Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

– Plato

“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.”

– George Orwell

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

– John F. Kennedy

1. Tactical Triumphs, Narrative Defeats - How Winning the Story Decides Modern Wars

2. A Strategy for Striking Back at Iran

3. When the Hurricane-Relief Worker Turns Out To Be a Neo-Nazi

4. This AI Pioneer Thinks AI Is Dumber Than a Cat

5. Rise of the Dragons: Fire-Breathing Drones Duel in Ukraine

6. Shahed Drones to Be Built in Occupied Areas of Ukraine

7. Eero Saarinen's designs went "beyond the measly ABC" of modernism

8. States probed TikTok for years. Here are the documents the app tried to keep secret

9. Crisis in Iran as top military chief hit by 'traitor' rumours he's an Israel spy

10. US Army Pacific to absorb new units under ‘transformation’ mantra

11. Tiltrotor: The need for speed & range in response to global threats

12. Army eyeing commercial drones as Shadow 'gap' filler

13. Opinion The most dangerous moment since the Cold War

14. The U.S. Should Promote Taiwan as the Authentic China

15. Investigation of SEALs Drowning Also Uncovers Allegations of Performance-Enhancing Drug Use, Secret Surgery

16. BRICS Country Rejects De-Dollarization, Embraces the US Dollar

17. The US won’t run for another term on UN human rights council. Israel is likely why

18. Mark Milley fears being court-martialed if Trump wins, Woodward book says

1. Tactical Triumphs, Narrative Defeats - How Winning the Story Decides Modern Wars

Not only do we have to outfight our enemies, we have to outthink them too. And we have to win the story.

Conclusion:

Wars are not won solely through military might, nor are they determined only by who controls the battlefield. As John Arquilla argues, the outcome of a war depends as much on who wins the battle of the story as on who wins on the ground. The American Civil War, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and the U.S. War on Terror all illustrate the dual nature of warfare, where narrative triumphs must accompany tactical victories. Political leaders and their advisors must craft strategies that account for both realities. In the modern world, where information spreads rapidly, and public perception can shape policy as much as a military success, winning the battle of the story is essential to achieving lasting victory in any conflict.

1 day ago7 min read

Tactical Triumphs, Narrative Defeats

How Winning the Story Decides Modern Wars

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/tactical-triumphs-narrative-defeats

For and By Practitioners

By Monte Erfourth, October 9, 2024

Introduction

In his reflections on the nature of war, Professor John Arquilla of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School posits that all conflicts boil down to two essential questions: "Who wins the battle on the ground?" and "Who wins the battle of the story?" These two questions delve into the dual realities of military strategy—tactical victory and the narrative that defines how that victory is perceived, both domestically and internationally. In many conflicts, the ability to control the battlefield is only part of the equation. Equally important, and sometimes even more so, is the ability to control the narrative that surrounds the conflict, shaping public opinion, morale, and international support. This essay will explore these concepts through the lens of three conflicts: the American Civil War, the Israel-Hamas war, and the U.S. War on Terror, providing insight into the critical importance of shaping the story in warfare.

The Battle on the Ground: Tactical Success and Failure

The first of Arquilla's two questions addresses the material reality of conflict—who physically controls the battlefield and wins tactical engagements. Throughout history, wars have been determined by armies and strategies that dominate in key engagements. In the American Civil War, Union forces eventually triumphed on the battlefield, defeating Confederate armies and forcing their surrender in 1865. However, the road to this victory was long and costly, and both sides experienced moments where tactical victories seemed fleeting. In battles such as Antietam or Gettysburg, tactical successes or failures influenced the immediate course of the war, yet neither battle alone decided the ultimate outcome. The battle on the ground involves winning key engagements, utilizing superior logistics, and maintaining the will to fight.

Similarly, in the Israel-Hamas conflict, the battle on the ground plays out through intense fighting between the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas militants. Tactically, Israel holds a significant advantage with its superior military technology, intelligence apparatus, and professional military forces. However, each skirmish, rocket exchange, and ground operation contributes to an ongoing tally of military gains and losses. In this conflict, like many others, the tactical victories, though crucial, do not alone determine the conflict's outcome.

The U.S. War on Terror also illustrates the challenges of winning the battle on the ground. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the United States quickly toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and ousted Saddam Hussein in Iraq. However, despite these early tactical victories, the subsequent insurgencies and the difficulty of stabilizing both countries demonstrated that winning the initial battles was not enough to secure long-term peace or victory. The complexities of counterinsurgency warfare and the difficulty of maintaining control over vast, hostile terrains show that winning the battle on the ground can be elusive, particularly when faced with non-state actors and asymmetric warfare.

The Battle of the Story: Controlling the Narrative

If winning on the ground involves physical and tactical control, winning the battle of the story involves controlling how that conflict is perceived—by one’s own citizens, by adversaries, and by the broader international community. As Prof. Arquilla suggests, the story of the war can determine its ultimate outcome as much, if not more, than battlefield success. In the American Civil War, the Union ultimately succeeded not just because of battlefield victories but also because of the way the war was framed as a moral crusade to end slavery. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 redefined the Union’s cause, transforming it from a mere political struggle into a fight for human freedom. By shaping the narrative, Lincoln rallied domestic and international support, particularly from European powers, which were dissuaded from recognizing the Confederacy.

The Israel-Hamas war offers another stark example of the battle for narrative control. While Israel often holds a military advantage, Hamas and its supporters frequently leverage the power of storytelling to shape international opinion. Images of civilian casualties, destruction in Gaza, and the portrayal of Israel as an occupying force resonate with global audiences, complicating Israel’s efforts to justify its military actions. In this conflict, both sides engage in an intense information war, seeking to win the battle of the story. Hamas, despite its military inferiority, has effectively used the narrative of resistance to galvanize support from various global actors, particularly in the Arab world, while Israel faces ongoing challenges in defending its actions on the world stage.

In the War on Terror, the U.S. experienced significant difficulty in controlling the narrative of the conflict. While the U.S. military achieved early successes, the prolonged nature of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the images of abuses at Abu Ghraib, and the civilian casualties from drone strikes undermined the U.S. position. The U.S. struggled to frame the war in a way that resonated with both domestic and international audiences. Terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS, meanwhile, proved adept at using propaganda to attract recruits and spread their ideology. The failure to win the narrative battle contributed to the war’s growing unpopularity at home and abroad, ultimately leading to the withdrawal of U.S. forces and a broader questioning of the efficacy of the entire War on Terror.

Shaping the Story: How to Win the Battle of Perception

In modern warfare, where global media and social networks spread information instantaneously, shaping the narrative is as vital as any military maneuver. To craft a more effective policy, advisors to presidents and political leaders must emphasize the importance of winning the battle of the story. This involves not only messaging that resonates with domestic audiences but also ensuring that international perceptions align with strategic objectives.

One of the most effective ways to shape the story is through a consistent and clear articulation of war aims that align with moral or ethical values. During the American Civil War, Lincoln’s framing of the conflict as a fight to preserve the Union and abolish slavery gave the North a clear moral high ground, which helped maintain public support through the war’s darkest days. Similarly, in conflicts like the War on Terror, messaging that focuses on the protection of human rights, the fight against extremism, and the promotion of democracy has a chance to resonate more strongly with global audiences than narratives centered around self-interest or power projection.

Another important aspect of shaping the story is transparency and honesty in the face of setbacks. Attempts to obscure failures or spin bad news can backfire, leading to a loss of credibility. In the Vietnam War, for instance, the U.S. government’s insistence that the war was being won, despite growing evidence to the contrary, led to a dramatic loss of public trust. Advisors to presidents should counsel that honesty in wartime communications is not just a moral imperative but a strategic necessity.

Leaders must also be aware that the battle of the story occurs on multiple fronts. It is not enough to convince one’s own population of the righteousness of a cause; international opinion matters too. Coalitions of allies can fracture if public opinion in allied countries turns against a conflict. This was seen in the Iraq War, where global protests and discontent among U.S. allies strained international relationships. Successful narrative control requires a concerted effort to win hearts and minds both at home and abroad.

Conclusion: Balancing the Ground and the Story

Veterans of Vietnam and the War on Terror sometimes use the phrase "we won the battles but lost the war" to suggest that tactical victories in combat can still lead to defeat due to broader failures in strategy or politics. However, this view is often misleading and oversimplifies the complex nature of warfare.

Modern war involves far more than battles. Diplomatic negotiations, public opinion, economic stability, and international alliances all play decisive roles. Focusing only on military engagements ignores this broader context. In conflicts like the Vietnam War, the U.S. frequently won on the battlefield, yet failed to secure long-term political goals, leading to a perception and actual strategic failure. But to say the war was lost because of external, non-military reasons miss the point: the military's inability to convert tactical victories into lasting outcomes was itself part of the defeat.

Wars are won by achieving strategic objectives, not by counting battlefield wins. Nazi Germany, in World War II, won several early battles but failed to conquer Europe, which was its ultimate goal. The Allies' strategic coordination, along with the Soviet Union's resistance, outmatched Germany’s tactical successes. This demonstrates that battlefield victories are meaningless if they do not advance the overall war effort.

Another critical flaw in the "won the battles, lost the war" argument is that post-battle conditions often define the true victor. In the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition forces quickly won on the battlefield, but the aftermath—a prolonged insurgency and political instability—diminished those military successes. If a side wins battles but cannot maintain control or stabilize the situation afterward, the victory is temporary and largely symbolic.

The phrase also overlooks the long-term impact of war, misrepresenting what it means to "lose." A war may seem lost in the short term but have lasting positive consequences. The British won several battles during the American Revolution, yet the colonies ultimately gained independence. In hindsight, the battles won by the British seem irrelevant compared to the colonists' long-term political success.

Additionally, the phrase ignores the dynamics of asymmetric warfare, where the weaker side may lose battles but still win the war. In Afghanistan, the U.S. often defeated the Taliban militarily, but the insurgents’ ability to outlast foreign forces and maintain local influence turned those victories into hollow achievements.

Notes

1. John Arquilla, Bitskrieg: The New Challenge of Cyberwarfare (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021), 34-36.

2. James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 492-494.

3. Benny Morris, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 13-15.

4. Jason Burke, The 9/11 Wars (New York: Penguin Books, 2011), 82-85.

5. Bruce Riedel, American Presidents and Israeli Settlements: An Ideological Conflict (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2020), 56-58.

2. A Strategy for Striking Back at Iran

Excerpts:

The U.S. should provide direct and public support to Israel’s counterstrikes, not just sit on the sidelines. America should never forget the large number of Americans who have been murdered by Iran and its terrorist action network since Hezbollah attacked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut multiple times in the 1980s and obliterated U.S. barracks there in 1983, killing 241 Marines and sailors. These attacks were followed by the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 and numerous Iran-directed attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2012 that killed and wounded thousands.

The U.S. military has a blood grievance against Tehran’s regime. Yet there has been little retaliation beyond taking down Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. Now is the time to join Israel in retribution at scale and scope.

A Strategy for Striking Back at Iran

Target key leadership, military support and financial infrastructure, as the U.S. did with ISIS.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-strategy-for-striking-back-at-iran-middle-east-conflict-47098845?mod=hp_opin_pos_5#cxrecs_s

By David Asher

Oct. 10, 2024 1:24 pm ET

Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei decorates the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' aerospace force commander for planning an attack on Israel in Tehran, Oct. 6. Photo: -/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In retaliation for recent attacks by Iran and its proxies, Israel is reportedly discussing an attack on Iranian power plants. This approach could be counterproductive. Iran’s energy infrastructure will be a key to the eventual emergence of an alternative regime there. The crucial task is holding the current regime accountable.

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 27, “the curse of Oct. 7 began when Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza, but it didn’t end there. Israel was soon forced to defend itself on six more war fronts organized by Iran.” The strategy Israel has successfully implemented against Hezbollah must now be applied against Tehran directly. The regime is the puppeteer behind Oct. 7 and the multifront attacks against Israel.

Israel’s most effective course of action would be to target key leadership, military support and financial infrastructure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Intelligence and Security Ministry. That would weaken the regime’s pillars while avoiding direct harm to civilians, which could otherwise foster sympathy for the regime. Combined with attacks on Iran’s external oil-export capacity to deprive the regime of its financial lifeblood, a top-down leadership-focused approach would pressure the regime without disrupting essential domestic services.

Israel should first neutralize the immediate missile threat posed by the regime. Striking Iran’s leadership and nuclear facilities without simultaneously addressing Iran’s offensive missile capabilities would allow the regime to retaliate aggressively. Iran knows this, which explains why its rulers are posting web images of their subterranean “missile cities.” Next, Israel must attack the regime’s headquarters, command facilities and military. No key Iranian leaders should be spared. The precision killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a Tehran apartment demonstrates that Israel can strike anyone, anytime and anywhere.

Then Iran’s military training camps on the Iraq border should be smoked. For decades, these camps have been used to train Iranian, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iraqi special-group operatives for campaigns against Israel, U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and global antiterrorist operations. After that Iran’s central bank and oil export facilities should be destroyed.

I helped develop the U.S. campaign of attacks against ISIS’s central bank and cash-distribution centers in and around Mosul, Iraq, in 2015-16, burning down the bank and destroying the terrorist group’s financial reserves. These synchronized strikes were a turning point in the war. Economic warfare should be focused on Tehran’s financial apparatus: banks, bankers and administrative functionaries that support the Iranian revolutionary regime. Only after disrupting command, control, and financial and logistical infrastructure should Israel consider direct action against key Iranian nuclear facilities.

The U.S. should provide direct and public support to Israel’s counterstrikes, not just sit on the sidelines. America should never forget the large number of Americans who have been murdered by Iran and its terrorist action network since Hezbollah attacked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut multiple times in the 1980s and obliterated U.S. barracks there in 1983, killing 241 Marines and sailors. These attacks were followed by the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 and numerous Iran-directed attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2012 that killed and wounded thousands.

The U.S. military has a blood grievance against Tehran’s regime. Yet there has been little retaliation beyond taking down Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. Now is the time to join Israel in retribution at scale and scope.

Mr. Asher is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

3. When the Hurricane-Relief Worker Turns Out To Be a Neo-Nazi

This illustrates what may be the biggest battle in American politics- the battle of the narrative. Who is winning the narrative?

When the Hurricane-Relief Worker Turns Out To Be a Neo-Nazi

Seizing on the politicization of the government response, white supremacist groups have turned out to help after recent storms in North Carolina and Florida in order to boost recruitment and burnish their image

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/hurricane-relief-misinformation-white-supremacists-85f3df64?mod=hp_listb_pos1

By Tawnell D. HobbsFollow, Jennifer LevitzFollow and Joe BarrettFollow

Oct. 10, 2024 9:00 pm ET

The fit, helpful strangers who descended on Horseshoe Beach, Fla., after Hurricane Helene were a welcome sight. The men swiftly chopped through downed trees and cleared mounds of debris for distressed residents in the small Gulf Coast town west of Gainesville.

These weren’t typical disaster-relief volunteers. They were members of Patriot Front, an organization branded by the Anti-Defamation League as a white-supremacist group.

Neo-Nazi groups aggressively escalating their activity in recent months across the U.S. have seized upon a potent new recruiting tool: the surging tide of misinformation surrounding hurricanes.

The contentious U.S. presidential race that has sharply politicized the storms is providing a new opening for hate groups that were already on the rise. Hurricane falsehoods about government malfeasance have spread rapidly on social media, often seizing on the hot-button debate of immigration by claiming relief funds are being diverted to migrants or favor minority victims over white applicants, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency denies.

FEMA’s Urban Search & Rescue Task Force members in Asheville, N.C., after Hurricane Helene. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Exploiting public confusion, grief and communication breakdowns, white supremacist groups are now showing up in vulnerable storm-ravaged communities in Florida and North Carolina. They blend in among the many legitimate church or other charity workers that have rushed in to help. But these militia groups offer aid while filming propaganda videos that both amplify falsehoods about the government response and help the groups remake their image as patriotic civic organizations for men.

Horseshoe Beach Mayor Jeff Williams said he didn’t realize, until after a call from a Wall Street Journal reporter, that the group was Patriot Front. Williams said he went online and looked them up after the call. “Plain as day, they are white supremacists,” he said, adding that he would have never known by their trim looks. “Typically when you see white supremacists, they are not as clean cut looking as what I saw.”

“You’re seeing these hyper-localized militias, these antigovernment groups, who are able to use this massive distrust, the panic, the fear, the unrest, to recruit,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. “It’s not surprising to see these groups trying to use these disasters for promotional efforts.”

At Horseshoe Beach, where local officials say Hurricane Helene destroyed the town hall and more than 90 homes, a Patriot Front crew filmed its cleanup work and then posted a video to its 20,000 subscribers on Telegram. A member, face obscured and his voice backed by the sound of buzzing chain saws, introduced the workers as Patriot Front and said: “It is important for American men to gather and help fellow Americans in need, while the federal government is occupied ushering in foreigners and giving them homes and giving them food and giving them water.”

“There is nothing here,” he continued, implying that the town’s only assistance consisted of “a couple of firefighters” and ordinary citizens.

A rescue team sets up an antenna in Horseshoe Beach following Hurricane Helene. Photo: Marco Bello/Reuters

“That’s wrong,” said Mayor Williams. He said at least 100 official workers from various agencies have come in. FEMA personnel have been going to door-to-door doing damage assessments, said Blake Watson, public information officer for Dixie County Fire and Rescue, adding, “We have supply chains to all our coastal communities that we’ve supplied with water, tarps, MREs.”

Williams condemned Patriot Front’s ideology, but said he’ll take all the assistance he can get.

“As long as they’re not here trying to press that on our people—I take the help,” he said. “I don’t care where they’re from.”

Concerns about the election

The number of white-nationalist groups reached a high of 166 in 2023, according to the latest information available from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The proliferation and visibility of the groups is adding to concerns about disruptions in the coming election, such as interference with voters at polling places and election workers counting ballots.

“It is just a question of how many, where they will be, and whether or not they will be stopped or prevented,” said Tammy Patrick, chief program officer for the National Association of Election Officials.

Patriot Front marching in Nashville in July.

Already in Ohio, Clark County Democratic Party volunteers out canvassing for the election recently faced threats from groups such as the Proud Boys—the far-right group then-President Trump told to “stand back and stand by” from the 2020 debate stage—an official with the party confirmed. The Clark County harassment spurred some local citizens to show up in support outside the party’s office to provide a metaphorical shield.

The appearances have been ramping up for months. The Anti-Defamation League in September flagged a “sustained, high level of white supremacist activity,” including by contingents “inserting themselves into the anti-immigration debate in the lead-up to the 2024 election.”

Some neo-Nazi groups recently fanned the false narrative, escalated by the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, of pet-eating Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. Over the last few months, organizations such as Patriot Front, Blood Tribe and the Proud Boys rallied in places like Tallahassee, Harrisburg, Pa., and Nashville, with some wearing masks and carrying rifles and swastika flags.

The Proud Boys have also touted their work traveling to recent hurricane sites. A self-declared member of a New York Proud Boy chapter wrote on Truth Social last week that the group was at the hurricane “cleanup site down south,” and that “I wonder where all those Democrats that love this country so much are.”

The Proud Boys’ enduring presence has shown how the group has persisted despite its former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, and other leaders being convicted of seditious conspiracy and other criminal charges in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Tarrio is serving a 22-year prison sentence—the longest handed down in the wave of cases related to the Capitol attack—but extremism researchers expect the Proud Boys’ local activities to continue.

‘Reclaim America’

Texas-based Patriot Front didn’t respond to requests for comment. The group formed after it broke off from Vanguard America in the aftermath of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. Patriot Front founder Thomas Rousseau said in a May podcast hosted by influencer Patrick Bet-David that to be “American,” one must be “a member of the European race.”

Thomas Rousseau, the founder of Patriot Front. Photo: Reuters

“Do you think your bloodline is superior to Blacks?” Bet-David asked.

“Superior in being American, yes,” Rousseau replied.

Earlier this year in Richmond, Va., where Patriot Front is the target of a federal civil lawsuit over the alleged vandalizing of a mural honoring Black tennis icon Arthur Ashe, a lawyer for Patriot Front argued the group doesn’t advocate violence and its members aren’t white supremacists. Instead, he said, they are separatists advocating for a “white ethnostate,” believing that “good fences make good neighbors” and that “it is better for ethnic groups to have their own separate territory.”

But the judge wrote in a March opinion that “the Court cannot reasonably infer that Patriot Front seeks separation for any reason other than white supremacy.”

Patriot Front’s longtime slogan, Reclaim America, has been used by the Trump campaign—notably for the “Team Trump’s Reclaim America Tour” featuring Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

Patriot Front recently highlighted the similarity on social media and said it is unclear if the Trump campaign is aware of the connection.

The Trump campaign said there was no link between its use of the slogan and Patriot Front’s and bristled at a reporter’s question about the phrase. “It is disgusting that you are trying to associate President Trump’s campaign, backed by tens of millions of Americans, with white supremacist groups. Shame on you,” said Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary.

Speaking on Bet-David’s podcast, Rousseau made the often-repeated suggestion that Democrats have allowed immigrants to enter the country illegally to vote for them. “You know, the Democrats are importing voters, right?” he said. Rousseau also said he disagreed with Trump’s support of Israel.

At a recent Michigan rally, Trump tied that same claim about Democrats to the government’s hurricane-relief efforts. “They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season,” said Trump, whose statement was also shared by his campaign’s Truth Social account.

Donald Trump at a rally in Saginaw, Mich., on Oct. 3. The hurricane response has been a hot topic in the campaign. Photo: Andrew Roth/Zuma Press

Immigrants in the country illegally or who are in the asylum system aren’t paid benefits by the federal government except in narrow circumstances, and risk deportation and jail for illegally casting ballots. Voter fraud by noncitizens is exceedingly rare, election experts have found.

The perfect storm

The hurricanes have set off an unusual level of viral rumors on social-media sites such as Elon Musk-owned X. Among them are posts alleging the agency doesn’t have money because it has been siphoned off to help migrants. FEMA plays a role in border management but that pot of money is separate from funds for responding to natural disasters.

The militia groups are actively spreading these claims about a failed or corrupt government hurricane response across the internet, with some going farther in recent days by showing up in person to work at storm clean up, and then sharing videos and commentary online.

One video from Western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene notes, “We in Patriot Front are here to help out the local communities…Our politicians can hem and haw and switch over quickly to their talking points about Israel, but we truly are supporting our communities and being America first.”

The video was shared by an X user who wrote, “While FEMA is nowhere to be found, Patriot Front is boots on the ground,” receiving dozens of likes or retweets.

A FEMA employee confers with a property owner while doing a report on damage in Buncombe County, N.C. Photo: Robert Willett/Associated Press

Another X user stated: “FEMA spent their whole budget this year on housing invaders. Hence, volunteers like us in Patriot Front are a necessity.”

Patriot Front helped clean up a family-owned plant nursery in Asheville, N.C., and touted its work on Gab, a social-media site favored by far-right groups where conspiracy theories run wild.

The group, which blurs faces in its videos, was also seen in a video helping cut up downed trees with chain saws to clear a resident’s driveway. A man on a tractor asked where the group was from, and the response was: “All over, mostly North Carolina.”

While at the residence, a Patriot Front member says in the video that the Appalachian people have been “stomped upon by the federal government and they are again in this instance.” The member gave the resident a flier before leaving, saying, “We’re from Patriot Front. It is a fraternal organization.”

A Proud Boys member last week posted that “FEMA is completely inept…they want us dead and replaced with ‘migrants.’ ” Proud Boys didn’t respond to requests for comment. Blood Tribe said they plan to continue to protest in Springfield but had no further comment.

The messaging has the dual goal of casting the government as distracted or ineffectual in its response while touting the groups themselves as filling the void, extremism experts said.

“If we look at the goals of bigoted and antidemocratic groups, many of them work to spread bigotry to build political power and undermine democratic institutions and then seek to be perceived as filling gaps where democratic institutions are failing,” said Lindsay Schubiner, director of programs at Western States Center, a left-leaning Portland, Ore.-based civil-rights organization. “It is a lot of these things that come together around natural disasters.”

In fliers left in communities and social-media posts, the groups rarely use hateful language, instead deploying hopeful slogans, such as “Strong Families, Strong Nations” and “United We Stand.” Heavily into fitness, they appear to target disaffected men, often urging them to get off the couch and find a “tribe.” They prominently display website links for recruitment.

Members of Patriot Front march on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., early this year. Photo: Zuma Press

Lewis, of George Washington University, said the groups sow distrust in the government during a catastrophe as part of the radicalization process. “It won’t be until the fifth or sixth meeting that they start using racial slurs and talking about Jewish conspiracies and the great replacement,” he said.

In Horseshoe Beach, Brett Selph unwittingly became part of Patriot Front’s video after receiving their assistance. He didn’t know who the group was at the time, and is still appreciative of the help.

“When you have 100 families without homes it doesn’t really matter who’s helping clean up to get back to normalcy,” said Selph, sounding exhausted, before adding that buildings for his charter boat business were wiped away. “We weren’t asking who wanted to pick up trash and tote it to the road. If they were willing to pick up trash and move it to the road, whether it was inmates or whatever, we were glad to have the help.”

C. Ryan Barber contributed to this article.

Write to Tawnell D. Hobbs at tawnell.hobbs@wsj.com, Jennifer Levitz at Jennifer.Levitz@wsj.com and Joe Barrett at Joseph.Barrett@wsj.com

Appeared in the October 11, 2024, print edition as 'Neo-Nazis Tout Storm Relief'.

4. This AI Pioneer Thinks AI Is Dumber Than a Cat

Should I feel better about this?

This AI Pioneer Thinks AI Is Dumber Than a Cat

Yann LeCun, an NYU professor and senior researcher at Meta Platforms, says warnings about the technology’s existential peril are ‘complete B.S.’

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/yann-lecun-ai-meta-aa59e2f5?mod=lead_feature_below_a_pos1

By Christopher Mims

Follow | Photographs by Justin J Wee for WSJ

Updated Oct. 11, 2024 10:54 pm ET

Yann LeCun helped give birth to today’s artificial-intelligence boom. But he thinks many experts are exaggerating its power and peril, and he wants people to know it.

While a chorus of prominent technologists tell us that we are close to having computers that surpass human intelligence—and may even supplant it—LeCun has aggressively carved out a place as the AI boom’s best-credentialed skeptic.

On social media, in speeches and at debates, the college professor and Meta Platforms META 1.05%increase; green up pointing triangle AI guru has sparred with the boosters and Cassandras who talk up generative AI’s superhuman potential, from Elon Musk to two of LeCun’s fellow pioneers, who share with him the unofficial title of “godfather” of the field. They include Geoffrey Hinton, a friend of nearly 40 years who on Tuesday was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics, and who has warned repeatedly about AI’s existential threats.

LeCun thinks that today’s AI models, while useful, are far from rivaling the intelligence of our pets, let alone us. When I ask whether we should be afraid that AIs will soon grow so powerful that they pose a hazard to us, he quips: “You’re going to have to pardon my French, but that’s complete B.S.”

In person, LeCun has a disarming charm: mischievous, quick-witted, and ready to deliver what he sees as the hard truths of his field. At age 64, he looks simultaneously chic and a bit rumpled in a way that befits a former Parisian who is now a professor at New York University. His glasses are classic black Ray Ban frames, almost identical to one of Meta’s AI-powered models. (LeCun’s own AI-powered Ray Bans stopped working after a dunk in the ocean when he was out sailing, one of his passions.)

Sitting in a conference room inside one of Meta’s satellite offices in New York City, he exudes warmth and genial self-possession, and delivers his barbed opinions with the kind of grin that makes you feel as if you are in on the joke.

LeCun, center, with other executives at Meta, which has invested heavily in AI. Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press

His body of work, and his perch atop one of the most accomplished AI research labs at one of the biggest tech companies, gives weight to LeCun’s critiques.

Born and raised just north of Paris, he became intrigued by AI in part because of HAL 9000, the rogue AI in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” After earning a doctorate from the Sorbonne, he worked at the storied Bell Labs, where everything from transistors to lasers were invented. He joined NYU as a professor of computer science in 2003 and became director of AI research at what was then Facebook a decade later.

In 2019, LeCun won the A.M. Turing Award, the highest prize in computer science, along with Hinton and Yoshua Bengio. The award, which led to the trio being dubbed AI godfathers, honored them for work foundational to neural networks, the multilayered systems that underlie many of today’s most powerful AI systems, from OpenAI’s chatbots to self-driving cars.

Today, LeCun continues to produce papers at NYU along with his Ph.D. students, while at Meta he oversees one of the best-funded AI research organizations in the world, as chief AI scientist at Meta. He meets and chats often over WhatsApp with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who is positioning Meta as the AI boom’s big disruptive force against other tech heavyweights from Apple to OpenAI.

Debating friends

LeCun said his interest in AI was initially piqued, in part, by ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’

LeCun jousts with rivals and friends alike. He got into a nasty argument with Musk on X this spring over the nature of scientific research, after the billionaire posted in promotion of his own artificial-intelligence firm.

LeCun also has publicly disagreed with Hinton and Bengio over their repeated warnings that AI is a danger to humanity.

Bengio says he agrees with LeCun on many topics, but they diverge over whether companies can be trusted with making sure that future superhuman AIs aren’t either used maliciously by humans, or develop malicious intent of their own.

“I hope he is right, but I don’t think we should leave it to the competition between companies and the profit motive alone to protect the public and democracy,” says Bengio. “That is why I think we need governments involved.”

LeCun thinks AI is a powerful tool. Throughout our interview, he cites many examples of how AI has become enormously important at Meta, and has driven its scale and revenue to the point that it’s now valued at around $1.5 trillion. AI is integral to everything from real-time translation to content moderation at Meta, which in addition to its Fundamental AI Research team, known as FAIR, has a product-focused AI group called GenAI that is pursuing ever-better versions of its large language models.

“The impact on Meta has been really enormous,” he says.

LeCun, in glasses, in 2019 shared the highest prize in computer science with Yoshua Benio, far left, and Geoffrey Hinton, standing, who went on to win a Nobel Prize in physics this week. Photo: Jared Council / The Wall Street Journal

At the same time, he is convinced that today’s AIs aren’t, in any meaningful sense, intelligent—and that many others in the field, especially at AI startups, are ready to extrapolate its recent development in ways that he finds ridiculous.

If LeCun’s views are right, it spells trouble for some of today’s hottest startups, not to mention the tech giants pouring tens of billions of dollars into AI. Many of them are banking on the idea that today’s large language model-based AIs, like those from OpenAI, are on the near-term path to creating so-called “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI, that broadly exceeds human-level intelligence.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman last month said we could have AGI within “a few thousand days.” Elon Musk has said it could happen by 2026.

LeCun says such talk is likely premature. When a departing OpenAI researcher in May talked up the need to learn how to control ultra-intelligent AI, LeCun pounced. “It seems to me that before ‘urgently figuring out how to control AI systems much smarter than us’ we need to have the beginning of a hint of a design for a system smarter than a house cat,” he replied on X.

He likes the cat metaphor. Felines, after all, have a mental model of the physical world, persistent memory, some reasoning ability and a capacity for planning, he says. None of these qualities are present in today’s “frontier” AIs, including those made by Meta itself.

Léon Bottou, who has known LeCun since 1986, says LeCun is “stubborn in a good way”—that is, willing to listen to others’ views, but single-minded in his pursuit of what he believes is the right approach to building artificial intelligence.

Alexander Rives, a former Ph.D. student of LeCun’s who has since founded an AI startup, says his provocations are well thought out. “He has a history of really being able to see gaps in how the field is thinking about a problem, and pointing that out,” Rives says.

AI on your face

LeCun once quipped that he has yet to see AI that displays ‘the beginning of a hint of a design for a system smarter than a house cat.’

LeCun thinks real artificial general intelligence is a worthy goal—one that Meta, too, is working on.

“In the future, when people will talk to their AI system, to their smart glasses or whatever else, we need those AI systems to basically have human-level characteristics, and really have common sense, and really behave like a human assistant,” he says.

But creating an AI this capable could easily take decades, he says—and today’s dominant approach won’t get us there.

The generative-AI boom has been powered by large language models and similar systems that train on oceans of data to mimic human expression. As each generation of models has become much more powerful, some experts have concluded that simply pouring more chips and data into developing future AIs will make them ever more capable, ultimately matching or exceeding human intelligence. This is the logic behind much of the massive investment in building ever-greater pools of specialized chips to train AIs.

LeCun thinks that the problem with today’s AI systems is how they are designed, not their scale. No matter how many GPUs tech giants cram into data centers around the world, he says, today’s AIs aren’t going to get us artificial general intelligence.

His bet is that research on AIs that work in a fundamentally different way will set us on a path to human-level intelligence. These hypothetical future AIs could take many forms, but work being done at FAIR to digest video from the real world is among the projects that currently excite LeCun. The idea is to create models that learn in a way that’s analogous to how a baby animal does, by building a world model from the visual information it takes in.

The large language models, or LLMs, used for ChatGPT and other bots might someday have only a small role in systems with common sense and humanlike abilities, built using an array of other techniques and algorithms.

Today’s models are really just predicting the next word in a text, he says. But they’re so good at this that they fool us. And because of their enormous memory capacity, they can seem to be reasoning, when in fact they’re merely regurgitating information they’ve already been trained on.

“We are used to the idea that people or entities that can express themselves, or manipulate language, are smart—but that’s not true,” says LeCun. “You can manipulate language and not be smart, and that’s basically what LLMs are demonstrating.”

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Write to Christopher Mims at christopher.mims@wsj.com

5. Rise of the Dragons: Fire-Breathing Drones Duel in Ukraine

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) or drones are changing the character of war and conflict. The capabilities of allies and enemies are constantly evolving and the wide range of capabilities provide distinct, complex, and dangerous challenges. They can support ISR, warfighting, deception, influence operations, and political warfare. They range from very expensive state developed systems to very simple and cheap commercially developed systems. Their ubiquitous presence and the fact that almost anyone can acquire them in various forms to be used for myriad activities. They are cheap and easily made and this is creating a democratization of conflict - no longer does the state have a total monopoly on violence.

Rise of the Dragons: Fire-Breathing Drones Duel in Ukraine

Drones are getting another new twist: Soldiers attach canisters to them to create weapons capable of spitting out molten metal that burns at 4,400 degrees.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/world/europe/ukraine-russia-dragon-drones.html

Ukrainian drone operators preparing to test a new drone last month in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

By Marc Santora

Marc Santora reported from near the front lines in eastern Ukraine.

Oct. 12, 2024,

12:01 a.m. ET

It was a familiar and vexing problem: Russian soldiers were using the dense cover of tree lines to prepare to storm the Ukrainian trenches.

“We used a lot of resources to try and drive them out and destroy them,” said Capt. Viacheslav, 30, the commander of the 68th Separate Jaeger Brigade’s strike drone company known as “Dovbush’s Hornets.”

But they could not do so, he said in an interview last month.

So they gave a new weapon a newer twist, attaching thermite-spewing canisters to drones and creating a weapon capable of spitting out molten metal that burns at 4,400 degrees Fahrenheit. Soldiers call them “dragon drones.”

Thermite — which was developed a century ago to weld railroad tracks — is a mixture of aluminum and iron oxide. When ignited, it produces a self-sustaining reaction that makes it almost impossible to extinguish.

It was used to devastating effect in both world wars. In Ukraine, it has been used primarily in artillery shells and hand grenades.

Now it is being attached to drones that sweep over Russian defensive positions, raining burning metal over the enemy before crashing. The flames ignite the vegetation that Russian troops use for cover and burn it out, exposing them and their equipment to direct attack.

Image

A battalion commander assembling a drone.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

The dragon drones are yet one more step in the revolution of drone warfare that has transformed the battlefield. Its role as a laboratory for improvisation and adaptation has become a hallmark of this war.

“It worked quite well,” Captain Viacheslav said. Speaking on the condition that only his first name be used in accordance with military protocol, he shared videos of his pilots testing the drones and using them in combat outside Pokrovsk, in eastern Ukraine.

In recent weeks, as more and more of these drones filled the skies across the front, Ukrainian soldiers began posting dozens of videos of the attacks on social media, hoping to spark fear along with fire.

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It did not take long for the Russians to begin producing dragon drones of their own.

Andrey Medvedev, a Moscow politician, posted a video on Telegram last month showing Russian troops using drones to pour fire on Ukrainian soldiers. He included a quote from “Game of Thrones”: “Dreams didn’t make us kings. Dragons did.”

The use of thermite is not barred under international law, but the use of such incendiary weapons in civilian areas is prohibited under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, Cold War-era guidance issued under the auspices of the United Nations.

There has been no significant criticism of dragon drones, which are known to have been used only against military targets, not against civilians.

Image

Capt. Viacheslav, the 30-year-old commander of a company known as “Dovbush’s Hornets.”Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

The dragon drones represent only a tiny fraction of the rapidly expanding fleets being employed by both armies as they engage in an urgent arms race to innovate and mass produce drones that fly faster and farther, while becoming ever deadlier.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said early this month that his country was on pace to produce 1.5 million drones this year, and he wants to ramp up production to four million annually.

Earlier this year, Ukraine created the Unmanned Systems Force, the world’s first military branch dedicated to drone warfare.

Russia, for its part, has effectively turned its economy to supporting its military industrial complex, recently announcing a proposed budget for next year with a 25 percent increase in military spending, to more than $145 billion.

As a result, it is able to churn out drones at an extraordinary pace.

“They’ve taken it to a more official level, and their supply seems much better,” Captain Viacheslav said.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met with the Russian Military-Industrial Commission in September to highlight efforts to expand drone production. While Russian companies delivered only about 140,000 drones last year, the Russian leader said they increased production tenfold to 1.4 million drones in 2024.

Image

A Ukrainian soldier with new drones. Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

Marina Miron, a researcher in the war studies department at King’s College London, said that the Russians had been “quite slow at the beginning” but that they were now spending a vast sum on research and development and could scale new innovations at greater speed than the Ukrainians.

“They moved quickly,” she said.

Russia has also received a significant boost from Iran, which American officials say has been sending drones to Moscow for use in Ukraine.

There are dozens of types of drones in production.

Surveillance drones flying high in the sky help artillery crews and missileers identify targets. Maritime drones have been employed by Ukraine to devastating effect, helping drive the Russian Navy from a large part of the Black Sea. And both sides regularly deploy long-range attack drones guided by satellite navigation to hit targets hundreds of miles away.

Closer to the ground, the skies are filled with relatively cheap expendable attack drones, known as F.P.V.s, for first-person view. They are guided by a pilot wearing a headset that shows livestreaming video from the drone, and can now hit targets more than 10 miles from the operator.

Some fly directly into a target and explode. Others are reusable and can hover over a target, dropping bomblets or grenades on enemy forces.

Image

A video showing a Ukrainian dragon drone releasing thermite over a Russian position protected by trees.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

Captain Viacheslav scrolled through a video catalog of recent attacks he keeps on his cellphone, where images of death and destruction were jarringly interspersed with videos of friends and family.

“This is called ‘White Heat,’” he said. “With over 10 kilograms of explosives, it burns through everything. This one is called ‘Dementor,’ like in ‘Harry Potter.’ It’s black, and it’s a 120-mm mortar. We just repurpose it. This is ‘Kardonitik’ — the guys really like it.”

The list went on and on.

Since his unit arrived in the Pokrovsk area in April, Captain Viacheslav said, it has killed more than 3,000 Russian soldiers. “This is just my unit,” he said. It is not possible to verify his claims independently.

He also shared videos showing the effectiveness of Russian drones.

Image

A drone operator testing one of the craft over an open field. Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

“One of our soldiers had 40 percent of his skin burned off,” he said, replaying a video of the wounded man being evacuated from the front. “I was the one driving him in the car.”

While both sides are on course to produce millions of drones, he said, skilled pilots become even more valuable and far harder to replace.

“Pilots are like specialists — worth their weight in gold — and it’s crucial to protect them,” Captain Viacheslav said. “Once located, the enemy spares no resources in destroying the position.”

Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting from eastern Ukraine, and John Ismay from Washington.

Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa. More about Marc Santora

See more on: Russia-Ukraine War

6. Shahed Drones to Be Built in Occupied Areas of Ukraine

What is Russia's intent here? Obviously to build drones for warfighting close to the fight.

But is Russia also trying to bait Ukraine into bombing factories on its own (occupied) territory thus killing its own citizens that are being held hostage?

Who is winning the battle of the narrative in Putin's war in Ukraine?

Recognize Putin's strategy. Understand it. EXPOSE it to inoculate the public and Russian target audiences (as this article is contributing to), and then attack Putin's strategy with a superior political warfare (information) strategy.

Excerpt:

Moscow’s forces are believed to be increasingly and intentionally storing ammunition in locations close to or in the middle of residential areas. This will not only make it harder for Ukraine to track down the assembly and storage sites but presents them a moral conundrum.

Shahed Drones to Be Built in Occupied Areas of Ukraine

kyivpost.com · by Kyiv Post · October 12, 2024

A report on Friday by Ukraine’s Center for National Resistance says Russian forces plan to produce Iranian designed Shahed attack drones in disused factories in the occupied territories.

by Kyiv Post | October 12, 2024, 3:38 pm

Illustrative image used by the Ukrainian Center for National Resistance (CNR) for the construction of Shahed drones

Kyiv’s Center for National Resistance (CNR) reported on Oct. 11 that Moscow has tasked the Kremlin appointed authorities in Ukraine’s occupied territories to investigate the use of seized factories and enterprises for the production of Shahed/Geran kamikaze drones.

According to the CNR as well as covertly producing the drones the assembly work would be carried out by students from vocational schools. The basis of the Russian plan is that producing the unmanned aerial vehicles in eastern Ukraine would reduce the logistic effort because the time for delivery to launch sites would be shortened.

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The CNR statement says: “At the same time, they plan to store the drones in urban areas, effectively using the local residents as human shields. Currently, the occupation administrations in the east are looking for the final places for assembling and arranging.”

As Kyiv Post reported, Ukraine’s intelligence and security services supported by naval forces attacked the Russian Yeysk airfield in the Krasnador region, a site frequently used for the launch of Shahed drones on Wednesday Oct. 9. The attack also destroyed around 400 of the UAVs which were stored in a warehouse in the village of Oktyabrske about 20 kilometers south of the airfield.

kyivpost.com · by Kyiv Post · October 12, 2024

7. Eero Saarinen's designs went "beyond the measly ABC" of modernism

A fascinating story. But what is missing is Eero Saarinen's contribution to the defense of America through his service in the OSS. So I have provided some of the "Paul HArvey" below (the "rest of the story" for those too young to remember what Paul Harvey did).

I want to find the 3 dimensional organization chart but none of my AI searches have found specifica descriptions, only references to it.

From the CIA history:

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was composed of elite, highly intelligent, ambitious patriots. Many were Ivy-league educated, all accomplished in their own right. However, sprinkled throughout the service were a handful of OSSers who became very well-known and who achieved great fame. Celebrities such as chef Julia Child, baseball catcher Moe Berg, and actor Sterling Hayden all worked for the wartime OSS.

Counted among their ranks is Eero Saarinen (pronounced air-oh), the prodigious Finnish American architect and industrial designer known for his neo-futuristic style. He lent his services to the spy agency before achieving world-wide fame as one of the masters of American 20th-century architecture. Saarinen was a prolific architect who designed national memorials, corporate campuses, and airport terminals. His most widely recognized design is the iconic Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO, the tallest man-made national monument in the United States.

An intensely serious architect, Eero flawlessly designed buildings to make expressive statements. He was creative, open-minded, and original in his designs. He paid close attention to every minute detail in the design process. His originality, creativity, and pursuit of perfection landed him on the cover of Time Magazine, earned him first place in numerous architectural contests, and caused his work to be showcased on the silver screen.

At the time he was recruited to join the OSS, the organization considered Eero to be “the most versatile and gifted young designer and architect in this country.”

...

Shortly after World War II broke out, Eero became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He was recruited by a former classmate at Yale to join the OSS where he worked until 1944. It was the same classmate who several years prior had recruited Eero to work on the Futurama exhibit for the New York World’s Fair, an experience they now found directly relevant to their work at the OSS.

At 32 years old, Eero was appointed Chief of the Special Exhibits Section of the Presentation Division. He was responsible for designing and constructing military schools and situation rooms, along with the display equipment used in the various War Department conference rooms. He created a revolutionary three-dimensional organization chart that was instrumental in presenting problems of procedure and work-flow through various parts of the organization.

Eero also used his creative talents to build true-to-scale models. He built models of weapons for use in training scenarios, and he created models and props for use in films.

Saarinen lent his creative talents to other government organizations as well throughout the war. His architecture firm was chosen by the National Capitol Housing Authority to aid the war housing program by designing the Hillside Dwelling. While undertaking this project, Eero continued to work for the OSS twice a week.

Saarinen’s work for the OSS was highly commended by the Undersecretary of War, the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, the Director of the Women’s Army Corps, and many others. His experience and experiments during his time with the OSS are reflected in his later design work. Because of his unique talents and specialized experience, Eero was deemed irreplaceable.

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/eero-saarinen-a-place-in-architectural-history/?utm

Eero Saarinen's designs went "beyond the measly ABC" of modernism

dezeen.com · by Jon Astbury · October 8, 2024

We continue our series on mid-century modern design with a profile of Eero Saarinen, the Finnish-American architect and industrial designer whose creations were adopted as the optimistic symbols of a new post-war age.

"We have chairs with four legs, with three and even with two, but no one has made one with just one leg, so that's what we'll do," Eero Saarinen told his friend, designer Florence Knoll, ahead of a new design project.

With that, the iconic, wine glass-like form of the Tulip Chair was born, a design that, along with the soaring concrete wings of the TWA Flight Center, would become synonymous with the design of the so-called "American century."

Eero Saarinen's Tulip Chair has an iconic shape. Photo by Nasjonalmuseet Annar Bjørgli via Wikimedia Commons

Labelled everything from organic and space age to neo-futurist and proto-postmodernist, critics had a hard time assigning Eero Saarinen with a particular style, his work instead defined by its constant revision and experimentation.

Eero Saarinen wanted to break away from the rigorous rules of European modernism, which he termed "the measly ABC" according to curator and historian Donald Albrecht's book about the designer, Shaping the Future.

He aimed to demonstrate that the well-worn mantra of "form follows function" didn't mean just building orthogonal boxes – or four-legged chairs.

Eero Saarinen began creating at a young age

Born in 1910 in Kirkkonummi, Finland, to architect Eliel Saarinen and textile artist and sculptor Loja Gesellius, both Eero and his sister Pipsan grew up immersed in the professional world of their parents.

"By the time Eero was five, his talent for drawing had shown itself," said a 1956 TIME Magazine article. "Sitting under his father's drafting tables, he busily turned out his own versions of door details and houses."

Saarinen was born in Finland but emigrated to the US. Photo by Balthazar Korab Archive via Wikimedia Commons

Eero Saarinen was 13 when the family emigrated to the USA. They settled in Bloomhill Fields, Michigan, where the publisher George Booth had invited Eliel Saarinen to design a new education, research, and public museum complex – the Cranbrook Educational Community.

True to form, Eliel Saarinen enlisted the rest of the family in this endeavour, with Pipsan contributing decorative details and Loja creating custom fabrics.

The young Eero Saarinen, who had begun studying what historian Tracy Campbell called his "first love" of sculpture at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, was tasked with designing a range of furniture for the campus.

The designer followed in his father's footsteps

His art deco pieces drew on traditional Scandinavian design, and Booth even agreed to allow Eero Saarinen to license them, effectively giving him his first industrial design contract when he was still only 19 years old.

This burgeoning career in furniture design was to be deferred, however, in favour of architecture, with Eero Saarinen later recounting how "it never occurred to me to do anything but follow in my father's footsteps."

Eliel Saarinen designed the Cranbrook Academy of Art as part of a wider campus design. Photo by Shoughto via Wikimedia Commons

In 1931, he headed to Yale to study architecture and was awarded a fellowship that enabled him to tour Europe and North Africa after his graduation in 1934.

After his travels, Eero Saarinen returned to Michigan, working alongside his father both at his architectural practice and at the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Here, Eero Saarinen would meet designer Charles Eames, whom Eliel Saarinen had appointed head of the school's industrial design department, and his early interest in furniture design would be given a new outlet.

Eames collaboration resulted in moulded-plywood chair

Eero Saarinen and Eames teamed up to submit an entry into the Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

While their winning design – a chair made of moulded plywood aptly named the Organic Chair – proved too difficult to manufacture at the time, it would act as a prototype for what would become a hugely recognisable element of both designers' later works.

The Womb Chair was designed to a brief from Florence Knoll. Photo by Brooklyn Museum via Wikimedia Commons

Not long after, in 1943, Florence Schust, a longtime close friend of the Saarinen family, would join the company of Hans G Knoll, with the two marrying three years later.

At Knoll Associates, Florence Knoll was instrumental in bringing the furniture designs of many architects into the mainstream.

It was her brief to Eero Saarinen to create a chair "like a great big basket of pillows I can curl up in," that led to the Womb Chair in 1948, a lounge chair that embraces the sitter with a deep, moulded fibreglass shell covered in padding.

Eero Saarinen wanted to clear up "slum of legs"

Experimentation with these materials and forms continued, and Eero Saarinen was known to work through hundreds of models and prototypes to find the perfect curves and proportions.

This culminated in 1958 when he debuted the one-legged Pedestal series, including what would later be known as the Tulip Chair and Tulip Table.

Read:

Mid-century modern design "embraced a more human aesthetic while remaining aggressively forward-looking"

"I want to clear up the slum of legs," he said of their streamlined design, "I wanted to make the chair all one thing again."

While Eero Saarinen's early work in architecture was often guided by his father's more traditionally modernist approach, he soon began to bring the level of experimentation found in his furniture designs into an entirely new scale.

The Gateway Arch in St Louis was designed by Saarinen after he won a competition. Photo by Nic Lehoux

His breakthrough as an architect in his own right came in 1948, when he bested both his father and the Eames Office to win first place in the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Competition in St Louis, Missouri, proposing the now iconic Gateway Arch.

Described by the architecture critic David Dillon as a symbol of "boundless American optimism", this 192-metre-tall stainless steel arch would become the tallest in the world when it opened in 1964.

When Eliel Saarinen died in 1950, Eero Saarinen took over the firm, and over the subsequent decade, he quickly became the go-to architect for corporate clients.

The first high-profile client was General Motors, for which Eero Saarinen would design the Technical Center campus, including a domed showroom and open-plan offices illuminated by gridded luminous ceilings.

The TWA Flight Centre is among Saarinen's most famous projects. Photo by Max Touhey

The same year, he was also appointed to design the TWA Flight Centre at JFK Airport in New York, which was intended to capture what he described as the "sensation of flying" in its swooping concrete roof structure and streamlined, fluid interiors.

For IBM Computers, the firm made a lightweight orthogonal structure clad in vibrant blue glass – the world's thinnest exterior wall at the time – and for the CBS broadcasting network, the firm would design its only skyscraper in Manhattan.

Eero Saarinen's projects incorporated interiors and furniture

Echoing the "total design" approach that echoed his father's earlier work at Cranbrook, Eero Saarinen would frequently lavish attention on interiors, introducing dramatic staircase lobbies as well as furniture by himself and his peers that challenged typical modernist office design.

The Model 71 and Model 72 or "Executive Chair" series, for example – a toned-down version of his more dynamic plastic designs – were designed to look just as at home in the conference room of a corporate office as they were in a modern living room.

Among his other buildings is the former US embassy in London

Eero Saarinen's lack of a signature style and constant experimentation likely played a part in making him so attractive to commercial clients keen to create an impression, but it led to a mixed critical reception from architectural circles.

"The critique was over the variety in his work, each client getting a different form, or, technology, or material," historian Albrecht told Dezeen.

"In the era of Mies, this meant Saarinen was pandering to each client and didn't have a signature style," he added.

Despite his firm's rapid accumulation of work, some of Eero Saarinen's most famous designs – including the Gateway Arch and TWA Flight Centre – were ones that he would never live to see complete.

In 1961, he died at the age of 51, while undergoing an operation for a brain tumour in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Eero Saarinen would be posthumously awarded the AIA Gold Medal a year after his death in 1962, but even long after his death, his work would continue to be overlooked by critics.

It was only in the 1990s, when a new age of iconic form-making and renewed interest in technology began, that many would reassess just how prescient Eero Saarinen had been three decades before.

The main illustration is by Vesa S.

Illustration by Jack Bedford

Mid-century modern

This article is part of Dezeen's mid-century modern design series, which looks at the enduring presence of mid-century modern design, profiles its most iconic architects and designers, and explores how the style is developing in the 21st century.

This series was created in partnership with Made – a UK furniture retailer that aims to bring aspirational design at affordable prices, with a goal to make every home as original as the people inside it. Elevate the everyday with collections that are made to last, available to shop now at made.com.

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dezeen.com · by Jon Astbury · October 8, 2024

8. States probed TikTok for years. Here are the documents the app tried to keep secret

So how do we explain this to our kids? If they are addicted, like drug users their response will likely be, "no I am not addicted. I can quit any time."

But what is really amazing is how the (Kentucky Public Radio reporter was able to read the "redacted" portions to expose this information from TikTok. Seems like they have a smoking gun.

As an aside, I received this text message yesterday.

Hello, this is TikTok Recruitment Center.TikTok is one of the most popular short-form video apps with over 2 billion monthly active users, so companies need a rich talent pool. We are now hiring 3,000 TikTok backup talents.

1. People with passion and creativity are needed

2. need responsible employees, and must be adults

3. working hours are 1 hour per day with flexible work location

4. minimum daily salary of $400, minimum monthly income of $15,000, paid by the day

If you are passionate and innovative, we invite you to join our team. If you are interested, please contact us on WhatsApp: +16024005729

I do not know what the number is but needless to say I am not going to plug that number into Whatsapp or respond to this text to find out.

States probed TikTok for years. Here are the documents the app tried to keep secret

NPR · by By · October 11, 2024

Unredacted documents show TikTok is aware of the dangers caused by its app. SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images

For the first time, internal TikTok communications have been made public that show a company unconcerned with the harms the app poses for American teenagers. This is despite its own research validating many child safety concerns.

The confidential material was part of a more than two-year investigation into TikTok by 14 attorneys general that led to state officials suing the company on Tuesday. The lawsuit alleges that TikTok was designed with the express intention of addicting young people to the app. The states argue the multi-billion-dollar company deceived the public about the risks.

In each of the separate lawsuits state regulators filed, dozens of internal communications, documents and research data were redacted — blacked-out from public view — since authorities entered into confidentiality agreements with TikTok.

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But in one of the lawsuits, filed by the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, the redactions were faulty. This was revealed when Kentucky Public Radio copied-and-pasted excerpts of the redacted material, bringing to light some 30 pages of documents that had been kept secret.

After Kentucky Public Radio published excerpts of the redacted material, a state judge sealed the entire complaint following a request from the attorney general’s office “to ensure that any settlement documents and related information, confidential commercial and trade secret information, and other protected information was not improperly disseminated,” according to an emergency motion to seal the complaint filed on Wednesday by Kentucky officials.

NPR reviewed all the portions of the suit that were redacted, which highlight TikTok executives speaking candidly about a host of dangers for children on the wildly popular video app. The material, mostly summaries of internal studies and communications, show some remedial measures — like time-management tools — would have a negligible reduction in screen time. The company went ahead and decided to release and tout the features.

Separately, under a new law, TikTok has until January to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or face a nationwide ban. TikTok is fighting the looming crackdown. Meanwhile, the new lawsuits from state authorities have cast scrutiny on the app and its ability to counter content that harms minors.

In a statement, TikTok spokesman Alex Haurek defended the company’s child safety record and condemned the disclosure of once-public material that has now been sealed.

"It is highly irresponsible of NPR to publish information that is under a court seal,” Haurek said. “Unfortunately, this complaint cherry-picks misleading quotes and takes outdated documents out of context to misrepresent our commitment to community safety.”

He continued: “We have robust safeguards, which include proactively removing suspected underage users, and we have voluntarily launched safety features such as default screentime limits, family pairing, and privacy by default for minors under 16.”

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Kentucky AG: TikTok users can become ‘addicted’ in 35 minutes

As TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users can attest, the platform’s hyper-personalized algorithm can be so engaging it becomes difficult to close the app. TikTok determined the precise amount of viewing it takes for someone to form a habit: 260 videos. After that, according to state investigators, a user “is likely to become addicted to the platform.”

In the previously redacted portion of the suit, Kentucky authorities say: “While this may seem substantial, TikTok videos can be as short as 8 seconds and are played for viewers in rapid-fire succession, automatically,” the investigators wrote. “Thus, in under 35 minutes, an average user is likely to become addicted to the platform.”

Another internal document found that the company was aware its many features designed to keep young people on the app led to a constant and irresistible urge to keep opening the app.

TikTok’s own research states that “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,” according to the suit.

In addition, the documents show that TikTok was aware that “compulsive usage also interferes with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.”

TikTok: Time-limit tool aimed at ‘improving public trust,’ not limiting app use

The unredacted documents show that TikTok employees were aware that too much time spent by teens on social media can be harmful to their mental health. The consensus among academics is that they recommend one hour or less of social media usage per day.

The app lets parents place time limits on their kids’ usage that range from 40 minutes to two hours per day. TikTok created a tool that set the default time prompt at 60 minutes per day.

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Internal documents show that TikTok measured the success of this tool by how it was “improving public trust in the TikTok platform via media coverage,” rather than how it reduced the time teens spent on the app.

After tests, TikTok found the tool had little impact – accounting for about a 1.5-minute drop in usage, with teens spending around 108.5 minutes per day beforehand to roughly 107 minutes with the tool. According to the attorney general’s complaint, TikTok did not revisit this issue.

One document shows one TikTok project manager saying, “Our goal is not to reduce the time spent.” In a chat message echoing that sentiment, another employee said the goal is to “contribute to DAU [daily active users] and retention” of users.

TikTok has publicized its “break” videos, which are prompts to get users to stop endlessly scrolling and take a break. Internally, however, it appears the company didn’t think the videos amounted to much. One executive said that they are “useful in a good talking point” with policymakers, but “they’re not altogether effective.”

Document: TikTok demoted people it deemed unattractive on its feed

The multi-state litigation against TikTok highlighted the company’s beauty filters, which users can overlay on videos to make themselves look thinner and younger or to have fuller lips and bigger eyes.

One popular feature, known as the Bold Glamour filter, uses artificial intelligence to rework people’s faces to resemble models with high cheekbones and strong jawlines.

Internal documents show TikTok is aware of the harm that beauty filters, like Bold Glamour, can cause young users.

Image created by NPR's Grace Widyatmadja/TikTok

TikTok is aware of the harm these beauty filters can cause young users, the documents show.

Employees suggested internally the company “provide users with educational resources about image disorders” and create a campaign “to raise awareness on issues with low self esteem (caused by the excessive filter use and other issues).”

They also suggested adding a banner or video to the filters that included “an awareness statement about filters and the importance of positive body image/mental health.”

This comes as the documents showcase another hidden facet of TikTok’s algorithm: the app prioritizes beautiful people.

One internal report that analyzed TikTok’s main video feed saw “a high volume of … not attractive subjects” were filling everyone’s app. In response, Kentucky investigators found that TikTok retooled its algorithm to amplify users the company viewed as beautiful.

“By changing the TikTok algorithm to show fewer ‘not attractive subjects’ in the For You feed, [TikTok] took active steps to promote a narrow beauty norm even though it could negatively impact their Young Users,” the Kentucky authorities wrote.

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TikTok exec: algorithm could deprive kids of opportunities like ‘looking at someone in the eyes’

Publicly, TikTok has stated that one of its “most important commitments is supporting the safety and well-being of teens.”

Yet internal documents paint a very different picture, citing statements from top company executives who appear well-aware of the harmful effects of the app without taking significant steps to address it.

One unnamed TikTok executive put it in stark terms, saying the reason kids watch TikTok is because of the power of the app’s algorithm, “but I think we need to be cognizant of what it might mean for other opportunities,” said the company executive. “And when I say other opportunities, I literally mean sleep, and eating, and moving around the room, and looking at someone in the eyes.”

TikTok’s internal estimate: 95% of smartphone users under 17 use TikTok

TikTok views itself as being in an “arms race for attention,” according to a 2021 internal presentation.

And teenagers have been key to the app’s early growth in the U.S., but another presentation shown to top company officials revealed that an estimated 95% of smartphone users under 17 use TikTok at least once a month. This lead a company staffer to state that it had “hit a ceiling among young users.”

TikTok’s own research concluded that kids were the most susceptible to being sucked into the app’s infinitely flowing feed of videos. “As expected, across most engagement metrics, the younger the user, the better the performance,” according to a 2019 TikTok document.

In response to growing national concern that excessive social media use can increase the risk of depression, anxiety and body-image issues among kids, TikTok has introduced time-management tools. These include notifications informing teens about how long they are spending on the app, parental oversight features and the ability to make the app inaccessible for some down time.

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At the same time, however, TikTok knew how unlikely it was these tools would be effective, according to materials obtained by Kentucky investigators.

“Minors do not have executive function to control their screen time, while young adults do,” read a TikTok internal document.

TikTok pushes users into filter bubbles like ‘painhub’ and ‘sadnotes’

TikTok is well aware of “filter bubbles.” Internal documents show the company has defined them as when a user “encounters only information and opinions that conform to and reinforce their own beliefs, caused by algorithms that personalize an individual’s online experience.”

The company knows the dangers of filter bubbles. During one internal safety presentation in 2020, employees warned the app “can serve potentially harmful content expeditiously.” TikTok conducted internal experiments with test accounts to see how quickly they descend into negative filter bubbles.

“After following several ‘painhub’ and ‘sadnotes’ accounts, it took me 20 mins to drop into ‘negative’ filter bubble,” one employee wrote. “The intensive density of negative content makes me lower down mood and increase my sadness feelings though I am in a high spirit in my recent life.”

Another employee said, “there are a lot of videos mentioning suicide,” including one asking, “If you could kill yourself without hurting anybody would you?”

In another document, TikTok’s research found that content promoting eating disorders, often called “thinspiration,” is associated with issues such as body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, low self-esteem and depression

Despite these heedings, TikTok’s algorithm still puts users into filter bubbles. One internal document states that users are “placed into ‘filter bubbles’ after 30 minutes of use in one sitting.” The company wrote that having more human moderators to label content is possible, but “requires large human efforts.”

TikTok’s content moderation missing self-harm, eating disorder content

TikTok has several layers of content moderation to weed out videos that violate its Community Guidelines. Internal documents show that the first set of eyes aren’t always a person from the company’s Trust and Safety Team.

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The first round typically uses artificial intelligence to flag pornographic, violent or political content. The following rounds use human moderators, but only if the video has a certain amount of views, according to the documents. These additional rounds often fail to take into account certain types of content or age specific rules.

According to TikTok’s own studies, the unredacted filing shows that some suicide and self-harm content escaped those first rounds of human moderation. The study points to self-harm videos that had more than 75,000 views before TikTok identified and removed them.

TikTok also has scattershot policies on content that includes disordered eating, drug use, dangerous driving, gore and violence. While TikTok’s Community Guidelines prohibit much of this content, internal policy documents say the company “allows” the content. Often, the content is findable on TikTok and just not “recommended,” meaning it doesn’t show up in users’ For You feeds or took a lower priority in the algorithm.

The company has talking points around its content moderation work. One example highlighted in the documents details a child sent to the emergency room after attempting a dangerous TikTok challenge. When dealing with the negative fallout from the press, TikTok told employees to use an internal list of talking points that said, “In line with our Community Guidelines, we do not allow content that depicts, promotes, normalizes, or glorifies [dangerous] behavior, including dangerous challenges.”

TikTok acknowledges internally that it has substantial “leakage” rates of violating content that’s not removed. Those leakage rates include: 35.71% of “Normalization of Pedophilia;” 33.33% of “Minor Sexual Solicitation;” 39.13% of “Minor Physical Abuse;” 30.36% of “leading minors off platform;” 50% of “Glorification of Minor Sexual Assault;” and “100% of “Fetishizing Minors.”

TikTok slow to remove users under 13, despite company policy

Kids under 13 cannot open a standard TikTok account, but there is a “TikTok for Younger Users” service that the company says includes strict content guardrails.

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It is a vulnerable group of users, since federal law dictates that social media sites like TikTok cannot collect data on children under 13 unless parents are notified about the personal information collected. And even then, social media apps must first obtain verifiable consent from a parent.

In August, the Department of Justice sued TikTok for violating the federal law protecting the data of kids under 13, alleging that the app “knowingly and repeatedly violated kids’ privacy.”

In the internal documents, however, company officials instructed TikTok moderators to use caution before removing accounts of users suspected to be under 13.

An internal document about “younger users/U13” says TikTok instructs its moderators to not take action on reports of underage users unless their account identifies them as under 13.

The previously-redacted portions of the suit suggest the company is aware these young users have accounts – through complaints from parents and teachers — but does little to remove them.

TikTok in crisis mode after report on TikTok Live being ‘strip club filled with 15-year-olds’

After a 2022 report on Forbes about underage kids stripping on TikTok’s live feature, the company launched its own investigation.

That’s when TikTok officials realized there was “a high” number of underage streamers receiving digital currency on the app in the form of a “gift” or “coin” in exchange for stripping — real money converted into a digital currency often in the form of a plush toy or a flower.

TikTok discovered “a significant” number of adults direct messaging underage TikTokkers about stripping live on the platform.

As part of this internal probe, TikTok officials found that in just one month, 1 million “gifts” were sent to kids engaged in “transactional” behavior.

In an understated assessment, one TikTok official concluded: “[O]ne of our key discoveries during this project that has turned into a major challenge with Live business is that the content that gets the highest engagement may not be the content we want on our platform.”

NPR · by By · October 11, 2024

9. Crisis in Iran as top military chief hit by 'traitor' rumours he's an Israel spy

Subversion. One of the most important elements of unconventional warfare.

Crisis in Iran as top military chief hit by 'traitor' rumours he's an Israel spy

Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of the top commander as it's emerged senior Iranian figures have "serious suspicions" Israel has infiltrated the army.

By Richard Ashmore, Senior News Reporter

12:06, Fri, Oct 11, 2024 | UPDATED: 12:30, Fri, Oct 11, 2024

Express · by Richard Ashmore · October 11, 2024

Islamic Revolutionary Guards leader Esmail Qaani has been accused of being a traitor. (Image: Getty )

Rumours are rife in Iran that the country's most powerful military commander could be a "traitor" who is working with Israel.

Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, 67, is the top brass of the Islamic Republic's Quds Force, a branch of the feared Revolutionary Guard specialising in intelligence and unconventional warfare.

But Qaani has not been seen, even by his family, since October 4 when Israel attacked a bunker in Beirut where he is believed to have met leaders of the terror group Hezbollah.

In a series of stunning military coups, Israeli forces wiped out several senior Hezbollah leaders, including the militant organisation's chief, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and his potential successor, Hashem Saffeieddine.

Now the Sun reports Qaani had been suspected of being a top spy for Israel and that he is being interrogated by the Iranian intelligence services.

Iran has launched missile attacks against Israel and supported Hamas and Hezbollah. (Image: Getty )

The newspaper reports sources in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran have said Qaani was not in Beirut at the time of the Israeli strike and that he may have switched sides.

Qaani became head of the Quds Force in 2020 after his predecessor Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.

When he came to power the commander vowed to remove the United States from the Middle East, saying: "We promise to continue martyr Soleimani's path with the same force ... and the only compensation for us would be to remove America from the region."

But now it appears after the lightning success of Israeli attacks on the Iran-backed Hezbollah commanders, that Qaani may himself have been removed from his position by his peers.

US Army Pacific to absorb new units under ‘transformation’ mantra

Defense News · by Jen Judson · October 11, 2024

The U.S. Army command for the Indo-Pacific finds itself at the front of the service’s transformation initiative, incorporating new unit types created to facilitate rapid adaptation to adversary tactics, according to U.S. Army Pacific Command chief Gen. Charles Flynn.

Several units in the Pacific, from Hawaii to Alaska, were chosen as part of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George’s initiative, dubbed “Transforming in Contact,” Flynn said in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference.

“But there’s a whole other transformation in contact that’s going on out here at the operational and theater level.”

That transformation has to do with absorbing new organizations and capabilities designed to facilitate the quick incorporation of new tactics and technologies in the field.

“In my view, that is where the connective tissue occurs between tactical forces and operational and strategic forces that exist in the joint world,” Flynn said.

For example, the Army in the Pacific is the first to get a Theater Information Advantage Detachment, Flynn said. The TIAD is meant to keep its finger on the pulse of how adversarial nations like China and Russia are conducting information warfare.

The service has deployed a Security Force Assistance Brigade, a Theater Fires Element and the TIAD into areas near China, Flynn added.

The Army has already created two of three Multidomain Task Forces in the Pacific theater, which have been heavily involved in exercises throughout 2024.

The service is planning to build five MDTFs total. Another is based in Europe, while one more will be based at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, and designed to align with global rapid responses.

The units will operate across all domains — land, air, sea, space and cyberspace — and are equipped with the Army’s growing capabilities, including long-range precision fires.

The MDTFs will take on game-changing capabilities like the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, the Mid-Range Capability missile system and the delayed Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon as part of a Long-Range Fires Battalion.

The Army in June fired two PrSM missiles in Palau as part of a ship sinking exercise during Valiant Shield. The service also deployed the MRC missile to the Philippines during the Balikatan exercise in May. The MRC missile system, for the time being, will remain in the Philippines, Flynn said.

The Pacific Army has also established a Theater Strike Effects Group, Flynn added.

“This theater-level Army space formation is integral for today’s battlefield,” Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, then the head of Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said in January. “It will allow us to leverage the experience of its command team and staff to ensure success at every echelon, ensuring that all our capabilities are being employed when and where they’re needed best.”

The group will coordinate with the MDTFs that will use Army space interdiction forces with cyber and electronic warfare capabilities to block adversary defenses, according to the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command.

As it works through the deployment of these major new capabilities like long-range precision fires, it’s imperative, Flynn said, that the Army is organized properly at the theater level in order to effectively coordinate the right engagement authorities.

“This extra capacity at the Theater Army level is transformational and its organizational changes are in front of the arrival of new technologies, new capabilities and new platforms,” he said. “It’s tailored to the region.”

About Jen Judson

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

11. Tiltrotor: The need for speed & range in response to global threats

Is tiltrotor the way to go? Have they really "revolutionized" the way we operate?

I thought that fan in wing design was interesting.

It just seems to me these rotor blades have to be so large.

But I will of course defer to the aviation experts.

Excerpt:

Tiltrotors have already revolutionized the way the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force Special Operations operate, and the U.S. Navy has revolutionized the way it operates with the recent introduction of tiltrotor and continues to expand its application.

Tiltrotor: The need for speed & range in response to global threats - Breaking Defense

With range and speed, the tiltrotor enables operations in dispersed locations, safe from most long-range fires and threats that make current assets vulnerable.

By Reed Anderson, Director, International Government Affairs, Bell

on October 11, 2024 at 2:30 PM

breakingdefense.com · by Jennifer Petersen · October 11, 2024

V280-Valor (photo courtesy of Bell)

The United States (U.S.) Army recently decided to modernize its medium vertical lift fleet with the selection of Bell’s V-280 Valor, a next generation tiltrotor incorporating over 70 years of experience and nearly 800,000 operating hours with tiltrotor. The U.S. Army was part of early tiltrotor developmental programs but decided it was not the right solution at the time. The time is now for the U.S. Army, as witnessed by its approval of the FLRAA Milestone B Acquisition Decision Memorandum. This next generation weapon system is a leap in technology, flying at twice the range and twice the speed of current U.S. Army assets and includes a modular open system approach (MOSA) giving it unmatched flexibility for future mission scenarios. It will lead to a significant revolution in how the U.S. Army conducts missions, enhance its global responsiveness, and reduce deployment timelines and complexity. It will also outpace any vertical lift capabilities of the U.S. Army’s allies and partners.

The tiltrotor provides the combination of range, speed, and payload of an airplane, while combining the runway independent characteristics of a helicopter. It can deploy by, and operate from, naval vessels, and is fully capable of self-deployment. It also gives the commander a wide range of flexibility since there is reduced reliance on infrastructure and can be deployed to the point of need in a short period of time, as well as to austere and remote locations from which forces would not normally operate. Such a capability is well placed for operations in locations such as the Indo-Pacific, the Arctic, Europe, and the Mediterranean with reach into the Sahel and the Middle East.

With its range and speed, the tiltrotor enables operations from a point of relative sanctuary in dispersed locations, safe from most long-range fires and threats that make current assets vulnerable. This is critical in today’s operational environment where ISR is pervasive, and surprise is elusive. Dispersion enables the commander to think differently and to employ forces from multiple locations and converge on the objective – operational flexibility. This is revolutionary maneuver. It’s about surprise and initiative, and the ability to move people and material flexibly around the battlefield. The U.S. Army has begun the process to redefine its doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures as it prepares to field its own tiltrotor capability. The result will enable commanders to do things much differently than in the past, enabling them to think and operate differently, to get inside of adversaries’ decision cycle. It will lead to expanded strategic choices and enhanced competitive advantages.

It is also going to have an impact on when, how, and if the U.S. Army operates with its allies and partners unless they jump on the leap-in-capability bandwagon.

Why It Matters

In the Pacific, the United States and its allies and partners may need to compete with increasingly capable peer and near-peer competitors, leading to changes in operational approaches. This includes potentially operating from dispersed locations over vast distances. In Europe, NATO’s eastern flank includes battle groups from Estonia down to Bulgaria and crosses multiple borders; reinforcing them in a crisis will be challenging. NATO’s border with Russia has doubled since Finland joined the Alliance. The Mediterranean also creates distance challenges that expand into the Sahel and the Middle East.

The tiltrotor changes the geometry of the battlefield. It provides the operational reach, responsiveness, and flexibility to the commander to employ forces at distance, speed, and minimize risk. It increases the depth from which maritime and marine forces can conduct littoral operations. It creates strategic unpredictability, offers operational flexibility, and creates decision dilemmas for the adversary, enhancing the overall deterrence value. Its leap-ahead capability is well-suited for the increased complexity in today and tomorrow’s global operating environment.

V280-Valor (photo courtesy of Bell)

However, the tiltrotor’s improved mission performance creates a capability gap between the U.S. Army and its allies and partners, one that cannot be completely bridged with existing technologies.

Interoperability has been a key focus among both NATO and non-NATO allies for years. While platforms may have been different – such as the U.S.-made Abrams tank and the German-made Leopard tank – they had similar capabilities and allies developed similar tactics that enabled them to operate together. The tiltrotor is such a significant leap in capability that there are limited ways to integrate allied and partner nation assets. Tactics possibly could be adapted to enable some level of integration, but that is likely to create unnecessary risk for the commander and to the forces operating legacy or less-than-capable assets. This capability gap will increase the burden on U.S. forces and increase the overall operational risk.

There is, however, an opportunity to mitigate this imminent capability gap. Many Allies and partners are approaching a window to modernize medium vertical lift fleets. At the same time, there is an increased focus on defense and associated budgets. This confluence of aging fleets and rising budgets creates an opportunity for allies and partners to keep pace with the U.S. Army as it makes the capability leap with a tiltrotor. Given increasing competition in the Pacific and the pace of capability development among peer and near-peer competitors, expanding the pool of tiltrotor operators enables interoperability among the joint force. It also enhances the prospects for interchangeability – a growing buzzword in NATO and like-minded allied circles related to interoperability that highlights, inter alia, the ability to apply common sustainment practices and pooling and sharing of supply chains and logistics. It additionally could create savings over the long term in acquisition and sustainment costs.

The United States and its allies and partners have acknowledged that no single nation can win the next major conflict alone. The coalitions of the willing must be supplanted by the coalitions of necessity to confront adversaries’ vast and growing capabilities. As the U.S. Army begins fielding a tiltrotor, air assault missions as we have known them, and other applications yet to be discovered, will change significantly. If the U.S. Army wants to maintain the competitive edge over its adversaries, it needs its allies and partners. The Honorable Doug Bush, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, noted in 2022, “Technological cooperation. . .improves our ability to collectively modernize and increase interoperability ensuring we can train and fight alongside our allies and partners more effectively and efficiently.” The U.S. Army’s allies and partners need to take note and ensure that they are not left behind as it fields an advanced tiltrotor, and work with the U.S. Army as it creates the conditions to make that possible.

breakingdefense.com · by Jennifer Petersen · October 11, 2024

12. Army eyeing commercial drones as Shadow 'gap' filler

Army eyeing commercial drones as Shadow 'gap' filler - Breaking Defense

“Our units have no assets and no capability to to train with right now, to learn with, to build TTPs with. We started thinking outside the box,” Col. Nick Ryan told Breaking Defense.

By Ashley Roque

on October 11, 2024 at 2:18 PM

breakingdefense.com · by Ashley Roque · October 11, 2024

Textron’s Shadow RQ-7B V2 Block III (Photo courtesy of Textron)

AUSA 2024 — The US Army’s decision to shelve its entire RQ-7B Shadow fleet has created a capability gap for soldiers that previously relied on those drones for reconnaissance and surveillance operations. And although the service is eyeing a developmental new platform to get into soldiers’ hands starting in late 2027, that’s simply too long to wait so it’s turning to commercially available options, according to Col. Nick Ryan, the director of the Army Capability Manager for Unmanned Aircraft Systems.

“There’s a gap where our units have no assets and no capability to train with right now, to learn with, to build TTPs [tactics, techniques, and procedures] with,” Ryan told Breaking Defense ahead of this year’s Association of the US Army conference. “We started thinking outside the box about what we can do to help with this.”

Army leaders announced their Shadow divestiture plan in early February as part of a larger aviation shakeup. By the end of September, all of those drones had been removed from units, according to Ryan. The longer-term plan is to field a new Future Tactical Uncrewed Aircraft System (FTUAS) at the brigade level and two companies — Griffon Aerospace and Textron Systems — are currently competing for that coveted contract. If that competition stays on track, the Army is expected to crown a winner later this fiscal year and begin receiving the new drones towards the end of fiscal 2027.

According to Ryan, that plan is a problem for soldiers who need an interim capability now, and emergent operational need statements have been coming in from an array of units including Multi-Domain Task Forces in both the Indo-Pacific and Europe.

Part of the plan forward, at least in part, is to utilize the Defense Innovation Unit’s (DIU’s) Blue UAS List — an initiative designed to help the services more quickly select commercial systems that are fully free of Chinese parts. In theory, if a drone is on the approved list, a unit can buy it.

But when the Army turned to that list earlier this year, none of the drones on it would meet the capability gap created by Shadow’s divestiture, so Ryan and others worked with DIU on plans for the Blue UAS List refresh.

“We probably can’t put something as large as a Shadow on the DIU Blue List, like a Group 3 that weighs a couple thousand pounds, because that would probably be … over $350,000,” Ryan said. Instead, potential options may be in the Group 2 range, weighing in at less than 55 pounds, with the ability to fly for more than four hours at ranges greater than six miles out, see in both day and night conditions, and possibly the ability to laser designate.

“That’s just enough to fill the gap for the time being, to allow units to at least have something to train with, which is better than the nothing they have right now,” Ryan explained.

The service is also eagerly eyeing the addition of first-person view drones for the squad and platoon level, he added.

After DIU put out the Blue List refresh call earlier this year, 360 proposals came in from 220 companies for both platform and supporting tech options, Trent Emeneker, the DIU Blue UAS program manager and contractor, told Breaking Defense during a recent interview.

That list has now been whittled down to 36 flying platforms from approximately 15 vendors, and those capabilities are bound for an early November testing at the Marine Corps’s 29 Palms in Southern California. After the drones take to the air, they will be physically torn apart to inspect all the components, Emeneker explained. And if parts need to be swapped out, the companies will be given that option.

By early December, Emeneker predicts that drones making the final cut will begin appearing on that Blue List and will be continually added on a rolling basis. By the end of February, he added, drones not being picked up by the services will be removed from the list.

“We will list things as soon as we can, we’re not going to have end users wait, we don’t want to also make the companies wait,” Emeneker said.

In the meantime, officials from Army Aviation and Missile Command and Army Combat Capabilities Development Command will be working on securing airworthiness releases so that as soon as suitable drones are officially added to the list, be it a fill in for the Shadow mission or a first-person view drone, the service can make recommendations to units.

“If we can get more systems available that are NDAA-compliant, that the army is actually interested in buying … and Congress provides the funds for the units, then the units will absolutely go there and start buying these things,” Ryan said.

breakingdefense.com · by Ashley Roque · October 11, 2024

13. Opinion The most dangerous moment since the Cold War

By definition the Dark Quad is a threat to the global order. (thanks to Christopher Ford for coining the Dark Quad phrase).

Fareed Zakaria torus the global to look at the various threats. Are they interlinked and will there be a cascading effect if there is escalation of conflict in any one area?

The excerpts that show the bias of my focus areas. I have a different view of the Korean situation and I think I am the only one with this contrarian view. While it certainly appears that tensions are rising due to KJU's action and rhetoric, I think he is making a major miscalculation that will actually provide the ROK and the ROK/US alliance with opportunities we have not had in seven decades if we choose to seize the day.

Regarding the Philippines I am reminded of the words of our good friend about the West Philippine Sea (as opposed to the South CHina Sea):

“The West Philippine Sea, not Taiwan, is the real flashpoint for an armed conflict,”

– Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez February 28, 2024

Excepts:

In Asia, the world is also facing a rising threat that has gone somewhat unnoticed. As Robert Manning, a veteran American diplomat, recently wrote: “I have worked on the Korea nuclear problem in and out of government over the past three decades, and the Korean Peninsula seems more dangerous and volatile than at any time since 1950.”

Ever since the failed 2019 summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, the latter has adopted a policy of greater bellicosity. In 2021, Kim announced a major expansion and modernization of his nuclear arsenal. In January, Manning points out, he announced the end of a 70-year-old goal for his country — reunification with South Korea — which had always placed some restraints on North Korea’s potential military actions. With Kim designating South Korea as a “principal enemy,” ordering the destruction of a reunification monument built by his father and shuttering the agencies that planned for reunification, he might be signaling a greater willingness to risk war.

In Asia more broadly, China has been applying pressure — mostly economic but also military — to rival or even replace America as the dominant power. Those tensions are of course greatest around Taiwan but exist in several hot spots from the Philippines to the South China Sea.

Opinion The most dangerous moment since the Cold War

The West has prevailed against hostile alliances before. Can it do so again?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/11/china-russia-iran-revisionist-axis/?utm

Members of the Philippine Coast Guard watch a Chinese Coast Guard vessel blocking their way to a resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea on March 5. (Adrian Portugal/Reuters)

By Fareed Zakaria

October 11, 2024 at 7:15 a.m. EDT

As tensions spiral in the Middle East, keep in mind that this is only one of three arenas in the world where revisionists are trying to upend the international order. In Europe, a war continues to rage, and in Asia, a perilous new dynamic is at work. Taken together, they define the most dangerous period internationally since the end of the Cold War.

In the Middle East, the current tensions are rooted in a tussle between Iran and America’s allies, Israel and some of the Gulf states. Iran, being a relatively weak power, has used asymmetrical means through a series of militias allied with it — Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and groups in Iraq and Syria it has supported and supplied for years. Even before Hamas’s attack last Oct. 7, these groups had kept up a steady stream of small-bore attacks on Israel and on occasion the Persian Gulf monarchies.

The effect of this pressure has been real — keeping Israel and the Gulf Arabs on guard and the region on edge. Since last October, tensions have made commerce much harder. About 70 percent of vessel traffic had been diverted from the Red Sea region as of June. Many airlines have stopped flying to Israel. Emirates, the Dubai-based airline, recently canceled flights to Iran and Iraq. Another Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities would send oil prices skyrocketing.

If the Middle Eastern order is under pressure, so is the one in Europe. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a traditional war of aggression, using the means Russia has aplenty — traditional military power. But it is also an effort to upend the Western-led European security system that is underwritten and dominated by the United States. Were Russia to succeed in its aggression, that would significantly erode the entire structure of stability in Europe, created after 1945 and expanded after 1989. Russian President Vladimir Putin would press to have Russia’s imperial ambitions accommodated in places such as Georgia and Moldova, and perhaps the Baltic states and even Poland.

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In Asia, the world is also facing a rising threat that has gone somewhat unnoticed. As Robert Manning, a veteran American diplomat, recently wrote: “I have worked on the Korea nuclear problem in and out of government over the past three decades, and the Korean Peninsula seems more dangerous and volatile than at any time since 1950.”

Follow Fareed Zakaria

Ever since the failed 2019 summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, the latter has adopted a policy of greater bellicosity. In 2021, Kim announced a major expansion and modernization of his nuclear arsenal. In January, Manning points out, he announced the end of a 70-year-old goal for his country — reunification with South Korea — which had always placed some restraints on North Korea’s potential military actions. With Kim designating South Korea as a “principal enemy,” ordering the destruction of a reunification monument built by his father and shuttering the agencies that planned for reunification, he might be signaling a greater willingness to risk war.

In Asia more broadly, China has been applying pressure — mostly economic but also military — to rival or even replace America as the dominant power. Those tensions are of course greatest around Taiwan but exist in several hot spots from the Philippines to the South China Sea.

If all this were not troubling enough, there are increasing indications that this “axis” of revisionist powers is coordinating and helping one another. The Economist points out that this “quartet of chaos” — China, Iran, North Korea and Russia — is actively swapping weapons, supplies and, most importantly, know-how. Tehran and Pyongyang supply Moscow with drones while Moscow shares information with Tehran on how to jam drones and disable GPS systems. It sends seized Western military weaponry to Tehran so that it can analyze the kits. The U.S. government estimates that 90 percent of Russia’s microelectronics imports and 70 percent of its machine tools now come from China, much of this being dual-use, meaning it can be used to make weapons.

The United States and its allies must try to thwart these efforts at coordination. But this will require that they themselves be unified. Allied governments should try to drive wedges between these countries, which have long histories of suspicion and tension among them. China, in particular, is somewhat unlike the other three nations. Those rogue regimes actively seek to foment instability, largely because they have little to lose from disorder. China, on the other hand, benefits immensely from trade and interdependence. It has risen to power thanks to globalization and peace, guaranteed by the current international system. China’s assistance to Russia shows that Beijing is willing to unsettle the world order but not necessarily upend it.

The last time the United States faced an alliance of hostile powers — during the Cold War — it effectively sowed discord within the Communist world, maintaining good relations with countries such as Yugoslavia and Romania and, above all, dividing China from the Soviet Union. But in a Washington that today sees the world in black and white, I wonder whether we have the diplomatic skill and acuity to pursue a sophisticated strategy like that one.

14. The U.S. Should Promote Taiwan as the Authentic China

An interesting new "one China" strategy.

It is all about winning the narrative. Would this help in that effort?

Is this our fight? Should we be advocating for a "Chinese identity?" Isn't that up to the people of China? (all the people)

If this is Taiwan's narrative then we can support it but I do not think we can lead such an effort. (to think we can lead in establishing someone else's national identity is probably why we have challenges in foreign policy and national security strategy.

Conclusion:

Through these efforts, the U.S. can support Taiwan in defending not only its sovereignty but also the broader question of what it means to be Chinese in the 21st century.

The U.S. Should Promote Taiwan as the Authentic China

The U.S. should wield its soft power to galvanize Taiwan and raise its standing in the world.

Chart Westcott

Oct 11, 2024

12:01 AM

The American Conservative · by The American Conservative · October 11, 2024

Following a week-long visit to Taiwan, I have reassessed my perspective on U.S. foreign policy toward Taiwan. My initial belief was that the U.S. should prioritize strengthening Taiwan’s defensive capabilities, primarily by transforming it into a “porcupine” through increased arms sales and constructing an anti-hegemonic coalition in the region. While I continue to support these objectives, my visit has revealed that military support alone is insufficient. A comprehensive strategy must also include a robust soft power component aimed at fostering political unity, morale, and military readiness in Taiwan.

From the outset of my trip, it became clear that Taiwanese society and politics are more nuanced than I expected, and these complexities limit the effectiveness of purely military assistance. The ongoing rivalry between Taiwan’s two main political parties, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT), has led to political disunity that hampers the full use of defense capabilities. This political fragmentation contributes to a weakened sense of national morale and readiness.

Although there is widespread agreement that avoiding war is desirable, there is no consensus on whether deterrence through militarization is the best path forward. Even if militarization were universally supported, Taiwan’s aging population and relatively comfortable lifestyle pose challenges. Conscription, currently set at a year, is far from adequate in preparing Taiwan’s youth for the type of civic and military readiness found in nations like Israel or South Korea. Compounding this is the belief that Taiwan’s geographic defenses, particularly the formidable Taiwan Strait, provide a sufficient buffer against invasion, giving many Taiwanese a false sense of security.

Further, there is a prevalent assumption, encouraged by both the DPP and certain parts of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, that America will unquestionably intervene in the event of an invasion. This belief diminishes the perceived need for Taiwan to harden its defenses and mobilize its population.

While expanding Taiwan’s defensive capabilities remains essential, the most immediate and impactful steps the U.S. can take involve developing a sophisticated soft power strategy aimed at boosting Taiwanese unity, morale, and identity. Military aid is vital, but without a cohesive society that is willing to defend itself, its effectiveness is limited.

This soft power strategy should focus on two key themes: strengthening Taiwan’s claim to authentic Chinese identity, and positioning Taiwan as the model of “modern Chinese” society.

A critical but underused asset in Taiwan’s soft power arsenal is its claim to authentic Chinese identity. The Taiwanese use traditional Chinese characters, which were the norm for thousands of years of Chinese history. In contrast, Mainland China, under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), adopted simplified characters to promote literacy among its population. While this move was practical for the CCP’s goals, it altered the depth and meaning of the written language. For example, the traditional character for “love” contains the symbol for “heart,” whereas the simplified version removes this symbol, literally stripping the heart from love.

This linguistic distinction gives Taiwan a cultural edge over the CCP, especially in terms of preserving China’s rich literary and cultural heritage. Additionally, Taiwan houses the National Palace Museum, which holds many of China’s most treasured art and antiquities—further reinforcing Taiwan’s connection to the authentic Chinese identity.

America can use these facts to emphasize Taiwan’s position as the custodian of true Chinese heritage. By promoting Taiwan’s cultural legitimacy, we can undermine the CCP’s narrative that it represents the definitive Chinese identity. This approach avoids stoking Taiwanese nationalism to the point of independence, which would undoubtedly provoke Beijing, while still reinforcing Taiwan’s position as an integral part of Chinese civilization.

In addition to its historical legitimacy, Taiwan represents a compelling alternative to the CCP’s vision of modern Chinese society. While the CCP’s social contract promises material prosperity in exchange for political control and the curtailing of civil liberties, Taiwan offers a different model—one where democracy, freedom of speech, and economic growth coexist.

Positioning Taiwan as the example of modern Chinese success allows the U.S. to present a powerful counter-narrative to the CCP’s authoritarianism. By highlighting Taiwan’s technological advancements, democratic governance, and robust civil society, we can promote Taiwan as the model for the Chinese-speaking world.

While Taiwan has made efforts to promote its culture and identity through institutions like the Taipei Economic and Cultural Offices (TECO), these efforts have proven insufficient. The limitations of TECO are not only due to its budget constraints but also because of a strategic flaw in its messaging.

TECO often promotes a sense of “Taiwanness,” emphasizing a distinct Taiwanese identity separate from Chinese heritage. While this may appeal to domestic political interests, particularly those of the DPP, it ultimately undermines Taiwan’s strongest cultural asset: its claim to authentic and modern Chinese identity. By diluting the focus on Taiwan’s inheritance of Chinese culture, TECO misses a key opportunity to present Taiwan as the true custodian of Chinese heritage, a narrative that could strengthen its position globally without provoking Beijing unnecessarily.

Rather than focusing on creating a distinct “Taiwanness,” Taiwan’s cultural diplomacy should double down on its authentic Chinese identity—preserving the historical and cultural traditions that have been eroded under CCP rule—while showcasing its modern democratic model as the future of Chinese society. This would allow Taiwan to challenge the CCP’s claims to represent Chinese civilization and culture, while still maintaining an identity rooted in historical continuity.

Therefore, the U.S. must step in to help amplify Taiwan’s message. TECO alone does not have the resources, reach, or the appropriate strategic focus to counter the CCP’s Confucius Institutes and other cultural efforts. Western involvement is crucial in reinforcing Taiwan’s cultural outreach and in correcting the course of TECO’s current strategy, which undercuts the core inheritance that could unite the Taiwanese population and bolster its global standing.

The former President Donald Trump has demonstrated a talent for delivering statements that provoke geopolitical tensions while drawing attention to key strategic issues. A statement endorsing Taiwan’s cultural legitimacy and modernity would likely irritate Beijing and bolster Taiwanese standing.

Trump would know better than anyone how to use such a statement. He should be aware that this is a form of leverage and one that could be very useful as he seeks to shape our relations with China.

To enhance this strategy outlined above, U.S. policymakers should consider the following initiatives:

• Public Messaging: Aside from a statement by the president, U.S. leadership should emphasize in speeches and international forums that Taiwan embodies both the authentic and modern Chinese identity. This would irk Beijing without providing new provocations for military aggression.

• Cultural Institutions: The U.S. could support or help establish alternatives to Confucius Institutes, promoting Taiwanese culture and history as the true inheritor of Chinese heritage. Taiwan has already laid some groundwork through TECO, but American investment and collaboration could significantly broaden the reach of these efforts.

• Youth Engagement: American soft power efforts should focus on Taiwanese youth, fostering a sense of pride in their heritage and their role as defenders of Chinese democracy. Initiatives could include exchange programs, leadership training, and media campaigns that highlight Taiwan’s democratic success.

The U.S. should continue its commitment to strengthening Taiwan’s military defenses and building an anti-hegemonic coalition. Nevertheless, the key to fostering long-term resilience on the island lies in soft power. Taiwan’s existing soft power initiatives are insufficient on their own to combat the CCP’s expansive influence. By partnering with Taiwan to promote its claim to both authentic Chinese culture and its status as the true modern Chinese society, we can enhance political unity, boost morale, and ultimately improve Taiwan’s military readiness. This soft power approach will create a cohesive national identity that encourages political unity while avoiding direct provocation of the CCP.

Through these efforts, the U.S. can support Taiwan in defending not only its sovereignty but also the broader question of what it means to be Chinese in the 21st century.

The American Conservative · by The American Conservative · October 11, 2024

15. Investigation of SEALs Drowning Also Uncovers Allegations of Performance-Enhancing Drug Use, Secret Surgery

Oh no. More depressing reporting.

Investigation of SEALs Drowning Also Uncovers Allegations of Performance-Enhancing Drug Use, Secret Surgery | Military.com

military.com · by Konstantin Toropin

A Navy investigation into the drowning deaths of two Navy SEALs released on Friday also revealed that the elite warfare community is still struggling with performance-enhancing drug use and a culture of exceptionalism where members are able to do things that would be off-limits to regular sailors.

The service determined the deaths of the sailors off the coast of Somalia in January during a ship-boarding mission to intercept Iranian-made weapons headed to Yemen were preventable and stemmed from a lack of concern over flotation gear.

But during the investigation, Navy officials also received an anonymous tip of two SEALs "wrongfully using performance enhancing drugs," a SEAL "having surgery outside the knowledge and care of U.S. Navy medicine," and "wrongful consumption of alcohol aboard USS Lewis B. Puller" by a SEAL whose name was redacted.

The Navy investigation stressed that "the allegations raised in the complaint were not root causes" of the decision to conduct the boarding operation or the drowning deaths of the two SEALs.

In fact, the heavily redacted report says that Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Christopher Chambers, 37, and Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram, 27, both from SEAL Team Three, died because they were so overloaded with gear that they simply sank after they went into the water.

Both Chambers' and Ingram's names are redacted in the report, often making it impossible to know if one or both men are being referenced in the findings.

Gen. Michael Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command where the two men died, noted in his letter accepting the investigation that the pair either didn't know they wouldn't float, or they did and ignored this fact and instead relied on being able to shed gear and activate a life preserver.

However, amid those facts was also the anonymous complaint, submitted to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS, in February -- just a month after the mishap -- which, among other things, alleged that two SEALs in Chambers' and Ingram's platoon were taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Due to the report's heavy redactions, it is not clear whether Chambers, Ingram or both were implicated.

Investigators found that one SEAL Team Three member came forward to the unit's medical department at some point before the deployment and disclosed that he was prescribed testosterone replacement therapy, or TRT, by a civilian doctor in San Diego.

The admission appeared to come after Navy Special Warfare Command leadership told all SEALs that they would be subject to testing for performance-enhancing drugs, or PEDs, starting in November 2023.

The new drug testing program came more than a year after the death of Seaman Kyle Mullen, a SEAL recruit who had just completed the first leg of the rigorous SEAL training pipeline but died due to acute pneumonia.

However, following his death, a stash of PEDs, including testosterone and human growth hormone, were found in his car, drawing attention to the prospect of drug use within the elite community.

Since then, people who are close to the SEALs have told Military.com and other publications that PED use is not only something that occurs, but that it is common among operational units.

In fact, at the time of the drug-testing policy rollout, Cmdr. Ben Tisdale, then the spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Command, told Military.com that the command hoped its operators would do just what the SEAL in the drowning deaths investigation did -- come forward and disclose any prescriptions they may have received from civilian doctors.

The investigation noted that the testosterone therapy was "medically disqualifying for special operators," and the Navy's medical policy specifically says that conditions that require the regular taking of testosterone or testosterone analogs are disqualifying.

Despite this, the SEAL was allowed to continue taking the testosterone by a Navy doctor "to avoid inducing adverse effects from altering the [testosterone] regimen" and was permitted to deploy.

A second SEAL in the small unit that deployed to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea was also accused of using PEDs, but investigators seemed to do little investigating into the matter.

The report noted that, when interviewed, the SEAL denied the allegation, and other members of the platoon also said they didn't know anything about the claim. The investigation makes no mention of the SEAL ever being tested for drugs.

In addition to the performance-enhancing drug use, one member of the team was accused of being "not fit to conduct operations because he received an unauthorized medical procedure in Bahrain" before getting underway with the USS Puller.

While the heavily redacted report does not offer any details about what the unauthorized surgery was, it does say that leadership of SEAL Team Three was "aware" of both the procedure and follow-on care.

Taken together, the report suggests the small detachment of SEALs from SEAL Team Three were given wide latitude to break the Navy's own rules and policies with seemingly little consequence while ordinary sailors experience a far harsher reality.

Military.com has reported on one sailor who tested positive for cannabis amid a mental health crisis and treatment. Even though the sailor denied using marijuana, that information was reported back to his command and they proceeded to punish the sailor with the help of his psychologist.

After that reporting, Navy officials confirmed that sailors don't have confidentiality when it comes to positive drug tests during medical treatment.

In contrast, just on PED use alone, the new investigation shows that SEALs are given wide latitude to wean themselves off the testosterone that they quietly had prescribed to them by civilian doctors, and reporting has shown that there is ample legal assistance to challenge any possible consequences if they should test positive.

Last year, Tim Parlatore, an attorney who specializes in representing military clients and particularly Navy SEALs, told Military.com that he was ready to fight any positive PED test results for his clients.

Parlatore noted that "everybody who pops positive must be processed -- it doesn't mean that they actually have to be separated," arguing that he didn't expect many special operators to actually be forced from the Navy as a result of the new testing policy.

"They're making a calculated decision that the taking of these legal substances will increase the likelihood that they are successful on the battlefield and they and their brothers come home safely," Parlatore argued last October.

Meanwhile, in 2022, service members had to win a lawsuit in order to force the Navy, Marine Corps and Army to review thousands of general and other-than-honorable discharges awarded to troops over the past decade for problems that may have stemmed from drug use, a military-related mental health condition or sexual assault.

The lawsuit against the Navy was brought by Marine Cpl. Tyson Manker, who was dismissed with an other-than-honorable discharge after he was caught using marijuana that he said helped him deal with the trauma he experienced in Iraq in 2003.

In 2020, U.S. Special Operations Command, the combatant command that oversees all special operations units, conducted a review that also found entitlement within its ranks and a culture that lionized combat experience above anything else in many units across the U.S. military.

"Those who did deploy forward, specifically in some degree of combat, are held as almost an infallible standard bearer for the rest of the organization to emulate -- seemingly regardless if it is a positive or negative standard," the review found.

In addition to the PED use and medical procedure, the investigation also found that "a bottle of alcohol was likely present" on the ship, and that it was "possibly used to share a toast by members of C-Platoon in honor of their fallen comrades contrary to Navy regulations."

The report recommended administrative action to address this incident but without actually recommending anyone to be the target of the potential action.

The remaining recommendations in the report -- which would have likely dealt with the incidents of PED use and the unauthorized medical procedure -- are redacted, citing an exemption for internal deliberations.

military.com · by Konstantin Toropin

16. BRICS Country Rejects De-Dollarization, Embraces the US Dollar

The dollar is at the heart of the rules based international order.

BRICS Country Rejects De-Dollarization, Embraces the US Dollar

watcher.guru · by Vinod Dsouza · October 10, 2024

In a new twist of events, BRICS member India has confirmed that it will not target the US dollar amid the de-dollarization agenda that has engulfed the global financial landscape. India made it clear that it has no plans to end reliance on the US dollar and will use the currency for trade and transactions where it remains a necessary form of payment.

The development is a complete U-turn from the BRICS initiative where the alliance is pushing de-dollarization narratives around the world. Sources say that India is unhappy with the narrative pushed by its BRICS counterparts China and Russia. According to sources, India believes China is using BRICS as a stepping stone to strengthen its dominance around the world.

Also Read: BRICS: A New World Order in Progress

BRICS: India Rejects De-Dollarization, Will Use the US Dollar For Trade

Source: Forbes / GettyImages

The Foreign Minister of India, S. Jaishankar confirmed that the country is not interested in the de-dollarization agenda. Jaishankar explained that India will use the US dollar wherever it is accepted as a form of payment. In the absence of accepting the USD, the country will rely on local currencies, he said. The statement comes on the heels of the BRICS summit where de-dollarization will be a major talking point.

“We have never actively targeted the US dollar. That’s not part of our economic, political, or strategic policy. Some others (BRICS members) may have done so (de-dollarization). What I will say is that we have a natural concern. We often have trade partners who lack dollars for transactions,” he said. The Foreign Minister also made it clear that “there’s no malicious intent towards the US dollar.”

In conclusion, BRICS member India is backing out from the de-dollarization process as the move will hurt its economy. India needs the US dollar and accepting local currencies will only help China advance its global agenda.

watcher.guru · by Vinod Dsouza · October 10, 2024

17. The US won’t run for another term on UN human rights council. Israel is likely why

The US won’t run for another term on UN human rights council. Israel is likely why | United Nations | The Guardian

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Show captionUS secretary of state Antony Blinken appears on a screen during a UN human rights council session in Geneva, Switzerland, on 1 March 2022. Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/KEYSTONE/AFP/Getty Images

Opinion

The US won’t run for another term on UN human rights council. Israel is likely why

Kenneth Roth

Balloting would have provided a rare opportunity for the world’s governments to vote on complicity in Israeli war crimes

Fri 11 Oct 2024 06.00 EDT

Something unusual happened this week at the UN: the US government decided not to run for a second term on the human rights council. Taking a year off is mandatory after a country serves two three-year terms, but the Biden administration chose to bow out after a single term. That is extremely unusual. What happened?

Various rationales are circulating, but one, in my view, looms large: Israel. Or more to the point, Joe Biden’s refusal to suspend or condition the massive US arms sales and military aid to Israel as its military bombs and starves the Palestinian civilians of Gaza.

The election for the 47-member human rights council in Geneva is conducted by the 193-member UN general assembly in New York. The balloting would have provided a rare opportunity for the world’s governments to vote on US complicity in Israeli war crimes. The US could have lost. The Biden administration seems to have calculated that it was better to withdraw voluntarily than to face the prospect of such a shameful repudiation.

As a Palestinian living in the US, I have lost friends, job opportunities – and my faith in humanity | Arwa MahdawiTo understand that rationale, one must understand the dynamics of the human rights council election. The council was created in 2006 to replace the old UN commission on human rights. The commission had become a collection of repressive governments that joined it, not to advance human rights but to undermine them. They routinely voted to protect themselves and their ilk.

The new council introduced a device that was supposed to avoid that travesty – competitive elections. Rather than the backroom deals that had populated the old commission with the dictators and tyrants of the world, the UN’s five regional groups would each propose slates of candidates on which the full UN membership would vote. The idea was that highly abusive governments could be rejected.

An usher collects the voting ballot from a representative of Myanmara the election of members of the Human Rights Council took place in the United Nations Headquarters on 09 Oct 2024. Photograph: Bianca Otero/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/ShutterstockFor the first few years, it worked. Each year, Human Rights Watch and its allies would single out the most inappropriate candidate for the council, and each year they would either withdraw their candidacy (Syria, Iraq) or lose (Belarus, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka). Even Russia was defeated, in 2016, as its aircraft were bombing Syrian civilians in eastern Aleppo. It lost again in 2023 as it was pummeling Ukrainian civilians.

It worked this year as well, when the general assembly for the second time rejected Saudi Arabia, given its murder of hundreds of Ethiopian migrants trying to enter from Yemen, its not-so-distant bombing of Yemeni civilians, its repression of dissidents including women’s rights activists and its brazen murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

But to avoid that embarrassment, the regional groups began gaming the system. Many started to propose the same number of candidates as openings, effectively depriving the General Assembly of a choice. That’s how the likes of Burundi, Eritrea and Sudan hold council seats. Sometimes there were still competitive slates – Saudi Arabia lost this year because there were six governments seeking five seats for the Asia-Pacific region – but uncompetitive slates have become the norm.

Even the western group, despite its ostensible support for an effective council, usually offers uncompetitive slates. The explanation typically offered is that western governments don’t want to bother with the need to lobby the 193 members of the general assembly for support. But that left western governments in no position to press other regions to present competitive slates. The council suffered for their diplomatic laziness.

This year, something seems to have gone wrong with this cozy if detrimental practice. In the election this week, the western group had three seats to fill. Iceland, Spain and Switzerland had all put their hats in the ring, and the United States was expected to seek renewal of its term that was coming to an end. Three years ago, when a similar possibility emerged of four western candidates for three positions, Washington persuaded Italy to withdraw, allowing it to run unopposed.

But this year, by all appearances, none of the other three Western candidates were eager to abandon their quest. That could have reflected the possibility that Donald Trump would win the US presidential election next month. In 2018, he notoriously relinquished the US seat on the council to protest its criticism of Israel. Iceland, Spain and Switzerland must have wondered: why defer to the US candidacy if Trump may soon nullify?

UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis reads the election results of new members to the Human Rights Council, at UN headquarters in New York City on 10 October 2023. Photograph: Bryan R Smith/AFP/Getty ImagesThe Biden administration could have run anyway. After all, why not let the nations of the world choose the best three of the four candidates, as was originally supposed to happen? Instead, it bowed out. Yes, maybe it was just being nice – to Iceland, which assumed its seat when Trump abandoned it; to Switzerland, the host of the council; but to Spain? The Spanish government is one of Europe’s most vocal defenders of Palestinian rights. And Washington is ordinarily not reluctant to throw its weight around on behalf of Israel.

It is rare that the UN general assembly has the chance to vote on the US government’s conduct. A competitive vote for the UN human rights council would have provided such an opportunity. Given widespread outrage at Israeli war crimes in Gaza – and at Biden’s refusal to use the enormous leverage of US arms sales and military aid to stop it – that vote could easily have resulted in an overwhelming repudiation of the Biden administration. Rather than face the possibility of a humiliating reprimand, the US government withdrew its candidacy.

These events show again how devastating Biden’s support for Israel has been for the cause of human rights. By virtue of its diplomatic and economic power, the US government can be an important force for human rights. Other than on Israel, its presence on the council has generally helped the defense of human rights.

We must insist that out of the October 7 tragedy must come lasting peace | Jo-Ann MortBut US credibility, already compromised by Washington’s close alliances with the repressive likes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has been profoundly undermined by Biden’s aiding and abetting of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. With Biden seemingly constitutionally unable to change, the defense of human rights is taking a hit.

That doesn’t mean an end to that defense. The human rights council functioned well despite Trump’s withdrawal. Without the baggage of Washington’s ideological animosity, Latin American democracies led a successful effort to condemn Venezuela. Tiny Iceland secured condemnation of the mass summary executions spawned by the “drug war” of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, whom Trump had embraced.

But it is a sad state of affairs when, rather than join the frontline defense of human rights at a time of severe threat – in Russia, Ukraine, China, Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere – the Biden administration has gone sulking from Geneva back to Washington. It says it won’t run again for the council until 2028.

Kenneth Roth was executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022. He is now a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs

View on theguardian.com

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18. Mark Milley fears being court-martialed if Trump wins, Woodward book says

Uh oh....

Mark Milley fears being court-martialed if Trump wins, Woodward book says | Donald Trump | The Guardian

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Show captionMark Milley has received ‘a non-stop barrage of death threats’ since his retirement, Bob Woodward writes. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Donald Trump

Mark Milley fears being court-martialed if Trump wins, Woodward book says

Retired US army general fears unusual action of being recalled to uniform for retribution, veteran reporter writes

Martin Pengelly in Washington

Fri 11 Oct 2024 08.53 EDT

Mark Milley, a retired US army general who was chair of the joint chiefs of staff under Donald Trump and Joe Biden, fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power.

“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently “warned former colleagues”, the veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward writes in an upcoming book. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”

Woodward cites Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chair and White House strategist now jailed for contempt of Congress, as saying of Milley: “We’re gonna hold him accountable.”

Trump secretly gave Putin Covid test machines, Bob Woodward book saysTrump’s wish to recall and court-martial retired senior officers who criticized him in print has been reported before, including by Mark Esper, Trump’s second secretary of defense. In Woodward’s telling, in a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and Esper, Trump “yelled” and “shouted” about William McRaven, a former admiral who led the 2011 raid in Pakistan in which US special forces killed Osama bin Laden, and Stanley McChrystal, the retired special forces general whose men killed another al-Qaida leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in Iraq in 2006.

Milley was able to persuade Trump to back down, Woodward writes, but fears no such guardrails will be in place if Trump is re-elected.

Woodward also describes Milley receiving “a non-stop barrage of death threats” since his retirement last year, and quotes the former general as telling him, of Trump: “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country.”

Milley spoke to Woodward for his previous reporting. Woodward now reports the former general as saying: “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.

“A fascist to the core.”

Woodward, 81, made his name in the 1970s with Carl Bernstein during Watergate, the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon. Woodward’s new blockbuster, War, will be published on Tuesday. His fourth book at least in part about Trump – after Fear, Rage, and Peril – stoked uproar this week with the release of revelations including that Trump sent Covid testing machines to Vladimir Putin early in the coronavirus pandemic, and that Trump has had as many as seven phone calls with the Russian president since leaving office.

Milley was chair of the joint chiefs of staff from 2019 to 2023. His attempts to cope with Trump have been widely reported – particularly in relation to Trump’s demands for military action against protesters for racial justice in the summer of 2020 and, later that year, Trump’s attempt to stay in power despite losing the election to Biden.

Last year, marking his retirement, Milley appeared to take a direct swipe at Trump, then a candidate for a third successive Republican presidential nomination.

“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley told a military audience at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia. “We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

Since then, Trump has brushed aside Republican rivals to seize the nomination, campaigned against first Biden then Harris, and survived two assassination attempts. Less than a month from election day, he and Harris are locked in a tight race.

In office, Trump memorably insisted senior military officers owed their loyalty to him, even reportedly telling his second chief of staff, the retired marine general John Kelly, US generals should “be like the German generals” who Trump insisted were “totally loyal” to Adolf Hitler during the second world war. Kelly mentioned military assassination plots against Hitler but Trump was not convinced.

As told by Woodward, in 2020 Trump became enraged by pieces McRaven wrote for the Washington Post and the New York Times – writing in the Post that “there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil” – and comments McChrystal made on CNN, calling Trump “immoral” and “dishonest”.

“As commander-in-chief” of US armed forces, Woodward writes, “Trump had extraordinary power over retired commissioned officers. It was within his authority to recall them to active duty and court-martial them. But it had only been done a few times in American history and for very serious crimes. For instance, when a retired two-star [general] was charged in 2017 with six counts of raping a minor while on active duty in the 1980s.”

So Trump summoned Milley and Esper. The president demanded action but the two men told him not to seek to punish McRaven and McChrystal, because they had a right to voice their opinions and because it would backfire, drawing attention to their words.

“The president didn’t want to hear it,” Woodward writes.

So Milley switched tack.

“‘Mr President,’ Milley said. ‘I’m the senior military officer responsible for the good order and discipline of general officers and I’ll take care of this.’

“Trump’s head whipped round. ‘You really will?’ he asked skeptically.

“‘Absolutely,’ Milley assured him.

“‘OK, you take care of it,’ President Trump said.”

Such dramatic Oval Office scenes are familiar from previous books by Woodward and legions of competing reporters and former Trump officials. According to Woodward’s new reporting, Milley did take action after fending Trump off, calling McRaven and McChrystal and warning them to “step off the public stage”.

“‘Pull it back,’ Milley said. If Trump actually used his authority to recall them to duty, there was little Milley could do.”

Woodward then quotes Milley speaking this year about his fear that Trump will seek to punish his military critics if he returns to power.

McRaven, now a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Milley’s fear of retribution and whether he shared it.

Trump has given such figures plenty of reason to worry. Among proliferating campaign-trail controversies, the former president has frequently voiced his desire for revenge on opponents and critics, including by using the FBI and Department of Justice to mount politically motivated investigations. At rallies, Trump has frequently told crowds: “I am your retribution.”

The Utah senator Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, was recently asked about possible consequences of his own opposition to Trump including votes to convict in both his impeachment trials.

Trump took ‘British naval secrets’ to Mar-a-Lago, says Christopher Steele“I think he has shown by his prior actions that you can take him at his word,” a “suddenly subdued” Romney told the Atlantic. “So I would take him at his word.”

Woodward also reports Milley’s harrowing experiences since stepping down as chair of the joint chiefs.

“Since retiring, Milley had received a non-stop barrage of death threats that he, at least in part, attributed to Trump’s repeated attempts to discredit him.

“‘He is inciting people to violence with violent rhetoric,’ Milley told his wife. ‘But he does it in such a way it’s through the power of suggestion, which is exactly what he did on 6 January” 2021, the day Trump incited supporters to attack Congress, in hope of overturning his election defeat.

“As a former chairman, Milley was provided round-the-clock government security for two years. But he had taken additional precautions at significant personal expense, installing bullet-proof glass and blast-proof curtains at his home.”

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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."

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