Think China’s PLA is a paper tiger? Think again

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I keep hearing these days that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is a “paper tiger,” and thus there’s no need to worry about an attack on Taiwan.

And anyway, I also keep hearing, the United States has plenty of time to get ready before the PLA is a real threat – rather than just a “near-peer competitor.”

The PLA’s problems? To name a few: no recent combat experience, corruption, too many “only children” in the ranks. The Chinese Navy can’t conduct combat operations in distant seas and is not able to master “amphibious operations” – supposedly the most complex and hardest of all military operations. 

Even China’s leaders complain about “peace disease.” The PLA hasn’t fought a war for decades. And too many senior officers can’t manage the demands of modern high-tech warfare.

Maybe so. But in the last 30 years, the People’s Republic of China has pulled off the biggest, fastest military build-up seen anywhere since World War II. China’s defense budgets are much greater than the roughly US$220 billion it claims and possibly exceed US defense spending. 

The PLA Navy is already larger than the US Navy and the gap will widen. China is launching five ships for every one the USN puts in the water. It has put more tonnage and missiles to sea as well. 

Beijing lavishes similar attention upon its air force and ground forces and its cyber and electronic warfare. And its missile capabilities, including hypersonic weaponry, probably exceed US capabilities. Its nuclear weapons build-up has finally got even the China experts worried. They dismissed it for years.

‘Eyes wide open’

China knows its problems but it has clear objectives. Defeating US forces is objective number one. And it trains hard to achieve its goals. Its ships are not rust buckets. Nor do they collide with other ships or burn up pierside every so often.

Yes, the PLA would have a harder time attacking Des Moines, Iowa, but that’s not the point.

It’s true that Chinese conventional combat power – or “power projection” – drops off rapidly beyond, say, 1,000 miles from the Chinese border. But its land-based missiles easily range Guam and Hawaii. Plus, it is operating ships and aircraft more often and farther out into the Pacific and beyond. 

China is setting up a network of ports and airfields to which it has access worldwide. And it is building more of the refueling ships and aircraft and long-range transports needed for global power projection – akin to what the Americans can do.

Play this out five or ten years and it is hard to be sanguine. And somehow, the “paper tiger” took de facto control of the South China Sea six or seven years ago. 

The US Navy can transit the area – as can the US Air Force – and even conduct exercises. But it’s like the New York Police Department going through Times Square back in the bad old days before Mayor Giuliani cleaned things up. The cops controlled only the space they actually occupied, and when they left the “bad guys” filled in and took control. 

Even now the PLA is shadowing (“escorting”) US ships and aircraft through the South China Sea.

China televises the firing of ballistic missiles into ‘training’ areas around Taiwan and in Japan’s EEZ in Okinawa Prefecture, August 4, 2022. Photo: Weibo

It only has to be good once

Nothing to worry about? One of these days a US Navy destroyer skipper will have a dozen anti-ship missiles headed his way – at supersonic speed – and 12 seconds to respond. He might be forgiven for thinking the PLA is not a paper tiger and is more than just a “near-peer competitor.”

But here’s something to keep in mind when you consider the People’s Liberation Army: A military only has to be good enough to do a certain thing, at a certain place, at a certain time. 

Recall the Falklands War in 1982. The British outclassed the Argentinians in nearly every respect. Argentine hardware was often obsolete and many of the troops were “draftees.” 

Yet, the Argentines almost won. And they would have won if a few more 500-pound bombs and torpedoes detonated and sunk Royal Navy ships. 

Britain also had the good fortune that Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. The Falklands are about 200 miles from the Argentine coast at the closest point. Taiwan is only 90 miles from the Chinese mainland.

A Chinese newspaper reports on military exercises conducted by the Chinese military around Taiwan on April 10, 2023. Photo: Kyodo

China’s not going after Des Moines

If it’s just Taiwan you’re after – as opposed to Des Moines – it looks possible. 

And an attack on Taiwan won’t just be an amphibious assault. It will also include massive and accurate missile barrages, total air and sea control, aggressive electronic warfare and cyber warfare. And internet and comms links will be cut. Fifth columnists will be causing chaos. And it will include threatening the US with nuclear war. 

China has practiced and prepared for all of this – and for years.

Sure, Xi Jinping would rather get Taiwan by not fighting, but force is on the menu and Xi has said so. It’s comforting – but dangerous – to assume that Xi and the Chinese just aren’t good enough, or are too frightened, or are just bluffing – which is the most commonly held belief in DC and even in Taipei. 

One detects the same sort of condescension as in 1950 when the experts – not least in General Douglas MacArthur‘s headquarters – insisted: “They (the PLA) will never come across the Yalu.” 

But they did. And nobody has ever heard a Korean War veteran say he wanted to fight the Chinese again.

You’d think US Marines, of all people, would know better. This writer recalls them rolling their eyes circa 2016 at the idea that Chinese equivalents of US Marine and US Navy amphibious units (the MEU/ARGs) would be making the rounds in the Indo-Pacific before too long. Just not our equals, you know. 

The Chinese navy is turning out amphibious ships at a rapid clip and could deploy two or three similar amphibious task forces if they wanted to.

A Chinese naval vessel departs from Vladivostok in the Russian Far East for a joint patrol with the Russian Navy. Photo: TASS News Agency

As for the PLA’s lack of warfighting experience…

Proper training can also make up for that. 

And don’t forget that the US military has fewer and fewer combat veterans. And none of them have experience in high-end warfare against a high-end opponent in a largely maritime domain. Fighting Iraqis and the Taliban is not the same the same thing as going against a modern opponent. Nor were those campaigns huge successes.

It also helps to recognize that China has been conducting non-kinetic warfare against the United States and the West for decades. Political warfare, economic warfare, propaganda, elite capture, cyberattacks, espionage, chemical (fentanyl) and biological warfare (Covid?) are part of China’s “unrestricted warfare.” 

It is all intended to soften up the enemy and undermine his will and ability to resist. Kinetic warfare is only used if needed to finish things off.

But doesn’t the US have allies?

Yes, it does, and America’s allies are a huge benefit even if military capabilities are uneven and political interests are not always aligned.

But China also has allies: North Korea, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba. And much of the Global South is at least sympathetic to the People’s Republic of China. 

These may not be the most lovable countries, not always the best of friends – but together they can cause trouble for the United States and its partners.

And, for now, their strategic interests align. 

The Japanese, who are regularly harassed and circumnavigated by Russian and Chinese planes and aircraft, can tell you that. 

And recently the PRC, via Iran and its Hamas and Hezbollah proxies, got the United States and the US military wrapped around another Middle Eastern axle – at the expense of the Indo-Pacific.

The PLA has other things working in its favor:

The US won’t cut economic dependencies on the PRC, which include many required for defense production. And Wall Street and the American business class continue providing the Chinese Communist Party with a few hundred billions in convertible currency a year – effectively funding the country (and the military) that is looking to drive it out of the Indo-Pacific, for starters.

But back to the main point – don’t underestimate the Chinese or the People’s Liberation Army. 

They wouldn’t dare? A simulated Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Image: Facebook

It’s not the first time America has underestimated an enemy: 

“Saddam Hussein won’t attack Kuwait”

“Once we take Baghdad everything will be fine”

“Putin attack Ukraine? He won’t dare.”

“China doesn’t want a blue-water Navy.”

“The PRC just wants to do business and make money.”

Only Xi knows for sure

No one except Xi Jinping knows what he will do. But it’s best to prepare for the worst – and now. 

And remember that a military just has to be good enough to do a certain thing at a certain time at a certain place.

Its government just has to be willing to absorb some economic punishment and political blowback.

If that’s the case, the PRC only has to pick its spots and its timing – and hope the United States keeps convincing itself that China wouldn’t dare attack.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He is the author of the book When China Attacks: A Warning To America.

This article was first published by JAPAN Forward and is republished with permission.

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The Japanification of China

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The old Soviet Union’s centrally planned economy was so inefficient that Russians spent hours in lines hoping to buy scarce goods. In one biting Soviet joke from that era, a man was finally able to purchase a car, only to be told it would be delivered on a particular day five years hence. “Could it be another day?” he asked. “That’s the day the plumber is coming.”

For a couple of decades under Deng Xiaoping and his immediate successors, the other big communist country, China, eased up a bit on central planning and state domination of the economy. Free-market forces were unshackled; private ownership of businesses was allowed.

Getting rich was declared a good thing. China’s leaders offered a deal: You can have a better life as long as you stay out of politics. I remember a Beijing cab driver of that era boasting that the only thing he wasn’t free to do was criticize the government.

Which is to say, China’s people embraced the deal. The economy boomed. Hundreds of millions of Chinese were lifted out of poverty and into the middle class. China became an economic superpower, something the Soviets never came close to achieving.

Those were the days.

Today, under Xi Jinping, China has become more traditionally Marxist-Leninist again. Even though many state-owned enterprises are a drag on the economy, they get most of the bank loans. The Chinese Communist Party eyes fast-growing private companies warily, worrying they’ll become a rival source of power. Party officials have been installed in private companies’ executive suites.

Economic growth has slowed. As I mentioned in an earlier post, some foreign experts blame heavy-handed state intervention and argue it will be hard to get the economy back on track. They foresee “Japanification” – years, even decades, of economic doldrums, like the ones Japan experienced in the 1990s and beyond.

Illustration: New Yorker October 23, 2023 / Xinmei Liu

Now the New Yorker magazine has weighed in with a robustly reported piece that supports the Japanification case. Evan Osnos, the experienced China hand who wrote it, piles up anecdotes and statistics that more than justify the article’s pessimistic headline, “China’s Age of Malaise.”

Some of the tidbits he serves up are tantalizing. Standup comedians, Osnos reports, must now submit jokes for approval before telling them. The representatives of one comedian were fined US$2 million after he riffed on a Chinese military slogan in a joke.

Supreme leader Xi has a cult rivaling Mao Zedong’s. In this year’s first five months, the party published 11 books under his name, collecting his comments on a variety of topics.

Osnos says some business executives report being required to spend a third of the workday studying “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.” The studies include reading four books a month, attending meetings, writing essays and taking tests.

Xi Jinping’s “thought” is more like Mao’s than Deng’s. Deng was famous for putting pragmatism ahead of ideology. It didn’t matter, he said, whether a cat was black or white as long as it caught mice. Xi’s view, Osnos says, is it doesn’t matter if the cat catches mice as long as it’s red – Communist.

With the party and the state intervening in daily life so heavily, caution reigns. Osnos was surprised how often Chinese spoke of Xi without mentioning his name and how many would only be quoted anonymously. “Disappearances have become the backbeat of public life under Xi,” he writes. It’s not just entrepreneurs. Recent disappearances include the foreign minister and defense minister.

Ask a Chinese version of ChatGPT if Xi Jinping is pragmatic, Osnos reports, and the answer is “Try another question.” Even China’s AI bots are cautious.

A woman takes a selfie as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech is being broadcast on a large screen in Beijing during the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, July 1, 2021. Photo: Asia Times Files / AFP / Noel Celis

Many Chinese citizens are responding as you might expect. Some are finding ways around China’s capital controls and are parking money overseas. Others are leaving China.

Osnos reports that 300,000 moved away last year, more than double the rate a decade ago, and 10,800 of them were rich. Some emigres head for Singapore, but Osnos says 17,894 showed up on the US border with Mexico this summer, up 13 times over a year earlier.

China’s birth rate has plunged by more than half since 2016. The one-child policy has been lifted and young Chinese can legally have more children, but they don’t want them.

Private-sector jobs are no longer as attractive as they were before the crackdown. According to Osnos, 1.5 million Chinese have taken the civil service exam this year, up 50% since 2021.

None of this helps China’s economy; much of it detracts, potentially rendering impossible any near-term economic recovery. At the very least it makes recovery more difficult.

Economic woes don’t necessarily translate into weaker demand for foreign agricultural products, at least in the short run. People still have to eat. Still, if Osnos is right, this big market for America’s farmers and ranchers will no longer be a booming country with a seemingly endless appetite for imports.

Osnos’s view? “To spend time in China at the end of Xi’s first decade is to witness a nation slipping from motion to stagnation and, for the first time in a generation, questioning whether a communist superpower can escape the contradictions that doomed the Soviet Union.”

Former longtime Wall Street Journal Asia correspondent and editor Urban Lehner is editor emeritus of DTN/The Progressive Farmer. 

This article, originally published on November 12 by the latter news organization and now republished by Asia Times with permission, is © Copyright 2023 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved. Follow Urban Lehner on Twitter: @urbanize

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Diaspora lacks predictable influence on UK politics

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Leading politicians in the UK, including the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, are of African Indian descent. Other high profile examples include the country’s two most recent home secretaries – Priti Patel, who served from 2019 to 2022, and her successor Suella Braverman, whose tenure ended abruptly on 13 November when she was fired by Sunak.

The home secretary is responsible for law enforcement in England and Wales, national security and immigration.

Sunak’s grandparents left the Punjab in northern India for east Africa in the 1930s. His mother was born in Tanzania and his father in Kenya.

Patel’s parents were immigrants from Uganda; she was born in the UK and cherishes her “deeply held British values.”

Braverman, too, was born in Britain. Her mother grew up in Mauritius, a former French colony, and her father is of Kenyan Indian origin. Braverman calls herself “a child of the British Empire”.

All three are part of the African Indian diaspora. Do they tell us anything about the cohort of people who have had the same experiences as the children of migrants and as part of a diaspora?

I have researched the Indian and African diasporas and found that, in fact, members of diasporas have supple and dynamic political positions. Sunak, Braverman and Patel, among others, provide real life examples of how diasporic people exhibit a wide range of political affiliations, outlooks and opinions.

Some researchers used to believe that diasporic and immigrant communities would function as a “unified polity” – they might all vote the same way. This thinking holds true for many whose work focuses on diasporas and politics – but for those, like me, who research diasporas and migration, there’s been a shift in the last decade or so towards more complex understandings. My research is qualitative, allowing me to delve more deeply into the complexity and idiosyncrasy of diasporic communities.

Diasporas on the move

An African Indian is a member of the Indian diaspora whose family is or has recently been Africa-based.

In the early 1970s, former Ugandan president Idi Amin implemented several hostile, xenophobic policies. In 1972 he ordered all Indian Ugandans to leave the country. Many East African Indians, including those from Tanzania and Kenya, emigrated because of open discrimination against them, heading to countries like Canada and the UK in greater numbers.

It wasn’t just Amin who drove those of Indian descent from the continent. Throughout the 20th century, and especially after the second world war, Britain’s colonial subjects started arriving in the UK. In prior centuries, British imperialism and settler colonialism also spurred many waves of migration, including some of those of the African Indian diaspora.

A diasporic group lives in a geographical location other than its original homeland. Researchers have long been interested in whether members of ethnic or religious diasporas would act as a bloc of unified political actors in influencing their homeland politics or the political climate in their new adoptive countries.

Dynamic, discursive identity

Researchers have highlighted how diasporas can “rediasporise” as children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren move to new locations. Members of diasporas may choose to identify with multiple homelands and host countries over time.

But they may choose to identify with one more than the other or do something else entirely. Take Braverman: although a member of the Indian and African diasporas, she has been outspoken about tightening the UK’s immigration policy. She’s on record as having said:

Look at migration in this country – the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants.

Expecting her to have an automatic affiliation with her past isn’t reasonable. Recent scholarly work on diasporic identity has sought to understand identity not as static and “essentialist” but dynamic and discursive. It is also co-constructed, created as an interplay between the individual and the structures – of race, ethnicity, religion, national context and so on – in which she finds herself.

Real-life examples like those of Patel, Braverman and Sunak can help diaspora scholars like myself sharpen our analysis of diasporic communities. As scholars, we cannot presume to know how members of diasporas will identify themselves and what their politics will be without doing extensive research. This will build a better understanding of the complex ways in which diasporic communities will contribute to society in their new homes.

All we can say for sure is that diasporic identities and identifications are fluid, mobile and creative. Diasporic people cannot be pigeon-holed or put in a box.

Melissa Tandiwe Myambo is a research associate at the Southern Center for Inequality Studies, University of the Witwatersrand.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Nvidia to test Chinese markets with slower chips

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Nvidia has downgraded three graphic processing units (GPUs) for the Chinese markets after it was banned by the US government from shipping A800 and H800 chips to China last month.

The California-based chipmaker is expected on Thursday to launch at least three new artificial intelligence (AI), the H20 L20, and L2, and perhaps more, to replace the banned processors, media reported.

The performance density, or speed per die size, of the three chips is reduced to between 14.9% and 26.8% of that of the H100. Nvidia slowed their speeds with some hardware and software adjustments, according to technology experts.

The H100 is 6.68 times faster than the H20, technology analyst Dylan Petal says in an article published by SemiAnalysis on November 9. However, the H20 is 20% faster than the H100 in large language model (LLM) reasoning, he added. 

LLMs are deep learning algorithms that can recognize, summarize, translate, predict and generate content using very large datasets, according to Nvidia’s website.

Some Chinese firms had given up ordering Nvidia’s AI chips as they did not know when and whether their orders would be canceled amid the United States’ tightening chip export controls. 

Baidu, China’s search engine, had already ordered 1,600 Ascend 910B chips from Huawei for about 450 million yuan (US$61.83 million) in August and received about 1,000 of them, Reuters reported on November 7, citing two unnamed sources. 

One of the sources said the Ascend processors are now the most sophisticated AI chips available in China, although they are not as fast as Nvidia’s. 

“The H20’s overall computing power is only equivalent to 20% of that of the H100, meaning that there is room for price cut,” a Shanghai-based columnist writes in an article published on Monday. “However, using the H20 will still be more costly than using China’s AI chips, such as Huawei’s 910B.”

The writer says Nvidia will lose its competitiveness in China over the long run if it cannot sell its most cutting-edge products in the country.

New parameters

In August last year, the Biden administration ordered US chipmakers to stop exporting graphic processors that operate at interconnect bandwidths of 600 gigabytes per second or above to China and Russia. Nvidia’s A100 and H100 chips and AMD’s MI250 chip are in the category affected by this rule.

Nvidia later unveiled the A800 and H800 processors, which work at 400 and 300 gigabytes per second respectively, targeting the Chinese markets. Some analysts found that the A800 and H800 were actually reduced versions of the A100 and H100, respectively.

On October 17, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) said it will not categorize restricted chips by using “interconnect bandwidth” as a parameter. Instead, it will use “performance” and “performance density” as new parameters.

Under the new rules, a chip with a total processing performance of 4,800 or more or a performance density of 5.92 or more will be banned from being shipped to China. A800, H800, L40, L40S and RTX 4090 chips are in the category of this rule. 

China’s orders involving US$5 billion worth of Nvidia chips have reportedly been canceled.

As of now, the H20, L20 and L2 can still be exported to China as they fulfill the performance and performance-density requirements. But they are becoming unattractive to Chinese firms. 

A Beijing-based writer surnamed Huang in an article describes the H20, L20 and L2 as the “castrated versions” of the more advanced H100, AD102 and AD104 chips, respectively. 

He says it’s worth pointing out that the H20 is even slower than the entry-level A30 chip, which was launched in April 2021.

The H100 is designed for graphics-intensive workloads while the A100 is designed for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads. The H100 is two times faster than the A100, which is also two times faster than the A30.

Jiang Tao, a senior vice president of iFLYTEK, a Hefei-based AI solution provider, said on October 20 that the company uses Huawei’s Ascend 910B chips for computing. Without providing data, he claimed that the chip has reached the benchmark of Nvidia A100. 

iFLYTEK has been unable to purchase American items since it was added to the entity list of the US in 2019. It was accused of supplying its surveillance equipment to Xinjiang camps that detain Uyghurs and other ethnic minority people.

Read: End to decoupling tops China’s pre-summit demands

Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3

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Kerry, Zeng, Bou and Stern win sustainability honors

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STOCKHOLM – The Nobel Sustainability Trust, with the support of the Instittue of Advanced Study of the Technical University of Munich, has presented medals recognizing outstanding contributions in sustainabity to John Kerry, the US Special presidential envoy for climate, and Robin Yuqun Zeng, Chairman of CATL, the world-leading battery company.

NST and TUM IAS also presented an award for outstanding research and development in the field of energy to Elena Bou of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and an award in leadership and implementation to Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics and Political Science. This is the first year these two awards have been presented.

The recipients of the sustainability awards were selected by an independent committee managed by the Technical University of Munich. This committee includes professors appointed by various institutes and universities from around the world. The sustainability awards will be presented annually to individuals or institutions that have facilitated significant developments in or made outstanding contributions to the implementation of sustainable solutions for communities.

In 2022, TUM became NST’s academic partner. The TUM Institute for Advanced Study is responsible for selecting the academic award winners. The awards were handed over at the Nobel Sustainability Trust summit at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich on November 9.

Nobel Sustainability Trust Chairman Peter Nobel remarks:

It is with great joy and pride that we jointly announce, here in Munich, the awardees for the first sustainability awards in energy and leadership and the medals, presented for the second time this year, for outstanding contribution in sustainability. The future of humanity and its survival largely hinge on our abilities to use the Earth’s resources and leverage technological innovations in a sustainable manner. We believe the sustainability awards and medals will play a pivotal role and become a powerful symbol within the sustainable field. Our objective is to inspire and mobilize individuals and organizations worldwide to develop sustainable technologies in key resource areas such as energy, water, and agriculture. Such efforts require substantial intellectual engagement and financial support.

President of the Technical University of Munich Thomas Hofmann says:

TUM’s core strategy is to promote the concept of sustainability and its implementation via promising and marketable technologies. I am pleased that we at TUM are helping to push sustainability even further with the sustainability awards and to demonstrate that science and technology are the keys to sustainability.

John Kerry, US special presidential envoy for climate

John Kerry, a US politician, served in the Senate (1985–2013) and later was secretary of state (2013–2017) in the administration of President Barack Obama. Kerry is one of the world’s most effective climate champions. As secretary of state in 2015, he helped negotiate the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2019 Kerry was a key figure in the creation of World War Zero, an organization dedicated to fighting climate change. In 2020 he was named special presidential envoy for climate in the administration of President Biden. Kerry has been crisscrossing the globe rallying foreign allies and adversaries to make bolder commitments to fight climate change, urging governments and industries to bring concrete plans to boost renewable energy and cut greenhouse emissions by 2030.

Robin Zeng, Chairman of CATL

Robin Zeng established CATL in 1999 and built it the world’s leading company in the field of lithium-ion batteries for consumer electronics. In a new endeavor in 2011 he established CATL, a world leading power battery provider and a global leader of new energy innovative technologies. The company has made continuous breakthroughs in key technologies of EV and energy storage batteries, providing premier solutions and services for new energy applications worldwide. CATL’s global market share of power battery ranks first in the world for six consecutive years. It also ranks first in the global market share of energy storage battery production.

Elena Bou, medalist for outstanding research and development in energy

Elena Bou co-founded EIT InnoEnergy in 2010 and, since 2011, has served as innovation director and member of its executive board. In her position, she leads the development of major InnoEnergy efforts in creating and accelerating startups and scaleups in the energy field, including the investment process in such ventures. EIT InnoEnergy is a knowledge and innovation community supported by the European Institute of Technology, which has supported since its foundation around 450 companies in the sustainable energy field, focusing on energy storage, sustainable buildings and cities, renewable energies, smart electric grid, energy efficiency, energy for circular economy and energy for transport and mobility.

As an associate professor in the Department of Operations, Innovation, and Data Sciences at the Spanish business school Escuela Superior de Administración y Dirección de Empresas (ESADE), Elena Bou is active in researching and teaching in the field of knowledge and innovation management. She holds a PhD in management sciences from ESADE and is the author of several publications in the fields of knowledge management, collaborative innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Nicholas Stern, medalist in leadership in implementation

Lord Nicholas Stern is an expert in the economics of climate change. He has been chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science since its foundation in 2008.

Over the past 20 years, he has made an outstanding contribution to international climate policy, and to promoting the transition to sustainable, inclusive, and resilient economic development and growth. His report “The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review,” published in 2006 and commissioned by the British Government, had a broad impact nationally and worldwide on decision-makers and business leaders.

Through his advisory role at the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Economic Forum he improved the understanding of the costs of inaction on global climate change.

In his research activities, Nicholas Stern focuses on the topics of economic development and growth, economic theory, tax reform, public policy and the role of the state and economies in transition. His many honorary degrees, prizes, citations and publications in the most renowned journals testify to a high level of recognition from his peers.

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US, China in a budding air and space nuke arms race

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The US has introduced a slew of new air-based nuclear weapon delivery methods in a bid to upgrade American deterrence against evolving threats but at the risk of sparking a new nuclear arms race with China.

This month, The Warzone reported that the B-21 Raider, the world’s second known stealth bomber, successfully made its maiden flight over Palmdale’s Plant 42 in California.

The flight was an essential phase of the bomber’s test campaign overseen by the Air Force Test Center and the B-21 Combined Test Force of the 412th Test Wing which aims to develop long-range, survivable and penetrating strike capabilities.  

The Warzone report mentions that the first operational B-21s should enter service in the mid-2020s and will eventually replace the US Air Force’s fleet of B-2 and B-1 bombers, the former of which can deliver nuclear munitions. It says that Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota is scheduled to receive the first batch of B-21s.

The USAF’s website describes the B-21 as “a dual-capable penetrating strike stealth bomber capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear munitions.”

The B-21 was unveiled to the public at a ceremony on December 2, 2022, in Palmdale, California. Photo: USAF

Moreover, Defense Blog reported this month that SpaceX Falcon Heavy is set to launch the USAF’s secretive X-37B spaceplane, marking a historic milestone. Defense Blog notes that the spaceplane will be operated by the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office in collaboration with the US Space Force.

The mission, known as OTV-7, is scheduled for December 2023 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida and will aim to conduct various experiments including on operating the spaceplane in new orbital regimes, testing future space domain awareness technologies and exploring the radiation effects on NASA materials.

It also mentions that the X-37B can bring experiments back to Earth for further study, a feat previously achieved by NASA’s Shuttle Orbiter.

However, the X-37B may also have unstated military purposes. As early as the 1950s and 1960s, the US conceptualized space planes as a fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS), although it ultimately opted for a conventional fleet of manned bombers. Significantly, China may already have tested such a hypersonic weapon in August 2021.

Asia Times reported this month that the Biden administration announced the development of a next-generation air-dropped nuclear gravity bomb, known as B61-13, in response to fast-evolving security threats from China and Russia.

The B61-13 is intended to be used against hardened and large-area military targets with a yield of 360 kilotons. The US is expected to produce around 50 B61-13s, with production likely on the back end of the B61-12’s production schedule in 2025. It is speculated that the B61-13 would be restricted to bombers such as the B-2 and B-21.

Moreover, Asia Times reported last month on US tests of the AGM-181A Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) cruise missile to bolster its air-based nuclear deterrent against new rising threats from China and Russia.

The AGM-181A is part of the LRS FoS and has undergone nine successful major flight tests, demonstrating its high survivability with a stealthy airframe. The AGM-181A LRSO is the only solution to keep the B-52H bomber nuclear-capable and will ensure the B-21’s stealth technology remains effective against evolving military technology and advanced air defenses.

The air-based leg of the US nuclear triad is the first and oldest in its nuclear deterrent. Unlike the land and sea-based legs, aircraft can be rerouted or recalled at the last moment, offering commanders more tactical flexibility.

At the end of the Cold War, the US downsized its nuclear arsenal and focused instead on strategic deterrence. In contrast, China and Russia continued to expand their nuclear arsenals, developing tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use as opposed to strategic deterrence and as a backstop for conventional military operations.

Space-based nuclear weapons offer several advantages over other delivery systems. A FOBS can strike at any point on the planet much faster than an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), evade missile defense systems, generate strategic ambiguity and uncertainty, and is potentially more survivable than air, sea or land-based systems.

The X-37B space plane. Photo: US Air Force via space.com

While the US is a signatory to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which forbids placing nuclear weapons in space, the treaty does not ban all military activities in space. Nor does it prohibit placing weapons in space that are not weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Increased nuclear threats from China and Russia may give the US renewed incentive to look at the feasibility of space-based nuclear weapons, though deployment could have unforeseen consequences for strategic stability.

While US pundits have called for the expansion of America’s nuclear arsenal in response to China and Russia’s nuclear modernization, others argue against to avoid a destabilizing new nuclear arms race.

In a Foreign Affairs article this month, M Taylor Fravel and other writers say that China is concerned about US development of offensive and defensive weapons systems that could negate its nuclear deterrent, noting that the US is building new conventional weapons that could be used to attack China’s nuclear forces, a strategy known as conventional counterforce.

Fravel and others mention that this could lead to the attacker launching a first strike in situations where nuclear weapons are not used, undermining strategic stability.

China is expanding its nuclear arsenal. Photo: Facebook

They also point out that China is concerned that enhanced US missile defenses could undermine China’s longtime strategy of “assured retaliation,” which allows for a nuclear counterattack after an enemy’s first strike. The US’s withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Arms Forces Treaty (INF) has amplified these concerns.

Fravel and other writers say that while China’s nuclear buildup lacks transparency, its debate has focused on improving its deterrent system. They mention that Chinese experts have discussed ways to strengthen China’s nuclear deterrent, including by reducing reaction time, deploying missile defenses and considering strikes on systems that support US missile defense.

They point out that China’s nuclear arsenal may offer options beyond retaliatory strikes, potentially leading to a more offensive strategy.

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Defying the US, Anwar bellows support for Hamas

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SINGAPORE – Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s vocal support for the Palestinian cause could blow back on Malaysia as the United States tables legislation to sever funding for Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups through economic and financial sanctions on their foreign supporters. 

Anwar’s administration has played up its resistance to US and Western pressure to review its stance on Hamas, which Malaysia has refused to condemn or label as a terrorist organization.

Malaysian police, meanwhile, have warned of possible economic sabotage, espionage and even security threats to the premier allegedly emanating from Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad.

The Muslim-majority nation has long stood in solidarity with Palestine and long rejected diplomatic relations with Israel even as certain Arab nations have recently pursued normalization with Tel Aviv.

Putrajaya views Hamas as the legitimately elected government of Gaza, according to Anwar, owing to its victory at 2006 parliamentary polls. Hamas members are known to reside in Malaysia to work or attend university and have been alleged targets of Israel’s spy agency.

But Anwar’s unflinching stance is just as much about local politics as he seeks to curry favor with Muslim ethnic Malays who represent a national majority and are thus crucial to his government’s survival and potential re-election.

Analysts say the premier cannot afford to be seen as equivocating on the plight of the Palestinians at a moment when his nearly year-old administration has lost electoral ground to the pro-Islamist Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition.

Both Anwar’s multiracial government and the conservative opposition bloc have recently staged competing mega-rallies denouncing Israel’s bombardments of Gaza.

“There is a strong domestic imperative for the prime minister to support the Palestinian cause,” said Mustafa Izzuddin, a senior international affairs analyst at consultancy firm Solaris Strategies Singapore.

Anwar seeks to “portray himself as a strong and principled statesman in the eyes of the domestic populace by not bowing to American political pressure,” he said.

Addressing parliament late last month, Anwar said the US Embassy had issued three demarche notes as a “warning” to Malaysia to review its informal ties with Hamas after killed civilians and took hostages in an October 7 surprise attack on Israel. “I said that we, as a policy, have a relationship with Hamas from before and this will continue,” the premier told the legislature.

Palestinian fighters from the armed wing of Hamas take part in a military parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, near the border in the central Gaza Strip, July 19, 2023.
Photo: The Jerusalem Post / Twitter

Critics have accused Anwar of grandstanding by claiming he was “threatened” by the West for speaking up for Palestinian rights. “I was criticized and some even attacked me from Europe, the United States and certainly Israel,” said Anwar at a rally in Kuala Lumpur on October 24. “Don’t even think of threatening us… we are with the Palestinians in their struggle.”

Dennis Ignatius, a former Malaysian diplomat and author, said that while Anwar is “absolutely right to speak out in the strongest possible terms”, Gaza’s violence “shouldn’t be an occasion for politicians to preen their feathers or embellish their credentials. Or worse still, to pretend to be heroes for standing up to the West on behalf of Palestine.

“There has also been much brouhaha over the demarches the US has made in connection with Malaysia’s stand on the issue. It is being made out to be something sinister and unusual; in fact, it is part of the normal diplomatic representation that nations make to each other on important issues,” Ignatius, a former ambassador to Chile and Argentina, wrote in a recent commentary.

Anwar’s government says it is monitoring the passage of the US legislation, known as the Hamas International Financing Prevention Act, which will likely enter force after a Senate vote. 

Once enacted, the law would allow for the imposition of sanctions against foreigners who knowingly provide “significant” financial, material or technological support to Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Islamist paramilitary group active in Gaza and the West Bank. 

The law would also require the US president to devise a list of nations and individuals that provide such support to Palestinian militant groups for the purpose of imposing sanctions.

Analysts say Malaysia is not likely to be targeted by the law since it is not known to have ever provided arms or ammunition to Hamas and that the government’s verbal support for Hamas’ political struggle would not warrant sanctions.

Putrajaya has been accused of hosting a de facto Hamas embassy in the form of an apparently apolitical cultural office, the Palestinian Cultural Organization Malaysia (PCOM), an accusation it denies. The organization has been accused of propagating Hamas’ messaging and maintaining ties to its leaders.

Malaysia maintains direct communication channels with Hamas, which violently wrested full control of Gaza in 2007 and is designated as a terrorist group by the US, European Union and others.

Former Malaysian premier Najib Razak visited Gaza on a humanitarian mission in 2013, where he was received by Hamas’ political bureau head Ismail Haniyeh, who later met with then-premier Mahathir Mohamad in Kuala Lumpur in 2020.

Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad rolled out the red carpet for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in January 2020. Image: Facebook Screengrab

Malaysia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry manages a humanitarian trust fund for Palestine dedicated to medical aid, food and basic necessities in Gaza and for any Palestinians affected by the war, according to Anwar, who has ruled out any military aid. The fund is reportedly approaching its target of collecting 100 million ringgit (US$21.2 million).

“It is unlikely Malaysia will be sanctioned for not labeling Hamas a terrorist group, as there also other countries, including allies of the US, which have also not labeled Hamas as a terrorist group so why should Malaysia be compelled to do so,” Mustafa told Asia Times. “Malaysia is therefore assuming a principled position of not being externally interfered in its domestic affairs.”

Malaysia’s foreign policy has always been guided by economic pragmatism. Now, some suggest Anwar’s defiant stance could undermine his government’s drive to attract new US investment as more American firms leave China for Southeast Asia. Anwar has acknowledged that the newly proposed US law could impact bilateral investment and trade, which the US Embassy in Malaysia estimates at US$1.6 trillion annually.

“Any sanctions against Malaysia can also affect the assessment of the US government and US companies towards Malaysia, as well as affect US companies’ investment opportunities in Malaysia,” said Anwar in a written reply to parliament on November 7. The Southeast Asian nation has said it will “not recognize” the validity of any unilateral sanctions imposed under the proposed US law.

Julia Lau and Francis E Hutchinson, senior fellows at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute think tank, wrote in a commentary that “some finesse is needed to ensure that foreign sentiment vis-a-vis Malaysia is not spooked, although Western leaders would understand that Anwar must allow some space for his fellow citizens to vent their feelings.”

Apart from staging massive pro-Palestinian street protests, Malaysians have boycotted American food franchises and international brands that are perceived as linked to or siding with Israel. They include McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, KFC, Coca-Cola and Nestle, with local gig workers reportedly bearing the brunt of reduced sales.

Lau and Hutchinson added that while a strong pro-Palestinian stance is politically expedient, Malaysia’s economy depends on foreign direct investment and trade. As such, “the prime minister will need to draw on his fabled oratorical skills, backing them with nimble diplomacy, in the weeks ahead.”

While the US may feel slighted over Malaysia’s stance on Hamas, it still recognizes the country’s leverage in the Muslim world. Anwar has said Washington called on his administration to “urge a country to not take advantage of the conflict by using a proxy to get involved in the Gaza conflict,” without specifying the nation but likely a reference to Iran and its backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.

In late October, Anwar traveled to Saudi Arabia where he had a private meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose country was weighing formal ties with Israel before the October 7 assault. Anwar also traveled to Egypt and Turkey in a bid to shore up support for Palestinians, which appears to have yielded few tangible results. 

“Anwar’s statesmanship has limited influence as he is dealing with a divided Middle East underpinned by geopolitical complexities and Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, thereby hampering its ability [to bring] about a ceasefire and humanitarian relief to those affected by the current conflict escalation,” said Mustafa. 

A pro-Palestine rally in Merdeka Square, Kuala Lumpur, October 22, 2023. Image: Twitter

Over 11,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’ rampage on southern Israel in which at least 1,200 Israelis died.

Tel Aviv has vowed to end Hamas’ rule over Gaza and has served notice that it intends to seek and kill Hamas operatives abroad, a threat that has raised antennae in Putrajaya given past cases of Palestinians being targeted while on Malaysian soil.

Razarudin Husain, the country’s Inspector General of Police, all but acknowledged Mossad’s presence in the country in a November 1 press conference. The police, he said, are working to detect foreign intelligence operatives conducting clandestine operations involving local recruits. “We suspect Israelis may have infiltrated the country using foreign passports for their operations,” said the IGP. 

He cited the drive-by shooting and assassination of Palestinian lecturer Fadi al-Batsh, an electrical engineer said to be a drone expert and member of Hamas, in Kuala Lumpur in 2018 and the case of two Palestinian computer programmers believed to be operatives of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigade who were targets of a snatch-and-grab kidnapping linked to Mossad reported by local media last year. The Israeli spy agency has denied involvement in both incidents.

The police chief has insisted that alleged threats against Anwar not be taken lightly or derided as political maneuvering, saying the premier has been advised to limit his public appearances and travel with more bodyguards. 

“If a software scientist for Hamas can be a target, our prime minister is more of a risk. I am convinced that there is a threat either to his life, to our economy or others,” Razarudin said.

Follow Nile Bowie on X, formerly Twitter, at @NileBowie

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China should treat SE Asia as partner, not irritant

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On October 22, 2023, two separate collisions took place near Second Thomas Shoal, an underwater feature that an international tribunal in 2016 ruled is part of the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. 

A China Coast Guard ship rammed a much smaller civilian vessel contracted by the Philippine Navy to resupply troops stationed aboard the BRP Sierra Madre.

In videos released by both sides, the coastguard vessel can be seen blocking the path of the resupply ship, which attempted to evade the vessel by crossing its bow and was struck. Separate videos show the second collision. 

The Qiong Sansha Yu 00003, a professional maritime militia vessel operated by China’s state-owned Sansha Fisheries Development Company, pulled alongside and then collided with a stationary Philippine Coast Guard ship. The incident appeared to involve no serious damage, and a second Philippine resupply vessel managed to reach the Sierra Madre. 

But these were just the most dangerous interactions in a pattern of unsafe conduct that recurs monthly around Second Thomas Shoal. The situation around Second Thomas highlights a key feature of China’s foreign policy – its refusal to acknowledge that the Philippines or other small states have their own agency in disputes with Beijing. 

This worldview was aptly summed up in a piece by the nationalist Global Times, which concludes “By escalating the tensions, the Philippines likely wants to draw support from the US, or the entire farce was staged by the US in the first place.”

When the Chinese leadership confronts a middle or small power that challenges or offends Beijing, they often accuse the smaller power of working in tandem with the United States or being used by the United States to drive an “anti-China” strategy. 

This is the same sentiment with which Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi infamously shouted down Singaporean counterpart George Yeo at the 2010 ASEAN Regional Forum. “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact,” he said.

This sentiment is also the reason that Beijing sought to undermine the arbitration brought by the Philippines from 2013 to 2016 by insisting that it was engineered by the United States and Japan. 

And it is why after every Philippine diplomatic objection over the violence at Second Thomas, Chinese officials ignore the substance of the complaints and lecture their Filipino counterparts about being pawns in a US plot.

When another China Coast Guard vessel nearly collided with a Philippine ship in September 2023, Beijing read from this familiar script. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr aired his frustrations at the annual ASEAN Summit that same week, saying that the Philippines rejected narratives of the South China Sea disputes that revolved around US-China competition. 

Marcos asserted that “this not only denies us our independence and our agency, but it also disregards our own legitimate interests.” 

A month later, after the Philippines complained about another violent incident between itself and China, Global Times ran an editorial cartoon showing the Philippines as nothing more than a stick being used by the United States to stir up the South China Sea.

Beijing is not ready to acknowledge that Manila, or any other Southeast Asian claimant, has legitimate grievances that must be addressed to peacefully manage disputes. 

This increases the risks of escalation as Beijing seems to believe that other states are less committed to their sovereignty and rights, defy China only because of American interference and will eventually buckle in the face of sustained pressure. 

Running the same coercive play over and over at Second Thomas Shoal seems unlikely to change Philippine policy and so will only lead to further collisions and risk escalation.

There are two driving forces behind this forceful aspect of China’s regional foreign policy — Beijing’s vision of regional hierarchy and fear of US containment. In China’s long-embedded view of regional hierarchy, smaller states are historically and necessarily subservient to Beijing in the Asian pecking order. 

Long legacies of traditional tributary state relations with China, as well as the historical dominance of Chinese culture, language and economic power in the region, still linger in the minds of Chinese decision-makers.

Chinese leaders also genuinely see the United States as an architect of a long-term containment strategy that seeks to undermine China’s regional influence or worse, to bring about the collapse of the Communist Party of China. 

This view, which dates to the years just after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, now colors much of Beijing’s thinking about its external environment. 

As Chinese President Xi Jinping stated in March, “Western countries led by the United States have implemented all-around containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our country’s development.” 

Beijing’s unwillingness to treat the concerns and grievances of its regional neighbors as legitimate has now become one of the most prominent challenges to its management of external relations. 

As US officials admit privately, the Biden administration’s progress in strengthening relations with countries across the region, from Australia to India to the Philippines, is less a story of diplomatic acumen and more one of Chinese truculence. 

Should Beijing adjust course and begin treating regional actors as partners, not irritants, the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy may face its greatest challenge yet.

Greg Poling is Senior Fellow and Director of the Southeast Asia Program and the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC.

Jude Blanchette holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC.

This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

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The Wars of the Roses: that’s us, that is

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Binge-watching Shakespeare’s “The Wars of the Roses” — “Henry VI” parts 1 & 2 and “Richard III” — you realize nothing changes.

On this month’s 400th anniversary of the First Folio’s publication, what looks like a simple squaring up of combative parties is more a dodecahedron of feuding interests. Scratch the surface and deduce that humanity is less straightforwardly angel-and-devil, even if lunacy and the callous intent of leaders tell us otherwise.

Out of three BBC Shakespeare series currently being broadcast by a Britain in sharp decline and waxing nostalgic about the high points of its culture, the 2012 BBC series, “The Hollow Crown”, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Tricky Dicky,  enthralled me the most.

I’m not Cumberbatch’s biggest fan, but in this he was superbad, summoning mesmerizing subtleties of demonic malice and wearing a prosthetic hump a lot better than Richard wears the crown.

If “The Elephant Man” told us beauty is only skin deep, “Richard III” returns us to an age when a deformed body is seen as a corporeal manifestation of the devil within. Yet Cumberbatch injects psychological light and shade into one of theater’s greatest villains.   

I’ve watched the 1965 and 1983 versions of “The Wars Of The Roses” in the past month, but was confused even while viewing with my laptop open at history pages and stopping to check who was stabbing who in the back and why.

In Peter Hall’s classic 1965 production for the BBC, a modern audience can easily lose the plot. Unkind souls might assume this is because we have the memory of goldfish.

Others might put it down to a now-dated acting style dependent on a bellowing vocal delivery, exemplified in the much-parodied Donald Sinden playing Richard, Duke of York.

I like David Warner in his later screen incarnations but I never quite believed him as the fragile Henry since the strong character that made him a favorite baddie was never far below the surface. His vocal approximation of weakness is never convincing. The series is also hamstrung by the limited, fuzzy black-and-white camerawork of the period, and by being stage-bound.

There’s a Great Leap Forward with the BBC Shakespeare Collection from 1983, but its faithfulness to the entire unedited text sometimes hampers its narrative thrust and clarity. The children’s playroom mise en scene and hyper-theatrical style also renders it obtrusively stagey.

This beautiful box set is impressive and eminently strokable, but it’s the 2012 BBC series “The Hollow Crown” that brilliantly nails the throughline via expeditious editing (much of Joan of Arc’s arc is left out) and the amplification of the subtext in unspoken actors’ business clarifying what’s happening. Glossy production values and location filming also help.

Shakespeare’s story is an entangled briar patch. Trouble starts with the descendants of King Edward III (1312-1377) and his wife, Philippa of Hainaut. Actually, it goes back even earlier to Geoffrey of Anjou, the French count who founded the Plantagenet dynasty. Yes, our British monarchy is not only German but French. Very French.

It’s a given that Henry VI (1421-1471) is as weak as Richard II (1367-1400) before him, Richard being the tragic usurped son of Edward, The Black Prince, the eldest son of Edward III.

That line of succession is snuffed out with childless King Richard’s death, propelling the line of the second son — Lionel, Duke of Clarence (1338-1368) — to pole position, led, at the time of the play, by Richard, Duke of York (1411-1460) through his mother Anne, Lionel’s great-granddaughter.

York is also father of Edward IV to be, George “drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine” Duke of Clarence, and a misshapen creature named Richard. These are the white roses of York.

However, the snuffing has been done by upstart Henry Bolingbroke — son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, Edward III’s son number THREE — the regicide who crowns himself Henry IV by clearing out Richard II to make way for the Lancastrian line: the red roses.

Henry IV’s son, Henry V, unleashes the dogs of war and wins back swathes of French home turf for his band of brothers. His sensitive son, Henry VI, loses it all again and leaves the power vacuum without which we would not have had the drama, or, probably, the current crop of Windsors.

You may now have some sympathy for my recourse to the laptop when cutting through the history thickets of the War of the Roses’ family tree.

How would Shakespeare manage to flatter his royal audience and avoid offending his murderous patrons by pointing out that, actually, the Plantagenets had the better claim to succession, being descended from the second son?

You could present them as syphilitics,  psychos, sadists and child killers whose deformed bodies are manifestations of twisted souls. Or incompetent mad fools who brought it upon themselves.

Henry VI falls into the latter camp. Several times he makes a decision providing a plot point that you know is going to have grim consequences. However, it’s only in the 2012 production that you get the full face-palm revelation that his well-intentioned decisions are going to reap the whirlwind. At times you want to yell, “He’s behind you!”

Henry is blind to the depths of the seething rivalries and hunger for power that permeates even the furniture. The throne is referred to throughout as “the chair” as if this is going to disguise the vaulting ambition of his family.

Shakespeare employs Greek tragic irony, where every step his protagonist takes to create harmony and enjoy a peaceful life is the very move that makes his relatives spit blood.

When Henry’s uncle, the neutral Gloucester, is killed by the Lancastrians, Henry banishes red rose Somerset and Suffolk. So far, so decisive. However, the manipulating Queen Margaret, Henry’s wife and daughter of the current Count of Anjou, pleads her lover Somerset’s case. Henry’s feeble character is further revealed when he relents, enraging the Yorkists and turbo-charging the drama.

This is a cynic’s take on human relations in favor of the strong man (or woman – Elizabeth I would have seen the play) who will restore equilibrium and God’s order. Shakespeare knew how to flatter his audience even if it means abandoning the Christian “blessed are the peacemakers.”

Even when characters do make decisions, hubris abounds and the fallout mounts. A bad decision is as bad as timidity if it’s the wrong choice. No sooner is Edward IV on the “chair” than he seizes defeat from the jaws of victory by rejecting the French princess and marrying widow Elizabeth Woodville, of course, infuriating everyone.

Despite the playwright’s efforts, our sympathy is with Henry VI when he’s traumatized by the Battle of Towton, with carnage which has been compared to the Somme; stripping away his power along with his clothing and tossing his crown into a river. He never wanted this role, having been made king at only nine months old on Henry V’s death.

Not for him dad’s self-justifying rationale, “What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace, whose hours the peasant best advantages.” Henry VI longs for “white hairs and a quiet grave.”

“O piteous spectacle! O bloody times! While lions war and battle for their dens, poor harmless lambs abide their enmity. Weep, wretched man, I’ll aid thee tear for tear and that our hearts and eyes like civil war.”

The choice back then was defeat or destruction: “If you contend, a thousand lives must wither.” Sad to see today’s power politics reverting to a barbarous age where diplomacy and the common good of humanity are blown up because one side has to crush, kill and destroy the other.

As ever, ultimate blame falls on women, even in Elizabethan times. Joan of Arc is defamed as being a vengeful witch rather than a freedom fighter for France. And Henry’s wife, Margaret of Anjou, is the she-wolf who exploits poor Henry and is the source of the Thirty Years War between Plantagenets and Lancastrians.

It was the French who coined the phrase cherchez la femme — “look for the woman” when incapable of taking responsibility for their own drives and errors. Blame everyone else, indulge your rage, take everything.

The First Folio’s 400th anniversary finds us coming full circle, only five years after it seemed peace was breaking out across the world, with a stabilizing global economy and growing prosperity.

As Richard III says:

“I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other“

Like I said, nuthin’ changes. Watch out for the Dicks.

Anna Chen is on X, formerly Twitter, at @WHampwildlife

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What Gaza might look like ‘the day after’ the war

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Less than a week after Hamas’s devastating attacks on October 7, Israel’s intelligence ministry produced a chilling document. It advocated that Israel remove all of Gaza’s Palestinian population and forcibly resettle them in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.

In November, a poster advertising a far-right rally in Tel Aviv juxtaposed an image of two cherubic Jewish-Israeli children on a beach (presumably in a vision of a future Gaza) with the ominous policy prescriptions of “occupy, expel, settle.”

Most worryingly, a cabinet minister suggested that Israel could use nuclear weapons against the Gaza Strip. Does this bellicose and dehumanizing rhetoric suggest that Israel’s long-term plan for Gaza is to ethnically cleanse the territory, or even commit genocide there?

There is scant evidence that Israel’s government has any intent or capability to achieve these unsettling goals. Israel’s regional and international partners – Egypt and the US – steadfastly reject any population transfer. Jordan has gone further, claiming that any such policy would constitute a “declaration of war.”

Turnout at the far-right Tel Aviv rally was negligible, and neither the minister who considered “nuking” Gaza, nor the intelligence ministry have any tangible input in Israel’s national security decision-making.

What is more likely is that Israel will indefinitely occupy parts of Gaza, while seeking to eschew responsibility for civilian governance elsewhere in the territory. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, himself claimed that “we don’t seek to govern Gaza”, but added that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) should have “overall security responsibility” in the territory for “an indefinite period.”

This strategy is unsurprising, given that Israel has pursued it in all of its diverse occupations to date. These experiences provide a projection of what Israel’s planned “day after Hamas” scenario in Gaza might look like.

The day after

First, Israel is unlikely to control Gaza’s urban areas for long. Israel balks at managing everyday governance in an occupied territory and will refrain from overseeing Gaza’s health, education and welfare ministries, for example. Similarly, IDF planners know that a prolonged military presence in a dense urban area would be an operational nightmare.

Secondly, Israel may restore its attachment to “strategic depth”, a doctrine that seeks to take and indefinitely hold sparsely populated foreign territory. The idea is to keep any fighting outside of Israel itself. Israel is a small country that has gone to war with all its neighbors and as a result has felt safer the more territory it holds beyond its recognised borders.

Taken together, the doctrine of strategic depth and Israel’s desire to detach itself from civilian governance suggests that the IDF will seek to indefinitely occupy some, but not all, of Gaza.

There is growing evidence of what this might look like. Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, called for a permanent “buffer zone” to the west of the Gaza-Israel border. Deeper inside Gaza, the IDF has bisected the territory and besieged its cities, while avoiding a prolonged presence within them.

The problem with this twin strategy can be seen in Israel’s previous experiences in Gaza, which suggests it has rarely met Israel’s security goals.

Before it withdrew in 2005, Israel occupied about 20% of the sparsely populated but operationally valuable parts of the Gaza Strip, including access roads and strategic positions close to the border. It ceded the urban areas within most of the remaining 80% of the territory to the Palestinian Authority (PA) back in the early 1990s.

One factor that caused Israel to leave was the IDF’s dissatisfaction with the status quo. Strategic depth does not make violence less likely, but merely pushes it away from the border and into foreign territory.

As a result, the international community saw Israel as an illegal occupier. This limited the IDF’s operational freedom, because of the international condemnation it attracted whenever it acted.

Strategic depth also failed to shield Israeli civilians. Despite the IDF occupation of 20% of Gaza, Hamas’ rockets were easily able to fly over the IDF soldiers and into Israel itself.

Map of the Gaza Strip in May 2005, a few months prior to the Israeli withdrawal. The major settlement blocs were the blue-shaded regions of this map.
Map of the Gaza Strip in May 2005, a few months prior to the Israeli withdrawal. The major settlement blocs were the blue-shaded regions of this map. Image: US Central Intelligence Agency

Simultaneously, Israel avoiding responsibility for Gaza’s civilian governance could allow Hamas to retake power. The Biden administration has encouraged Israel to empower the PA within Gaza’s urban areas. Yet, Israel’s far-right government will reject ceding governance to the PA, given that this would make a Palestinian state more likely.

The PA is weaker than ever before due to longstanding and endemic corruption and Israeli policy to curtail its power, particularly under Netanyahu, who has tacitly supported Hamas in Gaza as a competing force. As such, it is unclear if the PA could ever have the capability to govern all of an independent Palestine.

This leaves an open question that Israel’s government can’t currently answer: who will govern Gaza if the IDF does remove Hamas?

The final issue with this dual strategy is that it would constitute less a new Israeli approach and more a continuation of the same policies that proved so deeply flawed on October 7. Right up until Hamas’ incursion on that day, Israel accepted the Islamist group’s control of and governance over Gaza’s urban areas.

Concurrently, Israel unilaterally declared a 400-meter buffer zone on the Gazan side of the border. An intricate network of sensors, drones, walls and watchtowers monitored this zone, with Israel often meeting any unauthorized movement within it with live fire.

That this strategy failed to prevent the deadly attacks of October 7 should serve as pause for thought for Israeli decision-makers deliberating how a post-Hamas security regime could look. There is, however, little evidence that it has.

Rob Geist Pinfold is Lecturer in Peace and Security, Durham University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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