Friday News Roundup – July 28, 2023

With summer recess Friday arriving in Washington, a bit early for some, the lure of jet fumes for CODELs, town halls, vacations, and simply returning home is strong. The time away, however, leaves little remaining room to meet the autumn deadlines. The Senate’s 86-11 vote for a traditionally bipartisan NDAA illustrates one of many collisions coming between the House and Senate. The House’s delay on the agriculture appropriations bill also reminds us of the many differences remaining among GOP lawmakers. Over the next weeks, back in their districts and states, Members of Congress will tell their voters of promises kept, their resistances to the other party, and why they should keep their job in 2024. 

As events overseas play into politics here, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has intensified, and continuing to support Ukraine will test those for helping Kyiv and the growing and already vocal elements in opposition. Much will depend on how the conditions on the battlefield change as a result of this next phase of the push against Russian forces. 

In this week’s roundup, Ethan Brown discusses the Air Force’s new Chief of Staff General Dave Allvin, who will replace General CQ Brown. Veera Parko looks at Sweden’s efforts to combat a disinformation campaign while Hidetoshi Azuma covers Japan’s efforts at security normalization following the NATO Vilnius Summit. Elise Mizerak reports on recent Senate hearings for oversight and regulation of AI technologies and Ryan Bender gives an update on Alabama’s redistricting laws following Allen v. Milligan. As always, we wrap up with news you may have missed. 

As a note to our readers, our August schedule will have the roundup return on the 11th and 25th, resuming weekly distribution on September 8th. Stay cool, hydrate, and wear sunscreen!

Next in line for Air Force Chief of Staff

Ethan Brown

Photo: USAF photo by Staff Sgt. Jack Sanders.

General “CQ” Brown is moving on from the Air Force to Chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff committee, a terrific decision for a man who has led the Air Force through turmoil for the last few years. The issue of his succession to lead the World most powerful force now has clarity as well: President Biden has nominated General Dave Allvin, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, to replace CQ as Air Force Chief of Staff, which is an unprecedented move.

I examined Brown’s accession three years ago, lauding him as a distinguished officer taking over at a tumultuous time, and on his aims to “go fast,” which generally held true: the service unveiled a new next-generation bomber, has taken leaps and bounds in digital engineering and air dominance programs, helped proliferate new cyber and space defense capabilities, and has evolved to address and synergize collective security in the skies above Terra.

But there were a few bumps in the road under Brown’s tenure, which is unavoidable. There was the closure of critical Air Force capabilities on Security Force Assistance at a time when partner nation collaboration remains a strategic priority. There is the ongoing recruiting crisis, where the Air Force is currently slated to only hit 50% of its new recruit goals for 2023. And the Air Force’s budget has remained largely flat and level amidst defense spending hikes for the Navy and Space Force, further constraining the “going fast” initiatives. Brown’s tenure should be considered a success, and his elevation to the Chairman’s seat well-deserved, but he leaves behind an Air Force that faces stark challenges going forward under nominee General Allvin.

And to boot, Allvin’s nomination, an absolutely critical one, is likely to be held up by partisan politicking, as Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has held up military officers' new-posting accessions over servicemember abortion rights authorized in defense policies. So too is CQ Brown’s accession to the Chairman post.

For the first time in more than ten years, the two top seats in the Air Force will be headed by Officers who do not hail from a fighter background; former Air Force Special Operations Commander and current Air Staffer Lt. Gen. James Slife is rumored to succeed Allvin as the Vice Chief of the Air force.

Allvin comes from a mobility background: meaning the big cargo haulers, as well as having a diverse and prolific academic portfolio and penchant for grand strategy. His flight experience also includes the pristine designation of being a test pilot across several platforms. He has over 4600 flight hours in mobility platforms including the C-141 (retired), C-130/-130J(test pilot), C-17(test pilot), C-23, as well as time in both the F-15 and F-16.

Among his many command billets, he has spent staff time working with Allied partners in NATO as Commander of the NATO Air Training Mission in Afghanistan (2010-2011), as Director for Strategy and Policy for U.S. European Command (2015-2018). Notably, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Allvin was a key architect for an updated EUCOM war plan in response to the Russian action, leading to his transition to Vice-director and then Director for the Pentagon’s J-5 (Strategy, Plans, and Policy). These latter posts means that with the significant changes that have occurred in American Grand Strategy and National Defense Strategy since 2018, Allvin was deeply involved in their drafting, revising, and implementation. So few are better equipped with the tacit and functional knowledge necessary to lead the Air Force into a future of strategic competition.

CQ Brown’s recommendation for Allvin noted that “as our Air Force continues to adapt to the evolving global security environment, and [to] ensure we have the culture, concepts and capabilities needed to compete and win in a highly contested environment…Gen. Dave Allvin is the right leader for this defining decade.”

Having served as the Air Force Vice Chief since 2020, Allvin is well-prepared to fight the budget fight as Chief of Staff, as the second-in-command primarily focuses on issues of service budget and acquisitions programs. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen Clint Hinote, formerly the service’s future requirements czar, noted in prior press interviews that Allvin is a visionary with innovative insights for Air power requirements and evolution, a key facet facing the service and DoD as competition with rivals like China, Russia, and North Korea is certain to increase over the next decade.

The personality and professional-focus shift from Brown to Allvin is going to be an interesting, but potentially beneficial change for the service. For one thing, the challenge of divesting older attack aircraft like the A-10 and F-15, won’t be upended by the group-think campaigns aiming at holding on to outdated systems on account of those fighter pilot communities collective and sentimental predilections. Allvin portends as a service leader who is more inclined to make those difficult, necessary decisions on improving and modernizing Air Force capabilities--especially if Slife acceeds as his Vice-Chair whip hand--without the influence of being a former fighter pilot. This could be a difficult, but necessary, era of Air Force leadership at a crucial time for the World’s most powerful military force.

A disinformation campaign targeting Sweden

Veera Parko

Photo: By Pixabay Copyright-free

On July 26, Sweden claimed that the country is the target of a disinformation campaign by “Russia-backed actors”. According to the NATO invitee’s new minister for Civil Defense Carl-Oscar Bohlin, the campaign by “state-backed or state-like actors” is intended to hurt Sweden’s image by implying it supported recent burnings of the Quran in Sweden, a claim the Swedish government has repeatedly denied. The government also stated that Sweden has been a target for “Islamist information influence activities” from late 2021, the most extensive campaign of this kind against Sweden.

After progress at the NATO Vilnius Summit on Sweden’s NATO bid with Türkiye finally seeming to go forward with ratification, attempts to negatively affect Sweden’s reputation abroad are, naturally, a matter of concern to Swedish authorities. The Quran burnings have put the Swedish government in a challenging position, balancing between freedom of speech and the success of its NATO bid and its image abroad, especially in the Muslim world. The situation has already escalated into protests and even the storming of the Swedish Embassy in Iraq on July 20.  On Wednesday, the Swedish Security Service Säpo said that the burning and desecration of religious books and ongoing disinformation campaigns have already negatively affected Sweden’s profile: the image of Sweden has, according to them, changed from a tolerant country to being “a land that is anti-muslim”.

It is worth noting that the newly founded Swedish Agency for Psychological Defence (MPF) has been closely involved in analyzing the information influence activities aimed at Sweden. By publicly calling out Russia and other state-like actors, Sweden sends a message to both its adversaries abroad and its own citizens. In a statement, the Swedish government emphasizes everyone’s responsibility to not spread information and messages that are clearly incorrect. The government also directly urges ordinary citizens to “be vigilant against rumours and disinformation, to obtain verified information from authorities and to fact check before sharing information on social media”. Good advice for everyone – indeed, the general public is at the heart of boosting resilience against harmful information campaigns aimed at creating divisions and social unrest.

Experts Plea for Congress to Act to Put Guardrails Around Artificial Intelligence Development 

 By Elise Mizerak 

Photo: Screenshot of U.S. Senate livestream 

On July 26 the Privacy, Technology, and the Law Subcommittee of Senate Judiciary held a hearing entitled “Oversight of A.I.: Principles for Regulation.” A bipartisan group of Senators in attendance – including Chairman Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) – all expressed their concerns that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be exploited by malicious actors, and possibly even become autonomous in coming years. Biden administration officials demonstrated their own concerns by bringing officials from seven prominent AI companies to the White House on July 21, where they committed to establishing safeguards for AI development. As Senator Blumenthal noted, however, such commitments are “unenforceable and unspecific.” This week’s hearing underscored the concern of many experts that if Congress fails to act on this issue, an autonomous Artificial Intelligence could one day threaten human beings with extinction. 

More urgently, Senators Blumenthal and Klobuchar repeatedly emphasized their concerns regarding the disruption that AI can potentially wreck in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. Klobuchar focused on “deep fakes” in campaign advertisements, such as the video recently released by the presidential campaign of Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s that included AI-generated footage of Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci. Currently, there is no requirement that media produced by AI is labeled as such, leaving citizens to discern for themselves whether the media content they consume can be trusted. Senator Josh Hawley also brought up the possibility of an AI model scouring the internet and known data bases and producing misinformation about a presidential candidate. Senator Blumenthal also shared his fear that an AI model could interfere with electoral vote counts.  

Further underscoring the dangers of misinformation spawned by generative AI, Senator Hawley brought attention to the fact that most of the AI software on the market is controlled by a small group of powerful, “Big Tech” companies, leading him to question their commitment to AI ethics. Specifically, Hawley discussed how social media companies might use AI to keep users engaged with their platform by disseminating false information. He also noted that the vast majority of high-end semiconductors are currently produced by Taiwan, and if China were to invade Taiwan, it could create a catastrophic disruption to our semiconductor supply chain and potentially give Beijing an advantage over the United States in terms of AI development. Senator Hawley thus advocated for a swift decoupling from China and Taiwan, especially in the technology sector.  

In a more startling revelation, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and his team predicted that within the next few years, Artificial Intelligence models will have the data and expertise required to produce bioweapons. Such a capability represents a significant threat to U.S. national security, they noted, especially if the underlying software ends up in the hands of malicious actors.  

Despite the sobering warnings, Mr. Amodei suggested policy measures that could counteract the threats posed by AI without stifling the United States’ innovation in the field. For instance, he suggested that the United States codify a strict auditing regime that all new AI models must pass before being shared with the public. Anthropic scientists even trained AI models to adhere to a constitution that contains clauses preventing the model from behaving inappropriately (e.g. promoting biases and misinformation). Mr. Amodei suggested that all AI models meet this requirement. He also encouraged Congress to allocate more funding towards “red teaming” research, which helps scientists identify areas where AI models are not acting as anticipated.  

Another witness, Professor Yoshua Bengio, a professor of computer science and operations research at the Université de Montréal, urged the United States to take the lead in establishing an international regulatory framework that encourages actors to adhere to AI safeguards, creating a common international standard for AI development. Lastly, Professor Russell, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkley, and Professor Bengio advocated for a “kill switch” feature to be embedded in every AI model to foreclose the danger of it becoming autonomous and potentially going rogue.   

The overriding theme of the Senate hearing was that as AI development continues to accelerate, it is critical that Congress enact legislation that forces developers to impose safety restrictions. Senator Klobuchar concluded her opening remarks with the following statement: “If we don’t act soon, we could decay into partisanship and inaction.” Clearly, it is imperative for the Senate to act now while both parties are on the same page and are feeling strongly about the issue. 

Japan’s Arms Exports and the Curse of Pacifism

Hidetoshi Azuma

JS Taigei being launched in Kobe, Japan on October 14, 2020 (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Upon his return from the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit Meeting in Vilnius, the Japanese Prime Minister immediately set about accelerating Japan’s security normalization. Indeed, having been spurned by the French President Emanuel Macron and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Vilnius largely due to Japan’s lingering security minimalism, Kishida has been directing unusual efforts toward revising Japan’s arms exports restrictions since his return to Tokyo. On July 25, the Japanese leader ordered the resumption of the working group studying possible revisions of Japan’s arms exports led by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Komeito. Despite Kishida’s enthusiasm, the ensuing debate in Tokyo only underscores the indelible curse of post-WWII Japan’s pacifism perennially overshadowing its security normalization. 

As of 2023, there are two foundational legal frameworks restricting Japan’s arms exports which, in fact, contradict each other. The Article 116 of the Self-Defense Forces Act of 1954 allows for overseas transfers of defense equipment, “except for weapons.” The vague definition of “weapons” spawned multiple interpretations, leading Tokyo to formalize them into an official version. The upshot was the emergence of the Three Principles of Arms Exports (TPAE) in the 1960s which ironically did not ban arms exports but mandated Tokyo to “refrain” from exporting weapons overseas. Given its weaker binding force than a formal law, TPAE was essentially a self-imposed framework which merely served to consolidate postwar Japan’s pacifism. Indeed, while its 2014 upgrade into the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology (TPTDET) undoubtedly contributed to the expansion of joint research and development (R&D), it scarcely resolved the fundamental issue of postwar Japan’s pacifism. In other words, as long as Article 116 of the Self-Defense Forces Act remains unchanged, any additional legislative efforts, such as reinterpretations of TPTDET, would ultimately prove futile.

Japan’s peculiar approach to arms exports suddenly became the central issue for Kishida at the NATO Summit Meeting earlier this month. Macron’s opposition to a NATO liaison office in Tokyo and Zelenskyy’s rejection of a summit meeting with Kishida were fundamentally due to Japan’s perceived lack of tangible commitment to NATO. Indeed, while Japan began its engagement with NATO as early as in the early 1990s, the NATO-Japan relationship has so far remained confined to reciprocating rhetorical support for common values in hopes for achieving a full-fledged partnership, if not Japan’s eventual membership in the globalizing alliance. Against this backdrop, Kishida has sought to deepen Japan’s engagement with NATO by most recently attempting to export what Tokyo calls “defense equipment” to Ukraine. In Tokyospeak, “defense equipment” is essentially a euphemism for weapons to avoid the perception of infringing upon Japan’s self-imposed pacifism. While exporting “defense equipment” itself is constitutional and even compliant with Article 116 of the Self-Defense Forces Act, the inevitable question of “lethality” emerged to haunt Kishida. When he attempted to gloss over this unavoidable issue in Vilnius by failing to promise exports of more than drone detection systems to Ukraine, he found himself humiliated in front of the whole world. 

While Kishida’s renewed agenda of revamping Japan’s arms export policy is undoubtedly a welcome development, he still remains constrained by domestic politics. Indeed, a major schism over arms exports is now engulfing his own coalition government. While the LDP supports the sweeping inclusion of “lethal” weapons in an expanded version of TPTDET, Komeito fundamentally remains opposed to such an upgrade. Time would also prove unforgiving even after the two ruling reached a provisional agreement over the question of “lethality” earlier this month. The compromise reached could potentially allow Tokyo to include “lethal” weapons attached to “defense equipment” from the following five approved categories: rescue; transport; warning; surveillance; and minesweeping. For example, surveillance drones could be equipped with shooting capabilities under an updated version of TPTDET. Such an upgrade itself would be uninspiring even if achieved, but it only underscores the perennial impediment of pacifism to Japan’s smooth security normalization. The trouble is that Japan has already been missing countless opportunities to support Ukraine, and no new efforts by Kishida could recover the precious time lost due to the domestic squabbles. 

Perhaps, the very focus on updating TPTDET itself may be misguided. The core issue remains Article 116 of the Self-Defense Forces Act of 1956. Curiously, this issue has received scarce attention in Tokyo. Contrary to popular belief, postwar Japan once defied this legal restriction and even the spirit of pacifism in pursuit of geostrategic imperatives. Between 1953 and 1968, Tokyo exported “lethal” weapons, ranging from guns to mines, to the US as well as even warring states, such as Burma and South Vietnam. During the Korean War, Japan was a major supplier of “lethal” weapons supporting the US operations on the Korean Peninsula. Japan’s newfound role as the key US logistical hub in Asia contributed to its rapid postwar economic reconstruction. In other words, Japan once used to boast a pragmatic approach to arms exports in deference to its own geostrategic imperatives. 

Yet, the 1956 law ultimately came to restrain Japan’s role as Asia’s preeminent arms exporter when Tokyo gained an economic security imperative of preventing arms exports to communist countries in the 1960s in compliance with Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) requirements. The upshot was the introduction of TPAE which initially emerged as an economic security solution to the threat of communism, but later became a pacifist agenda impeding Japan’s security normalization when the former prime minister Takeo Miki, an ardent anti-war liberal, imposed additional constraints. TPEA had long lost its pacifist raison d'etre when the major Japanese manufacturer, Toshiba, intentionally exported sensitive technologies to the Soviet Union in the early 1980s, which compromised US submarine warfare capabilities at the height of the Cold War much to Washington’s ire. This particular incident exposed the obvious defect of TPEA, which stifled the growth of Japan’s domestic defense industrial base, leading the private sector to constantly struggle for survival even by handing communists the proverbial rope with which to hang the country and its allies. The former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s 2014 introduction of TPTDET hardly became a solution to the underlying issue of the 1956 law. In other words, Kishida is merely repeating Abe’s failed agenda of revamping Tokyo’s arms export policy by somehow disregarding the foundational law perennially hindering the country’s security normalization. 

The only solution to Japan’s lingering arms export quandary is the revision of the 1956 law itself. To be sure, it would inevitably incur a schism between the LDP and Komeito. Yet, such a schism is worth risking if the revision of the 1956 law can become a panacea to Japan’s all arms export ills. Indeed, the ongoing debate over TPTDET has already drawn an internal split within Kishida’s coalition government. The present focus on TPTDET would only delay the necessary progress toward normalizing Japan’s arms exports. Revising the 1956 law would only require the removal of the few words, namely “except for weapons,” and not the virtually impossible proposition of constitutional amendment. Tragically, Kishida does not appear to recognize the obvious importance of the 1956 law and to unnecessarily plunge himself into the endless domestic squabbles.

Kishida has recognized the pressing imperative of revamping Japan’s arms export policy, but remains out of focus away from the real problem. At stake is unleashing Japan’s potential as what Abe once called a “proactive contributor to peace” at a time Ukraine’s troubled fate demands that the country behave as its responsible stakeholder. As Toshiba’s treachery demonstrated, postwar Japan’s pacifism became a proverbial sickness unto death afflicting the country’s healthy progress toward security normalization. While Abe correctly recognized the ill of pacifism, Kishida appears ambivalent, if not supportive of, toward it, leading him to ignore the real problem he has to tackle. Thus, the curse of pacifism is ironically here to stay in Kishida’s Japan despite the growing global demand for the country’s unfettered contribution to peace.

Alabama Vs the Supreme Court

Ryan Bender

Photo: By Carol M. Highsmith via Library of Congress

The Alabama state legislature has decided to fight court rulings calling for the creation of another majority-minority district, avoiding a move that would most likely turn a congressional seat over to Democrats. The newly drawn district map is now awaiting approval in the federal courts, where it will have to be approved by a three-judge panel. The same panel kicked off this debate when it struck down the original proposal at the beginning of 2022. The case then made its way to the Supreme Court.

Titled Allen v. Milligan, the case sought to determine whether the Alabama district map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The map originally raised concern in the courts because of criticism that it provided far too little representation for black citizens in Alabama. Black citizens represent 27% of Alabama’s population, for instance, but there is currently only one majority black district. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of black voters and the VRA in a 5-4 decision, determining that state legislators must redraw the districts to include a second black-majority district “or something close to it.”

Adhering to the latter part of the ruling, the newly proposed district map does not provide a second majority-minority district. Instead, the map increased representation of black voters in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District from 31% to 40%. Republican legislators claim that this change provides black voters with a reasonable chance of success without handing the district over to a Democrat. Furthermore, the one black-majority district that already exists in Alabama was lowered from 55% black voters to 50.65%.

With the battle returning to the courts, the voters that challenged the ruling last year will once again make their case during a hearing set for August 14. Should the challengers win once again in opposition to the state map, the court will have the authority to appoint their own officials to redraw the map without legislative input.

The move by the state legislature to again challenge the federal court is not without risk. The gamble could impact protections granted by Section 2 of the VRA. Democrats are already eyeing the potential implications of the Supreme Court’s decisions and how they could impact similar district map disputes in other states. There is another racial gerrymandering case from South Carolina that the Supreme Court is set to hear in the fall, for instance, and there is a federal court case set for the fall examining whether Louisiana must create another majority-minority district. These cases could be strengthened by the recent ruling. If so, they have the potential to shift multiple House seats in favor of Democrats.

On the other hand, Republican legislators appear to see the Supreme Court ruling merely as a setback in their efforts to weaken the Voting Rights Act. In Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court refused to reconsider earlier interpretations of the VRA, instead ruling on Alabama’s execution of the law. Reporters at the Alabama Political Reporter thus note that the new district map could 

be used by Republicans to trigger yet another Supreme Court showdown, this time with a more direct appeal to reinterpret Section 2 of the VRA.

While it is uncertain if any of these cases will be complete in time for the 2024 election, potential rulings on gerrymandering and the VRA could have significant implications for the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives. Regardless of the outcome, the case is another reminder of the deep polarization and structural flaws at the heart of the American electoral process. With state legislatures dictating electoral maps that benefit the party in power, candidates can rely on their district’s partisan divides to win elections without proposing cooperative, bipartisan solutions.

News You May Have Missed

North Korean Militarism Spikes On Anniversary of Korean War

On Monday, the North Korean military fired two ballistic missiles into the ocean off of their exclusive economic zone in retaliation for the arrival of a U.S. nuclear submarine on the peninsula. The launches demonstrate rising tensions in the region and follow Pyongyang’s July 12 test of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The rising tensions come at a time when both nations are working to strengthen their alliances.

The United States Navy was using a naval base in South Korea to load supplies onto its nuclear submarine, for instance, and the two nations have been conducting military operations and rhetorically affirming their alliance. On the other side, North Korea recently welcomed Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and a Chinese delegation for separate talks about defense and alliances. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un showed Shoigu some of his country’s military technologies and capabilities, and Shoigu affirmed their close relationship. All of this diplomatic and military activity corresponds with the 70th anniversary of the end to the Korean War. On Thursday, the day of the anniversary, these Russian and Chinese officials joined Kim Jong Un for North Korea’s annual military parade. The parade showcased the country’s latest ICBM devices in full display in a show of strength amid these rising tensions.

IMF Improves Global Growth Forecasts But Acknowledges Concerns 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) upgraded its projected global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth to 3.0%, up from the 2.8% projected growth it forecast in April. The IMF cited improving inflation and declining stress on the banking industry. Significant challenges and concerns still remain for the global economy, however, and projected growth is lower than the average growth of 3.8% reported in the last decade.

The global growth prediction was upgraded as IMF economists grasped a better understanding of the developing trends in terms of inflation, banking, and the war in Ukraine, but uncertainties and concerns persist. Despite improvements, relatively high inflation rates are putting a damper on lending and investment. In Ukraine, the end of the Black Sea Grain Deal threatens to put further strain on global food distribution. However, the debt deal recently reached in the United States resulted in added stability for the global financial system. Overall, interest rate hikes are likely to persist until inflation stabilizes to desired levels.

 The views of authors are their own and not that of CSPC.