National Security

Military applications of 5G technology underscore the national security importance of 5G, but are often overlooked. Here's why these military implications matter.

India begins elections for its lower house on April 11. This will be the world’s largest democratic exercise, and will last through May 19, with ballots counted on May 23. I had the chance to ask Dr. Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project and fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution, as well as author of the forthcoming book Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped U.S.-India Relations During the Cold War, about the role and importance of national security issues in Indian elections. Our exchange, the first of a series of Q & As on the Indian elections, appears below. The second is here, the third here, and the fourth here.  We are used to thinking about Indian elections revolving around bread-and-butter development issues. But given the recent India-Pakistan tensions, it looks like Prime Minister Narendra Modi is bringing national security into his campaigning. How much have national security issues resonated with voters historically—or at least how much do we know about that with previous elections? We do know that elections affect Indian foreign and security policy. For example, they have an impact on defense spending and trade policy. However, it is difficult to make definitive statements about the reverse—i.e. the effect of national security on voting behavior. Some cite the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]–led government’s “surgical strike” across the line of control in Kashmir in 2016 as benefiting the party in the 2017 state elections in Uttar Pradesh [UP], but it is difficult to disaggregate the impact of that from other factors. Further back, the 1971 India-Pakistan war came after Indira Gandhi had already made gains in the general election earlier that year. Her party did make gains in the state elections held in 1972, including in head-to-head contests with the BJP’s predecessor, and the war did significantly contribute to her image as a “strong” leader. In terms of recent crises, the October 1999 general election took place three months after the Kargil crisis. The BJP-led coalition returned to power, but the party did not gain additional seats and lost vote share. Both of these could be attributed to the party contesting fewer seats, but its seat tally in its stronghold of UP was also halved. What we do not know is whether the party would have suffered greater losses had the Kargil crisis not happened. The 2009 general election took place less than five months after the 2008 Mumbai attack. The opposition criticized Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s [Indian National] Congress party–led coalition government for not retaliating. Nonetheless, the coalition was reelected, with the Congress party winning an additional sixty-one seats. However, these instances might not be predictive of the impact of national security issues in the upcoming election. This poll takes place just a few weeks after the India-Pakistan crisis, while the 1999 and 2009 elections took place a few months after the crises, by which time it is possible the effect dissipated. Why do you think Prime Minister Modi has been highlighting the national security element during the campaign? Whether or not it drives votes, the Indian Air Force [IAF] strike in Balakot after the Pulwama terrorist attack has helped shift the campaign narrative—and potentially the momentum. After the Congress party had made gains in recent state elections, the BJP was on the back foot. While the general election was still considered Narendra Modi’s to lose, criticism about his government’s economic performance dominated the discourse, as did the question of whether or not he had delivered on the promise of acche din (good days). With the IAF strike, as well as an anti-satellite test, the BJP has gone from playing defense to offense, arguing that it has delivered on the international element of acche din. The party has cited both of these developments as demonstrations of strength. And BJP leaders have used them in both “hope” and “fear” arguments: on the one hand claiming that they have gained India respect on the world stage, and on the other suggesting that Modi is the indispensable chowkidar, or “guardian,” and—in an après moi, le deluge sense—that India’s security would be threatened without him. At the very least, the BJP will be hoping that the national security case helps drive turnout, counters the anti-incumbency factor, or gives voters unhappy with the party for nonperformance in other arenas a permission slip to vote for it.   The party will likely also hope that this focus can help deflect the Congress party’s attacks on the BJP for not doing enough to build security capabilities or to counter China. Unlike during the 2014 campaign, Modi has himself not targeted Beijing during the campaign and instead has sought to stabilize relations with China over the last year. How do you view foreign policy and national security across India’s various political parties? Are there strong commonalities—a core set of principles that transcend parties, or are there differences among parties? The general trend of foreign and national security policy has tended to be fairly consistent. For example, India’s diversification strategy—i.e. maintaining a diversified portfolio of partners while avoiding alliances, in part to preserve as much as decision-making space as possible—has found support from major political parties. Leaders since Jawaharlal Nehru have emphasized that foreign policy needs to serve domestic objectives first and foremost. And while opposition parties do criticize many foreign policies, they often end up following them when they find themselves in office.   The BJP has tended to portray itself as more hawkish on foreign policy, and criticized the Congress party for taking a softer approach toward China and Pakistan. But it, too, has made overtures to both countries when in power. Parties have sometimes emphasized different countries or issues. The BJP, for instance, made clear that it would bring India’s relations with Israel out into the open. It also highlights cultural and diaspora elements in foreign policy in different ways than the Congress party. Rhetorically, it has sometimes suggested a more assertive approach towards building partnerships and capabilities, but its track record has not matched that—arguably because there are different views within the party about India’s strategic and economic engagement with the world. India’s regional parties, in turn, pay attention to other specific issues. How do foreign policy priorities show up at the subnational level—are there some states or regions for which foreign policy matters more than others? The subnational level matters because, for one, parties operating there are key to coalitions at the center. Border states in India have tended to care about foreign policy issues related to the nearest neighbors for various reasons. For instance, Tamil Nadu takes an interest in developments in Sri Lanka, especially the fate of Sri Lankan Tamils. States bordering Nepal take an interest in political developments in that country. West Bengal has watched relations with Bangladesh closely in order to guard its territorial and water rights. Assam and some of the other northeastern states care about the impact of policy toward Bangladesh on migration. Thus, one thing to watch is whether and how the Citizenship Amendment Bill that the BJP supports might affect votes in this region where the party has sought to make gains. While many of the party’s supporters back it on religious grounds, there have been protests that the bill will change the ethnic makeup of the region. Also in the northeast, Arunachal Pradesh does follow carefully the state of relations with China. Similarly, Jammu and Kashmir’s interests are implicated in relations with Pakistan. There are other foreign policy elements that affect interests at the subnational level, but we do not have definitive evidence of their impact. These include economic policy. Some states, particularly in India’s south, have benefited significantly from more liberal trade and investment policies. The approach toward the safety of the diaspora, which contributes remittances, is another element that particular states might care about. For instance, Kerala sends thousands of workers to the Middle East, and Andhra Pradesh and Telangana send thousands of students to the United States—some of whom were recently arrested for enrolling in a fake university. Finally, while we do not know how it affects voting behavior, it is worth noting that a significant number of soldiers in India’s military and paramilitary forces come from states in India’s electorally crucial northern belt. Do you see prospects for change in the trajectory of U.S.-India relations depending on the election outcome? Over the last two decades, there has been more continuity than change in the trajectory of U.S.-India relations across BJP and Congress party-led governments. Structural realities—and the need for the U.S. as a security and economic partner—have meant that parties in power have tended to favor closer U.S.-India ties, even if they complain about them when in opposition. The BJP, for instance, opposed the nuclear deal when in opposition, but the government it has led over these past few years has supported closer defense cooperation with the U.S. The Congress party, now in the opposition benches, has looked askance at some of this, but, when in power, the government it led had signed a number of defense deals with the U.S., and initiated both a trilateral with Japan and the quadrilateral that also included Australia. The election outcome could affect the pace of the U.S.-India relationship. Much will depend on what policies a new government follows with regard to defense and trade, as well as vis-à-vis third countries like China and Russia. If a new government takes a protectionist economic line, does not follow through on building defense capabilities, doubles down on defense deals with Russia, or pursues a more substantive reset with China, then it could lead to divergence or friction in the U.S.-India relationship. There are other factors that could shape the relationship—and even change its trajectory—including India’s links with Iran and Russia (and even Venezuela), and whether or not it finds itself subject to associated U.S. sanctions. Also crucial will be whether there is a U.S.-China trade deal and whether it serves to alleviate competition between those two powers—that will fuel Indian concerns about American reliability or a U.S.-China condominium. One unknown is if a coalition government results from the Indian election that is more like a third front rather than a BJP- or Congress-led coalition. In that case, many expect the permanent bureaucracy to be the crucial actor—that would lead to continuity but also, perhaps, caution. What will you be watching most closely during India’s 2019 general election? I’ll be watching two things in particular. First, turnout. There’s been much discussion of the decline of democracy globally. And while elections are not the only indication of democratic health, they can tell us something about how voters view their political systems and incumbents. In 2014, there was a record-setting 66 percent turnout in India. Will we see a repeat? What proportion of India’s 130 million first-time voters will go to the poll? What about female voters, who have been increasingly seen by political parties as a key constituency to target? Second, I will be watching to see what lessons the parties learn from the elections. The issues that they think resonate on the campaign trail can shape the policies they follow in office. The opposite is also true. Analysts think that one lesson the BJP has internalized—even though there isn’t definitive data about the link—is that they lost their reelection bid in 2004 because they were too focused on economic reform, and that that has shaped the party's caution in this regard in the Modi years. My book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India Is Making Its Place in the World, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2018. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa. Or like me on Facebook (fb.me/ayresalyssa) or Instagram (instagr.am/ayresalyssa).

Aspirations to return American astronauts to the moon after a nearly half-century absence should be rooted in science, not foreign policy.

The United States clearly recognizes that it can do more to counter IP theft of national security assets.

The Five Questions Series is a forum for scholars, government officials, civil society leaders, and foreign policy practitioners to provide timely analysis of new developments related to the advancement of women and girls worldwide.

By Penny Pritzker, chairman and founder of PSP Partners; and Edward Alden, Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. (Note the following excerpt is from a chapter written for a new Aspen Strategy Group book called Technology and National Security: Maintaining America’s Edge. You can find the full chapter and the book here.) The United States today faces twin challenges — building its global leadership in the next generation of transformative technologies and rebuilding economic opportunities for more of its citizens. The first cannot be done successfully without also doing the second. Innovation and competition are the great drivers of prosperity, but they have also created a growing gap between the economic winners and those struggling to get by. Unemployment in the United States has fallen below 4 percent, and the well-being of Americans has been improving as the economy continues to grow at a strong pace. Yet four in ten US households still report that they are unable to cover an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing money or selling something they own. More than a decade after the last recession, economic insecurity remains widespread. This continued economic insecurity poses a growing and fundamental threat to America’s economic competitiveness and national security. While technology and global competition have helped raise incomes and living standards around the world, they have also created huge new challenges in the labor markets of many of the advanced economies, from the disappearance of once well-paying manufacturing jobs to the growth of the gig economy and other contingent work that comes without traditional employment benefits. Americans need far better access to the education and retraining opportunities required to prosper in this rapidly changing economy, and government support systems must be updated so that working Americans can again have greater confidence about their futures. The reality is that for more than thirty years we have failed as a nation in this regard. In the United States, where the social safety net is especially porous and support for job retraining is weaker than in any other wealthy country, labor market disruption has already contributed to social and political upheaval. Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 on a platform that promised greater restrictions on both international trade and immigration to the United States, blaming both for the economic challenges facing many Americans. Since taking office, the president has approved the largest increase in tariffs on imports since the 1930s, has slashed refugee admissions to their lowest levels since the refugee program was created in 1980, and has taken a series of steps to reduce the entry of highly skilled immigrants to the United States. Such restrictions on trade and immigration will erode America’s technological and economic leadership. Immigrants today — many of them initially attracted by the high quality of American universities — are more than twice as likely to start a business as native-born citizens; from 1996 to 2011, the business start-up rate for immigrants increased by more than half, while the native-born start-up rate fell by 10 percent, to a three-decade low. Of the eighty-seven start-up companies that had reached a value of more than $1 billion by 2016, immigrants founded more than half, and over 70 percent had immigrants as part of the top management and product development teams. On trade, internationally engaged American companies — those that both export and invest abroad — are America’s most innovative companies, accounting for nearly three-quarters of private sector research and development. The success of these firms depends on markets that are open to both trade and investment. And while the United States has imposed few restrictions on the deployment of new technologies, some 75 percent of Americans today are worried about a world in which computers and robots do more of the work, fearing for their job prospects, their family’s future, and that inequality will worsen. Polls indicate that the public does not favor tariffs on imports, sharp restrictions on immigration, or regulations that curb technological innovation. But the public is wary about what technology and global competition mean for their jobs and their future. Public support for economic openness can no longer be assumed; it must be rebuilt. That requires rebuilding the connection between economic openness, innovation, and better work and life opportunities for Americans. The US education system must do a better job of preparing Americans for the world of work by expanding career-related offerings; better support is needed to allow mid-career workers, or those displaced by technology or trade competition, to return to school and retrain for new careers; and the benefits that are now available to most full-time workers — health care, sick leave, vacation pay — need to be available to everyone with a job. Improving and rebuilding the links among education and workforce training, good jobs, and greater economic security is vital to our future security and economic competitiveness. As technological change is accelerating, the United States needs to show the same level of public and private commitment to meeting this challenge as it showed when the country transitioned from an agrarian to an industrial economy just over 100 years ago. Meeting the twin challenges of technological leadership and rebuilding opportunity must be the primary goals for US economic policy. Given the seismic forces of innovation, automation, and globalization, the nature of work is fundamentally changing; we must help more Americans adapt, adjust, and thrive. America needs a more forward-looking, comprehensive economic competitiveness strategy that includes an innovation leadership agenda, modernization of our workforce training and education systems, immigration reform, and expanded multilateral trade. If the United States fails to meet these challenges, it will have neither the resources nor the political support needed to play a large global role. The United States won the twentieth century because it finally got the big challenges right — education, scientific excellence, innovation, immigration, and trade. Yet, in recent decades we have not done all that we can as a nation to adapt government policies and approaches to the rapid pace of economic and technological change. Too many Americans have been left behind by the rapid changes in the economy, without the necessary tools and resources to prosper. The reality is we can do better. With diminishing opportunities, it is not surprising that Americans have been susceptible to populist promises. The United States has been here before and risen to such challenges in the past. We must do so again as our national and economic security depend on it. (For the full paper, go to https://www.asgbooks.org/technology-national-security/)

Trump must not play security card in China trade war.

The government shutdown could be disastrous for federal network security. In order to mitigate the risk, federal IT employees should shut down as much federal IT infrastructure as possible.

This is a guest post by Benjamin Silliman, research associate for Energy Security and Climate Change at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) released a congressionally-mandated report detailing the challenges climate change poses to the U.S. military. Citing increased exposure to recurrent flooding, drought, desertification, wildfires, and thawing permafrost, the report highlights how climate change affects U.S. military readiness to respond to national security emergencies. The report includes a list of selected events where mission related activities at military installations were compromised due to environmental vulnerabilities as well as a brief list of policies taken to mitigate future damages. To quantify the extent to which the military is threatened by climate change, the report tracked seventy-nine priority American domestic installations chosen by their critical operational roles. While the public report was circumspect on details given the sensitive strategic nature of the subject, it did identify climate change as an important and tangible threat to the U.S. military. The report represents another in a series of public acknowledgements that spans four administrations that the military is not immune to extreme weather. Last year, numerous concrete examples raised public awareness of the issue. In October, category four Hurricane Michael thrashed the Florida coast with winds reaching one hundred and thirty miles per hour on Florida’s panhandle. In its way was U.S. Air Force Base Tyndall, which houses not only the headquarters of the Florida Air National Guard, but also the 325th Fighter Wing, a major combat force of F-22 Raptors and a principle training center and testing site for their pilots, maintenance crews, and equipment. The base, like surrounding civilian areas, was not able to regain a normal operating status for almost a month. During the recovery period, critical training and maintenance schedules for the almost a third of the nation’s F-22s was disrupted, forcing the fighter jets to relocate to other regional airbases less able to run such a high volume of them. Additionally, rebuilding has been costly and time consuming, thereby diverting man-hours and resources that could have been spent on other matters. The situation starkly demonstrates how a severe weather event can be tumultuous for critical but routine activities such as patrolling and training. Tyndall is not the only base exposed to weather related threats. Of the seventy-nine installations analyzed in the report, 67 percent reported that they are currently facing problems from recurrent flooding, and 76 percent reported that flooding has the potential to create vulnerabilities in the next twenty years. Acute extreme weather events, like hurricanes, have a higher probability of occurring in the future due to climate change. This means there is possibly more stress that could come to Tyndall and other coastal bases in the future. California’s wildfires have also taken their toll on nearby military bases. The Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, which is based near the Sierra Nevada, was forced to evacuate in September of last year when wildfires got too close. According to the DoD report, 46 percent of the installations analyzed are now vulnerable to wildfires. This is in addition to facility vulnerabilities from drought, which, in turn, increases the risk of fire in Western Regions of the country. Stressed water supplies from extended periods of drought can also require contingency planning for when bases are must be temporarily put out of commission. Of course, protecting operational bases against severe weather events is not the only worry the military has in the face of climate change. The warming of the poles has also opened a new strategic landscape which directly connects the United States and Canada to Russia and China via the Arctic Ocean. As ice that used to cover the ocean melts and it becomes possible to move significant traffic through the area, policing the region against China and Russia will become a critical, and expensive, mission for the U.S. Navy. Arctic ice melt will also increase the extent to which foreign military vessels have access to North American shores. Beyond direct U.S. military activities related to the homeland, the DoD report mentions that the U.S. military carries out significant humanitarian and disaster relief efforts, as directed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). If climate change does lead to an increased severity of global natural disasters, the military may need to expand its capacity to deal with traumatic events in different parts of the globe, on top of expanding requirements and strains at home. Climate change also threatens increased destabilization in regions outside of the United States, which may put strain on deployed troops or even require U.S. military intervention. Sea-level rise could threaten rapidly developing cities along the coast of Africa like Mogadishu, Djibouti City, and Mombasa with damaged infrastructure and compromised water supplies. Any major displacement from these major cities would be a geopolitical risk and put even more strain on the already stressed global immigration channels. This could also cause an increase in piracy if economic conditions deteriorate around the Horn of Africa. With so many present and future challenges being exacerbated by changing global climate patterns, it is important that military leadership internalize these threats and examine the entire military system to prepare for the challenges it will be facing. The DoD report lists some of the activities currently being undertaken by the military. Major initiatives include designing construction standards to better withstand natural events and developing research programs to better understand facility risks from environmental vulnerabilities. However, the report was very limited in its scope as compared to the mission of the DoD. For example, it neglected to cover international installations or the Marine Corps. It also did not provide congress with strategies to prioritize resources for mitigating future threats. Moving forward, the DoD should expand on the initial report to fill in missing gaps and provide congress with more actionable budget recommendations. Specifically, DoD should develop and maintain a separate fund dedicated for research and systematic improvements to address these environmental vulnerabilities. The DoD should also commission robust studies for each Geographic Combatant Command to better understand how climate change may impact each region of the world in which the United States has strategic or militaristic interests. This will be important for understanding how climate change could impair access or movements of deployed troops and equipment and allow the military to improve planning for future types of climate-related missions the military may have to conduct. Contingency plans are needed for vulnerable bases that might need to be evacuated or otherwise go offline due to a natural disaster. Dangerous skepticism at the highest levels of political leadership can still limit the DoD’s ability to respond adequately to the changing world. The report was sent directly to Senator Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Committee on Armed Forces, who is notable for his speeches on the Senate floor denying the existence of climate change. What Congress decides to do moving forward from this initial report could have lasting implications for national security. Congress could call for more robust analytical reports and create new funding channels to drive research and preparation for environmental specific threats, or Congress could ignore the report, claiming satisfaction, and leave the military scrambling to work on this important issue by diverting resources from other budgets and performing sub-par preparation. So far, little news has surfaced from Congress about the report, indicating that it may be business as usual for the DoD.

After more than thirty years of federal government service, CFR's Michael P. Dempsey shares his reflections on the state of U.S. national security, global conflicts, and the U.S. intelligence community.