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Strategic Assessment 2020

by Thomas Lynch III

  1. People / Organizations:

    • Graham Allison - Political Scientist

    • Sir Michael Howard - Historian

    • Aaron Friedberg - Political Scientist

    • Paul Kennedy - Historian

    • Michael Mazarr - Political Scientist

    • Boris Yeltsin - Russian Leader

    • H.R. McMaster - National Security Advisor

    • Mike Pompeo - Secretary of State

    • U.S. Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs

    • U.S. Agency for Global Media

    • U.S. Bureau of Global Public Affairs

  2. Quotes:

    • "Competition is not conflict." (pg. 3)

  3. General Notes:

    • "Great Power Competition (GPC) is a framework for understanding global interstate relations." (pg. 1)

    • "The National Security Strategy of 2017 openly advanced the idea that America and fellow great powers - Russia and China - had transitioned from a period of cooperation to one of competition. The National Security Strategy (NSS-2017) identified 3 specific threats to the U.S.: North Korea, Iran, and transnational terrorist organizations" (pg. 1) "U.S. strategies towards China and Russia from 1992 to 2008 were dominated by cooperative interaction and collaborative programs. This era wavered and then collapsed between 2008 and 2014/2015 due to a series of Russian and Chinese military and paramilitary actions in Georgia, Ukraine, and the South China Sea. Russia conducted a covert military invasion of Crimea in 2014 and annexed it from Ukraine. From 2013 to 2015, China's assertiveness in maritime territorial disputes and Xi Jinping's centralization of power catalyzed U.S. responses." (pg. 47)

    • "All three Great Powers have unique perspectives and attitudes about the established rules, norms, and institutions of the international system, which produces consequential strategic policy imperatives." (pg. 59)

    • "the U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS-2018) identified Russia and China as 'Revisionist Powers'." (pg. 2)

    • Continuum of Major State Interaction Postures:

      • Cooperation - states that are exceptionally aligned in geopolitical goals and means of achieving them.

      • Collaboration - states that have similar goals and a general means of achieving them.

      • Competition - states that recognize that some of their major goals are compatible and disagree on the means of achieving them.

      • Confrontation - states that have incompatible goals and conflict about what constitutes legitimate means.

      • Armed Warfare - states have goals that are extremely incompatible, even threatening, that relationships devolve into armed conflict.

    • Power Defined (pg. 3)

      • "the probability that one actor in a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance." - Max Weber

      • Hard Power - the coercive use of military power and economic power as a payoff.

      • Soft Power - includes cooperation and collaborative interactions that attain influence and attraction.

      • Smart Power - policy choices that display and effective mix of coercive hard power and the persuasion of soft power in the pursuit of national interests.

    • A Great Power has three substantive features (pg. 4):

      • Capabilities - has unusual capabilities with which to pursue its interests and to influence interstate relations.

      • Behavior - they use those capabilities to pursue broad foreign policy interests beyond its immediate neighborhood.

      • Status - the states relative status as perceived to be major by other neighboring states.

    • Major GPC Topics (pg. 9)

      • Space

        • "in 2015, China created a Space Force aimed at operating satellites and running counterspace mission, including a home grown GPS system named the Beidou Navigation Satellite System."

      • Cyberspace

      • Homeland Security

      • Climate Change

        • The Paris Climate Agreement - focused on keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by capping and apportioning greenhouse emission percentages.

        • "China is the worlds largest polluter, producing 30% of global carbon emissions [U.S. produces 15% of global total and Russia produces 5% of global total.]." (pg. 12)

    • 7 Objectives of Traditional Interstate Competition (pg. 22):

      • Power and Security

      • Status, Standing, and Prestige

      • Material and Economic Prosperity

      • Resources

      • Territory and Sovereign Claims

      • Values and Identities

      • Norms, Rules, and Institutional Systems.

    • China

      • "China has begin establishing new regional and global institutions that can expands its influence and provide a counterweight to the U.S." (pg. 53)

        • Shanghai Cooperation Organization

        • Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures

        • Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

      • "The Malacca Strait and the Gulf of Aden are vulnerable to disruption by nonstate actors and to interdiction by major naval powers" (pg. 54)

      • "In 2013, Xi launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which seeks to strengthen China's land and maritime connections to Eurasia with new ports, roads, and railroad infrastructure, funded by Chinese loans and built by Chinese companies." (pg. 54)

      • "The underlying demand is for a Chinese seat at the table and a greater role in shaping international rules and norms." (pg. 55)

      • "There is agreement that Beijing seeks greater influence, but [there is] disagreement on the scope and urgency of China's ambitions. Beijing will avoid direct military confrontations where possible and will compete in the economic, technological, military, and diplomatic spheres to improve it regional position." (pg. 57)

      • "China’s emergence as a global power is the product of its three-decade ascent to economic superpower status. From 1979 to 2018, China’s economy grew at an annual rate of 9.4 percent. China became the world’s second largest economy, largest manufacturer, largest trader in goods, second largest consumer of commodities, second largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI), and largest holder of foreign exchange reserves." (pg. 84)

      • "By 2018, China accounted for 35 percent of global manufacturing output." (pg. 85)

      • "The Trump administration implemented multiple rounds of tariffs on goods imported from China to force changes in Chinese industrial policies. This trade war is the most serious disruption in global commerce in nine decades." (pg. 85) [U.S. Views of China Amid Trade War Turn Sharply Negative | Pew Research Center]

      • "China has the second largest defense budget. Its estimated $250 billion in expenditures in 2018 was roughly 40 percent of the U.S. base defense expenditure budget of $650 billion, but 4 times higher than Russia’s $61.4 billion". (pg. 88) "Beijing is spending far more on military forces than Russia and more than any other country except the United States. If its military spending and investment trends continue, China has the capacity to equal or surpass the U.S. economy and U.S. military forces at some point during the next two decades but not in the coming one. China’s emergence as a full superpower is uncertain, and the timing is impossible to predict." (pg. 91)

      • "China’s principal military weakness relative to the United States and Russia is its limited power projection capability. the PLA’s power projection capabilities fall off rapidly with distance, and China lacks allies or a network of overseas bases that could extend its range into other regions". (pg. 88)

      • "China has extensive propaganda and communications tools to get its message out to international audiences. Beijing’s main means of international influence has been through print, television, and radio. Its pays for Chinese “information supplements” to appear in respected international newspapers like the Washington Post. It oversees Xinhua, a state-run global media service that produces CCP-friendly stories for worldwide dissemination in multiple languages and boasts an 11.5-million-follower Twitter account." (pg. 90) "the 2019 Pew Global Attitudes Survey found a median of 40 percent had a favorable opinion of China, compared with a median of 41 percent who had an unfavorable opinion. Asia-Pacific, North America, and Western Europe saw a decline in favorable views of China compared to 2018. Conversely, African views of China are generally positive, averaging 62 percent favorable ratings." (pg. 91) [Is Belief in God Necessary for Good Values? Global Survey on Religion and Morality | Pew Research Center]

      • "China has focused vast military and commercial resources on stealing its adversaries’ intellectual property, infesting their critical infrastructure with malware, and conducting social media–based influence campaigns at home and abroad. " (pg. 139)

      • "After two decades of experimentation by states attempting to use information as an instrument of geopolitics, three main types of targets have emerged. The first is economic. By one estimate, as early as 2010, about 80 percent of U.S. corporate value was stored in intellectual property and trade secrets vulnerable to cyber theft. According to the independent U.S. Intellectual Property Commission, China uses these methods to steal hundreds of billions of dollars of intellectual property from U.S. and European firms every year." (pg. 142)

      • "China uses both the “Great Firewall” and its “Golden Shield” to stifle dissent at home. The Great Firewall blocks access to restricted foreign Web sites. If a China-based user tries to access a restricted site, it will not load and the user will receive a time-out message. Additionally, China uses its Golden Shield to regulate information on domestic sites. According to Gillian Bolsover at the University of Oxford, social media sites in China actively monitor user-generated content to ensure that posted information is not deemed illegal by the state" (pg. 157)

      • "China’s state media organs have broadened their reach with the use of social media. The English-language Facebook pages for China Daily, the official Xinhua News Agency, and CGTN, according to disinformation researcher Renee DiResta, have amassed more than 75 million followers each, a sum two to three times greater than CNN or Fox News. DiResta argues that China’s heavy use of paid social media advertisements played a key role in cultivating this large following." (pg. 158) [FSI - Renee DiResta (stanford.edu)]

      • "As part of its broad-based modernization of its armed forces, China now fields a modern strategic dyad composed of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) based on land and on submarines. Modern ICBMs (a growing number of them mobile) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles constitute an increasingly dynamic force designed to give Beijing high confidence that it possesses a survivable deterrent against U.S. nuclear forces and missile defenses." (pg. 173)

      • "While Beijing views a credible strategic nuclear deterrent as indispensable to a stable relationship with Washington, achieving equal status in numbers and types of nuclear weapons has not been its goal. China does not wish to be seen as an arms-racing global power" (pg. 173)

      • "For China, the Indo-Pacific is the most important region of the world in economic, security, and political terms. Geography makes the Indo-Pacific region critically important to China from a security perspective. China shares land borders with 14 East Asian, South Asian, and Central Asian countries. Chinese leaders worry that neighboring countries could serve as bases for subversion or for military efforts to contain China. China’s ethnic minority population, which Chinese leaders view as a potential separatist threat, lives in sparsely populated border regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet" (pg. 189)

      • "under President Xi, China began placing more emphasis on pursuing territorial claims and exhibiting less concern about the negative impact on relations with its neighbors and with the United States. Tactics to assert sovereignty include patrols by Chinese coast guard and naval forces, occupying land features, enforcement of fishing regulations in disputed waters, oil and natural gas exploration, harassment of military ships and aircraft operating in disputed areas, and use of legal means to press tendentious Chinese interpretations of international law" (pg. 192)

    • Russia

      • "Russia seeks to manage its relationship with the U.S., the EU, and NATO to deter 'hostile' action by weakening the cohesion of these alliances." (pg. 58)

      • "Contemporary Russia can be expected to support rules that allow for authoritarian regimes and resisting those that support a "duty to intervene"." (pg. 60)

      • "Russia is a “one crop economy” with a heavy dependence on energy exports (mainly oil and natural gas) that accounted for almost 60 percent of Russian exports and almost all of Moscow’s $120 billion trade surplus in 2017. Russia’s level of industrialization hovers in the 30 percent range, well below other modern economies, and has remained relatively unchanged for more than two decades (see figure 3b.2). Russian high-tech manufacturing is subpar and declining." (pg. 94)

      • "Russia’s share of global financial market transactions in 2018 was less than 1/10 of 1 percent—far below all other modern economies and a statistic indicating the inability of Russia to derive profit from the dynamic and expanding elements of the broader global services economy" (pg. 94)

      • "Only 34 percent of global respondents in a 2018 Pew International Survey had a favorable view of Russia, and 63 percent had no confidence in Vladimir Putin." (pg. 94)

      • "In the information and communications space, Putin’s Russia has funded and managed three substantive agencies for overt and covert dissemination of its global viewpoints: Russian Television (RT), Sputnik radio, and the Internet Research Agency (IRA). All are funded by the Russian government and work to disseminate propaganda and put out disinformation intended to polarize and confuse non-Russian audiences in a manner aimed to sow mistrust of Western media and institutions. The IRA is the covert social media influence and operation funded by the Russian government that works with Russian military intelligence hacking units to promulgate targeted disinformation and propaganda designed to distort voter perceptions and manipulate participation in democratic elections across Europe and in the United States." (pg. 95)

      • "The most famous example of Russian propaganda stems from its systematic campaign to target the U.S. 2016 election. Russia employed a high-volume array of social media content to include 10.4 million tweets, 1,000 YouTube videos posted on 17 accounts, 116,000 Instagram posts from 133 accounts, and 61,500 unique Facebook posts across 81 pages. These postings yielded 77 million engagements on Facebook, 187 million engagements on Instagram, and 73 million engagements on original Twitter content. The content sought to promote wide-ranging themes specially targeted at different U.S. demographic groups. Targets included African-American communities to promote black separatism, inflame opinions toward police, and undermine confidence in the electoral system." (pg. 155) [Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election (justice.gov)]

      • "Why is Russia so adept at using social media and other online channels of influence? Some analysts point to a 2013 article published on “ambiguous warfare” by the chief of the Russian general staff and general of the army, Valery Gerasimov, which led to some scholars believing that the Russian information campaigns are the result of an “elaborate strategy” developed and executed by Russian planners." (pg. 156) [Rumer_PrimakovDoctrine_final1.pdf (carnegieendowment.org)]

      • "Russia continues to field modern land-, sea-, and air-based nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW)—a category of weaponry in which it has long enjoyed uncontested advantage in relation to the United States and its Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In the post–Cold War period, this imbalance in NSNW has been a source of concern precisely because of the fear that it could contribute to deterrence instability in Europe. Russia might see an advantage in escalating to the limited use of NSNW in the belief that the United States or NATO lacks the means to respond proportionately. Accordingly, mitigating this danger is now a priority for the United States. To accomplish this, the United States will develop and field two nonstrategic nuclear capabilities: a low-yield option for existing submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads and a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile." (pg. 172)

    • U.S. - China Competitive Power Tools (pg. 197)

      • Political / Diplomatic

        • 2019 State Department Document 'A Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Advancing a Shared Vision' [Free-and-Open-Indo-Pacific-4Nov2019.pdf (state.gov)]

        • "The document emphasized continuing American diplomatic engagement with regional partners and institutions via programs including the Pacific Pledge ($100 million) and the Lower Mekong Initiative ($3.8 billion). It also championed continuing good governance with a Transparency Initiative ($600 million) and a Myanmar Humanitarian Assistance Program ($669 million), among others. The United States also invested in regional human capital development with a number of programs, including enhanced Fulbright Fellowships, a Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, and a Food for Peace Program. These and other American diplomatic programs are carried out under many different labels, banners, and names, which may undermine their collective impact." (pg. 198)

        • "China’s competitive approach to regional diplomacy is oriented on a three-pronged framework. First, Beijing increasingly portrays U.S. alliances and the U.S. military presence as stirring up trouble for the region and unfairly aiming to choke off China’s legitimate rise. Second, China seeks to use access to its market and preferential benefits from its BRI infrastructure projects and other investment programs to increase its influence in the region and to dissuade countries from taking actions against its interests. Third, China has sought to undercut U.S. diplomatic initiatives through strategically targeted high-level visits and improved relations with traditional U.S. allies and would-be American partners." (pg. 199)

      • Ideological

        • "The FOIP vision captures critical elements of historic American aims and interests in the Indo-Pacific region. It rests on the bedrock of American ideals of liberal democracy and a free trade system: respect for the rule of law; individual rights; freedom of navigation and overflight, including open shipping lanes; peaceful resolution of disputes; and transparency in the free flow of information." (pg. 200)

        • "A December 2019 Pew Survey reported China receiving unfavorable reviews from all but Pakistan in the region. In Japan, 85 percent have an unfavorable opinion of China, with 63 percent of South Koreans, 57 percent of Australians, and 54 percent of Filipinos sharing this view. Indonesian opinion of China plunged 17 percent between 2018 and 2019, the most negative drop in regional countries over the past decade." (pg. 202)

      • Informational

        • "The Indo-Pacific region accounts for more than half of all social media users worldwide, with 426 million active Facebook users and one-third of all global Twitter users." (pg. 202)

        • U.S. Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs & U.S. Agency for Global Media & Bureau of Global Public Affairs. (pg. 203)

    • "the U.S. has been the dominant nation in private global financial markets for decades, accounting for 53% of activity in 2018. This gives the U.S. a unique coercive economic power tool to modify foreign entity behavior by restricting access. But overuse of financial sanctions can backfire…creating incentives for friends and foes to develop alternative financial structures." (pg. 79)

    • "American military spending grew from $716 Billion in 2019 to $728 Billion in 2020. These figures triple the Chinese official defense budget and is 16 times that of Russia." (pg. 80)

    • "Annual government-to-government U.S. defense assistance to foreign allies and partners averaged approximately $43 billion per year over the decade of the 2010s, with conspicuous spikes above that in 2012 and 2018. 29 Major partner states for U.S. Government military foreign sales support and security assistance are the states of the Middle East, Israel, Egypt, and Pakistan." (pg. 81)

    • "Recently, a U.S. political scientist [ Martha Bayles] investigated the implications of this privatization of public diplomacy and found it often to be counterproductive: “Instead of showing the interdependence of prosperity, democracy, and freedom, contemporary [American] popular culture tends to single out freedom and portray it in ways that are very entertaining, but often also very alien to the concerns of most people in the world." (pg. 83) [How the World Perceives the New American Dream - The Atlantic]

    • "The United States today relies primarily on the private sector to project external information about American values and ideals—the core of the liberal capitalist brand." (pg. 83)

    • Technological Innovation & Warfare:

      • "In The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab states that the unifying of new technologies—“artificial intelligence [AI], robotics, internet of things, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, material science, energy storage, and quantum computing, to name a few” —is going to revolutionize almost every aspect of life, mostly in a positive way." (pg. 105) "The fourth industrial revolution is shifting trade networks from the global to regional and even local levels. The United States may well be the nation best positioned to benefit from this shift. The U.S. economy already derives 84 percent of its GDP from the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Although the supply chains are deeply embedded in Asia, U.S. manufacturing and services have been in the process of moving production back to the United States for years. " (pg. 114)

      • "the U.S. Civil War demonstrated the impact of the Industrial Revolution on warfare. The advent of mass production, railroads, telegraphs, and steam warships meant mass became a dominant, if not the dominant, element on the battlefield. World War I reinforced this fact. Even with the advent of maneuver warfare, World War II remained largely a competition of mass. In the 1980s, American leaders turned to precision weapons to defeat the Warsaw Pact’s mass" (pg. 121)

      • Nano-Technology:

        • "The most immediate military application of nanotechnology is nano-explosives. Opensource reporting indicates nano-explosives have demonstrated an explosive power 10 times that of conventional explosives" (pg. 122)

        • "The second area of interest is nanomaterials. Carbon nanotubes (created from graphene) are over 400 times stronger than steel and are exceptional conductors. They are being used to reduce the weight needed for structural strength in many products—electronics, vehicles, medical devices, and even water purification" (pg. 122)

      • Drones:

        • Surveillance/Reconnaissance - Global Hawk, Defiant Labs' DX-3, and Aerovel's VTOL Flexrotor

        • Communication

        • Strike Drones - Kratos VTOL & XQ-222

        • Maritime Drones

        • Ground Drones

      • AI

        • "two AI areas of particular importance in the rapid evolution of small, smart, and cheap weapons: GPS-independent navigation and target identification" (pg. 124)

        • "the second key element for truly autonomous drone strike operations is accurate target identification. Many researchers are working on limited AI that will provide accurate identification from onboard sensors. At the low end, an early 2019 online journal rated seven commercial drones that can identify and follow a person. These drones can certainly identify an aircraft on a parking apron. At the high end, the Air Force Research Lab is using a neuromorphic chip to identify military and civilian vehicles in radar-generated aerial imagery." (pg. 124)

      • Tactical Impact (pg. 126)

        • "the emerging family of drones can create a deep zone denied to movement by either side" (pg. 127)

        • "Ground forces are working out how to employ weapons to assist their current forces in combat. However, with the rapid improvements in cruise missiles and drones, division commanders may soon control weapons with a 1,000-mile range and be full partners with manned aircraft. Moreover, joint doctrine will have to adjust if ground forces must soon control weapons that exceed the range of fighter bombers. The final step—replacement—will require careful consideration of which combat functions can be allocated to autonomous drones. " (pg. 127)

        • "Many warships carry weapons in box launchers topside. These provide easily identifiable target points and great potential for secondary explosions. Aircraft carriers may well be the most vulnerable. The USS Oriskany, USS Forrestal, and USS Enterprise fires all demonstrate that a small explosion on a deck full of armed, fueled aircraft can result in a carrier being put out of action for weeks to months". (pg. 127)

    • "Technological convergence is driving the “democratization” of military power by providing small states—and even groups—capabilities that used to be the preserve of major powers. Five factors will have a direct impact on the operational level of war: " (pg. 131)

      • Range Obsolescence

        • "missiles and drones have three major advantages over manned aircraft— range, basing flexibility, and cost. An increasing number of drones and ballistic and cruise missiles outrange all fighter bombers. Because many are truck mobile, they are extremely difficult to suppress, much less destroy. Moreover, they are forcing U.S. warfighters to be based so far from the frontlines that the fighters are effectively neutralized. Finally, they are relatively cheap" (pg. 131)

      • Loss of Immunity to Attack

        • "The United States will no longer project power anywhere in the world with impunity. Future enemies will be able to impose real costs that directly affect U.S. citizens, and they may not be shy about employing these weapons. Small states and nonstate actors have shown cyber capabilities that have distinctly reduced U.S. immunity to counterattack when America gets involved in a conflict overseas."

      • Tactical Dominance of Defense

      • Return of Mass

      • Requirement to Mobilize

    • "In the current system, geopolitical power is mainly determined by the amount of economic and military capabilities major players can project abroad, and these abilities in turn are shaped by the era’s dominant technology" (pg. 141)

    • Geopolitical IT Targets (pg. 142)

      • Economic - Banking, Corporate Financial Markets, etc. (steal data and resources)

      • Civilian and Military Critical Infrastructure - Malware (attack/disable systems)

      • Populations - Social Media (manipulate purchasing behavior)

      • "To date, despite ongoing efforts, neither China nor Russia has gained unfettered access to Western networks. They have failed to do so largely because of the immense resources that governments and private industry dedicate to computer defenses. The battle for access is a constant struggle to control the domain that is played out every time a new piece of software or hardware is added to a network. It involves attempts to find holes in operating systems, commercial software, phone apps, hardware, and nearly everything associated with the growing Internet of Things". (pg. 144)

    • "A study from the University of Oxford documented that some 70 countries around the world are engaged in manipulating social media to serve domestic and foreign policy ends. This is up from 48 countries in 2018 and 28 countries in 2017. In particular, the study documented foreign propaganda campaigns conducted by Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela." (pg. 153)

    • "Core strategy and policy documents such as the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy (NDS), Nuclear Posture Review, and Department of Defense Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction highlight these weapons as an enduring feature of the security environment." (pg. 169)

    • "At the end of the Cold War in 1992, the United States pursued a strategy of engagement (remaining active and connected globally) and enlargement (expanding the reach and strength of liberal political and economic rules and norms)." (pg. 187)

    • "During the early post–Cold War period, the United States tried to manage a sullen, stagnant North Korea (simultaneously pursuing deterrence and diplomacy to try to eliminate the North’s nuclear program); maintain stability in the tense relations between China and Taiwan; foster greater Asia-Pacific multilateral economic, political, and security cooperation; and integrate China into regional and global economic and security regimes." (pg. 188)

    • Rogue Disrupter States (pg. 219):

      • "The DPRK, Iran, and Russia are motivated by a combination of regime survival, aspirations for regional dominance and sometimes global relevance, as well as an inclination to confront the United States, which they all see as the main obstacle to their own aspirations." (pg. 220)

      • Iran

      • North Korea

      • Russia

        • "Russia’s expeditionary capabilities have forged it into a key powerbroker in the conflict. Russia’s gray zone tactics, which encompass psychological, cyber, computer network, proxy warfare, and electronic operations, are thus complementary to its conventional military capabilities." (pg. 221)

        • "Proxies and mercenaries are other assets that allow Russia to accomplish its objectives without resorting to conventional military means. The presence of Russian private military companies (PMCs) on the ground has allowed the Kremlin to play a critical role in security policies of these states. Because Russia’s PMCs, in particular the Wagner Group, rely on the profits from natural resources seized on behalf of regimes in Syria, Sudan, or CAR for reimburse for their military service, their involvement in conflicts redirect the supported governments’ operational priorities." (pg. 222)

    • Data Resources

  4. Further Readings:

Strategic Assessment 2020: Text
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