How S Korea would respond to Taiwan hostilities – Asia Times

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Despite being a major US local ally, issues are rising about whether South Korea may take proactive steps if China were to start hostile actions against Taiwan?

Given its heavy financial interdependence with China, South Korea finds itself carefully caught between Washington and Beijing.

To study this issue, this author conducted conversations last year with North Korean military authorities in which I classified China’s possible hostile actions against Taiwan into three scenarios:

( 1 ) gray zone operations, which include actions such as deploying China’s maritime militia and coast guard vessels to harass Taiwanese ships, thereby exerting pressure on Taiwan without directly provoking open conflict, ( 2 ) a naval blockade, and ( 3 ) a full-scale military invasion.

There was a strong consensus among the officials on how South Korea should respond if China were to initiate ( 1 ) gray zone operations, ( 2 ) a naval blockade, or ( 3 ) a full-scale invasion of Taiwan.

In all three cases, they agreed that South Korea should raise its alert level within the US-ROK Combined Forces and promote deterrent against possible North Korean actions.

This problem stems from the possibility that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whether acting in cooperation with China or separately, might see a local change in US military concentrate toward the Taiwan Strait as an opportunity to utilize a possible power vacuum on the Korean Peninsula.

To avoid such a misunderstanding, it is essential to regularly signal to North Korean authorities that US-ROK contingency plans will work properly as intended, eliminating any perception of radioactive decoupling between South Korea and the US.

Regarding military capability, South Korea should prioritize acquiring additional ground-to-ground precision missiles capable of penetrating underground bunkers, which would serve as critical assets for South Korea’s kill chain and Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation ( KMPR ) strategies.

Apart from strengthening deterrence, South Korea’s response strategy varied across the three scenarios. In scenario one, where China engages in gray zone operations, most South Korean military officials recommended maintaining neutrality and avoiding actions that could unnecessarily provoke China, such as deploying naval vessels to the Taiwan Strait or providing logistical support to US forces in the region.

This cautious approach stems from South Korea’s economic interdependence with China and the expectation that any direct involvement could lead to significant economic retaliation, as evidenced by the backlash following the 2017 THAAD deployment.

Additionally, it is important to note that the 1953 US-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty primarily emphasizes the defense of South Korean territory against external threats, but does not contain provisions obligating South Korea to participate in military operations beyond its borders.

Meanwhile, in scenario two, where a Chinese naval blockade in the Taiwan Strait could disrupt South Korea’s sea lines of communication ( SLOC), some officials suggested that South Korea should deploy naval forces to secure these critical trade routes, which are essential for economic stability.

To address this challenge, South Korea should acquire five to six Aegis-equipped naval vessels, each with a minimum capacity of 100 Battle Force Missiles ( BFM) —a metric that represents the total number of missile cells on a naval vessel capable of launching both offensive and defensive missiles, serving as a standardized measure of a fleet’s overall missile firepower.

In this particular scenario, the focus would be on anti-ship missiles designed to target Chinese naval vessels. Under this framework, two to three ships could be stationed in the Taiwan Strait for extended periods, rotating between South Korean waters and the Taiwan Strait.

To effectively implement this strategy, South Korea should focus on developing a Blue Water Navy, capable of sustaining extended operations far from its shores.

This is particularly important because rerouting South Korea’s SLOCs away from the Taiwan Strait—through the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos or around Papua New Guinea via the Solomon Sea—would be both time-consuming and costly.

In scenario three, some South Korean officials believed that, at a minimum, South Korea should provide logistical support to US forces in Korea deploying to the Taiwan Strait, such as access to South Korean airfields and fuel supplies for US Forces Korea ( USFK).

Beyond logistical support, South Korea should also pursue the acquisition of five to six Aegis-equipped naval vessels, along with expanded ISR ( Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance ) capabilities and an increased arsenal of precision-guided missiles.

However, this situation becomes significantly more complex if North Korea launches military aggression against South Korea at the same time that China invades Taiwan—indicating that deterrence against North Korea has failed.

If a two-front war scenario were to materialize, many South Korean military officials suggested that their military assets, along with key US Forces Korea ( USFK) assets, should not be deployed to the Taiwan Strait. This position is understandable, considering the response I received from Japanese Self-Defense Force ( JSDF) officials during my discussions in 2023.

When asked about Japan’s response in a two-front war scenario, JSDF officials stated that Japan would prioritize defending the Taiwan Strait, allocating approximately 60-70 % of its air and naval assets to support US operations in the region, while only 30-40 % would be reserved for Japan’s own defense.

This allocation would significantly impact Japan’s ability to operate under OPLAN 5055, a joint US-Japan military strategy designed to address potential contingencies on the Korean Peninsula in the event of a crisis involving North Korea.

Such a shift in Japan’s strategic focus could directly affect the joint US-ROK Operation Plan ( OPLAN), which assumes that in the event of a North Korean invasion, South Korean and USFK would initially hold positions north of the Han River until reinforcements arrive from US Forces Japan ( USFJ) within approximately two weeks.

Under this plan, the JSDF plays a critical role in supporting US military operations through logistical and operational assistance.

Given that the bulk of US reinforcements from the US mainland would take approximately 90 days to fully deploy—a timeline expected to overwhelm North Korean aggressors—the timely arrival of reinforcements from Japan is crucial in the early phase of the conflict.

If USFJ and Japan’s military assets are largely tied up in the Taiwan Strait, South Korea would have no choice but to allocate all of its own military resources to compensate for the reduced support from US forces in Japan, further complicating South Korea’s ability to contribute to regional security in Taiwan.

Overall, while it remains unclear whether the Trilateral Security Cooperation Framework ( TSCF ) has addressed South Korea’s specific action plans in a Taiwan contingency—as its detailed provisions remain classified—South Korea’s response to Chinese aggression across all three scenarios is unlikely to be highly proactive.

Instead, South Korea is expected to focus primarily on strengthening deterrence against potential North Korean military aggression rather than directly intervening in a Taiwan crisis.

This approach reflects the slightly different strategic priorities between South Korea and the US and Japan, as well as the limited availability of military assets in the region that all three countries must carefully allocate.

Given that these differences in strategic priorities could create challenges in a potential crisis—whether in a Taiwan contingency alone or a simultaneous Taiwan-Korean Peninsula conflict—it is crucial for the US, South Korea and Japan to develop a clear understanding of each country’s likely responses during a crisis.

By doing so, the three nations can work toward closing capability gaps and improving coordination before a major conflict arises.

Dr Ju Hyung Kim, CEO of the Security Management Institute, a defense think tank affiliated with the South Korean National Assembly, is currently adapting his doctoral dissertation,” Japan’s Security Contribution to South Korea, 1950 to 2023″, into a book.

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Trump no champ of ‘strong gods’ of faith, family and community – Asia Times

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” People don’t care what’s on Television. They merely care what else is on TV”. — Jerry Seinfeld

N S Lyons is a popular author in the “national liberal” history. His Substack, &nbsp, The Upheaval, is recommended studying, even though I agree with less than half of what he writes.

He is well-read and well-informed, he integrates info from across many regions, and he isn’t afraid to think seriously about the great issues of background in real time. Reading him does help you better understand the values of the current Right. On many issues, for as&nbsp, the risk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, his information is one that people in the Mag world urgently need to learn.

In a recent article entitled” American Solid Gods”, Lyons identifies what in my opinion is a profound truth about our existing historical moment. He writes of the close of the” Long Twentieth Century”, a time that was defined by democracy ( social, political, and economic ), and anchored by refusal of Adolf Hitler:

I believe that what we’re seeing now really is the end of an era, an epic upholding of the world as we knew it, and that the whole import and relevance of this haven’t actually struck us already.

More precisely, I believe Donald Trump marks the premature end of the Long Twentieth Century…

Our Long Twentieth Century had a late stop, fully solidifying only in 1945, but in the 80 years since its heart has dominated our civilization’s full understanding of how the world is and if be… In the wake of the horrors inflicted by WWII, the leadership classes of America and Europe rightly made “never again” the core of their conceptual universe. They collectively resolved that authoritarianism, war, and murder had never again be allowed to threaten society…

The anti-fascism of the twentieth century morphed into a&nbsp, great crusade…By making “never again” its ultimate priority, the ideology of the open society put a&nbsp, summum malum&nbsp, ( greatest evil ) at its core rather than any&nbsp, summum bonum&nbsp, ( highest good ). The singular figure of Hitler didn’t just lurk in the back of the 20th century mind, he dominated its subconscious, becoming a sort of secular Satan…This” second career of Adolf Hitler”, as&nbsp, Renaud Camus&nbsp, jokingly calls it, provided the parareligious&nbsp, raison d’etre&nbsp, for the open society consensus and the whole post-war liberal order: to prevent the resurrection of the undead&nbsp, Führer…

The Long Twentieth Century has been characterized by these three interlinked post-war projects: the progressive opening of societies through the deconstruction of norms and borders, the consolidation of the managerial state, and the hegemony of the liberal international order. The hope was that together they could form the foundation for a world that would finally achieve peace on earth and goodwill between all mankind.

Like all good essays, this overstates its case. The American-led liberalism of the postwar order was not a purely defensive project. The UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were not motivated by fear of Hitler’s return, but by a desire to expand the boundaries of human freedom and dignity beyond anything seen in the prewar period. Ronald Reagan didn’t need Hitler as a bogeyman to&nbsp, proselytize his vision of American freedoms&nbsp, as a universal ideal.

And yet there is an important sense in which Lyons is right. The spectacular horrors and the spectacular failure of Hitler’s regime provided a moral anchor that liberals could always use to argue for greater liberalism. Advocates of the Civil Rights Act and other liberalizing laws in the US and Europe often used Nazi Germany as a rhetorical foil.

Anticommunism provided the Right with an alternative Satan for a while, but it never quite had the same power, because America had been Stalin’s ally in World War 2, after the Soviet Union fell, anticommunism was quickly forgotten, but Hitler and the Nazis were not.

Lyons is right that the Trump Era marks the end of Hitler as the&nbsp, summum malum&nbsp, of Western culture— at least in the United States. &nbsp, Joe Rogan&nbsp, and&nbsp, Tucker Carlson, the two most popular media figures on the American Right, have invited Darryl Cooper — a revisionist historian who&nbsp, downplays Nazi atrocities&nbsp, and views Winston Churchill as the true villain of World War 2— to speak on their shows. Here is one of Cooper’s ( since deleted ) tweets, just to give you an idea:

This tweet, I think, is illustrative of the thinking on the American right. It would be wrong to say that the Trump movement, or modern National Conservatism, represents a wholehearted endorsement of Nazism. But it should be uncontroversial to say that the American Right views wokeness as a greater threat than the potential return of Hitler.

Why has the legend of Hitler lost its terror? There are several reasons. The generation that fought and defeated the Nazis has largely passed away, meaning that for most Americans, Hitler only exists as a character in movies and books, as with Tamerlane or Genghis Khan, the fear of a mass murderer fades as the centuries pass.

The Palestine movement has effectively removed Jews from the Left’s list of protected minority groups whose rights might be defended with riots. Social media has led to the overuse of the Nazi label, leading to the popular phrase” Everyone I don’t like is Hitler”.

Lyons is far more sanguine about this shift than I am. Personally, I think it was a&nbsp, good&nbsp, idea to vilify Hitler. As a general moral principle, “don’t be Hitler” honestly seems pretty solid. And even if your only concern is the might of Western civilization, a man whose ideologically-motivated military campaigns led to the end of European global empires1, slaughtered over 20 million Slavs, ended Germany’s status as a great power, and cemented Soviet rule over half of Europe seems like he&nbsp, should &nbsp, probably serve as an example to avoid.

But Lyons believes that the end of anti-Nazism as the West’s guiding principle will pave the way for the return of morality, community, rootedness, faith, and civilizational pride — the kind of things conservatives like:

Hugely influential liberal thinkers like Karl Popper and Theodor Adorno helped convince an ideologically amenable post-war establishment that the fundamental source of authoritarianism and conflict in the world was the” closed society”. Such a society is marked by what Reno dubs” strong gods”: strong beliefs and strong truth claims, strong moral codes, strong relational bonds, strong communal identities and connections to place and past – ultimately, all those “objects of men’s love and devotion, the sources of the passions and loyalties that unite societies”.

Now the unifying power of the strong gods came to be seen as dangerous, an infernal wellspring of fanaticism, oppression, hatred, and violence. Meaningful bonds of faith, family, and above all the nation were now seen as suspect, as alarmingly retrograde temptations to fascism …

Instead of producing a utopian world of peace and progress, the open society consensus and its soft, weak gods led to civilizational dissolution and despair. As intended, the strong gods of history were banished, religious traditions and moral norms debunked, communal bonds and loyalties weakened, distinctions and borders torn down, and the disciplines of self-governance surrendered to top-down technocratic management. Unsurprisingly, this led to nation-states and a broader civilization that lack the strength to hold themselves together, let alone defend against external threats from non-open, non-delusional societies. In short, the campaign of radical self-negation pursued by the post-war open society consensus functionally became a collective suicide pact by the liberal democracies of the Western world.

I’m not quite so sure about Lyons ‘ reading of history here. After all, as Robert Putnam chronicled in his book&nbsp,” The Upswing“, the postwar decades in America saw the greatest surge in church attendance, civic participation, family formation, and social solidarity since the early days of the Republic. Here’s church attendance, which surged after World War 2 and remained high for people over 40 until the 2010s:

Source: Pew

And here’s Putnam’s index of social solidarity, which combines measures of civic and religious participation and family formation:

Source: Robert Putnam via&nbsp, Jefferson Educational Society

The New Deal and the postwar period even saw a huge upswing in the use of the word “we” instead of the word” I” in American books:

Source: Robert Putnam via&nbsp, Peace Corps

The” strong gods” were never stronger than they were among the generation of Americans who grew up listening to FDR preach liberalism on the radio and who went on to crush Adolf Hitler into the dust. Nor is it difficult to draw a causal line between the unifying struggle of the Second World War and the great American unity that followed.

The Greatest Generation believed with all their hearts that Hitler was Satan on Earth. But they did&nbsp, not&nbsp, believe that family, community and tradition were little Hitlers that needed to be crushed in order to uphold the open society.

Indeed, their society was both open&nbsp, and&nbsp, deeply rooted. My grandparents knew the names and the life stories of every one of their neighbors until the day they died, how many “national conservative” intellectuals and diehard Trump fans can say the same?

But in any case, the” strong gods” did eventually wane in America. Lyons believes that Trump is bringing them back:

Mary Harrington recently&nbsp, observed&nbsp, that the Trumpian revolution seems as much archetypal as political, noting that the generally “exultant male response to recent work by Elon Musk and his ‘ warband’ of young tech-bros” in dismantling the entrenched bureaucracy is a reflection of what can be “understood archetypally as]their ] doing battle against a vast, miasmic foe whose aim is the destruction of masculine heroism as such”. This masculine-inflected spirit of thumotic vitalism was suppressed throughout the Long Twentieth Century, but now it’s back…

Today’s populism is…a deep, suppressed thumotic desire for long-delayed&nbsp, action, to break free from the smothering lethargy imposed by proceduralist managerialism and fight passionately for collective survival and self-interest. It is the return of the political to politics. This demands a restoration of old virtues, including a vital sense of national and civilizational self-worth …

This is what Trump, in all his brashness, represents: the strong gods have escaped from exile and returned to America…Trump himself is a man of action, not rumination… He is…an embodiment of the whole rebellious new&nbsp, world spirit&nbsp, that’s now overturning the old order…The very boldness of]Trump’s ] action reflects more than just partisan political gamesmanship – in itself it represents the stasis of the old paradigm being upended, now “you can just do things” again.

The word” thumotic” here refers to Harvey Mansfield’s use of the Greek word” thumos” to mean a sort of political passion and drive. Francis Fukuyama spelled it” thymos”, and even&nbsp, predicted in 1992 &nbsp, that Donald Trump might be the perfect embodiment of Americans ‘ thymotic urge to tear down the liberal establishment.

Lyons thus sees Trumpism as a sort of&nbsp,” Fight Club”-style reassertion of wild, unapologetic, masculine drive — only instead of directing it toward anarchism like Tyler Durden, Lyons sees Trump and Musk indulging their manly passion in the dismantling of the civil service.

But Lyons never explains exactly how this destructive impulse will bring back the return of the” strong gods” he yearns for. He sees the civil service and other American postwar institutions as&nbsp, obstacles&nbsp, to the revitalization of rootedness, family, community, and faith, but he doesn’t really look beyond the smashing of those supposed obstacles toward the actual rebuilding. He just sort of assumes it will happen, or that it’s a problem for another day.

I believe he’s headed for disappointment. Trump’s movement has been around for a decade now, and in all that time it has built absolutely nothing. There is no Trump Youth League. There are no Trump community centers or neighborhood Trump associations or Trump business clubs.

Nor are Trump supporters flocking to traditional religion, Christianity has &nbsp, stopped declining&nbsp, since the pandemic, but both Christian affiliation and church attendance remain&nbsp, well below&nbsp, their levels at the turn of the century. Republicans still&nbsp, have more children&nbsp, than Democrats, but&nbsp, births in red states have fallen&nbsp, too.

In Trump’s first term, the attempts at organized civic participation on the Right were almost laughably paltry. A few hundred Proud Boys got together and went to brawl with antifa in the streets of Berkeley and Portland.

There were a handful of smallish right-wing anti-lockdown protests in 2020. About 2, 000 people rioted on January 6th — mostly people&nbsp, in their 40s and 50s. And none of these ever crystallized into long-term grassroots organizations of the type that were the norm in the 1950s.

For a very few people, the first Trump term was a live-action role-playing game, for everyone else, it was a YouTube channel.

And in Trump’s second term so far? Nothing. Even&nbsp, the rally numbers are way down. National conservatives who might have gone out to meet each other in 2017 are hunkering at home alone in their living rooms, swiping back and forth between X and OnlyFans and DraftKings, pumping their fists in the air as they read about how Elon Musk and his band of computer nerds are firing people or Trump is cutting off aid to Ukraine.

” You can just do things”, except almost zero of Trump’s supporters are actually doing anything except passively cheering for their notional team. Unless you’re one of the tiny group of nerds helping Elon Musk dismantle the bureaucracy, the thumos is all secondhand.

The MAGA movement, you see, is an&nbsp, internet thing. It’s another&nbsp, vertical online community&nbsp, — a bunch of deracinated, atomized individuals, thinly connected across vast distances by the notional bonds of ideology and identity. There is nothing in it of family, community, or rootedness to a place. It’s a digital consumption good. It’s a subreddit. It is a&nbsp, fandom.

N S Lyons and the national conservatives have entirely misapprehended the cause of America’s abandonment of rootedness, community, family and faith. We didn’t abandon those” strong gods” because liberals went too hard on old Adolf. We abandoned them because of&nbsp, technology.

The 1920s saw the beginning of mass affluence in America, along with the creation of technologies that gave individual human beings unprecedented autonomy and control over their physical location and their information diet.

Car ownership allowed Americans to go anywhere, any time, freeing them from their ties to a specific place. Telephone ownership let people communicate over vast distances. Television and radio exposed them to new ideas and cultures, and the internet exposed them to even more.

Then came social media and the smartphone. Suddenly,” society” didn’t mean the people in the physical space around you — your neighbors, coworkers, workout buddies, etc. First and foremost,” society” became a collection of avatars writing text to you on a little glass screen in your pocket. Your phone was where you met and conversed with friends and lovers, where you argued about politics and ideas. People’s roots changed from physical space to digital space.

There is a slowly building mountain of evidence connecting phone-enabled social media to&nbsp, feelings of isolation and alienation, to&nbsp, solitude and loneliness, to&nbsp, declining religiosity, to reduced family formation and&nbsp, lower birth rates.

American society became somewhat disconnected by the introduction of the 20th century technologies of the car, the telephone, the TV, and the internet, but it managed to partially resist and preserve some remnant of rootedness.

But phone-enabled social media broke through those last walls of resistance and turned us into free particles floating in a disembodied space of memes and identities and distractions. The strong gods turned out to be weaker than the new gods made of silicon.

The people who did this were more or less the same people N S Lyons is now cheering on. It wasn’t Elon Musk himself, of course, he just made cars and rockets. But it was Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey, Zhang Yiming and a bunch of other entrepreneurs who followed their thumos toward vast riches by building the virtual world that has become our truest home.

I am not saying they were evil to do this. Technology has a way of progressing, especially in advanced societies, if it&nbsp, can&nbsp, be done, it probably&nbsp, will&nbsp, be done. And no one could have known about the downsides ahead of time. But it is a bit ironic that the class of people whom N S Lyons now believes will usher in a new age of rootedness and community is the exact same class of people who destroyed the old one.

But anyway, yes, this thing will fail, because nothing is being built. Yes, every ideological movement assures us that after the old order is completely torn down, a utopia will arise in its place. Somehow the utopia never seems to arrive. Instead, the supposedly temporary period of pain and sacrifice stretches on longer and longer, and the ideologues running the show become ever more zealous about blaming their enemies and rooting out the enemies of the revolution.

At some point it becomes clear that the promises of utopia were just an excuse for the rooting out of enemies — thumos as an end in and of itself.

Already, Trump’s Treasury Secretary is telling us that the economic pain Trump is causing is&nbsp, just a “de-tox period”, Trump is&nbsp, blaming “globalists” &nbsp, for the fall in the stock market, and Trump’s Justice Department is&nbsp, blaming egg prices&nbsp, on hoarders and speculators. If you don’t recognize this plot line, you must not read much news or much history.

Smashing the old order does not, in itself, create anything at all. The Visigoths and the Vandals built nothing on top of the ruins of Rome. They indulged their thumos and scampered away to feast for a while on the wealth they looted, and then they disappeared into myth and memory.

Over the past decade and a half I’ve watched in dismay as the real-world communities and families I knew in my youth got ripped up and replaced with a collection of imaginary online identity movements. I’m still waiting for someone to figure out how to put society back together again — how to do what FDR and the Greatest Generation did a century ago. Looking at the Trump movement, I’m pretty sure this isn’t it.

Notes:

1 The fact that Hitler effectively brought down the British Empire explains his&nbsp, strangely enduring popularity&nbsp, in parts of South Asia.

This&nbsp, article was first published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion&nbsp, Substack under a different headline and is republished with kind permission. Become a Noahopinion&nbsp, subscriber&nbsp, here.

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China all in on RISC-V open-source chip design – Asia Times

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It’s” RISC on” in China.

The Chinese government plans to promote the nationwide use of open-source RISC-V integrated circuit ( IC ) design standards under new guidelines that may be announced in the next few weeks, Reuters reported.

China’s Cyberspace Administration, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology and National Intellectual Property Administration are all presumably involved, according to the Reuters record.

If so, it may offer a great press forward to a pattern that has been gathering speed for several years now and a big pushback against the US state, which, under presidents Trump 1.0, Biden and Trump 2.0, has constantly sought to police the global semiconductor business and suppress its growth in China.

Hong Kong‘s government is also promoting RISC-V ( pronounced “risk-five” ) to make a place for itself as one of China’s IC design centers. The creation of a Hong Kong AI Research and Development Institute may enhance the coverage.

Writing under the article” The Role of RISC-V in Shaping the Future” in Sbs Times, Frankwell Lin, CEO of Taiwan’s Andes Technology, noted that:

AI’s expanding control – spanning programs like words recognition, imaging, and natural language processing – underscores the critical part of advanced semiconductors. RISC-V, with its open architecture and very customizable infrastructure, is revolutionizing AI startups, enabling them to tackle inference-heavy tasks more efficiently than fixed-function counterparts. This flexibility positions RISC-V as a linchpin in the evolution of high-performance computing ( HPC ), addressing the rapidly evolving demands of AI applications.

Lin also points out that:

RISC-V’s momentum extends beyond AI, finding applications in EVs, IoT, and 5G. Its ability to foster innovation through an open architecture not only drives technical breakthroughs but also disrupts traditional business models, making it an essential technology for economic growth and recovery across these sectors.

In January, the Chinese Academy of Sciences ( CAS ) announced that its XiangShan RISC-V processor will be ready this year, with modification to support AI dynamo DeepSeek. Xiangshan is” the world’s top-performing open-source processor core”, according to CAS.

The XiangShan project was launched in 2019 to develop a high-performance RISC-V processor” with a focus on regular updates and improvements to the processor’s design, performance, and power efficiency”, in the words of TechRadar. The Beijing Institute of Open Source Chip was created to support the project.

In February, Alibaba announced that it will start shipments of its newest RISC-V processor, a server-grade CPU, to customers this month. Alibaba, which plans to invest more than US$ 50 billion in AI and cloud computing over the next three years, recently announced a new AI model that it claims outperforms DeepSeek.

RISC-V is an open standard instruction set architecture based on Reduced Instruction Set Computer design principles. A free, non-proprietary platform for the development of IC processors, it is an ideal way for the Chinese ( or anyone else ) to develop an alternative to the proprietary semiconductor technologies of America’s Arm, Intel, Nvidia and other Western firms that are subject to US government export controls.

The RISC-V concept was conceived at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010. The RISC-V Foundation was established in 2015 to support and manage the technology, with the Institute of Computing Technologies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as one of its founders.

A China RISC-V Alliance was established in 2018 with the goal of creating a complete open-source computing ecosystem by 2030. Also in 2018, the city of Shanghai introduced financial incentives for RISC-V development and Chinese RISC-V specialist StarFive was founded with the support of SiFive, the technology leader headquartered in Santa Clara. &nbsp,

In 2020, the RISC-V Foundation was incorporated in Switzerland as the RISC-V International Association, moving out of the United States to avoid potential disruption caused by then-president Donald Trump’s China trade war policies.

US policymakers and politicians would like to use export controls to limit China’s use of the technology, but indications are it is too late for that. China already accounts for about 50 % of RISC-V core shipment volumes.

Several Chinese companies are “premier” members of RISC-V International, including Alibaba Cloud, Huawei, ZTE, Tencent and semiconductor products and services supplier Beijing ESWIN. Andes Technology, Google, Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Synopsis and SiFive are also premium members.

The least well-known of the premier member Chinese companies, ESWIN, has R&amp, D centers in Beijing, Shanghai, seven other Chinese cities, South Korea and the UK, manufacturing plants inXi’an and Chengdu, and sales offices in Qingdao, Shenzhen, nine other Chinese cities, South Korea, Japan and the US.

Altogether, the RISC-V International Association has 24 “premier” members, 166″ strategic” members, and 205″ community” members in Europe, Asia and the Americas, according to the RISC-V website.

The fourth annual RISC-V Summit China was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, last August, where more than 100 companies, research institutions and open-source technology communities participated. Ranking with similar events in Europe and North America, it attracted some 3, 000 domestic and foreign attendees and about half a million viewers online.

These developments are being followed closely by tech companies, consulting firms and government officials in the US. In December 2023, the Jamestown Foundation, a conservative research and analysis consultancy following national security-related trends from Washington, DC, wrote that:

China’s engagement with RISC-V is a testament to its strategic foresight and ambition to reshape the semiconductor industry, challenging long-established norms and power structures. The increasing influence of Chinese entities in the RISC-V International Foundation is a clear indicator of China’s intention to steer the direction of RISC-V development.

This shift in control away from the United States is not merely about technological advancement but about altering the global tech order. China sees RISC-V as an opportunity to enhance its self-innovation capabilities, foster self-sufficiency, and navigate the complexities of increasing geopolitical tensions.

Follow this writer on&nbsp, X: @ScottFo83517667

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US hopes robo-ships can outwit China’s superior naval numbers – Asia Times

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The US Navy’s USX-1 Defiant unmanned surface vessel ( USV ) promises cost-effective, high-endurance fleet expansion while raising critical questions on survivability, cyber vulnerabilities and whether sea drones will be enough to counter China’s overwhelming shipbuilding advantage.

This month, Naval News reported that Serco, under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s ( DARPA ) No Manning Required Ship ( NOMARS ) program, launched the USX-1 Defiant, a 180-foot-long, 240-ton USV, at Nichols Brothers Boat Builders.

The unmanned vessel, coined by some media as a “ghost” ship, is designed from founding to exclude any ship features, epitomizing a groundbreaking marine infrastructure focused on price performance, stability and expanded load capabilities for long-duration missions.

Unlike fitted options like Nomad and Ranger, Defiant omits human-oriented methods. This development is crucial amid growing needs for cost-effective USVs able of countering proper risks, including a possible US conflict with China in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea.

The vehicle features DARPA’s superior hydrodynamic and secrecy technologies. It aims to maintain 90 % administrative stability over a year, and its autonomous fuel functions have been demonstrated in previous tests.

This project aligns with US naval modernization efforts to bolster unmanned operations, particularly in Indo-Pacific theaters. Ryan Maatta, Serco’s Marine Engineer Manager, highlighted Defiant’s scalability and affordability, addressing historical cost barriers in unmanned systems.

USVs present a paradigm shift in naval warfare, offering significant tactical advantages and notable vulnerabilities.

Their cost-effectiveness enables cash-strapped navies to deploy swarms of autonomous attack boats, as evidenced by Ukraine’s successful use of USVs against Russian warships. These drones, with low profiles and AI-driven evasive maneuvers, can evade detection and overwhelm advanced naval defenses.

However, USVs are not a naval warfare panacea. The maritime environment accelerates mechanical degradation while increasing autonomy, making them prime cyber targets.

Their reliance on external communication links exposes them to jamming and hacking, particularly in a GPS-denied or electronic warfare-heavy environment.

Additionally, they lack the sustained endurance, firepower and adaptability of crewed warships, which will remain essential for prolonged naval engagements for the foreseeable future.

In a March 2023 Center for International Maritime Security ( CIMSEC ) article, Kyle Cregge highlights the potential role of USVs in future naval operations.

Cregge says USVs embody the” Every Ship a Surface Action Group ( SAG )” model, augmenting manned combatants with scalable missile firepower and distributed lethality.

He mentions that USVs used as force multipliers enhance fleet survivability by complicating adversary targeting while offering economical Vertical Launch System (VLS ) expansion when the US Navy may face a firepower gap with China.

He notes that integrated with manned-unmanned teams ( MUM-T), these systems ensure flexible operational responses and rapid adaptability, embodying a cost-effective, strategically robust solution for deterring aggression and preserving maritime dominance in increasingly contested environments like the Taiwan Strait.

Paul Lushenko mentions in a July 2024 Proceedings article that the US Navy’s framework for unmanned systems at sea emphasizes integration across domains to enhance distributed maritime operations ( DMO ) and information warfare.

Lushenko says that key methods such as picket, distribution and mass offer advantages from early warning and situational awareness to overwhelming adversaries with coordinated strikes. He also adds that MUM-T, leveraging AI, optimizes decision-making and shortens sensor-to-shooter timelines.

Highlighting the critical importance of ship numbers in naval operations, Sam Tangredi mentions in a January 2023 Proceedings article that historical evidence shows fleet size often trumps technological superiority in naval warfare, as demonstrated by 28 analyzed conflicts from ancient times to the Cold War.

Tangredi points out that in 25 cases the larger fleet prevailed, with technological advantages proving short-lived and outweighed by mass. He says superior numbers facilitate better scouting, operational flexibility and striking capacity, as seen during the Napoleonic and World War II eras.

He mentions that US Navy expansions, like the 600-ship Cold War strategy, embraced these principles. Conversely, Tangredi mentions that a smaller, technologically advanced force rarely overcame its numerical disadvantage.

According to the US Department of Defense’s ( DOD ) 2024 China Military Power report, China’s People’s Liberation Army-Navy ( PLAN ) is the world’s largest navy with 370 ships, including 140 major naval combatants.

Underpinning China’s numerical advantage, an August 2024 US Congressional Research Service ( CRS ) report mentions that China has 230 times the US shipbuilding capacity, emphasizing that the gap is a significant liability for the US in competing with China.

Further, in a February 2025 Perry World House article, Bradley Martin mentions that the US Navy faces a complex web of challenges ranging from force design, persistent production delays, chronic cost overruns and dwindling shipbuilding capacity.

Martin says that despite ambitious targets like the 373-ship fleet supported by 150 unmanned vessels under the Force Design 2045 plan, execution often falters due to misaligned priorities and aging infrastructure.

He points out that the US Navy struggles with manpower shortages, service-life extensions of older combatants and a reliance on legacy technology.

He adds that the US Navy’s short-term crisis responses often exacerbate long-term readiness gaps, creating a vicious cycle of deferred maintenance and stretched resources.

USNI News recently reported that the Trump administration has unveiled an ambitious plan to overhaul the US shipbuilding industry to counter China’s dominance in global maritime production.

Central to the initiative is creating a new maritime industrial base office within the National Security Council. This office will develop a comprehensive maritime action plan within six months.

The plan includes imposing tariffs on imports arriving on Chinese-made ships, establishing a Maritime Security Trust Fund and offering tax incentives to revitalize domestic shipbuilding, Reuters reported citing a White House document.

The Trump administration also seeks to address procurement inefficiencies and increase wages for nuclear shipyard workers, signaling a strategic push to bolster national security and economic resilience.

However, Brian Clark and Michael Roberts mention in a December 2024 Hudson Institute report that it is not realistic for the US to match China hull-for-hull, and it is unfeasible for the US to offset China’s huge cost advantages while making US shipyards internationally competitive.

Clark and Roberts also argue that while getting ahead of the technology curve ( i. e., nuclear and hydrogen propulsion, modular construction ) is important, attempting to close the gap by massively investing in a particular set of technologies underestimates China’s capacity for technological innovation and cost-cutting.

As the US Navy bets on unmanned ships to bridge its numbers gap with China, the real battle may not be at sea—but in shipyards, supply chains and technological dominance, areas where China currently holds decisive advantages.

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Nehru’s ghost haunts Modi’s China failure – Asia Times

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The 1962 Sino-Indian War remains a deep-seated federal pain for India, leaving a lasting impression on the government’s post-independence national soul. The war, often referred to as a “national humiliation”, saw China’s People’s Liberation Army overpower India’s ready troops in the desolate Himalayan region.

The battle shattered Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s phrase of” Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai”, a supposed sibling connection between India and China. It even exposed the weakness of the newly independent world’s military and diplomatic skills. More than seven years later, the missing war’s reverberations continue to influence India’s politicians, society and world passions.

No publicly accessible document carefully encapsulates Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s international policy. However, his exterior affairs minister, S Jaishankar, offers insights through his scattered remarks and two novels,” The India Way” and” Why India Matters”.

Jaishankar casts the 1962 crisis as one of three geological blows to India’s growth path, alongside the asphyxia of British colonial rule and the terrible fracture of India’s separation in 1947. He argues that the battle inflicted a profound wound on India’s self-confidence and proper imagination—a mental walk from which it has yet to recover completely.

Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP) wield this narrative as a cudgel against incumbent opposition Indian National Congress Party and its longest-serving prime minister, Nehru, blaming his historical mistake for not just 1962 but a cascade of woes: the Kashmir quagmire, the longstanding hostility toward Pakistan and unresolved border tensions with China.

Nehru’s 1961″ Forward Policy”, which saw American troops creep into disputed border zones and his failure to prepare for China’s retort, is held up as damning proof of naiveté. This critique doubles as political theater, a bid to dismantle Nehru’s towering legacy while framing Modi as the strongman India lacked then and needs now.

Modi insists his muscular leadership has hoisted India toward global prominence, even as the ghosts of Nehru’s failures still haunt its borders.

However, the 1962 war’s significance stretches beyond India’s borders and is refracted differently through Chinese and Western prisms. For Chinese leader Mao Zedong, Nehru was once a figure of respect—a fellow traveler in the fight against Western imperialism.

When India wrested Goa from Portugal in 1961, China quickly applauded. The two leaders shared a visceral disdain for colonial plunder yet diverged sharply on remedies. Where Mao embraced revolutionary upheaval, Nehru sought a gentler path—until, in Beijing’s telling, he veered toward provocation.

China has accused Nehru of stoking the border dispute at the Soviet Union’s behest, as a pawn in Moscow’s Cold War geostrategic chess game to check Chinese power. As Sino-Soviet tensions simmered, Nehru’s alignment with the Kremlin, however loose, curdled his rapport with Mao.

At Nehru’s side stood V K Krishna Menon, his defence minister and foreign-policy aide. Menon, a prickly ideologue, pushed an assertive line against the West first and then China, urging the Forward Policy despite India’s thin military resources.

In April 1960, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai arrived in New Delhi intending to settle the border row. What unfolded instead was a study of dysfunction. Nehru, urbane and idealistic, appeared adrift, lamenting that his cabinet—Menon chief among them—slipped his grasp.

Exasperated, Zhou bypassed protocol to call on Menon, Finance Minister Morarji Raj Desai and Home Minister Govinda Ballav Pant at an unspecified location, either Rastrapant Bhavan ( President’s residence ) or Teen Murti Bhavan ( Nehru’s residence ), hoping to broker peace.

Menon’s obduracy dashed those hopes, Zhou left empty-handed, his patience spent. A subsequent Indian proposal, conciliatory but muddled, only deepened the rift. After his return to Beijing, Zhou reported to Mao that India was no longer worth engaging. Trust collapsed and China began to plan a sharper response.

By October 1962, Mao’s strategy bore fruit: a swift, punishing campaign that left India reeling. Menon’s brinkmanship and Nehru’s indecision exacted a steep toll—thousands of dead, territory lost and a nation humbled.

The war’s fallout still dogs Nehru’s reputation, raising piercing questions about his command. Had he curbed Menon’s zeal or read China’s resolve, might India have sidestepped disaster?

The Forward Policy, which saw Indian troops creep into contested frontier zones, played a significant role in escalating the conflict. This aggressive stance and Nehru’s failure to read China’s intentions led to a war for which India was ill-prepared.

The West saw Nehru’s “mistake” through a different lens. To Uncle Sam and John Bull, he embodied democratic promise—a Harrow- and Cambridge-educated statesman who preached pluralism, multiculturalism, openness and multiparty democracy. They assumed he would tilt toward their orbit, a bulwark against communism.

Yet Menon, with his socialist fervor and Soviet sympathies, tugged Nehru leftward. This alignment with the Soviet Union profoundly impacted India’s foreign relations. A British Secret Service secret document portrays Menon as a “fierce Russian commie”, in Washington, he was a red flag.

Under his sway, Nehru’s India drifted from the West, spurning Cold War largesse—trade, technology, and even a permanent UN Security Council seat proffered after China’s 1949 communist revolution.

Nehru’s critics lament this as a historic miscalculation. Embracing Western ties might have fueled India’s industrialization and modernization, vaulting it past the economic torpor that followed. Instead, swayed by Soviet-style socialism, Nehru doubled down on autarky—a noble but costly creed.

That choice reverberated. In 1971, facing American pressure over the Bangladesh row, India inked a strategic pact with the Soviet Union—a lumbering giant led by gerontocratic apparatchiks, its technology and economy stagnating. The US, by contrast, brimmed with technological innovation, growth and prosperity, yet India’s rebuff opened the door to a Washington-Beijing thaw.

When the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, India’s bet looked costlier still: decades of missed opportunities, while China, pivoting Westward, surged ahead economically, technologically and militarily. Nehru’s heirs rue his aversion to the West and flirtation with Moscow—a legacy, they argue, that left India weaker than its rival.

Modi took office in 2014 with little foreign-policy experience and fumbled foreign affairs for eight months. He ousted Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh and elevated Jaishankar, then ambassador to the US, to the role in January 2015.

Jaishankar is a cerebral diplomat who has championed a US-India axis and is less enamoured of Western pieties than their strategic heft. Jaishankar wrote” India and USA: New Direction” in the limited-circulation Indian Foreign Policy: Challenges and Opportunities, published by the Indian Foreign Service Institute, Delhi, in 2007.

In his article, he had mused about toppling China’s communist regime with American help —a provocative notion. As foreign secretary, he edged India from its “non-aligned perch”, a position of not aligning with any significant power bloc and Soviet-era military ties toward Washington’s embrace.

China took note. But 100 days through Donald Trump’s first term, India veered harder Westward, agreeing to revive the Quad ( with the US, Japan, and Australia ) in April 2017. In June 2017, a standoff at Doklam—where Indian and Chinese troops faced off—tested the shift.

Jaishankar brokered talks, Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan in April 2018 to ease tensions. In 2018, India joined the Indo-Pacific Strategy—Obama’s” Pivot to Asia” was reborn under Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.

An October 2019 Modi-Xi summit held in Tamil Nadu fizzled, Xi’s curt remarks a day later signalled a freeze. This hypothesis is supported by Xi’s subsequent statement during an official visit to Nepal directly after the Mahabalipuram summit.

There, Xi warned that&nbsp, “anyone attempting to split China in any part of the country will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones”, which could have been interpreted as a veiled response to India’s alliance with the US to contain China.

Then, in June 2020, a brutal clash in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley—20 Indian soldiers killed, Chinese losses undisclosed—plunged ties to a nadir not seen since 1989. India banked on Trump’s “decoupling” from China to reroute a caravan of factories its way. Joe Biden’s 2021 ascent to the White House, with his “bringing manufacturing back to the US” push, scuttled that hope, turning the US ‘ focus inward.

Modi named Jaishankar foreign minister in 2019, leaning on his pro-US bent to chase the trade and tech dividends China had reaped for decades. By late 2020, India cemented its US pivot with four foundational pacts, locking in military and strategic cooperation.

Yet Biden’s election upended the calculus. His administration’s domestic priorities left India short of the economic boon it craved. Trump’s 2025 return to the White House has brought “reciprocal tariffs” —a stark reminder, delivered with Modi beside him, that America holds the upper hand. Meanwhile, General Motors, Ford and Harley-Davidson have pulled out of India, dimming its industrial allure.

Today, the US mirrors the Soviet Union’s 1970s twilight—technologically stalled, highly inflationary and steered by gerontocratic mavericks like Trump. India’s American wager has yielded little and instead stoked China’s ire. Modi, who pilloried Nehru for snubbing the West and hugging Moscow, has stumbled into a parallel trap: spurning China’s hand for a faltering US alliance.

The 1962 war’s lessons—on leadership, timing and the perils of misjudgment–still haunt India. Nehru’s ghost, it seems, is not alone, Modi’s shadow grows alongside it, a testament to India’s enduring struggle to find its footing among giants.

As philosopher George Santayana cautioned,’ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ” Yet, Modi, despite knowing the past, has repeated the very mistake he has blamed Nehru for making.

Bhim Bhurtel is on X at&nbsp, @BhimBhurtel

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Europe-NATO scramble for a ‘coalition of the willing’ for Ukraine – Asia Times

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Since the legendary shouting fit between the US President Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader has been scrambling to try and fix what looked first like a near-total break in the connection between the US and Ukraine.

Zelensky, urged by Western officials, including the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, has tried to restore his relations with Trump.

The US president acknowledged as much in his second post-inauguration speech to Congress on March 5, saying that he appreciated Zelensky’s readiness to work for peace under US management.

But that happened only 24 hours after he decided to end all military aid to Ukraine. And since then, the new chairman of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, and national security adviser, Mike Waltz, have confirmed that knowledge sharing with Kyiv, which was vital to Ukraine’s ability to beat corporate targets inside Russia, has also been suspended.

Neither of these two techniques will have an instant game-changing impact on the war, but they surely increase pressure on Ukraine to take whatever deal Trump will inevitably produce with Putin.

So far, so bad for Zelensky. Yet Trump’s maneuvering does not only affect Ukraine. It has also had a profound impact on the relationship between the US and Europe.

On March 2, in the aftermath of the White House debacle, Starmer convened an emergency meeting in London with a select number of European leaders, as well as the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

This” coalition of the willing” has been in the making for some time now. Its members straddle the boundaries of the EU and NATO, including – apart from the UK – non-EU members Norway and Turkey.

Since the relatively disappointing first-ever EU meeting solely focused on defense on February 3– which was more notable for the absence of a European vision for the continent’s role and place in the Trumpian world order – Europe has embarked on a course of more than just rhetorical change.

The UK was first out of the blocks. Ahead of Starmer’s visit to Washington, the UK government announced on February 25 an increase of defense spending to 2.5 % of GDP by 2027. This was then followed on March 2 with a pledge of additional air defence missiles for Ukraine worth £1.6 billion ( US$ 2.1 billion ).

Europe responds

In a crucial boost to defence spending at the EU level, the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the” Rearm Europe” plan on March 4. It is projected to mobilize around 800 billion euros ($ 867.8 billion ) for European defense.

This includes a “national escape clause” for EU members, exempting national defence expenditures from the EU’s deficit rules. It also offers a new loan instrument worth up to 150 billion euros, allows for the use of already allocated funds in the EU budget for defense projects, and proposes partnerships with the private sector through the Savings and Investment Union and the European Investment Bank.

Perhaps most significantly, in Germany, the two main parties likely to form the next coalition government announced a major shift in the country’s fiscal policy on March 5, which will allow any defense spending above 1 % of GDP to be financed outside the country’s strict borrowing rules.

This marks an important point of departure for Germany. Apart from what it means in fiscal terms, it also sends an important political signal that Germany – the continent’s largest economy – will use its financial and political muscle to strengthen the emerging coalition of the willing.

YouTube video

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Donald Trump reads a letter from Volodymyr Zelensky during his speech to Congress, March 4, 2025.

These are all important steps. Taken together, and provided that the current momentum is maintained, they are likely to accelerate Europe’s awakening to a world in which US security guarantees as no longer absolute.

The challenges that Europe faces on the way to becoming strategically independent from the US are enormous. But they are not insurmountable.

The conventional military threat posed by an aggressive and revanchist Russia is more easily manageable with the planned boost to conventional forces and air and cyber defences. Close cooperation with Ukraine will also add critical war-fighting experience, which can boost the deterrent effect.

Europe for now, however, remains vulnerable in terms of its nuclear capabilities, especially if deprived of the US nuclear umbrella and faced with Russia’s regular threats to use its nuclear arsenal – the world’s largest nuclear power by warhead stockpiles.

But here, too, new strategic thinking is emerging. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has indicated his willingness to discuss a more integrated European nuclear capability.

And in Germany, a country with an otherwise very complex relationship with nuclear weapons, such a European approach has been debated, increasingly positively, for some time, starting during Trump’s first term in office between 2017 and 2021.

Tectonic shift

A stronger, and strategically more independent Europe, even if it will take time to emerge, is also crucial for the war in Ukraine. Increased European defense spending, including aid for Ukraine, will help Kyiv in the short term to make up for at least some of the gaps left by the suspension – and possible complete cessation – of US military support.

In the long term, however, EU accession would possibly open up the route to a security guarantee for Ukraine under&nbsp, article 47.2 of the Lisbon Treaty&nbsp, on the European Union.

This so-called mutual defense clause has been derided in the past for lacking any meaningful European defence capabilities. But if the current European momentum towards beefing up the continent’s defenses is sustained, it would acquire more teeth than it currently has.

With the benefit of hindsight, Zelensky may have walked away less empty handed from his clash with Trump last week than it seemed initially. If nothing else, Europeans have since then demonstrated not just in words but also in deeds that they are no longer in denial about just how dangerous Trump is and how much they are now on their own.

Threatened by both Moscow and Washington, Europe is now on the cusp of a second zeitenwende, the “epochal tectonic shift” that the then German chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledged after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

They may finally even have found an answer to the question he posed at the time:” How can we, as Europeans and as the European Union, remain independent actors in an increasingly multi-polar world”?

Stefan Wolff is professor of international security, University of Birmingham and Tetyana Malyarenko is professor of international relations and Jean Monnet Professor of European Security, National University Odesa Law Academy

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

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Abandoned by Trump, Ukraine still has the insurgency card – Asia Times

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Time after United States President Donald Trump publicly shamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, the US paused military help and cut off intelligence-sharing with Kyiv.

Zelensky is now scrambling to rescue a package with Trump, offering him Ukraine’s abundant natural resources perhaps without a strong safety assurance.

What if Zelensky is getting scammed? Trump is famous for violating contracts, and but dealing with him is dangerous. Does Ukraine have a decision? As Trump dangerously told Zelensky:” You don’t have the accounts”.

It’s true Ukraine is the weaker party in the enduring conflict with Russia, but that doesn’t mean it has to sacrifice its liberty, place and money to foreign invaders. Yet if Trump’s offer turns out to be a fraud work, the Ukrainian citizens can still fight Russia, and they can do it without America’s support.

If the total worst should happen, Russian soldiers could choose to play a unique hand: rebellion.

Insurgents usually hold the benefits

I have studied asymmetrical war around the world for 20 years, and rebellion is the final death trap for international forces that invade weaker places. Insurgencies change the disparity of regular wars: the weaker person has the battle advantage, while the stronger party gradually bleeds out and goes bankrupt.

This is not a situation that anyone in Ukraine wants, but if Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin refuse to deal reasonably with Zelensky, they perhaps accidentally destroy this devil upon the earth.

If it turns out the peace deal is a scam, Ukrainian fighters could be forced to switch from conventional to irregular warfare.

How? First, as Russia rapidly advances, Ukrainian fighters would disband regular armed forces and form covert, decentralized militia units. They would hide all military and cash assets, and blend into local communities. Civilian clothes only.

From the outside, it would look like the defending military has dissolved and given up. The invaders will foolishly believe they have achieved total victory.

Insurgents do this to lure the enemy deeper into their territory and stretch them thin. They let them put up their” Mission Accomplished” banners. They go to the invader’s victory celebrations and applaud them. They ensure their invaders feel comfortable, and that overconfidence makes them lazy and careless.

President George W. Bush declares the end of major combat in Iraq in May 2003 as he speaks aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast. The war dragged on for many years after this photo was taken. &nbsp, Photo via The Conversation AP / J Scott Applewhite

Insurgents wait and watch

In the first year, insurgents lay low, develop covert networks and watch every move, every detail.

Within six months, they know how the enemy takes his morning coffee, and they have a perfect record of the critical supply lines feeding the invader’s army. They also join the enemy’s puppet security forces, using this as an opportunity to gather intelligence and plan raids. The first phase is all about reconnaissance and infiltration.

Time is the great advantage of the insurgent. Smart insurgents measure their success over the course of decades, not months. The fact is, counterinsurgency operations are exponentially more expensive than the cost of waging a successful insurgency, and so the longer insurgents can embroil the invader in their trap, the more the invader goes bankrupt.

Insurgents allow invaders to spend tens of billions of dollars on pipelines and mining projects, and then they spend a few thousand dollars to blow up those investments. Or they co-opt those projects, tax them and use the revenue to destroy other enemy assets. Disorder is much easier to sow than order.

Playing the long game

Insurgents can play this game forever, while the invader drowns itself in futility and debt. Remember the Taliban’s old adage:” The Americans have all the watches, but we have all the time“.

Conventional wars also typically have higher military casualties than insurgencies, so pivoting to irregular warfare will likely reduce soldiers ‘ casualty rates.

In three years, the Ukrainian military is estimated to have lost at least 70, 000 soldiers in its conventional war. That’s more than the Afghan Taliban lost in 20 years of insurgency.

Holding a front line is a much bloodier business than blowing up a gas pipeline or supply convoy. Effective hit-and-run attacks are designed to keep insurgents alive, allowing them to blend back into civilian communities unnoticed.

U. S. soldiers secure the area next to a damaged American protected vehicle after a roadside bomb explosion near Baghdad in March 2008. &nbsp, Photo: AP via The Conversation / Petros Giannakouris

Unfortunately, because insurgents must blend into civilian populations to be effective, invaders typically retaliate by striking civilian targets, which may increase casualties. Russia would most certainly attack Ukrainian civilians, just as it is doing in the conventional war.

Ukraine’s geographical advantage

But Ukraine’s vast rural terrain makes it impossible for Russia to do to Ukrainians what Israel has done to Gazans.

The Ukrainian landscape is comprised of expansive plains, forests and mountains in the west. Although it lacks jungles, a Ukrainian insurgency could deploy a combination of urban insurgency and guerrilla war tactics, using its vast rural territory to evade capture.

Ukraine’s territorial advantages and military capacity would make it very hard for Russia to successfully repress an insurgency like it did in Chechnya.

Attacks on civilian targets also inevitably draw more people into insurgency, thus creating an ever-expanding crisis for the invader. Whether through drone or missile strikes, this strategy is known to make insurgencies worse over time. Putin will inevitably scream about Ukrainian “terrorists”, but by then, Russia will be ensnared in the death trap.

Nobody in their right mind would want to live in this grim and miserable future scenario. To avoid this calamity, Trump and Putin must realize that a Ukrainian insurgency could disembowel Russian power and destabilize Europe for decades.

Unless they deal fairly with Zelensky today, they are gambling with European security, and playing a game where nobody wins.

Aisha Ahmad is associate professor of political science, University of Toronto

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

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Ukraine mineral deal is no US security guarantee – Asia Times

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The US vice-president, JD Vance, just told Fox News that” the very best protection assurance” to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine once was” to provide Americans financial benefit in the future of Ukraine”.

The assumption is that the much-debated minerals package, in which an investment portfolio managed by Kyiv and Washington did acquire revenue from Ukraine’s natural resources, would make American financial interests in Ukraine. National surveillance interests, it is suggested, could quickly follow.

Vance’s remarks came with the offer hanging in the balance. A conference at the White House on February 28, where the package was expected to remain signed, turned into a shouting match between Vance, the US senator, Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky has since attempted to patch up relations with the Trump administration, announcing that he is ready to sign the deal at “any day and in any suitable format”. And Vance, when asked whether an agreement was still on the board, said Trump “is also committed” to reaching a bargain.

Having access to Ukrainian nutrients is an important option for America’s weapon system electronics and electronic vehicle industries. Ukraine is, for instance, home to around one-third of all German sodium payments, the key element in batteries.

This exposure is especially important now that China, which now accounts for a large proportion of particular US nutrient imports, has imposed a ban on exporting unique minerals to the US in retaliation for Trump’s tariff policies.

But, while Ukraine’s minerals are tempting to the US and other world powers, a deal with Trump won’t help Ukraine’s security situation.

The US vice-president, JD Vance, and House Speaker Mike Johnson ahead of Trump’s speech to Congress on March 4. &nbsp, Photo: Shawn Thew / EPA via The Conversation

Trump’s approach has two main flaws. First, research shows that investment typically follows security commitments, not the other way around. Investors seek markets that are stable and protected, rather than hoping their investments create those conditions.

Previous US presidents have touted similar strategies without success. President William Howard Taft ( 1857-1930 ) championed “dollar diplomacy” in the early 20th century, promising that American investments would create stability across Latin America by” substituting dollars for bullets”.

The reality proved quite different. Throughout this period, the US frequently used military force to protect oil interests in Latin America. But, because these interventions focused on extraction sites rather than defending entire countries, instability continued elsewhere in the region.

Trump’s” America first” mantra suggests a similar pattern of defending American assets, and not necessarily the countries in which the assets reside.

Second, the overall US commitment to protect American assets abroad is uncertain. The US has, since the end of the cold war, been selective about when and how it uses military force to protect overseas assets.

Since 1991, the US military has intervened to protect American property in only four documented instances: Haiti in 2004, Lebanon in 2006, Egypt in 2011 and Yemen in 2012. These cases involved embassies and other smaller properties during periods of civil unrest, rather than defending economic interests.

Recent presidents, including Trump, have been reluctant to use force to protect threatened American investments. US agribusiness giant Cargill, for example, had to close its operations in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region following Russia’s invasion in 2014.

Building state capacity

That said, economic relations with America can indeed bolster a partner state’s security. But my own research shows that this is largely through indirect channels, rather than the threat of military intervention.

For example, US government departments, such as the US patent and trademark office, provide comprehensive training to partner states. Programs involve training judges, police officers, prosecutors and policymakers to enforce intellectual property protections, administer land registries, combat counterfeiting and develop legal frameworks that protect investments.

This capacity building not only helps American investors in these countries, but also improves the partner state’s overall capacity. More effective and capable bureaucracies are better able to manage and finance their military capabilities.

Following Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, the US launched the agriculture and rural development support program. The initiative aimed to develop Ukraine’s institutional capacity for managing property rights and attracting diverse investments.

The US Treasury brought in loan advisory firm First Financial Network to help Ukraine navigate its financial crisis after the invasion, while simultaneously building frameworks for foreign investment.

By 2020, this partnership facilitated US investment firm Allrise Capital’s purchase of Odessa’s Chornomorets football stadium. This deal was described by John Morris, the president of First Financial Network, as demonstrating Ukraine’s ability” to sell assets to the international community”.

These efforts did not deter Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. But they helped the Ukrainian government implement several administrative reforms in the years leading up to the invasion, including more efficient tax collection and professionalisation of civil servants. The government was better prepared for war than it would otherwise have been.

A Ukrainian soldier standing guard in a war-damaged town.
The Ukrainian and Russian armies have been locked in battle for over three years. Photo: Kutsenko Volodymyr / Shutterstock via The Conversation

If the US wants to enhance Ukraine’s security through economic means, the Trump administration would need to make two drastic changes.

First, it would need to reinstate programs that promote American investment abroad. After assuming office, Trump froze and began dismantling the United States Agency for International Development ( USAID ). The agency’s capacity-building efforts have security consequences.

Second, for the US to have both an economic and security impact, Trump needs to reassure America’s allies. Assurances are not Trump’s specialty. On February 26, for example, Trump declined to say whether the US would defend Taiwan if it was attacked by China.

Research suggests that investments follow alliances. But markets do not care about agreements alone. They respond to other signals too, like explicit statements of support. These statements of support also help to reassure allies and deter rivals.

Unless Trump changes how he operates on the international stage, the economics of the mineral deal will not help Ukraine’s security situation.

Patrick E Shea is senior lecturer in international relations and global governance, University of Glasgow

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

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China ‘mass produces’ semiconductor-related papers – Asia Times

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China has become the nation’s No. 1 country in publishing semiconductor-related papers, more than the following three ranked countries combined, according to a report published by the Emerging Technology Observatory ( ETO ) at Georgetown University. &nbsp,

The ETO report said that from 2018 to 2023, Chinese scholars published 160, 852 academic articles, more than the US ( 71, 688 ), India ( 39, 709 ), Japan ( 30, 401 ), and South Korea ( 28, 345 ). Regarding the number of quotes per article, the US achieved 17.6, compared with China’s 14.8. &nbsp,

All the leading 10 research institutions were based in China, except France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, which ranked No. 3. &nbsp,

From 2018 to 2023, the Chinese Academy of Sciences ( CAS ) published 14, 387 chip-related articles, followed by the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (7, 849 ), the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (5, 446 ), and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (5, 237 ). &nbsp,

Nevertheless, China just ranked five globally regarding the number of documents published by device makers.

Samsung published 1, 940 articles from 2018 to 2023, followed by STMicroelectronics ( 1, 070 ), Intel ( 951 ), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp ( TSMC, 611 ) and China Electronic Technology Group Corp ( CETC, 594 ).

In terms of the number of citations per article, Intel achieved 17.3, followed by Samsung ( 16.8 ), IBM ( 15.4), and Samsung ( 16.8 ). CETC ranked simply 10th. &nbsp,

The South China Morning Post (SCMP), owned by Alibaba’s co-founder Jack Ma, reported on the ETO statement with the article” Tech battle: China leads US in number, quality of silicon research, record finds”. It referred to “quantity” as Foreign experts’ large number of quotes per post.

Zachary Arnold, a lead analyst at&nbsp, the ETO, told Nature publication that although the study’s results do not think that China is currently leading the chip-making area, “it’s showing us where items are headed”.

The ETO statement added that if China develops its analysis work into professional applications, the US may soon find it impossible to apply export controls to maintain its competitive advantage in high-performance device design and production.

Chen Yunji, a co-founder of AI-chip architecture firm Cambricon, told Nature that China’s ability to make high-end cards lags behind its chip architecture, largely according to US export controls. &nbsp,

However, the quality of some scientific papers in China is in fear due to the activities of “paper mills”, which refer to businesses that produce false or low-quality manuscripts&nbsp, and promote author.

On December 31 last month, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued instruction calling for a crackdown on “paper mill”. It also called for lower courts to bite down on “paper business bars” and severely punish those who committed research scams.

US export controls

In 2019, the Trump administration asked ASML, the world’s largest chip equipment supplier in the Netherlands, to stop shipping extreme-ultraviolet ( EUV) lithography machines to China. EUV lithography can make 7nm chips in a single exposure and 2-3nm chips in multiple exposures.

Since then, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp ( SMIC ) has tried making 7nm chips using deep-ultraviolet ( DUV) lithography machines and multiple exposure techniques. It&nbsp, successfully made Kirin 9000s chips for Huawei Technologies ‘ Mate60 smartphones, which were launched in September 2023.

At the beginning of 2024, the Dutch government stopped granting licenses for ASML to export its NXT: 2000i and subsequent DUV immersion systems to China. &nbsp,

” China’s scientific and technological innovation has more than once defied people’s imagination”, Minister Wang Yi, member of the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and Foreign Minister, said in a press conference in Beijing on March 7.

” This journey has not been smooth. Be it missile technology, space science or chip making, unjustified external suppression has never stopped. But where there is a blockade, there is a breakthrough, where there is suppression, there is innovation”.

Citing an ancient Chinese verse,” No mountains can stop the surging flow of a mighty river”, Wang said blockade cannot stop China’s technological advancement. &nbsp,

He said science and technology should not be used to create an iron curtain but be shared by all, China is ready to share its technology with the Global South. &nbsp,

He stressed that “high fences and small yards”, a policy that forbids China from obtaining US high technology during the Biden era, could not suppress China’s spirit of innovation. He said decoupling and disruption of supply chains will only lead to self-isolation.

US President Donald Trump, who began his second term on January 20 this year, also thinks Biden’s “high fences and small yards” &nbsp, policy does not work.

White House officials have recently met with Japanese and Dutch officials to discuss stopping Tokyo Electron and ASML from maintaining semiconductor gear at Chinese chip fabs.

They said Japan and the Netherlands should ask their firms to match the limits the US has placed on its own companies, including Lam Research Corp, KLA Corp and Applied Materials Inc.

Surpassing South Korea?

China has been trying to make its lithography for a decade by pouring tens of billions of dollars into the semiconductor industry. However, the program failed to achieve the expected results due to corruption. In July 2022, a dozen top Chinese officials and executives of a national investment fund and related companies were arrested.

China now focuses on chip design and packaging technologies, which do not rely on EUV lithography.

The Korea Institute of S&amp, T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP), a think tank in South Korea, said in a recent survey that China has overtaken Korea in nearly every major area of semiconductor technology.

The survey, which interviewed 39 industry experts, said China now leads in high-intensity and resistance-based memory technology, scoring 94.1 % compared to Korea’s 90.9 %. The highest benchmark is 100 %.

Resistance-based memory, or resistive random access memory ( ReRAM or RRAM ), is a future technology suitable for deep learning computations. It will eventually replace traditional flash memory.

KISTEP also found that Korea lags behind China in high-performance, low-power artificial intelligence ( AI ) chips, scoring 84.1 % compared to China’s 88.3 %. &nbsp,

It said the rise of China’s chip technology is a wake-up call for Korea, which must accelerate its technological innovation with government and private-sector support. &nbsp,

Last year, Huawei struggled to make enough Kirin 9100 chips for its new flagship smartphone, Mate70, due to SMIC’s limited production capability of 7nm chips. &nbsp,

A Henan-based IT columnist said China could use its 14nm chip processing and 3D packaging technology to make chips with performance equivalent to 3nm and 5nm chips. This would involve stacking up some mid-end chips to increase computing speed.

Yong Jian is a contributor to the Asia Times. He is a Chinese journalist who specializes in Chinese technology, economy and politics. &nbsp,

Read: Huawei’s Mate70 to flex high-end chip self-sufficiency

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Noose tightens as Europe confronts its dependence on US technology – Asia Times

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Like a casino immediately realizing that the house always wins, Europe is waking up to the harsh reality of its dependence on British strength. For years, the peninsula relied on US security guarantees, not questioning the strings that may occur attached.

As&nbsp, German leaders&nbsp, find themselves scrambling – both to protect Ukraine and to protect themselves from Washington’s shifting desires – one great fear is a looming threat of US tech liquidity.

Beyond the degradation of the safety awning, the US is also proving that its industrial monopoly poses yet another danger to Western security.

Reuters previously&nbsp, reported, citing three unamed options, &nbsp, that US diplomats pressured Kyiv to mark a critical materials deal, yet suggesting constraints on Starlink, the SpaceX-owned satellite system, after President Zelensky rejected an initial plan from the US.

The report sparked controversy, prompting&nbsp, Poland&nbsp, to understand that it funds Ukraine’s Starlink exposure and will proceed to do so. Since Russia’s invasion, Poland has provided 20, 000 Starlink models and covered their repair costs, despite information that the US floated the possibility of cutting exposure while pushing for a materials offer.

Musk responded to the statement on social media, &nbsp, commenting,” This is false”. While his rejection may be right as far as it goes, it is also correct that Musk didn’t try to ease concerns by going beyond his brief reply to give assurances that the US would not in the upcoming attempt to destroy US tech against Europe.

That chance remains, especially as the Trump administration aligns more closely with&nbsp, Vladimir Putin&nbsp, and Putin ‘s&nbsp, position&nbsp, on Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

On March 5, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski warned that canceling Starlink access for Ukraine may cause an international issue with the US. Gawkowski stressed that a move to reduce Poland’s Starlink deals would significantly strain relations, &nbsp, stating,” I cannot imagine a scenario where a business partnership between Poland and a US company is immediately stopped”.

Musk’s role in controlling access to Starlink had sparked controversy earlier. He had&nbsp, admitted&nbsp, to refusing to activate Starlink over Crimea, claiming he wanted to avoid complicity in what he called a “major act of war” as Ukrainian sea drones attempted to strike Russian naval assets. &nbsp,

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov confirmed that the country is&nbsp, exploring&nbsp, alternatives to Starlink for frontline communications, although details remain undisclosed.

Ukrainian soldier setting up a Starlink for a drone mission in 2024 during the battle for Chasiv Yar. Photo: David Kirichenko

Starlink has acted as the backbone of Ukraine’s frontline communications. At the war’s outset, Russia launched cyberattacks on&nbsp, Viasat&nbsp, to cripple Ukrainian military networks, showing the importance of satellite communications for command and control.

However, to reduce dependence, Ukraine has already been&nbsp, integrating&nbsp, alternative satellite systems like Kymeta for its sea drones.

Andrii Kovalenko of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council&nbsp, stated&nbsp, that the front line is now&nbsp, stocked with fiber-optic cables, high-speed modems and satellite services from Swedish and German providers, for use in the event Starlink goes offline.

Serhiy, a drone unit leader from the 23rd Mechanized Brigade, told me that a shutdown would no longer have the same impact as before, due to improved internet re-transmitters.

Musk’s refusal to activate Starlink for Ukraine’s Black Sea drone operations should have been an early warning for Europe. The continent cannot afford to depend on a system controlled by one individual who has shown a willingness to cut service based on personal whims or political pressure.

Adding fuel to the dumpster fire, Musk took to social media to&nbsp, advocate&nbsp, for the US to withdraw from NATO.

The gun isn’t pointed only at Ukraine. If Russia were to invade Europe – especially the Baltics – there is no guarantee that Musk wouldn’t restrict Starlink access to aid Moscow. Having previously limited access over occupied Crimea, he could do so again, justifying it as a move to prevent nuclear escalation. Trump, after all, has already threatened 25 % tariffs on EU imports, &nbsp, claiming&nbsp, the bloc was designed to “screw” the US.

Italy is now&nbsp, reconsidering&nbsp, a €1.5 billion deal with Starlink for military and government use, citing shifting US commitments to the security of Europe including Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Franco-British satellite operator Eutelsat is emerging as a potential&nbsp, alternative&nbsp, for Europe and Ukraine. Eutelsat ‘s&nbsp, shares&nbsp, have skyrocketed as a result of the rumors. &nbsp, However, it may take years before&nbsp, Eutelsat&nbsp, can match Starlink’s connectivity for both military and civilian use.

<a href=”https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-replacement-ukraine-eutelsat-oneweb-project-kuiper-amazon-iris2-elon-musk/”>Replacing Starlink presents significant logistical and financial challenges. OneWeb, which merged with Eutelsat in 2022, charges approximately$ 10, 000 per terminal, compared with Starlink’s$ 600 per unit, making widespread adoption a costly endeavor.

Ukraine currently relies on roughly 40, 000 Starlink terminals, whereas Eutelsat has only a few thousand in stock and would need to rapidly scale production to meet demand. Compounding the issue, Eutelsat does not manufacture its own terminals, instead relying on industry partners to produce both consumer and military-grade devices.

Meanwhile, &nbsp, Trump&nbsp, attempted to tell Americans to worry less about Putin and more about migrants so the country doesn’t end up like Europe. Once Trump cut off&nbsp, intelligence&nbsp, and military aid to&nbsp, Ukraine, it became clear that his administration would be willing to weaponize whatever it might take to achieve its goals.

This is not the America Europe once knew – and that goes for European populist and nationalist counterparts of Trump. Dutch populist Geert Wilders, affirming his support for Ukraine, called Trump’s Oval Office clash with Zelenskyy “fascinating TV, but not the best way to end the war”.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen condemned the US aid halt as “brutal” and” cruel”, while Britain’s Nigel Farage criticized Vice President JD Vance for dismissing UK peacekeepers in Ukraine, calling him “wrong, wrong, wrong”.

Europe is now awakening to the reality that American support can no longer be taken for granted. Trump’s disregard for traditional alliances has forced Europe to act with unprecedented urgency.

Ironically, his actions have done more to galvanize European defense efforts than three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now &nbsp, Europe&nbsp, is working to generate €800 billion of additional defense spending in the coming years.

Much of what is spent, of course, will go for military tech. The European Union in 2024 approved a €10.6 billion investment for IRIS² in 2024, a European satellite broadband initiative designed to reduce dependence on US providers. However, cost and time remain significant challenges in Europe’s effort to catch up and establish a more self-sufficient infrastructure.

The only viable path forward is for Europe to reinforce its own defenses while ensuring a strong Ukraine to deter future Russian threats. As the world order fractures, Europe must act faster than ever to secure its future.

David Kirichenko is a Ukrainian-American journalist-activist and an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank. He can be found on the social media platform X @DVKirichenko.

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