Why Is America Financing the Chinese War Machine

Gordon G. Chang writes: The Chinese military, from all indications, is now building a nuclear “war-fighting” capability, probably hoping to intimidate others into submission. […]There is no defense against hypersonic glide vehicles. Soon, China will be able to drop a nuke on America in the blink of an eye. Americans think strategic nuclear weapons are unusable. Chinese strategists obviously do not agree. – Newsweek ​

Succeeding Xi Jinping by Nan Li

China's Growing Maritime Empire

What to Expect When You’re Expecting a National Defense Strategy 
by Thomas Spoehr, Bradley Bowman, Bryan Clark, and Mackenzie Eaglen  

Algerian court sentences two ex-PMs 
An Algerian court on Monday handed down additional prison sentences for two former prime ministers charged in a major corruption case. Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal were sentenced to six and five years, respectively, for money laundering, wasting public money and abuse of office. In December 2019, a court sentenced Ouyahia to 15 years in prison and Sellal to 12 years on charges of corruption in financing the election campaign of late President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Mass protests erupted in 2019 against Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term, forcing him to resign. Despite his exit from politics, Algerians continued to demand the trial of figures linked to the former regime.  Read More  ​

ALGERIAN PRESIDENT DIES

To Deter China, Relearn The Lost Art of Dissuasion
Threats of denial or punishment will not deter a peer adversary fighting at home.

AUKUS: Good Goals, Bad Implementation
Now begins the real work for the United States and its democratic allies: cooperating to strengthen their eroding deterrence in the Indo-Pacific

Nagorno-Karabakh: A year of US failure in the South Caucasus
Michael Rubin | The National Interest

Treat Pakistan like China on military and sensitive exports
Michael Rubin | Washington Examiner

Going Back to the Future on Defense Acquisition
By Christine Fox & Sarah Stevenson , Proceedings: "The U.S. Navy’s submarine community was in near-crisis; its long superiority in acoustics detection fading."

China Tests Both Taiwan and the U.S.
By Seth Cropsey & Harry Halem, RealClearDefense: "PLA incursions into Taiwanese airspace should come as no surprise to observers of international events.  In 2020, PLA aircraft violated Taiwanese airspace 380 times on 91 separate days."

America Cannot Take On China and Russia Simultaneously
By David T. Pyne, The National Interest: “U.S. concerns about the risks of fighting a coming war with Russia and China are well-grounded, given it is unprepared to fight even a purely conventional war with them.” 

The Inevitability of Tragedy
By Mark Schell, Strategy Bridge: “Few public figures generated as much controversy in the last half of the 20th century as Kissinger, a man admired by some and reviled by others for his substantial role in shaping U.S. foreign policy."

Five Eyes wide shut
Zack Cooper | Korea on Point
Leaders in Washington and Seoul must be realistic that adding South Korea to the Five Eyes is ultimately unlikely. Instead, Seoul’s best opportunity for closer intelligence sharing is with its neighbors in East Asia, not the Five Eyes countries.
Full Story

Tunisians protest president’s expansion of power  
Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets on Sunday to protest the president’s recent power grab, calling on him to resign. Last week, President Kais Saied announced that he will rule by decree for two months, ignoring parts of the constitution. In July, Saied suspended parliament and ousted a number of Cabinet officials, including the prime minister, in response to sweeping protests against the government’s failure to address the coronavirus pandemic and mounting debt. Saied’s opponents have described these measures as a coup. The developments reflect the most serious political crisis in the North African country since the 2011 Arab Spring. 
Read More  ​

When Intentions Fall Short
Research Fellow Joe Felter characterizes US involvement in Afghanistan as two wars, writing, “One was by necessity: safeguarding America from transnational terrorist attacks. The other was a war of choice: bringing greater freedoms and opportunities to Afghanistan.” John Yoo, visiting fellow, argues that the second mission, the one of choice, was a failure because it “was based on the assumption that any political and cultural environment would be receptive to the attractions of liberal democracy, capitalism, and international human-rights law. . . . But nothing in the political culture or traditions of Afghanistan . . . was favorable to such a radical constitutional transformation.” He suggests that US elites should finally learn “that external force rarely succeeds in bringing about the constitutional transformation of a society so long as it remains culturally resistant.”

Senior Fellow Peter Berkowitz offers an alternative conclusion to the belief that “promoting democracy and freedom are beyond America’s capabilities [and] imposing destabilizing practices and institutions on local populations have no place in a responsible US foreign policy.” Berkowitz argues that to secure “the conditions conducive to freedom at home,” US foreign policy must be grounded in America’s needs and priorities. It must also recognize that promoting democracy and promoting freedom are separable and distinct achievements and, in many cases, severely limited. Additionally, the US must improve its understanding of other nations’ cultures as well as rededicating itself to the principles of freedom on which the United States is based. Listen to senior fellows H. R. McMaster and Victor Davis Hanson discuss the “lost war” on Uncommon Knowledge

​The Race for Tech Superiority
As China modernizes its nuclear arsenal and the US reviews its nuclear posture, America should not lose sight of the bigger race, explains Rose Gottemoeller, research fellow. “China may be a rising nuclear power, but its bigger agenda is building up its science and technology prowess.” She suggests that nuclear weapons should not be the primary focus of our efforts and money, but instead “the new and emerging technologies that are rapidly maturing into military assets. Innovations in artificial intelligence, big data analysis, quantum computing and quantum sensing and biotechnology are where future defense capacity is being born. The Chinese have sworn to beat us at acquiring and exploiting every one of them.” She calls for US government research funds to “push the frontiers of science and innovation.” For more about risks being posed by collaborative research with authoritarian nations, see the China Global Sharp Power’s (CGSP) essay “Global Engagement: Rethinking Risk in the Research Enterprise.”

 Turkey: NATO's Pro-Russian, Taliban-Friendly Ally  by Burak Bekdil
The Gatestone Institute
September 24, 2021
https://www.meforum.org/62683/turkey-natos-pro-russian-taliban-friendly-ally

From The Middle East To The Sahel And Throughout Africa: How Russia Pushes Western Powers Towards The Exit
by Isabelle Lasserre via The Caravan
Sub-Saharan Africa, the Sahel, the Middle East, Afghanistan. Like an octopus, Russia has extended its tentacles to every crisis riddled corner, filling the void created by the withdrawal of Western forces. Occasionally partnering with Turkey to better share the imperial burden, Vladimir Putin has once again inserted Moscow as a major player on the international scene. To what extent can it take the place of democratic powers?