Month: July 2021

CHINA

“The United States is deeply concerned with the increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of US and other foreign journalists in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including foreign journalists covering the devastation and loss of life caused by recent floods in Henan,” according to a written statement from Ned Price, State Department Spokesperson. The confrontational actions of the Chinese government and its harsh rhetoric toward any news it perceives to be critical of PRC policies, has provoked negative public sentiment leading to tense, in-person confrontations and harassment, including online verbal abuse and death threats of journalists simply doing their jobs, he added. The increasingly intolerant policies enacted toward foreign journalists who are increasingly refused visas to enter or remain in the PRC severely limits the quantity and quality of independent reporting. It does not bode well for the upcoming Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.  

AFGHANISTAN

In response to criticism over the handling of securing the safety of Afghan interpreters who assisted the US during the war, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that at the State Department, “we’ve activated an Afghanistan Coordination Task Force that is working on this… [and] coordinating our efforts to take SIV applicants out of harm’s way and, if qualified, bring them to the United States once their vetting is complete… We put significant resources into this effort.  We are talking to a number of countries about the possibility of temporarily relocating these applicants as the process is complete.  It takes some time to work through the process.  The first group of interpreters arrived at Fort Lee near Richmond, Virginia earlier in the week. They are expected to be shipped out around the country within the next seven days, according to a US Army spokesperson at Fort Lee.

RUSSIA

The Russian government announced that beginning in August it has decided to curb interactions with the US Embassy in Moscow by refusing to allow the US to retain or hire locally employed staff and contractors. Mission Russia for decades has engaged local individuals to assist with consular and other operations in country. The announcement means that the US Government must let 182 local employees go at diplomatic facilities in Moscow, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg. The only locals allowed to remain are those physically guarding US facilities. “These unfortunate measures will severely impact the US mission to Russia’s operations, potentially including the safety of our personnel as well as our ability to engage in diplomacy with the Russian government,” according to Secretary of State Blinken.

IRAN

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The Secretary of State said Thursday that “we are determined that Iran not acquire a nuclear weapon.”  Whether Iran comes back into compliance with the JCPOA nuclear agreement depends on Iran making the decision to do so, according to Blinken. He stated that Iran has not yet made that decision. Blinken suggested that Iran is continuing to advance its nuclear program in “very dangerous ways, and at some point those advances will be such that returning to compliance with the nuclear agreement won’t solve the problem.”

Protests that started outside of Tehran in recent days have entered the capital city. Blinken said that, at first, they were about people’s deep frustration with the failure of government to meet their basic needs, including water, mismanagement of the economy.  Now, he says, “we’ve seen them move to people expressing their larger aspirations for freedom and for a government that respects them and respects their rights.”  He urged the Iranian government not to use violence and repression to silence those voices.

SOMALIA

The US is providing nearly $199 million in additional humanitarian assistance for the people of Somalia who have faced decades of chronic food insecurity, violence, and cycles of drought and flooding—the impacts of which have all been compounded by desert locusts and the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the State Department. This additional funding, through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department, brings the total humanitarian assistance to more than $408 million for Fiscal Year 2021. The money is intended to assist the nearly six million Somalians in need of humanitarian aid, including three million displaced people inside Somalia as well as nearly 500,000 Somali refugees in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya. 

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

Four years ago, the US Army told Congress that to address emerging threats to our national security it needed to evolve new advanced methods and weaponry that could outpace the speed of any persistent great power competitor. The Pentagon also announced it needed the ability to operate in a multi-domain [air, land, water, space, cyber, information] environment. The Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) concept, the Army decided in 2017, would require complete integration across the joint forces and entail new operational concepts, technologies, weapons, and units to win a war with China. Pentagon estimates are that China will be on par with the US militarily by 2040 – the latest. It appears that China will meet its projected deadline sooner than expected. Next month the US Army is activating its first overseas MDTF in Europe. Time may not be on the United States’ side when it comes to a potential war in the Indo-Pacific region if Beijing continues to intensify its efforts.

A US Army White paper, released in an unclassified version earlier this spring reported that “By 2040, China and Russia will have weaponized all instruments of national power to undermine the collective wills of the United States, Allies and partners, while simultaneously cultivating their own security partnerships. This will lead to an unstructured international environment where the line between conflict and peace is blurred,” the white paper added. “As China and Russia continue to modernize their militaries, the Joint Force will find it increasingly difficult to deter their illicit and aggressive actions.”

Beijing is not sitting idle while Washington develops new MDTF’s or other military advances to counter China’s long-term, global ambitions. Satellite imagery recently released indicates that China is building not one, but a network of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silo fields in the western regions of the country. Each site is located beyond the reach of conventional missile capabilities. A foreign response would encompass a high cost to the US or any nation countering Chinese aggression. The first site discovered in February indicates there are well over 100 silos under construction near Yuman, in Gansu province. Each individual silo is spaced less than two miles apart from the next. The dome-covered field is a large and impressive site with support facilities built around it.

The more recent discovery by the American Federation of Scientists (FAS) identified a second location near Hami city in northwest China, which is about 240 miles from the Yuman ICBM location. Estimates are that silo work there began in March. “Since then, however, the telltale dome-like shelters, that analysts have identified as being associated with the building of silos, have appeared over at least 14 individual sites at Hami, with preparations noted at 19 others,” according to Thomas Newdick, writing in The Drive. In total over 250 new silos have been identified as completed or under construction. China also operates 100 road mobile ICBM launch units. The FAS estimates that China has 350 nuclear warheads. The US military estimates that the actual number of operational units is closer to the low 200’s. If China fills the new silos with ICBM’s, the potential is for a total over 515 operational warheads under the command of the Chinese government. It could represent the greatest threat ever faced by the United States.

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The Chinese site plan may require Washington to play an ICBM-enhanced version of the “Whack-A-Mole” game in response to an attack if the silos are partially filled with operational missiles. That type of contest creates a targeting nightmare for any adversary. The United States must develop plans now to address all contingencies and not simply hope that it chooses the correct target in response to an attack on the US or one of its allies. The MDFT concept for future warfare is a move in the right direction but more needs to be done to hold China accountable. Washington cannot overlook that President Xi Jinping intends his legacy to be to that he restored China to global greatness while forcing the West to cower to his demands. A Chinese nuclear first strike capability, and the ability to survive it, is a prestigious position for Xi to occupy when it comes to hard power prowess. 

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Photo: China Defence Ministry

Russia has delayed publication of its state program of space activities for 2021–2030, after letting its previous 2012-2020 plan go partially unfulfilled. Vladimir Putin may be the authoritarian leader of Russia but even he must pay attention to the politics of space.

One decade ago, on the 50^th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s inaugural flight into space, 49% of the Russian population said they believed space exploration would improve their lives within the next 20 years, with 63% saying it also would improve the economy, according to the Levada Research Center, a Russian non-governmental organization. A full 45% in the poll believed that Russia was stronger than other developed nations in the field of space exploration. VCIOM News, another Russian publication, found that 91% of Russians in 2021 expect their country to participate in space programs. The only milestone of greater import to modern Russians is the country’s victory in WWII. It presents Putin with a grand challenge. Expectations for the lagging space program far exceed Russia’s capability to meet its goals in a unilateral cosmonautic effort. Yet despite the financial constraints and public statements to the contrary, Putin is proceeding with his plans to modernize and militarize its space program.

While Western sanctions related to the 2014 Crimean annexation reduced the country’s ability to purchase the advanced space electronics produced overseas its needs to move forward in outer space, last year Putin still moved forward with his plans. He signed a presidential decree approving the foundations of new state policy in the field of space activities, according to the Russian publication Kommersant. First Deputy Director General of “Roskomos” Yuri Urlichich, said that Putin’s decree set new goals for the space program that, specifically, affected the development of the orbital constellation of satellites and improved access from the territory of Russia to outer space. By mid-2021 it proved to be an embarrassment and source of anger for the Russian people, according to Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation. The program’s decline is evident in the enormous cost overruns for building the space port on Russian territory and numerous failures on the launchpad itself. That hasn’t stopped Putin.

Problems plaguing the space program, according to Goble, translate into declining domestic support for Putin’s regime. He can no longer point to Russia’s superiority over the West or China. The technological advances in the Russian space program once fueled other parts of the economy. Today the civilian economy receives no benefit from it nor does the ideological outlook appear optimistic for future advances. Putin is being forced to play a new hand; trying to ensure his power and that his country doesn’t fall further behind its competitors by weaponizing space. 

Pavel Luzin, an expert on the Russian armed forces, says that  “It is this consensus that was exploited from the early 1960’s by the Soviet authorities and that has been exploited by the Russian authorities since the early 1990’s to ensure the legitimacy of the distribution of power and wealth within the country and of Russian decision-makers’ actions in the international arena.” The Russian people view the success of the space program as an indicator that Putin’s economic and political policies are on the correct tract. 

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On July 12 Dmitry Peksov, press secretary to President Putin, announced that the state will continue to take the lead in space “exploration” as private companies in Russia do not have the capital. He then stated that he hopes Russian billionaires will invest in Russia’s program. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s federal space agency Roscosmos, earlier in the week had appealed to billionaires to help with the cost of the space program, which is tightly linked to the country’s military complex. 

Although Moscow has publicly declared its complete commitment to the demilitarization of space, Putin has overseen the development of space lasers systems designed to “to destroy or damage satellites from Earth or disrupt [the US] ability to use satellites,” according to recent Congressional testimony by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The financial cost of the space program to Putin has decreased domestic support for his regime but it has not dulled his intention to build a modern space force capable to taking on the West. To remain in power, he must appease the population, the oligarchs and the Russian military. According to the Annual Threat Assessment by the US Director of National Intelligence, “Despite flat or even declining defense spending, Russia will emphasize new weapons that present increased threats to the United States….[and] will remain a key space competitor, maintaining a large network of reconnaissance, communications, and navigation satellites. It will focus on integrating space services… into its weapons and command-and-control systems.” 

While the West must watch developments in China, it cannot overlook that Putin will continue to push his space program despite sanctions and the financial costs. He is continuing to train Russia’s military space elements, field new antisatellite (ASAT) weapons capable of disrupting and degrading US and allied space capabilities, and test its directed energy weapons. It is what he wants and what the Russian population expects of their leader.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Thursday, she presents key updates on Russia.

There was a time when space activity was all about the great power rivalry between the U.S and the U.S.S.R. Then, it was all about the engineering feats of building the International Space Station. Now, it is fascinating to see private enterprise taking a leading role.

This will be the true start of the “Space Age.”  Imagine if, in the early days of the United States, no went west unless they were part of a government program. Over 200 years later, we might still be a nation just clinging to the Eastern seaboard!

Now, from space tourism to the very important activities of defense, exploration, and major economic infrastructure, the American private sector is beginning to lead the way into orbit and beyond.

America’s Space Development Agency (SDA), charged with building the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), has, for the first time, put satellites into orbit aboard a private company’s rocket.

SpaceX’s Transporter 2 commercial rocket has been authorized for this first-of-its-kind mission, designed to place five military spacecraft into orbit.  

The Space Development Agency was established in 2019 to protect the U.S. in an era when Russia and China are becoming increasingly threatening in orbit. China, in particular, is determined to replace the U.S. as the dominant power in space. While proclaiming its peaceful intentions, Beijing’s doctrine considers space a military domain, and it is investing heavily in space infrastructure designed to secure both economic and military advantages.

Earlier this year, Chief of Space Operations, Space Force Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond stated that The United States’ freedom to maneuver in space is a vital national interest that underpins national security, intelligence efforts, treaty verification and the economy.

The current SDA mission includes five SDA satellites. These include a pair of “Mandrake II” satellites; two “Laser Interconnect Networking Communications System,” or LINCS, satellites; and a satellite carrying the SDA’s Prototype On-orbit Experimental Testbed, or POET, experiment.

The SDA is working now on delivering the National Defense Space Architecture, which includes hundreds of satellites delivered in “tranches” every two years; each tranche will provide more capability.

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The NDSA’s network of hundreds of satellites will provide beyond line-of-sight targeting for ground and maritime time-sensitive targets and the same for enemy missiles already in flight. The system will provide the ability to detect those targets, track them, calculate a fire control solution and then deliver that solution down to a weapons platform so the target can be destroyed.

It’s expected that the NDSA’s hundreds of satellites will communicate with one another using a network of lasers through optical communication terminals, or OCTs.

Two of each type of satellite will go into orbit, and the SDA will evaluate the ability of each OCT to operate in space.

“We’re trying to figure out the acquisition, the pointing and the tracking,” said a senior SDA official. “Can we make the connection; can we hold that connection; and can we exchange data between two terminals in space with that connection?”

The official said the tests will put the satellites as far as 2,400 kilometers apart in order to test their ability to communicate via laser.

“We’re going to try to send data essentially from D.C. to Denver at the speed of light,” he said. “And that’s what we’re going to bring to the warfighter over the next several years.”

The SDA is hoping to build a “market” for the satellites it plans to put into orbit. It will buy a lot of those satellites and put them up regularly. Agency officials expect that a market for satellites would cause many vendors to compete regularly with their latest technology, and many would have compatible technologies.

Photo: Space X Transporter 2 Rocket (DoD)

Some in the U.S. seek to cut America’s defense budget, even as Russian tanks mass on Ukraine’s border and China assembles a potential invasion force aimed at Taiwan.

Despite the ominous threats from Beijing and Moscow, some are seeking to reduce the U.S. military. Space News reports that 50 House Democrats have signed a letter urging President Biden to slash the Pentagon’s budget.

The move ignores growing danger.

The Pentagon Report on China Military Power highlights several troubling areas:

Shipbuilding: The PRC has the largest navy in the world, with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships and submarines including over 130 major surface combatants. In comparison, the U.S. Navy’s battle force is approximately 293 ships as of early 2020.

Land-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles: The PRC has more than 1,250 ground-launched ballistic missiles (GLBMs) and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The United States currently fields one type of conventional GLBM with a range of 70 to 300 kilometers and no GLCMs.

Integrated air defense systems: The PRC has one of the world’s largest forces of advanced long-range surface-to-air systems—including Russian-built S-400s, S-300s, and domestically produced systems—that constitute part of its robust and redundant integrated air defense system architecture. 

 More striking than the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) staggering amounts of new military hardware are the recent sweeping efforts taken by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders that include completely restructuring the PLA into a force better suited for joint operations, improving the PLA’s overall combat readiness, encouraging the PLA to embrace new operational concepts, and expanding the PRC’s overseas military footprint.

The Stockholm Institute for Peace Policy Research Institute reports that “In recent years, Russia has embarked on a military modernization programme funded by rapidly increasing military spending and has pursued a more assertive foreign policy. This has attracted attention to the level of its military spending. “

Some of Moscow’s military advances are deeply disturbing. Business Insider reports that “Russia is testing a nuclear torpedo in the Arctic that has the power to trigger radioactive tsunamis off the US coast.”

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While America debates, other nations are taking note of the growing danger.

Japan, using the technology brought about by the revolutionary F-35 fighter fleet it is purchasing from the United States, is enhancing both its air force and its navy to counter the growing Chinese-Russian threat in the Pacific.

For the ninth consecutive year, Tokyo will ramp up its military spending, which will reach record levels this year. The move is in recognition of China’s dramatic increases in its military spending, which has grown each year for decades.  It’s rate of increase in defense spending has outpaced both the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R at the height of the Cold War.

According to Japanese sources,   “In order to adapt to increasingly rapid changes in the security environment, Japan must strengthen its defense capability at speeds that are fundamentally different from the past. To this end…Defense-related expenditures has increased for the eight consecutive years.”

India, which has had recent border clashes with China, is also deeply concerned. It’s latest defense budget is the nation’s highest in its history.

Across the planet in the United Kingdom, new and emerging threats are motivating the British Government to upgrade its defenses.

The U.K.’s Defence Ministry is urging London  to adapt what it describes as a “future vision for the UK Armed Forces ensuring the military is prepared for new and emerging threats and challenges.”  The proposal would create an extraordinary 400,000 jobs throughout the nation.

The plan includes spending an additional $117 billion in new equipment purchases.

While America’s adversaries grow in strength and our allies take note, some in America continue to ignore reality.

Photo: Russian Tanks in parade formation (Russian Ministry of Defence photo)

Substantive and disturbing questions continue to be raised about The Biden Administration’s immigration policies, and those of its supporters, which have enriched criminal cartels and violent gangs, endangered illegal immigrants, and harmed the safety and finances of American citizens.

9,000 illegals entered the United States in all of 2020.  As of March this year, 108,000 known illegals crossed the border.

The President has even commenced flying minors from Latin America to the U.S. at American taxpayers expense. . Other measures include plans to boost refugee admissions,  and not enforcing the “public charge” rule that prohibits green cards to immigrants who use public benefits like Medicaid.

That will significantly increase the already dramatic expenses resulting from illegal immigration. In 2017, The Federation for American Immigration Reform reported that the  cost totaled $134,863.455,364 at the combined federal, state and local levels.

The measures have received significant criticism from both U.S. and Latin American officials. Guatamala’s President Alejandro Giammattei has outlined Biden’s confusing messaging, and how his policy has brought extraordinary danger to young people seeking to cross the U.S. southern border.

Unless one assumes that the Biden Administration is actively seeking to encourage and expand illegal immigration, there appears to be little logic in its actions other than a partisan impulse to repeal the generally effective Trump policies.

 There is an apparent impulse to move away from protecting U.S. citizens while enhancing assistance to illegals. One example: It has ended the prior president’s office created to assist American citizens harmed by illegal alien crime, and replaced it with one designed to assist illegals who claim maltreatment in detention centers.

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In recent comments, DHS Seccretary Mayorkas, who opposes even using the term “illegal alien,” noted that his emphasis is on protecting the “dignity of illegals.”

 Perhaps Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden Administration have forgotten the connection between illegal immigration and human trafficking. James O. Finckenauer and Jennifer Schrock, writing for the  International Center National Institute of Justice noted: “Human trafficking has become a lucrative criminal market in the United States. The commodities involved in this illicit trade are men, women, and children. Traffickers transport undocumented migrants into the U.S. for work in licit, semi-illicit and illicit industries. The traffickers’ foremost goal is to maximize profits — often resulting in physical and mental exploitation of the victims… many migrants are held in slave-like conditions until they are able to pay off their fees. Female migrants are especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation…”

The Center for Immigration Studies reports that “According to multiple U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) sources, the [Biden Administration] is close to finalizing a policy that will drop FBI name checks as a form of vetting for naturalization applicants…”

The Progressive pro-illegal position has worked to the detriment of working Americans.  In a report to Congress by the Civil Rights Commission, it was noted that “illegal workers are estimated to account for as much as one-third of total immigrants in the United States, and that illegal immigration has tended to increase the supply of low-skilled, low-wage labor available. The Commission found also that … black males … are … in likely competition with immigrants.”

The Biden Administration appears oblivious to the torrent of murder, rape, and drug dealing, from illegal aliens. A Judicial Watch analysis of federal statistics notes that “Seventy percent of illegal Aliens in federal jails were convicted of  non-immigration crimes…The U.S. government spent at least $162 million last year to incarcerate tens of thousands of criminal illegal immigrants for committing crimes that include rape, murder, kidnapping and terrorism. The offenders were imprisoned by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), which confirm that 94% of aliens jailed in 2019 were unlawfully present in the U.S. …”

Photo: U.S. Border Patrol

RUSSIA

The US placed sanctions on several Russian entities connected to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. A senior State Department official said that “This package is designed to address the root causes of those risks – Russia’s use of energy as a geopolitical weapon and the vulnerability of countries like Ukraine, which are dependent on Russian gas and transit fees, to Russian malign activities.” The US and Germany publicly stated neither country will tolerate the risk an operational Nord Stream 2 would pose to European energy security, Ukraine, and frontline NATO and EU countries. The official said that the US goal is to prevent Ukraine from losing any transit revenues for as long as possible to enable to create a sustainable and secure energy future. Earlier in the week when asked about the pipeline, the State Department Spokesperson gave a vague answer to which the reporter said: “That was a very, very long and defensive answer for a question that could have been answered with “We don’t have anything to announce for you today.” It appears the media is losing patience with the Biden Administration.

AFGHANISTAN

The US will temporarily relocate 750 Afghan individuals and their families who feel threatened in Afghanistan due to their assistance to US forces to Fort Lee, Virginia to enable them to complete their Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) processing outside of Afghanistan, according to Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon. The move comes after the Biden Administration received extensive criticism for ignoring the plight of those who risked their lives to help the US. There are over 20,000 in the initial stages of the application process for the SIV program. Many of the families are being sent to third countries.

ISRAEL

The United States will be moving forward with the process to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem and, according to the State Department Spokesman New Price, will do so as “part of our effort to re-establish that partnership with the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority precisely because it allows us to engage with them, it allows us to execute our assistance programs, it allows us to execute our public diplomacy mission, and to conduct the sort of diplomatic reporting that we need.” 

CUBA

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The US will form a “remittances working group” to identify the most effective ways to get directly into the hands of the Cuban people, according to Price. Beyond that, he said, “we are also reviewing our plans to augment staffing at our embassy in Havana to facilitate the consular activities, the engagement with civil society, and to make sure we have an appropriate security posture as well.” Previously, President Biden said the US would not intervene in stopping remittances to Cuba. Price said “what is new is the announcement that we are going to study it very carefully, very closely to determine what and how we might be able to move forward in a way that supports the Cuban people without adding to the coffers of the regime.” 

BANGLADESH

When a reporter specifically asked the State Department Spokesperson if the Biden administration will be critical of the current authoritarian prime minister in Bangladesh, Price responded: “When it comes to Bangladesh, we work closely with Bangladesh to address common challenges. Those include climate change.”  He then added, “Yes.”

IRAQ

The US is in discussions this week regarding the removal of US troops from Iraq. Price said that “there is a strategic dialogue tomorrow [Thursday] that the Secretary will take part in… When it comes to the U.S. military presence in Iraq, this is all under the rubric of our joint and collective efforts to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS.”

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

“No later, no longer, no fewer” could be China’s new family planning slogan this week as it attempts to reverse its draconian one-child policy that failed dramatically. Deng Xiaoping, by the mid-1970s helped introduce the family planning slogan “Late, long, and few,” meaning to encourage later marriages, longer intervals between births, and fewer children. The CCP no longer wants families to put off having children. It is changing the rules…. again… after recently allowing two children per family, and now three (although no one will be fined for additional births now). For four decades, married couples could try for one baby only after receiving a government family planning certificate, and then only within a designated timeframe. Today China finds itself in dire need of more people to run the country’s growing economy. The one-child policy was so demographically devastating that China cannot replicate its own population. 

It is past the point of no return, according to demographers studying how populations reproduce. China’s total fertility rate declined 15% last year. In the last four years China has moved from 1.7 births per woman in 2016 to 1.3 last year. Statistically, a country needs a minimum birth rate of 2.11 to replace its population. Even if the Chinese government were to order every woman, young and old, to bear as many children as possible, it cannot recover in what may become known as the CCP’s most misguided and destabilizing program since its founding 100 years ago.

The CCP decided many decades ago that China had too many mouths using up the country’s resources. Its solution was to regulate every facet of life, including family size. In cities, factories required females of child-bearing age to sign in on a board hung up at the building’s entrance. On it, for all to see, a woman was required to indicate when she was menstruating. If she failed to mark her time of the month, she faced severe consequences for the potential pregnancy including fines, interrogation by supervisors and lectures from neighborhood birth planning enforcement “grannies,” a loss of health benefits, job, and possibly housing, forced abortion, and even forced sterilization. 

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The CCP goal was to reduce the high birth rate. It achieved the stated goal. What Chinese family planners failed to take into account was the long-term consequences of the harsh policy. According to a Global Times interview this week with Li Yue, a researcher at the China Population and Development Research Center, estimates are that an extremely low birth rate will occur between 2021 and 2025 due to the low willingness of women to have children and the postponement of pregnancies during the COVID-19 epidemic. Children are expensive to raise in China and many women fear losing momentum in their careers. Couples are not deciding to expand their families despite government incentives.
Three population factors may contribute to destabilizing the CCP’s rule in the next few years. First, China is now the most gender imbalanced nation on earth. Baby girls routinely are aborted in favor of having a little princeling. In 2019 the gender ratio in China was 114 males for every 100 females born. There are entire villages with no females of child-bearing age. Parents often are forced to “buy” their son a bride.  Second, the declining birth rate means an increasingly gray population. Older parents rely on their children to take care of them in retirement. Statista reports that last year approximately 17.4% of China’s population is estimated to be over the age of 60 and this number is projected to rise to 34.6% in 2050. One adult child in the workforce could be responsible for the care of two parents and four grandparents. Lastly, China’s labor force has been in decline for the last seven years; each year losing 0.5%. The shrinking labor force comes at a time when China is attempting to dominate the international marketplace. There is no quick fix even with structural changes in the society. Some in China call it a crisis threatening the very survival of the nation. On the bright side, it may provide the rest of the world with an opportunity to re-evaluate how much influence it allows China to have over its intended transformation of the international rules-based system.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Illustration: Pixabay

GIUK is not Twitter short-hand. NATO knows it. The US Navy recognizes it is real, even if it isn’t part of everyone’s vocabulary. The GIUK Gap is a critical maritime strategic transit route, or chokepoint, that NATO uses to keep watch over Russian submarines, surface ships and planes. It consists of a 200-mile length of ocean between Iceland and Greenland alongside a 500-mile gap between Iceland and Scotland. Both Russia and China are making overtures to Greenland which could destabilize NATO’s ability to operate in this territory. Although Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Scotland all retain high degrees of political autonomy they could decide that strict neutrality is a less costly defense option and would provide each more complete self-determination.

Russia knows that economically, the region is heavily dependent on industries that could be dramatically impacted in a market crash. According to Scott Savitz, writing in Defense One, “When the inevitable cyclical crash happens, and subsidies from Copenhagen or London are no longer forthcoming, they could be desperate for help, and willing to welcome it from outside powers offering money on seemingly favorable terms.” Russia, and the rest of the world have witnessed China using its BRI Initiative to control markets and alliances over the last decade throughout the developing world. Russia is considering something similar. With Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Scotland each having a domestic economy of about $3 billion, Putin knows it could be an easy financial deal for Russia.

China already is making overtures to Greenland to mine its rare earths and offering to send several thousand of its miners to the island. Russia appears to be setting up businesses and preparing to make other political deals in the region. Putin could gain significantly if he convinces Greenland to abrogate the United States’ basing rights at Thule. Russia would then acquire new means to conduct intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance in GIUK Gap and North Atlantic, according to Savitz.

How likely is Greenland to change alliances? Although it is nearly one-third the size of the continental US, it only has a population of 56,081. With a large land mass, small population, and Russian propaganda expounding the advantages of improving relations with Moscow, it is feasible that if Greenland becomes fully independent, it could decide against joining NATO and side with Russia. It might seek protection of its interests elsewhere, according to Savitz, and that would hurt NATO’s ability to counter Russian moves in the region and its ability to secure the GIUK Gap.  

This region figures prominently in the Russian Navy’s planning and calculations. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) points out that after a long period of neglect during the Cold War this region is again a flash point for potential great power conflict and needs a post-Cold War reevaluation. IISS calls these sea lanes “the gateway between northern European waters and the broad reaches of the Atlantic and beyond.” As the new Northern Passageway becomes an accessible shipping route for longer periods during the year, and advanced technologies make mining the natural resources of the Arctic region economical, Russian analysts see a strategic opportunity to make gestures of support to the region. 

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This poses a maritime domain challenge for NATO given Russia has heavily invested in anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities in recent years. Benjamin Roade, of IISS, says “This is especially the case with Russia’s latest long-range air-, surface- and submarine-launched anti-ship missiles.” It was just three years ago when the US sent its first US carrier deployment into the Arctic Circle in more than two decades. With the renewed US focus on the High North along with increased Russian submarine activity and precision stand-off weapons capabilities, NATO’s posture needs to continue changing to reflect the new environment. 

While Russia’s military equipment investment in the region remains lower than at the height of the Cold War, the US cannot overlook the long-term implications should it lose the GIUK Gap. Modern Russian subs are more lethal than earlier Cold War versions. Today the US-NATO “acoustic edge” in detecting the increasingly stealth Russian subs almost is gone.  Although technology has increased the range of precision guided missiles since the onset of the Cold War, the GIUK Gap will remain a forward line of defense as Russia continues to asset that it plans to reach out into the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Black Sea, not just the High North and Baltic. It will continue to be a critical gateway and a potential testing ground for new military technologies. The US needs to Mind the Gap.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government.  Each Thursday, she presents key updates on Russia.

Illustration: Russian Defence Ministry

The current U.S. progressive movement combines the worst elements of the 20th Century’s most devastating regimes. It emphasizes an opposition to individual rights, racial animosity, socialist economics, and the utilization of violence and censorship. it includes the traditional authoritarian antisemitism and generalized assaults on religious institutions. Progressives have utilized historical revisionism, ideological domination of education and entertainment, and the ceaseless use of propaganda.

The failure of the Soviet Union was an abject lesson in the shortcomings of all-powerful central government and socialist financial practice. The rise and fall of Nazi Germany demonstrated the nightmare of race-based philosophy. Strangely, American progressivism combines these two horrific examples.

Progressivism is not just another typical political movement. It rejects standards to ensure honest balloting. It stridently seeks to censor political opponents. It tries to incite widespread division by outrageously false claims, including the alleged existence of “systemic racism” when not a single law or regulation exists to justify the claim.

 Its essence, Progressivism is a rejection not just of American Constitutional government, but of much of western thought arising from both the Judeo-Christian ethic and the Enlightenment. One example: the abortion movement has metamorphized into the legitimization of infanticide, as support for the “woman’s right” to kill infants in their ninth month is advocated.

This grand rejection informs its overt distaste of popular traditions.

Churches have been threatened with legal action and harassment for observing their own traditions. Several years ago, the City of Houston, led by Mayor Annise Parker, issued subpoenas to pastors demanding they submit their planned sermons for government approval.  The City of Philadelphia attempted to ban Catholic institutions from certain social services. The Obama Administration attempted to force Catholic nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, to accept participation in a practice that would be antithetical to their beliefs.

Expressions of patriotism or affection for the flag and the national anthem at sporting events are anathema to Progressives. Musical artist Macy Gray says the US should abandon its flag because it is “tattered, dated, divisive, and incorrect.” Some American Sports figures continue to “take a knee” in response to the national anthem, in what can be observed not as a statement on a singular issue but a rejection of America as a whole.  

The concept of the nuclear family is ridiculed. Nyla Sampson, an artist and self-proclaimed “black activist,” insists that fathers are “unnecessary.”

Institutions seen as protective of the American form of government, and indeed, the existence of U.S. nationhood itself, are under persistent attack. Progressive elites, sheltered in gated communities or retaining private security, strive to defund police forces. Recently, fifty members of The Portland Police Department’s Rapid Response Team resigned from that detail following an indictment of a team officer for allegedly using his official baton to stop an aggressive protester last summer. Portland has suffered from frequently violent protests for over a year, including an attack on a federal courthouse. Progressive media outlets have continuously and overtly lied to their audiences, insisting that the protests were “peaceful” despite the reality that they included burning buildings, looting stores, and attacking innocent civilians.

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Strident assaults on defense budgets, despite extraordinary threats from abroad, are harshly made. The very concept of the nation controlling its own borders is rejected.

The majority of the American population, steeped in the legacy of the Bill of Rights, form an obstacle to Progressivism, which opposes portions of The First, Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and engages in thinly veiled assaults on the Second.

The scale of the Progressive assault on Constitutional government, religious freedom, individual rights and Western Civilization is so thorough, and its practice so ably hidden by censorship, that it stands a reasonable chance of success.  If it does, a new dark age will emerge.  

Illustration: Pixabay