China’s Grand Strategy: Part 6

Belt and Road Initiative, Why?
By Evan Dudik — edudik@evandudik.com

In the Panama Canal and elsewhere, China sees opportunities to leverage strategic investments.

Fast forward to recent years. In 2015 an anonymous source leaked the heretofore secret Panama Papers. The Papers documented shell companies—over 200,000 of them—shielding world power players including Vladimir Putin from scrutiny of their wealth, control of companies and taxes. One result is that Panama no longer became a favorite venue for global bankers. The leakage of Papers continues to this day (writing in mid-2019). Banking is  so important to the Panamanian economy, it has looked elsewhere to replace its international banking industry. China steps in:

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China’s Grand Strategy: Part 5

Belt and Road Initiative – What?
By Evan Dudik — edudik@evandudik.com

It isn’t just through military and economic growth at sea, in space and online that China is building its grand strategy. Through massive infrastructure projects such as building ports and bridges in small countries like Djibouti and once-powerful ones such as Italy, China is challenging the U.S. sphere of influence.

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China’s Grand Strategy: Part 4

Cyberspace
By Evan Dudik — edudik@evandudik.com

In Part 3 we looked at elements of China’s grand strategy to control the threat from the United States, at sea and in space. 

Then there’s China’s effort in the other space, cyberspace.

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China’s Grand Strategy: Part 3

China’s Grand Strategy and the US
By Evan Dudik

In Part 2 I discussed how much China wants to bring Taiwan back into the fold, and some ways it will work to get there. The U.S., with its commitment to Taiwan, stands in the way. This week I look at how China’s strategy to isolate the U.S. echoes how it intends to handle the Taiwan issue.

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China’s Grand Strategy: Part 2

China’s Strategy for the South China Sea and Taiwan
By Evan Dudik

In Part 1 I introduced a series of eight posts exploring how China has adopted a “grand strategy” to place itself more firmly on the world stage politically, militarily and economically. Here I delve into an important element of that strategy, China’s efforts to assert control of the sea immediately to its eastern shore, as well as Taiwan, its so-called breakaway province.

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China’s Grand Strategy: Part 1

Will China’s rise be peaceful? What the smart money says
By Evan Dudik

Whether you believe China can be tamed depends a lot on who you ask.

Will China’s rise be peaceful? Is the world’s newest superpower benign? Is China the inevitable world hegemon? Should we accept, even welcome, this new superpower to the world order? Facilitate and encourage its membership in international organizations? Expect that in the course of time, China will accept and behave in accord with international norms of behavior?

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Can DevSecOps Undo DoD’s Broken Software Failures?

The Department of Defense (DoD) has been developing software intensive systems for the last thirty years. Only in the past decade has the Department openly recognized that these software intensive systems are critical to the future of U.S. National Security. DevSecOps, short for Development, Security, Operations, is one of the hottest commercial information technology (IT) trends. Continue reading

Posted in Cybersecurity, DoD IT Acquisition, Technology Evolution | 22 Comments

Part 2: Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Help Maintain U.S. Naval Superiority over China’s Growing Naval Power?

As discussed in Part 1 of this AI discussion, China’s central government plans to achieve AI breakthroughs by 2025 and world AI dominance by 2030. If the DoD’s past acquisition track record doesn’t change, it could be twenty years before significant AI technology is actually deployed to military units. Continue reading

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Part-1: Will Artificial Intelligence Help Maintain U.S. Naval Superiority over China’s Growing Naval Power?

Background

It is hard to pick up a magazine or newspaper today without seeing something about the amazing things artificial intelligence and/or machine learning (AI/ML) are doing to change our lives for the better. Most people enjoy the benefits of talking to our computers, cars, and home specialty devices like Google Home and Amazon Alexa but don’t think about or care that these technologies are enabled by natural language processing (NLP), one of the today’s most advanced forms of AI/ML. It is even possible today to get real time language translation earbuds to help us more easily explore visits to foreign countries, bringing the Star Trek universal translator that much closer to reality (https://www.startrek.com/database_article/universal-translator). Continue reading

Posted in DoD IT Acquisition, Global Perspectives, National Security, Technology Evolution, U.S. Navy Capability | Tagged , , , | 28 Comments

Effective DoD Acquisition Needs Less Noise … Part 2

The well-known valley of death between the DARPA or Military Service Science & Technology (S&T) development and military Programs of Record (PORs) is the result of the high-entropy, high-noise channel, that sits between S&T and the bureaucratic DoD acquisition system. This noisy acquisition demise can be traced backward from today’s Planning Programming Budgeting System (PPBS), Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), Operation of the Defense Acquisition System Instruction (DoD Instruction 5000.2), and Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS). Each are now large bureaucracies that help make up the majority of the 25,000-person army of centralized DoD oversight, operating from the Pentagon. Continue reading

Posted in DoD Acquisition, DoD IT Acquisition, Global Perspectives, Leadership, Technology Evolution | 17 Comments