Wednesday, 5 May 2021

How hateful rhetoric connects to real-world violence

How hateful rhetoric connects to real-world violence

Is the United States a racist country?

Posted: 04 May 2021 02:32 PM PDT

By Rashawn Ray

South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott shocked many people when in response to President Joe Biden's Congressional address he stated that "America is not a racist country." He admitted that he himself had experienced "the pain of discrimination", and noted "I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no reason, to be followed around a store while I'm shopping." When asked on ABC's Good Morning America the following day, Vice-President Kamala Harris seemed to agree with Scott when she said, "I don't think America is a racist country." Yet immediately following this sentence she quickly pointed out, "But we also do have to speak truth about the history of racism in our country and its existence today." 

As Soledad O'Brien said, "It sounds like a racist country to me," in response to Scott but seemingly applicable to comments by Harris as well. President Biden, who seemed to not pull any punches during his speech stated, "We have a real chance to root out systemic racism that plagues America." However, Biden appeared to walk back his remarks on the Today Show to align more with Harris and Scott (to a certain degree) by noting that slavery and Jim Crow laws had a cost.   

It is almost as if simply saying America is not racist but turning the other cheek and saying it is racist and saying racist things have been done to you makes it ok. It is confusing to Americans and the international community. To supporters, these comments are disappointing. To others, they were shocking. For me, the cognitive dissonance of some of our elected leaders is real and explainable. There is an oversimplification of racism in America because as sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva notes, there can be systemic racism without racists.  

When a person critiques America for the racism that is deeply embedded in our social institutions, some feel they are being personally attacked. This is because deep down they realize that they benefit from unearned assets associated with whiteness. Scott, Harris, and Biden recognize this and try to balance these varying perspectives as they worry about voters nationally and in a state like South Carolina.   

Recently, a parent at a city council meeting had a meltdown when trying to explain why she does not want critical race theory taught in her children's school. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that systemic racism as a concept is "a bunch of horse manure." So, not only has Florida made it legal to harm people protesting, but he banned teaching critical race theory in schools. For a deeper dive on critical race theory, people should read the work of sociologists Victor Ray and Ted Thornhill who layout why DeSantis' perspective is problematic.   

I conducted research with Matt Hunt on what predicts who believes they are middle class. For education, income, and occupational prestige, Black people are less likely to identify as middle class compared to whites with comparable levels of these socioeconomic outcomes. Why? It is because social class is not just about what a person looks like on paper, but how people experience social class in everyday life and the deference that one receives for their socioeconomic status. Black people are less likely to get that deference, while white people are often afforded more. It is so commonplace for white people that some cannot fathom living without it. This is because many white people, particularly white people with lower levels of education and income, realize that whiteness comes with a premium that extends beyond economics to include cultural and social capital. As President Lyndon Johnson said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you."  

Harris and Scotts' comments are puzzling at a broader level as well considering how much of a collective memory their experiences with racism are— Harris reliving her systemic experiences with bussing and Scott recounting the nearly 20 times he has been pulled over by police, while being an elected official not helping but potentially making the interaction worse.   

These stories acknowledge that life is different if you are Black, and unfortunately systemic racism seems to ripple through our social institutions and into our daily social interactions whether in Congress or at a coffee shop down the street from the Capitol Building. These types of experiences—racialized cuts and hurdles—have a cumulative effect on health. Sociologists Pam Jackson and Jason Cummings' research documents that middle-class Blacks have worse health profiles than working-class whites. They attribute this difference to the daily racialized trauma experienced in predominately white environments like work and neighborhood settings.   

Systemically, we know that Black people compared to whites are more likely to attend schools with less funding per student, less likely to obtain a job because of our "Black-sounding" name or even when attending an Ivy League university, less likely to obtain a home loan (even when having the same credit score), have their homes appraised for equitable value, more likely to experience pregnancy complications and maternal mortality, and more likely to have contact with police and the criminal justice system.   

Systemic racism inhibits (rather than prohibits like in the past) people's ability to actualize all aspects of the American Dream. This occurs even for highly-educated Black people with high incomes and no criminal record. In fact, research documents that white people with a criminal record are more likely to get called back for a job than Black people without one.   

Research documents that hard work (or lack thereof), intellect, or criminality do not explain these outcomes. Instead, it is the racism embedded deeply within our social institutions' policies, rules, regulations, and laws that segment people's experiences along racial lines. It is the same for gender. Women can achieve but have a much harder time doing so. If not, America would have had a woman Vice-President and Speaker of the House sitting behind the President long before 2021.   

What people do not seem to realize is that being upwardly mobile does not negate encountering racist hurdles on the pathway to success. Our current system is set up for some people to have to jump over hurdles to succeed, while others get to simply run to the finish line without those same racial hurdles. Rather, it is about whether the pathways to success are equitable. This is what America says it is: an equitable democracy. People are pushing for America to reach its true ideals and the only way this can proper occur is acknowledging the systemic barriers that prevent us from getting there. Moreover, it is not that racial progress has not been made. It is that the United States has yet to make enough progress. In this regard, comments of our top elected officials are disappointing, yet predictable. 

Black people who succeed often walk on pins and needles because they realize their success, and more so maintaining it, is precarious. As a result, some Black people aim to make white people feel comfortable. Many of us are mostly socialized to do so. It is often a survival strategy for our lives during police encounters or economic survival in boardrooms. Some of us who succeed may experience "survivor's remorse" because we are some of the few to "make it." We actually embody the American Dream and become the in-person example to people who do not want to admit that systemic racism exists. We may even convince ourselves that racism is more prominent on the individual level than the institutional level. We simultaneously represent racial progress but are also most likely to be subjugated to racial discrimination because of the predominately-white spaces we are embedded within. We experience a chronic form of double-consciousness and admitting as such can often lead us to being conscious of the slow death we often experience through the cumulative racist cuts and hurdles we encounter. The American Dream being achievable for a few does not absolve the system and an imperfect union, even when some of those successful people try to rationalize systemic racism away.   

In most instances: when Black parents worry about their straight A student's traffic encounters with the police more than they do a potential accident, this is because of experiences with racism. When a Black couple is about to have a baby and has to think consciously about what hospital to deliver in so they can obtain equitable care, this is racism. When a Black parent worries about their child attending a prestigious university outside of an urban area, this is often because of the racism they worry about them encountering driving to the school and even once physically on the campus of the school. And even more urban universities are not absolved from racism.  

Systemic racism is not simply a thing of the past. It is up close and personal in the present.   

Racism may be no more transparent in an institution with the least representative racial progress like the Senate. There have only been 11 Black Senators in roughly 232 years. Clearly, the Senate is the exact space we need people with the courage to say the blunt, honest truth about our nation's past and present. Only then can we actualize a future where systemic racism does not exist. It is imperative for a truth, reconciliation, and reparative process to commence. This starts with atoning for the enslavement of millions of Africans whose descendants continuously fall systemically behind, whether they end up being the lone Black Republican Senator or a Black police officer who might have the power to pull him over. We must have the courage to speak truth to power and one of the places it starts is in Congress. "If not now, then when?"

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Don’t expect an al-Qaida reboot in Afghanistan

Posted: 04 May 2021 02:26 PM PDT

By Daniel L. Byman

U.S. troops are beginning the process of leaving Afghanistan, after almost 20 years of fighting. Announcing his decision to complete the U.S. withdrawal by September, President Biden declared: "I believed that our presence in Afghanistan should be focused on the reason we went in the first place: to ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again. We did that. We accomplished that objective."

But al-Qaida — which, after 9/11, provided the U.S. rationale for invading Afghanistan — still has 400 to 600 members fighting with the Taliban, according to U.N. Security Council estimates. In a recent interview, al-Qaida operatives promised "war against the U.S. will be continuing on all other fronts." Citing concerns about an al-Qaida resurgence, several members of Congress blasted Biden's decision. More quietly, many of the president's military advisers also opposed the U.S. move to withdraw.

Critics of Biden's decision warn that al-Qaida remains strong — and that, if U.S. troops depart, the Taliban will allow it a haven, U.S. counterterrorism pressure will decline, the Afghan government will struggle and attacks on the United States from Afghanistan will occur. How valid are each of these concerns?

How strong is al-Qaida in 2021?

Although al-Qaida has fighters in Afghanistan, its ability to launch international terrorist attacks from there and from Pakistan, where the core organization has been based for almost 20 years, is limited. Al-Qaida core members haven't successfully attacked the U.S. homeland since 9/11, despite numerous attempts, and have also been ineffective against Europe in the past decade. Affiliate groups such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula have conducted limited attacks, including a December 2019 attack that killed three people at a U.S. naval base in Florida, but they are not based in Afghanistan and Pakistan like the core. Indeed, in the past decade, al-Qaida has localized more, relying heavily on affiliates to keep its name alive.

The United States has killed numerous al-Qaida core leaders, and overall leader Ayman al-Zawahiri may be dead — the fact that we don't know his status months after rumors of his death tells us something about his decreased relevance. Pressure from U.S. airstrikes and Special Forces raids have kept leaders on the run and have prevented the establishment of large-scale training camps akin to those that existed before 9/11.

And countries around the world remain focused on the al-Qaida threat, in contrast with the pre-9/11 era. The global intelligence campaign has made it harder for the group to communicate, send its operatives to reconnoiter or raise money, or otherwise prepare to conduct attacks.

The Taliban lies, but it has reasons to restrain al-Qaida

U.S. negotiators have pressed the Taliban for years to agree to prevent al-Qaida from using Afghanistan as a haven for international terrorist attacks. The Taliban claims to have accepted this demand, and al-Qaida members also claim they will honor this even as they attack the United States from other theaters. However, Taliban leaders have lied about the extent of their relationship with al-Qaida in the past, casting doubt on denials about the future relationship between the two.

However, drawing the line at international attacks is logical for the Taliban. While it gave Osama bin Laden sanctuary, the Taliban opposed many of al-Qaida's attacks, including 9/11 — though it continued to cooperate with al-Qaida despite being angry with the decision to attack the United States in 2001.

Since then, the Taliban has learned the cost of opposing the United States, and its leaders may recognize that keeping al-Qaida personnel as fighters but drawing the line at anti-U.S. terrorist attacks satisfies the Taliban's loyalty to its ally and desire for capable fighters while keeping Afghanistan out of U.S. crosshairs.

U.S. counterterrorism capabilities will diminish

The U.S. withdrawal will limit the U.S. ability to strike the al-Qaida core in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The lack of U.S. troops is likely to hinder efforts to strike al-Qaida directly — but also make it difficult to determine whether the Taliban is cheating on its commitment to halt al-Qaida from conducting international attacks.

U.S. troops on bases in Afghanistan also protected intelligence assets and conducted raids against al-Qaida, and the bases served as drone launching points. CIA Director William J. Burns recently testified that, after a withdrawal, "the U.S. government's ability to collect and act on threats will diminish."

However, the United States will be able to sustain at least some counterterrorism capacity outside Afghanistan and is already working on other basing options, including Qatar and Uzbekistan. These alternatives are farther away, however, which will make U.S. operations more difficult.

The Afghan government is likely to get weaker

"I am concerned about the Afghan military's ability to hold on after we leave," Gen. Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, testified last week. This military weakness exists despite billions of U.S. dollars in aid, massive military training efforts and other support over the past two decades.

In the aftermath of a U.S. departure, the Afghan government's ability to go after al-Qaida may be limited at best. The operations of Afghan forces depended heavily on U.S. intelligence and military support. In addition, without heavy pressure or inducement from the United States, the Afghan government is more likely to focus on the Taliban and other immediate threats — it's less likely to have the bandwidth to address small groups of terrorists setting up shop to conduct international attacks.

Pakistan, however, may have more of an incentive to separate out al-Qaida from the Taliban, its longtime ally. Greater Taliban influence in Afghanistan is a victory for Pakistan, but Islamabad has its own Islamist militant challenge. An al-Qaeda attack from Afghanistan on the United States or Europe would put renewed pressure on the Taliban — an outcome Pakistan would oppose.

Taken together, these factors suggest the U.S. troop withdrawal will ease pressure on al-Qaida, but the group is far from its pre-9/11 strength, and it faces many challenges. As a result, it is far from certain that international terrorist attacks are a likely consequence of the departure of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

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Hello, Berlin? Germany’s future raises foreign policy concerns for allies

Posted: 04 May 2021 01:34 PM PDT

By Constanze Stelzenmüller

President Joe Biden has made it clear that he really, really wants to work with Europe. After the four traumatic years of the Trump presidency, that seems an opportunity not to be missed. Also, Moscow and Beijing are undeterred by U.S. and EU sanctions over the jailing of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and the mistreatment of Uyghurs in China.

They are dialing up the pressure on Europe with countersanctions, expulsions of diplomats, and thuggish-sounding threats. But in Brussels, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is fighting with European Council President Charles Michel over charges of sexism and a Turkish sofa, instead of getting a grip on a double-dip recession and the pandemic.

British premier Boris Johnson is in trouble over costly wallpaper. French President Emmanuel Macron, up for re-election in 2022, is neck-and-neck in the polls with his far-right rival Marine Le Pen, while retired and current military officers are warning of civil war.

This would seem to be the moment for Germany, as a responsible neighbor, to step up and help out. But Europe's most powerful economy is going to the polls even sooner than France: on September 26. As the 16-year tenure of Chancellor Angela Merkel comes to a close, the six parties scrambling to rule in the post-Merkel era are somewhat less than focused on goings-on beyond Germany's borders.

The reason is the fragmentation of Germany's color-coded party landscape. In current polling, the Greens are fighting for first place with the CDU (black) at about 25 percent, with the Social Democrats (red) far behind at 15 percent, followed by the liberal Free Democrats (yellow) and the Left party (dark red) at around 11 percent each.

The far-right Alternative for Germany is so radical that Germany's domestic intelligence service wants to place it under observation. No other party will work with it, but it still captures about a tenth of the vote. This increases the likelihood that Germany's next government will be a three-way coalition, with a kaleidoscope of possible combinations: black-green (or the reverse, with the CDU as junior partner); "Jamaica" (CDU-Greens-liberals); "traffic light" (Greens-SPD-liberals); and finally, "R2G" (SPD-Left-Greens).

This is why the small parties' ideas suddenly matter. But in terms of foreign and security policy, none of the five presents a fully reassuring image to a neighbor or ally of Germany.

The Left party's only path to government is R2G, a goal the powerful left wings in the Greens and the SPD have been actively pursuing. But the Left too has radicalized, shedding its once influential east German pragmatists. Its new top duo opposes military engagement abroad of any kind. But it is also apparently clueless about pensions, and that may alienate its base.

The FDP has cabinet-ready experts on finance, digital issues and foreign and security policy — and a liability in Christian Lindner, their leader. The CDU and Greens are still smarting because of his petulant walkout from coalition negotiations in 2017. Last year, he faced a revolt in his own party after supporting the decision of a regional liberal politician to let himself be elected state governor with the AfD's help.

The SPD's Olaf Scholz is caught in a double bind. As Merkel's finance minister, the opposition accuses him of oversight failures in a spate of financial scandals. As candidate for chancellor, he has seen the SPD leadership wrench the party to the left with anti-nuclear slogans reminiscent of the 1980s. Fritz Felgentreu, one of several seasoned legislators to resign in protest, calls his party's security policy a "smouldering fire."

Armin Laschet, the CDU candidate, has come under fire for sounding soft on Syria, Russia, and China. Yet his real problems are corruption scandals and circling party frenemies. His party may be dealt another blow in next month's state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, where some polls have the AfD in close pursuit.

All this does much to explain the rise of the Greens and Annalena Baerbock, their laser-focused candidate. Her criticism of China, the Kremlin, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project is music to Washington's ears. Yet the party's feisty base has had ferocious fights over defense spending and nuclear deterrence. Its reliability as a partner is by no means guaranteed.

Of course, elections are generally not fought, or won, on foreign policy. But German voters would do well to remember that their country's wealth and power depends on the stability and security of its neighborhood. Maybe it is time to pay attention, and get a little worried. Its neighbors and allies already are.

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How big of a vaccine surplus will the US have?

Posted: 04 May 2021 11:39 AM PDT

By Simon J. Evenett

The Biden administration is busy burnishing America's global credentials. The U.S. Treasury wants an international approach to corporate tax. Meanwhile, climate change talks with other governments are on the front burner. But the administration's vaccine diplomacy has been slower off the mark. Circumstances will force that to change in the second half of 2021.

For many Americans, getting a jab in the first place is still the priority. However, despite the impressive scale-up of COVID-19 vaccine production, U.S. plants will soon have manufactured more doses than are needed to inoculate the adult population. Coming at a time of a global vaccine shortage, the White House will need to make important decisions that will determine whether it is seen as making a decisive break with its inward-looking predecessor.

Arguably, the White House is edging toward a policy of sharing surplus vaccines with foreign governments. In March, the Biden administration decided to "loan" 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Canada and Mexico. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated, "Our first priority remains vaccinating the U.S. population. The reality is that—but the reality is the border knows no—the pandemic knows no borders. And ensuring our neighbors can contain the virus is a mission-critical step—is mission critical to ending the pandemic."

Last week, the administration went further and announced that up to 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine would be available to other countries. India, a potential ally in geopolitical rivalry with China, is mentioned as a potential beneficiary, not least given the surge in COVID-19 infections there. But just how much surplus vaccine will the U.S. have and when?

Much depends on decisions the U.S. takes concerning its own vaccine rollout, the reserves it decides to build, and the policy toward its neighbors. Recently, Matt Linley and I worked through a series of scenarios based on the following recent developments. First, some vaccines have reported high levels of efficacy among children, raising the question as to whether inoculation will be extended to Americans aged 5 years or older. Second, fears have been expressed about future variants and the need to build up a U.S. reserve of vaccines. Third, vaccination rates in Canada and Mexico lag behind those in the United States.

We defined four scenarios, each reflecting different possible U.S. objectives:

  1. Vaccinate the U.S. adult population.
  2. Vaccinate the U.S. population aged 5 or over.
  3. Create vaccine reserves (three options are presented each with a different scale).
  4. Vaccinate the populations of Canada and Mexico as well.

Vaccine surplus scenarios

Each objective requires a certain amount of vaccine doses to be produced (see column 3). Using detailed data on production schedules per U.S. vaccine production facility, we report the date when the required production level is met (see column 4) and the dates when any surplus generated thereafter reaches 100 million, 500 million, and 1 billion doses.

Production necessary to vaccinate the U.S. adult population should be completed by June 20, 2021. Following that, a surplus of 500 million doses will have accumulated by September 25. These two dates move back to July 18 and October 18, respectively, if American children are inoculated as well. Even with the latter approach, by the end of the year, the U.S. vaccine surplus is estimated to be over 1 billion doses.

Should the White House decide to inoculate the populations of Canada and Mexico as well as every American aged 5 and over, then a surplus becomes available by September 16. Clearly, the larger the U.S. vaccine reserve created the later surpluses become available (see scenarios 3a, 3b, and 3c below). The date when the U.S. can contribute to vaccine dissemination outside of North America is materially affected by the scenario chosen.

U.S. public health will be safeguarded by distributing surplus vaccines. Variants are springing up where large fractions of foreign populations remain unvaccinated. Recent months have shown that even with international trade restrictions, these variants cross borders and threaten lives. Done right, the United States could be in the vanguard of global vaccine distribution from the third quarter of this year.

The optics of the United States sitting on 0.5 to 1 billion surplus vaccine doses later this year will color the perceptions of the Biden administration. Given how sensitive the issue of equitable vaccine distribution has become, it is almost certain that foreign and international economic policy goals of the Biden Administration will be compromised if this matter is handled poorly.

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The rollout of the Biden administration’s North Korea policy review leaves unanswered questions

Posted: 04 May 2021 10:42 AM PDT

By Robert Einhorn

The Biden administration has begun to outline the results of its recently completed review of policy toward North Korea, but only in general terms apparently designed to preserve its negotiating options and avoid giving its critics an early target to shoot at.

The administration has adopted the tried-and-true public diplomacy technique of portraying its approach as the golden mean between two previously unsuccessful approaches. A U.S. official told The Washington Post that the Biden administration is seeking something between the Trump administration's "everything for everything" grand bargain with Pyongyang (involving total sanctions relief for complete and early denuclearization) and the Obama administration's "nothing for nothing" posture of strategic patience (characterized as withholding engagement with the North until it changed its behavior).

Instead, the Biden team would "offer relief for particular steps" with the "ultimate goal of denuclearization." This suggests that the administration remains committed to the U.N.- mandated goal of totally eliminating Pyongyang's nuclear weapons capability — and is unwilling to accept North Korea as a permanent nuclear-armed state, as some observers have recommended — but is planning to pursue that goal in an incremental manner, offering partial sanctions relief in exchange for partial steps toward denuclearization.

If the administration gains diplomatic traction with the North, it will eventually have to make a persuasive public case for the step-by-step approach.

The administration is reluctant to apply the label "step by step" to its approach, presumably because such an incremental approach has received criticism on the grounds that North Korea could refuse to take further steps down the path toward denuclearization after reaping the benefits it would receive from agreeing to initial steps. There are strong arguments for proceeding step by step, especially compared to the futility of compelling Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear deterrent completely and in the near future. If the administration gains diplomatic traction with the North, it will eventually have to make a persuasive public case for the step-by-step approach. But it probably sees little value in detailing and defending such an approach now, before diplomatic engagement has even begun.

The Biden administration seems prepared to associate itself with some elements of its predecessors' North Korea policies, including the joint statement adopted by President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their Singapore summit meeting in June 2018. The Washington Post quoted a second U.S. official as saying the administration would build on the Singapore agreement and other previous agreements.

The Singapore statement called for parallel progress toward the goals of complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, peace and security on the peninsula, improved U.S.-North Korean relations, and the repatriation of American prisoners of war and missing in action remains from the Korean War. South Korean President Moon Jae-in has urged the Biden administration to express support for the Singapore framework, a move that he believes will be welcomed by Kim Jong Un as an acknowledgement of one of his personal achievements and will increase the likelihood of North Korea coming to the negotiating table.

Other than maintaining that it will avoid the mistakes of its predecessors, issuing some expected reaffirmations (the goal of denuclearization), and providing some interesting tidbits (support for the Singapore framework), the Biden administration has so far relied mainly on generalities in publicly outlining the results of its review of North Korea policy, using language like "calibrated, practical, measured approach" and similar formulations intended to be reassuring and unassailable.

This is understandable. The details of the administration's approach will evolve as it continues its consultations on North Korea, first and foremost with allies South Korea and Japan as well as with other interested and influential states, especially China. Moreover, the administration recognizes that diplomacy can often be most effective if kept out of the public eye. And given the highly controversial nature of negotiations with North Korea, it probably wishes to avoid a public fight on the specific elements of its approach at this very early stage of the process – indeed, when prospects for diplomatic engagement remain uncertain, as illustrated by Pyongyang's threat to carry out provocative activities ("corresponding measures") in response to what a senior North Korean official called the "hostile policy" reflected in President Joe Biden's recent address to a joint session of Congress.

So, much is still publicly unknown about the Biden administration's North Korea policy. Indeed, much is still probably undecided within the administration. The following critical questions remain unaddressed so far by the public rollout of the Biden policy:

  • Although the administration has reaffirmed the "ultimate goal" of denuclearization, will it pursue that goal in a single agreement that provides for a long-term roadmap of reciprocal, sequential steps that leads all the way to complete denuclearization in an agreed timeframe? Or will it seek an initial, first-stage agreement that limits North Korean capabilities and obligates the parties to pursue follow-on agreements to move further down the path to complete denuclearization — but without specifying an agreed deadline?
  • Whether incremental steps toward complete denuclearization are provided for in a single, long-term agreement or in more than one agreement, what limits on North Korean capabilities will the U.S. seek in an initial step? Shutting down only the declared nuclear complex at Yongbyon or going beyond Yongbyon to shut down activities at currently undeclared facilities elsewhere in North Korea? Banning nuclear tests and flight tests of only long-range missiles or also banning flight tests of shorter-range missiles? Focusing only on capping North Korean capabilities or requiring some reductions of existing nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles?
  • How will such an initial step be verified? By North Korean implementation of the International Atomic Energy Agency's basic Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, by application of the more extensive provisions of its Additional Protocol, by adoption of the unique monitoring and inspection arrangements accepted by Iran in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or by unique measures tailored to the specific circumstances of the North Korean case?
  • What will North Korea receive in exchange for accepting initial limits on its nuclear and missile programs? Partial relief from U.N. and U.S. sanctions? Will certain sanctions be removed or scaled back? Will sanctions relief be subject to snap-back in the event of North Korean non-performance? Will exceptions be made to existing sanctions to allow specific inter-Korean projects to proceed? Will "compensation" to Pyongyang include steps toward peace on the Korean Peninsula, including a declaration to end the Korean War? Steps toward normalization of U.S.-North Korean relations, including establishment of liaison offices in capitals? Security assurances regarding the use of force or nuclear weapons?
  • Should the United States seek a bilateral agreement with North Korea? Or should bilateral engagement take place within a multilateral framework in which other key states — perhaps including South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia — participate in negotiations, become parties to the agreement, and play critical roles in implementing and enforcing it?

In time, the public will learn how the Biden administration plans to address these and many more questions and will be in a better position to assess the administration's overall approach to North Korea. Meanwhile, the administration's gradual and selective rollout of its policy review makes sense. It needs more time to consult with other states, seek their support for its policies, and make any needed adjustments. It wants to give itself some negotiating flexibility with the North Koreans. And at a time when it's engaged in the controversial effort to reach agreement with Iran on a mutual return to full compliance with the JCPOA, the Biden team may be reluctant at this stage to provide the grist for the inevitable domestic political fight over North Korea policy.

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How a Memphis medical district is connecting residents to living-wage jobs

Posted: 04 May 2021 08:37 AM PDT

By Latasha Harris, Vonesha Mitchell

Placemaking PostcardsMemphis, Tenn.—home of the blues, soul, and rock and roll—is also home to significant economic, social, and cultural assets. One of these assets is the Memphis Medical District, a 2.6-square-mile area in the core of the city's downtown that is working to ensure a more vibrant, prosperous, and equitable future for all Memphians.

However, there are significant barriers to achieving this future in one of the nation's poorest metropolitan statistical areas—particularly for residents living in and around the medical district. Of these nearly 11,000 residents, 65% are Black, 43% of households live below the poverty line, and median household income is $19,125.

Our organization, the Memphis Medical District Collaborative (MMDC) is seeking to address these economic disparities with place-based "Hire Local," "Buy Local," and "Live Local" initiatives that leverage the assets, resources, and opportunities of the medical district to directly benefit vulnerable residents.

More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we have encountered many challenges (and learned many lessons) with these initiatives—particularly, our place-based workforce development effort, "Hire Local," during a time when medical workers are both desperately needed and doubly vulnerable. We hope these lessons may inform future place-based workforce development efforts designed to enhance equity and opportunity in the post-COVID-19 world.

A place-based workforce development initiative to overcome the opportunity gap

Place-based approaches to workforce development—that is, approaches that seek to connect residents to the jobs in their neighborhoods—can be a critical tool in achieving equitable growth, as they seek to tailor training, interventions, and opportunities to the specific realities, strengths, and structural disadvantages facing underinvested communities. They also give workers the opportunity to find local jobs that they can easily access, reducing the costs and time associated with long commutes.

In 2017, we launched our place-based "Hire Local" initiative, modeled after the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative (WSPI), with the goal of replicating the successes they have achieved in helping hundreds of West Philadelphians connect to jobs. We worked with Philadelphia-based partners to tailor the model to Memphis' realities, and secured commitments from anchor institution partners to hire 101 "Hire Local" participants.

But we soon encountered serious pitfalls. Despite commitments from anchor partners, the 79 applicants we approved in the first year were not hired at those institutions. Merely connecting job seekers in the target geography to hiring managers was not translating into hires because it did not address the opportunity gap facing residents who have long been excluded from the labor force. In other words, it did not address the structural conditions that prevent low-income residents from accessing the necessary training to obtain employment, nor did it address the need for more equitable hiring, training, and management practices among employers.

To solve this mismatch, we switched from direct-hire matchmaking to targeted training designed to overcome barriers to employment. We worked with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, one of Memphis' largest adult hospital systems, and Le Bonheur Children's Hospital to identify opportunity areas, in-demand jobs, and nuances about company culture and practices.

In winter 2019, the hospitals identified nursing assistants and housekeeping as the entry points for our current residents—to our initial dismay. These were not the mid- or high-level careers we hoped for, but we worked with anchor institution partners to ensure that if any training graduates were hired, they could expect to work full time with benefits and a starting pay of at least $15 an hour. We then partnered with Southwest Tennessee Community College to offer a four-week skills training for these positions to residents in eight ZIP codes surrounding the Memphis Medical District.

The program was set to launch in March 2020, when, of course, COVID-19 took the nation by storm.

Pivoting to direct assistance for vulnerable residents

The pandemic shined a bright light on the intersection of race, poverty, and place across the nation and within our district. When surveyed, 60% of our residents reported wage losses due to COVID-19, and like so many Black families in the U.S., they struggled to access the internet and technology needed for online learning. Given these realities, we immediately shifted our focus to emergency support for residents.

We delayed our training until July (when local hospitals were looking to hire again), and redirected funds into an emergency fund for Hire Local residents—providing support to more than 50 families via rent or mortgage assistance, utility payments, and essential supplies. The emergency fund provided just under $40,000 in support during the pandemic, prioritizing residents in ZIP codes disproportionately affected by the pandemic. In addition to providing direct cash support, we deepened community engagement practices by frequently surveying residents to assess their ongoing needs. We joined place-based coalitions such as COMMONS (Coalition of Metropolitan Memphis Organizations for Neighborhood Services) to raise over $400,000 for residents in our most disinvested neighborhoods.

This pivot was essential for not only building trust with residents, but also for establishing a network of place-based entities working to support vulnerable residents in need of employment services, food, rent and utility assistance, and access to technology.

Virtual training for medical careers during the pandemic

How do you help vulnerable residents obtain economic stability during a global health crisis? Hire Local took the path of short-term, upskills training targeting health care careers with living wages. While cities all over the county grappled with declines in hospital hires early in the pandemic, hospitals are major employers nationwide, and these declines did not last long.

In July, we piloted virtual training. To ensure trainees who experienced barriers in technology access had everything they needed, we mailed copies of the training documents, noise-canceling earbuds, and loner computers to complete course content. We also offered both day and night classes to meet residents' schedules and provided $500 stipends to help cover expenses related to food, supplies, transportation, uniform support, and other household needs.

We are just getting started, but of the 33 residents who participated in the pilot, 19 have been hired in Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare hospitals, and we are working on additional placements. With the early wins last year, Hire Local is scaling programming to include four to six training classes for nursing assistants in 2021, as well as exploring mid-level career paths to target for training and employer partnership expansion.

Key partnerships raise the value of place-based workforce development

Connecting residents to living-wage jobs has always been the goal of our Hire Local initiative. But our most critical successes so far have been the relationships we built with communities, the lasting institutional partnerships we formed, and the value we witnessed by working within an ecosystem of workforce development, community, employer, and civic sector partners.

Place-based workforce development can be a critical tool to not only ensure employment opportunities are distributed more equitably within cities and regions, but also to nurture the cross-sector partnerships and community relationships needed to strengthen families' holistic pathways to financial security.

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Research-practice partnerships can help our youngest learners in times of crisis and recovery

Posted: 04 May 2021 06:58 AM PDT

By Daphna Bassok, Pamela A. Morris, Anna Markowitz, Jenna Conway

"The kids I am most worried about right now are those who are not enrolled in public preschool and kindergarten," says Jenna Conway, chief school readiness officer at the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). Preschool and kindergarten teachers have been telling her that many families seemed to opt out in the fall and children have been disappearing from virtual classrooms since the beginning of the year. She saw this happen in her own child's virtual kindergarten class and wondered how widespread this was around Virginia. How many and which children were leaving? What kinds of alternative experiences were they having? And what will these enrollment drops mean for children in the months and years to come?

"It is unusual to see so many families either opting out altogether or dropping out midyear," she told us. "We need data to understand what is going on so we can figure out how to adjust policy and resources for the field."

This isn't the first time Conway has looked to data for insights on how to address a policy challenge. Through multiple, longstanding research–practice partnerships (RPPs) with university-based researchers, she has advocated for fast-turnaround data collection and analyses that allow her to repeatedly "take the pulse" of young children's experiences throughout the pandemic.

These analyses have illuminated a variety of challenges. They showed a nearly 20% drop in pre-K enrollment overall, as well as higher drop rates for Black and Hispanic children, and children from low-income families. Fall assessment data showed that over a quarter of incoming kindergarteners—far more than in any other year—were at risk for reading failure. A survey of nearly 2,000 preschool teachers revealed that most of those teaching remotely (81%) thought that children were learning less than usual. Many were concerned that they didn't have enough interaction with students to know if their students were doing okay. Indeed, surveys with over 5,000 Virginia parents of young children showed that many are concerned about their children, not only about their academic development but also their social skills and mental health.

These state-level data are helping Conway and her colleagues at VDOE and the governor's office to understand the impact of COVID-19 on Virginia's youngest learners, refine practices to meet children's needs, and make strategic investments. For instance, data highlighting under-enrollment and children’s widely varying needs helped Conway advocate for waivers that allow children who are age-eligible for kindergarten to enroll in state-funded pre-K classrooms if that environment would better meet their needs.

Conway believes that all policymakers, superintendents, principals, and teachers benefit from seeing their own local, real-time data. These data can help them understand the scope of the problems they face, balance competing goals amid challenges, and assess whether their solutions are working. However, practitioners are busy, and especially so in the context of a pandemic.

That's where RPPs can be powerful. Researchers are often criticized for failing to tackle the questions that are most urgent on the ground and working too slowly to provide useful information on policy timelines. Over the past decade, however, a growing number of policymakers, practitioners, and researchers have built partnerships that align research with practice—partnerships that can meet the immediate needs of leaders like Conway while informing early childhood research more broadly.

New Volume on Research Practice Partnerships Released last Week

A year ago, when the world responded to COVID-19 by closing down in-person instruction nearly overnight, the need for this type of research partnership was clear. But partnerships have long been a part of early childhood education (ECE) research. In a new volume of The Future of Children released last week, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners involved in early childhood RPPs around the country provide insights into how partnerships can lead to better research and better practice in the early education sector.

The volume highlights lessons from these partnerships. Each article is centered around a major challenge or opportunity in partnership work—for example, creating a research and/or funding agenda, developing tools, taking innovation to scale, navigating timelines, and capacity building. Together, they provide a road map for researchers and policy/practice leaders who want to break research and policymaking siloes, ask better scientific questions, collect stronger data, and create immediately applicable knowledge.

Such efforts to bridge research and practice were particularly valuable during the pandemic, and many of the partnerships profiled in this volume pivoted quickly at COVID-19's onset to address pressing partner questions. RPPs in New York City, Louisiana, and Virginia quickly gathered detailed data about the impact of COVID-19 on early educators. A partnership in Boston studied how COVID-19 impacted young children's learning environments in both in-person and remote settings.

For Conway, this process of rapid, local data collection is essential both for diagnosing problems and for building a coalition of support for policy solutions. "Using local data from trusted sources gets more people on board because they care most about what is happening in their own communities," she says. "It also helps illustrate who is being most affected and helps build the case for making those children and families the priority."

And while RPPs over the past year have focused on gathering fast-turnaround data to help policymakers better understand the scope and nature of the problems COVID-19 created, moving forward they can track improvement and guide the redesign of early childhood systems for a post-pandemic world. For instance, New York University's partnership with New York City is studying the challenges and innovations of pre-K educators during the COVID-19 pandemic, findings that will be used to inform programmatic supports for families in the future.

The United States is making unprecedented investments in early childhood education (e.g., the CARES Act) and considering bold new ways to improve access and quality at scale. Policymakers have a unique opportunity to experiment with new approaches to ECE system-building and they need help evaluating which strategies yield desired results. For researchers, this creates a unique opportunity to move from "relevant" research to research that directly informs practice and policymaking. For policymakers, finding ways to integrate research partners into practice teams can offer access to additional capacity for high-stakes recovery and rebuilding efforts. Though creating strong, trusting partnerships takes time, it is time well worth spending—for researchers, for practitioners, and for policymakers—in order to build better programs for our youngest learners.

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Machines learn that Brussels writes the rules: The EU’s new AI regulation

Posted: 04 May 2021 04:00 AM PDT

By Mark MacCarthy, Kenneth Propp

The European Union's proposed artificial intelligence (AI) regulation, released on April 21, is a direct challenge to Silicon Valley's common view that law should leave emerging technology alone. The proposal sets out a nuanced regulatory structure that bans some uses of AI, heavily regulates high-risk uses and lightly regulates less risky AI systems.

The proposal would require providers and users of high-risk AI systems to comply with rules on data and data governance; documentation and record-keeping; transparency and provision of information to users; human oversight; and robustness, accuracy and security. Its major innovation, telegraphed in last year's White Paper on Artificial Intelligence, is a requirement for ex-ante conformity assessments to establish that high-risk AI systems meet these requirements before they can be offered on the market or put into service. An additional important innovation is a mandate for a postmarket monitoring system to detect problems in use and to mitigate them.

Despite these innovations and a sound risk-based structure, the regulation appears to have some surprising gaps and omissions. It leaves Big Tech virtually unscathed. It lacks a focus on those affected by AI systems, apparently missing any general requirement to inform people who are subjected to algorithmic assessments. Little attention is paid to algorithmic fairness in the text of the regulation as opposed to its accompanying recitals. And the newly required conformity assessments turn out to be merely internal processes, not documents that could be reviewed by the public or a regulator.

Nevertheless, the proposal is a comprehensive and thoughtful start to the legislative process in Europe and might prove to be the basis for trans-Atlantic cooperation to throw a common regulatory net over a consequential emerging technology, as White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan noted in his statement welcoming the EU's new AI initiative.

Scope

The regulation's broad definition of artificial intelligence captures software embodying machine learning, the older rules-based AI approach, and also the traditional statistical techniques that have long been used in creating models for credit scoring or recidivism. Although users of AI systems are covered, the regulation focuses largely on providers, the entities that develop an AI system and either place it on the market or put it into service for their own use.

The jurisdiction of the regulation covers providers of AI systems in the EU irrespective of where the provider is located, as well as users of AI systems located within the EU, and providers and users located outside the EU "where the output produced by the system is used in the Union." This "effects" test potentially extends the law's reach to companies without a market presence in the EU that use AI systems to process data about EU citizens.

Prohibitions

The regulation bans AI systems that cause or are likely to cause "physical or psychological" harm through the use of "subliminal techniques" or by exploiting vulnerabilities of a "specific group of persons due to their age, physical or mental disability." It prohibits AI systems from providing social scoring for general purposes by public authorities. It also precludes the use of "real-time" remote biometric identification systems, such as facial recognition, in publicly accessible spaces for law enforcement purposes.

These prohibitions sound stern, but there may be less here than meets the eye. The bans focused on manipulative or exploitative AI systems to address the "dark patterns," which many groups and scholars have identified as aiming to trick users into making decisions against their own best interests—such as divulging more personal information than is needed to get an online service. But an enforcing agency will have to determine when a system is exploitative or manipulative, so the effect of the ban is dependent on future regulatory action. The ban on social scoring seems a matter of optics, declaring that European values reject systems such as those reportedly under development in China.

In addition, the proposed regulation would allow for the use of remote biometric identification systems to search for crime victims such as missing children; to prevent the specific threat of a terrorist attack; or to detect, identify, or prosecute serious crime with certain protections including prior judicial or administrative approval. Moreover, the prohibition does not appear to extend to law enforcement's use of facial recognition on databases of "pictures or video footage" gathered previously.

These compromises will disappoint civil liberties advocates but satisfy EU member states' significant concerns over internal security and terrorism. For example, French authorities may use facial recognition technology to search a train station for suspects after a North African radical Islamic group threatened to detonate a bomb. And the regulation might allow member state police to use facial recognition for after-the-fact identification of suspects, as the FBI did after the Capitol riot.

The Rules for High-Risk AI Systems

High-risk AI systems include those intended to be used as safety components of products that are already regulated under existing product safety law, including machinery, toys and medical devices. In addition, the legislation specifically defines certain stand-alone AI systems as high risk when they pose special risks to established fundamental rights. The high-risk list includes systems used for remote biometric identification systems, safety in critical infrastructure, educational or employment purposes, eligibility for public benefits, credit scoring, and dispatching emergency services. Some AI systems used for law enforcement, immigration control and the administration of justice are also deemed high risk.

The regulation mandates, in general terms, the kind of governance program that financial regulators in the United States have established for the financial analysis models used by companies they regulate. The regulation properly notes that these rules "are already state-of-the-art for many diligent operators'' and are derived from the Ethics Guidelines of the European Commission's High Level Expert's group.

Providers of AI systems must establish "appropriate data governance and management practices" and must use datasets that are "relevant, representative, free of errors and complete." They must draw up technical documentation to demonstrate that the system conforms with the rules. This documentation must contain a general description of the AI system; its main elements, including validation and testing data; and information about its operation, including metrics of accuracy.

High-risk AI systems must be "sufficiently transparent to enable users to understand and control how the high-risk AI system produces its output." Disclosures include "the level of accuracy, robustness and security," the circumstances of use where the system would create risks to safety and rights, the general logic and design choices of the system, and a description of the system's training data.

High-risk AI systems must be designed to allow users to "oversee" them in order to prevent or minimize "potential risks." Design features must enable human users to avoid overreliance on system outputs ("automation bias") and must allow a designated human overseer to override system outputs and to use a "stop" button.

The regulation requires high-risk AI systems to "meet a high level of accuracy that is appropriate for their intended purpose" and to continue to perform at that level of accuracy in use. It requires resilience against "errors, faults or inconsistencies" and also against "attempts to alter their use or performance by malicious third parties intending to exploit system vulnerabilities."

A key obligation of providers is to conduct conformity assessments demonstrating that the high-risk system complies with these rules. The providers of AI systems used as safety components of consumer products, who are already subject to third-party ex-ante conformity assessment under current product safety law, now must also demonstrate compliance with the AI rules. The providers of stand-alone high-risk systems are required to conduct internal assessments themselves, except that independent third parties have to conduct the assessments for uses of facial identification.

After a high-risk AI system is sold or put into use, the providers must establish a "proportionate" postmarket monitoring system to collect data on the system's operation to ensure its "continuous compliance" with the regulation and to take corrective action if needed. Systems that continue to learn after they have been put into use would need a new conformity assessment if the modifications from learning are substantial. If the user of such a system modifies it substantially, then the user, not the provider, is responsible for doing the new conformity assessment.

The regulation seeks to be future proof in the face of evolving technology by providing the European Commission with delegated authority to update the definition of artificial intelligence, to update the list of high-risk AI systems, and to amend the requirements for technical documentation of high-risk systems. Delegated acts are a type of administrative action initiated and controlled by the European Commission that is less onerous procedurally than legislative change.

Governance and Enforcement

Overseeing and enforcing EU law is always complex, due to the EU's inherent division of responsibilities between Brussels regulators and member states, but the scheme devised for artificial intelligence is particularly baroque. National supervisory authorities are to take the lead in conducting "market surveillance" of AI products, following the usual EU practice of deferring to experts in capitals. Member states need not create new, specialized AI regulatory authorities—existing authorities already entrusted with related regulatory responsibilities under other EU legislation may take on AI tasks as well. These authorities' AI powers include investigating health and safety or fundamental rights risks, and ordering companies to take corrective action, such as by removing offending systems from the market. A member state, or the European Commission, may object to a decision made by another member state, triggering an EU-wide consultation process that could lead to its reversal.

The national supervisory agencies have access to all information, documentation and data necessary to enforce the law, including access to source code if needed, and must "protect intellectual property rights, and confidential business information or trade secrets … including source code."

A newly created European Artificial Intelligence Board would be chaired by the European Commission and would have one representative from each national supervisory authority and the European Data Protection Board (EDPB). This new board would have the power to issue opinions and interpretive guidance on implementing the legislation, share best practices, and develop harmonized technical standards. The commission thus would have a leading role in EU-level AI governance, unlike with the member state-led EDPB for data protection.

Last, the European Commission has presented potential penalties of eye-catching severity, even beyond those of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Member states may impose administrative fines of up to 30 million euros or 6 percent of global annual corporate turnover, whichever is higher, on companies that market AI systems for prohibited purposes (like social scoring) or that fail to comply with data training requirements. Violation of other requirements carries lesser penalties, on a graduated scale.

Surprising Omissions and Gaps

The recitals accompanying the regulation are full of references to the well-documented concerns about the risks of algorithmic bias. But the text of the regulation is surprisingly thin on the need for conducting and publishing disparate impact assessments.

The regulation hints at disparate impact assessment in several places. The data governance rule allows providers of AI systems to use data concerning sensitive properties such as race, gender and ethnicity in order to ensure "bias monitoring, detection and correction." The robustness rule requires some AI systems to guard against "possibly biased outputs[.]" A system's technical documentation must contain "metrics used to measure … potentially discriminatory impacts" and information about "the foreseeable unintended outcomes and sources of risks to … fundamental rights and discrimination[.]"

But these vague references do not specifically require impact assessments on protected classes. Moreover, the documentation that arguably must contain a bias assessment does not need to be provided to users, the public or those potentially affected by discriminatory algorithms. It is available only to regulators upon request. In contrast, the legislation clearly mandates assessments and disclosure of system accuracy.

Overall, Big Tech emerges virtually unscathed under the new AI legislation despite being the object of widespread and growing concern over the use of AI-driven algorithms and the focus of most of the cutting-edge applied AI research. The regulation does not treat the algorithms used in social media, search, online retailing, app stores, mobile apps or mobile operating systems as high risk. It is possible that some algorithms used in ad tracking or recommendation engines might be prohibited as manipulative or exploitative practices. But as noted above, this would take an assessment by a regulator to determine.

The regulation is light on information that must be disclosed to the people who are affected by AI systems. The regulation requires that people be informed when they "interact with" an AI system or when their emotions or gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation are "recognized" by an AI system.  They must be told when "deepfake" systems artificially create or manipulate material. But not in other cases. For instance, people need not be told when they are algorithmically sorted to determine eligibility for public benefits, credit, education or employment.

The requirement for conformity assessment is significantly less protective and revealing than it appears. The conformity assessment is a procedure, not a document, and an internal check-off for most of the providers of high-risk AI systems. So, there is no audit report for the public or the regulator to review. Instead, the public gets a "mark" affixed to the AI system indicating compliance with the rules. AI system providers must draw up a "declaration of conformity" and "keep it at the disposal of" regulators, but even this statement of compliance with the rules can be withheld from the public.

These apparent shortcomings will almost certainly be discussed and revisited as the legislation moves through the complicated and lengthy European legislative process.

Trans-Atlantic Dimensions

The EU regulation contrasts with the piecemeal approach to AI taken in the United States. The Trump administration delegated AI responsibility to specific regulatory agencies, with general instructions not to overregulate—an extension of the Obama administration's treatment of AI regulation. The Biden administration is likely to maintain this decentralized approach, with perhaps a greater emphasis on the need to regulate to avoid potential AI risks. The EU's comprehensive AI structure of horizontal risk-based rules, premarket conformity assessments, and postmarket monitoring duties will not be copied in the United States, although some cities and states have taken action over certain uses of AI by banning or heavily regulating facial recognition.

Still, there are opportunities for trans-Atlantic cooperation on AI. The European Commission greeted the Biden administration with an ambitious blueprint for trans-Atlantic cooperation. High on its list was the creation of a Trade and Technology Council, and "work on an AI agreement[,]" although no further detail was provided.

The EU's decision to carve out its own bold regulatory direction on AI inevitably poses the question of what space is left for a trans-Atlantic agreement. Obviously, the United States is not going to formally adopt the EU's definition of "high risk" nor its precise system of conformity assessments or, for that matter, its approach of comprehensive regulation. The realities of differing regulatory philosophies—and varying constellations of business, consumer and civil society interests—will sharply limit trans-Atlantic ambition.

Nevertheless, both sides will find it politically attractive to cooperate on AI. And while the issuance of the EU's draft regulation may close a few doors for collaboration with the United States, it also potentially opens others. For example:

  • Once EU-wide criteria for high-risk AI systems are in place, the United States might seek an arrangement with the EU that allows companies located in the U.S. to self-certify as meeting them, subject to U.S. government control, under a system similar in concept to the Privacy Shield. Mutual recognition of conformity assessments also could be considered, as suggested in a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies paper.
  • There may be scope for government-structured public-private partnerships on AI research and development. Such cooperation could be based on the U.S.-EU Science and Technology Agreement, following the approach the United States has taken recently with the United Kingdom.
  • Specialized U.S. government agencies pursuing their own AI regulations, such as in the areas of finance, consumer protection, or employment protection, could compare approaches with counterpart regulators in the European Union, perhaps eventually yielding selective mutual recognition arrangements. These specific conversations could be organized under the framework of a larger intergovernmental dialogue on AI.

Conclusion

The European Commission's AI regulatory proposal is but the latest addition to an ambitious digital legislative agenda that Brussels has unveiled gradually over the past two years. Its Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act took aim at the behavior of U.S. platform giants, perhaps explaining why this AI legislative proposal seems focused elsewhere. The commission also self-consciously has portrayed the AI regulation as a defense of European values against less scrupulous AI developers in China.

The European Union prides itself on developing regulatory frameworks that have an impact outside its borders—witness the example of the GDPR. But whether its AI regulation ends up becoming the dominant global set of rules in a competition with the United States and China is far from the whole story. The commission's proposal reflects wide-ranging thinking and concrete choices on difficult policy issues. For that alone it will prove valuable internationally, even as it evolves like the technologies it seeks to master.

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