Friday News Roundup — November 18, 2022
Although a handful of races have yet to be resolved, it appears that the 2022 U.S. midterm elections took place last week without major problems. This would not normally be our top story, but it is significant because it represents a stark contrast to 2020, which will be noted as the election where the losing presidential candidate alleged that widespread fraud had taken place. A record $16 billion was spent on elections this year, up from $5.7 billion during the last midterm election in 2018. The results so far indicate that Democrats will continue to hold the U.S. Senate by a slim margin in 2023 (with the runoff election for Georgia’s second senate seat scheduled for December) while Republicans will take control of the House of Representatives. There will be new leadership on the Democrat side as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) announced November 17 that they are stepping down from their leadership posts.
Some pundits are saying that divided government is a recipe for gridlock. Others point to significant legislative accomplishments that have come from divided government in the past. Certainly, divided government helps to put checks on the most partisan outcomes — but it does not remove the prospect of committee chairs holding politically partisan hearings. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), co-chair of the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus, said he expected that a narrow margin would result in more compromise both within his party and across the aisle. Last week, domestic issues like the economy, abortion, crime, the border crisis, and American democracy itself were prominent issues, both on the 24-hour news stations and in the minds of voters.
Meanwhile, there was a lot happening overseas: world leaders (sans Putin) met at the G20 summit in Indonesia, Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians continued unabated, and UN delegates met in Egypt to review climate goals at the COP27. The multiple (and converging) international crises — war, climate, energy, and food security — affect the homeland, and solutions to these crises alongside competition with China will demand a) deep collaboration between the United States and likeminded international partners and b) significant engagement by the U.S. Congress. At times, crafting solutions will require putting U.S. national interests ahead of partisan differences. We hope that the new Congress — and the White House — are up to the task. The Washington Post said in a November 13 editorial that “in the midterms, moderation proved a virtue and extremism a vice” and noted that “The big picture here is that democracy and democratic norms are stabilizing.” Certainly, America’s global standing benefits when our democracy is functioning and when reasonable leaders can work together on a common challenge.
This week, our President & CEO Glenn Nye spoke in New York to the Japan Society, speaking on the midterm election results and what they mean for the United States and Japan.
Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence and Global Affairs Director Joshua C. Huminski reviewed Frank Dikötter’s “China After Mao” for the Diplomatic Courier this week and Sir Lawrence Freedman’s “Command” last week. Dikötter’s book is a deep exploration of the inner political and economic turmoil behind China’s rise to the second largest economy. In “Command”, Sir Lawrenece explores the frictions that emerge at the intersection of politics and military operations, showing the advantages of liberal democratic civil-military relations over more authoritarian regimes.
As part of the Russia Policy Program at CSPC, Huminski also hosted Anna Arutunyan to discuss her book “Hybrid Warriors” about the emergence of the conflict in Ukraine. CSPC will also be hosting Prof. Mark Galeotti next month to discuss his new book “Putin’s Wars”.
We are also excited to highlight the work of our Presidential Fellows alumni. From the class of 2009–10, Sarath Ganji contributed to the Columbia/SIPA Journal of International Affairs, exploring how Qatar uses sports diplomacy ahead of the World Cup. From our 2013–14 class, Dr. Aamir Hussein focuses on solutions to fix residencies and address the U.S. doctor shortage.
In this week’s Roundup, Dan Mahaffee looks at the G20 meeting and the Biden-Xi summit, Ethan Brown evaluates the importance of logistics for warfighters, CSPC interns Jordan Trusel and Emma Hansen examine the top issues at COP27, Hidetoshi Azuma analyzes the long-term decline of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, and we close with News You Might Have Missed.
Biden, Xi, and the Nexus of Foreign Policy & Domestic Politics
Dan Mahaffee
With US President Joe Biden and Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping meeting in Bali this week, on the sidelines of the G 20, we see the kind of leader-to-leader global summit dialogue that has been absent during the pandemic. With Vladimir Putin remaining in Moscow, the focus was on Biden and Xi. Obviously a primary goal of the leaders’ dialogue was to put a floor under what many perceived to be a declining US-China relationship. This was discussed in terms of the red lines in the relationship, especially Taiwan. Here, both countries, and indeed the world, have much to lose if Taiwan were to be invaded, and the US and China drawn into war. The leaders also agreed on the need to dial back nuclear tensions, resume dialogue on climate change, and even if not seeing eye-to-eye on Ukraine, both leaders understand the need to resolve the energy and food impact from the conflict.
Still, establishing a floor and agreeing that we face shared challenges will hardly address the still heated competition that exists. Therefore, it was interesting to see the impact that domestic politics appear to be having on both leaders’ positions during the summit and moving forward. Domestic politics will drive many of the next steps in what is a heated technological competition, and a continued contest for influence and build ups of hard power.
First, President Biden arrived at the summit, with more of a tailwind at his back than expected. Democrats’ success in the Senate and the narrower than expected Republican house victory did demonstrate that some of the presidential political obituaries were prematurely written. For President Biden, who often speaks of other leaders’ concerns about US politics, he appeared, vindicated and enjoys some protection from having a friendly Senate. Still, Biden’s policies have been tough on China, as we have highlighted in terms of semiconductor policies, as well as planning for the diversification of supply chains, and pushing back against Chinese, political, and commercial influence in the Indo-Pacific. A Republican House majority, as narrow as it may be, will still seek to be tougher on China. Plenty of Democrats will also join in such an approach.
The challenge ahead is to craft bipartisan strategic policies towards China that focus as much on shoring up our own weaknesses, and fostering our strengths as much as they seek to restrict or counter China. Some of this will require a greater emphasis on economic and diplomatic tools of statecraft, so it is important for the administration to work with Congress and private sector, stakeholders to build support and understanding around initiatives like the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework as well as the other economic deals and infrastructure initiatives announced at the G 20.
Xi Jinping also arrived at the summit, having completed his consolidation of power. One telegraphed long in advance with none of the messiness or legitimacy of an election. Still, he will be leading China and he will be the leader that we are dealing with going forward. His crackdowns on the Uyghurs and Hong Kong, as well as many other forms of dissent or intraparty rivalry, illustrate his control over the Chinese system. However, his consolidation of power, reactions to tensions over Taiwan, and the impact of zero Covid policies have changed perceptions of doing business in China and the nation’s economic outlook. For Beijing, trying to tamp down any external economic tensions is important as they confront a worsening Covid wave and continued Covid shut downs. Taken together with actions over the past few years and the pandemic itself, China also has to reckon with its global image and worsening perceptions.
Perhaps it all boils down to this: in China, Xi Jinping has none of the concerns of electoral politics, but his consolidation of power threatens to destroy the economic openness and dynamism that have fueled Chinese growth and innovation. On the other hand, President Biden still has to deal with the mess of partisanship and divided government, yet has opportunities for bipartisan policymaking to foster innovation, trade, and strengthen the United States and build partnerships with friends and allies.
The Secret Ingredient for Losing the Next War: Logistics
Ethan Brown
Logistics. It’s the least popular pillar of military strategy, and one that its most gifted leaders have understood all too well as the lynchpin of successful campaigning. The coolest gadgets, longest-range weapons, and blank checks can only cover up the shortcomings of poor logistical management and sustainment for so long.
While the rest of the world has become experts on NATO’s Article 4 and 5 nuances amidst errant missile frag landing in Poland (and tragically killing two civilians), the Pentagon failed its fifth comprehensive audit. Why does covering this issue matter when we stand at the precipice of potential conflict in Europe…again? For one thing, the U.S. weapons stockpile is at a critical stage, after billions of dollars of weapons, microchips, and other sensitive items have been shipped overseas to aid Kyiv, leaving the remaining inventory dangerously low. The White House just requested another $38 billion in Ukraine aid before the end of the year, which would bring 2022’s total U.S.-to-Ukraine aid to a staggering $100 billion+.
Ukraine, of course, is woven into the very fabric of every aspect of our national defense policy, and so too does it make its way into a policy analysis of a Pentagon review process. DoD Comptroller Mike Mccord — who lauded the execution of an audit on the $7 trillion Defense enterprise as a monumental achievement in its own right — noted that the crisis in Ukraine and the fight against Russia should serve as a “teachable moment” for the DoD. The reason such an example is cited is that, despite the massive chunks of military aid being poured into Ukraine since February, those fighting the Russians on the Eastern front are forced to count every artillery shell, every rocket, even bullets in their magazines count far more than what American GWOT soldiers faced for twenty years.
Simply, the United States armed forces have not truly felt the burden of managing logistic inventories. For two decades of the War on Terror, counter-terror operations were funded by the bottomless OCO pot of money, or the “Overseas Contingency Operations Fund”; this was congressionally appropriated money in addition to the baseline annual DoD budget. Now, much of this pot of money allowed lower echelon units to procure commercial inventory items — cold weather gear for Afghanistan winter deployments, quality foot gear, training opportunities not funded by baseline — without delays subjected by the rigorous budget allotment process. But as any rational investigator may surmise, led to poorly tracked/managed/applied inventories. As Mccord stated in a public release: “this is a great example of why it matters to get this sort of thing right, knowing where things are, when they are arriving, making sure we don’t have something on our records that doesn’t exist in reality or having big discrepancies”.
And the discrepancies are many and varied. The legislative-mandated audit became law in 1990. Six years ago, a year after the first official effort to audit the Pentagon — the federal government’s largest single discretionary entity — private firms hired to conduct the review estimated that the DoD receives 54 cents in value for every dollar appropriated by legislators. This most recent audit cost $218 million to perform, which unearthed $3.7 trillion in liabilities against $3.5 trillion in assets. It was only just this year, when things in Ukraine dominated the information, logistics, and policy space, that the Defense Logistics Agency managed to finally complete its first-ever total inventory of DoD assets in order to facilitate this fifth audit.
The struggle in maintaining inventory and logistics efficiency is that the DoD has had myriad issues valuing the inventory items in its possession, as well as accounting for property and items that exist in the ether between public domain and contractor outsourcing — headlined by the F-35 program, whose ownership distribution between DoD, international partners, and Lockheed Martin is labyrinthine in the extreme.
The need to audit the DoD is inarguably critical, but the crisis in Ukraine has truly stamped the impetus on managing inventories and capabilities at a time when the defense industrial base is flagging — COVID and its global impact has yet to recede — and the demand signal for improving weapons and technology development has not produced labor force supply as a result. Single suppliers, convoluted acquisitions approval processes, value-projection and inflation adjusted price-tags, the interminable ID/IQ (indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity) paradigm for force shaping…all of these complex factors are made much more difficult to control when the DoD is unable to conduct a constructive, critical, and objective review of what does and does fit the bill for national defense.
Doom and gloom aside, this roundup analysis should point out the positives from the fifth consecutive failed audit. First, the problem has not gotten worse; among the 27 individual component reviews performed, nine of those programs actually yielded a ‘clean’ rating by the auditors — meaning that discrepancies, doubled-quotas, and typoed content had been corrected or identified to prevent future mishaps. One program of review remained on ‘modified opinion’, which means that the program is unable to conclude for judgment as corrective measures from previous audits are yet in progress. The rest of the individual programs ended on disclaimers, or ineffective program management ratings. For clarity’s sake, the 2022 audit is ‘no change’ from the 2021 review. But improved data sharing, with the DoD employing commercial data-analytics to improve inventory management and readiness reporting, has begun to help improve the status quo. The stated ambition by defense leaders when these audits began in 2017 was to replicate the Department of Homeland Securities climb from dumpster fire of mismanaged inventories to a clean audit, targeting 2027 for a ‘clean’ rating. Of course, DHS has an annual budget and liabilities value of $1.3 billion, which is scarcely the daily budget for a slice of the DoD annual cake, but the standard is there to be pursued.
This all comes decades too late, following a wayward war that mismanaged the single most expensive entity in human history. But failure to judiciously review budgetary, logistic, and inventory metrics for the Defense Enterprise would all but certainly fail the men and women in uniform, had they been sent to fight a war against a peer in the future. The threat of confrontation with a real adversary who mimics and threatens our capabilities — should Article 5 of the NATO charter be invoked, or a violent reunification of Taiwan occur, for example — means that the United States military absolutely has to evolve beyond the years of imaginary plenty during GWOT, and prepare for the crisis of famine and real danger in tomorrow’s war. If we wanted to lose that future war, continuing to fail at logistic management is the secret ingredient for doing so.
Climate Goals and Human Rights Share the Stage at COP27
Emma Hanson and Jordan Trusel
UN delegates and civil society are meeting this week in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt for the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). The Conference of the Parties is the authoritative body responsible for upholding and reviewing the implementation of UNFCC. The framework is essentially an agreement signed by over 100 countries for international cooperation to help steady atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses.
This year’s conference — which is supposed to result in a consensus plan of action — takes place amid rising global energy prices, renewed food insecurity, and rising climate risks. The location of the conference this year brings particular focus to the plight of developing nations. COP27 is taking place in a country and continent that are highly vulnerable to climate change. The issue of climate mitigation and adaptation for countries is on the table this year alongside protection of especially vulnerable, less wealthy nations, and holding those on the other end of the spectrum accountable. Developing nations are asking wealthier nations in attendance to fulfill their promises of support. This “loss and damage” concept centers around the idea that since these wealthier nations are largely responsible for producing the greenhouse gas emissions that have caused damages in developing nations, they should be responsible for financing solutions. Specifically, developing nations are asking for $100 billion per year to help finance their responses to climate change and its effects. This sum of money was supposed to be provided to developing countries by 2020 and was discussed at last year’s COP26 meeting in Glasgow, according to Brookings. There is a lot of skepticism surrounding whether or not wealthy nations will actually provide the support demanded by developing countries. Egyptian Foreign Minister and conference president Sameh Shoukry issued a letter to world leaders prior to the beginning of the conference that expressed this concern. There was an expectation from low-and-middle-income countries that funding to support their climate efforts and reduce greenhouse gas emissions would come from multilateral organizations like the World Bank, but this has not yet come to fruition. On November 11, President Biden promised that the United States would meet its goals for combatting the climate crisis. Thus far, the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate, led by the United States and the United Arab Emirates has increased its investment to $8 billion, weforum.org reports. On November 9, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry announced a new carbon offset plan intended to aid developing countries in moving away from the use of fossil fuels. Kerry also launched the Energy Transition Accelerator, a program to help finance developing countries’ clean energy efforts. This program is in cooperation with the Bezos Earth Fund and the Rockefeller Foundation and will take input from public and private sectors. It is intended to be in operation through 2030, but may be extended to 2035, according to Reuters. Climate activists have taken issue with this plan, believing it to be more of a performative effort that does not provide real solutions.
But human rights have also been a key theme at COP27. The U.S. Department of State cites “significant human rights issues” in Egypt including arbitrary detention and serious restrictions on free expression and media, and these problems have received renewed attention in the prelude to COP27. Days before the beginning of this year’s conference, the host country responded to climate protestors with arrests and by placing strict limitations on public protests and marches. Egyptian authorities have added additional security measures including surveillance in the town where the conference will be held. Taxis are required to have internal cameras. Many outside organizations warned that the ongoing restrictions on assembly and association would hinder effectiveness and participation for the climate summit. “The Egyptian human rights movement has sought every means of accountability to address this within the UN mechanism, but COP27 represents a unique moment to make this situation not only our responsibility but the responsibility of the world,” said an activist who left Egypt to continue her human rights activities.
Young climate activists from Pakistan, Kenya, Uganda, and Bangladesh are attending COP27. Prominent climate activist Greta Thunberg decided against participating because she views the meeting as a furtherance of “greenwashing.” Greenwashing refers to companies providing misleading information as to how harmful their actions are for the environment. Some climate activists who are attending the event agree with Ms. Thunberg, stating that the level of representation that oil and gas companies have at the meeting compromises the ability for meaningful change to occur, according to BBC News.
News You May Have Missed
Chinese Companies Banned from Canada Lithium Mining Project
Three Chinese companies have been ordered to sell their assets in Canada after Ottawa issued limits on foreign state-owned firms’ ability to invest in and produce “critical minerals” in Canada, according to Minister of Innovation Francois-Philippe Champagne. Lithium, among other minerals, has become increasingly desirable and needed by multiple countries trying to get an advantage in battery production. The Chinese government has criticized the move as unfair and a violation of free market principles. “We urge Canada to stop the undue suppression of Chinese companies and instead provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for their operation,” said foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. Besides Canada, Chinese investors are also looking into production in Africa, Latin America, and other areas to bolster their performance as a supplying leader for materials needed in producing electric cars, mobile phones, solar cells, and other technologies.
