WORLD ROUNDUPChina’s 48-Hour Plan to Invade Taiwan | The Future of Northern Ireland Peace | Russia’s Hypersonic Missiles, and more

Xi Jinping’s 48-Hour Plan to Invade Taiwan | Defense in Depth  (Dominic Nicholls, Elliott Daly, Josh Bourne, The Telegraph)
The ripples from the war in Ukraine have spread far and wide; they’ve even reached the South China Sea - so it’s time to talk about Taiwan.
According to diplomatic sources in the UK, Beijing believes there is a 48-hour window in which it can attack Taiwan before any international consensus forms.
In that time Chinese forces would need to get across the Taiwan Strait, onto the land and cut off the political and military leadership in Taiwan.
That’s a tall order.

Anti-Taiwan Influence Operation Shows Shift in Tactics  (Feng-Kai Lin, DFRLab)
Doublethink Lab uncovered a number of inauthentic assets on Facebook targeting Taiwanese users with disinformation and propaganda most consistent with the agenda of the Chinese Communist Party. These assets displayed a shift in tactics toward fewer identifiable indicators of inauthentic activity, making detection and attribution more difficult.

Joe Biden’s Security Banned from Irish Parliament  (James Crisp, The Telegraph)
Guns are not allowed inside the chamber so the Secret Service will have to wait outside when the president addresses the Dáil next week.

The British Government Doesn’t Want to Talk About Its Nuclear Weapons. The British Public Does  (Tim Street, Harry Spencer, and Shane Ward, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
In January 2023 British Pugwash and the polling company Savanta conducted a survey of UK public opinion on nuclear weapons issues and potential support for policies that advance nuclear arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation.
The poll involved 2,320 UK adults who were asked about the Russia-Ukraine war, the United Kingdom’s ongoing replacement of its nuclear weapon system, the possibility that US nuclear weapons will again be stationed in the United Kingdom, the significant increase to the UK’s nuclear warhead stockpile cap, and the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Our polling results found some notable differences between the British public’s views and the policies of the UK government concerning nuclear weapons. While 40 percent of poll respondents support the United Kingdom possessing nuclear weapons, there is significant support for policies that would control, limit, or even eliminate the UK’s nuclear weapons—including among supporters of nuclear possession. For example, over a third of those who support the UK’s possession of nuclear weapons also support joining a multilateral disarmament treaty.

Why the Alarm Over Russia’s Use of Hypersonic Missiles in Ukraine Is Misplaced  (Andrew W. Reddie, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
The alarm over Russia use of hypersonic weapons in Ukraine is misplaced.
The notion that the United States is “behind” in the hypersonic weapon arms race is off-base because it fails to consider the varying strategic challenges posed by the current distribution of military capabilities among the United States and its near-peer adversaries.
Indeed, the proposed application of hypersonic weapons by the United States focuses on its conventional rather than nuclear use. As a consequence, the requirements for the weapon system—in terms of its accuracy, for example—are entirely different from those that Russia and China are developing, and, thus, you can expect that their relative technology readiness levels might be different. This is reflected both in the diverging test schedules of hypersonic capabilities and deployment timelines across all three countries.
But perhaps most important is the very different strategic pictures that Washington, Moscow, and Beijing face. Bearing in mind that the primary characteristic of a hypersonic weapon system germane to strategic competition is its maneuverability, which enables it to evade missile defenses, Russia and China’s deployment is perhaps unsurprising given Washington’s focus on developing strategic missile defense (ostensibly focused on North Korea and Iran). If nothing else, the capability represents a hedge against US strategic missile defense systems reaching maturity.

How the I.R.A. Almost Blew Up the British Government  (Amy Davidson Sorkin, New Yorker)
Four decades ago, a hotel bomb nearly claimed the lives of Margaret Thatcher and her ministers. Can we still feel the aftershocks?

Can China’s Green Energy Acceleration Put at Risk the West’s Hydrogen Plans?  (Ismael Arciniegas Rueda, The Hill)
Hydrogen (H2) plays a key role in the decarbonization plans of the European Union and the U.S. Both have launched aggressive hydrogen strategies to increase the generation of H2 and the deployment of related technologies. But these bold ambitions may face headwinds caused by the acceleration of China’s energy transition.

Moving Past the Troubles: The Future of Northern Ireland Peace  (Charles Landow and James McBride, CFR)
The Good Friday Agreement has dampened sectarian tensions and brought stability to Northern Ireland, but the peace deal’s twenty-fifth anniversary has been marred by a Brexit-related trade impasse that has thrown the region’s hard-won gains into doubt.