Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners


Quotes of the Day:

"Trust dies but mistrust blossoms" 
- Sophocles

"Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance." 
- Robert Quillen

"The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking." 
- Albert Einstein


1. Russia’s Military, Once Creaky, Is Modern and Lethal
2. U.S. Delivers Response to Russian Demands Amid Ukraine Crisis
3. Biden’s Berlin Gas Airlift
4. Putin’s No Chess Master by Eliot A. Cohen
5. Biden’s China policy needs to be more than just Trump lite
6. How the internet is training AI to make better disinformation
7. Explainer: What are NATO's next steps if Russia invades Ukraine?
8. U.N. chief tells Security Council: Afghanistan 'hanging by thread'
9. 'Fix my computer' Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds
10. ‘Spies, Lies, and Algorithms’ Review: A Test for Intelligence
11. The Putin Doctrine: A Move on Ukraine Has Always Been Part of the Plan
12. Is ‘AUKUS Plus’ a Viable Option?
13. The Battle for the Future of the West
14. 'It's a joke': Germany's offer of 5,000 helmets to Ukraine is met with disdain amid Russia invasion fears
15. The Pentagon Is in Desperate Need of an Intervention From the Top
16. How Long Can Biden Muddle Through on China?
17.  FDD | The Post-Post-JCPOA World
18. Navy Seals Stop Training in State Parks as Locals Sue Over 'War Games'
19. Be All You Can Be: Why the Marine Corps Should Look to the Army for Lessons on Force Design
20. Why China cares about the label of democracy
21. How Iran is Winning, One Attack at a Time
22. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine: Stop Linking Their Fates Together



1. Russia’s Military, Once Creaky, Is Modern and Lethal


Did the Russian army grow back to being the 10 foot tall Soviet army?

Russia’s Military, Once Creaky, Is Modern and Lethal
The New York Times · by Andrew E. Kramer · January 27, 2022
A significantly upgraded military has emerged as a key tool of Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy, as he flexes his might around the globe and, most ominously, on the Ukraine border.
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Russian T-72B3 tanks during drills this month at the Kadamovskiy firing range in southern Russia.Credit...Associated Press
Jan. 27, 2022, 3:00 a.m. ET
MOSCOW — In the early years of Vladimir V. Putin’s tenure as Russia’s leader, the country’s military was a hollowed-out but nuclear-armed shell.
It struggled to keep submarines afloat in the Arctic and an outgunned insurgency at bay in Chechnya. Senior officers sometimes lived in moldy, rat-infested tenements. And instead of socks, poorly trained soldiers often wrapped their feet in swaths of cloth, the way their Soviet and Tsarist predecessors had.
Two decades later, it is a far different fighting force that has massed near the border with Ukraine. Under Mr. Putin’s leadership, it has been overhauled into a modern sophisticated army, able to deploy quickly and with lethal effect in conventional conflicts, military analysts said. It features precision-guided weaponry, a newly streamlined command structure and well-fed and professional soldiers. And they still have the nuclear weapons.
The modernized military has emerged as a key tool of Mr. Putin’s foreign policy: capturing Crimea, intervening in Syria, keeping the peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and, just this month, propping up a Russia-friendly leader in Kazakhstan. Now it is in the middle of its most ambitious — and most ominous — operation yet: using threats and potentially, many fear, force, to bring Ukraine back into Moscow’s sphere of influence.
“The mobility of the military, its preparedness and its equipment are what allow Russia to pressure Ukraine and to pressure the West,” said Pavel Luzin, a Russian security analyst. “Nuclear weapons are not enough.”
President Vladimir V. Putin, left, and his defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, during military exercises last year.Credit...Pool photo by Sergei Savostyanov
Without firing a shot, Mr. Putin has forced the Biden administration to shelve other foreign policy priorities and contend with Kremlin grievances the White House has long dismissed — in particular reversing Ukraine’s Westward lean in the post-Soviet period.
It is Mr. Putin’s highest-stakes use of the military to muscle Russia back into the global relevance it lost with the ending of the Cold War. Mr. Putin laid out that doctrine in 2018, when he used his annual state-of-the-nation speech to unveil new nuclear weapons that could fly 20 times the speed of sound.
“No one listened to us,” Mr. Putin said in his address, which included a video simulation showing a Russian missile heading toward the United States. “Listen to us now.”
Today, it is the overhaul of the conventional forces that has provided leverage in the Ukraine crisis.
The T-72B3 tanks amassed on Ukraine’s border have a new thermal optics system for nighttime fighting as well as guided missiles with twice the range of other tanks, according to Robert Lee, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Ph.D. candidate at King’s College in London, who is a Russian military expert. Kalibr cruise missiles deployed on ships and submarines in the Black Sea and Iskander-M rockets arrayed along the border can hit targets just about anywhere inside Ukraine, Mr. Lee said.
This photograph released by the Russian military shows a Kalibr cruise missile being launched from a Russian submarine during a test last year.Credit...Russian Defense Ministry
In the last decade, the Russian air force has acquired more than 1,000 new aircraft, according to a 2020 article by Aleksei Krivoruchko, a deputy defense minister. This includes the country’s most advanced fighters, the SU-35S; a squadron of these has been deployed to Belarus ahead of joint military exercises next month.
The new capabilities were evident in Russia’s intervention in Syria in 2015. They were not only effective, but caught some in the U.S. military off guard.
Understand Russia’s Relationship With the West
The tension between the regions is growing and Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly willing to take geopolitical risks and assert his demands.
“I’m embarrassed to admit, I was surprised a few years ago when Kalibr missiles came flying out of the Caspian Sea, hitting targets in Syria,” said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. “That was a surprise to me, not only the capability, but I didn’t even know they were there.”
Kremlin thinking has also evolved over the size of the armed forces. The military relies less on a dwindling number of conscripts and more on a slimmed-down, well-trained core of roughly 400,000 contract soldiers.
These soldiers receive better treatment. Visiting the Defense Ministry in December, Mr. Putin boasted that the average lieutenant now made just over the equivalent of $1,000 per month, better than the average salary in other sectors. The federal government, he added, was spending about $1.5 billion on subsidizing private housing for service members.
And all Russian soldiers are now required to be deployed with thick, military issued socks.
A Russian Sukhoi Su-35S fighter at the Dubrovichi range outside Ryazan, Russia, last year.Credit...Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
What is new is not just Russia’s upgraded equipment, but the evolving theory of how the Kremlin uses it. The military has honed an approach that Dmitry Adamsky, a scholar of international security at Reichman University in Israel, calls “cross-domain coercion” — blending the real or threatened use of force with diplomacy, cyberattacks and propaganda to achieve political aims.
That blended strategy is playing out in the current crisis around Ukraine. Russia is pushing for immediate wide-ranging concessions from the West. Russian troop movements into allied Belarus put a potential invasion force within 100 miles of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Russian state media is warning that Ukrainian forces are the ones preparing acts of aggression.
And on Jan. 14, hackers brought down dozens of Ukrainian government websites and posted a message on one stating, “Be afraid and expect the worst.”
“You see some cyber, you see diplomacy, you see military exercises,” Mr. Adamsky said. “They are all related by design.”
Not all the forces arrayed along the Ukrainian border are Russia’s most advanced. The ones amassed in the north have older weaponry and are mostly there to intimidate and stretch Ukrainian resources, said Oleksiy Arestovych, a former Ukrainian military intelligence officer who is now a political and military analyst.
The more well-equipped and modernized units, he said, have moved into the area close to two breakaway provinces in Ukraine’s east, where Russia instigated a separatist war in 2014 that continues today.
A Ukrainian soldier in a trench on the front line this week in Popasna, Ukraine.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Russia’s military modernization is also, increasingly, meant to send a message to the United States, projecting power beyond Eastern Europe, frustrating and sometimes surprising American officials.
It took Russia’s military transport planes only hours, for instance, to start ferrying about 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops, along with heavy armor, to the Southern Caucasus after Mr. Putin brokered an end to the 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
In Syria, where Russia intervened in 2015 using devastating airstrikes and limited ground troops to protect President Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s advancements showed it could effectively deploy precision-guided weaponry, long an edge that Western armed forces had held over Russia.
Russian soldiers near Tal Tamr, Syria, last year.
Russia used the war in Syria, experts say, as a laboratory to refine tactics and weaponry, and to gain combat experience for much of its force. More responsibility was delegated to lower-level officers, a degree of autonomy that contrasts with the civilian government structure in the Putin era. Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu said last month that all ground troop commanders, 92 percent of air force pilots and 62 percent of the Navy had combat experience.
“They showed to themselves and the whole world they are able to wage large-scale operations with precision weapons, and long-range weapons, and intelligence capability to support it,” Mr. Adamsky, the expert based in Israel, said.
Understand the Escalating Tensions Over Ukraine
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A brewing conflict. Antagonism between Ukraine and Russia has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, annexing Crimea and whipping up a rebellion in the east. A tenuous cease-fire was reached in 2015, but peace has been elusive.
A spike in hostilities. Russia has recently been building up forces near its border with Ukraine, and the Kremlin’s messaging toward its neighbor has hardened. Concern grew in late October, when Ukraine used an armed drone to attack a howitzer operated by Russian-backed separatists.
Ominous warnings. Russia called the strike a destabilizing act that violated the cease-fire agreement, raising fears of a new intervention in Ukraine that could draw the United States and Europe into a new phase of the conflict.
The Kremlin’s position. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has increasingly portrayed NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to his country, said that Moscow’s military buildup was a response to Ukraine’s deepening partnership with the alliance.
Rising tension. Western countries have tried to maintain a dialogue with Moscow. But administration officials recently warned that the U.S. could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should Russia invade.
For all its strides in recent years, Russia’s military retains a critical weakness of its Soviet predecessor: the civilian side of the country’s economy, nearly devoid of high-tech manufacturing and corporate investment in research and development. Army expenditures amount to a far higher percentage of the gross domestic product than in most European countries, starving other sectors.
When Ukraine’s military shot down Russian reconnaissance drones, for example, they discovered electronics and motors bought from hobby drone companies in Western Europe, according to a report published in November by Conflict Armament Research, a company based in Britain that specializes in tracing weaponry.
Russia possesses few new weapons systems fully created from the ground up, analysts say. Much of its modernization consists of refurbishments of older equipment.
But individual weapons systems are less important than the military’s innovative use of knowledge gained in each of the engagements of Mr. Putin’s tenure, said General Philip M. Breedlove, who was NATO commander when war broke out in Ukraine in 2014.
“The compliment that we have to pay to Russia is that they are a learning and adaptive force,” General Breedlove said. “Every time we see them in conflict, they get a little better and a little better.”
Mr. Putin was only a few months into his first presidential term when he faced a military catastrophe. On Aug. 12, 2000, a torpedo exploded inside the nuclear submarine Kursk, sending it to the Barents Sea floor with 118 sailors. The Russian Navy’s failed rescue mission, leading to the deaths of all aboard and an uncharacteristic mea culpa from Mr. Putin, underscored the military’s ineptitude.
In 2000, Mr. Putin met with relatives of crew members of the sunken submarine Kursk during a tightly controlled meeting in Vidyayevo, the vessel’s home base.Credit...Itar-Tass
The sinking came to define Mr. Putin’s first term, along with a vicious and bloody war in Chechnya where the Russian military struggled for years to quash an Islamist insurgency.
A major turning point came in 2008 when a long-simmering conflict over disputed territories in the Republic of Georgia exploded into war.
Russian forces quickly overwhelmed their much smaller Georgian neighbors, but the war uncovered deep deficiencies in the Russian military. Ground troops were not in radio contact with the Air Force, leading to several serious friendly fire attacks. Communications were so bad that some officers had to use their personal cellphones. Tanks and armored personnel carriers broke down frequently.
The failures prompted a massive shake-up of the Russian armed forces. The Soviet military’s prowess at land warfare was revived, with improvements such as revamped artillery technology, according to Mathieu Boulègue, a research fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House in London.
Just over a decade later, Russia’s tools of electronic warfare, which can be used to intercept or jam enemy communications and knock drones off course and out of the sky, are believed far superior to the U.S. military’s, analysts said.
“We’re playing catch-up now,” General Hodges said. “For the last 20 years, we were focused on iPhones or cellphones and terrorist networks, while they continued to develop substantial, powerful jamming and intercept capabilities.”
There have been some setbacks for Moscow, including unsettling weapons failures. In 2019, a prototype of a nuclear-propelled cruise missile — hailed by Mr. Putin as the centerpiece of a new arms race with the United States — blew up during a test, killing at least seven people and spewing radiation for miles.
But as the Kremlin’s rhetoric increasingly cast Russia as locked in an existential conflict with the West, little expense was spared. The investment in the military was accompanied by a militarization of Russian society under Mr. Putin, entrenching the concept of a motherland surrounded by enemies and the possibility of a coming war.
All those developments, analysts say, make it hard for the West to stop Mr. Putin from attacking Ukraine, if he is determined.
“There’s very little we can do to deny Russia’s ability to wage further warfare against Ukraine,” Mr. Boulègue said. “We can’t deter a worldview.”
Anton Troianovski reported from Moscow, and Michael Schwirtz and Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv, Ukraine. Alina Lobzina contributed reporting from Moscow.
The New York Times · by Andrew E. Kramer · January 27, 2022


2. U.S. Delivers Response to Russian Demands Amid Ukraine Crisis


Excerpts:
Oleg Nikolenko, the spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, said that Kyiv is in close contact with the U.S., including on the written responses to Russia. “Our position is taken into account, and we don’t have objections to the Ukraine-related proposals that the American side is going to send to Russia,” he said.
In addition to the diplomatic effort, the U.S. has promised financial sanctions, export controls and other measures to damage the Russian economy if Moscow were to invade Ukraine. This week, the U.S. readied thousands of troops for deployment in Europe, and Washington and NATO are moving to add to forces in its eastern members.
Ms. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, said Wednesday that Mr. Putin could decide to take Russia military action soon.
“I have no idea whether he’s made the ultimate decision, but we certainly see every indication that he is going to use military force sometime perhaps now and the middle of February,” she said at an event held by Yalta European Strategy, a group that promotes Ukraine’s ties with Europe and the U.S.
U.S. Delivers Response to Russian Demands Amid Ukraine Crisis
Proposals build on U.S. offers made to Moscow, but stop short of meeting demands on Ukraine, NATO
WSJ · by William Mauldin and Michael R. Gordon
They expand on a recent diplomatic approach by the U.S. and its allies but don’t meet Russia’s core demands, chief among them that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization deny Ukraine entry into the alliance and cut military ties with the country and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
The latest diplomatic efforts leave Russian President Vladimir Putin with the choice of whether to pursue military action or seek further negotiations on security issues.
“It remains up to Russia to decide how to respond,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters. “We’re ready either way.”
The Kremlin and Russia’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately issue public remarks on Washington’s proposals. Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy head of the Russian Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that “the U.S. response to the security guarantees proposed by Moscow cannot satisfy Russia. It cannot be accepted.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. offers sought to find common ground on security between Russia and western nations without compromising on U.S. priorities and core NATO principles on the alliance’s expansion.
Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Press Pool
Mr. Blinken didn’t release details on the document handed to Moscow by the U.S. ambassador, John Sullivan.
The proposals and recent rounds of negotiations are part of a concerted effort by the U.S. and its allies to involve Moscow in security talks, as Russia builds up military forces near Ukraine. Mr. Blinken has said that progress would be difficult with Russian forces growing around Ukraine. His deputy, Wendy Sherman, warned Wednesday that Russian troops could invade Ukraine in the next few weeks.
Before transmitting the U.S. proposals to Moscow, U.S. officials shared a confidential paper with European allies earlier this week outlining potential ideas so they could provide input, and the Biden administration also consulted and briefed Congress.
One idea that was presented to Russia in the proposal, according to U.S. officials, would allow for inspections of U.S. ballistic missile-defense sites in Poland and Romania. The missile defenses are intended to counter Iranian missiles that might threaten Europe.
Moscow has complained that the systems could be used to launch cruise missiles at Russian territory, an allegation the U.S. has rebuffed. Inspections would be intended to reassure Russia that the launchers couldn’t be used for offensive purposes. The U.S. proposal seeks reciprocal actions from Russia, which the U.S. hasn’t publicly spelled out.
Polish officials said the government is open to missile-defense inspections on the condition that Russia allows inspection of Russian missile activities in Kaliningrad, a heavily militarized Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea that borders Poland and Lithuania.
Another idea that was presented in the proposals to Russia is establishing constraints on military maneuvers and operations that might be seen as provocative.
This could lead to discussion on ways to avoid incidents involving warships entering and navigating in the Black Sea, U.S. officials said. The Black Sea has been dominated by Russia’s navy since Moscow seized and annexed the Crimean Peninsula and has sought to restrict access to the Sea of Azov, which includes the Russian and Ukrainian coastline.
NATO members Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey also have coastline along the Black Sea, as does Georgia, a former Soviet republic which the alliance has said is a potential member, drawing Moscow’s objection. Ukraine has seaports on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg sent a separate letter Wednesday to the Kremlin on behalf of the alliance’s 30 members. The NATO letter covered most of the same issues as the U.S. document, based on a description Mr. Stoltenberg offered Wednesday. He said that responding to Russia in writing allowed NATO members to be “more specific and concrete” in their proposals.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, in Moscow, delivered U.S. proposals on the Ukraine issue to a Russian diplomat.
Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press
The U.S. and NATO documents follow two earlier Russian proposals: Moscow’s own draft treaty with the U.S. on security in Europe and a separate draft accord with NATO. Russia posted them on its foreign ministry’s website in December and demanded that the U.S. provide a response in writing.
Before the U.S. proposals were delivered Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the country’s Parliament that “if there is no constructive response and the West continues its aggressive course, then Moscow, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated, will take the necessary retaliatory measures.”
Russia has made its demands over Ukraine and NATO public to build pressure on the West. U.S. officials have said they prefer negotiating in private but recognize that any ideas they share with the Kremlin may be publicly released. Mr. Lavrov said Wednesday that the Kremlin will make the “essence” of the American response public.
Oleg Nikolenko, the spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, said that Kyiv is in close contact with the U.S., including on the written responses to Russia. “Our position is taken into account, and we don’t have objections to the Ukraine-related proposals that the American side is going to send to Russia,” he said.
In addition to the diplomatic effort, the U.S. has promised financial sanctions, export controls and other measures to damage the Russian economy if Moscow were to invade Ukraine. This week, the U.S. readied thousands of troops for deployment in Europe, and Washington and NATO are moving to add to forces in its eastern members.
Ms. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, said Wednesday that Mr. Putin could decide to take Russia military action soon.
“I have no idea whether he’s made the ultimate decision, but we certainly see every indication that he is going to use military force sometime perhaps now and the middle of February,” she said at an event held by Yalta European Strategy, a group that promotes Ukraine’s ties with Europe and the U.S.
—Ann Simmons in Moscow and Daniel Michaels in Brussels contributed to this article.
Standoff With Russia
News and insights on the rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine and the West, selected by the editors
Write to William Mauldin at william.mauldin@wsj.com and Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com
WSJ · by William Mauldin and Michael R. Gordon



3. Biden’s Berlin Gas Airlift

Excerpts:
White House officials say Russia and Europe are interdependent since the Kremlin relies on oil and gas revenue to fund its budget. But Russia has other energy clients, including China. Gazprom is building gas pipelines to China. Even as Europe becomes more dependent on Russia for gas, Russia is becoming less dependent on Europe for revenue.
At the same time, the White House is making the U.S. more dependent on China for the minerals needed to advance its green energy agenda. On Wednesday, the Administration canceled Twin Metals Minnesota’s rights to mine copper, nickel and cobalt in northeast Minnesota. Green groups are pushing to scotch lithium mining in Nevada.
One predictable result will be shortages and higher prices. Doesn’t President Biden understand that inflation and high energy prices empower the very dictators he claims we are fighting in a long, twilight struggle?
Biden’s Berlin Gas Airlift
The West’s energy disarmament is a gift to Putin on Ukraine.
WSJ · by The Editorial Board
A Russian gas embargo could starve households of heating fuel this winter and potentially next if there’s a hot war in Ukraine. Gas might have to be rationed. Manufacturers could be forced to shut down, further damaging the economy and supply chains. At this perilous moment, it’s worth recounting how Europe got itself into this cold mess.
***
Start with government bans on hydraulic shale fracturing. Europe’s gas reserves are smaller than Russia’s, though it has about as much technically recoverable shale gas as the U.S., according to the Energy Information Administration. Yet European governments won’t let this strategic asset be developed.

Mr. Putin has helped fuel the green opposition. As former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in 2014, Russia “engages actively” with green groups “working against shale gas, obviously to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.”
Germany has made itself even more dependent on Russian gas by shutting down nuclear plants, which provide low-cost baseload power. Even as Russia reduced gas deliveries, Germany in December shut down three nuclear plants, and three more will be mothballed this year. This is the definition of self-sabotage.
The Trump Administration pressed Germany to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals to diversify its gas supply, as Poland, the Netherlands and Lithuania have done. But German LNG terminals are snarled in permitting delays. One company last year decided to turn an LNG project into a green hydrogen hub. This won’t heat homes.
Across most of Europe, coal plant shutdowns have also left Europe more dependent on gas. So have heavily subsidized solar and wind, which must be backed up by gas. As wind production lagged last summer and fall, gas demand and prices soared.
As a result, Europe entered the winter with little gas in storage. Russia exploited this by slowing gas deliveries. While rising gas prices send a market signal for power retailers to use more coal, Europe’s cap-and-trade program discourages this switch even when gas prices are surging.
All of this explains why the Biden Administration is now scrambling to locate spare gas to rescue Europe from Mr. Putin’s tender mercies. U.S. LNG exports are nearly maxed out, and many cargo ships are already headed to Europe. More U.S. LNG export capacity is expected to come online later this year, which will make America the world’s top LNG exporter.
Other major LNG producers such as Qatar and Australia may be able to boost supply to Europe at the margins. But Europe could still be staring into a long, dark winter if Russia imposes a gas blockade. It’s hard not to wonder how European leaders didn’t see this coming in 2014 when Mr. Putin invaded Crimea.
The self-created energy vulnerability of the West is one of the horrifying marvels of the age. You have to go back to the disarmament of the 1920s to recall a time of such willful self-delusion. Even as President Biden races to rescue Europe, his Build Back Better plan would send the U.S. down the same road of energy disarmament.
White House officials say Russia and Europe are interdependent since the Kremlin relies on oil and gas revenue to fund its budget. But Russia has other energy clients, including China. Gazprom is building gas pipelines to China. Even as Europe becomes more dependent on Russia for gas, Russia is becoming less dependent on Europe for revenue.
At the same time, the White House is making the U.S. more dependent on China for the minerals needed to advance its green energy agenda. On Wednesday, the Administration canceled Twin Metals Minnesota’s rights to mine copper, nickel and cobalt in northeast Minnesota. Green groups are pushing to scotch lithium mining in Nevada.
One predictable result will be shortages and higher prices. Doesn’t President Biden understand that inflation and high energy prices empower the very dictators he claims we are fighting in a long, twilight struggle?
WSJ · by The Editorial Board



4. Putin’s No Chess Master by Eliot A. Cohen

Excerpts:

More to the point, although Putin has hitherto played a weak hand very well, the fact is that the Russian military is not the Wehrmacht, or even the Red Army of old. It has some first-rate bits, some well-trained special forces, and good technology. But it still suffers from all of its old faults, including in maintenance, morale, and initiative. Armed forces reflect their societies, and although Russia is a lot better off than it was in the ’90s, it remains a society with poor public health; a crude, resource-based economy; and a deeply corrupt and self-seeking elite. Russia is also vulnerable to sanctions and cyberattacks. And at the top, the country is led by an aging dictator who does not hear many uncomfortable truths from advisers who know better.
In May 1864, Union forces launched the Battle of the Wilderness, a bloody fight inaugurating the campaigns that ultimately destroyed the Confederacy. But at the outset, a lot of the Army of the Potomac’s leaders had a bad case of nerves. One of Ulysses S. Grant’s staff officers, Horace Porter, recalled after the war an incident when a general bolted into the field headquarters breathing rapidly and saying, “General Grant, this is a crisis that cannot be looked upon too seriously. I know [Robert E.] Lee’s methods well by past experience; he will throw his whole army between us and the Rapidan and cut us off completely.”
Porter recalled that Grant took his cigar out of his mouth, stood up, and replied to the agitated general:
Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault and land in our rear on both of our flanks at the same time.
And then he tartly ordered the despondent general to go back to his command and think about what the Army of the Potomac was going to do to Lee, rather than the other way around.
Vladimir Putin is not Robert E. Lee. But at a time when statues of Lee are coming down, a bit more of the spirit of Ulysses S. Grant is clearly in order.
Putin’s No Chess Master
Some believe Putin has not only Ukraine, but the whole West, exactly where he wants it. A more balanced consideration is in order.
The Atlantic · by Eliot A. Cohen · January 26, 2022
A terrible thing may be impending in Ukraine. Undoubtedly, subversion, sabotage, and murder await, although such miseries have been going on for some time without the West paying much attention. But a Russian onslaught, to include air and missile strikes followed by invasion, would be a lot worse. Thousands of people may die, and the foundations of European security would be rocked as they have not been since the early days of the Cold War.
Even so, the degree of public hand-wringing and even despair in the United States is excessive, and not just in comparison with the relative phlegmatism of the Ukrainian population. The commentary on the Russian buildup and threats has taken many forms—pointless quarter-century-old recriminations about NATO expansion, foolish psychotherapeutic diagnoses of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s need for “respect,” assertions that the Biden administration’s weakness created this situation, and, above all, the belief that Putin has not only Ukraine but the whole West, including the United States, exactly where he wants it. A more balanced consideration is in order.
Ukraine is a problem for Putin’s Russia not because it may join NATO, but because it is democratizing—slowly, awkwardly, imperfectly—and after 30 years of independence is constructing a new national identity. So, too, have the other former Soviet republics, a number of which (Azerbaijan, for example) have quietly sided with Kyiv. The aim of reconstructing if not the Russian empire, then a 21st-century version of it, is slipping out of Putin’s grip, and he knows it. In many ways, what we’re seeing now from Moscow is a spasm of atavistic postimperial assertion, which, rather like British and French intervention in Egypt in 1956, may begin well but will probably end poorly.
The Russian dictator has made demands that he knows cannot be met. He has issued them publicly when such things are usually done in private, meaning that he is looking for a fight on any terms. He has mobilized a large army on Ukraine’s borders—more than 100,000 troops—but not nearly one big enough to subjugate a country of 40 million people, many of whom are not only willing to fight but ready to do so. Urban areas absorb armies as blotting paper absorbs an ink drop, and a Russian invasion will lead to a stream of coffins headed home to a population that has little taste for losses.
The stakes are high enough for the West. The Russian post-Soviet state is large but not a superpower, save in the matter of nuclear weapons. A restored Russian empire would make it the most powerful entity in Europe. Even more: The precedent of conquest, or of the massive savaging that the Russian military could inflict, would shatter the European peace that has held (with the exception of the Balkan conflicts) since 1949. It would, moreover, represent the further demolition of interstate-behavior norms that serve smaller countries everywhere.
But the stakes are higher for Russia. It can temporarily insulate itself from economic sanctions, but the cost of war with Ukraine will eventually be even more instability at home. The secret police can poison, imprison, or kill dissident leaders such as Alexei Navalny, but it will have a lot more difficulty massacring crowds of angry mothers of wounded or dead soldiers. A Russia isolated from the West and punished by economic sanctions will become, more than it already is, a kind of vassal state to China, and Russian diplomats and soldiers know that the Chinese are unsentimental in their treatment of their dependents and satellites.
The Western reaction thus far has been prudent and effective. The United States has led effectively, and President Joe Biden has behind him a remarkably bipartisan consensus. The administration has made appropriate threats, prepared appropriate sanctions, and begun taking the most important step, delivering anti-tank and antiaircraft missiles to the willing hands of Ukrainian soldiers. The more and faster, the better.
NATO has not crumbled—just the reverse, in fact. Sweden and Finland have muttered about joining the alliance, the Eastern European allies have been particularly staunch, and even French diplomatic overtures reflect more President Emmanuel Macron’s desire to be the leading statesman in Europe than a desire to appease Russia. Indeed, Putin has given NATO a gift. If the alliance had something of an identity crisis in the 1990s and aughts, now its members can hardly question its necessity. Georgii Arbatov, one of Mikhail Gorbachev’s advisers, had a point in 1987 when he wryly observed that Russia was going to do the West a great disservice by depriving it of an enemy. Having reversed that, Putin has given NATO not only renewed life but vigor.
Western strategic clichés usually portray the Russians as incomparably deft chess masters, wily manipulators of the use of force to support policy, who consistently outplay their Western opponents. But that characterization is less true than one might think. Indeed, American and British intelligence were shrewd in warning of Russian false-flag operations and provocations and in naming a range of Ukrainian quislings who were being vetted to take power. These revelations are an antidote to the poisoned needles being prepared by the Russian secret services.
More to the point, although Putin has hitherto played a weak hand very well, the fact is that the Russian military is not the Wehrmacht, or even the Red Army of old. It has some first-rate bits, some well-trained special forces, and good technology. But it still suffers from all of its old faults, including in maintenance, morale, and initiative. Armed forces reflect their societies, and although Russia is a lot better off than it was in the ’90s, it remains a society with poor public health; a crude, resource-based economy; and a deeply corrupt and self-seeking elite. Russia is also vulnerable to sanctions and cyberattacks. And at the top, the country is led by an aging dictator who does not hear many uncomfortable truths from advisers who know better.
In May 1864, Union forces launched the Battle of the Wilderness, a bloody fight inaugurating the campaigns that ultimately destroyed the Confederacy. But at the outset, a lot of the Army of the Potomac’s leaders had a bad case of nerves. One of Ulysses S. Grant’s staff officers, Horace Porter, recalled after the war an incident when a general bolted into the field headquarters breathing rapidly and saying, “General Grant, this is a crisis that cannot be looked upon too seriously. I know [Robert E.] Lee’s methods well by past experience; he will throw his whole army between us and the Rapidan and cut us off completely.”
Porter recalled that Grant took his cigar out of his mouth, stood up, and replied to the agitated general:
Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault and land in our rear on both of our flanks at the same time.
And then he tartly ordered the despondent general to go back to his command and think about what the Army of the Potomac was going to do to Lee, rather than the other way around.
Vladimir Putin is not Robert E. Lee. But at a time when statues of Lee are coming down, a bit more of the spirit of Ulysses S. Grant is clearly in order.
The Atlantic · by Eliot A. Cohen · January 26, 2022



5. Biden’s China policy needs to be more than just Trump lite

Excerpts:
Most importantly, the U.S. needs to pursue a long-term, steady approach, not pander to domestic politics whenever there is an attention-getting headline. Since its establishment in 1949, the PRC has undergone dramatic swings in policy and governance, from isolation to opening, from extreme repression to opening and back toward oppression. To assume its current oppressive incarnation is permanent is to ignore the lessons of the past 70 years and to turn our backs on a worldly younger generation that could support a positive relationship with the U.S. if given a chance to do so. Keeping the door open to Chinese students, researchers, and visitors is essential if we want to build a foundation for a constructive relationship with the next generation, not to mention make up for the large shortfall in trained American experts in math, science, and technology.
I am confident that Biden sees the need for a relationship with China that is not a pale imitation of his predecessor’s. He has shown he understands the possibility of something better, for instance in initiating a call and virtual meeting with Xi and stressing his desire for competitive coexistence. Given the attitudes of Democratic voters, the challenge is not as great as some of his advisors may be telling him. There is no hardline policy on China Biden can pursue that will insulate him from attacks from the right by the Rubios, Pompeos, Hawleys, et al. who will make demonization of China a calling card in their likely presidential runs. Biden should do the right thing for U.S. national security and values, not chase the will-o’-the-wisp of a bipartisan policy that will forever remain out of his grasp.
Biden’s China policy needs to be more than just Trump lite
The Brookings Institution · by Jeffrey A. Bader · January 25, 2022
The Biden administration has prided itself on breaking with the policies and practices of its predecessor, which did untold damage to U.S. foreign policy and domestic tranquility. But curiously, when it comes to the greatest foreign policy challenge facing the United States — how to deal with the rise of China — Biden’s team have continued and mimicked Trump’s destructive approach. This has prompted glee among departed Trump officials, who proudly declare themselves innovators and the Biden administration unimaginative and dutiful implementers.
Biden officials begin their defense of their China policy by citing supposed strong bipartisan support for their tough line. When asked to distinguish their China strategy from their predecessor’s, they say little more than that they favor a multilateral approach of rallying allies, in contrast to the unilateralism of the “America First” practitioners.
Yet, it is intellectual laziness to justify policy on the basis of bipartisanship rather than formulate one based on national interests. In no other instance, e.g. policy toward Iran, Ukraine and Russia, NATO and the EU, has the administration sought to duplicate Trump policy. Rather, Biden’s team has figured out its own approach, and then tried to sell it to both parties.
DEMOCRATS LIKE CHINA MORE THAN REPUBLICANS DO
What’s more, the pretense of bipartisanship is a stretch. A recent poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs showed large gaps in views of China between Democrats and Republicans:
  • 42% of Republicans but only 17% of Democrats view China as an adversary.
  • 67% of Republicans but only 39% of Democrats view limiting China’s global influence as an important goal for U.S. foreign policy.
  • 73% of Republicans favor restricting the exchange of scientific research between the U.S. and China and 72% favor limiting the number of Chinese students studying in the U.S. By contrast, 66% of Democrats oppose limits on Chinese students and 59% oppose limits on scientific exchanges.
  • 83% of Republicans favor increasing tariffs on imports from China. 45% of Democrats do, while 50% oppose.
The pursuit of a so-called “bipartisan” policy toward China in practice has been the adoption of the Trump policy, at the expense of grassroots Democratic views. It is easy to be bipartisan when you simply surrender to the perspective of the opposing party.
How Trump fanned the flames
What has this meant in practice? The Trump administration preached a zero-sum policy of confrontation with China. Speeches by its senior officials depicted a nation of intellectual thieves and economic predators that had advanced in the world through treachery and cheating. They suggested cooperation with such a regime was impossible, and all but called for regime change in China as necessary for coexistence. They saw a China whose DNA was an urge to domination, and contended that 45 years of complex interaction with China since Nixon was appeasement. They viewed international diplomacy as a chessboard in which every country became a zone of combat against a Chinese adversary. They undertook a strategy of “decoupling” from China — high tariffs contrary to U.S. legal obligations, an FBI “China Initiative” that has been wielded as a blunderbuss against Chinese Americans and Chinese conducting research at American universities, and shutdown of exchange programs like the Fulbright program and Center for Disease Control cooperation with Chinese counterparts. They also began to dismantle the foundations of America’s four-decade-old “one China” policy (that is, the U.S. acknowledgment of the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China) and the unofficial character of our relationship with Taiwan that, along with military deterrence, has underpinned peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait for 50 years.
The Biden administration generally has kept intact these Trump policy approaches, albeit with less incendiary language. They have echoed the Trump administration in declaring the era of engagement over. In essence, they argue that they can fight the adversary more effectively than Trump could.
What Biden’s team should do instead
What should be the approach of a Democratic administration seeking to project American values and protect U.S. interests? Here are the broad brushstrokes of the principles that should apply.
A sound policy should begin with the recognition that China is a major power. In the MAGA world there was an obsession with being number one. In the real world, there are competing and coexisting major powers, none of which are likely to disintegrate in the face of foreign disapproval nor to achieve an across the board victory. The challenge for the U.S. will be to lead, live, compete, and cooperate with a rising China.
There is no higher priority than avoiding a slide toward war, which would be with a nuclear power expected to have 1,000 warheads by 2030. Policies that heighten confrontation and risk of overt conflict should be scrupulously avoided. Both countries bear responsibility for preventing the emergence of a relationship where war could be seriously contemplated.
There are international crises that demand major power cooperation. Combating climate change, for which the U.S. and China bear principal responsibility, is high on the list. So is preventing the next pandemic by working with foreign scientists, including the Chinese, who have considerable expertise. Preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons and defanging North Korea’s nuclear program — both vital American interests — will not succeed without Chinese support.
Decoupling the world’s two largest economies is a formula for making each poorer. Lifting the high tariffs on Chinese imports that were the centerpiece of Trump policy would be a good place to begin to reverse the previous administration’s destructive economic disengagement. The tariffs contribute selectively to higher prices and therefore to inflation. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has publicly criticized the tariffs, but the administration has been unwilling to take the political risk of eliminating them in a reciprocally beneficial negotiation. By the same token, economists and strategists alike understand that Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has taken the U.S. off the field on economic and trade issues, which are the highest international priority of Asian countries, and threatens to deprive the U.S. of important growing markets. China wants in to TPP, just as the U.S. walks away. This is no way for us to compete.
Maintenance of Taiwan’s separate status from the Chinese mainland, until and unless there is an uncoerced resolution of differences between the two sides, is in our and Taiwan’s interest. Acknowledgment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole legal government of China, which the U.S. provided in 1979 when we established relations, and conduct of relations with Taiwan on an unofficial basis, are foundational principles. China’s continued tolerance of a separate Taiwan depends on its understanding that the U.S. has not excluded the possibility of peaceful reunification, regardless of how difficult it is to foresee at present. When administration officials deliver Congressional testimony calling Taiwan critical to U.S. defense of its vital interests, they are implicitly suggesting that Taiwan’s future is not for the two sides of the Strait to work out but America’s to decide. That is an inadvertent invitation to confrontation.
The U.S. can lead by example
Xi Jinping’s China is politically oppressive at home and has undertaken brutal crackdowns in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. Targeted punitive responses are necessary for us to keep faith with our values. We should repair our broken politics at home so that we can once again serve as a model inspiring people living in authoritarian systems, a mission Biden has rightly stressed. The soft power of our hopefully improved example offers the best means to support human rights progress in China and elsewhere.
Most importantly, the U.S. needs to pursue a long-term, steady approach, not pander to domestic politics whenever there is an attention-getting headline. Since its establishment in 1949, the PRC has undergone dramatic swings in policy and governance, from isolation to opening, from extreme repression to opening and back toward oppression. To assume its current oppressive incarnation is permanent is to ignore the lessons of the past 70 years and to turn our backs on a worldly younger generation that could support a positive relationship with the U.S. if given a chance to do so. Keeping the door open to Chinese students, researchers, and visitors is essential if we want to build a foundation for a constructive relationship with the next generation, not to mention make up for the large shortfall in trained American experts in math, science, and technology.
I am confident that Biden sees the need for a relationship with China that is not a pale imitation of his predecessor’s. He has shown he understands the possibility of something better, for instance in initiating a call and virtual meeting with Xi and stressing his desire for competitive coexistence. Given the attitudes of Democratic voters, the challenge is not as great as some of his advisors may be telling him. There is no hardline policy on China Biden can pursue that will insulate him from attacks from the right by the Rubios, Pompeos, Hawleys, et al. who will make demonization of China a calling card in their likely presidential runs. Biden should do the right thing for U.S. national security and values, not chase the will-o’-the-wisp of a bipartisan policy that will forever remain out of his grasp.
The Brookings Institution · by Jeffrey A. Bader · January 25, 2022

6. How the internet is training AI to make better disinformation

Excerpts:

Deepfakes have sort of drawn outsized attention and angst and hype in this space, both from the technologists and policymakers.
We wanted to zoom out and ask, “Well, what else are we missing while we’re focusing on deepfakes?” Is this really all there is when you think of AI and disinformation in the same sentence? Are deepfakes the only thing that exist?
How the internet is training AI to make better disinformation
AI is accelerating disinformation creation way beyond deepfakes.
grid.news · by Benjamin Powers
The internet is rife with disinformation, and bad actors are becoming more skilled at spreading conspiracy theories and falsehoods online.
Just two months ago, Facebook took down a Chinese-driven campaign to push covid-19 misinformation. But many other disinformation peddlers escape detection. And the growing sophistication of artificial intelligence systems could amplify the problem, from large language models like GPT-3 that can generate propaganda text to AI-created avatars that look like real people.
Grid spoke with Katerina Sedova, a research fellow at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University who studies the intersection of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, including disinformation campaigns. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Grid: You and your co-authors have put out a series of reports on AI and disinformation. What was the impetus behind them? Why do this now?
Katarina Sedova: There’s been rapid advances in AI over the past few years, in part fueled by innovation and machine learning, which in turn is fueled by the accessibility of increased computing power and increased data. A lot of the automated systems that are coming online are capable of harnessing the massive digital footprints that we leave behind in our digital lives, using them as training data and starting to generate some insight as well as content from them — content that humans have difficulty deciphering as content that is generated by machines rather than humans.
Deepfakes have sort of drawn outsized attention and angst and hype in this space, both from the technologists and policymakers.
We wanted to zoom out and ask, “Well, what else are we missing while we’re focusing on deepfakes?” Is this really all there is when you think of AI and disinformation in the same sentence? Are deepfakes the only thing that exist?
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G: How do disinformation campaigns work? What are some of the other ways that AI is enabling disinformation?
KS: The best-known example [of a disinformation campaign] in the U.S. is the 2016 presidential campaign. There’s very detailed examination of the tactics Russia used in the congressional reports and social media company reports as well. So let’s take the steps that [Russia] might have gone through.
First, they have to understand the target society that they’re going to be trying to influence. This is part of the reconnaissance stage. You try to ingest as much as you can about the information environment. What is a society talking about? What are some of the political fissures that can be exploited? What are some of the historical grievances that can be exploited? We know that disinformation actors try to exploit something that can connect to their audience, something that may have a kernel of truth.
In order to do that, you must do your homework. That’s much easier with the kind of digital footprints that we leave as a society on the web. AI may ingest not only social media, but broadcast media. “Scraping” means a program crawls the web, tries to ingest as much information as possible that is publicly available and tries to decipher how a society talks about particular issues, a particular brand or a particular issue.
AI tools can make this a lot more powerful. Especially with human curation, some of these tools are becoming much more nuanced.
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The reconnaissance stage is enabled much more so by what AI can provide.
G: What happens when it’s time to start building the campaigns?
KS: Campaigns need accounts; they need to have messengers. Some of what we’ve already seen is the use of AI-generated profile photos in campaigns in just the past year.
The Russian Internet Research Agency [backed by the Kremlin] had floors and offices upon offices of people generating different types of content for their campaigns. You had the graphics department generating memes and crafting sort of visual media. You had specific operators that were tasked with writing short tweet threads, you had other operators tasked with writing long posts, you have other operators tasked with rewriting articles with a particular slant reflecting the talking points of the day.
You can already see how some of the general generative capabilities of language models as well as general adversarial networks can significantly scale up some of these campaigns by merely helping operators get faster and better at generating content. Not to mention the language barriers that are now significantly removed if you deploy a language model, for example, that can generate content in a different language.
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G: How does AI help bad actors deploy misinformation?
KS: You have any number of techniques that are already kind of automated to get [the content] out there in the world.
We’ve known about bots for some time, right? So how do these bots get better with AI? A lot of the bot detection systems look for specific signs of an automated script. What we found is that some of these bot systems can potentially get much better and much more humanlike using AI.
Beyond that, moving into something that we have seen Russian and other actors do is actual one-on-one engagement and trolling people on social media posts and even in the comment sections of major news outlets in the U.S. That operation can get more automated than it is today, especially as chatbots get better, as large language models get better, and can essentially start to automate this kind of trolling at scale.
Finally, we get to what we call an actualization stage, when threat actors essentially could start enrolling people into taking over their own messaging, building their campaigns themselves and engaging in real-world activity.
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G: Were there other novel uses of AI that really surprised you?
KS: This is where the combination of chatbots and deepfakes can really knock your socks off. There are already ways in which people have the ability to clone their own voice, clone their own image, feed the system their own text messages and essentially do a video call with a colleague [where someone might use] a digital clone. This requires tremendous access to user data, which hopefully we can throttle and prevent. But you can imagine how these kinds of clones of personal friends or acquaintances, or maybe kind of loose professional acquaintances, can be potentially used to radicalize people.
This may sound like science fiction, but technology is in place to possibly stitch all this stuff together to make that happen. While I don’t want to increase the hype with this report, I think it’s important for us to start understanding how a threat actor might tease and pull on all of these threads to actually start building something like this.
G: It would be surprising to me if nation states were not already engaging with the exact sort of processes you’re talking about. Did you come across any signs of that?
KS: Yes. We already know that as part of several campaigns, threat actors have used AI-generated photo profile photos, for example. That’s been made easier by the existence of This Person Does Not Exist. We have adjusted to that, and now we know how to detect some of that particular angling from that particular model. But other models are out there. There’s nothing to say that a really well-funded, nation-state organization couldn’t have their own model that isn’t public and generates these kinds of profile pictures.
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Part of the challenge is that AI is an open field. It releases its research openly, and that has driven innovation. It’s also a double-edged sword because threat actors can leverage that. The other thing is that, you know, lots of people have hypothesized that generative language models like GPT-3 could be used to create disinformation. My colleagues and I were able to test those capabilities.
G: Tell me more about that.
KS: Last year, we had an opportunity to work with GPT-3. At the time, it was a novel writing system that essentially works like autocomplete on steroids. The research organization [that created GPT-3], OpenAI, was very concerned with misuse of this model, so they allowed academic organizations to test the system. We tested it with six techniques that the Russian Internet Research Agency had deployed in the past and along with other threat actors as well.
It excelled at all of them.
It was able to rewrite articles with a slant, for example, based on what we told it the slant was, and it was able to generate tweets on a theme. We tested it to generate tweets on the theme of climate change denial. It was able to produce a whole campaign about that. It was able to write posts in the style of the QAnon conspiracy theory and write politically divisive and hyperpartisan messages, something that you would imagine appearing on a sort of a fringe forum or hyperpartisan forum.
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It was even capable of writing articles that persuaded human test subjects to change their mind on controversial international foreign policy issues. It was able to convince a third of our subjects to change their opinion and oppose sanctions on China. This just gives you an idea of how capable these models are. They’ve been used to produce Guardian op-eds and write Shakespearean poetry.
We also tested it for disinformation, and it may be better at writing disinformation than it is at writing actual factual information.
The way that these systems work is as part of a human-machine team. So an operator prompts it with a sample of writing and gives it length requirements, etc. The system then starts generating text based on that, mimicking the style of writing and corresponding to the parameters that are set by the operator. This could help the operators produce much more content than they do already.
We have large language models with hundreds of billions of parameters acting like neurons in the brain. The more parameters, the more capable the model is. Complex systems have now been either invested in or released in Russia and China, South Korea. There is nothing magical about them. They just depend on a lot of data and computing power.
G: We’re talking about the internet, so the more information that is out there, the more rabbit holes there are for people to go down.
KS: Yes. And we still don’t have very good means of measuring [disinformation] campaigns’ influence. While someone may be exposed to something for a brief second, that doesn’t necessarily say anything about whether it left an imprint. As a research field, we’re having a lot of trouble understanding to what extent these campaigns have impact.
That’s an important piece that a lot of us need to kind of invest much more energy into — how can we measure the change in society’s overall perception of an issue, because all of us feel that polarization is increasing. We feel it viscerally.
G: How can we combat this disinformation arms race?
KS: Technology has a lot to add here. Technology created this particular avenue for exploitation of a human society, and technology can help mitigate it. One of the biggest research questions is how do we identify AI-generated content, period.
We have some solutions going on in the deepfakes space. Unfortunately, the systems that generate deepfakes are in a race with the systems that detect them, and they are learning from each other. It’s also very difficult to detect AI-generated text because to a social media platform or an internet browser this text looks like any other text on the internet.
If we don’t have the technical piece to help, then the content-moderation decisions are just going to get harder for the social media companies.
The same goes for chatbot systems. Chatbot systems need to be labeled, period. Humans need to understand when they’re engaging with an AI system online. We have a lot of technical solutions there to tackle but also policy solutions intentionally mandating these things.
G: What does the public need to know?
KS: As much as I think that we have more that we can do with technical mitigations, we can’t code our way out of this problem. It will require a focus on the human that is on the receiving end of the message, which isn’t a new idea. We’ve discussed a lot about how do we educate the population about digital literacy? How do we raise resilience?
We need to start thinking about how we raise resilience and educate the population when it comes to identifying artificially generated speech and artificially generated content, to the extent that’s possible. To help them understand how everything they do online can be translated into potentially being targeted by influence operators. But also start sort of thinking systemically about things like how do we educate people about things like deepfakes without fundamentally eroding trust?
Ultimately, that’s one of the more dangerous aspects of this. If everything looks like a deepfake, then we can’t trust anything we see.
G: Where is the policymaking landscape leading on AI and disinformation — do you think it’s being addressed with nuance and care?
KS: I have a very unsatisfying answer — it’s complicated. I think we are in a much better place than we were in the United States five years ago in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential campaign. But the technologies are evolving. The horizon is already kind of here.
grid.news · by Benjamin Powers



7. Explainer: What are NATO's next steps if Russia invades Ukraine?


Explainer: What are NATO's next steps if Russia invades Ukraine?
Reuters · by Robin Emmott
Airmen from the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. and the 48th Fighter Wing, Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, arrive at Amari Air Base, Estonia, January 24, 2022. U.S. Air Force Photo/Staff Sgt. Megan Beatty/Handout via REUTERS
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BRUSSELS, Jan 27 (Reuters) - NATO allies are putting forces on standby and sending reinforcements to eastern Europe in response to Russia's buildup of more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine's borders.
Here are some of the dilemmas about NATO's next steps.
WILL NATO COME TO UKRAINE'S DEFENCE?
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Not militarily. Ukraine is not a member of NATO and the alliance is not treaty-bound to defend it. U.S. President Joe Biden has said he will not send American or allied troops to fight Russia in Ukraine.
However, Kyiv is a close partner and was promised eventual membership of the alliance at a NATO summit in 2008.
For the moment, the 30-member North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is working with Ukraine to modernise its armed forces. Canada operates a training programme in Ukraine, while Denmark is also stepping up efforts to bring Ukraine's military up to NATO standards. The alliance has also said it will help Ukraine defend against cyber attacks and is providing secure communications equipment for military command.
WHAT ABOUT ARMING UKRAINE?
The United States, Britain and the Baltic states are sending weapons to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, small arms and boats. Turkey has sold drones to Ukraine that the Ukrainian military has used in eastern Ukraine against Russian-backed separatists.
However, Germany is against sending arms to Ukraine. Berlin has instead promised a complete field hospital and the necessary training for Ukrainian troops to operate it, worth about $6 million.
SO WHY IS NATO PUTTING FORCES ON STANDBY?
The alliance is concerned about a potential spillover from any conflict between Russia and Ukraine, particularly in the Black Sea region, where Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and in the Baltic Sea.
The U.S. Department of Defense has put about 8,500 American troops on heightened alert. Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and four F-16 warplanes to Lithuania. Spain has sent a minesweeper and a frigate to join NATO naval forces in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
Madrid is also considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria, while the Netherlands has also offered two F-35 warplanes to Bulgaria from April.
France may send troops to Romania under NATO command.
WHY ARE ALLIES NOT MOVING MORE QUICKLY?
Russia says it has no intention of invading Ukraine. read more
NATO, which is both a political and military organisation, has offered more talks with Moscow in the format of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels to find a solution.
Moreover, as an alliance of 30 countries with different priorities, decisions are taken collectively and it can take time to drum up the necessary troops for joint missions.
NATO allies are discussing whether to increase the number of troops rotating through eastern Europe. They will focus on the issue when allied defence ministers meet for a scheduled meeting in Brussels in mid-February.
NATO has four multinational battalion-size battlegroups, or some 4,000 soldiers, led by Canada, Germany, Britain and the United States in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.
The troops serve as a "trip wire" for NATO's 40,000-strong response force to come in quickly and bring more U.S. troops and weapons from across the Atlantic.
The biggest decisions may not come until June, when NATO leaders are due to meet for a summit in Madrid. They are expected to agree a new master plan, called a Strategic Concept, in part to cement NATO's focus on deterring Russia.
WHAT IS NATO LIKELY TO DO IN THE BLACK SEA?
Bulgaria's government has said it is ready to stand up a 1,000-strong force in the country, under Bulgarian command and in close cooperation with NATO, possibly with some soldiers from other allied countries.
It could be formed by April or May.
The Western alliance has a multinational land force of up to 4,000 troops in Romania. The United States also has soldiers stationed at separate bases in Romania and in Bulgaria.
Romania could see a bigger NATO presence, after France offered more troops. Romania is in talks with the United States over increasing troop numbers on its soil.
Although operational since 2017, the multinational force in Romania remains only a land command, without immediate air, maritime or special forces.
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Additional reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova and Luiza Ilie, Editing by Timothy Heritage
Reuters · by Robin Emmott

8. U.N. chief tells Security Council: Afghanistan 'hanging by thread'

Excerpts:
Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations, said "intense" discussions between the United Nations, the ICRC, the World Bank and key donor countries were centered on a "humanitarian exchange facility" that would be supported or managed by the World Bank and allow for cash to be injected into the Afghan economy.
He told reporters that money could be deposited in the facility and "under certain conditions that cash could be made available to traders in Afghanistan," though he said it was a stopgap measure because "it needs to be the central bank that has to be capacitated to discharge these functions."
Thomas-Greenfield said that "ultimately, a functioning Afghan economy will require an independent and technically competent central bank that meets international banking standards."
Stillhart said agreement was needed between the U.N., World Bank and key donors to "kick-start this facility," noting that the discussion was not related to the unfreezing of Afghan assets or changes to sanctions on the Taliban.
He said a separate idea was also being discussed that would involve using money from the World Bank-administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund to pay non-security public sector employees.
The United Nations earlier this month appealed for $4.4 billion in humanitarian aid for Afghanistan in 2022. On Wednesday, it said it needed a further $3.6 billion for health and education, basic infrastructure, promotion of livelihoods and social cohesion, specifically the needs of women and girls.

U.N. chief tells Security Council: Afghanistan 'hanging by thread'
Reuters · by Michelle Nichols
1/2
An UNHCR worker pushes a wheelbarrow loaded with aid supplies for a displaced Afghan family outside a distribution center as a Taliban fighter secures the area on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan October 28, 2021. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/File Photo

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Afghanistan is "hanging by a thread," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Wednesday, calling for countries to authorize all transactions needed to carry out humanitarian activities in the Taliban-ruled state.
He also pushed for a suspension of any rules or conditions constricting "lifesaving" aid operations as millions in the country suffer extreme hunger, education and social services are on the brink of collapse, and a lack of liquidity limits the capacity of the United Nations and aid groups to reach people in need.
"We need to give financial institutions and commercial partners legal assurance that they can work with humanitarian operators without fear of breaching sanctions," said Guterres, noting that the 15-member council last month adopted a humanitarian exemption to U.N. sanctions tied to Afghanistan.

Some $9.5 billion in Afghan central bank reserves remain blocked abroad and international development support has dried up since the Taliban seized power in August. Donors seek to use the money as leverage over the Taliban on issues including human rights.
"There is compelling evidence of an emerging environment of intimidation and a deterioration in respect for human rights. This suggests that the consolidation of government authority may be leading toward control of the population by fear," the U.N. special envoy on Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, told the council.
In December, donors to a frozen World Bank-administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund agreed to transfer $280 million to the World Food Program and U.N. children's agency UNICEF to support nutrition and health in Afghanistan. Guterres said the remaining $1.2 billion in the fund needed "to be freed up urgently to help Afghanistan's people survive the winter."
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the council that Washington had moved to ensure that U.S. sanctions do not impede humanitarian activity and it is examining various options to ease the liquidity crunch."
NEED FOR CASH IN AFGHAN ECONOMY
U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths and International Committee of the Red Cross President Peter Maurer met virtually with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month on Afghanistan.
Dominik Stillhart, ICRC director of operations, said "intense" discussions between the United Nations, the ICRC, the World Bank and key donor countries were centered on a "humanitarian exchange facility" that would be supported or managed by the World Bank and allow for cash to be injected into the Afghan economy.
He told reporters that money could be deposited in the facility and "under certain conditions that cash could be made available to traders in Afghanistan," though he said it was a stopgap measure because "it needs to be the central bank that has to be capacitated to discharge these functions."
Thomas-Greenfield said that "ultimately, a functioning Afghan economy will require an independent and technically competent central bank that meets international banking standards."
Stillhart said agreement was needed between the U.N., World Bank and key donors to "kick-start this facility," noting that the discussion was not related to the unfreezing of Afghan assets or changes to sanctions on the Taliban.
He said a separate idea was also being discussed that would involve using money from the World Bank-administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund to pay non-security public sector employees.
The United Nations earlier this month appealed for $4.4 billion in humanitarian aid for Afghanistan in 2022. On Wednesday, it said it needed a further $3.6 billion for health and education, basic infrastructure, promotion of livelihoods and social cohesion, specifically the needs of women and girls.

Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Jonathan Landay; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler
Reuters · by Michelle Nichols

9. 'Fix my computer' Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds

What an impassioned plea.

Although the posting is linked in the article below I think it is worth reading first before reading the response.



Today, I am writing an open letter echoing some recent servicemember frustrations regarding computers in the Department of Defense. It's titled: "Fix Our Computers" 

Dear DoD,

You tell us to Accelerate change or lose, then fix our computers.

Before buying another plane, tank, or ship, fix our computers.

Yesterday, I spent an hour waiting just to log-on. Fix our computers.

Before spending another dollar on a Request for Proposals from industry asking for the same thing you asked for last year, fix our computers.

Want innovation? You lost literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of employee hours last year because computers don't work. Fix our computers.

Are you reading inputs from any of the various idea/innovation programs? Fix our computers.

I Googled how much the computer under my desk costs in the real-world. It was $108 dollars. Would you ever buy a $100 dollar computer? Fix our computers.

Are you a senior leader visiting a unit? Ask if their computers work.

I wrote an email the other day that took over an hour to send. Fix our computers.

I opened an Excel file today . . . my computer froze and needed to be restarted. Fix our computers.

I turned on my computer and it sat at 100% CPU usage. Fix our computers.

Tanium battling McAfee for scans all day takes up 40% of the processes inside the machine. Fix our computers.

My computer updated and restarted 10 times today. Fix our computers.

We've been doing more with less for too long. Fix our computers.

Want to recruit the generation of the future? Fix our computers.

What happened to the cloud? Fix our computers.

Why am I using Internet Explorer? Fix our computers. 

Making computers so useless that nobody can hack them is not a strategy (yet they hack them anyway). Fix our computers.

We're the richest and most well funded military in the world. I timed 1 hour and 20 minutes from logging in to Outlook opening today. Fix our computers.

Ultimately, we can't solve problems with the same tools that made them . . . and yet somehow fundamental IT funding is still an afterthought . . . it's not a money problem, it's a priority problem.

Sincerely and on behalf of,

Every DoD employee.



'Fix my computer' Cry Echos on Social Media; Air Force CIO Responds - Air Force Magazine
airforcemag.com · by Shaun Waterman · January 26, 2022
Jan. 26, 2022 | By
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A cry of frustration in a social media post is striking a chord with users of Air Force IT systems, and the service’s chief information officer has joined the conversation, outlining steps she’s taking to rectify the problems it identified.
“You tell us to ‘Accelerate change or lose,’ then fix our computers,” demanded Michael Kanaan, the director of operations for the Air Force’s Artificial Intelligence Accelerator at MIT, in a widely shared LinkedIn post referencing the service leadership’s demand for digital transformation.
Although Kanaan is an Air Force employee, his “open letter” is addressed to the Department of Defense and addresses complaints that are widespread across the services, as evidenced by the comments on his post. “Before buying another plane, tank, or ship, fix our computers,” Kanaan continued. “Yesterday, I spent an hour waiting just to log-on. Fix our computers.”
A long litany of complaints followed, mostly centered on the sloth-like slowness of DOD IT. “I wrote an email the other day that took over an hour to send … I opened an Excel file today, my computer froze and needed to be restarted … I turned on my computer and it sat at 100 [percent] CPU usage.” Each barrage ending with the same invocation: “Fix our computers.”
“Want innovation?” Kanaan lambasted DOD leaders, “You lost literally HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of employee hours last year because computers don’t work. Fix our computers.”
“We’re the richest and most well funded military in the world,” he concluded, “I timed 1 hour and 20 minutes from logging in, to Outlook opening today. Fix our computers.”
Kanaan told Air Force Magazine in a brief message exchange that he was “happy [the post] made such a splash on an oft-overlooked (but crucially important) issue.” He did not respond to further messages with detailed questions.
Striking a Chord
Nonetheless, his frustration clearly struck a chord. More than 1,200 LinkedIn users, many of them senior Air Force technology staff, including the Chief Information Officer Lauren Barrett Knausenberger, chimed in or reacted to the post.
“Oh man,” wrote Knausenberger, “I echo your open plea to fund IT. It’s the foundation of our competitive advantage and also ensures every single person can maximize their time on mission.”
“We need to make big, bold capital investments in IT to drive the tech and process modernization we need to compete,” she told Air Force Magazine in a text message interview later. “The most successful corporations have figured out that IT is a huge contributor to the value chain and a key source of [competitive] advantage. We seem to still think it’s a cost center in the DOD, and that’s a huge mistake.”
She said a major command technology refresh and ongoing work to streamline the various security programs that run on Air Force endpoints would help address Kanaan’s complaints.
“We’ve updated the [hardware] standard and proven it works. There’s just not enough money to fix it all at once,” she told Air Force Magazine. “Everything is harder than it needs to be due to our legacy debt.”
She said she had tasked a team at Air Combat Command last year “to streamline our endpoint solution.” Currently the service uses both McAfee and Tanium software packages to scan and protect service-issued endpoints like laptops. But the computing power required by multiple programs often interferes with the user’s work, and damages the user experience, or UX. Knausenberger said the ACC team would “streamline [existing programs] into one endpoint solution that meets our security, operations, and UX needs.”
Many commentators on Kanaan’s post highlighted the barriers that IT problems created for recruitment and retention.
“It’s not just a retention issue, it’s a recruiting issue,” pointed out Jeremy Buyer, director of strategic communications for the USAF chief human resources officer. “USAF says we need top talent cyber warriors,” he continued, enumerating the many barriers to competing with the private sector for such individuals. “Let’s say we successfully do that, and let’s assume we can cut through the bureaucracy/policy and assign them meaningful work that keeps them engaged and allows them the autonomy to move fast. The hardware alone will cause them to leave.”
“What little leverage we might have over the Googles of the world—i.e. a noble mission set like ‘service to country’—we undoubtedly lose with our stone aged IT infrastructure,” Buyer concluded.
“We are losing Reservists in droves right now because of how difficult it has become simply to serve,” added Cynthia Brothers, a Reservist who was an assistant professor at the Air Force Academy and the director of strategic engagement for CyberWorx.
Others pointed out that governance and security issues could be just as frustrating as performance ones, describing fights to get modern IT capabilities like open source coding languages and software repositories available to Airmen and women. “I wasted the last nine months fighting the local comm squadron,” said Matt McCormack, an instructor at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base. McCormack said he was trying to get local “instances” (installations) that would allow his pupils to use open source tools like Anaconda and GitHub for work with DOD’s software factory PlatformOne.
Several contributors described using workarounds involving personal devices accessing Air Force networks remotely through services like Desktop Anywhere or Outlook Web Access (OWA), while inside USAF offices. “It has been the absolute most frustrating thing in the world since the [Department of the Air Force] … made OWA crazy locked down,” said Oliver Parsons, chief of esports and virtual fitness for the Department of the Air Force. He added that he didn’t even bother getting issued a government laptop. “I’d rather deal with the annoying backdoors to get work done through my personal gaming laptop than even deal with the hassle of getting issued a government computer,” he said.
Knausenberger said that many of the laptops still being used by Air Force personnel had been bought four years ago under a “lowest price technically acceptable” acquisition process when the DOD was rushing to deploy new endpoints so it could meet deadlines to transition to Windows 10.
Those laptops used “spinning” hard drives, which had been rendered obsolete by new, faster, and more reliable solid state drive. But now, with the updated standard introduced two years ago, “Anyone buying a standard laptop today from the catalog will be very happy with their performance,” she said.
Some commentators highlighted the responsibility of users. “Some of the blame falls on the Airmen, Soldiers, Civilians, etc. who don’t take any initiative,” to get their equipment fixed or maximize its utility, argued Packy Hill, a Reservist who founded and runs Bedrock, the innovation accelerator at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
Benjamin Marshall, a special assistant supporting the Commander’s Action Group at Air Force Materiel Command, recounted how, when his laptop became unusably slow, “I complained and received a new [one]. I can’t tell you how much faster this new one is from my previous fast computer. Even in a year jump, the computers are next level now.”
Knausenberger called this “a cultural issue … We need people to call the help desk to complain and order a new laptop when it breaks.” She said a service culture of stoically persevering in the face of impossible odds didn’t do anyone any favors. “If we suffer in silence it doesn’t get fixed,” she said.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 7:49 a.m. on Jan. 27 to correct the spelling of Michael Kanaan’s name.
airforcemag.com · by Shaun Waterman · January 26, 2022

10. ‘Spies, Lies, and Algorithms’ Review: A Test for Intelligence

‘Spies, Lies, and Algorithms’ Review: A Test for Intelligence
For readers raised on thrillers, here is a real-world account of the challenges that American spy agencies must confront in the 21st century.
WSJ · by Harvey Klehr
Ms. Zegart opens her book with a survey of the nation’s rapidly changing “threat landscape” (Russia, China, terrorist groups); the sudden arrival of “open-source intelligence” (live-streaming amateur videos, time-stamped Twitter and Facebook posts); the consequently high volume of internet data relevant to intelligence; and the challenge to the U.S. intelligence community of keeping up with it all. Her aim is to give the general reader a non-Hollywood understanding of 21st-century intelligence as well as the daunting challenges that American spy agencies now confront.
The U.S. intelligence community, outlined concisely by Ms. Zegart, is composed of 18 separate organizations, including two independent agencies: the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees operations, and the Central Intelligence Agency, which runs spies and engages in covert action. There are nine Defense Department elements, including the National Security Agency, which makes and breaks code; the National Reconnaissance Office, which develops and deploys spy satellites; and the intelligence offices of the various armed forces. The other seven elements include divisions of the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and other government entities. Ms. Zegart catalogs the difficulties of coordinating these disparate organizations, each with its own culture and skill set and priorities.
As the world has become more and more connected electronically, so much data is now online—Ms. Zegart estimates that 80% of what the intelligence community gathers comes from publicly available sources—that intelligence agencies are losing their traditional advantages to nongovernmental actors. Spy satellites and high-resolution cameras mounted on military aircraft, once the exclusive preserve of the government, now have rivals in small commercial satellites that can observe even license plates from space. Costs for users have plummeted; Google Earth is free. A “cottage industry of non-governmental nuclear intelligence collectors and analysts” who track nuclear efforts in North Korea and Iran has emerged, along with such phenomena as the Netherlands-based Bellingcat, a private community of journalists and researchers that has provided remarkable information about the secret Russian unit that has attempted to assassinate dissidents in Europe.
While there are obvious benefits to such activities, the privatization of intelligence also has costs and dangers. Ms. Zegart is at her best when describing cyber threats. “In many ways,” she writes, “cyberspace is the ultimate cloak-and-dagger battleground, where nefarious actors employ deception, subterfuge, and advanced technology for theft, espionage, information warfare, and more.” Enemy states and terrorist groups are “hacking both machines and minds,” not only within American institutions but in our living rooms. “Artificial intelligence is creating deepfake video, audio, and photographs so real, their inauthenticity may be impossible to detect. No set of threats has changed so fast and demanded so much from intelligence.”
Grab a Copy
Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence
By Amy B. Zegart
Princeton
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The anonymity of the internet combined with the widespread use of secure encryption has led to increasingly vitriolic and often hard-to-refute false claims clogging all channels of communication. Private technology companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook, incentivized to pursue profits and operating on a global scale, are often reluctant to surrender their users’ privacy even when democratic governments assert national-security claims. While China and other repressive regimes employ facial recognition software to harass, intimidate and imprison entire populations, many American Googlers have protested any cooperation by their employer with the American intelligence community.
The United States and other technologically advanced countries are increasingly vulnerable to large-scale cyberattacks that can corrupt data or compromise sensitive infrastructure. In 2015 a Chinese intrusion stole 21 million security-clearance records from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; in 2020 Russia obtained access to several American nuclear labs, government departments and Fortune 500 companies. Where once a spy had to steal or photograph physical documents, today an Edward Snowden can download hundreds of thousands of files containing millions of pages of top-secret information.
While Congress has a constitutional right to oversee the intelligence community, it has been a largely ineffective monitor, hamstrung by a low level of competence—there are few engineers in the House or the Senate. Intelligence oversight is not an assignment prized by members focused on re-election. Instead, we get periodic uproars over real or alleged misconduct by American intelligence bodies while Russia, Iran, North Korea and assorted bands of criminals continue to weaponize technology to undermine democratic self-government. But “from catching traitors to undertaking covert action to understanding nuclear threats and operating in cyberspace,” Ms. Zegart writes, “success requires a fundamental rethink about how to secure advantage in a radically new world. It starts by getting back to basics and depoliticizing intelligence again.”
Ms. Zegart offers no easy solutions but warns that the world of cyberwarfare requires both a “paradigm shift” and “mobilization in milliseconds.” In the new world, national security must take precedence over intelligence gathering, enabling decision makers to respond forcefully and quickly to cyberattacks. The divide between Washington and tech giants must be bridged or a day of reckoning will surely come.
Mr. Klehr, co-author of “Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America,” is an emeritus professor of politics and history at Emory University.
WSJ · by Harvey Klehr

11. The Putin Doctrine: A Move on Ukraine Has Always Been Part of the Plan

Excerpts:
Given Putin’s ultimate goal, and given his belief that now is the time to force the West to respond to his ultimatums, can Russia be deterred from launching another military incursion into Ukraine? No one knows what Putin will ultimately decide. But his conviction that the West has ignored what he deems Russia’s legitimate interests for three decades continues to drive his actions. He is determined to reassert Russia’s right to limit the sovereign choices of its neighbors and its former Warsaw Pact allies and to force the West to accept these limits—be that by diplomacy or military force.
That doesn’t mean the West is powerless. The United States should continue to pursue diplomacy with Russia and seek to craft a modus vivendi that is acceptable to both sides without compromising the sovereignty of its allies and partners. At the same time, it should keep coordinating with the Europeans to respond and impose costs on Russia. But it is clear that even if Europe avoids war, there is no going back to the situation as it was before Russia began massing its troops in March 2021. The ultimate result of this crisis could be the third reorganization of Euro-Atlantic security since the late 1940s. The first came with the consolidation of the Yalta system into two rival blocs in Europe after World War II. The second emerged from 1989 to 1991, with the collapse of the communist bloc and then the Soviet Union itself, followed by the West’s subsequent drive to create a Europe “whole and free.” Putin now directly challenges that order with his moves against Ukraine.
As the United States and its allies await Russia’s next move and try to deter an invasion with diplomacy and the threat of heavy sanctions, they need to understand Putin’s motives and what they portend. The current crisis is ultimately about Russia redrawing the post–Cold War map and seeking to reassert its influence over half of Europe, based on the claim that it is guaranteeing its own security. It may be possible to avert a military conflict this time. But as long as Putin remains in power, so will his doctrine.
The Putin Doctrine
A Move on Ukraine Has Always Been Part of the Plan
January 27, 2022
Foreign Affairs · by Angela Stent · January 27, 2022
The current crisis between Russia and Ukraine is a reckoning that has been 30 years in the making. It is about much more than Ukraine and its possible NATO membership. It is about the future of the European order crafted after the Soviet Union’s collapse. During the 1990s, the United States and its allies designed a Euro-Atlantic security architecture in which Russia had no clear commitment or stake, and since Russian President Vladimir Putin came to power, Russia has been challenging that system. Putin has routinely complained that the global order ignores Russia’s security concerns, and he has demanded that the West recognize Moscow’s right to a sphere of privileged interests in the post-Soviet space. He has staged incursions into neighboring states, such as Georgia, that have moved out of Russia’s orbit in order to prevent them from fully reorienting.
Putin has now taken this approach one step further. He is threatening a far more comprehensive invasion of Ukraine than the annexation of Crimea and the intervention in the Donbas that Russia carried out in 2014, an invasion that would undermine the current order and potentially reassert Russia’s preeminence in what he insists is its “rightful” place on the European continent and in world affairs. He sees this as a good time to act. In his view, the United States is weak, divided, and less able to pursue a coherent foreign policy. His decades in office have made him more cynical about the United States’ staying power. Putin is now dealing with his fifth U.S. president, and he has come to see Washington as an unreliable interlocutor. The new German government is still finding its political feet, Europe on the whole is focused on its domestic challenges, and the tight energy market gives Russia more leverage over the continent. The Kremlin believes that it can bank on Beijing’s support, just as China supported Russia after the West tried to isolate it in 2014.
Putin may still decide not to invade. But whether he does or not, the Russian president’s behavior is being driven by an interlocking set of foreign policy principles that suggest Moscow will be disruptive in the years to come. Call it “the Putin doctrine.” The core element of this doctrine is getting the West to treat Russia as if it were the Soviet Union, a power to be respected and feared, with special rights in its neighborhood and a voice in every serious international matter. The doctrine holds that only a few states should have this kind of authority, along with complete sovereignty, and that others must bow to their wishes. It entails defending incumbent authoritarian regimes and undermining democracies. And the doctrine is tied together by Putin’s overarching aim: reversing the consequences of the Soviet collapse, splitting the transatlantic alliance, and renegotiating the geographic settlement that ended the Cold War.
BLAST FROM THE PAST
Russia, according to Putin, has an absolute right to a seat at the table on all major international decisions. The West should recognize that Russia belongs to the global board of directors. After what Putin portrays as the humiliation of the 1990s, when a greatly weakened Russia was forced to accede to an agenda set by the United States and its European allies, he has largely achieved this goal. Even though Moscow was ejected from the G-8 after its annexation of Crimea, its veto on the United Nations Security Council and role as an energy, nuclear, and geographic superpower ensure that the rest of the world must take its views into account. Russia successfully rebuilt its military after the 2008 war with Georgia, and it is now the preeminent regional military power, with the capability to project power globally. Moscow’s ability to threaten its neighbors enables it to force the West to the negotiating table, as has been so evident in the past few weeks.
As far as Putin is concerned, the use of force is perfectly appropriate if Russia believes that its security is threatened: Russia’s interests are as legitimate as those of the West, and Putin asserts that the United States and Europe have been disregarding them. For the most part, the United States and Europe have rejected the Kremlin’s narrative of grievance, which centers most notably on the breakup of the Soviet Union and especially the separation of Ukraine from Russia. When Putin described the Soviet collapse as a “great geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century,” he was lamenting the fact that 25 million Russians found themselves outside of Russia, and he particularly criticized the fact that 12 million Russians found themselves in the new Ukrainian state. As he wrote in a 5,000-word treatise published last summer and titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” in 1991, “people found themselves abroad overnight, taken away, this time indeed, from their historical motherland.” His essay has recently been distributed to Russian troops.


In an essay last year, Putin wrote that Ukraine was being turned into “a springboard against Russia.”
This narrative of loss to the West is tied in to a particular obsession of Putin’s: the idea that NATO, not content to merely admit or aid post-Soviet states, might threaten Russia itself. The Kremlin insists that this preoccupation is based on real concerns. Russia, after all, has been repeatedly invaded from the West. In the twentieth century, it was invaded by anti-Bolshevik allied forces, including some from the United States, during its civil war from 1917 to 1922. Germany invaded twice, leading to the loss of 26 million Soviet citizens in World War II. Putin has explicitly linked this history to Russia’s current concerns about NATO infrastructure nearing Russia’s borders and Moscow’s resulting demands for security guarantees.
Today, however, Russia is a nuclear superpower brandishing new, hypersonic missiles. No country—least of all its smaller, weaker neighbors—has any intention of invading Russia. Indeed, the country’s neighbors to its west have a different narrative and stress their vulnerability over the centuries to invasion from Russia. The United States would also never attack, although Putin has accused it of seeking to “cut a juicy piece of our pie.” Nevertheless, the historical self-perception of Russia’s vulnerability resonates with the country’s population. Government-controlled media are filled with claims that Ukraine could be a launching pad for NATO aggression. Indeed, in his essay last year, Putin wrote that Ukraine was being turned into “a springboard against Russia.”
Putin also believes that Russia has an absolute right to a sphere of privileged interests in the post-Soviet space. This means its former Soviet neighbors should not join any alliances that are deemed hostile to Moscow, particularly NATO or the European Union. Putin has made this demand clear in the two treaties proposed by the Kremlin on December 17, which require that Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries—as well as Sweden and Finland—commit to permanent neutrality and eschew seeking NATO membership. NATO would also have to retreat to its 1997 military posture, before its first enlargement, by removing all troops and equipment in central and eastern Europe. (This would reduce NATO’s military presence to what it was when the Soviet Union disintegrated.) Russia would also have veto power over the foreign policy choices of its non-NATO neighbors. This would ensure that pro-Russian governments are in power in countries bordering Russia—including, foremost, Ukraine.
DIVIDE AND CONQUER
So far, no Western government has been prepared to accept these extraordinary demands. The United States and Europe widely embrace the premise that nations are free to determine both their domestic systems and their foreign policy affiliations. From 1945 to 1989, the Soviet Union denied self-determination to central and eastern Europe and exercised control over both the domestic and foreign policies of Warsaw Pact members through local communist parties, the secret police, and the Red Army. When a country strayed too far from the Soviet model—Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968—its leaders were ousted by force. The Warsaw Pact was an alliance that had a unique track record: it invaded only its own members.
The modern Kremlin’s interpretation of sovereignty has notable parallels to that of the Soviet Union. It holds, to paraphrase George Orwell, that some states are more sovereign than others. Putin has said that only a few great powers—Russia, China, India, and the United States—enjoy absolute sovereignty, free to choose which alliances they join or reject. Smaller countries such as Ukraine or Georgia are not fully sovereign and must respect Russia’s strictures, just as Central America and Latin America, according to Putin, must heed their large northern neighbor. Russia also does not seek allies in the Western sense of the word but instead looks for mutually beneficial instrumental and transactional partnerships with countries, such as China, that do not restrict Russia’s freedom to act or pass judgment on its internal politics.
Such authoritarian partnerships are an element of the Putin doctrine. The president presents Russia as a supporter of the status quo, an advocate of conservative values, and an international player that respects established leaders, especially autocrats. As recent events in Belarus and Kazakhstan have shown, Russia is the go-to power to support embattled authoritarian rulers. It has defended autocrats both in its neighborhood and far beyond—including in Cuba, Libya, Syria, and Venezuela. The West, according to the Kremlin, instead supports chaos and regime change, as happened during the 2003 Iraq war and the Arab Spring in 2011.


The Warsaw Pact was an alliance that had a unique track record: it invaded only its own members.
But in its own “sphere of privileged interests,” Russia can act as a revisionist power when it considers its interests threatened or when it wants to advance its interests, as the annexation of Crimea and the invasions of Georgia and Ukraine demonstrated. Russia’s drive to be acknowledged as a leader and backer of strongmen regimes has been increasingly successful in recent years as Kremlin-backed mercenary groups have acted on behalf of Russia in many parts of the world, as is the case in Ukraine.
Moscow’s revisionist interference also isn’t limited to what it considers its privileged domain. Putin believes Russia’s interests are best served by a fractured transatlantic alliance. Accordingly, he has supported anti-American and Euroskeptic groups in Europe; backed populist movements of the left and right on both sides of the Atlantic; engaged in election interference; and generally worked to exacerbate discord within Western societies. One of his major goals is to get the United States to withdraw from Europe. U.S. President Donald Trump was contemptuous of the NATO alliance and dismissive of some of the United States’ key European allies—notably then German Chancellor Angela Merkel—and spoke openly of pulling the United States out of the organization. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has assiduously sought to repair the alliance, and indeed Putin’s manufactured crisis over Ukraine has reinforced alliance unity. But there is enough doubt within Europe about the durability of U.S. commitment after 2024 that Russia has found some success reinforcing skepticism, particularly through social media.
Weakening the transatlantic alliance could pave the way for Putin to realize his ultimate aim: jettisoning the post–Cold War, liberal, rules-based international order promoted by Europe, Japan, and the United States in favor of one more amenable to Russia. For Moscow, this new system might resemble the nineteenth-century concert of powers. It could also turn into a new incarnation of the Yalta system, where Russia, the United States, and now China divide the world into tripolar spheres of influence. Moscow’s growing rapprochement with Beijing has indeed reinforced Russia’s call for a post-West order. Both Russia and China demand a new system in which they exercise more influence in a multipolar world.
The nineteenth- and twentieth-century systems both recognized certain rules of the game. After all, during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union mostly respected each other’s spheres of influence. The two most dangerous crises of that era—Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s 1958 Berlin ultimatum and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis—were defused before military conflict broke out. But if the present is any indication, it looks as if Putin’s post-West “order” would be a disordered Hobbesian world with few rules of the game. In pursuit of his new system, Putin’s modus operandi is to keep the West off balance, guessing about his true intentions, and then surprising it when he acts.
THE RUSSIAN RESET
Given Putin’s ultimate goal, and given his belief that now is the time to force the West to respond to his ultimatums, can Russia be deterred from launching another military incursion into Ukraine? No one knows what Putin will ultimately decide. But his conviction that the West has ignored what he deems Russia’s legitimate interests for three decades continues to drive his actions. He is determined to reassert Russia’s right to limit the sovereign choices of its neighbors and its former Warsaw Pact allies and to force the West to accept these limits—be that by diplomacy or military force.
That doesn’t mean the West is powerless. The United States should continue to pursue diplomacy with Russia and seek to craft a modus vivendi that is acceptable to both sides without compromising the sovereignty of its allies and partners. At the same time, it should keep coordinating with the Europeans to respond and impose costs on Russia. But it is clear that even if Europe avoids war, there is no going back to the situation as it was before Russia began massing its troops in March 2021. The ultimate result of this crisis could be the third reorganization of Euro-Atlantic security since the late 1940s. The first came with the consolidation of the Yalta system into two rival blocs in Europe after World War II. The second emerged from 1989 to 1991, with the collapse of the communist bloc and then the Soviet Union itself, followed by the West’s subsequent drive to create a Europe “whole and free.” Putin now directly challenges that order with his moves against Ukraine.
As the United States and its allies await Russia’s next move and try to deter an invasion with diplomacy and the threat of heavy sanctions, they need to understand Putin’s motives and what they portend. The current crisis is ultimately about Russia redrawing the post–Cold War map and seeking to reassert its influence over half of Europe, based on the claim that it is guaranteeing its own security. It may be possible to avert a military conflict this time. But as long as Putin remains in power, so will his doctrine.

Foreign Affairs · by Angela Stent · January 27, 2022



12.Is ‘AUKUS Plus’ a Viable Option?


However, these various alliance groups for free countries are overlapping and interconnected. 


Excerpts:

Much like the still-evolving Quad Plus format, AUKUS could fulfill the needs of the Indo-Pacific region by building a broader cohesive grouping of key regional actors like India, Japan, and South Korea through forums, dialogues, and bilateral or multilateral sharing of information. These Plus partnerships could supplement AUKUS’ military focus and commitment to emergency action on pressing matters like China’s imminent takeover of Taiwan, its maritime expansion in the South China Sea, and its intimidation tactics in Hong Kong.

Further, “AUKUS Plus” can draw from the already exclusive Fives Eyes arrangement – another Anglosphere framework – which has long coordinated closely with Japan (often referred to as the Sixth Eye) and South Korea. Such ad hoc cooperation can also be developed with France, Canada, and New Zealand.

As potential for a Russia-China-North Korea alliance grows, the need for AUKUS to expand its outreach and collaboration to promote interoperability becomes crucial. A Russia-China-North Korea alliance had previously been proposed as a response to the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral; now, it could emerge as a counter to AUKUS. Against such a scenario, the pact needs to allow for synergy with existing global value-driven frameworks like Global Gateway, Build Back Better World (B3W), and existing organizations like ASEAN and NATO. Thus, even as formal inclusion of other states does not seem a possibility, coordinating and envisioning a subsidiary Plus format would allow for not only flexibility in collaboration but also greater acceptance and impact in the Indo-Pacific.
Is ‘AUKUS Plus’ a Viable Option?
The absence of an Asian voice in an Indo-Pacific security alliance does not bode well. How can AUKUS include other states?
thediplomat.com · by Jagannath Panda · January 26, 2022
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The emergence of AUKUS – an “enhanced trilateral security partnership” involving Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States launched in September 2021 – has strengthened the already growing momentum toward minilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, in order to “meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.” The pact has wide-ranging goals: promoting deeper information and technology sharing; integrating security and defense-related science, technology, industrial bases, and supply chains; and enhancing the three nations’ joint capabilities and interoperability. Although exclusive to the three Anglo partners, the grouping can offer immense value to the regional security architecture in the Indo-Pacific.
Nevertheless, in an increasingly complex multipolar world order, an insulated and restricted alliance has its limitations; a more inclusive forum within AUKUS’ minilateral setting can therefore be imperative to overcome obstacles and have a greater impact. What would an augmented AUKUS encompass? Does inclusivity necessarily imply a formal expansion, or, can the pact allow for a more abstract “Plus” network among “like-minded” Indo-Pacific partners without resorting to an expanded partnership? And what would be the scope of a potential Plus framework? Europe, as well as Indo-Pacific powers like India, Japan and South Korea can be prospective “AUKUS Plus” partners and engage in issues-based collaborations with AUKUS, such as cooperating on common issues like supply chains.
AUKUS Plus Europe: Seeds of Collaboration Amid Fallout?
The secrecy that underlaid the formation of AUKUS and the unilateral cancellation of the $90 billion Franco-Australian submarine deal severely affected the transatlantic relationship. To make matters worse, the AUKUS announcement overshadowed the launch of the European Union’s “Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific,” the bloc’s autonomous attempt to enhance its Indo-Pacific footprint. This unfortunate timing, which caught the EU unaware, was an embarrassing moment for Europe. It not only caused a rift between long-standing partners but also strengthened calls for greater strategic autonomy within the EU.

Yet, despite the cracks in transatlantic ties that AUKUS exposed, the United States and Europe share a long history and shared values, perceptions, and challenges; it is therefore unlikely that the rift will be permanent. Already, the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has said that the pact was not “directed against NATO or Europe,” and that NATO would continue to work closely with its Indo-Pacific partners, namely New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and South Korea on cyber and maritime security, among other issues. Biden has also made efforts to reach out to Europe, especially France, to smooth ties and attempt to find new common ground to sustain transatlantic ties. In the future, cooperation between AUKUS and NATO – the bedrock for European security – cannot be ruled out, particularly as Europe faces “new challenges” from Russia and China.
AUKUS Plus Japan, India, and South Korea: Allaying Regional Security Concerns?
AUKUS’ first core initiative looks to assist Australia in building nuclear-powered submarines to bolster “interoperability, commonality, and mutual benefit” without compromising nuclear non-proliferation, security, and safety commitments. Naturally, its nuclear focus has been controversial, triggering concerns in allies and rivals alike over the possibility that AUKUS will spur an arms race and lax non-proliferation standards in the Indo-Pacific.
For example, North Korea and China condemned the deal as one that would “upset the strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific region,” “severely [damage] regional peace… and [intensify] the arms race.” New Zealand, an Anglosphere country and Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partner of the AUKUS states, announced that it would uphold its long-standing ban on nuclear submarines entering its waters (in line with its nuclear-free policy) and deny (still hypothetical) Australian nuclear subs entry. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members like Indonesia and Malaysia, too, have expressed similar reservations. Even U.S. treaty ally Japan, while welcoming AUKUS as a “strengthening engagement in the Indo-Pacific,” has refrained from mentioning the nuclear submarine focus – indicating that it remains uncomfortable with the nuclear aspect and its potential implications. Here, engaging with regional powers through a ‘Plus’ framework can help ally regional security concerns and make AUKUS a more accepted framework in the region.
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Japan
Japan, particularly, shares a security treaty with the United States and close security ties with Australia and the U.K.; it would hence be a natural addition to an AUKUS Plus forum. Japan’s ambassador to Australia, Yamagami Shingo, has already hinted that Tokyo would be willing to participate in AUKUS initiatives on AI and cybersecurity – a sentiment reiterated by former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who remains an influential entity in the ruling party.
The use of nuclear propulsion technology is a highly controversial topic in Japan, largely owing to its history with nuclear weapons and a constitutional commitment to pacifism. Hence, any cooperation between Japan and AUKUS will likely not involve the nuclear element, but rather come as ad hoc cooperation on shared issues (like critical technology development) that help strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance in face of shared challenges, particularly in the maritime domain. This could, for instance, include collaboration in efforts to patrol the East and South China Seas. As a step in this direction, Japan and Australia recently inked a landmark defense agreement that builds on the AUKUS deal.
India
Another major Asian power, India has neither officially welcomed nor criticized, the deal. Instead, New Delhi has maintained a wary distance while emphatically delinking the Quad – which includes Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S. – from AUKUS. However, from the view point of New Delhi, AUKUS has had a direct bearing on India’s regional engagement by compromising the recently-launched France-Australia-India trilateral. Nevertheless, more from a geopolitical calculus, considering China’s recent military tactics in Ladakh, AUKUS’ focus on Chinese expansionist tendencies comes in India’s favor; it could serve to ease pressure on New Delhi and help restore strategic balance in the region.
Even so, given that AUKUS stands as an anti-China military alliance, and India’s uneasiness with treaty ties that may compromise its strategic autonomy, engagement between the two may be complicated. Nevertheless, India can build on its already strong existing ties with AUKUS states and collaborate on broader defense-related areas such as cyber and quantum technologies and AI. India and Australia are set to enhance their joint capacities and interoperability after upgrading their strategic partnership in 2020. Since the AUKUS launch, India and the United Kingdom have already taken steps to enhance interoperability, with a focus on the digital realm. Despite India’s current delinking, the potential inclusion of Japan and India into a plus network will certainly bolster the Quad-AUKUS synergy.
South Korea
While South Korea, another major U.S. ally and NATO partner, has not released any official statement on AUKUS, President Moon Jae-in highlighted the pact as a contributor to regional stability and supported Australia’s decision to acquire submarines. Seoul has long sought, but not been allowed to develop, nuclear-powered submarines because of its nuclear cooperation agreement (123 Agreement) with the United States that limits applications to “peaceful uses.”
In May 2021, however, the two allies agreed to terminate the Revised Missile Guidelines, which had limited Seoul’s missile development capacity. South Korea and Australia also expanded their cooperation through a recently-inked $717 million defense contract. Post AUKUS, South Korea will look forward to, if not expect, increased defense cooperation and expanded access to nuclear technology. On the other hand, should AUKUS (and the United States particularly) continue to exclude Seoul and refuse transfer of nuclear tech, South Korea may be pushed to partner with France in developing nuclear-powered submarines.
ASEAN and Others
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Undoubtedly, a large part of the disgruntlement among Asian states (especially allies) is due to the exclusive nature of the military alliance, which has the veneer of yet another imperial attempt by Anglosphere powers to decide Asia’s future without any consultations with or regard for regional states. If AUKUS intends to achieve its aim of sustaining “peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region,” Asian powers need to be consulted in the development of advanced capabilities. The absence of an Asian voice in an Indo-Pacific security alliance does not bode well for the “like-minded cooperation” that the United States seeks in order to rebuild its diminishing status in the region. Apart from dialogues with Japan, India, and South Korea, AUKUS will also need to focus on ASEAN and its member states, especially Indonesia, which is a direct neighbor of Australia and therefore directly impacted by Canberra’s expanding capabilities and the possibility of an arms race right in its backyard. Apart from consultations with ASEAN, AUKUS can also reinforce cooperation with other minilateral ventures in the Indo-Pacific (like the Quad), on shared goals.
Greater Impact in the Indo-Pacific?
The launch of AUKUS has been largely mired in skepticism, and as such, its expansion is not an obviously viable option. Not that the trio would easily open their exclusive club to other states: The U.S. has rebuffed any inclination to involve other countries, including Japan and India, in the AUKUS alliance. However, because of legitimate regional security concerns (and distrust of outside powers) among the nations in the region, the AUKUS mechanism needs to be reconfigured – perhaps by extension and not expansion.
Much like the still-evolving Quad Plus format, AUKUS could fulfill the needs of the Indo-Pacific region by building a broader cohesive grouping of key regional actors like India, Japan, and South Korea through forums, dialogues, and bilateral or multilateral sharing of information. These Plus partnerships could supplement AUKUS’ military focus and commitment to emergency action on pressing matters like China’s imminent takeover of Taiwan, its maritime expansion in the South China Sea, and its intimidation tactics in Hong Kong.
Further, “AUKUS Plus” can draw from the already exclusive Fives Eyes arrangement – another Anglosphere framework – which has long coordinated closely with Japan (often referred to as the Sixth Eye) and South Korea. Such ad hoc cooperation can also be developed with France, Canada, and New Zealand.
As potential for a Russia-China-North Korea alliance grows, the need for AUKUS to expand its outreach and collaboration to promote interoperability becomes crucial. A Russia-China-North Korea alliance had previously been proposed as a response to the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral; now, it could emerge as a counter to AUKUS. Against such a scenario, the pact needs to allow for synergy with existing global value-driven frameworks like Global Gateway, Build Back Better World (B3W), and existing organizations like ASEAN and NATO. Thus, even as formal inclusion of other states does not seem a possibility, coordinating and envisioning a subsidiary Plus format would allow for not only flexibility in collaboration but also greater acceptance and impact in the Indo-Pacific.
thediplomat.com · by Jagannath Panda · January 26, 2022



13. The Battle for the Future of the West
Excerpts:
The irony is that each position taken by Europe’s big three undermines the other two. America remains Europe’s fatherly overlord, just as it was when the Balkans collapsed in the early 1990s, only this time it is an aging and slightly more bedraggled protector with enemies that appear stronger than they were. The result, in other words, is stasis, which, if you are being cynical, suits everyone in Europe just fine: America continues to pay, and no hard choices have to be faced.
The problem for Europe is that with each new crisis, Washington’s commitment to its own hegemonic world order continues to weaken, but nobody has any real idea what to replace it with.
Whatever happens next, this feels like a pivotal moment in the 21st century. The countries that make up NATO remain some of the wealthiest and most advanced societies on earth. So far, the West has united in a fairly impressive manner in the face of Russia’s aggression. Yet the fact remains that one half of the empire is overextended and the other is underextended. The chicken and the child might not like the brutal geopolitical chess game that Putin (or, for that matter, Xi) is playing, but it’s time they sat down and relearned the rules before they are placed in checkmate.
The Battle for the Future of the West
The real prize in Ukraine is the end of American influence in Europe.
The Atlantic · by Tom McTague · January 27, 2022
Vladimir Putin likes to say that playing chess with the United States is like playing against a pigeon: It struts around the board, knocks over the pieces, shits everywhere, and then declares victory. Playing chess with Europe, in contrast, must be like playing with a child who has forgotten the rules of the game, claims to have invented new ones, and then sulks when no one wants to play.
For so long, many people in Europe, including the U.K., have comforted themselves with platitudes that “hard power” no longer matters, that spheres of influence are outdated, and, even, that geopolitics itself has become somewhat passé. Then Russia sent 100,000 troops to the Ukrainian border. Suddenly playtime was over and once again the future security of Europe was being decided by someone else, somewhere else.
There’s no need to overstate the case. Europe’s major powers are not absent in this Ukrainian crisis. Britain and France in particular are playing prominent roles: London is winning plaudits in Eastern Europe for its proactive stance designed to make any Russian intervention as painful as possible, and Paris is pursuing its own path, hosting a summit of Ukrainians and Russians as part of the long-running talks under the “Normandy” format that also include Germany. At each stage of this crisis, Europe’s major powers have also been consulted by a U.S. administration that seems to take its rhetoric about alliances seriously.
Still, if you step back for a moment, the situation is extraordinary. Russia is a country of 142 million people with a hollowed-out petro economy about the size of South Korea’s. Together, Europe’s big three powers—Germany, France, and Britain—dwarf Russia in terms of wealth and population; the whole of democratic Europe, even more so. And yet, Europe is of secondary importance in this crisis even though it is happening on its own continent.
For the West, the obvious reality is that America still calls the shots. London, Paris, and Berlin each lobby the White House and, depending on the crisis and the leader, exert real influence. But for whichever U.S. president is in office, the decision is, necessarily, America first. In this case, President Joe Biden is navigating a debate raging between the traditional foreign-policy establishment that is preaching deterrence and the ever more influential “restrainers,” who argue that the U.S. cannot afford to become bogged down in another war on its imperial periphery.
Part of Putin’s game, of course, is to exploit this division, both within America and across the West. He smells indecision and is seeking to exploit it. According to some experts I’ve spoken with over the past week, the Russian president’s grand aspiration is to push America out of Europe altogether, negotiating a deal that recognizes Russia as a legitimate player in the continent’s security order, and reversing the losses Moscow sustained in the 1990s when its military was forced back inside its own borders. Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser on Russia, told me Putin may have calculated that Biden is the last president able to negotiate such a formal agreement on Europe’s behalf before the possible return of Donald Trump in 2024.
Other analysts I spoke with were skeptical of Putin’s strength, pointing out that none of his military options could meet his objectives. Lawrence Freedman, an emeritus war-studies professor at King’s College London, told me that Russia’s rhetoric in recent months suggested Putin is frustrated by the impasse in eastern Ukraine, unable to break it without armed force that may just make the situation worse for Russia.
Either way, what is so striking to me—apart from the monumental nature of the crime Moscow is apparently contemplating—is the extent of geopolitical positioning within Europe designed to affect not only the crisis itself, but the future shape of the continent, and the West, after Putin makes his move (or doesn’t).
The scale of Putin’s demands—to not just control Ukraine but return much of Eastern Europe to Russia’s sphere of influence—and the threat to the existing order it represents, is challenging the basic structures of the Western alliance, forcing each country within it to evaluate how their national interests are best served in the future.
In large part, the crisis is strengthening the Western alliance, not weakening it. Russia’s moves have reinvigorated the West’s principal military force, NATO. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, NATO has a real and present danger. And yet, only two years have passed since Trump was commander in chief, and no one in Europe is naive enough to think he does not stand a very good chance of resuming his presidency in 2024. The whole basis of Trump’s foreign policy, remember, was that Europe and other American allies were taking the U.S. for a ride. He even described NATO as obsolete and had no qualms about using the U.S. security guarantee as leverage in trade talks with Germany and others.
The current crisis, then, acts as a reminder of NATO’s importance, and, by extension, the importance of the American-led world, but also of its structural weakness: American public opinion. As Boris Johnson well understands, particularly today, given the very real threat to his premiership caused by his failure to abide by his own pandemic rules, the most important thing in world politics is the zeitgeist, whether or not the ideas underpinning it are sound.
And when it comes to what the West should do to revive the West, no one can agree. France’s Emmanuel Macron last week argued with a straight face that apparently now was the moment for Europe to assert its “strategic autonomy” from the U.S. To Macron, Russia’s ability to bypass Europe to talk directly with the U.S. only confirmed his belief that the continent needed to become an independent actor on the world stage. In a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Macron said that it was time for Europe to conduct its own dialogue with Russia, to create a “new security and stability order for Europe.” This is a drum he has been banging for quite some time to little effect. He could not have picked a worse crisis within which to assert Europe’s independence from America. Piddling around in the Sahel might be possible without the U.S., but not dealing with a nuclear Russia apparently set on invading a sovereign state in Europe.
Although it is understandable that Macron would use this latest crisis to jump back on his favorite hobbyhorse, he risks looking ridiculous—less an inspired general atop a rearing Marengo than a powerless captain on a stubborn Shetland pony. With the Russian army massing on Ukraine’s borders, what possible reason would any Eastern European state have to contemplate swapping Washington for Brussels as its primary representative on security matters, particularly given that Paris and Berlin have not been the most hawkish on this issue?
The fact is, and Macron understands this, Europe has no strategic autonomy—neither in its wider form, including the U.K., nor as the European Union. Not only does it have no way of projecting its power militarily, but it cannot properly patrol its borders or guarantee its energy supply, much of which comes from Russia. The U.S. has even made plans to bolster fuel supply to the EU should Russia retaliate against Western sanctions by cutting off fuel to the continent. But the EU’s geopolitical weakness runs deeper than its energy and security dependency: The EU does not have a Silicon Valley or a Wall Street, and remains dependent on the American financial system and Chinese trade.
Britain, meanwhile, having cut itself out of the EU, has been hyperactive in its efforts to remind allies of its continued relevance. London has released intelligence about Russian war plans, dispatched weapons to Ukraine, and made diplomatic shows of support to a range of Eastern European states. Such have been its efforts that #GodSavetheQueen was trending on Twitter in Ukraine after a planeload of arms arrived from Britain last week (flown around German airspace to avoid any diplomatic difficulties that might emerge from Berlin’s policy of not exporting weapons to conflict zones). The purpose of this effort is to maintain support for NATO as the principal organization of Western security and, by extension, to ensure that Britain cannot be ignored.
And although Britain’s hawkish policy might be dismissed by the French as being the stance of “a chest-banging gorilla who will not charge,” chest banging is not without its merits for Britain. No one in the U.K. government is suggesting that Britain will charge, or has any intention of charging, but it is happy to be noticed. The more Britain can convince European states that it remains a serious security partner, the less likely it is to be cut out of Europe’s future security order. What would Poland or the Baltics have to gain from supporting alternative security arrangements that might challenge the supremacy of NATO, thereby weakening both British and American commitment to European security?
And yet for Britain, the fact remains that it must work harder to maintain its influence because it is, as of January 31, 2020, outside the EU and, whatever the U.K. might secretly wish, that union will likely only grow in power as an independent actor within NATO.
Germany, meanwhile, continues its decades-long game of pretending that it isn’t really a power at all. Despite being the richest and most powerful country in Europe, it acts as though it were a kind of morally superior Switzerland, peaceful and objective. Frustrated officials I spoke with said Germany was trying to have its Western cake and eat it too, lodged firmly in NATO and the EU, and determined to withstand involvement in America’s geopolitical considerations for as long as it can to avoid contamination by any unnecessary moral or economic costs that come with being a power.
The irony is that each position taken by Europe’s big three undermines the other two. America remains Europe’s fatherly overlord, just as it was when the Balkans collapsed in the early 1990s, only this time it is an aging and slightly more bedraggled protector with enemies that appear stronger than they were. The result, in other words, is stasis, which, if you are being cynical, suits everyone in Europe just fine: America continues to pay, and no hard choices have to be faced.
The problem for Europe is that with each new crisis, Washington’s commitment to its own hegemonic world order continues to weaken, but nobody has any real idea what to replace it with.
Whatever happens next, this feels like a pivotal moment in the 21st century. The countries that make up NATO remain some of the wealthiest and most advanced societies on earth. So far, the West has united in a fairly impressive manner in the face of Russia’s aggression. Yet the fact remains that one half of the empire is overextended and the other is underextended. The chicken and the child might not like the brutal geopolitical chess game that Putin (or, for that matter, Xi) is playing, but it’s time they sat down and relearned the rules before they are placed in checkmate.
The Atlantic · by Tom McTague · January 27, 2022


14. 'It's a joke': Germany's offer of 5,000 helmets to Ukraine is met with disdain amid Russia invasion fears



'It's a joke': Germany's offer of 5,000 helmets to Ukraine is met with disdain amid Russia invasion fears
www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org · by @HollyEllyatt
KEY POINTS
  • Germany has provoked outrage in some quarters after it offered to supply 5,000 military helmets to Ukraine to help it defend itself against a possible Russian invasion.
  • The U.S. and U.K. have sent military hardware to Ukraine, as 100,000 Russian troops are believed to be located along the border with Ukraine.
  • Germany has been conspicuously reluctant to send equipment to the country.
Soldiers who were among several hundred that took up positions around a Ukrainian military base stand near the base's periphery in Crimea on March 2, 2014 in Perevalne, Ukraine.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images
Germany has provoked outrage in some quarters after it offered to supply 5,000 military helmets to Ukraine to help it defend itself against a possible Russian invasion.
About 100,000 Russian troops are believed to be on the border with Ukraine. While countries like the U.S. and U.K. have sent military hardware to Ukraine, Germany has been conspicuously reluctant to send equipment.
The offer of helmets, made on Wednesday, has been derided by some Ukraine officials. For one, Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko dismissed the offer as "a joke" and said it had left him "speechless."
"The behaviour of the German government leaves me speechless. The defence ministry apparently hasn't realized that we are confronted with perfectly equipped Russian forces that can start another invasion of Ukraine at any time," he told the Bild newspaper on Wednesday.
"What kind of support will Germany send next?" he asked. "Pillows?"
Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Wednesday that Berlin was responding to a request for military equipment, specifically helmets, according to Reuters. The Bild newspaper also reported that the German government had received a request for help from Ukraine in which it stated its need for 100,000 combat helmets and tactical vests.
Germany previously said it would supply a fully equipped field hospital to Ukraine, but German officials have appeared reluctant to send more defensive weapons.
Last weekend, Germany's defense minister said during an interview with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that sending arms to Ukraine would not be helpful as attempts to defuse tensions between Russia and Ukraine are still ongoing.
"We are standing on Kyiv's side. We have to do everything to de-escalate. Currently, arms deliveries would not be helpful in this respect; there is agreement on this in the German government," Lambrecht told the paper last Saturday, according to a translation by Deutsche Welle.
Her comments come after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a news conference last Friday that in recent years, "Germany has not supported the export of lethal weapons," DW reported.
In addition, Germany has reportedly blocked Baltic nation Estonia from providing German-origin military support to Ukraine, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal last Friday.
Last week, Germany's new chancellor said that "staying silent is not a sensible option" after years of tension on Europe's doorstep. But while Germany and France may prefer to rely on crisis talks with Russia and Ukraine to try to avert a possible confrontation (the four countries met on Wednesday for talks in Paris), NATO and the U.S. are trying to arm Ukraine — so it can defend itself — without sending troops into the country.
As Ukraine is not a member of the Western military alliance, the organization is not obliged to defend it. Nor is it a member of the EU, though it aspires to be a member of both.
But given Ukraine's position on the border of the EU, NATO allies are in the unenviable position of being somewhat bound to help Ukraine defend itself to counter an increasingly aggressive Russia, which wants to extend its influence in former Soviet states like Ukraine and Belarus.
Russia has already seized territory from Ukraine after its annexation of Crimea in 2014. It has also supported a pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine and is widely believed to arm pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region, although it has denied this.
Given Russia's recent history of aggression toward Ukraine, many analysts believe that Russia is now looking for a pretext to invade. Western allies are not taking chances and NATO has placed its forces on standby and reinforced its positions in Eastern Europe, with more ships and fighter jets being sent to the region.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has put thousands of troops on heightened alert, meaning they are ready to be deployed to the region if the crisis escalates. The U.K. has sent Ukraine short-range, anti-tank missiles and is reportedly considering sending hundreds more troops to eastern Europe to bolster NATO forces there, according to Sky News.
On Tuesday, a U.S. plane carrying around 300 Javelin anti-tank missiles, launchers and other military hardware landed in Kyiv, the U.S. embassy in the capital said via Twitter, adding that the delivery was the third shipment of $200 million in assistance authorized by President Joe Biden. The package includes other anti-armor systems, grenade launchers, munitions and non-lethal equipment "essential to Ukraine's front line defenders," according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
For its part, Russia has repeatedly said it does not plan to invade Ukraine, but it has asked NATO for legal assurances that Ukraine will never be admitted to the alliance, and it wants to see a rollback of NATO deployments in Eastern Europe, among other demands.
The U.S. officially responded to Russia's security demands on Wednesday, with America's ambassador to Russia hand-delivering the written response to the Kremlin. The responses were not made public, but the Biden administration has made clear that some of Russia's demands, including barring Ukraine from joining the NATO alliance, are "non-starters."
Germany is also in a tricky position geopolitically and economically when it comes to Russia — a country with which it has traditionally enjoyed strong trade ties. Current tensions have focused on the fate of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project that links Russia and Germany.
The pipeline is set to increase Russian gas supplies to the EU (it already supplies around 40% of the bloc's natural gas) by taking them directly to Germany, bypassing Ukraine.
Germany's reluctance to send defensive weapons to Ukraine also likely has its roots in the 20th century, with the scars of World War I and World War II deeply ingrained on Germany's political conscience, making it an easy target for criticism and possible condemnation if it gets involved in military confrontations.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump's Energy Secretary Rick Perry told CNBC on Wednesday that he's "very concerned" about what he sees on the Ukrainian border, adding that Russian President Putin is a "good poker player." He also criticized Germany "because of their lack of resolve dealing with Russia."
"I'm very critical of Germany at this particular juncture because of their lack of resolve dealing with Russia. I saw this as the potential for the Germans potentially being the wheelhouse, if you will, of that energy through Europe — they wanted to work with the Russians, they wanted to be the country that could control where this gas went," he told CNBC's Hadley Gamble.
He said Germany is "paying a price now for playing footsies with the Russians and giving them the opportunity to finish" the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, but he reserved his "harshest criticism" for the Biden administration for "allowing Russia to finish the Nord Stream pipeline. It is nothing more than a way to hold Europe hostage," he said.
For their part, the U.S., U.K. and EU have signaled that they are prepared to impose severe sanctions on key sectors and personnel in Russia if it does invade Ukraine. President Joe Biden has even said that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, could be personally sanctioned.
www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org · by @HollyEllyatt


15. The Pentagon Is in Desperate Need of an Intervention From the Top

Hmmm.... that would be an interesting job -manage the slush fund for INDOPACOM. Does he or she get the title of "bishop?"

Excerpts:


To be clear, a “bishop’s fund” of this kind — a pot of money controlled by a senior official for a specific purpose — would stop short of an enduring strategic posture fund. While dedicated funding would be preferable, it’s unlikely to earn support from congressional skeptics of new standalone funds and Pentagon budgeteers who fear such funds would limit the department’s flexibility in budget execution. Instead, building a “bishop’s fund” for posture inside of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative of this kind would enable the secretary of defense to wield more direct influence over posture and require the military services to take posture seriously — not just as a strategic or regional priority but also as a budget priority.

For too long, the Pentagon has moved too slowly to achieve its ambitions of a distributed and resilient force posture in the Indo-Pacific, with dangerous consequences for American security. Urgent change at a significant scale is required, and that starts with the secretary of defense declaring, “I am Spike.”

The Pentagon Is in Desperate Need of an Intervention From the Top - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Dustin Walker · January 27, 2022
It’s time for an intervention. For the last decade, the Pentagon has been promising a more distributed and resilient posture in the Indo-Pacific, but it has not kept that promise. Highly concentrated with few active or passive defenses, American forces — and lives — remain dangerously vulnerable to attack. As Chinese military capability and capacity continue to grow, the failure to address this vulnerability is one major reason America has failed to reverse the erosion of the conventional military balance in the Indo-Pacific and restore the credibility of American deterrence.
In a superb article in these pages, Stacie Pettyjohn eloquently makes the case for reducing “the vulnerability of American forces to Chinese air and missile attacks by distributing them across more locations and putting in place a system of passive defenses on existing bases.” A more distributed and resilient posture with a mix of active and passive defenses will not eliminate risk to U.S. forces. But it would enhance deterrence by sowing doubt in the minds of Chinese leaders about the ease or likelihood of success in a conflict. It would impose targeting dilemmas for the Chinese military and force it to expend its missile inventory at a faster rate — and it would provide the margin of safety required to keep U.S. forces in the fight at critical moments of a crisis or conflict.
Most importantly, Pettyjohn argues that changing America’s military posture in the Indo-Pacific requires “a senior champion” to overcome bureaucratic incentives and internal divisions within the Pentagon. She cites a Cold War example of an Air Force general — callsign “Spike” — who successfully advocated for defensive measures to protect U.S. aircraft in Europe with the backing of the Air Force chief of staff who declared, “I’m with Spike.”
The Pentagon needs a senior champion on Indo-Pacific posture. But senior defense officials have been saying, “I’m with Spike,” for the last 10 years — to no avail. Closing the Pentagon’s yawning “say-do” gap on posture will require the secretary of defense to personally drive posture as a priority in future budgets. It’s time for Secretary Lloyd Austin to stand up and say, “I am Spike.”
A Problem that Only the Secretary Can Solve
Why is such a personal intervention necessary?
First, the Pentagon’s abysmal record on Indo-Pacific posture over the last 10 years has exposed a major shortfall in the implementation of guidance on posture. Since President Obama’s 2011 “pivot to Asia” speech, Pentagon strategic documents have consistently emphasized the need for a more distributed and resilient Indo-Pacific force posture. That includes the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, the 2018 National Defense Strategy, and the 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report.
And yet, as Shakespeare reminds us, words are no deeds.
Since the early achievements of the Obama administration, the Defense Department has advanced few significant changes to U.S. force posture in the Indo-Pacific. Options widely discussed for years, including the passive defenses advocated by Pettyjohn, remain unrealized. Pacific posture spending remains geographically concentrated, takes too long to produce results, and adapts too slowly to dynamic geopolitical conditions. It’s not that the Pentagon has done nothing to improve its Indo-Pacific force posture, but that nothing it has done has been sufficient to meet the scale and scope of the challenge of an increasingly capable Chinese military.
That’s because secretaries of defense have failed to back broad strategic guidance on posture with specific budgetary guidance. And as implementation has fallen short, Pentagon leaders have either failed to intervene or failed in intervening. This hands-off approach to implementation is particularly ill-suited to posture because its best advocates tend to work in organizations such as the secretary’s policy shop, now led by Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl, or the combatant commands that lack direct influence over resources. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, posture typically falls below the political waterline as Congress tends to focus its budgetary interventions on big-ticket items like shipbuilding or aircraft procurement. However, Congress’s creation of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative marked a turning point. Congress has taken notice of the “say-do gap” on posture, created a mechanism to help fix it, and directly called on Pentagon leaders to help better align resources to meet posture needs as it did in the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.
Second, the secretary of defense is the only leader who can answer the first-order strategic questions that should be answered to establish clear and specific posture requirements and to resource them.
For example, declaring that “inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security,” is a policy statement only a secretary of defense can make. By doing so in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, Secretary Jim Mattis initiated a strategic realignment that soon produced the consensus that China is the U.S. military’s pacing challenge.
Starting with the 2022 National Defense Strategy, Austin’s (admittedly more difficult) task is to build a consensus as to what to do about it. To do so, he will have to answer some difficult open questions: On what timeline does the Defense Department seek to address the China challenge? What kind of deterrence strategy does the Pentagon intend to pursue (e.g., deterrence by denial, deterrence by punishment, offshore controlhorizontal escalation)? What scenario(s) should guide defense planning? What are the specific implications of these choices for capability investment, global force management, and, yes, posture? Failure to decisively answer these questions will only allow the Pentagon’s internal divisions on posture to deepen and fester.
These internal divisions are a third reason the secretary of defense ought to personally champion posture. Many defense officials support a more distributed and resilient combat-credible forward posture as a necessary predicate for a “deterrence by denial” strategy to deal with the pacing threat of China. They are opposed by others who believe a denial strategy is no longer feasible, that forward forces are no longer survivable, and that a cost-imposition strategy executed by forces operating from very long ranges will prove more effective. Meanwhile, most of the Pentagon is not directly involved with posture and is satisfied with letting this impasse persist. Adequately resourcing posture will be costly and will impose tradeoffs with modernization spending on platforms and weapons with powerful constituencies. That’s a problem many — especially the military services who would be responsible for footing the posture bill — would prefer to avoid. The Pentagon’s posture divide is long-standing and pervasive, and it requires decisive leadership from the secretary of defense to resolve.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the secretary of defense should put an end to the blame-shifting, excuse-making, and complacency that have come to characterize policy and process on posture — and instead infuse the Pentagon with a spirit of ownership, accountability, and urgency. Confronted with its slouch on Indo-Pacific posture, the Pentagon has devolved into finger-pointing behind the scenes, which I witnessed while on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense blame the State Department for a lack of access to key locations, the military services for failing to invest sufficiently in posture, and the combatant commands for their insatiable appetite for forces. The military services blame the secretary’s office for the lack of consistent or specific guidance on posture requirements and the necessary funding to meet them. The services also blame combatant commands for proposing posture investments perceived as too ambitious or half-baked.
The combatant commands blame the Pentagon’s political leadership for ducking tough calls on budgets or global force management necessary to realize major posture changes. They blame the services for shirking posture bills to focus dollars on platform investments that are a better fit for service cultures and budget politics. And the combatant commands blame each other for excessive requests for forces.
The only thing the Pentagon, the services, and the combatant commands agree on is that Congress is to blame as well, supposedly caring only about posture to the extent that it affects individual states or districts.
These frustrations all have a kernel of truth, but the blame game isn’t getting anyone anywhere.
Then there’s the chain of excuses for slow progress across the three traditional components of posture: agreements (or access), footprint, and forces. The Defense Department doesn’t have the access it needs in key locations, especially in Southeast Asia. Even with access, the Defense Department doesn’t have enough mature projects in which to invest that would change its footprint. Even with access and footprint, new forces in the Indo-Pacific are either hard to come by or not necessarily given the large number already assigned in the region — or so I was frequently told as a congressional staffer.
But these excuses crumble under scrutiny. There’s more that the Defense Department can do now in each of these areas. It can improve the search for new access by providing a detailed and rank-ordered list of access objectives to inform and guide negotiations led by the State Department. The Defense Department can focus less on where it doesn’t have access and more on where it does by correcting chronic underinvestment in U.S. territories, the so-called “Compact States” in the Second Island Chain, and dispersal and resilience activities in Japan. The Pentagon can more rapidly change the U.S. military’s posture by investing more and earlier in “planning and design” activities to prepare more shovel-ready military construction projects in the region. Austin can more heavily scrutinize and more frequently deny requests for forces from lower priority theaters. Finally, the Defense Department can move more forces into and within the Indo-Pacific theater. Just one-third of the approximately 300,000 forces assigned to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command are located west of the international date line. Of those forward forces, approximately one-quarter are stationed in South Korea where they are focused on the threat from North Korea, not China. This balance needs to change.
The secretary of defense needs to make clear that finger-pointing and excuses will no longer fly. Many aspects of posture are not within the Pentagon’s control, such as allies and partners that are slow or unwilling to grant new partner access or politically induced defense budget uncertainty and dysfunction. The secretary should focus the department on what it can control: how it allocates forces and investments in infrastructure at locations where it already enjoys access. The secretary should make it clear to senior leaders, especially in the services, that he will hold them accountable for progress on posture. Those who effectively prioritize and invest in posture should be able to count on the secretary’s political support. Those who do not should fear the consequences, especially come budget season.
Finally, the secretary needs to convey a sense of urgency on posture. Realizing a distributed and resilient Indo-Pacific posture will be a lengthy endeavor. That’s not an excuse for moving slowly. It’s an imperative to move as quickly as possible.
How Secretary Austin Can “Spike” Posture
Decisive leadership from the secretary of defense on Indo-Pacific posture starts with the 2022 National Defense Strategy. In unclassified form, the strategy should directly state that the Defense Department intends to pursue a “deterrence by denial” strategy to preserve peace and deter war with China; that distributed, resilient, and combat-credible forward posture in the Indo-Pacific is essential for the success of such a strategy; that the current regional force posture does not meet that standard today; and that additional investment is urgently required in the next future year’s defense plan (a five-year budget plan) to correct posture shortfalls. In classified form, the strategy should detail specifics about access, footprint, and forces required to support the strategy.
The strategy should be backed by clear direction from the secretary to the military services in the next Defense Planning Guidance to increase posture investment and elevate posture as a priority in the budget planning process. Building a distributed and resilient posture in the Indo-Pacific will not be cheap. That’s just one more reason why the Pentagon requires significant real and annual budget growth. But regardless of the top-line, the secretary ought to be explicit: America cannot afford to continue concentrating U.S. forces at a small number of fixed bases, perpetuating catastrophic vulnerability to strike, eroding the credibility of American deterrence, and risking numerous American lives and billions of dollars’ worth of ships, aircraft, and other systems and facilities.
Beyond written guidance, the secretary would be wise to emphasize posture in his personal interactions with civilian and military officials in the Pentagon. These officials need to know that this is a personal priority for the secretary and that he will hold them accountable. This is a simple matter of showing interest — convene more meetings on Indo-Pacific posture, ask questions about it in budget discussions usually dominated by platforms, bring it up with service leaders in conversation, and ask potential nominees for senior leadership positions about their views on the subject. He can also enlist the help of Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who has been using data-driven oversight to drive implementation of Austin’s guidance. Focusing more meetings of the Deputy’s Management Action Group — where senior leadership adjudicates budgetary decisions — to posture investments would help demonstrate the priority of posture for Pentagon leadership.
However, in the final analysis, these steps are likely to be insufficient to bring about real progress towards a distributed and resilient Indo-Pacific posture. Instead, the secretary of defense will need to shape bureaucratic incentives by putting money on the line. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative presents a useful mechanism to do just that.
For example, with the FY2024 budget currently under development, Austin could set a combined funding target of somewhere between $3–4 billion for the “infrastructure improvements” and “logistics and prepositioning” lines of effort within the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, roughly double the amount authorized in the FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act. As the Pentagon builds the FY2024 budget, the secretary could withhold that amount in total obligation authority — the total amount of funds available for programming in FY2024— from the military services (excluding the Space Force). In a competitive process, the services would be required to submit proposals that meet congressional intent for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. The secretary should then empower his senior leadership team to allocate funding to projects or initiatives that most effectively advance the objective of a distributed and resilient Indo-Pacific posture. This is similar to the process and mechanics in use by the deputy secretary in implementing the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, whereby the military services compete for funding to support experimentation with innovative technologies and concepts. It’s also similar to how Pentagon officials and U.S. European Command have evaluated proposals from the military services for funding from the European Deterrence Initiative. In the end, each military service may gain or lose total obligation authority. Only the quality of its posture proposals would determine the result.
To be clear, a “bishop’s fund” of this kind — a pot of money controlled by a senior official for a specific purpose — would stop short of an enduring strategic posture fund. While dedicated funding would be preferable, it’s unlikely to earn support from congressional skeptics of new standalone funds and Pentagon budgeteers who fear such funds would limit the department’s flexibility in budget execution. Instead, building a “bishop’s fund” for posture inside of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative of this kind would enable the secretary of defense to wield more direct influence over posture and require the military services to take posture seriously — not just as a strategic or regional priority but also as a budget priority.
For too long, the Pentagon has moved too slowly to achieve its ambitions of a distributed and resilient force posture in the Indo-Pacific, with dangerous consequences for American security. Urgent change at a significant scale is required, and that starts with the secretary of defense declaring, “I am Spike.”
Dustin Walker is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He was previously a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee and adviser to Sen. John McCain.
warontherocks.com · by Dustin Walker · January 27, 2022



16. How Long Can Biden Muddle Through on China?

Excerpts:
All of this helps explain Biden’s uncertain approach to China, a complex policy challenge for which U.S. values are in conflict. The fact that the administration is moving slowly is not a sign of presidential indecisiveness — it more likely reflects ongoing debate among officials who disagree on which values matter most. Absent a pressing need for action, the president has good reasons to let the debate play out and muddle through. How long he continues this approach depends on two questions. One has to do with the balance of power. As described above, the United States continues to enjoy important advantages in the region, but China has made important gains. It has done what Thomas Christensen warned about 20 years ago, posing problems without catching up. At some point the cumulative effect of those problems may force the administration’s hand.
The other question has to do with China’s diplomatic calculus. The Biden administration clearly wants to maintain the regional status quo, and to prevent Beijing from coercing its neighbors. Yet it also seeks to cooperate on critical nonmilitary issues like climate change and global health. If China is frustrated because the United States is blocking its political ambitions, it may simply refuse to cooperate. Chinese leaders may not accept permanent military inferiority while continuing to participate in joint endeavors with the United States.
How long will the balance of power favor the United States? How long will Chinese leaders cooperate with Washington from a position of relative weakness? If the answer to either question is “not very long,” then the administration will have to take a clearer stand.
How Long Can Biden Muddle Through on China? - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Joshua Rovner · January 26, 2022
President Joe Biden doesn’t have a plan for China. Or, more precisely, the Biden administration has failed to articulate its approach to grand strategy in East Asia. Before taking office, Biden emphasized the centrality of the China in U.S. national security policy, and at the start of his term he predicted a period of “extreme competition.” The White House may describe its approach later this spring, perhaps after releasing its National Security Strategy. But so far it has not described how the United States will compete, or exactly what it is competing for.
Critics from across the grand strategy spectrum have made the same complaint. They are all puzzled that the administration has not declared its objectives or its approach, given the stakes involved. As Richard Fontaine recently put it, “The absence of a clear goal for its self-proclaimed top priority is a liability for the Biden administration, and one that it should urgently work to address.” Advocates of restraint, liberal internationalism, and primacy all agree: Team Biden needs to define its objective for China. Grand strategy is impossible without one.
Part of the issue stems from Biden’s view of America’s role in the world. Although the president has expressed support for democracy and international institutions, he has proven reluctant about the use of force, given the pain and frustration of Afghanistan and Iraq. Biden clearly desires a U.S.-led international order, based on liberal political principles. But it is not clear that he wants to fight for it.
Critics say this is problematic when it comes to China, a rising military competitor with outsize political ambitions. The administration has not issued a clear statement of purpose, or a bold vision about how to use American power to deal with China. Instead, it has muddled through. U.S. military forces have continued to patrol the region. U.S. diplomats have remained in communication with their counterparts. And the White House has continued to offer platitudes about the importance of East Asia and about the enduring U.S. commitment to regional security and prosperity. The administration did announce an agreement to share nuclear submarine technologies with Australia, though making good on the deal will require overcoming serious political and engineering hurdles. It has not done anything particularly noteworthy beyond that, either in terms of its military or economic approach.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, however. Searching for a unified and coherent grand strategy may seem pointless, because the China problem is brutally complex. Erring on the side of boring continuity, rather than bold initiative, is a reasonable approach — at least as long as the balance of power is manageable. Sometimes muddling through has a lot going for it.
The Merits of Muddling Through
There is an inverse relationship between complexity and rationality. The more complex the problem, the harder it becomes to impose strict linear logic upon it. Well-structured problems lend themselves to clear policy objectives and choreographed action plans. Complex problems are characterized by values in conflict and uncertain effects. Policymakers face overlapping problems in these cases. One is determining how their decisions will produce better results. Another is that their goals work at cross-purposes: Progress in one area will undermine progress in others. Figuring out how to assign relative values is difficult when the costs of action are not apparent.
Complex problems, then, require adaptable solutions. They call for an approach to grand strategy that allows for flexibility and improvisation, and the ability to prioritize different values as circumstances allow. Doing so allows policymakers to assess not only the merits of different objectives, but to figure out what they value most.
The outlines of grand strategy might emerge after a period of trial and error, or they might not. A comprehensive rational strategy is possible when the objective is clear and uncontroversial, but this is not the case when multiple conflicting values are in play. This was the heart of what the scholar Charles Lindblom called muddling through. “By the impossibility of doing otherwise,” he wrote, “administrators are often reduced to deciding policy without clarifying objectives first.”
Muddling through also makes sense when pressing domestic issues demand immediate policy attention. Policymakers focused on crises at home may not have the time to execute a novel grand strategy abroad. Better to let inertia rule. Kicking the can is sensible when time and focus are limited. Rather than setting a bold new course, policymakers can default to the status quo and respond to new events as they arise. This may not be optimal, but it is certainly practical.
Muddling through is especially appealing after periods of intense organizational turmoil. Absent clear policy guidance, organizations revert to standard operating procedures. This is not cost-free, of course — innovation suffers when bureaucracy does its thing. But a stretch of stability might be welcome after a long period of institutional trauma. Repeated crises abroad, and political controversies at home, are exhausting for those who scramble to meet them. Falling back on bureaucratic routine gives them a chance to recover, to refocus their efforts and slowly rebuild morale.
Finally, muddling through is reasonable when power balances are favorable. It is a luxury for states who face no imminent security threats, and who enjoy a strong position against their adversaries. In these cases, leaders do not have to strongarm the bureaucracy to concentrate on a single problem at the expense of other priorities, nor do they have to mobilize public opinion to prepare for some shared sacrifice. They can reserve their political capital for other issues, while keeping an eye out for long-term dangers.
Stuck In the Mud?
Muddling through makes sense when values are in conflict, when pressing domestic issues demand policy attention, when domestic institutions need a breather, and when power balances are favorable.
The first three conditions are clearly present today. The Biden administration is trying to uphold conflicting values in its approach to great-power competition. It wants to deter military aggression by issuing credible threats, and it wants to rally the world’s democracies against America’s authoritarian rivals. Yet it also wants to encourage cooperation with those same rivals, given the urgent need to make progress on climate change and other transnational threats. So far it has not hinted that it is ready to seek any of these values and the expense of another. In the meantime, the administration is understandably focused on managing the ongoing pandemic, stabilizing the economy, and wrestling with deep social fissures at a time of extreme polarization and declining public faith in government. Biden is also presiding over a national bureaucracy that has been buffeted by continuous armed conflict abroad and partisan wrangling at home. Given the experience of the Trump years, in which an erratic president was openly hostile to his own government, some predictability is surely in order. A period of quiet routine might be exactly what the national security establishment needs. All these factors help explain why the president continues to muddle through, much to the chagrin of his critics.
The fourth condition may still obtain, though this is less clear. China has made remarkable military progress over the last 20 years, developing a suite of technologies and tactics that complicate U.S. operations in East Asia. These so-called “anti-access/area denial” weapons may deter American entry in a regional conflict. Even if U.S. leaders are confident in the ultimate outcome, they may not be willing to pay the costs. And recent Pentagon assessments are more alarming. Last year’s annual Department of Defense report on Chinese capabilities suggests that its anti-access/area denial arsenal is just the start. Beyond strengthening its offshore position, Beijing is already “fielding significant capabilities capable of conducting operations out to the Second Island Chain and seeks to strengthen its capabilities to reach farther into the Pacific Ocean and throughout the globe.”
China’s increasing military capabilities and geopolitical ambitions have led to calls for a bolder U.S. response. Because the balance of power is changing, critics want the administration to stop muddling through and take a clear stand. Biden might ultimately do that, though troubles at home and events in Europe continue to dominate his attention. It is noteworthy that last week’s presidential press conference focused on domestic controversies (COVID-19, inflation, voting rights) and Russia’s threat to Ukraine. Over the course of two hours, China was barely mentioned.
Domestic fights may ease somewhat after the midterm elections, and negotiators may find some way out of the Ukraine crisis. If so, it is likely that China will come back to the fore and calls to take a stand against Beijing will get louder. The nature of that stand will be up for debate. A very aggressive U.S. posture might seek fundamental changes to the nature of the Chinese Communist Party, much as late Cold War hawks sought fundamental changes in the Soviet Union. A more modest proposal would call on Biden to solidify his commitment to defending Taiwan and other regional partners, while setting aside efforts to compel China to move toward democracy. Alternatively, if the most pressing problems are climate change and global health, then the administration might quietly concede to Chinese maritime claims and emphasize cooperation on shared transnational threats.
These options recognize the need for value trade-offs. Most people find such trade-offs psychologically difficult and morally unsettling. Muddling through is appealing because it allows policymakers to avoid them. But this is only possible if U.S. leaders are confident in the regional balance of power, and growing concern about China’s military modernization has thrown this into doubt. This has raised questions about the president’s approach to China, and his broader theory of American national security.
Internationalism Without the Wars
Biden’s grand strategy is straightforward, at least in principle. The president campaigned as a mainstream liberal internationalist, a fervent supporter of alliances and institutions, and a dedicated believer in democracy and trade. His approach to Asian affairs broadly reflects these instincts, especially in his efforts to strengthen ties with Australia, Japan, and India, though his trade policy remains unsettled. Biden also believes in U.S. leadership. “The world doesn’t organize itself,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs before the election.
Yet there are limits. The last 20 years have made Biden much more reluctant about the use of force. He opposed the Iraq surge in 2007 and the Afghanistan surge in 2009. As vice president he also opposed air strikes in Libya, arming rebels in Syria, and sending military aid to Ukraine. He tends to support the use of force in small doses. Intelligence and special forces can operate against terrorist groups, for instance, in ways that do not require a large ground occupation. Ideally, U.S. forces can achieve their missions without being overly provocative, and without plunging the nation into open-ended conflicts against well-resourced and highly motivated enemies.
One way to avoid fighting is to discourage friendly states from provoking foreign crises. Muddling through avoids giving false hope to those who seek firm U.S. commitments to their defense. Overpromising U.S. support can lead to recklessness from those who are convinced that American forces will come their aid. Muddling through sends a different message: Washington has many goals, and not all of them are achievable. It also serves as a reminder that commitments are always subject to change. International politics is a fluid business and changing circumstances may render today’s promises irrelevant in the future.
At the same time, muddling through also presents an opportunity for allies and partners. U.S. policymakers who have not yet settled on a clear course of action are more open-minded. They pay no penalty for listening to the concerns and ideas of regional partners, because they are not forced to act upon them. On the other hand, leaders tend to talk more and listen less after bold declarations of some ambitious new grand strategy. (Recall the first term of the George W. Bush administration, when a confident White House dismissed longstanding allies in favor of coalitions willing to do what it wanted.) In this sense, muddling through satisfies Biden’s promise to be respectful of foreign partners, and to repair the diplomatic damage wrought by Trump. Absent clear direction, American diplomats are free to sit and listen, instead of dictating terms.
Taking a bold stand against China will complicate this effort, forcing the United States and its partners to make hard choices about what they value most, and about what they are willing to risk. The Biden administration might prefer to approach these talks with care, given the lingering diplomatic effects of the Trump years. Not everyone in the region has the same perspective on China, or the same ideas about managing specific policy dilemmas. Muddling through creates diplomatic space for airing these perspectives, and for testing different responses.
All of this helps explain Biden’s uncertain approach to China, a complex policy challenge for which U.S. values are in conflict. The fact that the administration is moving slowly is not a sign of presidential indecisiveness — it more likely reflects ongoing debate among officials who disagree on which values matter most. Absent a pressing need for action, the president has good reasons to let the debate play out and muddle through. How long he continues this approach depends on two questions. One has to do with the balance of power. As described above, the United States continues to enjoy important advantages in the region, but China has made important gains. It has done what Thomas Christensen warned about 20 years ago, posing problems without catching up. At some point the cumulative effect of those problems may force the administration’s hand.
The other question has to do with China’s diplomatic calculus. The Biden administration clearly wants to maintain the regional status quo, and to prevent Beijing from coercing its neighbors. Yet it also seeks to cooperate on critical nonmilitary issues like climate change and global health. If China is frustrated because the United States is blocking its political ambitions, it may simply refuse to cooperate. Chinese leaders may not accept permanent military inferiority while continuing to participate in joint endeavors with the United States.
How long will the balance of power favor the United States? How long will Chinese leaders cooperate with Washington from a position of relative weakness? If the answer to either question is “not very long,” then the administration will have to take a clearer stand.
Joshua Rovner is an associate professor in the School of International Service at American University.
warontherocks.com · by Joshua Rovner · January 26, 2022


17.  FDD | The Post-Post-JCPOA World

Excerpts:
Today it’s not clear that Iran analysis really matters much in how the Biden administration has formulated its approach to Khamenei’s nuclear ambitions. With Obama, it didn’t really matter much either. But the president really did believe, at least early on, that his personal charisma could transform the 30-year enmity—progressives tend to call deep ideological and cultural hatred between nations and peoples “misunderstandings” or “miscommunications.” He mirror-imaged his self-perception into Middle Eastern arms control. And lots of folks in D.C. thought Rouhani, a founding father of the Islamic Republic’s police state, would as president somehow create a new, less antagonistic modus vivendi between Washington and Tehran. With Khamenei and his mini-me president, Ebrahim Raisi, at the helm, it’s probably impossible for the Biden administration to conjure up a promising, “moderate” Iranian counterpart. Republicans can be stupid and unnuanced about the Islamic Republic; the crudeness with which some of them can talk about Islam could make a European Islamophobe blush. But the American right has done better in appreciating what the supreme leader and his men have tried to make crystal clear: They zealously hate us.
Really only one question remains now: Will the Israelis strike? Excluding the outside chance that the Iranian people might rise up again and terminally convulse the Islamic Republic, only Israeli air raids, might, just possibly, upset Khamenei’s nuclear plans. The clerical regime has displayed impressive tenacity and ingenuity (the decision to back the construction of a clandestine nuclear site in Syria was an especially bold move, which the Israelis successfully countered by bombing it in 2007). We should always be able to admire our enemies when they play a weak hand well. Even without the nuclear achievement, Khamenei ought to be considered the most accomplished post-WWII dictator in the Middle East. Add on the bomb, and he could rightfully look upon Ruhollah Khomeini’s massive mausoleum, and, like Justinian within the Hagia Sophia remembering Solomon’s Temple, he could proudly say:
“I have surpassed thee.”

FDD | The Post-Post-JCPOA World
Is a nuclear Iran something Republicans must now simply accept?
fdd.org · by Reuel Marc Gerecht Senior Fellow · January 26, 2022
Statements by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his minions make it clear that the Biden administration is close to a new nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic. Terms are not yet known, and the administration may not be straightforward about revealing them. And understandings with the clerical regime have a way of dissipating or being unilaterally reinterpreted by the mullahs. The administration may not yet release billions of dollars in hard currency and allow Iran to sell oil and repatriate funds unfettered. But the White House, which has been signaling its unwillingness to use armed force against the Islamic Republic yet wants to do something about the clerical regime’s increasing stockpile of highly enriched uranium, has agreed to something that left the supreme leader and senior Iranian officials somewhat gleeful. Khamenei has blessed these proceedings, as he did in 2013, but with far less back and forth that allowed him to endorse and disown proceedings that put American and Iranian officials distastefully close to one another. It certainly appears that he views these talks as less compromising, which isn’t a good sign.
Such optimistic good cheer undoubtedly means one thing: The White House hasn’t demanded that Iran halt, or perhaps even slow, the development of advanced centrifuges. The more advanced these machines are, the faster that smaller cascades can produce highly enriched uranium. Smaller cascades are also easier to hide or bury deep underground or within burrowed mountains. Exporting surplus enriched uranium to Russia, which may be part of a new agreement, doesn’t mean much when ever-more efficient centrifuges can produce bomb-grade fuel quickly.
Since Donald Trump abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, Iran has produced advanced centrifuges more rapidly than the MIT-educated Ali Salehi, the former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, once envisioned. For Salehi, who remains a close adviser to Khamenei, the original accord’s sunsetting restrictions on centrifuge development dovetailed with the expected time required to produce more efficient machines. He argued billions of dollars in sanctions relief and trade in exchange for short-term, limited nuclear restrictions was a win-win for Iran. Khamenei agreed. Donald Trump did, too. (It remains unclear whether Trump primarily opposed the JCPOA because of its defects or because Barack Obama birthed it.)
The Biden White House will likely now content itself with massive sanctions relief in exchange for a halt to 60 percent uranium enrichment—bomb-grade is 90 percent. Biden may well allow Iran to stockpile 20 percent enriched uranium, which is an ideal feeding stock to produce Uranium-235 quickly. Twenty percent was prohibited under the JCPOA.
The new deal may be no more than this: The Islamic Republic becomes a nuclear threshold state, which means it can produce a nuclear weapon when it chooses to, and the administration crosses its fingers that Khamenei doesn’t need, for personal, religious, or strategic reasons, to split the atom. Where the JCPOA allowed Khamenei to extort the United States out of tens of billions of dollars for, perhaps, a decade-long hiatus to our nuclear anxiety, the Biden administration’s new arrangement will likely be pay-as-you-go therapy, exchanging billions for very short-term relief. Surveillance systems will stay as they are: Only the sites currently monitored will have International Atomic Energy Agency cameras. No spot inspections. (In practice there weren’t any under the JCPOA.) Possible-military-dimension questions will remain forgotten. Nothing else—not ballistic-missile development, rogue behavior in the Middle East or elsewhere, terrorism, cyber naughtiness, the crushing of dissent at home—will interfere in any meaningful way with Iran’s access to oil markets, hard currency, and trade.
Biden’s inner circle appears to believe that Tehran could have already gone nuclear if it had really wanted to; Iran being a threshold state might not, for them, be that alarming. Better to buy the mullahs off, gain time, and hope that something changes to our advantage. Although the clerical regime is unlikely to cooperate, the White House will try to spin any new deal as a continuing diplomatic process that allows the United States and Iran more time to talk. If Washington releases tens of billions of dollars, and through a new deal further reduces the possibility of an Israeli military strike (the deal will be backed by the U.S., the European Union, China, and Russia), the Iranian foreign minister might agree to chat in the future. The White House is certainly hoping that Israeli intelligence suggesting Tehran is still 18 to 24 months away from completing an atomic trigger is right. More time before it becomes impossible not to say publicly what senior officials are now willing to say privately: Iran might already be a threshold state.
It would be fascinating to know how the Israelis estimated the needed trigger time; analytically, it’s murky. Archival material stolen by Mossad shows the Iranian weapons team led by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, assassinated by Jerusalem in 2020, working on the trigger. That archive stops in 2003, when Iran shifted its approach to the nuclear program owing to the revelations in 2002 from an Iranian opposition group about the theocracy’s hitherto hidden nuclear ambitions and George W. Bush’s decision to remove Saddam Hussein. As Hassan Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator and president, once remarked, Bush seemed “insane.” The Islamic Republic has sometimes had a steep atomic learning curve, but it has continuously advanced. Building the trigger can’t be camouflaged as part of a civilian program; its development needs to have airtight security. Hence greater caution and fear would surround this final step.
If the Israelis have a source inside Iran’s nuclear team, or a fairly recent defector, that could explain the apparent confidence some Israeli officials have shown about the information. Other Israeli officials, it should be said, question this analysis, suggesting that Mossad doesn’t have human-source information on trigger development. The Central Intelligence Agency has apparently corroborated Mossad’s intelligence, although it doesn’t appear that Langley has a spy inside either.
The Sins of Trump, Obama, and Biden
Trump probably didn’t change the future; he accelerated it. But for officials in this administration who were content during the Obama presidency with Iranian extortion and punting the nuclear football downfield, Trump’s withdrawal has produced a big, unscoopable mess, where any subsequent deal will, perforce, be worse than what Obama obtained.
One can sympathize. Obama didn’t completely miscast the choice before the United States when he was trying to sell his 2015 nuclear deal to the American people. His argument: his deal or war. The actual choices: no deal and the clerical regime gets the nuke but America deploys a containment/regime-change policy against it; or no deal, the mullahs get the nuke, and America essentially gives up (Iran becomes Israel’s problem, not ours); or America goes to war to prevent the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from becoming custodians of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and we see how it all shakes out.
Obama wasn’t wrong if you expand the time frame: Eventually the United States, and Israel, would need to decide whether they could live with the bomb at the disposal of the IRGC, which oversees nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile development. Diplomacy—arms control—was always going to fail with an oil-rich, revolutionary Islamic state. The Republican position from the 2013 Geneva Interim Agreement to the 2015 nuclear accord, which may, even more bizarrely, still be the Republican position today, was that increasing sanctions would somehow drive the clerical regime back to the negotiating table where it would forsake its nuclear and ballistic-missile aspirations—the better nuclear deal that Obama might well have had if he’d only been tougher. Hardcore sanctions enthusiasts even dreamed that economy-crushing measures might even asphyxiate Iran’s regional aggression and bring on economic collapse and regime change driven by popular revolt.
Those Republican dreams and the attendant rhetoric should have died in 2019 when the hoped-for popular revolt—nationwide protests sparked by the drop in fuel subsidies that became in some provinces an insurrection—were brutally put down. There is no regime change unless the security services crack; 2019 showed security forces deploying automatic-weapons fire. Hundreds died. Thousands were arrested. Today some outside observers may see ripples of discontent within Iran’s security and armed forces. But if we compare the commentary of VIP Iranians post-2009, after the regime crushed the pro-democracy Green Movement, to similar types post-2019, we see a striking decline in mournful ruminations about the use of brute force. The Revolutionary Guards and their lower-class militia-cum-police force, the Basij, who have become the frontline forces against rebellion, have actually gotten more merciless. And in 2009 they were harsh, deploying rape against both men and women.
Stop-the-nuke sanctions dreaming in Washington should have ended when it became obvious by the end of the Trump presidency that Tehran had stockpiled—or figured out how to import past sanctions—a lot of maraging steel, which is required for the production of centrifuges, and other high-tech, nuclear-related components. Today the Iranians have installed more than 400 IR6 centrifuges; according to the Institute for Science and International Security, 650 IR6s can produce enough highly enriched uranium for a bomb in one month. Even if one believes that sanctions can bring down the regime (possible but historically dubious), even if one believes that tougher diplomacy could have brought the theocracy to heel (a profoundly dubious proposition), it is now simply too late. They are within striking distance of a weapon, more than enough time before a Republican administration might change course.
New, tougher sanctions, if they were to be implemented, could now have an unintended, opposite effect: it could convince Tehran to go for the bomb as quickly as possible. What would Khamenei have to lose? Although the nuclear-weapons program’s true father is the former clerical majordomo Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the “pragmatist” so many Western apologists extolled, Khamenei has invested himself completely in the project. The Iranian economy has suffered enormously because of his determination to keep it progressing. Vast sums have been spent. As American, Israeli, French, German, and British intelligence—all who have had access to the classified information that has been shared among allied powers—have long known, Khamenei didn’t persist because he wanted clean energy to back up Iran’s large oil and natural-gas reserves.
Advanced centrifuges are, among other things, sanctions killers for those who are implementing measures to stop the clerical regime’s nuclear ambitions. The United States might try to punish a nuclear Iran with severe sanctions, but as a preventative diplomatic tool they have become counterproductive. And the odds are excellent that once the Islamic Republic gets the nuke, Western unity, already strained, won’t hold. The French, the leading non-proliferation nation among the Europeans, are also ardent realpoliticians. They aren’t as commercially minded as the Germans, Italians, and the British, but the Iranian market, fairly large and underdeveloped, does beckon. Almost all EU sanctions against the Islamic Republic are nuclear. Why have nuclear sanctions after Tehran has the bomb? Sanctions certainly won’t make Khamenei give up the nuke once he’s got it. The EU likely isn’t into long-term punishment of the most culturally alluring Muslim land (never underestimate the historic pull of Persia in European attitudes toward the Islamic Republic), which also has a lot of oil, natural gas, and potential consumers. And Europeans just don’t see the Islamic Republic as a threat. Even if the Iranians go nuclear, their capacity to intimidate Europe on issues the Europeans care about is small. France and Great Britain will always have more and better nukes. However, Middle Eastern strife, which has produced millions of refugees eyeing the Western heartland, is a serious menace to Europe’s political health.
And it’s easy to imagine Democrats, too, deciding a nuclear-armed Iran is something we have to live with. They have, more or less, already accepted a nuclear-threshold state. This modus vivendi perforce will include renewed trade. Many Democrats, especially among progressives, are deeply uncomfortable with sanctions as a weapon. The ruling elite never suffers; the people do. The mullahs’ villainy just isn’t sufficient: Islamist Iran isn’t, for them, apartheid South Africa.
Republican Options
All of this leaves Republicans in a pickle. Unlike the Democrats, they haven’t had a coherent Iran policy. (The left’s approach may be feckless, but it is simple and logical: Exchange money for temporary restraints on Tehran’s atomic aspirations.) Republicans may whine that their approach might have worked if given more time; we judge, however, policy success in this world, not an imagined one. Under Trump no new, better deal arrived. Iranian imperialism didn’t retreat. Massive, violent protests rocked Iran; Khamenei efficiently crushed them. Some sanctions proponents may now try to recalibrate the rhetoric for sanctions, aiming them more toward regime change (probably without ever saying the radioactive phrase “regime change”), but the damage has been done. Sanctions as a diplomatic tool are finished.
Many Republicans just refuse to take the logic of their own approach to its ineluctable end. This was true in 2015, which is why the Republican anti-JCPOA argument and the use of sanctions was framed around building a pressure campaign for enhancing diplomacy—leverage to bring about a “good” nuclear deal. When Obama and his primary polemicist, Ben Rhodes, went after Republicans as “warmongers,” tough-minded Republicans ran for diplomatic cover. It’s now irrelevant whether Biden’s aura of weakness whetted Iranian nuclear appetites in ways that Trump’s unpredictable belligerence (the January 2020 assassination of Iran’s dark lord, Qassem Suleimani, shocked the clerical regime) likely slowed Iran’s atomic progress after the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA. And to be fair to Biden, it took a bit of time for Tehran to start enriching to menacing levels.
Republicans now have three choices.
1) They can try to build a consensus among themselves for military action. That seems highly unlikely. Has anyone seen the two most hawkish Republican senators—Lindsey Graham, who hasn’t completely given up his former ardent embrace of American hegemony, and Tom Cotton—recommend military action now against Iran’s nuclear sites? Cotton has made such recommendations in the past; he was the only important Republican to do so. Today, even he seems quiescent on the subject. As in 2015, there appears to be little Republican appetite, not in Congress and probably not in the hinterland, for another military adventure in the Middle East.
2) Republicans can recast a failed effort to stop Iran’s nuclearization into a containment campaign, however feebly effected. If this is to be serious, however, which means it lasts for years and costs more than what’s in the CIA’s discretionary fund, it will require bipartisan support. If the Biden administration fails to seduce the clerical regime into a new nuclear deal, then it’s possible to imagine Republicans and Democrats agreeing to maintain sanctions. For how long? And after Iran tests a nuclear device? Unclear.
It’s possible, though just barely, to envision some bipartisan consensus develop on more small-scale, covert-action projects. Cyber operations would be the least controversial, easiest, and most likely. Democratic remorse over the CIA-supported 1953 coup against the Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, and the left’s general questioning of American interventionism, makes future bipartisan support for any large-scale covert effort against Iran, let alone explicit regime-change operations, doubtful. And the most important part of a containment strategy—an unrelenting willingness for the U.S. to checkmate the Islamic Republic militarily throughout the Middle East—seems unimaginable today, either among Democrats or Republicans. The best the Republicans might do is to sell even more advanced weapons to the Gulf Arab states, who already have too much weaponry and too little technical savvy and will to use them.
And last and least, 3) Republicans just give up. They would undoubtedly surrender with different rhetoric than what Biden will likely use after a new deal in Vienna. The American debate on Iran has already devolved into a food fight where Democrats blame everything on Trump and Republicans decry Obama and Biden as weak statesmen incapable of recognizing, let alone arm-twisting, the enemy. The Democrats might well win the pointless Twitter wars, since they aren’t wrong on the most pivotal point: A U.S. air campaign against Iranian nuclear sites and personnel was the logical end of the right’s anti-nuke-but-no-containment policy, and yet most JCPOA critics didn’t connect the dots, or at least refused to in public.
If Biden can’t capitulate his way to a new deal in Vienna, then Option 2 for Republicans seems more likely; if he can, then Option 3 rises—though Republican rhetoric will sound as if they’d chosen Option 2.
As we get ever closer to the denouement of the nuclear standoff between the United States and the Islamic Republic, it’s worthwhile to look back and see how the theocracy saw its defining foe. And what former President Rouhani wrote about possible American military strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites after George W. Bush’s “insanity” relented, could be applied to just about everything Washington might do against the clerical regime today.
“Buying time should be our policy,” Rouhani advised. “. . . I believe that any type of military aggression against Iran is outside of the consensus of public opinion in the United States. Here I mean consensus among the decisive majority of the American people and political consensus. The Americans cannot easily reach such a consensus.”
Washington was and is stuck. Whatever political consensus we had about the Islamic Republic cracked during Obama’s presidency. We could see it coming with Bill Clinton, when his administration—actually most of the Washington foreign-policy establishment—poorly analyzed what was going to happen in Iran when Mohammad Khatami, a wonkish, Westernized cleric with a big smile, became president in 1997 and his May 23rd movement briefly dominated the Islamic Republic’s intellectual life. Many thought Thermidor had arrived. Alas, it hadn’t. Ardent believers in the Islamic revolution, led by Khamenei, hit back. Civil society—the space that the regime gives Iranians to indulge their enormous capacity for joie-de-vivre—shrank. It’s contracted much further. The regime has hardened, not softened, as the distance between rulers and ruled grows.
Today it’s not clear that Iran analysis really matters much in how the Biden administration has formulated its approach to Khamenei’s nuclear ambitions. With Obama, it didn’t really matter much either. But the president really did believe, at least early on, that his personal charisma could transform the 30-year enmity—progressives tend to call deep ideological and cultural hatred between nations and peoples “misunderstandings” or “miscommunications.” He mirror-imaged his self-perception into Middle Eastern arms control. And lots of folks in D.C. thought Rouhani, a founding father of the Islamic Republic’s police state, would as president somehow create a new, less antagonistic modus vivendi between Washington and Tehran. With Khamenei and his mini-me president, Ebrahim Raisi, at the helm, it’s probably impossible for the Biden administration to conjure up a promising, “moderate” Iranian counterpart. Republicans can be stupid and unnuanced about the Islamic Republic; the crudeness with which some of them can talk about Islam could make a European Islamophobe blush. But the American right has done better in appreciating what the supreme leader and his men have tried to make crystal clear: They zealously hate us.
Really only one question remains now: Will the Israelis strike? Excluding the outside chance that the Iranian people might rise up again and terminally convulse the Islamic Republic, only Israeli air raids, might, just possibly, upset Khamenei’s nuclear plans. The clerical regime has displayed impressive tenacity and ingenuity (the decision to back the construction of a clandestine nuclear site in Syria was an especially bold move, which the Israelis successfully countered by bombing it in 2007). We should always be able to admire our enemies when they play a weak hand well. Even without the nuclear achievement, Khamenei ought to be considered the most accomplished post-WWII dictator in the Middle East. Add on the bomb, and he could rightfully look upon Ruhollah Khomeini’s massive mausoleum, and, like Justinian within the Hagia Sophia remembering Solomon’s Temple, he could proudly say:
“I have surpassed thee.”
Mr. Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Reuel on Twitter @ReuelMGerecht. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Reuel Marc Gerecht Senior Fellow · January 26, 2022


18.  Navy Seals Stop Training in State Parks as Locals Sue Over 'War Games'



Navy Seals Stop Training in State Parks as Locals Sue Over 'War Games'
military.com · by 26 Jan 2022 Coffee or Die Magazine | By Hannah Ray Lambert · January 26, 2022
Read the original article on Coffee or Die Magazine. Follow Coffee or Die on Instagram.
Navy SEALs have paused training operations in Washington state parks as a legal challenge from locals concerned about the environmental and psychological impacts of "war games" comes to a head.
"I do not care to catch a glimpse of apparently armed men skulking around and I DEFINITELY do not want to risk having my young grandchildren see such a sight," one commenter wrote to state regulators.
Navy SEALs have conducted cold water training and other special operations exercises in the state's coastal parks for more than 30 years. The mountain-ringed shorelines of the parks offer unique challenges for commandos practicing clandestine raids and surveillance training, the Navy says, with "cold water, extreme tidal changes, multi-variant currents, low visibility, complex underwater terrain, climate and rigorous land terrain." The dispute centers primarily on parks near Washington's Puget Sound, as well as along the state's southwestern coastline.
The SEALs' previous five-year agreement to conduct training in five state parks expired in 2020. When the service attempted to renew its agreement with the state and expand the number of parks at which it could train to 28, it was met with organized opposition from local residents and park users.
Hundreds of Washingtonians submitted written and oral comments on the proposal, the overwhelming majority of which were opposed. Commenters cited everything from environmental concerns to fears that SEALs would disturb the peace.
"The plan to have apparently armed people storming beaches in our state parks is an irresponsible and dangerous idea," one resident wrote during the public comment period.
"In these days of great division in our civil society, we don't need stealthy men in camo uniforms toting toy guns around our State and County Parks," wrote another. "People frequent parks to escape tension, not to encounter more. Keep the Navy commando training out of our parks!"
Others were concerned about references to the use of drones, or UAVs. A comment from the Skagit Audubon Society noted that "the Navy's plan is to use larger, gasoline-powered UAV's as well as smaller, electric-powered types. This offers significant potential for direct and indirect injury to birds as well as auditory disruption to the experience of park visitors."
Despite the public outcry, in January 2021 the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission voted 4-3 to approve a scaled-back version of the Navy's original proposal, placing some sensitive areas off-limits to training and restricting the operations to nighttime hours.
But in March 2021, Whidbey Environmental Action Network (WEAN) filed a petition for judicial review against the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, arguing that the proposed training violates laws that dedicate the parks to the public for recreational and ecological purposes. It wants a judge to reverse the commission's decision and award WEAN attorneys' fees and other costs.
WEAN argues many members of the public may avoid state parks for fear of "encountering the proposed war games or being spied upon by Navy personnel," lawyers for the group wrote in its opening brief, filed last month. "It is difficult to find peace in the woods when armed frogmen might be lurking behind every tree."
A hearing in the case is scheduled for April 1 in Thurston County Superior Court. WEAN's litigation coordinator Steve Erickson told Coffee or Die Magazine via email that he expects the judge to issue a final decision sometime after the hearing.
The Navy conducted 37 training events -- each lasting two to 72 hours and including no more than eight trainees plus a small safety cadre -- at Washington state parks from 2015 through 2020. The training included insertion and extraction of personnel via watercraft, reconnaissance, diving, and swimming, Navy spokesman Joe Overton told Coffee or Die in an email.
No Naval Special Warfare training was conducted at the parks in 2021, and operations are on hold again this year pending further review by the parks department, Overton wrote.
Navy officials maintain that there have never been any incidents with park visitors during past exercises, and that the training by its nature requires that trainees leave no trace. Exercises are noninvasive and do not include live-fire ammunition, explosive demolitions, off-road driving or other destructive activities, according to Overton.
Critics have argued that the Navy should use the 46 miles of Washington coastline already under its jurisdiction for exercises rather than state parks. Navy officials have countered that the geography of the parks more accurately represents the type of environment personnel may experience on a mission.
"This area provides a unique environment of cold water, extreme tidal changes, multi-variant currents, low visibility, complex underwater terrain, climate and rigorous land terrain, which provides an advanced training environment," Overton wrote. "Although there are several Navy properties in the area, they do not provide the full range of environments needed for this training to be as realistic as possible."
Hannah Ray Lambert is a staff writer who has previously covered everything from murder trials to high school trap shooting teams.
military.com · by 26 Jan 2022 Coffee or Die Magazine | By Hannah Ray Lambert · January 26, 2022

19. Be All You Can Be: Why the Marine Corps Should Look to the Army for Lessons on Force Design


We always have good natured interservice rivalry. What is too often overlooked is the interservice respect that exists. The. services can and must learn from each other.

Excerpts:

The time is right for the Marine Corps to execute the changes envisioned as part of Force Design 2030 in order to adapt to the changing operational environment. The Army’s successful reforms after the Vietnam War provides a clear model to emulate. Doing so would entail sufficiently significant investments in doctrine, equipment, and personnel management. So far, the Marine Corps has taken steps in the first two areas—LOCE and EABO explain how the Marine Corps wants to fight, and ongoing acquisition programs will give Marines the tools they need to do so. But more work remains to be done. In the third area, to date the Marine Corps has neglected major reforms and investment in personnel policy, which could blunt the effectiveness of the force design effort. Though many of the control levers for manpower reside with the Department of Defense and Congress, the service needs to find ways to improve personnel policy, or it may fall short of its overall Force Design 2030 goals.
The Marine Corps is off to a strong start on its ambitious force design efforts, but that is what it is—only a start. As efforts continue over the coming years, the US Army’s transformational experiences after the Vietnam War offer a guide to the Marine Corps and highlight the most important pieces of the reforms.

Be All You Can Be: Why the Marine Corps Should Look to the Army for Lessons on Force Design - Modern War Institute
mwi.usma.edu · by Walker Mills · January 27, 2022
The United States Marine Corps has embarked upon a campaign of change as significant as any since the end of the Vietnam War. The Marine Corps’s collective efforts, named Force Design 2030, have emphasized a focus on China after nearly two decades of constant low-intensity conflict and counterinsurgency operations in the greater Middle East. The force design efforts are tied to two new operational concepts: Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations. These foundational concepts describe the future operational environment the Marine Corps anticipates and outline how it will fight. This significant reframing, however, is not without precedent. Following the United States’ withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973, the United States Army conducted a similar evaluative and reconstructive process that ultimately culminated in fielding the ground force that was victorious in Operation Desert Storm against an enemy modeled on Warsaw Pact militaries—precisely the force and set of capabilities that the Army set out to create.
As such, the Marine Corps should look to the Army’s history as a model for how to engineer successful organizational change in order to meet the challenge of a potential high-intensity conflict with a peer adversary. To facilitate organizational transformation and address its peer threat, the Warsaw Pact, the Army focused on three key areas: doctrine, equipment, and personnel policy. Simultaneously, the transition to the all-volunteer force also played a role in the Army’s post-Vietnam rebirth. Given the successful outcome of the Army’s efforts during the 1970s, the Marine Corps should emulate its sister service by properly resourcing these three lines of effort—doctrine, equipment, and people—in order to successfully redesign the force. Otherwise, it risks designing a brittle and incomplete Marine Corps for 2030.
Doctrine
Army doctrinal modernization was based around three consecutive iterations of Field Manual (FM) 100-5. For much of the 1970s, America’s capstone operational doctrine was 1968’s FM 100-5, Operations of Army Forces in the Field. In July 1973, General William E. DePuy took inaugural command of the newly formed Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and initiated a force-wide doctrine reassessment. In his view, the Army needed to shift its focus from “infantry-airmobile war [to] conventional combined arms warfare in the theater of primary strategic concern.” DePuy’s vision for defeating Soviet forces on the battlefield required NATO to win the initial battles along the inner German border. In 1974, he assessed that “the tactical doctrine set forth in current training literature had, in significant part, ceased to be valid on the modern battlefield,” which was seen as central Europe instead of Southeast Asia. Supplemented by work done at the Pentagon by Andrew Marshall, DePuy’s concept coalesced around the belief that new doctrine coupled with new technologies could defeat the Soviets. An intellectual fervor took hold within TRADOC and the Army at large as it sought to shift from Vietnam back to Europe.
In July 1976, TRADOC released a new version of its capstone operational doctrine, FM 100-5, Operations, whose overriding operating concept was commonly referred to as Active Defense. Prior to its release, drafts were shared with the West German Bundeswehr in an attempt to achieve doctrinal synergies between among NATO allies. The new text’s European focus was apparent with the inclusion of weather conditions and urban terrain typically found in central Europe. By incorporating the lessons of the Yom Kippur War—which heavily influenced TRADOC thinking at the time—addressing the Soviet Union’s increasing technological prowess, and reflecting the shift in American focus following Vietnam, DePuy’s Operations reshaped how the Army viewed combat. As the official TRADOC history states:
This “capstone” doctrinal handbook grew out of deep and penetrating inquiries into the meaning of the new technology of weaponry. It confronted directly the prime strategic problem the Army faced: a U.S. force quantitatively inferior in men and equipment on an armor dominated European battlefield.
TRADOC, however, did not rest on its laurels after the release of Active Defense. Significant debate occurred within the defense community and revisions were generally found to be needed. In August 1982, a new version of FM 100-5, Operations was released, instituting AirLand Battle as the doctrine of the United States Army. The transition from Active Defense to AirLand Battle was a significant one. With AirLand Battle’s adoption, the Army changed from “a methodical, mechanistic and instructed force, to one built on individual and collective initiative, well trained to cope with a complex environment.” This transition from Active Defense to AirLand Battle also changed the Army’s approach from a linear defensive model focused on fighting in central Europe to one emphasizing greater maneuver and initiative that saw increased coordination between air and ground forces. Furthermore, the number of troops available to either NATO or the Warsaw Pact in the event of a conflict in Europe had not changed appreciably since Active Defense’s release, meaning AirLand Battle intended to enable defeat of enemy forces without the traditionally requisite force ratios.
Both post-Vietnam iterations of FM 100-5 explained how the Army intended to confront the Soviet threat in Europe. Similarly, the Marine Corps has led the transition from counterinsurgency operations in the greater Middle East to great power competition in East Asia with its two new concepts, Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE) and Expeditionary Advanced Base operations (EABO). EABO, which is classified and not publicly available, was approved nearly concurrently with the release of the Commandant’s Planning Guidance and Force Design 2030. Force Design 2030 mentions EABO throughout and is clear that future iterations will continue to “focus on capabilities required to satisfy approved naval concepts of DMO [Distributed Maritime Operations], EABO, and LOCE.” Supporting these concepts, the Marine Corps also published the Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations that is designed to be updated at regular intervals.
As the Army recognized with its revisions to FM100-5, doctrine and operating concepts need to be updated and revised to meet current and projected needs. Similarly, the Marine Corps should continue to release iterative revisions. Updates should reflect changes in the operational environment, technology, and joint doctrine. Moreover, the Marine Corps should update its capstone publication, Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1, Warfighting, to better align with force design, joint requirements, and technology, all of which have changed since it was published a quarter century ago.
Equipment
Starting in the early 1970s, the Army began an intense modernization campaign focused on five key weapon systems: a main battle tank, an armored infantry fighting vehicle, an antiaircraft missile system, an attack helicopter, and a utility helicopter. These systems, nicknamed the “Big Five,” came into reality as the M1 Abrams tank, the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Patriot surface-to-air missile system, the AH-64 Apache, and the UH-60 Black Hawk. An additional asset, the Multiple Launch Rocket System, was not part of the Big Five but emerged nearly simultaneously. All of these systems would have significant impact on the Army of Desert Storm. All were designed to meet or overmatch comparable Soviet systems and work together on the battlefield. Modernized and upgraded variants of all of these systems are still in widespread use today—a testament to their success.
The Marine Corps similarly has several key modernization and acquisition programs underway. The service is in the middle of what is intended to be the acquisition of 420 F-35 Lighting II jets to replace its legacy F/A-18 Hornets and AV-8B Harriers. The service is also beginning to receive the first of approximately two hundred CH-53K King Stallion heavy-lift helicopters, and is in the midst of acquiring over six hundred Amphibious Combat Vehicles to replace its fleet of 1970s-era Amphibious Assault Vehicles. All three of these acquisition programs are critical to the future capability of the Marine Corps but they significantly predate both LOCE and EABO. As such, they are not tied to either concept. To date, the Marine Corps’s efforts to reequip the force in accordance with Force Design 2030 plans have been mixed. The service is benefiting from the long-planned arrival of platforms like the F-35, CH-53K, and ACV that will certainly help the service modernize, but they are not explicitly tied to requirements related to force design efforts and are likely to face cuts due to an overall downsizing of the Corps and a projected flat or declining top-line defense budget.
At least two acquisition programs are intended to directly support the operationalization of LOCE and EABO. The ROGUE Fires Vehicle is an unmanned platform based on a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle chassis with antiship missiles intended to be critical to the Marines’ plans to “place ships at risk” and contribute to a naval campaign. Yet, despite the ROGUE’s direct applicability to new doctrinal concepts, Congress has historically not supported the effort at the funding level that the Marine Corps has asked for—although the most recent National Defense Authorization Act rectifies some of that deficiency. The Marine Corps and Navy have also been moving forward to quickly acquire a new platform to meet their requirement for a light amphibious warship that “enables distributed maneuver and logistics” in order to make LOCE and EABO possible. While these platforms have direct ties to LOCE and EABO, the service has had a hard time explaining why it needs them and communicating how they fit, collectively, into its vision of how the Marine Corps will fight in the future—something the Army did well by bundling its acquisition programs together as the Big Five. The disadvantage the Marine Corps faces—compared to the Army, especially during the Reagan presidency—is the likelihood of tightening defense budgets and consequently difficult decisions about which programs to prioritize. This, though, makes it all the more important that the Corps has not only a credible vision of the future operational environment and how it will fight in it, but a cohesive narrative explaining both—and what equipment will be required for that fight.
People
Perhaps the most important difference between the situation confronting the Marine Corps today and the Army’s experience during the 1970s is that there will not be a manpower change anywhere near as sweeping as the transition to the all-volunteer force in 1973. But that does not mean the Marine Corps would not see similarly remarkable benefits from changes to personnel policy. The Marine Corps is investing in better training, which is critical. But besides telegraphing that the Corps should shrink to pre-2001 levels, the commandant has not outlined any major changes in Marine Corps personnel policy. The current manpower system is an “industrial era” holdover that is not optimized to support the Force Design 2030 effort. According to a recent report from the Brookings Institution on enlisted personnel management practices:
Today’s Marine Corps enlisted manpower management practices are unnecessarily disruptive to cohesion, wasteful of talent, inimical to the Marine Corps’ warfighting philosophy, and incompatible with requirements of the modern battlefield. The hidden assumptions underpinning the way the Marine Corps fills its enlisted ranks require urgent, sober, dispassionate, thorough, and courageous reexamination.
But the commandant has at least acknowledged that the redesign “will hinge on our ability to match it with some kind of talent management process. . . . If not then we’ll end up with a structure or equipment that we can’t match with the right human beings.” The Brookings report argues that in order to meet its stated goals, the Marine Corps needs to increase retention and mature the force instead of relying on a high turnover of junior personnel to keep manpower costs low. Increasing retention and maturing the force would also increase the return on investment that the Marine Corps receives when it trains Marines and would lower the pressure on the Corps to meet its recruiting goals in support of high personnel turnover.
The commandant is seeking to reform and revise an industrial model of manpower management. The most drastic policy changes in the last decade were the opening of all combat jobs to women in 2015 and the ongoing gender integration of recruit training. Neither are related to the force design efforts. Major reforms of the ways that the Marine Corps retains, promotes, and assigns Marines could generate the level of positive change similar to the boost from shifting to the all-volunteer force if it received the appropriate focus from Marine leadership.
Talent Management 2030, released in November 2021, helps illuminate the path forward. The changes here come largely as no surprise but they are insightful and a welcome revelation after the most recent Force Design 2030 update only called for relatively minor changes to personnel policy in specific Marine Corps communities like the infantry, aviation, and health care—and even those changes are not prioritized nor particularly significant. Talent Management 2030 “charts a new course for our personnel system,” and recognizes that the industrial model of talent management, recruiting, and retention need significant overhauls.
In terms of training and education, the Marine Corps has made progress and is far ahead of where the Army was in the 1970s, largely because it has already incorporated the lessons of the post-Vietnam era. The Marine Corps established Training and Education Command, similar to the Army’s TRADOC, in 2000 and it is not only responsible for doctrine and training but also education and Marine Corps University. The Marine Corps also already runs battalion-level combined arms training exercises in the California desert at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms not far from where the Army runs its own exercises at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin. While the Marine Corps’s major service-level exercises still have a distinct Cold War feel, with enemies patterned on Soviet formations, they have also been reinvigorated with large-scale, force-on-force action and new technologies like drones. At the individual training level, the Corps recently completed the pilot course for a complete revamp of its basic infantry training intended to better prepare Marines to face an adversary like China. And the force will likely benefit from a Department of Defense–wide mandate that professional military education focus more on China in its curriculums. Overall, the Marine Corps is already giving the appropriate focus on updating training and education as part of its redesign while benefiting from already well-developed organizations. This is important. But it remains to be seen what kind of larger and much-needed personnel policy changes it may make.

The time is right for the Marine Corps to execute the changes envisioned as part of Force Design 2030 in order to adapt to the changing operational environment. The Army’s successful reforms after the Vietnam War provides a clear model to emulate. Doing so would entail sufficiently significant investments in doctrine, equipment, and personnel management. So far, the Marine Corps has taken steps in the first two areas—LOCE and EABO explain how the Marine Corps wants to fight, and ongoing acquisition programs will give Marines the tools they need to do so. But more work remains to be done. In the third area, to date the Marine Corps has neglected major reforms and investment in personnel policy, which could blunt the effectiveness of the force design effort. Though many of the control levers for manpower reside with the Department of Defense and Congress, the service needs to find ways to improve personnel policy, or it may fall short of its overall Force Design 2030 goals.
The Marine Corps is off to a strong start on its ambitious force design efforts, but that is what it is—only a start. As efforts continue over the coming years, the US Army’s transformational experiences after the Vietnam War offer a guide to the Marine Corps and highlight the most important pieces of the reforms.
Walker D. Mills is a Marine infantry officer currently serving as an exchange officer at the Colombian Naval Academy. He is a nonresident master of arts student at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Security and Defense, a nonresident fellow at the Krulak Center for Innovation and Future War at Marine Corps University, and a nonresident WSD-Handa Fellow at Pacific Forum. He holds an MA in international relations and modern war from King’s College London and received a BA from Brown University in history and archaeology.
Timothy Heck is the deputy editorial director of the Modern War Institute at West Point. He is an artillery officer in the US Marine Corps Reserve, currently assigned as a joint historian with Marine Corps History Division. He holds a BA in American Studies from Georgetown University and an MA in War in the Modern World from King’s College London.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: PHC D. W. HOLMES II, US Navy
mwi.usma.edu · by Walker Mills · January 27, 2022

20. Why China cares about the label of democracy
Democracy with Chinese characteristics?

Excerpts:

Despite skepticism aboard, China’s endeavour to redefine democracy in its image has a receptive audience domestically. As long as enough of the Chinese public recognise their country as a ‘democracy’, there is no urgency for Chinese leaders to seek out risky alternative concepts of legitimisation.
While it remains advantageous for China to cling to the label of democracy in the short term, China’s claim to the label is risky. It is difficult for Beijing to redefine democracy in its own image internationally. And claiming to be a democracy makes China’s political system more vulnerable to Western critiques. By clinging to the democratic label, China risks falling into the rhetorical trap of having to keep defending how democratic it is.
Unless the Chinese state offers official backing to an alternative theory of legitimacy for its political system and provides more space for political theory and alternative discourses within China to flourish, it is unlikely that China can escape this rhetorical trap anytime soon.
Why China cares about the label of democracy | East Asia Forum
eastasiaforum.org · by Xunchao Zhang · January 26, 2022
Author: Xunchao Zhang, University of Wisconsin-Madison
If you access any Chinese state media or pro-state social media published in late 2021, you will be bombarded with attacks on US President Joe Biden’s ‘Summit for Democracy’ and relentless insistence that China is the world’s largest democracy. Beyond the fear of geopolitical containment, it is puzzling why China cared about Biden’s democracy summit.

It is not initially clear why China would insist on being a democracy when claiming democratic status risks falling into a rhetorical trap.
While most Western media dismisses China’s claim to democracy as simply a cynical propaganda ploy, some ‘democratisation optimists’ in the West have suggested that China’s reaction to Biden’s summit shows China’s commitment to some vague notion of eventual democratisation. These observations miss the point. China’s reaction to the summit — clinging onto the concept of democracy — largely reflects a lack of a conceptual alternative, geopolitical fear and some genuine domestic perception that the country is democratic.
The most important problem facing China is a lack of alternative concepts to legitimise the state. Although contemporary China is the heir to a socialist revolution, beyond nostalgic leftist circles, orthodox Marxism cannot capture the public imagination as an alternative to liberal democracy.
Granted, there is growing intellectual interest in critiques of democracy such as meritocracy and the Schmittian notion of self-justifying authoritarian state power. Eric Li is perhaps the most eloquent critic of democracy in China offering universal critiques of liberal democracy, such as institutional vulnerability to being captured by elites and the tendency to be gridlocked in unhealthy partisanship and identity politics. Beyond critiques, there are also alternative visions being offered, such as by Daniel Bell who often characterises China as an examination-based meritocracy rather than electoral democracy.
Yet, so far, none of the alternative concepts of legitimisation have gained official endorsement. You will not find meritocracy or citation of Carl Schmitt in the plethora of documents produced by China Communist Party plenums. These alternative concepts are rare sights even in the less rigid Chinese media propaganda targeting foreign audiences.
There are also geopolitical concerns. Embracing any legitimisation concept other than democracy by China, even one that is not explicitly anti-democratic, may unite the Western world in a democratic alliance against China. There are anti-democratic leaders and anti-democratic movements all over the world, usually referred to as ‘populists’, who do not have a systematic anti-democratic ideology. Most of these populists also take up anti-China foreign policy positions. Some even treat China as a scapegoat for their domestic grievances. There is little chance for anti-democratic solidarity between China and the international populist right.
It is advantageous for Beijing to cling to the democratic label to avoid contributing to the formation of a united Western democratic coalition against China. Plenty of people in China genuinely believe their country is democratic. One historical reason behind this is the presence of so-called ‘people-oriented (minben)’ thought in traditional Chinese political culture, which emphasises governance ‘for the people’, rather than government ‘by the people’. Mencius outlined the classic Confucian ideal of state–society relations, under which ‘the people come first, the state comes second, [and] the ruler comes last’.
Yet a state that works for the benefit of the people is not necessarily democratic. People-oriented governance often means a paternalistic but responsive form of authoritarianism. Elites and the public in China often use performance metrics, rather than procedural and institutional criteria, to measure how legitimate or ‘democratic’ the state is. These performance metrics include economic growth and also Beijing’s ability to avenge China’s century of humiliation and reclaim China’s great power status.
The primacy of performance metrics over procedural ones is also reflected in survey data. Pollsters repeatedly find that a majority of Chinese respondents consider China a democracy. It would be self-deceiving for Western observers to dismiss these survey results as a simple reflection of public quiescence under state pressure. A more nuanced interpretation is that ‘democracy’ is simply what the public calls a state that functions well enough to live in.
Despite skepticism aboard, China’s endeavour to redefine democracy in its image has a receptive audience domestically. As long as enough of the Chinese public recognise their country as a ‘democracy’, there is no urgency for Chinese leaders to seek out risky alternative concepts of legitimisation.
While it remains advantageous for China to cling to the label of democracy in the short term, China’s claim to the label is risky. It is difficult for Beijing to redefine democracy in its own image internationally. And claiming to be a democracy makes China’s political system more vulnerable to Western critiques. By clinging to the democratic label, China risks falling into the rhetorical trap of having to keep defending how democratic it is.
Unless the Chinese state offers official backing to an alternative theory of legitimacy for its political system and provides more space for political theory and alternative discourses within China to flourish, it is unlikely that China can escape this rhetorical trap anytime soon.
Xunchao Zhang is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
eastasiaforum.org · by Xunchao Zhang · January 26, 2022
21. How Iran is Winning, One Attack at a Time

How Iran is Winning, One Attack at a Time

Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan, USN (ret), served as Commander of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet and Commander of the 32 Nation Combined Maritime Forces in the Middle East. In those roles he led teams that planned and executed joint and combined combat, counter-terrorism and anti-piracy operations at sea and in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
Michael “Mick” Patrick Mulroy is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for the Middle East. As the DASD, he was responsible for defense policy for 15 countries and represented the Department of Defense of national policy in that area. He is also a retired CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer in the Special Activities Center and a United States Marine. He is a Senior Fellow for the Middle East Institute, an ABC News National Security Analyst, and a Co-founder of Lobo Institute.
Michael Nagata retired from the US Army in 2019 after 38 years of Active Duty, with 34 years in US Special Operations. His final position was Director of Strategy for the National Counterterrorism Center from 2016 to 2019. Nagata served as Commander of US Special Operations Command-Central, and was responsible for Special Operations across the Central Command region from 2013 to 2015, and was heavily involved in the first two years of combat operations against the Islamic State in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.
General Joseph Votel is President and CEO of BENS, a position he assumed following a 39-year military career, during which time he served as Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command and the Joint Staff Special Operations Command. He notably led the 79-member coalition that successfully liberated Iraq and Syria from the Islamic State Caliphate.
Bilal Y. Saab is a former Senior Advisor for Security Cooperation in the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, with oversight responsibilities for U.S. Central Command. He is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense and Security Program at the Middle East Institute (MEI) and is the author of Rebuilding Arab Defense: U.S. Security Cooperation in the Middle East, to be released in 2022.
EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — This week, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) issued a statement confirming that “U.S. forces at Al Dhafra Air Base, near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), engaged two inbound missile threats with multiple Patriot interceptors coincident to efforts by the armed forces of the UAE in the early morning hours of Jan. 24, 2022. The combined efforts successfully prevented both missiles from impacting the base. There were no U.S. casualties.”
A few weeks before that, military bases in Iraq and Syria that house U.S. troops also were attacked. In December of last year, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was hit when two rockets landed in the Green Zone. Luckily, like the Jan. 24 Houthi attack on the UAE, there were no U.S. casualties (though the Houthi strike of Jan. 17 did kill two Indian nationals and one Pakistani).
What these attacks and many others in the region have in common is Iran’s irrefutable involvement. They may have different local contexts and their perpetrators, all loyal to Iran, may have different motivations, but every single one of those attacks was possible only because Iran provided either the weapons or the know-how to assemble and use them.
This network of Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain, and possibly elsewhere is what makes Tehran so deadly in the region. It’s a clever method of power projection, honed over decades, because it allows the Iranians to weaken their adversaries and achieve their strategic aims with the fewest costs possible. Iran will fight to the last Iraqi, Syrian, Yemeni, Lebanese, and Bahraini. 
The Iranians have every intention of continuing to rely on their indirect approach because it has paid strategic dividends. Their hope is that we will continue to play their game and go after only their proxies whenever we are attacked. In the case of the Houthis, for example, Tehran expects us and our regional partners to hit the Houthis — and only the Houthis — every time they lob missiles at Al Dhafra. And in many ways, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. In January 2020, we did eliminate Iran’s top military commander and architect of this proxy network, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, but we were careful to do it in the region, not on Iranian soil.
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U.S. kinetic strikes on Iranian proxies, while necessary, clearly are insufficient. Simply put, there are more militias under Iran’s command in the region than there are American bombs. To reestablish deterrence against Iran, we have to place our tactical/operational activities, at which we’re incredibly effective, at the service of a broader strategy. We need to make it clear to the Iranians that their asymmetric playbook, especially when it targets U.S. personnel and interests, has a steep price. 
We’ve communicated those red lines before, and successfully so. In Iraq, we held Iran accountable for the attacks its Iraqi proxies often perpetrated against our troops using improvised rocket-assisted munitions (IRAMs) and explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). Those tools killed at least 196 American soldiers and wounded nearly 900 between 2005 and 2011. 
But now, it’s not IRAMs and EFPs that Iran is providing, it’s ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and weaponized unmanned aerial systems (UASs). Those are much more powerful weapons of war that could cause considerable physical damage to cities and critical infrastructure and kill a lot of people. 
We have to nip this Iranian tactic in the bud before things really escalate — or next time we might not be so lucky and those missiles could lead to significant casualties. This is not just about defending our partners, as crucial as that responsibility is. This is about protecting our own military and diplomatic personnel in the region, as well as our core interests in that still vital part of the world to global commerce and international security.
It’s never an easy conversation when we discuss any potential use of force. But we’re under attack, quite literally and regularly, and nuclear diplomacy alone, no matter what happens in the talks in Vienna, will not fix or effectively manage this growing problem. We have every right to defend ourselves and our collective security interests. 
From an operational standpoint, this requires consulting our carefully crafted Iran target list. We don’t need to specify to the Iranians what we would hit inside Iran, or how, if they attack us again, but it’s vital that we communicate that threat credibly. The worst thing we could possibly do is issue that threat but fail to follow through. Our credibility in the region has already been jeopardized over the years because of the lack of U.S. response to various acts of aggression and intimidation by Iran. Let’s at least not further weaken it and ideally bolster it partly through the measures described above.
In addition to sending a crystal-clear message to Tehran about the consequences of another potential attack (this is the deterrence-by-punishment element), we need to upgrade our defenses (this is the deterrence-by-denial element). We can do that by establishing a fusion cell based on the Houthi missile and UAS threat to provide Gulf Arab partners intelligence of activities that are a precursor to future attacks along with a real-time warning of the launch of those attacks.
We currently have a fusion cell with the Emiratis, but it is focused on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, not the Houthis. Creating this cell will require U.S. resources, but nothing we cannot afford or that would distract from security priorities in other key theaters. Such resources could include two or three Predator tails and other national intelligence assets that would provide persistent, high-quality intelligence and warning of planned or impending attacks on U.S. personnel and bases or on those of our Saudi and Emirati partners.
More broadly speaking, while immediate tactical solutions to help our regional partners deal with Houthi attacks are required, only the United States can create the kind of sophisticated regional enterprise, both military and non-military, necessary to confront the rapidly growing power of Iranian proxies across the region, including the Houthis. The question is whether Washington has the political appetite to do any of this.
There are American voices who might call such potential U.S. responses escalatory, even reckless. While there’s always risk in any U.S. response that could include the use of force, the risk of inaction is far greater because it will invite further Iranian aggression, at which point it would be virtually impossible for the United States not to strike the Iranians hard and deep.
It is precisely such a scenario we should try to prevent, and it all starts with reestablishing deterrence. Most important of all in this equation — something more risk-averse advocates should never forget — is that Iran is the aggressor and it still has a say over what we choose to do. It can decide to stop its strategic weapons shipments to its proxies and deescalate, or it can continue with its vastly irresponsible approach but suffer the consequences.
This piece was first published by the Washington-based think tank MEI
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22. Taiwan Is Not Ukraine: Stop Linking Their Fates Together

Conclusion:

The Biden administration’s recent steps to respond to Chinese pressure — from arms sales to bilateral trade discussions to the invitation of Taiwan’s representative to Biden’s inauguration — ultimately attract much more attention in both Beijing and Taipei than how Washington responds to the crisis in Ukraine.
It would help both Taiwan and Ukraine if more of America’s foreign policy commentators would also notice the difference, and stop linking their fates together.
Taiwan Is Not Ukraine: Stop Linking Their Fates Together - War on the Rocks
warontherocks.com · by Kharis Templeman · January 27, 2022
Russia’s military buildup around Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. Over 100,000 Russian troops are deployed near the border with Ukraine, poised to launch a major military assault at a moment’s notice. While these developments appear only to affect European security, American commentators have been quick to draw parallels to Taiwan. The similarities seem obvious. Like Ukraine, Taiwan faces an existential threat from one of Eurasia’s great autocratic powers, and it is also a Western-oriented democracy that the United States has an interest in keeping free from coercion. Both Ukraine and Taiwan are being framed as critical test cases of America’s willingness to uphold global norms against the use of military force to seize territory. Some observers have even gone so far as to argue that their fates will be linked: a failure to respond to military action against Ukraine would weaken American credibility and invite an attack on Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China.
Put simply, this is lazy analysis. In the current geopolitical moment, the differences between Ukraine and Taiwan are far more important than their similarities — and linking together the security threats that the two countries face can make both situations worse. The United States should not continue to divert limited resources away from the Indo-Pacific, where the military balance is shifting in China’s favor over the next decade, to a region that is both less crucial to American interests and where the balance of power is more advantageous to Washington. U.S. prioritization, not reputation, is what really matters for Taiwan’s security.
Taiwan Is a Different Kind of Partner
To see why this comparison obscures more than it clarifies, first consider the history of U.S. involvement with each country. American security support for Ukraine is recentlimited, and subsumed under broader concerns about Russia’s challenge to the post-Cold War European security order.
In Taiwan, however, American interests run deep. Taiwan exists today as a de facto independent state only because the Truman administration intervened in June 1950 to prevent a Chinese invasion across the Taiwan Strait. Ever since, the United States has been the island’s primary security partner and source of military aid, training, and arms sales. The United States also helped Taiwan transform from a poor military dictatorship into a prosperous liberal democracy: aid in the early 1950s constituted 10 percent of Taiwan’s gross national product, and U.S. advisers played an important role in promoting land reform and economic stabilization. Later, the United States granted Taiwanese exporters preferential access to American marketshelping to set Taiwan’s economy on a rapid upward trajectory that has now brought its per-capita gross domestic product level with Germany’s, adjusted for purchasing power.
This long history of engagement means that America’s global reputation and influence have far more at stake in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan than a Russian one on Ukraine.
China Is Not Russia
Next, consider the adversaries. Russia’s interests, strategies, and tactics on the world stage are all fundamentally different from China’s. As a declining power ruled by a single strongman since 2000, Russia under Vladimir Putin has had a weak hand to play. Putin’s aggressive foreign policy actions have been motivated primarily by the need to bolster his domestic standing, not to enhance Russian security. While he has sought to undermine existing institutions and encourage divisions within the European Union and NATO, he has mostly failed to prevent the reorientation of much of Eastern Europe away from Russia and toward the West. That we are talking about Russian threats to Kyiv, rather than Warsaw, Prague, or Budapest, is ample proof of that.
By contrast, China is a rising power, and its leaders have reason to believe that time is on their side. The Chinese economy is already the largest in the Indo-Pacific and the second largest in the world, and it has benefited immensely over the last three decades from the existing global economic and security architecture. In a stark departure from Russian behavior, China’s moves to revise the international order have mostly involved working through existing global institutions and creating supplemental ones that it can control — that is, building up rather than tearing down.
These divergent trajectories have led to fundamentally different strategies to advance their interests in the two cases. Russia has already seized and annexed Ukrainian territory in a blatant violation of international law and norms, and it has supported proxy forces fighting a conflict in eastern Ukraine that has cost over 14,000 lives, taking an enormous toll on its global reputation and national interests.
China has not done anything remotely similar to Taiwan, and the threat it poses is as much economic and diplomatic as it is military. For instance, the People’s Liberation Army could quickly seize the vulnerable offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu — the former only 30 kilometers from downtown Xiamen — if it wanted to destabilize the region and try to force concessions from Taiwan or the United States, but these territories remain under Taiwanese jurisdiction. Likewise, the Chinese military’s regular, high-profile exercises near Taiwan’s airspace are intended primarily to send signals to leaders in Taiwan and the United States, not seize and maintain territory or foreshadow an invasion. So far, they have also not resulted in any loss of life or direct conflict.
Instead, China’s strategy is most notable for its reliance on non-military means to gradually shift the cross-Strait status quo. Even when faced with a Taiwan leader it does not like or trust, Beijing’s Taiwan policy has emphasized “soft” economic inducements as much as “hard” diplomatic and military pressure to increase influence over Taiwan. This strategy has also included a relentless, multifaceted propaganda campaign, aimed as much at the United States as the people of Taiwan. This campaign seeks to emphasize the Chinese Communist Party’s preferred narrative: that Taiwan is sacred Chinese territory, that China will pay any price to achieve cross-Strait unification, and that a declining United States should back away from its commitments there, because Taiwan will always mean more to the Chinese people than to Americans.
That is a very different kind of message than Russia’s: It is more patient, more sophisticated, and harder to counter, and American policymakers risk playing right into it by overextending U.S. commitments in other global hotspots.
America Has Different Interests in Taiwan
The range and depth of American interests in Taiwan also dwarf those in Ukraine. Taiwan is an economic powerhouse that punches well above its weight in global commerce, and its economy is closely intertwined with the rest of East Asia and North America. In 2020, it was America’s 9th-largest trading partner, with $106 billion in two-way trade in goods and services. (Ukraine was 67th, with $3.9 billion). It is also the home of the world’s most strategically important company, TSMC, which has built a daunting lead in semiconductor technology and now accounts for more than half of global foundry revenues.
In addition, Taiwan sits in a strategically crucial location astride busy sea routes in the first island chain, with U.S. treaty allies directly to its north (Japan) and south (Philippines). Were the People’s Liberation Army able to occupy the island, it would undermine America’s ability to defend both, and shatter the credibility of its commitments to other allies and partners in the face of China’s growing hard power.
Taiwan’s continued existence as a prosperous liberal democracy also offers a compelling alternative to autocratic China: It demonstrates that democracy and free-market capitalism are suitable for a Chinese-speaking society. Taiwan’s people share norms and values with the West, not the Chinese Communist Party, and it is a shining success story for U.S. efforts to promote prosperity and freedom in the world. Ukraine could well be that someday, but if it does it will probably be through closer economic integration with the European Union, not its tenuous ties to the United States. For all these reasons, were Taiwan to come under control of Beijing, American interests would be impacted far more severely than in a Russian attack on Ukraine.
America Doesn’t Need to Fight Russia in Ukraine to Save Taiwan from China
The most dubious claim to come out of the comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan is about the need to uphold American credibility. Many of the same critics who asserted that Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan would encourage Chinese adventurism are now advocating for intervention in Ukraine for the very same reason. But that argument rests on a false premise: that the credibility of U.S. commitments in the Taiwan Strait depends on what it does half a world away, against a different adversary, presenting a different kind of threat, to a different coalition of U.S. partners and allies.
In reality, it is American prioritization, rather than reputation, that matters most for Taiwan’s security. Diverting resources and attention away from the Indo-Pacific to meet a lesser threat will not help reassure allies and partners in the region where the United States will face its greatest security challenges over the next decade.
It is therefore reassuring that Biden administration officials appear to recognize the differences. As National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan noted in a recent interview, the U.S. commitments to Taiwan are
rooted in the “One China” policy, the Taiwan Relations Act, the three communiques. And the Taiwan Relations Act is a unique instrument — we don’t have it with other countries; we don’t have it with Ukraine — that does talk about American commitments to support Taiwan in various ways.
The Biden administration’s recent steps to respond to Chinese pressure — from arms sales to bilateral trade discussions to the invitation of Taiwan’s representative to Biden’s inauguration — ultimately attract much more attention in both Beijing and Taipei than how Washington responds to the crisis in Ukraine.
It would help both Taiwan and Ukraine if more of America’s foreign policy commentators would also notice the difference, and stop linking their fates together.
Kharis Templeman is a fesearch fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he manages the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. A leading expert on Taiwan politics, he is a member of the U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group and was previously a National Asia Research Program fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research.
warontherocks.com · by Kharis Templeman · January 27, 2022


​V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcastForeign Podicy
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Personal Email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
Web Site: www.fdd.org
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Subscribe to FDD’s new podcastForeign Podicy
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"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."
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