• Shining Light on China’s Secretive International Lending Program

    A new study and dataset reveal previously unknown details about China—the world’s largest official creditor—and its lending practices to developing countries. A cache of documents shows that Chinese loan contracts have unusual secrecy provisions, collateral requirements, and debt renegotiation restrictions.

  • What Would Happen If States Started Looking at Cyber Operations as a “Threat” to Use Force?

    How are threats of force conveyed in cyberspace? Duncan B. Hollis and Tsvetelina van Benthem write that when, in the spring of 2020, hackers compromised the SolarWinds Orion software by “trojanizing” the so-called Sunburst backdoor, they raised a question: “If the presence of backdoors in a victim’s network allows for future exploits capable of causing functionality losses generating destruction (or even deaths), could their presence be seen as threatening such results? More broadly, when does a cyber operation that does not itself constitute a use of force threaten force?”

  • How Should the United States Compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

    China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the country’s most ambitious foreign policy undertaking in modern times and is central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s legacy. BRI, which dwarfs the Marshall Plan in scale, has funded and built roads, power plants, ports, railways, fifth-generation (5G) networks, and fiber-optic cables around the world. While BRI initially sought to connect countries in Central, South, and Southeast Asia with China, it has since transformed into a globe-spanning enterprise encompassing 139 countries.

  • Russian-Backed Hackers Target German Lawmakers

    Suspected Russian state-backed hackers with a history of running disinformation campaigns against NATO have targeted dozens of German lawmakers, German media reported on 26 March. The hackers used spear-phishing e-mails to target the private e-mail accounts of members of the German parliament and regional state assemblies, in the latest suspected Russian-backed effort against lawmakers in the country.

  • Covert Action, Espionage, and the Intelligence Contest in Cyberspace

    In recent months, the world learned that China carried out an indiscriminate hack against Microsoft Exchange, while Russia hacked U.S. information technology firm SolarWinds and used cyber capabilities in an attempt to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Michael Poznansky writes that the attacks raise important questions about how best to characterize these and other kinds of disruptive cyber events. Cyber-enabled espionage and covert cyber operations both qualify as intelligence activities, but they are also distinct in key ways from one another. “Failing to appreciate these differences impedes our ability to understand the richness of cyber operations, underlying motivations, the prospect for signaling, and metrics of success,” he writes.

  • Russia, Iran Meddled in November's Election; China Did Not: U.S. Intelligence

    A just-released assessment by U.S. intelligence officials finds Russia and Iran did seek to influence the outcome of the November 2020 presidential election. But the assessment also concludes that, despite repeated warnings by a number of top Trump officials, China ultimately decided to sit it out. In the run-up to the November election, President Donald Trump, DNI John Ratcliffe, NSC Adviser Robert O’Brien, and AG William Barr. Among other Trump supporters, argued the Chinese interference in the election posed as much of a threat to the election as Russian interference, with Barr arguing that China posed an even greater threat. The intelligence community’s unanimous conclusions that “China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election,” will likely lead to new questions about how the intelligence was presented to the public.

  • China Prepares New Era of 'Belt and Road' amid Pandemic Pressures

    After declaring victories over extreme poverty and the coronavirus, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, in a meeting of the National People’s Congress, has laid out a new path for China’s economic rise at home and abroad that could force Beijing to adapt to new difficulties caused by the pandemic. While the stagecraft of the conclave focused on China’s domestic goals, they remain deeply intertwined with Beijing’s global ambitions, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — a blanket term for the multibillion-dollar centerpiece of Xi’s foreign policy that builds influence through infrastructure, investment, and closer political ties.

  • America's Place in Cyberspace: The Biden Administration’s Cyber Strategy Takes Shape

    In cyber policy, the SolarWinds and Microsoft hacks have dominated the first weeks of President Joseph Biden’s administration. Even so, the administration has outlined its cyber strategy in speeches by President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and in the president’s Interim Strategic National Security Guidance [PDF]. The emerging strategy is anchored in, and is reflective of, the ideological, geopolitical, technological, and diplomatic pillars of Biden’s broader vision for U.S. foreign policy and national security.

  • China Speeding Up Plans to Overtake U.S. on World Stage, Says U.S. Commander

    The inability of the United States to adequately push back against China’s growing military might is spurring Beijing to accelerate its plans to remake the current international order in its image, a top U.S. military commander told lawmakers Tuesday.

  • The Microsoft Exchange Hack and the Great Email Robbery

    The world is probably days away from the “Great Email Robbery,” in which a large number of threat actors around the globe are going to pillage and ransom the email servers of tens of thousands of businesses and local governments, Nicholas Weaver writes. Or at least pillage those that the purported Chinese actors haven’t already pillaged.” And now the Biden administration has a real hard policy problem: What now? The SolarWinds hack may have been significant, but [the Exchange attack] will affect far more institutions,” Weaver writes. “The Exchange attack showed complete disregard for possible consequences on behalf of those responsible for the breach,” but “without consequences, such broad attacks will simply continue.”

  • U.S. Accuses Russia of Spreading Disinformation About Western COVID Vaccines

    The United States has accused Russian intelligence agencies of spreading disinformation about Western vaccines against the coronavirus in an attempt to undermine global confidence in their safety. The State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which monitors foreign disinformation efforts, told the Wall Street Journal that four websites it claims are associated with Russian intelligence have been publishing articles questioning the efficacy of the vaccines and raising questions about their side effects.

  • Cyber Threat Looms Large over German Election

    Whether hacking attacks or disinformation campaigns, online meddling could sway public opinion and influence the outcome of the September vote, experts warn. Recent incidents suggest that the threat is real.

  • Was SolarWinds a Different Type of Cyber Espionage?

    The Biden administration announced that it will impose sanctions and other measures against Russia in response to the SolarWinds incident. The cybersecurity firm FireEye disclosed the compromise of numerous government and private-sector networks in December 2020. SolarWinds is among the top cybersecurity breaches the U.S. government has ever confronted and has raised critical questions about the integrity of federal networks and Russia’s ultimate intentions. “Given the incident’s significance, it is understandable that the Biden administration is grappling with how to appropriately address it,” Erica D. Borghard writes. But setting aside important limitations of economic sanctions as a policy tool to address malign cyber behavior, “there is a gap between how administration officials are framing the nature of the SolarWinds incident and what the available evidence indicates about it,” she adds.

  • Book Review: Hidden Hand – Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World

    Hidden Handis right to remind people that: China and the CCP are not one and the same; China has a party-state system of government that is authoritarian and not democratic; China does not have Western-style rule of law; it does not recognize universal human rights in the way we understand them. What is missing is a balanced discussion of the central debate about the appropriate approach to be taken in the West’s relations with China.

  • China’s Military Tech Ambitions – What’s the U.S.- EU Gameplan?

    A key test of the Biden era of transatlantic relations will be the issue of how the United States and the European Union respond to China’s aggressive efforts to seize market share and industrial knowledge in areas of technology that are critical to national security. Kathleen Doherty writes that the Europeans are divided and have been reluctant to rein in Chinese technological capabilities and ambitions. “The United States and the European Union (EU) have no time to waste in finding a common (or at least complementary) approach.”