Pinboard (jerryking)
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recent bookmarks from jerrykingOpinion: Conflict is the new normal2024-02-25T21:31:17+00:00
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/opinions/opinion-conflict-is-the-new-normal-zakaria/index.html
jerryking>threats<< to the maritime underpinnings of that order are on the horizon. Russia and China have both been building up the capacity to cut >>undersea cables<<, which are now an integral part of the “cloud” on which data is stored across the globe. If the United States cannot deter a **sub-state actor** like the Houthis from its disruptive behavior in the Red Sea, what chance does it have against powers like China and Russia?.......There are ways to address all these problems. But it requires a >>paradigm shift<< in the Western world. We are now in a high-security age. That means governments have to spend significantly more on defense — and spend more efficiently.
The US took on the role as guarantor of the **freedom of the seas** [i.e. = "freedom of navigation"] in 1945 [i.e. = "postwar"]and has been master of the seas ever since. In the 1980s, it had almost 600 ships, but today it has fewer than 300. Europe has lost its military industrial complex, which allowed it to produce munitions on a near-constant basis.
In these new, dangerous times, congressional Republicans have decided to return to >>isolationism<<, hoping that they can bury their heads in the sand and the problems will somehow go away.
]]>Benjamin_Netanyahu conflicts geopolitics GOP new_normal one-offs Ukraine China Fareed_Zakaria freedom_of_navigation Houthis international_system isolationism maritime non-state_actors paradigm_shifts Russia threats undersea_cables Pax_Americana post_WWIIhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:0fe814159eec/Smallness and separateness will not do2024-01-06T01:28:13+00:00
https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2023/12/31/smallness-and-separateness-will-not-do/
jerryking>Caribbean<< nations constituting the Caribbean Community (>>CARICOM<<).
This juncture prompts the nations of the region to >>take stock<< of the strides made, recognize the opportunities neglected in the pursuit of individual sovereignty,[i.e.="pooling"] and confront the dual challenge of advancing **domestic well-being** while strengthening their >>global standing<<.
In this pivotal moment, it is evident that the more pressing threats to CARICOM’s progress emanate not solely from >>climate change<<, but primarily from the lack of >>social cohesion<< and political >>consensus<< both within CARICOM nations and between them.
The choice before CARICOM countries now is the same one that has always confronted them: either pursue a closer union that would make them stronger together or a march alone, knowing they would assuredly be weaker, but hoping gambling on good fortune to muddle through.
So far, CARICOM countries, or at least, their >>political leadership<<, have gambled on their ingenuity to maintain the trappings of >>sovereignty<< while conceding autonomy to external forces, which, for one reason or another, prop them up, but maintain their dependence.
Since the >>1960s<<, when Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Barbados embarked on separate pathways of >>independence<<, they and the other CARICOM countries that followed them, have had fluctuating periods of economic and social development, but none of them has become independent. They have paid a steep price for cherishing **individual sovereignty**, manifested in their **smallness** and in their lack of capacity to exercise influence in the world.
The reality is stark: despite commendable strides on the domestic front, CARICOM nations remain on the fringes of global significance.[i.e. = "irrelevance"] Economic growth, for the majority, is stunted,[i.e.="low growth"] shackled by burdensome levels of unsustainable >>debt<<. **External shocks**, such as the reverberations of the COVID-19 pandemic and the volatility of commodity prices, further strain their fiscal capacities
The opportunity missed lies in the aftermath of the >>dissolution<< of the >>West Indian Federation<<, as each nation opted for the **allure** of >>self-reliance<<. They made the mistake that the United States of America did not. As US historian Carol Berkin put it, the 13 former British colonies formed a union “on the firm conviction that a strong government representing all the peoples of a Federal State was the surest path to economic growth and prosperity, to civil law and order, and to winning the respect and recognition from foreign nations necessary to insure America’s continued independence.” And so, it turned out to be.
While over the years, in recognition of their weakness, CARICOM countries have established joint institutions and collective machinery, they have fallen short of creating a legally binding, political umbrella that would be an effective instrument for dealing with critical domestic and foreign challenges.
Importantly, CARICOM leaders failed to do what the founding fathers of the US knew to be essential. They failed to do the hard work of governance which is to create a nationalism built on >>shared identity<< as citizens of a united Caribbean. Thus, the pursuit of separate sovereignties still hampers the strength of CARICOM countries in economic, financial, and diplomatic arenas.
++None should believe that periods of economic good fortune that reflects itself in episodes of economic growth are sufficient when underlying structures of weakness remain. Eventually, it is the fundamental weaknesses not the occasional successes that determine national viability.++
CARICOM needs to reignite the flame of genuine independence. To do so CARICOM countries must reevaluate the concept of a Caribbean Single Market and Economy,(CSME) fostering regional cooperation that transcends national borders.
In addition to external challenges, CARICOM countries face a significant hurdle in the form of internal political rivalries both within individual states and among the member nations. The relentless pursuit of political power and influence often takes precedence over the crucial need for social cohesion and national consensus—foundational elements for achieving fair and balanced regional development.
While diverse opinions on policy matters are essential in democratic societies, the detrimental practice of dismissing opposing views solely for narrow political gains undermines the very essence of progress. It becomes imperative to recognize that prioritizing regionalism over nationalism is the key to fostering growth, fortifying economies, and building the necessary capacity for true independence.
A looming concern threatening Caribbean stability is the alarming surge in >>gang-related violence<<, prominently evident in Haiti. The cultivation of gangs is not merely a local predicament but a symptom of >>organized crime<< seeking to destabilize the Caribbean as hubs for illicit activities. Addressing this menace necessitates a united front, built upon >>social cohesion<< and national consensus, lest it becomes an insurmountable impediment to economic and political integration.
The time is opportune for leaders across CARICOM, spanning government, opposition parties, the private sector, unions, and academia, to reignite the vision of >>deeper integration<<. The emphasis should unequivocally be to pursue regional development and national interests on parallel tracks, recognising that each can contribute to the other. Pursuing national concerns to the exclusion of regional development is self-defeating.
Except for Haiti, the lessons ingrained in CARICOM’s shared history since the 1930s, underscore the significance of >>interdependence<<, preserving a distinctive Caribbean identity, and collectively acquiring the capital and capacity requisite for the region to stand as a robust, respected, and influential area globally.
The road ahead demands a paradigm shift in our political culture — one that places social cohesion and national interest at the forefront. By transcending political rivalries and fostering a spirit of collaboration, CARICOM nations can harness their collective strength to navigate the complexities of 2024 and beyond.
The vision of >>independence<< within interdependence remains an attainable beacon, promising a future of prosperity for the diverse and dynamic nations that constitute the Caribbean Community.
It is not beyond the creativity of the region to create a constitutional mechanism in which CARICOM countries can assign to a central agency, composed of representatives of their states, to sustain unity that benefits all. Separateness and smallness will not do.]]>'60s 21st._century binding_agents Caribbean Caricom climate_change consensus crossroads debt deeper_integration domestic_priorities economic_sovereignty gangs geopolitics going_it_alone Haiti hope_is_not_a_strategy illusions interdependence irrelevance low_growth muddling_through nationalism national_interests organized_crime political_leadership regional_approaches regional_integration Ronald_Sanders self-reliance shared_identity small_states social_cohesion sovereignty taking_stock West_Indian_Federation Barbados CSME dissolutions exogenous_shocks global_standings Guyana independence Jamaica pooling Trinidad_&_Tobagohttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:36a2c170fff9/How the U.S. Stumbled Into Using Chips as a Weapon Against China - WSJ2023-09-11T00:38:35+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/how-the-u-s-stumbled-into-using-chips-as-a-weapon-against-china-ec37e32?page=1
jerrykingAPNSA ASML choke_points concentration_of_power countermeasures decoupling doubling_down economic_warfare export_controls globalization Huawei improvisation intellectual_property interdependence Nvidia policy sanctions self-sufficiency semiconductors supply_chains technology trade_wars Xi_Jinping ZTE China China_rising digital_decapitation geopolitics new_tech_Cold_War policy_tools security_&_intelligence U.S.-China_relationshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:5ccb54629594/Hillary Clinton Goes Back to School, Teaching at Columbia2023-09-08T16:53:37+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/nyregion/hillary-clinton-columbia-university.html
jerryking>At Columbia University, the former secretary of state is teaching a class and starting an institute on global decision-making. Donald Trump barely gets a mention.<<
The class is offered through Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, a graduate school where tuition is more than $65,000 per year. “Inside the Situation Room,” as the class is called, is part of a broader partnership between Mrs. Clinton and Dr. Yarhi-Milo, the school’s dean and a professor of international relations who studies the psychology and mechanics of decision-making.......Together, the women are also establishing Columbia’s new Institute of Global Politics, where an inaugural group of fellows includes Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine; Stacey Abrams, the Georgia voting rights activist and former candidate for governor; and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO and chairman of Google. The fellows will work with students and scholars to mesh research and practical experience in the hopes of solving social and political problems on a global scale....The class — named for the White House command center — is meant to deconstruct how choices with geopolitical consequences are made, through the lens of Dr. Yarhi-Milo’s data and Mrs. Clinton’s experiences......Lectures will focus on topics like whether groups make better decisions than individuals and how public opinion influences foreign policy. Among the assigned readings: “How to Stand Up to a Dictator” by Maria Ressa, and sections from Mrs. Clinton’s 2014 memoir “Hard Choices,” in which she recounted her years as secretary of state during the Obama administration.........Dr. Yarhi-Milo told the students that they would have no shortage of contemporary foreign policy crises to unwind: the war in Ukraine, the spy balloon that flew across the United States and tension in Taiwan, to name a few. To consider how leaders reacted, students would read and discuss >>game theory<<, behavioral psychology, time pressure and other elements that **shape decisions**..........Mrs. Clinton shared several stories, including one that actually did take place in the Situation Room. In early 2009, after she had been nominated by then President-elect Barack Obama as secretary of state but not yet confirmed by the Senate, she received word from Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state under President George W. Bush, that she should report to the Situation Room.
Mrs. Clinton and other members of the incoming administration met with Bush officials, who briefed them on what they considered to be credible threats of attacks on the inauguration and Mr. Obama. This was her first time in the Situation Room in an official capacity. “You’re pulled in; oftentimes you don’t know there is a >>crisis<< until you walk in the Situation Room,” she said. “It’s not yet in the headlines and sometimes it never is [i.e. = "crisis quietly averted"], which is not all bad.”...........At the end of class on Wednesday, students were invited to ask questions. One asked about gender disparities in foreign policy; another asked about the potential use of artificial intelligence in diplomacy.
]]>appointments Colleges_&_Universities Columbia crisis crisis_management curriculum decision_making diplomacy game_theory geopolitics grand_strategy Hilary_Clinton Ivy_League strategic_thinking strategy teaching U.S.foreign_policy hard_choiceshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:d5f5a6e724cb/Opinion: Look beyond grocers such as Loblaw: Food insecurity is going to get a lot worse2023-03-10T16:22:56+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-food-insecurity-inflation-climate-change/
jerryking>Political theatre aside, there's no going back to lower food prices, and as geopolitical tensions rise around the world, it's likely that food insecurity will worsen.<<
Food is getting so expensive that grocery executives such as Loblaw Cos. Ltd. chairman and president Galen G. Weston are being hauled before a >>House of Commons<< committee this week – after dodging a previous informal invite.
But cast aside this bit of **political theatre** and the role of Canadian grocers. Not only is this issue so much bigger than them, everything is also going to get much worse......There’s inflation, yes, plus geopolitical clashes and climate change – three issues that are raising >>anxiety<< levels around the world......>>inflation<<, >>geopolitics<< and >> climate change << may seem discrete, but they are combining [i.e. - "compounded"/"interconnections"] in ways that could push **food insecurity** to crisis levels by the end of this decade.
(1) even as central banks raise interest rates in an attempt to get inflation under control, food prices are not going to fall back to where they were. In other words, a return to a 2-per-cent inflation target won’t return the price of meat, bread or produce back to 2019 levels. It just means that food prices will continue to rise, only a bit more slowly.
(2) Re. geopolitics. Everything changed when Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. Until that point, the global political and economic order had mostly been settled. The end of the Cold War in the late 80s ushered in a new era of political co-operation and trade liberalization. That era has now abruptly ended......Famine loomed over many African countries as a result. Global commodity prices skyrocketed.....with tensions building between China and the United States, not to mention troubling developments in places such as North Korea and the Middle East, it’s likely that the world will be rocked by more military tension. That could further disrupt trade in agriculture, and in turn, intensify food insecurity.
(3) the impact of climate change and more **severe weather events**.....More severe drought, more devastating flooding, more torturous heat and more crippling cold: All are having an increased negative impact on agricultural production around the world.
Food is a >>necessity<<. Along with fresh drinking water and shelter, food is one of the few things humans absolutely require to live...........agriculture and food insecurity need to be addressed at least as urgently – if not even more so – than the other concerns mentioned here. It is a complex system in which agriculture is both affected by, and contributing to, the worries of geopolitics, inflation and climate change.
**Policy prescriptions** are also complex.....few industries have been as politically charged & motivated as agriculture. Depending on the region, the type of agriculture and the political backdrop, farmers have often been either kingmakers or pawns in the halls of >>legislative power<<.
>>Industrial policies<< to help nurture and sustain agricultural production are needed urgently, and not just for political expediency...... to increase domestic food production.......that sensible path forward might lead toward smaller, more environmentally sustainable and more local food production.......The world is a troubled place at the moment. So many issues and concerns are creating public anxiety...... And while these issues are serious, they will all be made far worse in a world of bare grocery shelves, food >>hoarding<< and empty stomachs.
]]>agriculture anxiety CEOs climate_change complex_systems compounded disruption extreme_weather_events famines food food_security geopolitics grocers hoarding House_of_Commons industrial_policies inflation interconnections invasions Loblaws necessity performative_theatrics policy_choices policy_positions Russia supermarkets Todd_Hirsch Ukraine legislative_powerhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:cda611614f19/Opinion | A War With China Would Be Unlike Anything Americans Faced Before2023-02-28T12:59:13+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/opinion/a-war-with-china-would-reach-deep-into-american-society.html
jerryking> “The Next Major War: Can the U.S. and Its Allies Win Against China?” by Dr. Ross Babbage <<
A major war in the Indo-Pacific is probably more likely now than at any other time since World War II.
The most probable spark is a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. President Xi Jinping of China has said unifying Taiwan with mainland China “must be achieved.” His Communist Party regime has become sufficiently strong — militarily, economically and industrially — to take Taiwan and directly challenge the United States for regional supremacy.
The United States has vital **strategic interests** at stake. A successful Chinese >>invasion<< of Taiwan would punch a hole in the U.S. and allied chain of defenses in the region, seriously undermining America’s strategic position in the Western Pacific, and would probably cut off U.S. access to world-leading >>semiconductors<< and other critical components manufactured in Taiwan....Joe Biden has stated repeatedly that he would defend Taiwan.
Washington also need to avoid stumbling carelessly into a war with China because it would be unlike anything ever faced by Americans. U.S. citizens have grown accustomed to sending their military off to fight far from home. But China is a different kind of foe — a military, economic and technological power capable of making a war felt in the American homeland.....the challenges facing the United States are serious, and its citizens need to become better aware of them.
The military scenario alone is daunting: China would probably launch a lightning air, sea and cyber assault to seize control of key strategic targets on Taiwan within hours, before the United States and its allies could intervene...........China also has more than 1,350 ballistic and cruise missiles poised to strike U.S. and allied forces in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and American-held territories in the Western Pacific. Then there’s the sheer difficulty the United States would face waging war thousands of miles across the Pacific against an >>adversary<< that has the world’s largest navy and Asia’s biggest air force.........U.S. military planners would prefer to fight a conventional war. But the Chinese are prepared to wage a much broader type of warfare that would reach deep into American society.....China has increasingly viewed the United States as mired in political and social crises......Mr. Xi evidently feels that America’s greatest weakness is on its home front.....he is ready to exploit this with a multi-pronged campaign to divide Americans and undermine and exhaust their will to engage in a prolonged conflict — what China’s military calls **enemy disintegration.**......China has built formidable political warfare and >>cyber warfare<< capabilities designed to penetrate, manipulate and disrupt the United States and allied governments, media organizations, businesses and civil society........China can be expected to use this to disrupt communications and spread.....>>disinformation<<. The aim would be to foster confusion, division and distrust and hinder decision making. China might compound this with electronic and probably some physical attacks on satellites or related infrastructure.......These operations would most likely be accompanied by cyber offensives to disrupt electricity, gas, water, transport, health care and other public services......China could also weaponize its dominance of supply chains and shipping. The impact on Americans would be profound........The U.S. economy is heavily dependent on Chinese resources and manufactured goods, including many with military applications, and American consumers rely on moderately priced Chinese-made imports for everything from electronics to furniture to shoes.............U.S. supplies of many products could soon run low, paralyzing a vast range of businesses. It could take months to restore trade, and emergency rationing of some items would be needed. Inflation and unemployment would surge, especially in the period in which the economy is repurposed for the war effort, which might include some automobile manufacturers switching to building aircraft or food-processing companies converting to production of priority pharmaceuticals. Stock exchanges in the United States and other countries might temporarily halt trading because of the enormous economic uncertainties.....the United States is no longer able to outproduce China in advanced weapons and other supplies needed in a war, which the current one in Ukraine has made clear. Provision of military hardware to Kyiv has depleted American stocks of some key military systems. Rebuilding them could take years. Yet the war in Ukraine is relatively small-scale compared with the likely demands of a major war in the Indo-Pacific.......So what needs to be done?.......On the military front, the United States should accelerate programs already underway to strengthen and disperse American forces in the Western Pacific to make them less vulnerable to attacks by China. At home, a concerted effort must be made to find ways to better protect U.S. traditional and social media against Chinese disinformation. >>Supply chains<< of some critical goods and services need to be reconfigured to shift production to the United States or allied nations, and the United States must pursue a longer-term strategic drive to restore its dominance in global manufacturing.......Building a stronger deterrence by addressing such weaknesses is the best means of averting war. But this will take time. Until then, it is important for Washington to avoid provocations and maintain a civil discourse with Beijing.
]]>adversaries assume_the_worst Beijing books capabilities challenges China China_rising cyber_warfare disinformation endgame geopolitics howto Indo-Pacific invasions manufacturers maritime military-industrial_complex missiles national_interests PACOM rising_powers reshoring semiconductors South_China_Sea supply_chains Taiwan U.S._Navy warfare Washington_D.C. Xi_Jinping unprecedentedhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:ffd8cc23b812/Balloon Incident Reveals More Than Spying as Competition With China Intensifies2023-02-09T19:01:32+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/05/us/politics/balloon-china-spying-united-states.html
jerrykingChina China_rising David_Sanger espionage geopolitics security_&_intelligence surveillancehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:4803622efeaa/Decoupling spells an end to corporate opacity | Financial Times2022-12-13T04:08:01+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/a7bccbb8-45df-4571-9798-337f8c0ebfaa
jerryking>As global supply chains shift, an avalanche of information could be used to hold companies to account<<
Decoupling is everywhere. ......multiple announcements on this front......Apple’s move to diversify production away from China’s “iPhone city......TSMC’s tripling of its investment in US domestic chipmaking.........Brussels’ announcement that it would offer its own subsidies to speed up local production of clean technology..........The reasons for these shifts ranged from anti-government protests and factory disruptions in China, to national security and domestic labour concerns, to the cost of fuel or the emissions from a long transport route.
...........But the bottom line is that the >>diversification<<, regionalization [i.e. = "regional_approaches"] and >>localization<< of global >>supply chains<< has only just begun, and will probably broaden and deepen in the coming years...............lawmakers are increasingly incentivizing or insisting on it, plus there is >>a burgeoning group of companies providing the services and data to make it possible.<<...............From risk consultancies to big credit rating agencies, law firms to investment houses, and any number of start-ups designed to help companies map or even recreate alternative supply chains, everyone wants a piece of the decoupling pie.........Re:Build, is a Massachusetts-based company that invests in localized manufacturing start-ups and helps existing companies rethink their supply chains. Re:Build is working with “a large number of companies that are developing new hardware in areas like clean tech, the automotive industries, life sciences and building trades, and want to make it locally”. [i.e. = "Made in America"].....This is not only because of the >>geopolitical<< climate, but because they want to avoid IP theft or capture the benefits of faster innovation or quicker >>time to market<< by producing “local for local”.......Then, there are the large multinationals that come to Re:Build because they are in decoupling industries, such as technology, but have “forgotten how to make their own secret sauce”. Essentially this means that they’ve done so much complex outsourcing, they literally have no idea how to make their own products by themselves anymore.......... Indeed, they may not even know who is making those products now (or investing in them), because of the sheer magnitude of corporate globalization over the past half century, particularly between the US and China. Business leaders need detailed risk maps to begin to understand their own supply chains beyond the most surface level.......... ...data entrepreneurs are stepping in. One of the most interesting is WireScreen, part of The Wire Digital Inc, a US-based news and data platform focused on China and global supply chains. It tracks 10 mn companies registered to do business in China, and what it reveals speaks volumes about how far decoupling has to go. The company, which has raised $14 mn from investors including Sequoia,....................The Wire uses open source data from China’s own state registry of corporations to create a 360-degree map of every major public and private company operating in the country. This includes not only big Chinese state firms, but midsized suppliers, and global multinationals from Boeing to Google. It then translates, cleans and cross references the data with other sources, to reveal the shareholders who ultimately benefit [i.e. = "cui bono?"] , as well as the business networks and associations of these firms.............The results are shocking. It is quite common, for example, to find evidence of companies under sanctions partnering with US firms, or >>blacklisted<< companies controlling multiple non-blacklisted affiliates, meaning that they could legally import goods and services for their sanctioned investor or parent. While the Wire can’t “see” violations because it doesn’t have trading records, it does regularly demo the platform to government officials. There’s plenty for them to be concerned about, even beyond decoupling. For example, the data is starting to paint a picture of wealth offshoring to places such as the British Virgin Islands............WireScreen says that the platform currently holds less than 10% of the data collected by his team. Even so, it’s clear that supply chains are “the string that you can pull on to expose the opacity of global corporations”, as he puts it. No wonder the bulk of the nearly $3 mn in data subscriptions to the Wire so far come from federal contractors and regulatory agencies, law firms, think-tanks and risk consultancies........... Every corporate leader or investor should take note. The people who make the rules that are shaping the post-neoliberal world [i.e. = "regulators"] , and those who help companies abide by them [i.e. = "law firms/legal depts./compliance depts."], are compiling increasingly detailed pictures of how companies operate across borders. It’s one thing for politicians to push decoupling, or even pass laws that require it. It’s another for everyone to have access to data that proves whether or not companies [i.e. = "potential partners"] are abiding by the letter of the law. I suspect that this new transparency will expose opportunities and challenges that business leaders and politicians are only beginning to imagine.
]]>analytics Apple blacklists China compliance credit-ratings cui_bono? data data_collection decoupling defence_contractors dislocations disruption diversification EU federal_contractors geopolitics global_economy globalization joined-up law_firms localization logistics manufacturers Made_in_America mapping massive_data_sets multinationals network_risk opacity post-neoliberal_world Rana_Foroohar regional_approaches regulators relationships reshoring risk_consultancies rule-setting rule-writing sanctions sanctions_&_embargo_breaches start_ups supply_chains supply_chain_risk think_tanks traceability transparency TSMC WireScreen time-to-markethttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:f9a367f735ad/Engineers From Taiwan Bolstered China’s Chip Industry. Now They’re Leaving.2022-11-17T00:09:54+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/16/business/taiwan-china-semiconductors.html
jerryking> The lure of money and new opportunities enticed Taiwanese engineering talent to work in China’s semiconductor plants. The looming Cold War in tech changed the calculus.<<
For many, the strict pandemic measures have been tiresome. Geopolitics has made the job even more fraught, with China increasingly vocal about staking its claim on Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy. The Taiwanese government has begun to discourage local engineers from going to China, concerned that they were taking proprietary information with them........The prospects that enticed Taiwanese engineering talent to China, feeding a pipeline for lagging Chinese semiconductor companies hoping to compete with global rivals, are rapidly diminishing.
Semiconductors are now vital >>strategic assets<< in the pitched geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China. As Washington tries to crimp China’s capacity to make advanced chips, Taiwan, the world’s biggest producer of high-end semiconductors, finds itself at the center of what some are calling the 21st century’s version of the arms race. While President Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, adopted a warmer tone at their first face-to-face presidential meeting this week, it was clear that Taiwan remained a serious point of contention between the two countries.
Taiwan itself faces increasing unease in Washington. The secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo, and others have said that, even though the United States continues to support Taiwan militarily, it needs to be less dependent on the island democracy for the chips needed in sophisticated weapons.....Sweeping bans imposed by the Biden administration last month targeting China’s chip industry have put the island’s premier chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, on the front line of likely disruptions to the global supply chain.....the Chinese government, which is pushing its own strategy of self-reliance in key areas like semiconductors, is expected to retaliate in ways that could punish TSMC.......The Chinese government, for example, could bar the American companies that build data centers in China from using high-end chips manufactured by TSMC.....Washington has barred Chinese and Taiwanese engineers with U.S. citizenship or a green card from working in China’s chip-making facilities. The ban will force about 200 Chinese and Taiwanese engineers to either leave China or give up their U.S. citizenship........For years, China poached Taiwan’s semiconductor engineers, who often have Ph.D.s and are essential to keeping the world’s most advanced chip-making factories humming.....A handful of senior Taiwanese executives also joined rival Chinese firms, including the country’s most prestigious, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, or SMIC, which is based in Shanghai.......With China making industry advances, Taiwan has begun to take measures to stop the brain drain and protect a core economic driver.....Under regulations introduced in early 2021, headhunters in Taiwan are barred from advertising jobs in China’s microchip industry.........The Chinese companies were suspected of being fronts created to recruit local engineers for jobs in China; more than 40 cases of poaching workers and stealing secrets have been prosecuted since last year, the government said in September.......Much of the poaching involved Chinese companies trying to capture Taiwanese >>expertise<<, applying that knowledge in their plants and then ditching the workers,.....“China’s corporate culture is just three words: ‘Raise and kill,.....
]]>Beijing China China_rising citizenship dual_citizenship engineering expertise geopolitics industrial_policies intellectual_property new_tech_Cold_War poaching proprietary rivalries semiconductors SMIC talent_flight theft TSMC U.S. U.S.-China_relations Washington_D.C. strategic_assetshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:73986d3fa1ab/Opinion | Biden Just Clobbered China’s Chip Industry2022-10-22T03:51:13+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/opinion/biden-china-semiconductor-chip.html
jerrykingASML books China Commerce_Department digital_decapitation economic_warfare embargoes export_controls geopolitics Joe_Biden policymakers precision sanctions semiconductors shortages supply_chains Farhad_Manjoohttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:2580933f9772/A Homeric Age of Statesmanship - WSJ2022-08-29T02:36:55+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-homeric-age-of-republican-statesmanship-kissinger-shultz-baker-foreign-policy-nation-state-human-rights-universities-realism-cold-war-reagan-11661514100?mod=hp_trending_now_opn_pos5
jerrykingCold_War Cyrus_Vance diplomacy geopolitics George_Shultz Henry_Kissinger human_rights James_A._Baker_III Jimmy_Carter national_interests realism realpolitik Robert_Kaplan Ronald_Reagan Secretary_of_State statesmanship U.S.foreign_policy Washington_D.C.https://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:4dbb0cf23d93/The autocratic world will split before the west does | Financial Times2022-08-23T21:44:37+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/264346fc-3ff0-4d47-8d63-88c4605cd597?shareType=nongift
jerryking>energy<< problem. Even if, adjusting for all that, it is still right to freeze them out, the US will have to form relations of convenience with other unpleasant regimes in future. Or maintain existing ones. It cannot do so if it commits to a “democracies versus autocracies” framing of the world. Fears abound of western exhaustion with the Ukraine war. The historical record suggests the authoritarian world will fracture first: if not over this, then something else. While liberal countries tend to be liberal in much the same way, there are flavours of autocracy, and they pair badly. The ethnic chauvinist hates the universal Marxist. The cleric hates the colonel. Two theocracies of different denominations hate each other. “Axis” was a kind word for a group of second world war belligerents — Germany, Italy and Japan — that rarely viewed each other as racial or civilisational equals. Even where the ideologies match, raw egoism is the spoiler. A Kremlin grievance with Washington is that Russia is not viewed there as a great power. Its answer: to throw in its lot with a China that has 10 times the population and no obvious delicacy towards junior partners. The Sino-Soviet split began within a decade of the start of the cold war. Who sees this Russian-Chinese tryst lasting much longer? It is not enough for the US to wait things out, though. It must be an active stoker of divisions.[i.e. = "realpolitik"] But that will require domestic politics that doesn’t go into meltdown each time the president uses cynical means to secure a liberal end. The oddest thing about US >>statecraft<< is the combination of brilliant tactical flexibility and a refusal to acknowledge it in retrospect. The idea has taken hold that America got where it is by “standing up for our values”. In fact, the “rules-based liberal order” is also the accretion of lots of >>moral compromises<< in the past. With a nuclear monopoly and a vast share of world economic output, there is a case for Harry Truman in mid-1945 being the most powerful human being who has ever lived. And still he didn’t feel able to purge Germany of all its ancien regime. He kept the emperor of Japan on the Chrysanthemum Throne. The CIA that he invented wasn’t above a bought election or coup d’état. If the US made moral accommodations at the all-time peak of its powers, how much more expedient will it have to be now? Too expedient to avoid domestic rancour, it seems. The cries from the left (“sellout”) and right (“appeasement”) are distinct, but amount to the same constraint on foreign policy. The US, Nixon included, squandered resources and intellectual effort in the early cold war on the mistaken notion of “monolithic communism”. It shouldn’t fall for monolithic autocracy. Eventual victory lies in sensing then exploiting the cracks within illiberalism. While ethical squeamishness is natural, the higher ethic is to win.
]]>anti-liberal authoritarianism autocracies autocrats China dictators dictatorships fault_lines fractured_internally Harry_Truman illiberality invasions Iran Janan_Ganesh liberal_democracies MbS rogue_actors rules-based Russia Saudi_Arabia Sino-Russian_relations statecraft troublemakers Ukraine Western_values energy realpolitik geopolitics grand_strategy cynicism moral_compromiseshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:5189526b6d2c/U.S. Urged to Step Up in the Pacific After China’s Whirlwind Trip - WSJ2022-06-06T02:50:29+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-urged-to-step-up-in-the-pacific-after-chinas-whirlwind-trip-11654433738?mod=hp_lead_pos11
jerrykingIndo-Pacific China China_rising climate_change diplomacy Fiji geopolitics power-brokers rivalries soft_power Washington_D.C. WWII pivot-to-Asiahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:83bf94d5bd09/How Russia’s Wagner Group Is Expanding in Africa2022-06-05T17:17:31+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/world/africa/wagner-group-africa.html
jerryking>>precious minerals<< like gold, diamonds and uranium. Wagner troops have faced frequent accusations of torture, civilian killings and other abuses.
But Wagner is far more than a simple guns-for-gold scheme. Operating through a sprawling web of shell companies, it has become a byword for a broad spectrum of Kremlin-backed operations in over a dozen African countries. Wagner meddles in politics, props up autocrats and orchestrates digital >>propaganda<< campaigns. It donates food to the poor and produces action movies set in Africa. It has even organized a beauty pageant.
The Kremlin denies any link to Wagner. But American and European officials, as well as most experts, say it is an unofficial tool [i.e. = "cat's paw"] of Russian [soft] power — a cheap and deniable way for President Vladimir V. Putin to expand his reach, bolster his war chest against Western sanctions, and expand his influence on a continent where sympathy for Russia remains relatively high.
How Wagner Got Its Name, and Went to Africa
Wagner emerged during Mr. Putin’s first assault on Ukraine in 2014, when its mercenaries fought alongside pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region. Its commander was Dmitry Utkin, a retired Russian Special Forces commander said to be fascinated by Nazi history and culture.
The group’s name, and Mr. Utkin’s military call sign, is taken from the composer Richard Wagner, Hitler’s favorite. Some of the group’s fighters share that ideology: Ancient Norse symbols favored by white extremists have been photographed on Wagner equipment in Africa and the Middle East.
The Payoff for Putin
Mr. Putin signaled his ambitions for Russia in Africa at a summit of African leaders in Sochi in 2019, when he described the continent as a place of “significant opportunities” for the Kremlin.
That expansion is part of Mr. Putin’s broader desire to re-establish Russia as a great power, analysts say, pitting him in part against China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and other countries that have jockeyed for position in Africa as Western influence wanes.
Some African leaders are drawn to Moscow by weapons: Russia has become the largest arms supplier in Africa. But Mr. Putin is also tapping into deep historical and political currents.
Many African nations have been reluctant to join Western condemnation of Russia’s assault on Ukraine — some because of lingering Cold War sympathies, but many others out of frustration with what they see as Western disregard for Africa.
In West Africa, Russia is exploiting a growing wave of anti-French sentiment in countries like Mali, where the arrival of Wagner operatives led to a departure of French soldiers and diplomats this year.
]]>Africa cat's_paw clandestine contractors dark_side Francophone_Africa mercenaries Kremlin plausible_deniability policy_tools power_plays Russia surreptitious Vladimir_Putin Wagner_Group geopolitics defence_contractors smart_power precious_minerals propaganda soft_powerhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:9c11536129f4/‘We are now living in a totally new era’2022-05-10T10:55:58+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/cd88912d-506a-41d4-b38f-0c37cb7f0e2f
jerrykingadversaries alliances APNSA China China_rising Edward_Luce geopolitics grand_strategy Henry_Kissinger invasions new_tech_Cold_War nuclear Richard_Nixon Russia Ukraine Vladimir_Putin Sino-Russian_relations undiscussed nuclear_weaponshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:06dabda59a16/Globe editorial: The mistake the West made in Ukraine: Not sending more weapons, sooner2022-04-19T20:45:28+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-the-mistake-the-west-made-in-ukraine-not-sending-more-weapons-sooner/
jerrykingbullying Canada deterrence editorials geopolitics Joe_Biden mistakes NATO natural_gas Pax_Americana Pax_Britannica petro-politics Russia saber-rattling sanctions U.S. Ukraine Vladimir_Putin weakness_is_provocative weaponry battlefields Canadian_Forces ex_post_facto hindsight invasions appeasement aggressionhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:b074ca160f8e/Opinion: China’s potential long game: First dominate Russia, then on to the Arctic - The Globe and Mail2022-03-14T14:49:32+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-chinas-potential-long-game-first-dominate-russia-then-on-to-the-arctic/
jerrykingArctic Beijing Canada China Charles_Burton geopolitics half-measures invasions long-term long-range Moscow North_Pole performative_theatrics Russia security_&_intelligence sovereignty Taiwan Ukraine unprepared Vladimir_Putin defense_spending kto_kovo? Sino-Russian_relations nuclear_weaponshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:57f46f362551/Building a Power Grid to Span the World - WSJ2022-03-11T22:09:10+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/building-a-power-grid-to-span-the-world-11646660908?mod=hp_listc_pos1
jerrykingalternative_energy Australia batteries carbon-neutral China cleantech climate_change Congo electric_power electrification energy geopolitics green hydrogen hydropower India interconnections national_initiatives Oman photovoltaic political_power power_grid renewable Singapore solar transmission undersea_cables wind_powerhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:9ca7f6f25a48/The scramble for semiconductors is our era’s industrial Great Game | Financial Times2022-03-11T21:28:26+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/c77d15e3-af1f-48fb-b349-202e095a7d40?accessToken=zwAAAYDSsvUXkdPHfRXjrx9I-9OzSSAuCVp9QAE.MEUCIQC_q7J_xVYsFEJgTnWSGqC8IiBJZfoX2XCZ0yJaSb3XtwIgOEJe33MsPJNdhXNFF3M1Z_Q8CZpwSWxIV7GVjwjhxpQ&segmentId=afcd6ae7-a737-8ca0-b99e-fecd9c7e5ac5
jerryking>strategic assets<<. But the modern game is mostly about boosting intellectual capital, strengthening industrial capacity and pioneering the latest technology [i.e. = "critical technologies"] .........Gina Raimondo, the US commerce secretary, this week urged Congress to pass the Chips Act, which would unlock $52bn in subsidies to domestic chip manufacturing. In the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, the commission president, has also been pushing a similar Chips Act, aiming to double the bloc’s production of semiconductors to 20 per cent of the global total by the end of the decade. The British government is also scrutinizing the sale of the chip designer Arm Holdings to the US giant Nvidia on national security grounds.
China, which spent more money importing semiconductors than oil in 2020, is being squeezed hard by US export constraints on advanced chips and has declared it a “whole-of-society” priority [i.e. "national initiatives"/"national strategies"] to achieve technological self-sufficiency. Lavish national and local funds have enabled China to vie with Taiwan and South Korea as the biggest buyers of semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
As intended, US export restrictions [i.e. = "economic warfare"/"export controls"] are hurting China and have significantly weakened the industrial giant Huawei. But, as Dan Wang, a Shanghai-based tech analyst at Gavekal Research, argues, they have also served to realign Chinese tech company’s commercial interests with Beijing’s national security imperatives and “make semiconductors sexy again”. With a vast domestic market, daring entrepreneurs, a vibrant venture capital industry, a host of US-trained technologists and a flood of funding, China is switching its focus, brains and capital from the consumer internet to more strategic technologies. “The US government has turbocharged China’s most dynamic firms to pursue economic self-sufficiency and technological greatness,” says Wang.
Still, Beijing’s growing authoritarianism and a broadening crackdown on parts of the technology industry may sap China’s entrepreneurial vigour. In her book US-China Tech War, the writer Nina Xiang describes how earlier state-directed [i.e. = "state-as-facilitator"], technological campaigns have not always ended well. It remains a formidable challenge for China to design and manufacture 3-nanometer chips like those the world’s most advanced plants are planning. One of the most complex industrial processes ever invented, it requires the interplay of decades of technological experience and expertise. But, Xiang tells me, China does not necessarily need to reach the cutting edge of semiconductor technology to derive most of its benefits.
Strategic advantage can derive from deploying existing technologies effectively, not just developing the latest inventions. Basic **state capacity** will determine the outcome of the industrial Great Game as much as technological capability. And on that front, the US has reason to worry: it cannot even roll out 5G telecoms networks without messing up air travel. In the end, fixing core infrastructure at home may count for more than pursuing strategic technological advantage abroad.
]]>ARM Beijing books CAPEX China China_rising digital_economy economic_sovereignty economic_warfare export_controls geopolitics homegrown Huawei indigenous industrial_policies Intel manufacturers national_initiatives national_strategies new_tech_Cold_War SamSung self-sufficiency semiconductors subsidies Taiwan the_great_game TSMC U.S. U.S.-China_relations whole-of-society authoritarianism domestic_supply state_capacity Central_Asia state-as-facilitator critical_technologies strategic_assetshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:09308c453404/Opinion | To stop Putin's aggression, sanction his oil and gas2022-03-07T17:26:46+00:00
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/03/biden-west-must-sanction-putins-oil-and-gas/
jerryking>extend the life<< of its nuclear plants that were scheduled to be shuttered. These policies are coming from a coalition government whose second-most-important partner is the Green Party, which has historically been tenacious in its environmental goals.
The Biden administration has said that the stakes could not be higher. And it is right. If Putin’s aggression succeeds, we will live in a different world. So let us make sure that he does not.
When Adolf Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, Winston Churchill, a lifelong and rabid anti-communist, said that if Hitler invaded hell, he (Churchill) would have found something nice to say about the Devil [i.e. = "moral compromises"]. All we must do is take some steps to support all non-Russian energy, and that policy shift will become a deadly weapon that strikes at Putin’s real Achilles’ heel.]]>Fareed_Zakaria invasions oil_industry natural_gas Russia sanctions stratagems Ukraine Vladimir_Putin Achilles’_heel conventional_wisdom crisis energy energy_security geopolitics Germany Iran Joe_Biden LNG MbS petro-dictators petro-politics Saudi_Arabia UAE Winston_Churchill moral_compromises extending_the_lifehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:51b934ed4870/How to Invest With Certainty in an Uncertain World - The Wall Street Journal Google Your News Update - WSJ Podcasts2022-03-04T06:56:03+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/google-news-update/how-to-invest-with-certainty-in-an-uncertain-world/c7c36870-da45-435a-a084-6d1f87e68122?page=1
jerryking>self-honesty<< to say I was certain last week. And now I'm certain this week. And I was certain about things that were completely contradictory. Maybe I shouldn't be so certain. You know, all it took was one geopolitical bolt from the blue to transform most people's forecasts about an uncertain event. And they took one form of certainty and replaced it with another just like that. And I think what that should tell investors is it's much better to think in terms of **probabilities and ranges of outcomes** [i.e. = "possibility space"] than it is to think about a particular point [i.e. = "point solutions"], you know? And everyone would be better off being a lot more humble [i.e. = "be less certain"/"doubt"/"humility"]] about the ability of professional forecasters to call what's going to happen next.
J.R. Whalen: And so what lessons can smaller investors learn from the big investment houses that made wholesale changes to their portfolios based on what they think is going to happen?
Jason Zweig: Well, so if you're a professional money manager, you get paid to make predictions [i.e. = "forecasting"] and to act on them. You know, if you have a forecast about where the market is headed, you pretty much have to follow through on it. If you're a small investor, you don't. You can recognize that your view of the world might well be proven wrong and nobody's staring over your shoulder who's going to judge you if your forecast turns out to be wrong or you don't act on it.[i.e. = "changing your mind"/"updating your priors"] So you have that great advantage of being able to say to yourself, well I think I know what might happen. But not necessarily having to change your investment portfolio based on it. And professionals don't have that luxury.
J.R. Whalen: All right. But not every investment is going to go as planned, geopolitical mess or not. And many investors won't be able to resist buying in an unsettled market. So what kind of mindset should they have? You know, what steps can they take to be smarter and not risk seeing their portfolio suffer substantial losses?
Jason Zweig: Well, I think one of the biggest problems investors face is making a mistake and not being willing to admit it, not fessing up when you did something wrong because it's painful. I mean, nobody wants to admit that they did something that turned out to be foolish. And one technique that I really like and I have advocated is you could imitate General Dwight D. Eisenhower who on the eve of D-Day wrote a press release that fortunately for the future of civilization he never had to use, which was called In Case of Failure. And what he did was he wrote the statement that he would read to the press if the D-Day invasion was a flop. He took responsibility for the mistake and he said it was his fault alone. And he was prepared to admit he was wrong before he even knew whether he would turn out to be right. And so before you make a big trade that might make a big difference to your portfolio results, it'd be a good idea to think about writing a note [i.e. = a "pre-mortem"] that said something like this investment has been a **failure**, so I have to sell. I based it on information that I believed at the time to be valid, but I was wrong because, and then you have to fill in the blank. Why were you wrong? And, of course, you would know because you would have hindsight. And then you could finish by saying it was a bad investment, but that doesn't make me a bad investor. It's very important to give yourself that out, to recognize in advance that you're going to make mistakes and it's okay to make mistakes. And that will enable you, I think, more easily to admit when you do make one. And that can give you the flexibility to exit and reverse a decision that hasn't worked out well a lot more easily because you haven't invested as much of yourself in it, so it would be easier for you to let go.
J.R. Whalen: But Jason, people all day will see forecasts and pundits giving their opinion on everything from the Fed, to what Russia will do, to the Chinese economy, to the U.S. economy. So what can an investor who's trying to manage their savings and their 401(k) do when they're just being beaten over the head with all of this stuff [i.e. ="financial pornography"], oftentimes at a very loud volume, all day?
Jason Zweig: One approach that I think is effective, at least for people who have some investing experience is to look back. If you've been in the markets for quite a while, look back 10 years or five years, or if you're new to the markets, look back one year. See if you can remember what investment decisions you made exactly one year ago, or five years ago, or 10 years ago, or even imagine making an investment decision in the past at those points. [Reminiscent of Suzy Welch’s 10-10-10 rule. When you’re about to make a decision, ask yourself how you will feel about it 10 minutes from now? 10 months from now? and 10 years from now? People are overly biased by the immediate pain of some choice, but they can put the short-term pain in long-term perspective by asking these questions]. And then ask yourself what decision could I have made that would've made a big difference to my portfolio results today? And if you put it in longer-term perspective, you're likely to realize that there wasn't much you could have done at the time that would've made a significant difference to your performance, which tells you that except in extraordinary turning points in market history, which can be very hard to recognize in any case, most decisions that people make are likely to make very little difference to their overall returns.
]]>certainty change_your_mind Cromwell’s_Law doubt fast-changing geopolitics howto humility invasions investing investors Jason_Zweig possibility_space probabilities Russia Ukraine uncertainty volatility decision_making Dwight_Eisenhower failure financial_pornography forecasting mistakes pre-mortems Suzy_Welch update_your_priors failure_denial self-honesty point_solutionshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:4fefdae8da04/From Trump to Putin, the Age of Disruption is now under way2022-02-23T21:11:55+00:00
https://notes.pinboard.in/u:jerryking/7fe190c6d935b04b5fcb
jerrykingDavid_Shribman decline disruption Donald_Trump geopolitics grievances humiliation Hungary Joe_Biden Margaret_MacMillan NATO rogue_actors Soviet_Union Ukraine Vladimir_Putin worldviewshttps://notes.pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:1464a986a1b3/Opinion | What Putin Really Wants From the Ukraine Crisis - The New York Times2022-01-12T04:50:24+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/opinion/ukraine-biden-putin.html
jerrykingBret_Stephens Donald_Trump geopolitics Joe_Biden NATO natural_gas Pax_Americana petro-politics pipelines Russia saber-rattling sanctions Suez_crisis U.S. Ukraine Vladimir_Putin weakness_is_provocative Pax_Britannicahttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:ad67ec03edbc/White Malice by Susan Williams — Africa and the CIA2021-10-21T20:24:22+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/967d38dd-0638-4902-932b-a6f96238c3c0
jerrykingCold_War Dwight_Eisenhower fledgling_democracies Richard_Nixon Western_values '60s Africa back-room_dealmaking books book_reviews CIA Congo DRC espionage geopolitics Ghana hypocrisy Kwame_Nkrumah MI6 natural_resources neocolonialism pan-African Patrice_Lumumba private_positions public_posturing racism liberation_parties doublespeakhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:8eae0c687c1a/Opinion | Our ‘Broken Windows’ World2021-08-25T20:50:52+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/opinion/united-states-worlds-policeman.html
jerrykingAfghanistan Bret_Stephens broken_windows credibility Obama policing rogue_actors U.S.foreign_policy Pax_Americana adversaries capabilities death_by_a_thousand_cuts indispensable JFK Joe_Biden NATO predatory_practices statecraft superpowers U.S. Vladimir_Putin geopolitics international_systemhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:332ed772d5ac/Ransomware attacks must be stopped — here’s how2021-06-12T15:38:33+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/8a26196c-ee82-45ad-a138-16d0884f4f09
jerryking>perpetrators<< could not function as they do if the FSB domestic security service were deployed against them......The incentives for such criminal activity should be addressed, too. As chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, I saw first-hand the effects of the non-payment of terrorist ransoms policy adopted by the UK and our allies in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group. Such a policy is often heartbreaking to implement, but it is the right thing to do. The alternative is to finance the very activity that you are trying to prevent.
There is a case for bringing such an approach to ransomware. Opponents ask if forbidding payment in a life-threatening situation could ever be justified on moral grounds. They have a point. But a partial ban, which allowed payment in “emergency” circumstances, would simply incentivise attackers to create such a situation. And that would be the worst of all worlds.
If one accepts that this is a national security problem, then it becomes hard to defend the suggestion that governments should simply leave these decisions to private citizens. As a first step, I think it should be mandatory to disclose payments publicly and in detail. Attackers seek to present payment as the easy option. We have to change that.
We also need to look at insurance and the risks of >>moral hazard<<. Often attackers gain access to insurance policies in advance and know exactly how much they can get away with asking for. However, insurers now expect to see evidence of good quality cyber security before they write business.
Then there is the question of cryptocurrency. It is arguable that the problem would not exist without crypto, which allows for ransom payments to be made in a way that preserves the anonymity of the recipients. This is not to argue for a ban on such currencies, which are obviously here to stay. But it is to urge the development of robust know-your-customer and anti-money laundering laws fit for the digital age.
Cryptocurrencies are not untraceable: they sit on the blockchain and sometimes are more easily traced than cash. The difficulty law-enforcement agencies face is discovering the real identity, or at least the real intent, of the recipient or originator. The good news is that data and modern analytics can combine in such a way as to allow good transactions to be distinguished from bad.
And then, an irony. Often, the software used by attackers is based on code written with the best of intentions by penetration testers who help organisations probe their systems for vulnerability. While there are significant practical obstacles, we need to draw on our experience of counter-proliferation licensing techniques and identify ways in which we can restrict the use of such code to its intended purpose.
It follows that governments can and should do more but not to the point of absolving individuals and firms of their own responsibilities. A surprisingly large amount of this is about getting the cyber security basics right.
Ultimately, this is about human agency. Individually, we are easy to pick off and intimidate. But collectively, we are far from helpless. These attackers are bullies. And bullies come back for more, unless you bully them back, preferably in company.
]]>collective_action cyber_security incentives ransomware Russia spymasters criminality crypto-currencies Five_Eyes geopolitics howto insurance Vladimir_Putin Alex_Younger panaceas bullying cyberattacks FSB government-adjacent moral_hazards perpetratorshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:9da6251fe547/Technology wars are becoming the new trade wars | Financial Times2021-04-22T14:56:13+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/6fcd69ab-4dcd-4ffa-ae0f-b9aadfc79e52
jerryking5G Big_Tech China cyber_security extraterritoriality FAANG geopolitics intellectual_property interconnections international_trade sovereignty trade_wars protectionism rare_earth_metals security_&_intelligence splinternet cyberrisks decoupling digital_economy economic_sovereignty economists global_champions new_tech_Cold_War privacy semiconductors tariffshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:ace15c80fc90/The lay of the land: how geography shapes national destiny | Financial Times2021-04-15T04:46:06+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/8d97f371-c596-412f-8ed8-b55a2db4e7a4
jerrykingbooks book_reviews borders cartography China geography geopolitics mapping Taiwan political_geography One_Belt_One_Road strategic_geographyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:e2cf9345663f/Race is also a geopolitical issue2021-04-06T01:52:31+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/d99b84e4-0bf2-47c1-9270-c82aecd0e8dd
jerrykinggeopolitics power_structures race UN white_privilegehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:b56cf8a80cad/TSMC: how a Taiwanese chipmaker became a linchpin of the global economy2021-03-24T16:43:58+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/05206915-fd73-4a3a-92a5-6760ce965bd9
jerryking5G automotive_industry Beijing China China_rising cutting-edge embargoes EU geopolitics homegrown Huawei indigenous Intel Japan linchpins manufacturers new_tech_cold_war Pentagon Samsung semiconductors shortages supply_chains supply_chain_risk Taiwan technological_change TSMC U.S. vulnerabilities Washington_D.C. global_economy domestic_supply fragility self-sufficiencyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:fdb712548af7/Geopolitical supremacy will increasingly depend on computer chips | Financial Times2021-02-25T23:17:00+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/44e28cad-55b7-4995-a5c5-6de6f9733747
jerryking5G Beijing CAPEX China China_rising embargoes EU geopolitics homegrown Huawei indigenous Japan new_tech_cold_war Samsung semiconductors supply_chains Taiwan TSMC U.S. vulnerabilities self-sufficiencyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:be2770b4b05e/Bitcoin’s rise reflects America’s decline2021-02-15T22:27:06+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/16a37710-cbff-41b1-af96-7dc8b2de0c43
jerryking> price discovery << in markets with low interest rates and quantitative easing. Whether you view this as a welcome smoothing of the business cycle or a dysfunctional enabling of debt-ridden businesses, the upshot is that it’s now very difficult to get a sense of the health of individual companies or certainly the real economy as a whole from asset prices......... The rise in popularity of highly volatile cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin could simply be seen as a speculative sign of this US Federal Reserve-enabled froth. But it might better be interpreted as an early signal of a new world order in which the US and the dollar will play a less important role [i.e. = "post-dollar world"].......the world’s trust in America has declined... That has also diminished trust in some quarters about the dollar’s stability as the global reserve currency. ........Trump devalued Brand USA. But he is also a symptom of longer-term economic problems in the US — problems which have in recent years been papered over by low rates and monetary policy, which kept asset prices high but also encouraged debt and leverage. Bitcoin’s rise reflects the belief in some parts of the investor community that the US will eventually come in some ways to resemble Weimar Germany, as post-2008 financial crisis monetary policy designed to stabilize markets gives way to post-Covid monetisation of rising US debt loads. There are, after all, only three ways out of debt — growth, austerity, or money printing. If the US government sells so much debt that the dollar starts to lose its value, then bitcoin could conceivably be a safe haven....... Germany’s currency debasement didn’t end well.......We have moved from a unipolar world in which the US was the pre-eminent political and economic power, to a >>post-neoliberal world<< where there is no longer a consensus in favour of free trade and unfettered capitalism...Think multipolar — the US, Europe and China. China has signalled its desire to become less dependent on the US financial system, buying fewer US Treasuries and rolling out its own digital currency.......it is easy to imagine that the dollar continuing to be the main reserve currency, with the renminbi and the euro gradually becoming more important stores of value. But one can also imagine that cryptocurrencies that can easily cross borders would have some advantages over fiat money issued by governments.....Crypto advocates including technology leaders such as Tesla’s Elon Musk, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey believe that digital currencies are better suited to this more multipolar world.
]]>America_in_Decline? assets Bitcoin bubbles business_cycles Euros geopolitics greenbacks multipolarity renminbi treasury_bills U.S._Federal_Reserve volatility Weimar_Republic asset_classes central_banks crypto-currencies digital_currencies early_warnings hyperinflation monetary_policy Rana_Foroohar warning_signs undermining_of_trust reserve_currencies post-dollar_world Tree_Rings price_discovery post-neoliberal_worldhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:c7e4d858dfff/How the race for renewable energy is reshaping global politics2021-02-05T12:38:50+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/a37d0ddf-8fb1-4b47-9fba-7ebde29fc510
jerrykingbatteries China energy geopolitics green mining moguls petro-politics renewable solar alternative_energy cleantech Australia carbon-neutral carbon_tax climate_change Congo electric_power electrification EU fossil_fuels hydrogen hydropower interconnections national_initiatives net-zero One_Belt_One_Road photovoltaic political_power rare_earth_metals undersea_cables wind_power power_grid transmission balance_of_power zero-emissionshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:19b2341ba639/China sends a message with Australian crackdown2020-11-25T17:11:33+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/9ed5f582-423d-41c4-ba23-0441f7dee165
jerryking5G Australia Beijing Canberra China China_rising economic_clout geopolitics grievances Hong_Kong Huawei intimidation punitive South_China_Sea sovereignty subservience Taiwanhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:ed07d2554d32/From AI to facial recognition: how China is setting the rules in new tech2020-10-09T08:07:48+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/188d86df-6e82-47eb-a134-2e1e45c777b6
jerryking>Standard-setting<< has for decades largely been the preserve of a small group of industrialised democracies. Everything from the width of train tracks, to software, satellites, the frequencies that mobile phones use and a whole gamut of rules about how electronic gadgets work and process data have been decided by western-dominated standards organisations...... China now has other ideas. “Industrial standards are an important area of contestation in the new cold war, with both Beijing and Washington gearing up to shape the development and implementation of global standards,”.......an intensifying US-China battle to dominate standards, especially in emerging technologies, could start to divide the world into different industrial blocs. In the same way that rail passengers who travel from western Europe to some former Soviet bloc countries must to this day change trains to accommodate different track widths, strategic competition between the US and China raises the spectre of a fragmentation of standards that creates a new technological divide....it is possible, for example, that 5G mobile telecoms — a bedrock technology that enables the “internet of things” — may be divided into two competing stacks to reflect US and Chinese influence. Some measure of division is also possible in semiconductors, artificial intelligence and other areas [i.e. = "critical technologies"] where US-China rivalry is intense..... In some sectors, there will be two stacks that are relatively incompatible,” ... “But in others, there is likely to be some demand that they co-operate. It is possible that large markets that make it clear they do not want to choose between China and the US may be able to pressure Chinese and US tech firms to ensure some degree of compatibility.” In Washington, the battle for influence over technology standards is seen in some quarters as crucial to defending democracy from the influence of China ..... “the world’s leading pioneer of what we call techno-authoritarianism”.....Beijing is intending to control the next generation of digital infrastructure, ....and, as it does so, to impose principles that are antithetical to US values of >>transparency<<, >>diversity of opinion<< [ i.e. = "intellectual diversity"/"intellectual exploration"], >>interoperability<< and respect for >>human rights<<. “Over the last 10 to 15 years, [the US] leadership role has eroded and our leverage to establish standards and protocols reflecting our values has diminished,”......“As a result others, but mostly China, have stepped into the void to advance standards and values that advantage the Chinese Communist party.”.....US politicians are studying China’s influence in the setting of global technology standards.
- Military and civil applications
From a US perspective, China’s challenge derives from three main areas. First, it is developing world-beating technology in several emerging areas, such as 5G telecoms and AI. Second, as it exports this technology — often to more than 100 countries that participate in the Belt and Road Initiative — it is nurturing adherence to a distinctly Chinese set of standards and protocols. Third, Beijing is boosting its influence in the UN and other standards-setting bodies to enhance the interests of its own companies.......The Chinese government is working towards a standards master plan — China Standards 2035 [i.e.="national strategies"] — which Beijing was expected to publish before the end of this year. The strategy is expected to set out standardisation goals for crucial next-generation technologies. It is also due to emphasise the imperative to strengthen China’s role in standards organisations, analysts say. “The strategy will also focus on standards to facilitate civil-military fusion — a concept that has gained considerable traction in China and has caused a stir in strategic communities overseas, particularly in Washington,” ......Military-civil fusion is a plan to use the best of civilian research and development to bolster the technological capacities of the People’s Liberation Army. The drive is led by Mr Xi himself, who heads the Commission for Military-Civil Fusion Development. It is believed to target civilian advances in “dual use” areas such as quantum computing, big data, semiconductors, 5G and AI, but concrete initiatives are shrouded in secrecy. “China’s greatest potential lies in areas where standards have yet to be collectively developed and defined,” Mr Seaman says. “It can roll out technologies using Chinese standards in foreign markets, creating ‘facts on the ground’.”
- Digital silk road
Crucial to the goal of popularising Chinese standards overseas is the Belt and Road Initiative..... The BRI is generally seen as a huge Chinese programme to build roads, railways, ports, airports and other forms of infrastructure in mostly developing countries. But this portrayal overlooks a key point. The BRI is also a means of diffusing Chinese technologies — and the standards they operate on — across the developing world by constructing what Beijing calls a “digital silk road”.
Beijing has been actively promoting its internet and cyber governance playbook in many developing countries, most recently by leveraging 5G connectivity and smart city projects along the digital silk road,” .... “Smart cities” are a focus of this standards diffusion effort because they incorporate so many emerging technologies. The facial recognition systems, big data analysis, 5G telecoms and AI cameras that go into creating smart cities are all technologies for which standards remain up for grabs. Thus smart cities, which automate multiple municipal functions, represent a big prize for China’s standards drive. “China is setting standards from the bottom up through widespread export and foreign adoption of its technology,”.......A country such as Serbia might not sit down and decide they want to adopt Chinese standards, but after enough purchases and deals, they might end up with Chinese standards. There is the risk of lock-in, a point after which switching becomes too costly.”...... “Smart cities essentially increase the downside risk considerably of cyber intrusions or abuses, both in terms of data security and cyber security,” he says. “The cyber risk that is associated with entities that are subject to Chinese laws and governance structures is amplified in this environment.”....promoting Chinese technology standards is a BRI priority. As of 2019, some 85 standardisation co-operation agreements with 49 countries and regions had been signed, ......
- Institutional push
Not content with forging bilateral agreements along the Belt and Road, China is also trying to persuade multilateral standards agencies to recognise its growing clout.... in 2008, Beijing managed to win a place as the sixth permanent member of the ISO’s council and in 2013 it became a permanent member of its technical management board, alongside the US, Japan, the UK, Germany and France. In 2015, the organisation got its first Chinese president when Zhang Xiaogang, a former steel industry executive, was chosen for a three-year term.....The increased representation has had a marked effect on China’s standards-setting clout. As of March 2019, for instance, China had proposed 11 standards for the internet of things within the ISO/IEC framework, of which five had been adopted and published and six were still pending review.
“The non-transparent and authoritarian way in which China is going about data security management at home undermines trust in its standards and platforms abroad,” ......“On the other hand, the current US strategy is essentially equating data security with a total and unilateral decoupling from Chinese technology in the digital domain........ The worst-case scenario.....is of a growing technological divide. If international collaboration on standards grinds to a halt, it could create opposing technology blocs that do not talk to each other.
]]>5G artificial_intelligence Beijing China China_rising cyberintrusions cyber_security decoupling developing_countries dual-use facial_recognition geopolitics Huawei incompatibilities influence locked_in new_tech_Cold_War One_Belt_One_Road patriotism PLA protocols quantum_computing rivalries rule-setting rule-writing semiconductors smart_cities standardization surveillance_state technical_standards U.S.-China_relations walled_gardens Washington_D.C. Xi_Jinping master_plans human_rights intellectual_diversity intellectual_exploration interoperability transparency critical_technologies national_strategies nuclear_weaponshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:b64325c0da24/China’s geopolitics are pumped up by its economic success2020-10-09T04:19:13+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/e2902988-ca56-4d21-ab2a-b416c9006c7b
jerrykingassertiveness Beijing books China China_rising Chinese_Communist_Party conflicts Covid-19 decoupling Donald_Trump economic_clout geopolitics Graham_Allison Henry_Kissinger Hong_Kong National_Intelligence_Law One_Belt_One_Road pandemics political_power power-hunger rising_powers soft_power South_China_Sea superpowers Thucydides_trap U.S. U.S.-China_relations U.S.foreign_policy Wall_Street ambitions GDP national_greatness Xi_Jinpinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:6b4f2d9aecb3/Opinion | Trump Is Wrong About TikTok. China’s Plans Are Much More Sinister.2020-09-18T03:14:56+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/opinion/tiktok-china-strategy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
jerryking5G Asia_Pacific Beijing children China China_rising Chinese_Communist_Party choke_points Confucius_Institutes curriculum diplomacy Donald_Trump education export_controls geopolitics hard_power Huawei Indian_Ocean information_warfare One_Belt_One_Road personal_data persuasion political_theory propaganda risks security_&_intelligence semiconductors soft_power strategic_geography strategic_thinking students TikTok under_appreciated Xi_Jinping Zoom dark_side National_Intelligence_Law Sun_Tzu Washington_D.C. ambitions Indo-Pacifichttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:b5f2babc8dc0/Building an extensive intelligence network to know your markets2020-08-11T16:15:39+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/b394a9e3-f893-459a-b2fe-cf9f0c9f53bc
jerrykingcommodities conglomerates geopolitics Japan Japanese keiretsu market_intelligence Mitsubishi new_tech_Cold_War pandemics political_risk post-coronavirus_era Covid-19https://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:a2eaa6effac6/Brent Scowcroft, a Force on Foreign Policy for 40 Years, Dies at 95 - The New York Times2020-08-08T10:17:56+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/us/politics/brent-scowcroft-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Obituaries
jerrykingAPNSA books Brent_Scowcroft China Condeleeza_Rice diplomacy geopolitics George_H.W._Bush Gerald_Ford GOP Henry_Kissinger NSC obituaries PhDs policymakers policymaking Richard_Nixon Robert_Gates scholars security_&_intelligence Soviet_Union statecraft U.S.foreign_policy White_House scholar-officershttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:996279cf1e51/A Summary Of United States – Guyana Relations In Light Of ‘Oil’ And ‘2020’ Vision – Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana2020-07-07T02:25:26+00:00
https://demerarawaves.com/2020/07/06/a-summary-of-united-states-guyana-relations-in-light-of-oil-and-2020-vision/
jerrykinggeopolitics Guyana historyhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:f1c475708ad5/It is now patently obvious that Granger is not worried about sanctions – Kaieteur News2020-07-05T05:44:11+00:00
https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2020/07/05/it-is-now-patently-obvious-that-granger-is-not-worried-about-sanctions/
jerrykingDavid_Granger elections geopolitics Guyana PNC rigging sanctions warning_signs electoral_fraudhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:dc4979e5884a/Take this warning: the postpandemic economic order will be driven by geopolitics2020-05-06T01:30:57+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-take-this-warning-the-post-pandemic-economic-order-will-be-be-driven/
jerryking>industrial policy<< – a >>national strategy<< to succeed........The liberal order is gone – well, being radically changed – due to superpower rivalry between the United States and China. They refer to the end of the Washington Consensus, the rules-based economic system built since the Second World War. The old order has changed, the authors warn, and it is not coming back........China gives or takes access to its market as a political favour. The United States threatens tariffs for leverage. Canada takes its complaints to a World Trade Organization gummed up by the United States. And the bipartisan U.S. political consensus for confronting China goes beyond President Donald Trump....Economic nationalism had already surged on the right, and not just in the United States. ...Shortages of N95 face masks have people like Ontario Premier Doug Ford arguing Canada should create supply chains to make this necessary stuff – and more stuff generally – at home......technology is spurring geo-economics. ....there is a growing “intangibles economy” – intellectual property, software, data and brands.....there are increasingly, dispute in that intangibles economy.......rival superpowers, increasingly see their tech economies as security architecture....with the world developing a “splinternet,” and with overlapping security and protectionist interests. Does the United States want Huawei excluded from 5G networks for security or >>economic reasons< The answer is yes.....For Canada, bound to the U.S. by security and trade interests, excluding Huawei from 5G is starting to look like a no-brainer. Yet China will still retaliate. The United States will still put its own geo-economic interests first......figure out a Canadian path. The authors argue for a “challenge-driven” industrial policy to spur development in key areas [i.e. = "critical technologies"], not subsidize companies......There’s a new world now!!
]]>5G 21st._century Canada Canadian COVID-19 digital_economy Donald_Trump Doug_Ford economic_nationalism geopolitics globalization Huawei industrial_policies inflection_points intangibles international_system middle-powers new_tech_Cold_War post-coronavirus_era retaliation rivalries rules-based security_&_intelligence self-sufficiency superpowers supply_chains U.S.-China_relations unilateralism WTO domestic_supply economic_policy splinternet critical_technologies national_strategies economic_reasonshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:941b15a17f8a/A weak, worn out Caribbean will not serve its people in 20202020-01-03T01:28:29+00:00
https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2019/12/29/a-weak-worn-out-caribbean-will-not-serve-its-people-in-2020/
jerrykingBrexit Caribbean Caricom China decoupling deglobalization disorganization disunity EU international_system long-term OECD rules-based regional Russia small_states strategic_alliances uncertainty WTO U.S. weak_links bullying geopolitics international_trade multilateralism new_normal power_plays predatory_practices 2020s unilateralism beggar-thy-neighbour bilateralhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:de696403a8ae/Unsettling precedents for today’s world2019-11-27T03:35:23+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/08b36b10-1031-11ea-a225-db2f231cfeae
jerryking'30s books China China_rising Cold_War Donald_Trump geopolitics Graham_Allison history Martin_Wolf rising_powers superpowers thought-provoking U.S. U.S.-China_relations WWII Xi_Jinping power-hunger economic_clout Great_Powershttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:2f9110524c74/The U.S. is sinking. Maybe it's time for Canada to jump ship.2019-11-04T03:45:44+00:00
https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/the-u-s-is-sinking-maybe-its-time-for-canada-to-jump-ship/amp/?fbclid=IwAR1F7L39u_-ikRdBy88DR-uyhuRgEiu3aurBk5IcSu4D-EtHoJlHIp9cf5Y
jerryking>foreign policy<<. At the >>geopolitical<< level, **tectonic shifts** in world power are leading to a relative decline in American dominance.......Institutionally, the >>U.S. State Department<< is in utter disarray......>>Donald Trump<< is steering from one collision to another.....we can speculate whether the U.S. decline is an inevitable result of historical political and demographic trends. Or whether it's entirely due to Donald Trump.....whether incompetence or fate, there is no question the American ship of state is leaking badly. The question we should now be asking ourselves, as Canadians, is whether we should help bail or build our own raft.....The instinctive answer is to grab a bucket......In the halls of Global Affairs Canada, the orthodoxy is that we sink or swim with Washington, and therefore, when the Trump circus finally leaves town, we should undoubtedly be there to help rebuild American prestige and influence wherever we can.
But—what if we didn’t? What if we simply boarded our own raft, or paddled over to another ally? What if we decided to “Trump-proof” Canada? What if we consciously and ambitiously began to build a new foreign policy alignment in anticipation of the next American wreck?.....Who else supports human rights, a >>rules-based<< >>international system<< and strong Western institutions like >>NATO< The obvious answer is the EU......we are far more likely to achieve our >>common goal<>multilateralism<< and the >>rule of law<< if we join forces more closely. As Canada’s diplomats begin to brief Canada’s next government on the menu of foreign policy options, it would be nice to think that there is a tiny footnote that points out this one small but true idea—when it comes to Washington, there are other options.]]>America_in_Decline? Canada Canadian crossborder beyondtheU.S. Donald_Trump EU foreign_policy geopolitics Global_Affairs_Canada international_system middle-powers multilateralism retreats rules-based rule_of_law Scott_Gilmore seismic_shifts Trump-proofing U.S._State_Department imperial_overstretch Washington_D.C. U.S.foreign_policy generating_strategic_options disarray common_goalshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:5070bf35af53/China is changing the geopolitical climate. Canada has to mitigate, and adapt2019-05-20T06:15:12+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-china-is-changing-the-geopolitical-climate-canada-has-to-mitigate/
jerrykingadaptability Canada Canada-China_relations China China_rising delusions disillusioned editorials geopolitics Huawei kidnappings threats totalitarian TPP Xi_Jinping Meng_Wanzhou hostages multilateralism reprisals bullying rogue_actors predatory_practices individual_rights two_Michaelshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:10ff7fcfbb32/The U.S. Is Ceding the Pacific to China2019-03-04T15:03:11+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-is-ceding-the-pacific-to-china-11551649516?mod=hp_opin_pos3
jerrykingAmerica_in_Decline? China China_rising maritime Mark_Helprin North_Korea PACOM South_China_Sea trade_wars U.S. U.S._Navy USMC Xi_Jinping zero-sum_games Asia_Pacific balance_of_power geopolitics long-term long-range nuclear rivalries submarines U.S.-China_relations political_geography strategic_geography hard_power political_will concentrated_forces Indo-Pacific pivot-to-Asia nuclear_weaponshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:87de17a9e509/America Pushes Allies to Fight Huawei in New Arms Race With China - The New York Times2019-01-27T21:49:20+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/huawei-china-us-5g-technology.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
jerryking5G arms_race auctions back_doors China cyberattacks cyberespionage cyber_security cyber_warfare data Five_Eyes Germany geopolitics hackers Huawei information_flows Poland spectrum telecommunications security_&_intelligence United_Kingdom David_Sanger vulnerabilitieshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:14728fae2e5b/U.S. Officials Cite Global Isolationist Tendencies Among New Security Risks - WSJ2019-01-23T07:33:51+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-officials-cite-global-isolationist-tendencies-among-new-security-risks-11548202359?mod=hp_listc_pos3
jerrykinggeopolitics risks security_&_intelligence isolationismhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:902ec269516a/The AI arms race: the tech fear behind Donald Trump’s trade war with China | Financial Times2018-07-06T23:20:03+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/40304bea-7eb9-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d#comments-anchor
jerrykingarms_race artificial_intelligence China CFIUS Donald_Trump economic_warfare economic_aggression FDI geopolitics international_trade investors investing intellectual_property industrial_policies protectionism politicians robotics One_Belt_One_Road security_&_intelligence Silicon_Valley SOEs start_ups theft U.S. venture_capital Washington_D.C. new_tech_Cold_War U.S.-China_relations critical_technologieshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:45f578aff790/America v China: How trade wars become real wars2018-03-12T14:51:25+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/5a93b060-25d3-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0
jerrykingprotectionism U.S. Donald_Trump Xi_Jinping trade_wars free-trade geopolitics warfare international_trade China_rising U.S.-China_relationshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:65bba0346743/Windfall, by Meghan O’Sullivan2017-12-05T00:52:09+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/a4363732-d5bb-11e7-a303-9060cb1e5f44
jerryking>political manipulation<< of natural gas markets”, O’Sullivan writes......the book details the benefits to US “hard” as well as “soft” power,....It will not lead to reduced US involvement in the Middle East, .....Nor can the US ever be self-sufficient to provide all the oil it needs,.....The book points out that energy is likely to be a major future determinant of geopolitics....China’s One Belt One Road project shows Xi Jinping’s intent to change the strategic orientation of the Eurasian landmass......a challenge to O’Sullivan’s thesis is that renewables and electric vehicles could drive seismic shifts. If China becomes the Saudi Arabia of batteries, will this give it greater influence? What about those who control the raw materials [i.e. = "critical minerals"] needed, from lithium to cobalt? O’Sullivan hints at this in her introduction, saying we should expect renewables “eventually to have major repercussions for global politics”. These could include cartels around lithium or the state collapse of some oil producers.
]]>nonfiction books fracking energy natural_gas soft_power shale_oil hydraulic_fracturing pipelines oil_industry geopolitics renewable electric_cars batteries One_Belt_One_Road policy_tools domestic_supply critical_minerals lithium Xi_Jinping cobalt KSG political_manipulationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:50532e9451a2/Russia Looks to Exploit White House ‘Turbulence,’ Analysts Say - The New York Times2017-02-27T21:46:05+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/world/europe/russia-looks-to-exploit-white-house-turbulence-analysts-say.html?_r=0
jerrykingRussia White_House Kremlin Vladimir_Putin influence statecraft rogue_actors geopolitics Ukraine improvisation chaos bricolage carpe_diem disarray kairos leverage opportunistic political_power power_plays predatory_practices provocations self-defeating strategic_chaos turbulence weakness_is_provocativehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:16039a79d61e/Review: ‘Winter is Coming’, by Garry Kasparov2017-01-07T14:47:32+00:00
https://www.ft.com/content/a242ace8-7da8-11e5-98fb-5a6d4728f74e
jerrykingbooks Russia Vladimir_Putin book_reviews authors writers dictators dictatorships deterrence Ukraine human_rights strategic_thinking autocracies chess authoritarianism foreign_policy geopolitics liberal_pluralism rogue_actors Garry_Kasparov consistency exile dissension Western_valueshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:481a31dfad65/Emerging markets offer clue for investors in 20172017-01-06T17:03:25+00:00
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=b273a4dd-54f8-4a9b-a522-8c8e9d81ac38&ses=4&sh=2&sds=2&
jerryking>investors<< to adapt to this new world? ....(1) Start by abandoning the idea that >>asset values<< can be predicted by using neat economic models alone. ...investors urgently need to think about the difference between "risk" (i.e. events that can be predicted with a certain probability) and "uncertainty" (i.e. unknown future shocks). Until now, investors in developed markets have tended to focus primarily on risks and assume that these can be priced (and hedged against). But 2017 is likely to produce >>uncertainty<<. That cannot be easily priced or hedge--and investors should recognize this. (2) Investor should also embrace ">>optionality<<": the only way to prepare for a world of uncertainty is to stay as flexible and >>diversified<< as possible. Now is not the time for investors to put all their eggs in one basket, or bet on just one >>asset class<<. Nor is it time for businesses to be locked into rigid business plans: political and geopolitical upheaval could strike almost anywhere. (3) If 2017 does deliver more risk and uncertainty, expect financial markets to be "skittish" about "news" of all types, and not just economic....>>Bad news<< for those who despise market >>volatility<< (expectation: we're in for volatility like we've never seen before)....Uncertainty can deliver huge opportunity alongside risks..."good" surprises....Surviving 2017 in the developed economies requires that investors use tools beyond those found in the realm of economics: psychology, sociology and political science. Also, talk to successful >>emerging market<< investors to find out how they practice their craft.]]>Gillian_Tett emerging_markets political_risk Brexit investors Donald_Trump optionality geopolitics financial_markets politicians tools economics sociology political_science FT institutions rule_of_law Gary_Cohn indicators human_factor assets asset_values asset_classes diversification dislocations bad_news upheavals concentration_risk populism psychology risks uncertainty unpredictability volatility geopolitical-riskhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:df44ed9f4a04/What Can the Next President Do About Russia? -2016-10-17T14:39:06+00:00
http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-can-the-next-president-do-about-russia-1476653291
jerryking>autocratic<< powers in Eurasia, Russia is emerging as a greater short-term threat than China. The Chinese hope to gradually dominate the waters off the Asian mainland without getting into a shooting war with the U.S. Yet while Beijing’s aggression is cool, Moscow’s is hot....Russia’s economic situation is much worse than China’s, and so the incentive of its leaders to dial up >>nationalism<< is that much greater. But the larger factor, one that Western elites have trouble understanding, cannot be quantified: A deeply embedded sense of historical insecurity [i.e = "grievances" /"humiliation"] makes Russian aggression crude, brazen, bloodthirsty and risk-prone. ....How does the U.S. build leverage on the ground, from the Baltic Sea to the Syrian desert, that puts America in a position where negotiations with Russia can make a strategic difference?....
For without the proper geopolitical context, the secretary of state is a missionary, not a diplomat. ...In the cyber domain the U.S. has not sufficiently drawn red lines. What kind of Russian hacking will result in either a proportionate, or even disproportionate, punitive response? The Obama administration seems to be proceeding ad hoc [i.e. = "muddling through"], as it has done with Russia policy in general. The next administration, along with projecting military force [i.e. = "force projection"] throughout the Russian near abroad [i.e. = " term near abroad (Russian ближнее зарубежье "blizhnee zarubezhe") refers to the independent republics that emerged after the dissolution of the Soviet Union"], will have to project force in cyberspace, too.]]>Russia Vladimir_Putin Robert_Kaplan threats deterrence nationalism Baltics NATO U.S.foreign_policy leverage geopolitics log_rolling diplomacy realism balance_of_power realpolitik cyber_warfare autocracies insecurity punitive retribution retaliation red_lines China autocrats maritime South_China_Sea muddling_through grievances humiliation force_projection Beijing China_rising hackers ad-hochttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:429d329a0f1f/Macro Advisory Partners2016-09-07T11:27:06+00:00
http://www.macroadvisorypartners.com/the-firm
jerrykinggeopolitics investors policymakers spymasters professional_services_firmshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:9fc65e2647bc/How Saudi Arabia Turned Its Greatest Weapon on Itself2016-03-14T20:34:39+00:00
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/opinion/sunday/how-saudi-arabia-turned-its-greatest-weapon-on-itself.html?ref=business&_r=0
jerrykingSaudi_Arabia petro-politics economic_warfare Iran geopolitics statecraft economic_policy Yom_Kippur_War mass_unemployment overplaying_one's_hand policy_tools social_discontent Richard_Nixon cost_of_living embargoeshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:0f8e093c36ec/The United States shouldn’t take sides in the Sunni-Shiite struggle - The Washington Post2016-01-13T04:03:55+00:00
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-united-states-shouldnt-take-sides-in-the-sunni-shiite-struggle/2016/01/07/a992713c-b56f-11e5-a842-0feb51d1d124_story.html
jerrykingFareed_Zakaria Sunni schisms Middle_East U.S.foreign_policy frameworks sectarian religion trends Iran Wahhabism extremism Yemen geopolitics Saudi_Arabia Shiites ruling_classeshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:edc9c28aa486/G-zero: the new world order2015-11-22T14:06:02+00:00
https://notes.pinboard.in/u:jerryking/033143cfa03b262b7ea9
jerrykingGillian_Tett geopolitics Ian_Bremmer G-Zero foreign_policy Cold_Warhttps://notes.pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:90083c6bf2a4/Britain resigns as a world power2015-05-25T11:02:16+00:00
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/britain-resigns-as-a-world-power/2015/05/21/d89606f8-fff1-11e4-805c-c3f407e5a9e9_story.html
jerrykinggeopolitics foreign_policy internationalism international_relations parochialism Fareed_Zakaria Walter_Russell_Mead books United_Kingdom London cutbacks BBC cost-cutting cosmopolitan David_Cameron leadership globalization retreats superpowers international_system forward_looking rule_of_law drawdowns industrial_economy punch-above-its-weight middle-powers EU diminished_circumstances Pax_Britannica post-imperialhttps://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:d7d1ed2ea040/Ten maps that explain Iran's power play in the Middle East - The Globe and Mail2015-04-16T13:07:00+00:00
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/irans-middle-east-power-play/article23845609/
jerrykinggeopolitics mapping Iran Saudi_Arabia Iraq Lebanon Yemen Middle_East power_plays Syria Syrianshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:e5d342f94375/When Cybersecurity Meets Geopolitics - Digits - WSJ2015-03-25T20:13:40+00:00
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/23/when-cybersecurity-meets-geopolitics/?mod=ST1
jerrykingcyber_security geopolitics hackers Kaspersky_Lab FireEyehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:aadfa7bf0cd5/Sir Ronald Sanders2015-02-21T14:14:16+00:00
http://www.sirronaldsanders.com/default.aspx
jerrykingCaribbean geopolitics blogshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:d1a719133d81/Changing World Shrank Hagel’s Appeal to Obama - WSJ2014-12-14T01:51:22+00:00
http://www.wsj.com/articles/changing-world-made-hagel-a-bad-fit-for-obama-1416860134?KEYWORDS=Seib+Hagel
jerrykingGerald_Seib Obama geopolitics Pentagon security_&_intelligence exitshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:944e621d3044/Book Review: ‘The Accidental Superpower’ by Peter Zeihan - WSJ2014-12-05T04:50:54+00:00
http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-the-accidental-superpower-by-peter-zeihan-1417653112?KEYWORDS=zeihan
jerrykinggeopolitics books book_reviews superpowershttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:01db4d7f5ca4/Are we witnessing a comeback of the Stars and Stripes? - The Globe and Mail2014-09-28T02:22:33+00:00
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/are-we-witnessing-a-comeback-of-the-stars-and-stripes/article20808724/?page=all#dashboard/follows/
jerryking>ad hoc<< groups of nations taking on the challenges of the day. Some of them champion liberal values. Some are partners of convenience. Exhibit A: the coalition of willing Arab states in this week’s air strikes. Exhibit B: the network of health agencies and charities operating with U.S. support in ebola-stricken >>West Africa<<....On the grander issues of his age – climate change, cyber-security, the financial imbalance between America and Asia – Mr. Obama will need ad hoc networks like never before. The 2008 financial crisis was mitigated by a small group of central bankers, commercial bankers, regulators and finance ministers, supported but not directed by the United States. A president who is not renowned for building private-sector trust, or the loyalty of other nations, may be challenged to do that again. He also needs what America has lacked of late – for its allies to do more. Canada’s approach to carbon emissions is the sort of >>passive resistance<< the U.S. has encountered from India on trade, Mexico on immigration and Turkey on Syria. Under Mr. Obama, everyone has loved to complain about Washington, but few have been willing to **shoulder their share of the costs**. [i.e. = "burden sharing"]
Skeptics believe this is no longer possible – the world has too many strong voices, too many >>competing interests<<, too much of what physicists call entropy, the thermodynamic condition that degenerates order into chaos.]]>America_in_Decline? bouncing_back U.S.foreign_policy Obama John_Stackhouse G20 UN NATO Iran Ukraine geopolitics complexity networks interconnections instability superpowers indispensable disequilibriums nobystanders entropy imbalances multipolarity discontinuities dislocations small_groups burden-sharing West_Africa coalitions passive_resistance competing_interests ad-hochttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:bbcfac60a81e/The Grand Strategy Obama Needs2014-09-11T10:23:15+00:00
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/opinion/vali-nasr-the-grand-strategy-obama-needs.html
jerrykingObama Ukraine strategy geopolitics '50s Middle_East Russia strategic_thinking nation_building failed_states long-term weak_states diplomacy grand_strategy roadmaps Non-Integrating_Gap Dwight_Eisenhower crisis Vali_Nasr coherence fractured_internally internal_dissension levels_of_abstraction conflict_avoidancehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:7dbfab40055f/Henry Kissinger on the Assembly of a New World Order - WSJ2014-08-30T03:30:46+00:00
http://online.wsj.com/articles/henry-kissinger-on-the-assembly-of-a-new-world-order-1409328075?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories&cb=logged0.9872012396808714
jerrykingU.S.foreign_policy Henry_Kissinger geopolitics Kissinger_Associates strategic_thinking strategy questions 21st._century international_system grand_strategy history national_identity multilateralism hard_choices hard_things existential national_interests realities APNSA arduous crisis dual-consciousness moral_compromises unilateralism diplomacy statesmanship statecraft safe_havens hard_questions hard_truths core_values non-negotiables comforting_illusions going_it_alone choosing_the_harder_pathhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:a30ed5dfb7e9/Steering Clear of Sanctions - The CFO Report - WSJ2014-08-08T08:17:16+00:00
http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2014/07/08/steering-clear-of-sanctions/?KEYWORDS=Rubenfeld+Murphy+Ensign
jerrykingsanctions U.S.Treasury_Department geopolitics multinationals blacklists economic_warfare penaltieshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:510ae39f1b17/