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1. US-China lessons from Ukraine: Fueling more dangerous Taiwan tensions

Author:
John K. Culver and Sarah Kirchberger
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The lessons that Washington and Beijing appear to be learning from Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and from Ukraine’s resistance and counteroffensive, could set the stage for a crisis over Taiwan in the next few years. This grim prospect is driven by the United States and China arraying themselves for a strategic rivalry since 2017 through the continuing trade war, economic decoupling, and increasing rhetorical and military positioning for confrontation over Taiwan. In light of the Chinese military’s threatening gestures, belligerent rhetoric, and other recent actions that read like they could be preparation for war, there is a danger that the successive warnings by senior US military commanders that Chinese CCP General Secretary and President Xi Jinping has already decided to use military force in the near term could become the proverbial tail wagging the dog — and could impose a logic that makes a US-China war more likely, rather than enhancing deterrence.1 Therefore, the key question for the United States and its allies is how an increasingly truculent and belligerent Chinese leadership can be incentivized to walk back from the brink. This paper examines what lessons China, the United States, and European allies have drawn from the Ukraine conflict and how such lessons have shaped these actors’ strategic assumptions. It concludes with a discussion of policy recommendations for the transatlantic community confronting the possibility of a US-China conflict over Taiwan.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Diplomacy, Politics, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
China, Ukraine, Taiwan, Asia, North America, and United States of America

2. Humanitarian aid: Defining new areas of US-LAC collaboration

Author:
Pepe Zhang and Isabel Bernhard
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The US humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) system—well practiced and extensively developed—could further serve US and partners’ needs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and beyond through targeted improvements. Based on our experience as HADR practitioners with operational and academic expertise, we share insights from many years of working with partners in the Americas. The task is urgent: fragile governments and organizations further impacted by COVID-19 and climate change have exposed HADR deficiencies that need to be rapidly strengthened. Redoubling the US’s HADR commitment to allies and partners can also have strategic benefits during a period of renewed competition with the People’s Republic of China. We believe that the United States can strengthen its HADR work globally, and particularly with LAC countries, through partnership and relationship building as well as education and exercises. By deepening its strengths and address- ing room for improvement, the United States can remain the partner of choice for LAC countries and conserve its positional advantage over China and other strategic competitors. How can LAC and partner nations (such as the United States), nongovernmental organizations, and regional and other global organizations strengthen their abilities to respond to natural disasters? What can the United States do to improve its disaster preparedness and response in LAC? And what can Washington learn from Beijing’s approach to disaster assistance in LAC? In crafting this report to address these questions, we drew from a roundtable discussion, verbal and written consultations with subject matter experts, and written material. A full description of the methodology is provided in the appendix. The findings of the report include eight recommendations grouped under two mutually complementary areas: (1) partnership and relationship building, and (2) education and exercises. Not only are these recommendations timely and relevant for HADR practitioners, but taking these steps would strengthen Western hemispheric security by investing in the region’s infrastructure and human capital. As the United States and its LAC partners consider future room for cooperation and collaboration, HADR work will form an indispensable centerpiece of their strategies.
Topic:
NATO, Climate Change, Diplomacy, Environment, Humanitarian Aid, International Organization, Politics, Partnerships, Resilience, and Energy
Political Geography:
China, Latin America, Caribbean, North America, and United States of America

3. Cybersecurity for innovative small and medium enterprises and academia

Author:
Franklin D. Kramer, Melanie J. Teplinsky, and Robert J Butler
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Innovation is fundamental to United States global leadership, critical both for the economy and for national security. Yet the resilience of the US innovation ecosystem against adversary cyber espionage and attack—most specifically from China—has not received the attention required, particularly given the essential innovation roles played by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and by academia. In response to that challenge, this report sets forth a proposal for expert-provided cybersecurity resilient architectures for SMEs and academia that are engaged in the development and operation of key emerging and advanced technologies. Such cybersecurity resilient architectures would be operated by the private sector and funded through the establishment of transferable cybersecurity investment tax credits. The use of such architectures for the protection of emerging and advanced technologies would play a key role in ensuring that the United States maintains its worldwide innovation leadership.
Topic:
Cybersecurity, Innovation, Academia, and Resilience
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

4. Nuclear energy in a low-carbon future: Implications for the United States and Japan

Author:
Stephen S. Greene
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Nuclear power has received renewed global interest as a secure source of carbon-free energy. In the context of worsening climate change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resultant energy market constrictions, many countries are actively pursuing conventional and advanced nuclear development, while others are canceling or postponing scheduled shutdowns. As climate change continues to impact both energy supply and demand, nuclear energy is poised to play a major role in the reliability of the future clean energy mix. Challenges to nuclear rollout will require solutions. Construction timelines remain extended, as do licensing processes. Social constraints also hinder development prospects. These potential stumbling blocks require steadfast coordination between allies like the United States and Japan, especially as other nuclear energy heavyweights like Russia and China avoid many of those same bottlenecks in their pursuit of domestic buildout and export. Despite those issues, though, nuclear energy is forecasted to play a major role in the later stages of the energy transition, in which countries look to decarbonize the more difficult parts of their economies. The advent of advanced technologies and the completion of large-scale projects portends the arrival of nuclear energy’s reliability and versatility just as the global energy sector needs it.
Topic:
Climate Change, Nuclear Power, Carbon Emissions, and Energy
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, North America, and United States of America

5. Priorities for US-Africa commercial policy in the Biden Administration

Author:
Aubrey Hruby
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
With a renewed focus on multilateralism, President Joe Biden, in his first one hundred days, has actively been reengaging with traditional US allies and partners repeatedly sidelined by the Trump administration. African countries have been included in this effort. When addressing the African Union Summit of African presidents in February, he reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to partnering with African nations to address challenges including climate change and erosion of democratic institutions. Biden has gained widespread praise for supporting the appointment of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the first African head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), nominating officials who have deep experience in African markets to Cabinet positions, such as Linda Thomas-Greenfield as ambassador to the United Nations, and putting together a historically diverse government, including many senior members of the African diaspora. Building on this early progress, Biden has an opportunity to reset US-Africa policy by not only prioritizing it at a level unseen during the last four years, but also changing the long history of siloing Africa policy. The Biden administration should look to further integrate African nations into broader US foreign policy, acknowledging Africa’s increasing importance to US priorities and enhanced standing on the global stage. Doing so will allow the new administration to deepen commercial and people-to-people ties with African nations, benefiting US businesses, furthering US interests, and working to address global challenges, such as public health and climate change. This more multifaceted and nuanced engagement with African states will set a foundation for stronger US-Africa partnerships, support mutual economic growth, and contribute to strengthening US global leadership. While cooperation with African states is critical to regional stability and global security, this issue brief sets aside security policy and focuses on ways the Biden administration can strengthen its commercial policy and public diplomacy with African nations. This effort includes building on commercial policies started under the Trump administration, facilitating green growth, and deepening people-to-people ties. In doing so, Biden’s domestic priorities of promoting diversity and climate responsibility will be reflected in Africa policy and ensure US businesses can take advantage of increasing opportunity in African markets and remain competitive globally.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economy, Business, and Joe Biden
Political Geography:
Africa, North America, and United States of America

6. Enhancing US-Japan cooperation on global supply chains

Author:
Miyeon Oh and James Hildebrand
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Mounting US-China tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic have led to growing calls in the United States and among its allies and partners, including Japan, to address the vulnerabilities in global supply chains critical to national security and economic competitiveness. Strategic uncertainty has led stakeholders to pose the following questions. What role should government play, and to what extent can, or should, governments require firms to operate more in line with national security interests? How can firms manage short-term and long-term risks to balance national security requirements and commercial interests? How should trusted partners be defined, and what is a desirable allied and multilateral approach to enhancing security and resilience of global high-tech supply chains? With new administrations in both the United States and Japan, the two countries have an opportunity to consider these questions and rethink coordination of their efforts to establish secure and resilient supply chains. This issue brief analyzes recent developments in US and Japanese supply-chain policy, explores the importance of closer coordination through case studies of the semiconductor and rare-earth minerals industries, and provides a set of recommendations for the Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Yoshihide Suga administrations to enhance US-Japan cooperation in the years ahead. These recommendations include actions to operationalize the April 2021 US-Japan Joint Leaders’ Statement by creating a bilateral interagency Supply Chain Steering Committee that includes sector-specific working groups to enhance public-private-partnerships in high-technology industries, and by expanding bilateral supply-chain cooperation into multilateral efforts through flexible and informal frameworks.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Bilateral Relations, Economy, Innovation, Trade, Defense Industry, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, North America, and United States of America

7. Enhancing US-Japan cooperation on clean energy technologies

Author:
Reed Blakemore and David W. Yellen
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Japan’s October 2020 pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 presents an opportunity to expand the robust US-Japan energy partnership into additional clean energy areas. But with a stark divide on energy policy in the United States, how can the US-Japan energy partnership appeal to disparate visions of the energy transition and be politically durable? In the wake of Japan’s net-zero announcement, the Global Energy Center is launching this new report, “Enhancing US-Japan cooperation on clean energy technologies,” which explores how the United States and Japan can increase the politically durable foundation for clean energy cooperation in their already robust energy partnership. Reed Blakemore and David W. Yellen analyze which technologies could form such a foundation, and they recommend that the two countries prioritize technologies that address three interrelated goals: enhancing energy security and resilience, becoming more competitive and spurring economic growth, and reducing remissions. The report suggests a path forward for the United States and Japan, not only to expand bilateral clean energy cooperation, but also to lay the groundwork for a broader Indo-Pacific partnership on clean energy markets and technologies.
Topic:
Security, Energy Policy, Environment, Bilateral Relations, Geopolitics, Renewable Energy, and Energy
Political Geography:
Canada, Asia, North America, and United States of America

8. An affordable defense of Asia

Author:
T. X. Hammes
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
For the last two decades, China has studied the US military, identified its key weaknesses, and developed the tactics and forces best suited to exploit those vulnerabilities. These challenges are compounded by significant deficiencies in today’s US joint force across all domains of conflict—sea, air, land, space, electronic warfare, and cyber. Proposed budgets cannot overcome those deficiencies using legacy systems. Therefore, the current US military strategy for the defense of Asia—a conventional defense of the first island chain from Japan to the Philippines, built on current air and sea platforms supported by major air and sea bases—needs to be adapted. The United States and its allies have two major advantages they can exploit—geography and emerging technologies. In Forward Defense’s inaugural report, An Affordable Defense of Asia, T.X. Hammes crafts a strategy for leveraging these advantages. Hammes makes the case that by developing novel operational concepts that take advantage of emerging technologies, while integrating these concepts into a broader Offshore Control Strategy which seeks to hold geostrategic chokepoints, the United States can improve its warfighting posture and bolster conventional deterrence. This paper advances the following arguments and recommendations. 1. The geography of the Pacific provides significant strategic, operational, and tactical advantages to a defender. 2. New operational concepts that employ emerging, relatively inexpensive technologies—including multimodal missiles, long-range air drones, smart sea mines, and unmanned naval vessels—can support an affordable defense of Asia. 3. These new technologies can and should be manufactured and fielded by US allies in the region in order to strengthen alliance relationships and improve their ability to defend themselves. 4. Autonomous weapons will be essential to an affordable defense of Asia.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
China, East Asia, Asia, North America, and United States of America

9. Assessing Indian digital trade policies: Will they support a $5 trillion economy?

Author:
Mark Linscott
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced nearly all public policy questions to be seen through the lens of how to detect and respond to the disease as it spreads rapidly across the globe. These include obvious questions of national health care policy and whether there is a place for international efforts to coordinate their national responses. Trade policy has come to the fore as a growing number of countries restrict exports of critical medical supplies to ensure sufficient availability for patients in-country. In this crisis, international collaboration to keep trade flowing has been limited and has not prevented many countries from imposing new trade restrictions. The importance of digital policies has grown as countries seek to harness the tools of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and vital infrastructure to trace outbreaks of the virus and assist efforts to find cures and vaccines. While digital tools are proving vital in efforts to track outbreaks and trace contacts, legitimate concerns are growing about potentially invasive government surveillance even after the virus retreats. These policy areas—health, trade, and digital—overlap in the international, national, and local efforts to reduce the duration of the pandemic and mitigate its effects with respect to human lives and economic well-being. The analysis in this paper, while initially conducted before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19, has been impacted by its sudden emergence and will likely require updating to assess the experiences of this ongoing crisis. The paper, which focuses on the U.S.-India bilateral relationship, concludes with a series of questions, as opposed to policy recommendations. This is due partly to the very complexity that all governments confront in mapping out digital policies given the ubiquitous role digital networks and devices play in our daily lives. But these questions may have even more tangible relevance now that COVID-19 is forcing a reckoning with a severe interruption in global economic growth, which could be on the scale of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Ultimately, the governments of India, the United States, and other nations will determine for themselves what answers are relevant to their individual circumstances.
Topic:
Economy, Business, Trade, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
South Asia, Canada, India, North America, and United States of America

10. European energy security and the critical role of transatlantic energy cooperation

Author:
Richard L. Morningstar, András Simonyi, Olga Khakova, and Jennifer T. Gordon
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Transatlantic cooperation is essential to European energy security, which is and should remain a key national security priority for the United States. European energy security is crucial for the maintenance of a strong European economy and for European political stability, both of which are in the best interests of the United States. The new report from the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, European Energy Security and the Critical Role of Transatlantic Energy Cooperation: Final Report and Recommendations, by Richard L. Morningstar, András Simonyi, Olga Khakova, and Jennifer T. Gordon, provides insights into how the United States and European Union (EU) can work together to strengthen European energy security. The Global Energy Center’s new report recommends that the United States and the EU focus their energy cooperation in several areas that will benefit the EU’s efforts to meet climate targets and that, at the same time, will also bolster energy security. These areas include: the development of competitive and transparent energy markets; the identification of alternative energy sources and routes; collaboration on new energy technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and coordination of a transatlantic financing strategy. Additionally, new energy infrastructure, interconnected grids, the European Green Deal, and broader geopolitical challenges also represent areas of opportunity for cooperation between the United States and the EU.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Environment, International Cooperation, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Europe and North America