Battlegrounds

by H. R. McMaster

  5As Joseph Riley observed in his study of post–Cold War United States–China relations, “the vast majority of U.S. policy makers from the George H. W. Bush administration through the Obama administration have believed that broad economic, political, and cultural exchange with China would encourage Beijing to liberalize its mercantilist economic policies and authoritarian political structure.” Joseph Riley, The Great Gamble: Washington’s Ill-Fated Attempt to Reform Beijing (manuscript).

  6See “CRACKDOWN IN BEIJING: Excerpts from Bush’s News Session,” New York Times, June 6, 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/06/world/crackdown-in-beijing-excerpts-from-bush-s-news-session.html.

  7“Clinton’s Words on China: Trade Is the Smart Thing,” New York Times, March 9, 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/09/world/clinton-s-words-on-china-trade-is-the-smart-thing.html.

  8Yuka Koshino, “How Did Obama Embolden China? Comparative Analysis of ‘Engagement’ and ‘Containment’ in Post–Cold War Sino-American Relations,” U.S.-Japan Research Institute, 2015, 14, http://www.us-jpri.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/CSPC_Koshino_2015.pdf.

  9Susan Rice, “Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice,” Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, November 21, 2013, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/21/remarks-prepared-delivery-national-security-advisor-susan-e-rice.

  10“China Already Violating U.S. Cyber Agreement, Group Says,” CBS News, October 19, 2015, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/crowdstrike-china-violating-cyberagreement-us-cyberespionage-intellectual-property/.

  11Del Quentin Wilber, “China ‘Has Taken the Gloves Off’ in Its Thefts of U.S. Technology Secrets,” Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2018.

  12Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” The Atlantic, April 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/.

  13On satellite imagery, see the database at CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, including Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, “A Look at China’s SAM Shelters in the Spratlys,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 23, 2017, https://amti.csis.org/chinas-sam-shelters-spratlys/. On the further militarization of the South China Sea, see “How Much Trade Transits the South China Sea?” Center for Strategic and International Studies, https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trade-transits-south-china-sea/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-3073; Jeremy Page, Carol E. Lee, and Gordon Lubold, “China’s President Pledges No Militarization in Disputed Islands,” Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2015, https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-completes-runway-on-artificial-island-in-south-china-sea-1443184818.

  14See Joseph Riley, The Great Gamble (manuscript).

  15Michael Pence, “Remarks by Vice President Michael Pence on the Administration’s Policy Toward China,” Remarks, The White House, October 4, 2018, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-pence-administrations-policy-toward-china/.

  16United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, “Threats to the U.S. Research Enterprise: China’s Talent Recruitment Plans,” November 18, 2019, 31–32, https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019-11-18%20PSI%20Staff%20Report%20-%20China’s%20Talent%20Recruitment%20Plans.pdf.

  17Edward Wong, “Competing Against Chinese Loans, U.S. Companies Face Long Odds in Africa,” New York Times, January 13, 2019.

  18Pomfret, The Beautiful Country.

  19For example, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has helped safeguard sensitive technologies. In 2018, the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act expanded CFIUS jurisdiction and blocked loopholes that the CCP had exploited.

  20Sui-Lee Wee, “China Uses DNA to Track Its People, with the Help of American Expertise,” New York Times, February 21, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/business/china-xinjiang-uighur-dna-thermo-fisher.html.

  21Roger Robinson Jr., “Why and How the U.S. Should Stop Financing China’s Bad Actors.” Imprimis 48, no. 10 (2019), https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/roger-w-robinson-stop-financing-china/.

  22Michael Brown and Pavneet Singh, “China’s Technology Transfer Strategy: How Chinese Investments in Emerging Technology Enable a Strategic Competitor to Access the Crown Jewels of U.S. Innovation,” Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental, January 15, 2018, https://admin.govexec.com/media/diux_chinatechnologytransferstudy_jan_2018_(1).pdf.

  23In 2018, the CCP dedicated a session of the Eighteenth Party Congress to the rule of law (fazhi), but its version of the concept is based on the absolute leadership of the party, not on the more universal understanding that the state itself is accountable to laws that are promulgated publicly, enforced equally, and adjudicated independently. Ronald Alcala, Eugene Gregory, and Shane Reeves, “China and the Rule of Law: A Cautionary Tale for the International Community,” Just Security, June 28, 2018, https://www.justsecurity.org/58544/china-rule-law-cautionary-tale-international-community/.

  24The U.S. Department of Justice China Initiative, launched in 2018, raised awareness of threats from trade secret theft, such as nontraditional collectors of intelligence in labs, universities, and the defense industry as well as risks to supply chains in telecommunications and other sectors. Katharina Buchholz, “Which Countries Have Banned Huawei?” Statista, August 19, 2019, https://www.statista.com/chart/17528/countries-which-have-banned-huawei-products/.

  25Department of Justice, “Chinese Telecommunications Conglomerate Huawei and Subsidiaries Charged in Racketeering Conspiracy and Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets,” February 13, 2020.

  26For country-specific analyses, see Larry Diamond and Orville Schell, eds., China’s Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2018), 163–209.

  27U.S. Department of Justice, “Two Chinese Hackers Associated with the Ministry of State Security Charged with Global Computer Intrusion Campaigns,” U.S. Department of Justice Press Office, December 20, 2018, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-chinese-hackers-associated-ministry-state-security-charged-global-computer-intrusion.

  28Even the Cambodian dictator Han Sen could not avoid increased public scrutiny of wasteful and failed projects, such as the construction of a city-size casino resort with empty hotels and an unfinished casino that displaced thousands of people and caused severe environmental damage. And from 2018 to 2019, Australian lawmakers passed new laws to counter CCP influence by blocking foreign campaign contributions and restricting foreign investment in sensitive sectors of the economy. Yinka Adegoke, “Chinese Debt Doesn’t Have to Be a Problem for African Countries,” Quartz, May 13, 2018, https://qz.com/africa/1276710/china-in-africa-chinese-debt-news-better-management-by-african-leaders/.

  29Regarding subsidies, see Ellen Nakashima, “U.S. Pushes Hard for a Ban on Huawei in Europe, but the Firm’s 5G Prices Are Nearly Irresistible,” Washington Post, May 29, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/for-huawei-the-5g-play-is-in-europe--and-the-us-is-pushing-hard-for-a-ban-there/2019/05/28/582a8ff6-78d4-11e9-b7ae-390de4259661_story.html. See also Huawei, “Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd. 2018 Annual Report,” Huawei.com, https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/annual-report/2018.

  On Huawei’s expansion and role of the CCP, see Chuin-Wei Yap, “State Support Helped Fuel Huawei’s Global Rise,” Wall Street Journal, December 25, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-support-helped-fuel-huaweis-global-rise-11577280736. Huawei has repeatedly denied this. See Karl Song, “No, Huawei Isn’t Built on Chinese State Funding,” Huawei.com, February 25, 2020, https://www.huawei.com/ke/facts/voices-of-huawei/no-huawei-isnt-built-on-chinese-state-funding.

  On the campaign of cyber espionage, see the U.S. Department of Justice’s indictment, Department of Justice, “Chinese Telecommunications Conglomerate Huawei and Subsidiaries Charged in Racketeering Conspiracy and Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets,” February 13, 2020, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-conglomerate-huawei-and
-subsidiaries-charged-racketeering. See also Andrew Grotto, “The Huawei Problem: A Risk Assessment,” Global Asia 14, no. 3 (2019): 13–15, http://www.globalasia.org/v14no3/cover/the-huawei-problem-a-risk-assessment_andrew-grotto; Klint Finley, “The U.S. Hits Huawei with New Charges of Trade Secret Theft,” Wired, February 13, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/us-hits-huawei-new-charges-trade-secret-theft/.

  30On the strategic benefits the CCP could gain from Huawei, see David E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes, Raymond Zhong, and Marc Santora, “In 5G Race with China, U.S. Pushes Allies to Fight Huawei,” New York Times, January 26, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/us/politics/huawei-china-us-5g-technology.html.

  On the inseparability of Huawei from CCP influence, see Christopher Balding and Donald C. Clarke, “Who Owns Huawei?” Social Science Research Network, April 17, 2019, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669; Raymond Zhong, “Who Owns Huawei? The Company Tried to Explain. It Got Complicated,” New York Times, April 25, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/technology/who-owns-huawei.html.

  Huawei has denied these allegations. See Associated Press, “Huawei Denies U.S. Violations, ‘Disappointed’ by Criminal Charges,” Associated Press, January 28, 2019, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/huawei-denies-us-violations-disappointed-by-criminal-charges-2019-01-28.

  31On the charges on circumvention of sanctions on Iran and North Korea, see Department of Justice, “Chinese Telecommunications Conglomerate Huawei and Subsidiaries Charged in Racketeering Conspiracy and Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets,” U.S. Department of Justice, February 13, 2020, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-conglomerate-huawei-and-subsidiaries-charged-racketeering.

  32Chris Demchak and Yuval Shavitt, “China’s Maxim—Leave No Access Point Unexploited: The Hidden Story of China Telecom’s BGP Hijacking,” Military Cyber Affairs 3, no. 1 (2018): 5–7.

  33On the simultaneous employment of Huawei employees at China’s MOIS and the PLA, see Robert Mendick, “Huawei Staff CVs Reveal Alleged Links to Chinese Intelligence Agencies,” Telegraph, July 5, 2019, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/05/huawei-staff-cvs-reveal-alleged-links-chinese-intelligence-agencies/. Huawei has repeatedly denied similar allegations. See Isobel Asher Hamilton, “Huawei’s Security Boss Says the Company Would Sooner ‘Shut Down’ than Spy for China,” Business Insider, March 6, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/huawei-would-sooner-shut-down-than-spy-for-china-2019-3?rs=US&IR=T.

  For the report on how Huawei helped African autocrats use technology to spy on their political opponents, see Joe Parkinson, Nicholas Bariyo, and Josh Chin, “Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-technicians-helped-african-governments-spy-on-political-opponents-11565793017?mod=breakingnews. For Huawei’s denial of this report, see Huawei, “A Legal Demand Letter to The Wall Street Journal,” Huawei.com, August 16, 2019, https://www.huawei.com/ke/facts/voices-of-huawei/a_legal_demand_letter_to_the_wall_street_journal.

  34Sources on Huawei: Kate O’Keeffe and Dustin Volz, “Huawei Telecom Gear Much More Vulnerable to Hackers Than Rivals’ Equipment, Report Says,” Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-telecom-gear-much-more-vulnerable-to-hackers-than-rivals-equipment-report-says-11561501573; Arjun Kharpal, “Huawei Staff Share Deep Links with Chinese Military, New Study Finds,” CNBC, July 8, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/08/huawei-staff-and-chinese-military-have-deep-links-study-claims.html. Joe Parkinson and Nicholas Bariyo, “Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/huawei-technicians-helped-african-governments-spy-on-political-opponents-11565793017; Akito Tanaka, “China in Pole Position for 5G Era with a Third of Key Patents,” Nikkei Asian Review, May 3, 2019, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/5G-networks/China-in-pole-position-for-5G-era-with-a-third-of-key-patents; Jeffrey Johnson, “Testimony Before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on ‘Chinese Investment in the United States: Impacts and Issues for Policy Makers,’” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, January 26, 2017, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Johnson_USCC%20Hearing%20Testimony012617.pdf.

  35Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Melbourne, Australia:: Scribe Publications, 2019).

  36John Lee, “China’s Economic Slowdown: Root Causes, Beijing’s Response and Strategic Implications for the US and Allies,” Hoover Institute, December 16, 2019.

  37James Legge, Confucian Analects: The Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1971), 263–64; Keegan Elmer, “U.S. Tells China: We Want Competition . . . but Also Cooperation.” South China Morning Post, October 1, 2018, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2166476/us-tells-china-we-want-competition-not-cooperation.

  Chapter 5: A One-Year War Twenty Times Over: America’s South Asian Fantasy

  1Original Source: Abdullah Azzam, “Al-Qa’idah al-Sulbah,” Al-Jihad 41 (April 1988): 46. English source: Rohan Gunaratna, “Al Qaeda’s Ideology,” Hudson Institute, May 19, 2005, https://www.hudson.org/research/9777-al-qaeda-s-ideology. A note on the translation: “The original text in Arabic was translated into English by Reuven Paz, Academic Director, International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism, Israel.”

  2General Nicholson said that twenty groups were concentrated in Afghanistan-Pakistan in 2017. Brian Dodwell and Don Rassler, “A View from the CT Foxhole: General John W. Nicholson, Commander, Resolute Support and U.S. Forces—Afghanistan,” CTC Sentinel 10, no. 2 (February 2017): 12–15, https://ctc.usmaedu/a-view-from-the-ct-foxhole-general-john-w-nicholson-commander-resolute-support-and-u-s-forces-afghanistan/.

  3St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (AD 1265–1274), n.p.

  4Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Leicester, UK: Allandale Online Publishing, 2000), https://sites.ualberta.ca/~enoch/Readings/The_Art_Of_War.pdf.

  5Kevin Sullivan, “Embassy in Kabul Reopened by U.S.” Washington Post, December 18, 2001, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/12/18/embassy-in-kabul-reopened-by-us/f89df7ec-a332-4156-98bc-81df3c951cfd/.

  6Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: Berkley Caliber Books, 2006), 8.

  7Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the C.I.A., Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 582; Steve Coll, Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan (New York: Penguin Press, 2018), 20–21.

  8For a specific time line of Kabul, the CIA arrived on September 26, the Taliban fled Kabul on November 12, and Northern Alliance leaders alongside the CIA, entered Kabul on November 14. Coll, Directorate S, 80, 93. The quote originally attributed to Sun Tzu is “Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy,” Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

  9Estimate includes ISI personnel who fled. Seymour M. Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York: HarperCollins, 2005),132; On those who escaped from Tora Bora, see Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die, 20–21.

  10Nadia Schadlow, War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017), 220–26.

  11CNN, “Rumsfeld: Major Combat Over in Afghanistan,” CNN, May 1, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/central/05/01/afghan.combat/.

  12For more, see Thomas J. Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012).

  13Patrick Porter, Military Orientalism: Eastern War Through Western Eyes (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

  14Schadlow, War and the Art of Governance, 223.

  15Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, 25, 50–51, 284–93.

  16Wright, The Loom
ing Tower, 133.

  17For the statements themselves, see Thomas Joscelyn, “Al Qaeda Leader Argues Taliban’s ‘Blessed Emirate’ a Core Part of New Caliphate,” FDD’s Long War Journal, August, 24, 2018, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2018/08/al-qaeda-leader-argues-talibans-blessed-emirate-a-core-part-of-new-caliphate.php; Thomas Joscelyn, “Ayman al Zawahiri Pledges Allegiance to the Taliban’s New Emir,” FDD’s Long War Journal, August 13, 2015, https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/08/ayman-al-zawahiri-pledges-allegiance-to-the-talibans-new-emir.php.

  18Coll, Directorate S, 311.

  19On NATO operations at the time, see NATO OTAN, “Resolute Support Mission (RSM): Key Facts and Figures,” NATO, February, 2017, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2017_02/20170209_2017-02-RSM-Placemat.pdf. Quote attributed to Winston Churchill at his residence at Chequers, UK, on April 1, 1945.

  20On the rise of ISIS, see Joby Warrick, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS (New York: Doubleday, 2015), 303.

  21Shaun Gregory, “The ISI and the War on Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Journal 30, no. 12 (March 2007): 1013–31, DOI: 10.1080/10576100701670862.

  22On the Peshawar school attack, see Declan Walsh, “Taliban Besiege Pakistan School, Leaving 145 Dead,” New York Times, December 16, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/world/asia/taliban-attack-pakistani-school.html. For more on the Pakistani Taliban, see Philip J. Crowley, “Designations of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and Two Senior Leaders,” U.S. State Department press release, September 1, 2010, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/09/146545.htm. On Al-Qaeda operations along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, see UN Security Council, “Tenth Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2255 (2015) Concerning the Taliban and Other Associated Individuals and Entities Constituting a Threat to the Peace, Stability and Security of Afghanistan,” June 13, 2019, 22, https://www.undocs.org/S/2019/481.