Foreign Policy, Health, International Organizations, Politics

Peak 2020: An Apology to 2017

Readers of The Affiliate Network may recall that three years ago we dubbed 2017 “The Worst, Worst Year”. We were wrong and we owe an apology. 2020 has taken that title and expanded it beyond what most of us considered likely or even possible. The mysterious and terrifying pandemic and the economic tsunami that followed, triggered massive social, political, and economic upheavals around the world. Though the epoch-ending event is not exactly a “black swan” — many credible practitioners regarded it as a certainty — it will still leave a mark lasting decades and may permanently alter the course of human events.

The Worst

The world’s understanding of the novel Coronavirus, nCoV2, is that it emerged out of Wuhan, China in the waning weeks of 2019, and swept across the world like a wildfire. It turned human lungs to concrete, seemingly at random, and left paralysis and ruin in its wake. The contagion quickly spread to Iran before turning up in Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, and eventually New York. The time between the first reported cases in Wuhan to the day the World Health Organization declared Coronavirus 19 Disease (COVID19) a true pandemic: ten and a half weeks. At the time the WHO made the declaration there were 150,000 cases. Nine months later there are nearly 73 million.

A clue to the breathtaking speed of the contagion lies in the WHO declaration which cites “alarming levels of inaction” by the world’s governments. Reflecting a trend among democratic governments with populist tendencies; the leadership of Belarus, Brazil, Hungary, Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and most notably, the United States, chose to place short-term economic concerns above public health despite the terrifying data and the uncertainties about immunity, transmissibility, treatments, and fatality rates. Though the northern European governments (except Sweden) rapidly reversed course, the most bizarre and damaging response came from the White House itself.

The President of the United States, in a daily Coronavirus briefing, alternated between touting the aggressiveness of his personal response, to dismissing COVID as “just a flu”, a “hoax” perpetuated by his rivals, and even claimed it “would go away like a miracle.” He promoted myths and miracle cures, pushing the untested hydroxychloroquine and speculated that ingesting disinfectants and “powerful light” could be helpful, all while rejecting preventative measures such as masks and social distancing. The effect upon the United States was obvious. It soon led the world in every COVID statistic and has maintained that grim superlative ever since. What is less obvious, is that US leadership in this dubious regard has produced political headwinds for governments around the world struggling to get their populations to make sacrifices in the interest of public health.

The Rest

Though COVID certainly impacted quite literally everything in 2020, only Victor Perez Sañudo and Lino Miani wrote specifically about the disease in The Affiliate Network. While Mr. Miani made an early analysis of the virus’s potential impact on Africa in “The Cloud Over Africa“, Mr. Perez Sañudo explained how to manage COVID risk to business in “Back to Work“. For most of the rest of 2020 our content focused on the foreign policy moves of ascendent states seeking to capitalize on US retrenchment in the hands of an isolationist White House facing the impacts of the virus.

To some degree or another, Turkey, Russia, and China all pressed their advantages in the international arena this year. Dino Mora warned of Russian influence in Central America in “Educating Costa Rica“, while Mike Skillt, in “Why Russia Cannot Win“, introduced us to the Turkish-Russian struggle for dominance in Syria after the Trump Administration ceded the field. Our colleague Wolfgang Pusztai, one of the world’s most respected Libya watchers, pointed out that conflict is an expanding one. In “Libya: From Civil War to Regional Conflict” Mr. Pusztai describes the Turkish struggle for influence against a cast of actors that have interests there. Russia, he says, used the same ineffective strategy of proxy war it applied against the Turks in Syria. As we would soon see, Russia and Turkey would again glare at each other across the field of battle before the end of the year in Nagorno-Karabakh. With Russian proxies in combat on three sides of a NATO member state, Turkish foreign policy is a concern on a global level.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world, both Teoh Jit Khiam and Mr. Miani wrote repeatedly about developments in the South China Sea where Beijing seeks to set the facts on the ground to its advantage. Mr. Teoh’s “Between a ROC and a Hard Place” analyzed the costs and benefits of Taiwanese independence. He later walked us through the history of China’s relationship with the rest of the region in “The Malay Annals.” Lastly, Mr. Teoh capped off his performance with a fun “Alternate Futures” piece that presented a variety of triggers that could spark off a Sino-US conflict. Among the categories of event Mr. Teoh analyzed were “pre-planned actions that take place inside the South China Sea;” similar to the Sino-Indonesian row Mr. Miani wrote about in “Engulfing Natuna.” At the end of the year, Mr. Miani once again turned his pen to the region. In “Strategic Geography of the Internet,” he described efforts by the United States, Australia, Indonesia, and others to safeguard the web from Chinese dominance in the South China Sea. 

The Apology

After living through 2020 and observing its effects with a critical eye, we at the Affiliate Network feel we owe 2017 an apology. The events of 2020, shaped by COVID and made worse by some governments, have changed the game in so many ways. We can only go up from here and we are interested and excited to see what 2021 brings. Among our hopes for the new year are a return to predictability and stability in US foreign policy; a reinvigoration of US alliance relationships both in the North Atlantic and the Pacific; and an embrace of the technology and techniques for remote work that COVID forced upon us. If 2020 had any silver linings, it is up to us to make the most of them.

Lino Miani, CEO Navisio Global LLC

Lino Miani is a retired US Army Special Forces officer, author of The Sulu Arms Market, and CEO of Navisio Global LLC.

Latin America, Politics, Security

What a Biden Win Means for Latin America

Latin America has had an interesting history with democracy.  From the “southern cone” to the Rio Grande, the countries of the western hemisphere have endured a political cycle of right-wing fascism that gives way to leftist insurgency and socialist governments which in turn were vulnerable to military coups. The common denominator through it all was a robust U.S. foreign policy interest in the region. Though American foreign policy manifested differently through the decades, no country south of the border can remain unaffected by decisions made in Washington. This was as true in 1820 as it is in 2020, so what will a Biden win mean for Latin America?

Carry a Big Stick

The history of U.S. influence in the region arguably begins with the administration of James Monroe whose “doctrine” is presented to history as an anti-colonial gesture aimed at the powers of Europe. In Latin American and European capitals however, it is seen less as a benevolent hedge against colonialism and more as an argument for giving Washington a free hand in the region.

Whatever Mr. Monroe’s true motivation, its effect was a succession of American Presidents that dealt roughly in the region. James K. Polk needed to win a war against Mexico to secure the southern flank for manifest destiny. William McKinley bowed to political pressure and declared war on Spain, a conflict that handed America its first taste of imperial responsibility. Theodore Roosevelt supported insurrection to create a nation (Panama) favorable to construction of the canal. Even Eisenhower, the ultimate practitioner of a cooperative foreign policy, did not shy away from supporting the overthrow of democratically elected governments in Guatemala and elsewhere. Thereafter, US foreign-policy in Latin America became a balance of fighting communism and fighting drugs; neither of which did much to impede existing oligarchies or bring peace.

While post-war relations brought cooperation and development to those that sought it and coercion and deterrence to that that did not; the Trump administration somehow managed to weave it all together. Characterized by a transient focus on a handful of issues that would impact Trump’s domestic voting base, the United States shifted all its development programs and most of its diplomacy to the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and the independent Development Finance Corporation; a government agency that guarantees loans to be issued to local investors by local banks. The result was the commoditization of a narrow list of foreign policy priorities that had little to do with anything except providing sound bytes for the never-ending Trump campaign.

Aside from a recurring focus on deterring immigration from Central America, none of Washington’s policies south of the border seemed to have any longevity or credibility. American ambassadors and working level-diplomats continued to make cooperative noises and broadcast neighborly themes of solidarity against endemic poverty, inequality, and crime but their voices were drowned out by the President who cancelled summits, made fun of and threatened leaders that displeased him, subordinated complex relationships to his narrow interests, and seemed unable to focus on anything for meaningful periods of time. Among his short lived fixations were making Mexico pay for a wall they did not want and which would not accomplish its purpose; a renaming of the North American Free Trade Agreement without any of the legislative legwork required for meaningful reforms; a poorly conceived attempt to topple Venezuela’s president by supplying his rival with humanitarian assistance and political top cover; and a very brief “war” against cartels in the Caribbean. The result was a decline in goodwill toward American leadership and a generation of Latin American leaders that got very good at telling Washington what it wants to hear while doing as little as necessary to keep the money flowing.

What Would Joe Biden Do?

A future Biden administration will have its work cut out for it in Latin America. While the job will not be as straightforward as simply rolling back Trump’s policies, there is recognition the United States must rebuild relationships for mutual benefit down South. Immigration is the most obvious starting point. The Trump Administration’s migration policies were among the most comprehensive attempted during his tenure. Building the wall and deploying the military was only part of that. Changing U.S. interpretations of political asylum procedures; imposing legally questionable deportation practices; and altering incarceration standards that saw children separated from their parents and held in horrifying conditions also came into play. But these were only the symptoms of a larger bureaucratic alignment that Biden will fix.

In 2018 the Trump administration crippled U.S. development and cooperation relationships in Central America by prohibiting USAID and parts of the State Department from initiating new programs there. Diplomats report an inability to secure meetings, a lack of involvement in events, and are facing difficult decisions to cut valuable local staff. Coupled with the government shutdown at the outset of that year that affected all but the Defense Department, U.S. engagement with host nation governments has been radically shifted to the security sector at the expense of education, anti-corruption, and judicial reform. In much of Latin America security agencies are the least capable of addressing the preconditions that lead to migration and in some cases have terrible relationships with the exact segments of the population that are most likely to migrate.

The upshot of this is we will see an immediate move to rebalance U.S. foreign aid programs in Latin America in general but in Central America in particular since the focus will be once again on immigration. Rather than reiterating the punitive approach taken by Trump, Biden will likely adopt four policy aims:

  • Redouble and revitalize cooperative efforts to help Mexico address its rule of law challenges with special attention to the problem of corruption. Social programs that reduce U.S. drug addiction, illegal firearms flows, and money laundering will reduce the size of the U.S. market and profitability.
  • Rebalance U.S. Foreign Aid: U.S. security interests in Central America include a complex mix of countering transnational organized crime, building partner capacity, intelligence sharing, and countering malign influences that impact the stability of governance or impede U.S. objectives. Addressing these threats requires improvements to the capability of law enforcement, refocusing military roles away from traditional law enforcement tasks, improving disaster response capacity, and countering malign influences from abroad.
  • Address Conditions that Lead to Migration: The vast majority of Central American migrants to the United States are seeking economic opportunity or to escape violence by either government or criminal organizations. Relatively small investments in economic development, enhancements to fairness and impartiality in both governance and economics, protection of minority rights, and assistance to migrants and refugees can go a long way to prevent Central Americans from making a decision to migrate. USAID has long been the primary foreign policy tool for addressing these problems. Biden will re-enable USAID and breathe life back into relationships with its governmental and non-governmental partners.
  • Encourage Regional Integration: Regional integration in Central America is expanding in some very effective ways in the Northern Tier and will be encouraged. Examples include cooperation agreements on immigration, disaster response, human rights, and legislation. Biden will encourage regional initiatives as a way to develop efficiencies in the above areas and more by enabling more meaningful engagement with international organizations and resuming a U.S. leadership role.

    Lino Miani, CEO Navisio Global LLC

    Lino Miani is a retired US Army Special Forces officer, author of The Sulu Arms Market, and CEO of Navisio Global LLC.

Security, Strategy

Strategic Geography of the Internet

5 Comments

Nearly 30 years since the invention of the world wide web, we have become accustomed to having high-speed, relevant content at our fingertips virtually everywhere we go. The availability of rapidly searchable information is now so important that the service economy globally is completely dependent upon the internet. Increasingly, automation and machine learning have made it possible to integrate the industrial economy as well. Public utilities, industrial and commercial supply chains, emergency response capability, transportation, and public health are all monitored and controlled via the web. Entire economies, governance, and even military power is now largely determined by availability of information…and it all rides on the thinnest of fibers.

If there is a physical structure to the internet, it is the thousands of miles of fiber optic cable that wrap around the planet. These tiny filaments are bundled into cables that carry trillions of terabits of data over mountains and under oceans at the speed of light. The amount of data exchanged daily between machines, sensors, and humans is increasing exponentially and includes everything from cat videos to military targeting data. For that reason, control of the internet, and the cables that carry it, has become a strategic concern for governments and industry alike.

The Thinnest of Threads

The cables that carry the web are simple in concept but complex in reality. Data, in the form of light, passes through tiny transparent fiber optic cables. These fibers, fractions of millimeters in diameter and made of glass, are unsuitable for use in the environment without reinforcement. With some variation, their structure resembles the diagram below with different layers designed to provide functionality and to protect the core from the elements and from breakage by stretching, creasing, or crushing. Adequately protected, the fiber assemblies are bundled into larger cables and laid across the ocean floor by specially equipped vessels.

Fiber Optic Cable
Diagram of a typical fiber optic cable. Many of these will be combined into the large cables that carry the internet between continents.

There is nothing simple however about the function of fiber optic cables. The simultaneous transmission and reception of vast amounts of data on either end of the cable is a complex operation. Distributing that data across all the various fibers must be done with enough redundancy so that information is not impeded by tiny breakages or blockages along the thousands of miles of cable. However, transmitting all data on all fibers all the time is inefficient and instead must be done so that data can reliably reach specific destinations without wasting bandwidth. Balancing this distribution at the speed of light and monitoring the health of the cable along its entire length requires sophisticated servers and feedback mechanisms.

Despite careful management and protective measures, the cables are still vulnerable in a number of ways. Materials degrade over time, making the cables lose strength and possibly eroding their efficiency. They can be broken or damaged by fishing or survey gear, punctured by wildlife, or severed by landslides and earthquakes. On 26 December 2006, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Taiwan, severing eight cables in 18 places. The event severely disrupted internet connectivity in most of Asia for several weeks. Despite subsequent improvements to the strength, diversity, and resiliency of the network, it is still vulnerable to seismic activity and of course, there is no combination that is safe from intentional tampering.

Internet Bottleneck

Herein lies the strategic challenge and opportunity presented by undersea cables. All but one of the multitude of cables servicing Southeast Asia and the southern and western parts of the Indian Subcontinent pass first through the South China Sea. Not only is this an arena of intense strategic competition, but the sea itself is uniformly shallow making the cables relatively easy to access. While any reasonably capable state actor could cut these cables – certainly all those with claims in the South China Sea possess this capability – a more valuable, but more difficult, endeavor is to steal the information flowing through them. Though this is notoriously difficult with fiber optics, it is not impossible.

The techniques for tapping fiber-optic lines are a tightly guarded secret but the principle is an old one. Put a sensor on the line, record all the information that flows past it, and analyze it later. Naturally the lines are more vulnerable at retransmission stations called “regeneration points” and at “landing stations” where the cables emerge from the sea. Still, preventing such theft is not easy. Sensing technologies do exist to detect such tampering but it is not clear how effective they are or how dependent on interpretation. Even if tampering could be reliably detected, it cannot be prevented and it will never be possible to determine what information was stolen and what was not.

Strategic Geography

In historical conflicts, adversaries sought to deny each other access to critical resources or domains of competition such as the seas. In the event of a future conflict in the Indo Pacific region, it may not be possible for an adversary to deny Australia and Southeast Asia access to the world’s oceans, but it is indeed possible to limit their access to the lifeblood of the world economy. U.S. and Australian strategic planners take this problem seriously. They recognize for example there are no complete solutions to the threat posed by Chinese access to the South China Sea and the cables that lie underneath it. One partial solution is as simple as it is ancient. By laying a new cable from the United States to Australia, Indonesia, and Singapore, on a route that passes south of New Guinea, planners can protect the line by putting a tremendous amount of physical distance and defensible terrain between it and the adversary.

The route, which has obvious geographical advantages, also says something about the future of US-Australian-Indonesian relations vis-à-vis China. Interestingly but not surprisingly, the project is being implemented as a cooperative venture between private industry, the respective militaries, and in the case of the United States, as an economic development project funded by the Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The fusion of development with economics and security is not a new concept and is in fact a feature of imperial behavior throughout history. In the 19th Century the fuel that defined power in the Pacific was agriculture and coaling stations. In the 20th it was oil. In the 21st Century, it is — in part — the strategic role of information and the infrastructure that carries it.

Lino Miani, CEO Navisio Global LLC

Lino Miani is a retired US Army Special Forces officer, author of The Sulu Arms Market, and CEO of Navisio Global LLC.

…Access, experience, and knowledge…Worldwide