Recommended Weekend Reading
April 26 - 28, 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.
U.S. National Economic Security Policy
Onshoring Semiconductor Production: National Security Versus Economic Efficiency Council on Foreign Relations
Semiconductors—commonly known as microchips, chips, or integrated circuits—enable modern life. Those small devices make everything from computers, smartphones, microwaves, and cars to advanced weaponry work. A car, for instance, needs as many as 3,000 semiconductors, while one Javelin anti-tank missile requires more than 250 chips. As artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing continue to advance, the global demand for semiconductors will only increase, while power will accrue to those countries that can develop, produce, and harness the most advanced chips.
What can be done about the high and rising national debt? Brookings Institution
U.S. policymakers and the American public have expressed significant concerns about the rising national debt, but there have been few meaningful actions in recent decades to address it. On April 16, at an event co-hosted by the Brookings Institution and Miami Dade College, fiscal policy experts and local officials came together to discuss the prospects for policies that can address concerns over rising public debt. You can watch the full video of the event here.
U.S. Election Outlook
Census Bureau Releases 2022 Congressional Election Voting Report United States Census Bureau
The voter registration rate (69.1%) for the 2022 congressional election was the highest registration rate of a midterm election in 30 years. However, the voter turnout rate (52.2%) was lower than in the 2018 (53.4%) midterm elections, according to the new Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2022 report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The report, based on data from the 2022 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplement, builds on detailed tables released earlier this year.
Russia
Russian US election interference targets support for Ukraine after slow start Microsoft Threat Analysis Center
Russian influence operations (IO) have picked up steam in the past two months. The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) has tracked at least 70 Russian actors engaged in Ukraine-focused disinformation, using traditional and social media and a mix of covert and overt campaigns.
The Black Sea Region Endures Beyond the Theater of War Panorama
Many strategic surprises have come from the combat operations on the Black Sea theatre in the last 25 months, and they keep coming as the long Russo-Ukrainian war continues to evolve while the prospect of peace is barely visible through its fog. In the domain of politics, one surprise is that the Black Sea region has not been completely transfigured into the theater of war but endured, even if its key institution – the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) – barely functions in a few working groups and the Parliamentary Assembly.
US vs. Russia: Why the Biden strategy in Africa may be failing Politico
U.S. officials are starting to accept that their strategy of pressing Niger and other war-battered African countries to break off ties with Moscow and embrace democratic norms is no longer working. The recent breakdown in relations with Niger, where American troops are set to withdraw as Russian fighters arrive, has forced a reckoning inside the Biden administration over its approach to maintaining its allies in volatile parts of Africa.
Back in Stock? The State of Russia's Defense Industry after Two Years of the War CSIS
This report examines Russia’s evolving defense industrial capabilities and limitations during the second year of the Russia-Ukraine war and analyzes how these changes have affected and will continue to affect battlefield outcomes in Ukraine. The report starts with an overview of Russia’s domestic arms production efforts throughout 2023, followed by a detailed examination of key Russian weapons systems (such as tanks, artillery, drones, missiles, and electronic warfare systems) and their changing roles on the battlefield. The report then analyzes Russia’s general procurement dynamics and identifies the imported components and weapons categories that Russia’s defense industry has particularly relied on in the second year of the war.
India
How India’s democracy shapes its global role and relations with the West Chatham House
Two narratives dominate global discussions about India today: one is on the country’s rise as an increasingly prominent geopolitical and economic actor; the other centers on concerns – particularly among India’s Western partners – about democratic backsliding. As India goes to the polls in 2024, this paper examines the interplay between these two narratives, or more specifically, what India’s status as the world’s largest democracy means for its global role and relations with the West. It does so by analyzing how the changing nature of India’s national identity impacts the country’s foreign policy.
China
Why the U.S. and China Suddenly Care About a Port in Southern Chile Americas Quarterly
Perched on the pylons of a century-old coal pier, sleek black cormorants gaze out at cruise ships, propane tankers, and research vessels dotting the white-capped Strait of Magellan. Farther into the horizon, a humpback whale blows a misty plume toward the sky.
China is Battening Down for the Gathering Storm Over Taiwan War On The Rocks
Chinese war drums beat on as pundits hotly debate if or when Beijing will try to seize Taiwan by force. There is no apparent countdown to D-day for initiating a blockade or invasion, but major strategic indicators clearly show that General Secretary Xi Jinping is still preparing his country for a showdown. Developments underway suggest Taiwan will face an existential crisis in single-digit years, most likely in the back half of the 2020s or the front half of the 2030s.
Middle East
Six Options for Israel in Gaza The Washington Quarterly
In response to its devastating October 7, 2023 attack, Israeli leaders have stated that they seek to “destroy” Hamas–a goal easier in rhetoric than in reality.1 Israel’s actions—bombing Gaza, sending in troops to kill Hamas fighters and destroy Hamas’ infrastructure, and targeting Hamas leaders in Gaza and around the region—have killed over 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including many children. In solidarity with Hamas, Iranian-backed groups have conducted attacks against Israeli and US targets around the region.2 If, understandably, Israel is loath to allow Hamas a victory and seeks to ensure its security, what options does it have?
Iran and the de-escalation myth Atlantic Council
Forgive the Israelis if they aren’t in the mood to take the victory lap the White House has suggested to them, following the remarkable defense of their territory from an unprecedented Iranian barrage of more than three hundred explosive-laden drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. “You got a win,” US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend, as reported by Axios from a White House source. “Take the win.” Translate that into a strong US suggestion, straight from the Oval Office, that Israel demonstrate restraint in its response and refrain from attacking Iranian territory to avoid further escalation. To drive his point home, Biden also told the Israeli prime minister that US forces wouldn’t participate in any reprisal attack.
International Economics
24-9 Economic Multilateralism 80 Years after Bretton Woods Peterson Institute for International Economics
The global economic institutions that grew from the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 aimed to create a cooperative policy environment conducive to recovery, development, continuing prosperity, social stability, and democracy. Prominent in the minds of the architects were the macroeconomic and trade policy coordination failures of the 1930s, which accompanied a world depression and the march toward the Second World War. The assumption of “embedded” liberalism’ underlying Bretton Woods gave way to a much more market-oriented system by the early 1990s, fueling strong growth in several large emerging markets and a period of hyper-globalization—but also social tensions in advanced economies. The result has been a changed geopolitical balance in the world as well as a backlash against aspects of globalization in many richer countries, notably the main sponsor of postwar international cooperation, the United States. At the same time, global cooperation is threatened despite the emergence of a broader range of shared global threats requiring joint action. The rich industrial countries that dominate the existing multilateral institutions should recognize them as being instrumental for channeling superpower competition into positive-sum outcomes that can also attract broad-based international support. However, leveraging those institutions will require buy-in from middle- and low-income countries, as well as from domestic political constituencies in advanced economies. The future of multilateralism depends on reconciling these potentially conflicting imperatives.
Newcomers Bring New Rules CSIS
The world’s challenges are increasingly complex. Borders could not stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine demonstrated that the kinds of national wars that characterized the 20th century were still relevant. Ideology has faded, and the states of the Global South have grown larger and wealthier. They now expect a larger share of the global pie. While cooperation has become more necessary, the world has entered an era of increased national contestation.
Jobs, Trade, and Investment: Cyclical Weakness, Structural Strength The Transatlantic Economy
Lenin once quipped, “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” So, it is with the 2020s. While barely at the half mark of this decade, the world economy has been buffeted by a global pandemic, Russia’s stunning war of aggression in the heart of Europe, an Israel-Hamas conflict that could engulf the broader Middle East, ongoing violence across large swathes of Africa, massive movements of displaced peoples, major disruptions to flows of goods, services, and commodities, and a spike in inflationary pressures reminiscent of the 1970s. Rarely have the challenges seemed so acute.
Are We Fragmented Yet? Measuring Geopolitical Fragmentation and its Causal Effects UPenn
After decades of rising global economic integration, the world economy is fragmenting. To measure this phenomenon, we introduce an index of geopolitical fragmentation distilled from diverse empirical indicators. To do so, we rely on the use of a flexible, dynamic factor model with time-varying parameters and stochastic volatility. Then, we employ structural vector autoregressions and local projections to gauge the causal effects of changes in fragmentation. We show that more fragmentation impacts the global economy detrimentally but harms emerging economies more than advanced ones. We also document a key asymmetry: fragmentation immediately harms the global economy, while reduced fragmentation only unfolds gradually. A sectoral analysis within OECD economies highlights the adverse effects on those industries intricately linked to global markets, including manufacturing, construction, finance, wholesale, and retail trade.