When will American businesses wake up to the threat of Chinese espionage?

July 26, 2022
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In an unprecedented joint public appearance on July 6, FBI Director Christopher Wray and his British counterpart, MI-5 Director General Ken McCallum, warned a London audience of business leaders and academics that China posed a “massive, shared challenge.”  Beijing, said Wray, was “set on stealing your technology—whatever it is that makes your industry tick—and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market.”  McCallum was equally forceful, describing China’s “coordinated campaign on a grand scale,” representing “a strategic contest across decades.”

This is not the first time Wray has spoken out in unambiguous terms.  On January 31 at the Reagan Presidential Library in California, he stressed that China’s threat to America’s economic security had “reached a new level—more brazen, more damaging than ever before.”  This stress on foreign-government threats to America’s private sector may seem unusual for the FBI, but Wray has correctly focused on the incredibly broad scope of Beijing’s menacing behavior, well beyond intelligence gathering and clandestine actions against the U.S. and allied governments. 

Wray’s public statements are complementary to Vice President Mike Pence’s 2018 warning about Beijing’s widespread efforts to influence U.S. public opinion.  Unfortunately, we are, even now, only just awakening to the extraordinary scope of China’s whole-of government (which, in Beijing’s case, essentially means whole-of-society) operations against our economy and society, and that of our allies.  This awakening must spread, and quickly.

In government, President Joe Biden’s performance is decidedly mixed.  He deserves credit for the first in-person meeting of the “Quad” (Australia, India, Japan, and America), a constellation with enormous potential (but, so far, few practical achievements) for constraining China.  The Pentagon agreed to the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (“AUKUS”) project to build nuclear-powered, hunter-killer submarines for Australia, a conceptual and operational breakthrough whose success or failure has major strategic implications across the Indo-Pacific.  By contrast, Biden may have already rescinded Trump administration decision-making rules on offensive cyber efforts, thereby returning to Obama-era procedures that effectively strangled such measures, crippling our ability to strike pre-emptively against Chinese election-meddling efforts.  Biden, seemingly intimidated by Chinese complaints about a projected Taiwan visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has urged her not to go.

AUKUS and the Quad represent initial steps in constructing a denser alliance framework, more akin to the North Atlantic pattern.  Analysts have long worried that America’s bilateral Asian alliances are merely “hub-and-spoke” arrangements, but this picture is changing.  Newly inaugurated South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, for example, is seeking to forge closer trilateral relations with Tokyo and Washington, symbolized by the three leaders’ recent meeting in Madrid.  The “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing partnership (among Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and US)  consists entirely of Pacific powers.  The pieces are there for robust Indo-Pacific cooperation against the full range of Chinese threats.

Ironically, America’s sleeper problem, one spotlighted by Wray and McCallum, lies in the private sector.  Despite two decades of increasing warning signs, American firms, led by financial and high-tech enterprises, invested and traded with China as if international political risk no longer warranted deep consideration in business decisions.  Extensive capital investment in China exposed intellectual property to Beijing’s high-tech piracy.  Forced-technology transfers as a condition to do business there, and the dangers to supply chains from political tensions, were ignored or minimized.  Even today, as the political risks of doing business with China are skyrocketing, especially in sensitive national-security-related areas, many U.S. business leaders still do not appreciate the threats they face.

Assurances that China does not engage in commercial espionage or theft of intellectual property should carry no weight with Western businesses.  In 2015, Xi Jinping and a gullible Barack Obama agreed that neither of their governments “will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property,” a commitment to which Beijing’s Ministry of State Security has paid no heed whatever.

Worse, too many business executives and politicians across the spectrum seem to believe that the proper response to Chinese threats is massive Federal expenditures to bolster U.S. competitiveness.  This approach fundamentally misperceives the problem.  America doesn’t suffer from a deficit of creativity and innovation.  It suffers instead from decades of China stealing our creativity and innovation, as FBI Director Wray has forcefully explained, and in some cases benefitting from the gratuitous transfer of intellectual property by credulous Americans heedless of the consequences.  

Beijing has weaponized what superficially appear to be commercial telecommunications firms like Huawei and ZTE, making them arms of the Chinese state.  The Trump and Biden administrations have imposed increasingly strict sanctions on such firms, but enormous damage has already been done, including putting at risk communications involving America’s land-based, ballistic-missile forces.  Beijing’s espionage deviousness is exemplified by its offer to build a Chinese garden at Washington’s National Arboretum, which would actually be a concealed listening post or accessing user data from the popular Tik-Tok app.  We are still not adequately awake to the potential that virtually any Chinese “business” enterprise could be an agent of commercial infiltration and exploitation.

However, appropriate defensive measures should not be confused with massive subsidies to the U.S. information-technology industry.  There is clearly a need for more Federal spending to counter Chinese espionage and piracy of intellectual property and other critical data, but that spending should be for military, and intelligence measures to enhance our defensive and offensive capabilities.  Moreover, money to replace existing equipment sold by Huawei, ZTE, and others, largely in rural and sparsely populated areas, but which can affect the nationwide telecommunications grid, is well spent.  Expenditures for “regional technology hubs” by contrast, will not enhance creativity, but will shrink the Federal dollars available for critically needed efforts at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community.

Chris Wray has more than enough to occupy his time at the FBI, so his public focus on the threat of Chinese espionage demonstrates just how serious he judges the threat to be.  American businesses and government should pay more attention to what he is saying.

Let Pelosi Travel to Taiwan

July 25, 2022
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This article first appeared in the Washington Examiner on July 24th. Click here to view the original article.

Whether or not Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) travels to Taiwan in August is a major foreign policy issue. Indeed, the answer will tell us a great deal about who actually controls American foreign policy: Washington or Beijing. We will see whether Xi Jinping’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy, which caught the Biden administration off guard at its inception, will work for Beijing regarding Pelosi.

China’s position on the status of Taiwan, not careful American calculations, has too long dominated U.S. diplomacy with Taipei. Too many in Washington have fretted about “damaging” relations with Beijing, with a few notable exceptions in recent administrations. Too few officials seem concerned either about America’s relations with Taiwan, an important Indo-Pacific ally, or about the damage that capitulating to Beijing would do to our credibility resisting its hegemonic aspirations worldwide.

Responding to Pelosi’s potential trip, China erupted, publicly and privately. “The United States is hollowing out and blurring up the ‘One China’ policy,” China’s U.S. ambassador complained. The White House responded that it still adheres to “strategic ambiguity” regarding Taiwan, leaving the distinct impression Beijing’s intimidation was succeeding. Perhaps due to its overriding concern for climate change negotiations with China, the White House is working overtime to prevent (or at least postpone) Pelosi’s trip — if only it could figure out how.

Biden himself has not addressed the issue squarely, leaving concern about Pelosi’s trip to the Pentagon and worries about the speaker’s safety. Of course, China’s efforts to interfere in Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, its menacing approaches by “fishing fleets” to the Senkaku Islands, which are disputed with Japan, its militarized assertion that the South China Sea constitutes a province of China, and its persistent harassment of Indian forces along the disputed border all indicate that any travel near China — not to mention within China — is potentially dangerous.

Of course, the source of the danger is China itself. Beijing creates the problem and then warns against it as if discussing threatening weather. If we simply accept that Middle Kingdom ultimatums alone will dictate our behavior, Beijing gets its way cost-free. Obviously, we should be clear-eyed in evaluating hostile threats, but our policymakers must learn to distinguish “wolf warrior” diplomatic theater from military reality.

What about the risks to China if it uses force against a Pelosi visit? She is, most importantly, an American citizen. She is also speaker of the House, a position the Constitution created, and, by statute, in the line of presidential succession. Her visit would be no vacation jaunt, whether she travels on military or commercial aircraft. Are we more intimidated by Chinese fist-shaking than they are by the retaliation we would unleash if they endangered the speaker’s safety? If that is true, America has a real problem, a severe one.

Pelosi’s travel highlights why America needs a forthright debate on the fundamentals of our relationship with Taiwan. Biden himself said openly he supported U.S. military involvement in Taiwan’s defense (unlike in Ukraine), but, as so often, his advisers walked that comment back. But jettisoning “strategic ambiguity” is not simply a legitimate viewpoint — it is now quite likely a near-consensus among serious analysts of American interests in the region. Integrating Taiwan into larger frameworks to constrain China makes sense not just for Taiwan but for other concerned neighbors such as Japan and South Korea.

Ultimately, of course, Washington should extend full diplomatic recognition to Taiwan. Doing so would be entirely consistent with the 1933 Montevideo Convention’s conditions for “statehood,” all of which Taiwan meets: defined territory, stable population, functioning government, and the ability to carry out international affairs. The only reason not to act is that Beijing would be unhappy. Given China’s unacceptably belligerent conduct around its Indo-Pacific periphery for the last several decades, however, it is time to recognize reality: Taiwan is a legitimately independent state.

In 1971, then-U.N. Ambassador George H.W. Bush first proposed “dual recognition” (full diplomatic linkages with both China and Taiwan) as a way to stave off expulsion of the Republic of China from the U.N. and its replacement by the People’s Republic of China. Both Taipei and Beijing rejected the compromise, but President Nixon maintained recognition of Taipei. Jimmy Carter mistakenly abandoned that position in 1979 by recognizing Beijing and ditching Taipei. Had Carter not folded dishonorably, the mainland could have done little more than grumble.

In fact, that’s still Beijing’s only real option to this day. Doing anything more than blustering is far riskier to them than to us. I recommended full recognition for Taiwan back in 2000, and the arguments still apply today. Let Pelosi go to Taiwan. It’s a good warm-up for the real thing.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Donald Trump between 2018 and 2019. Between 2005 and 2006, he was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

The death of Shinzo Abe is a loss to the U.S. and its allies 

July 08, 2022
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This article first appeared in the Washington Post on July 8th, 2022. Click here to see the original article.

John R. Bolton served as national security adviser under President Donald Trump and is the author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” 

Shinzo Abe’s assassination was a brutal and completely unforeseen end to a life of public service to the people of Japan. The shock of his death will not dissipate quickly. He was a visionary leader, someone who believed his country was capable of taking a central, and responsible, role in international affairs. His loss will be deeply felt in part because he had more contributions to make. 

Americans should appreciate how important Abe was for our nation. Over the past several decades, Japan had sought a role behind the historic memory of its part in initiating World War II and its conduct during that conflict. Abe agreed that Japan was right to believe, after this discreet but public soul-searching by his fellow citizens, that they lived in a “normal” country. And as with any “normal” country, Japan was legitimately entitled to defend its interests, especially in the hostile geography of Northeast Asia. 

This Abe was determined to achieve, and he made giant steps toward reaching that once impossible goal. 

Abe knew his country’s history well, but he could also see that it was time for Japan, and the rest of the world, to move beyond 1945. Germany had done so, forming a full military defense capacity (albeit one that has fallen into ill repair), and becoming a NATO member. Why shouldn’t Japan be able to do the same? And why shouldn’t the United States fully support Abe’s aspirations, not for Japan, but for ourselves and our other friends and allies in the Indo-Pacific and around the world? 

I first met Abe in the early days of the George W. Bush administration, during a visit to Tokyo. At the suggestion of the U.S. Embassy, I had breakfast with Abe, then the deputy chief cabinet secretary and little known outside Japan. Our diplomats had tagged Abe, scion of a prominent political family, as a rising star, and so I found him to be, over 20 years ago. 

He had focused on the threat of the North Korean nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs. As a Diet member, he made uncovering the fates of dozens of Japanese hostages kidnapped by Pyongyang a major campaign theme, demanding their safe return to their families, or at least a full accounting of what had happened to them. He never wavered from that goal. When he was assassinated, he was wearing the blue pin representing solidarity with the hostage families on his left lapel. 

Through several U.S. administrations during his two stints as prime minister, and as a private citizen and political leader when not in office, Abe never tired of explaining to U.S. officials why they had to take the North Korea threat seriously. No one needed to convince Japan that Pyongyang was dangerous. Nonetheless, naive, ill-informed and obtuse leaders from more distant lands often needed to have the obvious explained to them. 

I never saw Abe lose his sense of humor or his patience, as he tried repeatedly to stress why commitments made by various Kim dynasty leaders from the North shouldn’t be trusted. We could have used more of his wise warnings over the coming years. Now, that is not to be. 

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting in Nara, many instant commentators have said that Abe’s policies were “divisive” and “controversial.” That tells us more about the ideological biases of the commentators than about Abe himself. 

He was prudent in his approach, meticulous in his planning (in politics and foreign policy) and resolutely calm in his demeanor. What distinguished him was the strength of his beliefs, despite adversity — adversity so intense that, in 2007, he resigned prematurely from his first term as prime minister, leaving the cognoscenti certain that his political career was over. 

But Abe, who was as resolute as any politician in the contemporary democratic world, fought back. Five years later, he was reelected to lead Japan again and became its longest-serving prime minister. What really irritated his opponents were his successes, not his failures. 

Abe’s international view is more important today than it ever was. He understood the long-term, indeed existential, threat posed by China, in all its spreading ramifications. 

In the last years of his administration, Abe more than anyone else stressed the possibilities of a new constellation in Asia, the Quad: India, Australia, Japan and the United States. Initiated roughly 15 years ago but never developed effectively, Abe saw its potential, quietly pushing other Quad leaders to see what he did. 

Especially as nations came to understand China’s role in the coronavirus pandemic, heads of governments in many Indo-Pacific countries intensified their search for more effective ways to constrain China, and they too see the Quad as an important building block. 

We do not yet know the motives of Abe’s assassin. He might simply be a madman. But we should not let Abe’s tragic death obscure the permanent contribution he made to his country’s progress, or his friendship toward the United States. 

Beyond Weapons: Time For A New U.S. Strategy On Taiwan

June 05, 2022
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This article first appeared in 19FortyFive on June 5th, 2022. Click here to read the original article.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the most recent, but far from only, incident highlighting Taiwan’s vulnerability to Chinese attack. Western assistance to Ukraine, particularly sharing intelligence, has contributed significantly to its defense, but the underlying failure of deterrence was tragic. Prior to Moscow’s attack, Washington and its allies lacked credibility, unity, and adequate appreciation for larger geostrategic issues. The consequences are evident daily.

China and Taiwan are watching closely, and debate has accelerated over the military capabilities Taipei needs to maximize deterrence and defense against Beijing. Unfortunately, as with Ukraine, this debate lacks a broader politico-military foundation, which threatens Taiwan whatever its military arsenal. Biden administration myopia is missing critical opportunities to strengthen not just Taiwan, but the entire Indo-Pacific’s resistance to Chinese belligerence.

For the United States, implementing more effective deterrence for Taiwan is not simply a tactical case study. “Defending” Taiwan (or whether it has the right weaponry) is far too narrow a politico-military framework. Taiwan is not some isolated problem, but a strategically critical component of an Indo-Pacific, indeed global, counter-China strategy. Nonetheless, too many still view Taipei as an irritant to Beijing, an unnecessary burden we are protecting.

This misperception persists despite fundamental changes in Taiwan. It is no longer just the “losing side” in China’s Communist-Nationalist civil war, but a functionally independent country that intends to remain so. Its successful, growing economy is critical to America and the world, and its robust democracy has no appetite for anschluss with China. These are not just fun facts, but are integral to Taipei’s strategic position and its relationship with Washington.

Given its dramatic social, political and economic changes since 1949, Taiwan has little doubt the “one China” concept, like “strategic ambiguity,” is past retirement age. Thirty years of surveys have asked residents how they identify themselves. Those identifying as “Taiwanese” rose from 18% to 62%; “Chinese” fell from 26% to 3%; “both Taiwanese and Chinese” fell from 46% to 32%; and non-responses fell from 11% to 3%. Taiwan’s people have rejected the Shanghai Communique language of “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait” as archaic. Perhaps more than any other reason, this is why “Taiwan” is Asia’s synonym for “Ukraine.”

President Biden has said three times that America would defend Taiwan if it were attacked, and three times his staff has tried to pretend he didn’t. Such confusion has not been limited to Taiwan. So, if Biden intended to reinforce “strategic ambiguity,” he and his administration have done a masterful job. In April, 2021, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified that:

“[if] we were to see a U.S. shift from strategic ambiguity…,to clarify our willingness to intervene in a Taiwan contingency, the Chinese would find this deeply destabilizing….It would solidify Chinese perceptions that the U.S. is bent on constraining China’s rise, including through military force, and would probably cause Beijing to aggressively undermine U.S. interests worldwide. That is our assessment.”

If Biden disagrees with Haines’s assessment, which counsels against a “shift from strategic ambiguity,” he needs to say so. Rather than press-question answers followed by cleanup patrols, Biden must speak comprehensively, bury “strategic ambiguity” unambiguously, and establish plainly that Washington sees Taipei as an ally. Being explicit would benefit both countries, and everyone in the Indo-Pacific who assess China’s menace similarly.

Enlarging Taipei’s military cooperation throughout the Indo-Pacific is today potentially the most effective way to break Beijing’s heavy-handed efforts to quarantine Taiwan politically. Deciding what military assets America should provide Taiwan is crucial, but the bigger picture is to interweave Taiwan into the emerging alliances and coalitions forming to deal with the Chinese threat. That would be real “integrated defense.” Taiwan’s critical geographic position in the “first island chain” between China and the broader Pacific alone explains why. Beyond the East China Sea, Taiwan has inherited territorial claims in the South China Sea; its air and naval assets could play vital roles, alongside other navies, ensuring freedom of navigation and refuting Beijing’s unfounded sovereignty claims across that critical space.

Many such duties for Taiwan come readily to mind. The recent Tokyo meeting of Quad heads of state (India, Japan, Australia, and the United States) launched the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), an excellent initiative in which Taiwan could play a vital part. Intended to “build a faster, wider, and more accurate maritime picture of near-real-time activities in partners’ waters”, the IPMDA contemplates “immediate consultations” with others, which should obviously include Taiwan.

The AUKUS (Australia, UK, US) initiative to produce nuclear-powers submarines for Australia provides another template for mutual cooperation on sophisticated, interoperable defense capabilities in which Taiwan could be seamlessly integrated into larger Indo-Pacific coalitions. There is no imminent need, or potential, to have one comprehensive alliance structure like NATO, which itself grew and evolved over decades. But Taiwan should be a part in whatever steps are being taken in the Indo-Pacific.

It was, therefore, a significant disappointment, and a significant error, not to include Taipei in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), unveiled the same day as IPMDA. Taiwan (under the outdated name “Chinese Taipei”) is, after all a WTO member; it is manifestly insufficient to say the U.S. will continue enhancing bilateral economic relations with Taiwan as if that is a substitute for participation in initiatives like IPEF. If other IPEF members feared Beijing’s reaction to including

Taiwan, it shows they still gravely underestimate China’s threat, and will fear other necessary and appropriate steps in the near future. Such timidity augurs poorly for IPEF’s prospects.

Taiwan’s broader, entirely appropriate regional roles cannot be fulfilled merely with “defensive” weapons against potential Chinese amphibious assaults, whether in traditional or asymmetric capabilities, which Biden’s advisors are pressing. Their focus is too narrow. It undercuts effective U.S. regional strategy, including their own initiatives like IPMDA and IPEF. Properly providing for an expanded, coalition-based military role for Taiwan requires assigning responsibilities to coalition-of-the-willing members and equipping them accordingly. We will then have a realistic context to assess specific weapons systems that will assist not just Taiwan, but the larger regional program to counter Beijing’s belligerence.

Twilight of Turkish Democracy

April 22, 2022
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This article appeared in The Washington Examiner on April 22nd 2022. Click here to view the original article.

Turkish democracy has reached a turning point. 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s two-decade strongman rule has reversed his country’s progress toward a liberal society. On April 6, the Turkish President secured the passing of new electoral laws that will make it more difficult for smaller parties to enter parliament, thereby inhibiting opposition coalitions and allowing him to use state resources to organize his own campaign events. These changes will make it harder for opponents to challenge Erdogan’s tightening grip on the Turkish electoral system. 

As Erdogan prepares to run for re-election in the coming year, the importance of a vibrant and functioning Turkish civil society cannot be overstated. And it could not be more at risk. 

These changes are the latest in a string of moves designed to dismantle what remains of Turkey’s once-promising democratic architecture. Erdogan’s authoritarianism has galvanized resistance in the form of an opposition coalition — the “Nation Alliance” led by the Republican People’s Party — while the dire state of the economic, social, and political situation in Turkey has catalyzed vibrant anti-government protests against inflation and for women’s rights and academic freedom. 

The June 2023 elections will be a crucial test for pro-democracy voices in Turkey to rebuild their institutions. Their success will depend on their ability to bolster Turkey’s most at-risk hallmarks of free and fair elections: transparency, non-interference in voting, loser’s consent, and a free press. 

They face an uphill battle. President Erdogan’s regime has curtailed media access, undermined an open campaign process (though bribery, intimidation, and violence), and is now seeking to further obfuscate the voting process through blatantly undemocratic reforms. 

Erdogan’s campaign to degrade free media has made Turkey one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The government now controls 90% of the country’s media through regulatory bodies like the High Council for Broadcasting; the Press Advertising Council, which allocates state advertising; and the Presidential Directorate for Communications, which issues press cards. 

Under Erdogan, censorship laws have also been wielded as a weapon against online political discourse. A 2020 media law imposes requirements on social media platforms to remove content at the command of the Turkish government or else risk punitive fines. Facebook and Twitter have submitted to Turkish government censorship, closing another avenue for healthy political discourse among Turkish voters. 

Outside of media and online discourse, civil rights activism in general has been targeted by Erdogan’s regime. Reporters Without Borders has said that “questioning authorities and the privileged is now almost impossible” under Erdogan. Opposition parties are also increasingly persecuted by the regime, making effective political resistance increasingly difficult. In 2021, the state Prosecutor argued that the pro-Kurdish HDP party was working toward breaking the “unity of the state.” The Constitutional Court forced the closure of the party and banned 451 elected officials. These most recent reforms take further aim at the opposition, legalizing the use of state resources when the President is campaigning for himself while other ministers will be barred from doing the same. 

In prior elections, Erodgan’s government has conducted systematic campaigns of intimidation. In Ankara, a local election was marred by claims of vote-rigging. Kurdish communities in particular face acts of intimidation and voter suppression. The government militarizes voting centers in the Kurdish region, claiming the security forces must “protect” against the threat of attacks by Kurdish terrorists. The People’s Democratic Party reported that political activities were banned from organizing in the streets. Under threat of intimidation by the state, Kurds are stripped of their right to vote freely. 

In 2019, in what may prove a premonition of the 2023 elections, Erdogan showed that he is willing to directly interfere with democratic processes to try to cling to power. 

He commanded that the Higher Electoral Commission rerun the Istanbul mayoral election after his party lost in spite of systematic irregularities that had actually worked in its favor. Despite his best efforts to intervene, his party also lost the re-run. The subsequent blowback shows it is not a foregone conclusion that Erdogan can get away with electoral interference in 2023. 

The global pandemic and war in Ukraine have precipitated economic volatility and internal political turmoil. However, the free world cannot lose sight of the importance of Turkey’s upcoming elections, which will be watched by many of the world’s autocrats in waiting, keen to find out what they can get away with. Erdogan has systematically undermined every one of Turkey’s major democratic institutions to create a deeply skewed playing field. Holding his regime to account requires coordinated action from the international community, illumination of his thuggish tactics to suppress political minorities, and real consequences should he fail to make meaningful progress to restore civil discourse within Turkey. 

Progress here means releasing imprisoned journalists to restore some semblance of a free press, allowing NGOs to effectively monitor the upcoming election, and cessation of hostilities against and censorship of opposing political voices. The international community should wield sanction power (as it has against Russia), turn-off foreign military sales, and level severe consequences should Erdogan fail to achieve these objectives. 

John Bolton is a former UN ambassador and White House National Security Adviser. He serves as an advisor for the Turkish Democracy Project. 

DETERRENCE, UKRAINE, AND TAIWAN

March 29, 2022
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This article appeared in The Washington Examiner on March 29th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

President Joe Biden has again befuddled America and its allies. Biden not only advocated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s removal from power — until, that is, administration aides quickly “clarified” that he wasn’t doing so. 

No, there’s more. 

Last Thursday, a reporter asked why sanctions decided at NATO’s Brussels summit would make Putin change course when deterrence had failed before. Biden snapped back, “Let’s get something straight. You remember, if you’ve covered me from the beginning, I did not say that in fact the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter. You keep talking about that. Sanctions never deter.” Last month, the White House had to explain away similar presidential remarks about deterrence. 

Biden’s confusion is dangerous, given Russian threats throughout the former Soviet Union, Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region, and the growing nuclear menace of Iran and North Korea. Notwithstanding Biden’s incoherence, we are desperately lacking in the contemporary theory and practice of deterrence. This functioning deterrence was critical to staving off nuclear hostilities in the Cold War and, in fact, significantly debilitated the Soviet Union. 

Today, for example, even top-ranking Pentagon officials refer to “restoring deterrence” merely by tit-for-tat retaliation, not realizing that deterrence is most effectively established by imposing higher costs on an enemy than it inflicted. The post-1945 study of nuclear deterrence was intense. The West’s eventual Cold War victory obscures how dangerous and uncertain those decades were, the outcome hardly inevitable. Enormous amounts of hard work, study, and debate about deterrence were required in universities and institutions such as RAND. These were not mere ivory-tower affairs. Edward Teller, Thomas Schelling, Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter, Charles Hitch, Roland McKean, Herman Kahn, and others were key figures in the contentious debate over how to avoid nuclear wars — or fight and win them if necessary. 

That was only the tip of the iceberg of research and writing undertaken year after year. Analysis covered very detailed and specific concerns, assessing not just the numbers and destructive capacities of nuclear weapons but how to deliver them, such as bombers, ground-based missiles, submarine-launched missiles, or all three, where to deploy the delivery systems, whether defenses against nuclear attacks were possible and how, the costs and relative values of nuclear capabilities versus conventional forces, the nature and culture of the Soviet Union and its leadership, civilian and military, the kinds of conflicts where nuclear options could be viable, and much more. 

However, since the Soviet collapse, during and after the “peace dividend” euphoria, the study of nuclear deterrence and deterrence generally declined precipitously. We are now paying the price. In Ukraine, Biden obviously failed to deter Putin — and perhaps didn’t think he could. America’s credibility was weakened because of failures to follow through on early threats and commitments, such as Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014, and Afghanistan. Biden then mistakenly, gratuitously ruled out the use of U.S. force in early December 2021, with no reciprocal gestures from Russia. 

No other Western leader stepped up, although many options were available that, if undertaken, could have established sufficient deterrence to prevent the invasion. The problem is now worse: Moscow is deterring Washington and intimidating the Western alliance from doing more to halt and defeat Russia’s attack. Ukrainian bravery and Russian incompetence may yet produce results favorable to Kyiv, but if that happy day comes, we should not delude ourselves that it was any more inevitable than the Cold War’s outcome. 

Quite the contrary. Without a doubt, China is attentively watching all aspects of the Ukraine war and its consequences for Beijing’s hegemonic aspirations on its periphery. Taiwan is the most endangered but not the only target in Beijing’s sights. Ukraine is more than ample advance warning that our deterrence thinking is tired, trite, and inadequate. 

We urgently need not just a contemporary version of the Cold War Kremlinology and intelligence we had on the Soviet Union. We need China-specific deterrence theory and analysis, and we need it immediately and compellingly for Taiwan. Specific suggestions for Taiwan abound, including ending “strategic ambiguity,” placing U.S. military forces on Taiwan, and diplomatic recognition, but we haven’t yet found Taiwan’s Teller or Schelling. China’s nuclear, not to mention chemical and biological, weapons capabilities will be critical elements of new deterrence theory and practice, but deterring conventional warfare also needs far more creative thinking. Warfighting strategies are changing rapidly as asymmetrical and hybrid variations evolve. Cyberwarfare is still in its relative infancy, and we have no deterrence theory comparable to Cold War nuclear theory. 

Obviously, enormous work has been done regarding possible conflicts with China. But within America’s political class, marrying that work with deterrence theory and practice is nowhere near adequate. Time is short. 

John Bolton was the national security adviser to former President Donald Trump between 2018 and 2019. Between 2005 and 2006, he was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. 

Entente Multiplies the Threat From Russia and China

March 01, 2022
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This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on February 15th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

It’s been more than 75 years since the U.S. last faced an axis of strategic threats. Fortunately, that axis proved dysfunctional. Had it been otherwise, Japan and Germany would have systematically attacked the Soviet Union, not America, first. 

Our current strategic adversaries, Russia and China, aren’t an axis. They’ve formed an entente, tighter today than any time since de-Stalinization split the communist world. Involving some mutual interests and objectives, displays of support, and coordination, ententes are closer than mere bilateral friendships but discernibly looser than full alliances. The pre-World War I Triple Entente (Russia, France and Britain) is the modern era’s prototype. 

Moscow is junior partner to Beijing, the reverse of Cold War days. The Soviet Union’s dissolution considerably weakened Russia, while China has had enormous economic growth since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Russia’s junior-partner status looks permanent, given disparities in population and economic strength (whatever today’s military balance), but Vladimir Putin seems determined to move closer to China. 

This entente will last. Economic and political interests are mutually complementary for the foreseeable future. Russia is a significant source of hydrocarbons for energy-poor China and a longtime supplier of advanced weapons. Russia has hegemonic aspirations in the former Soviet territory, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. China has comparable aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region and the Middle East (and world-wide in due course). The entente is growing stronger, as China’s unambiguous support for Russia in Europe’s current crisis proves. 

Washington would undoubtedly be more secure if it could sunder the Moscow-Beijing link, but our near-term prospects are limited. This entente, along with many other factors, renders especially shortsighted the common assertion that opposing China’s existential threat to the West requires reducing or even withdrawing U.S. support for allies elsewhere. 

Barack Obama’s “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia produced a decade of variations on the theme that China matters and other threats don’t. Donald Trump agreed, although he wanted primarily to strike “the biggest trade deal in history” or impose tariffs if he couldn’t, along with assaulting China for the “Wuhan virus” when it became politically convenient. Some analysts argue that the global terrorist threat is diminishing and that hydrocarbon resources are becoming less important because of the green-fuel revolution. Both would mean that we could safely reduce U.S. attention to the Middle East. Thus, Joe Biden argued that withdrawing from Afghanistan was required to increase attention to China’s menace. Sen. Josh Hawley and others even believe we shouldn’t be deeply involved in the Eastern Europe crisis, to avoid diverting attention and resources from countering Beijing. 

Such assertions about reduced or redirected U.S. global involvement are strategic errors. They reflect the misperception that our international attention and resources are zero-sum assets, so that whatever notice is paid to interests and threats other than China is wasted. 

This is false, both its underlying zero-sum premise and in underestimating non-Chinese threats. Our problem is failing to devote anything like adequate attention or resources to protecting vital global interests. Political elites (who are noticeably lacking in figures like Truman and Reagan) focus on exotic social theories and domestic economics rather than national-security threats. America’s own shortsightedness, particularly an inadequate defense budget, makes us vulnerable to foreign peril. Washington must pivot not among competing world-wide priorities, but away from domestic navel-gazing. 

Critically, those who exclusively fear China ignore the Russia-China entente. The entente serves to project China’s power through Russia, as Beijing also projects power through North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. Moreover, Beijing closely assesses Washington’s reactions to crises like the one in Ukraine to decide how to structure future provocations. 

Mr. Biden had it exactly backward in Afghanistan. The U.S. withdrawal not only signaled insularity and weakness, but allowed China and Russia to extend their influence in Kabul, Central Asia and the Middle East. Beijing and Moscow thereby also became more confident and assertive. And that’s not to mention that even the Biden administration admits that terrorism’s threat is rising again in Afghanistan. 

Beijing is not a regional threat but a global one. Treating the rest of the world as a third-tier priority, a distraction, the U.S. plays directly into China’s hands. Pivoting to Asia wouldn’t strengthen America against China. It would have precisely the opposite effect and weaken our global posture. 

We need to see this big picture before the Russia-China entente grows up to be an axis. 

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06. 

 

Broken Biden sank the West’s efforts to stop Putin invading Ukraine

February 28, 2022
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This article appeared in The Daily Telegraph on February 28th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

President Joe Biden has explained why he failed to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He admitted that he had no idea what he was doing. 

For months, Nato members and other governments thought they were working to deter Vladimir Putin from unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. The entire debate centred on choosing the most effective measures to convince Putin of the enormous consequences he and Russia would face if they resorted to military force. 

Western leaders asked themselves what combination of preventative actions, threats of economic sanctions and even – in the minds of some, myself included – military force would be the most effective deterrent against a Russian invasion. What measures would persuade Moscow that the costs of any military action would be prohibitive, and more serious for Russia than any possible benefits? 

Today, it is tragically obvious this collective effort failed. Last Thursday, at a White House press conference, we may have learnt why. Biden admitted that he never believed his threats to impose economic sanctions against Russia, and other steps the West might take if the Kremlin “further invaded” Ukraine, would deter Putin. The transcript is admittedly confused, as are so many of Biden’s unscripted remarks, but the meaning is clear. 

A reporter asked: “Sir, sanctions clearly have not been enough to deter Vladimir Putin to this point. What is going to stop him?” Biden answered: “No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.” That was news to Washington and beyond, where people believed their deliberations and preparations were intended to do precisely that. 

Another reporter asked: “If sanctions cannot stop President Putin, what penalty can?” Biden said: “I didn’t say sanctions couldn’t stop him.” Perhaps stunned at Biden contradicting his own words, uttered just moments before, the reporter tried again: “But you’ve been talking about the threat of these sanctions for several weeks now.” Biden interrupted: “Yes, but the threat of the sanctions and imposing the sanctions and seeing the effect of the sanctions are two different things… He’s going to begin to see the effect of the sanctions.” If that wasn’t bad enough, Biden said repeatedly that “this is going to take time”, as though every day in Ukraine isn’t agonising. 

Translating Biden’s answers into sensible English leads to disturbing conclusions. Possibly, he simply doesn’t understand what deterrence is, and that it almost always includes credible threats of future punishment to affect an adversary’s current actions. It hardly inspires confidence in US leadership when its President fails to grasp the vital concept that kept the West safe during the Cold War’s nuclear standoff. Yesterday, Putin showed what he thought of Biden’s leadership by placing Russia’s nuclear deterrent on high alert – a provocative move, to say the least. 

It may be that Biden was never confident Putin could be deterred, certainly not by threats alone. In that case, unless Biden was prepared to accept the inevitable devastation that an invasion of Ukraine would cause, he should have spared no effort to develop additional steps to prevent it. He did not, despite widespread, urgent advice that the sanctions he threatened were insufficient, and that real-time costs had to be imposed on Putin before he initiated military action. 

The rubble in Biden’s mind is what it is. We should not await improvement. Instead, we immediately need new ideas that can change the direction of events and impact Putin and Russia. 

The Ukrainian people are certainly doing their part. They are fighting hard and courageously, and their spirit is high. The contemptuous riposte of a small outpost in the Black Sea (“Russian warship, go f— yourself”) reminds us all of General McAuliffe’s equally defiant response to German demands he surrender during the Battle of the Bulge: “Nuts!” 

One new idea is for Nato and EU countries simply to bar entry to any Russian citizens. Such a visa ban is clear, sweeping, immediate and readily enforceable. This would be far more shocking to Russians than sanctions against a small number of high-ranking targets. (Now under both Russian and Chinese sanctions myself, I can say confidently they don’t affect me at all. I only regret I didn’t have any assets Russia and China could have seized!) We could go further and expel Russians already in Western countries. 

Some will say this is too harsh and disruptive. Really? Ask Ukraine what harsh and disruptive mean. The West has failed to deter Russia’s attack, and its post-invasion sanctions have so far been pinpricks, hardly even touching Russia’s critical energy sector. If there are better ideas than a visa ban, let’s get them out in public. Otherwise, we will just be sitting back watching the casualty lists get longer. 

John Bolton is a former US national security adviser 

Gradual Sanctions Against Russia are a Loser

February 27, 2022

This article appeared in The New York Post on February 27th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

The Biden Administration has been explicit that it is pursuing a strategy of “graduated escalation” in imposing sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine. This approach is virtually certain to be less effective in imposing economic hardship on Russia than a more robust effort, thereby prolonging Ukraine’s agony and postponing Russia’s isolation. Gradual escalation in economic warfare carries precisely the same risks as in kinetic warfare; the enemy has a say in both cases. Biden could be introducing us to to the Vietnam of economic sanctions.

Indeed, to all outwards appearances, Biden’s graduated-escalation policy is motivated largely by domestic American political considerations, especially regarding Russia’s energy sector. With U.S. inflation high and rising, economic pain at home is the last thing the White House wants, especially soaring oil and gas prices. Consumers feel the squeeze not only when they fill their gas tanks, but in their other purchases that require transporting good to stores or front porches, especially food.

A little history on sanctions and recent U.S. foreign policy. It says something about today’s Democratic Party that Woodrow Wilson’s views are too hard-line to contemplate. Wilson, amidst his prolonged reveries about the League of Nations, strongly advocated using economic sanctions in lieu of military force to resolve international disputes. He called sanctions “a peaceful, silent deadly remedy,” and “a hand upon the throat of the offending nation.” Too much for the Biden Administration.

America’s experience with sanctions has been mixed, and suggests several conditions for effectiveness. First, sanctions should be imposed swiftly and by surprise if possible, to prevent targets from taking precautionary or protective steps to mitigate the sanctions’ impact. That obviously did not happen with Russia, international sanctions having been threatened for months, and even if not known in precise detail, easily imaginable. If Russia is not prepared for the measures already imposed so far, the Kremlin is guilty of governance malpractice.

Second, sanctions should be as sweeping and comprehensive as possible, since no sanctions will be completely effective. Lesser measures produce lesser results. Phrases like “targeted sanctions” sound good in diplomatic communiques, but broad-gauge sanctions are far more likely to cause sustained pain. Even history’s most-extensive sanctions, the UN Security Council measures against Iraq after invading Kuwait, did not ultimately succeed in forcing Saddam Hussein out. Concern for second-order impacts of sanctions on America’s economy is warranted, but sanctions should maximize harm to the target, with other measures separately protecting the domestic economy. Dialing down sanctions to protect the sanction-imposer does far more to shield the target than Biden realizes.

Finally, sanctions should go for the jugular. With Russia, its very existence as a major threat relies on the revenues from its oil and gas production and exports. As some wags have said, it’s more a big gas station than a real national economy. Russian earnings from hydrocarbon sales internationally totaled 60% of its export revenues in 2019, and forty percent of its national-government budget. Russia’s dependence on oil and gas revenues has grown steadily over the last eight years.

The Biden Administration argues that blocking Russian hydrocarbon sales would not immediately damage Russia because of currency reserves accumulated in anticipation of just such sanctions. Of course, many more non-hydrocarbon sanctions are also required than currently announced, also hastening expending the reserves. The aggregate effect of more robust and comprehensive sanctions, including particularly oil-and-gas sanctions, would strangle Russia’s government and broader economy.

The Administration’s misguided graduated-escalation strategy and failure to strike Russia’s energy sector unfortunately reinforce one another, providing Putin a lifeline. Postponing any sanctions now, especially against energy, only sustains Moscow’s war machine. If Biden wants to keep U.S. hydrocarbon prices down for political reasons, he should consider the supply side: U.S. production increases, quickly available through already-existing horizontal-drilling and fracking infrastructure, could substantially mitigate price rises on American consumers.

Europeans may have a harder time, entirely through their own fault, and contrary to U.S. warnings dating to Ronald Reagan against depending on Russian energy sources. And what better opportunity or higher motive for Germany and other governments to force their economies toward green energy than supporting the courageous Ukrainian people. No one is asking for unnecessary sacrifice, but no anti-aggression policy in Ukraine is cost free. That is the reality of a globalized economy. Otherwise, the West’s policy is simply, “we support Ukraine, but not when it is inconvenient.”

It’s time to squeeze the Kremlin hard, not engage in semiotic warfare, gradual escalation, and pearl clutching. Drive a stake through Russia’s energy sector. Now.