New rules on polygamy for male Jakarta civil servants to ‘protect families’, says acting governor amid backlash

By:
On:
In: Asia

JAKARTA: New rules on polygamy among male civil servants in Jakarta seek to “impose stricter conditions ” on the practice, the capital’s acting governor said on Monday ( Jan 20 ) amid criticism that they legitimise and promote such arrangements.

Acting Governor Teguh Setyabudi furthermore pledged his provincial authorities do not easily give the requests of female civil employees who wish to have more than one spouse.

Some of the new conditions, issued on Jan 6, include evidence of a single relationship lasting over 10 years, clinical proof that the first wife has a physical disability or chronic disease, written permission from the first wife, and court approval to ensure that the legal servant is financially capable of supporting various families, according to news outlet Tempo.  

An person will not be allowed to get away with a monogamous relationship if it problems with his spiritual doctrines or has the potential to disrupt his standard duties.  

If the legal slave is found to have violated the rules, he will face punitive action, Tempo reported.

“It is meant to tighten the existing rules, to protect them, to protect the wives’ and children’s rights, ” Teguh, who signed and approved the regulation, told the media on Monday ( Jan 20 ), as quoted by Kompas.  

In his first explanation last Friday, Teguh emphasised that the main aim of the rules is to “protect the households of the legal servants”. He said conversations on the rules began in 2023 and participants included representatives from the Justice Ministry.

However, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Bima Arya Sugiarto said the municipal authorities issued the revised legislation because of the high divorce rate among Jakarta civil servants in 2024, when 116 cases were reported.  

“The key point is to tighten the regulations on marriage so that they will not get divorced quickly, ” he said on Monday.  

Indonesia introduced problems for marriage in the country   in its 1974 Marriage Law, and procedures for female legal workers in 1983. While adult civil servants are allowed to have more than one wife, sexual civil servants are not allowed to remain one’s next, third or fourth wife, Kompas reported.

Continue Reading

Thailand seizes record 1.6 tonnes of crystal meth

By:
On:
In: Asia

BANGKOK :  Thai authorities intercepted more than one and a half tonnes of crystal methamphetamine in a record seizure of the illegal drug, senior narcotic officials said on Monday ( Jan 20 ). The drag – which officials said had been sent from Africa via India and was bound forContinue Reading

Rhetorics of refusal deny America’s deep decline – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

Societies survive and grow when they successfully manage their inconsistencies. Gradually, however, accumulating conflicts overwhelm existing methods of navigating them.

Therefore social problems arise that endure or worsen inside for societies because they are repeatedly navigated or go unsecured. Often, the strong conscious response to such cultural problems is rejection, a refusal to discover them.

Denial of domestic social problems consumes navigating the inconsistencies that produce them. The resulting cultural drop, like the set of internal conflicts it reflects, is denied and ignored. Instead, stories or rhetorics can occur that position for cultures as victims of abuse by foreigners.

The United States in 2025 illustrates this approach: its rhetorics of rejection aim to stop its abuse.

In today’s United States, one for speech refuses to permit continued abuse by immigrants “threatening our national security. ” This language blames poor US political management for its failure to set America first and thus make it excellent again.

Another rhetoric demands that “we ” refuse to allow “our democracy ” to be destroyed by foreign enemies ( and their domestic equivalents ): people who are said to hate, not understand, or undervalue “our democracy. ”

Still another rhetoric of refusal sees foreigners “cheating ” the United States in trade and migration processes. Most Americans embrace one or more of like rhetorics. However, as we propose to display here, for rhetorics are actually less effective.

One conservative rhetoric, Trump’s, movements toward previous greatness by absolutely renewing American imperialism. He threatens to recapture the Panama Canal, shift Canada into the 51st of the United States, win Greenland from Denmark, and possibly enter Mexico.

All those foreigners are said to harm national security or otherwise “cheat” the United States. Trump’s common bloviating off, this is amazing expansionism. For repeated colonial gestures serve broader conceptions of making America greater repeatedly.

Colonization consistently helped Western capitalism understand its internal conflicts (temporarily escaping the cultural problems it caused ). Later, however, it could no more do so. After World War II, anti-colonialism limited that leave.

The following European neo-colonialisms and the casual colonization of the American empire had shorter career encompasses. China and the rest of the BRICS nations are now outside closing that leave. Thus the disappointed hatred of Trump’s emphasis on refusing that ending by consciously reopening the idea of an exit hatch of imperial expansions.

It resembles Netanyahu’s idea ( if not yet his violence ) in trying to reopen that hatch for Israel by driving Palestinians out of Gaza. United States assistance for Netanyahu also associates the US with colonial violence in a world increasingly committed to finish colonialism and its undesirable legacy.

The United States boasts the world’s strongest defense formation. The strong language in the United States casts all it does as self-defense necessitated by foreign rivals.

That justifies the government paying much more on defence than on the few domestic social problems that speech yet recognizes. Yet the United States lost the war in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and presently Ukraine, and these places ’ military enterprises were far from the world’s strongest. It turns out that the development of nuclear weapons and professional rivals among nuclear power have changed military accounts around the world.

The United States’ total neglects of Russia’s war powers in 2022 illustrate the change quite significantly. They even illustrate that a speech stressing a unwillingness to get victimized by international army outbid or displaced calm assessments of a militarily changed world.

Today the world observes not only changed world military combinations but also the costly protestations of them by US frontrunners. Political and economic leaders anywhere else are now rethinking their techniques correctly. Rhetorics of rejection to be victimized can be self-destructive.

Another cause those officials are redesigning their expansion plans follows from the entangled drops of the US dynasty and the US capitalist system. What US officials deny, some foreign leaders have opportunities to observe, evaluate and take advantage of.

The BRICS members ( 9 ) and partners ( 9 ), as of January 2025, account for nearly half the world’s population and 41 % of the world’s GDP ( in purchasing power parity terms ). Four other nations have been invited and are likely to join in 2025: Vietnam, Turkey, Algeria, and Nigeria.

Indonesia just joined as a full BRICS partner adding its roughly 280 million population. In contrast, the G7—the world’s second-largest economic bloc—accounts for about 10 % of the world’s population and 30 % of its GDP ( also in purchasing power parity terms ).

Moreover, as data from the International Monetary Fund documents, recent years show a widening gap between the annual GDP growth rates of the G7-leading United States and the BRICS-leading China and India.

Across the history of capitalism from its earlier times in England through the American empire’s peak early in the 21st century, most nations focused chiefly on the G7 in strategizing economic growth, debt, trade, investments, currency exchange rates, and balances of payments. Large- and medium-sized enterprises did likewise.

Yet over the last 15–20 years, countries and enterprises have faced an altogether new, different global situation. China, India, and the rest of the BRICS countries offer an alternative possible focus. Everyone can now play the two blocs off against one another.

Moreover, in this play, the BRICS now hold better, richer cards than the G7. Rhetorics of refusal spin these changes in the world economy as the evil intentions of foreign others—who likely hate democracy.

The United States should righteously refuse and thereby frustrate those intentions, they argue. In contrast, far less attention is paid to how internal US social problems both shape and are shaped by a changing global economy.

The changing world economy and the relative decline of the G7 within it have turned US capitalism away from neoliberal globalization toward economic nationalism. Tariffs, trade wars, and “America first ” ideological pronouncements are concurrent forms of such turning inward.

Another form is the call to bring parts of the outside of the United States inside: Trump’s unsubtle imperialistic threats directed at Canada, Mexico, Denmark and Panama. Yet another form is the advisory many major US colleges and universities are sending to enrolled students from other countries ( over a million last year ).

It suggests they consider the likelihood of great visa difficulties in completing their degrees amid increasing US government hostility toward foreigners. A reduced foreign student presence will undercut US influence abroad for years to come ( much as it fostered that influence in the past ).

US higher education institutions, already facing serious financial difficulties, will find them deepening as paying foreign students choose other nations for their degrees. “America first ” rhetoric risks the self-destruction of the United States’ global position.

Politically, the U. S. strategy since World War II was to contain perceived foreign threats by a combination of “hard ” and “soft ” power. They would enable the United States to eliminate communism, socialism, and, after the Soviet implosion of 1989, terrorism, wherever possible, overtly or covertly.

Hard power would be deployed by the US military via hundreds of foreign military bases surrounding nations perceived to be threatening and via invasions if, when, and where deemed necessary.

Hard power also took the form of implicit threats of nuclear warfare ( made credible by the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ) and by total US arms race expenditures on nuclear and non-nuclear weapons that no other countries, alone or in groups, could match.

“Soft power ” would serve globally to project particular definitions of democracy, civil liberties, higher education, scientific achievement, and popular culture. These definitions were presented as best and most exemplified by what actually existed in the United States.

In this way, the United States could be exalted as the global peak of civilized human achievement: a kind of partner discourse to other discourses that denied internal social problems. Enemies could then readily be demonized as inferior.

US soft power was and remains a kind of political advertising. The usual commercial advertiser promotes only everything positive ( real or plausible ) about his client’s product. Typically, everything negative ( real or plausible ) is associated by that same advertiser only with his client’s competitor’s product. One might call this “advertising communication. ”

In the 20th century ’s Cold War, US soft power entailed an application of advertising communication where the United States and its supporters, public and private, functioned as both client and advertiser.

The United States advertised itself as “democracy ” and the USSR as its negative opposite or “dictatorship. ” Cold War advertising communication continues today in the slightly changed form of “democracy ” versus “authoritarianism. ” But, like advertising, after too many repetitions, its influence lessens.

Unfortunately for the United States, economic problems now besetting its capitalist system—both those caused by accumulated internal contradictions and those caused by its declining position within the world economy—directly undercut its soft power projections. Brandishing tariffs and repeatedly threatening to increase them reflect the need for governmental protection for decreasingly competitive US-based firms.

US rhetorics that instead blame foreigners for “cheating ” sound increasingly hollow. Deporting millions of immigrants signals an economy no longer strong and growing enough to absorb them productively ( what once “made America great ” and showed that greatness to the world ). US rhetorics denouncing “foreign invasions ” of immigrants encounter growing skepticism and even ridicule inside as well as outside the United States.

The gross inequality of wealth and income in the United States and the global exposure of billionaires ’ power over government ( Musk over Trump, CEOs donating millions of dollars to Trump’s inauguration celebration ) replace perceptions of the United States as exceptional in its vast middle class.

The record levels of government, corporate, and household debt alongside abundant signs that such indebtedness is worsening do not help project the United States as an economic model. The year 2024’s experience with a dominant US strategy denying social problems while rhetorically stressing the dangers of evil foreign forces suggests it may be approaching exhaustion.

The year 2025 may then provide conditions for a profound challenge to that strategy matching the challenges confronting the global position of US capitalism.

Richard D Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, in New York.

Wolff’s weekly show, “Economic Update, ” is syndicated by more than 100 radio stations and goes to millions via several TV networks and YouTube. His most recent book with Democracy at Work is “ Understanding Capitalism ” ( 2024 ), which responds to requests from readers of his earlier books: “ Understanding Socialism ” and “ Understanding Marxism. ”

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. It is republished with kind permission.

Continue Reading

Why China probably isn’t panicking over Trump – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

As Donald Trump arrives for a second round of shaking up the global market — particularly China— he does end up doing far more harm at home than worldwide.

Though this argument has been made here and there since the US president-elect’s win  on November 5, the image the International Monetary Fund is painting about the next four years is worth considering.

On the eve of Trump’s January 20 opening, the IMF’s chief economist, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, counts the way taxes, trade restrictions and blunt force reactions to waning US profitability could backfire on the biggest market.

The bottom line: the second wave of taxes Trump 2. 0 threatens may produce business dislocations worse, reduce purchase, distort market pricing mechanics, undermine supply chains and spook global markets in disorganized and wasteful ways.

The taxes only, Gourinchas concerns, “are likely to drive prices higher in the near term. ”

Big tax breaks in an business at or near full employment was promote America’s journey toward overheating. Trump’s large imprisonment hopes would produce yet greater disruptions for restaurants, structure and many other businesses already short of workers. Labor costs could surge as a result, intensifying inflation pressures.

Even Trump’s promised deregulatory Big Bang might not go as Treasury Secretary-nominee Scott Bessent argues. Yes, the US might “boost potential growth in the medium term if they remove red tape and stimulate innovation, ” Gourinchas says.

But, he adds, “excessive deregulation could also weaken financial safeguards and increase financial vulnerabilities, putting the US economy on a dangerous boom-bust path. ”

When “we look at the risk for the US, we see an upside risk on inflation, ”  Gourinchas notes.

As Gourinchas ’ institution points out, Trump is fortunate to inherit a US economy that ’s recovered from the Covid-19 crisis better than peers. The IMF expects 2. 7 % US growth in 2025, faster than the 2. 2 % it predicted back in October.

That has n’t stopped Trump from signaling a fresh stimulus boom to come. On top of making permanent the Republican Party’s US$ 1. 7 trillion 2017 tax cut, Trump promises additional corporate tax cuts. Trump also has hinted at reprising his 2017-2021 role as Federal Reserve-basher-in-chief.

Back then, Trump cajoled his handpicked Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, into cutting interest rates at a moment when the buoyant US economy did n’t need it. Trump attacked the Fed  in speeches, press conferences and on social media.   Trump  even mulled firing Powell. By 2018 ,  the  Fed  surprised world markets by suddenly adding liquidity, ending efforts to normalize rates post-Lehman Brothers crisis.

On the campaign trail last October ,  Trump  mocked Powell’s policymaking team. “ I think it ’s  the  greatest job in government, ”  Trump  told  Bloomberg. “You show up to  the  office once a month and you say, ‘let’s say flip a coin’ and everybody talks about you like you’re a god. ”

Team Trump  also argues that presidents have   the  right to demand that the central bank do their bidding. In August ,  Trump  said the “Federal Reserve is a very interesting thing and it ’s sort of gotten it wrong a lot. ”

He added “ I feel  the  president should have at least stayed there, yeah. I feel that strongly. I think that, in my case, I made a lot of money. I was very successful. And I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman. ”

One motivation may be paying for Trump’s fiscal plans. The lower US rates go, the more latitude Trump may believe his administration has to add to the$ 36 trillion national debt.

This raises obvious threats to Asia’s vast holdings of US Treasury securities. China is the second-biggest holder of Treasuries with about$ 770 billion worth. Japan is Washington ’s top banker, with US$ 1. 1 trillion of US debt. Altogether, Asia’s largest holders of dollars are sitting on about$ 3 trillion worth of exposure.

Yet it also means that policy mistakes in Washington could be transmitted Asia’s way at blistering speed.

Beyond the risk of financial shocks from the US, China is very much on Trump’s mind as Beijing’s nearly$ 1 trillion trade surplus angers his administration. At more than 5 % of gross domestic product ( GDP ), China ’s surplus is the most since 2015.

This speaks to how Trump 1. 0 failed to alter global trade dynamics. Eight years after Trump entered the White House for the first time, China is, by some measures, more reliant on exports today. Yet this reliance puts China directly in harm’s way as Trump 2. 0 makes good on its 60 % tariff threat.

That could exacerbate the domestic challenges Xi Jinping’s Communist Party faces, including deflationary currents, weak retail sales, slumping property prices and a yuan under downward pressure. As a result, mainland bond yields are at record lows.

Some economists think the IMF is missing the point.

“The IMF really needs to find a way to talk about global trade that includes the risks coming from China ’s industrial policies and unbalanced pattern of growth, not just the risks from the US ,” says Brad  Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Setser argues that “it’s totally reasonable to talk about the risks coming from the US. But it is n’t reasonable to ignore the risks from China just because China does n’t use tariffs to bring its imports down … and the IMF does n’t mention Chinese imports at all here. ”

Yes, Setser concludes, “Trump’s tariffs will have an impact – but right now the main factor slowing global trade is the fact that China ’s imports — in volume terms — aren’t growing. And the IMF should care about the gap between China ’s export volume and import volume growth. ”

Economist Katrina Ell at Moody’s Analytics notes that a “lift in government spending helped to hide some of the economy ’s weaknesses. As China ’s economic woes mounted in the second half of the year, local governments were instructed to offer more support. And that they did, with government expenditure growth rising in each month since June. ”

Despite the extra spending helping the economy record its fastest quarterly expansion since March 2023, EIl says, “it was n’t enough to break the shackles of deflation. The GDP deflator fell 1. 2 % in 2024, marking the second consecutive year of falls. ”

Overall, Ell says, “China ended the year strongly. But much of that came from temporary sugar hits. Under the hood, China ’s problems have n’t gone away. We expect growth to slow to 4. 3 % in 2025 as tariffs drag down exports and investment. ”

Odds are, more Chinese stimulus is on the way, says Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.

“The shift of policy stance in September last year helped the economy to stabilize in Q4, but it requires large and persistent policy stimulus to boost economic momentum and sustain the recovery, ” Zhang says.

For now, China ’s exports will probably remain strong in the near term as companies try to “front-run” higher tariffs, says Zichun Huang of Capital Economics.   “Outbound shipments are likely to stay resilient in the near-term, supported by further gains in global market share thanks to a weak real effective exchange rate, ” Huang notes.

Yet China ’s priority should be to stop its run of seven straight deflationary quarters, says Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie Bank.

“We don’t bet against policymakers’ will and ability to deliver 5 % real GDP growth in 2025, but can they achieve higher inflation? ” Hu reckons. “It will largely depend on the fiscal and housing stimulus, which is key to boosting domestic demand. ”

Here, Trump’s policies won’t help. There’s hope the “ Tariff Man” act is meant to conifer China into a huge trade deal.   Bessent is perceived to be a proponent of this plan.

Other Trump advisers, not so much. These include Peter  Navarro, who co-wrote a book titled “Death By China. ” And trade czar Robert  Lighthizer, who’s hinted at Trump 2. 0 considering its own  currency devaluation gambit.

But the tariff threats also could blow up on Washington in ways US lawmakers might not appreciate.

Take the risk of China hitting back in a variety of ways, warns Takatoshi  Ito, a Columbia University  economist who served as Japan’s deputy vice minister of finance. “If other countries adopt retaliatory tariffs, total exports from the US — and global trade overall — may well decline, ” Ito says.

“Moreover, high US tariffs would fuel  domestic inflation, forcing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, which would probably cause the US dollar to appreciate, causing exports to fall and imports to rise. ”

This has economists doubting if the Fed will cut rates at all in 2025. “Inflation is above target and the  Fed  was primarily cutting to ensure a strong labor market, which has been met, ” write Bank of America economists. “This means no further cuts needed, ” adding they “see risks for the next  Fed  move more skewed to a hike versus cut. ”

Others are more sanguine about overheating risks. “Core inflation is n’t accelerating, and that ’s the story, ” says Jamie Cox, a managing partner at Harris Financial Group.

“The market may have had its hair on fire about inflation running away again, but the data do not support that conclusion. What we are seeing is the typical ebb and flow of the data as inflation is being pushed out of the system, ” Cox says.

But Trump’s policies could exacerbate inflation risks in short order – and further threaten the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency.

In recent testimony to Congress, Bessent said keeping the dollar at the very center of global trade and finance is a top Trump 2. 0 priority. That might be easier said than done as Washington ’s fiscal excesses collide with a new Trump team spoiling for fights everywhere.

Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek

Continue Reading

High time for a US-China reset – Asia Times

By:
On:
In: Asia

The scattered authority of the 21st centuries sees the two remaining big power, China and the United States, at pains to establish not only their own roles as for but their roles in relation to each other. And in doing so, they represent a threat both to each other and to the global order.

From a historical perspective, both China and the United States are discrepancies. Imperial China, which goes back some 2,000 ages, stands out as the longest continuous culture in history, and except for a one-hundred-year-long break, is reemerging as a main power.

Likewise, notwithstanding a community of some 1. 4 billion citizens and the world’s second-largest market, its ordinary GDP per capita of just US$ 26,000 puts it far below that of the average American business world.

Nonetheless, this does not detract from the fact that within its business cosmos China has heights of superiority, which puts it on line if not ahead of its European rivals.

Compared to China, the United States is at the other end of the spectrum. Among the family of countries, it is one of the most recent with less than 300 years as a condition. Although of Anglo-Saxon origin it is, unlike China, which is 95 % cultural Han, developing into a multi-ethnic object.

While China is an over-regulated world in terms of cultures and social norms, and finally subject to the whims of its ruling creation, the United States is the same.

Unfettered by custom, it is basically underregulated. And while in China the status is expected to ensure the welfare of the people, in the United States the condition comes a distant second with the focus on the individual and civic culture rather than on the governing formation.

Last but not least, one is a one-party method in which the power creation exercises its manage absolutely without counterweight on the whole of society including the economy, while the other is a multi-party system based on the rule of law and centered on private property and personal initiative.

For both, coexisting with another major power while occupying its own space is not the problem. This already happened during the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the United States ran two parallel systems. And while there was some intercourse between the two, this was relatively minor as the two systems did not interrelate.

The irruption of China some 20 years ago in the international system ushered not so much a change as a revolution of the global order. Whatever the power and global ambitions of the Soviet Union, its model or its end products never represented an existential threat to the United States and its allies.

Conversely, China is in a different league. First, there is size: 1. 4 billion people in a country covering some 9. 6 million square kilometers ( 3,7000,000   square miles ) cannot be ignored.

Second, there is history: the country has an incredibly strong cultural identity that befits an empire that lived by its own rules and for which all foreigners were considered barbarians.

Third, there is governance: the country is ruled by a  system in which the state apparatus and the economy are ultimately subject to the authority of one ruling party.

Thus, when a foreign entity enters into a relationship with a Chinese one, even if the latter is not legally state-owned, it enters, for all practical purposes, into a relationship with the Chinese Imperial State, not to say the entity which controls the state, namely the Chinese Communist party.

Fourth, there is economic weight: In 2024, China had a trade surplus of close to one trillion dollars, a performance that reflects the resiliency of its economy. These fundamental realities are a given that cannot be sidestepped. But they were, and the world is now paying the price.

China ’s decision to open its economy to the outside world was predicated on the fact that its internal market was simply not prosperous enough to ensure the nation’s development.

Thus, for the Chinese Communist Party, the opening up of China was not an end in itself. It was a means for the ruling class to stay in power by providing its population with the prosperity it aspired to.

At the other end of the spectrum, and more specifically for the United States, integrating China in the world economy provided one major benefit: access to a relatively cheap and good quality manufacturing capacity.

In parallel, a significant segment of the American political establishment also believed that becoming part of the world economy would also erode the Chinese Communist Party’s power and bring about “regime change. ”

The end result was that the same phenomenon, namely the opening of China, when viewed through American eyes, meant one thing while it meant another when viewed through Chinese eyes.

American hegemony is currently unquestionable. It has the world’s strongest armed forces; its currency, the dollar, reigns supreme; its language, English, is the world’s lingua franca; and it has fashioned the international system, from the United Nations to the global economic order, to serve its interests.

Granted not all of its undertakings met with success. The Vietnam and Afghanistan wars were abject failures. But in relation to the international supremacy of the United States, they were of little consequence. But China ’s challenge to American supremacy today is of potential consequence.

China ’s challenge to American supremacy is substantiated by three veracities. The first is size. The second is environment.

Unlike relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, which operated two parallel orders which largely did not overlap during the Cold War, China is part of the global production system and its economic convulsions are liable to have an impact that extends far beyond its borders.

The third is existentialist. China is a latecomer to the international system, which has been fashioned by the United States essentially to serve its own interests. As a latecomer, China had no alternative but to abide, or to pretend to abide, by the prevailing system. This raises two other questions.

The first is that, from a Chinese perspective, the system was alien, not to say a foreign imposition in the structuring of which China had not participated. This, in turn, raised another question, namely, how can a state-run economy coexist with a private-sector economy?

The answer to these queries, if there is one, hinges on one historical consideration that applies to both parties. Compromise, power-sharing and dealing with an equal is not in their DNA.

The Chinese empire traditionally dealt with “barbarians. ” The American empire was the leader of a coalition in which its power was so overwhelming that it could essentially do as it pleased. These days are now over.

China is no longer surrounded by “barbarians. ” The United States, while still reigning supreme, cannot impose its power at will. Both will have to learn how to compromise.

Assuming that the political will to do so exists, this would require that the two sides embark on a negotiating process with the intent of getting the best deal that would suit them both.

This should entail raising a number of basic questions, including how the two systems can operate in parallel without coming into conflict with each other.

One example is the car industry. Twenty years ago, China was not a player. Today, it produces the world’s best electric cars at a cost that, if unregulated, would risk wiping out the Western and Japanese car industries.

From the perspective of the Western car user, this might not be a bad proposition except that the collapse of the Western car production sector would have social consequences that Western governments are not politically willing to entertain.

While there is no ready-made answer to this conundrum, the issues it raises should be the subject of discussions between both parties extending far beyond tariffs or quotas.

A thorough reevaluation of the overall relations between the United States and China should best be undertaken outside the political limelight by an American foundation working with a credible but discreet Chinese counterpart.

Not only should it be practical and concrete, but, above all, it should be based on a genuine effort at mutual understanding – which makes it imperative that it be kept well away from the political and confrontational process that currently bedevils the two superpowers ’ relations.

Continue Reading

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

Revolutionising innovation: Positioning Malaysia as a global tech powerhouse

By:
On:
In: Technology
  • Aims to strengthens R&amp, D to handle food and health security
  • TiPM/MRANT I adopts Z-Park’s design to enhance Malaysia’s technology top

Revolutionising innovation: Positioning Malaysia as a global tech powerhouse

Malaysia’s focus on innovation and technology has never been more important as it prepares to ride the wave of the Fourth Industrial Revolution ( 4IR ). Malaysia’s position on the global innovation index ( GII )’s 33rd position is a testament to its unwavering commitment to creating a dynamic environment where innovation can flourish.

Dr. Rais Hussin, the CEO of Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology and Innovation ( MRANTI), who is a seasoned expert in the field of technology and innovation, is at the forefront of the country’s innovation advancement mission. A prominent entrepreneur, strategist, and policy intellectual, Rais previously served as the chairman of the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation ( MDEC ).

As the mind of MRANTI, he has taken a focused and strategic approach to strengthening Malaysia’s technology ecosystem, converging on addressing national issues. He has successfully secured considerable government funding to improve the infrastructure at MRANTI Park in order to make it a hub for innovation of the highest caliber.

MRANTI CEO Dr Rais Hussin (left) speaking to Malaysiakini co-founder Premesh Chandran

Under Rais ‘ leadership, MRANTI is in the midst of a marketing practice, now known as Technology Innovation Park Malaysia ( TiPM), to reinforce its global presence and vision. This reflects the company’s commitment to rebalancing its focus and achieving its objective of becoming a hub for creativity.

TiPM: The fresh section

With its rebranding, TiPM/MRANT I aims to accelerate demand-driven research and development ( R&amp, D) and address pressing national concerns, including food and health security. The organization wants to make sure that advances are not just conceptual but also useful and thought-provoking. This goal is in line with Malaysia’s desire to move from being a client of technology to a producer of technology.

Revolutionising innovation: Positioning Malaysia as a global tech powerhouse

Addressing food safety through tech

One of Malaysia’s most pressing problems is the country’s outrageous foods transfer bill. Drawing on global achievements stories from India, China, and Qatar, TiPM seeks to implement innovative solutions that are both scalable and sustainable.

“4IR has helped countless nations solve their food safety issues. India, for example, despite its inhabitants of 1.475 billion, through mechanisation, technology, and 4IR, it is now able to export 25 million metric kilograms of grain a time”, said Rais.

” One of the demands that has been given to us is addressing the nationwide food safety plan using 4IR,” he said.

Defining “territorial quality”

A major social issue in Malaysia is the fragmented strategy of government agencies, dubbed “territorial excellence”, which typically inhibits collaboration and innovation.

Rais emphasized the value of instilling a tradition of collaboration, drawing inspiration from nations like Sweden, which has a higher ranking in global development rankings. In Sweden, coherent inter-agency work and mission-driven targets have been instrumental in driving technology.

Tackling brain dump

Malaysia’s brain dump remains a crucial issue, with around 500, 000 qualified professionals leaving the country in the past century.

” And guess what? These are from the age group of 27 and above with the appropriate knowledge, expertise, abilities and experience. What do they do next?

” The number one state that they go to is Singapore, and finally New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the others,” said Rais.

The lack of a solid ecosystem that fosters talent and innovation is a contributing factor, despite the fact that salaries are competitive worldwide. To achieve this, TiPM/MRANT I creates a culture that both retains and draws skills from abroad.

Turning R&amp, D into effective products

One of TiPM/MRANTI’s main goals is to address the longstanding problem of” table research”- government-funded research that rarely sees the light of day.

The government has invested a lot in R&D, but the majority of them are sitting on shelves without the opportunity to make their full effect. That’s really unlucky! This is where we step in as a technology commercialism pedal, bridging the gap between studies and commercialism,” MRANT I general habitat agent, Safuan Zairi, explained.

How can we contribute to the dissemination of all these brilliant research ideas? We bring in our ecosystem partners- universities, start-ups, and industries- to create a technology commercialisation value chain. We look at it from the viewpoint of technology readiness, “he added. &nbsp,

MRANTI chief ecosystem officer Safuan Zairi

Learning from global success stories

TiPM/MRANT I draws inspiration from thriving innovation hubs like Zhongguancun Science Park ( also known as Z-Park ), which has produced numerous unicorn companies through a robust innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem. It hopes to position Malaysia as a leader in the world’s innovation landscape by adopting similar tactics and drawing lessons from their experience.

Hidden cost of inaction

The government’s expenditure on projects, often understated in official figures, reveals a complex web of inefficiencies. The reliance on rudimentary models, such as using a basic multiplier of one, to estimate economic impact is a crucial factor because it vastly underestimates the potential value of investments. This oversight points to larger systemic issues, including inefficiency, poor execution, and brain drain.

Rais correctly observed that even the best-crafted plans are undermined by poor execution. For example, Malaysia’s Agricultural Master Plan, hailed as a blueprint for achieving food security, remains largely unrealised due to entrenched obstacles like cartels and the absence of stakeholder ownership.

An artist’s impression of TiPM/MRANTI’s ground-breaking development project spanning 686 acres

Innovation as a national priority

Malaysia must concentrate on transitional research, which bridges the gap between academic endeavors and practical applications, to achieve its 2030 goal of being in the top 30 of the Global Innovation Index. Enhancing commercialization efforts is the solution. Lessons from nations like South Africa point out the perils of placing emphasis on outputs over outcomes, such as achieving high commercialization rates without addressing real market needs.

A framework for success: IOOI and outcome-driven strategies

The IOOI ( Input-Output-Outcome-Impact ) framework emerged as a pivotal tool for ensuring accountability and focus in project execution. The IOOI framework emphasizes outcomes and impacts, in contrast to traditional metrics that prioritize inputs and outputs. For instance, investing in technology to enhance student digital literacy can have the power to boost family economic empowerment.

This approach aligns with best practices from certain countries, such as Singapore, where every dollar spent is tied to measurable outcomes. Using these models to improve Malaysia’s fragmented reporting culture and shift the focus from procedural compliance to strategic impact can be avoided.

Revolutionising innovation: Positioning Malaysia as a global tech powerhouse

Balancing short-term wins and long-term goals

The tension between achieving quick wins and pursuing long-term goals was a constant theme. The rolling plan ( annual ) request for budget is frequently compelled by agencies to prioritize immediate results, which may stifle larger, transformative goals in the five-year planning cycles following the Malaysia Plan framework.

As it stands, every agency needs to deliver results within a year in order to receive guaranteed funds in the following year. According to Khalid Yashaiya, chief strategy officer, this will encourage organizations to carry out initiatives that are easier and simpler versus more comprehensive action plans.

He noted that some countries, such as Sweden, use an alternative approach, focusing on a few clear national missions.

” Sweden has their plans. They have a mission, and it’s very simple. They focus on, say, for example, five target areas. Again, just an example, they want zero hunger. Everyone would know that there is a four-year target.”

Without the constant pressure of short-term deliverables, these long-term goals promote sustainable collaboration and innovation.

MRANTI chief strategy officer Khalid Yashaiya.

Towards a unified ecosystem

A tense ecosystem with overlapping mandates among government ministries continues to be a significant challenge. Promoting better coordination and clarity of roles is essential to address this. Collaboration between organizations like MDEC and Cradle Fund can ensure that efforts in emerging fields like autonomous technologies, life sciences, and sustainable agriculture are coherent and effective.

The path forward

Despite the challenges, Malaysia’s commitment to innovation and sustainability remains steadfast. By leveraging frameworks like IOOI, fostering local talent, and embracing a culture of accountability, the nation can position itself as a leader in the global innovation landscape.

The goal is not merely to chase metrics but to create meaningful, lasting impacts. This requires a delicate balance of ambition, strategy, and execution- qualities that, if harnessed effectively, can propel Malaysia into a brighter, more innovative future.

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