Recommended Weekend Reading
January 12 - 14, 2024
Here are our recommended reads from reports and articles we read in the last week. We hope you find these useful and that you have a relaxing weekend. And let us know if you or someone you know wants to be added to our distribution list.
Global
“Top Ten Global Risks for 2024” The Stimson Center
In the 7th edition of their annual “Top Ten Global Risks,” the Stimson Center conducted an exercise in foresight drawn from their forecasting experience at the U.S. intelligence community’s National Intelligence Council. In their previous forecast, they focused on the proliferation of small wars, food insecurity, developing-country debt, and growing climate-change impacts — an ongoing polycrisis, entangled events and developments linked to and cascading off each other — is emblematic of our times: The post-World War II global system that the U.S. engineered is unraveling. Amidst this disorder and strife, even more signs of distress will surface in 2024.
Taiwan/China
“The Taiwan that China wants is vanishing” BBC
In Taiwan, there are also 600,000 or so indigenous peoples who trace their ancestry back thousands of years to China. And then there is a younger, ambivalent generation that is wary of questions about identity. They feel Taiwanese but see no need for Taiwan to declare independence. They want peace with China, they want to do business with it, but they have no desire to ever be part of it.
“Taiwan’s Status Quo Election” Foreign Affairs
Why the Result Won’t Have Much Effect on Cross-Strait Relations—or U.S.-Chinese Tensions.
“China’s Global Energy Interconnection: Exploring the Security Implications of a Power Grid Developed and Governed by China” Rand Corporation
In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsed a new initiative, known as the Global Energy Interconnection (GEI), that could help solve humanity's pressing energy and climate dilemmas through the development of a global power grid. The GEI would connect remote renewable sources of energy to global consumption centers using ultra-high-voltage power transmission lines spanning continents and smart technologies. This way, peak demand for electricity in the evening in eastern China, for example, could be met using solar power at noon in central Asia, matching supply and demand across countries and continents more efficiently. On paper, the proposal presents many benefits. However, concerns about China's intentions and the political, security, and economic implications of a China-led GEI also exist.
The United States
“National Defense Industrial Strategy” US Department of Defense
The National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) – the first of its type to be produced by the Department of Defense – provides a path that builds on recent progress while remedying remaining gaps and potential shortfalls in the US Industrial base and workforce. The report also seeks to answer the question: How does the Defense Department prioritize and optimize defense needs in a competitive landscape undergirded by geopolitical, economic, and technological tensions?
“Empire or Republic? The Choice in ‘24” GoodFellows Podcast/Hoover Institution
Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster, and John Cochrane also discuss the odds of Cold War 2 morphing into World War III; whether economic conditions will overshadow fearmongering in a grim Trump-Biden referendum (in Niall’s words: the choice of “empire or republic”); the best use of this leap year’s spare day; plus why King Charles III would choose to break with tradition by spending a “dry” January in a very wet Scotland.
Russia
“Challenges of Export Control Enforcement: How Russia Continues to Import Components for its Military Production” Yermak-McFaul International Working Group on Russian Sanctions and the KSE Institute
This analysis shows that, while export controls have had some effect on trade flows, Russia continues to be able to import large amounts of goods needed for military production. Since the imposition of restrictions, supply chains have adapted, and most of the items in question now reach Russia via intermediaries in third countries, including China. Almost half of the imports in the first ten months of 2023 consisted of goods that were produced on behalf of companies from coalition countries, including major enforcement challenges.
Yemen
“Houthi anti-ship missile systems: getting better all the time” International Institute for Strategic Studies
Over just a few years, Houthi rebels in Yemen have amassed a remarkably diverse array of anti-ship weaponry, incorporating both cruise and ballistic missiles, which they have recently used to threaten shipping in the Red Sea. The critical role that Iran has played in this build-up raises broader questions about Tehran’s regional strategy.
