Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"The institution of the family is decisive in determining not only if a person has the capacity to love another individual but in the larger social sense whether he is capable of loving his fellow men collectively. The whole of society rests on this foundation for stability, understanding and social peace."

– Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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– Oscar Wilde

"It is well known that the most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution."

– Hannah Arendt

1. U.S. and Allies Sound Alarm Over Their Adversaries’ Military Ties

2. North Korea assisted Hezbollah in building tunnels - now the Israelis have to deal with them

3. Israeli Forces Conduct Operations in Lebanon After Crossing Border Overnight

4. Russia's Military After the Ukraine War: Enter the Gray Zone?

5. Israel Defends Itself—and May Save Western Civilization

6. Putin’s Nuclear Blackmail Goes Doctrinal – Analysis

7. Question for the candidates: How will you reassure allies worried about the credibility of the US security guarantees?

8. How to Exploit Israel’s Success

9. Ukraine's recent strikes on arms depots caused the largest loss of Russian and North Korean ammo in the war: UK intel

10. The Air Force’s special recruitment problem: Americans know SEALs and Green Berets, not PJs

11. How should Israel fight information warfare?

12. A Conservative Human-Rights Agenda

13. Disinformation Risk Threatening Global Economy – OpEd

14. What the West Gets Wrong About the Global South

15. World War II turned modest librarians into vital spies

16. Former commander of SEAL training to face board of inquiry over candidate’s death

17. The State Department Reform Commission: A Once in A Generation Opportunity to Reform American Diplomacy

18. The United Nations in Hindsight: Does the Security Council Matter?

19. How to Get Colombia’s Peace Process Back on Track

20. Israel should hit Iran where it hurts

21. America’s Strategy of Renewal By Antony J. Blinken

22. Weaponizing Technology: The Psychological And Behavioural Impact Of IEDs In Modern Warfare – OpEd

23. Fewer vets will be on the November ballot for Congress this year

24. Here are all the veterans running for Congress in 2024

1. U.S. and Allies Sound Alarm Over Their Adversaries’ Military Ties

The "Dark Quad."

(credit Christopher Ford for coining “Dark Quad.” https://www.newparadigmsforum.com/four-warnings-about-the-dark-quad?utm )

We should keep in mind that the collusion of the Dark Quad is based on fear, weakness, deoparation, and envy. They fear the silk web of alliances and security arrangements among countries who seek to protect the rules based international order (RBIO). They are weak due to the inherent internal contradictions of their political systems. They are desperate for support, politically, economically, and militarily. And they envy the alliances of the free world but they will never achieve anything on that level because their relationships are transactional and not based on trust and shared values. And a country like north Korea has a history of playing the large powers (China and Russia) off against each other.

U.S. and Allies Sound Alarm Over Their Adversaries’ Military Ties

The Biden administration is struggling to halt cooperation among Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. It feels urgency over the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East while also aiming to protect Taiwan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/us/politics/us-axis-china-iran-russia.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ok4.97VC.bf5ZstJXfytD&smid=url-share

In speeches and closed-door talks, most recently at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, U.S. officials have been sounding the alarm on the coalition of powers working to strengthen one another’s militaries to defeat America’s partners.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

By Edward Wong

Reporting from New York during the United Nations General Assembly and from Ukraine and China on trips with the U.S. secretary of state

Sept. 30, 2024

Call it the Axis of Anger.

It is ripped from the pages of the World Wars or the Cold War: a coalition of powers working to strengthen one another’s militaries to defeat America’s partners and, by extension, the United States.

That is how the Biden administration characterizes Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, as those nations align more closely. U.S. officials have been sounding the alarm in speeches and closed-door talks around the world, most recently at the United Nations General Assembly in New York that ended over the weekend.

As the conflict in the Middle East widens — and as the world watches for whether Iran will retaliate against Israel for the killing on Friday of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and its strikes across Lebanon — U.S. officials feel an even greater sense of urgency.

Image

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the United Nations Security Council’s priority should be stopping the stream of military aid from North Korea and Iran to Russia.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Yet the partnerships are not as unified as they might appear, and U.S. officials say they still see ways to slow that trend.

At a Security Council meeting on Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the council’s priority should be stopping the stream of military aid — including ballistic missiles, drones and artillery shells — from North Korea and Iran to Russia. And he noted that China had sent machine tools, microelectronics and other supplies to Russia’s defense industry as President Vladimir V. Putin presses his invasion of Ukraine.

“If countries stopped supporting Russia, Putin’s invasion would soon come to an end,” Mr. Blinken said.

Russia, in turn, is helping those nations meet their ambitions, including by sharing nuclear technology and “space information” with Iran, Mr. Blinken said. Another senior U.S. official said that while the nuclear aid to Iran seemed to be for use in its civilian nuclear program for now, the space information was more alarming — it could eventually allow Iran to develop capable intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Russia is also considering arming the Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen with advanced anti-ship cruise missiles, U.S. officials say.

Image

At the United Nations on Saturday, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia accused the United States of wanting to “preserve their hegemony and to govern everything.”Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Those nations have denied some of the specific American assertions. And they say it is the United States that is forming blocs around the world to maintain dominance. On Saturday at the United Nations, Sergey V. Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, said the Americans were “merely seeking to preserve their hegemony and to govern everything.”

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But there is no doubt those powerful countries seeking to counter the United States have grown their military, diplomatic and economic cooperation.

Leaders of U.S. partner nations are quick to point out the growing threats. In an interview with The New York Times at the United Nations last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine denounced the shipments of arms to Russia from North Korea and Iran.

Sitting next to him, the prime minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, said, “This is a global issue, because the closer cooperation between North Korea, Iran and Russia is a challenge for all of us, of course, including the U.S., and with China helping one way or the other.”

Some of the leaders of the adversarial nations are making flashy displays of their alliances, as if throwing a gauntlet down at the Americans. In June, Mr. Putin revived a Cold War-era mutual defense pact with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, during a visit to Pyongyang, the capital. Those two nations are “all in” on anti-American cooperation, said the senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

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Kim Jong-un of North Korea and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia revived a mutual defense pact in June.Credit...Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik Kremlin, via Associated Press

Two weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow and Beijing announced a “no limits” partnership in a 5,000-word joint statement when Mr. Putin visited President Xi Jinping in China.

“The militarization of these relationships is very remarkable,” said Michael Kimmage, a former State Department official and a professor of Cold War history and U.S.-Russia relations who is a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. “The overt part is the most worrying aspect for the U.S.”

Mr. Kimmage cautioned that “it’s possible to over-interpret the degree of political alignment,” and that “what the U.S. got wrong during the Cold War is that they interpreted more homogeneity in this than was the actual reality.”

In important ways, the current alignments are a continuation of the Cold War. Now, as then, the center of gravity of the anti-American partnerships is Russia. That nation has pitted itself against an American and European partner — Ukraine — and is trying to wipe it out. Russia is attracting aid from North Korea, Iran and China.

In fact, Ukraine has become the kind of proxy-war battlefield that was common during the Cold War, in places like the Korean Peninsula and Vietnam. The shadow of the Korean War, which never officially ended, is even at play here: While North Korea is giving weapons to Russia, South Korea has done the same with Ukraine, via the United States.

But coalitions are not as hardened as they appear, which the United States discovered in the sprawling conflicts of the 20th century, sometimes belatedly. And today they are based not so much on a shared ideology — communism was a unifying factor for much of the Cold War — as on opposition to U.S. power rooted in each autocratic nation’s specific interests. Analysts say the partnerships now are marriages of convenience or pragmatism.

Image

American officials note that President Xi Jinping appears to want to keep China within the global network of institutions and commerce that the United States has dominated for decades.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

For instance, the theocratic leaders of Iran obviously have a different ideological perspective than do the leaders of Russia, China or North Korea, known formally as the D.P.R.K., which all share a communist history.

China, the most powerful of those nations and the greatest challenger to American power, does not seem intent on knitting together a cohesive coalition based on a grand ideology, the way the Soviet Union once tried to do.

“China’s foreign policy is drawing the dividing line using the U.S. as the criteria,” said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center. “What it means is that when China looks at Russia, D.P.R.K. and Iran, it sees anti-U. S. partners.”

“China believes it doesn’t have an alliance or axis with these countries, as the very thing that anchors their alignment is the U.S.,” she added. “But for the end result, the motivation matters much less than the substance, and the relationships come across as an axis. When it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.”

For months, the Biden administration has warned China against commercial trade that allows Russia to rebuild its defense industry. The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on more than 300 Chinese entities. But U.S. officials also say China has not given direct weapons aid to Russia.

China has the world’s second-largest economy and does robust trade with the United States and its allies. American officials note that Mr. Xi appears to want to keep China within the global network of institutions and commerce that the United States has dominated for decades. They say he believes that America is in terminal decline, and that his aim is to displace the United States within that network rather than build a rival global system.

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Mr. Blinken met with Mr. Xi in Beijing in April.Credit...Pool photo by Mark Schiefelbein

Mr. Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, often meet with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, and occasionally with Mr. Xi. Their idea is that keeping up high-level diplomacy, along with bolstering U.S. military power in Asia, will help deter China from invading Taiwan or making other aggressive moves. On Friday, Mr. Blinken and Mr. Wang met in New York and talked about areas of both cooperation and concern.

“Our intent is not to decouple Russia from China,” Mr. Blinken told reporters afterward. “But insofar as that relationship involves providing Russia what it needs to continue this war, that’s a problem, and it’s a problem for us and it’s a problem for many other countries, notably in Europe, because right now Russia presents the greatest threat, not just to Ukrainian security, but to European security since the end of the Cold War.”

U.S. and allied officials say the kind of Sino-Soviet split that began between the late 1950s and early 1960s is unlikely. But European officials are calling out China’s aid to Russia in the hopes that Chinese leaders will realize they are placing their economic ties with Europe in jeopardy.

On a trip to Ukraine with Mr. Blinken this month, David Lammy, the foreign secretary of Britain, said, “We’re seeing this new axis — Russia, Iran, North Korea; we urge China not to throw their lot in with this group of renegades, renegades in the end that are costing lives here in Ukraine.”

U.S. and allied officials are also carefully watching Iran to see whether there is a diplomatic opening, perhaps through future nuclear negotiations, to try to get it to limit its cooperation with Russia. They are wary, because Iran has a decades-long history of hostility with the United States and Israel. But analysts say Iranian leaders are intent on getting the United States and its allies to lift sanctions on Iran.

In a speech on Tuesday at the United Nations, the country’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, used conciliatory language, saying, “We want peace for all and seek no war or quarrel with anyone.”

After leaving New York, Mr. Pezeshkian wrote on social media that his government “is seeking political and economic diplomacy from west to east, from New York to Samarkand.”

Julian E. Barnes and Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department. He is the author of the book “At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China.” More about Edward Wong

A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 1, 2024, Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. and Allies Sound The Alarm Over an Axis Of Military Adversaries. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

2. North Korea assisted Hezbollah in building tunnels - now the Israelis have to deal with them

Dr. Bruce Bechtol on the John Batchelor Show (link below):

"As we watch Israel go into Lebanon with ground forces today, it is important to understand that this would not be necessary unless Hezbollah had a vast network of tunnels (their second one) that prevents destruction from purely air power. To destroy or degrade Hezbollah's military ability to continue attacking Israel's citizens the IDF must send in land forces to attack them underground. This military paradigm shift, which started in the 2006 war and is now on steroids for the latest conflict would not exist were it not for the expertise, engineering (to include special equipment), advisors, and technicians of...wait for it...North Korea. Hezbollah paid KOMID $13 million to build this 45 mile long tunnel network. Now we are going to see it in combat thanks to North Korean military proliferation and Hezbollah's unending appetite for launching rockets into towns in northern Israel. Please click on the link below to hear what I said about this on the John Batchelor show - but only if you want to know the real story..."

https://audioboom.com/posts/8580034-north-korea-digging-tunnels-for-hezbollah-bruce-bechtol-author-north-korea-military-prolife

3. Israeli Forces Conduct Operations in Lebanon After Crossing Border Overnight

Do limited objective wars succeed?

What is the military condition that will secure Israel?
What is the acceptable durable political arrangement that will serve, protect, and advance Israeli interests?

Photos, video, and map at the link below.

The operations could continue for days or weeks, as Israel aims to push the militant group away from its border

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-sends-troops-into-lebanon-escalating-fight-against-hezbollah-1dbcee03?mod=latest_headlines

Russia's Military After the Ukraine War: Enter the Gray Zone?

Despite setbacks in Ukraine, Russia is poised to refine its military strategy by leveraging lessons learned about nuclear deterrence and Western caution. The Kremlin is likely to employ gradual escalation and "grey zone" tactics in future operations, challenging international norms and testing the limits of Western responses.

The National Interest · by Mikhail Troitskiy · September 30, 2024

Note: This op-ed was written to contribute to a National Interest symposium on the challenges Russia's military will face after the Ukraine war ends.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has exposed significant flaws in the design and execution of its military operations. Some analysts argue that the Russian military will emerge from the war seriously weakened, unable to afford another campaign against its neighbors or other countries. However, other observers characterize the Russian military as adaptable and capable of not only altering operational tactics during the war but also identifying strategic opportunities for future operations based on observations of adversary behavior.

While Russia’s operational capabilities after the war will largely depend on the condition of its army, navy, and air force, its capacity to carry out new operations is likely to be significantly enhanced thanks to the extensive experience gained during the conflict in Ukraine.

One of the strategic insights Russia, and possibly China, India, and others, may have gleaned is the cautious response by major Western powers to Russia’s aggressive territorial expansion under the umbrella of nuclear deterrence. Although various effective tactics may offset the conventional advantages of large military fighting near its borders, like Russia in Ukraine or potentially China in Taiwan, the role of nuclear weapons in shielding expansionist actions has proven more significant than previously believed.

Consistent with recent research on the psychology of nuclear brinkmanship, risk aversion among leaders of stakeholder countries has played a key role in shaping responses to nuclear blackmail. Additionally, the changing demographics of Western societies may contribute to risk aversion among Western leaders, who can nevertheless rely on supportive political elites to promote policies that the general public may not fully understand or may even oppose. Russian attempts to influence public opinion in the West through online media interference have had limited effect on Western support for Ukraine, largely due to a strong conviction among top Western bureaucracies about the necessity of aiding Ukraine.

Russia’s political leadership and military top brass have been closely observing NATO’s alliance politics and the interactions between NATO members and Ukraine. NATO membership and cohesion have increased since the war began. At the same time, the alliance has chosen to restrain its smaller members, discouraging them from unilateral escalation with Russia out of fear that NATO as a whole might be drawn into the conflict.

Both Russia and NATO have avoided declarations that could imply they consider themselves at war with each other. NATO has been reluctant to even test Russia’s reaction by discussing whether Moscow’s hostile actions warrant the activation of Article 5. For Moscow, this suggests that a high threshold of hostilities is required to trigger NATO mobilization for war.

Another lesson suggests that many red lines can be overcome through the gradual escalation of hostilities or operations in the grey zone surrounding those lines. This approach has worked for the West, which has gradually expanded support for Ukraine. It also worked for Ukraine during the Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensive in the fall of 2022 and the Kursk incursion since August 2024.

Similarly, the Kremlin successfully pushed the limits of escalation, including nuclear threats, that the Russian public and ruling elites were willing to accept, ultimately dragging an initially reluctant China into full-scale support of Russia’s military effort.

The Kremlin has also tested Western sanctions policy, gauging its limits at various stages of escalation in Ukraine. It has likely concluded that the reach and intensity of sanctions will plateau at a certain point in the conflict, without further attempts to “punish" Moscow for repeating actions that initially caused outrage.

It is unclear how quickly Russia, with its economy and large segments of society mobilized for war, can change the rationale underlying its foreign behavior. Bracing for long-term confrontation even after the war with Ukraine ends, the Kremlin will expect to leverage the rules of the game established during the conflict.

Moscow will seek opportunities to conduct operations, potentially involving military action, that combine gradual escalation with creating facts on the ground. Russia will not shy away from negotiations that do not preclude maneuvers capable of taking both its adversaries and allies by surprise.

About the Author

Mikhail Troitskiy is a visiting scholar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, and a visiting professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

The National Interest · by Mikhail Troitskiy · September 30, 2024

5. Israel Defends Itself—and May Save Western Civilization

Israel Defends Itself—and May Save Western Civilization

The equivocation of Biden, Harris and other leaders should cause us all to feel a degree of shame.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/israel-defends-itself-and-may-save-western-civilization-war-mideast-national-security-8606ec52?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

By Gerard Baker

Sept. 30, 2024 1:25 pm ET

Israeli soldiers with military vehicles gather near the border fence with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel, May 9. Photo: abir sultan/Shutterstock

How will we ever repay the debt we owe Israel?

What the Jewish state has done in the past year—for its own defense, but in the process and not coincidentally for the security of all of us—will rank among the most important contributions to the defense of Western civilization in the past three-quarters of a century.

Having been hit with a devastating attack on its people, beyond the fetid imagining of some of the vilest antisemites, Israel has in 12 months done nothing less than redraw the balance of global security, not just in the region, but in the wider world.

It has eliminated thousands of the terrorists whose commitment to a savage theocratic ideology has claimed so many lives across the region and the world for decades. It has, with extraordinary tactical accuracy, dispatched some of the masterminds of the worst evil on the planet, including most recently Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader in Lebanon. It has repelled and then reversed the previously inexorably advancing power of one of the world’s most terrifying autocracies, the Islamic Republic of Iran. It has demonstrated to all the West’s foes, including Iran’s allies in Moscow and Beijing, that our system of free markets and free people, and the voluntary alliance network we have constructed to defend it, generates resources and capabilities of vast technical superiority. Above all, it has provided an unexpected but crucial reminder to our enemies that there are at least some willing and able to pursue and defeat them whatever the risk to our own lives and resources.

The only appropriate responses to Israel’s gallantry, fortitude and skill from us—its nominal allies, especially in the U.S.—are “thank you” and “how can we help?”

Instead, time and again Israel’s supposed friends, including the administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, have, while expressing sympathy over the outrage of Oct. 7 and uttering the usual support for “Israel’s right to defend itself,” repeatedly tried to restrain it from doing just that. Their early, valuable support has been steadily diminished by the way they have too often connived with the anti-Israel extremists in their own party.

Before Israel had even buried its dead last October and as Hamas was busy murdering its hostages, there were calls for Israel to cease fire. For a year we have heard our leaders’ “balanced” condemnations of Hamas and its terror masters on the one hand and the Jewish state on the other, a false equivalence that says more about the moral disorder in our own politics than about Israel’s motives and actions.

In Europe, they have gone even further, as usual, rewarding Hamas and Hezbollah by nominally recognizing a nonexistent Palestinian state and prosecuting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on bogus war-crimes charges.

Do they not get that in the end we have to make a choice: our ally, on the front lines of defense against barbarism or our enemies, those who literally want to see us all buried?

Fortunately for all of us, it seems Israel is prevailing despite the chorus of hecklers.

Perhaps all this sounds too blithe for skeptical readers; or at least premature given the rising expectation of a much wider conflict to come. And it is true that there has been awful loss of innocent lives in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere that undoubtedly fuels the ire of the enemy across the world. What if Mr. Netanyahu and his government’s aggressive prosecution proves a Pyrrhic victory?

But that wider conflict was perhaps always inevitable, given Iran’s stated objectives and its consistent efforts to achieve them. We can say two things tentatively about that long-feared wider confrontation. First, the strategic tactical, intelligence and technological genius Israel has demonstrated over the past year might have done so much damage to Iran’s proxy armies and their military and political leaders that they will be ill-prepared and equipped for the bigger struggle to come, and Israel—and, let’s hope, reliable allies—better placed to defeat its enemies. Second, having observed this Israeli superiority over that time and eagerness not to bring the destruction on itself a wide war would surely bring, perhaps Iran will be deterred.

Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few, Winston Churchill said of the men of the Royal Air Force after they had repelled Hitler’s Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. (Reminder to some recently confused “conservatives”: The former were the good guys; the latter the real villains.)

We should echo those words today as we watch in awe what a country smaller in area than New Jersey, with a population less than North Carolina’s and an economy smaller than that of Washington state, has done for all of us.

As Israelis solemnly mark a year since Oct. 7, we should not only redouble our expressions of sympathy and solidarity. We should show them our gratitude, and if we are willing to be really honest, acknowledge a little of our own shame.

Putin’s Nuclear Blackmail Goes Doctrinal – Analysis

eurasiareview.com · October 1, 2024

By The Jamestown Foundation

By Pavel K. Baev

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced neither surprising nor radical revisions in Russia’s nuclear doctrine on September 25 (Kremlin.ru, September 25). He committed to revising the government’s vague document back in June. In the ensuing months, many “patriotic” pundits have advocated various drastic changes, from formalizing the “escalate-to-deescalate” proposition to breaking the non-proliferation regime (see EDM, June 3; Kommersant, September 11).

Putin opted for very modest revisions and tried to compensate for this moderation with staged gravitas at his Security Council’s so-called “standing conference on nuclear deterrence.” The conference had never been known to exist before but this time was covered on prime-time television (Kommersant, September 25;Meduza, September 26). The announced shifts in the justifications for Russia hypothetically resorting to using its vast nuclear arsenal have already been scrutinized minutely, but the timing of Putin’s heavy hints and direct threats is indicative of his real intent.

Typically, Putin’s attempts at brinkmanship are aimed at influencing key decisions in the US-led coalition on expanding support to Ukraine and providing weapon systems of higher capacity, such as Leopard main battle tanks or M142 HIMARS multiple rocket launchers. The physical arrival of these arms, such as the deployment of the first squadron of F-16 fighters in early August, is invariably ignored, even when equipped with the JSOW glide bombs (Izvestiya, September 26).

Putin’s previous surge of nuclear rhetoric was timed to coincide with a meeting between US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that focused on whether to grant Ukraine permission to use the Storm Shadow air-launched missile to strike targets deep in Russian territory (Interfax, September 14; see EDM, September 16). The doctrinal revisions were announced as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held meetings with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and, perhaps most importantly for Moscow, former US President Donald Trump (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, September 27). An upcoming meeting between Biden, Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and French President Emmanuel Macron will likely invite new threats from Putin (Izvestiya, September 25).

Moscow has rarely responded to long-distance Ukrainian strikes with enhanced nuclear saber-rattling, even to strikes of such spectacular impact as that in Toropets, Tver oblast, which caused the destruction of a major artillery arsenal (Current Time, September 19). The shocking offensive by Ukrainian troops into Kursk oblast, which is still ongoing despite Putin’s order to push the “bandits” out of Russia’s territory, has also seen no nuclear reaction (see EDM, September 3; The Insider, September 27).

Kyiv is keen to take advantage of Russia’s self-restraint for demonstrating the hollow symbolism of Putin’s “red lines,” to much consternation among Moscow’s hawks (Meduza, September 23; see EDM, September 25). New boundaries drawn in the revised Russian nuclear doctrine will surely be breached without delay by the ways and means that would yet again catch the General Staff by surprise (Carnegie Politika, September 26; NV.ua, September 27).

Disconnected from the battles in the kinetic war, the ups and downs in Russian brinkmanship show a distinct correlation with Ukrainian peace offensives. Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, on June 15–16, 2024, saw not only a furious Russian diplomatic campaign of sabotage but also an escalation of nuclear rhetoric, most notably at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum (Fontanka.ru, June 7; Forbes.ua, June 18; see EDM, June 20).

This time, Putin’s posturing aimed to disrupt Zelenskyy’s address to the UN General Assembly centered on the proposal for the second peace summit (Kommersant, September 25; RIAC, September 26). Moscow resolutely rules out any possibility of participating in this summit, but may have difficulty derailing it, as India has begun to cautiously signal its interest in hosting the summit (RBC, September 21; NV.ua, September 24).

The resonance of rhetoric decrying nuclear threats among countries in the Global South is clearly a major concern for the Kremlin, as it is constantly on the lookout for opportunities to spread its influence in other parts of the world (Russia in Global Affairs, September 1). The official recognition of North Korea’s nuclear status, necessitated by Pyongyang’s readiness to sustain the supply of artillery shells to depleting Russian stocks, is upsetting for many stakeholders in the global nuclear non-proliferation regime (The Moscow Times, September 26).

Russian leadership grants extraordinary importance to ensuring the success of the BRICS (a loose political-economic grouping originally consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit scheduled for October 22–24 in Kazan, Tatarstan. These strategic calculations could compel Putin to tone down his nuclear saber-rattling in the couple of weeks preceding the gathering (RIAC, September 25).

The key to the BRICS summit’s success is held by China’s President Xi Jinping, who confirmed his intention to partake but has signaled his disapproval of Putin’s cavalier attitude toward nuclear matters in various subtle ways (RBC, September 12). Beijing is promoting the proposition for an international treaty prohibiting the first use of nuclear weapons. Russia’s revisions to its nuclear doctrine do not fit with this initiative (RIAC, September 27).

Experts in Moscow evaluate China’s displeasure with the utmost attention and tend to conclude that it will remain superficial so that no negative consequences for the evolving strategic partnership are to be expected (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, September 26). Such opinions are underpinned by the assessments of China’s sustained efforts at strengthening its own nuclear capabilities, including the recent test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (Kommersant, September 25). The Russian program of such tests has been significantly curtailed, and the explosion of the RS-28 Sarmat missile in a silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk oblast is a significant setback, about which the Kremlin remains in denial (Meduza, September 25).

Putin’s nuclear brinkmanship follows an oscillating pattern. The announcement of revisions in the nuclear doctrine is supposed to mark an upswing in Russia’s attempts at nuclear coercion. The Kremlin hopes that these revisions will reinforce Western fears of Russia’s nuclear capabilities to influence the proceedings of the Ramstein format meeting. An ensuing pause in nuclear rhetoric timed for demonstrating responsible statesmanship on the eve of the BRICS summit is also reasonably predictable.

The sequence of Ukrainian long-distance strikes is set to continue, but these increasingly spectacular hits—whether by domestically produced or Western-supplied weapons—will make little difference in Russia’s nuclear maneuvering across the political space of the long war. Like every aging autocrat, Putin is highly egocentric and cannot comprehend that his blatant blackmail makes it impossible for Western leaders to yield.

About the author: Dr. Pavel K. Baev is a senior researcher at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO).
Source: This article was published by The Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 21 Issue: 140

eurasiareview.com · October 1, 2024

7. Question for the candidates: How will you reassure allies worried about the credibility of the US security guarantees?

Strategic reassurance and strategic resolve. How can we demonstrate that?

Question for the candidates: How will you reassure allies worried about the credibility of the US security guarantees?

thebulletin.org · by François Diaz-Maurin · September 30, 2024

By Sara Bjerg Moller | September 30, 2024

Editor’s note: Sara Moller, an associate teaching professor at Georgetown University and a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, suggests that the 2024 US presidential candidates be asked about how they plan to reassure allies who doubt the US readiness to protect them. (This is part of an “experts comment” series of questions for the candidates.)

The US nuclear arsenal is intended not only to ensure national security but also to protect that of its allies—a policy known as extended deterrence. For 75 years, the United States has served as the supreme guarantor of Western Europe’s security, extending its nuclear umbrella to shield NATO members from potential aggression. For nearly as long, it has extended this nuclear pledge to allies in the Indo-Pacific region. In total, more than 30 countries currently benefit from the US nuclear guarantee.

At times, some allies have sought to develop nuclear weapons programs of their own. On those occasions, Washington dissuaded them through an implicit bargain of non-proliferation and extended deterrence in which allies agree not to develop their own nuclear weapons in exchange for further assurances that the United States will protect them.

However, over the years, allied governments have regularly expressed doubts about the credibility of US security assurances. These doubts typically arise either in response to rising threats from regional adversaries, perceived reductions in the US security commitments (either in the form of troop withdrawals or presidential statements), or both. On those occasions, previous US administrations have sought to reassure anxious allies via a mix of political-military measures, including military exercises, deployments, announcements of new or enhanced consultative measures, and official statements.

For example, after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol publicly raised the possibility of South Korea acquiring nuclear weapons in early 2023, the Biden administration responded by reaffirming its commitment to enhance extended deterrence efforts against North Korea. A few months later, Washington and Seoul announced the formation of the Nuclear Consultative Group, a new bilateral body aimed at improving information sharing and enhancing dialogue about nuclear threats and plans. In addition to strengthening extended deterrence against North Korea, this new consultative forum also reassures South Korea of Washington’s commitment to its security.

However, the current deterioration of the international security environment and nuclear modernization efforts and increased military capabilities of Russia and China could make it harder for Washington to reassure its allies in the coming years. In Europe, the ongoing Russian aggression against Ukraine and continued nuclear saber-rattling by Moscow, coupled with growing uncertainty about the degree of bipartisan support the continent can expect from Washington in the future, has led some NATO allies to start questioning the nuclear status quo in Europe.

The next US president will face challenging questions from allies regarding the future of the US policy of extended deterrence. While some of the resulting debates will likely echo issues from the Cold War era, other issues raised will be entirely new, owing to the evolving security environment and the emergence of the multiple nuclear challenger problem.

The 2024 presidential candidates, therefore, should be asked the following questions:

Is the US nuclear arsenal sufficient to protect its allies from Chinese, Russian, and North Korean aggression? If not, how would you recalibrate it so that US nuclear forces can simultaneously deter strikes against the US homeland and against allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific?
If asked by Seoul, would you agree to redeploy nuclear weapons onto the Korean Peninsula, more than 30 years after they have been withdrawn?
In July, Washington and Berlin announced the United States would be deploying intermediate-range missiles to Germany by 2026. If your national security advisors recommended in the future that these be armed with nuclear (instead of conventional) warheads, would you support such a move?
In light of Russian and Chinese nuclear modernization efforts, will your administration seek to maintain the bargain of non-proliferation and extended deterrence with allies? Or will you move to support allies in developing their own nuclear deterrent capabilities instead, thereby abandoning the US nonproliferation obligations?

Has Russia’s war in Ukraine changed your view of the role of nuclear weapons? By Siegfried S. Hecker

What will you do to avoid a nuclear arms race with Russia and China? By Steven Pifer

What is your plan to prevent the next dangerous and expensive nuclear arms race? By Laura Grego

How many nuclear warheads does the United States need? By Tom Z. Collina

Should the president retain the sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons? By Mackenzie Knight

Do you agree with other world leaders that the use of—or threat to use—nuclear weapons is “inadmissible”? By Daryl G. Kimball

How will you reassure allies worried about the credibility of the US security guarantees? By Sara Bjerg Moller

What will you do if Iran gets the bomb? By Henry Sokolski

How will you deter North Korea’s aggression without deteriorating the situation on the Korean Peninsula? By Eliana Johns

Will the United States sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons? By Alicia Sanders-Zakre

Together, we make the world safer.

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thebulletin.org · by François Diaz-Maurin · September 30, 2024

8. How to Exploit Israel’s Success

Is the question premature?

I am reminded of Mark Twain: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Can Hezbollah rise from its own ashes?

How to Exploit Israel’s Success

With Hezbollah weak, and Iran worried, now is the time for the U.S. to add pressure.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/israel-hezbollah-lebanon-biden-u-s-europe-middle-east-a0ae7b93?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

By The Editorial Board

Sept. 30, 2024 5:45 pm ET

Israeli artillery shells hit areas near villages in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel on Monday. Photo: atef safadi/Shutterstock

Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah has defied skeptics to enhance its security. But now the same skeptics say it’s not a real victory because Israel hasn’t answered the question, what next? The better response is for the U.S. and Europe to build on Israel’s military breakthrough to put more pressure on Iran and its proxy network.

By going on the offensive, Israel has done enormous damage to Hezbollah’s ability to wage war. Hezbollah’s leaders are dead or hiding in bunkers. The rain of missiles and rockets on Tel Aviv that Israel has long feared hasn’t materialized. This may mean Israel has so degraded Hezbollah’s missile stores and communications that the terror group can no longer conduct such a campaign.

***

This is a triumph for the Israel Defense Forces but it’s also an enormous favor to U.S. interests and the West. Hezbollah was essentially Iran’s front-line offensive force. It was an insurance policy that Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could call on if Israel moved to strike Iran’s nuclear sites.

With Hezbollah weakened, Iran is newly vulnerable. Its leaders can’t be sure they are safe from attack even in Tehran, as Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh demonstrated on July 31. The Ayatollah is threatening revenge for the death of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, but his failure to follow through so far may reflect Iran’s new fear.

Iran may not have felt this vulnerable since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq triggered fear that Tehran could be next. According to U.S. intelligence, Iran stopped its nuclear program then out of that concern. Now is another opening to seize the moment and put Iran and its proxies on the defensive.

One place to start is against the Houthis in Yemen. They’ve been winning their battle against the U.S. and global shipping in the Red Sea as the Biden Administration has been content to let the U.S. Navy play whack-a-missile. The next time the Houthis attack, the U.S. can unleash the same sustained havoc on them that Israel has on Hezbollah. The Houthis and their Iranian suppliers would no longer have the escalation advantage.

The U.S. and Europe may also have an opening to reduce Hezbollah’s dominance in Lebanon. Surveys are showing Lebanon’s people are turning against Hezbollah for having drawn them into another war. Helping Israel continue to destroy Hezbollah’s leadership may create more space for other Lebanese leaders to emerge.

The U.S. is now counseling against an Israeli ground invasion into southern Lebanon, and history does suggest caution. Israel will take more casualties and its ground attacks have bogged down in the past. But that is a decision for Israeli leaders to make as they seek to make its towns in the north safe for its 60,000 displaced citizens to return home.

None of this will succeed, however, unless the Biden Administration stops appeasing Iran. The White House has refused to enforce sanctions against the oil sales that enrich the regime. It has refused to respond with anything but token sanctions as Iran sells missiles and drones to Russia and its proxies kill Americans. Even now, the Administration would like to renew the failed 2015 nuclear deal.

The moment calls instead for increasing pressure across the board. This includes enforcing oil sanctions and making clear that its arms proliferation isn’t immune from military responses. A demonstration against an Iranian naval vessel would make the point. If Iran continues to press ahead in secret with its nuclear program, the Ayatollah should know that those sites could also be targeted.

Arguably the West’s greatest abdication has been failing to support the aspirations of the Iranian people against the regime. Iran’s citizens rise up periodically in protest, but the U.S. does little or nothing to help them. Mr. Biden barely speaks on their behalf. Internal dissent is the regime’s greatest fear, and it is strategic malpractice not to exploit it.

Ah, but won’t this lead to more escalation and ruin the chances of an Israeli-Saudi agreement that would extend the 2020 Abraham Accords? The last year since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre shows the opposite. The Sunni Arab states respect Israel more when they see it defeat its Shiite enemies, and when they see the U.S. in stalwart support of its ally. That is a better path to a Saudi-Israel deal.

We’re aware that none of what we’re suggesting is likely to come from President Biden, who has so badly misjudged the Middle East. But thanks to Israel, the next President will have a new strategic opening to improve the chances for peace and stability.

WSJ Opinion: Joe Biden's Troubled Foreign-Policy Legacy

Ukraine's recent strikes on arms depots caused the largest loss of Russian and North Korean ammo in the war: UK intel

Business Insider · by Thibault Spirlet

Military & Defense

Thibault Spirlet

2024-09-30T12:21:46Z

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? .

Ukraine struck three ammunition depots deep inside Russia this month, causing significant damage.
According to UK intel, the strikes caused the largest loss of Russian and North Korean ammo in the war.
The UK Ministry of Defence said Russia has struggled to stop strikes like this despite its defenses.

Recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian arms depots caused the largest loss of Russian and North Korean ammunition recorded so far in the Ukraine war, according to British intelligence.

The UK's Ministry of Defence made the assessment on Sunday, citing satellite images showing the aftermath of strikes on three Russian ammunition depots in the Tver and Krasnodar Krai regions in September.

"The total tonnage of ammunition destroyed across the three sites represents the largest loss of Russian and North Korean-supplied ammunition during the war," the MOD said.

It said that the "major" strikes in close succession showed that Russia is still struggling against Ukrainian drones used in deep-strike operations inside Russia.

This is despite the country's deployment of a robust layered air defense posture, including fighter jets, it added.

"It is highly likely that it will force further dispersals in the Russian logistics chain for fear of additional strikes, increasing the burden on an already stretched system," the UK MOD said.

The losses came despite restrictions on the weapons Ukraine can use to strike targets inside Russia

Ukraine has to rely on domestically produced drones and long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia, as it has been barred from using Western-provided long-range missiles to go after strategic targets there.

The Pentagon justified the US decision not to allow such strikes earlier this month, saying that 90% of Russian aircraft launching glide bombs are out of range of Ukraine's ATACMS, and also cited the potential for an escalation in the conflict.

Pressure, however, is building. Last month, Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, said EU countries should lift restrictions on the use of weaponry against Russian military targets "in accordance with international law."

Several top House Republicans signed a letter on September 9 urging President Joe Biden to lift the remaining restrictions on US-provided long-range systems, including the ATACMS, against "legitimate" military targets deeper inside Russia.

Last week, war experts from the Institute for the Study of War said that Western restrictions barring Ukraine from firing Western-supplied weapons into Russia had given Russian command the "flexibility" to avoid protecting its rear and to marshal supplies to attack Ukraine at scale there.

It said this in the context of Ukraine's successful strikes on the three ammo depots.

In a separate update on Friday, the ISW said even a small number of effective long-range Ukrainian strikes could have asymmetric impact and force Russian forces to relocate important military and storage facilities farther from the front lines, complicating Russian logistics.

Russia Ukraine North Korea

Business Insider · by Thibault Spirlet

10. The Air Force’s special recruitment problem: Americans know SEALs and Green Berets, not PJs

The PJs have a long difficult training pipeline too. And of course the PJs are a very small force as well.

The Air Force’s special recruitment problem: Americans know SEALs and Green Berets, not PJs

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · September 30, 2024

Airmen from the 352nd Special Operations Wing discuss risk factors during training in Estonia in 2019. While the Army's Green Berets and the Navy's SEALs are well-known to the general public, their special operations counterparts in the Air Force lack that widespread familiarity, Rand Corp. researchers found in a study issued last week. (Elizabeth Pena/U.S. Army)

The Air Force’s special operators remain mostly unknown to the American public when compared with their Navy and Army counterparts, worsening an already difficult recruiting environment, according to a new service-commissioned study.

Perhaps the biggest issue confronting Air Force Special Warfare is competing with the household-name status enjoyed by the operators in those two other services, researchers at the Rand Corp. think tank found. Their report was issued Thursday.

In a 2023 Rand survey of the American public, only 4% of respondents reported being unaware of Navy SEALs and just 8% didn’t know about Army Special Forces, whose troops are known popularly as Green Berets. In contrast, 82% said they have limited to no familiarity with special operations forces in the Air Force.

“These results confirm Air Force beliefs that there is limited awareness of” its special operators, and the “lack of a clear and compelling brand is a key challenge to recruiting,” the report said.

Over the years, SEALs and Green Berets have garnered much attention through movies, books and other forms of self-promotion, Rand said.

But while a lack of awareness about such jobs poses an initial challenge for the service’s recruiters, the under-the-radar image of the Air Force special operator adds to the appeal for some recruits once they learn about the offerings of the service.

“What drew me in is just how quiet the (Combat Control Team) community was,” a trainee for the air-ground communications role told Rand. “I mean, the SEALs, the Green Berets, and everybody knows what those are, but I like a job where ... the outside world does not really know.”

Air Force recruiters need to find ways to get the word out about jobs like pararescue, special reconnaissance and tactical air control, Rand said. Developing “new narratives” that spark curiosity and motivate recruits to seek more information is therefore imperative, the report adds.

Airmen with the 24th Special Operations Wing engage opponents during a training scenario in Green Valley, Ariz., on Jan. 25, 2023. Air Force Special Warfare is hampered in its recruiting efforts by a comparative lack of recognition among the American public, a newly released study commissioned by the service found. (Carly Kavish/U.S. Air Force)

In interviews with those who joined Air Force special operations, researchers found that the decision often related to the unique nature of the mission, an ethos of “quiet professionalism” and a perception of better quality of life than what the Army and Navy can offer.

Air Force Special Warfare jobs like pararescue, whose practitioners are known as PJs, have a distinct advantage for drawing a contrast with other commando jobs because of the heavy focus on delivering medical care in dangerous places, the report said.

“Did I want to spend my time learning how to kill people and have that on my conscience or did I want to learn how to save lives and treat people? That just felt like it would sit a lot better with me,” one pararescue trainee told Rand.

The report made a correlation between the demanding nature of such jobs and the hurdle of finding people to fill them.

“Communities like Air Force Special Warfare face even greater difficulties because of the physical and mental challenges,” the report authors said.

In light of that, recruiters could target typical athlete hangouts and conduct physical workouts in public places, Rand said. Other recruiting tactics suggested in the report are connecting with high school athletic programs and placing business cards in free shaker bottles at gyms.

The Air Force’s reputation for a higher quality of life in general in comparison with the other services also factored into the decision-making process, those interviewed by Rand said, according to the report.

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · September 30, 2024

11. How should Israel fight information warfare?

Recommendations from Japan to gain Japanese support for Israel. ("get empathy")

How should Israel fight information warfare?

Sep 30, 2024, 10:46 AM

blogs.timesofisrael.com · by Hitoshi Arai · September 30, 2024

Characteristics of Japanese media

Diplomacy is the world backed by political, military, and economic power, however under Japan’s Constitution, military power is not a diplomatic tool. Japan’s security would not be possible without maintaining law and order in the international community and the cooperation of its allies. Therefore, people’s faith in the United Nations is quite strong. Another characteristic of the Japanese is that they generally tend to have a “Hogan Biiki” (sympathy for the weak and unfortunate, taking sides and supporting them regardless of whether things are right or wrong). A lot of “suggestive reporting” appeals to emotions because of the sentiment that helping the weak is justified.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan’s equivalent of Wall Street Journal, published an article on May 9 titled, “Israel Rejects Hamas Acceptance of Truce Plan, Communicates to the U.S.” The lead of the article reads, “Hamas accepted the cease-fire plan, but Israel rejected the agreement and is trying to keep the war going.” Indeed, the Israelis rejected the agreement proposed by Egypt and Qatar. However, the article did not provide any information or explanation as to the agreement’s contents which was quite unfavorable to Israel and did not contribute to the recovery of the hostages. This article only conveys the impression that “Israel is backward-looking toward the cease-fire.”

Importance of other countries’ empathy

Many voices in Japan criticize Israel regarding the Hamas-Israel war. The reason for this is, in part, the asymmetry in the magnitude of the damage, but also, perhaps, because Israel is on the side of the “strong,” supported by the United States, the most powerful country in the world. As mentioned before, Japanese people tend to have the sentiment that it is righteous to support the weak.

One Japanese writer and former diplomat, Masaru Sato, wrote “Israeli Jews would rather fight and survive even against the whole world than die out with the world’s sympathy.” While this is an understandable thought from a people who experienced the Nazi genocide, it also raises a question of whether it would be possible to live in isolation from the world even if they survived. As the “Free Palestine” movement spreads in U.S. universities, and as reports of damage in the Gaza Strip continue to increase, Israel is being isolated from the rest of the world as growing criticism that Israel ignores international law. It is worth involving the international community because it is difficult to resolve conflicts by themselves. Israel needs to try to share its values and empathize with the people of other countries, rather than making enemies of the world..

How to fight information warfare and get empathy

Below are some messages that might help Israel align its values with those of other countries and gain empathy.

(1) Stop settlements in the West Bank and withdraw.

There is no justification for settlements in the West Bank, no matter what logic Israel develops. Moreover, settlement activity provides a basis for reinforcing their legitimacy in the international community as evidence of the Palestinian logic that the Nakba is still going on. The settlements should be stopped to show that Israel respects international law as a democratic state rather than being bound by the balance of power within the State of Israel. This would be the only way to most effectively show that “Israel is a democratic state that abides by international law” through its efforts.

(2) Focus the objective of the Hamas-Israel War on “recapturing the hostages.”

The sense of crisis in Israel that terrorism will occur again if Hamas is not eradicated can be fully understood by looking at the history. However, the possibility of accomplishing this by force is not high. One Japanese university professor said that Hamas is not an organization but a “thought,” and even if the current visible Hamas members are wiped out, new people with that thought will be born. Without the eradication of Hamas as an objective, the number of civilian casualties that would have to accompany the eradication of terrorists would be reduced. Instead, continued efforts to “contain terrorism” with international political power and increased influence in the Arab world will be closer to the values of other nations.

(3) Continue to appeal for the current situation of the hostages and their recovery, as well as the damage caused by terrorism.

In information warfare, the weak are often supported, and the strong are often blamed. Israel is already on the losing side in information warfare, simply because Israel is on the “strong” side, as mentioned before. The “sad fact” that over 100 hostages are still being held and many women have been raped is one of Israel’s few “weak” sides. For lack of a better word, Israel should continue to appeal to the international community facts such as the harsh conditions in which the hostages were placed for the past eleven months by “taking full advantage” of the weak side through the various media and supporters.

(4) Be humble.

There are more than a few Japanese who support Israel. However, it is difficult for us to continue to support Israel as long as it takes actions that are difficult to simply deny the many critics who say that “Israel is ignoring international law”. Israelis may be characterized as hutzpah. In the world of high technology and business, hutzpah is effective, but it may backfire in other areas, such as the information warfare involved in war. Israel should also put aside its “strength” of surviving against the whole world, as mentioned by Mr. Sato, and adopt the attitude of living together with the people of the world. To do so, Israelis must have the humility to listen to others and pull back when they should. They should try to show that they “share the same values” as people of other countries.

(5) Strengthening soft power, not just military force (hard power).

What other means are there to recover the hostages other than the use of force? I have no practical wisdom that is feasible. Still, I am certain that we need the cooperation of the international community to keep the pressure on the terrorists to release the hostages. To this end, Israel should also focus on exercising its soft power to gain the support of the international community in information warfare. During the Fourth Middle East War, oil became a weapon to move the world. Now, western countries feel the risk of losing access to advanced semiconductors manufactured by TSMC, the world’s largest foundry, due to China pressuring Taiwan. Western countries will have no choice but to support Taiwan in securing the advanced semiconductors needed for all industries. Does Israel currently have the equivalent of TSMC, a value each country does not want to lose? If Israel holds and continues to create “value that the world does not want to lose,” equivalent to TSMC, the international community will provide a certain amount of support from a practical standpoint. Having Israel’s XX technology without which we would be in trouble, should be an effective soft power to gain the support of the international community.

blogs.timesofisrael.com · by Hitoshi Arai · September 30, 2024

12. A Conservative Human-Rights Agenda

Regardless of your political beliefs we should reprise the ideals of the 1981 State Department memo below.

Excerpts:

[T]he progressive approach hopes to convince other kinds of regimes of the need to improve on human rights, and it prioritizes efforts to build better relationships through cooperation on shared challenges as a means of bolstering these attempts at persuasion. To the extent that liberals did and progressives do advocate a more robust use of American power to advance human rights, they tend to prefer applying such pressure to allies rather than adversaries. A good example: Jimmy Carter harassed the Somoza regime in Nicaragua but not the far more repressive Castro regime in Cuba.

In contrast, the conservative human-rights policy developed by President Ronald Reagan emphasizes both the importance of geopolitical balances of power and the indispensable role American power plays in advancing fundamental rights. While working on individual cases of human-rights abuses is seen as necessary, as is chiding and pressuring U.S. allies that commit abuses, the conservative approach understands that any progress made on human rights through individual interventions will have only a limited overall impact in a world where the global balance of power tilts toward repressive and tyrannical regimes. In Reagan’s case that regime was the Soviet Union. Today the United States confronts an axis of revisionist autocracies that includes China, Russia, and Iran, supported by allies such as North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. A conservative human-rights policy views great-power competition as the decisive theater, recognizing that success there is a prerequisite to advancing freedom on a wide scale.

...

In this new global power struggle, once again the attitudes toward human rights and freedom are the dividing line. The 1981 State Department human-rights memo is as true today as it was then:

Human rights is at the core of our foreign policy, because it is central to America’s conception of itself. This nation did not “develop.” It was created, with specific political purposes in mind. It is true that as much as America invented “human rights,” conceptions of liberty invented America. It follows that “human rights” isn’t something we add on to our foreign policy, but is its very purpose: the defense and promotion of liberty in the world.

A Conservative Human-Rights Agenda

By Elliott Abrams

Corban Teague

September 19, 2024 4:20 PM

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/11/a-conservative-human-rights-agenda/

National Review Online · by Elliott AbramsAbout Elliott Abrams · September 19, 2024

(Luba Myts)

The Biden administration's progressive approach has failed

Joe Biden promised to “put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy,” echoing the aspirational pledge Jimmy Carter made nearly 45 years earlier that America’s “commitment to human rights must be absolute.” Yet, like President Carter, President Biden not only failed to fulfill his commitment but on balance is leaving human rights around the world in a worse state than when he took office. With the Biden administration soon coming to an end, a review of its record and a look at an alternative, conservative human-rights policy for the future are timely.

President Biden continued the liberal — or, to use current language, progressive — approach to human-rights policy developed under Presidents Carter and Obama. At its core, this framework treats human rights largely as a casework problem in the realm of U.S. foreign assistance, focusing on individual interventions to address specific instances of abuse. Notably, it eschews connecting human rights to great-power competition — to paraphrase the late Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson, the intensity with which that approach pursues human rights is often inversely related to the geopolitical power of the offender. And it tends to prefer highlighting America’s shortcomings (often exaggerated or completely imagined), rather than focusing on the far more egregious brutality endemic to our adversaries’ regimes, while viewing American power at best with suspicion and often with outright hostility.

Instead, the progressive approach hopes to convince other kinds of regimes of the need to improve on human rights, and it prioritizes efforts to build better relationships through cooperation on shared challenges as a means of bolstering these attempts at persuasion. To the extent that liberals did and progressives do advocate a more robust use of American power to advance human rights, they tend to prefer applying such pressure to allies rather than adversaries. A good example: Jimmy Carter harassed the Somoza regime in Nicaragua but not the far more repressive Castro regime in Cuba.

In contrast, the conservative human-rights policy developed by President Ronald Reagan emphasizes both the importance of geopolitical balances of power and the indispensable role American power plays in advancing fundamental rights. While working on individual cases of human-rights abuses is seen as necessary, as is chiding and pressuring U.S. allies that commit abuses, the conservative approach understands that any progress made on human rights through individual interventions will have only a limited overall impact in a world where the global balance of power tilts toward repressive and tyrannical regimes. In Reagan’s case that regime was the Soviet Union. Today the United States confronts an axis of revisionist autocracies that includes China, Russia, and Iran, supported by allies such as North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. A conservative human-rights policy views great-power competition as the decisive theater, recognizing that success there is a prerequisite to advancing freedom on a wide scale.

The difference in results between the two approaches is staggering. While the full fruits of Reagan’s conservative human-rights policy were sometimes not realized until the subsequent administration, the global state of human rights he left behind was by any measure far better than the one Biden is likely to leave his successor and the ones Carter and Obama left theirs. When Reagan left office, he had all but won the decisive theater, and the Soviet Union’s ensuing collapse would allow entire societies to realize basic freedoms long denied under communist repression. Beyond Eastern Europe, countries as varied as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Uruguay, South Africa, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan saw dramatic transformations in the rights afforded their citizens in the Reagan years or soon thereafter. Understanding why is critical to articulating a human-rights policy for today that can achieve meaningful progress.

President Biden came into office vowing to uphold “universal rights” and “promote accountability for governments that abuse human rights.” From the start, he highlighted specific violations that he intended to address, including the Saudi Arabian government’s killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, China’s horrific abuses of the Uyghur people, Tibetans, and other minorities, and the detention in Russia of political prisoners such as Alexei Navalny, who later died in custody.

Both as a candidate and as president, Biden also made the case that the future would be defined by a clash between democracy and autocracy. Such a framing seemed initially at odds with the liberal or progressive hesitation to conflate human rights with great-power competition, exemplified by Carter’s dismissal of the “inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear.” Biden’s democracy-versus-autocracy distinction was in practice less stark, however, as his National Security Strategy made clear that the United States would “not seek conflict or a new Cold War” and would “avoid the temptation to see the world solely through the prism of strategic competition.”

Instead, like his liberal predecessors, Biden significantly overvalued “good example” efforts to persuade America’s great-power adversaries, often through attempts to cooperate on supposed shared challenges, to change the repressive nature of their regimes. Carter had fully embraced détente and emphasized finding ways to work with the Soviets. He made clear he had no intention of “singling out the Soviet Union for abuse or criticism” or injecting himself into its internal affairs, instead relying on the power of democracy’s example to convince communist skeptics. Similarly, Biden argued that “democracies and autocracies are engaged in a contest to show which system of governance can best deliver for their people and the world.” The problem with this approach is that it incorrectly assumes America’s revisionist adversaries are merely misguided and open to being shown the error of their ways, rather than recognizing that these regimes are “evil empires” and must be countered and confronted with American power.

While Biden’s National Ssecurity Strategy rightly recognized that China “harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit,” it nevertheless naïvely claimed that it was “possible for the United States and the PRC to coexist peacefully” and “share in and contribute to human progress together.” Throughout Biden’s presidency, his administration consistently showed that it prioritized cooperating on “shared priorities,” particularly the central progressive issue of climate change, over putting meaningful pressure on China over its horrific human-rights record and expansionist threats and aggression. Notably, this included working overtime in a failed attempt to block passage of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which required the Biden administration to take more-robust enforcement actions to prevent goods made by Uyghur forced labor from being imported into the United States. Such intransigence was hardly consistent with Biden’s prior pledge to hold China accountable for perpetrating a genocide against the Uyghurs.

Biden also revived President Obama’s approach of treating hostile regimes such as Cuba and Iran as favored negotiating partners without securing in return even the slightest improvements in their human-rights conditions. Rather than being excoriated for their vicious human-rights abuses, these two regimes were given U.S. apologies for our imagined sins and let off the hook for their real ones. The people of those nations, whose struggles for freedom and against violent repression deserved full American support, instead watched as deals were struck that brought cash and recognition to their oppressors. As part of the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, President Obama sent $400 million in cash to Iran and lifted sanctions to allow the regime to access amounts estimated at a minimum of $50 billion and perhaps two or three times that. Similarly, through a sanctions waiver, the Biden administration allowed Iran to repatriate $10 billion in funds previously frozen in accounts overseas; it unfroze $6 billion more for the release of U.S. hostages. Just as President Obama failed to support the Iranian people’s uprising in 2009, the Biden administration in 2022 and 2023 failed to assist Iranians protesting the presumed murder of Mahsa Amini in police custody. Instead, the Biden years have witnessed a consistent failure to enforce U.S. sanctions, a steady rise in Iranian oil exports and oil revenues, and multiple attacks on Israel by Iranian-backed terrorists and the Iranian military itself.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Biden decreased pressure on Nicolás Maduro and his thugs by partially lifting U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil, in exchange for highly dubious promises of free and fair elections, which Maduro has since blatantly violated. And of course in Afghanistan, the state of human rights, particularly for women, is abysmally worse than when Biden entered office.

Even in his response to Russia’s brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, one of the rare cases in which Biden has taken action against an adversary, his efforts have been far too slow and far too limited. His administration has consistently failed to send weapons to Ukraine in a timely fashion, forcing it to endure a grinding war of attrition as the American public’s support erodes.

Trade-offs are always necessary in foreign policy, especially during a dangerous global competition with repressive and aggressive powers. Without a magic wand, human-rights problems will never be completely solved, and they are only one part of a larger geopolitical picture. Biden’s famous fist bump with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman left no doubt that Saudi Arabia’s value as a strategic partner was too great to subordinate to human-rights concerns — something already obvious when Biden painted himself into a corner with his foolish comment that he wanted to make Saudia Arabia a “pariah” over the Khashoggi assassination. The United States government is not an NGO dedicated to human rights, and balancing security, financial, commercial, and human-rights goals will always be complex.

But even in that context, the Biden administration’s record on tiny Tunisia is perhaps the best demonstration of its failed human-rights policy. Tunisia is the one country that was a democracy when Joe Biden came to office and has lost that freedom since. In Tunisia there were few or no counterbalancing U.S. interests, and the failure to protect democracy there reflects indifference or ineptitude — or both. Starting in 2021, President Kais Saied began gutting every other institution of government and concentrating all power in his own hands. He dissolved the parliament and imposed a new electoral law and constitution in a slow-motion coup. The Biden administration watched but did nothing — or at least nothing even slightly effective.

Like Carter and Obama, Biden looks certain to bequeath his successor a global condition of human rights and freedom worse than the one that prevailed when he took office. This does not mean that Biden has no successes to highlight — securing the recent releases of political prisoners including Evan Gershkovich and Vladimir Kara-Murza, for instance, was a notable achievement. But when taken in totality, individual interventions are nowhere near enough to counterbalance the increased threats accompanying the growing power of America’s autocratic adversaries. Not only is repression worsening in Iran, China, Venezuela, and Russia, but those countries are ever more tightly bound in their assault on the United States and our democratic partners and allies — from the Philippines and Taiwan to Israel and Ukraine.

The state of human rights around the globe that President Reagan inherited was pitiful. In 1979 alone, a Cuban- and Soviet-aligned Marxist group had taken over Nicaragua and begun subverting its neighbors, the Soviets had seized Afghanistan, another petty Marxist had seized power in Grenada, and the shah had fallen to an Islamist regime in Iran that began immediately to crush the people’s hopes for freedom.

When Reagan entered the White House, he was under no illusions that there could be “peaceful coexistence” with the great-power adversary he faced. As spelled out in a 1981 State Department memo written by one of us, human rights — specifically, fundamental political freedoms — were at the heart of the Cold War conflict. The primary dividing line between the American and Soviet visions for the world was defined by those countries’ “attitudes toward freedom,” and it was the Soviet Union that was “the major threat to liberty in the world.” The Reagan administration recognized that human rights had to be central to America’s fight against the Soviets, but also that the U.S. needed to go beyond addressing individual cases and making speeches. As the introduction to the State Department’s 1981 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices stated, the goal should be not to settle for a handful of small wins such as freeing a political prisoner here or there, important as each case was on its own, but “to encourage conditions in which new political prisoners are not taken” and “to assist in the gradual emergence of free political systems” in which human rights would be respected.

Reagan recognized that such an ambitious human-rights agenda had to be backed by power. The Soviets were never going to be persuaded of freedom’s merits by flowery rhetoric or well-crafted arguments. It was after all a competition between great powers with irreconcilable visions for the world, and it required power to ensure that the side favoring human rights and freedom came out on top. Despite the horrified palpitations of his critics in the human-rights establishment, Reagan understood that this included the need for a stronger American military. Far from hindering human rights, U.S. military power was necessary for adversary and ally alike to take America’s prioritization of the issue seriously.

Reagan also realized the importance of projecting power through robust information and political warfare, both to provide meaningful psychological support to citizens inside communist regimes and to exacerbate those regimes’ internal instabilities. As political scientist Hal Brands points out, Reagan believed that America should “make common cause with those trying to change the system from within” and that it was “time to remind ourselves and others of the difference in culture, in morals, and in the levels of civilization between the free world and the communist ant heap.” Through the use of tools such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, and aided by covert operations inside countries such as Poland to distribute necessary broadcast and communications technology, the Reagan administration made sure that people behind the Iron Curtain were exposed once again to goals of rights and freedom, fully aware of the horrific crimes and failings of the Soviet leaders around the globe, and able to organize themselves to drive change from within. These tactics helped America eventually achieve the Reagan human-rights agenda’s ultimate objective — that, as Reagan put it, “freedom and democracy” would “leave Marxism and Leninism on the ash heap of history.”

Over the course of his eight years in office, Reagan developed a balance between keeping maximum pressure on the primary threat to freedom, the Soviet Union, and finding opportunities to end military dictatorships in allied countries and ensure that democratic governments successfully replaced them. Owing in part to the influence of his secretary of state, George Shultz, he realized that it was possible through steady, thoughtful campaigns to move bad regimes to reform or even to replace them with genuine democracies. Sometimes this meant having to be content with slow, incremental progress over time, because replacing a bad regime with a worse one would only harm the human-rights cause. Other times, however, when a legitimately better democratic option did emerge, the administration took action to support it, and over the course of a decade numerous military dictatorships were indeed replaced by democratic governments affording greater freedoms to their citizens. Thus Reagan pressured the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and South Korea’s Chun Doo-hwan to permit free elections and then step down — but South Korea’s election came only in 1987 and Chile’s plebiscite in 1988, because Reagan moved slowly and carefully to ensure that friendly dictators would be followed by friendly democrats rather than chaos.

Reagan’s successful pivot away from Carter’s failed human-rights policy provides three key lessons for a post-Biden course correction next year.

First, the United States must concentrate its energies on the decisive theater — the great-power competition with the aforementioned axis of revisionist autocracies. A world dominated by a combination of the Chinese Communist Party, Russia’s aggressive, brutal kleptocracy, and Iran with its genocidal terrorist proxies will have no room for freedom. Human-rights policy will be a forlorn hope in such a situation.

The single most important way to advance human rights today is to ensure that the United States wins this fight. This requires treating the revisionist adversaries not as problems to be managed, and certainly not as autocracies and potential partners to woo, but as adversaries that need to be countered and confronted. A conservative human-rights policy will take every opportunity to put these regimes on the back foot — including by issuing individual sanctions and visa bans on regime officials and their families, using international forums to constantly spotlight their abuses and repression, banning imports tied to human-rights abuses such as forced labor, and seizing regime assets to compensate victims.

Second, we must take a careful, nuanced approach toward allies and partners that are not democracies and do not seek to be. We should look for opportunities to push the status quo autocracies, including our allies, toward more respect for basic human rights. This means keeping them as allies — as we learned from Carter’s mistakes, it is critical that we keep these countries in our orbit. They are far less likely to reform if they fall under the influence of China or Russia. We should also be aware that political change does not automatically mean a better outcome for their citizens.

Such an approach requires a careful assessment of what progress is genuinely possible. Where fundamental change is not possible, we should look for opportunities for incremental progress — increased religious freedom, for example, or free elections at municipal levels even when the national government is not elected. We should try to measure the legitimacy of these governments and political systems, which may be monarchies. Where a government is legitimate in the eyes of its own people, we should promote our ideals with careful attention to those of a populace that may have different priorities or values.

We should also speak about human rights with greater candor. We should not say human rights are improving in a country if they are not, but should instead express our disapproval of serious abuses while admitting that we need to maintain the partnership for other reasons. Human-rights policy, we should remember, has several goals: to express our own ideals, to advance the cause of freedom globally, and to make actual progress in specific countries in the real world. Balancing those goals and choosing the right tools to advance them is what makes human-rights policy difficult — and has often made it fail.

Third, a successful human-rights policy depends not only on our principles but also on our power. Nothing will undermine the cause of freedom more than a weakening of the United States. In a world where the likes of Russia and China are thought to be gaining in power while the United States appears to decline, respect for human rights will plummet and tyranny will expand. As in Reagan’s time, our ability to advance human rights globally is connected to the size and strength of our military and its ability to project power. American weakness invites aggression, and as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Iran’s October 7, 2023, proxy attack on Israel have shown, our adversaries’ aggression inevitably involves horrific human-rights abuses.

A principled application of power also requires a willingness to make trouble, particularly inside our adversaries’ regimes. We must effectively and relentlessly utilize information warfare to highlight our adversaries’ corruption and repression. This should include getting information to citizens inside those regimes, which may involve using covert methods to distribute technology to help bypass censorship efforts. It also should involve efforts to harden opposition to autocratic regimes in nations being wooed by our adversaries.

Ultimately, a human-rights policy must include identifying and pressing on the fractures and instabilities in those adversarial regimes in order to blunt their expansionist ambitions. While the end state we should aim for is greater civil and political freedoms for their citizens, it has to be achieved finally by those people themselves, working to change the system from within. But where we see a population clamoring for freedom and believe that the regime is all that prevents it, as in Iran or Venezuela, we should support concrete efforts to replace autocracy with democracy.

In this new global power struggle, once again the attitudes toward human rights and freedom are the dividing line. The 1981 State Department human-rights memo is as true today as it was then:

Human rights is at the core of our foreign policy, because it is central to America’s conception of itself. This nation did not “develop.” It was created, with specific political purposes in mind. It is true that as much as America invented “human rights,” conceptions of liberty invented America. It follows that “human rights” isn’t something we add on to our foreign policy, but is its very purpose: the defense and promotion of liberty in the world.

Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition. Corban Teague is the director of the Human Rights & Freedom Program at the McCain Institute.

13. Disinformation Risk Threatening Global Economy – OpEd

Wow. Quite a critique. Is he correct?

Excerpts:

Effectively, U.S. policies aim at reducing imports and bolstering domestic production marked by the expansion of “Buy American” provisions. As new research shows, this has resulted in the “increasing cost of buying American.” Ordinary Americans pay the bill for their governments’ tariff and sanctions wars. And so may the Europeans soon. It is not a chance event that trade wars against China have gone hand in hand with high inflation in the West.

Before the trade wars of the Trump administration, China replaced the US as the engine of the world economy. Over the past decade, China has contributed 31% to global growth, more than three times the US share. In the next 5 years, China’s contribution could still prove greater than that of all G7 economies combined.

In the foreseeable future, the greatest threat to global recovery is not China, but the poisonous mix of protectionism, sanctions and geopolitics in the West. It relies neither on international law nor international consensus, but on brute force. Worse, now it threatens to undermine the rise of the Global South.

Disinformation Risk Threatening Global Economy – OpEd

September 30, 2024 0 Comments

By Dan Steinbock

eurasiareview.com · September 30, 2024

As China is fueling global growth prospects, the real risk haunting the international economy is protectionism, sanctions and geopolitics – increasingly disguised by disinformation in the West.

The ongoing year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. On September 21, 1949 Mao Zedong announced to the nation that “the Chinese people have stood up… Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation.” It was followed by a mass celebration in Tiananmen Square on October 1, which is celebrated in the mainland during the ongoing week.

In Washington, neoconservatives would like to reverse these 75 years of history, however. These efforts are likely to significantly accelerate after the US election. The first signs – disinformation wars setting the stage to economic instability and geopolitical turmoil – are intensifying.

Billions of dollars into propaganda

In 2023, international pundits first declared Chinese economy a global inflation threat, then a global deflation threat. And when these trajectories proved flawed, China was declared collapsed, oddly amid its recovery.

More recently, early in September, the international news agency Bloomberg predicted that “deflation stalking China since last year is now showing signs of spiraling.” A week later, the agency’s China editor Philip Glamann warned that “worries about falling prices and the threat they pose to the world’s second biggest economy are reaching a crescendo.” The essay featured a photo of a gray Shanghai with just two people; a bit like Newsweek’s fake report over a year ago that claimed Shanghai had collapsed.

Intended or not, such reports distort economic realities by amplifying the risks of the Chinese economy beyond recognition. On Friday, ironically, China stocks closed out their best week since 2008 as the country’s central bank cut its reserve requirement for banks as part of the stimulus measures announced to boost property and financial markets.

Chinese economic challenges are real but manageable. It is the billions of dollars wasted in disinformation and hundreds of billions of dollars misused in efforts at military interventions in the United States that now pose a real and tangible threat to the global economy.

In early summer, Reuters found that, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the US military had launched a secret campaign to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation in the Philippines and several other countries in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. But Pentagon’s military psy-ops are just a part of the huge influence machine.

In early September, the U.S. House passed a bipartisan $1.6 billion for the State Department and USAID over the next five years, to deliver anti-China propaganda globally. That massive spend is about twice the annual operating expenditure of CNN – all of which will be used for the sole purpose of lies about China.

Genocidal “China collapse” ideologues

The ultimate goal seems to be to destabilize the Chinese economy. The most consistent oracle of the “China collapse” theory has been Gordon Chang, the darling of Washington and Fox News, who – strangely enough – has repeated his thesis since 2001. In a recent Fox interview with Maria Bartiromo, he declared – surprise, surprise – that “China is falling apart.”

Chang serves in the Gatestone Institute, notorious for its Islamophobic disinformation campaigns and far-right policies. It is funded by Rebecca Mercer of the Mercer billionaire dynasty that in 2016 financed the Brexit campaigns in the UK and Trump’s campaigns in the US. The ensuing trade policies led to aggressive protectionism and geopolitics that have fostered the worst geoeconomic fragmentation since the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and stagflation in the 1970s.

At Gatestone, Chang has pushed the idea that Taiwan should launch a missile attack on the Three Gorges Dam and drown the downstream population, to signal that they are “prepared to take Chinese lives in the hundreds of millions.”

It is not a chance event the escalation is taking place now. China has a central role in the rise of the Global South that seeks peace and development, not friction and war. If China is destabilized, the rise of the Global South will take a severe hit.

China’s rise driving the Global South

After centuries of colonialism and half a century of Cold War, the economic gap between the countries of the West and the Global South only increased in the postwar era, due to the inherently unequal exchange. What has changed this equation over the past two decades is the rise of China.

In 1949, China accounted barely 4% of the global economy. Following the reform and opening-up policies, the figure has almost quintupled to 19% of the world GDP today. The implications are world-historical.

Until the 1990s, the developing world was dependent mainly on the West. By 2007, the large emerging economies, spearheaded by China, fueled global growth, while the West began to stagnate. In the process, the growth impact of China on low- and middle-income economies has soared.

These trends have dramatically accelerated Chinese investment abroad since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, the rise of the new complementary development institutions like Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB), thereby boosting modernization in many emerging and developing economies.

In this way, China is pulling along many of the world’s middle- and smaller-size economies in its train. However, today this great project is threatened.

The real global risks

Through much of the ongoing year, trade has driven China’s economic growth fueling the rebound of the Caixin manufacturing PMI. Unsurprisingly, the two fastest-growing export categories – electronics and electric vehicles – have been targeted by Washington and Brussels. Yet, the net effect has been curious. The Chinese automaker BYD’s lowest-priced model in the U.S. would still be the cheapest in the market, even with a 100% tariff.

In the second quarter of the year, Western governments blacklisted a record 198 Chinese entities. Looking ahead, as research group Rhodium cautions, “sanctions are likely to remain a key risk for global investors as scrutiny of Chinese companies expands into new areas.”

Effectively, U.S. policies aim at reducing imports and bolstering domestic production marked by the expansion of “Buy American” provisions. As new research shows, this has resulted in the “increasing cost of buying American.” Ordinary Americans pay the bill for their governments’ tariff and sanctions wars. And so may the Europeans soon. It is not a chance event that trade wars against China have gone hand in hand with high inflation in the West.

Before the trade wars of the Trump administration, China replaced the US as the engine of the world economy. Over the past decade, China has contributed 31% to global growth, more than three times the US share. In the next 5 years, China’s contribution could still prove greater than that of all G7 economies combined.

In the foreseeable future, the greatest threat to global recovery is not China, but the poisonous mix of protectionism, sanctions and geopolitics in the West. It relies neither on international law nor international consensus, but on brute force. Worse, now it threatens to undermine the rise of the Global South.

Dan Steinbock

Dr Dan Steinbock is an recognized expert of the multipolar world. He focuses on international business, international relations, investment and risk among the leading advanced and large emerging economies. He is a Senior ASLA-Fulbright Scholar (New York University and Columbia Business School). Dr Dan Steinbock is an internationally recognized expert of the multipolar world. He focuses on international business, international relations, investment and risk among the major advanced economies (G7) and large emerging economies (BRICS and beyond). Altogether, he monitors 40 major world economies and 12 strategic nations. In addition to his advisory activities, he is affiliated with India China and America Institute (USA), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and EU Center (Singapore). As a Fulbright scholar, he also cooperates with NYU, Columbia University and Harvard Business School. He has consulted for international organizations, government agencies, financial institutions, MNCs, industry associations, chambers of commerce, and NGOs. He serves on media advisory boards (Fortune, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, McKinsey).

eurasiareview.com · September 30, 2024

14. What the West Gets Wrong About the Global South

Excerpts:

It is the function of institutions like GLOBSEC and the Milken Institute, which annually convenes international investors worth nearly $30 trillion, to provide the platforms where leading thinkers from all regions can chart a new course for the future. If the message that global threats need truly global solutions hits home to those who gathered in Prague, it is clear that constructive engagement between the Global South and West to address humanity’s most pressing challenges is not simply a “nice-to-have” but a necessity.

What the West Gets Wrong About the Global South

The West should recognize that in the new economic reality, it can no longer take the Global South for granted.

The National Interest · by Simon Radford · September 30, 2024

The first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, proclaimed after his country’s independence, “We face neither East nor West: we face forward.” The recent GLOBSEC Forum in Prague brought together a star-studded lineup of the Western political and military establishment. The conference welcomed presidents and prime ministers, military leaders, and heads of major development banks to discuss issues ranging from artificial intelligence to climate change to pandemics to supply chains.

One panel, moderated by one of the authors and featuring insights from panelists from the Global South with a range of professional backgrounds, both echoed Nkrumah’s outlook and provided a central insight that Western leaders would be wise to heed. Only by moving beyond attitudes shaped by outdated, Cold War-era assumptions, the panelists argued, could the assembled leaders work together to craft lasting solutions to the challenges of our time.

The panel identified multiple challenges in how the “West”—a term that encompasses the United States, its European allies, and, in some cases, Japan, Australia, and South Korea—engages with the Global South. As Oby Ezekwesili, a former World Bank economist, pointed out, even the Cold War-era term “Global South” is problematic and fails to capture contemporary realities. A term such as “Global Majority” would more accurately reflect contemporary geopolitical realities since 88 percent of the world’s population now lives in these regions.

Another major challenge identified included the persistence of a perception of “us and them” between the West and the Global South. Harsh Pant of the Observer Research Foundation argued persuasively that, in order to engage better, the West should put itself in the shoes of these regions and recognize how contemporary geostrategic issues are experienced differently. The conflict in Ukraine, he argued, is one example of the West neglecting Southern perspectives. Western governments view the conflict through the lens of sovereignty, but in the Global South, it is viewed through its impacts on energy and food prices and sovereign debt. Some Western politicians have belatedly recognized this, with former British foreign minister James Cleverly identifying that the West needs to “listen better to the Global South” and demonstrate that it is “committed to helping the developing world deal with their pre-existing challenges.”

The West should also recognize that in the context of new economic realities, it can no longer take these regions for granted. Trade flows between countries in the Global South are now greater than those between the West and the South. The economic rise of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has been accompanied by alternative perspectives, breaking the monopolization of Western narratives on international issues. Increasingly, countries of the Global South are not reliant on Western know-how or capital. Notably, China has become Africa’s largest trading partner, with trade increasing from $2.7 billion in 1990 to $209 billion in 2022, while in the security sphere, African forces have been central to peacekeeping solutions on the continent, as former Chief of Kenya Defense Forces General Robert Kibochi made clear at the panel.

In spite of the growth in local solutions to a greater range of issues, our panel did underline that shared challenges provide a golden opportunity for renewed engagement by the West to serve mutual interests: addressing global challenges will require robust West-South cooperation.

The Global South has already become a key player in the “green industrial revolution,” providing critical minerals needed for battery manufacturing. A recent report from the Milken Institute highlights how “nearshoring” has strengthened U.S.-Mexico trade in critical sectors such as semiconductors. This boosted economic security in the West while developing Mexico’s fledgling industries, for which Western capital has been instrumental. Reflecting this trend, U.S. imports from Mexico surpassed those from China in early 2023. This shows how both sides can obtain “win-win” outcomes through greater engagement in shared interests.

In technology, the West can help widen access to AI opportunities by channeling its capital to develop new clusters in the Global South, reduce “tech nationalism,” and provide greater access to intellectual property. But this is not just a one-way street. India and Brazil, for example, have developed significant tech clusters with globally scalable solutions, demonstrating how future engagement should be undertaken from a more equitable partnership than historically.

In public health, COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of West-South cooperation in international pandemic surveillance, but also the inequality of access to vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics. As Obiageli Ezekwesili noted, the West prioritized vaccinating its own populations before the rest of the world. Furthermore, access to the most effective vaccines was restricted in the Global South. COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic, and as the Mpox emergency shows, early and equitable access to vaccines is vital to preventing this contagious disease from transitioning into a deadly and disruptive pandemic.

And in climate change—the greatest global challenge we face—there are significant opportunities for enhanced cooperation. Harsh Pant identified how the “adversarial approach” between the developed and developing world to addressing shared climate challenges is increasingly giving way to a more engagement-focused approach. The Milken Institute’s work on financing the climate transition has provided a roadmap for the changes needed to entice more capital to projects in the Global South. Western governments, multilateral development banks, and investors need to engage more proactively in these regions to turn this enabling work into firm commitments and practical action.

It is the function of institutions like GLOBSEC and the Milken Institute, which annually convenes international investors worth nearly $30 trillion, to provide the platforms where leading thinkers from all regions can chart a new course for the future. If the message that global threats need truly global solutions hits home to those who gathered in Prague, it is clear that constructive engagement between the Global South and West to address humanity’s most pressing challenges is not simply a “nice-to-have” but a necessity.

Dr. Simon Radford is the Director for Policy and Programming for the Milken Institute in Europe.

Aidan Irwin-Singer is an Associate Director at the Milken Institute.

Marie-Magdalena Bradova is an intern at the Milken Institute.

Image: Mahi.Freefly / Shutterstock.com.

The National Interest · by Simon Radford · September 30, 2024

15. World War II turned modest librarians into vital spies

Although I am associated with the OSS Society (board of directors) I am still amazed at the myriad contributions the OSS made. And one lesson to learn was that their work was much more than the cloak and dagger "special operator" type of action that is most often portrayed. There were so many elements of that OSS that had unusual people making significant contributions to the war effort and US national security. In addition to out fighting our enemies we need to outthink them. The key lesson here is that successful operations require understanding, deep understanding.

This is why I am a supporter of Dr. Frank Hoffman’s idea that we need a new principle of war called understanding. Although that seems like a no-brainer – as far back as Sun Tzu we have been told that we must know our enemies and know ourselves to be victorious. We all know we need to understand war and warfare, the conditions that give rise to conflict, and the politics that lead to and end conflict. Yet even though the need for understanding is so obvious that we think we do not need to even mention it, it is surprising how so many of our failures can be traced to our lack of understanding. SOF, through its various assessment capabilities and engagement with indigenous populations can make a key contribution to understanding.

We need to ensure we have the intellectual foundation for all our operations especially in the realm of irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. We can learn so much from our OSS heritage.

World War II turned modest librarians into vital spies

“Book and Dagger,” by Elyse Graham, is a briskly paced account of the scholars who became intelligence pioneers in the Office of Strategic Services.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/09/30/book-dagger-scholars-librarians-spies-world-war-ii-elyse-graham-review/?utm

7 min

(Ecco)

Review by Bryn Stole

September 30, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. EDT

In the summer of 1941, as it became increasingly clear that the United States would end up embroiled in the war that was then consuming large parts of three continents, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped William J. Donovan — a well-known lawyer, decorated World War I veteran and occasional politician — to spin up a spy service. What Donovan created eventually became, like “Wild Bill” himself, a swaggering legend: the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

Donovan had to maneuver around J. Edgar Hoover, who thought that the tabloid-darling G-men of his FBI should take on the job. He then turned, in part, to a rogue’s gallery of adventurers, outlandish characters and even Hollywood actors to stock his upstart agency.

It might seem unlikely that the OSS also went combing through the musty stacks of university libraries and roving the rustic campuses of liberal arts colleges to assemble thousands of nearsighted librarians and eccentric, tweedy scholars. These recruits were prized not for their swashbuckling style or courage (though some had both) but for their expertise on obscure topics, fluency in foreign languages and ability to power through piles of dry reading material to synthesize brief, clear-eyed reports.

The popular imagination about spies might teem with knife-wielding agents dropped behind Nazi lines after nightfall, or James Bond types flitting through foreign plazas in natty outfits with concealed pockets stuffed with gadgets, but Elyse Graham spotlights the more bookish variety in “Book and Dagger.”

Following Books

Following

Graham is right to stress that archivists, number-crunchers and humanities professors holed up in mostly drab offices made some of America’s most innovative contributions to the secret war against Hitler. “The world’s least glamorous people,” as she puts it, “for the world’s most glamorous profession.”

“At the start of the war, America had only one standing army of experts who were trained to dig relentlessly for hidden information,” Graham writes. “These were the humble drudges in the nation’s universities who hunted in the stacks for forgotten histories and weaseled their way into closed archives and scoured old correspondence for gossip.”

Among Graham’s star characters is Sherman Kent, an earnest and surprisingly foul-mouthed Yale historian who Donovan tapped to leave New Haven for Washington, where he helped to oversee the Research and Analysis division of the OSS. Kent’s team churned out a remarkable string of reports and estimates on German supplies, casualties and industrial capacity, its methods breaking new ground in intelligence work.

Graham details one particularly brilliant effort to track down the serial numbers stamped on destroyed German tanks across North Africa, allowing the United States to estimate weapons production with remarkable accuracy — and to deduce that only a handful of German-controlled factories were producing certain essential parts. That work shaped — and helped to create — the field of intelligence analysis, and Kent later wrote the literal book on it before going on to a distinguished career at the eventual successor of the OSS, the CIA.

Graham also tails Joseph Curtiss, Kent’s colleague at Yale, an unassuming literary scholar who found himself rendezvousing at a Baltimore train station in 1942 with a man identified only by the red carnation tucked into his lapel, and then being bundled off to a top-secret training camp in the hills of western Maryland. Curtiss ended up in Istanbul collecting rare books from the city’s shops and bazaars, while secretly running OSS counterespionage operations as Agent 005.

Elyse Graham, author of “Book and Dagger.” (Becca Farsace)

The details of the world Graham recounts in “Book and Dagger” seem drawn from fiction, something she points out is hardly a coincidence. Starting nearly from scratch (the United States shut down most of its spy operations after World War I), the trailblazers who built the OSS took inspiration from spy novels in addition to Britain’s MI6, since many of them, “having no intelligence experience, had only stories about spies to guide their earliest forays into spycraft.”

Graham’s account is well-researched and scrupulously footnoted, but she also writes with a pulpy panache that turns the book into a well-paced thriller. In clearly identified passages throughout the book, she even tries her hand as a pulp novelist herself, imagining whole scenes that are missing from the historical record.

She fills in one moment, for example, after Curtiss was ordered to assassinate a double agent working for the Nazis. It’s unclear whether Curtiss carried out the mission, much less how he could have, but Graham asks the reader to picture the possible evening as the OSS spy walks along a dark street in Istanbul:

“Trying to block out the noise and tumult, you drop your gaze to the ground: the yellow light from the streetlamps gleams off the cobblestones, shattered by strutting or sauntering or staggering feet. Suddenly, your assistant nudges you. You look up and see your target. […] You have a dagger in your pocket, with the handle loosely clasped in your hand — loosely because you’re afraid your sweaty palm will make the handle slick.”

Such flair keeps “Book and Dagger” briskly moving, though that same strategy can feel strained at times.

At one point, Graham imagines Adele Kibre, a University of Chicago-trained classicist who ended up posted to neutral Sweden, trying to lure in a potential source at a Stockholm soiree by letting herself be overheard speaking in her Los Angeles accent.

The “dark-haired, wicked-eyed” Kibre, who spent the prewar years traipsing through archives across Europe, is a clear hero to Graham. The book stresses the many women, too often overlooked in popular history, who played key roles in the wartime OSS.

The book includes retellings of some spy-world greatest hits, including fake armies roaming the English countryside and a dead body dropped off the coast of fascist Spain with a briefcase stuffed with fake secret documents, both deployed to deceive the Germans about the plan to strike Normandy on D-Day.

Such tales will likely be very familiar to history buffs but are nonetheless well-told by Graham. That they don’t always have terribly much to do with her book’s central cast of bookworms and academics is indicative of her approach — she grazes and samples widely, with results that are generally tasty if slightly scattershot.

Graham does a worthy job of putting forgotten “library rats” back into “the story we tell ourselves about the war.” But in doing so she sometimes overcorrects. Her insistence that the war “may have been fought on battlefields, but it was won in libraries” adds a sense of high-stakes urgency to her account, but it’s at odds with the conclusions of many other historians, as well as more than a few OSS veterans.

She clearly loves her scholarly spies, but can it really be true that “in the hands of those trained to use it, paper was a weapon, humble and unsuspected, that would help to tear down all the world-spanning dreams of the Reich”? The analysis at OSS was certainly revolutionary to the intelligence field, but such intelligence — and from the OSS in particular — played only a supporting role in the war effort. It was soldiers on the ground who had to fight the bloody battles all the way to Berlin.

Bryn Stole is a journalist in Berlin.

Book and Dagger

How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

By Elyse Graham

Ecco. 376 pp. $30

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16. Former commander of SEAL training to face board of inquiry over candidate’s death

Former commander of SEAL training to face board of inquiry over candidate’s death

Navy Capt. Bradley Geary will face a board of inquiry on Nov. 11 in connection with the Feb. 4, 2022 death of a SEAL candidate after Hell Week.

Jeff Schogol

Posted on Sep 30, 2024 4:03 PM EDT

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol

Navy Capt. Bradley Geary, who oversaw the infamously grueling training school for Navy SEALs, will face a board of inquiry on Nov. 11 for the death of a recruit following the Hell Week portion of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, or BUD/S, his attorney said.

Geary led the Naval Special Warfare Center’s Basic Training Command at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in San Diego, California, which directly oversees BUD/S, when SEAL candidate Kyle Mullen died of pneumonia on Feb. 4, 2022 within hours of finishing Hell Week. The Navy officer is accused of failing to properly supervise medical personnel, leading to Mullen’s grievous bodily injury or death.

The board of inquiry will determine whether Geary committed any misconduct and recommend whether to retain or separate him through an administrative discharge. The Ice Man Substack by Seth Hettena first reported that a date for Geary’s board of inquiry had been set.

A Naval Education and Training Command investigation later determined that Mullen died of pneumonia and that even though human growth hormone and other medication were found in Mullen’s car, he had “died in the line of duty, and not due to his own misconduct.”

An Oct. 12, 2022 Navy news release also said that “Performance Enhancing Drugs were not a contributing cause of Mullen’s death.”

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But Jason Wareham, Geary’s attorney, claimed he has evidence showing that someone in the Navy secretary’s office ordered that the wording of the Navy’s October 2022 news release be changed to rule out performance enhancing drugs as a causal factor in Mullen’s death.

Wareham has submitted a request to have Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin oversee Geary’s board of inquiry. In the request, he argues that Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has already determined that performance enhancing drugs did not contribute to Mullen’s death.

“How can he make a fair determination, having pre-judged that issue, when that is going to be central to our defense?” Wareham told Task & Purpose. “It’s basically like the judge determining the cause of death at a murder trial, before we’ve raised any evidence.”

Navy investigators who looked into Mullen’s death found text messages on his phone about using performance enhancing drugs, such as one in which he said his buttocks became swollen following the injection of a bad vial of such drugs, according to the Naval Education and Training Command investigation.

However, Mullen’s mother Regina said that both a Navy coroner and a medical examiner who conducted a separate autopsy of her son found that Mullen died of bacterial pneumonia.

“Steroids do not cause bacterial pneumonia,” Regina Mullen told Task & Purpose on Monday.

On the morning her son died, he was twice given oxygen and had crackling lungs, a tell-tale sign of pneumonia, said Regina Mullen, a registered nurse.

At that point, he should have been intubated and given antibiotics, Regina Mullen said. She noted that three other SEAL candidates in her son’s class were treated for pneumonia, one of whom was intubated.

“There’s never in the history of medicine been a case that steroids caused four kids to have bacterial pneumonia, because it wasn’t just my son, it was three others,” she said.

Regina Mullen said she spoke to her son on the day of his death. It was clear that he was struggling to breathe. She also said that her son told her prior to his death that the SEAL candidates were being denied medical care to force them to quit BUD/S.

“My son refused to quit,” Regina Mullen said. “He didn’t want to be deemed a quitter. So, he just figured he’d get better. They say he denied medical care: He did not. He refused to quit to get medical care. And when you’re that low on oxygen, you are not mentally fit. They expect him to be a doctor now. He doesn’t know how sick he is. He doesn’t know what that means. He thinks he’s going to get better. That’s what your medical team is for — that’s the support. So, what are they doing? They’re making a kid diagnose himself. Think about that.”

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Jeff Schogol

Senior Pentagon Reporter

Jeff Schogol is a senior staff writer for Task & Purpose. He reports on both the Defense Department as a whole as well as individual services, covering a variety of topics that include personnel, policy, military justice, deployments, and technology. His apartment in Alexandria, Va., has served as the Task & Purpose Pentagon bureau since the pandemic first struck in March 2020. The dwelling is now known as Forward Operating Base Schogol.

17. The State Department Reform Commission: A Once in A Generation Opportunity to Reform American Diplomacy

Excerpts:

Despite institutional weaknesses, diplomacy does often succeed, including in the most high-stakes situations imaginable. Wars are averted, despots are defanged, and human rights champions are empowered. Diplomacy remains an essential tool for U.S. national security, and its officials possess deep knowledge, experience, and relationships.

Yet, all of the State Department’s extraordinary human capital somehow seems to add up to less than the sum of its parts. This shortfall weakens the quality of US foreign policy, and increases the risk of catastrophic mistakes during this fragile geopolitical era we have entered.

The next president – not to mention the American people and all of those affected by U.S. foreign policy – will require a State Department that can effectively carry out its vision. The Commission to Reform and Modernize the State Department has a historic opportunity to build something better. Let’s make sure to get it right.

The State Department Reform Commission: A Once in A Generation Opportunity to Reform American Diplomacy

justsecurity.org · by Dan Spokojny · September 30, 2024

September 30, 2024

The complexities of an international order under strain, rising competition among major powers, creeping authoritarianism, and the head-spinning pace of technological change – American foreign policy faces significant challenges in the decades ahead. But none of these challenges can be met without an institution capable of implementing U.S. foreign policy effectively.

Unfortunately, few believe the U.S. State Department – ostensibly the lead institution of U.S. foreign policy – is performing up to expectations. Be they career diplomats or outside observers, Democrats or Republicans, hawks or doves, everyone seemingly wants better from the Department.

Enter the Congressional Commission on Reform and Modernization of the Department of State. Authorized in 2023 and fully funded in 2024, the establishment of the Commission represents a rare bipartisan consensus: the State Department remains an essential asset for U.S. national security but needs revitalization.

Originally proposed by Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Ben Cardin (D-MD), the Commission will include 16 experts from both sides of the aisle to “examine the changing nature of diplomacy and the ways in which the Department can modernize to advance the interests of the United States.”

True reform and modernization require bold new ideas. Here are four questions the Commission needs to consider to set itself on a successful path.

What is the State Department’s primary role?

The Commission should begin its work by articulating a coherent vision of the State Department’s proper role in the U.S. national security apparatus. Should the Department of State assume the role of lead designer of U.S. foreign policy? Or should it defer strategic thinking to the National Security Council and others, and focus more on the execution of U.S. foreign policy?

Today’s State Department suffers from bureaucratic schizophrenia, split between these two identities, leader versus implementer. It does not train its staff to be grand strategists, nor does it prepare them to be technocratic project managers. It under-invests in training and developing the sort of Washington political acumen and close contact with Congress that effective high-level policymaking requires, but its ranks also chafe against political appointees in its midst who often fill that role.

A modernized State Department will need to walk and chew gum, so to speak, for maximum effectiveness. The Department must also be nimble in supporting different presidents with very different styles and demands. Nevertheless, the Commission would be wise to prioritize its work against a strong vision of the State Department’s appropriate role within the national security apparatus.

What legal authorities are necessary?

The Foreign Service Act of 1980 was the last major piece of legislation to affect the State Department. Some tweaks have been made since then, but the State Department’s legal authorities are fragmented and badly outdated.

As more and more agencies station representatives abroad – from Homeland Security to the Department of Agriculture – an ambassador’s “chief of mission authority” is becoming strained. Ambassadors are supposed to coordinate and direct all executive branch personnel (with narrow, defined exceptions) and every activity that happens in the country to which they were appointed, but their weak authority often makes it impossible for them to unify the disparate actors.

The power distribution between the State Department’s so-called regional bureaus responsible for bilateral relationships and the functional bureaus tasked with leading globalized issues such as human rights or climate change is another key question for the Commission. The regional bureaus currently hold the preponderance of authority at the Department, resulting in a prioritization of bilateral relations (e.g. relations with China) over cross-cutting challenges (e.g. global pandemic response).

Congress also legislates the structure and resources of the State Department. The steady growth in the size and number of bureaus and responsibilities at the Department reflects the Department’s importance in managing an increasingly complex world – but it can also lead to an inability to prioritize between competing mission requirements. Many agree that the accretion of layers of hierarchy in the bureaucracy slows and waters down the policymaking process at the Department. Some blame unfunded or underfunded mandates and budgetary inflexibility for neutering diplomacy’s effectiveness as an instrument of national security in the United States.

These questions about legal authorities may raise deeper questions about the platforms (embassies, technologies, etc.) that are necessary to support and advance the State Department’s mission in the 21st century.

What does effective decision-making require?

Writing in Foreign Policy in 1970, Richard Holbrooke memorably called the Department of State “the machine that fails.” More recently, before he assumed the job of Deputy National Security Advisor, Jon Finer and prominent coauthor Uzra Zeya, currently an Under Secretary of State, cited the State Department’s “lousy reputation for policy effectiveness.” They join a long line of officials stretching from the end of World War II until today whose experience in Foggy Bottom has convinced them of the Department’s glaring weaknesses.

Whereas the intelligence community has tradecraft, and the Department of Defense has doctrine, there is no comparable body of knowledge and practice for diplomacy. The methods that policymakers use today to craft and execute foreign policy are ad hoc and subjective; “the art of diplomacy,” it is called.

Techniques for analysis, strategy, and risk management have transformed the corporate world, in stark contrast to the policy process at the State Department, which is bureaucratic and risk-averse; “a bowl of jelly,” in the words of former President John F. Kennedy. Scholars have identified two key ingredients for building expertise: designing feedback mechanisms and facilitating opportunities for training and learning. Whereas diplomacy has been described as “the art of telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions,” when I feel most cynical, I suggest that American diplomacy is “the art of setting ambiguous goals and always claiming success.”

Improved decision-making processes at the State Department would not offer a magic wand to solve all the world’s problems. But by laying the foundation for a doctrine for diplomacy and codifying best-practices, Congress might improve the quality of U.S. diplomacy in a number of ways. Doctrine is vital for high-quality training; doctrine is, according to the Army, “the approved body of knowledge that is taught.” Doctrine for decision-making would also help harmonize the knowledge management, analysis, and strategy processes across the State Department’s many bureaus and offices, which are currently conducted in idiosyncratic and ad hoc ways. Ultimately, the guiding light for such doctrine would be to help the State Department more effectively advance its mission and achieve US foreign policy goals.

What workforce is required for 21st-century foreign policy?

An adage tells us that “personnel is policy.” Choices about hiring, recruiting, promotion, and job assignment procedures are some of the most important policy decisions the organization makes. The State Department requires a skilled and well-equipped workforce to effectively serve the country.

Yet today’s antiquated personnel system may not be up to the task. The State Department’s hiring system is an irrational tangle of job categories: Foreign Service, Civil Service, Schedule A, B, C, contractors, and more. Managers at the State Department complain about counterproductive constraints on hiring and firing, making it difficult to harmonize personnel with a rapidly evolving global landscape.

Once hired, employee evaluation and promotion procedures take up immense time and resources. Yet the process is widely criticized, seen as more of a creative writing competition than a sober examination of merit. Updating and rationalizing the Department’s myriad hiring mechanisms could be an important opportunity for reform.

Many believe that maintaining an experienced career diplomatic corps is vital to acculturating officials into apolitical, expert-driven service. At the same time, democracy relies on the ability of a country’s politicians to effectively control the unelected bureaucrats they were elected to lead. A plan initiated by former President Trump would make it easier to control executive agencies by reinstating Schedule F authority and making it easier to fire tenured civil servants (and thus easier to replace them with those who exhibit personal loyalty to the President). Defenders of career diplomacy have cried foul. The resulting politicized debate has overshadowed a gripe from presidents of both parties about their inability to control the State Department and the increasing reliance on political appointees and the National Security Council to advance presidential priorities. Invigorating careerists and bolstering responsible executive command ought not be opposing goals; the Commission might be positioned to identify a more productive path forward.

The stakes are high

Despite institutional weaknesses, diplomacy does often succeed, including in the most high-stakes situations imaginable. Wars are averted, despots are defanged, and human rights champions are empowered. Diplomacy remains an essential tool for U.S. national security, and its officials possess deep knowledge, experience, and relationships.

Yet, all of the State Department’s extraordinary human capital somehow seems to add up to less than the sum of its parts. This shortfall weakens the quality of US foreign policy, and increases the risk of catastrophic mistakes during this fragile geopolitical era we have entered.

The next president – not to mention the American people and all of those affected by U.S. foreign policy – will require a State Department that can effectively carry out its vision. The Commission to Reform and Modernize the State Department has a historic opportunity to build something better. Let’s make sure to get it right.

IMAGE: The U.S. Department of State is seen on January 6, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Dan Spokojny

Dan Spokojny is the founder and CEO of fp21, a think tank dedicated to transforming the processes and institutions of foreign policy.

justsecurity.org · by Dan Spokojny · September 30, 2024

18. The United Nations in Hindsight: Does the Security Council Matter?

Excerpts:

Non-U.N.-led efforts to keep the peace, such as the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)-led mission in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), today face serious difficulties. U.N. peacekeeping is imperfect, and sometimes the wrong tool. But there are decades of evidence in its support. Security Council members and the Secretariat —including the Secretary-General—would be well advised to keep U.N. peacekeeping capabilities well-oiled and forward-looking. Potential peacekeeping missions are being discussed in some quarters for some of the world’s most desperate situations, including Haiti, Sudan, Gaza, and Ukraine. Peacekeeping has been an adaptable and flexible tool, and a ministerial-level meeting in Berlin in May 2025 is expected to explore a wide range of models.

At this time of war, polarization, and desperation, one commentator after the next cites lines from W.B. Yeats’ The Second Coming, of 1919:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

Invoking this poem at every last crisis of the past century does not make it more true. Recently, I found a take I much prefer: that things fall apart if we let them.

Addressing the opening of the General Assembly last week, the Secretary General named impunity as the greatest driver of global unsustainability. Impunity, he said, is politically indefensible and morally intolerable. But it is not written in the cards that international law will fall apart, and that impunity will reign. Rather, peace and its parts, including respect for international law, are an ongoing project. Keeping the project alive depends on people the world over. Not letting things fall apart—valuable and hard-won things, such as accountability for violations of international law—is up to all of us.

The United Nations in Hindsight: Does the Security Council Matter?

justsecurity.org · by Karin Landgren · September 30, 2024

September 30, 2024

(Author’s note: Security Council Report is an independent think tank dedicated to supporting a more effective, transparent, and accountable U.N. Security Council. A version of this article will appear in Security Council Report’s October Monthly Forecast.)

The six years I’ve spent as Security Council Report’s (SCR’s) Executive Director have been eventful, and as my tenure draws to a close, I offer parting reflections on an overarching question animating our work: What impact can and does the Security Council have? Over the past six years, SCR has observed and documented the United Nations Security Council’s actions on dramatically changing situations including the COVID-19 pandemic, Ukraine, and Gaza, and on major policy shifts, such as the U.N. financing of African Union (AU) peace support operations. Day in and day out, SCR has interacted with Council members, other member States, regional bodies, the U.N. Secretariat, academia and civil society in order to produce impartial, nuanced and fact-checked reports on issues before the Security Council. I feel privileged to have held this position, in which I have learned a great deal.

The world has suffered gravely from the Security Council’s failure to have meaningful impact on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine – and in Sudan, Myanmar, and Yemen. Also in Afghanistan, where women are written out of public life and denied their human rights, and Haiti, where gangs rule.

These Council failures contribute to international law unraveling, normalizing violations and impunity for them, and further weakening the universality of norms. The political cost of atrocity crimes is now shockingly low–even for plausible cases of genocide. The U.N. Charter presupposed that the Council’s core members would stand up for its core values. Often, they have not.

In negotiations on Security Council products, references to international human rights law, international humanitarian law, the rights of women, and climate security routinely draw objections and may need to be deleted in order to secure agreement. In some of today’s conflicts, States are turning to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the face of Security Council inaction.

Does the Security Council matter if it can’t change behaviors on the ground?

In the past, it was able to do more. When East Timor flared into violence, in 1999, Council members pressed for a lawful and rights-respecting solution. Their action, including a visiting mission by five Council members to Jakarta and Dili, was persuasive.

Between 2009 and 2015, when I headed three U.N. peace operations, the Council stood unanimously behind the 16 relevant resolutions setting out the functions of those operations. With the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), the United Nations Office in Burundi (BNUB), and the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), we could point confidently to a unified Security Council position, interpret the Council’s intentions to the government, and meet with a supportive group of Council members represented locally. Years after the peace operations closed, these countries have not gone back to war.

Today, there is far less Security Council agreement signposting the political trajectory out of conflicts. In fact, countries in crisis now quickly attract involvement by States who see ways of leveraging that chaos – and those States often include Council members.

But I see areas where change for the better is within reach.

The first concerns the role of the ten elected Security Council members, who have greatly strengthened their collective identity (as the “E10”). They often lead the way in calling for respect for international law, the protection of human rights, and humanitarian access. They have worked hard to find common positions among sub-groups – such as the three African members (“A3,” lately joined twice by a member from the Latin American and Caribbean group), and cross-regional alliances, such as Ireland and Niger joining forces on a draft climate change resolution in 2021.

Elected members have found that they can apply pressure for issues to be discussed, and drive political momentum. Notably, more elected members have stepped up to draft Council products: in March 2024, resolution 2728 calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was attributed to all ten elected members, a first. With the 2021 Presidency Initiative on Women, Peace and Security, elected members pioneered monthly commitments, coordinated across successive presidencies, and drew in some permanent members. Elected members have subsequently initiated other pledges: Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland and the UAE on climate, peace, and security in 2023 that now has the support of 11 members, and just last month, a joint action on conflict prevention in support of A New Agenda for Peace launched by Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Switzerland.

The burgeoning leadership by elected members is recent, and responds to the permanent members’ disunity as well as their shortcomings as caretakers of the U.N. Charter. It represents real change. On Sept. 23, the ten elected and five incoming members met at ministerial level, underlining the space that this cohort now occupies—a meeting cohosted by the governments of Slovenia, Ecuador, and Kuwait and by Security Council Report.

Many elected members prepare extensively for their Council terms, years in advance, and staff up significantly, at times including personnel lent by other countries or regional bodies. SCR has supported the preparation of some fifty incoming elected members since 2012. But there are challenges. Being an active, effective Council member is hard work. Among the most frequently asked questions at the annual “Hitting the Ground Running” Workshop—which Finland has organized since 2003, in cooperation with SCR since 2020—is how to measure success as a Council member. Several member States have told SCR that their country’s Council terms could have had greater impact.

States could consider a careful review of how their region selects, and endorses, the country or countries that will compete for Council elected membership. (Every region does so differently, as explained in SCR’s annual research report on the Security Council elections.) They might also look at expanding and regularizing the ways partners, whether regional or bilateral, can provide practical support for countries joining the Council.

A second reflection concerns some Council members’ stiffened resistance to receiving independent, factual briefings and reports.

Nearly a quarter century ago, in the specific context of UN peace operations, Lakhdar Brahimi called for the U.N. Secretariat to tell the Council what it needs to know, not what it wants to hear. Doing so has become harder across the board. In 2023 and 2024, the Panels of Experts reporting on Mali and on the DPRK were shut down by Russian vetoes. Council members seeking to discuss particular conflict situations, even behind closed doors, have been intimidated and even seen their diplomatic personnel expelled by the country in question. Civil society representatives have also faced threats after briefing the Security Council. OHCHR, too, has encountered pressure and staff expulsions, such as in Mali. Robust reporting now requires fortitude. The truth is on the back foot.

The belief that good information can empower better decision-making is core to SCR’s work. And many issues on the Council’s agenda are complex and long-standing. Not all elected members know these situations well. Moreover, every year one-third of the Council’s members are new–and the group now makes far fewer visits to the field than it did before COVID-19.

SCR has described the Secretariat’s practice of candid situational briefings to Council members, which started in 2010. These largely ended in 2013, having become a Sisyphean task: as one senior Secretariat member reported in private, “Every time we do horizon-scanning, we get beaten up.” Elected members have periodically sought to revive a form of early warning briefings at a less formal level.

The Council should, at a minimum, seek and receive factual and impartial information on situations of concern to the Secretary-General, and on all situations already on its agenda. The weight is on the U.N. Secretariat to convey political and operational field realities, to produce sound, impartial analyses and recommendations for action, and to help protect Security Council briefers from harm.

A third reflection is on the possibilities offered by a great hinterland of underutilized elements in the U.N. Charter, in the Council’s working methods, and in the role of the Secretary-General. SCR has written extensively about this trove of options. They include the Charter’s Article 99 (invoked explicitly by the Secretary-General in December 2023 to warn the Council of an impending humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza); its Chapter VIII on regional arrangements (in the spirit of which the Council adopted resolution 2719, on U.N. financing of AU-led peace support operations); article 27(3) on abstention from voting, article 33 on first steps in the peaceful settlement of disputes, and article 34, on the Council’s right to investigate any situation or dispute that might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute, in particular. In its entire history, the Council has only once used article 96(1), which enables it to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ on any legal question. There is also article 94(2), allowing the Council to “make recommendations or decide” how to give effect to an ICJ judgment, if so asked by one of the parties to the dispute.

The General Assembly opting to play a stronger role in matters of international peace and security—for example, through its 2022 “veto initiative”— falls within this basket of issues. Arguably, so does the process of appointing the U.N. Secretary General, which became significantly more transparent in 2016 after extensive civil society campaigning, and will be more important than ever the next time around, in 2026.

As well, the Council’s use of its strongest tools, peacekeeping and sanctions, is in decline; soon these too can fairly be termed underutilized. 2023 marked ten years since the Council last launched a U.N. peacekeeping operation, in the Central African Republic (CAR). Its continued pullback from sanctions is also visible. Between 1990 and 2015, the Council created on average one new sanctions regime a year. But since the 2017 Mali sanctions regime (abolished by a Russian veto in 2023), sanctions have been set up only for Haiti, in 2022. And it has been difficult to add new listings, or new criteria, to existing sanctions regimes.

Non-U.N.-led efforts to keep the peace, such as the Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)-led mission in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), today face serious difficulties. U.N. peacekeeping is imperfect, and sometimes the wrong tool. But there are decades of evidence in its support. Security Council members and the Secretariat —including the Secretary-General—would be well advised to keep U.N. peacekeeping capabilities well-oiled and forward-looking. Potential peacekeeping missions are being discussed in some quarters for some of the world’s most desperate situations, including Haiti, Sudan, Gaza, and Ukraine. Peacekeeping has been an adaptable and flexible tool, and a ministerial-level meeting in Berlin in May 2025 is expected to explore a wide range of models.

At this time of war, polarization, and desperation, one commentator after the next cites lines from W.B. Yeats’ The Second Coming, of 1919:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

Invoking this poem at every last crisis of the past century does not make it more true. Recently, I found a take I much prefer: that things fall apart if we let them.

Addressing the opening of the General Assembly last week, the Secretary General named impunity as the greatest driver of global unsustainability. Impunity, he said, is politically indefensible and morally intolerable. But it is not written in the cards that international law will fall apart, and that impunity will reign. Rather, peace and its parts, including respect for international law, are an ongoing project. Keeping the project alive depends on people the world over. Not letting things fall apart—valuable and hard-won things, such as accountability for violations of international law—is up to all of us.

IMAGE: A wide view of the Security Council meeting in 2024 on the situation in the Middle East. (UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)

Karin Landgren

Karin Landgren (@LandgrenKarin) is Executive Director of the Security Council Report. She previously served with the United Nations for over 35 years, and is the first woman to have headed three UN peace operations mandated by the Security Council.

justsecurity.org · by Karin Landgren · September 30, 2024

19. How to Get Colombia’s Peace Process Back on Track

Excerpts:

Throughout Petro’s term, the United States has approached Total Peace with deep skepticism. The Biden administration, for example, has thus far declined an invitation from Bogotá to observe its negotiations with the ELN—a move that now seems prudent, since those talks are faltering. But Washington has good reason to try to influence the direction of peace talks, including or even especially those with groups it considers criminal. One example is the Colombian government’s ongoing dialogue with the Gaitanistas, who control the Darien Gap, through which migrants travel northward toward the U.S. southern border. This group is also Colombia’s largest exporter of cocaine.

Bogotá has no illusion that it can fully dislodge armed groups from the areas they control.

The group’s control of the Darien is uncontested, and state access to the region is limited. Bogotá would like to restore control of the area and monitor migration. Negotiators could seek guarantees that state officials will be allowed a stronger presence such that they can register migrants, regulate their flows, and provide them information, protection, and humanitarian support. Such a concession would cost the Gaitanistas little and would be a significant win not only for Bogotá but also for Washington. If the United States constructively engages with this and other processes by, for example, quietly coordinating on judicial cases and informally weighing in on viable policy options, it can help ensure that its own policy priorities are included in the talks’ agenda. Should Washington turn away, it will get little say in the outcomes—and it might not like the results.

True total peace may be out of reach for now. But important improvements to Colombia’s status quo are not. Dialogue, partial agreements, and a more targeted military response to armed groups that do not negotiate in good faith can help the country map a way out of its ongoing internal conflicts. Reducing violence against civilians can help restore public trust in the state and in negotiations. Coordination between negotiators and the military can ensure that state pressure is applied in a manner that benefits both.

The alternative to this pragmatic approach is a return to all-out war. The Colombian public, armed groups, the military, and many outside observers fear that this is the likeliest outcome. Petro has two years to change tack and prove them wrong.

How to Get Colombia’s Peace Process Back on Track

Bogotá Must Pursue Dialogue With Armed Groups—and Scale Up Security for Civilians

By Elizabeth Dickinson

October 1, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Elizabeth Dickinson · October 1, 2024

On the morning of September 17, soldiers in a remote base in Puerto Jordán, Arauca, along Colombia’s border with Venezuela, were moving through a quiet Thursday routine when a large truck passed by on the highway. Militants from the 6,000-strong leftist guerrilla movement National Liberation Army (ELN) riding inside hurled improvised explosives into the base. Loud explosions collapsed the roof of a building, sending glass shattering and leaving the floor splattered with blood. Seven soldiers were badly wounded, two of whom died.

The attack was the latest in a series of recent ELN assaults on troops, pipelines, and infrastructure—and the last straw that finally broke the ongoing peace talks the group had been conducting with the Colombian government. The negotiations with the ELN had been the centerpiece of the government’s hallmark negotiation policy, known as Paz Total (Total Peace). But a day after the September 17 attack, government negotiators said that they were suspending dialogue until the guerrilla movement showed that it wanted peace and not more war.

Facing a daunting uptick in conflict and insecurity in Colombia, the country’s president, Gustavo Petro, now halfway through his four-year term, hopes to reboot Total Peace. The first leftist president in 80 years and a former rebel, Petro came into office in 2022 pledging to open talks with all remaining armed and criminal groups to end a half a century of violent civil conflict for good. In August 2024, his administration approved negotiations with the largest criminal group in the country, the Gaitanista Army (also known as the Gulf Clan), which has about 9,000 members. The government is now involved in ten sets of peace talks with more than a dozen armed groups, and Bogotá still hopes its talks with the ELN can be revived.

But after a string of setbacks, Petro’s initially maximalist vision has taken a pragmatic turn toward the incremental. Instead of seeking comprehensive peace deals to demobilize the remaining groups, Petro appears to understand that there is no national peace deal in the offing. Nor is there a military victory to be had against Colombia’s criminal enterprises. Instead, his administration is reaching for the possible: partial agreements, implemented as soon as they are signed, to reduce violence and return state governance to parts of the country that are presently under the control of armed groups.

To some veteran Latin America observers, this shift will be a disappointment. But hard realities forced Petro’s hand, and incrementalism may in fact have a better chance of successfully curbing Colombia’s violence. The South American country is beset by multiple local conflicts over economic interests: armed groups are fighting one another over illegal mines in the country’s mountainous center, drug trafficking routes along the Pacific coast, and cattle ranching land in the Amazon region. It is hard for the Colombian state to offer anything that these armed groups want enough to loosen their grip over territories that bring in ample profits.

Indeed, Colombia’s armed groups aren’t engaged in peace talks to win seats in Congress or achieve policy reform; they are interested in safeguarding their tactical positions in a war for the illicit economies. The vast majority of these groups have made it explicitly clear that they do not intend to lay down arms for good. Nor do they face the sort of military pressure that could force them to compromise. Yet the government cannot abandon peacemaking altogether: the millions of civilians whose lives are disrupted by conflict need relief now.

For incremental talks to have any chance of succeeding, the Petro administration needs to take two important steps. First, it must craft a military strategy to strengthen its leverage in talks. This means not only targeting armed groups’ leaders and finances but also offering local populations a viable alternative to living under illegal coercion. Second, partial agreements need to include protections for civilians, committing armed groups to desist from child recruitment, extortion, curfews, targeted assassinations, and other forms of violence. Improvements in security are not only urgent for communities; they are also the only way to convince the public that dialogue is not a fool’s errand.

If well executed, this incremental approach could rewrite how Colombia constructs peace—not in sweeping accords but in small victories that yield practical results. These could include, for example, seeing armed groups withdraw from populated areas, reopening state development projects, and curbing concrete abuses such as the planting of land mines. Should this latest attempt at peacemaking fail, however, dialogue itself may be discredited, and the country could find itself on an irreversible course back into cycles of war.

FUEL ON THE FIRE

The story of Colombia’s fragmenting conflict begins with a brief period of peace. For half a century, the country’s government fought a bitter war with the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (known by its Spanish acronym, FARC), a leftist guerilla movement that sought to overturn the state. That fighting killed nearly half a million people and displaced hundreds of thousands, particularly after violent right-wing paramilitaries also entered the fray. Then, in 2016, after suffering multiple military defeats and participating in four years of peace talks, FARC signed a peace accord. The demobilization of the FARC saw more than 13,000 rebels return to civilian life and liberated the 22 percent of Colombian territory that was under its control. Communities described the feeling as breathing for the first time in years. Some saw police officers for the first time in their lives. One indigenous leader in Cauca, along the Pacific coast, told me, “It was the first time we could walk outside at night and look at the stars without being afraid.”

Yet nearly as quickly as the guerrillas left their strongholds, a race to fill the power vacuums began. The 2016 peace agreement had included promises by the state to advance rural development, undertake land reform and reparations for victims of the half-century conflict, and offer crop substitutions for farmers of coca, the raw material for the production of cocaine. But Bogotá got a slow start to implementing those changes compared with the swift pace by which violent outfits moved into the territories relinquished by the FARC. The ELN was among the first to pounce on many of these areas, followed closely by the Gaitanistas in the country’s north. Then, in 2017, FARC dissident factions, led by former FARC members who either never demobilized or rearmed, began to appear. Filled with young new recruits, these groups inherited little of the discipline and ideological rigor that had characterized their namesake. Instead, they sought to retake control of former FARC drug trafficking routes and restart illegal mining operations from the Pacific coast to the country’s center and along Colombia’s border with Venezuela. In this chaotic scramble for control over territory, communities across Colombia’s peripheries told me that they did not even know which group the armed men they were seeing belonged to.

In past conflicts, heavy-handed military operations against armed groups alienated communities caught in the crossfire.

Security started to deteriorate yet more sharply during the right-wing administration of Iván Duque. A protégé of former president Álvaro Uribe, Duque came to power in 2018. He criticized the peace accord and slowed the implementation of some key provisions that could have helped the state claim control. Instead of prioritizing rural development, for example, he leaned on the military to secure the countryside, reactively deploying troops to control crises in hot zones. Without a long-term government strategy for territorial control, violence grew. Rural reform projects, such as a crop substitution program for coca and programs to help small farmers access land, moved at snail’s pace.

Meanwhile, heavy-handed military operations against armed groups alienated communities caught in the crossfire. Forced eradication of coca fields saw armed soldiers face down unarmed small farmers trying to protect their livelihoods, often under pressure from armed groups. The security forces used tactics honed over decades of war with the FARC. But this new generation of armed groups was different. They had no interest in combat. Instead, they hid among the population, punished alleged informants, compelled communities to protest against the military’s presence, and used civilians as human shields. “They found the best weapon against us,” one general told me at the time: “instrumentalizing the population.”

The pandemic threw fuel on the fire. Quarantines roped off parts of the countryside controlled by armed groups. Across the country, groups including the ELN, the FARC dissidents, and the Gaitanistas imposed curfews and limitations on movement. In rural areas, armed groups became a fallback option for the thousands of children who were out of school for as long as 18 months. The state offered only virtual education in regions such as rural Catatumbo and Cauca that barely have phone signals. Meanwhile, armed groups there founded soccer clubs, hosted parties, and started to pay (or at least promised to pay) new recruits. Many families whose livelihoods had been devastated in the pandemic needed that income. Child recruitment exploded. Between 2016 and 2022, the Colombian government’s child welfare agency documented 1,166 cases of child recruitment—a number that is almost certainly a significant undercount, as many families do not report the crime for fear of retaliation. By the time Duque left office, he was the first Colombian president in the twenty-first century to leave the country’s security situation worse than he found it.

GOOD INTENTIONS, COSTLY MISSTEPS

In 2022, Petro took the reins amid deep public frustration, particularly in the areas of Colombia most wracked by conflict, whose populations overwhelmingly voted for him. The idea behind his main initiative, Total Peace, stems from a lesson learned from years of government efforts to end conflict in Colombia: demobilizing just one group empowers others to grow. In light of this history, Petro concluded that talking to all armed groups simultaneously was vital, to eliminate spoilers from the process.

He also promised to rethink hard-handed security policies. “Peace is possible if we bring social dialogue to every region,” Petro pledged as he took office. A former member of the left-wing M-19 guerrilla movement, which agreed to a peace accord in 1990, he believed that his own credentials as a reincorporated rebel would help his administration make peace with the remaining armed organizations.

But two years later, he has shifted tactics and ambitions, not by choice but out of necessity. Many conflict-affected communities say that Petro’s efforts have not delivered results for them. Instead, armed groups have grown stronger and more numerous. The Gaitanistas have nearly doubled their territorial presence since 2019, and today are present in a third of all Colombian municipalities. Factions of FARC dissidents in the Amazon region, meanwhile, have consolidated their control over daily life, often charging taxes and mandating that residents acquire local ID cards. The ELN is perhaps the only group that has stagnated—not because of its participation in peace talks but because other armed groups’ offensives have forced it out of strongholds, for example in Chocó, along the Pacific Coast, and Bolívar, in the country’s north.

The challenges to implementing Total Peace were always going to be significant. Because of the Colombian government’s long history of fighting both leftist insurgencies and narcotrafficking cartels, Colombian law has strict rules to prevent the government from discussing political issues with criminal groups. A menagerie of laws and court decisions mean that legally Bogotá can negotiate only with groups that Colombia’s Congress has classified as political outfits, such as the former FARC, whose primary aim was to install a Marxist regime. Organized criminal enterprises, on the other hand, can only discuss their surrender. Yet today it is far from clear which group falls into which category. Guerilla political movements such as ELN, for example, are heavily involved in illicit gold mining, while the Gaitanistas—a group that the state considers strictly criminal—govern by imposing their own rules and local justice.

The remains of a truck used by the ELN to attack a military base in Puerto Jordán, Colombia, September 2024

Colombian Army / Reuters

From the moment Petro was elected, in June 2022, fighting between the groups accelerated as armed and criminal organizations strove to enter negotiations from a position of strength. This meant boasting broad territorial control and at least the appearance of a political platform and local civilian support. Communities bore the brunt of the ensuing violence: some, for example, fell victim to a wave of forced confinements in which armed groups essentially trapped residents in their homes to solidify their control. Armed organizations across the country pressured local authorities and social leaders, seeking to co-opt, coerce, or replace them. Such maneuverings were particularly effective in areas where the state’s presence was weak or inattentive. As one Afro-Colombian community leader in a Gaitanista-controlled area told me: the armed group “was always here, but never like after that day when Petro announced Total Peace. The conflict changed.” The Gaitanistas, she said, were “exerting more pressure on social leaders and there is more recruitment, more politics, more presence, more extortion.”

In late 2022, the Petro administration reached out to more than half a dozen armed groups for dialogue. A series of well-intentioned but costly missteps followed. In early 2023, Bogotá sought to de-escalate violence by proclaiming cease-fires with six of the largest armed groups, who were surprised by the announcement and had promised nothing in return. Worse, with the exception of the ELN, which rejected the cease-fire, no armed group views the state as their main adversary. With a cease-fire in place, security forces stopped attacking, leaving armed groups with more energy and resources to fight one another. It was “a tactical gift” to illegal organizations, one government negotiator later admitted to me.

Bogotá learned from this error and did not extend these initial cease-fire agreements. Today, the Colombian government has just one cease-fire in place with a faction of approximately 3,500 FARC dissidents known as Estado Mayor Central (EMC), with which it had negotiated stricter protocols. The military has restarted military operations against the other armed groups, hoping to pressure their forces—and especially their leadership—to sit down for talks in good faith. These efforts are still in a nascent phase as Colombian security forces seek to recover some of the ground they have lost in recent years.

In the meantime, communities in many conflict-affected areas nationwide say that their lives have gotten worse in the last two years. Armed groups have continued to deepen their control over social life. And Bogotá’s national-level negotiations appear on uncertain footing, especially now that the ELN talks are indefinitely on ice. The EMC, for its part, has split in two—and those two halves are fighting with one another. Only a minority of its fighters remain in talks. Public opinion is turning fast on Total Peace. According to one 2023 poll, 63 percent of Colombians believed that the negotiation processes were moving in the wrong direction. If Bogotá hopes to breathe new life into negotiations, it must show that dialogue can enhance—rather than degrade—security.

THE PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD

After two difficult years, the Petro administration has an increasingly clear understanding of why armed and criminal groups want to sit at the negotiating table: to advance their own near-term interests, not to end conflict for good. That calculus could change if the government starts to increase its leverage. But for now, Bogotá’s aim is, correctly, to embrace realism. It is still possible to extract important concessions from armed groups through talks if the government keeps its eye on the target of bringing relief to civilians and steadily restoring the state’s presence and legitimacy.

One of Petro’s biggest missteps has been his failure to impose costs on the groups that either left the negotiations or used the talks to run the clock as they strengthened their hand. It is now clear that peace talks must be aligned with a well-calibrated defense strategy that is smart rather than hard-handed and ensures that civilians are not caught in the crossfire. The lack of coordination between security operations and peace talks has undermined the efficacy of both. Government negotiators complain that security forces undertake operations without notice, which saps trust at the negotiating table. Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry feels as if its hands are tied and it cannot undertake the kinds of patrols and seizures that form part of the military’s constitutional role.

If both sides hope to resolve these frustrations, they need to set shared priorities and commit to coordinating their efforts. They must decide together where and how to exert pressure. Security forces must also help ensure that officials from civilian ministries have unimpeded access to armed group-controlled areas to re-establish the state’s governance on the ground. Petro should be involved in this coordination process, as his political backing is crucial to its success.

The Petro administration must prioritize partial agreements that change facts on the ground. Negotiators should aim to secure specific and verifiable commitments from armed groups to end practices such as recruiting children, planting land mines, and assassinating community leaders. Bogotá has no illusion that it can fully dislodge armed groups from the areas they control. The goal of partial agreements is to bring much-needed relief to the population and to build a foundation of trust between the two negotiating parties so that they can eventually address currently intractable issues such as disarmament. In exchange for a reduction in violence, Bogotá has offered to implement local development projects such as infrastructure initiatives, which armed groups say they want in the territories where they operate. Before proceeding with these development plans, however, Bogotá must demand that state agencies be allowed safe and unimpeded access to the communities living under the control of armed groups.

Throughout Petro’s term, the United States has approached Total Peace with deep skepticism. The Biden administration, for example, has thus far declined an invitation from Bogotá to observe its negotiations with the ELN—a move that now seems prudent, since those talks are faltering. But Washington has good reason to try to influence the direction of peace talks, including or even especially those with groups it considers criminal. One example is the Colombian government’s ongoing dialogue with the Gaitanistas, who control the Darien Gap, through which migrants travel northward toward the U.S. southern border. This group is also Colombia’s largest exporter of cocaine.

Bogotá has no illusion that it can fully dislodge armed groups from the areas they control.

The group’s control of the Darien is uncontested, and state access to the region is limited. Bogotá would like to restore control of the area and monitor migration. Negotiators could seek guarantees that state officials will be allowed a stronger presence such that they can register migrants, regulate their flows, and provide them information, protection, and humanitarian support. Such a concession would cost the Gaitanistas little and would be a significant win not only for Bogotá but also for Washington. If the United States constructively engages with this and other processes by, for example, quietly coordinating on judicial cases and informally weighing in on viable policy options, it can help ensure that its own policy priorities are included in the talks’ agenda. Should Washington turn away, it will get little say in the outcomes—and it might not like the results.

True total peace may be out of reach for now. But important improvements to Colombia’s status quo are not. Dialogue, partial agreements, and a more targeted military response to armed groups that do not negotiate in good faith can help the country map a way out of its ongoing internal conflicts. Reducing violence against civilians can help restore public trust in the state and in negotiations. Coordination between negotiators and the military can ensure that state pressure is applied in a manner that benefits both.

The alternative to this pragmatic approach is a return to all-out war. The Colombian public, armed groups, the military, and many outside observers fear that this is the likeliest outcome. Petro has two years to change tack and prove them wrong.

ELIZABETH DICKINSON is the International Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst for Colombia.

Foreign Affairs · by Elizabeth Dickinson · October 1, 2024

20. Israel should hit Iran where it hurts

These excerpts explain a lot of what is wrong with our firing and national security policy:

Excerpts:

Given that Israel could easily cut off Iranian funding for Hezbollah and its other enemies by doing so, why has it refrained from targeting the country’s oil exports? In one phrase: “Obama’s Law”. Tacitly but very forcefully promulgated by the former president, it banned any Israeli or US attacks against Iran, even as the Islamic Republic has continued to kill US soldiers in Iraq and Yemen, and has kept attacking Israel through its proxies. On 13 April, Iran even attacked Israel directly. Stemming from Obama’s great fear that he would be manipulated into going to war against Iran, just as his predecessor was talked into war with Iraq, the then president’s all-out pursuit of a historic reconciliation with Iran utterly ignored the simple fact that the Islamic Republic’s fanatical rulers could not possibly be reconciled with the West. With Obama’s people also staffing Biden’s White House, the US has persisted with this policy of one-sided restraint, which it also imposed on Israel. That’s even as the Ayatollah’s regime has continued to forcibly suppress a pro-Western opposition that hates its corrupt and wasteful rule with a passion. Nor did US policy change when Iran continued to target US allies in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

In the event of a Harris victory this November, the Obama crowd would continue to staff the White House. That leaves a narrow window for Israeli action against Iran. To be sure, attacking a vast country of 91 million people would be a reckless act for Israel under any circumstances. But to stop Iran’s oil revenues — whose benefits are denied to its long-suffering population by an oppressive regime that most Iranians bitterly oppose — is quite another matter. Given, moreover, that hyperinflation has brought outright hunger to Iran’s urban population for the first time since the fall of the Shah in 1979, an attack on the country’s oil exports could even trigger the downfall of the regime. There are, of course, very many variables between any Israeli action and such a happy consequence. But if destroying Iran’s oil revenue did finally bring about the end of the Ayatollah regime, it’s not just Netanyahu who would celebrate.

Israel should hit Iran where it hurts

unherd.com · by Edward Luttwak · September 30, 2024

Israel could easily strike Iran's oil infrastructure

Bombing Funding Iran islamic republic Israel Oil row War

Edward Luttwak

October 1, 2024 4 mins

Through its early history — but not for the last four decades and more — the main threats to Israel’s security came from its Arab neighbours. That resulted in several wars against Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. But except for Jordan, Israel’s Arab enemies were in effect proxies for a far more potent threat: the Soviet Union. To displace American power in the Middle East, Moscow supplied thousands of tanks and hundreds of jets to Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad. Thousands of Soviet technicians and training officers came too, even as Arab officers were trained in Soviet academies.

This was a formidable threat to Israel’s survival in its first decades. But nobody there even considered the possibility of striking directly at the Soviet Union itself. Aside from the certainty of a massive retaliatory response, there were simply no relevant targets that Israel could strike, even if its small airforce managed to penetrate Soviet airspace. These days, however, everything is different. The Shi’a militias that have been targeting Israel for years, which greatly escalated their attacks after October 7, are entirely armed and directed by Iran. That’s true right across the Middle East, from Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen to a pair of militias in Iraq. But unlike the Soviet Union, Tehran enjoys no immunity from Israeli action.

The crucial vulnerability is the money from Iran that sustains the militias. Iraq’s Shi’a fighters can extort some cash from the country’s oil revenues. Hezbollah, for its part, receives some funding from Shi’a diamond buyers in Sierra Leone and smugglers in South America. Yet over the years, it and its cousins elsewhere in the region have become increasingly reliant on the funding they receive from their paymasters in Tehran. Cut the cash off, then, and they will quickly wither because even the most committed must receive their pay to feed their families.

That is most obviously the case in Yemen, one of the world’s least productive countries, where the Houthis are funded by monthly payments from Iran. But Hezbollah too has become more reliant on its Iranian ally, not least because its extortion of airport and customs receipts has yielded less and less with Lebanon’s descent into poverty.

This all means that Iran’s export revenues must now pay for a bewildering range of military expenditures abroad, in US dollars rather than home-made rials. Beyond the upkeep of foreign allies starting with Hezbollah, there are the imported components and supplies consumed by the domestic Revolutionary Guards, with its 125,000 troops and a naval force. This includes the imports of Chinese and North Korean missile and rocket components, as well as the foreign-currency costs of the entire nuclear programme which proceeds at a very large scale.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. It’s true that Iranian farmers grow pistachio nuts and other exportable crops, and that there are some manufacturing exports, even if Tabriz’s famous carpets are out of fashion. Yet at the last count, in 2023, oil accounted for 83% of Iran’s exports. For their part, the merchants who export Iran’s agricultural and craft exports tend not to repatriate the foreign currency they earn, using it instead for the imports they bring in. While much celebrated in regime propaganda, meanwhile, state-controlled industrial exports remain slight.

“Most of this cash comes from a single source: oil.”

In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometres off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometres from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeidah in Yemen — a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again yesterday.

Iran has made great efforts to reduce its dependence on the Khark terminal. That’s not because it is too close to Israel, but rather because it was too close to Iraq, and was indeed attacked and burned during the Iran-Iraq war. The result it Iran’s newly opened Jask oil terminal. Out on the shores of the Indian Ocean, it’s much futher from Israel than Khark. But for the IDF’s air planners, that’s scarcely a problem: the oil reaches Jask by a very long pipeline that can be disrupted at points even closer to Israel than Khark Island.

Given that Israel could easily cut off Iranian funding for Hezbollah and its other enemies by doing so, why has it refrained from targeting the country’s oil exports? In one phrase: “Obama’s Law”. Tacitly but very forcefully promulgated by the former president, it banned any Israeli or US attacks against Iran, even as the Islamic Republic has continued to kill US soldiers in Iraq and Yemen, and has kept attacking Israel through its proxies. On 13 April, Iran even attacked Israel directly. Stemming from Obama’s great fear that he would be manipulated into going to war against Iran, just as his predecessor was talked into war with Iraq, the then president’s all-out pursuit of a historic reconciliation with Iran utterly ignored the simple fact that the Islamic Republic’s fanatical rulers could not possibly be reconciled with the West. With Obama’s people also staffing Biden’s White House, the US has persisted with this policy of one-sided restraint, which it also imposed on Israel. That’s even as the Ayatollah’s regime has continued to forcibly suppress a pro-Western opposition that hates its corrupt and wasteful rule with a passion. Nor did US policy change when Iran continued to target US allies in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

In the event of a Harris victory this November, the Obama crowd would continue to staff the White House. That leaves a narrow window for Israeli action against Iran. To be sure, attacking a vast country of 91 million people would be a reckless act for Israel under any circumstances. But to stop Iran’s oil revenues — whose benefits are denied to its long-suffering population by an oppressive regime that most Iranians bitterly oppose — is quite another matter. Given, moreover, that hyperinflation has brought outright hunger to Iran’s urban population for the first time since the fall of the Shah in 1979, an attack on the country’s oil exports could even trigger the downfall of the regime. There are, of course, very many variables between any Israeli action and such a happy consequence. But if destroying Iran’s oil revenue did finally bring about the end of the Ayatollah regime, it’s not just Netanyahu who would celebrate.

Professor Edward Luttwak is a strategist and historian known for his works on grand strategy, geoeconomics, military history, and international relations.

ELuttwak

unherd.com · by Edward Luttwak · September 30, 2024

21. America’s Strategy of Renewal By Antony J. Blinken

Excerpts:

Although some Americans favor greater unilateralism and isolationism, there is in fact broad support for the pillars of the Biden administration’s strategy. The CHIPS and Science Act and multiple rounds of funding for Ukraine and Taiwan passed in Congress with bipartisan support. Democrats and Republicans in both houses are committed to strengthening U.S. alliances. And in poll after poll, most Americans see principled and disciplined U.S. leadership in the world as vital.

Cementing this alignment is crucial to convincing allies and rivals alike that although the party in power in Washington can change, the pillars of U.S. foreign policy will not. That will give allies the confidence that the United States can be trusted to stay by their side, which in turn will make them more reliable allies for the United States. And it will allow Washington to continue to meet its rivals from a position of strength, since they will know that American power is rooted not only in the firm commitments of the U.S. government but also in the unshakable convictions of the American people.

As secretary of state, I don’t do politics; I do policy. And policy is about choices. From day one, President Biden and Vice President Harris made a foundational choice that in a more competitive and combustible world, the United States cannot go it alone. If America wants to protect its security and create opportunities for its people, it must stand with those who have a stake in a free, open, secure, and prosperous world and stand up to those who threaten that world. The choices the United States makes in the second half of this decisive decade will determine whether this moment of testing remains a time of renewal or returns to a time of regression—whether Washington and its allies can continue to outcompete the forces of revisionism or allow their vision to define the twenty-first century.

America’s Strategy of Renewal

By Antony J. Blinken

November/December 2024Published on October 1, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Antony J. Blinken · October 1, 2024

A fierce competition is underway to define a new age in international affairs. A small number of countries—principally Russia, with the partnership of Iran and North Korea, as well as China—are determined to alter the foundational principles of the international system. While their forms of governance, ideologies, interests, and capabilities differ, these revisionist powers all want to entrench autocratic rule at home and assert spheres of influence abroad. They all wish to resolve territorial disputes by coercion or force and weaponize other countries’ economic and energy dependence. And they all seek to erode the foundations of the United States’ strength: its military and technological superiority, its dominant currency, and its unmatched network of alliances and partnerships. While these countries are not an axis, and the administration has been clear that it does not seek bloc confrontation, choices these revisionist powers are making mean we need to act decisively to prevent that outcome.

When President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris came into office, these revisionist powers were already aggressively challenging U.S. interests. These countries believed that the United States was in irreversible decline at home and divided from its friends abroad. They saw an American public that had lost its faith in government, an American democracy that was polarized and paralyzed, and an American foreign policy that was undermining the very alliances, international institutions, and norms that Washington had built and championed.

President Biden and Vice President Harris pursued a strategy of renewal, pairing historic investments in competitiveness at home with an intensive diplomatic campaign to revitalize partnerships abroad. This twin-pillared strategy, they believed, was the best way to disabuse competitors of their assumptions that the United States was declining and diffident. These were dangerous assumptions, since they would lead the revisionists to continue undermining the free, open, secure, and prosperous world that the United States and most countries seek. It’s a world where countries are free to choose their own paths and partners, and where the global economy is defined by fair competition, openness, transparency, and broad-based opportunity. A world where technology empowers people and accelerates human progress. A world where international law, including the core principles of the UN Charter, is upheld, and universal human rights are respected. A world that can evolve to reflect new realities, give voice to emerging perspectives and players, and meet the shared challenges of the present and future.

The Biden administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago. But our work is unfinished. The United States must sustain its fortitude across administrations to shake the revisionists’ assumptions. It must be prepared for the revisionist states to deepen cooperation with one another to try to make up the difference. It must maintain its commitments to and the trust of its friends. And it must continue to earn the American people’s confidence in the power, purpose, and value of disciplined American leadership in the world.

BACK IN THE GAME

The United States’ strategic fitness rests in large measure on its economic competitiveness. That is why President Biden and Vice President Harris led Democrats and Republicans in Congress in passing legislation to make historic investments to upgrade infrastructure, bolster the industries and technologies that will drive the twenty-first century, recharge the manufacturing base, boost research, and lead the global energy transition.

These domestic investments constituted the first pillar of the Biden administration’s strategy, and they have helped American workers and businesses power the strongest U.S. economy since the 1990s. The United States’ GDP is larger than that of the next three countries combined. Inflation has fallen to some of the lowest levels among the world’s advanced economies. Unemployment has held at or below four percent for the longest stretch in more than 50 years. Household wealth has reached a record high. And while too many Americans are still struggling to make ends meet and prices are still too high for many families, the recovery has slashed poverty and inequality and spread its benefits to more people and more places.

These investments in American competitiveness and the success of the United States’ rebound are powerfully attractive. After Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022—the largest-ever investment in climate and clean energy—South Korea’s Samsung committed tens of billions of dollars to manufacturing semiconductors in Texas. Japan’s Toyota put billions of dollars toward making electric vehicles and batteries in North Carolina. All five of the world’s top semiconductor manufacturers have pledged to build new plants in the United States, investing $300 billion and creating over 100,000 new American jobs.

The United States is now the world’s largest recipient of foreign direct investment. It is also the largest provider of foreign direct investment, showing the unmatched power of the American private sector to expand economic opportunity around the world. These investments don’t just benefit American workers and communities. They also reduce the United States’ dependencies on China and other revisionists and make the country a better partner to countries that want to reduce their dependencies, too.

While some friends worried at first that the Biden administration’s domestic investments and incentives would threaten their economic interests, with time, they have seen how American renewal can redound in their favor. It has boosted demand for their goods and services and catalyzed their own investments in chips, clean tech, and more resilient supply chains. And it has allowed the United States and its friends to continue driving technological innovation and setting technological standards that are crucial to safeguarding their shared security, values, and welfare.

PARTNERS IN PEACE

The second pillar of the Biden administration’s strategy was to reinvigorate and reimagine the United States’ network of relationships—enabling Washington and its partners to pool their strength in advancing a shared vision for the world and compete vigorously yet responsibly against those seeking to undermine it.

Competing vigorously means using all the instruments of U.S. power to advance U.S. interests. It means enhancing the United States’ force posture, military and intelligence capabilities, sanctions and export control tools, and mechanisms for consulting with allies and partners so that the country can credibly deter—and, if necessary, defend against—aggression. While Washington doesn’t seek to climb up the ladder of escalatory actions, it must prepare for and manage greater risk.

Competing responsibly, meanwhile, means maintaining channels of communication to prevent competition from veering into conflict. It means making clear that the United States’ goal is not regime change and that even as both sides compete, they must find ways to coexist. It means looking for ways to cooperate when it serves the national interest. And it means competing in ways that benefit the security and prosperity of friends, instead of coming at their expense.

China is the only country with the intent and the means to reshape the international system. President Biden made clear early on that we would treat Beijing as the United States’ “pacing challenge”—its most consequential long-term strategic competitor. We undertook determined efforts to protect the United States’ most advanced technologies; defend American workers, companies, and communities from unfair economic practices; and push back against China’s growing aggression abroad and repression at home. We set up dedicated channels with friends to share Washington’s assessment of the economic and security risks posed by Beijing’s policies and actions. We nevertheless resumed military-to-military communication and underscored that serious disagreements with China wouldn’t prevent the United States from maintaining strong commercial relations with the country. Nor would we allow friction in U.S.-Chinese relations to preclude cooperation on priorities that matter to the American people and the rest of the world, such as dealing with climate change, stopping the flow of synthetic drugs, and preventing nuclear proliferation.

Biden at a semiconductor manufacturer in Durham, North Carolina, March 2023

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

On Russia, we had no illusions about President Vladimir Putin’s revanchist aims or the possibility of a “reset.” We did not hesitate to act forcefully against Moscow’s destabilizing activities, including its cyberattacks and interference in U.S. elections. At the same time, we worked to reduce nuclear danger and the risk of war by extending the New START treaty and launching a strategic stability dialogue.

We were similarly clear-eyed when it came to Iran and North Korea. We increased diplomatic pressure and strengthened the U.S. military’s force posture to deter and constrain Tehran and Pyongyang. The Trump administration’s unilateral and misguided exit from the Iran nuclear deal freed Tehran’s nuclear program from its confinement, undermining the security of the United States and its partners. We demonstrated to Iran that there was a path back to a mutual return to compliance—if Iran was willing to take it—while maintaining a robust sanctions regime and our commitment that Iran will never be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon. And we made clear our willingness to engage in direct talks with North Korea, but also that we would not submit to its saber rattling or its preconditions.

The Biden administration’s commitment to compete vigorously yet responsibly along these lines took away the revisionists’ pretext that the United States was the obstacle to maintaining international peace and stability. It also earned the United States greater trust from its friends—and, along with it, stronger partnerships.

We worked to realize the full potential of these partnerships in four ways. First, we recommitted to the country’s core alliances and partnerships. President Biden reassured NATO allies that the United States would honor its pledge to treat an attack on one as an attack on all; reaffirmed the country’s ironclad security commitments to Japan, South Korea, and other allies in Asia; and restored the G-7 to its role as the steering committee of the world’s advanced democracies.

Second, we infused U.S. alliances and partnerships with new purpose. We elevated the Quad—the partnership with Australia, India, and Japan—and took concrete steps to realize a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific, from enhancing maritime security to manufacturing safe, effective vaccines. We launched the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, marshaling the world’s biggest economic partnership to shape global standards for emerging technologies and protect the United States’ and Europe’s most sensitive innovations. We raised the ambition of critical bilateral relationships, such as the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership, and revived regional engagement, with President Biden hosting summits with leaders from Africa, Latin America, the Pacific Islands, and Southeast Asia.

We made NATO bigger, stronger, and more united than ever.

Third, we knit together U.S. allies and partners in new ways across regions and issues. We launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which brings together 14 countries representing 40 percent of the world’s GDP to build more secure supply chains, combat corruption, and transition to clean energy. We created AUKUS, a trilateral defense partnership through which Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States have teamed up to build nuclear-powered submarines and deepen their scientific, technological, and industrial cooperation.

Fourth, we built new coalitions to address new challenges. We rallied a variety of governments, international organizations, businesses, and civil society groups to manufacture and distribute hundreds of millions of free COVID-19 vaccines, end the acute phase of the pandemic, save lives, and strengthen the world’s capacity to prevent and respond to future health emergencies. We launched a global coalition to address the scourge of illicit synthetic drugs and a regionwide effort to share responsibility for the historic migration challenges in the Western Hemisphere.

In building these and other coalitions, the Biden administration has always made fellow democracies its first port of call. It’s why the president launched the Summit for Democracy, bringing together democratic leaders and reformers from every region. But if the goal is to solve the problems facing the American people, democracies can’t be the United States’ only partners. The evolving opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence, for example, need to be addressed through multiple coalitions that include nondemocracies, so long as they want to deliver for their citizens and are willing to help solve shared challenges. That is why the Biden administration worked with the rest of the G-7 to develop governance frameworks for AI and then led more than 120 countries—including China—in the UN General Assembly to craft and pass the first-ever UN resolution on leveraging AI for good. And it’s why the administration crafted a framework for the responsible development and use of military AI that more than 50 countries have signed on to.

REACTING TO REVISIONISM

While our strategy shored up the foundations of the United States’ strength at home and abroad, our statecraft capitalized on that strength to turn a crisis into opportunity. In the Biden administration’s first year, we made significant progress in deepening alignment with allies and partners on our approach to strategic competition. Conversations in allied capitals led to a palpable shift. For example, in negotiations to shape a new strategic concept for NATO, I saw that allies were, for the first time, intensely focused on the challenge China posed to transatlantic security and values. In my discussions with officials from allied countries in East Asia, I heard them grappling with how to respond to Beijing’s coercive behavior in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

Putin’s decision to try to wipe Ukraine off the map—along with China’s decision first to provide Russia with cover and then fuel its aggression—accelerated the convergence of views among Asian and European countries about the seriousness of the threat and the collective action required to address it. Before Russia’s invasion, we took a number of steps to prepare: warning the world of Moscow’s impending aggression, sharing intelligence with allies, sending military support for Ukraine’s self-defense, and coordinating with the EU, the G-7, and others to plan immediate and severe economic sanctions on Russia. We learned hard lessons during the necessary but difficult U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, lessons about everything from contingency planning to allied coordination, and we applied them.

When Putin ultimately launched his full-scale invasion, NATO swiftly moved troops, aircraft, and ships as part of its Response Force, reinforcing the alliance’s eastern flank. The EU and its member states surged military, economic, and humanitarian aid into Ukraine. The United States created the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which grew to more than 50 countries working with the Ukrainian military to fill urgent needs. And a broad coalition of countries imposed the most ambitious sanctions ever, freezing more than half of Russia’s sovereign assets.

Because it was an attack not just on Ukraine but also on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity at the heart of the UN Charter, Putin’s war stoked fears beyond Europe. If Putin had been allowed to proceed with impunity, would-be aggressors everywhere would have taken note, opening a Pandora’s box of conflict. China’s decision to aid Russia underscored the degree to which the fates of U.S. allies in Europe and Asia were tied together. Until that point, many in Europe continued to see China primarily as an economic partner—even if they were increasingly wary of relying too much on Beijing. But when Beijing made its choice, more and more Europeans saw China as a systemic rival.

Footage of a meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials, Beijing, July 2023

Tingshu Wang / Reuters

The longer Putin pressed on with his war, the more Russia relied on the support of its fellow revisionists to stay in the fight. North Korea delivered trainloads of weapons and ammunition, including millions of artillery rounds and ballistic missiles and launchers, in direct violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions. Iran built a drone factory in Russia and sent Moscow hundreds of ballistic missiles. And Chinese companies quickened their supply of the machines, microelectronics, and other dual-use items Russia needed to churn out weapons, munitions, and other materiel.

The more dependent Russia became on their support, the more the revisionists expected—and got—in return. Putin agreed to share Russia’s advanced weapons technology with North Korea, exacerbating an already grave threat to Japan and South Korea. He and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un revived a Cold War–era pact pledging to provide military aid if either one went to war. Russia increased military and technical support to Iran and accelerated negotiation of a strategic partnership with the country, even as Tehran continued to arm, train, and fund proxies who carried out terrorist attacks on U.S. personnel and partners in the Middle East and international shipping in the Red Sea. Russia and China’s cooperation has expanded across nearly every domain, and the two countries have staged increasingly aggressive and wide-ranging military exercises, including in the South China Sea and the Arctic.

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have complicated histories and divergent interests, and their partnerships with one another do not come close to the United States’ long-standing alliance architecture. Underneath their grand claims of friendship and support, these countries’ relationships are largely transactional, and their cooperation entails tradeoffs and risks that each may find more distasteful over time. That’s especially true for China, whose economic health at home and standing abroad are threatened by the global instability fomented by its revisionist partners. And yet all four revisionists share an abiding commitment to the overarching objective of challenging the United States and the international system. That will continue to drive their cooperation, especially as the United States and other countries stand up to their revisionism.

The Biden administration’s answer to this growing alignment has been to accelerate convergence among allies about the threat. We made NATO bigger, stronger, and more united than ever, with the alliance welcoming in Finland and Sweden despite their long history of nonalignment. At the start of the administration, nine of 30 NATO members were meeting their commitment to spend two percent of their GDP on defense; this year, at least 23 of 32 allies will meet that mark.

We have deepened and modernized U.S. alliances in the Indo-Pacific, strengthening the U.S. military’s force posture and capabilities by signing new agreements to upgrade bases from Japan to the Philippines to the South Pacific. And we have found new ways to weave allies together. In 2023, President Biden held the first-ever trilateral Leaders’ Summit with Japan and South Korea at Camp David, where the three countries agreed to increase cooperation to defend against ballistic missile attacks and cyberattacks from North Korea. This year, he hosted the first-ever trilateral summit with Japan and the Philippines at the White House, where the three parties committed to deepening joint efforts to defend freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

THE GREAT CONVERGENCE

Arguably the most consequential shift we achieved has not been within regions but across them. When he launched his invasion, Putin thought he could use Europe’s reliance on Russian gas, oil, and coal to sow division and weaken its support for Ukraine. But he underestimated the resolve of European countries—and the willingness of allies in Asia to help them.

Japan has committed more than $12 billion in assistance to Ukraine, and in June, it became the first country outside Europe to sign a ten-year bilateral security agreement with Kyiv. Australia has provided more than $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine and is part of a multinational coalition training Ukrainian personnel in the United Kingdom. South Korea has declared that it will consider supplying weapons to Ukraine, in addition to the considerable economic and humanitarian support it is already providing. The United States’ Indo-Pacific partners are coordinating with Europe to levy sanctions on Russia and cap the price of Russian oil, shrinking the amount of money Putin can funnel into his war machine.

Meanwhile, China’s support for Russia—and the administration’s innovative use of intelligence diplomacy to reveal the breadth of that support—has further focused U.S. allies in Europe on the threat posed by Beijing. The massive economic disruption caused by Putin’s invasion has made real the catastrophic consequences that would result from a crisis in the Taiwan Strait, through which roughly half of the world’s commercial container ships pass every year. More than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors are manufactured in Taiwan.

When the Biden administration came into office, key European partners were determined to gain autonomy from the United States while deepening economic ties with China. Since the invasion, however, they have reoriented much of their economic agenda around “de-risking” from China. In 2023, the EU adopted the Critical Raw Materials Act to reduce its dependence on China for the inputs required to manufacture products such as electric vehicles and wind turbines. In 2024, the EU launched new initiatives to further bolster its economic security, including improvements to its screening of foreign and outbound investments, research security, and export controls. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania pulled out of China’s “17+1” investment initiative in central and eastern Europe. Italy left China’s Belt and Road Initiative. And a growing number of European countries, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, have banned Chinese tech companies from providing equipment for their critical infrastructure.

As secretary of state, I don’t do politics; I do policy.

Friends in both Europe and Asia have also joined the United States in taking coordinated action to address China’s unfair trade practices and manufacturing overcapacity. This year, the Biden administration raised targeted tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum, semiconductors, and critical minerals—as opposed to sweeping tariffs across the board that raise costs for American families—and the European Union and Canada imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. We learned hard lessons from the “China shock” of the first decade of this century, when Beijing unleashed a flood of subsidized goods that drowned American industries, wrecked Americans’ livelihoods, and devastated American communities. To make sure history doesn’t repeat itself and to compete with China’s distortionary tactics, we are investing more in the productive capacity of the United States and its friends—and putting in place greater protections around those investments.

When it comes to emerging technologies, the United States and its allies in Europe and Asia are increasingly working together to maintain their collective edge. At our urging, Japan and the Netherlands joined the United States in taking measures to prevent China from gaining access to the most advanced semiconductors and the equipment used to produce them. Through the Quantum Development Group, we assembled nine leading European and Asian allies to strengthen supply chain resilience and deepen research and commercial partnerships in a technology with capabilities that exceed even the most powerful supercomputers.

From the moment Russia launched its war, some in the United States argued that U.S. support for Ukraine would divert resources from the challenge of China. Our actions have proved the opposite: standing up to Russia has been crucial to bringing about unprecedented convergence between Asia and Europe, which increasingly see their security as indivisible. This shift is a consequence not only of fateful decisions made by Moscow and Beijing. It is also a product of fateful decisions made by U.S. allies and partners—choices that Washington encouraged but did not, would not, and could not dictate.

The global coalition supporting Ukraine is the most powerful example of burden sharing I’ve seen in my career. While the United States has provided $94 billion in support for Ukraine since Putin’s full-scale invasion, European, Asian, and other partners have contributed nearly $148 billion. Significant work remains to boost the capabilities of U.S. allies in Europe and Asia through a combination of greater coordination, investment, and industrial base integration. The American people expect and U.S. security demands that allies and partners shoulder more of the burden for their own defense over time. But the United States is in a demonstrably stronger position in both consequential regions today because of the bridge of allies we have built. And so, for that matter, are America’s friends.

REVISIONISM ACROSS REGIONS

The destabilizing effects of the revisionists’ growing assertiveness and alignment go well beyond Europe and Asia. In Africa, Russia has unleashed its agents and mercenaries to extract gold and critical minerals, spread disinformation, and aid those trying to overthrow democratically elected governments. Rather than support diplomatic efforts to end the war in Sudan—the world’s worst humanitarian crisis—Moscow is fueling the conflict by arming both sides. Iran and its proxies have taken advantage of the chaos to revive illicit arms trafficking routes in the region and exacerbate unrest. Beijing, meanwhile, has averted its gaze from Moscow’s belligerence in Africa while fostering new dependencies and saddling more countries with unsustainable debt. In South America, China, Russia, and Iran are providing military, economic, and diplomatic support to Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian government in Venezuela, reinforcing his conviction that his regime is impervious to pressure.

The revisionist alignment is playing out even more intensely in the Middle East. Russia once supported UN Security Council efforts to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions; now, it is enabling Iran’s nuclear program and facilitating its destabilizing activities. Russia has also gone from being a close partner of Israel to—after the October 7 attack—strengthening its ties with Hamas. The Biden administration, for its part, has been working tirelessly with partners in the Middle East and beyond to end the conflict and suffering in Gaza, find a diplomatic solution that enables Israelis and Lebanese to live in safety on both sides of the border, manage the risk of a wider regional war, and work toward greater integration and normalization in the region, including between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

These efforts are interdependent. Without an end to the war in Gaza and a time-bound, credible path to statehood that addresses the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations and Israel’s security needs, normalization cannot move forward. But if these efforts succeed, normalization would join Israel to a regional security architecture, unlock economic opportunities across the region, and isolate Iran and its proxies. Glimmers of such integration were on display in the coalition of countries, including Arab states, that helped Israel defend itself against an unprecedented direct attack from Iran in April. My visits to the region since October 7

have affirmed that there is a path toward greater peace and integration—if leaders there are willing to take hard decisions.

Relentless as our efforts are, the human consequences of the war in Gaza continue to be devastating. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed in a conflict they did not start and cannot stop. Virtually the entire population of Gaza has been displaced, and the vast majority is suffering from malnutrition. Around 100 hostages remain in Gaza, either already killed or still being held in brutal conditions by Hamas. All this suffering adds even greater urgency to our efforts to end the conflict, prevent it from being repeated, and lay the foundation for lasting peace and security in the region.

MAKING A STRONGER OFFER

For many developing and emerging-market countries, great-power competition in the past meant being told to pick a side in a contest that felt far removed from their daily struggles. Many have expressed concern that today’s rivalry is no different. And some worry that the United States’ focus on domestic renewal and strategic competition will come at the expense of the issues that matter most to them. Washington must demonstrate that the opposite is true.

The Biden administration’s work to fund infrastructure across the world is an attempt to do just that. No country wants infrastructure projects that are poorly built and environmentally destructive, that import or abuse workers, or that foster corruption and burden the government with unsustainable debt. Yet too often, that has been the only option. To offer a better choice, the United States and other G-7 countries launched the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment in 2022. The initiative will eventually unlock $600 billion in private capital to fund projects that are high quality and environmentally sound and empower the communities where they are built. Already, the United States is coordinating investments in railroads and ports to connect the Philippines’ economic hubs and turbocharge investment in the country. And it is making a series of infrastructure investments in a band of development that crosses Africa—connecting Angola’s port of Lobito to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia and ultimately linking the Atlantic and Indian Oceans—which will create opportunities for communities throughout the region while shoring up the supply of critical minerals crucial to leading the clean energy transition.

The United States is teaming up with partners to build and broaden digital infrastructure so that countries don’t have to give up their security and privacy to gain high-speed, affordable Internet connections. Working with Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and Taiwan, Washington has invested in cables that will extend digital access to 100,000 people across the Pacific Islands. And it has spearheaded similar efforts elsewhere in Asia, as well as Africa and South America.

The administration has also sought to make international institutions more inclusive. Imperfect as the United Nations and other such bodies may be, there is no substitute for their legitimacy and capabilities. Participating in and reforming them is one of the best ways to buttress the international order against efforts to tear it down. That is why under the Biden administration, the United States rejoined the World Health Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and UNESCO. It’s also why the administration has proposed expanding the UN Security Council by adding two permanent members from Africa, one permanent member from Latin America and the Caribbean, and an elected seat for small island developing countries. This is in addition to the permanent seats we have long proposed for Germany, India, and Japan. And it’s why we pressed for the G-20 to add the African Union as a permanent member, which it did in 2023. In 2021, we supported the International Monetary Fund’s allocation of $650 billion in Special Drawing Rights to help poor countries struggling under the weight of global health, climate, and debt crises. We also pushed for reforms at the World Bank that will allow governments to defer debt payments after natural disasters and climate shocks and will expand the affordable financing available to middle-income countries. Under President Biden, the United States has quadrupled climate financing to developing nations to help them meet their climate targets and helped more than half a billion people manage the effects of climate change.

Time and again, the Biden administration has demonstrated that the United States is the country others can rely on to help solve their biggest problems. When the war in Ukraine exacerbated the global food security crisis, for example, the United States invested $17.5 billion to tackle food insecurity and rallied more than 100 countries to take concrete steps to address the challenge and its root causes. It did all this while continuing to be the largest donor, by far, of lifesaving humanitarian aid around the world.

THE HOME FRONT

Although some Americans favor greater unilateralism and isolationism, there is in fact broad support for the pillars of the Biden administration’s strategy. The CHIPS and Science Act and multiple rounds of funding for Ukraine and Taiwan passed in Congress with bipartisan support. Democrats and Republicans in both houses are committed to strengthening U.S. alliances. And in poll after poll, most Americans see principled and disciplined U.S. leadership in the world as vital.

Cementing this alignment is crucial to convincing allies and rivals alike that although the party in power in Washington can change, the pillars of U.S. foreign policy will not. That will give allies the confidence that the United States can be trusted to stay by their side, which in turn will make them more reliable allies for the United States. And it will allow Washington to continue to meet its rivals from a position of strength, since they will know that American power is rooted not only in the firm commitments of the U.S. government but also in the unshakable convictions of the American people.

As secretary of state, I don’t do politics; I do policy. And policy is about choices. From day one, President Biden and Vice President Harris made a foundational choice that in a more competitive and combustible world, the United States cannot go it alone. If America wants to protect its security and create opportunities for its people, it must stand with those who have a stake in a free, open, secure, and prosperous world and stand up to those who threaten that world. The choices the United States makes in the second half of this decisive decade will determine whether this moment of testing remains a time of renewal or returns to a time of regression—whether Washington and its allies can continue to outcompete the forces of revisionism or allow their vision to define the twenty-first century.

ANTONY J. BLINKEN is U.S. Secretary of State.

Foreign Affairs · by Antony J. Blinken · October 1, 2024

22. Weaponizing Technology: The Psychological And Behavioural Impact Of IEDs In Modern Warfare – OpEd

Excerpts:

The coordinated device explosions in Lebanon while may be representative of the nationalist sentiments of Israel, they also represent a chilling evolution in modern warfare, where the line between technology as a tool and technology as a weapon becomes blurred. From a psychological perspective, the implications are vast. The disruption of trust in technology, the trauma inflicted on individuals and communities, and the broader behavioural consequences require attention from mental health professionals, governments, and technologists alike. As future conflicts increasingly involve the manipulation of everyday technology, cyberpsychology will play a critical role in understanding the full scope of their impact on the human psyche.

Weaponizing Technology: The Psychological And Behavioural Impact Of IEDs In Modern Warfare – OpEd

September 29, 2024 0 Comments

By Dr. Shalini Mittal

eurasiareview.com · September 28, 2024

Historical Roots of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)

Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs are any explosive devices that are constructed or detonated in ways other than the conventional military ways. They are frequently described as a new technology. The term “Improvised Explosive Device” was coined by the British Army during the ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted from 1960s to 1998.

However, it is important to note that IEDs have a lengthy history. In the 16th century, the Dutch used explosive laden ships termed as ‘hellburners’ to fight against the Spanish in Antwerp. In 1800 an unsuccessful attempt was made to kill Napolean with help of explosives planted in horse carts. Yet other examples of IEDs from history include Mario Buda’s improvised wagon in the Wall Street bombing of 1920, suicide car bombing at the Bath School massacre in 1927 and the use of large vehicle borne IEDs in the Beirut Barracks bombings of 1983.

The Psychological Appeal of IEDs: Cost, Access, and Impact

While in the past the use of IEDs was fairly limited, they became significantly more widespread and impactful during the Iraq war beginning in 2003. Following which the use of IEDs spread to other conflict zones such as Afghanistan. Usually, use of IEDs is observed in ‘asymmetric warfare and power dynamics’ where one side is significantly weaker. While the conventional military forces may be better trained and equipped, use of IEDs offers opportunity to the weaker forces to strike from a distance, instill fear and disrupt army operations.

One of the main psychological drivers behind the choice of IEDs is the ease of access to the necessary materials. IEDs can be constructed using commercially available items, making them an opportunistic weapon choice. IEDs may also be chosen based on their perceived efficiency relative to their cost. However, in instances where a more powerful group opts for more expensive and sophisticated IEDs such as in the case of Israel’s use of walkie talkies as IEDs for attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon, it may be considered a strategically planned psychological move aimed at signalling control, capability and strength.

On 17th and 18th September communication devices dramatically exploded across Lebanon. Some of these devices were also being used by the members of armed group Hezbollah. The blasts occurred in crowded areas injuring and also killing several people. Through this attack Israel has demonstrated its dominance signalling its military superiority to the international community as well as Hezbollah. Where Hezbollah might have expected Israel to rely on conventional missiles and air strikes, Israel’s use of IED introduced an element of surprise. By employing IEDs, Israel has also sent a political message to its adversaries and international observers that it will utilize any means necessary to defend its national security.

The Psychological Ramifications of IED Use

This strategic move has psychological and behavioural implications for the wider population across the globe. These implications may be analysed and understood through the framework of Cyberpsychology and trauma studies. Cyberpsychology studies the impact of human-technology interaction on the cognition, emotion and behaviour of the individuals. The concept of trust in technology is a core component of cyberpsychology.

But when devices such as pagers, mobile phones, walkie talkies etc. that are known to foster safe communication become instruments of harm, they rupture the sense of security of people. This could lead to technophobia and erode the trust of people in everyday technology. Moreover, these devices often get detonated by familiar actions of pressing a button or responding to a notification which further amplify the breach of trust. This may create a sense of betrayal and may cause the victims to question the integrity of digital environment. This phenomenon could be compared to concepts in learned helplessness from classical psychology, where repeated exposure to uncontrollable harm leads to passive behaviour and a sense of powerlessness, further amplifying stress and anxiety.

From trauma perspective, such attacks directly cause physical trauma. However, the unpredictable and invasive nature of the explosions exacerbates psychological trauma. Additionally, the survivors of the incident may experience re-traumatization on subsequent exposure to similar devices in future. Such experiences may lead to development of symptoms similar to that of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). It may also lead to an increase in avoidance behaviours and hypervigilance among people. This form of avoidance aligns with the fight-or-flight response, where the brain prepares the body to evade potential threats, even in cases where the threat may be highly localized or rare. People who witness these attacks through social media and news channels might get vicariously traumatized. A well-documented response to mass experience of trauma is ‘contagion effect’ which can take the form of panic that spreads in the community as images and videos of such attacks begin to circulate. Social media platforms and news outlets may also amplify the feels of anxiety and fear making it difficult for the people to accurately assess the actual risk.

From a behavioural standpoint, the communities and individuals may exhibit changes in their patterns of interactions with technology. According to operant conditioning theory, which explains behaviour through rewards and punishments, the violent explosions serve as a form of punishment for using certain devices. People will be conditioned to avoid such devices in the future to reduce the risk of harm. The Lebanese Health Ministry’s call for people to discard their pagers reflects an attempt to mitigate the behavioural consequences of fear and anxiety, but it also showcases the broad behavioural shifts that these attacks can trigger.

The Future of Conflict: Psychological Battles in the Age of Weaponized Technology

In the face of increased use of IEDs in modern day conflicts, it is important to consider how technology is increasingly weaponized in modern conflict. Cyberpsychology offers insights into how individuals perceive and interact with technology during crises, and the psychological risks associated with weaponizing everyday devices are significant. If similar attacks are carried out in the future, society will likely experience further erosion of trust in communication technologies, potentially leading to a broader societal shift in how technology is viewed in both personal and military contexts.

The intersection of cyberpsychology and warfare suggests that future conflicts will not only involve physical battles but psychological ones as well. Combatants may increasingly target the technological infrastructure and devices people rely on, causing both physical harm and psychological damage. Understanding of these effects through the framework of Cyberpsychology helps prepare for the societal and psychological fallout of such conflicts.

Conclusion

The coordinated device explosions in Lebanon while may be representative of the nationalist sentiments of Israel, they also represent a chilling evolution in modern warfare, where the line between technology as a tool and technology as a weapon becomes blurred. From a psychological perspective, the implications are vast. The disruption of trust in technology, the trauma inflicted on individuals and communities, and the broader behavioural consequences require attention from mental health professionals, governments, and technologists alike. As future conflicts increasingly involve the manipulation of everyday technology, cyberpsychology will play a critical role in understanding the full scope of their impact on the human psyche.

eurasiareview.com · September 28, 2024

23. Fewer vets will be on the November ballot for Congress this year

Fewer vets will be on the November ballot for Congress this year

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · September 30, 2024

Fewer candidates with military experience are running for Congress this fall than in 2022, and the total number of veterans in the House and Senate next session could fall to its lowest level since World War II, according to an analysis of candidates by Military Times.

But veteran representation in the halls of the Capitol is expected to remain much higher than in the public at large. Currently, about 6% of the U.S. population has served or is serving in the military. In comparison, about 18% of House and Senate lawmakers spent time in the ranks.

Advocates say that’s good news, since veterans bring important perspectives to key issues facing congressional responsibilities.

Here are all the veterans running for Congress in 2024

More than 180 candidates with military backgrounds are vying for seats in the House and Senate.

“That type of lived experience is invaluable when it comes to national security debates,” said Allison Jaslow, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “It’s essential to have a decent amount of veterans in office to protect the military, track veterans’ issues first-hand.

“There are plenty of civilians who do good work on issues like mental health and veterans care, but individuals who have lived it are more likely to engage thoughtfully on them.”

Fewer veteran candidates

In 2022, 196 candidates with military backgrounds won primaries for House and Senate races. Of that group, 97 — 17 Senate candidates and 80 House hopefuls — won their races.

This year, the number of primary winners who are veterans is down almost 10%, to 182. The smaller pool means the number of November election victors is also likely to drop.

Veteran representation in Congress peaked in the 1970s, when the number of veterans in both chambers reached 400. But after the introduction of the all-volunteer military force, both the number of veterans in America and the number running for Congress dropped steadily.

In 1980, more than 29 million veterans were living in the United States. Today that total is less than 18 million.

That population change is largely to blame for the decrease in congressional numbers. In 1986, the number of veterans who won congressional elections fell below 300 for the first time in almost four decades. It dropped below 200 for the first time in 1996. In 2014, it fell below 100.

The 116th Congress, which began in 2021, opened with 91 veterans among its members, the lowest total since the end of World War II. Depending on the outcome of races this year, the total for next year’s Congress could slip below that benchmark.

Even as the totals have dropped, the number of younger veterans mounting — and winning — congressional bids has grown in recent years.

In 2018, 54 veteran candidates started their military careers before 1980, versus 44 who joined the military after 2000. This year, 55 veteran candidates started after 2000, against 39 who signed onto military service before 1980.

Of the 75 candidates this cycle with a combat zone deployment, 62 of them served in Iraq, Afghanistan or both.

Breaking down the number of veterans in the 118th Congress

The new session of Congress opens with 97 members who have military experience, the most since 2015.

Understanding the military

About 70% of the candidates with military experience are running as Republicans. That’s slightly higher than in recent years, with GOP candidates usually averaging about 65% of the field.

But Jaslow — who served with the Army in Iraq — said some of the shared political background of those candidates can blunt the partisan divide between the major parties.

These are people who have already sacrificed and served on behalf of their country,” she said.

House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill. — a Marine Corps veteran himself — said his panel’s work depends on that first-person perspective.

“There are non-veterans on the committee too, but if you’re a disabled veteran, or a decorated veteran, there is a different understanding,” he said.

“The combat veterans on the committee in particular have always been a great help, because they have had to maneuver the Veterans Affairs health care system themselves. There’s just so much more wisdom that’s available from their experiences.”

Ten of the committee’s 25 members are military veterans. Two are among the seven women veterans serving in the House and Senate.

With Trump pick, JD Vance is first post-9/11 vet on major party ticket

Vance is the first veteran of the enlisted ranks to run on a major-party ticket since Al Gore in 2000.

The presidential factor

Not included in the list of congressional candidates are the two vice presidential nominees — Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance — both of whom served in the military.

Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating high school and served a four-year stint as a combat correspondent, during which he escorted civilian press and wrote articles for a military news service. He deployed to Iraq in 2005.

Walz served 24 years in the Minnesota National Guard, deploying to Europe in support of overseas operations in Afghanistan. His departure from the military months ahead of his unit’s deployment to Iraq has become a point of contention on the campaign trail.

This year marks the first time since 2004 that both major party presidential tickets have included a candidate with military experience. In that race, it was the presidential hopefuls themselves, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry.

“Having two candidates who are both veterans and both post-9/11 veterans, that’s an exciting moment for our country,” Jaslow said. “And it sends a message.”

Whether that veteran vice president will have fewer veteran colleagues in Congress or a larger caucus to work with will be decided by voters on Nov. 5.

About Leo Shane III

Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.

24. Here are all the veterans running for Congress in 2024

Here are all the veterans running for Congress in 2024

militarytimes.com · by Leo Shane III · September 30, 2024

A total of 181 candidates with military experience won primaries for House and Senate seats this year, according to an analysis from Military Times. That number is down from 196 in 2022, and follows a trend of fewer veterans winning national elected office that began in the late 1970s.

This year’s field boasts 71 incumbents, 16 women and 55 individuals who started their military careers after January 2000. Fifty-three of the candidates are Democrats, while 123 are Republicans.

Below is a list of those congressional hopefuls sorted by state, with biographical data on each. Military Times will be tracking each of these races on Election Day and be following each of the winners as they enter the 119th session of Congress next January.

Fewer vets will be on the November ballot for Congress this year

Of the 75 congressional candidates this cycle with a combat zone deployment, 62 of them served in Iraq, Afghanistan or both.

Editor’s note: Eight states do not have any veterans who won a primary contest. They are Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Wyoming. Independent candidates who did not win a primary matchup were not included in this list.

Alabama

House

District 1: Barry Moore (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army National Guard, 1990s

Member of the House Agriculture and Judiciary committees.

District 1: Tom Holmes, Democrat

Branch: Navy Reserve, 1960s

Retired state worker and advocate for the developmentally disabled.

Arizona

House

District 2: Eli Crane (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 2000s–2010s

Combat deployments: Afghanistan

Member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

District 4: Kelly Cooper, Republican

Branch: Marine Corps, 1990s

Owns three restaurants and credits his success to the Marine Corps.

District 8: Abraham Hamadeh, Republican

Branch: Army Reserve, 2010s–2020s

Unsuccessfully ran for Arizona Attorney General in 2022.

9: Quacy Smith, Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps, 1990s–2000s

Currently a bishop with Grace Unlimited International Church.

Senate

Ruben Gallego, Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps, 2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Vocal member of the House Armed Services Committee now running for Senate.

Arkansas

House

District 1: Rick Crawford (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s

Member of the House Intelligence Committee.

District 1: Rodney Govens, Democrat

Branch: Army, 2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Works as a court advocate for abused and neglected children.

District 2: Marcus Jones, Democrat

Branch: Army National Guard, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

His assignments included serving as program director at NATO’s Joint Warfare Centre in Norway.

District 3: Steve Womack (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army National Guard, 1970s–2000s

Serves on the House Budget Committee and appropriations’ defense subcommittee.

California

House

District 2: Chris Coulombe, Republican

Branch: Army & Marine Corps, 2000s–2010s

His assignments included running the Army’s Pacific Theater Air Assault School.

District 4: Mike Thompson (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Army, 1960s–1970s

Combat Deployments: Vietnam

Received a Purple Heart with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, was an airborne school instructor.

District 5: Mike Barkley, Democrat

Branch: Navy, 1960s

Has run unsuccessfully for Congress six times.

District 7: Tom Silva, Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s–2010s

Worked as veterans program coordinator at University of the Pacific.

District 8: Rudy Recile, Republican

Branch: Army National Guard 1980s–2010s

Also worked as a civilian in the Department of Agriculture.

District 9: Kevin Lincoln II, Republican

Branch: Marine Corps, 2000s

Served in the White House Military Office on Marine One.

District 19: Jimmy Panetta (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Navy Reserve, 1990s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Son of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

District 21: Michael Maher, Republican

Branch: Navy, 2000s

Served on the submarine USS Salt Lake City in support of overseas operations.

District 24: Salud Carbajal (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps Reserve, 1990s

Born in Mexico, he served eight years in the military before his political career.

District 26: Michael Koslow, Republican

Branch: Air Force National Guard, 2000s–2010s

Also worked as a civilian in the Department of Defense Inspector General’s office.

District 27: Mike Garcia (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy & Navy Reserve, 1990s–2010s

Had more than 30 combat sorties during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

District 31: Gil Cisneros, Democrat

Branch: Navy, 1990s–2000s

Served as Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness under Biden.

District 32: Larry Thompson, Republican

Branch: Army Reserve, 1960s–1970s

Worked as a Hollywood talent manager.

District 35: Mike Cargile, Republican

Branch: Army, 1990s

Worked as an actor and manager for an indie music label.

District 36: Ted Lieu (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Air Force & Air Force Reserve, 1990s–2010s

Member of the House Foreign Affairs and Judiciary committees.

District 39: David Serpa, Republican

Branch: Marine Corps, 2010s–2020s

Founded his own real estate company.

District 45: Derek Tran, Democrat

Branch: Army, 1990s–2000s

Son of refugees who fled Vietnam.

District 48: Darrell Issa (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 1970s–1980s

Served in the U.S. House for 18 years until 2019, then won re-election again in 2021.

District 50: Peter Bono, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1970s–2000s

Volunteers time to help disabled veterans with benefits claims.

Colorado

House

District 6: Jason Crow (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Army, 2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Served as a prosecutor during Trump’s first impeachment trial.

District 6: John Fabbricatore, Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1990s

Retired after 26 years as an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer.

District 8: Gabe Evans, Republican

Branch: Army & National Guard, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Trained as a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot.

Connecticut

House

District 1: Jim Griffin, Republican

Branch: Army, 1970s

Lost his bid for this seat in the 2020 Republican primary.

Senate

Matthew Corey, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1980s

Worked as a postal service employee and has run several restaurants.

Florida

House

District 2: Neal Dunn (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s

Completed his medical internship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

District 5: Jay McGovern, Democrat

Branch: Navy, 1980s–2010s

Served as a naval aviator aboard multiple aircraft carriers.

District 6: Michael Waltz (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army & National Guard, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Green Beret was a regular Fox News contributor before joining Congress.

District 7: Cory Mills (Incumbent), Republican,

Branch: Army, 1990s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Bosnia

Spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan as a diplomatic consultant with the State Department.

District 9: Thomas Chalifoux, Republican

Branch: Army, 1960s–2000s

Self-funded his congressional bid.

District 13: Anna Paulina Luna (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Air Force & National Guard, 2000s–2010s

One of five female veterans currently serving in the House.

District 14: Robert Rochford, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1980s–2010s

Former commander of Naval Beach Group One.

District 16: Vern Buchanan (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Air National Guard, 1970s

Sits on the House Ways and Means committee.

District 17: Greg Steube (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Serves on the House Veterans’ Affairs and Oversight committees.

District 17: Manny Lopez, Democrat

Branch: Army, 1980s

Disabled veteran who suffered a neck injury during grenade training.

District 18: Scott Franklin (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy & Navy Reserve, 1980s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Bosnia

Flew combat missions over Bosnia and Kosovo.

District 21: Brian Mast (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Lost both legs in an IED attack in Afghanistan.

District 25: Christopher Eddy, Republican

Branch: Air Force Reserve, 1980s–2010s

Worked 13 years as an FBI Intelligence Manager.

District 28: Phil Ehr, Democrat

Branch: Navy, 1980s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Gulf War

Founded a nonprofit to counter disinformation in U.S. politics.

Senate

Rick Scott (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 1970s

Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Georgia

House

District 2: Sanford Bishop Jr. (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Army, 1960s–1970s

Has served in Congress since 1992.

District 3: Maura Keller, Democrat

Branch: Army, 1970s–2000s

Retired lieutenant colonel who also worked in the Atlanta VA healthcare system.

District 4: Eugene Yu, Republican

Branch: Army, 1970s–1980s

Also worked as a firefighter and police officer.

District 7: Rich McCormick (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Marine Corps, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Served as the department head for emergency medicine in Kandahar.

District 7: Bob Christian, Democrat

Branch: Army, 1990s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Has also worked as a sports reporter, baker and restaurant executive.

District 9: Andrew Clyde (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy & Navy Reserve, 1980s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Serves on the House Homeland Security Committee

District 11: Barry Loudermilk (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1980s–1990s

Serves on the House Financial Services Committee.

District 11: Katy Stamper, Democrat

Branch: Army, 1970s–1980s

Has received criticism for her close ties to Republican lawmakers and groups.

District 13: Jonathan Chavez, Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Worked as the non-commissioned officer in charge of a joint service medical team in Iraq.

District 14: Shawn Harris, Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps & National Guard, 1980s–2020s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Served as director of Joint Staff for the Army National Guard.

Hawaii

Senate

Bob McDermott, Republican

Branch: Marine Corps, 1980s–1990s

Combat Deployments: Gulf War

Worked as executive director of the Honolulu Navy League.

Illinois

House

District 7: Chad Koppie, Republican

Branch: Army, 1960s

Pilot who worked for Delta Airlines for 35 years.

District 12: Mike Bost (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Marine Corps, 1970s–1980s

Current Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

District 13: Joshua Lloyd, Republican

Branch: Army & National Guard, 2010s–2020s

Graduated from West Point in 2022.

Indiana

House

District 4: Jim Baird (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 1960s–1970s

Combat Deployments: Vietnam

Earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts while serving with the 523rd Transportation Company.

District 4: Derrick Holder, Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps, 1990s–2000s

Worked as a paralegal in the Indiana Department of Child Services.

District 5: Deborah Pickett, Democrat

Branch: Army Reserve, 1980s

Her brother-in-law is a Medal of Honor recipient.

Senate

Jim Banks, Republican

Branch: Navy Reserve, 2010s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Has served in the House since 2017.

Iowa

House

District 1: Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army & Army Reserve, 1970s–1990s

Served as the first female president of the Iowa Medical Society.

District 3: Zach Nunn (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Air Force & National Guard, 2000s–2020s

Combat Deployment: Afghanistan

Served on the White House’s National Security Council prior to Congress.

District 3: Lanon Baccam, Democrat

Branch: Army National Guard, 1990s–2000s

Combat Deployment: Afghanistan

Oversaw veterans programs within the Department of Agriculture.

Kansas

House

District 3: Prasanth Reddy, Republican

Branch: Air Force Reserve, 2000s–2020s

Still serving as a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

Kentucky

House

District 2: Brett Guthrie (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s–1990s

Eight-term congressman is a West Point grad.

District 5: Hal Rogers (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army National Guard, 1950s–1960s

Dean of the House, he has served in Congress since 1981.

Louisiana

House

District 3: Clay Higgins (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army National Guard, 1970s–1980s

Prominent member of the House Freedom Caucus.

Maine

House

District 1: Ronald Russell, Republican

Branch: Army, 1970s–2000s

An Airborne Ranger and a Special Forces qualified Green Beret.

District 2: Jared Golden (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

Senate

Demi Kouzounas, Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s

Longtime dentist was also chairwoman of the Maine Republican Party.

Maryland

House

District 1: Andrew Harris (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy Reserve, 1980s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Gulf War

Still-practicing physician served in the Navy Medical Corps.

District 1: Blane Miller III, Democrat

Branch: Navy, 1990s–2000s

Later worked as a deep-water technical diver testing military equipment.

District 3: Rob Steinberger, Republican

Branch: Navy Reserve, 1990s–2000s

Founder of a financial consulting firm.

Massachusetts

House

District 4: Jake Auchincloss (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps, 2010s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Sits on the House Transportation Committee and select panel on China.

District 6: Seth Moulton (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps, 2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2019.

Senate

John Deaton, Republican

Branch: Marine Corps, 1990s–2000s

Worked as a trial advocacy instructor at the Naval War College.

Michigan

House

District 1: Jack Bergman (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Marine Corps & Guard/Reserve, 1970s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Vietnam

Served as commanding general of Marine Forces Reserve.

District 7: Tom Barrett, Republican

Branch: Army National Guard, 2000s–2020s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Narrowly lost a bid for this congressional seat in 2022.

District 10: John James (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Sits on the House Foreign Affairs and Energy committees.

Senate

Mike Rogers, Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s

Previously served in the House from 2001 to 2015.

Minnesota

House

District 2: Joe Teirab, Republican

Branch: Marine Corps, 2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Worked as an assistant U.S. Attorney, focused on narcotics trafficking and violent crime.

District 3: Tad Jude, Republican

Branch: Army Reserve, 1970s

Was the youngest individual ever elected to the Minnesota Legislature, at age 20.

Mississippi

House

District 1: Trent Kelly (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army National Guard, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Gulf War & Iraq

Chairman of the House Armed Services’ seapower subcommittee.

District 2: Ronald Eller, Republican

Branch: Army, 1970s–1990s

Works in cardiac and thoracic surgery at St. Dominic’s Hospital.

Senate

Ty Pinkins, Democrat

Branch: Army, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Community organizer who has focused on unfair pay practices.

Missouri

Senate

Lucas Kunce, Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps, 2000s–2020s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Led a police training team in the Sunni Triangle while deployed to Iraq.

Montana

House

District 1: Ryan Zinke (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 1980s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Served as Secretary of the Interior under Trump.

District 2: Troy Downing, Republican

Branch: Air National Guard, 2000s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Served in a Combat Search and Rescue squadron.

District 2: John Driscoll, Democrat

Branch: Army National Guard, 1960s–2000s

Has worked as a wildland firefighter, a public utility regulator, and a writer.

Senate

Tim Sheehy, Republican

Branch: Navy, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Founded an aerospace firm and still works as a firefighting pilot.

Nebraska

House

District 2: Don Bacon (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1980s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Chair of the House Armed Services Committee’s quality of life panel.

Nevada

House

District 2: Mark Amodei (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s

Serves on the House Appropriations Committee.

Senate

Sam Brown, Republican

Branch: Army, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Severely burned in a roadside bomb attack in Kandahar.

New Jersey

House

District 1: Theodore Liddell, Republican

Branch: Army, 1990s–2000s

Manages his own law practice.

District 9: Bill Pascrell (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Army, 1960s

Served on the House Ways and Means Committee for the last decade.

District 9: Billy Prempeh, Republican

Branch: Air Force, 2000s–2010s

Has twice run for the same seat without success.

District 11: Mikie Sherrill (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Navy, 1990s–2000s

Sea King helicopter pilot flew missions throughout the Middle East.

New Mexico

House

District 1: Steve Jones, Republican

Branch: Army, 1970s

Worked as a management consultant and executive in the energy industry.

New York

House

District 1: Nicholas LaLota (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 2000s–2010s

Sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

District 6: Thomas Zmich, Republican

Branch: Army Reserve, 1980s–1990s

Worked as a construction manager.

District 12: Mike Zumbluskas, Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s

Has been a member of the Reform and Independence parties in the past.

District 13: Ruben Vargas, Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1970s–1990s

Advocate who has been active with the International Chess Federation.

District 15: Gonzalo Duran, Republican

Branch: Marine Corps, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

CEO of a firm focused on veterans reintegration into civilian life.

District 18: Pat Ryan (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Army, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Serves as vice ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.

District 22: Brandon Williams (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 1990s

Served as the strategic missile officer on board the USS Georgia.

District 25: Gregg Sadwick, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1980s–1990s

Owner of a collision shop and countertop company.

North Carolina

House

District 1: Donald Davis (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Air Force, 1990s

Helped coordinate Air Force One operations at Andrews Air Force Base.

District 1: Laurie Buckhout, Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Led an 800-person battalion task force as part of the initial attack into Iraq in 2003.

District 2: Alan Swain, Republican

Branch: Army, 1970s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Gulf War

Flew AH-1 Cobras and AH-64 Apache helicopters.

District 4: Eric Blankenburg, Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1970s–1980s

Currently working as a technology consultant.

District 8: Justin Dues, Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps, 2000s–2010s

Founder of a firm specializing in wearable technology.

District 10: Pat Harrigan, Republican

Branch: Army, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

A Green Beret with multiple combat tours in Afghanistan.

District 10: Ralph Scott Jr., Democrat

Branch: Air Force, 2010s

Sixth great-grandson of James Madison.

District 12: Abdul Ali, Republican

Branch: Army, 1990s–2000s

Past chairman of the Cabarrus County Republican Party.

North Dakota

House

District 1: Trygve Hammer, Democrat

Branch: Marine Corps & MC Reserve, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Former airline pilot and security consultant.

Ohio

House

District 1: Orlando Sonza, Republican

Branch: Army, 2010s

Currently the executive director of the Hamilton County Veterans Service Commission.

District 3: Michael Young, Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1960s

Worked as a real estate developer and singer-songwriter.

District 6: Michael Kripchak, Democrat

Branch: Air Force, 2000s

Worked in the Air Force’s quantum computing initiatives while in service.

District 7: Max Miller (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Marine Corps Reserve, 2010s–2020s

Former deputy campaign manager for presidential operations under Trump.

District 8: Warren Davidson (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s–1990s

Took the seat of former House Speaker John Boehner.

District 12: Jerrad Christian, Democrat

Branch: Navy, 2000s

Works as a software engineer, but has used his Navy meteorology skills as a climate activist.

District 15: Mike Carey (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army National Guard, 1980s–1990s

Was elected to Congress in a 2021 special election.

District 15: Adam Miller, Democrat

Branch: Army Reserve, 1990s–2020s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Serves in the Ohio House of Representatives.

Oregon

House

District 4: Monique DeSpain, Republican

Branch: Air Force & AF Reserve, 1980s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Kosovo

Served as a lawyer with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps for 30 years.

Pennsylvania

House

District 1: Ashley Ehasz, Democrat

Branch: Army, 2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Could become the first female graduate of West Point to serve in Congress.

District 4: David Winkler, Republican

Branch: Army & Marine Corps, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Former CEO of the veterans charity Wings for Warriors.

District 5: Alfe Goodwin, Republican

Branch: Army & Army National Guard, 2000s–2020s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Philadelphia police officer served alongside her brother in Iraq.

District 6: Chrissy Houlahan (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Air Force, 1980s

Daughter and granddaughter of career naval officers.

District 10: Scott Perry (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army National Guard, 1980s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Serves on the House Transportation and Foriegn Affairs committees.

District 14: Guy Reschenthaler (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Sits on the House Foreign Affairs committee.

District 14: Chris Dziados, Democrat

Branch: Army, 2000s–2020s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Was involved in the development of Space Force while serving in the Pentagon.

District 17: Chris Deluzio (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Navy, 2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

First-term congressman serves on the House Transportation Committee.

District 17: Rob Mercuri, Republican

Branch: Army, 1990s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Gulf War

Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Senate

David McCormick, Republican

Branch: Army, 1990s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Gulf War

Former Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs.

South Carolina

House

District 2: David Robinson II, Democrat

Branch: Army, 2000s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Became an advocate for missing persons after his son’s disappearance in Arizona.

District 3: Sheri Biggs, Republican

Branch: Air National Guard, 2010s–2020s

Combat Deployments: Afghanistan

Commissioned in the Air Force at age 40 after a nursing career.

District 4: William Timmons (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army National Guard, 2010s

Member of the House Republican Steering Committee.

Tennessee

House

7: Mark Green (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army & Army Reserve, 1980s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Served on the mission where Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was captured.

Texas

House

District 2: Daniel Crenshaw (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, Active, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Navy SEAL lost an eye in an IED blast in Afghanistan.

District 3: Keith Seif (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 1970s–2000s

Served in Joint Staff assignments in U.S. European Command and NATO.

District 4: Pat Fallon (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1980s–1990s

Was a member of the 1988 Notre Dame football team which won a national championship.

District 6: Jake Ellzey (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Piloted the H-60 Seahawk helicopter, F-14 Tomcat, F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet.

District 8: Morgan Luttrell (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Brother of Marcus Luttrell, whose military service inspired the movie “Lone Survivor.”

District 11: August Pfluger (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Former F-22 pilot who served on President Trump’s national security council staff.

District 13: Ronny Jackson (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Former White House physician was demoted after retirement for improper conduct while on duty.

District 14: Rhonda Hart, Democrat

Branch: Army, 2000s

Lost her daughter in a 2018 school shooting in Santa Fe.

District 22: Troy Nehls (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army National Guard & Reserve, 1980s–2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Has faced criticism for improperly wearing a Combat Infantry Badge.

District 23: Tony Gonzales (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Sits on the House Appropriations and Homeland Security committees.

District 26: Ernest Lineberger III, Democrat

Branch: Navy, Active, 1980s–1990s

20-year career with Texas Instruments as an industrial engineer.

District 28: Jay Furman, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1990s–2010s

Served as a naval aviator.

District 36: Brian Babin (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Air Force & Air National Guard, 1970s

Earned his dental degree while in the service.

District 38: Wesley Hunt (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 2000s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Served as an AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter pilot.

Utah

House

District 3: Glenn J. Wright, Democrat

Branch: Air Force, 1960s–1970s

Combat Deployments: Vietnam

Worked as a safety consultant.

Vermont

Senate

Gerald Malloy, Republican,

Branch: Army, 1980s–2000s

Worked as a business executive for a variety of defense-related firms.

Virginia

House

District 2: Jennifer Kiggans (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, Active, 1990s–2000s

Currently serves on the House Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs Committees.

District 2: Missy Cotter Smasal, Democrat

Branch: Navy, 2000s

Executive Director for Valor Run, a non-profit that hosts running events to honor military women.

District 3: Bobby Scott (Incumbent), Democrat

Branch: Army National Guard & Reserve, 1970s

Dean of Virginia’s congressional delegation.

District 3: John Sitka III, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1970s–1990s

Former merchant mariner has been involved in advocacy for those careers.

District 5: John McGuire, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1980s–1990s

Former Navy SEAL.

District 6: Ken Mitchell, Democrat

Branch: Army, 1970s–1990s

Worked as a White House advisor for both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

District 7: Derrick Anderson, Republican

Branch: Army, 2000s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Serves as a Green Beret and a member of the “Old Guard” at Arlington National Cemetery.

District 7: Eugene Vindman, Democrat

Branch: Army, 1990s–2020s

Brother of Alexander Vindman, who testified against Trump in his first impeachment trial.

District 8: Jerry Torres, Republican

Branch: Army & National Guard, 1970s–2000s

Served in Army Special Forces as a Green Beret.

District 11: Michael Van Meter, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1980s–1990s

Spent 20 years in various roles at the FBI.

Senate

Hung Cao, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1980s–2020s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Former special operations explosive ordnance disposal officer.

Washington

House

District 2: Cody Hard, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1990s

Worked as an aircraft mechanic while in the ranks.

District 3: Joe Kent, Republican

Branch: Army, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Husband of Shannon Kent, a sailor who was killed in fighting in Syria.

District 4: Jerrod Sessler, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1980s–1990s

Former NASCAR driver who competed in Northwest Series events.

District 6: Drew MacEwen, Republican

Branch: Navy, 1990s

After the military, founded a financial services firm.

District 10: Don Hewett, Republican

Branch: Air Force, 1980s

Worked as an engineer for Boeing and Microsoft.

West Virginia

House

District 2: Steven Wendelin, Democrat

Branch: Navy & Navy Reserve, 1980s–2020s

Combat Deployments: Iraq

Former networks manager for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Wisconsin

House

District 3: Derrick Van Ordern (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Navy, 1990s–2010s

Combat Deployments: Iraq & Afghanistan

Authored the book “A Navy SEAL’s Guide to the Lost Art of Manhood.”

District 5: Scott Fitzgerald (Incumbent), Republican

Branch: Army, 1980s–2000s

Serves on the House Financial Services and Judiciary committees.

About Leo Shane III

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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."

Access NSS HERE

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