons. While the Soviets relied on multiple-warhead land-based missiles that were on nearly full alert, the United States relied primarily on sea-based systems, where roughly one-third were always in port, while another one-third were in transit and the final third on patrol.

So, while the SALT process allowed each nation to have an equal number of deployed countable warheads, on a day-to-day basis the Soviets had more fast flying missiles “ready to go” than the United States. This “window of vulnerability” was characterized by critics of détente and peaceful coexistence as a danger to U.S. security that could not be altered if not taken seriously.

There was also the added danger of the huge Soviet throw-weight advantage or ability to add thousands more missile warheads to its SALT accountable force that contributed to the strategic imbalance.  

But with a new peace through strength strategy, three new arms deals were completed in 1987, 1991, and 1993, with Presidents Reagan and Bush markedly reducing Soviet and then Russian deployed nuclear forces. Gone was the entirety of the Soviet-era SS-20 INF range missiles. Under START I and II, deployed Russian and U.S. strategic warheads were projected to drop nearly 90 percent.

With the Moscow Treaty signed in 2002 and the New START Treaty ratified in 2010 and extended in 2021, it is often assumed the reduction to a nominal 1,550 deployed, accountable long-range nuclear warheads can simply be extended even lower towards the global zero level supported by the disarmament community and its political supporters.

Well, not so fast.

All arms control deals are not equal. The SALT process produced a massive buildup, while the initial START process produced reductions through unique, highly verifiable accounting rules. However, the current New START process assumes Russian compliance with treaty requirements that cannot be fully verified.

In addition, even though the START SNDV force the Russians maintain is assumed to be no more than slightly above 500 missiles and bombers, a great number of long-range or strategic Russian nuclear forces may not be contained within the New START framework, to say nothing of the Russian stockpile of 2,000-4,000 tactical nuclear weapons that are not counted under any arms control agreement.

Added to this imbalance is that Russia can upload many of its land-based missiles, to where additional thousands of warheads could be added to its strategic arsenal if Moscow breaks out from the current treaty limits.

But the dangers do not stop there. While the New START Treaty nominally limits Russian warheads to 1,550, with the allowed Russian bombers counting only as sixty warheads, (the same counting rules that also apply to the United States), China’s growing nuclear arsenal is not contained in any manner—by New START or any other agreement.

Although one could argue that China, as an exclusive member of the UN Security Council and signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is obligated by international law to engage in reasonable efforts to “end the arms race” and limit “nuclear proliferation,” Beijing has done none of these things.

In fact, China’s entire nuclear arsenal remains hidden from view, although minimal assessments see it growing to at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, a more than 300 percent growth from its current force level, which the head of United States Strategic Command recently described as “breathtaking.”

And as U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Fred Stoss told the Fourteenth Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit on February 7, 2022, China has constructed three new ICBM missile fields with at least 120 silos in each field, reportedly capable of holding DF-41 missiles with ten warheads each.

In addition, as former U.S. Air Force secretary Thomas Reed has detailed, has been the world’s biggest nuclear weapons technology proliferator, including to countries such as North Kora, Pakistan, Libya, Iran, and Iraq. Hardly a major power guilty of nothing but a “peaceful rise.”

Thus, the United States faces some serious challenges. Not only is it facing two conventionally armed peer adversaries in Russia and China, both are nuclear-armed, a marked change from the Cold War where Washington faced one conventionally armed peer force that was also heavily armed with nuclear weapons.

As top nuclear analysts like Hal Brands and Rob Soofer and Matt Costlow have recently outlined, when the New START Treaty and companion U.S. deterrent strategy were adopted in 2010 (as reflected in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review), it was assumed that the United States would only be facing one power with significant numbers of nuclear forces (Russia), and even then the narrative was that a more relaxed relationship with Russia—a “reset”—was in the offing.

Fast forward a decade: relations with Russia are now significantly more hostile. Major elements of Russia’s nuclear arsenal are completely modernized (over 88 percent according to Putin), while the entirety of China’s nuclear forces remains beyond any limits.

Thus, the United States is facing at least a two-to-one imbalance in strategic nuclear forces, and a ten or twenty-to-one imbalance in theater nuclear systems, while having to undertake deterrent policies both protecting the U.S. homeland and U.S. allies.  

The implications for nuclear deterrence and arms control could thus not be starker. Contrary to the assumption that arms control could continue a somewhat automatic slide of reductions toward zero, the United States is facing the prospects—for the first time in multiple decades—that projected modern force levels of twelve Columbia-class submarines, 400 Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent ICBMs, and some sixty bombers will not provide an adequate future deterrent.

What then should we make of Congress’ assumption that nuclear modernization and arms control are two sides of the same nuclear deterrent coin, that one must go with the other? Unless China can be persuaded to change its attitude toward transparency in its nuclear forces and deterrent policies, and that Russia and China both agree to seriously put all strategic and regional nuclear forces on the table for verifiable limits, the United States is now entering an era where nuclear modernization is a task bigger than what it had previously planned, and arms control may go away as a major construct of U.S. deterrent policy.

Peter Huessy is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and President of GeoStrategic Analysis. These views are his own.

Image: Reuters.

Peter Suciu

Admiral Nakhimov, Europe

Even with this news, it could be well into next year before Admiral Nakhimov is back in service with the Russian Navy.

Last April, the Russian Navy announced that the refit and upgrades to the Project 11442M heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov were running behind schedule, and that the handover of the warship to the fleet would be delayed. While it was reported that the delays could stretch into 2023, it was announced on Thursday that the work had progressed and the ship is being prepared for handover.

"The Sevmash Shipyard has begun setting up and training the delivery team for the Project 11442M ship. The crew will comprise workers, builders, adjustment and test engineers, designers, technologists and specialists of other professions. Overall, the delivery team will comprise over 1,000 people," the press office of the Sevmash Shipyard said in a statement to TASS.

Even with this news, it could be well into next year before Admiral Nakhimov is back in service with the Russian Navy. The press office stated that after all the work on the missile cruiser is concluded, the warship will deploy to the sea where the delivery team and the crew will check the vessel prior to deployment.

Significant Upgrades

The Sevmash Shipyard has been modernizing and upgrading the Project 11442M cruiser since 2013, while the ship first entered the facilities nearly twenty-five years ago. By the time the cruiser returns to service, she will have spent more time undergoing repairs than the time it took on her initial construction and service with the Russian Navy combined.

In fact, the refit has been nearly a full rebuild of the ship. According to reports, large-scale internal work has been conducted, while specialists have been mounting equipment, systems and assemblies, painting and insulating the vessel. The press office also stated that specialists will load onto the cruiser and install over 5,000 items of equipment and more than a million of various items, and about 200 km of pipelines and 1,800 km of cables will be laid on the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet's future flagship. All of the electric installation work has been carried out by specialists of the Arktika enterprise.

The project designer, the Severnoye Design Bureau, created a 3D model of the warship that is being used in the upgrade and refit.

The Kirov-class heavy cruiser joined the Soviet Navy as the Kalinin in 1988. She was renamed in 1992 in honor of Pavel Nakhimov, the admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy who commanded the naval and land forces during the Siege of Sevastopol during the 1850s Crimean War.

Her actual service with the Russian Navy was short-lived. By the end of the Cold War, Admiral Nakhimov had rarely been deployed. She entered the Sevmash shipyard in 1997, and since 1999 has been permanently docked while waiting for the refit to be completed.

However, despite the time-consuming efforts, Moscow has repeatedly touted the capabilities Admiral Nakhimov will have after the upgrades are complete. The heavy cruiser will reportedly carry ten versatile shipborne launchers for eight Kalibr-NK or Oniks cruise missiles, and eventually will be armed with Tsirkon hypersonic missiles.

Of course, the ship has to actually be completed, and despite Russia's claims, it could be years before this warship heads out to sea again.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

Image: Wikipedia.

Kris Osborn

Russia-Ukraine Crisis, Russia

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he can’t speak “to the strength of (the Russia-China) alliance,” but said China's tacit approval of Russia's actions raises important questions.

While the world is focused on a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon is keeping a close eye on China as well. 

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said he is concerned about what he called China’s support of Vladimir Putin’s recent actions. 

“We did note, with alarm, China's tactic approval of Putin’s activities here in the region,” Austin said during a press conference in Brussels on Thursday. 

Austin said he can’t speak “to the strength of (the Russia-China) alliance,” but said recent events raise important questions. He said the United States will continue to monitor the relationship between Russia and China moving forward.

The Russian and Chinese militaries have held meetings and joint exercises, but the interests of the two countries do not fully align. China’s primary interest, at least at the moment, looks eastward off its shores toward Taiwan. Russia’s near-term focus appears to face westward toward Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Russia and China share a long border region, but China places greater attention on its shared border with India.

However, China and Russia remain authoritarian regimes with shared hostility towards the United States and ambitions to expand outward. China may agree to stay silent, neutral, or even supportive of a Russian attack on Ukraine, if Russia agreed to endorse or offer approval to a Chinese annexation of Taiwan.

There are relatively few areas where Russian and Chinese interests might collide. Russia is unlikely to challenge the United States and China in the Pacific, given its smaller navy. Both countries, however, likely share a desire to expand influence and strategic advantages on the African continent and in Middle East.

There are certainly many unknowns, yet it is apparent that neither Russia nor China publicly airs out tension or disagreement with the other. By contrast, the two are publically demonstrating some measure of cooperation. However, it would be surprising if this cooperation would in any way lead China to any kind of military intervention in support of Russia in a conflict.

Kris Osborn is the Defense Editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Image: Reuters.

Mark Episkopos

Russia, Eastern Europe

As Kiev and Moscow-backed separatists trade renewed accusations of wartime atrocities and Russian troops remain in Belarus, the Biden administration continues to warn of an imminent Russian attack on Ukraine, one that could escalate in ways that neither Moscow nor Washington anticipates.

On Saturday, in a novel way to appeal for support, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky denounced world leaders for not aligning themselves more forcefully with his country. At the annual security conference in Munich, where Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2007 had originally decried what he depicted as America’s hubristic quest for global hegemony, Zelensky upbraided various governments for “arrogance” and “appeasement.” Even as Zelensky issued his complaints, however, Putin continued to up the pressure on Ukraine, conducting nuclear drills and taking in civilians into Russia from Donetsk.

On Friday, the People’s Republic of Donetsk (DPR), a breakaway region in Ukraine’s east, announced the mass evacuation of civilians. According to DPR head Denish Pushilin, the decision was motivated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s alleged intention "to give an order to the army shortly to switch to an offensive and implement the plan of invading the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics." Shortly following Pushilin’s announcement, the neighboring self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) also directed its citizens to evacuate immediately. Pushilin said Russia is ready to receive the Donbass evacuees in the southwestern Rostov region, with priority given to women, children, and the elderly. A large proportion of Donbass residents currently hold Russian citizenship, but Moscow officials reportedly clarified that the evacuation extends to all eligible demographics regardless of citizenship status.

The DPR leadership has leveled fresh charges, amplified by the Kremlin, that the Ukrainian military has launched a concerted shelling campaign against the Donbass separatists. Local and Russian news outlets reported an explosion in Donetsk on Friday near a government building. According to Russian state news outlet TASS, the explosion was attributed to a car belonging to DPR police chief Denis Sinenkov; preliminary reports say Sinenkov was not injured. Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, told CNN that the bombing was staged, with a U.S. State Department spokesperson describing the incident as a “false flag operation.”

Kiev claimed earlier this week that the separatists shelled a nursery school in eastern Ukraine, causing several injuries. Both sides are accusing one another of dozens of ceasefire violations in what observers say could be the opening act to a major potential conflict.

The Biden administration continues to sound warnings that Russia seeks to manufacture a pretext for invading Ukraine, possibly involving a false flag terrorist attack inside Russia or the fabricated discovery of a mass grave in Donbass. “Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing or a genocide, making a mockery of a concept that we in this chamber do not take lightly," said Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an address to the UN Security Council.

The Kremlin and influential Russian politicians are increasingly referring to the Donbass War as a “genocide.” Vyacheslav Volodin, State Speaker of the Russian Duma, accused the U.S. and EU of sweeping Kiev’s “crimes against humanity” under the rug. “We are talking about the deaths of people during the 2014 coup d'etat, when the Trade Union House in Odessa was set ablaze and during the punitive operations in Donbass," he added. "If this is not genocide, then what is?" Russian federal investigators previously claimed to have discovered five mass graves, containing as many as 295 civilians, in the broader Lugansk region.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday that Ukraine is conducting a “genocide” against the population of Donbass. “[The situation in Donbass] does not look like a genocide, it is a genocide,” she said. “Maybe not on the scale seen in Africa, but please, are we supposed to go off quantitative parameters when women, children, civilians have been dying for seven years, when people have no semblance of a peaceful life, when the sound of approaching munitions is completely normal for them?” 

The Duma voted on Tuesday to formally ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize the DPR and LPR as “sovereign and independent states.” The Russian side has continued to insist throughout this week that it has no plans to invade Ukraine, with Putin announcing a partial withdrawal of Russian troops near Ukraine’s eastern border as part of an effort to relaunch sputtering security talks with the U.S. and NATO.  But Moscow’s ongoing assurances could belie a key semantic nuance: the Kremlin may not consider Russia’s recognition and potential absorption of the breakaway Donbass republics, which are currently not under Ukrainian control, as an invasion of Ukraine. This view diverges sharply from the U.S. and Ukrainian position, which classifies any Russian incursion into internationally-recognized Ukrainian territory as an invasion.

The White House says it sees no signs of de-escalation, with recent estimates reportedly pointing to the presence of as many as 190,000 Russian troops gathered along Ukraine’s eastern border. The U.S. government said Friday that the Russian government is responsible for “wide-scale cyberattacks on Ukrainian banks this week.” Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, told reporters that the cyberattacks could lay the groundwork for more direct military action, up to and including a full-scale invasion.  The State Department announced on Thursday that Blinken has accepted an invitation to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov next week provided Russia does not initiate military action against Ukraine.

In remarks given on Friday, Biden said he believes Putin has made up his mind on invading Ukraine: “As of this moment, I am convinced he's made the decision.” When asked how he has come to this conclusion, Biden replied, “we have a significant intelligence capability.” Biden reiterated that the U.S. will not fight in Ukraine, but stressed Washington’s continued military and economic support for Kiev. “The United States and our allies and partners will support the Ukrainian people,” Biden said. “We will hold Russia accountable for its actions. The West is united and resolved. We are ready to impose severe sanctions on Russia if it further invades Ukraine,” he added. “Russia has a choice between war and all the suffering it will bring, or diplomacy that will make a future safer for everyone.”

Still, European allies are complaining that the Biden administration has not shared its intelligence about a certain Russian invasion with them. One official told the Washington Post that “we have no clear evidence ourselves that Putin has made up his mind and we have not seen anything that would suggest otherwise.” Still, Russian forces remain stationed in Belarus and Biden is hosting a meeting of the National Security Council on Sunday. Until he commits one way or other, it is Putin, and Putin alone, who will decide the immediate course of events. If he does decide upon war, then the conflict could spiral in directions that neither Moscow nor Washington anticipates.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest.

Kris Osborn

Hypersonic Weapons, United States

Raytheon has been testing hypersonic weapons designs in a wind tunnel to ensure the missiles are suited for high-speed flight and maneuvering.

The Pentagon is working to fast-track a new generation of hypersonic weapons as part of a deliberate push to close any possible technology gap between the United States, China, and Russia.

Several hypersonic weapons programs are in development, including the Air Force Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon and the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), which is slated to enter service in 2023. Prototyping, test firings, and extensive use of computer simulations and digital engineering have all helped the military accelerate hypersonic weapons. There is already work underway to engineer hypersonic weapons able to hit moving targets as well as fixed targets at long distances. 

As opposed to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) or long-range ballistic missiles, which travel along a parabolic trajectory and can be seen by satellites and radar systems early in their flight path, hypersonic weapons can fly along a much different trajectory. They are also more maneuverable, making it more difficult to detect or intercept them. 

“Hypersonic weapons stay within the upper threshold of the atmosphere and do not have a predictable flight path because of their ability to maneuver, whereas ICBMs leave the atmosphere and fly a predictable trajectory,” said Erin Kocourek, senior director of hypersonic requirements and capabilities at Raytheon Missiles & Defense, in an interview with Raytheon’s website in 2021. “Since hypersonic systems hug the Earth’s atmosphere, they don’t necessarily need to travel as far as ballistic missiles do, so the time to target is less.”

Kocourek said that the Department of Defense and Raytheon have been researching the challenges of hypersonic flight for several years.

“Heat management is one challenge – hypersonic weapons heat up as they accelerate through the atmosphere, so they require airframes that can withstand those blazing temperatures,” she said. 

Some of the thermal management challenges associated with hypersonic flight pertain to what Air Force Research Laboratory Scientists call “boundary layer phenomenology.” This refers to the airflow passing a hypersonic weapon moving at high speeds.

Hypersonic projectiles are engineered with precise aerodynamic principles because a turbulent airflow around a hypersonic projective in flight can create instability and change the flight path of the weapon. A smooth airflow helps maintain heat management as well as ensuring the weapon stays on course to destroy its target. Kocourek said Raytheon is working on this by replicating hypersonic flight conditions in wind tunnels.

“Another challenge is understanding the environment our systems will be exposed to during flight,” she said. “We can use wind tunnels to emulate hypersonic flight conditions to a degree, but it’s unclear how well these ground tests accurately capture the shock, vibration and thermal stresses that happen in flight.”

Raytheon scientists then gather vibration data from the wind tunnel in what are known as “freejet tests,” to, as Kocourek put it, “better understand the environment a scramjet creates for the rest of the system."

Kris Osborn is the Defense Editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Image: Wikipedia.

Ethen Kim Lieser

2021 Refund, United States

The agency has put out notice that most Americans should get their hands on their refunds within twenty-one days of filing.

Despite much talk of a nightmare scenario at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the current tax season is surprisingly moving along with few hiccups.  

"The IRS is off to a strong start to this year’s tax season,” the agency said in a statement.

According to NJ.com, “so far, the agency has processed 12.99 million of the 16.68 million returns it has received since the 2021 season started on January 24. Of those, 4.46 million have resulted in refunds that average $2,306, compared to last year’s average of $2,800.”

The site added that “the lower average amount could be in part because of the child tax credit, half of which was pre-paid monthly to families with qualifying children in the last six months of 2021.”

With this in mind, when exactly can taxpayers expect to see their refunds if they file their returns in the coming days?

Backlogs and Staffing Shortages

Do keep in mind that the agency still has to get through 24 million tax returns from last year. National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins recently issued a report to Congress that stated that she is “deeply concerned about the upcoming filing season.” The remaining unprocessed returns are from the “most challenging year taxpayers and tax professionals have ever experienced,” she added.

Making matters worse is the fact that the IRS is dealing with acute staffing shortages. In fact, compared to 2010, the agency has approximately 20,000 fewer employees and 20 percent less funding when adjusted for inflation, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Still, the agency has put out notice that most Americans—if they have error-free returns and file electronically—should get their hands on their refunds within twenty-one days of filing.

Situations to Take Note Of

There are, however, some caveats to that timeline.

"Claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Child Tax Credit will slow down your tax return due to regulations designed to deter fraud, but that means people who claim those credits and filed their returns on January 24 or close to that date may not receive their refund until early March,” CBS News noted.

"And other issues can slow down your refund, such as errors like math problems or incorrectly stating how much you received from the advanced Child Tax Credit payments. In those cases, your tax return could get flagged, leading to delays of weeks or even months,” it continued.

Furthermore, the IRS recently announced that returns with errors involving the third stimulus check could potentially take up to four months to resolve.

"You want to make sure that your returns are right,” Tommy Lucas, a certified financial planner at Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo in Orlando, Florida, told CNBC.

"Because it’s going to be really difficult to get a hold of anyone (at the IRS) to talk through your situation,” he continued.  

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters

Ethen Kim Lieser

2022 Tax Season, United States

The IRS is reassigning additional employees from other duties to assist with the backlog of unprocessed tax returns.

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins said during a congressional hearing on Thursday that the Internal Revenue Service is expected to stand up a second “surge team” to address its backlog of unprocessed tax returns.

The IRS already made the decision to temporarily reassign about 1,200 employees to the frontlines of a daunting tax season to help with the backlog. 

IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig has also noted that the agency is dealing with serious staffing and budgeting issues. The agency has roughly 20,000 fewer employees and 20 percent less funding than in 2010 when adjusted for inflation, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

‘Important First Step’

According to CNN, Collins told lawmakers that the addition of another surge team is “an important first step.”

“A toxic combination of office closures early in the pandemic, inadequate staffing, antiquated IT systems and the need to divert resources from core work to administer the three rounds of stimulus payments, the monthly child tax credit payments, and several financial relief programs has created an unprecedented imbalance between the IRS’ workload and their resources,” Collins said.

Collins then went on to address the outdated processing of paper returns—which have become the IRS’ “kryptonite”—and pressed for more rapid modernization of the agency’s services.

“So, in essence, the IRS, we need to get out of the age of the dinosaur or the Dark Ages,” she said. “They look at it as a funding issue. This is a heavy lift for the IRS. They need to have sustained long-term funding in order to take on a project that size.”

Tax Season Moving Along

Despite these well-documented troubles at the IRS, the current tax season is moving along with only a few hiccups.  

“The IRS is off to a strong start to this year’s tax season,” the IRS said in a press release.

The IRS has processed about 13 million of the 16.7 million returns it has received. Of those, about 4.5 million have resulted in refunds that average $2,300.

The agency has given notice that most Americans—if they have error-free returns and file electronically—should receive their tax refunds within twenty-one days of filing.

Meanwhile, Rettig has urged taxpayers to take special care this year on their respective returns due to the sending out of the monthly enhanced child tax credit and the third stimulus check that was green-lighted in March.

“Incorrect entries when reporting these payments mean the IRS will need to further review the tax return, creating an extensive delay,” the agency wrote in a press release.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.

Stephen Silver

Social Security Fraud, United States

The government says that after the woman’s mother passed away in 2007, she did not report the death to the Social Security Administration, as required by law.

This week, a forty-nine-year-old woman from Wilmington, North Carolina, became the latest person to plead guilty to charges of stealing Social Security funds from a deceased relative. 

According to a statement by the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the woman pleaded guilty to theft of government property, described as a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 641. She faces up to ten years in prison. 

The government says that after the woman’s mother passed away in 2007, she did not report the death to the Social Security Administration, as required by law. Instead, beginning in 2008, the woman began rerouting the Social Security mailings to her own address, which continued through multiple replacements over the course of many years. 

In addition, the woman was “identified on bank footage utilizing her deceased mother’s Social Security benefits.”

According to the Charlotte Observer, the woman stole the checks between August 2008 and October 2019. No dollar amount was released for the total amount taken, except that it exceeded $1,000. Sentencing is set for May. 

Other Fraud Cases in Nebraska, Florida 

In another case involving fraud, this time in Nebraska, a fifty-five-year-old man who formerly lived in Omaha was sentenced for making a false statement on a Social Security Administration form. 

According to WOWT, the man has been sentenced to twenty-two months in prison and three years of supervised release, in addition to $24,552 in restitution. 

For ten years, between 2009 and 2019, the man received Social Security Disability and Medicaid benefits, along with SNAP benefits for four years, between 2013 and 2017. During that time, according to the report that cited the Office of the Inspector General, the man had lied about his employment status. While claiming “he only washed cars on occasion,” the man in fact owned a vehicle repossession business.

This follows a relatively high-profile case earlier this month in Florida, where a man stole $77,596 in Social Security income that was thought to be going to his father, who had died in Ecuador in 2010, according to the Miami Herald. The benefits had been deposited into an account in 1996, when the father was still alive, through 2017. Per the Herald, the father hadn’t been using his Medicare benefits—“a tipoff that the person might be dead.” But when the son changed the address in 2019, $22,074 was released to the account. 

The man, a U.S. Customs and Border officer in Florida, pled guilty to theft of government funds. Per the newspaper, he was sentenced to six months of home confinement (house arrest), one year of probation, and $77,596 of restitution.

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters

Stephen Silver

Roku,

As Roku’s quarterly earnings were less than expected, the company is searching for new products to make up for the loss of revenue

Roku released its quarterly earnings this week, with revenue of $865.3 million short of expectations of $894 million, per CNBC. The earnings announcement led shares to fall by 20 percent to their lowest level since the early days of the pandemic. 

Revenue did, however, rise 33 percent year over year in the fourth quarter, although the growth was lower than the 81 percent growth in the second quarter and 51 percent in the third. The company also issued a guidance of the equivalent of 25 percent revenue growth for the next quarter. The smaller growth was attributed by the company to continuing supply chain shortages. 

The company now has 60.1 million active accounts, while the Roku OS was the top streaming operating system in the United States in 2021.

“Roku’s founding vision remains true: All TV and all TV advertising will be streamed. Almost every major media company is reorienting its business around streaming and has launched a flagship service, spending billions on content and marketing to attract and retain subscribers. At the same time, with the significant gap that exists between viewership and ad budgets, we are still in the early days of the secular shift to streaming,” Roku said in the company’s shareholders letter. 

A report earlier Thursday stated that Roku was considering jumping into TV production themselves, rather than rely on partner manufacturers, and had even convened focus groups to discuss the idea. 

Founder and CEO Anthony Wood addressed that on the company’s earnings call, and neither confirmed nor denied the earlier reports. 

“In terms of us making our own TV, there are rumors around that. We don't speculate on rumors. I'll just point out that the Roku TV program is a big area of investment for us,” Wood said. “It's been super successful. And we're successful not just because we have a great purpose-built operating system for TV, but we also are a great partner for manufacturers of TVs. We offer a full-stack solution and are really very helpful for them in growing their smart TV market share. So that's some thoughts on Roku TV and supply chain.”

If Roku makes a move into TV manufacturing, it’s not clear where it would be done, or whether that would be instead of its current partnerships or in addition to them. 

Roku is one of the companies that was hugely successful during the quarantine phase of the pandemic, with large numbers of people stuck and home and therefore using their product a lot more than usual. The challenge for Roku, along with Netflix, Peloton, and others, will be to find a way to adjust to the post-pandemic reality going forward. 

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters Connect

Ethen Kim Lieser

Social Security, United States

It isn’t smooth sailing at the Social Security Administration.

For the past several weeks, it has been well-documented that the Internal Revenue Service is dealing with a massive backlog from last year while trying to process tax returns in a timely manner from this current season.

It appears that it isn’t smooth sailing at the Social Security Administration (SSA) either.

There already have been plenty of reports of Social Security applicants who just can’t get hold of anyone at the SSA in order to rectify their respective issues. Many who have called Social Security’s 800 number generally are put on hold for up to an hour and often just give up. Others who try to log on to SSA’s online account sometimes get a message that reads “account has been suspended.” If they try to call again, they are back at square one.

Pandemic Fallout

Unsurprisingly, it’s the nearly two-year-long coronavirus pandemic that is to blame.

“The Covid-19 pandemic prompted the Social Security Administration to pivot to mostly phone and online services starting on March 17, 2020. Since then, the agency’s more than 1,200 field offices have offered limited in-person services by appointment only. Customers have often had to submit paperwork by mail,” CNBC notes.

“Those processes have not always been smooth, the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General has found. Specifically, the agency needs to improve its timeliness and efficiency with regard to processing mail, including original documents provided as proof of eligibility, an investigation found,” CNBC continues.

There is, however, much-needed good news coming in the near future, as SSA field offices are expected to reopen to the public in early April. In the meantime, the SSA is advising people who need help to start with the agency’s website.

“As we expand in-person availability, we strongly encourage the public to continue to go online at ssa.gov, call us for help if they cannot complete their business online, and schedule appointments in advance,” an SSA spokesperson said, per CNBC.

Addressing Budget Issues

For Nancy Altman, the president of Social Security Works, this is the perfect time to assess and correct the “draconian budget cuts” seen within the SSA and its field offices.

“Between 2010 and 2021, SSA’s operating budget shrank by 13 percent even as the number of beneficiaries grew by 22 percent … Those draconian budget cuts led to an unavoidable decline in service, despite the best efforts of a dedicated workforce,” Altman wrote in a recent op-ed in The Hill.

“Between 2010 and 2018, SSA closed 67 field offices across the country. At the other offices, operating hours were shortened and often staff reduced. People were forced to wait a year or more for hearings to determine eligibility for Social Security disability benefits, with nearly 110,000 Americans dying while waiting for a hearing,” she continued.

“That was the state of Social Security’s customer service prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, field offices have been shuttered for nearly two years for everything but dire emergencies. This was the right thing to do to keep beneficiaries and workers safe, but it has made it even more difficult for Americans to claim their earned benefits… The pandemic has made crystal clear the importance of the field offices,” Altman concluded.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters