Friday News Roundup - October 6, 2023

It has been a historic week in Washington, D.C., as the speakership of California Republican Kevin McCarthy came to an end on Tuesday. Following the surprising 45-day stopgap deal, it appeared to be a matter of time before the “motion to vacate” would be laid before the House. Now, the House stands waiting for a new speaker, with Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Steve Scalise (R-LA) declaring their candidacies and others making the calls to see if they could reach 218. 

Meanwhile November 17th now marks the new shutdown date and deadline for spending plans, and McCarthy’s ousting has done nothing to bridge the divides within the GOP or between the House and Senate on issues like border security and Ukraine aid—let alone the regular appropriations.

In The Messenger, Dan Mahaffee looked at how the dysfunction in our politics brought us to the end of McCarthy’s speakership, and what looms next for Congress and the nation.

In this week’s roundup, CSPC intern Kory Yueh makes his debut piece, looking at where the United States and China stand in the AI race. Ethan Brown looks at the last flight of the E-8C JSTARS and what that means for battlefield capabilities. Hidetoshi Azuma analyzes the geopolitical significance of a Japanese senator’s recent trip to Moscow.

From The Space Race to AI: A New Test of American Commitment

By Kory Yueh

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union took the United States by surprise. In this pivotal moment of human history, the Soviet Union was the first to launch an artificial satellite, Sputnik, into space. Shocked American lawmakers were swift to realize that a major race had just kicked off—and America was already behind. Four years later, the Soviets sent the first man into space. But within 12 years, the United States had eclipsed the Soviet Union in its space program, and by 1991, the question of who was the reigning superpower was answered. Decades since the Soviet Union’s collapse, a new challenger to American hegemony has emerged—and another race has begun.

China and the United States have dedicated tens of billions of dollars into research and development for their AI capabilities. It begs the question: what have become of these investments since? In the last three years, China has already produced a number of regulations, regulating algorithms and the dissemination of information for public use. Thus far, the United States has fallen behind when it comes to being a regulatory trailblazer with regards to AI. For answers, I attended the Politico AI & Tech Summit on September 27th  to gauge the climate of AI between public and private actors on behalf of the United States.

This summit was a culminating reflection of how private and public interests have interpreted their efforts in this race against China, rekindling well-known topics: national security, privacy, and science. From this event, I noticed two main issues: first, the distinct differences between each country in terms of their legislative productivity. Across the board, Congress has trended towards fewer laws being passed with every term and increasing levels of deadlock. During the summit, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) remarked “I think [there] is a point when it is too late to regulate [AI] … I think it is probably a little too early to regulate large segments of AI right now.” He shares a common sentiment that Congress is walking a fine line between keeping up with AI development legislatively and making sure that Congress has all of the information before moving at all. With bipartisan deadlock and an upcoming presidential election that will certainly be contentious, it is difficult to believe that meaningful progress on AI can be made. Meanwhile, as mentioned earlier, the Chinese government has already introduced several landmark policies in the past few years, leaving behind the United States.

The second issue brought up during the Summit was concerning public support. Public support for AI is weak when it comes to prioritizing AI development for competing with China on national security grounds. Instead, Americans are more concerned about AI because of its potential to undermine jobs and privacy. As seen with the recent Writer’s Guild of America Strike, industry workers lobbied to ensure their jobs were protected from AI replacement. Consequently, lawmakers and AI developers will need to work cautiously in producing domestic safeguards to reassure and protect the American people. Even then, most Americans strongly prefer using AI for scientific research and tackling climate change—not for geopolitical competition. This clash of sentiment may prove to be yet another source of deadlock in future Congresses, deepening the abyssal schisms that Americans already experience.

Beyond the summit, I wish to point out that there are numerous challenges impeding AI development in the United States: talent shortages in critical STEM industries, steep declines in performance by U.S. students, and a reduction in international students since the pandemic, all which if left unaddressed, will jeopardize the future of domestic AI capabilities. While American students score poorly, Chinese students are consistently the world’s highest scorers for STEM-affiliated fields, graduating eight times more engineers than their American counterparts. Even domestic semiconductor production plans have been stopped with the TSMC facility in Arizona being plagued with crippling labor and management issues. Certainly, lawmakers must immediately address these issues if they are truly committed to establishing American leadership in AI.

In China, the government has long held a strong position to take charge of AI within the international community. Unconcerned about protecting privacy, the Chinese government has proven that it is not only willing to accelerate AI development, it is also capable of executing policies for leading the world in AI. Between a highly qualified student body, an intense allocation of resources for AI research, a nationalistic surge to overtake the United States, and an autocratic government that is not bogged down by bureaucratic deadlock: it is all but certain that the United States has been lagging behind for years, if not for years to come.

However, this does not mean that the United States is impossibly behind. Despite numerous obstacles, the United States has an opportunity to steer itself back onto the course and revitalize its efforts for AI development. From an ideological standpoint, the United States should embrace its democratic values as an advantage against China, especially in leading and protecting allied democracies across the globe. Perhaps, by taking advantage of its slow and deliberative process, American lawmakers can work more diligently with academia and industry to establish a comprehensive standard that balances the interests of a free world with the relentless momentum of the AI race. Against authoritarian governments like China and Russia, the United States should also consider its allies, vigorously inviting stakeholders and international students to rejuvenate its academic talents and foster cooperation for a technology too powerful and complex for one nation to regulate alone. By taking charge now, the United States can lead the conversation on AI and enhance its position in a time when American resolve is constantly—perhaps rightfully—questioned.

Although the CHIPS Act was significant, it is premature for the United States to stall now on advancing AI legislation. If anything, the United States should not solely rely on domestic policies to regain its lead. It should begin communicating with developing countries—who fear being left behind in the global race for AI capabilities—thus, further reinforcing its alliances. Instead of widening gaps, the United States can live up to its values and reduce global inequality. On a strategic level, this serves many of America’s interests by consolidating economic ties, strengthening diplomatic relationships, and diversifying multilateral cooperation on AI.

Although the United States lost the prestige of launching the first satellite and first human into space, it would be foolish to forget that the United States retook the lead by landing humanity on the Moon. It is vital that Americans do not grow complacent in this race, especially against fierce competition. But I confess this anecdote has its limits: the Space Race was one frontier amongst many in America’s competition with the Soviet Union, and neither that competition, nor the further development of spacefaring technology, ended with Apollo 13. The race between competing nations is an eternal one, limited only by the resolve and resources of its participants. But what makes this race stand out is the revolutionary nature of AI technology, and the consequences that come with a failure to act decisively. This leaves a daunting dilemma for Americans: will they muster the national willpower and unity to author the norms of AI, or allow China to write those norms for them?

Kory Yueh is a student intern at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

E-8C “JSTARS” final flight signals end of era

Ethan Brown

US Air Force Photo

A vaunted fixture of the post-Cold War skies ended concluded its final operational flight this week, when a Boeing E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) left Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, proceeded South, and then continued vector for its home station at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia (US), where the last two JSTARS flying squadrons still operate--one Active Duty (the 461st Air Control Wing) and one Air Force National Guard  unit (the 116th ACW).

The JSTARS has been ubiquitous with Western air dominance for the past thirty years, where the platform has seen hundreds of thousands of flight hours in every major combat operation since Desert Storm in 1991. Not to be confused with it’s equally iconic sibling, the E-3 airborne early warning and control (AWACS), the one with the ridiculously giant circular dish on top, the JSTARS and AWACS both provided a critical role for the Joint Operational Force and US military missions across every continent.

The E-8, briefly (and again, to be distinguished from the E-3 AWACS) is a heavily modified Boeing 707-300, with a standard mission crew of 21 personnel; three flight crew (pilot, co-pilot, navigator), while the remaining 18 operated a highly complex network of ground-queued sensors in multiple suites built into the main cabin. The most distinct feature of the E-8 was the 24-foot long antenna built by Northrup-Grumman, molded into the underside of the aircraft, fore of the wing struts and just behind the forward landing gear housing. Simply, a large bump is all that appeared different for the E-8 when pictured aside any other 707-300 (minus the paint job, airline dependent). Inside that 24-foot bump lies an entire array of ground target designation and radar-queuing capabilities which, to keep this segment as brief as possible, painted a screen picture of notable ground items (personnel, armor, ground radar stations, etc) which could be transmitted across the joint force on secure communication networks. It was, for all intents and purposes, much like a bunch of green dots from the Atari “Pong” game set to a very fuzzy map whose coordinates, ground speeds, and movement vectors could be transmitted for increased situational awareness. Of course the technology improved dramatically over the years, including the Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade and Below (FBCB2) system, but in the early 90s when the JSTARS became fully operational, this was revolutionary stuff.

Conversely, the E-3 AWACS did the exact same thing as the E-8, but the former provided situational awareness queuing for objects in the skies above Terra, whereas the JSTARS had all of its sensors pointed at objects on the ground. The two systems worked in tandem across the battlespace for one reason: increase the situational awareness of ground and air control capabilities to ensure that the right attack capabilities had timely information for target engagement, and that safety of air and ground assets could maneuver against the threat.

16 of the vaunted E-8’s flew in support of the ground situational awareness mission, but only two remained in operational status since CENTCOM released the E-8 from service in 2019. The E-8’s had been among the situational awareness capabilities tracking Russian force build ups prior to, and after, the February 2022 invasion, proving they still had a role, albeit limited, in the era of unlimited data. But the era has come to an end where the battlefields, multi-domain battle spaces, and mission requirements have exceeded even the prolific mission data capabilities of the JSTARS.

In a future war, really any kind of future confrontation with an adversary whose air defense and electronic warfare capabilities will for certain be dramatically different and advanced from the air dominance of the Global War on Terror, the archaic though accomplished E-8 would be a high-value target for enemy intercept. Simply, there was never a chance of this platform surviving a conflict with a peer adversary. Aircraft like the E-8 require a relatively placid airspace, near or directly above the mass maneuver ground forces (friendly and enemy), in order to perform its mission of queuing ground targets for friendly forces. In a counter-Taiwan scenario, for example, the JSTARS would be the singular most vulnerable, and at-risk target for PLA air defense, and air intercept capabilities.

With the end of the E-8 service life comes a new generation of data-sharing, situational-awareness tools to replace this prolific and modern-era capability. For one, the Air Force has already been vectoring replacement aircraft in the form of the E-11 Airborne Communications Relay Plane, also known as the BACN (Battlefield Airborne Communications Node), a similar, though thoroughly modernized and much more diverse command-and-control platform installed in the smaller, more survivable Bombardier Global 6000 business jets built by Learjet. Where the E-8 moved gigabytes of data across line-of-site analog, then early-entry digital comms networks, the E-11 BACN can transmit, share, and interpret terabytes of complex, high-resolution data across mesh networks, satellite retransmision, and digital sharing suites instantaneously. The E-11 is networked across an additional fleet of RQ-4 Global Hawk Remote Piloted Aircraft (RPAs), or “drones”...even though yours truly loathes that term… exponentially increasing the range, data-sharing capacity, and most important: survivability of this situational awareness capability.

And in light of recent events involving the F-35, this segment may prove controversial, but that fifth-generation fighter jet will, for all intents and purposes and quite literally, replace the capabilities once sourced by the E-8, the E-3, and even the new E-11. The F-35 is inarguably going through its growing pains and struggles, but those are expensive mishaps which occur as a result of operationalizing new technology, and the same struggles have happened in every new aircraft of American design going back to the Korean War. The F-111 comes to mind on aircraft being an absolute dumpster fire of defense tech development when real crises demanded innovative solutions. But the F-35 and its fifth- and sixth-gen cohorts are the future of the fight, whose multi-role advanced capabilities render dinosaurs such as the vaunted E-8 (and the A-10) obsolete in an era when the adversaries are nearly as capable as we are.

The E-8 has earned its place in aviation history for breaking ground (pardon the pun) on situational awareness capabilities, and now steps aside for a new generation of sensors and systems to keep our warfighters keyed in on the battlefield.

Mr. Suzuki Goes to Moscow

Hidetoshi Azuma

The Japanese Upper House member, Senator Muneo Suzuki, poses with Steven Seagal, Russia’s Special Envoy for Japan in 2019 (Photo Credit: Muneo Suzuki’s X account)

As questions over Washington’s continued security assistance to Ukraine continue to grow following the narrow aversion of another US government shutdown last week, a crack in the US-led global anti-Russian strategy has recently emerged in Japan. Japan’s leading pro-Russian politician, Senator Muneo Suzuki of the House of Councillors, embarked on a surprise solo trip to Moscow earlier this week. Hailing from Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido bordering with Russia, Suzuki is the de facto face of the Japan-Russia relations in Japan and has guided Tokyo’s policy of rapprochement with its northern neighbor for decades. Therefore, his latest Moscow trip was unsurprising given his pro-Russian background. While the Japanese public largely denounced his private junket as “unpatriotic” due to its obvious departure from Tokyo's official stance of non-engagement, such a characterization is misleading. The real significance of Suzuki’s Russia trip was that he essentially acted as Moscow’s disinformation agent as the Kremlin increasingly shifted its focus to Japan as the potential next target of Russia’s aggression.

Suzuki proudly declared himself to be Japan’s foremost Russian hand while in Moscow. In fact, his unabashed self-adulation was not unwarranted. He was the first Japanese politician to meet the Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2000 and has since emerged as the leading fixer in Japan’s pro-Russian lobby seeking appeasement with Russia. He reached the apex of his career when he became an unofficial adviser on Russia to the former prime minister Shinzo Abe in the 2010s and guided the Japanese leader’s policy of rapprochement in hopes for a historic peace deal with Putin ending WWII in the Far East. For the last two decades, Suzuki has thus conducted his private shuttle diplomacy between Tokyo and Moscow and left an indelible mark on the trajectory of the bilateral relationship. 

Suzuki’s latest Moscow trip was therefore a continuation of his life-long vocation. He characterized his trip as “private diplomacy” despite his active status as an Upper House member. While whether or not he is a Russian agent remains to be formally investigated, he did meet high-ranking Kremlin officials, such as the Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev and the Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, who was Moscow’s top diplomat until last year and has been personally close to the visiting Japanese senator. Suzuki’s discussions with these senior Russian officials centered on improving the troubled Japan-Russia relationship de facto frozen since Moscow’s launch of an expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

However controversial they appear to be, these activities themselves could prove valuable in maintaining a channel of communication even with a warring adversary. Indeed, a group of US experts led by the then-outgoing president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Richard Haas, secretly met with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in New York in April and reportedly discussed possible conflict resolution of the ongoing war in Ukraine. While Suzuki’s “private diplomacy” is virtually Track 1 and is more official than Haas’ Track 1.5 engagement due to his active status as a parliamentarian, both efforts underscore the importance of dialogue. Indeed, wars ultimately end with dialogue, and Japan itself paid the hefty price by rejecting it in summer 1945. Therefore, the prevailing criticisms of Suzuki’s Moscow visit as “unpatriotic” are misleading and could inadvertently undermine the value of wartime dialogue.

Instead, what could be best characterized as “unpatriotic” of Suzuki was his proactive role as a Kremlin mouthpiece. Indeed, he virtually turned every media interview into his personal talk show for declaring his views filled with Russian disinformation. For example, Suzuki declared that Russia would win eventually with “100% confidence” during his interview with the Russian state-run media Sputnik. Such diplomatic faux pas is characteristic of Suzuki, who has been spewing Kremlin disinformation even before the war in Ukraine. This time, however, he uttered from the heart of Moscow to the whole world, leading Japan to become the only Group of Seven (G7) country whose politician has visited the warring adversary in full solidarity with it. 

Unbeknownst to Suzuki, his visit occurred as the Kremlin increasingly shifted its focus of aggression to Japan. Last month, Moscow suddenly began a coordinated disinformation campaign against Japan by setting ablaze the country’s Ainu problem. The Ainus are one of Japan’s ethnic minorities who are often erroneously considered an indigenous people. RIA Novosti ran a piece by Anatoly Koshkin of the Oriental Studies in which Russia’s leading Asia expert exploited the common misconceptions surrounding the Ainus and accused Japan of “committing genocide” on them. He went on to declare that “Hokkaido is not a Japanese … It’s a colony conquered via many battles with the Ainu.” Koshkin’s op-ed appeared while Putin held the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on September 11 and reflected the Kremlin’s long-term influence operation aiming to create a pretext for an invasion of Hokkaido by exploiting the Ainu question. 

Suzuki’s visit thus happened as Moscow channeled renewed energy into the Ainu problem, which he himself has been actively seeking to resolve even by drafting the controversial 2019 Ainu Act recognizing the ethnic minority as an “indigenous people.” Immediately following Suzuki’s Russia trip, Putin declared that the Kremlin was ready to resume peace talks with Japan suspended ever since March 2022. If history is any guide, Russia negotiates before launching an invasion just as it did in 1945 and 2022. The resumption of peace talks would bring no benefit to Japan, and Suzuki’s catalytic role only raises questions about his ultimate agenda.

Ironically, the Kremlin holds Suzuki in disdain as a proverbial useful idiot despite his best efforts. The same Anatoly Koshkin derided Suzuki’s visit as “irrelevant” to the bilateral relationship ultimately driven by state-to-state engagement. Koshkin’s derision has paradoxically revealed Suzuki’s value as a disinformation agent aiding and abetting the Kremlin’s more sinister design for Japan. Indeed, Putin has already fired the opening salvo by extending an olive branch to Japan. Yet, it is an offer Japan can easily refuse. The silver lining is that the incumbent Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida appears uninterested in Russia in general, and the illusion of peace will not likely confound him unlike his slain predecessor who took counsel from the Kremlin’s point man in Tokyo. 

News You May Have Missed

Additional NATO troops to enter Kosovo following violent clash

By Julian Mancillas

On Friday September 29th NATO approved the deployment of additional military forces in Kosovo following a violent confrontation between Serbian militants and Kosovo police forces. The incident which happened on September 24th occurred when Serbian militants entered the Kosovan village of Banjska and entered into a shootout with the police. The shooters eventually retreated into a nearby Serbian Orthodox monastery which Kosovan authorities later recaptured with three of the attackers and one police officer being killed in the fighting. Following the attack, Kosovan authorities accused Serbia of arming the militants while Serbia claimed that Kosovo was to blame for the attack due to its mistreatment of its ethnic Serb population. To address the crisis the UK Ministry of Defence transferred the 1st Battalion of the Princess Of Wales's Royal Regiment to NATO command providing an additional 600 soldiers to support NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) where they will be joined by 100 Romanian troops. Hopefully, the bolstering NATO forces in the region will help decrease the rising tensions between Kosovo and Serbia. 

Julian Mancillas is a student intern at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress

BAE Systems Receives £4 billion UK contract for AUKUS Attack Submarines

By Kory Yueh

This initiative is a concrete escalation of British foreign policy into the Indo-Pacific and seeks to arm Australia with nuclear-powered attack submarines by the early 2030s. Coordinated through AUKUS, the program marks an expansion of the British stake in the Indo-Pacific theater as geopolitical tension with China waxes and wanes. The development of Britain’s submarines will begin in the late 2020s and are expected to be seaworthy for the British fleet by the late 2030s. As a part of a larger demonstration of AUKUS force expansion, a statement was made by BAE Systems Chief Executive Charles Woodburn: “This funding reinforces the Government’s support to our UK submarine enterprise and allows us to mature the design, and invest in critical skills and infrastructure to support our long-term national security.” 

China Belt & Road Initiative: Indonesia Opens Bullet Train

By Kory Yueh

Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia, has just announced the opening of a new bullet train which connects Jakarta to Bandung: a major economic hub that has been dubbed Indonesia’s “Silicon Valley.” Named “Whoosh”, the bullet train project is a part of a growing trend of various states receiving construction support for public infrastructure from the Chinese government, projecting their soft power through economic development. However, many Indonesians have expressed doubts about the project’s profitability, affordable access, and the enormous costs that came with the project. Instead, they noted that the train will mainly appeal to business travelers and tourists. Dedi Dinarto, lead Indonesia analyst at the strategic advisory firm Global Counsel, added: “It raises uncertainty about whether this substantial infrastructure investment funded both by China and the national budget, will prove profitable for the government.” 

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