12 January 2019

Challenges of Migration

Arvind Gupta
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The main dimensions of the challenge are well-known. Tens of millions of illegal migrants have come to India and changed the demographic profile of several areas of the country, particularly in the North-East. Many of them have acquired access to citizenship documents through illegal means and are even participating in the electoral process. Their presence has created serious tensions at the local level. Undoubtedly, migration poses a great risk to national security. A comprehensive approach is required to deal with that problem.

Persecution of Minorities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan

The fiery flavours of East Bengal’s dried and fermented fish are all the notes of life

by Amrita Dutta 


The memory is cloudy. As was the day. Black lines of pine against the cold, colourless sky as I walked home from school. But on my lunch plate, there was a dab of darkish maroon. As I ate, slowly mixing the shidol chaatni — a mash of dried, fermented fish, smooth but for the prick of delicate, easy-to-chew bones — with the rice, the afternoon’s gloom seemed to lift. My eyes watered from the heat of chilli and garlic, my ears reddened, my mouth came alive with a burst of flavours. I was warmed. Hours after the meal, I could find it on my fingers — the smell, like a secret, hot, fierce, and illicit.

Growing up in the tiny Sylheti community of Shillong, I knew there was something not kosher about shidol and shutki (dried fish). The preserved fish eaten by Bengalis who originally belonged to the Sylhet and Chittagong districts of what is now Bangladesh was — if not a secret — then definitely an embarrassment. For one, it marked us out as ungainly, rustic outsiders — much like our angular Bengali accent — as we ventured out of our tiny outposts in the Northeast and into Kolkata. Its cooking was preceded by nervous shutting of windows and worry at neighbours’ noses wrinkling in disgust. Those who know not how they sin have associated the fragrance of shutki with that of mildewed, rotting socks or decaying animals. I still recall the pang of regret when a friend in Kolkata — from epaar Bangla (this side of Bengal) — exclaimed, “It does stink, you know.”

The Beginning of the US Endgame in Afghanistan

By Nicolas Johnston

Within reporting about the recent U.S. discussions with the Taliban and seemingly impending U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, it seems broadly overlooked that these decisions are the product of a chain of events that began in the early months of 2018. Lost also within the ongoing stream of commentary is the prospect that the Afghan conflict is not so much being wound down as evolving into a small square on the broader chessboard of clashing economic interests in the region.

On February 28, 2018, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani marked a profound turn in the conduct of the Afghan War when he announced that he would seek peace talks with the Taliban without preconditions. Only two weeks before that announcement, President Ghani’s spokesman had overtly denounced the Taliban’s recent open letter to the American people calling for peace.

The U.S. Isn’t Really Leaving Syria and Afghanistan

Dominic Tierney

President Donald Trump caused a political furor when he announced in December that he would quickly withdraw all 2,000 American troops in Syria, together with half of the 14,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Democrats (and many Republicans) condemned the exit strategy as a boon for America’s enemies. Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest, as did the special envoy for the counter-isis campaign, Brett McGurk, and the Pentagon chief of staff, Kevin Sweeney. Other prominent voices praised the drawdown. In The New York Times, for example, Robert Kaplan called the campaign in Afghanistan “a vestigial limb of empire, and it is time to let it go.” These critics and defenders of Trump’s decision have one thing in common: They share the assumption that Washington is actually getting out of Syria and Afghanistan.

But that’s not true.

Belt and Road is More chaos than conspiracy: David Fickling


Is China s Belt and Road Initiative a bold infrastructure vision, or a slush fund? The question is becoming more pressing.

Chinese officials offered to help bail out state-owned 1Malaysia Development Bhd., kill off investigations into alleged corruption at the fund, and spy on journalists looking into it in exchange for stakes in Belt-and-Road railway and pipeline projects in Malaysia, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. If proven, that would offer the clearest link yet between the 1MDB scandal and Belt and Road, which is still seen by many as a more effective rival to multilateral investors such as the currently leaderless World Bank and Asian Development Bank. China has denied that money in the program was used to help bail out 1MDB.

The common perception is that President Xi Jinping s flagship foreign policy initiative is an ambitious program deploying trillions of dollars on necessary infrastructure in emerging Asian and African countries where Western investors lack the animal spirits to tread.

Huawei Unveils New Data Centre Chipset As New Round Of US-China Trade War Talks Begin In Beijing

By Abigail Opiah 

Huawei Technologies reveals a new chipset aimed at serving the needs of data centres which process large amounts of information, with an ultimate goal of helping Huawei reduce reliance on imports.

The chipset called Kunpeng 920, jointly developed with U.K. semiconductor maker Arm Holdings, conveys an improved performance and reduces power consumption, and has been designed to boost the development of computing in big data, distributed storage, and ARM-native application scenarios.

“Huawei has continuously innovated in the computing domain in order to create customer value, and we believe that, with the advent of the intelligent society, the computing market will see continuous growth in the future,” said William Xu, Director of the Board and Chief Strategy Marketing Officer of Huawei.

Why China’s Military Wants to Beat the US to a Next-Gen Cell Network

BY ELSA B. KANIAADJUNCT 

The race for 5G — the next-generation cell-network technology that promises high speed, low latency, and high throughput — has emerged as a new frontier of rivalry in U.S.-China relations. The technological advances by Huawei, ZTE, and other companies may allow China to become the first country to deploy 5G on a wide scale, giving its economy an edge. But 5G’s dual-use and military potential introduces another dimension of geostrategic significance — one that the Chinese military and defense industry are avidly exploring.

The advancement of 5G in China is linked to its national strategy for military-civil fusion (军民融合). In November 2018, key industry players established the 5G Technology Military-Civil Fusion Applications Industry Alliance (5G技术军民融合应用产业联盟),including ZTE, China Unicom, and the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC). This new partnership aims to foster collaboration and integrated military and civilian development, while promoting both defense and commercial applications. In particular, the CASIC First Research Academy is focusing on the use of 5G in aerospace. There could be some notable synergies in 5G development among these and other notable players. For instance, 5G will require specialized communications equipment, such as certain antennas and microwave equipment, that the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), a state-owned defense conglomerate,has established particular proficiency in developing.

The era of U.S.-China cooperation is drawing to a close—What comes next?

Bruce Jones

U.S.-China ties must be managed to avoid clashes in 2019, especially with a volatile White House, argues Bruce Jones. This piece originally appeared in the Nikkei Asian Review.

The year 2018 has proved to be a time of turbulence in U.S.-China relations, with the Korean Peninsula, trade and the South China Sea all making headlines.

But 2018 will prove to be more than just a year of turbulence: We will look back on it as a turning point in U.S.-China relations, the closing of an era of expanding cooperation. That era dates from China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, and reached its most expansive phase in the wake of the global financial crisis, under U.S. President Barack Obama. There were even fears in the world of a “G-2,” of a U.S.-China condominium that would leave little room for anybody else. There is little risk of a G-2 now.

But if 2018 was an end of an era, what comes next and how rocky will the transition be?

How Is China Securing Its LNG Needs?


In 2017, China surpassed South Korea to become the world’s second-largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer. In a few years, it might overtake Japan. But how is China securing its LNG needs? This is an important question for several reasons. First, when Chinese companies go overseas, they often trigger geopolitical anxiety, so it is worth asking whether Chinese companies are going out more than before; and if so, where and doing what deals? Second, China is the main growth market for LNG, and so Chinese companies can set a tone for the market as a whole; is there a shift in buying behavior or risk? And third, some U.S. project developers worry that the trade war with China will hurt their ability to progress to final investment decision (FID), while others, like Alaska, place their hopes on China; how real are those hopes and concerns?

Why American Firms and Households Need China

SHANG-JIN WEI

NEW YORK – China will benefit from a normalization of its trade relationship with the United States, but it is important to realize that the same holds true for the US. When the US tech giant Apple recently slashed its sales forecast, CEO Tim Cook pointed to declining sales in China – where US President Donald Trump’s trade war is exacerbating the effects of a slowing economy – as a major contributing factor. Apple’s diminished performance highlights how important the Chinese market has become to the bottom lines of many US companies – and reveals the risks Trump’s protectionism poses to the American economy.

The truth is that Apple sells substantially more iPhones and iPads to the Chinese than US export statistics imply. Likewise, General Motors sells more cars in China than what is recorded in US export data – more, in fact, than in the United States and Canada combined. That is because these companies, like many others, operate in China and sell directly to Chinese consumers. Far fewer Chinese companies sell directly in the US.

Because US companies have increased their operations within China over time, bilateral trade statistics only partly reflect the Chinese market’s importance to the US economy.

Why the World Needs America and China to Get Along

By Robert E. Rubin

In the United States, support for a cooperative relationship with China is evaporating fast. I increasingly hear frustration from business leaders about structural trade issues. The military is concerned about aggressive geopolitical moves by Beijing. And prominent voices in both political parties are striking an increasingly confrontational tone. Legitimate concerns have led to a vicious cycle, with each negative development further poisoning an already shallow well of good will.

The cycle has to be reversed. In the United States, the business community, policy analysts and the media should create a climate that encourages elected officials to pursue a constructive relationship. The same is true in China, albeit in a different political system. Leaders in both countries should recognize our imperative self-interest in working together on hugely consequential transnational issues, especially two threats to life on earth as we know it: nuclear weapons and climate change.

Does China face a looming debt crisis?


After decades of near double-digit growth, Chinese leaders have turned to using turbo-charged stimulus financing to maintain moderate growth. A consequence of this strategy has been a dramatic and rapid rise in debt. As of 2017, China’s total debt amounted to 255.7 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). While a debt-to-GDP ratio exceeding 100 percent is not unusual, because China’s credit expansion over the past decade has risen so quickly, this trend has contributed to growing financial vulnerabilities that could threaten the long-term health of its economy.

Breaking Down the Types of Debt

Although China was less affected by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis than other countries, its economy still suffered from a sharp decline in exports and a major stock market correction that wiped out an estimated two-thirds of its market value. To stem the tide of the crisis, China pushed out a massive $600 billion stimulus package in late 2008 to boost domestic demand and spur economic growth. The value of the stimulus was close to 13 percent of China’s GDP in 2008, and was considerably larger than stimulus packages offered by the world’s first and third largest economies – the US and Japan pumped a comparatively meager $152 billion and $100 billion, respectively, into their much larger domestic markets.

China’s Economy in 2019: Is a Reality Check in Store?


First, the good news. Stock markets in China and Hong Kong strengthened on Monday with the start of the two-day talks between negotiators from the U.S. and China to iron out their trade conflicts. It helped symbolically that China’s vice-premier, Liu He, widely considered the country’s economic czar, “dropped by the talks to spur on the negotiators,” The Washington Postreported.

Yet, simmering below the surface are deep divisions between the two countries involving allegations of state-sponsored theft of intellectual property rights and discriminatory trade practices. Over the past year, a hardening China stance by the Trump administration and a defiant Chinese President Xi Jinping resulted in tit-for-tat tariff hikes until a temporary, three-month truce was arrived at before duties jump from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of U.S. imports from China. In fact, both the U.S. and China would lose in what looks more like a “cold war” rather than a trade war, as Wharton Dean Geoffrey Garrett wrote in Knowledge@Wharton recently.

What Does the US Troop Withdrawal Mean for Syria?

By Mona Yacoubian

On Wednesday, the White House announced that it will “fully” and “rapidly” withdraw the U.S. military presence in Syria, where approximately 2,000 U.S. troops have been stationed in the northeastern, Kurdish-controlled part of the country, near its border with Turkey. USIP’s Mona Yacoubian examines the implications of the troop withdrawal and its broader impact on the Syria conflict.

What are the implications of the recently announced U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria?

A precipitous U.S. troop withdrawal will undermine critical U.S. interests in Syria. The U.S. troop presence serves as a key pre-condition for a newly invigorated U.S. Syria policy focused on the enduring defeat of ISIS, the withdrawal of Iran from Syria, and the rejuvenation of the Geneva Peace Process. These objectives will be compromised significantly by an immediate U.S. military withdrawal:

Poland’s transformation is a story worth telling

By JAN CIENSKI

WARSAW — The first thing that hit you about the Poland of 1987 was the smell — a pungent mix of coal smoke leavened with coarse tobacco, a whiff of cabbage and rancid sweat overlaid with clouds of diesel exhaust. Lingering on the streets and alleys of cities, towns and villages, it was not the smell of a successful or a happy society.

The odor hit me in the southern city of Kraków in 1987, where I was taking a year off from university in Toronto to study in Poland. It was only one symptom of a decomposing country.

At Kraków’s Jagiellonian University, the first phrase the foreign students (mostly from Brazil and Argentina) who were studying Polish before beginning inexpensive medical and architecture studies would learn was Nie ma (“We don’t have it”). They heard it in shops when they tried to buy meat or wine. They heard it in kiosks when trying to buy luxuries like soap and razor blades. They heard it fired at them by surly waiters indicating a lack of almost every item on the menu, from beer to “exotic” dishes like beef cutlets and pork chops (no point in ordering on Monday, as meat was not sold on the first day of the week). At one point I remember tossing aside the menu and telling the waiter, “Just bring me whatever you have.”

Why the world should be paying attention to Putin’s plans for Belarus

By Anne Applebaum
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On Sept 10, 2001, I published a column about Belarus, the former Soviet republic squeezed between Russia and Europe. It described how the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko was stealing elections, keeping tight control over the media and the economy, harassing political opponents and occasionally murdering them. Lukashenko, I wrote, was Europe’s longest-standing dictator. Yet only a few months earlier, President George W. Bush had given a rousing speech on the need for Europe, whole and free. “No more Yaltas,” he had said — meaning no more agreements like the one Roosevelt and Stalin signed in 1945, dividing Europe in half. Belarus loomed large as an obstacle blocking that dream.

The day after that column was published — Sept. 11, 2001 — two airplanes hit the World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon, a fourth crashed into a Pennsylvania field, and the U.S. president abandoned the quest for Europe, whole and free. In the nearly two decades that have passed since, nothing in Belarus has fundamentally changed at all. Lukashenko is still Europe’s longest-standing dictator. He is still harassing the opposition, manipulating the media and keeping the economy under careful control. He still stays in charge partly with the help of his large eastern neighbor, which provides him with generous energy subsidies.

10 Conflicts to Watch in 2019

By Robert Malley
In a world with fewer rules, the only truly effective one is knowing what you can get away with. The answer today, it turns out, is: quite a lot.

As the era of largely uncontested U.S. primacy fades, the international order has been thrown into turmoil. More leaders are tempted more often to test limits, jostle for power, and seek to bolster their influence—or diminish that of their rivals—by meddling in foreign conflicts. Multilateralism and its constraints are under siege, challenged by more transactional, zero-sum politics.
Multilateralism and its constraints are under siege, challenged by more transactional, zero-sum politics.Instruments of collective action, such as the United Nations Security Council, are paralyzed; those of collective accountability, including the International Criminal Court, are ignored and disparaged.

No Matter Who Wins the Congo's Election, a Rough Road Awaits


A little more than two years after President Joseph Kabila's final term in office officially ended, the Democratic Republic of the Congo finally held its presidential election just before 2018 was over. But the country's voters must continue to wait to find out who won. Whether Kabila's hand-picked successor or the opposition candidate is named victor, the vote was only the prelude to the unfolding of a tumultuous and likely violent story in the mineral-rich Central African nation. As Stratfor noted in its 2019 Annual Forecast, while Kabila's clan and its allies maneuver to retain power and protect their financial and political gains (not to mention their physical security), the likelihood of bloodshed — and the corresponding effects on the country's business community and the mining industry — is high. To add fuel to the flames, the country's rich mineral resources — including its deposits of cobalt — play a key role in the production of new energy technologies such as lithium-ion batteries, which are central to long-term Chinese economic strategies. Consequently, as the country's electoral fate unfolds, the actions of China and other foreign powers may have a crucial impact.

What Happened

The World's Oil Producers Prepare for a New Era of Low Prices


The oil market is likely to remain oversupplied in 2019, leading OPEC and non-OPEC countries to cut production to prevent another collapse in prices similar to 2014-15. Prices are likely to remain weaker than what many of major producers anticipated just three months ago. Venezuela will find itself in a most difficult spot because lower revenue will drive competition among the country's political elites, exacerbating its political crisis.  For the United States, the domestic impacts will be both positive and negative, but Washington may now have the freedom to lean heavily on Iran's oil customers and force them to reduce those imports even further. 

Saudi Arabia will encounter difficulties because it must use state-led development — financed through oil revenue — to achieve Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's ambitious reforms.

Cyberattacks on Russia—the nation with the most nuclear weapons—pose a global threat

By M. V. Ramana, Mariia Kurando

Russia has experienced a number of cyberattacks in recent years. Such attacks could pose a risk to the command and control system for its nuclear weapons because of a high degree of reliance on computers and communication systems. Policies that call for quick launch of missiles accentuate this risk. The practice of cyberattacks, especially on military systems, should be stopped, and missiles should be taken off postures that allow them to be launched at short notice.

Russia has experienced a number of cyberattacks in recent years. Such attacks could pose a risk to the command and control system for its nuclear weapons.

Withdrawing From Syria Leaves a Vacuum That Iran Will Fill

By Colin P. Clarke and Ariane M. Tabatabai

One of President Trump’s final foreign policy decisions of 2018 was also among his most controversial: the withdrawal of the remaining 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. The order was an astonishing reversal of U.S. policy, and it raised concerns among Washington national security professionals that the Kurds—who have served as U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS—will suffer losses while the Assad regime, Russia, and Turkey gain. This weekend, the president’s national security advisor, John Bolton, seemingly reversed course again, announcing that U.S. forces would remain in Syria until ISIS was defeated and the Turks provided guarantees that they wouldn’t strike the Kurds.

The actor who perhaps benefits above all others from the administration’s back and forth on Syria is Iran. An American withdrawal would provide the Iranians with the operational space to expand their growing network of Shiite foreign fighters, who can be mobilized and moved throughout the Middle East. The recent announcements send Tehran the message that Washington will no longer be an obstacle in the way of these designs. Indeed, according to Bolton, the administration’s preconditions for withdrawal have to do with the Kurds and ISIS: the national security advisor made no mention of the presence or expansion of Shiite militias trained and equipped by Iran.

Why Haven't U.S. Exports of Manufactures Kept Pace with China's Growth?

by Brad W. Setser

China is a big country, and, at least until recently, it was growing relatively fast. So it stands to reason that it should have been among the most rapidly growing markets for U.S. exports. 

And it is often sort of implied in more recent articles that highlight the impact of China's slowdown on U.S. firms.

But, well, China wasn't actually a rapidly growing market for U.S. exports of manufactures even before its recent slowdown. The emphasis here is on "exports." I intentionally am not equating the sales of U.S. firms in China with U.S. production.

Obviously, China’s retaliation against U.S. tariffs has played a large role in the data for the last few months. But the trend here dates back to the start of Obama’s second term. It isn't new.

Who Secures the U.S. Border?


by Claire Felter and Zachary Laub

Safeguarding the U.S. border, primarily the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has become a contentious issue as many Central American migrants seek asylum in the United States. A battle between President Donald J. Trump and Democratic lawmakers over funding for a southern border wall has led to a government shutdown. Meanwhile, the deployment of active-duty troops to the southern border reflects a growing militarization of the area, though their role is constrained by U.S. law.
Who is responsible for U.S. border security?

Securing the borders primarily falls to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. Alongside agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), CBP is responsible for overseeing trade and travel in and out of the country. Its duties include preventing criminals, would-be terrorists, and contraband from entry. CBP’s work includes inspecting immigrants and cargo at ports of entry, patrolling thousands of miles of border to the country’s north and south, and helping investigate criminal networks. Of CBP’s more than sixty thousand employees, about one third are Border Patrol agents, who exclusively work between ports of entry.

Drones caused havoc at Gatwick, so why are governments still spending billions on tanks and aircraft carriers?

Roger Mac Ginty

The disruption caused by reports of drones flying over Gatwick airportin December 2018 was a magnificent illustration of the uselessness of the UK’s big-ticket defence spending. The United Kingdom is not short of high-end military kit. Apart from its nuclear deterrent (which may or may not be in working order), the nation’s £37 billion annual defence spending has allowed it to build, buy and maintain a formidable array of weapons systems. Britain’s new aircraft carrier provides a platform for F-35 fighter planes and, according to the UK defence secretary, the power “to strike decisively from the seas anywhere in the world”.

Yet, despite all this firepower, the country’s second busiest airport (a strategic asset if there ever was one) was immobilised for more than 24 hours, leaving tens of thousands of people stranded. In time a military grade jamming system was deployed, but by that stage the stable door was flapping in the wind and the horses had bolted.

Will this new Congress be the one to pass data privacy legislation?

Cameron F. Kerry

Congressional leaders in both parties have expressed an interest taking up privacy legislation and are doing serious work to that end. Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who chaired the Senate Commerce Committee and now becomes the majority whip, led a pair of privacy hearings last fall which he opened by saying developing a privacy law “enjoys strong bipartisan support” and “the question is no longer whether we need a federal law to protect consumers’ privacy. The question is what shape it should take.” His view was echoed by committee members on both sides.

His successor as committee chair, Republican Roger Wicker of Mississippi, has expressed support for “a federal law on the books by the end of 2019.” His incoming House counterpart, Democrat Frank Pallone of New Jersey, endorsed “comprehensive legislation” earlier in the year and, shortly after the election in November, announced that proposals for privacy and security will be part of the Democratic agenda.

Rewriting the Future of Work

BRUNO DOBRUSIN

TORONTO – Much has been written about the “future of work,” and much of it makes for gloomy reading. Study after study predicts that automation will upend entire industries and leave millions unemployed. A 2013 paper by two Oxford professors even suggested that machines could replace 47% of jobs in the United States within “a decade or two.”

Conclusions like these sustain the narrative that the future will inevitably be jobless. And yet this view is favored primarily by the corporate sector and supported by negative trends in the so-called gig economy; workers and trade unions have played little role in the conversation. If that were to change, the future of work could look very different.

Three common assumptions skew forecasts of automation’s impact on employment. Addressing each is essential to protect workers’ rights and change the fatalistic storyline of the prevailing narrative.

The Pitfalls of Policing the Dark Web

Cara Tabachnick 

Criminals on the dark web are compelling law enforcement agencies in the United States and Europe to alter the way they conduct investigations on the internet, opening up new possibilities for international police collaboration against cybercrime but also, critics warn, expanding the long arm of the law without a clear understanding of the impact. Since 2013, the proliferation of decentralized cryptocurrencies and online black markets has created countless new avenues for easy criminality. From the confines of a living room in China, a drug dealer using an anonymous browser can sell opioids to a user in the United States that are shipped through Malta, constructing a complex web of transactions around the world. 

“Cybercrime is borderless and criminals take advantage of it, so we have to make sure we are working together to catch these guys,” says Nan van de Coevering, who leads the Dutch national police’s Dark Web Team, which was instrumental in dismantling the dark web market Hansa in 2017. Almost 4,000 drug dealers were active on Hansa, selling heroin, MDMA and other substances.

DARPA’s plan for AI to understand the world

By: Mark Pomerleau

The Department of Defense hopes to use artificial intelligence to better understand global events In an increasingly complex world.

According to a new announcement from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking for proposals to develop a semi-automated system that can identify and draw correlations between seemingly unrelated events to help create broad narratives about the world.

Here’s how DARPA is thinking about the problem: an event is a recognizable and significant change in either the natural world or human society. So-called “events of interest” can either create changes that have significant impact on national security, the notice stated.

3 ways the Navy wants to protect its weapons from cyberattacks

By: Justin Lynch   

The Navy is looking to support research in 36 areas that can help protect weapons systems from cyberattacks, Naval Air Systems Command said in a Jan. 7 update to a broad agency announcement.

“Its not necessarily cutting edge research, but it is the first step in cybersecurity quality control that should have already been done for mission systems,” said Bryson Bort, the founder and CEO of Scythe, a cybersecurity platform.

The Navy had admitted as much.

The U.S and China are in a quantum physics arms race that will transform warfare


WASHINGTON – In the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, American military planners began to worry about the threat to U.S. warplanes posed by new, radar-guided missile defenses in the Soviet Union and other nations. MIT Technology Review reports.

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

8 Jan. 2019 -- In response, engineers at places like U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin’s famous Skunk Works stepped up work on stealth technology that could shield aircraft from the prying eyes of enemy radar.

This advantage is now under threat. In November 2018, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), China’s biggest defense electronics company, unveiled a prototype radar that it claims can detect stealth aircraft in flight. The radar uses some of the exotic phenomena of quantum physics to help reveal planes’ locations.