In the competitive arena of global technology, China’s ambitions in artificial intelligence stand out – not just for their scale but for their distinct strategic approach.
In 2017, the Chinese Communist Party declared its intent to surpass the United States to become the world leader in AI by 2030. This plan, however, is less about pioneering novel technologies and more about strategically adapting existing ones to serve state economic, political, and social objectives.
The Defense Department’s latest annual China Military Power Report gets a lot right. It accurately identifies the scope of China’s global ambitions and many of the structural changes being implemented by Xi Jinping to make China the preeminent military power in Asia and the Pacific. Even so, the report appears to undersell the threat posed by China and what will be required from the U.S. to counter it.
Elections around the world are facing an evolving threat from foreign actors, one that involves artificial intelligence.
Countries trying to influence each other’s elections entered a new era in 2016 when the Russians launched a series of social media disinformation campaigns targeting the U.S. presidential election. Over the next seven years, a number of countries – most prominently China and Iran – used social media to influence foreign elections, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. There’s no reason to expect 2023 and 2024 to be any different.
But there is a new element: generative AI and large language models. These have the ability to quickly and easily produce endless reams of text on any topic in any tone from any perspective. As a security expert, I believe it’s a tool uniquely suited to internet-era propaganda.
A central feature of the Cold War racket was the anti-communist crusade. At the behest of the U.S. national-security establishment, the entire nation became obsessed with the commies, both foreign and domestic. The Reds were coming to get us. They were everywhere. They were in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, China, Guatemala, Chile, Indonesia, Brazil, and most everywhere else. They were in Congress, the military, the executive branch, the political system, the universities, and Hollywood. In the 1950s, people were even being exhorted to look under their beds for communists.
In the foreign realm, the anti-communist crusade led the U.S. national-security establishment to sacrifice almost 100,000 U.S. soldiers in U.S. interventions in civil wars in Korea and Vietnam. More than 250,000 U.S. soldiers were wounded in those conflicts.
Relying on an adversary to supply critical components in equipment that our nation deems mission-essential is, to put it mildly, foolish. But that is exactly what the United States has been doing when it comes to China and semiconductors.
The expansion and robust implementation of a Zero China Chips policy, originally introduced in the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), would help change this equation. It would mitigate the risks associated with depending on China, while simultaneously boosting semiconductor production domestically and among our allies and partner nations—a reliable path towards removing the PRC’s leverage over the U.S. and the globe.
First it was Blake and Gwen, then Meghan and Harry. Now everyone is asking: What’s up with Vlad and Jinping? The answer: It’s rough times ahead for the China-Russia bromance.
Beijing and Moscow share a common daydream of an isolated and diminished America that allows them to run amok around the world. But shared dreams alone are not a solid foundation for a long-term relationship.
Francis Fukuyama, the American political scientist who once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “end of history,” suggested that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might be called “the end of the end of history.” He meant that Vladimir Putin’s aggression signals a rollback of the ideals of a free Europe that emerged after 1991. Some observers suggest it may kick off a new Cold War, with an Iron Curtain separating the West from Russia.
As an expert in global supply chains, I think the war portends the end of something else: global supply chains that Western companies built after the Berlin Wall fell over three decades ago.
Americans have a lot to worry about. Soaring inflation. A pandemic that refuses to go away. Locked-down schools that keep the kids at home while you have to work.
With so much to focus on at home, who has time or energy to pay attention to what’s happening on the other side of the world?
But there’s great danger in becoming indifferent to world affairs. All too often, they wind up crashing into our lives, turning our homes and nation upside down.
The heavens were a little more crowded as 2021 drew to a close. There are more players and more systems in orbit … and more threats.
The People’s Republic of China has significantly expanded its role in space. In the last week of December, Chinese astronauts at the Tiangong space station engaged in a six-hour spacewalk, the longest ever by Chinese astronauts.
Aluminum prices are up 59% from a year ago, and America’s 10% tariffs on the metal are not relieving any headaches at beer and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers.
The tariffs were originally put in place in 2018, ostensibly to protect domestic aluminum producers. The theory was that China and other foreign producers were “dumping” aluminum into the U.S. at low prices below cost to capture market share and supposedly drive American producers of aluminum out of business.
You only have to go back to March 2020, when grocery store shelves were stripped bare and toilet paper became a scarce commodity, to understand how vulnerable people are when supply doesn’t meet demand. Unfortunately, the U.S. military can easily be put in the same position.
America’s defense supply chain—that is, the large network of manufacturers who produce our weapons platforms and equipment—is neither reliable nor secure. Defense production is vital in maintaining a strong national defense, and such fragility in our supply chains is an enormous liability. It directly hinders our ability to win the next war.
The effects of American racial bias and anti-Asian sentiment do not end at the nation’s borders. The racial attitudes of white people also influence their support for American military intervention abroad according to our working paper on U.S. foreign policy and racism.
In a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Glen VanHerck, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, brought some necessary attention to the growing nuclear threats to the U.S. homeland.
Russia was at the top of his concerns. To match a more assertive nuclear doctrine, Russia is undertaking a massive nuclear modernization effort. This includes a first-of-its kind heavy intercontinental ballistic missile that can carry a hypersonic glide vehicle that is able to evade U.S. early warning systems.
Republicans and Democrats may have more common ground than it seems, a new survey finds.
Our survey – conducted in August and September in partnership with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the University of Texas at Austin – asked more than 800 government officials, congressional staffers, researchers, journalists, and advocates to assess the likelihood of unified American efforts to address critical international challenges by 2022. They identified several foreign policy issues where building bipartisan policies was “more likely than not.”
