UK Immigration Nearly Triples | China’s Indo-Pacific Folly | Russia’s Mid-War Military Restructuring, and more

Beijing’s ambition to isolate Washington from its Asian allies has been derailed in large part by its desire to redress more immediate grievances—namely, to reclaim what it sees as lost territory and punish countries that offend its sensibilities. Instead of staying focused on its long-term strategic objectives, China has grown preoccupied with achieving near-term tactical gains in both its territorial disputes with its neighbors and its quest for deference from other countries. These impulses have resulted in major strategic errors and suggest that Beijing is not nearly as adept at planning and executing long-term strategy as many believe. 

Will Russia’s Mid-War Military Restructuring Work?  (Jorge L. Rivero, National Interest)
Last month, Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu unveiled a new plan to restructure the Russian military away from the brigade model and back to its pre-2008 division structure. These details are being announced as the Russian military struggles to maintain momentum in Ukraine and as NATO membership for Finland and Sweden looms into 2023. Even though implementing such military reforms is not new in the history of the Soviet and Russian militaries, these new restructuring attempts seek to create a new army postured to safeguard Russian interests vis-à-vis NATO, closely mirroring Soviet threat perception of large-scale war.
Even though Russian proposals and their outcomes are often quite different, Western analysts will soon have to contest the feasibility of these reforms and how they will affect Russian force posture across Eastern Europe. The Russian Armed Forces will have to make drastic investments in human capital, both in manpower and training and in equipping these new formations. After massive losses in Ukraine, reaching these new goals can prove troublesome for the Kremlin.

The EU Can, and Should, Designate the IRGC as a Terrorist Group  (Matthew Levitt, Lawfare)
The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of a measure calling for the European Union to designate the IRGC, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as a terrorist organization on Jan. 18. The vote was 598 to 9, with 31 absentees. Just the previous day, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos and publicly backed the idea of an EU designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. But when EU foreign ministers met in Brussels just a few days later to discuss the issue, they opted to add more individual names to the bloc’s list of people sanctioned for human rights abuses rather than to list the IRGC as a terrorist group. 
The reason, according to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, is that such a designation first requires a decision by a European court. “It is something that cannot be decided without a Court. A Court decision [is needed] first. You cannot say: ‘I consider you a terrorist because I do not like you.’ It has to be [done] when a Court of one [of the EU] Member States issues a legal statement, a concrete condemnation. And then we work at the European level, but it has to be first a Court decision.” 
This, however, is not the case. There is no shortage of evidence—all admissible under the rules underpinning the EU terrorist designation process—to support designating the IRGC as a terrorist group.