Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez throws support behind Texas progressives at Get Out the Vote rally

by Waylon Cunningham

February 12, 2022

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) smiles alongside U.S. Congressional candidates Jessica Cisneros, left, and Greg Casar after a rally at Paper Tiger on Saturday. 

Credit: Nick Wagner / San Antonio Report

Over a thousand people convened at a campaign rally in San Antonio where U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) was stumping for Greg Casar and Jessica Cisneros, who are both running in U.S. congressional districts in the Bexar County region.

“This state is going to change the country,” Ocasio-Cortez called out to an applauding crowd gathered at Paper Tiger on the St. Mary’s Strip. “That’s why I’m here — for the long game.”

She praised the San Antonio Symphony players on strike — some of whom picketed outside the rally — as well as the local Starbucks workers who recently filed for unionization.

A spokesman for Casar’s campaign said the building had been filled to capacity, which was 1,200, but that even more had registered to attend. Attendees were required to show proof of vaccination.

Though most attendees were clear supporters of the campaigns, others were there to learn. Reagan Beres said she attended the event because she supports Ocasio-Cortez and wanted to learn more about the local candidates. Robert Irwin, another attendee, said he went because his friend got him a ticket, and while he’s not into politics, he wanted to know what the candidates had to say.

All three politicians support a raft of progressive policies such as Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and fighting restrictions on abortion.

Casar, a former Austin City Council member, is running in the Democratic primaries for Texas’ 35th district. The district’s newly redrawn boundaries encompass much of eastern Austin and eastern San Antonio. Incumbent Rep. Lloyd Doggett is running for a newly created Austin-area district.

Casar, like Ocasio-Cortez, is often associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, whose local chapters have endorsed both at various times. Casar led the charge for Austin’s paid sick leave ordinance, which preceded a similar ordinance in San Antonio. Those ordinances are now mired in court appeals.

Cisneros, an immigration lawyer based in Laredo, is mounting a second primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) for the 28th district, which laps at San Antonio and touches the Texas-Mexico border. Its recent redrawing includes more of Bexar County.

Cisneros is running with the support of Justice Democrats, the same progressive organization that backed Ocasio-Cortez in 2018.

Cuellar narrowly won over Cisneros in 2020. This time around, the primary has been charged by FBI searches of Cuellar’s home and campaign office headquarters. Cuellar’s campaign this week blasted Ocasio-Cortez as a “far-left” celebrity in a statement. “Members should take care of their own district before taking failed ideas to South Texas.”

Protesters across the street from the venue waved flags and signs calling Ocasio-Cortez a communist. At times they chanted, “AOC has got to go!”

Introducing the speakers was Alejandra Lopez, the president of the San Antonio Alliance, a public school teacher’s union. “This is about more than voting,” she said. “This is about building a multiracial coalition of the working class.”

Casar echoed the point, telling attendees that the movement they are building is bigger than elections — but that cynicism about elections is as much of an obstacle to overcome as rival campaigns.

“Texas is not a red state. It’s an under-organized state,” he said.

Thousands in Burundi celebrate lifting of US, EU sanctions

Move is big relief that will lead to economic growth, says foreign minister

James Tasamba |13.02.2022
KIGALI, Rwanda

Burundians marched in the streets of the capital, Gitega, on Saturday to cheer the lifting of EU and US sanctions imposed amid deteriorating political situation more than six years ago.

The march was organized by civil society organizations.

Civil society representative Hamza Burikukuye said the lifting of sanctions was a big relief to Burundians since it had caused economic hardships.

There is hope that the economy will likely grow significantly, he said.

Burikukuye thanked authorities for a series of diplomatic engagements and restoring conditions that led to the reversal.

The EU said the lifting of restrictions on financial support to the country was a result of the peaceful political process that started with general elections in May 2020 which opened a new window of hope for the population of Burundi.

Last year, the US lifted sanctions on the military and security officials, citing positive political developments following the 2020 elections.

The EU reportedly was the country's biggest aid donor, sending €60 million ($68 million) per year.

Burundi’s Foreign Minister Albert Shingiro said the lifting of sanctions marks “the return of Burundi on the international scene.”

“It is now time to tackle the country's socio-economic development work by focusing Burundian diplomacy on the economic sector,” he said.

The sanctions were imposed at the height of a political crisis in 2015-2016 following the late President Pierre Nkurunziza's extension of his tenure which triggered protests.

More than 330,000 Burundians fled to Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, during the political crisis.

Peloton’s Severance Package for the Thousands of Employees It Just Fired Is Laughably Out of Touch

The once-proud platform's problems stem from ousted CEO John Foley

What the hell happened to this company?
John Smith/VIEWpress

BY TANNER GARRITY @TANNERGARRITY

Don’t get us wrong, there are a few worthwhile offerings in the severance packages Peloton gave to the 2,800 employees it fired yesterday.

According to an open letter from John Foley (CEO as of last week, now being pushed into a role as Executive Chair), laid-off employees can expect cash compensation, an extension of healthcare services and equity vesting periods, plus assistance with finding a new job — via a third party vendor that specializes in resume-building and career leads.

But the final offering is where matters take a head-scratching turn. The “but wait, there’s more” of the severance package, Foley is also throwing in one free year of an all-access Peloton membership, valued at $39 a month.

Why in the hell is Peloton doing this? Why would they assume that nearly 3,000 forsaken employees would want to remain part of “the tribe,” and spend 30 free minutes a day exercising on the poorly-run platform that got them to this point? After all, while Foley did thank the contributions of the software engineers, hardware designers, content creators and retailers that got Peloton to this point, it was the decision-making of the executive team that brought Peloton here.

The reason Peloton is offering disgruntled employees a tone-deaf membership is the same reason the company was down $440 million last quarter, will make $1 billion less this fiscal year than projected and has lost over 80% of its share value (from last year’s peak) this week. Peloton has precisely no clue what it’s doing, and subsists on a bizarre brand of self-defeating optimism.

Simply put, pandemic success messed with the company’s brains. It really messed with the brain in charge of all the other brains. Hedge fund Blackwells Capital, which holds significant shares in Peloton, released a scorching 65-slide presentation this week, which detailed the lack of competence from Foley in his role as CEO.

These firings, for instance, seem to be a direct response by Foley to his own hiring over the last four years. Blackwells pointed out that Peloton has increased its size 20-fold since 2018, yet “compared to other subscription-based companies … has the lowest revenue per employee.”

Foley’s approach has been overtly maximalist for the last year-plus, fueled mostly by the euphoria of quarantine, when home workouts held consumers captive, and Peloton deliveries were backed up for months at a time. But the future of a planned $400-million Ohio factory is now in doubt, as Peloton takes an extended break from making bikes, while employees remain confused by Foley’s decision to sign a $450-million, 15-year lease at an unnecessarily large headquarters in Manhattan.

Blackwells accuses Foley of “unbridled optimism, “visions of grandeur” and “inability to forecast demand.” They also use his own words against in an amusingly petty, though effective, portion of the presentation, titled “Foley on Foley.” The manager seems acutely aware of his own incompetence, and has released a bevy of humdingers over the years, including:
“I think I’m not a very good manager.”
“I interview almost nobody.”
“I’ll go sometimes months without talking to our CTO, which as a CEO of a technology company, that’s kind of rare.”
And on what his colleagues would say about his strengths: “I’m not sure they’d say I have many strengths at all.”

The majority of media attention has been afforded to some of Peloton’s more dramatic controversies, like the dangerous treadmill slats that injured (and killed) dozens of toddlers, or the multiple times fictional characters have experienced cardiac arrest after a HIIT session on the bike. But the brand’s largest issue has been staring us in the face this whole time — a leadership team intoxicated by growth, that pushed its outer borders way too far into the unknown. The Visigoths have now made it to Rome.

For those on the inside, and especially for those who’ve now lost their jobs, you can see why that free monthly membership is so insulting. And here’s the kicker: there’s no guarantee a potential buyer would even honor it. Blackwells wrote out a list of conglomerates that Peloton should immediately sell to (in addition to Nike and Amazon, which were both rumored last week). That list includes the usual suspects: Netflix, Spotify, Meta, Disney, Oracle, Comcast. Can any of them turn this ship around? Maybe. It can’t get any worse from here.

State Officials Find Forever Chemicals in Beef From Michigan
It's a cause for concern for many reasons

Alarming news for beef fans.
Leon Ephraïm/Unsplash

BY TOBIAS CARROLL

Can one have a timely warning about something that endures for centuries? The increasing levels of concern over forever chemicals polluting different food supplies — including fish in Lake Superior — are one more effect of pollution to be concerned about.

The chemicals, known as PFASs, earned their nickname because, by and large, they don’t break down in natural environments. There are some sources of pollution that can be managed or minimized when placed in the right environment. These? Not so much. And they have a tendency to get into the food we eat.

A new report at The Guardian has more details on the latest instance of PFASs detected in the United States. In this case, it involves a number of cattle being raised in Michigan. Authorities in the state say that the incident is isolated. That’s the good news; the bad news is that the farm where the contaminated beef was found sold beef to schools and farmers markets prior to the forever chemicals being detected.

At issue here is the practice of using sewage sludge as fertilizer, which some environmental advocates have expressed concern over due to the potential for a scenario exactly like this one. A 2020 report from the Greenpeace-funded journal Unearthed found a host of toxic chemicals in sewage sludge used as fertilizer on English farmland — a fact that’s alarming in its consequences.

Switzerland To Vote On Becoming First Nation To Ban Animal Testing

By John Revill
02/12/22 

Voters in Switzerland will decide on Sunday whether to become the first country to ban animal testing in a referendum that will also consider tightening controls on cigarette advertising.

Campaigners who want to end all experiments on mice, rats and other animals gathered enough signatures to stage the vote under the Swiss system of direct democracy, meeting strong opposition from the country's huge pharmaceutical sector.

The industry, which includes heavyweights Roche and Novartis, says such research is needed to develop new drugs.

Supporters of a ban on animal testing, which government data shows caused more than 500,000 animals to die in Swiss laboratories in 2020, say the practice is ethically wrong and unnecessary.

The most recent opinion poll showed 68% of respondents opposed the proposed ban, suggesting it is unlikely to be approved.

The proposal to further restrict tobacco advertising looks likely to pass, with 63% of people polled in favour.

Voters' answers will be binding on the government, which will then decide on how to implement the proposals.

The anti-tobacco campaign, which needs support from a majority of cantons and voters to pass, wants to extend the current curbs on advertising to cover adverts anywhere young people can see them.

This would include barring advertising in newspapers, cinemas, the internet, at events, and on billboards, with supporters saying such adverts encourage youth smoking.

The government says the proposed crackdown goes too far, and has come up with counterproposals that would further reduce advertising but still allow it in newspapers, shops and on the internet.

Also being decided on Sunday is a government proposal to abolish a 1% tax on equity raised by a company, a measure it says would reduce investment costs and support economic growth.

Opponents say scrapping the tax, which raises about 250 million Swiss francs ($270 million) per year, would benefit mainly large companies, with individual taxpayers left to make up the shortfall.

Financial support for Swiss media is the final issue to be considered by voters on Sunday. The government wants to avert the closure of more local newspapers and radio stations by granting an aid package of 151 million francs.

With slogans on posters saying "No taxpayers' cash for media billionaires", opponents have said the proposal would be a waste of public money and could threaten media independence.

The vote could go either way, with 49% against and 46% in favour, according to the latest polling data published by Swiss broadcaster SRG.

($1 = 0.9256 Swiss francs)

BEST NEW THING DRONES REPLACE FIREWORKS

A drone show put on by the NFL lit up the Los Angeles sky ahead of Super Bowl 56 at SoFi Stadium.

Eminem Defies the NFL and Honors Colin Kaepernick by Taking a Knee During the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show

By Sarah Rumpf

Feb 13th, 2022


Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.

Eminem took a knee during his Super Bowl LVI halftime show performance — a move that was reportedly in direct defiance of the NFL’s wishes.

The rapper was joined by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, and surprise guests 50 Cent and Anderson .Paak in a high-energy Pepsi-sponsored extravaganza that celebrated the soundtrack to all your Gen X and Millennial friends’ college parties.

Many of these artists’ songs have bluntly and boldly addressed civil rights and other political topics, and while Dre’s 1988 N.W.A. song “F*** Tha Police” was most certainly not included in tonight’s playlist, this is not a group of people who shy away from hot-button issues.

Media reports in advance of the big game said that Eminem had made the request to kneel to honor Colin Kaepernick, but was turned down by the Powers That Be at the NFL because they wanted to avoid a “divisive culture war moment.”

Once the performance started and Eminem was up on the roof of the sprawling mansion constructed for the stage, there was not much the NFL brass could do. After he and Dre electrified the crowd with their 2000 hit “Forgot About Dre,” Eminem launched into the Oscar winning “Lose Yourself” from his 2002 film 8 Mile.

He dropped a final chorus…

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime

…and put his hand on his head and kneeled as the crowd roared.

‘Black History Is American History!’ State AG Aaron Ford Smacks Down Critical Race Theory Bans That Hinder Teaching

By Tommy Christopher

Feb 12th, 2022, 

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford smacked down efforts to hinder the teaching of some Black history in the form of bans on critical race theory.

On Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Dean Obeidallah Show, the host talked to Nevada’s top cop about laws that have made it more difficult to teach certain concepts about Black history. Mr. Ford had a clear and simple answer:

Dean: Is it more important now to teach Black History Month than it was in years past when there really wasn’t an issue? I mean, I was reading about in Tennessee some people objecting the Black History Month calling it critical race theory.

Nevada AG Ford: Yeah listen on the first day of Black History Month, I tweeted simply: “Black history is American history.” Period. Point blank. That’s the answer.

You know, it’s interesting because I live in Nevada as I’ve indicated 18 years now, did you know this, Dean, that’s 75 years before Brown versus Board of Education–about seventy years before– that Nevada had its own Brown v. Board of education case called Stoudamire versus Carson City schools?

Mr. Stoudmaire was a young black student who wanted to go to the white high school the white school in Carson City–which is in our capitol. He was disallowed because we had a statute on the books here in Nevada that said that blacks, mongoloids–and they use other antiquated phraseology–had to go separate schools.

Our Supreme Court in the late 1870’s said that “separate but equal” is unequal and was patently unconstitutional under our state constitution. That’s in Nevada…that’s Nevada history. Now it happens to a Black man, right a black child, but it’s something that should be it’s taught in our schools. We should be proud of the fact that 75 years before Brown v Board, we had already said everybody equal is unequal. That’s what should be taught in our schools and so that’s why I stand by this notion of black history being American history.

Spotify Itself Is Misinformation

By: Robert Jackson WoodFebruary 12, 2022

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Last week, in the wake of Neil Young’s spat with Spotify and Joe Rogan, hand-wringing about misinformation on tech platforms reached new heights. The “M” word was everywhere. The Boston Globe, New York Times, Guardian, Washington Post, and several other papers all ran op-eds decrying Spotify’s complicity with it. Roxanne Gay’s piece in the Times, “Why I’ve Decided to Take My Podcast Off Spotify,” used the word seven times. The musicians at the heart of the controversy also tried it on for size. “Spotify has recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID-19,” wrote Neil Young in the first sentence of his public statement. “[I cannot] continue to support Spotify’s life threatening misinformation to the music loving public,” he added later.  Joni Mitchell and others concurred.

They’re not wrong, of course. As the chorus has noted ad nauseum, Spotify is helping Joe Rogan to fuel flames that are in some instances killing people, and that’s tragic. But like so many appeals to the truth by well-meaning celebrity-artists who are nonetheless of a privileged class, these outcries are ultimately distractions, revealing unflattering things about our political priorities while treating only symptoms and not the cause. What is it, for instance, that has allowed misinformation to flourish in the first place? For Branko Marcetic, it is the failures of our institutions to cultivate and sustain public trust—a problem that, by several orders of magnitude, exceeds the damage done by the blatherings of a single moronic podcast host and a handful of his guests.

But to the above question, I’d add another that not enough commentators—particularly musician commentators—have been asking this week: what is it that allows Joe Rogan’s show to exist on Spotify in the first place? The answer is money. And more specifically, money that the company has earned by normalizing the exploitation of thousands of musicians behind its benevolent techno-utopian facade.

In other words, Spotify’s entire existence is a form of misinformation.

Stream by stream, the platform legitimates the false notion that music isn’t the product of work done by workers who deserve to be adequately compensated for what they produce. At the very least, it legitimates the ludicrous idea that $10/month (or, for artists, an average of just $0.003 per stream) is enough to pay for it all. This is misinformation in the sense that any product of capitalism is misinformation: the promissory allure of the commodity—in this case, frictionless access to all of the world’s music for a low price, just an inconsequential click away—conceals the very consequential realities behind its production. Add in the fact that the service’s global reach would seem to indicate some sort of moral rectitude and you have a perfect recipe for deception.

To be sure, music streaming in general has contributed to this devaluation of music (and thus of musicians) by detaching it from its more tangible media—CDs, LPs, mp3s, and other discrete things that must be paid for and that have traditionally stood in as material proxies for the musical work itself. But let’s not complicate things: we’re talking about simple compensation here. What Spotify and other services have done is to take advantage of this frictionless music reality to hook consumers, exploit thousands of artists, and reap huge profits—$11 billion in revenue for 2021 alone—while distorting the value of creative work for society at large.

Again, this is a kind of misinformation. And what makes it a kind of misinformation is precisely what makes it difficult to see as such: the fact that we have entirely normalized it. It is so normalized, in fact, that this misinformation has few places left to spread; Spotify has over 406 million users, and among them are presumably the critics who rail against the podcasts it chooses to host. Of course, this isn’t to put the blame on consumers. If misinformation requires belief to propagate, then Spotify is itself a form of belief, one that, in its ubiquity, does our believing for us. It doesn’t matter how individual users feel about Spotify’s ethics; its sheer reach represents belief on a more consequential terrain, a belief that, underwritten by capitalism, is baked into the social subconscious itself.

But we can just as well leave it at the fact that Joe Rogan’s misinformation is paid for by the embodied corporate misinformation of the service itself. Spotify’s latest abuse of its power stems from its power to abuse artists. Joe Rogan’s podcast is underwritten by a form of theft. If these connections between Spotify and COVID-related misinformation seem too tenuous for some, we can always link the company’s exploitative practices to the virus in more direct ways. Consider the fact that musicians have increasingly had to look to touring to make up for the income lost to reductions in streaming royalties. We can only assume that a significant number of those same musicians, desperate for cash amid the pandemic, have returned to gigging in unsafe conditions when they otherwise might have been able to wait it out. And surely many of those musicians have paid a price.

When spokespeople and talking heads take on Spotify, they’re hardly obligated to address each and every one of the company’s wrongs. And failing to mention some of those wrongs does not necessarily mean endorsing them. Yet critics must understand—and some have this week—that by allowing themselves to get sucked into these stories of the minute while allowing deeper structural problems to go unaddressed, they do little but give the company cover to continue doing deeper, more malicious forms of damage. Because of the recent hand-wringing over Joe Rogan, Spotify’s greatest sin right now—at least in the public eye—is letting a charismatic dufus and his guests recklessly peddle bullshit for a few minutes each week, not contributing to the immiseration of an entire creative class for over a decade. We know how this story ends: toothless symbolic actions will be taken. The blowback will blow over. And the company will get on with its exploitative ways.

It certainly hasn’t helped that, somewhat confoundingly, it is artists themselves giving the company its cover of late. And what better cover could there be? If artists are speaking out against Spotify but not mentioning the company’s exploitative practices, then surely the issue of inadequate compensation is old news.  But what type of artist? It’s an essential question if we’re to understand the full ideological nature of this controversy. That musicians like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, who do actually make some cash from Spotify, are the ones getting pissy over Rogan without so much as mentioning the issue of payment is a perfect example of a culture-wars crusade that is also a covert class politics: the politics of the class that has lost sight of material concerns. In criticizing Spotify, Neil Young isn’t speaking for artists; he’s speaking for the professional class and the rich.

If this reading strikes anyone as a stretch, consider the fact that Young, in his statement about pulling his catalog, went so far as to thank his record label, Warner, which brought in $5.2 billion in 2021, for “taking a hit.” He repeated this thanks three more times. It’s  the major record labels, of course, that are largely the reason that lesser-known musicians get paid a pittance on the service; big labels use their leverage to negotiate better deals for their artists, using secretive contracts to secure spots on playlists that ensure streams, among other de facto pay-to-play inequities. They also hog royalties that are easier to miss when you don’t have Young’s millions. Between streaming services and labels, then, the latter are just a lesser evil. Thanking a major label only adds to the sense of unease musicians should feel amid this latest drama.

This week, in an effort to push listeners to other streaming services, Young piled on the corporate love: “Amazon has been leading the pack in bringing hi-res audio to the masses, and it’s a great place to enjoy my entire catalog [sic] in the highest quality available. Thanks also to Apple Music (I LOVE APPLE) and Qobuz for sticking with my high res music,” he tweeted. Sure. Lavish praise on the corporate giants whose pay practices are hardly better than Spotify’s. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I have no doubt that Neil Young, if asked, would say that he resents the way artists are paid by Spotify; his public politics have always at least gestured to the left. And I have no doubt that, if asked, many of the journalists covering this story would as well. But by not drawing attention to the larger picture here, a failure that has such consequences for a politics rooted in material concerns, they are helping to spread a form of misinformation themselves.

Spotify couldn’t have asked for a better distraction from its wretched business model.

Posted Culture & History, Music, Uncategorized

About Author
Robert Jackson Wood is a Brooklyn-based writer, musician, and organizer.

China’s Nuclear Adventurism: Threats And Deterrence Strategy – OpEd

 

A Chinese Dong Feng 31 ballistic missile. Photo Credit: Tyg728, Wikipedia Commons

 February 13, 2022  

By Peter Rodgers*

According to a Pentagon analysis released in early November last year, China is rapidly expanding its nuclear forces and is creating a massive, varied, and more sophisticated nuclear arsenal. China also tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic space missile this summer, as stated in the report. China’s desire to expand and strengthen its nuclear arsenal however is not surprising as their long-term policy under President Xi Jinping is to establish a “world-class military” by the middle of this century.

China has launched a far more assertive foreign policy under Xi, which looks to be focused on disrupting, if not outright replacing, the US-led, rules-based international system. According to the US Intelligence Community’s most recent Annual Threat Assessment, China poses a severe threat to the national security of the US and its allies and partners in the economic, technical, political, diplomatic, and military domains.

Perhaps China’s military threat is the greatest of all. For decades, Beijing has studied the US’s war strategy and developed a military strategy and capabilities aimed at preventing it from projecting military might into the Indo-Pacific. China has spent its economic gains on new military capabilities, and its accelerated military expansion has changed the Indo-Pacific power balance, prompting many defense analysts to doubt if the US can still safeguard longtime allies and partners in the area.

Only a few years ago, experts considered China’s nuclear threat to be the least serious of the three nuclear-armed enemies the US faces. For years, US defense officials have been concerned that China will try to “race to parity.” China, on the other hand, has made considerable advances in its nuclear capabilities during the previous several decades. Despite having a significantly smaller and less advanced arsenal than the US or Russia, the Pentagon currently estimates that China might have up to 700 deployable warheads by 2027 and is likely aiming for at least 1,000 by 2030.

The buildup of China’s strategic forces jeopardizes the US military and its deterrence aims, including preserving an advantageous power balance in the Indo-Pacific, and the goals of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) including deterring nuclear and non-nuclear strategic assault and ensuring allies.

Furthermore, China’s nuclear development means that the US will have to cope with two great powers (Russia and China), both with a considerable nuclear arsenal, for the first time in its history. When China had a modest nuclear stockpile, the US could build a nuclear strategy and stance targeted toward Russia, and China could be seen as a less important issue. If the United States and Russia are in a crisis or conflict, China may be more inclined to launch a simultaneous strategic strike against the US and its allies. Beijing may believe that the US has the competence or determination to deal with two great-power military challenges at the same time.

An expanding nuclear arsenal might also bolster Chinese determination, making it more eager to create and escalate conflicts against the US and its allies, perhaps increasing the possibility of nuclear war. China’s developing nuclear arsenal may act as a deterrent to conventional attack. Beijing may assume (correctly or incorrectly) that it has a free hand to launch an armed strike against US regional allies because it can obtain a local, conventional advantage and threaten the US with nuclear weapons to dissuade intervention or escalation. There would be an obvious danger of nuclear escalation in the case of such a confrontation.

A prospective Chinese attack on Taiwan is one of the top worries for US military strategists. Beijing regards the island as a wayward province and has not ruled out using force to reintegrate it into China’s mainland. Given the island’s proximity to mainland China (approximately 100 miles), it may be difficult for the US military to either forestall an invasion or free the island following a Chinese capture.

Allies may not feel secure if they perceive the United States’ growing susceptibility to a Chinese strategic strike will erode Washington’s commitment. This might have serious implications for US strategy in the area, including the possibility of US allies developing their own nuclear arsenals, undermining the global non-proliferation framework. Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei all have the industrial potential to produce nuclear weapons if they so choose.

Furthermore, China’s nuclear expansion will put further pressure on the US nuclear arsenal’s capacity. For years, the US has maintained a counterforce targeting strategy that necessitates the capability to cover the nuclear-related targets of its major nuclear-armed enemies. As a result, Washington needs a nuclear program capable of simultaneously deterring Russia, China, and North Korea.

Due to China’s rapid development of conventional and nuclear military capabilities, as well as growing doubts about the US’ extended deterrent pledges among Indo-Pacific allies and partners, the US should examine new steps to strengthen deterrence.

Substantial advances to the US force posture across the Indo-Pacific region, as well as increased investments in conventional capabilities, would bolster the US’ power to block a Chinese fait accompli, signaling a shift in regional conventional strategy from deterring through punitive actions to deterring through denial. As a result, the US should strive to have a quantitative and qualitative military superiority at every step of the escalation ladder, from conventional to strategic nuclear, so that Beijing does not feel it can gain an advantage by escalating a military war.

Thus, the US should think about making major adjustments to how it reassures its Indo-Pacific partners. While some have suggested simply adopting NATO’s approach, Washington and its partners require a structure that takes into account the region’s unique history, politics, and security factors. With this in mind, the US should convene Australia, Japan, and South Korea at the secretary-level to analyze regional security trends and consider alternatives for increasing deterrence.

Lastly but not least importantly, China regarded the US and its allies tied up in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran’s nuclear deal as a strategic opportunity to expand its nuclear arsenal. As President Biden has argued, withdrawal from Afghanistan would allow the US to focus more on China. Withdrawing from Iraq and arresting Iran’s nuclear progress through JCPOA can help the United States sharply focus on China and neutralize its destabilizing activities in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere.

It will not be easy to carry out these proposals, but the repercussions of failing to deter a Chinese strategic strike might be disastrous. To avoid a possibly catastrophic deterrence failure, the US and its allies must act immediately.

*Peter Rodgers is an international relations graduate of Penn State University.