foreignpolicy--2020-02-14--Has the Israeli Right Peaked?

Has the Israeli Right Peaked?

Has the Israeli Right Peaked ?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently had one of the best weeks of his career .
He beamed beside U.S. President Donald Trump in late January as the two leaders released the U.S. vision for future Israeli-Palestinian relations ; Netanyahu triumphantly declared that the one-sided plan authorized immediate Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank .
The next day , Netanyahu secured Russian President Vladimir Putin ’ s pardon for a young Israeli woman languishing in a Russian prison , positioning himself as the redeemer of Israeli citizens in distress .
Netanyahu then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national leader , Yoweri Museveni , burnishing his credentials as a prime minister expanding Israel ’ s ties around the world and especially in Africa , before disclosing his recent meeting with Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of Sudan to discuss normalizing relations with the traditionally hostile country .
The rapid-fire diplomatic achievements showcased Netanyahu ’ s finest quality in the eyes of many voters : his unrivalled savvy as an international statesman .
Those who oppose Netanyahu gnashed their teeth , grumbling that he will surely triumph in Israel ’ s upcoming and unprecedented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real question is not why the two ideological blocs are paralyzed but why they are even close .
But the polls tell a different story .
Two weeks after Netanyahu ’ s wonderful week , horse-race surveys barely budged .
Since the previous election in September 2019 , nearly 60 simulated election polls have been published , as of this writing .
In all but one , neither the right-wing group of parties that Netanyahu leads nor the center and left-wing parties that represent the de facto opposition reached a majority of 61 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a coalition government .
The polls show both ideological blocs winning only 55 to 58 seats ( one recent outlier showed the opposition bloc at 59 ) .
Each bloc would still depend on a kingmaker party headed by Avigdor Lieberman , an erstwhile right-wing coalition fixture , to create a government .
Lieberman has been polling at seven or eight seats—virtually no change from the eight seats he holds today .
Hence the yearlong political stalemate .
But the real question is not why the two ideological blocs are paralyzed but why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shifted rightward during the Second Palestinian Intifada of 2000 to 2005 , a trend that was cemented by the end of the 2000s .
Young Jewish Israelis who came of age during the bloody years of the Second Intifada expressed particularly right-wing positions by the late 2000s .
This finding held among young cohorts for the next decade and seemed to herald right-wing victories for years to come .
Instead , not only did the right wing fail to grow ; over the last two election cycles , the number of Knesset seats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Lieberman ’ s , declined from 67 in 2015 , to 65 in the April 2019 elections , to just 63 this past September .
Despite Likud party primaries in December—which Netanyahu won handily—and the widespread coverage of the Trump plan , the dead heat of the ideological blocs has not budged in the polls .
Another trend during the Second Palestinian Intifada in the early 2000s was that Israeli Jewish left-wingers flocked to the center , according to self-definition in surveys I conducted .
The right inched up from roughly 40 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent range today .
At present , when Arab and Jewish citizens are weighted together , about half of the Israeli electorate self-identify as right-wing in surveys ; just over 40 percent consider themselves centrist or left-wing combined ( the remainder do not identify ) .
Arab citizens are more left-identified , but they constitute less than 20 percent of Israeli adults and turn out to vote at a significantly lower rate than Jews .
Self-defined ideology correlates closely with the voters ’ choice of supporting a right-wing , centrist , or left-wing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in recent years , winning a modest majority of seats for the last decade .
The trend seemed destined to continue : From around 2010 onward , young Israeli Jews between the ages of 18 to 34 became particularly right-wing , then grew up and populated the 35 to 55-year-old demographic .
The more dovish 55-and-up crowd became the outlier .
Self-defined left-wingers dwindled to just 12 to 15 percent of Jews and barely 20 percent of the total population .
The upward march of the right wing looked inexorable .
It wasn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drift among young people .
In addition to growing up during the Intifada , they were subject to a barrage of right-wing leadership hammering home the hopelessness of peace and championing nationalist ideals .
There is a demographic component , too : religious constituencies in Israel , both Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox but also “ traditional ” —moderately religious Jews are consistently and heavily right-wing .
Religious people tend to have many more children , boosting the ranks of the younger cohorts with a dependable source of right-wing voters .
These trends make the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s not only the right-wing bloc that looks stuck .
The ruling party , Likud , did increase its share from 30 seats in 2015 to 35 seats in April .
But Likud should have done even better in September , when it folded a small breakaway party , Kulanu , back into its ranks , theoretically giving it the four seats that party won in April .
Instead of winning 39 , it declined to 32 , and no poll so far shows an upward trend for Likud beyond a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ March could always bring surprises .
But the stagnation for the right wing in both ballots and polls suggests there is a ceiling for the right .
Just like the right-wing surge of the 2000s , a combination of issues , ideology , and demography could provide the explanation .
In the September elections , a small number of right-wingers were clearly fed up with Netanyahu ’ s lengthy and stormy term in power .
Some defected to the further-right , ultranationalist Yamina party or to the religious party Shas , which won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ April .
Some supported Lieberman , staking out a right-wing but anti-Netanyahu position ; his party gained three seats between April and September .
A small portion of Likud voters reported defecting to the centrist challenger Blue and White .
But the right-wing bloc ’ s apparent ceiling points to deeper trends , found mainly in demographics and sociology of religious Jews .
For years , demographers and pundits have predicted that the high birth rates of religious Israeli Jews would turn this group into an ever-larger minority and eventually a majority of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ average of four children per family , and the average for the ultra-Orthodox—known as haredim—hovers at around seven , according to the researchers Alex Weinreb and Nachum Blass at the Taub Center think tank .
Twenty years ago , my surveys of Jewish samples , weighted to official demographics , showed 6 percent were haredi and 10 percent who were what ’ s referred to as “ national religious.
” There should have been massive growth since then .
Instead , the most recent available data from Israel ’ s Central Bureau of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Jewish adults self-define as haredi , and another 14 percent as national religious .
This is growth , but it ’ s hardly the projected national takeover .
The Taub Center analysts note that , correspondingly , the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism ’ s vote share grew by 3.2 percent each year from 1999 to the 2015 elections , but not 4.3 percent , as demographics would have predicted .
This raises the question of where the missing religious and right-wing voters have gone .
The Taub Center study identifies religious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cause : The authors tally about 10 to 13 percent of ultra-Orthodox kids who leave their schools for less religious institutions , whether to religious but not ultra-Orthodox schools or to secular schools , by eighth grade .
About 20 percent of pupils in national religious schools leave by eighth grade—the large majority of them , and fully 21 percent of boys , are enrolled in secular schools by then , with much smaller movement in the opposite direction .
The trend continues as kids reach their early 20s .
The decline in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shift of political orientation .
The Taub Center report notes that haredi children who shift to non-haredi schools may well leave that religious community and cease voting for the associated right-wing parties as adults .
Of course , religious defectors could shift to secular right-wing parties without necessarily changing political sides .
But long-term electoral trends show that while the haredi and Orthodox population ’ s growth is slowing down , the right wing has failed to grow its electoral bloc .
In 2003 , the right-wing and religious parties won 69 seats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nationalist and often racist populism from the political elite and the general Israeli social environment , the best showing of the Israeli ideological right-wing parties over the last 10 years was only 67 seats ( in 2015 ) , and currently stands at 63 .
Prior to the September election , I met a woman in her late 20s who had grown up in one of the most hard-line West Bank settlements .
She and her husband became less religious in recent years , and she began to consider the need for greater @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public sphere .
Then she met a friend of friends who refused to drink wine from settlements , which shocked and offended her , but she slowly began hearing arguments , perspectives , and information about the conflict that she hadn ’ t considered before .
She voted for Likud in 2015 , but by April 2019 supported Hadash , a Jewish-Arab party representing the far-left of the political spectrum .
These days , I encounter people with similar stories everywhere ; among this woman ’ s eight siblings , three are no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there will be a definitive right-wing loss in March .
Anecdotes and slow shifts do not determine elections held within months of one another , and depending on the decision of one man , Lieberman , the right could still find itself victorious .
But if the long-term trends continue , Israel ’ s right might be past its prime .
In the current campaign , the author is consulting for the Joint List , a left-wing alliance of Arab-majority parties .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently had one of the best weeks of his career. He beamed beside U.S. President Donald Trump in late January as the two leaders released the U.S. vision for future Israeli-Palestinian relations; Netanyahu triumphantly declared that the one-sided plan authorized immediate Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently had one of the best weeks of his career. He beamed beside U.S. President Donald Trump in late January as the two leaders released the U.S. vision for future Israeli-Palestinian relations; Netanyahu triumphantly declared that the one-sided plan authorized immediate Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank.
The next day, Netanyahu secured Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pardon for a young Israeli woman languishing in a Russian prison, positioning himself as the redeemer of Israeli citizens in distress. Netanyahu then traveled to Uganda to meet another longtime national leader, Yoweri Museveni, burnishing his credentials as a prime minister expanding Israel’s ties around the world and especially in Africa, before disclosing his recent meeting with Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of Sudan to discuss normalizing relations with the traditionally hostile country.
The rapid-fire diplomatic achievements showcased Netanyahu’s finest quality in the eyes of many voters: his unrivalled savvy as an international statesman. Those who oppose Netanyahu gnashed their teeth, grumbling that he will surely triumph in Israel’s upcoming and unprecedented third election within one year.
The real question is not why the two ideological blocs are paralyzed but why they are even close.
But the polls tell a different story. Two weeks after Netanyahu’s wonderful week, horse-race surveys barely budged. Since the previous election in September 2019, nearly 60 simulated election polls have been published, as of this writing. In all but one, neither the right-wing group of parties that Netanyahu leads nor the center and left-wing parties that represent the de facto opposition reached a majority of 61 seats out of 120 needed to form a coalition government.
The polls show both ideological blocs winning only 55 to 58 seats (one recent outlier showed the opposition bloc at 59). Each bloc would still depend on a kingmaker party headed by Avigdor Lieberman, an erstwhile right-wing coalition fixture, to create a government. Lieberman has been polling at seven or eight seats—virtually no change from the eight seats he holds today. Hence the yearlong political stalemate.
But the real question is not why the two ideological blocs are paralyzed but why they are even close.
Israel famously shifted rightward during the Second Palestinian Intifada of 2000 to 2005, a trend that was cemented by the end of the 2000s. Young Jewish Israelis who came of age during the bloody years of the Second Intifada expressed particularly right-wing positions by the late 2000s. This finding held among young cohorts for the next decade and seemed to herald right-wing victories for years to come.
Instead, not only did the right wing fail to grow; over the last two election cycles, the number of Knesset seats won by the ideologically right-wing parties, including Lieberman’s, declined from 67 in 2015, to 65 in the April 2019 elections, to just 63 this past September. Despite Likud party primaries in December—which Netanyahu won handily—and the widespread coverage of the Trump plan, the dead heat of the ideological blocs has not budged in the polls.
Another trend during the Second Palestinian Intifada in the early 2000s was that Israeli Jewish left-wingers flocked to the center, according to self-definition in surveys I conducted. The right inched up from roughly 40 percent of Jewish voters to the 55 percent range today. At present, when Arab and Jewish citizens are weighted together, about half of the Israeli electorate self-identify as right-wing in surveys; just over 40 percent consider themselves centrist or left-wing combined (the remainder do not identify). Arab citizens are more left-identified, but they constitute less than 20 percent of Israeli adults and turn out to vote at a significantly lower rate than Jews.
Self-defined ideology correlates closely with the voters’ choice of supporting a right-wing, centrist, or left-wing party. Hence, right-wing parties prevailed in recent years, winning a modest majority of seats for the last decade.
The trend seemed destined to continue: From around 2010 onward, young Israeli Jews between the ages of 18 to 34 became particularly right-wing, then grew up and populated the 35 to 55-year-old demographic. The more dovish 55-and-up crowd became the outlier. Self-defined left-wingers dwindled to just 12 to 15 percent of Jews and barely 20 percent of the total population. The upward march of the right wing looked inexorable.
It wasn’t hard to explain the rightward drift among young people. In addition to growing up during the Intifada, they were subject to a barrage of right-wing leadership hammering home the hopelessness of peace and championing nationalist ideals.
There is a demographic component, too: religious constituencies in Israel, both Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox but also “traditional”—moderately religious Jews are consistently and heavily right-wing. Religious people tend to have many more children, boosting the ranks of the younger cohorts with a dependable source of right-wing voters.
These trends make the current poll paralysis even more surprising. It’s not only the right-wing bloc that looks stuck. The ruling party, Likud, did increase its share from 30 seats in 2015 to 35 seats in April. But Likud should have done even better in September, when it folded a small breakaway party, Kulanu, back into its ranks, theoretically giving it the four seats that party won in April. Instead of winning 39, it declined to 32, and no poll so far shows an upward trend for Likud beyond a seat or two.
The results in March could always bring surprises. But the stagnation for the right wing in both ballots and polls suggests there is a ceiling for the right. Just like the right-wing surge of the 2000s, a combination of issues, ideology, and demography could provide the explanation.
In the September elections, a small number of right-wingers were clearly fed up with Netanyahu’s lengthy and stormy term in power. Some defected to the further-right, ultranationalist Yamina party or to the religious party Shas, which won one more seat than it had in April. Some supported Lieberman, staking out a right-wing but anti-Netanyahu position; his party gained three seats between April and September. A small portion of Likud voters reported defecting to the centrist challenger Blue and White.
But the right-wing bloc’s apparent ceiling points to deeper trends, found mainly in demographics and sociology of religious Jews. For years, demographers and pundits have predicted that the high birth rates of religious Israeli Jews would turn this group into an ever-larger minority and eventually a majority of Israeli society.
Orthodox Jews have an average of four children per family, and the average for the ultra-Orthodox—known as haredim—hovers at around seven, according to the researchers Alex Weinreb and Nachum Blass at the Taub Center think tank. Twenty years ago, my surveys of Jewish samples, weighted to official demographics, showed 6 percent were haredi and 10 percent who were what’s referred to as “national religious.” There should have been massive growth since then. Instead, the most recent available data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics from 2016 shows that 9 percent of Jewish adults self-define as haredi, and another 14 percent as national religious. This is growth, but it’s hardly the projected national takeover.
The Taub Center analysts note that, correspondingly, the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism’s vote share grew by 3.2 percent each year from 1999 to the 2015 elections, but not 4.3 percent, as demographics would have predicted. This raises the question of where the missing religious and right-wing voters have gone.
The Taub Center study identifies religious attrition during school years as a main cause: The authors tally about 10 to 13 percent of ultra-Orthodox kids who leave their schools for less religious institutions, whether to religious but not ultra-Orthodox schools or to secular schools, by eighth grade. About 20 percent of pupils in national religious schools leave by eighth grade—the large majority of them, and fully 21 percent of boys, are enrolled in secular schools by then, with much smaller movement in the opposite direction. The trend continues as kids reach their early 20s.
The decline in religious observance is frequently accompanied by a shift of political orientation. The Taub Center report notes that haredi children who shift to non-haredi schools may well leave that religious community and cease voting for the associated right-wing parties as adults.
Of course, religious defectors could shift to secular right-wing parties without necessarily changing political sides. But long-term electoral trends show that while the haredi and Orthodox population’s growth is slowing down, the right wing has failed to grow its electoral bloc. In 2003, the right-wing and religious parties won 69 seats combined. Despite the last decade of nationalist and often racist populism from the political elite and the general Israeli social environment, the best showing of the Israeli ideological right-wing parties over the last 10 years was only 67 seats (in 2015), and currently stands at 63.
Prior to the September election, I met a woman in her late 20s who had grown up in one of the most hard-line West Bank settlements. She and her husband became less religious in recent years, and she began to consider the need for greater separation of religion and state in the public sphere. Then she met a friend of friends who refused to drink wine from settlements, which shocked and offended her, but she slowly began hearing arguments, perspectives, and information about the conflict that she hadn’t considered before. She voted for Likud in 2015, but by April 2019 supported Hadash, a Jewish-Arab party representing the far-left of the political spectrum. These days, I encounter people with similar stories everywhere; among this woman’s eight siblings, three are no longer religious.
None of this means there will be a definitive right-wing loss in March. Anecdotes and slow shifts do not determine elections held within months of one another, and depending on the decision of one man, Lieberman, the right could still find itself victorious. But if the long-term trends continue, Israel’s right might be past its prime.
In the current campaign, the author is consulting for the Joint List, a left-wing alliance of Arab-majority parties.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-14--Russia Knows Just Who to Blame for the Coronavirus: America

Russia Knows Just Who to Blame for the Coronavirus : America Wednesday marked the deadliest day yet in the battle with coronavirus , with 242 deaths reported in Hubei province , the epicenter of the outbreak .
As the virus has spread around the world , so to have conspiracy theories cropping up everywhere from India to Australia .
But in Russia the misinformation has been particularly pointed .
Russia ’ s spin doctors have capitalized on the fear and confusion of the epidemic to point the blame at the United States , following a well-established pattern of previous Russian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plot by the KGB to paint HIV as a U.S. biological weapon .
Russia is certainly not alone in promulgating conspiracy theories about the virus .
“ At the WHO we ’ re not just battling the virus , we ’ re also battling the trolls and conspiracy theories that undermine our response , ” said World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus .
But in Russia these theories are appearing on prominent mainstream news discussion shows such as Big Game and Time Will Tell on Channel 1 , rather than just being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In late January , the firebrand leader of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia party told a Moscow radio station that he thought coronavirus was an American bioweapon or a big plot by pharmaceutical companies to get richer .
Russian efforts to undermine Western countries long predates the outbreak of coronavirus .
The nature of the messaging and their singling out of the United States are typical of the Kremlin ’ s disinformation playbook , which loyal editors and producers are well familiar with—and know the political necessity of sticking to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that appear across the Russian media , from fringe websites to prime-time television , is that the virus is the product of U.S. labs , intended to kneecap China ’ s economic development .
Some articles have flirted with the idea that Bill Gates or Kremlin nemesis George Soros might have had a hand in the outbreak .
In one of the more bizarre turns , a host on Russia ’ s state-funded Channel 1 floated the idea that the name “ coronavirus , ” is a veiled reference to its American origins @ @ @ @ @ @ @ handed out crowns at beauty pageants , and corona means crown in Latin .
( Coronaviruses are , in fact , a well-established group of viruses whose name is a reference to their shape . )
There is , however , no agreement between Russia ’ s propagandists about who foretold the virus , with some claiming it was Nostradamus , others say it was the blind Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga , or maybe even Stephen Hawking .
The Russian messaging fits a now well-established pattern in that it doesn ’ t look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ truth .
That would take effort , planning , and persuasion .
Modern-day Russian propaganda has instead been described by the Rand Corp. as a “ firehose of falsehood , ” a steady stream of underdeveloped , sometimes contradictory conspiracy theories intended to exhaust and confuse viewers , making them question the very notion of objective truth itself .
Right now , the main audience is largely domestic , with a sprinkling of conspiratorial reports across the different language services of Sputnik , the more tabloid of Russia ’ s international broadcasters .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ prominently on English-language Russian government-backed international broadcasters such as RT and Sputnik , however , according to Bret Schafer , a fellow at the German Marshall Fund ’ s Alliance for Securing Democracy who studies disinformation .
While these channels have historically played around the edges of conspiracy theories , “ they still want that veneer of being a legit international broadcaster , ” Schafer said .
Russian efforts to point a finger at the United States recall memories of one of the Soviet Union ’ s most audacious and destructive disinformation campaigns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infection rates began to rise in the 1980s , the KGB began a whisper campaign code-named Operation Infektion to portray the virus as a U.S. biological weapon in a bid to undermine Washington ’ s standing in the world .
“ The goal of these measures is to create a favorable opinion for us abroad that this disease is the result of secret experiments with a new type of biological weapon by the secret services of the USA and the Pentagon that spun out of control , ” a KGB colonel wrote in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Bulgaria , a Soviet ally .
The story was first planted in Patriot , an obscure pro-Soviet newspaper in India that had been established with the help of the KGB .
In 1983 , the newspaper ran an anonymous letter that claimed to be from an American scientist under the headline , “ AIDS may invade India : Mystery disease caused by US experiments.
” Despite the shocking headline , the letter went unnoticed in India , where the first case of HIV wasn ’ t discovered for another two years .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Operation Infektion lay dormant until 1985 , when it was revisited by an extensive article melting together fact , fiction , and fear in a Soviet cultural newspaper known to have ties with the KGB .
It cited the original Patriot article as a source .
A Soviet-East German scientist was then recruited to write a paper that “ proved ” that HIV was a U.S. concoction .
From there , the story rapidly picked up speed and by 1987 had spread to the media of over 80 countries and appeared in established @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the coronavirus disinformation , Soviet propaganda alleged that HIV was an “ ethnic weapon ” that could only affect members of certain racial groups .
Modern-day Russian disinformation campaigns follow a similar model , said Schafer of the Alliance for Securing Democracy .
But while it took years for Operation Infektion to make it into the world ’ s media , the internet has allowed disinformation campaigns to go global in just a matter of weeks .
Stories are often seeded on obscure news sites before being picked up and re-reported by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ source is lost .
“ Each outlet is just responding to the last story , ” Schafer said .
Russia ’ s disinformation campaigns often rely on a kernel of truth that is then blown up and distorted beyond recognition .
Soviet and Russian fearmongering around viruses capitalizes on genuine U.S. experiments with bioweapons in the 1950s and ‘ 60s that saw researchers spray unsuspecting cities with chemicals , release bacteria into the New York City subway , and experiment with mosquitos as a way to intentionally spread disease .
A more obscure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in recent years has taken aim at the Lugar Lab , a U.S.-backed public health research center in Tbilisi , Georgia , which pro-Kremlin outlets have sought to portray as a U.S. bioweapons factory on Russia ’ s doorstep .
Undermining trust in the lab serves to drive a wedge between the United States and closely allied Georgia , which Russia fought a short but bitter war with in 2008 .
Disinformation about the facility intensifies during periods of heightened tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi , or when Georgia looks set to move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Buziashvili , a Caucasus research assistant for the Atlantic Council ’ s Digital Forensic Research Lab .
Yet while the Russian media has speculated wildly about the virus , the Russian government has taken the threat seriously , closing its land borders with China and checking the temperatures of reporters and officials at events attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin .
Two people in Russia were diagnosed with the virus , having contracted it on trips to China , but they are reported to have since recovered .
While disinformation doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ response to the virus , the lasting danger may be in its continued erosion of trust in the notion of truth itself .
“ Where I do think is it ’ s unhelpful is that it flies in the face of facts and science , ” said Schafer .
“ The real danger is more the impact it has on trust in information ”

Wednesday marked the deadliest day yet in the battle with coronavirus, with 242 deaths reported in Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak. As the virus has spread around the world, so to have conspiracy theories cropping up everywhere from India to Australia.
Wednesday marked the deadliest day yet in the battle with coronavirus, with 242 deaths reported in Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak. As the virus has spread around the world, so to have conspiracy theories cropping up everywhere from India to Australia.
But in Russia the misinformation has been particularly pointed. Russia’s spin doctors have capitalized on the fear and confusion of the epidemic to point the blame at the United States, following a well-established pattern of previous Russian disinformation campaigns and evoking a Cold War-era plot by the KGB to paint HIV as a U.S. biological weapon.
Russia is certainly not alone in promulgating conspiracy theories about the virus. “At the WHO we’re not just battling the virus, we’re also battling the trolls and conspiracy theories that undermine our response,” said World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. But in Russia these theories are appearing on prominent mainstream news discussion shows such as Big Game and Time Will Tell on Channel 1, rather than just being confined to squalid corners of the internet. In late January, the firebrand leader of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia party told a Moscow radio station that he thought coronavirus was an American bioweapon or a big plot by pharmaceutical companies to get richer.
Russian efforts to undermine Western countries long predates the outbreak of coronavirus. The nature of the messaging and their singling out of the United States are typical of the Kremlin’s disinformation playbook, which loyal editors and producers are well familiar with—and know the political necessity of sticking to.
The overarching theme of the stories that appear across the Russian media, from fringe websites to prime-time television, is that the virus is the product of U.S. labs, intended to kneecap China’s economic development. Some articles have flirted with the idea that Bill Gates or Kremlin nemesis George Soros might have had a hand in the outbreak. In one of the more bizarre turns, a host on Russia’s state-funded Channel 1 floated the idea that the name “coronavirus,” is a veiled reference to its American origins, because U.S. President Donald Trump once handed out crowns at beauty pageants, and corona means crown in Latin. (Coronaviruses are, in fact, a well-established group of viruses whose name is a reference to their shape.)
There is, however, no agreement between Russia’s propagandists about who foretold the virus, with some claiming it was Nostradamus, others say it was the blind Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga, or maybe even Stephen Hawking.
The Russian messaging fits a now well-established pattern in that it doesn’t look to persuade audiences of a single alternative truth. That would take effort, planning, and persuasion. Modern-day Russian propaganda has instead been described by the Rand Corp. as a “firehose of falsehood,” a steady stream of underdeveloped, sometimes contradictory conspiracy theories intended to exhaust and confuse viewers, making them question the very notion of objective truth itself.
Right now, the main audience is largely domestic, with a sprinkling of conspiratorial reports across the different language services of Sputnik, the more tabloid of Russia’s international broadcasters. The conspiracy theories haven’t featured prominently on English-language Russian government-backed international broadcasters such as RT and Sputnik, however, according to Bret Schafer, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy who studies disinformation. While these channels have historically played around the edges of conspiracy theories, “they still want that veneer of being a legit international broadcaster,” Schafer said.
Russian efforts to point a finger at the United States recall memories of one of the Soviet Union’s most audacious and destructive disinformation campaigns of the Cold War.
As HIV infection rates began to rise in the 1980s, the KGB began a whisper campaign code-named Operation Infektion to portray the virus as a U.S. biological weapon in a bid to undermine Washington’s standing in the world. “The goal of these measures is to create a favorable opinion for us abroad that this disease is the result of secret experiments with a new type of biological weapon by the secret services of the USA and the Pentagon that spun out of control,” a KGB colonel wrote in a top-secret telegram to the intelligence services of Bulgaria, a Soviet ally.
The story was first planted in Patriot, an obscure pro-Soviet newspaper in India that had been established with the help of the KGB. In 1983, the newspaper ran an anonymous letter that claimed to be from an American scientist under the headline, “AIDS may invade India: Mystery disease caused by US experiments.” Despite the shocking headline, the letter went unnoticed in India, where the first case of HIV wasn’t discovered for another two years.
After a false start in India, Operation Infektion lay dormant until 1985, when it was revisited by an extensive article melting together fact, fiction, and fear in a Soviet cultural newspaper known to have ties with the KGB. It cited the original Patriot article as a source. A Soviet-East German scientist was then recruited to write a paper that “proved” that HIV was a U.S. concoction. From there, the story rapidly picked up speed and by 1987 had spread to the media of over 80 countries and appeared in established newspapers in the United Kingdom. As with the coronavirus disinformation, Soviet propaganda alleged that HIV was an “ethnic weapon” that could only affect members of certain racial groups.
Modern-day Russian disinformation campaigns follow a similar model, said Schafer of the Alliance for Securing Democracy. But while it took years for Operation Infektion to make it into the world’s media, the internet has allowed disinformation campaigns to go global in just a matter of weeks. Stories are often seeded on obscure news sites before being picked up and re-reported by outlets of increasing magnitude until the original source is lost. “Each outlet is just responding to the last story,” Schafer said.
Russia’s disinformation campaigns often rely on a kernel of truth that is then blown up and distorted beyond recognition. Soviet and Russian fearmongering around viruses capitalizes on genuine U.S. experiments with bioweapons in the 1950s and ‘60s that saw researchers spray unsuspecting cities with chemicals, release bacteria into the New York City subway, and experiment with mosquitos as a way to intentionally spread disease.
A more obscure but no less potent Russian disinformation campaign in recent years has taken aim at the Lugar Lab, a U.S.-backed public health research center in Tbilisi, Georgia, which pro-Kremlin outlets have sought to portray as a U.S. bioweapons factory on Russia’s doorstep. Undermining trust in the lab serves to drive a wedge between the United States and closely allied Georgia, which Russia fought a short but bitter war with in 2008.
Disinformation about the facility intensifies during periods of heightened tensions between Moscow and Tbilisi, or when Georgia looks set to move closer to Western institutions, said Eto Buziashvili, a Caucasus research assistant for the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.
Yet while the Russian media has speculated wildly about the virus, the Russian government has taken the threat seriously, closing its land borders with China and checking the temperatures of reporters and officials at events attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Two people in Russia were diagnosed with the virus, having contracted it on trips to China, but they are reported to have since recovered. While disinformation doesn’t appear to have hamstrung Russia’s response to the virus, the lasting danger may be in its continued erosion of trust in the notion of truth itself.
“Where I do think is it’s unhelpful is that it flies in the face of facts and science,” said Schafer. “The real danger is more the impact it has on trust in information”


foreignpolicy--2020-02-16--The U.S. and Europe Are Speaking a Different Language on China

The U.S. and Europe Are Speaking a Different Language on China MUNICH—The Americans came on strong .
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned America ’ s allies at the Munich Security Conference that it was time to “ wake up ” to the Chinese threat .
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the West was “ winning ” the conflict with China .
And a senior Trump administration official said Europe was “ missing the point ” if it did not see China through an “ us against them ” lens .
The Europeans also heard from a Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raging coronavirus was an “ opportunity ” to turn the Chinese people against their government .
And they listened as Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described Chinese telecommunications group Huawei as an “ insidious form of aggression.
” But most of these warnings fell on deaf ears at the three-day gathering , which ended Sunday and , as it does each year , brought leaders , diplomats and the world ’ s top foreign policy thinkers to a crammed hotel in the Bavarian capital for frank debates about global challenges .
What all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discussions about China revealed most was that Washington and Europe are speaking a completely different language when it comes to China .
And so long as they do , developing a transatlantic agenda to respond to China ’ s rise will be very difficult , perhaps impossible .
In the coming months , President Donald Trump could single-handedly torpedo prospects for such cooperation if he follows through on his longstanding threat to impose tariffs on European cars .
This goes to the heart of another major obstacle to a common agenda : the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rely on what the U.S. administration says and does .
Transatlantic trust has steadily eroded since Trump came into office and pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord and Iran nuclear deal .
His decision last October to abruptly withdraw U.S. troops from Syria without alerting allies first deeply unsettled European capitals .
And his repeated assertions that Europe is far worse than China are hard to reconcile with Pompeo ’ s reassurances that all is well in the West and Esper ’ s demands that Europe join forces with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the sense of U.S. policy disarray was reinforced when U.S. officials effectively admitted that they had been bluffing with their repeated threats to rein in intelligence sharing with Britain and other European countries that choose Huawei for their 5G network .
Implausibly , they also denied every having issued such threats .
“ We ’ ve learned that you can ’ t believe everything , or possibly anything , they say , ” a European diplomat said .
The hosts listened to the U.S. warnings about China politely .
But even the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ veteran German diplomat , couldn ’ t help but push back against the American torrent , reminding the audience gathered in the Bayerischer Hof that China was in the midst of tackling the coronavirus , an epidemic of historic proportions , with implications for the entire world .
“ I think China deserves some compassion , cooperation , some words of support and encouragement rather than only criticism , ” he said .
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier kicked off the conference by lumping the United States together with China and Russia as major @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ally , the United States of America , under the current administration , rejects the very concept of the international community , ” he said .
Europe and the United States do agree on what they don ’ t like about China ’ s development under President Xi Jinping .
That includes a Chinese market that has not opened up to foreign investment in the way Xi promised over three years ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos .
It includes the emergence of a dystopian surveillance state that is now being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America .
It includes the detention of over a million Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang .
And it includes China ’ s intimidation tactics in Hong Kong , Taiwan and beyond .
They also agree on the need to push back .
Both sides have responded to a flurry of Chinese acquisitions by introducing tougher restrictions on Chinese investment .
Both have condemned China ’ s actions in Xinjiang .
Both are talking about muscular new industrial policies .
Where they don ’ t agree is on how to define this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this will be crucial if they are to move beyond the loose cooperation on China that exists today—including within NATO—and develop the kind of transatlantic agenda that people were buzzing about in Munich .
A first step would be for the Americans to tone down their “ with us or against us ” rhetoric .
As Reinhard Bütikofer , the veteran China-watcher from the German Greens party , told Foreign Policy , officials in Washington still talk down to the Europeans on China , as if they didn ’ t “ get it.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ finger , the less the Europeans listen , ” he said .
But it will also require a more concerted effort from Europe to forge a common , coherent and firm policy towards China after a year that has been less than encouraging on that front .
Since the EU declared China a “ systemic rival ” in March of 2019 , the momentum behind a united European policy has stalled , and Germany , its largest member state , deserves its share of the blame .
This starts with Chancellor Angela Merkel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Beijing , an approach that has driven her open-door policy towards Chinese telecommunications group Huawei and led her government to break with Britain , France and other European capitals last month and refuse to congratulate Taiwan ’ s President Tsai Ing-Wen on her re-election .
Merkel ’ s plan to host a summit in Leipzig in September that brings together Xi and all 27 EU leaders is seen critically in Brussels and a number of other European capitals .
She is pushing China to clinch a comprehensive investment agreement with the EU and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change and promote economic development in Africa .
But talks with Beijing are moving slowly and the Coronavirus could doom prospects of a substantive result in Leipzig .
“ If Germany is not careful this meeting could end up undermining , instead of reinforcing , European unity on China , ” said Mikko Huotari , director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin .
“ It can ’ t be allowed to turn into an elaborate photo op for Xi two months before the U.S. election.
” Until Europe gets its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made clear in Munich , it will be difficult to achieve much progress with the United States .
The French president has tried twice—during a 2018 visit to Washington and at the G7 summit in Biarritz last year—to convince Trump to work more closely with Europe on China , only to be rejected both times .
But if Europe must develop a more joined-up strategy to achieve transatlantic convergence , then Washington must find a way to speak credibly , and with a different tone , towards its allies .

MUNICH—The Americans came on strong. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned America’s allies at the Munich Security Conference that it was time to “wake up” to the Chinese threat. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the West was “winning” the conflict with China. And a senior Trump administration official said Europe was “missing the point” if it did not see China through an “us against them” lens.
MUNICH—The Americans came on strong. Defense Secretary Mark Esper warned America’s allies at the Munich Security Conference that it was time to “wake up” to the Chinese threat. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the West was “winning” the conflict with China. And a senior Trump administration official said Europe was “missing the point” if it did not see China through an “us against them” lens.
The Europeans also heard from a Republican member of the U.S. Congress that the raging coronavirus was an “opportunity” to turn the Chinese people against their government. And they listened as Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the Chinese telecommunications group Huawei as an “insidious form of aggression.”
But most of these warnings fell on deaf ears at the three-day gathering, which ended Sunday and, as it does each year, brought leaders, diplomats, and the world’s top foreign-policy thinkers to a crammed hotel in the Bavarian capital for frank debates about global challenges. What all the panels, breakfast meetings, and side discussions about China revealed most was that Washington and Europe are speaking a completely different language when it comes to China. And so long as they do, developing a trans-Atlantic agenda to respond to China’s rise will be very difficult, perhaps impossible.
In the coming months, U.S. President Donald Trump could single-handedly torpedo prospects for such cooperation if he follows through on his long-standing threat to impose tariffs on European cars. This goes to the heart of another major obstacle to a common agenda: the vanishing sense in Europe that it can rely on what the U.S. administration says and does.
Trans-Atlantic trust has steadily eroded since Trump came into office and pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord and Iran nuclear deal. His decision last October to abruptly withdraw U.S. troops from Syria without alerting allies first deeply unsettled European capitals. And his repeated assertions that Europe is far worse than China are hard to reconcile with Pompeo’s reassurances that all is well in the West and Esper’s demands that Europe join forces with the United States against China.
In Munich, the sense of U.S. policy disarray was reinforced when U.S. officials effectively admitted that they had been bluffing with their repeated threats to rein in intelligence sharing with Britain and other European countries that choose Huawei for their 5G networks. Implausibly, they also denied ever having issued such threats. “We’ve learned that you can’t believe everything, or possibly anything, they say,” a European diplomat said.
The hosts listened to the U.S. warnings about China politely. But even the conference host, Wolfgang Ischinger, a veteran German diplomat, couldn’t help but push back against the American torrent, reminding the audience gathered in the Bayerischer Hof that China was in the midst of tackling the coronavirus, an epidemic of historic proportions, with implications for the entire world.
“I think China deserves some compassion, cooperation, some words of support, and encouragement rather than only criticism,” he said.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier kicked off the conference by lumping the United States together with China and Russia as major challenges for Europe. “Our closest ally, the United States of America, under the current administration, rejects the very concept of the international community,” he said.
Europe and the United States do agree on what they don’t like about China’s development under President Xi Jinping. That includes a Chinese market that has not opened up to foreign investment in the way Xi promised over three years ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It includes the emergence of a dystopian surveillance state that is now being exported to countries in Africa, Latin America, and beyond. It includes the detention of over a million Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang. And it includes China’s intimidation tactics in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere.
They also agree on the need to push back. Both sides have responded to a flurry of Chinese acquisitions by introducing tougher restrictions on Chinese investment. Both have condemned China’s actions in Xinjiang. Both are talking about muscular new industrial policies.
Where they don’t agree is on how to define this competition. And in the end, this will be crucial if they are to move beyond the loose cooperation on China that exists today—including within NATO—and develop the kind of trans-Atlantic agenda that people were buzzing about in Munich.
A first step would be for the Americans to tone down their “with us or against us” rhetoric. As Reinhard Bütikofer, a veteran China watcher from the German Greens party, told Foreign Policy, officials in Washington still talk down to the Europeans on China, as if they didn’t “get it.” “The more they wag their finger, the less the Europeans listen,” he said.
But it will also require a more concerted effort from Europe to forge a common, coherent, and firm policy toward China after a year that has been less than encouraging on that front. Since the EU declared China a “systemic rival” in March 2019, the momentum behind a united European policy has stalled, and Germany, its largest member state, deserves its share of the blame.
This starts with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s reluctance to offend or anger Beijing, an approach that has driven her open-door policy toward Huawei and led her government to break with Britain, France, and other European capitals last month and refuse to congratulate Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on her reelection.
Merkel’s plan to host a summit in Leipzig in September that brings together Xi and all 27 EU leaders is seen critically in Brussels and a number of other European capitals. She is pushing China to clinch a comprehensive investment agreement with the EU and agree to closer cooperation to fight climate change and promote economic development in Africa. But talks with Beijing are moving slowly, and the coronavirus could doom prospects of a substantive result in Leipzig.
“If Germany is not careful, this meeting could end up undermining, instead of reinforcing, European unity on China,” said Mikko Huotari, the director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin. “It can’t be allowed to turn into an elaborate photo-op for Xi two months before the U.S. election.”
Until Europe gets its own ducks in a row, French President Emmanuel Macron made clear in Munich, it will be difficult to achieve much progress with the United States. Macron has tried twice—during a 2018 visit to Washington and at the G-7 summit in Biarritz last year—to convince Trump to work more closely with Europe on China, only to be rejected both times.
But if Europe must develop a more joined-up strategy to achieve trans-Atlantic convergence, then Washington must find a way to speak credibly, and with a different tone, toward its allies.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-16--Taiwan’s Military Is a Hollow Shell

Taiwan’s Military Is a Hollow Shell

As threats of military aggression from China grow , the island nation of Taiwan needs a credible military deterrent more than ever .
But Taiwan ’ s military is in a crisis it can barely admit exists .
Even as the military refits itself with flashy U.S. arms purchases , such as M1 Abrams tanks and F-16V fighter jets , its front-line units are hollowed out , and the entire reserve system is so dysfunctional that few experts or serving military personnel believe it can make a real military contribution in the event of a war .
These problems are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if not outright ignored , by Taiwan ’ s political leadership—and there is no clear plan to solve the crisis .
On paper , Taiwan ’ s Ministry of National Defense ( MND ) has 215,000 budgeted positions among all branches , of which 188,000 are soldiers and the rest civilian employees .
Only 153,000 of those positions were filled in 2018—just 81 percent of the personnel the military should have .
But even that number doesn ’ t tell the complete story .
According to a Taiwanese army lieutenant colonel in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his last name , Lin , to be used , all the army ’ s front-line combat units he knows of—including armor , mechanized infantry , and artillery troops—currently have effective manpower levels of between 60 and 80 percent .
This figure is consistent with Taiwanese media reports , which cite MND figures provided to Taiwan ’ s parliament , the Legislative Yuan , acknowledging that few front-line units have more than 80 percent of their positions filled .
“ That number might not seem so bad until you realize it means at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ useless in a war because there ’ s no one to man them , ” said Lin , who most recently served as a battalion commander within one of army ’ s armor brigades .
The personnel shortfalls are a clear consequence of the ill-executed transition from conscription to an all-volunteer military over the past few years .
It was a political decision made during Ma Ying-jeou ’ s administration and continued by current President Tsai Ing-wen , despite their coming from different parties .
And despite Tsai ’ s tough rhetoric about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bid , and her vow to thwart Chinese aggression , she has shown no sign of stepping in to fix the problems .
Universal conscription is mandated in Article 20 of the Taiwanese Constitution , as in several other countries that face an imminent military threat , such as South Korea or Israel ( where women are included but some minorities excluded ) .
For some years , before 2017 , the term of conscription service in Taiwan was just a year , which was already short compared with South Korea ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ branch , or Israel ’ s 32 months .
Most officers felt that the single year of service wasn ’ t enough for the military to utilize draftees ’ full potential but enough to at least turn a recruit into an average soldier .
But 2017 ’ s changes slashed the conscription period to just four months .
Most draftees serve even less , as up to two weeks can be deducted if they ’ ve completed military training classes in high school and college .
The four-month conscripts typically receive five weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to field units for more specialty training .
But they ’ re more a burden than an aid , not treated seriously by career or noncommissioned officers as their short stays mean they are seen as guests rather than soldiers .
“ By design , they don ’ t participate in any field exercise or combat readiness training anyway , ” Lin said .
“ We just tell them to stay safe and don ’ t get into trouble .
It ’ s basically a summer camp.
” Several individuals who recently completed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interviews .
One of the stated aims of the all-volunteer reform was to professionalize the service , staffing the military ’ s rank and file with a cadre of career-oriented volunteer soldiers who usually serve a minimum term of four years .
Despite MND ’ s talking point that each year ’ s recruitment drive always hits the set targets and brings with it a fresh crop of volunteers , the rushed transition to an all-volunteer military has clearly damaged the Taiwanese army ’ s manpower pool—especially on the front line .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ troops is simple .
Unlike conscripts , who could be assigned entirely based on to the needs of the military , volunteer soldiers among the lower enlisted ranks can and usually do seek transfers to units considered desirable—rear-echelon troops such as training schools , garrison units , signal corps , and so forth .
Although transfer opportunities are limited , soldiers almost always find a way .
This means that armor , mechanized infantry , and artillery units are always in desperate shortage of enlisted soldiers—even though they are expected to be the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the formidable People ’ s Liberation Army ( PLA ) ground force if it comes ashore .
A popular yet cynical explanation as to why these Taiwanese soldiers dislike front-line units simply postulates a common aversion to tougher training and combat duty .
But interviews with several enlisted ranks painted a more complex picture .
Most complained that the food and living conditions left much to be desired—front-line soldiers must split their time between bases and on field exercises .
That , on top of the fact they have far more weapons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and maintain , means these posts are perceived as more work for little reward .
The existing shortages also cause an even heavier burden of work on the soldiers left—prompting more of them to put in for transfers .
Polls show varied public opinion on these issues .
In 2015 , one legislator cited a poll that showed almost 60 support for a return to conscription .
In response , the MND cited another poll that claimed 60 percent were satisfied with the transition to all-volunteer forces .
At the end of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down to how the question is phrased by the pollsters .
No matter which poll you believe , it is clear that the two successive presidents over the past decade , Ma and Tsai , had little or no political interest in the political hassle of bringing back the longer conscription length , despite the evidence of the damage being done to military readiness .
Even Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu , who lost in the recent presidential election representing the Kuomintang ( KMT ) party , also declined to advocate a complete return @ @ @ @ @ @ @ approach ” that he did not specify the details for .
Chieh Chung , a senior assistant research fellow at Taiwan ’ s National Policy Foundation , commented that the personnel shortage is a problem well documented by the military itself but has never entered their calculations .
Chung , who has worked for several years in Taiwan ’ s parliament as a legislative advisor focusing on defense issues , said the military ’ s own exercises and computer simulations always assume all units would have at least 90 percent fighting strength at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might have been true in the conscription era but is a far cry from reality today .
Several officers who have participated in the computer-simulated phase of the annual Han Kuang exercises in recent years also pointed out this obvious flaw .
That raises the question of how many of the Taiwanese military ’ s simulations of its own ability to hold off a Chinese invasion are based on now purely hypothetical soldiers .
These personnel issues would not be so serious if the military had a functional reserve force .
On paper @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be more than 2 million strong .
Once activated , these reservists are supposed to fill existing shortages across regular field units , and reinforce casualties , while creating fresh reserve formations from virtually nothing to bolster overall defense , according to the Reserve Command ’ s own words .
Just about everything in these talking points is pure fantasy , according to James Huang , a retired army lieutenant colonel who has since become a prolific writer on defense issues and military history , with many followers on Facebook .
Huang @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” any of Taiwan ’ s reserves would reinforce existing field units , despite the proven success of the system elsewhere in the world , especially Israel .
That ’ s the case regardless of whether the reservist is a conscript with four months ’ training or a five-year veteran paratrooper just discharged from the special forces .
The established practice of Taiwan ’ s Reserve Command , according to Huang , is not to send reservists back to their previous units but to lump everyone together into the newly activated reserve infantry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vehicles , and no equipment except rifles ( often older types ) and are led by called-up reservist officers who have little experience commanding such ad hoc units .
In theory , all soldiers and officers ( both conscripts and volunteers ) are automatically enrolled as reservists on being discharged from active service .
They are called up at most once every two years by the Reserve Command to receive refresher training for five to seven days .
In practice , such training rarely consists of more than just basic drills and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A reservist corporal who was a veteran M60 tank gunner , for example , will be activated only as an infantry rifleman even if one of the army ’ s active armor brigades has tanks sitting unmanned in the base .
“ If we go to war , the soldiers currently on roster are all that we have , ” said Lin , the lieutenant colonel , who pointed out that he had never heard of any plan to reinforce units he commanded with reserve soldiers .
“ At best , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are supposed to fight until everyone is dead or can ’ t fight anymore.
” And even if Taiwan somehow manages to muster dozens of fresh reserve infantry brigades before Chinese troops come ashore , Huang said they would be little more than cannon fodder consider how poorly the military has trained them in peacetime and the fact that there is not even a clear plan to fit them into the overall defense strategy .
“ Show me 2 million rifles in the stockpile , and I will believe Taiwan has a 2-million-strong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The military can ’ t even tell how many reserve troops they will need to activate across Taiwan , let alone where and how to deploy them when the shooting starts across the Taiwan Strait.
” Other military officers and defense experts confirmed the problems Huang cited .
According to Jyun-yi Lee , an assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research , a recently created think tank affiliated with Taiwan ’ s MND : “ It ’ s indeed clear to most of us that Taiwan ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stands , will not contribute much to the military ’ s fighting strength , if at all .
No one is pretending soldiers trained by four-month conscription will be effective .
They exist for political , not military , reasons .
Politicians don ’ t want to bring back longer conscription or tougher reserve training , as they fear doing so might make them unpopular.
” To its credit , Taiwan ’ s MND finally began an experimental “ reserve warrior program ” in recent years that seeks to put skilled veterans back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up to a few days per month .
Some 214 veterans were said to have signed up in 2019 , which is obviously too low to function as a regular reserve force .
The program so far seems to matter more to the air force , as it finally provides a channel for retired military pilots to fly again , according to one air force lieutenant familiar with the matter .
So far one F-16 pilot and one C-130 pilot reportedly have signed up for the program .
Former KMT legislator Hsu “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials have privately expressed dismal assessments regarding Taiwan ’ s current force level and reserve system .
Hsu quoted Pentagon officials as saying in 2019 that Taiwan ’ s buying of new F-16s and M1 Abram tanks by the Tsai administration was a “ nice political gesture ” yet they will hardly matter in a war when Taiwan can not even man them properly in peacetime .
But saying the problem out loud is a tough task in itself when both Taiwan ’ s international allies and the Taiwanese public want to hear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a time when China ’ s propaganda machine is running at full speed to portrait Taiwan ’ s military as both incompetent and ineffective in the face of the PLA ’ s rapid expansion and modernization .
“ You have to acknowledge the existence of the problems before you can fix them , ” said James Huang , who noted that some among the military community object to his outspokenness , though he decided to speak on record for this report anyway .
“ It ’ s about time someone starts telling @ @ @ @

As threats of military aggression from China grow , the island nation of Taiwan needs a credible military deterrent more than ever. But Taiwan’s military is in a crisis it can barely admit exists.
As threats of military aggression from China grow, the island nation of Taiwan needs a credible military deterrent more than ever. But Taiwan’s military is in a crisis it can barely admit exists.
Even as the military refits itself with flashy U.S. arms purchases, such as M1 Abrams tanks and F-16V fighter jets, its front-line units are hollowed out, and the entire reserve system is so dysfunctional that few experts or serving military personnel believe it can make a real military contribution in the event of a war. These problems are well documented but continue to be downplayed, if not outright ignored, by Taiwan’s political leadership—and there is no clear plan to solve the crisis.
On paper, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) has 215,000 budgeted positions among all branches, of which 188,000 are soldiers and the rest civilian employees. Only 153,000 of those positions were filled in 2018—just 81 percent of the personnel the military should have. But even that number doesn’t tell the complete story.
According to a Taiwanese army lieutenant colonel in active service, who asked for only his last name, Lin, to be used, all the army’s front-line combat units he knows of—including armor, mechanized infantry, and artillery troops—currently have effective manpower levels of between 60 and 80 percent. This figure is consistent with Taiwanese media reports, which cite MND figures provided to Taiwan’s parliament, the Legislative Yuan, acknowledging that few front-line units have more than 80 percent of their positions filled.
“That number might not seem so bad until you realize it means at least a third of your tanks are useless in a war because there’s no one to man them,” said Lin, who most recently served as a battalion commander within one of army’s armor brigades.
The personnel shortfalls are a clear consequence of the ill-executed transition from conscription to an all-volunteer military over the past few years. It was a political decision made during Ma Ying-jeou’s administration and continued by current President Tsai Ing-wen, despite their coming from different parties. And despite Tsai’s tough rhetoric about defending Taiwan during her successful recent reelection bid, and her vow to thwart Chinese aggression, she has shown no sign of stepping in to fix the problems.
Universal conscription is mandated in Article 20 of the Taiwanese Constitution, as in several other countries that face an imminent military threat, such as South Korea or Israel (where women are included but some minorities excluded). For some years, before 2017, the term of conscription service in Taiwan was just a year, which was already short compared with South Korea’s 18-22 months, depending on the military branch, or Israel’s 32 months. Most officers felt that the single year of service wasn’t enough for the military to utilize draftees’ full potential but enough to at least turn a recruit into an average soldier.
But 2017’s changes slashed the conscription period to just four months. Most draftees serve even less, as up to two weeks can be deducted if they’ve completed military training classes in high school and college. The four-month conscripts typically receive five weeks of basic training before they are assigned to field units for more specialty training. But they’re more a burden than an aid, not treated seriously by career or noncommissioned officers as their short stays mean they are seen as guests rather than soldiers.
“By design, they don’t participate in any field exercise or combat readiness training anyway,” Lin said. “We just tell them to stay safe and don’t get into trouble. It’s basically a summer camp.” Several individuals who recently completed this four-month service described similar experiences in interviews.
One of the stated aims of the all-volunteer reform was to professionalize the service, staffing the military’s rank and file with a cadre of career-oriented volunteer soldiers who usually serve a minimum term of four years. Despite MND’s talking point that each year’s recruitment drive always hits the set targets and brings with it a fresh crop of volunteers, the rushed transition to an all-volunteer military has clearly damaged the Taiwanese army’s manpower pool—especially on the front line.
The reason for the hollowing out of front-line troops is simple. Unlike conscripts, who could be assigned entirely based on to the needs of the military, volunteer soldiers among the lower enlisted ranks can and usually do seek transfers to units considered desirable—rear-echelon troops such as training schools, garrison units, signal corps, and so forth. Although transfer opportunities are limited, soldiers almost always find a way. This means that armor, mechanized infantry, and artillery units are always in desperate shortage of enlisted soldiers—even though they are expected to be the ones bearing the brunt of ground fighting against the formidable People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ground force if it comes ashore.
A popular yet cynical explanation as to why these Taiwanese soldiers dislike front-line units simply postulates a common aversion to tougher training and combat duty. But interviews with several enlisted ranks painted a more complex picture. Most complained that the food and living conditions left much to be desired—front-line soldiers must split their time between bases and on field exercises. That, on top of the fact they have far more weapons, vehicles, and equipment to clean and maintain, means these posts are perceived as more work for little reward. The existing shortages also cause an even heavier burden of work on the soldiers left—prompting more of them to put in for transfers.
Polls show varied public opinion on these issues. In 2015, one legislator cited a poll that showed almost 60 support for a return to conscription. In response, the MND cited another poll that claimed 60 percent were satisfied with the transition to all-volunteer forces. At the end of the day, it all seems to come down to how the question is phrased by the pollsters.
No matter which poll you believe, it is clear that the two successive presidents over the past decade, Ma and Tsai, had little or no political interest in the political hassle of bringing back the longer conscription length, despite the evidence of the damage being done to military readiness. Even Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu, who lost in the recent presidential election representing the Kuomintang (KMT) party, also declined to advocate a complete return to conscription but proposed a “hybrid approach” that he did not specify the details for.
Chieh Chung, a senior assistant research fellow at Taiwan’s National Policy Foundation, commented that the personnel shortage is a problem well documented by the military itself but has never entered their calculations. Chung, who has worked for several years in Taiwan’s parliament as a legislative advisor focusing on defense issues, said the military’s own exercises and computer simulations always assume all units would have at least 90 percent fighting strength at the beginning of a war—an assumption that might have been true in the conscription era but is a far cry from reality today.
Several officers who have participated in the computer-simulated phase of the annual Han Kuang exercises in recent years also pointed out this obvious flaw. That raises the question of how many of the Taiwanese military’s simulations of its own ability to hold off a Chinese invasion are based on now purely hypothetical soldiers.
These personnel issues would not be so serious if the military had a functional reserve force. On paper, this enormous reserve force is said to be more than 2 million strong. Once activated, these reservists are supposed to fill existing shortages across regular field units, and reinforce casualties, while creating fresh reserve formations from virtually nothing to bolster overall defense, according to the Reserve Command’s own words.
Just about everything in these talking points is pure fantasy, according to James Huang, a retired army lieutenant colonel who has since become a prolific writer on defense issues and military history, with many followers on Facebook. Huang said there was “no way whatsoever” any of Taiwan’s reserves would reinforce existing field units, despite the proven success of the system elsewhere in the world, especially Israel.
That’s the case regardless of whether the reservist is a conscript with four months’ training or a five-year veteran paratrooper just discharged from the special forces. The established practice of Taiwan’s Reserve Command, according to Huang, is not to send reservists back to their previous units but to lump everyone together into the newly activated reserve infantry brigades that possess no specialty, no vehicles, and no equipment except rifles (often older types) and are led by called-up reservist officers who have little experience commanding such ad hoc units.
In theory, all soldiers and officers (both conscripts and volunteers) are automatically enrolled as reservists on being discharged from active service. They are called up at most once every two years by the Reserve Command to receive refresher training for five to seven days. In practice, such training rarely consists of more than just basic drills and a short practice session at the rifle range. A reservist corporal who was a veteran M60 tank gunner, for example, will be activated only as an infantry rifleman even if one of the army’s active armor brigades has tanks sitting unmanned in the base.
“If we go to war, the soldiers currently on roster are all that we have,” said Lin, the lieutenant colonel, who pointed out that he had never heard of any plan to reinforce units he commanded with reserve soldiers. “At best, they might start combining depleted units. We are supposed to fight until everyone is dead or can’t fight anymore.”
And even if Taiwan somehow manages to muster dozens of fresh reserve infantry brigades before Chinese troops come ashore, Huang said they would be little more than cannon fodder consider how poorly the military has trained them in peacetime and the fact that there is not even a clear plan to fit them into the overall defense strategy.
“Show me 2 million rifles in the stockpile, and I will believe Taiwan has a 2-million-strong reserve force,” Huang said. “The military can’t even tell how many reserve troops they will need to activate across Taiwan, let alone where and how to deploy them when the shooting starts across the Taiwan Strait.”
Other military officers and defense experts confirmed the problems Huang cited. According to Jyun-yi Lee, an assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a recently created think tank affiliated with Taiwan’s MND: “It’s indeed clear to most of us that Taiwan’s reserve system, as it currently stands, will not contribute much to the military’s fighting strength, if at all. No one is pretending soldiers trained by four-month conscription will be effective. They exist for political, not military, reasons. Politicians don’t want to bring back longer conscription or tougher reserve training, as they fear doing so might make them unpopular.”
To its credit, Taiwan’s MND finally began an experimental “reserve warrior program” in recent years that seeks to put skilled veterans back to their original units for refresher training up to a few days per month. Some 214 veterans were said to have signed up in 2019, which is obviously too low to function as a regular reserve force. The program so far seems to matter more to the air force, as it finally provides a channel for retired military pilots to fly again, according to one air force lieutenant familiar with the matter. So far one F-16 pilot and one C-130 pilot reportedly have signed up for the program.
Former KMT legislator Hsu “Jason” Yu-Jen said U.S. Defense Department officials have privately expressed dismal assessments regarding Taiwan’s current force level and reserve system. Hsu quoted Pentagon officials as saying in 2019 that Taiwan’s buying of new F-16s and M1 Abram tanks by the Tsai administration was a “nice political gesture” yet they will hardly matter in a war when Taiwan cannot even man them properly in peacetime.
But saying the problem out loud is a tough task in itself when both Taiwan’s international allies and the Taiwanese public want to hear a success story more than anything else—especially at a time when China’s propaganda machine is running at full speed to portrait Taiwan’s military as both incompetent and ineffective in the face of the PLA’s rapid expansion and modernization.
“You have to acknowledge the existence of the problems before you can fix them,” said James Huang, who noted that some among the military community object to his outspokenness, though he decided to speak on record for this report anyway. “It’s about time someone starts telling the truth.”