On April 29th, 2020, the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) released a commissioned CIRA report on China’s smart cities development. China has become a leader in developing and exporting its smart cities technologies like networked cameras, sensors, and location services—and the rest…
CIRA head Dr. James Mulvenon spoke at a seminar hosted by Harvard University’s Fairbanks Center for Chinese Studies to offer his perspectives on China’s illicit knowledge transfer activities. To view the full presentation, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfNmebFE4Ww
Qassem Soleimani’s death, the prospect of further US-Iranian military escalation, and the reemergence of large protests in Iran in recent months raise the question of Iran’s capacity to conduct military operations beyond its borders while suppressing dissent within them. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)…
CIRA Russia analyst Jonathan Brunson writes in the Daily Beast: Amid the tumult surrounding impeachment proceedings against U.S. President Donald J. Trump, which center on his actions with regard to Ukraine, an unnoticed headline is what’s happening to Ukraine’s own President Volodymyr Zelensky. He’s seen…
CIRA Russia analyst Jonathan Brunson writes in Slate: The potential for another Ukrainian revolution festers beneath this year’s deceptively calm presidential and parliamentary elections. It would be the third one in 15 years, following the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Euro-Maidan uprising. In April,…
A report co-authored by CIRAs’s Kieran Green explores the current military cyber structures and operations of China and Russia in order to postulate how both countries could conduct cyber operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, and their motivations for doing so. The report looks…
CIRA China analyst Jonathan Ray testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) on China’s space capabilities development. His testimony focuses on the PLA’s strategy and activities in the space and network (or cyber) domains, and their implications for strategic competition between the…
CIRA China analyst Morgan Clemens has co-authored a chapter in the new book China’s Maritime Gray Zone Operations, edited by Andrew S. Erickson and Ryan D. Martinson and released by the Naval Institute Press. His chapter concerns China’s maritime militias and is entitled “Rights Protection…
In late 2015, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) initiated a series of ongoing reforms that have brought dramatic changes to its structure, model of warfighting, and organizational culture. Undoubtedly, among the most important changes has been the creation of a unified Strategic Support Force (SSF)…
On September 3, 2015, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary and Central Military Commission (CMC) Chairman Xi Jinping announced a reduction in the overall size of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from 2.3 million personnel to 2 million, a reduction of about 11 percent of…
