Quotes of the Day:

"Decisions are easy when values are clear." 

– Roy Disney

"The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves." 

– Edith Sitwell

"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason." 

–Immanuel Kant

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 1, 2024

2. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, March 1, 2024

3. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, February 29, 2024

4. Brute force: Russia 'doubled down' on often-crude disinformation in 2023, says report

5. US leading global alliance to counter foreign government disinformation

6. Russian disinformation is about immigration. The real aim is to undercut Ukraine aid

7. A new dam threatens this Filipino tribe. It's just one of the country's stalled China-funded projects

8. Security is still China's top priority, not the economy

9. “BETWEEN THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL” – The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé

10. Is the United States overestimating China’s power?

11.  Live updates: U.S. begins airdropping aid into Gaza, U.S. officials say

12. Shifting deck chairs to the Titanic's Taiwan side

13.  The Looming Famine in Gaza

14. Ukrainians Are Resilient—But They Still Need Washington

15. Book Excerpt: “Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America” by Barbara McQuade

16. Grand strategy: ‘Shield of the republic’ — Defense Priorities

17. Inside the White House Program to Share America’s Secrets

18. ‘We look 100 percent weak’: US airdrops in Gaza expose limit to Biden’s Israel policy

19. The Way Forward on China

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 1, 2024

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-1-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Reported details of Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations that occurred in Istanbul in April 2022 indicate that Russia has consistently envisioned a settlement for its illegal invasion of Ukraine wherein Ukraine would be unable to defend itself from a future Russian attack – an objective Russia continues to pursue under calls for Ukraine’s “demilitarization.”
• Reported details of the draft treaty suggest that Russia intended to use the treaty to set conditions for future attacks against Ukraine while also prompting the West to make concessions on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
• Russian authorities suggested that the Kremlin has likely adopted a more extensive set of goals regarding Ukraine over the course of Russia's war against Ukraine.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to disparage Russian elites in his February 29 Federal Assembly speech, more closely aligning himself with the veteran and military community and drawing praise from ultranationalist milbloggers.
• Kremlin officials met with leaders of the pro-Russian Moldovan autonomous region Gagauzia and emphasized Russia’s support for Gagauzia against perceived Moldovan “oppression” on March 1.
• Ukraine and the Netherlands signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement on March 1.
• Russian forces made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and Donetsk City on March 1.
• Russian authorities will likely use annual combat training for Russian reservists to support crypto-mobilization efforts.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 1, 2024

Mar 1, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 1, 2024

Christina Harward, Angelica Evans, Nicole Wolkov, Riley Bailey, and Karolina Hird

March 1, 2024, 6:15pm ET

Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report. 

Click here to see ISW’s 3D control of terrain topographic map of Ukraine. Use of a computer (not a mobile device) is strongly recommended for using this data-heavy tool.

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 12:30pm ET on March 1. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the March 2 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Reported details of Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations that occurred in Istanbul in April 2022 indicate that Russia has consistently envisioned a settlement for its illegal invasion of Ukraine wherein Ukraine would be unable to defend itself from a future Russian attack – an objective Russia continues to pursue under calls for Ukraine’s “demilitarization.” The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on March 1 that documents it obtained of the draft treaty from the 2022 Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations indicate that both sides initially agreed that Ukraine would be a “permanently neutral state that doesn't participate in military blocs.”[1] The draft treaty also reportedly banned Ukraine from receiving any foreign weapons or hosting any foreign military personnel. The WSJ reported that Russia pushed for the Ukrainian military to be limited to 85,000 soldiers, 342 tanks, and 519 artillery systems, whereas Ukraine wanted the caps to be 250,000 soldiers, 800 tanks, and 1,900 artillery systems. Russia also reportedly demanded that Ukrainian missiles be limited to a range of 40 kilometers, a range that would allow Russian forces to deploy critical systems and materiel close to Ukraine without fear of strikes. The Kremlin has repeatedly called for the “demilitarization” of Ukraine since its full-scale invasion but has not previously provided details on what that would specifically entail.[2] The Ukrainian military in 2014 – before Russia’s first invasion – consisted of about 130,000 personnel, and the documents from 2022 indicate that Russia intended to drastically reduce Ukraine’s military to such a level that Ukraine could no longer defend itself.[3] Russian President Vladimir Putin has most recently emphasized the idea of a “demilitarized” or “sanitary” zone in Ukraine that would place Russian territory – including occupied Ukraine – out of range of both Ukrainian frontline artillery systems and Western-provided long-range systems.[4] Putin likely aims for the ”demilitarization” of Ukraine to allow him to enforce his will upon Ukraine without any substantial resistance.

Reported details of the draft treaty suggest that Russia intended to use the treaty to set conditions for future attacks against Ukraine while also prompting the West to make concessions on Ukraine’s sovereignty. The WSJ reported that the United States, United Kingdom, China, France, and Russia were to be guarantors of the treaty.[5] Russia also reportedly wanted to include Belarus as a guarantor. The guarantor states were supposed to “terminate international treaties and agreements incompatible with the permanent neutrality of Ukraine,” including military aid agreements. The WSJ did not specify if other non-guarantor states would have to terminate their agreements with Ukraine as well, although this is likely considering that the treaty would ban Ukraine from having foreign-supplied weapons. It is unclear what Russia considers to be “incompatible” with a permanently “neutral” Ukraine, although the Kremlin most certainly would have broadly interpreted this as forbidding Ukraine from joining NATO, which is stipulated by Ukraine’s constitution, thereby likely demanding that Ukraine amend its constitution.[6] Russia reportedly wanted all guarantors to agree on a response should Ukraine be subject to any attacks, but the WSJ stated that the guarantor states were unlikely to agree on a response should Russia attack Ukraine again – likely due to the guarantor states’ diverging interests. This stipulation likely intended to allow Russia to influence, predict, and prepare for the international response to any possible future Russian attacks on Ukraine. ISW continues to assess that any ceasefire would benefit Russia, giving it time to reconstitute and regroup for future offensive operations.[7]

Russia’s territorial objectives beyond the areas it occupied in 2022 likely prevented Russia and Ukraine from agreeing on the status of Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine in April 2022. The WSJ reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were to hold “face-to-face talks” to discuss areas of eastern Ukraine that Russian forces have occupied since 2014, but that this meeting never took place.[8] The need for Putin and Zelensky to discuss the matter independently and separately suggests that the Russian and Ukrainian negotiating delegations were unable to reach an agreement on the status of the Russian-occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, likely due to Russia’s wider expansionist territorial desires, as Kremlin officials have repeatedly indicated.[9] The WSJ did not report on any clauses in the treaty concerning Russian-occupied territory outside of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Russian authorities suggested that the Kremlin has likely adopted a more extensive set of goals regarding Ukraine over the course of Russia's war against Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitri Peskov responded to the leaked April 2022 draft agreement between Russia and Ukraine, claiming that the draft agreement is “no longer relevant” and that “conditions have changed.”[10] Peskov's statements are likely part of a current trend of increased Russian confidence in the Russian military’s capabilities and the attainability of Putin’s maximalist war objectives following the recent seizure of Avdiivka and prolonged US debates about military aid to Ukraine.[11] ISW continues to assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin maintains his maximalist objectives in Ukraine, which are tantamount to complete Ukrainian and Western capitulation, and that Russia has no interest in good-faith negotiations with Ukraine.[12]

Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to disparage Russian elites in his February 29 Federal Assembly speech, more closely aligning himself with the veteran and military community and drawing praise from ultranationalist milbloggers. Putin attempted to distance himself from the Russian elite by claiming that the individuals who “lined their pockets due to economic processes in the 1990s” are not the elite, but that the ”real elite” are workers and military servicemen who proved their loyalty to Russia.[13] Putin used this subverted definition of elites to praise the Russian military and align himself more strongly with the veteran and military community, stating that military veterans should hold leading positions in Russian society, business, and government and “should be entrusted with Russia’s future” and implying that veterans should take on roles traditionally occupied by Russian elites. Several Russian milbloggers supported Putin’s claim that Russian military veterans should hold prominent and influential roles in Russian society and framed Putin‘s statements as the start of a campaign to change the “elites” of Russia.[14] Putin also proposed expanding and creating multiple economic support measures including "more fairly distributing the tax burden toward those with higher personal and corporate incomes.”[15] One Russian milblogger explicitly expressed support for economic reforms that would replace “oligarch capitalism“ with ”equal opportunities and minimal stratification in living standards.”[16] Putin’s criticism of Russian elites and economic proposals that would, in theory, reduce their influence may intensify an existing rhetorical line among pro-war milbloggers criticizing Russian elites.[17]

Kremlin officials met with leaders of the pro-Russian Moldovan autonomous region Gagauzia and emphasized Russia’s support for Gagauzia against perceived Moldovan “oppression” on March 1. Russian Federation Council Chairperson Valentina Matviyenko met with Gagauzian Governor Yevgenia Gutsul and People’s Assembly Chairperson Dmitry Konstantinov in Moscow and criticized Moldovan authorities for “Russophobic” policies that are supposedly antithetical to Moldova’s national interests.[18] Matviyenko added that the Russian Federation Council is prepared to provide “all possible assistance” in expanding Russian-Gagauzian relations.[19] The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) announced that 10 Russian federal subjects signed a range of bilateral agreements emphasizing economic and humanitarian ties with Gagauzia.[20] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger who has previously focused on discontent in Gagauzia and pro-Russian Moldovan breakaway region Transnistria stated that Gutsul and Konstantinov are ”following the example of Transnistria” by asking for Russia’s support in the face of Moldovan ”oppression.”[21] The Transnistrian Congress of Deputies recently met and adopted a series of decisions that likely aim to provide the Kremlin with justifications for a wide range of possible escalatory actions against Moldova that the Kremlin can either pursue immediately or over the long term.[22] ISW has observed indications that the Kremlin hopes to use pro-Russian actors in Gagauzia as another basis to justify future intervention and hybrid operations aimed at destabilizing and polarizing Moldova to prevent or slow Moldova’s integration in the European Union (EU).[23]

Ukraine and the Netherlands signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement on March 1.[24] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the Netherlands announced that it would provide 2 billion euros (about $2.17 billion) in military aid to Ukraine in 2024 and additional security assistance over the next 10 years.[25] Zelensky stated that the bilateral security agreement prioritizes assistance in air defense and artillery systems and naval and long-range weapons.[26] The Dutch Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced that it will provide Ukraine with 14 rigid-hull inflatable boats, eight paramilitary river patrol boats, and CB90-class fast assault craft.[27] The Dutch MoD also announced that it is increasing its contribution to the Czech initiative to provide artillery shells to Ukraine from 100 million euros (about $108 million) to 250 million euros (about $271 million).[28]

Key Takeaways:

• Reported details of Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations that occurred in Istanbul in April 2022 indicate that Russia has consistently envisioned a settlement for its illegal invasion of Ukraine wherein Ukraine would be unable to defend itself from a future Russian attack – an objective Russia continues to pursue under calls for Ukraine’s “demilitarization.”
• Reported details of the draft treaty suggest that Russia intended to use the treaty to set conditions for future attacks against Ukraine while also prompting the West to make concessions on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
• Russian authorities suggested that the Kremlin has likely adopted a more extensive set of goals regarding Ukraine over the course of Russia's war against Ukraine.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to disparage Russian elites in his February 29 Federal Assembly speech, more closely aligning himself with the veteran and military community and drawing praise from ultranationalist milbloggers.
• Kremlin officials met with leaders of the pro-Russian Moldovan autonomous region Gagauzia and emphasized Russia’s support for Gagauzia against perceived Moldovan “oppression” on March 1.
• Ukraine and the Netherlands signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement on March 1.
• Russian forces made confirmed advances near Avdiivka and Donetsk City on March 1.
• Russian authorities will likely use annual combat training for Russian reservists to support crypto-mobilization efforts.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We will continue to evaluate and report on the effects of these criminal activities on the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.  

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Russian Technological Adaptations
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas
• Ukrainian Defense Industrial Base Efforts
• Russian Information Operations and Narratives
• Significant Activity in Belarus

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Positional engagements continued along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on March 1. Russian and Ukrainian sources stated that positional engagements continued northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka and Petropavlivka; southeast of Kupyansk near Tabaivka; west of Kreminna near Terny and Yampolivka; and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[29] Russian milbloggers published footage purportedly showing Russian forces striking a Ukrainian pontoon bridge across the Oskil River near Kupyansk-Vuzlovy (immediately southeast of Kupyansk) with a glide bomb and claimed that Russian forces have destroyed all the stationary bridges across the Oskil River.[30] Russian forces likely damaged stationary bridges across the Oskil River during a coordinated strike campaign in September and October 2023, although this effort did not succeed in isolating the Ukrainian defense northeast of Kupyansk at the time, and Ukrainian forces do not yet appear to be facing serious difficulties in supplying positions on the east bank of the Oskil River.[31] An increase in Russian strikes on Ukrainian crossings along the Oskil River would be an indicator that Russian forces may intend to intensify the ongoing Russian offensive operation along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.[32] Elements of the Chechen Akhmat Spetsnaz ”Aida” group and the Russian ”GORB” detachment are reportedly operating near Bilohorivka.[33]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Note: ISW is restructuring its coverage of the Donetsk Oblast axis to include activity in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area. During the 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive, ISW assessed that Ukrainian activity in the border area was a supporting and related effort to Ukrainian activity in the south. As Russian forces have seized the battlefield initiative following the end of the counteroffensive, Russian troops appear to be trying to drive southwest of Donetsk City while simultaneously driving northeast from the Velyka Novosilka area on the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border. This Russian effort appears to include settlements along the O0532 Marinka-Pobieda-Vuhledar route. ISW will further restructure the Donetsk Oblast axis if Russian operational objectives in this area appear to change in the future.

Positional fighting continued near Bakhmut on March 1. Select Russian milbloggers refuted previous Russian claims that Russian forces captured Ivanivske (west of Bakhmut) and claimed that Russian forces continued to advance near and within the settlement.[34] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of recent notable tactical Russian gains within Ivanivske. Positional fighting continued northeast of Bakhmut near Berestove and Rozdolivka; northwest of Bakhmut near Bohdanivka; southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka, Andriivka, and Kurdyumivka; and south of Bakhmut near Pivdenne and Niu York.[35] Elements of the 98th Airborne (VDV) Division and the 11th VDV Brigade reportedly continue to operate in the Bakhmut direction.[36]

Ukrainian Khortytsia Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash indicated on March 1 that Ukrainian forces have established significant defensive positions near Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut). Yevlash stated that Ukrainian forces began to prepare Chasiv Yar for defense immediately following the Russian seizure of Bakhmut in May 2023 and that there are several Ukrainian defensive “rings” around the settlement.[37] Yevlash stated that Ukrainian forces have established dozens of squad-sized defensive positions and dozens of platoon-sized defensive positions near Chasiv Yar as well as fortifications and firing points within Chasiv Yar itself.[38] Yevlash also stated that Ukrainian forces have created minefields and other defensive obstacles in the Chasiv Yar area.[39] Available imagery, which ISW will not present or describe in greater detail at this time to preserve Ukrainian operational security, shows that Ukrainian forces have established significant fortifications in a ring shape in the Chasiv Yar area. Yevlash stated that the potential Russian seizure of Chasiv Yar would offer Russian forces routes of advance towards Kostyantynivka (southwest of Chasiv Yar) and that Russian forces’ main operational objective in Donetsk Oblast remains the Kramatorsk-Slovyansk agglomeration (about 35km northwest of Bakhmut).[40] 

Russian forces recently advanced west of Avdiivka amid continued Russian offensive operations in the area on March 1. Geolocated footage published on February 29 indicates that elements of the Russian 114th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps [AC]) recently advanced to the southeastern outskirts of Orlivka (west of Avdiivka).[41] Additional geolocated footage published on March 1 indicates that elements of the Russian 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army [CAA], Central Military District [CMD]) recently advanced into eastern Berdychi (northwest of Avdiivka).[42] A Russian milblogger reiterated existing Russian claims that Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from Tonenke (west of Avdiivka) and that Russian forces have completely seized Orlivka.[43] ISW has not observed visual confirmation of Russian forces operating in Tonenke or Orlivka. Positional fighting continued northwest of Avdiivka near Novobakhmutivka and Semenivka and southwest of Avdiivka near Nevelske and Pervomaiske.[44] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Commander Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi stated that Russian forces are intensifying indirect fires and increasing the size of their assault groups up to the size of a ”battalion tactical group” in the Avdiivka direction.[45] Tarnavskyi stated that Russian forces are committing reinforcements to offensive operations in the Avdiivka area and acknowledged that Russian forces have recently achieved unspecified localized successes.[46]

Russian forces recently advanced southwest of Donetsk City amid continued positional fighting west and southwest of Donetsk City on March 1. Geolocated footage published on March 1 indicates that elements of the Russian 39th Motorized Rifle Brigade (68th AC, Eastern Military District [EMD]) recently made a marginal advance in southern Novomykhailivka (southwest of Donetsk City).[47] Additional geolocated footage published on March 1 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced east of Pobieda (southwest of Donetsk City).[48] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces continued to operate on the southern outskirts of Krasnohorivka (west of Donetsk City), although Ukrainian military officials stated that Ukrainian forces pushed Russian forces out of Krasnohorivka on February 27.[49] Positional fighting continued west of Donetsk City near Krasnohorivka and Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Pobieda and Novomykhailivka.[50] Elements of the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) are reportedly operating near Novomykhailivka, and elements of the 238th Artillery Brigade (8th CAA, Southern Military District [SMD]) are reportedly operating near Krasnohorivka.[51]

Positional fighting continued in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on March 1. Positional fighting occurred southeast of Velyka Novosilka near Novodonetske and Zolota Nyva; south of Velyka Novosilka near Urozhaine; and southwest of Velyka Novosilka near Marfopil, Shevchenko, and Malynivka.[52] Elements of the 11th Air and Air Defense Forces Army (Russian Aerospace Forces [VKS] and EMD) are reportedly operating near Malynivka.[53]

Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis (Russian objective: Maintain frontline positions and secure rear areas against Ukrainian strikes)

Positional engagements continued in western Zaporizhia Oblast on March 1, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that positional engagements continued near Robotyne.[54] A Russian milblogger claimed that destruction within Robotyne is making it difficult for Russian forces to establish a foothold and that Russian forces have to routinely maneuver within a contested ”gray zone” in the settlement.[55] Elements of the Russian 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment (42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) are reportedly operating near Robotyne.[56]

Positional engagements continued in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast near Krynky on March 1.[57] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are trying to clear the area near Krynky.[58]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted a series of strikes against Russian targets near Sevastopol, Yevpatoria, Saky, and Simferopol in occupied Crimea.[59] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces shot down up to ten unspecified air targets.[60]

Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign (Russian Objective: Target Ukrainian military and civilian infrastructure in the rear and on the frontline)

The Ukrainian Air Force reported on March 1 that Russian forces launched five S-300 missiles from Belgorod Oblast and occupied Donetsk Oblast and four Shahed-136/131 drones from Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai at Ukraine on the night of February 29 to March 1.[61] The Ukrainian Air Force stated that Ukrainian forces destroyed all four Shaheds over Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts. Kostyantynivka City Military Administration Head Serhii Horbunov stated that Russian forces struck administrative and infrastructure facilities in Kostyantynivka, Donetsk Oblast with four S-300 missiles.[62]

Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts (Russian objective: Expand combat power without conducting general mobilization)

Russian authorities will likely use annual combat training for Russian reservists to support crypto-mobilization efforts. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the annual decree on conscripting Russian reservists for military training in 2024.[63] Russian reservists in the Russian armed forces, Rosgvardia, Ministry of Emergency Situations, Federal Security Service (FSB), and other state security agencies will undergo combat training.[64] Russian citizens who have previously been conscripted into the Russian military are considered reservists. Russian authorities will likely use this mandatory combat training to try to recruit Russian reservists through ongoing crypto-mobilization efforts that offer incentives for signing military contracts.

The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) significantly increased artillery ammunition production in 2023 and will likely continue to increase in 2024.[65] The UK MoD stated that Russian munitions production will likely peak in “the next 12 months due to capacity restraints.” The UK MoD stated that the increased Russian DIB output is due to Russian efforts to refurbish and modernize existing materiel rather than produce new materiel and noted that the “vast majority” of Russian tanks “produced” in 2023 were refurbished. The UK MoD assessed that the Russian DIB is unable to meet the demands of the Russian military but is “certainly capable” of maintaining a material advantage over Ukraine in 2024.

Russian Technological Adaptations (Russian objective: Introduce technological innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine)

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed on March 1 that Russian forces conducted a successful combat training launch of the RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) equipped with a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV).[66] Putin emphasized during his address to the Federal Assembly on February 29 that Russia possesses weapons that can strike Western countries.[67] ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin frequently uses nuclear saber-rattling to instill fear in Western audiences and weaken Western support for Ukraine and that Russian nuclear use in Ukraine and beyond is highly unlikely.[68]

Ukrainian Defense Industrial Efforts (Ukrainian objective: Develop its defense industrial base to become more self-sufficient in cooperation with US, European, and international partners)

Note: ISW will be publishing its coverage of Ukrainian defense industrial efforts on a weekly basis in the Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment. ISW will continue to track developments in Ukrainian defense industrial efforts daily and will refer to these efforts in assessments within the daily Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment and other ISW products when necessary.

ISW is not publishing coverage of Ukrainian defense industrial efforts today.

Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Note: ISW will be publishing coverage of activities in Russian-occupied areas twice a week in the Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment. ISW will continue to track activities in Russian-occupied areas daily and will refer to these activities in assessments within the daily Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment and other ISW products when necessary.

ISW is not publishing coverage of activities in Russian-occupied areas today.

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Andriy Yusov stated that Russian First Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Sergei Kiriyenko and former assistant to Russian President Vladimir Putin Vladislav Surkov are involved in an ongoing Russian information campaign aimed at demoralizing Ukrainian society called “Maidan-3.”[69] Yusov stated on February 29 that Russia is purchasing Telegram channels and other social network pages and attempting to attract unspecified influential individuals to spread disinformation that delegitimizes Ukrainian government decisions.[70]

Kremlin officials continue attempts to deter Western states from sending military aid to Ukraine. Kremlin officials seized on an audio recording allegedly of a conversation between German military personnel to accuse Germany of planning a strike on the Kerch Strait Bridge.[71] Kremlin newswire TASS and veteran Russian propagandist and RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan posted a transcript of the alleged German audio, wherein the alleged German military personnel discuss how much training and preparation the German military would need to provide should Germany decide to supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles, and should Ukraine decide to conduct a complicated long-range precision strike on Russian targets like the Kerch Strait Bridge.[72] ISW cannot independently verify the authenticity of the audio recording or transcript. Russian officials routinely intensify their attempts to portray the Western provision of certain systems to Ukraine as significant escalations when those systems are subjects of debate in the West. [73]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus)

Nothing significant to report.

Note: ISW does not receive any classified material from any source, uses only publicly available information, and draws extensively on Russian, Ukrainian, and Western reporting and social media as well as commercially available satellite imagery and other geospatial data as the basis for these reports. References to all sources used are provided in the endnotes of each update.

2. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, March 1, 2024

https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-march-1-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Iran held separate elections for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts. These elections will likely preserve and possibly even reinforce hardliner influence in the Iranian regime. Voter turnout appeared to hit a record low, likely reflecting the population’s growing disillusionment with the regime. This year’s Assembly of Experts election is uniquely significant, as it could very well oversee the succession of Iran’s next supreme leader.
• Northern Gaza Strip: Palestinian militias defended against Israeli operations in the northern Gaza Strip.
• Southern Gaza Strip: Israeli forces continued to conduct clearing operations in western and eastern Khan Younis.
• Political Negotiations: An unspecified senior Israeli official reported that Israel will not continue ceasefire negotiations until Hamas provides information on the status of the hostages it holds in the Gaza Strip.
• West Bank: Israeli forces have clashed with Palestinian fighters in 13 locations across the West Bank.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Iranian-backed militias, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted at least seven attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.
• Syria: Israel was likely responsible for an airstrike that killed an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy officer in Baniyas, Syria.
• Yemen: US CENTCOM intercepted a drone over the Red Sea and conducted two preemptive strikes targeting six mobile, anti-ship cruise missiles in Houthi-controlled Yemen.

IRAN UPDATE, MARCH 1, 2024

Mar 1, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, March 1, 2024

Annika Ganzeveld, Ashka Jhaveri, Alexandra Braverman, Johanna Moore, Tor Lansing, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET 

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. For more on developments in Iran and the region, see our interactive map of Iran and the Middle East.

Note: CTP and ISW have refocused the update to cover the Israel-Hamas war. The new sections address developments in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as noteworthy activity from Iran’s Axis of Resistance. We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report. 

Iran held separate elections for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts on March 1.[1] These elections will likely preserve and possibly even reinforce hardliner influence in the Iranian regime. Parliament is the primary legislative body in the Iranian regime, though it is a relatively weak institution in the Iranian political landscape. One of Parliament’s most important roles is selecting a parliament speaker, who will serve ex officio on more prominent regime policymaking bodies, such as the Supreme National Security Council, Supreme Economic Coordination Council, and Supreme Cultural Revolution Council. Iranian parliamentarians serve four-year teams. Hardline political factions currently dominate Parliament and will likely continue doing so after the votes are counted. The Assembly of Experts is an Iranian regime entity constitutionally responsible for monitoring the supreme leader and selecting his successor.[2] Assembly members serve eight-year terms and are almost exclusively senior Shia clerics. 

The Iranian regime is continuing to engineer national elections to consolidate hardline influence in the political establishment. The Guardian Council—a regime body responsible for supervising elections and vetting candidates—barred many moderate and reformist candidates from competing in the March 1 Assembly of Experts and parliamentary elections.[3] The Guardian Council barred former moderate President Hassan Rouhani from running for reelection to the Assembly of Experts, for example.[4] The Guardian Council previously disqualified 80 percent of candidates in the 2016 Assembly of Experts elections and 49 percent of candidates in the 2020 parliamentary elections.[5] The Guardian Council often disqualifies moderate and reformist figures to guarantee hardliner victories in these races. The Guardian Council spokesperson claimed on February 28 that the council had disqualified only 25 percent of parliamentary candidates for the most recent vote, although it is unclear how accurate this number is.[6] Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei personally approves directly or indirectly the members of the 12-person Guardian Council, suggesting that the council operates with the backing of the supreme leader.

Voter turnout appeared to hit a record low, likely reflecting the population’s growing disillusionment with the regime. Initial reports indicate that voter participation was around 27 percent nationally and 12 percent in Tehran on March 1.[7] A voter turnout of approximately 30 percent would mark a record low for public participation in parliamentary elections since the Iranian revolution. Voter participation in parliamentary elections previously reached a record low of 42.5 percent in 2020. Voter participation in the presidential election in 2021 similarly hit a record low of 48.8 percent.[8] These recent numbers are particularly striking given that electoral participation has historically been high in Iran over the past few decades.[9] Regime officials have repeatedly called on the population to participate in the elections, likely reflecting concerns about low voter turnout amid calls for boycotting the elections.[10]

This year’s Assembly of Experts election is uniquely significant, as it could very well oversee the succession of Iran’s next supreme leader. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is currently 84 years old and will be 92 by the time of the next Assembly of Experts election in 2032. This cohort of the Assembly of Experts will at least formally choose Khamenei’s successor if he dies or otherwise leaves his post before then.

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Iran held separate elections for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts. These elections will likely preserve and possibly even reinforce hardliner influence in the Iranian regime. Voter turnout appeared to hit a record low, likely reflecting the population’s growing disillusionment with the regime. This year’s Assembly of Experts election is uniquely significant, as it could very well oversee the succession of Iran’s next supreme leader.
• Northern Gaza Strip: Palestinian militias defended against Israeli operations in the northern Gaza Strip.
• Southern Gaza Strip: Israeli forces continued to conduct clearing operations in western and eastern Khan Younis.
• Political Negotiations: An unspecified senior Israeli official reported that Israel will not continue ceasefire negotiations until Hamas provides information on the status of the hostages it holds in the Gaza Strip.
• West Bank: Israeli forces have clashed with Palestinian fighters in 13 locations across the West Bank.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Iranian-backed militias, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted at least seven attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.
• Syria: Israel was likely responsible for an airstrike that killed an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy officer in Baniyas, Syria.
• Yemen: US CENTCOM intercepted a drone over the Red Sea and conducted two preemptive strikes targeting six mobile, anti-ship cruise missiles in Houthi-controlled Yemen.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to launch and sustain a major ground operation into the Gaza Strip
• Degrade IDF material and morale around the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian militias defended against Israeli operations in the northern Gaza Strip on March 1. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a new, “division-wide” clearing operation in the Zaytoun neighborhood in eastern Gaza City on February 20.[11] Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) published footage on March 1 of its fighters clashing with Israeli forces in Zaytoun.[12] The IDF Nahal Brigade (162nd Division), which has been operating in Zaytoun, killed a Palestinian cell with mortar fire and small arms during clearing operations.[13] The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a Palestinian militia aligned with Hamas in the war, reported that it fired rockets targeting Israeli military positions in the northern Gaza Strip. The PRC’s attack was in response to the humanitarian aid convoy incident on February 28.[14]

The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, which is the self-proclaimed military wing of Fatah and aligned with Hamas in the war, reported that its fighters clashed with Israeli forces east of Jabalia refugee camp.[15] Palestinian Mujahideen Movement fighters similarly fired an unspecified guided munition at an IDF tank east of Jabalia.[16] The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement is a Palestinian faction aligned with Hamas and has expressed close ties with Iran.[17]

PIJ and the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades mortared Israeli personnel near the Erez border crossing with Israel.[18]

Israeli forces continued to conduct clearing operations in western and eastern Khan Younis on March 1. Israeli forces expanded clearing operations to “new areas” east and west of Khan Younis on February 21.[19] The IDF 7th Brigade (36th Division) raided the homes of senior Hamas officials in western Khan Younis and located a weapons depot.[20] The IDF Givati Brigade (162nd Division) has been operating in eastern Khan Younis neighborhoods for the past week, approximately two kilometers from the border with Israel.[21]

Palestinian fighters defended against Israeli operations in several sectors of Khan Younis on March 1. The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades clashed with Israeli forces in al Qarara north of Khan Younis.[22] The militia also reported that its fighters in western Khan Younis fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and mortars targeting Israeli forces.[23]

Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, described high casualties among Palestinian civilians as a means to add international pressure on Israel should the IDF proceed with clearing operations in Rafah.[24] Sinwar’s comments reflect Hamas’ tendency to view civilian casualties as a tool to pressure Israel. The Wall Street Journal reported on February 29 that senior Hamas officials in Doha met in early February 2023 amid concerns that Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip was taking heavy losses.[25] Sinwar delivered a message to the leaders claiming that the military wing is doing fine and is ready for an Israeli offensive into Rafah. Sinwar’s comments regarding civilian casualties are reflective of a broader Hamas mindset. A member of Hamas’ Political Bureau indicated two weeks after the October 7, 2023, attacks that the group was prepared to accept heavy losses for the attack—possibly even including high civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip—in support of Hamas’ effort to destroy the Israeli state.[26] There are over a million displaced Palestinian civilians currently in Rafah.[27]

An unspecified senior Israeli official reported that Israel will not continue ceasefire negotiations until Hamas provides information on the status of the hostages it holds in the Gaza Strip.[28] The official said that Qatari and Egyptian mediators failed to provide details from Hamas on the status of hostages.[29] Israel also wants Hamas to offer a ”serious response” on the number of Palestinian prisoners Israel would release under a deal.[30] Israel previously refused to further engage in hostage talks because Hamas demanded that Israel release thousands of Palestinian prisoners as part of the deal.[31] Israel has reportedly agreed since then to a framework that would release up to 400 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 40 Israeli hostages and a six-week truce.[32] Israel is waiting to see whether the United States’ pressure on mediators and US President Joe Biden’s recent talks with Egyptian and Qatari officials will prompt Hamas to meet Israeli demands.[33]

Hamas claimed on March 1 that seven hostages died due to Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.[34] Hamas and other Palestinian militias holding hostages in the strip have repeatedly made this claim throughout the war.[35]

Hamas and Fatah agreed to continue meeting with each other after attending talks in Moscow.[36] Several Palestinian factions met in Moscow on February 29 to discuss the formation of a new Palestinian government. Hamas’ political wing published a statement signed by the “Factions that met in Moscow” saying that the talks between several Palestinian factions had been constructive.[37] Fatah emphasized the need for unity among Palestinian factions given the current war in the Gaza Strip after the meeting.[38]

Palestinian militias did not claim any indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel on March 1. The IDF Air Force targeted an area in the northern Gaza Strip from which Palestinian fighters previously fired rockets targeting Israel on February 29.[39] The PRC claimed the rocket attack.[40]

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward the West Bank and fix them there

Israeli forces have clashed with Palestinian fighters in 13 locations across the West Bank since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on February 29.[41] Local PIJ battalions claimed to have clashed with Israeli forces seven times around Jaba and Jenin.[42] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades clashed with Israeli forces around Hebron, Jenin, and Tulkarm.[43]

This map is not an exhaustive depiction of clashes and demonstrations in the West Bank.

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward northern Israel and fix them there
• Set conditions for successive campaigns into northern Israel

Iranian-backed militias, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted at least seven attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on February 29.[44]

The IDF is continuing to increase its combat readiness around northern Israel. Former IDF spokesperson Avi Benayahu stated that Israeli forces are conducting training meant to simulate combat against Hezbollah around the Israel-Lebanon border.[45]

Recorded reports of attacks; CTP-ISW cannot independently verify impact.

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Demonstrate the capability and willingness of Iran and the Axis of Resistance to escalate against the United States and Israel on multiple fronts
• Set conditions to fight a regional war on multiple fronts

Israel was likely responsible for an airstrike that killed an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy officer in Baniyas, Syria, on March 1.[46] Syrian media reported that the officer, Colonel Reza Zarei, had connections to Hamas.[47] Syrian media also reported that the airstrike killed three other individuals, two of whom were members of Lebanese Hezbollah.[48] Iranian state media reported that Zarei was assigned to the IRGC’s 1st Naval District, which is responsible for the Strait of Hormuz.[49]

It is unclear what Zarei was doing in Syria, although his deployment to Syria reflects the greater role that the IRGC services other than the Quds Force have assumed in Iran’s regional activities in recent years. The IRGC deployed its regular ground units, for instance, to fight in the Syrian civil war on behalf of Bashar al Assad, as CTP-ISW has assessed extensively.[50] The IRGC Navy and Aerospace Force have similarly increased their operations in Syria in recent years.[51] The Quds Force remains the lead Iranian entity for managing and supporting the so-called “Axis of Resistance” and conducting extraterritorial operations. But the Quds Force also appears to increasingly share part of that mission with other elements of the Iranian security apparatus.[52]

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian discussed the Israel-Hamas war during phone calls with his Turkish counterpart and the Qatari prime minister on February 29 and March 1, respectively. Abdollahian emphasized the need for cooperation among Islamic countries to end the war.[53] Abdollahian discussed a potential ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners, and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip with the Qatari prime minister.[54]

US CENTCOM intercepted a drone over the Red Sea and conducted two preemptive strikes targeting six mobile, anti-ship cruise missiles in Houthi-controlled Yemen on February 29.[55] CENTCOM reported that the drone and cruise missiles presented imminent threats to merchant and US naval vessels in the region.

3. China-Taiwan Weekly Update, February 29, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/china-taiwan-weekly-update-february-29-2024

Key Takeaways:

• The PRC Coast Guard patrolled prohibited and restricted waters around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen, likely as part of a PRC strategy to assert sovereignty over the island.
• The PRC has increased deployments of research vessels in Taiwan’s contiguous zone to assert its territorial claims over Taiwan.
• The Kuomintang chose defense obstructionist Ma Wen-chun to co-chair the Foreign and National Defense Committee of the Legislative Yuan. Ma proposed 135 cuts or freezes to Taiwan’s defense budget during 2023.
• CCP rhetoric regarding Taiwan signals a redoubling of efforts to exert pressure on the ROC under the DPP's renewed mandate.
• The PRC’s recent national security policy initiatives reflect the CCP’s growing threat perception of security risks to classified and sensitive information in the fraught geopolitical climate.
• The Chinese Coast Guard has continued efforts to assert control over Scarborough Shoal. It erected a floating barrier and intercepted vessels that belong to the Philippine Coast Guard and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
• The PRC is pursuing security cooperation with Kiribati to increase its security foothold in the Pacific Islands.

CHINA-TAIWAN WEEKLY UPDATE, FEBRUARY 29, 2024

Feb 29, 2024 - ISW Press

China-Taiwan Weekly Update, February 29, 2024

Authors: Matthew Sperzel, Daniel Shats, and Joseph Su of the Institute for the Study of War

Editors: Dan Blumenthal and Frederick W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute

Data Cutoff: February 29 at 11am ET

The China–Taiwan Weekly Update focuses on the Chinese Communist Party’s paths to controlling Taiwan and relevant cross–Taiwan Strait developments.

Key Takeaways:

• The PRC Coast Guard patrolled prohibited and restricted waters around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen, likely as part of a PRC strategy to assert sovereignty over the island.
• The PRC has increased deployments of research vessels in Taiwan’s contiguous zone to assert its territorial claims over Taiwan.
• The Kuomintang chose defense obstructionist Ma Wen-chun to co-chair the Foreign and National Defense Committee of the Legislative Yuan. Ma proposed 135 cuts or freezes to Taiwan’s defense budget during 2023.
• CCP rhetoric regarding Taiwan signals a redoubling of efforts to exert pressure on the ROC under the DPP's renewed mandate.
• The PRC’s recent national security policy initiatives reflect the CCP’s growing threat perception of security risks to classified and sensitive information in the fraught geopolitical climate.
• The Chinese Coast Guard has continued efforts to assert control over Scarborough Shoal. It erected a floating barrier and intercepted vessels that belong to the Philippine Coast Guard and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
• The PRC is pursuing security cooperation with Kiribati to increase its security foothold in the Pacific Islands.

Cross-Strait Relations

The PRC Coast Guard entered and patrolled prohibited and restricted waters around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen, likely as part of a PRC strategy to assert sovereignty over the island. The Fujian branch of the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) announced that it had conducted law enforcement patrols around Kinmen on February 25.[1] PRC state media Global Times cited an “anonymous professional” who claimed the CCG entered the “restricted zone” around Kinmen island.[2] Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA) did not confirm or deny the incursion.[3] ROC Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling stated that five CCG marine surveillance ships entered Kinmen’s “restricted zone” on February 26, however, including one that crossed into Kinmen’s “prohibited zone.” The total number of CCG ships around Kinmen increased to 11 on February 27, including two that entered Kinmen’s “restricted zone.”[4]

Taiwan does not claim any territorial waters around Kinmen partly due to its proximity to the PRC, but it designates “prohibited” and “restricted” waters around Kinmen which it treats as equivalent to territorial waters and a contiguous zone. Taiwan authorizes its coast guard to search and detain foreign vessels entering its prohibited waters. PRC authorities have said they do not recognize any “restricted” or “prohibited” waters around Kinmen because they claim that Kinmen, like all of Taiwan, is the territory of the PRC.[5] Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council has said that the PRC has tacitly abided by Kinmen’s claimed maritime boundaries until now, however.[6]

The latest PRC incursions into waters around Kinmen are part of an ongoing dispute over an incident on February 14 in which a Taiwanese Coast Guard vessel collided with a PRC fishing boat while chasing the boat out of Kinmen’s prohibited waters, resulting in the deaths of two of the four fishermen. The PRC blamed Taiwan for the deaths and has responded by repeatedly deploying CCG patrols into waters around Kinmen and Matsu, two Taiwan-controlled island groups situated very close to the coast of the PRC.[7] The CCG detained and boarded a Taiwanese tourism vessel near Kinmen on February 19.[8] The PRC state-owned Global Times said the CCG activities signal the normalization of law enforcement patrols in the waters near Kinmen and Xiamen, the PRC city near Kinmen, and that Taiwan’s government has no right to intervene.[9]

The PRC is taking advantage of the crisis instigated by the deaths of the fishermen to assert sovereignty over Kinmen and Matsu through law enforcement activities in the adjacent waters. Its actions also represent an increased pressure campaign against Taiwan ahead of Lai Ching-te’s May 20 inauguration as president of Taiwan. The PRC’s law enforcement activities in Kinmen’s waters may embolden it to attempt such tactics around other Taiwanese offshore islands such as Matsu and Penghu.

ROC Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling said the ships on February 26 left after the CGA broadcast a warning. She called the incursion “a clearly politicized attempt to exert sovereignty claims.”[10] Kuan noted Taiwanese media speculation that the PRC intends to impose a “Diaoyu” model in the waters around Kinmen, a move that Kuan said was unacceptable.[11] The CCG regularly patrols in waters around the Japan-administered Diaoyu islands (called Senkaku in Japanese) to assert PRC sovereignty over the islands. Taiwan Minister of Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng said on the same day that Taiwan’s military would not consider CCG vessels in Kinmen’s restricted waters a threat as long as they do not approach too close to land forces.[12] The CGA said it would not adjust patrols around Kinmen and would not do anything to escalate the situation further.[13]

The PRC Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesperson condemned Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government on February 28 for allegedly lying about and concealing the facts of the incident and for not apologizing.[14] She accused Kuan Bi-ling by name of handling the incident as a “personal political performance,” concealing the truth, shifting blame, telling lies, failing to apologize, and setting up “obstacles” in the aftermath.[15]

The Kinmen fishermen incident has become increasingly politicized in Taiwan as Kuomintang officials have criticized the CGA and DPP administration’s handling of the matter. Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers criticized the CGA for mishandling the incident on February 14, failing to record video footage of the event, and allegedly concealing the facts about the cause of the fishermen’s deaths.[16] The CGA confirmed that the capsizing of the PRC fishing boat was caused by a collision with a CGA vessel on February 22, over a week after the incident occurred, but denied that it was trying to conceal information.[17] The February 14 incident and resulting opposition criticism of the CGA promotes public perceptions that the CGA is incompetent and untrustworthy. The propagation of this narrative threatens to undermine Taiwanese confidence in Taiwan’s ability to control its waters, especially if Taiwanese people perceive that their government is unable or unwilling to repel CCG encroachment in Taiwan’s waters.

KMT Deputy Chairman Andrew Hsia’s visit to the PRC may legitimize a back channel for ROC-PRC negotiations as official negotiations on Kinmen have not reached a consensus. Taiwanese officials led by CGA deputy director-general Hsu Ching-chih conducted five days of closed-door negotiations on with a PRC delegation, including a Red Cross official and family members of the deceased fishermen. The PRC representatives demanded the CGA apologize, pay compensation, and reveal the full truth of what happened in the incident. The negotiations failed to produce results as of February 29, however.[18]

KMT Deputy Chairman Andrew Hsia began a seven-day trip to the PRC on February 26 with the stated purpose of visiting Taiwanese people living and working there. He said he would not pass up the opportunity to meet PRC officials if the opportunity arose, however. Hsia called for the DPP government to find a channel for dialogue with the PRC to deescalate tensions. He acknowledged that the KMT has its own channels for negotiation with the PRC, but said the party was not authorized to negotiate on behalf of Taiwan since it is not the ruling party.[19] Hsia met with TAO director Song Tao in Shanghai on February 29. He offered condolences for the deaths of the two fishermen and said he would urge the DPP to properly handle the issue. Song said the PRC will never tolerate the DPP’s “atrocious behavior” that ignores the safety of mainland fishermen’s lives. He said Beijing was willing to work with the KMT to “meet each other halfway,” promote cross-strait relations, oppose Taiwanese independence, and promote “national reunification.” Song and Hsia both said they were willing to maintain dialogue on the common basis of the 1992 Consensus and opposition to Taiwanese independence.[20] Hsia is a former director of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council. He has repeatedly traveled to the PRC and met top PRC Taiwan Affairs officials in his capacity as the KMT’s deputy chairman, including during Taiwan’s 2024 election.[21]

Hsia’s visit to the PRC amid unsuccessful DPP-led negotiations in Kinmen may enable the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to further legitimize the KMT in contrast with the DPP as a negotiator on Taiwan’s behalf. The CCP cut off formal contacts with Taiwan’s government when ROC President Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016. The party refuses to have a dialogue with the DPP directly because the DPP does not recognize the “1992 Consensus.”[22] This is why the PRC side of the Kinmen negotiation is represented by a Red Cross official. The 1992 Consensus is an alleged verbal agreement between semi-official representatives of the PRC and the then KMT-ruled ROC following negotiations in 1992. It states that both sides agree there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The CCP interprets this “one China” to be the People’s Republic of China, however, while the KMT interprets it to be the Republic of China.

The PRC has increased deployments of research vessels in Taiwan’s contiguous zone to assert its territorial claims over Taiwan. The Financial Times published a report based on ship tracking data that the PRC has sent nine research vessels to waters within 24 nautical miles of Taiwan since September 2023. There were only two such incursions during each of the past three years. One research vessel, the unmanned drone carrier Zhu Hai Yun which the PRC began operating in January 2023, sailed the full length of Taiwan’s east coast in November 2023. The US-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies reported that the Zhu Hai Yun has ties to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and that the unmanned surface, undersea, and aerial vehicles it carries can be used to conduct military reconnaissance in addition to scientific marine surveys. The Da Yang, another PRC research vessel, operated off Taiwan’s east coast on February 15-17.[23]

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) grants each country the right to restrict transit within its territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles from its coast. It further defines a contiguous zone between 12 and 24 nm from the coast, within which each country can exert the control needed to prevent or punish the infringement of its laws and regulations within its territory or territorial sea.[24] The PRC considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and denies that Taiwan’s government has legitimate control over any adjacent waters. However, the deployment of scientific and other non-military vessels within Taiwan’s contiguous zone is a means of testing Taiwan’s response and gradually normalizing PRC presence around Taiwan. The PRC uses such tactics in tandem with near-daily air and naval violations of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), Chinese Coast Guard patrols near Kinmen and Matsu, adjustment of civilian flight routes to fly closer to Taiwan, and balloon flights through Taiwan’s airspace to wear down Taiwan’s threat awareness and resources, forcing it to be selective in which perceived incursions it chooses to respond to. Blurring the lines between military and civilian activities also has the effect of making it more difficult for Taiwan to determine which activities are potential threats.

The CCP will add two additional flights along a sensitive civil air route over the Taiwan Strait likely to further strain Taiwan’s resources and air defense response time. The TAO spokesperson confirmed on February 28 that the PRC would add two new civilian flights connecting to route M503, which flies a few kilometers from the median line of the Taiwan Strait.[25] The PRC unilaterally adjusted route M503 on February 1 to fly closer to the median line. Taiwan at the time decried the move as unsafe and responded by canceling plans to resume Taiwanese group tours to the PRC on March 1.[26] The new flight paths will increase PRC air traffic near the median line.

The PRC has stated that it does not recognize the existence of any “median line” in the Taiwan Strait. Chieh Chung, a senior analyst at the KMT-affiliated National Policy Foundation, said that moving flight routes closer to the median line will allow PRC aircraft to more quickly change course to cross the median line, shortening Taiwan’s air defense response time. He also said military planes may fly along the same routes. Increasing the volume of both civilian and military flights in the sensitive area likewise serves to strain Taiwanese resources as Taiwan must monitor, assess, and prepare to respond to each potential incursion.[27]

CCP rhetoric regarding Taiwan signals a redoubling of efforts to exert pressure on the ROC under the DPP's renewed mandate. Top Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning called for the need to “fight” so-called Taiwanese independence and contain foreign interference during the annual Taiwan Work Conference on February 23.[28] Wang’s speech took on a distinctly bellicose tone compared to last year’s conference, which used relatively modest language urging “opposition” to Taiwanese separatism.[29] Wang’s speech this year also made more references to unification compared to previous years, illustrating the CCP’s hardening resolve to take possession of Taiwan. Wang is Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a foremost United Front work organization, as well as deputy leader of the Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs. These roles make him one of the top CCP officials responsible for overseeing the PRC’s policy toward Taiwan. He is also a leading CCP ideological theorist and policy architect who has accrued significant influence as a trusted advisor to CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping. Wang led an interagency meeting in December to coordinate and camouflage the PRC’s efforts to influence Taiwan’s elections, according to a Taiwanese intelligence leak of the top-secret meeting.[30] President-elect Lai Ching-te’s victory in Taiwan’s January elections represents a failure of the PRC’s influence operations. Lai’s election is a logical impetus for Wang’s stronger language, galvanizing a defiant response from CCP leadership. Wang’s rhetoric indicates the PRC will intensify efforts to erode Taiwan’s sovereignty and curb international support to help Taiwan resist pressure.

Taiwan

The Kuomintang (KMT) chose defense obstructionist Ma Wen-chun to co-chair the Foreign and National Defense Committee of the Legislative Yuan. The Foreign and National Defense Committee is the legislative standing committee responsible for legislation related to Taiwan’s policies and spending on defense and foreign affairs.[31] Standing committees have the authority to conduct budget reviews, make recommendations to the Legislative Yuan (LY) based on reviews of draft legislation, and summon officials from relevant agencies to respond to inquiries. Ma Wen-chun is a KMT legislator who has served in the LY since 2009. She is known as one of the biggest obstructionists of Taiwan’s defense spending in the LY, having proposed 135 cuts or freezes to the defense budget during 2023, including to Taiwan’s Haikun submarine program.[32] Ma is under criminal investigation due to a scandal in 2023 when several legislators publicly accused her of leaking classified information about the submarine program to South Korea and the PRC to hinder the submarine’s completion.[33]

The KMT’s selection of Ma to co-chair the legislative committee in charge of defense spending indicates its intent to obstruct what they view as “excessive” defense spending in the new legislative session. The KMT and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) hold divergent views on defense policy, with the former advocating for a comparatively modest approach that seeks to de-escalate tensions with the PRC. The KMT has consistently criticized President Tsai Ing-wen’s DPP administration for excessive defense spending.

DPP legislator Wang Ting-yu will serve as the other co-chair of the 13-member Foreign and National Defense Committee. The allocation of committee membership is proportional based on each party’s overall representation in the LY. The KMT and DPP are nearly tied in the LY with 52 and 51 seats, respectively. KMT Speaker of the LY Han Kuo-yu and Deputy Speaker Johnny Chiang will also be part of the Foreign and National Defense Committee. The minority Taiwan People’s Party, which holds eight seats in the legislature, voted for Ma and the KMT’s other candidates for co-chair in all eight standing committees.[34]

China

The PRC’s recent national security policy initiatives reflect the CCP’s growing threat perception of security risks to classified and sensitive information in the fraught geopolitical climate. The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) adopted a revised State Secrets Law on February 27 that broadens the scope of information that will be treated as confidential.[35] The law strengthens the confidentiality of so-called “work secrets,” privileged information that is not explicitly designated as a state secret but could undermine national security if leaked, especially information related to sensitive technology.[36] The law also restricts government employees with access to classified information from traveling overseas without prior approval. The unnamed head of the PRC’s National Administration of State Secret Protection spoke to reporters on February 28 about the revised law. The official stressed the importance of the CCP’s leadership in governing “confidentiality work,” and stated the revised law will help the CCP leverage its political and organizational advantages in managing confidential information.[37]

The PRC’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) separately unveiled a three-year plan to strengthen the industrial sector’s data security on February 26. The plan will apply protective measures to over 45,000 companies, including enhanced risk assessment, ransomware simulations, and integration of data security products and services.[38] Both policies are designed to strengthen national security by safeguarding political integrity and maintaining tight control over sensitive information. The PRC’s new policy actions are the CCP’s response to a perceived hostile external environment, which Xi Jinping characterized as demanding defiance against foreign containment at the 20th Party Congress in 2022.[39] These measures are rooted in Xi’s comprehensive national security doctrine, which encourages heightened vigilance and robust safeguarding against anything that could threaten the CCP’s legitimacy. This approach entails a strategic application of the doctrine across various segments of society, aiming to fortify ideological, economic, and military security in the face of Western resistance to the PRC’s ascent.

Southeast Asia

Philippines

The Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) has continued efforts to assert control over Scarborough Shoal by erecting a floating barrier and intercepting vessels that belong to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR). On February 22, the PCG reported that the CCG placed a floating barrier at the entrance to the Scarborough Shoal lagoon to prevent Philippine fishing vessels from entering.[40] The PRC first erected a similar barrier on September 20, 2023, which the PCG removed on September 25, 2023, following strong condemnation from the PCG and BFAR.[41] On February 26, a spokesperson for the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the Philippines has taken a “series of actions infringing on China’s sovereignty in the waters off Scarborough Shoal” and affirmed that the PRC would take necessary measures to guard its sovereignty, maritime rights, and interests.[42]

From February 22-23, the PCG and BFAR vessel BRP Datu Sanday conducted a resupply mission of 44 fishing vessels in the waters near Scarborough Shoal.[43] The PRC accused the Philippines of “illegally intruding” into Chinese territory. PCG Spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela refuted the accusation by saying that the Philippine vessels are “actively ensuring the security of Filipino fishermen” in the area.[44] A CCG ship positioned itself horizontally in front of the bow of the BRP Datu Sanday during the resupply mission in an attempt to deny access to waters adjacent to the Shoal. The CCG also conducted electronic jamming of the BRP Datu Sanday’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) to prevent the transmission of positional information that may conflict with the CCP narrative.[45] The PCG Spokesperson reported three PRC Navy vessels shadowed the BRP Datu Sanday 25 nautical miles outside of the Shoal and deployed a helicopter to observe the Philippine vessels.[46] [47]

Scarborough Shoal is a contested atoll that the PRC and the Philippines claim and that has been under de facto PRC control since 2012. The atoll falls within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, which gives the Philippines sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The PRC claims the shoal under its nine-dash line, which the Permanent Court of Arbitration rejected in a 2016 ruling. The PRC rejected the court’s ruling.[48] The PRC has sought to control Scarborough Shoal, most of the Spratly Islands, the Paracel Islands, and many other islands and features in the South China Sea that are disputed with other regional states. The CCP has built military infrastructure on islands it has seized control of or artificially constructed to expand its power projection capability, strengthen domain awareness, and increase its ability to block critical Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) through the South China Sea. The PRC has built military infrastructure on islands it has seized control of or artificially constructed to expand its power projection capability, strengthen domain awareness, and increase its ability to block critical Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) through the South China Sea. Developing the capability to monitor or restrict ships through the South China Sea can support a future PRC effort to implement a blockade of Taiwan or block US and allied reinforcements from reaching the Taiwan Strait in wartime. The PRC has not built any infrastructure on Scarborough Shoal, however, because Philippine vessels continue to actively contest its control of the territory.

Oceania

Kiribati

The PRC is pursuing security cooperation with Kiribati to increase its security foothold in the Pacific Islands. Kiribati's acting police commissioner Eeri Aritiera told Reuters on February 23 that uniformed PRC police officers are operating in the country to assist local law enforcement with a community policing program and managing a crime database program.[49] Kiribati has not publicly announced a security agreement with the PRC. The PRC’s policing cooperation efforts with Kiribati serve to enhance its security influence in the Pacific. Expanding the agreement to military cooperation could provide the PRC with access to strategic locations for potential military use in exchange for assisting island nations with internal security. The significance of these agreements lies in their contribution to the PRC’s broader geopolitical ambitions, including countering Western influence and establishing a more favorable balance of power in the region.

The PRC’s ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian denied that the PRC harbors military-related ambitions as part of its cooperation with the Pacific Islands. Xiao stated on January 17 that security is a component of the PRC’s relationship with Pacific Island countries, and the purpose of security partnerships is to help maintain “social stability and basic order.”[50] Xiao’s comments came days after the PRC won formal diplomatic recognition from Nauru at Taiwan’s expense. Kiribati cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of the PRC in 2019.

The PRC has pursued similar security cooperation with other Pacific Island nations. Former Solomon Islands provincial leader Daniel Suidani leaked a draft security agreement between the PRC and Solomon Islands in March 2022. Suidani was an outspoken critic of the government’s decision to switch recognition from Taiwan to the PRC in 2019.[51] The leaked document included language granting the PRC access and replenishment rights to Solomon Islands ports, as well as the right to use its armed forces to protect Chinese projects and personnel in the Solomon Islands. Australian state media verified the authenticity of the document.[52] A former Solomon Islands prime minister and confidante of the incumbent stated that the final agreement, which was signed a month later, is “very close” to the leaked draft.[53] The PRC began supplying the Solomon Islands with police training and riot control equipment later that year. [54] The PRC’s Ministry of Defense denied rumors that the PRC is pursuing a naval base on the Solomon Islands.[55] The two countries upgraded their security cooperation again in July 2023 with a pact that recommitted the PRC’s provision of law enforcement support to the Solomon Islands as a part of their “comprehensive strategic partnership.”[56]

Tuvalu

Tuvalu’s newly elected prime minister assuaged fears that Tuvalu would cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Tuvalu’s parliament unanimously elected Feleti Teo as its new prime minister on February 26. Teo is Tuvalu’s former attorney general and a former regional fisheries official. His victory thwarted the prime ministerial ambitions of former finance minister and newly elected legislator Seve Paeniu, who said he would review Tuvalu’s diplomatic ties with Taiwan if he became prime minister.[57] Taiwan’s ambassador to Tuvalu Andrew Lin said he had received assurances from Teo and other Tuvaluan members of parliament that the Tuvalu-Taiwan relationship was “rock solid” and “everlasting.”[58] Tuvalu's new government formally released a Statement of Priorities on February 28 reaffirming its relationship with Taiwan.[59] Tuvalu is one of 12 countries that maintains diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) rather than the PRC. The PRC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to “stand on the right side of history” by recognizing the “one-China principle.”[60]

Compacts of Free Association

The loss of Compacts of Free Association (COFA) funding for Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands risks United States control of key sea lines of communication (SLOC) in East Asia. These COFAs govern the United States’ relationship with Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands while granting the United States extensive military access throughout their territories. The United States renewed COFAs with Palau and Micronesia in May.[61] It then did so with the Marshall Islands in October.[62] Congress previously funded the COFAs for a twenty-year period in 2003.[63] That funding has now expired. The newly re-signed COFA agreements are now before Congress for funding consideration in the form of H.J.Res.96 and S.J.Res.48.[64] The total cost for all three of the twenty-year agreements would be roughly $7 billion spread over the period 2024 to 2043, according to the Congressional Research Service.[65]

The loss of funding also threatens the continuation of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in Micronesia, the Department of Defense high-frequency radar system under construction in Palau, as well as the opportunity for the United States Air Force Agile Combat Employment operations to take place in Micronesia.[66]

The loss of COFA funding also threatens the security of key SLOCs for the United States that provide a secure route connecting American allies and partners, such as the Philippines and Taiwan, to the US territory of Guam and the state of Hawaii. The United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) defines SLOCs as “the principal maritime routes between ports, as used for trade, military, or other purposes.”[67]

The loss of Compact of Free Association (COFA) funding for Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands presents opportunities for the People’s Republic of China to fill the gap in funding to threaten the SLOCs. COFA funding accounts for $36.9 million of Palau’s annual $124.2 million revenue as of fiscal year 2023 and $35.2 million of the Marshall Islands’ annual $173.9 million revenue as of fiscal year 2023.[68],[69] The Presidents of Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands sent a letter to the leaders of the United States Senate on February 6 stating that they “cannot overstate the importance to all of our nations of final approval [of COFA funding] by the U.S. Congress” and that its delay “has resulted in undesirable opportunities for economic exploitation by competitive political actors active in the Pacific.”[70] “Competitive political actors” is a veiled reference to the Chinese Communist Party.

COFA Funding as Share of Government Revenue in Freely Associated States[71]

Percentage of total government revenue, FY2023. *This graphic does not include Micronesia as fiscal year 2023 data for the country was unavailable.

4. Brute force: Russia 'doubled down' on often-crude disinformation in 2023, says report

Excerpts;

In response, in 2023 Russia shifted its efforts from official outlets to social media, the report said, with Moscow increasingly exploiting not only the established standby of Eastern Europe, Telegram, but also pro-Russian and/or inept moderators on Chinese-owned TikTok and Elon Musk’s “X,” formerly Twitter. While RT, Sputnik, and on-record statements from Russian diplomats remain a major tool of propaganda in the developing world, social media has become the number one weapon in the West.

Yet despite their Cold War reputation as devilishly devious subversives, the analysts found that today’s Russian information warriors are consistently pretty lazy.

As part of Moscow’s propaganda push to paint Ukraine as hopelessly corrupt, for instance, over 12,800 TikTok accounts — the largest disinformation op ever uncovered on the platform — posted videos of luxury cars, jewelry, and villas, with AI-generated voiceovers saying these were bought by Ukrainian officials with Western aid. Yet many of photos of expensive homes were simply copied from real estate websites that listed the real buyers and addresses, making the videos easy to debunk, if social media users actually bothered to check.

“While the campaign was not extremely sophisticated from a fact-checking perspective, its employment of nearly 13,000 TikTok accounts allowed it to garner hundreds of millions of views,” the report noted.

Brute force: Russia 'doubled down' on often-crude disinformation in 2023, says report - Breaking Defense

With official outlets like RT and Sputnik kicked out of many Western countries, Moscow now emphasizes social media — exploiting TikTok, X, and the explosion in generative AI, according to a new report.

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · February 29, 2024

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, seen on a smartphone screen and a laptop screen, addressing the nation in Moscow, on June 26, 2023. (Photo by NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — With all-out war in Ukraine entering its third brutal year, a new report says the Russian disinformation strategy online looks a lot like its battle tactics on the ground: launch wave after wave of low-skilled grunts and hope that somebody makes it through.

One alarming difference on the internet, however, is artificial intelligence. While both sides have struggled to apply AI to the physical battlefield, when it comes to information war, AI translation software, AI-generated narration for videos, chatbots like ChatGPT, and the rise of generative AI overall could give Moscow an essentially limitless supply of digital cannon fodder, according to a new report from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

“Russia has doubled down on its worldwide efforts to undermine Kyiv’s international standing in an attempt to erode Western support and domestic Ukrainian morale,” says the report, authored by a dozen international experts, mostly Europeans.

There is some good news for Ukraine, the authors emphasize. In 2023, “international sanctions, a damaged reputation, and the ban of state-sponsored RT and Sputnik in many Western countries” all took their toll on Russian disinformation efforts, the report found.

In response, in 2023 Russia shifted its efforts from official outlets to social media, the report said, with Moscow increasingly exploiting not only the established standby of Eastern Europe, Telegram, but also pro-Russian and/or inept moderators on Chinese-owned TikTok and Elon Musk’s “X,” formerly Twitter. While RT, Sputnik, and on-record statements from Russian diplomats remain a major tool of propaganda in the developing world, social media has become the number one weapon in the West.

Yet despite their Cold War reputation as devilishly devious subversives, the analysts found that today’s Russian information warriors are consistently pretty lazy.

As part of Moscow’s propaganda push to paint Ukraine as hopelessly corrupt, for instance, over 12,800 TikTok accounts — the largest disinformation op ever uncovered on the platform — posted videos of luxury cars, jewelry, and villas, with AI-generated voiceovers saying these were bought by Ukrainian officials with Western aid. Yet many of photos of expensive homes were simply copied from real estate websites that listed the real buyers and addresses, making the videos easy to debunk, if social media users actually bothered to check.

“While the campaign was not extremely sophisticated from a fact-checking perspective, its employment of nearly 13,000 TikTok accounts allowed it to garner hundreds of millions of views,” the report noted.

Other campaigns were equally crude relabeling of pilfered content. One widely shared video showed a drug cartel soldier with an anti-tank weapon, with a voiceover claiming the weapon was a Javelin donated to Ukraine, then sold on the black market. AFP quickly found the original news article from Mexico.

Another clip showed a protest in Ukraine and claimed it was against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the war, when in fact the crowd was urging their local government to cut infrastructure spending and spend the money on weapons. Another effort created clones of legitimate European news sites at similar-seeming internet addresses and filled them with fake articles, which pro-Russian trolls and bots then promoted on social media.

“Posts and articles appeared in multiple languages with often poor proficiency, indicating non-native authors or the use of a machine-translation tool,” the report said. More technical investigations discovered many supposedly Western sites had filenames in Russian with dates in Russian time zones, often hosted on Russian servers.

There were some isolated outbreaks of cleverness. In one 2023 operation, the authors wrote, “Russia hacked Ukrainian media outlets to plant forged documents on their websites, then subsequently delete them; this effort allowed the perpetrators to present archived copies of the planted materials as evidence that Ukrainian media had reported the story then covered it up.”

One of the study’s authors, Roman Osadchuk, said that the “main idea behind Russian propaganda did not change much” from earlier years.

“It is ‘throw as much as you can, and wait for something to stick,’ or more formally, ‘firehose of falsehood,’” he said in an email to Breaking Defense.

Part of Russia’s problem is crude Soviet-style management practices, Osadchuk said: “They invest a lot of resources, but usually, the people who do these tasks manually are not motivated by quality, but rather by achieving quantitative metrics: number of comments, content produced, etc. Therefore, there is no initiative to be extremely creative.” Put another way, the rank-and-file propagandists just want to produce enough junk to meet the quota.

On the other hand, the collapse of Twitter/X.com moderation under Elon Musk made it much easier to get away with posting disinformation, the authors found. By slashing staff, removing “state-sponsored” labels from outlets like RT, and letting any user buy the blue check mark formerly reserved for “verified” users, “X became a space where Russian disinformation appears almost immediately after pro-Kremlin sources [and] users with blue ticks consistently publish news that either aligns with or sources information from pro-Kremlin Telegram channels or media,” said Osadchuk. “It is quite an amplifier of the pro-Kremlin messaging, which is quite cheap for Russia to use, and quite effective.”

And in 2024, the rise of AI may make the generation of convincing garbage easier still, he warned.

“It is helping quite significantly,” Osadchuk said. “AI narration [can] obfuscate immediate Russian presence since artificial voice helped to remove accent. [AI] translations became better. … Deepfakes became slightly more convincing. They’re still quite bad, but again, the development in the field plays to Russia’s advantage.”

5. US leading global alliance to counter foreign government disinformation

Is there such a thing as a nation's "sovereign information space?"

Excerpts:

As an example he cites a hypothetical message shown on the phone screens of people in eastern Europe, telling them “the US has bioweapons in Ukraine”.

“It is a classic disinformation trope that you might or might not believe,” he said. “But if on your screen it says in some way ‘Russia says the US has bioweapons in Ukraine, or Russia Today says it’, then the damage is less.

“There will always be people that believe crazy things, but at least they will have been told where the information came from.”

“When Russia, China or Iran or indeed a terrorist group enters a country’s sovereign information space without admitting that it is them, masking it as a bot or an intelligence operative claiming to be a journalist or by paying a local official, then you should find a way to label it.

US leading global alliance to counter foreign government disinformation

Washington hopes more countries will join US, UK and Canada in signing agreement to define, identify and label such operations

The Guardian · by Patrick Wintour · February 26, 2024

A global coalition of democracies is being formed to protect their societies from disinformation campaigns by foreign governments, the US special envoy on the issue has said.

James Rubin, the special envoy for non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts at the US state department’s global engagement centre (GEC), said the coalition hoped to agree on “definitions for information manipulation versus plain old opinions that other governments are entitled to have even if we disagree with them”.

The US, UK and Canada have already signed up to a formal framework agreement, and Washington hopes more countries will join.

The GEC focuses solely on disinformation by foreign powers. Apart from trying to develop global strategies, it works to expose specific covert disinformation operations, such as a Russian operation in Africa to discredit US health services.

The US, UK and Canada signed the framework to counter foreign state manipulation this month with the aim of addressing disinformation as a national security threat that requires coordinated government and civil society responses. “Now is the time for a collective approach to the foreign information manipulation threat that builds a coalition of like-minded countries committed to strengthening resilience and response to information manipulation,” the framework says. It also encourages information-sharing and joint data analysis tools to identify covert foreign disinformation.

A hugely experienced US official and journalist who has worked with diplomats such as Madeleine Albright in the past, Rubin admitted his first year as special envoy had been one of his most intellectually taxing because of the complex definitions surrounding disinformation.

James Rubin, who wants to promote more fact-based information. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

In the continuum between hostile opinion and disinformation, he has tried to identify where and how governments can intervene without limiting free speech.

The principle on which he has alighted is deception by foreign powers. “In principle every government should be free to convey their views, but they should have to admit who they are,” he said an interview.

“We want to promote more fact-based information, but at the same time find ways to label those information operations that are generated by the Chinese government or the Kremlin but to which they don’t admit.

“In the end that is all I know we can do right now without interfering with a free press. We are not asking for such covert disinformation to be taken down but a way to be found for the source to be labelled.”

As an example he cites a hypothetical message shown on the phone screens of people in eastern Europe, telling them “the US has bioweapons in Ukraine”.

“It is a classic disinformation trope that you might or might not believe,” he said. “But if on your screen it says in some way ‘Russia says the US has bioweapons in Ukraine, or Russia Today says it’, then the damage is less.

“There will always be people that believe crazy things, but at least they will have been told where the information came from.”

“When Russia, China or Iran or indeed a terrorist group enters a country’s sovereign information space without admitting that it is them, masking it as a bot or an intelligence operative claiming to be a journalist or by paying a local official, then you should find a way to label it.

“What is wrong is a covert operation to manipulate information by secretly inserting it into the system without a made-in-the-Kremlin stamp on it. When people read this stuff they should know it comes from the Russian government, and it is legitimate to point that out without anyone trying to censor anyone’s thoughts or opinions.”

In a country such as the US, which is constitutionally committed to freedom of speech, the issue raises difficult issues of relations with social media companies that do not arise in the same way in the more interventionist European Union. The EU has passed the Digital Services Act and in December launched an inquiry into X over illicit content and disinformation, a lack of transparency about advertising and “deceptive” design practices. The UK’s media regulator, Ofcom, has been given powers over social media content through the Online Safety Act.

Rubin stressed it was not for his organisation to tell social media companies, especially in the US, how to behave, but said it was legitimate for it to unmask disinformation operations abroad. It was for others to ask social media companies to enforce their terms of service, he said.

“I have worked on issues such as nuclear disarmament … and people thought that was hard, but this is harder,” Rubin said. “In America we have freedom of press built into our constitution. We have no regulation of social media companies, and disinformation has become a misunderstood term.

“If you go to eastern Europe and an official says they suffered this terrible disinformation episode yesterday and they show it to me, and it is just an article. The word disinformation can become like fake news, just a label for saying you don’t like something. That is not what we are talking about.

“Another reason why this is so hard is because there’s a fundamental asymmetry. Russia and China have closed their information spaces to the rest of the world.”

The Guardian · by Patrick Wintour · February 26, 2024

6. Russian disinformation is about immigration. The real aim is to undercut Ukraine aid

I will just again add the words from our 2017 NSS from the Trump Administration. We need to heed these words:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

Russian disinformation is about immigration. The real aim is to undercut Ukraine aid

BY DAVID KLEPPER

Updated 8:00 AM EST, March 1, 2024

AP · March 1, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — For Vladimir Putin, victory in Ukraine may run through Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

In recent weeks, Russian state media and online accounts tied to the Kremlin have spread and amplified misleading and incendiary content about U.S. immigration and border security. The campaign seems crafted to stoke outrage and polarization before the 2024 election for the White House, and experts who study Russian disinformation say Americans can expect more to come as Putin looks to weaken support for Ukraine and cut off a vital supply of aid.

In social media posts, online videos and stories on websites, these accounts misstate the impact of immigration, highlight stories about crimes committed by immigrants, and warn of dire consequences if the U.S. doesn’t crack down at its border with Mexico. Many are misleading, filled with cherry-picked data or debunked rumors.

The pivot toward the United States comes after two years in which Russia’s vast disinformation apparatus was busy pushing propaganda and disinformation about its invasion of Ukraine. Experts who study how authoritarian states use the internet to spread disinformation say eroding support for Ukraine remains Russia’s top priority — and that the Kremlin is just finding new ways to do it.

“Things have shifted, even in the last few days,” said Kyle Walter, head of research at Logically, a tech company that tracks disinformation campaigns. While experts and government officials have long warned of Russia’s intentions, Walter said the content spotted so far this year “is the first indication that I’ve seen that Russia is actually going to focus on U.S. elections.”

This month Logically identified dozens of pro-Russian accounts posting about immigration in the U.S., with a particular interest in promoting recent anti-immigration rallies in Texas. A recent Logically assessment concluded that after two years spent largely dedicated to the war in Ukraine, Russia’s disinformation apparatus has “started 2024 with a focus on the U.S.”

Many posts highlight crimes allegedly committed by recent immigrants or suggest migrants are a burden on local communities. Some claims were posted by accounts with tiny audiences; others were made by state media sites with millions of followers.

This week the accounts seized on the recent death of a Georgia nursing student and the arrest of a Venezuelan man who had entered the U.S. illegally and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case. The killing that quickly became a rallying cry for former President Donald Trump and other Republicans who suggest that migrants commit crimes more often than do U.S. citizens. The evidence does not support those claims.

The content, crafted in English, has quickly found its way to websites and platforms popular with American voters. Footage of a recent anti-immigration protest broadcast by Russian outlet RT, for example, was racking up thousands of views this week on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and prompting angry replies from other users.

The Russian outlet Sputnik ran a story this week about growing calls to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall, a priority for Trump, who failed to complete the job as president. An analysis of other sites that later linked to the Sputnik piece shows than half were in the U.S., according to data from the online analytics firm Semrush.com. Overall, Americans make up the English-language Sputnik’s largest audience.

U.S. officials have warned that Russia could seek to meddle in the elections of dozens of countries in 2024, when more than 50 nations accounting for half of the world’s population are scheduled to hold national votes. While Russia has a strategic interest in the outcome of many of them — the European Parliament, for one — few offer the opportunity and the prize that America does.

For Russia’s bid to conquer Ukraine, this year’s U.S. election stakes couldn’t be higher. President Joe Biden has pledged to fully back Ukraine. Republicans have been far less supportive. Trump has openly praised Putin and the former president has suggested he would encourage Russia to attack America’s NATO allies if they don’t pay their fair share for the military alliance.

More than half of Republicans believe the U.S. is spending too much on Ukraine, according to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that found Democrats to be much more supportive of additional aid.

Soon after the war started, Russia mounted a disinformation campaign designed to cut into support for Ukraine. Claims included wild stories about secret U.S. germ warfare labs or Nazi conspiracies or that Ukrainian refugees were committing crimes and taking jobs from people who had welcomed them.

That effort continues, but Russia also has shifted its attention to issues with no obvious tie to Moscow that are more likely to create cracks in the unity of its adversaries — for example immigration, or inflation, high-profile topics in the U.S. and Europe.

“They’re very savvy and understand the right buttons to push,” said Bret Schafer, senior fellow and head of the information manipulation team at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a Washington-based nonprofit. “If your ultimate objective is to reduce support for Ukraine, your inroad might be talking about how bad things are on the southern border. Their path to win this thing is to get the U.S. and the E.U. to stop sending weapons and aid to Ukraine.”

A message left with the Russian Embassy in Washington wasn’t immediately returned.

America’s election may also be a tempting target for other authoritarian nations such as China and Iran that, like Russia, have shown a willingness to use online propaganda and disinformation to further their objectives.

The online landscape has dramatically shifted since Russia sought to meddle in America’s 2016 presidential race won by Trump. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have banned many Russian state accounts and built new safeguards aimed at preventing anyone from exploiting their sites. In one recent example, Meta, the owner of Facebook, announced last fall that it had identified and stopped a network of thousands of fake accounts created in China in an apparent effort to fool American voters.

Other platforms, including X, have taken a different approach, rolling back or even eliminating content moderation and rules designed to stop disinformation. Then there is TikTok, whose ties to China and popularity with young people have set off alarms in several state capitals and Washington.

Artificial intelligence is another concern. The technology now makes it easier than ever to create audio or video that is lifelike enough to fool voters.

Social media is no longer the only battleground either. Increasingly, Russia and other disinformation spreaders use encrypted messaging sites or websites that masquerade as legitimate news outlets.

“A lot of their activity has moved off the major platforms to places were they can operate more freely,” said John Hultquist, chief analyst at Mandiant Intelligence, a cybersecurity firm monitoring Russian disinformation.

Walter, Logically’s research director, said he is most concerned about disinformaton on X and TikTok this year, given their lack of controls and their popularity, especially with young voters. TikTok’s ties to China have raised national security concerns.

He said that while election years tend to highlight the dangers of disinformation, the most effective information operations are launched years in advance. America’s adversaries have spent a long time studying its politics, building online networks and cultivating domestic divisions.

Now comes the payoff.

“They don’t need to put a ton of effort into causing disinformation,” Walter said. “They’ve already laid the groundwork leading up to 2024.”

AP · March 1, 2024

7. A new dam threatens this Filipino tribe. It's just one of the country's stalled China-funded projects

More attention should be focused on Chinese failure or problems with its One Belt and One Road strategy.

Excerpts:

But two years after his presidency ended, only about a dozen of his 119 priority infrastructure projects were completed. Of the completed projects, four were funded by China: the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project that now provides water to more than 8,700ha of agricultural land in northern Philippines, two bridges in Metro Manila and the first phase of the 17km bypass road in Mr Duterte’s home town of Davao City in the south, with the bridges and road meant to ease traffic congestion. While these projects faced controversies like many of the other projects did, they were prioritised because it was realistic to finish them within Mr Duterte’s term.

Analysts have criticised Mr Duterte’s infrastructure programme as ambitious. Perennial domestic issues like local politics, right-of-way acquisition problems, lack of technology and red tape in bureaucracy led to severe delays in the projects.

The same issues hound the China-funded projects – which come under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to build infrastructure in developing nations – with the problems made more severe by Beijing’s high interest rates in its loan agreements and local backlash due to displacement of residents or potential environmental damage.

“The delays are in large part domestic in nature… Because you may have all this access to financing, especially when relations (with China) were good, but if you cannot institute reforms to speed up the process, then you will not be able to make the most out of it,” said foreign policy expert Lucio Pitlo III, research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in Manila.

Mr Duterte also turned to China for funding of certain controversial projects because Beijing tends to be less stringent about meeting social and environmental standards, compared with other funders like Japan or the World Bank, said Chinese investments expert Alvin Camba, an assistant professor at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

“The Chinese government tends to accept funding a project if it’s important geopolitically because they’re trying to win over the local government in power or if it’s important commercially for Beijing,” he said.

Adding to the difficulties faced by the China-funded projects is the rising geopolitical tension between the two countries as current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr focuses more on Manila’s dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea.

A new dam threatens this Filipino tribe. It's just one of the country's stalled China-funded projects

By Laura AragóRutuja Kulgod The Straits Times14 min

View Original

RIZAL, Philippines – At the heart of the Sierra Madre mountain range in the Philippines lies a quaint village where people live in bungalows made of wood and concrete along the banks of the pristine Agos River.

Located 62km north-east of the capital Manila, Daraitan village in Rizal province is home to about 5,700 residents, a majority of whom are members of the Dumagat-Remontado indigenous people who consider vast hectares of the mountain range as part of their ancestral domain.

Generations of the tribe have lived off the river and its surrounding forests, which have provided them with food, shelter and medicine. Once a year, they come together to perform their sacred healing rituals using the giant marble boulders found along the riverbanks. These rock formations also make a favourite photo spot for tourists.

But the village may soon disappear under the same waters that give it life, once the Philippine government finishes building the Kaliwa Dam – one of 16 flagship infrastructure projects of former president Rodrigo Duterte that is being funded by China.

Construction for the Kaliwa Dam Project is ongoing

“We are opposing the dam because our ancestral lands are important to us. This is where we grew up. This is our home. If the dam is built, where will our future generations go?” said 61-year-old Dumagat-Remontado elder Nelly dela Carzada.

The Philippines has been pushing to create this dam since the 1970s in a bid to ensure water supply for Metro Manila, the country’s densely populated capital region composed of 16 cities and one town located some 65km downstream.

Several Metro Manila communities have experienced water shortages in recent years, due to a mix of issues like overpopulation, poor urban planning and climate change.

Most of the region’s current water supply comes from the Angat Dam, which provides some 4,000 million litres of water a day and is located about 85km north of where Kaliwa Dam is being constructed.

The new dam is expected to provide Metro Manila with an additional 600 million litres of water daily once it is finished by end-2026. Officials said building the 60m-high reservoir is even more necessary now that the country is starting to feel the impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon.

But it was only in 2021 under Mr Duterte that construction finally broke ground, three years after Manila and Beijing signed the 12 billion peso (S$288 million) loan agreement.

The Kaliwa Dam was among the 119 flagship projects in the Duterte government’s ambitious “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure programme, which officials said were needed to help generate jobs and spur economic development.

Of the 119 on the list, Mr Duterte turned to China to finance 16 big-ticket projects in a bid to cement his legacy by the time his presidency ended in 2022. He embraced Beijing during his term and even downplayed Manila’s claims in the disputed South China Sea in favour of securing loans and grants from China.

But two years after his presidency ended, only about a dozen of his 119 priority infrastructure projects were completed. Of the completed projects, four were funded by China: the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project that now provides water to more than 8,700ha of agricultural land in northern Philippines, two bridges in Metro Manila and the first phase of the 17km bypass road in Mr Duterte’s home town of Davao City in the south, with the bridges and road meant to ease traffic congestion. While these projects faced controversies like many of the other projects did, they were prioritised because it was realistic to finish them within Mr Duterte’s term.

Analysts have criticised Mr Duterte’s infrastructure programme as ambitious. Perennial domestic issues like local politics, right-of-way acquisition problems, lack of technology and red tape in bureaucracy led to severe delays in the projects.

The same issues hound the China-funded projects – which come under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to build infrastructure in developing nations – with the problems made more severe by Beijing’s high interest rates in its loan agreements and local backlash due to displacement of residents or potential environmental damage.

“The delays are in large part domestic in nature… Because you may have all this access to financing, especially when relations (with China) were good, but if you cannot institute reforms to speed up the process, then you will not be able to make the most out of it,” said foreign policy expert Lucio Pitlo III, research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in Manila.

Mr Duterte also turned to China for funding of certain controversial projects because Beijing tends to be less stringent about meeting social and environmental standards, compared with other funders like Japan or the World Bank, said Chinese investments expert Alvin Camba, an assistant professor at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

“The Chinese government tends to accept funding a project if it’s important geopolitically because they’re trying to win over the local government in power or if it’s important commercially for Beijing,” he said.

Adding to the difficulties faced by the China-funded projects is the rising geopolitical tension between the two countries as current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr focuses more on Manila’s dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea.

The Straits Times contacted the Chinese Embassy in Manila for comment, but it declined to respond.

While four out of 16 major projects completed within Mr Duterte’s term is not a poor outcome, the other 12 projects involving the Chinese are facing delays or in limbo for myriad reasons, from local ones like political, socio-economic, cultural and environmental issues to geopolitical ones, some of which also plagued earlier projects. Some of the solutions suggested include aborting potential white elephants and completing some of the projects important to the country’s economic development by looking beyond China for funding.

But it appears that China’s BRI romance with the Philippines is dead in the water for now.

The most common type among the 16 China-funded projects are bridges and roads, followed by railways and water facilities.

In the past decade, China spent trillions of dollars through its BRI to develop economic ties and expand its influence in Asia, Africa and Latin America by helping countries in these continents finance and build infrastructure needed for economic development such as roads, railways, bridges, dams, ports and industrial hubs.

Critics say the BRI has been detrimental in the long run to some recipient countries, especially those that have been unable to repay their loans, like Sri Lanka and Zambia.

China imposes a higher interest rate of at least 2 per cent, compared with the less than 1 per cent of other lenders like Japan, the Asian Development Bank or World Bank. Beijing’s contracts often have strict confidentiality clauses and would push for Chinese contractors to work on the projects.

But nations have benefited too. The China-funded Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway has reduced travel time for drivers between the two Cambodian cities from five hours to two hours. Indonesia opened its long-delayed bullet train connecting Jakarta to Bandung, also funded by Beijing, in October 2023.

The Duterte government’s failure to take advantage of its BRI loans was a “missed opportunity” for the Philippines, said foreign policy analyst Jerik Cruz, a graduate research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He contrasted Indonesia’s China-funded high-speed rail to the three long-delayed major railway projects in the Philippines that China initially agreed to fund under Mr Duterte. Mr Marcos halted negotiations with Beijing for these projects in 2023 because talks had not progressed for months. The Philippines is now exploring other funding partners.

“It certainly may have been possible for the Philippines to have secured more favourable terms for its projects as well, but it looks like political pressure from the top to negotiators in hammering out the loan agreements for these deals weakened our ability to extract conditions for the projects comparable to what Indonesia received,” said Mr Cruz.

More than 530 billion pesos (S$12.7 billion) in projects such as bridges and roads, railways and water facilities.

The four completed China-funded projects under Mr Duterte were controversial too. But they came to fruition because they had the support of local politicians allied with Mr Duterte and therefore increased his political capital, said Dr Camba.

“I think that the calculus of the Duterte government on projects was really less about building good projects so they could help people. I think the calculus of the Duterte government was really to use these projects to increase political power,” he said.

In the case of the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project, local politicians in northern Philippines supported it despite protests from indigenous groups and environmentalists because the project pumps water to some 8,700ha of agricultural land and benefits about 4,350 households. This gave Mr Duterte an incentive to push through with the project to keep the support of the political elites, said Dr Camba.

“There was clear local elite consensus on the project, and therefore the government there got the project done and built it fast,” he said.

The four projects were also prioritised both by China and Mr Duterte because they would be completed within the latter’s six-year term, said Mr Pitlo.

“In the case of China, I think that’s also one consideration. In the Philippines, no big-ticket project ever gets completed in a single administration… We cannot provide a sense of continuity, especially for long-term projects,” he said.

The political calculations of the Duterte administration beyond the developmental goals for building infrastructure are evident to the Dumagat-Remontado tribe affected by the Kaliwa Dam project. The tribe’s leaders feel they were left out in the cold by the Duterte government for the sake of strengthening local political influence and its own alliance with China.

The dam project will cover 291ha of the Kaliwa Watershed Forest Reserve, including the Dumagat-Remontados’ ancestral domains across the adjacent provinces of Rizal and Quezon.

Tribal leaders said they were not properly consulted regarding the project that threatens their traditional way of life. Environmentalists from the Stop Kaliwa Dam Network also say the project would destroy 126 species of flora and fauna in the Sierra Madre.

The Philippines’ Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act states that the government must first secure a tribe’s free, prior and informed consent before building on its ancestral lands.

But Ms Clara Dullas, one of the leaders of the Dumagat-Remontado in Rizal, alleged that the Duterte government had either misinformed or pressured other tribe members into giving their consent.

She could not bear to hold grudges, though, noting that the Dumagat-Remontado organisations that eventually agreed to the Kaliwa Dam were each given 80 million pesos, or $1.9 million, in “disturbance” fees.

“The Kaliwa Dam is the reason why our tribe is divided now. There is a crack in our relationships even if we all come from the same family,” said Ms Dullas. “I can’t blame the others because we lack money. I believe there was bribery involved.”

But Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) spokesman Patrick Dizon said the consultation process was above board and was duly certified by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).

“A testament to that is the issuance of the certificate precondition by the NCIP for the social component and the issuance of the Special Agreement on Protected Area by the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources,” he said.

The Kaliwa Dam is only about 23 per cent completed as at December 2023, said Mr Dizon. But the tribe said it has already become more difficult to access its lands that are close to the construction areas.

The government requires them to present identification documents, and only those given passes may enter. Mr Dizon said this is to ensure that no unidentified personnel enter the area.

But the Dumagat-Remontados are angered by the policy.

“We feel like we are foreigners in our own home because the Chinese and the people in our own government are now preventing us from entering the lands where we grew up,” said tribe leader Renato Ibanez, 48.

Mr Ibanez also accuses the Philippine authorities of harassing tribe members who are vocal against Kaliwa Dam. Some of them have been accused of working with communist rebels, a charge the tribe vehemently denies.

“Our leaders have experienced being investigated by the authorities. But why? This is our land,” Mr Ibanez said.

There has also been resistance to some of the Duterte-led, Chinese-funded infrastructure projects in other parts of the country.

In Manila, local lawmakers in the capital’s fifth district delivered speeches before the city council in June 2023 to protest against the planned North and South Harbour Bridge. The 2km bridge aims to connect two villages – Barangay 20 and Barangay 649 – which are located on either side of the Pasig River, to help ease traffic in the capital.

But the bridge would displace more than 1,300 urban poor residents and would even lead to the demolition of a public school in the area locals call the Baseco Compound. Displacement of urban poor residents is often a touchy subject in the Philippines, as the government usually proposes moving them to provinces outside Metro Manila owing to lack of land. The relocation sites usually have poor living conditions and are far from the residents’ sources of livelihood.

“This bridge is unnecessary, a waste of money and a big inconvenience to the people,” said Manila Fifth District Councillor Jaybee Hizon, adding that the nearby R-10 Bridge had already been developed to address the traffic congestion the North and South Harbour Bridge was supposed to fix.

The city council was supposed to hold hearings on the China-funded bridge proposal, but these did not take place. No construction has begun on the bridge as at January 2024.

In southern Philippines, construction of the 23.4 billion peso Samal Island-Davao City Connector Bridge project has also been halted because of the government’s failure to acquire land needed for the bridge.

Some local stakeholders are not necessarily against the bridge per se, but have claimed they were not properly consulted about its location, while other groups have questioned its compliance with environmental standards.

Upon being elected in June 2022, Mr Marcos ordered a general review of the pending Chinese investment projects his government inherited from Mr Duterte, in a bid to renegotiate terms.

Unlike his predecessor, Mr Marcos is more aggressive in defending Manila’s overlapping claims with Beijing in the South China Sea, but still fosters economic ties with it.

Geopolitical tensions between the two nations and Mr Marcos’ stance towards Beijing are going to dictate the fate of the pending China-funded projects the President inherited from Mr Duterte, said Mr Cruz.

“Geopolitics certainly played a part in securing China’s role in the China-funded projects, and geopolitics is again rearing its head with respect to the same projects… The crucial condition that paved the way for this reversal was ultimately the electoral victory of President Marcos, who was far less aligned with China than Duterte,” said Mr Cruz.

The 16 infrastructure projects planned or started during Mr Duterte’s term were carried over into Mr Marcos’ own priority list, which means his administration continues to see the economic benefits of these projects. But it seems he is not as keen as his predecessor to stick with China, and is open to exploring other funding sources.

Socio-economic Planning Undersecretary Joseph Capuno said China has not been proactively pushing for the other pending projects either.

“China was not responding to our request for funding, or they kept saying (they were) still studying them. It seems there’s no finality in their decision, and these are priority projects. If we can identify alternative sources that will speed up the approval, implementation, why not?” Mr Capuno said.

“China is not only the source of funds, especially now,” he added, referencing the tensions with Beijing over the South China Sea.

Dr Camba said these rising tensions between Manila and Beijing have since become a major obstacle to the completion of the projects, giving Mr Marcos “little political incentive” to insist on Chinese funding.

This now presents the Marcos administration a chance to review its loan agreements with China, look for alternative funders for projects worth continuing, and get rid of the so-called white elephants in the infrastructure list.

“Among the projects tagged during the Duterte administration as economically wasteful white elephants in the making are the Mindanao Railway project, the Subic-Clark Railway project, and the Kaliwa Dam project – all China-funded ventures,” said Mr Cruz.

“If the economic rationale for these projects has not been sound to begin with, relative to their prospective future use by the public, and alternative infrastructure options are available to the Philippine government, then why push through with them?”

Mr Pitlo, however, cautioned the Marcos government against completely dropping China as a big-ticket infrastructure project funder. It could turn off other investors, he said.

“I don’t see any incentive for the present Marcos government to discontinue projects that are already under way,” he said, citing the Kaliwa Dam.

“So regardless of whether it’s Japan or China, if the projects have passed the necessary clearances, all the necessary reviews, and they have already complied, I would say just let them continue with the projects. Because this also sends a signal to all investors that the Philippines is a country that honours its words.”

The Marcos government’s open resistance to China in the maritime dispute gives the Dumagat-Remontado tribe some hope that this would one day lead to a rejection of the Beijing-funded dam on its ancestral lands.

Tribe members said they would be more amenable if Mr Marcos would revisit Japan’s proposed Kaliwa Intake Weir project that Mr Duterte had set aside.

Harnessing the same waters that the China-funded Kaliwa Dam is tapping, the Osaka-based Global Utility Development Corporation (GUDC) proposed to build a 7m weir, or low dam, with only a 16km-long tunnel that will have a capacity of 550 million litres a day.

The Japan project’s capacity would be 50 million litres lower than the Kaliwa Dam, but will not submerge large swathes of the Sierra Madre.

The Philippine government would also not be borrowing funds from Japan, as the proposal would be under a 25-year build-operate-transfer scheme. Under this system, the Philippine government would not shoulder construction expenses, but the MWSS would instead pay the agreed water rates to the GUDC within 25 years.

“We like Japan’s proposal. It would not destroy our forests. It would not affect residents here. The Philippines would not be buried in debt,” said Ms Dullas.

This was among the alternatives the Dumagat-Remontados offered during their nine-day march in February 2023, when some 300 members walked 150km from Quezon and Rizal all the way to Manila to protest against the Kaliwa Dam.

But they failed to secure an audience with Mr Marcos. They remain wary of the President’s position on the Kaliwa Dam and other controversial China-funded deals.

“As much as we want to fully pin our hopes on him, we don’t. We’ve learnt from past efforts to trick us, make us believe a project is about to end, only for it to be resurrected again years later,” said Ms Dullas.

“If he really does not want this project from China, we want him to openly declare to stop the Kaliwa Dam. That’s what we are waiting for,” she said.

8. Security is still China's top priority, not the economy

Perhaps even more specifically, security of the Chinese Communist Party 

Security is still China's top priority, not the economy

Premier Li Qiang in uncomfortable spot as National People's Congress opens

Diana Choyleva

March 1, 2024 17:00 JST

https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Security-is-still-China-s-top-priority-not-the-economy?fbclid=IwAR1a_Rsy0oSmam1KSz09wJw6Z0YkUA8gjGIUsk4QdINNZ-hGQ9QO8TF63IA

Diana Choyleva is founder and chief economist of Enodo Economics, a macroeconomic and political forecasting company in London focused on China and its global impact. She is also senior fellow on Chinese Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Next week, China's annual National People's Congress session will convene in Beijing. Full of pageantry, the NPC is usually a time for the Communist Party to signal action on economic growth to thousands of provincial officials in attendance.

This time, though, local officials can expect to hear a mixed message that prioritizes security over growth -- a formulation that is bound to weigh on the economy over the coming year.

"Security" has been the mantra for Communist Party chief Xi Jinping since he took power in 2012 and he has doubled down on it since beginning his third term as general secretary in 2022.

For Xi, security does not just mean tight control over popular unrest as is common to authoritarian governments. It also encompasses financial, economic and infrastructure security, a conceptual package that Beijing hopes will ensure China's central place in the world economy and the Communist Party's hold on power.

But Xi's focus on security has so far held back economic development and will remain a drag on activity this year, even if his administration rolls out new growth policies during the NPC.

China's most innovative companies are under increased regulatory scrutiny, private entrepreneurs and well-off urbanites are depressed, the U.S.-led Western world is restricting China's access to its markets and knowhow and foreign investors are leaving China.

In a macro sense, plenty of other factors are slowing down the Chinese economy, too. These include a significant hangover of bad debt at the corporate and local government level and overcapacity in both manufacturing and infrastructure which discourages additional investment.

On the demand side, Chinese consumers remain cautious after the bruising years of COVID lockdowns and the hit to their incomes and wealth from Xi's redistributive policies.

China watchers like myself look to provincial people's congresses, which are held in January and February, for clues to the party's emerging priorities.

At this year's sessions, there seemed to be a focus on belt tightening as localities internalized a key message from December's Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing. This was especially true for poorer provinces, where infrastructure stimulus is normally directed. This represents more evidence that this month's NPC is unlikely to be accompanied by the announcement of big stimulus packages.

But the shackles on the Chinese economy are more than just cyclical.

Xi's concept of security also implies self-sufficiency, in a manner harkening back to the closed economies of the Cold War rather than the open, global flow of goods and capital that drove China's 40-year economic boom. Conservative cadres resisting an "excessive" degree of market-oriented reforms are using the security imperative as a weapon against Western-style, open-door policies.

"Security" will always mean tamping down any threat to the party-state. Faced with the prospect of protests by unemployed workers, underpaid civil servants and unsatisfied homebuyers, the party-state apparatus is expected to put more emphasis on political control. Some state-owned enterprises are forming their own in-house militias.

"Security" also means financial security, as the public security apparatus is well aware that one of the leading causes of middle-class dissatisfaction and protests in recent years has been the collapse of private lending rings and other quasi-official financing schemes.

But tighter scrutiny on lending, while necessary in the face of rampant abuse, also has the effect of choking off the flow of capital to the dynamic private sector.

"Security" means too that developments in the financial and economic sectors must remain "Chinese" in nature, and that foreign activity is inherently suspicious.

Scrutiny of potential "spying" by China-based employees of multinationals is expected to intensify in 2024 and 2025, throwing a pall over foreign companies' willingness to take risks in the country's opaque market. Revisions to the state secrets law, adopted this week by the NPC Standing Committee, define state secrets so broadly that anything could be covered if the party-state decides it should be.

Cai Qi, director of the CCP Central Committee General Office, will likely be the arbiter over competing demands regarding security and the economy. © Reuters

The likely arbiter over the demands of security versus the necessities of the economy will not be Xi's corps of very capable financial cadres, but the formidable Cai Qi, director of the Central Committee General Office and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee.

Cai is a tough-nosed enforcer, and when he weighs the balance between economic growth and maintaining national security, his thumb will be on the security side of the scale.

This will leave Premier Li Qiang in an uncomfortable place. Traditionally, the opening day of the NPC is taken up with the premier's speech and detailed reports from various economically focused agencies. News agencies churn out disclosures of statistics and targets.

Many of the initiatives to be announced by Li will likely build off the Central Economic Work Conference's decision to make economic work the central task for 2024 while balancing development and security.

But this balance is precarious, and the nature of the system favors eliminating threats rather than welcoming opportunities.

What does this mean for investors and businesses? When push comes to shove in China's current climate, security will win out. That is the real central message to be expected from this year's National People's Congress.

9. “BETWEEN THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL” – The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé

A long read from the Intercept.

Excerpts:

“Victims of sexual assault are women who have experienced something, and then to come and sit in front of such a woman — who am I anyway?” she said. “I have no qualifications.”

Nonetheless, she began working with Gettleman on the story, she explained in the podcast interview. Gettleman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, is an international correspondent, and when he is sent to a bureau, he works with news assistants and freelancers on stories. In this case, several newsroom sources familiar with the process said, Schwartz and Sella did the vast majority of the ground reporting, while Gettleman focused on the framing and writing.

The resulting report, published in late December, was headlined “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” It was a bombshell and galvanized the Israeli war effort at a time when even some of Israel’s allies were expressing concern over its large-scale killing of civilians in Gaza. Inside the newsroom, the article was met with praise from editorial leaders but skepticism from other Times journalists. The paper’s flagship podcast “The Daily” attempted to turn the article into an episode, but it didn’t manage to get through a fact check, as The Intercept previously reported. (In a statement received after publication, a Times spokesperson said, “No Daily episode was killed due to fact checking failures.”)

The fear among Times staffers who have been critical of the paper’s Gaza coverage is that Schwartz will become a scapegoat for what is a much deeper failure. She may harbor animosity toward Palestinians, lack the experience with investigative journalism, and feel conflicting pressures between being a supporter of Israel’s war effort and a Times reporter, but Schwartz did not commission herself and Sella to report one of the most consequential stories of the war. Senior leadership at the New York Times did.

Schwartz said as much in an interview with Israeli Army Radio on December 31. “The New York Times said, ‘Let’s do an investigation into sexual violence’ — it was more a case of them having to convince me,” she said. Her host cut her off: “It was a proposal of The New York Times, the entire thing?”

“Unequivocally. Unequivocally. Obviously. Of course,” she said. “The paper stood behind us 200 percent and gave us the time, the investment, the resources to go in-depth with this investigation as much as needed.”

Shortly after the war broke out, some editors and reporters complained that Times standards barred them from referring to Hamas as “terrorists.” The rationale from the standards department, run for 14 years by Philip Corbett, had long been that Hamas was the de facto administrator of a specific territory, rather than a stateless terror group. Deliberately killing civilians, went the argument, was not enough to label a group terrorists, as that label could apply quite broadly.

...

In her interview with the Channel 12 podcast, Schwartz said she began working with Gettleman soon after October 7. “My job was to help him. He had all kinds of thoughts about things, about articles he wanted to do,” she recalled. “On the first day, there were already three things on [his] lineup, and then I saw that at number three was ‘Sexual Violence.’” Schwartz said that in the initial aftermath of the October 7 attacks, there was not much focus on sexual assaults, but by the time she began working for Gettleman, rumors began spreading that such acts had taken place, most of it based on the commentary of Zaka workers and IDF officials and soldiers.

After the article was published, Gettleman was invited to speak on a panel about sexual violence at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. His efforts were lauded by the panel and its host, Sandberg, the former Facebook executive. Instead of doubling down on reporting that helped win the New York Times a prestigious Polk Award, Gettleman dismissed the need for reporters to provide “evidence.”

“What we found — I don’t want to even use the word ‘evidence,’ because evidence is almost like a legal term that suggests you’re trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court,” Gettleman told Sandberg. “That’s not my role. We all have our roles. And my role is to document, is to present information, is to give people a voice. And we found information along the entire chain of violence, so of sexual violence.”

Gettleman said his mission was to move people. “It’s really difficult to get this information and then to shape it,” he said. “That’s our job as journalists: to get the information and to share the story in a way that makes people care. Not just to inform, but to move people. And that’s what I’ve been doing for a long time.”

One Times reporter said colleagues are wondering what a balanced approach might look like: “I am waiting to see if the paper will report in depth, deploying the same kind of resources and means, on the United Nations’ report that documented the horrors committed against Palestinian women.”

“BETWEEN THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL”

The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé

The Intercept · by Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, Daniel Boguslaw · February 29, 2024

Anat Schwartz had a problem. The Israeli filmmaker and former air force intelligence official had been assigned by the New York Times to work with her partner’s nephew Adam Sella and veteran Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman on an investigation into sexual violence by Hamas on October 7 that could reshape the way the world understood Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. By November, global opposition was mounting against Israel’s military campaign, which had already killed thousands of children, women, and the elderly. On her social media feed, which the Times has since said it is reviewing, Schwartz liked a tweet saying that Israel needed to “turn the strip into a slaughterhouse.”

“Violate any norm, on the way to victory,” read the post. “Those in front of us are human animals who do not hesitate to violate minimal rules.”

The New York Times, however, does have rules and norms. Schwartz had no prior reporting experience. Her reporting partner Gettleman explained the basics to her, Schwartz said in a podcast interview on January 3, produced by Israel’s Channel 12 and conducted in Hebrew.

Gettleman, she said, was concerned they “get at least two sources for every detail we put into the article, cross-check information. Do we have forensic evidence? Do we have visual evidence? Apart from telling our reader ‘this happened,’ what can we say? Can we tell what happened to whom?”

Schwartz said she was initially reluctant to take the assignment because she did not want to look at visual images of potential assaults and because she lacked the expertise to conduct such an investigation.

“Victims of sexual assault are women who have experienced something, and then to come and sit in front of such a woman — who am I anyway?” she said. “I have no qualifications.”

Nonetheless, she began working with Gettleman on the story, she explained in the podcast interview. Gettleman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, is an international correspondent, and when he is sent to a bureau, he works with news assistants and freelancers on stories. In this case, several newsroom sources familiar with the process said, Schwartz and Sella did the vast majority of the ground reporting, while Gettleman focused on the framing and writing.

The resulting report, published in late December, was headlined “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” It was a bombshell and galvanized the Israeli war effort at a time when even some of Israel’s allies were expressing concern over its large-scale killing of civilians in Gaza. Inside the newsroom, the article was met with praise from editorial leaders but skepticism from other Times journalists. The paper’s flagship podcast “The Daily” attempted to turn the article into an episode, but it didn’t manage to get through a fact check, as The Intercept previously reported. (In a statement received after publication, a Times spokesperson said, “No Daily episode was killed due to fact checking failures.”)

The fear among Times staffers who have been critical of the paper’s Gaza coverage is that Schwartz will become a scapegoat for what is a much deeper failure. She may harbor animosity toward Palestinians, lack the experience with investigative journalism, and feel conflicting pressures between being a supporter of Israel’s war effort and a Times reporter, but Schwartz did not commission herself and Sella to report one of the most consequential stories of the war. Senior leadership at the New York Times did.

Schwartz said as much in an interview with Israeli Army Radio on December 31. “The New York Times said, ‘Let’s do an investigation into sexual violence’ — it was more a case of them having to convince me,” she said. Her host cut her off: “It was a proposal of The New York Times, the entire thing?”

“Unequivocally. Unequivocally. Obviously. Of course,” she said. “The paper stood behind us 200 percent and gave us the time, the investment, the resources to go in-depth with this investigation as much as needed.”

Shortly after the war broke out, some editors and reporters complained that Times standards barred them from referring to Hamas as “terrorists.” The rationale from the standards department, run for 14 years by Philip Corbett, had long been that Hamas was the de facto administrator of a specific territory, rather than a stateless terror group. Deliberately killing civilians, went the argument, was not enough to label a group terrorists, as that label could apply quite broadly.

Corbett, after October 7, defended the policy in the face of pressure, newsroom sources said, but he lost. On October 19, an email went out on behalf of Executive Editor Joe Kahn saying that Corbett had asked to step back from his position. “After 14 years as the embodiment of Times standards, Phil Corbett has told us he’d like to step back a bit and let someone else take the leading role in this crucial effort,” Times leadership explained. Three newsroom sources said the move was tied to the pressure he was under to soften coverage in Israel’s favor. One of the social media posts that Schwartz liked, triggering the Times review, made the case that, for Israeli propaganda purposes, Hamas should be likened at all times to the Islamic State. A Times spokesperson told The Intercept, “Your understanding about Phil Corbett is flatly untrue.” In a statement received after publication, “Phil had asked to change roles before Joe Kahn even became executive editor in June 2022. And it had absolutely nothing to do with a dispute over coverage.”

Since the revelations regarding Schwartz’s recent social media activity, her byline has not appeared in the paper and she has not attended editorial meetings. The paper said that a review into her social media “likes” is ongoing. “Those ‘likes’’ are unacceptable violations of our company policy,” said a Times spokesperson.

The bigger scandal may be the reporting itself, the process that allowed it into print, and the life-altering impact the reporting had for thousands of Palestinians whose deaths were justified by the alleged systematic sexual violence orchestrated by Hamas the paper claimed to have exposed.

Another frustrated Times reporter who has also worked as an editor there said, “A lot of focus will understandably, rightfully, be directed at Schwartz but this is most clearly poor editorial decision making that undermines all the other great work being tirelessly done across the paper — both related and completely unrelated to the war — that manages to challenge our readers and meet our standards.”

“A lot of focus will understandably, rightfully, be directed at Schwartz but this is most clearly poor editorial decision.”

The Channel 12 podcast interview with Schwartz, which The Intercept translated from Hebrew, opens a window into the reporting process on the controversial story and suggests that The New York Times’s mission was to bolster a predetermined narrative.

In a response to The Intercept’s questions about Schwartz’s podcast interview, a spokesperson for the New York Times walked back the blockbuster article’s framing that evidence shows Hamas had weaponized sexual violence to a softer claim that “there may have been systematic use of sexual assault.”

Times International editor Phil Pan said in a statement that he stands by the work. “Ms. Schwartz was part of a rigorous reporting and editing process,” he said. “She made valuable contributions and we saw no evidence of bias in her work. We remain confident in the accuracy of our reporting and stand by the team’s investigation. But as we have said, her ‘likes’ of offensive and opinionated social media posts, predating her work with us, are unacceptable.”

After this story was published, Schwartz, who did not respond to a request for comment, tweeted to thank the Times for “standing behind the important stories we have published.” She added, “The recent attacks against me will not deter me from continuing my work.” Addressing her social media activity, Schwartz said, “I understand why people who do not know me were offended by the inadvertent ‘like’ I pressed on 10/7 and I apologize for that.” At least three of her “likes” have been the subject of public scrutiny.

In the podcast interview, Schwartz details her extensive efforts to get confirmation from Israeli hospitals, rape crisis centers, trauma recovery facilities, and sex assault hotlines in Israel, as well as her inability to get a single confirmation from any of them. “She was told there had been no complaints made of sexual assaults,” the Times spokesperson acknowledged after The Intercept brought the Channel 12 podcast episode to the paper’s attention. “This however was just the very first step of her research. She then describes the unfolding of evidence, testimonies, and eventual evidence that there may have been systematic use of sexual assault,” the spokesperson asserted. “She details her research steps and emphasizes the Times’s strict standards to corroborate evidence, and meetings with reporters and editors to discuss probing questions and think critically about the story.”

The question has never been whether individual acts of sexual assault may have occurred on October 7. Rape is not uncommon in war, and there were also several hundred civilians who poured into Israel from Gaza that day in a “second wave,” contributing to and participating in the mayhem and violence. The central issue is whether the New York Times presented solid evidence to support its claim that there were newly reported details “establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7” — a claim stated in the headline that Hamas deliberately deployed sexual violence as a weapon of war.

Israel reservists search for evidence and human remains in Kibbutz Be’eri, southern Israel, on Feb. 21, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

Schwartz began her work on the violence of October 7 where one would expect, by calling around to the designated “Room 4” facilities in 11 Israeli hospitals that examine and treat potential victims of sexual violence, including rape. “First thing I called them all, and they told me, ‘No, no complaint of sexual assault was received,’” she recalled in the podcast interview. “I had a lot of interviews which didn’t lead anywhere. Like, I would go to all kinds of psychiatric hospitals, sit in front of the staff, all of them are fully committed to the mission and no one had met a victim of sexual assault.”

The next step was to call the manager of the sexual assault hotline in Israel’s south, which proved equally fruitless. The manager told her they had no reports of sexual violence. She described the call as a “crazy in-depth conversation” where she pressed for specific cases. “Did anyone call you? Did you hear anything?” she recalled asking. “How could it be that you didn’t?”

As Schwartz began her own efforts to find evidence of sexual assault, the first specific allegations of rape began to emerge. A person identified in anonymous media interviews as a paramedic from the Israeli Air Force medical unit 669 claimed he saw evidence that two teenage girls at Kibbutz Nahal Oz had been raped and murdered in their bedroom. The man made other outrageous claims, however, that called his report into question. He claimed another rescuer “pulled out of the garbage” a baby who’d been stabbed multiple times. He also said he had seen “Arabic sentences that were written on entrances to houses … with the blood of the people that were living in the houses.” No such messages exist, and the story of the baby in the trashcan has been debunked. The bigger problem was that no two girls at the kibbutz fit the source’s description. In future interviews, he changed the location to Kibbutz Be’eri. But no victims killed there matched the description either, as Mondoweiss reported.

After seeing these interviews, Schwartz started calling people at Kibbutz Be’eri and other kibbutzim that were targeted on October 7 in an effort to track down the story. “Nothing. There was nothing,” she said. “No one saw or heard anything.” She then reached the unit 669 paramedic who relayed to Schwartz the same story he had told other media outlets, which she says convinced her there was a systematic nature to the sexual violence. “I say, ‘OK, so it happened, one person saw it happen in Be’eri, so it can’t be just one person, because it’s two girls. It’s sisters. It’s in the room. Something about it is systematic, something about it feels to me that it’s not random,” Schwartz concluded on the podcast.

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Schwartz said she then began a series of extensive conversations with Israeli officials from Zaka, a private ultra-Orthodox rescue organization that has been documented to have mishandled evidence and spread multiple false stories about the events of October 7, including debunked allegations of Hamas operatives beheading babies and cutting the fetus from a pregnant woman’s body. Its workers are not trained forensic scientists or crime scene experts. “When we go into a house, we use our imagination,” said Yossi Landau, a senior Zaka official, describing the group’s work at the October 7 attack sites. “The bodies were telling us what happened, that’s what happened.” Landau is featured in the Times report, though no mention is made of his well-documented track record of disseminating sensational stories of atrocities that were later proven false. Schwartz said that in her initial interviews, Zaka members did not make any specific allegations of rape, but described the general condition of bodies they said they saw. “They told me, ‘Yes, we saw naked women,’ or ‘We saw a woman without underwear.’ Both naked without underwear, and tied with zip ties. And sometimes not zip ties, sometimes a rope or a string of a hoodie.”

Schwartz continued to look for evidence at various sites of attack and found no witnesses to corroborate stories of rape. “And so I searched a lot in the kibbutzim, and apart from this testimony of [the Israeli military paramedic] and additionally, here and there, Zaka people — the stories, like, didn’t emerge from there,” she said.

As she continued to work the phones with rescue officials, Schwartz then saw interviews that international news channels began airing with Shari Mendes, an American architect who serves in a rabbinical unit of the Israel Defense Forces. Mendes, who was deployed to a morgue to prepare bodies for burial after the October 7 attacks, claimed to have seen voluminous evidence of sexual assaults.

“We saw evidence of rape,” Mendes stated in one interview. “Pelvises were broken, and it probably takes a lot to break a pelvis … and this was also among grandmothers down to small children. This is not just something we saw on the internet, we saw these bodies with our own eyes.” Mendes has been a ubiquitous figure in the Israeli government and major media narratives on sexual violence on October 7, despite the fact that she has no medical or forensic credentials to legally determine rape. She had also spoken about other violence on October 7, telling the Daily Mail in October, “A baby was cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded and then the mother was beheaded.” No pregnant woman died that day, according to the official Israeli list of those killed in the attacks, and the independent research collective October 7 Fact Check said Mendes’s story was false.

“I kept wondering all the time, whether if I just hear about rape and see rape and think about it, whether that’s just because I’m leading toward that.”

After Schwartz saw interviews with Mendes, she was further convinced that the systematic rape narrative was true. “I’m like — wow, what is this?” she recalled. “And it feels to me like it’s starting to approach a plurality, even if you don’t know which numbers to put on it yet.”

At the same time, Schwartz said that she felt conflicted at times, wondering if she was becoming convinced of the truth of the overarching story precisely because she was looking for evidence to support the claim. “I kept wondering all the time, whether if I just hear about rape and see rape and think about it, whether that’s just because I’m leading toward that,” she said. She pushed those doubts aside. By the time Schwartz interviewed Mendes, the IDF reservist’s story had ricocheted around the world and been conclusively debunked: No baby was cut from a mother and beheaded. Yet Schwartz and the New York Times would go on to rely on Mendes’s testimony, as well as those of other witnesses with track records of making unreliable claims and lacking forensic credentials. No mention was made of questions about Mendes’s credibility.

Shari Mendes speaks during a special event to address sexual violence during October 7 Hamas terror attacks held at U.N. headquarters, on Dec. 4, 2023, in New York City. Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

How Schwartz landed in such an extraordinary position at a crucial moment in the war is not entirely clear. Prior to joining the Times as a stringer last fall, Sella was a freelance journalist covering stories on issues ranging from “food, photography, and culture to peace efforts, economics, and the occupation,” according to his LinkedIn profile. Sella’s first collaboration with Gettleman, published on October 14, was a look at the trauma experienced by students at a university in southern Israel. For Schwartz, her first byline landed on November 14.

“Israeli police officials shared more evidence on Tuesday of atrocities committed during the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks, saying they had collected testimonies from more than a thousand witnesses and survivors about sexual violence and other abuses,” Schwartz reported. The story went on to quote Israel’s police chief, Kobi Shabtai, explaining a litany of evidence of gruesome killings and sexual assaults on October 7.

“This is the most extensive investigation the State of Israel has ever known,” Shabtai said in the Schwartz article, promising ample evidence would soon be provided.

When the Times later produced its definitive “Screams Without Words” investigation, however, Schwartz and her partners reported that, contrary to Shabtai’s claim, forensic evidence of sexual violence was non-existent. Without acknowledging the past statements by Shabtai in the Times, the paper reported that quick funerals in accordance with Jewish tradition meant evidence was not preserved. Experts told the Times that sexual violence in wars often leaves “limited forensic evidence.”

Read our complete coverage

Israel’s War on Gaza

On the podcast, Schwartz said her next step was to go to a new holistic therapy facility established to address the trauma of October 7 victims, particularly those who endured the carnage at the Nova music festival. Opened a week after the attacks, the facility began welcoming hundreds of survivors where they could seek counseling, do yoga, and receive alternative medicine, as well as acupuncture, sound healing, and reflexology treatments. They called it Merhav Marpe, or Healing Space.

In multiple visits to Merhav Marpe, Schwartz again said in the podcast interview that she found no direct evidence of rapes or sexual violence. She expressed frustration with the therapists and counselors at the facility, saying they engaged in “a conspiracy of silence.” “Everyone, even those who heard these kinds of things from people, they felt very committed to their patients, or even just to people who assisted their patients, not to reveal things,” she said.

In the end, Schwartz came away with only innuendo and general statements from the therapists about how people process trauma, including sexual violence and rape. She said potential victims might be ashamed to speak out, experiencing survivors’ guilt, or were still in shock. “Perhaps also because Israeli society is conservative, there was some inclination to keep silent about this issue of sexual abuse,” Schwartz speculated. “On top of this, there is probably the added dimension of the religious-national aspect, that this was done by a terrorist, by someone from Hamas,” she added. “There were lots and lots of layers that made it so that they didn’t speak.”

According to the published Times article, “Two therapists said they were working with a woman who was gang raped at the rave and was in no condition to talk to investigators or reporters.”

Schwartz said she had focused on the kibbutzim because she had initially determined it was unlikely sexual assaults had occurred at the Nova music festival. “I was very skeptical that it happened at the area of the party, because everyone I spoke to among the survivors told me about a chase, a race, like, about moving from place to place,” she recalled. “How would they [have had the time] to mess with a woman, like — it is impossible. Either you hide, or you — or you die. Also it’s public, the Nova … such an open space.”

Israeli solders stand at the Nova music festival site, on Dec. 21, 2023, in Re’im, Israel. Photo: Maja Hitij/Getty Images

Schwartz watched interviews given to international media outlets by Raz Cohen, who attended the Nova festival. A veteran of Israel’s special forces, Cohen did multiple interviews about a rape he claimed to have witnessed. A few days after the attacks, he told PBS NewsHour that he had witnessed multiple rapes. “The terrorists, people from Gaza, raped girls. And after they raped them, they killed them, murdered them with knives, or the opposite, killed — and after they raped, they — they did that,” he said. At an appearance on CNN on January 4, he described seeing one rape and said the assailants were “five guys — five civilians from Gaza, normal guys, not soldiers, not Nukhba,” referring to Hamas’s elite commando force. “It was regular people from Gaza with normal clothes.”

In Cohen’s interview with Schwartz for the Times:

He said he then saw five men, wearing civilian clothes, all carrying knives and one carrying a hammer, dragging a woman across the ground. She was young, naked and screaming.

‘They all gather around her,’ Mr. Cohen said. ‘She’s standing up. They start raping her. I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words.”

“Then one of them raises a knife,” he said, “and they just slaughtered her.”

It was this interview that gave the Times its title: “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” That Cohen had described alleged assailants as not being members of Hamas undermines the headline, but it remains unchanged. The Times did not address Cohen’s earlier claims that he witnessed multiple rapes.

Schwartz said in the podcast interview that, since the Times insisted on at least two sources, she asked Cohen to give her the contact information of the other people he was hiding with in the bush, so she could corroborate his story of the rape. She recalled, “Raz hides. In the bush next to him lies his friend Shoam. They get to this bush. There are two other people on the other side looking to the other direction, and another, fifth, person. Five people in the same bush. Only Raz sees all the things he sees, everyone else is looking in a different direction.”

Despite saying on the podcast that only Cohen witnessed the event and the others were looking in different directions, in the Times story Shoam Gueta is presented as a corroborating witness to the rape: “He said he saw at least four men step out of the van and attack the woman, who ended up ‘between their legs.’ He said that they were ‘talking, giggling and shouting,’ and that one of them stabbed her with a knife repeatedly, ‘literally butchering her.’” Gueta did not mention witnessing a rape in an interview he did with NBC News on October 8, a day after the attack, but he did describe seeing a woman murdered with a knife. “We saw terrorists killing people, burning cars, shouting everywhere,” Gueta told NBC. “If you just say something, if you make any noise, you’ll be murdered.” Gueta subsequently deployed to Gaza with the IDF and has posted many videos on TikTok of himself rummaging through Palestinian homes. Cohen and Gueta did not respond to requests for comment.

The independent site October 7 Fact Check, Mondoweiss, and journalists Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada and Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone have flagged numerous inconsistencies and contradictions in the stories told in the Times report, including the account of Cohen, who had initially said “he chose not to look, but he could hear them laughing constantly.”

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Under pressure internally to defend the veracity of the story, the Times reassigned Gettleman, Schwartz, and Sella to effectively re-report the story, resulting in an article published on January 29. Cohen declined to speak to them, they reported: “Asked this month why he had not mentioned rape at first, Mr. Cohen cited the stress of his experience, and said in a text message that he had not realized then that he was one of the few surviving witnesses. He declined to be interviewed again, saying he was working to recover from the trauma he suffered.”

In addition to Cohen’s testimony, Schwartz said on the Channel 12 podcast that she also watched video of an interrogation of a Palestinian prisoner taken by the IDF whom she said described “girls” being dragged by Palestinian attackers into the woods near the Nova festival. She was also moved, she said, by a clip of an interview she watched in November at a press conference hosted by Israeli officials, the one that became the focus of her first Times article.

An accountant named Sapir described a lurid scene of rape and mutilation, and Schwartz said she became fully convinced there was a systematic program of sexual violence by Hamas. “Her testimony is crazy, and hair-raising, and huge, and barbaric,” Schwartz said. “And it’s not just rape — it’s rape, and amputation, and … and I realize it’s a bigger story than I imagined, [with] many locations, and then the picture starts to emerge, What is going on here?”

The Times report states they interviewed Sapir for two hours at a cafe in southern Israel, and she described witnessing multiple rapes, including an incident where one attacker rapes a woman as another cuts off her breast with a box cutter.

At the press conference in November, Israeli authorities said they were collecting and examining forensic materials that would confirm Sapir’s specifically detailed accounts. “Police say they are still gathering evidence (DNA etc) from rape victims in addition to eyewitnesses to build the strongest case possible,” said a correspondent who covered the press event. Such a scene would produce significant amounts of physical evidence, yet Israeli officials have, to date, been unable to provide it. “I have circumstantial evidence, but in the end, it’s my duty to find supporting evidence for her story and discover the victims’ identities,” said Superintendent Adi Edri, the Israeli official leading the investigation into sexual violence on October 7, a week after the Times report went online. “At this stage, I have no specific bodies.”

In the Channel 12 podcast, Schwartz is asked if firsthand testimonies of women who survived rape on October 7 exist. “I can’t really speak about this, but the vast majority of women who have been sexually assaulted on October 7 were shot immediately after, and that’s [where] the big numbers [are],” she replied. “The majority are corpses. Some women managed to escape and survive.” She added, “I do know that there is a very significant element of dissociation when it comes to sexual assault. So a lot of times they don’t remember. They don’t remember everything. They remember fragments of the events, and they can’t always describe how they ended up on the road and [how they were] rescued.”

In early December, Israeli officials launched an intensive public campaign, accusing the international community and specifically feminist leaders of standing silent in the face of the widespread, systemic sexual violence of Hamas’s October 7 attack. The PR effort was rolled out at the United Nations on December 4, with an event hosted by the Israeli ambassador and the former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg. The feminist organizations targeted by the pro-Israel figures were caught flat-footed, as charges of sexual violence had not yet circulated widely.

Sheryl Sandberg speaks during a special event to address sexual violence during October 7 Hamas terror attacks held at U.N. headquarters on Dec. 4, 2023, in New York City. Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Sandberg was also quoted attacking women’s rights organizations in a December 4 New York Times article, headlined “What We Know About Sexual Violence During the Oct. 7 Attacks on Israel” and whose publication coincided with the launch of the PR campaign at the U.N. The article, also reported by Gettleman, Schwartz, and Sella, relied on claims made by Israeli officials and acknowledged the Times had not yet been able to corroborate the allegations. A revealing correction was subsequently appended to the story: “An earlier version of this article misstated the kind of evidence Israeli police have gathered in investigating accusations of sexual violence committed on Oct. 7 in the attack by Hamas against Israel. The police are relying mainly on witness testimony, not on autopsies or forensic evidence.”

Israel promised it had extraordinary amounts of eyewitness testimony. “Investigators have gathered ‘tens of thousands’ of testimonies of sexual violence committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, according to the Israeli police, including at the site of a music festival that was attacked,” Schwartz, Gettleman, and Stella reported on December 4. Those testimonies never materialized.

“I’m also an Israeli, but I also work for New York Times. So all the time I’m like in this place between the hammer and the anvil.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hammered on the theme in a December 5 speech in Tel Aviv. “I say to the women’s rights organizations, to the human rights organizations, you’ve heard of the rape of Israeli women, horrible atrocities, sexual mutilation? Where the hell are you?” The same day, President Joe Biden gave a speech in which he said, “The world can’t just look away — what’s going on. It’s on all of us — the government, international organizations, civil society, individual citizens — to forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation — without equivocation, without exception.”

The two-month-long Times investigation was still being edited and revised, Schwartz said in the podcast, when she started to feel concerned about the timing. “So I said, ‘We’re missing momentum. Maybe the U.N. isn’t addressing sexual assault because no [media outlet] will come out with a declaration about what happened there.’” If the Times story doesn’t publish soon, she said, “it may no longer be interesting.” Schwartz said the delay was explained to her internally as, “We don’t want to make people sad before Christmas.”

She also said that Israeli police sources were pressuring her to move quickly to publish. She said they asked her, “What, does the New York Times not believe there were sexual assaults here?” Schwartz felt like she was in the middle.

“I’m also in this place, I’m also an Israeli, but I also work for New York Times,” she said. “So all the time I’m like in this place between the hammer and the anvil.”

Police officers check cars that were damaged during Hamas’s attack on the Israeli south border at a collection site, on Oct. 31, 2023, in Netivot, Israel. Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images

The December 28 article “Screams Without Words” opened with the story of Gal Abdush, described by the Times as “the woman in the black dress.” Video of her charred body appeared to show her bottomless. “Israeli police officials said they believed that Ms. Abdush was raped,” the Times reported. The article labeled Abdush “a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the October 7 attacks.” The Times report mentions WhatsApp messages from Abdush and her husband to their family, but doesn’t mention that some family members believe that the crucial messages make the Israeli officials’ claims implausible. As Mondoweiss later reported, Abdush texted the family at 6:51 a.m., saying they were in trouble at the border. At 7:00, her husband messaged to say she’d been killed. Her family said the charring came from a grenade.

“It doesn’t make any sense,”said Abdush’s sister, that in a short timespan “they raped her, slaughtered her, and burned her?” Speaking about the rape allegation, her brother-in-law said: “The media invented it.”

Another relative suggested the family was pressured, under false pretenses, to speak with the reporters. Abdush’s sister wrote on Instagram that the Times reporters “mentioned they want to write a report in memory of Gal, and that’s it. If we knew that the title would be about rape and butchery, we’d never accept that.” In its follow-up story, the Times sought to discredit her initial comment, quoting Abdush’s sister as saying she “had been ‘confused about what happened’ and was trying to ‘protect my sister.’”

The woman who filmed Abdush on October 7 told the Israeli site YNet that Schwartz and Sella had pressured her into giving the paper access to her photos and videos for the purposes of serving Israeli propaganda. “They called me again and again and explained how important it is to Israeli hasbara,” she recalled, using the term for public diplomacy, which in practice refers to Israeli propaganda efforts directed at international audiences.

At every turn, when the New York Times reporters ran into obstacles confirming tips, they turned to anonymous Israeli officials or witnesses who’d already been interviewed repeatedly in the press. Months after setting off on their assignment, the reporters found themselves exactly where they had begun, relying overwhelmingly on the word of Israeli officials, soldiers, and Zaka workers to substantiate their claim that more than 30 bodies of women and girls were discovered with signs of sexual abuse. On the Channel 12 podcast, Schwartz said the last remaining piece she needed for the story was a solid number from the Israeli authorities about any possible survivors of sexual violence. “We have four and we can stand behind that number,” she said she was told by the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs. No details were provided. The Times story ultimately reported there were “at least three women and one man who were sexually assaulted and survived.”

When the story was finally published on December 28 Schwartz described the flood of emotions and reactions online and in Israel. “First of all, in the paper, we gave it a very, very prominent place, which is, apropos all my fears — there is no greater show of confidence than being put on the front page,” she said. “In Israel, the reactions are amazing. Here I think I was given closure, seeing that all the media treat the article and treat it as something of [a] thank you for putting a number on it. Thank you for saying there were many cases, that it was a pattern. Thank you for giving it a title which suggests that maybe there is some organizing logic behind it, that this is not some isolated act of some person acting on his own initiative.”

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Times staffers who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisal described the “Screams Without Words” article as the product of the same mistakes that led to the disastrous editor’s note and retraction on Rukmini Callimachi’s podcast “Caliphate” and print series on the Islamic State group. Kahn, the current executive editor, was widely known as a promoter and protector of Callimachi. The reporting, which the Times determined in an internal review was not subjected to sufficient scrutiny by top editors and fell short of the paper’s standards on ensuring accuracy, had been a finalist for a 2019 Pulitzer Prize. That honor, along with other prestigious awards, was rescinded in the wake of the scandal.

Margaret Sullivan, the last public editor for the New York Times to serve a full term before the paper discarded the position in 2017, said that she hopes such an investigation will be launched into the “Screams Without Words” story. “I sometimes joke ‘it’s another good day not to be the New York Times public editor’ but the organization could *really* use one right now to investigate on behalf of the readers,” she wrote.

At some story meetings, Schwartz said on the Channel 12 podcast, editors with Middle East expertise were there to offer probing questions. “We had a weekly meeting, and you bring out the status of your work on your project,” she said. “And Times writers and editors who are concerned with Middle Eastern affairs coming from all kinds of places in the world, they ask you questions that challenge you, and it’s excellent that they do that, because you yourself, all the time, like — you don’t believe yourself for a moment.”

Those questions were challenging to answer, she said: “One of the questions you get asked — and it’s the hardest ones to not be able to answer — if this has happened in so many places, how can it be that there is no forensic evidence? How can it be that there is no documentation? How can it be that there are no records? A report? An Excel spreadsheet? You are telling me about Shari [Mendes]? That’s someone who saw with her own eyes, and is now speaking to you — is there no [written] report to make what she’s saying authoritative?”

The host interjected. “And you went at that stage to those official Israeli authorities, and asked that they give you — something, anything. And how did they respond?”

“‘There is nothing,’” Schwartz said she was told. “‘There was no collection of evidence from the scene.’”

But broadly, she said, the editors were fully behind the project. “There was no skepticism on their part, ever,” she claimed. “It still doesn’t mean I had [the story], because I didn’t have a ‘second source’ for many things.”

A Times spokesperson pointed to this portion of the interview as evidence of the paper’s rigorous process: “We have reviewed the wider transcript and it’s clear you’re persisting in taking quotes out of context. In the portion of the interview you refer to, Anat describes being encouraged by editors to corroborate evidence and sources before we’d publish the investigation. Later, she discusses regular meetings with editors where they would ask ‘hard’ and ‘challenging’ questions, and the time it took to undertake the second and third stages of sourcing. This is all part of a rigorous reporting process and one which we continue to stand behind.”

In her interview with the Channel 12 podcast, Schwartz said she began working with Gettleman soon after October 7. “My job was to help him. He had all kinds of thoughts about things, about articles he wanted to do,” she recalled. “On the first day, there were already three things on [his] lineup, and then I saw that at number three was ‘Sexual Violence.’” Schwartz said that in the initial aftermath of the October 7 attacks, there was not much focus on sexual assaults, but by the time she began working for Gettleman, rumors began spreading that such acts had taken place, most of it based on the commentary of Zaka workers and IDF officials and soldiers.

After the article was published, Gettleman was invited to speak on a panel about sexual violence at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. His efforts were lauded by the panel and its host, Sandberg, the former Facebook executive. Instead of doubling down on reporting that helped win the New York Times a prestigious Polk Award, Gettleman dismissed the need for reporters to provide “evidence.”

“What we found — I don’t want to even use the word ‘evidence,’ because evidence is almost like a legal term that suggests you’re trying to prove an allegation or prove a case in court,” Gettleman told Sandberg. “That’s not my role. We all have our roles. And my role is to document, is to present information, is to give people a voice. And we found information along the entire chain of violence, so of sexual violence.”

Gettleman said his mission was to move people. “It’s really difficult to get this information and then to shape it,” he said. “That’s our job as journalists: to get the information and to share the story in a way that makes people care. Not just to inform, but to move people. And that’s what I’ve been doing for a long time.”

One Times reporter said colleagues are wondering what a balanced approach might look like: “I am waiting to see if the paper will report in depth, deploying the same kind of resources and means, on the United Nations’ report that documented the horrors committed against Palestinian women.”

Update: February 29, 2024

This story has been updated to include comments tweeted after publication by Anat Schwartz. This story has also been updated to include a statement from the Times, received after publication, that standards editor Phil Corbett planned to leave as of June 2022 and regarding an episode of “The Daily” that never aired.

Correction: February 29, 2024

This story has been corrected to remove an errant reference to unnamed experts in a New York Times article; the Times named one expert. A reference to guests at a Times editorial meeting, made due to a translation error, has been removed; the attendees were editors. This story has been corrected to reflect that Adam Sella is the nephew of Anat Schwartz’s partner, not Schwartz.

The Intercept · by Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, Daniel Boguslaw · February 29, 2024

10. Is the United States overestimating China’s power?

Probably, yes. But I would rather overestimate than underestimate. unless we can get it about right with some level of certainty.

Is the United States overestimating China’s power?

theconversation.com · by Dan Murphy

Which country is the greatest threat to the United States? The answer, according to a large proportion of Americans, is clear: China.

Half of all Americans responding to a mid-2023 survey from the Pew Research Center cited China as the biggest risk to the U.S., with Russia trailing in second with 17%. Other surveys, such as from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, show similar findings.

Senior figures in recent U.S. administrations appear to agree with this assessment. In 2020, John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence under President Donald Trump, wrote that Beijing “intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically.”

The White House’s current National Defense Strategy is not so alarmist, referring to China as the U.S.’s “pacing challenge” – a reference that, in the words of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, apparently means China has “the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the power to do so.”

As someone who has followed China for over a quarter century, I believe that many observers have overestimated the country’s apparent power. Recent challenges to China’s economy have led some people to reevaluate just how powerful China is. But hurdles to the growth of Chinese power extend far beyond the economic sector – and failing to acknowledge this reality may distort how policymakers and the public view the shift of geopolitical gravity in what was once called “the Chinese century.”

In overestimating China’s comprehensive power, the U.S. risks misallocating resources and attention, directing them toward a threat that is not as imminent as one might otherwise assume.

Let me be clear: I’m not suggesting that China is weak or about to collapse. Nor am I making an argument about China’s intentions. But rather, it is time to right-size the American understanding of the country’s comprehensive power. This process includes acknowledging both China’s tremendous accomplishments and its significant challenges. Doing so is, I believe, mission critical as the United States and China seek to put a floor underneath a badly damaged bilateral relationship.

Headline numbers

Why have so many people misjudged China’s power?

One key reason for this misconception is that from a distance, China does indeed appear to be an unstoppable juggernaut. The high-level numbers bedazzle observers: Beijing commands the world’s largest or second-largest economy depending on the type of measurement; it has a rapidly growing military budget and sky-high numbers of graduates in engineering and math; and oversees huge infrastructure projects – laying down nearly 20,000 miles of high-speed rail tracks in less than a dozen years and building bridges at record pace.

But these eye-catching metrics don’t tell a complete story. Look under the hood and you’ll see that China faces a raft of intractable difficulties.

The Chinese economy, which until recently was thought of as unstoppable, is beginning to falter due to deflation, a growing debt-to-gross domestic product ratio and the impact of a real estate crisis.

China’s other challenges

And it isn’t only China’s economy that has been overestimated.

While Beijing has put in considerable effort building its soft power and sending its leadership around the world, China enjoys fewer friends than one might expect, even with its willing trade partners. North Korea, Pakistan, Cambodia and Russia may count China as an important ally, but these relationships are not, I would argue, nearly as strong as those enjoyed by the United States globally. Even in the Asia-Pacific region there is a strong argument to say Washington enjoys greater sway, considering the especially close ties with allies Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Even though Chinese citizens report broad support for the Communist Party, Beijing’s capricious COVID-19 policies paired with an unwillingness to use foreign-made vaccines have dented perceptions of government effectiveness.

President Joe Biden participates in a virtual meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Further, China’s population is aging and unbalanced. In 2016, the country of 1.4 billion saw about 18 million births; in 2023, that number dropped to about 9 million. This alarming fall is not only in line with trends toward a shrinking working-age population, but also perhaps indicative of pessimism among Chinese citizens about the country’s future.

And at times, the actions of the Chinese government read like an implicit admission that the domestic situation is not all that rosy. For example, I take it as a sign of concern over systemic risk that China detained a million or more people, as has happened with the Muslim minority in Xinjiang province. Similarly, China’s policing of its internet suggests concerns over collective action by its citizens.

The sweeping anti-corruption campaign Beijing has embarked on, purges of the country’s military and the disappearance of leading business figures all hint at a government seeking to manage significant risk.

I hear many stories from contacts in China about people with money or influence hedging their bets by establishing a foothold outside the country. This aligns with research that has shown that in recent years, on average as much money leaves China via “irregular means” as for foreign direct investment.

A three-dimensional view

The perception of China’s inexorable rise is cultivated by the governing Communist Party, which obsessively seeks to manufacture and control narratives in state media and beyond that show it as all-knowing, farsighted and strategic. And perhaps this argument finds a receptive audience in segments of the United States concerned about its own decline.

It would help explain why a recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey found that about a third of American respondents see the Chinese and American economies as equal and another third see the Chinese economy as stronger. In reality, per capita GDP in the United States is six times that of China.

Of course, there is plenty of danger in predicting China’s collapse. Undoubtedly, the country has seen huge accomplishments since the People’s Republic of China’s founding in 1949: Hundreds of millions of people brought out of poverty, extraordinary economic development and impressive GDP growth over several decades, and growing diplomatic clout. These successes are especially noteworthy given that the People’s Republic of China is less than 75 years old and was in utter turmoil during the disastrous Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, when intellectuals were sent to the countryside, schools stopped functioning and chaos reigned. In many cases, China’s successes merit emulation and include important lessons for developing and developed countries alike.

China may well be the “pacing challenge” that many in the U.S. believe. But it also faces significant internal challenges that often go under-recognized in evaluating the country’s comprehensive power.

And as the United States and China seek to steady a rocky relationship, it is imperative that the American public and Washington policymakers see China as fully three-dimensional – not some flat caricature that fits the needs of the moment. Otherwise, there is a risk of fanning the flames of xenophobia and neglecting opportunities for partnership that would benefit the United States.

theconversation.com · by Dan Murphy

11. Live updates: U.S. begins airdropping aid into Gaza, U.S. officials say

But who will be conducting reception operations on the drop zone? This could be even more dangerous for the civilian population than aid convoys.

Live updates: U.S. begins airdropping aid into Gaza, U.S. officials say

The Washington Post · March 2, 2024

Three U.S. officials confirmed Saturday that airdrops were carried out by C-130 cargo plane and followed similar operations from countries including Egypt, France, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. President Biden announced the move Friday. Humanitarian aid has been scant in the northern part of Gaza, where aid groups are warning of imminent famine.

Here's what to know:

President Biden told reporters Friday that he’s still hoping a cease-fire deal will be reached between Israel and Hamas by the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which starts around March 10, but “we’re not there yet.” Asked what needs to happen in the negotiations, he said there has to be agreement on the timing, and the parties are “still far apart.”

After an aid convoy delivery turned deadly Thursday in Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of 115 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, Biden said the event would complicate negotiations over a potential pause in fighting that would allow the release of those hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

British-owned vessel MV Rubymar has sunk in the Red Sea after being damaged in a Houthi attack last month, Yemen’s internationally recognized government said Saturday, adding that “the sinking of the ship … will cause an environmental disaster.” The Feb. 18 attack caused an 18-mile oil slick and forced the crew to abandon the ship.

At least 30,320 people have been killed and 71,533 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and says 242 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza.

12. Shifting deck chairs to the Titanic's Taiwan side

Shifting deck chairs to the Titanic's Taiwan side - Asia Times

Nothing in the American arsenal can defend US military assets against massed barrages of Chinese missiles in a Taiwan war

asiatimes.com · by David P. Goldman · March 2, 2024

China now has 369 satellites, three times as many as in 2018, according to General Stephen Whiting, head of the US Space Command.

“China and Russia,” Whiting told the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 29, are “moving breathtakingly fast.” He warned in particular about “counterspace” weapons that can destroy American satellites

With perhaps 3,000 advanced anti-ship missiles in its inventory and the capacity to hit moving targets at great distances, China now has an overwhelming firepower advantage in its home theater.

Nothing in the American arsenal can defend US military assets against massed barrages of Chinese missiles. That makes the buzzword “prioritize Asia” – sending more weapons to Taiwan rather than Ukraine – a matter of shifting the deck chairs to the other side of the Titanic.

China has underfunded its large land army and concentrated military spending on coastal defense.

The US national security establishment is struggling to keep its credibility above water after the Ukrainian rout last month at Avdeevka, where Ukrainian units refused orders to deploy in the besieged towns and Ukrainian soldiers reportedly bolted, leaving their wounded as well as their weapons behind.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s government now warns that its defense could crumble by next summer; in fact, this could happen much sooner as the beleaguered Ukrainians run short of artillery ammunition, air defense missiles and frontline manpower.

It’s hard to find a Western defense think tank that has not called on Washington to “prioritize Asia” during the past year. But China has such an overwhelming advantage in firepower, including ballistic and cruise missiles, that whatever additional weapons America might shift to Asia would have negligible impact.

As Brandon Weichert wrote in The National Interest on February 29, China’s “carrier killer” Dong Feng-26B intermediate-range ballistic missile can sink US aircraft carriers. Weichert estimates that China has 1,000 of these advanced systems.

China’s Dong Feng-26 intermediate-range missile. Photo: Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance

Its inventory of cruise missiles is unknown but Chinese state media have published a video of automated factories producing cruise and anti-ship missile components, with one facility reportedly producing 1,000 missile engines per day. The Wall Street Journal reported on January 3 that it takes the US two years to make a cruise missile.

The Pentagon warned in its November 2022 assessment of the Chinese military that enhanced satellite coverage enabled China to target American surface ships at a range of 1,500 kilometers from its coast, rendering most of the US Navy vulnerable in any prospective confrontation. China’s satellite count at the time of that report had doubled since 2018.

Pentagon analysts wrote that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force’s ground-based missile forces complement the air and sea-based precision strike capabilities of the PLA Air Force and the PLA Navy. They added:

DF-21D has a range exceeding 1,500 kilometers, is fitted with a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MaRV) and is reportedly capable of rapidly reloading in the field.

The PLARF continues to grow its inventory of DF-26 IRBMs, which it first revealed in 2015 and fielded in 2016. The multi-role DF-26 is designed to rapidly swap conventional and nuclear warheads and is capable of conducting precision land-attack and anti-ship strikes in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea from mainland China.

In 2020, China fired anti-ship ballistic missiles against a moving target in the South China Sea.

More satellites mean more precise targeting of Chinese missiles against surface targets.

The US Navy’s performance in recent operations against Houthi rebels in the Red Sea does not augur well for its survivability against Chinese missile forces that are orders of magnitude more powerful. In one case, the destroyer USS Gravely had to deploy its Phalanx Gatling guns to destroy a cruise missile only a mile – four seconds – from the ship.

China has the capacity to fire dozens of cruise missiles simultaneously at US targets, not to mention the more powerful DF series ballistic missiles, which rain down vertically from the stratosphere.

“The conventional arm of the PLARF is the largest ground-based missile force in the world, with over 2,200 conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles and with enough anti-ship missiles to attack every US surface combatant vessel in the South China Sea with enough firepower to overcome each ship’s missile defense,” Major Christopher Mihal wrote in The Military Review, a US Army journal, in 2021.

Some prominent US defense analysts argue that despite China’s massive missile advantage, US arms could still defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. An example is former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, a prominent Asia-prioritizer.

He might just as well say that the US could deter an invasion of moon men by dusting the Washington Monument with confectioner’s sugar. China is not stupid enough to mount a D-Day-style invasion of Taiwan across 70 miles of the Taiwan Strait.

It could blockade the island with little effort, as it did for two days in August 2022 when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi conducted a sort-of state visit. Taiwan has less than two weeks’ storage capacity for natural gas. One Chinese missile strike on an LNG carrier bound for Taiwan would potentially turn out the lights.

A Chinese blockade of Taiwan, to be sure, would risk confrontation with the US, and might prompt a counterblockade of oil tankers headed to China, followed by a counter-counter-blockade of oil headed for South Korea and Japan. China produces 80% of its BTUs with domestic energy sources.

South Korea and Japan have next to no domestic energy sources. The same and worse would happen if China invaded.

For the US to regain the advantage around China’s coast would require a massive investment in missile defense, including directed energy weapons. Hypersonic missiles cannot be stopped by ordinary missile defense because the attacking missile flies as fast as the pursuing missile.

The US Navy’s laser weapon program has hit various snags. Image: Popular Mechanics / Facebook Screengrab

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Lasers are effective against slow-moving targets like drones but not against missiles speeding at Mach 5. Washington would have to commit to a multi-year R&D program costing hundreds of billions of dollars with an uncertain outcome.

That in effect is how the US responded to the Soviet advantage in air defense firepower, demonstrated during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. It succeeded then but there is no guarantee of success in any such program.

Congress is in no mood to increase government spending given the explosion of federal debt during the Covid slump. Politicians and defense wonks, though, have to look like they are doing something useful. Shifting the deck chairs away from the Ukraine side of the Titanic is the most credible ploy at their disposal.

Follow David P Goldman on X, formerly Twitter at @davidpgoldman

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asiatimes.com · by David P. Goldman · March 2, 2024

13. The Looming Famine in Gaza

Excerpts:

Finally, a system must be established to protect humanitarian action from military strikes. Humanitarian workers, convoys, and offices in Gaza have repeatedly come under fire, and more than 160 UN staff have been killed since Israel began its operations in the area. A hostage deal could silence the guns for weeks or months, but if the deal breaks down, aid agencies will need an insurance policy for what comes next. There is a precedent for effectively limiting conflict for humanitarian relief in the region: during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, UN staff were embedded with the Israel Defense Forces and successfully coordinated the delivery of aid. A similar arrangement is needed for Gaza, but this time with official U.S. government representation to help guarantee results.

Hamas—the group responsible for the abhorrent October 7 attack—must not interfere with the relief effort, either. The group appears indifferent to the humanitarian suffering of Gaza’s civilians, although aid organizations inside Gaza have reported few instances of its obstruction or diversion of aid deliveries since the fighting started. But Hamas must stop using civilians as human shields, just as Israel must stop reflexively justifying devastating civilian harm in a given area based on reports of Hamas’s presence there.

Famine is close but not yet inevitable. Although famine-level hunger now exists throughout much of Gaza, and malnutrition is rising rapidly, this crisis has not yet translated into widespread excess mortality. The area’s death rates are shocking, but they remain mostly related to war injuries rather than hunger. This means there is a window to reverse the descent toward famine—if there is the political will to do so. But time is of the essence. Once famine-related mortality gains momentum, it is even harder to slow down. The first step will be for the U.S. government to give this challenge the priority it deserves.

The Looming Famine in Gaza

And How to Stop It

By Hardin Lang and Jeremy Konyndyk

March 1, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Hardin Lang and Jeremy Konyndyk · March 1, 2024

According to assessments by the Famine Review Committee, the gold-standard international body that analyzes famine risk, the Gaza Strip now stands on the brink of famine. On February 27, senior United Nations officials warned the UN Security Council that famine is now imminent in Gaza. If famine takes hold, the number of Gazans who die of hunger or disease could outstrip the Israel-Hamas war’s already breathtaking number of civilian deaths. It is still possible to prevent a famine. But the window for action is rapidly narrowing. Unless the fighting stops and Israel halts the siege tactics that are preventing a large-scale relief operation, aid agencies will be unable to avert a full-blown famine and the death toll that comes with it.

In the modern era, famine is both predictable and preventable. Sophisticated early-warning analyses can project the risk of famine with a reliability that rivals hurricane early-warning systems. When these forecasts indicate an impending famine, humanitarian organizations have well-tested strategies at their disposal to avert the worst outcomes, including delivering enriched food products, rolling out innovative ready-to-use malnutrition therapies, and launching proven public health interventions, all deployed through world-class logistics networks.

These interventions, however, succeed only if humanitarians have the space and safety to do their jobs. And that, in turn, depends on politics. At present, the wartime conduct of the Israeli government is both accelerating Gaza’s descent toward mass hunger and obstructing the deployment of the resources necessary to prevent it. In an incident emblematic of the larger problem, a clearly marked UN relief convoy waiting at an Israeli military checkpoint was bombarded on February 5 by Israeli naval forces despite having cleared the movement with the Israeli military in advance. The UN was forced to halt food deliveries to northern Gaza for weeks as a result.

Aid agencies are being denied the resources, access, and security they need to scale up a viable famine-prevention effort. UN and nongovernmental organization facilities have been repeatedly struck in Israeli bombardments. Israeli inspections routinely and arbitrarily prevent critical relief supplies from reaching Gaza. Once aid gets inside, movements within Gaza rely on Israeli government authorizations that are frequently denied, and Israel has yet to establish a reliable process to ensure humanitarian operators are not targeted by their forces.

The United States is likely the only outside power that can ensure a famine is avoided, given the leverage it has with its ally Israel. As negotiations about a second cease-fire and hostages-for-prisoners swap gain steam, the United States has a crucial opportunity to press Israel to change course and allow a major famine-prevention effort. U.S. President Joe Biden must act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales—if the Israeli government does not comply. Famine would not only constitute a humanitarian cataclysm; it would also represent a geopolitical failure that would damage U.S. credibility in the Middle East for years to come.

A PREVENTABLE TRAGEDY

As a champion of the international humanitarian system and the most prominent backer of Israel’s war in Gaza, the United States has a clear moral and geostrategic obligation to take on a stronger leadership role. Even beyond the Middle East, a full-blown famine in Gaza would undermine U.S. efforts to uphold international norms in Ukraine and elsewhere. But Israel’s military conduct and the bureaucratic impediments it has imposed on aid groups remain the principal obstacles to a meaningful humanitarian relief effort for Gaza. It is time for the United States to fully exercise its leverage with Israel in service of rolling out a large and comprehensive aid operation.

The first component of this operation must be a large-scale push to restore access to food through aid delivery and a resumption of the commercial imports that have traditionally supplied most of Gaza’s food. This effort will also depend heavily on expanding fuel imports to restart bakeries and provide cooking fuel for households. A monitoring system should be established to assess food availability in each area of Gaza and avoid supply gaps.

The next line of effort should address rapidly rising cases of malnutrition. Acute malnutrition, which was negligible before the war, now affects over 15 percent of children in northern Gaza, halfway to the famine threshold of 30 percent. According to the UN World Food Program, such a decline in nutritional status in three months is unprecedented. It is critical to establish a screening system for malnutrition, set up inpatient treatment centers for highly severe cases, and import substantial volumes of ready-to-use therapeutic food, a high-calorie paste proven to help children quickly recover from malnutrition.

Over 15 percent of children in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished.

Another top priority must be to repair and resupply health facilities to get the public health system back online. Most deaths in famine result from infections spreading among populations weakened by prolonged hunger. Preventing and treating disease is a critical defense against famine risk, but Gaza’s health system has been devastated almost beyond description. The few remaining facilities are overwhelmed with war-related injuries, leaving little capacity to manage infectious diseases. Reestablishing basic health surveillance will be crucial to detecting infectious disease outbreaks. Cholera treatment and vaccination capacity should be prepared now in case cholera is confirmed.

Many of these diseases spread via contaminated drinking water, and clean water is scarce in Gaza. After October 7, the Israeli government closed pipes supplying the territory with water; these pipes remain turned off in some areas, and Israeli bombardment has destroyed much of the infrastructure that distributes water. Repairs are being prevented by both a lack of humanitarian access and the rejection of replacement pipes and other repair supplies by Israeli inspectors. Other standard interventions, such as the distribution of chlorine tablets to enable households to purify drinking water, have also been blocked by Israeli inspectors. All this must change immediately.

Gaza also needs a mass injection of temporary shelter materials. The absence of shelter contributes greatly to human physical deterioration, especially in winter. Most of Gaza’s population is now displaced. Much of the residential infrastructure has also been destroyed, and people in Gaza are being forced to scrounge framing materials from the rubble. Yet Israeli inspectors continue to block much of the importation of humanitarian shelter materials.

A WAY OUT

An operation on this scale will remain impossible as long as fighting continues. A permanent cease-fire is vital to preventing famine, but an extended truce in the immediate term, tied to a second hostage-prisoner swap, would buy critical time for humanitarian aid groups to begin scaling up efforts. That hostage deal must include modalities to facilitate humanitarian relief and be closely synchronized with a famine-prevention plan to maximize aid delivery. A deal must also stop an Israeli ground offensive into Rafah, where more than 1.4 million Gazans are sheltering in squalid conditions. Such an offensive would be devastating for the civilian population and would disrupt relief efforts across Gaza’s south. A Rafah offensive could become the act that tips the territory officially into famine.

Israeli authorities must allow the free flow of aid into Gaza and stop hindering humanitarian operations in the territory. This would include scaling back dual-use restrictions on critical humanitarian supplies (aid groups have reported that relief truckloads were rejected because they included nail clippers, insulin pens, and green sleeping bags) and establishing clear screening procedures. Limits on fuel imports should also be lifted.

Before October 7, commercial vendors and aid groups were able to send up to 500 trucks into Gaza daily. This pre-conflict capacity would need to be fully restored by expanding scanning facilities, reestablishing dedicated trucking routes, and removing arbitrary requirements put in place after October 7. Aid delivery to the north could be expanded by reopening the Karni and Eres border crossings in the northeast and by facilitating seaborne transport from Cyprus, as the UN did during Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon.

The plan would also need to empower the UN. It should be developed and implemented jointly with Sigrid Kaag, the UN’s senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza. Her office is mandated to lead relief and recovery efforts, and the UN Secretariat and UN member states should provide the resources her team needs to succeed. Kaag can use her briefings to the UN Security Council to update the world on the implementation of the famine-prevention plan and hold different stakeholders accountable for meeting their benchmarks.

More than 160 UN staff have been killed since Israel began its operations in Gaza.

The entire effort would have to lean heavily on the emergency capacities of UN agencies and on international nongovernmental organizations with a presence in Gaza. But the UN Relief and Works Administration would be its logistical backbone. Last month, the United States and other key donors paused funding for UNRWA in response to grave allegations that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the heinous attack on October 7. UNRWA swiftly fired the accused individuals. An independent investigation is now underway, complicated by the fact that Israel has not shared the underlying intelligence with UNRWA, according to UN officials, or even the United States, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The funding freeze has thrown the agency’s operations into doubt. The United States and other donors need to reverse course. Eighty percent of aid to Gaza is delivered via UNRWA, and the agency employs more than 13,000 staff in Gaza, of whom 3,000 work in emergency relief. If UNRWA shuts down, no other agency can step into the breach in the time frame required to avert famine, and senior U.S. officials have acknowledged as much. UNRWA’s mandate is controversial with many Israelis and with some members of the U.S. Congress. But now is not the time to debate the future of the agency.

Finally, a system must be established to protect humanitarian action from military strikes. Humanitarian workers, convoys, and offices in Gaza have repeatedly come under fire, and more than 160 UN staff have been killed since Israel began its operations in the area. A hostage deal could silence the guns for weeks or months, but if the deal breaks down, aid agencies will need an insurance policy for what comes next. There is a precedent for effectively limiting conflict for humanitarian relief in the region: during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, UN staff were embedded with the Israel Defense Forces and successfully coordinated the delivery of aid. A similar arrangement is needed for Gaza, but this time with official U.S. government representation to help guarantee results.

Hamas—the group responsible for the abhorrent October 7 attack—must not interfere with the relief effort, either. The group appears indifferent to the humanitarian suffering of Gaza’s civilians, although aid organizations inside Gaza have reported few instances of its obstruction or diversion of aid deliveries since the fighting started. But Hamas must stop using civilians as human shields, just as Israel must stop reflexively justifying devastating civilian harm in a given area based on reports of Hamas’s presence there.

Famine is close but not yet inevitable. Although famine-level hunger now exists throughout much of Gaza, and malnutrition is rising rapidly, this crisis has not yet translated into widespread excess mortality. The area’s death rates are shocking, but they remain mostly related to war injuries rather than hunger. This means there is a window to reverse the descent toward famine—if there is the political will to do so. But time is of the essence. Once famine-related mortality gains momentum, it is even harder to slow down. The first step will be for the U.S. government to give this challenge the priority it deserves.

HARDIN LANG is Vice President for Programs and Policy at Refugees International and a former United Nations official.

JEREMY KONYNDYK is President of Refugees International and a former head of disaster assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Foreign Affairs · by Hardin Lang and Jeremy Konyndyk · March 1, 2024

14. Ukrainians Are Resilient—But They Still Need Washington

Excerpts:

Calls to defend the rules-based international order tend to provoke eye-rolling derision these days. So too do descriptions of the United States’ indispensability in the face of global problems. Yet the prohibition against forcible conquest stands at the heart of the postwar global order. Putin’s violation of that taboo—if ultimately successful—would augur a new and more dangerous era. The United States, unfashionable though it may be to observe, is indispensable in resisting it.

Ultimately, Ukraine is fighting a shift from order to the law of the jungle, where the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. In a world awash with trouble, and with huge demands on U.S. resources, the stakes in Ukraine remain very high—and perhaps unique. The alternative to continued Western support is not an indefinite stalemate or frozen conflict. It is a potential Russian victory.

This is the context in which today’s debate should take place. It’s clear on the ground: Ukrainian will to resist aggression is remarkable, but it remains inextricably linked to U.S. support and solidarity. If the United States abandons Ukraine, then the West may well accomplish the very thing that Putin has thus far found impossible.

Ukrainians Are Resilient—But They Still Need Washington

In Kyiv, all eyes are on the U.S. congressional fight over aid.

By Richard Fontaine, the chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security.

Foreign Policy · by Richard Fontaine

• Ukraine

March 1, 2024, 1:24 PM

Even as missiles fall on Ukraine and troops brace for a Russian spring offensive from the east, Kyiv is looking west. The U.S. congressional fight over aid to Ukraine, entangled as it is with border policy and presidential politics, has become a matter of survival for 43 million Ukrainians. In more than two years of war, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not broken Ukrainian will. Abandonment by the United States could achieve what Putin never has.

This month, I made a 1300-mile trip around Ukraine as part of a delegation hosted by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). We visited Kyiv and Odesa as well as Dnipro, Kharkiv, and other places farther east. The situation on the ground is changing, and U.S. political leaders should understand the enormous stakes. Those now debating the fate of assistance to Ukraine are deliberating over the fate of Ukraine itself.

The first thing that strikes a visitor to wartime in Ukraine is how remarkably normal life seems in many areas. Normal, that is, until the signs of war creep in—gradually and then suddenly.

Odesa’s elegantly beautiful theater remains open, and operas and shows go on. (Giuseppe Verdi’s Nabucco and Franco Alfano and Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot played a few days after our visit.) Yet the city was under an air alert as we arrived, and a walk along the seaside promenade revealed coiled barbed wire at each staircase.

In a mostly unheralded success, Ukraine has cleared the Black Sea coast of Russian warships—despite having a tiny navy with no warships of its own—and now exports grain from Odesa at near prewar levels. Ships load grain and skirt the coast as they head west, staying away from Russian predation. Outside the city, soldiers man roadside checkpoints to examine the papers of draft-age men.

In a town that we visited in Kherson Oblast, which suffered under Russian occupation until late 2022, virtually every building was damaged. Missile strikes, mortar fire, and machine guns took a serious toll. Many inhabitants fled the fighting, joining either the 6.5 million Ukrainian refugees outside the country or the 3.7 million displaced inside it. UNHCR and other aid agencies are assisting those who remained and others who have returned. Some never will.

We met one man in the town who stayed through it all. “It’s like you see on TV in America,” he said. “You know when there’s a hurricane and someone says, ‘It’s my home, I’m not leaving?’ That was me.”

The biggest problem, he said, were soldiers from the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, the puppet governments set up in the regions by Moscow. Often drunk, the soldiers looted houses, hassled people, and carted home everything they could. A local official said that Russian troops had established multiple torture centers during the occupation.

The man’s son, a tall 15-year-old with a grin and the taciturn bearing of a teenage boy, described life before and after the Russians came. Did he miss the way things were before the war? Yes, he said: “Some of my acquaintances have passed away.”

Downtown Dnipro could pass for Vancouver or Boston, with its illuminated streets, pedestrian areas, fine restaurants, and high-end boutiques. Couples dine, families stroll at night, and the stores are stocked. Yet the war wasn’t far away during our visit; an air alert awakened us early in the morning. As our phone alerts went off and air raid sirens sounded, we headed to the shelter. Russia launched more than 60 drones and missiles at Ukraine that day, some of which made it to Kyiv. The attack set a large apartment building on fire in the capital and killed four people. Two days later, we would visit this site, where the rebuilding had already begun.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has emerged as an epicenter of recent Russian military activity. Most students there are relegated to online learning, since their schools lack the shelters necessary to protect against air attacks. More than 2,000 children go to class underground in subway stations. We visited one of these subway schools, watching fourth graders solve math problems and work on projects. Play areas took up space at the backs of classrooms. I wish members of the U.S. Congress could see the effects of Russia’s two-year war on the country and witness Ukrainian resilience in the face of relentless attack.

Ukrainians are resilient but not invincible. They see bombed-out buildings, awaken to air alert sirens each night, and feel Moscow’s newfound confidence on the battlefield. They know that last year’s counteroffensive produced few gains, and that Avdiivka’s recent fall marks Russia’s first significant territorial gain since May 2023. Diminishing supplies of ammunition and other Western-provided weapons have made the war more difficult and more costly in terms of Ukrainian lives.

Yet most wish to fight on. Polls show a small but growing number of Ukrainians wishing to trade land for peace, if such an outcome is possible. The majority wish to continue the fight. They watched Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson and saw the Russian president’s insistence on their country’s historic artificiality. They know, from the atrocities that have occurred in Bucha and elsewhere, what Russian occupation might mean. They see the war as a fight for survival.

Ukrainians also know, however, that they cannot keep it up alone. They quietly observe that European aid (generous though it is) won’t be sufficient, either. In Kyiv, officials follow every twist and turn of the $60 billion earmarked for Ukraine in a proposed supplemental aid package from the United States. It’s a large amount of money, equivalent to roughly 7 percent of the U.S. Defense Department’s annual budget, and combines military, humanitarian, and budget support. Ukraine’s future turns greatly on it.

U.S. missile defense currently protects Ukrainian cities, and officials worry about the violence that Russia will unleash if U.S. interceptors stop arriving. Front-line Ukrainian troops are running out of ammunition, and declining access to military equipment could allow Russia to take more territory. Even factoring in the latest European aid package, Ukrainian officials (and those at the U.S. Treasury Department) project empty government coffers within months, rendering them unable to pay worker salaries or pensions. Their fallback plan is to print more money, fully understanding the disastrous hyperinflation such a move would produce.

In the meantime, U.S. humanitarian aid provides food, shelter, medical care, and other support for a traumatized population that nevertheless wishes to carry on.

Beyond material support, my visit made clear that the psychological effect of global solidarity, especially from the United States, remains vital. In conversations with everyone, from the top of government to citizens living just miles from the front lines, there was one message: Please stay with us—we can’t do this alone. U.S. abandonment would be devastating.

There is a lot of trouble in the world today, some of it far closer to home for Washington than places such as Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Kherson. A poll conducted in February by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Ipsos found that a majority of Americans continue to support helping Ukraine, as do majorities in both houses of Congress. Yet two years in, and after billions of aid has already been delivered, Americans might reasonably ask why more, and why now.

Calls to defend the rules-based international order tend to provoke eye-rolling derision these days. So too do descriptions of the United States’ indispensability in the face of global problems. Yet the prohibition against forcible conquest stands at the heart of the postwar global order. Putin’s violation of that taboo—if ultimately successful—would augur a new and more dangerous era. The United States, unfashionable though it may be to observe, is indispensable in resisting it.

Ultimately, Ukraine is fighting a shift from order to the law of the jungle, where the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. In a world awash with trouble, and with huge demands on U.S. resources, the stakes in Ukraine remain very high—and perhaps unique. The alternative to continued Western support is not an indefinite stalemate or frozen conflict. It is a potential Russian victory.

This is the context in which today’s debate should take place. It’s clear on the ground: Ukrainian will to resist aggression is remarkable, but it remains inextricably linked to U.S. support and solidarity. If the United States abandons Ukraine, then the West may well accomplish the very thing that Putin has thus far found impossible.

Foreign Policy · by Richard Fontaine

15. Book Excerpt: “Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America” by Barbara McQuade

Excerpts:

No one of these proposed solutions will cure all ills of disin­formation, but we must have the political courage and will to try some of them, or others. Our democracy is too precious to simply surrender to authoritarians, fascists, foreign influence operations, and scammers. But all the laws in the world cannot eradicate dis­information unless the citizenry wants to defeat it. We need to pass legislation that compels public servants—even the president and commander in chief—to adhere to facts and not deceptions. We must demand the truth from those who represent us rather than accept as true that which we want to believe. This is a battle for democracy that requires us to assert our nonnegotiable sovereignty and powers of self-governance.

Book Excerpt: “Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America” by Barbara McQuade

justsecurity.org · by Barbara McQuade · February 26, 2024

February 26, 2024

(Editor’s Note: The excerpt below is from Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America by Barbara McQuade, published by Seven Stories Press.)

Counter Harms to the Rule of Law

Agreeing to comply with laws and to resolve our differences in courts is essential to a peaceful society. The rule of law requires all members of society to comply with laws because they express the will of the people. When people engage in corruption or take the law into their own hands, the rule of law is diminished. We must take steps to buttress it.

One way to reinforce the rule of law is to dispel the idea of “vig­ilante justice” and replace it with terms that describe it for what it is—terrorism. Most often, citizens who “take the law into their own hands” lack training and knowledge of the law, or even an aware­ness of all relevant facts. When three men ambushed and murdered Ahmaud Arbery while he was jogging on a street in Georgia in 2020, they claimed they suspected him of a crime and were acting under legal authority to conduct a citizen’s arrest.[1] The men who plotted to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer over her shutdown orders were engaging in vigilantism. In Michigan, an election-denying county sheriff suggested the Whitmer kidnap plotters may simply have been performing a citizen’s arrest.[2]

Laws permitting citizen’s arrests are on the books in a number of states.[3] And while the laws vary, they generally permit a member of the public to detain a suspect who has allegedly committed a crime in their presence. The laws were created with good inten­tions; for example, they allow a citizen to stop a thief caught in the act of stealing a wallet, or a security guard to temporarily detain a shoplifter. But these laws tend to do more harm than good, because they allow wrongdoers to rationalize their conduct to hold or even harm someone they believe has violated the law, even when they lack probable cause, a standard many lay people are unlikely to understand. According to Michael J. Moore, a former US attorney in Georgia, the danger of citizen’s arrest laws is that “some people see the laws as license to become a cowboy, or that somehow it deputizes you to become a cop.”[4] Some people see citizen’s arrest laws as permission to serve as judge, jury, and executioner—a gross distortion of the rule of law. Add disinformation to the mix, and citizens who believe that they are in a war of good against evil may be inclined to use citizen’s arrests to defeat their perceived enemies. Removing these laws from the books would encourage people who believe they have identified a criminal suspect to call the police instead of taking the law into their own hands, a dangerous step with potentially deadly consequences.

Enforce laws against paramilitary activity

Another way to protect public safety would be to use the laws already on the books to address groups calling themselves militias.[5] The 2021 US National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism stated that “militia violent extremists” pose the greatest threat of domestic terrorism directed against government personnel and facilities.[6] Enforcing laws already on the books would discourage private groups from performing military and law enforcement func­tions and signal that they operate outside the rule of law.

According to the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law Center, “All 50 states prohibit pri­vate, unauthorized groups from engaging in activities reserved for the state militia, including law enforcement activities.”[7] Some states restrict unauthorized private militias by forbidding groups of civilians from “parading” or “drilling” in public with firearms.[8] Others prohibit individuals from training people in the use of firearms, explosives, or “techniques capable of causing injury or death.”[9] And still more prohibit civilians from assuming the uni­form or duties of a peace officer.[10] Civil liberties concerns about free speech, free assembly, and the right to bear arms may make law enforcement authorities reluctant to enforce existing laws, but arrests and prosecution would deter others from engaging in con­duct that endangers the public.

Combat corruption

Public officials who take bribes, extort contractors, engage in fraud, or otherwise abuse their office allow powerful people to play by dif­ferent rules. Ignoring corruption spreads the lie that some people are above the law. Declining to prosecute or pardoning offenders normalizes corruption, which degrades the rule of law.

We must vigorously enforce laws against even powerful politi­cians who engage in corruption. If leaders get a pass, then ordinary citizens can rightly question the fairness of the criminal justice system. In addition, presidents should take into consideration the counsel of the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, a norm Donald Trump violated.[11] Relying on institu­tions to approve pardons lends uniformity to the process and the results, so that offenders under similar circumstances are treated alike, an important tenet of the rule of law.

No one of these proposed solutions will cure all ills of disin­formation, but we must have the political courage and will to try some of them, or others. Our democracy is too precious to simply surrender to authoritarians, fascists, foreign influence operations, and scammers. But all the laws in the world cannot eradicate dis­information unless the citizenry wants to defeat it. We need to pass legislation that compels public servants—even the president and commander in chief—to adhere to facts and not deceptions. We must demand the truth from those who represent us rather than accept as true that which we want to believe. This is a battle for democracy that requires us to assert our nonnegotiable sovereignty and powers of self-governance.

[1] “Federal Judge Sentences Three Men Convicted of Racially Motivated Hate Crimes in Connection with the Killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia,” press release, United States Department of Justice, August 8, 2022, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-jury-finds-three-men-guilty-hate-crimes-connection-pursuit-and-killing-ahmaud-arbery.

[2] Paul Egan, “Sheriff Who Suggested Whitmer Kidnapping Could Be ‘Citizen’s Arrest’ Sues over Election,” Detroit Free Press, December 7, 2020.

[3] AJ Willingham, “Citizen’s Arrest Laws Aren’t Cut and Dry. Here’s What You Need to Know,” CNN, November 10, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/10/us/citizens-arrest-what-is-explained-trnd/index.html.

[4] Willingham, “Citizen’s Arrest Laws.”

[5] Barbara McQuade, “We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Us,” podcast audio, 47:09, Horns of a Dilemma, June 17, 2022.

[6] National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism (Washington, DC: National Security Council, June 2021), 10–11; McQuade, “We Have Met the Enemy.”

[7] “Fact Sheets on Unlawful Militias for All 50 States Now Available from Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection,” press release, September 22, 2020, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Georgetown Law, https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/our-press-releases/fact-sheets-on-unlawful-militias-for-all-50-states-now-available-from-georgetown-laws-institute-for-constitutional-advocacy-and-protection/.

[8] Prohibiting Private Armies at Public Rallies (Washington, DC: Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, September 2020), 5.

[9] Prohibiting Private Armies, 6.

[10] Prohibiting Private Armies, 7.

[11] Beth Reinhard and Anne Gearan, “Most Trump Clemency Grants Bypass Justice Dept. and Go to Well-Connected Offenders,” Washington Post, February 3, 2020.

Barbara McQuade

Barbara McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) is Professor from Practice at the University of Michigan Law School, former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan (2010-2017), Co-Chair of the Terrorism and National Security Subcommittee of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee in the Obama Administration. McQuade is the author of Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. She is also a Member of the Editorial Board of Just Security.

IMAGE: American flags and the U.S. Capitol building. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds via Bloomberg)

justsecurity.org · by Barbara McQuade · February 26, 2024

16. Grand strategy: ‘Shield of the republic’ — Defense Priorities

An optimistic view. Overly optimistic?

Conclusion:

In short, neither China nor Russia is poised to overwhelm local rivals to dominate either region. That is good news U.S. strategy should embrace.

Therefore, while shifts in the distribution of power compel the United States to adapt to external constraints, its strategic position remains fundamentally secure and favorable relative to any other country. America stands to gain from multipolarity and need not shoulder the burden of policing the world to stay safe, free, and prosperous. While the United States should hedge against the possibility of China becoming a Eurasian hegemon and maintain a strong military on the technological cutting edge, it also has the latitude to pull back, shift burdens onto partners and allies with aligned interests, conserve and build its power, and oversee the Eurasian balance of power from a distance. The most pressing risk to the United States is its strategic overextension and its own propensity to get into unnecessary trouble.

The U.S. foreign policy establishment has yet to align itself with contemporary realities. Yet, while historically the United States has often been slow to adapt to changes in the international system, it has ultimately navigated those changes with success. The fundamentally strong and secure position of the United States has long given it a considerable margin of error in times of transition while sustaining it through periods requiring focus and resolve. Rather than wait for a major crisis to force change, the United States should make an overdue adjustment to its grand strategy. Though the United States faces significant challenges in the coming decades, it also has an unmatched ability to meet them.

Grand strategy: ‘Shield of the republic’ — Defense Priorities

defensepriorities.org

by Christopher McCallion

March 1, 2024

This explainer is part of a series on grand strategy.

Download PDF

Key points

1. Grand strategy is a state’s theory about how to provide for its own security. Leaders must decide how to best translate scarce means into political objectives. Limited resources and the high stakes of national survival force leaders to prioritize.
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3. Military power is dependent on wealth, industry, geographical endowments, population size, and effective domestic institutions. The various conditions in which states find themselves help motivate and constrain the grand strategy formulated by their leaders.
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5. The United States is still the most powerful, secure, and prosperous country in the world, with a favorable geographic position and many internal advantages. U.S. grand strategy has historically been concerned with preventing the rise of a regional hegemon in Eurasia by maintaining the balance of power.
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7. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the only great power in the world. Unfortunately, it squandered the “unipolar moment” by pursuing a costly and counterproductive grand strategy of “liberal hegemony,” which has left it overextended.
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9. The United States’ secure geostrategic position and the improbability of a Eurasian hegemon allows it to adopt a grand strategy of restraint. This shift will help the United States to preserve its power, minimize risks, and adapt to the rise of new great powers. This strategy requires the United States to adopt a more rigorous definition of its vital interests and to shift to its allies the main burden of defending themselves.

What is grand strategy?

Political scientist Barry Posen defines grand strategy as “a state’s theory about how it can best ‘cause’ security for itself.”1 The largest political, military, and economic actors in the world are states.2 In an anarchical international system—where there is no world government to enforce laws or arbitrate disputes between actors—states exist in a “self-help” condition where they must provide their own security.3 Without a world government, the ultimate arbiter in international politics is the violent force that a state (or coalition of states) can exert to impose its will and defend its interests.

The famous columnist Walter Lippmann called U.S. foreign policy the “shield of the republic.”4 Among all the diverse foreign policy goals a state may wish to pursue—and the various diplomatic, economic, and cultural tools of statecraft that a state may use to pursue them—grand strategy is concerned with establishing a core set of vital security priorities that require military power. While grand strategy is at the core of a nation’s foreign policy, it is not the totality of foreign policy, which also covers policy relating to trade, immigration, and cultural and educational exchange, among other areas.

Vital security interests are those which determine the survival and autonomy of a state. These include the defense of sovereignty (domestic policymaking autonomy), the maintenance of territorial integrity, and the protection of the population.5 A state’s ability to achieve security depends on its power relative to other states, though deciding how much power is “enough” is always a source of dispute.6 A state’s power depends on material and organizational factors such as its economy, geography, demography, and state institutional capacity (tax collection, administration, etc.).

Strategy matches available means with desired ends—goals are potentially infinite, but resources are not. Strategy therefore requires prioritizing among desirable goals—creating a hierarchy of objectives to be pursued—and allocating resources accordingly. “Strategy,” as Bernard Brodie once said, “wears a dollar sign.”7 Any resources devoted to defense impose a trade-off between “guns and butter”—i.e., they come at the expense of other domestic welfare goals. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously put it:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.8

Therefore, the measures that states take to achieve security must be carefully balanced with the domestic goals and values of the polity. In the case of the United States, the purpose of security is undermined if its pursuit erodes fundamental aspects of American life, such as its civil liberties, democracy, and prosperity, all of which its foreign policy is supposed to defend. Formulating a strategy that ignores or abandons these domestic priorities is thus misguided.

The potentially punishing character of international politics means the system “selects” for certain types of behavior: states that fail to meet their security imperatives may cease to exist, while successful strategies encourage emulation by other security-seeking states.9 Powerful states tend to have more strategic options and a larger margin of error; less powerful states are more tightly constrained and cannot afford to make mistakes. The wide margin for error that great powers enjoy may have the paradoxical effect of making them their own worst enemies through an absence of corrective feedback, overinflated concerns over prestige, or strategic inertia.10 Foreign commitments that exceed domestic capabilities are, in Lippmann’s words, “insolvent.”11 Attempts to uphold unsustainable commitments lead to strategic overextension, eroding the domestic resources underpinning a state’s power.12

Authors often define “grand strategy” differently.13 Some even deny that states have or need a grand strategy, pointing to the disorder and inconsistent agendas among policymakers of a given state.14 However, as Edward Luttwak writes, “[a]ll states have a grand strategy, whether they know it or not.”15 Policymakers tend to share a set of common assumptions and perceptions, informing a general causal theory about security policy.16 That a grand strategy is contested, unarticulated, or poorly realized does not mean it is absent.

The United States is required by law to release regular statements of purpose pertaining to its grand strategy—the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy. These have usually demonstrated the United States’ unwillingness in recent decades to prioritize among interests while reliably promoting increases to the defense budget.17

The elements of national power

A state’s power shapes its grand strategy, determining the problems the state must address as well as how they can be addressed. Power is determined by a state’s internal capabilities and the conditions imposed upon it by nature and fortune.

In Martin Scorsese’s crime film The Departed, Jack Nicholson’s character, a ruthless mob boss, says, “I don’t want to be a product of my environment; I want my environment to be a product of me.” The most powerful states, or “great powers,” can substantially shape aspects of their external security environment, while weaker states are vulnerable and subject to profound influence by outside powers. Increases in power tend to expand policy options and produce more ambitious goals, while weakness allows states far fewer policy options to choose from. Weaker states are therefore forced to either accommodate stronger states, form alliances against proximate threats, or find shrewd ways of pitting stronger powers against one another to survive.

Military

The threat of war is ubiquitous in international politics, and military power is the final guarantor of state survival. The actual use of force is a blunt and costly instrument of destruction and therefore only optimal for vital political objectives. The interests motivating military action should be important enough to warrant the resources demanded to successfully achieve the desired political outcome.18 Otherwise the war will likely fail to achieve its aims.

Sometimes military capabilities do not need to be actively applied through violence to realize political effects. The underlying threat of a powerful state using military force is often enough to constrain and influence the decisions of other states.

TOP military spenders (2022)

The United States spends more on its military than every other country in the world. It spends more on intelligence than most countries do on their militaries.

Military power depends on several interrelated material factors, including a country’s wealth and industrial capacity, its geographical relationship to other states, and the size and age of its population.

Economy

Economic prosperity is the foundation of national power. Wealthy states are more capable of producing or purchasing the weapons and equipment necessary for defense and sustaining their populations in both peacetime and wartime. These states tend to have technological endowments that can translate into military advantages, such as the ability to put warheads on missiles and accurately fire them across the globe. A state’s economic goals can also create secondary interests abroad, such as controlling access to critical resources, overland trade routes, or sea lanes for shipping, which great powers often seek to secure.

Just as states face a domestic trade-off between “guns and butter,” they also face a trade-off between the economic benefits of trade and the international division of labor, on the one hand, and the security benefits of economic self-sufficiency on the other. Whereas economics encourages efficiency, security often demands redundancy.19 Free trade incentivizes specialization according to comparative advantage and can therefore result in bottlenecks and chokepoints that make interdependent states vulnerable to being cut off from necessary products and resources in a conflict.20 Large, wealthy, industrialized, resource-rich states tend to be less vulnerable to external economic disruptions due to the size and diversity of their economies.

Top 10 global economies (2022)

The United States still has the largest economy in the world, thanks in part to the dominance of the U.S. dollar and the influence of the U.S. financial system.

States with a commanding position in finance or global supply chains have leverage to impose sanctions or export restrictions on target nations.21 While sanctions are painful for the populations of target states, they are rarely effective as a means of changing state behavior.22 Moreover, “sanctions-proofing” measures and the diffusion of economic power away from the West have weakened the capacity of the United States in particular to make sanctions succeed.23

Population

The size of a nation’s population determines in large part how many armed personnel can be mobilized to deter aggression or defend the country, and how many industrial workers can be mobilized to sustain the economy. Demographic trends, such as population growth and age distribution, also help shape the outlook of a state’s long-term power position. An aging population will increase resource constraints over time as the portion of the population available for armed service or work decreases and social security needs increase. Immigration may offset low birth rates and increase the population, often producing economic gains, but it can also prove controversial in domestic politics.

U.S. and Russian populations by age and sex (2021)

Among other advantages, the United States has a stronger demographic profile than Russia. A larger and younger population contributes to economic growth, technological innovation, and cultural dynamism.

Geography

A state’s geography significantly influences its strategy. Distance from rivals insulates states from threats, while proximity to rivals heightens threats. Shared land borders across flat terrain increase the threat posed by, and vulnerability of, both bordering states, allowing for the relatively rapid movement of military forces essential for taking and holding territory, such as infantry, armored vehicles, and artillery. By contrast, natural borders such as bodies of water and mountain ranges obstruct offensive movement, raise logistical hurdles, and provide defenders with depth, cover, and time to prepare responses. Large bodies of water in particular hamper large-scale power projection, combining the inherent logistical impediments produced by distance, the challenges of transporting sufficient troops and equipment by sea, and the difficulty of conducting amphibious operations.24 States protected by natural barriers have the luxury of being able to pursue more relaxed or restrained strategies.

A state’s geography shapes how it allocates resources among its military forces: states with land borders proximate to rivals are more likely to prioritize substantial land armies, while islands or states with lengthy coastlines are more likely to prioritize substantial navies. States often wish to establish buffer zones between themselves and potential rivals and maintain control or access to vital sea lanes. Great powers often seek to neutralize weaker states on their periphery and form a sphere of influence over their neighbors to insulate themselves from potential threats.25

Domestic political factors

Many domestic political factors influence how states respond to external challenges. The ability to motivate and mobilize the population to pursue national objectives—even at risk of death—and to bear sacrifices on the home front is essential for wartime morale.26 National cohesion around a shared sense of civic identity becomes particularly important in wartime but also affects the resources the state can draw on in peacetime. The state’s relationship to society, the structure of its decision-making apparatus, bureaucracy, interest groups, and ideological and cultural dispositions all impact the formulation of a state’s national objectives and the means available to achieve them. Factors such as economic inequalities, the social pressures of industrialization, and civil conflicts can produce societal divisions that limit a state’s ability to mobilize its population and resources effectively. These forces may also push new political factions into power, leading to rapid shifts in foreign policy and possibly presenting opportunities for rivals to attack.27

Strategies in action: Japan and Russia

This dynamic combination of military, economic, geographic, demographic, and domestic factors directly affect a state’s grand strategy. For example, Japan’s seabound position as an archipelago insulates it from external assault, while its relatively small and resource-poor interior makes it dependent on maritime trade.28 Just as Britain has acted to prevent a rival from dominating the Low Countries, Japan has sought to prevent a rival from controlling the Korean Peninsula.29 Japan’s industrialization following the Meiji Restoration in 1868 created demand for raw materials from abroad and encouraged the construction of a major naval fleet, leading Japan to achieve great power status after defeating Russia in 1905. When the Japanese military gained power during the interwar period and embarked on the conquest of Manchuria, a fear of being cut off from foreign trade generated an imperialist grand strategy in the West Pacific and led to the territorial conquest of much of East Asia.30 Following its defeat in World War II and the loss of its overseas empire, Japan successfully applied a state-driven, export-oriented development model and established a sophisticated technological-industrial base under a U.S. security umbrella.31 Today, Japan possesses the third-largest GDP in the world, trailing only the United States and China.32 However, Japan’s remarkable post-war growth began to stall in the 1990s and has not fully recovered.33

While Japan has depended on the United States’ extended nuclear deterrent and the U.S. Navy to protect its sea lanes over the post-war period, there is no doubt Japan could rapidly develop its own nuclear deterrent if necessary and has the means to augment its naval forces. As a result of World War II, Japan has an ambivalent relationship with its own nationalism, yet its government has also tended to be averse to immigration. Partly due to Japan’s severe restrictions on immigration, its population has grown older, increasing constraints on its economy and military.34 Generally speaking, Japan’s conditions are excellent for territorial defense and require Japan to maintain a significant maritime capability. On the other hand, given its economic and demographic constraints, as well as the current balance of power in East Asia, Japan does not have the ability to pursue territorial conquest, especially on the Asian continent.

In contrast to Japan, Russia is a massive land power with few natural geographic boundaries, limited sea access, and more than a dozen political borders dispersed across two continents—including long land borders with both China and the world’s most powerful military alliance, NATO. A recurrent feature of Russian grand strategy has been what historian Stephen Kotkin has called “defensive aggressiveness,” seeking to exert control over its distant frontiers, subordinate neighbors to establish buffer zones and strategic depth between itself and potential adversaries, and gain warm-water ports with access to the seas.35 While Russian geography has historically made it vulnerable to invasion, its vast interior also allowed it to absorb and then repel invasions by Napoleon and Hitler, albeit at enormous cost.

During the Cold War, Russia tried to compensate for its technological disadvantage vis-à-vis the U.S. by maintaining large land forces and building up a nuclear arsenal. Its resource-rich interior and relatively large and well-educated population have been advantages, and Russia has a considerable defense-industrial base. However, the Russian state’s tendency toward over-centralization, chronic corruption, and an aging population all create significant resource constraints.36 While the Soviet Union was the second-largest economy in the post-war world, the economy of the Russian Federation today is comparable to that of Canada.37 Moreover, Russia's enormous territory includes a diverse multinational population, which the government in Moscow has often struggled to integrate into a unified civic identity, dramatically exemplified by the Chechen insurgencies.

As a result of these factors, Russia tends to be particularly sensitive to both real and imagined foreign threats and pursues strategies that overstretch its large but limited resources.38 While Russia’s neighbors have for centuries feared the behemoth to their east, Russian forces are often tethered by domestic limitations, as the current war in Ukraine demonstrates.

U.S. grand strategy

American advantages

America has long enjoyed unique security advantages relative to other great powers. The United States is geographically insulated from attack, with deferential middle powers to its north and south, and vast oceans to its east and west. There are no other great powers in the Western Hemisphere, and the United States completely controls the hemisphere’s sea lanes.

Despite recent advances by other countries, particularly China, the United States still possesses the world’s most formidable and technologically advanced military. It has the only military capable of significant power projection on a global scale, as well as a robust and resilient nuclear deterrent. The United States also possesses intelligence services with unparalleled capabilities and reach: to wit, in 2022, the United States spent more on intelligence than Russia spent on its entire military budget.39

The United States enjoys, depending on the chosen measurement, either the largest or second largest economy in the world, and the U.S. dollar is the world’s primary reserve currency, allowing it to sustain large deficits and to leverage (or even weaponize) global finance.40 It is relatively insulated from disruptions to trade, with one of the world’s lowest trade-to-GDP ratios, a commanding position in global value chains, and nearly even geographic diversification of trade across major regions, with a third of its trade occurring within the Western Hemisphere.41 Additionally, the United States possesses a vast and resource-rich interior, is a net total energy exporter, and is well-placed technologically to achieve a leading role in producing sustainable renewable energy in the future.42

Topography of North America

The United States is blessed with natural physical security. Its neighbors to the north and south are friendly while open oceans to the east and west serve as large moats that make an invasion nearly impossible.

The United States is home to the world’s third-largest population.43 That population is growing and is relatively young compared to other major states like China, Russia, Japan, and Germany, whose rapidly aging populations will likely constrain their resources in coming decades.44 The United States continues to attract many immigrants, and despite periodic bouts of nativism, has generally proven adept at incorporating newcomers into a strong civic identity.

The way the United States chooses to fight its wars—and the wars it chooses to fight—are the result of several factors, including its distance from major threats, technological endowments, and domestic political institutions. The so-called “American way of war” is characterized by the United States’ reliance on its technological advantages and use of overwhelming firepower to destroy its opponents’ fighting ability rather than relatively large-scale mobilizations of combat personnel.45 This approach allowed America after the Vietnam War to maintain an all-volunteer force and incur relatively few casualties. Government spending on military research and development has in turn acted as a backdoor subsidy for cutting-edge dual-use technologies that have bolstered the United States’ position in the global consumer economy.46

However, the American way of war also underscores the fact that proximate threats to the continental United States have been virtually non-existent throughout its modern history. While President George W. Bush once said, “[w]e will fight them over there so we do not have to face them in the United States of America,” the reverse is more likely true: we can “fight them over there” because “we do not have to face them in the United States of America.”47 This is also why, despite having fought many wars in recent decades, the U.S. public remains highly casualty-averse—the interests at stake are often not worth the cost in human life.48

American grand strategy in historical perspective

For the first century of its existence, U.S. grand strategy was essentially “isolationist,” meaning it sought to keep the European great powers out of the Western Hemisphere and avoid entanglement in European conflicts.49 During the nineteenth century, the United States was a major unintended beneficiary of Britain’s management of the European balance of power and the maritime protection afforded by the Royal Navy, allowing it to focus on nation-building and expansion. By the twentieth century, however, the United States was the world’s largest and most dynamic economy, while Britain was in decline and unable to fulfill the role of “balancer” in Europe.50

The rise of Germany and Japan forced America to consider the possibility that if a hegemon were to emerge on the Eurasian landmass, it could mobilize the resources of the continent, traverse the oceans, and project significant power into the Western Hemisphere to either coerce the United States or force it to become an anti-democratic “garrison state.”51 This fear of a “Eurasian hegemon” underlay the United States’ involvement in both World Wars and its subsequent decision to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The destruction of the other major world powers during World War II led the United States to deploy forces to Western Europe and East Asia and extend its nuclear umbrella to deter Soviet attacks against its allies.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of bipolarity left the United States in the unusual position of being the world’s only great power. The main threat that had justified the U.S. overseas presence had evaporated. Yet despite facing no great power rivals, the United States did not scale back its alliance commitments. On the contrary, while the U.S. reduced its troop numbers between the end of the Cold War and the Global War on Terror, it simultaneously expanded its security guarantees to other nations. The United States brought former Eastern bloc states into NATO (pushing the alliance all the way to Russia’s borders), deployed permanent forces to the Middle East to secure the flow of Persian Gulf oil, and maintained its forward military presence in East Asia. Rather than embrace the comfortable position it had acquired after the Cold War and turn swords into plowshares, the United States embarked on a remarkably ambitious global agenda—especially following the 9/11 attacks.52

U.S. treaty allies around the world

The United States is formally committed to defending dozens of countries around the world in almost every major region. Many of these treaties were signed during the Cold War but were never updated or revised.

The United States’ post-Cold War grand strategy of “liberal hegemony” sought to cultivate a U.S.-led international order underwritten by—and in the interest of preserving—global U.S. military primacy. Military force and economic sanctions were used promiscuously (and sometimes exclusively) as instruments of statecraft toward so-called “rogue states,” including Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.53 Regime change—often in the name of protecting human rights or promoting democracy—became a popular option for Washington policymakers, leading to a series of ill-fated interventions and occupations in the Middle East that unleashed a decades-long paroxysm of chaos and bloodletting, costing millions of lives in the region (and beyond) and $8 trillion to the American public.54 Without exception, the outcomes of these interventions were contrary to U.S. interests, resulting either in a return to the status quo ante bellum (Afghanistan), descent into chaos and anarchy (Libya), gains in influence for official adversaries (Iraq), or some combination of the above (Syria).

By pursuing a policy of liberal hegemony, the United States squandered the “unipolar moment.” Even under the best of circumstances—the period of greatest relative U.S. power following the collapse of the Soviet Union—liberal hegemony not only failed but weakened the United States. In addition to being bloody and expensive failures, these interventions diverted strategic attention from emerging powers and wasted both resources and international goodwill. And while Washington sought to avoid war with major rivals, its military excesses abroad provoked other states to accelerate their efforts to counterbalance the United States, especially as the United States tested other great powers’ redlines over flashpoints like Ukraine and Taiwan. Almost all major allies remained heavily dependent on the United States—and thus enfeebled. And as the Global War on Terror has given way to a new era of great power competition, annual defense spending has continued to climb towards $1 trillion, reducing to a distant memory the “peace dividend” promised at the end of the Cold War.

Restraint: A better grand strategy

The United States is strong and safe enough to adopt a far less ambitious global strategy. It should transition to a grand strategy of restraint—one that more effectively advances U.S. interests with minimal cost, risk, and violence. This grand strategy seeks to maintain regional balances of power and eschews the unrealistic and self-defeating attempt to sustain unchallenged global military primacy. Restraint would make full use of the United States’ advantages while minimizing liabilities and would induce wealthy and capable allies to assume primary responsibility for their own defense, rather than keep them dependent on the U.S. security umbrella.55

Given its excellent power position and geographic insulation from the great powers of Eurasia, the United States remains the most secure and powerful state in world history. This gives the United States the latitude to pursue a more flexible grand strategy than other states.56 By maintaining permanent military commitments around the globe in a futile attempt to substitute for a world police force, the United States squanders its natural advantages, drains its resources, and provokes unnecessary dangers. Restraint, by contrast, would allow the United States to gracefully adapt to the rise of new powers in the decades to come, while still protecting its vital strategic interests.

Because a strategy of restraint focuses on vital national interests rather than overly ambitious projects disconnected from U.S. security, it would cost far less and would reduce defense spending considerably. However, it would also do a better job than the current grand strategy of sustaining the United States’ long-term power position by reallocating national resources more effectively. Restraint would scale back the United States’ overseas bases and land forces, instead privileging a powerful Navy able to respond to regional contingencies, if necessary, with an increased emphasis on relatively survivable submarines.57 Restraint would also seek to preserve U.S. advantages on an increasingly integrated battlefield that includes cyberspace and outer space and would continue to invest in the United States’ scientific research base.58

Restraint would not only reduce the risks and costs shouldered by the United States, but also it would allow policymakers to focus more attention on domestic needs. It would remove a pretext for the erosion of civil liberties that has accompanied the growth of a large national security state, such as the disturbing ubiquity of domestic surveillance since the 9/11 attacks.

As the world shifts toward a multipolar distribution of power, where several great powers populate the international system, the grand strategy pursued by the United States during the “unipolar moment” has become increasingly risky and self-defeating. The Sino-Russian entente and the refusal of much of the world to align with the United States and its allies over the war in Ukraine demonstrate an increasingly sharp challenge to U.S. pretensions to global leadership. Moreover, the material basis for U.S. primacy has significantly eroded. Whereas the United States accounted for about half of the world’s economic output at the end of World War II and maintained an economy twice the size of the Soviet Union’s throughout the Cold War, it currently accounts for less than a quarter of world GDP and maintains approximate economic parity with China and the EU.59 This reality constrains U.S. policy options and requires greater stewarding of its vast but finite resources.

Though the transition to multipolarity presents challenges and risks, it also presents opportunities. Multipolarity is inherently advantageous to the United States because it encourages Eurasian great powers to devote strategic attention to each other while the United States remains distant and insulated in the Western Hemisphere.60 This contradicts the conventional wisdom espoused in Washington since the end of the Cold War, but it aligns with strategic thinking in the balance-of-power tradition that has guided wise policymaking for centuries.

Maintaining permanent alliances underwritten by forward-deployed forces encourages wealthy states, like Japan and Germany, to remain security dependents rather than become capable, independent actors in their own regions, forcing the United States to accept the risks and costs of deterring threats on their behalf and put itself at risk of entanglement in otherwise avoidable conflicts.

Furthermore, dependence on the United States renders deterrence in those regions less credible—and therefore less resilient—than if its capable allies directly provide for their own defense. The inherent incredibility of extended deterrence has therefore historically encouraged American policymakers to fight unnecessary wars in the global periphery in an attempt to indirectly demonstrate U.S. resolve in regions of core interest—or at least to claim that as a rationale for foolish and unnecessary wars abroad.61 These wars, such as in Vietnam, generally entail high costs for trivial interests, driven by the dubious hypothetical causal chains of “domino theories.”62

Restraint would have the United States primarily rely on regional balances of power among local actors to prevent the emergence of a Eurasian hegemon rather than directly manage and stabilize the security of far-flung regions through a significant overseas military presence. In the unlikely event that a potential hegemon emerges and cannot be balanced by regional powers, the United States could then choose whether and how it acts to restore the balance, with the accumulated benefit of having husbanded its resources. States like Japan and Germany want to maintain their independence, not become vassals of China or Russia. It is safe to assume they will take on the lion’s share of responsibility for their own defense if threatened and if the United States stops discouraging them from doing so. By making clear it intends to reduce or remove its forward-deployed forces, the United States would incentivize capable allies to bolster their own defenses out of their inherent interest in self-preservation.

While the United States faces risks of its own making, owing largely to its overextension abroad, the direct risks it faces from other great powers are remote. The gravest potential security threat would be if China could dominate Asia and project power into the Western Hemisphere. While theoretically possible, this scenario is not probable given the obstacles China faces. These include the challenge of mounting large-scale amphibious operations; the presence of regional actors capable of balancing against China; the accessibility of relatively low-tech and inexpensive defensive systems; the durability of the United States Navy and nuclear deterrent; and formidable domestic challenges in China itself, such as demographic decline, slowing economic growth, technological challenges, and inland security problems.

Topography of Asia

Asia’s geography is not conducive to wars of conquest and well-constituted defenders could make the costs of aggression high. The seas between Japan and the Philippines on one side and China on the other hinder territorial conquest. Similarly, the Himalayan Mountains are a major barrier between India and China that makes it difficult for either country to invade the other.

The danger to the United States of a Eurasian hegemon, while not entirely negligible, is considerably dampened by the existence of nuclear weapons and historically diminishing returns to conquest. The strength of nuclear deterrence makes the conquest of a major nuclear-armed state’s territory virtually impossible, as a nuclear war would leave little left to conquer—and no one left to conquer it. Even states with relatively small nuclear arsenals or “minimal deterrents” could impose such dire costs on a prospective aggressor that any gains from conquest would be easily nullified.63 Furthermore, the relative significance of conquering territory to seize foreign industrial regions, extractable resources, or land for agriculture and population settlement has diminished over time.64 This is particularly true for many wealthy and powerful states that draw much of their national incomes from the service sector and govern populations increasingly concentrated in urban centers.65 In addition, the stopping power of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans continues to be the greatest source of strategic depth in the world and a fundamental obstacle to any Eurasian aggression against the United States.

In short, neither China nor Russia is poised to overwhelm local rivals to dominate either region. That is good news U.S. strategy should embrace.

Therefore, while shifts in the distribution of power compel the United States to adapt to external constraints, its strategic position remains fundamentally secure and favorable relative to any other country. America stands to gain from multipolarity and need not shoulder the burden of policing the world to stay safe, free, and prosperous. While the United States should hedge against the possibility of China becoming a Eurasian hegemon and maintain a strong military on the technological cutting edge, it also has the latitude to pull back, shift burdens onto partners and allies with aligned interests, conserve and build its power, and oversee the Eurasian balance of power from a distance. The most pressing risk to the United States is its strategic overextension and its own propensity to get into unnecessary trouble.

The U.S. foreign policy establishment has yet to align itself with contemporary realities. Yet, while historically the United States has often been slow to adapt to changes in the international system, it has ultimately navigated those changes with success. The fundamentally strong and secure position of the United States has long given it a considerable margin of error in times of transition while sustaining it through periods requiring focus and resolve. Rather than wait for a major crisis to force change, the United States should make an overdue adjustment to its grand strategy. Though the United States faces significant challenges in the coming decades, it also has an unmatched ability to meet them.

Endnotes

1 Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 13.

2 International Monetary Fund, “Government Expenditure, Percent of GDP,” IMF Datamapper, https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA/CHN/JPN/DEU/IND/GBR/FRA/RUS/CAN/ITA. The largest private employer in the world is Walmart, with 2.3 million employees in 2022. In the same year, the U.S. government employed ten times that amount, approximately 15 percent of its total workforce. “Leading 500 Fortune Companies Based on Number of Employees in 2022,” Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/264671/top-50-companies-based-on-number-of-employees/; “Total Number of Government Employees in the United States from 1982 to 2022,” Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/204535/number-of-governmental-employees-in-the-us/; “Employment in General Government,” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/b85007f1-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/b85007f1-en.

3 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1979).

4 Walter Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1943).

5 Barry R. Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014): 1–3.

6 Posen, Restraint, 3. For the argument that power and security are only synonymous up to a point, beyond which counterbalancing occurs and the pursuit of power becomes self-defeating, see Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 125–127. For an argument that power maximization is synonymous with security maximization, see John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2001), 19–22, 29–40. For discussions, see Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 19–25; Barry R. Posen, “The Best Defense,” National Interest, no. 67 (Spring 2002): 119–126.

8 Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Address ‘The Chance for Peace’ Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors,” American Presidency Project, April 16, 1953, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-chance-for-peace-delivered-before-the-american-society-newspaper-editors.

9 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 73–77.

10 Robert Jervis, “Unipolarity: A Structural Perspective,” World Politics 61, no. 1 (January 2009): 188–213.

11 Lippmann, U.S. Foreign Policy, 8–10.

12 For a famous articulation of this phenomenon, see Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York, NY: Random House, 1987).

13 For various definitions of grand strategy, see Edward Mead Earle, “Introduction,” in Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler, ed. Edward Mead Earle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1943), vii-xi; Bernard Brodie, “Strategy as a Science,” World Politics 1, no. 4 (July 1949): 477, f.10; B.H. Liddell Hart, Strategy: Second Revised Edition (New York, NY; Meridian, 1991), 353–360; Paul Kennedy, “Grand Strategy in War and Peace: Toward a Broader Definition,” in Grand Strategies in War and Peace, ed. Paul Kennedy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 1–10; Lawrence Freedman, “Grand Strategy in the Twenty-First Century,” Defence Studies 1, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 11–20; Williamson Murray, “Thoughts on Grand Strategy,” in The Shaping of Grand Strategy: Policy, Diplomacy, and War, ed. Williamson Murray, William Hart Sinnreich, and James Lacey (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1–33.

14 For arguments that the United States does not need nor have the ability to form a coherent grand strategy, see Daniel W. Drezner, Ronald R. Krebs, and Randall Schweller, “The End of Grand Strategy: America Must Think Small,” Foreign Affairs 99, no. 3 (May/June 2020): 107–117.

15 Edward N. Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 409.

16 For some influential analyses of leaders’ cognitive mapping, see Ole R. Holsti, “The Belief System and National Images: A Case Study,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 6, no. 3 (September 1962): 244–252; Alexander L. George, “The ‘Operational Code’: A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and Decision-Making,” International Studies Quarterly 13, no. 2 (June 1969): 190–222; Jack L. Snyder, “The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Operations,” RAND Corporation, September 1977, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2005/R2154.pdf.

17 Justin Logan and Benjamin H. Friedman, “The Case for Getting Rid of the National Security Strategy,” War on the Rocks, November 4, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/11/the-case-for-getting-rid-of-the-national-security-strategy/.

18 For example, during and after World War II the United States was willing to devote the enormous resources needed to help defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, to aid the post-war reconstruction of Western Europe and Japan, and to deter the Soviet Union. This is because the United States deemed these measures to be absolutely vital to its national security objectives. By contrast, after the Cold War, the United States sought to conduct its many elective interventions in the Middle East with a “light footprint,” quickly, and cheaply. This betrayed a lack of vital interests at stake. Unsurprisingly, these interventions were all failures according to their stated objectives, turned into endless quagmires or “forever wars,” and proved far more costly over time than their planners ever anticipated at the outset.

19 Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 39–42. For example, whereas China has long depended on a “minimal” nuclear deterrent, escalating great power competition has spurred Beijing to pursue a nuclear buildup in order to have enough missiles and platforms to absorb a potential nuclear first strike.

20 For example, the near monopoly of TSMC over advanced semiconductor production makes the global economy vulnerable to a disruption if a conflict broke out over Taiwan; consequently, much of the world is racing to “onshore,” or build their own semiconductor manufacturing capacity. See Christopher McCallion, “Semiconductors Are Not a Reason to Defend Taiwan,” Defense Priorities, October 5, 2022, https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/semiconductors-are-not-a-reason-to-defend-taiwan.

21 See for example Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security 44, no. 1 (Summer, 2019): 42–79.

22 Robert A. Pape, “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,” International Security 22, no. 2 (Fall, 1997): 90–136.

23 See for example Nicholas Mulder, “Sanctions Against Russia Ignore the Economic Challenges Facing Ukraine,” New York Times, February 9, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/opinion/sanctions-russia-ukraine-economy.html.

24 For a discussion of “the stopping power of water,” see Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 114–128.

25 Andrew Latham, “Spheres of Influence in a Multipolar World,” Defense Priorities, September 26, 2022, https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/spheres-of-influence-in-a-multipolar-world.

26 See, for example, Barry R. Posen, “Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power,” International Security 18, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 80–124.

27 Stephen M. Walt, Revolution and War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996).

28 For discussions of Japanese grand strategy in historical perspective, see Michael J. Green, Line of Advantage: Japan’s Grand Strategy in the Era of Abe Shinzo (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2022), 16–44; Richard J. Samuels, Securing Japan: Tokyo’s Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007), 13–37.

29 Green, Line of Advantage, 23–24.

30 D. Clayton James, “American and Japanese Strategies in the Pacific War,” in Makers of Modern Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 703–732.

31 Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982).

32 “GDP (current US$),” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true.

33 “GDP Growth (annual %) – Japan,” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=JP.

34 For one particularly illustrative example, adult diapers outsell baby diapers in Japan by 2.5 times. Markus Bell, “Japan’s Self-Destructive Immigration Policy,” Diplomat, January 4, 2022, https://thediplomat.com/2022/01/japans-self-destructive-immigration-policy/.

35 Stephen Kotkin, “Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics,” Foreign Affairs 95, no. 3 (May/June 2016): 2–9. Also see Robert H. Donaldson and Joseph L. Nogee, The Foreign Policy of Russia: Changing Systems, Enduring Interests, 4th ed. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2009), 16–33.

36 Kotkin, “Russia’s Perpetual Geopolitics.”

37 “GDP (current US$),” World Bank.

38 Michael Kofman, “Drivers of Russian Grand Strategy,” Russia Matters, April 23, 2019, https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/drivers-russian-grand-strategy.

39 Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “U.S. Intelligence Community Budget,” https://www.dni.gov/index.php/what-we-do/ic-budget; “Military Expenditure,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, https://www.sipri.org/research/armament-and-disarmament/arms-and-military-expenditure/military-expenditure.

40 “GDP (current US$) - United States, China,” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=US-CN&most_recent_value_desc=true; “GDP, PPP (current international$) - United States, China,” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?locations=US-CN.

41 “Trade (% of GDP),” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS?name_desc=false; World Trade Organization, “United States: Trade in Value Added and Global Value Chains,” https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/miwi_e/US_e.pdf; Office of the United States Trade Representative, “Countries and Regions,” https://ustr.gov/countries-regions. Also see Eugene Gholz and Daryl G. Press, “The Effects of Wars on Neutral Countries: Why It Doesn’t Pay to Preserve the Peace,” Security Studies 10, no. 4 (Summer 2001): 1–57.

42 U.S. Energy Information Administration, “U.S. energy facts explained,” https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/imports-and-exports.php; Benjamin Storrow, “In a First, Wind and Solar Generated More Power than Coal in U.S.,” Scientific American, June 12, 2023, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-a-first-wind-and-solar-generated-more-power-than-coal-in-u-s/.

43 “Population, total,” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?most_recent_value_desc=true.

44 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Prospects 2022: Graphs and Profiles, https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/; Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook: Country Comparisons – Population growth rate, https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/population-growth-rate/country-comparison; Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook: Country Comparisons – Median age, https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/median-age/country-comparison.

45 For discussions of the “American way of war,” see Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (New York, NY: Indiana University Press, 1973); Antulio J. Echevarria II, Reconsidering the American Way of War: US Military Practice from the Revolution to Afghanistan (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2014).

46 See for example, The White House, “Remarks by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Renewing American Economic Leadership at the Brookings Institution,” April 27, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/04/27/remarks-by-national-security-advisor-jake-sullivan-on-renewing-american-economic-leadership-at-the-brookings-institution/.

47 George W. Bush, “President Bush Addresses the 89th Annual National Convention of the American Legion,” August 28, 2007, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070828-2.html.

48 Harvey M. Sapolsky and Jeremy Shapiro, “Casualties, Technology, and America’s Future Wars,” Parameters 26, no. 2 (Summer, 1996): 119–127.

49 For a sympathetic treatment of a much-maligned term, see Charles A. Kupchan, Isolationism: A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself from the World (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020).

50 For a classic account of nineteenth century balance of power politics and the rise of new powers at the turn of the century, see A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1954).

51 See, for example, George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900–1950 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 4–5; Hans J. Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest: A Critical Examination of American Foreign Policy (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), 5–7. Stephen Van Evera has referred to this as the “political division of industrial Eurasia.” See Stephen Van Evera, “Why Europe Matters, Why the Third World Doesn’t: American Grand Strategy After the Cold War,” Journal of Strategic Studies 13, no. 2 (1990): 2–4. Also see George F. Kennan, “Contemporary Problems in Foreign Policy,” speech to the National War College, September 17, 1948, George F. Kennan Papers, Princeton University Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC076_c03141. On Kennan’s strategic thought, see John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War, rev. and expanded ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005), 24–86. For discussions of the “garrison state,” see Harold D. Lasswell, “The Garrison State,” American Journal of Sociology 46, no. 4 (January 1941): 455–468; Aaron L. Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America’s Anti-Statism and its Cold War Grand Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).

52 For expressions of the post-Cold War zeitgeist, see Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” National Interest, no. 16 (Summer 1989): 3–18; Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs 70, no. 1 (1990/1991): 23–33; Samuel P. Huntington, “Why International Primacy Matters,” International Security 17, no. 4 (Spring, 1993): 68–83.

53 More than a quarter of the United States’ nearly 400 foreign interventions since its founding have occurred since the end of the Cold War. Sidita Kushi and Monica Duffy Toft, “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A New Dataset on US Military Interventions, 1776–2019,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 67, no. 4 (April 2023): 752–779.

54 Costs of War Project, “Summary of Findings,” Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/summary.

55 For major statements of restraint, see Eugene Gholz, Daryl G. Press, and Harvey M. Sapolsky, “Come Home, America: The Strategy of Restraint in the Face of Temptation,” International Security 21, no. 4 (Spring 1997): 5–48; Layne, Peace of Illusions, 159–192; Posen, Restraint.

56 Robert Art refers to both isolationism and offshore balancing as “free hand” strategies. Restraint is similarly a free hand strategy. Robert J. Art, A Grand Strategy for America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 172.

57 Posen, Restraint, 135–163.

58 Posen, Restraint, 135–163.

59 Central Intelligence Agency, “A Comparison of Soviet and US Gross National Products, 1960–1983,” August 1984, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498181.pdf; “GDP (current US $) – United States, World,” World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=US-1W.

60 Layne, Peace of Illusions, 24–26.

61 Layne, Peace of Illusions, 124–133.

62 See the essays collected in Dominoes and Bandwagons: Strategic Beliefs and Great Power Competition in the Eurasian Rimland, ed. Robert Jervis and Jack Snyder (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991).

63 Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989).

64 Carl Kaysen, “Is War Obsolete?: A Review Essay,” International Security 14, no. 4 (Spring, 1990): 48–57.

65 Stephen Van Evera, “Primed for Peace: Europe After the Cold War,” International Security 15, no. 3 (Winter 1990–1991): 14–16.

defensepriorities.org

17. Inside the White House Program to Share America’s Secrets

Recognize the adversary strategy, understand it, EXPOSE it (to inoculate target audiences), and attack it with a superior political warfare strategy.

The White House is demonstrating a method for exposing the adversary strategy.

Excerpts:

The declassification and release of the Serbian troop movements is one example of a novel White House approach to using intelligence that has grown out of the U.S. response to the war in Ukraine. Starting in the fall of 2021, as U.S. spies became convinced Russia was preparing to invade, Sullivan worked with Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns to “downgrade” classified details of Moscow’s moves. “We were sitting on this troubling information,” says Maher Bitar, NSC coordinator for intelligence and defense policy, “and we needed to get ahead of what the Russians were going to do.”

More than two years later, the White House has built a broad program to share secrets when it serves strategic goals. About once a week, White House officials see intelligence that they want to make public and get approval from Sullivan to try, more than a dozen current and former White House and national-security officials tell TIME. Intelligence officials at the NSC send requests to the ODNI, which processes them, agreeing on cleared language with those who created the secrets to begin with. “The ultimate decision on whether to green-light or red-light a given piece of information rests with the professionals in the intelligence community,” Sullivan says.

The motivation behind the program, the officials say, is that it works. Strategic declassification has denied Russian President Vladimir Putin “false narratives,” Burns said in a speech last summer, “putting him in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of being on his back foot.” The effort has expanded beyond Russia. The U.S. has declassified intelligence to blunt Chinese saber-rattling in the Taiwan Strait, to pressure Iran to stop supplying weapons to the Houthis attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea, and to counter Hamas’ false claims about Israeli strikes. “This is a game changer,” says Kirby. “I hope they never put it back in the bottle.”

...

Sullivan believes that responsible declassification can help reverse this crisis of trust. “Being able to look the American people in the eye and say, ‘We’re tracking this threat, we’re taking it seriously, we’re doing something about it,’” he says, “creates trust with a sense that one’s government is on top of the problem.” Some intelligence experts propose doing more to ensure transparency and oversight, like empowering bipartisan committees on Capitol Hill, enacting tougher protections for whistle-blowers, and imposing rules at ODNI and Executive Orders from the White House on what gets declassified and how it is downgraded.

But ultimately, the broad authority to declassify secrets rests with the President. Which means the Commander in Chief’s credibility is central to any attempt to use secret-sharing as a tool to fight disinformation and rebuild public trust. “What sets us apart is the way we do it, and what we’re doing it for,” says the NSC’s Bitar. Or, as the CBS News correspondent turned government broadcaster Edward R. Murrow told Congress in 1963: “Truth is the best propaganda.”

Inside the White House Program to Share America’s Secrets

BY MASSIMO CALABRESI

FEBRUARY 29, 2024 6:00 AM EST

TIME

On the afternoon of Sept. 27, a Balkans expert at the White House got a disturbing call from a U.S. intelligence agency. Serbian forces were massing along the length of their country’s border with Kosovo, where NATO has kept an uneasy peace since a bloody war of secession in 1999. Three days earlier, more than two dozen armed Serbs had killed a Kosovar police officer in an attack. Now Serbia was deploying heavy weapons and troops. “We were very worried that Serbia could be preparing to launch a military invasion,” says one National Security Council (NSC) official.

The question was what to do about it. Months of mounting tensions in a remote corner of southeastern Europe had not received much attention in the media. Diplomatic efforts by the U.K., Italy, and other countries with troops on the ground in Kosovo had failed to calm the situation. In Washington, attention was focused on chaos in Congress; in much of Europe, the top priority was marshaling continued support for Ukraine. So as part of an effort to pressure Serbia to back down, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan approved a request from his Europe team to declassify elements of the Serbian buildup for public release.

The NSC Intelligence Directorate edited the secret details of the buildup to obscure the sources and methods behind the intelligence. Then it shipped the request to the office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in Northern Virginia via classified email. On Sept. 29, after a two-day scramble to clear the declassification, NSC spokesperson John Kirby convened an unscheduled Zoom call with members of the White House press corps. Kirby gave new information about the Sept. 24 attack on the Kosovar police officer and broke the news of the latest Serbian deployment, revealing that it included advanced artillery, tanks, and mechanized infantry units. As coverage spiked, European countries joined the U.S. in applying new diplomatic pressure on the Serbs, and the U.K. announced an additional troop deployment to Kosovo. Within days, Serbian troops were pulling back.

Photograph by Stephen Voss for TIME

The declassification and release of the Serbian troop movements is one example of a novel White House approach to using intelligence that has grown out of the U.S. response to the war in Ukraine. Starting in the fall of 2021, as U.S. spies became convinced Russia was preparing to invade, Sullivan worked with Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns to “downgrade” classified details of Moscow’s moves. “We were sitting on this troubling information,” says Maher Bitar, NSC coordinator for intelligence and defense policy, “and we needed to get ahead of what the Russians were going to do.”

More than two years later, the White House has built a broad program to share secrets when it serves strategic goals. About once a week, White House officials see intelligence that they want to make public and get approval from Sullivan to try, more than a dozen current and former White House and national-security officials tell TIME. Intelligence officials at the NSC send requests to the ODNI, which processes them, agreeing on cleared language with those who created the secrets to begin with. “The ultimate decision on whether to green-light or red-light a given piece of information rests with the professionals in the intelligence community,” Sullivan says.

The motivation behind the program, the officials say, is that it works. Strategic declassification has denied Russian President Vladimir Putin “false narratives,” Burns said in a speech last summer, “putting him in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of being on his back foot.” The effort has expanded beyond Russia. The U.S. has declassified intelligence to blunt Chinese saber-rattling in the Taiwan Strait, to pressure Iran to stop supplying weapons to the Houthis attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea, and to counter Hamas’ false claims about Israeli strikes. “This is a game changer,” says Kirby. “I hope they never put it back in the bottle.”

Kosovar police officers after the attack near the border with Serbia in September 2023.Ferdi Limani—Getty Images

The U.S. has selectively declassified and leaked intelligence for as long as it has collected it, but the Biden Administration’s secret-sharing program is new in several ways, current and former intelligence officials say. Where once the ODNI received one or two downgrade requests a month, it now sometimes receives many more than that in a day. While other agencies have jumped into the declassification game, much of the work is driven out of the White House. Rather than leaking one-off intelligence scoops, NSC officials combine multiple secrets with open-source intelligence from commercial-satellite imagery, battlefield bloggers, and news reports, distributing packages that echo the finished intelligence reports they receive every morning. “It’s been done piecemeal over the years,” says former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow. “It’s more strategic and orchestrated this time.”

Not everyone thinks that’s a good thing. Skeptics point to the U.S. government’s history of cherry-picking intelligence to deceive foreigners, and Americans, during the Cold War and to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Members of the U.S. intel community, ever protective of their secrets, want to limit the program to the conflict in Ukraine. Some in both parties worry a White House–run propaganda effort could be used for personal or political advantage. “Now we’ve got this declassification weapon that, put in the wrong hands, is very dangerous,” says a former CIA official.

But the world of secrets is changing, and America is scrambling to adapt. Russia has refined its social media propaganda operation so aggressively since 2016 that it believes only 1% of its bot army is detected on platforms like X and TikTok, according to a U.S. intelligence document published last year by the Washington Post. China is using advanced AI in its propaganda operations, the Rand Corp. said in a recent report. Sharing America’s secrets with the world before enemies try to influence and undermine democracies, advocates say, is one of the best ways to fight back. “We’ve learned you can beat a lie to the punch if you know it’s coming,” says Kirby. “We’re getting out ahead of them.”

At the same time, the proliferation of classified information means that America’s secrets are worth less than they used to be—and are harder to keep. The U.S. intelligence community sucks up the equivalent of 29 petabytes or 500 billion pages worth of information every day, classifies tens of millions of documents a year, and produces an estimated 50,000 classified reports annually, according to the National Security Agency, the National Archives, and public reporting. Accused mass leakers Edward Snowden and Airman First Class Jack Teixeira were both IT workers hired to manage that ocean of intel. Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump have faced special-counsel investigations for their sloppy handling of classified information. America’s attempt to safely warehouse billions of secrets is failing from the top of the intel chain to the bottom. As Justice Potter Stewart said in the Pentagon Papers case, “When everything is classified, then nothing is classified, and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless, and to be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion.”

The result is a toxic mix of public skepticism and diminished security. The share of Americans who believe the intelligence community respects their privacy and civil liberties dropped from 52% in 2020 to 44% in 2022, according to a University of Texas survey. After revelations of abuse by the FBI, Congress is struggling to renew the controversial Section 702 mass-surveillance program that the government says is crucial to fighting everything from fentanyl trafficking to terrorism to Chinese spies.

In its declassification program, the White House thinks it has the start of an answer to all three problems: disinformation, overclassification, and public distrust. “That’s a pretty good 1, 2, 3 from my perspective,” Sullivan tells TIME. He adds, “Obviously, this approach will have to evolve over time as we learn more.” The story of how the Biden Administration developed its secret-sharing program, and the search for how to use it safely, shows how far the U.S. government still has to go.

A Russian tank hit by Ukrainian forces in February 2022.Anatolii Stepanov—AFP/Getty Images

The first target of the American secret sharers’ efforts was Vladimir Putin. In mid

-October 2021, senior national-security leaders briefed the President, Sullivan, and other White House officials that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine. Sullivan’s first reaction was surprise. The second was to come up with a way to deter it. Biden decided to send Burns, a seasoned diplomat and former ambassador to Russia, to confront Putin. “We wanted to demonstrate to the Russians that we were aware of their planning to launch an invasion of Ukraine in order to disabuse them of the idea that they could have the element of surprise,” says Eric Green, then the senior director for Russia and Central Asia at the NSC. “But we also wanted to make sure what Bill Burns said was not burning sources and methods.” The result was a “downgrade,” or partial declassification, of the briefing Sullivan and the senior U.S. officials had received, Green recalls.

Burns ended up confronting Putin remotely in early November, reaching him by phone in the resort town of Sochi from the Moscow office of the Russian President’s foreign policy adviser. The U.S. spy chief left Russia feeling he had made no progress. The next step was to try to unite America’s allies behind the effort to deter an invasion. On the way back from Russia, the U.S. team briefed E.U. and NATO partners with a more detailed presentation of the intelligence. The Europeans were skeptical. “The French and the Germans and others were like, ‘You guys always overreact to these things. Russia’s got too much to lose,’” says a senior U.S. intelligence official. After hearing the European doubts, Haines recalled in a 2023 interview with Politico, Biden said, “OK, you need to get out there. We need to start sharing intelligence.”

At the head of the effort were Sullivan and his deputy at the NSC, Jon Finer. Former journalists, they appreciate more than some the value of being first. “There was a sense that by doing it pro-actively we would have more influence over the narrative,” says Green, who also saw a moral component to the decision: “This was such a monumental possibility that we had a duty to inform the public.” And, Green adds, “If we kept it under wraps, and then it came out that we knew, that would be an untenable situation.”

The group decided to declassify evidence that Russian troops were massing near Ukraine’s borders. They found commercial-satellite photos that showed the same troop buildups they had seen on the U.S. spy platforms. They combined those images with some of the details from the briefing that had surprised them, as well as with news reports and other public information, and worked with the intelligence community to produce a declassified version. They then gave the package to Shane Harris, a veteran Washington Post intelligence reporter. On Dec. 3, the Post ran the story. Other news outlets jumped to cover the troop buildup. Though the Russians denied they were preparing for war, the public conversation about the possibility of an invasion shifted. By the NSC’s lights, the move was a success.

Sullivan takes questions at the White House before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images

They decided to do more. In January, U.S. intelligence saw mounting preparations for a false-flag operation that Moscow intended to use as a justification for an invasion. Russia was preparing to stage an attack in separatist eastern Ukraine, complete with film of fake victims, the intelligence community reported. After issuing a general warning, the NSC prepared a more detailed package and got it cleared for release. On Feb. 3, then White House press secretary Jen Psaki and then State Department spokesperson Ned Price briefed reporters on the plot.

Not everyone was convinced. “What evidence do you have to support the idea that there is some propaganda film in the making?” asked Matt Lee, the State Department correspondent at AP. Price, sticking to his talking points, repeated the allegation without providing further evidence. The exchange went viral and highlighted the challenges to the approach. Declassification would only work, the NSC concluded, if it had enough credibility to overcome the U.S. history of bad intelligence and propaganda abuse.

As it turned out, the Russians ran the false-flag play anyway. On Feb. 18, an explosion rocked the pro-Russia-separatist region of Donetsk, and local leaders there called on Moscow to intervene militarily. But against the backdrop of the White House briefings, the Russian pretext provided no diplomatic cover. By some accounts, the pre-bunking delayed the Russian invasion. “We know it bought at least a week,” Kirby says.

But it didn’t prevent it. Russian tanks rolled across Ukraine’s borders in late February 2022, grabbing swaths of territory in the east of the country and coming within miles of the presidential palace in Kyiv. Back in Washington, the secret sharers expanded their efforts.

Burns, Sullivan and Haines at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Virginia in February 2024.Stephen Voss for TIME

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is headquartered in a suburban complex in northern Virginia known as Liberty Crossing. Two large steel-and-glass buildings in the shapes of an L and an X are hidden up a drive behind an embankment, a stand of trees, and security checkpoints. Since 2008, the complex has housed the intelligence community’s umbrella organization, created after 9/11 to manage the 18 sometimes competing, often territorial, agencies that collect and analyze America’s secrets.

In the two-story lobby of the L-shaped building, rows of security turnstiles and low-ceilinged elevator banks lead up to the office that handles information management for the intelligence community. It is not large: fewer than 10 officials are assigned to the job. The declassification requests they fielded in the run-up to the Russian invasion started out as emails over the classified network, primarily from Biden, Sullivan, and the White House, and grew to include petitions from other agencies and departments. ODNI declined to say how many of the downgrade requests are for nonpublic or covert purposes, and how many are for full declassification and official public release.

To help deal with the spiking number of requests, the NSC organized its process. Proposed downgrades had to meet certain strategic objectives. In the case of Ukraine, says Kirby, those were to support Kyiv’s success on the battlefield, bolster NATO, and avoid drawing the U.S. directly into the war. The requested intelligence had to be based on high-confidence assessments, not the low- or medium-ones that had proved false in Iraq. Sullivan approves these requests about two-thirds of the time, according to Kirby and other White House officials.

Not everyone was eager to help. Intelligence officers who had classified secrets to begin with were loath to declassify them, officials on all sides of the process say. But in Haines, Sullivan had an ally. A lawyer and physicist who once owned an indie bookstore in Baltimore and had a hobby of rebuilding everything from TVs to twin-engine planes, she rose to be deputy head of the CIA in 2013. “Having a system that can facilitate such sharing,” she said in January 2023, “and ultimately having the resources to review and downgrade, or declassify what can be released, is critical.”

Over time, the ODNI created a system to speed response and create records both of the request to declassify the intelligence and of its authorization. The template includes the date of the request, the deadline, who’s asking for the downgrade, who’s going to use it, what the cleared language would be, where the intelligence came from, and the justification for declassification. Usually such requests take weeks to process. Now the speed depends in part on how sensitive the intelligence is, says one official involved in the process.

In some cases, approval went all the way up to Burns or the heads of other intelligence agencies. The biggest concern was protecting sources and methods. The White House learned not to ask for the declassification of full, finished reports, instead targeting individual facts, or maps and graphics. “Strategic downgrades had to mean strategic, it just couldn’t be every tactical piece of intelligence we came across,” says Sullivan. Over time, those involved say, program runners in the intelligence community saw how their sanitized information was used publicly, and bought in.

That meant more and more declassification. From March 2022 on, the U.S. released intelligence about potential Chinese support for Russia, Russian attacks against Ukrainian storage facilities, Russia’s naval blockade in the Black Sea, and Iranian and North Korean support for the war. The secrets were combined with publicly available information, according to senior White House officials, including naval maritime data, commercial-satellite imagery, and social media activity.

Along the way, the NSC team began expanding the use of declassified material. Ahead of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022, Kirby briefed a declassified intelligence-community analysis of the steps China might take in response, including military provocations like firing missiles in the Taiwan Strait. The goal was to diminish the shock value of any retaliation by Beijing for Pelosi’s trip, a senior White House official says.

A Chinese missile test after Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022.Eyepress News/Reuters

The U.S. has also used declassification in the Israel-Hamas War. The White House twice downgraded intelligence about what they said was Hamas’ use of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza as a military command center “to help explain to people how [Hamas fighters] have deeply embedded themselves within the civilian population,” says an NSC official familiar with the decision. In late December, the White House released downgraded intelligence claiming Iran had transferred drones and cruise missiles to Houthi militants in Yemen that were being used to attack ships in the Red Sea.

Even the program’s most enthusiastic backers admit the results are mixed. Finer, Sullivan’s deputy, told an intelligence conference in July that the U.S. had used it to successfully deter Russian arms deals with China and Iran, and to build support for war-crimes charges at the Hague. Yet months of downgrades intended to forestall arms transfers from North Korea to Russia failed, as have attempts to pressure Iran to cut off military support for the Houthis.

In late January 2023, Kirby received a letter via courier that was postmarked st. petersburg. Having grown up in St. Petersburg, Fla., he thought the letter might have something to do with the home he still owns there. But on closer examination, he discovered it had come not from the southeastern U.S. but from northwestern Russia. Inside the envelope was a typed note. “Dear Mr Kirby, Could you please clarify what crime was committed by PMC Wagner?” It was hand-signed: “Yevgeny Prigozhin.”

The moment was something of a milestone in the U.S.-Russia propaganda battle: a direct exchange between adversaries in the information space. Prigozhin was the head of the Wagner Group, which ran a key mercenary force on the ground in Ukraine. Just days before receiving Prigozhin’s letter, Kirby had announced at a White House press briefing that the U.S. was designating Wagner as a transnational criminal organization and imposing sanctions on the group.

Before leading the mercenary group, one of Prigozhin’s claims to fame was as a global disinformation operator. In 2016, he organized the main Russian troll farms that infiltrated U.S. social media during the presidential election, part of a campaign that pushed propaganda to 126 million people on Facebook, according to the company. The Justice Department indicted Prigozhin for his role in the scheme. Prigozhin’s personalized response to Wagner’s criminal designation bolstered the White House’s sense that declassification had given the U.S. a new weapon in the running battle against Russia’s propagandists. “It showed we were getting inside his head,” says Kirby.

In other ways, the episode highlights how far behind the U.S. has fallen in the propaganda wars. Since 2016, Moscow has expanded and refined its efforts to control the “information environment” through automated propaganda. In late 2022, Russia’s “Main Scientific Research Computing Center” was improving its network of hundreds of thousands of social media bots to the point that they were detected on X, YouTube and TikTok less than 1% of the time, according to a top-secret document leaked by Teixeira.

To hear America’s information warriors tell it, the danger is only growing. Autocracies like Iran, North Korea, and China have gotten in the game. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has called for expanded use of technology in controlling international public opinion, and the Chinese military has researched the use of generative AI and large language models to automate propaganda at scale, according to a Rand study released in September. The result, write the researchers, may be “a massive bot network that looks and acts human.”

No one knows how effective this AI-enhanced propaganda may be. “I don’t think it’s changing a lot of people’s minds, it’s just reinforcing what people already think,” says James Steinberg, former Deputy National Security Adviser and dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Others are more alarmed. “As AI’s role in defining and shaping the ‘information space’ grows,” wrote former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, former National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, and MIT dean Daniel Huttenlocher in a recent book, “the prospects for free society, even free will, may be altered.”

For students of government intelligence abuse, the true danger is in overreacting. While Sullivan, Burns, and Haines tout the power of declassification in the fight against autocratic disinformation, others worry about a coordinated secret-exploiting operation at the White House. “We don’t want to chill declassification,” says Mark Zaid, a lawyer who specializes in national-security cases, “but the politicization or weaponization of intelligence is worse than at any point in our lifetime.”

A document showing declassified details of Russian troop deployments along the Ukraine border.Stephen Voss for TIME

History supports such concerns. In the Cold War, the U.S. used declassified intelligence to mislead adversaries and Americans alike, including when officials asserted that Russian forces knew they were shooting at a civilian aircraft when they downed Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983. In the early 2000s, the U.S. declassified what turned out to be bogus intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program to justify the invasion of Iraq. Most recently, U.S. counter-intelligence operatives at the FBI gave credence to an unreliable dossier collected on Trump, then briefed him on it, paving the way for its publication.

Trump has his own ideas about the uses of declassification. He started his term by allegedly revealing secrets—reportedly collected by Israeli intelligence services—to two Russian officials, for reasons that never became clear. In 2019, he tweeted high-resolution photos, reportedly taken by a multibillion-dollar KH-11 spy satellite, showing a damaged Iranian missile site. Accused of taking secrets to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump falsely claimed he could declassify documents just by thinking them unsecret.

What has gotten both Trump and Biden in the most trouble, however, isn’t misuse of declassification, but failing to safeguard the secrets to which they have access. Special counsel Robert Hur concluded Biden willfully took secret papers to his home in Wilmington and to offices elsewhere in Delaware and in Pennsylvania. Hur declined to bring charges. The FBI found secret documents strewn around Mar-a-Lago, and special counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump with blocking government attempts to get them back.

Experts say such breaches are as much a product of America’s industrial creation of secrets as they are carelessness in handling them. No one knows how many secrets America creates a year: the number grew from more than 5 million in 2006 to more than 95 million in 2012, and eventually the government just stopped counting. Former Defense Department officials estimate that anywhere from 50% to 90% of them shouldn’t be classified at all. The cheapening of American secrets has grown so extreme that the organizers of a popular online video game, War Thunder, which crowd-sources scenarios between real-world militaries, have repeatedly warned participants to stop trying to make the game more accurate by sharing classified details about the weapons systems it features.

Could the White House’s willingness to declassify intelligence for strategic purposes help with overclassification? Advocates say it’s harder for agencies to justify keeping secrets from the 1950s when today’s spies are being more flexible with theirs. In theory, AI could be used to compare the billions of government secrets with what is publicly available. The Public Intelligence Declassification Board, an office of the National Archives tasked with fighting overclassification, argued for using new tech in a 2020 report, and Haines has endorsed some of its ideas.

Read More: How Data Literacy Can Keep America Safe

There will always be secrets of such great value or delicate provenance that they must be protected. “While the amount of publicly available information has essentially exploded, that doesn’t mean the age of big secrets is over,” Haines tells TIME. But mass collection and social media have changed the economy of secrecy. Once, classified intelligence that gave decision-makers an advantage over their opponents was so hard to come by that it was genuinely precious for national security. Now, intelligence that once took months to collect and process can make it around the world in minutes. “Open source” groups like Bellingcat have shown the value of posting facts online to contradict an autocrat’s false narrative before it can take root. To extract value from at least some of its billions of secrets, argue proponents of declassification, the U.S. government needs to make them public.

That might also help with what has become a crisis of public trust in the intelligence community. In a 2019 report, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found the FBI abused the process of applying for warrants to spy on Americans 17 times as it went after former Trump campaign official Carter Page. As recently as 2021, the FBI performed more than 3 million searches on data collected on Americans, including those involved in the Jan. 6 riot and Black Lives Matter protests, without warrants, according to an ODNI report. It’s perhaps not surprising that some Americans give credence to conspiracy theories, from Trump’s fulminations about a sinister “deep state” to presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claims that the CIA killed his uncle.

Sullivan believes that responsible declassification can help reverse this crisis of trust. “Being able to look the American people in the eye and say, ‘We’re tracking this threat, we’re taking it seriously, we’re doing something about it,’” he says, “creates trust with a sense that one’s government is on top of the problem.” Some intelligence experts propose doing more to ensure transparency and oversight, like empowering bipartisan committees on Capitol Hill, enacting tougher protections for whistle-blowers, and imposing rules at ODNI and Executive Orders from the White House on what gets declassified and how it is downgraded.

But ultimately, the broad authority to declassify secrets rests with the President. Which means the Commander in Chief’s credibility is central to any attempt to use secret-sharing as a tool to fight disinformation and rebuild public trust. “What sets us apart is the way we do it, and what we’re doing it for,” says the NSC’s Bitar. Or, as the CBS News correspondent turned government broadcaster Edward R. Murrow told Congress in 1963: “Truth is the best propaganda.”

—With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Simmone Shah/New York and Lissa August/Washington

TIME

18. ‘We look 100 percent weak’: US airdrops in Gaza expose limit to Biden’s Israel policy

Excerpts:

“We look 100 percent weak,” said Dave Harden, a former humanitarian assistance coordinator at the U.S. Agency for International Development. “Administration officials are doing this just to make themselves feel better.”

The National Security Council didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on that charge. But during a Friday news briefing, NSC spokesperson John Kirby agreed with Biden’s overall assessment.

“We just haven’t been able to meet the need,” he said. “Not enough aid is getting into people that need it. It’s not getting in fast enough, it’s not happening in the quantity that we need. And we’re trying to act to the need; we’re trying to behave and change and be more creative to meet the desperate need of the people of Gaza.”

The good news is airdrop operations aren’t overly dangerous for U.S. personnel, especially when there aren’t immediate threats to the aircraft or crew, noted retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, who led U.S. Central Command during the Trump and Biden administrations. There aren’t enemies to shoot down the planes, he said, and working with aid agencies on the ground to manage crowds clamoring for fresh supplies and food won’t be too difficult.

Plus, McKenzie said in an interview Friday, the U.S. can use GPS to track where the packages land. It’s not like the old days when troops did their best to aim the drops and avoid harming civilian infrastructure or civilians themselves in the process. “We’re pretty good at this, we’re pretty precise,” he said.

But airdrops can also create perilous problems for people on the ground, noted Harden. Without clear crowd control, Palestinians will fight for morsels of the one or two truckfulls of assistance planes can carry. That puts Jordanian troops working with the U.S. or aid organizations in a tough spot to ensure the strongest don’t bully their way to the front of the line.

‘We look 100 percent weak’: US airdrops in Gaza expose limit to Biden’s Israel policy

The US normally does airdrops in hostile environments, not in areas occupied by allies.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/01/us-airdrops-in-gaza-expose-limit-to-bidens-israel-policy-00144528

President Joe Biden announced on Friday that the U.S. military will soon begin airdrops of humanitarian aid in Gaza. | Evan Vucci/AP

By ALEXANDER WARD

03/01/2024 05:53 PM EST

President Joe Biden’s decision to airdrop humanitarian aid into Gaza will provide temporary relief for Palestinians on the ground — but it also exposes the limits of America’s approach toward Israel.

When the U.S. sends military aircraft to drop food, water, medicine and other assistance for people in need, it typically does so in areas occupied by terrorist groups or hostile regimes, not allies. And yet, months of pushing Israel to allow more aid into Gaza — where around 80 percent of the population is displaced and famine looms — have yielded limited results.

Even Biden, who refuses to blame Israel for the scarcity of supplies, outwardly admitted Friday that more assistance should be getting into the enclave.

“The truth is, aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere nearly enough now. It’s nowhere nearly enough. Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line,” Biden said alongside Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Oval Office. “We should be getting hundreds of trucks in, not just several.”

For close watchers of the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has raged following the militants’ Oct. 7 attack, the move to drop aid from the skies signals Biden can’t persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do more for suffering Palestinians.

“We look 100 percent weak,” said Dave Harden, a former humanitarian assistance coordinator at the U.S. Agency for International Development. “Administration officials are doing this just to make themselves feel better.”

The National Security Council didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on that charge. But during a Friday news briefing, NSC spokesperson John Kirby agreed with Biden’s overall assessment.

“We just haven’t been able to meet the need,” he said. “Not enough aid is getting into people that need it. It’s not getting in fast enough, it’s not happening in the quantity that we need. And we’re trying to act to the need; we’re trying to behave and change and be more creative to meet the desperate need of the people of Gaza.”

The good news is airdrop operations aren’t overly dangerous for U.S. personnel, especially when there aren’t immediate threats to the aircraft or crew, noted retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, who led U.S. Central Command during the Trump and Biden administrations. There aren’t enemies to shoot down the planes, he said, and working with aid agencies on the ground to manage crowds clamoring for fresh supplies and food won’t be too difficult.

Plus, McKenzie said in an interview Friday, the U.S. can use GPS to track where the packages land. It’s not like the old days when troops did their best to aim the drops and avoid harming civilian infrastructure or civilians themselves in the process. “We’re pretty good at this, we’re pretty precise,” he said.

But airdrops can also create perilous problems for people on the ground, noted Harden. Without clear crowd control, Palestinians will fight for morsels of the one or two truckfulls of assistance planes can carry. That puts Jordanian troops working with the U.S. or aid organizations in a tough spot to ensure the strongest don’t bully their way to the front of the line.

"Innocent lives are on the line and children’s lives are on the line,” President Joe Biden said. | Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

On Thursday, dozens of Palestinians were killed while scrambling for aid in Gaza, prompting Friday’s announcement. “It was the final impetus,” said a senior administration official, granted anonymity to reveal sensitive internal thinking. Gazan health officials say Israeli troops fired into the crowd, killing more than 100 people and injuring some 700 more. The Israeli military denies attacking the humanitarian convoy.

Harden insisted that, short of convincing Israel to open all the gates into Gaza, the U.S. would be better off pushing Israel to allow 10 more trucks to go through currently open crossings. “Airdrops are a stupid thing to do. They’re expensive, they’re inefficient. It’s more symbolic to make people in the administration feel good that we’ve done something,” he said.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who supports Biden’s decision, agreed that what can be provided with aircraft alone is “a drop in the bucket to what’s needed in order to relieve the impending famine.”

Still, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee member added in an interview, “it sends the right message, including the fact that the United States is absolutely fed up that the Netanyahu government is restricting humanitarian assistance into Gaza to the point that the United States has to airdrop food. I mean, that’s a statement in itself.”

Some critics, though. say the operation is also unnecessary.

The U.S. has many ways to influence Israeli actions, not least of which is to consider conditioning military aid for the country. Democrats in Congress have long suggested that Biden withhold new arms sales to Israel until Netanyahu addresses the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But Kirby, aware the U.S. is in talks with Israel on a new weapons delivery, on Friday reiterated the U.S. would continue to support Israel’s right to self-defense.

“To make matters even more baffling, we’re doing this while continuing to send weapons to the very military responsible for forcing us to conduct aid airdrops,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

“To make matters even more baffling, we’re doing this while continuing to send weapons to the very military responsible for forcing us to conduct aid airdrops.”

 Charles Lister, senior fellow, Middle East Institute

The Biden administration insists its approach toward Israel is the right one. An open break with Netanyahu and his far-right, anti-Palestinian government would lead to more indiscriminate military operations and less humanitarian aid would get into Gaza. It’s better for the U.S. to maintain some influence with Israel than not at all.

The U.S. is also working with Israel, Hamas, Qatar and Egypt to broker a hostage deal that would pause the fighting for six weeks. That cease-fire would allow more assistance to get into the enclave, alleviating some of the crisis that Israel’s retaliation against Hamas started.

That the Biden administration has to think this way, and is about to launch airdrop missions, tells Lister that the U.S. approach is limited in its effectiveness.

“The fact that the U.S. is having to mobilize military resources to airdrop aid into Gaza is a staggering symbol of just how emphatic Israel’s constraints are on access,” he said.

Lara Seligman and Eli Stokols contributed to this report.

• FILED

19. The Way Forward on China

Excerpts;

When it comes to the U.S. defense budget, the Biden administration reasonably considers the Chinese military as the Defense Department’s “pacing challenge.” But that shouldn’t be an excuse for unrestrained defense spending or a free rein to develop potentially dangerous weapons systems like, say, artificial intelligence-powered systems.

Technology is another reasonable arena for competition. There’s good cause to stop the Chinese government from forcing technological transfers; recent efforts to control semiconductor exports seem valid. The U.S. should try to attract STEM talent globally by facilitating high-skill immigration as well. It would also mean that the U.S. government should take reasonable precautions to ensure that sensitive technologies do not get brought back to China.

Some U.S. tech giants argue that regulations will harm their competitiveness; this is an example of a bad blank check—the notion that anything should be permissible as long as one is competing against China. On the contrary, U.S. technology companies are stronger when they institute basic safeguards that protect privacy, prevent misinformation, and protect vulnerable people. Recent discussions about artificial intelligence, for instance, have distracted from more readily available methods of protecting privacy—to say nothing of the threat personal data leaks pose to America’s national security.

When it comes to the future of economic relations with China, there are drawbacks. On the one hand, it was a big misstep for the United States and Europe to make themselves so economically dependent on China. On the other, full decoupling also seems unrealistic. Some level of “de-risking”— shielding certain critical supply chains from China—is reasonable. As supply chains move away from China, moreover, the United States should ensure that future transnational trade deals come with stronger workers’ rights protections that have real and effective enforcement mechanisms.

On climate, the United States should not engage with China unconditionally. The terms and benchmarks of such engagement matters a great deal. Given China’s attitudes toward engagement on climate, a competitive approach to address climate change may well work better and should be developed further.

Finally, the U.S. needs to focus on working with others to promote a more secure and stable world. It should seriously and consistently promote human rights globally, not just pay them lip service or treating them as a form of propaganda. Unfortunately, U.S. actions over the years have helped to severely damage respect for international norms; many governments now treat them with contempt or use America’s failings to justify their own even worse behavior. The United States could rectify this situation by signing up to international agreements and treaties, including the International Criminal Court.

The Way Forward on China

Why neither belligerent confrontation nor appeasement will secure America's global interests or advance liberal values in China.

PETER JUUL

MAR 1, 2024

liberalpatriot.com · by Peter Juul

President Biden and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping walk and talk during the October 2023 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ meeting in California. (Credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Editor’s note: This perspective on America’s China policy comes from a senior China analyst at a large global organization who wishes to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of their work and position.

The United States has been both hated and loved in China.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States was part of the “Eight-Nation Alliance” that invaded and humiliated the Qings, China’s last dynasty; that defeat is bitterly remembered as the beginning of China’s “century of humiliation” as its ancient civilization fell behind what it considered to be culturally inferior West. But the U.S. also supported the founding of modern China after the Qings, and some leading Chinese modernizers like Sun Yat-sen looked to America as a model of democracy. However, this U.S.-backed Nationalist government lost its civil war against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—long hostile to the U.S. and democracy—which then established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan. For decades, the United States did not diplomatically recognize the PRC.

But as the PRC soured on the Soviet Union, U.S.-China relations warmed. President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, and President Jimmy Carter normalized relations with China in 1979. Carter recognized the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China and adopted the “One China” principle. America stopped recognizing Taiwan’s government, but the U.S. Congress also passed the Taiwan Relations Act to maintain cultural and commercial relationships with Taiwan. Importantly, that act also requires that the United States supply the island with defensive arms.

Relations between the U.S. and China went into a deep freeze in 1989, after the Chinese government’s massacre of pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square. But in 1993, President Bill Clinton, who had strongly criticized Beijing on the campaign trail the previous year, launched a policy of “constructive engagement” with the Chinese government, paving the way for it to join the World Trade Organization in 2001. Clinton and other American advocates of constructive engagement claimed that bringing China into the global economy would eventually and inevitably liberalize the country’s politics.

After joining the WTO, the PRC’s economy skyrocketed. The Chinese government also stood accused of adopting policies that unfairly furthered its advantages, such as keeping yuan’s exchange rate at artificially low levels and thus its exports cheap and competitive. More importantly, Chinese industries viewed as strategic by the CCP—particularly advanced technologies, including clean energy—received subsidies and benefited from forced technological transfers and theft in the hope that they would overtake and edge out similar industries in the West.

Parts of the U.S. government increasingly realized the problems involved in China’s rise, but as a whole Washington did little to address them. The two economies became heavily intertwined: U.S. multinational corporations lobbied against actions that might have jeopardized their profits, while the United States did not want to wean itself from cheap goods or plentiful capital from China. The Chinese government cultivated American elites on both sides of the aisle, particularly those in the business world, as part of its “United Front” strategy, coopting them to promote—or at least not oppose—the Chinese Communist Party’s views. As a result, there was little to no effective action to address growing Chinese government behaviors by U.S. administrations from Clinton to Obama.1 Along with the Chinese government intimidating and marginalizing voices critical of it in the United States itself, American policies towards China remained largely harmless and cost-free to the CCP.

Over time, the PRC became the world’s second biggest economy and America’s biggest creditor. Since the 2008 global financial crisis—and especially after Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, and then again following Trump’s election in 2017—China has become increasingly assertive and abusive both at home and abroad. Trump’s administration capitalized on the growing alarm and resentment towards China in the U.S. and shifted the American—and America’s allies’—orientation towards China from “engagement” to “competition.” His administration imposed tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018, for instance, many of which have been retained by the Biden administration.

Today, U.S.-China relations are increasingly defined by competition that some in the U.S. describe as “existential” and others criticize as “zero sum.”2 They are competing on all fronts—political, economic, technological and military. The two remain economically intertwined, and the extent to which they can “de-risk” or decouple from each other is not yet clear.3 The U.S. and China are reverting to Cold War dynamics, cultivating allies to counter the other. China has moved closer to Russia and also Iran. The European Union, long a U.S. ally and comprised of many NATO member nations, remains caught in the middle: it is economically reliant on China to a greater degree than the U.S., and it has grown concerned with growing China-Russia ties. And yet many EU leaders wish to maintain some sort of independence from the U.S., and remain wary of a second Trump presidency or yet another Trump-like president.

As China rises in importance in US foreign policy, the number of people involved in China policies and the amount of China-related legislation increases. But overall, America’s China expertise remains limited and piecemeal. Few policy professionals in the government are fluent in Chinese, and even fewer can accurately read the Chinese Communist Party’s policies and practices—especially given that CCP policy processes are black boxes, particularly so under Xi. Moreover, many of those with China expertise were part of the engagement era and remain unwilling to shift towards a more critical approach. For some, their experience with China primarily meant doing business with the CCP. For academics and think tankers, a need to maintain access to China often means they keep topics and people the Chinese government dislikes at arm’s length. Other influential voices are China’s elites, who promote the Chinese Communist Party’s views. While human rights organizations have played an outsized role in U.S.-China relations, bringing marginalized voices of people from Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, and China proper to the table, U.S.-China relations remain determined by elites from both sides.

Major policy choices on the left and the right

Broadly speaking, the U.S. has adopted two opposite orientations towards China since re-establishing ties with Beijing in 1972: “engagement” and “competition.” Engagement, a bipartisan consensus for about 40 years, has fallen largely out of favor.4 Competition is now largely the bipartisan consensus across both the Trump and Biden administrations, though its precise content, emphasis, and policies varies.

The Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy first laid out China alongside Russia as existential threats that “challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” Both Moscow and Beijing, the strategy said, “want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.” Likewise, the Trump administration’s 2020 U.S. Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China determined China to be a “strategic competitor” and said the U.S. now had “a tolerance of greater bilateral friction.” The American “approach is not premised on determining a particular end state for China,” but to “improve the resiliency... [of U.S.] institutions, alliances, and partnerships” and “to compel Beijing to cease or reduce actions harmful to the United States’...national interests.” The document further outlined granular policies spanning across domains, such as “[d]irecting resources to identify and prosecute trade secrets theft, hacking, and economic espionage,” “[r]equiring Chinese diplomats to notify the United States Government before meeting with state and local government officials and academic institutions,” and “[s]trengthen the United States economy and promote economic sectors of the future, such as 5G technology, through tax reforms and a robust deregulatory agenda.”

Another significant China policy document produced during the Trump administration was a 2020 report prepared by the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff that unambiguously described the CCP’s ambitions as nothing less than subversion of the existing world order. It also analyzed the CCP’s intentions and worldviews, describing how they shaped behaviors while presenting ten broad principles for the U.S. to build its strengths vis-à-vis China.

Actual Trump administration policies, however, on China were contradictory, overly broad, departed wildly from stated policies—to say nothing of the numerous liabilities that arose from his America First isolationist approach that alienated with critical U.S. allies to his endorsement of the mass detention of Uyghurs.T5

In January 2021, the Atlantic Council published a “Longer Telegram” on China policy. Written by an anonymous “former senior government official... on China,” it asserts that the U.S. only has “a declaration of doctrinal attitude, not a comprehensive strategy to be operationalized” on China. In part, the author blames this lack of strategy on the U.S. having unclear and varying objectives for China, ranging from “inducing economic reform through a limited trade war to full-blown regime change.” It asserts that the U.S. would need “a qualitatively different and more granular policy response to China than the blunt instrument of ‘containment with Chinese characteristics’ and a dream of CCP collapse.” The report then outlines ten actions for the U.S., pronounces priorities and declares interests rather than specific actions which it says should be developed closed-door. The “Longer Telegram” received widespread attention and debate in Washington, especially over its assertion that U.S. strategy on China should focus on exploiting perceived political fault lines between Xi and his inner circle.

For its part, the Biden administration’s China policy has focused on building coalitions internationally and rebuilding America’s strength domestically. In a March 2021 speech, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated U.S. policy toward China will be “competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be.” In May 2022, Blinken gave another speech that outlined the Biden administration’s China strategy. The U.S. does not “seek to block China from its role as a major power,” he said, but it “will shape the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision for an open, inclusive international system.” He summed up the Biden administration’s strategy towards China up as “invest, align, compete.” Invest in America’s democracy, infrastructure, and innovation; align with its allies built on shared interests like human rights. As to compete, the U.S. seeks to outcompete China in technology and innovation while pushing back against “unfair technology and economic practices,” but the United States “does not want to sever China’s economy from ours.” On the military front, Blinken stated the United States will “hold China as its pacing challenge, to ensure that our military stays ahead” and that it would “continue to uphold our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act to assist Taiwan” and “resist any... forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security or the social or economic system, of Taiwan.” Blinken emphasized that America would work with Beijing where their interests aligned, including on climate change.

This new bipartisan consensus on China appears to consist of several elements: building America’s strength at home, addressing the Chinese government’s influence in the United States, pushing back against the Chinese government’s economic coercion and forced technological transfer, keeping the U.S. military and technological innovations strong, and advancing or preserving America’s global influence.6

The left and right differ on their focus, however. The right tends to focus on “elite capture,” or the way the CCP influences American politics through its United Front, casting Democrats as corrupt and beholden to Beijing;7 they also tend to push for greater “decoupling” from China. The far right’s talking points and policies often conflate the CCP with people of Chinese descent and, troublingly, frequently promote discrimination and racism.

Some on the left and the center remain proponents of engagement, though many appear to argue for a toned-down version of continued academic exchanges, climate cooperation, and dialogues with the Chinese government. Others on the left advocate shoving human rights aside for the sake of climate cooperation, and they are concerned that any competition framework fosters “anti-Asian hate” and promotes a disastrous “New Cold War.”8 Those even further left think the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and Latin America has been so disastrous that it should maintain an overall position of “restraint” in general.

What’s the right approach to China?

There’s no doubt that the Chinese Communist Party has long been a threat to the people in China, home to a fifth of humanity, or that the CCP’s system is the antithesis of democracy, or that its global ambitions already make it a formidable competitor to the United States. The Chinese government has a growing and negative global footprint: it spreads broadly illiberal ideas and technocratic governance solutions overseas that do away with a free press, civil society, and elections. Its Belt and Road Initiative gives out loans that lack transparency and exacerbates corruption; its transnational surveillance, repression, and influence campaigns crush dissent and disagreement; its military build-up and nuclear capabilities paired with an aggressive posture threatens its neighbors; Beijing constantly undermines international human rights mechanisms—the list goes on and on.

But the United States remains globally dominant and leads China by a significant margin across multiple domains. If China overtakes the US as a global power, however, its impact will certainly be far worse than it is even today; democracy may well become obsolete.

The major question now is whether or not a CCP-ruled China ever overtake the United States in terms of global power. Half this question involves whether the CCP even intends to do so, but my opinion is that the Chinese government has long sought to supplant the United States.9 The other half of this question is whether it can do so. My own limited vantage point—primarily examining Chinese society and governance—suggests that the Chinese Communist Party’s power may grow more slowly, along with its economy, than many once expected. Part of the reason is geopolitical: advanced economies have become much more critical towards China and have made it harder for the Beijing to exploit them for growth. China also faces major domestic headwinds, including an aging population, undereducated and undernourished youth in rural areas, and an intellectually stifling and a socially stagnant society where young people no longer feel confident or aim for upward mobility—they would rather “lie flat.” As long as the CCP remains in power, these problems cannot be easily resolved, and some even argue that the Chinese government maybe “peaking.”

China will nonetheless exert a strong negative gravitational pull for decades. But unless it experiences something like a technological quantum leap—always a possibility even though Xi’s China stifles innovation—its ambitions will remain unfulfilled. The other possibility would be if the United States loses or gives up on its democracy in the coming decades, which also remains frighteningly possible.

In the meantime, it is reasonable to expect that the United States will maintain a solid lead over China with room to maneuver. It also follows that its current competition with China on all fronts could, given limited resources and competing priorities, risk overstretching the United States with misplaced priorities that paradoxically may undermine America’s national interests. A more selective or limited competitive policy would be more reasonable given this is a multi-decade marathon, not a sprint. Besides, an overt U.S. drive to maximize dominance across domains already comes off as self-interested globally, irks European allies, risks alienating countries from Brazil to Indonesia.

Accordingly, America should continue to invest at home, especially in health care, education, clean energy, and technological innovation. Some of China’s weaknesses involve an undereducated and undernourished rural population, and similar issues face the United States. Policy fixes like free early childhood education and eliminating child poverty and obesity have become national security issues.

America’s China policy should put a greater emphasis on defending the United States itself, which involves making sure the United States remains democratic and free from Chinese government influence. Some of the policies in the 2020 US Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China seem reasonable, and they should be revisited given that they were released late in the increasingly chaotic Trump administration.

These policies should ensure that:

• People in the United States are free to express their opinions about the Chinese government, in part by ensuring that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are equipped with the language skills to investigate China’s transnational repression, and by protecting academic freedom against undue Chinese government influence.
• The U.S. political system at the national, state, and local levels are free from foreign interference, by targeting United Front operations and increasing transparency and oversight over foreign political and academic donations.
• The U.S. develops its own China expertise, free from Chinese government influence. It should provide alternative funding and educational resources from K-to-12 in Chinese language learning that is not provided by the Chinese government-controlled Confucius Institutes, as well as funding and careers in China Studies free from the Chinese government’s manipulation and influence.
• Language skills are not enough: U.S. government agencies should tap into the communities of expatriate and exiled Chinese critics, many of whom are perceptive analysts of the Chinese Communist Party. These critics know how the CCP functions in actual practice, and how it obfuscates its intentions and hides its actions. This kind of frontline know-how will be especially important as fewer and fewer Americans go study in China due to U.S.-China tensions.

Some additional efforts to frustrate and compete with the Chinese government would also be justifiable, but they should not become a blank check that could lead to wasted energy or include those that, in the long term, could prove harmful to US national security—a destructive arms race, for example, or an uncritical embrace of dictators in the Asia-Pacific because they are not on China’s side.

When it comes to the U.S. defense budget, the Biden administration reasonably considers the Chinese military as the Defense Department’s “pacing challenge.” But that shouldn’t be an excuse for unrestrained defense spending or a free rein to develop potentially dangerous weapons systems like, say, artificial intelligence-powered systems.

Technology is another reasonable arena for competition. There’s good cause to stop the Chinese government from forcing technological transfers; recent efforts to control semiconductor exports seem valid. The U.S. should try to attract STEM talent globally by facilitating high-skill immigration as well. It would also mean that the U.S. government should take reasonable precautions to ensure that sensitive technologies do not get brought back to China.

Some U.S. tech giants argue that regulations will harm their competitiveness; this is an example of a bad blank check—the notion that anything should be permissible as long as one is competing against China. On the contrary, U.S. technology companies are stronger when they institute basic safeguards that protect privacy, prevent misinformation, and protect vulnerable people. Recent discussions about artificial intelligence, for instance, have distracted from more readily available methods of protecting privacy—to say nothing of the threat personal data leaks pose to America’s national security.

When it comes to the future of economic relations with China, there are drawbacks. On the one hand, it was a big misstep for the United States and Europe to make themselves so economically dependent on China. On the other, full decoupling also seems unrealistic. Some level of “de-risking”— shielding certain critical supply chains from China—is reasonable. As supply chains move away from China, moreover, the United States should ensure that future transnational trade deals come with stronger workers’ rights protections that have real and effective enforcement mechanisms.

On climate, the United States should not engage with China unconditionally. The terms and benchmarks of such engagement matters a great deal. Given China’s attitudes toward engagement on climate, a competitive approach to address climate change may well work better and should be developed further.

Finally, the U.S. needs to focus on working with others to promote a more secure and stable world. It should seriously and consistently promote human rights globally, not just pay them lip service or treating them as a form of propaganda. Unfortunately, U.S. actions over the years have helped to severely damage respect for international norms; many governments now treat them with contempt or use America’s failings to justify their own even worse behavior. The United States could rectify this situation by signing up to international agreements and treaties, including the International Criminal Court.

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1

See America Second by Isaac Stone Fish for more detail.

2

Some argue that the CCP has long determined to displace the United States on the global stage, while others assert that the CCP is merely trying to make the international environment safer for its authoritarianism.

3

There is a vast debate about whether the two economies are indeed decoupling.

4

Some continue to argue that it was the right strategy at the time, or that it was just not given enough time. See Joseph S. Nye, “The Evolution of America's China Strategy,” November 2, 2022.

5

For example, the US suspended entry for graduate and postgraduate students and researchers from China in May 2020, departing significantly from his own administration’s stated policies of delineating the Chinese government from the Chinese people. See Nicole Gaouette and Maegan Vazquez, “Trump announces unprecedented action against China,” CNN, May 29, 2020.

6

The brevity of this briefing paper does not allow include other strategies outside of the Trump and Biden administrations, including those of Melanie Hart, Rush Doshi, and Ryan Haas, which vary in terms of specific ideas but generally involve a mix of building American strengths at home and building American order abroad with allies while frustrating those of China’s across domains.

7

But the Chinese government has played both sides. See Marc A. Thiessen, “Vivek Ramaswamy has a China problem — and a Hunter Biden problem,” Washington Post, September 26, 2023 and Andrew Solender, “Report: Trump received at least $7.8M in foreign payments during presidency,” Axios, January 5, 2024.

8

The Center for American Progress, Tobita Chow, and Bernie Sanders exemplify this position.

9

The debate is whether it intends to supplant the United States, or merely aims to be respected and make the world a safer place for authoritarianism. Rush Doshi, for example, argues in his book The Long Game that the Chinese government’s long game is to surpass the United States.

liberalpatriot.com · by Peter Juul

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com