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Cyber Insecurity Under Trump

4/29/2017

2 Comments

 
This is the seventh entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.
Pytlak
Allison Pytlak
Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election was one of the biggest stories in recent history. "Cyberwar"’ and "cyber security" dominated headlines at the outset of Donald Trump’s presidency, even before his inauguration. Yet despite the unprecedented media chatter and controversy, the President’s response to cyber issues has been underwhelming. Key deadlines on publicly articulated deliverables have been missed entirely and other initiatives are lagging.  While there are inklings of plans to strengthen America’s online infrastructure and systems, including through partnership with the private sector, technology moves notoriously faster than politics. If President Trump doesn’t act soon, it will continue to be dangerously vulnerable.  

Much of the story about Trump’s first 100 days in the cyber context is rooted in the
scandal over whether or not the Russian government played a role in determining the outcome of the U.S. elections, through various hacking and doxing schemes, and by extension, if the then-presidential candidate had a role in any of it.  To refresh our memories, this first began in June 2016 when the Democratic National Committee reported an intrusion into its computer network and the cyber security firm CrowdStrike publicly blamed Russian hackers, following their investigation. As stolen emails from the committee began to appear on public sites, there were other voices – from the government and the intelligence community – reinforcing the view that the attacks originated from the Russian government.

In December the already suspected motive for these actions gained credence when the Washington Post
disclosed a secret CIA assessment that declared it “quite clear” that a Trump presidency was the ultimate goal of the hacks. In January, the CIA, FBI and NSA – referring to themselves collectively as the “intelligence community” – publicly concluded that Russia had used cyber methods in pursuit of “undermining public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency”.

While attribution in cyber space is
complex and difficult, it is not impossible. Good forensics can uncover digital fingerprints. Ascribing such a clear and conclusive motivation to a cyber operation is more unusual, often because the evidence is circumstantial at best. Not surprisingly, the intelligence report prompted a maelstrom of finger pointing, accusations and reactions from President Obama before leaving office.

The response from then President-elect Trump was quite clear, in that he said he would appoint a team to
provide an anti-hacking plan within 90 days of taking office. This was reinforced by a tweet on January 13 and followed up by an event on cyber security in late January that featured former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who now leads a group tasked with building private sector partnerships on cyber security. At the time Trump said, “We must protect federal networks and data. We operate these networks on behalf of the American people and they are very important.”

The 90-day mark for this plan has now come and gone with nothing in sight nor any updates on its status.  As we now hit the 100-day milestone, most in the community are wondering if this plan will ever emerge.

Also languishing is the Senate Intelligence Committee’s probe into the election interference, including whether there was any coordination between the Kremlin and Trump. The Committee announced it had agreed on the scope of its investigation more than three months ago, and claims it has done some initial work. But it is significantly hampered by lack of capacity, recently
promising to add more staffers after being criticized for lacking full-time dedicated staff, and those working on it part-time said to lack investigative experience.

On the international front, the State Department recently
argued that a proposed new treaty to govern cyberspace would be “misguided” and “misses the mark.” Microsoft has recently begun to call for such an agreement, referring to it as a “Digital Geneva Convention." There are various multilateral discussion fora in which states meet to discuss behavioral norms in cyberspace that the United States participates in; some wonder if this will change.

The one bright spot is a pending
executive order on cyber security that is expected any day. Leaked drafts indicate that it could mandate agency-by-agency reviews of security practices and requiring agency compliance with the National Institute for Standards and Technology cyber security framework. It might also make it a policy to modernize information technology or encourage the expansion of the cyber workforce. Overall, the emphasis would be on improvement and modernization; which could lay the groundwork for related legislation.

This would be positive. Research shows us that that the more developed and technologically sophisticated a country is, the more vulnerable it becomes to hacking and other malicious cyber operations because so much of how it functions involves digital networks. This vulnerability is true for both foreign and domestic cyber attacks. As Symantec
recently noted, the 2015 hack of the Office of Personnel Management continues to impact the federal government technologically and financially, while state and local governments, as well as universities, find themselves under constant attack and struggling to defend the safety of the vast amount of information they keep.

It’s also clear that this is not a problem that will go away anytime soon. To date, most cyber "conflict" actually entails
low-level antagonistic actions like hacking, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks or similar. But what is very much on the minds of many governments is how to protect their critical infrastructure, which could range from electrical grids to, in the case of the United States, nuclear or other weapons systems. 

At what point does software become a weapon, and how can the arms control community, in the United States and elsewhere, address this? Experts believe it’s unlikely that a nuclear weapon could be detonated through a cyber operation or attack, but is a possibility not to be dismissed. More likely is that nuclear weapons software and associated systems could be altered as they are being built, or electronic signals might somehow be sent to nuclear weapons. Hackers could also wreak havoc through manipulating information that these systems depend on. The methods and means by which something like this, or other malicious operations, would occur require more thought.

Allison Pytlak is a Program Manager in the disarmament program (Reaching Critical Will) of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
2 Comments

Mexico, Arms, and the Trump Administration

4/27/2017

1 Comment

 
Lindsay-PolandJohn Lindsay-Poland
This video blog is the sixth entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.

In this video interview, John Lindsay-Poland addresses three questions, at markers indicated below:

0:05  How is President Trump perceived in Mexico on arms trade issues?
1:54  What trends do you see in arms sales and end use control?
          see also slides on U.S. arms sales to Mexico
4:25  What recommendations do you have?


John Lindsay-Poland is Wage Peace program coordinator with the American Friends Service Committee. Based in California, he travels frequently to and works with communities in Mexico.
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Donald Trump and The Death of Diplomacy

4/26/2017

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This is the fifth entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.
Hartung
William D. Hartung
Donald Trump prides himself on being the master of the “art of the deal.”  But if his plans to slash spending on diplomacy are approved by Congress, there won’t be anybody home to make deals with other governments, except for Trump and his inner circle, who have so far shown a shocking lack of knowledge of foreign affairs.

Trump’s budget blueprint proposes to cut funding for the State Department and the Agency for International Development (AID) by 28%.   This steep reduction is being imposed on an agency that is already underfunded, receiving just one-twelfth of the roughly $600 billion per year provided to the Pentagon.  A few years ago, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates put this in perspective when he noted that it takes more personnel to operate one aircraft carrier task force than there are trained diplomats in the U.S. Foreign Service.

Trump’s downgrading of diplomacy does not bode well for the ability of the United States to prevent or rein in conflicts, and may actually lead to more, and longer, U.S. military interventions.  Donald Trump’s own secretary of defense, James Mattis, made this very point when he was the head of the U.S. Central Command, asserting in a Congressional hearing that if the State Department budget is cut, “I’m going to need more ammunition.”

With diminished diplomatic tools available, the Trump administration is liable to engage in the kind of unfocused military bluster we saw in its one-off cruise missile attack on a Syrian airfield in response to a chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians and its threat of preemptive military action against North Korea if it tested a nuclear weapon.  Meanwhile, the administration is increasing the U.S. presence in Iraq and Syria, stepping up U.S. involvement in the disastrous war in Yemen, and talking about increasing U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan – all the while encouraging U.S. military leaders to “take the gloves off” by easing the criteria for selecting bombing targets, with a noticeable uptick in civilian casualties as a result.  Absent a diplomatic strategy and the personnel to craft one, U.S. involvement in these wars is likely to escalate, with increasingly negative consequences for the United States and its allies.

Another set of policy instruments that the Trump administration is likely to lean on in the absence of a robust diplomatic corps is the wide array of arms and training programs funded and operated by the Pentagon.  These programs have grown dramatically since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.  According to data compiled by the Security Assistance Monitor, Pentagon-funded assistance grew from $1 billion in 2002 to $10.8 billion in 2015.  These funds are spread across dozens of separate initiatives that support arming and training the militaries of over 100 countries.  There have been notable failures, like the lavishing of hundreds of millions in aid on the Saleh regime in Yemen under the Pentagon’s 1206 program, assistance that ended up placing arms in the remnants of the regime’s army that is now fighting along Houthi forces in that nation’s civil war.  

The underlying problem is that these programs have never been adequately evaluated to determine if they are effective in meeting U.S. security objectives.  As the Congressional Research Service noted in a report on the subject, “the assumption that building foreign security forces will have tangible U.S. national security benefits remains a largely untested proposition.”

It is difficult to track the Pentagon’s aid programs under the best of circumstances, but at the moment there is literally no way to know how they will fare in the fiscal year 2018 budget.  Details on how much the Trump administration will spend on Pentagon assistance, and which programs will be favored, awaits the release of the administration’s full budget submission to Congress.  But the fact that these arms and training programs could be implemented in the context of a rapidly shrinking diplomatic corps is cause for concern.

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.
1 Comment

Defense Spending and Employment Under The Trump Administration

4/26/2017

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This is the fourth entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future. This entry is authored by a member of the Forum's emerging expert program, designed to give opportunities to individuals beginning their careers on these issues.
Watson
Robert Watson

President Trump has articulated few goals as thoroughly as his commitments to defense spending and job creation. His budget proposal would increase defense spending by $54 billion while cutting programs related to education, clean energy, and social welfare. And just last week he signed the “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, intended to protect the American manufacturing and defense industrial base. This order requires that federal procurement programs buy American made goods, and will restructure the H-1B visa program to make American workers more competitive. However, these policies may not be entirely compatible with respect to American security and employment. Defense spending is not nearly as effective at job creation as investment in the areas that Trump’s budget neglects, and labor restrictions may lessen the competitiveness of American defense equipment abroad.

Defense Employment

It should be noted that Trump’s defense budget is not simply for the purpose of job creation, but it is an important part of the rationale for defense spending. In 2014, the defense and aerospace industry provided direct and indirect employment to 4.4 million individuals, about 2.8% of the U.S. civilian labor force that year. From 2015 to 2016, jobs in the sector increased 3.2% after five years of decline due to the 2011 Budget Act and the military’s drawdown in the Middle East. Nevertheless, defense spending cannot and should not increase indefinitely to maintain the sector’s relatively small contribution to employment.

While defense spending does create jobs, it is not nearly as effective as investment in other sectors, particularly those that stand to lose under Trump’s new budget. It is calculated that for every $1bn spent on defense, 11,200 jobs are created. Compare this to the 16,800 jobs per $1bn spent on clean energy, 17,200 from healthcare, and 26,700 from education spending.[1] These areas also produce higher paying jobs than defense in that funding more often contributes to salaries, which are spent on domestic purchases and not in foreign economies, and does not pay for exorbitantly priced military hardware. Weapons manufacturing projects require less and less “touch labor,” which means that more money goes to research and development that does little to stimulate the civilian economy. It is also dangerous to increase the dependence of American labor on defense, particularly if defense spending continues to be prioritized over other domestic sectors.  If he is sincere in his commitment to American jobs, Trump should devote state resources to sectors like education, healthcare, and clean energy, all of which create more jobs per dollar than defense.

Jobs & Security Cooperation

​Another challenge for Trump’s commitment to employment is apparent in the defense industry itself, and will have an effect on U.S. security cooperation. During a visit to a Boeing factory in South Carolina, Trump praised the company’s employment of local workers and pledged to impose a “substantial penalty” on companies that move workers to other countries. These penalties would diminish American defense manufacturers’ significant advantage in international markets by preventing them from accepting the increasingly common co-production requirements of purchasing countries. This would ultimately lessen the United States’ ability to secure and maintain strategic bilateral security partnerships abroad. On the other hand, building up foreign defense industries through co-production would increase competition and likely take jobs away from Americans in the long term.

Co-production requirements are particularly common for countries attempting to improve domestic manufacturing and technological capabilities like Japan and India. The potential U.S. sale of F-16s to India is a prime example of this type of arrangement, as any purchase made by the Indian government will require co-production of the aircraft in India. Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia), the co-chairs of the India Caucus, have pressed the State and Defense Departments to approve this deal, but it may run afoul of Trump’s “Hire American” policy. F-16 manufacturing was recently relocated to Greenville, South Carolina from Ft. Worth and, if Trump wants to secure this strategic sale to India, it is likely he will have to make a small concession to jobs at this facility.

This move, which received glowing praise from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and was widely covered by national and local media, will only provide an additional 250 jobs in Greenville. Nevertheless, a loss of any portion of these jobs to India would surely draw vitriol from Trump’s supporters there, and provide a high profile contradiction to his position on employment. The defense industry sources components from around the world, and any penalties would put these manufacturers in a difficult position. In the short term, refusing co-production arrangements would keep jobs in the U.S., but make it much more difficult to facilitate security partnerships with U.S. allies. However, in the long term, accepting them may result in a loss of American jobs to foreign competition. In the meantime, Trump will have to decide between sticking to his guns and policy promises, and sealing the deal with America’s only “Major Defense Partner,” India.

Trump’s labor policies face a number of contradictions and challenges that will test his commitment to domestic employment and the defense industry. His “Buy American and Hire American” executive order will be a stumbling block to achieving U.S. security cooperation objectives, and will likely make the international arms trade more competitive, for better or worse. Furthermore, if Trump is really as committed to jobs as he claims, it would be more productive to invest in areas that are not related to defense, sectors that his current budget will leave wanting.

[1] Paul Holden, et al. Indefensible, (London: Zed Books Ltd, 2016), p.92.

Robert Watson is a Middle East and North Africa intern with the Security Assistance Monitor and a participant in the Forum’s emerging expert program.
3 Comments

Trump on Arms Sales

4/25/2017

1 Comment

 
This is the third entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.
Stohl
Rachel Stohl
Dick
Shannon Dick
Three months into the Trump administration and President Trump has used arms sales to support security priorities and demonstrate a commitment to industry. Yet it remains unclear how and to what extent arms sales will be used as a tool of Trump’s foreign and defense policies.

Recent actions, however, appear to suggest that human rights will no longer be a priority for advancing or withholding U.S. arms sales and thereby supporting larger U.S. foreign policy interests. Indeed, since taking office, the Trump administration has pushed forward (but Congress has yet to fully review) arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Nigeria that were previously put on hold by the Obama administration due to human rights concerns. The rationale behind these decisions to provide U.S. weapons to consistent human rights violators is largely based on counterterrorism priorities and the view that these arms transfers will significantly support campaigns against terrorist groups. But there is scant evidence that allowing these arms sales will contribute to U.S. strategic goals and objectives and will not result in further human rights abuses and civilian suffering. For example, the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen has resulted in devastating impacts on the Yemeni civilian population. The campaign, undertaken with U.S. supplied weapons, has consistently struck civilian targets and could help fuel anti-American sentiment and play into terrorist groups’ narrative, ultimately working against larger interests in working to stabilize the country and end the conflict.

The Trump administration is also trying to change the bureaucratic process surrounding arms sales to foreign governments. Reportedly, the Trump administration is considering replacing foreign military financing  (FMF) grants with loans. The Trump administration seems to believe that having governments pay back their weapons purchases will save the United States money in the long run. However, such thinking fundamentally misunderstands the intent of the FMF program. FMF enables foreign governments to use U.S. government grants to purchase U.S. weapons primarily through the Foreign Military Sales program. The program is often used to support foreign militaries that would otherwise be unable to purchase U.S. systems and is often cited as a crucial means to promote national security interests. Indeed, FMF allows foreign partners and allies to acquire U.S. equipment – which is often more expensive than systems from other countries – and thus augment their own military capabilities while fostering stronger security relations with the United States.

Additionally, because FMF funds are almost exclusively reserved for the procurement of U.S. weapons and equipment, the program supports U.S. industry. As Andrew Shapiro, former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs under the Obama administration, aptly noted in commentary for Defense News, the FMF program “helps maintain the U.S. defense-industrial base, it helps lower the cost for the U.S. to buy systems if there is a broader base of sales, and that impacts jobs and communities.” Should the administration follow through with converting grants to loans, it could harm U.S. industry and lead business into other markets that offer less expensive alternatives, such as those maintained by Russia and China. In its budget blueprint, the administration stated that the shift to loans would “potentially [allow] recipients to purchase more American-made weaponry with U.S. assistance, but on a repayable basis.” But why would buyers pay for systems they used to get for free, and in fact pay more than if they were to seek military equipment from other suppliers?

The Trump administration’s initial arms sales efforts may work to weaken long-standing U.S. policy priorities regarding conventional arms transfers. In the short term, Trump’s policy decisions are minimizing the extent to which human rights concerns are taken into consideration.  In the long-term, these arms sales may result in continued sales to a wider scope of actors with poor records of good governance. Additionally, in seeking changes to grant programs, Trump’s policies may undercut U.S. industry. Such decisions could ultimately backfire on U.S. interests, both economically and politically, and leave an arms trade legacy that risks negative consequences for years to come.

Rachel Stohl is a director of the Conventional Defense program at the Stimson Center.
Shannon Dick is a research associate at the Stimson Center and and a participant in the Forum’s emerging expert program.

Note: this post was edited at 12:11PM EDT on April 26 to clarify the status of the sales to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Nigeria.


1 Comment

Trump’s Military Only Strategy in Yemen

4/25/2017

10 Comments

 
This is the second entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.
Kizer
Kate Kizer
The Trump administration’s Yemen policy during his first 100 days appears to be worsening an already calamitous status quo. Given the precedents set by his predecessors – in which U.S. involvement was dominated by counterterrorism interests and largely uncritical support for an ally committing possible war crimes with U.S.-sold weapons – Trump has hardly been primed to achieve an ideal solution. Yet context cannot excuse his tenacity in doubling down on the Obama administration’s contradictory and counterproductive strategy in Yemen.

Rather than developing a policy tailored to the nuances of Yemen’s conflict and U.S. involvement there, the Trump administration appears to have viewed Yemen as a means of bolstering its relationships with traditional U.S. Gulf allies. In addition to more forcefully
parroting its Gulf allies’ characterization of Yemen’s conflict as a sectarian proxy war, which largely ignores the local drivers of conflict rooted in governance failure and lack of accountability for Yemen’s ruling elite, the Trump administration’s strategy rests on “reassuring” its allies through weapons sales and more military support. This approach is likely to culminate in White House approval of renewed arms sales to Saudi Arabia without conditions, including the sale of precision-guided munitions that have been used in attacks on civilians and vital infrastructure.


This would only be doubling down on the Obama administration’s failure to address the
glaring deficiencies of the Saudi Royal Air Force. As former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Rights, & Labor Dafna Rand put it recently, when the Obama administration tried this approach in 2015, giving the Saudi Royal Air Force smarter bombs and more support didn’t result in “an improvement in the targeting, and [it became clear] the issue itself is the target selection…and adherence to the no-strike list.”


The current administration’s military-only approach extends to counterterrorism in Yemen in addition to the war against the Houthi rebels. Trump has reportedly
slackened the military’s rules of engagement and designated certain governorates “areas of active hostilities,” leading to a dramatic increase in drone strikes and Special Operations actions against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). This military-only strategy towards countering AQAP’s influence without a corollary strategy for countering radicalization can only go so far, and is strikingly similar to the Obama administration’s whack-a-mole counterterrorism strategy.


Most urgently, the administration’s predilection for a military-only approach to Yemen’s multiple crises risks precipitating a famine in the country that could kill millions of people. If it continues to
willfully ignore the warnings of the humanitarian community and signs off on the Saudi- and Emirati-led siege of Yemen’s vital Hudaydah port, it will do so with no apparent political strategy to resolve the conflict, except the belief that “one more round of bombing” will bring the parties to the peace table. But U.S. escalation against the Houthis is likely to eliminate any remaining incentives for the parties to return to negotiations.


There is still time for Trump to treat Yemen as more than a military exhibition that could result in the U.S. getting bogged down in yet another quagmire in the Middle East. He could restrict further military support for the coalition and
re-engage with the Houthis to push the parties to commit to a ceasefire, and work to include other local actors into a concerted, inclusive diplomatic process that has the best chance of easing humanitarian crisis throughout the country, halting anti-American radicalization, and securing the ultimate U.S. goal of limiting Iran’s influence in the country. This approach, however, would require the administration to adopt a strong soft power approach to Yemen’s conflict that seems unlikely in an administration run by generals and absent leadership at the State Department.


Kate Kizer is the director of policy and advocacy at the Yemen Peace Project.



10 Comments

A New U.S. Drone Policy?

4/24/2017

3 Comments

 
This is the first entry in a series examining actions during the first 100 days of the new Trump administration and their possible implications on the arms trade, security assistance and weapons use in the future.
Picture
Rachel Stohl
U.S. drone policy under President Donald Trump is slowly coming into focus, despite the absence of any new executive orders or regulations.  However, we can begin to assess the ways in which President Trump plans to utilize drones in his administration. The Trump administration’s approach seems to be based on undoing the limits put in place by the Obama administration.

Trump has not been shy about using drones in operations around the world. In the first three months of the administration, U.S. drone strikes averaged about one strike per day, as compared to an estimated one strike per 5.4 days under President Obama, according to analysis from the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Trump Administration has also granted a new authority to the CIA that restores the CIA’s role in lethal strikes and has seemingly lowered the threshold on the level of acceptable civilian casualties for drone strikes. This is in direct contravention of the Obama administration approach in which the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) largely shared responsibility. Under Obama, the CIA gathered intelligence and identified suspected terrorists, and then provided information to the military, which was responsible for the actual strikes.

Moreover, recent actions in Yemen and Somalia have altered the designation of certain provinces to be identified as “areas of active hostilities,” allowing for less stringent battlefield rules and potentially less protections for civilians on the ground than what was required during the Obama administration. Trump’s actions call into question the status of the Presidential Policy Guidance put in place by Obama to guide the United States’ use of armed drones – as these steps appear to mark a reversal of Obama-era policies – and bring to focus repeated concerns about the lack of information on the legal framework underpinning the U.S. drone program.

The Trump Administration thus far has accepted a higher risk to civilian life in determining when to undertake drone strikes and seems undeterred by concerns about secrecy and a lack of accountability. Allies and partners are watching the ways in which U.S. drone strikes unfold under the Trump administration, particularly as they look to conduct their own drone operations and develop relevant national legislation and policies to support such operations. Yet, the apparent disregard for developing international standards on drones undermines U.S. efforts to continue work on the development of international drone standards that were begun under the Obama administration.

Trump’s reversals in his approach to U.S. drone policy appear to walk back some of the previous efforts (however limited such efforts may have been) to establish an appropriate standard for armed drone use. As such, Trump risks instituting a dangerous precedent for lethal drone use marked by secrecy, limited accountability, and legal ambiguity.

Rachel Stohl is a Senior Associate with the Managing Across Boundaries Initiative at the Stimson Center.
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    The "Looking Ahead Blog" features comments concerning short- to medium-term trends related to the arms trade, security assistance, and weapons use. Typically about 500-1000 words, each comment is written by an expert listed on the Forum on the Arms Trade related to topics of each expert's choosing.

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