NOTES

Chapter 1: Technology and National Power

  1. 1 Mao Zedong, “Problems of War and Strategy,” Selected Works Vol. II (Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1965), 131.
  2. 2 “ ‘Whoever Leads in AI Will Rule the World,’ Putin to Russian children on Knowledge Day,” RT, Sept. 1, 2017.
  3. 3 companiesmarketcap.com.
  4. 4 Ilaria Mazzocco, “How Inequality Is Undermining China’s Prosperity,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, May 26, 2022.
  5. 5 “GDP, current prices (List 2022),” International Monetary Fund, imf.org.
  6. 6 “GDP, current prices (selection 2022),” International Monetary Fund, imf.org.
  7. 7 This 9:33-minute excerpt from the movie can be found on YouTube: “2001: A Space Odyssey—The Dawn of Man.”
  8. 8 Morris Rossabi, “All the Khan’s Horses,” Natural History, Oct. 1994.
  9. 9 Linda Davies, “Why the Battle of Agincourt Is Still Important Today,” Guardian, Oct. 25, 2015.
  10. 10 “World’s Best Hospitals 2023,” Newsweek, October 7, 2022.
  11. 11 The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, Jan. 13, 1993.
  12. 12 Diego Cerdeiro, “Sizing Up the Effects of Technological Decoupling,” IMF Working Paper—WP/21/69, 2021, imf.org.

Chapter 2: Cold War 1: Autocracy, Democracy, and Technology

  1. 1 Jonah Crane, “DeFi World Faces Jarring Transition to Proper Oversight,” Financial Times, May 17, 2023.
  2. 2 “The World’s Most, and Least, Democratic Countries in 2022,” The Economist, Feb. 1, 2023.
  3. 3 Dexter Filkins, “A Dangerous Game over Taiwan,” New Yorker, Nov. 14, 2022.
  4. 4 Mary O’Grady, “Evan Gershkovich and Our Brave New World,” Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2023.
  5. 5 Chun Han Wong, “China Accuses Newspaper Editor of Espionage after Meeting with Diplomat,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2023.
  6. 6 Alyssa Lukpat, “A Record Number of Journalists Were Detained Worldwide Prior to Evan Gershkovich’s Arrest,” Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2023.
  7. 7 Jennifer Dunham, “Deadly Year for Journalists as Killings Rose Sharply in 2022,” Committee to Protect Journalists, Jan. 24, 2023, cpj.org.
  8. 8 Orla Ryan, “The Joke Can Be on Hong Kong Comedians If They Cross the Line,” Financial Times, June 1, 2023.
  9. 9 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (New York: Harper, 1976).
  10. 10 Jamie Dettmer, “Hitler’s ‘War of Annihilation’ Caught Stalin by Surprise,” VOA, June 22, 2021, voanews.com.
  11. 11 Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain (New York: Doubleday, 2012).
  12. 12 Winston Churchill, “The Sinews of Peace,” International Churchill Society, winstonchurchill.org.
  13. 13 Full disclosure: the author’s parents fled Hungary as political refugees in November 1956, and the author was born in Toronto in August 1957.
  14. 14 See transparency.org.
  15. 15 Kelly McLaughlin, “Is Putin the World’s Real Richest Man?” Daily Mail.com, Feb. 20, 2017.
  16. 16 Pjotr Sauer, “Kremlin Critic Alexie Navalny Says He Faces Life in Jail over Terror Charges,” Guardian, April 26, 2023.
  17. 17 James Titus, “Soviet Computers: A Giant Awakes,” Datamation, Dec. 15, 1971.

Chapter 3: The Emergence of China

  1. 1 Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919 (New York: Random House, 2001), 322–344.
  2. 2 Tania Branigan, Red Memory (New York: W. W. Norton, 2023).
  3. 3 Valerie Strauss, “How Many Died? New Evidence Suggests Far Higher Numbers for the Victims of Mao Zedong’s Era,” Washington Post, July 17, 1994.
  4. 4 Scott Kennedy, “Data Dive: The Private Sector Drives Growth in China’s High-Tech Exports,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, April 28, 2022.
  5. 5 Evan Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-Warriors: National Security and Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to the Information Age (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003).
  6. 6 “Essay: The Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald,” PBS, American Masters, Aug. 31, 2005, pbs.org.
  7. 7 “China’s Faltering Outlook for Growth,” Financial Times, June 1, 2023.
  8. 8 Alexandra Stevenson, “What to Know about China Evergrande, the Troubled Property Giant,” New York Times, Dec. 9, 2019.
  9. 9 Michael E. O’Hanlon, “China’s Shrinking Population and Constraints on Its Future Power,” Brookings, April 24, 2023.

Chapter 4: Storm Clouds and Near Wars

  1. 1 Nicholas Kristof, “Crackdown in Beijing; Troops Arrest and Crush Beijing Protest; Thousands Fight Back, Scores Are Killed,” New York Times, June 4, 1989.
  2. 2 “Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere (Document No. 9),” April 22, 2013, published by Rogier Creemers, digichina.stanford.edu.
  3. 3 Josh Chin, Surveillance State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2022).
  4. 4 Shoshana Zuboff, Surveillance Capitalism (New York: Public Affairs, 2019).
  5. 5 Elizabeth C. Economy, “The Great Firewall of China: Xi Jinping’s Internet Shutdown,” Guardian, June 29, 2018.
  6. 6 Adam Taylor, “Is Vladimir Putin Hiding a $200 Billion Fortune? (And If So, Does It Matter?),” Washington Post, Feb. 20, 2015.
  7. 7 Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul describes Vladimir Putin’s descent into the depths of autocracy in “Russia’s Road to Autocracy,” Journal of Democracy 32, no. 4 (Oct. 2021), journalofdemocracy.org.
  8. 8 Andrew Osborn, “Putin Critic Jailed in Treason Case for 25 Years,” Reuters, April 17, 2023.
  9. 9 “Department of Justice Seizes $2.3 Million in Cryptocurrency Paid to the Ransomware Extortionists Darkside,” press release, U.S. Department of Justice, June 7, 2021.
  10. 10 Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, Washington, March 2019, Vol. 1, 1.
  11. 11 Ibid., Vol. 1, 4.
  12. 12 PCA (Permanent Court of Arbitration) Case No 2013-19, In the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration, before An Arbitral Tribunal Constituted Under Annex VII to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China, Award, July 12, 2016, pcacases.com.
  13. 13 Suresht Bald, ed., Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (New York: Random House, 1951), “Melian Dialogue,” nku.edu.

Chapter 5: The Contest for Artificial Intelligence Supremacy

  1. 1 For a layperson’s explanation of AI and its implications for the world, see Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher, The Age of AI: And Our Human Future (New York: Little, Brown, 2022).
  2. 2 Geoffrey Hinton et al., “Learning Representations by Back-Propagating Errors,” Nature 323, no. 6088 (1986).
  3. 3 Kai-Fu Lee, AI Superpowers (New York: Mariner/Harper Collins, 2021).
  4. 4 Zeyi Yang, “The Bearable Mediocrity of Baidu’s ChatGPT Competitor,” MIT Technology Review, March 22, 2023.
  5. 5 Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, “Lessons in Conventional Warfighting: Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022,” Royal United Services Institute, Nov. 30, 2022.
  6. 6 Stephen Chen, “China Tests AI-Powered Long-Range Artillery That Can Hit a Person 16 km Away,” South China Morning Post, April 17, 2023.
  7. 7 Emily Branson et al., Digital Future Index 2021–2022, digitalcatapult.org.uk, 33.
  8. 8 Ibid., 34 (original figures in pounds converted into US dollars).
  9. 9 See materials at stopkillerrobots.org.
  10. 10 “Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter,” futureoflife.org.
  11. 11 Cade Metz, “Elon Musk Ramps Up A.I. Efforts, Even as He Warns of Dangers,” New York Times, April 27, 2023.

Chapter 6: The Contest for Semiconductor Chip Supremacy

  1. 1 For statistics on the semiconductor industry in the US and in the rest of the world see the Semiconductor Industry Association, semiconductors.org.
  2. 2 Ryan Smith, “Samsung and AMD Renew GPU Architecture Licensing Agreement: More RDNA Exynos Chips to Come,” April 6, 2023, AnandTech, anandtech.com.
  3. 3 To hear the story firsthand from ASML, see Sander Hofman, “Making EUV: From Lab to Fab,” March 30, 2022, asml.com.
  4. 4 Remarks by national security advisor Jake Sullivan at the Special Competitive Studies Project Global Emerging Technologies Summit, Sept. 16, 2022, whitehouse.gov.
  5. 5 For a good overview of the supply chain in the SC industry, see Jan-Peter Kleinhans, “The Global Semiconductor Value Chain,” Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, Oct. 2020, stiftung-nv.de.
  6. 6 Synopsis.com, “Strategic Acquisitions.”
  7. 7 Zeyi Yang, “Corruption Is Sending Shockwaves through China’s Chipmaking Industry,” MIT Review, Aug. 5, 2022.

Chapter 7: The Contest for Quantum Computing Supremacy

  1. 1 Kenneth Chang, “Quantum Computing Advance Begins New Era, IBM Says,” New York Times, June 19, 2023.
  2. 2 Stephen Witt, “The World-Changing Race to Develop the Quantum Computer,” New Yorker, December 12, 2022.
  3. 3 Others, involving the IBM QC, can be found at ibm.q.com.
  4. 4 Yudong Cao, “Quantum Chemistry in the Age of Quantum Computing,” Chemical Reviews 119, no. 19 (2019).
  5. 5 Ibid.
  6. 6 Dylan Tokar, “Alphabet Launches Bank AI Tool,” Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2023.
  7. 7 Amine Zeguendry, “Quantum Machine Learning: A Review and Case Studies,” Entropy 25, no. 2 (Feb. 2023).
  8. 8 See Pressure, a play by David Haig, 2014.
  9. 9 Stephen Chen, “Post-Snowden China Looks to ‘Hack-Proof’ Quantum Communications,” South China Morning Post, June 13, 2014.

Chapter 8: The Contest for Biotechnology Supremacy

  1. 1 Rob Stein, “First Sickle Cell Patient Treated with CRSIPR Gene-Editing Still Thriving,” Dec. 31, 2021, NPR, npr.org.
  2. 2 Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth (Falls Church, VA: Potomac Associates, 1972).
  3. 3 Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968).
  4. 4 US4259444A, “Microorganisms Having Multiple Compatible Degradative Energy-Generating Plasmids and Preparation Thereof.”
  5. 5 Emily Partridge et al., “An Extra-uterine System to Physiologically Support the Extreme Premature Lamb,” Nature Communications, April 25, 2017.
  6. 6 Rob Stein, “Scientists Create Artificial Womb That Could Help Prematurely Born Babies,” NPR, npr.org, April 25, 2017.
  7. 7 Shuo Xia et al., “A Microfluidic Culture Model of the Human Reproductive Tract and 28-Day Menstrual Cycle,” Nature Communications, March 28, 2017.
  8. 8 Julian Savulescu, “First Synthetic Embryos: The Scientific Breakthrough Raises Serious Ethical Questions,” Phys Org, Aug. 12, 2022, phys.org.
  9. 9 Xiujian Peng, “China’s Population Is Now Inexorably Shrinking, Bringing Forward the Day the Planet’s Population Turns Down,” The Conversation, Jan. 18, 2023, theconversation.com.
  10. 10 Valentine Faure, “The Children of the Nazis’ Genetic Project,” The Atlantic, Feb. 22, 2023.
  11. 11 Roni Rabin, “Many Women Have an Intense Fear of Childbirth, Survey Suggests,” New York Times, May 16, 2023.
  12. 12 Talya Minsberg, “Track Star Tori Bowie Died in Childbirth,” New York Times, June 13, 2023.
  13. 13 Antonio Regelado, “The World’s First Gattaca Baby Tests Are Finally Here,” New York Times, Nov. 8, 2019.
  14. 14 Sui-Lee Wee, “China’s Ill, and Wealthy, Look Abroad for Medical Treatment,” New York Times, May 29, 2017.
  15. 15 As ranked by QS Top Universities, topuniversities.com.
  16. 16 As presented at companiesmarketcap.com.

Chapter 9: Other Important Technologies

  1. 1 Jared Malsin, “Kremlin Extends Global Influence with Russian Nuclear-Power Juggernaut,” Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2023.
  2. 2 Fusion Industry Association, fia.org.
  3. 3 Jennifer Hiller, “Tech Billionaires Bet on Fusion as Holy Grail for Business,” Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2023.
  4. 4 SIPRI Arms Industry Database, sipri.org.

Chapter 10: Other Powerful Assets

  1. 1 worldpopulationreview.com.
  2. 2 World Bank, data.worldbank.org.
  3. 3 World Population Review, at worldpopulationreview.com; only “active duty,” and excluding “paramilitary” and “reserves.”
  4. 4 Junhua Zhang, “Failing Aircraft Venture Highlights Strains in Chinese-Russian Relations,” GIS, Aug. 17, 2022, gisreportsonline.com.
  5. 5 Agathe Demarais, “Why China Hasn’t Come to Russia’s Rescue,” Foreign Affairs, April 28, 2023.
  6. 6 U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, Jan. 2023, pubs.usgs.gov; information for Uranium: Melissa Pistilli, “Top 10 Uranium-Producing Countries,” Investing News, Sept. 5, 2022, investingnews.com.
  7. 7 The US Geological Survey doesn’t give figures for actual production in order “to avoid disclosing company proprietary data.”
  8. 8 As ranked by QS Top Universities, topuniversities.com.
  9. 9 Geoffrey Hinton et al., “Deep Neural Networks for Acoustic Modeling in Speech Recognition,” IEEE Xplore, Nov. 2012.

Chapter 11: Cold War 2.0 Flashpoints

  1. 1 Patriot (updated report), by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, Missile Defense Project, missilethreat.csis.org.
  2. 2 Marc Santora, “Ukraine Claims It Shot Down Russia’s Most Sophisticated Missile for the First Time,” New York Times, May 6, 2023.
  3. 3 For an interesting read with lots of local color, see James Wheeler Davidson, The Island of Formosa, Past and Present (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1903), accessed in Google’s digital archive.
  4. 4 Ibid.; Davidson gives great detail about how the Japanese campaign started with a landing in the north, and then methodically worked its way south. Is this the path Xi Jinping would have his PLA take were he to attack the island?
  5. 5 “Changes in the Unification-Independence Stances of Taiwanese as Tracked in Surveys by Election Study Center, NCCU; John Feng, “Taiwan’s Desire for Unification with China Near Record Low as Tensions Rise,” Newsweek, July 14, 2022, newsweek.com.
  6. 6 Paul Mozur, “Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State,” New York Times, April 24, 2019.
  7. 7 Steven Feldstein, “The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sept. 17, 2019.
  8. 8 Asli Aydintasbas, “What Is the Fallout of Russia’s Wagner Rebellion?” Brookings, June 27, 2023.
  9. 9 Roberto S. Foa et al., “A World Divided: Russia, China, and the West,” Oct. 2022, Centre for the Future of Democracy, University of Cambridge, bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk.
  10. 10 “How India Is Using Digital Technology to Project Power,” The Economist, June 4, 2023.

Chapter 12: Managing Cold War 2.0

  1. 1 “Security Council Fails to Adopt Draft Resolution on Ending Ukraine Crisis, as Russian Federation Wields Veto,” United Nations, meetings coverage and press releases, SC/14808, press.un.org.
  2. 2 “Framework for the Consideration of Prospective Members,” OECD, June 7, 2017.
  3. 3 Costas Paris, “Russian Shipbuilders Are Running Out of Parts,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2024.
  4. 4 Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland has proposed a program along these lines at the G7 meeting in Germany in 2022, but to date neither the US nor the EU has adopted anything like it.
  5. 5 World’s Top Exports, worldstopexports.com.
  6. 6 Yang Jie, “Apple CEO Tim Cook Meets Prime Minister Modi, as Tech Giant Looks to Expand in India,” Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2023.
  7. 7 “America’s Commercial Sanctions on China Could Get Much Worse,” The Economist, March 30, 2023.
  8. 8 Dan Goodin, “18,000 Organizations Downloaded Backdoor Planted by Cozy Bear Hackers,” Ars Technica, Dec. 14, 2020, arstechnica.com.

Chapter 13: Strengthening Democracies

  1. 1 “WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind…”; preamble, United Nations Charter; “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.…”; Article 2.4, United Nations Charter, un.org.
  2. 2 “Funding NATO,” April 14, 2023, nato.int.
  3. 3 “Europe Is Struggling to Rebuild Its Military Clout,” The Economist, May 7, 2023.
  4. 4 Kai-Fu Lee, AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order (New York: First Mariner Books/Harper Collins, 2018).
  5. 5 “How to Get More Bang for the Buck in Western Defence Budgets,” The Economist, May 25, 2023.
  6. 6 “How to Save $48 Billion from the US Nuclear Triad over the Next 10 Years—While Still Keeping It,” Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Nov. 20, 2013, armscontrolcenter.org.
  7. 7 Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005; original edition 1906).
  8. 8 Will Daniel, “4 Tech Giants Accounted for More Than 16 Percent of Fortune 500 Earnings—Even in a Down Year,” Fortune, June 6, 2023.
  9. 9 Kashmir Hill, “Madison Square Garden Uses Facial Recognition to Ban Its Owner’s Enemies,” New York Times, December 22, 2022.
  10. 10 David Gelles, “The Husband-and-Wife Team behind the Leading Vaccine to Solve COVID-19,” New York Times, Nov. 10, 2020.
  11. 11 Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1985).
  12. 12 “List of International Days and Weeks,” United Nations, un.org.
  13. 13 Chris McGreal, “Trump Raised $200 m from False Election Claims. What Happens to the Money Now?” Guardian, Dec. 19, 2020.
  14. 14 Sam Levine, “He Became a Hero for Halting Trump’s Efforts to Overturn the Election. Will Voters Now Punish Him?” Guardian, May 19, 2022.
  15. 15 Jacqueline Thomson, “Trump Lawyer Jenna Ellis Censured over 2020 Election Fraud ‘Misrepresentations,’ ” Reuters, March 9, 2023.
  16. 16 John Hendrickson, “The First MAGA Democrat,” The Atlantic, June 26, 2023.

Chapter 14: A World Technologically Decoupled

  1. 1 Francesca Ebel, “Russian Scientists, Experts in Hypersonic Technology, Arrested for Treason,” Washington Post, May 17, 2023.
  2. 2 Christian Shepherd, “China Gives Elon Musk a Hero’s Welcome—and a Message for the U.S.,” Washington Post, June 2, 2023.
  3. 3 Raymond Zhong, “How China’s Outrage Machine Kicked Up a Storm over H&M,” New York Times, March 29, 2021.
  4. 4 “How India Is Using Digital Technology to Project Power,” The Economist, June 4, 2023.
  5. 5 Assembling the iPhone outside of the Chinese ecosystem of Foxconn’s 150 suppliers will be a challenge in India (where Foxconn has only eleven suppliers, and even in Vietnam it has only twenty-six, so far at least); Rajesh Roy, “Top Apple Supplier Foxconn Plans Major India Expansion,” Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2023.
  6. 6 Philip Wen, “India’s Manufacturing Push Takes an Audacious Gamble on Chips,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 13, 2022.
  7. 7 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).