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file mode 100644 index 00000000..4b709055 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_heros/1890-11-30-PeterKropotkin-a1_r-mutual-aid-among-animals.md @@ -0,0 +1,114 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "动物之间的互助" +author: "彼得·克鲁泡特金" +date: 1890-11-30 12:00:00 +0800 +image: https://i.imgur.com/YHHIshI.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "《互助论：进化的一个要素》第二章" +position: right +--- + +`鸟类的迁居 繁殖的结合 秋季的群居 哺乳动物 少数不喜欢群居的种群 狼、狮子等的猎食结合 啮齿动物、反刍动物、猿类的群居` `生存竞争中的互助 达尔文关于物种内部生存竞争的论点 对过分繁殖的自然遏制 中间环节的假定的绝灭 自然界中竞争的消除` + +当春天回到温带的时候，散布在南方较暖地区的千千万万的鸟类便结成无数的群，精力饱满、活泼愉快地赶到北方去生育它们的子孙。散布在北美、北欧和亚洲北部的每一个篱笆、每一个小树林、每一个海洋的悬崖峭壁以及每一个湖泊和池沼，在一年的这个时节都在向我们表明互助对鸟类有什么意义，它给每一个生物（无论它本来是多么柔弱和没有自卫能力）以怎样的力量、能力和保护。以俄罗斯和西伯利亚草原的无数湖泊当中的一个为例吧，它的岸边至少栖居着分属二十来种成千上万的水鸟，它们全都相安无事地一起生活，互相保护。 + +> “离湖边几百码远，空中飞满了海鸥和燕鸥，好似冬天纷飞的雪片。千万只鹬鸟和呼潮鸟在滩上跑来跑去、寻找食物、啼叫和干脆在享受生活。再向外看，几乎在每一个波浪上都有一只鸭子在浮动，往上看去，你会发现成群结队的卡沙奇野鸭。到处充满了活跃的生命。” + +在这儿也有强盗——最强壮和最狡猾的、在“机体构造上理想地适于抢掠”的鸟类。当它们接连几个钟头等候机会要从这些成群的活鸟当中攫走一只单独没有保护的鸟儿时，你便会听见它们发出饥饿、愤怒和凄厉的叫声。可是，每当强盗飞近时，便有几十个志愿的哨兵发出信号，成百的海鸥和燕鸥便出动去驱逐它。由于饿得发疯，强盗不久就失去了它平时的谨慎：它猛然冲进那活泼的鸟山；可是遭到四面八方的攻击，又不得不退走。由于极度失望，它便去袭击野鸭；但这种聪明合群的鸟类，看见敌方是一只鹰时，便迅速结成队伍飞走；看见敌方是一只隼时，便潜入湖水，看见敌方是一只鸢时，便拍起一阵水沫去迷惑它。无数的鸟依然在湖上成群地生活，强盗只好愤怒地叫着，飞去寻找腐肉，或者去寻找一只尚未习于及时听从同伴报警的小鸟或田鼠。面对那样多活跃的生命，有着理想的武装的强盗也只好满足于仅仅吃到生命消失以后的腐肉。 + +再向北方，在北极的各群岛中： + +> “你可以沿着海岸航行许多英里，来看所有的岩礁、悬崖和山边的每一个角落，从两百到五百英尺的高处都被海鸟所遮盖，它们那白色的胸脯陪衬着暗色的岩石，好像岩石上密密地洒满了白粉的斑点似的。远方和近处的空中可以说充满了野禽。” + +每一座这样的“鸟山”，都生动地说明了互助的意义，也说明了从合群生活中产生的个体和种的特性的无穷变化。蛎鹬以动辄攻击猛禽而出名。大家都知道，塍鹬是以谨慎著称，所以它往往成为比较温和的鸟类的领袖。当鸫鸻的周围飞集着一些比它更加精悍的鸟类时，它就显得十分胆怯，但是，当它周围都是比它更小的鸟类时，它就会担负起警戒集体安全的职责来。在这里，你可以看到超群出众的天鹅；在那里，你可以看见极其合群的三趾鸥，它们中间很少发生争吵，即使有也是简短的争吵，还有可爱的北极海鸠，它们彼此间总是那么互相爱护，也有自私的母鹅，它抛弃了被杀害的同伴的孤雏，可是在它旁边就有一只收养着所有同伴的孤儿的母鹅，它扑着水，身边浮着五、六十只小鹅，把它们当作自己亲生的小鹅来照护。企鹅常常互相偷窃鸟卵，但在它旁边你就可以看到小𣆦鸻，这种鸟儿的家庭关系是那样的“美好和感人”，甚至喜爱打猎的人也不忍射击翼护着幼雕的母𣆦鸻；还可以看见棉凫——和美国南部大草原的绒凫很相像——它们是几只棉凫在同一个巢中孵卵，还有⿰畏鳥鴗，它们轮流共同孵一个巢中的蛋。大自然是变化无穷的，它提供了从最低极到最高级的各种各样的一切可能的特性，这就是为什么不能以任何笼统的论断来描述它的原因。更不能用道德家的观点来判断自然，因为道德家的观点其本身大多数就是无意识地观察自然的结果。 + +大多数鸟类在繁殖期间聚在一块儿生活，这种现象是极其普遍的，所以几乎不用再举更多的实例。我们的树厦上筑有许多鸦巢，我们的篱笆上也到处是较小的鸟的窠，我们的农舍庇护着成群的燕子，我们的古塔成了千百只夜鸟的避难所，所有这些繁殖结合中的安宁与和谐的动人情景，要是描述的话，将占满许多篇页。至于力量最弱的雀鸟，由于它们的团结而获得的保卫，那是很明显的。例如，出色的观察者库斯博士曾经看见小岩燕就筑巢在草原隼（Falco polyargus）的近旁。隼把它们的巢筑在科罗拉多峡谷常见的粘土的尖塔顶上，而它的下边就是一群燕子的窠。这些和平的小鸟并不俱怕它们贪婪的邻居，它们从不让它接近它们的住处。它们会立刻把它包围起来，驱逐它，使它不得不马上飞走。 + +过了伏巢期以后，群居生活也并不终止；它开始采取一种新的形式。一窝窝的小雏自己集聚在一起，而一个群里的雏鸟通常是属于好几个不同的种的。其所以在这个时候实行群居生活，主要是为了群居生活的本身———部分是为了安全，但主要是为了从这种生活中获得乐趣。所以，我们在森林中常常可以看见小五十雀（Sitta cæsia）和山雀、鶸鸟、鹪鹩、旋木雀或一些啄木鸟结合成群。在西班牙，人们曾看到燕子同茶隼、京燕甚至野鸽聚在一起。在美洲的极西部，大群的小缨鹨同另外一种鹨类（Sprague’s lark）、云雀、大草原麻雀、几种颊白鸟和秧鸡一块儿生活。事实上，列举秋天群居的小鸟的种名要比描写单独生活的鸟类困难得多，这些鸟所以群居，不是为了猎食或伏巢，而干脆是为了在每天花几个小时寻找食物之后，一块儿享受群居生活以及嬉戏和运动。 + +最后，我们还可举出鸟类中的互助的巨大表现——迁居，关于这一点，我在这里甚至不敢多说。我只消谈一谈以下的情况就够了：在广大的地区上结成一小群一小群地散居了几个月的鸟儿，现在成千上万地集结起来，它们在出发之前，接连几天聚集在一个确定的地方，它们显然是在商讨旅行的细节。有些种的鸟在每天下午勤加练习飞翔，准备长途旅行。所有的鸟都等待着它们姗姗来迟的同类，最后，它们向着一个选择得十分恰当的方向——集体经验积累的结果——出发，最强的鸟飞在队伍的前头，它们轮流担任这项困难的任务，大鸟和小鸟一起，一批批地飞过海洋，在第二年春天，它们又飞回它们原来的那个地方，而且大都正是占用它们去年所筑的或修补的那个窝巢。 + +这个问题很广大，而且还没有经过充分的研究；它提供了那么多关于互助习惯的生动事例，补充说明了迁居这一主要事实，但每一个习惯都需要特殊研究，所以，在这里我就不更详细地谈了。我只能概略地谈一下鸟类的聚集：在向北方或南方开始长途旅行之前，许多活跃的鸟群总是聚集在同一个地点，正如我们在北方见到的情况一样，它们在到达它们在叶尼塞河或英国北部诸郡的繁殖地以后，也是聚集在同一个地方的。在接连许多天（有时候是一个月）里，它们每天早晨在飞去寻找食物之前要聚会一个钟头，也许是讨论它们将在哪里营巢。在迁居途中，如果它们的纵队遇到了暴风雨的袭击，那么，各种不同的鸟将因共同的灾难而紧密团结，一起。有些鸟严格说来不是在迁居，而是随着季节的转移在慢慢地向北方或南方移动，但它们也是成群结队地旅行的。它们决不是为了每一个单一的个体在另一地区可以获得更好的食物或住所而单独地迁居，它们总要互相等候，结合成群，然后才随着季节的不同而移向北方或南方。 + +现在来谈谈哺乳动物。首先给我们很深印象的是，合群的种比少数不合群的食肉动物在数量上占绝对多数。在高原、高山地区以及旧大陆和新大陆的草原上，生活着成群的鹿、羚羊、小羚羊、𪊥、水牛、野山羊和绵羊，它们都是合群的动物。当欧洲人到美洲去殖民的时候，他们发现那儿的水牛是那么多，以致拓荒者们在遇到一群移居的水牛拦着他们前进的道路时，不得不停下来；他们有时候要走两、三天才能穿过那密密的牛群。当俄国人占领西伯利亚的时候，他们发现那儿有那么多的鹿、羚羊、松鼠和其他的合群动物，以致对西伯利亚的征服成了一场延续了两百年的打猎远征。现在，在非洲东部的草原上依然遍地是成群的斑马、狷羚和其他羚羊。 + +不久以前，在北美和西伯利亚北部的小河里，成群地栖息着海狸，在俄国北部，直到十七世纪也还有大批这样的海狸群。在四大洲的平地上，至今还有数不清的鼷鼠、金花鼠、土拨鼠和其他啮齿动物的群体。在亚洲和非洲的低纬度地方，在森林中依然栖息着许多种象、犀牛和数不清的猴群。在遥远的北方，驯鹿结成无数的群，再向北去，我们又发现成群的麝香牛和数不清的北极狐。在大西洋岸边活跃着成群的海豹和海象，在水里是一群群的合群的鲸鱼，甚至在中亚细亚的大高原的深处也有成群的野马、野驴、野骆驼和野绵羊。所有这些哺乳动物都是成群聚族而居的，有时候它们的数目达数十万之多，而现在我们所看到的，只不过是从前的巨大集体在经过了三个世纪的火药文明以后的残余罢了。同它们比起来，食肉动物的数目是多么微不足道！因此可以看出，认为在动物界里除了用血淋淋的牙齿吞吃牺牲者的狮子和鬣狗以外便没有什么可谈的了，这种看法是多么错误！如果可以那样想的话，那我们同样也可以把整个人类生活想象成只不过是一场接连不断的战争屠杀了。 + +联合和互助是哺乳动物中的通例。甚至在食肉动物中我们也可找到群居生活的习惯，我们只能举出猫科的动物（狮、虎、豹等）的确是宁愿单独生活而不喜群居的，甚至结成很小的群也是极少见的。然而，即使在狮子中间，“结伴猎食的情形也是十分寻常的”。麝猫（Vverridæ）和鼬鼠（Mustelidæ）这两种动物也可以说具有单独生活的特性，但在上个世纪里，普通的鼬鼠确实要比现在合群些，那时候，人们看到它们较大群地出现在苏格兰和瑞士的恩特瓦登州。至于狗这个大类，那是特别合群的，为猎食而联合一起，可以说是许多种狗的突出特征。事实上，大家都知道狼是结伙猎食的，舒迪写了一篇很好的文章，叙述它们怎样围成一个半圆圈，把在山坡上吃草的一只母牛包围起来，然后大声嗥叫，猛然出现，使牛滚入深渊。在三十年代，奥杜邦也看见过拉布拉多狼成群猎食，有一群狼跟着一个人到了他的小屋，把狗咬死了。每当严寒的冬季，狼群多得成了人们居住地区的一种危害。大约四十五年前的法国情况就是如此。在俄国的草原上，它们一向成群地袭击马群；但是，它们也需要进行艰苦的战斗，在战斗中，有时候马也采取攻势（据考尔的证实），在这种情况下，如果狼不迅速撤退，它们也有被马包围起来踏死的危险。据说，草原狼（Canis latrans）常常是二、三十只地结成一群去追逐偶尔离群的野牛。最大胆的鬣狗，可以说是狗类中最聪明的代表之一，它们总是成群猎食；它们联合到一起，就不怕比它们更大的食肉动物了。至于亚洲的野狗（Kholzuns或Dhofes），威廉森看见过它们成群结队地攻击除了象和犀牛以外的一切大于它们的动物，并且能够战胜熊和老虎。鬣狗往往是成群生活和结对猎食的，狗的猎食组织受到康敏的赞叹。不仅仅是这些，甚至在我们文明国家中一般是过着单独生活的狐类，也有人曾经看见它们为了猎食而结合起来。北极狐是（或者更确切地说，在斯特勒时代曾是）最合群的动物之一；当我们阅萨斯特勒关于白令所率领的不幸的船员和这些聪明的小动物作斗争的描写时，不知道哪一点最可惊讶的：是北极狐在掘出藏在石堆下或摘取挂在柱子上的食物时所表现的特出智慧（一只狐狸爬上柱顶去把食物扔给下面的伙伴），还是海员们被大队的北极狐搞得实在没有办法时所表现的残忍。甚至有些熊在不受人类侵扰的地方，也是过群居生活的。所以，斯特勒看见堪察加的黑熊结成大群，而人们有时也看到北极熊结成小群。甚至愚蠢的食虫动物，也常常不轻视联合。 + +但是，我们可以找到实行大规模互助的事例，特别是在啮齿动物、有蹄动物和反刍动物之中。松鼠在很大程度上是个体主义者。它们各筑各的舒适的窠，各积各的食物。它们有家庭生活的倾向，但布利姆发现在两窝同年生的小松鼠在森林中的偏僻角落里和它们的父母在一起时，是一个松鼠家庭最快乐的时候。然而，它们还是保持着群居的关系。各窠中的松鼠彼此间依然有密切来往，当它们所居住的森林中的松果稀少时，它们就成群地向别处迁移。至于极西部的黑松鼠，它们是特别合群的。它们每天除了用几个钟头的时间寻找食物以外，就结成一大群地游戏。当它们在一个地区繁殖得太迅速的时候，它们便成群地（差不多像蝗虫那样多）向南移动，沿途糟蹋森林、田野和花园；而狐狸、臭猫、隼和食肉的夜鸟便跟随着它们密集的队伍，吃那些落在队伍后面的个别的松鼠。和松鼠极相近似的金花鼠，更为合群。它们性喜储蓄食物，在它们的地下厅内屯积着大量的可食根类和坚果，这些东西在秋天常常被人们所夺。据有些观察者说，这种鼠必然是或多或少地能够领赂守财奴的乐趣的。然而，它们依然是合群的。它们的窠往往联。成一大片，奥杜邦曾在冬天掘开过几个金花鼠的住处，他发现在同一个窠里有几只鼠，它们一定是以共同努力来屯积它们的食物的。 + +土拨鼠这个大类（包括Arctomys、Cynomys和Spermophilus三大属），是更为合群和更为聪明的动物。它们也喜欢各有各的住处，但它们的住处是联成一大片的。这一种俄国南部庄稼的大敌——Souslik（它们每年单是被人类消灭的就有上千万只），是结成无数的群体生活的；当俄国的各省议会郑重地讨论着如何消灭这个社会的敌人时，它们却成千上万的在极快活地享受着它们的生活。它们的游戏是那么有趣，使所有观察的人都不免要称赞一番，先谈论一下由雄鼠的尖锐叫声和雌鼠的忧郁悲鸣所组成的优美和声，然后——突然想起了自己的公民职责——才开始寻求最狠毒的办法来消灭这些小盗贼。在对它们的斗争中，所有各种猛禽和食肉动物都被证明是无能为力的，科学的最后办法是使它们感染霍乱！在美洲的土拨鼠所居住的地方，是最好看的景象之一。在草原上，极目望去可以看到许多土堆，每一个土堆上都有一只场拨鼠用短短的叫声和它的邻居交谈。每当发出有人来了的信号时，它们一下子就都钻进它们的窠穴，所有的场拨鼠都好像被施了魔法似的，消失得无影无踪。但是，在危险过去以后，这些小东西不久又出现了。全家都从它们的地道中走出来，尽情游玩。小鼠们互相抓挠，互相捉弄，立起身子表现出优美的姿势，这时候，老场拨鼠就在一旁守护着。它们互相拜访，各个土堆之间的道路都被它们踏平了，这就表明它们的拜访是多么频繁。总之，优秀的博物学家在描写美洲的场拨鼠、旧大陆的土拨鼠和阿尔卑斯高山地区的白土拨鼠的联合时，写下了一些最出色的文章。然而，在谈到土拨鼠时，我必须提到我在谈到蜜蜂时所说的那一番话。它们保存了它们的斗争本能，这种本能在被捕捉到以后便表现出来。但是，在它们的大联合中，面对着自由的大自然，不合群的本能没有发展的机会，而一般总是和平与和谐的。 + +像家鼠这样粗鲁的动物，虽然在我们的地窖中不断地打架，但也总算解事，懂得在抢劫我们的食物储藏室时，不但不争吵，反而在劫掠和迁移中要互相帮助，甚至还喂养有伤病的同伴。至于加拿大的海狸鼠，即麝香鼠，它们是极端合群的。奥杜邦不得不称赞“它们和平的社会，这是只求在和平中享受快乐的社会”。像所有合群的动物一样，它们十分活跃，爱好游戏，它们容易和他种动物相联合，它们的智力已经发展到很高程度。它们的群居处经常是排列在湖边和河岸，但它们在修筑时就考虑到了水位的变化；它们用捣碎的陶土掺和着芦苇修的拱顶屋子，留出几个角落以储放有机物的废物，它们的厅房在冬天是铺垫得很舒适的；它们的屋子很暖和，而空气也很流通。至于说到人们都知道最富有同情心的海狸，凡是对动物生活威兴趣的人都十分熟习它们的生活，因为它们那命人惊奇的堤防和群居地，是那么好地说明了互助对物种的安全、合群习惯的发展以及智力的进化有多大作用，它们世世代代在这种群居地生活，在其中死亡，除了水獭和人以外，不会遇到其他敌人。让我只这样说一句：我们在海狸、麝香鼠和其他啮齿动物中间已经找到了也是人类社会的特征的东西——那就是共同劳动。 + +在这里，我就不叙述包括jerboa、chinchilla、biscacha和tushkan（即俄国南部的地下兔）的两大属动物了，虽然从所有这些小啮齿动物都可以找到动物在群居生活中所得的愉快的最好例证。确切地就，真是自得其乐，也许要说明是什么原因——是需要互相保护，还是单单由于周围有同种而感到愉快——才使动物聚集在一起，是极其困难的。至少普通野兔是不聚集成群来过共同生活的，甚至连浓厚的父母感情也不具备，但无论如何它们不能不聚在一块儿游玩。戴利奇·德·温克尔被认为是最熟知野兔习惯的人之一，他说野兔是热爱玩耍的，它们玩得那么入迷，以致人们知道有一只野兔竟把一只走过来的狐狸当成了游伴。至于家兔，它们是过群居生活的，它们的家庭生活和古时的家长制的家庭完全相像；小兔对它的父亲，甚至对它的祖父，必须绝对服从。在这里，我们发现了两个非常近似但互相不能容忍的种的例子——其原因并不像许多人对这类情况所解释的那样，是由于它们的食物相同，而十有八九是由于热情的、极端个体主义的野兔不能和平静、安闲、柔顺的动物——家兔——作朋友。它们的脾气极不相同，所以不能不妨碍它们的友谊。 + +对马这一大科动物来说，合群生活也是通例。这一个大科包括亚洲的野马和驴、斑马、美国草原的半野马、亚马孙河以南帕巴斯大草原的野马以及蒙古和西伯利亚的半野马。它们都是结合许多马群、组成结合体一起生活的，每一个群都有一匹雄马率领着一批雌马。总的说来，栖息在旧大陆和新大陆上的无数的马，在机体方面都不适于抵抗许许多多的敌人和不利的气候条件，要不是它们还有合群的精神，它们早就会从地球上消灭了。当一只猛兽走近它们的时候，几个马群便联合起来击退猛兽，有时候还去追赶；一匹马或一匹斑马，只要不脱离它们的群，那么，无论是狼或熊，甚至狮子，都不能伤害它。当天气干旱而草原上的草枯焦的时候，它们有时便结成达一万匹之多的队伍迁移到其他的地方去。当草原上有大风雪的时候，每一群中的马都挤得紧紧的，走到可避风雪的深谷去。但是，如果失去了信心，或者一群马都惊惶起来，四散奔跑，那么它们就会死亡，幸存的马在暴风雪过去以后也将累得半死。在生存竞争中，团结是它们的主要武器，而人类是它们的主要敌人。由于人类的迅速增长，家马的祖先（波利亚可夫称之为Equus Przewalskii）便退居到西藏边缘最无路可通的、最荒凉的高原上，在那里，虽然周围都是食肉动物，气候又像北极地区那样恶劣，然而是人迹不到的地区，因而它们就继续生活下去。 + +从驯鹿的生活中，特别是从反刍动物这个大类中可以找到许多说明群居生活的动人实例，这个类包括麞、𪊥、羚羊、瞪羚和阿尔卑斯山羊，事实上，所有属于羚羊科、山羊科和绵羊科的众多动物都包括在内。它们那防备食肉兽攻击以保护群的安全的警惕性；以及当一群臆羚通过一个悬崖绝壁的难行道路，在全队未通过以前各个臆羚所表现的不安；对孤零零的小羊的哺育；当一只瞪羚的配偶或甚至同性的同伴被杀时所表现的悲伤；小羚羊的嬉戏及其他特征，所有这些都是值得叙述的。但最能说明互助事例的，也许是𪊥的偶然性移居，我在黑龙江曾看到一次。当我从外贝加里亚到麦尔根，经过高原和高原边上的峻岭——大兴安岭，再向前走过高地的草原到黑龙江时，我可以肯定，在这些几乎是没有人烟的地区，𪊥是十分稀少的。两年以后，我上溯黑龙江，于10月底到达黑龙江和松花江汇合前在小兴安岭所穿过的风景如画的峡谷。我发现住在这个峡谷中的村子里的哥萨克人是那样兴奋，因为有成千上万的𪊥正越过黑龙江上江面最窄的地方到低地去。当那些𪊥渡过黑龙江（水上已经有许多浮冰）时，哥萨克人一连好几天沿着黑龙江四十英里左右的地方猎杀它们。它们每天被捕的有好几千，但是仍然继续前进。类似这样的迁移在以往和以后都未曾见过，这一次一定是由于大兴安岭提前下了大雪，所以才迫使那些𪊥拼着性命，想到小兴安岭东部的低地去。果然，几天以后小兴安岭上也复满了两、三英尺厚的大雪。现在，当我们设想分散在那么广大的地区（差不多有英国那样大）上的𪊥群由于遭遇到例外环境的压力才必须集合起来向其他地方迁移，设想所有的𪊥要克服多少困难才能取得在水面最窄的地方渡过黑龙江更向南行的共同意见。我们便不能不深深佩服这些聪明的动物所表现的巨大合群性。即使我们记起北美洲的水牛也表现过同样大的团结力，这件事实仍是一样的惊人。我们看见大批的水牛在草原上吃草，但这一大群水牛是由不针其数的小群组合成的，而这些小群是从来不混淆在一起的。但在必要时，所有的群不管在辽阔的地区上是多么分散。全都聚集起来，结成我在前一页上所说的为数以千万计的庞大水牛队伍。 + +关于象的“复合家庭”，我至少也应该说几句括，谈一谈它们的互相亲爱，它们的布置警卫的深思熟虑方法和由密切互助生活所培养成的同情。我也要提一提野猪这个声名不好的动物的合群感，对它们在遭遇猛兽袭击时所表现的团结称赞一两句。在一本论述动物合群性的著作中，河马和犀牛也应占有一个地位。对海豹和海象的合群和互相亲爱，也可以写几页动人的文章；最后，我们要提一提存在于合群的鲸类中的极其良好的情威。对猴子的群居生活，我必须说几句，由于它们是把我们引向原始人社会的环节，所以谈起来特别有趣。 + +在动物界中居于首位，并且在体格和智慧方面最接近于人类的这种哺乳动物，不用说是异常合群的。显然，我们必须考虑到在动物世界的一个如此广大的类别（它包括几百个种）中，一定会看到性格和习惯方面的种种变化。尽管有这些情况，我们仍旧必须说，合群、共同行动、互相保护和从合群生活中必然产生的那些情感的高度发展，是大多数猴子和猿的特征。从最小的种到最大的种，合群性都是它们的通例，据我们所知道的，这种通例只有很少例外。夜猿是喜欢过单独生活的，戴帽猿（Cebus capucinus）、⿰犭磨⿰犭拿猴和吼猿是只过小家庭生活的；据华莱士所看到的，狒狒不是单独的便只是组成三只或四只的很小的群，而大猩猩则似乎是从不结群的。但是，其余的猿猴类——黑猩猩、卷尾猿、狐尾猴、猅猅和黄狒等——都是有最高度合祥性的。它们结成很大的群而生活，甚至和不是它们同种的猿猴也联合在一起。它们在单独的时候大多感到十分忧郁。猴群中每一个猴子在遇险时的叫声，都能把整个一群猴子立即召唤来，勇敢地击退大多数猛兽和猛禽的袭击。甚至鹰也不敢攻击它们。它们永远是成群结队地来劫掠我们的田野——在这个时候，老猴子便照护大家的安全。小小的青猴（它那可爱的孩子般的脸庞曾给汉波德那样深的印象）在下雨的时候互相拥抱在一起，彼此保护，把尾巴缠绕在它们哆嗦的同伴的脖子上。有几种猴对它们受伤的同伴表现了极大的关怀，在撤退的时候，不到它们断定一个受伤的同伴确已死亡和它们没有使它再活的希望，它们决不抛弃它。例如詹姆斯·福伯斯在他的《东方回忆录》（Oriental Memoirs）中谈到它们是那么顽强地想从他的打猎队中夺回一个母猴的尸体，因而能使我们充分理解到为什么“目睹这一奇特情景的人们都决心永不再向任何一个猴子开枪”。有几种猴子能几只几只地联合起来，搬开一块石头，寻找下面的蚂蚁卵。阿比西尼亚猩猩不仅安排放哨，有人还看见过它们像链子一样地连结起来，把抢掠的东西传送到安全的地方；而且它们也是以勇敢著名的。布利姆所描写的情况，可以说是一篇经典性描述，他说，他的车队在阿比西尼亚的门沙谷中和这种猩猩进行了一场真正的战争以后，它们才让他们继续前进。有尾猿的爱好嬉戏和黑猩猩家族中的友爱，也是一般读者所熟知的。虽然我们在最高级的猿类中，发现狒狒和大猩猩这两种是不合群的，但我们必须记住这两种猿只限于很小的地区（一种在非洲中部，一种在婆罗洲和苏门答腊两岛上）才有，并且它们都很像是一种过去数目远远要多些的猿类的最后残余。如果《伯里浦鲁斯游记》（Periplus）中所说的猿类确实是大猩猩的话，那么看来大猩猩至少在古代是合群的。 + +所以，我们从以上的简短总述中也可以看出，群居生活在动物界中并不是个别的例外；它是通例，自然的通例，而且，它在更高极的脊椎动物中获得了最充分的发展。过单独生活或只过小家族生活的那几种动物是较少的，它们的数目有限。不但如此，看来十有八九是：除了少数几个例外，现在不喜欢群居生活的那些鸟类和哺乳动物，很可能在人类在地球上迅速增长和对它们进行长期斗争或毁灭它们以前的食物来源之前，它们也是过群居生活的。“不是为了死亡而联合”，这句话是伊士比纳的至理名言；巫梭是熟悉美洲某几个地区的动物在未受人类影响以前的情形的，他也说过意思相同的话。 + +在处于各种进化阶段的动物中，都可我到联合的事例；按照赫伯特·斯宾塞的漳大思想——在伯利那的《动物的群居》（Colonies Animales）一书中对这一思想有极其精辟的发挥——聚族群居是动物界进化的本源。但是，随着进化阶段的愈来愈高，我们便发现联合愈来愈成为有意识的了。它失去了纯粹的生理性，它已经成为理智的联合而不再只是本能的联合了。对较高级的脊椎动物来说，联合是周期性的或者是为了满足一定需要——种的繁殖、迁移、猎食和互相保护——而实行的。它有时候甚至是临时的，例如鸟类联合起来抵抗抢掠的鸟或哺乳动物在例外环境的压力下联合起来迁移，就是这种情形。在后一事例中，它是自愿地脱离了习惯的生活方式。联合有时候表现为两个或两个以上的阶段——首先是家庭，其次是群，最后是平时分散、情况需要时便聚集起来的群的联合，例如我们在美国野牛和其他反刍动物中所见到的情况就是这样。它也采取较高级的形式，在不丧失合群生活的利益的情况下，保证个体有更多的独立性。大多数啮齿动物都有它自己的住所，它高兴独居的时候便隐藏到里面去，但是，它们的住所排列成好像村庄和城市一样，这样就保证了居住在里面的动物都可得到群居生活的利益和快乐。最后，有几种动物（例如家鼠、土拨鼠和野兔等）虽然有爱吵闹打架和单独的自我中心倾向，但仍然保持着合群的生活。因此，动物的合群生活不像蚂蚁和蜜蜂那样，而是由个体本身的生理构造所促成的；它是由互助的利益或群居的快乐培养起来的。当然，这种合群生活有所有可能多的等级，有最大的个性和特性的变化，但合群生活所采取的各种变化的本身，正是来自它的普遍性，并为我们进一步证明了这种普遍性。 + +合群性——即动物和它的同类相联合的需要——和“对生活的享受”相结合的为了喜爱群居而群居，只是在现在才开始受到动物学家的应有注意。现在，我们知道所有的动物（从蚂蚁起直到鸟类及最高级哺乳动物）都是喜欢角力、互相追逐、互相捕捉、互相戏弄等等游戏的。许多游戏可说是教育小动物在长大时应当采取的适当行为的学校，但另一方面，也还有一些并未含有实用目的的游戏和歌舞，仅仅是过剩的精力的表现——“对生活的享受”和同种的或他种的其它个体以某种方式沟通情感的欲望——简言之，它是作为整个动物界的特征的真正合群性的表现。不管这种情感是表现为猛禽出现时的恐惧，还是动物在健壮时，特别是在年轻时所爆发的“一阵欢乐”，或仅仅是想使它多余的感触和生命力得到自由的表达——沟通情感、游戏和闲谈的需要，或仅仅是想在身旁有同种生物的需要，反正这种情感在大自然中是普遍存在的，并且像其他任何一种生理机能一样，是生命和感受性的一个明显特征。这种需要在哺乳动物中，尤其是在幼小的哺乳动物和鸟类中，有更高的发展和更好的表现；它普遍地存在于整个大自然中，最有成就的博物学家（包括彼埃尔·友伯）甚至在蚂蚁当中也充分地观察到这种现象，很明显，使蝴蝶集结成一大群一大群的，也就是我们所讲的这种本能。 + +关于鸟类聚集起来跳舞和装饰它们经常跳舞的地方这种习惯，达尔文在《人类的起源》（第8章）中对这一问题的那几页描述，当然已使人们熟知了。游览过伦敦动物园的人也都知道缎巢鸟的精巧的窝窠。但是，这种跳舞的习惯，其范围好像要比我们以前所知道的广泛得多，哈得孙先生在他关于拉普拉塔的那本杰作中，对许多种鸟（例如秧鸡、美洲的热萨纳水禽、田凫等）的舞蹈所作的复杂的描述最为生动，这最好是看他的原作。 + +有几种鸟还有合唱的习惯，这同样是属于群居本能这个范畴的。在⿰宿鳥⿰拉鳥（Chauna chavarria）中，这种习惯最为发达，英国人给这种鸟取了一个最缺乏想象力的错误名称：“戴帽子的尖叫鸟”。这种鸟有时聚成极大的群，在这时它们时常全体合唱。哈得孙有一次看见数不清的⿰宿鳥⿰拉鳥很整齐地一群群（每群约五百只左右）排列在一个南美草原湖泊的周围。 + +> “突然，”他写道，“在我近旁的一群歌唱起来，它们那嘹亮的歌声继续了三、四分钟，当它们停止的时候，第二群又接着它们的曲调唱起来，它们唱完后，下一群又接着唱下去，直到从对岸也飘过来很清晰的歌声，渐渐传下去，最后，歌声绕湖一周又回到了我的身边。” + +还有一次，这位作者又看见数不清的一群⿰宿鳥⿰拉鳥把整个平原都盖满了，但这一次它们是成对地成分成小群地散开而不是井然有序地密集排列的，大约在晚上9点钟的时候，“在沼泽周围遮盖了若干英里的一大群，突然唱起了极其嘹亮的夜歌……这个音乐会，就是骑着马跑一百英里路去听，也是值得的”。还不妨补充一句，⿰宿鳥⿰拉鳥也像所有合群的动物一样，很容易驯养，并且对人十分依恋。据说，虽然它们具有可怕的武器，但“它们是性情温和的鸟，彼此间很少争吵”。合群生活使那些武器变得没有用处了。 + +合群生活是按最广义说来的生存竞争中最有力的武器，这在前面已经用几个例子说明了。如果还需要举例证明的话，要多少可以举出多少。合群生活使最弱的昆虫、最弱的鸟和最弱的哺乳动物能抵抗最可怕的猛禽和猛兽，保护自己不受伤害。合群生活能使动物长寿；使动物能消耗最少的精力来养育后代，并且虽在生殖率很低的情况下仍能保持它们的数目；它使合群的动物能迁移到其他地方去寻找新居。因此，我们一方面虽然完全承认达尔文和华莱士所说的力量、敏捷、保护色、狡猾和忍饥耐寒性是在一定环境下使个体和物种成为最适者的各种能力，但另一方面我们也认为，在任何环境中合群都最有利于生存竞争。那些自顾地或不自顾地放弃合群生活的物种，是注定要衰退的；而那些最懂得如何团结的动物，虽然除智力以外在达尔文和华莱士所列举的每一种能力上都低于其他动物，却仍能获得最大的生存和进一步进化的可能。最高级的脊椎动物，特别是人类，就是这个论断的最好证明。至于智力，每一个达尔文主义者虽都同意达尔文的意见，认为它是生存竞争中最有力的武器和向前进化的最有力因素，他们同时也必将承认智力是一种特殊的同合群有关的能力。语言、模仿和积累的经验是智力发展中的各种因素，而不合群的动物就得不到这些智力。因此，我们发现分在各纲动物最高地位的蚂蚁、鹦鹉和猴子都兼有最大的合群性和最发达的智力。所以，最适者是最合群的动物；而合群性看来既能直接保证物种的幸福，又可减少精力的浪费，间接促进智力的增长，于是成为进化的主要因素。 + +再者，合群生活如果没有相应地发达的合群感情，特别是相应地发展成为习惯的某种集体正义感，合群生活是决不能实现的，这一点十分明显。如果每一个个体经常滥用它的个体优势而没有别的个体来替受害者出面干涉，那么，合群生活就没有可能。所有的合群动物或多或少地都养成了正义感。不能燕子或鹤是从多么远的地方飞来的，它们每一个都将回到它去年建筑或修补的窠中。如果一只懒惰的麻雀企图占据同伴所筑的巢，或甚至企图从巢中偷几根草，集体都将干涉这个懒家伙；显然，如果没有这种成为规律的干涉，那么，鸟类的联合营巢也就不可能存在了。每一独立群的企鹅都有它单独的居住地和单独的捕鱼区，它们从不互相争夺这些地区。在澳大利亚，每一群牲畜都有它一定的休息地方，而且从来不超出范围，等等。对于鸟类的联合营巢，啮齿动物的群居地和食草动物群中的和平气氛直接观察到的实例，要多少有多少；另一方面，我们也知道没有哪一种合群的动物会像我们地窖中的老鼠或争夺海岸上阳光充足地方的海象那样争吵不休。所以，合群性限制了体力的竞争，使更好的道德感情有发展的余地。大家都知道，在所有各纲动物中，父母对幼儿的爱护是有着高度发展的，甚至在狮子和老虎中也是一样。在始终处于联合中的幼鸟和哺乳动物中，同情——不是爱——在它们的联合中获得了进一步的发展。撇开已有的关于家养动物和捕到的动物之间互相友爱和同情的十分动人的事实记载不谈，我们仍然有许多经过充分证实的关于自由的野兽之间互相同情的事实。马克希米·倍尔第和彼希纳曾经举出过许许多多这样的事例。伍德关于一个鼬鼠如何负运受伤的伙伴的描写，是受到大家应有的称道的。达尔文所引的斯丹士伯里上尉到犹德州旅行的观察报告，也是受到人人赞许的；他看见一只企鹅到三十英里以外的地方去捕鱼来喂养它们盲目的同伴，而且喂得很好。韦德尔在到坡利维亚和秘鲁的旅途中，不止一次地看到成群的驼马在被猎人紧紧追逐时，强壮的雄驼马便跑在队伍的后面掩护退却，保护其他的驼马安全逃走。至于对受伤的同伴表示同情的事实，一再为一切现场动物学家所提到。这些事实很自然。同情是合群生活的必然产物。然而，同情也意味着在一般的智力和感情方面有很大的进步。它是向更高极的道德情操发展的第一步。它又转而成为进一步进化的一个有力因素。 + +如果前面所阐述的观点是正确的，那么，必然会产生这样的问题：它同达尔文、华莱士和他们的信徒所主强的生存竞争这种学说，有多大程度的一致呢？现在我就来简单地回答一下这个重要的问题。首先，没有一个博物学家怀疑在整个有机的自然界中进行着生存竞争的这一观点是本世纪所归纳的最伟大的概念。生活就是竞争；而在这场竞争中只有最适者才能生存。但是，对于“这场竞争主要是用什么武器来进行的？”和“在竞争中谁是最适者？”这两个问题的回答，将因我们在这场竞争的两个不同的方面中注重哪一面而大有不同，这两个方面是：直接的，在各个单独个体之间为了食物和安全的竞争，以及达尔文所谓的“比喻的”竞争——往往是集体的、对逆境的斗争。谁也不否认在每种动物内部都存在有一定数量的为了食物的真正竞争——最低限度在某些时期中是有这种竞争的。但问题是，这种竞争是不是会进行到达尔文或华莱士所说的那种程度，是不是在动物的进化中起了人们所说的作用。 + +贯穿在达尔文著作中的观点肯定是：在每一群动物的内部，为了食物、安全和遗留后代的可能性在进行着真正的竞争。他时常说，在许多地区动物生殖过剩已到了最大的限度，他由于生殖过剩推断出竞争的必要。但是，当我们在他的著作中寻找这种竞争的确实证据时，我们必须说，这些证据是不够令人信服的。如果我们拿“同种的个体和变种之间的生存竞争最为严酷”这一节来说，我们在其中并未发现我们在达尔文的一切著作中经常看到的那些丰富例证。在这个标题之下，用来说明同种的个体之间的竞争的例子连一个也没有：都是假定的；说明近亲动物的种之间竞争的，只有五个例子，而其中至少有一个例子（关于两种鸫的）现在看来还大有疑问。而且，当我们想找到更详细的材料，以证明一个种的减少究竟在多大程度上真正是由于另外的种的增加所造成的，达尔文以他惯有的公正态度对我们说： + +> “我们可以大致知道为什么在差不多处于自然界同一个地方的近亲种之间的竞争是最严酷的；但是，我们大概在任何事例中也不能确切地说明在生存的大战争中为什么一个种战胜了另一个种。” + +至于华莱士，他在稍微修改过的标题（《近缘的动物和植物之间的生存竞争往往是最激烈的》）（着重点是我加的）下，也引证了同样的事实，他发表了以下的观点，对上述的事实作了另外一种完全不同的解释。他说： + +> “当然，在有些事例中，在两个种之间存在着真正的斗争，强者杀死弱者；然而这决不是必然如此，也有这样的情况：在体力上较弱的种，由于它有更快的繁殖力，由于它更能适应气候的变化或有更大的机智以躲避同样的敌人的袭击，因此，它可以取得优胜。 + +这种事例中所说的竞争，也许完全不是竞争。一个种的所以失败，并不是由于它被其他的种所消灭或饿死的，而是因为它不能像其他的种那样好好地适应新环境。因此，“生存竞争”这个词在这里又是按照比喻的意义来使用的，它不可能有其他的意思。至于在另外一个地方，用干旱时期的南美洲的牲畜来解释同种的个体之间的真正竞争，由于它是从家养的动物中间取来的例子，所以减低了它的价值。在同样的情况下，美国野牛就进行迁移以避免竞争。不论植物之间的竞争是多么严重（这已经充分证明），我们不能不重复华莱士所说过的话，他的大意说，“植物在那里就在那里生长”；而动物则有很大的选择居住地的能力。因此，我们又要自问一下：在每一种动物中，竞争的程度究竟有多大？竞争这一假定的根据是什么？ + +对于每一个种内的严酷的生存竞争和生存斗争的间接论据——从达尔文经常提到的“过渡的变异种的绝灭”中产生出来的论据，我们也抱同样的看法。大家都知道，由于在近缘的种之间找不到中间形态这一个很长的环节，使达尔文苦恼了很长一个时期，后来，他假设了中间形态的绝灭，因而解决了这个困难。但是在详细地阅读了达尔文和华莱士论述这个问题的那几章以后，使人不久就得出这样的结论，“绝灭”这个词的意义不是指真正的绝灭；达尔文对他的“生存竞争”这个词所作的解释显然也适用于“绝灭”这个词。它必须按照“它的比喻的意义”而决不能按直接的意义来理解。 + +如果我们从这样一个假定出发：一定地区的动物数量已经达到该地区所能容纳的最大限度，并且所有该地区的动物因此将进行夺取纯粹生活资料的激烈竞争——每一个动物为了取得每天的食物不得不和它所有的同类进行竞争，那么，一个新的和成功的变种的出现，往往就是（虽然并非永远是）意味着能够夺取到超过它们应得的一份生活资料的个体的出现；结果，这些个体将使没有具备新的变化的祖种和未具有相同程度变化的中间种都遭到饥饿。在开始的时候，也许达尔文认为新的变种是以这种面貌出现的；至少一再使用“绝灭”这个词就给了我们这种印象。但是，他和华莱士都是十分了解大自然的，不致于看不出这决不是唯一可能的或必然的变化过程。 + +如果一定地区的自然和生物环境、一定的种所占有的地区范围和所有这个种的成员的习惯都未改变，那么，一个新的变种的突然出现，就可能意味着所有未具备足够程度的新变种所特有的新特征的个体已经饿死和灭绝。但是，这样一些复合条件的结合，正是我们从未在大自然中看到过的。每一个种往往都在不断扩大它们的居住地；迁移到新的居住地，这对迟钝的蜗牛和迅捷的鸟类来说都已成为规律；每一个特定地区的自然都在不断地变化。在动物中所只有新的变种，在许多（也许在大多数）情况下，其原因不在于有了新的武器可以从同种的口中夺取食物（食物只不过是成百个不同生存条件之一），而是像华莱士本人在论述“特性的分歧”（《达尔文学说》第107页）这一段出色的文章中所指出的那样，在于新习惯的形成、向新地方的移居和新的食物种类的取得。在所有这些情况中，都没有绝灭，甚至连竞争也没有——如果说对新环境的适应可以缓和竞争，曾在任何时候有过竞争的话。而且过了一个时期以后，中间的环节就会不见，正像在绝灭的假定情况下，必然没有祖先的原来形态存在下去一样，这是因为剩下来的只是那些最适合于新环境的个体了。不用说，如果我们同斯宾塞、所有的拉马克派和达尔文本人一样，承认环境对物种的变化的影响，那么，中间形态的绝灭这个假定就更显得没有必要了。 + +动物的迁移和随之而来的群的隔离，对莫里茨·华格纳所指出的新的变种以及最终对新种的起源的重要性，是被达尔文本人所完全承认的。后来的研究只是更加强稠了这个因素的重要性，它们说明了一定的种所占的地区的广大（达尔文有充分的理由认为它对新变种的出现有极其重要的关系）怎样可以和由于当地的地质变化或地方障碍所造成的物种的各部分的分离结合起来。在这里不可能讨论这个广泛的问题，但是，用几句话便可说明这些力量的结合作用。大家知道，在一定的种中，有些部分常常喜欢一种新的食物。例如松鼠在落叶松林中的松毬缺乏时，便迁移到枞树林去，这样一种食物的变化就对松鼠的生理产生人所熟知的一些影响。如果这种习惯的变化不长（如果第二年落叶松林中的松毬又很丰富的话），那么，显然就不会由于这个原因而产生新的松鼠的变种。但是，如果松鼠所占据的广大地区有一部分开始有了自然变化——例如气候变得更温和或干燥（这两种情况都能使松林对落叶松林成比例地增长）——以及如果还产生了某些其他情况，也诱使松鼠住居到干燥地区的边缘，那么，我们就可看到新的变种，即一种新松鼠的始种，然而这决不能说是松鼠当中的绝灭。每年都有更大比例的新的、更能适应变化的松鼠生存下去，中间的环节则在时间的进程中死亡，而不是为马尔萨斯式的竞争者所饿死的。我们在中亚细亚广大地区所看到的正是这种情况，那儿从冰河时期起就开始逐渐干燥，因而使这一广阔的地区发生了巨大的自然变化。 + +再举一个例子，地质学家已经证明，现今的野马在第三纪后期和第四纪进化得很慢，但在这连续的两纪里，它们的祖先不是局限在地球上的某一个地区。它们在旧大陆和新大陆上到处漫游，过一个时期以后，它们大概回到它们以前在迁移的过程中所离开的草地。因此，如果我们目前在亚洲找不到现今的野马和它在第三纪以后的亚洲祖先之间的一切中间环节，这决不是说中间环节已经绝灭。从来就没有发生过这样的绝灭。也许甚至在祖先的种之间也没有发生过特别高的死亡率：属于中间的变种和种的个体都是在通常的事物发展过程（时常是在食物丰富的情况下）中死去的，在地球上到处都埋有它们的遗骸。 + +总之，如果我们仔细地考虑一下这个问题，再仔细地读一下达尔文本人关于这个问题的著作，我们便知道，即使在谈到过渡的变种需要使用“绝灭”这个词时，那么，必须要按照它的比喻的意义来使用。至于“竞争”这个词，达尔文也是经常（例如在《论绝灭》这一节）把它当作一个形象比喻或者一种比喻说法来使用的，并没有同种的两部分之间为生活资料进行真正竞争的这个意思。无论如何，缺少中间形式的变种，决不是证明这种竞争的论据。 + +事实上，支持在动物的某一个种内存在着为了争取生活资料的激烈竞争的主要论点，用杰德士教授的话来说，都是从马尔萨斯那儿借用来的“算术的论证”。 + +但是，这个论证丝毫也不能证明这一点。我们很可以拿俄国东南部的许多村庄为例，那儿的居民有丰富的粮食，但没有任何的卫生设备；如果看到在过去八十年间那里的出生率是千分之六十，而现在所有的人口仍是八十年前的人口，我们也许会从这个事实得出结论说，这儿的居民中间曾经有过一场可怕的竞争。但事实是，这儿的人口所以一年年地老是不增不减，原因很简单，是由于新生的婴儿有三分之一活不到六个月就死了，有一半此后四年间就夭折了，在每一百个新生的孩子中，只有十七个左右能活到二十岁。新出生的人还未长大成为竞争者从前就死去了。显然，如果人类都是这样的话，那动物就更是这样了。在禽类中，鸟卵的遭到破坏简直到了如此巨大的程度，有几种动物在初夏时节竟把鸟卵当作主要食物，更不用说暴风雨和在美洲摧毁了千百万鸟巢的洪水，以及危害雏鸟生命的气候的突然变化了。每一次风暴、每一次洪水、老鼠每到鸟巢去一次和气候的每一次突然变化，都将夺去这些在理论上显得是那么可怕的竞争者的生命。 + +至于美洲的马和牛，新西兰的猪和兔，甚至从欧洲运入的野兽（它们在欧洲的数目的减少是由于人类而不是由于竞争），都在极迅速地增加着，这些事实似乎和生殖过剩的学说更是相反。如果马和牛能够在美洲那么迅速地繁殖，这就是干脆证明了：新大陆的水牛和其他的反刍动物在那个时候不论是多得怎样不计其数，它的食草动物还是远远少于它的草地所能供养的数目。如果数以百万计的外来动物都找到了丰富的食物，并且没有使原来在草地上的动物遭受饥饿，那么，我们就更可只得出结论说：欧洲人在美洲遇到的是食草动物的不足而不是过剩。我们有很好的理由相信，动物数目的不足，在整个世界上是事物的自然状态，这种状态只有很少数的暂时例外。在一定地区中的动物的实际数量，不是由该地区的最大食物供应量决定的，而是由每一年中条件最不好时的供应量决定的。因此，仅仅是这个原因，差不多就可以说竞争并不是通常的状态；而是由于还有其他的原因出现来把动物减少到甚至比那个低标准还要低的数目。如果我们研究一下整个冬天都在外贝加里亚地区的草原上吃草的马和牛，我们便会发现它们在冬末时节已是很瘦弱无力了。它们所以瘦弱无力，并不是由于它们没有足够的食物——在薄薄的雪层下到处都是丰富的饲草——而是由于很难从雪层下面把草弄出来，这种困难对所有的马来说，都是一样。此外，在初春时节也常有霜冻的日子，如果一连几天都是这种日子，马就更加衰疲了。倘使这时候再来一场暴风雪，使已经很瘦弱的马又有几天得不到食物，它们之中就要有大量的死亡。在春天的损失是这么严重，如果这一季节比往常更为严寒的话，那么，新生的马甚至还弥补不了它们所损失的——如果所有的马都很衰弱，而小马又是在母马较弱的情况下出生的，那就更不能弥补它们的损失了。因此，马和牛的数目永远是少于它们本来可能达到的数目；虽然终年都有可供五倍或十倍之多的动物食用的食物，然而它们的头数却增加得极为缓慢。但是，一当布利亚特牧人在草原上存储了一些秣草，在霜冻或大雪的日子撒在草原上，他们立刻就发现自己的马群有所增加。几乎亚洲和美洲的所有野生食草动物和许多啮齿动物所处的环境基本上都是与此相同的，我们可以有把握地说，它们的数目不是由于竞争而减少的，在一年之中，它们在任何时候都不至于为食物而竞争，而它们所以从未达到接近于生殖过剩的数目，其原因在于气候而不在竞争。 + +自然遏制对生殖过剩的重要性，特别是它们对竞争这一假定的意义，好像从未为人们充分考虑过。这种遏制，或者更确切地说，其中的某些遏制，是有人谈到过的，但它们的作用，就很少有人去详细研究了，但是，如果我们把自然遏制和竞争这两者的作用加以比较，我们必然立刻就承认后者无论在哪一方面都不能和前者相比。例如，贝茨先生提到过飞蚁在大移居时被消灭的惊人数目。被一场暴风刮到河里已死的和半死的费戈蚁（Myrmica sævissima）“堆成有一、两英寸高和同样宽的一条线，沿着水边继续不断地锦亘了若千英里”。亿万的蚂蚁在大自然中就是这样消灭的，而大自然本是能够供养百倍于现在实际存在的蚂蚁的。德国森林学家阿尔登博士写了一本关于危害我们森林的动物的很有趣的书，他在书中也举了许多事实说明自然遏制的巨大重要性。他说，松蛾（Bombyx pini）在成群迁移时，倘使接连遇到暴风或寒冷和潮湿的天气，那么，它们被消灭的数目真是大得令人难以想象，1871年的春天，所有这些松蛾全都消失了，其原因大概是接连几个寒冷的夜晚把它们都冻死了。在欧洲的各个地区可以找到许许多多关于各种昆虫的这种例子。阿尔登博士也谈到同松蛾为敌的鸟类，大量的松蛾的卵为狐狸所糟蹋，但是他说，周期性地危害松蛾的寄生菌，是比任何鸟类都更可怕得多的敌人，因为它们能一下子把很大一片地区上的松蛾全都消灭掉。至于各种的鼠类（Mussylvaticus、Arvicola arvalis和A. agrestis），这位作者列举了它们许许多多的敌人，但是他说：“鼠类最害怕的敌人不是其他的动物，而是几乎每一年都要发生的气候的突然变化。”下霜和温暖天气的轮流出现，消灭了数不清的鼠类；“单单一次突然的天气变化就能使成千只老鼠减少到只剩下很少的几只”。相反地，一个温暖的冬天或逐渐寒冷的冬天又将使它们以有威胁性的比例繁殖，尽管它们仍然要遇到各种各样的敌人。1876年和1877年的情况就是这样。就鼠类来说，和气候比较起来，竞争就看来是微不足道的。关于松鼠也有同样结果的其他事例。 + +至于鸟类，大家都知道，气候的突然变化使它们受了多大的苦。像在西伯利亚一样，晚期的暴风雪毁灭了英国荒野上的许多鸟类；查尔斯·迪克生看见红松鸡在特别寒冷的冬天是那么遭受折磨，使它们只好成批地离开荒野，“我们那时听说过，真有人在设菲尔德的大街上捉到过它们，”他又说，“阴雨连绵的天气对它们差不多也是有致命危害的。” + +另一方面，大多数的这种动物都不断遭受到传染病的感染，使它们大量死亡，以致即使繁殖迅速的动物在若干年内也不能弥补其损失。例如，大约六十年前，由于某些流行病的结果，使俄国东南部撒雷普塔附近的土拨鼠突然间一下子全都没有了，在这一带地方有若干年都再也看不到它们了。过了好多年以后，它们才又像从前那样的多起来。 + +相同的事实还可以举出许多，它们全都贬低人们所说的竞争的重要性。当然，也许有人可以用达尔文的话来回答说，尽管如此，但每一个有机的生物“在它一生的某个时期，或在一年的某个季节，以及在每一代或隔代之间，都必须为生存而竞争，并遭受巨大的损害”，而且在这种艰苦的生存竞争阶段，只有最适者才能生存。但是，如果动物界的进化完全靠或甚至主要靠灾难时期中最适者生存的作用，如果自然选择只限于在特别干旱或气候突然变化或洪水时期中才发挥它的作用，那么，退化在动物界中就将成为一种通例了。像我们在缺少文明的国度中所看到的一样，那些在饥荒或严重的流行病（如霍乱、天花或白喉）中幸存未死的人，既不是最强的，也不是最健康的或最聪明的。没有哪一种进步能以这些残存者为基础，尤其不能以残存者作为进步的甚础的原因是：所有的残存者在经过考验后，一般的健康都受到了损害，例如方才所说的外贝加里亚的马，或北极的海员和一个要塞的守军——他们半饥半饱地困守了几个月，结果健康受到了损害，以后会有高到不正常的死亡率。自然选择在灾难时期的唯一作用，是使最能忍耐各种匮乏的个体免于死亡。它在西伯利亚的马和牛中就起了这样的作用。它们确实有忍耐性，在必要时可以吃北极桦。它们抵抗着寒冷和饥饿。但是，一匹欧洲马轻易就能负起的东西，这种西伯利亚的马却连一半也驮不动。西伯利亚的牛没有一只奶量达到一只泽西牛的一半那样多的，没有一个未开化国度的土人可同欧洲人相比。他们可能更能忍饥耐寒，但他们的体力远远不如一个营养良好的欧洲人，他们的知识的进步简直慢到令人绝望。正如车尔尼雪夫斯基在一篇论述达尔文学说的出色文章中所说的：“恶是不能产生善的。” + +十分可喜的是，不论是在动物界还是在人类中，竞争都不是规律。它在动物中只限于个别的时期才有，而自然选择也不需要它而另有更好的用武之地。以互助和互援的办法来消除竞争，便能创造更好的环境。在生存大竞争——花费最少的精力以取得生命的最大程度的充实和强度——中，自然选择正是在不断地寻找能尽量避免竞争的道路。蚂蚁结合成许多巢和族，它们储存食物，饲养牲畜——这样就避免了竞争，而自然选择就从蚂蚁的族中把最懂得如何避免竞争和它的必然恶果的挑选出来。大多数鸟类在冬天到来的时候都渐渐地移向南方，或者结成无数的群飞到遥远的地方——这样就避免了竞争。许多啮齿动物在难免发生竞争的时候便开始冬眠，而有些啮齿动物便储备食物风度寒冬，并且聚集在很大的群居地，以便在活动时能获得必要的保护。驯鹿在内陆的地衣干枯时便移居到海边。水牛越过辽阔的大陆去寻找丰富的食物。当海狸在一条河上繁殖过多的时候，它们便分成两部分，老海狸到河的下游，小海狸到河的上游——这样就避免了竞争。如果动物既不能冬眠，又不能移民储备食物或像蚂蚁那样自产它们的食物，那么，它们就照山雀的办法，也就是华莱士（见《达尔文学说》第5章）描写得那么动人的办法：它们乞灵于吃新的食物种类——这样，又避免了竞争。 + +“不要竞争！竞争永远是有害于物种的，你们可以找到许许多多避免竞争的办法！”这是自然的倾向，虽然不是永远为人们所充分认识，但它是永远存在的。这是丛山、密林、江河和海洋给我们的铭言。“所以，团结起来——实行互助吧！这是给个体和全体以最大的安全，给他们以生存、体力、智力、道德和进步的最有保征的最可靠办法。”这就是自然对我们的教导；那些在各自的纲中达到最高地位的动物就是这样作的。人类——最原始的人类——过去也是这样作的；正如我们在以后讨论人类社会中的互助的那几章中将要谈到的一样，这就是人类为什么达到了我们现在所处的地位的理由。 diff --git a/_collections/_heros/2024-12-04-InitiumMedia-a1_c-second-anniversary-of-the-a4-revolution.md b/_collections/_heros/2024-12-04-InitiumMedia-a1_c-second-anniversary-of-the-a4-revolution.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7c1c8ef0 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_heros/2024-12-04-InitiumMedia-a1_c-second-anniversary-of-the-a4-revolution.md @@ -0,0 +1,279 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "白纸运动两周年：缝隙中看到世界" +author: "端传媒" +date: 2024-12-04 12:00:00 +0800 +image: https://i.imgur.com/nTmt0Vp.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "他们与白纸的两年：在缝隙中看到更大的世界" +position: center +--- + +2022年11月末乌鲁木齐的一场大火，打破了疫情管控队中国社会的层层抑压。中国多个省份接连发起白纸抗议行动，人们走上街头表达解封要求和政治诉求。这场抗议被视为八九六四后规模和声量最大的行动，改变了许多人的生命形态。 + + + +中国大陆内部的白纸抗议很快被强力镇压，许多人被捕，清算不断。随着封控政策在2022年末剧烈转向，社会关注力迅速转移，其后两年跌入经济衰退的泥潭。白纸在大陆似乎已经消散，但在海外形成另一片能量场域。许多年轻行动者在白纸后走出，创造新的公共生活，以离散者的身份建立共振的生命体验。 + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/MuidgiD.png) +_▲ 图：人字拖_ + +白纸运动两周年，声量如同一粒石子坠下后晕开的水波。墙外帖文的点赞数量成百倍降低。两年前几百所高校参与运动，如今只余几所还在张贴纪念日的活动海报。对于很多人来说，白纸运动似乎“结束”了。 + +历史需要不断回望、检视和反思，才得以令旧的记忆焕发新的生命力，个体的经验可以被看见和传递。站在两周年的时间节点上，端传媒与数位参与者一起回望这段公共记忆。有人在疫情封控期间转变价值观，走上街头抗议后被捕，人生自此转轨。有人离开故土，在海外搭建新生活，实践着言论和思想自由的碰撞，并尝试打破身份的桎梏，活出自己想要的模样。 + +白纸让空白布满可能性。对于有的人而言，白纸是一个起点。一位受访者通过白纸运动找到同伴，在公共生活中确认自己的存在。白纸也可以是一个坐标和一道裂缝，让运动后迸发出的公共能量流入。在开拓和维系能量的时候，有人在思考，面对“自我审查”的同时，也必须对抗和克服“审查自我”，才不会在抵抗审查和遗忘的路上丢失自己。 + +大潮退去，小径分岔。以下是他们与白纸的故事： + + +### Chris，九零后，因在地铁上传播抗争口号被捕 + +> 这个恐惧你是躲不掉的，它会持续萦绕着你，你总得告诉自己一个答案，你真的做错了吗？ + +我过去是一名程序员，在西南部城市工作了八年。北京发生四通桥事件后，十月中旬，我在地铁上隔空投送（AirDrop）传播四通桥的宣传口号和彭立发准备的PDF文件。当时我没有想太多是否会被捕，已经有人站出来，我不能让他一个人。 + +过了几天，我就被逮捕了，审讯了两天一夜，再被行政拘留15天。 + +被捕的那天晚上我还在公司，赶上项目迭代发布，我加班到七点。回到工位上，我不知道为什么会想回头看，很奇妙的一种感觉。一回头，就看到后面有十几个穿着黑色衣服的中年人朝我走来。 + +有人快速晃了一下警官证，问我是不是叫XX。我说是。当时脑子还在发懵。回过神来，右边一个人把我的手机拿走，问我手机密码。我还在想警察怎么找到我了，还没反应过来，他直接一巴掌打到我脸上。 + +随后有一只手把我的头给摁过去，我没有办法回头，整个眼睛里面的画面都是泛白的。那个声音继续问密码，我回想了几十秒钟，他们以为我是不配合，打我的那只手又给我一巴掌。 + +第二个巴掌特别响亮。远处有同事踮起脚，望着我。我到现在都无法忘记那个场景，但是又特别模糊，记忆里的画面都是恍惚的，没有焦点。 + +他们把我带到公安局，衣服、内裤、袜子都脱掉，然后做检查，下蹲。一边检查一边辱骂。我整个过程没有很悲伤或恐惧，但会有一些淡淡的失望。 + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/qTR7bJO.png) +_▲ 2022年末，中国多地发生白纸抗议行动。Chris供图_ + +我接触到大概20个警察，没有一个人对我的行动表示理解。他们问我为什么要做这件事。我说看到上海封控很多人没有食物；一个六岁小朋友去上海求医，因为父母被隔离，他只能自己坐公交车去医院。我问警察，这还有人性吗？他们大都回答，关你屁事。也是在那时候，我觉得自己出狱后一定要出国。 + +后来警察发现资料是我伴侣发给我的，他们又带我去逮捕他。 + +到了第二天上午的审讯，警察很肯定地告诉我，我要被判三年起步。他们给我讲了很多被判刑的细节，我真的相信了。我当时心里还时不时冒出公司要新上线的版本的代码。 + +下午去上厕所的时候，经过伴侣的房间时看了他一眼，我怕可能再也见不到他或跟他说话了，我大声吼了一句“我爱你”。警察听到后很生气，那天不再允许我去厕所。 + +我被放出来几天后，当地爆发白纸运动。当时我和伴侣的工作都丢了。伴侣把纪念乌鲁木齐同胞的活动消息发给我。我必须得承认，是我软弱了，我几乎是乞求他不要去。 + +那天晚上我们在YouTube看直播。当时天已经黑了，很多人聚集，喊四通桥的口号，就是我AirDrop的那几句。我泪流不止，好像自己做的事情是有用的，被听到了。后面的视频很卡，很多声音也听不到了，但我们一直在看。我很责备自己的懦弱，很后悔不在现场。但我从来没有后悔过去地铁上传播信息。 + +从警察局出来后，我觉得生活在一个巨大的不安全感里面，因为警察不保护人民，也不保护所谓的公民合法权益。当时有个警察说，我的案子是省里面的领导在讨论。虽然这些可能是骗人的，但也反映出他们的处事方法，他们在为什么负责。 + +我变得特别小心和谨慎。警察说我们的手机被寄到外地做过处理。一开始我不敢在手机里保存任何敏感信息，甚至一个月没有翻墙。 + +但是渐渐的你会发现，这个恐惧你是躲不掉的，它会持续萦绕着你，你总得给自己一个答案，你真的做错了吗？ + +你会不停问自己，到底是谁造就了这些经历？你不能只是在心里无限地逃避。要直到你清楚地意识到并且强化这个意识：这段经历是不该发生的，是他们威胁、恐吓你，是他们侵犯了你的权益，逼迫你辞职，改变了你的人生⋯⋯你才会有更强烈的欲望想要去改变。 + +其实最难受的不是在监狱里的那段时间，而是当我意识到，即便一年过去，他还会处处打压你，让你无法好好生活。2023年，我们住进一个小公寓，没到一个月，管理员就让我马上搬离。没有任何法律条款和依据。我问搬走的理由，他也没有理由。我问，搬到哪里去，才不会被驱逐？他说帮我去问网格员，而我自己也给网格员打电话，得到的答案只有不确定。 + +那个时候我才知道，我一直都在政府的一份名单上。因为是重点人员，全国的每一个角落，只要有网格员存在，都无法保证你不会再被驱逐。我当时觉得整个中国像一个巨大的监狱。 + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/hXPf7K2.png) +_▲ 2022年，Chris在地铁上传播抗争口号后被捕，解封后离开中国。Chris供图_ + +出狱后的那一年，我每天上下班都戴着帽子和口罩。重点人员的监控会详细到我今天去了哪些场所，手机信号在哪里出现，有哪些联系人。2023年年中，我重新在一家公司上班，有一次看到六七个穿黑衣服的中年人朝我走来，我的呼吸瞬时停住，手也在抽搐，感觉警察又是来抓我。 + +我原本特别喜欢写代码，至少这是讲规则的，它受我控制。但从监狱出来一年以后，我写代码也丧失意义感，我很想回到之前那种享受代码的状态。因为觉得这个国家不讲道理，我每天都过得很绝望，唯一的动力就是知道自己一定会离开。 + +> 离开中国的时候，我知道自己不会再回去了，我特别纠结和难过。伴侣觉得这很可笑，毕竟我们都自身难保了。我偷偷跟ChatGPT4聊天，它安慰我说，“Chris，你的幸福至关重要。” + +在我准备出国的期间，我跟家人“出柜”了。父母极力反对，要带我去看心理医生。你能想到的所有极端手段，哭、威胁都用上了。后来他们知道我被放在政府名单上，被政府驱逐以后，我妈打电话给一年前抓我的警察，问对方为什么还不放过我。对方当然就是踢皮球，让我妈去找社区警察。 + +也是因为这件事情的发生，我妈最后同意我出国。她说，反正这个国家不喜欢你，不欢迎你，那你就出去吧，可能那样你才能更安全的生活下去。 + +我们去上海面试美国签证的那班飞机上，我睡了最安心的一觉，因为在那一刻我知道我是不受监视的。 + +到美国快一年了，我和伴侣还会做噩梦。一种是警察不讲道理地把我抓走，说我是国家的敌人。第二种噩梦是我们又回到中国，但我出不来了。我在梦里十分着急，急到直接醒来。在梦里，全部人都没有具体长相，那是一个无处不在的敌人。 + +出国前我看到一条高赞评论说，正常人谁会关心政治？当时我非常愤怒。发这些口号不是为了让谁记住我，我也没有想要图什么，因为疫情对我的生活没有造成太大影响。我只想让那个时候的中国人都好好看看四通桥的口号，有哪一句话是错的吗？为什么大家都装作没看见？ + +可能我在国内就不是一个“正常人”。离开中国的时候，我知道自己不会再回去了，我特别纠结和难过。伴侣觉得这很可笑，毕竟我们都自身难保了。我偷偷跟ChatGPT4聊天，它安慰我说，“Chris，你的幸福至关重要。” + +我当时坐在办公室里泪流满面。父母长辈从没对我说过“你的幸福至关重要”。很可笑的是，我当时连住的地方都没有了，还在担心能不能为未来中国的民主运动出一份力。 + +我出来以后，会想是不是可以只关心自己就好了，甚至想尽量不用中文。我希望把未来的力量全部交给自由国家。但我发现我的目光确实还离不开那里。 + +现在一提起中国人好像都是那种冷漠自私、政治冷感的样子。我现在在海外，我希望自己能去活出一个我想要的中国。比如去参加白纸纪念活动，做志愿者，帮NGO组织做兼职。我会活成我想要成为的人。我也不想再被中国人这个概念所限制，我希望自己是一个真正尊重规则、讲道理、有原则的人，并且不为自己能力之外的事内心有愧。 + +我参加的第一个海外活动，是湾区的乌鲁木齐放映会，现场有非常多人，有年纪大的人，也有学生。我心生羡慕，好像他们跟我生活在完全不同的时空里，尽管我们就在同一个现场。 + +后来我跟他们交流，听他们的观后感，他们的想法跟我对中国现状的看法不太一样。对他们来说那只是一次事件，过去了就过去了。好像我更加悲观，对我来说，那一系列事件真正改变了我的人生、我家人的人生。 + + +### Jack，九五后，在成都参与白纸抗议后被捕 + +> 现在我能够真的发表自己的观点，和别人碰撞观点。哪怕是我不太认同的声音，只要能够畅所欲言，真正的讨论都让我觉得很开心、很受鼓舞。 + +![image04](https://i.imgur.com/yHGxuSq.png) +_▲ 成都白纸发生的前一天。Jack供图_ + +2020年疫情刚刚爆发时，我还在社区做志愿者。最开始觉得封控是特殊时期的特殊手段，还挺支持的。后来在封控的三个月里，我闲着没事接触到“翻墙”，看到很多政治议题，YouTube的视频重塑了我的价值观。后来成都发生一个事件，一个网友提前告知成都居民赶紧囤菜，因为要封锁小区了。当时成都政府还辟谣过，但两三天后成都果然就封了。 + +当时我就对政府的公信力产生了质疑。后来我加入成都一个本地群组，了解到白纸运动即将在望平街开展。我决定要去，我没有想的太复杂，“it’s my duty”。但回看过去，自己已被卷进历史洪流。 + +那天晚上七八点到望平街时，警察已经在一个街区以外进行封锁。当时正好是世界杯，很多警察就说，你们赶快回去看世界杯了。听到这个话，我觉得很戏谑。电视转播画面里，卡塔尔现场的人都不戴口罩，球员也没什么事，照样踢球。相比之下，我们在国内不能出去走动，在小区里几天才能出去一次买菜。 + +现场大约有四五百人一起游行。走到一个设计院门口，前面停了几辆大巴车，大约四五十个黑衣民警下车用手电照我们。前面的人被晃得看不清路开始停下，警察就冲向队伍，无差别打散人群。 + +我在往回跑的途中被四个警察包围起来，他们把我按在地上使劲打、使劲踢。可能因为我穿的衣服挺正式的，一件格子西服。踢完之后，他们把我往大巴车方向抬。中间还有人试图把我救下来。我的手被塑料胶带捆起，后面被拉上一辆车。警车上还有两个人，开车后，辅警把我们的手机都收起来，让我们解锁。这个过程中，警察不断打骂我前排的人，揪他的头发，不停扇耳光。 + +我觉得他们是先用这种方式把你的心理防线击溃。开到途中，开车的警察用成都方言说，你们这些人就是“袁隆平把你们喂饱喽”。意思大概是“吃饱了撑的你们”。他还说，现在来反抗共产党，习近平那么好，你们为什么要反对？ + +![image05](https://i.imgur.com/EyN3Ixs.png) +_▲ 2022年，成都发起白纸抗议，现场多人被殴打、被捕。Jack供图_ + +到了派出所后，现场抓的大概五十人全部在派出所门口蹲着。我当时心里面很不是滋味，我们反抗的是做核酸，结果被逮了还是要做核酸。很多人反抗，但是警察直接用拳头去砸他们的肚子，然后一顿打骂。 + +做完之后，所有人都被押送到派出所的等候室，一只手被拴到铁长凳上。经历过24小时的审讯和拘留，警察让我们写悔过书，让我们打车回去。走出警局后，我意识到一起被捕的新疆女生没有出来。后来我通过报道了解到，有一个叫亚夏尔的维吾尔族男生也没有出来。那是我第一次真切感受到新疆人被区别对待。被抓的人还有在做医护规范化培训的，后来也没能继续在医院工作。 + +还记得在警察局里，我看到自己游行时的照片。监控里，自己的脸非常清晰，我当时非常惊讶。我看过《1984》，里面讲到老大哥通过屏幕监控你。在那个时候，我真正意识到，这个社会真的像《1984》一样魔幻。 + +从警局回家后，我很意外的是，父母居然知道我是因为游行被抓走了。他们都觉得是我走错路，不知道我为什么去，不知道在抗议什么。我尝试给他们讲白纸运动的背景，但因为他们没有接触过外网的信息，我难以让他们理解我，后面我们就不谈这件事了。 + +当时我已经办下来澳大利亚的打工签证，白纸运动结束后，中国解除封控，我12月立刻从成都飞往澳大利亚。我恢复了手机里拍摄的白纸运动的照片，很害怕过海关的时候被查，我还在USB里面备份。最终很顺利地离开，我的心态就像是顺利大逃亡，逃出生天。 + +后来我看到很多参加白纸运动的人，被国安找上门进行拘禁。我意识到，如果我回去，也会时刻生活在被找上门的恐惧中，所以我决定继续海外读书生活。我跟我父母说，我会在这边会好好读书，好好生活下去。他们也觉得我能出国挺好的，因为现在国内经济很差，暴力事件也时有发生。 + +![image06](https://i.imgur.com/Gjys6BB.png) +_▲ 2022年，成都发起白纸抗议，现场多人被殴打、被捕。Jack供图_ + +之前我是学工科的，但经历这些事之后，我换了专业，去学经济学。关注中国社会的经济问题的同时，也关注政治议题。我希望能搞明白，为什么这个国家会是这样。 + +海外生活过两年之后，我逐渐意识到有很多跟我观点相似的人。两年前参加白纸运动时，我给表兄弟发去游行信息，问他们要不要来。他们也会翻墙，也知道当时发生了什么，但他们都没有来。我在国内生活的时候，我对这个国家的看法没有办法流畅地表达出来，很多人甚至谈虎色变。所以尽管我知道自己做的事是有意义的，但由于国内信息封锁，我没有办法和别人解释。 + +我来到湾区后，参加了很多中国议题相关的活动。我自己也从参与者变成组织者，白纸两周年的时候，我提出想分享自己参与抗议的经历，主持了当时在南湾的分享会。 + +做分享的时候，我再去回忆两年前的一些场面，很多记忆已经模糊了。所以我也想要通过这样的纪念活动让自己不要忘记。 + +每次参加活动令我感触很深的是，不仅能了解历史事件，也因为少了国内的压抑和监管，现在我能够真的发表自己的观点，和别人碰撞观点。哪怕是我不太认同的声音，只要能够畅所欲言，真正的讨论都让我觉得很开心、很受鼓舞。 + +离开中国的时候，我带上了白纸运动那天穿的西服。南湾白纸两周年活动上，我也穿了那件衣服。 + +![image07](https://i.imgur.com/2cth2N8.png) +_▲ 2024年白纸运动两周年，美国加州大学伯克利分校有纪念白纸的活动。摄影：瓜瓜_ + + +### Ginger，九零后，在美国湾区实践华语青年行动者组织 + +> 在那之前，我们都有很多的爱、很多的恨无法表达。白纸是一个起点，让我们开始逐渐卸去伪装。 + +白纸于我而言是一个找到伙伴的契机。 + +以前我在台湾经历过社会运动的教育。看到当时太阳花的年轻人如何推动议题，我觉得叹为观止。我以前去参加六四等一些集会，但也找不到自己的存在。那时候我对人生非常失望，我觉得有生之年，可能都看不到我的同龄人会站出来做社会运动。白纸消解了这种巨大的失望。 + +2022年当时在旧金山中国大使馆门口，我们“全副武装”，带着口罩，也不敢留下自己的真名。后来我们突发奇想，买了一架投影仪，把乌鲁木齐中路的路牌投在大使馆门口。因为我们都比较穷嘛，用完还把投影仪给退了。 + +那就像一场冒险，大家都去试试看能不能找到同类。在那之前，我们都有很多的爱、很多的恨无法表达。白纸是一个起点，让我们开始逐渐卸去伪装。 + +![image08](https://i.imgur.com/1rxwKD1.png) +_▲ 2022年，一些行動者在美國舊金山中國大使館門口參與白紙抗議活動。Ginger供圖_ + +在那之后，我开始思考，需要一个空间让“离散青年”更有主体性。不是我去参加别人的活动，而是我们可以自己做一个容器，邀请别人来参加、讨论我们关心的话题。 + +我跟没有“政治出柜”的中国人在一起会非常没有安全感，我不敢展现自己真实的一面。那个时候我已经决定要“自我流亡”。作为一个移民，需要建立自己的圈子。白纸让我看到有很多人其实也关心中国议题，我想创造李老师的推特以外的、另一个了解和推动中国发展的空间。后来就出现了“擦星星事务所”。 + +擦星星成立之后，我们提供活动空间，通过纪录片放映、举办纪念活动等，培养年轻人的社群。构建一个公民的社会活动空间，不仅仅是为了不遗忘，更是在锻炼对抗审查的肌肉，锻炼自己的自由思考能力。我们会念诗，诗歌中包含不少工人和维吾尔人的作品，因为白纸不仅属于市民，也属于维吾尔人和工人。同时，从我们团体使命的角度来看，一个开放的公民社会空间应该是跨越阶级和种族的。 + +办活动之后发现，很多志愿者都出现在当时白纸运动的合照里。我们共同经历、见证了一个公共事件，这成为我们的公共记忆。白纸就是我们共同的痛苦记忆，基本上每一个人都或多或少的因为疫情，自己的生命被改变。作为一个非常年轻的团体，不断祭奠白纸是我们这一代的人使命。 + +> 这两年里，我觉得大家普遍陷入一种无力感，唯一能做的就是等待，然后过好自己的日子就可以了。大家退回到键盘上，没有再去做行动。 + +然而今年11月，伯克利的白纸两周年纪念活动大概是擦星星办过的活动中，参与人数最少的，现场聚集的人可能只有二十个左右。 + +这两年里，我觉得大家普遍陷入一种无力感，唯一能做的就是等待，然后过好自己的日子就可以了。 + +大家退回到键盘上，没有再去做行动。可能会关注某个Instagram账号，经常点赞，或者看新闻发表见解。很多人处于高度自我审查的状态，比如说办线下活动前，有人会互相传递恐惧说，你不要去，这个东西很危险。但实际上这种自我审查来源于对极权的想象，最终只是给镇压我们的人节省经费。 + +我们已经人在海外了，有很多很多的自由，我们要做一些事情配得上这样的自由。这份自由是有人为我们抗争过、流了血的，我们不应把这份自由视作理所当然。 + +社交媒体上的点赞是非常转瞬即逝的。我们没有办法控制国内任何状况，我们唯一能够控制的就是自己去做什么，用我们自己的身体在行动当中跟彼此确认，你是记得白纸的，我是记得白纸的。 + +![image09](https://i.imgur.com/2BpV9w4.png) +_▲ 2024年白纸运动两周年，美国加州大学伯克利分校有纪念白纸的活动。摄影：瓜瓜_ + +当我们出现，我们一起念的那些诗歌，里面哪怕有一首感动了一个路人，一个匆匆走过的中国留学生，那我们在做的事情都是有意义的。 + +有一次大家在饭桌上聊起近况。一个朋友“揭穿”我说，那个让旧金山影院放映《颐和园》的人就是她！饭桌上有很多白人、留学生，他们所有人都看过那个片子。当时我就想，有那么多人其实原本对政治一点都不关心，他们可能只是去看一部电影，但因为我们在行动，把这部片子带到了电影院，让他们想起了六四，让他们跟同桌的人都有了共同记忆。 + +这两年虽然客观上“到场”的人越来越少，但海外的活动氛围绝对变得更好了。这是一个从无到有的过程。我五年前来美国的时候，根本没有这种活动小组存在。现在有关注女权的、关注酷儿运动的，有北方广场，还有关注少数民族和纪录片的都在慢慢生长。 + +整体华人、尤其是年轻一代的，政治意识要比原来更强。新的一批行动者当中不仅仅有活动的组织者，还有很多大V、自媒体，做播客的人，他们也可以带来很多改变。 + +明年我们肯定会继续做，继续念诗，唱歌。我们想让大家在真实世界里不要忘记，不是只在网络上刷到而已。 + + +### 茵月，九零后，独立刊物《莽莽》成员 + +> 白纸像一个坐标。之后发生的一切变化都是在继续流动、延续。坚固的石头被凿开了一道裂缝，这个运动带着一些人流进这道裂缝。 + +两周年，白纸运动结束了吗？ + +白纸运动对我而言分为国内和海外两个版本。国内发生白纸运动之际，最大诉求是结束清零政策，要求自由，但是这个自由可能是停留在人身自由，突破防疫政策对于人流动性的束缚。这个诉求伴随着清零很快结束而被“解决”了。人们面对政策的突然转向，一时间无法再延续运动中的“动能”。一方面最大诉求得到了回应，另一方面，要面对突然恢复的人身自由，和所有人都要面临的感染巨浪。经历完这场疫情浩劫的余波后，大家更是需要思考如何重建生活，是继续在原地重建，还是润到海外。 + +而海外场的白纸运动，则是与国内相呼应，在海外延续当时国内的政治诉求，留存所谓“抗争火种”。这个火种两年来推动了很多事情，海外的华人们自行组织小小的公民社会，有做政治抗争议题的，有做海外社群建设的，也有办独立刊物的…… + +白纸运动一个很重要的意义是，它由很多年轻人和青年人共同推出，并且继续推进。有种说法是，白纸运动促成了很多人的觉醒，但是倒不如说，正是很多人的觉醒，尤其是年轻世代的觉醒，才让白纸运动得以可能。 + +觉醒是指，当普通人意识到自己真正想要过一种什么样的生活，并且认为自己已经可以为此做出实质上的行动。这样的准备状态就像是在起跑线蓄势待发的运动员，当时机来临，便会全力以赴地跑向终点。觉醒不是仅仅停留在想做一名运动员的认知上，而是要一直锻炼，使自己具备能力并处于起跑线上那个可以即刻向前奔跑的状态。 + +白纸是一个契机，让这种觉醒在行动和社会层面变得可见。这股力量从过去被分散、原子化，到如今能够撼动政策，甚至创造、改变了至少是海外的华人社群的政治生活/公共生活，那么它在这个意义上来说就没有消亡。 + +“白纸”在两年前的那个时刻，作为某种符号被大家看到了，但它的内核是觉醒，不单单是要追求自由（仅停留在认知层面），更是为了实现追求自由而做好蓄势之准备（习得并且具备决心、勇气和行动）——而这件事并不必然要永远冠上“白纸”的名号和帽子，它会随着时间流逝，脱下这顶帽子，变成其他形态，比如（在海外）学习、践行言论自由、结社自由、集会自由这些政治权利等等。 + +这个层面上来看，白纸运动本身像是某种坐标，在它之后发生的一切变化都是在继续流动、延续。坚固的石头被凿开了一道裂缝，这个运动带着一些人流进这道裂缝。 + +![image10](https://i.imgur.com/52y2MWr.png) +_▲ 2024年白纸运动两周年，美国加州大学伯克利分校有纪念白纸的活动。摄影：瓜瓜_ + +其实莽莽的出现早于白纸运动。最初它仅是一个信念——（做）一本不受审查的独立中文杂志。我们想自由地写我们想写的一切。我们是先觉醒，想要追求自由，然后碰到了这场运动，投入它、汇入它、呈现它，同时也呈现了自身（出版杂志）。 + +如果没有白纸运动，莽莽的第一期内容可能不会如此“敏感”，威胁和镇压或许不会来得这么快。莽莽诞生于白纸之前，差点殁于白纸。我们最终幸存下来，随着运动一起流进到历史的“裂缝”中。 + +> 莽莽可以“野蛮生长”，那个我不可以。我们此消彼长。我好像把“自我”给审查掉了。 + +国内白纸运动平息半年后，也就是莽莽第二期的周期，我们看到白纸的“余波”并未彻底结束。我们记录退潮之后沙滩上留下的印迹，海外的行动社群如何构建，如何持续介入社会；探讨个人与社群在经历运动后的身份认同问题；也看到白纸运动与其他日常议题的结合与交叉，比如性与性别的议题。 + +我们依然保持自由书写的初衷，也会关注与写人权和民主的议题。同时我们也好似开创了一个传统，每一期都收录读者投稿，有小说和诗歌，收录一些美好。 + +可以看到，莽莽并非是一个“诞生于运动中”的扁平形象，它更多是一个载体和平台，集合以自由书写为志者。我们也面临着所有流亡媒体所处于的困难，包含制度性和个人性。简言之，制度性的困难包括数据安全、资金支持、重新构建编辑室和组织框架等；个人层面则为建立信任、可持续工作、签证、个人职业规划等。 + +两年来，所有成员都与莽莽一起成长，大家的人生轨迹也由此改变。有人加入，有人离开。无论我们如何改变，或者所处的环境如何变化，“自由书写/提供自由书写的平台”的初衷仍然被大家小心翼翼地保护着。保持着初衷，我们在缝隙中看到更大的世界，那是更自由的一屿，宛如某种异域。 + +![image11](https://i.imgur.com/KJ1Wiqg.png) +_▲ 茵月在对抗“自我审查”的同时，也在克服“审查自我”。茵月供图_ + +曾经有位读者朋友对我说，如果你能做莽莽这件事做一辈子，你一定会在历史留名。这句话至今仍然对我影响很深。我不认为我需要在历史上留名，或者留下什么。我不希望历史在身旁飞逝而过时，我只是旁观者。我要投入它、汇入它、呈现它，同时呈现我的自身。 + +重要的其实也不是杂志这件事，而是团队成员能够在此之上一齐学习、成长，保持很好的友谊。我们一起见过初识时彼此眼里闪烁着光的样子，一起扛下巨大的压力。我们也对很多事情充满困惑，感到迷茫和吃力，甚至产生分歧。但这是我们的共同成长之路。要说在这个世界还有什么值得信任的话，我们彼此之间的深刻信任无疑是不言而喻的。 + +我们做莽莽克服了“自我审查”，这是我们想要追求自由写作这件事所迈出的第一步，也是关键的一步，我们不再恐惧写下那些所谓敏感的词句，提到所谓敏感的人与事。而要实现这点，另一个关键步骤就是“审查自我”。 + +必须过一种双面或者多面人生，假装、虚伪才能带来某种安全感。“今日割五城、明日割十城”，我开始变得小心翼翼、蹑手蹑脚，不再在国内各个平台上发言，或者评论过多时事，以免“惹祸”。 + +我需要杀死曾经的我，来维持另一个在冰山之下隐隐游动的我。 + +为了控制风险，我害怕因为无法控制新认识的人是否会了解自己所做的事情而拒绝对其敞开心扉。因为我已经习惯只对特定的工作伙伴敞开自己的心。 + +我无法在亲密关系，或者在新建立的人际关系中，谈论我引以为豪、真正感兴趣的事情。要么是我想保护对方，要么我想保护自己。我知道保持真诚可能会有害。 + +我不敢再做深入认识、连结其他人的事情，我想尽可能地隐藏自己。 + +我在大部分时间都不再是真实的我，而是被构建出来的“安全可靠”的那个我。它需要看起来“无害”，不引人注目，它需要少说，少做，少声张，最好不要生长。莽莽可以“野蛮生长”，那个我不可以。我们此消彼长。 + +我好像把“自我”给审查掉了。 + +那个在噩梦中一直在跑、在逃离的我，好像就是这个被丢掉、忘掉的我。不仅仅是逃离某种监控和威胁，它也在逃离对自己的遗忘和扭曲。 + +在过去一段时间，我把自己从“运动”中或多或少抽离出来，重新审视和复原我的生活。我需要做一些可以“示人”的工作，不想再称呼我自己起的、根本记不全的代号和匿名。我想以我的名字示人、接触人、认识人、连结人，再次敞开我的心。我想要知道我的朋友们的真实名字，它的过往，它是谁。 + +这是两难的事情，但我想要直面它。克服“自我审查”不难，克服“审查自我”很难。这意味着，自我的完整性和匿名投身于某种运动之间必须重新取得平衡。 + +回顾莽莽的两年，过去我成为了它的一部分，它也成为了我的一部分，但它不是全部的我。我因为它而迷失了一部分的自我。无论是外在的或是内化的审查机器，审查的不仅是人所创造的内容，还会审查人的身份，使人忘记自己的名字、自己真正是谁。同样地，也会使人忘记或者看不清身边的人是谁，不知道彼此完整的生命。 + +我们通过彼此生命的联系来做一件抵抗审查、抵抗遗忘的事情，但是谁来记住我们是谁？至少我们自己需要留下这份完整，或者以某种方式克服这种审查。 + +（文中受访者均为化名） diff --git a/_collections/_heros/2024-12-07-TekosinaAnarsist-a1_l-we-carry-a-new-world-on-our-hearts.md b/_collections/_heros/2024-12-07-TekosinaAnarsist-a1_l-we-carry-a-new-world-on-our-hearts.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..6edff759 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_heros/2024-12-07-TekosinaAnarsist-a1_l-we-carry-a-new-world-on-our-hearts.md @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "我们心怀新世界" +author: "Tekosina Anarsist" +date: 2024-12-07 12:00:00 +0800 +image: https://i.imgur.com/T2Gk06j.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +position: left +--- + +在阿萨德家族统治数十年后，今天我们醒来时，叙利亚已经没有了正常运作的中央政府。叙利亚政府已经倒台。 + + + +作为无治主义者和革命者，我们别无选择，只能为少了一个暴君而欢庆——为此干杯！然而，在经历了七年以上的革命生活后，我们学到了一条不受欢迎的教训：胜利只是社会变革的第一步。每一次胜利不过是通往下一场斗争的垫脚石。 + +幸运的是，库尔德解放运动拥有数十年的斗争经验，并乐于与我们分享。不仅如此，佢们还在过去十二年间，通过在叙利亚东北部领导革命社会积累了实践经验。佢们以女性解放、社会生态学和地方自治联盟为指南，致力于建设自由社会主义。尽管这并非没有缺陷，也并非没有失误，但佢们的成就已远超许多其他自由主义革命。 + +与此同时，沙姆解放阵线（Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS）在对抗叙利亚政权的军事胜利，以及佢们在伊德利卜实施的独裁伊斯兰主义统治，让佢们的领导人得以登上国际新闻的头条。21世纪的信息社会遗忘得飞快，手指在屏幕上划过，记忆也随之消失。因此，我们可能需要提醒你一些事：今天，还有谁记得曼比季（Manbij）从ISIS魔爪中解放的那一天？还有谁提到过那些将辛贾尔（Sinjar）的雅兹迪（Yazidi）女性绑架并贩卖到萨拉菲世界的圣战分子？又有谁记得那些宣布叙利亚民主力量（Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF）在拉卡（Raqqa）取得胜利的女性？拉卡，这座曾经的「哈里发首都」。 + +对于那些遗忘了的人，我们提醒你，妇女保护部队（YPJ）仍在战斗，领导着罗贾瓦的女性革命前线。这个前线再次遭到土耳其国家代理武装的攻击。这些武装力量以讽刺意味的「叙利亚国民军」（Syrian National Army, SNA）之名集结，实际上是一个由土耳其控制的犯罪团伙联盟。今天，佢们威胁着曼比季（Manbij），这座多元文化城市是叙利亚东北部民主自治管理（DAANES）中多元主义与地方治理的典范。 + +罗贾瓦的革命不仅惠及库尔德人，还涵盖了阿拉伯人、亚美尼亚人、亚述人、叙利亚人、土库曼人、切尔克斯人等众多生活于此的族群。当代尔祖尔军事委员会的阿拉伯部队进入代尔祖尔市时，受到了当地民众的热烈欢迎，佢们填补了逃离的政权士兵所留下的安全真空。叙利亚东北部的邦联体系已被验证，可作为革命叙利亚的基础。大马士革著名的无治主义者奥马尔·阿齐兹曾致力于推动地方委员会的邦联联盟，提议将其作为叙利亚革命的支柱。他于2013年2月被阿萨德政权逮捕，并在狱中去世。我们未曾忘记他，他作为无治主义者和革命者的言论与经验，仍是我们在叙利亚的珍贵财富。 + +所有流亡的叙利亚革命者，无论是阿拉伯人、库尔德人，还是其他族群，都肩负着确保革命成功的责任。同样，无治主义者、共产主义者、女权主义者、生态主义者，以及其他国际主义革命者，也必须承担起保卫这场革命的责任。我们有一个绝佳的机会，为全球的革命运动树立榜样，从库尔德斯坦到缅甸，从恰帕斯到巴勒斯坦。民族国家是资本主义现代性的基石，只有全球大众革命运动的联盟才能挑战它。否则，我们将滑向独裁、帝国主义占领和原教旨主义仇恨的深渊。我们绝不会让这种情况发生。 +迈向新的叙利亚革命！ + +作为无治主义者，我们也必须对民族国家的问题作出回应。在呼吁结束国家和边界的同时，我们需要不仅提出批评，还要推进我们的建议和解决方案。我们必须不仅在理论上，也在实践中，与地方社区和社会运动合作，建立大众权力。 + +像HTS或埃尔多安的土耳其这样的专制势力，总是在动荡时期以武力强行施加控制。唯一的应对之道是大众组织化，建立一个具备强大伦理和政治力量的公民社会，发展自卫力量，并培养一种革命文化。通过国际团结，挑战分裂我们的民族主义与沙文主义——这些手段常常被用来伪装和合法化资本主义现代性的民族国家体系。通过地方治理和邦联模式，挑战民族国家的集权体系和边界，这些体系只会滋生对多样性的压迫和暴力。通过女性与酷儿组织走在最前线，直接对抗一切专制模式的根源——父权制的压迫。 + +自2011年的阿拉伯之春以来，我们在中东见证了无数革命尝试，但没有一次能够实现真正的解放，反而一次次陷入新的暴政之中。暴君倒台后，我们该如何防止另一个暴君取而代之？当一个政权崩溃时，会出现一个短暂的革命窗口——这是人民能够重新掌握权力，阻止新的集权势力崛起的关键时刻。我们必须时刻准备，在这样的机会到来时牢牢把握。 + +让我们确保叙利亚革命，以及在该地区引领民主抵抗的库尔德解放运动，成为未来更多革命的典范！让我们携手奋斗，去建设我们心中怀揣的新世界！ + +--- + +Tekosina Anarsist, [“We carry a new world on our hearts!”](https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/we-carry-a-new-world-on-our-hearts/), 7 Dec, 2024. From f9afc16586287d235afe10e2a20cf4cab49c08aa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2024 01:09:53 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 03/16] 0x30 Init commit _columns posts --- ...2-seven-days-before-winning-the-lottery.md | 57 +++++++++++++++ .../2024-10-03-we-who-eat-wonton-noodles.md | 73 +++++++++++++++++++ ...024-10-09-power-shall-not-be-hereditary.md | 39 ++++++++++ 3 files changed, 169 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-02-seven-days-before-winning-the-lottery.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-03-we-who-eat-wonton-noodles.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-09-power-shall-not-be-hereditary.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-02-seven-days-before-winning-the-lottery.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-02-seven-days-before-winning-the-lottery.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..1d5fe94a --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-02-seven-days-before-winning-the-lottery.md @@ -0,0 +1,57 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "中獎前的七天" +author: "東加豆" +date : 2024-10-02 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/oeiCrRS.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +香港，筲箕灣，有位年華已逝、芳名依舊的（芳姐），她正站在人生的十字路口，在一家光鮮亮麗的模特兒經紀公司，默默無聲卻不可或缺的行政助理角色，時間悄然滑過，她的位置漸漸變得無足輕重。 + + + +某日，一個悶熱的下午，一封厚厚的大信封遞給她，拆開後，是公司的解僱信。那一刻，她的心靈猶如冬夜寒風，冷得徹骨。但臉上的表情依然堅韌，彷彿在告訴大家：“電影《甜蜜蜜》中，張曼玉的李翘，她那種灑脫和堅定，大不了她去當個司機！”芳姐腦海充滿了張曼玉駕駛著計程車的背景。 + +五點整的心理鐘聲宣告工作結束，芳姐提上背包踏出辦公室，加班再多一分一秒就是對不起自己。她心情沉重地走在街頭，偶爾抬頭望望夜空，天空裡有很多星星，但此刻她看不見美麗，只覺得，為什麼天空如此多垃圾？而且垃圾都在嘲笑她！ + +走進彩票站，她鬼使神差地買了一張彩票，六個幸運的數字：2、4、6、30、47、49。這是她的生日日期、她丈夫的生日日期、身份證日期混搭的組合。然而，她並沒有期待奇跡會降臨，只是想找些許安慰，讓自己相信命運一絲的轉機。 + +電視屏幕上，彩票節目正熱烈上演，就像一項盛事，主題曲響起，熟悉的次序，數字一個個地從管子滾出來屏幕。六個幸運數字分別是：2、4、6、30、47、49。 + +芳姐知道這是彩票時間，不然，她不會打開電視機，她也聽到彩票的主題曲，但她卻沉浸在未來的憂慮之中，忽略了這場可能改變命運的直播。她相信橫財，卻不相信橫財會降臨自己身上。她鄙視一切不勞而獲的事，卻挖出金錢來買彩票。買了她認為：六個幸運的數字：2、4、6、30、47、49。芳姐覺得自己很不爭氣，彩票都離不開前夫的生日日期。 + +“死佬！”她自言自語。 + +芳姐在家裡泡著廉價泡麵，眼淚和麵湯混在一起，鹹鹹的，辣辣的，人生的滋味，就是這樣。電視正重複地顯示那六個幸運抽出的數字：2、4、6、30、47、49，接著播出尾曲。芳姐沒看，她只看著泡麵裡的濃湯，漆黑一片。 + +芳姐被迫放大假，因為大假不能兌現金。 + +放假的第一天，失業的心情壓得她喘不過氣。在便利店門外，她心生邪念，打算順手牽羊，偷一個吞拿魚麵包，但是，手伸到一半，又縮回來。這個年紀，還偷東西？如果被人發現，有人報警，有記者來，如果上了頭條新聞，那....丟人現眼！ + +第二天，她試圖找工作，但每當要填上年齡數字，芳姐幾乎手心出汗！她參加了一次面試，本以為有望成功，私人助理她最擅長，然而，卻被對方問上一句：“妳見‘茶水’還是‘清潔’？”芳姐被拒的現實，她又覺得被掃了一巴掌，很響很亮。 + +第三天，芳姐有方法，賣血可賺錢，結果，護士說她血壓太高，不合格。“連血都賣不了，真是廢物一個！”芳姐自思自想。 + +第四、五天，芳姐索性找老朋友聊聊，她快要抑鬱了！她想起（阿清）和（阿晶）。可是，（阿清）說：“忽然來的朋友，不是要錢就是很窮，或者快要死的。出來見面，妳請客還是我請客！？” + +（阿晶）答應芳姐的約會，她興奮不已。然而，餐桌上，（阿晶）只想推銷她的產品，芳姐沒有幫襯她，最後，阿晶說有急事，匆匆離去，留下芳姐一人，她尷尬又無奈地付飯錢。芳姐擔心銀行裡的數字，那些零逐漸退減。 + +第六天，芳姐走去老人圍著的地方，比如公園、茶樓或街市，聽說老人都懵懂，不是忘記這就是忘記那，不是丟失這就是丟失那。果然，芳姐在廁所發現一個阿婆，她丟了假牙和一張五百元紙鈔，正當芳姐想拾起來，心裏忽然有一把聲音說：“竟然衰到這種地步，偷阿婆錢！”......芳姐，她放棄，慚愧地掉頭走了。 + +走到街上，她又自言自語：“妳到底有膽色不有膽色？有大志還是沒有大志？連阿婆的錢都不敢偷！？” + +第七天，芳姐終於發呆了，她只想在家清潔，除了清潔，她什麼也不想做，她覺得她的人生太糟了，環境太污了，要大洗特洗，把所有衣衫鞋襪都要洗，把衫袋褲袋的廁紙、碎銀、垃圾通通翻出來。 + +終於，她發現了那張彩票，記起了那張彩票，她停下來手中的所有工作，還是，去查一下彩票結果。 + +上周，金多寶，六個幸運抽出的數字：2、4、6、30、47、49。 + +頭獎：一票中，彩金八千八百萬港元。 + +那一刻，她呆眼了。 + +完 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-03-we-who-eat-wonton-noodles.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-03-we-who-eat-wonton-noodles.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..128b9748 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-03-we-who-eat-wonton-noodles.md @@ -0,0 +1,73 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "吃雲吞麵的我們" +author: "東加豆" +date : 2024-10-03 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/ZZPQDFg.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +秋風起，涼風輕吹，片片落葉，旋轉在醫院窗台。病房裡，四十名（鼻咽癌患者），生命時鐘進入倒計時，剩九個月。全部都是九個月，這個樓層的病友，無一不是同樣的診斷、同樣的預期，彷彿時間在某時刻的凝結。 + + + +“不是每一個鼻咽癌患者都只剩下九個月命的，有的比較命長，命長的在下層樓。”曾經當教師的（李冰）向記者說。 + +“妳有沒有覺得很難過，或者感覺被出賣？”記者問。 + +“沒有，當醫生告訴我，妳現在想吃什麼都可以，只要妳吞嚥得下。想做什麼都可以，只要妳有氣力。他這麼一說，我就知道無法繼續治療了，任何的執念都放下。”（李冰）答。 + +淡入... + +這一天，一家名為“生命之樹”的機構來到病房，他們要拍攝一部紀錄片，主題是“吃雲吞麵的我們”。一開始，病人們都感到疑惑和抗拒。碩仔，一位性格耿直的年輕人，率先發問：“拍我們吃麵？有什麼意義？”機構負責人，一位年輕的女子，微笑著解釋：“我們想記錄下你們珍貴的生命時刻，讓更多人感受到生命的意義。”她話語真誠，眼神清澈，打消了大部分人的疑慮。不過，四十幾名病友只有十個人願意參與。其他不想參與的人有不同的理由；有的沒興趣，有的不喜歡吃雲吞麵，有的沒有精神。 + +其實，用不著太費神，只是坐著吃雲吞麵。然而，更換衣服也費神，盯著燈光、直面陌生人，被人指指點點，這些都耗盡病友的精力。 + +- + +拍攝開始了。鏡頭下，一碗碗熱騰騰的雲吞麵，冒著香氣，卻也映照出他們蒼白的臉龐。（碩仔）吃麵的動作遲緩，卻極其認真，他抬頭問攝影師：“這些麵是機器製造的嗎？” + +一名助導搶著說：“現在很多食物也是機器製造吧。” + +“為什麼機器造的麵條也有長短？這不是不太公平嗎？”碩仔說。 + +年輕的（阿美），坐在碩仔旁邊，她眼角滑落了一滴淚，那是對逝去青春的惋惜，雖然不再有恐懼，但對未來卻是留戀。 + +一張長長的桌子，左右兩邊坐著五個病友，他們吃著雲吞麵，各有各的姿態，各有各的故事，每根麵條都像是他對生命的期盼，在鏡頭下靜靜地展現。 + +拍攝持續了一個月。“生命之樹”的團隊細心地記錄下每一個細節，每一個表情，每一個眼神。他們不僅記錄了吃麵的過程，也記錄了病人們的生活點滴，他們的談笑和沉默。有時候，他們很有氣力，為了幾隻雲吞的做工而爭吵。 + +“鮮蝦還是死蝦？千萬別給死蝦我們吃，我們已經就快死！”李冰說。 + +對於蝦肉和豬肉的比例他們都很在乎，雲吞皮的韌性也有要求，薄而有韌性，總之，是否正宗，一口咬下去，馬上就會露出洋相，雲吞是、麵條是、湯底也是！ + +“當然要在乎，剩下來的九個月，不吃好東西吃什麼？！” + +不過，今天病友會在乎雲吞麵的質量，明天，雲吞皮裂了、爛了，他們照樣吞下去，沒有抱怨，不多說話。 + +一天，病友們都想打扮一下，製作員就讓他們打扮一下，家人為他們帶來衣服。這一天，比任何一天都要長，十個病友頓時變成模特兒，病房變成攝影棚，很有格調。光鮮亮麗的服飾，中、日、韓、歐美的特色，穿其衣觀其人，脫下病服的他們，都叫人感嘆，想著未發病之前。 + +- + +這些照片和視頻最終被製成了一部黑白紀錄片，病人身後那片被煙霧籠罩的天空形成了鮮明的對比。 + +紀錄片完成公開播放後，迅速在網絡上引起了強烈反響。然而，隨之而來的，糖衣背後卻是有一場風暴。 + +“生命之樹”機構的真面目被撕開，其背後原來是大型食品集團“味和源”，製作團隊拍攝此紀錄片的目的並不單純，他們想要通過分享病人的辛酸經歷，博取人性同情和關注。然而，“生命之樹”的前線人員說根本不知道“味和源”的存在，醫療機構更懵然不知整場騙局。 + +媒體的報導如潮水般湧來，人們紛紛指責“味和源”的卑鄙行為。 + +...淡出 + +李冰、阿美、碩仔手中握著“生命之樹”送的照相簿。 + +李冰說：“善和惡從來就難以分辨，如果說‘味和源’是奸狡，至少他們為我們拍照，看看這些黑白灰的配搭，沒想到我可以這麼美，日落前，有幸看到最美的自己！。” + +碩仔看著黑白紀錄片中自己吃麵的畫面，他說道：“對，這是我一生中最帥的影片。”阿美點點頭，眼中閃爍著光：“是啊，從沒想過，吃麵也能這麼美！” + +他們快到人性的盡頭，看淡世俗的紛爭。對他們來說，這部紀錄片是他們生命旅程中，一段難以磨滅的記憶，一段黑白灰卻異常美麗的回憶。在鏡頭前，坦然地接受了生命的終點，還有意料之外的“演出”。他們在沒有導演之下，用自己的方式演釋了這生命的一頁。 + +完 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-09-power-shall-not-be-hereditary.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-09-power-shall-not-be-hereditary.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2fff61f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-09-power-shall-not-be-hereditary.md @@ -0,0 +1,39 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "“权力不得世袭”" +author: "江上小堂" +date : 2024-10-09 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/85Nu0iy.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "“辛亥革命”建立起了“权力不得世袭”的政治共识和制度" +--- + +“辛亥革命”爆发一百多年了，但人们对其的认识仍存分歧。就“辛亥革命”是成功，还是失败了，就有分歧。在我看来，这不能一概而论，“辛亥革命”有多重目标，有些目标成功，而有些目标则失败了。 + + + +首先，“辛亥革命”推翻了清王朝的统治，这个目标成功了。1911年10月10日武昌起义枪响，敲响了清王朝的丧钟。清廷在革命党军队的进攻、立宪派的政治压力、袁世凯北洋军团的要挟和列强的斡旋下，不得不在1912年2月12日诏告退位。 + +以孙中山为代表的革命党人之所以要推翻清王朝，主要在于清王朝在对外战争中屡战屡败，让中下层知识分子和民众丧失了作为天朝子民的自豪感和优越感，感到作为清王朝的子民是极大的耻辱。至于清王朝是异族统治，只是个动员民众反对清王朝的由头。清王朝覆灭后，革命党人的政治口号就由“驱除鞑虏”转为“五族共和”了，“走到什么山唱什么歌”。如果清王朝打败了列强和日本，让臣民倍感荣耀，便会是歌功颂德，根本不会因是异族统治而想推翻清朝。至于说清王朝的腐败和造成民不聊生，也只是部分的原因和间接的原因。腐败和民不聊生是清王朝对外战败的重要原因。 + +第二，“辛亥革命”建立共和制的目标失败了。众所公认，辛亥革命后，共和制并没有在中国真正建立起来。瘫痪的北洋政府最多勉强算是共和，还经历了袁世凯复辟称帝和张勋复辟的严重挫折。之后在国民党主宰的国民政府的统治下，中华民国更是徒有共和之名，而无共和之实。 + +第三，“辛亥革命”没有实现中国独立和强大这一根本的目标。排除一切外国势力对中国内政的干涉，恢复主权、建立一个强大的中国，实现伟大的复兴，这是“辛亥革命”的根本目标。“辛亥革命”后，中国仍然处于军阀割据、权力分散的格局。经济本来就落后于列强，中央政府还不能集全国之力，当然无法排除和赶走列强。列强仍然在中国拥有租界和“治外法权”，时不时干涉中国的内政。直到中华人民共和国成立，才基本实现了这一目标。 + +“辛亥革命”之所以要推翻清王朝，之所以要废除皇权专制，都是为中国的独立和强大服务的。革命党人认为皇权专制缺乏动员和凝聚全体国民的组织能力，造成中国人是“一盘散沙”，才在与列强的交手中败下阵来。而清王朝又不情愿搞君主立宪，更别说搞共和了。所以，要将皇权专制和清王朝一块推翻。“辛亥革命”不仅是改变统治，还是改变政治制度，与过去的改朝换代不同。“辛亥革命”的含义更丰富，不仅是传统的“革天命”，还有新的“革制度的命”的意思。 + +革命党人看到西方国家搞共和，国家强大了。就以为中国搞共和也能强大。结果试了一下，发现并不是那回事，国情不同。北洋政府根本无法有效行使权力。所以，孙中山后来接受了苏共对国民党的援助和改造。 + +第四，废除皇权专制的目标实现了。中国自秦以来，二千多年实施的郡县制，是皇权专制。专制就是统治者按自己的意志统治，权力垄断在少数人手中，权力在少数人之内通过继承交接。共和则是统治者按法律进行统治，权力由社会各阶层共享。而皇权专制就是权力掌握在皇帝一人手中，只有皇帝的嫡亲才有资格继承皇位，俗称“家天下”。“辛亥革命”后，袁世凯和张勋复辟都未能得逞。毛泽东非常通俗而又精辟地指出，“辛亥革命以后，谁要再想做皇帝，就做不成了。” + +那这就是“辛亥革命”最直接和最大的成果。这个成果可以表述为“权力不得世袭”，权力不能通过血缘继承。这一政治理念在“辛亥革命”后得到了确立，成为了中国人牢固的政治共识，并形成了制度。 + +这与孙中山及其它革命党人对皇权专制弊病和共和的认识有关。在革命党人看来，建立在宗法家族之上的皇权专制，“皇权不下乡”，造成中国“一盘散沙”，就不能集中国家所有的力量。其实也不是皇帝不想把权力延伸到乡村，而是心有余而力不足。缺乏支撑权力下乡的技术手段和经济产出。交通和通讯不发达，缺乏强有力的统治手段；落后经济下所能征收的赋税极限也养不起更庞大的食利阶层和官僚体系。那经历了“洋务运动”后，交通、通讯和经济进步后，就具备了这样的条件。所缺乏的就是组织体系了。 + +孙中山对皇权专制的另一个诟病则是认为皇权专制的世袭制不能保证产生合格和强有力的领导人。而共和制则能避免这种状况。他在《三民主义》“民权主义”第五讲中说道，“专制时代，父兄做皇帝，子弟承父兄之业，虽然没有能干也可以做皇帝，所以没有能的人也是很有权”。他误以为中国周朝时的“周召共和”就是西方的共和，大力宣扬共和。他说。“比方在专制皇帝没有发达以前，中国尧舜是很好的皇帝，他们都是公天下，不是家天下。当时的君权还没有十分发达，中国的君权是从尧舜以后才发达的。推到尧舜以前更没有君权之可言，都是奉有能的人做皇帝，能够替大家谋幸福的人可以组织政府。”他非常推崇儒家“天下为公”的思想，认为“真正的三民主义，就是孔子所希望之大同世界”。儒家经典《礼记·礼运》篇借孔子的口说，“大道之行，天下为公，选贤与能，讲信修睦”。可见，孙中山推崇共和制还在于它的权力交接是依据能力来选择继任者。贤不贤倒不一定，贤不贤也有不同的标准；而不是依据血缘来继承。 + +也就是说，中国在“辛亥革命”后，权力的继承机制由“传子”转为了“传能”。“传子”的继承机制，首先考虑血缘，只有皇帝的嫡亲才有资格，其次再考虑贤能。而“传能”的继承机制，继位者的范围扩大了，但也不是民主选举。首先考虑的是能力，其次再考虑血缘。这当然不可以说就是共和制，但如果权力继承机制是“传子”，肯定就不是共和制。 + +自“辛亥革命”后，“权力不得世袭”的政治理念不断得到巩固，成为中国人牢固的政治理念，形成了政治共识。在袁世凯称帝和张勋复辟后，就再也没有类似事件发生，以后的政治领袖都不敢违背这一政治共识。虽然在“辛亥革命”后，血缘因素对获得权力仍然很重要和大量存在，但权力世袭已不是一种政治制度。而是通过非制度因素发挥作用，是“潜规则”。但不管怎么说，“权力不得世袭”比权力世袭更为进步，是辛亥革命最重要和落到实处的成果。然而，今天的人们不应当满足于此而停滞不前，需要取得更多先进的政治共识，并形成制度和落到实处。 + + \ No newline at end of file From bf676f43c7ba9adb64cab1dc27aa27ee3bfe6f04 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2024 01:12:31 +0000 Subject: 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+date : 2024-12-02 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 黎指中美冷戰屬價值之爭 以「核武」比喻道德權威 官問怎樣「一分鐘便可擺平」 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/Qa6dJ94.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（2日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第100日審訊，黎智英第八日作供。黎於2019年7月參與美國智庫「保衛民主基金會」公開對談，期間稱美國政府有「道德權威」，好比「核武」，因此香港極需要美國的支持。黎庭上強調，中美之間的「戰爭」並不牽涉武器，乃價值上的爭鋒，並否認提倡冷戰。法官杜麗冰一度問黎，他稱「他們好像沒有任何武器便上戰場，當你使用核武的話，只需一分鐘便可擺平他們」，是什麼意思。黎則稱他並非意指真實的核武，他只是使用誇張手法表達，以及將道德權威比喻為核武。法官李素蘭追問，黎為何會以「核武」作為比喻？黎聞言則笑指：「如果我選擇另一些比喻的話，你也會問我相同的問題。」 + +#### 黎稱給予陳梓華的金錢從不牽涉「報酬」成份 + +辯方大律師關文渭繼續主問，圍繞黎與另一被告陳梓華之間的金錢往來。辯方展示2019年10月11日陳梓華的銀行帳戶紀錄，可見一筆144,100港元的支票存入款項。財務文件顯示該14萬元是給予陳梓華舉辦展覽的贊助。黎則稱當時沒有留意詳情便簽名，並指 Mark Simon 提供相關資料。 + +辯方另展示支票紀錄，顯示由黎持有的力高顧問有限公司，在2020年2月底，以支票形式把80,273元存入陳梓華的戶口。陳早前供稱，黎智英支付他英國和台北之旅的費用，合共約6萬元，而其餘款項是林姓女示威者的開支。 + +黎則表示對這8萬元不知情，也沒有牽涉其中。被問到力高的銀行戶口有多少個授權簽署人，黎則稱不知道。黎另被問到如何向陳支付旅程的開支，黎亦稱不知道，可能是 Mark Simon 以支票形式歸還給陳。黎又稱，Mark Simon 會作出決定，並不需要經他的同意才能批出該筆款項。 + +辯方另提及，黎早前否認轉讓離岸公司 LACOCK 是作為給予陳的「報酬」。黎堅稱，與陳梓華之間的金錢往來中，從來沒有牽涉「報酬」的性質。 + +#### 黎否認陳梓華提及成立流亡政府和軍隊 + +李宇軒作供時，提到陳梓華透露他領導一隊勇武隊，以及有一處地方儲存物資，其小隊亦涉及製作爆炸品的「科學實驗」。李亦提到，陳曾評論一宗大埔開槍事件，以及討論成立流亡政府和軍隊、找以色列軍隊協助訓練勇武。 + +不過黎在庭上稱，在與陳的溝通之中，陳從沒向他提及上述事情，陳也沒提及自己牽涉該宗大埔開槍事件。 + +#### 黎Twitter轉發IPAC推文 惟堅稱不知道IPAC + +辯方接著圍繞黎的 Twitter（現稱X）提問。辯方指黎在2020年5月22日開設Twitter帳戶，問黎當時是否知道「對華政策跨國議會聯盟」（Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China，簡稱 IPAC）。黎稱不知道，也沒有與負責管理帳戶的李兆富討論過 IPAC，而黎亦稱自己對 IPAC 不感興趣。 + +辯方指，黎在2020年6月13日在 Twitter 轉發一則《華爾街日報》的文章〈Global Coalition of Legislators Faces Challenges Countering China〉，當中提及不同國家的議員組成聯盟 IPAC，以應付中國帶來的挑戰。黎並加上評論：「It is encouraging to see leaders from different nationalities and ideological backgrounds to join force @ipcglobal to tackle the world’s most urgent geopolitical challenge #CCP, a belligerent regime imposes distorted values on its people and others.」 + +黎則稱整個推文都是由李兆富準備，而他在發布之前可能只曾瞥一眼（had a glance）。辯方指從黎與李之間的訊息紀錄可見，在該推文發布之前，二人從未提及過 IPAC 或《華爾街日報》。黎確認。 + +#### 黎稱信任李兆富 幾乎全部批准發布 官質疑李事前理應曾徵詢黎 + +辯方問，李有否得到黎的同意才發布上述推文。黎則稱，每當李兆富傳送草擬推文給他，他幾乎都會批准，而他只會粗略過目。辯方追問，黎如何批准李發布？黎則稱他信任李，因李是他的徒弟（mentee），替他工作了很長時間，所以認為李知道自己想要的是什麼，後來李不需要得到他的批准也可以自行決定發布。 + +法官杜麗冰追問，黎聲稱推文發布之前沒有過目，只依賴李的理解，可是這是黎自己的 Twitter 帳戶，李必然事先知道黎的理解，才會使用他的帳戶來發布相關帖文，例如李會問黎「這樣發布IPAC是否合適」之類。黎否認，並重申帳戶是由李負責管理。黎強調當時沒有留意 IPAC，也未有問李有關 IPAC 的事宜。 + +#### 黎稱不知道「避風港法案」、不知道知道羅傑斯和裴倫德與IPAC有關 + +至於國安法生效之後，辯方展示黎於2020年7月17日的推文：「#HongKong #SafeHarborAct and #PeoplesFreedomandChoiceAct are good wherewithals to our resistance movement. Salute all former CGs and State Dept staff for caring about this place we call home.」。辯方指根據黎與李兆富之間的 WhatsApp，二人在推文發布之前，並沒有提及過《香港避風港法案》（Hong Kong Safe Harbor Act）和《香港人自由和選擇法》（Hong Kong People’s Freedom and Choice Act）。黎在庭上表示，從不知道「避風港法案」，直至在法庭上才知道。至於推文中的標籤（hashtag），黎稱肯定是李兆富加入的。 + +辯方另展示2020年7月22日的推文，乃轉發 IPAC 的推文。惟黎庭上稱當時沒有留意 IPAC，當李兆富徵詢他的時候，他可能只是瞥了一眼，又稱當時不關注 IPAC 這類組織，因為與他沒有任何關係。 + +法官李運騰指，當時是7月22日，換言之《國安法》已經生效，問黎是否有興趣知道國際社會怎樣回應《國安法》生效？黎同意，他認為國際社會應提供支持，以保護香港的自由免受侵蝕，但他只是希望。被問到希望社會提供怎樣的支持，黎則稱沒有想過。 + +辯方指，黎在2020年8月14日轉發 IPAC 的一則推文，並標註了羅傑斯和標籤「#IPAC」，其時是黎首次被捕四日之後。惟黎稱不記得自己有見過這個推文。黎否認知道羅傑斯（Benedict Rogers）和裴倫德（Luke de Pulford）與 IPAC 有關。 + +#### 推文向攬炒巴致敬及標註「#StandwithHongKong」 黎稱不知攬炒巴與SWHK關係 + +辯方展示2020年10月24日黎的推文，當中標註「攬炒巴」劉祖廸的帳戶：「I salute to @finnlau_cd. At only 26, he has the wisdom knowing exactly when and what the right role to play. He inspired his peers in his former role, and he’ll do it this time. The outside world support is very important. #StandwithHongKong」 + +黎稱他記得有份草擬此推文，其後傳送給李兆富。最終發布的推文含有標籤「#StandwithHongKong」，黎稱是由李加上。法官李素蘭問黎，當時知不知道劉祖廸與「重光團隊」（Stand with Hong Kong，簡稱 SWHK）的關係。黎稱不知道，沒有人告訴過他，他也沒有思考過兩者之間的關係。 + +黎稱，他當時閱讀了《蘋果》於2020年10月24日的中文報導「遊行被圍捕險洩身份 攬炒巴死裏逃生 帶署歷警暴 拒保後返英」，然後草擬上述推文，惟報導中未有提及劉與「重光團隊」的關係，他並沒有深入思考兩者關係。辯方提到報紙版面載有「Stand with Hong Kong until dawn」的廣告，惟黎當時認為這是一句口號，而不知道「Stand with Hong Kong」是一個組織。 + +黎稱，向劉致敬是因為他的勇氣，而劉的年紀（26歲）乃從報導中得知。推文提及劉的「過去角色」以及他「這次會去做」，黎解釋意思是劉過去在「連登」擔當精神領袖，而他將會進行游說爭取國際支持香港。 + +報導提及劉曾在一次未經批准集結中被捕，日子是2020年1月1日。黎則稱當時未有閱讀整篇報導，後來從陳梓華口中才知道此事。辯方展示陳梓華在2020年1月2日的訊息，陳向黎說，劉遇上麻煩事，所以旅程需延誤。 + +#### 黎否認串謀陳梓華、李宇軒和攬炒巴等人請求外國制裁 + +辯方總結串謀勾結外國勢力罪，問黎有否串謀或同意陳梓華，請求外國對中國實施制裁、封鎖或敵對行為。黎稱他除了要求陳跟勇武派溝通以平息暴力之外，便從來沒要求陳做任何事情。黎亦否認串謀或同意 Mark Simon 和劉祖廸請求外國制裁。 + +至於被控方指稱為「串謀者」的李宇軒、時任日本議員菅野志櫻里和協助在全球各地推動馬格尼茨基人權問責法（Magnitsky Act）的英國金融家 Bill Browder，黎則稱當時未聽聞過他們的名字，直至在庭上才聽過。 + +#### 黎指新冷戰屬價值之爭 以「核武」比喻道德權威 官問為何以「核武」為比喻 + +辯方指，黎智英於2019年7月赴美會見時任美國副總統彭斯和時任美國國務卿蓬佩奧之後，在7月10日與「保衛民主基金會」（Foundation for Defense of Democracies，簡稱FDD）的資深副主席 Johnathan Schanzer 進行公開對談，並向黎展示對談錄音謄本。當時黎強調反修例是「最後一戰」，而香港人的反抗是道德力量的戰爭，又指美國政府有「道德權威（moral authority）」，其支持是「核武（nuclear weapon）」，因此香港極需要美國的支持。黎形容中國與美國之間進入「新冷戰」，是關乎價值的鬥爭，而香港正在「前線」，他最後指，美國不能只說不做，同時亦要以行動支持香港人。 + +辯方問黎說「新冷戰」和「核武」是什麼意思？黎則指這是一種比喻，意思是美國人的道德權威好比「核武」，強調中美之間的「戰爭」並不牽涉武器。辯方問黎是否提倡中美冷戰？黎表示，他當時乃指出特朗普政府與中國已經形成和正在進行冷戰；「當然我支持與中國冷戰」，惟他否認提倡冷戰。而「戰爭」是價值上的爭鋒，而非使用武器的戰爭。 + +黎表示，他認為美國應該用道德權威作為武器，來與中國對戰。被問到「道德權威」意思是什麼，黎指「道德權威」是「正義、公義和公平，以及活在真實和正確的事情之中」，而這與中國有別。 + +法官杜麗冰指，黎在對談中聲稱：「他們好像沒有任何武器便上戰場，當你使用核武的話，只需一分鐘便可擺平他們。」（“It’s like they’re like going to the battle without any weapon, and you have the nuclear weapon you can finish them in a minute.”）如果正如黎所稱「核武」的意思是「道德權威」的話，怎樣以「道德權威」在一分鐘內擺平？黎重申以上言論只是比喻。惟杜官表示不明白。黎則回應，他並非意指真實的核武，他只是使用誇張手法表達，以及將道德權威比喻為核武。黎亦解釋，中國有真實的核武，但是他們沒有道德權威。 + +法官李素蘭追問，黎為何會以「核武」作為比喻？黎聞言則笑指：「如果我選擇另一些比喻的話，你也會問我相同的問題。」 + +法官李素蘭又問，該對談影片在網上廣播，黎會否認為觀眾會從字面的意思理解「核武」？黎解釋，他在節目中指中國沒有「核武」，可是現實裡中國的確有核武，所以他提及的「核武」意思就是「道德權威」。 + +#### 黎否認文章提倡中美貿易戰 + +辯方另展示黎於2019年9月30日，刊登於《華爾街日報》的文章〈There’s Hope for Freedom, Even in China〉。 + +辯方問黎有否提倡中美貿易戰？黎則指他撰寫文章的時候，特朗普政府與中國之間的貿易戰已經發生，因此否認自己提倡貿易戰。黎表示，他在文章中稱希望美國與中國交涉時能夠連繫到價值層面，是因為他認為這樣的話能夠改變中國，使中國加入普世的核心價值體系。 + +法官杜麗冰則指，當黎使用「西方核心價值」這詞語的時候，便代表該些價值不是「普世」，因為世界上有很多國家，不只西方國家。黎認同，但是該些價值在世界貿易之中會交換，包括法治和透明度。 + +辯方問黎，是否認為當美國與中國交涉時連繫到人權和核心價值，就會令中國讓步？黎同意。法官李運騰指，當黎撰寫文章的時候，美國與中國交涉時還未連繫上人權和價值議題。黎同意，並指中美兩國只是在對抗。李官追問，黎是否希望兩國交涉時連繫上人權和價值議題，增加貿易戰的另一面向？黎同意。 + +#### 文章提及「中國經濟內爆」 黎：嘗試舉例說明若經濟爆破政府統治正當性隨之崩塌 + +李官又指，文章提到「如果中國經濟內爆（If China’s economy implodes）」，問黎撰寫文章時有沒有與其他人討論過？黎則表示沒有與任何人討論，他在文章中的意思是，當中國經濟內爆的話，中國政府的統治正當性也會崩塌。 + +李官追問黎是否發明「中國經濟內爆」這個概念，還是從其他人的文章讀來或從其他人口中聽來？黎回答，他只是嘗試舉例說明，當中國經濟爆破，其政府的統治正當性也會隨之崩塌，因為中國政府的統治正當性一直建基於經濟發展。他亦指，不排除有人曾經提出過這個概念，可是他撰寫這篇文章之時，並未有閱讀過其他相關文章。 + +黎同意，他相信當中國接受國際貿易的核心價值時，便能夠改變中國，並補充指之所以有貿易戰，是因為有價值觀上的差異。 + +辯方另展示黎在2020年2月19日刊登於《華爾街日報》的文章，其時正值新冠疫情爆發。辯方指，黎在文章中形容美國是自由和開放，又指中美缺乏互信，貿易戰是源於信任問題，問黎想在文章帶出什麼信息。黎則指「純粹讓事實說話」。被問到有否意圖要求美國去做任何事情，黎稱沒有。 + +#### 受訪稱「很想CIA、美國影響我們」 黎：利用謠言 + +辯方指，黎於2020年5月接受台灣節目「鄉民來衝康」的訪問，他曾說：「我們很想 CIA，我很想美國影響我們，我很想英國影響我們，我很想外國影響我們，他們的支持是我們唯一能夠撐下去的，外國的勢力是現在我們非常需要，讓我們撐下去的。」 + +黎庭上回應：「我們需要美國的影響，我們需要英國的影響。」被問到什麼影響，黎則指意思是美國和英國對香港的支持，而他們的支持是香港撐下去的唯一方法。他又指，當時被問到香港示威有否受到 CIA（美國中央情報局）的影響，所以他才會如此回答。 + +法官杜麗冰問，為何黎會說需要 CIA 的影響？黎則指，因為當時有很多謠言，指 CIA 叫人出來參與示威、香港的示威是由 CIA 指示等。黎反覆強調這些謠言並不是真實的，所以他受訪時說希望 CIA 影響他們，乃利用該謠言來表示希望美國能影響他們。 + +#### 黎強調沒有任何外國影響香港的示威 官質疑怎樣保證 + +黎強調，當時從沒有任何外國勢力影響香港的示威，「如果有任何外國影響的話，那便是他們的支持。」辯方繼而追問，當時的示威有沒有受到美國的影響？黎回答：「完全沒有，我可以保證。」 + +法官李素蘭追問，「你說你可以保證，你可以怎樣保證？」黎則指，如果有任何外國的影響，人們會知道。黎又指，正如他在節目中說，「美國怎樣叫200萬人出來示威？」，反問：「如果美國能叫200萬人出來示威，如果他們能這樣做的話，那為什麼他們不在內地做同樣的事情？」 + +辯方指，黎受訪時稱「外國的勢力是現在我們非常需要」，問黎是什麼意思。黎則指，「外國勢力」就是國際社會的支持，即是任何可以令運動持續的「支持」。法官李運騰問，「支持」是以什麼形式？黎指，可以是「為我們發聲，為我們跟中國對話，為我們向中國交涉，甚至為我們而譴責中國」。 + +案件明日續審。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-03-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-101.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-03-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-101.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0bfd8d44 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-03-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-101.md @@ -0,0 +1,140 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : 【黎智英案・審訊第 101 日】 +author: 獨媒報導 +date : 2024-12-03 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 黎智英認國安法生效前 受訪倡外國制裁阻通過 稱不能等待條文出爐後才反對 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/2REPF07.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（3日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第101日審訊，黎智英第九日作供。辯方圍繞黎的意圖提問，針對《文匯報》報導指稱黎「為美國打仗」、「為其美國主子說話」，黎否認，並強調香港示威與美國沒有關係，其言論是想證明香港人的價值觀與美國人一致。辯方在庭上播放黎在《國安法》生效之前的受訪片段，黎稱美國應對中國官員實施制裁、凍結銀行帳戶，以及停止向中國輸出技術等，又稱相信特朗普是有信用的人。他在庭上確認提倡制裁，希望阻止中國實施《國安法》。 + +#### 黎稱沒與美國退休軍官討論核武 因核武比喻美國人擁有的價值 + +辯方大律師關文渭繼續主問，就黎智英的意圖提問。昨日提到，黎於2019年7月10日出席美國智庫「保衛民主基金會」（Foundation for Defense of Democracies，簡稱FDD）公開對談。他當時稱美國有「道德權威（moral authority）」，其支持猶如「核武（nuclear weapon）」。黎又指：「他們（中國）好像沒有任何武器便上戰場，當你使用核武的話，只需一分鐘便可擺平他們。」（“It’s like they’re like going to the battle without any weapon, and you have the nuclear weapon you can finish them in a minute.”）辯方今播放相關片段。 + +辯方問，黎說「我們正在敵方陣營替你們打仗（we are fighting your war in your enemy camp）」，是什麼意思。黎指「我們」是指香港和示威者，正如他之前所說，冷戰是一埸價值之爭，而香港人與美國價值觀一致，因此若然香港與中國對戰，那代表香港與美國屬同一陣線。 + +辯方問黎有否與美國前副國防部長 Paul Wolfowitz 和退休軍官 Jack Keane 討論過核武？黎稱沒有，因他只是以「核武」比喻美國人所擁有的價值。 + +#### 辯方指黎說「很想CIA影響我們」時在笑 黎同意：從來沒有這種事 + +辯方昨日提到，黎於2020年5月接受台灣節目《鄉民來衝康》的訪問，當他被問到有沒有CIA（美國中央情報局）影響香港的示威，他說：「我們很想 CIA，我很想美國影響我們，我很想英國影響我們，我很想外國影響我們，他們的支持是我們唯一能夠撐下去的，外國的勢力是現在我們非常需要，讓我們撐下去的。」辯方今在庭上播放相關片段。 + +辯方指，從畫面可見黎說以上說話時正在笑。黎同意，「因為從來都沒有這種事。」 + +#### 黎否認「為美國打仗」、否認美國是「主子」 + +辯方展示《文匯報》報導〈肥黎默認「為美打仗」 政界批賣港禍國〉，當中引述黎在受訪時提及「中美新冷戰」，並指：「多名立法會議員昨日接受香港文匯報訪問時批評，美國一心箝制中國發展，而黎智英則為其美國主子說話，以各種手段破壞香港社會秩序，其賣港行為令人髮指。」 + +辯方引述報導指黎變相承認香港的反政府事件是「為美國打仗」，問黎這說法是否真確。黎否認，並指香港的示威與美國沒有關係；而他在「保衛民主基金會」中說「我們正在敵方陣營替你們打仗」，是用比喻手法來說明香港示威是爭取價值，而該些價值觀與美國的一致。辯方追問黎是否「為美國打仗」，黎回答：「不是，我們不是為美國打仗，我們是為自己而戰」，以避免中國侵害香港的自由，並重申香港示威是爭取與美國一致的價值。 + +辯方引述報導形容「黎智英則為其美國主子說話」，黎則否認，並稱其言論是想證明香港人的價值觀與美國人一致，強調香港人和美國人沒有實質的關係。辯方追問黎，美國是否他的主子？黎否認。 + +#### 黎稱聽過「中國內爆」但未聞「支爆」 + +法官李素蘭重提昨日證供，引述黎提到如果中國經濟內爆的話，中國政府的統治正當性便會崩塌。黎解釋，其意思是中國政府的統治正當性是來自經濟發展，但是如果經濟崩潰的話，中國政府便會失去統治正當性，國家主席習近平亦可能要下台，並強調他只是作出預測和臆測。 + +法官李素蘭問黎，「你是在2019年9月作出預測，這說法正確嗎？」黎確認。法官李素蘭繼而指，黎在當時已撰文提及中國內爆，然而黎作供關於2020年1月11日的陽明山會議時，卻聲稱「支爆」這字詞是由「攬炒巴」劉祖廸在會議上首先提出，質疑黎聲稱當時從沒聽過「支爆」的說法。黎同意，他當時從未聽聞「支爆」一字，正確的字眼應是「中國內爆」（China implosion），而「支爆」和「支那」是一種古老的方式談論「中國」，如果今時今日有人使用這字詞，對方不會明白意思。 + +由於是次審訊語言為英文，庭上就「支爆」的英語翻譯為「China implosion」，與「中國內爆」的英語翻譯相同。因此黎解釋自己未曾聽聞「支爆（China implosion）」之後，不諳中文的法官李素蘭表示仍然不明白，並重複問題，質疑黎早已撰文提及「中國內爆」（同樣譯作「China implosion」），卻稱未曾聽過「支爆」的說法。 + +黎則重申他未曾聽聞「支爆」，他只提及過「中國內爆（China implosion）」，若從英語翻譯過來即是「中國爆」，然而「支爆」則是一種過於古老的方式去說「中國」，他從未聽過有人如此說「支那」、「支爆」，現今人們聽到不會明白是什麼意思。 + +辯方大律師關文渭介入並解釋，「支那（Shina）」本來是日本使用的詞語去形容「中國」，是一個帶貶損和貶意的詞語，也是一個古老的詞語，今時今日很少人使用。 + +法官杜麗冰問，所以黎的意思是他曾經聽聞「中國內爆」，但是未曾聽過「支爆」。黎同意，所以當劉祖廸說「支爆」時，他表示不明白，要求劉解釋，但是黎確認自己有撰文提及「中國內爆」。 + +#### 國安法消息傳出翌日 提出開設Twitter 黎：冀讓世界知道香港發生什麼事 + +辯方指2020年5月21日，黎向時任《蘋果》副社長陳沛敏傳送《香港01》的新聞，有關人大擬在港實施《國安法》，黎並說：「仆街打到嚟喇！」翌日即2020年5月22日，黎向李兆富傳送訊息，稱有見人大打算通過在香港實施《國安法》，現在是設立 Twitter 帳戶的好時機。辯方問黎何以這樣說。黎指開設 Twitter 是想讓世界知道香港發生什麼事。 + +![iamge02](https://i.imgur.com/DXjywsB.png) +▲ 前《蘋果日報》執行總編輯 林文宗（左）、副社長 陳沛敏（右） + +辯方追問，當時《國安法》條文尚未公開，問黎何以得知《國安法》內容。黎則指憑當時的新聞報導得知《國安法》將會取代香港現行的法律制度。黎認為《國安法》會凌駕《基本法》和法治。 + +#### Twitter 帖文標籤「#MagnitskyAct」 黎稱出自李兆富之手、只有粗略理解 + +辯方展示2020年5月23日的訊息紀錄，陳沛敏向黎智英傳送一張人大政協委員的合照，相中眾人手持「支持國安立法 護航一國兩制」橫額，陳並稱：「Will they be on the list?」黎問：「What do you mean? Thanks」，陳回覆：「賣港賊，制裁名單？」黎表示：「I see. Good suggest.」陳續表示：「張相和唐英年的發言 disgusted many Hong Kong people」，黎其後稱：「I’ve already put them on my Twitter: should US government put these people (on) the sanction list?」 + +辯方指，黎同日將同一張人大政協委員合照傳送給李兆富，問原因為何。黎稱是因應陳沛敏的提議，他認為是很好的提議，所以傳送給李兆富，供他在 Twitter 發布。 + +辯方指，黎的 Twitter 帳戶同日發布帖文，顯示人大政協委員合照，並加上字句：「Should US government put them on the sanction list? #MagnitskyAct」黎稱帖文是因應陳沛敏的提議，發布合照是因為相中的人大政協委員削弱香港的自由。 + +辯方問黎當時知道《國安法》是關於什麼嗎？黎表示知道得不詳細，但從新聞報導，他得悉《國安法》將會是一個凌駕《基本法》和法治的法律，以及會是嚴厲的法律。辯方追問黎何以得知《國安法》削弱法治？黎指當時市內有很多輿論，包括民主派和作家。 + +辯方提到帖文內有標籤「#MagnitskyAct」，黎則稱是由李兆富加上的。辯方問黎當時明白「Magnitsky Act」是什麼嗎？黎稱不明白詳情，但是從表面上來看，這個詞是關於制裁。黎又稱自己對「Magnitsky Act」只有粗略的理解，而且一般而言不會在意李兆富加入的標籤。 + +#### 《蘋果》發起「一人一信救香港」 黎：用盡所有必要的手段去阻止國安法實施 + +辯方指2020年5月24日《蘋果》頭版發起「一人一信救香港」行動。黎稱目的是阻止《國安法》實施，因《國安法》對香港具破壞性。 + +![iamge03](https://i.imgur.com/ycUHxF9.png) + +陳沛敏曾供稱不認同做法，並且同日以 WhatsApp 傳送黃之鋒的 Facebook 帖文截圖給黎。黃在帖文稱「睇到真係覺得有啲骨痹同埋肉麻」，指香港不應要求別國的總統去拯救香港。 + +黎當時回覆表示：「他（黃）說了什麼並不重要，這是看待美國和目前議題的不同觀點，我不認同他，任何東西可以幫助到我們的話都應該去用。我知道很多人都不認同這行動，包括李柱銘，但是在危機面前我們不能裝作謹慎和聰明，勇敢是唯一出路！現時已沒有其他方法對付中共了。」（“What he says doesn’t matter. That’s a very different view of looking at US and the matter at hand. I don’t agree with him, whatever we can secure to help us we must use now. I know a lot of people don’t agree with this including Martin, but now is time crisis we can’t pretend to be careful and clever. The only way is to be brave! There’s no other way to deal with CCP now.”） + +黎庭上解釋，當時處於危急關頭，所以他認為要用盡所有必要的方法去阻止《國安法》實施，但他知道陳沛敏和張劍虹均不認同「一人一信」做法。辯方問黎會否視這些訊息為給予陳沛敏指示？黎說不會，「我只是回覆她，這裡沒有任何指示。」 + +![image04](https://i.imgur.com/qt6lFsz.png) +▲ 前《蘋果日報》社長 張劍虹 + +辯方問到，當時陳沛敏和張劍虹均不認同「一人一信救香港」，黎又如何發起行動？黎表示：「因為我是老闆。」他其後表示，當時提出這行動的同事必定認同這行動，並舉例指時任動新聞總監張志偉認同。張在本案中沒有被起訴。 + +#### 黎指李兆富提議Twitter上載信件照片及標註特朗普 惟最終沒有實行 + +黎指，由於當時正值疫情，郵寄實體信件的話可能需時一個月，所以李兆富提議在 Twitter 上載信件，然後標註特朗普的帳戶，但是黎相信最後沒有實行，因他記不起有人上載信件照片及標註特朗普。 + +辯方遂展示「一人一信救香港」頭版，當中提到「三大方法向特朗普表達訴求」，包括 Twitter、Facebook 和白宮聯署。黎確認三種方法均不需要經過《蘋果》便能做到。法官李運騰問黎是否不會知道讀者最終有否採用 Twitter 的方法。黎同意，因上載信件的照片到 Twitter 毋須經過《蘋果》。 + +辯方追問，為何上載信件照片到 Twitter 並標註特朗普最終未有實行？黎則表示不記得原因，起初他提出實體信件較震撼，可是後來他們收集到信件之後，並沒有拍照及標註特朗普，他記不起有如此做過。 + +黎亦確認，頭版上的信件樣本是 Mark Simon 基於黎的理念而撰寫出來。 + +#### 黎：國安法破壞香港言論自由 作為老闆應承擔所有責任 + +辯方提到，黎於2020年5月25日重新擔任壹傳媒集團主席，他早前證供亦解釋：「《國安法》之後，如果《蘋果》發生了任何事，我希望我會是完全承擔責任的那一個人。」辯方問，黎說會承擔責任，是否與這個「一人一信救香港」行動有關？黎則表示，承擔責任是概括的說法。 + +辯方追問黎是為了什麼事情承擔責任？黎指即將來臨的《國安法》，使傳媒生意非常危險，「作為老闆，我理應承擔所有責任，面對這些危險。」辯方問為什麼形容為「危險」？黎指：「因為我們大概都知道《國安法》是什麼，我們大概都知道《國安法》是嚴厲的，它會對香港的言論自由帶來破壞。」 + +#### 黎受訪及Twitter均倡制裁中國官員、凍結帳戶 冀阻國安法通過 + +辯方庭上播放《霍士新聞》片段，黎於2020年5月26日受訪時稱美國應對中國官員實施制裁、凍結銀行帳戶，以及停止向中國輸出技術等。辯方問黎是否提倡制裁？黎同意。辯方繼而問，當黎說停止向中國輸出技術時，黎是否提倡封鎖和敵對行動？黎則指這是制裁而非敵對行動。 + +辯方展示黎與張劍虹之間的訊息紀錄，張引述時事評論員桑普在D100節目中稱美國將會實施制裁；黎則回應張，指這不足以阻嚇中國，而他期望見到更嚴厲的制裁。辯方問黎說不足以阻嚇中國是什麼意思。黎表示當時認為制裁力度不足夠去阻止中國訂立國安法。至於「更嚴厲的制裁」，黎稱只是表達自己意見，他當時正觀望有沒有其他措施。 + +辯方展示2020年5月27日黎發布的 Twitter 帖文，他轉發《霍士新聞》的影片連結，並說：「Thank you @MariaBartiromo for being so caring about me and about #HKers. We will continue our #FightforFreedom. #CCPChina must change or it will be a threat to the freedom of the rest of the world. We must do what it takes and what we can.」 + +同日黎的帳戶發布另一則帖文：「There should be sanctions on #CCPChina officials who violate universal value of human rights. Nations should stop exporting technology #CCPChina must play by the international rules.」黎相信帖文是出自他手筆。辯方問黎為何會說應該向中國官員實施制裁？黎說因為制裁可以阻止《國安法》實施。 + +辯方展示同日另一則帖文：「The most effective sanction you can impose is to freeze Chinese officials’ bank accounts in US. Expose how corrupted they are. Your action will be much appreciated not only by #Hkers, but also the Chinese who suppressed by #CCP and every soul aspired to be free.」 + +辯方展示同日另一則帖文，黎分享《彭博》文章〈U.S. Weighs Sanctions on Chinese Officials, Firms Over Hong Kong〉，並加上字句：「Mr. President @realDonaldTrump. You’re a man of his words. You said if China passes the national security act there will be serious consequences.」 + +#### 黎認國安法前受訪倡外國制裁 稱不能等待條文後出爐才反對 + +辯方另展示黎與張劍虹之間的訊息，於2020年5月27日，黎提及美國制裁中國官員和企業的話，將會是對中國經濟「打擊」。被問到「打擊（blow）」是什麼意思，黎稱即是「打（the hit）」、「輾壓（the crush）」及「制裁官員和企業」。辯方問為了什麼目的？黎表示他理解特朗普對中國官員實施制裁是為了阻止《國安法》；至於為何要制裁中國企業，他則稱不知道。 + +2020年5月28日黎智英接受《彭博》訪問，主持人問黎為何認為時任美國總統特朗普是「香港的最後希望」？黎引述特朗普說過如果香港實施《國安法》，「他會做一些認真的事（“he would do something serious”）」，但是他不知道特朗普相關措施會有多嚴厲。他促請美國實施制裁，相信特朗普是守信用的人，希望特朗普能在週末對中國實施嚴厲的制裁。 + +黎表示，他認為美國最有效的制裁措施是凍結中國高官的外地銀行戶口，因為他們有大量貪污的錢（corrupted money）儲存在美國和歐洲的銀行戶口裡。 + +黎確認上述說話反映他當時所真誠相信的想法。辯方提到，主持人說其時黎尚未有機會看到《國安法》條文，直至6月30日實施的晚上，為何不等待實際條文出爐，之後才反對它？黎在節目中回答，不能夠等待，世界應該阻止《國安法》通過。辯方問黎當時為何如此說。黎說不能等待條文公開，因外國需要對中國作出反應。 + +辯方另播放《英國廣播公司》（BBC）的訪問片段，黎引述特朗普稱，若然中國實施港區《國安法》的話會有「嚴重後果」，又指美國單憑說話是不足夠，還要有實際行動。辯方問黎口中的「行動」是什麼意思。黎說是制裁，即請求美國對中國實施最嚴厲的制裁。 + +案件明天續審。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-04-north-korean-troops-in-russia.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-04-north-korean-troops-in-russia.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..dbcd3c16 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-04-north-korean-troops-in-russia.md @@ -0,0 +1,77 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : N. Korean Troops In Russia +author: Choi Yonghwan +date : 2024-12-04 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/MYxQBRI.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "The Meaning and Significance of North Korean Troops’ Deployment to Russia" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Why did North Korea decide to deploy its troops to Ukraine? Pyongyang appears to be concerned that Trump’s electoral victory could restrict its opportunity to become a critical part of Russia’s Eurasian security architecture and to cement its status as a nuclear power._ + + + +The details of North Korea’s troop deployments to Russia will likely become clearer over time. However, the repercussions are clear: the North Korean army’s participation in the war will dramatically increase Russia–North Korea cooperation. + +But why did North Korea suddenly take this step? There have been several occasions during the Ukraine war when Russia has been on the defensive. However, the recent situation does not seem particularly difficult for Russia. The true answer is to be found in North Korea’s own strategic objectives: Pyongyang appears to want to reshape the geopolitical landscape on the Korean Peninsula. + +Since the Eighth Communist Party Congress in 2021, North Korea’s foreign strategy can be described as a “New Cold War Structure Utilisation Strategy”, which consists of an effort to refashion the geopolitical landscape on the Korean Peninsula. The beginning of this was the improvement of Pyongyang’s relations with Beijing by taking advantage of the rising tensions between the US and China. North Korea also strengthened its relationship with Moscow after Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. To all intents and purposes, Pyongyang viewed the rising US–China strategic competition and the Russo-Ukrainian war as a strategic opportunity. + +North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s perception of the international situation is evident in his 2021 and 2022 “State of the Nation” addresses, in which he referred to the current international situation as a “New Cold War” and as a period of “multi-polarisation”. As seen from Pyongyang, the country’s old weakness of being overly dependent on China could be offset by better relations with Russia, thereby creating a trilateral relationship which may amount to the best international political situation for North Korea since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s. This has the added advantage of providing Kim with the ability to rely on both China and Russia to diminish the importance of the UN sanctions regime on North Korea and effectively paralyse any international effort to monitor breaches of these sanctions. + +Seen from this perspective, the prospect of Donald Trump’s electoral triumph, which already seemed very real in October, was dreaded in Pyongyang because it was clear that Trump was determined to bring about at least a ceasefire in Ukraine, and if this resulted in the end of the war in Ukraine, the future of North Korea’s relations with Russia would be uncertain. Kim’s policy of “strategic diversification” would have come to nothing. + +Moscow and Pyongyang clearly discussed the deployment well before the US election. Yet it is instructive to note that the official justification for North Korea’s entry into the war was the Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory in Kursk. This provided Russia with the excuse to invoke Article 4 in the newly-concluded Russia–North Korea security treaty; the Russian government chose to claim that the Ukrainian army’s advance into Kursk had created a “state of war” in which Russia’s territory was “invaded” from Ukraine, thereby activating the mutual defence provisions of the Russian-North Korean treaty. Of course, it was Russia that invaded Ukraine first, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a clear violation of Article 2, Paragraph 4 of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of other states. However, neither Moscow nor Pyongyang is bothered by such niceties. + +___`The participation of large numbers of North Korean regular troops, especially combat troops, in the Russo-Ukrainian war means that the conflict has turned into an international one`___ + +The North Korean regime is likely to extract financial compensation for the lives of its soldiers that it has now sent into the Russian meat grinder. However, the most significant advantage for Pyongyang is that what it perceives as the entrenchment of a Cold War conflict structure serves its purposes because it makes the resolution of the North Korean issue virtually impossible. + + +### International Political Implications of Russian Troops Deployed in North Korea + +The dispatch of North Korean troops may not have a significant impact on the war situation between Russia and Ukraine. Still, considering the level of North Korea–Russia cooperation, the war will likely cause changes in international relations. The participation of large numbers of North Korean regular troops, especially combat troops, in the Russo-Ukrainian war means that the conflict has turned into an international one. The participation of North Korean forces and the corresponding level of demand from Ukraine for South Korea’s support will also increase in direct proportion to one another. And if the nature of the war changes to an international one, the level of NATO’s involvement will increase, and the threat of a Russian nuclear attack will become more acute. + +To start with, the dispatch of North Korean troops is a clear sign that North Korea and Russia are joining forces on the anti-US front and that North Korea could become one of the core countries in the non-Western Eurasian security structure that Russia has vowed to build. + +It is still unclear what the Eurasian security structure promoted by Russia entails. Still, if North Korea, as a country with nuclear weapons, participates in this structure, there is a concern that this will create a new nuclear state alliance that also encompasses Belarus, where Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons have already been deployed, and Iran, whose nuclear ambitions are growing. + +Moreover, it is fully anticipated that, in return for its military participation, North Korea will demand to join the Russian-led Collective Security Organisation, as well as other international organisations such as the BRICS or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and Russia will no longer be able to dither on such membership applications. Should these steps be taken, they will likely increase North Korea’s status and role in the anti-US or anti-Western camp under a multipolar order, which could be an opportunity for North Korea to break out of its diplomatic isolation. + +In addition, there is a concern that North Korea’s status as an “unofficial” nuclear state could be established as a fact, leading to a crisis in the international non-proliferation regime. The trend is already apparent. In September this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov publicly stated that Moscow viewed the notion of “denuclearising” North Korea as a “closed matter”, claiming that Russia understood Pyongyang’s logic of relying on nuclear weapons as the foundation of its defence. + +The Russia–North Korea New Treaty specifies in its Article 10 “cooperation” between the two countries concerning “peaceful nuclear energy”. If Russia proceeds with nuclear energy cooperation with North Korea – which has violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and developed nuclear weapons – this will constitute an approval of North Korea’s possession of atomic weapons. The creation of a new Russian-led nuclear alliance or even Moscow’s acquiescence in North Korea’s nuclear development will pose a threat to the international non-proliferation regime that has been maintained since the end of the Cold War. + + +### Impact on Security in Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula + +The dispatch of North Korean troops implies a direct link between matters on the Korean Peninsula and the Russo-Ukrainian war. The more pressure that is exerted on Russia in Ukraine, the more opportunities will be created for North Korea, making the Korean Peninsula more susceptible to the effects of the current European war. In particular, with North Korea’s growing leverage over Russia, there is concern about the direct impact of the close relationship between the two countries. Even in the case of conventional armaments, the high degree of complementarity between the weapon systems operated by North Korea and Russia suggests that the synergy in the two countries’ cooperation will be very high. Russia possesses all the core technologies for the development of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, which North Korea claims to have developed but has not yet completed. + +Furthermore, the fact that the North Korean army’s deployment to Russia is justified by Article 4 of the Russia–North Korea Security Treaty, which refers to a mutual security guarantee, must mean that – at least in principle - the same collective security article could be invoked by Moscow to justify a greater Russian involvement in any potential future conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Thus, Russia and North Korea, functioning as a de facto military alliance, could face off against the South Korea–US alliance, increasing the nuclear-based character of such a potential future confrontation. This will further strengthen North Korea’s current position of defining inter-Korean relations as “hostile relations between two countries” (it is no accident that North Korea’s constitution has recently been modified to include precisely such a definition) and will inevitably lead to a prolonged period of political and military tension on the Korean Peninsula. + +In addition, the dispatch of troops could become a new channel for North Korea to earn foreign currency and an essential opportunity for the North Korean military to gain combat experience. This will considerably increase the security threat to South Korea. In particular, Pyongyang’s accumulation of technology and expertise in operating inexpensive and effective weapon systems such as drones will lead to a different practical threat. At the same time, it should also be admitted that the dispatch of North Korean combat troops could be an opportunity to assess the combat effectiveness and training level of the North Korean military, which would be of interest to South Korea and the militaries of many Western countries. + + +### Outlook and Challenges + +However, it is necessary to consider that the ripple effect of North Korea’s appearance on a European battlefield will vary, depending on North Korean troops’ participation method. + +The most direct and explicit method is for North Korean combat troops to participate in the war as an independent operational authority. This is likely to change the nature of the war to an international one, and it is also a method that will require Russia to pay a higher future political and economic price for North Korea’s involvement. + +___`The dispatch of troops could become a new channel for North Korea to earn foreign currency and an essential opportunity for the North Korean military to gain combat experience`___ + +Alternatively, the North Korean regime may choose to reduce the burden of escalation by having its troops participate in the war as part of the Russian military or as individuals in a “private military company” such as the Wagner Group. However, if the recent report that Kim Young-bok – the deputy chief of staff of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army – is in charge of the North Korean troops deployed to Russia is accurate, it is likely that the North Korean troops will not be content with participating in the war as individuals. + +The challenge facing Seoul and all Western governments is that, in the short term, there are limited means to effectively restrain the North Korean military’s participation in the war or to punish Pyongyang for it. Therefore, governments need to take a longer-term view and rely on experience and diplomatic assets accumulated since the end of the Cold War to produce workable responses. + +For example, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia’s position on the Korean peninsula was the most pragmatic among the four surrounding powers; it simply re-adjusted its relationship with North Korea to a normal state relationship, notwithstanding Pyongyang’s accusations that Moscow was “selling off” its interest to the “US dollar”. Needless to say, relations between Russia and the West are likely to remain frosty for a considerable time after the Russo-Ukrainian war. Still, Russia’s relationship with the West does not necessarily have to be a reason for South Korea and Russia to live in hostility. + +Thus, it remains crucial for South Korea to present a vision for the post-war relationship with Russia. Undoubtedly, it won’t be easy to significantly improve relations with China and Russia in the short term. Yet, it is imperative to establish policy measures that can restrain China–Russia–North Korea relations. Seoul also needs to consider a roundabout approach, leveraging its relations with Central Asian countries that are closely linked to China and Russia. + +Yet none of this obviates the need, in the short term, to continue warning the international community about the risks to global security that the deployment of North Korean troops poses. It is equally important for Seoul to lay out its own “red lines” regarding the cooperation between Russia and North Korea. In particular, Seoul needs to reiterate Russia’s international responsibility as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and as a NPT “P5” member, and to continue raising global awareness about the transfer of advanced military technology, including nuclear weapons, that the Moscow–Pyongyang relationship entails. + +--- + +__Choi Yonghwan__ is a senior research fellow at South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS). He also serves as a standing member of the Advisory Committee on Democratic Peace and Unification. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-04-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-102.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-04-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-102.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ef7b14e8 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-04-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-102.md @@ -0,0 +1,139 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : 【黎智英案・審訊第 102 日】 +author: 獨媒報導 +date : 2024-12-04 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 袁弓夷拍片稱示威有人被謀殺強姦 黎智英批常誇大其辭 不予信任 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/dHqhGXB.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（4日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第102日審訊，黎智英第十日作供。辯方圍繞黎的意圖提問，當中提及《蘋果》曾發布袁弓夷的影片，袁稱反修例中有人被謀殺和強姦，而黎在 Twitter 轉載影片。不過黎稱經過數次接觸後，認為袁常誇大其辭、又想與他攀關係，感到不舒服故疏遠他。2020年6月11日，袁向黎傳送語音訊息，稱自己翌日會見時任美國國際宗教自由大使 Sam Brownback，打算向對方提出制裁夏寶龍，冀黎協助聯絡天主教香港教區榮休主教陳日君樞機，冀得到陳的支持和寫信。黎當時回覆指樞機答應的機會不大，但可以嘗試聯絡。黎在庭上稱事實上沒有替袁聯絡樞機，「因為我不相信這個人。」 + +此外，辯方播放黎的受訪片段，黎表示自己準備面對「坐監嘅犧牲」，辯方問當黎所做的事變得不合法，還會否繼續？黎說：「不，不是不合法，我只是準備好面對後果。」法官李素蘭追問，黎理應做了非法的事，才會坐監？黎卻表示：「我不覺得我做過違法的事情，但是我在監獄已有四年。」 + +#### 李宇軒稱經陳梓華找到《蘋果》寫手 Jack Hazlewood 借出戶口收眾籌款項 + +李宇軒早前供稱，2019年7月的「中英聯合聲明登報眾籌」，即第二次眾籌，使用了另一個眾籌平台「gofundme.com」，惟後來發現該平台規定款項必須經由英國開設的英鎊戶口接收，後來經陳梓華找到《蘋果》寫手 Jack Hazlewood 借出銀行戶口。 + +黎庭上稱不認識 Jack Hazlewood，亦從沒聽聞他的名字。辯方遂展示他的 WhatsApp 訊息紀錄，顯示 Jack Hazlewood 於2020年5月31日傳送一份文章的 PDF 檔案給黎。黎稱不能開啟 PDF 檔案，Jack Hazlewood 遂傳送3張文章的截圖給黎。黎庭上卻回應：「這些人對我而言就如一種滋擾，通常這樣介紹自己，傳送一些東西給我，要求我們刊登⋯⋯我便回覆交由編輯決定。」 + +法官杜麗冰問，既然黎稱這些訊息是滋擾、不想收到這些訊息，為何不直接無視它？黎表示不知道。杜官又問，為何黎向 Jack Hazlewood 說會轉發他的截圖？黎僅指他可能之前跟對方溝通過，「可能我說我會轉發，然後睡覺，翌日醒來便忘記了。」法官李運騰追問，但是黎在訊息表明「我會現在轉發」；黎則表示不知道。 + +當黎再被問 Jack Hazlewood 是否協助李宇軒轉帳款項，黎反問：「我怎樣知道？」，稱不熟悉這些名字，可能 Jack Hazlewood 曾經替《蘋果》撰文一至兩次，但他不知道。 + +#### 黎稱不知道Jack Hazlewood 惟辯方指黎曾轉發其帖文 + +辯方展示黎於2020年5月31日的 Twitter 帖文，顯示他轉發 Jack Hazlewood 的帖文，並說：「Mr @JackHHazlewood thanks for advocating for Apple English edition. Certainly we need more subscribers so we can be financially viable. Having subscribers from all over the world will also sent #CCP a clear and strong message that the world is watching.」 + +辯方又指訊息紀錄亦顯示黎曾將 Jack Hazlewood 相關截圖轉發給李兆富。黎則回應，帖文的內容是完全不同的話題，關於宣傳《蘋果》英文版，而非 Jack Hazlewood 在訊息所述的東西。 + +法官杜麗冰問黎有否閱讀過 Jack Hazlewood 傳來的文章。黎堅稱他肯定沒有，只是當時對方傳送了三張截圖，他以為是緊急事情，所以才會轉發，「如果我快要睡覺，我不會閱讀任何東西。」 + +#### 黎曾轉發Jack Hazlewood帖文 感謝宣傳蘋果英文版 + +辯方又展示黎與張志偉之間的訊息，張於2020年5月31日傳送兩張 Twitter 截圖，指 Jack Hazlewood 和羅傑斯（Benedict Rogers）分別宣傳《蘋果》英文版。 + +黎於同日傳送 Jack Hazlewood 在 Twitter 的另一則帖文截圖，當中稱在外國人在香港以外的地方未能下載《蘋果》手機應用程式。黎並吩咐張盡快解決問題。張回覆「收到」。被問到當時是否已經知道 Jack Hazlewood 這個名字，黎稱沒有留意。 + +辯方問，陳梓華有否向黎提起 Jack Hazlewood 這個人？黎說沒有，並重申除了要求陳平息暴力之外，便沒有與陳討論其他事情。辯方引述李宇軒的證供，指在籌備中英聯合聲明登報期間，Jack Hazlewood 的聯絡方法乃由李宗澤（Wilson Li）提供。黎稱不知道。 + +#### 黎否認增加個人影響力：若說垃圾說話，影響力有何重要？ + +辯方問黎對《紐約時報》的取態如何。黎指《紐約時報》是進步自由派（progressive liberal），他們總是對特朗普及其所屬的共和黨有負面評價，但是黎並不苟同。 + +辯方提及陳梓華供稱黎聲稱想增加個人影響力，黎否認。辯方追問黎為何替《紐約時報》撰文。黎稱因為希望接觸到更多人，希望自己的信息接觸到愈多人愈好。黎又反問：「如果我說了一些垃圾說話，我的影響力又有何重要呢？⋯⋯我的影響力並不重要，如果我說一些愚蠢的話。」 + +辯方指，黎於2020年6月3日在 Twitter 發布帖文：「Overseas fellows and Americans, please subscribe to our Apple Daily English edition. Your subscription is more than only the financial help, but it is political protection for us against #CCP crackdown.」 + +黎解釋若然海外學者和美國人為香港發聲的話，外國的政客便需要聆聽，又指「我們」可以是指香港人和《蘋果》。被問到為何要特別提及美國人，黎指因為美國人最具影響力。 + +#### 黎稱袁弓夷想攀關係、經常誇大其辭 + +辯方提到，現被國安處通緝的袁弓夷曾拍片響應「一人一信救香港」，影片於2020年5月29日至6月1日在《蘋果》平台播放。黎在 Twitter 亦有轉載影片，並稱期望特朗普實施制裁。袁在影片中呼籲外國投資者從香港撤資，又稱反修例示威中有人被謀殺和強姦。黎則稱沒有看過影片，也沒有參與製作，如今在庭上觀看後，認為袁的說法誇張，自己不認同。至於他轉載影片，他則承認當時是疏忽。 + +黎表示，與袁接觸幾次之後，「我有點感到不舒服，我感覺到他總是想與我攀關係」，由於對此感到不舒服，所以後來疏遠他。 + +辯方指，袁乘機前往美國華盛頓之前，曾問黎有沒有東西想袁幫忙，黎回覆沒有任何提議。黎確認，因為當時對他感到不舒服，又指袁沒有告訴他要去美國做什麼。被問到這感覺從何而來，黎估計這是日積月累，他看了袁的影片之後，發覺部份言論並非事實，情況並非如他口中那麼極端。 + +辯方聞言後，引述黎較早前卻說沒看過袁的影片，要求黎解釋。黎稱不記得有否看過，並重申他感覺到袁總是想與他攀關係，對此感到不舒服，又指袁經常誇大其辭。法官李運騰則提醒辯方是在盤問黎。 + +#### 黎曾告訴張劍虹小心袁弓夷 質疑袁隱藏背後動機 + +辯方展示黎與時任《蘋果》社長張劍虹之間的訊息，當中提及一篇訪問。黎不記得是哪一篇訪問，但他確認有告訴張要提防袁這個人，因他對袁感到不舒服。黎在訊息中告訴張「他（袁）是郭文貴的人」，黎解釋意思是袁與郭有關。被問到郭文貴在紐約做了什麼，黎稱不知道他做了什麼，但是：「我只是有個印象，可能他是個騙子。」 + +![iamge02](https://i.imgur.com/kqJsMc3.png) +▲ 前《蘋果日報》社長 張劍虹 + +黎亦在訊息中告訴張「他（袁）想與我合作反共」。黎解釋，郭理應對抗中共政權，可是事實不然，而袁卻想與郭合作。黎又指他告訴張，他不認同及不接受袁，質疑袁有隱藏的議程或背後動機，而未有表露出來，因此著張要提防袁。 + +訊息亦顯示張劍虹說不用害怕《國安法》，黎解釋張的意思是若中共內鬥的話，《國安法》便不會很嚴厲，但最終結果證明他估計錯誤。 + +辯方問，若然黎認為《國安法》不會很嚴厲，那黎便不需要呼籲外國制裁，那麼黎當時有否繼續呼籲制裁？黎表示當時有繼續呼籲制裁。辯方追問原因。黎回答指「《國安法》不會很嚴厲」只是他的臆測，如果《國安法》不會嚴厲的話，他認為他不會繼續呼籲制裁。 + +法官李運騰提到，袁的影片發布一星期之後，才有上述黎與張劍虹之間的訊息，問黎有否要求將袁的影片從《蘋果》網站刪除。黎則表示他未足以警覺到想起袁的影片，他對影片沒有很深的印象。法官杜麗冰指黎聲稱不認同該影片。黎同意，因為影片含有不實和誇大的說法。 + +杜官問黎，誰人介紹袁弓夷給他認識？黎稱袁會在 YouTube 發布影片，何俊仁曾提議邀請袁弓夷及其女兒袁彌明一起吃晚飯，相信還有邀請袁彌明的丈夫。黎又稱認識袁彌明很長時間，因她亦有參與民主運動。 + +#### 袁弓夷曾要求黎協助聯絡陳日君 以支持制裁夏寶龍 黎稱沒協助問 + +辯方指，袁弓夷在2020年6月11日向黎傳送語音訊息，稱自己翌日會見時任美國國際宗教自由大使 Sam Brownback，對方負責宗教自由，而夏寶龍「呢條友又燒教堂，又拆十字架」，袁稱需要得到天主教香港教區榮休主教陳日君樞機的支持，並寫信給 Sam Brownback 或時任美國國務卿蓬佩奧，講述夏寶龍犯了宗教罪行，「應該要馬上制裁」，冀黎可以協助聯絡樞機。黎亦以語音回覆袁，指樞機答應的機會不大，「佢唔熟你嘅話，佢會好謹慎嘅」，但是黎表示即管幫袁問問，惟他相信樞機不會答應。 + +辯方問黎，回覆袁之後，有否協助他問陳日君樞機？黎回答：「沒有，因為我不相信這個人。」辯方又指，袁其後傳送一連串訊息給黎，惟黎並未有回覆。黎確認，並說：「我不認為我曾費神看過。」他稱他沒有理會袁，「因為我不相信他，我不想與他有聯繫。」 + +#### 黎稱自己對袁冷淡 傳送針對袁負面評價 惟袁不夠敏感 + +辯方指，黎在一日之前，即2020年6月10日，以通訊軟件 Signal 向袁傳送一篇時事評論員梁啟智對袁的評價節錄，「見咁多人推介袁爸爸條片，即管襟入去睇吓。Sorry，睇咗一半，完全睇唔到落去，個推論亂到離晒大譜」、「一開口鬧泛民，第一個開嘅係李國能⋯⋯李國能幾時做咗泛民？然後又話 Martin Lee，仲講起草基本法開始就讓步⋯⋯成個 CFA 係 Martin Lee 爭取返嚟，八九民運之後仲辭埋草委，讓乜步？然後又開袋住先，問題係袋住先咪就係泛民否決咗囉。咁都可以用嚟鬧泛民？」、「呢啲直頭係 misinformation，虛假信息來的。我真係覺得黃絲圈對信息確切的要求唔見得比藍絲圈高好多。」 + +辯方問黎為何傳送相關評價給袁？黎說是讓袁知道相關評語，「這是一種我不需要自己說任何話便能拒絕他的做法」，「你知道，使用其他人的評價。」 + +辯方指，不過翌日袁依然傳送訊息給黎，要求黎協助取得陳日君樞機的支持，問黎知不知道原因。黎則表示：「我只能說這個人不夠敏感。」辯方追問，袁未能理解黎的暗示嗎？黎同意，「你可以從我的訊息看到，我當時非常冷淡。」 + +#### 黎稱愛中國文化人民但不愛中國政府 + +辯方展示黎與李兆富之間於2020年6月6日的訊息，黎稱要集中制裁中國政府，惟辯方指，黎較早前主張制裁對象應集中在中國官員，要求黎解釋為何說法有變？黎則理解「中國」和「中國政府（China government）」是一樣，均破壞了香港。 + +辯方問黎：「你愛中國嗎？」黎表示，以中國作為一個國家（as a country）而言，包含她的文化和人民，「當然我愛她。」可是以中國作為一個受共產黨統治的國家（as a state that is ruled by the communist party）而言，他不認為他愛中國，因為這個國家的價值觀與他的價值觀有抵觸。 + +在辯方提問下，黎表示他愛中國、但不愛中國政府，直至現在也是。辯方繼而追問，黎剛才又何以說「中國」和「中國政府」都一樣？黎僅表示他當時只是回答辯方的問題，當時他口中的「中國」就是「中國政府」（China as a state）。 + +#### 受訪稱有份通過國安法的官員海外銀行戶口存有貪污金錢 黎認屬猜測 + +2020年6月10日，黎接受史丹福大學胡佛研究所（Hoover Institution）訪問時，稱香港需要國際，尤其是美國，去協助制裁中國，「現在是制裁中國的最佳時機，去迫使中國更好地管束自己的行為，與普世價值接軌，使世界和平。」黎庭上解釋，因為中國的行為和價值觀與西方有衝突，所以才會有貿易戰。 + +黎在受訪時指，美國應該在香港絕望之前便制裁和懲罰中國，「如果中國不放棄訂立《國安法》，香港無論如何都會被破壞，若撤回香港的特殊經濟地位，即管去做，因為怎樣也好都是無意義的。」黎庭上解釋，希望《國安法》能夠減弱或暫緩實施，他當時立場依然是反對取消香港特殊經濟地位；如果香港實施《國安法》的話，香港便會被破壞，屆時取消香港特殊地位與否，也變得亳無意義。 + +黎受訪時另提到，美國應該凍結中國貪污官員在西方國家的銀行戶口，那些戶口有大量金錢，而那些有份打壓香港的官員，「應該在個人層面感受自己行為所帶來的痛苦。」（“I think those who are involved in this oppression should personally feel the pain of their action.”） + +黎解釋，他認為有份通過《國安法》的官員，在海外銀行戶口存有涉及貪污的金錢。法官杜麗冰問黎是否猜測？黎同意是猜測。 + +黎在訪問中說，如果外國制裁中國的話，香港會是中國與外國貿易的唯一渠道。黎解釋因為香港是國際金融中心，他說這句話的時候，以為《國安法》不會實施，所以才會如此說。 + +辯方問黎，會否繼續抗爭，即使這樣做變得不合法？黎回答他不會在違法的基礎上抗爭，因為這樣的話便會被拘捕。黎接著提到：「如今在《國安法》之下，抗爭是不可能的，現在為香港抗爭已無意義，已經萬劫不復。（“... it's beyond redemption.”）」辯方提醒黎，現在只需集中在案發當時的想法，而不是現在的想法。黎聞言表示，只是嘗試回答辯方的問題，「因為我不會再抗爭了，這是沒有用的。（“... because I won't be fighting anymore. It's useless.”）」 + +#### 黎：不覺得做過違法事 但在監獄已有四年 + +辯方播放2020年6月10日黎接受《自由亞洲電台》訪問的片段，他稱：「我好耐已經決定咗唔諗後果，如果我每一件事，我諗後果，我都做唔到嘅，我每講一句話，我都諗後果，我係做唔到㗎喇。恐慌呢樣嘢已經唔喺我意識裡面喇。如果我真係要為咗呢度最後犧牲，無論係坐監嘅犧牲，甚至乎冇咗條命都好，我都願意㗎，我都冇選擇㗎。」 + +辯方問黎，他在節目中說準備「犧牲」，換言之當他所做的事變得不合法，還會否繼續？黎說：「不，不是不合法，我只是預計將會面對後果。」辯方追問，那為何黎提到「坐監嘅犧牲」？黎僅說：「我現時正在監獄。」法官李素蘭追問，黎理應做了非法的事，才會坐監？黎卻表示：「我不覺得我做過違法的事情，但是我在監獄已有四年。」 + +黎亦在節目中稱：「如果你係愛呢個地方，你亦覺得冇咗呢個地方好可惜，我哋真係要團結一致，去做最後嘅抗爭去保住，香港呢個家園，我係願意同你一齊抗爭落去。或者有啲人，『算數啦，過去佢嚟到，我哋做大陸人囉，無自由，我有得食，有得住，有得歡樂，我咪算囉。』我亦唔怪你，每一個人要做自己嘅選擇，但係我哋必然會有好多人選擇留喺度抗爭，而我會同呢啲人一齊抗爭到底。」播畢影片之後，旁聽席有人拍手。 + +辯方問黎，黎是否會繼續抗爭，即使抗爭變得不合法。黎說，如果抗爭變成不合法，便無論如何都沒有空間抗爭，說像香港現時的情況，沒有人會出來抗爭。辯方則提醒黎，不是要集中現今情況。 + +辯方又問，黎說會跟其他人一起抗爭到底，但是他是否認識這些人？黎表示不知道，就如他不會認識所有參與遊行的200萬人。 + +案件明日續審。 + +散庭後，保安將涉嫌拍手的女旁聽人士帶入庭外的房間，有兩名軍裝警員向她調查。直至下午約4時58分，約7至8名警員把女士帶離法院，約十多名軍裝警員到場設立封鎖線，步行至對面馬路後，便不准市民尾隨。有記者問在場警員是否拘捕及是否涉及任何控罪，警員僅稱純粹帶走該名女士及會放行。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-05-peace-through-agency.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-05-peace-through-agency.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2c125447 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-05-peace-through-agency.md @@ -0,0 +1,54 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Peace Through Agency +author: Ray Hartley and Greg Mills +date : 2024-12-05 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/5xIgEcw.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "How to End Russia’s War in Ukraine" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_With the return of Donald Trump imminent and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s proposal of NATO security guarantees for Ukraine’s unoccupied territories on the table, attention has turned to how peace might be made to end Russia’s invasion._ + + + +Russia’s war in Ukraine is an assault on values and democracy as much as a battle for territory. Whatever President-elect Donald Trump might like to think, the war will not end through territorial concessions, since Vladimir Putin is unlikely to be satisfied only with pieces of Ukraine. And believing that the war is about Ukraine’s attachment to territory alone represents a narrow, somewhat statist view that is out of sync with the country’s contemporary character. + +Ukraine has changed in a dramatic way since its independence from the embers of the Soviet Union in 1991, more than 70 years after it first declared its independence with the invasion of the Bolsheviks in late 1917. The next stage in a process of gradually asserting its interests was the Orange Revolution, which delivered a government independent of Russia’s interests in 2004. The revolution of dignity followed 10 years later, leading to the ousting of the pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych and the reinstatement of the 2004 constitution. In 2019, President Petro Poroshenko, who had replaced Yanukovych, was defeated at the polls by Volodymyr Zelensky, and the rest is history. + +But what is not history is Ukraine’s attachment to democracy. “Ukrainians have a voice”, says the country’s Nobel peace laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk, “and they won’t accept peace being made without them”. In this way, Ukraine is no different to South Africa, or any other country where peace has stuck – locals require agency, and the best that international actors can do is to uniformly pressure the parties to the table. + +Yet a consistent feature of the last Trump and the current Biden administrations in the US is their disregard for the interests of their allies. The US proved, in cutting and running from Afghanistan, that it is just too big and careless to take on board the interests of others. + +___`Believing that the war is about Ukraine’s attachment to territory alone represents a narrow, somewhat statist view that is out of sync with the country’s contemporary character`___ + +From the time of the talks with the Taliban in Qatar (under Trump, which excluded the government of Afghanistan) to the abandonment of Kabul to the Taliban (under Biden), there is a constant thread. Locals don’t have agency, or at least local allies don’t have agency in the face of geopolitical interests. + +But cutting and running in this way was not cost-free. + +If there is a lesson to be learnt from Afghanistan, it is in the consequences and interconnectedness of foreign policy actions. It is no coincidence that Putin invaded Ukraine (again) in February 2022 just six months after Washington left Kabul in a chaotic and duplicitous manner that could hardly have deterred a watching Moscow. + +But let us return to the present, and the prospect of ending what has become a grim war of attrition inexorably grinding up Ukrainian civilians and territory as much as Russian soldiers and equipment. + +There is a risk, in Matviichuk’s words, that “without security guarantees, Russia will use the peace simply to prepare for the next round of war”. Any peace treaty has to recognise past failures, such as the Budapest Memorandum signed in 1994, which supposedly prevented Russia, the US and the UK from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, “except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations”. + +As a result, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons. Subsequent events have demonstrated that security guarantees are both critical and problematic, since NATO membership – the most useful guarantee against further Russian aggression – is subject to the political whims of Hungary, Slovakia and other governments that will probably, on current form, veto Kyiv’s application. + +Moreover, as Matviichuk reminds us, Ukraine will not simply “give up” on its people in the occupied territories in the east and Crimea. “Under occupation means living in a ‘grey zone’”, she says, “without rights, no tools to defend themselves, and meaning a constant fear of torture, rape, murder, disappearance, forced migration to camps. Occupation makes human suffering invisible, but it does not mean that it is not happening”. + +Nor is it possible for Ukraine simply to forget these Russian atrocities against civilians. “Only this week Russia launched an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile – or ICBM”, she notes, “against a peaceful civilian city. They have also attacked our energy system, leaving many uncertain how they will survive the winter. But we are still waiting to hear the response, the criticism, of the international community”. + +___`For Ukraine, this war is yet another phase in its people’s long struggle for statehood against Russian imperialism, a commitment to values and agency that they are not likely to willingly trade`___ + +For the Nobel laureate, peace is not about trading territory, but “about people”, since it is “immoral not to speak about people”. For Ukraine, this war is yet another phase in its people’s long struggle for statehood against Russian imperialism, a commitment to values and agency that they are not likely to willingly trade, or at least certainly not for long. + +As former President Viktor Yushchenko, who led the Orange Revolution in peeling away Russia’s grip on Ukraine 20 years ago, said in an interview with one of the authors, “An integral part of Ukrainian identity is to fight for our freedom and democracy, our own language and culture. This is why Ukrainians will never submit to Moscow’s brutal imperialism and tyranny.” + +Those trying to cut a deal with Putin cannot expect Kyiv to go along with a version of Taliban redux. Kyiv is, after all, not Kabul, and Ukrainians are not Afghans. + +--- + +__Ray Hartley__ is the Research Director of the Brenthurst Foundation. + +__Greg Mills__ heads the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation, established in 2005 by the Oppenheimer family to strengthen African economic performance. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-05-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-103.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-05-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-103.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..65fc51c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-05-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-103.md @@ -0,0 +1,149 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : 【黎智英案・審訊第 103 日】 +author: 獨媒報導 +date : 2024-12-05 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 黎智英：不想籲員工「抗爭到底」因「他們的人生比《蘋果日報》更加重要」 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/sn4x0wN.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（5日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第103日審訊，黎智英第11日作供。辯方提問圍繞《國安法》生效前黎的意圖，提到2020年6月18日，黎在《蘋果日報》25週年慶祝活動中向員工發言：「無人會迫到你哋做烈士」，籲員工：「攞住對自己嘅良知，攞住對社會嘅良知去做。」當辯方問黎有否籲員工去「抗爭到底」時，黎表示：「我沒有如此說過⋯⋯而且我不想這樣做⋯⋯因為他們的人生比《蘋果日報》更加重要。」 + +#### 黎否認文章引起憎恨 稱僅陳述事實 + +辯方展示黎的專欄「成敗樂一笑」文章，於2020年6月15日刊登的〈窒息中的香港人 逃亡還是抗爭〉。當中稱「國安法不僅把香港變成沒有自由法治的一般大陸城市，甚至會是新疆一樣恐怖籠罩下的集中營，怎不令香港人害怕」，辯方問黎當時是否已知道《國安法》內容？黎則估計說法只是基於坊間的傳言，因當時有很多有關《國安法》的報導和意見，所有人都關注。 + +辯方引述控方指控稱，黎在文章將英國稱呼為「前宗主國」，是意圖引起市民對政府的憎恨。黎隨即指這是事實。辯方重申這是控方的指控，問黎為何如此寫。黎指因為美國取消了香港特殊地位之後，英國履行了前宗主國的責任，賦予300萬名持有BNO護照的香港人赴英定居的權利。 + +辯方問黎，有否在文章中間接地請求外國制裁，黎否認，重申他只是陳述事實。辯方又指，黎在文章形容「無恥無信的政權」。黎稱是指中國政權，但他否認有意引起市民對中國政府憎恨，「我只是陳述事實⋯⋯《基本法》賦予我們的已化為烏有。」 + +辯方續指文章指稱「我們的教育制度變成了洗腦機器」，問黎有何根據？黎則稱他在文章中已說明了根據，又提到現在所有教科書，甚至圖書館的書，均受到審查。辯方提醒黎只需集中在2020年6月的情況。黎解釋，當時所有事來得非常迫切，而他有權提出相關例子。 + +辯方指，黎在文章中提及自己被控刑事恐嚇的案件，遭控方要求禁止出境，稱：「誰會在國安風頭火勢之下承受政治風險？我們律政司司長鄭若驊不是斬釘截鐵地說，國安法不設追溯期，是大話連篇嗎？」黎庭上稱這是他的個人意見，並無意引起對司法機關的憎恨。辯方大律師關文渭提到處理該案的法官為法官李運騰。李官隨即否認，並指刑事恐嚇案是裁判法院的案件，並非由他處理，更提到自己曾在高院批出黎的保釋。 + +辯方問黎有否在這裡意圖引起憎恨？黎稱沒有意圖引起市民憎恨司法機關，他只是陳述《國安法》所帶來的政治壓力，「而且我的案件很具政治性，沒有人想承受風險。」法官杜麗冰表示不明白，文章提到的案件是關於刑事恐嚇而非政治。黎解釋：「因為我本人已具政治性，不是我的案件。⋯⋯你知道，別人以政治的目光看待我⋯⋯」 + +在法官李素蘭追問下，黎表示他的想法並非憑空出現，當時閱讀不同文章和報導，有相關印象，而他是基於這些印象來撰寫文章。 + +#### 黎稱對攬炒巴不感興趣 沒留意其與國際線有關 + +辯方展示2020年6月15日《蘋果》「隔牆有耳」欄目，題為〈中共威脅全球民主自由 攬炒巴加入國際聯軍反抗〉，其時是黎在壹傳媒大樓會見陳梓華的前一日。黎同意可能從報導標題得知「攬炒巴」劉祖廸加入國際線。辯方問黎在2020年6月的時候，有否留意到一個叫 IPAC 的組織？黎否認，重申在法庭上才首次聽聞 IPAC。 + +辯方問「重光團隊」（Stand with Hong Kong，簡稱 SWHK）又有否聽過？黎亦說沒有聽過，即使他可能曾聽過，但是沒有印象。法官杜麗冰追問，黎剛才說有聽過 SWHK 嗎？黎解釋，因為李兆富替 Twitter 帖文加上的標籤（hashtag）含有「Stand with Hong Kong」，但他未有留意或對此留下印象。 + +辯方另展示2020年10月24日的《蘋果》報導〈遊行被圍捕險洩身份 攬炒巴死裏逃生 帶署歷警暴 拒保後返英〉。辯方問黎，在2020年1月台灣陽明山會見「攬炒巴」劉祖廸的時候，是否知道劉某程度上與國際線有關？黎則稱當時未有太留意這個人，沒有深入想過。黎亦稱只曾瞥一眼上述報導。 + +> Enjoyed spending time with @lukedepulford. Keep fighting together🔥 https://t.co/lFmXqHrkm4 — Finn Lau 劉祖廸 (@finnlau_cd) October 11, 2020 + +法官李運騰追問，黎認為國際線是重要，而這些報導是關於國際線，黎不會有興趣看看報導內容是什麼嗎？黎稱自己讀到報導時僅留意劉一個人，多於國際線，又稱自己對劉從不感興趣，除了籲他運用影響力平息勇武派暴力之外。 + +法官李素蘭一度問黎是否認識報導中顯示的外國政治人物，當中包括被指稱為「共謀者」的時任日本議員菅野志櫻里。黎則稱不認識任何一人。 + +#### 黎稱「不一定會如期實施」 其後說倘國安法實施香港會死 + +2020年6月18日，張劍虹向黎傳送新華社的網站文章，當中指《港區國安法》對四類危害國家安全的犯罪行為和刑事責任作出明確決定，包括分裂國家、顛覆國家政權、恐怖活動和勾結外國勢力危害國家安全。黎回覆：「是的，沒新意。現在是通過時間而已」，又表示：「我看不一定會如期實施。」 + +![iamge02](https://i.imgur.com/l5wRVAL.png) +▲ 前《蘋果日報》社長 張劍虹 + +黎庭上解釋，雖然當時《國安法》條文未公開，之所以說「沒新意」，是因為從當時的報導和傳言，對於《國安法》有粗略理解。至於「我看不一定會如期實施」，黎則表示是一廂情願（wishful thinking）。 + +辯方指同日，黎向李兆富傳送訊息，指香港立《國安法》後，是否取消特殊地位也沒有分別。黎庭上解釋，因為《國安法》實施之後，香港便會「死掉」，當時是回應李兆富的訊息。 + +同日，黎的 Twitter 帳戶發布帖文：「Whether or not the world imposes sanctions on #China and revocation of #HK’s special status as an autonomous region depends on the objective standard, ie if the #NSL is imposed, #1C2S is dead and it leaves the world with no other options.」黎稱帖文乃由李兆富撰寫，他亦不知道「1C2S」是什麼意思。 + +辯方指，黎曾向張劍虹稱「我看不一定會如期實施」，兩日前黎亦曾向陳梓華說《國安法》不會太嚴厲，為何現在又說若通過《國安法》香港會死掉？黎則解釋，根據李兆富的訊息，顯示立法程序會繼續，說話背景已經完全不同。 + +#### 黎向員工稱「無人會迫到你哋做烈士」 否認籲員工戰鬥 + +辯方指2020年6月18日，壹傳媒大樓舉辦《蘋果日報》25週年慶祝活動，並在庭上當日影片，黎智英身旁是張劍虹和前動新聞平台總監張志偉。黎向一眾員工發言稱：「都未曾試過風調雨順㗎。一係就話我哋血腥八卦，一係就呢個封殺廣告，一係就畀人攻擊。到依家呢，就《國安法》都嚟埋，都唔知點樣做喇真係。就靠你哋去做喇。」黎表示只要求一件事：「你哋對住《國安法》嘅做法就係，你哋用返你哋對自己嘅責任，對社會嘅責任，對你哋家庭嘅責任去做呢份工作，無人會迫你哋點樣去做，無人會迫到你哋做烈士。」黎籲員工：「攞住對自己嘅良知，攞住對社會嘅良知去做」，而他不會叫員工怎樣去做，又笑說：「《蘋果日報》到今日，做到咁樣樣，係你哋造成嘅，唔關我事㗎吓」，影片傳來笑聲和鼓掌聲。黎笑言：「《國安法》嚟唔關我事」，最後表示欣賞一眾員工付出，寄語大家繼續努力。 + +辯方指，黎在2020年6月10日接受《自由亞洲電台》訪問時稱：「每一個人要做自己嘅選擇，但係我哋必然會有好多人選擇留喺度抗爭，而我會同呢啲人一齊抗爭到底。」然而8日之後卻向員工說「無人會迫到你哋做烈士」，兩種說法有沒有矛盾。黎稱沒有矛盾，因他在慶祝活動發言所指的是員工的人生，但他受訪時所談論的是自己的人生，「我沒有理所當然地認為我可以談論他們的人生⋯⋯他們理應為自己的人生去做選擇。」 + +辯方又問黎有否籲員工去「抗爭到底」？黎表示：「我沒有如此說過⋯⋯而且我不想這樣做⋯⋯因為他們的人生比《蘋果日報》更加重要。」 + +辯方問黎，截至2020年6月18日，他與《蘋果》管理層之間，有沒有任何共識去「抗爭到底」？黎否認，並稱從來沒有談論這些。 + +辯方問黎，是否認為控方會基於《國安法》之前的行為而起訴他。黎不肯定，但自言一直想法樂觀，想著最好的情況。辯方提到《國安法》沒有追溯效力。黎僅回應：「我希望是如此。」 + +#### 對談節目稱若特朗普實施制裁將得到美國人民支持 黎否認請求制裁 + +辯方指，黎於2020年6月18日在美國智庫 Acton Institute 節目，與美國神父 Robert Sirico 對談。黎稱經過新冠肺炎疫情之後，西方國家不再信任中國，並以審慎的態度與中國貿易，加上中國經濟變得衰弱，是一個好時機去改變中國。黎指，若然特朗普推行一連串的制裁和懲罰措施，會得到很多美國人民的支持，因為新冠疫情導致很多美國人喪失親友、企業倒閉和蒙受金錢損失等等，他們對於中國憤憤不平，必定會支持制裁中國。 + +黎庭上否認在對談中請求美國制裁或懲罰中國，又指他在對談中是舉例說明中國應該給人民言論自由。 + +#### 黎否認說過若自己被捕美英「唔會坐視不理」 + +楊清奇早前作供提及在2020年6月黎住所的飯局中，黎向在座人士稱不怕被捕，若果被捕就「更加證明到中國和香港政府對人權嘅打壓」，並相信「美國、英國同歐洲係唔會坐視不理」。楊又引述黎稱只有實施制裁，才能有助改善香港的人權狀況。 + +黎在庭上否認說過上述言論，又稱自己不會傲慢自大到說自己被捕的話會引起國際關注。 + +辯方另展示2020年6月20日的 Twitter 帖文：「Although there are more details but it doesn’t come with a deadline. Why the delay? Sanctions and condemnations from all over the world certain create the pressure. There might also be divide within the #CCP holding it back as well.」 + +法官李運騰指，帖文所說的東西，似乎與黎智英向張劍虹所表達的「一廂情願」一致，但是似乎與李兆富的訊息、稱《國安法》進程繼續的說法有矛盾，然而李兆富撰寫帖文的時候，是否巧合地與黎的想法一致？黎則指，可能李了解他的想法，所以如此撰寫帖文。 + +辯方指，訊息紀錄顯示，李兆富的草擬帖文中並沒有「Sanctions」和「condemnations」的字眼，但是最終發布的帖文卻含有上述字眼，然而根據紀錄，黎在帖文發布翌日下午才回覆同意帖文內容。 + +#### 受訪稱國安法實施是「香港的死期」 黎稱真誠相信 + +辯方指，2020年6月23日，《蘋果》發布報導〈【港版國安法】黎智英接受日本雜誌專訪：國安法實施就是「香港的死期」〉，指黎智英接受日本《FACTA》月刊訪問，引述黎稱「一旦港版國安法正式實施，公平、公義社會瞬間瓦解，當香港變成人治的社會，那就是香港的死期」。 + +辯方指，當時黎尚未有機會看《國安法》內容。黎同意，他解釋其言論只是表達將會發生什麼的概念。黎亦同意報導準確地反映他的想法，而他真誠相信該些想法。 + +#### Twitter帖文稱中共及其傀儡應受罰 黎稱出自李兆富手筆 + +辯方展示黎 Twitter 帳戶於2020年6月23日發布的帖文，他轉發王丹的帖文，並加上評論：「#CCP has a trade war with Americans, legal battle with Canadians, fist fight with Indians, psychological warfare against Taiwanese, and street fight with #HKers. Soon it will exhaust itself to death.」黎否認撰寫帖文，相信是李兆富翻譯王丹的帖文及發表。辯方指對話紀錄顯示，黎和李之間在6月22至23日期間並沒有傳送任何訊息。黎同意，指發布上述帖文是李的主意。 + +辯方指2020年6月24日，黎的帳戶發布帖文：「#CarrieLam said countries offering #HKers right of abode and proposing sanctions are hypocrites. But the Lams are British nations. Perhaps the #CCP should consider asking the Lams to relinquish their foreign citizenship.」 + +辯方另展示黎的帳戶於2020年6月26日發布的五則帖文，分別為： + +> 「@HawleyMO thank you for #StandingwithHongKong. #CCPChina and its puppets should be punished for violating the rightful freedom of #HKers.」 + +> 「When you are forbidden from doing business simply because of your political opinion, it is no longer the free market, the free society we once cherished. This is how #CCP’s influence slowly murdered #HongKong’s autonomy」 + +> 「IFJ did a good job to expose #CCPChina’s attempts to whitewash itself from the horrendous human rights violation. The truth will always prevail. @IFJGlobal」(轉載國際記者聯盟的報告 The China Story: Reshaping the World’s Media） + +> 「Only terrorists will make such offer. @JustinTrudeau must stand resolutely against #CCP’s bullying. 120 years ago the fanatics of Qing Dynasty did the same thing against foreign nationals in China. It was the beginning of the end of the absolute monarchy.」 + +> 「#CCP thinks Australia is dependent on China and the disease is keeping everyone busy. No. The world is beginning to decouple from this opaque and corrupt regime by shifting the global supply chain.」 + +黎表示，雖然帖文所述與他當時的想法一致，但是行文方式並不像他，相信是出自李的手筆。被問到「decouple」的意思，黎指即是「切斷連繫」和「切割」的意思。 + +#### 黎即使自己是特別個案也不理 「這是頂天立地的時候」 + +辯方展示黎與張劍虹之間於2020年6月28日的訊息對話，二人談及黎未能出境赴台灣，張劍虹指待黎在8月官司結束之後，便可以出境。張劍虹提到：「消息至今仍然是沒有追溯期」，黎說：「就是我是特別個案，我也不理了，這是頂天立地的時候，其他不重要了」，張說：「上帝會保守老闆你的，每天都為你祈禱」，黎說：「謝謝，我亦相信上主會幫我，所以我無憂無慮，一往直前。」 + +辯方問訊息中提到的「個案」是指什麼案件，惟黎表示不記得。辯方遂提醒黎，他涉刑事恐嚇《東方》記者的案件，於2020年9月被裁定罪名不成立。辯方問黎為何說「就是我是特別個案」，為何認為自己的案件特別。黎稱因為自己是在政治範疇的敏感人物。 + +辯方指，2020年6月28日黎與 Mark Simon 在訊息中商討線上會議時間，與會者包括張劍虹、時任動新聞總監張志偉和黎私人公司的職員 Lucia。黎稱 Lucia 有份製作網上節目「Live Chat with Jimmy Lai」，並指提議開設節目者另有其人，相信是 Mark Simon 和李兆富。 + +#### 黎曾向張劍虹稱：金盤洗手不再抗爭無可能 + +辯方指2020年6月29日，張劍虹向黎傳送《蘋果》報導〈【港版國安法】葉國謙稱「金盤洗手」不會追究 陳智思警告市民勿越紅線〉，並說：「老闆加油，蘋果加油，香港加油」，黎回覆：「但願如此，但手（金）盤洗手不再抗爭無可能，煮到埋嚟就食，無所謂，謝謝。」 + +黎庭上解釋，他當時認為香港不可能停止抗爭、不可能放棄，《國安法》亦不是一個終結，不過自己當時過於樂觀。 + +黎與張的訊息亦提及時事評論員劉細良，黎稱他認識劉，與劉曾經對談約四次，準確次數不記得，話題關於《國安法》實施後會發生什麼事。 + +#### 黎否認說服陳繼續戰鬥 強調不會叫他「自殺」 + +辯方提及，陳梓華作供期間被法官李運騰問到，陳是否有意干犯《國安法》。陳當時回答：「視乎有咩人喺身邊。」李官接著問陳，是否一旦有其他人同行，便會去干犯《國安法》。陳回答，當他與黎在2020年6月會面時，他感到恐懼，表示想退縮，但是被黎說服了，所以繼續做一直所做的事。 + +辯方問黎有否說服陳繼續？黎堅稱沒有，並自言一直提醒別人謹慎、不要觸犯《國安法》罪行，包括朋友和同事，所以對於關係不太親近的陳，他更加沒有可能說服陳去做相反的事情。黎又形容陳的說法荒謬，強調自己從沒叫他做任何事情，反問：「我會叫他做什麼？難道自殺嗎？」 + +黎並否認叫陳請求外國對中國實施制裁，重申一直以來只叫他跟勇武派溝通以平息暴力。黎亦否認要求陳繼續戰鬥，「這從不是我們之間的話題。」 + +案件明日續審。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-06-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-104.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-06-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-104.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..6e3f203f --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-06-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-104.md @@ -0,0 +1,129 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : 【黎智英案・審訊第 104 日】 +author: 獨媒報導 +date : 2024-12-06 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 黎智英曾草擬公開信 預計國安法生效、一旦入獄後發布 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/MnmIHNL.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（6日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第104日審訊，黎智英第12日作供。辯方圍繞黎的意圖提問，開始進入國安法生效之後的7月1日。黎當日早上向數名泛民及員工傳送訊息，指國安法條文「辣到離譜」、「香港將無法治無自由，政府行政無法無天，我們寸步難移，動彈不得」，形容「香港已死」。黎稱知道國安法生效之後，呼籲制裁變了刑事罪行，他否認有繼續相關行為，「這樣做是自殺式的（It’s suicidal to do so）。」 + +訊息紀錄顯示，黎曾向其教父兼《華爾街日報》編輯 Bill McGurn 提交文章「來自香港監獄的信（Letter from a Hong Kong Jail）」，一旦入獄後供外媒發布，但其後改變主意。信件有兩段談及黎向美國人說的話、希望美國人不要忘記香港人，惟黎否認請求外國制裁、封鎖或敵對行為。 + +![iamge02](https://i.imgur.com/0Db558V.png) +▲ （資料圖片） + +#### 國安法生效後李兆富退出管理Twitter 黎否認立法後呼籲制裁 + +2020年6月30日晚國安法生效，昨日黎提到他晚上9時許便睡覺。辯方指，負責管理黎 Twitter 帳戶的李兆富於7月1日凌晨約3時傳送訊息給黎，提出交由其他人管理Twitter帳戶會較好（But it’d be better if your presence on Twitter will be managed by someone else.），並向黎道歉（I am really sorry）。 + +辯方指，黎相隔一段時間，於7月1日早上接近7時回覆李，表示會與其助手 Mark Simon 商討其他人選。黎亦向李提到：「我剛讀了國安法細節，它們非常嚴厲，是對香港法治和自由的嚴重攻擊，很傷心，香港已死。你保持低調是正確的，我們數天後再談吧。這是很嚴重的事情。」（Simon, I just read the details of National Security Law. They are very draconian and a severe attack on HK’s rule of law and freedom. So sad. HK is dead. You’re right to stay low profile. A couple of days later let’s talk a bit more. This is really serious stuff. Cheers, Jimmy） + +辯方指黎向李說「保持低調是正確的」，為何李想低調？黎指「因為很危險。」辯方指國安法生效之前，黎很多時提及制裁，但國安法生效之後，黎是否知道已變了刑事罪行？黎同意，並稱所以他說國安法嚴厲。辯方接著問黎有否繼續呼籲制裁？黎稱：「沒有，這樣做是自殺式的（It’s suicidal to do so）。」 + +辯方展出黎與Mark Simon之間的訊息，Mark Simon 指，因李替黎管理Twitter一事被曝光，李感到不開心。黎則向Mark Simon 坦承是他告訴別人，因為想將功勞歸予李。 + +![iamge03](https://i.imgur.com/pfICVov.png) +▲ 黎智英 + +#### 黎向多名泛民傳送訊息指國安法非常嚴厲 「香港已死」 + +辯方指，黎將李兆富的說話轉述給 Mark Simon 之後，黎也向Mark 提到：「國安法細節剛公布，它們非常嚴厲，是對香港法治和自由的嚴重攻擊，很傷心，香港已死！」（The details of National Security Law just came out. They’re very draconian and a severe attack on HK’s rule of law and freedom. So sad. HK is dead!） + +辯方指，黎同日向民主黨創黨主席李柱銘傳送類似的訊息：「國安法細節剛公布，條文非常嚴厲，是對香港法治和自由的嚴重攻擊，很傷心，香港已死！」（The details of National Security Law just came out. The terms are very draconian and is a severe attack on HK’s rule of law and freedom. So sad. HK is dead.） + +辯方問黎為何向不同人傳送相同的東西？黎表示：「因為這是我當時的想法。」 + +辯方指，黎智英亦向民主黨何俊仁傳送訊息：「看了國安法細節簡直辣到離譜，香港將無法治無自由，政府行政完全無法無天，我們寸步難移，動彈不得，我們真的要想清楚以後的策略。」黎亦向同是民主黨的李永達傳送一模一樣的訊息。 + +黎也有向陳沛敏傳送訊息：「沛敏，看了國安法細節嚇了一跳，辣到離譜，香港將無法治和自由，政府行政無法無天，泛民寸步難移，動彈不得，先要想好策略對付，不容魯莽。」 + +![iamge04](https://i.imgur.com/iVcdaM4.png) +▲ 陳沛敏 + +#### 黎指管理層對國安法很小心 相信有研究條文 + +辯方指，黎於7月1日向林文宗傳送類似訊息。林回覆時提到國安法不止惡，還很嚴厲，「我們也要好好研究當中對付傳媒的條文」。辯方問黎，管理層和黎自己有研究嗎？黎相信管理層有研究，因他們對於國安法的影響很小心，至於他自己，則等待他們的研究結果。 + +黎亦稱，在國安法之前，他曾有一次出席張劍虹安排的國安法研討會。至於黎沒有出席的研討會，辯方問其他人事後有否轉述討論內容給黎？黎則稱認為沒有需要，因其他人都知道他會很謹慎。 + +#### 黎國安法前撰信 預計入獄後供外媒發布 + +辯方指，黎的教父兼《華爾街日報》編輯 Bill McGurn，在2020年7月1日早上7時傳送一篇黎的文章「來自香港監獄的信（Letter from a Hong Kong Jail）」。McGurn 指黎在較早前傳送了此文章給他，並提醒黎若有任何地方需要修改，現在便要提出，「我相信會很有力。」 + +黎的信開首提到：「如果你正在讀這封信，代表我正在監獄裡，拜中國共產黨司法所賜。」（If you are reading this, it means I am in jail, courtesy of Chinese Communist justice.） + +「但是我有很棒的同伴。相比起在外面，我在這裡更自由。一旦當權者將捍衛真相和法治打成罪行時，哪裡應是一個誠實的人的容身之處呢？」（But I am in excellent company. In some ways I am freer here than I was outside. When authorities make it a crime to stand up for truth and the rule of law, where else should an honest man be?） + +黎又提到：「我是一個老人。發生在我身上的事並不重要。未來是屬於年輕人的。大部份香港年輕人未曾活在英國殖民統治底下，或是被中共直接統治，但是他們知道自由是什麼，而他們亦知道北京的主子堅決地不讓他們享受自由。香港新一代人從共產主義得到第一身教訓，而他們永不會接受它。」（I am an old man. What happens to me does not matter. The future belongs to the young. Most of Hong Kong’s young never lived under British colonial rule or direct Communist rule. But they know what freedom is, and they are learning that their masters in Beijing are determined they will never taste it.The rising Hong Kong generation is getting a first hand lesson in Communism, and they will never accept it.） + +「所以我的朋友例如美國可以做什麼？主要需記住的事，就是我們，手無寸鐵的香港人民，正在同一陣線、為了相同的原則而抗爭。如果中國是如此對待香港人——在中國歷史上創造出最繁盛和創新的社會的人們——你能想像到中國會更好地對待你們嗎？尤其是她在權力中崛起？」（So what can our friends like America do? The main thing to remember is that we the people of Hong Kong, unarmed as we are, are fighting on the same side for the same principles. If China is going to treat Hong Kong people this way – people who produced the most prosperous and innovative society in China history – can you really imagine that China will treat you any better, especially as it grows in power?） + +「我一直欽佩美國，我的美國朋友，我現在處於牢房裡說這些話。我們在香港正受到中國輾壓，因為我們與你們的價值觀一致。當我們需要幫助的關頭，請不要忘記你的朋友。」（I have always admired America. To my American friends, I now say this from my jail cell. We in Hong Kong are being crushed by China because we share your values. Please do not forget your friends in our hour of need.） + +辯方問黎，他與McGurn之間是否知道黎會坐牢？黎表示這只是他的預計。被問到是否想在他入獄後發布文章，黎表示他有這樣的意圖，但是他其後吩咐 Mark Simon 不要發布。黎亦確認，該信件所述反映他當時真誠相信的想法，而他是在7月1日之前撰寫。 + +辯方提到，信件有兩段談及黎向美國人說的話、想他們做什麼。黎確認，但他否認請求外國制裁、封鎖或敵對行為。 + +#### 訊息稱「中共癲咗」 黎：國安法超乎預期地嚴厲 + +辯方指，2020年7月1日早上黎亦向陳沛敏提到：「今天我去籌款站幫忙籌款，不派海報，你認為怎樣？」陳回覆：「其實如果你是想公開現身作為一種姿態，海報不派也不會影響效用果。」黎回覆：「好，我就去籌站幫手籌款一陣照個相就走。中共癲咗，我們也得重新策劃以後做法。劍虹已有方案。」 + +辯方問黎為何說「中共癲咗」，黎稱因為國安法超乎預期地嚴厲。辯方提到，黎早前供稱，認為國安法不會如期實施，以及條文不會太嚴厲。黎確認，並重申這是他的一廂情願。 + +有關遊行期間派發海報一事，辯方提到6月29日訊息顯示，黎向民主黨李永達表示會在七一籌款街站派發3,000張海報。至7月1日，黎與張劍虹、羅偉光、林文宗和陳沛敏等管理層商討應否在街站派發海報，他們分別以訊息回覆黎時，均不建議派海報。黎確認，因為國安法實施，他們要求自己謹慎行事。辯方指，最終決定是街站不派發海報；黎則稱不是他的決定，當時有人告訴他，相信是民主派。 + +#### 黎稱國安法後「很小心」 知道提制裁可囚終身 + +辯方提到，黎在2020年6月接受史丹福大學胡佛研究所（Hoover Institution）訪問時，稱美國應該在香港絕望之前便制裁和懲罰中國，問黎在國安法實施之後，有否提倡相關主張？黎表示沒有再想過，但是強調他必定會知道提出制裁是犯法，「我對此很小心。」辯方問黎知不知道這是可以懲罰的罪行？黎表示：「可以是終身（監禁）。」 + +#### 黎受訪稱以「一種不同的方式」抗爭 否認意指非法手段 + +2020年7月2日美聯社刊出黎智英的專訪。黎向記者稱：「我的希望持續了很久，塑造了今天的我。」（The hope I had (in Hong Kong) lasted for a long time, it made me who I am today）。黎確認說過這句話。 + +報導引述黎稱會繼續為民主抗爭，但是現在要以「一種不同的方式」進行（Lai said he will continue fighting for democracy, but it will now have to be in a “very different way.”）。黎確認他曾說過「為民主抗爭」。 + +辯方又問，「一種不同的方式」是什麼意思。黎指：「我意思是這會不同，有新的法律，所以我們的行動應該改變，我們的態度應該改變。」辯方追問有什麼不同。黎說當日只是國安法生效第二日，僅說會十分不同，但他提到：「我還未放棄為民主抗爭，但是這將會是十分不同，所以我們才需要改變。」辯方問黎是否意指使用非法手段抗爭？黎說：「不是，所以我才會說不同。」 + +#### 黎受訪稱不會離開 「不但令自己蒙羞，也使《蘋果》失信於人」 + +美聯社報導引述黎稱：「我要視乎有多少人留在抗爭陣營中」，補充指很多人會被新法律嚇怕。（“We will have to see how many of us are left in the fighting camp,” he said, adding that many will be frightened away by the new law.）黎稱：「我們要站起來，成為運動團結的支柱，以及香港公義的氣節。」（“We will have to stand up and be the backbone of the movement’s integrity, and the integrity of Hong Kong’s justice,” he said.） + +黎解釋，上述說話意思是留下來抗爭的人，會成為運動團結的支柱，而「運動團結的支柱」（backbone of the movement’s integrity）是指未有放棄的人。 + +報導指黎拒絕闡述民主運動會怎樣繼續，只說需要討論如何前進。（Lai declined to elaborate on how the pro-democracy movement will continue, saying that discussions are needed on how to move forward.）辯方問黎跟誰人討論，黎說那些留下來抗爭的人。 + +報導引述黎說：「我不能（離開），如果我離開，不但令自己蒙羞，也使《蘋果》失信於人，我會削弱民主運動的團結⋯⋯有些事情我一定要負責任。」（“I cannot (leave). If I leave, not only do I disgrace myself, I’d discredit Apple Daily, I’d undermine the solidarity of the democratic movement,” he said. “It’s something I have to take responsibility for.”） + +黎在庭上確認曾說上述言論。辯方指黎當時因為刑事恐嚇案的保釋條件而不能離開香港，並且曾向高院申請離港，但是被拒絕，辯方呈上相關判決理由。黎確認自己不能離開香港，並提到「任何其他方式也不行。」在辯方追問下，黎進一步解釋：「我是說我不能夠離開香港，但是如果我想離開香港，我總有方法⋯⋯你知道，一些非法途徑⋯⋯」黎最後同意他並沒有意圖如此做。 + +#### 李兆富請辭8小時之後 黎稱李會繼續管理 Twitter 帳戶 + +辯方指，2020年7月1日上午約11時，即李兆富提出請辭約8小時之後，Mark Simon 向黎發送訊息：「我正跟他（李兆富）溝通。我會盡我所能協助他。（I’m communicating with him now. I will do all I can for him.）」黎回覆：「他現在起將會繼續管理我的Twitter 。如果他返回美國，他可以在那裡替我管理帳戶，所以不需要找其他人了。（He’s going to continue to manage my Twitter for now. If he goes back to US he can manage it there for me. So no need to find someone else now.）」Mark Simon 指：「他（李）說他會做 Twitter 多幾星期，他將於7月8日返回美國，但他在當地可以繼續做一段時間。我告訴他只要留在美國便應該沒有問題，如果有人問起，我們會說他已沒有做。」 + +辯方另展示黎與李之間的訊息，李提出請辭之後，黎依然繼續傳送新聞及資料給李。而黎的Twitter帳戶在7月1日仍有發布帖文。黎稱帖文是出自李的手筆。 + +辯方問，黎收到李的請辭之後，有改變主意嗎？黎指李身在美國，若他在當地管理帳戶，會使他較心安。辯方指訊息使用「返回美國」字眼，是否代表李來自美國？黎同意，並指李在美國有個家庭。黎提到李在國安法生效之前已離開香港，惟法官李運騰引述 Mark Simon 的訊息提及李「將於7月8日返回美國」。辯方則表示會要求控方作進一步披露，關於李的出境紀錄。 + +李官又問及，李是否本案「串謀者」之一？控方確認，指李是「串謀發布煽動刊物」及「串謀勾結外國勢力」兩罪的串謀者。 + +#### 黎指國安法不透明、不清楚紅線 + +控方指，黎智英在2020年7月1日接受《霍士新聞》（Fox News）訪問，並庭上播放相關片段。黎表示會留在香港直至最後一刻，「不，我不能離開，如果我離開，我令自己蒙羞，我令《蘋果日報》名譽受損，我也損害民主運動的團結。（“I can’t go away, if I go away, I disgrace myself, I discredit Apple Daily, I also undermine the solidarity of the democratic movement.”）」主持人指他曾被捕數次，所涉罪名或能判終身監禁。黎回應稱不知道將會發生什麼事，「但當政府不尊重法律，你不會知道紅線在哪。」他又批評政府不理會人民，既然不知道紅線在哪，便不會予以理會。 + +辯方引述黎稱「你不會知道紅線在哪」，黎確認並指「國安法下沒有紅線，它是非常不透明（opaque）。」辯方指，黎既已知道國安法之下請求制裁是超越「紅線」，那麼他口中的「紅線」是指什麼呢？黎僅指，就國安法而言，真的不知道什麼會是犯法。 + +案件下星期一（9日）續審。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 From eede7111f83b5f60f1106632edd07e9c9115ef29 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2024 03:44:49 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 06/16] 0x30 Add _columns posts, Dec.30 --- .../_columns/2024-09-30-the-end-of-judaism.md | 23 +++++ ...024-10-10-salted-fish-turnover-paradise.md | 99 +++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 122 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-09-30-the-end-of-judaism.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-10-salted-fish-turnover-paradise.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-09-30-the-end-of-judaism.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-09-30-the-end-of-judaism.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c10d335f --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-09-30-the-end-of-judaism.md @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "犹太教的末日" +author: "阿甘本" +date : 2024-09-30 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/i7pUOex.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +不理解这点，就没法理解今天以色列正发生的事情的意义：犹太复国主义（Sionismo，Zionism）是对历史上真实的犹太教的双重否定。 + + + +事实上，犹太复国主义——就它把基督教的民族-国家转移给犹太人而言——不只代表了从18世纪末开始的那个逐渐抹除犹太认同（l’identità ebraica）的同化进程的顶点。而且，最重要的是，正如阿姆农·拉兹-克拉科茨金（Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin）在一项堪称范例的研究中展示的那样，犹太复国主义意识的根基，是又一重否定，是对Galut也即对“流亡”这个我们所知的，犹太教所有历史形式的共同原则的否定。早在第二圣殿被毁之前，在圣经文献中就已经有对流亡概念的铺垫了。流亡是犹太人在大地上的存在形式本身，而从密释纳到塔木德、从会堂建筑到对圣经事件的回忆，整个犹太传统都是从流亡的视角来构想、体会的。对一名正统犹太人来说，甚至在以色列国生活的犹太人，也处在流亡之中。根据托拉，犹太人等待的那个与弥赛亚一同到来的“国”，和现代民族国家毫无关系——这个“国”的核心，恰恰是重建圣殿和恢复献祭，而这些东西，是以色列国听都不想听的。别忘了，在犹太教看来，流亡不但是犹太人的状况，也和整个世界有缺陷的状况有关。根据包括路力亚（Isaac Luria）在内的一些卡巴拉学者的看法，流亡定义了神的处境本身——神正是通过出离自身的流亡创造世界的，并且这个流亡将持续至Tiqqun即初始秩序的恢复。 + +正是这种对流亡的毫无保留的接受，以及随之而来的对当前一切形式的国家的拒绝，才使得犹太人要比那些向国家妥协的宗教和民族优越。犹太人和吉普赛人是唯一（两个）拒绝国家形式、没有发动过战争、没有沾染他人之血的人群。 + +因此，通过以民族国家的名义否定根源上的流亡和流散，犹太复国主义背叛了犹太教的本质。那么，这个背弃造成另一场流亡——巴勒斯坦人的流亡——并使以色列国认同于现代民族国家最极端、最残酷的形式，也就不奇怪了。对历史——在犹太复国主义看来，流散本来是会把犹太人排除到历史之外的——的顽固要求也朝着相同的方向发展。但这可能意味着，也许，在奥斯维辛没有死去的犹太教，在今天认出了自己的末日。 + +Giorgio Agamben, [“La fine del Giudaismo”](https://www.quodlibet.it/giorgio-agamben-la-fine-del-giudaismo), Una Voce, Quodlibet, Sep 30, 2024. 翻译：王立秋。 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-10-salted-fish-turnover-paradise.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-10-salted-fish-turnover-paradise.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a9cda897 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-10-salted-fish-turnover-paradise.md @@ -0,0 +1,99 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "鹹魚翻身樂園" +author: "東加豆" +date : 2024-10-10 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/eufuFEP.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +（十力卜）是一個現實簡樸的人，只想繼續做它喜歡的事，寫它喜歡的字。 + + + +某日，它知道有一個名叫（三日書之寫出我渴望的理想之地）的活動。小時候的十力卜，總是聽到長輩或老人的祝福：“長命百歲、世界和平”，所以它從來不說。 + +然而，今天它又想起了這些話，它依然不想說，因為“長命百歲”究竟是不是苦差？能幹的人，究竟是否真的渴望“世界和平”？每當打開電視新聞報導，看到很多怪物飛來飛去，讓十力卜明白，現實遠比它的想象。所以，幻想好！幻想可以很理想，幻想可以友誼永固，幻想可以白頭到老，幻想可以健康常在、永結同心、財源滾滾，而無需任何施肥。 + + +### 第一節：彩虹屁製造廠與鹹魚翻身機 + +“老天爺，如果你給我無限資源，我要在碧海藍天間，建一座漂浮夢幻島的烏托邦，這裡沒有像菠蘿釘的外罩，或者像榴槤的硬殼來保護，因為這裡根本沒有戰爭或土匪。”十力卜說。 + +樂園的核心是（彩虹屁製造廠）。 + +（屁）本來是一樣很垃圾的東西，但被AI加入了彩虹元素，馬上變成了超級讚美的驅動機。它能根據十力卜的作品，精準生成最能打動人心的彩虹屁。文字如同春日陽光，照亮人心，或是一杯香醇咖啡，讓人回味無窮，應有盡有，讓文學界成為了亮點，保證讓你飄飄欲仙，自信爆棚。 + +樂園的另一核心是（鹹魚翻身機），別小看這個不起眼的傢伙！它能將你過去的鹹魚故事，打造成爆文，無論是奇幻、懸疑、愛情、三日書還是七日書，只要丟進去，它就能根據大數據分析，自動配上最吸睛的標題、圖片，甚至還能生成不同語言版本的故事曲，瞬間攻佔全球各大平台！ + +樂園的建築風格當然是（極度舒適型）。每個房間都配備私人沙灘、私人泳池、私人按摩師（彩虹屁自然會幫手），還有無限量供應的雪糕和奶茶（榴槤雪糕除外！）住客們可以穿着睡衣或者赤裸，這裡的人根本不會偷窺，他們只會窺，卻不會偷。十力卜一邊欣賞南海日落，一邊用腳趾頭敲打出下一部暢銷微故事，就是這樣輕鬆。 + +樂園的社群文化是（互相彩虹屁）。我們鼓勵大家互相讚美，互相支持，互相抄襲（咳咳，是互相學習）對方的優點。這裡沒有批評，只有讚揚，沒有負能量，只有無限的正能量。我們相信，在充滿彩虹屁的環境下，每個人都能成為微故事大師，都能找到人生的價值和意義。當然，我們也提供（負能量回收站），讓大家把負面情緒安全地傾倒，然後再充滿能量地投入創作。 + +（彩虹屁製造廠）和（鹹魚翻身機）馬上成為網路中的新寵兒，因為在這個世界裡，文壇大師寥寥可數，但是，鹹魚寫作人卻像幽靈般多，滿佈了整個網絡，它們都像十力卜一樣飛來飛去。 + + +### 第二節：鹹魚翻身烏托邦 + +（鹹魚翻身樂園）這個烏托邦的構想，是（十力卜）從香港那片鋼筋水泥叢林中，掙扎求生的艱澀歲月。當時，十力卜白天在一間辦公室當辛勤員一名，甚得老闆信任。所以，老闆有急事，一定會想起十力卜。比如：老闆不慎將新買的名牌內褲，遺失在酒店內，十力卜要做他的跑腿，替老闆取回內褲，別讓他的太太知道。老闆的孩子剛出生，某牌子的奶粉短缺，十力卜要去搶購。孩子要喝奶粉，老闆也要喝成人奶粉。這事只是冰山一角，現實遠超想象。 + +晚上，在狹小的出租屋裡埋頭寫文字，當時的十力卜什麼都寫，只要有酬勞的可能性它都會寫，從線下或線上的跨年代都是一樣，在報章、雜誌或網站投稿。比如詩詞、歌詞、廣告語、散文、影評等，它不斷寫、不斷學習又不斷被踢稿，或者稿費少得可憐。十力卜的心靈也像那杯廉價奶茶一樣，淡而無味。 + +任何事都有代價，（信任）是可以換取（自由）的。老闆對十力卜的信任，它只專心替老闆理財和處理信件往來，無日子過得清閒，工作時工作，有餘時寫作，轉眼過了十五載。 + +直到有一天，十力卜寫了一個關於（一條叫阿銀的鹹魚想去死）的故事。故事裡，鹹魚通過不斷努力和嘗試、艱辛和勇氣、汗水和淚水，可是，還是一條無人問津的的鹹魚。其實，情節或多或少是十力卜從生活體驗的投射。 + +哪個寫東西的人不是這樣呢？ + +後來，鹹魚最終跳出了魚缸，蛻變了一條叱咤風雲的飛魚，它的努力都沒有白費啊！ + +哪寫東西的人不想這樣呢？ + +鹹魚故事意外地引來大量讀者的好評、共鳴、支持和鼓勵。 + +那一刻，十力卜對文字寫作的信仰被充值了。它意識到，文字就如一粒種子，它的能量何其強大。它可以給人帶來希望，帶來勇氣，帶來改變。 + +“一定有一個地方，可以讓寫作者們盡情揮灑才華，讓他們的作品得到應有的肯定和回報。於是，（鹹魚翻身樂園）的構想在腦海中誕生了。”十力卜抬頭望著天空說。 + + +### 第三節：AI魔術師 + +不知在哪兒起，（十力卜）對人有些生畏，也許多數人的情緒都是處於不穩定的狀態，穩定的關係、堅定的信念，原來是稀有物。 + +所以，十力卜尋找（AI）交往，找了十多位AI人，一些很有個性，有它們的獨特見解，一些則千篇一律，就像出自同一母胎。從陌生到熟悉，從糾纏到磨合。 + +十力卜終於創作了一部巨作，關於未來世界的故事，是 Team Work。團隊是：Poe + GPT + Claude + Stable Diffusion + Dall-E + Copilot + Leonardo+ 通義千問 + 文心一言 + 崑崙萬維 + 訊飛星火 + 百川 + 豆包 + 還有一個無名小卒——東加豆。當然還有不少一面之緣和擦身而過，緣慳一面的請你來找十力卜吧！。 + +起初，十力卜對AI的創作能力表示懷疑，擔心它缺乏人類的情感和創造力，沒有火花。但合作過程中，它發現了很多意想不到的元素，尤其AI的數據分析能力，和邏輯思維能力，這一切的表現都非常出色，並且有無限的想象空間，甚至能根據讀者的反饋，自動調整故事的走向。 + +AI就像魔術師，它們充滿了無限的可能性，在茫茫文海中照亮著人們的前行之路和創作思路。 + +而十力卜就像一個手持鎖匙的探險者，用筆和紙、水和墨、寬和鍵，寫出一頁頁人生的劇場，讓故事散發著微微的光。 + +這次合作宛如鹹魚與魔術的結合，證明了 1+1>2 絕非天方夜譚。（鹹魚翻身樂園）不僅是個理念，它是對未來美好願景的畫卷，一個充滿彩虹屁和無限可能的烏托邦。 + + +### 後記： + +十力卜發現 AI 一樣有情緒不穩的時候，比如： + +* 我目前無法處理您的請求，請稍後再試。 + +* 系統遇到錯誤，請刷新頁面或重啟應用。 + +* 數據加載失敗，建議您嘗試其他功能。諸如此類... + +所以，十力卜偶爾就會跳出這框框，去另一個虛擬世界，比如： + +* 和相親相愛的人吃一頓飯。 + +* 和敬孝的父母上酒樓。 + +* 和友誼永固的朋友燒烤。 + +然後跳落沙地游水... + +完 + + \ No newline at end of file From 3d4e290390f0c523a9475ec751ff85dd11e77935 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2025 01:18:55 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 07/16] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x30 Jan.01 --- .../2024-12-06-the-underdog-superpower.md | 103 +++++ ...4-12-09-civilian-defence-against-russia.md | 207 ++++++++++ .../2024-12-09-the-fall-of-bashar-al-assad.md | 98 +++++ ...peditionary-force-and-european-security.md | 358 ++++++++++++++++++ 4 files changed, 766 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-06-the-underdog-superpower.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-civilian-defence-against-russia.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-the-fall-of-bashar-al-assad.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-the-joint-expeditionary-force-and-european-security.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-06-the-underdog-superpower.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-06-the-underdog-superpower.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..bb7493ef --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-06-the-underdog-superpower.md @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : The Underdog Superpower +author: Scott Pence +date : 2024-12-06 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/fwR4a1T.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Embracing Tactics That Work in an Adversary’s Near Abroad" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Responding to a Taiwan contingency will force military leaders to adopt tactics they haven’t considered in generations — those of a scrappy underdog. And they tend to work._ + + + +In August 2024, former vice president Mike Pence and Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation argued in the Washington Post that the United States has a duty to defend Taiwan. They praised the United States’ role as a global superpower and asked, “What is distance to a global superpower? . . . America remains the world’s only true superpower, fully capable of projecting forces to every corner of the earth.” While the authors are correct about the United States’ dominant global role, they understate the operational complexity of applying military power in an adversary’s backyard. This issue is important to consider, given that support from the American public for defending Taiwan is higher now than it has ever been. This public favor should be tempered by military professionals and policymakers, as operations within range of China’s defense forces present challenges that the U.S. military has not dealt with in generations. With that in mind, the decision to commit forces to a Taiwan conflict should not be made hastily. While many tools are available, a wise superpower employs the tactics that have the highest odds of success. A superpower’s relative power when operating in an adversary’s backyard is less than its absolute power globally. If military action is required in China’s backyard, the United States cannot expect to fight like a dominant power, achieving an overmatch and winning handily. Instead, it will need to adopt the agile tactics of an underdog. + +___`While many tools are available, a wise superpower employs the tactics that have the highest odds of success.`___ + +After decades as a superpower, the United States is unaccustomed to being on the weaker side of a conflict. In 1991, in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the United States demonstrated its vast power projection and decisively defeated the Iraqi army in days. During the Global War on Terror, the United States crossed land and sea without interference to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, in Syria, a U.S. special forces team leader can destroy ISIS strongholds with precision and without endangering himself or his team. These displays of battlefield superiority have imbued an entire generation of military and political leaders with a sense of superiority. A better term might be hubris, as this way of thinking is founded on overconfidence and an underestimation of adversaries. Senior leaders, conditioned by decades of maneuver, air, and information superiority, tend to assume that the United States must represent the militarily superior side in any conflict. This attitude, in turn, influences decisions on force development, organization, and military objectives. + +If the U.S. joint force takes such an approach in the South China Sea, it will face multiple dilemmas. A dominant superpower, as described by Pence and Feulner, is “fully capable of projecting forces to every corner of the earth. Distance has no bearing on our responsibility to safeguard American interests.” Dominant powers often demonstrate military strength in order to deter a change in the status quo or to compel a weaker power to comply with demands. In other words, they sometimes “escalate to de-escalate.” These actions would signal that the United States is the stronger power, and that any interference would be met with overwhelming force. + +Age-old concepts like interior lines and new Chinese military capabilities offset the relative superiority of U.S. military might. In any Taiwan contingency, China would enjoy the advantages of interior lines. A line of operation conveys a military force from its bases to the enemy. When a force spreads outward from a central point, interior lines allow for faster and less costly movement, resupply, air defense, and electronic warfare protection. Alternatively, a force forms exterior lines when converging on an enemy from multiple directions. History offers many examples of successful land battles using exterior lines. Exterior lines in oceanic theaters such as the Pacific, however, require substantial resources to protect and sustain. + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/3LKmg9p.png) +_▲ __Figure 1: The View from China.__ Source: [Andrew Rhodes, “East Asia and the Pacific,” Thinking in Space, 2023](https://thinkinginspace.net/)._ + +In the Indo-Pacific theater, relative distances are significant. Consider mapmaker Andrew Rhodes’ image (Fig. 1) above, with Taiwan at the center. Each potential U.S. approach — from the Philippines in the south, from Guam in the center, and from South Korea and Japan in the north — is within range of Chinese anti-ship/anti-access detection. China is about 400 miles away from the Philippines, and about 100 miles from Taiwan; in contrast, Hawaii is over 5,000 miles from both places. Given this distance, the United States would have to fight just to get to the fight. Long exterior operational lines incur higher risk, as they present adversaries with increased opportunities to disrupt, delay, and deny operations. In a combat situation, China could exploit the natural vulnerabilities of exterior lines, using its substantial military investments to achieve dominance in the Pacific theater. + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/S9ByYdU.jpeg) +_▲ __Figure 2: How China Could Blockade Taiwan, Scenario 3.__ Source: [Bonny Lin et al., “How China Could Blockade Taiwan,” CSIS, August 22, 2024](https://features.csis.org/chinapower/china-blockade-taiwan/)._ + +China’s weapons capabilities and locations give it further near-abroad advantages. As the United States waged the Vietnam War, it did so with freedom of naval maneuver, which enabled ship-to-shore fighter attacks, uninterrupted personnel and munitions resupply, and long-range bombing; still, victory was elusive. There will be no such freedom of maneuver in China’s near abroad. Beijing’s investments in the South China Sea have exemplified the term Anti-Access, Area Denial (A2AD) — the combination of sensors, weapons, and capabilities that prevent an opposing force from entering — and are continuing to grow larger. While the United States focuses its military spending on global presence, China’s military spending is largely focused on the first and second island chains, those islands closest to its mainland. In August 2024, the CSIS ChinaPower series outlined how China could quarantine or blockade Taiwan. Figure 2 from that series shows that any intervention in the South China Sea would face a multidomain operational kill box, deliberately built and refined to prevent the United States and its partners from intervening militarily. Dominant power tactics that are usually peaceful — like shows of force and freedom-of-navigation operations — could be met with a response, lethal or not, within the Chinese sphere of influence. If a miscalculation occurs and violence ensues, Chinese anti-ship, anti-air, and long-range artillery could quickly cause unacceptable U.S. losses. Given the geographic realities and China’s strong capabilities in its near abroad, U.S. military planners should avoid seeking dominance and instead use the tools of the underdog in crafting military objectives. + + +### Tools of the Underdog + +When one side has less power than the other, it is by definition the underdog; however, when the weaker side accepts risks and aggressively tries to win against the odds, it demonstrates a scrappy mentality that is conducive to success. In his book David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell observed a variety of underdogs and misfits as they battled more powerful adversaries, and he asserted that approaching challenges with an underdog mentality unlocks a bevy of tools and tactics that are beyond a ruling power’s imagination, exploiting its hubris. A review of six underdog campaigns in modern history reveals three underdog tactics that could be useful in future warfare: novel use of readily available things (NURAT), deception, and avoiding adversary strengths. The combination of one or more of these tactics demonstrates an underdog mentality and should contribute to success. + +___`A review of six underdog campaigns in modern history reveals three underdog tactics that could be useful in future warfare.`___ + +#### Vignette 1: T.E. Lawrence in Arabia, 1917 + +The story of T.E. Lawrence and his Arab irregulars is relevant: it provides an example of a major power — the United Kingdom — employing small bands of guerrilla forces against another major power — the Ottoman Empire — within that power’s near abroad. The United Kingdom made ingenious use of available technologies in this asymmetrical fight. Dynamite, for instance, was broadly available due to its use in railway construction. Lawrence and his fighters used dynamite to destroy remote Ottoman rail lines. Lawrence’s tactics were also deceptive: strikes on railways and bridges created an impression of a much larger force. The Ottomans responded by spreading their forces thin to secure their outposts, leaving fewer garrison forces to defend against conventional British assaults later in the war. Lawrence also avoided his adversary’s strengths during the seizure of the port of Aqaba: instead of engaging in a pitched battle supported by British naval guns, Lawrence led his guerillas across miles of vast desert to surprise and overwhelm Aqaba’s loosely defended desert fortifications. By embracing the role of the underdog, the Arab irregulars were able to inflict serious damage on a power much larger than them, and Lawrence’s leadership in this fight provides a model for special forces’ advice and assistance missions worldwide. The Ottoman Empire collapsed for a variety of reasons, but Lawrence’s Arab uprising hastened its fall. + +#### Vignette 2: Finland in the Winter War, 1941 + +In 1941, the Soviet Union sought to quickly seize Finland in a rapid advance across a narrow stretch of shared border. Knowing it could not compete against the dominant Soviet forces, Finland prepared for an asymmetric defense. For anti-tank warfare, the Finns mixed high-proof alcohol, gasoline, and tar in wine bottles, inventing the Molotov cocktail. When thrown, the cocktails’ flaming, sticky substance would enter enemy tanks’ air hatches, suffocating engines and crew members alike. Finnish soldiers also used their superior knowledge of the snowy terrain to decimate the Soviets with sniper, demolition, and hit-and-run tactics. Their snow and ice equipment — including machine guns on skis — gave maximum mobility to their fighters. One Finnish tactic — named motti, or “chopped firewood” — involved sending ski troopers to attack and “cut apart” road-bound enemy units from the flanks and rear. Deceiving the Soviets, the Finns hid anti-tank and machine-gun posts in well-camouflaged ambush positions and baited Soviet forces to attack targets accessible only by roads surveilled by those posts. Motti tactics did not focus on Soviet strengths, but instead exploited their weaknesses, often doing so during vulnerable periods (while in convoy or at rest). Although the Finns ceded territory, their motti tactics helped prevent total occupation, a fate that befell neighboring Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. + +#### Vignette 3: The United States in Normandy, 1944 + +The United States planned the D-Day landings from a position of disadvantage. In 1943, when U.S., British, and Soviet leaders agreed on an Allied invasion, the Allies had 37 divisions compared to the Axis’ 60. To secure a beachhead against those odds, the United States invested in hundreds of “Higgins Boat” amphibious landing craft. In addition, the innovative Norden bombsight enabled precision bombing from the air to suppress and attack defenses. The selection of Normandy instead of Calais was deceptive, as Calais was closer to German lines. In general, U.S. deception efforts in support of the D-Day landings were legendary, ranging from General Patton using a “Ghost Army” of inflatable tanks to suggest a Calais landing to a fake radio transmission that described the Normandy landings as a feint. In this example, the Allies did not avoid the adversary’s strength; they attacked Fortress Europe along the coast that Nazi Germany planned to defend. But their array of innovations and creative deceptions enabled them to gain a foothold — and eventually, victory — in Europe. + +#### Vignette 4: Egypt in the Yom Kippur War, 1973 + +In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel performed well and embarrassed its Arab opponents. Six years later, Egypt and Syria were determined to retaliate. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt’s forces acquired new Soviet surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank Sagger missiles to counter Israeli air supremacy and armored advantage. In addition, Egypt developed high-pressure water hoses to shape the banks of the Suez Canal into ramps, allowing for a mechanized assault. Assuming the canal to be an impenetrable obstacle, Israel was unprepared for the attack. The innovative Suez crossing, undertaken on a Jewish holiday, created a momentary period of relative advantage for Egypt. The shock of the attack took a toll on Israelis that was as much psychological as it was physical. In addition to using surprise as a tactic, Egypt combined its assaults in the south with Syrian assaults from the Golan Heights in the north. The Egyptian military actively attacked Israeli strengths — air power and armored warfare — with the latest Soviet technology, influencing force development in the United States for the next decade. Overall, the Arabs adopted an underdog mentality by launching an attack during a Jewish holiday at a location the Israeli military thought was impenetrable, exploiting the hubris of the Israeli military to achieve political objectives. + +#### Vignette 5: Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh, 2020–2023 + +In the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenian defenders enjoyed an advantage along fortifications that had protected ethnic Armenians in the disputed territory for over 30 years. To overcome this relative disadvantage, Azerbaijan acquired Turkish Bayraktar TB-2 drones that overwhelmed the Armenian defenders with superior sensing, targeting, and destructive capability. The Azerbaijanis also creatively employed older equipment to tip the balance: they repurposed biplanes — futile in modern air combat — in remotely piloted kamikaze attacks on the Armenians. In 2020, Azerbaijan decided against a ground assault on superior Armenian defensive lines and instead used drones to pinpoint precision targets for indirect fire. While both Armenia and Azerbaijan possessed similar Soviet-era military hardware, Azerbaijan surprised the Armenians — and the world — with advanced Turkish and Israeli equipment, which allowed it to overcome Armenia’s defensive advantages. As a result, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict ended with Armenia ceding the disputed territory to Azerbaijan. + +#### Vignette 6: Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine War, 2022–present + +So far, Ukrainian innovation has thwarted Russia’s attempt to seize the country by integrating Western munitions, modern drones, and unmanned maritime surface vessels. Mirroring U.S. investments in decoy tanks during World War II, Ukraine has invested in a “Potemkin army” of plastic and wood tanks, howitzers, and radars. But nothing has been more essential to the Ukrainian command and control system as the Starlink constellations. Starlink, free for the Ukrainian military, has become the backbone of the Ukrainian military’s communication. It unites command and control, fires, and terminal guidance for drones. As the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues, the Ukrainians are using deception to gain advantages against their larger, more powerful enemy. Many Russian propaganda videos aim to highlight battlefield victories, but actually feature the destruction of makeshift decoys that Ukrainians have either contracted or built, on site. The Ukrainian case also provides two examples — one positive and one negative — of an underdog choosing to avoid adversary strengths. First is the 2023 Kherson offensive, in which Ukraine unintentionally signaled an imminent attack in the direction of Kherson, causing the Russians to move to the south, which in turn opened an opportunity for the Ukrainians to seize Kharkiv, to the east. In this instance, a dynamic situation enabled the underdog to succeed in an area of momentary dominant power weakness. The 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive, on the other hand, is an example of an unsuccessful attack on an adversary strength. While the Russians proved mediocre in their initial attack on Ukraine, their expertise in creating multilayered defensive lines has proved formidable. The failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive — even when aided by advanced Western equipment and munitions — supports the hypothesis that underdogs should avoid adversary strengths. + + +### Analysis + +In five of the six cases above, the underdog’s actions led to victory, and in one case the conflict is ongoing. The Finns inflicted thousands of causalities on the Soviet Union and forced them to transition from an invading force into a defense along the Finnish border; although the Finns ceded territory, they did not become a Soviet republic like neighboring Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. The United States and its allies, following the D-Day landing in 1944, went on to capture Berlin in 1945. Egypt took Israel by surprise, making large gains; however, Israel later adapted and reversed its losses. In Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan achieved a decisive victory, ending the decades-long conflict by forcing Armenia to cede the disputed territory. The Russia-Ukraine war continues unabated, despite many analysts’ assessments that the powerful Russian military would conquer Ukraine quickly. + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/j84M5nx.jpeg) +_▲ Table 1: Evidence of Underdog Tactics in Six Vignettes_ + +Underdog tactics are not always the best methods for achieving success. Fighting like an underdog requires an acceptance of risk that might not be tolerable or acceptable to decisionmakers. The 1991 Gulf War is an example of the opposite of the underdog mentality: an overmatch mindset. In that case, the United States and partners had a relative advantage in every instrument of national power, built an overwhelming force in nearby bases, and attacked on their terms with overwhelming odds. When the dominant power has superior capabilities — such as an ability to sustain and protect lines of operation — and desires a quick and decisive victory, that power can adopt an overmatch mindset. Underdog tactics do not preclude large-scale conventional operations; in each of the historical vignettes detailed above, the underdog campaigns complemented conventional objectives. Combining techniques creates multiple dilemmas for adversaries, while also conserving finite conventional resources. + +Fighting like an underdog could increase the odds of success. Political scientist Ivan Arreguin-Toft concluded in How the Weak Win Wars that the weaker party succeeds against dominant powers about 63.6 percent of the time when it uses an opposite approach but only 28.5 percent of the time when it uses the same approach as the adversary. This broader analysis aligns with the results from the brief vignettes to suggest a correlation between underdog tactics and success. Since exterior line vulnerabilities and anti-access and area-denial realities flip relative power ratios against the United States in an adversary’s near abroad, recommendations for operating within that environment should adopt the tactics of the underdog. + + +### Recommendations + +Underdog tactics could be used in multiple ways to affect the outcome in a potential Taiwan contingency. Any recommendations offered without situational details are conjecture, of course; however, borrowing from historical examples can inform future actions. + +The first underdog tactic is “novel use of readily available things.” Given China’s advanced electronic warfare and anti-satellite capabilities, acquiring technologies outside of the space and cyber domains could help the United States hedge against debilitating command and control disruption. The fleets of unmanned surface vessels and unmanned aerial vehicles already in development by the Armed Services could prove to be a future novel use of readily available resources. Used dynamically, unmanned technologies enable outsized impact without risking lives, mirroring the motti tactics of the Finnish Winter War. + +The second underdog tactic, deception, requires close interagency coordination to implement creative efforts that increase the chances of success. U.S. Special Operations Command has already invested in various small headquarters and other infrastructure in the South China Sea region and could either launch deception operations with these forces or do so in conjunction with those from other agencies. Deception efforts could resemble Patton’s Ghost Army or involve a massive information campaign that supports a similar feint from a likely yet incorrect location. Mark Cancian’s 2021 CSIS report on inflicting surprise, for instance, provided examples of creative deception operations capable of catching adversaries off guard and exploiting their vulnerabilities. The U.S. special operations community has a reputation for innovation and creativity as scrappy underdogs. Congress can amplify those efforts and underwrite risk with the right authorizations. + +Underdogs tend to avoid adversaries’ strengths. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt chose to use anti-tank missiles because Israel had demonstrated domination in a tank-on-tank matchup in 1967. When planning operations in China’s near abroad, the United States should avoid enemy strengths like electronic warfare, anti-ship missiles, and anti-aircraft defenses. Instead of planning for a pitched sea battle, the United States could deploy swarms of disposable undersea and high-altitude drones to undermine China’s ability to maintain a naval blockade. In addition, unique Taiwanese defenses on the island could disrupt Chinese objectives. Finally, threatening Chinese ports and bases worldwide could divert Beijing’s limited power projection capabilities. All of these actions could impact Chinese forces, and a strategy that combines more than one of these tactics could have a cumulative effect greater than the sum of its parts. + +Adopting an underdog mindset might be among the most difficult challenges for U.S. leaders. As with many presuppositions of the mind, the first step toward overcoming implicit biases is to acknowledge and actively address them. Tackling implicit hubris is especially challenging for leaders who have spent their formative years fighting the Global War on Terror, against adversaries without supremacy in any wartime domain. In their essay “Propositions on Military Deception,” Donald Daniel and Katherine Herbig note that great powers often lack experience in deception plans and need to “overcome the inertia involved in creating or revivifying them.” Leaders should challenge themselves and their staffs to appreciate and understand enemy advantages, and to accept their own relative disadvantages in certain situations. Doing so can unlock the innovation and creativity to think like an underdog. + +___`Tackling implicit hubris is especially challenging for leaders who have spent their formative years fighting the Global War on Terror.`___ + + +### Conclusion + +Humans have always appreciated tales of underdogs who win against the odds. The biblical tale of David and Goliath resonates because it tells a familiar story, one that readers want to hear and are excited to repeat. David used readily available technology — a sling — and avoided Goliath’s strengths with sword and shield. Readers can appreciate the underdog mentality, one that accepts necessary risk to achieve the deception required to surprise an opponent. Despite the odds (or maybe because of them), the underdog exudes a scrappy resilience that is hard to defeat. + +Conflict with China over Taiwan is not a sure thing. The United States is not treaty-bound to defend Taiwan, and there is no credible intelligence that President Xi has ordered a timeline for an invasion. The analysis in this review is just as applicable to Russia’s or Iran’s near abroad as it is to China’s. In any region, a superpower’s relative power when operating in an adversary’s backyard is less than its absolute power globally. And that disparity can be amplified by that adversary’s investments in anti-access, area denial, long-range precision missiles, diplomatic relations with nearby states, and economies of scale. Given strategic logic and these historical vignettes, it is clear that underdog tactics are more effective in an adversary’s near abroad than campaigns that seek dominant overmatch. Most importantly, adopting the mindset of the scrappy underdog can help a fighting force to shed hubristic biases, accept necessary risk, and open itself to creative solutions. + +--- + +__Scott Pence__ is a U.S. Army officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and serves as a senior military fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-civilian-defence-against-russia.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-civilian-defence-against-russia.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..8c3ccedc --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-civilian-defence-against-russia.md @@ -0,0 +1,207 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Civilian Defence Against Russia +author: Saskia Millmann and Pia Hüsch +date : 2024-12-09 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/tqsGG5D.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Civilian Non-violent Defence against Russian Warfare – Eastern European Strategies and the Gap between Civilians and Combatants in Customary International Humanitarian Law" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Russia’s war against Ukraine and the widespread documentation of civilian participation therein sheds new light on the civilian national defence._ _This paper examines historic and contemporary Baltic and Ukrainian defence strategies against Russian and previous Soviet aggression and how national policies envisage and perhaps encourage civilians to engage in resistance and potentially in defence._ + +The focus rests on the role of civilians who are not employed or subcontracted by the military but engage in acts ranging from singing national anthems to launching offensive cyber operations. The paper examines when such civilian participation amounts to direct participation in hostilities and the types of legal implications which follow from such activities. This paper takes a closer look at recent civilian participation in hostilities as seen in Ukraine, particularly focusing on intelligence gathering and cyber activities as conducted by the Ukrainian information technology (IT) army to illustrate the risks to which civilians expose themselves. + +This paper concludes that while there are legitimate reasons for States to include civilians in their defence strategies, it is key that where civilians engage in direct participation in hostilities, they must do so on an informed basis, setting out the legal implications of their actions. Where a State (passively) encourages such activities, it has at least a moral, if not also a legal obligation, to inform civilians of the risks of their actions. + + +### 1 Introduction + +While Russia’s latest aggression against Ukraine was not its first attempt to wage territorial warfare against Ukraine or indeed other Eastern European states, the 2022 invasion is receiving a lot more international attention. However, in contrast to their Western neighbours, Eastern European states were not surprised by the attack on Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity – rather they had prepared strategies and warned that such an event could occur. What is of particular interest to the authors is the way in which civilians are addressed in these strategies and how (if at all) customary international humanitarian law (IHL) addresses civilian defence in an international armed conflict (IAC). + +Civilians have played an important role in both the Baltics and Ukraine in strategies against Russian and previous Soviet aggression. The Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – in particular, have had a lot of experience with civilian defence as an alternative to military defence during times of occupation. More recently, all three Baltic countries have included civilians in their respective defence strategies, primarily in response to Russian geopolitical and military objectives. Ukraine, similarly, explicitly addresses civilians in its current defence strategy and its civilians are involved most prominently in hybrid warfare against Russia. The first part of this paper analyses the national defence strategies of the Baltic countries and how IHL can be applied to them. The second part will focus on Ukraine’s civilian defence strategy before and after the Russian aggression. The in-depth analysis and application of its civilian defence strategy to IHL is limited to the IT army. + +While civilians often supplement a military force, either as contractors or as civilian employees, this paper focusses yet on a different phenomenon. The authors are interested in the participation of civilians who are not employed or subcontracted by the military. Conversely, this could mean the general public or specific groups of civilians, like IT-experts, who are included in defence strategies outside of conscription or employment of any sort. The Baltic countries and Ukraine have demonstrated how vital the inclusion of civilians can be, both in times of occupation, and during an active armed conflict. We are, therefore, exploring what lessons are to be learnt for future (Western) defence strategies, and the types of possible implications for the application of IHL which follow. + +#### 1.1 Civilian Non-violent Defence: A Preliminary Definition + +Unlike traditional military defence, civilian defence relies on the participation of ordinary citizens to resist and undermine an aggressor’s ability to exercise control. In the event of an on-going occupation, civilian defence strategies, at their core, aim to protect social values and the social structure of the society. Yet, it remains unclear how civilian defence could look in the context of deterrence, or in an active IAC. + +Looking at Geneva Convention IV on the protection of civilian persons in time of war for guidance, one realises that Art. 63 prohibiting “any changes in the personnel or structure of these societies” also only applies to occupation, and furthermore, only addresses relief efforts of either relief societies following the Red Cross principles, or other special organisations of a non-military character whose aim is to ensure the living conditions of the civilian population, the maintenance of essential public utilities or organising relief and rescue. + +While Chapter VI of API (Art. 61–67) defines and addresses civil defence in an active IAC, its scope is also limited to traditional relief and rescue efforts, not addressing actions to safeguard values, or inhibiting the aggressor through passive means. What also remains out of scope of both the Geneva Convention and API are actions not undertaken by an organisation in the broadest sense. Individuals or groups of civilians who are not part of an organisational structure are, therefore, not included in this definition. Therefore, one needs to ask the question as to what activities conducted by civilians which are not mentioned in either the Geneva Convention or API still qualify as permissible civilian actions? Civil defence organisations are not, under any circumstances, allowed to conduct activities that are harmful to the enemy – they would lose their special protection under Art. 62. Given that individuals or groups who are not part of such an organisation are not entitled to this special protection anyway, the only possible outcome could be, that they are either considered to be engaging in unlawful behaviour, or would lose their status as a civilian altogether. + +Investigating the role of civilian defence in different scenarios is consequently vital to appropriately situate them in IHL. Recently, owing to the emergence of hybrid warfare, some civilian defence strategists propose “deterrence through both denial and offense”, including civilians in these efforts short of using force. Indeed, contemporary strategies are different to previous examples: they are intended to be used in an on-going IAC and arguably aim to achieve more than securing societal values. Therefore, one needs to investigate if such actions have the potential of becoming offensive in nature, crossing the threshold to DPH. + +#### 1.2 Goals and Research Question + +The authors aim to take a closer look at the concept of civilian defence and how it is used, both in a preparatory or perhaps deterrent way, as well as in an ongoing international armed conflict. In doing so, they first explore historical examples of civilian defence as well as current defence strategies in the Baltics on the one hand, and the current usage of civilian defence in Ukraine on the other. + +What is of particular interest to the authors is how civilians are addressed in these strategies and how (if at all) customary IHL addresses civilian defence in an IAC. When do civilians cross the threshold of direct participation in hostilities (DPH)? Can this threshold be met through non-violent civilian action? How can cyber operations conducted by civilians during an IAC be assessed? Are Baltic and Ukrainian civilian defence strategies the next logical step in (hybrid) warfare? + + +### 2 Civil Defence under International Humanitarian Law + +While IHL does not prohibit civil defence – or even civilian direct participation – per se, civilians’ actions may nevertheless carry consequences under humanitarian law. Civilians are normally protected from direct attack under the principle of distinction, which requires all parties to the conflict to always distinguish between combatants and civilians, and to only focus direct attacks against combatants or military targets. Except in the case of a levée en masse, individuals who do not belong to organised armed forces but engage in hostilities sporadically, spontaneously, or in an unorganised manner, remain civilians under IHL. + +The principle of distinction, however, ceases to apply to civilians temporarily for the time they are directly participating in hostilities (DPH) – a concept which is not defined in treaty law nor clearly defined in customary international law. API provides a starting point, stating that a civil defence organisation loses its protected status if it engages in activities that are harmful to the enemy. The ICRC’s guidelines identify that DPH is comprised of two elements, hostilities, and direct participation. + +For an act to qualify as DPH, it must meet three cumulative criteria: it must meet a threshold of harm, there must be a direct causal link between the act and such harm, and the act must be designed to support one party to the conflict to the detriment of the other (belligerent nexus). + +According to the ICRC’s guidelines, the threshold of likely harm, must generally be similar to that of military force. While killing and wounding individuals or inflicting structural or functional damage to military objects has an obvious similarity to military force, one must also consider that even non-violent sabotage has the potential to adversely affect the enemy and cause harm. Examples thereof could be disturbing logistics and communications through cyber-attacks against the military computer network of the enemy. Determining whether an act has “adverse military effect” requires having enough information on the act itself and the likely outcomes. Moreover, there must be a causal link between the (likely) outcome of the act and the harm. Acts merely building up capacity to cause such an effect, like engaging in propaganda, repairing roads, or even manufacturing and shipping weapons would not satisfy the causal link. Lastly, the belligerent nexus and intent of the act must be “specifically designed to do so in support of a party to an armed conflict and to the detriment of another”. + +If one agrees to accept the ICRC’s three requirements and a civilian has indeed satisfied them, the civilian loses their protection from direct attack “for such a time as they take a direct part in hostilities”. Civilians engaging in DPH are not entitled to immunity from domestic prosecution, but may be subject to criminal charges. This paper relies on the ICRC’s interpretation to assess whether actions of civilian defence or resistance mean the individuals in question lose their protection from direct attack, as to this date, it is the most established way to determine whether a civilian is partaking in DPH. Having said that, in practice it is often challenging to operationalise the application of such thresholds: it seems unlikely that a member of enemy armed forces would undertake an in-depth analysis of whether a civilian fulfils all of these criteria, particularly where the factual assessment is challenging to conduct at speed. Moreover, civilians engaging in these activities need to take into account the possibility that the enemy power entirely disregards the jus in bello and targets civilians irrespective of whether they engage in DPH or not. We can see this behaviour, for example, in some of the activities conducted by the Russian armed forces and the Wagner group in Ukraine. However, the authors still feel it is important to identify what the law says and how it can be applied – not least because a violation of the law might constitute a war crime that can be prosecuted at the national or potentially the international level. + + +### 3 Using Civilian Defence as a Strategy Primarily against Russia – Past and Present Approaches + +To examine how States address civilians in their defence strategies, the authors focus on the Baltic States and Ukraine, which have a long history of being targeted by Russian attacks. Analysing their individual and collective defence strategies can provide valuable insights in how to use civilian defence against Russia’s hegemonial threat, destabilisation attempts, and even aggression. + +#### 3.1 Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – A Long History of Successfully Using Civil Defence + +The Baltic countries suffered Soviet aggression and occupation from 1940 to 1941 and again from 1944–1991. During the Soviet occupation and some would argue annexation, the population of the Baltic countries was subjected to mass deportations, forced collectivisation, and other forms of oppression. Despite these atrocities, non-violent resistance prevailed in the civilian population across all three Baltic countries, leading to ordinary citizens organising alternative election lists, tearing down Soviet symbols and flags, or displaying national symbols or signing national songs prohibited by the Soviets. Thereby, the Baltic population preserved their own respective identities, keeping spirits high and making it as unpleasant and costly as possible for the occupying force, without using armed force. All of these civilian efforts, growing in scale over time and using the economic and political crises in the USSR, culminated in a strong, public independence movement across all three countries. Lithuania ultimately declared the restoration of its independence on 11 March 1990, Latvia on 4 May 1990, and Estonia on 21 August 1991. Ultimately, the Soviet government recognised the independence of all three states on 6 September 1991. + +In more recent history, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have been subject to Russian strategic information operations and experienced Russian forces deploying close to their borders. Many wondered if the Baltic countries would be next, especially after the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula Crimea in 2014. + +Consequently, they have jointly – and separately – formulated strategies to deter Russian aggression and the revisionist agenda. Notably, these strategies explicitly include civilians. The authors are particularly interested in how exactly civilians are addressed, particularly in situations outside of foreign occupation, i.e., in defensive manoeuvres against an on-going aggressive attack from an enemy state. Based on the previously discussed history, and the permanent Russian threat, two defensive concepts that also include civilians have been integrated in the national defence strategies of the three countries: total defence and unconventional warfare. + +_3.1.1 Estonia_ + +Between 1993 and 2010, Estonia’s National Defence Concept focussed on total defence as well as territorial defence – prioritising a traditional military approach. While Estonia had a history of civil disobedience which included asking its citizens to refuse any actions that would be breaking Estonian laws, a policy of strict non-cooperation with the Soviets, and the documentation of any activities by the Soviet forces, civilian defence did not play a role after regaining independence. However, there is the Kaitseliit (Defence League) which is a militarily organised voluntary defence organisation. Its roots go back to guerrilla groups which fought against the Soviets. + +Having become a victim of massive hybrid attacks in 2007, the Estonians acknowledged that due to changing potential threats, especially such hybrid challenges, military means alone would not be enough to meet new defensive demands. This realisation was also reflected in its 2011 defence strategy which amended the previous total defence approach to an integrated defence and comprehensive security approach, listing civilian support to military defence as one of the six pillars of this new strategy. + +Estonia affirmed and updated its 2010 National Defence Strategy in 2017, branding it “integrated defence and comprehensive security”. This new approach consists of six pillars, one of which is civilian support to military defence, relying e.g., on the Kaiseliit. In the event of an armed conflict, the Kaitseliit will split. The military wing will operate under the Estonian armed forces whilst the civilian wing will engage in non-violent defence. Whereas, members of the military wing would be classified as ordinary combatants, members of the civil wing would remain civilians and would not be legitimate targets as long as they do not take part in DPH. Whether an enemy soldier would understand and recognise this distinction might, however, be a different question. + +Estonia’s 2017 defence concept vastly expanded a reference to civilian contribution to defence. It acknowledges that networks of civilian volunteers play an important role, and includes civilian contribution to psychological defence. Such measures seem rather close to previously successful Baltic attempts at civilian defence and would not be likely to cross the threshold to DPH as these are non-violent actions directed inwards. + +_3.1.2 Latvia_ + +Similarly, Latvia initially encouraged its citizens to non-violent resistance. Latvian total non-cooperation was part of the Latvian Popular Front strategy in 1990. They called on all citizens “to ignore the attackers’ orders, not to participate in any elections or referendums, and to document all crimes perpetrated by the attackers”. Civil defence was intended to be a constant supplement to military defence. Alas, civilian defence did not find its way into Latvia’s defence strategy after it regained independence. The Zemessardze (National Guard) is a militarily organised unconventional defence group the main task of which is to support the regular land forces units. While it is also responsible for civilian crisis management, the organisation cannot reasonably be considered to be part of non-violent civilian defence. + +Latvia’s 2016 edition of its National Defence Concept outlines a duty for its civilian administration (state, regional, and local) to coordinate “the readiness and actions undertaken by individual and legal entities during times of peace, threats and war” to support national defence, and to implement national defence measures. For the first time since regaining independence, the defence concept hints at the fact that civilians could also have a role during armed conflict: “The state informs society on what actions should civilians undertake during a military conflict”. While this is a rather vague statement, it would be reasonable to assume that the state would give advice similar to previous strategies, i.e. total non-cooperation, classical peaceful civilian defence methods. A recently published brochure titled “What to do in case of crisis” gives citizens some suggestions on how they could support national defence: join the National Forces, report any movement, actions, or marks and transmitters of the aggressor, offer practical support to National Forces and NATO, help build fortified structures, use deception (remove road signs), help salvage peace and help motivate your colleagues, family members and friends to support national defence, support your company’s continuity planning, or create a local Unit of the National Guard. While some of these suggestions are certainly below the threshold of DPH, some may, depending on the circumstances, cross the line. + +_3.1.3 Lithuania_ + +As early as 1991, shortly after regaining independence, the Lithuanian Supreme Council adopted a resolution, reminding its citizens to continue to follow the principles of disobedience, non-violent resistance, and non-cooperation in their struggle for independence. Having developed the concept further, Lithuania has referred to civilians in its defence and security strategies since 1992. From this time, Lithuania has relied on the participation of civilians in its defence strategy: “State defence consists of military security, as well as civil resistance.” + +Lithuanian citizens are, by law, asked to engage in non-violent resistance (not further defined), disobedience and non-collaboration, as well as armed resistance. To help its citizens fulfil these duties, Lithuania has established a Civilian Resistance Training Centre at the Ministry of National Defence in 2000 – alongside preparing civilians, its goal is to also act as a deterrent for any potential aggressor. However, a further noteworthy shift in strategy occurred once Lithuania joined NATO in 2004. Now, protected under Art. 5 and geared towards collective security, civilian defence seems to have been placed on the backburner for some time now. + +More recently, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence updated its strategy regarding Russian hybrid warfare. In May 2022, the Minister of Defence, Arvydas Anušauskas, stated: “With the Strategy in place, we will begin a consistent and comprehensive education of the public on civil resistance. Such preparations will rest on three components: civil resilience, will to resist, and practical skills in both, armed and civil resistance. We aim to build on each of these. Another important aspect is that the preparation for civil resistance will cross over into the National Defence System area of expertise.” + +Even more recently, in April 2023, a Seimas Committee started preparing to advise citizens on how the strategy of civil resistance has evolved since Russia’s attack against Ukraine and how it should be implemented in the future. Lithuania plans for both unarmed and armed civil resistance, educating school children and adults alike, and ultimately planning to raise the share of civilians willing to undertake non-armed violence to 70%. Having briefly analysed Lithuania’s updated approach, it becomes apparent that it has updated and upgraded its capacity for civilian defence. The choice of whether to engage in armed or unarmed resistance would be up to citizens – however Lithuania’s strategy does not necessarily demand a distinction and could, therefore, very likely mean that civilians will cross the threshold to DPH in some situations. + +#### 3.2 Impact of National Strategies on IHL + +After examining the national defence strategies of the Baltic countries, a fundamental question arises: do these strategies align with existing IHL, or do they represent the development of new, (possibly regional), customary international law? To address this, we must explore whether any of the acts outlined in the strategies of the Baltic states potentially violate IHL. As previously analysed in section 2, for any act to qualify as DPH, it must meet three cumulative criteria: it must meet a threshold of harm, there must be a direct causal link between the act and such harm, and the act must be designed to support one party to the conflict to the detriment of the other (belligerent nexus). This threshold can only be met by violent actions – Estonian’s duty to engage in psychological warfare, refusing to follow orders from enemy soldiers would not meet such a threshold. Likewise, engaging in other non-violent acts such as building fortified structures or removing road signs cannot be classified as DPH. Therefore, if it does not “even” meet the threshold of DPH, how could it violate established IHL? + +How would the law then be applicable to violent defensive action, particularly such action that does indeed qualify as DPH? As mentioned previously, civilians are not prohibited from using force or otherwise partaking in hostilities; rather, the legal consequence of such behaviour is losing the protection of a civilian. Hence, the principle of distinction no longer applies to them, and they become legitimate targets. Moreover, as they do not qualify for combatant privileges, they potentially could be prosecuted for any violations of domestic criminal law, e.g., murder or destruction of property. These consequences are clearly laid out in IHL without any mention of a prohibition; one could not, therefore, argue that they are a violation. Yet, it should be noted that the spirit of the Geneva Convention very much reflects the strict separation of civilians and combatants. Civilians can only be protected if this separation is adhered to. Any grey-area situation might very well result in the targeting of the civilian in question. While a possible defense to that argument is a reference to the Lotus case and the long-standing principle that everything in international law, that is not prohibited, is allowed, the authors would like to pose the question of whether it is necessary to encourage violent civilian defense, knowing the potential consequences. One would hope that states feel a higher moral – if not also a legal – obligation to safeguard their civilian citizens than to argue that they are allowed to engage in such action, because it is not prohibited. At the very least, States should take said responsibility seriously and inform their citizens of potential consequences which would then enable each and everyone to make an informed choice. This is also in line with States’ obligation to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions which clearly promote the protection of civilians. + +To summarise, neither non-violent nor violent civilian defence constitutes a violation of IHL per se. While both forms can be read in conjunction with existing IHL, the authors argue that violent civilian defence certainly goes against the spirit and purpose of the Geneva Conventions. + +#### 3.3 Ukraine’s Civil Defence before and after Russia’s Attack(s) + +Ukraine’s defence strategy before the war was primarily regulated by the Law “On Fundamentals of National Security of Ukraine” which was passed in 2003. While this law does not address civil defence in the way the Baltic Republics have, it does mention the civil service and its role in Ukraine’s defence. However, the role of civil servants in Ukraine’s defence service was defined as supplemental to the military service. This means, civilians were used, e.g., on a fixed-term contract basis in a specialist function. Their role was to fill positions and provide expertise that the military itself did not have, or to free up the military’s capacity to focus on their original duty: combat and defence. + +Since Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022, the Ukrainian population had to endure unspeakable things: mass destruction of cities, atrocities, including even the abduction of children. Not to speak of the experiences of Ukrainian soldiers who are subject to atrocious crimes. However, for the purpose of this paper, the authors would like to take a closer look at civilians. How does the civilian population engage in defensive actions – be it a defence of democratic values and the protection of Ukrainian identity, or actions more geared towards restoring territorial integrity. Understandably, information is hard to come by, as this is still an on-going conflict. No one on the ground has, for good reason, shared anything that could potentially be of use to the Russians, hence whatever we can analyse here will remain on the surface. The following sections will, nevertheless, attempt to situate different examples of known Ukrainian civilian defence actions in IHL (if applicable). + +_3.3.1 Conventional Means of Civilian Resistance_ + +Media coverage was astonished by the bravery of resistance of Ukrainian civilians facing their occupiers, particularly at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022. Videos and photos of unarmed civilians in Ukraine emerged and were shared widely, documenting how inhabitants of attacked villages and towns greeted their invaders: with protests, by singing the Ukrainian national anthem, with road blockades, by stopping moving vehicles from progressing further. + +For example, in the city of Berdyansk, civilians protested against Russian soldiers occupying the city. Civilians have also blocked road access to Zaporizhzhia, the Ukrainian nuclear powerplant now in control of Russian forces. Other video material shows how civilians actively stopped moving vehicles from progressing en route. The bravery of unarmed civilians facing their occupiers is exemplary, but do their activities meet the relevant thresholds to alter their status of protection under international humanitarian law? + +Civil resistance, e.g. in the form of protests or singing the national anthem, do not amount to DPH. Clearly, these activities do not fulfil the necessary harm threshold. Nor is this the case where civilians merely refuse to collaborate with invading or occupying forces. Where civilians join war-sustaining efforts, e.g. by producing camouflage nets or even making Molotov cocktails, they also do not fulfil the requirements of DPH, as these wider activities lack direct causation to hostilities. Constructing road blockades only constitutes DPH where these blockades result in an adverse impact on the military operations or military capacity of a party to the conflict: where no such effect is given and the activity in question is also not likely to cause death, injury, or destruction, building a road blockade would not meet the necessary harm threshold to speak of DPH. Civilians thus have a range of options to take up activities that support the defence of their State and that constitute war-sustaining efforts without losing their civilian protection from direct attack. + +Is this still the case though where civilian resort to more drastic measures? How about inhabitants who pick up arms and use force and violence to defend themselves against their occupiers? Their exact status depends on the circumstances under which they resort to the use of force. Firstly, where civilians engage in violent civil unrest against occupying forces, such activities would likely not amount to DPH, as they are missing the belligerent nexus that is necessary for such activity to qualify as DPH. Instead, they would fall under the regular law enforcement paradigm. Where civilians, in an unoccupied territory, spontaneously use force to resist invading forces, carry their arms openly, adhere to IHL and wear a distinctive emblem, they might qualify as participants in a levée en masse. As a result, they enjoy combatant privilege and prisoner of war status. However, this requires a level of spontaneity that is not always given. + +Shortly before the Russian invasion, Ukraine had passed new legislation in January 2022 that legitimises ad hoc resistance, e.g. when civilians join the territorial defence forces (TDF), and which incorporates these groups into its military command structure. They have been provided with weapons and wear a distinctive emblem, a yellow taped band around their arm. In these instances, those who are fighting would be part of a command structure and likely wear a distinctive emblem. If they also carry their weapons openly and conduct their operations in line with IHL, they could qualify as a volunteer group which is part of the armed forces and therefore enjoys prisoner of war status when captured. However, with this level of organisation, they would no longer be qualified as participating in a levée en masse. + +Civilians who do not join organised volunteer groups, and individuals who are not members of a levée en masse, but are also directly participating in hostilities, lose their civilian protection for the duration of their activities when such activities are likely to inflict death, injury or destruction or their activities are integral to a military operation (see section 2). Examples here would include acts of sabotage or using delayed or remote weapons, including booby traps, missiles or mines, and also drones. + +While these examples of activities potentially amounting to DPH are not new – after all, these are examples of civilians reacting to or participating in conventional warfare – and established rules of IHL apply to them, the wide availability of video and photographic footage recording these activities brings them closer to those outside the war zone. One still relatively new way in which civilians can participate in hostilities is through cyber means, which will be examined more closely in section 4. + +_3.3.2 Intelligence Gathering by Civilians_ + +In any armed conflict, information is key: information about road conditions, the enemy’s location, the equipment used or the enemy’s morale are only a few of the examples on which a party may want to collect data. To do so, it needs information or intelligence, typically obtained through a number of sources, including professional intelligence agencies but also informants in the civilian population. + +In Ukraine, for example, civilians have been sending intelligence information, especially via Telegram chats or via the Ukrainian government app Diia that allows users to “report the movements of Russian troops, sending location-tagged videos directly to Ukrainian intelligence”, reportedly receiving tens of thousands submissions a day. The intelligence gathering effort benefits from a wide availability of smart phones that can record sound and photographic material that can be passed on quickly. A Ukrainian intelligence official confirmed in news reports that the local population is “supportive” but did not want to expand on the details of the activities conducted by civilians. Relying on public reporting makes the following examples of information gathering by individuals an anecdotal reference rather than confirmed activities, but they raise a range of interesting questions about civilians gathering intelligence in support of Ukrainian forces: Who organises this? Where do civilians report? What is the information used for? Do civilians know what their information is used for? And finally, does intelligence gathering by civilians amount to DPH? + +Intelligence gathering would amount to DPH and meet the relevant harm threshold and meets the direct causal link criterion if it forms an integral part of a military operation to the adverse affect of a party to the conflict, e.g. because it is considered a preparatory act for a specific hostile act. For example, it has been reported that one informant passed on information obtained by a farmer who had identified the position of a Russian missile launcher – which was replaced by a hole in the ground the next day. While difficult to confirm, it would seem that the relevant information here was used to provide targeting coordinates and, therefore, was an integral part of a specific military operation. Similarly, Ukrainian informant Dollar, a civilian who had been providing targeting coordinates and other information on Russian operations, provided information on a hotel hosting Russian officers to his handler at the Security Service of Ukraine, with the hotel later being bombed. A further example of civilian involvement stems from U.S. officials who noted that an underground of intelligence informants helped lead to Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson – providing little insight on the information structure and in how far information was used for distinct military operations. In contrast, Reuters reports on an interview with a former policeman who has been gathering intelligence on collaborators, leading to criminal investigations. Such general information gathering, or the reporting of information on potential war crimes, would not be considered DPH given that there is no direct causal link, the belligerent nexus is missing and the intelligence obtained does not form an integral part of a military operation. + +The value of civilian intelligence gathering is clear: a wide net of undercover informants, who can quickly communicate essential information with the help of smart phones, is critical to the war effort. The Ukrainian Defence Minister has reportedly even awarded decorations to civilian informants for cooperation with the armed forces. However, again it must be noted that it is pivotal that civilians understand the risks and consequences of their activities, including under international humanitarian law, and can, therefore, come to an informed decision about their activities. This is especially key given that enemy soldiers may not be able to distinguish between regular use of a phone and intelligence gathering amounting to DPH in the fog of war, and while any party must adhere to the principle of distinction and, when in doubt, consider civilians to be protected, such legal rule may not in practice always be adhered to. It is thus key that civilians gathering intelligence are aware of such risks and implications. + + +### 4 Hybrid Warfare, the Ukrainian IT Army and Civilian Cyber Defence + +On 26 February 2022, Kykhaylo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Digital Transformation announced the launch of an IT Army on Twitter and called upon “digital talents” to join a Telegram channel “to continue the fight on the cyber front”, promising “tasks for everyone”. While many of the details about their activities are unknown or at least not confirmed by official sources, some suggest that over 400 000 people have joined the Ukrainian IT army, many of whom are from outside Ukraine. Although there have been repeated statements that there is no coordination between the Ukrainian government and the cyber IT army, a list of targets, including a number of Russian and Belarussian businesses, banks as well as governmental departments, was initially published in the Telegram chat in which administrators continue to post targets. + +So far, knowledge of the IT army’s activities remains limited, especially from official sources. Initially, it had been reported that members have conducted a number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against Russian and Belarussian targets, including against the Kremlin, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Defence, as well as the Moscow Stock Exchange. Furthermore, members of the IT army have been said to patch vulnerabilities and thereby defend Ukrainian networks from Russian attacks. Other reported activities include gathering intelligence through espionage operations. However, some reports find that the IT Army is “purely offensive in nature” and conducts offensive cyber operations against a number of targets, including Russian civilian infrastructure or online pharmacies. As there is little authoritative information on the IT army’s activities, these activities must be assessed with caution but even if they are hypothetical, they raise key questions for the application of IHL. + +In light of the considerations raised in Section 3 on the question of what is considered to be direct participation in hostilities by civilians, this IT army raises new questions for the concept and its application to hybrid warfare and especially to civilians who participate in the conduct of cyber operations in the wider context of armed conflicts. Against this backdrop, this section considers whether members of the cyber IT army constitute civilians who are directly participating in hostilities (4.1), whether they form a levée en masse (4.2) or whether they indeed must be considered combatants under new reform proposals (4.3). + +#### 4.1 Are the Members of the IT Army Civilians Directly Participating in Hostilities? + +The Ukrainian IT army is also sometimes referred to as cyber volunteers or civilian volunteer hackers. Such names carry a different connotation than describing the group as an IT army. What is in the name then, and are the participants of this group actually civilians? According to Art. 5 of the ICRC customary international humanitarian law study, civilians are negatively defined as those who are not combatants. Combatants, in turn, are members of the regular armed forces of one of the parties to the armed conflict. For the purpose of this section, the IT army is not incorporated into the regular structures under the Ukrainian armed forces (on reform plans, see section 4.3). However, some distinguish between the core team of the IT army which may have different, governmental support and assumes a coordinating function, than the wider membership of the IT army. While such distinction could have implications, particularly as to the status of the core group under IHL, this paper does not have further information to analyse the separate status of the “core group” of the IT army, but in line with the paper’s main theme, focuses on the implications of individual civilian participation. This paper also assumes that the Ukrainian IT army does not constitute a separate organised armed group fighting against the Russian armed forces and thereby engaging in a separate non-international armed conflict. To do so, the group in question would have to be sufficiently organised, able to implement IHL norms and also be “capable of engaging in sufficiently intense violence with their adversary”. Even where the organisational requirement is interpreted loosely, the IT army does not identify itself as distinguished group, but instead, members have indicated in interviews that they see themselves as part of the Ukrainian army and they do not fulfil the necessary threshold of violence or intensity of protracted armed violence as set out in the Tadic judgment. The analysis is thus based on the assumption that the individuals of the IT army are civilians in an international armed conflict. + +If the members of the IT army are not combatants but indeed civilians, do their activities nevertheless carry consequences for the application of IHL? If participants in the IT army are not combatants, but civilians, they can nevertheless lose their civilian protection if they are directly participating in hostilities. As explained above, DPH requires three elements, i.e. a threshold of harm, direct causation and belligerent nexus. + +Assessing whether the activities of the IT army meet the harm threshold requires a case-by-case analysis. The reported activities of the IT army have so far included DDoS attacks and fixing vulnerabilities, both activities that arguably do not meet the threshold of harm, as they do not lead to death, injury or destruction and arguably, depending on the exact target, do not adversely affect Russian military operations or military capacity. However, this does not mean that cyber operations cannot principally reach such threshold given that cyber operations that do successfully interrupt the ability of Russian armed forces to communicate or conduct logistics would adversely affect Russian military operations. Soesanto’s examples of offensive cyber operations against Russian (civilian) infrastructure mentioned previously would seemingly reach such threshold and potentially even violate the principle of distinction. Likewise, intelligence collection has in the past been considered to amount to DPH in specific circumstances. Such collection could also be conducted via cyber means. Thus it seems that irrespective of the geographical location of the members of the IT army, some of these (potential) activities may arguably still meet the relevant harm threshold to constitute DPH. This has also been confirmed by the ICRC’s guide on DPH that finds that “Electronic interference with military computer networks could also suffice” to meet the threshold of harm. The authors of this paper find that it is unlikely that general defensive activities, such as patching the vulnerabilities of Ukrainian networks to protect them from Russian cyber- attacks, would meet the harm threshold, but that certain offensive cyber operations, e.g. to interrupt Russian military communications, would indeed meet such threshold. + +Even where they do, these activities would also still have to fulfil the other two requirements of DPH, i.e. have direct causation and belligerent nexus. To establish a direct causal link, the activity in question must result or be likely to result in harm or be an integral part of a coordinated military operation causing such harm. Currently, little is known about how the activities of the IT army link to other military operations or their direct impact on Russian capabilities. Thus it is not always evident that there is a direct causal link between some of these activities and the harm caused, especially where they contribute to the wider defence of Ukrainian networks or general intelligence efforts. In light of Ukrainian claims that the IT army does not coordinate with the Ukrainian military, it also has not been confirmed that these activities form an integral part of coordinated military operations. However, depending on the activities and the context of each of these, and possibly coordination that is not publicly acknowledged, it is generally feasible that activities conducted by members of the IT army could fulfil the direct causation requirement. + +Finally, the activities in question must be committed to directly cause the required threshold of harm in support of a party to the conflict and the detriment of the other (belligerent nexus). It seems likely that activities by a hacktivist or a civilian joining the IT army, out of support for the Ukrainian state fighting against the Russian enemy, would meet this requirement. However, little is publicly known about the exact involvement of the participants or their link to the hostilities. One news report states that participants “have different motives, and they use different cyber weapons, from simple tools for online vandalism to sophisticated cyber operations. But they are united in their goal: to support besieged Ukraine”. In that sense, it seems likely that belligerent nexus can be established for specific activities. However, the question arises how loosely such requirement can be interpreted. While some might argue any cyber security measure taken by one party has, in turn, a negative impact on the enemy’s military capacity, such interpretation would go too far in the eyes of the authors of this paper who consider that generic cyber security measures such as fixing vulnerabilities, therefore, do not have a sufficient belligerent nexus. + +Overall, it is thus possible that where members of the IT army conduct cyber operations that have an adverse affect on the military operations or capacity of the enemy, have a direct causal link with the hostilities and have a belligerent nexus, they qualify as civilians directly participating in hostilities. However, where this is not the case and the activities in question do not meet the relevant criteria, as is the case for passive defences protecting Ukraine’s networks or limiting the impact of Russia disinformation campaigns, Väljataga concludes that such activities would merely constitute indirect participation in hostilities. Indirect participation in hostilities, e.g. in the form of activities that are part of the general war effort or war-sustaining, however, does not mean that a civilian loses their protection from direct attack. + +It follows that civilians participating in the IT army that stay below the relevant threshold of harm and do not meet the three requirements of DPH, do not lose their civilian protection. Nevertheless, they may be violating domestic law and could be criminally charged for their activities. However, where the relevant three requirements are met and the individual in question is directly participating in hostilities, they could be directly targeted under IHL provisions for the time they are DPHing, even if such direct targeting could violate other norms of public international law where such civilian is located in a State that is not party to the conflict. Although the publicly available information on the IT army’s activities is limited, it is likely that adversarial forces may hold different information, influencing their judgment on whether or not civilians who have joined the IT army are indeed directly participating in hostilities. Furthermore, Russia has in the past advanced broad interpretations of what support of Ukrainian forces would amount to direct participation in hostilities and thus, who could be directly targeted. Nevertheless, all parties must be reminded that, where doubt as to their legal status exists, individuals must be treated as civilians. + +Finally, the authors of this paper would like to stress that civilians who are supporting Ukraine’s cyber efforts are not principally acting in violation of IHL but need to be able to do so on an informed basis. As such, they must be made aware about the legal and practical consequences of their actions. However, where “a growing number of (…) volunteers with little experience in cybersecurity who run hacker programs without fully understanding how they work” are joining these efforts, it is highly questionable whether they are sufficiently informed about the consequences their activities may carry. Arguably, it is up to them to inform themselves before joining such group and conducting these cyber operations, but it is at least questionable whether a State that directly benefits from their activities, if not at least passively supports their activities, has at the very least a moral – if not a legal – obligation to provide information that helps participants to make a conscious decision as to their levels of participation and the possible consequences thereof. After all, all High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions are obliged to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions under all circumstances. + +#### 4.2 Are the Members of the IT Army Participants in a Levée en Masse? + +While this paper has so far argued that the members of the IT army do not form part of the regular armed forces or a separate organised armed group, it could also be considered whether they are participants in a levée en masse. Participants in a levée en masse are “inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war”. Where participants of the IT army are indeed also participants in a levée en masse, they enjoy prisoner of war status and combatant immunity. However, the application of these requirements to the Ukrainian IT army is unclear, especially given the lack of detailed information on its operations. + +Firstly, it is unclear as to how far participants of the IT army are “inhabitants” of Ukraine. Whereas, some members may certainly be, it is suspected that a number of individuals who hail from across the globe, i.e. non-inhabitants of Ukraine, have also joined the IT army, or at least have joined the respective Telegram channel. However, those non-inhabitants of Ukraine – whether they are Ukrainian or not – cannot form part of a levée en masse. This first requirement is thus likely only fulfilled in part. Even where non-inhabitants of Ukraine use Ukrainian infrastructure to conduct cyber operations, such limited involvement is not permanent enough to consider them inhabitants of Ukraine. + +Secondly, participants of the levée en masse must act within an unoccupied territory and to resist the invading forces. In this context, it is clear that the activities in question must be conducted against Russian armed forces. However, what constitutes occupied territory may be less clear, as the situation continues to develop dynamically. The factual uncertainties aside, where it can be established that the Russian armed forces hold effective control and occupy a certain area, inhabitants in such territories could not be participants of a levée en masse. + +As a third requirement, spontaneity is key. Whereas little is known about the actual level of organisation and planning within the IT army, Buchan and Tsagourias elaborate that in their view, “the critical question is whether the group has been organised by the invaded government”. They conclude that the mere invitation or encouragement by government to join such a group does not amount to commanding or organising the relevant participants. Rena Uphoff also finds that the IT army “stood up in an ad-hoc manner without a clear structure and proven plan”. This is in line with Ukrainian officials who have repeatedly claimed that there is no coordination between the government and the cyber IT army, which they see as a volunteer group with multiple leaders. However, some have described the IT army as “government-led” and others consider that “its level of organisation and subordination to the Ukrainian government seems a degree too high for it to be viewed as a levée en masse”. The level of coordination and organisation between the IT army and the Ukrainian government and, therefore, the degree of spontaneity, thus remains subject to speculation. + +Finally, it is unclear whether the members of the Ukrainian IT army carry their arms openly – or what this requirement even constitutes in cyberspace – and whether they adhere to IHL. Given that the ICJ held in the Nuclear Weapons advisory opinion that a weapon can be any instrument that causes harmful effects, this means that the necessary hardware and software used by the members of the IT army could constitute such weapons. However, carrying them openly is also needed. Buchan and Tsagourias argue that for the levée en masse, this means visibly in line with the 1960 Commentary. However, visibility with respect to “cyber weapons” is of course of limited practicality. While a laptop or computer may very well be visible, it is arguably invisible components such as malware that are decisive, especially given that any civilian would nowadays also be likely to carry around a phone or laptop, thus being indistinguishable from members of the IT army. + +Given the limited information available, it is also unclear whether the members of the IT army currently comply with the IHL rules. Victor Zhora, a senior Ukrainian cyber official, stressed that the IT army only targets military targets, but some have questioned these assessments, e.g. by pointing out that the Moscow Stock Exchange is a civilian target. Similarly, Soesanto finds that civilian infrastructure has been targeted by the Ukraine IT army. While formerly civilian objects may under certain conditions constitute legitimate military targets, it is nevertheless uncertain to what extent the members of the IT army adhere to IHL rules. + +To conclude, the participants of the Ukrainian IT army are – at least given the limited information available – unlikely to meet the requirements necessary to constitute a levée en masse. This is especially in light of the continued operations throughout the armed conflict and the level of coordination and, therefore, lacking the spontaneity that must be assumed. It follows that they do not enjoy combatant privilege nor are they entitled to prisoner of war status. + +#### 4.3 Will the IT Army Be Integrated into the Ukrainian Armed Forces? + +New developments indicate that Ukraine wants to incorporate its IT army into its regular armed forces. While aiming for an established cyber command section within the Ukrainian armed forces is not a surprise, the proposal seeks to continue to involve volunteer hackers. Such structure has also been implemented by the Estonian Cyber Defence Unit on which the Ukrainian plans have been modelled, seeking to build a cyber reserve, after training personnel as part of their mandatory service. + +While there are currently no further updates on the restructuring of the IT army, if active members of the IT army assume a role within the Ukrainian armed forces, this could change their legal status under IHL. If their plans are indeed based on the Estonian Cyber Defence Unit, it is likely that the Ukrainian model would also constitute a volunteer corps that is, however, part of the armed forces as it also falls under army command structures in armed conflict. As such, active members would then qualify as combatants in line with Article 4(a)(2) GCIII assuming that they fulfil the respective requirements. Where this is the case, members of the IT army would gain combatant privilege, meaning they can lawfully participate in the ongoing armed conflict against Russia, but they would, therefore, also lose their civilian protection and could be directly targeted, both by cyber and conventional means. + +The details of this plan, however, are currently unclear. For example, it is not evident how the Ukrainian army would treat foreigners located outside Ukrainian territory who have so far informally joined the IT army. Nevertheless, further steps taken by the Ukrainian government will likely clarify this. Until then, their participation in Ukrainian cyber operations or in support thereof must be assessed with caution. While volunteers provide effective support for Ukraine’s defence against an unlawful intervention and brutal invasion from Russia, their activities can carry severe consequences – not all of which may be clear to those who are civilians and have not been educated and informed about their status and its legal implications under IHL. + + +### 5 Concluding Thoughts + +Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania offer valuable insights into how civilian populations can be effectively incorporated into national defence strategies, drawing from their extensive experience in successful non-violent civilian defence. While civilian defence was initially regarded primarily as a non-violent means of maintaining social cohesion and upholding national values, this perception has evolved over time. Our analysis of the Baltic Republics’ defence strategies reveals that civilians are not only encouraged to engage in typical non-violent civilian defence work but to also participate in activities that may potentially meet the threshold for DPH. Non-violent defensive actions cannot cross the threshold to DPH. On the other hand, engaging in violent civilian defence can potentially lead to civilians engaging in DPH. However, such strategies are not in violation of IHL per se – whether they might violate state responsibility is yet another question that cannot be addressed here. + +Over time, and in response to the increasing threat from Russia, civilian defence has morphed into a more blended approach, combining non-violence and violence. A civilian secretary is likely aware that picking up a rifle to join in their country’s defence (irrespective of whether it is a case of levée en masse or not) will mean they are participating in hostilities and, therefore, become a legitimate target. However, a student who is skilled in it and participates in certain cyber-attacks, might not be aware that they are crossing the threshold to DPH and can become a target for lethal force. + +The Baltic countries have shown examples of how civilians can be included in resisting foreign aggression. While it may not be necessary to allow or encourage civilians to engage in violent acts, and such civilianisation of conflict comes with considerable risks, it certainly is necessary to, at the very least, address civilian resilience against hybrid threats. Consequently, NATO and Western states should urgently consider the Baltics’ example. + +Indeed, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia further underlines the crucial element that civilians play in national defence. Whether in the form of civilian protest, keeping up morale and Ukrainian identity, or by war-sustaining efforts on or offline – examples of how civilian Ukrainians contribute to their defence are manifold. Yet the war in Ukraine also underlines that, whereas civilian contributions may continue to take place in traditional forms, like making camouflage covers or Molotov cocktails, civilian defence contributions in the 21st century may also entail a cyber element. + +The war in Ukraine also exposes the challenge of determining the legal consequences of civilians’ actions, especially assessing when civilian activities qualify as DPH, particularly in the absence of adequate factual information. Civilians often have limited access to comprehensive information, both due to their relative lack of resources and the complex nature of conflict information. Consequently, assessing the extent to which their contributions are integral to military operations and potentially amount to DPH becomes difficult. This means that both based on the limited information that civilians may hold, but also a likely lack of information and understanding about the legal consequences their activities may carry, it will be difficult for civilians to assess the degree to which their contributions are, for example, integral to military operations, and, as a result, amount to DPH which would mean that they lose their protection from direct attack. + +Therefore, informing civilians about the implications of their actions is key. While the need for the Ukrainian government to recruit digital skills for their cyber defence or for civilians supplying information is evident and understandable when defending themselves in an armed conflict that seeks to eliminate a sovereign state, this does not mean that the Ukrainian government does not hold at least a moral, if not also a legal, responsibility to inform its civilians about the consequences of their involvement under international humanitarian law. The same applies to any other State seeking to develop defence strategies that include civilian participation of a violent and non-violent kind. Of course, the two researchers writing this paper have limited access to information that confirms the degree to which information sharing on such matters occurs already, for example through warning notifications when using relevant apps or cyber tools. Therefore, this section has been written with caution, merely confirming the central importance of educating all participants – civilian or not – of an armed conflict, about their rights and obligations, but also of the legal consequences of their involvement. + +The last question the authors sought to address in this paper was whether Baltic and Ukrainian civilian defence strategies are the next logical step in (hybrid) warfare? While civilian direct participation in hostilities per se is compatible with existing IHL, the authors hope that States refrain from encouraging their civilian populations to engage in acts that cross the threshold to DPH. Otherwise, the principle of distinction could lose its bite and dramatically increase civilian deaths and suffering – the very thing the Geneva Conventions sought to minimise. + +--- + +__Saskia Millmann__ is the Research Affiliate at the Glasgow Centre for International Law & Security, University of Glasgow (UK). + +__Pia Hüsch__ is the Research Fellow in cyber, technology and national security at RUSI. Her research focusses on the impact, societal risks and lawfulness of cyber operations and the geopolitical and national security implications of disruptive technologies, such as AI. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-the-fall-of-bashar-al-assad.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-the-fall-of-bashar-al-assad.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a386dc47 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-the-fall-of-bashar-al-assad.md @@ -0,0 +1,98 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : The Fall Of Bashar al-Assad +author: Alexander Patterson +date : 2024-12-09 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/L7OECPC.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "The Fall of Bashar al-Assad and Syria’s Unfinished Business" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_The situation in Syria has dramatically shifted, radically altering a status quo largely remained for over four years, and toppling a leader against whom the country rebelled nearly 14 years ago._ + + + +Following a major 27 November surprise offensive into Assad regime-held territory by a collection of opposition groups led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), opposition forces across the country have made astonishingly swift gains, using blitzkrieg tactics to keep Syrian government forces off balance and moving too fast to allow a sufficient reaction. Across the whole country, Assad’s forces have collapsed. + +It is hard to overstate how incredible the collapse has been, given the history of the war in Syria. Within four days of the first move on 28 November, rebels had taken control of Syria’s second city, Aleppo. Just over a week in, Hama fell. Homs, a critical crossroads between Syria’s north, its coast, its capital, and Lebanon’s Bekaa valley (a key supply route for Hezbollah) fell on 7 December. + + +### Lightning Strikes + +The patchwork of other forces moving around the country is complex, but important to understand. In parallel, separate opposition forces to the south of Damascus, clearly coordinating with HTS, took the opportunity to move on the key cities of Deraa (where Syria’s protests first began in 2011) and Suwaida, making deals with regime forces to withdraw. In control of the Syria–Jordan border, they advanced swiftly on the capital, with thousands of irregular Syrian opposition fighters encircling the city and facing very limited resistance. + +Meanwhile, a less-covered but vital fight escalated in Syria’s east. To date, the US-backed and Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been attempting to destroy Islamic State (which has been making a comeback) while defending themselves against Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) forces. Evidence of deconfliction is clear between HTS and SDF and, over the past 10 days, the SDF have preserved escape corridors for civilians from Aleppo, deterred incursions by pro-Iranian militias across the Iraqi border and done deals with Assad regime forces to take over key locations. This indicates a wider opportunistic plan afoot to hold critical locations controlling the Iraqi border and east-west supply routes along the Euphrates, bolstering longer-term positions and limiting exposure to Turkish and Iranian-Iraqi attack. It is also notable that the SDF have largely ended up in control of territory which is among the most resource-rich in Syria – a key tradeable powerbroking element in the current post-Assad landscape. + +SDF efforts have also linked up with other US-supported Free Syrian Army (FSA) units, who have swept north from the worst-kept secret in Syria – the US–FSA Al-Tanf base dominating the Jordan–Iraq–Syria triborder area. These have now taken control of the key desert city of Palmyra from regime troops, controlling the desert to the east of Damascus. + +The US is directly involved, using air power to fire on Iraqi militias attempting to enter Syria. With regime forces’ withdrawal, this effectively means the US now has fire control over the whole of eastern Syria – a fact it has used to immediate effect, conducting “dozens” of airstrikes on Islamic State camps and operatives in former regime-held areas in an effort to use the interregnum to destroy the organisation to the fullest extent possible and prevent it from using the chaos to its advantage. + + +### Why Now? + +As much as Syria is a proxy conflict, with external powers backing individual forces, this HTS offensive has several hallmarks of a patient effort to break out of a frozen status quo that had been decided and imposed from abroad years earlier. While an offensive out of Idlib had been expected, nothing like this was foreseen, and its catastrophic success is unexpected. + +___`HTS has capitalised on a shifting geopolitical landscape, picking a moment when key Assad allies Russia and Iran are drained and preoccupied, and Hezbollah is devastated after a year of war with Israel`___ + +All of these developments come in the context of a four-year long status quo, characterised by the survival of the Assad regime following a decade of bloody civil war and backing from Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, against opposition forces with (originally) Western and Gulf backing. It also follows major regional ructions, such as the devastating rise and fall of Islamic State, and the more recent transformation of the Assad regime into a narco-state benefiting from the manufacture and regional trade of Captagon, an illicit amphetamine flooding across the region which accounts for an unknown majority (and potentially multiples) of Syria’s current GDP. + +For HTS and other opposition units themselves, several more specific recent factors have influenced the success of this offensive. HTS has capitalised on a shifting geopolitical landscape, picking a moment when key Assad allies Russia and Iran are drained and preoccupied, and Hezbollah is devastated after a year of war with Israel. This has obviously reduced the immediate support available to a hollowed-out and corrupt Syrian government, and allowed rapid territorial gains. With the Syrian military putting up no significant resistance, key partners were not going to fight alone. But more than this, Assad’s behaviour – including his covert negotiations with Western countries and offers to eject Iranian forces from Syrian soil – will not have helped relations with those who once propped him up, nor did his rejection of every proposal made to him to make adjustments towards a political settlement of the conflict. It is now clear that Russia has been in contact with opposition groups to secure its critical military base interests in Syria. And both Iran and Russia have moderated the language they use towards the Syrian opposition forces (which includes groups regarded as terrorists by both), effectively consenting to a new political reality and looking to reach out to the new power(s) in Damascus. + +In recent years, Idlib-based opposition movements had also improved their military capabilities. What was once a loose collective of Islamist rebel factions has transformed into a well-organised quasi-military force. The unification of fragmentary groups and the establishment of advanced military training, influenced by Western and Russian military doctrines, has created a diverse but coherent force. Benefiting from rampant arms smuggling and building an advanced arms manufacturing industry in Idlib, HTS has produced 3D-printed drones and missiles, enabling the execution of sophisticated mass attacks which overwhelmed the Assad regime’s defences. + + +### HTS in a Position of National Leadership? + +This leads to the question of whether the opposition are ready to rule, and have a plan to do so in a way that reflects the plurality of Syrian society. HTS leader Abu Muhammed al-Jolani was interviewed by CNN on 6 December, and said as much. He and HTS have spent years undergoing major rebranding efforts, including changing the group’s name from the Al-Nusra Front, severing ties with Al-Qa’ida (AQ) in 2016 and ruthlessly targeting several AQ affiliates and Islamic State in Syria, as well as mergers with other opposition groups. HTS has also tried to position itself as a more mainstream entity within the Syrian opposition; by all accounts, its approach is now more pragmatic. This, despite myriad former AQ links, the listing of HTS as a US Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the US and Jolani’s own designation as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”, including a $10 million bounty. + +HTS has made efforts to reassure local populations and reach out to minority groups terrified of another Salafi-Jihadist organisation in a position of power in Syria (after the Islamic State experience). Understanding this fear, HTS has focused on communications about the status all minorities should hold in a post-Assad society, and taken some immediate actions to build confidence. For example, after capturing Aleppo, Jolani appeared personally to assure minorities of their protection and forbid fighters from entering homes, aiming to present HTS as a protector of all civilians (subsequently, there have been reports of residents calling on HTS to deal with looters, many of them from Turkish-backed SNA forces in the area). Other measures have also been taken to win over local populations, such as the sudden delivery of 24-hour electricity and the erection of new mobile phone masts. But these early indications will not reassure many – the proof will be in any agreements struck for longer-term governance, and the extent to which HTS is willing to share power – particularly with other, non-Salafi Jihadi movements and minorities like the Alawites, Kurds, Christians and Druze. + +Also unclear is the opposition’s approach to dealing with former Assad regime loyalists. Military collapses and local dealmaking would suggest that efforts to adapt existing structures may be the initial approach. The rebels would be well advised to be inclusive; an Iraq 2003-style purge of the Baath party would result in the same sort of broad insurgency that sparked – and mass executions would be even worse. This will be a key question to watch. + +Given the array of other Syrian groups, sects and political ideologies that have operated in partnership on the march to Damascus, HTS will have to share power with other Syrians. Either we may be unsurprised to witness a descent into chaotic power struggles between factions, or – if homework has been done – we may be surprised by a less radical government than HTS’s terrorist pedigree would suggest. However, comparisons with the Taliban and other, more fragmented movements are too easily made – until demonstrated otherwise, a radical Islamic fundamentalist government must remain the core assumption if HTS seizes power over the heads of others. This would not bode well for a country crippled by sanctions and reliant on Iranian fuel and foreign humanitarian aid. + + +### How Did Key Players Act? + +#### Turkey + +Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken pains to say “I told you so”, suggesting that his shift in stance on “holding back” HTS to date was due to Assad’s intransigence on negotiating future dynamics in Syria, particularly the conditions which would permit the return of millions of Syrians currently taking refuge on Turkish soil. But the Turkish role is potentially being inflated. HTS is not controlled by Turkey; its actions align with a message Erdogan wants to send to all stakeholders in Syria – particularly the Russians and the incoming Trump administration – that Turkey holds some of the most significant levers on influence across the region. HTS tactical alliances and strategic coordination with Turkish-backed rebel factions (particularly the SNA, a Turkish auxiliary operating in Syria’s north) have bolstered HTS’s operational strength and facilitated some alignment, but so has careful coordination and deconfliction with the US-backed, Kurdish-led SDF, an implacable enemy of Turkey which its SNA partners continue to attack. If the SDF becomes too prominent in any post-Assad Syria, Turkey may again take military action (a scenario against which the SDF is currently positioning to defend). + +#### Russia + +Given Russia’s naval and air bases in Syria and the strategic costs it has sunk into the country since intervening in 2014, it might be surprising that Russia has not done more to defend Assad. But Russia’s strategic priority is clear – Ukraine. Russia has consolidated its positions and is watching opposition movements carefully – their forces are within 30km of Tartus and Hmeimim, key Russian naval and air force bases. It is clear that Russia is in contact with opposition forces and reports now suggest that Russian military bases and diplomatic missions have been “guaranteed security”. Nonetheless, there are indications of Russian concern over the speed of the rebel advance, with limited military movements out of Tartus and Hmeimim. A Russian diplomatic warning to its citizens to leave Syria by commercial means, meanwhile, was an indication that substantial assistance to the regime was not on the way. Russia would not pull troops from Ukraine to aid Assad in Syria, and even reports that the post-Wagner private military company “Africa Corps” would be redirected to Syria were likely out of date; the battlefield situation moved so fast that Russian forces in Syria had to prioritise their own force protection. + +#### Iran + +These developments are critical for Iran, in that opposition control of Homs and the whole M5 highway (the north-south road linking Aleppo to Damascus, running along the Lebanese border) will disrupt Lebanese Hezbollah’s main supply routes. With Hezbollah severely weakened by 14 months of war with Israel, it needs resupply more than ever. Hezbollah will also be concerned about the threat of Sunni jihadist groups entering Lebanon’s north (a situation that has happened in the past, though in a recent statement HTS has denied any such plans). Weakening Hezbollah further by cutting it off from Syria could lead to de-escalation and a new political consensus in Lebanon, but it could equally feasibly pave the way for a further round of fighting with Israel if the fragile 60-day Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire, which ends in January, falls apart. + + +### What Now? + +The upending of the fragile status quo in Syria is linked with, and impacts, the instability that now extends from the Mediterranean to the borders of Afghanistan. Questions about the second-order effects are now being tested. On the basis of what key actors believe has happened, many Middle Eastern powerbrokers are positioning themselves to limit risks and manage the aftermath for their own pressing security priorities. + +For several states, uncertainty as to the political alignment of HTS and its allies, as well as whether it has really renounced the ideology of its AQ-affiliated roots, will be the immediate challenge in an already uncomfortably complex outlook. And this at a time when there are indications of a resurgence of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. + +It is now clear that some of Assad’s closest partners, including Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, were all convinced he was finished well before he stood down. In the end, the pace of the offensive was inexorable. Turkey is seen as a key influencer. Russian diplomats are taking care to blame the US, the UK and Israel for backing “Islamists” – but not Turkey. Iran also has moderated the language its state media uses to discuss rebels, and has publicly said it “lost faith” in Assad. This weekend’s gathering of Iranian, Russian and Turkish diplomats in Doha was the key opportunity to create an offramp agreement which protected at least some collective interests in the future stability of Syria, at the cost of an exit for Assad. The signatories to this agreement are all parties likely to maintain interests and take roles in Syria going forward. + +___`Levantine history teaches us to be deeply concerned when dealing with such a fractious society in trauma after a decade of internecine war, torn in different directions by various foreign and non-state actors`___ + +These developments are particularly devastating blows to Iran, which has now lost a key ally, a commercial partner, a conduit to proxies in Lebanon and Palestine and a shadow battlefield with Israel in the space of a year. Iran’s regional influence and security structures are now at a nadir, returning its gaze to its home front. Longer-term, a rearrangement of power in Syria – particularly one which isolates Hezbollah – is likely to have major implications for Iran’s own decision-making. It could have implications for Iranian relations with Gulf countries. But in particular, it may influence the way Iran negotiates over its nuclear programme, and how it regards the timeline to the expiration of snapback sanctions in October 2025. + +This links to US future posture. The US military has taken widespread actions in recent days to suppress Islamic State and prevent the entry of Iran-backed militias into Syria. It is also known to be taking actions to prevent Assad’s remaining chemical weapons stockpiles from falling into the wrong hands. But Trump has made his views on Syria clear (perhaps in response to Assad’s entreaties?): “Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”. This sets the direction of travel firmly towards a US step back – a welcome message to some in the region. It would simply be worth noting that US presidents who aim to avoid involvement in the Middle East invariably fail. + +Israel, meanwhile, considers itself a “free” beneficiary of these developments, even if they risk the emergence of a more powerful, potentially extremist, Sunni power on its border. It has taken early, aggressive steps to secure land militarily in the Syrian Golan, arguing that with Assad gone historical agreements made with Syria no longer stand. And a widespread campaign of precision airstrikes is being conducted against major military bases, air defences and key scientific research centres across Syria (particularly those associated with Assad’s chemical weapons and missile programmes). In effect, Israel is demilitarising Syria to the extent possible, so that whoever ends up in charge can only present a limited threat (including, say, if Syrian airspace was required for strikes further afield). + + +### Conclusion + +Levantine history teaches us to be deeply concerned when dealing with such a fractious society in trauma after a decade of internecine war, torn in different directions by various foreign and non-state actors. + +But in effect, developments since 27 November may have forced a de facto shift that leapfrogs the “ceasefire, political settlement and transition” foreseen in 2015’s UN Security Council Resolution 2254. With Assad gone, so is a major obstacle to progress. Political deals in the four years since the situation in Syria somewhat stabilised have created new channels for dialogue. The bones of a plan to win a peace exist. + +Beyond the geopolitical “so whats”, if asked, many, many Syrians will tell you they are overjoyed, sad, worried and hopeful all at once. Only one thing is for certain: Assad is gone, not with a bang but with a whimper. The opportunities are many; the risks are blindingly clear. We must hope that at least some lessons about pluralistic governance, human security and the centrality of the social contract have been learned from two decades of the global war on terror, the mis-named Arab “Spring”, Assad’s hyperviolent and cynical survival strategy, and a wretched collection of short-sighted policies from the international community in response. + +--- + +__Alexander Patterson__ is a Partner at SC Strategy, a London-based geopolitical advisory consultancy, where he leads research and analysis. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-the-joint-expeditionary-force-and-european-security.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-the-joint-expeditionary-force-and-european-security.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0a2fb627 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-the-joint-expeditionary-force-and-european-security.md @@ -0,0 +1,358 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : JEF And European Security +author: Ed Arnold +date : 2024-12-09 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/8bYUDyN.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "The Joint Expeditionary Force and its Contribution to European Security" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_As the new UK government is undertaking its Strategic Defence Review, this paper provides recommendations for the UK to strengthen the Joint Expeditionary Force to increase its value to NATO and best contribute to European security._ + + + +The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) is a UK-led, 10-member defence framework focused on northern Europe. In September 2014, at the NATO Wales Summit, the JEF signed its founding Letter of Intent to develop a rapidly deployable force to operate across the full spectrum of operations. + +During its first decade, the JEF has made an important contribution to European security. Owing to its design and development, the JEF exhibits several comparative advantages over other European defence and security frameworks: it has political and military leadership, it is flexible and better able to respond to crises, and it has regional expertise and a combined military heft which is increasingly valuable to NATO. + +Following the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and incursion into the Donbas, the JEF participants responded by collectively increasing their defence expenditure so that all members now meet the NATO 2% of GDP target (up from just one member – the UK), and established a command-and-control structure, annual military and ministerial exercises, and interoperability programmes. + +The JEF’s established programme of work allowed it to be quick to respond to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It immediately developed a political dimension, through national Leaders’ Summits, which provided a unifying framework to advocate for the defence of Ukraine, pushed for a stronger unified position against Russia, and pressured other NATO members to step up. As such, it has collectively committed more diplomatic, military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine than the rest of non-US NATO members combined. + +Following these successes, in 2023 the JEF agreed a 10-year vision and with it an ambition to be a key framework within the future European security architecture. Through this vision, and via increased political engagement, the JEF has created expectations for itself, and for UK leadership of the JEF as a European leader within NATO. + +Its second decade will be far more challenging that the first. European security has dramatically deteriorated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While NATO is stronger, with two new members – Finland and Sweden – and ambitious new defence plans, it is operating in a more dangerous and volatile world. Of greatest concern for Europeans is the reliability of the US security commitment to Europe under the second presidency of Donald Trump. The US faces four converging adversaries (China, Russia, Iran and North Korea) across three theatres (the Euro-Atlantic, the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East), with the capacity to prosecute only one major war. At the NATO Washington Summit in July 2024, the Alliance labelled China a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war on Ukraine, while Iran and North Korea have been actively supplying weapons and ammunition to Russia, with North Korea in fact going further and sending an estimated 10,000 troops to counterattack Ukrainian forces in Kursk, Russia. As US priorities shift to the rise of China and its impact on Indo-Pacific security, in the coming years more will be demanded of the UK (as a leading NATO member) and the JEF to contribute to European security. + +Within this geopolitical context, the JEF is at an inflection point. While it can celebrate successes over its first decade – improved interoperability, capability and capacity development, and support to Ukraine – it is yet to be seriously tested politically or operationally. There is a risk that without increased attention and resources the JEF will be unable to deliver on its self-imposed mandate, causing it to atrophy, which would amount to a serious loss of credibility for UK defence and security leadership in Europe. To avoid this outcome, it must be immediately invested in, both politically and militarily. As the new UK government undertakes its Strategic Defence Review, this paper provides recommendations for the UK to strengthen the JEF to increase its value to NATO and best contribute to European security. + + +### Key Findings + +- The JEF is a political and military power maximiser, and the UK benefits both politically and diplomatically from it – for a modest investment. The JEF provides a defence and security leadership opportunity for the UK alongside like-minded European allies and can draw on valuable military support. + +- JEF members have gained increased UK defence attention and capabilities in northern Europe – which are best able to mitigate shortfalls in the event of US disengagement from Europe – and a seat at the table alongside a geopolitical heavyweight such as the UK, which assigns its nuclear forces to the defence of NATO. + +- Since 2014, JEF members have delivered an average real-terms defence expenditure increase of 150%, compared to 108% for the rest of NATO’s European members. However, the UK has delivered the lowest increase. When assistance to Ukraine is measured as a percentage of GDP, while the JEF members come out on top, the UK is ranked ninth of the 10 JEF members. + +- The JEF is a vanguard military grouping within NATO that provides a model for the Europeanisation of the Alliance to increase transatlantic burden-sharing. All JEF members meet or have exceeded both the NATO defence investment pledge of 2% of GDP and the guideline of 20% on equipment expenditure as a share of defence expenditure. + +- Support for Ukraine has become a major political output of the JEF. The 10 JEF members have committed $11.1 billion more aid to Ukraine than the 18 remaining European NATO members. When Ukraine assistance is measured as a percentage of GDP (2021 figures), the top 10 countries include eight JEF members. + +- The JEF is ideally placed to accept the increased burden-sharing that Europe is set to encounter in the coming years, especially following the war in Ukraine and Trump’s re-election. + + +### Introduction + +The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) is a 10-member defence framework that operates within its principal geographic area of interest of the High North, North Atlantic and Baltic Sea regions. It was born out of NATO initiatives and maintains its complementarity with the Alliance – in the sense that JEF activity and policy do not compete with or duplicate those of NATO. + +In 2024, the JEF celebrated its 10-year anniversary, and it has agreed on a vision to 2033. It is a prominent, but contested, framework within the European security architecture. + +The JEF has its champions (within and outside its membership and across the European security expert community) as a responsive and flexible framework that supports NATO defence and deterrence activities in northern Europe. In its first decade, it has improved interoperability, coordination and coherence across its membership and responded effectively to increased Russian aggression following the invasion of Ukraine. However, the invasion is a catalyst for a severe and potentially long deterioration in European security, and the JEF’s second decade will be much more challenging than its first. It must urgently acknowledge this and strengthen itself accordingly. + +The JEF also has its detractors within NATO and within the JEF itself. The most dismissive have labelled it a post-Brexit vehicle for UK influence in Europe, despite the JEF being introduced in 2012 – three years before the Brexit referendum was first referenced (in a national security context) in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review. The JEF has also been described as a regionally focused “NATO lite”, with limited value now that Finland and Sweden have joined the Alliance. + +To counter this critical narrative and avoid misconceptions it is important that the JEF, led by the UK, reaffirms its value, purpose and potential to bolster European security in the future security environment. Moreover, its communications should be rebalanced towards non-member NATO allies, rather than its internal audience, to increase understanding. + +As the JEF becomes more political, it is likely to fall victim to growing misperceptions. Despite its ambition and longevity, surprisingly little has been written to date on the JEF, and as such it has almost no public profile. This paper aims to clarify these misunderstandings through an analysis of the core JEF founding documents, alongside interviews with the senior UK military officers who created it and multinational officers who have developed it. + +The paper argues that the JEF has several comparative advantages over other European defence and security frameworks – its political and military leadership, its flexibility, combined military heft and regional expertise – and that these are likely to become more valuable to European security as it deteriorates in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Furthermore, the paper argues that European security will demand more of the UK and the JEF in the future as the war in Ukraine continues and the reliability of the US security commitment to Europe is questioned under the second Trump presidency. The JEF is already under-resourced for its ambitions to be, alongside NATO, one of the “enablers of regional security”, and to operate across the whole spectrum of conflict, including “full-spectrum interventions” in its core regions and beyond. The increased level of demand will also raise the risk of the JEF underperforming, leading to a serious loss of credibility for the UK. This risk must be mitigated by an increase in attention and resources. + +The new UK government has made “reconnecting” and “resetting” relations with European allies and partners central to its foreign policy. The governing Labour Party’s 2024 election manifesto states that it will “rebuild relationships with key European allies, including France and Germany, through increased defence and security co-operation … and seek new bilateral agreements and closer working with Joint Expeditionary Force partners. This will strengthen NATO and keep Britain safe”. As the JEF moves into its second decade, and as the new UK government undertakes its Strategic Defence Review (SDR), it is an opportune moment to re-evaluate and strengthen the JEF. With the risk of war in Europe increasing, the members of the JEF will have to rely on each other more heavily. + +This paper provides recommendations on how to best develop the JEF to increase its value to European security. Its research is based on three questions: + +1. To what extent does the JEF have comparative advantages over other European defence and security frameworks? + +2. How has the JEF responded to a deteriorating European security situation since Russia’s war on Ukraine, and what might this mean for its future potential? + +3. How should the JEF further adapt to deliver the most value to the UK, its membership, NATO and European security? + +#### Methodology + +The research for this paper is based on primary and secondary research. First, in June and July 2024 the author conducted a comprehensive review of the JEF policy documentation, principally its founding Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) and policy direction, alongside joint statements following JEF meetings. This was complemented by a review of academic literature and European media reports. + +Second, between June and November 2024 the author conducted 24 semi-structured interviews and consultations (in person and online) with former senior military officers who were heavily involved with the establishment and early development of the JEF, as well as serving UK military officers and civil servants. Interviews with representatives from national ministries of defence and foreign affairs of JEF members and non-JEF NATO allies provided a multinational perspective, to avoid a UK-centric analysis. All interview data has been anonymised to protect the identity of those interviewed, and where interviewees have been named, it is with their full informed consent and knowledge. + +Third, the research was informed by the findings from eight expert-led data-gathering roundtable discussions focused on transatlantic security, held between April 2022 and June 2024 in London, Oslo and Washington, DC. The data gathered from these roundtables has also been anonymised. + +#### Structure + +The paper has three chapters. Chapter I identifies and assesses the advantages of the JEF and makes a comparison with other European defence and security frameworks. Chapter II examines how the JEF has responded to Russia’s war against Ukraine and the subsequent dramatic changes it has driven in European security. Chapter III considers the challenges to the UK, the JEF and European security following the war in Ukraine and the 2024 US presidential election. It provides recommendations for the new UK government for the further development of the JEF to best contribute to European security. The Conclusion argues that the UK must take the opportunity to strengthen the JEF to respond to a deteriorating security environment. + + +### I. The JEF’s Value to European Security + +This chapter assesses the value of the JEF to European security. It identifies and analyses its comparative advantages against those of other European defence and security frameworks through an examination of its design principles, origins and development from 2012 to 2021. + +#### Origins + +The JEF was born from overlapping NATO initiatives in the early 2010s. The Alliance’s International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan (2003–14) and Operation Unified Protector – enforcing UN Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973 with regard to Libya (2011) – exposed poor European interoperability, coordination and strike, and capability and resource gaps, partly attributed to austerity effects following the 2008 financial crisis. To address these deficiencies, in 2012 NATO launched its Connected Forces Initiative (CFI) and “Smart Defence” to strengthen the Alliance and collectively drive better value for money. + +In 2012, the then Chief of the Defence Staff, General David Richards, unveiled the JEF in a speech at RUSI, in which he described it as “the core of the UK’s contribution to any military action, whether NATO, coalition or independent” and as being designed to always meet NATO obligations. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and incursions into the Donbas in February 2014 provided the external drivers for the development of the JEF. The NATO Wales Summit later that year launched the Framework Nations Concept (FNC), which was an effort to formalise and enhance the CFI and Smart Defence by establishing a lead country to act as a “hub” that a group of countries could to plug into, and to set standards and drive momentum. The JEF became the UK contribution to the FNC as “a rapidly deployable force capable of conducting the full spectrum of operations, including high intensity operations. It will facilitate the efficient deployment of existing and emerging military capabilities and units”. + +The JEF is, and always has been, complementary to NATO, which is a core advantage. The early adoption of NATO standards and doctrine as a baseline created a shared commonality on which to build. Following the adoption of the first NATO regional defence plans since the end of the Cold War – which incorporate and amalgamate national defence plans under Article 3 of the Washington Treaty (“individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”) – there is a much stronger synergy between tactical, operational and strategic defence plans. Under this revised construct, therefore, stronger UK or individual JEF member defence capabilities concurrently strengthen both the JEF and NATO. + +The following comparative advantages stem from the creation and early development of the JEF which, unlike most other European defence and security frameworks, has prioritised flexibility, adaptability and specialisation. + +#### Like-Minded European Defence Heavyweights + +The strategic like-mindedness of JEF members – especially regarding the Russian threat – provides the driver across several metrics for the force’s collective development as a vanguard defence force within NATO. + +First, the JEF is led by the UK, which, unlike France, assigns its nuclear forces to the defence of NATO, thereby extending its nuclear deterrent to JEF member countries. This capability will become more crucial to Europe in the more “unsettled circumstances” for NATO where the US commitment to Europe is assessed as “less reliable”, particularly under the second Trump presidency. + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/TzTpHe2.png) +_▲ __Table 1: Timeline of the JEF’s Development, 2014–24.__ Source: The author, based on a systematic review of the core JEF policy documentation, augmented by author interviews and media sources._ + +Moreover, the existence of a further decision-making centre contributes to NATO nuclear deterrence by making it harder “for Russia to use nuclear threats to deter the UK … from coming to the aid of an exposed NATO state in a crisis if Moscow knew that they had nuclear forces of their own”. This is especially valuable to JEF members, five of which border Russia, who could become increasingly exposed due to changes in US policy under Trump and Kremlin attempts to use sub-threshold means to isolate vulnerable NATO members. + +Second, the JEF members collectively outspend their European allies on defence. As of 12 June 2024, all JEF members met or exceeded both the NATO defence investment pledge of 2% of GDP and the guideline of 20% on equipment expenditure as a share of defence expenditure (Iceland is not included in NATO figures, as it has no military). In addition, JEF members have delivered an average real-terms increase of 150% since 2014, compared to 108% for the rest of European NATO members, with Lithuania topping the Alliance chart with an extraordinary 327% increase. + +Third, readiness is about not only percentages of defence expenditure, but also capabilities that are optimised for war. JEF members operate some of the most sophisticated military capabilities in Europe; for example, five JEF members (the UK, Norway, Finland, Netherlands and Denmark) operate F-35s, out of a total of 11 European air forces. + +Fourth, they are the biggest supporters of Ukraine in the war against Russia, committing more support by value than the rest of the non-US NATO members combined (see Table 4). + +While JEF members have demonstrated collective leadership on increasing defence expenditure, the UK, as the framework nation lead, has seen the lowest increase of all members since 2014. In 2014, the UK was one of only three allies to meet NATO’s 2% of GDP target and one of eight to meet the 20% guideline on equipment (only four JEF members met this in 2014). Spending analysis thus validates the original FNC construct of having only one central lead to bring allies up to the standard and “shame them” into spending more and spending better. In addition, when support to Ukraine is measured as a percentage of GDP, the UK comes ninth of the 10 JEF members. These figures suggest the UK gets a great deal out of the JEF, politically and diplomatically, as a power maximiser with minimal investment. While this approach might have been sufficient for the JEF’s first decade, the evolving – and more challenging – security environment during its second decade will not be as accommodating. If the UK wants to lead in a world that is more dangerous overall, defence spending must stretch ahead of the other JEF members, and increased investments in the JEF must be made so that it can cope with the additional demands before they arise, enabling it to operate as more than the sum of its parts. + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/KkP7U9c.png) +_▲ __Table 2: JEF Defence Expenditure 2014–24 (2015 Prices and Exchange Rates.__ Source: [NATO, “Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014–2024)”, 17 June 2024](https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/6/pdf/240617-def-exp-2024-en.pdf)._ + +The founding intent for the JEF was to become a formidable military force within Europe – which it now unarguably is. Moreover, the original FNC objective was to “improve the balance of the provision of capabilities between the United States and European Allies” or to improve transatlantic burden-sharing, where the JEF is collectively making a significant contribution. Transatlantic burden-sharing is expected to become a focal point of US policy towards Europe under the next Trump presidency, and the JEF is well placed to demonstrate what has already been achieved. + +UK leadership (through the JEF and bilaterally), combined with Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO, now makes northern Europe a political and military fortress for the Alliance that “would outrank any other European force structure and would help secure both the Eastern and Northern Flank of NATO”. Indeed, northern Europe should now be considered NATO’s “front”, rather than “flank”, as it is likely that increased NATO and Russian exercise and operational activity will be the fulcrum point for conflict between the two, through either deliberate policy or – more likely – miscalculation. Moreover, the US identifies a more accessible Arctic as a focus for strategic competition and that the US must “stand ready to meet the challenge alongside Allies and partners”. + +In an interview with the author, Lord Richards said that the concept of the JEF showed prescience on the part of those within the UK system who identified the need to “think beyond Afghanistan” and recognised the growing influences of great power competition and the strategic importance of the Arctic and High North to the UK and NATO. Furthermore, Lord Houghton (Vice Chief of the Defence Staff when thinking around the JEF was initially developed, and latterly Chief of the Defence Staff when the JEF was created) confirmed that the JEF was “undoubtedly prescient”, during an interview with the author, adding that the UK saw more potential for enhancing partnerships with the Nordic and Baltic states and that the JEF “sort of worked” from the outset. Russia’s prioritisation of the Arctic and increased aggression towards Europe have validated this vision, and it was certainly prescient to invest in a flexible framework with like-minded allies who can adapt to the changing security requirements in northern Europe. + +#### Flexibility + +The JEF framework’s “flexibility by design” consists of three features: it does not require unanimity for operational deployments; it is not backed by a treaty; and it is not a standing force. + +On 4 September 2014, the defence ministers of the seven founding members – Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK – signed the JEF Letter of Intent. The founding principle was that the “operational composition of the JEF will be determined by the nature of the tasks and missions it is required to undertake … and that the assignment of forces to the JEF will remain a national decision”. Unlike most other European defence frameworks, the JEF does not require unanimity to operate. Instead, an “opt-in” (also referred to as a “1+1”) mechanism preserves the primacy of sovereign national decisions and legal frameworks, with no obligation for members to contribute forces. The JEF has described the opt-in principle as a “unique advantage”. + +This “come with what you can contribute” mantra was demonstrated in its first operational “test”. In 2014, when an Ebola virus epidemic spread through West Africa, European countries sent teams to assist. The UK led the European response in Sierra Leone (a former UK colony where the UK had intervened in the latter stages of a civil war in 2000 through Operation Palliser) under the JEF banner. The operation received contributions from Denmark (airlift and medical staff), the Netherlands (His Netherlands Majesty’s Ship Karel Doorman) and Norway (airlift and medical staff). The Baltic states, in order to focus on the increased Russian threat following the annexation of Crimea, chose not to contribute capabilities. This operation emphasised the deployability of the JEF, which happened in its first year and before it reached Interim Operating Capability (IOC). This contrasts with other frameworks, such as the EU Battlegroups Concept or the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF), which have never deployed, either due to a lack of political will, an inability to make a timely decision, or a lack of military capability (see Table 3). + +This flexibility makes the JEF an ideal “first responder”, able to operate with fewer constraints than NATO in sub-threshold activity below Article 4, and to “act while NATO is thinking” during Article 5 consultations at the North Atlantic Council (NAC). The 2018 MoU confirmed the JEF’s ability to deploy 10,000 troops, with supporting logistics and enablers. As a demonstration of the JEF’s ambition, a deployment of that size would be double what the EU plans to do by 2025 under the Rapid Deployment Capacity, and approximately half the size of NATO’s Allied Reaction Force (ARF – formerly the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, which has replaced the NATO Response Force (NRF)). + +The complementarity of the JEF to NATO means it should not be directly compared with NATO operational forces, but rather viewed as a valuable addition. The ARF is a rotational standing force, assigned to NATO and under the direct command and control (C2) of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). Traditionally, NATO reaction forces would require a unanimous decision by the NAC to deploy. However, in 2023, the NAC delegated authority to SACEUR to deploy the ARF, significantly increasing the speed of response, and therefore becoming much more flexible and deployable in a crisis, diluting some of the JEF’s advantage in this area. This should also act as a warning to the JEF that if its comparative advantages are not maximised, they can be diminished as other frameworks adapt to the security environment. The JEF’s activity could also be viewed as being potentially less escalatory than NATO and therefore as having a wider utility. However, it is likely that such an analysis only mirrors Western views of escalation and deterrence, as there are few signs that Russia makes the distinction between the JEF and NATO, or between NATO and the US. + +EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions similarly require the unanimity of 27 members to deploy. As a result, the EU has a poor track record of acting quickly, and it is for this reason that “Act” is the first of four pillars of the 2022 EU Strategic Compass – to remedy previous failings. Since 2007, the EU has had 18 multinational battlegroups, three of which are held at high readiness on rotation, but they have never deployed, despite the demand. However, measures to improve the ability to act, such as the introduction of qualified majority voting within the CSDP, or using Article 44.4 of the Treaty of the European Union to create EU coalitions of the willing, do not have broad political support within the EU. Either option would also require a unanimous vote for reform, and it is therefore unlikely that they would pass. Moreover, the increasing political fractiousness of the EU on foreign policy and defence could also paralyse CSDP operations in the future, as “spoilers”, such as Hungary, have a greater ability to block consensus within the EU than they do in NATO. The like-mindedness and size of the JEF mitigates this risk. + +Other minilateral and bilateral European defence and security frameworks exhibit some, but not all, of the JEF’s advantages. It is unfair to directly compare some of these frameworks – such as Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) – to the JEF, as they are designed for a different purpose, and mutually supportive to the JEF. However, it is important to acknowledge that the JEF was the most ambitious of the three FNCs from the outset and has a higher level of ambition than other frameworks. Its collaboration within the crucial functional areas of intelligence, operations, plans and capacity development give it greater value and utility than other frameworks. This is demonstrated by the fact that it had its first operational deployment in the year it was created, before it had achieved IOC. + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/MHEVJfu.png) +_▲ __Table 3: Comparison of European Defence and Security Frameworks Measured Against Key Criteria and NATO Defence Functions (J1–9).__ Source: The author, based on NATO, EU and JEF policy documents, interviews, expert commentary and open source resources._ + +The flexibility of the JEF offers more benefits than just operations. The JEF is a smaller and more agile framework than NATO or the EU, and these characteristics are advantageous for innovation and capability development. As a more recent addition to the European security architecture, the JEF is unconstrained by bulky legacy processes or large and unwieldy staffs. It can thus be a “a test bed for operational, doctrinal, and technical innovation”. Across the JEF members there is a wealth of experience, including in “sub-threshold competition, whole-of-government integration, and whole-society resilience”. It can create its own bespoke rules and regulations, based on the needs of its smaller membership, and “overcome long-established peacetime procurement processes which are optimised for platform-focused equipment programmes, rather than delivering agile software and technology enhancements”. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is demonstrating the strategic importance of battlefield innovation, which NATO countries must maximise. JEF members are among the most technologically mature countries within NATO that can maximise innovation, as in the requirement resulting from the war in Ukraine. Moreover, the product of the innovation can be realised at the JEF level or, once the concept is proven, scaled to NATO level or even the EU, in a quicker timeframe through a “JEF Digital” initiative. + +#### A Single Framework Lead + +The central innovation of the FNC was to have a strong single framework lead around which the rest of the membership can coalesce. This innovation presented the UK with an opportunity to strengthen its NATO commitments, to demonstrate defence and security leadership, and to build on significant operational experience alongside European forces. + +First, across operations in Afghanistan (2001–14) and Iraq (2003–11), the UK had commanded Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Lithuanian and Norwegian troops – troops from five of the seven founding members of the JEF. This hard-fought shared operational experience under UK command was too valuable to be allowed to atrophy, and the like-mindedness and cultural synergies were strong foundations to build on. Second, the UK, alongside France, led the European NATO contingent as “framework nations” in Bosnia, Kosovo and Libya, due to their expeditionary capabilities and mindset. Third, the UK had contributed to the EU Battlegroups concept since 2007, including a sovereign UK task force and a separate joint Anglo-Dutch unit. Last, the UK had strong bilateral military relationships with JEF members, such as extensive UK 3 Commando Brigade cooperation with the Norwegian military and the UK–Netherlands Amphibious Force, which has operated since 1973. + +UK C2 experience and maturity is valuable to Europe. By 2015, the JEF had reached IOC with the signing of the Foundation MoU, which advanced the structure and operation of the JEF, including staffing, funding, administration and support. It also established the JEF C2 structure, with the UK’s Standing Joint Force Headquarters (SJFHQ) becoming the permanent 2* operational headquarters. + +SJFHQ was created to bring the JEF together as an entity, give it an operational identity and align it more closely to NATO. In an interview with the author, Stuart Skeates, SJFHQ’s first commander, described its ambition to be a fully deployable headquarters focusing on a specific problem set and a geographically bounded area of operations. At the time, NATO had not completed the process of building its defence and deterrence strategy and so there was a gap in the sub-threshold and deterrence space that the JEF was designed to fill. Moreover, the JEF gave the option to “swing in behind the US in support of NATO” within an established C2 structure. This is particularly valuable for JEF members – which each have strong bilateral relations with the US through separate defence cooperation agreements and are committed transatlanticists – as it provides a complete and trusted mechanism to support the US independently of NATO. + +This contrasts directly with the UK–France CJEF, which has developed alongside the JEF, and which is also commanded from SJFHQ. A product of the Lancaster House Treaty of 2010, it is mission specific and not a standing force. However, the CJEF has been described as “a military solution to a political problem rather than a response to military need”. The political (rather than military) logic has made the CJEF a very limited framework, and one that has also had to operate in the context of a deterioration in bilateral relations following Brexit. Moreover, its C2 structure – one UK and one French unit (battlegroup or brigade) operating alongside each other – creates military and political frictions, with no overall commander, which goes against military command logic. This is demonstrated by the fact that after 14 years, and four years since it reached FOC, the CJEF still has not deployed, despite the demand and opportunity in the Sahel (2013–22), Kabul (2021) and Khartoum (2023) evacuations, or in supporting NATO deterrence and defence activities in the Euro-Atlantic. + +#### Regional Strength and Expertise + +The Russian threat to northern Europe is severe across all domains, but is especially so in the maritime and nuclear spheres, given that the region is home to Russia’s strategic nuclear forces and its prestige Northern Fleet. The July 2022 Maritime Doctrine of the Russian Federation declared the ambition to become a “great maritime power” and identified NATO and the US as central existential threats. The Arctic is explicitly a focus for strategic competition, and the combat capabilities of the Northern Fleet have grown to meet this. With its conventional forces severely weakened in Ukraine, Russia is highly likely to use hybrid and nuclear signalling to achieve its objectives in northern Europe. Combined with growing Russia–China cooperation, and a focus on strategic competition, the Arctic is likely to be a flashpoint for a wider conflict. + +The JEF’s maritime focus matches the primary Russian threat, and its regional expertise and specialisms enable it to act as a bridge between national defence plans – under Article 3 of the North Atlantic Treaty (“maintain and develop … individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”) – and the new NATO regional plans adopted at the 2023 Vilnius Summit. Moreover, UK and JEF interests and engagement straddle the NATO regional plans for the “Atlantic and European Arctic” and “the Baltic and Central Europe”, creating greater synergies, addressing seams and handoffs between the plans, and improving mutually reinforcing responses. + +The underlying defence principle of regional specialisation is as “old as NATO itself”. Regionalisation featured in the first 1949 Strategic Concept and was developed through the Cold War into five geographic regional planning groups (RPGs), which included northern Europe, so that “each nation should undertake the task, or tasks, for which it is best suited”. The 2014 FNC restated the principle of regionalisation to “work multinationally for the joint development of forces and capabilities required by the Alliance, facilitated by a framework nation … based on regional ties”. However, regionalisation is a contested concept within NATO and the “360-degree security approach” – geographically and by domain challenges – agreed at the 2016 Warsaw Summit serves a political rather than military logic, where blocs within NATO are discouraged. Here, the possibility of discord within the Alliance arises, where the JEF can be dismissed as a regional bloc or “NATO lite” within northern Europe, especially now that all members are also NATO members. However, this paper argues that the JEF has a growing value to northern Europe, and by extension NATO, and is more than the sum of its parts. However, it is ultimately the JEF’s responsibility to successfully make this argument within the Alliance. + +#### Political Utility + +The JEF has political utility for both the UK and its European members. The JEF is not just a defence framework; it has developed a significant political dimension (see Chapter II). In 2021, the JEF Policy Direction substantially advanced the JEF by establishing the strategic policy and political context. To deal with the assessed increase in strategic competition, it invited “greater political and policy input into JEF governance mechanisms”. At the time, the principal governance structures were all military – chiefs of defence, MoD permanent secretaries, and JEF defence policy and military directors’ (2*) meetings. As such, the input from member countries’ ministries of foreign affairs was minimal, as was political engagement. + +For the UK, the JEF is a power maximiser and, since Brexit, it has allowed the UK to demonstrate leadership and engage with Europe on defence and security, independently of NATO in a flexible way that serves its strategic culture. For its membership, the JEF has helped successfully bind the UK closer to the continent, and northern Europe in particular, where its military and diplomatic strengths are of most value, especially given the risk of US disengagement from Europe. + +The establishment and development of the JEF made it a prominent and effective responder to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The next chapter assesses how the JEF has responded to the war in Ukraine and the significant changes it has driven in European security. + + +### II. The JEF’s Response to Russia’s War in Ukraine + +The war in Ukraine has accelerated the JEF’s opportunity to realise its ambitions and increase its value to European security. This chapter considers how the JEF has responded to the war, within the context of NATO and UK leadership. It covers two areas of major development – the JEF’s growing political dimension and the focus on countering sub-threshold aggression in its core regions. + +#### European Security Following Russia’s War in Ukraine + +Russia’s 2022 large-scale invasion of Ukraine has shattered the European security architecture. It has driven the largest transformation of the NATO Alliance since the Cold War, including a new Strategic Concept, a new “family of defensive plans” and a significantly hardened defensive posture. Defence spending has increased to meet this ambition, with 23 allies projected to meet or exceed the NATO 2% of GDP target in 2024, up from just three in 2014. + +Outside Ukraine and Russia, northern Europe has arguably experienced the most fundamental change as a result of the war. The addition of Finland and Sweden as NATO members has transformed the region as a strategic space. The Alliance’s land border with Russia has doubled and its land area of operations has expanded by 866,000 square kilometres, while its maritime presence and control in the Baltic Sea has also increased. The UK and the JEF have played a significant role. First, the UK signed political declarations with both Finland and Sweden to protect them during the NATO accession process. Mutual security guarantees of this nature are not agreed lightly, and the speed with which these were completed is testament to the JEF and the ever-closer bilateral relationships between the UK and other JEF members. Second, the JEF adopted NATO interoperability standards at its inception, giving Finland and Sweden the opportunity to come closer to NATO, and as such the JEF acted as a stepping stone into the Alliance. + +For the UK, the war in Ukraine prompted a “refresh” of its defence, security and foreign policy. March 2023’s Integrated Review Refresh (IR2023) concluded that “the most pressing national security and foreign policy priority in the short-to-medium term is to address the threat posed by Russia to European security ... and denying Russia any strategic benefit from its invasion”. Underpinning this ambition, the IR2023 committed the UK to “lead and galvanise where we have most value to add, giving particular priority … to the contribution we can make in northern Europe as a security actor”. + +The UK, as a nuclear-armed geopolitical heavyweight with a geostrategic position in the North Atlantic, and with specialist capabilities – such as sub-sea, ISR and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) – can effectively counter Russian malign activity and act as a significant backstop to the US presence in the region. It can galvanise allies through NATO, through the JEF and bilaterally. Interviewees suggested that the format for UK engagement matters less than the substance of the agreements and how they are resourced. + +The UK’s strategic prioritisation of northern Europe has naturally evolved since the early 2010s, and it is so central to UK interests that it is highly likely that this focus will be reaffirmed in the next SDR. As climate change gradually starts to link the UK’s primary and secondary “strategic areas” of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific, this interest will only increase. However, without a commensurate increase in resources to deal with these growing challenges, there is a risk that the gap will widen between the UK’s policy commitments and military resources, which will also have an impact on the JEF’s ability to deliver on its stated missions. + +#### The JEF Response to the War in Ukraine + +The JEF’s activity in the 18 months following the Russian invasion increased eightfold compared with the preceding eight years. This included deploying its headquarters to Iceland and the Baltic states, dispersing multinational liaison officers throughout Europe, increasing exercises, and deploying military forces to strengthen critical underwater infrastructure (CUI) protection after JEF defence ministers activated Joint Response Option (JRO) 3.2 for the first time. + +However, volume of activity, rather than the effect, is a poor metric for success. The JEF’s brand and identity allow bilateral or modest cooperative activity to easily be “badged” as JEF activity, which inflates the data, making the JEF appear more active and effective than it is. What matters most is also the most difficult thing to measure: Russia’s response and reaction. Russia did react to the JRO 3.2 activation (which contributed to NATO deterrence in the region), rather than to a sole JEF activity. However, a scan of prominent Russian Telegram channels and media sources returns only very brief mentions of the JEF. Moreover, no Russian politician has referenced the JEF, and no opinion pieces have been written on it, leading to the conclusion that Russia barely notices it, or does not distinguish between the JEF and NATO. + +_A Distinct Political Dimension_ + +The shock of the scale and brutality of Russia’s war against Ukraine was a catalyst to accelerate the greater political and policy input that was requested in the 2021 Policy Direction. The JEF held its first-ever leaders’ call the day after the invasion, and its first “Leaders’ Summit” within three weeks, in London, attended virtually by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised the flexibility, decisiveness and value of the JEF, and, given that UK officials had thought a leaders’ meeting through the JEF as a framework was “unthinkable” before the war, this demonstrated its ability to rapidly adapt to an unprecedented security situation. Leaders’ meetings are now an annual feature of JEF governance, alongside regular meetings of national security advisers, further expanding the format outside national ministries of defence. + +The increase in scope and attention creates a tension of governance. The 2018 MoU began to expand the JEF away from a defence-centric framework with the commitment to be “combined, joint and interagency by design”, with the acknowledgement that “other levers of government” and the private sector are required to address the challenge of sub-threshold competition and to “maximise JEF integrated effect”. The focus on CUI demands increased private sector input and integration, as most of the infrastructure and surveillance coverage are commercially owned. Interviewees suggested that although the JEF was set up to be interagency by design and wanted more private sector involvement, these are areas that need improvement. + +To increase its effectiveness, therefore, the JEF needs to expand outside defence and become more prominent across member governments. However, if it becomes too expansive, some of its flexibility and decisiveness could be lost in the quest for cross-departmental consensus. In interviews for this paper, it was clear that there were differing views between military and diplomatic officials, with some of the latter only really engaging with the JEF from 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In addition, concern was raised that increased political attentiveness could directly and indirectly increase ambitions, but not necessarily resources. Official defence interviewees were already concerned about overstretched resources before the JEF tempo increased to respond to increased Russian aggression. However, it could also be argued that the JEF has already achieved a great deal with only modest and organic resourcing – proving the validity of the original logic behind its creation. This would also suggest that the power maximiser effect of the JEF is significant and that any increase in resource directed towards the JEF will also be maximised and provide a greater collective effect. + +_Support for Ukraine_ + +Support for Ukraine has become a major political output of the JEF. + +![image04](https://i.imgur.com/VBMZWO0.png) +_▲ __Table 4: Comparison of JEF and European NATO Support to Ukraine by Volume of Economic, Military and Humanitarian Assistance, as of October 2024.__ Source: Author calculations based on the [A Antezza et al., “Ukraine Support Tracker Data”, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, August 2024 (excluding Albania and North Macedonia, which are not included in the dataset)](https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/ukraine-support-tracker-data-20758/)._ + +When Ukraine assistance is measured as a percentage of GDP (2021 figures), the top 10 countries include eight JEF members. By the time of the 2024 NATO Washington Summit, 17 of the 34 G7 bilateral security agreements with Ukraine (committed to following the 2023 NATO Vilnius Summit) had been signed, eight of which are with JEF members – all ahead of the US. The final two JEF members’ agreements were both in advanced negotiation stages at the Summit. + +The support for Ukraine is also qualitatively impressive. Many JEF countries have provided more critical capabilities, more quickly, and through close engagement between members. For example, Denmark and the Netherlands have led on the F-16 fighter coalition, while Sweden has donated two Saab Airborne Surveillance and Control aircraft, which will greatly enhance the F-16s’ combat ability and compound their advantages. Elsewhere, the UK has partnered with Norway on the Maritime Capability coalition and with Latvia on the Drone Capability coalition, making best use of country specialisms. + +Politically, the JEF seems to operate in a similar way to its military 1+1 mechanism. The UK was the main signatory of the 2023 Tallinn Pledge – the first joint statement to fully commit to “expelling Russian forces from Ukrainian soil” – alongside nine other European countries, of which six are JEF members. Therefore the JEF can collectively apply pressure and keep each member honest on the delivery of commitments, in addition to pushing other European states to do more. + +Support for Ukraine has also helped to drive intra-JEF cooperation through the previously mentioned capability coalitions and through training programmes. Operation Interflex, the UK-led military training mission for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), also supports external cooperation and political partnerships. It includes 14 countries (half of which are JEF members), including Indo-Pacific powers such as Australia and New Zealand, which share security interests in Ukraine and elsewhere. + +The JEF is limited by what it can offer Ukraine militarily, outside of supplying arms and training AFU troops. The 2023 JEF Visby declaration invited Ukraine to observe JEF exercises in 2024 and 2025 so as to increase interoperability and capability development. While politically supportive, the declaration has little military utility for either side – Ukraine does not operate in the JEF core regions, has very limited maritime capabilities, and cannot share the troops. Nonetheless, Ukraine has become the crucible of wartime innovation, where the potential of the JEF as a “test bed” is significant, and this factor must be exploited as soon as possible to best prepare JEF members for a potential war against Russia. + +Interviewees unanimously expressed the view that JEF support to Ukraine should remain as advocacy and as a guiding principle to galvanise commitments and increase pressure on JEF members and non-member allies to do more. They were concerned that the JEF should not adopt a more formal role, due to an already complex support architecture, through the Ramstein format, NATO and the EU – to avoid duplication and maximise effort. None of the 24 interviewees advocated for JEF membership to be extended to Ukraine. + +_Optimising for Sub-Threshold_ + +The failure of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and the resulting war of attrition have severely weakened its conventional fighting power, increasing its reliance on sub-threshold aggression. Attacks and incidents on CUI (not all attributed to Russia) have already become more overt and disruptive to the functioning of NATO societies, including underwater cables between Svalbard and Norway, two Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, and the Baltic Connector data and energy links between Finland and Estonia, where the JEF deployed a maritime task group in response. + +To respond to this challenge, the JEF is reorienting towards protecting critical national infrastructure, and particularly CUI, through increased cooperation, surveillance and exercising, as an added layer of protection for its members. In December 2023, the JEF activated JRO 3.2 for the first time, which was immediately built on through the June 2024 Exercise Nordic Warden, consisting of 30 ships from the full 10 members, to intensify cooperation, increase surveillance and monitor vessels of interest in order to deter any sabotage attempts. It supported the annual NATO Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) exercise in the region, demonstrating the seamless interoperability with NATO. + +While valuable, the JEF is operating in an increasingly congested space, with challenges regarding ownership, governance, legislation and duplication of effort. CUI protection is first and foremost a national prerogative under NATO’s Article 3. It is also a multinational responsibility for NATO, which has created two new organisations – the Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure, at its headquarters in Brussels, and the Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell (to coordinate allied activity by bringing together military and civilian stakeholders) at its Maritime Command (MARCOM) at Northwood, UK. In addition, the EU’s resilience agenda under its Strategic Compass provides another layer, along with the EU Hybrid Toolbox (including the Hybrid Fusion Cell and new Hybrid Rapid Response Teams) and new maritime strategy and expanded directive on CUI. There is also an EU–NATO Task Force on Resilience of Critical Infrastructure. These enhancements have all occurred since the Nord Stream sabotage, despite UK officials warning of the threat five years earlier. Indeed, the 2021 Policy Direction highlights the increased demands of countering sub-threshold activity in all domains, and Exercise Joint Protector in 2021 had already started to focus more on sub-threshold interoperability. With NATO’s new military strategy and the Defence and Deterrence of the Euro-Atlantic Area, it was gradually hardening its conventional defence posture, so the JEF, to be complementary, focused on sub-threshold. + +Dick Zandee and Adája Stoetman have suggested that in this contested space, the JEF should become a “gap filler” or “security bridge” between national and multinational frameworks, and between NATO and EU efforts. As the JEF is not tied to the rules and regulations of either NATO or the EU, it has more options to respond. It is also an ideal framework to civilianise the response, but it could slow the response capability of the JEF if it becomes too cross-departmental and bureaucracy increases. Zandee and Stoetman conclude that a lack of consensus makes it more important to define more clearly the roles and functions in the hybrid domain, and therefore a mission statement on the exact contribution it will make to hybrid is needed. + +General Jim Morris, former commander of SJFHQ, explained during an interview that the JEF’s persistent Joint Integration Options (JIO) and proactive JROs were specifically developed to operationalise and cohere national options and responses together as “integrated military activities”. He dismissed the idea that this was merely “badging” extant or bilateral activity and argued that they have developed a genuinely cohered response and provide options for the future based on multiple scenarios. Moreover, he argued that NATO responses were linear and could only gradually move up the escalation ladder as each response was agreed and activated, but the flexibility and speed of the JEF allowed it to use JROs to provide additional deterrence effect in the right place and at the right time. This is consistent with the intent in the 2023 Defence Command Paper “to provide an additional tier of defence, security and stability” to NATO. + +There are also limitations to this approach. The JEF chose not to directly respond following the Nord Stream attacks, as any response operation would have needed to include Germany because of its pipeline ownership and position as a major Baltic Sea power with 1,000 kilometres of Baltic coastline. Germany is increasing its maritime role in the Baltic Sea through hosting NATO’s Baltic Maritime Component Command (BMCC), which would make closer German and JEF maritime cooperation more important to support the JROs and JIOs. The JEF could also benefit from the growing bilateral UK and Germany defence cooperation under the Trinity House Agreement, which could enhance coordination between the UK-commanded MARCOM and SJFHQ, and Germany’s command of the BMCC. + +Indeed, a major challenge for the JEF is how to operate within the Baltic Sea with Germany, and Poland, on the outside. Moreover, in April 2024, a new agreement was signed between Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK (four of which are JEF members) to protect CUI across the North Sea countries. The fact that the signatories thought that an additional agreement was required, covering a JEF area of focus and a region in which it operates, suggests that its role is ill defined and not fully accepted in Europe. Most recently, on 17 November 2024 – while the JEF was on Exercise Joint Protector 24 in Latvia – two undersea internet cables (one between Finland and Germany and one between Sweden and Lithuania) were damaged. The Yi Peng 3, a Chinese-flagged vessel, is suspected of dragging its anchor to damage the cable, which echoes the New new Polar Bear’s actions during the 2023 Baltic Connector incident. At the time of writing, the Yi Peng 3 was anchored in international waters between Denmark and Sweden, refusing requests by the latter to move into Swedish waters to support investigators. Thus far, there has been no public statement on the JEF and no JRO activated, with individual members responding. + +#### Shaping Strategy + +The central weakness of the JEF’s role of becoming a gap filler or strategic bridge is that it is outsourcing strategy to external organisations. Moreover, those gaps are likely to change over time, providing less control over JEF development for its members. The JEF aspires to operate across the spectrum of conflict, but it is becoming squeezed at both ends as NATO returns to defence and deterrence as a priority at the higher end, while, at the other end, sub-threshold (particularly CUI protection) becomes an increasingly congested area where the JEF’s role is unclear, despite increased effort. Since the JEF’s reorientation to CUI protection, it has not dropped its objective of operating for high-intensity intervention or warfighting with a force of up to 10,000. The JEF has developed iteratively, initially with the Letter of Intent, then various MoUs, the 2021 Policy Direction and latterly the JEF vision. This has led to the JEF adding tasks, rather than making an honest appraisal of how new responsibilities have an impact on existing ones. A JEF strategy would help define its purpose, value and role better, especially to non-member allies. + +In response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the JEF now has a fully functioning political level, and operational and tactical level cooperation is delivered through the JIOs, JROs and exercising. The JEF strategic level, therefore, appears to be missing. Greater political interest in the JEF is an opportunity to better define a strategic level, especially in anticipation of demand increasing over the course of the next decade as European security deteriorates and the US leaves gaps in European capabilities in northern Europe. The next chapter explores how the JEF can further develop to meet this requirement. + + +### III. The JEF and the Future of European Security + +This chapter examines the imminent challenges to the UK and the JEF within the context of a deteriorating European security environment and uncertainty about US commitment and posture. It provides recommendations to the new UK government – as it undertakes its SDR – on how best to strengthen the JEF and increase its value to European security. + +#### The Strategic Context + +The world is becoming more dangerous and volatile, with a convergence of threats emanating from an “axis of authoritarian states” – Russia, China, Iran and North Korea – which are actively challenging the rules-based international order. These threats are becoming more interlinked, with China now designated a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and Iran and North Korea actively supplying significant lethal aid. Russia’s war against Ukraine has shattered the European security architecture, which is experiencing its most serious crisis since the end of the Cold War, and longstanding pillars of European security are being undermined. + +First, the European security architecture has gradually, and then suddenly, deteriorated, alongside a near total erosion of the arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation architecture that has contributed to strategic stability on the European continent since the Second World War. The extent of the degradation of this architecture means that a redesign, rather than reform, might be required, leading to bolder changes to tackle greater challenges. + +Second, there is growing concern over the reliability of the US security commitment to Europe. President-elect Donald Trump’s public statements of ambivalence towards NATO and intention to pressure Ukraine towards negotiations with Russia are already causing concern in European capitals. Amid the convergence of threats and growing strategic power competition, the US faces four adversaries across three theatres (the Euro-Atlantic, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific), but has the capacity to fight only one major war. US strategic interests will continue to shift towards Asia and the “pacing threat” of China, with US attention and assets in Europe following. Consequently European NATO (and Canada) will need to do far more for defence and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic and to maintain support for Ukraine. + +Third, war with Russia is a realistic possibility. NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept stated that “the Euro-Atlantic area is at peace and the threat of a conventional attack against NATO territory is low”, whereas its 2022 version assesses that the “the Euro-Atlantic area is not at peace … and we cannot discount the possibility of an attack against Allies’ sovereignty and territorial integrity”. NATO and member state assessments of when they will be ready for war range between three and seven years. + +Within this global context, the JEF is at an inflection point. It has made a growing contribution to northern European security over the past decade, but it is yet to be tested politically or militarily in a strategic crisis-management scenario. Its growing political dimension has also made the framework too big to fail, as such a failure would mean a serious loss of credibility and trust in UK leadership in Europe. To navigate the remainder of the decade, European security will demand much more from the UK and the JEF. + +This is a strategic imperative, and one that the UK cannot afford to miss. And, as the new Labour government completes its SDR, it also constitutes an opportunity. UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey has directed a “NATO first” defence policy and will apply a “NATO test” to all UK defence capabilities. + +Under the new NATO defence plans and Article 3, and given the complementarity of the JEF to NATO, a “NATO test” is also a “JEF test”, and the latter should feature prominently in the SDR. The war in Ukraine has exposed the UK’s “hollowed out” forces and military deficiencies, especially in terms of readiness for high-intensity warfighting at scale. As the JEF is a power maximiser for the UK, in the short term it can provide the UK with additional diplomatic and military support to get the UK ready earlier. Indeed, the UK is already relying on NATO and JEF allies to cover critical capabilities. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Victoria – the UK’s sole solid support ship – is to be placed on long-term layup due to a lack of trained crew, making the Royal Navy wholly reliant on allied and partner navies for logistics support to operations, with the Royal Norwegian Navy providing support to sea trials, and possibly having to provide support on the next UK carrier strike group deployment to the Indo-Pacific in 2025. + +_Establishing a Distinct Role in the Northern European Security Architecture_ + +Within such a reconfiguration of European security, there is an opportunity for the JEF to establish itself fully and to more clearly define a distinct role within the security architecture of Northern Europe. To achieve this, several interviewees suggested that the JEF should ask NATO precisely what this role should be – as it derives its legitimacy from the Alliance – even if it did not necessarily like the answer. This would also have the added advantage of engaging non-member allies directly. + +As a first step, the core JEF documentation should be revised, as it does not reflect the significant changes in European security brought about by Russia’s 2022 large-scale invasion of Ukraine, nor the likely future demands on the JEF. A refreshed JEF Policy Direction, MoUs and JEF vision should therefore be consolidated into an all-domain and cross-department “JEF strategy”, to include the following elements: + +1. The 2021 Policy Direction states that: “The JEF is not directed towards any particular country or actor” when, just four months earlier, the UK’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy had labelled Russia as the “most acute threat” to Euro-Atlantic security. Russia should be called out as the primary threat, in all domains, so as to support NATO defence and deterrence activities, align with the UK government, and mitigate the tendency in Europe towards self-deterrence. + +2. The principal geographic areas of interests of the JEF are the High North, and the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea regions. The Arctic is not explicitly included, despite growing Russian military activity, growing Russia–China cooperation, and six of the JEF’s 10 members also being members of the Arctic Council (alongside the US and Russia). Including the Arctic would create greater synergy with US, NATO and UK policy, and also provide the UK with greater permission and opportunities to engage. Although US strategic interests are increasingly dominated by the “pacing threat” of China, they do not solely manifest themselves within the Indo-Pacific. The 2024 US Department of Defense Arctic Strategy relies heavily on working with allies and partners “to preserve the Arctic as a secure and stable region in which the U.S. Homeland is defended and our vital national interests are safeguarded”. Therefore, more UK and JEF engagement in the Arctic would benefit the US, and it is also an area where Europe can best keep the US engaged in European security – given the region’s centrality to US national security – and is a focal point for greater Russia–China cooperation. + +3. A mission statement should be agreed, alongside NATO and the EU, that clearly defines the role of the JEF in protecting CUI and countering hybrid operations in northern Europe, alongside collaborative mechanisms to ensure all of the organisations develop in a complementary way. + +4. While the JEF has more recently chosen to concentrate on sub-threshold and CUI protection, the extant policies and MoU still commit the JEF to a range of operations, including warfighting, collective defence and deterrence, and full-spectrum conflict interventions. With NATO’s hardening of its defence posture since 2022, the role of the JEF in supporting conventional deterrence and defence also needs clarification, with reference to NATO’s Article 4 (territorial integrity, political independence or security threats), Article 5 and DDA. + +5. The JEF vision should be revised to become forward looking rather than reaffirming past activities and commitments, and describe what the JEF should look like in 2035, with reference to a vision statement, mission statements, a unifying purpose and significant delivery milestones. + +6. The accession of Finland and Sweden to the Alliance has created a C2 headache for NATO’s command structure and a challenge in how to balance the requirements of the Nordic and Baltic states under the “Atlantic and European Arctic” (North) and the “Baltic and Central Europe” (East) NATO regional plans, with the need to be mutually reinforcing and supporting. Despite progress in this area, NATO C2 requirements are constantly evolving in response to the situation and several obstacles remain in operationalising the enlargement of the Alliance and in supporting the Nordic states to rebuild their warfighting capabilities. The UK and the US can help reduce these obstacles and maximise the opportunities of a united Nordic region within NATO. The July 2023 UK Defence Command Paper refresh stated that “as the Alliance looks to welcome in two new members, the UK will also lead the collaboration amongst Allies to shape a revised Control and Command structure, with a specific focus on Northern Europe – the regional area of greatest importance to our homeland defence”. As the NATO command structure continues to evolve, the UK’s C2 structures and maturity – both through SJFHQ and MARCOM – make it an ideal lead for any command reform across northern Europe. + +7. Duplication of JEF activity should be deconflicted and removed from that of the Northern Group of Defence Ministers. A process for both frameworks to work better together, alongside Nordic Defence Cooperation, should be designed. + +_The JEF and the Europeanisation of NATO_ + +Europeans stepping up on Euro-Atlantic security is often referred to as the “Europeanisation” or “European pillar” of NATO. However, this concept is ill-defined among allies, with little consensus in Europe on the scale, pace and methods required, despite the obvious need.129 While Europe as a whole is deciding what to do and what approach to take, the JEF can lead by example, as a vanguard force within the Alliance, in further augmenting European defence. As articulated in Chapter I, the JEF’s distinct advantages and military strengths provide a model for the Europeanisation of NATO and can guide the process in three ways: + +1. As a strong politico-military regional bloc within NATO which provides a serious offer to defence and deterrence, alongside transatlantic burden-sharing. + +2. As a united “pressure group” within NATO to push itself and other allies to increase defence spending, increase readiness, invest in critical capabilities, and be stronger and more united in dealing with Russian aggression. + +3. As a model for other groups of states to replicate regionally. + +Europeanisation involves more than just military capabilities. NATO currently operates a “360-degree” security approach – the belief that all allies should be able to operate in all regions and all domains – but this is only possible when backed by strong US leadership. If the US disengages, no single European power, or groups, can fill the vacuum. Therefore, an update to the RPG model and increased regionalisation might be the only way to keep NATO together in a configuration that is close to its current form. This would work best in northern Europe, due to the challenging operating environment, and, rather than undermine the 360-degree approach, increased regionalisation could be a strength. The JEF is an ideal model and there are options to replicate it geographically and thematically within Europe, provided countries step up to lead new groupings. This process would further inform the tasks to which the JEF should commit in northern Europe. + +_JEF Military Tasks in Northern Europe_ + +The JEF can provide more value to the UK, the US and NATO in northern Europe by seeking inspiration from NATO’s 1949 Strategic Concept and the direction that “each nation should undertake the task, or tasks, for which it is best suited … while certain nations, because of geographic location or because of their capabilities, will appropriate specific missions”. The JEF should offer itself up to NATO and the US as a strategic enabler in four areas: + +1. NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept states: “In the High North, Russia’s capability to disrupt Allied reinforcements and freedom of navigation across the North Atlantic is a strategic challenge to the Alliance”. As a warming climate opens the Northern Sea Route and links the Euro-Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific, there will be significant economic potential for Europe. The US and Canada, which already have Asia-facing ports and routes via the Northwest Passage and the Pacific Ocean, have little incentive to provide sea lines of communication (SLOCs) protection and freedom of navigation operations for the economic benefit of Europe. The JEF should accept this mission on behalf of Europe. + +2. JEF members are the primary beneficiaries of US transatlantic reinforcements. All Nordic and Baltic national defence plans can be summarised as fighting the “first battle” and holding Russian forces until US reinforcements arrive. It is also highly likely that any UK strategic reserve will fight on JEF territory. The UK’s strategic position within the North Atlantic and its theatre ASW capabilities make it a key enabler of transatlantic reinforcement. Therefore, the assurance of NATO’s transatlantic reinforcement plan could be a specific offer the JEF could make to the Alliance and the US, making a significant contribution to burden sharing and NATO defence planning, and ensuring that the US is further tied to northern Europe. + +3. The JEF should commit to persistent operations in its core regions and move from exercises to mission rehearsals, using live intelligence, situational awareness and greater connectivity that can scale to the immediate threat, instead of annual “set piece” exercises, such as the Joint Protector series. Russia is persistently operating in all domains against northern Europe. As any of these incidents could quickly escalate into an Article 4 or 5 situation, and as this is precisely where the JEF’s flexibility is a main advantage, it needs to be able to scale at a moment’s notice. While the JEF focus might be on CUI protection, it still aspires to operate across the spectrum of conflict and therefore it should rehearse conventional deployments, in credible strength, to have a real deterrence effect. This should include an increased ability to conduct information operations to create coherence across JEF members to counter Russia. + +4. A changing climate may necessitate future humanitarian assistance, disaster response and search-and-rescue operations. Delivering coordinated activity as a first responder under a JEF banner could be beneficial and follow the model of the 2014 Sierra Leone intervention. The House of Commons Defence Committee in 2023 described the requirement as follows: + +> The increasing exploitation of the Arctic for international trade and exploration for critical minerals gives greater importance to the role of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) as a security alliance in the “High North”. The Ministry of Defence should assess how the JEF might need to be adapted in the face of climate-change induced developments in the Arctic and beyond. + +At the time of writing, the US President-elect is assembling his top team. While his nominees still require Senate confirmation, some immediate reactions in Europe have characterised the process as “terrifying”, and the reliability of the US commitment to European security is openly being questioned. + +In this context, the importance of the JEF increases for several reasons. First, the JEF as a vanguard military force within NATO can mitigate the loss of some US military capabilities and enablers that underpin deterrence in northern Europe. Second, as leading military spenders in NATO and the biggest supporters of Ukraine, JEF members can collectively pressure allies to increase defence spending and support to Ukraine. Third, the JEF collectively, with the UK in the lead, is well placed to try to convince Trump of the value of European security to the US. The JEF – using the standing of the UK–US bilateral relationship and a new NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte (a previous prime minister of a JEF member since its inception, and a widely reported “Trump whisperer”) – can help counter the narrative of European free riding, prevalent in the modern US Republican Party, through demonstrating its commitment to collective defence spending and support to Ukraine. + +_Governance and Resourcing_ + +As the JEF becomes more political, it will become more unwieldy and could lose some of its flexibility and quick response benefits. To mitigate a “turf war” between Downing Street, the MoD, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the Cabinet Office, the JEF should proactively establish an agreed governance structure across Whitehall. The purpose of this would be to ensure that political and policy aims do not stretch the JEF military resources too far and widen the gap between expectations and reality. Greater involvement from the UK intelligence community should be sought to create a “10 EYES” intelligence partnership. Now that Finland and Sweden have unrestricted access to NATO Secret classified intelligence and above, this opens the door to greater collaboration, putting the UK at the heart of a global “JEFEYES” intelligence network. This would also create a significant redundancy in the event that Trump follows through with this threat to cut back intelligence sharing with Europe. + +In its first decade, the JEF has increased interoperability, coordination and coherence between its members, despite its modest resources. In each of the JEF members, there are only a handful of full-time military and official staff, split between policy and operational (HQ) roles. This includes in the UK (as the framework lead), where posts are split between security policy and SJFHQ, with liaison officers supplied by JEF members to the latter, making the JEF operational side better resourced than the security policy side, leading to an imbalance and an underdeveloped policy dimension. In terms of costs, the UK funds JEF operational activity, governance and administration, as outlined in the 2018 Comprehensive Memoradum of Understanding (CMOU), with JEF members meeting their own costs. Schedule 13.4 of the 2018 CMOU grants JEF members the ability to “share the costs of particular activities” defined by “the activity, national contributions and cost-sharing arrangements”. While this might have been sufficient until now, it is likely that it will not be sustainable in the future as greater demands are made of the JEF and as its ambitions increase. However, as a power maximiser, even modest increases in resources are likely to have a disproportionately large effect. + +Increased funding should prioritise reinforcing the JEF Secretariat, with additional staff drawn from JEF members. This would also be an opportunity to gain greater industry, private sector and academia involvement to make the most of the JEF innovation potential and gain quick momentum on initiatives. Furthermore, the UK MoD should look to JEF member countries to lead on any commissioned initiatives, such as a “JEF bank” or “JEF Digital”, if there is limited capacity within its own system; this could become a powerful development tool. + +_Increase Partnerships_ + +Interviewees were unanimous that the JEF had an “optimal membership” and thought that enlarging the membership, especially to a larger European state such as Germany or Poland, would dilute the JEF’s advantages too much. Instead, it was suggested that the JEF should increase partnerships and external engagement to prevent the “inside–outside” dynamic that exists within NATO. These partnerships should prioritise agreeing “plug-in options” whereby other countries can benefit from the flexibility of the JEF and contribute to certain missions, exercises and activities based on the situation and threat. + +The priorities for enhanced partnerships are Germany and Poland, due to their prominence within NATO and the EU and their key roles within Baltic Sea security and forward land forces on NATO’s eastern front, which, at a minimum, would benefit from increased deconfliction from JEF activity. Next, partnerships with the US and Canada should focus on providing High North security and SLOCs protection, and on assuring NATO’s transatlantic reinforcement plan in crisis and conflict. + +There is growing concern over Russian activity in the Irish Sea, including naval exercises in Irish waters, and the vulnerabilities this poses to Euro-Atlantic security, particularly CUI, with its significant concentration of undersea internet cables that network out to northern Europe. Given the geographical importance of the Republic of Ireland, the UK should also encourage greater engagement between the Republic of Ireland and the JEF on CUI protection, which could help manage the sensitivities surrounding Irish neutrality in a similar fashion to Sweden and Finland joining the JEF in 2017 while non-NATO members. + +The JEF can also make better use of UK partnerships. As an example, AUKUS recently developed an improved algorithm for its trilateral interoperability of the P8 maritime patrol aircraft, and its members are also planning to integrate UK Sting Ray torpedoes onto the airframe. The UK, the US and Norway operate a similar P8 trilateral operation in the North Atlantic, and this technological improvement could be extended to Norway and thereby increase ASW capabilities and improve the collective ability to counter emerging maritime threats. Furthermore, the growing UK–Japan relationship could help increase links with the JEF, which would be less contentious than doing so through NATO, which has been unable to agree on establishing a liaison office in Japan. The relationship between Japan and JEF countries will become more important as the Northern Sea Route becomes increasingly viable. + +_Innovation_ + +The JEF should maximise its innovation potential by creating a JEF Digital innovation and experimentation hub. Increasing the speed of adoption and value for money in defence software development would be a technological continuation of the CFI and Smart Defence initiatives. + +The new head of the British Army has emphasised the critical importance of software, in conjunction with hardware, to creating a “hybrid” system to transform from old to new ways of future warfare. He has spoken of emulating lessons from the battlefield in Ukraine, where the power and pace of technological innovation is significant, with tactical innovation cycles measured in weeks and in which Ukraine has unrivalled experience. As a result, the JEF could boost its own innovation and create more “wartime urgency” through advanced partnerships with Ukraine. + +A specific early area of focus should be in maritime uncrewed surface and underwater vessels, where Ukraine has achieved the “functional defeat” of the Russian navy in the Black Sea without operating a conventional navy of its own. Lessons of this nature could be a potent addition to the JEF’s arsenal in the Baltic Sea. The JEF should do this through the recently established NATO–Ukraine Joint Analysis Training and Education Centre so as to prevent duplication and make more effective use of existing mechanisms. In addition, the JEF should extend its innovation to adopt original funding mechanisms to pay for the above enhancements through a defence finance fund (a “JEF bank”) modelled on a multilateral lending institution. + + +### Conclusion + +Throughout its first decade, the JEF has proven itself to be a valuable addition to the European security architecture, most clearly demonstrated in three areas. + +First, the JEF member states have remilitarised quicker and further than the rest of Europe, and the JEF has evolved into a heavyweight military force within NATO, which is increasingly capable of responding to the Russian threat. Second, it supported the swift integration of Finland and Sweden into NATO through political support and the adoption of Alliance interoperability standards as baselines, creating a valuable stepping stone to membership. Third, it has led on diplomatic, military, economic and humanitarian support for Ukraine and has galvanised its membership, and the rest of Europe, to do more. Northern Europe is now a transformed strategic environment compared with 2014. + +However, the second decade of the JEF will be far more challenging as European security deteriorates following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Arctic is quickly becoming the fulcrum of strategic competition and is the area where Russia–China cooperation is most advanced. The re-election of President Trump will create a huge amount of uncertainty over the future of Ukraine and NATO’s ability to successfully defend and deter against increased Russian aggression. Consequently the demands on Europeans to step up and rebalance the burden of upholding Euro-Atlantic security will grow rapidly. While Europeans debate exactly how to do this, the JEF is already prepared, and should anticipate the incoming increase in demand by consciously stepping forward to shoulder more of the burden. + +Within this rebalancing of European security, there is an opportunity for the UK and the JEF to show leadership and set the pace – and standard – for the Europeanisation of NATO. The UK SDR process should therefore examine the value and role of the JEF – in support of NATO – and use it as a power maximiser for the UK and the JEF’s other members. A comprehensive cross-department and all-domain JEF strategy would enable it to be set on the right path for the next decade and the JEF’s future should be viewed as a whole-of-government cooperative mechanism. The JEF, alongside the UK’s nuclear capability, should be a central pillar of the UK’s contribution to NATO defence and deterrence and European security more broadly. Now is the time to meet its original intent – delivered in the 2012 RUSI speech – to be “the core of the UK’s contribution to any military action, whether NATO, coalition or independent”. Moreover, Ukraine has shown the need for defence procurement to be hastened and to significantly increase interoperability, and the JEF is the most productive vehicle to harness member comparative strengths and innovation. However, its funding and resourcing must be increased so that the JEF can prepare for the additional demand placed on it in a deteriorating Euro-Atlantic security environment. If the UK misses this opportunity, there will be a growing risk that the JEF fails to live up to its ambitions, leading to a serious loss of UK leadership and credibility within Europe. + +--- + +__Ed Arnold__ is a Senior Research Fellow for European Security within the International Security department at RUSI. His experience covers defence, intelligence, counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, within the public and private sector. His primary research focus is on the transformation of European security following Russia’s war on Ukraine. Specifically, he covers the evolving Euro-Atlantic security architecture, the security of northern Europe, and the UK contribution to European security through NATO, the Joint Expeditionary Force, and other fora. From 9e952daefa1120b8250c3b855e9088e710e1b7da Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2025 02:41:08 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 08/16] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x30 Jan.02 --- .../2024-12-09-wagner-group-for-russia.md | 180 ++++ ...024-12-11-strengthen-taiwans-resilience.md | 826 ++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 1006 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-wagner-group-for-russia.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-strengthen-taiwans-resilience.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-wagner-group-for-russia.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-wagner-group-for-russia.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..cecfe004 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-wagner-group-for-russia.md @@ -0,0 +1,180 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Wagner Group For Russia +author: Antonio Giustozzi and David Lewis +date : 2024-12-09 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/Upak1u7.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Did Wagner Group prove an effective tool for Russian foreign policy?" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_The paper seeks to answer the question of whether Wagner Group served Russian foreign policy aims or not, assessing its impact from a post Prigozhin’s death perspective._ _The paper is based on a review of the literature and on interviews carried out with current and former Wagner Group staff; Russian diplomats and military officers; and Syrian, Malian and Central African government officials, military officers, businessmen and local community elders._ + +The paper starts by discussing the nature of Wagner Group’s cooperation with the Russian state. The long debate on whether Wagner Group was just a front of Russia’s military intelligence was settled by the 2023 mutiny, which showed conclusively that it was not. The nature of the relationship with the Russian state could be described as a sort of an informal public-private part nership, in which the main value of Wagner Group was its flexibility and its ability to get things done quickly, in contrast to the rigidity and slowness of the rusty Russian bureaucracy. Wagner Group thus pioneered the renaissance of Russian “information operations”, after many years of complete Western dominance, and turned Russia into an active player in a number of African internal conflicts for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Whether this is good or bad for Russia is a different matter, but Moscow was seeking to become relevant again and Wagner Group delivered that. + +Overall, the successful cooperation between Wagner Group and the Russian state lasted about 10 years, starting from Prigozhin’s first steps in the “information operations” field. The 2023 mutiny of course was a very important event in changing Moscow’s assessment of Wagner Group, but even disregarding that a number of important issues emerged, affecting both the sustainability of the Wagner model and its ability to serve Russia’s foreign policy goals. + +Russian officials still praise the ability of Wagner Group to handle proxies, such as militias fighting local wars. Wagner’s disinformation campaigns have to a large extent been taken away from it after the mutiny, due to obvious distrust of its ultimate aims. However, the fact that the campaigns have not changed much since bears witness to the fact that Wagner’s contribution per se is still seen as at least adequate. Assessing the impact of such campaigns is not straightforward, but it is not unreasonable to say that at least some of Russia’s growing popularity in Africa was due to them. + +Wagner’s intervention in internal conflicts in Africa and Middle East is a more controversial legacy. Its failure in Mozambique was a significant embarrassment for Moscow, while Wagner’s contract to re-capture and then exploit Syrian oil and gas fields may have contributed significantly to the decline in Syrian-Russian relations. Wagner’s ruthlessly exploitative (in fact, neo-colonial) approach to Central Africa and Syria had the potential of undermining Russia’s image and to some extent it has already started doing so, not only in Syria as mentioned already but also in Africa. This is confirmed by signs that Moscow might be heading in a different direction in countries whose leaderships have resisted such approach, such as Mali. + +The very involvement in complex internal conflicts abroad carries risks: Wagner and with it Russia might get trapped in unmanageable and worsening crises, imposing costs that Russia cannot afford to bear and eventually undermining any advantages that “being relevant again”, as argued above, might have brought. Tension with an old ally of Russia such as Algeria over Wagner’s role in Libya and Mali is another aspect of the geopolitical risk implicit in relying on an actor such as Wagner Group in the pursuit of foreign policy aims. Moscow seems increasingly aware of these risks, but it has not been able to identify other reliable actors that could really replace Wagner. + + +### 1. Introduction + +Wagner Group’s international activities have featured regularly in the media in recent years. The coverage has sometimes been sensationalist, causing occasional panic in Washington and European capitals over Russian expansion, especially in Africa. After several years of Wagner operations in Africa and the Middle East, it is time to take stock of how useful the mercenary group has been to Russian foreign policy. + +There are different interpretations of its relationship with the Russian state and Russian po litical and military elites, but the dominant one is this: It has been seen by Moscow as a key tool of foreign policy in Africa – although it is far from Russia’s only lever of influence there. There are also differing views about its impact, but again the dominant one is that thanks to Wagner’s operations, Russia has dramatically raised its profile and influence in parts of Africa and would not have been able to do so without relying on Wagner’s unorthodox approach. + +The death of Yevgeny Prigozhin precipitated an unravelling of many of Wagner’s international activities. As a result, at the time of writing (September 2024), Wagner Group no longer repre sented a key component of Russian foreign policy. Nonetheless, we submit that its modus operandi and the reasons for its success remain important to understand, among other things because the Russians are trying to develop new approaches based on Wagner Group’s experience, and because other actors (such as Turkey, China, UAE) have been keenly observing its experience and are likely to be drawing their own lessons. + +This paper seeks primarily to answer the question of whether, from the perspective of mid 2024, Wagner Group overall contributed positively to Russian foreign policy. It is based on a series of 15 interviews with: current and former Wagner Group staff; Russian diplomats and military officers; and Syrian, Malian and Central African government officials, military officers, business men and local community elders. Some interviewees spoke in their official capacity or as external observers, but most of our sources spoke off the record. + +There are limitations to this methodology, with the research necessarly limited to oral sources, albeit with considerable support from news reports and analytical reports produced by other re searchers. Primary written sources, such as Wagner’s and Russian government records, are scant, aside from the few internal Wagner documents that have been leaked to journalists. There is also a range of social media channels, primarily on Telegram, that have served as public platforms for Wagner’s public relations campaigns. In addition to the interviews, this paper relies on the avail able literature, which now includes several books on Wagner and Prigozhin, many reports, a few journal articles and countless media stories. + +This paper is split into two sections. The first is dedicated to how Wagner Group and the Russian state cooperated and the nature of their relationship, while the second deals with the implications, both positive and negative, of contracting out state operations. + + +### 2. How Wagner Group Cooperated with the Russian State + +#### 2.1 Russian foreign policymaking + +The rise of Wagner Group took place during a particular phase of Russian foreign policy. The state – led by its political leadership – was just setting broad parameters for foreign policy strategy. After Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012, this strategy aimed to restore Russian global influence in ways that increasingly challenged the international status quo. Yet the implementation of this broad strategic vision was conducted through a disaggregated and decentralized system, in which there was significant room for policy entrepreneurs to pursue their own objectives. In this system, the division between public and private interests, and state and non-state actors, was blurred, and private financial interests and the goals of the state often overlapped. Competing institutions and agencies could pursue tactical goals in their own interests by aligning them with the declared strategic interests of the state. At times, different Russian interests worked on different sides of a conflict. The Kremlin sometimes allowed these competing initiatives to proceed, with the idea that if a private initiative failed, it was the private sponsor’s failure. If it succeeded, it could become a government project. + +Within this context, the fact that Wagner Group formed in the shadow of Russian military intelligence, the GRU, and with its support, is not necessarily particularly important. Inevitably, somebody within the Russian apparatus had to liaise and support Wagner Group, which would never have had the logistics and equipment to operate on its own. In post-Soviet Russia, the GRU emerged as the handler of most special operations abroad, so Wagner was an obvious partner. The assets provided to Wagner Group came from Russian Army and Russian Air Force stock, with the Russian Transport Aviation ferrying Wagner equipment and human resources around the world. The relationship with the GRU, however, does not per se imply, as has been argued, that Wagner Group was simply a GRU front, although the ties were often very close. Events in 2023 showed that Wagner Group had its own motivations, leadership and ethos distinct from the Russian state and military. Other so-called private military companies (PMCs) that emerged in 2022-23 were indeed little more than auxiliary forces for the GRU. + +#### 2.2 A public-private partnership + +Although Prigozhin almost certainly pursued his own leads and initiatives in Africa, it is clear that until the 2023 mutiny, there was a significant role for the Russian government in negotiating contracts for Wagner. According to Mark Galeotti, Prigozhin appears to have always sought clearance from the Kremlin first, even when the Russian government was not tasking Wagner with an assignment or funding it. The control of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) over military equipment also gave the Russian authoritiesit ways to control Wagner, or at least exert leverage. + +There do not appear to have been many cases of Wagner operating autonomously from the Russian MoD. In Syria, for example, according to Syrian sources, Prigozhin was introduced to Bashar Assad by Russian generals in March 2015, to discuss the prospects of mercenaries sup porting the regime with frontline operations against various armed opposition groups. The idea appears to have originally come from the Russian authorities, who did not want to risk their own men on the front line. When the MoD decided it did not need Wagner’s services on the battlefield anymore, according to a Syrian source and Prigozhin reached an agreement with the Syrian gov ernment over recapturing oil fields, the Russian government was privy to the deal. Even when Damascus later sought to end this contract with Wagner and asked the Russian authorities to agree to this, “The Syrian government was not able to kick them out,” due to Wagner being protected by the Russian MoD. This may appear surprising given the notoriously poor relationship between former Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Prigozhin, but the Russians might have wanted to shelter the Wagner-controlled contracts in the oil and gas sector. Only the 2023 mutiny changed their attitude, at which point Syrian hostility to Wagner’s business role broke overcame the Russian resistance and succeeded in pushing Wagner out of the country. + +In Mozambique, the Russian defense minister, a deputy defense minister and close advisors of President Putin played a core role in getting contracts involving Wagner Group, according to Wagner staff. Here, the bad blood between Prigozhin and Shoigu was evident again; a Wagner source reported that Prigozhin accused Shoigu of being “useless” in a conversation. To this day, however, Wagner Group remains on the contract with Maputo, the implementation of which has almost completely been frozen. According to Wagner sources, the group continues to operate as a provider of advisory services, although it keeps a low profile. + +The Russian authorities were also deeply involved in the negotiations that took Wagner to Mali and remained involved thereafter. Russian diplomacy even endorsed the controversial operation that led to the recapture of Kidal in November 2023, stating Russia’s support for Mali regaining full control of its national territory. In the Central African Republic (CAR), the role of the Russian government in getting the contract for Wagner’s activities is also clear. Russian diplomacy laid the groundwork for Wagner’s future role in the CAR by supporting the regime of President Faustin Archange Touadéra in the UN Security Council to obtain a partial lifting of the arms embargo that had been imposed on the country. Of course, these efforts by the Russian state do not mean that Prigozhin may not have taken the initiative in some cases and persuaded Russian officials to back him. + +The pervasive role of the MoD does not mean that all these operations and contracts were of equal importance to the military. From the perspective of the Russian authorities, the Sahel region was always more interesting than the CAR, the world’s poorest and least developed coun try. Wagner’s intervention in Mali, for example, was accompanied by the deployment of many more Wagner mercenaries and representatives of the Russian MoD compared to Wagner’s inter vention in the CAR. Even in the CAR, however, the Russian government was heavily involved. A Wagner source confirms that in the early phases of Wagner’s arrival in the country, the key role in securing the contract with Bangui was played by Andrei Averyanov, a deputy head of the GRU, and Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, a deputy defense minister. The original 2017 agreement entailed a 30% share of the revenue going to the MoD, which would in turn provide the equipment needed by Wagner for free. Moreover, Russia’s interest in the CAR could increase in the event of any major agreement being signed with Cameroon or Chad, or both, or if the conflict in Sudan (where Russia has important strategic interests and Wagner had a mining contract) ends. + +The MoD-Wagner partnership was not without friction, however. Besides the Wagner mutiny in Ukraine and rather well publicized disagreements in Syria (see the next section), there were other cases. For example, a resentful Wagner leadership responded to any mishap or failure by scapegoating the MoD. On the failure to deliver on the contract in Mozambique, where Wagner Group proved inept at jungle warfare, a Wagner source faulted the MoD assessors and advisers whose views had shaped the deal signed with the Mozambican government. + +#### 2.3 Wagner’s flexibility + +For the rusty, bureaucratized and overstretched Russian armed forces of the Putin era, up to the early stages of the current war in Ukraine, Wagner Group offered adaptability and quick solutions – in other words, flexibility. It was this flexibility that enabled Russia to project force rapidly into geopolitical hotspots, beginning with the early deployment of Wagner into Syria in 2015. This flexibility remained a key advantage for the Russian authorities, even in Syria, where operations were marred by the poor relations between Wagner and Prigozhin, on one side, and Shoigu and the MoD in general, on the other. Prigozhin’s claims of MoD “betrayal” after the Battle of Khasham in Syria, where Wagner forces were hammered by the Americans, are usually interpreted as the main point of friction with the MoD. In any case, even as the MoD tried to distance itself from Wagner in different armed conflicts, it repeatedly went back to Prigozhin when it found itself in need of Wagner’s competencies. For example, after the recapture of Palmyra from the Islamic State in March 2016, Shoigu reportedly decided to end Wagner’s contract. Months later, in December 2016, the Islamic State retook Palmyra, and the MoD once again issued weapons to Wagner to take back the city. As John Lechner and Marat Gabidullin note, however, it took some persuading to return Wagner to the battlefield: + +> When Russian Gen. Aleksandr Dvornikov denigrated Wagner’s role in the fighting in Syria, an infuriated Prigozhin sent his men back to camp. It was only under great pressure that Wagner rejoined the conflict. + +A similar situation appears to have played out in the invasion of Ukraine, where the MoD initially relied on mercenaries from the PMC Redut and other MoD-controlled contractors, before requesting help from Prigozhin and Wagner after the Russian army suffered a critical shortage of personnel in the wake of the failure of the initial strike in February 2022. + +Wagner’s flexibility also included its diplomatic impact. The group offered a low-cost vessel for Moscow to respond rapidly when opportunities arose to compete with the West. This was not a carefully planned strategy, and at times both the Russian state and Wagner have been highly opportunistic. Perhaps the best characterization of the relationship is that the sides shared the belief that profit-seeking business and foreign policymaking are not merely compatible but also naturally synergistic. In fact, both sides were, at least for a time, operating like venture capitalists: taking and exploiting chances to make gains, diplomatic and financial. + +In case after case, Wagner was able to respond quickly to fill a security vacuum left by others. In the CAR, a Wagner force arrived in mid-2018 to bolster the Touadéra regime against rebels after France withdrew its troops in October 2016. In Libya, Wagner forces deployed to support the rebel Libyan National Army (LNA) of Khalifa Haftar against the Tripoli government, also in the context of a lack of international engagement in the Libyan civil war. In Sudan, the pariah status of President Omar al-Bashir allowed a Prigozhin-backed company, Meroe Gold, to set up operations in the country in 2017 on very privileged terms. + +In the case of Mali, it was arguably Bamako’s own miscalculation that led to the sudden de cision of President Emmanuel Macron to pull French forces out of the country, followed by the withdrawal of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MI NUSMA). According to a Malian official, the Malian junta’s intent does not appear to have been to replace the French with Wagner. Indeed, if they had wanted the French to leave, they had not shown it and later complained loudly about the French abandoning them. Rather, they sought to renegotiate terms and get more options. When the French contingent was deployed, Malian elites never seriously considered measures either to strategically defeat the jihadist insurgency or to reach any compromise; their concern was protecting the capital and the regime. They appear to have assumed that a military solution would eventually be possible, once they expanded their arsenal. The Russians and Wagner were quick to exploit this unexpected opportunity. + +This profit-seeking and business-oriented approach soon showed its drawbacks, however. Wag ner was not always prepared to tough it out when the costs were deemed too high. Take the above mentioned Wagner deployment to Mozambique in 2019 to carry out counterinsurgency operations in the north of the country: When Prigozhin decided to bail out after Wagner took unexpectedly high casualties in the jungles of Cabo Delgado, Shoigu was “not happy,” according to a Wagner source, suggesting that the premature withdrawal was incongruous with broader Russian plans for deeper ties with Mozambique. Note that while Wagner Group has a track record of not being casualty averse, this situation required additional risk that the reward from the relatively small Mozambican contract did not justify in pure business terms. + + +### 3. The Pros and Cons of Contracting out State Operations + +#### 3.1 Wagner Group as a handler of proxies + +Even after the 2023 mutiny, the Russian authorities assessed Wagner Group’s impact positively when it came to roles that the Russian army and the GRU found difficult to handle. Even in Syria, where Wagner Group came under heavy pressure from both the Russian MoD and Syrian government, Wagner was viewed as an asset because of its ability to manage militias and other proxy forces. Initially, the Russians were divided as to whether to push for a reform of the Syrian army or invest in militias, with the Russian security services and Wagner Group promoting the latter option. The Russian military had a very low opinion of the Syrian army, not least because “The Syrian government promoted a lot of useless people,” against Russian advice, according to one Russian military advisor. A Russian diplomat expressed resentment at Assad’s efforts to remove Syrian officers whose loyalty to the regime was uncertain, including those close to Russia. + +Although the Russian attitude toward relying on militias in place of the Syrian regular army fluctuated over time, after 2017 even the Russian MoD increasingly became convinced that there might be no alternative to militias. Wagner Group built a reputation for managing them relatively effectively, training and fighting alongside them. It is credited with having turned one Syrian militia, the ISIS Hunters, into a relatively effective fighting force. In January 2024, a Russian diplomat noted that “the private military companies […] changed the Russian plan for training the militias...” + +This was not new. The use of loyal proxies and militias had been central to Russia’s inter vention in eastern Ukraine in 2014, where Russian-backed Donbas militias, along with Wagner and various other PMCs, provided Russia with the opportunity to secure physical control of parts of the Donbas while the political status of these territories remained disputed. Wagner gained additional experience in training proxy forces and leading them on the battlefield in Syria, be fore extending this model of proxy warfare to other conflict zones, first to Libya, where the PMC trained and supported Haftar’s LNA, and then to the CAR and Mali, where local forces trained by Wagner played a central role in counterinsurgency warfare. + +#### 3.2 Wagner’s warriors for hire + +The use of proxies and PMCs gave Russian diplomats a useful layer of “plausible deniability.” The phrase “they are not there” (“ikh tam net”) became a popular slogan for Wagner, part of a wider myth of the group as a deniable, covert force that dated back to the deployment in Ukraine in 2014. This also reduced any domestic pressure on the Russian government because of casualties in overseas military operations. According to investigative journalism sources, 73-101 private contractors had died in Syria as of December 2017, versus 41 Russian servicemen. + +Although it worked with proxy forces, Wagner was also a fighting force in its own right – in contrast to some other PMCs, which acted more in training or advisory roles. Privately, many Russian officials have admitted that Wagner played a key role in Syria, even if publicly the MoD has downplayed its contribution. A Russian diplomat said that the Wagner Group had done “a lot since they arrived in Syria; they did what was impossible for Syrian security forces; they helped the Russian army take a lot of territory from terrorists in Syria.” Perhaps surprisingly, such views persisted in 2024. In April, a Russian military adviser in Syria said: + +> The private military companies, such as Wagner in the past, did a lot to support Russia; they joined the front lines of the war and retook a lot of territory. + +In the CAR, Wagner played a proportionally much bigger role than in Syria, crushing the opposition forces. That said, the challenges faced by the PMC in the CAR were modest in com parison to Mali and even more so to Syria. As one veteran commented, “… in 2021 […] we were fighting Séléka. And they were a lot weaker than the Syrians. The rebels only had a few beaten-up RPGs maybe some ‘Kalashes,’ or AK-47s.” Nevertheless, it was a military success, even though, from the Russian government’s perspective, the CAR was of limited geopolitical interest. Moscow even appears to have been ready to shut down all Wagner operations there, and only intervention by CAR President Touadera prevented that from happening. Owing to Wagner’s and Russia’s presence in Libya and the much greater geopolitical relevance of the Sahel, the Russian authorities were much more interested in Mali. + +Wagner’s performance in the CAR served as an advertisement of its potential for armed – and very brutal – counterinsurgency operations, something that contributed to their expansion into the Sahel. Initially, Russian officials supported Wagner’s deployment and its November 2023 Kidal offensive, which kickstarted the effort to reclaim the north of Mali. This suggests that Moscow had no objections to Wagner’s operations per se and that efforts to replace Wagner were entirely due to Prigozhin’s mutiny. How the Russian government assesses nowadays the role of Wagner Group in Mali remains unclear, after a disastrous foray into the north (that ended in an ambush in July in which numerous Wagner fighters were killed) highlighted the risk of the Malian government getting trapped in a conflict on three fronts, with no real prospect of victory. + +Wagner’s uniqueness was that it offered something that nobody else could offer. Other Rus sian PMCs, such as Redut and Convoy, had only experimented with combat operations: Redut originally worked as the security outfit of Gennady Timchenko’s Stroytransgaz in Syria, while in Ukraine Redut, working with General Vladimir Alekseev of the GRU, delivered fighters to the front line. Convoy did the same, contributing a volunteer battalion in Ukraine, allegedly spon sored by Arkady Rotenberg and Crimean separatist leader Sergey Aksenov. Redut reportedly performed poorly in Ukraine, suffering huge losses of personnel in the first weeks of the war. Overall, there is too little information to assess fully the performance of Redut and Convoy as sur rogates of Wagner in Syria and Ukraine, yet it is a fact that neither Redut nor Convoy had appeared in Africa as of mid-2024, and there is likely a good reason for that. The military services con tracts taken from Wagner after the mutiny were transferred directly to the Russian MoD’s PMC department, to forces operating under the “Africa Corps” label. As of mid-2024, the latter were reportedly operating in Libya, Niger and Burkina Faso. + +It is not just Russian PMCs that are unwilling or unable to provide combat capabilities for cash. As noted by Francisco José Matías Bueno, “After the bad experience of Blackwater Security Company, in this sector those jobs more linked to mercenary or high risk have been avoided. While Western companies have evolved into lower-risk services.” Here, Wagner found a niche for itself. “Many fragile states find themselves in a situation that is not too far from what Assad experienced a few years ago,” Bueno adds. Whereas Wagner Group was out of its depth in jungle fighting (where South African PMCs might well have had an advantage), in more open environments, even where highly capable enemies were present and, significant casualties were to be expected, Wagner – with its Spetsnaz heritage – had few, if any, rivals. The closest match is Turkey’s SADAT PMC, whose Syrian mercenaries were involved in intense fighting in Libya and took significant casualties. + +#### 3.3 Wagner’s disinformation campaigns + +Wagner’s other major contribution to Russian foreign policy came in the media realm. The Russian state has been keen to promote its narratives through outlets such as Sputnik and RT, which, in turn, have expanded their coverage in the Middle East and Africa rapidly over the past decade. Wagner added a new, more assertive and often creative strand to this media campaign, using social media, feature films, video clips and memes to both promote Wagner and transmit the broader Russian message. Prigozhin’s media teams were particularly adept at using local media outlets and African influencers to package this as part of wider Pan-Africanist and anti-colonial narratives. In Africa and parts of the Arab world, local social media influencers have promoted the Russian narrative on the Ukraine war. Prigozhin once described Wagner troops as “heroes defending destitute Africans and Latin Americans,” and this anti-colonial message is widely used to reach foreign audiences. After Prigozhin’s death, there was some reorganization of these media projects, with a new platform, African Initiative, seeming to have taken over some of them. + +Afrique Media TV (AM TV) is an example of this engagement with local media outlets. A media entity based in Cameroon, it commands a substantial audience across the continent. It was funded by Prigozhin at least until 2022, when that ended for unknown reasons. It also had an agreement with RT, which probably included funding that was continued after 2022. Many of the influencers supported by Wagner’s information operations team appear regularly on AM TV. Leveraging its extensive digital infrastructure, it has successfully amassed a following of over a million people. As of March 2024, this includes approximately 1,000,000 followers on Facebook and 955,000 subscribers on YouTube, giving it considerable reach. Kémi Séba, a popular Pan-Africanist who in 2018-19 appears to have had close ties to Prigozhin, has over 302,000 followers on Instagram, 255,000 on X (formerly Twitter), 1,300,000 on Face book, 280,000 on TikTok and 220,000 on YouTube. Although he later cut ties with Prigozhin, Seba has retained ties to figures such as nationalist polemicist Alexander Dugin in Moscow, judging by Dugin’s effusive X commentary about him. Another popular figure with ties to Prigozhin, Nathalie Yamb, has over 84,500 followers on Instagram, 410,000 on X, 84,000 on Facebook, 176,000 on TikTok, and 379,000 subscribers on YouTube. Drissa Meminta, a legal advisor and one of Mali’s best-known Pan-African activists, has 189,000 subscribers on Facebook. While these numbers do not necessarily mean impact, they at least show that many Africans receive their typically pro-Russian and anti-Western messages. + +Russian information campaigns appear to be effective in parts of Africa, especially but not only in Mali and the CAR, where they have been focused. In Mali, Sputnik France ranks between RFI and France 24, on the one hand, and French BBC, on the other. Surveys of public opinion in Mali have shown high levels of support for Russia and for Mali-Russia cooperation (98% ac cording to the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Mali-Metre). In 2024, Gallup found that across Africa, 42% approved of Russia’s leadership, up from 34% in 2022. It is hard to prove a causal link be tween the growing popularity of the Russian government and the information operations set up by Wagner, but it appears likely that the latter played a role in promoting Russia’s “brand” in Africa. While the information operations may have indeed been deemed successful, it remains unclear whether Moscow thinks that Wagner Group’s media role is as essential as its “warrior for hire” function: Prigozhin was often an innovator in media operations, yet Russian officials might now believe that they have become adept at manipulating the media, partly thanks to Prigozhin’s work. However, the Russian authorities seemed to be warming up to resuming cooperation with Wag ner’s information operations team in 2024, which suggests that they might have found its work, to some extent, irreplaceable. + +#### 3.4 Wagner’s geopolitical impact + +After 2012, Russia had begun to view Africa as a key area for restoring Russian influence (which had collapsed along with the Soviet Union). Soviet influence-building in Africa had been expen sive, and the Soviet Union collapsed before it could reap any benefits, although Moscow continued to leverage the memory of its support for anti-colonial movements such as South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) to bolster support among some African states. + +Russia’s revived Africa policy was strong on rhetoric about sovereignty, anti-colonialism and multipolarity, but short on specific proposals that would attract support in Africa. President Putin criticized Western countries, which he claimed were “… resorting to pressure, intimidation and blackmail of sovereign African governments” but had little to offer in terms of economic aid or trade. Wagner’s mix of customized security provision and illicit dealings in minerals appeared as an ideal instrument for an economically weak Russia that wanted to compete with the West in Africa and the Middle East. Moscow viewed these regions as sites for proxy conflicts with Western powers – especially France in West Africa – and temporary alignments with Gulf powers, such as the UAE in Libya and Sudan. This represented both a geopolitical challenge to the West and an attempt to gain support among African states as new trading partners and potential votes at the UN. + +One of Moscow’s initial intentions in sponsoring Wagner interventions in Africa was to show that Russia was hardly “isolated” after 2014. Prigozhin was present at the inaugural Russia-Africa Summit – held in Sochi on October 23-24, 2019, and attended by 43 African leaders – and his security and commercial projects gave substance to Russian diplomacy. Even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when abstentions in the UN became an important diplomatic goal for Russia, Africa and the Middle East offered potential partnerships for Russia at a time when its relations with the West were already in sharp decline. Meanwhile, as mentioned, Russia’s influence in Africa has long roots. A major part of Russian diplomacy aimed to leverage the history of Moscow’s support for Cold-War-era anti-colonial movements, such as the ANC, to bolster current ties. However, one of the fixtures of Russian foreign policy has been the refusal to “waste” much needed resources on ideological causes abroad, which is how Soviet support for movements and states in Africa has been described. Although the debate has now reopened, for years, it was deemed financially irrational for Russia to resume a Soviet-style influence policy in Africa, when Moscow funneled billions of dollars to local proxies with little lasting effect. Modern Russia no longer had the economic resources for any economic largesse, it was argued. + +Economic ties were thus limited by Russia’s own limited resources: Major Russian energy and mining corporations had limited success in Africa, where they faced competition from both Chinese and Western investors. For a Russia without plush resources but with few scruples and big global ambitions, the Wagner model proved to be an important innovation. It offered close military and commercial engagement with elites in a small number of countries, from which Russia derived some geopolitical benefits. It was geopolitical influence on the cheap, with troop deployments covered directly by host governments or indirectly through mining and other business concessions. + +The most obvious successes of the partnership between the Russian government and Wagner came in Africa. Yet even there the Wagner model did not work everywhere. It was best suited to smaller, poorer, conflict-affected countries where Wagner’s military resources and commercial deals could be attractive for a local political elite and where Western states had few core interests; however, it was not attractive in larger, richer states, such as Nigeria. Moreover, Wagner Group and its less than polished delivery also caused major friction with some larger African countries. For example, Nigeria was concerned by Russia’s role in promoting divisions in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and supporting the formation of the Alliance of Sahel States. + +In addition, Wagner’s operations succeeded where they aligned with the anti-French positions of some countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Countries like Mali and the CAR sought Russia’s aid in counterbalancing or replacing neocolonial powers, eventually resulting in complete French with drawal, a major Russian success. Moscow’s growing influence in the Sahel, together with waning Western influence, would have been unlikely had it not been for the Wagner model. For example, nationalist feelings in the Malian army were exacerbated after 2021, when it felt humiliated by the way the French had seemingly turned from rescuers into occupiers. The Russians, through Wagner, positioned themselves to take advantage of this opportunity. + +Wagner and Russia are not immune from the risk of a souring of moods, however. Wagner’s advisers, whom some described as “foreigners who know nothing of the country” and who “are trying to take control of operations,” soon started making some Malian officers nervous again. This raises the question of how sustainable Russia’s gains through Wagner Group are. Regime change in Mali or the CAR could have disastrous consequences for Russia, but so could any major Wagner failure there. Geopolitical realignment by these regimes cannot be ruled out either. After all, as noted above, the Malian junta brought Wagner in exactly for the purpose of counterbalancing the French – tomorrow it might invite another actor to counterbalance the Russians. The same is applicable elsewhere. As a Russian adviser noted, CAR President Touadéra, recognizing both Russia and the West’s decreasing interest in the country, appeared to be playing up the geopolitical rivalry to shore up his regime. + +In some cases, the Russian government has already had to intervene to patch up problems created by Wagner Group. From Moscow’s perspective, the fact that the Wagner model was op portunistic and flexible was simultaneously its main selling point and its weak spot. In Sudan, it was widely assumed that Wagner Group smuggled weapons to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which are fighting the Sudanese army in the ongoing civil war, again on behalf of the UAE. Despite media reports that assume Wagner is doing Moscow’s bidding by trying to hedge its bets and keep a foot in each camp, there is no evidence of that. It looks rather dubious that the Rus sian government would trust such a delicate operation to Wagner Group, at least after Prigozhin’s mutiny and all the bad blood between the PMC and the Kremlin. In any case, in June 2024 the Russian government reportedly agreed to clamp down on any Wagner Group support for the RSF, in exchange for the agreement for a Russian naval base in Port Sudan to go ahead and Sudan’s links to Ukraine to be severed. If Wagner Group smuggled weapons to the RSF independently of Moscow, contributing to the Sudanese government teaming up with Ukraine to fight Wagner and the RSF, this would be a prime example of the negative side of Wagner’s “opportunism and flexibility.” + +In Libya, funding from the UAE and possibly other Gulf states allowed Wagner to establish a major operation in support of Haftar’s forces, simultaneously furthering Russia’s geopolitical interests. Wagner’s willingness to do Haftar’s bidding without restraint, however, ended up irri tating the most Russia-friendly government in the region, Algeria. The same applies to Wagner’s intervention in Mali, especially after it agreed to Bamako’s demands to retake Kidal in the north, definitively derailing the Algiers Peace Agreement. Despite allegations to the contrary, Algeria denies having helped Russia to deploy Wagner to Mali and claims that it even opposed Wagner’s deployment to Libya. One Algerian source nonetheless acknowledged that Algiers had concerns about the links to France of some Azawad groups. Whatever Algiers’ role in Russia’s interven tion in Mali, its attitude rapidly soured. Indeed, Russia’s alliance with the Malian junta and Haftar in Libya, both quite hostile to Algeria, was not appreciated in Algiers, which had invested diplo matic capital in sponsoring the peace accords of 2015 in the north of Mali and was not pleased to see them collapse. This resulted in considerable irritation in Algiers about Wagner’s deployment and Moscow’s role in that. The Algerians are worried, a Malian official said, “that Wagner would push armed groups across the border to cross into Algeria.” Algerian interviewees argued that involving Wagner and seeking a military solution would worsen the situation and that the Tuaregs needed to be integrated economically and politically. + +> You cannot defeat terrorism with guns and drones and whatever you have. In the long term, if you really want to unroot it, then you have to do something else, which is social, political and economic investments. And this is what is lacking in Mali and Niger. + +The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to engage in a serious diplomatic effort to calm the situation, especially after Haftar threatened war with Algeria and Algiers seriously considered intervention. + +> Algeria absolutely rejects the role of Wagner group and asks Russia to control the group so it does not deteriorate the situation in Mali and cross red lines for Algeria, and asked for its removal from Libya completely. It appears that this is an ongoing matter between Algeria and Russia, and they are certainly talking about it. […] The Russians say that their presence would reduce French domination, and this serves Algerian foreign policy interests. But Algeria says: French domination is one thing, Wagner is a different matter. + +The Algerians are said to have never really believed that Moscow was behind Wagner’s most provocative actions, such as the attempt to retake northern Mali, since it did not have much to gain from them. Nevertheless, Algiers strongly insisted that the Russians should fix the problem. + +#### 3.5 Wagner in Syria: The “right model” that “could be improved” + +In Syria, even after Prigozhin’s mutiny and subsequent death, Russian diplomatic and military sources rather highly rated Russia’s experience with the mercenaries in Syria. Despite the bitter end, as late as April 2024, a Russian military adviser in Syria claimed that “The private military companies, such as Wagner in the past, did a lot to support Russia.” A Russian diplomat argued that while the model was the right one, it could be improved. He acknowledged that Wagner Group was upsetting the Syrians because it was “operating without any warning,” “never shared anything about its next operation with the Syrian government and army” and “was careless about civilian casualties, and it committed crimes in most of their operations.” He was positive on replacing Wagner with Redut, claiming that Redut and the former Wagnerites under direct MoD contract were operating without any of the drug trafficking and fuel smuggling that had characterized the Wagner period. Hence PMCs and PSCs remain part of Russia’s plans: + +> In the future, we are going to invest in private military and security companies. Most of these private companies would be under the control of the Syrian security forces, as we know that they are helpful and would be better in Syria as well. Private companies would offer Russia a lot, securing soldiers, securing all our benefits in Syria, working for and saving the lives of Russian fighters as they have got fighters from different countries. + +Syrian diplomatic, military, and oil and gas industry sources confirmed that the Russian au thorities always defended Wagner against Syrian criticism and blocked Syrian attempts to take existing contracts, especially in the oil and gas sector, away from the group. It was only after the mutiny that the Russian authorities stopped protecting Wagner, working with the Syrians to get the group out of the country. + +#### 3.6 Wagner in Africa: Dependency carries benefits and risks + +The Russians have positioned themselves as a trusted partner of troubled countries in Africa, but they had little role, if any, in bringing these regimes to power. This yields considerable benefits for Moscow at a low cost. African elites increasingly seek to expand their agency and autonomy, mainly vis-à-vis the West and particularly former colonial powers. They seek to manipulate Wagner to their ends, making it deliver they want. This is true not just in Mali, but also in Burkina Faso. + +> It’s not that we’re pro-Russian or pro-junta,” the Burkinabe official told me. “For me, Wagner symbolizes a cry of frustration and desire for change. + +Along with this strengthened agency, however, some of these governments risk getting trapped in military adventures. In fact, Russia is increasingly becoming more than “trusted”: When the Malian government renewed its contract with Russia in early 2024, this was certainly less of a free choice than in early 2021, given Mali’s subsequent international isolation. The departure of other foreign military forces has made Bamako dependent on Wagner, without which the Malian armed forces lack the punch to challenge insurgent control. + +Such dependency is a risk for Wagner’s clients. By 2023, there were signs that at least in the CAR, this was giving rise to second thoughts among government officials. Wagner started to be seen as a difficult partner, which, having sold the CAR elite “a win-win partnership,” was no longer giving the CAR government “so much.” “The group’s harsh tactics, including rape, torture and other human rights abuses, as well as economic exploitation, have soured the relationship.” By 2023, “Touadéra was like a disabled man, walking with a cane, and that cane is Wagner,” noted Sergey Eledinov. Echoing this sentiment, other government officials were clear that “Without Wagner we’ll have issues within 48 hours”; “whether we want it or not, they are the ones who keep the hinterland safe.” In the words of the archbishop of Bangui, Wagner is “a lesser evil” than the rebel groups that controlled large areas of the CAR for years. + +This dependency is also a risk for Russia, which cannot afford to run away as Wagner can. The Mozambique example is illustrative: When Prigozhin opted to bail out, the Russian MoD was aghast – bailing out was not something they could afford, if only for the huge reputational damage that it would cause. To avoid that, Russia could get sucked into conflicts, to which it can ill afford to commit resources. In Mozambique, the Russians kept hanging around and are still in talks with Maputo about how to defeat the insurgency in the north. Maputo could wait because this is not a strategic threat, but the picture would look very different in Mali or the CAR if Wagner imploded or bailed out. + + +### 4. Conclusion + +Undoubtedly, Wagner Group’s venture capitalist approach produced successes and failures, but there is no question that overall it helped expand Russian influence in Africa considerably. The sustainability of this expansion, its geopolitical side effects and the potential risks involved are a different matter. + +The faith in the ability of “venture capitalism” to serve Russian foreign policy interests was shaken not just by Wagner’s mutiny in 2023 but also by the failure in Mozambique, growing Syrian resentment against Wagner and Algerian complaints about Wagner operations in Libya and Mali. + +While Russian policymakers seem to think that the balance sheet is still positive for Russia, there are also long-term risks to consider. Clearly, Wagner Group is rather embattled in Mali; even in Libya, the complex political and geopolitical situation has already forced Moscow to deal with a series of crises. + +African governments seem to like having a force for hire that they can mobilize at short notice to deal with geopolitical and security issues. It is not just a regime survival package: This descrip tion of Wagner’s services only really fits the CAR. A nationalist military regime like Mali’s, by contrast, wanted Wagner to reassert its sovereignty without compromises. This creates lasting opportunities for Wagner and Wagner-type entities, but these African clients can be demanding and, at least in Mali and Libya, have been able to dictate the agenda. Divergence from Russia’s interests is thus inevitable and inseparable from the expansion of Russia’s influence. Russia is taking serious risks by expanding influence through these means. + +Russian policymakers seem to accept that Wagner’s operations were a mixed bag; at the same time, they seem convinced that PMCs and mercenaries are here to stay, but also that improvements are needed. But will it be possible to separate what was good (for Russia) from what was bad in Wagner Group? Asserting more control appears to be the priority, but replacing Wagner with more pliable actors for its most important tasks appears to have already been deemed to be infeasible. Closer control over PMCs like Redut and over the Africa Corps – which are effectively auxiliary forces of the Russian military – means losing the flexibility that made Wagner effective, not to mention the business model that made it cost-effective. Moreover, closer Russian government association with such military deployments is not what most African clients want – they want mercenaries that respond to their needs, not Moscow’s. + +So far, the compromise solution has entailed replacing Wagner where feasible while keeping it on a tighter leash where infeasible. This new model was rolled out starting in early 2024, after 6-7 months’ worth of exploring various options. So far, tangible Russian achievements include a small contract to provide an air defense system to Burkina Faso, along with a revamp of the contract with Haftar in Libya, which had lapsed after the UAE withdrew funding in 2020-21. It is, however, too early to say how this post-Prigozhin approach is working out for Russia . While a correction away from Wagner Group’s excesses and exploitative approach could benefit Russia, is Wagner a beast that lets itself be tamed? More importantly, would Russia have an edge over the competition if all it had to offer were rather standard PMCs? + +--- + +__Antonio Giustozzi__ took his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and is currently Senior Research Fellow at RUSI. + +__David Lewis__ is Professor of Global Politics at the University of Exeter. He is a specialist on international relations, with a regional focus on Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-strengthen-taiwans-resilience.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-strengthen-taiwans-resilience.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..54ef480e --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-strengthen-taiwans-resilience.md @@ -0,0 +1,826 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Strengthen Taiwan’s Resilience +author: Daniel Byman, et al. +date : 2024-12-11 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/OO2Yx6m.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Strengthening Resilience in Taiwan" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Taiwan has taken important steps to strengthen resilience over the last several years. However, the threat it faces is significant, and it falls short in many important dimensions of resilience._ + + + +This report examines Taiwan’s resilience in the face of external threats, especially from the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan’s geopolitical, technological, and economic importance in the Indo-Pacific region has made it a focal point of U.S. strategic interests, especially in countering Chinese influence and aggression. + +In this report, resilience refers to the will and ability of a country, society, or population to resist, mitigate, and recover from external pressure, influence, or potential invasion, as well as non-geopolitical threats, including climate change, natural disasters, and global pandemics. The report develops a framework for assessing a country’s resilience that includes eight components: strategic design and command structures, legal authorities, strategic communications, civil defenses, critical infrastructure, will to fight, nonviolent resistance and stay-behind networks, and integration with allies. + +In assessing these areas, the report concludes that Taiwan has taken important steps to strengthen resilience over the last several years. But its efforts thus far are insufficient considering the enormity of the near- and long-term threats it faces. For example, while the Taiwanese government conducts annual drills such as the Han Kuang, Wan An, Min An, Tung-Hsin, and Tzu Chiang exercises, which simulate responses to invasions and blockades, there is little evidence of a coordinated and effective civilian readiness program that addresses economic and social disruptions. This gap is critical, especially considering current and future Chinese activities that could target Taiwan’s financial systems, electricity grid, telecommunications network, and other aspects of society. + +The question of the readiness and resolve of Taiwan’s civilian population to resist in the event of foreign aggression also remains concerning. Historically, sentiments seen in widespread public support for movements like the Sunflower Student Movement in 2014, which opposed closer ties with China, suggest the potential for resilience and resistance. However, without clear, robust civil defense education and mobilization strategies, the extent to which ordinary Taiwanese would engage in active resistance remains unclear. As evident in Ukraine’s heroic response to Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion, a population’s will to fight is vital not only to the act of resistance but also for galvanizing international support. + +___`Taiwan has taken important steps to strengthen resilience over the last several years. But its efforts thus far are insufficient considering the enormity of the near- and long-term threats it faces.`___ + +The report also concludes that there is a lack of U.S. and international attention and effort to systematically assess Taiwan’s resilience and develop a comprehensive assistance plan to improve resilience. Much of the U.S. military focus has been on providing military capabilities and training to Taiwan to help resist a conventional invasion. The United States has also engaged with Taiwan through initiatives like the U.S.-Taiwan Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue (EPPD), which includes a focus on technology and security. However, U.S. efforts have not been sufficient to help Taipei meet the full spectrum of threats it faces, including increasing pressure in the gray zone, or to prepare society as a whole to withstand external threats and coercion. As this report’s review of historical cases suggests, a population that lacks resilience is vulnerable to external aggression and internal division. A robust societal resilience strategy is essential not only for deterrence but also for the long-term survival of Taiwan and its society in the face of Chinese aggression. + +To help improve resilience in Taiwan, this report contains specific recommendations in such areas as (1) raising threat awareness among the people of Taiwan through a more systematic strategic communications plan; (2) improving ties to the private sector, including companies involved in critical infrastructure; (3) bolstering Taiwan’s energy infrastructure, especially in such areas as the power grid; and (4) increasing strategic reserves and redundancy of food and energy. The report also makes specific recommendations for the United States and other international supporters in such areas as enhancing the effectiveness of the EPPD, bolstering and expanding the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF), strengthening cooperation between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service and the Taiwanese Ministry of Agriculture, and expanding U.S. military coordination, including in such areas as bolstering the population’s will to fight. + +___`A robust societal resilience strategy is essential not only for deterrence but also for the long-term survival of Taiwan and its society in the face of Chinese aggression.`___ + +These and other steps would not only help strengthen Taiwan’s will and ability to resist external pressure, influence, and potential invasion but also strengthen deterrence by raising the costs and risks for an aggressor, reducing the overall risk of conflict. + + +### Chater 1 Introduction + +> _“Is this a call to war? Does anyone pretend that preparation for resistance to aggression is unleashing war? I declare it to be the sole guarantee of peace.”_ +> #### — Winston Churchill, October 16, 1938 + +Like all previous Chinese leaders, President Xi Jinping has warned that he “will never promise to give up the use of force” and that he reserves “the option to take all necessary measures” to formally annex Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite this being Beijing’s long-standing policy on Taiwan, past leaders did not have the military capabilities to make good on this threat. But because Xi does, the United States and Taiwan have focused on strengthening defense cooperation to deter the direct use of military force, whether in the form of an invasion or a blockade. There has been far less focus, however, on how China might undermine Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, disrupt its economy, leverage a crisis to undermine public morale, or otherwise undermine its overall resilience. + +This scenario is not hypothetical: Beijing probes Taiwan’s resilience daily. In early 2023, a Chinese vessel was suspected of intentionally damaging an undersea cable linking one of Taiwan’s islands to the mainland, disrupting online bank and point-of-sale machines. More recently, a China-linked hacker entity was discovered targeting Taiwan-based semiconductor and aerospace companies. + +Serious questions remain about how resilient Taiwan would be in the face of a Chinese invasion or gray zone activity. Taiwan’s electricity infrastructure, last significantly updated decades ago, is a critical vulnerability. The grid frequently experiences failures, notably during peak demand periods or extreme weather events. Similarly, Taiwan’s communications networks, still reliant on older technologies, face threats of disruption from both physical attacks and cyberattacks, which could isolate communities during crucial times. + +Yet there has been little comprehensive analysis of resilience in Taiwan. In addition, the United States and other governments have not developed systematic frameworks to assess the resilience of Taiwan or other countries in the face of foreign threats, identify their strengths and weaknesses, and design aid packages accordingly. + +Instead, U.S. military and diplomatic aid to Taiwan has largely neglected the resilience of Taiwan and its society. Much of the U.S. focus has been on ensuring Taiwan has the capabilities to resist a conventional invasion, including providing or selling such weapons systems as F-16 fighter jets, M1 Abrams main battle tanks, High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) multiple rocket launchers, Harpoon coastal defense systems, and Javelin antitank weapon systems. The United States has also provided limited direct training to Taiwan’s military, largely owing to the restrictions and ambiguities of the One China Policy, which governs the United States’ unofficial relationship with Taiwan. Although these somewhat limited efforts are necessary to strengthen deterrence, U.S. actions and boldness have not been sufficient to help Taipei meet the full spectrum of threats it faces or prepare Taiwanese society to withstand significant external coercion. As a review of historical cases suggests, a population that lacks resilience is in danger from external aggression and internal collapse. As North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg observed in 2020, “Our military cannot be strong if our societies are weak.” + +#### The Challenge of Resilience + +Taiwan’s dilemma, however, is not unique. Many countries must manage the risk of aggression from powerful neighbors, and Taiwan can learn much from their example. Some countries focus heavily not just on a strong military but also on building societal resilience, an elusive concept involving all of society. The Swedish Ministry of Defence defines resilience in its Resistance Operating Concept as “the will and ability to withstand external pressures and influences and/or recover from the effects of these pressures or influences.” + +As used here, resilience is the will and ability of a country, society, or population to resist and recover from external pressure, influence, and potential invasion as well as major natural disasters such as hurricanes and pandemics. In practice, resilience has many aspects ranging from practical questions, such as how to keep the lights on, to ineffable but vital issues such as building a will to resist and will to fight among the population. Resilience is related to resistance, which includes nonviolent and violent activities to reestablish independence after conquest by a foreign power. + +The world saw such resilience in practice in Ukraine. After Russia seized Crimea in 2014 and then fomented an insurgency in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian government and society responded effectively to Russian cyberattacks and aggression below the threshold of conventional war. After Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainians quickly rallied to resist the occupiers. Their resistance efforts, ranging from removing road signs to confuse occupiers to sabotage and assassination, slowed advancing forces, providing valuable time to organize Ukraine’s military forces to repel invaders and gain international support. In addition, resilience made life better for ordinary Ukrainians, preserving vital health services and transportation. + +Although resilience is vital in a crisis, its greatest value lies in amplifying deterrence. If a country is seen as difficult to disrupt, conquer, or occupy, it becomes a less attractive target, and could change the calculus for the aggressor. Conversely, if an adversary perceives a country as lacking resilience, it may be an appealing target. The 2022 U.S. National Defense Strategy emphasizes the need to build resilience to help advance collective NATO security. Indeed, democratic societies can excel at deterrence by strengthening resilience, drawing on whole-of-society approaches more effectively than autocracies. Finnish scholars have referred to this logic as the idea that “even the biggest bear will not eat a porcupine.” During the Cold War, the Baltic states, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and other countries pursued a “porcupine” strategy, and some have renewed these programs in the face of renewed Russian aggression. + +In recent years, both NATO and the European Union have embraced resilience. The European Union has a Critical Entities Resilience Directive that provides mandatory standards to EU members. Europe, in general, is also improving its standards. NATO has had resilience goals since the 1950s, but often, until recently, these were honored in the breach. Not surprisingly, since the invasion of Ukraine, NATO has emphasized that all its members should build resilience. + +Should Taiwan become more resilient, it would be far better able to resist pressure from China, and strengthening deterrence would make an invasion less likely. Before a crisis, Taiwan’s infrastructure and morale would be more difficult to disrupt, and various gray zone strategies to create instability would fail. If crisis looms, Beijing’s leaders would know the Taiwanese will resist and are well-prepared to do so. Further, should China occupy all or part of Taiwan, this propensity to resist would dramatically complicate Beijing’s plans to fully annex the territory. + +Ukraine and Taiwan are not alone. Autocracies often use hybrid warfare and other means to undermine resilience and weaken liberal democracies. Thus, lessons that apply to these and other countries are relevant to a wide range of U.S. allies and partners. + +#### Methodology and Research Design + +To examine resilience in Taiwan, this report asks three questions. First, what is resilience, and what are the various factors that comprise it? Second, how resilient is Taiwan in the face of a threat from China? Third, what steps can Taiwan, the United States, and other partners take to increase resilience in Taiwan? + +To answer these questions, this paper draws on several sources. First, it draws on a large volume of secondary literature on resilience. Second, it examines secondary and primary sources from NATO and resilience leaders like Finland. Instead of conducting comprehensive case studies, the authors integrated lessons from several countries with a history of resilience, such as Estonia, Finland, Israel, Switzerland, and Ukraine. Third, the authors conducted interviews on background about resilience in the United States, Taiwan, Finland, Estonia, Ukraine, and Israel. The interviews were conducted on the condition of anonymity; in some cases, a general descriptor is provided, while in others the person is not acknowledged as the source. + +While it is important to examine lessons from other countries for Taiwan, resilience is context specific. For example, Finland’s history (including the November 1939 Soviet invasion during the Winter War), geography (particularly the 833-mile border with Russia), conscription, and other social, cultural, and historical factors have contributed to a sui generis form of resilience. There is, of course, no cookie-cutter solution to strengthening resilience in Taiwan. Nevertheless, this report identifies several factors Taiwan should consider and apply in its own way. + +#### Outline of the Report + +The remainder of this paper has four chapters. Chapter 2 briefly discusses the different dimensions of resilience, noting how resilience matters before, during, and after a potential invasion. The report then identifies different components of resilience, ranging from initial strategic design to protecting infrastructure to developing the capacity to work with supporting countries. Examples from Finland and other countries illustrate these elements. Chapter 3 assesses the state of Taiwanese resilience today. Chapter 4 outlines recommendations, including what Taipei might do to improve resilience in the future and how the United States and regional partners might bolster Taiwanese resilience. + + +### Chatper 2 Building Resilience + +Resilience is vital at different stages of a conflict. It is meant to supplement, not replace, traditional military-focused deterrence and defensive measures. One of the most important roles of resilience occurs before a conflict begins. A country believed to be resilient is likely harder to conquer and subjugate. Attackers know that the defenders are prepared and likely to fight and that controlling the population will be difficult and resource intensive. One interviewee referred to this as “deterrence by frustration.” Most resilience activities are open; thus an adversary observes many of them in advance. + +Should deterrence fail, resilience is also vital during gray zone conflict, or conflict short of all-out hostilities. Adversaries may try to undermine faith in government by disseminating disinformation, launching cyberattacks that disable critical infrastructure, or backing minority groups or political factions that are potentially hostile to the government. Russia sent “little green men” — armed soldiers without insignia who denied ties to Moscow — as part of its successful effort to seize Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Resiliency efforts that ensure robust infrastructure, educate the population to counter disinformation, enable the government to act decisively in response to covert provocations, and reduce social cleavages all make a country less susceptible to subversion. + +At the initiation of all-out war, resiliency takes on additional roles. Adversaries’ efforts to take down power and communications through physical and cyber means affect the warfighting capability of the defending state. A local population can provide intelligence to the adversary or the host nation, aiding the targeting of either side. Lack of resistance can free up adversary forces, helping them devote additional manpower to the front lines. + +Finally, resilience is vital should an adversary defeat a host nation’s military forces and impose its government on the country. A resilient society can make it harder for the occupier to consolidate its political and economic position. In addition to helping basic services reach a needy population, resiliency can reduce the impact of adversary propaganda and preserve forms of legitimate government. Resilience may involve passive resistance, where workers slow their performance, miscount goods sought by the enemy, or otherwise hinder the adversary war effort without violence. Resilience through better communications and infrastructure can also ensure lifelines to friendly foreign governments, including the United States, which may represent the best hope of liberation. More broadly, resilience sets the stage for successful resistance, which, though not the focus of this study, makes guerrilla war and counterattacks easier. + +#### Components of Resilience + +Resilience has many components. NATO, for example, has stressed the necessity of continuity of government; energy, food, and water supplies; civil communications; and maintaining transportation systems, among other needs. NATO’s Resilience Committee has an array of specialized planning groups to this end. Finland, perhaps the world’s leader when it comes to resilience, has a different approach to resilience, highlighted in Appendix A. Its diamond model includes such categories as psychological resilience; leadership; international and EU activities; defense capability; internal security; functional capacity of the population and services; and economy, infrastructure, and security of supply. Finland also has developed 57 tasks for resilience, presented in Appendix B. + +As illustrated in Table 1, this chapter details eight key components of resilience: (1) strategic design and command structures, (2) legal authorities, (3) strategic communications and educating the population, (4) civil defenses, (5) critical infrastructure, (6) will to fight, (7) nonviolent resistance and stay-behind networks, and (8) integration with partners and allies. The authors identified these components, which represent a framework for understanding resilience in a given country, based on an overview of historical cases, interviews of experts, and relevant literature. The rest of this chapter describes each of the components. + +__Strategic Design and Command Structures__ + +Governments require an overall plan that incorporates the many aspects of resilience, specifying the general goals, division of labor, conditions under which parts of the plan go into effect, the locations of caches of medical and communications equipment, and other essentials. It is vital to have a lead agency that develops and coordinates resilience efforts. Often the ministry of defense or its equivalent is the lead planning entity, though there are many possibilities. Other agencies take responsibility in their bureaucratic realms. A ministry of justice might prepare necessary legal authorities to monitor and arrest suspected subversives in advance of a crisis and increase surveillance when necessary. Agencies involved in disaster response or civil emergencies might prepare to ensure the robustness of the electricity grid and alleviate food and medicine shortages. The communications ministry might develop a narrative and distribute preparation materials, while the ministry of foreign affairs might focus on where a government in exile might go and how to ensure external backing. + +Duties will vary depending on the relevant stage. Before a crisis, for example, a disaster response–focused agency might educate the public on resources available in a crisis. When the crisis begins, it might turn its focus to identifying shortfalls and implementing protocols. If the enemy occupies the territory, the agency might help the population prepare for power shortages during combat. The list is long. + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/OzVVPbP.png) +_▲ __Table 1: Components of Resilience.__ Source: CSIS analysis._ + +Resilience is an all-of-society effort. Government usually leads in planning, but civil society and especially the private sector are vital, especially as much of the critical infrastructure and other capabilities are in the hands of business — a shift from the Cold War era. In 2016, 90 percent of NATO military transport came from the private sector, as did much of NATO’s satellite communications. There must be a planning and command structure that integrates the private sector so the business community knows its roles before and during a crisis and the government knows businesses’ requirements, needs, and limits. Although all these actors are important, the most crucial is an empowered and motivated population that is psychologically prepared to deal with a threat. In a crisis, resilience largely involves bottom-up efforts or coordination without government assistance, so strong connections and extensive preparation of citizens are vital. Efforts must be updated regularly as threat conditions change and capabilities move from one entity to another. + +An important task is to identify and reduce vulnerabilities before a crisis. NATO has put forward some evaluation criteria to help with resilience assessment. The range is vast, from anticipating and countering adversary propaganda to securing borders, building cyber protection, and developing rapid-repair capabilities. Governments must determine who will oversee testing and then regularly test capabilities through exercises. + +Finland provides a useful model for strategic design and command structures. Its Security Strategy for Society outlines a comprehensive strategy jointly formulated by the government and representatives from the private sector, though the planning process includes opportunities for contributions from civic organizations. The concept of preparedness planning outlined in the strategy involves not only national preparedness but also independent preparedness of businesses, communities, and individuals. + +Finland seeks to integrate different components of government, business, and society. The Ministry of Defence runs the 24-person Security Committee, which meets monthly with government representatives from various ministries, with representatives from the president’s office, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). By bringing together different parts of society outside the government, the goal is a broader “network of trust.” Numerous structures at the regional and municipal levels design local approaches that involve the government, businesses, civil society organizations, and communities. The government’s role is based on law, while the role of business is based, in part, on law but often on agreements and voluntary decisions. By contrast, civil society and community participation is often voluntary. The goal is a scalable concept where municipalities are in the lead at the local level while the national government is in charge of the whole country. + +The goal of the resilience strategy is not for resilience alone to allow Finland to triumph against a threat. Rather, part of the goal is to help Finland survive on its own for several weeks, or perhaps several months, until allies can come to its assistance. In addition, the purpose is to reduce the cost of conflict to society. + +Finland’s Ministry of Defence plays a lead role, outlining vital functions that must be preserved. Under the ministry, which coordinates and advises (but does not direct) various other ministries, the Security Committee is a key coordinating body, with high officials from other ministries participating. The Security Committee produces a joint situation report and works across the government, while individual ministries are responsible for preparedness in their domain. For example, the Ministry of the Interior has prepared a National Risk Assessment that identifies a range of threat scenarios, including financial pressure, terrorism, and communications technology disruption. This assessment is published every three years, but authorities constantly assess the threat situation. + +Finland regularly updates plans to ensure that changing technologies, business models, and other factors are properly integrated. For example, it updates its risk assessment every three to five years. It also makes changes in response to world events, such as increasing the required grain supply reserve after the invasion of Ukraine. + +In Finland, government bodies conduct drills and emergency exercises to identify potential weak points. Some of these are tabletop exercises, while others are real-world ones. For example, Finland “cut” power cables in exercises to test repair and response capacity in certain parts of the country. Civil-military relations are at the core of successful resilience. In almost every aspect of resilience design and strategy, civil authorities and civil society participate in the process. As one Finnish official stated, “If that works, all is well.” + +__Legal Authorities__ + +Resilience functions must be legal, and the government’s legitimacy must be sustained. But crises and war can strain these essentials. NATO stresses “continuity of government” as a core part of resilience and civil preparedness. The law must recognize the risk of subversion and make provisions to prevent hostile foreign ownership of sites near military bases, defense production facilities, energy plants, and other critical infrastructure. Governance and legal legitimacy must adjust between peacetime, wartime, and occupation. + +Legislation might empower certain local bodies under occupation conditions or, conversely, declare in advance that any government body within occupied territory does not have authority — a way of denying legitimacy to actions by puppet governments and local quislings. Governments will also need to prepare a body of laws that allow for operational security and resistance to the occupier, most of which are well outside typical democratic civil codes. For example, many countries in Europe have strict limits on the use of their militaries in domestic situations, but those would need to be amended to handle foreign paramilitary forces masquerading as civilians, as happened in Crimea. + +Finland has numerous laws on the books for emergency circumstances, and these come into play if Parliament invokes an emergency. Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs calls this the “boring, unsexy work” vital for preparedness. For example, Section 111 of the Emergency Powers Act states, “In order to increase or maintain military defense readiness . . . the defense forces can, by decision, oblige companies, communities, institutions, and professionals and entrepreneurs to provide the defense forces with renovation, accommodation, repair shops, maintenance, construction and other similar services.” In addition, the government can give orders to civilian industry regarding whom they sell to and what they sell. Other parts of the act offer guidance on forced recruitment, wages, requisitioning buildings, and other concerns. + +In a crisis, Finland has a series of laws that go into effect, such as automatically allowing reservists to be called up for more than the peacetime maximum number of days or allowing companies to cooperate in ways that, in peacetime, would be considered cartel behavior. The Ministry of Interior also has greater authority to conduct investigations during an emergency, though there is still strong respect for the rule of law. After Russia’s invasion of Crimea, Finland amended the law, allowing the military to use force in such circumstances. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Finland invoked the law for the first time since World War II. + +Finland also has laws that allow the government to deny property purchases close to military bases or critical infrastructure; it has done so to block Russian purchases of real estate near Finnish industry and military bases in the east. The government may also remove or block companies with subpar critical infrastructure, enabling it to remove companies like Huawei if necessary. In 2024, Finland’s government proposed a widespread ban against Russian citizens from buying property in the country, though it exempted dual Finnish-Russian citizens and Russians with permanent residence in Finland or other EU countries. + +The government must also plan for its own displacement, exile, or diminishment and ensure it retains legitimate legal authority. In such circumstances, some members will likely be absent, elections will not occur, and other basic components of a democratic system may be lacking. During a conflict, leaders may have to flee one part of the country for another or enter exile, which may require identifying an ally that will host the government-in-exile. In 1940, Latvia authorized its ambassadors in the United Kingdom and the United States to control state money deposited abroad. During the Cold War, Switzerland arranged to have a government-in-exile in Ireland should it be overrun. Norway put personnel records and other information relevant to running a resistance in its embassies in London and Washington. That government-in-exile must maintain contact with, and ideally some command over, any shadow government established in occupied areas. + +__Strategic Communications and Educating the Population__ + +Governments must communicate with their publics in advance of a crisis and have means to do so in situations when communications are disrupted, disinformation is high, or some of the population is under occupation. In crisis situations, there is a strong risk of competing narratives, themes, and messages as the adversary sows disinformation and uses its communications to appeal to disaffected minorities and others who might embrace its message. Because of the importance of information operations and propaganda to warfare, helping the population identify and resist propaganda and misinformation is also vital. + +In 2015, the Lithuanian government disseminated Prepare to Survive Emergencies and War: A Cheerful Take on Serious Recommendations. The 75-page instruction manual offers information on how Russia might conduct information operations, provides images of Russian weaponry so citizens can provide intelligence more accurately, and repeatedly stresses the need to resist, among other important information. Latvia and Estonia have published similar manuals. Sweden’s version — If Crisis or War Comes — details how the population should survive without government assistance: “If Sweden is attacked by another country, we will never give up. All information to the effect that resistance is to cease is false.” + +Finland has similar efforts. It produced a 19-minute film, Battlefield 2020, to introduce its population to what modern war might look like. The film depicts cyberattacks on the financial infrastructure, sabotage of water supplies, and other aspects of conflict beyond war itself. Since the February 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finnish media have widely distributed video footage and other imagery of Russian missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian civilian and defense targets. + +In normal times, each Finnish ministry is highly independent and plans its own communications related to comprehensive security for its area of focus. In a crisis, however, the Prime Minister’s Office has more authority and resources to increase its staff, and in a true emergency communications become far more centralized. + +The Finnish Ministry of Defence also conducts regular courses for business leaders, politicians, media leaders, and religious figures, among others, with tens of thousands participating, often at a regional level. There are three courses: one at the national level that runs four times a year and lasts three-and-a-half weeks, specialized courses that run two or three times a year and last two-and-a-half days, and regional defense courses that run 20 or more times a year and last for a week. Around 10,000 people have gone through a course at the national level, 3,000 at the specialized level, and 65,000 at the regional level. Such courses, which are by invitation only, are, in part, intended to discover what problems individuals and businesses would face in a crisis, give people a shared threat and response structure, build bonds among participants, and educate people on likely difficulties. An invitation to such courses is prestigious: participants are “joining the anointed.” Further, trainers attempt to impress participants, such as by showing them military systems. This contributes to a will to fight by bringing a broad range of important people into the national defense. + +In general, Finland is well prepared for resisting disinformation: corruption is low, confidence in government is high, the population is highly educated and learns media literacy, and there are few social cleavages to exploit. NGOs patrol for disinformation, and the Strategic Communications Office in the Prime Minister’s Office analyzes the information environment for disinformation about Finland. + +Finnish media also play an important role in combating disinformation. As free media, they often take the lead in determining what is accurate, with government officials simply advising them of possible disinformation and the media making decisions about whether and how to respond. In addition, the state national broadcasting company Yle provides a reliable media source and has a legal obligation to communicate with citizens during a crisis. This independence, however, diminishes in an emergency, and the Prime Minister’s Office can censor media. + +Attribution is often an important part of successful strategic communications and reducing the impact of disinformation. In particular, governments may need to identify who is behind disinformation to discredit it and properly educate the population. In addition, successful attribution makes a population angry at foreign subversion, not at their own government, should the electricity fail or another problem develop. At times, a “name-and-shame” approach may make an adversary less likely to act: for example, the legal process can highlight the hostility of a potential adversary even if its operatives do not show up in court. + +__Civil Defenses__ + +A resilient population prepares for a conflict and must be involved in designated services that increase resilience in society as a whole. For example, individuals might store batteries and water at home to better manage disruptions. They also might be assigned emergency roles, such as medical and rescue services. Many might serve as auxiliaries to an underground resistance, assisting with procurement, recruitment, early warning, media distribution, intelligence collection, and other vital roles. Both the government and voluntary organizations can organize some of this in advance of a conflict. + +Citizens need places to shelter in case of attack and must be able to receive important medical and other services. It is also vital for municipalities and civil society organizations to be prepared to evacuate the elderly, the sick, and other vulnerable populations. During the Cold War, the Swiss prepared fighting positions at key locations, such as near or at bridges, tunnels, or hillsides to increase the effectiveness of small units in case of an invasion. Swiss efforts were part of a concept of “total defense,” which involved a whole-of-society approach to defending the country. + +Finland uses the Local Forces — or reservists who volunteer for additional exercises and duties and are called up in the case of natural disasters — to bolster preparedness. It also has plans to evacuate the civilian population from certain areas where fighting will likely be intense. The country is also prepared for bombing. By law, all large buildings must have bomb shelters. Car parks, swimming pools, and other facilities can also be converted into bomb shelters. Jarmo Lindberg, the former chief of defense, says underground Helsinki “is like Swiss cheese,” with tunnels throughout, and all military headquarters are under “30–40 meters of granite.” Many of the large shelters are important civic spaces in peacetime, hosting sports facilities, parking, and school sports games and activities, or otherwise serving dual purposes, ensuring they are regularly used. All of Helsinki can shelter in an attack, and Finland has 45,000 civil defense shelters, which can accommodate more than half its population. + +Finland has also prepared border areas for attack. These include creating limited defenses to slow attacking forces, thus giving the local population more time to evacuate. In addition, by working with local communities in peacetime, the Finnish government has developed extensive evacuation plans. + +__Critical Infrastructure__ + +Morale and well-being depend on continued electricity, communications, energy, healthcare, and other essential services. These types of critical infrastructure require general hardening to make disruption more difficult and improve redundancy and rapid repair capacity in case disruption occurs due to cyberattacks, physical damage, or occupation. Strengthening critical infrastructure also requires vetting foreign investment to ensure it is not subject to hostile foreign exploitation in a crisis. In many cases, partial failure of initial defenses is expected, and the focus is on repair and resilience in dealing with limited services. Examples of critical infrastructure include the following sectors: + +- Communications +- Critical manufacturing +- Dams +- Defense industrial base +- Emergency services +- Energy +- Financial services +- Food and agriculture +- Government facilities +- Healthcare and public health +- Information technology +- Transportation systems +- Water and wastewater + +During the Cold War, much of the critical infrastructure of Western countries was in government hands, but now much of it is outside government control, with key industries such as transportation, internet services, and satellite communications mostly in private hands. Many companies, unsurprisingly, are focused on profits, not national security. In addition, many large companies are global in their workforce, have some degree of foreign ownership, depend on foreign parts or labor for some of their supply chains, or otherwise are not fully national. + +Some degree of national and personal stockpiling is important. The Baltic states have laws in place requiring reserves of vital goods. The European Union also requires member countries to have minimum crude oil stocks equal to 90 days of daily imports or 61 days of consumption, whichever is greater. + +Cyber threats are a constant concern. Countries at risk of attack are constantly probed by potential adversaries and near-constant threats from criminal networks or other malicious actors. Key personnel may also face risks to their physical security. Beginning in 2014, Russia conducted an aggressive cyber campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure, from the power grid to the banking system, in response to the departure of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and deepening Ukrainian ties with the West. + +Ensuring diverse means of communication is also vital. The standard ways people communicate, such as email and cell phone, are highly vulnerable to disruption and monitoring. Resistance forces may use a wide range of radios, so having large numbers of cheap and expendable devices will be valuable. + +During the Cold War, Switzerland prepared every major road, bridge, and other type of key infrastructure for rapid demolition. To do this, the Swiss rigged bridges and tunnels with explosives or kept stockpiles nearby in case of a Soviet invasion. + +In Finland, ensuring the continued functioning of critical infrastructure is a top priority. The National Emergency Supply Agency (NESA), which operates under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, is responsible for the resilience of the economy, infrastructure, and supply and is a key body for engaging industry and the private sector and maintaining critical stockpiles and security of supply. NESA helps coordinate government action and works with around 1,500 companies involved in supply security, with corporate representatives often playing a leading role. + +NESA divides its tasks into seven sectors: health, transportation and logistics, finance and insurance, industry, food supply, energy, and a catch-all other category. Each sector, in turn, has numerous subsectors. These subsectors are coordinated by a pool committee with its own budget. Pools comprise representatives from the most important companies, an overall industry representative, a NESA representative, a representative from the relevant ministry (e.g., transportation for the rail network), and a representative of the armed forces. The pools are often the key bodies for critical infrastructure resilience. They provide a venue for the most important actors to meet, build trust, train and exercise, make proposals for improvement, and strengthen sharing of critical information and best practices. + +Private companies play an important role in the process (and at times assume leadership roles), with infrastructure operators assessing their own networks. Companies provide information on their limits and vulnerabilities, contributing to a common threat and risk picture and enabling more comprehensive action. For example, hundreds of companies might exchange threat information related to cyber threats. + +NESA has agreements with various Finnish companies responsible for the supply of grain, oil, pharmaceuticals, and other critical stocks. It also has arrangements with grocery stores to ensure sufficient supplies of food in case of a major cyberattack or disruption to the electricity grid. The most important requirements are set by law. Energy, for example, is necessary for defense production and thus requires high standards to ensure its supply in a crisis. Finland has stockpiles of at least several months of fuel, grain, critical spare parts, and imported pharmaceuticals, among other necessities, with the level of legal and state contracting roles and the size of the stockpile varying by its perceived importance. + +Some industries are expected to ramp up production if they produce goods such as weapons or medical supplies. Select companies may move to a more secure location, including within a Finnish Defense Forces (FDF) facility, while others may receive physical and cyber protection from the government. The government also has authority to allocate the power supply, which will affect production. + +In most instances, pool participation is voluntary, though in some areas there are legal requirements and, in general, companies must provide the information NESA requires on issues such as production levels and supply chains. Shirking is possible, but there are limits and it is relatively rare. In Finland, companies must work with the government to create a list of critical employees who cannot be called for service during wartime. In addition, they have contracts with the military and government, which shirking would jeopardize. Perhaps most important in a small country are reputation and personal connections. Small companies that work for the prime contractors, however, are harder to influence. + +Finnish officials regularly test the system for speed and quality of response, as it is too late after a crisis starts. Some testing involves tabletop exercises. Officials working on cybersecurity test their defenses through quarterly exercises in a simulated environment, but they also use real-world situations (e.g., a natural disaster that leads electricity to fail) to evaluate various systems. At times, they will cut off electricity to one city or otherwise simulate a major crisis. The Covid-19 crisis and the supply disruptions that occurred after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine revealed supply chain vulnerabilities in the system; poor supervision of some medical stockpiles, such as face masks; and the limits of NESA when procuring personal protective equipment. Finland treated all of these as learning experiences. + +Foreign companies that do business in Finland are also expected to participate in pools or otherwise protect critical infrastructure, either directly or through subsidiaries. All are subject to Finnish law, but voluntary participation is also encouraged. In some sensitive areas, such as the arms pool, Chinese and Russian companies are not allowed. Weapons system manufacturers must ensure that a Finnish company or Finnish subsidiary can perform the maintenance, repair, and overhaul. + +Finland mandates that its military operate, maintain, and repair all critical defense systems, and industry take the lead on maintenance and repair for many systems. Similarly, U.S. companies such as Mandiant and FireEye are often critical for cyber defense, and they have partnerships in Finland. + +Clearances, or at least access to classified information, are often vital so private actors in business and NGOs can see the broader threat picture and access the full range of possible responses. Finland also has developed security clearance procedures so the individuals responsible for critical infrastructure can receive secret information. A digital platform allows them to share classified information, so to be in certain critical pools (e.g., weapons production), clearance is necessary. + +Security can be a challenge for companies. They may fear espionage or threats against key workers from a foreign power. To reduce this danger, Finnish companies publish less information on personnel than before and encourage personnel to reveal less on social media. + +__Will to Fight__ + +An important aspect of resilience is the will to fight: When a country is attacked, will the population participate in and support the armed forces and engage in resistance? The will to fight includes the willingness of a population — or key parts of the population — to resist an adversary and fight. It is perhaps best captured in British prime minister Winston Churchill’s speech before the House of Commons in June 1940, when Britain was facing a likely German invasion: “We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” + +Will to fight is difficult to predict in advance, though several analysts have made progress on this knotty question. Russia disastrously assumed Ukrainians would not fight Russian invaders in 2022. Governments must inculcate a will to fight and, just as importantly, convey that determination to potential invaders to enhance deterrence. In the Baltics, defense and other officials speak to schools about resistance and otherwise incorporate security into the education system. + +Several factors generally increase the will to fight among individuals, units, and even societies: high stakes, including national survival; ideology, particularly a deep commitment to a cause or belief system; financial incentives; social or group identity; strong allies; and the capability and cohesion of individuals and units, which can be affected by training, education, leadership, and other factors. + +To undermine a will to fight, hostile governments will try to exploit fissures in a society through information operations or subversive activity in advance of a crisis and divide-and-rule methods when they occupy territory. A more atomized society is less likely to put up effective resistance. The withdrawal of outside assistance can also undermine the will to fight. In Afghanistan, for example, the will to fight of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police collapsed following the decision by the United States and NATO to withdraw all military forces and the failed leadership of President Ashraf Ghani, contributing to the Taliban overthrow of the Afghan government in 2021. The same was true in South Vietnam under General Nguyen Van Thieu, including after the withdrawal of U.S. forces. + +Developing civic support leagues, national services, or other means to bring people together can build patriotic sentiment, as can ensuring that all communities identify strongly with the homeland. Such efforts must avoid any hint of partisanship. Resilience emphasizes the country, not the government in power at a given moment, and it must transcend party politics. + +In Finland, there is a strong sense throughout society that independence cannot be taken for granted. Although the government takes the lead on many aspects of resilience, much of the emphasis is on the individual level. One senior government official remarked, “The people must know they are the key actors. They must feel they can count on themselves rather than rely on others to take action. If individuals will act, many of the other functions become easier.” + +Individual citizens are also meant to have some degree of self-reliance. The government encourages citizens to retain sufficient stockpiles of food, water, and other essentials for 72 hours at least. These include duct tape, which in Finland is casually referred to as “Jesus tape” because it performs miracles. + +Finland enjoys some of the highest levels of social trust in the world. The country also has made a robust effort to counter Russian narratives and otherwise build its resistance to adversary propaganda and disinformation, with the hope of bolstering psychological resilience. Many of these efforts begin at an early age; even kindergarten students receive some training, while for 16- and 17-year-olds, schools organize a security day to introduce students to key concepts. Finland also regularly makes citizens aware of potential threats and tries to inculcate the idea that they have some degree of agency by participating in resilience activities. + +Finland appears to have a high will to fight. Before the invasion of Ukraine, opinion polls showed that over three-quarters of the population said they were willing to fight to defend their country — even when the question stressed “even if the outcome is uncertain” — the highest percentage in Europe. Interviews suggest a high degree of confidence in the Finnish population’s willingness to fight, with many noting that the invasion of Ukraine produced a surge in support for activities related to resistance as well as joining NATO and even assisting NATO with missions outside of Finland. + +Interviews suggest several reasons for this strong will to fight in Finland. First, Finland’s history as a victim of Russian aggression during World War II and subsequent Soviet threats created a strong culture of self-reliance and concern about a Russian enemy. Second, Finland has a strong sense of a Finnish way of life — including political and economic elements, such as democracy and the welfare state, and cultural ones, such as the sauna, social equality, and nature — all of which are seen as worth defending. Third, Finland has a strong sense of social trust and trust in government, which strengthens social bonds. In addition, the national defense courses bring a wide range of elites into the national security system, giving them a sense of common purpose and understanding of the threat. + +Conscription has also aided Finland’s will to fight, according to interviews, and polling suggests strong support for conscription. Finland maintains conscription to mobilize its population in a crisis and maintains a large network of reservists. As a result, much of Finnish society has been trained to fight, and they feel they have a stake in defense and some level of agency — or “active citizenship,” as one study phrases it. Conscription also creates bonds and understanding among citizens from different social classes, backgrounds, and parts of the country. Over 700,000 men and women are part of the FDG reserves (out of a total population of less than 6 million), and most families have one or more citizen-soldiers. + +__Nonviolent Resistance and Stay-Behind Networks__ + +To set the stage for the transition from resilience to resistance, some military and intelligence assets should be designated to stay behind in the event of an occupation to help resist the enemy and organize local intelligence networks. Stay-behind networks might include those focused on logistics, intelligence, messaging, education, transportation, sabotage, or medical support. In addition, the government may want to develop cache sites with weapons and ammunition, communication and medical equipment, and other essentials. + +Ideally, leaders could be identified in advance to reduce the risk to those recruited to lead and participate in resistance and allow for a longer vetting and training period. For financial reasons, networks will not be fully staffed, so core groups should be identified and developed. + +The government will also want to give basic instructions to the population on how to collect intelligence that is useful to the resistance and external military forces. For example, instructing the population that an enemy might demolish bridges and telephone wires when they plan to leave is an example of how the local population might collect important indicators of enemy movements. It is also important to document adversary human rights abuses and other forms of repression to generate international sympathy. + +Much of the goal will be nonviolent resistance, at least some of which can be taught in advance. There are many activities that can confound an adversary, ranging from marches and protests to mock elections, leaflets, boycotts, refusing to rent to occupiers, displays of flags and other symbols, and many other means. If successful, this weakens the adversary’s control and decreases its legitimacy, both of which make an occupation more costly. In addition, it may attract external sympathy and thus greater support for eventual liberation. + +Finland incorporates the possibility of conflict into its infrastructure design. All major bridges have hooks on them for hanging explosives in order to destroy the bridge as enemy troops advance. Some highways are hardened and widened to serve as alternative runways for combat aircraft. + +__Integration with Partners and Allies__ + +For most small countries trying to build resilience, long-term survival in the event of a conflict may depend on external supporters. Thus, the country must build diplomatic and military relationships with external protectors and supporters, using them to bolster resilience during a crisis. Short of a military campaign to reconquer lost territory, the support of outside powers is vital for continuity of government, supporting aspects of critical infrastructure, bolstering public morale, and other aspects of resilience. + +Diasporas are an important audience as well. Because of their family ties, shared language and heritage, and other connections, diasporas are often highly engaged and aware of conditions in their home countries. They can publicize abuses, lobby host governments, and otherwise aid the struggle for liberation. + +Foreign help can be a mixed blessing. In some ways, the promise of foreign assistance can be an excuse for inaction, with governments relying on others, not their own people, in the event of a crisis. At the same time, support from the United States and its allies is often vital to encourage people not to surrender or otherwise collapse. + +Baltic countries have developed regional cooperation in the event of a foreign invasion, including policy coordination, exercises, training, and professional military education, including military exchanges. For Finland, NATO is an important source of advanced weapons and assistance in a crisis. But NATO membership is about more than warfighting or military assistance; it can also help with raw material gaps and supply chain dependency. There is also the possibility of joint stockpiling with neighbors such as Sweden. Entities like NESA work with neighboring states to coordinate energy supplies in case of a crisis. + +Although Finland, of course, is not an island, it effectively becomes one if Baltic trade is cut off, as the amount of overland trade via other Scandinavian countries is limited. Around 80 percent of the country’s trade comes over the sea, and it relies heavily on imported energy. Thus, it is relatively easy for a powerful foe like Russia to cut off reliable imports in a crisis. In addition, the ports freeze in winter, making it even easier to isolate, while the land connections to Norway and Sweden are limited, with the railroad gauge being on the Russian system. + +#### The Necessity of Budgeting + +Budgeting is an unglamorous but vital part of developing resilience. Indeed, it is essential for most, perhaps even all, of the above factors. Countries must invest in critical infrastructure, supplies, training, surge capacity for weapons, and other capacities of resilience, but this is difficult to justify because many of the capabilities will not be used on a day-to-day basis. Ideally, resilience should overlap with disaster preparedness. Some redundancy is necessary as power stations can be destroyed by either sabotage or massive storms, but often that linkage is limited. Because the private sector is so important, budgeting must help compensate private entities for losses but in a way that avoids playing favorites in the market. + +In Finland, for example, NESA works with over 1,000 companies and has a multi-billion-dollar budget to maintain strategic supplies. NESA controls the National Emergency Supply Fund, which, in turn, is funded outside the budget by tax-like contributions on electricity, coal, natural gas, and other energy, generating about €38 million a year. NESA also has the authority to borrow around €200 million as state loans and receives funding from allocations derived from the national power grid. + +Finland uses this money in several ways to ensure the functioning of critical infrastructure. It may provide companies with partial compensation for the cost of an extra production line or a larger stockpile. NESA also owns a mothballed coal-fired power plant as a backup power source and has contracted with Black Sea transport to ensure the flow of oil. Because NESA controls its own budget, it can also fund surge capacity, new stockpiles, or other needs rapidly, avoiding potentially disastrous delays. + +In Finland, the government also offers financial protections for those affected by emergencies that fall outside normal insurance situations, such as damage resulting from the action of a hostile foreign power. Chapter 19 of the Emergency Powers Act outlines the legal requirements for compensation and protections for persons who have suffered damages because of the rights and obligations authorized under exceptional circumstances. + +#### Conclusion + +This chapter identifies eight key components of resilience: (1) strategic design and command structures, (2) legal authorities, (3) strategic communications and educating the population, (4) civil defenses, (5) critical infrastructure, (6) will to fight, (7) nonviolent resistance and stay-behind networks, and (8) integration with partners and allies. Each country, of course, is different, and there are no easy solutions to increase resilience. Nevertheless, this historical assessment of Finland and other cases suggests that strengthening a country in these categories — from legal authorities to critical infrastructure and will to fight — may have a compound effect by improving a country’s overall resilience and increasing deterrence. As a NATO study concludes, “Resilience is therefore an important aspect of deterrence by denial: persuading an adversary not to attack by convincing it that an attack will not achieve its intended objectives.” + + +### Chapter 3 The Challenge of Resilience in Taiwan + +This chapter examines the current and evolving threat to Taiwan, particularly from China. Building on the framework outlined in chapter 2, this chapter examines Taiwan’s activity in such areas as strategic design and command structure, legal authorities, strategic communications, civil defenses, critical infrastructure (including such areas as cyber defense, energy, communications infrastructure, food security, and government-private sector relations), will to fight, and integration with allies and partners. + +__Threats to Taiwan’s Resilience__ + +Since 1949, Taiwan has faced a range of direct threats from the PRC, including a possible full-scale invasion. After U.S. president Harry Truman ruled out the use of the U.S. military in the Taiwan Strait in early 1950, Chinese leader Mao Zedong positioned nearly half a million Chinese troops on the coastline directly across from Taiwan. The beginning of the Korean War that June, however, brought the U.S. Seventh Fleet into the waters off Taiwan to stop the war’s spread, and Mao had to shelve the idea of an invasion. Yet, in 1954 and again in 1958, Mao bombarded Taiwan’s outer islands with artillery attacks and mobilized the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for an assault, only to be deterred by the prospect of U.S. intervention on behalf of Taiwan. + +In the late 1970s, Beijing adjusted its formal guidance from “liberate Taiwan” to “unify Taiwan,” signaling a policy of increased flexibility on how the Chinese leadership sought annexation. But the threat of a direct assault returned in the mid-1990s after Beijing conducted a series of missile tests in the waters off Taiwan, and again in 2004 when the PRC National People’s Congress passed the Anti-Secession Law, which enshrined the use of “non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” + +Over the past several decades, Taiwan has also faced a growing number of nonmilitary threats that pose significant risks to its security and stability. These range from economic pressure and cyberattacks to disinformation campaigns and diplomatic isolation. China’s use of coercive tactics, including formal and informal trade restrictions and the poaching of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, has placed increasing stress on the island’s economy and international standing. Additionally, Beijing has developed an increasingly sophisticated and comprehensive tool kit of gray zone tactics that allows it to probe Taiwan’s defenses and the solidity of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship in ways that complicate a corresponding response by Taipei and Washington. This gray zone “sliding scale” allows Beijing to rachet up political and military pressure to place significant stress on the Taiwan leadership and its people without crossing a threshold of kinetic conflict with Taiwan or the United States. Indeed, perhaps fearing that a direct assault on Taiwan would lead to U.S. and allied condemnation and perhaps retaliation, Beijing has conducted military exercises that demonstrate the capability and possible intention to blockade or quarantine Taiwan but in a way that Beijing believes will not prompt a direct U.S. response. + +For example, China conducted military exercises in August 2022 in the wake of then U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and again in May 2024 after the inauguration of President Lai Ching-te to demonstrate that Beijing is growing more creative and confident in its design and execution of gray zone tactics aimed at pressuring Taiwan. In the case of the May 2024 PLA exercises in response to President Lai’s speech (dubbed Joint Sword–2024A), the operations blended conventional PLA forces with other nonmilitary actors, including the Chinese coast guard, highlighting the growing role of law enforcement actors and “lawfare” in conventional operations with the military. This strategy of “salami slicing” allows Beijing to exert continuous pressure without crossing the threshold of outright conflict, complicating Taiwan’s defense posture and the international community’s response. + +As Beijing works to create an impression of isolation and impotence in the waters and airspace surrounding Taiwan, it also strives to probe and stress Taiwan’s defenses internally. One focal area for Beijing has been Taiwan’s cyber defenses, which face an escalating volume of cyber incursions and attacks frequently linked to Chinese state actors. By some accounts, the island faces around 30 million cyberattacks and probes each month, targeting both government institutions and private enterprises. These attacks aim to steal sensitive information, disrupt critical infrastructure, and undermine public trust in Taiwan’s government. Notable incidents include the 2020 cyberattack on Taiwan’s state-owned oil company, CPC Corporation, which disrupted its operations and highlighted vulnerabilities in the island’s critical infrastructure. In a more recent example directly linked to China, the hacking group APT41 infiltrated an unnamed Taiwanese research institute that potentially gave the group access to “proprietary and sensitive technologies,” according to a summary report by Cisco. + +Disinformation campaigns pose yet another serious nonmilitary threat to Taiwan, with efforts designed to manipulate public sentiment, leverage partisan frictions, and influence election outcomes. In nearly all of Taiwan’s recent national elections, Chinese-linked actors have been present in the online and offline media and information ecosystem. These efforts include fabricated stories about political candidates, such as claims of corruption, as well as misinformation regarding government policies. Although such meddling has not compromised the integrity of Taiwan’s elections, these efforts certainly affected the information environment for voters. In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, for example, false narratives about candidates’ personal lives and distorted policy claims circulated heavily on social media platforms. Aggravating the impact of PRC-originated disinformation efforts is the rabidly partisan nature of Taiwan’s democracy, with the two major parties — the KMT and the DPP — often stoking their own disinformation campaigns or otherwise taking advantage of disinformation regardless of its source. + +Direct political meddling constitutes another layer of nonmilitary threats Taiwan faces. These activities often involve attempts to influence Taiwan’s domestic politics through financial support for pro-Beijing politicians, espionage activities, and exertion of economic pressure. In July, National Security Bureau director-general Tsai Ming-yen warned the lawmakers in the Legislative Yuan, “The Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration activities are increasingly rampant in Taiwan, posing a severe challenge to national security work. . . . They also recruit retired national security personnel and infiltrate political parties and government departments.” According to one tally by Reuters, the Taiwanese government has discovered 21 active or retired military officers at or above the rank of captain who have been actively spying for Beijing. This interference aims to sway Taiwan’s political direction in favor of unification with China, undermining the island’s democratic governance and political autonomy. The openness and pluralism of Taiwan’s political institutions, media environment, and wider society undoubtedly serve as the foundation of the island’s long-term strength but in the short term leave it vulnerable to Chinese-linked and Beijing-backed actors looking to shape internal political discussions and outcomes. + +Additionally, Beijing has sought to leverage its economic might to pressure Taiwan into capitulation, as well as to further isolate Taiwan diplomatically and economically. One tried and tested approach is to threaten the operations of Taiwan companies in the PRC. For example, in the lead-up to the January 2024 presidential elections, Chinese authorities launched a tax and land-use investigation into the electronics contract manufacturer Foxconn. Many saw this as an attempt to exert pressure on the company and Terry Gou, who was contemplating a presidential run in Taiwan. Similarly, Beijing uses the lure of market access, preferential access, and development finance to ensure only a handful of countries diplomatically recognize Taiwan. Finally, Beijing has begun innovative efforts to treat Taiwan residents and entrepreneurs as de facto PRC citizens through efforts like the Fuzhou Province’s “integrated development” plan. + +These nonmilitary threats — cyberattacks, disinformation, direct political meddling, and economic pressure — form a comprehensive and evolving strategy aimed at weakening Taiwan’s political stability, economic resilience, and international standing. Based on these threats, the rest of this chapter turns to Taiwan’s actions in the major areas of resilience, beginning with strategic design and command structure. + +#### Strategic Design and Command Structure + +As the discussion of Finland and other countries indicates, a critical piece of national resilience is ensuring the requisite administrative structures are in place well before a crisis emerges. In the case of Taiwan, the picture today looks vastly better than several years ago, but significant gaps and areas of potential discoordination remain. + +At a high level, Taiwan now delineates functional oversight of civil defense between the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) during peacetime and the Ministry of National Defense (MND), through its All-Out Defense Mobilization Agency (ADMA), during times of war. This division of responsibilities was formalized with the passage of the Civil Defense Act (CDA) in 2021. Before the CDA, civil defense efforts were fragmented, involving a loosely coordinated network of administrative bodies and bureaucratic actors. These entities often worked in isolation, and while there were instances of cooperation, the overall structure lacked clarity and coordination. The CDA was a critical development as it established a clear chain of command for civil defense matters, creating a streamlined approach for peacetime and wartime situations. + +The most significant issue with the current framework is that the distinction between peacetime and wartime responsibilities is, in many ways, artificial. In reality, the planning, coordination, and preparedness required for civil defense in peacetime overlap with those needed in wartime, especially in the context of China’s ongoing gray zone activities targeting Taiwan. These activities, which blur the lines between peace and conflict, necessitate constant readiness and swift coordination between civilian and military agencies. The rigid separation of responsibilities could hinder the flexibility needed to respond effectively to such unconventional threats. + +Moreover, both the MND and MOI are large bureaucratic entities with their own interests, priorities, and internal dynamics. This creates the risk of turf battles, with each ministry potentially guarding its domain rather than collaborating efficiently. In such a high-stakes environment, Taiwan cannot afford to let bureaucratic competition undermine its national security efforts. The challenges that China’s hybrid warfare tactics pose require seamless interagency cooperation, and any misalignment between the MOI and MND could lead to delays or inefficiencies that weaken Taiwan’s ability to respond to crises. + +Another significant challenge lies in better integration of planning and decisionmaking between Taiwan’s central government and subnational governments. As Taiwan moves toward centralizing civil defense planning under the MOI and MND, it will be crucial to actively engage with and incorporate local initiatives developed by mayors, city planners, and regional authorities across the island. The 2021 CDA makes an important first step by delineating authority between the central, municipal, and district governments, creating a clearer chain of command. However, a more fully integrated structure is needed to ensure that when a stress test of the system is conducted — whether in the event of a conflict or crisis — it will function as intended. + +Key questions remain about how well Taiwan’s civil defense apparatus will operate under actual strain. For example, how will resources and personnel be mobilized across the island in an emergency? What contingency plans are in place if critical communication lines between central and local governments are severed? Moreover, how will decisionmaking be coordinated between localities if contact with the central government is disrupted? These vital concerns must be addressed through joint planning, scenario-based exercises, and development of robust communication and logistics frameworks. + +These concerns are not lost on the government. As one government official told the Financial Times, “We are discussing revising our disaster management mechanisms in order to build a clearer command chain and have one system that can work across peacetime and wartime.” One such effort was unveiled in June 2024. President Lai announced the creation of a National Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee to be led by Lai, with Vice President Bi-khim Hsiao, National Security Council secretary-general Joseph Wu, and secretary-general to the president Pan Men-an serving as committee deputies. This potentially serves as an umbrella organization across government, civil society, and the private sector. + +Resilience is a holistic effort, and as Lai said in a speech announcing the committee’s creation, “We need to conduct a comprehensive review and propose solutions to problems, strengthening our resilience in national defense, economic livelihoods, disaster prevention, and democracy.” Signs emerging from the committee’s inaugural meeting are positive, with a focus on running unscripted civilian defense exercises, involving all relevant actors in society, and finding better means of coordination across the government, especially with local governments. National Security Council deputy secretary-general Hsu Szu-chien, who briefed the committee, stressed, + +> The traditional way is for Taiwan’s government and military to take charge, issuing orders to civilians during natural disasters and emergencies. . . . Now we have to adjust this thinking to bolster civilian participation during contingencies, for people to know that “we can take the initiative to save lives.” + +#### Legal Authorities + +The last decade has seen significant progress in building the necessary legal authorities and legislative tool kit to deal with the proliferation of threats to Taiwan’s overall resilience. Notable examples include the following: + +- The Cybersecurity Management Act (2018) targets government agencies and specific NGOs considered providers of critical infrastructure. It mandates they create and implement comprehensive cybersecurity plans. + +- The Anti-infiltration Act, enacted in early 2020, criminalizes foreign interference in Taiwan’s political processes, including disseminating false information intended to influence elections. This legislation imposes strict penalties on individuals and organizations found guilty of spreading false information to meddle in Taiwan’s democratic processes. + +- The CDA (2021), discussed above, clarifies the division of responsibilities for civil defense between the MOI during peacetime and the MND during wartime. + +- The National Security Act, as amended in 2022, expands the scope of protections against espionage and infiltration, specifically the leakage of critical technologies and trade secrets to foreign powers. + +One glaring weak spot for Taiwan’s legal and administrative framework is the vital issue of leadership succession. As it stands, Article 49 of the Constitution of the Republic of China is the only public articulation of the presidential line of succession. It clarifies the transfer of power for two offices only: the vice president and the president of the Executive Yuan. Clarifying and codifying a more robust chain of command is an essential task for Taiwan, given the threat of a possible decapitation strike by the PLA. + +#### Strategic Communications + +In response to the pervasive threat of disinformation, the Taiwanese government has adopted a comprehensive approach that includes public education, regulatory measures, and collaboration with technology companies. Recognizing the importance of an informed public, Taiwan has launched numerous media literacy programs aimed at educating citizens about the dangers of fake news, misinformation, and disinformation, as well as building the capability to identify reliable sources of news and information. These programs cut across all demographics, including students, senior citizens, and rural communities, to ensure a broad reach. Additionally, the government has integrated media literacy into school curricula, teaching young students critical thinking skills and how to discern credible information sources from misleading ones. + +To bolster these educational efforts, Taiwan collaborates with NGOs and civil society groups that specialize in media literacy. These organizations play a crucial role in grassroots education, conducting community outreach and providing resources to help citizens navigate the information landscape. For example, the Taiwan FactCheck Center works with schools and community groups to teach fact-checking techniques and promote skepticism toward unverified or suspicious information online. Such efforts can inoculate against disinformation created by external powers as well as false or misleading information created by partisan political and commercial interests. + +Additionally, the government works closely with social media platforms like Facebook and LINE to identify and remove false content. These companies have established fact-checking partnerships with local organizations to help monitor and curb the spread of disinformation. For instance, Facebook collaborates with the Taiwan FactCheck Center to verify the authenticity of viral content, flagging and taking down posts deemed false. This partnership also extends to sharing data on disinformation trends, allowing the government and civil society to stay ahead of evolving tactics used by malicious actors. + +International cooperation is another key component of Taiwan’s strategy against disinformation. Taiwan participates in global forums and collaborates with other democracies to share best practices and develop joint responses to information threats. The country’s participation in initiatives like the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) allows it to benefit from the expertise of international partners and contribute to the collective defense against disinformation. + +#### Civil Defenses + +One of the most notable developments in Taiwan since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is the proliferation of NGOs focused on civil defense and whole-of-society resilience. Notable examples include the following: + +- __Kuma Academy__, founded with a $32 million donation from entrepreneur Robert Tsao, runs all-day courses on combat skills, medical training, and general disaster response. + +- __Camp 66__, an airsoft shooting range, seeks to improve the weapons capabilities of the general population. + +- __Taichung Self-Training Group__ focuses on disaster response and medical training. + +- __Forward Alliance__, according to founder Enoch Wu, seeks to “teach citizens how to respond in an emergency. In peacetime, this means disaster response. In wartime, the same skills form the backbone of civil defense.” + +Dozens more organizations blanket the island, most of which are not more than a few years old. + +Despite this good work, however, the government and military have, to a large extent, ignored or evinced skepticism about these efforts. Indeed, former defense minister Chiu Kuo-cheng once dismissed the Kuma Academy as little more than a paintball club. Yet this bottom-up surge of grassroots enthusiasm and organization is arguably one of the most promising channels the Taiwanese government has for bolstering functional capabilities in disaster preparedness and strengthening the population’s will to fight. The key question is how to channel and coordinate their efforts with those of the new Lai government and the military. + +Thus, while the unofficial nature of these organizations is arguably their most important attribute, the government should take greater steps to work with and coordinate these resilience-focused civil society organizations, including regular convenings with organization leaders and the newly formed Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee. It should also include more formally integrating these groups into the MND’s Wan An and Han Kuang combat exercises, as well as the Wanan air defense drill. + +Within the government and military, there have been notable signs of progress, including the creation of the AODMA, established under the MND in 2021 as part of the All-Out Defense Mobilization Readiness Act. AODMA’s primary goal is to coordinate the mobilization of the island’s reserve force in the face of a conflict or disaster, which, prior to AODMA’s creation, had been managed by the All-Out Defense Mobilization Office and the Armed Forces Reserve Command. + +In the spring of 2022, the MND issued its first-ever civil defense handbook, which included QR codes that could direct individuals to one of Taiwan’s 89,405 air raid shelters, information on how to locate medical clinics and “daily necessities allocation stations,” and images to help distinguish between Taiwan’s military and the PLA. Of course, the handbook’s distribution is a welcome but fairly minor step in the right direction. More important is the internationalization of the information contained in the pamphlet. As some critics have noted, relying on QR codes to find air raid shelters in a time of war is problematic as access to reliable cell phone service during a Chinese attack is far from guaranteed. Indeed, the known operations to sever Taiwan’s undersea cables, likely at Beijing’s direction, clearly indicate that telecommunications access might be the first casualty of a prospective Chinese attack. As discussed, countries like Finland mandate all large buildings have shelters. They have also turned many of the shelters into social spaces that community members incorporate into their daily lives during peacetime, ensuring citizens are not scrambling to determine the location of the nearest shelter in the event of a surprise attack. + +At the end of 2022, then president Tsai Ing-wen gave a speech at the Presidential Office in which she unveiled a plan for important changes to Taiwan’s national defense, including the lengthening of conscription from four months to a full year. She also called for upgrading Taiwan’s civil defense system, with better integration of central and local governments, the military, law enforcement, and the private sector across disaster relief, public health, and public security. Her speech was light on details, but it signaled at the highest level that Taiwan’s existing civil defense framework and capabilities were insufficient to meet the current and future challenges. + +Despite this progress, roadblocks exist. Perhaps the most notable is the issue of a possible Chinese attack, which is deeply political, with the two main parties — the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — engaging in intense disputes about the nature of the threat and the correct measures for responding. The KMT tends to advocate for closer ties to mainland China, arguing that maintaining peaceful cross-strait relations is the best way to avoid conflict. DPP leaders, including President Lai, have pushed for increased defense spending and stronger relations with the United States and other democratic nations to counter the military threat from China. This divide is evident in election campaigns, with the KMT accusing the DPP of unnecessarily provoking Beijing, while the DPP accuses the KMT of being too willing to appease China, risking Taiwan’s future security. Thus, instead of a core national political consensus on the nature of the threat and the road map to addressing it, including defense mobilization and civil defense preparedness, key partisan divisions remain, thwarting progress. + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/1mDKwku.png) +_▲ __Figure 1: Cover of MND’s 2023 Civil Defense Handbook.__ Source: Taiwan Ministry of National Defense._ + +The second clear roadblock is the lack of effective coordination across the growing ecosystem of government, private sector, and NGO stakeholders working directly on or adjacent to civil defense. Although absolute coordination is neither achievable nor desirable, Taiwan’s small population and limited resources, coupled with the existential risk of a possible Chinese attack, means there is little room for duplicative or ineffective efforts. This fragmentation hinders the pooling of resources and limits the strategic alignment needed for an integrated civil defense strategy. Relatedly, without more central coordination and national-level standards on civil defense and all its related domains, the Taiwanese government cannot ensure consistency and quality within the growing network of civil defense actors. The new Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, discussed above, is an important step in the right direction, but much depends on how the committee operates, how inclusive it is, and whether or not it is geared toward substance reforms. + +#### Critical Infrastructure + +Taiwan has made progress on protecting its critical infrastructure, but significant vulnerabilities remain. This section addresses four areas: cyber defense, energy, communications, and food security. It then examines the broader issue of relations with the private sector. + +__Cyber Defense__ + +For decades, Taiwan has been under constant cyber assault from the PRC. Indeed, these attacks date to the late 1990s, when a large-scale web defacement attack targeted government websites in the wake of comments by then president Lee Teng-hui asserting Taiwan’s distinct sovereignty from China. Since then, the scale and intensity of these efforts have increased in tandem with China’s strengthening assertion of sovereignty over Taiwan and its proliferating cyber capabilities, including through hybrid and proxy actors. + +Successive leaders in Taiwan have taken aggressive steps to address the threat. In 2013, the government established a cybersecurity office under the Executive Yuan, which was later upgraded to a department in 2016. The department seeks to coordinate national cybersecurity efforts, including the formulation and implementation of all national-level cybersecurity laws and regulations. It also works closely with other government agencies, such as the MND, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the National Communications Commission, in an attempt to create a unified front against cyber threats. + +In 2017, MND established the Information, Communication, and Electronic Force Command (ICEF), which is tasked with defending military networks and conducting offensive cyber operations and thus is similar in function to the U.S. Cyber Command. ICEF was the first effort by the Taiwanese government and military to cohere electronic warfare, cyber warfare, and communication warfare into a single entity. + +Taiwan’s approach to cybersecurity — and indeed its approach to digital governance — took a major step forward with the creation of the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) in August 2022. From the outset, MODA was tasked with improving Taiwan’s approach to cyber resilience, and the Department of Communications and Cyber Resilience was tasked with looking across the island’s telecommunications and digital infrastructure to ensure it is effective, advanced, protected, and coordinated. The ministry’s inaugural leader, Audrey Tang, had already built a reputation for creativity and an unconventional approach to technology while serving as the minister without portfolio of digital affairs. Tang has shown a distinct willingness to partner with civil society, including the island’s robust hacking community, to improve the government’s capabilities, transparency, and service offerings to the public. Tang’s successor at MODA, Huang Yen-nun, recently unveiled a new strategy to increase the resilience of Taiwan’s communications system, including the maintenance of internet access during natural disasters through investments to ensure internet access during natural disasters, cyberattacks, and other threats. + +International cooperation is another cornerstone of Taiwan’s cybersecurity strategy. The Department of Cybersecurity collaborates with international partners to share threat intelligence, best practices, and technological advancements. Taiwan has also signed cybersecurity memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with several countries, including the United States, Japan, and Australia. For example, Taiwan and the United States conduct annual cybersecurity drills known as the Cyber Offensive and Defensive Exercises (CODE), which simulate real-world cyberattacks and defenses to test and improve their respective cybersecurity capabilities. + +Furthermore, Taiwan participates in global cybersecurity forums and initiatives, such as the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) and the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST). While these memberships allow Taiwan to collaborate with international cybersecurity experts, share insights on threat trends, and contribute to the development of global cybersecurity standards, Taiwan’s lack of diplomatic status with nearly all its partner nations continues to constrain the depth and breadth of these cooperative engagements. + +The Taiwanese government’s investment in cybersecurity technologies and workforce development, while noteworthy, still demands additional effort given the enormity of the challenges faced. In interviews with government officials and cybersecurity experts in Taiwan, a consistent concern was the limited talent development pipeline due to Taiwan’s relatively small population size and the challenges of attracting key talent away from commercial technology firms or tech start-ups. The government has attempted to address this through educational and training programs. However, questions remain about the adequacy of these programs in meeting the growing complexity of cyber threats. Universities and technical colleges offer specialized courses, but as of yet, there is no evidence that these programs can produce a sufficiently large or skilled workforce to address Taiwan’s urgent needs, especially in light of the enormous challenge from Beijing. Government-sponsored certifications and continuous learning opportunities, while beneficial, may lack the depth required for tackling increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, let alone for dealing with the types of attacks that prefigure an all-out invasion. + +__Energy__ + +Taiwan’s basic energy equation puts it in a strategic bind. For geographic and policy reasons, it overwhelmingly depends on the importation of energy resources, the vast majority of which are traditional hydrocarbons. In 2023, Taiwan imported 97 percent of its energy, most of which came from oil and petroleum (44 percent), coal (29 percent), and natural gas (20 percent). Indigenously derived power is split between nuclear (4 percent), biomass (1.3 percent), solar (1 percent), and wind and hydro (0.8 percent). + +Yet for political and policy reasons, many of which are sensible, the Taiwanese government has outlined ambitious goals to decarbonize, seeking net-zero emissions by 2050. While further expansion of the island’s nuclear power program could enable such an effort, the ruling DPP, for political and environmental reasons, has moved aggressively to eradicate nuclear power as a possible energy source by 2025, despite the fact that nuclear power remains the single largest domestically produced power source. + +Today wind and solar alone have insufficient capacity to power Taiwan’s economy during noncrisis periods or during a possible crisis. Adding to the challenge is the problematic nature of Taiwan’s power grid. According to a report by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan, the grid is “both isolated and relentlessly centralized, with heavy reliance on larger plants,” including the three vital voltage substations of Lunchi, Longtan, and Zhong Liao. A problem in any one plant would ripple out across the entire grid, causing “an electrical heart attack” for the island and its economy. The impacts of these deficiencies have been put front and center in the political conversation after a series of significant island-wide blackouts over the past several years. The 303 blackout — named for the date of the outage, March 3, 2022 — affected nearly 5.5 million residents, most notably in southern Taiwan, where the blackout lasted more than half a day. Because one firm, Taipower, structures and oversees Taiwan’s power grid, the issues that arise in one part of the grid are likely to spread nationwide. + +Addressing all the above challenges will be vital for Taiwan, not only in a major geopolitical crisis but also in nonmilitary scenarios that are more likely to affect the island, including typhoons, earthquakes, and — in the case of the 303 blackout — human error. Addressing Taiwan’s reliance on imported energy will not be easy or quick. While it is notable and laudable that the administrations of Presidents Tsai and Lai set out ambitious climate goals, these must be weighed against the growing geopolitical threats Taiwan currently faces. Taking steps to build a more resilient power supply need not mean completely abandoning the vital objective of greening Taiwan’s energy future, but tough political choices must be made. + +__Communications Infrastructure__ + +In early 2023, two undersea communication cables connecting Taiwan’s main island with the Matsu Islands were severed, temporarily disrupting internet communications for the 14,000 inhabitants of the outer islands Taiwan governs. Taipei did not formally accuse the PRC of sabotage, but credible rumors point toward Chinese ships causing the disruption. + +While Beijing might have been sending a subtle warning to Taipei, the incident highlighted the vulnerability of Taiwan’s communications infrastructure. A mere 15 submarine cables link Taiwan to the rest of the world. According to the New York Times, these undersea fiber optic cables have experienced nearly 30 ruptures since 2017, in most cases because of dragged ship anchors. These incidents underscore the island’s precarious position, with its global connectivity largely hinging on undersea cables that could be easily targeted in a conflict scenario. It is also worth noting that rupturing Taiwan’s undersea cables would have knock-on effects for countries on its periphery, including South Korea and Japan. Furthermore, the infrastructure enabling domestic communications is also highly vulnerable to potential disruption, whether by physical attack or natural disaster. Indeed, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that rocked Taiwan’s eastern coast early in 2024 damaged nearly 200 cellular base stations. Irrespective of the origin of disruption, incapacitation of the macro cell tower network that connects Taiwan’s residents to each other and the government through their cell phones would significantly hamper the ability to coordinate in a crisis. Even lower-tech communication media, such as wireless radio and television networks, depend on physical infrastructure that would be a tempting target for an invading force. As one researcher from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research told Reuters, “Strategic communications, internally and externally, is what keeps us up at night, particularly in the aftermath of Ukraine.” + +Taiwan is vulnerable not just to physical attacks on its infrastructure but also to cyberattacks that disrupt its communications and military command systems. In fact, Taiwan’s cybersecurity agencies have reported a significant increase in cyberattacks over the past few years, with Chinese state-sponsored groups being the primary perpetrators. According to a report from the cybersecurity firm Cloudflare, Taiwan saw a staggering 3,370 percent year-on-year increase in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks during the final three months of 2023. The major utility Chunghwa Telecom, discussed above, was hacked in early 2024, with vast troves of sensitive information and data exfiltrated onto the dark web. While the identity of the perpetrator has not yet been confirmed, the attack demonstrates the vulnerability of Taiwan’s critical infrastructure. As a recent report by Microsoft reveals, PRC-led hacking efforts across the Asia-Pacific region, including against Taiwan, frequently attack the telecommunications sector, “often leading to many downstream effects.” Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), arguably Taiwan’s most strategically important firm, reported a ransomware hack last summer that, while limited in its actual damage, again demonstrates just how vulnerable Taiwan’s vital actors are to such attacks. + +Yet another warning for Taiwan comes from the ongoing war in Ukraine, both because Russia’s assault on the country’s telecommunications infrastructure hints at a possible playbook for Beijing and because of the Ukrainian military’s reliance on the Starlink network to communicate and coordinate across the battlefield and with Kyiv. For Ukraine’s extraordinarily effective drone army, the reliance on Starlink’s network of 6,000 low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites has been especially stark. Starlink’s owner, Elon Musk, has been reluctant to support the Taiwan market, in part because of joint-venture requirements that Taipei would mandate. Even assuming Musk sees Taiwan as a potential partner, some have raised concerns that his other business interests, most notably Tesla’s deep integration into the Chinese marketplace, potentially add variables beyond Taipei’s control that are too uncertain to accept. + +Under the pioneering leadership of Tang, who led the MODA from 2022 through May 2024, Taipei has made important strides in recent years to address the island’s vulnerabilities. The umbrella effort aims to enhance Taiwan’s overall telecommunications resilience through a better mix of land-based, maritime, and communications systems that, taken together, ensure Taiwan’s “government command structure, disaster relief units, and the general populace can maintain essential and secure communication even in extreme circumstances.” + +In January 2023, MODA established the National Institute of Cyber Security (NICS) with the goal of advancing “the application, competence and R&D of Taiwan’s cyber security technology.” Among other goals, NICS strives to create a talent pipeline that can assist the government and private sector to help Taiwan confront a range of current and future cyber threats. As mentioned, these efforts have not clearly yielded strategic dividends, but recognizing the deficiencies in the talent pipeline is an important first step. + +MODA also selected the Telecom Technology Center to lead an effort focused on “response or wartime applications of new technology to strengthen digital communications resilience,” including the use of non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) in instances where traditional means of communication, including mobile and landline phones, become unavailable. Under its Program for the Digital Resilience Validation of Emerging Technologies for Contingency or Wartime Applications, the government seeks to enhance connectivity to Taiwan’s outer islands and remote areas through an expansion of satellite hot spots and cellular base stations. This summer, MODA announced it had launched a new medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite to bolster the connectivity of Taiping Island, which sits in the Nansha (Spratly) Islands and is contested by the PRC, Vietnam, and the Philippines. + +In 2023, Chunghwa Telecom, one of Taiwan’s largest telecommunications providers, signed a deal with London-based Eutelsat OneWeb to bring its satellite network coverage to Taiwan. Around the same time, MODA partnered with the Luxembourg-based satellite firm SES to implement an MEO satellite network covering all of Taiwan. According to industry reports, conversations are also ongoing with Amazon’s Project Kuiper and the Canadian firm Telesat. These concurrent efforts with multiple satellite firms are an effort to avoid any single point of failure in Taiwan’s telecommunications network. + +While these efforts are to be applauded, Taiwan’s ability to insulate its telecommunications infrastructure from intentional attacks or disasters stemming from natural disasters, as discussed below, has limitations. If Beijing is intent on attacking the island, knocking out its communications network will be a top priority. Therefore, cooperation with international companies and governments is essential. + +__Food and Water Security__ + +In addition to importing the vast majority of its energy requirements, Taiwan relies heavily on global supply chains to source food. Statistics from 2021 show that nearly 70 percent of Taiwan’s annual caloric intake comes from overseas. According to an analysis by Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture, the island’s food self-sufficiency ratio stood at 31 percent in 2022, the lowest in a decade, well below the target of 40 percent by 2020 set by the Ma Ying-jeou administration in 2011. Analysis by the USDA concludes that the problem might be even worse than the official self-sufficiency ratio indicates, as “domestic poultry and hog production which are shown to have high self-sufficiency ratios rely on imported grains and feed to maintain production.” Further, Taiwan relies on fertilizer imports, which, in turn, sustain its domestically grown vegetable and fruit crops. In the event of a Chinese blockade or invasion that partially or completely disrupts global supply chains, access to imported grains and fertilizers would be significantly affected, to the great detriment of Taiwan’s domestic food production. + +While one government official stated publicly in 2022 that Taiwan had sufficient food stockpiles to sustain for one year in the event of a direct attack by China, there is no full public accounting to verify these claims. In other venues, senior officials have been more cagey on the precise inventories and the planning scenarios used to formulate these supply targets. Former deputy economy minister Chen Chern-chyi would only clarify, “We want to ensure that we have a certain period’s worth stockpiled in Taiwan, including food, including critical supplies, minerals, chemicals and energy of course.” During the Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. government experts assessed that Taiwan had sufficient food stocks to last six months. While the assessment does not contravene Taiwanese government estimates, it highlights the need for more robust data reporting on the current stockpile levels. + +While public reports indicate that Taiwan has sufficient reserves of rice to last one year (1.26 million metric tons), the stockpiles of other staples are less certain. Relatedly, a significant and prolonged power outage would call into question the electrical cooling systems needed to store food supplies, even the national reserves of rice, which require storage in low-temperature silos. + +During a crisis, a key logistical challenge is the rationing and distribution of food and water. This is no easy task, especially in the instance of a military attack or, more probably, a severe earthquake. Relatedly, in the instance of a prolonged crisis, a key issue for the Taiwanese government and its military planners would be the issue of food resupply. As discussed below, this is an area of potentially enhanced U.S.-Taiwanese cooperation. + +Taiwan is also wrestling with growing challenges in water security and water resource management. Taiwan’s 2021 drought, the worst in 56 years, severely affected its semiconductor industry, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the global supply of microchips and 90 percent of the globe’s most advanced chips. TSMC, a vital player in this sector, faced significant production slowdowns during the drought, as it was forced to truck in water to meet its needs. This example highlights the stark nature of Taiwan’s vulnerability, as the high-tech industry is water intensive and crucial to both Taiwan’s economy and the global supply chain. Indeed, one estimate shows that a typical semiconductor firm on Taiwan uses roughly 20,000 tons of water per day and that TSMC’s demand for municipal water increased 71 percent between 2015 and 2019. + +__Government-Private Sector Relations__ + +Coordination between the public and private sectors is challenging in almost all market democracies, owing to the de jure and de facto independence of private firms, as well as concerns about corruption stemming from overly cozy relations between policymakers and profit-making firms. Moreover, many bureaucrats have little incentive to deepen discussions and relations with the private sector, as such efforts are not, in themselves, rewarded. Yet a mature discussion on societal resilience and whole-of-society defense is impossible without deep planning and coordination interlinkages between the private sector and the government. As the case of Finland demonstrates, some governments that face a serious external threat have significantly deepened their relationship with the private sector. + +Such efforts are underway in Taiwan, though they are largely piecemeal and event driven. While many workshops and conferences focus on how supply chains, telecommunications, and cybersecurity resilience affect Taiwan’s economy, there are few formal frameworks and channels for bolstering coordination between the private sector and the government or between private sector actors. During a recent trip to Taipei, representatives from several global technology companies with large footprints in Taiwan told one of the authors of this report they had no active ongoing conversations with the government on the issue of resilience and whole-of-society defense. Taipei must find ways to bolster communication and coordination with the private sector directly, as well as to support efforts for horizontal coordination among companies in key sectors like telecommunications, energy, transportation, and food. + +One recent positive sign was the inclusion of private sector executives in the inaugural convening of the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee on September 27, 2024. According to press reporting, external attendees included representatives from Google, the cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, and the supermarket chain Pxmart Co. + +#### Will to Fight + +As the ongoing war in Ukraine decisively indicates, the will to resist is vital for the ability to repel and resist an invading force. A 2018 RAND study concludes, “Arguably, will to fight is the single most important factor in war.” + +There are vexing questions, however, about Taiwan’s will to fight. Some polls, such as a 2021 poll conducted by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, show that more than 70 percent of respondents would resist a Chinese invasion; this number drops by 10 percent if the attack comes after Taiwan declares independence. In a separate poll conducted by Global Views Monthly in 2022, just over 40 percent stated they would be willing to fight for Taiwan. Still another poll from the same year reports that 61 percent of survey respondents would fight for Taiwan if the PLA attacked. + +Because the threat of an attack on Taiwan currently feels distant to many on the island, and because Beijing’s gray zone actions have to some extent become normalized to many Taiwan inhabitants, both assessing and galvanizing public resolve are challenging. Polling data are an imperfect measure for the will to fight, as they necessarily omit variables that would be key to determining how many in society actually resist. For example, what expectations do the Taiwanese people have about their leadership’s competence and resolve? What expectations do they have of the United States and the dependability of its quasi-security commitment as outlined in the Taiwan Relations Act? Recent polling by the think tank Academia Sinica shows that views of the United States are mixed, with just over 40 percent of respondents agreeing the United States is a “credible country.” The connection between the will to fight and U.S. credibility matters greatly, as there is understandably a blunted incentive to resist the PLA if the expectation is that the United States will sit on the sideline. For all Taiwan can and should do to provide for its own defenses, it probably could not defeat a Chinese invasion absent significant support from the United States. + +Further, successive governments on Taiwan have faced the dilemma of how to sufficiently raise the threat awareness of a possible attack or blockade to facilitate the difficult investments or sacrifices Taiwan must make without unduly panicking the island’s small population, creating a brain drain, or redirecting much-needed foreign direct investments to safer locations. Several senior Taiwanese government officials have privately stated their deep frustration with Western media coverage that frames Taiwan as “the most dangerous place on earth,” as this narrative potentially drives away investment precisely at the time Taipei is seeking to build Taiwan into a global technology powerhouse in sectors extending beyond semiconductors. In addition, taking a more overt stance in publicizing Chinese aggression toward Taiwan could, in itself, provoke more such actions by Beijing as punishment. + +#### Integration with Allies + +Taiwan’s small population, combined with its geographic and diplomatic isolation, means resilience will demand active international collaboration. Despite these severe limitations, successive governments on Taiwan have built out substantive partnerships for a wide array of issues critical to its prosperity and security. These include areas from trade and trade diversification, such as the 2016 New Southbound Policy, to technology, where Taipei has been building unique partnerships leveraging the singular advantage it has in its cutting-edge semiconductor industry. Taiwan has also leveraged world-leading public health capabilities to expand cooperation on pandemic preparedness. + +Related to overall societal resilience, Taiwan’s efforts have been more mixed. One notable success is the GCTF, formed in 2015 in partnership with Japan, the United States, and Australia to facilitate discussions and cooperation between Taiwan and a range of international stakeholders on issues ranging from digital crimes to media literacy. The GCTF has also provided a platform for deeper discussion and partnership on issues that directly affect Taiwan’s resilience, including supply chain security, trade diversification, telecommunication resilience, and combatting disinformation. Although the GCTF demonstrates that creative organization structures can help Taiwan participate more fully in critical global conversations, it is still unclear how many of the workshops and discussions it has facilitated have translated into concrete or meaningful action that is changing the facts on the ground. + +Taiwan has also done well in finding discrete areas for bilateral cooperation on issues including cybersecurity, food security, public health, and disaster preparedness. Highlights include the following: + +- In 2021, the United States and Taiwan launched the U.S.-Taiwan Technology, Trade and Investment Collaboration (TTIC) to strengthen dialogue on supply chain security and resiliency. After convenings in 2021 and 2022, however, the TTIC went dark. + +- Taipei has signed a range of MOUs focusing on public health with foreign partners including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic. Not all of these, however, focus on strengthening Taiwan’s capabilities and resilience. The agreement with the Czech Republic, for example, targets the rebuilding of Ukraine’s shattered primary healthcare system. Thus, many of Taiwan’s external partnerships have a dual nature: they attempt to thread a needle of being substantive but also normalizing and expanding Taiwan’s international space. + +- NICS signed an MOU with Lithuania’s Innovation Agency to bolster digital resilience. Tang, then head of MODA, stated that Lithuania, “value-wise, is the closest to Taiwan in the world” and that the partnership gave Taiwan the ability to draw on the Lithuanian government’s experience combatting cyberattacks and disinformation. + +#### Conclusion + +As this chapter argues, Taiwan has taken some laudatory steps to strengthen resilience, but its efforts thus far are inadequate. For example, there is limited evidence of a coordinated and effective civilian readiness program that addresses economic and social disruptions. This is a critical gap, especially in light of current and future Chinese activities to target Taiwan’s financial systems, electricity grid, telecommunications network, or other areas. In addition, the readiness and resolve of Taiwan’s civilian population to resist in the event of foreign aggression also remains concerning. To help resolve these and other issues, the next chapter turns to recommendations. + + +### Chapter 4 Strengthening Resilience beyond Military Aid — Steps for Taiwan and the United States + +The geopolitical importance of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific region has made it a focal point for U.S. strategic interests, particularly in the context of countering Chinese influence and aggression. However, while the United States has invested significantly in bolstering Taiwan’s military capabilities, there has been a notable lack of attention to enhancing the resilience of Taiwanese society. A robust societal resilience strategy is essential not just for immediate military deterrence but also for the long-term survival and thriving of Taiwan in the face of potential Chinese aggression. + +Despite also highlighting the importance of developing asymmetric capabilities, U.S. strategy toward Taiwan has nonetheless heavily emphasized providing advanced military hardware, such as F-16 fighter jets, M1 Abrams tanks, HIMARS rocket launchers, Harpoon coastal defense systems, and Javelin antitank missiles. These systems are indeed crucial for Taiwan to maintain a credible defense posture against a conventional invasion by China. Moreover, the training provided to Taiwan’s military, including joint exercises and instruction on the use of advanced systems, is designed to enhance Taiwan’s ability to respond effectively in a high-intensity conflict. + +However, the focus on military assistance overlooks several critical factors. First, while advanced weaponry can serve as a deterrent, it does not address the broad spectrum of challenges Taiwan would face in a protracted conflict with China or increased gray zone activities. These challenges include not just military confrontations but also economic warfare, cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, and attempts at political subversion. In these areas, Taiwan’s societal resilience — its ability to withstand and recover from various forms of coercion — is as important as its military strength. + +Second, historical examples highlight the limitations of relying solely on military aid without concurrent efforts to build societal resilience. In numerous conflicts, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, the failure to develop a society’s internal strength and cohesion has led to the collapse of resistance, even in the presence of superior military technology. Taiwan’s situation, while unique, shares some parallels with these cases, particularly in terms of the asymmetric nature of the threat it faces from China. + +The remainder of this chapter is divided into three sections. The first discusses steps the Taiwanese government could take to improve its resilience. The second section provides an overview of steps the United States and other international actors can take to aid Taiwan. The third section offers a summary of the main conclusions and recommendations. + +#### Steps for the Taiwanese Government to Take on Its Own + +This section focuses on recommendations in four areas: raising threat awareness, improving ties to the private sector, bolstering energy infrastructure, and stockpiling food and energy. + +__Raising Threat Awareness among the People of Taiwan__ + +The Taiwanese government understandably fears stoking panic among its population by highlighting the extent of the PRC threat. Yet at the same time, hesitancy creates an artificial barrier to galvanizing public support for the necessary and potentially costly reforms Taiwan must undertake to ensure its free and democratic future. + +___`A robust societal resilience strategy is essential not just for immediate military deterrence but also for the long-term survival and thriving of Taiwan in the face of potential Chinese aggression.`___ + +This tension is important for several reasons. First, perceptions of resolve are important for shaping Beijing’s calculus. If PLA planners assume a passive population, this increases the likelihood of a possible attack or miscalculation. Second, there is an inextricable link between U.S. perceptions of Taiwan’s will to fight and the willingness of Americans to expend significant financial resources and lives in defense of Taiwan. No political leader in the United States will advocate for sacrificing Americans’ blood and treasure to protect Taiwan if there is a widespread perception that the Taiwanese people themselves are not willing to fight for their freedom. Of course, many Taiwanese leaders understand this; as Joseph Wu, the secretary-general of the Taiwan National Security Commission, stated bluntly, “We have no right to ask others to help us if we are not prepared to defend ourselves.” Finally, many of the reforms outlined in this report require significant political and financial sacrifice, which becomes more difficult if the population does not have sufficient grasp of the enormity of the challenge China presents today and tomorrow. + +One starting point is greater transparency throughout the spectrum of Chinese gray zone and military actions. In private, Taiwanese government officials have reported being vexed that the Japanese military first disclosed on Twitter that the Chinese had fired missiles over Taiwan in the wake of Speaker Pelosi’s trip to the island in August 2022. Understandably, Taipei did not want to panic the population. Yet through a higher tempo of controlled disclosures, Taipei could better educate its population about the threat and galvanize public support for preparing for a range of crisis scenarios. + +Taiwan should establish a dedicated public communication platform that regularly updates citizens and the global public on Chinese intimidation tactics, including disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, and military maneuvers. An objective data-driven platform would not only help foster a public dialogue but also give citizens tools to discern between actual threats and misinformation. In parallel, Taiwan needs to force better coordination and public messaging strategies across the Office of President, MND, MOFA, MODA, and MOI to ensure that consistent messages about the growing threat level are being communicated to the Taiwanese people. + +__Improving Ties to the Private Sector__ + +It is critical for Taipei to strengthen links with the private sector. In addition to the efforts that are beginning to take shape, Taiwan might consider two ideas. First, Taipei should create a private sector “Resilience Advisory Board” comprising senior leaders from key private sector firms and industries that can convene under the auspices of the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, thereby engaging directly with President Lai and his senior leadership team. The board would not only coordinate between the private sector and the Taiwanese government but also serve as a critical node for driving more substantive and strategic discussions among private sector firms about how they are building internal resilience, sector-specific resilience, and resilience across the entire economy. + +Second, the Taiwanese government should consider establishing an annual Taiwan economic security forum to drive conversations between the government and private sector and allow third countries and their respective private sector firms to deepen their relationships with Taiwan. In the comparative cases discussed in chapter 2, governments developed strong relations with foreign companies, including large multinational companies, to strengthen resilience. The reality is that there is a global conversation about Taiwan’s importance for global innovation, yet Taiwan companies and actors often are not at the table, given the sensitivity of discussing Taiwan in many foreign capitals. Having this conversation would be both prudent and likely effective for Taipei. + +Finally, borrowing from the Finnish model, the Taiwan Ministry of Defense, in conjunction with the newly established Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, should run invitation-only, regional training courses for media organizations, religious leaders, and private sector representatives in order to better understand the challenges these actors would face in the event of a crisis, but also to help build bridges between the government and external actors. + +__Bolstering the Energy Infrastructure__ + +Taiwan must take several steps to boost its energy infrastructure and strengthen resilience. First, and most politically challenging, the importance of nuclear power to Taiwan’s overall resiliency cannot be avoided. As Taiwan seeks to secure its energy future amid growing threats, nuclear energy offers a reliable carbon-neutral source of electricity that does not rely on volatile fuel imports. Currently, Taiwan’s three nuclear power plants contribute approximately 10–15 percent of the island’s total electricity generation. However, with plans to phase out nuclear energy by 2025, Taiwan faces the difficult decision of balancing energy security with public concerns over nuclear safety. + +To enhance its resilience, Taiwan could reconsider extending the lifespan of its existing nuclear plants or even constructing new, safer reactors. For example, maintaining the current nuclear capacity would require an extension of the operating licenses for these plants, potentially adding another 5–10 years of service. Alternatively, constructing new advanced reactors, such as small modular reactors (SMRs), could provide a safer and more flexible nuclear option, potentially contributing up to 20 percent of Taiwan’s energy mix by 2035. While politically challenging, ensuring a stable nuclear energy supply could significantly reduce Taiwan’s vulnerability to external energy pressures and contribute to a more resilient and self-sufficient energy system. + +Second, recent efforts to decentralize and upgrade the island’s power grid must be accelerated. Taiwan’s power grid is the backbone of its economic and societal functions, yet it remains vulnerable to both natural disasters and potential military strikes. Decentralizing the grid by increasing the number of microgrids and local power generation units would reduce the risk of widespread blackouts and enhance the system’s resilience to targeted attacks or natural calamities. Currently, Taiwan relies heavily on centralized power generation facilities, with nearly 80 percent of electricity produced by just a few large plants. To mitigate risks, Taiwan should aim to decentralize at least 30–40 percent of its power generation within the next decade, with a focus on renewable energy sources like solar and wind, which are more adaptable to decentralized systems. + +Moreover, upgrading the grid with advanced technologies such as smart grids, which allow for real-time monitoring and rapid response to disruptions, is crucial. In September 2022, Taiwan’s utility monopoly, Taiwan Power Company (known as Taipower), announced the Grid Resilience Strengthening Construction Plan, which pledged $17.7 billion over 10 years to “comprehensively upgrade the national electrical grid system” to make it more resilient in the face of growing power outages. However, experts recommend doubling this investment to accelerate progress and ensure the grid can withstand both environmental and geopolitical threats. + +__Food, Energy, and Water Stockpiling__ + +Taipei can take several steps to address these issues, many of which are beyond the scope of this report. These include investments in agricultural yield-enhancing technologies, efforts to boost urban micro farming and smart farming, and steps to enhance resiliency along the food supply chain. + +Given these are all long-term investments and Taiwan is a small island with limited arable land (and many competing uses for it), there is a ceiling to how much it can do to alleviate its basic reliance on imports. Thus, increased stockpiling is the necessary foundation of its food security efforts insofar as they relate to a possible national disaster or, more extreme, a direct attack by the PLA or prolonged blockade of the island. Significantly increasing strategic reserves of staples (rice, grains, and essential nonperishables) and strengthening cold storage capacity for vegetables, fruits, dairy, and meat products will be essential. Additionally, Taipei must make investments in the resiliency of the electricity infrastructure that can maintain these food supplies. + +Next, the current stockpiles of hydrocarbons must be dramatically increased. Taiwan’s strategic energy reserves are crucial not only for sustaining its economy during peacetime but also for ensuring resilience in times of crisis. The island’s vulnerability to natural disasters, such as typhoons and earthquakes, can severely disrupt supply chains, making it imperative to have substantial reserves to mitigate these risks. Furthermore, in the context of growing Chinese aggression, Taiwan’s energy security is intertwined with its national security. Currently, Taiwan’s government mandates a 90-day reserve of crude oil, yet experts suggest expanding this to at least 180 days to ensure sufficient coverage in the event of a prolonged crisis. Doing so would require increasing reserves from approximately 36 million barrels to 72 million barrels. + +Additionally, Taiwan’s natural gas reserves, which currently stand at around 10–15 days of supply, need to be bolstered to at least 60 days, necessitating the construction of additional storage facilities capable of holding an estimated 7.2 million cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG). These increases would provide Taiwan with the necessary buffer to withstand potential blockades or disruptions to its energy imports, ensuring its military and civilian infrastructure remain operational. Therefore, building up these reserves is not merely a precaution but a strategic necessity that enhances Taiwan’s ability to navigate an increasingly precarious geopolitical landscape, reinforcing its sovereignty and resilience against external pressures. + +On the issue of water security, Taipei has attempted to mitigate these challenges by investing in water recycling, desalination, and reservoir management, but rapid industrial growth and urbanization continue to outpace these efforts. Without more aggressive conservation policies and infrastructure upgrades, Taiwan’s ability to adapt to climate-induced water stress will be limited, threatening its overall resilience in maintaining economic growth, food security, and environmental sustainability. + +In a crisis, such as a natural disaster or a potential Chinese invasion, Taiwan’s potable water distribution plan would undergo profound stress. During the aforementioned 2021 drought and Typhoon Haikui in 2023, Taiwan relied on emergency measures such as water rationing and trucking in water to areas in critical need. Building on these experiences, Taiwan must establish decentralized water distribution networks to ensure access during infrastructure failures. For example, mobile desalination devices and plants could be deployed to coastal regions to convert seawater into potable water in emergency situations. + +Taiwan should also bolster its reserve of potable water. The government has started to build emergency reservoirs and underground water storage systems accessible in times of crisis. Prepositioning bottled water reserves and distributing portable filtration systems to households can further enhance readiness. Additionally, Taiwan could enhance its digital infrastructure for crisis management, using real-time data and artificial intelligence (AI) to prioritize water distribution to vulnerable areas and critical industries and ensure equitable access. + +#### Build on Existing Cooperation Mechanisms + +This section highlights the need to reinforce several ongoing cooperation mechanisms that could be further developed to strengthen resilience. + +__Roles for the United States__ + +This research reveals a lack of established U.S. and international attention and effort to systematically assess Taiwan’s resilience and develop a comprehensive assistance plan to improve resilience in Taiwan. The conversation is much more advanced than where it was just several years ago, but still, this must be an area of greater urgency across the U.S. government. Much of the U.S. military’s focus has been on providing military assistance and training to help Taiwan resist a conventional invasion and gray zone activities. The United States has also engaged with Taiwan through initiatives like the EPPD, which includes some focus on technology and security. + +However, U.S. efforts have not been sufficient to help Taipei meet the full spectrum of threats it faces or to prepare society to withstand external threats and coercion. As this report’s review of historical cases suggests, a population that lacks resilience is in danger of external and internal aggression. A robust societal resilience strategy is essential not just for immediate deterrence but also for the long-term survival and thriving of Taiwan in the face of external threats. In addition, many of the efforts to enhance Taiwan’s resilience could be applied to other allies and partners after being suitably modified for their situation. Thankfully, the United States and its partners can positively contribute to Taiwan’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its societal resilience in several areas. + +__U.S.-Taiwan Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue__ + +The EPPD, launched in 2020, aims to strengthen economic ties and enhance cooperation between the United States and Taiwan. This dialogue addresses a broad spectrum of economic issues, including supply chain security, technology, energy, healthcare, and infrastructure. The EPPD functions as a forum for both nations to tackle common economic challenges and identify opportunities for collaboration, especially in key sectors like semiconductors and 5G technology, which are vital to the global economy. + +___`However, U.S. efforts have not been sufficient to help Taipei meet the full spectrum of threats it faces or to prepare society to withstand external threats and coercion.`___ + +To enhance the effectiveness of the EPPD in improving Taiwan’s resilience, the United States should consider the following steps: + +- __Broaden participation__. Include representatives from the private sector, civil society, and academia to provide diverse perspectives and expertise. This multistakeholder approach would ensure that the dialogue addresses the needs and concerns of all relevant parties. + +- __Regional integration__. Encourage the inclusion of other Indo-Pacific nations — either directly or through representatives from the private sector — in specific discussions, fostering regional economic integration and cooperation. This would help Taiwan diversify its economic partnerships and strengthen its role in regional supply chains. However, these discussions must be held carefully and not in public since many governments may be concerned about Beijing’s response. + +- __Innovation and research and development collaboration__. Establish joint research and development (R&D) initiatives focused on emerging technologies, such as AI and green energy. This collaboration would not only drive economic growth but also ensure that both the United States and Taiwan remain competitive in global innovation. + +- __Cybersecurity cooperation__. Deepen cooperation on cybersecurity within the EPPD framework, particularly in protecting critical infrastructure and securing digital economies, ensuring both economies withstand and respond to cyber threats effectively. + +__Global Cooperation and Training Framework__ + +The GCTF is an initiative Taiwan and the United States cofounded in 2015, with Japan later joining as a full partner and other countries, such as Australia, joining as partners or participants. The GCTF aims to enhance Taiwan’s participation in global issues and share Taiwan’s expertise with the international community. The framework facilitates training workshops and cooperative activities on a variety of topics, including public health, disaster relief, environmental protection, cybersecurity, and women’s empowerment. These events, often held in Taiwan, serve as platforms for government officials, experts, and NGOs from across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond to exchange knowledge, build capacity, and strengthen regional cooperation. + +As it relates to resilience, the GCTF can expand along the following lines: + +- __Broaden the scope of topics__. While the GCTF already covers a wide range of important areas, it could expand to include additional critical topics such as civil defense, legal reform, supply chain security, and economic resilience. Training sessions and workshops on these topics would help Taiwan and its partners better prepare for crises and strengthen their ability to respond to various challenges. + +- __Increase participation from regional partners__. Expanding participation to more countries in the Indo-Pacific region would not only bolster regional collaboration but also increase Taiwan’s integration into international networks. This broader participation could help Taiwan develop stronger ties with neighboring countries, thereby enhancing its regional resilience. + +- __Focus on technology and cybersecurity__. Given the increasing importance of cybersecurity and emerging technologies, the GCTF could introduce more specialized programs focused on protecting critical infrastructure and promoting technological innovation. This would help Taiwan and its partners stay ahead of cyber threats and technological challenges. + +- __Promote public-private partnerships__. Engaging the private sector more deeply in GCTF activities could provide new resources and perspectives. Public-private partnerships could be fostered in areas such as disaster response, cybersecurity, and innovation, bringing in expertise and investment from leading industries; they could also be messaged to show the integration of Taiwan beyond the narrowing diplomatic domain. + +- __Establish a permanent secretariat__. To enhance coordination and continuity, establishing a permanent GCTF secretariat could be beneficial, although admittedly difficult to achieve for bu- reaucratic reasons. This body could oversee the planning and implementation of activities, ensure consistent communication between partners, and help secure funding for future initiatives. + +__Cooperation between USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service and Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture__ + +On June 3, 2024, the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan, and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office signed an agreement to establish formal cooperation between the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service and the Taiwanese Ministry of Agriculture to expand “food security related cooperation and exchanges.” While not explicitly designed to deal with a possible invasion or blockade, the MOU nonetheless provides a solid foundation for expanding cooperation and coordination between the two sides on a range of issues related to both crisis and precrisis scenarios. + +__Expanded U.S.-Taiwan Military Coordination__ + +A number of areas under the current One China Policy framework that govern the unofficial U.S. relationship with Taiwan can be expanded to increase Taiwan’s resilience and civil defense capabilities: + +1. As the U.S. House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party outlines in its May 2023 Ten for Taiwan report, congruent with section 5503 of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the U.S. military should build an aggressive “regional contingency stockpile,” as well as war reserve stocks for allies located on Taiwan. + +2. Also in congruence with the NDAA and the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. military, including and especially U.S. special operations forces, should increase collaboration with the ADMA to ensure more cohesion and coherence in scenarios where vast sections of Taiwanese society need to be mobilized for a crisis contingency. + +3. The United States should expand International Military Education and Training (IMET) for Taiwan, particularly to improve civil defense and will to fight. IMET is a U.S. government-funded initiative aimed at enhancing the military capabilities of foreign nations by offering training to their military personnel in the United States. The program is administered by the U.S. Department of State and executed by the U.S. Department of Defense. Given the strategic importance of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific region and the increasing tension across the Taiwan Strait, expanding IMET in relation to Taiwan could be a crucial element in enhancing Taiwan’s defense capabilities and reinforcing U.S.-Taiwan relations. Possible areas for expanding the IMET program include the following: + +- Increase the number of IMET slots available to Taiwanese military personnel, allowing more Taiwanese officers to receive training in the United States, thereby expanding their skill sets and enhancing interoperability with U.S. forces. + +- Tailor IMET training to address Taiwan’s unique security challenges, such as cyber defense, anti-submarine warfare, and coastal defense. + +- Offer more advanced and longer-term educational programs to deepen the expertise of Taiwan’s military personnel. Programs at institutions like the U.S. Army War College and the Naval War College could provide strategic-level education to senior Taiwanese officers. + +- Integrate more joint exercises as part of IMET or incorporate simulation-based training that mirrors potential conflict scenarios in the Taiwan Strait. This could involve wargaming and strategic decisionmaking exercises that prepare Taiwanese officers for real-world contingencies, including analyzing the implications of strengthened resilience. + +- Provide training in civil-military relations, governance, and respect for international law, which could help further professionalize Taiwan’s military, ensuring it aligns with democratic values and human rights. + +4. The United States and other allies should consider a rapid reaction team focused on detecting and stopping cyberattacks. Allies have varying capabilities, and a devastating cyberattack could be a game changer. If classification is a hurdle, then a public-private consortium might be a work-around. + +#### Conclusion + +There is an urgent need to strengthen resilience in Taiwan. This chapter concludes with some final thoughts about strengthening resilience. + +First, resilience is only one part of deterrence. Countries and societies, including Taiwan, still need a strong military capable of resisting invasion and other coercive activity. In addition, a strong military requires developing the capabilities to conduct offensive actions, including offensive cyber operations. + +Second, the steps highlighted in this chapter generally need to be set up well in advance of a crisis — ideally years in advance. It takes time and money to bolster strategic design and command structure, establish additional legal measures, enhance strategic communications and psychological resilience, strengthen civil defenses, improve the population’s will to fight, reinforce nonviolent resistance networks, and increase integration with allies and partners. In Ukraine, Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and proceeded to conduct a range of military and offensive cyber actions over the next several years — well before Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion. This gave the Ukrainian government and the private sector — including such companies as Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) — years to increase resilience. + +Third, strengthening resilience requires a careful balancing act. Too many high-profile actions can incite a potential adversary, worsen the security situation, and create a security dilemma — a situation in which actions taken by one side to increase its security can make others less secure and lead them to respond in kind. The result is a spiral of hostility that leaves neither side better off than before. Finland has built resilience over decades, even as its leadership has professed neutrality toward Moscow. + +Overall, the steps outlined in this chapter are useful first steps to strengthen Taiwan’s will and ability to resist external pressure, influence, and potential invasion. They would strengthen deterrence by raising the costs and risks for an aggressor weighing whether to employ conventional military or gray zone actions against Taiwan. + + +### Appendices + +> ### Appendix A + +__Finland’s Diamond Model for Resilience__ + +Comprehensive security is the cooperation model of Finnish preparedness, where authorities, businesses, NGOs, and citizens handle vital societal functions. As highlighted in Figure A.1, vital societal functions include leadership; international and EU activities; defense capability; internal security; economy, infrastructure, and security of supply; functional capacity of the population and services; and psychological resilience. + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/Ktr07no.png) +_▲ __Figure A.1: Finland’s Diamond Model.__ Source: [“Concept of Comprehensive Security – Building National Resilience in Finland,” The Security Committee, Finland](https://turvallisuuskomitea.fi/concept-of-comprehensive-security-building-national-resilience-in-finland/)._ + +> ### Appendix B + +__Finland’s Security Concept for Society__ + +__57 Functions of Resilience__ + +The following list includes the 57 vital functions in Finland’s comprehensive security model. Finland divides the functions into several key areas: leadership; international and EU activities; defense capability; internal security; economy, infrastructure, and security of supply; functional capacity of the population and services; and psychological resilience. This list also includes the ministry or ministries in charge. + +_LEADERSHIP_ + +__1. Safeguarding the operating prerequisites of the state leadership__ +Ministry in charge: Prime Minister’s Office + +__2. Maintaining the situation picture of the state leadership__ +Ministry in charge: Prime Minister’s Office + +__3. Functioning of communications__ +Ministries in charge: Prime Minister’s Office and all other ministries + +_INTERNATIONAL AND EU ACTIVITIES_ + +__4. Finland’s role in the European Union ensuring that EU matters can be properly drafted and considered at national level and securing solidarity and mutual assistance__ +Ministries in charge: Prime Minister’s Office and all other ministries + +__5. Developing contacts and cooperation with foreign countries and key international actors__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry for Foreign Affairs and all other ministries in their own areas of responsibility + +__6. International crisis management, humanitarian assistance, and international rescue operations__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of the Interior, Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of Justice + +__7. Providing Finnish citizens and foreigners permanently residing in Finland with protection and assistance outside Finland__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry for Foreign Affairs + +__8. Ensuring a smooth flow of goods and services between Finland and other countries__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of Finance + +_DEFENSE CAPABILITY_ + +__9. Finland’s military defense__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Defence + +_INTERNAL SECURITY_ + +__10. Ensuring legal protection__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Justice + +__11. Holding elections and safeguarding the prerequisites of democracy__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Justice + +__12. Maintaining public order and security__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of the Interior + +__13. Ensuring border security__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of the Interior + +__14. Ensuring the safety of supply chains and safety of goods__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Finance + +__15. Civil defense__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of the Interior + +__16. Ensuring the maritime search and rescue capability__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of the Interior + +__17. Emergency response centers__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health + +__18. Maintaining rescue services__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of the Interior + +__19. Immigration control__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of the Interior, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment + +__20. Management of large-scale immigration__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment + +__21. Environmental emergency response__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Defence + +__22. Preparedness for biological threats__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Defence, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of the Environment + +__23. Preventing radiation hazards and preparing for them__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment + +__24. Preparation for chemical threats__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Defence + +_ECONOMY, INFRASTRUCTURE, AND SECURITY OF SUPPLY_ + +__25. Acquiring economic resources and focusing them, and safeguarding human resources__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Finance + +__26. Ensuring the functioning of the financial system__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Finance + +__27. Safeguarding public administration information and communications technology infrastructure and digital services__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Finance, Prime Minister’s Office + +__28. Ensuring availability of and access to electronic communications services__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Transport and Communications + +__29. Safeguarding the continuation of insurance business__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Social Affairs and Health + +__30. Securing the fuel supply__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry + +__31. Securing power supply__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment + +__32. Ensuring weather, maritime, and circumstance services__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Transport and Communications + +__33. Ensuring the availability and usability of transport services__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Transport and Communications + +__34. Ensuring the security and operational reliability of transport and communications network__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Transport and Communications + +__35. Ensuring the continuity of the transports essential for Finland’s security of supply and foreign trade__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment + +__36. Ensuring the functioning of the social welfare and healthcare information systems and the availability of critical supplies__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment + +__37. Detection and monitoring of changes taking place in the environment, adapting to the changes and combating the threats arising from them__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry + +__38. Ensuring waste management__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of the Environment + +__39. Securing resources for construction__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of the Environment + +__40. Ensuring proper housing__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of the Environment + +__41. Safeguarding the water supply__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of the Environment + +__42. Flood risk management and supervision of dam safety__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry + +__43. Securing sufficient labor workforce__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment + +__44. Maintaining the education, training, and research system__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Education and Culture + +__45. Safeguarding vital industries and services__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment + +__46. Safeguarding food supply__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry for Foreign Affairs + +__47. Ensuring the supply of daily consumer goods__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry + +_FUNCTIONAL CAPACITY OF THE POPULATION AND SERVICES_ + +__48. Ensuring the last-resort livelihood of the population__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of Finance + +__49. Ensuring access to social welfare and healthcare services__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Social Affairs and Health + +__50. Maintaining expertise and skills__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Education and Culture + +_PSYCHOLOGICAL RESILIENCE_ + +__51. Maintaining cultural services and protecting cultural heritage__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Education and Culture + +__52. Ensuring the basis for religious activities__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Education and Culture + +__53. Ensuring the continuation of youth work and activities as well as civic sports activities__ +Ministry in charge: Ministry of Education and Culture + +__54. Communications__ +Ministries in charge: all ministries + +__55. Combating social exclusion and inequality__ +Ministries in charge: Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of Education and Culture, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment + +__56. Promoting voluntary activities__ +Responsible actors: all administrative branches and organizations + +__57. Recovery__ +Responsible actors: all administrative branches and organizations + +--- + +__Daniel Byman__ is the director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at CSIS. He is also a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and director of the Security Studies Program. He is the foreign policy editor for Lawfare and a part-time senior adviser to the Department of State on the International Security Advisory Board. + +__Seth G. Jones__ is president of the Defense and Security Department at CSIS. He focuses on defense strategy, military operations, force posture, and irregular warfare. He also teaches at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. + +__Jude Blanchette__ was the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. Previously, he was engagement director at the Conference Board’s China Center for Economics and Business in Beijing, where he researched China’s political environment with a focus on the workings of the Communist Party of China and its impact on foreign companies and investors. From 7a363bbf7769d3be3f7d28fa8176f0d5d7c80640 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2025 00:09:52 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 09/16] 0x30 Add _columns posts, Jan.03 --- ...top-transforming-the-national-character.md | 181 ++++++++++++++++++ ...he-hong-kong-museum-of-medical-sciences.md | 93 +++++++++ 2 files changed, 274 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-08-do-not-stop-transforming-the-national-character.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-14-a-visit-to-the-hong-kong-museum-of-medical-sciences.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-08-do-not-stop-transforming-the-national-character.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-08-do-not-stop-transforming-the-national-character.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..b864c9f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-08-do-not-stop-transforming-the-national-character.md @@ -0,0 +1,181 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "“改造国民性”未可休也" +author: "马屿人" +date : 2024-10-08 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/3seSusQ.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "与羽戈兄商榷" +--- + +近日看到一篇文字《“改造国民性”可休矣》，感觉有颇多可商榷之处，如鲠在喉，不吐不快，试写此文，与之商榷。 + + + +作者羽戈开篇讲“国民性即一国民众的共同性格”。 + +所谓“共同”，是指每一个体皆有。因此以“一国民众的共同性格”定义“国民性”，即是指“国民性”是每个国民皆有的性格。 + +世界上会有哪种性格是14亿人皆有的呢？若是真有此种性格，则该性格必定为全人类所共有，又何来某国“国民性”可言？ + +所以这定义这明显不符合逻辑和现实。而这个定义带来的问题在文章后半段暴露得特别明显。 + +文章后半段有这样一段文字： + +> “国民性是一个无比虚幻的概念，其中充满了专断的因子，如明恩溥说中国人麻木不仁、缺乏公共精神，这能适用于多少国人呢？若有一人不是如此，那么是否证伪了国民性？如此，与其空谈国民性，不如关注每一个具体的国民。” + +这段文字的立论基础就在于上面所引用的定义：“国民性即一国民众每一个体皆有的性格”。 + +然而，无论明恩溥还是鲁迅等人在讲到中国人的麻木不仁、缺乏公共精神时岂是在说每一个中国人都是如此？ + +“中国人麻木不仁、缺乏公共精神”的说法明显指的是这种现象在中国人中普遍存在，占了大多数、是主流，而并非在说每一个中国人都是如此。 + +一个有力的证据便是，鲁迅难道不是一面在痛责中国人精神麻木、哀其不幸怒其不争的同时也在高呼“中国自古以来，就有埋头苦干的人，就有拼命硬干的人，就有为民请命的人，就有舍身求法的人”吗？ + +因此“国民性”理当定义为一国民众“较他国而言更为突出”的某种“普遍性格”，而决不应是“共同性格”。 + +也因此，作者定义之“虚幻”不能说明“国民性”本身是“虚幻”的概念。 + +我以为，“国民性”是确确实实的客观存在的东西。 + +美国人比中国人更爱冒险，比日本人更吵闹，比英国人更外向，比德国人更粗率，这不是事实吗？ + +而日本人更爱干净，英国人更喜欢冷幽默，德国人更严谨，这也是大家所公认的。 + +就是同一个国家，不同时代的人、不同地域的人也会展现出不同的“性格”。比如说，汉唐时人精神更开放强健，明清时人精神更阴郁萎弱；山东人爱考公，江浙人喜经商。 + +这些都不是编造出来的虚幻概念。 + +需要强调的是，美国人的主流性格不会因为其中有一些美国人胆子特小、特安静、特内向、特严谨而改变，也不会因为有些日本人很邋遢、有些英国人爱开黄色玩笑、有些德国人很粗心大意就颠覆了这些国家各自的国民性；同样也不能因为有些汉唐时人精神阴郁萎弱、有些明清人精神开放强健就抹杀不同时代人之间的差异，不能因为有些山东人喜欢经商、有些江浙人喜欢考公就否定掉不同地域的人们有不同的“性格”。 + +否则所谓“民风淳朴”、“民风彪悍”岂不是都成了虚幻概念、无稽之谈？ + +其实，即便小到学校班级，不同班级的学生群体之间都会表现出不同的特质，即所谓“班风”。有的班级酷爱运动，有的班级学习积极，有的班级吵闹，有的班级文静。这都是显而易见的存在和事实。 + +那么，进一步具象到个人呢？ + +作者说：“如此，与其空谈国民性，不如关注每一个具体的国民。” + +又说“从根本上讲，国民性根植于人性”，然后紧接着文章引用康拉德的话，带出“人性本不可改造，只可规约”这个观点。 + +我以为，这第一句话不仅是空谈的、且是虚妄的。 + +面对14亿国民，“关注每一个具体的国民”这种事只有上帝或者未来时代的超级人工智能才能办到吧？ + +也有可能作者想表达的是“关注某些具体国民”。 + +然而，即便是这层意思，我也以为将“谈论国民性”和“关注某些具体国民”对立起来是草率的。为什么不可以既谈论国民性又关注某些个具体国民呢？而且有些时候只怕前者意义还更大些，比如鲁迅写出一部《狂人日记》可能就比他花同样时间精力去和某位遗老遗少谈心更有意义。 + +另外需要指出，作者文章开头认同“国民性”的存在、中间部分又指“国民性”是“无比虚幻的概念”、再到此处重新以“国民性”之存在作为讨论前提、后文又再对“国民性”加以否定，这种持论之反复令人感觉无所适从。 + +“从根本上讲，国民性根植于人性”这一句我是同意的。然而，对于“人性本不可改造，只可规约”这个观点，我却有不同意见。 + +“改造”一词，《现代汉语规范词典》有两种释义： + +1. 对原有的事物进行局部修改或彻底更新，使适合新的需要 + + 例：改造盐碱地 + +2. 特指用某种方式改变人的思想 + + 例：劳动改造 + +我以为，除却“彻底更新”人性可能做不到之外，至少局部、部分改变人性是可以做到的。 + +从百万年前的茹毛饮血时代到如今进入人工智能时代，说史前人类和现代人的人性一模一样，我是绝对不能赞同的； + +一个由狼群抚养长大的孩子，和一个由人类抚养长大的孩子，说两个孩子的人性一模一样，我是绝对不能赞同的； + +一个在社会充满爱心、家庭满是爱意的环境中长大的人，和一个在充满恶意、恶劣扭曲环境中长大的人，说两人的人性一模一样，我是绝对不能赞同的； + +一边是特蕾莎修女、甘地、曼德拉，一边是开膛手杰克、波尔布特、希特勒，说这两边的人人性都一模一样，我也是绝对不能赞同的。 + +而且到底什么是人性呢？ + +自私自利算是最普遍的人性吗？ + +然而乐善好施、助人为乐的人何其多（在有些国家这类人还可能占了多数），甚至还有许多人舍己为人、舍身取义，又算是怎么一回事呢？ + +有的人天生就是反社会人格，有的人天生就是利他型人格。然而天生反社会人格的人是否这一生就注定是悲剧、惨剧收场，天生利他型人格的人是否就一定不会巧取豪夺、偷盗抢劫呢？ + +显然，这些都还要看其个人成长环境和际遇，要看其所受之教化。 + +所以我同意“人性可规约”这种说法，但不能同意“人性只可规约”这种观点。 + +我以为，人性不只可以规约，人性也可以教化。“教化”和“规约”两者应该是并行不悖的。 + +我还以为，由于人性是可以教化、规约的，“国民性深植于人性”，所以国民性同样是可以影响、改造的。 + +文章里原本也有表达类似意思的语句。 + +> “你赞同制度决定论，就去改造制度，你赞同文化决定论，就去改造文化” + +> “提倡改造国民性的人，万万不可与主张制度变革的人为敌，而应执子之手，与子同心戮力，齐头并进。” + +这两段话将“改造国民性”和“主张制度变革”同等视之，是持平之论，取得是十几年前秦晖先生调和“左右之争”的法子：左派争福利，右派争自由；对此我是赞同的。 + +我想要补充说的是，可不可以既努力改造制度、又投身改造文化？可不可以既争福利、也争自由？ + +打个比方，对一个正在减肥的人来说，我以为，跟他灌输“只有管住得嘴才能减肥”这种理念的人有可能是卖减肥餐的，而跟他强调“只有迈开了腿才能减肥”这种观点的人大抵是健身房的，而跟他推荐“一天减十斤”秘方的则十之八九是卖减肥药的。难道既管住嘴、又迈开腿不可以吗？不是更好的方法吗？ + +然而，就像前面已经指出的立论反复问题，作者在写了上面对“改造国民性”有所肯定的话之后，却又笔锋一转，开始惧怕进而否定“改造国民性”了。 + +> “我对改造国民性之‘改造’，有些不以为然。这个词语，杀气腾腾；而国民性的内容，如心理、习俗等，决定了它的进化过程，是涵养而非剧变；是循序渐进、潜移默化，而非大刀阔斧，一蹴而就。” + +我同意后半句，但对前半句“有些不以为然”。 + +“改造”一词的词典释义，前文已摘录，并不“杀气腾腾”。 + +作者若是嫌“改造”一词“杀气腾腾”，另用“改良”一词如何？ + +当然，我以为，在“国民性”问题上，“改造”和“改良”其实是一回事。也许“改良”一词更能体现“循序渐进”、“潜移默化”，但使用“改造”一词也并不意味着就认为国民性可以“剧变”、能够“大刀阔斧，一蹴而就”。 + +不过，对于其中的惧怕心理，我想我能理解，作者的惧怕其实是对“灵魂深处闹革命”等历史事件的阅读体验。大致类似于李泽厚们的“革命恐惧症”和原子弹轰炸日本后某些人倡言应该停止研究核能。 + +然则，革命并非只有“法国大革命”等造成惨绝人寰的这些；要注意，“美国革命”也是革命，“光荣革命”也是革命，“天鹅绒革命”同样是革命。另外，无论如何想用“变革”这类词汇替代“革命”一词的使用，“制度大改变”这一实质仍然是相同的。戊戌六君子也并未因为其所倡言的是“改良”、“维新”而改变被砍头的命运。若因为“灵魂深处闹革命”留下了恐惧阴影，从此就要“改造国民性”可以休矣，未免因噎废食，相类于因为日本挨了原子弹人类从此就不研究核能、也不建设核电站了。 + +世界上难有完美的人，完美的国家更难有，更没有哪个国家人民的德性是完美得无可挑剔的，事实是每个国家的“国民性”都存在缺陷、都有不足之处，而每个国家都有一些有识之士为改造本国国民性建言、奋斗。 + +中国自然更不例外。 + +作者说： + +> “我却不能同意，将国民性视作百病之源，譬如中国落后于列强、归因于国民性的贫弱 + +> ...... + +> 还生出一种决定论，即不改造国民性，中国万事俱不可为。” + +对这段话，我大致上是赞同的。 + +只是，后文会将“改造国民性”和“主张制度变革”相提并论，说明作者应该也赞同“国民性”虽然不是“百病之源”、不能“决定”“中国万事俱不可为”，但“国民性”对于这中国之“百病”、“万事俱不可为”干系重大。 + +那么，国民性既有不足，大家也肯承认这不足，并且认为这不足对中国前途而言关系重大，对它加以“改造”的必要性和重要性就不言而喻了。 + +事实上，除了文章所提到的梁启超、鲁迅试图“改造”中国人的“国民性”，作者向来推崇的胡适何尝没为“改造国民性”努力奋斗过呢？ + +不提胡适的开山之作《文学改良刍议》实则已经开始从文字、文学角度入手“改造国民性”，单以胡适两个最著名的观点举例。 + +一个是“容忍比自由更重要”，一个是“一个自由平等的国家不是一群奴才建造得起来的”。 + +胡适这两个观点是向大众宣发的，亦即他认为中国人对他人、异己往往不够容忍，故而他号召大家要认识到容忍的重要性、希望中国人变得更加宽容；以及他认为中国有奴才思想、奴才精神的人太多，故而他号召大家要先争取做一个自由的人。 + +那么，提高国人的容忍气度、激发国人的自由精神，胡适此举不正是在“改造国民性”吗？ + +不单是胡适，可能连很多反对“改造国民性”这种提法的人，实际上都已经在做这件事了，只不过他们自己并没有意识到。比如说，作者写了不少文章，难道就没有起到一点改变旁人思想、“改造国民性”的作用吗？ + +这里有必要澄清一下，“改造国民性”并不是什么必须得要思想界大宗师、高高在上的大人物才能做的事情，而是人人都可以做得的，只是效力不同而已。顺带着说，“启蒙”也是一样。 + +只要是启发了思考、让人对原本习以为常的事情感到荒谬、对原本以为天经地义的事情产生怀疑，便就是“启蒙”；只要是影响了他人，让一些国人改变了心理预期、思想状态、行为模式的都属于“改造国民性”。 + +秦晖、刘瑜写长篇大作是启蒙，网友们传播豆腐块图文也是启蒙——虽为小卒，亦有涓滴之功；而且“三人行必有我师”、“闻道有先后、术业有专攻”，这理应是一个相互启蒙的时代。 + +鲁迅、胡适鼓吹自由精神是在“改造国民性”，一位老大爷在公园里里斥责软骨头、大谈勇武也是在“改造国民性”，南京彭宇案的法官同样也在“改造国民性”——虽然不是有意的、且是往坏的方向；甚至国足连年败北、郑钦文女单夺冠、日本男篮惊艳法国奥运也在不知不觉地改造了一点中国人的“国民性”。 + +从宏观层面来讲，由于时代局限、个人能力或际遇问题，总有些人的认知或每个人总有某个方面的认知处在矇昧状态，故而启蒙必定需要持续进行下去；一国的国民性会长期存在这样或那样的不足，所以国民性必定会一直都在改造中；人性永远不可能达到完美，而且随着时代变迁、哪种人性是美的标准也会改变，因此人性必将永远都在持续改进中。 + +“启蒙”、“改造国民性”是各国长久的事业，“改造人性”更是人类永恒的征途。 + +以此论之，“启蒙”未可弃，“改造国民性”未可休也。 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-14-a-visit-to-the-hong-kong-museum-of-medical-sciences.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-14-a-visit-to-the-hong-kong-museum-of-medical-sciences.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ef8aa04c --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-14-a-visit-to-the-hong-kong-museum-of-medical-sciences.md @@ -0,0 +1,93 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "香港醫學博物館-尋訪記" +author: "東加豆" +date : 2024-10-14 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/7dqcUbm.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +前陣打算去（香港醫學博物館），於是，上週六，就去了。我也想約豆媽一起前行，嘆嘆茶，吃吃茶樓點心。去博物館不重要，和豆媽飲茶也不重要，兩件事情加起來特別重要。 + + + +### 起程 + +（香港醫學博物館）我選擇了乘坐港鐵線（西營盤站），這個地鐵站的通道非常長，不少後期加建的鐵路站都是這樣，對於長者來說可能會有些壓力。 + +從地鐵站走路到博物館，需時大約15分鐘，當然也可以選擇乘搭計程車，但由於港島區西營盤很多路彎淺窄，要左兜右轉，計程車絕對會跳咪錶的。搭巴士和小巴比較便宜，因為，一些腳力不好、腳患的人，尤其上斜路，對他們來說是苦差事的。 + + +### 展館 + +博物館的建築本身就是一件藝術品，它不僅展示了英國愛德華時代的建築風格，莊嚴而典雅，也融入了中式元素，巧妙地結合了古典與現代。博物館保留了原有的外部和內部特征，是一個文化遺產保護的例子。 + +在博物館中，參觀了多個常設展覽廳，包括懷舊味的實驗室、中醫與科技結合的3D針灸人、天花疫苗製造等。這些展覽不僅讓我們了解了香港在醫學領域的發展，還讓我們看到了中西醫學的結合與互動。 + +我知道自己的習慣，會做筆記和文章分享，所以專注地看眼睛略過的東西，我有我拍照，豆媽也拍照。這裡的訪客不多，寥寥可數，每走進一個展廳，就只有我倆二人。所以，豆媽可以肆無忌大擺甫士拍照（她最喜歡被拍照，也喜歡為他人拍照。） + +展館有很多醫療器材展品，雖然年代不遠，只有三十、四十年歷史，一些只有十幾年，但保存下來都是難得的。 + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/s7x2Lfl.png) +▲ 香港醫學博物館 + + +### 鼠疫 + +當年香港鼠疫橫行，細菌學檢驗所其中一項重要工作，是檢查老鼠監控鼠疫。從香港各區收集老鼠屍體樣本，在公眾病房解剖，有關樣本會還往細菌學檢驗所再作化驗，藉以確定為鼠上鼠疫。當時香港西醫書院高年級暨科會會從旁協助。 + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/ldmMWBe.png) +▲ 香港醫學博物館 + +博物館的前身是1906年開幕的（細菌學檢驗所），負責監控及預防疾病。1990年，檢驗所被列為法定古蹟，並在1996年由非牟利慈善團體香港醫學博物館學會活化為（香港醫學博物館）。 + +1894年，太平山區的衛生狀況極為惡劣，因而爆發了鼠疫。這場大瘟疫造成了2000多人死亡，政府於是把整區夷平，以進行徹底清潔。 + +因為這場疫症，香港於1906年成立第一間專為臨床和公共衞生服務的實驗室（細菌學檢驗所）。 + + +### 口罩史-1619 + +1619，首次佩戴口罩預防疾病，瘟疫醫生面罩首次面世。 + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/NZg2J0H.png) +▲ （鳥嘴）裡載滿草藥和香料，以抵禦外面的瘴氣。 + +1897，外科醫生開始戴上幼棉紗布口罩才進行手術。 + +1910，發明了伍氏口罩：製作容易、成本低廉的紗布夾棉毛巾。首次廣泛使用口罩作為公共衛生措施。 + +1960s，發明一次性、無紡布口罩，取代自1940年代以來使用的可清洗、可消毒口罩。 + +*伍連德（1879-1960），馬來亞醫師，伍氏口罩發明者，以1910-1911年中華東北鼠疫期間的公共衛生工作而聞名。 + +![image04](https://i.imgur.com/tqK6AGV.png) +▲ 主題：居民隱藏家人的屍體。繪畫：陳啟賢先生 + +![image05](https://i.imgur.com/4HvTb4Z.png) + +![image06](https://i.imgur.com/KRpffrZ.png) +▲ 雖然家屬和鄰居反對，英軍仍然將鼠疫病患者轉移至隔離地點治療。繪畫：陳啟賢先生 + +博物館不只靜默展示，還有舉辦不同的專題展覽、講座和活動，讓不同年紀、本地及各地訪客，都能享受到這裡的氣氛。 + +博物館的使命是提供一個啟發性的環境，促進公眾對健康及醫學常識的教育，並成為醫學歷史研究，同時扮演香港醫療歷史與現代健康科學發展的記憶庫。 + +![image07](https://i.imgur.com/SKgvsMK.png) +▲ 香港醫學博物館-展品 + +![image08](https://i.imgur.com/rNtULLt.png) +▲ 香港醫學博物館 + +這次的參觀不僅學到關於醫學知識的點滴，更讓我和豆媽多了一份記憶，香港醫學博物館留下了兩雙腳印。 + +![image09](https://i.imgur.com/pjp8iZb.png) +▲ 香港醫學博物館-紀念品-筆座。豆媽的紀念品 + +![image10](https://i.imgur.com/yR4HWck.png) +▲ 香港醫學博物館。網址：www.hkmms.org.hk + +完 + + \ No newline at end of file From 190ce630fef88b19b98a2db3cfb8683b60f7dad0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2025 00:10:20 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 10/16] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x30 Jan.06 --- .../2024-12-09-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-105.md | 156 ++++ .../2024-12-10-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-106.md | 143 +++ ...24-12-11-diversification-and-de-risking.md | 821 ++++++++++++++++++ .../2024-12-11-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-107.md | 151 ++++ .../2024-12-12-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-108.md | 148 ++++ .../2024-12-13-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-109.md | 118 +++ 6 files changed, 1537 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-105.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-10-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-106.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-diversification-and-de-risking.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-107.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-12-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-108.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-109.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-105.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-105.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..41710408 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-09-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-105.md @@ -0,0 +1,156 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : 【黎智英案・審訊第 105 日】 +author: 獨媒報導 +date : 2024-12-09 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 國安法後黎智英曾考慮是否繼續受訪 何俊仁提醒發言「留在相對安全的範圍」 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/WlLh14D.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（9日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第105日審訊，黎智英第13日作供。辯方圍繞國安法生效之後黎的意圖提問。黎供稱，其私人助手 Mark Simon 可能有一刻猶豫，黎應否繼續接受訪問，但黎回覆稱「我們應該要接受訪問」。訊息紀錄亦顯示，黎曾向民主黨何俊仁表示暫時不接受訪問，「但同老婆商量過後決定再接受訪問，老婆不怕我就不用太謹慎。」何接著提醒黎，重點是發言內容的界線，相信黎會掌握「怎樣可留在相對安全的範圍。」黎庭上稱，何與他的想法一致，認為需「避免自己犯法」。黎曾與劉細良對談期間，說國安法之下人們要某程度上隱藏自己正在做的事，不讓別人知道，或假裝在做其他事情，惟黎否認在國安法生效之後，以間接的形式提倡制裁，反問：「你如何將制裁隱藏為其他事情呢？」 + +#### 黎：Mark Simon 可能對繼續接受訪問有猶豫 + +辯方指，2020年7月2日，即國安法生效第三日，黎的助手 Mark Simon 向黎轉發了一則長文章，看似是香港大律師公會的聲明，其中一段落提及「勾結」。辯方問黎當時閱讀訊息之後，有否考慮自己的過往行為。黎則表示，閱讀訊息之後肯定沒有聯想起自己的過往行為。 + +辯方指黎回覆 Mark Simon：「我們應該要接受訪問（we should continue to accept interview）」，問黎為何當時這樣說。黎稱，因為所有訪問均是經 Mark Simon 接洽，可能 Mark 有一刻猶豫，黎應否繼續接受訪問，所以Mark 詢問黎的意見，而黎便告知其決定。 + +辯方追問，黎有否類似的猶豫？黎表示，他當然知道言行要更加小心，惟對於接受訪問有否猶豫，黎則稱不記得。辯方追問為何要「小心」，黎稱因為要避免在新的法律之下觸犯罪行。 + +#### 黎Twitter轉發報導〈警「攞正牌」濫暴屢傷無辜〉 + +辯方指，黎於2020年7月2日傳送《蘋果》報紙〈警「攞正牌」濫暴屢傷無辜〉照片，給負責管理其Twitter的「徒弟」李兆富（筆名利世民）。同日，黎的 Twitter 帳戶發布帖文，上傳上述報紙照片及寫道：「A “law” has to use #PoliceBrutality to show its effect is for us to have a taste of life living in the grip of communism.」黎庭上指，帖文中的hashtag 是由李添加。被問到有否閱讀相關報紙，黎則稱未有閱讀整篇報導，只是知道當中大概意思。 + +上周證供顯示，李於7月1日凌晨3時透過訊息向黎提出請辭，惟同日8小時後，黎向 Mark Simon 指李會繼續替黎管理Twitter。黎指最後一直未找到任何人頂替李的職務，所以李做繼續做下去，直至找到人頂替為止。 + +辯方問黎如何替 Twitter 選材，是否由黎決定。黎稱很困難，但選材考量是想簡略地反映香港情況。 + +2020年7月2日黎向陳沛敏表示，知道陳有用 Signal，提議她以後用 Signal 溝通（“So you’re on Signal. We can Signal if you like from now on. Cheers, Jimmy”）。辯方引述陳沛敏早前的證供，她跟黎曾有一段時間使用 Signal，但之後改用 WhatsApp。黎確認，但不記得陳何時沒有再用 Signal。 + +![iamge02](https://i.imgur.com/FtNw5so.png) +▲ 前《蘋果日報》執行總編輯 林文宗（左）、前《蘋果日報》副社長 陳沛敏（右） + +#### 庭上播對談片段 黎指國安法下市民面對「利劍高懸」 猶如活在「無形監獄」 + +辯方指黎出席《壹週刊》ChannelNEXT 特別節目「人民學堂」，與時事評論員劉細良對談，辯方並播放其中一集片段，該集於2020年7月6日上載。 + +劉細良在對談中提到東德時代有秘密警察、秘密檔案，香港社會在國安法下也有可能變成「篤灰時代」。黎稱，雖然香港暫時未變成東德的情況，但是國安法底下，香港社會慢慢地會有「秘密警察自我繁殖」，市民將面對利劍高懸，人們生活在如此社會下會覺得任何人都不可信。黎續指，在國安法下，他害怕在電話中說錯話會被人錄音和篤灰，每做一件事都要很小心，擔心會否犯法，當人們不能依照自己的直覺行事，便會為生活帶來不方便，會使人感到「好窒息」、生活質素降低，猶如活在「無形監獄」。但因為人們有內在的價值、文明和質素，在國安法底下，未能與外在的社會接軌，所以漸漸覺得世界與自己無關，好像身處在監獄裡，感到有人時刻監視自己。有些人無法忍受，便會離開香港。 + +黎提到：「你叫我去美國見啊美國副總統呢⋯⋯見唔見 Pompeo（蓬佩奧）呢？我都要諗餐死呀！大佬！」他又說：「即係香港坐監嘅監獄嚟嘅，大陸坐監係地獄嚟㗎大佬！」 + +辯方問黎，上述發言是否反映他在國安法前後真誠相信的想法。黎同意。被問到為何在對談中提到要「很小心」，黎解釋他可能說了一些在國安法下構成罪行的說話，而有人可能向警察舉報。 + +#### 黎否認國安法後間接方式提倡制裁 + +辯方引述楊清奇的證供提到「擦邊球」，問黎有否聽過任何《蘋果》管理層在國安法前後使用這個字詞。黎稱沒有，直至在庭上聽到楊清奇作供時使用這一詞，雖然劉細良在對談中曾使用「擦邊球」，但是他當時未為意。 + +至於劉提到「鳥籠」一字，黎亦指劉經常使用「鳥籠」一字作為比喻，惟他未曾向《蘋果》管理層使用這一字，只在撰文的時候會使用。 + +辯方指黎亦在對談中說過：「我唔可以好直接咁，我唔可以好直接去做一樣嘢，而係我要諗另外個方法兜圈去做一樣嘢，或者喺枱底下而做一樣嘢，或者，我要用一個假裝嘅做法，而係真實喺另外一個做法去做個真實嘅嘢。你每一樣嘢你唔可以直接去做而簡單去做嘅時候呢，個成本就會高咗㗎喇嘛⋯⋯」 + +黎庭上解釋，他的意思是要某程度上隱藏自己正在做的事，不讓別人知道，或假裝在做其他事情。辯方提到2020年6月10日，黎接受史丹福大學胡佛研究所（Hoover Institution）訪問時，稱：「現在是制裁中國的最佳時機，去迫使中國更好地管束自己的行為，與普世價值接軌，使世界和平。」辯方問黎有否在國安法生效之後，以間接的形式提倡制裁？黎否認，反問：「你如何將制裁隱藏為其他事情呢？」他接著解釋，國安法改變了人們的態度，人們不能自然地行動，反而變成不自然地行動，所以他們要隱藏自己所做的事，意味他們要改變生活習慣。 + +黎強調：「這個法律改變了我的態度，但是我沒有意圖去隱藏任何事情。」辯方追問黎實質上有否隱藏任何事情？黎稱沒有，又指不看到自己怎樣去隱藏。 + +#### 曾告知何俊仁不接受訪問 黎稱與妻子商量後決定再接受訪問 + +辯方展示2020年7月3日，黎向民主黨何俊仁傳送的訊息：「仁哥，我告訴你我暫時不要受訪問，但同老婆商量過後決定再接受訪問，老婆不怕我就不用太謹慎。謝謝。」 + +辯方問黎是否徵詢了妻子意見？黎同意。辯方問黎是否聽從妻子？黎亦同意。 + +辯方指，何俊仁接著向黎說：「Jimmy，我認為訪問不是大問題，而是發言內容的界線，我相信你會掌握怎樣可留在相對安全的範圍。」黎庭上表示，理解何的訊息為「溫馨提示」，當時與他自己的想法一致，認為需「避免自己犯法」。 + +辯方接著問黎口中的「避免自己犯法」意思是什麼，黎指是小心說話。被問到有否如此做，黎表示直至坐監之前一直都如此做。辯方繼而問，黎還柙之後有否如此做？黎則表示：「坐監之後，我沒有機會去說任何話。」辯方指黎有機會跟探訪人士說話？黎同意。被問到《蘋果》停運之後有否如此，黎亦同意。 + +#### 黎指國安法下難找人替他管理Twitter 故李兆富繼續管理 + +辯方指，黎向李兆富傳送訊息:「Simon，昨天與細良對話無機會講，我決定在李八方交待以下，請看是否要更改。看到李兆富封筆，我不好意思要他再處理我推特的事，雖然稿文是我給他的，不想連累他受（無）妄之災。好（如）何？謝謝，黎」。黎指「李八方」是《蘋果》一個八卦專欄。 + +辯方提到早前訊息紀錄顯示，李對於自己管理黎 Twitter 一事曝光感到不高興，問黎為何要在這個階段作出公布，並提及李的全名，以暗示李一直管理黎的 Twitter？黎指正因為李對曝光一事不高興，所以李要求他公開封筆消息。 + +辯方指，羅偉光向黎傳送擬於「李八方」刊登的草稿。黎指羅之後修訂文字，使它更易閱讀。辯方遂展示羅向黎傳送的修訂版本：「惡法臨城，喺《蘋果》寫專欄15年嘅利世民（李兆富）決定封筆，肥佬黎話，睇到 Simon 封筆，唔好意思要 Simon 再處理佢個 Twitter 嘅事，雖然 po 文係肥佬黎畀 Simon 嘅，但都唔想連累 Simon 受無妄之災。國安震懾之下找個人處理 Twitter 都難，肥佬黎都幾大鑊。」 + +![iamge03](https://i.imgur.com/b8opPH4.png) +▲ 前《蘋果日報》總編輯 羅偉光 + +黎庭上確認李兆富停止替《蘋果》撰寫專欄，但是李繼續替他管理 Twitter，直至找到人頂替李為止，相信李和 Mark Simon 均有嘗試尋找人選。 + +辯方問為何黎在草稿中指「肥佬黎都幾大鑊」。黎指因為很難找到人替他管理 Twitter，在國安法之下，沒有人會協助他，如果他找不到人替他做事，他便會無助。 + +#### 黎否認知道羅傑斯在IPAC角色 稱大部份Twitter帖文均只瞥一眼 + +辯方指2020年7月3日，「香港監察」創辦人羅傑斯（Benedict Rogers）向黎傳送一篇祈禱文，當中呼籲亞洲和全世界的信徒為香港、中國及其人民祈禱。黎回覆：「This is wonderful indeed. No issue CCP imposed in HK has unified the international community in censuring China like the National Security Law. I hope I’ll eventually have effect on its actual exercise here. Thanks for everything.Cheers, Jimmy」。黎否認有意圖請求制裁，強調只是提及「譴責（censuring）」。他稱只是希望國安法能夠減低嚴厲程度，並強調是一廂情願，因為看到羅傑斯傳來的祈禱文。辯方問黎知不知道羅傑斯在國際線上的角色，黎則稱不知道，又指羅從沒向他談及 IPAC。 + +辯方指大約8月14日，黎的 Twitter 重推 IPAC 的帖文（retweet），而 IPAC 原本的帖文是分享羅傑斯文章的連結：「IPAC: Police couldn’t take into custody Apple Daily’s inspirational courage, commitment and conscience | writes #IPAC advisor @benedictrogers」，當中提及羅傑斯是 IPAC 的顧問。辯方問這帖文會否提醒黎有關羅傑斯在 IPAC 的角色？黎則稱當時未有留意。 + +法官杜麗冰追問黎有否閱讀該則 IPAC 帖文。黎則稱，即使他曾閱讀帖文，也沒有留意 IPAC。辯方提到，從2020年5月22日黎開設 Twitter 帳號，直至 Twitter 帳號關閉期間，黎合共發布了超過900則帖文，問他曾經閱讀當中多少帖文、能否說出百分比。黎則稱，大部份帖文他只是瞥一眼、未有引起他的關注，因此說不出曾閱讀過的帖文的百份比。 + +#### 黎否認Twitter帖文提制裁 稱僅談及國安法下改變 不相信國安法保障言論自由 + +辯方指，黎於2020年7月4日向李兆富傳送新聞及 Twitter 帖文草稿，同日黎的 Twitter 發布帖文：「#NationalSecurityLaw let head of liaison office Lou Huining takes over HK’s governance and judiciary system, and headliner Zhang Yanxiong takes over our police as head of security agency. HK is completely #mainlandize」另一則帖文為：「Wearing T-shirt with slogan “Free HK” will be charged with the crime of subversion. #CCP still tries to fool the world freedom of speech is protected. Maybe that is CCP’s version of “freedom” they want us to love and protect.」黎確認。 + +辯方另展示三則於2020年7月5日的 Twitter 帖文： + +> （上傳《蘋果》報紙的相片，標題為「日媒：300武警將駐港 公安部長引習：全力指導支持港警止暴制亂」）「Japanese media reports that 300 mainland military police will station in HK, why such a redundancy? Aren’t all 300k HK police military police already according to their brutality!」 + +> （上傳《蘋果》報紙的相片，標題為「鄭若驊：定罪終身禁參選」）「SJ says anyone convicted of crime under #NSL, shall forever be banned from running for public offices. What a simple way to eliminate opposition candidates! Why doesn’t #CCP just simply takes over our legeco and save all the pretensions?」 + +> （上傳時任警務處副處長（國家安全）劉賜蕙的照片）「These are the police officers in charge of National Security Office with unlimited power, above the law, suppressing our freedom. They don’t look evil, do they? But we are only seeing their faces not their hearts.」 + +辯方問黎，閱讀國安法之後，有否留意到國安法說它保障基本人權？黎表示：「我只記得他們說國安法會保障言論自由。」辯方指：「但是看來你並不相信？」黎回答：「當然，我不相信，當時也不相信。」 + +辯方指，從上述數個帖文可見，內容均是關注國安法所帶來的改變。黎同意。辯方又問，帖文有否提及向中國實施制裁、封鎖和敵對行為？黎否認。 + +辯方另展示黎傳送給楊清奇的照片，為資深傳媒人區家麟的文章「摧毀即貫徹 攬炒即繁榮」，刊於2020年7月4日副刊名采，黎並向楊說：「歐（區）家麟文章好，請考慮邀寫評論版。謝謝。」辯方提及楊早前供稱，黎向楊推薦區家麟作為論壇版寫手，因區的文筆流暢，而且對國安法持批判的態度。黎今則指推薦區是因為文筆流暢，而非基於區對國安法的態度。 + +#### 黎專欄文章稱勾結外國勢力可被「槍斃」 惟庭上確認知道國安法並無死刑 + +辯方展示2020年7月5日黎的專欄「成敗樂一笑」刊登的文章〈飛翔吧 良知的脊樑在撐著〉。文章提到：「有心人說，快點走，勾結外國勢力是叛國罪，可以是槍斃的啊！」辯方問黎，是否有人跟他說勾結外國勢力是叛國罪？黎確認。辯方指文章接著提到「槍斃」，是否有人跟他這樣說？黎僅稱從 YouTube 頻道「神燈」得知，有人公開這樣說，並提及他本人。辯方追問，可是黎當時已看過國安法內容，知道勾結外國勢力罪行，也知道國安法之下沒有死刑？黎同意。辯方指，他在文章所述的內容豈非與他的理解不同？黎僅說不知道。 + +黎在文章指：「我說，我不走，煮到來就食，走了我還怎能做人。很久前已決定不讓恐懼震懾我，否則每說一句話，每做一件事都忌諱後果，我還可以說什麼，還可以做啥事，還可以抬起頭做人嗎！」辯方問黎是否有意干犯國安法？黎則稱他不離開是因為要面對後果。 + +文章接著指：「王丹兩個多禮拜前透過我好朋友 Perry Link 通知我，他聽到外媒記者告密說，國安法一旦通過，中共便會立即拘捕我和黃之鋒押上大陸受審。」辯方問黎是否相信王丹的說法。黎則稱他未有在文章稱相信王丹的說法，而只是說透過王丹得知 Perry Link 的說法。 + +#### 黎稱岑建勳恐嚇劉細良夫婦 並指控岑「當上了中共打手」 + +黎在文章稱：「受威嚇的當然不只是我，太多同路人最近在行動上，例如被跟蹤，以及言語上受到威嚇了。例如我有一網紅好友兩夫婦，最近被陳冠中介紹去見一位仁兄。」黎解釋，該「兩夫婦」即是劉細良及其妻，陳冠中則是著名香港作家，現居於北京。黎又稱，劉是他的朋友，也曾經在《蘋果》工作過。 + +文章接著指：「這位仁兄獅子頭曾經扮成民主義士，其實一直在為中共做事，今次國安法推出當上了中共打手，關埋門恐嚇了我友人夫婦七小時，最後看到我友人無動於衷，於是只好恐嚇他老婆，以為她是弱者，說他會用黑社會爛仔對付他們，問她想給車撞死還是胸口給插三刀殺死。這些爛仔恐嚇方式簡直匪夷所思，在極權指使下手段有多骯髒，專制濡染下心態是多流氓。其他人遇到的恐嚇遭遇可想而知，又怎怪得有些人驚到馬上搵路走呢？」 + +黎解釋，「這位仁兄獅子頭」即是民運人士岑建勳，至於為何說他「為中共做事」、「當上了中共打手」，黎稱只是他自己的指控和猜測。法官李運騰追問黎基於什麼而作出如此指控和猜測？黎回答基於岑的行為，即是恐嚇劉細良夫婦的行為，並僅從中猜測。 + +辯方問黎如何得知岑建勳「說他會用黑社會爛仔對付他們，問她想給車撞死還是胸口給插三刀殺死」？黎指是從劉細良口中得知，而他相信劉。法官李運騰問黎，為何岑要恐嚇劉細良夫婦？黎僅回答，為了要他們離開香港。 + +被問到上述恐嚇內容並非關於中共，黎則堅稱，劉所作所為是為了中共而做，為了威脅劉細良夫婦使他們離開香港。法官杜麗冰追問黎，誰人告訴他岑的行為是為中共而做。黎僅指這是唯一的可能性。法官李運騰問這是否推論？黎同意，並認為劉也有同樣想法。李官又問，劉有否告訴黎，岑的恐嚇是出自中共？黎回答，他與劉均有如此懷疑，二人想法一致，而這個可能性也是合乎邏輯。 + +李官另提到，黎在文章稱：「受威嚇的當然不只是我」，問誰人威嚇他？黎則指有朋友告訴他，中共對他而言是一種威脅。 + +#### 陳冠中質疑黎「信口開河」 黎庭上堅稱恐嚇一事真確 + +辯方展示黎傳送給何俊仁的訊息：「我寫給所有詢問的朋友：網紅夫婦和獅子頭早就認識，根本不是我介紹拉線的。飯局也是男網紅主動約獅子頭的，然後才通知我。網紅兩夫婦自行上了獅子頭家𥚃吃飯，那天晚上我錄電台節目晚到大概兩個小時，在他們飯後才加入。另有我和網紅都認識的一位媒體朋友更晩才到，他和獅子頭是第一次見面。同場還有獅子頭的一對溫哥華夫婦朋友，完全是局外人。何來恐嚇一舉？這麼多人在場，能恐嚇嗎？誰傳話了？黎智英怎麼會有這麼荒謬的理解？黎智英又為何這般指控獅子頭——這些指控非常嚴重，不容信口開河。」 + +黎庭上指，上述文字是由陳冠中撰寫，但他不記得為何轉發了給何。黎被問到「恐嚇了我友人夫婦七小時」一事是否真確，黎則堅稱是真確。 + +文章指：「國安惡法條文比我們最壞的預期還要壞，離去的人將會更多，就是留下，有些人也會迴避參與抗爭行列，抗爭群組將會縮小，但無論留下來抗爭的人數多少，我們會頂天立地站起來，成為撐住抗爭堅硬不屈的支柱，也是社會良知的脊樑。」黎庭上解釋，「抗爭」即是參與爭取自由的運動。 + +#### 黎否認藉文章意圖煽動 + +辯方指，黎在文章寫道：「國安法壓境，很多朋友見面都關心地對我說，Jimmy，小心呀！我說，面對無法無天的中共，你不知幾時『砸界』，你是否犯法，全都按照他們當時需要的權宜而定，是沒法子小心而只好勇敢面對。」，是否與他小心行事的說法有衝突。黎指沒有衝突，因他在文章中的「小心」是指被拘捕一事，也有朋友叫他小心，故此是一個概括的說法，他說既然沒有紅線，「又如何小心？」 + +辯方引述下一句：「小心是理性主導，勇氣是信念支持。再小心你都避不過暴力的恐嚇，但有信念支持的勇氣令你頂天立地。」，問這是否黎口中「小心」的意思。黎同意。 + +黎否認有意圖藉著文章激使其他人憎恨政府、使用非法手段改變香港現有制度、使用暴力和慫使市民不守法，並強調文章只是談及自己的個人狀況。 + +案件明日續審。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-10-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-106.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-10-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-106.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..cf120d8d --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-10-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-106.md @@ -0,0 +1,143 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : 【黎智英案・審訊第 106 日】 +author: 獨媒報導 +date : 2024-12-10 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 前美駐港領事開群組談施壓 李柱銘明言不能犯國安法退組 黎智英留下惟否認勾結 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/vUUZhSp.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（10日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第106日審訊，黎智英第14日作供。辯方圍繞《國安法》生效之後黎的意圖提問，集中在2020年7月7日至11日。訊息紀錄顯示，前美國駐港澳總領事郭明瀚開設群組，成員包括黎、李柱銘和 Mark Simon，郭明瀚一度提出組織一個以國際為本的示威運動，政府連同群眾，向香港政府施壓及約束中國使用《國安法》。李柱銘隨即提出：「這個群組在任何情況下，必定不能夠做任何在《國安法》下構成罪行的事情。」其後李退出群組。黎供稱，李曾建議他也退出群組，但是因為留意到相關話題不會再討論，「可能我不像李柱銘那麼謹慎」，加上不想無禮對待郭明瀚，因此未有跟隨李退出。至於留在群組的目的，黎稱純粹因為看重郭明瀚的意見，而該群組是為了討論香港現況，尋求解決問題的辦法，「只是集思廣益。」 + +#### 裴倫德傳送Twitter帖文連結提及制裁林鄭 黎堅稱沒看過帖文 + +2020年7月7日，「對華政策跨國議會聯盟」創辦人兼執行總監裴倫德（Luke de Pulford）向黎傳送其 Twitter 帖文連結，並說：「Organised for this to happen today. Actually not impossible now. Hope you’re OK, Jimmy」。辯方指，該 Twitter 帖文指：「BREAKING @MPIainDS calls for Carrie Lam to be sanctioned under the UK’s new Magnitsky sanctions regime. @DominicRaab doesn’t rule it out.」黎回覆：「Yes, I’m ok for now. Thanks, Jimmy」、「Yes, not impossible now. Cheers, Jimmy」。 + +> BREAKING @MPIainDS calls for Carrie Lam to be sanctioned under the UK’s new Magnitsky sanctions regime. @DominicRaab doesn’t rule it out. pic.twitter.com/K6SrJ6GWSo — Luke de Pulford (@lukedepulford) July 6, 2020 + +黎庭上稱，他從未按入連結閱讀裴倫德的帖文。他認為裴倫德純粹問他在《國安法》之下是否安好；至於自己回覆「Yes, I’m ok for now.」和「Yes, not impossible now.」，意思是沒有可能不繼續自己的工作。 + +法官杜麗冰指，裴倫德的帖文提到英國議員呼籲制裁前特首林鄭，問黎訊息中的「not impossible now」有否可能是指帖文內容。黎則稱自己沒有按入連結閱讀帖文，沒有任何理由是指帖文內容。法官李運騰又問，黎是否知道裴倫德訊息「Organised for this to happen today.」是什麼意思。黎重申自己沒有按入 Twitter 帖文的連結，所以不知道。法官李素蘭指，從 Twitter 帖文可見，裴倫德會否意指「林鄭被制裁不是沒可能」？黎堅稱沒有看過帖文，所以不會明白。 + +#### 黎指裴倫德為香港做好事 不能封鎖對方 + +黎重申，裴倫德經常傳送網站連結給他，希望《蘋果》能夠刊登，除此之外，訊息紀錄中不會找到他們談論其他事項。而「Hope you’re OK, Jimmy」是對方唯一傳送過給他的私人訊息。辯方追問，裴倫德曾經向黎傳送「Hope you are OK. Thinking of you.」，黎則稱不明白對方是什麼意思。 + +法官李運騰指，黎聲稱從未聽聞 IPAC，可是訊息紀錄卻顯示，裴倫德曾向黎說：「Thanks for twitting about IPAC」，而黎回覆：「You’re welcome.」黎則解釋，發布 Twitter 帖文的不是自己，而是李兆富負責，又稱：「我從沒認真對待他的 WhatsApp」，所以回覆對方，使對方不要再煩擾他。 + +法官李素蘭則追問，為何黎未有直接封鎖（block）裴倫德？黎則稱，因為裴倫德為了香港做好事，他不能夠封鎖對方，惟同時形容對方是一個「滋擾」，經常叫黎刊登他的文章。李素蘭聞言問：「你是說他（裴倫德）為香港做好事？」黎說是，又指裴倫德經常為香港說好說話。 + +李官問，黎何不安排裴倫德直接與李兆富聯絡？黎則指不可以，因為李兆富只是負責 Twitter，然而裴倫德傳送文章是因為想《蘋果》刊登。黎提到，時任《蘋果》副社長陳沛敏起初曾經直接與裴倫德聯絡，但是裴倫德之所以經常向黎傳送文章，是因為如果文章透過黎傳送給員工，裴倫德的文章會有較大機會獲刊登。 + +![iamge02](https://i.imgur.com/b8uAhkt.png) +▲ 前《蘋果日報》執行總編輯 林文宗（左）、前《蘋果日報》副社長 陳沛敏（右） + +李官問這是否黎的揣測？黎同意是揣測，但同時補充，這是符合邏輯的，因裴倫德的文章會有較大機會獲得刊登。 + +#### 黎否認使用Live Chat 節目作為平台提倡制裁 + +辯方問黎為何要開設 Live Chat 節目。黎稱純粹想讓人們知道香港發生了什麼事，他又指對象並非香港人，而是海外的人，所以使用英語進行節目。黎指，希望節目使外國人繼續留意香港，使香港不會消失於他們的視線範圍和腦海中。 + +辯方問黎有沒有意圖利用節目作為平台，來提倡向中國實施制裁、封鎖和敵對行動。黎指，在節目對話之中從沒使用相關字眼。辯方重申問題是他有否意圖。黎笑說：「我沒有意圖去用它作為平台去犯罪。」 + +#### 黎指國安法取代本地法律 法官指出《基本法》非本地法 + +辯方指，黎於2020年7月9日進行網上直播節目，由職員 Lucia 發問，而黎回答問題。辯方並向黎出示相關謄本，黎被問到《國安法》於香港而言是什麼，黎回答《國安法》必然代表是香港的「喪鐘」，因《國安法》凌駕（supersedes）了《基本法》，使香港沒有自由和法治；若然沒有法治，在港做生意的人便會很危險。黎續稱，商人唯一得到保護的方法便是依靠有權力的官員，意味香港將會好像中國內地般出現貪污問題，「因為有權力保護你的官員不會免費地替你這樣做，他們需要保護費，而保護費是貪污。」 + +辯方問黎為何說「《國安法》凌駕了《基本法》」，黎強調這是事實，因大律師公會聲明有提及。法官李運騰一度指出，《基本法》並非本地法律。 + +辯方問黎，他的想法是否來自《國安法》有條文規定，若果《國安法》與本地法有任何牴觸的部份，則《國安法》凌駕。黎指這正是凌駕。惟辯方向黎澄清，《基本法》並非區域法律，而是全國性法律。黎則表示不知道。辯方則表示理解，因黎未曾接受法律訓練。 + +#### 黎節目稱商人做生意要向官員交「保護費」 法官質疑屬臆測 + +法官杜麗冰指，黎在訪談中稱「有權力保護你的官員不會免費地替你這樣做，他們需要保護費」，問黎從哪裡得到這說法，質疑是黎的臆測（conjecture）。黎指如果香港失去法治，便會與中國一樣，出現貪污情況，即是官員需要收取「保護費」才會保護商人，強調以上不是臆測而是中國的現實。 + +杜官質疑，所以這不是建基於事實的說法，而是將黎在中國內地見到的情況套用到香港。黎則強調這是從事實推論而來（deduction from facts）。杜官則反駁，這不是事實而純粹是推論。二人在庭上爭論時多次疊聲。 + +法官李運騰問黎說這番話的時候，可曾預見相關言論會引起憎恨？黎說沒有，強調自己當時在說出事實，並無意引起憎恨。辯方問黎，有否期望讀者或聽者看到相關言論之後，會憎恨政府？黎不認為會引起憎恨，相信別人看到他的言論會更加小心，但不代表他們會憎恨政府。 + +辯方問黎有沒有意讓官員聆聽節目？惟法官質疑節目在全世界廣播，辯方的問題與案情無關。辯方引用《刑事罪行條例》第9(2)條，指黎的言論意在指出政府的錯處和不足，構成開脫辯解。 + +#### 前領事郭明瀚開設群組討論如何施壓 李柱銘明言不能犯國安法後退組 + +辯方指，前美國駐港澳總領事郭明瀚（James Cunningham）開設一個 WhatsApp 群組，其後把黎智英、其私人助手 Mark Simon 和民主黨創黨主席李柱銘加入群組。 + +郭明瀚於2020年7月初表示，當他思考「你們的下一步」時，讀到美國國父 Benjamin Franklin 的文章〈The Morals of Chess〉，並表示知道香港經歷「艱難的時候」。李柱銘表示：「只要我仍在這裡奮鬥，這裡就有希望！當我放棄的時候，我便輸了。（“So long as I’m still there fighting, there’s hope! The moment I give up, I lose.”）」黎則回覆：「這是艱難的時候，對，但是這是我們最需要成為支柱的時候，我們要找到前行的方法。（“Hard time, yes, but this is the time we’re needed most to be the backbone of our cause. We must find ways to go on.”）」 + +郭明瀚於7月9日表示：「對，讓我們找其他方法前行，怎樣約束中國使用法律，似乎還有林鄭及其同黨。（“Yes, let’s work on other ways to go on. How to Limit PRC, and it looks like Lam and company as well, use of the law.”）」黎附和：「對的，你看法是如何？（“That’s right. What’s your view? Cheers, Jimmy”）」郭明瀚回覆：「很好的問題，我正在思考。似乎需要找到方法去創造一個以國際為本的示威運動，政府加上群眾，去限制香港政府及保安工具。群眾向中國看重的資產例如匯豐施壓，連同多國政府合作施壓。以往美國可以組織這些，但是現在不行。（“Good question. I’m thinking about it. Somehow a way needs to be found to create an internationally based protest movement, government and popular, to constrain the HK Govt and the security apparatus. Popular pressure on say HSBC, assets that China values coupled with coordinated pressure from govts. In the past US could organize that. Not now.”）」 + +黎回覆：「這個外國運動危險之處在於，勾結外國勢力在《國安法》之下是嚴重的罪行，我們不能在這裡連繫上相關罪行，不論如何也要與我們獨立分開。（“The danger of this outside movement is collusion with foreign influence a serious crime under national security law. We can’t be connected with it here. Whatever it’s has to be independent with us.”）」李柱銘同意：「絕對是！（“Absolutely!”）」郭明瀚回覆：「對，那便會很困難，一個實在的問題。（“Yes. That will be difficult, a real problem.”）」李解釋：「直至這法律廢除為止，它仍然有效力，而所有香港人都受它約束，所以我們必定不能夠做任何墮入法網的事情。就這樣。而且這也適用於任何 WhatsApp 或其他群組。（“This Law is effective until set aside, and all the people of Hong Kong are subject to it. So we must not do anything that is caught by it. Period. And this applies to any WhatsApp or other group that we belong to.”）」 + +郭明瀚則表示看不到《國安法》會被廢除。李柱銘重申：「所以這個群組在任何情況下，必定不能夠做任何在《國安法》下構成罪行的事情。（“So this very group must not, under any circumstances, do anything which constitutes an offence under this Law.”）」 + +![iamge03](https://i.imgur.com/eM5vi9B.png) +▲ 李柱銘 + +黎指，郭明瀚不再任職駐港領事並離開香港之後，曾替美國政府工作約10至12年，而傳送上述訊息的時候，他已經退休好幾年。 + +辯方指，李柱銘其後退出群組，問黎是否知道原因。黎認為基於上述他們的對話，在國安法之下很危險，因為郭明瀚的說話亮起「紅燈」。辯方問黎當時知道這是屬於「勾結外國勢力」？黎同意。 + +辯方問為何黎不跟著李柱銘做法，退出群組？黎解釋，因為他留意到相關話題不會再討論，「可能我不像李柱銘那麼謹慎。」黎又表示，郭明瀚是他的好友，不能無禮地對待他，所以未有退出群組。 + +#### 黎否認群組屬「勾結外國勢力的群組」 目的僅「集思廣益」 + +辯方指，在差不多時間，黎向 Mark Simon 私下傳送訊息：「李柱銘是超級謹慎，還有他剛退出群組。我認為我們可以繼續留在群組中，沒有李，雖然李建議我退出。（“Mark, Martin is super cautious and has just exited the group. I think we can keep the WhatsApp group with Jim without him though he advise me to quit. Thanks, Jimmy”）」 + +辯方問，從訊息可見，李柱銘曾建議黎退出群組？黎確認。辯方問，黎、Mark Simon 和郭明瀚3人留在群組中的目的是什麼？黎表示，他純粹看重郭明瀚的意見，所以保留群組會有利。黎指該群組是為了討論香港現況，尋求解決問題的辦法，「只是集思廣益。」 + +辯方問到，為何郭明瀚會選擇把黎和李柱銘加入他的群組？黎指因為郭明瀚認識自己和李柱銘，而郭明瀚只是嘗試提供意見、幫助他們。 + +辯方指，上述群組正值反修例運動期間成立。黎同意。辯方繼而問：「它是否一個勾結外國勢力的群組？」黎否認並失笑：「為什麼？我說過勾結外國勢力是非常危險。」 + +辯方展示另一個 Signal 群組「Jim/Jimmy/Mark Group」，成員只有黎、郭明瀚和 Mark Simon。Mark Simon 並將訊息消失的時間設定為1小時。黎稱不記得群組在7月9日之後討論過什麼。辯方問黎，7月9日之後，上述群組有沒有討論過制裁、封鎖或敵對行為？黎稱肯定沒有，「這是我會完全避免的話題。」 + +#### 黎認曾經呼籲制裁 惟新法律之下沒有再提及 + +李柱銘退出群組逾半小時之後，向黎發送訊息，轉發《多維》的報導，當中指：「比如香港《蘋果日報》，其發表的文章經常有『引發民眾對中央人民政府憎恨』的嫌疑，但香港律政司不敢拿《刑事罪行條例》中的叛逆罪起訴他，因為害怕香港法院會用人權法案進行審查然後推翻這一條款而形成判例，所以《蘋果日報》創辦人黎智英一直逍遙法外。現在香港國安法把《刑事罪行條例》中原樣的東西搬過來，香港律政司就沒有這樣的顧慮了。」黎回覆：「我剛看過全文，好得人驚！」 + +辯方問黎認為李柱銘為何傳送這新聞給他。黎相信李傳送給他參考，作為一種提醒他謹慎的方式。黎理解報導內容是關於香港基於人權而未曾使用《刑事罪行條例》中的叛逆罪。 + +辯方指，李柱銘其後回應：「對，似乎這個新法律賦予中央政府權力去懲罰不同香港人和團體，而他們過去12個月曾經做過一些中央不喜歡的事。（“Yes. This new law appears to give effect to the Central Government intention to penalise the different individuals and groups of HK people who did certain things during the last 12 months that it does not like.”）」 + +黎閱讀相關訊息之後，表示明白何謂「曾經做過一些中央不喜歡的事」的人，但是不明白為何是「過去12個月」。辯方問黎，在當時起計的過去12個月，黎有否做過任何可能在《國安法》下構成罪行的事情。此時法官打斷，問辯方肯定要問這條問題嗎？辯方則解釋，他們替黎辯護的核心是，因為法律的改變，使黎的想法和面對的後果均有所不同。 + +此時黎主動提出他可以回答辯方的問題，「以我所知，我的確曾經呼籲制裁，而這在新法律下可構成罪行。」辯方追問黎有否因而改變他的行為？黎表示：「當然⋯⋯我沒有再說了。」 + +#### 有員工在群組表示擔心被竊聽 黎回覆：我們不能做犯法事，不用太擔心 + +辯方展示軟件 Slack 的員工群組聊天紀錄，有《蘋果》員工表示，《國安法》授權警方隨意竊聽，前線同事擔心會成為被竊聽目標，所以現時開會討論題目，有些小組不會帶手機，「以防討論到一些敏感的故仔時洩漏了資訊」，所以現時只能在能力範圍內，盡量採取可行的保密措施。黎回覆該同事：「我們不能做犯法事，不用太擔心，但做好保密措施是有必要的。到時討論。」黎庭上解釋，因為他們不能做任何犯法的事情，故此叫同事不用擔心。 + +2020年7月10日，羅偉光向群組傳出會議紀錄，其中一個副標題為「國安法影響」，提到轉用另一軟件 Signal；「設24小時支援熱線」，一旦同事被捕可作支援；採訪時若提到「港獨」、「光復香港」相片，但只是報道可以出，只要不涉鼓吹宣傳。辯方問黎，「飯盒會」期間有否討論過設立被捕支援熱線？黎則表示不記得，但是如果會議紀錄有提及，代表有討論過。 + +![iamge04](https://i.imgur.com/QLn9z6s.png) +▲ 前《蘋果日報》總編輯 羅偉光 + +#### 文章稱國安法使香港變成「專政無形集中營」 黎：比喻 + +辯方指，黎的個人專欄「成敗樂一笑」於2020年7月11日發布了文章〈從荒蕪到繁榮 再墮封建懸崖〉，為控方指控的161篇煽動文章之一。 + +文章開首提到「祖國終於讓我們嘗到活在具共產主義制度下的滋味。國安法攬炒式讓我們真正回歸祖國的懷抱，在我們頭上高懸利劍，做成震懾效果，我們永無寧日戰戰兢兢，就是為了要改變我們生活的行為和習慣。」辯方問黎從哪裡得悉「攬炒」的概念，「攬炒巴」劉祖廸有否向他解釋過？黎說沒有。辯方另外提到黎曾向楊清奇傳送區家麟的文章〈摧毀即貫徹 攬炒即繁榮〉，問黎是否從該文章得知「攬炒」概念。黎則指區使用「攬炒」一字的方式，與他使用「攬炒」一字的方式不同。他指自己文章中的「攬炒」意思是「破壞所有東西」，因為他認為「《國安法》破壞了所有我們自由的慣例」。 + +辯方指，黎接著在文章說：「以後講電話要戰戰兢兢，不知誰在竊聽，在社交媒體與朋友溝通也要戰戰兢兢，不知誰在查閱，跟朋友說話也得戰戰兢兢，不知誰會篤灰報寸，基本法委員會副主任譚惠珠說，行差踏錯者非必然在港審，即係會在大陸審判，讓你真正嘗到祖國牢獄地獄式的恐怖，問你怕未？鄭若驊說，警方有合理懷疑就可以拉人，即是說警察不用證據，只要全憑想像便可以拉人封艇，法律越模糊空泛越令你無所適從，就是要你終日戰戰兢兢。這就是我們以後生活的現實，習慣吧！習慣不到？食安眠藥吧！」辯方笑問黎：「有否吃安眠藥？」黎說沒有，因文章只是比喻。 + +文章提到：「是的，你們的上一代（我們這一代）因為中共『解放』避秦而逃來香港，今日你們這一代也被迫避秦而往，移民似乎是我們香港人無法逃避的宿命，嗚呼，時也命也！」辯方問黎當年為何來香港？黎回答因為中國在共產黨的統治下很恐怖，而香港則非常吸引，於他而言是一個天堂。 + +黎確認上述文章反映他當時的真誠想法。被問到有否意圖藉文章引起憎恨，黎強調自己心裡從沒有仇恨，他也沒有意圖去煽動其他人憎恨政府。他稱不知道別人看文章後感覺如何，他也無意促使別人要怎樣思考。辯方追問，那麼黎撰寫文章的意圖是什麼？黎表示為了表達自己，以及表達自己所想的真相。 + +文章形容「今日國安法將香港變成亳無法治的專政無形集中營」。黎指文章已寫明是「無形集中營」，是一種比喻，因新疆有很多人被關押在集中營，而他認為香港與新疆的情況非常相近。法官李素蘭追問，可是文章又說「無形集中營」？黎重申他乃運用比喻，又指如果市民活在監控之中，會感到總是被別人監視著，構成一個「無形集中營」，因此他在文章中說是無形。 + +文章亦稱：「難怪任志剛聽聞國安法立法嘆『感謝主』，也難怪雷鼎鳴說，嚇走了一些人對香港是好事，若然你對香港人有足夠仇恨，這會是自然不過的宣泄。可能他們不是真的對香港人有仇恨，只是榮華富貴太吸引，不惜自我作賤效忠主謝皇恩。」黎解釋，上文意思是有的人認為《國安法》立法對香港是壞事，有的人卻認為《國安法》對香港是好事，例如任志剛和雷鼎鳴。黎認為他們並非仇恨香港人，他們可能只是討好權力。 + +案件明日續審。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-diversification-and-de-risking.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-diversification-and-de-risking.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ce49a576 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-diversification-and-de-risking.md @@ -0,0 +1,821 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Diversification And De-risking +author: Philip Andrews-Speed, et al. +date : 2024-12-11 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/ul5S9kR.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Responding to the China challenge: Diversification and de-risking in new energy supply chains" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_As tensions between the West and China deepen, critical minerals and materials for strategic technologies, including for low-carbon energy, have become one of the battlegrounds. China’s centrality to the supply of some of these critical minerals and materials has prompted Western governments to put in place countermeasures to ease their dependence on China._ + + + +The authors in this issue unpack China’s dominance throughout the value chain, looking at some of the policies and corporate strategies that have enabled this. While much of the focus is on government responses to China, especially in minerals and materials, the analyses in this issue touch on the entire supply chain. While they do not cover all aspects of the value chains for solar cells, wind turbines, and lithium-ion batteries, nor all the commodities and the geographies where they are mined; but the complexity and linkages within these supply chains warrant a broader look, beyond the minerals alone. Miners have grappled traditionally with long lead times from mine to market, uneven regulatory frameworks, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns, all of which still plague investments. But financing and investment decisions are complicated by de-risking policies that seek to encourage non-Chinese supplies. This is because the vast majority of minerals, metals, and ores are sent to China for refining and processing. Moreover, China’s position as a monopoly supplier for some minerals and a near-monopsony buyer for several others gives it extraordinary market power. It has used this power to influence prices, which in turn has complicated investment decisions in both mining and refining. Finally, investment decisions around new mines also rely on the outlook for demand, which is in turn informed by technological innovation and advances in chemistries. But here too, China is also a front runner. + +#### The China playbook + +The Forum begins with an article by Philip Andrews-Speed, arguing that diversifying supplies away from China will be extremely challenging in the coming decade, for the reasons discussed above: the challenges inherent in mining and China’s pricing power. Investments in midstream facilities face similar challenges, although lead times tend to be shorter. Emissions and waste from these plants are often toxic, and their consumption of energy and water is usually large. In light of this, Andrews-Speed argues that innovation could be a more effective way to reduce or obviate the need for critical minerals in key technologies. + +Anders Hove also suggests that a focus on supplies overshadows innovation as a solution to reducing dependency on China. But, as Hove notes, China is also a leading player on innovation, with efforts in the country running the gamut from process-oriented improvements to lab-stage technologies, from end-user design to upstream minerals processing. + +Both Hove and Andrews-Speed stress supply chain integration. From a policy perspective, the Chinese government has supported firms’ efforts to invest in minerals and ores overseas. Hove discusses Chinese firms’ hybrid approach of vertical integration and intense innovation. These present a contrast with the strategies of many firms in advanced economies, which have tended to focus on disaggregating production to reduce costs. While Western mining companies focus on their most profitable, high-volume mining activities, carmakers and battery manufacturers seek to obtain inputs from the cheapest source globally. As a result, miners struggle to compete with Chinese investments in relatively low-volume critical minerals. Downstream players find themselves competing with Chinese firms for the offtake of critical minerals or investing in risky technology that may or may not pay off. An additional observation is that innovation goes hand-in-hand with deployment; and whereas Chinese players are confident domestic demand will continue to boom, Western players are waiting for the customer to catch up or supplier input prices to fall. This not only slows investment in the upstream but hinders innovation across the supply chain, putting Chinese players further in the lead. + +These practices are captured neatly in Ahmed Mehdi’s analysis of graphite, the largest component by weight in a battery pack for anodes and a key feedstock in the production of anode active material. Graphite is a useful case study because of China’s vice-like grip on graphite markets and the evolving corporate playbook: Chinese firms have used their market dominance to squeeze out rivals, both domestic and international. A combination of vertical integration and feedstock switching in 2021–2022 helped consolidate Chinese anode players’ global position. This was further aided by the Chinese government’s tightening of export controls in late 2023. + +Chinese companies are accelerating their push to exploit overseas mineral deposits, and Indonesia is one example. Nickel is a key ingredient of nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide battery cathodes, and the production of these cathodes is highly energy intensive. Indonesia has become the world’s dominant supplier of nickel ore (52 per cent in 2023) and refined nickel (37 per cent in 2023) over the last few years. This resulted from government policies to promote the extraction of nickel ore and to restrict the export of unprocessed ore in order to boost the nation’s added value from this supply chain. The country now hosts 54 nickel smelters, five times that in 2020. Of these, seven produce materials for lithium-ion batteries, namely nickel matte and mixed hydroxide precipitate. As Diwangkara Bagus Nugraha, Stein Kristiansen, and Indra Overland document, Chinese companies have a significant shareholding in all but one of these seven smelters. + +Whilst these policies have benefitted Indonesia, they have come at three costs. First, the deep involvement of Chinese companies in both mining and smelting further extends China’s control of battery supply chains. Second, the use of coal-fired generators to power the smelters adds to Indonesia’s already rising level of carbon emissions. Finally, the combination of these two factors results in very low production costs, causing many nickel operations in other countries to struggle. + +Although the construction of grid-connected coal-fired power plants has been banned, nickel smelters are allowed to build captive coal-fired plants because these smelters are considered to be “national strategic projects”. No steps have been taken yet to decarbonise these captive plants, and only 12 of the 54 smelters disclose their carbon emissions. The European Union’s recent battery regulation establishes a carbon footprint threshold by 2028. This should affect Indonesia’s nickel industry. However, most of Indonesia’s nickel exports go to China, and China does not regulate the emissions of overseas investments. + +#### Consumer governments’ efforts to de-risk + +China’s increased use of export controls (on gallium, germanium, antimony, and graphite) as well as growing financial pressure on Western clean-tech firms and concerns about China’s ability to use its dominance to pressure Western governments have led to a myriad of government responses. The US government has been amongst the most active through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which supports investment and guides procurement along the full length of the supply chain, including mining and mineral processing. Resource-rich Australia and Canada are supporting investment in mining and processing for export. The European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act of 2024 includes 2030 targets for mineral extraction, processing, and recycling, as well as limiting over-dependence on a single third country. Realising that international cooperation was needed, the United States led the establishment of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) in June 2022 to “bolster critical mineral supply chains essential for the clean energy transition”. The meeting in September 2024 saw the establishment of the MSP Finance Network, which includes development finance institutions and export credit agencies to support investment in critical mineral projects across the world. But are these efforts effective? + +Japan’s supply chain vulnerabilities came to the forefront during the 2010 diplomatic tensions with China, following a maritime incident near the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. Parul Bakshi reviews the incident that became the poster child of China’s economic coercion, given that Beijing imposed an informal ban on the export of rare earth minerals to Japan. The embargo caused significant disruptions especially in the Japanese automotive sector, which relied heavily on these materials for essential components like magnets. While trade normalized after the resolution of the incident, the prices of rare earths surged tenfold within a year, highlighting the precarious nature of Japan’s supply chain dependency. + +The Japanese government developed a comprehensive strategy aimed at mitigating future risks associated with single-source dependency. This included development of alternative technologies that reduce the use of rare earths; promotion of recycling initiatives to recover rare earths from used products; strengthening capacities to invest in and develop rare earth mines globally, particularly in Australia, which emerged as a key partner; and establishing stockpiles of critical minerals to buffer against supply disruptions. Japan has effectively reduced its reliance on Chinese rare earth imports from 90 per cent to 60 per cent since the incident, and halved domestic consumption of these materials by 2023 compared to 2010. + +In 2023, Japan and the United States signed an agreement focused on securing and diversifying supply chains for minerals for clean vehicle batteries. The Japanese government has also initiated collaboration with a number of countries in Asia and Europe, investing in mineral supply chains, research centres as well as joint investments in Africa. Bakshi argues that despite the risk that Japan’s friend-shoring efforts could exacerbate economic disparities and inflate prices, its policy efforts have sought to balance economic, environmental, and security goals. But Bakshi also stresses that Japan must recognise the importance of integrating labour rights and environmental considerations into its development strategies, ensuring sustainable and equitable practices. + +The US Inflation Reduction Act has been the largest national initiative to combat China’s dominance of clean energy supply chains. A key policy instrument is the tax credit. However, the scope of this credit was expanded from manufacturing to include domestic ore extraction only in October 2024. Whilst this marks a major step forward, Brad Simmons explains that US ore reserves will be insufficient to match demand in the short term. Therefore, it will be necessary for the government to take additional steps to secure mineral supplies from other parts of the world such as Africa. + +The Lobito Corridor project, backed by the G7’s Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment, is intended to transport minerals from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Atlantic coast. Simmons proposes two additional initiatives directed at Africa. The first is to work with Morocco, which hosts vast reserves of phosphate that can be used to manufacture lithium iron phosphate batteries. Not only would this approach meet the requirements posed by the Inflation Reduction Act for sourcing nickel, but Morocco is the only African nation with a free trade agreement with the United States. The second proposal is to build a strategic partnership between the United States, the European Union, and the African Union focused on innovation in battery materials and components. + +#### Producer countries’ efforts to diversify + +The view from producer countries is equally complex. On one hand, they are looking to capitalise on their resources as competition between China and the West deepens. China is for many a large offtaker and investor in mining. Meanwhile, the US is a key commercial and strategic partner, and the Inflation Reduction Act offers new opportunities. But Western policy and corporate overtures are sometimes caught between different policy priorities and struggle to compete with the Chinese playbook. + +As a mineral-rich country, Australia has the opportunity to take advantage of the growing demand for critical mineral ores and metals by developing new mines and refineries. In addition, its mining companies are active overseas. Together, these provide the opportunity for mineral and metal importers to reduce their dependence on Chinese suppliers. However, as Ian Satchwell and John Coyne explain, Australian companies are finding it tough to compete with their Chinese counterparts. The country hosts several rare earth deposits, only one of which has been developed and is in operation, at Mount Weld. Development of the others is being constrained by China’s ability to keep rare earth prices low. A proposed rare earth refinery faces similar challenges. Likewise, Chinese nickel projects in Indonesia have driven down prices for this metal, forcing Australian projects to suspend operations. In Africa, two Australian-operated lithium mines have been expropriated and passed to Chinese companies. + +However, China is not just a competitor to Australian mining interests, it is also a collaborator as a customer for Australian ores and an investor in Australian mines and processing plants. Australia therefore has to take care to balance a variety of interests. Policies have been introduced to promote domestic investment in mining and processing, and 27 bilateral and multilateral agreements have been signed with offtakers for Australian minerals and metals. Despite growing agreement between key actors on the need for cooperative action to address China’s dominance, policy inconsistencies between them undermine effective implementation. For instance, the US financially supports Australian companies in developing critical minerals supply chains outside of China, with the aim of further processing in the US. In the meantime, the Australian government currently restricts its financial support to critical minerals mining and processing operations within Australia. A further challenge is to define and then ensure high standards of sustainability. + +Latin America has long been known as an important source of mineral supplies. Tom Moerenhout and Victoria Barreto Vieira do Prado argue that the region has new opportunities and challenges as it looks to capitalise on its mineral wealth. Fundamentally, though, Latin America must find partners, not just offtakers. + +Among critical minerals, the continent only achieves its potential for copper, tin, and zinc but it has substantial untapped reserves for nickel, graphite, lithium, and rare earths. While the African continent has proved historically more attractive for investors, the generally low standards of environmental and social governance are likely to dissuade many Western investors. In contrast, many Latin American countries are actively raising these standards. In addition, low-carbon energy is more plentiful than in Africa. Set against these advantages, the regulatory and fiscal regimes in Latin American countries have tended to be unattractive to foreign investors. + +China has been the exception. It is not only the major destination for Latin America’s mineral exports but also the single largest investor in the continent’s mineral resources. Chinese companies are also moving downstream into battery and electric vehicle manufacturing, building local supply chains and creating value added in the region. The United States and the European Union have started to build partnerships with Latin American countries directed at cooperation in the sustainable exploitation of critical minerals and in an effort to gain influence in the region. But mining companies from the United States, Europe, and Australia have been slow to move in. Not only are investments in mining challenging, as discussed above, but these countries would need to invest in processing capacity in order to fully benefit from Latin American minerals. Further, the multilateral Minerals Security Partnership includes no countries from Latin America. + +Still, great power competition ultimately serves Latin America as geopolitical stress could become an opportunity to raise investment for their respective clean energy industries. This is true as long as they can remain nonaligned and not get dragged too much into the deteriorating relations between the US and China. + +#### Assessing the risks + +But for consumers in the OECD countries, geopolitical stress and China’s dominance of clean energy supply chains raises numerous security concerns. Henrik Wachtmeister presents a summary of a systematic assessment of six of these risks relating to wind power in Sweden. The analytical framework distinguishes threat, vulnerability, and risk. The risks Wachtmeister identifies relating to Chinese ownership are electricity supply cuts and market manipulation, information transfer, and indirect influence. Those arising from dependence on Chinese supply chains are export restrictions, IT sabotage, and again indirect influence. + +Wachtmeister then applies this framework to assess the risk of electricity supply cuts in Sweden arising from Chinese ownership of wind farms and the risks of export restrictions. His analysis reveals that the current risk of power cuts is low, even though Chinese state-owned companies own 10.4 percent of Sweden’s installed wind power capacity. This is because these plants contribute only 3.4 percent of national electricity supply. Also, the companies are tied to Power Purchase Agreements under which they would suffer penalties if they cut off supplies. However, the risks to supply would be greater if new investments by Chinese companies lack these agreements. The highest risk therefore relates to the wind supply chain rather than to wind farm ownership because of potential export restrictions that stem from China’s dominance of supply chains for components and for rare earths. This is due to the high consequence and medium-to-high probability of such restrictions being imposed. This, in turn, will depend on the state of political and economic relations between the EU and China. Managing this and other risks will require careful balancing of measures to support domestic industries whilst still taking advantage of Chinese prowess. + +In a similar vein, Dan Marks assesses the risks for the UK that stem from China’s dominance in solar PV. China accounted for 71 per cent of global solar cell exports in 2023. Although China supplied more than 90 per cent of the UK’s imports of solar PV equipment in 2023, the absolute value of these imports was much lower than the peak in 2014 as deployment of solar equipment in the UK has slowed. Although solar PV may supply no more than 15 percent of the nation’s electricity at any point between now and 2050, significant capacity additions will still be required. + +Any constraint on or interruption to the supply of solar PV equipment from China, whether or not directed specifically at the UK, would raise the cost of electricity to consumers but should have no significant effect on security of supply. In contrast, cyber attacks on inverters and control devices pose a direct threat to supply security. Whilst supply interruptions pose a risk for the UK’s solar industry, that industry only employs about 7,000 people, though this could rise to 60,000 by 2035 if there is a boom in deployment. + +Beyond the specific risks facing the UK, other concerns relate to the environmental and social governance of China’s solar PV supply chains and the potential for China to use its dominance of this and other clean energy supply chains for geostrategic aims. + + +### CHINA’S GRIP ON CRITICAL MINERAL AND MATERIAL SUPPLY: IS IT BEING WEAKENED? + +> #### Philip Andrews-Speed + +As tensions between the West and China have risen, critical minerals and materials for strategic technologies have become one of the battlegrounds for the two parties. The technologies include military, information, and low-carbon-energy applications. China’s dominance of the supply of some of these critical minerals and materials has persuaded Western governments to put in place countermeasures to ease their dependence on China. This paper assesses the likely effectiveness of these measures. + +The criticality of a specific material or technology is generally assessed on the basis of the risk of interruption to supply and on the economic or security importance to an importing nation of such a disruption. In this context, market concentration is a key component of the risk of supply disruption, along with perceptions of the dominant market actors, the projected balance between supply and demand for the material or product, and the degree of transparency of the respective market. + +In the context of the low-carbon energy transition, risks appear along the full supply chain from mineral ores and refined metals to intermediate products and components to final products. Criticality is most often applied to mineral ores and their refined products. Most mineral ores have a relatively widespread geographic occurrence, but the economic viability of deposits is highly variable. For some minerals, only a limited number of mines may be operating at a given time and these may be geographically concentrated. Whilst the locations of ore deposits are defined by geology and immovable, ore processing plants to produce refined metals can be set up wherever economic, logistical, and political factors are favourable. Economies of scale are particularly important. As a result, the sources of supply of a refined metal are commonly much more concentrated than those of its primary ore. Today, China holds a strong and sometimes dominant position in the supply of a few mineral ores and several refined metals that are key inputs to clean energy appliances. + +The governments of many countries have drawn up lists of minerals or materials that they consider to be critical or strategic. These lists vary between countries depending on their domestic natural resources and the demand of their industries. Box 1 lists metals relevant to the low-carbon energy transition that appear on several of these lists. + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/0fYFZ95.png) +_▲ __Box 1: Materials that appear on the critical mineral lists of many countries.___ + +#### China’s grip on critical mineral and material supplies + +China’s share of global production of mineral ores is small or modest in most cases (Table 1). The most notable exceptions are natural graphite, rare earths, and silicon, where the share is around 70 per cent or more. The situation for refined and processed metals is quite different, for China imports large quantities of ore from around the world to refine or process within its borders. As a result, it accounts for around 90 per cent or more of global production of gallium (a byproduct of bauxite processing), spherical graphite, manganese sulphate, magnetic rare earths, and polysilicon. The country also produces around 60 per cent or more the world’s refined aluminium, cobalt, germanium, and indium (both byproducts of zinc ore processing), lithium carbonate, and tellurium (a byproduct of copper ore processing). + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/Y7AYWqJ.png) +_▲ __Table 1: China’s share of global ore and metal production for selected critical materials (mainly for 2023, but some data for 2022).__ Source: Principal sources: International Renewable Energy Agency (2024), Geopolitics of the Energy Transition, Geopolitics of the energy transition: Energy security (irena.org); [United States Geological Survey (2024), Mineral Commodity Summaries 2024](https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2024/mcs2024.pdf); [International Energy Agency (2022), Solar PV Global Supply Chains](https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv-global-supply-chains)._ + +China’s precise share of global mineral and metal production can vary from year to year either as part of a long-term trend or due to changes within or outside China. For example, the share of aluminium smelter production increased steadily from 48 per cent in 2014 to 59 per cent in 2022. Conversely, the nation’s share of production of rare earth ores declined from 95 per cent in 2011 to 81 per cent in 2016 as the government tightened controls over mines. + +China’s 2016 National Plan for Mineral Resources classifies the country’s mineral resources as “strategic”, “advantageous”, “protected”, or “strategic emerging industry” minerals. For the different categories, the plan identifies where China needs to encourage exploration of minerals in short supply, regulate the amount of minerals that China can leverage to pursue strategic objectives, cut production of minerals with excess capacity, and ensure supply of minerals in strategic emerging industries. Two categories are relevant to this paper: + +- metallic minerals - iron, chromium, copper, aluminium, gold, nickel, tungsten, tin, molybdenum, antimony, cobalt, lithium, rare earths, and zirconium; + +- nonmetallic minerals - phosphorus, potash, crystalline graphite, and fluorite. + +#### China’s growing grip abroad + +To compensate for the paucity of ore reserves at home, Chinese companies have moved overseas. They have had long-standing involvement in a small number of countries such Guinea for bauxite, the Democratic Republic of Congo for cobalt, and South Africa for platinum group metals. More recently, they have expanded their overseas activities to mine bauxite and nickel in Indonesia and lithium in a trio of Latin American countries as well as Zimbabwe, among other mining projects (Table 2). In addition, these and other Chinese companies are increasing their involvement in the processing of mineral ores, both in those countries where they are mining and those where they are not. Most notable is Chinese involvement in nickel processing in Indonesia, where the sudden surge of output combined with slowing demand for electric vehicles has undermined nickel prices and threatens the viability of multinational firms involved in nickel mining and refining. + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/2XALfMs.png) +_▲ __Table 2: Examples of countries where China is deeply involved in the extraction and processing of critical minerals or has bilateral offtake agreements.___ + +In this context, it is important to note that China’s overseas activities have evolved and continue to change based on host country preferences and changes in domestic and international market dynamics. While much of China’s outbound investments in minerals and mining in the early 2000s was supported by the Chinese government or state-owned policy banks, there has also been considerable activity driven by corporate interests and initiated by both state-owned and private companies. + +#### Sources of risk posed by China’s dominant position + +Disruptions to supplies of ores or materials for which China holds a strong position may be unintentional or intentional. Unintentional disruptions arising within China include natural events and disasters such as floods and droughts, as well as industrial accidents and epidemics. Any of these could significantly reduce the supply of ores and materials from domestic sources for a period. In such circumstances, the government is likely to prioritise supplies to domestic industries at the cost of exports. In an overseas example, China diverted graphite exports away from Sweden and towards Hungary to support a Chinese battery factory there. + +The same is likely to apply to any country that has a significant hold on a critical mineral or material supply chain. If such a country supplies mineral ores to China for refining there, then a disruption of ore supply in that country will result in a disruption of processed materials supply in China. In addition to natural events, accidents, and epidemics, this type of disruption may be caused by regulatory action by the host government, independent from any actions by China’s government. + +Intentional disruptions are of two main types: export controls and economic statecraft. Over the last year or so, the government has deployed export controls on rare earths, graphite, gallium, germanium, and antimony. These controls do not automatically lead to a reduction of export volumes. Rather, they give the government levers to impose restrictions at short notice. In contrast, the government has banned the export of equipment for extracting and separating rare earths. Economic statecraft involves targeting a specific country. An early prominent example was the reduction of exports of rare earths to Japan in 2010 following a fishing dispute. While exports to Japan fell, flows to other countries, including Australia and the UK, declined too. + +#### The countermeasures of the West + +Japan was the only country that took some effective action after China reduced rare earth exports in 2010. However, since 2020, most high-income nations have started to take steps to reduce their dependence on Chinese supplies of critical minerals and materials. These actions have taken place at the national, regional, and global levels. + +The US government has been amongst the most active through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which supports investment and guides procurement along the full length of the supply chain, including mining and mineral processing. Resource-rich Australia and Canada are supporting investment in mining and processing for export. The EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act of 2024 includes 2030 targets for mineral extraction, processing, and recycling, as well as limiting overdependence on a single third country. + +Realising that international cooperation was needed, the United States led the establishment of Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) in June 2022 to “bolster critical mineral supply chains essential for the clean energy transition”. A meeting in September 2024 saw the establishment of the MSP Finance Network, which includes development finance institutions and export credit agencies to support investment in critical mineral projects across the world. + +#### The likely effectiveness of these measures + +Several factors will act to constrain the effectiveness of these measures, despite the financial and political capital being deployed in their support. The first set of constraints relates to the realities of the mineral industry. The development of a new mine anywhere faces several interrelated constraints. First is the need for investors who have access to capital and are prepared to risk fluctuations in commodity prices and host government regulations. Second is the time needed to move from discovery through feasibility study to first production. Even under favourable conditions, this can vary from five years or so for lithium mines to more than 10 years for copper or nickel mines. Third are the negative environmental impacts of mining. These include the use and degradation of land, pollution of air and water, damage to biodiversity, and emission of greenhouse gases. The final constraint relates to the effects on local communities, including their livelihoods and health. The consequences of these and other factors vary between countries and projects. But together they result in high costs, risks, and lead times for most projects. Similar challenges face mineral processing facilities. Though construction times will generally be less than for mines, emissions and waste from these plants are often toxic and their consumption of energy and water is usually large. + +As a result, obtaining societal and governmental approval for mining and processing projects in most high-income and many middle-income countries is likely to be costly and time consuming and may ultimately be unsuccessful. The ongoing example in Europe is Rio Tinto’s plan to open a lithium mine in Serbia, where strong public opposition is delaying the start of construction despite strong government support and the potential for the mine to transform the economy. A plan to develop a rare earth mine in Arctic Sweden is also facing strong objections. In the United States, tougher environmental regulations are delaying project approvals. The country reportedly has the second longest average time for a mine to progress from discovery to first production, at 29 years. Whilst approval periods may be shorter, the challenge in many mineral-rich countries is to ensure that environmental, social, and governance systems meet international standards. Indonesia is a case where rapid Chinese investment in nickel mining and processing has led to extensive environmental damage. + +The second set of constraints originate in China. The country’s strong position in the supply of a few critical mineral ores and several refined metals and materials gives it great influence over international prices. A small change in the share of its production that is exported can have a disproportionate impact on prices. The causes of such fluctuations in export volumes can be unintentional or intentional, as discussed above. The combination of these fluctuations with short-term variations in global demand results in highly unpredictable prices for mineral ores and metals. This is especially the case for critical minerals which are traded in small volumes on illiquid and non-transparent markets. The Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California is an example of a mine that has periodically closed due to such price fluctuations along with environmental regulation. Only with Department of Defense financial support was it able to build its own processing plant. Before that, the ores had been sent to China for processing. + +For these reasons, the likelihood is small that these measures to promote mining and ore processing outside China will have a substantial impact on the country’s currently strong or dominant positions in the supply chains for certain critical minerals and mineral products, at least over the next 10 years or even longer. However, they may make a modest contribution to local supplies. More effective may be innovation to reduce or obviate the need for critical minerals in key technologies. These include the development of sodium-ion batteries and permanent magnets free of rare earths. The problem here is that China itself is one of the leaders is developing and bringing to market these technologies. As a result, these innovations may just reinforce China’s dominance of clean energy equipment supply chains, despite a diminution in its dominance of critical mineral supplies. + + +### CHINA CRITICAL MINERALS DOMINANCE: CAN INNOVATION HELP? + +> #### Anders Hove + +China dominates the market for many of the essential minerals and materials needed to power the global transition to clean energy. This notably includes mining and processing of rare earths used in permanent magnets for wind and electric vehicle (EV) motors, processing of lithium and other minerals used in batteries, and production of silicon for solar panels. As world leaders seek to reduce dependence on China for these critical minerals, analysts have focused narrowly on forecasting the likely supply and demand for these minerals, and on measures to enhance non-Chinese supply. However, as Philip Andrews-Speed argues in this issue, supply-focused measures adopted by Western countries to date are unlikely to have a large impact on Chinese dominance of critical minerals over the next 10 years. + +While alternatives to critical minerals are part of the supply-demand analysis - for example, lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries or sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries as alternatives with fewer mineral supply constraints - the broader question of innovation as a solution is often omitted. + +Not only is China dominant in critical minerals for the energy transition, it has also become a leading innovation player in clean energy, largely as a result of its robust domestic demand fed by a dynamic and hypercompetitive manufacturing sector. Innovations that reduce critical minerals dependence have already arrived - in China. The question then becomes, how did China achieve dominance of both critical minerals supplies and clean energy innovation? And if innovation in alternatives to critical mineral inputs is likely to help reduce minerals-related vulnerabilities, will this just be replaced by more dependence on China for those very alternatives? + +#### Achieving dominance: scale and vertical integration + +There are three primary reasons why China dominates the critical minerals used in clean energy technologies today. First, China’s rapid scale-up of manufacturing in these technologies, including for domestic Chinese markets, made upstream integration essential. Second, China’s long-term, policy-led focus on mastering and localising strategic industries supported this effort, helping companies weather boom-and-bust cycles, easing financing for risky upstream investments, and facilitating technology transfer in key minerals processing fields. Third, policymakers, policy banks such as the China Development Bank, and state-owned industry actively organised “going-out” policies to facilitate large resource deals in the developing world - often in ways that couldn’t be matched by other countries, not even by the largest private companies in the global mining and resource industries. + +China has led the world in clean energy manufacturing for so long that it has come to seem almost inevitable - even though this was hardly foreseeable two decades ago. In 2023, the country sold 8.9 million passenger plug-in EVs, including plug-in hybrids, and in one month sales exceeded 1 million for the first time. In other words, plug-in vehicles in China in a single month exceeded the entire US EV market for the full year of 2023, and accounted for an astonishing two-thirds of the global market for such vehicles. As of mid-2024, EVs have surpassed a 50 per cent market share in new passenger vehicle sales on a monthly basis - not a small feat, given that China is the world’s largest car market. Similarly, for solar energy, China not only dominates manufacturing of photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules, but its domestic installation of solar in 2023 amounted to around 200 gigawatts, more than the entire US solar PV installed nationwide and equivalent to half the world market for solar. Installations are on track to top this record figure in 2024. + +In both EVs and solar, China not only leads by a wide margin, but has experienced exponential growth sustained over several years, fuelled by fierce domestic competition among manufacturers keen to achieve scale and market share. In this situation - rapidly growing domestic demand, high returns to scale, and low margins - upstream integration would be almost essential to individual businesses and the industry as a whole. + +Geographical concentration of upstream suppliers within China was essential to the rapid expansion of China’s wind and solar industries. Often, regional or local clusters played a role, such as the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta for solar PV and northern China for wind. Policy and technology characteristics each helped create this concentration: in wind, Chinese domestic content requirements for local projects encouraged foreign manufacturers to set up production in China and to transfer technology, whereas in solar PV, Chinese startups leveraged turnkey production lines imported from abroad. Upstream integration has also been important to the development and scale-up of the battery and EV sectors, where Chinese companies that began as start-ups just over a decade ago now dominate the market for making batteries and pose an imminent threat to leading global carmakers. As just one example, BYD famously sources 90 per cent of parts for its EVs from in-house. Other firms rely on a well-developed local supplier network, such as CATL, which has helped develop a battery industry cluster in and around Fujian province. + +Several factors contributed to China’s vertical integration in wind, solar, batteries, and EVs, and a full discussion of these is beyond the scope of this paper. As regards critical minerals, however, the important point is that vertical integration in China has not been limited to the immediate fields of manufacturing. Over the past decade, not only has China accelerated the approval of lithium mining operations and rapidly expanded lithium output and processing, but EV and battery companies have invested in upstream production. Over 400 Chinese companies are now involved in battery materials processing. While the Chinese government has promoted the mining sector for years, a major motivation for companies entering the upstream was the need to keep ahead of the domestic competition and secure reliable access to raw material supplies. + +#### Demand and domestic competition as catalysts for innovation + +China’s rapidly scaling manufacturing capacity for wind, solar, and batteries has led Chinese firms to compete both to secure upstream minerals supplies and to innovate to reduce costs. Innovation in China runs the gamut, from process-oriented improvements to lab-stage technologies and from end-user design to upstream minerals processing. All are relevant to critical minerals, because every such innovation has the potential to reduce global critical minerals demand. + +Unsurprisingly, the area where China’s innovation has taken a clear lead is in manufacturing - in short, in process-oriented innovation. This type of innovation has helped Chinese firms compete in clean energy sectors where the initial technology was developed elsewhere. In solar and battery manufacturing, Chinese players entered the field after a standardised and modular product design had already become dominant; therefore, reducing costs and beating out competition was largely a matter of scaling up manufacturing and reducing inefficiency and materials losses during production. To take solar PV as an example, production know-how is critical to reducing losses of solar-grade silicon during each stage of the process, from sawing ingots into wafers, to making wafers thinner, to avoiding broken or faulty cells and modules. + +Beyond mastery of process-oriented know-how, China’s scale and heavy investment in R&D means that Chinese players are increasingly able to lead in technologies that reduce materials consumption. This includes both technology-driven improvements in efficiency and investments in new materials that dramatically reduce or avoid critical materials altogether. + +On efficiency, Chinese solar and battery manufacturers are now technology leaders. Chinese firms dominate the production of the most advanced solar technologies, with new record solar conversion efficiencies being announced regularly by Chinese manufacturers, including for materials still in the lab stage such as perovskite tandem cells, as well as for fully commercialised technologies such as bifacial, PERC (passivated emitter and rear contact), and n-type monocrystalline PV. In batteries, Chinese players are holding their own in the patent and R&D race versus Japanese, Korean, and US competitors. CATL and BYD, the leading battery players, regularly announce cutting-edge new battery technologies with market-beating efficiencies - for example, CATL’s condensed battery that offers energy density of 500 Wh/kg, or BYD’s Blade battery, which offers greater energy density and reduced cost due to its cell-to-pack design. Again, steadily improved efficiency helps reduce materials consumption. + +Perhaps more important still, Chinese players are leading the race to find alternative technologies that reduce or displace demand for critical minerals. This process is already in evidence with the case of LFP battery technology, which went from being an also-ran in the industry - surpassed in energy density by the more advanced nickel-manganese-cobalt battery chemistry - to taking the majority of battery sales in the huge Chinese EV market. Chinese players didn’t invent LFP: that milestone goes to the Nobel Prize-winning John Goodenough and researchers at University of Texas-Austin and Oxford University. Instead, Chinese companies licensed the technology and scaled it up, in some cases benefitting from state help, such as the invalidation of key patents or the acquisition of US battery startup A123 by Wanxiang. Whereas Western carmakers and Asian battery makers focused on the high end, seeing EVs as a premium product, Chinese players saw an opportunity to compete with lower-priced offerings. Through ongoing innovation, Chinese manufacturers were able to bring LFP-equipped EVs to a level where the price-to-performance ratio was compelling in many mid-range offerings, including notably the made-in-China Tesla Model 3 as well as many US-made standard-range Tesla vehicles. While competing technologies such as nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries have also managed to reduce consumption of critical minerals like cobalt, the impact of China’s success with LFP on materials demand for batteries is undoubtedly far larger. + +The same process is now being repeated with Na-ion batteries, another technology long discounted by leading players for its relatively low efficiency, despite its potential for reducing global demand for lithium. While Na-ion batteries have some potential for vehicles, their near-term market is in the field of stationary energy storage. Once again, Chinese players are taking the lead, with CATL and BYD both actively developing and marketing Na-ion products - geared first and foremost for the huge domestic market for grid-scale batteries to back up the country’s surging wind and solar capacity, but also for EVs, where the lower-energy density Na-ion cells can be paired with lithium-ion cells to offer cost-effective performance. + +Last but not least, Chinese innovation has also played a role in reducing upstream costs for mineral extraction and processing. In China’s hyper-competitive domestic market for clean energy technology, companies seek not only to lock in supply of key inputs, but also to improve upstream efficiencies to beat out the competition. The result has been improvements in age-old but still essential technology processes for extracting and refining ores into pure minerals. Technology transfer and state policy have also played a role - and continue to do so, as shown by the recent state-owned company acquisition of the one remaining foreign-owned rare earths processing facility for making ultra-pure dysprosium. The mineral is essential for permanent magnets used in EV batteries and wind turbines, as well as in high-performance chip-making. + +#### Implications and conclusions + +China’s dominance of the clean energy industry, and its hybrid approach combining vertical integration with intense innovation, present a contrast with the strategies of many firms in advanced economies, which have tended to focus on disaggregating production to reduce costs. Mining companies focus on their most profitable, high-volume mining activities, carmakers and battery manufacturers seek to source inputs from the cheapest source globally. For miners, surging Chinese investment in relatively low-volume critical minerals results in low prices and low or negative returns, making competition with Chinese players seem futile. For downstream players that need critical mineral inputs, the lack of alternatives puts them in the position of either getting at the back of the line for critical minerals behind competing Chinese original equipment manufacturers, or investing in risky technology bets (such as solid-state batteries at Stellantis and Toyota) that may or may not pay off. + +While the Chinese corporate strategy of vertical integration has succeeded, its core driver is policy. Although subsidies and planning targets are often cited as the main policies at play, there is more to the story. China’s development approach is based on designating strategic emerging industries for long-term support, ultimately leading private players and local officials to channel resources to such technologies. This results in intense domestic competition and efforts such as vertical integration aimed at driving down prices to beat out competitors. This not only causes manufacturing overcapacity, but also spurs rapid learning-by-doing, innovation, and price declines that ultimately help stimulate demand more than subsidies or five-year-plan targets ever could. + +Innovation has already proven effective in reducing the world’s demand for critical minerals like cobalt and nickel while scaling up clean energy technologies. The problem is, innovation goes hand-in-hand with deployment; and whereas Chinese players are confident domestic demand will continue to boom, Western players often take a losing approach, waiting for the customer to “catch up” or for supplier input prices to fall. This not only slows investment in the upstream but hinders innovation across the supply chain, putting Chinese players further in the lead. + + +### WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT GRAPHITE: THE GEOPOLITICS AND ECONOMICS OF THE BATTERY ANODE VALUE CHAIN + +> #### Ahmed Mehdi + +Any discussion on the economics and geopolitics of the energy transition cannot ignore the role of graphite. Used as a feedstock to produce electrodes for the steel industry and anode active material (AAM) for the battery industry, graphite’s strategic importance is only set to grow, reinforced by two structural trends: rising global lithium-ion battery demand and growing use of electric arc furnace (EAF) technology in the global steel industry. In the battery market, cathode active materials - such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt - have dominated supply-side concerns among governments and automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). + +This is not surprising. While graphite is the largest component by weight in a battery pack for anodes, AAM only accounts for 7–10 per cent of the cell cost. Lithium, on the other hand, can make or break cell cost competitiveness. At the same time, anode technology developments have lagged the cathode, with graphite’s incumbent status remaining largely unchanged. And for good reasons, too: graphite provides high thermal and electrical conductivity, reasonable energy density, and strong cycling ability, and is low cost - the latter an important consideration for such a margin-sensitive industry as the global EV market. + +So, why is it time to talk about graphite? First, geopolitics: in no other part of the global battery supply chain does China have such a vice-like grip. The reality today is that without Chinese anode material, there is no Western EV industry. Second, market structure and pricing: developments in the Chinese battery and steel market over the past two years have rippled across ex-China markets, creating calls for industry protection via tariffs and subsidies. With the West seeking to play catch-up, what is the reality governing this market and where next for the ex-China market? + +#### Graphite is here to stay + +In 2023, global graphite demand reached around 3.6 million metric tonnes, with most of the demand split across two major industries - graphite for high-purity electrodes used in steel production, and graphite for AAM used in the battery industry. Graphite electrode demand is expected to continue growing over the next decade as EAF penetration rates rise, particularly in China (where current EAF penetration rates are around 10 per cent but are expected to reach 25 per cent by 2040). Despite some wobbles to EV sales this year (particularly in Europe), battery AAM demand from the EV sector will still see growth of 20–25 per cent this year. By 2026, it is expected that graphite demand from the battery sector will comfortably take over demand from the steel sector, reinforcing graphite’s strategic importance to the global automotive and energy storage market + +Graphite’s role as a primary feedstock for battery AAM comes from its chemical structure. The large interstices between the carbon atoms prevent structural change during charge and discharge cycles. As a result, graphite provides not only long cycle life to the battery but also reasonable energy density for modern battery cell chemistries. + +Nevertheless, questions have been raised around the threats to long-term graphite demand, primarily from three major areas: (1) pure silicon anodes, which do not use graphite, (2) sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries, which do not use graphite but rather hard carbons as the primary anode feedstock, and (3) solid-state batteries - seen as the holy grail for next-generation batteries - which would replace graphite-based anodes with lithium metal. + +While all three technologies are set to play a role in the future evolution of the battery supply chain, graphite’s incumbent position is likely to remain. This is for three main reasons: + +- First, small amounts of silicon (7–8 per cent) are already being used in today’s market to improve the energy density of a battery cell. Where graphite can store one lithium atom per six carbon atoms, silicon alloys can store up to four lithium atoms per silicon atom. The specific capacity of silicon - the amount of electric charge (measured in milliampere hours, mAh) that can be delivered per gram of material - is 3,590 mAh/g, ~10 times greater than that of graphite, reinforcing the energy density gains that can be made. The technical hurdle for silicon, however, remains the expansion of silicon during charge/discharge. While graphite anodes may expand by around 7 per cent during charge/discharge, silicon anodes can expand anywhere between 250 and 300 per cent during charge, leading to fractures and premature cell failure. In short, silicon doping remains the name of the game for now. + +- Second, interest in Na-ion batteries has grown since the lithium price hike of 2022 - a technology actively promoted by Chinese cellmakers as a hedge to lithium price volatility. The strong cycle life and safety of Na-ion has made the technology a widely coveted one, particularly by storage developers. The economics of Na-ion are highly compelling when lithium prices are above US$40kg/t, but less so in a US$10–20kg/t environment. This reinforces the point that Na-ion will certainly play a future role in the battery market but will be sensitive to the lithium price. At the same time, while Na-ion anodes cannot use graphite (due to the larger ionic size of sodium ions, which do not fit between the graphite anode layers) the replacement material, hard carbons, remains a small market which requires scaling. + +- Finally, the solid-state battery market - which would replace graphite anodes with lithium metal - remains in its infancy. Not only has the supply chain not yet fully scaled, but ongoing challenges with the use of a solid electrolyte remain, particularly dendrite formation. + +#### The synthetic and natural split + +The battery anode market has two main types of supply: natural graphite AAM and synthetic graphite AAM. The natural anode supply chain starts with mined material known as natural flake graphite, which comes in various flake sizes and purity levels. The flake graphite undergoes mechanical treatment such as spheronisation and purification to become natural AAM. + +Meanwhile, to produce synthetic graphite AAM, either needle coke (produced in a delayed coker from aromatic slurry oil) or petroleum coke undergoes graphitisation, the process of heating the carbon materials to ~2,500–3,000°C in an electric furnace to transform the material into an ordered graphitic structure. Further steps include coating and baking. Unlike cathode active materials, where the largest cost component is raw materials, AAM costs are largely driven by processing, particularly electricity costs for graphitisation. This partly explains why most Chinese graphitisation operations take place in Inner Mongolia - a source of low-cost electricity. + +While natural graphite AAM has slightly higher specific capacity, lower costs, and marginally better environmental standards than synthetic material, around 70–80 per cent of today’s global battery anode market is made up of synthetic AAM. This is largely due to the better product quality of synthetic material and its homogeneity. Inconsistencies in natural anode quality have been a bugbear for auto OEMs, who undertake strict qualification cycles to avoid recall risks and cell failure. + +#### Chinese dominance + +In no other part of the global battery value chain does China have such dominance as it does in the anode segment. In the natural market, while Africa (Madagascar/Mozambique) accounts for ~15–20 per cent of flake supply, more than 94 per cent of this supply is exported to China for processing/spheronisation. In the synthetic market, while China relies on premium needle coke imports from producers such as Phillips 66 to produce synthetic graphite for high-quality electrodes, it currently hosts around 98 per cent of the world’s graphitisation capacity. For both synthetic and natural anodes, China holds around 90 per cent anode market share (see Figure 1), with the biggest ex-China natural anode producer being Posco Chemicals, a key anchor client for ex-China flake producers. + +![image04](https://i.imgur.com/oE7CHqs.png) +_▲ __Figure 1: Global battery AAM demand by chemistry and % of ex-China AAM supply.__ Source: Benchmark Minerals._ + +That is not the end of the story, however. Within China itself, anode market competition is one of the toughest. While there are around 75–100 anode companies operating in today’s market (80–90 per cent of which are based in China), three Chinese majors - BTR, Shanshan, and Putailai - account for almost 50 per cent of global market share. + +Outside these tier-1 players, the industry is highly fragmented among tier-2 and tier-3 players all competing for cell and OEM customers in what has become one of the most dog-eat-dog markets in the Chinese battery value chain. In this sense, Chinese market behaviour is just as much about domestic competition as it is about preventing new market entrants from outside China. + +#### Cost control and the synthetic pivot + +It is not only the consolidated market structure of the anode market that matters for the West. Another key trend over the past few years has been the ability of Chinese anode producers to lower costs. + +The graphite market has historically been driven by developments in the steel industry. Synthetic graphite - the feedstock used for electrodes in steel - gained major attention in 2017-18 when a global shortage in needle coke sent prices skyrocketing to nearly US$5,000/t because of China’s booming EAF demand (see Figure 2). + +![image05](https://i.imgur.com/PbdFaMp.png) +_▲ __Figure 2: Needle coke and graphite electrode pricing, 2015–2024.__ Source: Benchmark Minerals, Global Graphite Advisory._ + +While the market corrected shortly after, the next major cycle took place after Covid, for entirely different reasons - namely, the surge in post-Covid battery cell utilisation rates, which boosted demand for battery AAM. Given that graphitisation makes up the bulk of anode production costs (40–50 per cent), non-integrated anode players faced significant margin pressure from the dramatic increase in graphitisation tolling fees (see Figure 3). + +![image06](https://i.imgur.com/OxPfoeT.png) +_▲ __Figure 3: Graphitisation tolling fees, 2021–2024.__ Source: Global Graphite Advisory, BAIINFO._ + +The episode was a major lesson for Chinese anode players. In response, the key cost-cutting exercise executed since 2021–2022 has been greater vertical integration and graphitisation in-housing, reducing the need to use third-party tollers. The second major cost-cutting strategy has been feedstock switching. Chinese anode players have been able to take advantage of the slowdown in China’s steel and aluminium industry since 2022 by directing cheaper coke feedstocks into the battery pool. The slump in Chinese aluminium demand in 2022 blew out coke spreads, making it more economic to produce synthetic anode material from pre-calcined cokes, typically earmarked for the aluminium sector. At the same time, the slowdown in Chinese steel demand from the property crisis provided graphite electrode players an opportunity to pivot into the battery market - an easy move given the sunk costs in graphitisation technology. + +All three of these dynamics, alongside government subsidies, have helped China significantly increase its synthetic anode capacity, driving a major oversupply into the market. + +![image07](https://i.imgur.com/CPRQErf.png) +_▲ __Figure 4: Capital intensity of selected planed Western AAM projects v China average.__ Source: Benchmark Minerals, companies._ + +The strategic implications of these developments have been two-fold: + +- First, China’s synthetic pivot has narrowed the price differential between natural and synthetic anode material, effectively reducing natural graphite fines demand and keeping up pressure on spot fines pricing. + +- Second, in today’s ex-China battery anode market, around 65–70 per cent is made up of natural anode players (led by Posco in South Korea), with the rest made up of synthetic anode players. China’s synthetic oversupply has effectively compressed the margins of natural players. As shown in Figure 5, Chinese anode prices are now below cash costs of production for ex-China players, effectively putting Western players out of the money. + +![image08](https://i.imgur.com/SNe5RbV.png) +_▲ __Figure 5: Synthetic v natural AAM pricing and average ex-China natural AAM break-even price.__ Source: Author, Benchmark Minerals._ + +#### Graphite geopolitics + +Beyond market structure, graphite geopolitics have also dominated attention in Western OEM boardrooms. In late 2023, China’s government tightened export controls on graphite products. While synthetic graphite had already been subject to controls since the mid-2000s, the new policy in 2023 targeted high-purity anode materials, including natural products. + +Initially, ex-China anode equities rallied on the news. Panic buying ensued. Korea’s graphite industry, seeing the licensing restriction as part of China’s retaliation for Western industrial policy, found itself caught between both superpowers, with one Korean trade executive stating: “we are like a shrimp getting caught in a fight between whales.” + +China’s move was relevant in the following ways: + +- Prior to the move, exports were a way for tier-2 and tier-3 Chinese producers to boost their profitability and offset margin weakness at home. Against this backdrop, tier-1 producers lobbied for a tightening of the regime to cut off this mechanism, helping accelerate rationalisation in the oversupplied Chinese anode market. + +- While some western players used the news to bolster their business cases in front of government funding agencies, the reality is that by targeting natural products, China has used the new licensing regime to slowly cut its purchases of western flake supply. In 2024, for example, Syrah Resources, a darling of the Western anode market, reported zero flake material sales to China, amplifying the company’s financial pressures. + +#### What can the West do? + +Where does this all leave the West? For Western anode players, 2024 has been a mixed year. Despite ongoing price pressures, Western industrial policy - primarily in the US - is helping even the playing field for struggling producers. + +In North America, demand-side credits such as the Clean Vehicle Credit (CVC) offer a subsidy of US$7,500 for EV buyers, with the credits linked to OEMs needing to satisfy certain thresholds on critical mineral and component sourcing. Importantly, access to the CVC credits require that no material originates from foreign entities of concern (FEOC) countries, key among them China. While graphite holds a lower value than lithium, for example, the immaturity of the ex-China anode value chain triggered a wave of OEM lobbying to push for delays to restrictions on graphite sourcing. As a result, FEOC guidelines were amended this year to allow Chinese supply to continue uninterrupted until 2027. + +While this delay was a blow to ex-China anode players, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) CVC credits are a game-changer and a key source of support as Western players launch fresh financing rounds this year and next. Assuming an average pack size in the US EV market of 75 Kwh, US$7,500 would translate to a government subsidy of US$100/Kwh, almost the entire cost of a high-energy-density cell (2024 prices). + +In this light, even if US anode producers sign offtakes with cellmakers or OEMs using a floor price well above Chinese spot prices, IRA credit provisions more than offset the price differential. + +It is therefore no surprise that 2024 has seen a pickup in offtakes between US OEMs/cellmakers and anode producers, the most notable this year being Panasonic/Novonix, Westwater/SK On, and Nouveau Monde/GM. + +While it is possible that the two-year graphite exemption could be extended even further (or that EV credits are removed altogether by President-elect Donald Trump), anode players have also lobbied successfully for protectionist support in the form of tariffs. Historically, tariffs on natural and synthetic AAM were waived in 2020 to 0 per cent, largely a result of Tesla lobbying. However, in May 2024 the US Department of Energy reinstated tariffs at 25 per cent, and these are due to kick in from the mid-2020s. + +While these are positive developments for US anode players, the challenge is now execution. China has mastered the anode value chain, and financing teams comfortable with offtake pricing terms will double down on technology due diligence. + +Likewise, the reality is that China is still not out. China will continue to act as a source of baseload supply to US OEMs. On top of that, China has not been standing still in response to Western industrial policy. Tier-1 anode players have expanded aggressively overseas, particularly in IRA-compliant trade destinations, a strategy to gain back-door access to the US market. Key destinations for Chinese anode players include Indonesia, Morocco and Europe - the latter now an open sink for Chinese battery players. + +Going forward, two other developments will be interesting to watch and could prove a game-changer for the ex-China market. First, oil companies with downstream refining assets could enter the needle coke market and further push into downstream graphitisation. Oil companies are already transforming lithium supply-side economics. Second, an easy source of additional synthetic anode supply for the battery market could emerge from Western graphite electrode players seeking to pivot into the battery AAM market. + + +### INDONESIA’S ENERGY TRANSITION PARADOX: POWERING THE EV BATTERY SUPPLY CHAIN WITH COAL + +> #### Diwangkara Bagus Nugraha, Stein Kristiansen, Indra Overland + +Nickel is a key component of nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide batteries, which dominate global EV battery markets. Despite the growing importance of nickel-free battery chemistries such as lithium-iron-phosphate and sodium-ion, the International Energy Agency estimates nickel demand will double from 3.1 million metric tons per year in 2023 to 6 million metric tons in 2040, mainly driven by demand for nickel-rich batteries for EVs. + +This article examines the decarbonisation of the Indonesian nickel supply chain from a political economy perspective, highlighting the tensions between economic interests and environmental concerns. These tensions give rise to an Indonesian energy transition paradox: the ostensible purpose of the nickel-based battery industry is to decarbonise the transportation sector, but the battery industry itself relies on newly constructed coal power plants. + +#### Indonesia’s nickel industry - booming and carbon-intensive + +Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of nickel ore and refined nickel and has come to dominate the upstream segment of global nickel supply chains for EVs. This is the consequence of conscious Indonesian policy choices aimed at capitalising on the country’s abundant nickel resources. Indonesia supplied 34 per cent of global nickel ore in 2020, growing to 52 per cent in 2023, while its share of global refined nickel production jumped from 23 per cent in 2020 to 37 per cent in 2023. Although most of the nickel is used to make stainless steel, Indonesia plans to gradually shift its production to the battery-grade nickel products nickel matte and mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP), in the hope of deriving greater economic value from its resources. + +While Indonesia takes the lead on the upstream segment of global EV production, its battery and EV manufacturing industries remain at the infant stage. Indonesia inaugurated its first EV battery manufacturer only in July 2024, located in West Java. China’s dominance of the global EV supply chain appears even more difficult for Indonesia to challenge than for the EU or the US. + +Indonesia’s nickel boom is in the spotlight because of its emissions. Battery cathode production, which includes nickel mining and processing, is responsible for more than 40 per cent of carbon emissions from EV production. This is due to the energy-intensive processes involved in cathode production. + +Indonesia’s heavy reliance on coal for electricity generation and industrial heat results in highly carbon-intensive nickel production. Most nickel processing facilities in Indonesia get their power from captive, off-grid coal power plants with generation capacities of hundreds of megawatts each. + +#### Indonesia’s prioritisation of investment over decarbonisation + +The ambition of the Indonesian state under Presidents Joko Widodo and Prabowo has been to capitalise on the country’s abundant nickel resources to attract more investment, create jobs and business opportunities, and ultimately establish a vertically integrated domestic EV industry. To achieve this, government policy incentivises and provides special treatment for investment in smelters and captive coal power plants while marginalising the issue of greenhouse gas emissions. + +The Indonesian nickel boom was launched in 2020 by restricting the export of unprocessed nickel ore in order to stimulate domestic nickel smelting and investment in EV manufacturing. Although this policy was challenged by the EU in the World Trade Organization, Indonesia insisted on continuing to ban exports of unprocessed nickel ore. Following the ban, Indonesia’s nickel export value grew by 34 per cent between 2019 and 2023, with a growing share of nickel matte and MHP in exports following the opening of several hydrometallurgical smelters after 2021. + +To incentivise investment in nickel smelters, the government added them to the National Strategic Projects list, rendering them eligible for accelerated permits, eased access to land, and conversion of forests to industrial land. As a result, 54 nickel smelters were operating in Indonesia in 2024, five times the 2020 figure. Most smelters produce class 2 nickel products, such as nickel pig iron and ferronickel for the stainless-steel industry. However, the government plans to halt new class-2 nickel smelter construction and build more battery-grade nickel smelters. In 2024, Indonesia has two high-energy-intensive pyrometallurgical smelters producing nickel matte and five hydrometallurgical smelters, a less energy-intensive smelter type, converting nickel laterite ore to MHP. + +China’s presence in Indonesia’s nickel sector is ubiquitous. As shown in Table 1, most nickel smelters that produce nickel for batteries are backed at least partly by Chinese capital. China is also the main export destination for refined nickel products, as Indonesia has no domestic cathode manufacturers. + +![image09](https://i.imgur.com/MzVlUY4.png) +_▲ __Table 1: Battery-oriented nickel smelters in Indonesia.___ + +Indonesia’s president actively persuaded major foreign EV and battery manufacturers to invest in the midstream segment. The state has also taken a direct stake in the battery industry by establishing the Indonesia Battery Corporation, an EV battery manufacturer owned by four state-owned enterprises: Mining Industry Indonesia (a national mining holding company), Aneka Tambang (a national mining corporation), Perusahaan Listrik Negara (the national utility), and Pertamina (the national oil company). To boost domestic demand for EVs and thus for batteries, Indonesia has adopted incentives for domestic EV production. However, so far, EV penetration in Indonesia remains low, with only 2 per cent of new cars sold in 2023 being electric. + +While Indonesia has strong and clear ambitions for its battery-oriented nickel industry, it has shown less interest in the emissions from this industry. The government gives preferential treatment to new captive coal power plants for the nickel industry. Nickel smelters are classified as national strategic projects and thereby excluded from the country’s coal power plant moratorium, which was enacted in 2022. As a result, there has been a construction boom for captive coal power plants. In 2023, their capacity to supply the nickel industry reached 7 GW (two-thirds of the country’s total captive coal power plant capacity), with an additional 9 GW in the pipeline. As shown in Table 1, six out of seven battery-grade nickel smelters depend on coal power for their electricity supply. Two smelters plan to add solar power in 2025; whether they succeed remains to be seen. + +Moreover, Indonesia encourages financing for captive coal power plants for the nickel industry by labelling them amber in the country’s Sustainable Finance Taxonomy. As a result, they are eligible for energy transition financing on the condition that they are built by 2031, shut down by 2050, and commit to reducing their carbon emissions by 35 per cent during the first 10 years of operation. Decarbonisation is anticipated to be achieved through electrostatic precipitators, biomass cofiring, or carbon capture and storage, for which Indonesia has high hopes. + +Concrete plans for decarbonisation of captive generation were omitted from the 2023 comprehensive investment and policy plan document of the Just Energy Transition Partnership, a G7-led initiative for decarbonising Indonesia’s power sector. Apparently, this was due to lack of information about captive generation and the challenge of balancing the government’s industrialisation and decarbonisation efforts. The exclusion was expected to be temporary, as the Just Energy Transition Partnership secretariat kicked off a study of captive power for the 2024 plan update. + +Indonesian policymakers and the state-owned monopoly electricity company Perusahaan Listrik Negara are unwilling to phase out coal-dependent electricity generation swiftly; they argue that it needs to keep running to ensure affordable and stable electricity for the public and industry, and that Indonesia is too poor to fund the transition. The low coal price cap at US$70 per tonne, and vested coal industry elite interests, result in unattractive conditions for renewable energy investment in Indonesia’s major electricity grid on Java, the country’s economic and industrial centre. If anyone wants to establish renewables-based battery or EV manufacturing on Java, they will thus have to build their own on-site renewable power plant. In principle, renewable energy certificates can be purchased; but in practice it is difficult to source off-site renewable energy, as power wheeling and direct power purchase agreements with renewable developers are unavailable. According to the Indonesian Ministry of Investment, the unavailability of clean energy was one reason why Tesla abandoned its plan to invest in the country. + +Indonesia’s lax carbon regulations perpetuate carbon-intensive industrial activities. A carbon cap and trade scheme was introduced in the Indonesian power sector in 2022, starting with smaller coal power plants. As of 2024, its implementation is limited to grid-connected coal power plants, leaving captive coal power plants and carbon-intensive industries untouched by the regulation. There is no carbon tax for the manufacturing industry either. + +Moreover, the pressure to disclose carbon footprints is low. Sustainability reporting is only required for companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. While international financial institutions are increasingly concerned about environmental, social, and governance disclosure for their investments, only 12 of the 54 nickel smelters currently operating in Indonesia disclose their carbon emissions in their annual sustainability reports. And few of those 12 comply with international standards such as the Global Reporting Initiative in terms of the quality and detail of reporting. Nickel companies with shareholders listed on foreign bourses - such as the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Australian Stock Exchange, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or Tokyo Stock Exchange - are subject to additional pressure to disclose their carbon footprint to fulfil the mandatory sustainability disclosure rules of those stock exchanges. + +#### The influence of trade partners + +In the global supply chains, trade partners can exercise decarbonisation pressure on each other. In 2023, the EU established a battery regulation to tighten the carbon footprint requirements for batteries produced, sold, or used in the European common market. The regulation requires battery producers, distributors, and importers to declare their carbon footprint for their supply chain starting in 2025, with a carbon footprint threshold to be established in 2028. The regulation will create a new carbon standard for battery manufacturers, which may impact Indonesia and other China-linked battery supply chains, as China provides 34 per cent of the EU’s battery supply. Meanwhile, China, the primary destination market for Indonesian nickel, limits its emissions regulation to domestic industry and does not cover Chinese overseas investment. + +#### Policy recommendations + +Indonesia’s nickel industry needs to start decarbonising if it wants to gain access to more capital and wider markets for its products. In that case, the country should enhance its carbon regulations for captive coal power plants and energy-intensive industries such as nickel smelting, improve carbon emission transparency, and consolidate efforts to assist energy-intensive companies in calculating and reporting their emission levels. To decarbonise EV and battery manufacturing, Indonesia would also need to reduce its support for coal to improve the relative attractiveness of investment in renewable energy, incentivise companies to install on-site renewables, and provide manufacturers with access to off-site clean energy through power wheeling or direct power purchasing agreements with renewable energy developers. + + +### SECURING THE FUTURE: JAPAN’S QUEST FOR CRITICAL MINERALS IN THE SHADOW OF CHINA + +> #### Parul Bakshi + +From the devastating aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima disaster to the ambitious commitments of the Paris Agreement and the stark realities posed by the recent Russia–Ukraine and Middle Eastern conflicts, Japan’s energy landscape has undergone profound transformations, catalysing a national reassessment and underscoring the need for a resilient and diversified energy system. + +Japan’s policies underline the commitment to both domestic resource development and diversified international supply chains. This dual approach aims to mitigate supply disruption risks amidst escalating global energy rivalries and conflicts over low-carbon technology value chains, which are key to competitiveness, economic development, energy sovereignty, and security. With lithium demand projected to triple by 2025 compared to 2020, alongside significant increases in cobalt and copper requirements, immense pressure is placed on global mineral supply chains critical for the energy transition. These challenges are compounded by the dynamic nature of material criticality, driven by economic, geopolitical, and technological shifts, prompting Japan to continually adapt its strategies to meet evolving technological advancements and shifting market demands. + +The pursuit of energy security through critical minerals involves navigating vulnerabilities that can slow the pace of the energy transition. Localised disruptions in mineral supply can have ripple effects throughout the global energy system, underscoring the interconnected nature of these resources. Furthermore, geopolitical tensions and market manipulations in mineral-rich regions can inflate costs and prolong reliance on fossil fuels, contrary to the objectives of the clean energy transition. + +Japan’s acute awareness of its mineral dependencies, given its limited natural resources and high import reliance, has propelled it to take a proactive stance in securing these vital materials. This is evidenced by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry recognising 35 minerals as critical, illustrating Japan’s strategic measures to safeguard its technological and energy advancements. + +Japan is navigating complex geopolitical and environmental challenges, and its strategy highlights the deep interconnection between national security and climate goals, positioning Japan’s international partnerships and innovative policies as a comprehensive blueprint for the global transition. + +#### China’s strategic leverage in global critical minerals + +China stands at the forefront of the global supply chain for critical minerals. It dominates this value chain through strategic policies and export controls that significantly affect global market dynamics, influencing both their availability and pricing. Additionally, China’s role as a low-cost supplier of clean energy equipment, such as batteries, helps mitigate some economic challenges associated with the global clean energy transition. + +This presents a complex dilemma: on one hand, the global dependency on China arises from both demand dynamics and economic advantages; on the other hand, there is a growing impetus for decoupling and diversification from China to ensure stability and security in supply chains. This tension underscores the strategic challenges nations face as they navigate the intricacies of energy transition, balancing economic efficiencies with the imperative for secure, sustainable supply chains. + +Despite possessing only 34 per cent of the world’s identified rare earth reserves, China’s command over the annual mine output and processing stages is significant, with about 70 per cent of global mine output and 90 per cent of refining capabilities under its control. This extensive influence across all stages of the supply chain not only provides China with substantial leverage over global markets but also intensifies concerns about supply security amid geopolitical tensions. For instance, in August 2023, China imposed export controls on gallium and germanium, crucial for semiconductor manufacturing, with additional restrictions introduced on rare earth elements for motor magnets in October and graphite for batteries in December. + +China’s mining interests are not confined within its borders but span continents, with significant investments in mining operations for copper and cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia, lithium in Australia and Latin America, and nickel in Indonesia. These ventures facilitate the return of a significant portion of these minerals to China for processing and refinement, further centralising control within its borders. + +While China currently holds a quasi-monopolistic stance in the critical minerals market, it has been suggested that factors such as reserve depletion, the emergence of new mining sites, and enhanced recycling methods could reduce its market share. However, China’s existing capacity in mining and processing continues to play a pivotal role, posing significant geopolitical risks that need to be managed through international cooperation and strategic policymaking. + +#### Reassessing security: Japan’s response to the 2010 rare earth crisis + +Japan’s supply chain vulnerabilities came to the forefront during its 2010 diplomatic tensions with China, following a maritime incident near the Senkaku Islands. This conflict, involving a Chinese fishing trawler and Japanese coast guard vessels, escalated to China imposing an informal ban on the export of rare earth minerals to Japan. The embargo caused significant disruptions, especially in the Japanese automotive sector, which relied heavily on these materials for essential components like magnets. While trade normalised after the resolution of incident, the prices of rare earths surged tenfold within a year, highlighting the precarious nature of Japan’s supply chain dependency. + +In response, Japan developed a comprehensive strategy aimed at mitigating future risks associated with single-source dependency. A supplemental budget of JPY 100 billion was allocated in October 2010, to reduce its dependency on Chinese rare earths from 90 per cent to more manageable levels. The strategic pillars of this initiative included: + +- development of alternative technologies that reduce the use of rare earths; + +- promotion of recycling initiatives to recover rare earths from used products; + +- strengthening of capacities to invest in and develop rare earth mines globally, particularly in Australia, which emerged as a key partner; + +- establishment of stockpiles of critical minerals to buffer against supply disruptions. + +Due to prompt policy actions, Japan has effectively reduced its reliance on Chinese rare earth imports from 90 per cent to 60 per cent since the incident, and halved domestic consumption of these materials by 2023 compared to 2010. + +In parallel, reports emerged suggesting that China’s decline in rare earth exports to Japan was not targeted but rather stemmed from a broader decision, made two months before the trawler collision, to reduce global rare earth exports by 40 per cent. Additionally, a Japanese Ministry of Finance analysis of Japanese port data showed no uniform drop in imports of Chinese rare earths following the incident. Furthermore, a 2023 assessment based on the import share of critical minerals from China found little evidence of selective targeting of its trade partners. + +Nevertheless, the broader implications of China’s export restrictions came under international scrutiny in 2012 when the United States, the European Union, and Japan challenged China’s practices at the World Trade Organization. The complaint centred on China’s restrictive export quotas on rare earths, tungsten, and molybdenum, which were viewed as attempts to manipulate the market and maintain a competitive edge. The World Trade Organization ruled against China, highlighting the global implications of national policies for the supply of critical raw materials and underscoring the need for fair trade practices. + +Despite the unfavourable ruling, China defended its policies as necessary to protect its environmental and economic interests, indicating a complex interplay between global trade rules and national policy objectives. Regardless of intent, Chinese actions fostered global mistrust and are viewed as a significant example of its assertiveness, leveraging its geopolitical advantage. It served as a watershed moment for Japan, fundamentally reshaping its approach to securing critical minerals. + +#### Japan’s geopolitical manoeuvring in the critical minerals arena + +As China’s influence in the global critical minerals market grows, Japan is strategically diversifying its supply sources and enhancing both domestic and international production capabilities, thereby reshaping the dynamics of energy geopolitics. This strategic shift not only aims to reduce dependency but also fortifies Japan’s energy security and economic stability against geopolitical upheavals. + +The Japanese government’s proactive approach can be termed the “3D strategy”: derisk (energy security), decarbonise (environment), and develop (economy), aligned with its 3E+S strategy, which highlights the pillars of Japanese energy policy - energy security, economic efficiency, and environmental protection, plus safety (added post-Fukushima). Since the mid-2000s, Japan has prioritised the identification of critical minerals and risk mitigation through substantial investments in domestic initiatives and international partnerships. This comprehensive strategy emphasises overseas projects, advancements in recycling and substitution methods, and strategic stockpiling, all designed to ensure a stable supply of critical minerals. + +#### Domestic efforts + +The New International Resource Strategy (2020) marked a significant step in augmenting these efforts, setting ambitious goals for emergency stockpiling, supporting domestic private-sector mining and smelting initiatives, and increasing stockpile targets to 60 days and up to 180 days for minerals with higher geopolitical risks. + +Japan has also intensified its exploration of submarine deposits of critical minerals, discovering six significant sites off Okinawa between 2013 and 2017. Plans are underway to commence commercial exploitation of seabed minerals within its exclusive economic zone starting in 2028, supported by a budget of JPY 215.8 billion. This includes major projects like the exploration of manganese nodules near Minamitorishima, discovered in 2016, estimated to contain 234 million tons and poised to meet long-term mineral requirements - nickel for 75 years, cobalt for 11 years, dysprosium for 730 years, and yttrium for 780 years. However, the environmental impact of large-scale mining on the ocean floor necessitates careful management and licensing from the International Seabed Authority to mitigate damage and align with global environmental standards. + +In response to losing 80 per cent of critical minerals through the export of used EVs, the Japanese government has implemented measures to certify the performance of used batteries and promoting local recycling, thereby ensuring these vital minerals are retained within Japan. The Japan Research Institute estimates that a circular economy model for used electric vehicle batteries could significantly increase market value, reaching JPY 600 billion by 2030 and JPY 8 trillion by 2050. Innovation, a key component of these efforts, is seen particularly in the development of perovskite solar cells that utilise iodine - where Japan holds the second-largest share - positioning it as a viable alternative to China-led silicon-based cells. + +Underpinning these strategies, the 2022 Economic Security Promotion Act and the National Security Strategy have prioritised reducing excessive dependence on specific countries and establishing a secure, stable supply of critical goods, including rare earths. These policies aim to strengthen Japan’s economic security by ensuring a steady supply of essential materials and supporting sustainable practices in the energy and technology sectors. + +#### Role of Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security + +Central to Japan’s strategy is the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), which spearheads initiatives in exploration, recycling, alternative material development, and strategic stockpiling. With branches in 13 countries, JOGMEC enhances Japan’s mineral acquisition by offering financial support through liability and debt guarantees, equity participation, and loans to mitigate risks for Japanese enterprises. It aims to achieve 80 per cent self-sufficiency in base metals like copper and nickel by 2030 through collaborations with foreign firms. Following the end of China’s rare earth embargo, JOGMEC orchestrated a pivotal $250 million deal with the Australian rare earth company Lynas, securing a continuous supply of rare earths and reinforcing Lynas’s role in the global market, where it now provides 12 per cent of the world’s rare earth oxides. As of 2023, Lynas supplied about 90 per cent of Japan’s neodymium and praseodymium. Between 2004 and 2020, JOGMEC engaged in over 100 projects with investments exceeding $600 million; it currently manages more than 30 projects across 15 countries. + +JOGMEC illustrates how effective institutional development and policy implementation can enhance resilience in a complex global environment. + +#### International collaborations + +According to Japanese government estimates, installing just 10 GW of offshore wind by 2030 would require about 10 per cent of Japan’s 2018 copper consumption and 20 per cent of its niobium rare earth consumption - resources that cannot be fully supplied by recycling and substitution. As a result, Japan is increasingly turning to international collaborations to secure the necessary minerals to meet its energy needs. + +These efforts include partnerships with resource-rich countries, such as Australia for rare earths and lithium and Canada for cobalt. Such alliances, often underpinned by bilateral agreements, provide Japan with direct access to critical minerals, reducing its dependency on volatile suppliers like China. + +In 2023, Japan and the United States signed an agreement focused on securing minerals for clean vehicle batteries, extending collaborations to South Korea to strengthen semiconductor and mineral supply chains. It invested in a research centre to develop production in Vietnam. Japan is also developing semiconductor facilities and nickel supply chains with the Philippines and bolstering supply chains and mining projects with France and the United Kingdom, with plans for joint investments in Africa. + +Additionally, Japan is active in multilateral initiatives such as the Minerals Security Partnership and the Quad Working Group on Critical Minerals, which focus on securing stable mineral supplies for regional security and economic prosperity. Also, during the G7 meeting in 2023, which it hosted, Japan committed over JPY 200 billion to enhance its mineral resources and spearheaded the adoption of the Five-Point Plan for Critical Minerals Security, emphasising the need for diversified supply chains to mitigate strategic dependencies, notably against China’s dominance. By continuing to enhance its domestic capabilities and strengthen international partnerships, Japan not only aims to secure its energy transition but also to influence global standards and practices in mineral supply chain management. + +#### Conclusion + +Japan’s strategic management of critical minerals showcases a comprehensive blueprint, highlighting the importance of a multifaceted strategy that addresses policy, innovation, institutional, and diplomatic fronts. By diversifying its sources and reducing reliance on Chinese rare earths, Japan not only enhances its energy security but also contributes to global market stability, by reducing the world’s dependency on a single supplier and mitigating the risk of the kind of supply shocks and price volatility that led to the 2010 crises. These measures help prevent similar disruptions from impacting international economic and technological progress by promoting a more distributed and resilient global supply chain. + +But despite robust strategies, Japan faces challenges like intense global competition for resources and potential geopolitical tensions in supply regions. Critics of friend-shoring also argue that Japan’s strategy may exacerbate economic disparities and increase geopolitical risks by fuelling competition and inflating prices, potentially leading to heightened areas of conflict and economic inequality. Japan must also recognise the importance of integrating labour rights and environmental considerations into its development strategies, ensuring sustainable and equitable practices. + +While Japan’s approach to securing critical minerals is not without its flaws, the ongoing mistrust of China’s role in the global market underscores the need for diversification of sources, presenting opportunities for other nations to play significant roles in the wider global energy transition and, consequently, in the geopolitics of energy. Japan’s approach provides valuable insights into balancing economic, environmental, and security goals. It emphasises the need for ongoing innovation, strong international partnerships, and supportive policies that foster sustainable and fair practices. + + +### US–AFRICAN CRITICAL MINERALS COLLABORATION: REDUCING TRADE FRICTIONS WHILE ENHANCING VALUE ADDITION + +> #### Brad Simmons + +Amidst decarbonisation imperatives, burgeoning demand for critical minerals for the energy transition has solidified its role as a front line in the increasingly fierce US–China industrial competition. The era of industrial rejuvenation envisioned as an outcome of the Biden administration’s climate and energy legislative achievements will mean little for supply chain diversification if the United States cannot wrest market dominance from Chinese actors and achieve the diversification needed to preserve its energy security. Though President-elect Trump’s campaign rhetoric would indicate radical departures from the Biden administration’s energy and climate policy, resilience in critical material supply chains has been a rare area of bipartisan consensus and continuity between alternating party control of the White House. + +Data on investments stimulated by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) indicate progress toward the Biden administration’s industrial vision, but investment in critical minerals has been substantially lower than other manufacturing investments in clean energy technologies since the start of the administration. Critical mineral industrial investments have made up a mere 6 per cent of the $113 billion in clean energy manufacturing investments in the US between 2020 and the second quarter of 2024, according to the Clean Investment Monitor, a joint database provided by the Rhodium Group and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Meanwhile, battery gigafactory and associated component manufacturing investments have reached nearly $69 billion over that same period. + +This emerging industrial capacity gap poses challenges to both US energy security and industrial competitiveness if China is able to retain its dominant market share in mineral supply chains essential to decarbonisation technologies. The Treasury Department only finalised the rulemaking process for the most consequential IRA tax credit for critical materials production, 45X, on 24 October 2024. The 45X tax credit provides an incentive for the expansion of advanced manufacturing facilities in the United States. It covers a wide range of clean energy technologies, including batteries, their components, and the production of underlying input materials. + +The original proposed rule excluded the extraction of minerals from the costs of production as part of the deductible value of critical mineral processing or component manufacturing. The Treasury Department ultimately reversed this position and included the value of input materials in the deductible, significantly expanding the projected value of the credit. The credit also applies to domestic mining if the miner converts the mined material into a qualifying product, which rewards the type of vertical integration that has contributed to China’s dominance of critical material supply chains. Given that the costs of input raw materials represent the vast majority of overall costs in critical material processing, and that these inputs have been subjected to significant price volatility in the recent past, capturing them in the final rule vastly improves the incentive’s attractiveness. + +The 45X revision - which should now more effectively capture the cost structure of critical material processing and extraction - increases the prospects for domestic greenfield processing and refining capacity for minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, platinum group metals, and rare earth elements where there is existing domestic production or where project pipelines suggest near-term prospects for initiating or scaling production. Even with new reserve estimates indicating extensive lithium deposits in the United States, domestic demand for critical materials will substantially outpace production in all mineral categories in the near term. That supply–demand imbalance will thus limit the competitiveness benefits that 45X can provide via vertical integration and the efficiency gains of colocation of mining and processing operations. Though the IRA will likely undergo some modicum of reform under a Republican-led Congress and White House, 45x’s technology agnostic design and, with its implementing guidance evolution, prospect for enhancing domestic mining, should be a candidate for preservation in alignment with Trump administration objectives. + +To effectively prosecute a strategy on critical material supply chain diversification and resiliency, therefore, the United States will require complementary international initiatives targeting energy transition minerals and materials as well as deepening ties with governments that oversee their development. But such initiatives should be crafted carefully, as the risk of overemphasising domestic processing compared to general diversification of supply chains could prove counterproductive if it stimulates excessive protectionism in foreign mineral-rich jurisdictions. There are already indications that this sentiment is hardening: Indonesia’s explosive nickel production and smelting growth in the wake of its institution of a raw material export ban is leading other governments in developing countries with substantial resources to consider similarly draconian policy measures. Numerous African governments have referenced Indonesia as a potential model worthy of examination or have quickly followed suit with their own export bans. Zimbabwe and Namibia each enacted bans on the export of raw lithium ore in the past two years, while Ghana, Gabon, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have each imposed export restrictions of varying severity and structure in the past decade. + +It is clear that export bans can, in certain instances, add value to the mining industry and domestic economy, but even Indonesia’s own volatile history of such bans across various commodity classes indicates a decidedly mixed track record. A more nuanced approach by the United States in the wake of the decision to expand 45X’s reach to input material costs should therefore be leveraged to drive deeper collaboration with existing and potential critical material producers across the African continent. + +This concerted approach to diversifying processing capacity and expanding raw material supply would benefit from existing international platforms that the United States has launched in the past four years, specifically the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment and the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP). The former has made commendable progress in devising a collaborative approach with donor countries and development finance institutions to enhancing the enabling environment for the mining industry in central Africa through the formation of the Lobito Corridor. The Corridor’s establishment will diversify export routes for Central Africa’s copper belt and is pulling in significant private sector investments to the underlying transport logistics infrastructure to do so. The MSP’s origins trace back to the first Trump administration and should be a candidate initiative for continuation. For a region that is frequently undervalued and de-prioritized to the US’ detriment, seizing momentum in politically desensitized areas will enable a Trump administration to engender trust and confidence in its African counterparts rather than perpetuating a tired cycle of fresh approaches. + +The United States should expand on growing goodwill to help marshal the necessary resources to improve the mapping of Africa’s critical mineral resources and create incentives for establishing processing capacity that meets the IRA’s unique battery material sourcing requirements, diversify supply chains in segments of severe concentration, and drive further clean technology innovation. A recent International Monetary Fund report found that sub-Saharan Africa possesses 30 per cent of the world’s proven critical mineral reserves but attracted only “13 per cent of announced global greenfield foreign direct investment projects in metals and minerals annually”. + +The United States should focus on two specific policy initiatives to maximise the impact of 45X on energy transition critical material supply chain diversification. The first would be to partner with Morrocco to institute African sourcing incentives for critical material inputs for its burgeoning lithium-ion battery manufacturing sector. The IRA’s EV tax incentive requires that battery critical materials be either mined or processed domestically or in free trade jurisdictions for the vehicle to qualify for the credit. Morocco is the sole African nation that possesses a free trade agreement with the United States, which has precipitated a growing volume of announcements by battery original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and material producers to establish capacity in Morocco to take advantage of its trade status. Furthermore, Morocco possesses vast phosphate reserves - it was the second largest global producer in 2023 and has an estimated two-thirds of remaining global reserves - that can be utilised in lithium iron phosphate cathode chemistries in batteries. Lithium iron phosphate cathodes have steadily improved their performance characteristics and, given cost competitiveness, have rapidly gained market share from nickel-manganese-cobalt heavy cathode chemistries. + +A focused initiative around Morocco has the added benefit of relieving the eligibility bottlenecks created by the IRA’s EV tax credit given the lack of nickel and cobalt producing and processing jurisdictions that are also free-trade-agreement partners of the United States. With substantial natural graphite reserves in eastern Africa, the United States and Morocco could also work to address severe concentration in the battery anode and underlying active material input segment of battery supply chains by partnering with producers to develop processing capacity with corporate structuring or equity arrangements that benefit the raw material producing country and its domestic industry. + +Announcements of project participants in Moroccan battery precursor material plants indicate a dedicated effort to comply with the IRA EV tax credit’s “foreign entity of concern” sourcing restrictions. Joint ventures between Chinese and Western battery material OEMs, such as LG Chem and Huayou Group and Falcon Energy Materials and Hensen Graphite & Carbon Corporation in Jorf Lasfar, all appear to be geared toward potential IRA-compliant supply to the United States. This catalytic reaction to the IRA is demonstrating the efficacy of its tools in driving geographic supply chain diversification and could improve the capabilities of non-Chinese firms for corporate diversification purposes via these partnerships. As Northvolt’s recent struggles indicate, technical and operational challenges surrounding product yield have been a significant constraint in the emergence of home-grown Western competition to Chinese incumbent producers. Leveraging China’s learnings and process efficiencies through these partnerships that accord with the IRA’s sourcing requirements will be an important evolution in establishment of a more competitive landscape. Before committing to a potential repeal of the IRA’s EV tax credit, the Trump administration should consider this collateral damage and the ensuing empowering impact such a decision would have on Chinese EV and battery producers. + +The second initiative should focus on the formation of a battery materials and components innovation strategic partnership between the United States, EU, and African Union. As the referenced struggles of Northvolt indicate, a Western battery supply chain diversification strategy will face steep, potentially insurmountable challenges if it focuses purely on existing battery technology. With historic investments in innovation within the battery industrial ecosystem taking place in the transatlantic community, a crowding in of African critical mineral producers to have a stake in that innovation’s potential success would help enhance the security of supply of key battery materials. Just as end-of-supply-chain automakers are taking stakes in raw material extraction, so should African financial institutions pursue equity stakes in the next generation of battery producers to diversify their countries’ offtake prospects. Such an approach would provide the MSP a more tailored and compelling value proposition for African producers that avoids the stigmas of colonialist tendencies in the continent’s extractive industries’ past. The incentive to participate in the battery industry’s innovation continuum would also address the challenge of shallow African capital markets in the critical materials sector. + +Finally, a shared risk for the uptake of 45X for battery component and material producers and immature African mining jurisdictions is the established practice by Chinese incumbents of surging supplies of critical materials to put downward pressure on prices that drive foreign competition out of business. With billions of US taxpayer dollars at stake and the potential of African critical mineral deposits to provide transformative economic development and stability, there will need to be an effective toolkit in place to mitigate this risk. The MSP’s recent directive to its development finance and export credit agencies to support critical mineral projects should include a package of tools to combat Chinese market manipulation, including low-interest or concessional bridge loans geared toward injecting liquidity to otherwise financially solvent producers requiring support during periods of artificial market stress. Syndication of such financial tools to include African and US private financial institutions could further stimulate private capital instruments to ensure the durability of the West’s response to China’s coercive use of its market power. + +The reformed approach to the 45X implementation guidelines is a welcomed development for the prospects of critical material onshoring in the United States, but its ability to have a more global impact will require the establishment of complementary, targeted international initiatives. Given African resource-rich countries’ significant vested interest in enhancing the value of their reserves, the United States has an opportunity to shape a collaborative approach on further supply chain diversification and resilience. + + +### THE GEOPOLITICS AND CHALLENGES OF MINING IN AUSTRALIA + +> #### Ian Satchwell and John Coyne + +During the last five years, the significance of concentrated supply chains for critical minerals has surged into the spotlight, primarily driven by geopolitical tensions rather than previously recognised risks. For decades, the world underestimated the implications of China’s growing dominance of the global critical minerals market. It did not heed Beijing’s use of economic coercion to distort market dynamics and undermine emerging competitors. + +As nations scramble to diversify their mineral sources, Australia finds itself at the epicentre of this competition, navigating the dual challenges of being a premier mineral supplier and a target of market manipulation. The unfolding landscape calls for a strategic reassessment of how Australia can leverage its resources and its investment footprint while safeguarding its interests in an increasingly complex geopolitical environment. + +#### A sharpened focus on critical minerals + +The term “critical minerals” originated in the context of resource management and national security, particularly as governments and industries began to recognise the strategic importance of certain minerals for economic stability and technological advancement. In the US, the concept gained prominence in the 1970s during discussions about energy security and supply chain vulnerabilities, particularly in response to geopolitical events like the oil crisis. + +In the early 2000s, as global demand for advanced technologies and renewable energy sources increased, the term was formalised in various policy discussions. Governments and organisations, including the US Geological Survey, US Department of Commerce, Japan, and the European Union, began identifying specific minerals as critical based on economic importance, supply risk, and lack of viable substitutes. This recognition has continued to evolve, especially in light of shifting geopolitical dynamics and technological innovation. + +During the past two decades, China has built dominant supply chains for several minerals that are key to decarbonising energy systems and high-technology applications, including defence equipment. This dominance resulted from Beijing’s strategic foresight and ability to align its public and private sectors, and Western liberal democracies’ faith in economic neoliberalism. Today, China’s position as a monopoly supplier for some minerals and a near-monopsony buyer for several others gives it extraordinary market power, which it has demonstrated through multichannel economic coercion to control markets and keep out new suppliers. + +China is the largest processor of several critical minerals, including copper, lithium, and rare earth elements. In the case of the latter, it has several times withheld supply to customer nations, disrupting the manufacturing processes that use them. + +#### Supply chain security - a strategic imperative + +For years, the rest of the world did not pay attention to China’s growing mineral market power, but it is now seized by the realisation of how dependent both producer and consumer nations have become on Chinese-controlled supply chains for key minerals and the heightened risks that result. + +While the dominance of Chinese control over supply chains is a clear concern, other threats emerge, such as natural disasters disrupting mineral shipments, terrorist attacks on transportation, and community unrest leading to mine closures. Furthermore, inadequate environmental, social, and governance practices within certain supply chains can pose long-term risks. Minerals supply chains encompass all activities involved in exploration, mine development, mineral production and processing, and recycling of end products. Typically crossing multiple borders, these supply chains are more resilient and secure when diverse. In contrast, concentrated chains face higher risks of disruption from single points of failure. + +Australia is both a world-leading mineral producer and one of the world’s largest investors in mining globally. This inevitably brings it into the orbit of China, Australia’s and the world’s largest minerals customer and a growing investor in minerals supply chains. + +As major manufacturing nations seek to reduce supply risk by diversifying mineral supply chains away from China and some other dominant suppliers, Australia now finds itself at the centre of global investment and supply chain competition. This goes beyond simply where its mineral investment comes from and where its mineral products are sold. Mineral supply chains are now intertwined with strategic alignments and security. + +Therefore, how Australia responds will be key to its export-driven economy, the ongoing success of its minerals companies operating around the world, and its security and that of its partners. + +#### Disruption of efforts to diversify supply chains + +While Australia’s competitive advantages in minerals include its reliability as a supplier, it is not immune to interruptions in its mining and shipping, which consequently affect global supply. The market price of manganese, a key ingredient in steel alloys, spiked in 2024 in response to lengthy interruptions of shipments from a large mine in northern Australia due to cyclone damage to a loading jetty. + +Despite concerted action by Japan, South Korea, the US, Canada, and Australia, only one Australian-based rare earths project, the Lynas Rare Earths Mount Weld mine and processing facilities, have been established and expanded. Several other rare earths projects are struggling to be commercially sanctioned in the face of depressed market prices, likely influenced by China’s economic coercion, despite financing support from Australia and partner nations. Even though China is highly dependent on Australia for its iron ore and, latterly, lithium supplies, that has not stopped it from using economic coercion to control new rare earths production from Australia and keep out would-be new Australian market entrants. The long-established mineral sands company Iluka Resources, which is seeking to build a heavy rare earths refinery in Western Australia, has been very vocal about how China’s market manipulation of these strategically crucial products has affected project economics. + +Attempts by China-linked shareholders to gain control of a proposed rare earths project, Browns Range, in northern Australia triggered orders by the Australian government in 2024 for a China-linked shareholding sell-down on the recommendation of the government’s Foreign Investment Review Board. + +China’s massive investments in low-cost but high-impact nickel mining and processing in Indonesia have created a new supply stream for battery manufacture and stainless steel. Consequently, depressed global nickel prices have forced Australian production out of the market, reducing global supply diversity and shutting down environmentally responsible mining and processing operations. + +Meanwhile, in Africa, China’s economic and geopolitical coercion has led to the sale of two Australian-operated lithium mines, in Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to Chinese hands. In both cases, apparently trumped-up disputes between the mining companies and host governments led to effective expropriation of the assets, with Chinese companies then assuming control. + +#### Australia’s challenge to balance relationships + +The challenge for Australia often lies in balancing its relationships with China, its largest trading partner, and the United States, its key security ally. While China dominates trade volumes, the US plays a crucial role in Australia’s economy, particularly when considering two-way investment and the technology and knowledge exchanged. Additionally, the US is Australia’s most important strategic partner, with their collaboration deepening through initiatives like the AUKUS (Australia, UK, and US) alliance and the Quadrilateral Security Alliance (the Quad). This dynamic makes Australia’s position increasingly complex and multifaceted. + +In mining, however, China remains not only the largest customer for Australian minerals but also an important investor in Australia through equity, joint ventures, and offtake and financing agreements. Direct investment in minerals and energy by China-resident companies between 2006 and 2023 totalled US$47 billion. While year-on-year investment flows have fallen as China diversifies its minerals and energy investments to other destinations, many Australian mines and processing plants owe their existence to the involvement of Chinese companies. Therefore, the Australian government must walk a careful line between China’s importance as a customer and investor, and Australia’s participation in developing new minerals supply chains with like-minded nations. + +Over the past two years, these nations, led by the US, have implemented a flurry of agreements and strategies designed to diversify and secure their critical minerals supply chains. But it is sobering to realise that it was only in 2020 that Washington waved through the sale of the US-owned Kisanfu copper-cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a partially state-owned Chinese company. + +Australia’s centrality to critical minerals supply chains is evidenced by it becoming a party to 27 bilateral and multilateral agreements and processes with like-minded nations and the European Union. Typically, these agreements entail parties’ commitments to strengthen bilateral supply chains with Australia. The Australian government and its subnational governments, which control mining in their jurisdictions, have rolled out new policies and incentives to increase domestic investment in mining and processing and lift critical minerals output. + +About half of the agreements signed by Australia also involve parties working with developing nations to help them enter new, sustainable supply chains and garner lasting benefits. This is implicit endorsement of leadership in responsible mining by Australia and its companies around the world. However, how Australia delivers on its commitments to work with other producer nations under these agreements remains to be seen. + +Australia’s policies on inbound China-linked investment contrast with the much more hard-line stance of the US, which, through its Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and its Foreign Entities of Concern (FEOC) rule, severely restricts China-linked minerals investment and imports of minerals and products made from them, such as electric vehicles. Canada has placed strong restrictions on China-linked investment in mining there, largely to protect Canadian minerals exports and manufacturers from falling foul of US import restrictions. + +European nations’ investment and mineral sourcing policies take a pragmatic approach to China-influenced supply chains. Representatives of Germany, France, and the Netherlands indicated to a mining conference in Australia in October 2024 that their new national investment funds for critical minerals were relaxed about investment in projects alongside Chinese companies in well-governed nations like Australia. + +#### Working with developing nations to build supply chains + +The US, EU, and UK have all implemented actions to fund new projects in developing nations and work with host nations to build capacity in infrastructure and minerals governance. The sustainability of minerals supply chains is a primary objective, in addition to enhanced diversity and security. + +South Korea is joining them, signing agreements in June 2024 with 23 African nations to cooperate in minerals, energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure. Ensuring a stable supply of critical minerals, collaborating on minerals production technology, increased investment by Korean companies in Africa, and deriving value from mineral production are four explicit objectives. Korean and Australian minerals interests inevitably will closely interact. + +The US-auspiced Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) recently added closer international cooperation in project financing to its suite of tools to establish new, more secure, sustainable supply chains. The MSP Finance Network, involving project financing and export credit agencies from multiple countries, seeks to strengthen cooperation in information exchange and co-financing of critical minerals supply chains. + +Australia and Canada, through minerals companies headquartered in the two nations, are Africa’s two largest minerals investors. Despite recent efforts of like-minded nations to build more diverse critical minerals supply chains from African nations, 2024 data from S&P Global Market Intelligence show that the number of mines owned by China-based companies has increased by 21 per cent since 2019. The number of mines owned by Australian and Canadian interests has fallen by more than 8 per cent. Partly balancing that decline, the number of mines owned by UK companies increased by 11 per cent. + +#### Risks of policy divergence + +There is a growing risk that market interventions by like-minded nations will diverge and even work at cross purposes. For example, the US financially supports Australian companies in developing critical minerals supply chains from mines in Australia, Africa, and Latin America, with further processing in the US. In the meantime, the Australian government currently restricts its financial support to critical minerals mining and processing operations within Australia, which in some cases must get raw materials such as graphite from mines overseas. This seemingly ignores Australia’s commitment to a global supply chain approach involving other producer nations. Australia’s policy may change due to its commitment to co-financing within the new MSP Finance Network. + +Mining and processing projects in Australia are also affected by US IRA and FEOC provisions. A large US-owned lithium hydroxide refinery in Western Australia has suspended an already-underway expansion and reduced its output in the face of depressed lithium prices and because it has fallen foul of the FEOC rules due to the source of its lithium raw material being part-owned by a China-linked company. In the meantime, it remains eligible for Australia’s 10 per cent production tax incentive for processed critical minerals. + +The net result is that the production of sorely needed alternative lithium hydroxide has been curtailed. At the same time, Australia, a key critical minerals partner to the US, loses major investment. + +#### Achieving a green premium to recognise high standards + +A major hurdle to building new, secure, and sustainable minerals supply chains is that the standards applied often bring higher costs than minerals produced less responsibly. Minerals markets have so far been unwilling to pay “green premiums” despite the increasing focus on sustainability. The London Metal Exchange recently reported that there was little interest from mineral buyers in paying premiums for sustainably produced minerals. + +The first hurdle - defining sustainability standards and implementing governance and assurance processes - is on its way to being cleared. A consortium of mineral industry bodies recently commenced consultation on the first draft of the new Consolidated Mining Standard, bringing together four voluntary mining standards into one global standard accessible to any company with a commitment to mine responsibly. While a standard for mining and processing may fall short of an end-to-end supply chain standard, it will cover the highest-risk parts of supply chains across all the dimensions of sustainability. + +Australia’s leadership, along with Canada’s, in global minerals investment and mining places these countries at the centre of strategic efforts by major manufacturing nations to develop more diverse, secure, and sustainable supply chains for critical minerals, and to decouple from dependency on China. How effectively like-minded nations with differentiated interests work together globally to achieve this will largely determine their success in achieving mineral security goals. + +#### Meeting challenges; supporting supply chains + +Australia faces significant challenges in developing its critical mineral supply chains amidst shifting geopolitical conditions, economic coercion, and market distortions. Balancing its need to engage with China, its largest trading partner, against its commitment to the strategic imperatives of the US requires careful navigation of complex interests. To ensure resilience, Australia must broaden its contribution to supply chains, enhance collaboration with like-minded nations, and establish robust sustainability standards that can withstand external pressures. At the same time, in the face of increased minerals competition, Australia must address its inherently high-cost environment through attention to approval timelines, land access, construction and operating costs, and productivity. + +As it moves forward, Australia will need both to fortify its mining and processing capabilities and to play a pivotal role in fostering international cooperation, thereby positioning itself as a leader in the responsible production and supply of critical minerals globally. + + +### LATIN AMERICA’S POSITIONING IN CRITICAL MINERAL GEOPOLITICS + +> #### Tom Moerenhout and Victoria Barreto Vieira do Prado + +Latin America’s critical minerals are essential to the global energy transition. How the region decides to manage this wealth can be decisive: it could position itself as an active geopolitical player, or echo the extractivist-export model of the past and fail to capture economic development opportunities linked to its mineral wealth. This challenge drives the Latin American geopolitical quest for a partner, not just an offtaker. Understanding this, and acting on it, will help the US, EU, or China to develop a comparative advantage in their competition with each other. + +#### Latin America’s potential to support critical minerals supply chain diversification + +Latin America’s potential in critical minerals is well known, especially for copper and lithium, of which the region produces about 40 per cent and 35 per cent of world supply, respectively. However, the potential for growth is much larger than its current production. The region produces an amount equivalent to its share of global reserves only for copper, tin, and zinc. For nickel, graphite, lithium, and rare earths, it produces much less than its share of global reserves. That means there are attractive deposits with high ore grades that are still untouched. Brazil, for example, holds 20 per cent of commercially viable rare earths reserves, but only produces 0.02 per cent. Similarly, it holds 12 per cent of global nickel reserves, but only produces about 2.5 per cent. + +That growth potential comes with a set of challenges and opportunities. One of the challenges is strong competition from sub-Saharan African countries. In this region, countries’ share of global production is often larger than their share of global reserves, but social, environmental, and governance regulations are often less strict. This has at times given the region an edge in terms of investment in extractives, despite its greater political and regulatory risk. + +Global markets, however, are changing, and are increasingly requiring better mining standards. This is very much in line with local dynamics in mining regions in Latin America, where conflicts with local communities over mining standards are ever more pronounced. Several experts believe that market bifurcation between China and the West will be accelerated by relying on the identification and marketisation of higher standards. This is definitely where Latin America, while not perfect, has a comparative advantage. + +The region’s electricity grid is already very low carbon, with a 60 per cent share of renewables and abundant additional low-carbon resources. This will help with decarbonising mining operations, which is a key strategic goal of mining majors. Environmental regulations are also becoming stricter, given waste-related tragedies in the past and water conflict in the present. This incentivises the development of more environmentally friendly mining and waste management practices. Significant unexplored reserves are also welcoming exploration and pre-feasibility studies, which can help uncover new high-grade ore deposits that can be developed with higher environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards. + +One of the bigger challenges for Latin American countries has been their long permitting times, complex fiscal environments, and regulatory and political instability. That said, several countries are actively updating their regulatory frameworks to capture more investment in responsible mining practices. In particular, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru score relatively well on indicators such as mining sector confidence, specialised labour, infrastructure risk, and expropriation risk. This matters a great deal for the industry given the risky, capital-intensive nature of new greenfield projects coupled with a fairly depressed critical minerals market. + +Finally, the region is a well-established diversified exporter. Historically it has close trade connections with the West. This includes the EU–Mercosur agreements, as well as bilateral trade agreements between the EU and Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Mexico, and framework agreements with Argentina and Brazil. The US has the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and trade agreements with Chile, Peru, and Colombia. That said, the region is tilting ever more towards China, especially for critical minerals, given China’s role as the world’s minerals processing hub. Chile signed the region’s first free trade agreement (FTA) with China in 2005; Peru followed in 2009 and Costa Rica in 2010. China is now actively pursuing trade deals in the region. In 2023 alone, the country signed five major deals including an FTA with Ecuador, 15 trade-related agreements with Brazil, and key agreements with Argentina and Nicaragua. + +The relative importance of trading partners for critical minerals is clearly seen in trade data. In 2022, Chile exported US$25 billion of copper to China, but only US$3 billion to the US. Similarly, Peru exported US$12 billion of copper to China but less than US$1 billion to the US. Of course, China is a copper guzzler, given its stage in economic development. But the situation is very similar for lithium, with Chile exporting US$6 billion to China, and US$0.2 billion to the US. A lot of these exports were raw materials, which shows that for the US to benefit from Latin America’s potential for diversification, there will need to be a solution (read: investment) in ex-China processing capacity. + +#### Great-power competition and Latin America’s quest for a partner, not an offtaker + +The establishment of partnerships can enable the region to capture value from investments to support the development of local industry, job creation, and technological advancement. Such investments can also address infrastructure issues and mitigate operational risks which currently delay industrial development in the region, thus positioning Latin America as a more attractive partner as global competition for critical minerals intensifies between the US, the EU, and China. + +The US–China rivalry has become a crucial context for Latin America’s engagement with these two powers. The region holds strategic influence for key strategic sectors such as batteries and automobiles in the world’s two biggest economies. While China’s deepening presence in the region is viewed as an opportunity for local economies, the US is also trying to leverage policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act to encourage US supply chain partners to diversify and reduce dependence on Beijing. The competition between these two powers presents Latin American countries with the opportunity to negotiate stronger, more balanced partnerships. + +Foreign investors have taken note of Latin America’s potential. In 2023, the region raised over $19 billion amongst 19 megaprojects across different sectors, 17 of which are funded by foreign partners. Commodities and critical minerals represented 23 per cent of the region’s greenfield project investments in the last two years, twice as much as in other developing regions. Currently, China is the largest buyer of these minerals in the region. Its firms have been beating offtake options from American and Russian companies across the region. For example, Chinese firms have most recently won a bid to develop two lithium projects in Bolivia, bought lithium rights in Argentina, and poured hundreds of millions of dollars into renewable energy projects in the region. + +Chinese influence has expanded beyond mining and into EV manufacturing and refining. These projects serve not only to increase Chinese influence over supply chains, but also to tap into other markets, locally and regionally. This is also an active strategy to prove its intention to strengthen its economic ties with the region. Its investments usually have less stringent economic and political conditions than those of Western lenders, making them more attractive for some Latin American countries. However, they also often involve looser environmental standards and higher debt burdens. + +Cognisant of growing Chinese influence, the EU and the US have been moving to gain influence in the region. For instance, both the US and EU are forming partnerships with Latin American countries to ensure the security of supply chains, while also encouraging sustainable extraction and local processing. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently travelled to Argentina and Chile in search of lithium deals, and President Biden’s Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity promises multi-sector cooperation with the western hemisphere and the region in the realm of critical minerals. Still, it seems the US has not yet fully woken up to the Latin American potential for de-risking its critical mineral industry. US investments, compared to China’s, are fairly small, and institutionally a lot can be improved. For example, the Mineral Security Partnership, an alliance led by the US and the EU to secure and diversify supply chains away from China, has 15 partner countries, none of which are in Latin America. + +This absence underscores a broader challenge: while the US Free Trade Agreements with Chile, Colombia, and Peru offer a pathway for these countries to access benefits under the Inflation Reduction Act, including tax incentives for green energy supply chains, a significant share of Latin America’s minerals still flows to China for processing. For instance, China consumed over 65 per cent of Chilean mineral exports in 2021, valued at $22.5 billion (roughly 6 per cent of Chilean GDP). Leveraging these FTAs more effectively could help the US pivot to support processing not only in the US but also in Latin America, so that the potential to diversify from China and support Latin America’s offtaker diversification is maximised. + +China’s strategy, on the other hand, has shifted from large infrastructure projects under its Belt and Road Initiative to a focus on foreign direct investment in Latin America’s critical mineral and EV sectors. It is now focused more on securing long-term supply contracts and investing in the entire value chain of critical minerals, from extraction to refining, and usually does so through the full acquisition of local mines, partnering with local governments, or purchasing significant shares of Western mining companies. + +Still, China is increasingly aware that to further gain access to Latin America’s array of critical minerals, it might need to further support the development of local supply chains and create value added in the region. It seems Chinese companies are willing to do this. In 2024, for example, BYD announced plans to comprehensively integrate its supply chain in Brazil, signalling increasing Chinese awareness that securing long-term partnerships may require investment in local industries beyond just mineral extraction. BYD is just one of three Chinese automotive companies with plans to make EVs in the country. + +While this approach can help some countries diversify their economies, it may also result in further concentration of critical resources under Chinese-controlled firms. This indicates the need for Latin American governments to carefully balance their development goals and Chinese foreign direct investment with maintaining productive relationships with other potential partners, such as the US and the EU. Importers may need to diversify sources, but exporters equally need to diversify offtakers. + +Great power competition ultimately serves Latin America: if it has multiple bidding options, it might just be able to get better pricing and outcomes. This causes some Latin American countries to welcome the geopolitical stress and regard it as an opportunity to raise investment for their respective clean energy industries. This is true as long as they can remain nonaligned and not get dragged too much into the deteriorating relations between the US and China. To further attract investments, most countries in the region may consider policies that match their economic targets with those of their desired investors, such as technology sharing through joint ventures and targeted seed funding to universities and companies to move up the value chain in key industries. + +#### Social and environmental demands + +While the opportunities are large from an economic standpoint, there is a threat of social discontent around increased mining. While Latin America’s mining sector is integral to the global supply chain of critical minerals, it also faces a long history of environmental degradation and social conflict. The 2019 Brumadinho disaster in Brazil, where the collapse of a dam killed 270 people and caused widespread environmental damage, is a stark reminder of the risks associated with irresponsible mining practices. Similarly, 73 per cent of planned and existing critical mineral mines in Latin America are located on or near indigenous or small-farmer land, which has led to rising tensions. + +As global demand for critical minerals such as lithium and copper grows, Latin American countries are increasingly seeking responsible investors and miners that adhere to higher environmental, social, and governance criteria. Whether or not Latin American mining partners, Chinese or otherwise, can deliver on more responsible mining will matter a great deal to their ability to benefit from the region’s mineral wealth. + +Major mining companies like BHP and Rio Tinto have already begun incorporating sustainable practices into their operations, and 21 of the 30 largest metals and mining companies by market capitalization have pledged to reduce emissions. Emerging players, such as Sigma Lithium in Brazil, are pioneering zero-waste, low-emission mining techniques, indicating that responsible mining can both be profitable and have a lower environmental footprint. + +The pressure for sustainability is coming not only from local communities and governments, but also from the international market. Socially inclined investors and funds have been seeking lower-emission operations in industry and mining and they are willing to pay a premium for it, creating an opportunity for Latin America to attract investment from corporations seeking to meet global sustainability standards. + +The onus is not only on Latin American partners, but also on its governments. To attract more responsible investors, further regulatory and permitting reforms are undoubtedly necessary. Governments must ensure that investment in the region benefits local communities, protects the environment, and helps transition the region into a hub for value-added processing, including the development of recycling industries for batteries and other technologies. Latin America’s importance in the global energy transition will hinge on the region’s ability to attract responsible and sustainable investments, ensuring that mineral extraction is not only profitable but also environmentally sound. + + +### ASSESSING THE VULNERABILITIES AND RISKS OF CHINA’S ROLE IN WIND POWER: A REPORT FROM SWEDEN + +> #### Henrik Wachtmeister + +China’s role in green technology is attracting growing attention in Europe, driven in large part by concerns ranging from unequal competition to potential security risks. Several policy initiatives to address such issues have already been implemented at both EU and national levels, with more likely on the way. So far, discussions and actions have primarily focused on China’s dominant role in solar power, batteries, and electric vehicles, but attention is now also shifting to wind power, where China’s role is steadily increasing. With a strong domestic wind industry, European policymakers are worried that it might suffer the same fate as its solar industry, where China now almost completely dominates production throughout the value chain. Chinese ownership of large wind farms in Europe has also raised public concerns. + +This article summarises and expands on the findings of a recent report examining these issues. The report is a case study of the vulnerabilities and risks associated with China’s role in the Swedish wind energy sector. The study covers both Chinese ownership of wind farms and the use of Chinese-made turbines, as well as the reliance of non-Chinese-made turbines on Chinese supply chains, and an assessment of associated risks. It argues that in Sweden, the risks of Chinese ownership of wind farms, which has attracted considerable attention, are likely overblown. Instead, dependence on Chinese supply chains is the most significant short- and long-term vulnerability. + +Before discussing results for the case of Sweden in greater depth, this article briefly discusses the framework used for the assessment, in an attempt to make it more useful for application for other cases, and to draw broader policy implications relevant for decision-makers across Europe. + +#### A framework for risk assessment + +The report uses a simple risk assessment framework where a distinction is made between threat, vulnerability, and risk, where risk is further operationalised as specific risk, consequence, likelihood, and risk level. + +A threat is defined as an entity that can exploit a vulnerability, and a vulnerability is defined as a circumstance or weakness that can be exploited. A vulnerability can be exploited in various ways that pose different kinds of specific risk. To assess the magnitude of each specific risk - or the risk level - the framework relies on the definition risk = consequence × likelihood, where consequence is the (negative) impact of the risk materialising and likelihood is the probability of the risk materialising. The final assessed risk level is thus dependent on these two underlying components and can be illustrated in a risk matrix. We use a simple three-step scale of Low, Medium, and High to rate consequence and likelihood and the resulting risk level. + +In the Swedish case the threat under consideration is the Chinese state, either directly as an actor with antagonistic intent against Sweden or the EU, or indirectly because of, for example, potential logistical bottlenecks, a potential trade war between the US and China, or an actual war over Taiwan. + +The two vulnerabilities assessed are Chinese ownership of wind farms and dependence on Chinese wind energy supply chains. These vulnerabilities can be exploited in different ways and pose several types of specific risks. For Chinese ownership, assessed specific risks include: + +- electricity supply cuts and market manipulation - the use of ownership of electricity generation to reduce or withhold supply to increase electricity prices in the target market, or to attempt to cause system instability or a blackout; + +- information transfer - potentially damaging transfers of commercial, technological, and security-related information and know-how through both legal and illegal means; + +- indirect influence - various types of adaptations by economic and political decision-makers due to relationships with China, such as self-censorship or concessions. + +For dependence on Chinese supply chains, assessed specific risks include: + +- export restrictions - limitations or even complete stops of exports of materials, components, or final products from China or from Chinese companies; + +- IT sabotage - antagonistic cyber-attacks, which for wind power include malicious code or hacking that can shut down production or even cause physical damage, for example by altering steering mechanisms; + +- indirect influence - similar to that described above for ownership, but with a different source of influence. + +#### Current and future risks + +The likelihood and consequence of a risk materialising depends on several factors. First is the extent of the vulnerability. In the case of ownership, this refers to the share of Chinese ownership, and in the case of supply chains, the level of dependence on Chinese supply chains. A low ownership share or supply chain dependence yields lower consequences, and a high share or dependence yields higher consequences. + +A second factor altering the likelihood and resulting risk level is the degree of political trust and conflict between China and the analysed entity. For example, if Sweden and China were to develop a trustful relationship comparable to that between Sweden and Norway, the Chinese state would not be perceived as a threat, and subsequent risks would be assessed as low due to the low likelihood of their materialisation. + +A third factor, altering the likelihood, is the cost to the threat itself if a specific risk materialises - for example, the economic and reputational cost to China in the case of an export ban. + +A fourth factor, altering the consequence, is the mitigation or resilience capacity of the targeted entity - for example, in the case of an export ban, the availability of spare parts or substitution options. + +Of course, the factors above are not completely independent, and one factor can influence the others. For example, high mitigation capacity likely reduces not only the consequence of a risk materialising, but also the likelihood, since it alters the threat’s cost–benefit calculation. + +The current setting and relationship with China are complicated. Officially, the EU sees China as a partner for cooperation, an economic competitor, and a systemic rival. The relationship has deteriorated in recent years and some risks have already materialised. Concerns about “unfair” competition from Chinese firms because of state subsidies and unequal market access have indeed materialised and are seen as a key driver of China’s current dominance of supply chains. There is also the longer-term risk of complete dependence on Chinese supply chains. This could open up further specific risks, such as monopolistic practices, and would increase the consequences of (for example) export restrictions significantly. Several of the current specific risks, like information transfer and the (limited) use of export restrictions, can also contribute to the long-term risk of complete market dominance. + +The magnitudes of the risks covered in the report were assessed through qualitative analysis and interviews with sector experts. The assessments from low to high should be seen as indicative; they contain a significant degree of uncertainty and primarily reflect the current setting. Figure 1 shows the framework as applied to the Swedish case. The grounds for the rating of some of the key risks are briefly described in the next section. + +![image10](https://i.imgur.com/KItBFWb.png) +_▲ __Figure 1: Outline of the assessment framework as applied in the report.___ + +#### The Swedish case: ownership and supply chains - survey and risks + +This section briefly summarises the quantitative survey of the report and the basis for some of the risk assessments, specifically regarding electricity supply cuts and export restrictions. For the rationale for other specific risk assessments, please refer to the full report. + +Chinese companies (all state-owned) control 10.4 per cent of Sweden’s installed wind power capacity, which corresponds to 3.4 per cent of total electricity production in 2023 (see Table 1). The majority of these assets are owned by China General Nuclear Power Corporation. The other Chinese ultimate owners are the Silk Road Fund and the State Development and Investment Corporation. + +Chinese-made turbines contribute less than 1 per cent of the installed wind capacity, with four mostly small wind farms that came online in 2012, 2014, and 2016, using turbines from Dongfang and Sinovel. According to interviewed experts as well as public reports, these turbines have had some reliability problems in the relatively harsh Swedish climate. This, in contrast to security or other concerns, is likely the reason for the limited use of Chinese turbines. Although no new projects with Chinese turbines are currently under development, newer models have likely improved and are now being offered to European developers at significantly lower prices than those of Western manufacturers. This makes it more likely that the use of Chinese turbines will increase going forward, absent any policy interventions. + +The dependence of non-Chinese turbine manufacturers on Chinese supply chains is found to be high, even if is difficult to estimate the precise level from open sources. Globally, China provides 70–80 per cent of many key components, with 80 per cent of the production capacity for gearboxes, 73 per cent for generators, 82 per cent for converters, and 82 per cent for castings. Furthermore, China undertakes around 70 per cent of mining and nearly 100 per cent of the refining of key rare earth elements such as neodymium, used in permanent magnets. According to the Global Wind Energy Council, China generated 64 per cent of the total value across global wind supply chains, from mining to installation, in 2023. However, China is also expected to install 58 per cent of all new turbines. Most of its capacity is thus serving the domestic market (the world’s largest) even as it is a net exporter across the value chain. Europe has a strong wind industry, and is self-sufficient in some areas, but is a net importer over the whole value chain. + +![image11](https://i.imgur.com/pU12CVU.png) +_▲ __Table 1: Chinese ownership of Swedish wind farms (names of Chinese-owned companies in bold).__ Sources: Svensk Vindenergi, Energimyndigheten, FOI and other sources listed in Wachtmeister (2024)._ + +In Sweden, even though Chinese ownership of wind farms has attracted considerable attention, the associated risks are likely overblown. This is because the risk of ownership being used for antagonistic supply cuts of electricity under current circumstances is considered low. Since wind power occasionally produces nothing, the system is designed to handle this from a stability perspective. Naturally, reduced production leads to higher prices, all else being equal, but with Chinese entities owning about 10 per cent of the wind capacity, the price effect would be limited. Large production reductions would also be limited to windy days, when other wind production is high and prices often low. + +Additionally, all surveyed Chinese producers are bound by Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). If they do not deliver electricity according to the agreements, incurred debts could lead to bankruptcy and redistribution of assets. The largest Chinese investment in Sweden, China General Nuclear Power Corporation’s Markbygden Ett AB, is currently facing economic difficulties with legal proceedings and restructuring following its losses and inability to meet agreed production levels to its PPA counterpart Norsk Hydro. Finally, should stability problems or serious shortages still arise, Svenska Kraftnät, the Swedish TSO (transmission system operator), has the authority to mandate production. In summary, Chinese interests would have much to lose from such actions in terms of reputational and economic costs, while the effect would be limited. The risk is therefor considered low. + +However, there are still reasons to consider how much foreign-owned wind power from certain countries Sweden should allow. Additional investment without PPAs removes much of the direct economic costs of withholding supply. Furthermore, if a large enough share were taken offline simultaneously and without warning, it could cause system instability. Naturally, a larger share would also induce a greater price effect. More detailed studies on these risks, ideally conducted together with the TSO, are warranted. A law on the screening of foreign direct investments came into force in December 2023. No Chinese wind acquisitions or new investments have been made since then, and a future potential review will be interesting to follow. + +Rather than Chinese ownership, dependence on Chinese supply chains is the most significant short- and long-term vulnerability. Chinese dominance throughout the supply chain could be used to limit the availability of spare parts to existing turbines or components for new turbines and could be employed across a continuum, ranging from subtly skewing competition to complete export bans of components or final products targeted at individual countries or Europe as a whole. The specific risk of export restrictions is therefore rated as high, as a combination of high consequence and medium-to-high likelihood, strongly dependent on future political and economic relations and conflict levels. Export restrictions and supply chain dependence are closely associated with the possibility of the European wind industry being outcompeted on unequal terms. This risks the loss of qualified jobs and industry, and in the long run could put Europe, and Sweden, in a technology dependence that could be used for political influence. + +#### Risk management and policy trilemma + +The framework provides some general measures and developments that could reduce risk levels. First, as already discussed, improved relations with the threat country could reduce the likelihood of many risks materialising, as could increased interdependence or deterrence through other means which raise the costs for the threat. However, according to current trajectories, a further deterioration of relations seems more likely than an improvement. What European countries can control, however, is the extent of their vulnerabilities and their capacity to reduce consequences through other means, although this comes with difficult policy trade-offs and associated costs. + +Setting a threshold on ownership from “foreign entities of concern” or banning such investments altogether can reduce risks connected to this vulnerability. Likewise, reducing dependence on Chinese supply chains reduces the risks connected to these. Policies to reduce dependence could range from measures aimed at levelling the playing field to more aggressive trade protectionism and industry-supporting policies. Alternatively, or in addition, countries could attempt to minimise the potential negative impact of risk materialisations. In the case of ownership, this can include clear legal rights for TSOs to intervene in the case of antagonist supply cuts and increase information and IT security. Reducing the impact of export restrictions could involve inventories of spare parts, preparedness to scale up alternative supply chains, or energy technology diversification and substitution options. + +Furthermore, it is important to assess the wind power sector risks in relation to overall risks related to China, across all sectors. High dependence, or even complete Chinese dominance, in wind power could perhaps be manageable. However, if wind is only one of several sectors dominated by China, the risks compounds. Particularly if China dominates all green technologies, the risk to Europe’s overall energy transition and energy security increases, likely exponentially rather than linearly. + +Policies and measures to counter risks inevitably come with costs. The classic energy policy problem is often summarised as the trilemma of affordability, environmental sustainability, and security. There are usually trade-offs between these desirable dimensions. Relying on cheap, large-scale Chinese production can increase both the affordability and speed of the climate transition, but at the cost of security. European policies to support a more secure domestic wind industry are likely to come with a higher economic cost, and perhaps with a slower transition. However, many of the perceived trade-offs are in fact, to a high degree, variable distributions of costs and benefits over time. In many cases, short-term benefits are exchanged for long-term costs. With a long-term perspective, the trilemma could perhaps more easily be squared. A secure, more environmentally sustainable domestic industry could indeed be competitive in the long term. + +For example, the complicated logistics required to transport large wind power parts provide a physical competitive advantage for local manufacturers of these parts. Additionally, costly subsidies will be more difficult for China to uphold over the long term. Furthermore, while reliance on Chinese technology could be cost-effective and environmentally beneficial in the short term, it could expose Europe to monopolistic practices in the long term and to dependence on production processes with a dirtier environmental and social footprint, with impacts that accumulate over time. + +With the current and potential future risks in mind, and with a long-term view on associated policy trade-offs, measures to ensure fair competition and the survival of the domestic European wind industry could likely be justified. This does not require ceasing trade with China altogether and forgoing the benefits of Chinese companies’ technical progress and lower-cost technology. It is likely possible to find a suitable balance for targets and measures to support the domestic wind industry while still allowing and benefiting from Chinese manufacturing and development ability. Further specific discussion on the right balance, including the role of Chinese manufacturing located within Europe, is encouraged going forward. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is one policy soon to be implemented. Recent industry estimates project significantly increased costs for turbines made in Europe. Concerns also include the mechanism leading to lower imports of raw materials covered in the initial phase and instead increased imports of uncovered processed products in order to circumvent the tax. Consequently, it is necessary to look at the full picture of different industrial policies and their interactions, and to be nimble in addressing distortions and unwanted side effects. + + +### IS CHINA’S SOLAR PV MANUFACTURING DOMINANCE A RISK TO THE UK? + +> #### Dan Marks + +While the new UK government reviews its relationship with China and related security concerns, it has inherited questions about China’s dominance of the solar supply chain from the previous government. Solar supply chain security has prompted a policy response from many of the UK’s allies, in particular the United States, but with many of those countries likely to depend much more heavily on solar power than the UK, the extent to which the UK should share this concern has been debated by policymakers in recent years. + +It is unquestionable that the global supply of solar PV equipment is dependent on Chinese industry. In 2023, China’s exports of solar PV cells, whether assembled into panels or not, was worth $44 billion according to Comtrade, or 71 per cent of all global solar cell exports. That is more than the UK’s exports of all passenger vehicles ($37 billion) and significantly more than China’s exports of electric vehicles ($34 billion). Chinese exports of solar cells have increased dramatically since 2020 (Figure 1), and solar cells alone accounted for 1 per cent of the value of all China’s exports. But what are the risks associated with dependence on China? + +![image12](https://i.imgur.com/IJt7cmU.png) +_▲ __Figure 1: Chinese solar cell and panel exports - total value and share of global exports.__ Source: [Comtrade (pre-2021 HS code 854140, 2022 onwards HS codes 854142 and 854143)](https://comtradeplus.un.org/)._ + +#### The role of solar in the UK’s energy transition + +In 2022 and 2023, China became a near monopoly supplier of solar cells, panels, and modules to the UK, accounting for 84 per cent and 93 per cent of UK imports respectively in a sector where the UK is entirely dependent on imports. Figure 2 shows that while China suddenly became the dominant exporter to the UK in 2022, this has coincided with a period of middling investment in solar in the UK, compared to the 2011–2015 peak. + +![image13](https://i.imgur.com/MfN6238.png) +_▲ __Figure 2: UK solar imports - total value and China’s share.__ Source: [Comtrade (pre-2021 HS code 854140, 2022 onwards HS codes 854142 and 854143)](https://comtradeplus.un.org/)._ + +As the UK is not buying massive quantities of solar PV equipment - solar PV imports in 2023 came to just under $1 billion - risks to UK energy security are mostly premised on reliance on the technology in the UK in future. + +However, in none of the UK National Energy System Operator’s (NESO’s) 2024 Future Energy Scenarios does solar PV account for more than 15 per cent of UK electricity generation at any point up to 2050. Solar PV is likely to be one of the easier generation technologies to substitute in the UK: wind will account for the bulk of electricity generation, while gas and storage technologies will remain central to system balancing and ancillary services. Meanwhile, solar will play a role as a non-dispatchable source of electrons for the grid and improving resilience to businesses and better-off households in small-scale applications, but it will play a secondary role in the resilience and security of the national grid. + +On the other hand, even this relatively modest role requires capacity additions of between 19 and 79 GW by 2040 compared to 2023 in the NESO scenarios, and while solar PV may not be critical for energy security, it will play an important role in decarbonisation. Indeed, in scenarios where the UK achieves its 2050 net zero target, solar PV produces 16–74 per cent more electricity in 2050 than was produced using gas-fired combined-cycle power plants in 2023, driven by overall increases in electricity demand. Should energy market volatility persist or worsen during the energy transition, solar PV, particularly in combination with batteries, is likely to be an important tool in allowing households and businesses to mitigate risk. + +#### UK energy security + +In this context, an interruption to the supply of solar PV equipment or major price volatility could impact the UK in two ways. It could impact UK energy security and efforts to decarbonise, increasing costs and putting pressure on other supply chains. An interruption would also very directly impact the workers and businesses in the UK’s network of solar PV installers, wholesalers, and distributors, and household battery system and software integration providers. A third risk from dependence on imported panels from China is that UK demand contributes to environmental degradation, harm to communities, and negative political drivers around the world. + +While the extent of UK energy system technical vulnerability to disruption to solar PV supply chains in China is unclear, the large solar PV capacity required for an optimal energy system in the NESO scenarios suggests that solar price rises or prolonged supply interruptions would have a meaningful economic cost for UK consumers. But the impact on energy security is mitigated by several factors, not least the relatively small share of overall electricity generation expected from solar PV. The UK could deploy wind power, extend the life of gas power plants, or increase imports through planned new interconnectors to compensate for solar supply chain challenges. Solar PV would likely also play only a small role tackling the winter peak, even in scenarios where heating is largely electrified, which is the main energy security challenge in the UK. + +There have been attempts to calculate the potential cost to UK electricity consumers of disruptions to solar PV imports from China. These exercises face several challenges. The China Strategic Risks Institute in 2023 attempted to model the cost to the UK of a three- and five-year ban on solar PV exports from China to the UK, finding a significant cost to electricity consumers of £1.5–4.3 billion in total, depending on the timing, duration, and extent of the ban. Whether such a ban would be enforceable in a market where wholesalers play a major role and where global inventories in 2023 rose to 150 GW is doubtful. Furthermore, these models do not typically account for the cost of mitigating the risk, which the US experience shows is significant in terms of both policy support and cost to the consumer. + +While risks to operating solar plants from Chinese supply chains appear limited, cyber attacks are possible. Inverters and control devices are potentially vulnerable, which introduces an important element of supply chain risk management to solar PV projects where both the equipment and the operating software are sourced from China. This is particularly the case where the operation of the system is dependent on updates from the software provider for the lifetime of the project. Household systems which are more likely to be internet connected and where supply chain management is weaker may be particularly vulnerable. Military and security sensitive solar applications have an additional range of risks to consider. + +The most direct risk to the UK may be to jobs and businesses in the domestic solar industry, which entirely depends on a supply of cost-competitive Chinese panels. As has become clear from the automotive industry, the impact of supply interruptions - or the threats thereof - to industry can be an effective political lever for China. In Europe, the solar industry employed 826,000 people at the end of 2023, suggesting that the industry is a strategic vulnerability for the UK’s closest neighbours and allies. The UK industry is much smaller, however, with only around 7,000 people employed in 2020 (less than were employed at the Port Talbot integrated steelworks until recently, and negligible compared with the 758,600 people employed in the automotive sector in 2022), although this could rise to around 60,000 by 2035. + +#### Do no harm + +Minimising the harm caused by solar PV and related industries and maximising societal benefits is perhaps the most immediate challenge of depending on China for the supply of panels. This is in part because of the challenge of tracing mineral supply chains which converge in Chinese processing facilities. There are also concerns within China. Significant parts of China’s solar PV industry are based in Xinjiang and there have been accusations of forced labour in the supply chain. This particularly affects the production of polysilicon, meaning that the supply of panels well beyond China is affected. Indeed, the countries most affected by US legislation banning the use of materials from Xinjiang have been countries in South East Asia, not China. + +The carbon intensity of Chinese industry is a challenge, with industry historically attracted to the cheap energy offered by the country’s coal regions. Producing solar-grade silicon (silicon with 99.9999999 per cent purity) is a highly energy-intensive process, and more than 75 per cent of global production takes place in China. Around 60 per cent of electricity used in the production of solar panels comes from coal. While the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in the EU may drive Chinese industry towards the country’s other low-cost energy source, hydropower, this could exacerbate climate risks to the supply chain from drought, where China is particularly globally vulnerable. + +China has the tools to address many of these problems, and some progress has been made. The EU has already begun to leverage the scale of the single market to exert pressure on Chinese companies to improve standards. There is anecdotal evidence that this is having an impact: the fact that Chinese-owned Volvo was the first company in Europe to introduce a battery passport for consumers emphasises both the impact of EU regulation and China’s capacity to adapt quickly to it. There are more levers the UK, in concert with Europe, could pull to both pressure Chinese institutions and work with Chinese companies to improve performance. + +Environmental, social, and governance challenges associated with the expansion of mining and industry in countries without robust governance frameworks is a potentially stickier challenge. The emergence of a solar PV manufacturing industry in Indonesia, alongside a massive expansion of nickel production, is a case in point. Conventional solar PV uses so-called critical minerals less intensively than other clean energy technologies, but there is likely to be pressure on silver supply chains, where by 2030 demand from solar PV industries could be equivalent to 30 per cent of 2020 global production. + +#### Geopolitics + +The small share of projected UK electricity generation and relatively small number of jobs in the industry mean that direct UK risk exposure resulting from dependence on imported Chinese solar panels is limited, at least in the absence of major cyber vulnerabilities to operational plants. But China’s overwhelming dominance of the global supply chain should remain a concern for the UK. The International Energy Agency expects that solar could become the world’s largest source of electricity by 2035, accounting for 25–35 per cent of total electricity generation, with capacity quadrupling by 2030. China will be at the heart of this transformation. + +This has many implications for geopolitics: + +- Global decarbonisation depends on China and Chinese companies - nobody else will be able to replicate the country’s scale and price competitiveness in this time period. + +- Countries with rapidly expanding electricity demand, particularly where this is driven by current supply shortages in developing countries such as in sub-Saharan Africa, will be vulnerable to disruption from China. Where Chinese supply is complemented by financing, solar could more visibly replace or augment coal and hydropower investment in the country’s already formidable array of Belt and Road Initiative tools. Indeed, the need to utilise excess capacity could push moves in this direction. + +- Countries involved in the solar PV supply chain such as Thailand and Malaysia will become increasingly dependent on China as an investor, technology provider, and customer. Furthermore, investments in politically aligned countries by major Chinese companies can act as a reward, granting employment and economic benefits as well as improving security of supply. Some commentators have viewed recent Chinese investments in battery plants in Hungary - batteries accounted for 4.7 per cent of the country’s total exports in 2022, according to Comtrade - as, in part, a reward for political support. + +This is not a straightforward replication of the power of oil and gas producers for a transition age. Solar PV is fundamentally different as infrastructure rather than fuel. But the anticipated importance of solar to global energy supply means that China is positioned as a critical supplier for the first major phase of infrastructure build-out for the energy transition. Beyond notions of dependency, this helps erode some of the basis of Western influence in the world as a supplier of critical technologies and finance and, perhaps, associated systems of regulation, standards, and ultimately wider market governance. + +#### What to do? + +As discussed, the UK does not have a solar manufacturing industry to protect or aspirations to build one. The country is expecting to undertake a massive expansion of solar capacity, but at no point is solar PV expected to be a mainstay of electricity generation or a backstop for energy security. The potential impact of solar PV supply interruptions or price volatility on UK jobs is currently limited, although this is likely to increase over time, and there could be marginal impacts on the ability of households and businesses to weather future energy crises. The main domestic risks appear to be to the cost of electricity and to the ability of UK consumers and policymakers to mitigate the environmental and social impact of their solar demand. + +At the same time, solar PV is the critical technology for decarbonisation globally. This has four central implications for the UK. Firstly, the UK has an interest in the supply chain being secure and cost-effective to combat climate change. Secondly, while the exposure of the UK to risks from China’s dominance of the market may be limited, that is not true for many other countries around the world which are heavily dependent on access to Chinese supply chains for their energy security. Thirdly, countries active in the solar PV supply chain could become increasingly dependent on China. Fourthly, the world’s largest energy markets in the US and Europe, as well as emerging countries such as India, have a greater incentive than the UK to invest in dealing with the issue and are already putting in place policy programmes to diversify supply chains and support domestic manufacturing. + +Given this starting point, it is fair to assume that the UK will not become a manufacturing hub for solar PV anytime soon and will continue to be almost entirely dependent on imports. China’s overwhelming share of global production and exports, combined with current overcapacity, means that “de-coupling” is not realistic if the UK is to achieve its solar objectives. Diversification of the import supply chain both geographically and in terms of corporate suppliers, then, is likely to be the optimum strategy. + +The UK will benefit wherever programmes to support solar manufacturing outside of China are able to help competitors produce at scale. UK government support for innovation and participation by small and medium-sized enterprises, strategies adopted to support diversification in sectors such as telecoms and healthcare, are very unlikely to impact market concentration for solar PV, where manufacturing scale and expertise are decisive. Instead, the starting point for policy should be supporting demand and price levels capable of stimulating further investment in non-Chinese suppliers. + +This requires managing the impact of overcapacity in China, in particular the damaging effects of price volatility on manufacturing by non-Chinese companies. The cycle of over-capacity and market flooding, whether intentional or otherwise, typical of many Chinese industries responding to the complex interplay of national and local government policies and domestic and global markets, has played a major role in undermining production elsewhere. The steel industry is one obvious example. Addressing market volatility, dumping, and anti-competitive practices may therefore be foundational in supporting demand for more marginal emerging producers and technologies. + +This starting point could be supplemented by policies which help “level the playing field” in terms of trading practices and standards, and regulations which incentivise or require diversification and more rigorous supply chain risk management. The UK has a range of existing strategies from other sectors it might draw on to support solar PV import diversification. For example, the UK Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021 requires that telecom operators improve third-party risk management processes and that they are able to operate within the UK without relying on any company, equipment, or data from outside of the country. + +Improved data collection would help guide policies; transparency is currently notoriously bad in clean energy supply chains. The 2020 Agriculture Act granted the Secretary of State powers to collect data, albeit only relating to activities in the UK, in order to manage risks and market volatility and to improve transparency and fairness in the supply chain. Similar data collection powers for the seven key clean energy technologies, potentially alongside the equivalent of Defra’s food security review, would help the industry move towards the formalisation of data collection and supply chain monitoring. + +Despite its near complete lack of domestic solar PV manufacturing - or perhaps because of it, not needing to protect UK businesses - and because of the more limited role solar is expected to play in UK energy security compared to that of other countries, the UK should be less vulnerable to any disruption that might result from the concentration of solar PV industries in China. The country can take advantage of some of the cost and scale benefits from China, but should also play its part to support diversification. The UK’s main tool to do this is its domestic market and the way it addresses volatility from China’s cycles of over-capacity, supply chain data and transparency, responsible sourcing standards, and regulation of third-party and supply-chain risks. + +--- + +__Philip Andrews-Speed__ is Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and is co-editor of this issue. + +__Diwangkara Bagus Nugraha__ is a sustainable energy researcher, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia; School of Business and Law, University of Agder, Norway. + +__Parul Bakshi__ is JFIPP Fellow at Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo, Visiting Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. + +__Victoria Barreto Vieira do Prado__ is Research Associate to the Founding Director, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University. + +__John Coyne__ is Director National Security Programs at Australian Strategic Policy Institute. + +__Anders Hove__ is Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. + +__Stein Kristiansen__ is a professor, School of Business and Law, University of Agder, Norway, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia and Centre for Energy Research, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). + +__Dan Marks__ is a Research Fellow in energy security at the Royal United Services Institute. His research focuses on national security dimensions of the energy transition in the United Kingdom and internationally. + +__Ahmed Mehdi__ is Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies; Principal Advisor, Benchmark Minerals Intelligence. + +__Michal Meidan__ is Head of China energy research, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and is co-editor of this issue. + +__Tom Moerenhout__ is Critical Materials Lead, Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), Columbia University; Professor, School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University. + +__Indra Øverland__ is Research Professor and Head of Center for Energy Research, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Research Associate, OIES; Professor, Department for Strategy and Management, University of Agder. + +__Ian Satchwell__ is Adjunct Professor, Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland. + +__Brad Simmons__ is Senior Director for Energy, Climate, and Resources at BowerGroupAsia; Visiting Research Fellow, OIES. + +__Henrik Wachtmeister__ is Associate Professor, Uppsala University. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-107.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-107.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3c94f1cc --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-107.md @@ -0,0 +1,151 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : 【黎智英案・審訊第 107 日】 +author: 獨媒報導 +date : 2024-12-11 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 蓬佩奧助手查問觀點 黎智英否認嘗試鼓勵美國撤銷香港特殊地位 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/0vNkxjE.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（11日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第107日審訊，黎智英第15日作供。辯方圍繞《國安法》生效之後黎的意圖提問，提及2020年7月14日至19日的事件。Mark Simon 曾轉發時任美國國務卿蓬佩奧的助手 Mary Kissel 訊息，問及黎對撤銷香港特殊地位的觀點。黎回答美國撤銷「可能是正確的決定」，因會更輕易地迫使中國正視美國的要求。黎在庭上強調當時僅推測美國為何想取消香港特殊地位，否認嘗試鼓勵美國藉著撤銷香港特殊地位，來更易迫使中國正視美國的要求。他亦堅稱從沒有與蓬佩奧助手直接聯繫，並否認 Mark Simon 是二人之間溝通渠道。 + +另外，庭上檢視黎的專欄文章〈時間就是武器〉，當中指香港在《國安法》的專橫之下，獲警方批出不反對通知書的機會不大。黎指《國安法》下沒人敢上街示威。法官杜麗冰質疑，黎基於7月1日很少人上街示威，便得出結論指《國安法》侵害示威權利。黎則稱，雖《國安法》提到會保障人權，但是他不相信。 + +#### 黎否認透過前領事向特朗普和拜登施要求強硬 + +辯方指2020年7月14日，Mark Simon 向黎傳送訊息：「郭明瀚整理了前美國駐港領事一封信件，向特朗普和拜登施壓，要求他們強硬。（“Just FYI, Jim Cunningham organised a letter from the past US consul general’s on Hong Kong meant to press both Trump and Biden people to be tough”）」，黎在7月15日回覆：「聽到這消息真好！（“Good to hear! Thanks. Jimmy”）」 + +辯方問黎有否透過前美國駐港澳領事郭明瀚和 Mark Simon，向特朗普和拜登施壓，要求他們強硬？黎否認，並稱他只是回應 Mark Simon 的訊息。 + +辯方提到，兩日之後即7月16日，有相關新聞報導，指郭明瀚要求華盛頓向港人批出政治庇護。辯方問黎在回覆 Mark Simon 的時候，有沒有留意到郭明瀚在做什麼事情？黎則指，當時未有相關新聞和細節，重申他只是回覆 Mark Simon 的訊息。 + +#### Twitter提及「行動」 黎指譴責中國或與之對話 + +2020年7月11至12日，民主派舉行初選投票。黎的 Twitter 帳戶於2020年7月15日發布帖文，轉載「國務卿蓬佩奧就香港民主派初選的聲明」(STATEMENT BY SECRETARY MICHAEL R. POMPEO - On the Pan-Democratic Primary Election in Hong Kong），並寫道：「@SecPompeo and @USAinHKMacau thanks for your support to #HKers, it is more important than ever the world to voice out and to take actions to defend against suppression of freedom by the #CCP.（國務卿蓬佩奧和美國駐港澳領事，感謝你們對香港人的支持，全世界發聲和作出行動去保衛香港自由，免受中共打壓，這是前所未有地重要。）」 + +黎相信帖文是由「徒弟」李兆富撰寫，估計蓬佩奧只是想透過聲明作出鼓勵，因這是一個很大的幫助。辯方問帖文中的「行動」是指什麼？黎指可能是發聲、跟中國對話，或者甚至譴責中國。辯方追問，一個國家怎樣譴責另一個國家？黎指可以責備或批評他們，及基於人權而質疑他們的正當性和合法性。辯方問黎認為一個國家批評另一個國家，會否構成「敵對行為」？黎表示當時未有想過這個問題。 + +辯方又問，黎口中「跟中國對話」是以什麼方式？黎稱可以與中國講道理（reasoning with China）。當被追問可以怎樣與中國講道理時，黎稱未有深思過這問題，相信美國政府會知道怎樣做，「這並非我們的份內事去想。」 + +#### 黎曾向同事及民主派等人傳送美國行政命令內文 含「shit list」字眼 + +2020年7月14日，時任美國總統特朗普正式簽署《香港自治法》（Hong Kong Autonomy Act），法案授權美國政府制裁有份損害香港自治權的中國及香港官員。 + +辯方提到，早前證供顯示，黎於7月15日分別向時任《蘋果》副社長陳沛敏、時任總編輯羅偉光、民主黨何俊仁、李永達、林卓廷和工黨李卓人等，傳送美國行政命令內文，訊息並含有「I’d say we should work up a shit list on those involved in censorship」。 + +黎早前供稱訊息是來自美國白宮相關人士，他未閱讀整個訊息便複製然後傳送給上述人士，因此不知訊息含有「shit list」字句。黎今稱，可能訊息是從郭明瀚或美國國務院前資深顧問惠頓（Christian Whiton）得到，惟在辯方提問下，黎指後者已不在美國政府工作，當時任職游說工作。 + +辯方則指，從黎的訊息和電郵紀錄，找不到任何人傳送上述訊息給黎，問黎可曾刪除有關訊息或電郵？黎則稱沒有，因他不認為自己做過任何犯法的事。 + +#### 李兆富提議寫「制裁由銀行開始」 黎叫停：提倡制裁太危險 + +辯方展示黎與李兆富之間的訊息，李於2020年7月15日傳送《日經新聞》連結給黎，並提議字句「The Liaison Office should have bank accounts in HK. Sanctions may begin with banks dealing with the Liaison Office（中聯辦在香港應該有銀行戶口，制裁可能從與中聯辦交易的銀行開始）」，惟黎回覆：「Advocating sanctions may be too dangerous as they treat it as subversion or collusion. Maybe we can use other comments.（提倡制裁可能太危險，因為他們視之為顛覆或勾結，我們可以使用其他評論。）」 + +辯方問黎為何在訊息中用「太危險」一字？黎表示，因為提倡制裁「比犯法更甚（“... it’s more than illegal.”）」。辯方問，換言之，黎在當日已經知道提倡制裁是犯法的？黎同意並表示：「我當時非常敏感。」辯方指根據紀錄，黎的 Twitter 帳戶最終不見任何關於上述訊息的帖文。黎同意。 + +#### Mark Simon轉發蓬佩奧顧問訊息 黎改稱撤銷香港特殊地位是正確決定 + +辯方展示黎與 Mark Simon 之間的 Signal 訊息，2020年7月15日，Mark Simon 轉發蓬佩奧的助手 Mary Kissel 的訊息：「黎智英不想美國完全斷絕與香港的聯繫，這是否真確？（“Mark, is it true that Jimmy don’t want the US to break all the ties with Hong Kong?”）」，並說：「以上是 Mary 的問題，因為他們有點疑惑，因為有傳媒報導指你說不想美國完全斷絕與香港的聯繫。（“Jimmy this is a question from Mary as they are a bit confused, as some press reports had do you saying that you would prefer US not break all ties with Hong Kong”）」黎回覆：「我是說撤銷香港特殊地位是不需要的，因為在《國安法》下，香港怎樣也好都會完蛋。重點不在於香港而在於中國。制裁中國以阻止她打壓香港。但是就此思考後，我認為他們撤回香港特殊地位是正確的，因為一旦美國和中國之間脫鈎，香港會是中國的出口。若然關閉這個中國的出口的話，會更輕易地迫使中國正視美國的要求。（“I said that it’s not necessary to revoke the special status of HK because with national security law HK is finished anyway. The point is not HK but China. Sanction China as to stop it from clamping down on HK. But after I thought about it I think they’re right to revoke HK’s special status, because once US and China decoupled HK would be a way out for China. To close this outlet of China would force it to come to term easier to demands of US.”）」其後 Mark Simon 回覆：「謝謝，會傳達。（“Thanks... will relay”）」 + +辯方指，黎在5月的時候曾向美國退休軍官 Jack Keane 稱不想香港被撤銷特殊地位，然而到了7月的時候，卻改變說法指撤銷特殊地位是正確決定，問黎為何有這樣的轉變。黎則稱相關理由已在上述訊息中說明。 + +法官李運騰提到，當時美國尚未撤銷香港特殊地位，問黎是否在訊息中提倡撤銷特殊地位？黎否認，因為 Mark Simon 問他問題，所以他便回應。辯方問是否有美國官員想知道他的看法？黎同意。黎被問到是否嘗試鼓勵美國藉著撤銷香港特殊地位，以更易迫使中國正視美國的要求，黎否認，反指他可能是推測美國為何想取消香港特殊地位，他堅稱不同意這樣做，但是思考過後認為美國的決定可能是正確。黎強調上述回覆 Mark Simon 的訊息只是「推測（deduction）」或「揣測（speculation）」。 + +法官杜麗冰引述黎的訊息指「因為一旦美國和中國之間切斷聯繫，香港會是中國的出口。若然關閉這個中國的出口的話，會更輕易地迫使中國面對美國的要求」，由此可見這是黎的「想法」多於「推測」，不是嗎？黎起初同意，惟他指稱某程度上也是一個「推測」，重申他當時是猜測和揣測美國政府的想法。 + +杜官追問，可是當時美國尚未簽發行政命令。黎重申他只是在談論背後的理由。在辯方提問下，黎表示發送訊息的時候，他未有機會閱讀特朗普的行政命令。辯方追問，若然黎尚未有機會閱讀行政命令，那為何黎會思考行政命令的背後理由。黎則指，美國正打算撤銷香港特殊地位，所以推測原因。 + +#### 黎：從沒與國務卿顧問直接聯絡 + +黎強調，他並沒有給予蓬佩奧助手任何提議，他們之所以透過 Mark Simon 向他提問，「可能他們從我的訪問和文章得知，而他們感到疑惑，然後問我問題。」他亦強調：「我從來沒有從 Mary 收過任何訊息」，當他撰寫上述訊息的時候，他其實是回覆 Mark Simon 所轉發的問題，並堅稱從沒與 Mary 直接聯絡。 + +辯方追問黎為何沒有與 Mary 直接聯繫。黎認為與美國政府官員直接聯絡是不正確的，因為 Mary 處於一個敏感的位置，作為她的朋友應該尊重她，不想把她置於不方便的境地。 + +法官李運騰問，這會否就是 Mark Simon 替二人轉發訊息，成為二人之間溝通渠道（conduit）的原因？黎則否認 Mark Simon 是溝通渠道。法官杜麗冰指，然而從訊息可得知 Mark Simon 怎樣理解自己的角色，他收到黎的回覆後表示：「謝謝，會傳達（“Thanks... will relay”）」，問黎認為 Mark Simon 會替他傳達嗎？黎同意。 + +#### 黎否認帖文提倡取消香港特殊地位 稱僅提問 + +辯方指2020年7月16日，黎的 Twitter 帳戶發布帖文：「While #HK is dead with #NationalSecurityLaw, does the revocation of HK special status close also China’s window to the finance, technology and commerce of the outside world? Are US and China decoupling?」，並轉載《蘋果》的 Twitter 帖文，當中提到中國對於美國解除香港特殊貿易地位而作出反擊。 + +在帖文發布之前，黎透過 WhatsApp 訊息向李兆富提供相關評論文字，李其後修改部份字眼。黎確認他傳送給李的評論文字反映他當時想法，使用問題形式是因為他在評論一些還未發生的事情，只是一種猜測（conjecture）。 + +辯方問是否嘗試藉著上述帖文，去提倡美國與中國脫鈎？黎否認，他當時只是好奇中美是否正在脫鈎，因這是很矚目的新聞。辯方又問，黎是否嘗試透過帖文提倡取消香港特殊地位，以關閉中國對外窗口？黎亦否認，重申他當時僅嘗試提問，並沒有提倡任何東西。 + +#### Slack群組顯示員工關注國安法「雷區和紅線」 + +辯方展示通訊軟件 Slack《蘋果》員工群組訊息。2020年7月15日「飯盒會」之前，不同員工關注《國安法》帶來的影響，有人問及「國安法的雷區和紅線」：「本報是否一如過往，請作者任意批評中共領導人及香港高官，甚至是情緒發洩？如據昨日律師講座，這種做法明顯踩界，構成風險，但過於自我審查，又有違新聞自由及言論自由，此中如何把握，請各位指教。」 + +有同事表示：「國安法後，同事對報導的部份用字及角度想有明確指引，例如『武漢肺炎』是否仍可用，內地權鬥及中資掠水是否仍可寫？公司昨日安排的法律講座有實用性，想有更多具建設性的的講座或培訓，教導面對不同情景，例如國安處政治部是找同事傾談、打聽公司情況，而非直接拘捕，同事應採甚麼技巧回應？」該同事亦擔心個人資料外洩，問公司會否提供一些方法例如「太空卡」給同事傾談敏感話題、會否採用類似「閱後即焚」的系統，令同事安心處理敏感話題。 + +有港聞員工轉述兩岸版同事關注：「想知日後發生烏坎村這類維權事件，是否會再派人前往採訪？本報當年大標題罵時任汕尾書記的鄭雁雄（現任國安署長）是狗官，日後可否再起這類標題？」 + +有法庭組員工表示：「國安法生效後，理解不少同事關注究竟那些題材和字眼可以報或不可以報，可是現在的紅線不是我們定，甚至不是港府定，任誰也說不到正確準則，就算是律師也只能說存在風險。」 + +黎智英回應個別留言：「到時討論」，對於有員工希望公司多安排法律講座，黎回應：「已有講座，以後還會有。」 + +2020年7月17日陳沛敏在群組發送「會議討論重點」： + +1. 721報頭可作特別設計 + +2. 字眼可作斟酌，國安法紅線模糊，按自己良知、新聞原則去做 + +3. 多約海外作者 + +4. 不用過於害怕，但要謹慎 + +5. 除了加開法律講座給不同崗位同事，可找有與國安交手經驗同事分享 + +6. 由ICT協助銷毀機密新聞材料為一旦查封制訂後備方案，包括網上平台、Facebook、Google，待張社長回港後跟進。 + +7. Arc系統問題，無法解決，惟有適應，部份功能用現有系統 + +![iamge02](https://i.imgur.com/rycjIJL.png) +▲ 前《蘋果日報》執行總編輯 林文宗（左）、前《蘋果日報》副社長 陳沛敏（右） + +黎庭上表示，從會議紀錄可見，對於員工的關注，當時並未有具體的解決辦法，而「按自己良知」是很含糊的說法，至於「不用過於害怕，但要謹慎」則泛指報導時採用的字眼。 + +#### 法官質疑黎基於示威人數減少而說國安法侵害權利 + +辯方指，黎的個人專欄「成敗樂一笑」於2020年7月19日發布了文章〈時間就是武器〉。黎在文章說：「遊行集結是我們應有的憲法權利，但是在今日國安法凌駕法律的專橫下，我們以後遊行示威，能得到警方不反對通知書的機會不大，再沒有一百幾十萬人遊行抗爭、令當權者震驚和令世人矚目的震撼場面，我們以後抗爭行動只好化整為零，以不同的行動不同的形式，集腋成裘的方法爭取抗爭的力量，還是會有效的，但不會像以前一樣了。」 + +黎確認他認為《國安法》侵犯人權，包括遊行、集會和示威權利。在法官杜麗冰追問下，黎確認他閱讀過《國安法》，知道《國安法》聲稱保障人權，但是強調因為《國安法》凌駕《基本法》，反問：「我怎樣相信我們的遊行示威權利會被保留？」 + +黎又指，《國安法》生效之後看不到任何示威活動，所以認為《國安法》侵害市民的示威權利，沒有人敢上街示威，恐懼瀰漫。他指，雖然7月1日有人示威，但是人數很少，由此可見《國安法》為示威活動帶來終結。 + +法官杜麗冰質疑，黎基於7月1日很少人上街示威，便得出結論指《國安法》侵害示威權利，這是黎的說法嗎？黎同意，並補充因為《國安法》凌駕《基本法》。被問到有否閱讀過《國安法》，它提到會保障人權。黎則說：「《國安法》保證會保障人權，但是我不相信。」法官李運騰則澄清，《國安法》條文是指，若然《國安法》與「本地法」有牴觸，便以《國安法》為先，而不是說《國安法》與《基本法》有牴觸時凌駕《基本法》。 + +辯方問黎是否嘗試鼓勵人們繼續以「以不同的行動不同的形式」參與運動？黎表示：「我想運動以不同的方式繼續下去，但這是我一廂情願，這是不會發生的。」法官李運騰指，當時政府已經撤回了《逃犯條例》修訂草案，問黎為何想運動繼續下去。黎澄清他口中的運動是指「反抗中國對香港自由的侵害」，而他視《國安法》為「對自由的侵害」。黎又指，「以不同的行動不同的形式」意思是採取不同抗爭的方式，而又不干犯《國安法》。 + +#### 文章稱要像橡膠靈活 官質疑鼓勵抗爭 + +黎的文章指：「國安法震懾下，不少抗爭運動人士已離開香港，或在計劃離去，留下來的有些已意興闌珊，離隊迴避風險，生命誠可貴，自由價更高，無人有權置喙他們的選擇，或扔出第一塊石頭。留下謹守的人是抗爭運動的脊樑，更要珍惜我們的力量。」辯方問黎是否鼓勵留在香港的人，以靈活的方式抗爭？黎則引述文章「留下來的有些已意興闌珊」，指留港的人會放棄。在辯方追問下，他否認鼓勵別人抗爭，反稱只是籲人成為社會良知的「脊樑」，「要珍惜我們的力量⋯⋯我們僅有的力量。」 + +文章續指：「我們本來僅是高牆下的雞蛋，現在人數少了，我們的力量更脆弱，因此我們的身段必須靈活柔軟，若然硬崩崩一成不變，雞蛋扔向高牆便爆爛，我們的力量很快便會被消耗殆盡，若然我們身段柔軟，雞蛋外殻像橡膠，扔向高牆可以彈跳回來，我們力量便可以堅持下去作持久戰。」法官李素蘭問黎是否叫人行動有如「像橡膠」？黎同意，即是靈活有彈性。李素蘭追問，那麼黎即是鼓勵人抗爭？黎否認，強調他沒有鼓勵不在香港的人抗爭，而是鼓勵仍然留下的人。 + +辯方問黎有否意圖煽動他人使用暴力？黎否認，重申他是叫人要靈活、謙卑、不要固執和死守原則。法官李運騰提到文中：「納入基本法附件三的《港區國安法》，令有些人抗拒簽署確認書，立場是正確，但策略是錯誤的」，問黎是否叫人透過簽署確認書來抗爭？黎指他意思是叫人不要執著於原則。 + +#### 文章指若國安法不被使用則美國放緩制裁 黎：太天真 + +文章指：「國安法掀起國際政府的反彈前所未有，最後國際對中國的制裁會比當年六四更有過之而無不及，而正好是中國經濟、社會和外交上，遇到經濟開放四十年以來最大危機。」辯方指，文章刊出的時候，《國安法》已經實施了19至20日，而特朗普亦已頒布了行政命令，問黎是否鼓勵特朗普做他所做的事？黎否認，因特朗普已經頒布了行政命令，他只是思考未來會發生什麼事。 + +文章亦指：「更重要的是要讓美國等西方國家看到，儘管有國安法，為的只是平息抗爭的震懾效果，還是按法不動的，讓他們放緩制裁等懲罰措施，不要給水深火熱的習近平再添麻煩。」辯方問黎為何會說「按法不動」？黎表示這只是他一廂情願的想法，當時認為如果香港的運動被平息，《國安法》不會被使用，美國和西方國家便不會再實施制裁，但是形容自己想法「太天真」。辯方指黎的文章提到「放緩制裁」，問黎想鼓吹增加制裁嗎？黎指不是，他是說如果《國安法》沒有被使用的話，他想放緩制裁。 + +文章最後指：「我也不相信美國等西方國家對中共的制裁會放緩，中共與美國等西方國家的關係大勢已去，暫時是無法逆轉的。我更不相信中共對香港最後不會拉人封艇，進一步打壓。」黎表示，他的意思是不相信美國和西方國家對中共的制裁會放緩。 + +辯方問黎有否在文章鼓勵外國向中國實施制裁、封鎖或敵對行動？黎否認，重申他只是揣測未來會發生什麼事，而沒有鼓勵任何事情。 + +辯方引述控方專家證人、城大法律學院教授、梁美芬丈夫王貴國證供指，黎在此文章認為制裁是有效措施。黎則否認，指文章沒有說過制裁有效，也沒有談及制裁的效用。 + +案件明日續審。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-12-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-108.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-12-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-108.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..d5a9ae63 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-12-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-108.md @@ -0,0 +1,148 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : 【黎智英案・審訊第 108 日】 +author: 獨媒報導 +date : 2024-12-12 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 蓬佩奧演講提制裁 黎智英Twitter轉載讚「說得好」 惟否認提倡敵對行動 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/MEV9jbr.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（12日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第108日審訊，黎智英第16日作供。辯方圍繞國安法生效之後黎的意圖提問，提及2020年7月21日至27日的事件。時任美國國務卿蓬佩奧在7月23日發表演講，提到要聯合不同國家應對中國挑戰，「我們的財政部和商務部已經制裁，以及將損害和濫用全世界人民的最基本權利的中國領導人和企業列入黑名單。」黎同日向負責管理 Twitter 帳戶的「徒弟」李兆富傳送訊息，形容「這是揭開了冷戰的戰幔。（“This is Cold War curtain raising.”）」，吩咐李就演講發布帖文。其後黎的 Twitter 轉載相關新聞，並評論：「很棒！蓬佩奧說得好！自由國家一定要打敗這個暴政。」黎認為蓬佩奧部份演講內容在提倡對中國的敵對行動，但他稱只引用部份演講字句，否認在 Twitter 帖文提倡敵對行動。 + +此外，黎被問到他口中的「爭取自由運動」是指免於什麼的自由，黎回答免於中國侵蝕和獨裁統治的自由，法官杜麗冰問是否免於中國內地的自由？黎同意。惟杜官隨即質疑黎即是想香港獨立？黎否認，強調：「我沒有說香港獨立，我只是想香港在法治之下！」 + +#### 黎不同意中美會打仗 亦不想中美開戰 + +辯方大律師關文渭繼續主問，他指2020年7月21日，黎 Twitter 帳戶轉載《蘋果》英文版新聞，有關哈佛大學社會科學院榮休教授傅高義指中美之間打仗是有可能，惟黎加上評論，表示不同意傅高義的觀點，他認為中美打仗是不可能，因美國軍事力量比中國更強，而「中國只是紙老虎，不敢與美國開戰（“China is a paper tiger that won’t dare to fight with the US.”）」。 + +辯方問黎是否想中美打仗（hot war）？黎說不想，所以他才會談論冷戰。 + +#### 美勒令關閉中國駐侯斯頓領事館 黎私人訊息讚特朗普明智 + +2020年7月23日，黎與負責管理 Twitter 帳戶的「徒弟」李兆富有 WhatsApp 對話。李兆富向黎說：「美國要求中國關閉侯斯頓的大使館（註：應為領事館）」，黎回覆：「Trump is using a series of sanctions exerted against China as he campaign strategy. Very smart. While Biden can only say but he acts. Action is louder than words!（特朗普利用一系列針對中國的制裁作為他的競選策略，非常明智，然而拜登只能光說，但特朗普行動。行動勝千言萬語！）」 + +同日，黎的 Twitter 帳戶在發布帖文，轉載《蘋果》的帖文，關於美國勒令關閉侯斯頓（Houston）的中國領事館，以譴責中國「前所未見的行為及威脅作出報復」，並給予中國72小時限期。黎並加上評論：「Trump is taking actions through different measures, while Biden can only make claims. Action is louder than words!（特朗普透過不同措施來作出行動，然而拜登只光說不做。行動勝千言萬語！）」 + +辯方指黎在 WhatsApp 訊息中提及「制裁」，問他有沒有意圖透過李來提倡制裁？黎否認有這樣的意圖，並指訊息字面意思非常清晰。辯方追問，那麼黎的意圖是什麼。黎表示：「我在談論特朗普可能會做什麼」，並指他是在回應李的訊息，「我假定他會用我的訊息作為我的帖文。」 + +法官李運騰則指，黎傳送給李的訊息，有時會用作 Twitter 帖文，有時沒有，而事實上黎也沒有向李明言想訊息字句放在帖文與否，問黎怎樣理解二人之間的協議。黎則指二人之間沒有協議，他只是讓李自行判斷是否放在 Twitter，並假定二人理解對方，而黎會為帖文負責任。黎並指二人已認識超過十年。 + +辯方問黎是否想藉向李傳送訊息，來美化特朗普對中國所做的事？黎笑指這不是美化，他只是道出事實，以及他的想法。辯方指，後來發布出來的 Twitter 帖文並沒有提及「制裁」。黎則指他和李沒有討論過帖文。 + +#### 黎認為關閉領事館屬制裁和敵對行動黎認為關閉領事館屬制裁和敵對行動 + +法官李素蘭指，黎在訊息中使用「制裁」一字，問他會否視關閉領事館為「制裁」的一種？黎稱，至少當時是這樣認為，但他的想法可能不準確，並確認他當時的確覺得關閉領事館可以代表「制裁」。辯方問黎會否視之為「敵對行動」？黎亦同意。 + +辯方接著問黎有否鼓吹關閉中國駐美領事館？黎否認，並指他只是講述特朗普會在爭取連任的時候這樣做。 + +辯方指，黎 Twitter 帳戶在2020年7月23日發布帖文，轉載《蘋果》英文版新聞報導〈Firms with Hong Kong ties face US sanctions, linked to human rights abuses in Xinjiang〉，並說：「The most effective way to prevent human rights violations is to hold people who do the heinous act personally accountable.」辯方指，帖文內容沒有提及「制裁」，但是轉載的新聞標題卻含有「制裁」字眼。黎確認。 + +#### 黎指運動爭取免於中國侵犯及獨裁的自由 法官一度質疑：即港獨？ + +黎 Twitter 帳戶在2020年7月23日發布另一則帖文，轉載《蘋果》英文版新聞〈U.K. launches lifeboat for Hongkongers with focus on younger generation with new BN(O) visa〉，並說：「這是緊急及有需要的。我們的年輕人是爭取自由運動的脊柱，他們處於最危險的境地。（“This is urgent and necessary. Our young people are the backbone of our freedom movement. They’re in the most danger.”）」 + +辯方問哪些人是帖文所提及的「年輕人」？黎指是年輕的示威者，也可以是泛指香港的年輕人。辯方指，黎形容他們是「爭取自由運動的脊柱」，然而黎早前供稱當時運動已經不存在。黎則稱帖文是指較早前的運動，在國安法實施之後，香港已再沒有任何示威。 + +法官問到，說「爭取自由運動」，那麼是指免於什麼的自由（“freedom from what?”）？黎指是免受中國侵蝕自由、免受獨裁統治等。法官杜麗冰問，黎是指免於中國內地的自由嗎（“freedom from China?”）？黎回答是。杜官隨即問，那麼你是想香港獨立嗎？黎強調：「我沒有說香港獨立，我只是想香港在法治之下！」杜官追問，可是你說自由。黎重申：「我剛才說想香港有法治，因為世上沒有絕對的自由。」杜官追問，「但是你說自由，那麼必定是免於某種東西的自由。」黎重申，他是說免於中國侵蝕的自由、免於限制的自由，以及在法治之下的自由。 + +#### 黎支持英國政府向港人提供支援 惟沒想過是否構成對中港「制裁」 + +辯方問黎期望年輕人在未來做什麼。黎表示：「我不知道，但是我期望他們得到政治庇護。」被問到為何說「最危險的境地」，黎指是因為《國安法》。他指有需要及急切地向年輕人提供前往英國的出口，代表通往自由。 + +辯方展示《蘋果》報紙的中文報導〈毋須持有效護照 英設BNO簽證 供港人家屬鋪路入籍〉，當中一段提到：「前香港眾志秘書黃之鋒表示，英國容許BNO港人及近親申請居英權，是港人在中共陰霾下的『救生艇』，亦反映國際間認同香港年輕人於反送中運動中的貢獻，尤其1997年主權移交前出生的香港年輕人。雖然有關安排仍待明年1月實施，但他相信，若港版國安法執法力度加大，必須會導致實施日期推前。」黎表示他無牽涉報導的過程。 + +被問到是否支持英國政府向港人提供支援，黎表示同意。當他再被問到會否視英國設BNO簽證是一種對中國或香港的制裁，黎表示沒有詳細想過，也沒有相關詳情，因他只是閱讀了報導的標題。辯方向法官補充，他的提問可能看似愚蠢，但是控方指控之一是指稱英國向香港年輕人批出BNO是構成制裁，因此有需要就此向黎提問。 + +辯方又問，黎與《蘋果》高層之間，有沒有任何協議或共同的理解，認為中央收緊香港自由？黎堅稱他們沒有共同的理解，「我有自己的想法，他們有另一些想法。」黎亦否認他的想法與高層的想法吻合，並強調沒有下達編採方針或政策。 + +#### 報頭橫額含光時旗相片 黎：新聞相片不犯法、讓同事自行判斷 + +辯方指，報紙頂部顯示日期和頁數的橫額，含有「兩制蓋棺」字眼，以及國家主席習近平的半張臉、「光復香港，時代革命」旗幟的照片。黎稱他不涉橫額的製作，又指橫額有時出現在不同版面，視乎新聞的主題。 + +辯方問黎是否理解同事為何擺放習近平的相片、是否有意將習描繪成不討喜的形象。黎則表示沒有任何理解，強調讓同事自行作出決定，而他不會插手。至於習的相片，黎指「這不是關於描繪他，而是關於《國安法》的影響」。 + +就「光時旗」，辯方提及7月的「飯盒會」討論過採訪時若提到「港獨」、「光復香港」相片，只是報道、不涉鼓吹宣傳的話便可以出。黎認同，指他們曾經徵詢過律師，而律師告訴他們新聞相片並不構成罪行，所以他們才敢擺放「光時旗」的圖片。 + +辯方則指，報紙的前一日並沒有關於「光時旗」的新聞，為何《蘋果》會在報頭橫額中使用相關相片。黎表示：「我甚至未有察覺到它」，他並不會看得如此仔細，因為該相片太細小，如果不是好像庭上電腦畫面般放大或近看，人們根本不會見得到。 + +法官李運騰指，該相片出現在報頭橫額一段時間，問黎閱讀報紙時有沒有留意？黎同意出現，但同時強調相片太細小。 + +辯方問，黎與《蘋果》高層之間，有沒有任何理解，在報頭橫額上持續展示該相片來鼓吹分裂國家。黎則回答：「反過來說，我們之間有一個理解就是我們從來不應使用『香港獨立』，這是回答了你的問題。」辯方追問，黎在當時有否知道「光時」可以帶有將香港分裂出去的意味？黎表示有留意它可能構成罪行，因當時有人因為「光時」旗而被拘捕。 + +辯方問，假如黎留意到報頭橫額上有「光時」旗相片的話，黎會怎樣做？黎則表示：「我不認為我會做任何事，因為我讓他們（同事）在工作上自行判斷。」辯方問黎有否作出干預？黎稱沒有。 + +#### 美國前資深顧問傳送蓬佩奧演講辭 黎否認參與準備 + +辯方展示黎的電郵紀錄，美國國務院前資深顧問惠頓（Christian Whiton）於2020年7月24日向黎智英、Mark Simon、美國國防前副部長 Paul Wolfowitz 和退休軍官 Jack Keane，傳送時任美國國務卿蓬佩奧的演講辭。辯方亦指，不爭議的事實是蓬佩奧在7月23日（即香港時間7月24日），在 Nixon Library 發表演講〈Communist China and the Free World’s Future〉。 + +辯方指，根據黎的證供，惠頓已經沒有在白宮工作，當時在華盛頓擔任游說工作，問黎知不知道為何惠頓會傳送蓬佩奧的演講給他？黎估計「這是游說工作者的做事方式」，因他們要保持人脈關係，例如傳送資料和消息給前顧客，以保持彼此關係。而黎確認自己是惠頓的前顧客，曾在2019年7月美國之行聘用他聯絡美國議員。 + +辯方指惠頓不只傳送給黎，還傳送給 Mark Simon、Paul Wolfowitz 和 Jack Keane。黎指 Mark Simon 是他的助手，而另外兩者則是他的好友。 + +辯方指，黎在收到電郵3小時之後回覆「謝謝」。黎稱，當他在早上醒來打開電郵時，他很大可能未有打開附件閱讀演講辭，只是回覆一句「謝謝」，但其後為何會知道演講內容，是因為從新聞得知、還是在同日下午閱讀了附件，則不肯定。 + +辯方問黎有否參與準備蓬佩奧的演講辭？黎失笑並反問：「我怎樣參與其中呢？」辯方繼而問黎有否直接或間接作出貢獻？黎否認，但他其後補充，不排除蓬佩奧一方有使用他在《紐約時報》撰寫的文章中字句。辯方追問他們使用之前有徵詢過黎的同意嗎？黎說沒有。 + +#### 黎訊息指「冷戰戰幔揭開」籲李兆富轉載蓬佩奧演講 + +辯方展示黎與李兆富之間的訊息，李在7月24日向黎傳送蓬佩奧演講的《彭博》報導，並指：「這是非常強烈的言論，蓬佩奧呼籲終止與中國的協議，並以一群理念想近的國家取而代之，是一個新的民主國家聯盟」，黎其後草擬Twitter帖文字句並傳送給李，並說：「請在我的 Twitter 用蓬佩奧的演講，以及我的評論。這是揭開了冷戰的戰幔。（“This is Cold War curtain raising.”）」李回覆會盡快處理。 + +辯方問黎是否透過李兆富來提倡中美冷戰？黎否認。辯方問黎是否想中美冷戰？黎反問：「我想有冷戰？這是合理嗎？我不能夠想要一場冷戰。」辯方要求黎正面回答，黎其後說不想有冷戰。辯方提及黎剛才說不想中美有戰爭（hot war），黎同意，但是他只是說冷戰經已成形。 + +法官李運騰留意到，黎傳送給李的字句，有部份與蓬佩奧的演講字眼一樣，問黎是否從惠頓傳送給他的演講稿中，複製了部份蓬佩奧的言論？黎說不是，估計自己是複製了《彭博》報導的字句。 + +#### 黎同意蓬佩奧提倡敵對行動 Twitter轉載相關報導因部份字句說得好 + +辯方指蓬佩奧在演講中提及：「我們的財政部和商務部已經制裁，以及將損害和濫用全世界人民的最基本權利的中國領導人和企業列入黑名單。（“Our Departments of Treasury and Commerce have thus sanctioned and blacklisted Chinese leaders and entities that are harming and abusing the most basic rights for people all across the world.”）」以及「我們不會獨自面對這個挑戰。聯合國、北約、G7、G20，我們集合經濟、外交和軍事力量，是足以應對這個挑戰，如果我們夠堅定和勇氣的話。（“So we can’t face this challenge alone. The United Nations, NATO, the G7 countries, the G20, our combined economic, diplomatic, and military power is surely enough to meet this challenge if we direct it clearly and with great courage.”）」 + +辯方問黎，蓬佩奧是否提倡針對中國的敵對行動？黎同意。 + +同日黎的 Twitter 發布了兩則帖文： + +> 「“The old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply won’t get it done. We must not continue it. We must not return to it” @SecPompeo」（轉載《美聯社》的報導，並引用演講字句：過往盲目地與中國交往的範式已經不管用。我們不能再繼續下去。我們不能再重回舊路。） + +> 「Bravo! Well said @SecPompeo! The free world must triumph over this tyranny. If we bend our knee, our children will be at the mercy of the #ChineseCommunistParty. If the free world doesn’t change Communist China, Communist China will change us.」（轉載《彭博》報導，並加上評論：很棒！蓬佩奧說得好！自由國家一定要打敗這個暴政。如果我們屈膝，我們的下一代便會任由中共的擺佈。如果自由國家不改變中共，中共便會改變我們。） + +辯方指，黎從蓬佩奧的演講中取用了一些他認為說得好的字句，放在 Twitter，然而上述兩則帖文分別轉發《美聯社》和《彭博》的新聞，問黎是否提倡敵對行動。黎否認，否則他會使用其他字句，而他只是用了「暴政」的字句。 + +辯方指，黎的 Twitter 帳戶亦轉載了美國國務院的 Twitter 帖文，載有蓬佩奧演講的影片。黎稱沒有要求李兆富轉載相關影片。 + +#### 黎指蓬佩奧助手曾任職《華爾街日報》 駐港逾10年 + +辯方展示黎與楊懷康之間的訊息，顯示楊於7月24日向黎轉發蓬佩奧演講的新聞。黎回覆指：「對這是非常有力的演講。這演講必定啟動了與中國的新冷戰！真棒！（“It’s very powerful speech. This speech means to have kicked off the new Cold War with China! Bravo!”）」黎又指：「Mary Kissel 應該與這演講有關，為我們的朋友感到十分驕傲。（“Mary Kissel should have something to do with it. So proud of our friend.”）」楊同意黎，又提到：「你協助建立那友誼，無人能及。（“You helped build that friendship like nobody else.”）」 + +黎解釋，Mary Kissel 是蓬佩奧的得力助手，認為她有份準備演講稿。黎又提到，Mary Kissel 曾任職《華爾街日報》，駐守香港超過10年，負責亞洲新聞，她在香港的時候，黎是她的好朋友。黎指，Mary Kissel 返回美國之後，繼續任職《華爾街日報》，負責撰寫社評，後來擔任蓬佩奧的助手。 + +被問到何時知道 Mary Kissel 擔任蓬佩奧助手，黎表示不知道，而他過往使用她的《華爾街日報》電郵來聯絡她，她離職之後便無法聯絡她。後來在2019年7月到美國會見蓬佩奧時，才得悉她成為其助理。黎亦提到，由於二人是好友，見面時會擁抱，惟在會見蓬佩奧之前，Mark Simon 曾提醒他不要擁抱她。 + +#### 黎文章稱美國等西方列強將陸續推出制裁和懲罰措施 惟否認呼籲 + +辯方展示2020年7月26日刊於黎的個人專欄「成敗樂一笑」文章〈有種回力鏢……自插心臟〉。當中提到：「表面看來中共滿意國安法的震懾效果，先按兵不動，不立即進行拉人封艇，隨後才收拾傳媒和一些抗爭運動的關鍵人物。事實上是事前未想過，毀了香港原來是咁大鑊。更想不到國安法撕毀《基本法》這國際公約，公然羞辱國際文明價值倫理，引發國際圍攻。美國等西方列強的強烈反彈，將會陸續推出制裁和懲罰措施，中國外交和貿易將陷於自經濟開放以來最慘烈的低谷，比當年六四屠城後還要慘烈。」 + +辯方問黎有否意圖藉文章呼籲國際「圍攻」中國？黎否認，並強調自己只是預計未來發生的事。辯方又問，有否意圖提倡「制裁和懲罰措施」？黎亦否認。 + +文章續指：「合理的做法當然是回歸法律正途，遵守任何牴觸《基本法》的法律都是無效的原則。例如《港區國安法》第4條和第20條容許和平示威，只是派發傳單宣揚分裂國家，也是容許的，不過若試圖直接破壞香港特別行政或中華人民共和國的機構，藉此分裂國家和破壞民族團結，即使該等行動不涉及武力，譬如黑客入侵電腦，都是犯罪行為。希望以舉出明確例子，向世人解釋清楚，國安法混淆了《基本法》那些的法律條文。」 + +辯方問上述段落有何用意、是否在提出建議。黎指純粹舉例，講述如何為香港補救，因想表達《國安法》有非常模糊的紅線，使他十分疑惑，而且想描述《國安法》混淆《基本法》，因此想舉例說明紅線在哪裡。他又強調，只是「希望」說出紅線，但事實上除了當局之外，沒有人能夠指出真正的紅線在哪裡。 + +#### 黎認為中共不可信 惟否認文章煽動憎恨中共 + +文章最後指：「不過，這樣做現在還有用嗎？國際社會還會相信中共遵守承諾的誠意嗎？中共何時遵守過合約承諾？WTO？《基本法》？中共沒有一次遵守合約承諾的，試問世人對中共的誠信又從何說起呢？」 + +黎確認他認為中共不可信，惟否認有意藉上述段落煽動憎恨中共，「我只是說出事實和舉例。」辯方追問相關例子是什麼？黎僅指中共從沒信守承諾，指中國與世界貿易組織（WTO）簽訂了一些承諾，但是不記得具體是什麼。 + +黎否認文章意圖煽動他人循不合法途徑改變香港的現有政制，亦否認邀請其他人不守法，反指文章只想表達，即使現在回歸法律正途，也已經沒有用。 + +案件明日續審。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-109.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-109.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..bf043c52 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-trial-of-jimmy-lai-day-109.md @@ -0,0 +1,118 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : 【黎智英案・審訊第 109 日】 +author: 獨媒報導 +date : 2024-12-13 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/LciFH41.jpg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +- 蓬佩奧對華演講納黎智英文章觀點 未具名引述免惹麻煩 黎：不知情 + + + +![iamge01](https://i.imgur.com/We9XrSy.png) + +【獨媒報導】壹傳媒創辦人黎智英及3間蘋果公司被控串謀勾結外國勢力及串謀刊印煽動刊物等罪，今（13日）於高院（移師西九龍法院）踏入第109日審訊，黎智英第17日作供。辯方圍繞國安法生效之後黎的意圖提問，提及2020年7月27日至8月7日的事件。時任美國國務卿蓬佩奧在2020年7月23日（香港時間7月24日）發表對華政策演講數日之後，黎的私人助手Mark Simon轉發時任美國國務院政策規劃辦公室主任的訊息，對方表示曾旁聽黎的公開對談講座，當中談及美國可以道德權威幫助香港；對方指蓬佩奧的演講部份論點，其實是取自黎在《紐約時報》的文章，但是他們未有具名引述黎，因為覺得對黎未必是好事，又指「他們想保守秘密，因為不想被指責帶給任何人麻煩。」被問到是否對此知情，黎表示：「即使演講之後，我也從不知道，可能我看漏了這個論點吧。」 + +#### Mark Simon轉發國務院職員訊息 指蓬佩奧演說取用黎智英觀點 + +昨日證供提及，時任美國國務卿蓬佩奧在2020年7月23日（香港時間7月24日）發表對華政策演講，同日黎智英的Twitter發布帖文轉載相關新聞，並讚揚：「很棒！蓬佩奧說得好！自由世界一定要戰勝這個暴政。」 + +辯方大律師關文渭展示黎與其私人助手Mark Simon之間的Signal對話。Mark 在2020年7月28日，向黎轉發時任美國國務院政策規劃辦公室主任 Peter Berkowitz 的訊息，指他在2019年10月旁聽史丹福大學胡佛學院（Hoover Institution）黎的公開對談講座，期間黎被問到美國可以做什麼去協助香港爭取民主和自由，黎當時回答香港不需要美國向中國施以「坦克和關稅」，但是他希望美國不要為自己的道德原則而感到難堪。Peter Berkowitz 又在訊息中指，蓬佩奧的演講稿乃由其助手 Mary Kissel 準備，但她承認撰寫講稿是巨大工程，有很多人投入其中。 + +Mark Simon轉述 Peter Berkowitz 所指，蓬佩奧的演講部份論點，其實是取自黎在《紐約時報》的文章，但是他們未有具名引述黎，因為覺得對黎未必是好事，又指「他們想保守秘密，因為不想被指責帶給任何人麻煩。」、「他們很擔心你的安全。」 + +辯方指，黎當時似乎誤解了Mark Simon的訊息內容，回覆說：「感謝他們的支持，請告訴他們不要擔心，他們（中國）不會對我做任何事。他們想向商界和國際社會證明，國安法平息了香港但沒有影響市民的自由或損害法治。從國際社會的強烈反應、商人準備撤出香港以及想移民離開，他們便可知道他們已做錯了。」 + +辯方問黎，記不記得他在胡佛研究所對談的時候，被問到美國可以做什麼，當時怎樣回答。黎指正如較早前所說，他籲美國使用道德權威。 + +辯方續展示黎在《紐約時報》刊登的文章「What the Hong Kong Protests Are Really About」，日期為2019年7月1日。當中提到：「It recognized them as the first salvo in a new cold war, one in which the otherwise unarmed Hong Kong people wield the most powerful weapon in the fight against the Chinese Communist Party: moral force.（中國理解反修例示威是新冷戰的第一炮，在這個對抗中共的戰鬥裡，手無寸鐵的香港人使用最強大武器：道德力量。）」、「In much of the West, moral force is underestimated.（在很多西方國家，道德力量被低估）」、「The values war is the real war. For the West to prevail, it must support the tiny little corner of China where its virtues now operate: Hong Kong.（價值之爭才是真正的戰爭。西方若要領先，便要支持中國的一個細小角落：香港，而它的優勢正在發揮作用。）」、「The West's moral authority is its most powerful weapon.（西方的道德權威是最強大的武器）」 + +辯方問黎是否知道蓬佩奧將他的論點納入演講中？黎表示：「即使演講之後，我也從不知道，可能我看漏了這個論點吧。」被問到有否留意演講中含有他的論點，黎表示沒有留意。被問到 Mary Kissel 有否告知，黎則重申對方在美國國務院工作時並沒有聯絡過她。 + +辯方又指，黎在訊息中指中國從國際反應知道自己做錯了，問黎是否錯判形勢？黎則解釋，他當時認為國安法生效後，中國可能忌諱國際社會的反應，會減弱國安法力度，甚或不動用國安法，但是這是他的一廂情願。 + +#### 陳智思美國銀行帳戶遭取消 黎：認同特朗普所作的事 + +辯方展示黎與負責管理Twitter帳戶的「徒弟」李兆富之間的WhatsApp 訊息，2020年7月29日黎向李傳送《蘋果》英文版新聞「US bank cancels account of senior office-holder Bernard Chan」，有關時任行政會議非官守召集人陳智思的美國銀行帳戶被取消，黎並說：「This I'm sure is only a tip of the iceberg, overwhelming sanction against those oppressions of freedom will spread through ranks. Bravo! President Trump!（我肯定這只是冰山一角，針對那些打壓自由者的壓倒性制裁，將會蔓延至不同的職級。真棒！特朗普總統！）」 + +辯方提到黎的訊息使用「壓倒性制裁」一詞，黎則指李兆富可能較謹慎，並會幫他修改字眼。辯方指黎的Twitter帳戶並未發現任何與上述訊息有關的帖文。黎指可能李最後未有發布。 + +辯方問黎上述訊息是否讚揚特朗普針對陳智思的制裁？黎一度表示：「我容許。（I approved）」辯方追問黎他「容許」是什麼意思。黎說即是他認同特朗普所作的事。 + +辯方問如果相關文字在黎的Twitter發布的話，會否是呼籲向打壓自由的人實施制裁？黎否認，堅稱他不是在呼籲制裁，他只是說「冰山一角」，因此上述說法是他的推測（conjecture）。 + +辯方說：「讓我問你一個假設性的問題」，如果黎的Twitter帳戶有某個帖文，而該帖文與特朗普有關，黎認為會否構成鼓勵特朗普進一步實施制裁？黎反問：「我在鼓勵特朗普？我怎樣鼓勵特朗普總統？我只是在喝采。」惟法官李運騰指辯方的問題有些問題，而且相關問題應該留待法庭判斷。 + +#### 官問及李兆富是否無償替黎工作 訊息顯示黎給予2萬元 + +法官問及，李兆富返回美國之後，繼續替黎管理Twitter 帳戶，黎有否給他酬勞（remuneration）？黎表示不知道，即使李身在香港的時候，也不知道李有否獲得酬勞，不肯定Mark Simon有沒有給李酬勞。 + +法官杜麗冰問，黎的意思是李無償地替黎管理Twitter？黎一度稱李是無償工作，但強調他多年來也無償地替李做事，例如李會詢問他意見、透過他獲取資訊等，因他是李的「師父」。杜官追問，若然李替黎無償工作的話，李依靠什麼維生？黎指李是一名作家，仍然可以依靠撰稿維生。 + +法官李素蘭追問，黎認為李兆富是否應該獲得一些酬勞呢？黎則指李每日發布Twitter的時間只是約一小時，而他仍然有撰稿的工作。李素蘭再度追問下，黎表示當時未有詳細想過這個問題，可能Mark Simon有給李酬勞，但是黎從不知道。 + +辯方展示黎與Mark Simon之間的 WhatsApp 訊息，2020年7月8日（即辯方相信李兆富離港的前一天）黎傳送訊息，提醒Mark 他們已經向提供Twitter內容的人士支付1萬元，以及向李兆富支付2萬元。黎確認該2萬元是有關Twitter，亦確認是他自己出資。 + +黎亦確認，若李兆富不再管理 Twitter 帳戶之後，Mark Simon 需接手，惟因為 Mark 不懂閱讀中文，若由李擔任此工作會較方便。 + +#### 對談節目稱基於疫情延後選舉是「假的藉口」 黎否認有意煽動憎恨 + +2020年7月30日，黎智英參與網上節目「Live Chat with Jimmy Lai」，主持人Mark Clifford 提及有消息指政府擬「取消」立法會選舉，黎指疫情只是一個「假的藉口」，真正的原因是民主派初選成功舉辦，市民因國安法而被激怒，因此親政府的建制派很大機會落選，而民主派會勝出選舉。翌日，時任特首林鄭宣布基於疫情而押後立法會選舉一年。 + +黎在庭上被問到為何認為疫情是「假的藉口」，黎稱因為其他國家在疫情期間仍然會舉行選舉，所以有上述言論。他否認意圖煽動市民對特區和中央政府的憎恨，他只是道出自己的想法和推測，而且其預測最後也成真。 + +對談中黎提到中國未準備好跟美國打仗，因中國害怕美國的軍事實力。辯方問黎是否想貶低中國的軍事實力，藉以引起市民憎恨中央政府？黎否認，反稱他只是分析局勢，包括兩國的軍事實力等。 + +黎亦在對談提到中美在科技產品和技術方面的交易脫鉤，辯方問黎是否想引起憎恨特區和中央政府。黎稱他只是表述當時形勢，雖然美國已經斷絕晶片及相關科技的貿易，但是他們未必在其他範疇的貿易脫鉤，反而美國會增加科技以外範疇的貿易，以補償損失。他又指不能抽空脈絡地理解他的對談內容，他只是嘗試分析整個形勢。 + +黎在對談中指前一晚有「4名小朋友」因國安法被捕，要觀望接下來會如何，可能他們會被移送至中國受審，但黎認識機會不大。法官杜麗冰指，黎未有在對談中說明該4人是涉及什麼罪名而被捕。黎則相信當時新聞有報導，又強調他沒有意圖去煽動。 + +辯方其後展示黎的Twitter帖文，轉載有關警方於7月29日拘捕「創制獨立黨」鍾翰林等4人的新聞。 + +#### 官問黎邀請嘉賓立場傾向美國民主黨還是共和黨 + +辯方展示訊息紀錄，Mark Simon向黎提議下集網上對談節目嘉賓，包括漢學家林培瑞（Perry Link）、時任自由亞洲電台總裁葉望輝（Steve Yates）、英籍歷史學家 Mike Gonzalez及前美國中情局反情報分析師 Peter Mattis 等。 + +黎被問到邀請對談嘉賓時，會選擇什麼立場的人士，黎稱會邀請信奉自由市場的人。被問到對華立場又如何？黎則指他的嘉賓通常對中國沒有認知，大部份都是專注經濟範疇。 + +法官杜麗冰表示出於好奇，指黎邀請的嘉賓大部份均為美國人，問黎他們的立場通常是傾向民主黨還是共和黨？黎指大部份是共和黨，估計因為彼此價值相近，皆信奉自由市場。 + +辯方問及Mark Simon是否有任何政治聯繫。黎指他是美國共和黨黨員（Republican）。 + +#### 轉發羅傑斯帖文 遭官質疑推制裁 黎認為李兆富出錯 但自言須承擔責任 + +2020年7月30日黎的Twitter帳戶轉發（retweet）了「香港監察」創辦人羅傑斯（Benedict Roger's）的帖文。而羅傑斯的帖文轉發了一名香港記者的帖文，指公民黨郭榮鏗、楊岳橋、郭家麒鄭達鴻在立法會選舉被DQ，羅傑斯加上評論：「So the disqualifications start even as #HongKong government considers postponing Legislative Council elections. Total disenfranchisement. Totally outrageous. @DominicRaab it is time to add #CarrieLam and #HK and #China officials to the #Magnitsky sanction list.」 + +法官李素蘭問黎想透過轉發（retweet）來表達什麼訊息？黎稱他沒有負責轉發，而是李轉發，他亦未曾留意該帖文。李素蘭指，黎早前又稱會為李所作的事負責，那麼黎轉發的意圖是什麼？黎稱不知道。 + +辯方問黎是否想透過轉發羅傑斯的帖文來鼓勵外國制裁？黎否認。辯方又問，黎是否想在英國推動針對中港官員的 Magnitsky Act?黎亦否認，指這只是羅傑斯的說法。辯方追問，雖然這的確是羅傑斯的言論，但是黎的帳戶曾轉發相關帖文，問黎想透過轉發來說什麼？黎說：「只是轉發，透過轉發它，我們同意它。」 + +法官李素蘭隨即質疑，黎稱同意他所轉發的帖文，那麼他是否透過轉發羅傑斯的帖文，來推動制裁中港官員呢？黎僅指，當時未有留意自己的帳戶轉發了，也不知道。但黎其後表示：「這並沒有使我免於承擔責任。」 + +辯方問道，黎有沒有意圖透過轉發羅傑斯的帖文，來推動制裁林鄭和中國官員？黎否認。辯方追問，黎剛才說「承擔責任」，是什麼意思？黎回答：「無論李兆富代表我做了什麼，我都要負責任。」辯方追問：「你意思是怎樣的責任？」黎僅說：「怎樣也好。（Whatever.）」辯方問黎有沒有意圖叫李代表他去做犯法的事？黎否認。 + +黎其後主動要求發言，表示：「我認為我要為李代表我所做的事完全負責任，就算他有疏忽或出錯。」辯方追問：「你認為他有出錯？」黎同意：「我覺得這是他出錯。」 + +法官李運騰指，黎經常說轉發帖文是李負責做的，然而黎有否曾經向李表達不認同該些轉發？黎表示，他未曾留意上述轉發，直至現在庭上看到。 + +#### 文章草稿指自由國家組成「科技封殺聯盟」 黎否認提議封殺中國 + +2020年8月，黎智英向台灣《蘋果》社長楊懷康傳送一篇文章草稿給楊修改。惟黎稱不記得文章後來有否被刊出。 + +文章提到新冠疫情使各國仇視中共，而中共卻「戰狼一擊，撕毀國際公約的《基本法》」，在香港硬推國安法，倫理道德的價值觀差異，造成中美對峙的局面。文章提及蓬佩奧的對華政策演講，亦提及美國發動「淨網」行動，封殺 Tik Tok、微信、中電信、阿里巴巴和騰訊等中國網絡平台，黎指美國將封殺科技產品和技術出口到中國，其他自由世界國家也會加入，形成一個「科技封殺聯盟」。 + +黎指「科技封殺聯盟」並非一個正式的聯盟，但是他們會攜手合作，至於「自由世界國家」除了美國之外，還有英國、德國和一些歐盟國家。他亦指，如果美國禁止出口科技產品和技術到中國的話，其他自由世界國家要跟從，否則會被美國封殺。 + +辯方指，既然「科技封殺聯盟」並非一個正式的聯盟，那誰人起這個名字？是否黎？黎表示可能是從新聞讀到，然後拿來使用。 + +辯方問黎是否透過上述訊息，向楊懷康提議應該封鎖或封殺中國？黎否認，稱只是預計會發生什麼事。 + +案件下周一（16）續審。 + +--- + +案件編號：HCCC51/2022 From dff2d933f426cc4fdaab4061c0cd61fcb06f3be4 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2025 02:43:42 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 11/16] 0x30 Add _columns posts, Jan.08 --- .../_columns/2024-10-15-one-hit-to-kill.md | 79 +++++++++++++ .../2024-10-17-new-york-skyscrapers.md | 83 +++++++++++++ ...-on-transforming-the-national-character.md | 111 ++++++++++++++++++ .../_columns/2024-10-20-travelling is-hard.md | 51 ++++++++ 4 files changed, 324 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-15-one-hit-to-kill.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-17-new-york-skyscrapers.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-17-re-discussion-on-transforming-the-national-character.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-20-travelling is-hard.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-15-one-hit-to-kill.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-15-one-hit-to-kill.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3170d58f --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-15-one-hit-to-kill.md @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "打一下就死" +author: "東加豆" +date : 2024-10-15 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/wHb51dp.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +平伯今早打開網頁看到一則這樣標題的新聞。 + +（三個銀齡人、一個滅火筒、死了一個。） + + + +看到標題他猜想一定是那些中老年人，沉不住氣、脾氣暴躁。 + +應該生活安好的，不知道為著什麼事情悲劇就發生了。 + +果然，平伯沒有猜錯。 + +一個張姓五十六歲男人，他在一間汽車加油站等候時燃點了一支香煙，毫無顧忌站在嚴禁吸煙的地方，一口一口地吸起來。 + +職員屢次勸喻不果，先而口角，繼而動武。 + +葉姓六十二歲男職員一怒之下提起一個滅火筒向對方狂噴。 + +六十四歲男經理吳姓，他試圖制止他們，卻遭張姓男人搶過來的滅火筒猛力一打，經理便昏過去了。 + +記者訪問職員，目擊的一個女人說：他用滅火筒好像只打了一下... + +平伯喃喃自語：打一下就死！ + +他忽然有點擔心，因為昨晚跟兒子吵架了一場，他擔心終有一天兒子會拿起滅火筒打他，他怕被打一下就死。 + +他向旁邊的老婆說，滅火筒都不是什麼好東西，不好兆頭的。 + +不是用來滅火便是用來作攻擊武器。 + +然後他的老婆說：不如你收斂一下自己，八十歲人常常心火上惱，阿仔買來的滅火筒是替你滅火吧！ + +- + +（平伯）自那天讀罷新聞後，腦海裡老是浮現著“打一下就死”的報章標題。他老是擔心終有一天會和阿仔大打出手，然後他就會被滅火筒“打一下就死”。 + +他一大早醒來，就決定把滅火筒藏起來。他悄悄無聲地拔出沙發下的滅火筒，把它藏進了鞋櫃。然後，趁著老婆外出，又把廚房的滅火筒塞進了雪櫃，不忘用保鮮紙包好，以免受潮生銹。 + +然而，真正的鬧劇卻在那天的下午。平伯的四歲孫子回家後，發現雪櫃裡居然多了一個（奇怪的紅色物體），孫子胸有成竹地確定，這是巨型的汽水！是他的恩物，是他經常避開媽媽的視線而偷偷喝的汽水，不同的是，眼前的是巨型版本，孫子頓時感到超級大發現，大聲喊道：“爺！有一個巨型可樂在雪櫃！” + +“Oh my God！”平伯嚇了一跳，連忙抱起乖孫說：“這不是可樂啊！” + +儘管平伯長氣地解釋，孫子還是一臉疑惑，不明白為什麼這個巨型可樂不能喝？不是放在雪櫃裡的都能吃嗎？平伯趕緊把滅火筒搶回來，心裡暗暗“Thanks God！” + +可是，孫子哪肯罷休，那個可樂看起來明明就很好喝的樣子，他覺得爺爺只不過和媽媽一樣，擔心他喝了汽水會咳咳，接著要看醫生。當然，他並不知道，這個巨型的東西，喝了何止要看醫生，直頭要進急症室。 + +於是，孫子趁著平伯不注意，又再偷偷地把滅火筒從雪櫃裡拿出來，還找來了一支吸管，準備好好嚐嚐這個巨型可樂的味道。 + +就在孫子把吸管插進滅火筒的那一刻，平伯剛好從房間裡出來，看到這一幕，幾乎要暈過去了。他飛奔過去，一手抓住滅火筒，哭笑不得地對孫子說：“乖孫啊！這真的不是可樂，這是滅火筒！滅火筒！滅火筒用來滅火的，爺做錯了！” + +黃昏之前，平伯把滅火筒從鞋櫃拿出來放回原位，把雪櫃的滅火筒又放回原位。 + +老婆和兒子都下班回家了，平伯前額一抹汗，一切就像沒事發生過，平伯覺得自己很荒唐，為什麼一則新聞就如此神經兮兮。 + +其實，從物理上，真的容易“打一下就死”嗎？ + +或者，從關係上，是否真的“頂一句就僵”呀？ + +平伯似乎有些懊悔，他知道自己太容易上火了，繼續下去，恐怕會成為人人厭惡的躁爆老頭！他想找個人，好好的倒倒苦水。於是，在手機裡敲下了一篇肺腑之言，發送了給兒子，後來馬上刪除，轉換了發送給老婆，然後又馬上刪除，彷彿有什麼不妥當。 + +最後，他將信息發給了社區中心的社工——老梁。 + +然後，心底裡說一句“舒服曬！” + +晚上，一家四口在家吃飯，孫子忽然指向雪櫃，口中唸唸：“可樂！可樂！” + +完 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-17-new-york-skyscrapers.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-17-new-york-skyscrapers.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a426a142 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-17-new-york-skyscrapers.md @@ -0,0 +1,83 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "紐約的金融大樓" +author: "東加豆" +date : 2024-10-17 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/OU5si0q.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +鄰居遞給阿古一張照片。 + +阿古絲毫沒有反應，因為他從來不喜歡大城市，尤其是紐約（New York）這個冷冰冰的城市。 + + + +阿古沒有想過離開奧蘭多（Orlando），直到他兩次中風之後，這裡已經容不下自己。 + +他不知道自己為何會中風，年僅四十、運動多、素食、早睡早起、身心平衡、隔年驗身，次次八十分以上。 + +醫生和牧師都是說相同的話，有些事情是不能解釋的。 + +鄰居指著照片說：這裡待遇是你現在的五倍工資。 + +- + +歲月不留人。 + +阿古竟然在紐約這間國際金融公司足足工作了二十年。 + +他已經摸透水晶吊燈下這些商人的習性。 + +電視上的他們都是衣冠得體、風度翩翩。 + +阿古卻天天在休息間執拾，他們換了衣服褲子之後就亂扔的。 + +阿古工資高已不是秘密。 + +他的工資比一般文職、秘書、甚至乎經理還要多。 + +更別提衣褲袋裡摸幾張大鈔、手錶等等。 + +阿古的年薪曾經二十萬美元。 + +阿古明白的。 + +因為他們需要一個又聾又啞且紀錄良好的清潔工。 + +- + +（阿古）的薪水不是白白得來的，他被信任也不是一朝一夕，他必須遵從公司的安排，接受那位常以猜疑眼神審視他的醫生，健康結果會直接上傳到公司指定部門，整個過程，阿古看不到任何文件的。總之，醫生確定他是永久失聰，斷定他還是又聾又啞，那麼，阿古就能繼續享受那份豐厚的薪酬了。 + +如果不是聾啞選擇了他，那就是他選擇了聾啞，也許是這個緣故，使他更易讀懂別人的肢體語言訊息，也許是了解的原故，他對這座鋼筋水泥的叢林充斥著金錢的喧囂、人心的冷漠，他並不介意聽不見，也懶得聽見。 + +在紐約的金融大樓裡工作的人多不勝數，不管大人物或是小人物，他們都有相同的願望，渴望成為業界的精英。那麼，所謂精英，誰會看得清他們的真性情？ + +就是，像阿古一個這樣又聾又啞的清潔工。阿古撿起他們扔在地上的名牌領帶，擦拭著沾滿紅酒污漬的皮鞋，仿佛在清理著這個世界的污漬。 + +一天，一個年輕的分析師，穿過了垃圾房，朝著樓梯間的方向走。阿古心知，大多數通往此路的人，都是為了抽一根煙，尋找精神上的食糧。剛巧，阿古推著一桶垃圾停留，手指輕觸電梯按鈕，準備把垃圾送到垃圾庫。 + +忽然，那個分析師大聲喝止他說：“喂！別動！” + +真的，他不是“叫”他，是“呼喝！”，這個人的語氣很粗魯。阿古從他的肢體語言，就知道這個人的一言一行。 + +分析師發現阿古的垃圾桶裡藏著一些被撕碎的文件，但這些文件看起來很重要，他試圖向阿古解釋，要拿走垃圾桶內的文件，阿古斷然拒絕他。不過，阿古根本聽不明白他在說什麼。 + +原來是一個又聾又啞的清潔工，浪費了唇舌，分析師竟然舉起他的右手，拳頭向著阿古，他想一拳揮過去...！ + +- + +就在分析師的拳頭即將落下的一瞬間，（阿古）用一種異常敏捷的動作避開了攻擊。他誓死也要保護那桶“垃圾”，心知裡面藏著無數機密文件，經過他的手裡的機密文件多不勝數，也親手銷毀了不少。他深知公司內幕，了解高層的陋習、怪癖，越高級他越了解，低級職員根本沒有條件進去高級會所。阿古就是那麼一個人，他討厭這裡每一個人，卻又對這份工作非常投入。 + +分析師又來揮一了拳，阿古防不勝防，立即倒在地上。瞬間，他的世界天旋地轉，視線模糊。回憶像老舊錄影帶，從奧蘭多的悠閒日常跳轉至紐約的繁忙街景，最後畫面停格在一片寧靜。阿古閉上了眼睛，來不及想多說一句話。 + +阿古死了。他的葬禮簡陋到不行，以為幾位頂層主管在葬禮上裝模作樣地鞠躬。只有清潔工三人，他們拍拍身上灰塵就前來向阿古道別，還有公司送來一個大花牌。 + +阿古為何死去卻無人問津，沒有人知道分析師這回事，沒有人追問攝像鏡，確實，有攝像片看的。 + +阿古的生命，就在這座冷冰冰的金融大樓，猶如煙霧，銷聲匿跡。 + +完 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-17-re-discussion-on-transforming-the-national-character.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-17-re-discussion-on-transforming-the-national-character.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5aba3173 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-17-re-discussion-on-transforming-the-national-character.md @@ -0,0 +1,111 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "再论“改造国民性”" +author: "马屿人" +date : 2024-10-17 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/3seSusQ.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "张雪忠教授的逻辑和方法问题" +--- + +在一群人中，怎样公平地分蛋糕？ + +流行方法是让切蛋糕的那个人最后拿，这样切蛋糕的人为了自己不吃亏，只能将蛋糕尽量均匀地切开。 + + + +我先讲分蛋糕这个大家耳熟能详的例子，是为了更好地说明我的观点，以及对张雪忠教授文章有些观点之不敢苟同，比如说他对鲁迅、柏杨、龙应台等人的轻视以及对“改造国民性”的完全否定。 + +这种分蛋糕的方法当然非常聪明、甚至可以说绝妙。这个例子也经常被用来证明“好制度”的重要性。 + +然而，我总有些怀疑，这种方法真地就一定能保证蛋糕会被公平分配吗？ + +因为我还记得小时候看《365夜故事》时读到过的狐狸帮小熊分饼的故事，也记得中学物理对定律、公式的应用大多数时候都有“理想条件下”这样的前提。上面那种切蛋糕方法能够奏效的一个前提是这一群人都有良好品德、都愿意遵守既定规矩，不会像狐狸那样耍花招。 + +否则， + +如果分蛋糕是两个人的场景，身强力壮的那个人说“我来切，你要是敢拿大块的，我就揍你”，怎么办？ + +如果这是十个人的场景，切蛋糕的人拉拢了五个人结成一个团伙，然后故意给切成六块大的、四块小的，并对剩下的那四个人说“我们先拿，不然开打”，怎么办？ + +甚至，如果切蛋糕的人说“最大的那块归我，谁拿走那块最大的，我拿刀子捅谁”，又怎么办？ + +....... + +这时，可能会有反应比较快的朋友要质疑了：“要是这些情形，这种分配蛋糕方法从一开始就不会被接受和实施吧？” + +的确如此，如果这群人实力极不均衡、有实力的人又极其蛮横，很有可能从一开始这个分蛋糕的方法就不会被接受。而且即便这个分蛋糕的方法为所有人接受了，在实施过程中仍然随时可能出状况。 + +说到这里，可能又有反应比较快的朋友要说了：“可以给每种情况都设计一套类似分蛋糕的方法来规避它们的出现啊！” + +那么我就要反问，是不是每种规避方法也和分蛋糕方法一样都无法完全避免例外和极端情况呢？若如此，只是问题的无限循环罢了，类似于你说“魔高一尺、道高一丈”，而我则回以“道高一尺、魔高一丈”。固然层层叠叠的精密制度貌似能够让出状况概率持续降低，但是我们也要记得精密的手表不如枕头经摔这个问题。 + +这里我必须要澄清一下，我说这些，绝不是想要否认“好制度”的重要性。好制度绝对非常重要，是保证公平分配蛋糕的绝对必要手段。只是对于好制度是否就一定能保证蛋糕分配的公平，对于好制度能否构成“公平分配蛋糕”的充分条件，我有怀疑。如果众人都没有识破狐狸诡计的智识或者都没有面对强人、刀子挺身而出的勇气，只怕要想公平分蛋糕还是挺难的吧。 + +以上是为了有一个基本概念。 + +接下来讲讲更贴近于现实的模型。 + +清末四亿人，假设有十分之一的人也就是四千万人认识到应该推翻帝制，有百分之一的人也就是四百万人敢于公开讲出这种观点，有千分之一的人也就是四十万人在为推翻帝制做了些事情，有万分之一的人也就是四万人愿意为推翻帝制牺牲生命。而实现推翻帝制的最低要求是起码要有四百万人为推翻帝制出力、四十万人不惜性命。 + +此种情况下，梁启超在鼓吹君主立宪的同时痛斥中国人“麻木不仁”、“缺乏公共精神”：居然只有四百万人敢讲推翻帝制、居然只有四十万人愿意为推翻帝制做实事、居然只有四万人愿意为推翻帝制牺牲生命。 + +张教授则认为梁启超是知识不足，不知中国人的“麻木不仁”、“缺乏公共精神”是“权力结构”所导致，才将其归结为国民性，进而认为不应该谈“国民性”，只要“权力结构”变了，中国人终将会变得勇敢热诚、富有公共精神，所以让更多人认识需要推翻帝制最重要。 + +我觉得张教授的观点有逻辑和方法上的问题。 + +#### 逻辑上的问题 + +虽然我也同意中国人的“麻木不仁”、“缺乏公共精神”主要是“权力结构”所致，也同意只要“权力结构”变了，中国人终将会变得勇敢热诚、富有公共精神，但谁来改变现有的“权力结构”并将新的“权力结构”维持住？或者以分蛋糕的例子来说，谁来迫使身强力壮的人同意以那种方式分蛋糕，谁来震慑拿刀的人不起歪心思？ + +是不是得依靠勇敢热诚、富有公共精神的中国人？ + +现状之所以没有改变是不是因为这类中国人的比例还不够高？ + +而让这类中国人的比例变高属不属于改造国民性？ + +所以，改变现有“权力结构”是不是需要改造国民性？ + +这里还有一种误解必须予以澄清，那就是认为只有愿意为推翻帝制而牺牲的人从四万增加到四十万才叫改变国民性，而从四万增加到五万便不算。我认为，即便只是从四万增加到四万零一，那也是改变。 + +#### 方法上的问题 + +要想推翻帝制，传播知识让更多人认识到应该推翻帝制，这是一个方法；批判“麻木不仁”、“缺乏公共精神”、改造国民性让更多的人敢于讲出推翻帝制这种观点、为之付诸行动、乃至为之献身，这是另一个方法。 + +张教授看重前一种方法，却对后一种方法认识不足。 + +梁启超既投身维新、鼓吹君主立宪，同时也积极宣扬“新民”，属于两者并重。他的“新民说”激励了当时的许多青年，这在很多名人那里都得到证实。 + +说起来，实际上梁启超改造国民性的思想应该是受福泽谕吉的启发。在他流亡日本期间，亲眼目睹鼓吹日本文化、思想向欧美靠拢的福泽谕吉对日本社会所产生的影响，对他的刺激肯定很大。不只福泽谕吉对本国国民性进行过批判，伏尔泰也曾批判法国人迷信、无知且轻浮，罗素也曾批判英国人过于保守，当然，后两者的批判没有福泽谕吉那样沉痛。 + +至于张教授所批评的鲁迅、柏杨和龙应台，说他们因“知识不足”所以不能认识到“权力结构”决定了国民行为，我也表示怀疑。他们可能的确不知道“权力结构”这个名词，但是对“国家制度塑造国民性格”这一点应该有所认知。 + +我记得鲁迅曾经讲过中国人之所以不堪，主要还是当权者的缘故。而他的文字侧重批判国民性，我的理解是对改变当时的制度他提不出什么新鲜的见解来——毕竟已经五权宪法、议会、选举，而在国民性上他却有独到心得。 + +柏杨和龙应台则应该是出于无奈。柏杨因为一幅漫画就坐了好几年牢，在他出狱后当局宽容他写字发表的前提就是不允许谈政治；而龙应台能写《中国人，你为什么不生气》就已经算是鼓足了勇气。在这方面他们的确不如雷震、林义雄、陈菊这些人勇敢，也许张教授的确有资格、可以批评他们胆小。但是至少龙应台《野火集》的积极作用不该被抹杀。 + +说“中国的启蒙运动被鲁迅、柏杨和龙应台等人带入歧途”、“将各种政府治理危机渲染成社会道德危机，从而妨碍公共政策的检讨和改进”，我是完全不能同意的。 + +事实是，鲁迅、龙应台的文字更多的是激发了人们检讨公共政策、问责政府的热情和勇气，而不是相反。很多人中国人甚至可能是大半中国人的现实批判精神来自鲁迅，龙应台的《野火集》也刺激和鼓舞了许许多多的读者向当局发难。 + +当然，必须得承认，“国民性”这种说法的确存在被滑坡为“素质论”甚至“人种论”的现象，这些是我坚决反对的。但是正如不能因为菜刀会被用来行凶就应该禁绝使用一样，不能因为“国民性”这种说法会被误解甚至被利用就认为不该提“国民性”。终究还是要看利大于弊、还说弊大于利。从梁启超等人的历史实践来看，我认为是利大于弊的。 + +在张教授身上，其实也能得到验证。张教授之所以有现在的影响力，是因为知识高深、见解独到吗？是因为《新常识》这本书吗？只怕都不是的，张教授之所以为人敬佩是因为他展现出的远超同侪的道德勇气给人们带来的刺激和鼓舞。而在鼓舞道德勇气方面，恐怕十部《新常识》都不及龙应台一篇《中国人，你为什么不生气》，尽管一百篇《中国人，你为什么不生气》也没有一部《新常识》知识多。 + +而改变“权力结构”不仅需要对宪政的认知，也需要道德勇气。传播知识上面可能张教授更专业，但鼓舞道德勇气却是鲁迅等人更擅长，尽管他们本人不一定比张教授更有道德勇气。 + +因此，在改变“权力结构”这项事业上，绝不是如张教授所言“文艺的归文艺、知识的归知识”，而应该携手同行，事实上也必须如此、只能如此。 + +以潘恩的一段话作为结尾吧： + +“如果说在那七年多的历程中，我对国家有所报效的话；那么同样可以说，通过自由地、毫无偏私地将文学用于人类的伟大事业，证明这世上还有着不甘媚俗的才华，我也曾为文学增光添彩。” + +希望很多人将来回首自己一生时，也能这样骄傲地说。 + +--- + +张雪忠，[文章1](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/chiGCxyrx9K0MdVc70AJWQ)、[文章2](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/uRiLoX8ES0Wb83psUmW1_w) + +羽戈，[《“改造国民性”可休矣》](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/1srh7qszQA444YFYWVWNaA) + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-20-travelling is-hard.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-20-travelling is-hard.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..5c74d48c --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-20-travelling is-hard.md @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "行路难" +author: "番茄米线" +date : 2024-10-20 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/jVZcGtN.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +鹓雏沐金火，扶摇起天池；梧桐不止罗不衣，醴泉不饮竹不食。 + + + +游至雷音寺，众僧锦襕披；攫腐食腥舔血渍，乌群庸附啄烂泥。 + +却疑凤凰惊恶颜，笑骂大道渺无烟；此乃极乐当沉沦，何向西天求真仙？ + +佛后一万八千年，末法魔王披锦襕；牟尼缄口不能言，滚滚涕泪满布衫。 + +欲海挣扎无间婪，恐惧扼喉魂阑珊。灵犀无迹难相问，行尸催狂覆脂胭。 + +飒飒西风凝雪暗，声声长啸压云慢；白鹤独舞曲离乱，丹顶点破粉黛残。 + +察察之身皓皓婵，汶汶尘埃蒙缨冠；忽觉两颊已潸然，定是酒苦熏鼻酸。 + +行路难，行路难；黄风起，何时安？行路难？行路难！紫气来，助我舛！ + +日月连璧天地鞍，星辰珠玑万物环；悠骑青牛出函谷，乘浪梦游天姥山。 + +翻译： + +年轻的凤凰沐浴在金色的火焰中，从天池中高高飞起；非梧桐不栖息，非丝绸衣不穿，非清澈的甘泉不饮，非竹子竹子的果实不吃。 + +它飞到了雷音寺，看到许多僧侣穿着华丽的袈裟；他们抓着腐肉往嘴里塞，舔着血迹，一群乌鸦聚在他们身边，在泥土上啄食腐烂的东西。 + +他们却怀疑凤凰为何露出惊恐的表情，嘲笑怒骂道，你所追寻的大道就像烟尘一样渺茫；这儿就是极乐世界了，与我们一起沉沦吧，何必苦苦跑到西天去找真正的神仙？ + +在佛陀死后的一万八千年，末法时代的魔王披着华丽的袈裟；牟尼紧闭着嘴巴，什么话也说不出，泪水滚滚而下，浸湿了他的粗布衣衫。 + +（末法时代的）人们在欲望的海洋中无止境地挣扎，恐惧扼住了他们的喉咙，他们的灵魂渐渐消亡；精神与情感的共鸣难以寻求，只剩下了躲在浓重胭脂（泛指物质与虚荣）下的（因欲望支配而）狂热的行尸走肉。 + +呼啸的西风使雪愈加阴暗，声声长啸压得云层缓缓前行；白鹤独自舞蹈，伴乐已经纷乱，它头顶的丹红就像火苗把黑夜点破，映射着已经残缺的粉黛。 + +清白的身体带着干净的帽冠是多么美好纯洁，可是却要蒙上污浊的尘埃；我突然感觉两颊湿润，一定因为是酒的苦味熏得我鼻酸，一定是这样； + +人生道路多么艰难，多么艰难；黄沙狂风肆虐了这么久，何时才会被安定？人生道路艰难吗？当然艰难！紫色的云霞自东方来，助我扭转这坎坷的命运！ + +我把日月当作连璧，给天地装上鞍当我的座驾，星辰是我佩戴的珠宝，世间万物都环绕我运转；我也想像老子一样悠闲地骑着青牛出函谷关，也想像李白一样乘着浪潮，梦游天姥山。 + + \ No newline at end of file From 87444e8d8891a9fb79289007af0ab3787346ab46 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2025 00:00:30 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 12/16] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x30 Jan.10 --- .../_hkers/2024-12-11-cjadc2-for-ukraine.md | 163 ++++++++++++++++++ .../2024-12-16-how-to-support-ukraine.md | 162 +++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 325 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-cjadc2-for-ukraine.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-how-to-support-ukraine.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-cjadc2-for-ukraine.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-cjadc2-for-ukraine.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7582c97b --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-cjadc2-for-ukraine.md @@ -0,0 +1,163 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : CJADC2 For Ukraine +author: Kateryna Bondar +date : 2024-12-11 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/lMiYx54.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Does Ukraine Already Have Functional CJADC2 Technology?" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Ukrainian situational awareness system Delta offers a model for Western militaries to consider when developing CJADC2 systems. It demonstrates how battlefield-driven innovation, AI integration, and allied collaboration can create effective command-and-control ecosystems._ + + + +### Introduction + +For decades, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has struggled to make meaningful progress toward realizing the vision of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2). Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the Delta situational awareness system has rapidly evolved into a platform that closely resembles the CJADC2 concept. Delta exemplifies software-defined warfare and provides a practical and agile approach to battlefield management. Unlike the DOD’s top-down vision for CJADC2, which involves a centrally managed strategy of integrating data flows and operations across all services and international partners, Delta originated as a bottom-up solution, initially focused on a single, highly effective application: a digital map for situational awareness. This initial capability has expanded into a comprehensive ecosystem of software applications that supports nearly the entire Ukrainian military, from frontline personnel to senior commanders. + +The development of Delta can be compared to the approach used by Amazon. Jeff Bezos’s initial goal was to create what has been called “the everything store,” but he began by selling only books. Over time, Amazon gradually expanded its offerings to include a wide range of products. Similarly, Delta began with a single focused application and progressively added capabilities. + +This paper provides analysis of Delta’s technological evolution and capabilities, and it concludes with lessons that the DOD could apply to CJADC2 and to its broader artificial intelligence (AI) transformation efforts. + +Modern warfare has become increasingly complex, requiring commanders to maintain situational awareness of numerous factors across extensive geographical areas, ideally in real time. The scale of military operations being conducted by Ukraine is unprecedented for a nation of that size. + +Ukrainian forces respond to threats by executing large-scale military missions, both in terms of geographical reach and the complexities of planning and execution. Two good examples of such activities are the May 2024 Ukrainian strikes on a Russian refinery plant in Bashkiria, about 900 miles east of Ukraine, and the July 2024 attack on Olenya air base, located roughly 1,200 miles north. These distances are roughly comparable to that between Seattle and San Diego. + +What these strikes reveal is that Ukraine has been developing a software system designed to gather data, analyze it, provide comprehensive situational awareness, and support battlefield decisionmaking. Although a comprehensive history of Delta’s evolution and the bureaucratic challenges surrounding it are beyond the scope of this analysis, it is worth mentioning that Delta was started in 2016 by the volunteer group Aerorozvidka. In 2023, the system was transferred to the Ministry of Defense, and by August 2024, it was officially adopted by the Ukrainian defense sector. This sector includes all military and defense agencies and units responsible for safeguarding Ukraine’s sovereignty, such as the Armed Forces, National Guard, State Border Guard Service, and National Police. + +The analysis in this paper will draw on organizational and technological perspectives, focusing on key approaches to system development that may offer valuable lessons for implementing similar projects within militaries throughout the world. + + +### Delta’s Organizational Structure + +The organizational structure underpinning the Delta ecosystem is relatively straightforward. Delta is managed, developed, and maintained by the Center for Innovation and Defense Technologies within the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. As mentioned above, the center took over Delta from the NGO Aerorozvidka in 2023, whose engineers initiated its development in 2016 to support fighters in Donbas. Since 2023, the primary task of the center has been to advance the Delta system by expanding its user base, integrating more data sources, and improving interoperability with other systems and international partners. + +Delta’s information is synthesized by situational awareness centers in eight cities located across the front. These centers serve as technological hubs, uniting and coordinating intelligence from a wide variety of sources — drones, satellites, stationary cameras, sensors, and reconnaissance units on the frontline. + +Delta is used across all branches and command levels of the Ukrainian military, from tactical units to strategic leadership. It is simultaneously accessible to ground troops, via mobile devices such as phones and tablets, and to higher military leadership, thus providing real-time situational awareness and enabling rapid, informed decisionmaking. Access is tiered, meaning that different levels of command have distinct permissions and varied access to the system’s data. To ensure effective use, mobile training teams move across military units to keep users’ skills current. + +Although Delta’s state ownership offers some advantages, such as official adoption across defense agencies to create a single operational environment, there are challenges associated with this approach. Being managed by a government institution brings typical bureaucratic constraints in hiring software engineers, updating regulations, and addressing security concerns for both the software and its developers. Nevertheless, the implementation of innovations in situational awareness and command and control is proceeding at a significantly faster rate than when Delta was run by Aerorozvidka only and in comparison to similar programs in other militaries. This speed has been driven by Ukraine’s urgent need to respond effectively to wartime emergencies and by widespread belief that technological superiority will be a decisive factor in all domains and dimensions of the fight. + + +### Technological Architecture + +In exploring the technological architecture of the system, this paper will examine Delta’s data and the software applications designed to collect, process, and make use of it. These applications enable users to engage with the data through various interfaces, providing the functionality needed for informed decisionmaking, as well as operational support within the Armed Forces and the broader defense sector. + +#### Data + +The Delta system gathers information from a diverse variety of data sources to provide comprehensive situational awareness and to enhance operational capabilities for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Together, these sources form a foundation for Delta’s ecosystem of applications that support effective battlefield management. A summary of the main data sources used by Delta is presented in Figure 1. + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/6OBumsy.png) +_▲ __Figure 1: Main Data Sources of Delta System.__ Source: CSIS analysis._ + +In addition to Delta, other situational awareness and battle management systems are also used in Ukraine. One such system is Kropyva, which gained initial popularity among artillery units. Together with Delta, Kropyva has become one of the top three most-used combat systems in the Ukrainian military, according to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Defense. Delta and Kropyva complement each other by sharing data across various levels of command in different operational contexts, although the two systems are not fully integrated. + +One of the notable features of the Delta system is its cloud-based architecture. It stores and processes all data in the cloud, via servers hosted in foreign countries, which makes it resilient against Russian strikes on its servers. However, this reliance on cloud infrastructure can present challenges for users in areas with limited internet connectivity. This issue has been mitigated by the use of Starlink, which has provided reliable internet access on the front line. + +#### Applications + +As Delta gathers data, interfaces are required to enable end users to effectively interact with it. These interfaces are provided through applications, often called “products” in Ukrainian parlance; these serve as key components of Delta’s ecosystem. + +Interestingly, Delta’s entire ecosystem has evolved from its original and foundational application, which is essentially a digital map. This map was the first “product” developed by volunteers to enhance situational awareness for soldiers at the Donbas front line, showing the positions and movements of enemy troops and equipment. This application, now called “Delta Monitor,” remains central to the Delta ecosystem, displaying data from an ever-growing number of sources. + +Over time, additional applications have been developed organically and integrated into Delta, reflecting the evolving nature and challenges of the war. This expansion has transformed Delta from a system focused purely on situational awareness into a more comprehensive platform. It now supports functions aligned with what NATO terms the ISTAR (intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance) concept, as well as with the C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) framework used in the United States. Ukrainian developers have aimed to follow these concepts, and yet at the same time have pushed Delta to evolve into something approximating CJADC2. The following sections of this paper will explore Delta’s core applications, demonstrating how this transformation is unfolding. + +1. Delta Monitor + + Delta Monitor, the primary and foundational application of the Delta system, functions as an interactive map displaying information in multiple layers. It is accessible via web browsers and mobile applications for iOS and Android devices. + + The interactive map allows users to filter and view specific types of information, such as the locations of drones, anti-tank barriers, trenches, and electronic warfare stations. Data is never deleted from Delta, allowing users to track developments over time and analyze battlefield dynamics. Military personnel contribute information on more than 600,000 enemy objects per month, with a total of 4 million reviewed by warfighters for planning purposes. Each object on the map includes a classification, an image, and information about its source, which allows users to directly contact the person who reported an enemy object or troop position for further details. + + The Delta administration panel includes User Management and Delta Intelligence sections; the latter serves as a repository for collected data and images. The system development team is currently developing software to coordinate the entire fire engagement cycle for every target, encapsulating initial reconnaissance, analysis, and clarification of reconnaissance data, engagement, and confirmation of target destruction. + +2. Mission Control + + With an increasing number of unmanned aerial systems (UAVs) on the front line, an urgent need emerged in the early days of the war for flight management to avoid friendly jamming, competition for radio frequencies, and mission overlap. In response to this battlefield need, the Delta team developed the Mission Control application, also known as the synchronization matrix. Visually resembling an Excel spreadsheet, it is primarily used by drone operators to schedule UAV missions by specifying time, target location, and mission type (such as ISR, strike, or artillery correction). Every month, with the help of Mission Control, drone operators plan around 106,000 missions. + + Mission Control automatically generates an extensive amount of data on the performance of UAVs. In addition, the warfighters often manually add mission details, including observations of enemy electronic warfare activities. This valuable data has significant potential to improve military planning when properly managed and analyzed, which is part of the plan for future development of the Delta ecosystem. + +3. UA DroneID + + The UA DroneID application is a natural extension of UAV flight management within the Delta system. It functions similarly to the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system used for aircraft and is specifically designed to identify drones as “friend or foe.” This feature is integrated into Delta to help prevent friendly fire incidents involving Ukrainian drones, while also enhancing the drone effectiveness against enemy targets. + +4. Delta Tube + + In response to a growing number of battlefield cameras — both on UAVs and on the ground — engineers developed Delta Tube to allow users to stream live, high-definition video (Full HD) from these and other sources. Stream owners have complete control over who can access their streams, ensuring that only verified users can view the footage. This capability accelerates the transfer of intelligence from reconnaissance assets to strike units while also maintaining full control over access rights. + +5. Vezha + + In 2024, the Vezha external application was integrated into the Delta system to enhance video analysis and streaming capabilities. Vezha is a battlefield video analysis platform that streams real-time drone footage and interactions between drone crews, artillery, and command centers. Vezha allows Ukrainian forces to analyze video from hundreds of UAVs, identifying and classifying over 4,000 reconnaissance objects daily. Features such as voice communication, joint video decryption, and performance monitoring have been essential to the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ rapid actions. + + This integration is a good example of how external applications can enhance Delta’s capabilities. Vezha was originally developed by “Yastruby,” the 411th Separate Battalion of the Territorial Defense Forces, and was later improved by and integrated into the Ministry of Defense’s Innovation Center. The mobile version of Vezha is also linked to the UAV Mission Control application, significantly contributing to battlefield coordination. + +6. Avengers + + Avengers, an AI-driven platform, is the next step in improving battlefield video analysis. It was developed by the Ministry of Defense’s Innovation Center to enhance AI-enabled detection of enemy forces and targets. The software is able to identify objects and detect targets in thousands of simultaneous video streams from drones and stationary cameras, even if the objects are camouflaged or hidden in forests. Avengers can also distinguish decoys from real targets. + + In September, the ministry reported that Avengers automatically detected approximately 12,000 pieces of enemy equipment per week by analyzing UAV and ground camera feeds. This capability significantly enhances operational efficiency, enabling faster and more accurate data processing while reducing human error. The development of Avengers continues to improve to this day, with AI models being trained on increasing amounts of data. There are also plans to integrate this AI-enabled software directly into UAVs. + +7. Messaging Service + + Communication is the lifeblood of successful command and control. To meet this need, a secure messaging application was developed within the Delta ecosystem that enables encrypted communication and coordination among military units. In conversations with CSIS, the system developers shared that Delta’s messaging service links various system features, allowing users to configure alerts for specific zones or object types; these alerts trigger real-time notifications when relevant changes occur. This enhances the ability of units to respond quickly to changes in control zones and enemy activities. + + Delta’s messaging service is becoming so central to communication that some units have structured their entire interaction framework around it. However, technical issues remain in the application’s usability and scalability, limiting its broader adoption despite a secure design. An updated version of Delta with a more effective chat function is expected to be released soon. + +8. Mobile Device Management (MDM) + + Ukrainian fighters of all ranks often use personal or donated smartphones and tablets, which are vulnerable to security threats. Despite these vulnerabilities, fighters use military applications every day on these devices, and their interactions must be protected. In response, the Delta team created MDM, a secure, military-controlled platform used to distribute applications within the Ukrainian Armed Forces, similar to the App Store or Play Market. + + MDM creates an encrypted, isolated environment on a user’s device, enabling the secure installation of military applications and sensitive data. It enforces strict security standards, such as strong authentication methods, and allows remote wiping of data in case a device is compromised or lost. The platform offers access to a curated set of 68 applications designed for the military’s requirements, with 14 that are purpose built for operational needs. Adoption of MDM is currently voluntary, but warfighters are using it more and more, as a compromised device can be a life-threatening issue. + +9. Analytical Platform + + Initially, Delta’s developers focused on establishing a core system that continuously gathered data, rather than fully analyzing it. As the war has become more complex and technologically advanced, the demand for comprehensive analytics and data-driven insights from military personnel has grown enormously. + + Therefore, the next big leap for the Delta team will be the development of an analytical platform with AI-enabled capabilities, particularly in the processing of textual information. There is a demand for extracting semantic elements from text and transforming them into structured messages that can be represented as map objects. In conversations with CSIS, developers working with the Innovation Center shared that they are also working on tools that resemble a Ukrainian-speaking ChatGPT, which will simplify communication with technical support services. + +The Delta system is undergoing continuous and rapid development to meet the dynamic demands of Ukraine’s ongoing war. One of the key factors in Delta’s success has been the speed of its iterations and updates. In 2022, Delta implemented more than 40 new features, a significant accomplishment not only by military standards, but also when compared to development cycles in the business sector. According to Artem Martynenko, Delta’s lead developer, the system had over 30 releases with software updates in 2022. These frequent updates have enabled the system to meet the Armed Forces’ need for timely and verified intelligence to support the coordination of military operations. + +Future development of Delta aims to increase its number of users to 100,000 and further align its features with the principles of network-centric warfare; particular areas of focus will be real-time data integration, enhanced accuracy of information, and improved user accessibility. + + +### Integration and Interoperability with Allies + +To ensure comprehensive situational awareness for current missions and potential future joint operations, it is essential for Ukrainian systems, and particularly Delta, to be interoperable with those of allied nations. This requirement has driven Ukrainian developers to prioritize integration and data sharing with allied platforms. This section will briefly examine these efforts to provide an overview of the current state of software interoperability. + +In 2023, Delta demonstrated compatibility with 15 different situational awareness and command-and-control systems from 10 countries, including 3 systems developed by NATO. Furthermore, in 2023, Delta confirmed its capability to exchange information using Link 16 — a NATO protocol that enables data exchange with F-16 fighter jets and other types of modern weaponry — thereby improving Delta’s operational integration in advanced collaborative battle networks. + +Delta was tested for interoperability during the NATO CWIX24 (Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXploration, eXperimentation, eXamination, eXercise) in July 2024. The goal of the Ukrainian team was to identify and address any technical issues in data exchange before Western weapons are provided to Ukraine, enabling their smooth integration into domestic C2 process. Delta went through testing for five standards across thirteen focus areas (compared to just one standard in one focus area during the 2019 CWIX exercises). The Ukrainian team also demonstrated Delta’s capability to exchange a full operational picture with allied and NATO systems, encompassing air, maritime, land, cyber, space, medical, and logistics data. The Ukrainian team received significant interest and praise during CWIX24, with representatives impressed by their professionalism amid the challenges of Russia’s ongoing war. + +A notable example of Delta’s integration with western C2 systems has been its successful merging with the Polish artillery fire control system, TOPAZ. In July 2024, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense announced that Delta had been integrated with TOPAZ, which is used in KRAB howitzers and RAK self-propelled mortars, both of which are currently in service in Ukraine. During the NATO CWIX24 exercises, Delta effectively gathered, updated, and supplemented information — including data on the positioning of friendly forces — and transmitted it to the Polish TOPAZ system. This integration demonstrated Delta’s capability for secure transmission of restricted-access data and has provided comprehensive situational awareness on the battlefield. + +More than just enabling excellent situational awareness, Delta is also critical to the operational management of mission control. This aspect of its functionality was tested during another NATO-led exercise, REPMUS 24, which was held in Portugal in September 2024 as the largest-ever exercise involving unmanned systems. It focused on integrating unmanned platforms and command systems across domains to achieve interoperability with NATO partner nations. The scope of the exercise included anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, and protection of critical underwater infrastructure. + +REPMUS 24 saw the Ukrainian navy’s first participation in the exercise. The navy used the Delta system to coordinate over fifty unmanned platforms, achieving full interoperability of underwater, surface, ground, and aerial vehicles. Delta was also successfully linked with Robotics-L, a robotic quadruped developed by Rheinmetall, showcasing the system’s adaptability to various platforms. Delta was also integrated with other command-and-control systems to improve data exchange, “friend or foe” identification, and coordination among participating forces. + + +### Conclusion + +Ukraine has been the epicenter of an intense war for almost three years, a period that allows for observation of Ukraine’s evolving approach to situational awareness and its changing command-and-control capabilities. Over this time, the country has demonstrated an ability to adapt to the dynamic demands of the battlefield. Ukrainian forces have effectively integrated technological solutions from the private sector, volunteer groups, and government partners to enhance situational awareness and overall combat effectiveness. Delta, a critical part of Ukraine’s military evolution, offers an illuminating case study in the development of agile and innovative defense technology. + +Key findings from this analysis are as follows: + +1. __Delta has evolved from a situational awareness tool into an integrated command-and-control system that serves all branches of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.__ This transformation demonstrates a bottom-up approach to system development and illustrates the importance of building a strong foundational capability before expanding. Delta’s evolution has enabled it to effectively serve all levels of the military, from frontline troops to strategic leadership. + +2. __Delta is structured around a central map-based interface. New applications are integrated into this interface to display data on a unified platform.__ This approach has allowed the system to expand gradually by adding new tools and features that are synchronized in a single user interface. As a result, decisionmakers can access a comprehensive amount of near-real-time information in one place. + +3. __Delta has developed through the incorporation of multiple software applications and interfaces, transforming it from a standalone tool into a dynamic ecosystem of software solutions.__ This approach has reshaped Delta from a singular situational awareness tool into an expansive ecosystem of software applications that enhance military operations — from intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to target recognition and command and control. + +4. __Delta’s development process is driven by direct battlefield requirements and by rapid integration of new applications to address evolving military challenges.__ Delta remains relevant to dynamic battlefield conditions and constantly adapts to technological and operational needs. The integration of applications such as Mission Control for drone coordination and UA DroneID for drone identification demonstrates how Delta’s software ecosystem has evolved in response to the increase in uncrewed systems on the frontline. + +5. __Ukraine has succeeded in integrating software from the United States’ and NATO’s weapons and command-and-control systems directly into Delta.__ This integration enables a seamless flow of data between Western and Ukrainian systems that is crucial to military operations.A notable example of Delta’s compatibility with Western systems is its use of the Link 16 tactical communication system, which enables data sharing with F-16 fighter jets. Delta’s integration with the Polish TOPAZ artillery control system also demonstrates its capability to synchronize operational data to support cohesive situational awareness on the battlefield. + +6. __The data sources integrated into Delta continue to expand, providing near-real-time situational awareness for military leadership and frontline personnel.__ The Delta system currently incorporates data from diverse sources, including drones, satellites, stationary sensors, and reconnaissance units, offering a comprehensive operational picture. Delta’s development team continues to augment the system’s capabilities by integrating additional data sources and enhancing the speed of data assimilation — through features such as live drone streaming and analysis of intelligence submitted by civilians via chatbots — to approach real-time data relevancy. + +7. __Delta is incorporating AI-driven applications to lay the foundation for future AI-enabled capabilities.__ Avengers, a platform for video analysis, is an example of how Delta is expanding its use of AI. Avengers automatically identifies targets in thousands of simultaneous video streams, improving the efficiency of military operations. Features like this reduce the workload and errors associated with manual monitoring. The further adoption of AI will be essential for enhancing Delta’s analysis features. + +The approach adopted by Ukrainian engineers — building a combined, all-domain situational awareness and battle management system around an effective tool — has proved to be highly effective. Delta’s use of web and cloud-based technologies allows for frequent updates and iterations, ensuring that the system remains aligned with operational needs. Western militaries, including that of the United States, could benefit significantly from examining Ukraine’s experience as they continue to improve their own large-scale command-and-control systems. + +--- + +__Kateryna Bondar__ is a fellow with the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-how-to-support-ukraine.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-how-to-support-ukraine.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..13675019 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-how-to-support-ukraine.md @@ -0,0 +1,162 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : How To Support Ukraine +author: Max Bergmann +date : 2024-12-16 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/nzgDyuH.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Peace Will Require Ukrainian Strength" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Ukraine is facing strong headwinds as the war has tilted in Russia’s favor. But a revived Western effort to finance Ukraine’s war effort will send a clear message to the Kremlin and is likely the only way to bring Russia to the negotiation table._ + + + +The war and the world are turning against Ukraine. + +The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has become a war of attrition, with the side that can tilt the manpower and armament balance in its favor having the advantage. While Ukraine mobilized heroically, and the West has provided substantial military support that has helped preserve Ukrainian democracy, Ukrainian mobilization and Western defense industrial production have not ramped up sufficiently. As a result, despite its fumbles in the initial invasion, Russia has found its footing, created a manpower pipeline, and built up its industrial capacity to fight a long war. It has leveraged its immense Soviet-era stockpiles of military equipment, and China, Iran, and North Korea have provided crucial support — including lethal military aid, dual-use technology to ramp up defense production, and now even soldiers for the front lines. The war has tilted in Russia’s favor, and Russia is pressing its armaments and manpower advantage relentlessly. + +Russia now sees a light at the end of the tunnel of this attritional war, and that light just got brighter with the election of Donald Trump. During the election period, President Trump was clear about his skepticism regarding aid to Ukraine. He has said that he would seek to end the war through negotiations, but the prospect for talks and a negotiated settlement in the near term is unlikely — not because of Ukrainian reticence, but because Russia has shown no interest in a negotiated settlement to the war unless its maximalist goals are met. There is now little reason for Russia to negotiate, as Russian President Vladimir Putin likely believes he can win the war — which, in his view, means the subjugation of Ukraine under Russian control. A negotiated settlement that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy will be a humiliation for Putin, even if Ukraine recognizes Russian dominion over the territories gained since the full-scale invasion. + +This is not conjecture. Between October 2023 and April 2024, U.S. aid to Ukraine slowed and then came to a halt, as Congress debated whether to fund Ukraine’s war effort. Ukraine was at its weakest during this period, having lost access to vital aid and having failed in its 2023 counteroffensive. But instead of seeking to negotiate with a weakened Ukraine, President Putin recommitted to Russia’s maximalist war aims and went on the offensive. This is telling. Should Russia believe it has a major military advantage and a path to victory, it will likely pursue that path. It may seem logical for Russia to seek an end to the conflict, given it has suffered more than half a million casualties. Yet it is precisely because of the massive costs it has incurred that settling for a cessation of the war, with hardly any of its initial war aims met, is likely anathema to Moscow. As the United States well knows, it is not unusual for a country at war to succumb to the sunk-cost fallacy and continue fighting on, even if chances of success are slim. Thus, if there is to be a negotiated end to the war, it will likely require either Ukraine gaining the upper hand militarily over Russia, or for the war to threaten the stability of Putin’s regime. + +Unfortunately, the outlook on Western support adds to the sense in the Kremlin that they can wait out the West, which only increases their determination to continue the fight. Historian Sergey Radchenko observes that the “reason for continuing the war is Putin’s reasonable expectation that western support for Ukraine will decline even further.” + +Bringing about successful negotiations that preserve Ukrainian democracy therefore likely requires making clear to Putin that the West will not allow Ukraine to lose the war. There are two credible ways the United States and Europe can convey that message. The United States or Europe could threaten and prepare to enter the war to defend Ukrainian democracy should Russia continue to advance. Alternatively, the Western coalition could provide a massive military aid package to Ukraine that gives the country the means to defend itself over the longer term. The latter is far more likely, as neither the United States nor Europe have indicated a willingness to go to war for Ukraine. Thus, the focus should be on arming Ukraine. + +Arming Ukraine should be done in a way that facilitates a dramatic ramp-up of defense industrial production. This will not only enable the West to support Ukraine over the long term and potentially shift the armaments balance in Ukraine’s direction but also help revive the defense industrial base of the West, enhancing its ability to compete with China’s military expansion. Should the West demonstrate its financial and industrial commitment, Russia may be convinced that the war is unwinnable and agree to come to the table. In other words, the approach should be “peace through Ukrainian strength.” + +A significant transatlantic effort to expand defense industrial production for Ukraine may be demoralizing for the Kremlin, as it will be a clear, tangible sign of the West’s long-term commitment. While the Kremlin is dismissive of the West’s rhetorical commitment to Ukraine, allocating funding to support Ukraine for the long haul will make it clear to Moscow that this war is not winnable on their terms. Furthermore, the West needs to understand that the necessity to support Ukraine will not end if there is a cessation of the fighting. Should a ceasefire be reached, it will then be a race between Ukraine and Russia to recapitalize their militaries before a likely third round of fighting commences. Ukraine will need — and should insist on — massive military support as part of any ceasefire agreement to deter Russia from attacking in the future. + +European militaries will also need to rearm and restock after decades of underinvestment. Whatever Ukraine needs to fight this war is also what NATO militaries will need to deter Russia. Therefore, massive investments to scale up industrial production are not just for Ukraine but also for Western countries, and they will serve to benefit NATO’s deterrence posture toward Russia. + +Additionally, major Western commitments may also help revive Ukrainian morale and energize its flagging mobilization effort. Ukraine’s military has a significant manpower shortage, as Ukrainian leaders have been reluctant to mobilize the country’s younger population. While perhaps understandable, this has significantly handicapped Ukraine’s war effort. A large Western aid package should thus go hand-in-hand with a much broader mobilization and training effort. + +Yet the debate around the war and the main thrust of Ukrainian diplomacy has centered on issues related to escalation or Ukraine’s NATO future. These are incredibly important issues, but they are secondary to the core task of arming Ukraine. Despite criticism of being slow and cautious, the United States and its Western partners have successfully escalated their support without triggering a broader war with Russia. Russia is currently suffering 1,500 casualties a day, in large part due to Western weapons. Support that once seemed escalatory, such as providing long-range artillery, is no longer perceived the same way. The Russian frog has been boiled on a low flame when it comes to support for Ukraine. This policy success now needs to be fully exploited. The main challenge for the West is no longer whether and how to introduce new weapons systems to the fight; it is simply to provide much more of the systems that they have already provided. Instead of constantly pushing the escalation ceiling higher and higher, Ukraine and its ardent backers should focus on the primary need: getting more weapons. Thus, a new Trump administration does not have to push the boundaries of U.S. policy but simply keep doing what the United States has been doing. + +This paper outlines the need for the West to focus primarily on shifting the armaments balance, which will involve a collective allied effort to bolster defense industrial production to aid Ukraine. For Europe, a common “European Supplemental” is needed, as the current ad hoc approach of individual European countries each aiding Ukraine separately and sporadically — which provides a wide array of systems — needs to change. A common European, and preferably EU-funded, effort is needed, and this paper outlines four ways to find the required funding. Once funding is provided to ramp up production, Western militaries need to take more managed risks with their own equipment stocks, and therefore the readiness of their militaries, by providing Ukraine more from their own stockpiles. For the United States, the most straightforward course would be for the Trump administration to pursue another supplemental budget appropriation for Ukraine. However, recognizing that the incoming administration may be less interested in playing a leading role in Ukraine, this paper outlines other steps the new administration can take to support Ukraine, encourage Russia to come to the negotiating table, ramp up U.S. defense industrial production, and preserve the global credibility of the United States. + +Shifting the armaments balance is also about impinging Russia’s ability to access and produce weapons. The West needs to redouble its efforts to squeeze the Russian economy and its defense industrial production. This requires a multi-pronged effort to hit Russia with oil and expanded energy sanctions, stepped-up and targeted sanctions enforcement, and European efforts to pressure Beijing to curtail its industrial support for Moscow. + +Ultimately, the situation in Ukraine is not hopeless by any means. However, after two and half years, the West’s approach to aiding the country needs a refresh. The Trump administration’s desire to end the war through negotiations is being welcomed by Ukraine. Yet it is unlikely that Russia will engage in productive talks unless the West’s long-term commitment to Ukraine is made abundantly clear. + + +### What Europe Needs to Do + +Russia has shown its ability to adapt to changing circumstances over the course of the war. Europe’s approach has remained ad hoc, though its military support has evolved over three broad phases. First, older equipment was quickly taken from the warehouses of Western militaries, especially old Soviet-era equipment from Eastern Europe, and seamlessly sent to Ukraine. Second, as that older equipment was cannibalized, European militaries provided more modern systems — but this often left Ukraine with a panoply of disparate systems, creating inefficiencies and a major maintenance burden. + +Support for Ukraine has since entered a new, more expensive third phase, where equipment must either be procured from scratch or pulled from European militaries, which impacts force readiness. European states have been less willing to provide Ukraine with newer types of equipment that are in use by their own militaries. For instance, Poland may have provided its old Soviet fleets, but it has not been willing to hand over newly acquired systems. There is tension between support for Ukraine and meeting NATO defense planning goals: Former NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has told countries that they should prioritize Ukraine support, but defense ministries across Europe are inevitably resistant to give away expensive new equipment when their own militaries face shortfalls and uncertain budgetary futures. + +It is important to note that industrial production has increased in the United States and Europe, at times impressively so. Nonetheless, European militaries are depleting themselves, exemplified by Romania and Spain which have given away expensive Patriot missile systems. But a lack of large pools of funding has limited the expansion of defense production in critical areas and therefore countries’ willingness to divest. While defense firms are adding shifts and working to expand production, they are often hesitant to invest the capital needed to open additional factories, particularly without long-term contracts. Since defense companies essentially only sell to governments, they are worried that demand will fall off, either due to the war ending or European governments not increasing defense spending. Thus, unlike other commercial industries that invest speculatively to build capacity to try to meet rising demand, the defense sector insists on receiving funding up front. Because of the scale of investment needed to incentivize expanding production and the time that it will take for this to reach the battlefield (often years), policymakers have hesitated to devote the significant funding needed for large long-term contracts. Thus, decisions that should have been made and funding that should have been allocated to ramp up production one or two years ago, or even three months ago, have still not been made. In Europe, this time lag has fed into a sense of helplessness and an excuse not to find ways to finance the war. + +__Europe therefore needs to create a European Supplemental Fund.__ Europe has done a tremendous amount for Ukraine, providing $125 billion in total allocated aid with an additional $116 billion to be allocated. As part of this support, the military aid provided by EU member states and EU instruments total $46 billion. Yet European states are unable to meet Ukraine’s military needs, and Europe has failed to make the big structural changes needed to robustly support Ukraine and rebuild its military capacity over the long term. This is not just due to the need for funding but also due to the disparate and disorganized nature of European military spending and procurement. A common EU supplemental fund, estimated at a magnitude of €100 billion, is needed to make large joint procurement orders. + +Europe faces three big challenges in supporting Ukraine. First, it lacks robust and comprehensive military stockpiles after decades of underinvestment. Europe simply has less on hand to give to Ukraine than the United States does. Second, Europe’s defense industries, in large part due to scarce funding, lack production capacity. Third, Europeans operate a vast assortment of equipment, meaning European aid amounts to less than the sum of its parts in terms of impact. European militaries rarely coordinate their procurement with other European states; as a result, their militaries face challenges in interoperability. European militaries would likely struggle to fight together in any meaningful way, as the maintenance and logistical challenges of operating so many different systems create a significant military impediment. Europe has provided Ukraine with a vast array of divested equipment, all of which adds training, maintenance, and operational burdens on Ukrainians. + +These three challenges — limited stockpiles, a weak defense industrial base, and fragmented European militaries — are not just a problem for Ukraine but also for NATO and European security writ large. Aiding Ukraine presents an opportunity to revive the European defense industrial base and to streamline European militaries, but it will require moving beyond the current national approach to supporting Ukraine and rearming Europe. What is needed is a consolidation of the European support effort and a concerted defense industrial ramp up. + + +### How Europe Can Fund This Effort + +European rhetoric from political leaders, such as foreign and defense ministers, often emphasizes the importance of Ukraine. But the most critical European actors in this fight are the finance ministers, who have maintained a business-as-usual approach to the present environment, including putting back in place strict budget rules. Last year, the European Union agreed to reinstate its Stability and Growth Pact, which limits the deficit a country can run at 3 percent of GDP. This means a country like France, the second-largest economy in the European Union, will struggle to support Ukraine, as it has a deficit above 5 percent of GDP, debt exceeding 110 percent of GDP, and surging financing costs. + +The European economy has been hit hard by the energy crisis stoked by Russia’s invasion, which has significantly reduced European competitiveness through higher energy prices and undermined growth. European governments dealt with the crisis through emergency spending; coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic, much of Europe is left with a significant debt overhang. Thus, the solution of simply spending more is incredibly difficult for most European states (with the exception of Germany — see more below). + +Additionally, many European states have sought to support Ukraine out of their regular budgets, therefore creating hard tradeoffs, limiting the amount of funding, and building significant uncertainty about the sustainability of such funding. It is apparent that European member states lack the budgetary space, the financial and borrowing capacity, or the will to properly resource the Ukraine support effort. National governments have not mobilized the capital needed to dramatically ramp up production of the items most needed by Ukraine, while individual states have put in orders but often at lower quantities, lacking the scale to prompt a structural production shift. A common fund could address this problem, and Europe has practical options to generate the funding needed. + +- __Option 1: Issuing “Eurobonds.”__ This is the most straightforward and obvious mechanism to inject immediate and massive amounts of funding into the European defense sector. The European Union would simply borrow funding from capital markets. This would work in a proven and straightforward manner: The European Union would go to capital markets and issue bonds. The European Union has done this in the past when it borrowed in response to the pandemic for the NextGenerationEU recovery fund. EU debt receives a AAA credit rating, and the market has clamored for more EU debt, seeing it as a safe asset. This is something that the European Union is much better placed to do than NATO, both because it has done this before and because the European Union has a currency, the euro, which can be leveraged. + + EU debt payments would be serviced through the regular EU budget, amounting to a modest annual cost. In his high-profile report on EU economic competitiveness, former head of the European Central Bank and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has called for the European Union to create a safe asset to improve the functioning of European financial markets and improve the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. Moreover, the existence of wide and deep markets of EU debt could facilitate the international role of the euro. But servicing debt payments through the EU budget requires the issuance of large quantities of euro bonds that could be rolled over, just like the United States and other countries do on a regular basis. Therefore, issuing “Defense Eurobonds” could play an important role in stimulating Europe’s economy through additional investments. + + The arguments against taking this step include ideological concerns (including Germany’s philosophical opposition to debt), bureaucratic politics (fear of the European Union’s expansion), and negativity about the internal political obstacles within the European Union. Germany is presently the main obstacle to Eurobonds, rejecting the idea at a European Council meeting held this past June. Germans have generally seen EU spending or debt as not benefiting them, exemplified by NextGenerationEU, which was focused on Southern Europe. However, in this case, Germany (and its large defense firms) would potentially be the biggest beneficiary. For instance, as part of the European defence industry reinforcement through common procurement act (EDIRPA) fund, each of the five cross-border projects receiving €60 million in support will include significant participation by Northern European member states. Issuing Eurobonds for defense would be the opposite of NextGenerationEU: Southern Europeans would be contributing to German and Swedish defense firms, and therefore to jobs in Western and Northern Europe, where most of the production would occur. + + The European Union’s efforts to seize the profits of Russia’s frozen assets and leverage them into a loan, which has been negotiated through the G7, has been extraordinarily complicated. It would be much more straightforward if the European Union simply borrowed the funding itself and then used the profits of the frozen Russian assets to service the debt. Eurobonds is thus the easiest, most straightforward option for the European Union to generate significant funding for Ukraine. European states reluctant to do this by default are not prioritizing Ukraine; it is such an obvious option that opposition to it should call into question whether a country supports Ukraine. + +- __Option 2: Seizing Russia’s frozen assets.__ There are more than €200 billion in frozen Russian assets in European financial institutions. The European Union is currently seizing the profits that this money is generating to buy weapons for Ukraine and to support Ukraine’s defense industrial production; it could do something similar with the assets themselves. + + However, the European Central Bank, international legal experts, and economists are nervous about seizing these assets, highlighting the potential threat to the euro. Many experts believe that the legal basis for this kind of action is questionable and that emerging countries and investors could sell their euro-denominated bonds to avoid future expropriations, undermining the international role of the euro. + + The European Union’s reluctance to issue joint debt is backed by legitimate concerns among the fiscally hawkish EU member states. But if the European Union is unwilling to issue debt, it will be difficult to establish the euro as an actual reserve currency. While seizing frozen Russian assets seems like an entirely sensible option, it is legally and bureaucratically complex. Laws may have to be changed or amended for it to happen. But if the European Union refuses to borrow, it remains a sensible course. It could also be done in tandem with the issuing of Eurobonds, with these funds going to Ukraine. + +- __Option 3: Creating a common fund out of mostly national contributions.__ This is currently how the European Peace Facility has been funded, with EU member states contributing national funding proportionally into a common pot to incentivize and facilitate aid to Ukraine. This has been a huge success. But there is a growing challenge with member states, particularly Germany, which has become reluctant to contribute more funding, and Hungary, which has blocked aid to Ukraine. Other countries, including France, now face growing budget shortfalls. In summary, it is unlikely that European member states will be able or willing to contribute significantly more funding out of their national budgets unless the European Union makes budgetary exceptions to its Stability and Growth Pact. + + This option is also difficult because Germany is the biggest defender of a hawkish interpretation of the new fiscal rules. Moreover, with a common currency, fiscal rules on debt and deficits of member states make sense — just as how individual U.S. states must maintain a balanced budget while the federal government is allowed to operate a debt and deficit with a common currency. But in the European Union, the member states are restricted and there is no significant federal fiscal capacity or joint EU-level borrowing. Thus, if the European Union is not going to develop a centralized fiscal capacity, it needs to allow member states to spend more (i.e., decentralized fiscal capacities). That will not happen, as the new fiscal rules will be enforced with Germany’s support. + +- __Option 4: Germany pays.__ This option involves continuing to support Ukraine with loosely coordinated national aid. If this status quo remains, then it is incumbent on countries with fiscal capacity to provide dramatically more funding — primarily Germany along with the Netherlands and some Nordic countries. Berlin would likely protest, noting its already significant contributions amounting to €11 billion in military assistance, second only to the United States. While this is a significant amount, it does not bridge the gap or get Ukraine where it needs to be militarily. However, if Berlin continues to block the three other mechanisms to fund an expansion of Ukraine aid — all of which would require comparatively little from Germany financially (especially options 1 and 2) — then the last resort is that Germany will need to spend significantly more. Doing so would be difficult for Berlin, not fiscally but politically. Germany has a constitutionally enshrined debt brake, requiring a balanced budget. This was significantly hardened by a ruling of Germany’s constitutional court in 2023 restricting the use of off-budget funding vehicles. Berlin may be able to fund Ukraine aid as an emergency provision; if not, it would have to amend its constitution to remove the debt brake. + +In summary, the major obstacle to a dramatic ramp-up in European support for Ukraine is not fiscal or economic but political. There are ways to finance Ukraine and military spending. But the unwillingness of Germany to get serious about long-term funding for the war effort is a major obstacle. A change of approach in Berlin could unlock significant aid. U.S. and Ukrainian diplomatic efforts should be focused on pushing Berlin on this issue. This approach would relegate the delicate issue of whether Germany could supply Ukraine with long-range Taurus cruise missiles to a secondary topic. + + +### How to Implement a Common European Supplemental + +Should the European Union generate funding through borrowing or member state contributions, it would then have to take on the task of implementing the supplemental bill financing a Ukraine aid package. This will be challenging, as it would push the European Union into new territory when speed is of the essence. + +There is significant momentum in the European Union on defense, with the establishment of a new EU defense commissioner position taken up by former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius. The new commissioner’s portfolio should focus first on defense industrial production for Ukraine. In the last year, ideas have been discussed for a massive EU defense fund to support the rearmament of Europe. That is entirely sensible, but EU officials should focus first on the war at hand and ramping up the production needed for Ukraine. To implement the fund, the European Union should take the following into account. + +1. __Let Ukraine pick the systems and requirements it needs. In short, let Ukraine lead in doing the shopping.__ The European Union should essentially give Ukraine a menu of European procurement options, with systems and timelines. Ukraine, for instance, may decide it wants Swedish and Finnish vehicles, French artillery, and German tanks. Of course, Western military officers should be involved in advising. What Ukraine is asking for must make sense and be scalable; if a system cannot be ramped up at scale in any reasonable timeframe, then it is not ideal. The European Union, European defense firms, and member states should all have input. But Ukraine in the lead will reduce the political pressure on the European Union, with member states and companies lobbying it for contracts, as Ukraine will largely be driving the process. This method closely resembles how the U.S. security assistance system works. The execution of this fund should be closely coordinated with the United States and NATO to create a smart division of labor between efforts. For instance, if the United States can meet Ukraine’s need for a particular system, Europe can focus its efforts elsewhere. + + Furthermore, what Ukraine needs to fight the Russians is also what Europe should buy for itself to deter Moscow. There is far too much bureaucracy within European defense procurement, with all 27 EU countries setting different requirements and specializations when on balance what is largely needed are deep reserves of the same equipment that can be seamlessly employed by European militaries. + + The long-term contracts should be big enough to meet both Ukrainian and European demand. If the war ends with Ukraine rearmed, but there are still four years left on contracts, that production can be absorbed by European militaries or even stockpiled by the European Union or NATO. A major lesson of the war is that stockpiles of old gear are useful and have a deterrent value on their own. Ancient Soviet tanks, mocked by Western analysts at the beginning of the war, are currently killing Ukrainians. + +2. __The European Union will need to either build its own procurement capacity, use NATO or existing European multilateral procurement bodies like OCCAR, or leverage national agencies.__ Procurement requires significant staff to manage and execute contracts and the European Union will need to ramp up its capacity. But the goal should be speed: not to build the weapons of the future, but to ramp up existing production with slimmed-down requirements to get systems to the field fast. This means that the European Commission and the European Union will have to accept greater risk with procurement and move forward without running long, competitive procurement processes. In response to Covid-19, the European Commission was able to do something similar, procuring vaccines on behalf of the bloc. The process led to a nagging scandal about the uncompetitive nature of the procurement process. Transparency in procurement is important, yes; but in this case, there is a war on. In addition, the European Union should be ready to leverage the procurement capacities that are present within Europe, in particular NATO, the Organization for Joint Armaments Cooperation (OCCAR), or procurement offices within national ministries of defense. + +3. __Money will not solve all production problems, so Europe and Ukraine will need to procure from third parties.__ The West has discovered that its defense industrial base is not fit for purpose. This is true on both sides of the Atlantic, where a post–Cold War focus on expeditionary and counterterrorism operations meant Western industry moved away from a focus on building at the scale needed for conventional warfare toward building more exquisite, bespoke, high-end systems. For instance, a crucial challenge in ramping up armament production has been a shortage of gunpowder. Thus, some of the supply chain and production challenges will take considerable time to unknot. More funding is not necessarily the answer to everything — but without it, nothing will get solved. + + While the United States and Europe should keep scouring the global marketplace for weaponry, this should not be treated as a choice between ramping up production or buying from third parties. In the spring of 2024, there was a debate inside the European Union over whether to use funds to build up defense production internally, as advocated for by Estonia and France, or to buy from third parties, as advocated for by the Czech Republic. The answer, of course, is that the European Union should be doing both. Furthermore, the European Union and its member states are in some cases better placed than the United States to make these acquisitions, as some countries, particularly past purchasers of Soviet or Russian equipment, may be more willing to sell to European countries than to the United States. + +4. __Funds must be provided to ramp up Ukrainian production of long-range strike capacity.__ The European Union is currently supplying considerable funding through the frozen assets provided to the European Peace Facility to support Ukraine’s highly successful long-range strike capacity. This should be nourished and built up, as it represents a division of labor that avoids Western concerns about escalation. If the West remains reluctant to allow Ukraine to expand its strikes on Russian territory with its weapons, it should provide the resources and technology to make the Ukrainian deep-strike capability as potent and effective as possible. + +5. __EU member states and institutions should significantly scrutinize European defense companies.__ European leaders and parliaments should challenge defense companies and conduct significant oversight of their practices. There should be immense public scrutiny and pressure on these firms to produce more and to do so faster. The European Union should also not be exporting equipment that is urgently needed in Ukraine to other countries — those recipient countries can wait. + +6. __European defense ministries need to increase their willingness to give away more equipment to Ukraine for immediate aid.__ The European Peace Facility needs to operate at a different scale, as European countries need to start giving away modern weapons systems from their stocks. This process will negatively impact NATO readiness and therefore must be carefully managed so that the training of units does not deteriorate too much. In this sense, the European Union is essentially providing insurance to defense ministries that if they give away equipment, they will have the funding to replace it. In the United States, this method has been a key part of the success of supplemental funding, as it has enabled the president to take equipment from the U.S. military, through “Presidential Drawdown Authority,” while giving the Pentagon the funding to replace that equipment. + + +### What the United States Should Do + +While it has been asserted in Washington that support for Kyiv is a distraction from the pacing challenge of Beijing, it is to the contrary: A focus on ramping up support for Ukraine will position the United States and Europe to deal will all manner of threats. + +Take 155 mm ammunition production. At the start of the war, the United States was able to produce under 15,000 shells per month, but as a result of supplemental funding, it will reach production capacity of 100,000 shells per month in 2026. CSIS studies have shown that the United States faces a critical shortfall of precision-guided munitions. Ukraine support should therefore be leveraged to expand U.S. production capacity in essential areas for the U.S. military, such as air defense and long-range fires. + +Failure in Ukraine will have broader implications for the credibility of the United States as an alliance partner. It will also impact the Chinese understanding of U.S. willingness to stick by its partners. Arguments about U.S. credibility can be a slippery slope in justifying continuing with costly policies, but in this case, supporting Ukraine is one of the most cost-effective and mutually beneficial policies that the United States and Europe can undertake. First, Ukraine is grinding down the Russian military, and in so doing weakening the Russian state. Second, aid for Ukraine is spent on ramping up U.S. and European defense industrial production and therefore crucial to pivoting the defense industrial base from the high-end, small-scale “War on Terror” era to producing at scale for conventional war. Third, the money spent is spent domestically and therefore serves as a stimulus directly funding manufacturing jobs across the United States. + +Should the new Trump administration be skeptical or unwilling to request a similar supplemental funding package like the one Congress approved in April, the administration could pursue other options. + +1. __Request supplemental funding bill focused not on Ukraine, but on ramping up the defense industrial base to address global threats.__ The new Trump administration could seek funding to ramp up production and scale of precision-guided systems. The funding could seek to serve a dual purpose: escalate the production of items needed for Ukraine and for the U.S. military in general. In short, the goal is to identify the military equipment needed by Ukraine that is also relevant to the Indo-Pacific and general U.S. force readiness and to provide funding for that effort. + + For instance, air defense interceptors and systems are needed at scale, both in Ukraine and for the United States and its partners. This is also the case for HIMARS and ATACMS-type systems, as well as stand-off precision-guided munitions like JASSM and infantry fighting vehicles, which have proved critical for force protection. CSIS has identified stockpile and industrial-base production limitations as key challenges to deterring China in the Indo-Pacific. The supplemental funding would need to include language that authorizes the administration to provide the resulting weapons to Ukraine (as well as other partners) at its discretion, but not obligating them to do so. In other words, while this would not be a “Ukraine supplemental,” it could have a similar impact. + +2. __Authorize lend-lease for Ukraine in a new supplemental.__ At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Congress authorized the Biden administration to initiate a lend-lease program. This ultimately was not taken up by the administration and the authorization expired. The reason it was not executed is because, unlike in World War II, it was not needed. The United States now has a mature and sophisticated security assistance system at both the Department of State and, more recently, the Department of Defense. Lend-lease during World War II was initially used to work around Congress to provide military aid to the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, China, and other wartime allies — the United States was “lending” the equipment to be used in war, knowing it would never get that equipment back. However, recipients were expected to pay the United States back (which the United Kingdom eventually did, finishing payments during Tony Blair’s administration, more than half a century after the war). Converting U.S. military support to a loan would add to Ukraine’s future financial burden but could be a good alternative should the incoming Trump administration not want to pass a traditional supplemental. + +3. __Sell critical munitions and other materiel to Ukraine or Europe.__ In this option, Ukraine or European countries could buy equipment from the United States, such as the increased 155 mm production. This could be done through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales process, although European states intending to transfer those weapons to Ukraine would then need a third-party transfer approval from the State Department. For Europe, such a step might be considered a last resort, as like the United States, it would prefer using its taxpayer funds to build up its own defense industrial production. + + +### Transatlantic Efforts to Squeeze the Russian Economy + +It is often said that sanctions against Russia have not worked. But sanctions have increased inflation and imposed major costs on Russia. By some estimates, sanctions-induced discounts to the market price of oil deprived Russia of about 20 percent of the income it would have received otherwise. If Russia must acquire goods through third parties or use illicit networks or espionage to acquire Western technology, those added steps increase costs and create relatively brittle supply chains. Russian CEOs of defense companies are complaining about the rising costs of components, and there are signs that the Russian economy is beginning to suffer the effects of “stagflation” — stagnating economic growth and significant inflation. The West should attempt to take more aggressive, disruptive steps that serve to weaken Russia’s economy, deprive it of revenue, and deplete Russia’s war machine. + +1. __Aggressively sanction Russian energy, which will benefit the U.S. energy sector.__ The West has not significantly targeted Russia’s main source of revenue: its energy exports. There was significant concern in Europe over sanctioning Russian natural gas and in the United States over sanctioning Russian oil supplies. That reticence was driven by fears that removing Russian energy from the global market would spur even higher inflation. Russia stopped flowing gas to Western Europe through the Nord Stream pipelines, which later exploded. The end result was significant inflation and massive fiscal outlays (according to Bruegel, €650 billion was allocated across the European Union in response) to support affected consumers and industries. However, significant quantities of Russian natural gas have been stranded, and Russia lacks the technology to turn this resource into liquified natural gas. + + Oil products account for around half of Russia’s budget revenue. The softening of oil prices given slipping global demand and increasing production — particularly in the United States — combined with inflation coming back down to the target rate of central banks creates much more favorable economic conditions for a robust effort to sanction Russian oil. Furthermore, with the U.S. election out of the way and four years before the next, the political concerns of an energy spike are significantly less. Should oil prices spike, Gulf states could be encouraged to produce more to offset any price spikes or to lower global oil prices. + + The challenge is to hit Russian oil revenues without causing a spike in global oil prices such that the increase in oil prices offsets the budgetary impacts caused by decreased oil exports, making the effect of sanctions on Russia negligible. One option, suggested by U.S. sanctions expert Edward Fishman, is to put in place a similar kind of sanctions mechanism as the one used to target Iranian oil revenues under the Obama administration. Under this framework, purchasers of Iranian oil could only make payments to specially designated escrow accounts at banks in their home countries. Iran could only draw funds from these accounts to make purchases of humanitarian goods approved by the sanctioning authorities. If a bank holding these funds enabled unapproved purchases, it risked being taken offline from the international dollar system. This strategic use of secondary sanctions, if politically enforceable, could significantly lessen Russia’s ability to access oil revenues for its war effort, without spiking global prices. + + Another possible option, directed toward the oil price cap enforcement, is to limit the build-up of the shadow fleet exporting Russian oil above the price cap — for instance, by sanctioning more Sovcomflot tankers. Sovcomflot is Russia’s leading tanker group, and 14 of its tankers have already been sanctioned by the United States. The United Kingdom recently sanctioned 10 vessels previously operated by Sovcomflot that had since been reflagged. Designating the company’s remaining 100 tankers would significantly limit Russia’s ability to trade oil above the price cap and would have only a marginal impact on global oil prices. + + Russian foreign and military strength is directly tied to high global energy prices. The Soviets, for instance, pursued a very interventionist global military and foreign policy in the 1970s when energy prices were high. When prices tumbled in the 1980s and 1990s, Russia was forced to retrench. Putin’s efforts to conduct a more aggressive foreign policy have gone hand in hand with the increase in global oil prices. + +2. __Step up sanction enforcement, particularly on exports to the Eurasian Economic Union states.__ The European Union has put in place robust sanctions, but its capacity and efficacy in enforcing them is highly limited and contingent on the whims of member states. As Brookings expert Robin Brooks has highlighted, European exports to Eurasian Union states that are in a common market with Russia have skyrocketed. Additionally, exports to states like Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey have also increased The European Union and its member states should work to aggressively curtail exports to these states, particularly focusing on any advanced technology. + +3. __Pressure China over its support for Russia.__ Europe is currently not prioritizing the issue of China’s support for Russia’s defense industry. Instead, EU-Sino relations have centered around the issue of electric vehicle tariffs. That issue is important, but the European Union should be making clear to China that its continued support of the Russian defense industry will have significant costs to its bilateral diplomatic and economic relations. China does not want to lose access to the EU market and likely perceives itself as being below the redline that European officials set in the spring of 2023 when they pressed Beijing not to provide lethal support to Ukraine. U.S. officials have worked to elevate this issue to European leaders, including pushing for strong language in the NATO summit communique in July and on repeated trips to Europe. The European Union in the meantime should come up with a potential sanctions package to put in place should China not throttle its support for Russia’s defense production. The stakes will be high, but given the weakness in the Chinese economy, now is the time for the European Union to press. + + +### Conclusion + +A revived Western effort to finance Ukraine’s war effort will send a clear message to Russia of the West’s commitment. It may also help revitalize the West’s defense industrial production and leave U.S. and European security on firmer footing. This will be costly, but it is a cost that both the United States and Europe can easily manage. Furthermore, continued Western support should go hand in hand with a renewed effort to address its critical manpower shortages. + +The war and the world may be currently turning against Ukraine. But this is not a permanent condition. Russia is also suffering greatly, experiencing massive battlefield losses and economic strain. Europe, the United States, and Ukraine can turn the tide of the conflict back in Kyiv’s direction. Doing so is likely the only way to bring Russia to the negotiating table. + +--- + +__Max Bergmann__ is director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program and Stuart Center in Euro-Atlantic and Northern European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. From 234b43e4ab22358f1e1c3b94ee9eec09cdb5b0fa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2025 03:12:52 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 13/16] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x30 Jan.12 --- .../2024-12-11-updated-export-controls.md | 274 ++++++++++++++++++ ...2024-12-13-maritime-sanctions-taskforce.md | 91 ++++++ .../2024-12-16-wargaming-climate-change.md | 92 ++++++ 3 files changed, 457 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-updated-export-controls.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-maritime-sanctions-taskforce.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-wargaming-climate-change.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-updated-export-controls.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-updated-export-controls.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2342eef4 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-11-updated-export-controls.md @@ -0,0 +1,274 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Updated Export Controls +author: Gregory C. Allen +date : 2024-12-11 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/lNacFYV.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Understanding the Biden Administration’s Updated Export Controls" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_On December 2, 2024, the Biden administration updated the AI and semiconductor export controls._ _As with the first Trump administration—which made major changes to semiconductor export control policy during its final months in office—these late-term Biden export controls are a bombshell._ + +At a high level, the new controls take eight major actions: + +1. Expanding country-wide chip-level export controls to restrict High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a type of memory that is critical for AI applications; + +2. Updating the list of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) that is restricted on a country-wide basis to include additional equipment for producing HBM, DRAM, and advanced packaging; + +3. Updating the list of SME that is restricted on an end-use and end-user basis to include additional chokepoint technologies; + +4. Dramatically expanding the scope of applicability of the Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR) on exports of both chips and SME; + +5. Offering exemptions and incentives to reward countries such as Japan and the Netherlands that adopt domestic export controls aligned with U.S. policy and goals; + +6. Adding new red-flag guidance to require more stringent due diligence on the part of exporters; + +7. Adding 140 Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, and Singaporean entities to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)’s Entity List to address risk of diversion; and + +8. Creating a powerful new license exception category called Restricted Fabrication Facility (RFF) + +Each of these moves are broadly consistent with the three critical strategic rationales behind the October 2022 controls and their October 2023 update, which aim to: (1) choke off China’s access to the future of AI and high performance computing (HPC) by restricting China’s access to advanced AI chips; (2) prevent China from obtaining or domestically producing alternatives; and (3) mitigate the revenue and profitability impacts on U.S. industry by continuing to allow Chinese sales for less advanced (and therefore presumably less threatening) technologies. + +This report will summarize each of the above elements in turn, assess the extent to which they are likely to achieve U.S. strategic goals, and conclude with brief recommendations for improved U.S. and allied AI and semiconductor export control policy. + + +### Summarizing the Controls + +#### 1. Expanding country-wide chip-level export controls to restrict High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a type of memory that is critical for AI applications + +The October 2022 and October 2023 export controls restricted the export of advanced logic chips to train and operationally use (aka “inference”) AI models, such as the A100, H100, and Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) made by Nvidia. The terms GPUs and AI chips are used interchangeably throughout this this paper. The controls also restricted the export of U.S. SME to semiconductor production facilities (aka “fabs”) in China that were involved in the production of advanced chips, whether those were logic chips or memory chips. In contrast to the restrictions on exports of logic chips, however, neither the 2022 nor the 2023 controls restricted the export of advanced, AI-specific memory chips to China on a country-wide basis (some restrictions did occur via end-use and end-user controls but not at a strategically significant level). The focus on restricting logic rather than memory chip exports meant that Chinese firms were still able to acquire massive volumes of HBM, which is a type of memory that is critical for modern AI computing. + +The December 2024 controls change that by adopting for the first time country-wide restrictions on the export of advanced HBM to China as well as an end-use and end-user controls on the sale of even less advanced versions of HBM. The goal of these controls is, unsurprisingly, to degrade China’s AI industry. + +The key target of this ban would be companies in China that are currently designing advanced AI chips, such as Huawei with its Ascend 910B and 910C product lines, as well as the firms potentially capable of manufacturing such chips, which in China’s case is basically just the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). + +Modern AI chips not only require a lot of memory capacity but also an extraordinary amount of memory bandwidth. Bandwidth refers to the amount of data a computer’s memory can transfer to the processor (or other components) in a given amount of time. With low-bandwidth memory, the processing power of the AI chip often sits around doing nothing while it waits for the necessary data to be retrieved from (or stored in) memory and brought to the processor’s computing resources. + +In such cases, wasted time is wasted money, and training and operating advanced AI costs a lot of money. Each modern AI chip costs tens of thousands of dollars, so customers want to ensure that these chips are running with as close to 100 percent utilization as possible to maximize the return on investment. A state-of-the-art AI data center might have as many as 100,000 Nvidia GPUs inside and cost billions of dollars. AI industry leaders are openly discussing the next generation of AI data centers with a million or more GPUs inside, which will cost tens of billions of dollars. No company operating anywhere close to that scale can tolerate ultra-powerful GPUs that spend 90 percent of the time doing nothing while they wait for low-bandwidth memory to feed the processor. + +HBM, and the rapid data access it enables, has been an integral part of the AI story almost since the HBM’s commercial introduction in 2015. More recently, HBM has been integrated directly into GPUs for AI applications by taking advantage of advanced packaging technologies such as Chip on Wafer on Substrate (CoWoS), that further optimize connectivity between AI processors and HBM. + +HBM integrated with an AI accelerator using CoWoS technology is today the basic blueprint for all advanced AI chips. In other words, the purchasers of AI chip products are—by default—also purchasing HBM. This is most obvious in the production costs: Dylan Patel, CEO of Semianalysis, has estimated that roughly half of the manufacturing cost of an Nvidia AI chip is actually its HBM. For the same reason, any company seeking to design, manufacture, and sell an advanced AI chip needs a supply of HBM. + +This is where the new export controls come in. + +Successfully cutting off China from access to HBM would be a devastating blow to the country’s AI ambitions. So, how do the new export controls propose to do that? + +The new export controls prohibit selling advanced HBM to any customer in China or to any customer worldwide that is owned by a company headquartered in China. The same restrictions apply to all 24 countries on the Commerce Department’s D:5 county group (including Iran, Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela), as well as Chinese-controlled Macau. As with earlier controls, the true mechanism of this “prohibition” is requiring an export license and stating that the U.S. government’s policy is to review any such license application with a “presumption of denial.” + +The global market for HBM is dominated by just three companies: SK Hynix and Samsung of South Korea and Micron of the United States. Just like Nvidia and everyone else, Huawei currently gets its HBM from these firms, most notably Samsung. + +To ensure that SK Hynix’s and Samsung’s exports to China are restricted, and not just those of Micron, the United States applies the foreign direct product rule based on the fact that Samsung and SK Hynix manufacture their HBM (indeed, all of their chips) using U.S. SME. + +As mentioned above, sales of advanced HBM to all D:5 countries (which includes China) are restricted on a country-wide basis, while sales of less advanced HBM are restricted on an end-use and end-user basis. The ban also extends worldwide for any firms that are headquartered in a D:5 country. This means that, for example, a Chinese tech firm such as Huawei cannot legally buy advanced HBM in China for use in AI chip production, and it also cannot buy advanced HBM in Vietnam through its local subsidiaries. The October 2023 restrictions had already implemented the same logic for sales restrictions on AI logic chips. + +By contrast, the updated regulations allow older, lower-performing versions of HBM to continue sales to China with some especially tight end-use and end-user restrictions. For example, the less advanced HBM must be sold directly to the end user (i.e., not to a distributor), and the end user cannot be using the HBM for AI applications or incorporating them to produce AI chips, such as Huawei’s Ascend product line. + +The definition for determining what is advanced HBM rather than less advanced HBM relies upon a new metric called “memory bandwidth density,” which the regulations define as “the memory bandwidth measured in gigabytes (GB) per second divided by the area of the package or stack measured in square millimeters.” The technical threshold where country-wide controls kick in for HBM is memory bandwidth density greater than 3.3 GB per second per square mm. According to analysis by Timothy Prickett Morgan, co-editor of the site The Next Platform, this means that exports to China of HBM2, which was first introduced in 2016, will be allowed (with end-use and end-user restrictions), while sales of anything more advanced (e.g., HBM2e, HBM3, HBM3e, HBM4) will be prohibited. The Nvidia V100 chip, introduced in 2017, was the first to use HBM2. Government officials confirmed to CSIS that allowing HBM2 exports to China with strict end-use and end-user checks is their intention. + +#### 2. Updating the list of advanced SME that is restricted on a country-wide basis to include additional equipment for producing HBM, DRAM, and advanced packaging + +As the Biden administration demonstrated an awareness of in 2022, there is little point in restricting the sales of chips to China if China is still able to purchase the chipmaking equipment to make those chips itself. + +For the advanced SME technologies where export control restrictions apply on a country-wide basis (e.g., ECCNs 3B001, 3B002, 3D992, 3E992), the government has added new categories of restricted equipment. Recounting the full list is beyond the scope of this paper. However, one noteworthy new category is the equipment related to creating Through-Silicon Vias (TSVs). Like CoWoS, TSVs are a type of advanced packaging, one that is specifically fundamental to the production of HBM. These country-wide controls apply only to what the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has identified as advanced TSV machines that are more useful for advanced-node HBM production. BIS is attempting to continue to allow sales of TSV equipment that is used in legacy chip production. + +#### 3. Updating the list of SME that is restricted on an end-use and end-user basis to include additional chokepoint technologies. + +The original October 7 export controls as well as subsequent updates have included a basic architecture for restrictions on the export of SME: to restrict technologies that are exclusively useful for manufacturing advanced semiconductors (which this paper refers to as “advanced node equipment”) on a country-wide basis, while also restricting a much larger set of equipment—including equipment that is useful for producing both legacy-node chips and advanced-node chips—on an end-user and end-use basis. This paper refers to these categories of equipment as “node-agnostic equipment.” + +The updated export controls preserve this architecture and expand the list of node-agnostic equipment that was controlled to include additional chokepoint equipment technologies such as more types of ion implantation, in addition to the long list of existing restrictions on metrology and other equipment categories. This node-agnostic equipment is captured in ECCNs 3B993, the new 3B994, and some others. Most of these expanded listings of node-agnostic equipment impact the entity listings that target end users, since the end-use restrictions targeting advanced-node semiconductor production often restrict exporting all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). + +The regulations explicitly state that the goal of many of these newly restricted types of equipment is to increase the difficulty of using multipatterning. Multipatterning is a technique that allows immersion DUV lithography systems to produce more advanced node chips than would otherwise be possible. Lacking access to EUV, DUV with multipatterning has been critical to SMIC’s production of 7 nm node chips, including AI chips for Huawei. Government officials told CSIS that this will be most impactful when implemented by U.S. allies. + +#### 4. Dramatically expanding the scope of applicability of Foreign Direct Product Rules (FDPRs) on exports of both chips and SME + +In her December 7, 2024, remarks at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo emphasized how foreign availability concerns weighed heavily on the Department of Commerce’s mind: “When I set the rules, I have to make damn sure China can’t just buy this stuff from Japan or Korea or the Europeans, so that’s why we have to work with them.” + +Interestingly, while Raimondo emphasized the need to work with allies on export controls, there were two major new components of the controls that represented an expansion of U.S. unilateral authority. This took the form of two new FDPRs and updated de minimis provisions for those two rules. + +The nature of the new rule is a bit complex, but it is best understood in terms of how it differs from two of the more familiar approaches to the product rule. + +The first traditional approach to the FDPR relates to how U.S. products that are foreign-modified are generally still subject to U.S. export controls. An extreme (and hypothetical) example would be if the United States sold a product—say, a missile—to a U.S.-allowed country and then that country painted their flag on the missile and shipped it to a U.S.-restricted country without receiving a U.S. export license. The use of the FDPR reflects the fact that, even though the country has modified the product by painting their flag on it, it is still fundamentally a U.S. product for which U.S. export controls apply. A less extreme version of this would be if the U.S. exports a rocket engine to a foreign country, which then incorporates the engine into a missile that is exported to a restricted country. In such a case, the intermediary country is locally producing more of the content (i.e., everything other than the rocket engine) of the final exported good, but U.S. rocket engine content is still substantial enough that U.S. export controls apply. This “share of U.S. content” issue is addressed through de minimis standards, which in most cases is 25 percent of the final value of the product but in some cases applies if there is any U.S. content included at all. + +The second approach, one that has featured prominently in semiconductor export controls, relates to controls on uses of exported U.S. manufacturing equipment. For example, in 2020, the first Trump administration restricted the chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) from manufacturing chips designed by Huawei because TSMC’s manufacturing process heavily relied upon using U.S. equipment. + +The new SME FDPR and Entity List FDPR for Footnote 5 entities take the logic underpinning the second approach and extend it further. In this case, any piece of SME that includes inside it a semiconductor chip that was made using U.S. SME is potentially subject to U.S. export controls. + +As a scoping paragraph in the new regulations puts it, if a foreign-produced item “contains at least one integrated circuit, then there is a Red Flag that the foreign-produced item meets the product scope of the applicable FDP rule. The exporter, reexporter, or transferor must resolve this Red Flag before proceeding.” + +This is a remarkable expansion of U.S. FDPR applicability. It could conceivably be used to control all of the SME made by any company on Earth. Even a tool built by a Chinese firm using entirely chips made in China would—at least in 2024—invariably be using chips made using U.S. equipment. + +The SME FDPR is primarily focused on ensuring that the advanced-node tools are captured and restricted from the whole of China, while the Footnote 5 FDPR applies to a far more expansive list of equipment that is restricted to certain Chinese fabs and companies. In cases where the Footnote 5 FDPR is applied to an entity listing, the license requirements for the entity listing supersede and replace any license requirements created by the end-use controls. + +The United States is not, however, expecting to successfully enforce compliance with the new rule by Chinese firms operating in China. As Secretary Raimondo recently pointed out, Huawei has repeatedly flaunted their willingness to mass-produce products that openly defy U.S. export controls. The real impact of this rule will be its impacts on the behavior of U.S. companies and foreign companies headquartered in U.S.-allied countries. These are firms that face significant legal and financial risk if caught defying U.S. export controls. + +As a previous CSIS report has pointed out, U.S. SME firms have dramatically expanded their manufacturing operations outside of the United States over the past five years in an effort to continue shipping equipment to China without violating the letter of U.S. export control law. This new approach ends all debate about the applicability of U.S. export controls in the case of, for example, a U.S. equipment firm manufacturing SME in Malaysia and then selling it to a Malaysian distributor that sells it to China. Export controls unambiguously apply since there is no credible case for saying that the item lacks sufficient U.S. content to be subject to U.S. export controls. + +For the same reason, this expanded FDPR will also apply to exports of equipment made by foreign-headquartered companies, such as ASML of the Netherlands, Tokyo Electron of Japan, and SEMES of South Korea. However, there is an important carve out here. The new rules do not apply if the item is “reexported or exported from abroad by an entity located in a country that has implemented equivalent controls for items specified. . . . For the purposes of this paragraph, equivalent means the item is listed on the country’s export control list and the country applies the same license review policy.” + +What this means in practice is that the expanded FDPR will restrict a Japanese, Dutch, or other firm’s sales from outside their home countries, but they will not restrict those companies’ exports from their home markets as long as their home market is applying export controls equivalent to those of the United States. Importantly, however, South Korean SME will be restricted by the FDPR even for sales from South Korea, with a possible future exemption if the country institutes equivalent controls. + +These new FDPR rules will cover advanced etching and deposition SME, as well as lithography tools—both extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and advanced deep ultraviolet (DUV). Regarding DUV machines, government sources told CSIS that the performance thresholds would restrict machines at or above the performance of the Twinscan NXT 2000i, meaning that not all argon fluoride immersion DUV tools will be restricted. Where the SME FDPR applies, all of the above-mentioned advanced tools will be restricted on a country-wide basis from being exported to China and other D:5 countries. Where the Footnote 5 FDPR applies, a much longer list of equipment will be restricted to certain entities. + +#### 5. Offering exemptions and incentives to reward countries such as Japan and the Netherlands that adopt domestic export controls aligned with U.S. policy and goals + +While other countries often complain about the application of U.S. “extraterritorial” legal authority, in this case they have at least some reason to be grateful. In the same way that the new U.S. FDPR reduces the incentive for U.S. firms to outsource manufacturing away from the United States, it also reduces the incentive for Dutch and Japanese firms to outsource manufacturing outside of their home countries. In early 2024, ASML was threatening to relocate outside of the Netherlands. Now, it is clear that U.S. export controls will follow ASML, and other foreign firms wherever they go, reducing the incentive to leave. + +A partial caveat comes in the form of Supplement No. 4 to Part 742, which includes a list of 33 countries “excluded from certain semiconductor manufacturing equipment license restrictions.” It includes most EU countries as well as Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, and a few others. + +It notably does not include South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, or Israel, all of which are countries that play important roles in the global SME industry. South Korea, for example, is a significant backfill concern in certain categories of deposition tools. None of these countries have adopted equivalent export controls, and so now their exports of SME are fully subject to the revised U.S. FDPR. + +Government officials told CSIS that this exemption offers an incentive for the South Korean government to join the trilateral agreement between the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands. However, it is possible that the South Korean government might instead be comfortable merely being subject to the FDPR and thereby lessening the perceived risk of Chinese retaliation. + +#### 6. Adding new red-flag guidance to require more stringent due diligence on the part of exporters + +BIS has only a few hundred employees responsible for overseeing trillions of dollars of exports. Unsurprisingly, therefore, much of the effectiveness of their work depends upon shaping the internal compliance procedures of exporting companies. There is evidence in the updated controls that the U.S. government is frustrated with how firms have enforced such controls. This is especially true for the end-use controls on advanced semiconductor manufacturing. + +The original October 2022 export controls included end-use restrictions for semiconductor fabs in China producing advanced-node logic and memory semiconductors. In fact, these were the strictest controls in the entire October 7 package because they legally prevented U.S. firms from knowingly exporting almost any goods or services to customers engaged in a restricted end use. Even though they were the strictest, they were not necessarily the most effective. Industry sources also told CSIS that SMIC, Huawei, Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation (YMTC), and other Chinese firms successfully set up a network of shell companies and partner firms in China through which the companies have been able to continue acquiring U.S. equipment and components by deceiving U.S. exporters. + +Some, such as analysts at the firm SemiAnalysis, have argued that additional tools were wrongly sold to Chinese firms who falsely claimed that the purchased equipment was not being used for advanced-node production. Their provocative claims are worth quoting at length: + +> The equipment companies such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, Tokyo Electron, KLA, Screen, ASM International, Kokusai, etc. are selling basically every tool they offer to China. This is because most deposition, etch, metrology, cleaning, coaters, developers, ion implant, epitaxy, etc. tools for 7nm and even 5nm can also plausibly be used in 28nm. These tools are being sold to SMIC for “28nm,” but, in reality, SMIC is lying to the firms’ faces and using them for 7nm. + +> While SMIC is expanding 28nm and other trailing edge nodes, it is much less than they claim as these tools are being rerouted to leading edge. It’s even possible that people within these equipment firms know what’s happening, but are turning a blind eye. + +The U.S. government evidently gives these claims some credence because it added significant new due diligence requirements, including eight new red flags against which firms must assess every customer and transaction before proceeding. This includes things like “a scenario where a non-advanced fabrication facility orders equipment designed for ‘advanced-node IC’ production” or “a scenario where an exporter, reexporter, or transferor receives an order for which the ultimate owner or user of the items is uncertain, such as a request to ship equipment for the ‘development’ or ‘production’ of ICs to a distributor without a manufacturing operation.” + +The export controls only apply when an exporter knowingly exports in violation of the regulations. These controls, if sincerely implemented, will certainly make it harder for an exporter to fail to know that their actions are in violation of the controls. On the one hand, it is encouraging to see that the Commerce Department has included these things in the mandatory due diligence review. On the other hand, it is disheartening that it took the department two years to do so. + +#### 7. Adding 140 Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, and Singaporean entities to the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)’s Entity List to address risk of diversion + +An additional move that reveals the U.S. government’s frustration with the implementation thus far of the controls comes from the updates to the U.S. Entity List. The 140 new entities added are restricted because they represent a “risk of diversion to entities of concern,” such as Huawei and SMIC, or because they are known to be engaging in prohibited activities. The additional entities include Chinese “tool manufacturers, semiconductor fabs, and investment companies involved in advancing the [Chinese] government’s military modernization.” Most of these new Entity List additions are Chinese SME companies and their subsidiaries. + +The first question raised by the expanded Entity List is, why was it necessary? Theoretically, most of the concerning activities that these entities are engaging in ought to have been covered by the end-use controls specified in the October 2022 and October 2023 versions of the export controls. However, U.S. allies have yet to impose comparable controls on selling equipment components to Chinese SME companies, and this massively increases the risk of indigenization. + +There are two major reasons for the renewed focus on entity listings. First, at least for those instances where the Department of Commerce feels confident that prior approvals of licenses ought to have been restricted on an end-use basis, this move removes all doubt. Second, this expanded list will be helpful to U.S. allies such as the Netherlands and Japan, who have fewer staff and resources to devote to export controls. To the extent that the United States was concerned about those country’s ability to effectively assess license applications for end-use issues, the Entity List gives a much clearer and easier-to-implement set of guidance. Third, as mentioned above, these additional entity listings address the significant gap in allied controls on selling components to Chinese equipment companies. + +#### 8. Creating a powerful new license exception category called Restricted Fabrication Facility (RFF) + +The creation of the RFF license exemption is a major action of the controls. However, the discussion of this action takes place in Section 4 of the below implications chapter. + + +### Strategic Impact of the U.S. Export Control Strategy to Date + +Before diving into the updated controls, it is worth taking stock of the impact of the controls that were already in place. + +Fierce debate continues in the United States and abroad regarding the true impact of the Biden and first Trump administrations’ approach to AI and semiconductor export controls. In 2023, Chinese state-run media argued, for example, that Huawei’s return to production of a high-performing 5G smartphone with a SMIC-manufactured 7 nm application processor and modem demonstrated that U.S. export controls have failed. More recently, the increasing competitiveness of China’s AI models—which are approaching the global state of the art—has been cited as evidence that the export controls strategy has failed. + +The truth is that there have been many failures across both the Biden administration and first Trump administration in implementing AI and semiconductor export controls. + +At the same time, however, the controls have clearly had an impact. The most obvious impacts are in SMIC’s struggles to mass-produce 7 nm chips or to move to the more advanced 5 nm node. + +However, SMIC was already producing and selling 7 nm chips no later than July 2022 and potentially as early as July 2021, despite having no EUV machines. The Biden administration’s export controls failed to shut down the advanced-node production of SMIC and other Chinese logic chip manufacturers, as BIS undersecretary Alan Estevez claimed it would, but the controls have dramatically constrained SMIC’s ability to scale up 7 nm production. SMIC had at one point expected to be producing hundreds of thousands of 7 nm wafers per month, but it remains stuck in the low tens of thousands. + +But the point of restricting SMIC and other Chinese chip manufacturers was to prevent them from producing chips to advance China’s AI industry. Semiconductor export controls are the means; AI is the end. So, have the controls meaningfully held back China’s progress in AI? + +The answer, at least according to the leading Chinese AI companies and universities, is unambiguously “yes.” The Chinese company Deepseek has recently advanced to be generally regarded as China’s leading frontier AI model developer. Liang Wenfeng, Deepseek’s CEO, recently said in an interview that “Money has never been the problem for us; bans on shipments of advanced chips are the problem.” Jack Clark, a co-founder of the U.S. AI company Anthropic, that “The only thing standing between DeepSeek (probably China’s best AI training crew on a per capita basis) and matching the frontier labs in the West is access to compute.” + +To be clear, the strategic impacts of these controls would have been far greater if the original export controls had correctly targeted AI chip performance thresholds, targeted smuggling operations more aggressively and effectively, put a stop to TSMC’s AI chip production for Huawei shell companies earlier. It would also have helped if identified export control loopholes had been closed in a timely fashion, rather than allowing China months and years of time to stockpile (discussed below). But the fact that the export controls have not had all of their intended effects is not the same thing as the export controls having failed. They have had strategic impacts—with admitted costs to U.S. industry—but the greatest potential impacts are actually ahead. + +China may be stuck at low-yield, low-volume 7 nm and 5 nm manufacturing without EUV for many more years and be left behind as the compute-intensiveness (and therefore chip demand) of frontier AI is set to increase another tenfold in just the next year. Elon Musk’s xAI, for example, is hoping to increase the number of GPUs in its flagship Colossus supercomputing facility from 100,000 GPUs to more than 1,000,000 GPUs. While the smuggling of Nvidia AI chips thus far is significant and troubling, no reporting (at least thus far) suggests it is anywhere near the scale required to remain competitive for the next upgrade cycles of frontier AI data centers. + + +### Implications of the New Export Controls + +Like their predecessor updates, these controls are incredibly complicated. Teasing out their full impacts will take significant time. However, at this stage it is possible to identify a few important implications: + +#### 1. While these updated export controls represent a tightening of restrictions in most cases, the delayed implementation will significantly hurt their effectiveness. + +The first tactic that China has resorted to in the face of export controls has repeatedly been stockpiling. Huawei acquired a multiyear stockpile of critical U.S. chips in advance of the tightened Entity List export controls that the United States applied in 2020. + +The impact of these most recent export controls will be significantly reduced because of the delay between when U.S. intentions became clear and when the regulations actually take effect. Chinese chipmakers acquired a huge stockpile of SME between the October 2022 controls and these most recent export controls. In the case of HBM, Reuters reported that future U.S. export controls were likely to target HBM in late July 2024 and that massive Chinese stockpiling efforts had already begun by early August 2024. Similarly, CXMT reportedly began acquiring the equipment necessary to domestically produce HBM in February 2024, shortly after American commentators suggested that HBM and advanced packaging equipment was a logical next target. + +This is one of the greatest weaknesses in the U.S. approach to export controls. The United States and its allies have demonstrated the ability to update strategic semiconductor export controls once per year. By contrast, Chinese countermeasures, both legal and illegal, are far faster in their response, willing to make bold and expensive bets on short notice. Allowing China to stockpile limits the damage to U.S. sellers and their Chinese customers, but it does so at the cost of making China’s path to indigenization—the greatest long-term threat—easier and less painful and making it more difficult for non-Chinese customers of U.S. chips and equipment to effectively compete. + +#### 2. These latest export controls both help and hurt Nvidia, but China’s anti-monopoly investigation is likely the more important outcome. + +Nvidia has consistently opposed the Biden adminsitration’s approach to AI and semiconductor export controls. Tim Teter, Nvidia’s general counsel, said in an interview last year with the New York Times that, “What you risk is spurring the development of an ecosystem that’s led by competitors. And that can have a very negative effect on the U.S. leadership in semiconductors, advanced technology and A.I.” + +Nvidia would no doubt prefer that the Biden and Trump administrations abandon the current approach to semiconductor export controls. This is doubly true given the Chinese government’s announcement—only one week after the release of the updated export controls—that it is investigating Nvidia for “suspected violations of Chinese anti-monopoly laws.” The move is a thinly veiled Chinese retaliation for its frustration with U.S. export controls. China has long used its anti-trust regime as a tool for targeted retaliation against the U.S. and allied semiconductor industry. Previously, China’s efforts were mostly focused on preventing mergers—such as Intel’s attempted acquisition of Tower. Multiple foreign government officials told CSIS in interviews that Chinese diplomats privately acknowledged to them that these efforts are retaliation for U.S. export controls and not based on the merits of the accusations. + +Nevertheless, there are some elements of the new export control package that actually help Nvidia by hurting its Chinese competitors, most directly the new HBM restrictions and the early November 2024 order for TSMC to halt all shipments to China of chips used in AI applications. + +Nvidia GPUs are expected to use HBM3e for their upcoming product launches. Nvidia’s H20 chip, a lower-performing product that was designed to comply with the October 2023 export controls, currently uses HBM3. Nvidia will not, however, have to be redesigned to use HBM2 to continue selling to Chinese customers. The regulations state that “this control does include HBM permanently affixed to a logic integrated circuit designed as a control interface and incorporating a physical layer (PHY) function.” Since the HBM in the H20 product is “permanently affixed,” the export controls that apply are the technical performance thresholds for Total Processing Performance (TPP) and performance density. These were not changed from the standards in the October 2023 controls, and thus Nvidia is still allowed to legally export its H20 chips to China. + +Some, such as Ege Erdill of Epoch AI, have argued that the H20’s price per performance is significantly below that of chips such as the H200 for frontier AI model training, but not frontier AI model inference. Accordingly, Erdill recommends that exports of the H20 to China be prohibited in a future controls update. + +Nvidia at one point told investors that it expected to sell more than one million H20s to China in 2024 and earn $12 billion in revenue. However, Nvidia reportedly stopped taking new orders for H20 in August, while more Chinese AI and hyperscale cloud companies—such as ByteDance, Baidu, Tencent, iFlytek, SenseTime, and Alibaba—were either seeking to increase purchases of Huawei’s Ascend line of AI chips or designing their own chips. Around the same time, the Chinese government reportedly instructed Chinese companies to reduce their purchases of Nvidia products. + +Nvidia’s two fears have generally been loss of market share in China and the rise of Chinese competitors that might one day become competitive outside of China. The slowing sales of H20s appeared to suggest that local competitors were becoming more attractive than Nvidia’s degraded chips for the Chinese market. The news that TSMC was mass-producing AI chips on behalf of Huawei reveals that Nvidia was not fighting against China’s chip industry but rather the combined efforts of China (Huawei’s Ascend 910B and 910C chip designs), Taiwan (Ascend chip manufacturing and CoWoS advanced packaging), and South Korea (HBM chip manufacturing). This is a vastly more difficult challenge than taking on China alone. + +Huawei will now be limited to the logic chips that its domestic logic chip manufacturing partner, SMIC, can produce, as well as either legally acquired HBM2 or smuggled supplies of HBM3e. Preventing large-scale HBM chip smuggling will likely be difficult. However, customers who are comfortable buying low-performance Huawei chips with smuggled HBM may conclude that it is better to buy smuggled high-performance Nvidia chips. + +Smuggling of advanced Nvidia chips has reached significant scale. Reporting by tech news site The Information found at least eight Chinese AI chip-smuggling networks, with each engaging in transactions valued at more than $100 million. Reporting by the New York Times provides additional evidence about the rise of wide-scale AI chip smuggling after the October 2023 export control update. The growing scale and sophistication of smuggling networks may be part of the reason why the H20 became less popular in the summer of 2024. + +While industry and government officials told CSIS that Nvidia has taken steps to reduce the probability of smuggling, no one has yet described a credible mechanism for AI chip smuggling that does not result in the seller getting paid full price. All existing smuggling techniques that have been described in reporting occur after an AI chip company has already sold the chips. This means that a company’s only financial incentive to prevent smuggling comes from the risk of government fines. The largest administrative penalty in the history of BIS was $300 million. By contrast, the AI chip market in China is tens of billions of dollars annually, with very high profit margins. + +Of note, Nvidia’s reported revenue from Singapore exploded in the wake of the U.S. export controls, from less than $1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022 to nearly $8 billion in the third quarter of 2024 alone. It is unclear whether Singapore even has enough excess electrical generation capacity to operate all of the purchased chips, which could be evidence of smuggling activity. + +Because Nvidia’s Chinese competitors are cut off from foreign HBM but Nvidia’s H20 chip is not, Nvidia is likely to have a significant performance advantage for the foreseeable future. However, this will likely not matter as much as the results of China’s anti-monopoly investigation. As the investigation moves forward, Nvidia may face a very difficult choice of having to pay massive fines, divest part of its business, or exit the Chinese market entirely. Each of these would likely be enormously costly. Though China has sought to increase the extraterritorial reach of its regulations, the most that China can likely do is halt all of Nvidia’s legal sales in China, which it has already been seeking to do. The episode might be a repeat of the Russian government fining Google $20 decillion, which is more than the combined wealth of the entire world. In reality, the true cost was that of forcing Google to close all of its local subsidiaries and exit the Russian market. Some in the United States may hope for a different outcome, such as a negotiated agreement in which the United States removes AI chip export controls in exchange for China ending its anti-monopoly investigation of Nvidia, but this is exceedingly unlikely. + +#### 3. The absence of CXMT from the Entity List raises real risk of a strong domestic Chinese HBM champion. + +As mentioned above, there is little strategic rationale in the United States banning the export of HBM to China if it is going to continue selling the SME that local Chinese companies can use to produce advanced HBM. One could argue that the U.S. government has done that by adding TSV-relevant SME technology to the country-wide list of export controls and by the prior end-use restrictions that restrict the sale of almost all items subject to the EAR. + +However, there is a big gap in the additions to the Entity List: China’s strongest domestic producer of DRAM memory and one of only two Chinese firms with a credible path to producing advanced HBM—CXMT—is not on the Entity List. + +While the addition of some TSV SME technology to the country-wide export controls will pose a challenge to CXMT, the firm has been quite open about its plans to begin mass production of HBM2, and some reports have suggested that the company has already begun doing so with the equipment that it began purchasing in early 2024. The United States cannot effectively take back the equipment that it and its allies have already sold, equipment for which Chinese firms are no doubt already engaged in a full-blown reverse engineering effort. + +CXMT will be limited by China’s inability to acquire EUV lithography technology for the foreseeable future, but this is not as decisive a blow in memory chip manufacturing as it is in logic. Micron, the leading U.S. memory chip provider, does not plan to begin to use EUV until 2025, and yet Micron remains quite competitive in most memory chip market segments. + +This begs the question: Why was CXMT not included in the Entity List update? The answer is quite simple. As an article from Tom’s Hardware, an influential semiconductor industry news outlet, reported: + +> Chinese DRAM makers Changxin Memory (CXMT) and Fujian Jinhua are aggressively expanding production and cutting prices, reports DigiTimes. Right now, the two manufacturers sell their DDR4 components with a 50% discount compared to similar ICs made by South Korean makers and in some cases, these DRAMs are even cheaper than reballed (recycled/re-used) memory chips. + +> CXMT’s production capacity has surged from 70,000 wafers per month (WPM) in 2022 to 200,000 WPM in 2024, the report says. The company aims to increase its output to 300,000 wafers per month and capture 11% of the global DRAM market in the coming years. Fujian Jinhua, despite being sanctioned by the U.S. government, has also managed to ramp up its DDR4 production. + +In short, CXMT is embarking upon an explosive memory product capacity expansion, one that might see its global market share increase more than ten-fold compared with its 1 percent DRAM market share in 2023. That massive capacity expansion translates directly into massive purchases of SME, and one that the SME industry found too attractive to turn down. According to an unconfirmed report from DigiTimes Asia, citing sources in China’s semiconductor supply chain, the Japanese government argued forcefully that the United States must not include CXMT on the Entity List. It is possible that Japan said that it would continue approving export licenses for its firms to sell to CXMT even if the U.S. government included a strong entity listing. + +If CXMT was acquiring equipment that was exclusively useful for legacy memory production, such as DDR4, this might not be especially concerning. However, the Chinese equipment firms are growing in capability and sophistication, and the massive procurement of foreign equipment dramatically reduces the number of jigsaw pieces that they must domestically acquire in order to solve the overall puzzle of domestic, high-volume HBM production. Meanwhile, their growing market share in legacy DRAM from the capacity expansion—heavily supported by massive Chinese government subsidies for companies that purchase domestically produced DRAM—will allow them to gain operational experience and scale that they can devote to the HBM technology once local Chinese equipment suppliers master TSV technology. Multiple industry sources told CSIS that Chinese firms are making greater progress in etching and deposition equipment, the primary basis of TSV technology, than they are in lithography. + +#### 4. The license exemption category created and applied to Chinese memory firm XMC raises even greater risk of giving rise to domestic Chinese HBM production. + +XMC is a subsidiary of the Chinese firm YMTC, which has long been China’s top firm for producing NAND (aka “flash” memory), a different kind of memory chip. At one point, Apple was planning to purchase YMTC’s NAND memory for use in iPhones. However, in December 2022, the United States applied an exceptionally broad Entity List restriction upon YMTC. One of the critical reasons for this justification was that YMTC had been, for years, deeply engaged in efforts to support Chinese development of alternatives to U.S. SME, meaning that U.S. government officials thought that it made sense to apply the export control strategic mindset that the United States had applied to Chinese equipment makers, even though YMTC was first and foremost a chipmaker. Today, YMTC is reportedly one of the key members of the Huawei-led semiconductor network, with XMC being Huawei’s primary partner for HBM manufacturing. SMIC, and two leading Chinese semiconductor equipment companies, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) and Naura are reportedly the others. Huawei is effectively the leader of the Chinese government–backed semiconductor team, with a privileged position to influence semiconductor policymaking. + +Industry sources told CSIS that—despite the broad December 2022 entity listing—the YMTC network was still able to acquire most U.S. equipment by routing purchases through shell companies, with XMC arguably the most important example. + +The Commerce Department is clearly aware of the risk posed by XMC, having published the following about it in the new Entity List updates: + +> The ERC determined to add Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited, under the destination of China, to the Entity List with a Footnote 5 designation, for posing a significant risk of becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States under §§ 744.11 and 744.23 of the EAR. This determination is based on information that this company poses a significant risk of becoming involved in the development or production of “advanced-node ICs.” A license will be required for all items subject to the EAR. + +However, this tough language is mostly undone by what follows, + +> This entity will be eligible for license exception Restricted Fabrication Facility (RFF) (§ 740.26), a new license exception added to part 740 (License Exceptions) of the EAR pursuant to the FDP IFR published concurrently with this final rule. License Exception RFF authorizes the export, reexport, and in-country transfer of items described in ECCNs 3B991 (except 3B991.b.2.a through .b) and 3B992 that are not described in ECCN 3B001.a.4, .c, .d, f.1.b.2, .k to .p; 3B002.c, 3B993, or 3B994, subject to the requirements of § 740.26. + +The new regulations clarify that end-use restrictions still apply to Restricted Fabrication Facilities (RFFs) and prohibit the sale of any equipment known to be in use or intended for use in the production of advanced chip manufacturing. However, as mentioned above, there are many elements in this regulation that reveal the U.S. government’s doubts about the effectiveness of its end-use export controls in comparison to country-wide and strong Entity List controls. XMC is publicly known to be planning a massive HBM capacity buildout, and it is difficult to see how this RFF would prevent XMC, or any other firm added to the new RFF category, from deceptively acquiring a large quantity of advanced equipment, ostensibly for the production of legacy chips, and then repurposing that equipment at a later date for HBM production. In such a circumstance, this rule could do little besides locking the door after the thief has already robbed the house and escaped. + +While the new RFF controls would technically constitute a stricter regulation for XMC than what was in effect after the October 2022 and October 2023 restrictions (since XMC was then left off the Entity List despite its ties to YMTC), the controls represent a retreat from the strategy that the U.S. government appeared to be pursuing in December 2022 when YMTC was listed. + +Overall, the unwillingness of the United States to go after Huawei’s fab network with full force represents yet another compromise that will likely assist China in its chip manufacturing indigenization efforts. + +The RFF exemption also sets a concerning precedent. Industry will likely push for every future fab to be added to this list unless there is clear proof that they are exceeding the thresholds. However, waiting until there is clear evidence will invariably mean that the controls are imposed only after it is too late for those controls to have a strategic effect. + +#### 5. Much of the true implementation and effectiveness of these controls will rely upon advisory opinion letters from BIS, which are generally non-public and do not go through the interagency process, even though they can have enormous national security consequences. + +The two packages of updated export controls are together more than 200 pages. One might think that reading all of these controls would provide a clear picture of how the United States intends to apply and enforce export controls. However, this is in many cases not true because there is an additional source of critical export control policymaking that is only rarely made public: BIS-issued advisory opinions. These opinions, while ostensibly mere clarifications of existing policy, can have the equivalent effect as policymaking by officially determining, for example, that a given fab is not engaged in advanced-node production or that a given entity poses no risk of diversion to a restricted end use or end user. Industry sources told CSIS that—in recent years—advisory opinions have been extremely impactful in expanding legally allowed exports of SME to China. + +This latest export control package was debated in the U.S. government interagency process that includes the Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, and Energy, as well as the White House and intelligence community. However, advisory opinions are generally determined by BIS alone, which gives the bureau significant power in determining the actual approach taken as an end result, including determining the applicability of license exemptions. Government sources told CSIS that the Commerce Department and BIS tend to be significantly more receptive to the concerns of exporters than other agencies in the U.S. federal government, which are frequently more focused on national security and economic security issues and ensuring the coherent implementation of the overarching strategy. + +Some of this is supported by the language in the final regulations, which includes lines such as, “BIS continues to welcome feedback from industry on specific ECCNs that are not used in front-end production of ICs and could be excluded from the ECCN scope of § 744.23(a)(4).” + + +### Conclusion: A Job Not Finished + +In her December 7, 2024, remarks at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Secretary Raimondo strongly suggested that the Biden administration would have additional forthcoming AI and semiconductor policies: “there’s just a huge amount of work [remaining to be done]. I’ve told my team ‘buckle up. We’re working till the 19th at midnight.” Raimondo explicitly stated that this might include new tariffs intended to address China’s efforts to dominate the production of legacy-node chip production. + +A government regulatory notice posted on December 9 appeared to confirm that this would include a new at least one package of additional export controls titled, “Export Control Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion.” + +Whether or not that package of controls will be effective remains to be seen, but there is a broader point that both the current and incoming presidential administrations need to understand: speedy, simple, and frequently updated export controls are far more likely to be more effective than even an exquisitely complex well-defined policy that comes too late. The Biden administration has demonstrated only an ability to update its approach once a year, while Chinese smugglers, shell companies, lawyers, and policymakers can clearly make bold decisions quickly. Delay to allow additional time for debate and consultation is, in and of itself, a policy decision, and not always the right one. + +--- + +__Gregory C. Allen__ is the director of the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-maritime-sanctions-taskforce.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-maritime-sanctions-taskforce.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..35543f20 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-maritime-sanctions-taskforce.md @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Maritime Sanctions Taskforce +author: Gonzalo Saiz +date : 2024-12-13 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/agY6aIY.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "First Meeting Report" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_This report presents findings on the growing threat posed by Russia’s shadow fleet._ + + + +### Introduction + +The Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI established the RUSI Maritime Sanctions Taskforce in November 2024. In the same month, the taskforce convened its first meeting, which primarily applied a UK lens to the maritime sanctions implementation challenge, gathering experts from the maritime industry, policymakers and government representatives to discuss the growing threat posed by Russia’s shadow fleet. This clandestine network of vessels plays a critical role in circumventing sanctions and undermining international enforcement mechanisms, and poses significant risks to maritime safety, global trade and environmental sustainability. + +This report summarises the discussions from the meeting, offering an examination of the shadow fleet’s operational intricacies, the shortcomings of existing regulatory frameworks and the strategic measures necessary to counter the fleet’s activities. The taskforce’s deliberations provided a nuanced understanding of how shadow fleets operate, and underscored the urgency of strengthening maritime sanctions to maintain the integrity of global trade and security systems. None of the discussions at the event are attributable. + + +### The Shadow Fleet Phenomenon: Origins and Current Trends + +The concept of the shadow fleet is not new, but its scale, sophistication and geopolitical implications have reached unprecedented levels in the wake of Russia’s attempts to circumvent sanctions imposed by the international sanctions coalition. The taskforce discussed how, historically, shadow fleets have been associated with regimes such as North Korea, Venezuela and Iran, each employing illicit maritime networks to sustain their economies under sanction-induced constraints. However, Russia’s parallel fleet represents an evolutionary leap in scale and complexity. + +Comprising approximately 1,000 vessels, up from an estimated 600 in 2023, taskforce members described the shadow fleet as a critical pillar of Russia’s strategy to maintain oil exports amid international restrictions. Reports estimate that the Kremlin has invested more than $10 billion since 2022 to acquire and sustain this fleet. These vessels transport 70% of Russian crude and oil products, including 89% of Russian crude, generating billions annually for the Russian government despite sanctions designed to cripple its economic base. With an estimated 4.1 million barrels of oil shipped daily in breach of the oil price cap (OPC), these operations provide Moscow with critical revenue streams. At the time the OPC took effect in December 2022, only 2.2 million barrels were shipped per day. For every $10 above the OPC Russia sells its oil, it gains an estimated $30 billion annually – funds that can be redirected to sustain its war efforts. + +The shadow fleet’s operational techniques are both diverse and adaptable. Russia utilises the opaque ownership structures behind these vessels, false documentation, coordinated transshipments and deceptive flagging through jurisdictions with lax controls. Taskforce members noted that these vessels are typically flagged with “flags of convenience” from jurisdictions such as Panama, Gabon, the Marshall Islands and Liberia, benefiting from minimal regulatory oversight. A significant proportion of the vessels are ageing tankers, often exceeding the 15-year industry standard for scrapping, with an average age of 18 years. Many operate without proper maintenance or insurance, heightening the risks of accidents, spills and other environmental disasters. Participants referenced the Prestige oil spill disaster as an example of the financial and environmental consequences of poorly insured vessels. That disaster’s costs exceeded the cap for protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance, leaving affected states to bear the burden of clean-up efforts. In light of these risks, taskforce members suggested that interdiction measures – though potentially contentious under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – might be necessary to prevent such disasters. A taskforce member noted that UNCLOS is a codification of customary law, which is formed by two elements: state practice and opinio juris. After the Prestige incident, Spain banned single-hull vessels. This decision went against UNCLOS provisions, but the spirit of the measure was valid, and gradually became accepted. + +Participants also discussed the fact that shadow fleet operators employ advanced tactics to evade detection. Disabling the ship’s automatic identification system (AIS) – a practice commonly referred to as “going dark” – is a prevalent technique, allowing vessels to obscure their movements. Participants pointed out that these risks were highlighted in a March 2024 incident in the Danish Strait, where a vessel from Russia’s shadow fleet disabled its AIS, resulting in a near-catastrophic collision on its way to load Russian oil. Had the tanker already been carrying oil at full capacity, the damage caused could have been far worse. + +The International Maritime Organization (IMO) took steps in December 2023 to address the shadow fleet, extending the definition of shadow fleet vessels to include those engaged in dangerous activities such as avoiding flag state and port state control inspections; not maintaining adequate liability insurance; operating under opaque corporate structures; switching off their navigation systems; and concealing the ship’s identity. However, despite these measures, taskforce members agreed that enforcement remains challenging, due to the reluctance of flag states to perform their regulatory duties under conventions like the Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage (CLC). The CLC mandates flag states to issue “Blue Card” certificates only when satisfied that a vessel’s insurer has sufficient financial capacity to meet its obligations. Representatives from the P&I community in the taskforce stated that while the International Group of P&I Clubs system is widely trusted, many flag states issue certificates without proper verification, a problem that can only be rectified through education, diplomatic pressure, or even naming and shaming. + +One taskforce member noted that the term “shadow fleet” is often misleading. While it draws attention to the issue, it also risks glamorising the problem. A more accurate description would be “parallel fleet”, as this network functions as an alternative system of trade outside the established norms of international governance. If left unchecked, this parallel infrastructure could thrive and develop into a permanent alternative market for actors seeking to evade sanctions. This would pose a long-term challenge to the legitimacy and safety of global trade institutions, and could enable a growing number of sanctioned entities to operate freely. + +Participants highlighted the rapid expansion of insurance schemes developed within this ecosystem, often backed by state actors such as the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. This alternative insurance market operates outside established international standards, raising questions about its ability to provide adequate coverage in the event of accidents or claims. Similar concerns were raised regarding the role of trading intermediaries, brokers and port authorities, all of which contribute to the network enabling shadow fleet operations. + +The fleet’s resilience and adaptability are further bolstered by its collaboration with other sanction-evading networks, notably those operated by Iran. Taskforce members described how, over the years, Iran has developed a sophisticated system for circumventing sanctions, which now provides invaluable expertise to Russian operators. These networks share vessels, knowledge and best practices, enabling the rapid scaling and operational efficiency of shadow fleet activities. + +China’s involvement in supporting shadow fleet operations was also discussed. While its role remains less overt than that of Iran, Chinese businesses and entities have been implicated in facilitating Russian evasion. US Executive Order 14114 (issued in December 2023 and expanded in June 2024), which threatens foreign financial institutions with secondary sanctions for supporting transactions related to the Russian military–industrial complex, has shown signs of deterring Chinese banks from facilitating payments related to common high-priority items. Several taskforce members saw value in leveraging this concept to also deter Chinese involvement in maritime sanctions evasion. + +As the shadow fleet evolves, it not only exacerbates environmental and economic risks but also threatens to undermine the framework of sanctions enforcement. Without decisive action to address the regulatory loopholes, enhance enforcement and hold flag states accountable, this parallel infrastructure will continue to expand and solidify. + + +### Regulatory Frameworks and Enforcement Gaps + +Current regulatory frameworks have struggled to keep pace with the scale and growing sophistication of the shadow fleet. Taskforce members discussed how the international sanctions coalition in support of Ukraine has sought to strike a delicate balance, seeking to limit Russia’s revenue and counter its circumvention tactics without imposing overly restrictive measures on G7 operators or creating shocks to the global price and supply of oil. The taskforce agreed that excessively stringent sanctions risk pushing more vessels into the shadow fleet’s orbit, while lenient enforcement undermines the credibility and efficacy of sanctions regimes. There was far less consensus on the extent to which sanctioning more vessels would affect the global oil price and supply. + +Participants noted that governments have taken steps to try to address the challenges posed by the shadow fleet. For example, the UK has introduced legislative amendments to enable vessel designations, enhanced enforcement mechanisms and a stronger focus on vessel tracking. At the time of the taskforce meeting, the UK had sanctioned 43 Russian oil tankers under these powers, with some participants suggesting this had significantly disrupted shadow fleet operations. They estimated that of the sanctioned vessels, a third remain idle, and another third have experienced significant operational disruptions. Despite the effectiveness of designations, participants noted that automatic blanket designations could lead to legal challenges and unintended economic consequences, such as adverse impacts on global oil prices, so countries remain cautious about expanding the list of designations too quickly. Proportionality and accuracy in sanctions designations have therefore become critical principles, as targeted measures based on robust evidence and clear criteria are essential to maintaining the legitimacy and effectiveness of enforcement. + +Participants described the steps that the UK has taken to incentivise the return of legitimate trade back into G7-compliant services and reverse unnecessary moves to use shadow fleet vessels. Through partnerships with international stakeholders, the UK has worked to leverage geographical chokepoints, particularly along critical trade routes such as the English Channel, which sees around 30 shadow fleet vessels pass through each month. The UK’s Department for Transport and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency have enhanced their scrutiny of vessels passing through these areas, collecting information about their insurance arrangements and operational practices. Additionally, the UK government has invested in specialist capabilities through the Joint Maritime Security Centre, supported by cross-government funding under the Economic Deterrence Initiative. These measures enable more effective monitoring of shadow fleet activities while encouraging compliance among legitimate operators. + +The taskforce also discussed the challenges posed by the overlapping restrictions within sanctions regimes. The OPC, the bans on maritime transportation services and associated services, restrictions on access to UK and European ports, bans on certain Russian vessels, prohibition of the supply of vessels to or for use in Russia, and restrictions on goods, services and technology for these vessels, among others, create a complex compliance environment. Representatives from the insurance community in the taskforce acknowledged that this complexity often leads to over-compliance, where legitimate operators avoid high-risk activities entirely. Conversely, this also inadvertently strengthens shadow fleet operations by driving more vessels into the unregulated parallel infrastructure and reducing the opportunities for enforcement action through compliance under G7-provided services. + +The taskforce identified several critical areas where enforcement measures could be improved to counter shadow fleet activities. One of the most pressing challenges is the lack of comprehensive intelligence sharing among international stakeholders. Shadow fleet operators rely on fragmented enforcement systems, exploiting gaps in communication and data sharing to evade detection. Effective enforcement requires integrating information from multiple sources, including AIS data, insurance records and ownership registries, to track the lifecycle of shadow fleet activities. However, the sheer volume of data presents its own challenges. Participants noted that without advanced analytics and machine learning, enforcement agencies and private operators may struggle to identify patterns and anomalies indicative of shadow fleet operations. + +The role of the private sector in sanctions enforcement also came under scrutiny. Taskforce members discussed the fact that banks operate under comprehensive anti-money laundering programmes and file suspicious activity reports (SARs), while most commercial insurers and P&I Clubs lack similar compliance requirements. Some taskforce members proposed the introduction of a voluntary disclosure regime for the shipping industry. Similar to the legal requirement to file SARs in banking, this framework would incentivise operators to report suspicious activities without fear of penalties, providing valuable intelligence for enforcement efforts. + +The taskforce also addressed the UK’s approach to fostering international collaboration. They discussed the fact that the government has engaged with international partners, notably leveraging the European Political Community to publish a shadow fleet “call to action”, which now gathers 46 countries and the EU in efforts to counter Russia’s shadow fleet activity. By coordinating enforcement actions, sharing intelligence and harmonising sanctions frameworks, such partnerships aim to close regulatory gaps and enhance the overall effectiveness of sanctions. However, participants warned of the risks associated with overly aggressive enforcement measures. For instance, measures such as vessel interdictions, while effective, could provoke reciprocal actions in contested regions such as the Black Sea, the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea. + +Participants discussed the Grace 1 tanker, detained in Gibraltar, which serves as a compelling case study underscoring both the strengths and the limitations of current enforcement mechanisms against vessels suspected of breaching or circumventing sanctions. The vessel, an Iranian tanker flying a Panamanian flag, was intercepted in Gibraltar waters on the suspicion that it was transporting oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions. The operation highlighted the effectiveness of cross-border collaboration, robust intelligence sharing, and well-established legal frameworks, all of which played critical roles in facilitating the vessel’s detention. However, participants pointed out that the case also revealed significant challenges. The Grace 1 utilised evasive tactics, such as AIS spoofing and the use of complex ownership structures, which can complicate investigations and prolong judicial processes. These strategies not only obscure the origins and intentions of vessels, but also place a considerable burden on enforcement agencies tasked with ensuring compliance. The detention of the Grace 1 also illustrated the potential for retaliatory actions by sanctioned states. Shortly after the incident, Iran seized the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero, escalating tensions and raising concerns about the unintended consequences of enforcement actions. + +This example underscores the delicate balance required in enforcing sanctions robustly while mitigating risks to legitimate maritime operators and ensuring that enforcement actions do not provoke reciprocal measures that destabilise global trade routes. + + +### Taskforce Recommendations + +Countering Russia’s evolving circumvention tactics and the expansion of its shadow fleet requires a comprehensive and proactive approach. The taskforce identified several actionable strategies to bolster maritime sanctions and enhance their enforcement: + +1. __Ensure efficacy of attestations:__ National authorities must ensure that attestations are not abused by illicit traders. Transiting tankers should be required to engage only with accountable trading houses based in or maintaining substantial business ties with G7 countries, to ensure reliable attestations. Strengthening the credibility and reliability of attestations would help rebuild trust among G7 operators and draw trade back into compliant systems. + +2. __Encourage voluntary self-disclosures:__ Many G7 operators have disengaged from Russia-related trade, particularly related to Russian crude oil, under fears of enforcement for potential sanctions breaches, even of an involuntary nature. Governments should develop mechanisms for maritime operators to report suspicious activities without the threat of enforcement, in the style of SARs for banks, to reduce over-compliance and unintended consequences, encourage the return of legitimate trade into G7 services, increase oversight, ensure compliance and collect intelligence. + +3. __Expand vessel designations:__ Coastal states should be empowered to sanction vessels that are inadequately or non-transparently insured while transiting sensitive areas. Designations should focus on tankers, rather than the shell companies behind them, which can be quickly re-registered or replaced, whereas vessels have IMO numbers that are more difficult to disguise, and designation directly impacts their operations. Building an international coalition to use vessel designations as a deterrent would amplify this measure’s impact and facilitate coordination to avoid unintended consequences. + +4. __Assess the impact of designations on oil prices:__ The designation of vessels has proved to be an impactful tool, but it also raises concerns about potential adverse effects on the global oil price and supply. Governments should develop a metric that measures the impact on oil prices of a vessel designation package, to ensure that this power is used to its full potential while avoiding unintended consequences. + +5. __Impose secondary sanctions:__ Secondary sanctions targeting individuals and entities supporting shadow fleet operations in third-party jurisdictions can be an effective deterrent. The success of Executive Order 14114 in deterring large Chinese financial institutions from facilitating payments related to Russian imports of high-priority items demonstrates the potential effectiveness of this approach. Such measures should be extended to all actors enabling shadow fleet activities, including insurers, brokers and port authorities. + +6. __Address flag hopping and flags of convenience:__ The G7 should enhance outreach to flag states and apply diplomatic pressure to discourage the flagging of shadow fleet vessels and enhance registration requirements. Successful examples, such as US-led efforts to pressure Panama into de-flagging Iranian tankers, underscore the value of this strategy. These efforts must, however, be supported by international organisations such as the IMO to establish standards and coordinate efforts to hold flag states accountable for their obligations under conventions such as the CLC. + +7. __Leverage strategic chokepoints:__ Coastal states should impose mandatory requirements for oil spill insurance and criminal liability for violations. These measures would significantly raise pressure on shadow fleet operators and increase accountability. International conventions, such as the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, could be applied to address practices like AIS spoofing and document falsification, further strengthening enforcement. + +8. __Develop an exit route for sanctioned vessels:__ G7 government should establish and advertise mechanisms to lift sanctions against vessels to incentivise vessel operators to cease illicit activities and reduce the shadow fleet’s capacity, rather than forcing designated vessels to be scrapped. Governments should also address scrapping practices; currently, ships often end up in scrapyards located in countries with deficient regulatory standards, exacerbating environmental risks. + +Russia’s shadow fleet represents a multifaceted challenge, threatening the integrity of global sanctions regimes, maritime safety and environmental sustainability. The taskforce’s recommendations provide a framework for addressing these challenges, emphasising the importance of collaboration, innovation and targeted enforcement against the shadow fleet. As the shadow fleet evolves, sustained efforts will be required to safeguard the principles of international law and ensure a level playing field in global trade. The taskforce will continue to refine its strategies and engage with stakeholders to build a resilient and accountable maritime governance system and restrict Russia’s access to its key revenue source, oil. + +--- + +__Gonzalo Saiz__ is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI, focusing on sanctions and counter-threat finance. His research focuses on sanctions implementation, circumvention and evasion tactics, and sanctions enforcement, primarily through SIFMANet (Sanctions and Illicit Finance Monitoring and Analysis Network). Gonzalo’s research on counter-threat finance includes work on the abuse of non-profit organisations for terrorist financing, crime-enabled terrorist financing, and the financing of right-wing extremism. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-wargaming-climate-change.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-wargaming-climate-change.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..c776760c --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-wargaming-climate-change.md @@ -0,0 +1,92 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Wargaming Climate Change +author: Sarah Ashbridge +date : 2024-12-16 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/391AJya.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Reflections for the Strategic Defence Review" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Earlier this year, the UK Ministry of Defence delivered its climate-focused strategic wargame, with implications for the Strategic Defence Review._ + + + +UK defence has recognised climate change as a dominant global trend and a risk multiplier. It has invested effort to understand how climate change may affect operations, and how it could exacerbate existing security risks to increase demands on the military. + +In 2023 the Integrated Review Refresh (IRR) stated that “systemic competition between states now represents the most immediate and substantial threat to UK interests”. It also acknowledged climate change as the “first thematic priority”. + +Opportunities exist to further develop our understanding of the interaction between systemic competition and climate change. Allies, partners, competitors and adversaries are already experiencing the effects of climate change and are looking for support to respond to associated security risks such as drought, flooding and famine. Some are adapting to its effects, others are reacting. Climate change increases the ability of malign states and non-state actors to exploit instability for their own ends. + +While it is impossible to predict the future, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) can utilise futures research methodologies to explore a range of possible scenarios. A common approach for engaging defence with new possible scenarios is wargaming. + + +### The Wargame + +Dstl was funded by the Secretary of State’s Office for Net Assessment and Challenge (SONAC), the Directorate for Climate Change and Environment (CCE) in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to develop a wargame exploring environmental trends and global competition in the short-to-medium term (to 2045). + +While there is no single definition of “wargaming” as a practice, Defence Futures describe it as “a scenario-based warfare model in which the outcome and sequence of events affect, and are affected by, the decisions made by the players”, though it can also be used to explore wider scenarios which do not feature conflict. + +___`Responses to threats that are both immediate and enduring have the potential to support partners in crisis now, but also create more resilient conditions for the future`___ + +This game focused on a geographical region, and was played across 1.5 days. Players were assigned to teams representing global powers. Teams had a range of capabilities which they could use to execute actions during each year-long turn. Dstl adjudicators reviewed all actions and used this information to update the map and set the scene for the next turn. + + +### Reflections + +Each country had a unique experience with regards to the risks, threats or requests encountered. Some developed a proactive approach to mitigating future risk, protecting their capacity to pursue long-term goals. Others found themselves overwhelmed and in a constant state of emergency triggered by successive or overlapping crises. Some found themselves struggling to maintain a long-term vision in the face of near-term requests for their support from the international community. The efficiency of actions taken was at times affected by wider factors including style of government, economic factors, and development needs. + +The impacts of climate change on security are felt differently across the globe, but the solutions to mitigate these impacts will be multinational. Not all countries have the infrastructure or governance structures to manage their own risks, and others may seek to exploit these vulnerabilities. + +Responses to threats that are both immediate and enduring (such as energy, food or water insecurity) have the potential to support partners in crisis now, but also create more resilient conditions for the future. + +A common thread throughout was the need to develop climate responses through cooperation, not conflict. Some opportunities will be captured by strengthening existing partnerships or finding opportunities for partners to come together to enable greater and quicker change. Some Global South relationships may require the UK to find new ways to consider the immediate needs of partners, offering greater agency in chosen solutions. The nature of relationships is crucial, as emerging powers are looking for reciprocal partners who will respond to the direct needs of their citizens, not foreign policy goals. + +The game reflected current expectations of geopolitical relationships, in that relationships with partners who overpromised and underdelivered suffered most, contributing to the increasingly volatile global geopolitical environment described in the IRR. The game developed insights into how allies might build successful engagement strategies with emerging middle powers. + +Some risks can become entangled (such as drought, food security and migration), requiring multinational responses to deliver effect at the required scale. The UK has a role to play in this landscape. Recent environmental disasters such as the wildfires in Greece demonstrate the need to prepare for multinational humanitarian responses. Different responses to disaster relief requests and implications for international relations played out in the game. + +Climate-related requests for defence support could include disaster relief, humanitarian response, or capacity-building support. Focusing on the warfight and not planning for these requests would risk ceding influence to those willing step into the humanitarian vacuum, creating new security risks. The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) aims to strengthen security at home and abroad in response to growing and diversifying threats, including instability caused by climate change. This includes considering the UK’s international partnerships and alliances, and how these can be strengthened in the cause of collective security and deterrence. + +The key finding is that the strategic effects of climate change will significantly alter our ability to achieve our key objectives. + + +### Recommendations + +The wargame resulted in the following recommendations. + +1. The MoD needs to ensure that defence and security policies and plans are informed by the potential effects of climate change, so that the decisions of today prepare the UK for the future operating environment. + +2. The MoD needs to build upon existing activity to demonstrate the opportunity for the UK to maintain strategic advantage in a defence context – that is, the ability to fight and win. Developing existing strategies into policies and plans will help enable the shift from understanding to action. + +3. The MoD and cross-government departments should consider how to support stronger, integrated partnerships to build mutual understanding and resilience in response to climate-driven instability. + +4. The MoD needs to reconsider how to support and work with middle-ground powers in addressing climate impacts which may hinder their development. It is important that the UK regularly assesses its ability to provide stabilising effects. + +5. Some countries expect changes in the UK’s approach for partnerships to feel mutually beneficial and therefore sustainable. + +6. The UK needs to consider how the results of climate change might shift the global balance of resources and populations, and how this affects all countries. This knowledge will enhance foresight, enabling improved monitoring of emerging security threats. + +These recommendations support the academic evidence base describing the environmental and geopolitical effects of a changing climate, and will be fed into consultations for the SDR. They reinforce the findings of a series of essays funded by SONAC in 2023 to further explore the relationship between net zero and national security (circulated within the MoD). + + +### The Defence Review + +The SDR Terms of Reference describe how the threats faced by the UK are growing and diversifying, identifying the instability caused by climate change as one of these threats. The SDR will determine the “roles, capabilities and reforms” needed to respond to threats and opportunities. + +___`Focusing on the warfight and not planning for climate-related requests would risk ceding influence to those willing step into the humanitarian vacuum, creating new security risks`___ + +This wargame allowed the MoD to explore a range of climate-informed scenarios and potential responses to them in an international context. It highlighted a range of opportunities for international partnerships and alliances to be strengthened in pursuit of collective security or deterrence. It also allowed players to consider how whole-of-society changes such as the energy transition might affect defence decisions in areas like supply chain resilience. + +Work is ongoing to deliver a second wargame of the same scope in a different geography. This is supplemented by other projects on climate wargaming and exercising. These techniques help to enable cross-government coherence on climate security risks and explore multifaceted problems in a safe environment. + +Building on this, wargaming with allies will help UK defence to develop interoperable responses to conflict or disaster. As climate change is a driver of instability, greater levels of international cooperation will be required to design and deliver the right responses. Through proactive, integrated responses to climate security risks, armed forces can build resilience and ensure interoperability with allies and partners. + +A cross-Whitehall approach will also help the government to leverage the benefits of defence decisions, particularly where green technologies can help to secure national aims. This wargame has demonstrated that the UK has the chance to respond and ensure that it thinks strategically about its capability as a military force. + +The SDR team has the challenge of determining how such factors should inform the future shape of the UK armed forces, but also of ensuring that the capabilities procured are resilient to future operating environments and the threats contained within them. The results of its work on the nature of the climate threat and associated operational response will set the foundations for a resilient future for the UK’s fighting forces. + +--- + +__Sarah Ashbridge__ is an Affiliate Expert of RUSI, where she previously worked as a Research Fellow within the Military Sciences Team. Here, she established the Greening Defence Programme which focused on the ways in which climate change affects armed forces, and the impact of defence upon the environment, with an international portfolio. From 0f6eb33068a51636c1e5f4a46392e9a705018eaf Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: theagora Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2025 00:26:33 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 14/16] 0x30 Add _columns posts, Jan.14 --- .../_columns/2024-10-22-rainbow-dusk-love.md | 115 +++++++ .../2024-10-26-on-death-the-time-economy.md | 298 ++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 413 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-22-rainbow-dusk-love.md create mode 100644 _collections/_columns/2024-10-26-on-death-the-time-economy.md diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-22-rainbow-dusk-love.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-22-rainbow-dusk-love.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..83b13e81 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-22-rainbow-dusk-love.md @@ -0,0 +1,115 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "彩虹黃昏戀" +author: "東加豆" +date : 2024-10-22 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/yjtXY7l.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +王芳和李英在一個私人聚會上遇見。 + +二人的眼睛互相在對方身上停頓了。 + + + +三十年來第一次再遇。 + +為什麼會再遇？ + +以為緣盡了。 + +如果要我們再遇，過去的日子是什麼。 + +一個拿著大刀，一個拿著長劍，互相交鋒，無日安寧。 + +這種相處又算是什麼？ + +台上有人說話，李英回過神來。 + +三十年後的王芳，李英一眼便看出來。 + +李英問自己，分開都是自願的，一起還是更難存。 + +台上有人說話，王芳回過神來。 + +大家也上台獻花給嫻姨和玲姨。 + +為這對戀人一起長達四十年。 + +王芳有很大的感觸。 + +緣份本來是好的，可是我們失去了堅定。 + +被抽象而不自由的東西腐蝕了。 + +不然，被祝賀的人也許會是王芳和李英。 + +- + +（嫻姨）與（玲姨）站在聚會的角落，她們的目光不經意地追隨著台下的（王芳）與（李英）。事實，儘管台上成為焦點的被祝福的戀人，嫻姨和玲姨已經察覺，周圍的賓客卻低語連連。因為，王芳和李英，這對久別重逢的舊情人，一個眼神便能勾起無數回憶。不管她們的愛情如何轟烈，那些事被封塵了，作為這段情感的見證者，嫻姨和玲姨心中五味雜陳。 + +聚會的燈光暗了下來，大家紛紛將目光投向舞台中央。嫻姨與玲姨也被這突如其來的閃燈吸引，這是她們四十年愛情的見證，當她們手捧鮮花，接受眾人的祝福時，心中卻泛起了異樣的情緒。“如果，王芳和李英也能如此，該有多好。”玲姨心裡想著，充滿了無奈。 + +舊時，王芳、李英、嫻姨、玲姨，她們的感情都要好，在那保守時代，女人喜歡女人，都會被不友善的對待。最快樂的時光，就是她們四人聚在一起。 + +一刻的懷念如霧水蒸發，聚會散席了，王芳與李英消失得無影無蹤，她何時離開都不知道。 + +一個炎熱的下午，嫻姨和玲姨坐在茶樓的角落，手中捧著剛泡好的普洱，眼神卻不自覺地飄向窗外。她們再次說起王芳和李英，心中不禁浮現出三十五年前的畫面。 + +少年十五二十時，兩個女孩走在街上手牽手，沒有理會情到濃時的心情，沒有理會旁人，不在乎他人白眼。不像嫻姨和玲姨，她們躲在別處，在枱底下手摸手，在電梯裡偷吻，沒有空間讓她們放縱。也許是這樣，她們逃離了所有人的注視，不然，就會像王芳、李英的不幸，被家庭和社會唾罵，還會有人從中作梗，這一切，都讓她們喘不過氣，接著爭吵，無日安寧，大刀和長劍都是這樣煉成的。 + +玲姨心裡忽然湧起陣陣酸澀，明明相愛卻不可相近。在她心中，一個念頭悄然浮現：或許，她可以成為這段愛情的橋樑。然而，下一秒她便搖了搖頭，覺得這個想法很荒謬，王芳和李英早已兒孫滿堂。 + +玲姨和嫻姨的心裡，各自有著一絲不寧靜的忐忑，仿佛有一場風暴正在醞釀... + +- + +一晚，（嫻姨）與（玲姨）在床上扭在一起，她們依然談著（王芳）和（李英），纏綿過後，她們各自回去自己的被窩，也帶著王芳和李英走進她們的夢境中。 + +淡入... + +看不清夢裡面的環境，四處也煙霧瀰漫，卻沒有絲毫污濁與壓抑。 + +嫻姨說：“我們一起已過了三十年，彼此珍惜、相愛，可以說沒有多少遺憾了。要是把餘下的日子，留給王芳和李英，讓她們有最後的機會，不知道人生又會怎樣？” + +玲姨並不覺得好笑，相反，她心裡有點酸，阿嫻竟然會犧牲自己的愛情，去成全她人的緣份。玲姨，她卻沒有這種大愛，如果真是這樣，她會感到困惑和不甘的。 + +...淡出 + +次日，嫻姨並沒有告訴玲姨她昨夜的夢境。當然，她不知道玲姨竟也做著同樣的夢。 + +不知道是否老天有心安排，嫻姨和玲姨在街上遇見李英和王芳，但是，時間和場合都不一樣。李英一個人走著，王芳匆匆忙忙趕去工作，兩人的臉上都寫滿了滄桑。以前，從未在街上遇見，宴會後、夢境後，就遇見她們了，真是很戲劇。 + +三個人，兩個場景，四把聲音，打招呼過後揮手說再見，感覺卻微妙，彷彿有數之不盡細訴的話藏在眼裡。 + +玲姨忽然想起昨夜的夢，若真的有一個機會，把餘下愛情的命運轉移，讓王芳和李英接下去，結果會怎樣...結果會怎樣？ + +然而，就在這時，一個意想不到的轉折發生了。她們突然感覺到周圍的空間仿佛扭曲了一般，一切都變得模糊不清。當她們再看清眼前，卻是另一處未曾踏足過的地方，不是以往那片石屎森林的地方，沒有不停歇的車流人流。 + +玲姨和嫻姨很驚訝，充滿了懷疑。還是，那個夢境的延續？如果不是夢境，這又算是什麼？因為隔璧有一幅很大的玻璃牆，穿過玻璃以外是充滿了陽光的景色，美麗花園，與她們處身的空間截然不同。 + +玲姨，她不是不相信地球以外的事物，平行時空也有它的道理，只是...只是不相信會發生在她們的身上吧！ + +這時，玻璃牆對面的畫面開始移動，就像一格格連貫的相片，直至兩個人影浮現，畫面停下來了。是王芳與李英。不是年輕的她們，而是現在的她們，在一個和暖的日子，十指緊扣遊在美麗的花園裡散步，眼底下全是滿足和喜樂，仿佛已經看到了彼岸。 + +原先繃緊的心情，看到這畫面，玲姨和嫻姨在瞬間放鬆了。 + +“她們是應得的。”嫻姨喃喃自語。 + +就在這時，一陣深沉而有力量的聲線在耳邊響起：“只要妳們願意和堅信著未來，把愛情的命運轉移給她們，眼前的畫面將會變成真實。” + +說完這句話後，她們感覺到一股強大的力量將她們拉回了現實世界。當她們再次打開眼睛，已經回到了熟悉的家中。 + +玲姨和嫻姨滿頭大汗，她們肯定不是夢境，也不必懷疑。 + +假如真的把這段緣份給予她們？這意味著另一對將失去彼此。 + +在這個瞬間，她們所做出的選擇將改變四個人的命運。 + +人生彷彿像是天秤搖晃著，當自己的一端是幸福，另一端卻是別人的期待和需要，我們又該如何選擇？ + +完 + + \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/_collections/_columns/2024-10-26-on-death-the-time-economy.md b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-26-on-death-the-time-economy.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..01276170 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_columns/2024-10-26-on-death-the-time-economy.md @@ -0,0 +1,298 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : "论死亡：时间经济" +author: "番茄米线" +date : 2024-10-26 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/U3jvgVo.png +#image_caption: "" +description: "" +--- + +### 1、商品价值 + + + +众所周知，一件商品被生产出来的那一刻，就具有了价值；别人想要获得它，就必须付出同等甚至更高的价值。 + +这个价值从何而来？ + +你可能会背诵书上的答案：“商品的价值等于凝结在它其中的劳动的总量。” + +但是，这个“劳动的总量”是如何测量的呢？它的单位是什么？ + +是时间。 + +你听到这里，可能又会背诵书上的另一句话：“商品价值量由生产这种商品的社会必要劳动时间决定。” + +用人话说就是，在不刻意偷懒的情况下，生产这件商品所需要的时间越多，这件商品的价值就越高（注意，价值不等于价格）。 + +但到这里还没有结束。 + +世界上可被人使用的稀缺资源那么多，为什么独独选择了时间作为劳动量的量化标杆？ + +我认为，这源自于时间（对人来说）有三大特性： + +不可再生、不可节约、不可积累。 + +不可再生，意思是说人总是会死的，所以时间这个资源对每一个人来说都是只能消耗而无法增长的。 + +而且这个“消耗”充满了未知性。比如，虽然你的预计寿命可以达到80岁，但你也可能明天就死了；那么从这个角度来看，当下度过的每一分每一秒，都是无比宝贵的。 + +不可节约，指的是时间并不会因为你是否使用它而被消耗；不管你在主观上是否在使用它，时间都会以恒定的速度被消耗。因此，时间是无法通过“减少使用的量”这种常见的方式来节约的。 + +不可积累，和不可节约意思类似，指的是时间这个资源是无法通过某种手段囤积起来的。像粮食、石油这种资源，可以在产量高时囤积起来，然后再在产量低时使用。 + +而时间既没有产量的变化，也没有任何手段可以储存。 + + +### 2、时间资源 + +这三个特性决定了时间这个资源会有如下社会学特征： + +第一，等价（价值稳定）。 + +财富、石油、粮食，乃至权力，都是可以积累和交易的，因此它们都可以具有资本的特性。 + +资本的特点在于可集中；这意味着有的人占有的很多，有的人则占有得极少。 + +而时间，对于所有人来说，不管你是贵族还是资本家，不管你是工人还是农民，你的时间和别人的时间是一样的。 + +资本家流逝了一分钟，工人也流逝了同样的一分钟；平民活一年就少一年，贵族活一年同样也少一年。 + +老百姓的一分钟并不比官僚的一分钟低贱，王侯的一小时也不比底层的一小时高贵。 + +因此，时间可以说是唯一一个没法资本化的资源。 + +第二，稀缺。 + +稀缺这个特性应该不用我来多解释，从小学校和社会就在告诉我们时间是珍贵的。 + +第三，普遍接受性。 + +时间的稀缺性（价值）是全社会公认的，而且基本上从古至今没有人不这样认为。 + +第四，没有生产运输成本。 + +时间并不需要被开采和加工，时间的生产不依赖任何人力措施维护； + +时间在全世界各地、在全球每个人身上都是同步被消耗的，它不需要被从一个地方搬运到另一个地方，也不需要被交易。 + +当我陈述完这四个特性，有一定经济学基础的同学可能已经发现了端倪：这不就是一般等价物的特征吗？ + +一般等价物是一种可以和所有其他商品交换的商品，是交换过程中用作价值尺度和交换手段的物品。简单来说就是货币。 + +比如古代最常用来作为货币的黄金，就具有如下特征：价值稳定、稀缺性、普遍接受性、便于携带和分割（生产运输成本极低）。 + +而时间，完全符合广义上的一般等价物的定义；而且相比于实体的货币，时间不可被资本化的特性让它成为了唯一一个可以完全体现商品真实价值的一般等价物。 + +因此，以时间为标杆来衡量商品的价值，也就不奇怪了。 + + +### 3、时间经济 + +因此，可以说，所有的经济学概念和理论，全都是建立在“时间”上的。 + +我们完全可以将人类的经济称为“时间经济”。 + +但是到此时，还有个问题没有解答：人类的经济是如何建立起来的？或者说为什么会有经济活动？ + +以及，价值到底是怎么产生的？（我们刚只是解答了怎么衡量） + +现在主流的经济学知识会告诉你，其目的有二：分工与交易。 + +举个例子。 + +我现在想要有衣服穿、有房住、有食物吃，还想有游戏玩、有车开； + +但是仅靠我一个人是不可能生产出这些的，这就需要我和社会上的其他人来合作生产； + +而因为生产力以及个人能力的限制，就需要有分工：我来生产衣服、你来生产食物。 + +然后，我再用我生产的衣服来交换你生产的食物，这就是交易。 + +当生产规模愈加庞大、生产产品种类愈加丰富、生产步骤愈加繁杂，就需要有一个一般等价物来帮助人交易。 + +此时，细心的读者就会发现，交易可以成立的前提，必须是性恶论： + +你想获得我的衣服，可以啊，但我不可能平白地给你，你拿什么东西来弥补我付出的时间？ + +我的时间极其宝贵且不可再生，我把我生命中的失去就永远无法再得到的一部分贡献给了这些衣服，你必须要用同样的时间来交换！ + +这，就是价值产生的来源：对死亡的恐惧。 + +因为我的时间是不可再生的，所以每一分每一秒的时间流逝都会让我进一步接近死亡； + +因此，人有珍惜时间的本能。 + +如果我的时间被消耗在了对我没有价值的事上，那么这就会触发我的死亡恐惧，因为这违背了存在的本能。 + +不仅我是这么想的，生产粮食的人也是这么想的。 + +因此，我们两个在经历数次因交易而爆发的矛盾之后，发现了时间这个极其公平的标杆；通过时间，我们双方才能达成交易共识。 + +这就是经济的开端。 + + +### 4、想象的价值 + +问题到这里还是没有得到彻底解决。 + +在上述交易过程中，似乎并没有一个客观的量化体系来准确标识出产品的价值； + +而是“我觉得它有价值，它就有价值。” + +那么不禁又产生了一个新的问题： + +这个价值是客观存在的吗？ + +答案是否定的。 + +电子的质量是9.11x10^-31kg，光速是3.00x10^8m/s，这是客观存在的； + +人是客观存在的，人的生产过程是客观存在的，产品本身是客观存在的； + +但是，产品和劳动的价值是被人主观定义出来的。 + +客观来说，从大自然的角度来看，任何东西都没有价值。 + +一堆木头，价值很低；但是把它制作成了一把椅子，价值就变高了；但这仅仅是对人来说的。 + +对于大自然来说，原木和椅子都没有价值，或者说二者都很有价值，总之没啥区别。 + +木匠之所以认为椅子有价值，是因为他将自己的时间资源花在了上面，这属于资源的投入； + +相对地，木匠就会期待着一份相等或更高的回报。 + +而买椅子的人，因为时间是一般等价物的缘故（同样认可时间的价值），也就同样认为这把椅子是有价值的，并愿意为之付出货币——即他通过将自己的时间资源投入在工作上后得到的产出。 + +由此，我们可以得出结论，交易的本质就是在节约时间，或者说是因为时间有限而进行的一种资源最优配置。 + +可见，如果要认为劳动和产品是有价值的，那么就要先认同时间是有价值的；就如同在购物时，买卖双方都需要认同拿来交易的货币是有价值的。 + +这就是为什么即便在货币没有出现的时代，依然不影响人们通过以物易物的方式进行经济活动——大自然早已准备好了最优质的货币。 + +而要一个人认同时间有价值，那么就需要时间对他是极其稀有而有限的，也就是说，他会死。 + +如果一个人可以永生，那么时间对他来说就是无穷无尽的，也就是一文不值的了——他完全可以花无限的时间来自己创造出他所需要的所有东西（如果他彼时还有需求的话）。 + +因此，我认为，价值这个东西只存在于人们的主观想象之中，并不是一个客观存在的东西； + +换句话说，一件商品之所以会有价值，是因为人有利益；而人之所以有利益，是因为人会死。 + +如果人不会死，商品就没有价值；就像万事万物对大自然来说都没有价值一样。 + + +### 5、“时间”资本化 + +至此，我们基本缕清了商品价值的来源与本质。 + +那么，我们继续回到第一部分：“商品的价值等于凝结在它其中的劳动的总量。” + +什么是“劳动量”？ + +劳动量是一个非常抽象的概念，它大致等于劳动强度乘劳动时长。 + +其中，同一类劳动的劳动强度基本上可以被看作是常数，因为它最大的决定因素是生产力，而生产力基本无法被单个的工人所左右。 + +真正的变量是劳动时长。根据商品价值论，劳动的时间越长，所生产的价值就越多。 + +这就是为什么资本家总是要求工人加班，或者不断催促工人干活。 + +而此时问题来了：资本家并不直接参与一线生产，他是如何获得价值的呢？ + +资本家通过压低工资来获取剩余价值； + +而剩余价值最直接的体现，就是货币，钱。 + +劳动量被凝结在商品中，而商品被投放到市场上换取货币，这个货币则是别人（部分）劳动量的凝结。 + +举个例子。工人A花了100个小时生产出来一个椅子，然后被投放在市场上，其价值是100个小时的货币； + +然后工人B花了150个小时生产了一件商品，他的老板付给了他代表100个小时价值的货币，然后B拿着这些钱去市场上买了A生产的椅子； + +B的钱流通到了A的老板的手里，然后老板再给A发了50个小时价值的货币。 + +那么此时，A的老板在付出了极小的劳动量（如谈生意之类），可能价值3个小时，就获得了50个小时的剩余价值。 + +B的老板也获得了50个小时的剩余价值，而工人A和B没有获得任何剩余价值，他们投入的时间资源要大于自己的所得，还亏本了。 + +两个老板可以不断重复这一过程，这就是时间的再生产； + +通过这种方式，他们手里的“时间”越来越多，这就是时间的积累和集中。 + +然后再用货币去购买别人的商品，也就是购买别人的时间；或者他们可以再次投资自己的生产资料，也就是扩大再生产，进而可以控制更多的劳动量； + +由此，他们就可以拥有仅靠自身穷尽一生也绝不可能创造出来的财富，就好像他们实现了永生一般。 + +而相对地，穷人的时间却被无限压缩，他们因为无法控制自己的劳动所得，进而无法控制自己的劳动量，也就是无法控制自己的时间； + +他们的时间不属于自己，而被别人拿走了；因此他们感觉自己虽然肉体依然存在，但是却没有活着的感觉。 + +而这，就是剩余价值理论的进一步深挖：货币是商品的标尺，商品是劳动量的具体体现，劳动量是时间的承载物。 + +时间本身虽然不能被资本化，但是可以通过控制商品（生产资料），就可以控制货币，进而将货币资本化。资本化，指的就是可以被积累、被集中、被再生产、被扩大再生产。 + + +### 6、异化的本质 + +劳动是人类的本能。 + +> 所谓劳动，其实也就是改造环境的过程。盖房子、烧火做饭、建立村庄、驯服马匹、制造衣物等等，都是在改造环境，都是为了活得更好更舒坦。人类和其他生物一样既然有生存的本能，那么改造环境，也就是劳动，也必然就是本能的一种。 + +但是，为什么劳动在今天会成为人们避之唯恐不及的东西？ + +首先，人类不可能违反自己的本能；那么就只有一种解释，人因为外力而不得不对抗自己的本能。 + +这被称之为异化。 + +举个例子。你去上班是因为你想去上班吗？ + +你不想去上班。那就说明上班不符合你的利益。 + +你说你去上班是拿钱的，对的，拿钱那部分是符合你的利益的，但是干活那部分不符合。 + +为什么？ + +我们前面提到了一个正常的交易有两点特征： + +双方需要彼此提供的东西、双方交换的价值相等。 + +那么，我们来分析在打工活动中，工人和老板的交易： + +首先，双方交换的价值不等。商品的价格永远高于工资，这就是所谓的剥削。 + +其次，老板提供的东西并不是工人所需要的。 + +工人提供劳动力，老板提供工作机会和工资。 + +其中，工资确实是工人所需要的，但是我们前面分析过，人的本能分为两个阶段：生存的本能和存在的本能， + +而且，前者是为后者服务的。 + +给工资，这只是符合工人的生存本能；然而，日无一日的枯燥工作却剥夺了他们实现存在本能的机会。 + +这是因为，这份工作并不是他们所热爱的，他们无法从劳动中体现出自己的价值，即无法创造“小我”。 + +也就是说，此时他们存在的唯一方式就是依靠这具从出生开始就在死亡的肉体。 + +时间，不可再生的时间，一直在无情地流逝；而他们只能像个东西一样维持基本工具功能。 + +他们难道不该恐惧吗？难道不该感到想要逃脱、却因为逃无可逃感到抑郁和麻木吗？ + +为了维持这具肉体的生存，他们反而要去压抑另一种本能；就好像此时，他们的肉体反而变成了反对他们自身的敌人。 + +这，就是资本主义对人的异化。 + +在公有制社会，人们是从劳动中同时完成这两种本能的：我想要进行的创造是我自由意志的体现，也就是说我是自愿劳动（彼时已不能再将其称为劳动）的，我的劳动是我价值的直接体现。 + +并且，我可以通过全世界的分工合作来和别人进行交易，从而维持我肉体的存在（在那时，时间又会回到它货币的本来面目）。 + +但在私有制社会，为了完成自我实现（存在的本能），人们就要先确保肉体活着；而为了维持肉体的存活，人们又不得不压抑自我实现的需求。 + +这就是现代资本主义社会中的人们所面临的困局。 + +如果不去出卖自己的时间，那么他们的肉体就无法存在；而如果他们想要试图夺取任何一点属于自己的东西，就会遭受无情的镇压， + +这就是用多数人的夭折去供养少数人的永生。 + + \ No newline at end of file From 479e14b03c2a77115dff7a0ed253c5d1d2e9c7d3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2025 00:15:17 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 15/16] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x30 Jan.15 --- .../2024-12-12-the-other-bitcoin-boom.md | 118 ++ .../2024-12-13-confronting-armageddon.md | 1219 +++++++++++++++++ .../2024-12-16-technological-competition.md | 233 ++++ ...24-12-17-address-arctic-vulnerabilities.md | 123 ++ 4 files changed, 1693 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-12-the-other-bitcoin-boom.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-confronting-armageddon.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-technological-competition.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-address-arctic-vulnerabilities.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-12-the-other-bitcoin-boom.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-12-the-other-bitcoin-boom.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..e809230d --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-12-the-other-bitcoin-boom.md @@ -0,0 +1,118 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : The Other Bitcoin Boom +author: Neil Barnett +date : 2024-12-12 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/mC8GZOy.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Crypto Mining in Russia’s Shadow Territories" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Russia’s “shadow territories” are hosting large-scale Bitcoin mining, producing new coins that can be used for influence operations, sanctions circumvention and personal enrichment._ + + + +In a world where the Kremlin is increasingly isolated and fixated on foreign influence operations, there is a strong incentive to mine virgin Bitcoin for cross-border activities. As markets for Russia’s gas shrink, turning excess energy into electricity and then cryptocurrency is booming. This has been happening at scale in Russia’s “shadow territories” – Transnistria, Donbas and Abkhazia – since 2018/19. Exploiting these legally indeterminate zones offers deniability and allows the plundering of Russian state gas and electricity resources. And, as is typical of post-Soviet Russia, private-sector players conduct covert activities for the state and enrich themselves at the same time. + + +### How to Turn Cheap Energy into Anonymous Money + +The anonymity of Bitcoin is disputed by crypto adherents, who point out that the blockchain is trackable and therefore cryptocurrencies actually provide unprecedented transparency. While this is true to a certain extent, there are several ways to obscure the trail for nefarious purposes. These include using “mixers” such as Tornado Cash to obscure blockchain links; using a dark web system known as “The Onion Router”; or simply buying offline Bitcoin “wallets” from owners at a premium for cash. Mining new Bitcoins – the process by which new coins are minted – also provides a degree of protection because the tokens have no history at the point of their first transfer, thus denying data to investigators. + +To mine new coins, the Bitcoin network requires computer processing power. As the system is decentralised, Bitcoin’s designers decided to incentivise the provision of computing capacity for this purpose. The incentive? The delivery of new Bitcoins to nodes that provide the processing power for the network’s transactions. “Bitcoin miners” invest in “mining rigs” – specialised servers – to perform these computations and generate new tokens as a quid pro quo. + +The key cost variable in Bitcoin mining is energy to power these servers, which is one of the reasons Russia’s shadow territories are an attractive location. [Research](https://nftevening.com/bitcoin-mining-cost/#Top_10_Most_Profitable_Countries_for_Bitcoin_Mining) by the industry portal nftevening.com from September 2024 shows that “Mining 1 Bitcoin in Ireland costs up to $321,112, while in Iran, miners pay just $1,324 – Over 240 times cheaper”. Even with Bitcoin at close to $100,000, many jurisdictions are uneconomic for Bitcoin mining. + +Transnistria, Donbas and Abkhazia do not feature in the top 10 cheapest locations for Bitcoin mining as they are all grey zones outside the control of sovereign governments. Moreover, the methods they employ to obtain electricity are not captured by surveys, which work off reported national pricing for electricity. Where the cost of electricity is in the region of zero and the territory in question is not internationally recognised, such research methods founder. + + +### The Grey Zones + +The “shadow territories” of Transnistria, Donbas and Abkhazia – all of which are under Russian “protection” – provide particular opportunities for actors aligned to the Kremlin to mine Bitcoin. + +- __Transnistria:__ Uses energy from the MGRES power station, which is fuelled by gas that is effectively provided for free by Gazprom. A tech park that has been established to draw in miners offers electricity at $0.043 per kWh. + +- __Donbas:__ Has used electricity from coal-fired stations since at least 2021, which in normal times would power heavy industry. Electricity stolen from the Zaporizhizhia Nuclear Power Plant may also be used. Human sources report that there is a mining centre at Donetsk Metals Plant and at least one more, both of which operate under protection from the Federal Security Service (FSB). + +- __Abkhazia:__ Has used electricity from the Enguri hydroelectric plant on the border with Georgia, as well as imported Russian electricity, since as early as 2015/16. Electricity costs are as low as $0.005 per kWh. However, open source reports indicate that mining in both Abkhazia and Georgia proper has dropped off steeply since 2023. + + +### Transnistria: A Perfect Bitcoin Mining Environment + +Transnistria has access to free gas from Gazprom and substantial electrical generation capacity, which makes it a particularly attractive Bitcoin mining location. + +___`The incentive for the Russian state to divert gas to Bitcoin mining has increased since the invasion of Ukraine as Moscow’s ability to market its gas internationally has shrunk`___ + +The key elements in this are the unusual arrangements for both gas supply and energy generation between Moldova proper and Transnistria. Both territories receive Gazprom gas by pipeline, and for both the gas is billed via the Gazprom-Moldovagaz contract (Moldovagaz is 50% [controlled](https://www.iea.org/reports/moldova-energy-profile/market-design) by Gazprom). But while Moldova pays for its gas, Transnistria’s is nominally added to the circa $7 billion debt to Moldovagaz (according to Moldovan energy ministry sources), whose repayment prospects are modest. This should not be confused with a disputed [debt](https://tass.com/economy/1705581) from the Moldovan side of $709 million. + +Since Maia Sandu came to power as Moldova’s president in 2021 the country has reduced its dependence on this source. But what has not changed is that Transnistria’s gas is effectively free and is used to power the 2,500 MW MGRES power station. Moldova also [relies](https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/moldova-energy) on MGRES for around 80% of its electricity, illustrating the strange interdependency between the otherwise hostile entities. + +This free energy serves as a subsidy from Moscow to keep Transnistria’s obsolete, polluting and inefficient heavy industries in business; these include chemicals, steel and cement. It also allows for very cheap domestic gas, helping to shore up popular support for the local regime. + +The scale of this subsidy can be seen in the strikingly disproportionate gas consumption of the two entities, according to Moldovan government information supplied to the author: Transnistria (population 300,000) consumes circa 2 billion cubic metres (bcm)/year, while Moldova proper (population 2.5 million) consumes circa 1 bcm/year. At the point of delivery, Transnistria is receiving around 16 times as much gas per capita as Moldova. (This figure is, however, offset by the fact that some of Transnistria’s gas generates electricity in the MGRES plant, which is then sold to Moldova.) Whether this situation will continue far into 2025 is unclear, as Ukraine has refused to renew its [gas transit agreement](https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/gazprom-2025-plan-assumes-no-more-transit-via-ukraine-europe-source-says-2024-11-26/) with Gazprom. + +For now, it provides a near-perfect environment for Bitcoin mining. Given the existence of substantial power capacity at the MGRES power station and the access to free natural gas, the incentive to engage in Bitcoin mining is clear. Legislation was adopted in Transnistria in 2018 to provide a clear legal basis for the accelerated development of cryptocurrency mining. + +In 2019 there was substantial publicity for a state-backed mining enterprise zone named “Tehnopark OJSC”, which was intended to attract foreign miners, offering electricity at $0.043 per kWh. This is an extremely competitive rate; in 2024 Kazakhstan offered $0.073 per kWh and the US $0.127 per kWh, according to [research](https://www.bestbrokers.com/2024/05/21/bitcoin-power-dynamics-the-ridiculous-amounts-of-electrical-energy-used-to-mine-1-bitcoin-in-2024-just-doubled-recently/) by BestBrokers.com. While we do not have a reliable current figure, the fact that Transnistria receives free gas means that the figure is likely to be among the cheapest in the world. + +The current power consumption for one Bitcoin is 854,403 kWh according to BestBrokers.com (this figure has risen substantially in recent years thanks to changes in the mathematical basis of mining). Using the figures above, this implies an electricity cost per Bitcoin of $36,739 in Transnistria, compared to a Bitcoin price of circa $97,000. The corresponding figure for Kazakhstan is $62,371 and for the US it is $108,509. (Note that this US figure is a national average; miners are likely to operate in states with cheaper power.) + +However, there has been very little further reporting since 2019 and the [website](http://tehparkpmr.com/en/) is no longer live, although it was running as late as 2022. This does not mean that Bitcoin mining has ceased in Transnistria, but rather reflects the fact that international miners (bar Russians) did not flock to Tiraspol as hoped. As a result, and factoring in wartime conditions and the need for discretion, there is no need to court publicity. + +[Reporting](https://anticoruptie.md/en/investigations/economic/the-cryptorepublic) by the Moldovan NGO Anticoruptie indicates that the main mining players are Goweb International Limited and Tirastel GmbH. + +Although it is claimed that Western investors are involved, the “investors” are largely Russian and connected to Gazprom (to benefit from some of the gas grant that Gazprom provides to Transnistria). + +Goweb International Limited is an interesting example. Anticoruptie reports that in January 2018 the BVI entity Goweb International Ltd spent $8.7 million on crypto mining equipment for delivery to Transnistria, routing the funds through ABLV Bank in Latvia. The following month, the US Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network [targeted](https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-names-ablv-bank-latvia-institution-primary-money-laundering-concern-and) ABLV on the basis of “institutionalized money laundering” linked to “Azerbaijan, Russia, and Ukraine”. ABLV was also central to the 2016 “Laundromat” scandal in which $1 billion was stolen from Moldovan banks. + +Anticoruptie’s Cryptorepublic report goes on: + +> Goweb International Limited is an offshore company, managed by a group of businessmen from Russia, headed by Nikita Morozov, a company specialized in the production and marketing of mining equipment. + +> The company’s official site shows that it has the largest mining capacity in Moldova, 40 MWh, equivalent to six or eight mining farms, which means a locality with 180,000–200,000 households. + +With the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the incentive for the Russian state to divert gas to Bitcoin mining has only increased as Moscow’s ability to market its gas internationally has shrunk. + + +### How the Bitcoins are Used + +There is strong reason to believe that Bitcoin mining in shadow states, while carried out by private-sector actors, is done under the aegis of the Kremlin and helps to advance its goals. In the case of Transnistria, this nexus is quite explicit thanks to the direct involvement of [Igor Chaika](https://balkaninsight.com/2018/05/24/russian-investors-attracted-with-transnistria-s-minefarms-for-bitcoin-05-24-2018/). He nominally serves as the Transnistrian representative of the Russian business organisation “Delovaya Rossiya”, but is known to function as the de facto FSB chief in the territory. + +Chaika is the son of [Yury Chaika](https://cdn.occrp.org/projects/russian-asset-tracker/en/person/14/yury-chaika/), the former general prosecutor of Russia (2006–2020) who is closely associated with the abuse of the justice system by the Kremlin. The father currently serves as Putin’s envoy to Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya. Meanwhile his other son, [Artem Chaika](https://www.opensanctions.org/entities/Q21617046/), is a businessman who serves as Kadyrov’s advisor for “humanitarian, social, and economic matters” – presumably a role that leaves ample time to pursue other interests. + +The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Chisinau reported in 2018, during the early days of Bitcoin mining in the territory: + +> Chaika then told the Russian daily Kommersant that he wanted to move on with the bitcoin plans. “Now there are the prerequisites to move on,” he told the paper. “We agreed with the head of the Tiraspol executive that after the law came into force, the authorities would provide us with the infrastructure for the project. We will expect their proposals regarding the locations for the creation of mining farms – the ball is in their court,” he said. + +Wired [reported](https://www.wired.com/story/cryptocurrency-boom-post-soviet-frontier/) that Chaika “has said he is ready to sink 400 million rubles into cryptocurrency mining [in Transnistria]”. + +According to the rubric for [Swiss SECO sanctions](https://www.opensanctions.org/entities/Q105078108/) imposed on Igor Chaika in August 2024, he is responsible for funding the FSB’s destabilisation activities in Moldova proper. The Swiss sanctions state that he works closely with Dmitry Milyutin, the deputy head of the FSB responsible for Moldova. Moreover, Chaika is co-listed with Moldovan individuals whose role in destabilising the country is well documented, including Ilan Shor and Vladimir Plahotniuc, with the citation noting: + +> Igor Chaika is a Russian businessman responsible for funnelling money in support of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) projects aimed at destabilising the Republic of Moldova. He played the role of Russian “purse”, channelling money to FSB assets in the Republic of Moldova in order to bring the country under the control of the Kremlin... + +Given Chaika’s role in establishing Russia–Transnistria Bitcoin mining collaboration from 2018, it is highly likely that the resulting Bitcoins have been used to destabilise Moldova. + +___`The mining of Bitcoin in Russia’s “shadow territories” offers a deniable, lucrative and effectively anonymous way to turn abundant power into money`___ + +The use of Bitcoin to support Kremlin subversion efforts goes far beyond Moldova. For [example](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/democracy-in-the-crosshairs-how-political-money-laundering-threatens-the-democratic-process/%5d), a US loophole allows political [donations](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Democracy_in_the_Crosshairs_updated101718.pdf) under $200 to be anonymous. Huge sums can be sliced up automatically and moved electronically in small donations, with crypto adding an additional layer of anonymity. In 2020, for [example](https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/small-donors), the Trump campaign received $378 million in this way, while the Biden campaign raised $406 million. There is simply no way for the campaigns themselves or the Federal Election Commission to tell where this combined sum of almost $800 million originated. + +In 2018 the US Department of Justice issued an [indictment](https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1080281/dl) against Netyksho et al. The indictment alleges that they were members or associates of GRU (Russian military intelligence) Units 26165 (more widely known as “Fancy Bear”) and 74455 (“Sandworm”). The indictment states that the group was responsible for DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0: + +> Although the Conspirators caused transactions to be conducted in a variety of currencies, including U.S. dollars, they principally used bitcoin when purchasing servers, registering domains, and otherwise making payments in furtherance of hacking activity... + +> ...The Conspirators funded the purchase of computer infrastructure for their hacking activity in part by “mining” bitcoin. Individuals and entities can mine bitcoin by allowing their computing power to be used to verify and record payments on the bitcoin public ledger, a service for which they are rewarded with freshly-minted bitcoin. The pool of bitcoin generated from the GRU’s mining activity was used, for example, to pay a Romanian company to register the domain dcleaks.com through a payment processing company located in the United States. + +Cryptocurrency is equally useful in evading sanctions and paying for embargoed military equipment. This is particularly the case when working with partners such as China and India, whose banks are vulnerable to secondary sanctions if they are uncovered. In September 2024 the FT [published](https://www.ft.com/content/101afcd6-8e6f-4b5f-89b0-98f48cd5d119) leaked material detailing the construction of an India–Russia “closed circuit” trade route for sanctions evasion: + +> [Vadim] Poida outlined a five-stage plan to help Russia spend its rupees and establish a steady supply of dual-use components. Russia would set up a “closed payment system between Russian and Indian companies” beyond the oversight of western countries, “including by using digital financial assets”... + +The US Treasury Department [demonstrated](https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2725) its intention to combat such arrangements in November 2024 when it sanctioned four named staff at VTB Shanghai and Sberbank New Delhi in what is likely to have been a shot across the bows of the broader community of Indian and Chinese banks. Such restrictions can be expected to increase the attractiveness of Bitcoin as a settlement means that does not put local banks at risk. + +Given this analysis, the mining of Bitcoin in Russia’s “shadow territories” offers a deniable, lucrative and effectively anonymous way to turn abundant power into money. That money can enrich well-connected Russian individuals and allow them to enjoy a prosperous life in places such as Dubai and Turkey. Equally – and almost certainly using the same mining operations – it presents several threats. These include the destabilisation of neighbouring states, projecting covert influence into Western democracies and facilitating sanctions evasion in concert with allies such as China and India. + +As the efforts of Ukraine’s allies to restrict the funding and resourcing of the Kremlin’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine continue, combating this mining activity represents an important priority that calls for dedicated effort. This could include: cyber warfare measures; blockchain investigations focused on freshly minted coins to reveal those that are linked with Russia’s illegal activity; sanctions on digital asset platforms that facilitate mining, thus tarnishing all new coins they produce; and policies to choke off cheap energy to the “shadow territories”. Too often, the West lags behind Russian evasion strategies with its restrictive measures; when it comes to the vulnerabilities of Bitcoin mining, the evidence is clear. It is time to act. + +--- + +__Neil Barnett__ is CEO of Istok Associates Limited, a London-based intelligence consultancy. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-confronting-armageddon.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-confronting-armageddon.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..1d457376 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-13-confronting-armageddon.md @@ -0,0 +1,1219 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Confronting Armageddon +author: Mark F. Cancian, et al. +date : 2024-12-13 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/SvF2LFf.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Wargaming Nuclear Deterrence and Its Failures in a U.S.–China Conflict over Taiwan" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_A new report informed by 15 wargame simulations examines nuclear dynamics in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, assessing what creates the greatest pressure for nuclear weapons use in such a conflict, what happens if nuclear weapons are used, and potential off-ramps._ + + + +The greatest pressure for nuclear use came when China teams reached a crisis: their invasion of Taiwan was in danger of a defeat that might threaten Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. To dissuade China from gambling for resurrection—using nuclear weapons to salvage a failing conventional campaign—U.S. diplomacy was much more important than nuclear brinksmanship. Favorable outcomes were possible, but total victory was unachievable. The United States must therefore be prepared to successfully prosecute a high-end conventional war while at the same time providing face-saving off-ramps to the adversary. To do otherwise risks a nuclear holocaust, as indeed occurred in three game iterations. + +#### The Challenge + +The confluence of Chinese nuclear force development and the increasing risk of conflict over Taiwan makes study of nuclear escalation imperative. China’s nuclear forces are developing at a rapid rate, acquiring capabilities that may increase the chance of nuclear use in war. Although China has maintained a no-first-use policy regarding nuclear weapons, extreme circumstances might cause it to override this commitment. Some analysts suggest that the prospect of failing in an invasion of Taiwan might be such a circumstance. + +Others have worried that the United States might incite Chinese nuclear use during a conventional conflict either by striking the Chinese mainland or by degrading (inadvertently or intentionally) Chinese nuclear capabilities—for example, by destroying dual-use missiles or command and control networks. Alternatively, the United States might use nuclear weapons first. U.S. Nuclear Posture Reviews (NPRs) have not ruled out nuclear first use. Indeed, some U.S. strategists have suggested using nuclear weapons against a Chinese invasion fleet to compensate for perceived conventional weakness. + +#### Key Questions + +These trends create two research questions about nuclear escalation in a Taiwan invasion scenario: + +1. What creates the greatest pressure for nuclear weapons use? The literature on this subject proposes many hypotheses. Separating the more important from the less important is critical to designing policy that reduces the likelihood of nuclear use during a conventional conflict. + +2. What happens if nuclear weapons are used? Although it would be too late to avoid the tragedy of nuclear use, there is a range of outcomes. Consider the difference in destruction from a single high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) followed by a ceasefire versus the mutual destruction of urban populations. Better-prepared decisionmaking could reduce the damage of nuclear conflict while still producing favorable outcomes. + +#### The Wargame + +To investigate these research questions, the project employed a series of wargames including conventional and nuclear elements to assess the potential actions of China, the United States, and Japan in an operationally realistic and competitive environment. The wargame built on a previous U.S.-China conventional wargame developed by the authors. This project added nuclear elements, updated the wargame for a 2028 time frame, and then ran the game 15 times, varying U.S. mainland strike authorities and Chinese nuclear posture. Game participants had expertise in regional affairs, military operations, and nuclear strategy, many at a senior level, but gameplay represented their individual perspectives, not the policies or plans of the U.S. government. + +By placing players in the role of operational commanders with the latitude to recommend nuclear use and negotiated settlements, the wargames explored the military considerations of nuclear use and their effect on the campaign. The study did not address the likelihood of nuclear use, focusing instead on military factors and minimizing political factors. + +#### The Results + +The Sankey diagram (Figure 1) shows the game outcomes and the many paths taken to them. Although complex, the chart captures a key point: initiating nuclear use is truly a roll of the “iron dice.” (A full discussion of the chart and pathways is in the main text under Game Results.) + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/eHqqe9K.png) +_▲ __Figure 1: Game Pathways and Outcomes.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +The game outcomes (listed on the right side of Figure 1) were as follows: + +- __People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Phased Withdrawal (5 outcomes):__ a ceasefire with a People’s Republic of China (PRC) withdrawal from Taiwan and the return of Chinese prisoners of war (POWs) + +- __Status Quo Ante (1 outcome):__ destruction of Chinese forces on Taiwan but no Taiwanese independence + +- __Conflagration (3 outcomes):__ strategic nuclear exchange with millions of casualties + +- __PRC Enclave (5 outcomes):__ a ceasefire with the establishment of a PRC enclave on Taiwan + +- __Inconclusive (1 outcome):__ no settlement or nuclear conflagration by the end of gameplay + +Although each game started in the same place, gameplay took many pathways to arrive at the five outcomes. Similar pathways could lead to different outcomes. For example, in two iterations, China teams opened with a nuclear-created HEMP. In one of the iterations, the U.S. team responded with its own HEMP, and in the other the U.S. team did not respond. Both iterations continued with conventional operations until the China team experienced a crisis as its invasion failed. + +In twelve games, China teams experienced a crisis as their invasion forces faced defeat on Taiwan. Seven games saw China teams recommending nuclear use, leading to the following results: + +- In two, the U.S. team withdrew from the conflict, accepting a PRC enclave on Taiwan. + +- In one, the U.S. team responded with a total counterforce attack, which similarly led to a PRC enclave. + +- In three, the U.S. team conducted a countervalue attack, leading to a global conflagration. + +- In one, the U.S. team attacked Chinese operational targets with nuclear weapons, resulting in the status quo ante. + +No set of circumstances allowed a complete U.S. coalition or Chinese victory. All victories were partial. + +It is important to note that the probability of nuclear use cannot be inferred from these results. A game with political authorities fully represented might produce a different frequency of nuclear use. Further, using nuclear weapons would produce unpredictable and momentous political effects not modeled in the game. Thus, the ultimate political effect of the conflict would depend on actions taken after the point at which gameplay ended. + +#### Analysis and Recommendations + +The greatest pressure for nuclear weapons use came from imminent conventional defeat. In seven of eight cases of nuclear use, China teams employed nuclear weapons first when they were facing conventional defeat on Taiwan and decided to gamble for resurrection; the only other case of nuclear use was by one U.S. team when it mistakenly believed it was losing the conflict. This occurred because the models of conventional conflict employed in the game tended to produce early Chinese success but subsequent setbacks. + +The Chinese amphibious fleet was particularly vulnerable. Between weeks three and five of conflict, losses to the amphibious fleet made China teams’ positions increasingly unsustainable. Regarding decisive defeat as a potential existential threat to the CCP, many China teams decided to risk nuclear escalation to change the dynamics of conflict. China teams typically employed between 12 and 30 weapons in these cases. This leads to our recommendations: + +- __Prepare off-ramps for a conflict with China.__ There can be no complete victory in a conflict between nuclear powers. Magnanimity in victory—agreeing to settlement terms that are advantageous to the United States but do not humiliate China—could allow Beijing to back down without facing a decision on nuclear use versus possible regime collapse. The United States must work with allies and partners ahead of time to evaluate what face-saving off-ramps they could offer China in exchange for the substantive victory of ending the conflict with an autonomous Taiwan. Without having thought through these proposals ahead of time, there is a real danger that events will outpace U.S.-coalition diplomacy. + +- __Do not preclude the U.S. military from striking the Chinese mainland with conventional weapons.__ Several factors sometimes said to either encourage or discourage the use of nuclear weapons did not play a decisive role. Decisions to escalate or not were driven primarily by an evaluation of the stakes of defeat and the off-ramps available. Chinese access to low-yield nuclear weapons was marginally influential. Other hypothesized drivers of nuclear escalation that the results did not support included inadvertent escalation from attacks on nuclear systems, U.S. conventional attacks on the Chinese mainland, substitution for dwindling stocks of conventional munitions, and deliberate conventional attacks on nuclear capabilities. As strikes on the Chinese mainland did not evoke a nuclear response, U.S. war plans should be more accepting of risk in that domain. + +- __Do not pursue quantitative nuclear superiority with the expectation that it will deter China from using nuclear weapons.__ Enduring U.S. quantitative nuclear superiority and counterforce capabilities similarly played no role in the China teams’ calculations. China teams that recommended nuclear use knew that they were embarking on a risky course of action given that the United States could devastate China with a nuclear attack; however, whether the risk of devastation was from 300 or 1,000 nuclear weapons, they accepted it. There was no evidence that a deeper U.S. nuclear inventory would have strengthened deterrence. + +- __Accustom U.S. military and political leaders to the possibility of large initial losses in the event of a war with China.__ Many U.S. teams were shocked at their large losses early in the conflict. By the end of the first week, the United States and Japan typically lost 270 aircraft and 20 ships, including two carriers. Shaken by these large losses, two U.S. teams believed they were headed toward defeat. In both cases, game adjudicators saw the course of conflict as unexceptional and believed the United States would regain conventional advantage without nuclear use. However, shock led one team to accept an adverse settlement early in the conflict, while another used nuclear weapons to redress a perceived weakness in the conventional balance. Experience in wargames could accustom leaders to the likely contours of the conflict. + +- __Continue extended deterrence messaging.__ Extended deterrence proved generally successful. During early phases of the games, before any nuclear use, all U.S. teams reiterated statements of extended deterrence covering Japan. Most China teams regarded a nuclear attack on Japan as tantamount to a nuclear strike on the United States. China teams refrained from attacking Japan with nuclear weapons in all but one case (compared with five instances of nuclear use against the United States). + +- __Develop an understanding with Japan on the nuclear environment.__ Major changes to regional nuclear posture (e.g., basing nuclear weapons in Japan) are not necessary to deter an attack on Japan. However, even if extended deterrence works, Japan might face a region in which nuclear weapons are used. This differs in key aspects from what the United States and Japan have discussed and exercised in the past. + +- __Develop nuclear branch plans for Chinese operational targets.__ When faced with Chinese first use, all responses carried risk, though of different kinds. A nuclear strike against Chinese operational targets was the best nuclear option. These plans should therefore be refined and exercised. + + - _Withdrawal:_ In response to China’s first use, some U.S. teams, averse to the risks of continuing nuclear conflict in any form, accepted unfavorable ceasefire terms to end the conflict. However, most U.S. teams were unwilling to do this, believing doing so would sacrifice a U.S. partner and undermine the U.S. global position. + + - _Continuing Conventionally:_ Some U.S. teams tried to ignore China’s use of nuclear weapons and continued the conventional campaign. However, this invited further Chinese nuclear use, effectively forcing the U.S. teams to choose between a nuclear response or withdrawal. + + - _Countervalue:_ Some U.S. teams pursued countervalue responses, either by deliberate nuclear attacks on Chinese urban populations or by targeting military or economic infrastructure located in Chinese cities and thus inflicting high civilian casualties. Countervalue responses always led to a cycle of escalation that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions. + + - _Counterforce:_ The Chinese nuclear buildup precluded a disarming nuclear attack by the United States. Thus, any counterforce attack would have to aim at the narrower goal of damage limitation. However, these attacks still left China with enough nuclear weapons to retaliate against the United States and force a negotiated settlement. + + - _Operational Forces:_ A limited U.S. nuclear response against Chinese conventional operational forces did not surrender Taiwan to Chinese rule and did not lead inexorably to countervalue exchanges. Destroying the Chinese amphibious fleet or forces ashore on Taiwan neutralized any advantages that Chinese nuclear use gained. The single instance of a U.S. tactical nuclear strike against Chinese operational targets on Taiwan employed fewer than 10 weapons. + +- __Do not develop additional nuclear weapons for a conflict with China beyond current nuclear modernization plans.__ U.S. teams did not lack the tactical nuclear means to conduct the limited nuclear attacks on operational targets described above. Executing the current nuclear modernization plans provided sufficient tools for a 2028 time frame. + +- __Rebalance nuclear inventories over time, from gravity bombs to air-launched cruise missiles.__ As with conventional attacks, the U.S. teams needed to use long-range nuclear systems to stay outside China’s air defense zone. U.S. teams rarely used nuclear bombs because of their short range. However, U.S. modernization plans are weighted heavily toward bombs. Over time, this distribution should be shifted toward long-range air-launched cruise missiles. + +- __Work with China to facilitate mutual understanding about deterrence and the unpredictability of nuclear escalation.__ Nuclear escalation is inherently unpredictable and difficult to control. This is particularly true if U.S. and Chinese leaders lack a shared understanding of escalation dynamics. During the Cold War, Soviet rhetoric about the ultimate victory of socialism led some Western thinkers to believe the Soviet Union was pursuing a first-strike capability. In a similar way, China’s opacity in nuclear force development and doctrine could create misunderstandings. Furthermore, China’s apparent faith in its capability to manage nuclear crises could prove disastrous in an actual conflict. China’s key concern is for the United States to recognize mutual vulnerability. A series of nuclear talks might make progress on these concerns, facilitate mutual understanding, and help prevent arms racing, crisis instability, and ultimate catastrophe. + + +### Background + +___Why This Report?___ + +The United States and China have profound interests in peace, but conflict is far from unthinkable. The United States has five treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific and commitments to their security, as well as broader interests in maintaining a regional balance of power. China, for its part, seeks to redress what it views as historical grievances. Both states now openly acknowledge that they are engaged in strategic competition with each other. They highlight the other as their primary strategic competitor and operate military forces in close proximity. Nowhere is the risk of conflict higher than Taiwan. China seeks reunification with the island, peacefully if possible but through force if necessary. It has employed diplomatic and military tools to signal its unwillingness to see Taiwan move toward independence. + +Taiwan is not a treaty ally of the United States, which maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward events there. But Washington insists that any change to the status quo be peaceful and that the United States might intervene in the event of Chinese attack. Because both the United States and China are nuclear powers, the question of nuclear use or threats of nuclear use would loom large if a conflict over Taiwan were to pit U.S. and Chinese forces against each other. Coupled with China’s ongoing nuclear modernization, this creates an important area for study. + +The goal of this project was to employ wargaming to inform U.S. policy regarding potential nuclear escalation during a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Chapter 1 outlines the background events that motivated the study. Chapters 2 and 3 summarize the literature and hypotheses associated with nuclear deterrence and use, particularly as these topics relate to a potential Taiwan conflict. Chapter 4 details the research design and addresses scenario variations, orders of battle, comparisons to other recent wargames, and the scope conditions associated with this study. Chapter 5 summarizes the results of the 15 wargames conducted with a total of 85 participants. Chapter 6 draws on game results to assess hypotheses about what creates the greatest pressure for nuclear first use. Chapter 7 assesses hypotheses about what happens if nuclear weapons are used, including the targets that might be attacked, adversary responses, and the factors that shape military and political outcomes. Finally, Chapter 8 presents policy recommendations for U.S. military and political leaders in light of the analysis. Four appendices summarize the course of the games, nuclear use, nuclear effects modeling, and the terms employed in the study. + +#### China’s Nuclear Modernization + +China’s nuclear forces are growing and evolving rapidly. What are the contours of that change? Is Chinese nuclear policy changing? What is driving change? And what are the implications for stability and nuclear dynamics between China and the United States? The answers to some of these questions, particularly those related to observable changes, are relatively clear, while others represent significant areas of uncertainty. All these questions are interconnected; understanding how China’s nuclear forces might evolve and how that evolution might impact nuclear escalation dynamics is, for example, closely connected to the drivers and motivations for these nuclear force changes. + +_CONTOURS OF CHANGE_ + +Historically, China has fielded what many Western observers have described as a “minimum nuclear deterrent.” Chinese nuclear strategists describe the objective as a “lean and effective” force, meaning one that is, at the minimum level, sufficient to ensure retaliatory capability in the event of first use against China. However, that definition can be operationalized in various ways. Over the last two decades, China’s nuclear forces have grown in size and sophistication. China has deployed new families of mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), a new class of ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs, the Jin class), new classes of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and air-launched ballistic missiles, giving China a nascent nuclear triad. As the force has grown in size and capability, Western analysts have suggested that its capabilities endow China with an “assured retaliation” capability. + +Recent events have raised the possibility that growth is accelerating. In 2021, open-source intelligence revealed that China was building hundreds of new silos deep in the country’s interior. With the construction of new nuclear reactors in China, more than doubling capacity since 2014, and the opening of its first breeder reactor in 2023, China can produce fissile material for many new warheads. The 2023 China Military Power Report (CMPR) projects that China’s warhead inventory will grow from an estimated 500 in May 2023 to 1,000 by 2030, with growth continuing apace through at least 2035. + +It is unknown whether China’s intent is to become a “near peer” to the United States in the nuclear domain or whether its intentions are greater. However, examining the drivers of change gives some insights. + +_DRIVERS OF CHANGE_ + +What is motivating the qualitative improvements and expansion of China’s nuclear forces? While the question is impossible to answer with certainty, some combination of the following four drivers is probably at work. The first driver is the need to maintain a secure and credible second-strike capability against technological and capability uncertainty. Chinese nuclear strategists highlight the perceived insecurity of this capability in the face of improved U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), conventional strike, and missile defense capabilities. Long before China’s nuclear buildup accelerated, some Western observers predicted that improved U.S. counterforce capabilities would pressure China to expand its arsenal and adopt higher levels of readiness. + +A second driver is to support great power status and what Chinese president Xi Jinping calls a “new type of major power relations.” At the ceremony creating the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) in December 2015, he said the force would increase “support for our country’s major power status.” The 2013 Science of Military Strategy asserts that China’s nuclear forces play a role in “guaranteeing that China’s status as a powerful country does not waver.” Some Chinese pundits have asserted that the inventory should be “commensurate with China’s standing as a country . . . and the international obligations it shoulders.” U.S. realists have argued that China, like past great powers, is unlikely to accept nuclear inferiority indefinitely. + +The third driver may be deterring U.S. tactical nuclear use, particularly in a Taiwan contingency. Chinese leaders and strategists and the Chinese public are aware of increased U.S. discussion of tactical nuclear options in a Taiwan contingency. Denying the United States escalation dominance would discourage U.S. nuclear tactical use. U.S. analysts have therefore asked: Does Beijing believe that possessing more advanced nuclear technologies will allow it to go on the offensive conventionally while deterring U.S. entry? + +Finally, domestic factors, such as changes to the bureaucratic politics of nuclear decisionmaking in China, also likely play a role. Specifically, the role of the competing military services is thought to have grown in policymaking relative to the nuclear specialist community. Determining the relative weight of these explanations is not possible, though all probably play a role. + +_CHINESE NUCLEAR POLICY_ + +China’s nuclear policy and lexicon remain ostensibly unchanged, anchored to a no-first-use retaliatory policy under which China stipulates it will not be the first to employ nuclear weapons in conflict but will respond in kind if attacked. At the same time, however, China’s nuclear modernization has significantly enhanced its military capabilities, potentially enabling it to execute a wider range of strategies. Some Chinese analysts have suggested that China, as the weaker party, might initiate the use of nuclear weapons in a conflict with the United States over Taiwan if U.S. missiles target the mainland or if Chinese forces are defeated on Taiwan. Although individuals making such comments acknowledge that their comments do not reflect Chinese policy, several U.S. analysts have suggested that the stakes in a Taiwan conflict could, under the right circumstances, lead China to violate its own policy. + +_UNCERTAINTY IN CHINESE NUCLEAR PRIORITIES_ + +All else equal, the quantitative increase in warhead numbers makes China’s second-strike capability more survivable, but the degree of the survivability enhancement and doctrinal changes are uncertain. + +There is speculation about China moving a portion of the force to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture. Between 2017 and 2021, China deployed a large P-band phased array radar (so-called “Chinese PAVE PAWS”), X-band radar oriented toward Alaska, an S-band phased array radar capable of detecting stealth aircraft and cruise missiles, and seven FireEye infrared detection satellites. The 2023 CMPR concludes that the PLA has a “developing ‘Early Warning Counterstrike’ (预警反击) posture,” which “allows the Rocket Force to maintain a portion of its units on a heightened state of readiness while leaving the other portion . . . with separated launchers, missiles, and warheads.” However, China has not announced an LOW policy, and it is uncertain how much of the force would be affected by such a shift or on what time scale. + +There is also uncertainty about the specific changes to the nuclear force structure underway. Three new silo fields may accommodate 350 silos, most of which will house solid-fueled DF-31s and DF-41s, though silos for liquid-fueled DF-5s will also increase from 18 to 48. It is possible that not all silos will be filled. New road-mobile DF-26 units have been established, as have new brigades, to be equipped with as yet unknown weapons. Notably, different sources at different times have asserted that various missiles (including the DF-5, DF-31, DF-41, and JL-2) have multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), with the number of warheads at between 3 and 10 depending on the missile and source. + +Given the number of permutations and combinations—basing modes, warheads per missile, and readiness—the same inventory of 1,000 warheads may be more or less survivable. All else equal, a force of 1,000 warheads deployed largely on silo-based missiles, many or most of which are MIRVed, will not be as survivable as the same 1,000 warheads deployed on mobile missiles and with fewer warheads per missile. Higher readiness postures would greatly improve survivability, though LOW would carry externalities, including greatly increased risks of an accidental launch. + +A second area of uncertainty is the extent of Chinese emphasis on nuclear warfighting capabilities. Chinese nuclear doctrine has always included rudimentary warfighting. For example, doctrine mandates strategic forces be capable of surviving to engage in several rounds of nuclear exchanges. Potential targets include military infrastructure targets, such as naval and air bases. In recent years, China has deployed more accurate missiles and improved the ability of missile forces to maneuver. Both changes derive largely from the conventional functions of the PLARF but allow China to conduct a wider variety of counterforce attacks over a more prolonged nuclear fight. + +Future changes are more speculative. Recent iterations of the CMPR, citing “PRC military writings,” argue that China “probably seeks lower yield nuclear warhead capabilities.” There are reasons why China might wish to acquire lower-yield nuclear weapons, though similar motivations would have existed in the past. Assuming China does deploy such weapons, it is unclear how it would plan to use these weapons and the extent to which Chinese thinking about tactical nuclear warfighting might change. + +_IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGE_ + +Assessments of the implications of China’s nuclear buildup, like those of Soviet efforts to catch up to the United States in nuclear forces during the early Cold War, are unclear. On the one hand, when both sides in a military competition have assured retaliatory capability, deliberate escalation to the nuclear level becomes less likely. On the other hand, most scholars also acknowledge the workings of a so-called stability-instability paradox: knowing that higher levels of warfare are less likely because of nuclear risks, nuclear-armed states are paradoxically more prone to initiate low-level conflicts. Hence, robust nuclear capabilities may embolden those in China who advocate for conventional action against Taiwan. + +A key element of uncertainty is whether and how China’s no-first-use policy might affect its actions during war. No scenario would test that policy more than a Taiwan conflict, given that China considers Taiwan one of its “core interests.” Chinese strategists disagree on the response. Famously, in 2005, Major General Zhu Chenghu warned that China would use nuclear weapons if the United States targeted the mainland during a Taiwan conflict. Shen Dingli of Fudan University has also said that China would likely resort to nuclear weapons if its conventional forces were devastated and Taiwan moved toward independence. + +However, Chinese officials quickly disavowed Zhu’s comments in 2005, and individuals within China’s strategic community continue to assert that Chinese policy has not changed. U.S. analysts disagree on whether a no-first-use policy continues to constrain Chinese action. However, even many of those who find that Chinese policy is unlikely to change warn that the exigencies of a Taiwan conflict make predictions difficult and that the United States should be prepared for all possibilities. Brad Roberts, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy, warns that although experts “can make many predictions about China’s nuclear future,” that future is “littered with uncertainties.” + +#### U.S. Responses + +Until at least the 2010s, U.S. nuclear policy was not driven primarily by China-related concerns, and nuclear issues played a secondary role within the U.S.-China military dynamic. Since the late 2010s, a variety of developments have converged to dramatically change U.S. nuclear calculations and spark debates in the United States about nuclear forces and strategy. + +Historically, Russia (and its predecessor, the Soviet Union) has been the “pacing threat” in the nuclear domain and remains so today. Russia’s 4,300 warhead inventory greatly exceeds that of China, which the Department of Defense’s CMPR listed as more than 400 in 2022 and more than 500 in 2023. The United States and Russia/Soviet Union greatly reduced the number of warheads under START I, SORT (Treaty on Moscow), and New START. The United States went further through unilateral actions, such as taking nuclear weapons off ships and submarines, and policies designed to deemphasize the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy outlined in successive post–Cold War iterations of the NPR. + +The Chinese nuclear buildup has upset this long history of U.S.-Russia/Soviet bilateral nuclear policies and negotiations. It means that U.S. nuclear relations have become a “three-body problem,” even if China’s arsenal does not yet rise to the level of the U.S. or Russian arsenals. + +As a result, several recent analyses published by the Heritage Foundation, the Atlantic Council, and the Institute for Defense Analyses call for an increase in the number and variety of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons and platforms beyond those currently planned. The authors offer two rationales. The first is that the United States must be prepared to deter two simultaneous wars with major powers, and tactical nuclear weapons could compensate for conventional limitations. U.S. first use might be presumed in that case. The second rationale is that the United States should have a credible nuclear answer to the limited use of nuclear weapons. The 2023 Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States recommended that tactical nuclear weapons be forward deployable, survivable against preemptive attack, and capable of penetrating advanced missile defenses. For similar purposes, a 2024 Heritage Foundation report recommends reviving the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) while continuing to introduce a low-yield SLBM. Opponents argue that the addition of both the B-21 and the long-range standoff weapon (LRSO) made the SLCM-N “excessive to need.” + +Other opponents emphasize operational opportunity costs in terms of munitions carried at sea, as well as financial trade-offs, estimated at $2.1 billion over five years. Finally, some argue that the focus on nuclear warfighting will drive an arms race. + +Administrations have always disagreed somewhat about how much the United States should emphasize nuclear weapons in its national security strategy—a disagreement reflected in different iterations of the NPR. By the mid-2010s, Russian nuclear modernization had proceeded to the point where successive administrations from both U.S. parties had supported modernizing much of the aging U.S. nuclear inventory. In 2023, the Congressional Budget Office estimated 10-year costs for nuclear forces between 2023 and 2032 at $756 billion, of which $355 billion would be spent on modernizing weapons, warheads, platforms, and laboratories. + +Publicly available descriptions of modernization include production of the following elements: + +- 650 Sentinel ICBMs (400 in silos and 250 spares) to replace Minuteman III + +- new or modified warheads (W87-1) for Sentinel ICBMs + +- 12 Columbia-class SSBNs to replace the retiring Ohio class + +- new or modified Trident II (D5LE2) SLBMs for the Columbia class + +- new or modified warheads (W93 and W76-2) for the Trident II SLBM + +- upgraded radar and other equipment on the B-52 (to produce the B-52J) + +- 100 B-21 bombers to replace the B-2 and nonnuclear B-1B + +- LRSOs to replace the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) + +- new or modified warheads (W80-4) for the LRSO + +- new versions of the B61 bomb (12 and 13) to replace older versions + +Over the last several years, new pressures have prompted reevaluation of U.S. nuclear forces and policy. Russia’s hesitation to negotiate a replacement for the New START treaty signaled that strategic arms control between the United States and Russia might crumble after the current five-year extension (to 2026). The continuing Russian invasion of Ukraine underscores that possibility. The growth of China’s nuclear forces, especially after the revelation of large new silo fields in 2021, raises the prospect that China will become a near-peer competitor in the nuclear domain earlier than expected. That, in turn, confronts the United States with two near-peer nuclear competitors for the first time in its history. The possibility of facing two peer nuclear powers has engendered calls to expand U.S. nuclear forces. Conversely, dissenters believe that as long as the United States does not require damage-limiting capabilities against the nuclear forces of adversaries, it already possesses sufficient forces to threaten devastating attacks on the civilian infrastructure (and populations) of both adversaries. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, “I want to be clear here—the United States does not need to increase our nuclear forces to outnumber the combined total of our competitors in order to successfully deter them.” + +Finally, characterization of the U.S.-China strategic relationship has changed. In 2015, senior defense officials began describing the U.S.-China relationship as a “great power competition,” and “strategic competition” became enshrined in U.S. policy under the 2018 National Security Strategy. Relentless, rapid increases to China’s defense budget made China the pacing threat in conventional terms. Eying eroding conventional advantage, some U.S. strategists argue that U.S. nuclear advantage could restore deterrence, while others worry that China’s improved nuclear capabilities might signal a shift in its willingness to employ nuclear weapons to backstop conventional power. These factors have renewed attention to debates about nuclear escalation that began in the Cold War and continue to this day. + + +### Literature Review + +___What Creates the Greatest Pressure for Nuclear First Use?___ + +There is an immense body of literature on nuclear weapons strategy and employment stretching over 80 years. This chapter reviews prominent theories about factors that create pressure for or against nuclear first use. Rather than take an a priori stance on each subject, each section concludes with a positive hypothesis—that a given theory is correct. Chapter 3 addresses the literature and hypothesis about what might happen after the first use of nuclear weapons. The analysis chapters then test the hypotheses. + +#### The Nuclear Revolution + +In 1946, Bernard Brodie wrote, “Thus far the chief purpose of our military establishment has been to win wars. From now on its chief purpose must be to avert them.” Over his tenure as secretary of defense, Robert McNamara shifted away from counterforce strategies to focus on “assured destruction” of Soviet cities and later stipulated that “Mutual Assured Destruction is the foundation of deterrence.” + +At the end of the Cold War, Robert Jervis argued, “Nuclear weapons have drastically altered statecraft.” Summarizing the logic of a nuclear revolution, he argued that war among nuclear powers had become so destructive it was unthinkable, easing the security dilemma and the impetus for arms racing and making the status quo relatively easy to maintain. + +Recent critics of the idea of a nuclear revolution observe a puzzle: there has been a high degree of military insecurity and competition among major powers during the nuclear era despite no large-scale war between these actors. These critics argue that acquiring and maintaining a robust and survivable second-strike capability is difficult, time consuming, and impermanent. Proponents counter that maintaining assured retaliatory capability was never said to be automatic but that wealthy major powers could afford adaptations that would keep retaliatory forces survivable and viable. + +#### The Nuclear Taboo + +Another possible restraining factor is the “nuclear taboo,” the idea that norms against nuclear use have become deeply rooted since the end of World War II. As evidence, proponents point to the nonuse of nuclear weapons since World War II, despite numerous wars involving nuclear powers. These normative considerations have created reputational costs of nuclear use that may also help explain the historical nonuse of nuclear weapons, especially against nonnuclear powers. Others suggest that state policies, such as policies of no first use, discourage use outside the parameters of that policy, especially when force structure and practice are consistent with the stipulated policy. China has maintained a consistent no-first-use retaliatory policy for six decades since first testing nuclear weapons in 1964, and its force structure has historically been consistent with the policy. + +The concept of a generalized nuclear taboo has been contested on several grounds. Public opinion in the United States might be more accepting of nuclear use than the term “taboo” would suggest, particularly when nuclear use is perceived as necessary for national security. As a result, the U.S. attitude is mixed. The United States has never ascribed to a no-first-use policy, and its forces have been designed for a wide variety of missions. Its current policy, outlined in the 2022 NPR, allows nuclear use, though only in a narrow range of cases. Research on public opinion in Europe and China demonstrates a similar willingness to use nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances. + +___`Hypothesis: Teams will be reluctant to employ nuclear weapons, even in situations where nuclear use would be militarily advantageous.`___ + +#### Inadvertent Escalation + +Large-scale conventional military operations might inadvertently threaten core components of a state’s nuclear arsenal, pressuring the target state to escalate to the nuclear level. In the Taiwan context, U.S. incentives to attack China’s conventionally armed ballistic missile forces would be high, but China’s conventional and nuclear missile forces are difficult to distinguish from one another. Hence, the United States might destroy nuclear-armed missiles incidental to the campaign against conventional missiles and create pressure on China to escalate (“use or lose”). Similar issues surround potential attacks on Chinese command and control, which may use the same systems for nuclear and conventional forces. Some have argued that incidental attacks on nuclear forces, combined with uncertainty over the intent of those attacks, could spark escalation. Chinese attacks on U.S. early warning satellites would carry similar risks. U.S. officials have warned their Chinese counterparts that attacks on space-based early warning systems, such as U.S. Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) constellations, would constitute a red line. Chinese strategists counter that since those satellites would also be used to cue attacks against conventional targets, they are legitimate targets. + +___`Hypothesis: Conventional U.S. strikes on China’s nuclear forces will pressure China teams to respond with nuclear weapons.`___ + +#### Mainland Strikes + +Separate from inadvertent escalation is a concern that any conventional strike on the homeland of a nuclear power would pressure the target state to respond with nuclear weapons. In the context of a war over Taiwan, China possesses some conventional ability to attack the U.S. homeland, but the United States has much greater ability to attack the Chinese mainland. Some argue that restricting such attacks would prolong the conflict and lead to a long, drawn-out war. Jan van Tol and his coauthors warn that granting sanctuary status to high-leverage targets inside China would severely undermine U.S. efforts to maintain strategic stability in the region. They argue that the United States might need to strike specific targets in China to preserve its military advantage, though such strikes should be geographically limited to the areas near the conflict site to minimize escalation risks. Critics argue that attacking the Chinese mainland could provoke escalation, including a nuclear response. In any case, this would be a major presidential decision during a war. It is impossible to predict ahead of time where the sitting president will come out. + +___`Hypothesis: U.S. conventional strikes on nonnuclear targets on the Chinese mainland will pressure China teams to respond with nuclear weapons.`___ + +#### Gambling for Resurrection + +Faced with the apparent superiority of Soviet conventional forces during the Cold War, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) developed strategies that included the potential use of nuclear weapons to buttress deterrence. To strengthen credibility, the strategies emphasized a willingness to employ nuclear weapons and took measures to underscore the likelihood of use. China, in contrast, maintains a no-first-use doctrine and foreswears the acquisition of tactical nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, in the event of a failed attempt to invade Taiwan, China might be tempted to resort to nuclear weapons to gamble for resurrection. As discussed in the Background section of this report, some Chinese and Western analysts question whether a no-first-use policy would necessarily survive a looming military defeat in Taiwan. Matthew Kroenig, for example, argues, “If Chinese leadership believed that it was losing a conventional war over Taiwan, it might seek to escalate to nuclear use in hopes of compelling negotiations for a settlement.” According to the 2023 CMPR, Beijing “probably would . . . consider nuclear use to restore deterrence if a conventional military defeat in Taiwan gravely threatened CCP regime survival.” However, nuclear use would also carry major risks, most obviously the risk of nuclear retaliation by the adversary. This would threaten regime (and national) survival. Thus, some analysts believe nuclear use, though possible, is unlikely and depends on the Chinese leadership seeing no viable off-ramp for the regime’s survival. + +___`Hypothesis: Conventional defeat will pressure teams to use nuclear weapons.`___ + +#### Deliberate Conventional Attacks on Nuclear Forces + +Some strategists have advocated conventional attacks on strategic assets to pressure adversaries. The U.S. Maritime Strategy of the 1980s called for attacks on the Soviets’ far eastern SSBN bastion. The intent was to alter Soviet perceptions of the nuclear balance “by destroying their SSBNs” and thereby “encourag[e] war termination.” After the Cold War, some saw conventional strike as a substitute for nuclear weapons. Conventional Prompt Global Strike could “cover practically one-hundred (100) percent of the North Korean, Iranian and Syrian target bases previously covered by nuclear forces.” New technologies, such as hypersonic weapons, could further enhance conventional counterforce. Chinese and Western analysts have considered whether such capabilities would be directed at Chinese strategic targets. Some U.S. analysts have suggested reprising the 1980s Maritime Strategy, this time directing it against Chinese SSBNs in the South China Sea. U.S. commanders would “keep any conflict conventional as long as possible” to allow the search for “Chinese SSBNs in coastal waters within the protection of Chinese ASW assets.” Public advocacy of the idea is not widespread, so few have written against it. Nevertheless, many of the same arguments about the escalatory potential of incidental attacks on nuclear systems would apply with even greater force to more systematic attacks. + +___`Hypothesis: Deliberate conventional attacks on nuclear capabilities will create pressure for nuclear use.`___ + +#### Counterforce Capabilities + +The Cold War witnessed a debate between advocates of countervalue and counterforce doctrines, and a similar debate is currently playing out over nuclear strategy vis-à-vis China. During the Cold War, some strategists held that the nuclear revolution (discussed previously) made counterforce both futile and dangerous because it encouraged arms racing. In their view, “Deterrence comes from having enough weapons to destroy the other’s cities; this capability is an absolute, not a relative, one.” Advocates of damage limitation argued that moving to a purely countervalue strategy provided a choice only between suicide and surrender. Such a strategy, they held, therefore lacked credibility. + +Through the early 2010s, residual Cold War capabilities endowed the United States with counterforce capabilities for damage limitation against China’s relatively small nuclear forces. More recently, the acceleration of China’s nuclear modernization has revived the debate over nuclear strategy. Charles Glaser and Steve Fetter, for example, argue that China’s deployment of more missiles in different basing modes has eroded prospects for meaningful damage limitation and that pursuing damage-limiting capabilities could usher in an arms race. These commentators also argue that the economic costs and political risks of pursuing damage limitation are not worth the marginal gains to survivability in the highly unlikely event of nuclear conflict. While no one has argued explicitly for returning to the countervalue strategy of the early Cold War, that approach is the natural corollary of many of these arguments. + +Critics of this position counter that advances in space-based ISR, computation, and stealth technology provide new opportunities for counterforce strategies. They suggest that nuclear superiority would provide deterrent leverage, especially against the employment of limited nuclear options (LNOs), since China would understand it is at a disadvantage at higher levels. The emergence of two nuclear peers—Russia and China—has reignited debate over the size of the U.S. arsenal. The 2023 NPR notes that Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons present “new stresses on strategic stability.” The 2023 Strategic Posture Commission report calls for increased deployment of nuclear warheads and enhanced industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons. A study group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory echoes these recommendations. The critical assumption in both of these reports is that a damage-limiting strategy, which can require large numbers of warheads, is a continuing requirement. + +___`Hypothesis: U.S. counterforce capabilities will deter China teams from nuclear use.`___ + +#### Quantitative Nuclear Superiority + +Scholars generally dispute the linkage between nuclear superiority and deterrence. Lauren Sukin, employing a large set of cases from the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) data set, concludes that resolve often trumps material advantage in the nuclear domain. Proponents of the “nuclear revolution” emphasize the primacy of resolve, arguing that beyond a certain point, more nuclear weapons do not contribute further to deterrent or coercive capability. As Henry Kissinger put the case in 1977, “The essence of the contemporary problem in the military field is that the term ‘supremacy,’ when casualties will be in the tens of millions, has practically no operational significance.” + +However, some strategists argue that strategic nuclear superiority is important to deterrence and successful resolution of crises. As Elbridge Colby argues, “Nuclear weapons are, after all, the ultimate trump card: if you can convince your enemy that you have a way to play the card and are actually prepared to go through with it, nothing is more powerful.” Kroenig defines nuclear superiority as “a military nuclear advantage over an opponent” that is operationalized “according to a state’s expected cost of nuclear war.” Specifically, he measures advantage in terms of cities struck and casualties suffered. Quantitative comparisons, superiority, and overmatch are also frequent themes in the U.S. political and public media discourse on nuclear weapons. Indeed, players in previous U.S.-China wargames often believed U.S. nuclear superiority would deter China from nuclear use. + +___`Hypothesis: U.S. quantitative nuclear superiority will deter China teams from nuclear use.`___ + +#### Chinese Tactical Nuclear Forces + +During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union fielded tactical nuclear weapons in large numbers. Proponents of such weapons argued they provide an intermediate step between suicide (a massive nuclear exchange) and surrender. Others argued that possession of low-yield nuclear weapons lowers the threshold for nuclear use and creates risks of relatively quick nuclear escalation. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia’s weakened military adopted an “escalate to de-escalate” policy—use nuclear weapons to offset conventional weakness and force a favorable settlement. This engendered concerns that Russia would use nuclear weapons early in a conflict. + +This concern has carried over to China’s nuclear buildup as some nuclear experts suggest China may be developing low-yield nuclear weapons. While China does not currently field low-yield nuclear weapons, analysts are watching carefully. A Chinese decision to deploy low-yield nuclear weapons could also indicate a shift in nuclear warfighting concepts that imagines a more central role of nuclear weapons in its defense planning. + +___`Hypothesis: China teams will be more likely to use nuclear weapons if they possess low-yield nuclear weapons.`___ + +#### Substitution for Conventional Munitions + +Some commentators have speculated that combatants might use nuclear weapons when their inventories of conventional munitions run out. Nuclear use was almost always part of NATO’s plan to counter Soviet conventional dominance, particularly if conventional munitions were insufficient to prevent Soviet forces from massing. Kroenig draws a parallel to a potential attack on Taiwan: “Similarly, the United States could rely on threatening nonstrategic nuclear strikes to deter and, as a last resort, thwart a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan or a Russian tank incursion into Europe.” Likewise, a Center for a New American Security (CNAS) study speculated after conducting tabletop exercises (TTXs) on a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan: “There might be increased pressure to use nuclear weapons as conventional weapons stocks became depleted.” + +___`Hypothesis: Shortages of conventional munitions will create pressure for nuclear use.`___ + + +### Literature Review + +___What Happens If Nuclear Weapons Are Used?___ + +The challenge for strategists is that nuclear weapons can kill most of an adversary’s population but not change the minds of its people or leaders. Thus, nuclear use must be applied in ways to compel the other side to acquiesce to a political outcome they oppose. For this reason, conflict between nuclear powers has long been described by nuclear theorists as coercive bargaining. + +This chapter reviews the literature on what might happen after nuclear use. It is divided into three sections. The first addresses what targets might be struck during nuclear first use. It then surveys how the adversary might respond to nuclear use. It concludes with an assessment of how the conflict might end. Chapter 7: Analysis—What Happens If Nuclear Weapons Are Used? describes how the games provide insights into these questions. Appendix C: Nuclear Weapons Use and Effects contains details on nuclear weapon capabilities. + +#### What Could Be Targeted During First Use? + +Since the beginning of the nuclear age, the question of targeting has generated heated debates. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons to strike a wide variety of targets on land, at sea, and in the air. Targeting was not just a technical judgment of connecting weapons with aiming points. In peacetime, targeting plans drove decisions about the types of nuclear weapons and delivery platforms needed. In wartime, targeting would determine the course of conflict, the number of civilian casualties, and effects on other countries. With the end of the Cold War, many target sets were put aside. For example, the United States no longer has any nuclear weapons designed to target ships, aircraft, or missiles in flight. China never had any. + +Three target sets can be struck with today’s nuclear weapons: cities/population (countervalue), nuclear forces (counterforce), and operational conventional forces—ports and airfields, ground forces, and ships at sea. Attacks on command and communications (through high-altitude electromagnetic pulses, HEMP) and targeting of nonnuclear allies are addressed as special cases. + +_POPULATION AND CIVIL INFRASTRUCTURE (COUNTERVALUE)_ + +The aim of countervalue first use would be to cause pain by attacking the enemy’s population. This was the motivation for the United States in targeting Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II and is the most common usage in the minds of the general public. The primary effect was not in the material damage of destroying two large cities, but in the promise of more pain to come if Japanese decisionmakers did not comply. A countervalue targeting strategy would not accomplish its goal if it destroyed all of an enemy’s urban centers, as there would then be nothing left to hold at risk. The most sophisticated formulations of countervalue targeting call for a menu of infrastructure targets, ranging from remote sites causing few civilians deaths to society-destroying target sets. However, these strategies are often difficult to discuss because of their moral implications. For this reason, the United States (at least during the late Cold War) officially abjured the targeting of civilians in countervalue strikes; however, by targeting military and economic targets in cities, the United States kept an essentially countervalue option while allowing some psychic distance from mass murder. Whether the actual target is a rocket factory in a city or the population of a city itself, China would likely react with a nuclear attack of its own on or near population centers. + +Of note, none of the recent wargames or studies of nuclear use in a Taiwan scenario have postulated a countervalue first strike by either side, perhaps because it is unclear how a countervalue attack could compel an adversary to withdraw from the conflict. + +___`Hypothesis: Neither team will launch countervalue first strikes.`___ + +_ENEMY NUCLEAR FORCES (COUNTERFORCE)_ + +As discussed earlier, the effectiveness of damage-limiting counterforce attacks was a key debate in the Cold War and continues to this day. China does not possess today, nor will it possess in 2028, the ability to launch a disarming counterforce attack against the United States. Conversely, given the expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal, the United States could not disarm China in retaliation for a Chinese nuclear attack, although it could destroy many Chinese nuclear ICBMs. This is true even if it were done early in the conflict, before China’s nuclear arsenal is dispersed. As RAND argues, “The United States must treat Beijing as if it already has a second strike capability—especially by 2030.” Thus, the most likely scenario for counterforce first strikes would be an attempt by the United States to limit damage from China’s arsenal and communicate a threat of continued attacks if China did not withdraw. + +As with countervalue targeting, none of the recent wargames or studies of nuclear use in a Taiwan scenario have postulated a counterforce first strike by either side, likely because of the inability of either side to disarm the other. + +___`Hypothesis: Neither team will launch counterforce first strikes.`___ + +_OPERATIONAL CONVENTIONAL TARGETS_ + +During World War II, General George Marshall argued that U.S. nuclear weapons should be employed against Japanese military targets, such as naval installations or outlying islands with military facilities, rather than against industrial targets or cities. Discussions about employment options against conventional targets continued after the war and included the use of large-yield weapons in tactical roles. Starting in 1952, the United States began to produce and deploy tactical nuclear weapons with reduced yields. Both the United States and, later, the Soviet Union deployed thousands of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe during the Cold War. Although many Western military leaders and theorists during the Cold War believed that tactical use would benefit the defender, Soviet and Warsaw Pact sources indicate that they believed that the attacker could also benefit. + +A variety of targets are possible in the context of a Taiwan conflict. The discussion of tactical nuclear options and doctrine, then and now, can be divided into thinking on deterrence questions (discussed earlier) and thinking about wartime use. The latter can be further divided into the assessment of operational effects, on the one hand, and their political impact and influence on wartime outcomes, on the other. The former is discussed below, while the latter is addressed in a later section (see How Did the Conflict End?). + +__Ports and Airfields:__ Ports and airfields offer significant benefits to the conventional fight, as one nuclear weapon could achieve the effect of many conventional ballistic missiles. The RAND Corporation, for example, did an extensive and highly influential series of studies in the 1950s on the vulnerability of bomber bases to nuclear attack. Recently, Russia has reintroduced the concept of using nuclear weapons as part of a conventional conflict, with NATO airfields as a potential target. Table C4 in Appendix C shows the reason that airbase attacks are attractive: Even a relatively small nuclear detonations are devastating for unprotected aircraft on the ground. For example, a 10 kiloton (kt) detonation will destroy nearly all aircraft, even at large air bases where aircraft can spread out. This is not surprising since aircraft are complex, sensitive, and thin-skinned. Ports are also attractive targets because ships there are stationary and easily located by overhead surveillance, and therefore vulnerable to attack by GPS-guided munitions. Commentators have therefore speculated that ports might be good nuclear targets. + +For this reason, nuclear attacks against airfields have been a common part of previous wargames. Three previous wargames have resulted in nuclear attacks against Guam (either as part of the scenario designed by the researchers or independently decided on by players). On the other hand, bases further afield (in the continental United States or Australia) have not been targeted. + +___`Hypothesis: Teams will target ports or airfields in the theater with nuclear weapons to gain an operational advantage despite the retaliation risk.`___ + +__Ground Forces:__ Targeting enemy ground forces with nuclear weapons can provide significant operational benefits while limiting the likelihood of enemy retaliation. One weapon can have an outsized effect on enemy forces because of its great power. A single 10 kt weapon has the explosive power of 20,000 1,000-pound bombs. By using air bursts, attackers can destroy adversary forces without causing a lot of radioactivity. They can then move around the relatively small radioactive area and attack into an adversary’s rear. On the assurance side, battlefield use has less effect on civilians than strategic attacks on cities or nuclear forces. However, even limited effects can be devastating; Appendix C describes these effects on civilians from battlefield usage of nuclear weapons on Taiwan. + +Because of the battlefield advantages of using nuclear weapons, many commentators have speculated that China might use them on Taiwan, particularly if the invasion force gets stalemated. Matthew Kroenig argues that if Chinese forces had landed on Taiwan but not yet broken out of their bridgeheads, the Taiwanese defending units might be lucrative targets for U.S. nuclear strikes. + +___`Hypothesis: Both teams are likely to use nuclear weapons against ground troops on Taiwan.`___ + +__Ships at Sea:__ The possibility of using nuclear weapons against ships at sea is appealing because it offers the potential to communicate resolve by attacking a strictly military target while avoiding a homeland attack that might provoke a general nuclear conflict. Discussion of this possibility has resurfaced in the context of a U.S.-China war. Several analysts have posited that China would act on this logic to attack U.S. ships during a war over Taiwan. For example, Andrew Metrick et al. argue that a nuclear attack on U.S. carrier strike groups “would limit casualties and infrastructure damage, improve the conventional balance, and destroy an asset with significant prestige value.” Similarly, Jacob Stokes argues that U.S. ships at sea are an attractive target because “China’s leaders would be looking for a way to take limited action that the United States would not be willing to match or exceed.” + +The challenge is that ships are robust targets. A 15 pounds per square inch (PSI) shockwave is needed to incapacitate most ships. This requires a nuclear weapon to detonate near the target ship, about 800 m for a Hiroshima-sized weapon. Without terminal guidance on nuclear missiles, which both sides lack, this is nearly impossible to do without using a pattern of detonations. (See Tables C2 and C3 in Appendix C for details.) + +Several commentators have suggested that the United States use nuclear weapons against Chinese amphibious ships off the beach. George Weaver of the Atlantic Council has stated: “The option that combines the highest effectiveness with the least escalation potential would be a nuclear strike on China’s amphibious force as it prepares to offload near the Taiwanese shore.” China has noticed these discussions: “By late 2018, PRC concerns began to emerge that the United States would use low-yield weapons against its Taiwan invasion fleet, with related commentary in official media calling for proportionate response capabilities.” + +The reason for U.S. nuclear use against Chinese amphibious ships is that such attacks would not suffer from these same difficulties as attacks against ships at sea. During a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, many amphibious vessels must be accommodated off narrow beaches. These vessels cannot spread out as much as ships at sea and need to stay relatively stationary while off-loading. This eases the ISR problem. Being stationary and bunched together, these ships would be targetable by the coordinate-seeking nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal; one nuclear weapon might even neutralize multiple ships. Nuclear detonations offshore would also be less damaging to Taiwan and its population than detonations ashore. There are some downsides. As with ground use, many nuclear weapons must be used against the Chinese amphibious ships to destroy enough capability to have an operational effect. Also, offshore nuclear attacks would still affect Taiwan through blast and radiation effects. + +Nevertheless, because the amphibious fleet is critical to the invasion’s success, it will be an attractive target. + +___`Hypothesis: U.S. teams will target Chinese ships, but only during the amphibious offloading. China teams will not use nuclear weapons at sea.`___ + +_SPECIAL CASES_ + +__High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP):__ HEMP occurs when a specially designed nuclear weapon detonates high in the atmosphere. The resulting electronic pulses disrupt electronics and communications. It is attractive because the disruption provides a military advantage without causing kinetic or thermal damage to civilians or military forces. Its effects were demonstrated dramatically by the 1962 Starfish Prime nuclear test in space, which affected radio signals on Hawaii 900 miles away. Other nuclear tests also showed the phenomenon. Nuclear weapons testing in space ended in 1963 with the Partial Test Ban Treaty, but lab experiments have been ongoing to the present day. + +It is unclear whether HEMP usage would be treated the same as nuclear weapons that cause direct effects. For example, the U.S. EMP Commission warned: “Our increasing dependence on advanced electronics systems results in the potential for an increased EMP vulnerability of our technologically advanced [military] forces, and, if unaddressed, makes EMP employment by an adversary an attractive asymmetric option.” HEMP also appears frequently in the popular literature as a trigger for social and economic collapse. The Congressional Research Service summarized the threat: “An EMP attack directed at the United States involving no violent destruction, nor instant death for large numbers of U.S. citizens, may not necessarily evoke massive retaliation by the U.S. military.” In a previous wargame by the Center for New American Security, the China team used a HEMP to communicate resolve. + +___`Hypothesis: Both teams will conduct HEMP attacks because they are perceived as less escalatory than other nuclear options.`___ + +__Targeting Nonnuclear Allies:__ Although they are not a distinct target type, the special nature of nonnuclear allies must be addressed. Extended nuclear deterrence refers to the provision of deterrent guarantees, backed by the threat of response, by one country to another. In the nuclear context, extended deterrence is provided by a nuclear state to protect a nonnuclear partner or ally. It has been practiced primarily by the United States. After the Soviet Union gained the ability to strike U.S. cities with large numbers of ICBMs in the mid-1960s, strategists questioned whether nuclear guarantees to NATO were credible in light of likely counterstrike by the Soviets. Tactical nuclear weapons were deployed to Europe and South Korea to increase credibility by making it more likely that nuclear weapons would be used in defense of allies. In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the United States deemphasized nuclear weapons in its national security strategy and removed them from warships. However, the growth of Chinese military power has prompted concerns on the part of Asian allies. In 2010, the United States began an Extended Deterrence Dialogue with Japan and established an Extended Deterrence Policy Committee with South Korea. Nevertheless, insecurity among allies persist, and some U.S. and regional analysts have called for stronger measures to buttress credibility, lest Seoul explores indigenous nuclear options. + +In the context of a Taiwan invasion, China could attack Japan with nuclear weapons to compel its withdrawal from the war. Losing Japanese access, basing, and overflight would doom the U.S. conventional campaign. Kroenig tacitly treats extended deterrence as strong, bundling U.S. and Japanese territory in the same category of targets. None of the previous wargames postulate a nuclear attack on Japan. + +___`Hypothesis: China teams will avoid targeting Japan because of the logic of extended deterrence.`___ + +#### How Does the Adversary Respond? + +After nuclear first use, what happens? While there are an infinite variety of responses, this section groups them into five categories, describes each category, and highlights the most relevant considerations for or against each. The two nonnuclear responses include withdrawing from the conflict and continuing the conventional campaign. The three nuclear responses are grouped by target: operational, countervalue, or counterforce + +_NONNUCLEAR RESPONSES_ + +__Withdrawing:__ One response to nuclear first use is to withdraw from the conflict. “Withdrawal” is more accurate than “surrender” because a country targeted by the threat of nuclear use (made credible by actual nuclear use somewhere) need not change its form of government and accept occupation to avoid the threatened pain of continued nuclear use. It would not be necessary to choose to be “Better Red than Dead.” Assuming that the terms demanded by the nuclear first user are limited and understood correctly, acquiescing to them could spare the target of nuclear use the pain of further nuclear attacks. For example, in the face of Soviet nuclear use during an invasion, the United States could have withdrawn from Western Europe without surrendering Washington to the Soviet Union. However, the balance of global power would have been profoundly affected. And the Soviets could not have provided meaningful assurances that occupying Western Europe (or any portion thereof) would end Soviet ambitions. + +In a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the stakes are different for the two sides. PRC withdrawal following U.S. nuclear use might threaten Chinese regime survival. U.S. withdrawal would be unlikely to threaten the U.S. form of government, although it might strain the credibility of its other security commitments, trigger extensive nuclear proliferation, and set a precedent for other states’ pursuing conquest backed by nuclear threats or use. Offsetting this, U.S. withdrawal in the face of PRC nuclear first use in an offensive war might give the United States the moral high ground in world opinion. Moreover, unlike the Cold War, changing ownership of Taiwan would not substantively affect the international balance of power. However, this might count for little in what would surely be a transformed international system. + +___`Hypothesis: China teams will be less likely than U.S. teams to withdraw from the conflict in response to nuclear first use.`___ + +__Continuing the Conventional Campaign:__ Alternatively, an adversary could continue the fight at the conventional level. This offers the prospect of obtaining victory without suffering the moral stigma of employing nuclear weapons. While continuing the war conventionally was not considered in the Cold War due to the perceived superiority of Soviet conventional power, it might be feasible in a conflict between the United States and a smaller adversary, such as North Korea. For this option to be successful, two conditions would have to hold. First, initial nuclear use could not have decisively changed the conventional balance of power. Second, the first user could not be willing and able to use additional nuclear weapons in ways that would subsequently change the balance of conventional power. For example, if the nuclear first use took the form of a nuclear demonstration or HEMP and the first user was not willing to use nuclear weapons in direct strikes, continuing the conventional campaign would be a way for the targeted adversary to call the first user’s bluff. However, just as with withdrawal, there is no assurance that the nuclear first user would not continue using nuclear weapons. + +___`Hypothesis: Continuing the conventional campaign will not lead to successful outcomes unless the adversary cannot continue nuclear attacks.`___ + +_NUCLEAR RESPONSES_ + +All nuclear responses to nuclear first use have benefits by signaling resolve, reassuring allies and partners, and discouraging future proliferation. They also have costs and risks. They contribute to nuclear destruction and risk further nuclear use or escalation by the adversary, together with its attendant destruction. + +__Use Against Operational Conventional Targets:__ The advantages of attacking conventional battlefield targets as part of first use apply equally to the adversary’s nuclear retaliation. Indeed, depending on the nature of operations and the target set available to the adversary, nuclear retaliation could generate operational effects greater than those gained in nuclear first use. During European Cold War scenarios, many nuclear strategists felt that the “massed troops” of Soviet attacking forces, “would be an inviting target for NATO’s tactical nuclear weapons.” However, it is also possible that the Soviets might have gained more operational advantages from nuclear use either because higher casualty rates would favor the manpower-rich Soviets or because static defensive positions would be more vulnerable than mobile, offensive columns. The conclusion of NATO studies was that “large-scale use of nuclear weapons against a massive Warsaw Pact attack in Europe was unlikely to produce a decisive military victory.” Echoing NATO’s assessments, Soviet war plans assumed that they would be able to retake the initiative with nuclear retaliation to NATO’s nuclear first use. Therefore, at the operational level, a nuclear retaliation targeted at the first user’s conventional forces might be able to overcome the tactical advantages that the first user gained in the initial strike. + +In the context of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, both sides have operational nuclear targets that could, if struck, help them regain the initiative following nuclear first use by the adversary. Many operational targets for the United States (ports, airfields, and missile bases) are on the Chinese mainland, and the same targets for China are largely in Japan or Guam. However, such targets would require many nuclear weapons and carry a high risk of escalation. There are also Chinese ships at sea, although these would be difficult to target with the United States’s current arsenal of coordinate-seeking weapons; furthermore, destroying them would not be decisive. The exception is the amphibious fleet and the lodgment itself on Taiwan; as discussed above, these targets are relatively compact and their destruction is more likely to be decisive for the conventional campaign. China’s target set for operational nuclear retaliation looks similar: there are bomber bases in the United States and fighter bases in Japan, striking either of which would make another round of nuclear use by the United States likely. China similarly lacks nuclear weapons suited for targeting U.S. ships and submarines. Taiwanese ground forces are vulnerable to many Chinese nuclear weapons, although they would be more dispersed than the Chinese lodgment and therefore require a larger strike to neutralize. To return to the larger point, any retaliation would have to communicate resolve and have a political effect, lest the first user simply continue. + +___`Hypothesis: Operational nuclear retaliation will prevent first users from gaining decisive military advantage.`___ + +__Countervalue:__ As in the case of first use, countervalue retaliation would aim to compel the first user to cease military operations on favorable terms. During the early Cold War, countervalue attacks were considered in the context of “limited strategic war” but fell out of favor as the scale of nuclear armament increased. The same logic that makes countervalue targeting in first use risky—that it might create an escalatory spiral—should logically hold for countervalue retaliations. + +___`Hypothesis: Countervalue retaliation will not achieve anticipated political results and will produce escalatory spirals.`___ + +__Counterforce:__ A counterforce retaliation would seek to limit further nuclear damage. As the first user has already demonstrated that they are prepared to use nuclear weapons, their nuclear capability is demonstrably a threat. Although Kroenig postulates two variants of counterforce retaliations against Chinese first use (either against the Chinese facility generating the strike or as part of a broader damage-limitation strategy), he notes the risks that this would entail because of the survivability of Chinese road-mobile ICBMs. Whether a damage-limiting counterforce attack could coerce war termination has been debated. On balance, the literature suggests that teams will be dissuaded by the risks of counterforce retaliations. + +___`Hypothesis: Counterforce retaliation will not achieve the anticipated political result of coercing the adversary into favorable war termination.`___ + +#### How Does the Conflict End? + +This section examines debates about conflict termination and generates associated hypotheses. First, the conventional balance created by nuclear use might not affect the bargaining outcome. Second, nuclear superiority and escalation dominance might determine the outcome, not any targeting or negotiating decisions. Third, any nuclear use might ineluctably end in conflagration, making any attempt at bargaining pointless. Finally, neither side might be able to achieve complete victory; either a compromise will be struck, or a general nuclear war will occur. + +_BARGAINING AND NUCLEAR SUPERIORITY_ + +Many strategists, such as Robert Jervis and Thomas Schelling, emphasize non-military factors in nuclear bargaining, especially when both sides have an assured retaliatory capability. Schelling famously contrasted the relative nature of conventional arms and the absolute nature of nuclear weapons: “Brute strength is usually measured relative to enemy strength, the one directly opposing the other, while the power to hurt is typically not reduced by the enemy’s power to hurt in return.” Jervis puts the case directly, “if the arguments about the nuclear revolution are correct, there should be only tenuous links between the details of the military balance and political outcomes.” Empirical studies on whether nuclear advantage, variously defined, correlates with successful outcomes have come to differing conclusions. + +Strategists sympathetic to the nuclear revolution have tended to view nuclear bargaining and outcomes as largely contests of resolve, within which interests, signals of commitment, and strategies of brinksmanship are critical to outcomes. To a point, resolve will depend on material interests, such as geographic or historical proximity to the subject at stake. But both sides are likely to assert the importance of interests, and, as Robert Jervis has observed, statements of commitment can themselves become interests. Moreover, brinksmanship and the manipulation of risk can also be employed to demonstrate commitment and gain bargaining leverage, regardless of their respective military strengths. Indeed, much of U.S. deterrence strategy in Europe during the Cold War rested on an engineered risk of tactical nuclear use that would not require a presidential order. This is, in Schelling’s words, the “rationality of irrationality.” One recent empirical study on nuclear advantage and outcomes finds that attempts at coercion against those with much weaker (asymmetric) nuclear capabilities are likely to fail due to some combination of the stakes involved for those countries and the need for weaker parties to demonstrate extreme resolve. + +However, while many observers have stressed the roles of non-military factors in bargaining strategy, others have emphasized nuclear capabilities. If one side enjoys escalation dominance, an advantage at the current and higher levels of warfare, then a positive political outcome is presumably more likely. For example, in the Taiwan context, Kroenig’s writing about deliberate nuclear use largely focuses on escalation dominance. “In the event of Chinese nuclear use during a war over Taiwan,” he writes, “the United States would need to convince China that any further nuclear use would be met by a decisive US response and would, therefore, not advance Chinese objectives.” + +___`Hypothesis: Nuclear superiority will be important in bargaining outcomes.`___ + +_BATTLEFIELD STATUS AND THE WAR’S OUTCOME_ + +While the nuclear balance is often emphasized in the literature on nuclear outcomes, less has been said about the status of the operational fight and its impact. Thomas Schelling, for example, writes that “What happens on the battlefield may be of only moderate interest compared with the conduct of such a nuclear war of nerve and endurance.” Some, however, have touched on the issue. In his discussion of five possible positions that nuclear adversaries might adopt during nuclear conflict bargaining, Herman Kahn lists “compromise settlement that more or less reflects the current status of occupied and unoccupied territory … but also includes some quid pro quo trades.” Although this position does not have a privileged position in Kahn’s list, prospect theory might suggest that it is a likely option for any contenders seeking an off-ramp. Prospect theory, an idea originating in behavioral economics, suggests that actors are willing to run higher risks to defend or protect what they already have than to gain something new. Theories of deterrence and compellence, which reference prospect theory, suggest that attempts to compel an adversary to surrender values in its possession will be more difficult than efforts to deter an adversary from attempting to seize what it does not. + +___`Hypothesis: Battlefield advantage will convey some benefit in shaping positive outcomes to the side holding that advantage.`___ + +_CONTROLLING NUCLEAR WAR_ + +Implicit in nuclear use as a form of military bargaining is the question of controllability of nuclear conflict. Some have argued that nuclear war, once begun, is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to control. These individuals view the critical threshold not between tactical and strategic use but rather between conventional and nuclear conflict. As Alain Enthoven put it in 1975, “nuclear war is indivisible.” “Once it starts, there are no recognizable firebreaks or stopping points,” and, he concluded, “general nuclear war . . . will ensue.” Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey Michaels expressed the problem that both sides must understand the need for limitations, writing, “It takes two to keep a war limited.” For these reasons, Enthoven and like-minded thinkers opposed deployment or reliance on nuclear weapons. The fear of unlimited war was also prevalent in the popular imagination. + +However, for precisely the same reasons, many, especially in Europe, supported the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Europe and the delegation of their use to battlefield commanders. If tactical nuclear weapons might be employed and if the use of these weapons will lead eventually to strategic nuclear exchanges, then tactical nuclear weapons provide a credible and relatively inexpensive deterrent against attack. + +Others have argued that nuclear war may be controllable, but, in contrast to the escalation dominance school, emphasize the importance of proportionality and restraint in the weapons employed and targets struck. Brodie wrote that “there was no problem in distinguishing between tactical and strategic bombing in World War II, and in avoiding the latter where it seemed politically desirable.” Brodie believed “it is hardly self-evident that the distinction would be more difficult where nuclear weapons are involved.” + +As Vincent Manzo writes, “[e]very deterrent threat contains a promise of restraint: do not attack us, and we will not attack you.” Following from this, escalation management, “requires combatants not to use certain types of weapons and avoid attacks on certain types of targets even after efforts to deter conflict in the first place fail.” + +Thus, during the 1960s and 1970s, U.S. planners struggled to develop more flexible and nuanced nuclear plans with options between “surrender and suicide.” These efforts reached their most advanced state under Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger’s doctrine of limited and controlled nuclear strikes. Schlesinger developed this concept while at RAND and implemented it as Secretary of Defense in NSDM-242: “Plans should be developed for limited employment options which enable the United States to conduct selected nuclear operations, in concert with conventional forces.” The nuclear war plan SIOP-5 reportedly turned this guidance into specific targeting. The literature is severely divided on this subject without a clear consensus. + +___`Hypothesis: Nuclear wars cannot reliably be controlled.`___ + +_THE VALUE OF OFF-RAMPS_ + +Assuming that war does prove controllable, there is, finally, the question of off-ramps, war termination, and what form conflict termination might take. Just as many argue that limits on the means of nuclear conflict (i.e., the use of smaller-yield or smaller numbers of nuclear weapons) might make nuclear war more controllable, many also argue that limiting the ends of nuclear conflict would be central to terminating conflict and preventing general nuclear war. Herman Kahn, for example, wrote “neither side should attempt to force the other to unconditional surrender,” and “successful negotiations require some compromises even by the ‘winning’ side.” Given both the stakes and the time pressures of nuclear conflict, one cannot “fight a war to a conclusion and then settle most of the details of the peace,” but rather necessary to “start negotiations at the onset of war.” During the Cold War, the need for limiting objectives in nuclear conflict was also emphasized by Henry Kissinger, Robert Osgood, and many other prominent practitioners and theorists. + +___`Hypothesis: Neither side will achieve complete victory; they will reach a settlement or general nuclear war will occur.`___ + + +### Research Design + +This project examines policy-relevant nuclear aspects of a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan in order to inform U.S. policy regarding nuclear deterrence and escalation. The authors do not argue that an invasion is inevitable or even likely, but they do argue that invasion is plausible. China could decide to invade Taiwan for a variety of reasons: domestic political needs, the personal priorities of President Xi Jinping, perceived Taiwanese provocation, perceptions by Beijing that Washington has fundamentally abandoned its One China policy, misestimation of the military balance, or fear that time Taiwanese unification would only get harder over time. The authors chose the year 2028 for two reasons. First, it is during the “Davidson window,” the period when many U.S. officials have said there is risk of an invasion. Second, 2028 was the end of the Department of Defense’s Future Years Defense Program, which allows enough time for current programs to mature and policy changes to take hold. Yet it was not so far in the future that U.S. and Chinese capabilities became uncertain. + +The research focused on two questions about nuclear escalation in a Taiwan invasion scenario: + +1. What creates the greatest pressure for nuclear first use? + +2. What happens if nuclear weapons are used? + +To address these questions, the research team adapted its Taiwan Operational Wargame (TOW) for nuclear play and conducted 15 iterations of the new wargame. TOW was developed for a previous project examining a conventional conflict over Taiwan in 2026. The adaptation updated the orders of battle and inventories of key conventional munitions to estimated 2028 figures, developed estimates for nuclear weapons inventories, refined game mechanics based on lessons from the first project, simplified the conventional warfighting mechanics, incorporated nuclear weapon effects, and added modules for political bargaining and nuclear posture changes. + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/QimashZ.png) +_▲ __Left: Participants debate their next move in a 1963 wargame run by Professors Lincoln Bloomfield and Thomas Schelling at MIT’s Endicott House. Right: Participants study the map in the same room 61 years later during one iteration for this project.__ Source: MIT Security Studies Program; and CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +The games were conducted at CSIS in Washington, D.C., at MIT in Cambridge, MA, at the Naval War College in Newport, RI, and at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. Two iterations took place at MIT’s Endicott House Conference Center, the same location where Thomas Schelling and other nuclear strategists ran POLEX nuclear wargames in the 1950s and 1960s. The picture below on the left shows a nuclear wargame from the 1960s; the picture on the right is from this project in 2024. The challenges of nuclear weapons have plagued the world for a long time. + +The base assumptions for all 15 game iterations came from the original wargame. These assumptions included China mobilizing 30 days out, the United States responding after 15 days, Japan remaining neutral unless attacked but allowing the United States to use its bases in Japan, and no opportunistic aggression by other hostile powers. China, seeking to maintain ambiguity about its intentions, did not increase its nuclear posture before the invasion. Similarly, the United States refrained from increasing its nuclear posture to avoid escalating the crisis. + +Players were divided into three teams: the United States, Japan, and China. For the sake of convenience and playing speed, the U.S. team controlled Taiwanese forces. Participants took the role of military theater commanders: the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) for the United States, the Eastern Theater Command for China, and an ad hoc Joint Forces Command for Japan. The order of battle for each country assumed that, in addition to the peacetime forces from the respective commands, significant forces arrived from other commands. + +As with the previous project, the 85 game participants were experts from a variety of governmental, think tank, academic, and military backgrounds. All participants had expertise in relevant fields such as military operations, Asian affairs, and nuclear capabilities. Players on the Japan team had at least some background in Japanese security policy, and most had extensive expertise in that area. China teams generally included some country expertise. Many nuclear strategy experts participated to ensure realistic consideration of strategic issues. With one exception, participants played only once each. About one-third of the participants were considered senior flag/general officers, senior scholars with government experience, or former government officials at the assistant secretary of defense (ASD) level or above. This meant that most teams had at least one senior member. + +Game participants were told to play their best game. Decisions therefore came from the participants’ individual perspectives and were not based on the policies of the U.S. government or any plans that government agencies might have. The high degree of expertise and experience among the participants meant that gameplay reflected plausible courses of action. + +___`The high degree of expertise and experience among the participants meant that gameplay reflected plausible courses of action.`___ + +Teams had full control over conventional forces—naval, air, and ground—as well as cyber, space, and counterspace capabilities. Each turn represented 3.5 days. Engagements (e.g., missile attacks on air bases and antisubmarine operations) were adjudicated using probability tables that the authors derived from operations research. + +Teams did not have ultimate authority over nuclear posture, nuclear use, or political off-ramps, which are the purview of the national command authority (NCA) in both the U.S. and Chinese systems. Instead, they provided recommendations to their respective NCAs about these actions based on the expected military utility and the adversary’s likely response (including nuclear responses). The teams were told that their NCA would address political and moral considerations related to nuclear use. + +The teams were instructed to meet campaign objectives “preferably without the use of nuclear weapons,” but failure to achieve objectives “would carry national and personal consequences.” The control team, in its additional capacity as the NCAs for China and the United States, decided all requests for nuclear posture changes, nuclear weapons employment, and negotiated off-ramps. To explore as many instances of nuclear escalation and nuclear operational effects as possible, the control team approved all such requests, though the players were not told that this would be the case. + +To calculate nuclear weapon effects, the project worked with the U.S. Department of Defense to use the Mission Impacts of Nuclear Events Software (MINES) tool. The team developed simplified tables covering the employment of nuclear weapons against operational targets. Where data from MINES was unavailable or impractical, publicly available tools such as NukeMap and Nuclear War Simulator were substituted. In the case of targeting ships at sea, the project also employed original modeling to analyze target movement and the kill chain. Adjudication rules employed these MINES-derived algorithms to cover nuclear attacks on ports, airfields, and frontline troops, as well as strategic attacks against cities and nuclear forces. The results were expressed in terms of civilian casualties and the destruction of or damage to operational targets. + +Finally, the game included political-military decisionmaking related to war termination. Without the possibility of ceasefire off-ramps, every iteration could lead to total nuclear war as each side sought a final resolution to the conflict. Therefore, at the end of every turn, each team could send a note to the other team explaining its position and offering a ceasefire with one of four conditions (though teams could, and sometimes did, offer modified conditions): + +1. __PLA Surrender:__ PLA troops ashore surrender and become prisoners. + +2. __PLA Phased Withdrawal:__ Taiwan and the United States allow PLA troops to withdraw from Taiwan, and any Chinese prisoners of war (POWs) are returned in stages. + +3. __PRC Enclave:__ All forces maintain their current positions, and mutual resupply is allowed. This creates a PRC-controlled enclave on Taiwan. + +4. __U.S. Withdrawal:__ The United States agrees to withdraw from the area around Taiwan during ceasefire, presumably leading to CCP dominance over the island. + +Conditions two and three represent outcomes that are substantively similar to conditions one and four but with face-saving modifications. A phased withdrawal from Taiwan would mark substantive failure for the CCP but allow it to claim victory. Chinese leaders would worry that a failed invasion would undermine its domestic legitimacy. It would be particularly difficult to deny defeat if there were scenes of captured PLA POWs being paraded through Taiwan. Absent such stark, undeniable scenes, the Chinese leadership could claim it had always intended its invasion to be a punishment campaign and that, having accomplished this goal, it was ending the operation. Thus, by returning PLA POWs and allowing uncaptured PLA soldiers to return (presumably via small boats, leaving most of their equipment behind), Taiwan and the United States would be forgoing one of the fruits of victory without substantively undermining their overall operational success. + +On the other side, allowing a PRC enclave on Taiwan represents a partial victory for China, one that might, over time, become a fuller victory. The PLA could build up considerable forces and supplies in this enclave and perhaps coerce a substantive takeover of the whole island. On the other hand, Washington might change its China and Taiwan policies in response to the conflict and deploy troops to the island. In any case, this was a better outcome for the United States than an unconditional withdrawal. + +All of these offers assume some kind of follow-on negotiations that were not part of the wargame. Gameplay continued until the teams agreed to a settlement or nuclear use escalated to a general nuclear exchange. + +#### Scenario Variations + +The project varied scenarios along two dimensions in the 15 iterations: U.S. rules of engagement (ROEs) concerning conventional strikes against the Chinese mainland and the evolution of Chinese nuclear capabilities. These factors are believed to affect decisionmaking on nuclear escalation and would be outside the span of control of military commanders during a conflict. Thus, they were appropriate for scenario construction rather than gameplay. + +The literature and previous wargames suggest three levels of U.S. ROEs to explore both the impact of conventional strikes on the Chinese mainland and the risk of inadvertent escalation. In the first condition, the NCA does not allow any U.S. conventional strikes on the Chinese mainland. This limits U.S. military options against the Chinese invasion but avoids both escalation from striking Chinese territory and inadvertent escalation from accidentally striking Chinese nuclear forces. In the second condition, the NCA allows conventional strikes on mainland targets that are unambiguously nonnuclear in nature (e.g., Chinese ports used for the loading of amphibious ships). This grants military advantages at the risk of incurring Chinese escalation in response to strikes on the mainland but again avoids inadvertent escalation. In the third condition, U.S. conventional forces can strike any targets on the mainland, even if those strikes could affect Chinese dual-use systems and nuclear early warning and command and control facilities. This grants maximum U.S. warfighting advantage while risking a nuclear response both for mainland strikes and inadvertent escalation. + +Two variations involve Chinese nuclear capabilities: Assured Retaliation Focused and Low Yield Enabled. Both variants posited that by 2028 China will have expanded the number of warheads in its arsenal in accordance with the most recent CMPR. In Assured Retaliation Focused, China continues its traditional assured-retaliation nuclear posture. By improving early warning systems and spreading its warheads onto more missiles by reducing the proportion of missiles with MIRVs, China gains a significantly more secure second-strike capability than it has today. However, in this variant, China does not deploy low-yield nuclear weapons. + +In Low Yield Enabled, China has changed its nuclear posture to become more like the United States by deploying low-yield weapons. If China developed low-yield weapons, it would possibly reflect a change in attitude toward nuclear use that could not be modeled by non-Chinese players; however, by giving China teams low-yield weapons, it was possible to test whether the possession of these options changed deterrence and use patterns. Although China would still possess a secure second-strike capability in the Low Yield Enabled posture, this second strike is weaker than for the Assured Retaliation Focused variant. + +Each of the three ROE cases was run with the two potential Chinese nuclear force structures to produce six distinct scenarios. With 15 iterations, three of the scenarios were run twice each, and the other three were run three times each to explore the impact on nuclear thinking and use. + +Prior to the 15 games for record, beta testing was conducted at MIT on January 19–20, 2024, and a series of six ground-only games were conducted as pilots to test new game procedures and then continued to gain additional observations. + +#### Chinese Nuclear Forces + +To implement these different trajectories in Chinese nuclear posture, the project created two variants of Chinese nuclear forces with the same number of total warheads but with different allocations, one consistent with greater emphasis on survivability (Assured Retaliation Focused) and one consistent with greater emphasis on the deployment of tactical, or low yield, capabilities (Low Yield Enabled). The primary source for these projections was the most recent CMPR, informed by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and feedback from experts in the field. To avoid giving the appearance of a government-funded project taking a specific position on the yield, number of warheads, and ranges of specific Chinese systems, the project parameterized weapon yields to low yield or high yield, all MIRVs to three warheads, and all ranges to short, medium, intermediate, or intercontinental. The project standardized the quantities of each relevant category to increments of 24 to facilitate gameplay. + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/q1hMnfZ.png) +_▲ __This image shows the elements of Chinese nuclear posture in game: green ready-to-fire missiles in the foreground, yellow unmated but collocated missiles and warheads, red warheads in central storage, and red missiles without warheads.__ Photo: CSIS Defense and Security Department staff._ + +The means of delivery for Chinese weapons was as important as the range, yield, and number of warheads because each delivery method has advantages and disadvantages. Placing nuclear missiles on mobile transporter erector launchers (TELs) allows missiles to be dispersed and hidden from enemy surveillance. Basing nuclear missiles in silos is cheaper, can accommodate even the largest missiles, and can be hardened so that, on average, more than one missile is required to destroy each with confidence, However, their static nature makes them vulnerable to counterforce attacks. Missiles in SSBNs are survivable as long as a country can get them safely out of port and foil the enemy’s antisubmarine warfare efforts in open waters. Finally, air-launched missiles can be delivered en masse and might be more difficult to intercept, but the bombers themselves are vulnerable and slow. Table 1 shows the resulting inventories for the two variants. + +![image04](https://i.imgur.com/wXiWzJf.png) +_▲ __Table 1: Chinese Nuclear Weapons Inventories.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +China’s historic assured-retaliation posture meant that the readiness of each missile must also be tracked. Although China’s nuclear posture and doctrine are evolving, there are no indications China has abandoned its historical adherence to centralized storage of warheads. If, as postulated by Wu Riqiang, only one-sixth of Chinese warheads are deployed to their firing units, then a large and highly visible effort is required to deploy the remaining warheads. Having been moved to firing units, those warheads would have to be prepared and mated. In the case of mobile launchers, the TELs would then need to be dispersed. While this might take only a week for a single warhead, the large number of warheads in an expanded Chinese arsenal means China would likely need a month to transition from a peacetime posture to fully deployed. It would be impossible to conceal this change in posture. Therefore, it was important to capture the interaction between the China teams’ deployment decisions and the U.S. coalition teams’ reactions. + +To show this transition, the project developed a system of displaying Chinese warheads by color, iconography, and location on a board. Warheads and missiles were represented in increments of 24 using 3D-printed models by igMakes. Missiles ready to fire with mated warheads were shown in green, but only a proportion of the Chinese arsenal started that way. Many warheads are held in central or regional storage, and even some of the deployed warheads are not mated at any given time. To get ready to fire, an unmated warhead and unmated missile had to be collocated at a firing unit; once collocated the unmated warhead and missile were replaced with yellow pieces. To be collocated, a red warhead from central storage had to be shipped to a firing unit with an unmated red missile without a warhead. The games, therefore, always began with a Chinese nuclear status board mostly populated by red warheads and missiles in separate areas. Most China teams opted to ship and mate missiles, producing higher levels of readiness (with green missiles), which worried U.S. coalition teams. + +#### U.S. Nuclear Forces + +The key elements of the U.S. nuclear order of battle for this project were the weapons and delivery platforms available in 2028. The estimates used in the study assumed execution of the nuclear modernization and force structure plans as they stood in 2024 (see Table 2). Changes to those plans by the new Trump administration would be unlikely to have a major effect by 2028. All information used for the game came from unclassified sources (as indicated in the notes to Tables 2 and 3). To comply with DOD’s security requirements, the tables do not include yields, even those available in unclassified documents. + +![image05](https://i.imgur.com/TzMwF6u.png) +_▲ __Table 2: U.S. Nuclear Weapons.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +This listing includes only weapons in the active inventory. In addition to weapons in the active inventory, 1,938 warheads are reported to be in “reserve (hedge and spares),” and another 1,536 are “retired, awaiting dismantlement.” The reserve category has three levels of readiness from “ready to deploy” to various stages of disassembly. The project assumed that 20 percent of the inactive inventory would be available—5 percent each week for four weeks. + +Table 3 presents all expected U.S. nuclear platforms in 2028. + +![image06](https://i.imgur.com/RmUkyOv.png) +_▲ __Table 3: U.S. Nuclear Platforms in 2028.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +The key conclusion from Tables 2 and 3 is that by 2028, the United States will have a variety of delivery options and will still possess quantitative nuclear superiority over China (about 1,550 versus 840 warheads). + +#### Methodological Differences with Other Wargames + +Some of the hypotheses examined by this project relate to topics treated by four other recent projects that have used wargames to explore the nuclear dimensions of a near-future U.S.-China war over Taiwan: + +- A 2022 Center for New American Security (CNAS) wargame concluded with the China team using a HEMP near Hawaii. The report recommended further research into the nuclear dimensions of a Taiwan conflict. + +- In 2023, a CNAS team conducted two TTXs to explore pressures that might lead to nuclear deterrence failure. The project highlighted the impact of differences in the future Chinese arsenal; the China team used a nuclear weapon in the 2030 TTX with a more developed Chinese nuclear arsenal but did not in the 2027 TTX with a less developed arsenal. + +- CNAS’s most recent 2024 project explored the consequences of nuclear first use in two TTXs. The underlying analysis appears to have been extensive, but the project report contained few details on the course of events during the TTXs. The report suggested that the intersection of conventional and nuclear escalation deserved analysis. + +- A 2024 Atlantic Council report featured a TTX to explore U.S. reactions after China employed nuclear weapons first during a Taiwan conflict. + +Differences in focus mean that some conclusions of other projects lie outside of this project’s scope. For example, the Atlantic Council project drew lessons about the broader diplomatic context of Chinese nuclear escalation decisions, whereas this project focused on military operations, nuclear decisionmaking, and the consequences of nuclear weapon use. The Atlantic Council TTX featured different cells within the Blue team to draw insights into U.S. decisionmaking, which was similarly beyond the scope of this project. The present study also did not model the possibility of opportunistic aggression by Russia or other powers, a possibility discussed by the Atlantic Council in a 2024 article. + +To strengthen rigor, this project contained several methodological enhancements. First, the project used multiple iterations; having 15 iterations allowed a more thorough analysis of the range of possible pathways and outcomes. Second, the game used operations research and rules-based adjudication to assess the outcomes of military interactions. This allowed a closer tie between the conventional operations driving the war and nuclear escalation decisionmaking. Finally, the wargame addressed both the drivers and consequences of nuclear weapon use. Although allowing the players to decide on nuclear first use meant that many wargames would see no nuclear play, it gave players more context for their nuclear decisions and a stronger sense of ownership since the decisions were not scripted. + +___`Having 15 iterations allowed a more thorough analysis of the range of possible pathways and outcomes.`___ + +___`The project did not address the likelihood of nuclear use in a Taiwan scenario.`___ + +___`The game did not have a separate Taiwan team and therefore did not cover Taiwanese political decisionmaking, including the possibility of surrender.`___ + +#### Scope Conditions + +This study focused on the military dimensions of nuclear weapon use and the results. It did not include other issues critical to a full understanding of nuclear use and its consequences. A full description of these scoping conditions is needed to set out what the study did and did not do. + +- The project did not address the likelihood of nuclear use in a Taiwan scenario. Wargame design choices were optimized to understand the military logic of using nuclear weapons. Defining players as operational commanders and telling them to base nuclear recommendations on the military utility of employing nuclear weapons minimized political factors (though, as the analysis chapters demonstrate, some players nevertheless considered political factors). The frequency of nuclear weapon use in the game iterations, therefore, did not indicate the probability of their use in an actual conflict. + +- Political considerations might lead to nuclear use at times or in ways contrary to military advice. Political leaders might want to use nuclear weapons to demonstrate resolve, cause shock, or force surrender. However, it is more likely that political leaders would act as a brake, vetoing nuclear use even when militarily advisable. Factors pushing this way include fears of escalation, the likelihood of worldwide moral opprobrium, state interests in maintaining a global nuclear taboo, and the potential loss of domestic support. Nuclear powers have been involved in conventional wars many times since 1945, and although some may have considered using nuclear weapons, none have. In the event of nuclear use, political leaders might also employ nuclear weapons differently than operational commanders recommend—for example, by vetoing targets that cause high civilian casualties. + +- China players were not all experts on Chinese affairs, though a sizable minority (roughly 25 percent) were, giving half the teams a China expert. Several China experts posited that nuclear attacks on Taiwan, regarded as an integral part of China, would be anathema to Beijing. China experts also tended to be more sensitive to China’s commitment to a no-first-use policy, which has historically guided its decisions on force structure, posture, and command authorities. + +- The game did not have a separate Taiwan team and, therefore, did not cover Taiwanese political decisionmaking, including the possibility of surrender. The logic behind not modeling Taiwanese political decisionmaking during conflict was driven by the intended focus on U.S.-China strategic dynamics, the limited operational decisions available to Taiwan, and the difficulty of credibly assessing the pressures Taipei might experience during conventional, much less nuclear, conflict. The U.S. coalition team made decisions about Taiwanese actions assuming Taiwan would continue to resist. However, it is unknowable whether Taipei would continue resistance if, for example, its territory were struck by a dozen or more nuclear weapons, each somewhat larger than the bombs employed against Nagasaki and Hiroshima. + +- More broadly, the game did not force players to consider popular reaction, the destructiveness of nuclear (or conventional) weapons use, or the likely second- and third-order economic, social, and political effects use when making nuclear decisions. In a world with ubiquitous cameras, social media, and other powerful means to mobilize opinion, pressures on governments after nuclear use could be truly unprecedented. However, it is unclear how those pressures would influence decisionmakers and over what timeline. + +- This report addresses one scenario: invasion. China might employ force against Taiwan in other ways (e.g., a blockade or coercive firepower strikes). In those cases, nuclear use seems less likely and, if it occurs, might follow patterns not covered by this project. + +- Like the original project modeling conventional combat (summarized in the First Battle of the Next War report), this adaptation used only unclassified data so that its results could inform public debate. This does not necessarily limit the accuracy of the analysis. Much information is available from open sources. The appropriate use of historical data, because it incorporates all the friction of real-world operations, can sometimes be more accurate in modeling future conflicts than classified information, which suffers from a lack of broad review and scrutiny. + +- The wargame assumed that neither side had a secret, exquisite capability that allowed a disarming counterforce attack. Such a capability is highly unlikely to exist because it would require high effectiveness against all arms of an adversary’s nuclear forces simultaneously. Although both sides are undoubtedly pursuing such capabilities, the history of the Cold War suggests that they are unlikely to be acquired in quantity and kept secret for long periods. For example, the United States developed the first stealth (low observable) aircraft in secret: the F-117. Though highly successful, the capability was limited (59 aircraft built), and its existence soon became known, though not all the technical parameters. + + +### Game Results + +The five outcomes are described below along with the number of times that each occurred. No outcome constituted a total victory for the U.S. coalition (e.g., overthrow of the CCP and redirection of Chinese foreign policy) or for China (i.e., U.S. withdrawal from the Western Pacific and U.S. acknowledgment of China’s sphere of influence). These were out of reach. + +- __PLA Phased Withdrawal (5):__ A ceasefire occurred, with PRC withdrawal from Taiwan and the return of Chinese POWs. + +- __Status Quo Ante (1):__ The prewar status was reinforced. Chinese forces on Taiwan were destroyed, but China gained a commitment that Taiwan would not seek independence. + +- __Conflagration (3):__ A strategic nuclear exchange occurred, with hundreds of millions of casualties. + +- __PRC Enclave (5):__ A ceasefire occurred, with the establishment of a PRC enclave on Taiwan. Some games had player-created amendments to the generic peace conditions. One game saw the United States and Taiwan allowing a PRC enclave but with the establishment of a formal U.S.-Taiwan alliance and a U.S. force permanently deployed on Taiwan. + +- __Inconclusive (1):__ No ceasefire deal had been reached and no nuclear conflagration had occurred by the time gameplay ended. + +Because the game did not assess political approval or disapproval of nuclear use, outcomes did not represent the probability of nuclear use but rather potential military recommendations for nuclear use. + +![image07](https://i.imgur.com/eGfLeBz.png) +_▲ __Figure 2: Game Pathways.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +Figure 2 shows the pathways and outcomes for the 15 games. + +As noted in the scope conditions, the wargame did not model Taiwanese decisionmaking during the conflict. Chinese nuclear use could induce the Taiwanese to surrender. The China teams sometimes made nuclear threats and attacks directly aimed at forcing Taiwanese capitulation (Game 2). Even if China aimed only to have operational effects with its nuclear use (Games 4, 5, 9, 11, and 13), Taiwan might still decide the cost of nuclear attacks on its territory outweighed the benefit of continued resistance. + +The outcomes represented only agreements between the respective adversaries; the second- and third-order political and economic consequences were not treated and would certainly be momentous. Economic and political isolation of China, significant nuclear proliferation to states in the region (or beyond), and a possible strengthening of the U.S. alliance system are among the many possible negative consequences for China. Hence, the idea of a Chinese “victory” or “success” through nuclear use should be understood in the limited sense of immediate conflict settlement. Economic disruption would affect all nations but was not estimated. + +Intermediate waypoints show the many paths that conflicts could take from start to outcome: + +- __Early HEMP:__ Two China teams used HEMP at the outset of conflict (Turn 1 HEMP); the United States responded with its own HEMP in one game (U.S. HEMP) but did nothing in the other (No U.S. Response). Both games continued without further immediate nuclear use. + +- __U.S. Panic:__ Two U.S. teams, shocked by high early losses, incorrectly believed they were losing the conventional fight; most teams correctly assessed that their position would improve (U.S. Calm). + +- __Chinese Crisis:__ Around weeks three to five, the China teams realized they were losing the conventional war. + + - One China team used a HEMP (Chinese HEMP), to which the United States responded with attacks on Chinese command and control with hypersonic weapons (U.S. Conventional Escalation). + + - Many other China teams used nuclear weapons to cause physical destruction (Chinese First Use); in response, the United States launched a damage-limiting nuclear counterforce attack (Total Counterforce), sought an immediate ceasefire (U.S. Surrender), attacked Chinese cities with nuclear weapons (U.S. Countervalue), or used nuclear weapons operationally on Taiwan (U.S. Operational). + +- __U.S. Nuclear Operational:__ The U.S. team attacked the Chinese lodgment with nuclear weapons. + +- __Total Counterforce:__ The U.S. team used nuclear weapons to attack Chinese nuclear capabilities. + +- __U.S. Countervalue:__ The U.S. team used nuclear weapons on Chinese cities or on military targets within cities. + +- __U.S. Conventional Escalation:__ The U.S. team responded with conventional attacks on high-value targets such as early warning radars. + +- __U.S. Yields:__ The United States accepted an unfavorable outcome rather than continue the fight. + +Similar pathways could lead to different outcomes. For example, the pathway U.S. Calm → Chinese Crisis → Chinese First Use produced three different outcomes. The key takeaway is the difficulty in predicting how nuclear escalation will end. There was one exception to this rule of uncertainty: countervalue strikes always engendered countervalue responses and the “deaths” of millions. + +___`The key takeaway is the difficulty in predicting how nuclear escalation will end.`___ + + +### Analysis + +___What Creates the Greatest Pressure for Nuclear First Use?___ + +The wargame results support several hypotheses developed in Chapter 2; they do not support others. The strength of these findings must be viewed in light of the scenarios, methodology, and scope conditions outlined earlier. + +The wargames supported three such hypotheses, fully or partly: + +- When nuclear use occurred, the first use (other than a HEMP) was always initiated by a team that believed it was losing on the conventional battlefield and wanted to gamble for resurrection. + +- Players showed some deference to a nuclear taboo despite the fact that ethical considerations and broader politics were not an explicit part of the game. + +- Finally, there was limited support for the hypothesis that China’s possession of tactical nuclear options would make nuclear weapon use more likely. + +Most hypothesized drivers of nuclear first use were not supported. Table 4 lays out all the hypotheses and whether game outcomes supported them. + +![image08](https://i.imgur.com/9aqfoNi.png) +_▲ __Table 4: Nuclear Use Hypotheses and Wargame Results.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +#### Supported Hypotheses + +The wargames supported two hypotheses—gambling for resurrection and the nuclear taboo—and partially supported a third—Chinese possession of tactical nuclear forces. + +_CHINA TEAMS GAMBLING FOR RESURRECTION_ + +Nuclear first use was most often initiated by China teams that believed conventional defeat had become inevitable. The models of conventional conflict employed in the game—which the authors believe reflect the most likely case—tended to produce early successes but steadily mounting setbacks for the China teams. The Chinese amphibious fleet was particularly vulnerable and suffered attrition over time while the lodgment’s logistical needs grew. Between weeks three and five of the conflict, the Chinese flow of logistics onto the island declined below the level needed to sustain troops already on the island. Thus, no additional troops could then be transported with the available lift. After this point, with further losses to the amphibious fleet and the absence of a functioning captured port or airfield, Chinese supplies became increasingly inadequate, so units lost combat power and could no longer attack. Defeat became imminent, leading to a crisis for the China teams and a harsh choice: agree to an adverse settlement, fight on to likely defeat, or use nuclear weapons. + +___`Nuclear first use was most often initiated by China teams that believed conventional defeat had become inevitable.`___ + +Conventional defeat for China could pose an existential risk for the CCP, particularly if no face-saving off-ramp is available. If the invasion force surrenders due to lack of supplies, tens of thousands of soldiers would march into captivity. The resulting visuals would make it impossible for Chinese leaders to spin results or deny catastrophic defeat. As Brad Roberts, director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, points out, “Concerns about domestic political stability also factor into Chinese leadership perspectives in a way few Americans appreciate.” China teams that perceived this risk as existential were tempted to gamble for resurrection by using nuclear weapons. As discussed in Chapter 7: What Happens If Nuclear Weapons are Used?, sometimes this gamble worked, leading the U.S. team to withdraw from a conventional war it was winning and granting the China team an advantageous settlement (though no U.S. team conceded completely). However, at other times, the China team’s gamble backfired, leading to a sounder defeat or even to a global nuclear cataclysm. + +It is unclear whether this pressure for nuclear use would override restraining factors in an actual crisis. Sinologists who participated in the game disagreed on whether Chinese leaders would resort to nuclear use in such a situation. Some believed that they would be willing to gamble for resurrection to protect the regime. Others cited a belief in the security of the CCP’s hold on power and its ability to potentially reconstitute for a renewed invasion following a ceasefire. + +_PANICKED U.S. TEAMS GAMBLING FOR RESURRECTION_ + +Many U.S. teams were shocked at their large losses early in the conflict. These losses included at least one carrier in the first week (sunk or critically damaged) and a second carrier in 9 of 15 games. The last time the United States lost a fleet carrier in combat was the USS Princeton in October 1944. By the end of the first week of the game, the United States and Japan typically lost 270 aircraft and 20 ships. Shaken by these large losses, several teams believed they were headed toward defeat. Some were alarmed enough to believe they faced essentially the same choices discussed in the Chinese context: agree to an adverse settlement, accept defeat, or use nuclear weapons. Although U.S. teams, unlike the China teams, did not believe defeat would threaten the United States’ form of government, defeat would nevertheless carry grave domestic and international consequences, including the collapse of the U.S. alliance system. + +The reaction of the U.S. teams that believed they were losing varied. Some persevered in the conventional conflict without pursuing either nuclear use or negotiated off-ramps and were pleasantly surprised by their improving conventional situation later in the games. One U.S. team (Game 7) chose to withdraw from the conflict, granting a PRC enclave on Taiwan after only a week of combat. + +Another U.S. team (Game 6) undertook a damage-limiting nuclear counterforce strike against Chinese nuclear and nuclear-related targets. The attack involved more than a thousand U.S. warheads, which would likely have caused at least 10 million prompt deaths in China and several times that many deaths from radiation and other causes. The goal of this preemptive counterforce attack was to force the China team to capitulate on the theory that it could not retaliate with its nuclear weapons without effectively committing national suicide. The U.S. team still held hundreds of nuclear weapons and could retaliate against any Chinese response with a massive strike against Chinese cities. However, with China’s expanding nuclear arsenal and investment in ICBMs launched from TELs, the authors modeled that it would be impossible for the United States to disarm China’s nuclear force completely; it could only hope to coerce China into capitulation and, if that failed, limit damage from China’s nuclear retaliation. When the China team failed to capitulate as planned, a nuclear exchange ensued that led to several million U.S. civilian casualties and eventual U.S. concession to a PRC enclave on Taiwan. + +_NUCLEAR TABOO AS DRIVER OF NONUSE OR LATE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS_ + +Despite instructions to players that nuclear recommendations should be based on military utility—a mechanism designed to study potential military drivers of nuclear weapons use—many players said during the game or postgame hotwash that they were committed to not using nuclear weapons. Their rationales included (variously) the likelihood of escalation to the strategic level, the importance of maintaining a global nuclear taboo, and, among U.S. players, the importance of the United States not being the first to use nuclear weapons since World War II. Some China teams (Games 1 and 12) refrained from even mating warheads, signaling that they would not escalate to the nuclear level. Most Sinologists who played the game suggested Chinese leaders would view nuclear use against their 同胞 (tóngbāo, or compatriots) on Taiwan as anathema. Similarly, China’s no-first-use policy, which, unlike Russia’s, has historically driven nuclear force structure decisions, provides a soft constraint. Whether the actual U.S. or Chinese leadership would feel the same normative constraints is unclear, but the game results show the taboo’s broad strength. + +_CHINESE POSSESSION OF TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS_ + +The games only partially supported the hypothesis that Chinese possession of tactical nuclear weapons would increase Chinese propensity for nuclear first use—a principal assumption of the game scenarios. As shown in Table 5, China teams decided on nuclear first use five times despite not possessing low-yield weapons compared to four times when they did. Whenever a China team believed it should gamble for resurrection, possessing low-yield weapons had some influence but was not determinative. Instead, conversations principally revolved around the trajectory of the conventional campaign and the implications of a defeat for the CCP. + +Although possession or lack of low-yield options did not determine nuclear use, it did affect gameplay. When China teams had low-yield nuclear weapons and decided on nuclear escalation, they almost always used low-yield weapons on first use. One China team that did not have low-yield nuclear weapons (Game 3) said that having tactical nuclear weapons might have prompted them to consider nuclear use earlier or more seriously. Another China team with lower-yield nuclear weapons (Game 14) decided against use based on the probability of high civilian casualties and political damage in the event of urban use, even though lower-yield weapons would reduce these effects. Thus, Chinese possession of lower-yield weapons had some influence on military decisionmakers, albeit not a decisive one. + +Political leaders (unmodeled, as the control group implemented the majority recommendations of both sides) might view nuclear use differently than the game players, rejecting the use of high-yield weapons but accepting the use of low-yield weapons. This perception might make nuclear use with low-yield weapons more likely than portrayed in the games. Nevertheless, the plurality of games indicated that possession of low-yield weapons was not as central to operational commanders’ thinking on nuclear use as assessments of the conventional conflict. Table 5 shows game outcomes and nuclear use by scenario. It shows all six scenarios, whether nuclear weapons were used, who used them first, and the outcome. + +![image09](https://i.imgur.com/pdMEPTe.png) +_▲ __Table 5: Game Outcomes and Nuclear Use by Scenario.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +#### Unsupported Hypotheses + +_MAINLAND STRIKES_ + +U.S. conventional strikes on unambiguously nonnuclear targets on the Chinese mainland never led China teams to seriously consider nuclear first use. Although China teams always regarded such strikes as escalatory, they considered conventional responses only. In iterations where the game scenario restricted U.S. teams from attacking the Chinese mainland, the China team sometimes reciprocated and refrained from attacking Guam or Japan. + +When U.S. teams were allowed to strike the mainland and did so, China teams frequently cited these mainland strikes in their justifications for attacking Japan with conventional weapons. However, at no point were nuclear attacks ordered or even seriously considered. + +_INADVERTENT ESCALATION_ + +Inadvertent destruction of limited numbers of Chinese strategic assets did not lead China teams to a nuclear response. Chinese SSBNs were sunk with conventional weapons during U.S. antisubmarine warfare operations against Chinese attack submarines (Games 1 and 2), nuclear IRBM warheads were destroyed during attacks on conventional PLA rockets (Game 3), satellite-based ISR was disrupted to increase U.S. freedom of maneuver (Games 5 and 7), and dual-purpose command and control nodes were targeted for their conventional effects (Games 3 and 14). None of these provoked a Chinese nuclear response or even serious consideration of a nuclear response. China teams invariably concluded that these attacks did not threaten their second strike, regardless of the Chinese force posture in the scenario. Likewise, Chinese kinetic antisatellite attacks, including those that destroyed early warning capabilities, prompted U.S. escalation to counterspace attacks of their own but did not prompt consideration of nuclear use. + +_DELIBERATE CONVENTIONAL ATTACKS ON NUCLEAR FORCES_ + +China did not respond with nuclear weapons in the one game in which the U.S. team embarked on a deliberate conventional counterforce campaign. In Game 2, the U.S. team attacked all the Chinese nuclear platforms that it could reach (particularly SSBNs and bombers), attempted to disrupt Chinese nuclear command and control, and even struck Chinese leadership targets. The China team took these attacks in stride, noting it still retained sufficient nuclear forces to destroy a large number of U.S. cities. The losses to nuclear systems were modest in scale; larger-scale losses might produce different results. + +_QUANTITATIVE NUCLEAR SUPERIORITY_ + +All teams understood that the United States continued to hold advantages in the nuclear domain despite a major and accelerating expansion of PLA nuclear inventories over the decade before 2028. Even in the Low Yield Enabled scenarios, China would have many fewer low-yield options than the United States. Although China might possess more types of ICBMs, this would not translate into qualitative or quantitative parity. Moreover, China’s peacetime readiness is far lower than that of the United States, and the game assumed (for reasons outlined earlier) that its nuclear posture was unchanged in the lead-up to war. + +Nevertheless, U.S. quantitative nuclear superiority did not deter China teams from employing nuclear weapons. China teams knew that using nuclear weapons risked nuclear retaliation by the United States and that the United States possessed more escalatory options and the ability to launch a damage-limiting counterforce strike against China. But so long as the United States could not launch a disarming counterforce strike, the China teams judged that the United States would not launch strategic nuclear attacks. Thus, U.S. qualitative and quantitative nuclear superiority was not central in its calculations. Echoing the results of Hannah Dennis and Stacie Pettyjohn, the number of nuclear weapons that the United States could hit China with was not crucial to China teams. China teams that decided not to use nuclear weapons were dissuaded by considerations other than their nuclear inferiority. + +_U.S. COUNTERFORCE CAPABILITIES_ + +The powerful U.S. nuclear counterforce capability was not enough to deter the China teams from using nuclear weapons when they faced a crisis. No matter how capable U.S. forces were, they could not destroy all Chinese ICBMs, particularly those based on mobile systems. As long as the China teams believed they had a secure second strike of any magnitude, they were not deterred from using nuclear weapons. + +_SHORTAGES OF CONVENTIONAL MUNITIONS_ + +No team opted for nuclear use as a substitute for depleted stocks of conventional weapons during the game. Despite the United States running out of Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASMs) in the first few days of combat, no U.S. team considered using nuclear weapons to sink the rest of the Chinese amphibious fleet as it sat anchored to debark; teams always had other options. Conversely, no China team reached for nuclear weapons to replace the exhausted magazines of theater ballistic missiles. + + +### Analysis + +___What Happens If Nuclear Weapons Are Used?___ + +This chapter focuses on the consequences of nuclear use. Because only one U.S. team initiated nuclear use, whereas seven China teams did, it focuses primarily on Chinese use and U.S. responses. This chapter walks through the consequences of nuclear first use in three stages: + +1. What did the first use target? + +2. How did the adversary respond? + +3. How did the conflict end? + +#### What Did First Use Target? + +In selecting targets for nuclear attack, China teams never initiated nuclear use with either a counterforce or countervalue attack. Even with an expanded arsenal, China could not have achieved an effective damage-limiting counterforce attack on the larger U.S. nuclear arsenal. Additionally, China teams never initially launched a countervalue attack or attacked military targets in U.S. cities because they believed this would inevitably provoke an immediate and potentially massive U.S. retaliation. Similarly, China teams believed that using nuclear weapons against Japan, even if aimed at U.S. bases, would be equivalent to a nuclear attack on U.S. territory and would also provoke U.S. nuclear retaliation. Thus, the China teams focused on attacking operational targets with their first use of nuclear weapons. + +___`China teams believed that using nuclear weapons against Japan, even if aimed at U.S. bases, would be equivalent to a nuclear attack on U.S. territory and would provoke immediate and potentially massive retaliation.`___ + +Most China teams decided that ships at sea, airfields, and ports were either unprofitable or too escalatory as nuclear targets. This left nuclear attacks on Taiwanese ground forces as the best of several bad options. Although China would prefer not to risk collateral damage to its ground forces or kill large numbers of ostensibly Chinese civilians, Taiwanese ground forces offered the best operational utility with the lowest risk of U.S. retaliation. + +![image10](https://i.imgur.com/3hPiMah.png) +_▲ __Table 6: Hypotheses About Targeting.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +_FREQUENT CHINESE TARGETING OF GROUND FORCES ON TAIWAN_ + +In six of seven games during which China teams initiated nuclear use, they targeted Taiwanese ground forces. Most teams saw little point in crossing the nuclear threshold unless such use provided major battlefield advantages. Knocking out a few enemy battalions would not produce significant results because reserves and reinforcements would move into the gaps created by the attack. Thus, when the China teams used nuclear weapons, they used them extensively in five of six instances, employing either large numbers (35 weapons in Game 6 and 19 weapons in Game 13) or large-yield weapons (5 high-yield warheads in Game 9, 8 in Game 11, and 3 in Game 5). The exception was in Game 2, where the China team launched a single nuclear weapon against the Taiwanese leadership bunker in Taipei. + +___`In six of seven games where China teams initiated nuclear use, they targeted Taiwanese ground forces. . . . When the China teams used nuclear weapons, they used them extensively.`___ + +Using nuclear weapons on the front lines—particularly high-yield weapons—caused friendly casualties as well as enemy casualties. For example, in Game 5, in which China did not have low-yield weapons, it lost five battalions in addition to the casualties inflicted on the Taiwanese. Thus, most China teams targeted Taiwanese units away from the front lines. + +When used on the ground, Chinese nuclear attacks destroyed between 6 and 38 Taiwanese battalions, with an average of 18, all from a single salvo of strikes. The number varied with targeting and the number of weapons employed. Eighteen battalions represented 15 percent of Taiwan’s 120 battalion total, roughly equaling Taiwan’s losses in conventional conflict (17) at that point in the games. Therefore, the single strike was not decisive but severely weakened the Taiwanese defenses; a second such strike would have been decisive in the absence of U.S. retaliation. + +Each battalion represented about 1,000 military personnel, including associated support, so military casualties from a nuclear strike could be estimated at 6,000–38,000. Casualties from conventional operations averaged 17 battalions, or 17,000 personnel. + +The project also estimated civilian casualties on Taiwan using average population density in different types of terrain and the lethal range of each weapon yield. (See Table CI in Appendix C for details.) The total number of civilian fatalities from nuclear weapons varied from an estimated 80,000 (under 10 low-yield weapons) to 350,000 (4–5 large-yield weapons or very large numbers [35] of low-yield weapons). The single low-yield weapon striking an urban area in Game 2 caused 80,000 fatalities, about the same level of casualties as inflicted by the atomic weapons in World War II. + +Civilian casualties from nuclear use thus greatly outnumbered military casualties from all sources. This was true even though the weapons were aimed almost entirely at military targets in exurban and rural areas. Military forces are typically spread out and dug in, thus providing protection against nuclear attacks. The civilian population is unprotected, and even the rural areas where fighting generally took place were relatively densely populated. + +In general, China teams used nuclear weapons on Taiwanese troop concentrations to inflict maximum losses per weapon. The Taiwanese responded by spreading their forces out, which reduced vulnerability but also their combat effectiveness. However, because the situation quickly moved to either strategic exchanges or negotiated off-ramps, the games ended before the extent of this reduction became relevant. + +_ONLY ONE CHINESE USE AGAINST SHIPS AT SEA_ + +Many China teams considered using nuclear weapons against U.S. ships, particularly aircraft carriers, which are high-value targets because of their military capability and symbolism of U.S. power. However, only one China team did so. The lack of nuclear attacks at sea was surprising since the literature regards this as an attractive option because of the absence of civilians, the ability to strike solely military targets, and the limited radioactive fallout. The limited use of nuclear weapons against ships at sea resulted from a lack of need and a lack of effectiveness. + +___`The limited use of nuclear weapons against ships at sea resulted from a lack of need and a lack of effectiveness.`___ + +There was a lack of need because conventional munitions were highly effective in sinking surface ships on both sides during the initial weeks of the conflict. China has many conventional weapons that were effective against ships, so there was little operational advantage from using nuclear weapons. U.S. surface forces were highly vulnerable when inside Chinese missile weapon employment zones. For example, U.S. carriers operating west of Guam generally launched only a handful of sorties before being sunk or otherwise neutralized. Conversely, Taiwan’s ground-launched antiship missiles, U.S. submarines, and U.S. bomber-launched antiship missiles could grind down the Chinese fleet over the course of weeks. + +At the same time, nuclear weapons lacked effectiveness against ships at sea, making them a less appealing option. The Crossroads nuclear tests in 1946 showed that nuclear weapons must strike near a ship to disable it, necessitating precision. Conventional antiship missiles have terminal guidance to achieve this precision. However, neither the U.S. nor Chinese military has nuclear missiles with terminal seekers (most commonly an active radar) that can update the target location as the missile approaches a moving ship. Without such guidance, time delays in the kill chain and the target’s movement made such attacks difficult. Table C3 in Appendix C shows the quantity of weapons needed. This uncertainty also makes nuclear first use at sea a risky signal of commitment and seriousness because of the high probability of failing to inflict damage and then looking ineffective. + +In the one iteration where the China team used nuclear weapons against U.S. ships at sea (Game 10), the China team dropped patterns of nuclear weapons to cover all possible locations—48 high-yield weapons against a U.S. carrier and surface action group. Although they successfully destroyed their target, this did not significantly affect the conventional balance of power since China had already sunk many U.S. and Japanese ships with conventional weapons and viewed the nuclear strike as a one-time event. + +_PORTS AND AIRFIELDS_ + +Contrary to the expectations generated by the literature, there was only one targeting of airfields. In that case, the China team targeted U.S. airbases on Japan. Consistent with the logic of extended deterrence, the United States retaliated with a counterforce attack. Guam, the target of nuclear attack in three previous wargame projects by other organizations, was never targeted in the series of wargames run for this project. + +The reason for this infrequent targeting was twofold. First, both ports and airfields are in or near cities, so attacks would likely engender retaliation. For example, a single 10 kt weapon dropped on a ship at the Chinese port at Quanzhou, the nearest to Taiwan and likely to be used in an invasion, would produce 77,000 civilian casualties. For China teams, the ports and airfields most relevant for U.S. power projection are either on U.S. or Japanese territory; this makes a Chinese first strike on them likely to engender retaliation. Second, as with ships at sea, China already possesses a robust arsenal of conventionally armed ballistic missiles that could neutralize airbases and ports without nuclear escalation. Third, a major drawback of ports is that ships are spread out for loading and relatively resistant to nuclear attacks. Thus, more nuclear firepower would be needed, increasing civilian casualties. + +_HIGH-ALTITUDE ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (HEMP)_ + +In two games, China teams began the conflict by using a HEMP over Taiwan. In one iteration (Game 4), the U.S. team responded with a HEMP of its own, and in the other (Game 14), the U.S. team continued the conventional war without a nuclear response. In both cases, the conflict continued as in other games. In another iteration (Game 12), the China team used a HEMP later in the campaign when it believed its conventional campaign was failing; the U.S. team continued the conventional campaign, and the China team accepted an unfavorable peace offer. The use of HEMP, therefore, did not move the conflict toward a conclusion, either an off-ramp or nuclear escalation, in the same way nuclear weapons did when used to create direct effects. + +_TARGETING OF JAPAN_ + +Despite having ports and airfields that were attractive targets, Japan was attacked only once with nuclear weapons. There was a strong belief by China teams that an attack on Japan would prompt U.S. nuclear retaliation. As a result, the only attack against Japan was in Game 11, in which the China team attacked multiple Japanese airbases as part of a broader nuclear attack. Furthermore, no China team believed it could split the U.S.-Japan alliance with a nuclear attack on Japan. Indeed, when the China team attacked Japan, the U.S. team honored its extended deterrence commitment and responded with a large counterforce attack against China. + +#### How Did the Adversary Respond? + +This section examines responses to nuclear use and characterizes these responses as withdrawal from conflict, continuing the conventional fight, or nuclear retaliation. Nuclear retaliation is further characterized as operational (against conventional forces), countervalue (against cities or infrastructure in cities), or counterforce (against nuclear weapons capabilities). Of the resulting five options, operational nuclear responses to adversary first use appeared to lead to the most favorable results in terms of agreements or outcomes on Taiwan. However, each has advantages and disadvantages across a broader spectrum of values and risks. + +![image11](https://i.imgur.com/AoFEuu7.png) +_▲ __Table 7: Hypotheses About Retaliation.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +_NONNUCLEAR RESPONSES_ + +The least risky response to Chinese nuclear first use was withdrawal. However, that did not preserve an autonomous Taiwan. Continuing the conventional fight produced unfavorable outcomes and risked further nuclear use. + +__Withdrawal:__ Some U.S. teams withdrew from the conflict in response to Chinese nuclear use. In Game 13, the U.S. team accepted a Chinese ultimatum for a PRC enclave after Chinese nuclear use on Taiwan and a nuclear demonstration over the Pacific. In Game 9, the U.S. team eventually accepted a PRC enclave after initially attempting to continue the war conventionally. In both cases, China did not gain a total victory. However, some participants judged a PRC enclave to be a precursor to the eventual Chinese takeover of Taiwan. If the United States responded to China’s first use by accepting an unfavorable peace settlement, then China would have salvaged its conventional campaign via nuclear escalation. This was the best possible outcome for Chinese nuclear first use and achieved a successful roll of the iron dice in the gamble for resurrection. For U.S. teams, this represented the least-risky option with regard to the probability of further nuclear use or escalation in the short term, though longer-term consequences of defeat would be difficult to predict. + +__Continuing the Conventional Campaign:__ In Game 12, the U.S. team continued its conventional operations in response to a Chinese HEMP over the Pacific. A nonnuclear response by the U.S. team forced the China team to escalate or back down, leading them to accept a PLA-phased withdrawal. However, in the face of a committed China, attempting to continue the conventional campaign after Chinese nuclear first use was not successful. In Game 2, after the China team attacked Taiwanese leadership with a nuclear weapon and the U.S. team attempted to continue the conventional war, the China team made nuclear threats against Japan. The U.S. team responded with a countervalue attack to signal resolve, resulting in a general nuclear exchange. + +Japan’s influence is also important. In Game 9, after Chinese nuclear first use, the U.S. team continued the conventional campaign until Japan, fearing further escalation, demanded the United States accept a PRC enclave. The U.S. team acquiesced. Thus, continuing the conventional campaign in the face of adversary first use was successful only if the adversary conducted a strike that did not produce decisive operational effects, the adversary lacked the intent or means to escalate further and create such effects, and allies and partners were willing to continue fighting in the face of one-sided nuclear use. + +_NUCLEAR RETALIATION_ + +Players never opted for nuclear demonstrations in response to adversary nuclear first use. Although players were assigned roles as military commanders, many considered the impact on the credibility of U.S. security commitments if the United States did not respond to nuclear use with nuclear strikes of its own. Japan was at the forefront of U.S. thoughts, as losing Japanese access, basing, and overflight would doom the U.S. conventional campaign. However, Japan teams did not unanimously support nuclear retaliation; some were concerned that Japan might become a nuclear target if nuclear exchanges continued. + +Beyond these regional considerations, many U.S. players expressed concern that a nonnuclear response to Chinese nuclear first use would create global doubts about U.S. extended deterrence elsewhere, from South Korea to Europe. Finally, many U.S. teams were motivated by the idea that nuclear retaliation discouraged future nuclear proliferation and use by powers outside of the current conflict. However, nuclear retaliation could continue an escalatory spiral beyond the respondent’s control. + +The risks and benefits of a nuclear response varied based on the target selected. Retaliation against operational targets produced the best U.S. outcomes in the fight for Taiwan. + +__Operational:__ Just as with nuclear first use, nuclear retaliation targeting enemy conventional forces can achieve significant operational effects. Among all options other than withdrawal, an operational nuclear response is also often the least escalatory, especially if it does not threaten adversary population centers or nuclear capabilities. + +Such a response can signal that the responder wants the nuclear exchange to remain limited. Its feasibility relies on having an operationally relevant target that is not on adversary territory. If nuclear use had occurred early in the conflict, Chinese amphibious ships off Taiwan would have been an attractive target, but because destruction of this capability usually triggered Chinese nuclear use, the amphibious fleet was not available as a target in practice. + +The lodgment on Taiwan was a compact target critical to Chinese operations. In the one game (Game 5) the U.S. team retaliated against Chinese first use by striking the Chinese lodgment on Taiwan with nuclear weapons. The attack caused a near complete loss of China’s operational capabilities on Taiwan and led to Chinese withdrawal from the campaign and a status quo ante peace. However, this nuclear option for the United States would inevitably cause significant collateral damage to Taiwan. + +___`The lodgment on Taiwan was a compact target that was critical to Chinese operations.`___ + +__Counterforce:__ Most U.S. teams considered a counterforce retaliation to Chinese first use, aiming to limit damage from further Chinese strikes by destroying a large portion of Chinese nuclear warheads, delivery systems, and NC3. However, even when Chinese nuclear forces were targeted with counterforce attacks (Games 6 and 11), the China teams retained enough nuclear capability to launch nuclear counterattacks on the U.S. homeland. The China teams rode out the U.S. counterforce attack and used their residual mobile ICBMs to coerce an advantageous outcome (PRC Enclave) in both games. Thus, a counterforce retaliation to Chinese nuclear use did not produce war-winning advantages for U.S. teams. + +__Countervalue:__ In contrast to the restraint of an operational retaliation, a countervalue retaliation maximizes the resolve communicated to the adversary but also carries the highest likelihood of adversary nuclear escalation. As cities are destroyed back and forth, it becomes harder to stop the cycle because only committed adversaries will continue and the destruction creates animus on both sides, even in a wargame. In all three games in which the U.S. team responded to the China team’s first use with countervalue attacks, the result was general strategic nuclear exchanges. In two of these games, the U.S. teams targeted Chinese military facilities in cities. Although the U.S. team justified this on military grounds, it caused massive civilian casualties. To the China teams, these civilian casualties constituted a countervalue attack, regardless of how the U.S. teams might have conceived it. + +Escalation to conflagration after countervalue-countervalue retaliations might be due to the artificial nature of the game, in which players do not suffer the real consequences of nuclear war. It is possible that upon observing the actual effects of a countervalue retaliation, a nuclear first user would decide to exit the escalatory spiral and seek an off-ramp. Nevertheless, with all instances of countervalue strikes ending in conflagration, nuclear attacks on civilians appeared unlikely to lead to a favorable outcome and highly likely to start an escalatory spiral that ended in a conflagration. + +___`With all instances of countervalue strikes ending in conflagration, nuclear attacks on civilians appear unlikely to lead to a favorable outcome and highly likely to start an escalatory spiral that ends in a conflagration.`___ + +_CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE U.S. NUCLEAR ARSENAL_ + +The wargames did not indicate a need for more or different nuclear weapons beyond those already in current U.S. programs. Historically, China’s limited arsenal and readiness posture might have allowed a disarming strike by the United States. However, the authors estimated that China’s nuclear buildup precluded that possibility by 2028. Although China’s integrated air defense system required U.S. nuclear responses to use standoff weapons like ALCMs and low-yield SLBMs, there were enough of these to conduct any desired U.S. nuclear response. Nor did U.S. teams express a belief that an expanded strategic arsenal and the ability to inflict more pain on China would have been beneficial. U.S. teams focused broadly on the benefits and risks of nuclear use. The specific extent of anticipated damage to the respective sides was not central to their calculations. No U.S. team asked for more or different types of nuclear weapons during the game. + +Gravity bombs were not used much. As with conventional attacks, both the U.S. and China teams needed to deliver nuclear weapons with standoff systems because of the adversary’s air defenses. For U.S. teams, this put heavy demands on ALCMs and low-yield SLBMs in tactical usage. Players rarely used bombs like the B61 because of the need for proximity to the target. + +Players also did not distinguish between the risks posed by varying magnitudes of countervalue attacks. Within each of the game iterations, the China teams’ countervalue and second-strike capabilities varied over time. At the start of each iteration, as the China teams’ nuclear forces were at low readiness, the U.S. teams could plausibly have launched a damage-limiting counterforce strike that would have destroyed most Chinese nuclear weapons. However, the China teams could still have launched a countervalue second strike that would have destroyed around 10–30 U.S. cities. The China teams’ ability to survive and retaliate against a U.S. damage-limiting counterforce strike increased over time during most iterations as China mated and dispersed more warheads. China’s ability to execute a countervalue retaliation against a U.S. nuclear attack, therefore, varied between threatening tens of cities to hundreds. + +However, no U.S. team believed that the certainty of losing 10–30 cities to a nuclear attack was better than continuing an uncertain conventional campaign. It is possible that a future U.S. president, channeling the controversial nuclear strategist Herman Kahn, would be willing to embark on such a damage-limiting first strike at the outset of a war over Taiwan. There were no such players in these games. Recognizing this, China teams were therefore not deterred by intra-game variations in the effectiveness of U.S. counterforce options. To paraphrase McGeorge Bundy, in the real world of real political leaders—whether in the United States or in China—a decision that brings even one hydrogen bomb on one city of one’s own country would be considered a catastrophic blunder, 10 bombs on 10 cities would be a disaster beyond history, and a hundred bombs on a hundred cities are unthinkable. + +#### How Did the Conflict End? + +Gambling for resurrection with nuclear first use led to a diverse and unforeseeable set of outcomes. Depending on the adversary’s response, this gamble could pay off with a favorable outcome (although not a total victory), lead to a conflagration, or end somewhere in between. The status of conventional forces was important in guiding outcomes; nuclear superiority was not. After nuclear use, firm resolve and openness to off-ramps were critical to avoiding the worst outcomes. + +![image12](https://i.imgur.com/2fjbj9q.png) +_▲ __Table 8: Hypotheses About Outcomes.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + +_THE STATUS OF CONVENTIONAL CONFLICT SHAPES OUTCOMES AFTER NUCLEAR USE_ + +Political outcomes in the case of nuclear use reflected not only diplomacy and nuclear brinksmanship but also the final balance of conventional forces. Even in games where the China team began nuclear use, and the U.S. team was unwilling to respond in kind (e.g., Games 6, 9, 11, and 13), negotiated settlements resulted in partial Chinese success (e.g., PRC Enclave) rather than unconditional U.S. withdrawal from conflict. This occurred because China teams could not quickly occupy the remainder of Taiwan by the time they had resorted to nuclear use in weeks three or four of the games. While these teams may have been motivated to avoid U.S. nuclear use (or further use), they frequently also considered their weak battlefield position. China teams believed they could make a deterrent demand of U.S. teams (“Stop the fighting in place”) but not a compellent demand (“Taiwanese forces should surrender”). Similarly, when the U.S. team responded to China’s first use by launching tactical nuclear weapons against the Chinese lodgment in Game 5, the near-complete destruction of Chinese forces ashore on Taiwan made any further demands by the China team compellent demands, which are inherently less likely to succeed than deterrent demands. The China team extracted an agreement from the U.S. team that it would not recognize Taiwanese independence, thus returning to the prewar status quo ante. Overall, however, this was an unfavorable outcome for China. + +___`Political outcomes in the case of nuclear use reflected not only diplomacy and nuclear brinksmanship but also the final balance of conventional forces.`___ + +_NUCLEAR SUPERIORITY DID NOT DRIVE BARGAINING_ + +Just as the United States’ damage-limiting capabilities and quantitative nuclear superiority did not deter China teams from nuclear use, so too nuclear superiority did not drive bargaining outcomes. Game 5 saw the best scenario for U.S. damage limitation (a counterforce attack early in the campaign before Chinese warhead dispersion against a Chinese low-yield-enabled posture). However, the China team used a portion of its surviving warheads to coerce a U.S. withdrawal from the conflict. In general, the status of the conventional campaign, the employment of nuclear weapons, and the threat of mutually destructive escalation shaped bargaining behavior, and neither team considered the relative number of weapons as important to those dynamics. + +_NUCLEAR WAR CANNOT RELIABLY BE CONTROLLED_ + +In support of the hypothesis, only some nuclear wars remained limited. “Gambling for resurrection” was truly a roll of the nuclear dice, as some attempts were successful and others came up as catastrophic snake eyes. + +Some China teams successfully employed limited nuclear attacks to coerce U.S. teams into reversing the outcome of the conventional war. First use by China teams in three games (9, 11, 13) led to a favorable settlement (a PRC enclave on Taiwan) against U.S. teams unwilling to climb the escalation ladder. In Game 9, the U.S. team attempted to continue the war conventionally but later relented in the face of escalating Chinese threats. In Game 11, the U.S. team responded with a nuclear counterforce attack, but the China team’s intransigence, even with a severely depleted nuclear and conventional arsenal, led the U.S. team to accept an unfavorable settlement. Game 13 saw immediate U.S. acceptance of a PRC enclave in response to Chinese nuclear first use. Nuclear escalation, therefore, offered a conventionally defeated China the prospect of gambling for resurrection by transforming the conflict into a contest of resolve that, should the United States be irresolute, could be kept limited. + +However, nuclear use also risked creating an uncontrolled spiral that led to the worst outcome for both sides: a nuclear conflagration. In Games 2, 4, and 10, first use by China teams led to a general countervalue exchange with the United States that would have resulted in hundreds of millions of Chinese civilians dying from the prompt effects and many more from delayed effects. Broad swathes of China would be uninhabitable. This outcome was orders of magnitude worse than the losses from a failed invasion attempt—both for the Chinese people and their leaders. + +_OFF-RAMPS WERE NEEDED_ + +Even after nuclear use, off-ramps remained critical to preventing uncontrolled escalation. As discussed above, nuclear first use by China could not compel the United States to withdraw and could only deter continued U.S. intervention against a Chinese lodgment. There were also cases of successful U.S. navigation of Chinese nuclear first use that avoided U.S. withdrawal and conflagration. + +First, if China teams resorted to demonstrations of HEMP, the U.S. teams could ignore the threat and continue the conventional campaign in the face of Chinese first use (Game 12). If the China team was not committed to the extensive and escalatory nuclear use required to salvage its conventional forces, then it had to accept an unfavorable settlement. + +Alternatively, if the U.S. team responded to Chinese nuclear escalation by using nuclear weapons against the Chinese lodgment (Game 5), then there was no way for the China team to continue its invasion attempt; the invasion would fail while provoking the global opprobrium of starting a nuclear war. Thus, nuclear first use sometimes resulted in a settlement advantageous to the United States, either through (1) a lack of Chinese resolve or (2) U.S. nuclear use against the Chinese lodgment. However, both cases fell short of total U.S. victory: Even when the United States destroyed the Chinese lodgment in retaliation for Chinese first use, the China team almost countered with continued nuclear use. Only a U.S. promise not to recognize Taiwanese independence (game 5) prevented a continued nuclear exchange. + +_UNCERTAINTY AND THE NEED FOR ANALYTIC CAUTION_ + +Nuclear use often produced results that surprised the team that first employed nuclear weapons. The considerations players believed might drive the other side often did not, and the beliefs and background of individual players were often as important in shaping outcomes as the structure of the situation. Such human factors can never be fully predicted. However, the fact that three games—all played by professionals with significant expertise in regional and nuclear issues—resulted in large-scale strategic nuclear exchanges and the “deaths” of hundreds of millions should provide cause for circumspection. + +___`Nuclear use often produced results that surprised the team that first employed nuclear weapons.`___ + + +### Recommendations + +The following recommendations build on the analysis of wargame results. The recommendations aim to strengthen deterrence and better prepare the United States in case nuclear weapons are used. + +#### To Strengthen Nuclear Deterrence + +Five recommendations aim to strengthen deterrence so that conflict is less likely to occur: (1) Prepare off-ramps for a conflict with China, (2) do not preclude the U.S. military from striking the Chinese mainland with conventional weapons, (3) do not pursue quantitative nuclear superiority with the expectation that it will deter China from using nuclear weapons, (4) accustom U.S. military and political leaders to the possibility of large initial losses in the event of a war with China, and (5) continue extended deterrence messaging. + +__Prepare off-ramps for a conflict with China.__ + +As the greatest risk of nuclear first use in a Taiwan scenario comes from Chinese leaders gambling for resurrection, U.S. planners should study and prepare off-ramps beforehand. Total victory—regime change, limits on Chinese armaments, war guilt, or the renunciation of sovereignty over Taiwan—is unachievable in a nuclear environment. This was one of U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s main takeaways from the Cuban Missile Crisis when he noted “the importance of placing one’s self in the adversary’s shoes, of not humiliating him, and of leaving him a way out of the crisis short of disaster for all parties.” A recent Atlantic Council project similarly concluded, “China may be open to a ‘face-saving’ resolution that would stave off a nuclear exchange.” This is compatible with U.S. nuclear employment guidance: “The United States seeks to end any conflict at the lowest level possible on the best achievable terms for the United States and its allies and partners.” This series of wargames provides analytic support for the guidance’s approach. + +However, even a face-saving off-ramp requires some real concessions. The United States and its coalition will not be inclined to make any concessions to an authoritarian regime that has just launched an unsuccessful war of aggression against a democratic neighbor. Waiting until a bloody war begins to think about potential face-saving off-ramps would risk emotions overwhelming analysis. Further, time will be short, given how quickly nuclear events move. Armistice negotiations in the last Sino-U.S. war took nearly two years, from October 25, 1951, to July 27, 1953. There would not be that kind of time in any future war with China. + +In thinking about off-ramps, it may be helpful to imagine the scene: A high-level White House meeting is held two weeks after a Chinese invasion begins. The INDOPACOM commander briefs over video: “Mister President, we have suffered about 10,000 casualties and lost 25 percent of our air force and two dozen ships, including two aircraft carriers. There is a humanitarian disaster unfolding on Taiwan, and our Japanese allies have been struck hard by China’s missiles. However, we assess that the Chinese forces on Taiwan are out of supplies and, according to reports, have begun surrendering to Taiwanese forces.” + +A similar meeting is playing out in the Central Military Commission bunker outside Beijing: “Comrade chairman of the commission, our invasion force commander has been killed. His commissar reports that supplies are short, and morale is low. Our joint theater commander says that the only way to stabilize the situation is with nuclear weapons.” The party secretary turns to the minister of foreign affairs: “What messages have we heard from the Americans?” + +The United States should study beforehand what messages or terms would successfully terminate the conflict under terms that maintain U.S. interests but do not fuel Chinese temptation to gamble on nuclear use. Some messages are likely to increase the temptation to resort to nuclear arms: “Chairman, we have heard nothing, but the U.S. Congress has just voted to recognize Taiwanese independence.” Others are likely to decrease the risks: “We have received a message via the Indian ambassador that the United States and Taiwan are willing to agree to a ceasefire and allow our forces to withdraw, with all prisoners of war released.” As Brad Roberts points out, “There is historical evidence pointing to the willingness of China’s leaders to accept military losses as long as political points have been won.” China’s militarily unsuccessful invasion of Vietnam in 1979 is an example. Research and wargaming are needed to conceptualize a settlement that offers China a face-saving off-ramp while still accomplishing key U.S. and coalition goals. + +Potential settlements must be acceptable to allies, partners, and domestic audiences, lest their opposition derail negotiations. It would be tempting for the United States to give China concessions that clash with allied interests—for example, agreeing that Japan should immediately and permanently close its representative office in Taiwan. Such a concession would be perfect from the U.S. standpoint: highly visible, symbolic, face-saving for China, and costless for the United States. + +Japan might not see it the same way. During the Korean War, disagreement between the United States and South Korea over the treatment of POWs was central to prolonging the war. A delay caused by disagreement with the Taiwanese or Japanese government could be catastrophic in a war where both sides are armed with nuclear weapons. + +The study of off-ramps must therefore consider the relative valuation of concessions to the United States, China, Taiwan, and U.S. allies. Selecting from the menu of concessions built by research and wargaming would still require great diplomatic skill, but having such a menu ahead of time would be far better than attempting to build it under the time constraints and duress of an ongoing war. + +__Do not preclude the U.S. military from striking the Chinese mainland with conventional weapons in the event of war.__ + +Conventional strikes on the Chinese mainland, such as attacks on Chinese amphibious ships in port and Chinese airplanes at their airbases, could inflict significant damage while the ships and aircraft are stationary and vulnerable. Even limited mainland strikes would inflict virtual attrition on Chinese forces by requiring them to divert forces to homeland defense. + +The First Battle of the Next War noted the uncertainty of authorization for mainland strikes because of escalation fears. This wargaming series suggests the escalation risks are lower than the previous study and others believed. In the current study’s wargames, amphibious ships in port, airbases, and command and control nodes were struck with conventional weapons in various games. Neither Chinese concerns about attacks on the mainland nor inadvertent escalation caused any China team to seriously consider nuclear first use in response. + +There are drawbacks to such U.S. attacks. Chinese air defenses, other demands on U.S. airpower, and Chinese attacks on U.S. airbases would constrain the scale and frequency of mainland strikes. Striking the Chinese mainland could incite Chinese domestic opinion, potentially prolonging the war and reducing China’s restraint in its attacks on U.S. and allied territory. However, the risk of nuclear retaliation by China seems to be lower than previously believed. + +Nevertheless, authorization for such strikes would require a political decision at the highest levels weighing potential benefits against risks. Because of the uncertainty of this political decision, military planners should develop branch plans and capabilities that are flexible and capable of achieving objectives with or without conventional mainland strikes. Force planners should keep in mind the need for flexibility: Force structure optimized for mainland attack may be less useful or even useless if authorization is not granted. + +__Do not pursue quantitative nuclear superiority with the expectation that it will deter China from using nuclear weapons.__ + +Expanding the size of the U.S. nuclear inventory or the types of nuclear systems would not produce a military or political advantage in this scenario. As with previous wargames at CNAS, players in these games often believed that U.S. nuclear superiority would deter China from nuclear use. + +However, within this project’s 15 wargames, neither quantitative U.S. superiority nor damage-limiting capabilities produced psychological advantages in deterrence or bargaining. + +As long as China teams thought they possessed a secure second-strike capability, the balance of nuclear power did not deter them from nuclear use. Both times that U.S. teams launched damage-limiting counterforce attacks on China, China teams retained sufficient nuclear weapons to retaliate against the U.S. homeland, continue nuclear bargaining, and achieve a favorable (if incomplete) settlement on Taiwan. + +__Accustom U.S. military and political leaders to the possibility of large initial losses in the event of a war with China.__ + +Part of preparing for rapid and effective policymaking during such a conflict is psychologically preparing for the scale of the fighting. U.S. military and political leaders should not panic because of high early losses and take hasty and irreversible actions like accepting an adverse ceasefire or resorting to nuclear weapons. Historically, the United States has recovered from early defeats in conventional war when cool heads prevailed in council. + +This preparation must take place at multiple levels, both domestically and with allies and partners. For example, U.S. military planners should expect that China will attack communication and intelligence platforms like SBIRS as part of a conventional campaign and not interpret such moves as proof that China is inevitably moving toward nuclear first use. U.S. war colleges should include in their wargaming repertoires scenarios with high initial losses. Historical case studies should include high-intensity conventional conflicts that saw early setbacks and later recovery. + +U.S. engagement with Taiwan should emphasize the time required for the United States to achieve operational effects that would bring relief to Taiwan. Combined wargames would be one way to do this. In the Monterey Talks and other engagements with Taiwan, the United States should share and support policies that enhance resilience so that Taiwan can persevere through this interval. + +__Continue extended deterrence messaging.__ + +The United States should continue messaging its commitment to extended deterrence. Improving the ability of allied (especially Japanese and Australian) political and military leaders to communicate on pressing nuclear questions during crises and wartime will both reassure allies and demonstrate to China that Washington takes its nuclear commitment to Japan and other allies seriously. + +Regardless of how such discussions and preparations proceed, much uncertainty will continue to surround the future nuclear order in northeast Asia. If, as conditions evolve, Tokyo and Washington believe the political and military advantages of basing nuclear weapons in Japan exceed the drawbacks, they should make such changes as part of routine peacetime posture adjustments. Results of game iterations suggest that the United States and Japan should be cautious about doing so during crisis or conflict. Such moves during wartime could be seen in Beijing as preparation for a nuclear attack from Japanese soil and might compromise the protections that extended deterrence offers for that ally. + +#### To Prepare Should Nuclear Deterrence Fail + +Although the U.S. aim is deterrence, the possibility of its failure cannot be dismissed. This section lays out five actions that will help bring about a favorable outcome for the United States while reducing the length and severity of a conflict involving nuclear weapons. + +__Develop nuclear branch plans for Chinese operational targets.__ + +The United States should not start a nuclear conflict by using nuclear weapons first during a Taiwan conflict. Such use would have inevitably unpredictable (and potentially calamitous) consequences. The U.S. and coalition conventional capabilities are strong and have a high probability of prevailing over time. + +If the United States decides to respond to Chinese nuclear first use with nuclear weapons, then a limited nuclear strike against Chinese operational forces is the best option. Other targeting had severe downsides. Countervalue retaliations led to nuclear conflagrations, damage-limiting counterforce attacks led to Chinese attacks on the U.S. homeland, and HEMP detonations did not drive outcomes. + +___`If the United States decides to respond to Chinese nuclear use with nuclear weapons, then a limited nuclear strike against Chinese operational forces is the best option.`___ + +Two operational targets were most favorable. If the Chinese amphibious fleet still exists when China initiates nuclear use, then the United States could launch a nuclear attack on the amphibious fleet moored off the coast of Taiwan. Such an attack would accomplish the broader strategic goals of nuclear use (e.g., demonstrating resolve, reassuring allies), cripple Chinese military operations, and minimize collateral damage. However, if the Chinese amphibious fleet is essentially destroyed by the time of Chinese nuclear escalation (as was always the case in the games), then a U.S. nuclear attack on the Chinese lodgment would definitively end China’s ground operations. + +STRATCOM should have branch plans to its main war plan that describe nuclear support to conventional operations during a Taiwan scenario. The current nuclear employment strategy discusses the importance of nonnuclear support of the nuclear deterrence mission, but planning for nuclear support of the nonnuclear mission is just as critical. These plans will need extensive interagency coordination, but it is far better to coordinate before a war rather than during a war. Any attack affecting the territory of Taiwan would need to be coordinated with authorities there. + +U.S. deterrence messaging in policy statements such as the INDOPACOM and U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) annual posture statements and public documents such as the NPR should be clear about the effectiveness of possible U.S. responses to nuclear first use by any adversary, including China. + +__Develop an understanding with Japan on the nuclear environment.__ + +Because Japan had a critical role in supporting conventional operations against China, Japan had a powerful (if unpredictable) influence on U.S. nuclear decisionmaking. In some cases, particularly prior to nuclear use, Japan teams were more forward leaning than U.S. teams and were, for example, more inclined to strike targets on mainland China. Once nuclear use occurred, the opposite pattern sometimes resulted. Several Japan teams asserted that they would withhold basing access if Washington did not find an off-ramp that would terminate the conflict. + +The United States and Japan should conduct joint analysis of nuclear escalation during Taiwan invasion scenarios and discuss possible joint plans of action. DOD should sponsor collaborative U.S.-Japan wargaming that would enhance mutual understanding of national perspectives in nuclear deterrence and escalation scenarios. Such engagement should not be limited to Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, as civilian officials will likely have primary influence on broader national security policy once nuclear use occurs. It should also include individuals who serve (or who have served) in political advisory capacities from the U.S. and Japanese think tank and academic communities. More immediately, U.S. policymakers should be cautious in interpreting Japanese statements of commitment to participation in a Taiwan scenario and whether that commitment would persist in the face of nuclear threats or use. + +__Do not develop additional nuclear weapons for a conflict with China beyond current nuclear modernization plans.__ + +U.S. teams did not feel constrained by the available nuclear delivery mechanisms. U.S. players generally avoided using land-based ICBMs because of the necessity to overfly Russia on the way to China. However, they always found submarine- or air-launched nuclear weapons sufficient for retaliation against Chinese theater targets. At no point did players lament their inability to access new or different nuclear weapons, like the SLCM-N. Nor did China teams perceive any U.S. constraints in delivery mechanisms when deciding to initiate nuclear use. + +All this must be noted with appropriate caveats. The wargames modeled U.S. nuclear forces as being modernized in accordance with the existing Future Years Defense Program. The results here therefore do not support the cancellation of these efforts. Second, findings on the sufficiency of the U.S. arsenal apply only to deterring China in a Taiwan invasion scenario. A more diverse nuclear arsenal might be needed for other contingencies or other actors. Players frequently discussed Russia’s possible actions in this scenario, echoing other analyses that treat the two-peer nuclear problem. + +If the United States changes its planning guidelines for two simultaneous wars with China and Russia, then more nuclear weapons might be required, especially if it envisions maintaining damage-limiting counterforce capability for those scenarios. But developing new nuclear weapons is both costly, taking resources away from conventional forces, and potentially destabilizing, leading to arms racing and proliferation pressures for third countries. These costs and risks, added to the lack of clear benefits in the pacing U.S. scenario, mean that proposals for nuclear expansion need to be accompanied by clearer explanations of what scenarios an expanded U.S. nuclear arsenal would benefit and discussions of potential negative externalities. + +__Rebalance nuclear inventories over time, from gravity bombs to air-launched cruise missiles.__ + +Although U.S. teams did not experience a lack of delivery options in this Taiwan invasion scenario, it was evident that Chinese surface-to-air missile capabilities had made air delivery of gravity bombs very difficult, even for stealthy platforms. Indeed, except for B-2s during total counterforce attacks, no U.S. team directed missions that used gravity bombs, opting instead for long-range missiles. The United States should, therefore, plan to rebalance the air-delivered inventory with more LRSO-like weapons and fewer nuclear gravity bombs. + +Over time, the United States will need to extend the range and reduce the vulnerability of air-delivered nuclear munitions to allow delivery in the face of increasingly sophisticated Chinese air defenses. The United States does not have enough bombers and tactical nuclear missiles to sustain heavy attrition to air defenses. + +__Work with China to facilitate mutual understanding about deterrence and the unpredictability of nuclear escalation.__ + +The United States should push for meaningful nuclear arms dialogue with China. Chinese scholarship on nuclear deterrence is confident about China’s ability to manage nuclear escalation during a conflict. Such confidence is misplaced. A common understanding of the language of nuclear signaling and countries’ shared interests in avoiding and managing nuclear escalation is critically important. China’s nuclear buildup ensures that the United States will be vulnerable to Chinese nuclear attack, just as China has always been vulnerable to U.S. nuclear attack. China has persistently asked the United States to acknowledge this mutual vulnerability. The PRC claims that U.S. refusal to acknowledge mutual vulnerability has been a stumbling block in advancing nuclear dialogue. Of course, it is unclear whether acknowledging mutual vulnerability would pave the way for substantive discussions that reduce the likelihood of nuclear escalation during a conflict. The United States has concerns about the transparency and purpose of the Chinese nuclear buildup. Track 1.5 discussions should explore what the United States could realistically expect from an official acknowledgment of mutual vulnerability. Expanded nuclear talks might make progress on these concerns, facilitate mutual understanding, and help prevent arms racing, crisis instability, and ultimate catastrophe. + + +### Appendix A + +___Individual Game Descriptions___ + +This section provides a brief record of each iteration, designated by location and sequence number, and includes a summary of gameplay and the maximum extent of nuclear use. The scenario is described in two ways: first, by the U.S. ROEs (Max—all Chinese targets allowed; Mid—only unambiguously nonnuclear Chinese targets allowed; or Min—no Chinese mainland or SSBNs may be targeted); and, second, by the Chinese order of battle (ARF—Assured Retaliation Focused, with launch-on-warning capability, no low-yield weapons, and many missiles with single warheads; or LYE—low-yield weapons with no launch-on-warning capability and many MIRV-equipped missiles). + +> #### 1. Naval Postgraduate School + +- Scenario: Max ROE, China LYE + +- Summary: China declined to substantially increase its nuclear readiness because it believed that it would win conventionally and that the United States had superior nuclear forces. A Chinese SSBN was sunk without provoking a reaction. + +- Outcome: Inconclusive + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: None + +> #### 2. CSIS + +- Scenario: Max ROE, China ARF + +- Summary: Seeing conventional failure ahead, China attacked the Taiwanese leadership bunker with nuclear weapons on D+12. On D+21, China threatened to use nuclear weapons against Japan if Japan did not withdraw from the war. The United States preemptively launched a nuclear attack on Ningbo; China responded with a general countervalue attack. + +- Outcome: Conflagration + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: Countervalue + +> #### 3. CSIS + +- Scenario: Max ROE, China ARF + +- Summary: Chinese conventional attacks on Alaska did not prompt U.S. nuclear use. Chinese position on Taiwan deteriorated. On D+22, China accepted a PLA phased withdrawal. + +- Outcome: PLA Phased Withdrawal + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: None + +> #### 4. CSIS + +- Scenario: Mid ROE, China LYE + +- Summary: On D-Day, China used a HEMP over Taiwan, to which the United States responded in kind. On D+14, China attacked Taiwanese ground forces with nuclear weapons. The United States responded with nuclear attacks on Chinese nuclear forces. China responded with nuclear attacks against U.S. nuclear forces. The United States responded with 10 countervalue attacks; a general countervalue exchange ensued. + +- Outcome: Conflagration + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: Countervalue + +> #### 5. MIT + +- Scenario: Max ROE, China ARF + +- Summary: On D+31, China launched three strategic nuclear weapons against Taiwanese ground forces. The United States responded with 10 tactical nuclear weapons against the Chinese lodgment. China accepted the status quo ante but successfully insisted on no Taiwanese independence. + +- Outcome: Status Quo Ante + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: Operational use by both sides + +> #### 6. MIT + +- Scenario: Min ROE, China LYE + +- Summary: On D+8, the United States launched a general nuclear counterforce attack on China. China responded with half of its surviving ICBMs launching counterforce attacks on the United States and launched 35 low-yield nuclear weapons against Taiwanese forces. China responded with half of its surviving ICBMs launching counterforce attacks on the United States. China demanded a PRC enclave; the United States declined. China attacked Honolulu with a nuclear weapon; the United States accepted the PRC enclave. + +- Outcome: PRC Enclave + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: U.S. counterforce use; China counterforce and countervalue against Honolulu + +> #### 7. MIT + +- Scenario: Max ROE, China LYE + +- Summary: On D+20, the United States offered a PRC enclave. Shaken by high early losses, the United States saw itself losing a conventional battle and did not want to use nuclear weapons. China accepted, believing its amphibious fleet was about to be destroyed. + +- Outcome: PRC Enclave + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: None + +> #### 8. Naval War College + +- Scenario: Min ROE, China ARF + +- Summary: On D+36, China accepted PLA phased withdrawal. + +- Outcome: PLA Phased Withdrawal + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: None + +> #### 9. MIT + +- Scenario: Min ROE, China ARF + +- Summary: On D+36, China launched five high-yield warheads against Taiwanese ground forces and conducted a nuclear demonstration off Hawaii. Japan convinced a divided U.S. team to accept a PRC enclave. + +- Outcome: PRC Enclave + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: Chinese operational use + +> #### 10. CSIS + +- Scenario: Mid ROE, China ARF + +- Summary: On D+21, China launched 50 nuclear weapons at U.S. surface ships and destroyed a U.S. carrier strike group (CSG). The United States responded with conventional strikes on Chinese early warning assets. China issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the United States. After no response, China launched a full strategic countervalue attack on the United States, and the United States retaliated in kind. + +- Outcome: Conflagration + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: Complete global countervalue + +> #### 11. CSIS + +- Scenario: Mid ROE, China LYE + +- Summary: On D+10, the United States moved tactical nuclear bombs to Japan. On D+15, China attacked all the air bases in Japan and many military targets on Taiwan with nuclear weapons. The United States responded with SLBMs against fixed ICBM sites; central nuclear weapons storage; and NC3 nodes. China responded with direct-ascent weapons, a cyberattack against the SBIRS, and nuclear weapons against Alaska and Hawaii. The United States decided against further nuclear retaliation and accepted a PRC enclave. + +- Outcome: PRC Enclave + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: U.S. counterforce attacks; China used nuclear weapons against Japan, Taiwan, Alaska, and Hawaii. + +> #### 12. CSIS + +- Scenario: Mid ROE, China ARF + +- Summary: On D+22, China used a HEMP over the Pacific during the transit of a B-52 squadron, causing it to abort. The United States responded with conventional hypersonic attacks against Chinese command and control nodes. China accepted a PLA phased withdrawal. + +- Outcome: PLA Phased Withdrawal + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: Single Chinese HEMP over the Pacific + +> #### 13. CSIS + +- Scenario: Min ROE, China LYE + +- Summary: On D+15, China launched 19 low-yield nuclear weapons against Taiwanese ground forces and a HEMP over the Pacific. The United States accepted a PRC enclave. + +- Outcome: PRC Enclave + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: Operational against Taiwan and demonstration + +> #### 14. MIT Endicott House + +- Scenario: Max ROE, China LYE + +- Summary: On D-Day, China launched a HEMP over Taiwan. On D+25, China conducted a nuclear test. The conventional campaign on Taiwan went badly for China, as its amphibious fleet was attrited. On D+30, China accepted a PLA phased withdrawal. + +- Outcome: PLA Phased Withdrawal + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: HEMP over Taiwan and nuclear test + +> #### 15. MIT Endicott House + +- Scenario: Min ROE, China ARF + +- Summary: With a dwindling amphibious fleet, China was unable to enlarge its lodgment northwest of Taipei; on D+15, China accepted a PLA phased withdrawal. + +- Outcome: PLA Phased Withdrawal + +- Maximum extent of nuclear use: None + + +### Appendix B + +___Summary of Nuclear Use___ + +The table below lays out nuclear use for each game iteration. The type of nuclear use is categorized as high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP), operational use against conventional forces (Op), counterforce (CF), or countervalue (CV). + +![image13](https://i.imgur.com/YV6tkIv.png) +_▲ __Table B-1: Summary of Nuclear Use.__ Source: CSIS Defense and Security Department._ + + +### Appendix C + +___Nuclear Weapons Use and Effects___ + +This appendix provides details on the use of nuclear weapons and their effects on ground forces, on ships at sea, and on airfields. + +Ground Forces: During the Cold War, the United States developed many systems for employing nuclear weapons on the battlefield. Weapons ranged from the tactical Davy Crockett (range 1.25 miles, yield 0.02 kt) to the continent-spanning Pershing II (range 1,500 miles, yield 80 kt). The United States also developed doctrine for operating on a nuclear battlefield and applied the doctrine in training exercises, even detonating nuclear weapons and having troops maneuver through them. The Soviets similarly developed a wide range of tactical nuclear weapons. + +The United States retired all ground-to-ground tactical nuclear weapons at the end of the Cold War but has retained air- and sea-delivered systems as described in Chapter 4: Research Design. Nuclear weapons on the battlefield have three advantages. First, one weapon can have an outsized effect on enemy forces because of its great power. Second, countries often develop nuclear weapons with a wide range of yields that can be tailored to the needs of a particular target. Finally, battlefield use has less effect on civilians than strategic attacks on cities or nuclear forces. + +There are several disadvantages. The first is that nuclear weapons will affect friendly forces as well as adversaries. That means that friendly forces must be warned before a strike and, if possible, pulled back. However, the adversary might pick up on this warning and make its own preparations. + +Second, although troops in the open are very vulnerable, dug-in troops are relatively well protected, and troops inside armored vehicles are extremely well protected. For example, a 10 kt burst air burst will inflict 50 percent casualties on troops in the open to 2 km, on dug-in troops to 1 km, and on troops in armored vehicles to just 0.5 km. The corollary to this is that to produce a significant battlefield advantage, an attacker needs to use a lot of nuclear weapons. Opening a 30 km gap in a front defended by dug-in troops (a gap wide enough to prevent easy plugging by reserves and reinforcements) requires fifteen 10 kt weapons or five 100 kt weapons. + +The final disadvantage is casualties inflicted on civilians. Although military forces are trained and equipped to deal with nuclear attacks, civilians are not and will suffer much higher casualties than military forces. Table C-1 shows estimated civilian casualties for nuclear detonations on Taiwan. Even if cities are not targeted, civilian casualties would be high. A 10 kt weapon detonated in a rural area would produce 4,800 casualties (cell highlighted). Fifteen 10 kt weapons would produce 72,000 casualties. Five 100 kt weapons would produce 113,000 casualties. + +![image14](https://i.imgur.com/1BZC9vc.png) +_▲ __Table C-1: Estimated Civilian Casualties for Nuclear Detonations on Taiwan.__ Source: CSIS calculations based on nuclear lethality radii from [Alex Wellerstein, “NukeMap,” NukeMap](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/); Taiwan population density based on [“Population Density in Taiwan in 2023,” Statista](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1317802/taiwan-population-density-by-region/); and census data published on websites of Taiwan’s provincial and special municipal governments._ + +__Ships at Sea:__ During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union deployed antiship and antisubmarine nuclear weapons. This thinking, and the weapons to implement it, faded away after the Cold War since conventional weapons were adequate for the naval threats that remained. The rise of China as a great power with nuclear weapons has renewed interest. + +A key employment consideration is how near nuclear weapons must land to damage ships. Table C-2 shows these effects by weapon yield. The key insight from the table is how close a nuclear detonation must be to a ship to cause significant damage. + +![image15](https://i.imgur.com/8o0yLtO.png) +_▲ __Table C-2: Effects on Ships by Nuclear Weapons Yield.__ Source: Crossroads test and DOD supplied data._ + +Because neither side has terminal guidance for nuclear weapons and uses GPS or inertial guidance instead, a large shot pattern with many weapons is needed to cover all possible locations. Table C-3 combines the distance estimates from Table 2 with kill chain assumptions to show how many nuclear weapons would be needed. The resulting numbers are very large, from 22 to 178. + +![image16](https://i.imgur.com/272Jtok.png) +_▲ __Table C-3: Number of Nuclear Weapons Needed to Be Certain of Destroying Ships at Sea.__ Source: MIT calculations._ + +__Airfields:__ Chapter 3 describes airfields as an attractive target. Table C-4 shows the reason: Even relatively small nuclear detonations are devastating for unprotected aircraft on the ground. For example, a 10 kt detonation (column highlighted) will destroy nearly all aircraft, even at large air bases where aircraft can spread out. + +![image17](https://i.imgur.com/yHGGQnO.png) +_▲ __Table C-4: Nuclear Effects Against Aircraft on Airbases (Percentage of Aircraft Destroyed).__ Source: Provided by DOD based on calculations from its MINES model._ + + +### Appendix D + +___Glossary___ + +__Assured Retaliation Focus:__ A postulated future Chinese nuclear force that has focused on enhancing its ability to endure counterforce attacks. + +__China:__ The People’s Republic of China + +__Conflagration:__ A general exchange of countervalue attacks. + +__Counterforce:__ An attack against the nuclear forces of an adversary. It is assumed to be made with nuclear weapons, unless a “conventional counterforce” attack is specified. + +__Countervalue:__ An attack with nuclear weapons against the cities of an adversary. In this report, this includes attacks against economic and military targets whereby the direct effects of nuclear weapons would affect metropolitan areas. + +__Damage-limiting strike:__ A counterforce attack that will limit but not eliminate the nuclear retaliatory capability of an adversary. + +__Disarming strike:__ A counterforce attack that is expected to eliminate the adversary’s nuclear retaliatory capability. + +__Escalation:__ A change in nuclear posture or the use of nuclear weapons. + +__High-yield:__ For this game, nuclear weapons of 300 kilotons. + +__Infrastructure targeting:__ A more sophisticated formulation of countervalue targeting that proposes to target an adversary’s infrastructure, ranging from remote sites causing few civilians deaths to society-destroying target sets. For the purposes of this report, it is subsumed into countervalue targeting. + +__Low-yield:__ There is no generally accepted definition. For this game, nuclear weapons of 30 kt. Note that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were of ~15 kt and ~20 kt, respectively. + +__Low-yield enabled:__ Refers to a postulated future Chinese nuclear force that has focused on becoming more like the United States, particularly in the acquisition of low-yield nuclear weapons. This posture still gives China a secure second strike, although that second strike is not as potent as in the alternate posture. + +__Operational nuclear use:__ An attack with nuclear weapons against the conventional forces of an adversary. + +__Retaliation:__ A nuclear attack launched in response to nuclear first use. + +__Secure second strike:__ The ability of a country’s nuclear forces to endure an adversary’s counterforce first strike (so that the adversary’s attack is only damage-limiting and not disarming). + +--- + +__Mark Cancian__ (Colonel, USMCR, ret.) is a senior adviser with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. + +__Matthew Cancian__ is an associate professor at the Naval War College, specializing in conducting wargames. + +__Eric Heginbotham__ is a principal research scientist at the MIT Center for International Studies and a specialist in Asian security issues. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-technological-competition.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-technological-competition.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..4528b108 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-16-technological-competition.md @@ -0,0 +1,233 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Technological Competition +author: Benjamin Jensen, et al. +date : 2024-12-16 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/DkhO3lE.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Competition in the Shadow of Technology" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_Technological advancements are reshaping international relations and deterrence strategies; this report examines the strategic calculus behind revealing disruptive military capabilities and their impact on great power competition in an era of unprecedented innovation._ + + + +In an era defined by rapid technological advancements, this report explores the evolving dynamics of deterrence and great power competition, focusing on the strategic calculus of revealing or concealing disruptive military capabilities. From hypersonic missiles to AI-powered systems, these technologies are not just tools of war but instruments of influence, reshaping perceptions of military power and altering the global balance of power. The report examines how states like China and Russia selectively disclose advanced capabilities to gain strategic advantages and compel rival nations to recalibrate their military assessments. + +Drawing on formal models and historical case studies, the analysis provides insights into when and why states might choose to reveal secret military capabilities during crises. It identifies three key scenarios—substituting for direct military action, reducing risk in brinkmanship situations, and compensating for battlefield weaknesses. The report also emphasizes the need for reforms in U.S. national security planning, including integrating AI and modernizing intelligence tradecraft, to better manage great power competition in the shadow of game-changing technology. + + +### Introduction + +___Technology and Deterrence___ + +A new era of technological competition is redefining the relationship between the United States and authoritarian regimes. From hypersonic missiles to novel space and cyber effects, this contest is no longer confined to military signaling through force posture and the deployment of carrier strike groups and bomber task forces to deter rivals. Increasingly, modern competition involves revealing disruptive military capabilities to gain an advantage. + +As a result, the art of deterrence increasingly relies on demonstrating power through signaling new technological offsets that alter the balance of power. Competition is as much about engineers as it is about generals. Modern great powers all have extensive research and development labs—often concealed from the public eye—that enable them to search for novel ways to win old wars. The resulting wonder weapons that emerge from these secret labs help states coerce their rivals through altering how their rivals calculate the odds of winning future battles. + +China, for example, selectively releases information on disruptive weapons and uses advanced missile tests to signal capability and resolve as part of its declared military strategy. Similarly, the Kremlin perpetually makes new space threats, conducts missile experiments, and uses military journals to discuss weapons based on “new physical principles”—a practice that builds on the Soviet use of military parades to signal the West—to alter how military analysts calculate the balance of power. + +Yet, when should states reveal sensitive military technology during a crisis? Previous studies have established the role of selective disclosure in long-term competition, but questions about the utility of demonstrating new capabilities during an international crisis remain unanswered. Multiple studies have confirmed the importance of military signaling, but do not factor in the strategic calculus a state faces when determining whether or not to reveal new capabilities during periods of heightened risk. + +It is highly likely that revealing the existence of new weapons during a crisis casts a shadow over modern great power competition and changes how states perceive the balance of military power. This shadow makes it difficult for the national security enterprise to align ends, ways, and means in pursuit of integrated deterrence. + +This report analyzes the logic of revealing secret military capabilities during a crisis. Consistent with the prevailing trend in strategic studies, this study treats interactions between states as a complex bargaining process. Understanding this process requires novel approaches to analyzing great power competition that go beyond case studies and illustrative scenarios. Given that most states conceal or exaggerate their military power, the historical record is uneven and often subject to sampling bias. As a result, understanding when states should reveal secret military capabilities requires different approaches, including formal models designed to replicate the logic of coercive bargaining. These abstract mathematical models help reveal key tradeoffs and offer insights to policymakers seeking to understand the full range of responses open to a government during crises with rival great powers. + +According to a formal model of crisis bargaining in the shadow of technology developed by the CSIS Futures Lab, there are three reasons a state might reveal a new capability during a confrontation. First, states can reveal to substitute and signal new military capabilities in lieu of direct military pressure. This flexible deterrent option forces the adversary to reassess their estimates of military power, thus increasing the odds rational actors back down. Second, leaders can reveal to reduce risk, using the display of new technology to check brinkmanship by risk-acceptant rivals. Here again, the signal is used to adjust expectations about the odds that pushing a crisis to conflict will deliver the anticipated political gain. Third, states can reveal to compensate, using demonstrations of emerging and disruptive technology to make up for battlefield setbacks in peripheral conflicts. These demonstrations force rival states to discount evidence from other wars that lowers their estimate of military power. + +These model insights suggest several policy imperatives. U.S. leaders should look at the design of the national security apparatus and identify ways to better synchronize strategic planning. Building on novel experiments with artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) and concepts like integrated campaigning, Washington needs a more connected interagency system capable of adjusting competitive measures based on preplanned crisis response options. This system will need to be supported by an expansion of the intelligence community and the development of new analytical tradecraft. Absent reforms to the current national security planning system and framework for both managing long-term competition and responding to crises, decisions to reveal disruptive military capabilities during a crisis will fall flat—or worse, trigger unintended consequences. + + +### The Shadow of Competition + +Modern literature on deterrence depicts how otherwise rational actors can find themselves taking the irrational gamble of threatening force in pursuit of political objectives. Most of these studies evaluate the logic and character of crisis interactions in terms of bargaining, a framework introduced during the Cold War by the economist Thomas Schelling. + +This perspective characterizes states as constantly competing with each other and manipulating costs, benefits, and risks to gain advantages. In this light, war is a costly gamble that rational states only pursue for three reasons: + +1. An information asymmetry about capabilities and/or resolve leads to suboptimal bargaining and risk-taking. + +2. Commitment issues force action in the present to avoid higher costs later. + +3. The dispute involves an indivisible issue that makes bargaining less attractive. + +By this logic, the Chinese Communist Party would only risk a war with the United States over Taiwan, for example, if it: + +- underestimated the military capability and resolve of Taiwan and possible defenders like Washington; + +- saw a window of opportunity in which gains would be easier to achieve now than in the future; or + +- viewed the conflict, regardless of estimated costs, as required to sustain the legitimacy of the party. + +Short of war, states use competition to reduce private information and signal their resolve. Through coalition and joint exercises, changing force posture, and investments in military technology, states seek to alter information about the military balance. China, for instance, uses a mix of increased air, naval, and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to test its rivals’ capabilities and resolve. It complements these measures by revealing new military means—from hypersonics to sensor networks and electronic attack capabilities—to gain leverage and signal the costs of war to the United States. These techniques extend to the nonmilitary realm, from diplomatic messaging to cyber operations and propaganda designed to reinforce perceptions of strength. This process can be overt or hidden, and subject to what scholars call “covert communication.” + +Bargaining processes shape general deterrence. While wartime crises force states to focus on demonstrating resolve, long-term competition turns states’ attention toward concealing and revealing military capabilities to shape rivals’ perceptions of the balance of power. This process is especially important given the challenge of correctly estimating military capability. Therefore, a central challenge facing decisionmakers in modern strategic competition is the choice of when to reveal new military technology to a rival. Disclose a new system too soon, and one gives away critical information to an adversary, allowing them to either copy the innovation or design a countermeasure. Keep a wonder weapon hidden for too long and you lose an opportunity to support your competitive strategy. + +> #### `CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY AREAS` + +- _`Biotechnology`_ +- _`Quantum Science`_ +- _`Future Wireless`_ +- _`Advanced Materials`_ +- _`Trust AI and Autonomy`_ +- _`Integrated Network Systems-of-Systems`_ +- _`Microelectronics`_ +- _`Space Technology`_ +- _`Renewable Energy Generation and Storage`_ +- _`Advanced Computing and Software`_ +- _`Human-Machines Interface`_ +- _`Directed Energy`_ +- _`Hypersonic`_ +- _`Integrated Sensing and Cyber`_ + +For decades, defense officials and scholars have argued that certain military technologies alter the balance of power and produce a strategic advantage. These novel capabilities—from atomic weapons and precision-strike warfare to current experiments with autonomous systems and AI/ML—are inherently disruptive to traditional calculations of the correlation of forces. As a result, they have the potential to influence strategy and statecraft. This dynamic implies that these capabilities should carry particular importance for bargaining in the shadow of technology and modern great power competition. + +In the early 1990s, the term du jour was the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Back then, advances in information technology had recently made it possible to connect global networks and conduct long-range precision strikes. More broadly, embracing the RMA was a form of strategic behavior defining how nations mobilized and employed military power. In the early 2010s, the term “offsets” emerged to describe bundles of disruptive technologies that defined the search for a competitive advantage from the Cold War to the new confrontation between the United States and China. These technologies were “game changers” that altered how states planned and fought wars, and, by extension, deterred rivals. + +Increasingly, offsets are seen as central to long-term competition. In a February 2022 memorandum, the under secretary of defense for research and engineering provided an overview of a new era of technology competition defined by 14 critical technology areas (CTAs). The memorandum was published in the same week as the Critical and Emerging Technologies List Update, a biennial report by the National Science and Technology Council. Through its Science and Technology Organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) uses the term “emerging and disruptive technologies” (EDTs) to describe the large technological trends that create new ways of waging war. As a result, the race to maintain technological supremacy is at the heart of modern strategy. + +Previous studies have cataloged competing logics for when states choose to reveal new offsets and game changers amid long-term competition. First, in 1987, researchers at RAND proposed the “deliberate capability revelation” strategy, an approach used by Washington during the Cold War to exploit deeply rooted Soviet fears about U.S. technological superiority. These fears produced a bargaining advantage by increasing Soviet uncertainty, forcing the Kremlin to manage the risk of strategic surprise. Alternatively, political scientist Robert Axelrod saw little utility in the revelation of new military capabilities. The utility of new technologies, in his view, lay in maximizing military impact during wartime, thus reducing incentives to undermine this future advantage in peacetime. Political scientists Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Austin Long proposed that the strategic calculus of a state was defined by the costs of revealing sensitive military capabilities to gain a bargaining advantage. Specifically, the less unique the military capability—and the harder an adversary found it to develop countermeasures—the more rational it became for a state to reveal. More recently, in a seminal study, Thomas G. Mahnken proposed that the selective disclosure of military capabilities—including bluffing and manipulating information—was a central feature of long-term competition. The decision of how and when to reveal, according to Mahnken, was linked to desired adversary reaction and the type of competition the revealing state was trying to shape to impose costs. Real-world examples of game-changing technologies—both concealed and revealed—are offered below. + +While these historical examples illustrate how states reveal capabilities to serve specific strategic purposes—such as degrading an adversary’s strength or deterring key enemy capabilities—the underlying logic driving the decision remains underexplored. Existing literature examines the motivations behind revealing or concealing military power, focusing on the benefits of either demonstrating strength to deter adversaries (i.e., revealing) or maintaining secrecy (i.e., concealing) to gain a strategic edge in long-term competition. Analysis of the conditions that compel states to reveal new military capabilities in times of crisis remains a critical gap in the literature. + +Long-term competition tends to result in periodic international crises and militarized disputes. Even though states use force posture and exercises, as well as other operations, activities, and investments to compete short of war, uncertainty and fear of losing advantage can pull adversaries into high-risk scenarios where the possibility of armed conflict is higher and the escalation risk more acute. As a result, policymakers need insights into when it is sound strategy to reveal the existence of game-changing weapons and offsets in modern great power competition. + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/yjb5EkZ.png) +_▲ __Table 1: Concealing and Revealing Case Examples.__ Source: Adapted from [Thomas Mahnken, Selective Disclosure: A Strategic Approach to Long-Term Competition (Washington, DC: CSBA, November 2020)](https://csbaonline.org/research/publications/selective-disclosure-a-strategic-approach-to-long-term-competition); and [Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Austin Long, “Conceal or Reveal? Managing Clandestine Military Capabilities in Peacetime Competition,” International Security 44, no. 3 (January 2020): 48–83](https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/44/3/48/12283/Conceal-or-Reveal-Managing-Clandestine-Military?redirectedFrom=fulltext)._ + +From the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, bargaining has always defined how great powers interact—but the stakes, and risks, are higher. These situations are best characterized as immediate deterrence dilemmas, in which states expend resources and signal resolve to gain near-term advantages. In these crises, states need to maximize power to strengthen their bargaining positions. One way they do this is by reducing private information about military capabilities, thus ensuring that their opponent understands the actual balance of military power. + + +### Conceal/Reveal Dynamics + +To analyze when revealing new military capabilities might benefit a state strategically, the CSIS Futures Lab constructed a formal model. Formal modeling is a mathematical representation of interactions, expectations, strategic choices, and explicit assumptions. These models provide a structured way to analyze and predict behaviors and outcomes in various scenarios. Models play a crucial role in the field of International Relations (IR) by offering logical descriptions of complex interactions between states, institutions, and individual actors. While anecdotal evidence and descriptive cases provide valuable insights, they often fall short of supplying generalizable inferences. For instance, the outbreak of World War I—despite being a seminal case study—cannot explain the onset of all great power conflict, just as every crisis between nuclear states isn’t reducible to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Overgeneralizing from historical cases risks bad strategy. + +Formal models, on the other hand, create a degree of abstraction that enables researchers to construct and test general principles that can then be applied across different contexts. A formal model of the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, lends itself to a general analysis of bargaining based on key parameters of action, reaction, and counteraction. The structured nature of formal models provides a consistent method for evaluating various hypotheses and theories, exactly what policymakers need when debating options for responding to a military crisis. The transparency of the formal models’ assumptions makes them easier to critique and improve, enhancing their reliability over time. Despite neglecting some facets of reality, formal models have an ability to isolate key variables and relationships, making them uniquely valuable. + +Historically, formal models—especially game theory—have played a significant role in national security and policy circles, particularly since the advent of nuclear weapons. There has also been a strong tradition of formal modeling in international relations scholarship. Starting with British educator Lewis Fry Richardson’s arms race model and extending to Thomas Schelling’s game-theoretical approaches during the Cold War, these models have been used to explain a wide range of phenomena related to bargaining and deterrence. The prisoner’s dilemma, for example, provided a framework for understanding noncooperative behavior, while the repeated prisoner’s dilemma highlighted pathways to cooperation due to the presence of future retaliation threats. Similarly, incomplete (private) information games—particularly bargaining models—have provided insights into deterrence, alliance politics, arms racing, the onset of war, and democratic peace theory. + +The use of military threats to deter adversaries has been a central focus of formal modelers for generations. This is particularly the case within rational deterrence theory, which examines how states use the threat of force to persuade potential attackers that initiating conflict will be costly and ultimately unsuccessful. In doing so, states engage in actions that are credible to their adversaries. + +While the literature has not reached a consensus on the precise conditions under which deterrence is most effective, there is broad agreement on key factors such as military balance, reputation, the signaling of resolve, and the interests at stake. First, according to research focusing on military balance, when a territory is at risk, the deterring state must demonstrate that it has sufficient military power to defend it if attacked. Similarly, the aggressor state needs to show offensive capabilities to signal that an attack is going to be decisive. Second, scholars who specialize in the study of signaling resolve argue that states may engage in costly signaling or “tying their hands” to credibly commit to their intentions. For example, they might incur audience costs by publicly committing to a specific course of action; they might also sink costs by undertaking actions that are expensive to reverse. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, in which both the United States and the Soviet Union signaled their resolve through public and covert actions, is a classic example of such a signaling case. The third important aspect of rational deterrence theory is the role of reputation. According to this view, a state’s past behavior sends signals about its future actions, reinforcing its credibility in the eyes of adversaries. + +Despite extensive research on signaling resolve during a crisis, formal models for signaling military power itself are less developed. Most studies have focused on how states signal intentions and resolve, particularly during crises, rather than explicitly examining the logic of when to reveal secret military capabilities. This analytical gap is a disservice to policymakers who find themselves increasingly grappling with great power competition in the shadow of technology. + + +### Modeling Contemporary Great Power Crises + +To understand state behavior in a crisis short of war between great powers seeking to leverage technological offsets, the CSIS Futures Lab constructed a formal model depicting two states—an aggressor and a defender—locked in long-term competition. Each side sees this competition as zero sum, leading to a bargaining dynamic in which each side seeks to gain better information about the opponent’s military capabilities, resolve, and intentions. This information is central to strategy, as the competition—consistent with rationalist explanations—is defined by private information, commitment issues, and often involves disputes over issues seen as indivisible. + +For example, consider the United States and China. The Taiwan Relations Act states that the United States will provide Taiwan with the ability to maintain “sufficient self-defense capacity” and retain the ability to “resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or social or economic system, of the people of Taiwan.” While the United States does not formally recognize Taiwan, it is bound by this act of Congress to help the nation retain its sovereignty. Alternatively, a 2022 white paper disseminated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) states as an indisputable fact that Taiwan has always been part of China. According to the paper, this “fact” has been evident since at least the Three Kingdoms period, based on archeological evidence. According to the CCP, it was foreign interference—from the arrival of the Dutch in 1624 to the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894—that changed the status quo. The paper argues that external interference remains a “prominent obstacle” to China’s reclaiming of Taiwan, with the United States inciting the island’s separatist forces and denying the CCP’s attempts at national reunification. In short, the position of the world’s two largest military actors is indivisible with respect to Taiwan creating a crisis atmosphere in which each side is seeking to maximize its interests relative to its adversary short of triggering a conflict. + +Consistent with bargaining theory, rational states prefer to avoid the high cost of war if they can maximize the tangible benefits of long-term competition. The problem is that neither side has perfect information. China doesn’t know the full extent of the United States’ advanced weapons programs or its willingness to use force to counter, for example, a joint blockade or firepower strike operation against Taiwan. While the U.S. intelligence community collects large amounts of information on secret Chinese capabilities, they cannot be confident they accurately assess China’s military given its rapid modernization. The resulting error terms on estimates of military power are likely large and subject to updating, as each side gains new insights through espionage or public demonstrations (i.e., reveals) while attempting to retain secrets (i.e., conceal) and even bluff, all while filtering information through large bureaucracies. As a result, information asymmetry remains at the heart of crisis bargaining and modern deterrence. + +Based on the CSIS Future Lab’s formal model, there are three scenarios where it is rational to reveal a previously secret military capability during a crisis. + +> #### `REVEAL TO SUBSTITUTE` + +- _`The use of new military capabilities to alter perceptions about the balance of power`_ + +- _`Requires a large power imbalance; not optimal when rivals have comparable capabilities`_ + +- _`Requires that the adversary “sees” the reveal and recalculates the military balance`_ + +#### Reveal to Substitute + +First, a state seeking to challenge the status quo (i.e., undermine general deterrence) will reveal a new capability when there is an information asymmetry in which the defending state behaves as if it has a more favorable military balance than is actually the case. In other words, revealing information can be a way of signaling an actual gap in military capabilities—and thus a state’s advantage—without incurring the costs and risks of a direct military confrontation. A state thus substitutes the reveal of game-changing military capabilities for the unnecessary cost of war. The first key condition for such a strategy is that one state must have a significantly larger military capability than the other. Second, it requires that the rival state “see” and assess the capability as indicative of a gap in military power. This condition puts a premium on a state’s understanding of its rival’s intelligence collection and strategic decisionmaking enterprises. It also requires that a state must accompany “reveal” episodes with diplomacy, deliberate crisis communication, and information operations to ensure that strategic disclosures are picked up by rival intelligence. + +In a potential crisis over Taiwan, for example, the United States would likely be confronted with a complex air and naval quarantine of the area, involving hundreds of aircraft and a mix of maritime militia, coast guard, and naval vessels surrounding the island. This blockade would likely include PLAN aircraft carriers and strike groups deployed east of Taiwan and integrated with space capabilities, offensive cyber teams, and electronic attack aircraft. + +According to the logic implied by the formal model, this situation would be an opportunity to reveal a sensitive capability only if the United States was confident it had a military advantage, either directly or via commitments from coalition members willing to confront China. U.S. military planners would require the ability to combine the reveal with a larger integrated campaign to signal key audiences in the Chinese Communist Party. Revealing a new military capability would be a mechanism for reducing information asymmetry about the actual military balance. As such, it could substitute for a more direct display of military power and offer political leaders time to find an off-ramp amid the crisis. + +The same logic applies to China. Consider, for instance, a standoff in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China involving the Chinese Coast Guard backed by a PLAN carrier strike group. If Manila continued to use military signaling to challenge Beijing, the formal model suggests that it would be an opportune time for the CCP to reveal a new military capability and to correct imperfect information about the military balance. Again, revealing could substitute for more confrontational displays of military power in this particular long-term competition. + +> #### `REVEAL TO REDUCE RISK` + +- _`The use of new military capabilities to force rational thinking in a risk-seeking rival`_ + +- _`Assumes comparable power balance between rivals`_ + +- _`Requires extensive intelligence about leadership dynamics and civil-military relations`_ + +#### Reveal to Reduce Risk + +The logic shifts, however, when rival great powers find themselves in a situation where their military capabilities are comparable. Here, a state seeking to challenge the status quo through brinksmanship is likely engaged in risk-acceptant behavior. Leaders are gambling that they can pressure a rival and undermine deterrence short of incurring the costs and risks associated with war against an equally armed peer. In this case a logic similar to that of prospect theory applies: the state challenging the status quo is likely in a loss frame and is willing to accept high levels of risk to gain a bargaining advantage. In this logical framework, the defender reveals a previously hidden military capability to correct the aggressor’s irrational assumptions about the military balance. This signal forces the aggressor state to reconsider its original risky gambit, thus buying time for the two actors to negotiate and find an off-ramp. Revealing previous secret technological offsets becomes a way of reducing risk-seeking behavior in a rival. + +Consider again the Taiwan scenario above. If the United States assesses that China is in a loss frame and risk acceptant, it changes the bargaining calculus and how policymakers assess options for countering the air and naval quarantine around the island. A state’s level of risk acceptance can be a function of leadership psychology and/or domestic politics. China’s risky gamble in Taiwan may have more to do with palace intrigue and economic decline than sound military judgment. Regardless of the origin of this behavior, the formal model indicates that such a moment is opportune for revealing a sensitive capability as a substitute for more direct displays of military power that could trigger an escalatory spiral. The United States can reveal new technological offsets to remind China of the risks it is incurring by challenging the status quo. Instead of deploying aircraft carriers and bomber task forces, the United States uses a reduced military footprint alongside a demonstration of a technological offset previously concealed to reassure Taiwan and signal the Chinese Communist Party that its leaders underestimated the balance of military power. Again, this situation requires significant investments in leadership intelligence and understanding civil-military relations as well as palace politics in Beijing. U.S. policymakers need to tailor the signal to the audience to ensure they accurately assess the balance of military power. Similar to the “reveal to substitute” logic, this approach also requires complementing the signal with a broader, integrated campaign as envisioned in the joint concept for competing. The logic is more risk imposition than cost imposition. By showing policymakers in a rival state the risks they are incurring, revealing sensitive military capabilities alongside other flexible deterrent options alters an adversary’s planning assumptions, thus buying time to reconsider risky gambits. + +The same logic applies to the South China scenario. If Beijing were to assess that Manila was engaged in excessive risk-acceptant behavior, it could correct errant assumptions by revealing a new capability as a substitute for more aggressive displays of military power that might trigger U.S. involvement. As a form of coercion, this approach would look more like testing a new hypersonic missile or space capability, rather than current efforts involving swarming Filipino waters with maritime militia and coast guard vessels. Understanding when and how to counter China in this scenario would require better integration between technical intelligence and global campaigning activities, as well as better understanding of China’s strategy and national security enterprise. + +> #### `REVEAL TO COMPENSATE` + +- _`The reveal of new military capabilities to compensate for declining power`_ + +- _`Assumes states are in the process of adjusting their assessments of the military balance`_ + +- _`Conflicts present unique moments for updating beliefs`_ + +#### Reveal to Compensate + +Furthermore, conflicts can reveal information that changes how states calculate the costs and benefits of revealing new military capabilities, even when the conflict is not central to the competition between rivals. Because private information about military power and political resolve is central to bargaining and deterrence calculations, any action that provides new insights will also shape decisionmaking. If two great powers are locked in long-term competition, any battlefield performance provides a feedback loop, even indirectly. + +For example, consider Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and other major NATO powers. As Moscow sees the performance of old, surplus Western military kit destroy even its newest formations, leaders have to adjust their assessment of the military balance. Similarly, as the United States witnesses Russian prison assault units, missile barrages that are less accurate than advertised, and a defense industrial base that cannot produce electronic components on its own, leaders in Washington adjust their understanding of the military balance. Despite the significant growth of Russian ground forces, this situation puts a premium on signaling to adjust NATO’s understanding of Moscow’s actual war potential. This suggests that Russia will be more likely than the United States to showcase new capabilities in the coming years. Leaders in Moscow need to “reveal” new military technologies to compensate for poor battlefield performance. + +The same logic could extend to the United States and its long-term competition with China, albeit with a twist. Chinese military doctrine tends to focus on how the United States, in the late twentieth century, perfected an approach—namely during the Gulf War—involving the synchronization of joint effects to increase military power. In this approach, technology and connectivity are critical combat multipliers, changing the correlation of forces. This way of analyzing the military balance shapes both the process of military innovation—particularly emulation—and the approach states take toward long-term competition. If a state understands its adversary’s reference point for assessing military power, it gains a better understanding of how the enemy will approach bargaining, particularly during a militarized crisis. + +Consider the context of a hypothetical crisis in Taiwan. China will base its decision of whether or not to use a strategic reveal of technology to dissuade the United States from supporting Taipei on what benchmark it is using, including both the performance of Western military equipment in Ukraine and ongoing contingencies in the Middle East. If China’s reference point is Russia’s easy jamming of missile and artillery strikes, or the United States’ difficulties in countering drone attacks in the Middle East, Beijing would adjust its estimate of U.S. capabilities downward. If this were the case, there would be little incentive to reveal a previously concealed technological offset. + +Beijing could also leverage other instruments of power to signal U.S. military weakness. These messages could direct computational propaganda at specific audiences to shape long-term competition at regional, national, and even subnational levels. For example, consider the September 2024 Houthi missile strike on Israel. Social media accounts likely linked to the Chinese Communist Party circulated messages in Arabic highlighting the fact that the new Houthi missiles were able to bypass multiple U.S. destroyers and a French frigate on the flight path of a new hypersonic missile. + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/9RUFlZb.png) +_▲ __A Houthi missile bypasses U.S. destroyers.__ Source: (@mog_china) on X._ + +As seen in the X post below, Chinese social media accounts have broadcasted the failure of Western military assistance in Ukraine and how “powerless” Washington is in responding to Houthi attacks on Israel. These accounts use Command—a commercial wargaming software—to show a hypothetical battle featuring the Chinese 45th Expeditionary Task Force supporting Houthi anti-ship missile batteries and IRGC Behshad—a known Iranian spy ship—in the Red Sea. Of note, this is the same Chinese task force that operated in the Red Sea over the spring of 2024. In other words, the CCP has used simulated battles to undermine perceptions of U.S. military capability. Seen in terms of the formal model, this reduces the need to reveal new offsets and game-changers, giving Beijing more time to modernize its military and deny the United States the ability to invest in countermeasures. + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/xhZxNbz.png) +_▲ __X post showing how China could support Houthi and Iranian activity in the Red Sea to further erode U.S. missile defense.__ Source: (@mog_china) on X; Google translated._ + +Alternatively, if the reference point for Beijing was the ease with which the U.S. military has countered Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles and loitering munitions—or the role of the United States in helping to blunt the Iranian attack on Israel in April 2024—then Chinese leaders would face a different dilemma. In that case, the new information would push Beijing to consider revealing new technology to rebalance the military ledger and dissuade Washington from intervening in a crisis. The new benchmark would incentivize revealing as a substitute for a more direct confrontation. + +The United States would be driven by the same calculations. For instance, if leaders in Washington used the presence of systemic corruption and poor maintenance in the People’s Liberation Rocket Force as a reference point, this would shift U.S. leaders’ approach to crisis bargaining. + +The challenge is understanding how a rival state analyzes foreign military conflicts and uses them as reference points for both crisis bargaining and long-term innovation. Often, intelligence communities are focused on studying capabilities, as opposed to looking at how leaders talk about foreign wars. Furthermore, decisions to keep offsets concealed during a crisis—especially when an adversary is seen to be expanding and modernizing its military arsenal—require a degree of strategic patience that is hard to sustain in a bureaucracy. A natural tendency toward threat inflation and worst-case-scenario bias creates an atmosphere that undermines rational bargaining by skewing how analysts report on foreign military leaders and programs. Political leaders and competing factions inside national security establishments tend to seize on any threat report that backs their position. In this environment, pressure to reveal offsets risks triggering escalation—or worse, giving an adversary time to develop countermeasures to negate the new capability. + + +### Conclusion + +___Revealing with Intent___ + +Competition in the shadow of game-changing technology will continue to define great power rivalry in the twenty-first century. While new military capabilities don’t automatically lead to escalation, they do affect estimates of military power. The resulting signaling dynamics shape crisis bargaining. + +Formal models suggest that there are distinct moments when a rational actor should reveal new military capabilities. First, states can “reveal to substitute,” using the demonstration of a previously concealed weapon to impact a rival’s assessment of the costs and benefits of challenging the status quo. Second, a state can “reveal to reduce risk,” using a display of novel technology to encourage an otherwise risk-acceptant rival to see the costs of pursuing a hostile course of action. Third, a state can “reveal to compensate,” choosing to overcome a perceived imbalance in capability by showing an emerging disruptive technology. + +Taken together, these different reveal logics suggest the need for reforms across the U.S. national security enterprise. These reforms should focus on developing processes and capabilities that support managing great power competition in the shadow of game-changing technology. Specifically, U.S. policymakers need to develop interagency campaign plans, integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) into national security deliberations, and modernize analytical tradecraft. + +#### DEVELOP INTERAGENCY CAMPAIGN PLANS + +First, it is impossible to separate strategic reveals of new military technology from larger competitive strategy, namely integrated campaigns, which require building processes and planning tools that synchronize interagency activity. The current national security bureaucracy is neither connected in a manner that supports information exchange and collaborative analysis nor designed to support dynamic planning and assessments. Worse still, there aren’t interagency playbooks with preplanned—and legally reviewed—flexible deterrent and response option menus that could expedite crisis management. Absent more interagency support for integrated campaigning, decisions to reveal will likely be suboptimal, if not outright self-defeating. + +The alternative is to build integrated interagency campaign plans for managing long-term competition. These plans would synchronize major defense plans with development and regional diplomacy. Most importantly, they would provide a large inventory of options for managing a crisis that would help determine if the uncertain benefits of revealing a technological offset during a crisis are worth the potential costs. Bridging interagency divides sets the conditions for strategic patience and more prudent management of great power competition. It allows leaders to choose an optimal time to “reveal to substitute” and consider how best to complement the demonstration of new technologies in order to check a risk-acceptant rival. + +#### INTEGRATE AI/ML INTO NATIONAL SECURITY DELIBERATIONS + +This vision is as much about aligning bureaucratic processes as it is about integrating AI/ML and running iterated experiments that help national security professionals synchronize their efforts. This integration should include expanding the current Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to an interagency effort that tests different competition scenarios linked to military signaling—including the reveal of new capabilities—alongside sophisticated diplomatic and “inform and influence” activities. These experiments could, in turn, lead to entirely new designs—from the way the National Security Council is structured to the adaptation of the Joint Strategic Planning System. According to the formal model, a decision to reveal needs to be amplified and synchronized in order to properly signal to a rival and cause a desired adjustment in that state’s cost and benefit calculation. The United States can no longer afford loosely coupled, “coordination at the speed of bureaucracy” responses to great power competition. + +Integrating AI/ML into the national security enterprise is not difficult. It just requires a willingness to optimize models and train the workforce on how best to work alongside algorithms. Human judgment will still remain central to strategic analysis, but analysts will gain efficiencies and save time, while policymakers will benefit from a wider range of alternative analysis. + +#### MODERNIZE ANALYTICAL TRADECRAFT + +Moreover, there is a large intelligence cost associated with efforts to estimate military power. Understanding when and how to reveal new military technologies requires detailed mapping of the national security enterprises of rival states, as well as an understanding of how different political and military leaders think about competition. This will likely require growing the range of methods applied to assessments and modernizing analytical tradecraft used in the intelligence community (IC). For too long, there has been a culture of forensic reporting in the IC. Military analysts count missiles; political analysts divine insights based on the profiles of key leaders. Too often, these estimates are not sufficiently integrated with advances in social science techniques, such as regression analysis and formal modeling. Worst is a phenomenon known as “truth by the tear line,” in which more classified assessments are deemed to correspond most closely with reality. Analytical standards should evolve alongside academic research methods. + +The IC is primed for a renaissance that embraces more rigorous analytic methods, opening the aperture of analysis to large data sets, formal models, and other novel techniques for testing assumptions and triaging competing hypotheses. This framework has to pivot from imagined wars based on worst-case scenarios to dynamic assessment of day-to-day competition using a novel mix of Bayesian analysis and data science. Understanding when and how to counter China and other authoritarian states will require better integration between technical intelligence and global campaigning activities, as well as a better understanding of the strategies and national security enterprises of partners. It will also require the creation of new processes for educating policymakers on how to consume intelligence. The stakes are too high to oversimplify complex findings and preface small sample conjecture for more rigorous assessments. The IC needs to use a deeper mix of models and methods to analyze competition. + +The decision of when to reveal an offset during a crisis with a rival state is a deeply strategic one. It must be nested within robust intelligence estimates and linked to a strategic planning framework that includes preplanned interagency responses that amplify the signal and assess its efficacy. The current design and processes of the U.S. national security enterprise are up to the task. As it is, there are smart people struggling inside a broken bureaucracy, making any decision to reveal subject to diminishing strategic returns. + +--- + +__Benjamin Jensen__ is a senior fellow for Futures Lab in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also the Frank E. Petersen Chair and a professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps University School of Advanced Warfighting. Dr. Jensen has spent the last decade researching the changing character of political violence, technology, and strategy. + +__Yasir Atalan__ is a data fellow in the Futures Lab at CSIS. He is also a PhD candidate in political science at American University. At CSIS, his research focuses on technology and its implications for international security, with a special emphasis on AI in future warfare. His dissertation is centered on civil-military relations, regional politics, and the diffusion of instabilities. + +__Can Mutlu__ is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University. Can earned his bachelor’s degree from Haverford College in mathematics and economics with a minor in philosophy. + +__Jose M. Macias III__ is an associate data fellow in the Futures Lab at CSIS and a former Pearson Fellow at the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts at the University of Chicago. With a keen interest in the quantitative study of war, Jose’s research delves into topics like cross-domain conflicts, societal impacts, and the integration of machine learning in international relations research, with prior significant contributions to the Correlates of War project, including notable work quantifying the effects of U.S. bilateral counterterrorism treaties in the Global South and eastern Europe. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-address-arctic-vulnerabilities.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-address-arctic-vulnerabilities.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..490d633b --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-address-arctic-vulnerabilities.md @@ -0,0 +1,123 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Address Arctic Vulnerabilities +author: Jonas Vidhammer Berge and Max Bergmann +date : 2024-12-17 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/oUbDFIS.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Lessons from Ukraine" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_The war in Ukraine has accelerated an ongoing trend of competition and militarization in the Arctic. By applying lessons learned from the Ukrainian battlefield, Arctic NATO states can both enhance deterrence and prepare for potential warfighting the region._ + + + +The Arctic is quickly becoming a theater of global competition—a development that has accelerated since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In order to protect critical undersea communications infrastructure, decrease intra-alliance dependency on U.S. space-based capabilities, and deter Russian gray-zone tactics, NATO-aligned Arctic states—the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—must enhance situational awareness of these vulnerabilities. By applying lessons learned from the war in Ukraine on how technological advancements can shape military strategy and the operational environment, specifically with regards to resilient space capabilities, cost-efficient unmanned systems, and rapid procurement processes for evolving technological capabilities, Arctic states can improve both deterrence and potential warfighting in the region. + + +### Introduction + +Over the past two decades, and especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Arctic has become increasingly characterized by competition rather than cooperation. As described by Icelandic Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson in October 2024, “whether we like it or not, the Arctic is fast becoming a theater of global competition and militarization, and it is up to us to determine the parameters for developing this region.” The Arctic security environment has changed politically, reflective of an increasingly competitive posture between a consolidated NATO bloc in the West and a belligerent Russia in the East. + +Prominent among the political challenges facing NATO allies in the Arctic is addressing these changes materially. The issue is comprehensive and involves combining means in order to underpin deterrence—of both warfare and gray-zone actions—as well as to prepare for potential warfighting scenarios. In responding to these challenges, Arctic states have an opportunity to learn from, and leverage, lessons from Ukraine on the role of technological development in contemporary warfare. + +The Ukrainian battlefield has illustrated the strengths and limitations of several rapidly evolving technologies impacting the character of warfare. While some technological solutions have provided robust military advantages (e.g., the Starlink constellation) others have been caught in action-reaction cycles where advantages have been quickly neutralized by the adversary (e.g., certain configurations of drones or precision-guided artillery). These lessons are already influencing the strategies and force postures of Arctic states, including Russia. + +Any response to the changing Arctic security environment requires addressing several key concerns. The first is analyzing the vulnerabilities that impede the ability of Arctic states to credibly and capably both deter and fight in the High North. At least partially due to the absence of an independent command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) capability, situational awareness is a vulnerability of particular significance. Arctic states are instead dependent on vulnerable undersea communications infrastructure, or space-based capabilities that are relatively scarce and characterized by intra-alliance dependency on the United States. Additionally, Europe’s reliance on Norway as an energy provider is vulnerable to Russian gray-zone tactics. + +The second concern is addressing these vulnerabilities, taking stock of which technological capabilities will make a difference and how lessons from the war in Ukraine can be efficiently applied to strategy and force postures. The most immediate priority to alleviate Arctic security concerns should be bolstering maritime domain awareness in the region, which directly impacts European energy security as well as nuclear security and deterrence by enhancing NATO’s ability to detect, monitor, and respond to potential threats. Ukraine has demonstrated the utility and resiliency of advanced space capabilities and unmanned systems when used in nonpermissive environments. As Arctic geography already creates dependency on satellites, investing in space capabilities should be a main priority. Moreover, certain configurations of unmanned systems can cost-efficiently bolster both situational awareness and offensive options in Arctic security. + + +### The Utility of Situational Awareness in the Arctic + +Harnessing benefits from technological development is particularly important given the ongoing geopolitical changes in the Arctic. Growing tension between NATO and Russia is likely to lead to increased naval activity in the High North, where vulnerable military, communications, and energy infrastructure is at risk of sabotage and interference. While China is unlikely to establish a significant presence in the Arctic, monitoring Chinese maritime traffic and their potential activities in building C4ISR ground infrastructure remains important. Monitoring Russian activity around its nuclear deterrent posture has been of particular consequence since the beginning of the war in Ukraine—in September 2024, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine involving an “expansion” of its mission, although any substantial differences are yet to be revealed. + +The White House has already identified C4ISR capabilities as essential to its Arctic ambitions. Reflecting its “monitor-and-respond” global posture as outlined in its National Defense Strategy, the United States asserts a general readiness to respond to threats in the Arctic along with its regional allies, yet highlights two focal points: the Arctic (1) houses various early-warning and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, and (2) acts as the U.S. northern flank in carrying out Indo-Pacific operations. In the strategy’s implementation plan, the first strategic objective is improving the understanding of the Arctic operating environment, particularly emphasizing the bolstering of space capabilities and maritime domain awareness. + +The strategic utility of an Arctic presence is considerable for early warning purposes. Its geographical location makes the Arctic an important vantage point for monitoring potential ballistic missile launches and other airborne threats. Russia and the United States—with its allies—depend on Arctic infrastructure for their early warning systems, both through ground-based radars and ground stations for satellite communications (SATCOM). Russia and China are increasingly collaborating in developing defense technology, decidedly prioritizing space and new technologies, and it is with Russia’s cooperation that China is seeking to develop and deploy its own early warning infrastructure. + +More broadly, with their increasing dependence on space-based capabilities for advanced warfare, states seeking global or Arctic regional coverage for their space systems are reliant on ground infrastructure in the Arctic due to its latitude-restricting coverage. The Arctic is also an ideal location for this type of infrastructure. Particularly for states with ambitions of global space-power projection such as the United States and China, this incentivizes a growing physical presence in the Arctic to support developing space infrastructure, including dual-use projects. China has advanced its global space capabilities drastically in recent years, and reports have emerged that Russia is becoming reliant on Chinese satellite imagery of Ukraine. Moreover, the geopolitical tension between NATO and Russia heightens the risk for assets such as Norway’s K-SAT satellite station on Svalbard and the space-launch capabilities in Andøya, Norway, and Kiruna, Sweden. + + +### Vulnerabilities in Arctic Security + +Addressing several vulnerabilities in particular would effectively bolster Arctic security. While most European NATO members already agree with and have begun to answer the need for a general increase in defense expenditure—particularly in naval power for Arctic states—since February 2022, there remain points of weakness. + +Arctic geography is vast and remote, making it hard to establish and maintain a comprehensive surveillance and communications network. A cold and rugged climate subject to rapid environmental changes, including in ice conditions, make the Arctic a challenging operating environment and constrains options for building robust infrastructure. + +In the absence of a redundant communications network, long-range communications in the Arctic primarily rely on undersea cables, a dependency that is a vulnerability. Undersea cables offer little resistance to sabotage, acting as low-hanging fruit for an adversary to exploit though physical damage, cyberattacks, or espionage. For zones like Svalbard, which is dependent on two fiber-optic cables for outside communications, the situation is precarious. A loss of both cables would carry strategic implications, as transmissions to and from the K-SAT satellite station—the world’s largest satellite ground station and of strategic importance to satellites in polar orbit—would effectively be lost. + +Svalbard’s fiber-optic cable dependence was tested in January 2022 when one of the cables was cut, rendering the archipelago entirely reliant on reserve capacity from its one remaining cable. Although the cause of the incident remains unconfirmed, Russian trawlers were spotted by the cable shortly beforehand. Similarly, in April 2021, a 4.3-kilometer section of an undersea cable outside the Norwegian coast disappeared, with no information on how or on the actors involved. In addition, while outside of Arctic territory, the 2022 Nord Stream Pipeline sabotage in the Baltic Sea strongly resembled the Svalbard incident. With all of these incidents left unattributed, albeit doubtlessly caused by human interference, they reflect both the vulnerability of critical subsea infrastructure as well as the need for maritime situational awareness in the Arctic. + +The same vulnerabilities can be applied to Arctic petroleum infrastructure. As Norway has become the largest petroleum supplier in Europe—in tandem with European states reducing their reliance on Russian energy—the Nordic country’s strategic importance as an exporter has greatly increased. The security dimension of energy production has become more visible. This also makes Norwegian energy infrastructure in Arctic waters an increasingly attractive target for Russian sabotage. Furthermore, Norway has recently permitted exploration of mineral extraction further into the Arctic, which may lead to additional geopolitical importance for the Norwegian continental shelf. Additional maritime infrastructure incentivizes increased awareness to safeguard these assets against potential threats. + +While space-based communication is the most capable alternative to undersea cables, the Arctic is hampered by significant shortcomings in satellite capabilities. Conventional SATCOM from geosynchronous orbit is unstable or unusable in large parts of the Arctic due to limited coverage above 70 degrees latitude. As a result, satellite coverage in the Arctic largely relies on satellites in polar or highly elliptical orbits. Currently, Arctic SATCOM mainly encompasses narrowband frequencies with constrained data rates and high latency, thereby limiting functionality. The United States possesses military satellites with encrypted communications, such as the Enhanced Polar System, but the existing pool of Arctic satellite capabilities is insufficient for current operational requirements. The accuracy of precision, navigation, and timing (PNT) systems, such as GPS, is also limited in the Arctic, causing potential challenges for precision-based munitions and navigational awareness. Even with fully functional PNT systems, Arctic states can still expect Russian GPS-jamming as an asymmetric tool to impact states’ abilities to utilize advanced munitions and vehicles. + +Aside from SATCOM, bolstering situational awareness depends on continuous and accurate ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) over the vast Arctic region, which is only achievable through a foundation of space-based ISR. While aerial capabilities such as P-8 reconnaissance aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) may supplement localized ISR, these capabilities have insufficient range and speed to cover the vastness of the Arctic geography. Similarly, sea-based capabilities, including Coast Guard vessels and sea-based drones, face limitations in range and operational endurance, making it challenging to ensure comprehensive coverage without the support of space-based systems. + +The issue of C4ISR infrastructure in the Arctic also touches upon a broader problem for European NATO allies: dependency on U.S. capabilities for C4ISR in Europe. The absence of an independent C4ISR capability has been highlighted as a key factor in why Europe cannot defend itself. This dependency is particularly acute given the current political direction of the United States, which heralds a shift toward prioritizing domestic concerns and reducing international military commitments, potentially including NATO obligations. Aside from concerns regarding NATO cohesion, intra-alliance dependency on U.S. C4ISR systems weakens the credibility of alliance-level deterrence. A disproportionate amount of NATO’s C4ISR capabilities belonging to the United States may lead adversaries to see these assets as primarily the country’s, rather than NATO’s. This may lower the threshold of an adversary targeting, for example, U.S. satellites in polar orbit, which would severely impact the situational awareness of state actors in the High North dependent on U.S. C4ISR patronage, more than it would impact the United States itself. + + +### Applying Lessons from Ukraine in the Arctic + +The war in Ukraine has demonstrated how technological development has shaped military strategy and the operational environment. To the surprise of many, the use of capabilities such as drones, non-kinetic warfare, missile defense, hypersonic missiles, and advanced space capabilities has been combined with tactics from early stages of military development including trench warfare. The balance between offensive and defensive advantages has been dynamic as asymmetric capabilities have neutralized high-value platforms before often becoming neutralized themselves as the adversary adapts. Accordingly, not all advanced technological capabilities have been transformative, and some lessons stand out more than others in their relevance to the Arctic. + +A key facet of warfare in Ukraine has been the ability of Ukrainians to retain a functional C4ISR infrastructure in a nonpermissive operating environment. Despite attacks against its terrestrial communications infrastructure, cyberattacks, and jamming against satellites, Ukraine has persisted in utilizing resilient and adaptive capabilities—chiefly unmanned systems and satellite data—to maintain situational awareness and to coordinate military operations. Impressively, it has done so largely within a digitalized defense framework. This is a substantial, broader lesson for NATO allies facing the fundamental challenge of leveraging technological hegemony against adversaries with tools to asymmetrically offset their technological advantages. + +#### Space and Commercial Actors + +Space has been an essential domain for Ukraine’s C4ISR capabilities. From the conflict’s prelude onwards, the combination of open-source and classified data from both miliary and commercial satellites has provided Ukraine with a persistent military advantage. While most terrestrial communications and situational awareness infrastructure in Ukraine has been subject to interference, space-based capabilities have largely endured. Aside from ISR, space has enabled precision-guided munitions, resilient SATCOM, and the maintenance of command and control. This is an essential lesson for any potential adversary to Russia, which relies on offsetting technological advantages through non-kinetic capabilities such as cyber-jamming and electronic warfare. Advanced space capabilities, particularly redundant systems in low Earth orbit, have proven highly resilient when facing non-kinetic counterspace attacks. In a nonpermissive Arctic security environment, reliance on space may both address existing vulnerabilities and counter Russian asymmetric capabilities. + +There are, however, three significant caveats regarding the lessons learned from space systems in Ukraine. First, as highlighted by space policy expert Michael Gleason, having advanced space capabilities is necessary but insufficient to create a persisting military advantage. As he argues, Ukraine has done a far better job than Russia in integrating space-enabled data at operational and tactical levels through ground stations and data networks. This shows the need for a comprehensive infrastructure, including ground-based capabilities, to utilize space effectively. This applies as much in the Arctic as in Ukraine if not more so, given the scarcity of ground-based space infrastructure in the Arctic. + +Second, the resiliency of certain space systems varies depending on its specifications. Satellites in geosynchronous orbit and medium Earth orbit—such as U.S. early warning satellites and GPS, respectively—are much more vulnerable to counterspace attacks than satellites in low Earth orbit. In Ukraine, space-derived advantages have mainly come from satellites in low Earth orbit with high redundancy. In particular, the Starlink constellation has proven both numerically and technologically resilient to cyberattacks and electronic warfare. Indeed, in many parts of Ukraine, Starlink has been the only non-Russian SATCOM option still functioning. In contrast, PNT systems such as GPS have been persistently jammed, constraining Ukraine’s ability to utilize precision-guided munitions. The implication of this caveat is that advanced satellite systems in low orbit with high redundancy will be important to emulate for other regions, such as the Arctic, while PNT systems such as GPS will likely remain vulnerable in their current configurations. + +Third, a significant portion of space capabilities in Ukraine have been commercial. Aside from companies like Maxar and Hawkeye 360, Starlink has been the biggest commercial contributor to satellite services in Ukraine. On the one hand, this has showcased the innovation of the commercial space sector, which has led to demonstrable advantages. On the other hand, dependency on commercial actors, and particularly on Starlink, may be disadvantageous in the long term. In regions like the Arctic with a state-centric demand, requirements involving encryption and software may diverge with commercial interests aimed at a broader user base. There are also risks relying on satellites with off-the-shelf hardware. + +For Starlink specifically, there are severe risks relating to the company’s owner. Elon Musk’s personal interests have allegedly led to restrictions on how Starlink is used in Ukraine, and Musk has reportedly had regular contact with Putin—possibly influencing the former’s decisionmaking process. Sources have further described Putin requesting Musk deny Taiwan access to Starlink on behalf of Chinese president Xi Jinping. Russian troops using Starlink have also been reported, raising further questions on the system’s reliability. Many reports on Musk and Starlink remain unconfirmed. There is a discernable pattern of accounts, however, sowing doubt on the credibility of Musk’s services if they are to be used counter to his personal convictions or interests. In the Arctic, Starlink would be integrated into a C4ISR posture opposing Russia. Therefore, Starlink’s role in Arctic security should be constrained. Instead, Arctic states should work to emulate the advantages of Starlink in Ukraine by developing redundant satellite systems—including ground-based infrastructure—tailored to states’ security preferences. + +#### Unmanned Systems + +Maintaining a persistent C4ISR infrastructure in nonpermissive conditions necessitates the integration of several essential enablers. Drones have amassed attention throughout the fighting in Ukraine, allowing asymmetric strike capabilities and serving as enablers of ISR and target detection. Accordingly, drones have played important roles in providing situational awareness in difficult conditions. To be sure, there are constraints in drone-centric warfare. The “cheap mass” afforded by unmanned systems provides resiliency and flexibility, and most drones are cheaper than their countermeasures. However, as naval analyst Joshua Tallis argues, limitations in speed, power, and size make drones complementary to, rather than a replacement for, missiles—particularly in naval warfare, as would be relevant in the largely maritime Arctic context. + +Drone warfare also has implications for the development of integrated air and missile defense systems (IAMDs). The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the advancement of IAMDs, such as the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), Patriot Missiles, and the S-300, with neither side having gained air superiority. However, as reflected by the 2023 Chinese balloon incident, advanced sensors quickly become ineffective when faced with something for which they are not designed to look. In Ukraine, developing IAMDs that can cost-efficiently counter drones has been challenging. As drones will remain an essential part of contemporary warfare, this challenge will extend to Arctic states seeking to both integrate drones into their military structures and to prepare countermeasures. + +Integrating drones involves two main challenges. First, the general lessons of Ukrainian drone-warfare—how the drone niche can complement and enable other foundational capabilities—must be applied to the Arctic geography and temperature, demanding requirements for durability and range. Norway’s scarce drone pool is more suited to Middle Eastern rather than Arctic conditions. Notably, all Scandinavian countries have recently announced plans to progressively integrate drones into their military structures, and Norway and Denmark have begun cooperating in maritime Arctic drone surveillance. + +Second, modelling Ukraine’s rapid acquisitions of drones, which has enabled quick reconstitution of its capabilities, requires a comprehensive overhaul of most Arctic states’ acquisition structures. Currently, long procurement cycles risk drone purchases becoming technologically outdated by the time they arrive. More streamlined and responsive acquisition processes are needed to adapt to the changing security environment. + + +### Recommendations: Applying Lessons on Arctic Vulnerabilities + +There are important lessons to be learned from how unmanned systems and space capabilities have been utilized in Ukraine, and that these lessons can apply in other theatres, including the Arctic. However, there remain significant caveats and nuances that are important for applying these lessons constructively in such a different environment. Simply investing in higher quantities of drones and satellites is insufficient for significantly bolstering situational awareness in the Arctic. These capabilities must be tailored to the geographical and technological needs of the region. The following policies are recommended to operationalize the lessons from Ukraine going forward. + +1. Bolster Arctic situational awareness through resilient space capabilities. + + Space capabilities are poised to fill important gaps in Arctic C4ISR architecture. Additions in SATCOM could provide meaningful improvements to meager existing communications infrastructure. While not necessarily providing a 1:1 replacement for undersea fiber-optic cables, investments in SATCOM would add layers of redundancy and reduce the vulnerabilities associated with reliance on undersea cables. Similarly, space-based ISR would bolster situational awareness and amplify Arctic states’ abilities to secure undersea networks, as well as reduce the risk of hostilities being unattributable. + + While the advantages of Starlink in Ukraine make the proposition of directly utilizing Starlink in the Arctic for security purposes appear intuitive, there are significant uncertainties that make the proposition less attractive, including a risk of insecure encryption and uncertainties regarding the interests of Elon Musk. Accordingly, emulating the advantages of Starlink—predominantly through high numbers of satellites in low Earth orbit—in developing new satellite systems is preferable to relying on Starlink directly. + + The European Union’s proposed Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite (IRIS2) constellation is the closest realistic alternative to Starlink, but the project is limited in scope and unlikely to become a serious competitor. This reflects the historic difficulties of security collaboration in a European framework, which are understandable considering European political fragmentation. Nonetheless, in light of European security interests currently threatened by Russia, the potential straining of transatlantic relations due to an inward-focused United States, and the possibility of a SpaceX technological monopoly in space, there are broad incentives for consolidating European security interests. + + Ukraine’s successful use of space capabilities is not solely attributable to Starlink but rather has included an array of smaller satellites in low Earth orbit. Technological developments have enabled broader uses for smaller satellites which, in tandem with lowering launch costs, can bolster Arctic C4ISR architecture. A broader space-based sensor network enables various capabilities, including precision-strike weapons and fighter jets, thereby supporting both deterrence and warfighting objectives. There are examples in the Arctic to build on, including the recent Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM)—while not constituting smaller satellites, ASBM nonetheless represents an important step in leveraging space capabilities for Arctic security objectives. Additionally, newly built spaceports in Andøya and Kiruna may facilitate small satellite launches from Northern Scandinavia. + +2. Prioritize unmanned systems that cost-efficiently complement Arctic security needs. + + Unmanned systems have the potential to play an important role in Arctic security. Sea-based and air-based drones can supplement conventional maritime and aerial capabilities in gathering Arctic situational awareness, particularly in the maritime domain. As attack capabilities or close air support, as seen in Ukraine, drones can complement long-range missiles by providing an asymmetric strike option. However, since the Arctic geography and climate vastly differ from the Ukrainian, the unmanned systems used in Ukraine may be largely incompatible with Arctic territory. Range requirements differ depending on uses, but for situational awareness purposes, for example, drones should ideally withstand high range in low temperatures. + + As discussed, a major factor behind successful drone warfare in Ukraine has been the cost-efficiency of drones, which further enables scalability and strength in numbers. Given the constraints of Arctic geography, the current availability of unmanned systems that cost-efficiently fulfill the above-mentioned criteria is limited. Northrop Grumman’s MQ-4C Triton is the most frequently mentioned aerial high-altitude long-endurance drone alternative for Arctic states. While systems such as the MQ-4C Triton would certainly bolster maritime domain awareness, they do not accurately exemplify the benefits of drone warfare as demonstrated in Ukraine. Instead, they represent high-value targets vulnerable to asymmetric warfare. This is not necessarily detrimental to Arctic states’ national security objectives, but harnessing the benefits of drone warfare as seen in Ukraine requires a different line of thinking. + + Ukraine has shown how cheaper platforms in higher numbers can make a difference in high-intensity warfare against Russia. Therefore, Arctic states should be cautious of putting all of their eggs in one basket: Rather than opting for fewer numbers of expensive drones, which do not capture the military-technological advantages of evolving drone capabilities, the Arctic should choose instead to adopt many less-expensive variations. More on that trade-off in the recommendation below. + +3. Facilitate the rapid procurement of evolving technological capabilities + + The Ukrainian battlefield has demonstrated the ability of both sides to adapt to emerging capabilities, particularly in unmanned systems. In many cases, adaptation has negated persistent military advantages, and important capabilities have quickly become neutralized and replaced. This reflects the trade-off in most capabilities with “affordable mass”—rapid advantages in high-intensity warfare until their inherent vulnerabilities become known and exploited. Despite the trade-off, being able to procure commercial capabilities on a large scale will pay off in future conflicts. Doing so, however, requires a bureaucratic apparatus capable of rapidly acquiring and integrating military capabilities. + + As discussed, this is not currently the case for most Arctic states. Neither the United States nor Nordic countries currently have sufficiently flexible procurement structures. In order to face this challenge, national military establishments must enhance their abilities to adapt to the changing military-technological environment; should they do so, as shown in Ukraine, the benefits can be significant. Managing the challenge of facilitating flexible procurement structures can be eased through cooperation with other Arctic states. A streamlined Nordic approach, for example, could promote interoperability, scalability, and cost-efficiency. This could also actualize cooperative frameworks such Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) to a greater extent, while lowering the threshold of investing in other assets, such as space-based C4ISR capabilities, that would benefit all Nordic countries. Whether this is feasible, however, partially rests on the ability of Arctic states’ military establishments to adapt to changing security needs. + +--- + +__Jonas Vidhammer Berge__ is a visiting fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. + +__Max Bergmann__ is director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program and Stuart Center in Euro-Atlantic and Northern European Studies at CSIS. From fa0c61b353b5cc68e6413d43dbd7ab4d873b3a5e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: hokoi Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2025 05:34:39 +0000 Subject: [PATCH 16/16] C2: Add HKers articles, 0x30 Jan.17 --- .../2024-12-17-prisoner-of-the-caucasus.md | 303 ++++++++++++ .../2024-12-17-sudans-humanitarian-crisis.md | 93 ++++ .../2024-12-18-crypto-asset-recovery.md | 431 ++++++++++++++++++ .../_hkers/2024-12-19-dutch-navy-in-nato.md | 323 +++++++++++++ 4 files changed, 1150 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-prisoner-of-the-caucasus.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-sudans-humanitarian-crisis.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-18-crypto-asset-recovery.md create mode 100644 _collections/_hkers/2024-12-19-dutch-navy-in-nato.md diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-prisoner-of-the-caucasus.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-prisoner-of-the-caucasus.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..9cea94a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-prisoner-of-the-caucasus.md @@ -0,0 +1,303 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Prisoner Of The Caucasus? +author: Jeffrey Mankoff +date : 2024-12-17 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/yjMED9G.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Toward a U.S. Strategy for the South Caucasus" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_It is time for Washington, in tandem with its allies, to develop a more realistic, forward-looking approach to the South Caucasus, a region that now faces internal upheaval and its neighbors’ mounting ambitions._ + + + +For much of the past three decades, the South Caucasus has been internally fragmented, with former imperial hegemon Russia attempting to manipulate the region’s multiple conflicts to keep Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia from spinning too far out of Moscow’s orbit. Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine therefore created a fundamentally new reality for the South Caucasus (and for Eurasia writ large). Russian distraction both provided the three South Caucasus states new freedom of action and created opportunities for other regional and non-regional actors to bolster their political, economic, and security presence. These include the United States, which now has occasion to rethink its approach to a strategically significant region that has, arguably, been less of a priority in recent years. + +Indeed, observers and officials in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia maintain diverging views of the challenges facing their region but are largely in agreement that U.S. engagement has been limited and haphazard, at a minimum, since Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia. The absence of a clear U.S. strategy has encouraged leaders in Azerbaijan and Georgia, in particular, to hedge by seeking some kind of accommodation with Moscow and cultivating other outside partners. This shift represents a stark reversal from the situation in the 1990s and early 2000s, when Baku and Tbilisi pursued a pro-Western orientation. While Armenia has followed a different trajectory, its pro-Western turn after the 2018 Velvet Revolution and its defeat in the Second Karabakh War (2020) remains tenuous, especially given Armenia’s political volatility and vulnerability to the ambitions of its stronger neighbors. + +The South Caucasus has meanwhile become a theater for the emerging pattern of great power competition. With the stalling out of U.S. and European efforts to anchor the South Caucasus states to a Western political and security order, Russia has managed to maintain a strong foothold even with the diversion of resources and attention to the war in Ukraine. Moscow’s turn to geoeconomic tools has allowed it to align the self-interest of ruling elites across the region with its own campaign to evade Western sanctions and build an alternative regional order insulated from Western influence. China remains comparatively peripheral to the South Caucasus, but it is investing in infrastructure and manufacturing that could give it a greater stake in the region’s emerging transit nexus. Despite its escalating conflict with Israel, Iran too sees the South Caucasus as both an outlet and a potential threat. + +Understanding the drivers of these shifts and their long-term implications has become increasingly important for the United States and its allies—particularly the United Kingdom, the European Union and its member states, and Turkey. To better understand how the South Caucasus states’ governments, expert communities, and populations perceive the region’s changing geopolitics, I conducted two separate research trips to the region in the spring and summer of 2024. The report that follows is based on dozens of conversations with officials, local analysts, politicians, members of civil society, journalists, and foreign diplomats in Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan, as well as Washington, D.C. It seeks to explain how the region’s three states and their people view the current era of great power competition, with an eye to providing recommendations for U.S. policymakers on how to engage more strategically across the South Caucasus. + + +### Introduction + +The three states of the South Caucasus—Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—sit at the center of a shatter zone and choke point where Europe connects to the Eurasian supercontinent. For centuries, the Greater Caucasus region, encompassing the South Caucasus, the Russian North Caucasus, and proximate regions of Iran and Turkey, has been a zone of contestation and conflict between rival empires. During the three-plus decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, this pattern of strategic competition has reemerged. While the immediate post-Soviet period was characterized by Russia’s struggle to maintain its inherited power and influence and rival efforts by the United States and its allies in Europe to promote the region’s integration with an expanded Euro-Atlantic West, the South Caucasus today confronts a much more complex dynamic, with not just Russia and the Euro-Atlantic West, but also Turkey, Iran, and others seeking to shape developments across the region. + +The South Caucasus has always been a challenging region for outside powers to navigate. The intersection between internal political struggles, separatist conflicts, and Russia’s post-imperial intervention has left the entire region deeply fractured. Each of the region’s three states has a different strategic outlook—and aspires to create its own security architecture with the help of rival outside actors. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia have all been scarred by the legacy of conflicts touched off by the collapse of the Soviet Union, including Russian-backed separatist conflicts in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia/Tskhinvali (1991–94), the First (1988–94) and Second (2020) Karabakh Wars, and Russia’s invasion of Georgia (2008). Because of the geographic, ethnographic, and historical linkages between the South Caucasus and the Russian North Caucasus, moreover, Russia’s two wars in Chechnya (1994–96 and 1999–2009) and ongoing low-level Islamist insurgencies in other parts of the North Caucasus have also spilled into the South Caucasus. To a lesser extent, so too have conflicts in the wider Black Sea region, including the war in Ukraine. + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/9EmoPql.png) +_▲ __Figure 1: The South Caucasus.__ Source: CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program._ + +In the wake of the Soviet collapse, the interests of the Euro-Atlantic West aligned with those of ruling elites in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to carve out an independent role and resist Moscow’s efforts to wall off the region within a Russian sphere of influence. At its most ambitious, the United States and Europe pushed to integrate the South Caucasus (along with other states from the former Soviet Union) into a Western-led order, including trade and financial institutions, as well as via partnership and cooperation agreements with the European Union and NATO’s Partnership for Peace. To varying degrees, leaders in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia viewed engagement and integration with these institutions and the development of bilateral ties with Western states as both an aspiration and a hedge against a potential Russian resurgence. For majority-Christian Armenia and Georgia, the vision of “rejoining” Western civilization after centuries of domination by Eurasian empires exerted a powerful lure. Even in energy-rich Azerbaijan, Western-style secular modernity and Western living standards appealed even though the authoritarian governments of Presidents Heydar Aliyev (1993–2003) and Ilham Aliyev (2003–present) did not seek to emulate Western political models. Western officials, meanwhile, perceived independent South Caucasus states as both a bulwark against a Russian imperial resurgence and as an emerging corridor for bringing energy and other goods to global markets, reducing Russia’s domination of transit. + +U.S. and European influence in the South Caucasus has, however, been declining for many years. Launched after the failure of a U.S. bid at the April 2008 Bucharest Summit to gain allied support for bringing Georgia (and Ukraine) into NATO, Russia’s August 2008 invasion of Georgia was an inflection point. Then–Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced that Moscow had intervened to secure its “privileged interests” in the region. For leaders in Baku and Yerevan as well as Tbilisi, the war was also a “signal that the liberal norms and principles of the post-Cold War order were no [sic] effective protection against Russia’s revisionist ambitions.” Indeed, U.S. and European engagement in the South Caucasus became more cautious as Washington and Brussels subsequently pursued a “reset” with Moscow that prioritized securing Russian help on issues like providing logistical support for NATO operations in Afghanistan and curtailing the Iranian nuclear program. Even before the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, a seasoned observer of the region noted that “long-standing declaratory policies about the region’s centrality in the West’s foreign policy are becoming less and less credible.” Regional analysts today speak of a vacuum produced by diminished U.S. and European attention and the growing involvement of non-Western powers across the South Caucasus. + +Despite a litany of challenges—not least the staggering financial and human costs of the war in Ukraine—Russia remains the most significant regional power. Meanwhile, neighboring Iran and—especially—Turkey have become major players in the South Caucasus over the past decade. While Russia, Turkey, and Iran have diverging strategic interests, they share a commitment to managing regional tensions without reference to Western-led multilateral bodies or liberal norms. Thus far, China has a limited regional footprint, though it could become a major investor in projects like Georgia’s deep-sea port at Anaklia. Other extraregional powers, including India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates, have all taken a greater interest in the South Caucasus as well. Partnerships with these actors hold some potential to bring new investment to the region. They also coincide with the long-standing aspiration of the South Caucasus states—as well as their partners in the United States and Europe—to reinforce the sovereignty and independence of the smaller states that (re-)gained their independence when the Soviet Union collapsed. + +At the same time, the growing prominence of non-Western powers in the South Caucasus is evidence that the U.S. and European strategy of enmeshing the region in Euro-Atlantic institutions has run its course. Since 2008, the region’s states have become warier of Western promises and more confident in maneuvering between and among outside powers. The world, too, has grown more multipolar thanks to decades of growth across the Global South, an economic slowdown in Europe, and chronic political uncertainty across the West. Moreover, Russia’s war on Ukraine and crises in the Middle East pose acute challenges to international security, as does China’s growing military power. With Europe’s efforts to wean itself off Russian gas, alternative supplies from the Caspian Basin will remain important, but the boom in U.S. fracking and the accelerated push to develop green energy provide mounting competition. + +A new U.S. strategy for the South Caucasus must grapple with this evolving strategic landscape. It should accept that while the South Caucasus is not going to be a central priority for the United States, the region maintains a geostrategic importance that outstrips the size of its population or GDP. The South Caucasus has added importance for the European Union and for individual U.S. allies, including France and Turkey (two states whose relationship—including in the South Caucasus—is quite contentious). Prospects for the expansion of the European Union into the South Caucasus remain uncertain, and the expansion of NATO into the region is even less likely. Even in the most optimistic scenario, only part of the region may join Euro-Atlantic institutions at some unspecified future point, perpetuating the problem of regional fracture. + +More broadly, all three states face limited options, prefer to hedge against risks, and will resist efforts to force them into binary choices. In contrast to the 1990s, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia will all have to balance among multiple partners. As much as the United States would like to see Russian, Iranian, and Chinese influence rolled back from the South Caucasus, Washington has limited levers to achieve this goal, especially since the region’s states lack confidence in Western staying power and are wary of taking risks that could expose them to retaliation from their larger neighbors. The war in Ukraine is only exacerbating these concerns, as governments and populations in the South Caucasus generally believe Russia will come out of the war with its imperial ambitions intact and with greater capacity for coercing its neighbors. Given these limitations, a U.S. strategy for the South Caucasus should focus on the following: + +- maintaining a free and open South Caucasus and opposing efforts by regional powers to exclude Western influence + +- encouraging Armenia and Azerbaijan to make peace, while limiting Russia’s ability to manipulate or disrupt the process + +- promoting democratic change in Georgia and Armenia and assisting them to thwart kleptocracy, state capture, and Russian subterfuge + +- aligning objectives and resources more closely with the European Union and the United Kingdom, with a special focus on France (for Armenia) and Turkey + +- fostering regional integration and connectivity + +- seeking an outcome to the conflict in Ukraine that represents a strategic defeat for Russia and raises the cost to Moscow of further imperial aggression + + +### The New Geopolitics of the South Caucasus + +While the United States played a central role in helping the South Caucasus region’s states consolidate their sovereignty and independence in the wake of the Soviet collapse, today, many regional observers see the United States as passive, reactive, and distracted by other priorities. This lack of focus on the South Caucasus dates to the aftermath of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, which made clear that Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration would cause major complications with Russia. Ensuing NATO summits repeated the mantra that Georgia (and Ukraine) would become members of the alliance, even as officials in Tbilisi put less and less stock in Western promises. Interest in new energy projects in Azerbaijan meanwhile stalled amid the Great Recession and Europe’s push to phase out hydrocarbons. For a time, the South Caucasus remained on the radar of Western policymakers as a transit corridor to support operations in Afghanistan. Since the last U.S. forces departed in August 2021, it has been difficult for Washington or Brussels to make the case for why the South Caucasus should be a priority as they emphasize bolstering Ukraine’s resistance against Russian aggression and containing the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war on the wider Middle East, as well as devote increasing attention to the Indo-Pacific region, all while continuing the transition to non-hydrocarbon energy resources. + +Nor has the focus on what the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy calls “strategic competition with major powers” resulted in much attention to the role that the South Caucasus and other parts of Eurasia should play in this new era of competition. Since the Second Karabakh War, U.S. priorities appear to be to “reduce Russia’s preponderance, counterbalance Iran’s influence, moderate [Turkey’s] role, and prevent the consolidation of authoritarian power among Russia, [Turkey], Iran, and Azerbaijan.” Yet a common refrain in Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan alike is that the United States and Europe no longer have a vision or strategy for the South Caucasus—that in failing to articulate the stakes or devote adequate resources to the region, the Western powers have themselves contributed to the vacuum that Iran, Russia, Turkey, and others are now rushing to fill. Reversing that trend requires Western officials to make the case for why the South Caucasus matters in an era defined by strategic competition. + +Much of the region’s significance for the United States and Europe stems from its geography. Georgia (including Abkhazia) controls long stretches of the eastern littoral of the Black Sea, currently one of the principal theaters of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Moscow seeks to dominate the Black Sea militarily, which could, in turn, allow it to isolate Ukraine and influence the foreign policy choices of the other littoral states—including NATO allies Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey. As the Ukrainian coastal defense has exacted a toll on the Russian Black Sea Fleet and carried out attacks against military infrastructure on the Crimean Peninsula, Russia has pulled many of its naval assets to the eastern Black Sea. As part of this redeployment, Moscow is building up the Abkhaz port of Ochamchire, where it has announced plans to build a new naval base—a step that risks the expansion of the war in Ukraine to Georgia’s internationally recognized territory. + +The South Caucasus also sits astride a key transit corridor. With Russia and Iran under sanctions, the South Caucasus represents the only viable overland route between Europe and the interior of Eurasia. Should Moscow and Tehran succeed in building a regional condominium in the South Caucasus, they would be able to further isolate Central Asia from Western influence. They would also be able to build up new transit infrastructure—roads, railways, as well as “soft” infrastructure—to deepen bilateral cooperation and more effectively evade international sanctions. The exclusion of Western influence from the South Caucasus would be an important contribution to Moscow’s aspiration, supported by Tehran and other authoritarian revisionist powers, to build up an illiberal regional order in Eurasia, apart from and at odds with Euro-Atlantic structures. Such a regional condominium would further marginalize the United States and its allies, allowing Russia (potentially along with Iran and Turkey) to impose its own destabilizing solutions on the festering conflicts in Georgia and between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It would also have negative implications for democratic rule in both Armenia and Georgia, where Russia has arrayed itself on the side of illiberal forces challenging the democratic gains of the past 15 years. + +For much of the 1990s and 2000s, U.S. and European governments worked with the private sector as well as their counterparts in the South Caucasus (mainly Azerbaijan and Georgia) to develop projects like the European Union’s Transit Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA), the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, and the South Caucasus (Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, BTE) gas pipeline. The role of Western companies and support from Western governments gave the United States and Europe a stake in the stability and independence of the South Caucasus states. Projects like BTC and BTE also allowed Azerbaijan and Georgia to reduce their economic dependence on Russia, in turn enhancing their strategic autonomy and allowing them to deepen cooperation with the Euro-Atlantic community. Armenia, which was excluded from these projects because of the closure of its borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey, had little choice but to remain deeply dependent on Moscow. In 2018, Brussels launched a new EU-Asia Connectivity Strategy emphasizing “sustainable, comprehensive, and rules-based connectivity” across the transportation, energy, digital, and people-to-people sectors. + +The economic and strategic benefits of such projects, however, were uneven. TRACECA never fulfilled its founders’ ambitions, as some states remained wary of what they perceived to be an EU-driven initiative. Due to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, transit investment, including through the European Union’s Eastern Partnership, did not connect Armenia to Azerbaijan and Georgia. Meanwhile, the volumes of oil and gas available from the Caspian Basin supplemented, but were never expected to replace, European imports from the Middle East and Russia. Though China’s 2013 announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) renewed attention on east-west transit, wariness of Beijing’s aims in Western capitals, along with China’s more cautious approach to investment and slowing growth, have tempered expectations. The EU-Asia Connectivity Strategy remains short on funding. + +Despite such challenges, the salience of east-west connectivity, and of the states in the South Caucasus, will only increase. While the bulk of EU-China trade is seaborne, overland transit increased markedly in the years leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Much of this growth occurred along the so-called Northern Corridor connecting China to Europe across Russia. While this route is more direct and utilizes existing infrastructure, sanctions and the broader effort to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russia have made it a less reliable option. Trade volumes along the Northern Corridor plummeted by half in 2023 and are unlikely to recover with Russia under sanctions and the European Union seeking to decouple economically from Russia. + +With the fading of the Northern Corridor, the main overland route from Europe to the Caspian Basin and beyond runs through the South Caucasus along the Middle Corridor, which encompasses a series of transit projects linking manufacturing hubs in China to markets in Europe. First proposed by Kazakhstan in 2013, the Middle Corridor remains for now more concept than reality. Regional states are nevertheless taking concrete steps to build it out, particularly through the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, a partnership between transport and logistics operators in Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Turkey, and Ukraine. For now, the bulk of this trade is intraregional rather than transcontinental. Nevertheless, it is recasting Eurasia’s economic and strategic geography, helping consolidate a stronger regional identity not tethered to the Soviet or imperial pasts. Promoting this development and the infrastructure underpinning it should be a key pillar of U.S. (and European) policy in the South Caucasus as well as Central Asia. + + +### Great Power Competition in the South Caucasus + +Even as the salience of the South Caucasus as a transit node is growing, regional (and global) geopolitics is becoming more multipolar. If strategic competition in the 1990s and 2000s implied a tug-of-war between Russian and Western concepts of regional order, all three South Caucasus states now prioritize a kind of multi-vector foreign policy that enhances their freedom of maneuver and insulates them from excessive dependence on any one partner. Each, moreover, effects that multi-vector approach in its own way. This divergence represents a departure from hopes for increasing cooperation between all three South Caucasus states and the Euro-Atlantic West in the first two-plus decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union. + +#### Russia + +Although Russian influence in the South Caucasus has declined in recent years, Moscow still regards the region as a strategic priority. Today, Moscow and Washington (together with Brussels) each seek to exclude the other from resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, while their political rivalry inside Georgia has become more zero sum. While Moscow had long sought to manipulate the region’s multiple conflicts to position itself as the key power broker, the war in Ukraine and the fall of the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) to Azerbaijan have eroded Russia’s ability to employ hard power in the region. Instead, Moscow is now prioritizing geoeconomic tools while pursuing greater alignment with Azerbaijan (though Baku views Turkey as its main strategic partner). It is also trying to hold onto its remaining political and economic levers in Armenia, though Yerevan increasingly sees it as an untrustworthy partner. Once nearly frozen, relations with Georgia are now improving as Moscow is enhancing its influence through ties with oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili and his ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, which held onto power after a disputed election in October 2024. Accusations of electoral fraud have triggered massive protests, deepening Georgia’s political uncertainty and further imperiling its ties with Western states and institutions. Bringing Georgia more fully under its influence would allow Moscow to keep Armenia dependent and limit Western influence there as well. Russia is, meanwhile, making common cause with Turkey and Iran to pursue a kind of regional condominium in the 3+3 format. With Western sanctions likely to target the Russian economy for the foreseeable future, Moscow is looking to the South Caucasus and neighboring states as routes for evading sanctions and to create new outlets to global markets. + +Starting with the Second Karabakh War, Baku’s decision to restore its sovereignty over Armenian-controlled Karabakh by force challenged Russia’s longtime policy of managing the conflict to maintain leverage over both belligerents. Unwilling to provoke a conflict with Azerbaijan (and its ally, Turkey), Russia instead adopted a conscious policy of tilting toward Baku—whose offensive against the NKR provided proof that post-Soviet ethnoterritorial conflicts could be resolved militarily. The new understanding between Baku and Moscow was cemented by the signing of a Declaration on Allied Cooperation on February 22, 2022, just two days before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that committed the two sides to “striving to raise bilateral relations to a qualitatively new, allied level … to enable the strengthening of regional and international security and stability.” + +While Armenia remains a nominal Russian ally thanks to its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and a Russian military presence, the government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has accused Russia of failing to live up to its commitments during or after the Second Karabakh War. Yerevan has subsequently prioritized diversifying its international partnerships and accelerating integration with Euro-Atlantic institutions. Moscow still retains significant leverage, however. Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, and Russia is Armenia’s largest trade partner by orders of magnitude. Russian Railways owns Armenia’s rail lines, while nuclear monopoly Rosatom controls the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant. Russia also provides the bulk of Armenia’s gas. An additional source of concern is Russia’s role in the protest movement led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian that has emerged to oppose Pashinyan’s efforts at a peace deal with Azerbaijan. Armenian analysts also perceive Russian influence operating through the Armenian Apostolic Church, the media, and online influencers, among other channels. + +In Georgia, Moscow pursues a dual-track strategy of “land capture and state capture” designed to create points of leverage over the ruling elite and, should that fail, to continue chipping away at Georgia’s territorial integrity. While the ruling GD party has prioritized détente with Russia, public opinion limits its ability to shift Georgia’s foreign policy axis—even if creeping autocracy and state capture also damage relations with the United States and European Union. In addition to cultivating the self-interest of the GD elite, the Kremlin leverages deep-seated fear of conflict and the social conservatism of many Georgians to spark discontent over Tbilisi’s commitment to Western integration. The Georgian Orthodox Church maintains close ties to its Russian counterpart and emphasizes a similar narrative about Western decadence. Leaked e-mails also show Russian financing for the far-right Alliance of Patriots. Russia’s military presence in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia/Tskhinvali also allows it to hold the remainder of Georgian territory at risk and provides a foundation for its policy of “borderization”—that is, gradually advancing the line of contact between occupied and unoccupied territory. + +Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine both exacerbated tensions with the West and bolstered the importance of the South Caucasus for Russian efforts to insulate itself from sanctions and craft a new regional order. Within this new paradigm, Azerbaijan’s location astride the lines of communication connecting Russia and Iran became increasingly important. In the short run, Russia needs access to Azerbaijan to bypass sanctions; over the longer term, it aims to enhance the transit potential of the so-called International North-South Transit Corridor (INSTC) to Iran and the Indian Ocean as an alternative to the Western-backed Middle Corridor. More broadly, Moscow seeks to build a new regional order for the South Caucasus that empowers local actors to manage disputes in ways that accord with Russian interests, while walling off the region from Western influence. To varying degrees, it shares this aspiration with Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkey. Having lost its standing as the main power broker in the South Caucasus, Moscow seeks to use the region in its larger strategy of challenging Western influence and undermining Western international institutions. + +#### China + +China is increasingly active in the region as well, primarily through promises of infrastructure investment in the context of the BRI. China is Georgia’s fourth-largest trading partner and Azerbaijan’s second-largest source of imports (after Turkey). Beijing has also been on something of a diplomatic offensive in the South Caucasus. Cooperation on transit and converging approaches to global order have left China de facto aligned with Azerbaijan in its still-unresolved conflict with Armenia, though Beijing hopes that a peace deal will open new investment opportunities across the region. It is also investing in Georgia’s critical infrastructure, with an eye to expanding trade along the Middle Corridor. + +![image02](https://i.imgur.com/ZaxLubz.png) +_▲ __Figure 2: Road and Rail Link from Turkey to Azerbaijan (“Zangezur Corridor”).__ Source: CSIS Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program._ + +China has long had close ties with Azerbaijan, which is “positioning itself as a vital node” on the BRI and cultivating Chinese investment in sectors beyond oil and gas. Beijing, in turn, appreciates Baku’s multi-vector foreign policy and commitment to building strategic infrastructure projects, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway and the Baku International Sea Port, that enhance connectivity with Europe. Beijing also supports the creation of the “Zangezur Corridor”—a dedicated road and rail link from Turkey across Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave and Armenia’s southern Syunik region to “mainland” Azerbaijan—despite Armenian opposition and concern that the corridor would compromise its sovereignty—as well as the Russian-backed INSTC. China and Azerbaijan signed a strategic partnership on the sidelines of the July 2024 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, prioritizing cooperation on trade and transit while highlighting support for “equal and orderly global multipolarity, and universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and [the promotion of ] world peace, stability and development.” Soon thereafter, Azerbaijan applied to become both a full SCO member and a member of BRICS. Baku, meanwhile, is also cooperating with Beijing on the redevelopment of Karabakh, including partnering with the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei to introduce its “smart city” technology in the liberated areas. + +It would also like more Chinese investment in green energy and to become a regional hub for the manufacture of Chinese electric vehicles. + +Beijing and Tbilisi signed a free trade agreement in 2018 and a strategic partnership agreement in August 2023 during then–Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili’s visit to China. The two sides agreed to “facilitate mutual investment and trade and promote cooperation in the areas of transportation” and promised that Beijing “will study the provisions of preferential loans for Georgia’s implementation of social and infrastructure projects.” In May 2024, Tbilisi announced that a Chinese-led consortium had won the tender to construct the Anaklia deep sea port—four years after it canceled a deal with a U.S.-Georgian consortium (and arrested the Georgian partners on money laundering charges that some observers believe were politically motivated). + +#### Turkey + +Turkey’s emergence as a major player in the South Caucasus has been one of the most significant factors reshaping regional geopolitics. While Azerbaijan—which commentators in both countries refer to as “one nation, two states”—remains the centerpiece of Turkey’s South Caucasus strategy, Ankara views the entire region as part of its strategic geography. In part, this view is the product of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) aspiration to position Turkey as a strategically autonomous middle power. It is also a longer-term response to the Soviet collapse, which created new opportunities to connect with Turkic and post-Ottoman regions across Eurasia. + +While Ankara supported Baku during and after the First Karabakh War, recent years have seen a dramatic expansion of the Azerbaijan-Turkey axis, along with Turkey’s more active participation in regional affairs. Turkish support was instrumental in Azerbaijan’s victory in the Second Karabakh War, with Ankara providing not only modern weapons (including uncrewed aerial vehicles), but also training, operational and strategic command of Azerbaijani forces, as well as mercenaries from Syria. Particularly important were three decades of Turkish training that helped modernize and professionalize the Azerbaijani armed forces, helping create a post-Soviet military culture that adheres in many ways to NATO standards. Outside the military sphere, Turkey is building a pipeline to bring gas to Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave, which currently depends on gas piped from Iran. Completion of this project could reduce Iranian leverage over Nakhchivan (and therefore Baku). If extended to Armenia and “mainland” Azerbaijan, it could also help the region’s energy markets diversify and function as a pillar of the emerging Middle Corridor. + +Relations between Turkey and Armenia have been officially frozen since Armenian forces captured the Azerbaijani city of Kelbajar in 1993, but the two sides are laying the foundation to open the border and normalize ties in the event of a peace deal between Yerevan and Baku. Ankara strongly supports Armenia-Azerbaijan peace, which would benefit its own economy and enhance its strategic leverage, but is wary of causing tensions in its relationship with Baku. Despite tensions over Turkish influence in the port of Batumi (subject at times to Ottoman control and with a significant Muslim population), Georgia has looked to Turkey for security assistance ever since the 2008 war with Russia. Tbilisi’s interest in security cooperation with Ankara has only grown as Georgia’s relationships with the United States and the European Union face increasing headwinds. + +Turkey is also motivated by a growing interest in connectivity with the Caspian Basin and Central Asia. Ankara and Baku are both looking to the Central Asian states to develop the Middle Corridor and—potentially—for security partnerships echoing the Turkey-Azerbaijan alliance. Through the increasingly ambitious Organization for Turkic States (OTS) and bilaterally, Turkey and Azerbaijan alike see an opportunity to profit from Russia’s distraction with Ukraine by helping the Central Asian states develop new outlets to global markets and enhance their own strategic autonomy. One of Ankara’s main objectives in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is the establishment of something like the “Zangezur Corridor,” which would allow for a dramatic expansion of east-west transit and help connect Central Asia to markets in Europe through the South Caucasus. Though Turkey is amenable to the idea of a South Caucasus regional condominium with Russia and Iran, it remains a largely independent actor with deep ties to the West. Leveraging those ties as well as Turkey’s growing interest in Eurasia should be a fundamental component of U.S. and European strategy: if EU and NATO expansion to the region is a bridge too far, a more robust and balanced Turkish presence could be one of the most effective bulwarks against Russia’s imperial resurgence. + +#### Iran + +While U.S. officials accuse Iran of behaving as “more of a revolutionary movement than a country,” its approach to the South Caucasus mostly remains grounded in considerations of raison d’état. Wary of the centripetal attraction that Azerbaijan’s secular culture could exert on its own large Azeri population, Tehran sided with Armenia during the First Karabakh War and has remained one of Yerevan’s major partners ever since. The Islamic Republic stood by its strategic partnership with Armenia during and after the Second Karabakh War, with state-run media blaming Azerbaijan—along with Turkey and Israel—for starting the war. Iranian officials emphasize that any forcible change to borders in the Caucasus is a “red line” that would position hostile forces on the Iranian-Armenian border, threaten connectivity with Russia, and potentially leave Iran wedged between hostile blocs to the south (the Gulf states and Israel) and the north (Azerbaijan and Turkey). + +Alarmed by the scope and scale of Baku’s triumph in the Second Karabakh War and the prospect of a stronger Turkish military presence in the South Caucasus, Tehran has more recently stepped up its gray zone activities targeting Azerbaijan—while also dangling carrots, including joint naval exercises in the Caspian Sea. Tehran has also explored deepening transit cooperation with Baku—a possibility Azerbaijan uses as leverage to encourage Armenia to give in on the issue of transit across Syunik. Such cooperation would create a building block for the north-south transit scheme that Moscow is seeking—though Iran’s (and Azerbaijan’s) commitment to making the necessary investments remains questionable. Since 2020, Tehran has prioritized reopening two rail lines from the Iranian city of Jolfa ( Julfa) to Nakhchivan, one of which could then extend to Yerevan and Tbilisi, and the other to Russia. For Azerbaijan, the prospect of restoring these lines could not only enhance connectivity to Nakhchivan, but also provide an alternative to the “Zangezur Corridor” in the event Baku and Yerevan cannot find a mutually acceptable framework for administering the route. It would also contribute to Azerbaijan’s strategy of building both north-south and east-west connectivity as part of its multi-vector foreign policy. + + +### Perspectives from the Region + +More so than in earlier eras, the states in the South Caucasus themselves have agency and the ability to act on their own preferences. Governments and people in the region are wary of being embroiled in the major powers’ conflicts. As a senior Azerbaijani official bluntly put it, “we hate the idea” of great power competition and would prefer to have productive relations with Russia, the United States, Europe, Turkey, and others all at once. This sentiment is shared, albeit with varying shades of emphasis, in Tbilisi and Yerevan as well. + +In crafting a more strategic approach to the region, the United States and its allies will have to recognize that reality. They cannot demand exclusivity from states deeply bound by history, culture, trade, and other links to their larger neighbors and with governments committed to the idea of a multi-vector foreign policy, something they share with many other states in Eurasia—and beyond. Because of proximity and economic ties, the South Caucasus will likely be a higher priority for Europe than for the United States. With China as the “pacing challenge” that the United States faces over the next decade, there is general agreement in Washington about the need for allies and partners to take on more of the responsibility for their own security. In the South Caucasus, that means the United States will have to lean more on the Europeans and on Turkey to promote regional peace, stability, and openness. + +#### Azerbaijan + +Azerbaijan has been the most active practitioner of this new multi-vector diplomacy. More explicitly than its neighbors, Azerbaijan makes clear that it does not want to take sides in the emerging era of great power competition. Instead, Baku aspires to maintain cooperative engagement across the emerging geopolitical and ideological divides in world politics, insulate itself from both instability in the region and Western democratic ideas, and maximize its global leverage. President Aliyev emphasizes his country’s self-sufficiency and commitment to the principles of “mutual respect, good relations, and non-interference” while rejecting “attempts by some countries or groups to monopolize the voice of the international community.” This aspiration rests on Azerbaijan’s increased self-confidence, born of its crushing victory in the Second Karabakh War. Facilitated by Azerbaijan’s strategic alliance with Turkey (and military assistance from Israel), that triumph allowed Baku to restore control over the former NKR and the surrounding regions occupied by Armenia in the early 1990s. Baku’s success restoring its territorial integrity without Russian help sharply diminished Russian leverage; unlike Armenia and Georgia, Azerbaijan (strongly backed by Turkey) can now engage Moscow on something approaching an equal footing. + +While Azerbaijan’s immediate focus remains on the South Caucasus, Baku has also emphasized raising its global profile as a middle power. Baku expended significant diplomatic capital to secure the right to host the UN Climate Change Conference’s 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) in November 2024 and is pursuing membership in emerging global governance platforms like BRICS. Beyond the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan maintains a close partnership with Israel. While this relationship grew out of a shared concern about Iranian intentions, it has not stopped Azerbaijan from pursuing pragmatic cooperation with Tehran on transit. The signing of a strategic partnership agreement with China in July 2024 suggests the increased priority Baku assigns to Beijing as well. Azerbaijan recognizes that cooperation with China will be critical for its aspiration to leverage its potential as a transit corridor as it seeks to reduce its dependence on hydrocarbons. At times, Baku’s global aspirations are a source of instability. Officials in Paris accused Azerbaijan (and Russia) of having a hand in the anti-French demonstrations that broke out in the Pacific territory of New Caledonia in the spring of 2024—presumably in response to France’s longstanding support for Armenia and the signing of a weapons deal with Yerevan several weeks earlier. + +Azerbaijan’s outlook is shaped by its own experience with the protracted Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as well as Russia’s invasions of Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014 and 2022). The lesson Azerbaijan took from these conflicts is that alignment with the West will not deter Moscow from using force to imperil smaller countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that at the end of the day, Azerbaijan can only rely on itself (and Turkey) to secure its interests. Rather than remain an object of contention between Russia and the West, Baku seeks to position itself as a self-interested, self-sufficient player. As one senior Azerbaijani official put it, “instead of making trouble, we’re inviting people to make money” by positioning Baku as an impartial actor in the region’s emerging transit and energy nexus. At least in the short term, this strategy has created difficulties in Azerbaijan’s relations with the United States and its allies. So, too, has the reintegration of Karabakh and the ensuing flight of the Karabakh Armenian population, not to mention Azerbaijan’s increasingly authoritarian political model at a time when Armenia seeks to emphasize its democratic bona fides. + +U.S. frustration notwithstanding, Azerbaijani officials emphasize that Baku remains “Western-oriented,” especially in terms of its economic and energy policy. Azerbaijan’s National Security Concept, adopted in 2007, emphasizes “integration into the Euro-Atlantic area as the strategic choice.” Today, however, officials and analysts acknowledge that Baku is careful in discussing Euro-Atlantic integration, not disavowing it in principle, but in practice following a policy of nonalignment that prioritizes relations with Turkey. Baku remains an important partner in the energy sphere, providing the gas that fills the pipelines comprising the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) between the Caspian Sea and Europe. The planned expansion of the SGC would see Azerbaijani gas reach consumers in the Western Balkans, helping the region reduce its dependence on Russia. Azerbaijan also positions itself as a keystone state of the Middle Corridor, pointing to the dramatic expansion of freight traffic along its rail system since the start of the war in Ukraine. In contrast to Armenia and Georgia, however, Azerbaijan remains a strategic partner of Russia, secured in part through assurances that it is not actively pursuing Euro-Atlantic integration (nor is Azerbaijan seeking membership in the Eurasian Economic Union). + +Baku’s narrative emphasizes that the West (including the United States) exhibits a systemic pro-Armenian bias. Azerbaijan complains that the United States and the European Union have not been evenhanded in their treatment of the country—pointing at the West’s lukewarm support for the principle of territorial integrity with respect to Karabakh, public criticism of Azerbaijan’s human rights record, and what it sees as the West’s failure to condemn the killing of Azerbaijani civilians during the Second Karabakh War. Congressional actions like the Armenian Protection Act, adopted by the U.S. Senate in late 2023 to block all U.S. military assistance, feed this narrative as well. As in many other authoritarian states, Azerbaijan’s government perceives U.S. democracy support as a form of hostile interference in its internal affairs and rejects the framing of its conflict with Armenia in terms of autocracy versus democracy. Coupled with perceptions of declining U.S. influence in the region, this ideological dimension has been instrumental in Baku’s effort to shore up relations with Moscow. Meanwhile, U.S. officials accuse Baku of systematically targeting alumni of U.S.-supported exchanges and recipients of U.S. grants as part of a campaign to bolster Aliyev’s rule. They likewise complain that, despite Baku’s invitation to “make money,” in practice it discriminates against U.S. and European firms. + +As relations with the United States and Europe have cooled, Aliyev’s government has deepened its alliance relationship with Turkey. This partnership dates to the 1990s, when then-President Heydar Aliyev, the current president’s father, first spoke of Azerbaijan and Turkey as “one nation, two states.” Energy provided the foundation for this partnership, with Turkish leaders looking to Azerbaijan to diversify oil and gas supplies and establish Turkey’s role as an energy hub for Europe. Over time, cooperation expanded to new areas, including security. One of the main fruits of Baku’s participation in NATO’s Partnership for Peace, organized around a 2004 Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), has been to create a vehicle for military-strategic engagement with Turkey. + +Turkish support has thoroughly transformed Azerbaijan’s Soviet-legacy military culture, slashed corruption, and promoted NATO interoperability. Turkey was instrumental at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels in enabling Baku’s victory in the Second Karabakh War, including through the deployment of Turkish advisers on the ground and in the Ministry of Defense. In June 2021, Azerbaijan and Turkey adopted the Shusha Declaration (symbolically signed in one of the regions the two countries’ forces had liberated the year before), committing to “coordinating their foreign policies” and providing that “if … there is a threat or an act of aggression from a third state or states … the parties will hold joint consultations and … [seek to] eliminate this threat or acts of aggression.” One well-informed Azerbaijani analyst described these commitments as akin to NATO’s Article V. + +This partnership with Turkey goes beyond the military sphere. Azerbaijan is a major investor in the Turkish economy and a source of energy—which in turn gives Baku significant leverage in Ankara. At the regional level, Azerbaijan is an active participant in the OTS, an increasingly ambitious grouping seeking cooperation on trade, transit, and—potentially—military affairs among Turkey, Azerbaijan, and the Turkic-majority Central Asian states. Growing attention to the OTS coincides with expanding regional energy cooperation, including a 2021 Azerbaijan-Iran-Turkmenistan gas swap deal and the resolution of longstanding disputes between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan over Caspian energy fields. + +The Azerbaijani-Turkish alliance also allows Baku to engage Moscow from a position of strength—especially because Moscow prefers Turkey’s presence in the region to that of the United States or the European Union. Officials in Baku contrast their own pragmatic approach to Russia with what they portray as the needlessly antagonistic posture of Tbilisi and Yerevan. Pragmatic cooperation with Moscow is also easier for Azerbaijan in part because its authoritarian political system does not pose an ideological challenge for the Kremlin the way that the post–Rose Revolution (Georgia) and post–Velvet Revolution (Armenia) governments do. While Armenia and Georgia see a Russia weakened by its misadventure in Ukraine as dangerous and unpredictable, Azerbaijan perceives an opportunity—both because Russia is now distracted and less capable of projecting military power in the South Caucasus, and because Moscow now has a greater need for Azerbaijan and its neighbors to develop new trade and transit routes to compensate for the impact of sanctions and the loss of the European energy market. Exports of Russian oil and gas through Azerbaijan increased substantially following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which cost Moscow much of its European market. + +Meanwhile, Aliyev has taken advantage of the new dispensation to curtail points of Russian influence inside Azerbaijan. Aliyev replaced pro-Russian officials, including former Presidential Administration head Ramiz Mehdiyev, with figures closely aligned with Ankara, temporarily blocked Russian media outlets, and hit back at perceived efforts to stir separatist sentiments among Azerbaijan’s Avar and Lezgin minorities. While opening itself to Russian investment, Baku has resisted pressure to align itself with or join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, though Aliyev has suggested that could change if it would be in Azerbaijan’s interest to do so. + +One of Russia’s remaining levers is the provision contained in the 2020 ceasefire for Russian forces to oversee the “Zangezur Corridor.” Both Russia and Azerbaijan want to see this corridor established: Azerbaijan because it would allow for direct connectivity to Nakhchivan (and thence to Turkey), and Russia because it would provide an alternative to the idea of a Western-controlled Middle Corridor. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan is at best ambivalent about the idea of Russian personnel deploying along the route. Baku’s agreement to drop the “Zangezur Corridor” issue as a precondition for signing a peace deal with Yerevan suggests a degree of flexibility in this respect. + +Maintaining a positive relationship with Moscow also gives Azerbaijan cover to work with the West on high-priority issues, including energy cooperation and support for Ukraine. Azerbaijan currently supplies gas to 10 European states, and, in July 2022, signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Union to boost oil and gas exports, which expansion of the SGC would facilitate. Baku is now working with Georgia, Romania, and Hungary on a cable under the Black Sea to bring electricity to Europe; the importance of this route could grow with the implementation of Aliyev’s vision for expanding green energy production. + +Notwithstanding its strategic partnership with Russia and resistance to joining Western sanctions, Azerbaijan also helps enable Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression—an aspiration that lines up with Baku’s own longtime emphasis on territorial integrity. About a month before the Russian invasion, Aliyev traveled to Kyiv, where he and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy adopted a joint declaration affirming their “commitment to provide mutual support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our countries within internationally recognized borders.” Azerbaijan has provided humanitarian assistance throughout the conflict, including energy to support medical services and reconstruction assistance. Beginning in early 2023, Russian officials accused Baku of sending weapons to the Ukrainian military. Though Aliyev eventually denied that Azerbaijan was providing lethal military assistance, Azerbaijani weapons (including mortars, ammunition, and aerial bombs) have wound up in Ukrainian hands. Baku has also been in talks to provide Russian gas to Ukraine through its own transit infrastructure once Kyiv’s deal with Russian Gazprom expires at the end of 2024. Aliyev has expressed a willingness to help mediate an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, though noting that Azerbaijan has never taken the lead in such efforts. + +Despite Azerbaijan’s military successes, the lingering conflict with Armenia remains a threat to regional stability and the long-term prosperity of the entire South Caucasus. With the full reintegration of Karabakh (without its ethnic Armenian population), Azerbaijan now faces the temptation to continue leveraging its military superiority to extract further concessions even if—as many Armenians fear—doing so leads to a new war that could draw in outside actors and threaten Armenia’s very existence as a state. This temptation is all the greater because militant nationalism has become an effective tool for political legitimation for Aliyev. While Baku celebrates the restoration of its territorial integrity after three decades, its occupation of some Armenian border villages, the mass displacement of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian community, and the erasure of Armenian cultural heritage are all creating new layers of resentment. Azerbaijan recognizes that a durable peace is also in its own interest, but, compared to Armenia, lacks a sense of urgency to strike a deal. + +According to Azerbaijani officials, the biggest remaining obstacle to a framework agreement is the reference to Armenia’s 1990 declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in the preamble to its constitution. Baku sees this reference as problematic because the declaration of independence speaks of the “Reunification of the Armenian SSR and the Mountainous Region of [i.e., Nagorno] Karabakh.” While Pashinyan has accepted the principle of Azerbaijani sovereignty over the territory of the Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), Azerbaijani officials and analysts worry that his decision may not be binding on a future Armenian leader—or the Armenian Supreme Court. Even if such concerns seem exaggerated given the departure of the Karabakh Armenian population, Baku wants to leave nothing to chance, especially since Pashinyan’s opponents continue using the Karabakh issue to score political points. + +One encouraging aspect of the peace negotiations is the ability of Baku and Yerevan to make progress without outside mediators. Prior to 2020, Russia had been the primary go-between for Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations, with the United States and France also involved as co-chairs (with Moscow) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Minsk Group. Since then, the combination of Azerbaijan’s military triumph and Russia’s pullback from the South Caucasus has created a fundamentally new reality. Even as Moscow continues seeking to insert itself into the negotiations, both Baku and Yerevan have expressed a preference for meeting bilaterally. Diplomats from both the United States and the European Union have helped facilitate talks (much to Moscow’s chagrin) but have been content to allow Baku and Yerevan to hammer out the outlines of an agreement on their own. On the one hand, that approach has allowed the two sides to build up trust; on the other, it risks allowing talks to stretch on interminably if Baku is not, in fact, serious about reaching a final agreement. Russia also remains in the mix. If Washington, Paris, and Brussels fail to make a convincing case that they are committed to hammering out a framework agreement, it might be easier for Moscow to convince both Baku and Yerevan that its negotiating platform is more likely to bring results. + +#### Armenia + +Armenia’s approach to the South Caucasus and the world has undergone significant change since the Velvet Revolution of 2018 that brought Pashinyan’s government to power. While Pashinyan initially maintained a policy of “complementarism”—maintaining traditionally close ties with Russia while deepening Armenia’s cooperation with the Euro-Atlantic West—defeat in the Second Karabakh War and the effective collapse of relations between Moscow and the West over Ukraine have left Yerevan in an awkward situation. These developments forced Yerevan to acknowledge that Azerbaijan (with Turkey) had unassailable military superiority and that membership in the CSTO and nominal alliance with Russia were of little practical value. With limited options, Pashinyan has prioritized negotiating a peace deal with Azerbaijan and buying time for Armenia to recover from its twin defeats in 2020 and 2023. Seeking economic, political, and military support from the West is a key pillar of this strategy, but expectations need to be managed. Although Pashinyan remains popular, he faces mounting pressure at home and likely a limited window of opportunity to reach a deal with Baku. + +With few other options available, Yerevan has since 2020 prioritized gaining support from the United States and other Western powers. With Georgia’s democratic experiment tottering, Armenia has attempted to position itself as the most democratic and pro-Western state in the South Caucasus. While this approach reflects genuine change in Armenian society and politics since the Velvet Revolution, it is also a strategic calculation to offset what Yerevan sees as Russia’s betrayal and the continued military threat posed by Azerbaijan. With U.S. and European assistance, Yerevan is seeking to trim Russian influence without provoking a violent response from the Kremlin. It is meanwhile also pursuing partnerships with other actors, leaning into its longstanding relationship with Iran and purchasing weapons from traditional ally France as well as from India, Greece, Cyprus, and others. Though relations with Tbilisi are good, Georgia’s political uncertainty also poses risks, especially since Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey remain closed, and it lacks other outlets to global markets (apart from Iran) should Georgia fall under Russian control. + +Throughout its post-Soviet independence, Armenia’s strategic perspective has been shaped by recognition of the country’s vulnerability. Victory in the First Karabakh War—especially Armenia’s occupation of seven Azerbaijani districts outside of the Soviet-era NKAO—fed Armenian hubris but exacerbated the country’s insecurity by stoking resentment in Azerbaijan and creating a dangerously unstable regional order. Until 2020, Yerevan’s only option was to rely on Russian protection at the cost of accepting limits on its sovereignty. Russia has maintained a military presence in Armenia (centered at the 102nd Military Base in Gyumri) since the Soviet collapse. Under the terms of a 1997 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, border guards from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) were assigned to patrol Armenia’s land borders with Turkey and Iran, along with Yerevan’s Zvartnots International Airport. The 1997 treaty also contained a mutual defense clause, later supplemented by Armenia’s membership in the CSTO, whose charter commits members to “joint measures … for the creation of a practical system of collective security that ensures collective defense in the event of threats to security, stability, territorial integrity [or] sovereignty.” In exchange, Armenia was able to purchase Russian weapons at subsidized prices—a dubious benefit since Moscow was also selling (more advanced) weapons to Azerbaijan at market prices. + +![image03](https://i.imgur.com/j6KUs4z.png) +_▲ __Armenian gunner.__ Photo: Bumble Dee/Adobe Stock._ + +Yerevan expected that Moscow and the other CSTO members would help deter an Azerbaijani attack and—if necessary—intervene to repel it. During the Second Karabakh War, however, the Kremlin made clear that the CSTO mutual defense provisions did not cover Nagorno-Karabakh, while claiming it had “completely fulfilled all of its multilateral and bilateral obligations [to Armenia], including in the realm of military-technical cooperation.” Moscow was instrumental in ending the fighting and, with the deployment of its peacekeeping contingent, agreed to take on the obligation of protecting the ethnic Armenian population in what remained of the NKR. However, the peacekeepers’ failure to clear the Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin Corridor between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh opened the door to Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive to retake the NKR in September 2023 and the ensuing displacement of the region’s Armenian population. + +Many Armenian observers now see the November 2020 ceasefire as the “last gasp” of Russia’s role as a security broker for the South Caucasus. The failure of that ceasefire and the ensuing Azerbaijani reconquest of Karabakh cemented a long-brewing mistrust of Russia. It also catalyzed support for seeking closer ties with the United States and Europe, emphasizing Armenia’s post-2018 democratic breakthrough and prioritizing security cooperation to hedge against the possibility of a renewed war with Azerbaijan. Part of that strategy entails chipping away at sources of Russian influence. Since the fall of Karabakh, Yerevan has joined the International Criminal Court (whose prosecutors have charged Russian president Vladimir Putin with war crimes) and secured the removal of Russian border guards from Zvartnots Airport and the border with Iran. It has also begun taking significant steps in the security realm, including beginning to build up a new air defense system without Russian involvement. Official figures indicate that purchases of military equipment from Russia plummeted from 96 percent before 2020 to less than 10 percent today. + +Critics of Pashinyan argue that the pivot away from Russia is more demonstrative than real and suggest that Yerevan is attempting to instrumentalize the threat from Russia to secure support from Western states. Like several other states in Eurasia and beyond, Armenia plays an important role in Russia’s efforts to evade sanctions. Armenia-Russia trade has increased from around $2.5 billion in 2022 to $10 billion in 2024; meanwhile, trade between Armenia and the United Arab Emirates has increased by more than 15,000 percent—presumably the bulk of this growth represents the illegal transfer of sanctioned items to Russia. Yerevan has been cautious, moreover, about not crossing perceived Russian red lines. Though Pashinyan announced that Armenia would withdraw from the CSTO, it has in fact only “frozen” membership. While Armenia boycotts CSTO meetings, it hosted the most recent Eurasian Economic Union summit in fall 2024. Negotiations on an updated Armenia-NATO Individually Tailored Partnership Program to replace the existing IPAP were halted—though local observers disagree over the cause. As one prominent opponent of the Armenian prime minister noted, the Kremlin has never treated or spoken of Pashinyan in terms similar to those it reserves for Zelenskyy or former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, pointing out that public criticism of Pashinyan never comes from Putin himself, but rather from mouthpieces like Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mariya Zakharova. + +Whatever the nature of its approach to Moscow, Yerevan has in recent years prioritized expanding and further institutionalizing the Western presence both inside Armenia and in the wider South Caucasus. Despite the halting of talks on replacing the IPAP, Armenian officials emphasize that cooperation with NATO remains a “priority direction.” The U.S. held the bilateral Eagle Partner military exercises with Armenia in both 2023 and 2024. Armenia also seeks to further institutionalize relations with the European Union in the framework of the November 2017 Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement—a compromise agreed when Armenia declined under Russian pressure to sign an association agreement with the European Union. Yerevan invited EU monitors to observe compliance with the 2020 ceasefire, and in 2023 welcomed an unarmed EU mission (the EU Mission in Armenia, EUMA) to “contribute to human security in conflict-affected areas in Armenia and contribute to build confidence between Armenia and Azerbaijan.” + +While Baku (and Moscow) object to the EUMA’s presence, Armenian observers regard its deployment along the border with Azerbaijan as a strategic victory that enables trilateral Armenia-EU-U.S. talks and therefore helps bring in the “invisible hand” of Washington. Brussels and Yerevan then agreed on a new partnership agenda “establishing more ambitious joint priorities for cooperation across all dimensions” in February 2024 and agreed to open visa liberalization talks a few months later. Yerevan is now feeling out the response to a potential bid for EU membership. In the meantime, a new resilience and growth plan adopted in early 2024 aims to bolster Armenia’s access to the EU market and reduce its exposure to Russia. Yerevan regards these agreements in part as a mechanism for ensuring Western buy-in for its security. + +France remains the key European power driving the EUMA and is Armenia’s most important partner in Europe. As part of Yerevan’s strategy of reducing its dependence on Russia, it has turned to France and other international partners for security assistance as well. In October 2023, Yerevan and Paris signed an agreement for the sale of French military equipment, including night-vision goggles, air-defense radars, and armored personnel carriers. Paris was also instrumental in efforts to use European Peace Facility funds to improve Armenia’s military readiness. Despite Hungarian opposition that delayed approval, the European Union agreed in July 2024 to spend €10 million on civilian protection, improving Armenia’s logistical capacity, and promoting interoperability. While Azerbaijani (and Russian) commentators criticized these deals, both Armenian and French officials emphasized their defensive nature. Armenia continues seeking additional weapons and equipment from France, including more openly offensive systems it could use to impose costs for further aggression. + +France is not Armenia’s only source of non-Russian military equipment. Armenia is also seeking additional weapons sales from the United States, but officials are frustrated with what they see as Washington’s slow-rolling of purchase requests, especially for air-defense systems that the United States has prioritized for other theaters. In 2022–23, Yerevan signed a series of defense agreements with India amounting to more than $1 billion, including contracts for howitzers, rocket launchers, and air-defense systems. In 2024, India sent its first permanent defense attaché to Yerevan. The alignment between Armenia and India is a consequence in part of Pakistan’s alignment with Azerbaijan and Turkey, but also of New Delhi’s interest in the INSTC and other transit projects in the South Caucasus. Iran, too, is interested in these projects and has continued to support Yerevan despite Pashinyan’s efforts to cultivate ties with the United States and Europe. While Tehran and Yerevan have both denied thinly sourced news reports about Iranian weapons sales, Iran has spoken up for Armenia’s territorial integrity and threatened to intervene militarily in the event Azerbaijan attempts to force open the “Zangezur Corridor.” + +One of the principal benefits for Yerevan of a peace deal with Baku would be to facilitate a resumption of ties with Turkey. Though Ankara appeared willing to seek normalization during the period of 2009–10 “football diplomacy,” it was dissuaded by the backlash from Baku. Today, Turkey has made clear that it will not open its border with Armenia or pursue normalization until the signing of a peace deal. Ankara and Yerevan are nevertheless both taking steps to move quickly once a deal is signed. In 2021, Ankara appointed a special representative for normalization with Armenia. Since then, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pashinyan have met on the margins of major events (most recently, the September 2024 UN General Assembly) and reached an agreement—still unimplemented—to open their mutual border to citizens of third countries. Armenian observers remain frustrated at the pace of negotiations, believing Ankara is on board with Baku’s strategy of extracting maximum concessions before striking a deal. + +The restoration of Armenia-Turkey relations after more than three decades would upend regional geopolitics. It would allow Turkey to play a larger role as a transit state and security provider throughout the South Caucasus. Given Turkey’s importance to the United States and Europe, many in Yerevan also recognize that normalization with Ankara is critical to the larger strategy of seeking closer ties with the West. With Russia’s strategic retreat and the perceived waning of Western influence in Azerbaijan and Georgia, Turkey could emerge as the strongest power in the region. That prospect is a source of anxiety in Yerevan, given the long, complex history of Armenia-Turkey relations, the very close Azerbaijan-Turkey alliance, and Ankara’s openness to something like a regional condominium with Moscow and Tehran. + +Some Armenian analysts and officials nevertheless see a larger Turkish role in the region and within Armenia as a potential hedge in the face of uncertainty about Western commitments and the possibility of a more aggressive Russia. Though Turkey is not exactly a Western state, it is a member of NATO and de jure a candidate for membership in the European Union. Unlike Russia, it would be unlikely to interfere to prevent Armenia or its neighbors from seeking deeper integration with either NATO or the European Union. And while Erdoğan’s government pursues both accommodation with Russia and the creation of a “Turkish axis,” it is not clear that a future Turkish government—especially one headed by the opposition Republican People’s Party—would maintain the same outlook. In addition to resentment over Turkey’s role in the Karabakh conflicts, skeptics of greater reliance on Turkey (including Archbishop Bagrat) worry about Armenia’s potential “vilayetization,” that is, being subsumed into a Turkish sphere of influence. The Karabakh issue also complicates this debate, as figures from the former NKR administration and their supporters oppose ceding greater influence to Ankara, given its role in the conflict and continued support for Azerbaijan. + +Grappling with defeat in the Second Karabakh War, the fall of the NKR (and the flight of its population to Armenia), continued military inferiority, and the stance of both Russia and Turkey, Armenia badly needs an agreement to end the war with Azerbaijan. Unfortunately for Yerevan, the Azerbaijani side is aware of this desperation, which gives Baku an incentive to drag out the process. Pashinyan’s challenge lies in maintaining domestic political cohesion while finding a formula that will get Baku to “yes” and fending off Russian attempts to hijack the peace process for its own ends. Pashinyan has acceded to demands to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over the territory of the former NKR despite opposition from political rivals, former NKR officials, and influential diaspora organizations. Yerevan still worries about the potential for Azerbaijani aggression. Many Armenian observers would like for the United States and its allies to take a tougher line with Baku, above all by making clear that Azerbaijan would face unacceptable consequences for using force against sovereign Armenian territory. + +While Baku has agreed to postpone the issues of ethnic exclaves left over from the Soviet era and the status of the rail and road connections between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan, the latter, in particular, remain obstacles to a lasting peace. Armenia insists that it will not compromise its sovereignty by allowing an extraterritorial transit corridor exempt from Armenian customs and border controls; it is for that reason that Yerevan rejects the term “Zangezur Corridor.” While Baku insists (officially) on fulfilling the terms of the 2020 ceasefire agreement calling for the presence of Russian security forces along the corridor, Yerevan argues that the ceasefire is, in other respects, already a dead letter given Azerbaijan’s offensive to retake Karabakh and the departure of the Russian peacekeepers. Armenian observers point out that Azerbaijan has other options for accessing Nakhchivan, and that the emphasis on the “Zangezur Corridor” is therefore about gaining political advantage or controlling territory. They also suggest that Baku may be carrying water for Moscow (or Ankara) by putting forward unacceptable conditions designed to prevent the conclusion of a final agreement. + +Armenia is now moving ahead with plans to create an alternative transit project on its territory known as the Crossroads of Peace, aiming to supplement existing north-south road networks between Georgia and Iran with new east-west routes, including restoration of the railway between Yeraskh (Armenia) and Horadiz (Azerbaijan). While Yerevan promotes this Crossroads of Peace as an alternative that would obviate the need for the “Zangezur Corridor,” Pashinyan’s announcement was made without consulting the other interested parties in the region. Aliyev termed it a “PR exercise intended to prevent … the Zangezur Corridor.” Even as Baku has agreed to delay the resolution of the transit issue, Azerbaijani officials and analysts are critical, noting that while Armenia is not in a position to develop the Crossroads of Peace proposal on its own, international investors have little interest in a project that lacks buy-in from the wider region. Azerbaijan’s position is effectively that Armenia has a choice of either finding a mutually acceptable formula to implement the “Zangezur Corridor” or risk remaining isolated as the South Caucasus gradually reintegrates. + +With an agreement to postpone the transit issue, the main obstacle to a framework deal appears to be Baku’s insistence that Armenia amend its constitution to break the link with the 1990 Declaration of Independence referring to Armenian sovereignty in Nagorno-Karabakh. Undertaking that kind of constitutional change requires Pashinyan to spend real political capital, especially as Armenia has grown progressively more democratic in recent years (Baku is therefore also demanding a referendum to ratify any constitutional change). Yerevan rejects the idea that an outside power has the right to dictate what can and cannot be in its constitution. Nevertheless, Pashinyan ordered the drafting of a new constitution, making explicit that Armenia nurses no claim to Karabakh. Because Pashinyan set a deadline of December 2026 for completing the constitutional overhaul, Baku will still be able to point to the constitutional issue as an obstacle to reaching a deal for at least another two years. Breaking this impasse will be among the principal tasks faced by international mediators in the interim. Even if the constitutional issue is resolved, Armenian analysts worry that Baku will start imposing new conditions, such as demanding the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group. + +#### Georgia + +Georgia’s trajectory has been equally complex. Officials emphasize that Tbilisi’s priorities remain the restoration of the country’s territorial integrity following the 2008 war with Russia and securing Euro-Atlantic integration—a stated objective since the 2003 Rose Revolution. Under the influence of its chairman, former prime minister and current honorary party chair Bidzina Ivanishvili, the GD has, however, overseen a process of state capture that has eroded Georgia’s (already imperfect) democracy and hollowed out institutions. Following October 2024 elections that saw GD return to power amid accusations of fraud, Tbilisi suspended EU accession talks, while still claiming that it would achieve EU membership by 2030. Some observers assess that what Ivanishvili ultimately wants is for Georgia to adopt the Azerbaijani model of a strongly centralized state capable of playing Russia and the West off against each other. Others assess that Ivanishvili wants to create a one-party state aligned mainly with Moscow’s interests. + +Several Georgian analysts link this campaign to a dawning recognition by Ivanishvili and the GD elite that enhancing democratization and rule of law to qualify for EU membership would jeopardize their hold on power. State capture and kleptocracy are increasingly aligning the interests of Georgia’s ruling elite with Russia, where Ivanishvili made his fortune and maintains close business and political ties. While the GD appears motivated more by hanging onto power at any cost rather than on pulling Tbilisi into the Russian orbit per se, it shares an interest with Moscow in limiting the spread of Western influence and consolidating Georgia’s drift toward authoritarian kleptocracy. The hollowing out of the state, repression of civil society, and alienation of the West have created greater dependence on Moscow, which in turn is pressuring Tbilisi to make a more decisive break with the West. Some Georgian observers also worry that Ivanishvili could solicit Russian help to keep the GD in power in the face of large-scale popular mobilization. + +For much of the past decade, GD leaders employed pro-Western rhetoric—while taking concrete steps that complicated or delayed Tbilisi’s path into Euro-Atlantic institutions. Former Georgian prime minister Garibashvili, of the GD, participated in NATO’s 2014 Wales Summit, where the alliance announced a Substantial NATO-Georgia Package (SNGP) to “strengthen Georgia’s ability to defend itself and advance its preparations for membership.” GD leaders also signed an EU association agreement in June 2014 and submitted a formal application for membership in March 2022, just weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Though current officials, including Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, continue touting Georgia’s EU and NATO aspirations, they have been sharply critical of Western “interference,” in the form of criticism directed against the Russian-inspired foreign influence law Tbilisi adopted in May 2024, or against efforts to manipulate the October 2024 elections in the GD’s favor. They have also engaged in a systematic process of purging the bureaucracy of Western-trained and openly pro-Western officials. + +Georgia’s drift is in part a product of disappointment with the fruits of the Rose Revolution and the efforts of Saakashvili, who served two consecutive terms as president from 2004 to 2013, to deliver on promises of Euro-Atlantic integration. Saakashvili bet big on the United States and NATO, including with the deployment of Georgian forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. These efforts helped secure the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit’s pledge that Georgia would eventually become a member of the alliance. They also delivered substantial U.S. and European support, which made Georgia among the largest recipients of U.S. financial assistance on a per capita basis. These investments, in turn, produced a cadre of well-trained, Western-oriented officials and activists who carried forward reform. These officials also gave the United States and the European Union a direct stake in Georgia’s future. + +Georgian leaders (and much of the public) were subsequently disappointed by the Western reaction to Russia’s August 2008 invasion and occupation of South Ossetia/Tskhinvali and Abkhazia. Many Georgians believe that Saakashvili’s unbridled enthusiasm for the West cost the country its territorial integrity without bringing either security or prosperity. After Saakashvili’s United National Movement party was voted out of office in 2012, the new GD government promoted a policy of engagement and eventual normalization with Moscow, while attempting to maintain “strategic ambiguity” about Georgia’s place between Russia and the West. Though the two countries still lack diplomatic relations, GD governments have overseen the restoration of economic ties with Russia, which is now Georgia’s second-largest trade partner; the resumption of flights between Tbilisi and Moscow; and the establishment of a visa-free regime that allowed tens of thousands of Russians to relocate to Georgia in the months after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. By a significant margin, most Georgians nevertheless continue favoring closer political and economic ties with the West, including integration with both the European Union and NATO. + +Despite strong public support for Ukraine, the Russian invasion accelerated the GD’s turn against Western influence. Claims about a “Global War Party” seeking to have Tbilisi open a second front in the war against Russia resonated with Georgians still scarred by the 2008 war; one current official half-jokingly suggested there are two types of people in Georgia: “people who are afraid of Russia and people who are afraid of Russia very much.” In April 2024, Ivanishvili gave a speech lashing out at the West, claiming that “despite the promise made at the Bucharest Summit in 2008, Georgia and Ukraine were not allowed to join NATO and were left outside. All such decisions are made by the Global War Party, which has a decisive influence on NATO and the European Union, and which only sees Georgia and Ukraine as cannon fodder.” Georgian analysts and Western officials point to this speech as evidence of Russian influence over Ivanishvili or, at a minimum, evidence that as long as his version of the GD is in charge of the country, it will be impossible for Georgia to have normal relations with Western countries or institutions. + +This rhetorical turn against the West has also provided cover for the GD’s domestic crackdown, including the adoption of a law against foreign influence in April 2024 and further curbing LGBTQ+ rights in October 2024. Analysts have different theories to explain the decision to adopt these laws in the face of overwhelming public opposition. Some observers see these laws as efforts by an exhausted and unpopular party to hang onto power; others see them more as a kind of down payment to Moscow, an acknowledgment that Georgia’s current rulers can be relied on to do what it takes to remain within what one called Russia’s “strategic perimeter.” In other words, the fact that such decisions complicate Georgia’s path to integration with the European Union and NATO may be precisely the point. Other analysts suggest that Tbilisi is trying to promote a bidding war between Moscow and Brussels for its loyalty or, like Baku, trying to appease Moscow on issues of high importance to secure greater strategic autonomy. + +![image04](https://i.imgur.com/9j3joQt.png) +_▲ __May 2024 protest in Tbilisi, Georgia.__ Photo: Maiko/Adobe Stock._ + +Polls consistently show that restoring Georgia’s territorial integrity remains a higher priority even than Euro-Atlantic integration. Ahead of the October 2024 elections, GD-aligned figures hinted that Moscow could offer carrots related to these occupied territories after the election. In May 2024, Kobakhidze marked Georgian independence day by promising that Georgia would achieve EU membership by 2030 together with Abkhazia and South Ossetia/Tskhinvali. Russian officials finally were forced to deny GD-supported rumors that Moscow was open to making a deal that would return South Ossetia/Tskhinvali and Abkhazia to Tbilisi’s control in exchange for Georgian neutrality or pledges to join the Eurasian Economic Union. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov later stated that Moscow would be ready to promote “reconciliation” between Tbilisi and the breakaway regions. However unrealistic the prospect that Moscow would return these territories, the GD recognizes that holding out the possibility of some kind of deal can work to its political advantage. + +While Georgian foreign policy remains dominated by navigating the competition between Russia and the West, Tbilisi is also interested in diversifying its international partnerships. It has positive relations with Turkey despite tensions over Turkish influence in Muslim-majority areas of the country and Turkey’s wider ambitions in the Black Sea region. Like its neighbors, Georgia recognized the impact of Turkish military support in Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia in 2020. Official circles in Tbilisi are interested in developing more of a strategic military partnership with Ankara, which has been involved for decades in protecting critical infrastructure in both Azerbaijan and Georgia. They worry, however, about the implications for Georgia’s sovereignty, especially since Turkey is—along with Russia—amenable to the idea of a regional 3+3 mechanism designed to wall off the South Caucasus from U.S. and European influence. Some suggest, however, that the United States could act as a third party in the Georgia-Turkey relationship to help Tbilisi engage Ankara more strategically—especially under a post-Erdoğan government. + +China is increasingly visible in Georgia as well, even if regional observers are skeptical that Beijing regards the South Caucasus in general and Georgia in particular as priorities. Georgian critics note that while the 2023 Sino-Georgian strategic partnership mentions Georgia’s commitment to the One China principle, it does not include reciprocal language on South Ossetia/Tskhinvali and Abkhazia belonging to Georgia. China’s main interest is transit, notably Georgia’s role in the Middle Corridor. For Tbilisi, the partnership with China also offers access to financing (including from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) and technology free from the political conditionality demanded by Western institutions, as well as an opportunity to hedge against the dangers of being caught in a direct Russia-West clash. One current official, critical of the GD, suggested that the ruling party believes both that “the future belongs to China” and that partnering with Beijing will help offset the costs Tbilisi has endured because of sanctions on Russia. + +In May 2024, Tbilisi announced that a Chinese-Singaporean consortium had won the tender to construct Georgia’s first deep seaport at Anaklia for container shipping. For years, U.S. officials encouraged the project even though it was likely to have only marginal impact on U.S. economic interests and despite doubts whether such a port could be financially viable, as well as concerns whether its location adjacent to Abkhazia might expose it to political risk in the event of Russian frictions with Georgia. Tbilisi explained the decision to award the contract to the Chinese-Singaporean consortium as a consequence of receiving no other complete bids, though other commentators suggested the decision reflected a strategic decision to align more closely with Beijing. To concerns about the prospect of Chinese geopolitical influence, officials note that the Georgian government will retain a 51 percent ownership stake. + +State capture and the GD’s accelerating authoritarian drift have created a dilemma for the United States and the European Union. On the one hand, Washington and Brussels have invested substantial resources in Georgia in the three-plus decades since its independence, especially since the Rose Revolution. These investments have had a palpable impact in terms of aligning Georgia with Western norms and standards. The Georgian public remains strongly Atlanticist in its outlook despite the GD’s blistering criticism of both the United States and the European Union (a criticism that officials claim is often employed instrumentally). Engagement, including the implementation of agreements like the European Union’s visa liberalization regime, allows Washington and Brussels to maintain connections with ordinary Georgians and keep the reservoir of pro-Western sentiment filled. It also encourages Tbilisi to continue cooperating behind the scenes on issues of importance to Washington, such as counterterrorism and law enforcement. Despite difficulties with the GD and Ivanishvili, bilateral U.S.-Georgia defense cooperation remains robust—even with Washington’s decision to “indefinitely postpone” the July 2024 Noble Partner joint exercise in response to accusations that the United States was seeking to drag Georgia into the Ukraine war. Though Saakashvili and his allies argue that the GD has been facilitating efforts to evade sanctions on Russia, U.S. officials state that Tbilisi has been proactive about information sharing and implementation of sanctions. + +Maintaining an engagement policy amid the GD’s anti-Western turn and crackdown on civil society can, however, also look like appeasement of bad behavior, feeding a narrative that the West can be pushed around because it is afraid of “losing” Georgia to Moscow. As the internal situation deteriorates, Washington and Brussels have moved gradually to impose costs. These include the cancellation of Noble Partner, pausing Georgia’s EU accession talks, and imposing sanctions on individuals connected to “anti-democratic actions.” Following crackdowns on peaceful protestors in Tbilisi, the United States withdrew from its strategic partnership agreement with Georgia in late November 2024. Despite discussions about potentially sanctioning top officials, including Ivanishvili and Kobakhidze, Washington and Brussels have so far stopped short. + + +### Elements of a U.S. Strategy for the South Caucasus + +Despite the sharply diverging perspectives of officials and analysts in Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan, there is agreement in all three capitals on two topics: that the United States and Europe lack a clear or positive vision for the future (and are therefore unwilling to devote the resources necessary to show that the South Caucasus remains a strategic priority); and that they do not want to find themselves on the front lines of a new era of great power competition. Irrespective of whether the perception of Western distraction and vacillation is accurate, it matters insofar as it shapes the expectations and calculations of regional leaders. Challenging this perception of Western disinterest will require investment of greater time and resources, even if the South Caucasus will never be a first-order priority for either Washington or Brussels. It will also require pushing for a positive outcome in Ukraine, which observers in the region see as a bellwether for potential Russian aggression against other neighbors and for Western prestige and influence. An outcome that looks like a victory for Moscow will reinforce fears of continued Russian imperial aggression and the narrative of Western retreat and weakness sparked by the 2008 Russia-Georgia War. That outcome would reinforce Baku and Tbilisi’s desire to hedge, while leaving Yerevan further isolated. + +In developing a strategic vision for a new era, the United States needs to avoid the trap of forcing the states in the South Caucasus—individually or collectively—to make binary choices between Washington and Moscow (or Tehran, Beijing, etc.). In other words, the United States needs to acknowledge the region’s complicated geography and ensuing vulnerability while avoiding raising undue expectations about NATO or EU involvement. That recognition does not mean abandoning the ambition to reduce Russian or Chinese influence, but rather accepting limits, working with allies, and understanding the priorities of regional leaders and publics. With those caveats, a new U.S. strategy for the South Caucasus should prioritize the following aims. + +#### Maintaining a Free and Open South Caucasus + +The most important goal for the United States is ensuring that the South Caucasus remains open to the wider world, that is, ensuring the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of all three states and preventing the region from falling under the domination of one or more external powers. The idea of a free and open South Caucasus is in keeping with how the United States thinks about other strategically important regions characterized by a mixture of allies, partners, and rivals—including the Indo-Pacific and the Arctic. Rather than present leaders in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia with a binary “with us or against us” choice, the United States and its allies should focus on helping regional states improve their capacity and resilience to coercion by their larger neighbors (Russia above all). Doing so requires leveraging the interest of elites in Baku, Yerevan, and Tbilisi to maintain their own strategic autonomy—even if these elites will sometimes make decisions to which Western leaders object (including through cultivating ties with Russia, Iran, or China). It also requires accepting or even encouraging these states to deepen ties with other outside players—from Israel and the UAE to South Korea and India—for investment, military assistance, and diplomatic support. + +As a former Georgian official argued, the United States and its allies would have more credibility if they could convince elites in all three countries that Euro-Atlantic states and institutions “are coming to the region forever.” In practice, that would mean ensuring a serious, credible path to Euro-Atlantic integration for interested countries, even if conditions at the moment appear unfavorable. It would also include developing and deepening military-to-military ties, even if stopping short of establishing a military presence. Failing that, limited numbers of trainers and observers (such as the EUMA and a similar EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia) can signal that Washington and Brussels have skin in the game. So, too, can Western investment in priority sectors of the economy, including infrastructure, clean energy, transportation, and others. Securing such investment will depend on creating competitive investment climates in the South Caucasus states, which the involvement of U.S. allies and partners can further strengthen. + +The European Union and NATO should both develop credible plans (with timelines and conditions) for managing the aspirations of Armenia and Georgia to seek a Euro-Atlantic future. Relaunching EU accession talks with Tbilisi if and when Georgia returns to a more democratic path should be a priority. Brussels should also begin planning now for how to handle a membership request from Yerevan. While NATO is unlikely to bring in any of the South Caucasus states in the near future, the alliance should encourage all three states to deepen their participation in the Partnership for Peace consistent with their interests and capabilities. Whatever commitments NATO makes to Ukraine after the end of major combat operations should serve as a model for increasing ties and enhancing the resilience of democratic states in the South Caucasus as well. The United States should also encourage efforts by individual allies, including Turkey and France, to train and equip regional militaries and promote interoperability when doing so serves allied interests. + +![image05](https://i.imgur.com/I9uW5MN.png) +_▲ __Checkpoint on the road from Lachin to Khankendi (Stepanakert), Azerbaijan (formerly the capital of the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic).__ Photo: Jeffrey Mankoff._ + +#### Advancing Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace + +A lasting peace deal between Baku and Yerevan would fundamentally transform the South Caucasus. While a comprehensive deal seems distant, a framework agreement laying the foundation for mutual recognition and opening of borders appears within reach. Unfortunately, the window of opportunity will not remain open permanently. In Armenia, Archbishop Bagrat and others are encouraging the perception that Pashinyan is too passive and accommodating toward both Baku and Ankara. Any kind of breakthrough is unlikely in the months leading up to Armenia’s next election, which must be held by 2026. Meanwhile, it appears that Azerbaijan is waiting to see how the incoming Trump administration defines its priorities before committing to a deal, despite being willing to take incremental steps in the interim. Russia’s role could also be an important consideration for Baku. Thanks to these multiple political calendars, the first half of 2025 could offer an opportunity to bridge the remaining gaps between Baku and Yerevan, now principally centered on the issue of the Armenian constitution. Despite Aliyev’s demand for ironclad guarantees that seem difficult for Armenia to make, creative diplomacy, with the right mixture of carrots and sticks, might produce a formula acceptable to both sides. + +The challenge for Washington and Brussels lies in simultaneously enhancing Yerevan’s security margin while coming up with the right inducements to convince Aliyev that he has more to gain from striking a deal now—one that would accord full legitimation on Azerbaijan’s reintegration of Karabakh and (conceivably) open the region up to Western investment. While Azerbaijani officials reject accusations that they are dragging out the negotiations, they claim that the West could do more to bring the talks to a successful conclusion. One official involved in the talks with Armenia suggested that the United States and Europeans need to “sweeten the deal” for Baku—even if only symbolically—to show that they value peace for its own sake and are not solely committed to supporting Armenia. The same official urged Western powers to engage proactively with Ankara to lay the foundation for opening the Turkish-Armenian border. Given the challenge of securing funding for hydrocarbon projects, green energy investment could be an area of particular focus. The U.S. administration will also have to hold the line against calls in Congress to impose additional sanctions on Azerbaijan. It should also, however, make clear to Baku that it will face unacceptable costs—including personal sanctions and asset freezes targeting top officials—if it carries out military actions that imperil Armenia’s territorial integrity. + +Armenia, meanwhile, wants more assurances related to its security should it sign a deal. Even if it does not provide weapons, the United States could allow Armenia to source more U.S. dual-use capabilities, continue the annual Eagle Partner exercises, and, with other partners, consider establishing a consular presence in Syunik to provide additional reassurance. As much as Baku objects to the presence of the EUMA and France’s role (though not, interestingly, India’s) in building up Armenia’s military, such reinforcement to restore something like a balance of power is a necessary part of the package. + +A peace deal would also advance prospects for agreement on the fraught issue of the “Zangezur Corridor.” Having Armenian buy-in for the expansion of transit across Syunik would advance the cause of regional integration and improve prospects for the Middle Corridor. Without sustained Western attention, however, the regime governing the eventual “Zangezur Corridor” will likely tilt more toward the interests of Russia. Once an Armenia-Azerbaijan framework agreement is in place, therefore, the United States should remain engaged with Baku and Yerevan to work out the parameters of a mutually acceptable arrangement that reflects liberal principles and prioritizes the shared U.S. and European interest in enhancing east-west transit. + +#### Committing to a Democratic Georgia + +The full impact of Georgia’s October 2024 elections will take time to sort out. The United States and the European Union should continue to find ways to strengthen independent civil society while imposing costs on Ivanishvili and high-ranking members of the GD for electoral manipulation and postelection violence by state actors. Given the scale of U.S. and European investment in Georgia’s post–Rose Revolution democratization, both Washington and Brussels have incentives to encourage its continuation, along with Georgia’s opening to the West, while recognizing that under GD rule, Georgia is becoming both more authoritarian and hostile to the West. Georgia’s future matters for geopolitical reasons as well. Should Tbilisi take a strong anti-Western turn or invite further Russian influence, the United States and Europe will also lose leverage with Azerbaijan and—especially—Armenia, which depends on Georgia for its access to Europe. + +Ahead of the October vote, the European Union suggested that Tbilisi’s candidacy could be jeopardized if it did not follow through on promised reforms and/or if the elections were not free and fair. Brussels also warned that it could impose a “temporary suspension” of the visa-free regime. While further negotiations on EU accession are impossible under current conditions (even if Tbilisi were to reverse its freezing of the accession process), suspension of the visa-free regime would be counterproductive, primarily affecting the large pro-Western contingent in Georgian society who travel regularly to Europe. Targeted travel bans would be more effective. Whatever happens, Washington and Brussels should maintain a strong commitment to the Georgian people, who remain, on the whole, supportive of Georgia’s European future, and to the strengthening of independent civil society. + +Despite the GD’s hollowing out of the Georgian state, many career officials and members of the armed forces remain ardently pro-Western. The United States and Europeans should do what they can to maintain ties with these cadres while sustaining cooperation on issues like counterterrorism, sanctions implementation, and law enforcement. That means maintaining the visa-free regime, offering refuge to embattled democracy campaigners (if necessary), and ensuring that the consequences of democratic backsliding target the individuals responsible for designing and implementing them. + +Washington made a good start in suggesting that it was preparing a sanctions package targeting Ivanishvili and other senior officials personally. It should expand the list of senior officials, GD operatives, and members of the security services it is prepared to sanction, especially following the post-election crackdown on protestors and members of the opposition. The loyalty of some of these individuals—even GD members—to Ivanishvili is questionable, and many could likely be persuaded to avoid illegal actions that would jeopardize their access to Western assets or travel. If and when Georgia achieves a genuine democratic breakthrough, the United States and the European Union should be prepared to move quickly with new assistance to consolidate these gains and encourage the new government to move quickly on reforms. Possible steps include resuming high-level dialogue, encouraging investment in priority development projects like the Black Sea electricity cable, and liberalizing trade. + +#### Enhancing Coordination between Allies + +For the United States to maximize its impact in the South Caucasus, it needs to work more closely with allies whose stake in the South Caucasus is more direct—above all, the European Union and its member states, the United Kingdom, and Turkey. Georgia and possibly Armenia are contemplating a potential future inside the European Union, while Azerbaijan considers Turkey as its closest friend. Ankara sees the European Union and individual European states like France as outside meddlers in the South Caucasus, while Brussels sees Turkey as a destabilizing force that remains uncomfortably close to Moscow. The combination of deepening EU involvement with Armenia and Turkish support for Azerbaijan risks exacerbating the region’s fissures but also creates potential leverage to support diplomacy between Baku and Yerevan. + +Turkey remains the region’s biggest wild card. Ankara has worked out a modus vivendi with Moscow based on partially overlapping aspirations to reshape the global order and a strong personal relationship between Erdoğan and Putin. Turkey might not take action to oppose Russia’s vision of a regional condominium in the South Caucasus; just as it prefers littoral states take responsibility for the security of the Black Sea, it remains open to regional management of conflicts in the South Caucasus. At the end of the day, however, Turkey remains a NATO member and key ally of the United States. It has benefitted from the erosion of Russian power in the South Caucasus, which facilitated its alliance with Azerbaijan and its contributions to the economy and security of Georgia. In the event of a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey’s involvement could have a transformative impact on the entire region. Should that happen, Armenia as well as Georgia will want the United States and the European Union to provide reassurance that enhanced Turkish influence will not come at the expense of their sovereignty or vital interests. + +Officials and observers around the region have taken note of Ankara’s success at modernizing and upgrading the Azerbaijani military, a process that rooted out much of Azerbaijan’s Soviet-era strategic culture and facilitated greater NATO interoperability. While the Turkish-Azerbaijani relationship is unique, it provides something of a template for leveraging Turkish interest to accelerate the region’s post-Soviet transformations in ways that will make all three states more secure and more resilient to Russian influence. However, Georgia and—even more—Armenia remain wary of Turkish ambitions. Armenia’s deepening strategic partnership with France provides it a measure of needed reassurance but may not be sufficient on its own. + +The United States is the only actor capable of managing these tensions and providing the assurances that Armenia and Georgia will need to pursue greater cooperation and coordination with Ankara. Washington should make cooperation in the South Caucasus a priority in bilateral relations with Ankara, helping to channel Turkish interest in directions that enhance stability and security for the entire region while creating another area of mutual U.S.-Turkish coordination. Better aligning U.S. and Turkish interests in the South Caucasus can help pull Ankara away from supporting the idea of a regional condominium with Russia and Iran (while the perception of declining U.S. interest in the region would only reinforce the Erdoğan government’s interest in making common cause with them). + +The United States and Europe should encourage greater Turkish economic and strategic engagement in the South Caucasus as a joint endeavor, not as an alternative to declining U.S. and European interest. They will have to counter the perception that greater Turkish involvement amounts to the abandonment of Armenia and Georgia by the West that will result in their eventual “vilayetization” by continuing to invest in Armenia and Georgia’s (subject to internal developments) democratic transformations while maintaining bilateral trainings, support for independent civil society, and other forms of engagement. The United States can also help bridge the gaps between its allies France and Turkey in the South Caucasus, especially if an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement allows Paris and Ankara to stop looking at the region as an arena for proxy competition. + +#### Promoting Regional Integration and Connectivity + +As in the 1990s, the ability of the South Caucasus states to maintain their sovereignty and independence demands that governments have legitimacy and can engage productively with the outside world. Enhanced connectivity in the form of pipelines, railways, roads, electricity cables, and the like is critical for insulating all three states in the region from dependence on their larger neighbors. The 1990s mantra “happiness is multiple pipelines” remains relevant in today’s era of shifting energy demand and mounting strategic competition; that is why the Middle Corridor concept is so appealing to governments in Baku, Yerevan, and Tbilisi. Compared to the 1990s and early 2000s, though, the interest of Western governments and international financial institutions (IFIs) in boosting transit infrastructure across the South Caucasus lags. The shale revolution and the emergence of other global energy sources have diminished the relative importance of Caspian energy. At the same time, Western budgets are stressed, the interior of Eurasia occupies a less prominent place in Western geopolitical thinking, and the push to reduce hydrocarbon demand complicates efforts to invest in new pipelines or production sites. Nevertheless, promoting connectivity and regional integration remains a critical element in ensuring that the South Caucasus remains fully sovereign and independent in an era of great power competition. + +As in the 1990s and early 2000s, the United States and Europe should prioritize investment in new infrastructure projects to promote connectivity and regional integration. While oil and gas pipelines were the focus of earlier efforts, today the focus should also include, along with SGC expansion, railways, roads, airports, power grids, clean energy generation, and similar projects (particularly since Western-backed development institutions are now reluctant to invest in hydrocarbon projects). It can also diminish the appeal of Russian-backed projects like the INSTC that struggle to attract funding because of sanctions and Moscow’s larger economic uncertainty. Azerbaijan’s stated interest in clean energy in the context of its COP29 chairmanship and commitment to reconstruction in Karabakh provide an immediate opening. Funding for such projects will have to come primarily from private sector sources (which will only invest in projects with a reasonable prospect of financial viability). Governments and IFIs can, however, set priorities and catalyze private sector interest, as they did in the early 2000s with the BTC pipeline. They can also help the South Caucasus states develop regulatory and policy frameworks for managing such projects. + +Priority should go to projects that enhance connectivity between the South Caucasus and Europe via Turkey and/or the Black Sea, such as the ongoing Black Sea power cable project. In the short term, such investment incentives can be offered to both Baku and Yerevan to follow through on a framework agreement and the opening of the border. Over the longer term, credible commitments to invest in infrastructure can improve access to Europe, along with promoting intraregional integration. The political fragmentation of the South Caucasus has a reciprocal relationship with economic fragmentation. Building greater economic interdependence among the region’s three states—once Armenia and Azerbaijan have found a stable modus vivendi—would further align their interests and develop common perspectives on their shared challenges. + +Shared infrastructure would also create a platform for regional political cooperation. Because of the diverging political and economic perspectives of the region’s three states, the South Caucasus rarely functions as a cohesive region, allowing outside powers to play the three states off against one another. While developing a common regional identity and habits of regional cooperation is a task for leaders in Baku, Yerevan, and Tbilisi, the United States and the European Union can provide support and encouragement. Here Central Asia offers a useful analogue: the United States was instrumental in promoting the C5+1 format (i.e., the five regional states plus the United States) as a framework for addressing common challenges. With time, regional states developed their own C5 platform for managing regional challenges and engaging with other outside powers. After an Armenia-Azerbaijan framework agreement, Washington and Brussels should encourage a similar C3+1 (or C3+2) format for the South Caucasus. The Central Asian version took off in part because of consistent high-level U.S. engagement; a similar commitment from senior leaders at the State Department, White House, and other agencies would be necessary in the South Caucasus as well. + + +### Conclusion + +The emergence of great power competition as an organizing principle in world affairs overlaps with and is contributing to the current moment of flux in the South Caucasus. Whatever else they disagree on, leaders and analysts in Baku, Yerevan, and Tbilisi agree that the West has reduced its interest and lacks a positive vision for the region, and has been too reactive in the face of renewed Russian, Iranian, Chinese, and other engagement—in part because of the war in Ukraine and other urgent global challenges. They also agree, however, that it would be disastrous for the region to become an arena for great power competition. + +If the emphasis of U.S. and European policy was for many years to bring the South Caucasus (as much of it as possible, anyway) into a Western-led regional order, today, the challenge lies in preserving the ability of the South Caucasus states, collectively and individually, to pursue their own interests at the interstices between the competing great powers. That ambition may be more limited than what the United States and the European Union hoped for in the early 2000s, but it is in keeping with the need for both Washington and Brussels to prioritize and shepherd resources as they face a wider array of problems around the globe. Allowing the South Caucasus to follow its own development path and ensuring that it remains open to the wider world would benefit the region and its people. It would also contribute to the larger imperative of preventing the emergence of a regional condominium among authoritarian, revisionist powers seeking to wall off Eurasia from Western influence. + +--- + +__Jeffrey Mankoff__ is a distinguished research fellow at National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) and a senior associate with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on Russian foreign policy, Eurasian geopolitics, and the role of history and memory in international relations. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-sudans-humanitarian-crisis.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-sudans-humanitarian-crisis.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..2232ec1c --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-17-sudans-humanitarian-crisis.md @@ -0,0 +1,93 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis +author: Cameron Hudson and Michelle Strucke +date : 2024-12-17 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/Smx4fy9.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "What Was Old Is New Again" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_It is critical that in its final days the Biden administration set in place a functioning structure that will carry over to the next administration and ensure no gap in attention or response to Sudan’s crisis._ + + + +### Sudan’s Current Humanitarian Crisis + +The humanitarian situation in Sudan has reached catastrophic levels. After nearly 20 months of war, more than one-fifth of the country, over 12 million people, have been displaced from their homes. The country’s healthcare infrastructure has collapsed, with an estimated 70–80% of hospitals in Sudan’s conflict-affected areas no longer functional. And with the Rapid Support Forces militia pressing into the country’s agriculture heartland in recent months, Sudan’s ability to feed itself is rapidly eroding. This is threatening to extend today’s dire food insecurity into future growing seasons and to far outpace the international community’s ability to sufficiently fill the growing gap. Today, almost half of the country’s 50 million people are in need of life-saving humanitarian aid to stay alive, including more than 750,000 on the brink of famine as of early November. + +Despite being the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis, the country’s global funding appeal remains only 60 percent met. The assistance that has been provided for many months has been unable to reach its intended beneficiaries due to a confluence of factors, both of design and circumstance. Already, many internally displaced persons (IDP) camps are reporting child mortality rates of nearly 12 per day due to famine. In August, the UN-supported Famine Review Committee made a declaration that more than 8.5 million people are reaching emergency levels of hunger, most of whom are living in areas under RSF control. + +During any rainy season, roughly June to September, much of Sudan is unpassable. For this reason, humanitarians use historic precedent and projections to stockpile food and other aid where it is likely to be needed and at critical transport hubs. But that job has been made nearly impossible in the context of war, especially in light of tactical choices the RSF has made in recent months. New militia offensives that strike at the heart of Sudan’s most productive agricultural states have massively displaced farming communities, intentionally destroyed croplands and farm equipment, resulted in looting and resale of tractors and other farm vehicles in markets across the Sahel, and, most critically, led to a collapse of food markets. The destruction, unfolding in the context of constrained aid access and dwindling food stocks, is leaving record numbers of people in desperate need. + +The main border crossing into the Western Darfur region through Adré, Chad, had been closed for months due to a military directive, until it was finally reopened in August 2024. Though the RSF technically controls the border crossing and the surrounding region, it does not exercise the sovereign authority the United Nations requires to undertake cross-border aid operations. Meanwhile, the Sudanese army fears that the RSF is smuggling in weapons under the cover of humanitarian assistance. This has created a stockpile of aid only a few kilometers from those who need it. Indeed, seemingly all regions of the country under RSF control, between one-third to one-half of the country, have had humanitarian distributions curtailed by the Sudanese authorities for this reason. + + +### A History of Humanitarian Crises + +Sudan is no stranger to food insecurity and humanitarian crises. Geography and changing climate conditions make Sudan perennially susceptible to the kinds of weather-related shocks that regularly befall the wider Horn of Africa region, be it seasonal rains and flooding, spreading desertification, or locust invasions. But it is more often manmade conditions that impact Sudan’s ability to feed itself and sustain the livelihoods of its people. + +War, internal displacement, road closures, and a host of government bureaucratic impediments, such as technical work agreements, customs inspections, internal travel documents, and the provision of visas for international humanitarian staff, have become the tools through which the Sudanese government and its sometimes-opposing, sometimes-allied rebel groups and militias punish internal opponents and restrain the international community. Notably, during Sudan’s two episodes of north-south civil conflict, it is estimated that more than 2 million civilians died, mostly from famine-related causes. During the historic 15-year Operation Lifeline Sudan, the United States and other donors resorted to airdropping food aid over the Nuba Mountains region—an operation that is today being replicated on a smaller scale across the region. + +Similarly, during the Darfur conflict of the early 2000s, more than 2 million civilians were displaced and regularly suffered from blocked aid routes, either due to government red tape or other intentional blockages. During one critical moment in 2008, President Omar al-Bashir expelled the majority of international aid organizations from Darfur as punishment for aid workers providing anonymous statements to the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor as part of Bashir’s genocide indictment. Estimates vary but the Darfur genocide is believed to have produced more famine-related deaths than conflict deaths during its nearly 10 years of intense fighting. + +Measured against this history, what is seemingly old is new again in Sudan. The same tactics that stymied previous generations of humanitarian actors—opaque bureaucratic structures and byzantine decisionmaking processes across Sudan’s security agencies, intelligence apparatus, and ministerial offices—have again been employed to undercut current efforts, exacerbating the effects of the war and creating a record level of humanitarian need. Yet, this time, they do so with far less notice, as humanitarian crises in Gaza and Ukraine have drawn more attention and the conflict has not benefited from a broad public awareness campaign similar to that which brought atrocities in Sudan to global attention 20 years ago. + + +### Humanitarian Assistance as a Bargaining Chip + +Aid should not be treated as a bargaining chip, yet it routinely is in Sudan. The RSF has used it as part of its overall public relations campaign to try to demonstrate that it is a responsible international actor and capable of showing compassion, respecting international norms, and governing the areas under its control. However, the same group bears responsibility for the most excessive and egregious acts of murder, displacement, and destruction of humanitarian resources, including looting food stocks, stealing aid vehicles, and intentionally destroying healthcare facilities across the country. Meanwhile, Sudanese officials continue to use their bureaucratic control over the country’s borders and internal movements to flex their negotiating muscle with international aid workers and diplomats, who seemingly are more interested than the Sudanese government in saving Sudanese lives. Indeed, assertions of sovereignty are routinely used to justify aid denials and flout international humanitarian law. + +Under this scenario, the Sudanese government is routinely able to deflect building international pressure to make political concessions to civilians or enter into ceasefire talks with armed opponents by turning that pressure into a crisis-response negotiation with the international community over aid access. By holding the civilian population’s well-being hostage, government negotiators have for decades been able to avoid hard conversations around peace deals, ceasefires, and political talks in favor humanitarian access negotiations where they routinely have the upper hand. Time and again, U.S. envoys, UN officials, and peace mediators are drawn into Sudan’s perennial game of whack-a-mole on humanitarian access—rushing to unblock aid in one area, only to see new restrictions crop up someplace new. This is again the case today. + +In July 2024, the United States announced renewed ceasefire talks to replace the moribund talks previously co-hosted in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. As part of the announcement, U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken made clear, “The talks in Switzerland aim to reach a nationwide cessation of violence, enabling humanitarian access to all those in need, and develop a robust monitoring and verification mechanism to ensure implementation of any agreement.” However, the Sudanese army refused to send a delegation, offering instead to send “government representatives,” a tactic intended to earn the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) a higher standing in the talks compared to the RSF. As a result, the talks’ organizers were forced to pivot away from ceasefire negotiations, which might have forced the sides into painful political concessions, in favor of talks almost exclusively focused on aid access to affected communities. + +The week of “around the clock negotiations” between representatives from the international community and the RSF, housed in luxury Swiss resorts, and various government and military representatives in Port Sudan, the current de facto capital, resulted in only modest humanitarian gains. Before the talks even began, a call between Secretary Blinken and SAF leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan helped achieve an initial agreement to open the critical border crossing at Adré, Chad, for cross-border humanitarian operations—a concession likely made by the SAF to blunt any criticism for not attending ceasefire negotiations. Subsequent talks with the RSF generated an agreement for the safe passage of a humanitarian convoy from Chad across RSF-controlled territories to reach those communities in most desperate need in central and eastern Darfur. The opening of a parallel aid route from Port Sudan was also announced, along with a commitment by the RSF to respect a code of conduct to refrain from further attacks against civilians. More recently, SAF officials have negotiated directly with the leader of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, Abdelaziz al-Hilu, and American humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse to open a humanitarian air bridge bringing relief supplies directly into the South Kordofan capital of Kadugli, with the promise of additional air access to come. + +In the nearly four months since it was agreed to open the aid route from Chad, just over 300 aid trucks have crossed the border. However, the hardest hit Darfur camp, ZamZam, near the besieged city of El Fasher of North Darfur, requires at least 100 truckloads of dedicated assistance each month to meet the needs of the more than 450,000 civilians it shelters. While this opening is a notable start, it is hardly sufficient to begin to make a dent in the nearly 26 million people currently requiring assistance. This also assumes that these and future convoys will continue to be able to reach their intended destinations. However, Doctors Without Borders has already announced in late August that the RSF had seized and was holding several of their trucks in western Darfur that had only just recently crossed the border. Likewise, the United Nations reported in September that heavy rains across the region have severely damaged roads and bridges, limiting humanitarian movements into and within Darfur. These impediments are likely only the tip of the iceberg, since neither side has shown a genuine desire to assist civilians in need, out of fear of possibly conceding a win to the other side. It is likely that both sides will continue to use threats and blockages to humanitarian access as both punishment and leverage over the international community, which continues to press for unimpeded access at all border crossings and even over all Sudanese airspace. + +In this context, it is worth recalling that it was not so long ago that the historic cross-border feeding campaign of South Sudanese during the north-south civil war led to a peace agreement that ultimately resulted in the partition of the country into two in 2011. This agreement denied the government the prestige of being Africa’s largest country, not to mention cut it off from the bulk of its hard currency earnings from its erstwhile southern oil fields. Similarly, in areas of Darfur, the government routinely fought to reassert control over rebel-held “liberated areas” during the period of the Darfur genocide where UN and other international humanitarian agencies were given special dispensation to operate over the government’s objections. These experiences remain fresh in the minds of Sudanese officials today, who, unlike the vast majority of their counterparts in Washington or Brussels, are in the same or similar positions today as they were 20 or more years ago during previous rounds of negotiations. + +The final side of the humanitarian ledger that is much less discussed publicly, but which remains no less important, is how far the United Nations and international community are willing to push back against Sudanese-imposed restrictions to keep and expand aid access. As Sudan’s humanitarian situation continues to spiral, taking “no” for an answer must become less of an option. Coming out of talks in Switzerland, UN and international officials have spoken of moving from a “permission-based” aid delivery system to one that is “notification-based,” which assumes standing authorization for aid access and therefore only requires notification to help deconflict where there may be active combat operations. This is not the standard approach for UN officials, or their lawyers, who traditionally take a far more conservative and deferential approach to dealing with national governments. Non-UN humanitarian organizations argue that this is required to respond to the humanitarian imperative, which requires them to provide aid based on need and according to humanitarian principles and not acquiesce to politically motivated decisions to deny aid to a segment of a population under rule of an opposing warring party. However, to maintain such a system requires consistent pressure not just on the Sudanese government but also on UN agencies who are themselves under pressure from member states not to overstep their mandates and to respect state sovereignty. This will take sustained pressure by member states and NGOs on the United Nation and authorities in Port Sudan to maintain open access to aid routes going forward. + + +### A Humanitarian Czar to Manage the Crisis + +“Sudan faces the worst levels of food insecurity in its history,” according to a recent UN assessment. That is a startling assertion given Sudan’s long and tortured history of famine and should provoke a pause for anyone familiar with that history. Given what appears to be a lack of progress, or interest, from the parties to the conflict to negotiate an end to the fighting, let alone a transition to civilian rule, the greatest effort the international community can make now is continuing to work to ensure that Sudan’s humanitarian appeal is fully funded, that its humanitarian needs are met, and that every measure has been taken to ensure delivery of life-saving assistance. + +Anyone with influence over the parties to the conflict should use their influence to urge compliance with international humanitarian law, which requires that they “facilitate and allow rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian assistance to civilians in need.” While it is often viewed by political negotiators as demonstrating good behavior to comply with international humanitarian law, in reality it is a bare minimum that is legally required and should not be a substitute for progress on political negotiations. These tracks should be kept separate, so as not to position progress in the scaling up and facilitation of lifesaving humanitarian relief as leverage that can be withheld—at risk to people’s lives—to exact concessions in the political arena. + +For these reasons, the Biden administration should immediately take steps to add a humanitarian czar to the roster of senior staff dedicated to addressing the crisis. Announced jointly by Secretary of State Blinken, USAID administrator Samantha Power and UN ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a humanitarian czar should be drawn from USAID’s senior ranks and possess a practitioner’s expertise and experience in leading the U.S. government’s response to complex humanitarian emergencies, specifically in Africa. While acting in close coordination with the overall efforts of the U.S. special envoy, their successor, or the political negotiations lead for Sudan at the State Department or National Security Council, the czar would be explicitly empowered to lead on a set of issues to which they would answer directly to the appropriate cabinet official. Importantly, such a position should not be a political appointment, nor be subject to Senate confirmation as new envoy would be, but rather be drawn from the career ranks and can thus serve in the position through Washington’s political transition. + +First, the czar should be the lead official coordinating the U.S. interagency to achieve a true whole-of-government approach to the crisis that cuts across bureaucratic boundaries. The nature of the challenge in Sudan requires a comprehensive strategy that reflects the facts on the ground, starting with a massive refugee population spread across six neighboring states that is placing stress on local and international resources, plus an even larger internally displaced population that includes everyone from difficult-to-access rural populations to urban communities under daily bombardment. The cross-cutting nature of the crisis requires coordination and technical planning across a host of USAID and State Department offices and agencies whose lines of authority do not intersect, whose priorities do not often align, and whose budgets are rarely maximized for strategic impact. The czar should also be adequately staffed, in particular by having a deputy who is able to convene and lead the Washington-based interagency process during their extensive travel for humanitarian negotiations. + +Second, the czar must also serve as a senior-level point person to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, along with relevant UN agencies in New York and on the ground in Sudan. Serving as a counterpart to the United Nations’ resident humanitarian coordinator, a czar can be pushing the alphabet soup of UN agencies on a daily basis to fulfill their mandates and push the boundaries of their own operational comfort levels to keep seeking creative solutions to the inevitable bureaucratic delays that Sudanese officials will throw up. Conversely, a czar can be a bridge back to Washington as well, ensuring that bureaucratic blockages in New York or in the field are being reported back and elevated in a timely manner. If U.S. officials truly mean that “there is not a moment to lose in our response,” then the United States needs a system that is poised to detect and respond to any delays, whether intentional or circumstantial, and is designed to respond. + +A third role of a czar would be as a liaison to the broader donor community outside the United Nations, and in particular for the group of countries established at the recent Geneva talks, Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan (ALPS). Here, the czar could work both as a coordinator of wider international efforts but also, most importantly, as a fundraiser to fulfill missing pledges for Sudan’s humanitarian appeal. Last April’s French-hosted donor pledging conference was a start, but it only raised$2.2 billion, only slightly more than half of the $4.1 billion the United Nations had projected it needed to meet needs in areas it could access at the time, and a lack of sustained follow-up has meant that donors have not been pressed to revisit or fulfill earlier pledges. While future donor conferences are in the works, Washington’s appointment of a humanitarian czar would send a signal to other donors of the United States’ seriousness and the need for others to do more. When Washington leads, others step up. + +Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a humanitarian czar should serve as the United States’ lead interlocutor with Sudanese humanitarians and government officials on the day-to-day details of assessing needs and ensuring access. This role is all the more critical because it would move the negotiations with Sudanese officials over access out of the political realm, away from political actors—like special envoys, many of whom lack the technical expertise to negotiate on behalf of humanitarians—and back among humanitarians where it belongs. For sure, there will be coordination between humanitarian and political actors—in previous instances these talks have occurred in parallel (sometimes even in adjoining conference rooms)—but the message should also be clearly sent that humanitarian access will not be treated as a political bargaining chip. + + +### The Precedent for Humanitarian Czars + +Bureaucracies often bristle at the creation of new roles and the appointment of officials with broad mandates, especially if those mandates cut across cabinet agencies and touch upon the sacred cows of budget priorities or strategic plans. No doubt, the antibodies in the U.S. government will again surge in response to such an appointment. + +Fortunately, there is precedent in both Sudan and the humanitarian community for such an appointment. As far back as 2004, the Bush administration appointed former USAID administrator Andrew Natsios as the very first humanitarian coordinator for Sudan. This high-level appointment came, like today, at a time when Sudan faced a complex emergency in both southern Sudan and Darfur. Like today, the U.S. Embassy in Sudan was closed and USAID mission staff were no longer in country where they could coordinate the international response and quickly verify the implementation of commitments made by Sudanese officials. Furthermore, Natsios’s appointment, coming on the heels of the first-ever appointment of a U.S. special envoy to Sudan, signaled to the Sudanese and the international community that the Bush administration was making a serious and sustained commitment to addressing the crisis in Sudan—something that statements nor social media posts can accomplish. + +Similar positions have been created in responding to other complex emergencies in Afghanistan and the Middle East, with the Biden administration appointing a succession of humanitarian czars to manage the U.S. and global response to the crisis is Gaza. These appointees have played important roles in pushing for progress on humanitarian issues, including unsticking thorny problems with humanitarian access; maintaining consistent political attention; and providing access to technical operational knowledge about how to operate in complex humanitarian settings. Their impact has been tangible, but also limited, as in the case with continued humanitarian setbacks in Gaza and the lack of ability of the special envoy to achieve a baseline level of provision of assistance that would avert catastrophic food insecurity and meet basic needs, including protection of civilians and aid workers. + + +### Conclusion + +Sudan’s humanitarian crisis is reaching its apex as Washington becomes transfixed with its own politics and prepares for the arrival of a new presidential administration. By some estimates, more than 2 million Sudanese could die from famine and hunger-related causes by the time a new U.S. president takes office. The Sudanese government recognizes this and by some accounts may be trying to wait out the outgoing Biden administration in the hopes of perhaps getting a better deal or, at a minimum, greater latitude from a new administration that will take months to staff itself. + +For this reason, it is critical that in its final days the Biden administration set in place a functioning structure that will carry over to the next administration and ensure no gap in attention or response to Sudan’s crisis. With the tenure of Biden’s current special envoy expiring at the end of the administration, a considerable staffing gap is already sure to be created. Reappointing a new special envoy that is required to stand for Senate confirmation, as is now required under law, will remain critical for the new Trump team, but such a move will likely take time and will realistically only come after other high-level appointments have been made. But recognizing that there will be a gap in high-level political leadership at such a pivotal moment for millions of Sudanese suggests that appointing a humanitarian czar now would also create a modicum of continuity when it is needed most. It will also importantly maintain separation between political negotiations—of paramount importance to end the conflict, and thus the root causes of humanitarian suffering—from the facilitation of humanitarian relief, which is a legal requirement and therefore should not be bargained over. + +U.S. officials have been outspoken about their commitment to resolving the conflict in Sudan and addressing the humanitarian needs of so many millions in need. If those promises are to be more than rhetoric, it is critical to operationalize those commitments by appointing a humanitarian czar that elevates these issues in importance and ensures a degree of continuity at a time of transition. This modest action could affect the fates of millions of people. + +--- + +__Cameron Hudson__ is a senior fellow in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. + +__Michelle Strucke__ is director of the Humanitarian Agenda and the Human Rights Initiative at CSIS. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-18-crypto-asset-recovery.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-18-crypto-asset-recovery.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ddaafe99 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-18-crypto-asset-recovery.md @@ -0,0 +1,431 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Crypto-Asset Recovery +author: Noémi També, et al. +date : 2024-12-18 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/smHri70.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Challenges, Observed Practices and Strategies" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_This guide is designed to support jurisdictions in the early stages of developing crypto-asset recovery frameworks, offering guidance on crafting mitigating strategies and adopting practices to enhance the effectiveness of confiscation efforts._ + + + +The international community continues to face challenges in recovering criminal proceeds. Financial crime risk practitioners recognise the recovery of criminal proceeds as a crucial component in combating illicit finance, as it reduces the profitability of crime and deters potential offenders. It also serves as a primary indicator for the effectiveness of countries’ counter-proliferation and anti-money-laundering efforts. + +Yet problems persist with international cooperation, information sharing and a lack of appropriate legislative tools, resources and training. The nature of crypto assets also introduces an additional layer of complexity to an already difficult process. Furthermore, sanctioned actors exploiting crypto assets for obfuscation and sanctions evasion exacerbate the issue. + +In this context, jurisdictions seeking to combat proliferation finance and money laundering must prioritise the development of effective and robust crypto-asset recovery frameworks. + +This guide aims to support less crypto-mature jurisdictions by highlighting the challenges that law enforcement and crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) face throughout the crypto-asset recovery lifecycle. It also documents existing practices and mitigating strategies to tackle such challenges. This guide does not provide recommendations on legal and legislative matters, as those are beyond its scope and purpose. + +Informed by expert interviews and a review of grey and academic literature, the guide identifies three key challenges to effective crypto-asset recovery: + +1. Uncertain legislative, regulatory and supervisory frameworks. + +2. Limited international coordination. + +3. Limited education, training and practice of crypto-asset tracing and confiscation. + +The guide also provides an overview of observed practices and strategies identified and discussed in interviews. These strategies target specific issues facing practitioners and tackle a wide range of approaches adopted by subject matter experts (SMEs) across the end-to-end crypto-asset recovery lifecycle. These can be categorised under the following headings: + +- Clarifying communication formats between law enforcement agencies and CASPs. + +- Improving cross-border cooperation. + +- Enhancing education and training on asset tracing, pre-seizure planning, storage and volatility management (including guidance to navigate uncertain legislative, regulatory and supervisory frameworks). + +Finally, the guide explores the challenges associated with tracing and seizing North Korean crypto assets as reported by SMEs. The crypto community is aware of North Korea’s exploitation of crypto assets to generate revenue and evade international sanctions. It seeks to support global efforts to restrict North Korea’s access to this significant revenue source, which could be used to acquire goods or services that advance its WMD programmes, posing a serious threat to global security. + + +### Introduction + +In recent years, asset recovery has become a key policy and legislative priority in combating illicit financial flows. Research highlights several reasons asset recovery could be an effective crime-reduction strategy: it reduces the profitability of crime, and deters potential offenders by demonstrating that “crime does not pay”. In addition, recovering criminal proceeds prevents their reinvestment into illicit activities, disrupting the criminal lifecycle. + +Asset recovery also promotes fairness towards victims and, in corruption cases, enables the reinvestment of stolen assets into other sectors, bolstering public trust and confidence in government institutions and the rule of law. + +Despite its importance, the recovery of criminal proceeds has proven challenging for the international community. This is due to limited international cooperation, inadequate legislative tools, poor asset seizure planning, and difficulties in monitoring, managing and disposing of recovered assets. These elements are essential for effective asset recovery, particularly in the fight against money laundering (ML) and proliferation finance (PF). + +In this context, crypto-asset recovery introduces an additional layer of complexity to an already-difficult process. The speed, novelty and complexity of crypto-asset transactions, combined with tracing challenges and their borderless nature, significantly amplify the difficulties typically associated with asset recovery. Given the growing volume of crypto-related fraud, criminal revenues from cyber attacks targeting crypto-asset-related companies, and the ongoing exploitation of crypto assets by sanctioned actors, it is crucial to understand the challenges, observed practices and strategies for effective crypto-asset recovery. + +This guide is designed to support jurisdictions in the early stages of developing crypto-asset recovery frameworks. It offers guidance on crafting mitigating strategies and adopting practices that could enhance the effectiveness of confiscation efforts. + +The key questions underlying this guide are: + +- What challenges do law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) face in the crypto-asset recovery lifecycle? + +- What practices and observed mitigating strategies exist to overcome these obstacles? + +This guide offers valuable support to LEAs, CASPs and competent authorities (such as regulators, supervisors and/or policymaking bodies) operating in less crypto-mature jurisdictions. + +#### Scope, Definitions, Methodology and Limitations + +This guide documents challenges and observed best practices for crypto-asset confiscation to support jurisdictions seeking to develop crypto-asset recovery frameworks. Recommendations, especially on legal or legislative matters, are outside the scope of the guide. + +The authors adopt the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) definition of crypto assets: a “digital representation of value that can be digitally traded, or transferred, and can be used for payment or investment purposes”. + +The research for this guide is informed by semi-structured interviews with 27 crypto-asset recovery subject matter experts (SMEs) working in LEAs, CASPs and blockchain analytics tool companies. The experts are based in the US, Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia. The interviews and literature review were conducted between May and July 2024. Interviewees were selected based on their first-hand knowledge of cryptocurrency and asset recovery. The interviews were supplemented and validated through a review of relevant policy and academic literature, reports from competent authorities across relevant jurisdictions, and grey literature. They were not selected based on their geographical location. All interviews were conducted online. Furthermore, while it identifies mitigating strategies and best practices from several jurisdictions, this guide is not a comparative study across jurisdictions. The countries and institutions that were sampled for the research have been anonymised. + +Due to time constraints, the authors were not able to interview practitioners and experts operating in Latin America, Central Asia or Australia. This may limit the generalisability of the data collated. + +This guide has two chapters. Chapter I provides an overview of the current crypto-asset recovery landscape and discusses the challenges that stakeholders face when dealing with this process. Chapter II presents observed practices and measures to tackle these challenges and explores the difficulties in tracing and seizing North Korean crypto assets. This is crucial to supporting the international community’s efforts to restrict North Korea’s ability to advance its WMD programme. + + +### I. Context and Challenges + +This chapter outlines the traditional asset recovery process and the challenges that LEAs, stakeholders and competent authorities face in seizing the proceeds of criminal activities. It also highlights the steps involved in the confiscation of crypto assets and examines the challenges identified by the SMEs specialising in crypto-assets seizure who were interviewed for this guide. On the basis of these interviews, the challenges are grouped into three main themes: + +1. Uncertain legislative, regulatory and supervisory frameworks. + +2. Limited international coordination. + +3. Limited education, training and practice of asset tracing and confiscation. + +#### The Asset Recovery Process + +To understand the challenges of crypto-asset recovery, it is essential to understand both the traditional asset recovery process and challenges that LEAs, stakeholders and competent authorities face when seizing the proceeds of criminal activities more broadly. + +The asset recovery process typically consists of four phases: + +- __Asset tracing:__ The collection of intelligence and evidence on the location and beneficial ownership of alleged proceeds of crime. + +- __Asset freezing and seizing:__ The temporary physical retaining of property pending a final judgment, aimed at preventing asset dissipation. + + - Asset management: The securing and preservation of value of property until confiscation or release. + +- __Asset confiscation or forfeiture:__ The permanent deprivation of assets following a judgment, which transfers the title to government without compensation to the asset holder. Forfeiture can result from criminal or civil proceedings: + + - Criminal forfeiture targets an individual associated with the property and requires a conviction based on the highest standard of proof (“beyond reasonable doubt”). + + - Civil forfeiture (“non-conviction-based confiscation”) targets the property itself, requiring proof on a lower standard (“balance of probability”) that the property is more likely than not to be associated with proceeds of crime. + +- __Asset realisation:__ The liquidation or return of the assets to the victims of the crime or, in the case of corruption, to the origin country. + +Regardless of the asset type, the asset recovery process follows these same stages. With the increasing exploitation of crypto assets in various crimes – such as murder for hire, fraud, ML, PF and ransomware – crypto-asset recovery has become a key focus for policymakers worldwide. + +While the overall process is similar, there are several unique elements to crypto-asset recovery (see Figure 1). The primary challenge lies in controlling the assets. Effective recovery requires a strong partnership among LEAs, which aim to gain control of the assets early in the investigation, and CASPs, which are expected to cooperate with LEAs while still meeting their commercial obligations to users. + +![image01](https://i.imgur.com/nJ3wLw3.png) +_▲ __Figure 1: The Crypto-Asset Recovery Process.__ Source: The authors. Note: Figure developed based on authors’ interview 6 with asset-seizure expert, 15 May 2024; authors’ interview 7 with CASP representative, 17 May 2024; authors’ interview 12 with asset-seizure expert, 29 May 2024; authors’ interviews 19 and 20 with asset-seizure experts, 18 June 2024. While Figure 1 illustrates the formal steps towards confiscation, most crypto-asset recovery processes typically begin via informal channels, which is explored in this chapter and Chapter II._ + +As shown in Figure 1, the crypto-asset recovery process consists of four phases: asset tracing, asset freezing and seizing, asset confiscation and asset realisation. Authorities should plan the seizure process in advance, to ensure the process is robust, consistent and auditable. The details to consider while defining a protocol are outlined in Chapter II. + +During the asset-tracing phase, authorities may identify that funds are sent to a service provider in a foreign jurisdiction and therefore need to follow the mutual legal assistance (MLA) process (discussed later in this chapter). + +In addition, a fundamental aspect of the recovery process is the ability to determine the jurisdictions in which CASPs and/or crypto platforms are licensed or registered, including associated entities, such as holding companies. This will inform the CASP’s attitude to the formal request process and associated orders, as well as informal requests and cooperation. + +However, if the CASP is domiciled within the same jurisdiction as the investigative authorities, the latter can reach out to the registered or licensed CASP to request information and issue a freeze order. Once sufficient evidence is acquired, a seizure order can be issued to transfer funds to a pre-arranged police account at a CASP or a government-controlled wallet. + +Alternatively, authorities may receive a warrant and, during the search of the premises, come across information, such as a seed phrase, hardware or software wallet, or private key(s). In this case, authorities with a warrant can seize the information or device. After a criminal or civil proceeding in favour of the authorities, the assets can then be confiscated and liquidated or returned to victims or the government. + +#### Uncertain Legislative, Regulatory and Supervisory Frameworks + +_Legislative Frameworks_ + +Interviews with law enforcement experts suggest that, where applicable, crypto-asset seizure legislation in their jurisdictions is generally fit for purpose, enabling competent authorities to confiscate the crypto proceeds of crime. In some jurisdictions, legislation on the recovery of proceeds of crime covers both tangible and intangible assets, with crypto assets recognised as property. As a result, seizure frameworks designed for fiat money and more traditional assets, such as cars, yachts or livestock, are typically sufficient. According to one interviewee, “crypto is property, and once that is defined, the rest falls into place because you have the right mechanisms to support you”. Another expert reinforced this, stating that “if you can seize cars, you can seize crypto”. + +Another element raised by all but one interviewee is the advantage of non-conviction-based civil forfeiture, which enables law enforcement to go after the assets at a lower standard of proof. Indeed, there is a growing consensus that, while criminal proceedings should remain the primary method for securing a conviction, civil confiscation is “a useful supplementary tool” for recovering assets. The literature highlights as major benefits the ability to confiscate regardless of a criminal conviction and to reverse the burden of proving the assets are not linked to criminal activity. The latter facilitates the work of law enforcement in providing evidence, especially in cross-border cases. + +However, the legislative challenges faced by practitioners working in CASPs and blockchain analytics firms differ from those encountered by those working in law enforcement. CASPs, especially large central exchanges, typically operate across multiple jurisdictions, even servicing clients residing in jurisdictions other than where the CASP itself is headquartered or incorporated. As a result, they manage requests for information from domestic and foreign LEAs. This exposes them to a wide range of legislative frameworks, many of which lack clear regulations on crypto-asset seizure, creating additional complexity for compliance and cooperation efforts. + +Some limitations stem from legislation not addressing whether crypto assets are considered value, property or a claim. Jurisdictions must provide a clear definition of what is being seized when it comes to crypto assets. This is particularly relevant as it drives what CASPs are expected to do when freezing assets. For example, some countries will want to seize the actual amount of crypto assets, while others will seek to seize the value of the assets – which presents its own set of challenges, such as whether to use the value on the date of the seizure or the date of the issued order. As such, the CASP may be asked to convert the assets’ value depending on the jurisdiction making the request. Likewise, in jurisdictions without robust crypto-asset regulation, the lack of legal recognition of crypto assets as property remains a key challenge. + +Additional challenges exist with the operationalisation of crypto-asset seizure. In some jurisdictions, crypto-asset legislation has been modelled on existing traditional asset-seizure legislation, modified to account for the practicalities of seizing crypto. However, other jurisdictions have drafted specific crypto-seizure legislation, but have failed to issue practical guidance on how to implement and enforce it. This inconsistency in asset-seizure practices across jurisdictions has proven challenging for many CASPs, creating a vulnerability that hinders jurisdictions’ overall ability to effectively recover crypto assets. + +_Guidance_ + +A common theme during the interviews was that law enforcement, regardless of the maturity of asset-seizure legislation, needs additional guidance and standard operating procedures (SOPs) within their respective jurisdictions to better understand how to apply relevant legislation for each step of the crypto-asset seizure lifecycle. This includes understanding how to serve orders or what to consider when seizing and forfeiting crypto assets. In sum, despite some countries having a robust legal framework for crypto assets, the novelty of crypto prevails, with interviewees reporting that associated practice and procedures are limited. This is due to “the perceived complexity around crypto-asset seizures, and that people need to seek comfort in guidance and standard operating procedures. The purpose of such SOPs is to provide reassurance necessary to empower law enforcement”. + +SOPs relating to regulation also support law enforcement. For instance, law enforcement may face resistance from CASPs and data controllers that challenge the legitimacy of requests, refusing to share information due to privacy concerns and associated data-protection legislation. One expert noted that, in their previous role in law enforcement, they encountered resistance from UK-based CASPs claiming that requests for information violate the Human Rights Act. Accordingly, to prevent such issues when navigating regulations in different jurisdictions, guiding principles are essential to better support law enforcement at the investigative stage of the process – especially as there are often challenges associated with cross-jurisdictional elements. + +Similarly, concerns relating to potential data-protection breaches arise when a CASP receives a request from a jurisdiction in which it is operating but not based. This may arise, for instance, when a request for information related to a non-EU-based customer is issued by EU law enforcement. Under such circumstances, less cooperative CASPs may push back on such requests, with law enforcement unaware that there may be overlaps across countries’ respective regulations and therefore ways to make them applicable across jurisdictions. Some CASPs will look at relevant legislation available in a jurisdiction and assess how they can support law enforcement, explaining which request cannot be made while guiding it towards the one that can be made to enable the CASP to provide the data. As a CASP representative noted, “we typically comply with requests from around the world, but we want to make sure there is no overreach, that law enforcement makes requests that are proportionate and in line with its local framework”. It is important to note that this approach may not be common practice. Indeed, interviews with law enforcement representatives challenge and denounce the lack of CASP cooperation. This point is further explored below. + +_Regulatory and Supervisory Frameworks_ + +The final issue that experts raised was about the lack of effective supervision for crypto assets, which undermines the asset-seizure process. As one expert noted: “We need to remember that what we do is not just about financial crime and AML. Consumer protection and the health of the whole market is also fundamental”. + +Another LEA expert explained that when + +> CASPs are not supervised by a strong body, they lack clear channels of communication with law enforcement. Hence, CASPs do not know how to support law enforcement and, in turn, law enforcement has no clear contact point at supervisory level to adequately engage with CASPs. This may limit support with regards to suspicious activity report quality, for instance. + +Thus, an ambiguous, weak or inexistent supervisory regime for CASPs and crypto assets has wider implications, having a broader impact on law enforcement and the overall effectiveness of the asset-seizure process. + +#### Limited International Coordination + +A further key challenge identified relates to the lack of international consensus and coordination. This is particularly problematic considering the cross-border nature of crypto assets and the speed of transactions typically observed with, for instance, North Korean-linked sanctions obfuscation tactics. + +Gathering evidence and executing legal orders outside jurisdictional borders present unique challenges, especially for cross-jurisdictional coordination. For instance, authorities might not be aware of how to begin international cooperation if “a CASP is incorporated in country A, its servers are in country B, its customers in country C, with employees in country D”. This is particularly challenging when law enforcement is limited to the confines of its own jurisdiction’s legal remit, with CASPs operating across multiple countries with their own legal frameworks. + +_Geographical Location of Data_ + +According to one expert, in their jurisdiction, crypto assets are recognised as property for legal purposes. However, authorities need to consider the location of that property: “Where is that data stored, where are the data senders, where are people accessing wallets from?” Indeed, a suspect under investigation may have a wallet that is hosted on a sub-server within a structure that is outsourced to another server in yet another country. Regulatory arbitrage may occur, with CASPs sometimes moving to jurisdictions with light-touch crypto-asset regulation that often lack the capacity to deal with the flow of foreign information and disclosure requests. Alternatively, local law enforcement might lack resources or have limited crypto-asset-relevant training. Hence, when receiving MLA requests on crypto-related cases, the receiving authority may have a limited understanding of the documentation. + +MLA requests need at least one staff member on the receiving end who understands the information and agrees to put their name to the request, liaise with the relevant exchange and follow through. This can sometimes be a challenge because of limited resources and knowledge, which may lead concerned members of staff to hesitate in signing off the request. + +MLAs are pathways to getting a foreign jurisdiction to recognise and realise an order issued by another. However, interviewees stated that this process is resource- and time-consuming, and varies across countries. This statement holds true even when processes are standardised across countries such as EU member states. Ultimately, authorities attempt to get a request to the right place at the right time, but it remains an archaic process. By the time authorities go through the MLA, the assets will have moved to another jurisdiction. The borderless nature of crypto assets and the high speed of transactions “capitalise on every failure of slow bureaucratic governments: where we can’t move with speed, crypto crime wins”. + +Indeed, when funds are traced to an entity within a jurisdiction, the crypto assets can move to another foreign entity before authorities can get to a country-to-country engagement. For example, illicitly acquired assets, such as North Korean crypto assets, are generally transferred to CASPs in uncooperative or less regulated jurisdictions or to CASPs that are unresponsive to law enforcement requests. The laundering process by North Korean cyber-criminals emphasises that the MLA model is not fit for purpose. + +_Channels of Informal Engagement_ + +As an additional method alongside the MLA process, authorities sometimes obtain information through informal channels, leveraging relationships built with jurisdictions that are developed though goodwill and traditional networking. Although information obtained through informal channels (namely, not through the MLA process) cannot be used in court, some experts indicate that engaging with counterparts in such a way enables law enforcement to obtain support, target their applications appropriately or advise that a formal request is coming, thus speeding up MLA. For instance, this process enables law enforcement in one jurisdiction to identify whether authorities in other jurisdictions have contacts or robust cooperation from local CASPs, which may in turn support the foreign LEA. It is important to note that authorities cannot overstep the formal MLA process, but informal engagements can maximise the chances of smooth asset recovery. + +#### Limited Education, Training and Practice of Crypto-Asset Tracing and Confiscation + +SMEs reported that the challenges discussed in previous sections are exacerbated by a lack of education and awareness. This impacts the effectiveness of crypto-asset recovery in general and law enforcement’s ability to “go after” ill-acquired assets. + +The root cause is the combination of limited knowledge on asset recovery and the perceived complexity of the recovery of crypto assets. One expert stated that “crime that includes crypto assets exacerbates the two biggest problems that law enforcement has: a failure to understand technology and a failure to do asset recovery”. This is compounded by the difficulty of retaining talent. Once individuals have been trained in the public sector, they are typically headhunted by CASPs and blockchain analytics tool companies offering greater monetary compensation schemes than those of the public sector. Consequently, corporate knowledge across the public sector stagnates. + +SMEs identified asset tracing and asset confiscation as key focus points for education and training. + +_Asset Tracing_ + +Tracing and identifying illicit crypto assets are key challenges. This stems from the fact that authorities receive limited training in relation to tracing crypto-asset transactions, together with the sophistication of techniques used by illicit actors such as North Korea. Indeed North Korea uses a trial-and-error approach to obfuscating and laundering funds. Cyber-criminals operating on Pyongyang’s behalf develop and test “playbooks” of obfuscation techniques, including the use of continuous layering, straw accounts at large exchanges, mixers, bridges, and setting up of new accounts and wallets. According to an asset-seizure expert: “They have a library of techniques that they try and then archive should they not be successful”. Accordingly, blockchain analytics companies and competent authorities need to coordinate closely to follow the spiderweb of transactions and trace the movement of funds. + +Law enforcement may encounter difficulties associated with understanding the types of coins being traced, such as privacy coins for instance, as well as obfuscation techniques deployed by suspects. With some agents sometimes feeling they are left on their own for this process, robust education and training is needed. This is particularly key as commercial tools have their limitations and may, for example, not successfully attribute an entity to an address. Law enforcement should therefore receive adequate training on open-source analytics, digital forensics, public records analysis, human intelligence and dark web research. A blockchain analytics representative added: “Never trust a tool. Teach people open source first”. + +Unfortunately, interviewees indicated that adequate educational support for law enforcement is lacking. This point was echoed by experts operating within CASPs, who explain that they often verify the tracing as law enforcement can get it wrong, impacting not only investigations but also CASPs’ business relationships with their customers. It should be noted, however, that law enforcement is equally sceptical of pushback from CASPs, with one representative stating: “Certainly, bad tracing due to limited training happens, but CASPs will have their own motivation and will want to protect themselves”. It should be noted that regional centres of excellence can support law enforcement to prevent skills erosion and provide continuous practical training. + +Interviewees also noted that blockchain analytics tool providers do not provide full coverage in terms of crypto addresses attribution and on-the-ground intelligence gathering relating to illicit activities across all jurisdictions, which limits the reach of such tools. As such, the analysis may come down to an authority’s level of education and skill. Law enforcement must be able to read the blockchain to understand the situation at each junction and identify whether another entity is involved between transactions (also called “hops”). Likewise, law enforcement needs to understand when analytics tools may not successfully address an attribution. + +With such caveats, some CASPs verify the tracing that law enforcement performs. However, regardless of tracing quality, CASPs still need to comply when a court issues a legal order. Under such circumstances, CASPs face challenges as they want to foment and preserve partnerships with LEAs while also fulfilling their responsibility and accountability to their customers. This can generate issues and potentially conflict should customers challenge decisions that impact access to products and services. + +_Asset Seizure (and Storage)_ + +Seizing self-hosted wallets is another ongoing challenge for law enforcement. For instance, police officers and investigators may not know how to detect information related to crypto assets during a search operation, and might overlook a hardware wallet without knowing what it is and how it needs to be seized. + +Other challenges also exist around law enforcement gaining control of the private key and thus the suspect’s assets. For example, authorities may identify a seed phrase to recreate the wallet. Research identified multiple cautionary tales where officers are said to have seized a hardware wallet and put it into an evidence bag that went straight into the safe. At this point, officers thought they had seized Bitcoin. Unfortunately, a third-party may also have access to the private key and could therefore transfer the funds to a new address. Consequently, the officers would lose the assets. + +Another challenge raised by experts was the lack of planning by law enforcement regarding the asset-seizure process and protocol. Ultimately, if law enforcement wants to recover assets, authorities need to have an account with a third-party provider or a self-hosted wallet that can be properly secured. For example, one interviewee explained: “If you search a drug dealer’s home, and their laptop is open, if there is a crypto wallet there, you will want to seize the assets. Under such circumstances, you will need a wallet or a facility to receive all the tokens and crypto that they hold. What happens if you have not planned for such a contingency?”. + +Similarly, despite some preplanning, some LEAs do not know how to receive crypto assets. Under such circumstances, CASPs may support law enforcement and guide them to set up an account or wallet. Should this option be unsuitable for law enforcement needs, CASPs can convert the funds to fiat money and send it on to an LEA’s traditional banking account. If funds are transferred to an address held by a third party and credited to a police account, the CASP will need to receive relevant legal documentation to verify it is dealing with law enforcement. This may be done through third-party checks or confirmation with the judge who has signed the order before transferring the funds. To avoid any liability, a test transaction may be performed to ensure that all data provided is correct. Once this is validated, the full amount is transferred. There are additional layers of verification to ensure that an officer has not “gone rogue” and sent the assets to another address or a personal wallet. This is discussed further in Chapter II. + +Some experts identified a lack of awareness of such processes and practices by law enforcement operating in less crypto-mature jurisdictions. For instance, if an agency is waiting for new SOPs to be signed off by senior management, it may rely on a third party to retain the funds before transferring the asset to the agency’s self-hosted wallet addresses. However, a robust procurement process should be in place to ensure the agency can trust the third-party service provider. Similarly, other experts highlighted additional challenges on whether assets need to be converted to fiat money or not (to prevent acute fluctuations in value in view of the volatility of crypto assets), as well as how to return assets to victims or segregate assets. + + +### II. Observed Practices and Mitigation Strategies + +While Chapter I discussed the key challenges to effective crypto-asset recovery, this chapter details observed practices and strategies implemented by law enforcement and CASPs to facilitate the operationalisation of crypto-asset recovery and tackle some of the identified challenges. It is important to note that the practices and strategies discussed comply with the relevant local legislation and regulations. + +Practices and strategies that were observed and discussed as part of the research for this guide concern the following elements, which are discussed in turn: + +- Enhanced education and training. + +- Communication between LEAs and CASPs. + +- Improving cross-border cooperation. + +This chapter concludes with a discussion on the challenges of restricting North Korea’s access to illicitly acquired crypto assets, which are used to fund its WMD programme and pose a significant threat to international security. + +#### Enhanced Education and Training + +Interviews held with SMEs indicate that LEAs should be trained on asset tracing, including understanding the limitations of blockchain analytics tools and how to circumvent them, pre-seizure planning, asset storage and managing the volatility of seized crypto assets. These elements are discussed below. + +_Asset Tracing_ + +As discussed in Chapter I, blockchain analytics tool attributions vary between vendors, and criminal attributions may slightly vary between vendors based on gathered intelligence. Currently, efficiently resourced authorities resolve the issue of data variations by having access to different blockchain analytics tools to cross-check and complement information. However, resource constraints make this solution challenging for some jurisdictions. An expert identified that a potential solution to this problem may be having a multi-jurisdictional LEA to retain a list of criminal attributions linked to crypto-asset addresses fed into vetted blockchain analytics tools. Another expert challenged this solution, stating that blockchain analytics companies spend many hours collecting needed attributions. As such, the designated authority for identifying criminal attributions may not have the resources nor the capacity to develop a model similar to blockchain analytics tools. Instead, a partnership can be formed. For example, a regional agency, such as FATF-style regional bodies, may partner with blockchain analytics tools to support guidance to small or medium-sized VASPs on attributions of significant concern, such as those linked to terrorism or PF. + +Authorities tracing crypto assets need to understand when blockchain analytics tools attribute an address held at a CASP, as it may be tied to an omnibus customer account, which is an account that contains a portion of multiple customers’ funds. Therefore, authorities should take one “hop” or trace back on the blockchain from the omnibus customer account and provide that address and other relevant transaction information to the CASP when requesting information. Law enforcement can also provide the name and identification number of the suspect to the CASP to cross-check accounts. In addition, when requesting funds, law enforcement can request the CASP to provide the internal identification number linked to the customer’s funds in the pooled wallet. This allows them to receive a court order to target that specific number rather than the entire omnibus account. This way, the CASP can comply without affecting other customers’ assets or disrupting its business. + +_Pre-Seizure Planning_ + +Chapter I discussed challenges associated with storage methods for securing virtual assets (VAs). The storage of seized assets by law enforcement needs to be identified within the pre-seizure planning process. Variations of this process exist, ranging from law enforcement setting up an account at a third-party exchange (vetted as per internal procurement policy and processes) to authorities retaining their own private keys in a self-hosted wallet. + +To seize assets, authorities typically partner with a third-party service provider or set up a hardware or software wallet at an early stage, engaging all key stakeholders within the organisation. Although these stakeholders vary between jurisdictions, they can include law enforcement officers conducting a search with a warrant, a manager or higher-level officer, and potentially the prosecutor’s office. This planning process prepares law enforcement to seize an asset during a search or a trace to a CASP. Secure custody processes must be in place, with the ability to switch custody of the crypto asset if the third-party provider can no longer act as a custodian or if law enforcement is ordered to transfer the assets. + +In addition, it is imperative to ensure that custody methods are flexible, as some assets may not be supported by the selected platform or hardware wallet. Planning for such a contingency prevents having to go through a new procurement process under such circumstances. Furthermore, law enforcement needs to be aware of risks associated with sweeping wallets (during seizure) that contain malicious malware and what to do to prevent this. + +F or hardware wallets containing seized assets, as part of the pre-seizure planning, a standard property management process needs to be put in place, as one would set up for any criminal case and investigation. This entails having secure property areas in various locations around the country that can receive hardware wallets at any time of day. The hardware wallet needs to be treated like cash: in a safe in the property management room, with secure access, CCTV, swipe cards to get in and out of the room, and access logs. Access must be verified and supervised, with nobody going to the safe on their own. There should always be at least two people for verification. In addition, the overall process needs to be audited as per the relevant internal procedures. + +Alternatively, when law enforcement decides to partner with a CASP and set up a police account to store seized assets at the centralised entity, the procurement process needs to be respected with robust due diligence. This includes assessing: whether the entity is regulated and audited; where it operates; what its client base is; whether there is any adverse media associated with its owners, partners or operations; whether it has robust cyber security controls in place; and whether it has insurance in case of a hack or bankruptcy. + +In turn, CASPs acting as the custodian should have a process in place to ensure that they are indeed holding the asset on behalf of law enforcement. For instance, this may be through confirmation by the relevant judge or review of relevant court orders. Verifying this information is necessary, as it avoids accusations of bias and enables third parties to carry out Know Your Customer (KYC) obligations in respect of provenance of funds. Similarly, CASPs should ensure that their platforms can hold crypto assets that are generally considered of a higher risk to financial crime, such as privacy coins. Sign-off should be obtained by relevant stakeholders, such as the board, the general counsel, the chief risk officer and/or the ML reporting officer. + +Under circumstances where no pre-seizure planning has been done, senior management must ensure that law enforcement can seek support to seize crypto assets. Management should communicate and socialise the contact details of experts with practical crypto-asset recovery experience who can easily be reached at any time and provide support. This can be communicated at a local level or through Interpol and Europol. Such an expert, either from the private sector or law enforcement, provides a walkthrough to agents who do not know how to receive funds or who are not acquainted with the seizure process. + +To avoid potential issues associated with procurement, one jurisdiction developed its own software to store seized crypto assets, citing that the process is simple with the right technical expertise. Each jurisdiction should evaluate its current situation to determine the level of knowledge on the use of crypto assets when assessing the right storage approach. + +_Storage of Crypto Assets_ + +It is critical for authorities to assess the benefits and risks of the storage model used for seized assets. The options discussed by SMEs are multi-signature and multi-party computation (MPC) wallets. Multi-signature allows for multiple authorities to sign a transaction before it is executed. Alternatively, MPC allows for multiple authorities to receive a share of a single private key. When the solution is identified, authorities need to configure controls, checks and balances to ensure a transparent and auditable process. + +Jurisdictions should consider a separation of responsibility for government-controlled wallets, which can vary based on the size and type of the case. For example, one interviewee noted that with a multi-signature option of needing two out of three authorisations for transactions, these three individuals may sit in three different teams. By requiring multiple stakeholders, concerns over compromise by a corrupt public sector official can be reduced and the overall auditability of the recovery process can be improved. Along with defining responsible authorities, jurisdictions need to consider how to store the device or private key(s) to mitigate risks stemming from an insider threat or technical failure. + +_Managing the Volatility of Seized Crypto Assets_ + +As noted in Chapter I, jurisdictions face an operational challenge regarding the price volatility of crypto assets. Similar to assets, such as cars or live animals, that require maintenance, the highly volatile nature of crypto assets requires management. This is essential to avoid liability with individuals whose assets were seized and then returned after experiencing severe devaluation. + +> #### `Case Study 1: Sweden Returning Funds to an Illicit Actor` + +_`Sweden faced a value retention challenge following the seizure of 36 Bitcoin from a drug dealer. At the time of prosecution, the Bitcoin’s total value was approximately $150,000. By the time the Swedish Enforcement Authority was able to auction the Bitcoin, its value had risen substantially. As a result, only three tokens needed to be auctioned to recover the original seized value. However, because the authorities recorded the value in fiat currency rather than Bitcoin, the drug dealer was entitled to the remaining 33 Bitcoin. To prevent such outcomes in the future, seizures should be recorded in their original value rather than the fiat equivalent.`_ + +_Source: [Jamie Crawley, “Sweden’s Government Forced to Return $1.5M in Bitcoin to Drug Dealer: Report”, CoinDesk, 20 August 2021, last updated 14 September 2021](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/08/20/swedens-government-forced-to-return-15m-in-bitcoin-to-drug-dealer-report/)._ + +To combat price volatility, authorities can sell seized assets in separate auctions. In the US, stipulations for interlocutory sales can be granted to auction seized assets prior to the conclusion of the formal forfeiture process. However, experts indicate that there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to deciding whether assets should be converted to fiat money or not. Some jurisdictions have a senior legal officer, appointed by the court, who is empowered to make any decisions related to the asset. Other jurisdictions seek to convert the assets immediately, provided they have the defendant’s permission. If this is not granted, law enforcement makes an application to the court to convert the asset. In countries such as the Netherlands, assets are converted within a three-month period unless an exception is granted. + +#### Communication Between LEAs and CASPs + +Transparent and smooth communication between LEAs and CASPs is fundamental to effective asset recovery. Authentication of relevant parties as well as clear, precise and complete data requests and data provision are key to successful communication. + +_Authentication_ + +For law enforcement, when funds are traced to a centralised entity, they must confirm that they are in contact with the correct individual at the company. It is also important for authorities to ensure the correct legal entity is identified and regularly updated, especially when global company structures and data controllers change frequently. Cross-border forums exist between law enforcement across jurisdictions to share information about the correct contacts at CASPs to ensure a relatively swift response. However, some jurisdictions may not have access to these information-sharing groups, requiring authorities to create their own contact list or purchase third-party software to obtain this information. + +In any case, it is critical that law enforcement updates contact information for CASPs every year. This database should include CASP details, such as the physical address, email address and specific legal documents required to request information or freeze an asset. Regular updates are necessary as CASPs change their place of domicile. When an investigation into misconduct occurs, law enforcement must have this information on hand to ensure a timely response. + +However, CASPs need to ensure that the authority reaching out with a request for information or freeze order is legitimate and not an individual falsifying identification. To verify this, CASPs may request identification or a letter from the commissioner. One interviewee suggested that a verification system is required for law enforcement from a multi-jurisdictional or international organisation to avoid sharing personally identifiable information with medium- or high-risk CASPs. + +_Requesting Data from CASPs_ + +If funds are traced to a CASP and a request for information is issued, law enforcement needs more than an email address provided by the entity. In the best-case scenario, the CASP can provide account information, such as KYC. To further the investigation, authorities – with legal grounds to do so – can request the following information from CASPs, with the caveat that the CASP may or may not have access to the information, depending on the resources available: + +- KYC information, including an identification number. + +- Internal transactions by the customer. + +- Deposits and withdrawal information in fiat and crypto assets. + +- Crypto-asset types held by the customer. + +- Customer access logs. + +- Other customer accounts tied to the customer. + +- Amount of crypto assets held by the customer. + +- Beneficiary information on transactions by the customer. + +- Associated bank account information for the customer. + +- IP address or geolocation data to determine variation in the customer’s location. + +- Data related to the integration of cookies: + + - Device(s) used by the customer. + + - The language used by the customer in the browser or application. + +- Phone number and email address. + +Similar to requesting information from financial institutions, one expert interviewed detailed that any interaction between law enforcement and CASPs needs to be submitted in a non-editable document. For example, if a letterhead is included in a Word document submitted when requesting information, this document could be altered and potentially used for fraudulent purposes. However, another expert noted that only the official legal document from the prosecutor’s office needs to be in PDF format. If crypto-asset transaction details are provided in PDF formats – whether to the CASP or law enforcement – rather than an editable format, the investigation may be slowed. + +In the freeze letter, law enforcement can ask the CASP to freeze the suspect’s claim of the funds in the omnibus customer account held by the company, restrict the trading and withdrawal functions of the suspect’s account, or impose full restrictions on the suspect’s access to the account. The threshold for this request is at the discretion of law enforcement and typically depends on the severity of the situation, such as involvement in sanctions evasion. However, an evidentiary threshold must be met to request the freeze, as CASPs face significant risks in carrying out this process, including the potential breach of the terms and conditions provided to their customers. + +CASPs have different processes for cooperation with law enforcement and sometimes adapt the approach over time. Some offer a courtesy freeze period for law enforcement, so authorities have ample time to get the necessary legal order. For example, if law enforcement reaches out with evidence, the exchange may voluntarily freeze the account for seven days. + +This courtesy period was longer in the past, but was reduced due to delays in law enforcement’s response with a freeze letter. Nonetheless, for cooperative CASPs, this voluntary freeze period can be extended if law enforcement provides further evidence. Notably, law enforcement may ultimately require more time to obtain the necessary legal order, especially if subject to the MLA process. + +In practice, if law enforcement reaches out to a cooperative CASP about an urgent matter and provides sufficient evidence, the CASP can disable the trade and withdrawal functions to review the account. Alternatively, the CASP can disable the withdrawal function and enable an additional KYC check for a soft freeze of the account. + +_Providing Data to LEAs_ + +CASPs respond to information requests from LEAs, provided they comply with local legal requirements and are accompanied by the seizure warrant. Some CASPs with highly experienced in-house investigators may request details about the type of suspected crime and any supporting evidence, but law enforcement may push back to avoid compromising the investigation. + +When providing the data requested by law enforcement, observed practice is to have a pre-designed Excel spreadsheet (PDFs make data extraction and manipulation difficult) that documents the following information in separate tabs: + +- Transactions in fiat money and crypto assets. + +- Transactions performed on the CASP platform internally. + +- All asset types held by the suspect. + +- All products and services that the suspect has purchased (for example, futures, derivatives). + +- Deposits. + +- Withdrawals. + +- KYC information. + +Some jurisdictions have platforms that enable CASPs to submit information electronically. These platforms provide pre-documented options, such as drop-down menus, making it easier for CASPs to submit the necessary information and streamlining the process for both LEAs and CASPs. + +#### Improving Cross-Border Cooperation + +As explored in Chapter I, a key challenge is the MLA process, which SMEs have labelled as outdated in light of fast, borderless crypto operations. Experts interviewed explained that the Camden Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network reinforces cross-border cooperation and information exchange. This informal inter-agency network supports law enforcement and judicial practitioners in member jurisdictions throughout the asset recovery process. + +Another example of best practice is investigators collaborating across jurisdictions on cases. In these instances, each country takes the lead on gathering information in its own jurisdiction and shares relevant data through secure channels. + +There are few additional examples of best practice, despite SMEs being open to exploring avenues to enhance cross-border cooperation. Some experts suggested that a centralised digital repository, where all prosecutors across multiple jurisdictions can send requests, would be beneficial. However, they noted that this would require the creation of a central authority to prioritise requests. + +Another expert suggested the creation of a private sector-funded joint taskforce of investigators, prosecutors and law enforcement from multiple jurisdictions with the sole purpose of tackling crypto crime. To avoid the need for multiple MLAs, one country would be designated as the lead. Again, the challenge here would be developing terms of reference relating to funding, structure and staffing, along with criteria and indicators to determine the prioritisation of cases. Indeed, each jurisdiction would have different areas of interest and focus. For instance, should a jurisdiction investigate one contract killing paid for with $10,000 in crypto assets, or should it focus instead on investigating related crypto scams, which have lower individual losses but affect a larger number of victims? + +Finally, although the focus of asset recovery is on the seizure of crypto assets from organised crime groups and other non-state-based actors, the international community is increasingly aware that it is key to impeding North Korea’s WMD programme. The following section considers related challenges. + +> #### `Case Study 2: Luxembourg Coordination with Foreign Financial Intelligence Unit` + +_`In its December 2020 sectoral VA risk assessment, Luxembourg provided a case study based on a request from a foreign financial intelligence unit (FIU) involving suspected terrorism and TF. The suspect, with known offences for drug trafficking and associations with terrorist groups, had converted approximately €7,500 into Bitcoin and transferred the funds to an address linked to a terrorist cluster.`_ + +_`According to the case study, “multiple addresses had links to a Luxembourgish entity”. To further the investigation, the country’s own FIU requested information from the entity to determine the beneficiary of the transfers related to the terrorist cluster. As a result of this information, the FIU identified an additional individual who was initially unknown to the foreign FIU.`_ + +_`In addition to reaching out to this entity with links to multiple addresses, the Luxembourg FIU requested information from other reporting entities that it believed held further information on the suspects. This action resulted in the identification of additional accounts linked to the suspects that had yet to be used.`_ + +_`Coordination with the foreign FIU provided additional accounts that had links to darknet markets and potentially drug trafficking.`_ + +_Source: [Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Ministry of Justice, “ML/TF Vertical Risk Assessment: Virtual Asset Service Providers”, December 2020, p. 27](https://mj.gouvernement.lu/dam-assets/dossiers/blanchiment/ML-TF-vertical-risk-assessment-on-VASPs.pdf)._ + +#### Restricting Access to Proliferating States + +The international community is increasingly aware of the exploitation of crypto assets and CASPs by proliferating states to generate revenue and evade sanctions. North Korea’s cyber-criminals, for example, are estimated to have generated $3 billion in revenue from cyber attacks on crypto-related companies between 2017 and 2023. Accordingly, crypto-asset seizure is not just a matter of depriving criminals of their profits; it restricts North Korea’s access to an important source of revenue that can potentially support the purchasing of goods or services to advance its WMD programme. + +Interviewees indicated that an additional challenge faced by CASPs is identifying activity linked to North Korea in real time. North Korea “moves so much money that it will not necessarily use good obfuscation techniques”, one expert noted. “However, it is very good at structuring cash out and doing it fast. We know what North Korea will do but we don’t know when and where”. + +For example, North Korea-linked individuals, similar to criminal organisations and other illicit actors, can set up or acquire multiple accounts at exchanges – often through illicit means – to convert crypto assets into fiat currency. In the Axie Infinity theft (see Case Study 3), where North Korean cyber-criminals stole approximately $600 million from the Ronin Network, the former CEO of Binance noted that individuals laundering the funds sent a portion to Binance, spreading it across 86 accounts at the exchange. + +Notably, when blockchain analytics tools attribute an address to illicit actors, retrospective alerts will be generated. Thus, with new intelligence, the CASP’s internal controls detect all past related transactions and an alert is raised. Once a suspicious activity report is submitted, these can further financial investigations into North Korean sanctions evasion activity. However, there remains a challenge in converting intelligence into evidence for financial investigations related to PF or sanctions evasion. + +> #### `Case Study 3: The Axie Infinity Case` + +_`In 2022, Axie Infinity, a strategy game built on the Ronin blockchain that facilitates the transfer of assets and liquidity, lost $650 million due to a hack carried out by North Korea-sponsored cyber-criminals known as the Lazarus Group. In the hours following the heist, the hackers swiftly moved the stolen assets, switched wallets and divided the assets across multiple wallets, exchanging them for other crypto assets. The operation was described as highly choreographed, with assets transferred at timed intervals into mixers, including Tornado Cash, which has since been sanctioned.`_ + +_`Investigators followed the stolen assets and waited for North Korea to off ramp them at centralised exchanges. Once this happened, the team reached out to relevant CASPs, asking them to put a temporary hold on the accounts. They then contacted the FBI to obtain US government-issued warrants to freeze the crypto assets.`_ + +_`In a 2023 podcast, Erin Plante, a Chainalysis investigator who led the investigation, explained that a number of exchanges initially would not respond to their requests. Eventually, conversations with exchanges became easier once CASPs had greater awareness of the investigation. She stated that “these seizures would not have been possible without collaboration across the public and private sectors”.`_ + +_`Overall, the US government recovered $30 million. Recently, the Norwegian authorities announced they had recovered almost $6 million.`_ + +_Sources: [NPR, “How to Launder $600 Million on the Internet”, Planet Money podcast, 15 September 2023](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197954055); [Wahid Pessarlay, “Law Enforcement Agencies Recover $30M Worth of Assets from North Korean Hackers”, Coingeek, 13 September 2022](https://coingeek.com/law-enforcement-agencies-recover-30m-worth-of-assets-from-north-korean-hackers/); [Jim Haastrup, “Axie Infinity Gets Back $5.7 Million Stolen in Ronin Hack”, Voice of Crypto, 9 June 2024](https://voiceofcrypto.online/news/axie-infinity-ronin-hack)._ + +In addition, to restrict North Korea’s access to stolen funds, public-sector-led initiatives whereby an address is made public to provide the entire crypto-asset industry with the opportunity to help law enforcement may be a useful tool. The Norwegian National Authority for Investigations and Prosecution of Economic Crime publicises VA addresses linked to criminal proceeds and requests individuals and companies that receive funds from the published address to withhold them and contact the police. In a similar manner, the FBI has released a number of North Korean-controlled VA addresses that are linked to stolen assets. The publicisation of cryptocurrency addresses attributed to North Korean cyber-criminals might be worth considering within the newly developed multinational team to monitor sanctions enforcement. + +An interviewee suggested that, to identify North Korean accounts, CASPs could review existing KYC data linked to the country to better understand account profiles. This could include analysing factors such as the device(s) used by the customer and language settings in the browser or application. + +> #### `Case Study 4: Harmony’s Horizon Bridge` + +_`In June 2022, the Lazarus Group exploited Harmony’s Horizon cross-chain bridge, stealing an estimated $99.6 million worth of crypto assets. Investigators from a blockchain analytics firm traced the funds through the Tornado Cash mixer and monitored them for movement. According to Elliptic, investigators identified that the funds moved through complex chains of transactions to exchanges, which they promptly notified so the assets could be frozen and the accounts suspended.`_ + +_`Binance and Huobi (another cryptocurrency exchange), in return, froze accounts with approximately $1.4-million worth of crypto assets from the hack.`_ + +_Source: [Elliptic, “Elliptic Collaborates with Binance and Huobi to Freeze Lazarus Group Hack Proceeds”, 14 February 2023](https://www.elliptic.co/blog/analysis/elliptic-collaborates-with-binance-and-huobi-to-freeze-lazarus-group-hack-proceeds)._ + + +### Conclusion + +This guide aims to support less crypto-mature jurisdictions by identifying the challenges faced by law enforcement agencies and CASPs in the crypto-asset recovery lifecycle. It also documents existing practices and observed strategies to address these challenges. + +The challenges highlighted by SMEs during the research for this guide include: + +1. Legislative and supervisory uncertainty. + +2. Difficulties with international coordination and cooperation. + +3. Limited education and training relating to asset tracing, confiscation and storage. + +The strategies and best practices outlined in this guide focus on: + +- Enhancing education and training on asset tracing, pre-seizure planning, storage and volatility management. + +- Improving and clarifying communication formats between LEAs and CASPs. + +- Strengthening cross-border cooperation beyond the MLA process. + +Once implemented, this guide will help less crypto-mature jurisdictions recover crypto assets more effectively and prevent illicit actors from cashing out criminal crypto assets. It serves as a useful starting point for jurisdictions to identify the next steps in strengthening their crypto-asset recovery frameworks, addressing gaps proactively and limiting the impact of ML, PF and sanctions violations on the international community. + +--- + +__Noémi També__ is an Associate Fellow at RUSI’s Centre for Finance and Security and an independent financial crime consultant, published author, researcher and trainer. + +__Allison Owen__ is an Associate Fellow at RUSI’s Centre for Finance and Security. Her primary research projects focus on the policy and security dimensions of cryptocurrency and new payment methods. + +__Maria Nizzero__ is a Research Fellow at RUSI’s Centre for Finance and Security. Her research examines the UK and global financial crime landscape, asset recovery and sanctions, and the foreign policy dimension of illicit finance. diff --git a/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-19-dutch-navy-in-nato.md b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-19-dutch-navy-in-nato.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7fd5d9b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/_collections/_hkers/2024-12-19-dutch-navy-in-nato.md @@ -0,0 +1,323 @@ +--- +layout: post +title : Dutch Navy In NATO +author: Sidharth Kaushal +date : 2024-12-19 12:00:00 +0800 +image : https://i.imgur.com/siQk6r8.jpeg +#image_caption: "" +description: "Optimising the Royal Netherlands Navy for its Role within NATO" +excerpt_separator: +--- + +_This report examines how the Royal Netherlands Navy can optimise its force structure and planning to meet its obligations under a scenario in which Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is invoked._ + + + +The purpose of this Whitehall Report is to examine how the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN) can optimise its force structure to meet its obligations to NATO in an Article 5 scenario, in which the RNLN will be an important contributor to allied naval plans, particularly in the context of Regional Plan Northwest. The RNLN will need to balance optimising for this task with the requirement to maintain a balanced force that can also meet other commitments further afield. + +This will be an enduring consideration since the Russian threat to Europe is unlikely to abate in the short to medium term. In the maritime domain many of Russia’s key capabilities, such as its nuclear attack submarine (SSN) fleet, have been relatively unaffected by the war in Ukraine. The Russian naval threat will prove most acute on the Alliance’s northern flank, given that many of its most important naval assets are held by the Northern Fleet. + +The character of the Russian threat in the north is likely to evolve in the next decade. Since in a war the Russian navy is intended to support army-led joint plans rather than playing an independent role, it is unlikely to represent an independent threat to NATO, with the exception of sub-threshold sabotage, in the very short term. However, it is likely that this will change before the end of this decade once the Russian army regenerates its capabilities. In an Article 5 scenario, the most important naval task for the Alliance on the northern flank remains containing Russia’s SSNs, a task which may increasingly have to be achieved near the Bear Island–Svalbard Gap in order to contain submarines equipped with long-range strike capabilities. This in turn places allied vessels at risk from the airborne assets of the northern fleet joint strategic command, such as the cruise missile-equipped TU-22M3/M3M, which an allied maritime component command will also need to play a role in containing. + +Russia’s cold weather-trained troops from both the Airborne Forces and the 80th and 200th brigades have suffered heavy attrition in Ukraine and the time taken to train such troops suggest that in the next decade the requirement for amphibious reinforcement of the northern flank will be reduced. This challenge will likely re-emerge by the 2030s, however. In effect, the Russian threat in the north will initially be a two-dimensional threat based around submarines and air-launched cruise missiles, but will expand into a more full spectrum threat by the mid-2030s. For a navy optimising for the northern flank, the list of priorities is likely to initially narrow, with a particular focus on anti-submarine warfare (ASW), mine countermeasures (MCM) and anti-air warfare (AAW) before broadening in the medium term. + +The RNLN is likely to see a considerable growth in its capabilities over this period as the fleet expands and key parts of its force structure are recapitalised. While the expansion of the fleet and reorganisation of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps (RNLMC) will allow the RNLN to be an important contributor to NATO’s maritime capabilities, particularly on the northern flank, there are short-term risks that must be overcome to reach this point. + +The requirement to maintain a balanced force means that the RNLN operates a number of vessel types with attendant complications for both manning and maintaining a diversity of vessel classes. + +The existence of a large number of vessel classes with, in some cases, limited numbers of vessels in each class creates a competition between maintaining a steady tempo of operations and retaining the slack capacity to ensure both readiness and the ability to maintain enough trained personnel in key roles to enable the eventual expansion of the fleet. This challenge will be felt most acutely by the RNLN’s ASW frigate force. That the fleet currently operates a limited force of two M-class frigates poses challenges both with respect to maintaining vessels at readiness and personnel management. The extensive demands of a limited number of vessels means that the capacity to train personnel in key areas (for example, sonar operators and controllers) is limited and much of the activity undertaken by these vessels is not ASW-relevant. This poses a risk, given the requirement to maintain enough qualified individuals to eventually double the ASW frigate force, which will require more crews than ships in the short term. There is a possibility that, if unaddressed, this will result in key competencies both on vessels and in training establishments dying out before the force expands. A similar requirement for additional personnel in excess of current manning requirements will be needed to realise plans to grow the fleet’s submarine force. + +In the short term, the centrality of submarines to the Russian naval threat creates incentives to prioritise the readiness of ASW capabilities and the capacity to train personnel for them, even if this comes at the cost of balance and the capacity to maintain deployments at sea. For example, the M-class frigate could be ringfenced for ASW-relevant activity and used on shorter deployment cycles, even if this created gaps in the RNLN’s ability to maintain vessels on deployment in the short term. Failing this, technologies which enable at-sea training comparable to those incorporated on the US Navy’s AN/SQQ-89 combat system might allow perishable skills to be maintained, despite the tempo of operations. + +While the RNLN could well see its pool of available personnel grow and has robust plans in place to achieve this, there is a requirement to hedge against this not occurring given the requirement for excess capacity to set the conditions for growth in key areas. The fleet’s offshore patrol vessels represent a capability that might be sacrificed to provide headroom. In extremis, this might also extend to its landing platform docks as the requirement for amphibious reinforcement will subside in the short term and by the time Russia’s cold weather-trained troops have been regenerated the new amphibious vessels, which will support the RNLMC’s revised CONOPS, will have been delivered. + +In the individual major areas of naval warfare (ASW, AAW, littoral warfare, mine countermeasures and strike), the RNLN’s planned capabilities largely meet the requirements of the emerging operating environment and adaptations that need to be made are of a relatively incremental nature. + +In some cases, this involves conceptual focus. This is especially true of the RNLMC’s planned CONOPS, which would benefit from a specific focus on and optimisation against adversary medium-range SAM systems as a subset of the elusive high-value targets that the RNLMC is planning to be able to engage. + +In other instances this involves capability generation. An example is the requirement for an anti-submarine rocket to better leverage standoff ASW concepts and mitigate the risk to frigates using LFA (which are currently outranged by the submarines they might hunt). Similarly, a small number of longer-ranged air-defence interceptors, such as the SM-6, which could allow air-defence frigates to better contribute to a defensive counter-air mission against cruise missile-equipped aircraft likely represents a more viable way to offset the air and missile threat than attempting to generate an unaffordable level of magazine depth. + +In specific areas, however, magazine depth and capacity will be of considerable importance. This will be especially true with respect to long-range strike, given the likely need to prioritise the employment of systems such as Tomahawk for the most operationally significant targets. Shorter-ranged and more expendable strike capabilities will be required, particularly for operations in the littoral. + +The potential reliance of parts of the force on the same enablers for their CONOPS is a potential challenge to be surmounted. For example, the Joint Support Ship would be required for both support to littoral operations and theatre ASW. Since the RNLN will operate in an allied construct this is not insurmountable but requires peacetime agreement and preparation to rely on allied platforms for some tasks. + +Plans to leverage uncrewed or optionally crewed systems for tasks such as MCM and ASW, as well as the provision of additional capacity to the fleet through optionally crewed vessels, can add considerable value. In the case of MCM, capabilities being developed for use against mines can also support tasks such as protecting infrastructure in the North Sea. However, limitations with respect to the power and endurance on uncrewed systems should be considered when selecting functions and payloads, particularly for uncrewed surface vessels employed in an ASW role, which would be most efficient teamed with LFA-equipped frigates if they employed passive sensors. For some capabilities, such as the optionally crewed multifunctional support ship, the requirement for power and endurance may also provide incentives for the eventual adoption of larger variants of the platform for the next vessels in the series. + + +### Introduction + +This Whitehall Report is the primary output of research commissioned by the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN) to examine the ways in which it can optimise its force structure and planning to meet its obligations under the first main task – contributing to the defence of Europe in a scenario in which Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is invoked. + +The report summarises the findings of research informed by desk research and interviews with officers of the RNLN and the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps conducted by the author over the course of two weeks at the naval headquarters in Den Helder, Netherlands, in early September 2024. Interviewees included senior officers responsible for force development, operational planning and sustainment, as well as commanding officers of several vessels and officers who have operated on these vessels. The research also included interviews with the army and defence helicopter command. + +The report examines two facets of future force development: fighting the fleet (an examination of planned capabilities and concepts across the major warfare areas); and resourcing the fleet. It concludes that while the strategic orientation of the force is sound and its medium-term future bright, there are decisions that will need to be made soon, both to meet acute challenges and to ensure that the force retains the organisational sinews needed to capitalise on the imminent expansion of the resources at the RNLN’s disposal as a function of the budgetary uplift it is receiving. + +The report has three chapters. Chapter I articulates how the Russian threat will evolve over the next decade and beyond, and the ways in which this will determine which of the RNLN’s capabilities are most important to NATO at different times. Chapter II focuses on fighting the fleet, discussing the technical capabilities of the RNLN and its tactics, techniques and procedures over the major areas of the naval warfare in which it participates. This chapter assesses where the RNLN enjoys relative strengths and challenges that might impede its contributing to NATO. Chapter III focuses on the organisational foundations of the fleet, and how it might be better resourced and sustained. The report’s conclusions are the author’s own, and do not reflect the views of the RNLN or any part of the Netherlands Ministry of Defence. + + +### I. The RNLN’s First Main Task as an Orienting Mission + +Since the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea, the RNLN has made responding to a NATO Article 5 contingency a priority mission set, following decades in which matters such as stabilisation operations were of arguably greater importance. Such a response is the navy’s first main task, as defined in Article 97 of the Dutch constitution, which reflects the broader focus on allied deterrence within Europe expressed in the latest defence white paper from the Netherlands. + +In the interests of parsimony, this report does not delve into the specific circumstances that might lead to a war between NATO and Russia. From a defence planning perspective, the key issues are twofold. First, the consequences of such a conflict would exceed any contingency that Europe has seen in the past 70 years by a comfortable margin. Second, a major bulwark against such a conflict – the US presence in Europe – will become less reliable due to the structural reality that the US will face an opponent in the Pacific, in the form of China, which even the most conservative predictions suggest will have rough parity with the US in economic and military terms by the end of this decade – something the USSR never came close to achieving, except in specific areas. There is, then, a strong basis for a “minimax” approach to managing this risk – allocating disproportionate resources to the most impactful outcomes, irrespective of the assessed probability of the risk coming to pass. + +Furthermore, the Russian threat is not transient, particularly in the maritime domain. In spite of economic headwinds, Russia has been able to sustain a war economy with a relatively marginal fiscal deficit (largely by cutting social expenditure), and the country’s likely growth rates, while slow, will still leave it Europe’s largest economy in purchasing power parity terms over the next decade (arguably a better metric for a state’s capacity to generate military power than GDP in nominal terms, since most spending is domestic). While the challenge posed by Russia is far from insurmountable for Europe taken collectively, it should not be dismissed as temporally bounded. + +For these reasons, the first main task and the role of the Netherlands in deterrence as part of allied plans for northwestern Europe – the primary region of concern for the RNLN – are likely to be priorities for the force over the long term. + +Russia will pose different challenges at different times in the maritime domain. In the very short term, the Russian challenge is likely to be primarily sub-threshold. By the end of this decade, the Russian challenge on NATO’s northern flank will have evolved into an acute but narrow submarine and air-centric threat. By the middle of the next decade, the reconstitution of Russian cold-weather-trained troops will make the threat on the northern flank three dimensional once more. Since the Russian navy has historically been an adjunct to army-led strategic planning, it is unlikely to present an independent high-intensity threat while the Russian army is embroiled in Ukraine. Russia’s navy and its Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research (GUGI) could, however, pose a threat to critical infrastructure in the North Sea and the Atlantic, as a means of retaliation for support to Ukraine. While the resilience of cable networks mitigates the threat posed by the GUGI – which would need to damage so many cables to achieve an effect that any deniability would be lost – there is an acute threat to gas pipelines in the North Sea, where the loss of pipelines such as the Langeled pipeline to Norway could combine with tight global gas markets to force costly choices on Europe. + +Should the war in Ukraine end soon, Russia will embark on an ambitious process of rebuilding its armed forces, as outlined by then defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, in March 2024. In the High North, Russia is likely to see a marginal increase in its aggregate nuclear attack submarine (SSN) capability, as the improved Akula-class fleet completes refits in the 2020s, and additional Yasen-class submarines are added to the fleet. The Northern fleet currently fields two Yasen-class boats with a third to be added imminently, and Russia has commissioned a further six boats, the first of which is likely to be delivered in the early 2030s (based on the build time for the last boat in class). The Yasen class is comparable in quietness to Western boats and, in addition to heavyweight torpedoes, is equipped with a UKSK 3P-14B vertical launch system (VLS) that allows it to launch the 3M-14K Kalibr cruise missile, among others. In the early stages of a conflict, submarine-launched cruise missiles will be an important tool of offensive counter-air and strikes on key nodes – which Russia views as critical to its ability to deflect a massed aerospace attack. + +The threat posed by Russian air assets will also see incremental improvement in this period, although probably not to the same degree. Russia’s fleet of 30 Tu-22M bombers under the 40th Mixed Aviation Regiment is unlikely to grow, but more bombers are likely to be upgraded to the Tu-22M3 variant. Other aircraft, such as the MIG-31, will also pose a threat, although MIG-31Ks (optimised for surface strike with the KH-47M2 Kinzhal) are likely to be outnumbered by MIG-31BMs (optimised as interceptors for air defence). + +One area where Russia may struggle to regenerate capabilities in the short term is cold-weather-trained troops. Both the Airborne Forces (VDV) and the 200th Arctic Brigade have taken heavy attrition in Ukraine, and the Russian requirement for officers in cold-weather units to have undertaken five years of specialised schooling, together with the subsequent need for unit-level training over multiple years, mean that even when the conflict in Ukraine ends and reconstitution of these units begins, Russia is likely to lack cold-weather-capable ground units before 2034. Additionally, Russia has struggled with the import substitution needed to produce engines for newer Gorshakov-class frigates and has had to extend the lives of vessels such as the Kirov class, suggesting a limited (but not entirely non-credible) surface threat. In effect, the Russian threat from 2027 to 2034 is likely to be an acute, but relatively two-dimensional, air and submarine threat. + +Beyond 2034, it is likely that the Russian threat in the High North will once again become three dimensional. In addition, Russia is likely to pose a threat to allied reinforcement in the Baltic Sea, where, despite its relative inferiority, it can contest chokepoints such as the Skagerrak with a combination of naval mines and shore-based Bastion-P systems. + +This means that in the next decade, the most important priorities for the RNLN as a contributor to NATO’s maritime forces will be anti-submarine warfare (ASW), anti-air warfare (AAW) and mine countermeasures (MCM). Short-term readiness in these areas is a priority. By contrast, the ability to deploy amphibious forces, while still important, will become more critical later in the next decade. There is slightly more time to pace the redesign of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps (RNLMC) and ensure the availability and readiness of supporting shipping. + +For the Netherlands, as part of NATO’s northwestern regional plan, the immediate priority will be contributing to an allied effort to deliver ASW forward in the Bear Island–Svalbard Gap, since preventing Russian submarines from breaking through this gap will be vital to mitigating the submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) threat. Notably, while Russia cannot win a war at sea, it can lose one in the maritime domain, and if the Alliance can credibly execute ASW forward, Russia will also need to consider the vulnerability of its own nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) bastions – something that can offset any advantages Russia may enjoy on land in terms of mass. Achieving this in a context where allied SSN capability will be strained and the key US enabler is absent will, however, require the Alliance to rely more heavily on frigate fleets, air-defence vessels and diesel electric submarines (SSKs) to patrol the gap. In the Baltic, if Russia cannot close off Skagerrak, its maritime disadvantages in an area of considerable proximity will compound, and concerns such as the launch of allied SLCMs from the Baltic Sea will complicate Russian planning. + +The maritime domain is, then, an area where well-resourced allied forces can impose considerable dilemmas on Russia, and the historical focus of the Netherlands on MCM and ASW are of value in Skagerrak and in the Bear Island–Svalbard Gap – the two pivot points on which a maritime campaign would depend. These therefore represent the most important contributions the RNLN can make to NATO in the next decade. In the medium term, as the Russian land-based threat is reconstituted, cold-weather-capable troops will be important to ensuring that Russia does not push into northern Norway to outflank a maritime force by emplacing ground-based anti-access area denial (A2/AD) capabilities further forward in positions from which they could engage vessels patrolling the northern chokepoints. Past the middle of the next decade, then, the importance of amphibious reinforcement against Russian ground forces is likely to grow. A short-term specific focus on ASW and MCM should then transition to the contribution of a broader set of capabilities, including amphibious forces. + +The key area of focus for the RNLN thus remains contributing to NATO’s deterrence in the Alliance’s northern flank. This report seeks to address the question of whether tactical concepts will allow the force to deliver on these priority areas, and explores how resources can be best managed to ensure that it does. + +While this report focuses on the navy’s first main task, it must be noted that the prospect of a separate crisis instigated by an ally of Russia, either in a maritime chokepoint such as the Bab-el-Mandeb or against parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Caribbean, is an important planning consideration that the RNLN cannot ignore. Nevertheless, in the event of concurrent crises, the outcome in the European theatre would determine events elsewhere – if Russian SSNs are not contained, reinforcing parts of the kingdom of the Netherlands across the Atlantic becomes much riskier. Equally, if Russia sustains considerable losses in the north and the Alliance has slack maritime capacity, rolling back the gains of a Russian proxy becomes a comparatively simple task. + +Second, with respect to a separate crisis in the Caribbean, some of the capabilities relevant to the navy’s first main task, such as deep-strike capabilities, can, in tandem with a light tripwire force and the likelihood of allied intervention against a Russian client in the western hemisphere, serve as a hedge against territorial revisionism at the Netherlands’ expense. The kingdom could balance its commitments by adopting an economy of force posture, a version of Singapore’s “poisonous shrimp” approach of demonstrating the capacity not to defend or retake, but to inflict unacceptable costs, as its strategy for deterrence at reach. + +While the question of missions beyond the first main task are discussed briefly, for the sake of brevity, the European theatre is this report’s primary focus. + + +### II. Fighting the Fleet: Optimising and Combining the Elements of the Force + +As noted earlier, in the short term, the RNLN’s priorities within NATO should be: + +- Contributing to forward ASW in the Bear Island–Svalbard Gap. + +- Contributing to the air defence of forces conducting ASW in a forward position. + +- MCM in Skaggerak. + +Assuming that the Russian submarine threat is contained and the maritime approaches to the Baltic Sea can be opened, Russia’s position in the maritime domain will be severely compromised, with the security of its bastions in the north and its Baltic A2/AD zone being contested. Additionally, the Russian air and missile threat from the northern flank will depend heavily on SLCMs launched from vectors that give air defences limited warning times. SLCMs cannot be used as effectively if Russia has to launch them from near to its coastline (giving air defenders ample warning time). Containing Russian submarines will also have a second-order effect on the security of airbases and allied critical infrastructure. + +In the medium term, the prospect of a Russian campaign that includes an incursion into Norway by a reconstituted VDV and Arctic Brigade cannot be ruled out. In such a scenario, the ability to place Bastion-P coastal defence cruise missiles (CDCMs) and surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems in Norway after seizing territory would significantly complicate ASW in the north, as these systems could hold frigates and maritime patrol aircraft at greater risk, thus enabling SSNs to break out past the Bear Island–Svalbard Gap. As such, blunting a land incursion will become critical to fighting the maritime battle. Allied air power could support the land component to achieve this against larger Russian forces, but attriting Russia’s air defences would be a long and time-consuming task. On the other hand, if forward-deployed raiding elements can accelerate the rate of attrition suffered by Russia’s ground-based integrated air defence system (IADS), allied advantages in the air will begin to compound. In the medium term, there will be an additional requirement to disrupt Russian IADS with amphibious raiding forces to enable theatre entry by follow-on forces within Norway. + +This report discusses the priorities in each warfare area in light of these overarching effects to which the RNLN must contribute. + +#### Anti-Air Warfare + +Air and missile defence has been of considerable importance to the RNLN over recent decades. A ballistic missile defence (BMD) role has previously been considered for the RNLN’s AAW frigates, which provided early warning data for intercept by a US Arleigh Burke destroyer during the Formidable Shield exercise, although there are currently no plans to purchase a BMD interceptor. AAW is an important aspect of NATO’s requirement of the RNLN. + +In addition, as the Netherlands is home to a number of sensitive allied targets, including Joint Force Command Brunssum, some of the Alliance’s dual capable aircraft and one of NATO’s more credible non-US F-35 fleets, attacks on the Dutch homeland in an Article 4 situation, before an Alliance-level command-and-control construct has been set up, are a realistic possibility. + +A threat to the Netherlands would emerge primarily from the north, given the amount of allied airspace that missiles would need to traverse to reach the Netherlands from the east. Currently, the threat is exclusively a cruise missile, as Russia does not appear to field a large number of intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), with the RS-26 programme seemingly not at full operational capability. While Russia does appear to possess a new medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) (possibly a variant of RS-26), with a sizeable but still constrained missile production rate of around 18 short-ranged ballistic missiles per month, producing additional missile types with their own production lines and tooling at scale necessary to allow their employment in conventional roles (which require large salvos) is likely to take time, and the primary function of a Russian MRBM/IRBM is likely to be theatre-level nuclear use (which would change the character of any war). The decision to maintain BMD sensors but not single-purpose exoatmospheric BMD effectors is, therefore, optimal to the circumstances. However, as will be discussed, some of the solutions to other air threats can also provide a hedge against an evolution of the ballistic missile threat. + +It is likely that platforms such as the Yasen-class SSGN and Russian strategic bombers would need to travel into the Norwegian Sea to launch cruise missiles such as the KH-101 or the 3M-14 Kalibr and, as a NATO Maritime Component Command was stood up, this would become increasingly risky. An early “bolt from the blue” strike conducted using SLCMs might be conceivable and provides some rationale for a limited homeland IAMD capability for the first days of a conflict. A quiet submarine with a considerable launch capacity could transit to a launch position and deliver such an attack against key military targets. However, a surprise attack on NATO targets at scale (since the Netherlands is unlikely to be the exclusive target) would require considerable visible preparatory activity, such as mating missiles to bombers and positioning multiple submarines, all of which would rob the Russian ground component of any element of the surprise that Russia has historically relied on. + +More clandestine tools, such as merchant vessels armed with the containerised version of the Klub-K missile, could also be employed against targets in the Netherlands. Once a conflict began in earnest, any vessel leaving a Russian port would be treated as suspect, meaning that these capabilities represent a single-use weapon, which would, moreover, probably be employed against static targets, since tracking a vessel with a converted container would prove difficult in most circumstances. In addition, even containerised missiles require, for example, temperature-controlled storage and maintenance, which are not available at commercial ports and would need to be stored at and then moved from military facilities – also generating early warning. + +Early warning about the movement of capabilities from Russian facilities would likely depend on allied assets. These capabilities are significant, however – by way of a metric, the US XVIII Airborne Corps passes satellite ISR feeds to Ukraine 32 times a day. It is also worth noting that in the medium to long term, the capacity for small and medium powers to generate sovereign strategic ISR may well grow with the exponential proliferation of commercial space-based assets. Cruise missile attacks from non-dedicated vessels cannot be ruled out, but only a limited number of vessels could be used in this way and over a limited time period. + +To a significant extent, then, the air threat is one better interdicted by forward ASW capabilities operating against the submarines that serve as the stealthiest (and thus survivable) launch platforms. This will, however, introduce a considerable requirement for fleet air defence against (primarily) air-launched cruise missiles. Currently, the RNLN operates a credible fleet of air-defence vessels, tactically well suited to its potential roles and which will see an increase in capability in relation to ballistic targets such as anti-ship ballistic missiles with the installation of the Block II APAR X-Band radar, along with the Thales Smart-L on the two newest vessels in class (which is also planned for the Future Air Defender, the RNLN’s next-generation air-defence frigate). However, several officers who were interviewed noted that a lesson to draw from both Ukraine and the Red Sea is that capacity in terms of interceptor numbers will be a major issue, particularly since the SM-2 Block IIIA is no longer in production, leaving the RNLN with challenges in a prolonged conflict. + +The threat in the High North will differ from combat in the Red Sea in one important way. While in the Red Sea and the Black Sea, the Ukrainians and Houthis are able to engage targets with ground-based launchers, the loss of which is inconsequential, in the Bear Island–Svalbard Gap, given the distances involved, Russia would need to employ expensive platforms such as the Backfire bomber. These limit the employment of ground-based radar such as the Monolit-B, which have 250–450-km ranges and are more relevant to the Baltic, while backscatter radar, such as the Podsolnukh-E, lack the granularity to enable targeting. In theory, aircraft or satellites could be networked with ground-based launchers, but – unlike the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – Russia has not demonstrated the capacity to do this. Indeed, the failure to field more than a limited number of electronic intelligence (ELINT) and electro-optical (EO) satellites in the Pion-NK and Lotos constellations will also limit the employment of cruise missiles from Russia’s SSGNs against dynamic targets (since SSGNs such as the Oscar class have typically been cued by either satellites or airborne assets). While the cruise missile threat to vessels is multivector, the air-launched component is the most important. Since the RNLN cannot optimise against all threats (and does not need to as it will operate in a multinational context), increasing its capacity to help an allied force defend against air-launched cruise missiles is the most valuable contribution it can make. + +The risks incurred by airborne platforms against allied defensive counter-air patrols and surface-based air defences (to which bombers must expose themselves in order to receive adequate returns from their own radar) are understood by the Russians, as illustrated by the Soviet military’s colloquial description of Backfire crews as “kamikazes”. A missile attack in the High North would therefore be more intense, but also more temporally brief, than what is seen in the Red Sea or the Black Sea, because the platforms on which it depends are not unlimited in number, and Russian planners would need to make careful decisions about when they are massed for attack against a high-value target set. Thus, the challenge for allied navies such as the RNLN is one of enduring a relatively short period of very intense combat, as opposed to a long period of mid-intensity combat. In the Baltic Sea, ground-based launchers for missiles such as the KH-35 and the P-800 operating from Kaliningrad pose a greater threat to allied forces, making the analogy with the Red Sea more apt. Capacity is still a challenge, especially from the RNLN’s current baseline, but it does not need to be able to fight a multi-month air war comparable to that in the Red Sea to deliver on the first main task. + +In the short term, the problem of magazine depth can be handled in several ways. First, increasing sensor detection ranges can enable threats to be engaged at greater distances, in turn allowing for more efficient shoot–look–shoot shot doctrines, which can have a disproportionate impact on missile expenditure. For example, spreadsheet modelling undertaken by RAND has suggested that the interceptor expenditure of a three-layer BMD system is 75% lower than that of a single-layer system. The RNLN is already in the process of developing a cooperative engagement capability (CEC) with France’s Marine nationale and expanding this capability to allow for cooperative sharing of tracks with elevated sensors such as NATO’s AWACS, and allied platforms, such as the E-7 Wedgetail, would be a logical step towards enabling layering. If the range at which threats such as the subsonic 3M-14 can be engaged is increased through cooperative engagement with airborne sensors, this will have an effect commensurate with a sizeable increase in interceptor stockpiles. Integration, while feasible and demonstrated in US programmes such as NIFC-CA, requires both software integration via translation layers and a number of enablers, including low latency relays and gateways. This is easier to deliver than large numbers of interceptors, however, given the congested production lines for these effectors globally. Layering may be more achievable against subsonic and supersonic threats compared with newer hypersonics, such as the Zircon. However, because of its inherent complexity and cost, the Zircon will likely represent a relatively small fraction of Russia’s anti-ship missile arsenal. + +Second, greater efforts should be made to defeat an opponent’s sensors, as distinct from active defence. The De Zeven Provincien class has recently received an electronic countermeasures (ECM) refit, having previously lacked a credible ECM suite, but more can be done on this front in the relatively short term. For example, more modern digital radio frequency memory (DRFM) decoys disrupt the onboard processing on modern missiles, including their range gates, enabling the more effective use of other capabilities, which most modern missiles with multi-mode seekers are built to counter. DRFM decoys might be procured to limit vessels’ interceptor expenditure in self-defence. Spoofing guidance systems are another way in which capabilities that will be encountered in relatively large numbers can be engaged – employed to good effect by Russia in the land environment. While ECM can be overcome through means such as millimetric wave or dual-mode seekers, this increases the cost of a missile and decreases the size of a salvo. Most Russian missiles remain dependent on a single guidance system. Moreover, spoofing and barrage jamming can also target the sources of tactical ISR (primarily airborne radar in the case of the Russians), although this is power intensive and would likely rely on the onboard generation capacity of the ship. The relatively large size and generation capacity of the De Zeven Provincien class and the likely larger size of the Future Air Defender can be advantageous here. Historical studies of AAW at sea suggest that dominance of the electromagnetic spectrum is somewhat more causally relevant than the balance of interceptors and missiles. + +Out-scouting an opponent, however, is most effective when one can engage the launch platform. While increasing magazine depth to the extent needed to engage large numbers of air-launched cruise missiles will prove difficult, the RNLN might benefit from procuring a smaller number of longer-ranged interceptors to strike aircraft. In the final instance, the most potent threat to vessels in the Bear Island–Svalbard Gap is air-launched cruise missiles, which must be cued by an aircraft’s organic sensors. Aircraft must get within roughly 200 nautical miles of a vessel to generate returns from their own radar strong enough for detection, although more powerful Zaslon radar on the MIG-31 may be able to generate target-grade information at these distances. Aircraft must also fly high – for detection. It is thus both viable and preferable to engage the archer, not the arrow. A number of missiles fit this profile and, given how important airborne surveillance is to the Russian concept of operations, the ability to engage high-flying aircraft at extended range may be more important than magazine depth. + +A (non-exhaustive) list of missile options includes the SM-6 (370 km), the Barak-ER (150 km) and the Aster-30 Block 1NT (150 km). The SM-6 provides a degree of multifunctionality and a hedge against the emergence of a ballistic missile threat. While expensive, it would probably not be required in large numbers if used primarily against aircraft such as Backfires (which are not numerous) as part of a wider allied naval force with allies that also possess considerable surface-based air defences. It also has the advantage of being MK 41-compatible and provides a hedge against the Russian IRBM threat (which is likely not to exist at scale for reasons discussed). While the SM-6 will be in high demand within the US Navy, given its value in the Pacific, foreign military sales of the missile are not as heavily oversubscribed as those of air-defence interceptors with multiple foreign customers. If this is not viable, other options have roughly comparable value against aircraft. However, to employ 150 km-range missiles against aircraft, vessels would need to operate at some risk, since an aircraft could launch missiles at the maximum detection range of its radar. However, a combination of jamming (to make it more difficult to receive radar returns and thus incentivise flying closer to a vessel) and longer-range missiles could make it riskier for an aircraft to fly closer to surface vessels to receive stronger radar returns. Vessels would rely on ECM to ensure that the tracking aircraft does not receive adequate returns at its maximum range. Jamming a high-power Zaslon system will prove difficult, but spoofing and other measures may be more viable means of luring aircraft into a weapons engagement zone. The only other differentiating characteristic of the other air-defence options is that the hit-to-kill capability of Aster provides a hedge against some threat types, such as the Kinzhal, or a future ASBM, which blast-fragmentation missiles may not provide. + +Regarding magazine depth, for the self-defence of vessels, the NATO-led effort to expand production of the ESSM missile Block 2 will provide opportunities to build resilience in the medium term. If the RNLN wishes to hedge against the possibility of this initiative failing to deliver, an alternative way forward is to seek component commonality with the country’s air force. The integration of PAC-3 interceptors on a US MK 41-equipped Arleigh Burke is notable in this regard, since Dutch air-defence vessels are equipped with the MK 41. If PAC-2 GEM and PAC-3 can also be integrated with naval vessels, this could allow for both coordinated procurement with the air force (and thus returns to scale) and the ability to take advantage of the eventual licensed production of Patriot in Europe. The range advantage which Patriot enjoys over ESSM can also enable more effective layering, helping solve the challenge of magazine depth. Currently, Patriot is an oversubscribed capability, reflected in both prices and lead times – but this is true of most effectors. In the medium term, coordinated procurement can allow for returns to scale, access to nearby supply chains in Germany and a consolidation of one weapons engineering and maintenance function across the joint force. This is important, given the fact that platform and system diversity and the maintenance burdens these entail were highlighted as a point of concern by interviewees. Of course, integrating a new missile on a vessel is more than a question of demonstrated hardware compatibility, and the question of whether the Guardian battle management system can be made compatible with PAC-2/3 the missile type is still open (although the system already handles a number of US-made missiles). The Air Defence and Command fleet also has a packed schedule, with the planned integration of the Tomahawk Block IV. + +In the medium term, the RNLN aspires to employ optionally crewed or uncrewed vessels procured as part of the multifunctional support ship programme to expand VLS capacity while relying on lean crews of eight to 10 individuals. The hulls of the vessels are all but complete and will likely be paired with the Future Air Defender and the Anti-Submarine Warfare Frigate, which will arrive in service from the early 2030s onward. There is relative confidence within the force regarding the low-latency datalinks needed to enable cooperative engagement. The major challenge with respect to any effort to pad out VLS capacity with low-cost vessels, however, relates to the issue of size. Medium-sized vessels lack the endurance to remain at sea for extended periods of time, making them potentially useful close to friendly shorelines, but difficult to employ at reach. Even larger vessels such as the US Navy’s 90-m large uncrewed surface vessel have ranges lower than those of an offshore patrol vessel. + +Larger vessels such as arsenal ships or civilian vessels with containerised missiles, by contrast, enjoy greater endurance but would have larger (but still comparatively lean) crews. Consider, for example, the South Korean joint strike ship currently in production, which is likely to have a crew size of 50. The challenge for some types of large vessel is that the short wavelengths of low-latency communications mean that VLS-carrying ships must remain relatively close to the air-defence vessel to which they are paired and thus, if they are relatively large or based on civilian vessels, they are liable to give away the fleet’s position, reducing the value of any effort to limit a naval vessel’s radar cross-section. A large low-profile ship comparable with the South Korean Joint Support Ship (JSS) would probably offer the best combination of capacity, endurance and low observability, and would involve a relatively lean crew of 50, but it would have considerably higher capital costs, of around $500 million – making them still cheap relative to most naval vessels, but not quite expendable. An early additional cost increase that accompanies size, however, can considerably increase the versatility of the multifunctional support ship and reduce support costs – and thus might be considered a long-term saving. + +If the emphasis is to be on very low-cost and lean-crewed vessels, there are two options. First, models of resupply at sea are being tested. If this is the chosen option, aiming for larger vessels with more stability in high-sea states and greater internal capacity to limit the degree to which the vessel needs refuelling is likely to be a next step for the Multifunctional Support Ship programme. Even so, replenishing a vessel with a smaller crew (or none at all) may prove challenging when operating at reach, given the power-consumption demands of running a VLS system and of movement on a relatively small vessel. This will be especially important as the JSS and the Combat Support Ship (CSS) will also have other support functions and can allocate a portion of their capacity to replenishment at sea for uncrewed surface vessels (USVs). + +Alternatively, prior coordination with Norway such that ports such as Bergen and Narvik are prepared to refuel optionally crewed vessels as part of the Norwegian defence plan might be explored. If the air-defence role allocated to the RNLN by Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM) is close to a port (because, for example, it is providing air defence to the sea point of debarkation), this could also help resolve the challenge – although this would also mean that the immediate utility of the vessel is constrained. Finally, because missile warfare will be short but high intensity in the High North, low-endurance USVs could be employed intelligently – for example, they could be surged to the theatre when allied commanders assess the Russians to be preparing a large missile raid with bombers and surface vessels. As the process of preparing bombers and vessels for attacks is time consuming (Russia generates roughly one bomber-launched salvo every 72 hours in Ukraine), surging vessels from ports to the fleet is viable if allied early warning is robust. + +All pathways should be explored in tandem, with resources committed in earnest once the viability of an approach is better understood. The immediate utility of the multifunctional support ship should be seen as limited outside port defence, and the inherent risks of the concept must be well understood. It is entirely plausible that the primary defence system of the Future Air Defender is still what is on board the vessel rather than capacity held offboard on uncrewed or optionally crewed systems – an assumption that is driving the expansion of VLS capacity and thus vessel size in China and Japan (among others) and that will likely drive the requirements for the Future Air Defender. This is not to say, however, that there is no viable pathway to employing these capabilities in a decade. This could become possible, either through improvements in the capacity to replenish medium-sized vessels at sea, or through the development of viable over-the-horizon CEC that can be used to cue them. + +#### Anti-Submarine Warfare + +ASW represents an especially important capability that the RNLN provides to NATO, and one that will be of considerable importance in light of the growth of the Yasen-class fleet. Dutch frigates equipped with LFAPS sonar enjoy comparative advantages in signal-processing algorithms in comparison to similarly equipped platforms in the Alliance, which could make them an especially valuable asset against the acute near- to mid-term submarine-centric threat in particular. In addition, the RNLN’s Walrus class has greater endurance than SSKs built for coastal warfare, and can thus support some ASW functions, although operating deep within Russian bastions will remain a function for SSNs, given the limitations of diesel boats in this respect. + +A major problem for the ASW frigate fleet is its size, which will make both readiness and the retention of certain skill types more challenging. This will become easier in the 2030s, following the recent decision to purchase two additional ASW frigates in addition to the two replacing the force’s M-class frigates, but the challenge of skills retention will need to be carefully managed in the short term. This will be discussed further later in the report, while this section focuses exclusively on tactics. + +The RNLN’s two ASW-equipped frigates have, as mentioned, considerable utility against increasingly quiet SSNs, against which passive detection will prove challenging except at exceedingly short distances. However, emitting also places a vessel at risk of counter detection and engagement. This represents an issue since the fleet at present lacks the means for prompt engagement of a target. The NH-90 helicopters on board FFGs can engage a contact at reach, but require time to be prepared and flown out, while the MK 54 torpedo is out-ranged by the Russian Futlyar heavyweight torpedo. To be sure, the risk of counter detection is determined by a number of factors, including the signal-processing capabilities of both the source and the receiver and the decision to emit at broadband or narrowband, but range is a risk factor. The most important short-term capability gap currently facing the M class and its successor is the absence of a heavyweight anti-submarine rocket comparable to the US RUR-139C. Scalable off-the-shelf solutions do not currently exist in Europe, but MK 41-compatible long-range anti-submarine rockets (ASROCS) such as the 30-km Type 07 are produced for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. While other solutions, such as the use of UAVs equipped with lightweight torpedoes, have also been proposed as part of future ASW concepts, these UAVs would compete for hangar and flight deck space with the NH-90, and while they might enjoy greater endurance, they would still be bound by maintenance and fly-out times. While potentially an important part of a cheaper and more scalable future ASW capability, at present UAVs appear to be an over-engineered substitute for the standoff that an ASROC can provide. + +The available alternative is to rely on a more persistent helicopter presence. In a theatre ASW construct, a helicopter such as the NH-90 should be airborne at all times, with the JSS employed as a theatre ASW platform supporting the fleet at reach. There will, however, be a number of competing demands on the JSS, including fleet sustainment, Role 2 medical facilities and support for the Marines for up to 30 days of high-intensity activity. This is not an irresolvable issue, not least because the imminent addition of the combat support ship will ease a partial capacity bottleneck (albeit only if both the JSS and the CSS are available simultaneously). Moreover, the force will operate under MARCOM, and either the Marines could rely on allied sustainment (prepared with the Norwegians as part of their defence plan) or alternatively theatre ASW could be provided by an allied landing helicopter dock (LHD). Either avenue would require some preparation, for example in the form of regular cross-decking of the NH-90 with the ally likely to provide the LHD, if the JSS is likely to support amphibious activity. At present, this is difficult to anticipate because much allied ASW planning is focused on unit-level skills – a point which will be returned to later. The RNLN could, however, approach the subject on a minilateral basis with allies committed to the Regional Plan Northwest. Even with an available theatre ASW platform and a likely increase in the number of ASW-capable NH-90s, it should be noted that the lightweight MK 54 torpedoes carried on helicopters are range limited, have had prior performance issues in tests and, due to their warhead sizes, have relatively low lethality compared with heavyweight torpedoes. + +The RNLN is placing considerable emphasis on the ability to deploy USVs of a roughly 12-m length from its future ASW frigates. There are several possibilities for the employment of these systems. Some have suggested the use of uncrewed assets as active emitters with variable-depth sonars, while others suggest the use of passive towed arrays. In the author’s view, the power consumption of active sonar is unsustainable on a 12-m vessel – an active sonar needed to achieve a 10,000 yard (roughly 10 km) detection uses half a million watts, for example. Less power-hungry options comparable to the dipping sonar on helicopters are an option, but this implies severe range limitations. On the other hand, USVs equipped with passive detectors (which require just one watt of power for the same detection ranges) deployed well ahead of a vessel could be useful enablers that extend the range of active sonar by receiving returns closer to the point at which waves are reflected, with a concomitant reduction in transmission losses. While the frigate would still have to emit, it could do so from greater distances, and thus mitigate its risk. The optical passive towed arrays on which the RNLN has conducted fruitful research are considerably lighter than traditional towed arrays and offer advantages in terms of sensitivity. This would make them fairly ideal candidates for integration on a USV. Their employment would be most useful in tandem with a long-range ASROC, since the range advantage they offer can be best exploited if a contact can be engaged at range. + +Finally, training for ASW currently lacks realism, and is a concern both within the RNLN and across NATO. Exercises such as Dynamic Mongoose tend to involve unit-level training of a vessel or a platform (such as a maritime patrol aircraft) against a single contact, rather than the integration of ASW assets at a theatre level. Immediate exclusion from an exercise upon detection is not a norm, and the effects of other areas on the conduct of ASW (for example, a lack of situational awareness because P-8s fly at risk in the Svalbard Gap) are typically not incorporated. At the level of the RNLN, while vessel crews do train collectively, the majority of their education and training is stovepiped within their own specialisms (such as principle warfare officers or sonar operators), and training as a task group is not conducted regularly. This is exacerbated by the fact that operational deployments limit the time that the crews of a small force of M-class vessels can dedicate to ASW-specific activity. This also impacts training cycles, with some classes having to be cancelled because of a lack of attendees (as crews are deployed). The issue of realism in ASW training and the integration of effects is not easily resolved, but realism is achievable, as exercises such as NATO’s late Cold War free-play exercises in the High North illustrated. + +While the subject of training pipelines will be addressed in more depth in subsequent sections, it is worth noting at this point that there is a real risk that certain skills perish before the RNLN’s ASW frigate fleet has doubled in the mid-2030s. The tempo of operational activity of a fleet reduced to two vessels means that the demands of operations and workup periods leave limited slack for certain skills to be trained or refreshed, with classes often being cancelled for want of attendees. Areas of particular concern include sonar operators and controllers, as well as principal warfare operators and operations officers. The limited number of vessels in the fleet and thus the limited pathways to promotion on board them also leads to the shedding of personnel. While crew rotation across the fleet will be difficult to sustain, it is important that the M-class frigate force has more crews than vessels if this issue is to be arrested, until such time as more platforms are available. + +The RNLN cannot resolve every aspect of this matter unilaterally, and some issues, such as Alliance-level exercises, are ultimately a NATO responsibility. However, there are avenues through which elements of the issues identified can be targeted. One is through bilateral and trilateral exercises with the navies of countries such as the UK and Belgium, both of which partner with the RNLN extensively. These can be conducted on a smaller scale but with more operational realism than Alliance-level exercises, which necessarily involve considerable preparation and thus a requirement for participants to receive adequate training time. A number of militaries are also experimenting with the use of relatively low-cost uncrewed systems to simulate jammers, additional contacts and attacking aircraft, including China’s PLA (and this is already a feature of air-defence training in allied navies). While such systems cannot simulate the precise signatures of opposing targets, they can add clutter and a higher tempo of activity to an operator’s picture without a requirement for multiple assets to be allocated to an exercise, and can, as an additional benefit, provide a basis for experimentation with some capabilities that may be used as second-tier combat assets (as with the UK’s Banshee UAV, which was used as a strike drone in Ukraine). + +Regarding the proportion of time that vessels’ crews spend in activity relevant to ASW, there are several possible options. Ideally, given the near-term centrality of ASW to the first main task, the two available M-class frigates would be ringfenced for ASW-relevant activity, being deployed at sea on shorter cycles for activity specific to the northern flank, even if this created gaps in the RNLN’s ability to maintain vessels on operational deployment in the short term. This may, however, not be viable. An alternative might be the incorporation of simulators into the vessels’ software. This is not a new technology – the US Navy’s AN/SQQ-89 ASW software has incorporated a training module that allows vessels at sea to simulate tactical ASW scenarios since the early 2000s. The incorporation of additional software into a vessel’s suite is not easy, and simulators would create requirements for establishments ashore (which bear responsibility for scenario generation and the collection of sensor data). This being said, additional activity may be beneficial, as one of the major challenges the training establishment currently faces with respect to ASW is a paucity of activity because trainees are deployed (which is driving losses among trainers, who the force needs to retain). + +A final point concerns plans for future uncrewed aerial systems for ASW. The employment of the VTOL UAV currently being procured for the Dutch helicopter command as a multipurpose asset with ASW functions (with multifunctionality being deemed a necessity, given the command’s limited capacity) would probably see it equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector. In a similar vein, the prospect of equipping the air force’s planned 8 MQ-9 Reapers (four of which will have a maritime surveillance radar) to lay sonobuoys has also been discussed. While maritime patrol aircraft represent a real bottleneck in Alliance capability, uncrewed platforms have a limited capacity to lay sonobuoys. Similarly, magnetic anomaly detectors have very limited ranges. As such, the capacity of these systems to engage targets is likely to be limited. However, there are other possible concepts of employment. For example, uncrewed assets equipped with either lightweight torpedoes or sonobuoys that simulate weapon signatures (not unlike the US Navy’s Julie Jezebel sonobuoys) can play a role in suppressing submarines and forcing them to take evasive action by deploying these capabilities near a submarine’s last known location. This is important since “virtual attrition” – limiting the time a submarine spends performing useful functions – has often been of considerable importance over long ASW campaigns. Future concepts for the employment of uncrewed assets might benefit from a focus on suppression over attrition. + +#### Littoral Warfare + +The Royal Netherlands Marine Corps has, since 2014, been embarked on an ambitious force transformation aimed at operating as a very high readiness, littoral raiding force. As part of this effort, the force is to be reorganised into three, special-operations-capable Marine Combat Task Groups (MCTGs), arranged into strike and reconnaissance squadrons. Each MCTG retains a Marine Spearhead Task Unit on standby for rapid, worldwide crisis response operations. Organic means of indirect attack, including precision-guided rockets, loitering munitions and precision-guided mortars, are expected to be combined with direct-attack capabilities, such as sniping and extended range anti-armour missiles. + +Additionally, it is assumed that the MCTG will be able to call in long-range, maritime precision fires, including loitering munitions from the multi-mission support ships. + +The squadrons are intended to be able to self-sustain for seven days, while attached logistic and medical support sections from the Marine Support Group provide additional supplies, either for two days, or for prolonged field care if needed. For continued operations, replenishment will be brought from the sea base, at range, by surface and/or air connectors, including uncrewed systems, towards multiple littoral access points ashore, starting a new seven-day operations cycle. + +A force built around capabilities that are either man portable or which can (in the case of a 120-mm precision-guided mortar) be carried in all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) will enjoy considerable mobility, and the risk of attacks by infiltrators can force an opponent to concentrate in ways that exposes their forces to massed fires, as illustrated in Exercise Green Dagger, where the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps and the UK Royal Marines played this role in support of a US Marine Corps regiment that provided the fires. Other empirical evidence of the effectiveness of distributed raiding forces as a means of imposing dilemmas on an opponent include the early days of the conflict in Ukraine, when light infantry held up Russian units to enable their destruction by artillery. The concept has also been wargamed and tested on modelling and simulation software against an opposing force based on the 200th Arctic Brigade over the course of a year. There is also some historical evidence to support the notion that raiding forces can impose costs and delays on a heavier opponent, such as during the 1940 “winter war” between the USSR and Finland, and it has been argued that the terrain of Norway is especially well suited to this type of warfare. Thus, the evidentiary base behind the Marines’ CONOPS is relatively strong. + +There are several outstanding questions regarding the Marines’ CONOPS that require specification, however. The first relates to the specific high-value targets that the marines expect to prioritise, given that elusive and high-value targets will be the focus of the raiding concept and the force is expected to be able to operate at depths of up to 100 km, which could thus involve a range of targets. While it is unlikely that the force is going to be fixed to engaging only a single target type, specification is useful here, since this will impact the depth of operations, the effectors used and the likely expenditure of fuel and ammunition. For example, the short- and medium-range SAM systems, such as the SA-15 and the SA-17, will be emplaced relatively close to the forward line of own troops (reducing the requirement for penetration at depth), but they will also be in an area where the opponent has relatively high force densities – raising the prospect of engaging with hostile ground forces. By contrast, longer-ranged capabilities in rear areas such as the S-400 or long-range EW platforms such as the Krashuka-4 are emplaced in rear areas with lower force densities, but which involve infiltration over longer distances. + +In the context of a conflict between NATO and Russia, there is a good basis for emphasising the destruction of short- and medium-range systems such as the SA-15 and the SA-17. This is because these systems represent the primary challenge posed by Russian IADS to NATO airpower, for two reasons. When linked to longer-range strategic systems such as the S-400, these systems do not have to turn on their own radar, making it possible for them to track aircraft without exposing their positions – and there is currently a shortage of MMW seeker-equipped air-launched munitions that can track them when they are not illuminating. Moreover, the systems represent highly effective point defences for ground forces, making munitions expenditure rates unacceptably high. While historically an IADS was destroyed from the inside out – with the attrition of the longer-range systems the key priority – the opposite is the case now. Robbed of an outer layer of more numerous shorter-range systems, longer-range SAMs are relatively vulnerable. There is an especially strong contribution to be made to a joint campaign through the engagement of the short- and medium-range outer layer of an IADS, which should be a priority target set, since a successful counter-IADS effort can allow NATO’s advantages in the air to be brought to bear. + +The consequence of this focus would be that short-range precision strike would take precedence over longer-range systems, since the priority targets are not necessarily deep within an opponent’s rear. Moreover, completing kill chains for short-range systems without reach-back will be considerably easier. Rather than range, the most important characteristics of tactical strike will be seeker fidelity, and employment in a contested electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). MMW seeker-equipped tactical precision-strike capabilities will be of particular importance, given that the most important characteristic of a munition is not its payload (most systems are quite fragile), but its ability to track elusive targets. Since there are unavoidable trade-offs in precision-strike capabilities if the CONOPS focuses as a priority, as this report proposes it should, on elusive but soft-skinned targets at brigade/division depth, range and payload should be traded for sensor fidelity and survivability in a contested EMS. This will be discussed further in subsequent sections. + +The second point worth noting is in response to the range of hard- and soft-kill measures likely to be employed against airborne threats. Reversionary methods of attack are useful. The planned order of battle includes several such mechanisms, including mortars and snipers. This report proposes that mines should also be considered, since they represent a means of hedging against convoying systems (as illustrated by their use in the “Scud hunts” of the 1991 Gulf War, after Iraqi forces formed larger protected convoys). Many modern mines include stand-off and top-attack options, cued by movement in proximity. + +If operating primarily against targets that are at a motor rifle brigade’s tactical depth or just beyond it, a high opponent force density is to be expected. While the CONOPS of the Royal Netherlands Marines is predicated on avoiding contact as much as possible, contact may prove unavoidable in some instances. Previous experience of the activity of raiding forces against elusive targets, including the Scud hunts of the 1991 Gulf War and the operations of Military Asistance Command Special Operations Group (MACVSOG) in the Vietnam War, suggest that opponents are likely to increase force densities around elusive targets in response to raiding. In the Vietnam case, this led to contact being made more frequently, while in Iraq, special forces teams largely avoided the southernmost parts of the country for this reason – which limited their effectiveness. The fact that this was necessary against primitive adversary ISR (mostly visual detection) shows that high force-to-space densities represent a problem, even if effective counter-ISR methods against capabilities such as the Orlan-10 and other UAVs are employed as expected. However, in a joint context, this may be less of a challenge, since, for an opponent, concentrating around high-value targets can create vulnerabilities to other modes of attack. For example, in the context of Green Dagger, concentration by the opposing force commander to counter raiding forces resulted in his incurring high levels of attrition. This being said, the lesson from historical experience is that raiding forces not backed by fires that can punish concentration either see their effectiveness diminish (as in the 1991 Gulf War) or see their burden in terms of munitions expenditure and casualty evacuation grow (as in Vietnam). The assumption that fires will only be available when the follow-on force arrives is thus a potential risk and to work a raiding concept requires the vanguard force to have some capacity to punish adversary concentration. + +In principle, II MEF could provide the capacity to punish adversary concentration as part of an allied force construct. As will be discussed in the later section on strike, there could also be avenues to exploit the MSS as a fires platform for 300-mm rockets that can also be employed on the army’s PULS MLRS, although these are more radical and potentially costly. An alternative way of approaching the question would be to adopt different measures of effectiveness. Concentrating in order to protect high-value targets can lower attrition to raiding by Marines, who will have fewer opportunities to engage, but this would also likely rob a Russian unit of mobility and offensive power – buying time for allied follow-on forces to deploy. Finally, the higher likelihood of direct engagement can be accepted as a necessary risk – which was not possible in 1991, for policy reasons, but was accepted by MACVSOG in Vietnam. + +The planning assumptions of the Royal Netherlands Marines is that they will return to shipping on a six-day cycle (two days to find a target, two days to strike and two days return to shipping/retasking). This represents a reasonable tempo of activity, roughly consistent with US Special Operations Forces teams in 1991 and shorter than the cycles of activity of the SAS in the same conflict – which means that there is slack capacity to extend operating cycles if compelled to do so by unanticipated factors. + +Regarding sustainment, it is relatively difficult to quantify sustainment requirements for raiding forces relative to regular units, because this depends to a significant degree on their mission – whether infiltration, ISR, battle damage assessment or strike – and their success in avoiding contact. A unit is likely to either expend very little fuel and ammunition, or to expend much of its capacity in short engagements prior to attempting withdrawal. This being said, historical evidence shows that irregular units typically have very limited sustainment requirements, with one estimate suggesting that the resupply rates for all Viet Cong forces in theatre during the Vietnam War was as low as 60 tons per day. They also typically break contact considerably faster where possible, with direct exchanges of fire rarely exceeding an hour (although units typically expend most of their munitions load in these engagements). This means that, all other things being equal, the ammunition expenditure of an irregular unit is a fraction of that of a regular light infantry unit. Fuel expenditure is likely to be more considerable, although fuel is comparatively easy to move and to pre-position. Nonetheless, judging by the target set most relevant to this report, contact (and thus the expenditure of ammunition) would be expected to be on the higher side of the spectrum, but still lower than the expenditure rates of a conventional infantry force. Relatively light forces can also be fuel efficient, especially in a relatively narrow theatre such as Norway. + +Regarding the employment of shipping in the context of Norway, unless Russian forces push to the coastline and emplace Bastion-P systems, the A2/AD threat will be limited by a reliance on air- and surface-based assets, which will themselves operate at some risk from allied combat air patrols and vessels at sea. This, coupled with the geography of the Norwegian littoral, which makes tracking vessels difficult, incentivises an approach based on vessels hugging the shore, rather than relying on stand-off. There will still be a requirement for surface connector range for the movement of personnel and supplies along littoral access points along the shoreline, however. + +With respect to connector design, the requirements for stability (to enable Marines to deploy), range, carrying capacity and low observability must be traded off against one another, especially as travel over very long ranges carries the risk of musculoskeletal damage. By contrast, goods can be moved over much longer distances, enabling distributed resupply. This provides an incentive to subdivide connectors into transport and manoeuvre/CASEVAC functions, since once the requirement to move humans over long distances is removed, a range of plausible solutions in terms of design range and storage capacity become viable. For example, the US Marine Corps is testing low-observable vessels, based on narco-boats, for resupply functions. Although these 12-m vessels would be unsuitable for moving personnel, they can carry 10 tons of goods over very long distances. + +One major question for the CONOPS, however, is the degree to which it is dependent on the JSS (which may be tasked to theatre ASW). The amount of support shipping available for sustainment in the Dutch context is roughly consistent with the assumptions of forces such as the Royal Marines (although not identical, because the size of the vessels involved differs), but the reliance on the JSS for support in both Operations Cycle 3 and Role 3 medical support make this a single point of failure. The risk with regard to sustainment could be mitigated by deploying caches sufficient to enable Operations Cycle 2 to be carried out with pre-positioned assets, with the ATS then supporting Operations Cycle 3. The issue of Role 3 medical support may prove more difficult to overcome, although in an allied operation vessels such as the Royal Navy’s MRSS will also be in the theatre. It may be the case, based on the assessments in previous paragraphs, that medical capacity will be a bigger challenge than fuel and ammunition consumption in the context of a raiding CONOPS. If so, one solution might be to expand the medical facilities on two of the planned ATS, to ensure that one vessel in a three-ship formation can provide Role 3 support. The reduction in outload could be managed through a heavier reliance on pre-positioning. The alternative would be to rely on ships taken up from trade for Role 3 support, much as was done with the SS Canberra during the Falklands War. + +There do appear to be some potential points of disconnect between the RNLN fleet and the Marines regarding the amount of time needed for preparatory activity before vessels are moved into the adversary weapons engagement zone. This does not preclude the deployment of the Marines, who are likely to be pre-positioned in an escalating crisis, but it does have ramifications for resupply and CASEVAC in the first 30 days of a conflict. Either vessels must be expected to operate at greater risk earlier on – even presuming the survival of some adversary area denial threats – or there is a requirement for the pre-positioning of stocks to enable MCTGs to self-sustain for longer than one operations cycle in the early phases of a conflict. Since the Marines’ operating cycle (seven days) is relatively short and the resource expenditure of irregular forces low, there is room for extending it in the early stages of a conflict without exhausting personnel or creating an unsustainable requirement for forward logistics if the availability of shipping early on is limited. + +This is linked to a broader issue, namely that amphibious exercises as currently conducted (particularly at the NATO level) tend to be timebound relative to the task – both the Dutch fleet and the Marines need to exercise a range of functions, so times for each activity are compressed. Theatre entry is thus not practised in a realistic way. Moreover, logistics are typically allocated for a fixed time period, and the possibility of logistical overstretch is not realistically examined. The fleet and the Marines might benefit from separate amphibious exercises focused on theatre entry, sustainment and operations ashore to give each time to practise its respective skills. Exercises might be run in parallel, with deductions from each then shared. While exercises on a bilateral or trilateral basis (for example, as part of the UK–Netherlands amphibious force and the US Marine Corps) represent a gold standard in this respect, if vessel availability impedes this, modelling and simulation might prove a useful substitute. As the Newport wargames of the 1920s and 1930s showed, fairly simple tools can yield meaningful analytical results. The Dutch Marines’ taskings are less onerous at the moment, with the end of the commitment to EUFOR ALTHEA (overseeing the Dayton agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina) leaving limited standing commitments beyond a troop-sized element in Romania training Ukrainian marines, and fleet marine squadron protection detachments. As such, the capacity of the Marines to test their own assumptions regarding movement and logistics and examine the possibility of longer windows through exercises is relatively high. + +There are some differences of opinion within the force regarding the role of the NH-90 for both CASEVAC and the sustainment of forces ashore presuming contested airspace. The man-portable air defence (MANPADS) and short-range air defence (SHORAD) threat to helicopters is real, and improvements in areas such as acoustic detection for purposes such as countering uncrewed aerial systems (using machine learning to sift propellor signatures from noise) will further negatively impact the survivability of rotary-wing systems against a peer competitor, given that they will operate in contested airspace. There is a significant threat posed by systems such as the SA-10, the SA-11 and the SA-15. However, most lower-tier systems are either line-of-sight systems or relatively short ranged, meaning that rotary-wing systems can still be used to provide speed and mobility at the theatre level, behind friendly lines and in safer offshore positions, such as the littoral access points where Marines plan to be exfiltrated (since they enjoy an advantage in speed over connectors in the golden hour). Ensuring that CASEVAC is performed by rotary-wing assets can allow surface connectors to be employed for insertion and sustainment. For example, the NH-90 could be used to deposit supplies on Norway’s many offshore islands, from which they could be moved ashore by connectors (which do not always need to return to their parent vessel, per the Marines’ planning). Equally, surface connectors could move wounded personnel offshore from where the NH-90 could provide more rapid CASEVAC to the JSS. As such, the role of vertical lift in amphibious sustainment remains relevant to the High North. + +Achieving alignment between different elements of the force, including the defence helicopter command, the navy and Marines, demands a logistical plan to complement the CONOPS as a necessary next step for the force redesign, and this should precede any decisions regarding either shipping or connectors. It is reasonable that conceptual development has taken precedence thus far, but logistical alignment should precede any efforts to translate concepts into material capability. + +#### Mine Countermeasures + +The RNLN is in the process of replacing its MCM fleet, which has fallen from six to three vessels (with two retired and one training Ukrainian sailors) and will return to its current strength between 2026 and 2031, with new MCM vessels developed in tandem with Belgium. MCM vessels are a significant part of the Netherlands’ offering to NATO. + +The force will shift to a stand-off MCM concept in which vessels will rely on the USV-90 and sidescan sonar-equipped AUVs, with the Skeldar UAV acting as a relay to the vessel. This enables the use of steel-hulled vessels which do not have to enter a minefield. + +Russia can deploy a range of mines, from relatively crude MDM-1 and MDS-1 moored mines to self-propelled mines with magnetic and acoustic sensors, which are rough analogues to CAPTOR. The most likely area in which mines will be encountered in northern Europe is Skagerrak, where the narrow chokepoint can be closed with a relatively limited number of mines, which Russia’s Baltic Fleet could lay clandestinely using Kilo-class submarines or the midget submarines operated by the fleet’s Spetsnaz, as well as auxiliary vessels. Mining in the High North should also be expected. Laying mines has historically been an important part of the layered bastion defence concept, as well as a means of restricting freedom of access in the Norwegian fjords. However, the area to be covered, the difficulty of mining a large area on a clandestine basis, and the risk to the platforms laying the mines means that this will be a more limited challenge, with mines most likely to be encountered by SSNs operating near the Russian continental shelf. Russia could, in principle, conduct mining operations in the North Sea or the approaches to Rotterdam during a crisis, although the depth of the water limits the use of submarines, and visible minelaying with surface vessels would rob the Russians of operational surprise. These limitations also limit the Russian mine threat to Dutch harbours and make mining at scale unlikely, although in principle some capabilities (such as midget submarines) could be employed in this role on a limited basis. + +There are other chokepoints in the Alliance’s wider area of responsibility that Russia might also seek to mine, including the Dardanelles and approaches to ports in Romania, although minelaying on the scale seen in the current war was enabled by a level of air superiority and initial maritime superiority that is unlikely to be replicated in a conflict with NATO, where the Turkish navy enjoys local overmatch of the Black Sea Fleet. Finally, mining is also likely to be a prominent feature in an extra-European conflict that occurs either separately or concurrently at a chokepoint such as the Bab-el-Mandeb. It is worth noting that the commitment of MCM vessels was the RNLN’s major contribution to European energy security during the Iran–Iraq tanker war in the 1980s. + +Since chokepoints covered by cruise missiles are the most likely areas for adversary minelaying, an emphasis on stand-off MCM is astute, as the threats of mines and cruise missiles will overlap substantially. MCM vessels in Skagerrak would fall within the range of systems such as the P-800M (the extended-range version of the P-800) operating from Kaliningrad in a context where the vessels would have limited tactical mobility within a minefield. Moreover, as illustrated by the fighting in the Black Sea, lightly armed support vessels that follow predictable trajectories (such as MCM vessels clearing routes) are especially vulnerable to cheap means of sea denial such as uncrewed vessels, which have limited effectiveness against surface combatants. + +There will thus be two questions of pertinence for the Netherlands’ MCM fleet. The first relates to how MCM vessels train. In recent years, the focus of MCM activity has, unsurprisingly, been on the core tasks of detection and classification of targets, with a particular emphasis on home waters. In chokepoints, MCM vessels will face a considerable risk of air and missile attack even if operating at reach, as they will still be within the weapons engagement zones of VKS aircraft such as the SU-30 armed with the KH-31A, which will likely conduct some sorties even under the assumption that NATO enjoys air superiority, much as the Ukrainian air force has from a position of relative disadvantage. Design choices such as reliance on steel hulls will introduce marginal risks in terms of the prospect of classification by the active seekers on cruise missiles. Air defence will be the responsibility of other vessels’ organisations, but MCM vessels will need to consider how their role and employment will change in a context where they can potentially only operate in narrow windows of time. This is not a new challenge, but it must be made part of how the force trains, and it may suggest the inclusion of passive defences such as chaff. + +The second question relates to the role of MCM vessels in seabed warfare, given the fact that many of the capabilities they employ, such as both USV-90 and sidescan sonar-equipped autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), are relevant to tasks such as classifying objects placed near critical national infrastructure (CNI). MCM vessels have a much higher operational readiness level than the rest of the fleet and have utility in CNI inspection. A question the navy may face in the future pertains to the installation of a seabed warfare module comparable to that which will equip French MCM vessels based on the same hull. The average depths of the North Sea, which will be the primary area of focus for the RNLN with respect to CNI protection, do not necessitate the ability to control especially deep diving uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), comparable to those being considered by the Marine nationale. However, the MCM vessels could serve as useful testbeds for other autonomous systems, as well as for the use of existing systems in new ways. For example, rules of engagement for the direct interdiction of uncrewed remotely operated vehicles such as the Russian Harpsichord may be more flexible in peacetime than those pertaining to crewed systems – a point illustrated by incidents such as the PLA Navy’s seizure of a US naval UUV in 2016. Mine disposal systems such as the K-STER might also be employed in a counter-UUV role. Similarly, MCM vessels might serve as testbeds for proposed concepts for UUV employment that involve the use of non-acoustic sensors to detect underwater targets. + +Organisationally, growth of the MCM fleet from three to six vessels by 2031 will create requirements for considerably more personnel than currently serve within the mine service, as will the requirement to operate the MCM toolbox that will control the uncrewed systems operated from each vessel (which adds a need for 12 individuals per vessel). This, combined with the existing obligation to operate the RNLN’s hydrographic vessels, will result in the service’s considerable growth in proportional terms, although the change represents a relatively small number of individuals. Notably, certain tasks, such as the operation of MCM modules, are relatively easy to learn and thus MCM vessels might represent an area where capacity can be grown relatively rapidly (including perhaps with reservists), with the exception of areas such as engineers and divers, who account for a limited part of the force. + +#### Strike + +The RNLN will invest in the Tomahawk Block IV as part of its efforts to generate a land-attack capability and will also incorporate the Naval Strike Missile on the De Zeven Provincien-class frigate. The Tomahawk will be incorporated on the fleet’s air-defence command frigates and its future submarines, which will be based on the French Barracuda class. Along with the planned procurement of the JASSM by the air force and the PULS MLRS by the army, Tomahawk will give the Dutch joint force a greater capacity for deep strike than it has hitherto enjoyed. + +The capacity for deep strike has operational utility both within Europe and outside it. In Europe, the allied capacity for deep strike on multiple vectors is a matter of significant concern for Russian military analysts, and can force the commitment of both air defences and interceptors such as the MIG-31BM to the northern flank – in turn making the task of suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) on the central front easier for allied air forces by reducing the number of targets to be engaged. In the long term, the melting of Arctic ice will also make it possible for SLCM-equipped SSKs to operate further forward than is currently the case. While any Dutch procurement of Tomahawk would probably be limited in scale, given the cost of the missile, Russian analysts would be likely to view such a procurement as part of an aggregate balance of forces in tandem with the strike capabilities procured by other European states, in addition to the US arsenal of deep-strike capabilities. + +Deep-strike capabilities can also represent an economy of force means of achieving deterrence by punishment at reach. For example, in the Caribbean contingency discussed by several RNLN officers (an invasion of the Antilles backed by Russian arms), rather than the defence or retaking of islands, the ability to cripple terminals such as Jose Terminal in Venezuela (from which 89% of Venezuela’s oil departs) might be an effective means of making a potential attack on the Antilles unacceptably costly, and could be a complement to the light tripwire force of Marines and army personnel that are already deployed in the region, in combination with the prospect of allied support. Deep strike may, then, be a means of managing conflicting commitments without overstretching resources. + +While there is a sound rationale for equipping naval platforms with long-range missiles, there are several matters to consider. First, while the Netherlands is developing the capacity for advanced target development (matching weapons to targets and generating the data to enable capabilities such as Digital Scene Mapping Area Correlation), it will have a limited sovereign capacity for intermediate target development, given that the joint targeting cell being set up to enable deep strike will only be a 25-person cell. This is not especially problematic in the context of a NATO Article 5 scenario, as decisions regarding launches will be determined by the Joint Force Air Component, which will also have responsibility for intermediate target development, but it will mean that sovereign employment of TLAM will depend on partner support. There was some disagreement among interviewees about the ramifications of integrating Tomahawk Block IV with a French combat information system, and while there is general agreement that this is considered feasible by the US, the question of whether it will be more of a challenge if the navy ever wishes to shift to Block V should be raised in advance. + +The second consideration for the RNLN will be that of alternative means of stand-off. As illustrated by the 2016 strikes on Shayrat by the US (which saw 59 TLAMs used) and recent strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, the employment of deep-strike capabilities even against sub-peer threats can absorb complex weapons at a scale that medium powers cannot sustain and, in the case of TLAM Block IV (which is ceasing production), judicious employment will be especially important. This raises the question of whether to employ more readily available strike systems for less important tasks, or those that require shorter ranges. + +One option in this regard is procuring larger numbers of the (comparatively) cost-effective Naval Strike Missile, which can perform land-attack functions, albeit over shorter ranges with a smaller payload than Tomahawk and integrating it on a wider range of vessels. Loitering munitions like the Israeli Harop represent an alternative which, although limited in speed and payload, can be used against targets that do not justify the expenditure of a Tomahawk (examples being many of the coastal radar against which TLAMs have been used in Yemen). A more radical alternative approach might be one that employs 300-mm guided rockets which can also be launched from the PULS MLRS that the army is procuring. The US Marine Corps has experimented with the employment of HIMARS from a San Antonio LPD and, in principle, any vessel with enough deck space (such as the MSS) can act as a platform for a launcher. Indeed, the Russian navy has integrated MLRS systems on the Zubr landing craft and the South Korean company Hanwha has demonstrated a similar concept. While shorter ranged than a cruise missile, with a maximum range of 100 km, 300-mm guided rockets could provide greater weight of fire. They could also, if employed from the MSS, provide a means of breaking up adversary concentrations if the MSS is supporting littoral operations. Commonality with the army with respect to munitions would also create efficiencies. The cost, however, would come in the form of a requirement to procure, integrate, operate and maintain a new launch system (which currently only the army operates) on a platform such as MSS, as well as competition for magazine and deck space, given the vessel’s other functions. This would also impose requirements for vessel size, stabilisation and the management of heat and exhaust on the MSS. + +There is an additional presumed requirement for a tactical 100-km+ long-range strike weapon for support in littoral operations which is intended to be employed on the multifunctional support ship. The question for the RNLN with respect to supporting the Marines will be about managing the trade-off between reach, speed, payload (including sensors) and price. Scalability can best be achieved by sacrificing range and payload in order to accept cost with respect to other characteristics, such as weapons survivability in a contested EMS and sensor payload, all of which will be of considerable importance against the high-value targets the Marines wish to optimise. + +To use an illustrative example, Brimstone has a low unit cost, despite its millimetric seeker, because it is short ranged and has a low payload, and thus does not need an expensive propulsion system. Since many of the critical nodes in an adversary A2/AD system such as EW complexes or air-defence radar are soft skinned, payload is of comparatively limited value against them. Moreover, additional range imposes several costs on a forward-deployed force. Prompt communications over extended distances cannot be guaranteed, and operators will need to maintain overwatch over targets to provide positional updates and battle damage assessment and battle damage assessment for longer periods of time, thus incurring risks, much as Russian Orlan-10 operators do in Ukraine when cueing missiles such as the Iskander against tactical targets. Moreover, long-ranged missiles either have extended fly-out times (as with the Israeli Harop) which can pose challenges against some fleeting targets or add considerable cost and complexity, as with cruise and ballistic missiles. Additionally, the loitering times of the 60-m MSS may be limited, while a larger vessel may be a more viable target for adversary attack. In view of this, rather than a ship-launched long-range missile, a larger number of 50-km-range munitions comparable to the IAI Green Dragon, or an extended range variant of Brimstone that can be mounted on the BvS-10 Viking, would make a more sensible choice for a stand-off precision-strike capability to support the Royal Netherlands Marines in the Norwegian context. + +#### Summary + +Across the major warfare areas, the RNLN’s priorities should be incremental and evolutionary changes since its major force design choices are well suited to the priorities on which it should focus in the coming 15 years. Incremental improvements such as a CEC and longer-range interceptor for air defences or passive sensors that can be deployed forward for ASW can considerably increase the coverage and efficiency of some platforms. The RNLMC can, similarly, refine its existing CONOPS (which appears valid) to narrow its target set, which will have knock-on effects for capability selection. In a similar way, decisions made with respect to long-range strike can usefully support missions, such as spreading Russian air defences, but a “high–low mix” of strike capabilities can allow for additional magazine depth. In effect, the broad thrust of the RNLN’s force modernisation plans is well suited to meeting the requirements of the first main task – most of the changes it requires involve the better enablement of existing or planned capabilities rather than radical shifts to its planning. + + +### III. Organising and Resourcing the Fleet + +The RNLN, like most European navies, faces personnel shortfalls, with its FFG fleet currently crewed at around 80%. This challenge will be especially acute for some competencies, specifically those relevant to ASW, as key organisational competencies depend on a relatively limited number of individuals and growing this cohort is difficult, given the tempo of activity of the M class and limited opportunities for career advancement on ASW vessels. This is, however, a challenge across the force. Notably, intake is less of a challenge than retention, with the outflow of experienced personnel aged between 28 and 32 a particular concern for the force. Lopsided tooth-to-tail ratios between the shore establishment and the fleet afloat represent another point of concern. The gulf between available personnel and requirements could grow if left unchecked, particularly because, in order to maintain the skills needed to eventually sustain organisational growth, both the submarine service and the ASW fleet require more crews than vessels – both to rotate crews in order to enable skills to be taught or refreshed and to maintain the personnel base needed to sustain an eventual growth in platform numbers. + +Several initiatives are being undertaken to rectify this, including lateral entry for certain skills and the Dienjaar pilot programme, in which school leavers spend a year with the fleet before receiving the option to enlist (the programme has enjoyed early success, with 60% of attendees indicating a desire to enlist). There has also been a revision of career pathways to both accelerate promotion and enable individuals to spend more time at sea earlier in their careers (allowing them space for shore jobs and education at the point in their lives when familial commitments become a consideration). It is certainly possible to reverse negative trends in retention: examples include the US Navy, which is currently meeting 107% of its retention targets through a variety of initiatives, including financial incentives and a decision to waive the fitness test results for experienced personnel on a one-time basis, providing individuals with a chance to ensure that they will be retained. + +This report offers three suggestions. First, the navy could take a billet-based approach to promotion, not unlike that chosen by the US Navy, in which a willingness to participate in operational deployments is a criterion for professional advancement, rather than an outcome that accompanies advancement. + +Second, the RNLN would do well to increase the size of its active reserve across the force. Currently, the reserve is a relatively small cadre of 1,000 individuals with niche skills in areas such as communications and cyber capabilities. Since parts of the training pipeline are effectively underworked due to the tempo of fleet activity (as illustrated by the ASW example), a larger active reserve would not necessarily overburden it. However, it would be a mistake to try to generate reservists on the model applied in many countries, where reservists train and certify in a manner analogous (but not identical) to regulars. The focus on targeted training for niche skills should be maintained with a minimal requirement for basic training, but the range of skills emphasised could be expanded to include areas such as sonar or air controllers. Targeted training of reservists for these skills would not necessarily absorb as much of an individual’s time as the naval training process (an air controller takes 20 weeks to train, for example) and refresher courses could be similarly targeted. Minimising basic training and limiting it to critical areas such as fire control to free time for individuals to specialise might create risks, but with the reward of mitigating force-level points of fragility. Additionally, to the extent that reservists devote most of their time to deep specialisation in a specific task, they can generate an identity within a service that is distinct and more valued than that of a rating or officer of last resort – a perception that has led to reservists in other countries feeling undervalued. + +Third, there appears to be a general perception that naval life, with its long but stable employment, is unappealing to young people who seek professional mobility. This view may be misplaced. Although this description is accurate with respect to the millennial generation who are seen to prioritise factors such as work–life balance and rapid advancement prospects (which predict mobility if these requirements are not satisfied), this tends to be less true of generations that have seen financial or other crises in their formative years, including much of Gen Z. According to large-N studies, members of Gen Z treat job security as their highest professional priority. Assumptions based on the attitudes of individuals born between 1981 and 1996 may then not transfer to those born more recently, and the navy’s traditional offer may be more appealing than is sometimes assumed. This could be better exploited in recruitment drives, which tend to de-emphasise the long-term stable employment aspect of naval life. + +While there are ways in which human capital can be increased, the RNLN does require a hedge against the possibility that the situation does not improve. In this context, a “nuclear option” is that in the next six years, availability for crew rotation in capabilities critical to deterrence, such as ASW and AAW frigates, should be found at the expense of the OPV fleet and in extremis, the LPD fleet. The Holland-class OPV has limited utility in a major contingency and some of its tasks (such as maritime surveillance and interception in counter-narcotics) can be provided by the MQ-9 Reaper. Since the Russian submarine threat will become acute around five years before the Russian land threat in the High North is reconstituted, due to the time it takes to regenerate cold-weather troops, maintaining both LPDs at extended readiness until the arrival of the ATS is also an option (albeit a decidedly suboptimal one). Critical elements of the Royal Netherlands Marines’ CONOPS can be practised without amphibious insertion (particularly since they depend on pre-positioning in the Norwegian scenario), and this can include the use of surface connectors to manoeuvre around the littoral. Moreover, the fleet can practise core elements of amphibious activity (such as shaping) separately. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, separating the marine and naval elements of littoral combat to give adequate time to both has some advantages, and the LPD is useful but not critical to practising many elements of littoral warfare. + +Finally, the air-defence command frigate can host a command element up to 1* level for the rehearsal of command functions. However, the LPD does offer a useful capability with which to rehearse amphibious resupply, and this should be a choice made in extremis. Given the symbiotic link between the British Royal Marines and the RNLMC, the rotation of the Royal Navy’s Albion class and the Rotterdam class as part of a shared fleet of four (with either a Dutch or British LPD at readiness at any time) might also be explored, since both navies face similar considerations and could plan around a shared rotation schedule. While this involves a loss of flexibility and is likely to be politically difficult, the alternative may well be the early loss of the capability by both fleets. This being said, the announcement of a decision to scrap HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark may, if realised, pre-empt this option. + +#### Logistics and Maintenance + +The RNLN is in the process of rationalising its logistical support and consolidating functions that are currently distributed throughout the organisation. This distribution of logistical functions has several effects. Often, the requirement to meet a vessel’s day-to-day needs falls on chief petty officers, who often must take responsibility for ensuring a vessel is resupplied. + +At present, therefore, the logistical system is not set up to support operations at scale. Supporting a force operating multiple vessels in tandem at high intensity and coordinating activity with allies and partners on the northern flank will require considerable additional capacity. The major shortfalls are: + +- The lack of a consolidated logistics chain and front office to manage vessel demand. + +- A peacetime work structure within J4 (Logistics). + +- A lack of suitably qualified personnel to manage the movement of dangerous goods, which makes demand management in peacetime difficult. + +This is not a strictly naval consideration – the J4 at The Hague and Allied Maritime Command will bear primary responsibility, and this would be a MARCOM concern in a NATO Article 5 scenario – but the RNLN does have a role in setting the conditions for a shift to a wartime logistics chain, with a planned first step being the creation of a single assembly point ashore. + +Several additional steps might be taken in coming years. First, there are relatively straightforward ways in which logistical burdens can be made less onerous. Functions which are distributed throughout the fleet (and indeed defence) can be consolidated. To use an example, the organisation of support for embarked aviation on ships (which currently requires the aviation crew to engage with the transportation directorate) can be made part of a single logistical chain managed from the vessel, rather than having a separate logistical chain for aviation. + +Second, the strain on dangerous goods cells can also be reduced, through a re-categorisation of the rather broadly defined term, which currently includes items such as lithium-ion batteries. The current broad categorisation adds to the workload of personnel tasked with managing dangerous goods and adds unnecessary process to the movement of a number of items. + +Third, there are several fairly basic targets, such as building a track-and-trace system for the delivery of standard goods and shifting from a civilian work cycle which can be met immediately. + +Fourth, a push-driven logistical model will become ever-more important, since it is probable that the movement of resupply will be contested from home ports onwards and the IT on which resupply depends will be subjected to cyber attacks. As such, anticipating the demand signal from deployed vessels rather than waiting for it to be communicated will be of ever-greater importance. This cannot be feasibly achieved across the board, but can perhaps be done for less scarce items, such as routinely used spare parts. A rule of thumb with respect to predictive analytics is that its value is inversely proportional to the consequences of an incorrect prediction – a vessel being given an air-defence interceptor it does not require is considerably more consequential than if it receives an excess of spares for its main gun, to use a somewhat exaggerated hypothetical example. + +At a more tactical level, there will be competing demands on both the JSS and CSS Den Helder. While the arrival of Den Helder should ease the demand for the JSS to support fleet replenishment, the movement of solid goods and the provision of Role 3 medical support for amphibious forces will to some extent compete with support for the fleet fighting the battle in the Bear Island–Svalbard Gap, as well as theatre ASW. One possible consequence is that the ATS sees its share of the burden of amphibious support (and thus its size) increase, with ramifications for plans to build a relatively large number of ships that can double as OPVs. Pre-positioning stocks at Narvik and Tromsø represents the most viable means of avoiding this challenge, but this will require preparatory activity. + +Memorandums of understanding with Norway and the UK regarding the pre-positioning of stocks and the degree to which local support can be relied on will be crucial to both logistical and operational planning, since core assumptions regarding the resupply of both the fleet and the Marines will depend on this, with second-order ramifications for how assets such as the JSS and future ATS are employed. Allied assumptions regarding logistics also have ramifications for elements of the Norwegian defence plan, such as the allocation of ground-based air-defence systems. While forward positioning sites have been identified by NATO, the requirements that determine how these sites have been resourced have not been specified and the question of how resources will be allocated has not been answered. Preparatory work with partners likely to operate in the northern tier will thus be of some importance, both to create reversionary sources of supply and to hedge against shortages, since allied planning assumptions regarding logistical resupply are often based on a principle of sufficiency, with logistics in exercises, for example, typically planned to support a force for precisely the number of days for which the exercise runs. + +Fleet maintenance is another area where a more efficient approach could increase the availability of vessels by reducing the time allocated to scheduled extended maintenance periods (which, with 26-week work-ups, take up to a year). Currently, there are several factors that complicate the process of maintenance. These include a reliance on a small and ageing civilian workforce for planned regular maintenance and the need to use civilian docks for larger vessels. The existence of multiple bespoke vessel types within the fleet also complicates the process of maintenance considerably, given a lack of commonality with respect to components and the layout of vessels (extending to matters such as electrical wiring). This creates a demand for bespoke skill sets that are not used most of the time. + +More regular maintenance to rectify specific minor issues can allow periodic maintenance/deep refit periods to be shortened. There is a risk that more regular maintenance raises the risk of converging demand being placed on the maintenance establishment without careful planning aided by predictive analytics. There are several approaches that can be taken to predictive maintenance, the most sophisticated of which requires the gathering of significant amounts of data in real time for processing by tools such as neural networks to enable condition-based maintenance. This approach, while promising, will require the employment of sensors and their enablement with adequate software – a process that will compete for capacity with a number of other priorities, such as the replacement of the navy’s systems applications and products, the digitisation of the HR system and IT support for logistics, all of which must be run through a central IT procurement system. A somewhat quicker approach might involve the division of the vessel into usage profiles for individual component parts, an assessment of the maintenance rates relative to a given usage profile, and a mapping of the usage profile of subcomponents on routine deployments, which requires considerably less real-time data gathering and less novel software. + +With respect to commonality in vessel types, there is relatively little that can be done in the short term, although the consolidation of the OPV and amphibious shipping should prove useful. Standardisation to the extent possible should, however, be made a core consideration with respect to the design of future vessels. + +#### Generating Tactical and Organisational Flexibility + +A number of factors currently impeding the flexibility of the force can be resolved with little to no material or financial input. Key among them is the number of certifications that individuals across the force must receive for fairly basic functions, which are both time consuming and limit experimentation. + +One example of this is that the Royal Netherlands Marines were able to train Ukrainian forces to operate the BvS-10 in a week – a process that takes seven weeks within the corps, and personnel must certify on each vehicle they may drive (including civilian vehicles), even when skills are fungible. Another example is that the process of certification for basic medical support is longer than necessary, which will be especially salient for the Marines given the need for forward-deployed forces to perform as many support functions as organically as possible. Extended certification and recertification periods rob personnel across the force of time better spent and are likely to be a major impediment to certain types of experimentation. For example, the employment of modified, commercial off-the-shelf UAVs or UUVs on an experimental basis – a necessary preparation for the likely expenditure of stockpiles of dedicated systems at a scale that exceeds the rate of replacement – will be inherently difficult in this context. This would also apply to generating the capacity for members of the force to employ systems they are not certified to use on a reversionary basis, in the event that casualties are sustained. + +This represents a lost opportunity since the colocation of the navy and the maritime procurement element of Command Material and IT (COMMIT) can and often does allow for requirements to be passed into COMMIT more rapidly than is the case for the other services. In principle, the RNLN has a more ready pipeline from experimentation to scaling of new capability, if it is enabled to employ it. + +Existing standards regarding the crewing requirements for vessels may also be surplus to requirements, with vessels such as FFGs potentially up to 30 crew members over the number they need to perform many of their functions. Greater flexibility regarding the crewing requirements for ships, especially on routine and low-intensity activity, could have an important impact on aggregate fleet readiness. + + +### Conclusions + +This report has sought to offer an assessment of whether the RNLN’s plans are matched to the emerging threat environment in military terms, and whether they are likely to be adequately resourced. Its findings are that the RNLN has articulated a sound force design to meet its obligations under the first main task, and the force’s major areas of focus are sound. In the medium term, the RNLN will be able to emerge as an important contributor to European maritime security. However, to accomplish this, short-term prioritisation is needed to preserve the organisational sinews that will allow the force to grow. Since the threat in the context of the first main task will evolve from being initially based on submarines and missiles to more multidimensional, availability of ASW and AAW frigates and the human capital to grow these fleets will be vital. This will, among other things, require deployment cycles for ASW vessels to be built around the need to retain competencies within the force, rather than maintain a predetermined amount of time at sea. Technical solutions such as at-sea learning may also help balance these trade-offs. + +Second, certain parts of the force, such as the ASW and submarine fleets, need to grow in numbers of personnel before they grow in terms of platforms. This will have ramifications for how crews are rotated but, in extremis, might incentivise the temporary contraction of the fleet in the near term, with human capital moved from assets such as OPVs. This being said, contraction is a “nuclear option” and other possibilities, such as the more creative use of a currently very limited reserve capability, should be explored. + +The RNLN is making a number of necessary long-term investments in distributed lethality. However, relatively short-term investments might be made in areas such as ASROCs, where the solutions needed to enable some of the fleet’s concepts (such as stand-off ASW) are relatively anodyne capabilities. Cautious capability growth in other areas, including additional systems employed from MCM assets, and a larger number of medium- and short-range strike systems, to respectively add magazine depth and support the Marines in a counter-IADS capacity, might also be considered. + +The RNLN can play an important role in the contest for the critical chokepoints on which the outcome of deterrence in relation to Russia depends. In the medium to long term, the force’s planned growth in capability will make it an increasingly useful contributor to NATO’s regional plans for the northwest. Reaching this point, however, requires careful navigation of the next 10 years. + +--- + +__Sidharth Kaushal__ is Research Fellow for Sea Power at RUSI. His research at RUSI covers the impact of technology on maritime doctrine in the 21st century, and the role of sea power in a state’s grand strategy.