FRIDAY NEWS ROUNDUP — November 9th, 2023
Our Friday news roundup comes to you a day early this week, as the nation honors our veterans tomorrow Friday, November 10th. Our Senior Fellow Ethan Brown leads off this week’s roundup with a reflection on what it means to be a modern veteran, and provides some suggestions for how to support those who have served our country. From all of us at the CSPC, our veterans have our deepest gratitude for their service—and sacrifice—for our freedom.
In Washington this week, proposals were debated on how to address the looming funding deadline, and with no resolution, our attention turns to next week. Meanwhile in the Senate, tensions grew over Alabama GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) blockade of military nominations, with a potential solution, and accompanying concern about Senate precedent, on the horizon.
In electoral politics, the results from off cycle elections showed continued pushback from the electorate on culture war overreach, but narrow margins also illustrate how divided Americans are at the polls. Last night’s GOP debate provided continued momentum to former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, but that momentum looks unlikely to surmount former President Donald Trump’s command of the GOP electorate.
In this week’s roundup, we start with CSPC Senior Fellow Ethan Brown’s reflections on Veterans’ Day. CSPC’s Kory Yueh continues his examination of the state of the U.S. Navy, CSPC’s Julian Mancillas analyzes new House Speaker Mike Johnson’s, (R-LA), moment of truth as he attempts to avoid a U.S. government shutdown next week, and CSPC Senior Fellow Hidetoshi Azuma analyzes the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s latest decision not to dissolve the parliament to hold a snap election this year.
This week CSPC Senior Fellow and journalist-in-residence has an article in Foreign Policy looking at Florida Governor and Republican candidate for president Ron DeSantis’ military service. As Kitfield notes, DeSantis has leaned heavily into his wartime service when introducing himself to voters, but when pressed by journalists about what exactly he learned during his military service in a time of war, DeSantis has been far less forthcoming. Kitfield writes that his memoir and comments on the campaign trail offer some insights, suggesting that as part of a wartime SEAL team task force—one of the most secretive and male-dominated organizations on earth, where rules sometimes have to be bent and authority is rarely questioned—DeSantis learned the importance of relentlessly attacking your opponent and always staying focused on the mission at hand. He also developed strong opinions on how, as commander in chief, he would broaden his “war on woke” to fundamentally transform the Defense Department and U.S. Armed Forces to better reflect the hard-charging macho ethos of an elite SEAL team in combat.
What It Means to Be a Veteran
By Ethan Brown
Veterans Day Parade in San Angelo, TX, (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Robyn Hunsinger)
This coming Veterans day weekend, I’ve been asked to speak at a local VFW, and address the topic used as the above headline. What follows is an adaptation of what I intend to present to fellow veterans in a small town in Washington State, whose life experiences in the military of the United States go as far back as the Korean War.
Usually, as the faithful readers of the roundup know well, I keep the thesis of my analysis strategic, about the military or a defense/national security-themed review of current events. Save for the occasion when our editorial team allows me to meander through some more detailed and explicitly narrow content (like the ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021, or my migration from one coast to the other a year ago), wherein I felt compelled to address some more human, difficult, and uncomfortable topics.
Since our Roundup normally occurs on a Friday, but we’re all celebrating this November 11th Federal holiday on that day, the circumstances and confluence of tapestry threads were too coincidental for me to ignore. So having led with that, here’s what it means to be a veteran in 2023.
It means carrying a weight that most members of our society and this country simply cannot grasp or understand. It’s not a burden which any reasonable or empathic human would ever wish on another, and across generations, this weight takes on myriad forms.
It means that many of us who call ourselves the GWOT generation are still grappling with the perception of having ‘failed’ in the War on Terror. The U.S. military and our coalition partners most certainly did not ‘lose’ said war, I want to make that abundantly clear. In fact, it was the most lopsided string of tactical victories in the history of human beings fighting and dying in the ultimate contest of arms. My forthcoming contemporary history of this war will attest to that. But for those of us who spent years, and in many cases, decades, of our lives training, deploying, returning, and the cycle beginning anew again and again, we were charged with unclear strategic and policy guidance for which no clear outcome, no political goals, no end state was ever provided as a means for which we could develop a coherent strategy.
It means that the veterans of the generation before GWOT: Desert Storm, Grenada and Panama, and the end of the Cold War, are left wondering at how the most predominant and advanced military in human history—who became guardians of the Unipolar Moment—had to look on as the world shifted from the presumed success of liberalism and democracy, and saw society descend back into tribalized domestic politics and partisan bickering which today have become ubiquitous with American politics. This generation carried the burden of a shrinking world, which in many ways has become far more challenging than the old order which the last decade of the 20th century left behind.
The veterans of the Vietnam War perhaps carry the most glaring and shameful burden of all; it means that they carry the weight of having fought and bled for this nation in a war against adversaries who loathed the very concept of freedom which we hold so dear. And they came back to a nation which was ungrateful for their sacrifice, and who has failed to provide those veterans with the care, support, respect, and admiration for which they deserve. In Vietnam, the fight our veterans fought was concisely described as “one hand tied behind their back, and when they started to win, had the other one tied as well.” Policies of narrow engagement, unclear end states, and wavering support—political and societal—would only be made more shameful by how those brave Americans were treated upon their return, and in the years after.
There is the burden carried by the “forgotten veterans of a forgotten war,” no less shameful than their Vietnam veteran counterparts, whose unfathomable hardship on the Korean peninsula has been tragically and inexcusably glanced over in historical recount, in strategic lessons learned, and in veneration. Few of those veterans remain with us today, a dying breed of noble and heroic human beings whose blood and misery are barely a footnote in the lexicon of military history.
I don’t intend for this summary of veterans burdens to be a guilt trip, far from it. I can definitively say that the treatment of veterans today is vastly improved over preceding decades, and even my post-military support and treatment has been better than that experienced by my own sibling, a Navy veteran who separated from service in 2009, and who has had to fight for the benefits which he earned in various ways which I did not have to; these include medical, mental, education, and other support programs.
But acknowledging that Veteran support programs and endeavors have improved in only recent years doesn’t erase the shameful treatment of those generations mentioned above. I can only speak for myself and a handful of fellow special operator veterans with whom I remain very close that, whenever the month of November comes around and NFL sidelines are chock-full of camouflage headbands, hoodies, or those insufferable commercials pop up touting how companies support veterans in this or that, we tend to turn a spiteful, cynical, or disinterested blind eye. The reason? It smacks of lip service for a society that finally recognizes how poorly it has cared for its Veterans in the past, and absolution remains far off.
This is my summative two-cents: instead of changing a social media profile picture with yet another insufferable “support the troops” filter or adding a hashtag to the obligatory November 11th post, seek out Veteran Support Organizations (VSO) who are engaged in the actual, tactile, and direct support for those veterans who need it most. A few notable ones from my own personal engagement to consider:
The Hunter Seven Foundation (who is aggressively tackling the growing epidemic of GWOT veterans dying at inordinately high rates due to historically-unlikely incidents of particular cancers related to aircraft fuels, burn pits and other toxic exposures)
The TACP Association and TACP Foundation, who provides scholarship opportunities, medical assistance, transition assistance programs, Gold Star family support, and a host of other advancement and veteran support capacities for members and families of the TACP community
The Three Rangers Foundation, which provides Ranger-For-Life support programs including education, mental health, financial and spiritual, mentorship and benefits advocacy for members and families of the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment
Again, my own experience and those like me have a very skewed, overly cynical perspective of the societal shift in ‘veteran support’; for us, we internally used the phrase “thank you for your service” as an affectation, insult, and a jibe towards each other, rather than the wholehearted appreciation it normally intends. To your veteran friends, family, and colleagues, they may well appreciate the sentiment as intended.
But this author, veteran, and activist for veteran affairs, if I may, would suggest exploring how we can give to and support the many VSOs who are indeed working to address the heavy and often indescribable burden carried by our Veterans.
Part III — From Trump to Biden: Federal & Fiscal Challenges for the U.S. Navy
Above: The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) successfully completes the third and final scheduled explosive event of Full Ship Shock Trials while underway in the Atlantic Ocean, Aug. 8, 2021.
By Kory Yueh
On a long ago summer day, two formidable naval powers were on the brink of collision. Both of these states sought control of a strategic island – and the victor of this struggle would be the preeminent maritime power of its day. In this struggle, one actor was an emerging continental power with a formidable land army, but its newly expanded navy was untested and inexperienced. In contrast, the opposing force was strongly founded on a seafaring culture and was an experienced naval power. Their respective fleets met along the coasts of the island–and the outcome forever altered the trajectories of their empires. This was the First Punic War, and the resulting Battle of Economus off the coast of Sicily was a decisive confrontation between Rome and Carthage.
This ancient tale resonates in the modern confrontation between the United States and China. The United States has long known the value of naval power, indeed without it America would have never prevailed in its Revolutionary War against Britain, the most powerful military in the world. For brevity’s sake I shift our focus to the Second World War, where the U.S. Navy truly learned fundamental lessons against a poised and experienced opponent, whether it be against German U-Boats in the Battle of the Atlantic, or against the Imperial Japanese Navy throughout the Pacific War. This conflict established one fundamental truth: the U.S. Navy must continually strive to maintain its cutting-edge methodology and capabilities in the face of ever-evolving challengers. The question is whether Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden offered effective leadership in terms of helping the Navy meet its challenges?
In early March of 2017, former President Trump announced to a crowd aboard the U.S.S Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier that he intended to “rebuild [U.S.] military might,” and he argued for a historic expansion of the U.S. Navy. Shipbuilding is a long-term endeavor, however, with early investments needed to produce formidable capabilities over time. A brief analysis of the Trump administration’s naval policies reveal an old lesson, however, which is that numbers are not everything. Despite a planned increase in the size of the fleet to 355 warships, naval officers have consistently warned against having that expanded fleet be a “hollow force.”
By the end of the Trump’s administration in late 2020, the effort to expand the fleet to 355 ships came up quite short—experts noted it would be impossible to reach that goal before the 2050s at best. In the meantime, China’s navy certainly eclipsed the mark of 355 ships. Their fleet and missile arsenals ballooned throughout Trump’s presidency, and have continued to swell ever since. One predominant issue that haunted both the Trump and Biden presidencies was a growing maintenance backlog of several warships, including attack submarines and destroyers.
In October 2023, former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Michael Gilday cited the Navy’s maintenance backlog as a major priority, and indeed the service had already reduced the days of delay from 7,700 (in 2020) to 3,000. Still, the Navy has nearly 40% of its submarine force in maintenance drydocks at any given time, reducing the U.S. Navy’s ability to operate in force and at sufficient strength. Indeed, the transition between the Trump and Biden administrations has hardly altered the number of pressing issues which threaten the Navy’s efforts to both modernize and expand simultaneously.
The greatest challenge to a modernization and expansion strategy is simply the absence of adequate industrial capacity. For example, a Congressional report noted that despite Congressional support for the U.S. Navy to purchase three Arleigh Burke-class Flight III destroyers annually, the U.S. Navy ultimately was only able to purchase two destroyers a year due to a lack of shipyard capacity, workers, and materials.
The issue is further exacerbated by budgetary shortfalls. A planned expansion of the Navy to 355 ships would require on average $26.6 billion (2017 dollars) per year for the next three decades; a price tag that is 60% more than the Navy’s annual spending for the previous 30 years. The operating cost of the Navy has also drastically increased while ship usage decreased. These issues will certainly limit the Biden administration’s ability to realize naval plans, especially in light of an upcoming contentious presidential election in 2024, followed by the very recent election of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) who has previously expressed opposition against federal spending.
In mid-2021, the Biden administration expanded on the Navy’s topline budget—but ultimately reduced the Navy’s shipbuilding and procurement budget by $700 million. This was repeated again with President Biden’s 2023 defense budget request where increased funding was offset by increased inflation, translating to a reduction in overall funding. Simultaneously, the Navy also decided to decommission 24 littoral combat ships–sharply reducing the number of operable warships.
However, not all is lost. On the industrial side of this equation, Vice Adm. William Houston emphasized that submarine operability has risen to 66% since May 2023, and the Navy will continue measures to increase submarine availability to 80% by late 2027 or early 2028. The Navy’s four public shipyards, already at capacity, will also continue to take measures that reduce work times while maximizing operational capabilities within the submarine fleet. Lawmakers and naval policymakers are well aware of the stakes involved and the challenges ahead.
The analogy of Rome and Carthage does not portend that the Chinese will necessarily overtake the United States in a single, decisive battle. Rather, the lesson of that history suggests that the United States must prepare itself well in advance and with keen foresight for a future confrontation with the Chinese Navy in the Indo-Pacific. Nor will numerical superiority necessarily dictate the outcome of such a confrontation. It would be folly, however, to dismiss the importance of numbers in a situation where industrial capacity is surprisingly inadequate. The question confronting the United States is whether it will follow the example of Rome, or be fated to sail the course of Carthage towards decline.
Kory Yueh is a student intern at CSPC
The New House Speaker Faces His Moment of Truth
By Julian Mancillas
Next week will bring a long-anticipated moment of truth on Capitol Hill as a divided House with untested leadership must pass a Continuing Resolution (CR), or else the federal government will begin shutting down on November 17th. Despite the tight deadline and high stakes, Congress appears to be nowhere near a deal, with profound disagreements not only between a Democrat-led Senate and Republican-led House on the contours of a new CR, but also between a fractious House Republican caucus engaged for much of the year in an internal civil war between its far-right MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) and more moderate factions. Meanwhile, the impasse continues to block desperately needed U.S. aid to democratic allies in Israel and Ukraine fighting wars of survival.
The man of the hour who must find a way through this legislative minefield is recently-elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, (R-LA), a relatively new member of Congress elected in 2016, and the least experienced speaker in modern times. Known primarily as a hardline social conservative and 2020 election-denier, Johnson holds only a slim, four seat Republican majority in the House, meaning that he can afford to lose almost no Republican support in negotiating a new CR. With Democrats controlling both the Senate and White House, the prospect of a Republican-only CR containing severe spending cuts becoming law is extremely unlikely. Yet, if Johnson compromises in order to win Democratic votes to pass a CR, there is a real danger he would be ousted for the heresy of consensus-building like his predecessor, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-CA.
With this potential budgetary train wreck fast approaching, it’s important to understand the high stakes involved in terms of aid to Ukraine and Israel, the extreme difficulties Speaker Johnson faces in negotiating with such a small and fractious majority, and the possibility that the far-right faction of the House Republican caucus might allow Johnson to pass a clean CR bill in order not to hamstring his leadership coming out of the gates.
Certainly the wars in Ukraine and Israel have significantly raised the stakes in the upcoming battle over government funding. With the frontlines in Ukraine now stalemated, and Israeli forces on the offensive inside Gaza, both countries are heavily depending on U.S. military aid. Already the military aid has proved one of the most contentious points of debate in Congressional budget negotiations. Speaker Johnson has stated that he supports additional Ukraine aid in theory, but he has also sought to separate it from aid to Israel and couple it with increased funding for U.S. border security. On November 2nd, House Republicans thus passed a bill giving Israel $14.3 billion in aid to respond to the recent October 7th Hamas attack on Israel proper. That bill was a nonstarter in the Democratic-controlled Senate, however, largely because it included commensurate cuts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will actually add to the deficit.
In contrast to Johnson’s desire to separate aid for Ukraine and Israel, Congressional Democrats argue that it should be combined for quick passage in a bill that also includes humanitarian aid, border security funding, and money to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. Senate Republicans agree that military aid to Ukraine and Israel should remain tied together, with Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, arguing that both conflicts are part of a larger global threat from aggressive authoritarian regimes.
At a time when war has erupted in the heart of Europe and the Middle East, the profound question hanging over the budget impasse is thus whether Congress will continue to backstop America’s role as leader of the free world, and defender of the liberal international order. The Biden administration has already dispatched two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Middle East to deter Hamas’s terrorist allies and Iran from attacking Israel and escalating the conflict, and U.S. fighter aircraft have struck Iranian backed groups in Syria that targeted U.S. troops in the region with rocket fire and lethal drones. If Congress were to reach an impasse and shut down the federal government at such a fraught moment, it would signal paralysis and indecision in Washington, D.C., risk further escalation, and bring comfort to our adversaries.
And yet the fundamental conundrum remains: Speaker Johnson needs to pass a CR bill that can win the support of the right wing of his own caucus, yet still pass a Democratic-controlled Senate and be signed into law by a Democrat in the White House. The alternative is to rely on Democratic votes in the House and risk being dethroned as speaker.
The key question is thus whether fellow Republican hardliners in the House will give Johnson greater leeway to pass a clean CR bill because he is essentially one of them. Certainly Johnson is far more aligned with the rightwing “Freedom Caucus” than his predecessor Kevin McCarthy, a California moderate despite his close association with former President Trump. Johnson is also a close Trump ally, he played an instrumental role in Congress in trying to overturn Biden’s victory, and he is a staunch conservative voter.
As one possible way out of the impasse, Johnson has suggested he is open to backing a bill that would fund the government through January, but adopt a “laddered” funding approach which would stagger funding for different agencies. House Democrats and even some Republicans in the Senate have argued that such a plan would likely result in different parts of the federal government shutting down at different times, creating even greater chaos on Capitol Hill.
With the clock ticking and a government shutdown only eight days away, the inexperienced and largely untested House speaker faces very difficult decisions. If he finds a way to keep the government open and support for desperate U.S. allies flowing, Mike Johnson will have passed his first test and grown into his position as leader of the House and second in line to the presidency. If not, his legacy will likely be that on his watch the House fiddled and Congress stumbled as the world burned.
Julian Mancillas is a student intern at CSPC
To Dissolve or Not to Dissolve
The Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivers a policy speech at the beginning of the 212nd Session of the Diet on October 23, 2023 (Photo Credit; The Office of the Prime Minister of Japan)
By Hidetoshi Azuma
The fundamental question preoccupying the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s mind recently has been whether or not to dissolve the parliament (the Diet) to hold a snap election. Earlier today, Kishida seemed finally ready to resolve this issue by declaring his decision not to dissolve the Diet “this year”, thereby once again postponing the timing of a highly-anticipated snap election this time until next year. In fact, he unveiled his decision amid reports of various polls showing another historic low in his support rate barely floating around 26%, a crippling figure which could easily undo his faltering administration tomorrow. In other words, Kishida’s snap election agenda still remains alive, implying his abiding desire to secure a long tenure by somehow achieving a miraculous win in a future general election. Indeed, he has recently made an about-turn on his controversial tax hike agenda in hopes of restoring public confidence, ironically only to alienate more voters due to his perceived irresoluteness. The Japanese leader’s desperate pursuit of a long tenure has paradoxically condemned him to the present quandary in which he must confront the inevitable of wartime leadership while finding himself beleaguered at home.
The original sin of Kishida’s premiership is to be found in the accidental way in which he rose to premiership. Hailing from a prominent political dynasty, he entered politics in 1987 largely thanks to nepotistic guidance as a matter of inheriting his family legacy. He quickly rose through the ranks of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)’s most prestigious faction, the Kochi-kai, and ultimately became its leader in 2012. He went on to serve as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and briefly the Minister of Defense under the slain former prime minister Shinzo Abe during the 2010s before becoming the prime minister himself in 2021. In fact, Kishida’s successive accession to these key posts was largely a product of compromise by the LDP’s senior leadership favoring his proclivity for conflict avoidance. Indeed, Abe, the former prime minister Taro Aso, and the former LDP Secretary-General Akira Amari endorsed Kishida for premiership in the LDP’s smoke-filled room in August 2021 in an effort to maintain party solidarity following the end of Abe’s long tenure.
In other words, Kishida’s present lot is a fortuitous one based not necessarily on merit, let alone charisma. None other than the incumbent Japanese prime minister himself recognized it even before his tenure began. Asked about his vision for premiership on the eve of the September 2021 LDP presidential election, Kishida once remarked that he wished to “lead personnel management of the Cabinet '' as the prime minister and emphasized his “ability to listen” to others. He uttered no grand vision for Japan and did not even allude to his own worldview outlined in his political manifesto, “The Kishida Vision: From Division to Cooperation.” As a result, he has devised a bottom-up approach to politics by incorporating best ideas and initiatives from his ministers and staff. He justified it by pledging a departure from Abe’s muscular political style which had controversially bequeathed enormous power to the Kantei (the Office of the Prime Minister). To his credit, he has so far largely succeeded in playing the role of implementer executing many sensitive political imperatives, especially Japan’s much-awaited defense modernization. Yet, the flip side of the coin is that he has essentially abnegated his responsibility as a leader under the veneer of national healing.
Kishida’s pretense to leadership has thus become the most pressing issue threatening his administration’s future as well as his own political fate. The first shock arrived when the 2021 Abe assasination unveiled the untoward influence of the Korean Christian cult, the Unification Church, on the LDP, leading to a series of resignations of Kishida’s ministers putatively affiliated with the religious organization. The Unification Church scandal unleashed the centrifugal forces slowly but steadily disrupting the center of gravity of the Kishida administration: internal cohesion. Indeed, the public has grown interested in their elected representatives’ probity, leading to unprecedented scrutiny into their private lives. As a result, more resignations of high officials followed, culminating in that of Kishida’s right hand man, the then-Deputy Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara, in September 2023. Two more senior administration officials resigned last month alone due to their indecent deeds.
The inexorable elite exodus has increasingly led Kishida to bet on populist appeal to prevent his administration’s implosion. To this end, he has recently begun seeking to undo his own signature agenda of tax hike. Ever since he began floating the idea of a tax hike supposedly to fund the double increase in defense spending back in December 2022, Tokyo’s tax policy has become the political powder keg waiting to explode. Indeed, the Opposition has been rallying around the call for tax cuts boosted by almost daily public demonstrations across Japan. Kishida’s popularity has been slowly but steadily plummeting below 30%, the baseline below which historical Japanese administrations have proven unable to survive. In fact, the real significance of the recent poll figures is that they reflect the Japanese public’s growing anxiety for the country’s future instead of personal enmity toward its leader or his ministers. Against this backdrop, Kishida has recently been seeking to woo the public by appearing eager to thwart his own tax hike agenda.
Ironically, such deceptive maneuvering has already incurred unintended consequences. First, the public has scarcely reciprocated support for his tax cuts stunt due to the Japanese leader’s perceived indecision, leading to an even steeper decline in his support rate these days. This underscores the crisis of public confidence in Kishida’s premiership further eroded by the ongoing elite exodus. Second, his desperate attempts to reverse his tax policy have unexpectedly alienated his main institutional ally, the Ministry of Finance. On October 8, the Minister of Finance Shunichi Suzuki torpedoed Kishida’s emerging plan to slash income tax by disputing the prime minister’s rationale of using past government earnings to compensate for the reduction. According to Suzuki, the past government earnings Kishida referred to had already been used to fund the redemption of Japanese government bonds (JGB). Suzuki’s remark was essentially a coup of unprecedented magnitude against Kishida by the Ministry of Finance, which effectively controls Japan’s purse strings and wields unrivaled political power within the bureaucracy. Historically, no previous prime ministers, even Abe, have survived opposition, let alone coups, by the Ministry of Finance. Moreover, the alienation of the Ministry of Finance could complicate Kishida’s relationship with his chief kingmaker, Taro Aso, who was Japan’s longest-serving chief financial officer in the 2010s and has been succeeded by his own brother-in-law, Shunichi Suzuki.
The silver lining is that Aso still appears to be magnanimous toward Kishida. Indeed, Japan’s top kingmaker recently went out of his way to defend the struggling incumbent prime minister by crediting him for the country’s drastic defense modernization program which “even Abe could not achieve”. The truth is that Japan’s 2022 defense policy reform was in fact Aso’s initiative handed down to Kishida for implementation. In other words, Aso essentially praised himself for both the initiative and his handling of the Japanese leader. Indeed, in Aso’s own words: “What more should [Kishida] do?” Yet, such paternalistic embrace of a leader is no remedy for his lack of leadership and may impart him a false sense of security in his indefatigable bid for a long tenure. A more sensible approach to Kishida’s plight would be to discipline him and his administration in anticipation of wartime leadership. Kishida is not a leader by nature but has defied expectations as an effective administrator executing the impossible one after another. “To be or not to be,” not “to dissolve or not to dissolve” is the question Kishida must ask himself now while those around him should help him find the answer. As the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s experience aptly demonstrates, the imperative of wartime leadership prizes continuity above all else in achieving ultimate triumph.
Hidetoshi Azuma is a Senior Fellow at CSPC
A Brief Overview: AI and its Ramifications for the Future World Order
By Julian Mancillas and Kory Yueh
Since time immemorial, human civilization has shown an instinct for adaptive warfare. Even in ancient times, the strategy of using disease as a weapon against one's enemies was a tactically sound one if it meant overcoming an enemy without a fight. Despite the invention of gunpowder as a means of entertainment through fireworks, the Chinese were quick to weaponize gunpowder weapons: a design which spread to Europe, where it was refined as an instrument of war. Since gunpowder, inventors expressed hope that their inventions would primarily benefit human civilization. Alas, as history shows, their eagerness to innovate has only led to a brutal industrialization of warfare.
The creation of the atomic bomb against Japan led to a harrowing Cold War where the world lived under the threat of nuclear armageddon between the United States and the Soviet Union. Since then, the Internet and its later offshoots–big data and social media–have only become more integrated with our globalized society. These phenomenons will continue to evolve rapidly because of ever-shrinking semiconductors and greater computing power. But, naturally, just like every previous instance where great innovations are hailed for their societal benefits, we must now acknowledge the fearsome technology that can bind all of these aforementioned issues together: Artificial Intelligence (AI)I.
The integration of AI can amplify misinformation and strengthen attacks on critical infrastructures. Hostile actors empowered by AI could render devastating damage using nuclear, military, or biotechnological means. These are all critical domains and each could potentially inflict unprecedented damage. Now, we must grapple with a technology which can effectively weaponize all five at once.
In the field of biotechnology, many companies and researchers have been investigating how they can utilize AI in drug discovery and development. Currently, AI tools such as BioGPT have demonstrated “human parity” in answering biomedical research questions and extracting medical data. The Hong Kong based drug company Insilico has taken this a step further and has already conducted Phase II clinical trials of a AI discovered drug called INS018_055 which is meant to treat patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). In the future many lives could be saved through the use of AI created drugs and vaccines. However, there is a danger that these AI drug discovery systems could be used for nefarious purposes, specifically the rapid development of chemical based weapons. In 2020, Collaborations Pharmaceuticals tested this theory and has their AI-based MegaSyn software generate a compendium of toxic substances similar to the notorious nerve agent VX. The result was that the AI MegaSyn system generated 40,000 toxic substances overnight including some completely new toxins. This shows that AI technology can easily be misused for destructive purposes.
AI’s rapid development has also been weaponized through the use of misinformation on social media. The rise of cheap and easy to use generative AI tools available to the wider public has caused misinformation to rise drastically. Where before deep fakes were crude and difficult to produce, now cheap, powerful AI has made it possible for anyone to create a realistic photo or video that can fool people online. This poses a critical danger to democratic elections where false information about candidates can now be spread easily and effectively by almost anyone through the use of AI. According to a poll done by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy 58% of Americans believe that AI will increase the spread of misinformation in the 2024 presidential election. Without safeguards in place AI generated misinformation will probably spiral out of control.
Data infrastructure is also at risk of being affected by the development of AI. While AI has many beneficial uses which can improve cybersecurity and software development, sadly it also provides bad actors with new tools to attack data infrastructure. According to Brian Finch, co-leader of the cybersecurity, data protection & privacy practice at Pillsbury Law, “AI can be used to identify patterns in computer systems that reveal weaknesses in software or security programs, thus allowing hackers to exploit those newly discovered weaknesses.” AI also assists hackers subtly through “phishing,” the practice of sending out fake emails from a seemingly reputable source to gain a foothold in an organization or database. The use of AI technology such as GPT-4 makes it easier to craft personalized and compelling messages which are much harder to track. Such increases in the power and availability of AI leaves data infrastructure such as medical databases or tech company servers vulnerable.
An industry that AI could potentially have a monumental impact on is the military. There are a multitude of different ways that AI technology can be adopted for military use. Intelligence officers already use AI to sift through thousands of photos and videos daily where before analysts had to spend hours carefully looking over pieces of evidence. One AI military system currently in development even allows a single human operator to control multiple unmanned systems, such as a swarm of drones in the air, on the water, or undersea. This exponential growth in the military potential of AI technology will have huge ramifications for the global balance of power. With the United States and China each doing their best to gain an advantage in AI technology, the stage is then set for a global AI race with the winner becoming the preeminent world power. Such a competition could have devastating consequences for the world, especially if the adoption of AI technology extends to the nuclear field. The fear is that the integration of AI into nuclear weapons systems could create a form of “artificial escalation” as AI would reduce the time and space necessary for “de-escalatory measures.” However, despite these fears the growth of AI innovation and investment will continue simply because no side can afford to fall behind.
Despite the tremendous amount of malice that AI could unleash, AI technology's growing sophistication and capability is inevitable and a fact of life, whatever the impact on our planet's future. The thawing and freezing cycles of geopolitical competition is proof enough that the advancement of AI is a double-edged sword: on one hand, it will contribute invaluable processing power to tackle a vast array of challenges such as climate change, drug manufacturing, technological improvements, and so forth. On the other hand, it is also critical to prepare for the malevolent nature of an Artificial Intelligence that could assist in enhancing terrorist attacks, crippling essential infrastructure, and magnifying the destructive potential of weapons of mass destruction such as such as nuclear and biological weapons. In the coming decades, AI is the revolutionary force-of-nature that humanity must reckon with, and the onus is on today’s leaders to ensure that AI safeguards common prosperity instead of plotting our mutual destruction.
Regardless of how policymakers wish to regulate and contain AI innovation, it is certain that AI advances will outpace the speed at which legislation can catch up. But like any scientific innovation of the past–it is critical for the frontiersmen and women of AI development to confront their own biases and assumptions about AI, and ask: is this technology capable of being controlled, and will our governments be able to mitigate the effects of malicious AI operation?
NEWS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED
Australian PM Albanese Hails Progress with China after Talks with Xi
By Kory Yueh
The Australian prime minister Albanese lauded "significant progress" in Australian-Chinese relations after his landmark visit to Beijing this past week. Having landed on Saturday, he is the first Australian leader to visit China since 2016. The four-day visit emphasized trade, especially in light of hefty Chinese tariffs on Australian wine and beef imports. In the past year, China has lifted trade restrictions which were believed to have cost Australia close to $13 billion annually. The event was not completely without its ominous shadows, particularly because of Australia's recent measures over the years to control Chinese intrusion into critical minerals and mining operations within Australia's orbit. Still, Prime Minister Albanese did not stifle discussion on the AUKUS alliance, acknowledging cooperation with China when possible; but competition when it was necessary. In the wake of the visit's conclusion this past Tuesday, analysts have continued to speculate if these talks will have substantive thawing effects on Australian-Chinese relations.
Japanese and Filipino Leaders Agree to Negotiate Defense Pact, Boosting Ties amid Chinese Aggression
By Kory Yueh
On Friday last week, the leaders of Japan and the Philippines agreed to initiate talks for a critical defense pact, enabling each other's military forces to enter one another's territory for joint military exercises; a crucial step in building an alliance that focuses on challenging future Chinese assertiveness. The Japanese government will also bolster the Philippines with patrol vessels, defensive equipment, and radar systems to enhance maritime capabilities. As tensions continue to rise in the South China Sea, both nations have recently denounced Chinese provocations, especially with the United States supporting them with a tacit warning of defending its treaty ally in the event that Filipino vessels are attacked. The defense pact, soon to be known as the Reciprocal Access Agreement, is intended to maintain stability in the South China Sea. Japanese PM Kishida and Filipino President Marcos Jr. each expressed strong support for bolstering trilateral security cooperation with the United States to continue containing Chinese interference in the coming months, if not years.
U.S. ICBM Test Fails during Test; New Concerns about Nuclear Modernization
By Kory Yueh
On November 1st, an unarmed Minuteman III ICBM missile was terminated during a test launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, with military officials citing an "anomaly" as the reason for the test termination. The Air Force is currently investigating the issue, but Tim Ryan, a senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, commented that it is possible the anomaly in question is not exclusively because of its age. He asserted that "Minuteman III technology remains reliable, as proven through regular flight tests conducted multiple times a year." Despite this, the Minuteman III is long due for replacement. The weapon system has been around since the 1970s and is due to be replaced by the upcoming Sentinel ICBM missiles. According to the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, the "Sentinel weapon system is the most cost-effective option for maintaining a safe, secure, and effective land-based leg of the nuclear triad and would extend [U.S. nuclear capabilities] through 2075." There are currently 400 Minuteman III ICBMs that have been in service for over 50 years; but aside from missiles, large amounts of infrastructure require renovation to accommodate the new Sentinels. It remains to be seen how this recent failed test may affect public scrutiny on nuclear modernization.
Kory Yueh is a student intern for the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.
Moldova’s Pro-West Party Wins Local Elections Despite Purported Russian Interference
On October 5, 2023 the country of Moldova held elections for nearly 12,000 local officials with the results seen as a test of President Maia Sandu’s pro-European policies. Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) came in first in hundreds of local elections, winning over 40 percent of the votes cast. Despite this success PAS lost a number of key mayoral elections in big cities such as Chinsau, Balti, Cahul, and Orhei. The election garnered international attention after Moldovan authorities accused Russia of interfering in the election and conducting “hybrid warfare” to undermine voting in a European candidate country. In late October Moldova blocked dozens of Russian media sites claiming that they were spreading “disinformation campaigns.” Two days before the election Moldova’s Prime Minister even announced a ban on candidates from the pro-Russia Chance party following a 32 page report from the Intelligence and Security Service (SIS). According to the report the Chance Party received about 50 million euros ($53 million) in Russian money, which was transferred through exiled Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor with the intention of destabilizing the country before the October 5 elections. Regardless of Russia’s attempted interference in Moldova, the results of the election speak for themselves. In the near future at least it appears pro-European sentiment has triumphed.
Top exporters Saudi Arabia and Russia to continue voluntary oil cuts
By Julian Mancillas
On Sunday October 5th confirmed top oil exporters Russia and Saudi Arabia confirmed that they would continue making voluntary cuts to oil production until the end of the year due to concerns about market demand and economic growth. Saudi Arabia stated that it will continue to cut an additional 1 million barrels per day (bpd) while Moscow announced a cut of 300,00 bpd until the end of December. These voluntary cuts come at a time when OPEC+ a group composed of the countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies has been cutting output since last year. The cause behind such cuts is perhaps the decline of oil prices to about $85 per barrel of Brent crude on November 3, 2023. As Russia and Saudi Arabia heavily depend on oil exports to fund their economies lower oil prices can deal a great deal of damage to state revenue. With Russia waging a war in Ukraine and Saudi Arabia engaging in expensive building projects it is likely that both nations wish to see a rise in oil prices to supplement their budget.
Julian Mancillas is a student intern at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress
The views of authors are their own and not that of CSPC.