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U.S. – China co-operation on cyber security

China-U.S. Cyber-Nuclear C3 Stability,  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,  GEORGE PERKOVICH,  ARIEL (ELI) LEVITE,  LYU JINGHUA,  LU CHUANYING,  LI BIN,  FAN YANG,  XU MANSHU, 9 Apr 21,

Cyber threats to nuclear command, control, and communications systems (NC3) attract increasing concerns. Carnegie and partners have developed a platform of unclassified knowledge to enable U.S.-China engagement on this issue.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

This paper was produced through a three-year dialogue led by Carnegie and the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, with inputs and review provided by American and Chinese technical and military experts.

FOREWORDS

CHEN DONGXIAO

The impact of cyber on nuclear stability is one of the most forward-looking and strategic topics in the current international security field. The Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS) and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) have conducted a joint study around this topic, aiming to provide a reference for the establishment of cyber and nuclear stability mechanisms among nuclear states.

Cyber attacks on nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) systems have become a potential source of conflict escalation among nuclear powers. Yet major powers have not established effective risk-reduction mechanisms in this regard. While information technology strengthens nuclear strategic forces in many ways, including the modernization of NC3, it also poses an increasingly serious cyber threat to nuclear command and control systems. Cyber operations against the strategic command and control systems of nuclear states—including those probing major vulnerabilities in the command and control systems and satellite communications systems, cyber threats from third parties, and the lack of strategic trust in cyberspace—have exacerbated the impact of cybersecurity on nuclear stability.

Because of the unique nature of nuclear weapons, any cyber incidents concerning nuclear weapons would cause state alarm, anxiety, confusion, and erode state confidence in the reliability and integrity of nuclear deterrent. Cyber attacks against a nuclear command and control system would expose the attacked state to significant pressure to escalate conflict and even use nuclear weapons before its nuclear capabilities are compromised. At the same time, compared to the mature experience and full-fledged mechanisms in nuclear deterrence, crisis management, and conflict escalation/de-escalation among the traditional nuclear powers, states not only lack a comprehensive and accurate perception of the threat posed by cyber operations but also lack consensus on crisis management and conflict de-escalation initiatives.

Given that not enough attention has been paid to this new type of threat on the agenda of security dialogue between nuclear powers, SIIS and CEIP launched a joint research project on cyber and nuclear stability in U.S.-China relations in 2017, focusing on exploring the possibility of building consensus and agreement among nuclear states. It is hoped that the cyber-nuclear nexus will awaken national policymakers to the urgency of maintaining cyber stability and that nuclear states will fully recognize the dangers of cyber attacks and their respective vulnerabilities to such attacks, and thus take steps to reduce nuclear instability accompanying advancing cyber technologies and prevent nuclear war.

…………  Obviously, with today’s evolving information technology, it is in the interest of both countries to avoid war and reduce conflicts that may escalate into war, and it is both the international responsibility of major powers and the common expectation of the international community. Hopefully, this joint study will promote in-depth dialogue and security cooperation between China and the United States and establish a corresponding workable and professional mechanism.

This is an important joint study released by two prominent think tanks in China and the United States, hoping to improve mutual understanding between China and the United States on each other’s security concerns, interests and solutions to problems, promote stability in China-U.S. relations, and facilitate the healthy development of overall China-U.S. relations. I also believe it has important reference value for the two governments on how to bridge differences and forge consensus in sensitive areas. ………

THOMAS CAROTHERS

Military and national security experts increasingly warn that the most likely cause of major warfare—conventional or nuclear—between the United States and China is a minor conflict that escalates sharply, even despite the desires and efforts by one or both countries to avert such a spiraling disaster. Cyber operations, whether by China against the United States, or vice versa, are especially prone to provoking an escalation.   It is very difficult for officials who detect an intruder in their country’s strategic computer networks to determine the intruder’s intentions. These intentions might be primarily defensive—seeking to gain warning of a future attack. But they might be offensive—precursors of efforts to disrupt or destroy the functioning of warning systems and/or command and control and communications systems related to a nuclear deterrent. Without knowing what an intruder is seeking to do, those who detect the digital footprints of an intrusion may well assume the worst. Pressure could thus mount quickly to strike first, before the other side can make this more difficult or even impossible.

Such risks are especially evident between the United States and China because these two powers, unlike the United States and Russia, have never defined their strategic relationship as one of mutual vulnerability, with attendant understandings of how to stabilize it. The asymmetry between their nuclear forces and other offensive and defensive capabilities may incline Chinese officials to assume that the United States will at some point act on the temptation to negate China’s nuclear deterrent. Chinese actions, especially in the cyber domain, to try to avoid such a possibility might make U.S. officials fear that China is seeking to impede the U.S. nuclear deterrent. 

These risks will grow as dual-use systems—satellites, missiles, or command and control systems that are used both for potential conventional and nuclear warfare—are deploye  by one side or the other. An adversary may intend only to preempt or retaliate against conventional war-fighting capabilities, but the target of the attack could perceive them to be directed against or at least affecting its own nuclear forces.

This pathbreaking paper, which is being published in English and Mandarin, calls attention to these rising dangers. It is the product of a unique multi-year joint venture between the Shanghai Institute for International Studies and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It aims to provide a robust open-source foundation for discussion of these issues in both China and the United States, overcoming the barriers of high classification and institutional compartmentation that frequently impede analysis and deliberation. The co-authorship of the paper by Chinese and U.S. teams also aims to overcome (at least partially) barriers of culture and language that render mutual understanding in this domain so difficult.

The paper begins by detailing plausible scenarios of grave concern and providing a framework for analyzing them. It then explores steps that the U.S. and Chinese governments—and, with their encouragement, nongovernmental groups such as think tanks in both countries—could take to diminish inadvertent cyber threats to nuclear command, control, and communication systems. …………. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/04/08/china-u.s.-cyber-nuclear-c3-stability-pub-84182

April 10, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international, USA | 2 Comments

How the United States can chart a new path that avoids war with China

How the United States can chart a new path that avoids war with China  https://thebulletin.org/2021/02/how-the-united-states-can-chart-a-new-path-that-avoids-war-with-china/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter02042021&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NewPath_02032021

By Henry Bienen, Jeremiah Ostriker | February 3, 2021 The Biden administration has said that it will conduct a full review of trade and economic relations with China. It needs, actually, to conduct a review of all aspects of Sino-American relations: trade; technology; cultural, student, and scientific exchanges; and above all, security. There is room for vast improvement in all these realms, but the most pressing (and potentially dangerous) area involves security.

Relations between China and the United States have degenerated so far that some foreign policy experts now believe that war between the countries is possible. While this is a minority view, it is a dangerous one.

In the past, a US-China war was often considered unlikely for reasons of mutual economic interdependence and nuclear deterrence, not to mention the huge costs of war. Moreover, it has been said, ideological conflict and regional and international striving for advantage are not reasons enough for war. But now more pessimistic voices are also being heard. Citing pre-World War I analogies, in which it was (quite inaccurately) said that economic interdependence among European powers made war impossible, and noting what Harvard University’s Graham Allison has called the “Thucydides Trap,” in which there is a drift towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing leading power, some believe war between China and the United States is becoming more conceivable and even probable.

We are concerned with the current direction of US-China’s policies, but we believe that the pessimists both overstate the possibility of a US-China war and understate the consequences of possible armed conflict. The production of so-called “small” nuclear weapons is given as a reason for the possibility of war without massive destruction. Nuclear war among nuclear powers has not occurred since the spread of nuclear weapons precisely because destruction would be huge and ghastly. But even lower-yield nuclear weapons nonetheless are quite deadly; each has the destructive potential of thousands of WWII airplane bombs. We cannot tell how limited the use of such weapons would be in advance of armed conflict, and, since Chinese missiles can reach our shores, we do not know if such a conflict could be contained.

There are other reasons for thinking war between China and the United States not only should be but will be avoided.   We have past experience to warn us. The United States and China fought in the Korean War when US forces pushed to the Yalu River on China’s border. We know how that turned out. We also note that the United States did not send a land army to North Vietnam after China warned that the first US troops in North Vietnam would be met by Chinese “volunteers.” Lesson learned.

What points of conflict does the United States have with China that could actually lead to war? We can find only one, and it has nothing to do with trade, economic competition, ideology, human rights violations by China, or struggle for relative power in Asia or elsewhere. Taiwan is the critical point of conflict. China asserts its historical right to Taiwan as an integral part of China. The United States is committed to the principle that Taiwan’s relationship with China cannot be changed by force. Thus, how much military assistance to give to Taiwan, if China uses blockades or applies military force, is a critical issue for US policy. How and in what way to defend Taiwan loom as large questions. To do nothing in the face of Chinese military threats would not only call into question US commitments everywhere but might well lead to nuclear proliferation in Asia. What lessons would Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, perhaps Vietnam and Indonesia take? Taiwan itself has the capacity to build nuclear weapons and could do so, if the United States made clear that it would not respond to threats against Taiwan.

We do not minimize the difficulty of the Taiwan issue. There needs to be both clarity and ambiguity in how the United States deals with Taiwan. The United States needs to make clear that if China uses force against Taiwan there will be severe consequences. But we cannot in advance specify the consequences. We do not think war with China is probable over Taiwan. But we admit to the difficulties of finding the right policies in this area. We propose the following: As Joseph Nye noted recently in the Wall Street Journal, in consultation with China, the Biden administration should review policies for accident avoidance, crisis management, and high-level communications. Military-to-military relations already exist, and we do not know the details of them. But we suspect that the Trump administration let lapse, or weakened, constant communications and accident-avoidance protocols. These must be maintained and strengthened.

Arms sales to Taiwan are sensitive. Our aim is to avoid an invasion of Taiwan, and thus sales of missiles and technologies for defensive purposes seem right. We must make clear that we would work to circumvent a blockade of Taiwan. But obviously, Taiwan is not Berlin during the Cold War, and airlifts would have limited utility. Thus, it is the avoidance of a blockade that must be worked toward. And here, we need allies and friends in Asia and beyond to support the position that such a blockade would be disastrous for China’s economy and trade worldwide.

We can find no other issues where war could plausibly arise between China and the United States. And we reassert that any armed conflict could lead to a global catastrophe. In a more positive vein, the United States should be finding new paths to both cooperate and compete with China. The demonization of China—as per Donald Trump’s “China virus” and Secretary of State Pompeo’s bellicose language—are misguided and counterproductive. The two countries need to cooperate on climate and environmental issues and on the pandemic and other health matters. 

Decoupling the economies of the United States and China would be very difficult, very expensive, and very foolish, as the Trump administration found out. It continued to want to export agricultural goods to China, and where it imposed tariffs, they raised costs to US consumers and manufacturers. We need to challenge China over its trade policies, but the best way to do that is to strengthen the US domestic economy and invest in education and technology innovation and research. So much of our vaunted technological progress has come from government investment. We should renew our government support for advanced research and technology, rather than faulting the Chinese for imitating our past actions. For but one example, consider how the internet was developed in the 1970s.

The United States has benefitted from an infusion of Chinese undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. Undergraduates pay tuition; graduate students and post-grad medical and science researchers have strengthened the quality of universities and research centers. Most universities do not host classified research on their main campuses. Of course, there are dual-use technologies that can be copied or stolen. But the United States has gained from having Chinese scholars and students and researchers come to our shores. Many stay as productive and important citizens. As was the case with students and researchers from other countries in the past, many who return home see themselves as friends of the United States and hope for a more positive turn in Sino-American relations.

We now should join the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And we should form alliances and cooperative endeavors with China’s neighbors on trade, climate, health and regional conflict issues. And here we include Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, as well as India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Korea. China’s push into Asia and Africa via its Road and Belt Initiative has not been a huge success. But here too the US could be more active and constructive with its own health and development policies abroad. The most useful thing that we could do to combat climate change would be to help the underdeveloped world move from coal and oil to renewable energy.

Above all, a strong and confident United States can compete and cooperate with China without conjuring up new enemies, or creating a new Cold War.

February 9, 2021 Posted by Christina Macpherson | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment