Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga

Biden Should Call China's Bluff on Responsible AI to Safeguard the 2024 Elections

Few in the Biden administration will be surprised to learn that Beijing is lying about its intentions and activities when it comes to influence operations. But lies, maybe even especially blatant ones, present diplomatic opportunity.

The United States Isn't Ready for the New Age of AI-Fueled Disinformation

Generative AI offers China and other bad actors the potential to fulfill longstanding desires to shape the global conversation. It is vital that the U.S. government and social media platforms recognize this threat and work together to address it immediately.

China's Military Aid Is Probably Less Than You Think

The first comprehensive assessment of Chinese military aid shows that China's $560 million total during 2013-2018 pales in comparison to the U.S. total of over $35 billion in the same period. This should offer advantages in the intensifying U.S.-China strategic competition.

The Signal and the Noise: Understanding China's Military Threats

Although China's capabilities and communication channels have changed, its fundamental approach to military deterrence signaling as a form of political coercion has not. As Australia-China relations enter a new, more confrontational era, Canberra is likely to be an increasingly frequent target of Chinese deterrence signaling.

Chinese Bomber Flights Around Taiwan: For What Purpose?

Recent bomber flights near Taiwan represent the most concerted training regimen yet aimed at improving Chinese airpower. China seeks to enhance the PLA Air Force's capabilities and signal Beijing's will to defend its territorial claims against the U.S. and its regional allies and partners, especially Taiwan and Japan.

China Signals Resolve with Bomber Flights Over the South China Sea

Since the PCA tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines' case on July 12, invalidating many of China's claims in the South China Sea, Beijing has sought to demonstrate its military strength in the region. The PLAAF's H-6K has played a key role.

Commentary

The Rise of Generative AI and the Coming Era of Social Media Manipulation 3.0: Next-Generation Chinese Astroturfing and Coping with Ubiquitous AI

This Perspective explores the implications that generative artificial intelligence (AI) might have for social media manipulation. The authors argue that generative AI presents a revolutionary improvement for the social media manipulation process.

Report

A Framework of Deterrence in Space Operations

This report presents a framework on the nature and requirements of deterrence in space operations. Drawing on lessons from nuclear and cyber and selected national approaches to space deterrence, it presents three archetypes for space deterrence.

Report

Chinese Next-Generation Psychological Warfare: The Military Applications of Emerging Technologies and Implications for the United States

This report explores Chinese military thinking about next-generation psychological warfare, with a special focus on the applications of emerging technologies and implications for the United States.

Journal Article

Exploring Chinese Thinking on Deterrence in the Not-So-New Space and Cyber Domains

This conference volume chapter explores evolving Chinese thinking on space and cyber deterrence. Besides nuclear deterrence, the space and cyber domains are viewed by China as its main means of strategic deterrence.

Research Brief

Little in Common: Prospects for U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia Security Cooperation

This brief presents the overarching findings of a study that explored the extent to which the United States might still be able to cooperate with China and Russia, even in this era of strategic competition.

Report

Assessing the Prospects for Great Power Cooperation in Europe and the Middle East

This report, part of a four-part series, describes the potential for U.S. cooperation with China or Russia in Europe and the Middle East across seven issue areas.

Report

Assessing the Prospects for Great Power Cooperation in the Global Commons

This report, part of a four-part series, describes the potential for U.S. cooperation with China or Russia on global commons issues, including freedom of access to space, countering violent extremist organizations, and promoting global stability.

Report

Assessing the Prospects for Great Power Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific

This report, part of a four-part series, describes the potential for U.S. cooperation with China or Russia in the Indo-Pacific across seven issues, including securing a free and open Indo-Pacific and the denuclearization of North Korea.

Report

Vanishing Trade Space: Assessing the Prospects for Great Power Cooperation in an Era of Competition — A Project Overview

To what extent can the United States still cooperate with China and Russia even in this era of strategic competition? This report, the first of a four-part series, presents the overarching findings of a study that explored this question.

Report

New Directions for Projecting Land Power in the Indo-Pacific: Contexts, Constraints, and Concepts

This report seeks to address how the U.S. Army can most effectively project and employ land power in the Indo-Pacific, during competition and conflict, with a focus on scenarios involving China.

Report

Chinese and Russian Perceptions of and Responses to U.S. Military Activities in the Space Domain

RAND researchers reviewed a variety of Chinese and Russian primary sources to understand internal Chinese and Russian perceptions of U.S. military space-related policies and activities. This report presents the results of their analysis.

Report

Disrupting Deterrence: Examining the Effects of Technologies on Strategic Deterrence in the 21st Century

The authors examined potential implications of emerging technologies for deterrence in the context of U.S. national security policy. They identified long-term effects on two major aspects of the deterrence dynamic -- effectiveness and stability.

Report

Security Cooperation in a Strategic Competition

In this study, RAND researchers examined the current role of security cooperation efforts as a tool in the emerging strategic competition among the United States, Russia, and China.

Report

Chinese Disinformation Efforts on Social Media

The authors identify key Chinese practices and the supporting infrastructure and conditions that successful social media disinformation campaigns require, concluding that China is using Taiwan as a test bed for developing attack vectors.

Report

Combating Foreign Disinformation on Social Media: Study Overview and Conclusions

Disinformation campaigns on social media pose a nuanced threat to the United States, but the response remains ad hoc and uncoordinated. This overview of a five-volume series presents ways to better prepare for this new age of information warfare.

Journal Article

Bomber Strike Packages with Chinese Characteristics

This book chapter traces the development of China's bomber strike packages and assesses how these flights support operational training for Chinese air force wartime missions.

Report

Deciphering Chinese Deterrence Signalling in the New Era: An Analytic Framework and Seven Case Studies

The authors examine how China's approach to deterrence signalling is evolving along with its expanding objectives, growing military capabilities, and the availability of new communication channels—and how regional countries should respond.

Journal Article

Exploring Chinese Military Thinking on Social Media Manipulation Against Taiwan

This article addresses a gap in the current policy discussion, provides evidence of Chinese military planning for covert manipulation of Taiwanese social media, and explores how its interest in and tactics for social media manipulation have evolved over time.

Journal Article

Dare to Face the "Strong Enemy 强敌": How Xi Jinping Has Made the PLA Talk About the United States

The PLA's focus on the U.S. as its benchmark for military modernization and as a potential future adversary is well known. But what is new is how the PLA talks about these efforts: under Xi, this focus on the U.S. is increasingly obvious.

Report

What Deters and Why: The State of Deterrence in Korea and the Taiwan Strait

As part of a series of reports in which RAND researchers examine the established concepts of deterrence and develop a framework for evaluating the strength of deterrent relationships, this report explores two ongoing examples of extended deterrence.

Report

Implementing Restraint: Changes in U.S. Regional Security Policies to Operationalize a Realist Grand Strategy of Restraint

Under a realist grand strategy of restraint, the United States would cooperate more with other powers, reduce its forward military presence, and end some security commitments. The authors identify unanswered questions about such a strategy.

Report

Alternative Worldviews: Understanding Potential Trajectories of Great-Power Ideological Competition

The United States is engaged in a new era of great-power competition taking place in the realms of information, ideas, and ideology. The authors of this report analyze what a future ideological competition might look like.

Journal Article

Through the Looking Glass: Chinese Open Source Assessments of North Korea's Ballistic Missile Capabilities

This report examines Chinese assessments of North Korean ballistic missile capabilities between 1998 and 2017. Chinese analyses mirror Western conclusions that North Korea has a functional ICBM that can reach the U.S. with a nuclear weapon.

Journal Article

Where to Next? PLA Considerations for Overseas Base Site Selection

There has been much speculation about where China's next overseas military base will be, but what does the Chinese military itself think about selecting the locations for its overseas military bases?

Report

Hostile Social Manipulation: Present Realities and Emerging Trends

The practitioners of hostile social manipulation employ social media, forgeries, harassment, distribution of rumors, and other tools to cause damage to their target state. This report focuses on the information warfare activities of Russia and China.

Journal Article

Borrowing a Boat Out to Sea: The Chinese Military's Use of Social Media for Influence Operations

The Chinese military is positioning itself as one of the leading actors for hostile Chinese influence operations on social media. The PLA uses social media for covert hostile political interference operations targeting foreign countries.

Journal Article

Cognitive Domain Operations: The PLA's New Holistic Concept for Influence Operations

As information becomes ever more central for Chinese warfighting, the People's Liberation Army is developing a new concept for psychological warfare in the information era called "cognitive domain operations."

Journal Article

The Flag Lags but Follows: The PLA and China's Great Leap Outward

This chapter explores how China may protect its overseas interests, analyzes PLA thinking about the security dimensions of the Belt and Road Initiative, and considers three case studies on what securing China's overseas interests involves in concrete terms.

Journal Article

Netizen Opinion and China's Foreign Policy: Interpreting Narratives About North Korea on Chinese Social Media

This article collects a novel dataset of thousands of Chinese-language social media posts on the leading microblog, Sina Weibo, in 2015. Analysis of this dataset reveals four multilayered popular Chinese narratives on North Korea.

Report

China's Long-Range Bomber Flights: Drivers and Implications

This report examines the key drivers behind China's strategic bomber flights throughout the Asia-Pacific region, and report recommends specific responses for consideration by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. policymakers, and allies and partners.

Report

Assessing the Conventional Force Imbalance in Europe: Implications for Countering Russian Local Superiority

This report outlines how NATO and Russian force levels and capabilities have evolved in the post--Cold War era and what recent trends imply for the balance of capabilities in the NATO member states that border Russia in the Baltic Sea region.

Journal Article

Chinese Perceptions of and Responses to US Conventional Military Power

Chinese analysts view the U.S. military not only as a model for emulation but also as a serious threat, and thus China has developed capabilities designed to deter or counter U.S. military intervention.

Report

People's Liberation Army Air Force Operations over Water: Maintaining Relevance in China's Changing Security Environment

The report assesses notable developments in and implications of China's emerging aerospace expeditionary and power-projection capabilities, focusing particularly on the People's Liberation Army Air Force's operations over water.

Journal Article

Chinese Bomber Flights Around Taiwan: For What Purpose?

After conducting two strategic bomber flights around Taiwan in late 2016, Beijing significantly stepped up its operational tempo with at least another five flights circumnavigating the island in mid-2017.

Journal Article

China Dictates Terms for Sino-Japanese Relations During First Japanese Foreign Minister Visit in Four Years

Chinese commentary on Japanese Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio's official visit to Beijing in mid-2016 highlighted the sensitivity and difficulty of mending the relationship between Asia's two most powerful countries.

Journal Article

China Signals Resolve with Bomber Flights Over the South China Sea

An unprecedented display of Chinese strategic systems over disputed territories in the South China Sea reflects China's efforts to signal its resolve following a diplomatic defeat.

Journal Article

Deciphering PLA Media Commentaries on North Korea: All Show or Real Talk?

Does Chinese military commentary represent accurate and authoritative views on policy toward North Korea? Are there certain military officials or publications that we should watch closely?