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Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, leading Decolonial scholars, argue against applying decolonization as a metaphor, that is, using “an approximation of other experiences of oppression [as] a swappable term for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools” (Tuck and Yang 2012, p. 3). To decolonize, for Tuck and Yang, unambiguously means to “[bring] about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life” (Tuck and Yang 2012, p. 21). In their influential essay, “Decolonization is not a Metaphor” (2012), Tuck and Yang include among their list of settler colonialists: immigrants, descendants of slaves, refugees, migrant laborers; in short, anyone who arrives with and after the first settler colonialists. However, the communities that make up this list, along with Indigenous populations, constitute, as it is commonly understood, the diversity of contemporary North America. Critical approaches to diversity, the other prominent task of this edited volume, seek to address the uneven distribution of power. But, according to Tuck and Yang, this critical approach to diversity, based on “the promise of integration and civil rights is [itself] predicated on securing a share of a settler-appropriated wealth” (Tuck and Yang 2012, p. 7). Critical approaches to diversity seek to disrupt the uneven distribution of power, but do so by “[redistributing] Native land/life as common-wealth,” where decolonization means that “all land is repatriated and all settlers become landless” (Tuck and Yang 2012, p. 27). In the following, we critically engage with the premises sketched above and ask how to accept the charge of decolonization: unsettle ourselves, unsettle German Studies as practiced in the United States, and, by extension, unsettle the institutions that house it. It means concurrently contributing to two—for many Decolonial scholars—diametrically opposed or rather incommensurable projects: the “decolonizing framework [that] prioritizes Indigenous sovereignty and futurity” and “human and civil rights social justice projects” (Rowe and Tuck 2017, p. 8). This eventually unworkable dichotomy does not emerge from recourse to a “hierarchy of oppression,” to evoke Audre Lorde, but from diverging paths to liberation and different understandings of migration and its relation to colonialism. Namely, for Indigenous populations, according to Tuck and Yang, oppression would not end even in some utopia in which equality and equity have been unambiguously and irrevocably secured; it can only end with the recovery of Indigenous sovereignty and the coeval termination of settler sovereignty and settler property rights. To decolonize social justice/diversity frameworks, one must commit “to social change with a specific material politics of Indigenous sovereignty, land, and relationships” (Tuhiwai et al. 2019, p. xv). Without such a commitment, the work of decolonization is thus necessarily one of limited collaboration and inevitable antagonisms—of “contingent coalitions” (Rowe and Tuck 2017, p. 8). It demands, in the least, the recognition of how one’s positionality may inform one’s limits in the investment in decolonization. That is, at some point, if not immediately, settler colonialists must divest themselves from futurist visions in which they remain settler colonialists and in which the relation to land continues to be determined via property rights. Equity utopias that figure liberation in terms of equal access to existing resources or via the equitable redistribution of colonial (settler) wealth are incompatible with decolonization. The decolonization of German Studies as it exists in the United States must confront these limits even if it ultimately cannot overcome them. Our cautious entry into this essay is predicated on the weighty recognition that, although, as Sium et al. (2012) write, “there is no escaping complicity within a settler colonial state, especially for those of us who have settled here,” we must nonetheless engage in some form of action and/or resistance to the colonial, oppressive structuring of being (p. iii). But what form can and should decolonial action take from within the very “institution that helped draw up the first blueprints of colonization, both here and abroad? […] Is it possible to decolonize institutions of colonial power (such as the academy, government, etc.), but, further, is it possible to decolonize through them?” (Sium et al. 2012, p. iii). We engage with specific discourses of decolonization in this chapter because they pose an unanswered challenge to decolonization as a diversity framework in German Studies. This is certainly not the only decolonization discourse in Decolonial/Indigenous Studies, but it is one that has not, to our knowledge, been broadly taken up in endeavors to decolonize German Studies. Finally, we ask ourselves what contribution we— two scholars of immigrant background, a former refugee and a person of color, both born outside of the United States, both generally skeptical of border policing, (ethno)nationalisms, and hostility toward migration— can make to this critical conversation.

While China has launched some big initiatives and appears committed to mitigating the effects of the climate crisis and increasing its use of green energy, its international commitments fall short of what experts say is needed. The net zero target is widely regarded as too late to ensure the world limits global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, and emissions must peak by 2025 to be in line with Paris goals.

“What separates China from the rest of the world is the power of its leader, Xi Jinping, to make climate a politically non-negotiable pillar of long-term policymaking,” said the Asia Society paper. “But realistically, for now, officials will not sacrifice short-term economic demands for the 2030 target – and certainly not for 2060 – raising the prospect of serious challenges near the end of the decade.”

Unlike the two scenarios above, a future of strengthened China-Russia military cooperation may have less to do with the way the Ukraine conflict plays out and more to do with China’s perception of threats in the Indo-Pacific. Such a future would see the United States and its allies increasingly united in their rhetoric and actions aimed at pressuring China over its declared interests in areas such as Taiwan, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and disputed islands in the South China Sea. China may find it beneficial to visibly strengthen its military ties with Russia if it believes the chances of an Indo-Pacific conflict are growing and that military cooperation with Russia could enhance its deterrence messaging against the U.S. and its allies.

Stronger China-Russia military ties could be manifested in:

This April, potential sperm donors at one of Beijing’s top hospitals found themselves facing a set of tough new standards. Listed as the first criteria, before any mention of infectious or hereditary diseases, was the requirement that potential donors have “a love for socialism and the motherland” and be “supportive of the leadership of the party.”

By itself, this would be just one more incident of political excess in a country where full-blown Chinese Communist Party ideology is making a fierce comeback. But unlike the demands that students dump “Western” textbooks or that singers parrot their love for President Xi Jinping, China’s bioethical standards are more than a curiosity for outsiders. They may shape the future of humanity.

China, by contrast, has been integrating biotechnology into its strategic development and elevating biotechnology to a key component of national security. China’s military-civil fusion development strategy makes biotechnology a core priority for the People’s Liberation Army. This strategy has one goal: to bring together China’s civilian and military industrial bases in order to better project power. To that end, China has cornered supply chains in multiple sectors, including pharmaceuticals ingredients and other important chemicals.

Stephanie Rogers, the Defense Department’s acting principal director for biotechnology, recently declared that “the nation that leads the world in biotechnology will accrue enduring economic, societal, and defense gains.” Unfortunately, this awareness has yet to be reflected in government policy. Biotechnology security is national security — for the United States and for China. The Department of Defense should recognize biotechnology’s role as a foundational technology and make biotechnology development and supply chain security a priority.

The system must also be adapted to deal with new issues that were not envisioned when the existing order was designed. Foremost among these issues is emerging and disruptive technology, including AI, additive manufacturing (or 3D printing), quantum computing, genetic engineering, robotics, directed energy, the Internet of things (IOT), 5G, space, cyber, and many others. Like other disruptive technologies before them, these innovations promise great benefits, but also carry serious downside risks. For example, AI is already resulting in massive efficiencies and cost savings in the private sector. Routine tasks and other more complicated jobs, such as radiology, are already being automated. In the future, autonomous weapons systems may go to war against each other as human soldiers remain out of harm’s way.

Yet, AI is also transforming economies and societies, and generating new security challenges. Automation will lead to widespread unemployment. The final realization of driverless cars, for example, will put out of work millions of taxi, Uber, and long-haul truck drivers. Populist movements in the West have been driven by those disaffected by globalization and technology, and mass unemployment caused by automation will further grow those ranks and provide new fuel to grievance politics. Moreover, some fear that autonomous weapons systems will become “killer robots” that select and engage targets without human input, and could eventually turn on their creators, resulting in human extinction. The other technologies on this lisgt similarly balance great potential upside with great downside risk. 3D printing, for example, can be used to “make anything anywhere,” reducing costs for a wide range of manufactured goods and encouraging a return of local manufacturing industries.61 At the same time, advanced 3D printers can also be used by revisionist and rogue states to print component parts for advanced weapons systems or even WMD programs, spurring arms races and weapons proliferation.62 Genetic engineering can wipe out entire classes of disease through improved medicine, or wipe out entire classes of people through genetically engineered superbugs. Directed-energy missile defenses may defend against incoming missile attacks, while also undermining global strategic stability.

At the global level, it is difficult to counteract nationalist populists’ influence. Multilateral regimes may be able to withstand temporary problems caused by individual noncompliant states. Some may hope that populism will simply wither away and that they can wait the populists out. But, as argued above, the underlying assumption that populism is a passing phenomenon is questionable.

The Alliance for Multilateralism, which is an “informal network of countries united in their conviction that a rules-based multilateral order is the only reliable guarantee for international stability and peace and that our common challenges can only be solved through cooperation,”Footnote111 can be understood as a way to balance and constrain the destructive policies of nationalist populists at the global level. Yet it is not clear what shared interests, apart from opposing nationalist populism, these multilateralists have.

Like inequality and economic privation, potentially dangerous digital technologies have not received nearly enough attention from most democracies. The role that such tools have played in the rise of autocratic governments and ethnonationalist movements can hardly be overstated. Authoritarian regimes use surveillance systems and facial recognition software to track and monitor critics, journalists, and other members of civil society with the goal of repressing opponents and stifling protests. They also export this technology abroad; China has provided surveillance technology to at least 80 countries through its Digital Silk Road initiative.

Part of the problem is a lack of global norms and legal or regulatory frameworks that embed democratic values into tech design and development. Even in democratic countries, programmers often have to define their own professional ethics on the fly, developing boundaries for powerful technologies while also trying to meet ambitious quarterly goals that leave them little time to reflect on the human costs of their products.

China’s hunger for data extends to some of the most personal information imaginable: our own DNA. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, BGI—a Chinese genome-sequencing company that began as a government-funded research group—has broken ground on some 50 new laboratories abroad designed to help governments test for the virus. China has legitimate reasons to build these labs, but it also has an ugly record of forcibly collecting DNA data from Tibetans and Uighurs as part of its efforts to monitor these minorities. Given that BGI runs China’s national library of genomics data, it is conceivable that through BGI testing, foreigners’ biological data might end up in that repository.

Indeed, China has shown great interest in biotechnology, even if it has yet to catch up to the United States. Combined with massive computing power and artificial intelligence, innovations in biotechnology could help solve some of humanity’s most vexing challenges, from disease and famine to energy production and climate change. Researchers have mastered the gene-editing tool CRISPR, allowing them to grow wheat that resists disease, and have managed to encode video in the DNA of bacteria, raising the possibility of a new, cost-effective method of data storage. Specialists in synthetic biology have invented a new way of producing nylon—with genetically engineered microorganisms instead of petrochemicals. The economic implications of the coming biotechnology revolution are staggering: the McKinsey Global Institute has estimated the value of biotechnology’s many potential applications at up to $4 trillion over the next ten to 20 years.

Moreover, if some authorities in China are reluctant to cede moral authority to the global hegemon (i.e., the U.S. and its traditional close allies) in the norms of science, they wouldn’t be the first. For years, a scattered alliance of South American bioethicists has called for a “hard bioethics,” a kind of weaponizing of the field, such as protesting N.I.H. funded speakers’ appearance in Latin America to lecture on the rules of human research ethics. These critics argue that the North American agency’s actual purpose is to create a respectable environment for the scientific exploitation of bodies in the developing world (Moreno 2020).

As the smoke clears around the case of these edited embryos, it now seems clear that China will subscribe to the international governance efforts now underway, including forthcoming recommendations by a World Health Organization Expert Advisory Committee. Notably, in the wake of the embarrassment of the gene-edited embryos—and before the emergence of the novel coronavirus—China released the draft of a new biosecurity law that focuses on laboratory safety and protections against bioterrorism and biological weapons. This law would cover roughly the same ground as dual-use research of concern (DURC) in the United States (Xinhua 2019).

Terror groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) have expressed interested, and have even attempted, to use biological agents in terror plots (Biodefense, 2016). The technical and administrative knowledge of biology and chemistry can be acquired globally in medical schools, research programs, and laboratories, making it difficult to prevent potential practitioners of bioterrorism from acquiring the required scientific knowledge (Chiodo, 2015). While at one time the ability to mutate strands was restricted to advanced research laboratories, rudimentary high school laboratories now have the ability to develop deadly biological agents (Garrett, 2012). With relative easy, terror groups could engineer the flu virus, making it deadlier (Selk, 2017). By combining traits of multiple strains and maximizing the virus’ natural properties, it could become highly transmittable (Farmer, 2107). Genetically engineered viruses have the potential to kill more people than nuclear weapons, governments remain underprepared for that threat (Selk, 2017).

Terrorists could be drawn to the use of biological agents because of the difficulty of detection and the ease at which some biological agents can naturally spread through a population (Bioterrorism, 2006). There are essentially three ways which agents could be acquired by terrorist: they could be stolen, created in laboratory environments, or collected naturally. A gloomy reality is that as the advancement of new technologies reduce the costs of genetic sequencing, it will become easier and less expensive to create novel organisms (Garrett, 2012). Bioterrorist attacks can be planned to induce maximum damage and panic with a minimum risk of early detection. Potential agents of attack are categorized by risk (rated as an, A, B, or a C) depending on the agent’s availability, ease of dissemination and transmission, and potential impact (Bioterrorism, 2006). Category A agents are considered the most dangerous and threatening to National Security. Ebola is categorized as a Category A bioagent because of its ability to cause mass panic and disruption and the special public health actions required for treating those infected.

Given this information, what might a long-term blackout look like? If the grid were to be attacked tomorrow, how would leaders command and control their Marines? How would Camp Pendleton communicate with Camp Lejeune? How would the Marine Corps communicate with the Navy? How would a mechanic fix a vehicle without step-by-step instructions on a computer or computer-aided diagnostic tools? How much reserve fuel, water, and food does each Marine Corps base have stored? Would leaders be able to keep their Marines, sailors, contractors, and their families fed? What about the local civilian population? How long would it be before they would be at the front gates of the base begging for or even demanding food? Have civilian and military leaders considered, if an EMP were to strike tomorrow, how many Marines would stick around? How many would flee to check in on their families? Answering these questions requires significant thought and planning.

A coordinated physical attack on multiple targets and facilities from a state or nonstate actor must be considered an imminent threat. An attack on an unprotected civilian grid could result in a long-term blackout event. Since 99 percent of the military depends on the civilian electric grid and food and water infrastructure, the military could be severely [harmed] crippled.

Well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, doubts were growing in Asia about the durability of the American-led order that has largely kept the peace since the Vietnam war. One set of doubts concerns China’s bullying, mercantilist approach to economic relations, and its aggressive conduct in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and along the Himalayas.

The other set had to do with the staying power of America. Its friends were unnerved by then-President Donald Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, his disparaging of allies and his love-in with North Korea’s nuclear-armed despot, Kim Jong Un. President Joe Biden has charted a much more reassuring course, reminding friends of America’s commitment to Asia. But can it last?

It has been a bumpy year for the restraint coalition — that loose network of analysts, advocates and politicians calling for a sharply reduced US role in the world. Having reached peak influence with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, this group initially found itself marginalized by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Now, the restraint crowd is offering a renewed critique of US policy, one that will probably prove to be persistent, though not persuasive.

Restraint is a broad church. It features anti-interventionist academics, who often style themselves as non-ideological “realists,” alongside well-funded think tanks such as the Quincy Institute. It includes libertarians such as Senator Rand Paul who deplore the financial costs of US foreign policy and progressives who contend that American globalism is a cover for imperialism and neoliberalism. There are pacifists who believe that all wars are criminal, as well as nationalists such as Senator Josh Hawley who argue that being appropriately hawkish on China requires being more dovish on nearly everything else.

One lesson of the Cold War is that survival is a mutual interest. Yet many see Chinese and Russian ambitions as unrelenting and inflexible. As such, there can be no accommodation, no modern Westphalian or Concert-of-Vienna-type order, no balance of power arrangements. Echoing Biden’s binary absolutism, other proponents of perpetual primacy like Hal Brands argue that sustained U.S. hegemony remains the most sensible US grand strategy. The assumption here is that U.S. power has not relatively declined — as the NSS also assumes, it is forever 1991. If that were the case, we might agree with this conventional wisdom. But it is not, and we cannot.

When he designed the containment strategy to fight the Cold War, George Kennan understood that the United States did not have the appetite for a war with the Soviet Union. President Harry S. Truman and other leaders who experienced firsthand the unpredictability and failures of both world wars had a sense of U.S. limits, particularly after Moscow acquired nuclear weapons. Even while Russia’s future looks grim and some believe that China has reached a stagnating peak, resurgent optimism for liberal hegemony with no limits seems oblivious to both domestic and global realities.

As to the benefits side of the ledger, consider this comparison: In the 76 years before World War II—before the liberal international order took hold—America’s per-capita GDP increased by 136 percent. In the 76 years between the end of World War II and 2021—under the liberal international order—America’s per-capita GDP increased by 320 percent.

This increase in economic prosperity didn’t happen magically, organically or accidentally. It was the byproduct of the institutions, systems and guardrails of the liberal international order—and especially the stability and security represented by civilization’s first responder and last line of defense: the United States.

Deterrence does NOT require the US to go up the nuclear escalation ladder and thus “win” a nuclear conflict. The goal is to deny any benefit to Moscow from the employment of nuclear weapons so we maintain what Michael Krepon called “no use” of nuclear weapons.

Proposals to render to second-tier status all nuclear modernization, but instead strengthen conventional forces, does not increase the chances that the US would prevail in a conventional fight.

Unlike the two scenarios above, a future of strengthened China-Russia military cooperation may have less to do with the way the Ukraine conflict plays out and more to do with China’s perception of threats in the Indo-Pacific. Such a future would see the United States and its allies increasingly united in their rhetoric and actions aimed at pressuring China over its declared interests in areas such as Taiwan, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and disputed islands in the South China Sea. China may find it beneficial to visibly strengthen its military ties with Russia if it believes the chances of an Indo-Pacific conflict are growing and that military cooperation with Russia could enhance its deterrence messaging against the U.S. and its allies.

Stronger China-Russia military ties could be manifested in:

Within Ukraine, those consequences would have been awful—show trials, summary executions, and all the mayhem visited upon the areas that Russia did manage to occupy. The global consequences would also have been ominous. Putin might have parlayed victory into his long-sought post-Soviet imperium. A puppet Ukraine might have been dragooned into a union state with Russia and Belarus; Moldova would have come under pressure once Moscow created a land bridge to Transnistria, a separatist region that already hosts a contingent of Russian troops. And following Russia’s successful intervention in Kazakhstan in January 2022, the de facto occupation of Belarus preceding the war, and a brutal beatdown of Ukraine, which former Soviet republics would have defied Moscow’s commands?

Perhaps the Baltic states, thanks to their alliance with Washington. But NATO would have faced insecurity up and down its eastern front. Through Belarus and Ukraine, Russia could have sought to intimidate Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. The costs and difficulties of defending U.S. allies would have multiplied along with the potential avenues for a Russian attack, as a Moscow-led union state would have a much longer border with NATO. Finland and Sweden probably still would have sought NATO membership, but the debate within the alliance over whether to admit them—and antagonize an emboldened Putin—might have been much more contentious.

Just because Ukraine hasn’t lost the war doesn’t mean that it has won. A range of futures are still possible, if not equally likely, from an outright Ukrainian victory resulting in the liberation of all occupied territory to a scenario in which Russia hangs on to substantial parts of Ukraine for the foreseeable future to an escalation into direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

There is also a warning for Washington in this analysis: the heaviest burdens may still lie ahead. Ukraine has survived so far because the United States and its allies have dramatically reduced the power disparity between Kyiv and Moscow and ensured that Putin can’t simply escalate or batter his way out of the conflict. Yet as Russia mobilizes more manpower and economic resources—while also importing drones, artillery, and other capabilities from Iran and North Korea—the cost of helping Kyiv stay ahead in this contest will increase. Witness the recent decision by several NATO countries to provide Ukraine with battle tanks, an episode that may simply presage the need for other advanced capabilities, whether longer-range missiles or fourth-generation fighter aircraft, in the months ahead.