The Truth about UFOs | Russia Has Already Lost in the Long Run | Is Chinese Science All It’s Cracked Up to Be? | Conspiracy Theories on '15-Minute Cities' Flourish, and more

Many continue to see Ukraine and other former Soviet countries through Moscow’s empire-building lens, despite the obvious nature of Russian aggression since the 1990s and long before.
It’s high time to decolonize Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies—and stop viewing the region through Moscow’s imperial lens.

Russia Has Already Lost in the Long Run  (Brent Peabody, Foreign Policy)
As Russia ramps up its second offensive, a debate has erupted over whether Moscow or Kyiv will have the upper hand in 2023. While important, such discourse also misses a larger point related to the conflict’s longer-term consequences. In the long run, the true loser of the war is already clear; Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will be remembered as a historic folly that left Russia economically, demographically, and geopolitically worse off.

CHINA WATCH

Paper Dragons: Is Chinese Science All It’s Cracked Up to Be?  (Bryan Appleyard, The Spectator)
At the tail end of last year, Chinese scientists claimed they had achieved something world-changing. In a widely circulated paper, the researchers said they had developed an algorithm run on a quantum computer that is able to break the best encryption that exists today.
Modern encryption runs on mathematical problems which take the most powerful computers tens of thousands of years to crack. It has long been theoretically possible that quantum computers could one day be capable of cracking these codes in a practical timescale. If the Chinese claim is correct, then Xi Jinping now possesses a terrifying assault weapon in cyber warfare.
The paper, however, was greeted with derision by many in the West. ‘This is one of the most actively misleading quantum computing papers I’ve seen in 25 years,’ said Scott Aaronson of the University of Texas, ‘and I’ve seen many.’ He wasn’t alone. ‘Can’t possibly work,’ added Steve Brierley of the quantum software company Riverlane.
If the Chinese really have created this quantum computing algorithm, the threat to the West is existential. But if the claim is hollow, as is likely, then it’s only the latest example of a Chinese brag that turns out to be little more than a paper dragon.

Three Years On, Covid Lab-Leak Theories Aren’t Going Away. This Is Why  (Philip Ball, Prospect Magazine)The lab-leak idea has become another politically polarized pandemic controversy, perhaps even more explosive than the furious arguments over masks, lockdowns and vaccines. Because if Chinese scientists manufactured the Covid virus and were responsible for it leaking out into the world, what then should be the international response?
There are several strands to the lab-leak theory. Can it be coincidence, some ask, that GOF work on bat coronaviruses was going on in the very city where the outbreak began? Others have argued that the Sars-CoV-2 virus itself shows telltale signs that it had been engineered. But all such “evidence” so far has been circumstantial—often little more than innuendo—and some of it proved plain wrong. Careful investigations of how Covid began have uncovered a wealth of evidence supporting the view that Sars-CoV-2 is wholly natural in origin. By contrast, lab-leak origin theories require the assumption that an awful lot of people are lying. Indeed, some theories invoke a cover-up that implicates not just the Chinese government and scientists but also the EcoHealth Alliance, the NIH and perhaps even the US government and its chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci. At the extreme end you find the stuff of classic conspiracy theories.
Yet the lab-leak theory is not going away, for—in its more respectable forms—it is not just a baroque fantasy of cranks, political agitators and xenophobes (although they flock to it). Some respected scientists still harbor these suspicions, and a preliminary report last June by the World Health Organization—a follow-up to an earlier WHO investigation between 2020 and 2021—did not rule out the idea. So while for some the lab-leak idea seems to be a politically motivated excuse for China-bashing, it should not be dismissed out of hand. The better we understand where Sars-CoV-2 came from, the more likely we are to prevent another such virus from killing millions again.

Sofia’s Rollout of Chinese Cameras on Public Transit Raises Questions, Sparks Backlash  (Elitsa Simeonova, RFERL)
Hikvision is the world’s largest manufacturer of video-surveillance equipment and has been the tip of the spear for a bundle of Chinese technology companies that have come to dominate the global market in recent decades. The company, however, has also become the target of U.S. sanctions over its links to the Chinese military and role in developing special technology to surveil and track Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.
Hikvision cameras have also faced scrutiny over lax data protection and glitches found by researchers that showed how hackers could remotely gain access to the system and control of the cameras.
U.S. regulators have banned the use of Hikvision cameras, along with a handful of other Chinese equipment and companies, over national security concerns, while the United Kingdom and Australia have all recently banned Chinese-made security cameras from government buildings. There are no restrictions against Hikvision in the European Union, but the European Parliament has removed equipment manufactured by the company from its locations.

Kim Jong-un Tightens Grip on Power with Purge of Party Officials  (Richard Lloyd Parry, The Times)
Kim Jong-un is securing his grip on power in North Korea with a reshuffle of military officers, party cadres and government apparatchiks, according to the South Korean authorities.
News of the changes has come as foreign observers, including the South Korean government, reported growing signs of the worst food shortages that North Korea has had this century. But South Korea’s unification minister, who is responsible for relations with the North, has cast doubt on the growing belief that Kim, 39, is preparing his young daughter to succeed him eventually as supreme leader.
According to analysis by the unification ministry, the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) has replaced 40 per cent of politburo members who held office a year prior, and 60 per cent of officials in the party secretariat.

For Xi Jinping, Cyber Is Personal  (Casey Babb, National Interest)
Cyberspace is no longer just a means for China to leapfrog its rivals and ascend the global power ladder—it has also become a key tool in the preservation of Xi Jinping.

What China Has Learned from the Ukraine War  (Evan A. Feigenbaum and Adam Szubin, Foreign Affairs)
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, China’s leaders attempted to balance two fundamentally irreconcilable interests. First, they aimed to bolster China’s entente with Russia to counterbalance American power and alleviate growing strategic pressure from the West. Second, although they backed Moscow, they sought to avoid unilateral and coordinated sanctions aimed at China’s government, companies, and financial institutions.
For a year, China has been performing the “Beijing straddle,” tacking uncomfortably between these competing objectives under the white-hot light of international scrutiny. China has generally refused to sell arms to Russia and to circumvent sanctions on Moscow’s behalf because preserving global market access is more important to Beijing than any economic link to Russia. Simply put, China has no interest in being Russia’s proxy. But Beijing has also tried to have its cake and eat it, too, by endorsing Russia’s rationales for the conflict, coordinating with Moscow diplomatically while it cautiously abstains in United Nations votes, taking full advantage of discounted Russian oil, and enhancing economic linkages to Russia that do not violate Western sanctions. Indeed, China-Russia trade rose by a staggering 34.3 percent in 2022 to a record $190 billion.
Beijing has also learned important lessons even as it struggles to maintain this balance. Specifically, it has closely studied the Western-led sanctions campaign. And it knows that, if tensions with the West continue to intensify, these same economic weapons may well be turned against China. Over the last 20 years, China’s leaders have watched as Washington honed and more frequently deployed economic weaponry, including sanctions, export controls, investment restrictions, and tariffs. But the major Western sanctions campaigns have generally not applied to China because they targeted second-tier economies, such as Iran and Iraq, or more often, marginal economies such as Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan. The current Ukraine conflict has, at long last, given Beijing an opportunity to study the strategy, tactics, and capabilities of a Western sanctions coalition as it works to cripple one of the world’s largest economies.  

The U.S. Overreacted to the Chinese Spy Balloon. That Scares Me.  (Howard W. French, Foreign Policy)
So unused to being challenged, the United States has become so filled with anxiety over China that sober responses are becoming nearly impossible.

The Sources of Chinese Conduct  (Odd Arne Westad, Foreign Affairs)
In February 1946, as the Cold War was coming into being, George Kennan, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, sent the State Department a 5,000-word cable in which he tried to explain Soviet behavior and outline a response to it. A year later, the text of his famous “Long Telegram” was expanded into a Foreign Affairs article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Writing under the byline “X,” Kennan argued that the Soviets’ Marxist-Leninist ideology was for real and that this worldview, plus a deep sense of insecurity, was what drove Soviet expansionism.

THE LONG VIEW

Militantly Waiting for the End of Time  (Fitzroy Morrissey, The Critic)
Sunni or Shia, Muslim or Christian, modern or pre-modern — messianism retains a potent attraction.

The Truth about UFOs  (Andrew Stuttaford, The Spectator)
In June 1947, businessman Kenneth Arnold was piloting a plane near Mount Rainier in Washington State when he spotted nine ‘very bright objects’ moving at very high speed. Keeping formation, they darted hither and thither, flying, he fatefully explained, ‘like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water’. Whether Arnold described the objects themselves as saucer-shaped remains disputed, but it was as saucers, or discs, that they skipped into the American – and then global – imagination.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released in 1977, almost exactly 30 years after Kenneth Arnold’s flight, testimony in itself to the durability of the American (and not just American) obsession with UFOs, as is the fact that, even before the Tic Tacs flitted across our screens, we were still talking about aliens. In part that’s because the story of these visitors from afar is, like all the best myths, not only a great story, but one continually refreshed by new witnesses telling what they thought they had seen, or, often more entertainingly, simply making things up.
The U.S. Air Force was concerned enough about the flap that followed Arnold’s flight to look into what was going on (not so much, its investigators concluded, but some cases were left unresolved). It then launched the marvelously named Project Grudge to soothe the public’s fears, essentially by debunking talk of UFOs. A third, longer-lasting project, Project Blue Book (1952-69), led to the examination of 12,618 sightings, of which 701 were un-resolved, although there was ‘no evidence’ that there was anything extraterrestrial about them. Blue Book was closed after a committee at the University of Colorado funded by the Air Force argued that there was no point in carrying on.
That, more or less (in the 1990s the air-force finally disclosed that the broken bits and pieces taken to Roswell were not the remnants of a weather balloon, but – appropriately enough under current circumstances – part of a top-secret balloon project), was meant to be the end of official investigations. But various government agencies continued poking around, beginning (so far as we know) in 2007 with the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. This was followed by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, which was in turn succeeded last year by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Possibly this was connected with the objects hovering and flying (and in one case rotating while flying) that could be seen on three cockpit videos taken in 2004 and 2015 and leaked in 2007 and 2017, videos that featured comments from naval fighter pilots that left no doubt that they thought they were looking at something very strange, flap fodder of the highest quality. And these occurrences were by no means unique. A preliminary report issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in 2021 was inconclusive, but contained enough to fuel Ufologists’ dreams: 143 events still a mystery, talk of ‘unusual flight characteristics’ and more.
Then came the crushing follow-up: an ODNI report released in January. The number of unexplained sightings was up, no surprise, given the overall increase in the number of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) reports. And where answers have been found, they have been avian rather than alien, and there have been plenty of balloons too. The chance that those incidents that remain unidentified will be of alien provenance must be remote. For now, those hoping that what’s been going on is extraterrestrial in nature will have to pin their hopes on Nasa, which has formed a study team to look into UAPs.

Gung-Ho Poland Is Becoming a Military Leader in Europe  (Roger Boyes, The Times)
The big achievement of the war has been a semblance of western unity towards Russia, a cultural revolution even in countries such as Gazprom-friendly Germany and once-neutral Finland. Splits emerge only when the debate turns to sending new, more powerful weapons to Zelensky.

U.S. Worried by Myanmar Junta, Russia Expanding Nuclear Cooperation  (Ingyin Naing, VOA News)
Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, known as ROSATOM, and the Myanmar junta signed the “intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of the use of nuclear energy” on February 6. Myanmar has been suspected of pursuing a nuclear weapons program in the past.

‘An Unprecedented Constitutional Crisis’  (Dan Ephron, Foreign Policy)
It’s important to differentiate between Netanyahu himself and members of his coalition because we can go back decades and pull from the archive videos of Prime Minister Netanyahu giving interviews in Hebrew and in English, saying how proud he is of the strength of the Israeli judicial system and the independence of the Supreme Court. Netanyahu really believed that the Supreme Court was an important institution in safeguarding Israeli democracy and promoting the liberal values of Israel that we Israelis are always proud of.
So, what has changed? There is now an unusual meeting of the personal interest of Benjamin Netanyahu and the ideological beliefs of some of his coalition partners. Netanyahu himself is currently standing trial in the Jerusalem District Court for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The trial has been ongoing for more than a year now, and obviously he has a strong personal interest to weaken the judicial system and to give politicians much more control over how judges in Israel are appointed.
The other aspect is that some of his coalition partners [the ultra-religious nationalists within the coalition], unlike Netanyahu himself, have held a long-standing belief that the Supreme Court, because of its role as a liberalizing force in Israeli society, is an enemy from their point of view.

In 46 Words, Biden Sends a Clear Message to Israel  (Thomas Friedman, New York Times)
Biden is as pro-Israel in his gut as any president I have ever covered. He has also had a long and mutually respectful relationship with Netanyahu. So I can tell you that whatever Biden has to say about Israel comes from a place of real concern. It’s a concern that the radical transformation of Israel’s judicial system that Netanyahu’s ultranationalist, ultrareligious coalition is trying to slam through the Knesset could seriously damage Israel’s democracy and therefore its close ties to America and democracies everywhere.

Good Riddance to the War on Terror  (Paul R. Pillar, National Interest)
December 31 marked the end of what came to be called the “war on terrorism.” Now is as good a time as any to reflect on the mistakes that were central to this “war.”

It’s Time for America to Revisit the Monroe Doctrine  (Mike Coté, National Interest)
Recent events have shown America’s foes becoming more brazen in their penetration of the Western Hemisphere; the answer to this challenge lies in our past.

MORE PICKS

How UFO Mania Went Mainstream  (Joe Pompeo, Vanity Fair)
Mysterious aerial phenomena have been generating serious news coverage for the past few years. With unknown objects now being shot down from the skies, the latest headlines are out of this world.

Conspiracy Theories on ‘15-Minute Cities’ Flourish (Roland Lloyd-Parry, AFP / Phys.org)
Urban planners are fending off abuse fueled by conspiracy theories about their “15-minute city” regeneration projects which suspicious social media users claim are the road to “climate lockdowns”.
The 15-minute city premise is simple—all amenities such as parks and grocery stores must be accessible within a quarter of an hour walk or bike ride from a person’s home.
Developed in 2015 by an academic in France, the concept has taken off worldwide since the COVID pandemic, with cities such as Paris, Melbourne and Copenhagen seeking to make neighborhoods more livable and cut car use to curb climate change.
But, as with COVID measures, unfounded online theories about the initiative have flourished.
Top results in a search for “15 minute city” on TikTok contain mostly scornful videos, including claims that the schemes will restrict residents’ movement and fine them for leaving their home districts.

‘Radical Change Will Come’: Iranians Propose New Political System After Months of Anti-Regime Protests  (Golnaz Esfandiari, RFERL)
For months, antiestablishment protesters have called for the overthrow of Iran’s clerical regime and demanded greater social and political freedoms.
Now, opposition figures and civil society groups inside Iran have shared proposals that would transform or even replace the current theocratic system with a democracy.
The proposals for a post-Islamic-republic system come amid growing calls for political change in Iran, which has been ruled by the clerical establishment since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Parents Urged to Report Their Radicalized Teens Using Online Form  (Matt Dathan, The Times)
The Home Office will encourage the parents of radicalized teenagers to report them to the government’s counterextremism program by using an online form on the gov.uk website.

Only 166 of the 6,406 referrals to the Prevent program in the year to March 2022 were made by friends or relatives, a rate of 2.6 per cent.
William Shawcross, the author of an independent review of the counterextremism program, said counterterrorism and civil society groups working with Prevent had “stressed to me the importance of friends and family coming forward about individuals for whom they have a concern”.

Was Pablo Neruda Murdered?  (Jack Nicas, New York Times)
There has long been suspicion that Chile’s military dictatorship poisoned the nation’s most famous poet. A decade-long investigation has produced tantalizing clues, but nothing more.

Australia Foils Iran Surveillance Plot and Vows to Bring Foreign Interference ‘Into the Light’  (Daniel Hurst, Guardian)
Australian security agencies have disrupted a foreign interference plot by Iran that was targeting an Iranian-Australian on Australian soil, the government has said.
The plot allegedly included individuals monitoring the home of a critic of the Iranian regime and extensively researching the person and their family.

France ‘Concerned’ About State of Britain’s Armed Forces  (Danielle Sheridan, Henry Samuel, and Ben Riley-Smith, The Telegraph)
Sources claim NATO is worried about UK capability amid wrangles over funding and depleted reserves from donations to Ukraine.

How Corruption and Misrule Made Turkey’s Earthquake Deadlier  (Gonul Tol, Foreign Policy)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hollowed out state institutions, placed loyalists in key positions, and enriched his cronies—paving the way for this tragedy.