Is the European Union Dead?

 

Years of crises appear to provide a definite answer. But Bible prophecy answers differently.

There is no shortage of commentators predicting the demise of Project Europe. From the eurozone financial crisis to the refugee crisis, Europeans are becoming increasingly skeptical about the future of the European Union.

China and the ‘Three Warfares’

Beijing is increasingly exploiting information operations for influence in areas of strategic competition.

While China’s foreign policy has traditionally relied on economic leverage and “soft power” diplomacy as its primary means of power projection, Beijing has also been actively exploiting concepts associated with strategic information operations as a means to directly influence the process and outcomes in areas of strategic competition.

In 2003, the Central Military Commission (CMC) approved the guiding conceptual umbrella for information operations for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – the “Three Warfares” (san zhong zhanfa). The concept is based on three mutually reinforcing strategies: (1) the coordinated use of strategic psychological operations; (2) overt and covert media manipulation; and (3) legal warfare designed to manipulate strategies, defense policies, and perceptions of target audiences abroad.

Masters of Psychological Warfare: How the Chinese Are Winning a Secret War

The comprehensive nature of issues discussed during Xi Jinping’s visit once again illuminated the extent of China’s political and social influence in the United States. On October 6, The Heritage Foundation, in cooperation with The Project 2049 Institute, cosponsored the public program event “Influence Operations: Chinese Political Warfare in East Asia and Beyond.”

The event featured a panel of Heritage and Project 2049 policy experts.

Russia steps up propaganda push with online “Kremlin trolls”

Lyuda Savchuk, a single mother with two children, worked in the St. Petersburg “troll factory” until mid-March. The 34-year-old journalist said she had some idea of the Orwellian universe she was entering when she took the job, but underestimated its intensity and scope.”I knew it was something bad, but of course I never suspected that it was this horrible and this large-scale,” she said in an interview in her apartment, which has colorful drawings on the walls for her two preschool-age children.

She described how the trolls manage several social media accounts under different nicknames, such as koka-kola23, green_margo and Funornotfun. Those in her department had to bash out 160 blog posts during a 12-hour shift. Trolls in other departments flooded the Internet with doctored images and pro-Putin commentary on news stories that crop up on Russian and Western news portals.

China to reap harvest of NSA scandals

The best warfare strategy is to attack the enemy’s plans, next is to attack alliances. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War

A growing chorus of nations is decrying Washington’s unrestrained cyber espionage. However, there is only one country with both the means and motivation for using mounting international resentment to challenge American hegemony. The NSA surveillance of America’s allies has opened up two vital fronts in which China can erode American global dominance.