MIdterm Questions IV-VI
IV. 2. What about the MEDEA program and the future prospects for environmental intelligence?
The CIA's DS&T has maintained an "ecological database" obtained from spy satellites and other collection platforms since the 1950s. In 1992, DCI Robert Gates granted the scientific community access to this database, and a joint program between the intelligence and scientific communities called MEDEA was launched. The scientists would evaluate the CIA's potential for collecting environmental intelligence that would be useful to America's scientific community and assess the data's value for private sector ecological inquiry. In return, the scientists helped the DS&T interpret environmental conditions that might threaten U.S. security interests and helped design new environmental sensors. According to the scientists involved, the information they obtained was valuable for research.
IV. 3. What is the purpose of DNI and how has that office performed to date?
The DNI is the head of the intelligence community and coordinates cooperation and information sharing between each intelligence agency. The DNI sets the intelligence community's long-term agenda and has done pretty well in its eighteen-year existence, having avoided catastrophic intelligence failures resulting from a lack of inter-agency coordination. However, there is still compartmentalization in the IC that needs to be addressed.
IV. 2. Evaluate the initiatives — both security and diplomatic — in terms of protecting the planet.
The IC's support for environmental initiatives has been very effective. For security initiatives, the intelligence community gathered information on the ecological effects of Iraq's sabotage of Kuwait's oil fields and the ensuing oil slick during the Persian Gulf War and provided the Pentagon with assessments of how this would affect battlefield conditions. For diplomatic initiatives, the IC has provided diplomats with valuable information during the negotiation of landmark agreements like the Montreal Protocol on CFCs. For example, they were able to uncover instances in which countries participating in the Montreal conference had improperly shipped CFCs overseas. This information gave the U.S. more leverage during the negotiations.
IV. 4. Detail their final recommendations
The authors recommend that the IC build up the DNI and allow it to set the agenda. They say that the analytic workforce should be de-siloed and fused with the traditional players. They advocated for more AI and machine learning and deep neural infrastructure. They recommend that the IC produce "combined arms teams" of data scientists, methodologists, and tool developers. Analysts should be able to go into the private sector and come back at rank. They also recommend bringing in more talent from the private sector. They say that the IC should stop over classifying and over compartmentalizing information and that it should allow Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence Facilities (SCIFs) to partner with the private players. They recommend integrating community analytic frameworks and leveraging National Intelligence Priorities Frameworks that pull in non-traditional security topics (climate, health, food, energy). They say the IC should engage in more rish-sharing of intelligence with allies, automate the FDO process by creating AI-ML algorithms to downgrade and distribute shareable intelligence. Finally, they recommend that the IC improve its packaging of intelligence for a broad range of customers by using multimedia labs to produce podcasts and customized iPads and leveraging new virtual platforms.
IV. 1. Describe the configuration/division/missions of the dozen or so U.S. intel agencies.
There were 13 total intelligence agencies at the time Bombs, Bugs, Drugs, and Thugs was published. Eight are part of the DOD. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines each have their own intelligence services. They gain tactical information for battlefield purposes. Also within the Pentagon are the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). The DIA runs the Pentagon's human intelligence (HUMINT) service, which is a network of military espionage agents overseas, and assesses intelligence for the military and civilian personnel up the DOD's chain of command. The NSA is essentially the nation's code breaker. It also collects worldwide electronic transmissions (signals intelligence or SIGINT). The NRO builds and launches spy satellites and is responsible for their in-space supervision. NIMA is in charge of interpreting satellite photography (imagery intelligence or IMINT). NIMA also prepares world maps used by everyone from crisis managers in the White House's situation room to soldiers in combat. It's also responsible for the targeting coordinates built into cruise missiles and other smart weapons. The intelligence agencies outside of the DOD include the Energy Department's Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI), which tracks the worldwide flow of nuclear weapons and materials; the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which serves the secretary of state and the diplomatic corps and draws heavily on the highly touted political reporting of foreign service officers. The Treasury Department also supervises intelligence units within the IRS and Secret Service. The Justice Department has the FBI and DEA. Finally, the CIA is the intelligence community's preeminent agency and is institutionally independent (not part of any cabinet department).
IV. 5. Why is the IC unable to critically navigate the surge in open source intelligence?
There's been a proliferation of private entities being able to crowdsource information at the same or higher levels as the IC because they have their own proprietary technology and information sources. The "Internet of Things'' makes it so that all data flows through the companies first, and then the IC if they capture it.
V. 1. Explain Ukraine's tormented history from the Holodmor to the Maidan and Donbas.
Ukraine's history has always been determined by it's location as Russian buffer state, a "borderland", if you will. It is a battleground between East and West. Russia has always pretended to tolerate its independence at best and horribly abused it at worst. Always dependent on Russia, struggles to find it's own identity. Holodomor during Stalin era. Chernobyl catastrophe. Yanukovich - have to fight for identity and independence. Dependence on US next?
VI. 1. What do the authors recommend in terms of addressing the crisis?
Whether under former Vice President Joe Biden or Trump, the next White House will need to prepare for tough bilateral diplomacy with Beijing on many fronts at once, from Hong Kong to the South China Sea, India, and Europe, where Chinese attempts at pressure and intimidation will likely continue. American leaders should expect to face Chinese diplomats who engage in rhetorical bomb throwing even as Xi himself presents a calmer and more constructive face, as he and Foreign Minister Wang Yi have done in recent weeks.
V. 4. Explain the problem when everyone is doing offense - and the most powerful country either can't or won't play defense. Does the dystopia make everywhere - sooner or later, to a greater or lesser degree - subject to the cyber-pandemic experienced by Ukraine?
Wide open cyber-arms race in which soft targeting of corporate, civilian, health, power generation, as well a s individuals is game on. Economic, health, and social vitality is destroyed. It may not kill civilians but it kills their economic, health, and social vitality. Human security must take precedence over national security because cyber warfare is a common, global pandemic. Malware/ransomware can easily be copied and turned against its creators - US; most malware and ransomware is deriviative of U.S. R&D (at labs and at the NSA; e.g., eternal blue). The NSA is not accountable and proceeds on the premise that its offensive capacity is too good to care about anything else and that it can deter rogue regimes like Russia, Iran, North Korea (demonstrably false). Of the top ten cyber powers, the U.S. ranks last in defense. The government controls only a fraction of business and information traffic. Private tech leaders won't cede their huge markets to government control — nor should they.
VI. 3. Ben Rhodes contends that defining American identity in a confrontation with China through a new "us versus them" construct "risks repeating some of the worst mistakes of the war on terror." What are those mistakes in his view?
Afghanistan is returning to the state of civil war and Taliban ascendancy that preceded 9/11. Iraq has weathered a lengthy insurgency that generated al Qaeda in Iraq (aqi), which later morphed into the Islamic State (also known as isis); the country remains riven by intercommunal rivalry and Iranian influence. Libya, Somalia, and Yemen all lack governing authorities and host brutal proxy wars. There was certainly a basis for U.S. military action after 9/11, and certain threats necessitate a military response. Yet the conditions in these countries demonstrate the limits of military intervention and raise uncomfortable questions about whether, on balance, the people of these countries would have been better off without it. The costs of the post-9/11 wars have been staggering. Over 7,000 U.S. service members have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 50,000 were wounded in action, and more than 30,000 U.S. veterans of post-9/11 conflicts have taken their own lives. The war on terror not only accelerated authoritarian trends elsewhere; it did so at home, too. The jingoism of the post-9/11 era fused national security and identity politics, distorting ideas about what it means to be an American and blurring the distinction between critics and enemies. After 9/11, an us-versus-them, rightwing political and media apparatus stirred up anger against Americans who were not sufficiently committed to the war on terror and hyped the threat of an encroaching Islamic "other." When a superpower embraces a belligerent strain of nationalism, it also ripples out around the world. The excesses of post-9/11 U.S. policies were repurposed by authoritarians elsewhere to target political opponents, shut down civil society, control the media, and expand the power of the state under the guise of counterterrorism. Also, like Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping has embraced the American war on terror as a template for repression and a justification for abuses.
IV. 1. How have the agendas and challenges of the agencies changed after the Cold War?
After the Cold War, the vast majority of the intelligence community's resources removed away from Russia and the former Soviet republics. Attention then shifted towards "rogue states" like Iraq and North Korea. Focus also shifted from military power to economics during the early years of the Clinton administration, but new military challenges quickly eclipsed them (e.g., the Yugoslav Wars, China's threats to Taiwan, Saddam Hussein's violation of Iraq's no-fly zones, and terrorist groups). Johnson also notes that during the Cold War, there was a consensus about who the bad guys were. Today, he says, it's more complicated; this is a challenge.
IV. 3. Why has the DCI job been so difficult for the CIA's leaders?
Agencies are highly compartmentalized and it is hard to navigate that.
VI. 2. Kevin Rudd places blame for the US-China crisis as much on Washington as Beijing... Do you agree or disagree with this sentiment? If so, why?
Agree; China is seeking to expand its global power, and the U.S. is alarmed by this prospect because it threatens their position as the world's sole hegemon. That is the primary reason why the U.S. has been more aggressive towards China. Human rights concerns are an after thought.
VI. 2. Rudd goes into detail about the domestic political reasons for the "dangerous strategic and political cocktail." Detail those.
Americans are increasingly wary of China due to the future economic outlook, COVID-19, national debt, and national security threats. As a result, Trump abandoned his earlier accommodation attempts with China and use more inflammatory rhetoric in public. This rhetoric was matched by the U.S. military responding to Chinese actions more forcefully in the South China Sea. In the 2020 campaign, Biden exploited Trump's earlier accommodation attempts and framed them as weaknesses in order to portray himself as tougher on China. Xi also faces internal pressure from Communist Party members due to a slowing economy, impact from the trade war, and Covid-19.
V. 2.. Take us through some of the "flashbacks" - Aurora, Estonia, Georgia, STUXNET and the Christmas blackout in Ukraine. How did the so-called Shadow Brokers strike Maersk?
Aurora was a secret experiment that invovled digital sabotage over the internet to paralyze the protective relay of a generator in Idaho Nat. Library's electrical grid. The purpose was to make to not only paralyze it but to corrupt it in favor of the attacking hacker. The hacker turned the protective relay against the machine and opened the curcuit breaker to disconnect it. Eventually the machine got diconnected and reconnected out of sync. Estonian crisis: relocation of a known statue of a Soviet soldier in Tallinn sparked civil unrest among Russian speaking population and prompted brutal cyber-attacks that paralyzed the government, civil services, and the media. The whole Estonian Web was malfunctioning for more than a month Georgian crisis: Russia invaded Georgia militarily to supposedly protect Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Cyber-attacks were also a part of the offensive. NATO refused to help Georgia, but eventually cease-fire was quickly reached. War lasted for about 12-14 days. Stuxnet: a piece of code designed to kneecap Iran's nuclear program effectively by NSA's elite offensive hacking team. Part of Operation Olympic Games, highly sophisticated. It was a success, but the virus spread across the world and could not be contained anymore. Christmas 2015 Blackout: proof that Russians were waging cyberwar. Attack on European power grid that was successful.
IV. 4. In the executive summary of the Harvard Belfer Center Study, the authors contend that "the intelligency community is in the midst of shifting the enterprise focus from counterterrorism to the far more complex great power competition with China and Russia." Detail convergence and divergence of responses from IC customers and leaders.
Both IC customers (people outside the IC who use intelligence) and IC leaders (key people in the IC) agree that the IC is behind the curve in terms of its technology (AI and machine learning, open source, etc.) and ability to respond to new threats (climate change, pandemics, threats to democracy, etc.). They also agreed that the IC will have to overcome severe hurdles to modernize, but they were optimistic of its ability to do so. They also agree that the IC should strengthen its partnerships with the private sector, that our intelligence community is behind that of other countries, and that fusion centers and joint duty rotations among the armed services work very well. However, IC customers and leaders differed on the specifics of the IC's path forward. IC customers believe that the Five Eyes intelligence sharing partnership is an anachronism, but IC leaders believe that it's still useful and want to strengthen it. They also diverged on the value of intelligence, with IC customers arguing that unclassified info from the media and private corporations now rivals that obtained by intelligence agencies. IC leaders disagreed with this.
IV. 3. Set forth the CIA's structural and cultural divisions as well as describing the professional worlds of the DI analyst, the DO case officer, the CA specialist, the counterintelligence corps and the "techies."
CIA has five major organizational divisions: Directorate of Intelligence (DI), Directorate of Operations (DO), Directorate of Administration (DA), Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T), and the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence. Each have dozens of their own sub-offices. The CIA's cultural divisions reflect the divergent training and backgrounds of the different directorates' intelligence officers. For example, the DI is mostly composed of scholarly analysts with expertise in foreign political, military, and economic systems. The DS&T is mostly scientists. The DO has case officers, propagandists, paramilitary officers, and counterintelligence specialists. The DA has administrators and security officers. The Office of the DCI had managers, attorneys, inspectors, arms control specialists, and legislative liaison personnel. Analysts are highly educated — they usually have PHDs and are experts on certain countries, regions, or political and economic dynamics. They sift through the secret information obtained abroad, blend it with open source information, and prepare reports on world conditions for consideration by the president and other policymakers. Case officers live abroad are are responsible for recruiting and handling foreign assets who can collect useful information in their respective countries from both open (e.g., newspapers) and closed (e.g., military documents) sources. Covert action specialists are in the DO and manage operations designed to influence (or overthrow) foreign governments through the use of propaganda, political and economic manipulation, and paramilitary operations. Thus, they're the most controversial of the agency's subsidiaries. The DO also has counterintelligence specialists, who thwart hostile intelligence operations directed against the U.S. "Techies" are in the DS&T and include scientists who design and manufacture espionage devices.
VI. 2. Taiwan
China has an irredentist claim to Taiwan and has since the island split from the mainland at the end of the Civil War. Tensions over Taiwan's sovereignty have been growing in recent years. The Trump administration increased the scale and frequency of arms sales to Taiwan, including an expansion of their missile defense system and offering new offensive capabilities like the F-16V aircraft. Trump also began referring to the Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen as "president," increased public contact between U.S. and Taiwanese officials, and released provocative footage of previously unannounced US-Taiwan joint military exercises. China argues that the U.S. is getting dangerously close to crossing its red line on Taiwan's international status, thereby jeopardizing the basis of US-China diplomatic relations. As a result, China has increased pressure on Taiwan: People's Liberation Army exercises around the island have grown more intensive and intrusive, and China has restricted mainland tourism to the island. Rudd thinks that if China does invade Taiwan, an attack will come later in the 2020s, when Beijing expects the military balance in the Pacific will have shifted even further in its favor.
VI. 2. Nine-dash line
China sustains coast guard and fishing activities in disputed areas of the South China Sea even after the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled against China's sovereignty claims to the areas in 2016. This is their "gray zone" strategy. China also avoids deployment of naval vessels unless absolutely necessary, thus reducing the risk of armed conflict. They have also built artificial islands and militarized them. The U.S. began to take a more active role in this dispute in 2016; their Navy presence and air reconnaissance flights have increased. Militarization in the sea increased even more after the pandemic started. On July 13, 2020, the U.S. formally rejected China's legal claims to the nine-dash line, despite having not ratified the Law of the Sea itself. China then retaliated in late July by beginning to deploy long-range bombers for aerial surveillance over the disputed areas.
IV. 3. Contrast military versus civilian intelligence and the various efforts to reform and centralize the intelligence community.
Conflict between the two; fight over budget and resources.
V. 4. Set forth policies that would strengthen U.S. defenses and possibly stabilize the cyberware arms race. Evaluate the merits of a "digital Geneva Convention" and a cyberware-limitation treaty. (RDM lecture)
Defensive triad strategy: Fortify the internet trunk lines (Verizon, Sprint, ATT, etc) with a deep packet inspection that can be done at line (speed) rates resulting in no "latency" (slowdown). Put the DPIs? at "peering points" before they enter the U.S. via Tier 1 ISPs. Secure the power grid by mandating that all power companies have segregated and fortified backup systems for all forms of power generation. They should be removed from the internet. Sanction them until they get "smart grids." The Pentagon's NIPRNet (IP network used to exchange unclassified info that holds the armed forces' supply chain) and SIPRNet (system of interconnected computer networks used by the DOD and State Dept. to transmit classified info; still not fully secure). Must be fully secured at all costs. Geneva Convention on Cyberwarfare: General purpose to shield noncombatants from lethal attacks. Acheive this through a Cyber-Limitation Treaty that groups all good guys willing to declare civilian and economic targets off-limits, provides open protocols for verification, and isolates, exposes and sanctions non-signatories.
VI. 1. Campbell and Rapp-Hooper paint a dire picture of China's brazen behavior over the past year. What was China's previous policy inaugurated by Deng Xiaoping? In terms of strategic policies, how have China's external relations under Xi Jinping changed?
Deng Xiaoping's previous policy was based on belief in the institutionalized processes of collective leadership. China's foreign policy has become less risk averse: with fewer voices pitching in, an undaunted Xi may have no one to dissuade him from pressing ahead. Xi is taking advantage of the United States' stunning abdication of global leadership in a moment of crisis to advance his interests on many fronts. His imperious coronavirus diplomacy is just the latest instance of China's long-standing tradition of foreign policy opportunism and improvisation—only scaled up to fit the gaping hole left by the United States.
V. 2. Relate the problematic continuum of EternalBlue to the ransomware of WannaCry and then Mimikatz and the digital debacle in Kyiv - NotPetya
EternalBlue was a malware that was designed to exploit a zero-day vulnerability in every version Windows prior to 8 and gain full remote control of the victim's machine. NSA lost control of it and it spread around the world. New malicious ransomware, WannaCry, used EternalBlue to spread and that became another issue in and of itself. Many computers were broken into. Mimikatz was a program designed in 2012 to exploit a security flaw in Microsoft'a feature called WDigest. The creator of the program, B. Delpy, noticed this authentication flaw and made this program after Microsoft had refused to take the flaw seriously. The password remains in memory and is used to unlock other programs.
VI. 3. How does the U.S. redesign its foreign policy? What about "the war at home"? What does he propose regarding China?
From the president on down, nearly all of the Biden administration's top officials played a role in the Obama administration's efforts to extricate the United States from its post-9/11 wars, a complex and politically fraught task that ultimately reduced the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq from nearly 180,000 in 2009 to roughly 15,000 by 2017. And during Obama's second term, Washington's global agenda looked something like the one that Biden described in his address to the G-7: organizing the world to combat climate change, strengthening global health systems, and pivoting to Asia while trying to contain a revanchist Russia. China: In addition to delivering on big ticket items, such as infrastructure, American democracy must be fortified and revitalized. Protecting the right to vote and strengthening democratic institutions at home must be the cornerstone of the United States' democratic example. The United States must live up to the better story it tells itself as the leader of the free world. Ultimately, this is the most important lesson that Americans must learn from the post-9/11 period. Restoring American leadership requires rebuilding the example of American democracy as the foundation of the United States' foreign and national security policy.
V. 1. Detail the hunt for sandworm by iSIght and the attack on Ukrainian companies via KillDisk.
Hackers left a clue of their nationality as the how-to file Robinson discovered was written in Russian. The functionality of malware's code, however buried in layers of encryption. Analysis of the binary that came next was hard too. Dune references were important clues for Robinson. Attacks via KillDisk: KillDisk is a famous data-destroying tool that was used on Starlight media. BlackEnergy was used once again that time but included new modules that allowed the hackers to spread to other machines on the same network and execute the KillDisk data wiper. The hackers used this tandem several times.
IV. 5. Oona Hathaway argues that the IC is "keeping the wrong secrets." What does she mean about overclassification and its negative impact?
Hathway argues that the intelligence community classifies things that it does not need to; most of the information they classify is similar to or can be found on public sources like the internet. As a result, the IC spends too much of its time classifying information diverts its resources away from a much more worthwhile endeavor: protecting the personal data of Americans that has proliferated during the information age.
IV. 1. Why, according to Johnson, have they been blindsided so often?
Intelligence agencies are often blindsided for technological reasons. For one, other countries are gaining access to sophisticated satellite technology, and the NSA's SIGINT capacities are declining because their satellites capture microwave telephone transmissions from the air, but the world is switching to underground fiber optic modes of communication. The NSA also used to decode foreign diplomatic communications, but countries, non-state actors and terrorist groups are now more clever at encrypting their messages with complex mathematical models. The Clinton administration contributed to this when it began to allow the export of advanced American encryption software in 1999. The intelligence community is also blindsided because it is under-staffed and under-resourced. For example, intelligence agencies do not have enough case handlers abroad to recruit foreign assets, especially in areas where the U.S. never had much of a presence historically (e.g., China and Arab countries). As a result, the HUMINT flowing back to the CIA is insufficient as well. Intelligence agencies also don't have enough talented information interpreters (analysts) to make sense of all the data that stream into their offices each day. For instance, the DIA only had two analysts assigned to study intelligence on Iraq during the Gulf War. Imagery analysis also doesn't get enough attention. According to an intelligence supervisor on Capitol Hill, less than half of the pictures taken by intelligence satellites ever get looked at by human eyes or computers. This is because the intelligence community does not have enough imagery analysts; many chose to retire from the CIA rather than be sent to the new NIMA. Also, at the time the book was published, the first generation of intelligence officers hired in the 1950s was retiring and had yet to be replaced by an adequate number of fresh recruits. As a result, the intelligence community was undertaking its largest recruitment effort since the early Cold War. But even after newcomers are trained and sent overseas, it takes years (or even decades) for them to mature into effective officers with a productive network of assets in foreign capitals. Pay and advancement in the IC are also not competitive with the private sector. The IC also lacks "adequate connections between the various collectors inside the IC at home as well as U.S. Military and civilian personnel overseas" and "an effective pooling of the findings and insights produced by all the agencies in the community.
IV. 2. Detail environmental dangers as well as the consumers and producers of environmental intelligence.
Johnson puts environmental dangers into three categories: those having global consequences, those affecting individual states and their immediate neighbors, and natural disasters occurring at the local level. Threats of global consequence include climate change and can only be solved with multilateral responses. The IC can respond to these by redirecting its satellite cameras to track how climate change has affected the earth's flora. It can also provide information that would improve the US's negotiating position during international environmental summits. It can also track whether signatories are complying with international environmental agreements. Environmental dangers that affect individual states and their neighbors are based on geographic idiosyncrasies and often result in interstate tensions or conflict. For example, Turkey has placed dams along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that have led to water shortages in Iraq. U.S. intelligence agencies pay attention to resource-strained regions like this and give the White House and State Dept. local demographic information that could affect U.S. security interests. Local natural disasters include things like earthquakes and flooding. The intelligence community sometimes helps FEMA and the Global Disaster Information Network (GDIN) with disaster relief by providing information gathered from its airborne collection platforms and satellites. The IC's main producers of environmental intelligence (at the time of the book's publication) are the National Intelligence Council, the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology (DS&T) and Office of Transnational Issues (OTI), and the DCI Environmental Center (DEC). There is also a high-level inter-agency environmental working group chaired by a senior NSC staff member. The NSA and the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines' intelligence agencies also gather environmental intelligence when it's under the purview of their regular duties. Producers of environmental intelligence receive much less funding, attention and resources that producers of traditional intelligence. Consumers of environmental intelligence include the EPA's Office of International Affairs, the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, and members of Congress. The Pentagon is particularly interested in environmental intelligence because ecological disputes could easily erupt into armed conflicts that necessitate U.S. intervention. Field commanders also need to know about environmental conditions that may affect deployments when the U.S. sends troops to unfamiliar places.
VI. 2. ...the forceful repression of dissent and freedom in Hong Kong
July 1, 2020: China passes its Hong Kong National Security Law, which criminalizes "secessionist," "seditious," and "terrorist" activity, as well as any collaboration in such activities with "foreign powers." The US responded by signing the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which sanctions foreign persons who "materially contribute to the undermining of Hong Kong's autonomy by the Government of the People's Republic of China, and foreign financial institutions who engage in significant transactions with such foreign persons." For individuals, those sanctions will involve travel and transaction bans; for financial institutions dealing with listed individuals, a range of damaging punitive measures will follow, potentially risking their ability to operate within American jurisdictions. It is not yet clear which Chinese officials will be listed under the law, but given that the decision on the national security law involved the Politburo Standing Committee, the top CCP decision-making body, all seven members (including Xi) are potentially vulnerable. Similarly, Chinese financial institutions that service Chinese leaders may be barred from operating in the United States or other cooperating jurisdictions. There is also a risk of institutions being barred from the dollar-denominated international trading system (although this continues to be debated between senior Treasury Department and White House officials). If Hong Kong radically deteriorates in the months ahead—bringing the incarceration of democratic leaders such as Joshua Wong, the suppression of remaining free media, or even large-scale violence—the United States is likely to respond with dramatic diplomatic and economic sanctions and push its allies to do the same. But Hong Kong itself is unlikely to result in a full-blown crisis; the United Kingdom, not the United States, is the external treaty power on the question of Hong Kong's political status, and so no matter how bad the situation becomes, there would be no international legal basis for any form of U.S. intervention. Still, a deterioration and a U.S. response would render the U.S.-Chinese relationship even more brittle than it currently is, making other crises in the bilateral relationship more difficult to manage, including in the security domain.
V. 3. In terms of Putin's role in Russia, detail the reasons why the Kremlin has become a rogue actor in a mafia state.
NATO expansion, the decline of Russia's power and economy resulting from the collapse of the USSR created a security dilemma and led to Putin to retaliate against the west with cyber warfare and military intervention in Ukraine and Georgia. NATO did not respond with its own cyber attacks or military interventions, which has weakened the North Atlantic Treaty's Article 5 (collective security) and thus enabled Putin to continue. The U.S. and other NATO members have, however, responded with sanctions that have isolated Russia from the international community. But the effects of sanctions have been limited. Russia's economy still has a lifeline that it derives from booms in oil and gas prices, and Putin's quest for sanctions relief has led to him making more outlandish foreign policy decisions, like interfering in elections in the U.S. and France on behalf of candidates more friendly to the Kremlin. When Russia privatized most of its state-owned enterprises and sold off their assets, a new class of oligarchs swallowed them up and became major power brokers. This plundering resulted in collapse of Russia's social safety net and an economic breakdown. Putin has exploited these developments in order to consolidate his power. When he came into office, for instance, he put the oligarchs in line and made them subservient to himself. However, he still allows them to operate their kleptocratic enterprises and strategically uses their wealth and social capital for his own purposes. In terms of the security dilemma, he has added fuel to the fire with his false flag bombings that he blamed on Chechen terrorists, scapegoating of Russia's woes on a list of enemies (the West, gays, Ukrainian "fascists," his political opponents), and ramping up of defense and intelligence spending.
V. 2. In terms of the impact of NotPeteya, evaluate the conclusion of cyber expert Joshua Corman: "The physics of cyberspace are wholly different from every other war domain."
NotPetya: combination of EternalBlue and Mimikatz that was to destroy data and then you couldn't get it back. Used in Ukraine in 2015. America drops much of their ransomware around the world for everyone to pick up and use against them. One malware can be easily improved upon by an enemy and adapted to do even more damage when used against you next time, etc.
V. 1. Describe BlackEnergy as it originally functioned and how it evolved into a more malignant actor.
Notorious malware BlackEnergy had a bit history behind it even before Ukraine, being used by hackers of varying skill in many common hacking operations. Designed in 2007 to do DDoS attacks, where a victim computer becomes an obedient bot. Then, some time after it had been sold by its creator, BlackEnergy evolved and was now equipped with a set of interchangeable features, from spamming junk traffic to stealing usernames and passwords. Eventually it was used for espionage too, equipped with new vast data-collection abilities.
IV. 5. Why is privacy so critical to national security — and what does she propose?
Privacy is foremost important to safeguard the movements and actions of intelligence and defense assets so that they can maintain the necessary level of secrecy, such as troops or agents or administrators. Recommendations: automatic 10-year declassification rule for all classified info,
VI. 1. Specifically, please detail the incidences of apparent aggression on the Diaoyu (Senkaku) islands, the border clash with India, military displays and threats to Taiwan, the new national security law in Hong Kong, the faceoff with Australia, the trade conflict with the U.S., reported repression against the Uighurs in Xinjiang province, and Beijing's strained relations with the EU.
Recently, China stepped up its patrols near the Diaoyu Islands (known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands) in the East China Sea and doubled down on its maritime claims in the South China Sea, sending vessels to linger off the coasts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. It has conducted aerial reconnaissance near Taiwan, effectively ended Hong Kong's semiautonomous status, ginned up a new border dispute with Bhutan, and by all appearances, provoked a deadly border clash with India in what was the People's Liberation Army's first use of force abroad in 30 years. A controversial new national security law has all but stripped Hong Kong of its unique legal status. The law contains provisions that could potentially transcend national boundaries and extend Chinese jurisprudence globally, marking a shift from China's traditionally defensive conception of sovereignty to a more offensive approach to extend Beijing's authority. After Canberra called for an independent investigation into the origins of the pandemic, Beijing issued a harsh rebuke and imposed trade sanctions on Australia. It also appears to have carried out a series of cyberattacks against Australian government servers and businesses. Australian public opinion is rapidly turning against China as a result, with growing support for a more hard-line foreign policy, and Canberra has announced plans to boost its defense spending.
VI. 2. What does he suggest in terms of stabilizing the situation?
Rudd suggests a new framework in US-China relations, one that is based on the strategic principles of "managed" strategic competition: political, economic, technological, and ideological competition with mutually understood red-lines, open lines of high-level communication to avoid an accidental escalation, and defined areas of global cooperation where it is mutually advantageous (such as on pandemics and climate change).