THE FUTURE OF CRINK: The Next 10 Years and What Can Be Done

In This Issue Vol. 29 Issue 27

THE FUTURE OF CRINK: The Next 10 Years and What Can Be Done China Russia Iran North Korea The Shifting Climate What to Expect from CRINK Reengineering the Outcome Summary UPCOMING EVENTS ETHERMAIL OUR PARTNERS WHERE’S MARK?

The Future of CRINK: The Next 10 Years and What Can Be Done
By Evan Anderson

Why Read: There is no greater threat to global stability than the alliance of CRINK nations – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. While SNS often covers these countries’ actions, this week we go a step further. Read on for a deep dive of what the CRINK players are capable of, what they want, and how we can stop them from getting it. – ERA

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China stands ready to maintain close communication with Russia to promote sustained, sound, stable in-depth development of China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era to the benefit of the two countries and the peoples.

– Chinese President Xi Jinping, during a state visit from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Putin’s first visit outside of Russia since 2022  (5/16/24)

 

[. . .] the visit by the delegation of North Korean military trainers to Russia marks the first military exchange between Moscow and Pyongyang since a sweeping military treaty was signed last month.

 – Newsweek
(7/9/24)

China’s top diplomat told Iran that the nations can work together across a range of areas in the future, signaling their ties remain solid following Tehran’s unprecedented attack on Israel.

– Bloomberg News
(4/15/24)

Since 2017, we at SNS have offered regular coverage of the increasingly formalized alliance comprising China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – a grouping we first termed “CRINK” in August of that year. While we’ve spent many pages over the years documenting what the alliance is doing, or seeking to do, in the immediate, it is worth taking a look back for an even broader analysis.

Outside of climate change (and indeed, even that issue is deeply interwoven with the geopolitical dynamics here), there is no greater current threat to global peace and prosperity than the CRINK alliance. From the COVID pandemic to the invasion of Ukraine, many of the conflicts unfolding out across the Middle East and the ongoing non-kinetic conflict of aggression being perpetrated by the People’s Republic of China across the South China Sea, very few modern threats originate outside the borders of these four nations.

While it is tempting to focus on reactionary policy to address each problem as it comes up, the West playing “Little Dutch Boy” with the security threats these actors so frequently generate is, in fact, likely their intent. To properly respond to the issues, we should go further in anticipating likely future moves. In so doing, we can better understand the inflection points along the way that must be recognized and properly addressed in order to better deter their attempts at harming countries, economies, and lives.

The era of active hybrid warfare is well upon us, and response plans should take that into account.  

To generate such plans, we can analyze the current disposition of these countries by four key metrics – demographics, hybrid warfare capabilities, their economy (how powerful they are), and their intent (what they might do with that power). This also requires looking deeper than their own publicly stated statistics and desires and doing reality checks based more on observing their behaviors than on statements made or intentions announced. Many public voices across sectors fail to do this final step when analyzing CRINK and the implications of these nations’ actions. This is not only dangerous, but at this point is either disingenuous (evidence of compromise) or a dire sign of misinformation.

We begin with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – or, to be precise, the PRC under the rule of Xi Jinping.

 

China

By 2035, the PRC will also seek to increase its economic and technological strength to become a “global leader in innovation” and aim to “basically” complete its military modernization.

– US Department of Defense, Annual Report to Congress
(2023)

Further losses in the property sector risk spilling over into wider financial instability.

 – Julian Evans Pritchard, Head of China Economics, Capital Economics
 (CNN, 8/23/23)

To be sure, last year’s sharp decline should be partly due to the lockdowns and most likely new births will rebound in 2024, although the structural down-trend remains unchanged.

– Larry Hu, Chief China Economist, Macquarie Group
 (CNN, 1/17/24)

Population

Current population is publicly assessed at roughly 1.4 billion, but as analyzed by SNS (see “Billions,” Part 1, 9/16/20), the real number is perhaps closer to 1.3 billion or lower, a figure also suggested by UW-Madison’s Fuxian Yi. This makes sense, as local governments benefit from falsely inflating population statistics. China is in steep demographic decline, and as the Council of Foreign Relations’ Carl Minzner notes, public PRC projections for the future of its population are somehow based on a resurgence of births that meet government targets, without any evidence of this being likely. This leads to even more unreliable demographic policy – meaning, the nation likely remains unprepared for a brutal demographic transition. Median age is estimated at 37 years and expected to be around 45 by 2034.

Hybrid Warfare Capabilities

While untested in real combat since the invasion of Vietnam in 1979, on paper China’s capabilities have been improving ever since. The last 12 years in particular have seen a massive buildup of modernized military equipment under the leadership of Xi Jinping. This includes efforts toward modernizing to a smaller, more effective combined arms force ongoing in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA); the world’s largest surface fleet, at 370 ships and submarines in the PLA Navy; a combined air force of at least 3,500 aircraft and large numbers of unmanned systems (PLAN and the PLA Air Force, PLAAF); a massive buildup of nuclear weapons (rising from roughly 200 nuclear warheads in 2019 to 1,000 by 2030); and increasingly effective space, cyber, and other capabilities.

The PRC is thus increasingly close to US military capabilities, though it does not exceed the existing hard power of a combination of the US and its allies. Public comments by various officials about near-peer or peer competition from the PRC military are therefore valid at the least, though it’s harder to assess softer concepts, such as morale and training, in a force that hasn’t seen large-scale combat in so long.

Economy

Lauded by many publications and institutions within China over the years, the Chinese economy has grown significantly since the turn of the last century. It’s clear that its manufacturing capacity vastly exceeds that of every other nation, with steadily increasing expertise in the workforce over time.

It is also clear that the government’s concerted efforts over the course of many decades to control certain economic sectors have panned out. Steel, renewables, shipbuilding, lithium mining, rare-earth elements, telecoms, and hundreds of other industries are now increasingly majority-owned or controlled by the Chinese state and being manufactured or processed in PRC territory.

Less clear is the stability of this economy or the true level of GDP by purchasing power or nominal US dollars it represents. With rampant inefficiencies, state-owned enterprises (SOE’s), a house-of-cards banking system backed in large part by failing real-estate assets, and state spending on questionably productive infrastructure, the Chinese economy rests on a highly unstable foundation. Recent events have underlined the level of weakness, as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claims about shifting toward a consumption model have fallen flat in the face of constant, sudden bankruptcies – particularly in the real-estate and banking sectors. Thus, while the CIA’s 2022 estimates of Chinese GDP may be accurate, at $US17.96 trillion nominally and $US25.68 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP), they could easily be strong overcounts.

Our primary research on Chinese state statistics on GDP has regularly shown that the numbers reported by provinces and those reported by the State are often incongruent, while growth rate percentages compared with actual stated numbers didn’t correlate at all at the time of our original publication of Theft Nation in 2015. Even if the numbers were real – and they clearly are not – China’s housing market (currently in freefall crisis) is responsible for a full one-third of that GDP. How much is tied up in inefficient infrastructure is hard to discern, but AII estimates that in 2021 spending of 4.8% of GDP on inland transportation infrastructure alone took place, and 24% of GDP spent on infrastructure in 2016.

The Chinese economy is clearly far weaker than the state would have us believe, and it is perpetually on the verge of crises on a national / global scale due to unsustainable spending on nonproductive assets to prop itself up. With another $1.8 trillion of construction announced in 2023, the game goes on.

Assessed Intent

At this point, it’s apparent that Xi Jinping and the CCP (now subservient to his personal direction) want the following:

• The successful absorption of Taiwan and various other territories into the PRC as its sovereign territory, including territory currently belonging to nearly every neighboring country 
• Soft power in name (and perhaps hard power in practice) over many of the world’s remaining nations via government and private sector influence and control 
• The world’s largest military to exceed a combination of multiple foreign nations, should the need arise 
• A strong and credible nuclear deterrent to begin to match the largest arsenals in the world 
• The ability to act unilaterally when it pleases 
• Economic control over much of the world’s commerce and industry 
• Advanced technology to match or surpass all other nations 
• General control of space, cyber, and information spaces

 

Russia

Thankfully, many of our ethnic groups have preserved the tradition of having strong multigenerational families with four, five or even more children. Let us remember that Russian families, many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, had seven, eight or even more children. Let us preserve and revive these excellent traditions. Large families must become the norm, a way of life for all Russia’s peoples.

 – Vladimir Putin
December 2023

In 2023, Putin was confident that Russia’s military-industrial strength would make victory in Ukraine “inevitable”. Instead, the Russian OPK is now going through decline and deterioration: the production of military hardware and components has had to be simplified, productivity rates are falling, production chains are stretched, the quality and sophistication of weapon systems are deteriorating, and prospects for improvement in R&D and innovation are slim.

 – Chatham House Research Paper,
Assessing Russian Plans for Military Regeneration
July 2024

Population

Much like the People’s Republic of China, Russian population statistics are subject to massive inflation to meet official state desires, inefficiencies, and incompetence. Thus, it isn’t surprising that population estimates range from around 143 million to 146 million. The country has been depopulating since about 2008; the biggest population drops began after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, Russia has high death rates across the board (and even higher among military-age males serving in Ukraine), low birth rates, and massive outmigration have led to population decreases that UN data seem to show at half a million a year, before the larger-scale invasion of Ukraine.

As noted by Jennifer D. Sciubba at the Population Research Bureau, declining population may be one reason Russia seems intent on retaking former Soviet Union countries, apparently its only strategy to maintain global relevance. Even the country’s state statistics group, Rosstat, has noted the population may be down to 130 million by 2046; that would correspond with roughly half a million fewer citizens per year until that date. Even this may be rosy if state counts are inflated and/or war losses and outmigration are hidden by state employees (all likely) and if the country sees larger outflows as the years wear on. The current CIA estimate of median age is 41.9 years; the predicted median age a decade from now, by UN estimates, is 43.72.

Hybrid Warfare Capabilities

While Russia’s military remains significant in size, its capabilities are now deeply in question. Bad tactics have met poor strategy in Ukraine, combined with a drastically underestimated Ukrainian (and Western) response, to create a maelstrom of burning Russian equipment. While the Russian military maintains a numerical advantage, there is strong evidence that it is having difficulty maintaining its numbers of deployed artillery, multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), tanks, trucks, planes, ships . . . effectively every type of modern military equipment, with the possible exception of drones.

In this context, the ability of the Russian military to succeed depends on draining support from Ukraine and throwing enough bodies into the fight in so-called “meat assaults,” rather than winning by its own skill. Fighting by sheer volume while ignoring casualties is nothing new in Russian military strategy, but attrition is an expensive way to fight a war with a large neighbor when a country’s population is also declining.

The loss of significant numbers of ships in the Black Sea fleet, and even some nuclear-capable bombers, indicates that the only growing types of hard power for Russia appear to be conscripts, Iranian drones, and Chinese ATVs. This can still be enough to win a war, but it is not the military of a modern global power, and Russian ability to project power may have peaked. Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) estimates of Russian losses, updated daily, look increasingly accurate. And they are shocking:

Geolocated imagery of kills collected painstakingly by Oryx show confirmed losses of about one-half of the above statistics for equipment. The true number could easily be double that for which there is confirmed imagery, but even if that’s not the case, these are staggering losses.  

With an army of roughly 1.32 million personnel, Russia has an increasingly infantry-based, unprofessional, and untechnical force, excepting its oft-touted nuclear arsenal, which seems to be Putin’s main fallback – useful mainly for threatening much of the world with destruction when he’s feeling vulnerable. Outside of this, the top supplies in use by Russian ground forces seem to be Chinese motorcycles and ATV’s, North Korean artillery shells, and Iranian drones, and the key role of the air forces in bombing indicates that the country is able to replenish at least some cruise-missile and bomb stocks.

More complex is the intermediate Russian capability in cyber and information warfare. The attempts by Russian cyber actors to incapacitate Ukraine have proven that the skill of those actors is less than previously imagined. It is almost surprising that they have failed to do so, and instead have resorted to bombing key infrastructure. This is a testament to the skill of many unsung cyber defenders, but it draws Russia’s true capabilities into question.

More successful have been Russian sabotage teams’ “active measures” (burning malls, factories, etc. across Europe; mysterious fires at US facilities; messing around in Paris) and – far more insidious – often-successful efforts to coopt far-right and far-left political groups and affect domestic citizens’ voting choices across NATO, Europe, and the United States. These efforts seem to work, at least at times, and should be a top focal priority for anyone under attack, as they can do much more damage to global democracy and prosperity than any other Russian activity.

Economy

Meanwhile, the Russian economy has kicked into overdrive trying to increase war production, which has offered a boost to incomes and GDP as do all wartime economies in the first years. The question of how long this can last comes down to the country’s ability to avoid Western sanctions – and the price of its one main key asset: fossil fuels. Thus, the near entirety of Russian economics can essentially be assessed based on oil prices. While Russian sovereign wealth funds are increasingly spent on war, some liquidity will flow, but the majority of the real liquidity that lubricates the country’s coffers is just that: lubricant.

At roughly $US2.24 trillion in annual GDP, the Russian economy, much like the nation’s military, is both large and dangerous while simultaneously being “not that big” and desperately ill-balanced. As poorer workers from mines to oil fields to factories are increasingly converted to soldiers, and those soldiers return home injured and traumatized (if at all), the Russian economy’s prospects are grim. Without greatly expanded reliance on China for commerce and aid, they would be dire. Even with such support, a country at war with an oil economy in the era of the rise of renewables is not likely to be economically viable by 2034.

Assessed Intent

Russian desires match the moment much in the way that every Russian power ever has: by seeking to conquer or raid richer countries rather than develop domestically. Putin clearly envisions (and states) that he will return the Russian Federation to its former Soviet glory. Russian intent for the coming decade is therefore clearly as follows:

• Destroy the Ukrainian state, take much of its territory outright (including the wealth and diversified economy Russia increasingly desperately needs), and replace its government with a puppet regime if any of the rest remains. 
• Find ways to convince allies to supply badly needed war material – an increasing priority. 
• Find more mercenary soldiers to avoid having to draft its own citizens, so the wealthy and privileged in urban areas are not affected by the war. 
• Attack and invade any former Soviet republic where this appears to be an option (non-NATO first) or coopt their governments and create puppet regimes where it is not. This includes almost every former Soviet territory, with the possible exception of Poland, as that nation rapidly increases in economic and military strength. 
• Disrupt and degrade democratic process and infiltrate political groups across the West, sowing chaos as a baseline and winning elections with its coopted candidates when possible, mostly with the aim of disrupting broader resistance from those countries and rendering NATO unable to act. 
• Use the citizens of any conquered nations to fill the ranks of its army to conquer the next. 
• Find ways to sequester oil and to keep the oil price high, including by aligning with other producers and sowing chaos in potential new oilfields. (Russian-backed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro threatening to invade Guyana after the discovery of large oil reserves there is an excellent example.)

 

Iran

Aging population is one of the biggest challenges facing the country today and calls for serious contemplation, both on the part of relevant authorities and people.

 – Daniyal Mehmoodi, Tehran-based Social Scientist and Researcher
(11/10/23)

Seven years later, if the trend continues, we will fall into the demographic black hole, and it takes at least 150 years to make up for that.

 – Kamal Heydari, Fmr. Iranian Deputy Health Minister
(10/9/23)

Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts, seeking to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.

– Avril Haines, US Director of National Intelligence
(7/9/24)

Population

The third-smallest CRINK nation, Iran’s population in 2023 was estimated by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) at 89.2 million. A total fertility rate of 1.7 indicates that the nation will soon begin declining, and growth has already dropped to 1% per year. If accurate, current statistics imply that the population will begin declining starting in just a few years at most. Much like its other totalitarian partners in CRINK, Iran sees large-scale net annual outflows of citizens fleeing oppression and economic woes, with a net loss of roughly a quarter-million emigrants in total since 2018, according to World Bank data. Iran’s median age – currently at 33 and thus far more favorable than that of China or Russia – is also increasing faster than most other nations. It is expected to hit roughly 38.7 by 2034.

The ability of the regime to deal with this rapidly aging population is highly in question, given the slim coffers left by years of sanctions. The surprising willingness of the country’s leaders to adopt progressive birth-control policies after the Iran-Iraq War have thus met its current insular regime’s political priorities more head-on, with social spending a future speedbump that does not appear to have been solved.

Hybrid Warfare Capabilities

Iran’s military is mostly composed of some 600,000-odd personnel equipped with older American, British, and Russian equipment, making its army likely comparable to that of Iraq before the Persian Gulf wars. The army reportedly has roughly 1,600 or more main battle tanks, with a more modern tank – the Karrar – planned for large-scale production. The vast majority are 1970s-era T-72s, modernized T-55s, old British Chieftains, US M60s, M47s and M48s. Its air force (both army and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] Aerospace) is a mix of Russian Mig-29s, SU 24s and 22s, American Tomcats, F-5s, Phantoms, French Mirage jets, and even Chinese J-7s. This bizarre hodgepodge of airframes, based on the country’s complicated political history, represents a likely logistical nightmare to maintain, adding many layers of complication for training and combat operations. The attempted purchase of Russian SU-35s does not appear to have panned out, with Iran receiving additional Yak trainers instead.

All of this puts into context the Iranian government’s attempts to secure nuclear weapons and build out robust missile forces. With a cobbled-together army and air force, a nuclear deterrent and strike capabilities with ballistic missiles and drones are clear priorities. But Iran’s attempted missile strikes on Israel in April 2024 were seemingly a waste, leading to an alleged 99% shootdown rate by Israeli missile defense.

The failure of the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen to cause even more trouble than they have off Yemen’s coast also implies that while strategies to overwhelm modern missile defense systems with Iranian kit can work, it usually does not. The continuation of this strategy, by both Iranian forces and proxies, is likely due to the low cost and potential perceived benefit of the attempts, rather than a belief that they will succeed in any broader way.

While Iranian military capabilities are lacking and pose a nuisance threat for the most part, the ability of the IRGC to use proxies to sow chaos and take control of entire destabilized regions is proven. The growing capabilities in cyber pose threats to adversaries’ infrastructure (particularly banking and physical infrastructure), though the true ability of Iran’s cyber forces remains in question. More interesting to date has been its ability to mimic Russian approaches to information warfare and stage protests in the West supporting its proxies. This is an interesting form of hybrid warfare that may evolve over time, but it poses but a similar nuisance threat as of yet.

Economy

Like Russia’s, Iran’s economy is deeply dependent on oil revenues. Thus, after US sanctions took hold and oil prices dropped in the 2010’s, the country was plagued with financial crises. According to the World Bank:

The large contraction in oil exports placed significant pressure on government finances and drove inflation to over 40% for four consecutive years. Sustained high inflation led to a substantial reduction in households’ purchasing power. At the same time, job creation was insufficient to absorb the large pool of young and educated entrants to the labor market.

Without the ability to properly develop in its own right, Iran is stuck in a sanctioned oil economy without the ability to sell oil very efficiently. Chinese help has been hampered by US efforts to sanction and punish Chinese technology companies such as Huawei for attempting to break sanctions. Iran remains isolated and unable to generate enough revenue outside the oil industry to meet or exceed its basic needs.

Assessed Intent

Without greater economic largesse, Iran is relegated to a spoiler role in CRINK’s anti-Western projects. It has therefore developed its strategic priorities relative to its means, focusing on rocket attacks, proxy conflicts, and the funding of terrorism. Its top priorities are:

• Developing domestic nuclear capabilities 
• Increased production of missiles and drones 
• Developing more and larger proxies and terrorist organizations with which to fight US and Israeli forces in multiple locales, aiming to spread them thin 
• Attempts to break free of sanctions and sell oil 
• Collaborating with Russia in its war in Ukraine, likely in expectation of receiving more-modern Russian equipment (unlikely to be forthcoming, given the degree of Russian losses, but may be a requirement for Iranian help) 
• Working with Russia to destabilize regions in the Middle East and prop up proxies such as Syria’s Assad regime 
• Developing the ability to create physical (via cyber means) and human disruption (via protests and social-media information operations) that sow chaos in adversary nations

 

North Korea

[Kim Jong Un] said yesterday . . . that now was the time to be more prepared for war than ever.

– WION
(4/11/24)

Kim Jong-Un burst into tears in front of thousands of North Korean “mothers” as he begged them to have more babies and stop the decline in the communist country’s birth rate. The dictator was seen dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief in a highly choreographed plea to women gathered at a National Mothers’ Meeting in Pyongyang on Sunday.

– The Independent
(12/6/23)

It is telling that, for the economy, the most significant achievement in 2023 was a relatively good harvest. This is not an unimportant achievement given North Korea’s perennial food issues, but it is far from substantial economic progress. The report from the Ninth Plenary Meeting stated that “the over-fulfillment of the goal of grain production [. . . was] the most precious and valuable success achieved in the economic work for 2023.”

– Benjamin Katzeff Silverstein,
The Swedish Institute of International Affairs
East Asia Forum (3/6/24)

Population

The Democratic Republic of North Korea’s (DPRK) true population is, to some degree, anyone’s guess. In the most tightly controlled nation on the planet, people are executed for distributing Korean pop music. It stands to reason, then, that the 2008 census (the last one the government ran) was not going to return any results that were unacceptable to the Communist Party leadership. In one paper from the time, the authors “show that the demographic data from North Korea are remarkably consistent for the study of fertility. Total fertility in North Korea declined from about 3.0 children per woman in 1980 to about 2.0 in 1998 and remained around that level until 2008.”

As anyone who studies dictatorships should know, remarkable consistency is usually evidence of data manipulation. Human beings and the things they do in response to changing environments tend not, in fact, to be remarkably consistent. But if we pretend that there is any accuracy whatsoever to this data, it is perhaps possible that North Korea (roughly the size of Cuba, population 11.21 million and declining) is in fact home to just over 26 million people, despite regular famines, lack of healthcare, and lack of much of an economy outside grain production, artillery shells, and the occasional ICBM test.

If we use the CIA’s Factbook numbers, median age is 35.9 years, and data extrapolated out would indicate a median age by 2034 of 39.3. With a total fertility rate estimated at 1.8, the country will see falling working-age population before 2030. And these are the official government numbers.

Hybrid Warfare Capabilities

According to the Institute for Strategic Studies’ report The Military Balance, the Korean People’s Army consists of roughly 1.9 million soldiers, including reserves. The budget of the armed forces may lie somewhere around US$6 billion, which could be close to 30% of total state spending. The army allegedly possesses roughly 5,500 tanks, 10,000 artillery pieces, and 5,500 multiple rocket launcher systems, while the navy is in such disrepair as to be negligible, though the country has recently committed to building it out again and announced its first submarine.

The People’s Army Air Force has a few hundred combat aircraft, many older and unlikely to perform well in modern combat against an advanced adversary.

People’s Army Air Force Circa 2015

Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies

Much like Iran, the DPRK is not likely an effective modern fighting force so much as a large collection of infantry and old war materiel. Low-quality North Korean shells that have made it to the front in Ukraine appear to be killing their own artillery teams. Korean weapons are often sold abroad to make money, but they are far from modern standards.

Unsurprisingly, the country has turned to the generation of its nuclear deterrent as a way to counteract its aging military. The country has also developed copycats of US drones of unknown quality. Perhaps DPRK forces’ greatest success in development is the generation of significant cyber capabilities. What began as mostly a simple hacking operation focused on stealing money and cryptocurrency and harassing perceived enemies such as Sony has morphed into a more sophisticated cyber actor capable of damaging infrastructure and perpetrating real espionage.

Economy

Dominated by its Stalinist, centrally planned “Juche” system, the DPRK’s economy is effectively a grain, coal, and weapons production system. GDP was estimated at around 28 billion in 2013. With nearly zero data access, guestimating the economic strength of the country is effectively impossible, but -as the quote at the top of this section denotes – if grain production goals are the biggest celebrated economic upsides, there is likely little to be said about the country’s economic activity.

Assessed Intent

Much like Iran, the DPRK mostly serves as a regional spoiler, consistently threatening the US and Japan with nuclear strikes, harassing South Korean forces, and occasionally sending troops to train Iranian proxies or join them in attacking civilians. The objectives of the DPRK are also rather clear:

• Maintain order and avoid regime change 
• Constantly threaten regional enemies, at times in the hope that bribes in food aid will be paid by the US or its allies to help feed its population 
• Utilize cybercrime to help generate revenue for the state and attempt to catch up on certain technologies 
• Develop slightly more threatening missile and nuclear capabilities 
• Sell weapons to generate revenue 
• Continue reliant relationship on China and Russia

It’s no surprise that most of these goals are focused on finding, trading for, or stealing financial resources or basic supplies as a survival mechanism.

 

The Shifting Climate

[. . . ] yet it is climate change, as much as any one politician or set of policies, that will exert the strongest force on Russia’s strategic future, reshaping its politics, economy, and society for decades to come.

 – Climate Change Will Reshape Russia,
Center for Strategic and International Studies
(1/13/21)

It is evident now that no one is escaping climate change; in fact, there is an increasing risk of broader societal collapse. In that context, what would you want your disposition to be going into it? High government and personal savings, adequate food storage, low debt, younger and healthier population, investment in mitigation, and natural and geographic advantages would all be valuable assets in an era of such rapid change.

Among the CRINK nations, right off the bat North Korea stands out as nonresilient to climate change. This is not because wet bulb temperatures or coastal flooding are expected to be worse there than elsewhere. The country by its very nature is more vulnerable to all disruptions. If a changing climate affects its food production much at all, coastally or otherwise, there is likely to be a famine. It is not hard to picture a North Korean state undone by climate change, even within the next 10 years.

Iran is also a clear CRINK climate standout:

With insufficient revenue, scant water, and already dangerous heat waves rocking the south of the nation each summer, the country is extremely vulnerable to issues of food supply, water supply, and heat without the resources to address them. Within the next 10 years, it is easy to imagine more, and more powerful, protest movements and/or genuine uprising if the situation becomes too dire. In the present scenario of climate effects accelerating far beyond previous predictions, this is now a likely contingency for Iran by 2034.

Russia may perform better, but the country’s ongoing war was poorly timed for a rapidly shifting climate. As noted by Heather A. Conley and Cyrus Newlin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

The threat to the Russian economy from climate change is twofold. An increase in droughts, floods, wildfires, permafrost damage, and disease could lower GDP by 3% annually in the next decade, according to Russia’s Audit Chamber. Climate damage to buildings and infrastructure alone could cost Russia up to 9 trillion rubles ($99 billion) by 2050, according to Deputy Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Alexander Krutikov.

Meanwhile, Russia’s overreliance on hydrocarbon production is a conspicuous vulnerability as the world shifts toward low-carbon sources of energy and carbon neutrality.

Krutikov is likely severely downplaying the effects. Russia will be pummeled by wildfires, massive permafrost melting, and coastal flooding and sea-level rise, and the damages to buildings and infrastructure will be far greater by 2050 than $99 billion. Increasing warming will likely place most of the country’s roads, bridges, railroads, pipelines, and buildings in constant need of repair. Russian land is majority permafrost, and Russia is warming far faster than other nations – more akin to the Alaskan Arctic than to Germany. It will not be easy for a sanctioned nation with depleted sovereign wealth from years of unnecessary war to keep up with these costs. Productivity, health, and many other factors will therefore decline.

Finally, China, too, is more vulnerable than other nations. Among its CRINK allies, it is the best prepared and best able to address them. But the country is highly concentrated in its lowland east, prone to flooding from rivers, heat waves, and rising sea levels.

Below are the risk maps for coastal flooding by the year 2030 for the Chinese coastline:

Every nation on the planet is vulnerable to climate change. For most, the next decade will be brutal. But CRINK has the unenviable position of having two of its four members being the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases and two of them being major oil producers, while having perhaps only one of four governments that will be willing to sacrifice any economic benefit at all to stop emitting or otherwise address the coming onslaught.

China alone might care enough to finally stop building new coal plants, might care enough to add mitigations ahead of time – but still will see massive flooding of its key ports and river deltas, and soon.

This is not a winning hand.

 

What to Expect from CRINK

So, in the context of all of these intersecting aspects of the current state of the CRINK alliance, what are these countries likely to be up to before 2034?

First: starting conflicts or invading neighbors is even more likely – not less – as things become domestically unstable. Each of these nations may be more aggressive as the decade wears on. Without domestic economic success, with rising unrest from climate effects, the temptation to “wag the dog” will be higher, and, therefore, so must be the deterrents arranged against them if we are to avoid further conflict.

To help predict CRINK strategies, let’s look at each nation on its own. Here are some likely behaviors:

China

• An incipient takeover attempt of Taiwan no later than the end of the 2020s, and possibly much sooner – either by political means, blockade, or kinetic invasion 
• Ongoing attempts to gain territory through whatever small land grabs can be executed (stealing corners of Bhutan and India, building islands out of reefs far from its soil, etc.) 
• Ongoing attempts to control most of the world’s sovereign nations through soft-power campaigns; near-complete control of decision making for small nations and at least a strong attempt to achieve control over decision making for large countries through economic and political means, including corrupting politicians and business leaders via espionage and/or bribery or the promise of profit 
• Ongoing mass cyberattacks and espionage to steal information, including business and technological information, with the concurrent goals of “owning the enemy” and taking control of the vast majority of the global economy by replacing foreign companies with Chinese companies in nearly every sector 
• A likely massive cyberattack to attempt to render the US and Europe incapacitated in the event of a kinetic invasion of Taiwan 
• Zero decrease in level of aggression unless regime change occurs 
• Increasing level of aggression as the regime, population, military, and economy weaken

Russia

• Ongoing attempts to install puppet or sympathetic governments and to spoil domestic politics among enemies using extreme factions 
• Invasion of any former Soviet state that does not make a puppet of itself à la Belarus 
• Opportunistic cyber or kinetic infrastructure attacks 
• Ongoing threats of nuclear strikes, meaningless due to the unchanged mutually assured destruction (MAD) 
• Ongoing attempts to weaponize mass immigration into adversary states in order to sow discord and chaos 
• Increasing aggression in assassination attempts, likely increasingly on foreign citizens as well as Russian citizens abroad 
• Zero decrease in level of aggression unless regime change occurs 
• Increasing level of aggression as the regime, population, military, and economy weaken

Iran

• Continued funding of terrorist and militant groups across the Middle East as the key form of hard power via the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and various agents. The Iranian-backed Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis can be expected to increase in capability and attacks on Israel, trade routes, and others as long as the IRGC is capable and Iran has funding available. 
• A concurrent increase in the number and geographical distribution of Iranian proxies. 
• Various naval attacks on shipping by Iranian personnel in the Persian Gulf. 
• Dramatically increased cyberattacks and sowing of domestic disturbance through social media and online information warfare as the IRGC becomes increasingly proficient. 
• Zero decrease in level of aggression unless regime change occurs. 
• Increasing level of aggression as the regime, population, military, and economy weaken.

North Korea

• More nuclear threats 
• Increasing support of Russia in its invasion of Ukraine (most likely via weapons supplies and troops for behind-the-lines support) 
• Increasing hacking to account for higher and higher financial distress 
• Greater weapons sales worldwide, including Iran, potentially involving nuclear weapons 
• More firing of live ordnance at South Korean towns, ships, or military installations; more bizarre infiltration attempts into South Korea and general antagonism 
• Zero decrease in level of aggression unless regime change occurs 
• Increasing level of aggression as the regime, population, military, and economy weaken

 

Reengineering the Outcome

Leaving clandestine and kinetic options for better-informed decision makers, there are a number of clear priority areas in which the US and its allies can touch the inflection points of the coming decade to positively effect change. Following these action steps will not only save innumerable lives, but it will also preserve the integrity of key democracies in the face of totalitarian aggression.

Given its tactics, we can be sure that additional lives and freedoms can be saved across the developing world by curtailing the CRINK alliance’s worst efforts concerning global food security, staged coups d’état, and/or the cooption of local governments, biosecurity, and the critical fight against climate change. In the modern era, these issues are so interwoven that CRINK presents both a threat and an opportunity to address many of them simultaneously through a comprehensive set of policies shared by trusted allies around the world.

Such a policy set should include the following 10 elements:

• • Key Strategic Resources

Remove, eventually, all dependence on key resources from the CRINK alliance. This project is already largely underway. Areas of focus now should be eliminating dependence on the PRC for medical supplies, rare-earth elements, any vital electronics manufacturing, steel, renewables, ships, automobiles, and telecoms. Goals should be set for 0 (zero) US or European dependence in these sectors from China by halfway through the next decade. Those goals should then be met. This is far from impossible, and in fact is necessary. It will even have many economic benefits.

• • Sanctions

Sanctions regimes should be expanded, and new ones developed, to address the issues laid out in this work. The CRINK nations should be realistically sanctioned as a group for the behavior of any of its members, as they work in concert and use one another’s actions to their mutual advantage. They choose to call one another “friends” or “allies” and should be treated by the international community as such.

• • Trade

Every dollar in trade that occurs between the broader world and a given CRINK nation generates money to fund the activities of the CRINK alliance. The world would do well to remember that and to dramatically reduce commerce with the alliance, regardless of product category.

• • Oil

Russia’s capacity to produce oil is the source of its wealth and power. Ukrainians are aware of this. The latter should be helped to target this source of wealth and power, not hindered. As this objective is realized, the US and allied nations should temporarily boost oil production in friendly countries to its maximum potential level to offset economic consequences to whatever degree possible.

• • Energy

In regards particularly to the oil objective, but also to the benefit of the entire planet, efforts to shift to renewables should be redoubled. To survive as a global society, as well as to survive CRINK’s coordinated efforts, the world needs to move to a majority of non-fossil-fuel sources for energy in the next 5 years. The closer to this goal we get, the fewer of our citizens’ lives will be lost, from either CRINK or climate.

• • Counterintelligence

Efforts to identify and remove espionage agents from CRINK nations must be tripled. Much excellent work has been done to date, but each of the Five Eyes (FVEY) nations and most of NATO is replete with an unprecedented number of Russian, Chinese, and other agents and saboteurs. There is no time to be lost mitigating this dire problem. Budgets and staffing for counterintelligence should be far higher, given the level of today’s threats.

• • Digital Counterintelligence

Efforts to find and destroy botnets, block IP addresses, and impose literal and physical cost on CRINK-sourced cyberattackers is overdue and need also be tripled. Recent FBI efforts to shut down digital operations across the US funded by Iran and Russia are commendable. The US and allied bodies should be fully enabled to continue and greatly expand upon this work. The survival of democracy likely depends on it.

• • Organized Immigration

Ensuring legal immigration processes and more compassionate programs for assimilation across the free world can help take advantage of the draw that most democracies and their booming economies have for global citizens. CRINK nations cannot keep strong workforces and reduce the effects of aging populations; and very few people are making an effort to move to Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea. The United States and its allies should make a point of highlighting and taking advantage of that fact.

• • Military Spending and Modernization in the US, FVEY, and NATO

Two common misconceptions by the United States public are that the US military is: a) too expensive (although it is far less expensive by GDP than it has been in much of our past); and b) that it’s as modern as it can be. Both are mistaken. We could spend more and more wisely – and likely should, given the threats we are facing. In addition, European NATO members (with some exceptions) – and Canada in particular – get verifiably serious about defense spending. Alliances such as NATO must enact punishments on members that do not contribute. Trade sanctions for failing to meet obligations would not be too much.

Military funding should be increased to allow the reintroduction of industries such as shipbuilding, steel production, and medical supplies to US and European shores. Older equipment should be passed to allies at cost or at discount to bolster allies whose partnership will be critical in coming years. But so, too, must efficiency be dramatically increased, with higher levels of public-private collaboration reached.

The United States and Europe should have nascent, mass-production-capable private companies within the next few years that can build the military hardware of the future – drones, telecom solutions, AI tools, and more – that will need to be made fast, variable, and adaptable in their production and end-use.

• • Important Alliances

CRINK is a powerful alliance, and it will require extremely powerful alliances to stand up to it. For the United States, Indo-Pacific partners will be paramount in the coming years. Bringing together the nations from which the PRC intends to steal should be an achievable goal.

First, an economic “NATO” would go a long way toward slowing China’s progress in its use of economic bullying to force countries to give it what it wants. A defensive, economic mutual-aid pact among a large enough group of nations would be a good start and could be completed in the next few years.

Second, the defensive military alliance in the Pacific should be expanded to include essentially all nations except China and North Korea. These “United Nations” would go a long way toward achieving the degree of deterrence that would be required to protect the smaller members from being cut out. This is the best approach, with the highest likelihood of success, to deal with aggressors.

 

Summary

The next 10 years are a critical period for addressing the challenges posed by CRINK. The alliance is stronger than ever, with North Korean boots on Russian soil, Chinese boots on Belarusian soil (we can now call that country a province of Russia, for our purposes here, until something changes), and a growing threat of Iranian proxies spreading across the Mideast. For heaven’s sake, CRINK gave rebels in the mountains of Yemen anti-ship missiles and effectively closed the Suez Canal to trade.

It is time to impose cost.

In many ways, however, CRINK may be a temporary problem. In the worst of timelines, the alliance’s members, acting in concert, achieve all of the goals outlined here. In that case, we enter the next decade with China in full control of the global economy, all of the alliance members free to invade their neighbors on a whim, and a new paradigm marked by totalitarian dictatorship and the loss of democracy and freedom in much of the world.

But the worst is not the only timeline, nor is it the most likely. If we avoid muddling through and act with intention and boldness in each of the recommended categories, we can effectively deter the CRINK alliance from seizing what it wants through bloodshed and abuse. The CRINK nations, too, are aware that the clock is ticking for them. That is why they have recently been become so aggressive.

If we as a global community can succeed in containing this threat, by the year 2034 these will be increasingly limited adversaries. By stopping them from following their desired goals today, we ensure a future in which both hard and soft power for all four nations begins to wane. If they are smart, they will turn toward preparing for the climate change and demographic crises we’re all facing.

In other words, if we can make it through the window of the next decade united, action-oriented, and collaboratively stopping these clear and oncoming moves of aggression, maybe – just maybe – CRINK nations will sit down and start worrying about fixing their own internal problems.

If not, keeping their hands to themselves – a lesson we’re all taught in secondary school – would be enough.

Your comments are always welcome.

 

Sincerely,      

Evan Anderson

evan@stratnews.com

 

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ETHERMAIL

 

Subject: Fw: Our Commission Report on China and COVID-19

Evan, Berit, Mark,

wow…

 

David Brin

Author and Physicist
& SNS Ambassador for Science Fiction
www.davidbrin.com
Encinitas, CA

 

—– Forwarded Message —–

From: Jamie Metzl
To: David Brin
Subject: Our Commission Report on China and COVID-19

I am pleased to share with you this link to the just-released report of our Nonpartisan Commission on China and COVID-19. I had the honor of serving on this commission alongside former US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, former CDC Director Robert Redfield, former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D), former US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, former Deputy US National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger, and others. Here is a link to the C-SPAN video of our launch event at the Heritage Foundation this morning. A text of my introductory remarks from that event are below.

Here is a link to a Newsweek editorial written by John Ratcliffe and me in conjunction with the release of our report.

With warmest regards,

 

Jamie

Jamiemetzl.com

Remarks by Jamie Metzl, Commissioner of the Heritage Foundation Nonpartisan Commission on China and COVID-19

July 8, 2024

Thank you, Derrick, Congressman Wenstrup, Chairman Ratcliffe, and everyone.

I’ve worked tirelessly on the COVID-19 origins issue for 4.5 years and am deeply honored to have been the lead witness in Congressman Wenstrup’s critically important hearings and to serve as a commissioner on this absolutely essential nonpartisan commission.

We are here because every person on earth has an absolute right to demand answers about why so many of our friends and relatives are dead and why our lives have been so massively disrupted by a totally avoidable, political pandemic.

Congressman’s Wenstrup’s hearings have rightly asked tough questions of many US officials and actors. Our commission’s report focuses on the entity we believe bears primary responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic.

While other governments, including the United States and France, may have played relatively small contributing roles, there can be, in our view, little doubt that China’s government is primarily responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. But for the unique pathologies of the Chinese state, there very likely would have been no pandemic at all.

I am a Democrat and a liberal. I don’t agree with many of the positions of the Heritage Foundation, but that is beside the point for our purposes today.

We come together as Democrats, Republicans, Americans, and human beings to demand accountability for this totally avoidable crisis.

The bipartisan members of our commission may not agree on everything, but we certainly stand united on this.

Although we believe the preponderance of the available evidence leans heavily in the direction of a research-related origin in Wuhan, our assertion of Chinese state culpability would remain unchanged even if the first shreds of evidence should miraculously appear supporting the Huanan market origin hypothesis.

With 28 million people dead as a result of COVID-19 and tens of trillions of dollars in damages, it is simply unacceptable and, frankly, unimaginable that every stone should not be overturned examining what went wrong as an essential foundation of efforts to build a safer future.

In an ideal world, China’s leaders would have taken the lead in these efforts for the good of China’s own people and the global community. Tragically, China’s government has done the exact opposite. It has destroyed samples, hidden records, imprisoned Chinese citizen journalists, gagged Chinese scientists, blocked any meaningful international investigations, and cynically sandbagged the World Health Organization. Because the Chinese government has so completely abrogated its responsibilities and because foreign governments have been unable or unwilling to hold China to account, the responsibility has fallen to private citizens like us to demand tougher action.

Our Commission makes the following assertions:

1. China is primarily responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to over 28 million excess death[s] globally including over 1 million in the United States alone; 
2. Based on our calculations, the pandemic resulted in $18 trillion dollars in losses to the United States; 
3. As a means of establishing accountability and discouraging similar behavior in the future, the Chinese government and select Chinese companies must be held liable for these losses; 
4. Although America’s Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act was correctly designed to protect foreign states from liability in US courts, these protections do not and should not always apply in extraordinary circumstances — as was the case when Congress passed an amendment to FSIA in 2016 giving US courts jurisdiction over terrorist financing cases; 
5. Given the magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis and China’s complete disregard of international norms, human lives, transparency, and accountability, we believe that a similar and highly tailored amendment is now required. For this reason, we have proposed a single paragraph amendment to the FSIA granting U.S. federal courts jurisdiction over cases where injured American citizens are seeking monetary damages against a foreign state, where the foreign state has directly through malfeasance or indirectly through negligence sparked a global pandemic leading to more than a million excess deaths in the United States, and when it has failed to carry out or allow a comprehensive and unfettered investigation.

This may sound like legalese, but passing this amendment would be the first serious step – and by far the most significant steep – taken by any entity anywhere toward holding China accountable for COVID-19.

Although we recognize that many commissions issue reports that go nowhere, we have already begun consultations with members of Congress regarding implementing legislation for the recommendations outlined in our report and have reason to expect significant progress over the coming months.

The steps we are recommending may seem aggressive, including in the context of worsening relations between the United States and China, but we have already lived through the consequences of the status quo. Twenty-eight million people are dead as a result of a totally avoidable pandemic. Enough is enough. If we do not take tough action now, future pandemics will almost certainly be far worse.

Four and a half years of Chinese impunity and international impotence now come to an end.

Thank you.

Jamie Metzl

[Technology and Healthcare Futurist
Member, WHO Expert Advisory Committee
Author, Hacking Darwin
New York, NY]

 

David,

Wow indeed. It is as strongly worded as one could imagine in the context. I do think it’s an interesting approach to seek an exception for prosecution of the Chinese state, effectively just for this case in particular. The wording is chosen very specifically.

It is certainly true that providing absolutely zero consequences for man-made pandemics (via incompetence or purposeful action) seems an increasingly insane policy in today’s world of rapidly accelerating bioscience. The same goes for the zero-accountability policies we currently have worldwide on lab leaks. This is all twice as true in the context of the raw arrogance and complete abrogation of personal responsibility, accountability, or even, really, basic maturity we’ve seen from a large number of publicly pro gain-of-function scientists since 2020. 

They have been their own worst enemies in that they prove regularly through their speech, attitudes, and research projects that they are unserious people and cannot be trusted to self-regulate. I’ve seen many of them publicly haranguing skeptical members of academia or government on social media, often in the sort of sneering, ad hominem fashion most adult professionals haven’t seen since grade school. Someone clearly needs to be above them in the chain of actual command if anyone can expect to get through this century alive.

Interested to see how this plays out.

 

Evan Anderson

 

Subject: Re: SNS: THE TEXAS ADVANTAGE

Hi Berit,

You didn’t mention the extreme heat in Texas that someone from milder Seattle would be hesitant to move [to].

 

Saurav Bhattacharya

Technical Lead
Microsoft
Redmond, WA

 

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