Japan boosting long-range firepower with stealthy US missiles – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

In response to rising challenges from China and North Korea, Japan’s acquisition of subtle US boat weapons will significantly improve its long-range counterstrike functions. This is a crucial part of the country’s remilitarization. &nbsp,

This month, multiple media outlets reported that the US approved the sale of 16 AGM-158B JASSM-ERs ( Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles-Extended Range ) to Japan.

The US$ 39 million deal includes superior training weapons, anti-jam GPS devices, assistance equipment and software, according to the information. The schedule coincides with rising tensions involving North Korea’s continuous missile provocations and China’s territorial assertiveness.

The US Air Force developed the very developed JASSM-ER air-launched boat weapon. With a range of about 1, 000 kilometers—nearly three days that of its predecessor—it is tailored for perfection attacks against high-value goals.

A 450-kilogram WDU-42/B penetrator weapon guided by INS/GPS techniques and an ultraviolet seeker for end guidance are included in the missile. Its inclusion with Japan’s F-15J and F-35 combatants ensures compatibility with superior platforms, more bolstering its value.

This consolidation coincides with Japan’s broader protection reforms, as outlined in its 2024 annual defence white sheet, which prioritizes the merger of conflict capabilities.

These changes place greater emphasis on counterstrike capabilities and upgraded missile systems as essential components of Japan’s strategy against changing local threats. Nevertheless, achieving these objectives has substantial challenges, particularly in specific detection and tracking.

Analysts like Veerle Nouwens point out that Japan’s ability to use such systems effectively is hampered by gaps in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance ( ISR ) despite the JASSM-ER being a formidable asset.

As noted in a January 2024 International Institute of Strategic Studies ( IISS) report, these limitations necessitate continued reliance on US support.

The report emphasizes Japan’s attempts to close ISR gaps through assistance with the US and investments in business satellite imagery, small-satellite constellations, and superior sensor systems.

Despite these improvements, Japan’s ability to detect nuclear missile launch also depends on US space-based infrared methods, given the exorbitant costs and technical challenges of developing local alternatives.

The margins have increased as a result of new developments in Chinese and North Vietnamese missile systems. The challenge of China’s hypersonic glide vehicles ( HGVs ) and fractional orbital bombardment systems ( FOBs ), which reduce adversaries ‘ response times through quick maneuverability and speed, is highlighted in the US Department of Defense’s 2024 China Military Power Report.

Similarly, North Korea’s increasing reliance on varied launch platforms—including transporter erector launchers ( TELs ), submarines and railway cars—complicates detection and interception efforts, as noted in a September 2024 briefing by Japan’s Ministry of Defense.

The Japanese government’s desire to have long-range counterstrike capabilities reveals fundamental flaws in the country’s security sector. This crucial industry has been hollowed out by decades of neglect, leaving Japan heavily dependent on imported and imported systems from abroad.

Over 100 big Chinese defense companies have left the sector due to poor profit margins and uneven government support, according to Valerie Insinna, who wrote for Breaking Defense in June 2024.

Smaller vendors, in special, have struggled to survive amidst resources swings and an aging labor, exacerbating threats in the supply chain.

Due to its fragility, Japan must rely on the US for both munitions and ISR capabilities. However, the US faces its own challenges in ramping up missile production to counter China’s growing firepower.

As noted by Asia Times, aging infrastructure, limited production capacity, and supply chain constraints complicate efforts to scale manufacturing.

Complex technologies like GPS and inertial navigation systems demand specialized parts and expertise, which further delays production.

These issues are made worse by bureaucratic inefficiencies and budgetary constraints, raising questions about whether the US can meet its demands or even offer sufficient support to allies like Japan.

These restrictions could cause Japan to be without urgent supplies in the event of a US-China conflict over Taiwan. According to Gordon Arthur of Defense News, Japan’s prolonged reliance on the US has hampered its military development, rendering it unable to conduct independent operations in the majority of cases.

Japan’s military modernization does not align with its perception of threats in its current security environment, which its 2024 defense white paper describes as the most severe and complex the nation has faced since World War II, despite having niche capabilities that support US forces.

Japan’s acquisition of long-range counterstrike capabilities has sparked mixed reactions across the Indo-Pacific. Domestically, opinions are sharply divided.

In line with their arguments, Japan’s defense capabilities must be strengthened in order to respond to threats from China and North Korea. Critics, however, worry that such moves risk a return to militarism, clashing with Japan’s pacifist post-war identity.

Internationally, Japan’s remilitarization has elicited varied responses. Allies like the US welcome the development to boost collective security, particularly in light of China’s growing regional assertiveness.

However, neighboring countries such as China and South Korea view Japan’s actions suspiciously, citing historical grievances and ongoing territorial disputes.

These regional tensions underscore the delicate balance that Japan must strike between maintaining diplomatic relations and strengthening its defense posture, according to Alan Callow, in an article for Asia-Pacific Research in August 2024.

Japan’s purchase of JASSM-ER missiles is a significant step in the development of its military and preventing regional threats. The move also highlights significant flaws in Japan’s defense sector and its persistent reliance on the US for military support.

As Japan attempts to redefine its role in the Indo-Pacific security landscape, it will be crucial to balance these needs and priorities.

Continue Reading

When Israel and Turkey go to war – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have a plan glass over the next three months in which to try to make a mess in Syria.

The important question for him to answer is whether his authorities should accept the current circumstances or whether it is worthwhile to risk taking the chance of reversing its support for Greek expansionism now rather than later.

There is a lot of uncertainty from an scientific perspective regarding the various international players working on the ground in Iraq and Syria. Given Bashar al-Assad’s fall, the Turkish Armed Forces may now want to perform a certain position in their foreign operations. &nbsp,

That is a crucial inquiry. The&nbsp, Nagel Commission &nbsp, recently assessed that the risk of direct conflict between Israel and Turkey is real. A number of well-known Israelis have since called upon their own state to make for a battle with Turkey as a result of this. &nbsp,

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s drop in Rojava, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, opened a similar plan glass for Greek Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan to confront Kurdish forces there. &nbsp,

These Kurdish soldiers have been the targets of focused attacks by the Turkish Armed Forces and their proxies since the regime’s drop. Today, Turkey is threatening a full-scale military activity against these US friends unless they move up and accept&nbsp, Ankara’s terms&nbsp, for the future of Syria.

The NATO ally in its current form is threatened by the development of Turkey, which is not an exaggeration. Turkey and the United States have been dangerously close to clear conflict in Syria on numerous times over the past few years. &nbsp,

Under the Biden administration, the US government took the&nbsp, unusual measure&nbsp, of shooting down an armed helicopter of their NATO alliance when it flew within 500 feet of British military causes. That&nbsp, marked&nbsp, what was noted as” America’s first-ever use of military force against Turkey”.

At least one Washington-based consider tank sparked a heated debate about whether or not the White House should demand that Turkey be forced to leave NATO.

Although that wasn’t the case, contemporary American foreign policy circles have since fallen for the Greek expansionism accommodation stance. &nbsp,

So, Israel’s Netanyahu leadership is faced with a perplexing state of affairs. They claim to need peace with Israel under the new pro-Islamist program in Damascus. But, that peace had come at a heavy price for Israel’s national surveillance and foreign policy passions. &nbsp,

Along Israel’s north border, it would also run the risk of the emergence of a Neo-Ottoman sphere of influence. This is in addition to the threat of the decline of the weight of pro-Western groups across Syria. Both the Trump administration and the Syrian Democratic Forces, which are supported by the US, will have to make difficult decisions. &nbsp,

Without the full-scale approval of the United States, it is questionable that American-allied Kurdish troops could endure a full-scale abuse by the Turkish Armed Forces and Turkish-allied Palestinian militants.

The Trump administration will also have to consider how to respond to Turkish intelligence’s and The Organization’s ( Turkish Intelligence ) attacks on American military forces and its allies in Iraq and Syria. &nbsp,

The Trump administration may want to see these norms through the lens of” Making the American Military Great Again,” according to the Syrian Democratic Forces. If so, it is difficult to visualize how the Trump administration could hold armed Greek expansionism after Turkish Armed Forces successfully pointed weapons at American troops.

The Syrian Democratic Forces ‘ issue is that the Trump administration does need a while to come up with a clear strategy for Syria. In the interim, the Turkish Armed Forces might attempt to impose themselves by mounting a full-scale abuse on Rojava.

The Syrian Democratic Forces have no other choice but to turn to the Israelis, this leaves them with. The question is then whether or not the administration will act. &nbsp,

The Arab Democratic Forces could use much political, military, and intelligence assistance to annex Rojavan place all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.

Since it is unlikely that a state of Kurdistan could survive without guaranteeing coastal access, the Syrian Democratic Forces would be pleased to support that decision. Additionally, none of its neighbors may appear to be willing to grant like access in suitable conditions.

Additionally, that action may create a highly militaristic exclusion area between Turkey and Damascus. And that would in turn give Israel many more authority to decide how Syria’s potential will be shaped.

The issue is that, on the one hand, the Israeli Defense Forces and Mossad and, on the other hand, the Turkish Armed Forces and” The Organization.” And that would present a hazard to NATO’s current status.

Consider the following cases. In the first, Israel directs an assault on the Turkish Armed Forces. In that situation, Turkey would argue that Article 5 of NATO’s Article 5 would require additional NATO member states to intervene in their self-defense. &nbsp,

In the following, Turkey launches a direct assault on Israeli Defense Forces. In that situation, Israel may argue that America should oust Turkey from NATO.

These situations current Turkey with three issues. First, the majority of NATO member states had likely not be willing to engage in a military rude against a Major Non-NATO Ally. An extraordinary situation, such as an unprovoked assault, would be the only exceptions. In the first incident, those requirements are likely to not been met.

Second, there would be a lot of support for the other member states of the military alliance’s part state ‘ proactive suspension of Turkey from NATO. In the first instance, that may prevent having to consider whether to confront Turkey in self-defense. &nbsp,

Third, in the second scenario, Washington may have a solid backbencher for launching Israel’s self-defense. The Department of Defense and the intelligence community will not be hostile toward their Turkey counterparts, but they will be open to supporting Israeli attempts to impose severe sanctions in the event of a direct strike.

For these reasons, Prime Minister Erdogan should make an effort to calm the growing conflict with Israel as soon as possible, unless he has now made a commitment to pursuing a non-NATO coming for his nation.

Michel Walsh is a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

Continue Reading

Silicon Valley venture capital blowing up the US defense industry – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

I’m a propaganda, and if I believe that is going to make people believe what I need them to think, I’ll twist the truth. I’ll just make my own version of it.

This is not a soundbite from a specially exuberant time in the hit television show Mad People. The CEO of Silicon Valley’s hottest company for military technology, Palmer Luckey, uttered these words.

Luckey’s business, Anduril Industries, specializes in unnatural intelligence-enabled systems, including automatic weapons techniques. Anduril is a darling of the defense startup scene and its newly emerging venture capital (VC ) ecosystem, where big promises, big bets, and a bias toward propaganda are a staple required for success, with a valuation of US$ 14 billion.

The integration of artificial intelligence ( AI ) into defense programs, let alone weapon systems, remains controversial. The UK Artificial Intelligence in Weapon Systems Committee has urged caution in regards to the sourcing of AI-enabled arms, but as is frequently the case with Silicon Valley products, the creation, purchasing, and implementation of AI protection programs have quickly accelerated in recent years.

Founded only in 2017, Anduril has already been awarded multiple multi-million dollar contracts by the US Department of Defense ( DoD ), as well as the UK Ministry of Defense ( MoD ). This may not seem like a amazing growth in light of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, the conflict in Gaza, and rising global stress.

In my latest research on defense AI, I identified that one of the key owners of the accelerated purchasing of military company products, such as automatic drones and another AI-enabled systems, is the influx of huge sums of venture capital money and influence.

These venture capital firms must adopt the speed and scale ethos of the technology sector and the appetite for risk and revolution in these venture capital firms. This makes these firms not only financial players but also political ones.

This trend toward creating defense in the vein of Silicon Valley, driven by venture capital interests, is likely to become more pronounced and pervasive, according to my research, which was published in Finance and Society. With this in mind, it’s worth looking more closely at the dynamics in play when venture capital sets its eyes on matters of life and death.

The new financial model for the military

The military AI industry and global defense spending are both booming. The global market for military AI was estimated to be worth$ 13.3 billion in 2024, with a projected growth of$ 35 billion over the next seven years, according to current estimates.

These numbers vary, depending on the market data services consulted, but they have been revised upward on a regular basis in the last 12 months. In the last 24 months, global defense budgets have also increased in response to ongoing conflicts and a general escalation in militarization.

Global defense spending reached a record level of just over$ 2 trillion in 2023. In 2023, the US accounted for nearly 40 % of global defense spending with an$ 877 billion budget. The NATO alliance will be spending US$ 1.47 trillion in 2024. For large tech and finance companies with plans to establish themselves in the defenSe market, these are significant, attractive numbers.

Meanwhile, defense organizations are starting to spend more money on cutting-edge technologies, including, inevitably, AI. According to a report from the Brookings Institute in 2024, defense contracts for AI-related technologies increased by nearly 1, 200 % in the 12-month period from August 2022 to August 2023.

For most new AI products, civilian or otherwise, some form of venture capital funding is often involved, especially if the AI venture in question might prove to be too risky to be funded through bank loans or other financial instruments. Venture capital is prepared to place bets on innovations that other investors would not be able or unwilling to accept.

In the past two decades, this type of funding has primarily focused on Silicon Valley products for the civilian market, where the dynamics have allowed for extraordinary gains to be made for investors.

However, those with large amounts of capital to invest see a new opportunity for huge gains in defense as the defense market is expanding and the opportunities for extraordinary venture capital returns in the commercial spheres diminish.

It is unsurprising, then, that in the past five years, venture capital investment in defense technologies has surged. US venture capital funding for military technology startups has doubled between 2019 and 2022, and since 2021, the defense technology sector has received an injection of$ 130 billion in VC funding.

YouTube video

]embedded content]

Private VC investments are projected to reach a record$ 1 billion, driven primarily by US venture firms, and are also at an all-time high for the European defense sector. There is a palpable buzz in the air about the possibilities for VC-backed endeavors and the possibility to reshape the defense landscape.

The Silicon Valley nexus between venture capital, military, and Silicon Valley

Venture capital has always been connected to the military sector in some way. In fact, venture capital defense investing is experiencing a boom since its infancy.

The origins of venture capital are &nbsp, typically traced back&nbsp, to the American Research and Development Corporations ( ARDC ) founded in 1946, just after the Second World War, in which the US was buoyed by a victory achieved, at least in part, by cutting-edge technologies.

One of the first businesses to consistently raise money from institutional investors to finance start-up businesses with a lot of potential but too risky for bank loans was ARDC.

With this approach, ARDC was the first venture capital outfit to create investment portfolios that often relied on one or two extraordinary successes in order to offset the majority of companies that only made very modest returns or, indeed, losses. In this way, ARDC was the first “unicorn” company to exist.

Unicorns are young companies that receive a valuation of US$ 1 billion or more (up until recently an exceedingly rare occasion for a startup and something every investor covets in their portfolio ). This is at the heart of investing in venture capital: it is risk-based with potential very high returns.

In the early days, especially just after the Second World War, many investments went toward supporting startups that would deal with&nbsp, military innovation and technologies. This resulted in the development of various analytical tools, high-voltage generators, radiation detection technology, as well as early mini-computer manufacturers, such as the Digital Equipment Corporation.

The digital landscape, as we know it today, has its roots in the military. In the 1950s, advancements in communications theory were intended for military missile technology, and the grandfathers of AI were almost entirely involved in military projects that spanned the course of the internet.

Many Silicon Valley firms remained entangled with the military sector over the decades and, as the anthropologist Roberto Gonzales has written, almost” all of today’s tech giants carry some DNA from the defense industry, and have a long history of cooperating with the Pentagon”. This relationship is then incorporated into the DNA of venture capital.

YouTube video

]embedded content]

But, it is worth stressing that traditionally it was the needs of the military organizations and the governments that largely dictated the pace, structure and process for technological innovations.

A progressively vocal and influential technology startup industry and their funding partners have now launched a raft of” Patriotic capital” initiatives, including American Dynamism, the Special Competitive Studies Project, Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy, and America’s Frontier Fund.

These enterprises were conceived by a handful of prominent companies and individuals in the new defense tech domain to shape defense and military priorities and make good returns while doing so.

In addition to unicorn companies like Anduril Industries, Shield AI, Skydio, Scale AI, and Palantir ( Palantir is technically no longer a startup since it went public in 2020, but it is still one of a cohort of new military technologies ), unicorn companies are proliferating in the defense sector thanks to large amounts of venture capital funding.

This is a recent development. The venture capital sector concentrated its efforts on a thriving civilian technology landscape over the two decades from the mid-’90s to 2014, where the sky was the limit for returns from technology startups like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and PayPal.

The defense market, in contrast, was considered mature and consolidated, with strict acquisition rules and regulations and too little opportunity for outsized returns on investments. It would typically take several years for a government contract to be completed.

Defense was also dominated by a handful of key industry players – the so-called primes which include Lockheed Martin, RTX Corporation, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics and BAE Systems.

These primes split up the lion’s share of the defense market among themselves, and there appeared to be little room for tech startups to expand without significant investment.

For example, companies like SpaceX and Palantir sued the US Air Force and US Army in 2014, respectively, for the opportunity to bid for certain contracts. Since then, it has become more common to break open defense for military startups.

In addition to these structural hurdles for VC investment in the defense sector, there was a greater nominal moral cost associated with the idea of profiteering from war. There was a perceived reluctance to be viewed as investing in” a defense portfolio” or, to put it another way, in instruments of death because venture capital investors are frequently endowments, foundations, insurance companies, universities, and pension funds. European venture capital investors were particularly cautious.

However, the remarkable speed with which this trepidation appears to have subsided in less than a decade is remarkable, suggesting either that the investors supporting venture capital firms come from diverse backgrounds that might have less hesitation when it comes to gaining from the business of war or that it was always just a matter of math rather than morals.

Unicorns and hypergrowth

Everyone wants to invest in a unicorn today because its valuation potential is so high.

But in order to get a foot in the door with an unproven product or concept, some startups can be motivated to make big, bold claims about the revolutionary, change-making nature of their products. The ethos of overpromising is frequently maintained even after a company has secured funding in order to maintain success toward hypergrowth.

In the worst-case scenario, overpromising is done at such scale that it amounts to criminal fraud, as it was the case with the notorious blood testing startup Theranos, which went from being one of the most exciting healthcare startups, valued at$ 10 billion at its peak in 2015, to a complete bust in four short years.

In the Theranos case, the charismatic founder of the business had overpromised the capabilities of the technology, claiming that it would make it possible to perform a number of tests using only one tiny drop of blood. This ground-breaking technology” could revolutionise medicine and save lives the world over“.

Although the technology was a promise made in the future, it was a lie that the company claimed to already have a functioning testing device. Theranos folded in 2018 and the charismatic founder, Elizabeth Holmes, went to prison.

Selling a fantasy

There are many other, less dramatic stories that play out in a similar, although not fraudulent way: companies that promise to revolutionize the way we do mundane things with ground-breaking technology, which turn out to be unsustainable, unworkable, or simply fizzle out.

However, the outcome is that investors lose money and that, more importantly, that those who have come to rely on the promise of technology suffer.

In the defense context, the promises of new military technology revolve around selling powerful deterrence, of protecting democracy, of being able to have comprehensive, accurate, real-time knowledge, of a fully transparent globe, and, first and foremost of a clean, swift and decisive victory with smooth and effortless connectivity.

This can foster an unrealistic vision of omniscience and omnipresence at worst, and at worst, it fosters a desire for an unthinkable revolution in warfare that is too appealing to resist, which ultimately draws an even wider audience into its wake.

These narratives are often underwritten by a general hype that a future with AI is inevitable. This creates a compelling narrative that mythologizes and valorizes a technology that may never deliver what is promised. It is a potent mix that often resists more sober voices that urge caution.

Although the claims made by defense unicorns frequently seem plausible, they are typically untrue because they relate to the future. And often that future reflects a vision shaped by fiction and science-fiction, which is always some degrees removed from the social and political challenges of reality.

Programs that strive to achieve global transparency and reach quickly are influenced by this temptation to overpromise and the mythologize of potential technology. The Joint-All-Domain Command and Control ( JADC2 ) program is one such effort initiated by the Pentagon. For “predictive analysis” and “high-speed battle,” it aims to unite all domains, including land, air, sea, space, and cyber, into a single network.

To make the program palatable to Congress, JADC2 is often likened to the ride-sharing platform Uber, promising seamless interaction between systems and platforms for speedy interventions.

This brings attention back to AI as a fundamental requirement for all military equipment and platforms. Without expanding military AI, this vision will be impossible. The opportunity for military startups is located here.

Two prominent military tech companies are contractors for JADC2 – Anduril and Palantir. Both businesses keep their ambitions to disrupt the defense sector, unseat the current leaders, and carve out a monopoly share of the market in order to increase profits.

YouTube video

]embedded content]

Palantir has set its eyes on “becoming the central operating system for all US defense programs”, Anduril has declared that it will be going” after everything that’s on the]Defense Department’s ] list” in order to dominate in the sector. This is the battle for growth for both businesses.

As Anduril’s Luckey says: “you have to fight and win across multiple areas“. ( He refers to that in terms of corporate strategy, not actual battlegrounds. ) Similarly, CEO and co-founder of Palantir, Alex Karp, acknowledged that, in order to break defense as a market wide open, he is proud to “have dragged and kicked and cajoled and humiliated” various lawmakers, policymakers and government to help further this goal. Move quickly and damage things.

Making a unicorn requires a concerted effort and an aggressive posture on the part of those who stand to gain the most financially in this domain. It is best to work together with like-minded individuals. In the current defense venture capital landscape, there is a close entanglement of founders and funders.

For instance, Peter Thiel is the co-founder of Palantir. He also oversees the Founders Fund VC company, which has investments in Space X, Anduril, and Scale AI, among others. The VC company Andreessen Horowitz also funds SpaceX, Anduril, Shield AI and Skydio.

These VC companies ‘ managers have close ties to one another. Similarly, there is interlacing between companies. For instance, former Palantir employees who founded Anduril, who applied their knowledge gained from Palentir to the company. Palmer Luckey, formerly of Oculus Rift, was installed as its charismatic and outspoken CEO.

The America’s Frontier Fund is being led by Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel, who were formerly the CEO of Google and the head of the US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.

There is a tightly knit and very well-connected network of financiers and startups that all work to double down on the key driving message: the defense sector is in need of disruption and we are the ones to shake things up.

Representatives of five newly established military organizations were present at a recent panel giving evidence to the US Armed Services Committee. Every single one of the five was either funded by the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz or otherwise affiliated with the firm.

At the US Armed Services Committee hearing, Palantir’s Chief Technology Officer, Shyam Sankar, testified in favor of “letting chaos reign” and “more crazy” in the military acquisition and procurement process so that the necessary incentives can be forwarded for innovation through inter-departmental competition.

YouTube video

]embedded content]

Regulatory limitations, he thinks,” constrains you to oversight” and he “would gladly accept more failure if it meant that we had more catastrophic success”. Although it is unclear what kind of success this might lead to or what might happen if it fails, Palantir’s CTO makes it abundantly clear that he speaks with venture capital logic in mind.

And, according to a recent US Defense Innovation Board report, it seems the government is ready to embrace more risk and provide top cover for such “mavericks”.

The” crisis” narrative

Besides cultivating startups with high potential, there are a number of ways to bend the defense sector to the needs of Silicon Valley contractors and their VC backers. Here, too, storytelling has a lot of power.

Venture capital managers and their startups often pen high-profile op-eds in which the poor state of ( US) defense is lamented, in which the need for accelerated innovation is emphasized, and in which the possibility that the US might “very likely” become embroiled in” a three-front war with China, Russia and Iran” is conjured up. In essence, the urgency is conveyed, which encourages the promotion of businesses that are aware of the coming crisis.

A second pillar in the structural overhaul of defense is to employ an intricate network of former government employees who serve either as lobbyists or as advisers with close links to the government.

For instance, in August 2024, former Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher assumed the role of Palantir’s head of defense operations, and H. R. McMaster, former National Security Advisor, is senior advisor to Shield Capital.

There are many more such “revolving door” moments in which credible experts lend their authority to the new startups. Like most Silicon Valley creations, the military tech startup scene has a certain reputation, and the money is also appealing.

Anduril, having learned from Palantir, hired a slew of lobbyists in the first week, spending more money on “lawyers and lobbyists than engineers” as Luckey noted in a recent interview with The Economist.

With this, Anduril adopts a relatively traditional method of shaping the defense industry, which is also employed by top defense contractors, who are “investing heavily on teams of lawyers and lobbyists to shape program requirements in line with the company’s existing technology,” as Anduril acknowledges in a 2022 blog post.

Anduril, and its backers, are now doing the very same, tailored to their own suite of technologies. The attorneys are frequently employed as a means of using the law as a tool to compel reform as well as to oversee mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships.

The primary goal of the SpaceX and Palantir lawsuits against the US Army and Air Force, which I mentioned earlier, was not necessarily to win ( Space X’s lawsuit was not successful, Palantir’s was ) but to pry open space for acquisitions overhaul and both lawsuits achieved just that.

A strategy of promoting a sense of urgency, working with lobbyists, and creating the structural potential for a defense overhaul is now well underway. To be clear, I am not arguing that the defense sector would not benefit from modernization or restructuring.

I don’t want to say that all new military products are unsustainable or irrelevant. I am also not seeking to pit the primes against the new venture capital dynamics and their focus on growth.

But what I believe is worth looking into are the dynamics at play with these new businesses and their implicit priorities and interests, since they will influence how practices and priorities are decided. And where disruption is at work, some level of breakage is to be expected. In terms of life and death, this has a different tone.

Disruption debris

The disruption in the defense sector is already well underway, and efforts to remake it in the style of Silicon Valley have had a number of positive effects in recent years. The JADC2 program mentioned earlier is one.

Others are evident in programs like the US Department of Defense’s Replicator Initiative, which incorporates the aims, timelines and products that Silicon Valley military startups have to offer.

Defense officials are repeating the venture capital industry’s talking points, and various acquisition programs have changed to accommodate the required speed and scale. These companies have the ear of policymakers and the demands for a quasi-spiritual” Defense Reformation” are finding a growing audience.

YouTube video

]embedded content]

What are the possible effects, then?

When Uber disrupted the private transport industry, it left in its wake a raft of eroded labor laws, worker’s rights and healthcare provisions for drivers. When AirBnB’s industry boomed, rental costs increased in well-known tourist destinations. When you try to create a monopoly, there are always social and political consequences. These effects are frequently predictable, but occasionally not.

Disrupting the defense acquisitions process comes, at the very minimum, at the expense of greater oversight of the acquisitions process. The technology industry is not known for being aware of the limits of regulations. Quite the contrary. Some of the most well-known investors in the new military startup scene are most vehemently opposed to any form of regulation.

VC heavyweight Marc Andreessen, for example, famously penned a Techno-Optimist manifesto in which he names risk management, trust and safety measures and the precautionary principles as” the enemy”.

Less regulation results in less oversight and accountability for spending, as well as for how and where specific technologies are used, and what effects are caused by them. This much is evident.

However, the rapid deployment and deployment of military technologies for battle may have many other, highly plausible, unforeseen effects. One is the refocusing on risk and experimentation.

The most recent crop of military startup technologies, such as AI-enabled drones and AI decision support systems, are being tested and improved both live and during ongoing conflicts, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, as well as in Gaza. This is a form of prototyping which is becoming increasingly prominent and which needs an active battlefield for effective testing, iteration and optimizing of the technologies.

This also means that it is possible to use outdated technologies that will only be tested and improved as you go along. It normalizes, if not promotes, the launch and sale of flawed and possibly inadequate AI products, which will inevitably cause harm to innocent civilians caught in the crosshairs of conflict.

We can already see this as a result of technology companies ‘ efforts to sell their large language models to military organizations. Scale AI, for example, has teamed up with Meta to sell an LLM product, Defense Llama, for defense purposes. The organization claims that the system needs “absolutely to involve people.”

But given the well-known fact that LLMs are prone to what are known as hallucinations, the chances that such technologies will work exactly as advertised are slim for a context so complex and dynamic as warfare. People who are in the middle of this experimentation, fine-tuning, and live testing may suffer as a result.

It is a key concern that the technology might not be suitable for the unexpected, for the less calculable or less foreseeable elements in warfare. That includes potential new terrorist threats or actions by those nations that are frequently viewed as irrational, like North Korea, for instance.

Anduril CEO, Luckey, admitted as much in the interview I opened with. He acknowledged that potential enemies who reject the game’s theoretical foundation on which much of the AI logic for defense rests:” Each of whom is responsible for the logic on which his weapons are built falls apart.”

” It’s very hard to engage in game theory with people who pursue the non-game theory optimal strategy…It’s like playing monopoly with the person who is going to drop out and give all their money to somebody else”.

A significant impediment to something that is so rife with chance as warfare. There are also second and third-order effects that emanate from this shift toward venture capital logic.

By presenting an imminent threat, the global risk and security landscape may change, by placing greater emphasis on weapons technologies, funding for alternative approaches to conflict might be restrained, and by dedicating more money to technologies that are still being tested and may not have permanence, significant amounts of money that would be better spent elsewhere might be wasted.

But this is a land of make-believe and unicorns, where such considerations are as speculative as the much-hyped promises of AI weapons as the defenders of democracy.

The “move fast and break things” motto in Silicon Valley implies that issues that arise during the development of the technology can always be addressed and resolved later. In the world of defense and war, the harm produced by this kind of risk-taking cannot so easily be undone.

Elke Schwarz is a lecturer at Queen Mary University of London’s Political Theory program.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the article’s introduction.

Continue Reading

China’s shipbuilders a likely Trump trade war target – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

Professional ships are set to become the next hot button in the US-China trade war as a result of Washington’s accusations that Chinese shipbuilders use non-market strategies to increase market share.

After its Section 301 investigation revealed that China’s practices in shipbuilding, maritime, and logistics have all undermined fair competition, the US Trade Representative ( USTR ) has called for responsive actions. &nbsp,

The USTR released its conclusions on January 16 with the announcement that China would top the country’s manufacturing business for the 15th consecutive month in 2024. &nbsp,

According to the MIIT, 55.7 % of the global manufacturing implementation volume in 2024 came from China, which means that over half of the ships shipped globally last year were built there. China’s shipbuilding industry’s new orders accounted for 74.1 % of global volume and orders on hand accounted for 63.1 %.

The MIIT said China completed 48.18 million tons of shipping orders last year, up 13.8 % from 2023. Newly received orders totaled 113.05 million tons, marking a substantial 58.8 % rise year-on-year, while the order backlog reached 208.72 million tons, a 49.7 % jump.

China placed first among 14 of the 18 global popular deliver types, including multi-purpose vessels, auto carriers, and container ships, in terms of new orders, according to the report.

Data from China’s General Administration of Customs showed that the country exported 5, 804 ships in 2024, a 25.1 % increase from 2023. The total export value surged to$ 43.38 billion, up 57.3 % year-on-year.

China’s new shipbuilding orders for green power vessels represented 78.5 % of the global market last year, compared with 31.5 % in 2021, according to state-run China Central TV. &nbsp,

” China now is capable of building nearly all advanced types of ships, from 24, 000-TEU-level vessels to liquified natural gas ( LNG ) carriers and cruise ships”, Zheng Ping, chief analyst at industry portal Chineseport.cn, told the Global Times. TEU refers to” twenty-foot similar product”, a system of cargo power used for freight.

” From steel and aluminum products, renewable panels, to fresh strength vehicles and ships, the US has accused China of having’ unjust’ competition, fully exposing the absurdity of its concept of ‘ fairness'”, Bao Nan, a columnist at the Beijing Daily, writes in an article. &nbsp,

Bao claims that China has spent four years expanding its shipping business and significantly increasing its investments in 2008, when the country’s shipping market was hit by the global financial crisis. He claims that the US is only to chastise itself for allowing its industrialists to fail successively since the 1980s. &nbsp,

Socialist market economy

On April 17 last month, the USTR initiated a Section 301 analysis of China’s works, laws, and practices targeting the sea, logistics and manufacturing sectors for supremacy. On January 16, the USTR said in its statement that China’s targeting of the sea, transportation, and manufacturing industries for hegemony:

  • consumes foreign firms, robs market-oriented businesses and their workers of business opportunities, and lessens competitors,
  • creates relationships on China and increased threat, and reduces supply chain resilience,
  • is ridiculous because of China’s incredible control over these sectors and its economic actors,
  • serves a broader purpose to develop all of China’s instruments of national power through China’s Military-Civil Fusion (MCF ) plan.

” Today, the US ranks 19th in the world in commercial shipbuilding, and we build less than five ships each year, while the People’s Republic of China ( PRC ) is building more than 1, 700 ships”, said USTR Ambassador Katherine Tai. ” In 1975, the United States ranked number another, and we were building more than 70 ships a time”.

” Beijing’s targeted dominance of these areas affects fair, market-oriented competition, boosts economic security threats and is the greatest barrier to revival of US companies, as well as the communities that rely on them”, she said. These findings under Section 301″ set the stage for urgent action to invest in America and strengthen our supply chains.”

According to the USTR report, the Chinese Communist Party has significant influence over state-owned and state-invested companies in the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding industries to promote the nation’s” socialist market economy.”

Prior to this, the European Union had already pointed out in its report that China’s” social market economy” is the root cause of the country’s non-market practices. &nbsp,

On April 10, 2024, the EU’s&nbsp, report on state-induced distortions in China’s economy said the Chinese government’s financial support and economic planning system has distorted many industrial sectors, including metals, chemicals, telecommunications equipment, semiconductors, railways, environmental goods, new energy vehicles and shipbuilding. &nbsp,

Trump’s views

In an article published last May, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, claimed that China’s shipbuilding empire is the most recent climax of the growing rifts between Washington and Beijing. &nbsp,

According to the statement, China’s shipbuilding prowess are also a matter of national security because numerous well-known Chinese shipyards, including the People’s Liberation Army Navy ( PLN), produce ships for both commercial clients and the People’s Liberation Army. &nbsp,

According to the most recent findings, the USTR will reportedly provide new reasons to escalate the Sino-US trade war for the newly elected US president, who will be sworn in on January 20.

Trump stated earlier this month in an interview that if it is unable to increase its production capacity in the short run, the US may outsource the production of its ships. &nbsp,

” We used to construct a ship every day. We don’t build ships anymore. We want to get that started. And maybe we’ll use allies, also, in terms of building ships”, he said. ” China’s building, from what I’m hearing, every four days, they’re knocking out a ship. We’re sitting back and watching, and we’ve suffered tremendously”.

” The Biden administration’s Section 301 investigation against China targeting the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors seriously violates World Trade Organization ( WTO ) rules and is purely protectionism”, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on January 17. ” China lacks factual justification and economic commonsense,” the Biden administration claims.

He claimed that numerous US studies demonstrate that the US shipbuilding sector lost its competitive edge many years ago as a result of over-protection. He claimed that China’s growing relevant industries are a result of tech innovation and market competition from other companies, as well as from China’s extensive domestic market and fully-fledged industrial manufacturing system. &nbsp,

The China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry ( CANSI) stated in a statement that the Biden administration “irresponsibly initiated the Section 301 investigation into China’s maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding industries and drew erroneous conclusions based on the flawed investigation. It was full of lies and distortions, and it allegedly lied about the progress of China’s shipbuilding industry with malicious smears.

” Based on some false accusations, the Office of USTR insisted on launching a unilateral investigation, and made irresponsible and unprofessional wrong conclusions”, it said. Such a move” will significantly impede the global shipping and logistics system, global trade order, and the global maritime industry’s ability to transition toward green.”

Chinese shipbuilders are contributing to the global green economy, according to the CANSI because they produce a lot of green equipment for ships at reasonable prices. &nbsp,

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

Continue Reading

Japanese and Indian ventures tie up in space lasers – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia, Technology

Orbital Lasers, a Chinese walk firm, has reached an agreement with Indian start-up InspeCity Space Laboratories to discover opportunities for collaboration in satellite cleaning, in-space assembly and manufacturing and planetary security. The private sector initiative serves as a complement to the collaboration between the Indian Space Research Organization ( ISRO ) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ( JAXA ).Continue Reading

China tech shrugged off Trump 1.0 trade war – and can do it again – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

When Donald Trump re-enters the White House, he’ll get accompanied by a group of China hawks who will use tariffs and trade restrictions to prevent Beijing from challenging the country’s technological superiority.

China has been subject to such industry force since Trump took office in 2017 and it has continued through the Biden administration. This isn’t completely new.

However, some commentators are suggesting that the magnitude of what Trump is now proposing, including taxes of up to 60 % on goods from China, had “keep Beijing on the defense and completely transform the rivalry in America’s favor,” according to one analyst.

For a watch is premised on the belief that China’s obsolete, state-subsidized, manufacturing-for-export type is mature for disturbance by US taxes.

However, as someone who has written and edited two books on China and creativity and studied China’s systems since the early 2000s, I believe this description of its economy is at least two years out of date.

China’s industrial sectors have grown fast since 2016 as a result of the removal of American tariffs. However, since the” business war” launched by Trump in 2017, Chinese systems has really emerged as a world leader.

China’s technology climb

Thirty years ago, China’s best technology company had yet to create a competitive personal computer internally, and the country scarcely had internet access. The nation was the nation’s manufacturer fifteen years ago, where iPhones and other technology products were assembled without the ability to produce any high-tech components on their own. They were stuck at the bottom of the value chain.

No Chinese planners could have predicted the future directions that China’s technology would take it even with the best glass game in the middle of the 2000s.

Fast-forward to now: China is today ahead of rival economies across large industrial areas. The think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found in a 2024 statement that China is leading or internationally competitive in five out of nine high-tech businesses – automation, nuclear energy, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and quantum computing – and quickly catching up in four others: chemicals, system tools, biopharmaceuticals and semiconductors.

A Bloomberg research also identified China as leading or internationally competitive in 12 out of 13 technology-intensive business. And China was identified as the leader of 37 of the 44 crucial systems tracked by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Why has the Chinese technology sector grown so fast? Some in Washington think that the decades of meticulous state planning have given rise to the world’s high-tech sectors.

But this, I believe, greatly overestimates Beijing’s vision and power. Although the Chinese government has certainly pursued the lofty objective of catching up with the West since the 1980s, having goals is not the same as having the ability to carry them out.

Many in the West level to the Chinese government subsidies that support local tech companies. While grants have contributed to some technical achievement, the Chinese government has also provided many problems.

Take electronics, for example: Despite massive Chinese state assets since the 1990s, China still lags in producing cutting-edge cards and is reliant on goods.

Dare to DREAM

In my view, China’s technological dynamism didn’t come from the magic of central planning, but through five key elements I call DREAM.

D stands for the exchange between the state and the market.

While China’s government wields significant power, the country’s private sector is neither submissive nor powerless. In 2022, businesses that are not owned by the government ( mostly private ones ) but also offshore ones in which Beijing does not hold a controlling stake accounted for 95 % of enterprise R&amp, D spending and 88 % of urban employment.

Beijing has stepped up its sanctions against tech giants, including a ban on Alibaba’s Ant Group from listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2020 and a Covid-19 lockdown that hurt the private sector, but the government is not bound by strict ideology, as many in the West believe it to be. It has recently begun to support the private sector, and it has even begun to draft laws to protect them.

Indeed, it’s more accurate to describe state-market relations in China as dynamic, adaptive interaction– more dialogue than dictatorship.

R refers to domestic R&amp and D ( R&amp, D).

Over the past 20 years, China has heavily invested in domestic research capacity, once dependent on imported technology. Chinese scientists and engineers continue to be deeply involved in global networks despite the fact that political tensions have accelerated the development of self-reliance.

Further, China has a higher number of highly skilled workers thanks to a supposedly anti-espionage initiative launched under Trump’s first administration.

The” China initiative” that the US Justice Department introduced in 2018 promoted the idea that Chinese and Chinese American scientists might be spying for Beijing, leading to a flood of top scientists returning to China.

They continued to conduct cutting-edge research and train a fresh batch of Chinese scientists there.

E is for China’s industrial ecosystem, which it can exploit.

China’s vast manufacturing base enables rapid creation and scaling of new technologies. China was the only nation to cover every major industrial sector and contributed 35 % of the global gross manufacturing output in 2023.

Silicon Valley’s innovative ecosystem, which can rely on extensive venture capital and a booming stock market, may not exist in China. However, it has over the years developed comprehensive supply chains, and it excels at repurposing them to quickly introduce new products to the market.

Take the example of robotics. Only when labor costs increased sharply, did China take the robotics industry seriously. In 2010, China’s manufacturing labor costs were about US$ 2 per hour, similar to those of the Philippines or Vietnam, by 2022, that figure rose to about$ 8 per hour – more than double the average for Southeast Asian countries.

China installs more industrial robots each year than the rest of the world combined, and its robot quality has increased exponentially.

A stands for accumulative changes.

Chinese companies excel at incremental improvements, which add up to an accumulative transforming effect rather than new discoveries. Instead of a few brilliant ideas from any leader’s creative mind, the vast manufacturing networks offer opportunities to improve already-existing products based on market feedback.

Analysts in the US have long predicted that China’s rampant intellectual property violations would end its innovation drive, believing that it would stifle people’s desire to innovate if they believed they would be robbed of their ideas.

Instead, as Taiwanese tech expert and writer Kai-Fu Lee has explained, Chinese enterprises can be dynamic and innovative in an environment with less IP protection. They frequently grow their market share quickly and establish business ecosystems to stop rivals from catching up.

M means the middle market.

Chinese firms tend to target middle-income consumers, both domestically and globally. By prioritizing affordability and functionality over cutting-edge innovation, they avoid head-to-head competition with Western giants such as Apple.

Xiaomi and Oppo, two Chinese smartphone manufacturers, cost a third to a third as much as an iPhone but have comparable features. Tesla and other Chinese electric vehicles have comparable prices, but they still have some excellent features.

Chinese firms tolerate lower profit margins, as they can rely on the expanded sales in the middle market, both domestically and, increasingly, overseas.

Tariffs as a counterproductive measure

The incoming Trump administration’s issue is that, while tariffs may change how China’s manufacturing and exports are perceived globally, they won’t eliminate any of the DREAM components. They might actually have the opposite effect: boosting China’s capacity for self-reliance and bolstering its standing in the world’s middle-class.

The issue is primarily due to the fact that American policymakers frequently view technological competition with China as a zero-sum game. However, technological competition is not comparable to a race with separate lanes and a finish line. Rather, tech transformation is a complex process in which countries and companies compete, collaborate and build on each other’s work.

Ultimately, America’s technological prowess won’t be measured by the extent to which it manages to stop China, but by how successfully American companies can address humanity’s greatest challenges. There will be little progress made in the direction of tariffs and trade wars.

Vassar College’s professor of economic geography is Yu Zhou.

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

Continue Reading

General Atomics tapped to close low-cost missile gap with China – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

While the US attempts to solve its missile hoard squeeze with low, easily mass-produced missiles, China’s production surge forces a striking reckoning with current warfare’s business and protracted realities and the race to outgun near-peer adversaries.

This month, The War Zone reported that General Atomics has unveiled a fresh low-cost air-to-surface weapon, dubbed the” Hit Missile”, at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference.

No word on the missile’s size, performance, or another specifications from the company is provided, but instead, the company developed an air-breathing engine structure with a single dorsal consumption and a slab-sided design with two lugs on top.

The US government’s concentrate on cost-effective, mass-producible weapons like the Strike Missile reflects an immediate need for flexible, long-range abilities in high-end issues. Similar initiatives, like the US Navy’s Multi-Mission Affordable Capacity Effector ( MACE ) and the US Air Force’s Extended Range Attack Munition ( ERAM ), highlight a broader effort to balance capability with affordability.

In addition to those projects, in September 2024, Asia Times reported that Anduril Industries, a US defense contractor, has introduced the Barracuda family of Autonomous Air Vehicles ( AAVs ) to address the critical depletion of US weapon stockpiles.

The Barracuda line, designed for inexpensive, hyper-scale creation, comprises the Barracuda-100, Barracuda-250, and Barracuda-500. These air-breathing, software-defined inconsequential AAVs are compatible with different loads and implementation methods and have varying sizes, runs, and payload capacities.

The Barracuda-M configuration offers a cost-effective, adaptable cruise missile capability, thereby addressing the imperative requirement for precision-guided munitions ( PGMs) that are both producible and upgradeable for the US and its allies.

The Barracuda AAVs are engineered for rapid, low-cost assembly, necessitating fewer tools and parts, resulting in a 30 % reduction in cost compared to their competitors. Utilizing commercially available components to increase supply chain resilience, their modular design enables quick adaptation to new technologies and changing threats.

These relatively inexpensive and simple missiles may have been developed as a result of recent US Navy operations in the Red Sea. These operations revealed the sizable number of expensive missiles required to neutralize threats posed by technologically inferior forces like the Houthis in Yemen.

The US Navy’s massive missile purchases against Houthi rebels raises the question of whether the US can have enough to launch a near-peer conflict in the Pacific.

The War Zone reported in July 2024 that the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group ( IKECSG) expended 770 missiles and munitions targeting Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen during a nine-month deployment as an illustration of the enormous expenditure of pricey munitions against low-cost targets.

According to the report, the IKECSG launched 155 Standard-series missiles and 135 Tomahawk cruise missiles, while its aircraft deployed 60 air-to-air missiles and 420 air-to-surface munitions.

Scaling up such numbers in a hypothetical war with China, a January 2023 report by Mark Cancian and other writers for the Center for Strategic and International Studies ( CSIS ) think tank noted that in three to four weeks of conflict with China, the US expended about 5, 000 long-range precision missiles, mainly the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile ( JASSM) and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile ( LRASM).

Given the enormous amount of missile spending in a hypothetical war with China in the Pacific, it is difficult to tell whether the US defense industrial base can keep the US supplied with such firepower. The challenge lies in overcoming entrenched issues in production capacity, supply chain vulnerabilities, and bureaucratic inefficiencies.

The US defense industry base faces difficulties as it ramps up missile production, according to a report released in June 2021 from the US Congressional Research Service ( CRS ). Despite rising demand due to global conflicts and evolving threats, the US industrial base is constrained by aging infrastructure, limited production capacity, and supply chain vulnerabilities.

Current PGM initiatives involve complex technologies like GPS, laser, and inertial navigation systems, which call for the use of highly developed components and skills.

The proliferation of potent anti-access/area-denial ( A2/AD ) systems by adversaries like China and Russia, such as the HQ-18 and S-500 surface-to-air missiles, further stresses the need for longer-range and higher-precision munitions. These difficulties are made worse by budgetary constraints and the lengthy delays in developing and fielding new weapons.

Seth Jones and Alexander Palmer’s CSIS report from March 2024 highlights the rapid development of weapons systems, particularly PGMs, as a result of China’s transition to a wartime footing.

China has launched more ballistic missiles for testing and training for the fourth consecutive year than any other country combined, and both China’s arsenal and quantity are rapidly increasing. In contrast, there are shortages of US munitions, such as those from the LRASM and Tomahawk, which are made worse by a lack of multiyear procurement plans.

Innovative solutions like General Atomics ‘ Strike Missile represent a step in the right direction as the US attempts to close its missile firepower gap with China. However, overcoming the entrenched challenges of limited production capacity, aging infrastructure, and bureaucratic inefficiencies will require more than technological advances.

Without significant changes to its defense-industrial base, the US runs the risk of losing its strategic position in the Pacific, which it cannot afford. The question remains: Can the US retain its role as the “arsenal of democracy” in 21st-century great power competition?

Continue Reading

Trump claiming new world order in first 100 days – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

Donald Trump’s resumption of office on January 20, 2025, is commonly believed to represent a significant shift in American foreign policy and a shift in diplomacy’s process.

Trump’s favoritism, which includes threats and rhetoric directed at foreign leaders, now seems to have paid off in helping to create a fragile peace agreement in Gaza. The offer was negotiated by Joe Biden and his team in cooperation with Trump’s coming management.

But analysts suggest Trump’s harsh comments on January 7 that” all hell had split lose” if the hostages weren’t immediately released were truly a threat to Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, to get something done immediately. And this made the Israeli authorities obligated to make a bargain.

In his first name, Trump used this sharp confrontational language. And his most recent threats to conquer Canada, purchase Greenland, and retake control of the Panama Canal suggest it does occur again. That might not be all that positive, especially for US traditional friends.

Elon Musk, one of Trump’s closest confidants, is also explicitly haughty about his attempts to overthrow the UK and Germany, in an ostensible effort to bolster a global coalition of populist leaders.

Add to that a promised agreement with Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine, a resumption of the maximum-pressure battle against Iran, and a doubling down on confrontation with China, and you have the ingredients for a basic revision of US foreign policy.

Three distinct characteristics stand out as early indicators of the potential shape of the Trump foreign policy. First is the emphasis on the Northern hemisphere. Trump’s goal appears to be reaffirming US dominance in American affairs while also removing any perceived corporate flaws.

While Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal have dominated the articles, there are also repercussions for US ties with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, with Trump’s pull as secretary of state, Marco Rubio, being known for his aggressive approach.

Trump may inaccurately hype up China’s role in the Panama Canal, but Beijing has unquestionably increased its ( mostly economic ) footprint in Latin America. A Chinese-funded deep-water harbor in Peru has raised US safety concerns.

Mexico’s funding by China has opened a significant backdoor into the US market, making Mexico the US’s largest trading partner. In 2024, Latino exports of goods to the US stood at just under US$ 467 billion, compared with China’s$ 401 billion.

Trump is likely to use a combination of disturbing rhetoric, tariffs, and social pressure to lower the pressure in the Northern hemisphere.

His allies in Congress have now introduced a bill to “authorize the President to get to enter into discussions with the Kingdom of Denmark to stable the acquisition of Greenland by the United States” in an early indication of how seriously the incoming administration takes the matter.

The administration’s shifting emphasis on regional cooperation is the second key component of the emerging Trump international policy philosophy. Europe and the Middle East are the two primary focus regions in this environment.

Ukraine conflict deal

One of Trump’s important objectives is to focus on China and “un-unite” Russia and China while fulfilling the promise to end the conflict in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, he insists that the incoming administration continue to prioritize transatlantic security while also urging US allies to increase their defence spending.

It simply doesn’t want to be the one making the majority of the money. And Trump has a point: Washington currently shoulders 68 % of all NATO expenditure, compared with European members ‘ 28 %.

Trump’s strategy for the Middle East is supported by the same analysis of US-mediated deals that promote US passions while allowing for a reduction in pledges.

A little clearer path to correcting relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia is now possible thanks to a peace between Israel and Hamas, which does help the release of Jewish victims. This is still dependent upon an Israeli wink towards Palestinian sovereignty, but when this materializes, Israel’s ties with the rest of the Muslim world will also increase.

This will allow Washington to begin its maximum-pressure battle against Tehran and shift the stress of containing Iran to a likely more efficient and able coalition of US allies in the region.

What future for China?

While Trump’s approach to the Northern hemisphere and to Washington’s potential relations with Europe and the Middle East are largely unambiguous, there are a lot of questions about his China plan. With the exception of Elon Musk, who has considerable business interests in China, his national security group is typically viewed as aggressive toward Beijing.

Trump himself oscillates between obnoxious and cordial speech. One of his arguments for reaffirming US control of the proper waterway is that it is under the purview of China. He also spelled out Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ability to assist with a bargain in Ukraine and yet invited him to his inauguration.

Trump may be available to a package with China – and China, in turn, has signaled involvement in this as well. While Xi did not go the commencement, his vice-president, Han Zheng, does.

Even though their 2020 deal did little more than put an end to an escalating trade conflict, Trump and Xi have a track record of making deals. The negotiations on that agreement took two years, leaving many of the tariffs in place as of Trump’s first word, though occasionally at a lower rate.

Similar events might occur right now, with Trump honoring one of his campaign promises to raise taxes on Chinese products while also starting discussions on a new deal with Beijing.

In all likelihood, this is Trump’s final term as president. For the next two decades, at least, he controls both the Senate and the House of Representatives. He has every incentive to make good on his promises – and faces some, if any, restrictions. He sees himself as a disrupter, and his MAGA center expects him to be just that. Instability is all but guaranteed.

However, it is unclear whether Trump’s idea of a more stable global order with clearly defined spheres of influence for the US, China, and perhaps Russia will come to light, let alone whether such a result would be preferable.

The University of Birmingham’s Stefan Wolff is an assistant professor of global security.

The Conversation has republished this essay under a Creative Commons license. Read the original content.

Continue Reading

Beijing calls Biden a ‘liar’ and says hello to Trump – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

After incoming US President Joe Biden’s current moves to enact a stronger trade restrictions against China, Beijing has launched fierce protests against the US. &nbsp,

Biden made three significant goes against China during the last year before handing his control to Republican President-elect Donald Trump on January 20.

While China’s Foreign Ministry criticized Biden for failing to “have a correct strategy perception and match words with actions”, Chinese media and commentators directly called Biden a “liar” and a “villain” .&nbsp, &nbsp,

The state-owned China Daily reported in an editor on January 15 that the Biden presidency has been taking the last few times before it leaves business to significantly worsen for blind economic abuse and coercion.

President Biden proclaimed from his first day in office that he would handle the country’s” complicated and significant relations with China” in a “responsible” manner, but over the past four years he has veered resolutely to a very careless way.

Meng Yan, a Shanxi-based military journalist, says in an article that Biden has” entirely torn off the face of dishonesty, revealed a violent encounter and stabbed China time and again since previous November”.

” We don’t need to explain how dishonest and obscene he was in the past.” His new behavior demonstrated that he did not possess kind deeds and thoughts,” Meng says. ” He is a villain”.

He claims that during this four-year name, Biden has broken his promise to stop fighting a “new Cold War” and overhaul China’s program.

Nevertheless, Chinese President Xi Jinping on January 17 held a phone call with Trump to discuss business, Taiwan and other problems, Xinhua reported.

Xi told Trump that it is obvious that China and the US, two main countries with different national circumstances, have some variations. He claimed that the secret to understanding each other’s main concerns and interests is to find the best ways to solve problems.

Trump stated in a post on Truth Social that” the visit was a very good one for both China and the USA.” I anticipate that we will work together and begin right away to address some issues.

He added:” We discussed balancing business, fentanyl, TikTok and many other topics. I pledge to make the world more quiet and secure under President Xi.

Biden’s last goes

Biden unveiled the regulatory framework on January 14 that did start limiting imports of British AI chips and models on January 31.

The regulatory model could:

  1. If high-end AI cards are sent to foreign countries outside of the US, US companies must qualify for trade licenses.
  2. If businesses want to buy US cards for their data centers, &nbsp, or other closely related countries, they must apply for validated end-user position.
  3. If closed-source AI models that have been trained on a high level of computing power ( more than 1026 operations ) are shipped to foreign countries, US companies are required to apply for export licenses. (” Open-weight” AI models allow developers to build upon and adapt previous work while” closed-source” AI models, such as ChatGPT, keep their code and training data confidential. ) &nbsp,

In brief, the US will allow unrestricted access to its high-end AI systems for America’s closest friends, cap the number of Artificial cards that can be exported to most places and forbid China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from obtaining the systems.

” This coverage will help develop a trusted technology habitat around the world and allow us to safeguard against the national security risks associated with AI,” said US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. &nbsp,

With this guideline,” We’ve done that, and it will help protect the most cutting-edge AI systems and keep the benefits from our foreign opponents,” according to the statement.

This did not go over well in Beijing. In a press briefing on January 16, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, stated that” the US keeps overstretching the concept of regional stability, politicizing and weaponizing commerce and technology issues, and using sanctions as a go-to tool.” What the US does is common abuse and economic force. China is deeply opposed to it and deplores it.

The most recent round of US chip restrictions, according to Sidley Austin LLP, differs from previous ones in many ways. &nbsp,

It said the biggest shifts of the US device restrictions apply to nations” in the middle,” those that are neither clear US friends nor obvious US enemies. Additionally, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security ( BIS ) chose to “regulate first, collect comments later” toward a significant revision of US export controls.

It claimed that the new regulations represent a significant change in how to control quantitative inputs for an AI concept itself.

ASML is affected

On April 1, the French authorities announced that it would change its regional trade power measure for advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment on January 15. It stated that more types of technology will be subject to a national authorization requirement as of that time.

Reinette Klever, the government’s foreign trade and development minister, claimed that the government had noticed increased security risks linked to the unrestricted export of chip-making equipment. &nbsp,

ASML, the world’s largest chip-making equipment maker, is expected to be hurt by the Dutch government’s latest decision. &nbsp,

Additionally, on January 15, the BIS made 25 Chinese companies and two Singapore-based companies members of its Entity List in two final rules. &nbsp,

It accused them of supporting China’s development of advanced weapons systems, weapons of mass destruction, and high-tech surveillance applications, as well as of supporting advanced AI research and development.

Among the sanctioned, Sophgo was accused by the US of having ordered AI chips from Taiwan’s TSMC for Huawei. &nbsp,

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

Read: Why China’s Ice Silk Road has Trump up in Arctic arms

Continue Reading

Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban in unanimous decision – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia, Technology

The US Supreme Court on January 17, 2025, upheld a law requiring TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to buy the video game by January 19, 2025, or experience a global restrictions on the game. In a unanimous decision, the judge rejected TikTok’s say that the laws violates its First Amendment rights.

The court’s decision is the most recent development in a long story regarding the destiny of an app that is commonly used, particularly among young Americans, but which some politicians in Washington claim pose a security risk.

It’s unlikely that the story will finish with this decision. In the final days of his presidency, Vice President Joe Biden declared that he would not put the rules to the test. Donald Trump, the president-elect, apparently has an executive purchase in mind and plans to change the ban.

But why is TikTok provocative? Are the promises that it poses a threat to national security accurate? And what will the outcome of the case mean for free talk? The Conversation’s donors have been on finger to answer these questions.

1. An adviser for the Foreign government?

Lawmakers who wanted to outlaw TikTok or at least break its ties to China worry that the app will allow the Chinese Communist Party to affect Americans or use their information for deception. However, how much of an impact does TikTok have on the Chinese state? Shaomin Li, a professor of China’s social economy and firm at Old Dominion University, addresses that concern.

Li explains that the connection between TikTok, ByteDance, and the Chinese Communist Party is complex; rather, it isn’t just Beijing officials who instruct ByteDance to climb, and the parent company who controls how great its subsidiary did move. Instead, people are subject to a certain obligation, as with all businesses in China, when it comes to advancing national objectives. In China, private corporations, such as ByteDance, operate as joint initiatives with the condition.

No matter whether ByteDance has formal ties to the group, there will be the implicit understanding that the administration is working for two managers: the company’s traders and, more important, their political advisors who represent the party, Li writes. ” But most important, when the passions of the two leaders issue, the party surpasses”.

2. Using customer data to extract it

The dangers that TikTok poses to US customers are similar to those that plague many well-known programs, in particular because it gathers information about you. ByteDance and any other person who has or obtains access to that data, including contact details and website checking, as well as all of the data you post and send via the app.

According to Doug Jacobson, a scholar in security at Iowa State University, US politicians and officials are concerned that TikTok user information could be used by the Chinese state to spy on Americans. Government thieves might be able to swindle people into revealing more private information using the TikTok data.

But if the goal is to counter Chinese thieves, banning TikTok is likely to show too much, too soon. According to Jacobson,” the Chinese state has previously collected personal information from at least 80 % of the US population through several means.” The Chinese authorities even has access to the huge market for personal data, along with anyone else who has money.

3. The security risks associated with a moratorium

By outlawing TikTok, it might also produce American people more vulnerable to hackers of all kinds. Robert Olson, a researcher at the Rochester Institute of Technology, claims that many of the 170 million users of TikTok may try to circumvent a ban on the app, which would have adverse effects on their online safety.

If TikTok ends up banned from Apple’s and Google’s app stores, people may try to access the software somewhere via learned. Users are now more susceptible to infection that purports to be the TikTok application thanks to this maneuvering around the Apple and Google application stores. In order to keep the software installed, TikTok people might also be motivated to avoid Apple and Google safety measures, which may increase the vulnerability of their phones.

” I find it unlikely that a TikTok ban]is ] technologically enforceable”, Olson writes. This legislation, which aims to improve cybersecurity, may inspire users to engage in riskier online behavior.

4. First Amendment issues

ByteDance filed a constitutional challenge to the US government, alleging that it is violating First Amendment right. ByteDance had basis for its state, according to Georgetown University scholars Anupam Chander and Gautam Hans of Cornell University, and the implications extend beyond this situation.

TikTok is a publisher of people ‘ videos online. According to Chander and Hans, forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok is a form of due caution, the government preventing talk from occurring.

Congress’s goal with the laws is to change the nature of the platform, they write,” by forcibly selling TikTok to an object without any connections to the Chinese Communist Party.” That kind of government activity raises one of the main issues that the First Amendment was intended to shield from: state intervention in private party statement.

5. What about the others?

The forced sale to a US-based company or the ban of TikTok in the US are, according to Arizona State advertising professor Sarah Florini, a dubious approach to solving the issues the law aims to address: possible Chinese government control in the US, damage to teenagers, and data privacy violations.

The Chinese government and other US adversaries have long attempted to influence American public opinion through social media apps owned by US companies. The Facebook whistleblower case clearly demonstrated how dangerous Teens are to teens. And on the open and black markets, a lot of Americans ‘ personal data is already accessible to any buyer.

” Concerns about TikTok are not unfounded, but they are also not unique. According to Florini, US-based social media has been posing threats like TikTok has for more than ten years.

This is a revised version of an article that was first published on September 16, 2024.

The Conversation’s science and technology editor is Matt Williams, and it has two senior international editors.

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

Continue Reading