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Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to New York Post: Race Bait - To Skirt the Law, Colleges Incentivize Applicants to Write 'Identity Essays'
NEW YORK, Dec. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute posted the following excerpts of a commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to the New York Post:* * *
Race Bait: To Skirt the Law, Colleges Incentivize Applicants to Write 'Identity Essays'
By Wai Wah Chin
Attention high-school seniors: Deadlines are coming up! Polish your dream-college applications, hit send, and hope the admissions game isn't rigged with "race proxies"!
To stay ahead of the curve, consider including your "subjective social status" -- what's good enough for the governor of California should be good enough for admissions officers.
Education ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, Dec. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute posted the following excerpts of a commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to the New York Post: * * * Race Bait: To Skirt the Law, Colleges Incentivize Applicants to Write 'Identity Essays' By Wai Wah Chin Attention high-school seniors: Deadlines are coming up! Polish your dream-college applications, hit send, and hope the admissions game isn't rigged with "race proxies"! To stay ahead of the curve, consider including your "subjective social status" -- what's good enough for the governor of California should be good enough for admissions officers. Educationgatekeepers are always hunting for fresh metrics to cherry-pick students, especially after the Supreme Court's 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling banned racial preferences in college admissions.
Some elite schools produced expected racial shifts post-SFFA, others amazingly kept racial proportions similar to pre-SFFA. Was this by feigning compliance using stealthier "socioeconomic status" preferences?
"Socioeconomic" is deceptive. It sneaks in the term "economic" to win over generous Americans who support helping those with genuine financial need.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post (https://nypost.com/2025/12/22/opinion/race-bait-to-skirt-the-law-colleges-incentivize-applicants-to-write-identity-essays)
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Wai Wah Chin is the founding president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York.
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Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/race-bait-to-skirt-the-law-colleges-incentivize-applicants-to-write-identity-essays
[Category: ThinkTank]
Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to Bloomberg Opinion: Economy Needs a Little Bit of Unfairness
NEW YORK, Dec. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to Bloomberg Opinion:* * *
The Economy Needs a Little Bit of Unfairness
By Allison Schrager
There are a lot of reasons, some deserved and some not, for Americans' distrust of their institutions. Lately I have been thinking about one of the more counterintuitive ones: Our schools, governments and even employers are trying too hard to make things fair.
In so doing, they are not only setting themselves up for failure -- and eventually mistrust -- but they are also misunderstanding the ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, Dec. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to Bloomberg Opinion: * * * The Economy Needs a Little Bit of Unfairness By Allison Schrager There are a lot of reasons, some deserved and some not, for Americans' distrust of their institutions. Lately I have been thinking about one of the more counterintuitive ones: Our schools, governments and even employers are trying too hard to make things fair. In so doing, they are not only setting themselves up for failure -- and eventually mistrust -- but they are also misunderstanding thegalvanizing role that unfairness plays in a competitive economy.
Unfairness can be tempered, but it can never be eliminated. The decision of how much unfairness to tolerate is one for society as a whole to make, and we expect our institutions to enforce it. I fear that, in the last decade or so, those institutions went too far in enforcing fairness, without full buy-in from the public and at the expense of other values.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Bloomberg Opinion (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-12-22/us-economy-a-little-bit-of-unfairness-is-healthy?srnd=undefined)
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Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/the-economy-needs-a-little-bit-of-unfairness
[Category: ThinkTank]
Last Christmas, I Gave You My ... Tax Dollars?
PHOENIX, Arizona, Dec. 23 [Category: ThinkTank] -- The Goldwater Institute posted the following news:* * *
Last Christmas, I Gave You My... Tax Dollars?
*
Christmas is a time for giving. Unfortunately, some government officials believe that means they can hand out public tax dollars to special interests at year's end. That needs to stop.
Earlier this year, the Goldwater Institute raised concerns that the city of Phoenix illegally spent millions of dollars to subsidize a number of private organizations, some of which promote controversial and ideological causes. Several city departments treated ... Show Full Article PHOENIX, Arizona, Dec. 23 [Category: ThinkTank] -- The Goldwater Institute posted the following news: * * * Last Christmas, I Gave You My... Tax Dollars? * Christmas is a time for giving. Unfortunately, some government officials believe that means they can hand out public tax dollars to special interests at year's end. That needs to stop. Earlier this year, the Goldwater Institute raised concerns that the city of Phoenix illegally spent millions of dollars to subsidize a number of private organizations, some of which promote controversial and ideological causes. Several city departments treatedbudget categories like "Sponsorships," "Miscellaneous," "Grants and Subsidies," and "Emerg[ency] Assist[ance]" as slush funds for preferred groups. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes' investigation into those payments is ongoing more than seven months after Goldwater submitted a formal complaint.
So, what does Christmas have to do with it?
In July, Goldwater sent a follow-up letter to the attorney general highlighting several specific organizations and expenditures that likely violated Arizona law. One of these flagged expenditures raises eyebrows not only due to its amount and budget category, but also for its timing.
On Christmas Eve last year, the city's Office of Arts and Culture sent $24,815.64 to the Sagrado art gallery in South Phoenix as an "Emerg[ency] Assist[ance]" payment.
Why did the city send nearly $25,000 in taxpayer dollars to a private art gallery without consulting the Phoenix City Council? Why did the Sagrado need emergency assistance on Christmas Eve? And why should taxpayers be on the hook for it?
Most of the answers remain unclear. What we do know is that in 2023, the city began allowing its departments to spend up to $32,000 at a time without seeking council approval. That's nearly four times the previous limit of $8,600.
We also know that year-end spending sprees are not a problem unique to Phoenix.
For example, our friends at Open The Books have long documented the problem of "Use-It-Or-Lose-It" spending sprees that occur at the federal level at the end of the federal fiscal year in September. That recurring problem has led Open The Books to declare that "Christmas comes in September, not December, for federal contractors."
Similarly, the Arizona Commerce Authority, which administers a film subsidy program being challenged by the Goldwater Institute, approved more than $750,000 in refundable tax credits during the final three weeks of 2024, more than 83% of the total amount approved for that entire year.
And just last week, the Governor of Wyoming and the Wyoming Energy Authority announced a $100 million "award" (i.e. taxpayer-funded subsidy) for a new nuclear facility, arguing in a public statement that such handouts "are not about government picking winners," even though that's exactly what these types of expenditures do.
Not only is government picking winners and losers when it gives tax dollars to private organizations wrapped in ribbons and bowsit's doing so with your money.
Renowned economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman explained that one problem with public officials spending tax dollars on various projects and causes arises from the fact that when spending someone else's money, concerns about cost are diminished. And when money is spent on someone else, rather than on oneself, less care is taken as to the quality of goods and services. That's one reason why government spending at most levels is so out of control, and why the public is generally dissatisfied with the results.
Generosity and philanthropyespecially at year's endare best accomplished by private individuals and organizations, not bureaucrats and politicians. Government entities everywhere should refrain from burning through piles of public cash during the holiday season on pet projects or causes, however deserving they might seem. That's as true for art galleries and film production as it is for nuclear facilities and other private projects.
The Goldwater Institute will continue to fight these and other abuses of taxpayer money across the country. Maybe next year, tax dollars won't be given to special interests.
Parker Jackson is a Staff Attorney at the Goldwater Institute.
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Original text here: https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/last-christmas-i-gave-you-my-tax-dollars/
Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary to Eurasia Daily Monitor: Russians Protesting Mounting Problems, But Not Yet Against Putin
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, in its Eurasia Daily Monitor:* * *
Russians Protesting Mounting Problems, but Not Yet Against Putin
By Paul Goble
Executive Summary:
* Residents of the Russian Federation are facing a growing tide of problems, and some are now taking to the streets to protest. There were more such actions over the last 12 months than in any of the previous four years.
* Those protests have occurred east of the Urals, take place only with permission from local officials, and avoid attacking Russian President ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, in its Eurasia Daily Monitor: * * * Russians Protesting Mounting Problems, but Not Yet Against Putin By Paul Goble Executive Summary: * Residents of the Russian Federation are facing a growing tide of problems, and some are now taking to the streets to protest. There were more such actions over the last 12 months than in any of the previous four years. * Those protests have occurred east of the Urals, take place only with permission from local officials, and avoid attacking Russian PresidentVladimir Putin, giving the Kremlin another way to gauge popular attitudes and control regional leaders.
* There are few signs that these protests will grow into a movement that might threaten the Kremlin leader or even lay the groundwork for solving Russia's problems and radical change once he departs the scene.
The dimensions of the problems confronting Russians are so daunting that many assessments assume that they will sooner or later rise against the regime responsible and force radical change. Observers both inside Russia and abroad have been encouraged by the growing number of protests that have taken place, with the number of popular actions in the Russian Federation over the last 12 months exceeding the figures for any of the previous four years, and with this increase especially marked in the last three months (Novaya Gazeta, December 16). The potential effects of these protests, however, should not be overstated. Most are small and take place only when local officials give their approval and set the terms of their behavior. Moreover, most are not linked to others focusing on the same issues, and nearly all take place far from Moscow, most often east of the Urals.
These protests are confronted by a regime that has enormous coercive resources and significant reserves of support because of the improvements it made after the crises of the 1990s. The regime also benefits from widespread assumptions among Russians that politics is a dirty business they should stay out of and that, while boyars, as local and regional powers, may be bad, the tsar, whatever his title may be, is fundamentally good--even if sometimes isolated and misinformed by those who represent him. In the case of the most recent protests, participants have appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene on their behalf against officials who are oppressing them, even though they are suffering from policies Putin has set and that regional authorities have little or no power to modify (Levada Center, November 26).
Any members of the elite who might be considering, or even exploiting, such widespread protests to force a change in policy or personnel are themselves products of that regime and share many of its values. Unless such people were to be replaced entirely--as happened in 1917, but not in 1991--there is less chance of fundamental change than many now suggest is inevitable. There is a much greater chance, however, that whoever succeeds Putin will ultimately continue his approach, regardless of promises to the contrary. Such an individual would act just as the current Kremlin leader has done (MOST.Media, December 15). That does not mean that an examination of the major problems confronting Russia is unnecessary or that the protests cannot ever play a positive role, at the margins, in transforming national culture. It means, however, that these factors must be kept in mind even as commentators, ordinary Russians, and academic experts suggest that in 2026 both the problems and protests about them will increase further (Kasparov.ru, December 4; Levada Center December 9; The Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, December 16).
Russians are facing numerous pressing problems under current conditions, some of which have already sparked protests. First, the war against Ukraine and the problem of returning veterans are continuously concerning issues in Russian society. Even if a settlement is reached, Putin's war against Ukraine is not ending as a problem for the Russian people. It is only changing shape--and perhaps becoming even more serious. Russian attention to the enormous loss of life and substantial amount of money diverted from other purposes to fund the fighting continues. Russians, however, are focusing more of their attention to the effect of returning veterans. This return appears to be sparking a radical rise in crime. Additionally, Putin's effort to make the veterans the new elite is not only threatening the lives of ordinary Russians but raising questions about the fate of members of the current elite (see EDM, October 9; Window on Eurasia, December 1, 14; Verstka, December 9).
Second, Russia is facing mounting economic difficulties as the war continues. Russian officials have acknowledged that the country has entered a recession, and some even talk about the more serious threat of stagflation, the result of both enhanced sanctions and Moscow's failure to repair or replace existing infrastructure and machinery. As a result, not only is production in many sectors, especially in consumer goods, falling, but workers in an increasing number of cases are not being paid or are losing their jobs. Inflation is hurting everyone, the less well-off in particular (see EDM, October 27, November 20; Window on Eurasia, November 2, December 14).
Third, Russia is experiencing a rise in collapsing housing and infrastructure. With the arrival of winter, an increasing number of Russians are living without heat, electricity, or plumbing because the authorities have failed to repair or replace aging housing and other facilities. Those problems--most widely covered when they hit apartments, hospitals, and stores--are characteristic of Russian infrastructure as a whole, including transportation and communication links, mines, and gas and oil fields (see EDM, November 4; Window on Eurasia, December 11; Govorit Moskva, December 16).
Fourth, the environment is degrading. The Putin regime has always prioritized economic development over environmental protection or the people who depend on it. For the last year, Russians have been watching as volunteers have tried to clean up oil spills both in the south and in the north without much help and often with the opposition of the government. They now face a challenge in Lake Baikal, where Putin has signed off on legislation that will open the way to almost unrestricted economic development of the shoreline, which is almost sacred to most Russians. They continue to try to cope with the construction of new trash dumps in places near where people live. Many of the protests focus on these problems as NIMBY ("Not in my back yard") issues, but there is growing recognition that they are more than that (Meduza; The Moscow Times, December 15).
Fifth, transportation and communication problems are mounting. Rising prices and taxes are ending the era of mass car ownership in Russia, highways and railroads are in trouble, and air travel is becoming more difficult as Moscow closes airports and regional carriers shut down. Moscow has had to cancel or at least postpone various projects that Putin has personally invested in (Nezavisimaya Gazeta; Govorit Moskva, December 3). At the same time, Russians face increasingly frequent internet disruptions, which are already having grave social consequences (Window on Eurasia, October 7, 12, and December 16).
Sixth, Russia is seemingly becoming ever "less Russian." Russians, including the Kremlin, are worried about demographic changes arising from the influx of Central Asian and Caucasian migrant workers and the high fertility rates among many non-Russians compared to the radical decline in those rates among ethnic Russians (see EDM, October 7). The combination of those two factors is leading to an ever less Russian Russia, with some predicting that the country will have a Muslim majority by 2075. Even if that is extreme, changes in the country's demography are intensifying ethnic and religious tensions and conflicts (see EDM, December 2; Window On Eurasia, December 15).
Seventh, Russians have a sense that they are increasingly losing prestige as a country and a civilization. They now face far greater travel restrictions, the number of non-Russians seeking to acquire Russian citizenship has cratered, and signs in Chinese have gone up in the Russian Far East, one of the consequences of Putin's turn to the east since the start of the expanded war in Ukraine (see EDM, October 26, 2023). Moreover, they have suffered several technogenic disasters that have received much attention abroad. The latest of these was an explosion at the Baikonur space facility in Kazakhstan (Svobodnaya Pressa, November 28; Novaya Gazeta, December 15; The Moscow Times, December 16).
Eighth, Russians have been facing higher and higher taxes, both direct and indirect, to finance the war against Ukraine. They have done so at a time when the government has been cutting back on medical services and other services on which Russians have traditionally relied (Window on Eurasia, November 24, December 6).
Finally, the regime in Moscow is facing problems itself. Financial stringencies resulting from the war, both in Moscow and the regions, have not only led to the cancellation or delay of many key projects but also put regional governments on the brink of catastrophe and opened the way for some governors to act more independently. It has even led to a decline in the number of police and security services on whom both the population and regime rely. The war has also led to a radical decline in the number of policemen on the beat in Russia, as officers have joined up for better-paying jobs in the military. Putin's plan to integrate veterans into the existing elite is prompting some in the elite to wonder about their own fate (see EDM, October 9, 30, November 18; Kavkaz.Realii, December 4; Window on Eurasia, December 10; Sibirskii Economist, December 16).
In most countries, this mix of increasingly serious problems would spark massive protests, changes in government policies, or the replacement of current leaders with new ones. That has not been the case in Russia despite the sharp increase in protests over the last few months. Instead, these actions have remained small, isolated, tightly regulated by local officials, and have not spread, except in a microscopically small number of cases (Gorozontal'naya Rossia, December 15). Both individually and collectively, these protests show that while Russians are anything but happy with the situation they find themselves in now and fear that it will only get worse, they are not ready to take to the streets in massive numbers either because of longstanding cultural values or the fear of repression.
In addition to those explanations for the relative paucity of protest, there are other, more immediate reasons to think that Russians as a whole are considerably happier with their lot than many suspect and that they are less likely to support a radical revision in policies or leadership than many hope. One of the most thoughtful and significant expressions of why that is the case comes in two articles by the Levada Center's Lev Gudkov, who has been monitoring what has changed and, significantly, what has not changed in Russian attitudes for decades (Levada Center, November 26; MOST.Media, December 15).
In the first of these articles published by the Levada Center, the pollster says that surveys his organization and others have conducted in recent years show that Russians have become more satisfied with their lot. He argues that the result is primarily due to the Kremlin's skill in giving them a way to channel their internal aggression by attacking minorities at home and Ukraine abroad, and thus allowing them to recover the sense that Russia is a great power. He adds that the dominant attitude among Russians has changed from one that reflected the view that "it is difficult to live, but it is possible to hold on" between 1994 and 2019 to "everything is not so bad and it is possible to live" more recently. As that more positive assessment has become dominant, the formerly dominant one of despair has declined precipitously. In 1998-1999, 61 percent of Russians said it was not possible to continue living as they were. Today, Gudkov argues, the share of Russians who feel that way is down to five percent. That limits the number of people prepared to protest about things that bother them significantly (Levada Center, November 26).
He points to five changes that explain this. These include a decline in poverty, price increases for raw materials, the rejection of the heightened expectations many had in the 1990s for improvement overnight, and "the stabilization of life under conditions of a new and authoritarian regime." This has allowed Russians to express their anger and feel that they are a great power. According to Gudkov, however, "the collapse of the basic system-forming institutions of Soviet totalitarianism ... did not affect other crucial institutions of this system, including the political police, army, courts, and education, and thus did not lead to the liberalization of mass consciousness" (Levada Center, November 26).
As a result, the sociologist continues, most Russians have retained "an authoritarian structure of consciousness." People expect, although do not demand from the state, "primarily an improvement in their standard of living, protection from arbitrary actions by the bottom of the bureaucracy and criminals, but not seeking freedom and political rights" (Levada Center, November 26). Over the last decade, he continues:
The return to great power rhetoric, to the struggle with 'color revolutions' and against 'a fifth column,' confrontation with the West after the Baltic republics joined the [European Union] and [North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)] were thus greeted by 'society' with understanding, relief and approval (Levada Center, November 26).
This popular response helps to explain the return of authoritarianism. It is not just the product of the actions of Putin and his regime, but also about the response of the still authoritarian Russian people to what he is doing. Putin pursues a more aggressive foreign policy abroad,as in Ukraine, and a more repressive one at home against migrants and other minorities to vector popular discontent away from his regime (Levada Center, November 26).
In his second article, published by MOST.Media, Gudkov argues that the hopes that Russia will fundamentally change course after Putin's departure from power are often overstated (MOST.Media, December 15). Both the degradation that Russian society has experienced under Putin and the authoritarian temptation will almost certainly continue long into the future. Given the disappointments Russians have suffered from the failure of reforms in the 1990s, they do not see any real alternative to the authoritarianism they defer to. Gudkov continues, "all preceding culture which we have had was a hypocritical adaptation to the existing order and to a repressive state" (MOST.Media, December 15). That state weakened somewhat in the 1990s, "but our people then wanted not freedom but an increase in consumption and wanted to live as in Western countries."
Even in the 1990s, he points out, only a few organizations, primarily supported by grants from abroad, genuinely wanted democracy. As a result, "the main institutions of a totalitarian society, that is, the army, [Committee for State Security (KGB)], and judicial system," remained in place even if they were renamed. The Russian population accepted this as "as a given" rather than seeing it as something that must be changed. The Putin regime has done everything it can to encourage such attitudes, the sociologist says. Any change in the bureaucracy or the population is unlikely anytime soon. There is a chance, of course, "but it is weak." Expecting that it will happen without some cataclysmic event is almost certainly an illusion (MOST.Media, December 15).
Levada Center polls show that "80 to 85 percent of Russians do not want to take part in politics, viewing it as 'a dirty business' or something for which they do not have time." Russians are unlikely to mobilize and put pressure on the state for real change and will continue to defer to it, something Putin's successors will exploit as he has. Gudkov concludes, therefore, that:
The most likely scenario is a gradual decline of Russia to the status of a regional power, weak and corrupt, a type of pariah state dependent on more powerful countries like China. In response, democratic countries will erect some kind of fence, a barrier, to isolate this disaster zone (MOST.Media, December 15).
Gudkov's arguments explain much of what is now happening in Russia, especially the relations between the Russians and their rulers, and his predictions are persuasive. Positive change will only occur if there is a radical shock, such as the loss of a war or the wholesale collapse of order inside Russia. The new wave of protests is encouraging. By itself, however, it is not going to be enough to bring about transformation, no matter how welcome it may be to see Russians act in ways that suggest at least some of them believe that they, rather than "the powers," should be in a position to make decisions for themselves and their country.
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Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/russians-protesting-mounting-problems-but-not-yet-against-putin/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary to China Brief: New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, in its China Brief:* * *
New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization
By Arran Hope
Executive Summary:
* "New quality combat forces," which refers to the integration of emerging technologies with military capabilities, are increasingly important to Chinese military modernization, according to authoritative policy documents and commentaries in Party media.
* The concept is important to the Party's attempts to design a national system that fuses economic progress and military strength ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, in its China Brief: * * * New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Military Modernization By Arran Hope Executive Summary: * "New quality combat forces," which refers to the integration of emerging technologies with military capabilities, are increasingly important to Chinese military modernization, according to authoritative policy documents and commentaries in Party media. * The concept is important to the Party's attempts to design a national system that fuses economic progress and military strengthinto an overarching "national strategic system and capabilities."
* Technological progress is undermined by ongoing issues within the People's Liberation Army, such as corruption, political unreliability, and governance issues.
The last few months of 2025 have seen a proliferation of authoritative policy documents and commentaries discussing "new quality combat forces", a term that refers to the integration of emerging technologies with military capabilities. These include the Central Committee's "Recommendations" for the 15th Five-Year Plan, a commentary on the plan by Central Military Commission (CMC) Vice-Chair Zhang Youxia, and other articles in authoritative media penned by military theorists and scholars. These pronouncements provide more detailed insight into what the term means, how it relates to other concepts such as "advanced combat forces", and its increasing importance to the Party's notion of systems confrontation./[1] They also warn against over-indexing on technological development as a marker of military modernization, warning that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) still must improve in a number of other areas, such as cultivating personnel who are both technically competent and politically reliable.
New Quality Combat Forces Underpin Push for Intelligentized Warfare
The PLA has been discussing "new quality combat forces" for decades (FMSO Foreign Perspectives Brief, December 2024). But the concept has become much more prominent in PLA discourse following Party assessments that new and emerging technologies are beginning to significantly impact the nature of warfare. General Secretary Xi Jinping first used the phrase in January 2019 at the CMC's military work conference, where he called for "increasing the proportion of new-type combat capabilities" (People's Daily, November 17). It received wider attention after the Two Sessions meetings in 2024, when Xi used it in conjunction with an analogue phrase for the economic sphere, "new quality productive forces" .
PLA scholars and theorists have varying definitions for "new quality combat forces." A 2015 People's Daily article, for instance, defines the term succinctly as a "system combat capability based on information systems" (People's Daily, November 29, 2015). A more recent definition, in a PLA Daily article from June 2024, adds a little more nuance, defining the term as a "novel form of combat capability developed through emerging technological means and operational concepts" (MND, June 27, 2024). A discussion of the topic from December describes it as a "key force for winning on the future battlefield" (PLA Daily, December 4).
The December 4 article, coauthored by scholars at the Academy of Military Science and the Nanjing Political Academy, is one of the more detailed discussions of "new quality combat forces" to date. It frames ongoing developments in military technology in grandiose theoretical terms as the "acceleration of decision-making from 'carbon-based' to 'silicon-based'", and "from 'cell bodies' to 'intelligent entities'". It also argues that decision-making is "even evolving toward a 'human-out-of-the-loop' model". This evolution is based on the direction of travel "toward intelligent, unmanned, and cross-domain operations" and "toward long-range precision, intelligence, stealth, and unmanned operations in weaponry and equipment". This echoes a PLA Daily article from May 2024, which defined the "quality" in "new quality combat forces" as referring to informatized, intelligent, and precision combat capabilities (PLA Daily, May 2, 2024). The reference to a "human-out-of-the-loop" model is also echoed in other writing on "new quality combat forces," such as a November article arguing that AI-powered autonomous weapon systems are evolving "from 'execution tools' to 'intelligent nodes'" (People's Daily, November 17).
Among the technologies that PLA is prioritizing, according to military scholars, are drones, including unmanned systems of all kinds, that are "transitioning from a supporting role on past battlefields to a primary combat role". Also in development are technologies that intersect with biology, such as brain science and human-machine interfaces, as well as bionic robots, and smart ammunition. And intelligent algorithms are viewed as central for decision-making, to be integrated into command chains at "every stage of the kill chain", "enabling victory before the battle begins". These novel technologies are enabling the expansion of the battlespace into the emerging frontiers of the deep sea, outer space, cyberspace, and the cognitive domain, and are leading to the development of new tactics and phenomena such as "deepfakes and information silos" (PLA Daily, December 4).
New Quality Combat Forces Key to the National Strategic System and Capabilities
A November article situates "new quality combat forces" in the context of "advanced combat forces." The exact relationship between the two is unclear: other articles state that they essentially refer to the same thing, or that the former is representative of the latter (Party Building Research, 2024; PLA Daily, December 4). The November article instead describes new quality combat forces as "leading and supporting" advanced combat forces, and as the foundations upon which an "advanced combat capability paradigm" is being built. In this sense, advanced combat forces refer to a broader set of capabilities that "emphasize the leading position of new quality combat forces but also prioritize the 'excellence' of their effective application". This view is most evident in Zhang Youxia's commentary, which calls for "accelerating the construction of advanced combat forces", including by "achieving substantive breakthroughs in new quality combat forces" (People's Daily, November 12).
In other words, the concept of advanced combat capabilities embeds "new quality combat forces" in an overarching national system. As the November article writes, the concept "shifts the focus of combat effectiveness from weaponry competition to systems confrontation" . For the PRC, the notion that future conflict will be one between national systems entails enhancing synergies between the economic and military sphere. Xi articulated this most clearly in his address to the Two Sessions in 2024, where he called for "promoting the efficient integration and mutual reinforcement of new quality productive forces and new quality combat forces" (Party Members' Net, March 7, 2024)./[2]
This utterance has been repeated frequently in the 20 months since, and especially in the weeks surrounding the 20th Central Committee's fourth plenary session in October. It appeared in identical fashion in the Central Committee's Recommendations, in Zhang Youxia's commentary, and in commentaries by PLA scholars in Guangming Daily--a newspaper run by the Central Committee--and in PLA Daily (Guangming Daily, September 4; People's Daily, November 12, November 17). This level of recitation indicates the importance the Party leadership attaches to the integration of economic and military strength.
Advancing this integration is central to what the Party refers to as the "national strategic system and capabilities" (NSCC). The NSSC, according to analysts Liza Tobin, Addis Goldman, and Katherina Kurata, refers to "the intensification of CCP efforts to integrate all available state resources to pursue national goals and increase China's comprehensive national power." They also note that, in recent years, calls to "build an integrated NSSC" have largely superseded policy discourse on the planning, and implementation of military-civil fusion (MCF) (Frohman and Rausch eds., 2025)./[3] References to "MCF" did not appear in the 14th Five-Year Plan, and do not appear in the Recommendations for the 15th either, but references to the NSSC do. In the latest document, Recommendation number 55 starts by declaring the need to "consolidate and enhance the integrated national strategic system and capabilities" . This phrase also appears in Zhang Youxia's commentary. NSCC requirements in the Recommendations also include ensuring that civilian and military standards are harmonized, that "major infrastructure fully incorporates national defense requirements", and that unity between the military and government, as well as between the military and the people, is consolidated.
The clearest articulation of current PLA thinking on the NSSC comes in the November article in the People's Daily. It states that "the interconnection, mutual influence, and mutual support among national strategic competitiveness, social productivity, and military combat effectiveness are becoming increasingly tight". As such, "new quality productive forces" are "the driving force and support for the upgrading and modernization of new quality combat forces" and a "key variable in reshaping warfare, reconstructing operational systems, and reorganizing command elements" (People's Daily, November 17).
The PLA is clear that emerging technologies are crucial to military modernization, and to building a mutually reinforcing economic and military industrial system. But it is also clear that such technologies on their own are not sufficient for achieving a world-class military. Recent technological progress in the PRC has been impressive, but it is not a panacea. And some warn that overreliance on certain technologies could lead to path dependency that will be difficult to break free from (PLA Daily, December 4).
The PLA Daily has lamented long-standing "technical gaps and capability weaknesses", as well as structural challenges and systemic obstacles (PLA Daily, March 22, 2024, June 27, 2024). Zhang Youxia spent a significant portion of his commentary warning about "harmful influences and entrenched evils", as well as "two-faced individuals". Beyond personnel issues, he also complained about "detachment from actual combat, redundant and fragmented efforts, and inefficient practices".
Conclusion
A tension has emerged in recent years between the PLA's steady progress in developing novel technologies with military applications and an apparent regress in the quality of military personnel required to use them. Even at the top of the military system, 2025 has seen considerable tumult as ongoing corruption investigations have reduced the CMC to its smallest size in decades and left key positions in the Eastern Theater Command and elsewhere vacant (China Brief, October 17, November 14, November 25).
PLA scholars argue that the concept of advanced combat capabilities "transcends the logical limitations of Western combat capability generation theories" (People's Daily, November 17). In 2026 and beyond, how the PLA resolves this tension will be a key indicator of whether implementing its military systems design concepts will result in superior outcomes.
[1] The phrase has no settled translation in English. Some, mirroring the common translation of as "new (quality) productive forces" opt for "new (quality) combat forces." Others prefer "new quality combat capabilities," which is closer to the PRC government's preferred translation, "new combat capabilities." This article uses "new quality combat forces," as this aligns most closely to the original Chinese.
[2] Liza Tobin and coauthors note that translating as "new forces of production" better captures the Marxist origin of the term than Beijing's official English translation, "new quality productive forces." Liza Tobin, Addis Goldman, and Katherine Kurata. "System by Design: The Evolution of China's Military-Civil Fusion Strategy." in Benjamin Frohman and Jeremy Rausch eds., The PLA's Long March toward a World-Class Military: Progress, Obstacles, and Ambitions. The National Bureau of Asian Research, 2025.
[3]Liza Tobin, Addis Goldman, and Katherine Kurata. "System by Design: The Evolution of China's Military-Civil Fusion Strategy." in Benjamin Frohman and Jeremy Rausch eds., The PLA's Long March toward a World-Class Military: Progress, Obstacles, and Ambitions. The National Bureau of Asian Research, 2025.
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Arran Hope is the editor of China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation, where he also has responsibility for additional China-related publications and programming.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/new-quality-combat-forces-underpin-military-modernization/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to RealClearWorld: Financial Foundations Cannot Support Peace in Ukraine
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to RealClearWorld:* * *
Financial Foundations Cannot Support Peace in Ukraine
By Daniel Kochis
The White House has made renewing trade ties between the United States and Russia a centerpiece of its latest Russia-Ukraine ceasefire proposal. But without robust security assurances for Ukraine, a peace deal that relies primarily on economic concessions to deter further Russian aggression will fail.
The proposal ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Dec. 22, 2025, to RealClearWorld: * * * Financial Foundations Cannot Support Peace in Ukraine By Daniel Kochis The White House has made renewing trade ties between the United States and Russia a centerpiece of its latest Russia-Ukraine ceasefire proposal. But without robust security assurances for Ukraine, a peace deal that relies primarily on economic concessions to deter further Russian aggression will fail. The proposalfor a trade restart involves a surge of U.S. capital and expertise to Russia (with a particular emphasis on rare earth and hydrocarbon extraction) and increased flows of Russian energy into Europe. Ukraine, for its part, would cede its crucial fortress belt in Donbas. And American firms would be allowed to utilize $200 billion in frozen Russian assets to stand up infrastructure projects in Ukraine, including data centers that would be powered by the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
The business-forward theory currently animating this offer, wherein economic ties among Russia, Ukraine, and the West would undergird peace and bring the Kremlin back in line with international norms, recalls the Clinton administration's mistaken belief that trade with China would liberalize Beijing's regime and diminish the security concerns it posed.
Any agreement that brings Russia's economy in from the cold without requisite guarantees for Ukraine's future security therefore rests on a foundation of sand, undermining U.S. long term interests and leaves Ukraine in a gray zone wherein it is not actively fighting but always faces the threat of resumed hostilities.
As I wrote in August, improving trade ties with Russia is a U.S. concession, not a Russian one. Russia's sputtering, kleptocratic economy has little to offer America. But Moscow needs American finance and Western technology to revive its industry and unlock the value of its natural resources. Russia's diminished ability to export hydrocarbons, the result of sanctions and Ukrainian strikes targeting refineries, is one of the West's key levers against the Kremlin. Allowing Russia to rebuild its capacity to wage energy warfare against the U.S. and its allies in exchange for a fragile commitment to peace would be strategic malpractice. Therefore, the administration should approach any deal which rehabilitates Russia's energy exports with caution.
Further, Moscow knows that any deal it reaches with the White House would not be codified as a treaty and would therefore be subject to change based on political shifts in Washington. For businesses, the economic environment is equally uncertain. While a reopening of Russia's economy may tempt some Western firms and investors to seek to cash in on a risky market, these gains would likely prove ephemeral. And for the majority of Westerners, the specter of state appropriation, Moscow's chronic corruption, and the risk of reputational damage would be sufficient to deter investment in Russia.
Uncertainty would also significantly hamper Ukraine's reconstruction efforts. Western investors would be wary of becoming too entangled in a Ukrainian rump state that lacks the ability to defend itself from its aggressive neighbor and remains subject to Russian corruption, hybrid warfare, and influence operations. In such circumstances, young Ukrainians might decide to forgo starting families and businesses or opt to emigrate in pursuit of stability, depriving Ukraine of the people it needs most to successfully rebuild.
Finally, if the White House were to reverse its economic stance toward Russia, it would risk further exacerbating transatlantic relations. In no small part due to U.S. pressure, European nations have taken great pains to cut their reliance on Russian energy. Seeing Washington happily champion the spigot of Russian resources would no doubt rub many leaders on the continent the wrong way.
Meanwhile fresh inflows to the Kremlin's coffers would allow for its continued rearming and military recruitment. Putin will not allow its 1.5 million men under arms and heavily militarized economy to remain idle for long. Any Ukrainian reconstruction--like a significant concentration of data centers in Zaporizhzhia--might further incentivize a return to war--this time from inside Ukraine's best defensive lines.
The US and its allies would then have to face the stark reality of a stronger Russia, a weakened Ukraine, and growing divisions over whether to continue investing in defense.
Restoring business ties with Russia is fraught with peril and not a solid basis for agreement. The only realistic foundation for an agreement is to make renewed war unpalpable for the Kremlin. This means Ukraine needs to keep its best defensive lines in Donbas, and Western allies, with U.S. support, should continue to equip Kyiv's forces with the arms and intelligence that make Ukraine a hard target.
Economic incentives, contingent on Moscow's adherence to other terms, could be one part of a peace deal. But the U.S. cannot afford to learn the hard way once again that revanchist, ideological authoritarians like Vladimir Putin cannot be bought off with business alone.
Read in RealClearWorld (https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2025/12/22/financial_foundations_cannot_support_peace_in_ukraine_1154768.html).
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Daniel Kochis is a senior fellow in the Center on Europe and Eurasia at Hudson Institute.
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/economics/financial-foundations-cannot-support-peace-ukraine-daniel-kochis
[Category: ThinkTank]
AFPI Launches Major Anti-Discrimination Review of Top Federally Funded Contractors and Grant Recipients for Potential Violations of Federal Civil Rights Laws
WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release on Dec. 22, 2025:* * *
AFPI Launches Major Anti-Discrimination Review of Top Federally Funded Contractors and Grant Recipients for Potential Violations of Federal Civil Rights Laws
The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) today announced the launch of a major investigation into compliance with the Attorney General's July 29, 2025, guidance on unlawful discrimination. The investigation focuses on large federally funded contractors and grant recipients whose publicly available program materials warrant ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release on Dec. 22, 2025: * * * AFPI Launches Major Anti-Discrimination Review of Top Federally Funded Contractors and Grant Recipients for Potential Violations of Federal Civil Rights Laws The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) today announced the launch of a major investigation into compliance with the Attorney General's July 29, 2025, guidance on unlawful discrimination. The investigation focuses on large federally funded contractors and grant recipients whose publicly available program materials warrantraises compliance concerns.
AFPI is sending formal investigative letters to:
* Sandia National Laboratories
* Bechtel Corporation
* Honeywell International, Inc.
* The Leland Stanford Junior University
* University of Maryland
Together, these five organizations receive billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. For several of them, continued access to federal funding is existential.
Potentially Unlawful DEI Practices Cited
AFPI's concerns stem from program descriptions indicating certain internship pipelines, scholarships, research tracks, employee-resource groups, and DEI initiatives that appear to restrict eligibility or confer benefits based on race, sex, national origin, or their proxies -- practices which may not comply with the July 29, 2025, "Guidance for Recipients of Federal Funding Regarding Unlawful Discrimination" issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi and may violate federal anti-discrimination law.
The Attorney General's guidance explicitly warns recipients of federal funds that the use of demographic preferences -- including "diversity," "representation," or "underrepresented" criteria as proxies for racial or sex-based selection -- is prohibited in any program design, hiring, pipeline, or scholarship.
Some of the programs flagged in AFPI's letters include:
* Race-restricted STEM internships and youth programs at Sandia National Laboratories
* Bechtel internship and apprentice pathways framed around demographic "representation" criteria.
* Honeywell's partnership programs limited to African American students
* Stanford University's DEI-targeted biomedical research tracks
* University of Maryland's DEI-based scholarship structures and LGBTQ-exclusive benefits
AFPI is requesting detailed descriptions of eligibility criteria, selection practices, DEI policies, demographic data, and all internal compliance assessments conducted in response to federal law.
"DEI has become a cover for illegal discrimination -- and the federal government will no longer allow taxpayer dollars to fund it," said Leigh Ann O'Neill, AFPI's chief legal affairs officer. "The Attorney General made it clear last July that every federal contractor and grant recipient must eliminate race-based and sex-based decision-making. These organizations receive billions in federal funds. They do not get to break the law."
Skyler McCann, an AFPI law clerk working on the investigation, agreed. "Our job is simple: ensure every recipient of federal money follows the law," she said. "The public deserves answers, and these companies and universities need to explain exactly how their DEI programs operate -- and whether they violate civil-rights law."
AFPI's investigation is part of a broader push to bring federally funded entities back into compliance with longstanding civil-rights protections and root out discrimination disguised as "equity." Federally-funded corporations, laboratories, and universities are all subject to the same requirements -- and the same consequences for violating them.
AFPI will release public findings as organizations respond.
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-launches-major-anti-discrimination-review-of-top-federally-funded-contractors-and-grant-recipients-for-potential-violations-of-federal-civil-rights-laws
[Category: ThinkTank]