Our cover leader this week. "The persecution of the Uyghurs is a crime against humanity ... If liberals say nothing about today’s single worst violation outside a war zone, how can anyone believe their criticism of other, lesser crimes?"
And @gadyepstein: "attempt to erase Uyghurs’...cultural identity & crush their Islamic faith has not only caused immense suffering for the more than 1-in-10 Uyghurs who have been sent to camps, bt also blighted lives of their 100s of thousands of children" economist.com/china/2020/10/…
Truly shocking. "These data, if extrapolated across Xinjiang, imply that around 250,000 of the region’s ~3m Uyghurs under the age of 15 have had one or both parents interned ... 880,500 children had been placed in boarding facilities by the end of 2019" economist.com/china/2020/10/…
"Uyghur women are being fitted with intrauterine devices at a rate far higher than in China as a whole, according a report in June by the Associated Press ... Women with three children are at greatest risk of being forcibly sterilised." economist.com/china/2020/10/…
"Han “relatives” stay as often as every month with Uyghur families for ten days at a time ... Hosts have to show enthusiasm, or face repercussions. Ms Dawut’s then ten-year-old daughter was assigned a 20-year-old man as kin" economist.com/china/2020/10/…
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"Armenia’s armor and air defenses are steadily wearing down but Azerbaijan has not been able to turn tactical successes into substantial operational gains. Ground assaults have proven costly, and rather than a blitzkrieg it has become a war of attrition." warontherocks.com/2020/10/the-se…
"It is not clear if what Azerbaijan has gained so far — a strip of land in the south largely along the Iranian border — will suffice as a political victory ... All together Azerbaijan may have captured 2.8% of the territory of Artsakh." warontherocks.com/2020/10/the-se…
"on the modern battlefield some systems have cameras or live video feeds while many do not, distorting perceptions on combat effectiveness. A social media feed composed largely of drone ...footage could lead one to believe in the dominance of such systems" warontherocks.com/2020/10/the-se…
Me and Jane Rickards in @TheEconomist this week look at why it's getting harder, costlier and bloodier to defend Taiwan—and whether America would do so if push came to shove economist.com/asia/2020/10/1…
"of two dozen conscripts [@Scholars_Stage] interviewed, “only one was more confident in Taiwan’s ability to resist China after going through the conscript system.” Less than half of Taiwanese polled in August evinced a willingness to fight if war came" economist.com/asia/2020/10/1…
'in wargames set five or more years in the future “the United States starts losing people and hardware in the theatre very quickly” says David Ochmanek of RAND. “...we’re unable to project power sufficiently into the battlespace to defeat the invasion"...' economist.com/asia/2020/10/1…
The essay by @KofmanMichael in this volume is the single most interesting thing I've read on NATO-Russia military questions for a long time. "While in the abstract NATO may appear superior ... in reality Excel spreadsheets don’t fight" frivarld.se/wp-content/upl…
"The Russian General Staff would not expect the decisive phase of conflict to last beyond 2-3 weeks, at which time most precision-guided munitions would be expended and the war liable to escalate to nuclear employment." frivarld.se/wp-content/upl…
"From a Russian perspective, the initial period of war will be decided by the contest between aerospace assault and aerospace defense, and the ability of the two sides to destroy each other’s critical infrastructure. Ground forces matter little" frivarld.se/wp-content/upl…
New UK 'integrated operating concept'. "Expensive, crewed platforms that we cannot replace and can ill afford to lose will be increasingly vulnerable to swarms of self-coordinating smart munitions perhaps arriving at hypersonic speeds or ... from space" gov.uk/government/pub…
"The economics of warfare are changing the balance between platforms and weapons, and between crewed and uncrewed systems. In short, we face an inflection point between the Industrial Age and the Information Age" gov.uk/government/pub…
"NATO remains central to the pursuit of our strategic end ... But the centrality of NATO does not mean ‘NATO Only’. We must look beyond NATO to other alliances, giving real meaning to interoperability and burden sharing ..." gov.uk/government/pub…
Striking how much time UK chief of defence staff spends on Chinese military capabilities and practices in @Policy_Exchange speech unveiling new integrated operating concept. Cites "Unrestricted Warfare" by two PLA officers. Also name-checks @ASPI_org and @WarOnTheRocks.
Carter: new UK integrated operating concept (IOC): distinguishes between "operating" and "warfighting", and establishes need to compete below threshold of war to deter war. Requires "a campaign posture including continuous operating on our terms and in places of our choosing".
Carter: new UK "posture will be engaged and forward-deployed. Armed forces much more in use, rather that dedicated solely for contingencies, with training and exercises delivered as operations ... the willingness to commit decisively hard capability is essential ..."
"China represents the most significant economic and national security threat to the United States over the next 20 to 30 years ... Russia’s long-term economic forecast makes its global power likely to recede over the next 20 to 30 years." armedservices.house.gov/_cache/files/2…
"Advancements in AI, biotechnology [etc] are making traditional battlefields and boundaries increasingly irrelevant. To remain competitive, the United States must prioritize the development of emerging technologies over ... legacy systems" armedservices.house.gov/_cache/files/2…