Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Armies are necessary, before all things, for the defense of governments from their own oppressed and enslaved subjects.”

– Leo Tolstoy

“Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes at Society itself.”

– Aldous Huxley

"There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind."

– Hannah Szenes

1. DIA Releases Nuclear Challenges Intelligence Overview

2. How Hezbollah Is Hitting Back After Being Pummeled by Israel

3. American views of China hit record low, poll finds, as animosity grows

4. How the Beirut bombing of a Marine Corps barracks changed everything

5. Army wargame to test cargo drones and live logistics data

6. Military must improve acquisition to win future wars, admiral says

7. Two service members wounded in raid on ISIS leaders in Iraq

8. AUKUS Partners Complete Successful Tests of Autonomous and Networked Systems in Maritime Experimentation

9. David Petraeus: Israel Needs to Adapt Its Strategy

10. Why Modi's shifting India away from US toward China

11. US, Filipino marines practice repelling an invasion from disputed South China Sea waters

12. Russian Roulette on the Red Sea

13. Israel, Hezbollah, and Arab Hostility

14. Contemplating Naval Combat in the Western Pacific 80 Years After the Largest Sea Battle in History

15. China’s Agents of Chaos: The Military Logic of Beijing’s Growing Partnerships

16. The Nuclear Brain Trust

17. How to fix the world: the elements of global stability

18. We’ve had the victory pictures, but how is Israel aiming to actually win the war

19. China, Russia target Pentagon agency with disinformation campaign

20. How I unmasked a Russian agent, one of Ukraine’s greatest enemies

21. Russians Film Interrogation of Four Ukrainian POWs Before Executing Them

1. DIA Releases Nuclear Challenges Intelligence Overview

Download the 64 page report here: https://www.rfa.org/korean/in_focus/nk_nuclear_talks/small-tactical-nuclear-10232024151745.html

This should give the press, pundits, researchers, and the public a common frame of reference to discuss nuclear challenges.

News | Oct. 23, 2024

DIA Releases Nuclear Challenges Intelligence Overview

By DIA Public Affairs

JOINT BASE ANACOSTIA-BOLLING –

The Defense Intelligence Agency has released a new publication describing the current nuclear capabilities of foreign adversaries.

The report, Nuclear Challenges: The Growing Capabilities of Strategic Competitors and Regional Rivals, is the second edition in DIA’s authoritative unclassified product series. Global Nuclear Landscape was first published in early 2018 to address the nuclear programs of China, Russia, and North Korea.

Authored by DIA’s Defense Counterproliferation Office, this edition provides an updated, unclassified overview of the nuclear programs of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.

DIA has a long history of producing comprehensive, authoritative defense intelligence overviews. In 1981, DIA published the first unclassified Soviet Military Power report, which was translated into eight languages and distributed around the world.

DIA published the report as part of ongoing transparency efforts to inform key publics of challenges, developments, and future projections regarding nuclear security. This report underscores DIA’s role as the United States’ authority on foreign military intelligence analysis.

Information within the report is considered current as of June 1, 2024.

Media may direct queries about the report to DIA Public Affairs at dia-pao@dodiis.mil.

LINK to report: https://www.dia.mil/Military-Power-Publications/

DIA’s mission is to provide intelligence on foreign militaries to prevent and decisively win wars.

2. How Hezbollah Is Hitting Back After Being Pummeled by Israel

How Hezbollah Is Hitting Back After Being Pummeled by Israel

The Lebanese militant group is weakened but resilient. Its escalating responses show the danger of an extended conflict.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hezbollah-military-strategy-israel-1c8886c4?mod=latest_headlines

By Jared MalsinFollow

Updated Oct. 24, 2024 12:06 am ET

BEIRUT—After suffering a series of punishing blows by Israel, Hezbollah is fighting back, launching ambushes on Israeli troops in Lebanon and ratcheting up drone and missile strikes deeper into Israel.

The attacks show that Hezbollah, though weakened by Israeli strikes that have killed a generation of its top leaders and destroyed some of its weapons, is still capable of turning Lebanon’s deadliest conflict in decades into a long grind for Israel.

Hezbollah has been firing missiles at Israel for more than a year to show its solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. While those missiles have resulted in only limited damage and few casualties, they have displaced tens of thousands of people from northern Israel and drained Israeli resources as Israel spends heavily to intercept them.

Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon in late September, which itself has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, was intended to force Hezbollah to halt its attacks. Instead, it is ramping them up.

A Hezbollah drone attack over the weekend hit the Israeli prime minister’s residence in Caesarea in central Israel, more than 40 miles from the Lebanese border, the second time in a week that the group demonstrated an ability to shoot through Israel’s air defenses using uncrewed aircraft.

A Hezbollah drone strike hit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea last week. Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images

An attack days earlier killed four Israeli soldiers at a base for an elite unit of the military, also in central Israel.

On Monday, Hezbollah posted video footage that it said showed it striking a group of Israeli soldiers in the village of Ramyeh in southern Lebanon. The video, filmed from the missile itself, appeared to show the use of the group’s guided antitank missiles, which were its deadliest weapon in the last war it fought with Israel in 2006.

Hezbollah’s rocket fire has also ticked up, with the group launching 200 rockets and projectiles each day over the weekend and 140 on Tuesday, according to the Israeli military. During previous weeks it was only averaging a few dozen a day.

Hezbollah’s launches are still lower in number than Israeli officials anticipated in the event of a full-scale war, a sign of the group’s degraded capabilities. Most of its attacks are being intercepted by Israeli air defenses, the Israeli military says, at a cost of around $100,000 per drone and as much as several million dollars for every missile it shoots down.

Even so, Hezbollah is showing its ability to regroup quickly under pressure. Its armed units have been trained to operate with some degree of autonomy, making it easier for them to keep fighting even when top leaders are killed and internal communications are disabled, military analysts say.

That ability to survive and continue fighting increases the risk that Israel could be sending its military into a bloody and protracted conflict.

Hezbollah supporters carrying a flag depicting the militant group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah days before an Israel airstrike killed him in Lebanon last month. Photo: Hassan Ammar/Associated Press

“Hezbollah still has its core strategy, which is to hold its ground in the south in the face of any kind of Israeli ground offensive or incursion or advance,” said Rym Momtaz, a Paris-based security analyst with Carnegie Europe, a policy institute. “It’s Hezbollah’s home turf. They know every nook and cranny, and they’re going to use that advantage.”

Degraded, but not deterred

Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Shiite-led militant group and political party, was created in response to an Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s. It compelled the Israeli military to withdraw from Lebanon in two previous wars.

The latest expansion of hostilities comes after Israel killed Hamas’s leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, a death that some analysts thought could provide an off-ramp for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the wars in both Gaza and Lebanon. Netanyahu said the next day that the war would continue, while Hezbollah vowed to escalate its response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

Israeli leaders have begun to speak of more ambitious goals for its latest offensive, beyond its initial stated aim of making communities in northern Israel safe. The Israeli military this week launched airstrikes on branches of a Hezbollah-affiliated bank, which Israeli officials said was intended to undermine the Islamist group’s base of support.

Netanyahu also earlier this month called on the Lebanese public to rise up against Hezbollah.

“It’s very complicated to fight there,” said a senior Israeli military official. “The goal is to heavily cripple Hezbollah in order to change the balance of power in Lebanon.”

An Israeli airstrike hit Beirut earlier this month, left. The son of a Hezbollah militant was carried during the Beirut funeral of three of the group's fighters.

MANU BRABO FOR WSJ

Birds scattered after an Israeli airstrike in a suburb of Beirut. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Up to now, Israel has been able to use its advantages, including air power and sophisticated intelligence and surveillance operations, to put Hezbollah on the defensive. Israel deployed booby-trapped pagers that killed and wounded Hezbollah members and launched airstrikes that killed the group’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and many of its elite fighters.

An Israeli strike also killed his successor, Hashim Safieddine, Hezbollah said on Wednesday.

Military analysts say Israeli attacks have also degraded Hezbollah’s missile force. Israeli surveillance, including electronic wiretaps and drones that constantly buzz in the skies above Lebanon, have made it difficult for the group to use its medium and long-range missile launchers. Those take more time to set up than shorter-range weapons, exposing them to Israeli airstrikes once they are spotted.

The Israeli military said in late September it has destroyed about 50% of Hezbollah’s missile stockpile, which before the war was estimated to be around 150,000 missiles and rockets. Hezbollah has said it remains militarily capable, but hasn’t given an estimate of its losses of weapons.

Israeli Strike Targeting Hezbollah Shows Civilian Cost in Lebanon

Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the October 24, 2024, print edition as 'Hezbollah Strikes Back After Punishing Israeli Blows'.

3. American views of China hit record low, poll finds, as animosity grows

While views in other regions, particularly Southeast Asia and Africa, and Latin American seem to be improving.

American views of China hit record low, poll finds, as animosity grows

A majority of Americans — 55 percent — say the United States should actively work to limit the growth of China’s power, according to a Chicago Council poll.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/24/china-trade-war-american-views/

Members of an honor guard prepare for a ceremony to present flowers to deceased national heroes at the Monument to the People’s Heroes marking Martyrs’ Day on Tiananmen Square in Beijing last month. (Ng Han Guan/AP)

By Katrina Northrop

October 24, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EDT

Americans’ views of China have hit a record low, dropping significantly even in the last two years, with a majority of people saying that the U.S. should work to actively limit the growth of China’s power, according to a poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

This tide of distrust against China grew during the Trump administration’s trade war and escalated during the covid-19 pandemic. It has persisted as Chinese and U.S. leaders jockey for geopolitical points on the world stage.

The poll, which asked participants to rate their feelings toward China from zero to 100, found that Americans on average responded with 26, down from 32 in 2022 — the lowest number recorded since the organization starting polling in 1978, before the two countries established diplomatic relations. The survey was conducted in June and July and released Thursday.

But Americans do not want competition to tip over into war. The public’s top priority for the bilateral relationship was to avoid a military conflict.

Following World news

Following

“Views of China are very negative. You have fairly strong support, especially among Republicans, for some fairly hawkish policies toward China,” said Craig Kafura, director for public opinion and foreign policy at the Chicago Council. However, he added, “for all of the dislike, for all of the views of China as a rival or as a threat, it’s something to be managed and not a war to be won for the American public.”

The polling comes in the final weeks of the U.S. presidential election campaign, where China continues to be a central foreign policy issue for both parties. In the September debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, for example, China came up early and often, with the two candidates sparring over who has been tougher on Beijing.

Even as the American political landscape grows increasingly polarized, the Chicago Council data reveals that Republicans and Democrats are united in their negative attitudes about China.

However, Republicans and Democrats do not agree on how best to craft policy to counter the threat posed by China.

Democrats are more in favor of engagement with China and are more likely to prioritize working with Beijing on areas of common ground, such as climate change and arms control, according to the poll. Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to place importance on promoting human rights in China. Republicans, meanwhile, are more concerned across the board about the threat posed by Beijing.

Economic links between the countries — once a steady ballast in the relationship — are also seen more skeptically now. More than half (56 percent) of the Americans surveyed see trade between the countries as weakening U.S. national security, and 79 percent favor stopping U.S. companies from selling sensitive high-tech products to China, up from 71 percent three years ago.

“Americans very, very vividly confronted the extent to which the U.S. and other countries were dependent on China for some of these critical supplies that they needed in an emergency like the pandemic,” Kafura said. This experience, he added, furthered the idea that “these supply chains, rather than binding the U.S. and China together in a way that would prevent conflict, could actually exacerbate conflict.”

But views on implementing trade barriers between the U.S. and China are divided along party lines and becoming less popular overall. Now 55 percent of Americans favor increasing tariffs on Chinese goods, down from 62 percent in 2021. Republicans are a third more likely to support increasing tariffs compared to Democrats.

Tariffs are a frequent talking point on the campaign trail. Trump has proposed implementing a 10 or 20 percent levy on all goods from overseas, with a higher toll of 60 percent for Chinese goods. “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff,’” Trump said in an interview last week in Chicago.

Harris is likely to maintain the tariffs implemented by the Biden administration, which include a 100 percent duty on Chinese electric vehicles and 50 percent on Chinese solar panels. But she has criticized Trump’s blanket proposal, calling it a “a sales tax on the American people.”

The survey found that Americans are widely supportive of the Biden administration’s industrial policies, such as the investment in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, which the president has pitched as a key step to maintain American competitiveness in the technology race with China.

The Chicago Council poll was conducted by Ipsos between June 21 and July 1, among a weighted national sample of 2,106 people. It has an overall margin of error of 2.3 percentage points. The sample was drawn through Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, an ongoing survey panel recruited through random sampling of U.S. households.

Share
12
Comments
By Katrina Northrop
Katrina Northrop is a China correspondent for The Washington Post. Previously, she covered China's global impact on business and technology for The Wire China. Her work has also been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Providence Journal. follow on X @NorthropKatrina

4. How the Beirut bombing of a Marine Corps barracks changed everything

Let us never forget this tragic event.

How the Beirut bombing of a Marine Corps barracks changed everything

marinecorpstimes.com · by Todd South · October 23, 2024

Forty-one years ago today, a Hezbollah affiliate rammed his yellow Mercedes stake-bed truck through a chest-high concertina wire fence at the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, detonating a deadly payload that killed 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers.

To this day, that event remains the largest loss of life the Marine Corps has suffered since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

A new book on the bombing argues that it was also an opening salvo in the decades-long fight between the United States and Middle East terrorist organizations. The truck driver was later found to have links to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed, armed wing of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim political party.

Hezbollah has largely operated as an informal arm for Tehran for years, and is now in battle with Israel in Lebanon.

40 years after Beirut: How the bombing still haunts the Corps today

The bombing remains the largest single-day loss of life for Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

How the Beirut bombing has echoed through decades of American foreign policy frames the central thesis of “Targeted: Beirut: The 1983 Marine Barracks Bombing and the Untold Origin Story of the War on Terror.”

Former Navy SEAL sniper turned New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr, creator of numerous military-political thriller novels, co-wrote the book with James M. Scott, a Pulitzer Prize finalist and nonfiction writer, producing a work that examines the barracks bombing and its reverberations through the years.

Both men talked with Military Times ahead of the publication of the book, which is now available, sharing some of what they remembered themselves and what they learned in the research and writing.

This interview has been edited for length and style.

A Marine Corps flag flies near Beirut Airport, Lebanon following the Marine barracks bombing there in October 1983. (AP Photo)

Military Times: This bombing happened more than 40 years ago, do either of you remember when and how you learned about this event?

Jack Carr: I was very aware of this as I was already on a path to joining the military. I devoured anything I could find, specifically on terrorism. I remember the Time and Newsweek magazine covers on our dining room table. I probably still have them in a box somewhere.

James M. Scott: I distinctly remember when this happened. I remember coming home from school and my mom telling me that it had happened. This also happened the same week as the Grenada invasion. It was huge news. My parents had been in the Navy. I remember being worried if the United States was going to end up war again?

MT: Mr. Carr, you have a fiction background while Mr. Scott is a nonfiction writer, what brought the two of you together on this project?

Carr: I like to weave a lot of historical events into my work. I always knew that I’d move into the nonfiction space, much like Tom Clancy did in the 1980s and 1990s. So, I began looking to start a series of books focused on terrorist events. I wrote down about three pages worth of different terrorist events from the end of World War II. There were a lot, unfortunately. But I kept coming back to Beirut because it was such a turning point in our relationship with the Middle East and Iran in particular, through its proxies.

Iran learned lessons through the bombing that became almost the model for everything they did afterward. I told Simon and Schuster I want to work with someone and there’s only one person I want to work with, it’s this guy James Scott. I have all his books and I love his work. My editor and agent had a connection, and we started talking on a Zoom call, which kicked things off and we’ve become friends throughout this process.

Scott: When he reached out it was so serendipitous. I’d watched the TV show “The Terminal List,” based off Jack’s books. Then I get this email about the Beirut project. At about that same time I was going to this conference on World War II history and one of the guys there was a former director of the Marine Corps History Division. I told him about this new Beirut project, and he said the Marine Corps archives have all these oral histories of Marines who experienced the incident or were in command at different levels at the time of the bombing. I thought, this is just meant to be.

In this Oct. 23, 1983 file photo, British soldiers give a hand in rescue operations at the site of the bomb-wrecked U.S. Marine command center near the Beirut airport in Lebanon. (Bill Foley, File/The Associated Press)

MT: What are some of the things you learned while researching and drafting the book?

Carr: What I didn’t realize at the time this happened in October 1983 is all the things that led to the event, starting in April. Most people are aware that something happened in Beirut in the 1980s. They’re usually thinking about the barracks bombing in October. But if you understand that there was a bombing at the U.S. embassy in April 1983, and that at the time the servicemembers there were peacekeepers. We did lose troops over the summer; they were in combat long before the barracks bombing.

Scott: I think one of the best lines that sums up Beirut is from Col. Timothy Geraghty, commander of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit at the time.

He said, “During the time they were there the situation changed but no one changed the situation.” I think that sentence encapsulates more than anything what happened to the guys over there. The Marines landed in Beirut in 1982 as a stabilizing force. The idea is if the Americans are there as a peacekeeping force along with the French, Italians and British, that we can provide some sort of stability.

But over time, that peace erodes, the infighting begins again between the separate groups and, essentially, there is a civil war. So, you see the situation starts sliding over the summer. Iran sees this opportunity to come in and capitalize off the chaos, send revolutionary guardsmen to create terror training camps and an infrastructure. The guys on the ground in Beirut, they see what’s going on right outside the wire. But it takes a lot longer for Washington to catch up to the reality of what’s going on over there.

In this Oct. 24, 1983, file photo, U.S. Marines and an Italian soldier dig through the rubble of the battalion headquarters, in Beirut, Lebanon, working around the clock searching for victims of the suicide truck bomb attack against the U.S. Marine barracks on Oct. 23, 1983. (Bill Foley, File/The Associated Press

MT: What should servicemembers today understand about the bombing and its effects on U.S. policy and military engagements in the Middle East?

Carr: There was a lot of tough talk from the presidential administration in the direct aftermath of the bombing. And then we slowly and quietly essentially leave in early 1984 and that teaches Iran that, one, proxies work, and two, they can get the result they want by using proxies and by using terrorism and a spectacular event. That’s to describe an event that draws the lens of the world media. So, this really became the model for Iran going forward.

Scott: I’d say that it’s not just this event but for history in general, it’s our duty as citizens to study history. Yes, there are lessons here for operational and tactical levels. But now that this event is humanized, we need to ensure that people in power understand the nature of the conflict in which they’re engaging before committing U.S. forces.

About Todd South

Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

5. Army wargame to test cargo drones and live logistics data

Army wargame to test cargo drones and live logistics data

The service is also looking into casualty evacuation by drone.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

In a future war, Army tanks growling around the battlefield may be able to send live data back to their headquarters showing every time they fire a round or burn a gallon of fuel.

Using that data, logisticians back at the base might then send swarms of drones buzzing back to the tanks with new ammo, or guide fleets of drone boats laden with fuel to a beach somewhere.

None of these ideas is ready for prime time yet — but the Army will test all three at Project Convergence this spring, according to Brig. Gen. Shane Upton, commander of the Contested Logistics Cross-Functional Team. Upton spoke to Defense One on the sidelines of the recent AUSA conference.

Some of the work, like the tank-ammo project, consists of updating logistics for the modern era.

Historically, Upton said, logisticians typically receive radio reports from units about how many rounds they have left, then add those numbers to an enormous spreadsheet by midnight each day.

But that method is not flawless. A typing error could change 20 rounds to 200, he said. With logistics data updated only every 24 hours, meanwhile, a commander may make unrealistic plans based on a faulty understanding of their logistics.

If soldiers in the tank can reliably send the data directly back to headquarters, by contrast, logisticians can keep a closer eye on usage rates and prioritize resupply missions. Commanders will also have an up-to-the-minute understanding of their forces’ readiness.

For the upcoming Project Convergence, the starting objective will be to transfer shell and fuel consumption data while the tank is stopped, with a “stretch” goal of transferring data when it’s on the move, Upton said.

Other technologies the team is prepping for Project Convergence aren’t just updates, but entirely new ways of doing logistics.

During the event, the team will test two heavy cargo drones capable of carrying 1,000 pounds or more up to 250 nautical miles. The aim of such drones is to deliver multiple artillery shells or precision munitions to troops, all without risking the lives of pilots who would otherwise be tasked with ferrying in munitions by plane or helicopter.

The Marine Corps, which already fields a small resupply drone, is also testing options from Leidos and Kaman for a heavier-lift drone in the ranges Upton outlined.

Under an “aggressive” schedule, that type of heavy-lift drone could be fielded to its first unit by 2030, Upton said, though that would require many more Army organizations than Army Futures Command to achieve.

A smaller drone capable of lifting 150 pounds might be fielded to some units of the Army’s “transformation-in-contact” modernization program by 2026, Upton said.

The team will also test autonomous resupply boats that the Navy has already experimented with, Upton said. The Army wants the systems to be relatively cheap so it can send “hundreds” to the field, allowing them to disperse widely, which will make them harder for an enemy to strike.

Other tech is also in the works, even if the Army isn’t ready to pull the trigger on it yet.

The service is watching how Ukraine is using drones for casualty evacuation, he said, and while Army discussions about implementing similar practices are “pre-decisional,” he called Ukraine’s efforts “very ingenious.”

The Army is also looking into better ways to supply troops with energy, but Upton noted numerous problems with existing tech even as troops rely on more and more powered tools, from drones to directed energy.

Solar panels could offer frontline troops easy charging options, for example, but could be just as difficult to move as a towed generator, he said. Hydrogen-powered fuel cells or even small nuclear energy could help power bases, meanwhile, but both come with a host of policy, safety, and other problems.

Still, Upton was optimistic. “I think there's a lot of movement that's got to happen in the [power-generation] space,” he said.

defenseone.com · by Sam Skove

6. Military must improve acquisition to win future wars, admiral says

High praise for the Urkainians.

Excerpts:

Such a fight would be much different than the previous 20 years, Voneida said.

“Instead of deconflicting between one Marine unit and one Army unit located in the desert of Iraq, we’re deconflicting globally across combatant commands. It’s a global fight,” he said. “ You need a global network. You need to be able to seamlessly move our data across, not just the Indo-Pacific theater, but the globe. Because that’s where the fight is going to happen.

Asked about the speed at which Ukrainians have rebuilt networks there, Voneida said the reason he believes having a “robust, reliable, resilient, all the adjectives” network ready before a conflict is critical is that expert technicians may not be able to physically access the infrastructure to rebuild over and over again during a war with China.

“If we can, great, I think we’ll do exactly what’s happening in Ukraine. If not, I think our goal is to have such a resilient network that we can gracefully degrade it as we go through the conflict,” he said.

Military must improve acquisition to win future wars, admiral says

Pacific Fleet deputy chief says U.S. should follow Ukraine’s example to be prepared for a potential clash with China.

defenseone.com · by Jennifer Hlad

HONOLULU—The war in Ukraine shows how the United States must improve its acquisition process if it hopes to maintain military strength, the deputy commander of Pacific Fleet said Tuesday.

Ukraine “provides us a great example of the importance of rapid innovation and lightning-quick transition from the drawing board to the battlefield,” Vice Adm. Blake Converse said during the opening keynote speech at AFCEA TechNet Indo-Pacific here. “Ukrainians have perfected the rapid acquisition of technology for multi-domain combat operations. They have shown us that even without a robust military-industrial complex and infrastructure, we can integrate land, sea, air, space, cyber, and information.”

Ukraine’s success in using unmanned vessels and missiles against the Russian Black Sea fleet is “not just compelling, it’s revolutionary,” Converse said.

Of course, the U.S. is not Ukraine, and the Pentagon’s high-tech weapons “weren’t developed in a makerspace lab in Silicon Valley, they’re the products of our acquisition systems,” he said. “Our imperative as a military must be to work with industry, to partner to foster innovation and to integrate emerging capabilities alongside our acquisition processes that exist today, but as fast as humanly possible.”

That speed is necessary to be prepared for “a highly contested combat environment in the western Pacific,” Converse said, adding that in addition to “building capabilities, sensors, and weapons,” the joint force must also “massively upgrade our command-and-control systems and processes.”

That potential conflict would also require a highly resilient digital infrastructure in the region that could handle a huge influx in troops and requirements, said Marine Col. Jared Voneida, commander of DISA’s Pacific field office.

“This what we’re trying to build. We are looking for an infrastructure that’s ready to go on day one of the fight, to absorb bandwidth increases from that joint force descending on this theater,” Voneida said at the conference.

Such a fight would be much different than the previous 20 years, Voneida said.

“Instead of deconflicting between one Marine unit and one Army unit located in the desert of Iraq, we’re deconflicting globally across combatant commands. It’s a global fight,” he said. “ You need a global network. You need to be able to seamlessly move our data across, not just the Indo-Pacific theater, but the globe. Because that’s where the fight is going to happen.

Asked about the speed at which Ukrainians have rebuilt networks there, Voneida said the reason he believes having a “robust, reliable, resilient, all the adjectives” network ready before a conflict is critical is that expert technicians may not be able to physically access the infrastructure to rebuild over and over again during a war with China.

“If we can, great, I think we’ll do exactly what’s happening in Ukraine. If not, I think our goal is to have such a resilient network that we can gracefully degrade it as we go through the conflict,” he said.

defenseone.com · by Jennifer Hlad

7. Two service members wounded in raid on ISIS leaders in Iraq

Two service members wounded in raid on ISIS leaders in Iraq

militarytimes.com · by Noah Robertson · October 23, 2024

Two American service members were wounded Tuesday in a series of raids with the Iraqi military that killed at least seven ISIS operatives, U.S. Central Command announced.

The raids, following earlier strikes in the area, targeted senior leaders of the terrorist group and took place in central Iraq. The two American service members were wounded while “assisting Iraqi forces with site exploitation” according to CENTCOM, which added that the troops were in “stable condition.”

“U.S. Central Command, alongside our coalition and Iraqi partners, will aggressively pursue ISIS and other terrorists that pose a threat to US forces, allies, partners, and security in the region,” wrote CENTCOM head Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, in a statement.

This week’s operation is the latest in a series conducted against ISIS in recent months — many of which have included, or in this case, been led by the Iraqi Security Forces. The U.S. and Iraq announced in September that a multi-national task force to fight the terrorist group would end its work in Iraq and Syria over the next two years.

“During these past years, we’ve seen very significant improvement in the Iraqi Security Force’s capability,” a senior defense official told reporters on a call announcing the decision.

The U.S. military has said that ISIS is diminished far below its peak power of the mid 2010s, when it seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. But it still remains a threat, both in the Middle East and northern Africa.

In a Tuesday briefing, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that CENTCOM was still running its assessment of the raids after the fact, and that the injured service members are being treated, though he didn’t say where.

About Noah Robertson

Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.

8. AUKUS Partners Complete Successful Tests of Autonomous and Networked Systems in Maritime Experimentation

Release

Immediate Release

AUKUS Partners Complete Successful Tests of Autonomous and Networked Systems in Maritime Experimentation

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3944394/aukus-partners-complete-successful-tests-of-autonomous-and-networked-systems-in/

Oct. 24, 2024 |

In a significant development for maritime security, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom (AUKUS) have completed successful tests of several autonomous and networked systems during a three-week maritime experimentation called Autonomous Warrior 24 in Australia. The event was part of the Maritime Big Play (MBP) initiative and ongoing efforts to develop AUKUS Pillar II capabilities, a trilateral collaboration to improve maritime awareness through networked autonomy, decision advantage, and enhanced strike.

The Maritime Big Play is a series of integrated trilateral experiments and exercises that are enhancing capability development, improving interoperability, and increasing the sophistication and scale of autonomous systems in the maritime domain. Australia led the Autonomous Warrior event, the signature MBP event in 2024. Other events associated with Maritime Big Play included the Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping Augmented by Maritime Unmanned Systems (REPMUS); and Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX).

Through these experiments and exercises, AUKUS partners are further testing and refining the ability to jointly operate uncrewed maritime systems, share and process maritime data from all three nations, and provide real-time maritime domain awareness to support decision-making.

"Autonomous Warrior/Maritime Big Play creates a unique opportunity for our three countries to work together, which will ultimately improve operational efficiency and allow us to work more cohesively against common threats," said Heidi Shyu, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. "This collaborative approach enables us to reduce acquisition, maintenance, and training cost by creating economies of scale."

The technologies tested during the October event support operations from deep under water to the edge of space. This included software-defined acoustic modems, multi-model autonomous underwater and surface vessels, and low-cost attritable unmanned surface vehicles. The tests also featured a low-cost gondola, which supports operations in the upper stratosphere with minimum manpower or logistics requirements, and T-200 high-altitude balloons, which provide resilient communications in denied environments from the stratosphere.

A versatile and robust software-defined network architecture called Multi-Domain Uncrewed Secure Integrated Communications (MUSIC) was tested for its ability to enable seamless communication and coordination across diverse unmanned systems and operational environments. The Common Control System (CCS) was also featured in the exercise, built on an open architecture to provide uncrewed vehicles hardware and software that works across several different systems. This effort supports future work to create an AUKUS-wide Common Control System, fusing best elements of the three countries’ existing systems.

"AUKUS partners have long histories of working together on defense and security issues, and have deep, enduring partnerships based on shared values, said Shyu. "By investing in novel and innovative capabilities directly aligned to AUKUS mission priorities, as well as making future advancements in emerging technologies like AI and Quantum, we support a more stable region — one where all nations are empowered to make their own sovereign decisions free from coercion — a world that centers on hope for the opportunity and prosperity of the future."

9. David Petraeus: Israel Needs to Adapt Its Strategy

Excerpts:

You could argue that Israel now is going through something similar. And I can’t stress this enough. If you set aside the Arab world for a minute, throughout the rest of the world, there is vast disenchantment with how Israel and the United States have responded to Oct. 7. If you were still in the military or in government, what would you advise?

DP: Well, start with where this began, which was the horrific, traumatic day. The most traumatic day for Israel in its history, the worst intelligence failure, the worst military-readiness failure, and the worst political analytical failure in the complete misjudgment of Hamas. And that’s the first of the fronts in which Israel is now engaged. Start by laying out a vision for how you bring that to a decent end, how you achieve your objectives relative to Hamas and getting the hostages back and providing a better future for the Palestinian people, and do it.

If you actually start to resolve Gaza in a favorable way for the people there by getting them out of this humanitarian disaster zone, the cause motivating Hezbollah will just not present. Plus, they’ve sustained enormous damage. Israel has decapitated Hezbollah, taking out some 18 of the top 20 leaders, including the heir apparent to Nasrallah. They’ve decimated the entire leadership structure because the leaders were the ones that had the pagers. And if Israel can continue reducing Hezbollah’s capacity with the airstrikes and ensure that Hezbollah can’t use that territory between the Litani River and the northern border, that would allow the 65,000 Israeli citizens to go home to northern Israel. Then, I think there’s going to be some kind of cease-fire deal that could be acceptable, and even desirable, compared with where Israel and Hezbollah were prior.

Then figure out what to do with Iran. You’re going to have to diminish the Houthis further, and then we can walk our way around the rest of the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is still, I think, eager to join the Abraham Accords, to recognize Israel and to have the kind of exchanges with Israel that the Emiratis and Bahrainis are enjoying. And over time, again, a better future for the Palestinian people—not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank. It’s going to take a long time but every long journey starts with a single step.

David Petraeus: Israel Needs to Adapt Its Strategy

The former U.S. general and CIA chief on the importance of rebuilding in Gaza—and lessons for Israel from America’s wars in the Middle East.

By Ravi Agrawal, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy.

Foreign Policy · by Ravi Agrawal

Iran
Ravi Agrawal

October 23, 2024, 1:38 PM

FP-Live-podcast-functional-tag

Prefer to listen? Follow the FP Live podcast for the entire conversation, plus other in-depth discussions, wherever you get your podcasts.

Last week, an Israeli patrol in southern Gaza chanced upon the person who had been at the very top of their kill list for more than a year: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. When his death was confirmed, it immediately raised some big questions: How much of a blow would this be for Hamas? How should Israel’s strategy now change? And if Sinwar was the person Israel was blaming for a lack of progress on a hostage deal, would removing him change that equation?

Big moments in a war can feel defining. But as several writers at Foreign Policy have argued, Sinwar’s death might not be the turning point many imagine. There’s a long history of states killing leaders of militant or terrorist groups only to see another leader step in.

How should Israel calibrate its strategy after killing Sinwar? And, similarly, what changes after killing Beirut-based Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah? I spoke with Gen. David Petraeus to try and get at some of the dilemmas inherent in gaming out wartime strategy. Petraeus ended a 37-year military career running the United States Central Command, which includes all of the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia. He was deeply involved in combating terrorist groups in those regions amid the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Petraeus later had a short stint as CIA director under the Obama administration.

Subscribers can watch the full discussion in the video box atop this page. What follows here is an edited and condensed transcript.

Ravi Agrawal: Let’s start with the death of Yahya Sinwar. From your experience with counterterrorism in the Middle East, how does this actually impact Hamas’s capabilities?

David Petraeus: Well, it’s a huge blow. Symbolically, this is massive. Operationally, it’s significant, as well. He had to be exercising considerable operational security given how much the Israelis were pursuing him.

But he still was the individual who was saying yes or no, really no, on cease-fire deals. He was the ultimate authority, however difficult it was to get to him, or for him to get to his subordinate commanders in very seriously degraded units. This is still a very, very significant achievement for the Israelis. And how interesting that it was a patrol that chanced upon him, not a special mission unit operation.

But there will be another leader. Some are speculating that it could be his younger brother, Mohammed. I’m not sure that they’ll have the combined political and military leader in the next leader that you had with Sinwar. Perhaps [Khaled] Mashal in Qatar will take over the political role like Haniyeh before he was killed in Tehran. But it is very disruptive and it’s yet another very significant achievement in the degradation of Hamas.

But Hamas has not yet been destroyed. Keep in mind that there were three objectives set out by the prime minister at the beginning of operations in response to the horrific tragedy of Oct. 7, the mastermind of which was Sinwar. And these were to destroy Hamas, ensure Hamas never governs Gaza again, and, of course, get back the hostages. Number one and two are in big tension with number three.

Destruction means that you cannot reconstitute. Israel is conducting the equivalent of “clear and leave” operations, similar to what we were doing in 2006 in Iraq. And when the surge began, we recognized that only we could provide security for the people and therefore we had to clear areas and then hold them, and then rebuild them, and restore basic services, etc. In the absence of those kinds of operations, reoccupying Gaza by the Israelis, there is neither security nor a denial of Hamas’s ability to reconstitute, nor a denial of Hamas’s ability to influence or govern in the way that they used to. And, of course, the Palestinian people are in a very, very desperate situation. There is really a humanitarian catastrophe in many areas where people have been displaced multiple times. Issues like hygiene, water, and food security are really quite desperate.

Another very significant Israeli achievement is the control of the southern border between Gaza and the Sinai, the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, including the Rafah crossing. Much of the weapon systems, ammunition, explosives, and then materiel used by Hamas to build this extensive 350-mile underground infrastructure came through that crossing and through the tunnels under that corridor. I think they have to hang on to that. It should not be bargained away.

RA: That, of course, general, is an issue of debate right now. It’s a sticking point in the negotiations.

DP: This is why I think it’s unlikely to see a cease-fire. What Hamas will want in these negotiations is for Israel to leave Gaza for all time and give up control of the Philadelphi Corridor. Neither of those can be acceptable to Israel. They have not completed the destruction of Hamas. They haven’t ensured that Hamas cannot reconstitute. There’s plenty of recruits out there, given the damage and destruction that have been part of this campaign to degrade Hamas.

And then, of course, it has no vision for the Palestinian people. And from the beginning, I’ve noted that there really needs to be a vision for the future of Gaza because that could guide the military as they’re crafting their campaign.

Yahya Sinwar looks over his shoulder while standing in a crowd of people at a rally in a square or street in Gaza. He makes a "V" for victory sign with the fingers of one raised hand. A man in camouflage stands next to him. Both of them and many of the rally attendees wear green scarves.Yahya Sinwar looks over his shoulder while standing in a crowd of people at a rally in a square or street in Gaza. He makes a "V" for victory sign with the fingers of one raised hand. A man in camouflage stands next to him. Both of them and many of the rally attendees wear green scarves.

Israel’s Killing of Yahya Sinwar Is Not a Turning Point

While the Hamas leader’s death represents a political victory for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel is no closer to a realistic plan for governing Gaza.

Hamas leader SinwarHamas leader Sinwar

Why Sinwar’s Death Matters

The Hamas leader’s demise closes the first act of the war and sets up what comes next.

An illustration shows two missiles arcing across the sky above a lone figure amid a scene of destruction with the shells of buildings on either side.An illustration shows two missiles arcing across the sky above a lone figure amid a scene of destruction with the shells of buildings on either side.

Is the Israel-Hamas War Closer to Its Beginning or Its End?

A year on, FP asks experts to assess the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

RA: General, on that point, you’re taking me back to almost exactly one year ago when we had a very similar conversation like this on FP Live. I was looking back at that conversation, when you said that military action was necessary for Israel, but then added that vengeance isn’t a strategy and that there has to be a vision for what follows. When you look back at the last year of Israel’s response to Oct. 7, did they follow your advice?

DP: Certainly some, but not all of it. And that’s why this campaign is still incomplete if you measure it against the actual stated objectives.

I don’t think that a strategy of “clear and leave” is going to ensure the destruction of Hamas, nor will it provide a better future for the Palestinian people. And you’ll recall during the surge, we would go to the citizens of Fallujah, and we would tell them in advance that we are going to make your lives better by getting al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgent organizations out of your lives, and then keep them out by creating walled-off neighborhoods in which you painstakingly clear every building room, cellar, and, in this case, tunnel. You issue biometric ID cards, which allows them to come and go. And then, in an organized fashion not possible in Gaza right now, you can pump in substantial humanitarian assistance, begin the restoration of basic services, get people back at least in the vicinity of their homes, and then start improving their lives. So it’s “clear, hold, and build.”

If that’s done, then you’ll see Arab forces willing to come in. You could bring in Palestinian security forces that are trained and equipped by the United States and the Jordanians at the International Police Training center. You’ll see NGOs and international organizations in there. And only if there is security can you do what I’ve laid out, and only then is there a better future for the Palestinian people with the possibility that Palestinians in Gaza can live side by side with their Israeli neighbors in peace.

It’s really vital that Israelis take advantage of the opportunity presented by the killing of Yahya Sinwar by announcing, “This is our plan to achieve our objectives and to improve the lives for our fellow human beings, the Palestinians in Gaza.” I believe that if Gazans are provided a better life in this approach that I have described, I think that the Palestinian people—just like the people of Fallujah and Ramadi, Baqouba, Mosul, and others—will recognize that, “We should not jeopardize this by allowing extremists to ever run our communities again.” That remains to be seen. There are those who may argue that is not possible. But if that’s the case, then you’re in a really difficult situation.

RA: We’re in a difficult situation, anyway. What advice would you have, in this scenario, where everything you’re saying just strikes me as something that the Palestinian people will hear and reject?

DP: During the first four months of the surge, all the metrics tracking civilian deaths, suicide bombings, our own casualties, were going down. But people came out to Iraq and said, “You’ve got a bit of a PR problem out here.” And I said, “Really? That’s not a PR problem. It’s a results problem. And when the results are demonstrably undeniable, the PR problem is going to go away.”

Now the damage and destruction in Gaza is much greater, frankly. The tunnels have required use of very large munitions that can penetrate the ground to get at them. But you have to start somewhere. My suggestion has been to start in the north and work your way south, creating this series of gated communities. It’s hard, but I believe it is the only solution that achieves the first two objectives of Israel and over time will achieve the third. Because once you have combed every building, room, cellar, and tunnel, you will get the hostages and also provide a better future for the Palestinian people and a possibility of a sustainable situation at the end of all of this loss of life, and bloodshed, and sacrifice.

RA: Let me ask you a military question. When you look at the death toll in Gaza and the growing one in Lebanon, how much of this was avoidable? It’s a fraught question.

DP: A very fraught question. Look, I had people looking over my shoulder and second-guessing me, and I’m reluctant to do that. It’s always about the military imperative and then always trying to minimize civilian casualties, damage, and destruction of infrastructure. But that military imperative can be so significant that you still have to carry out an operation, sometimes knowing that there is going to be loss of innocent civilian life. Without being inside, it’s very hard to judge.

We do know that the damage and destruction is very considerable. We know the magnitude of the loss of civilian life. We know that loss of particularly women and children, who are not likely to have been members of extremist organizations, is considerable.

Because of that loss, there’s a lot of potential recruits for Hamas, too. There’s a great deal of public popular resentment, and that’s going to have to be dealt with over time. And the way to deal with it is show you care about them and that you want to make their lives much better, so much better that they don’t ever want Hamas back in their lives, recalling that it was Hamas that brought this on them.

RA: Behind a lot of this, of course, is Iran. There’s a big debate in D.C. about how to manage Iran’s role in funding groups like Hamas or Hezbollah. There are also calls from some quarters to take this opportunity and attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, especially now that Hezbollah has been degraded. Others say those calls are completely foolhardy because America would get involved and that would just lead to a big regional war. Where do you fall on that debate?

DP: The risk of that would be very considerable. The United States has to be involved because there are certain targets that only we can deal with.

It’s publicly out there [that] in response to the 180 ballistic missiles that Iran shot from their territory to Israel, Israel intends to strike military targets. I think that is appropriate. And I strongly believe that Iran should never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Our stated policy from Republican or Democratic administrations for decades has been that we will not allow them to do that. And presumably, if they were to enrich weapons-grade [uranium], the level of enrichment that they’re just below, I actually am confident that the United States would ensure that they cannot create a nuclear device.

But at this juncture, given the possibility of further escalation, the right approach is what reportedly has been agreed between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu. They’ve agreed to a substantial attack against military-related targets to degrade and destroy a lot of the capabilities that Iran has built up that threaten Israel so significantly, as we have seen in the course of the two attacks that they have launched against Israel. I assume that as soon as the U.S.-provided THAAD system is set, they’ll be confident in their ability to defend against whatever it is that Iran might send back their way. Iran is going to have to make a tough decision here because it can keep going.

RA: There’s another strategic element to this. The United States and Israel are trying to isolate Iran in every single way they can. But Iran seems to be winning friends in the Arab world. It seems now that the images of war in Gaza, and now increasingly Lebanon, are bringing these two great rivals, Iran and Saudi, closer together. Is that your read, as well?

DP: I think it’s selective. I think it’s very transactional, frankly. There’s certainly no love lost for Iran in Riyadh or Jeddah. The real issue here was that the Saudis were getting very tired of having Iran-sourced projectiles shot at them by the Houthis from Yemen. It was clear to them that the Sunnis were not going to be able to prevail in the way that Saudis and the Emiratis had hoped in the Yemeni civil war. The Houthis proved to be quite resilient and tough. And they recognized that this is time to put an end to that.

Remember, there was an attack on the Abqaiq oil facility that shut down the production of about 5 percent of the world’s crude oil. And ironically, at that time, we did not respond. It wasn’t until an American was killed in Iraq that we took out Qassem Soleimani. That was unsettling to them.

So you have these transactional issues on which they are willing to negotiate or discuss with Iran. And I think that makes sense. But the overall feeling is still one of an enormous enmity.

There used to be three truths for Central Command when I was the commander. First is be very clear on who your enemies are and who your friends are. And Iran is an enemy. At the end of the day, they have sworn to destroy Israel and the U.S. presence in the Middle East. Number two is recognize that Las Vegas rules do not apply in the Middle East. What happens there doesn’t stay there. It tends to spew violence, extremism, instability, and, on occasion, tsunamis of refugees into neighboring countries and as far as the countries of our European allies. And then the third is we constantly are trying to leave the Middle East to pivot to Asia, which is a terrible term, because it’s very unsettling to your friends and emboldens your enemies. But leaving the Middle East is like Michael Corleone trying to leave the mafia. You just keep getting sucked back in. So recognize that. Have the kind of presence that is necessary. No more than that. But enough to reassure your friends.

RA: If you look back at American policy in the Middle East since 9/11, the reality is that America has lost so much soft power. It has hurt America’s ability to do other things it wants to do around the world; it has diminished its standing at multilateral organizations.

You could argue that Israel now is going through something similar. And I can’t stress this enough. If you set aside the Arab world for a minute, throughout the rest of the world, there is vast disenchantment with how Israel and the United States have responded to Oct. 7. If you were still in the military or in government, what would you advise?

DP: Well, start with where this began, which was the horrific, traumatic day. The most traumatic day for Israel in its history, the worst intelligence failure, the worst military-readiness failure, and the worst political analytical failure in the complete misjudgment of Hamas. And that’s the first of the fronts in which Israel is now engaged. Start by laying out a vision for how you bring that to a decent end, how you achieve your objectives relative to Hamas and getting the hostages back and providing a better future for the Palestinian people, and do it.

If you actually start to resolve Gaza in a favorable way for the people there by getting them out of this humanitarian disaster zone, the cause motivating Hezbollah will just not present. Plus, they’ve sustained enormous damage. Israel has decapitated Hezbollah, taking out some 18 of the top 20 leaders, including the heir apparent to Nasrallah. They’ve decimated the entire leadership structure because the leaders were the ones that had the pagers. And if Israel can continue reducing Hezbollah’s capacity with the airstrikes and ensure that Hezbollah can’t use that territory between the Litani River and the northern border, that would allow the 65,000 Israeli citizens to go home to northern Israel. Then, I think there’s going to be some kind of cease-fire deal that could be acceptable, and even desirable, compared with where Israel and Hezbollah were prior.

Then figure out what to do with Iran. You’re going to have to diminish the Houthis further, and then we can walk our way around the rest of the Gulf. Saudi Arabia is still, I think, eager to join the Abraham Accords, to recognize Israel and to have the kind of exchanges with Israel that the Emiratis and Bahrainis are enjoying. And over time, again, a better future for the Palestinian people—not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank. It’s going to take a long time but every long journey starts with a single step.

Foreign Policy · by Ravi Agrawal

10. Why Modi's shifting India away from US toward China

"...acknowledgement his strategic dalliance with US has failed"

Excerpts:

Furthermore, the agreements to establish an alliance with the US have proven ineffective in applying pressure on China. Modi has come to understand that India cannot secure preferential market access, technology or investment from the US due to its protectionist industrial and international trade policies, which favor bringing manufacturing back to America. Consequently, he has also acknowledged that India can seek technology, investment and market opportunities from China.

To withstand American pressure, Dr Manmohan Singh’s government was arguably more resilient than any other administration in India. Before the 2014 elections, the US exerted significant pressure on India to support its “Pivot to Asia” policy.

However, Singh’s government resisted these demands. Tensions escalated when the US arrested and strip-searched Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, prompting a significant backlash in India. In response, the Singh administration withdrew the privileges of US Ambassador to India, Nancy J Powell. Upon her return to the US, she resigned as ambassador and went through immigration like any other US citizen.

In a show of defiance, Delhi Police removed barricades in front of the US Embassy in New Delhi and schools and businesses associated with the US faced bans. Although Singh lost the subsequent election six months later, he maintained his stance against becoming an ally of the US. Instead, he pursued a policy aimed at advancing economic development through partnerships with China, choosing to temporarily set aside the border dispute.

Conversely, Modi’s policy aimed at becoming a steadfast ally and partner of the US, which was intended to serve India’s interests, has proven to be fundamentally misguided. The ongoing border tensions with China have diverted India’s national priorities and squandered scarce financial resources. Modi has come to understand the truth in Kissinger’s words about the dangers of being America’s friend.

The first and second terms of Modi’s government have marked one of the worst decades in India’s history in regard to international relations. During this period, India has incurred unprecedented opportunity costs while experimenting with international and geopolitical strategies. In his third term, Modi is looking to reverse the course by shifting from the US to China.

Why Modi's shifting India away from US toward China - Asia Times

Indian leader eases border tensions with China for more economic engagement, acknowledgement his strategic dalliance with US has failed

asiatimes.com · by Bhim Bhurtel · October 24, 2024

India and China have recently agreed to disengage from their prolonged border standoff in the western sector of the India-China Himalayan border on the sidelines of 16th BRICS summit. Tensions have simmered since June 15, 2020, after 20 Indian and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers were killed in a high-mountain clash.

China’s main grievance with India emerged after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power and began strengthening ties with the United States. India started signing agreements that effectively designated it as a US partner and ally in South Asia.

China perceived this as part of Washington’s broader “China containment policy,” which was central to former President Barack Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” strategy during his second term. In response, China sought to pressure India, aiming to keep it from becoming too closely aligned with the US.

On August 29, 2016, India signed an adapted version of the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the US. In response, China ramped up pressure on India, particularly at the Doklam tri-junction, where the borders of Bhutan, China and India converge.

In an effort to ease tensions, India’s then-foreign secretary, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, visited Beijing and assured his Chinese counterparts that India was committed to resolving differences through a high-level mechanism.

This led to the first informal summit between Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, China, on April 27–28, 2018, where both leaders discussed and agreed on various issues to manage their differences.

Despite Modi’s assurances to China, India went ahead and signed another foundational agreement with the US — the Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) — on September 6, 2018, on the sidelines of the inaugural 2+2 dialogue between the two countries.

On October 11-12, 2019, the second informal summit between Modi and Xi took place in Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu. The summit, however, appeared to be a failure, likely due to Modi’s decision to align more closely with the US by agreeing to a third foundational agreement. It’s possible that Modi bluntly responded to Xi of India’s intention to formalize its partnership with the US during their discussions.

This assumption is supported by Xi’s subsequent statement during an official visit to Kathmandu, Nepal, directly after the Mahabalipuram summit. There, Xi warned that “anyone attempting to split China in any part of the country will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones,” which could have been interpreted as a veiled response to India’s growing ties with the US.

Following the deadly clashes in Galwan on June 15, 2020, the Indian media—often referred to as “Godi media” for its pro-Modi stance—launched an intense anti-China propaganda campaign. Despite China’s concerns and Modi’s earlier assurances to Xi at the Wuhan summit, India continued to strengthen its ties with the US.

On October 26, 2020, India signed its fourth foundational agreements with the US, namely the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Intelligence (BECA), further solidifying its alliance. This followed the earlier signing of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) in 2002. By moving forward with these agreements, India formally aligned itself with the US, disregarding Chinese objections.

Modi appeared confident that his close relationship with then-US President Donald Trump would secure preferential access to US markets and technology for India. During his visit to the US, Modi even campaigned for Trump’s re-election at the “Howdy, Modi!” event in Houston, Texas, where he famously cheered, “‘Abki Baar, Trump Sarkar’, rang loud and clear.” (meaning “Next term, Trump’s government”).

At the time, high-ranking US officials frequently claimed that a caravan of American companies would relocate from China to India. However, this shift never substantially materialized, and US investment in India remains minimal. Instead, India’s trade dependence on China has increased significantly.

In his second term in 2019, Modi appointed S Jaishankar as foreign minister, hoping that his pro-American stance would help attract US investment and technology, while also securing preferential access for Indian goods in American markets—similar to what China achieved in the 1990s.

However, the role of the US government in its economy is largely limited to creating a legal framework for international trade and investment through treaties and regulations. The task of fostering a conducive investment environment falls to the host country, which American investors have long felt is lacking in India. Instead of increased US investment, major American companies like Ford, General Motors and Harley-Davidson exited the Indian market during this period.

Recently, it was hoped that assembling Apple’s iPhones in India would be a successful venture. However, the initiative faced significant setbacks due to high rejection rate of 50%, and concerns over E coli bacteria contamination, and lower worker productivity compared to China. As a result, the economic benefits India expected from aligning with the US and becoming its partner have not materialized as anticipated.

On the geopolitical front, meanwhile, India lost significantly. It once viewed South Asia and the Indian Ocean as its traditional sphere of influence, but after becoming a US ally, none of its neighboring countries remain within its sphere. Instead, India has arguably become more of a subordinate ally to the US.

This was evident when the US conducted a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOPS) in the Indian Ocean on April 7, 2021, which sparked a strong backlash in Indian media and academia, despite India being a US partner. Additionally, the US has been accused of fueling anti-India sentiment in neighboring countries and covertly helping to oust pro-Indian governments in Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the Maldives.

This made India realize that the US expects it to relinquish its “strategic autonomy” and that India’s claims to a regional sphere of influence in South Asia are unacceptable to Washington.

Henry Kissinger famously remarked, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.” This sentiment seems to fit India’s experience perfectly. The US continued to exert political pressure on India at international events.

Meanwhile, despite India’s rhetorical trade restrictions on Chinese goods, its trade with China continued to grow. India’s increased trade with the US was largely driven by its rising imports from China. This dynamic revealed that while India needs China for its economic growth, China does not have the same dependence on India.

Ultimately, after four years of experimenting with foreign policy, the Modi government came to understand that China’s cooperation is essential for India’s economic development. The prime minister’s economic adviser argued that China would likely refrain from interfering in India’s border issues due to its dependence on India, coupled with the prospect of increased Chinese investment.

On the other hand, following the Ukraine war, the West intensified pressure on India to oppose Russia. The US warned India of consequences if it continued to purchase Russian oil and insisted that India abandon its relations with Russia, promising in return to provide arms.

Despite this pressure, India has continued to buy cheap Russian oil and is currently Russia’s largest oil buyer. Russia accounts for approximately 36% of India’s arms imports. The US pressure on India to refrain from purchasing arms and oil from Russia runs counter to India’s national interests.

Recently, the US and Canada have been applying pressure on India to distance itself from China and to quit BRICS. This effort was highlighted by Canada’s expulsion of Indian diplomats following the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Additionally, the US Department of Justice has initiated proceedings against an Indian government employee in connection with the alleged attempted murder of Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

Modi’s allies now recognize that maintaining a relationship with China is crucial for India’s economic development. Should China impose trade restrictions on India, the country would face significant challenges. The US can no longer offer the same advantages to India that it provided to China in the 1990s.

Sign up for one of our free newsletters

Furthermore, the agreements to establish an alliance with the US have proven ineffective in applying pressure on China. Modi has come to understand that India cannot secure preferential market access, technology or investment from the US due to its protectionist industrial and international trade policies, which favor bringing manufacturing back to America. Consequently, he has also acknowledged that India can seek technology, investment and market opportunities from China.

To withstand American pressure, Dr Manmohan Singh’s government was arguably more resilient than any other administration in India. Before the 2014 elections, the US exerted significant pressure on India to support its “Pivot to Asia” policy.

However, Singh’s government resisted these demands. Tensions escalated when the US arrested and strip-searched Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, prompting a significant backlash in India. In response, the Singh administration withdrew the privileges of US Ambassador to India, Nancy J Powell. Upon her return to the US, she resigned as ambassador and went through immigration like any other US citizen.

In a show of defiance, Delhi Police removed barricades in front of the US Embassy in New Delhi and schools and businesses associated with the US faced bans. Although Singh lost the subsequent election six months later, he maintained his stance against becoming an ally of the US. Instead, he pursued a policy aimed at advancing economic development through partnerships with China, choosing to temporarily set aside the border dispute.

Conversely, Modi’s policy aimed at becoming a steadfast ally and partner of the US, which was intended to serve India’s interests, has proven to be fundamentally misguided. The ongoing border tensions with China have diverted India’s national priorities and squandered scarce financial resources. Modi has come to understand the truth in Kissinger’s words about the dangers of being America’s friend.

The first and second terms of Modi’s government have marked one of the worst decades in India’s history in regard to international relations. During this period, India has incurred unprecedented opportunity costs while experimenting with international and geopolitical strategies. In his third term, Modi is looking to reverse the course by shifting from the US to China.

Thank you for registering!

An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link.

asiatimes.com · by Bhim Bhurtel · October 24, 2024

11. US, Filipino marines practice repelling an invasion from disputed South China Sea waters

Relevant training that sends a message?

US, Filipino marines practice repelling an invasion from disputed South China Sea waters

Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · October 23, 2024

A U.S. Marine takes part in a counter-landing live-fire drill on the western coast of Palawan, Philippines, on Oct. 22, 2024. (Seth Robson/Stars and Stripes)

ABORLAN, Philippines — U.S. and Filipino marines used live fire Tuesday to rehearse their defense against a hostile amphibious landing, less than 150 miles from the August scene of a coast guard clash between China and U.S.-ally the Philippines.

As part of the annual Kamandag exercise, 150 members of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment from Camp Pendleton, Calif., repelled the simulated sea invasion alongside 150 of their Filipino counterparts from the Palawan-based 3rd Marine Brigade.

The exercise this year involves more than 1,000 members of Marine Rotational Force-Southeast Asia and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Kamandag began Oct. 15 and concludes Friday.

The live-fire event on Palawan was held in Aborlan, a municipality facing the South China Sea that’s about 125 miles east of Sabina Shoal, where Philippine and Chinese coast guard vessels collided Aug. 31.

Philippine authorities allege a Chinese vessel rammed a Philippine ship three times; Chinese authorities claim the Philippine ship instigated the clash. It was the latest in a series of incidents involving vessels from the two nations in or near the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

A U.S. Marine takes aim from a foxhole during a counter-landing live-fire drill on the western coast of Palawan, Philippines, on Oct. 22, 2024. (Seth Robson/Stars and Stripes)

Ahead of the live-fire drill, the two countries’ marines dug into camouflaged fighting positions in dunes along the coast.

They fired missiles, mortars, artillery and machine guns at a dozen target boats, some moored over two miles from shore.

A pair of F-35B Lightning II stealth fighters, launched from the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer in the Sulu Sea, dropped laser-guided bombs on some of the boats.

Two AH-1 Cobra and two UH-1 Venom helicopters took off from Antonio Bautista Air Base on Palawan and joined the attack.

The air base in the Philippines’ westernmost city, Puerto Princesa, is one of nine military facilities approved for use by U.S. troops under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

Marines set up an expeditionary advanced base at the airfield before the drill, 1st Battalion commander Lt. Col. Nicholas Freeman said at the beach.

A U.S. Marine runs between palm trees after engaging targets from foxholes during a counter-landing live-fire drill on the western coast of Palawan, Philippines, on Oct. 22, 2024. (Seth Robson/Stars and Stripes)

Expeditionary advanced base operations involve sending hard-to-target units into austere, temporary locations such as islands of the Western Pacific, from which they may block an adversary or resupply friendly forces, according to the Marine Corps.

First Battalion Marines who participated in the Palawan live-fire drill were on the island in April and May, Freeman said.

The Marines and their Filipino counterparts did classroom study and static range fire and practiced seizing key coastal terrain ahead of Tuesday’s exercise, he said.

The battalion’s fire support officer, 1st Lt. Graham Clark, planned the live-fire event to make sure the various munitions, aircraft and personnel kept out of one another’s way once the shooting started.

“This is the environment that we try to simulate back in California, but it’s difficult to do that because we train in the desert,” he said at the event’s end. “We are developing all our tactics to fight in an environment like Palawan.”

Stars and Stripes · by Seth Robson · October 23, 2024

12. Russian Roulette on the Red Sea

Excerpts:

The Kremlin’s relationship with a radical Shia organization classified as a terrorist group by the U.N. Security Council might seem unusual in some ways. But Russia is very pragmatic and flexible in its definition of terrorism: It has just delisted the Taliban from its register of terror organizations and has, since the Soviet times, maintained strong connections to radical militant organizations. A shared vision of a future, one with diminished U.S. influence, provides the Russians and the Houthis sufficient basis for cooperation.

At present, major arms deals in which the Kremlin provides Sanaa with game-changing weaponry remain plausible but not inevitable. Russia favors the Houthis in the Yemeni civil war, but the relationship is plagued by constraints relating to Russian priorities. In addition to long-standing geopolitical considerations, Moscow will likely take recent Israeli successes and axis failures into account when considering to what extent and how it ought to tie its fortunes to those of Tehran. There can be no doubt that Russian-Houthi ties are advancing, but thus far they appear to be doing so at a leisurely pace dictated by Moscow.

Russian Roulette on the Red Sea - War on the Rocks

Ari Heistein and Daniel Rakov

warontherocks.com · by Ari Heistein · October 24, 2024

The Kremlin’s preoccupation with prevailing in Ukraine is pushing it to contemplate geostrategic risks and adopt a more proactive approach in regions like the Red Sea. In the past, the Yemeni quagmire had limited appeal even to Russia, a country known for its inclination to exploit crises around the globe. But Moscow’s calculations may be shifting. The Kremlin’s warming ties with Yemen’s Houthi rebels could enable the latter to expand and intensify their destabilizing activities, especially if advanced military hardware changes hands.

In addition to furthering Moscow and Sanaa’s shared interest in undermining the United States, the bilateral relationship could also serve as a Russian bargaining chip vis-à-vis the Saudis. Not only does Riyadh exercise enormous influence over energy prices, but there also are growing concerns in Moscow that the kingdom could become less cooperative as it pursues a treaty alliance with the United States. As a result, Russian President Vladimir Putin finds himself in need of greater leverage over Riyadh, and may conclude the Houthis can help.

Become a Member

A History of Hedged Bets

Since the early days of the Yemeni civil war, which erupted around a decade ago, the Russian government has hedged its bets. While declaring that Moscow only recognized the official government of Yemen, it maintained loose channels of communication with all the major Yemeni actors, including the Houthis. But the events of the past year have caused Moscow to shift its hedging strategy toward a more pro-Houthi position.

For the past decade, Russia had been very careful not to commit itself to any one side in the conflict, positioning itself as a great power mediator in the conflict and using its seat in the U.N. Security Council as a bargaining chip. While Moscow claims historical ties to Yemen due to the Soviet Union’s patronage of the only communist regime in the Arab world in South Yemen, Putin’s regime had not formulated a clear agenda vis-à-vis Sanaa. In practical terms, Russia had minimal impact over the trajectory of the Yemeni civil war.

Russia never proposed its own roadmap for bringing peace to Yemen and preferred to adhere to U.N. Security Council resolution 2216, a resolution favorable to Riyadh that demands the Houthis withdraw from the territories they seized. Moscow’s independent initiative to bridge ties between its competing partners in the region, primarily the Sunni monarchies and Iran, has been presented as a vague Collective Security Concept for the Persian Gulf. The general idea behind this proposal is to create a forum for regional actors to address all the complex Middle Eastern conflicts through confidence-building measures, analogous to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Russia’s role in such a forum would be comparable to the American position in the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, as one of the security guarantors. But this was not considered a serious plan of action by any of the intended regional participants, neither by the Gulf Cooperation Council nor the Iranians.

Despite Russia’s growing assertiveness in the Middle East since its intervention in the Syrian civil war in 2015, Yemen remained on the margins of the Kremlin’s agenda. This was evident from the dominance of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (and not security agencies) on the Yemeni file. Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has been the key point of contact for Yemeni factions in Moscow, and he was also put in charge of the Houthi file. Bogdanov oversees Russian policies in the Middle East and Africa, and also serves as a diplomatic point of contact for Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian factions, including Hamas.

Still, behind the Russian foreign ministry’s façade of being a responsible actor, Russian defense officials played a non-publicized role with respect to the Houthis. As early as 2016, working-level Russian military officials could be spotted at official Houthi military events in Sanaa, surrounded by top Houthi intelligence officers or exchanging gifts with senior Houthi military officials. The apparent dissonance between the words of Russia’s foreign ministry and the activities of its security services points to a broader trend in which the former provides diplomatic cover for the subversive activities of the latter.

Russia also tried to leverage a cadre of its Soviet-era Yemenologists, such as Vitaly Naumkin, vis-à-vis Yemenis who had a positive experience with the Soviet Union. However, it is doubtful whether this has provided the Kremlin with any notable advantage in Yemen. Russia’s younger generation of Yemen experts, such as Leonid Issaev, as well as their Gulf and Yemeni counterparts points to Moscow’s limitations in Yemen due to its meager interest and its overpowering commitment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

A Changing Global and Regional Context

Moscow’s neutral stance as an aspiring mediator in Yemen held more water until the strategic context changed. Russia’s deteriorating relations with the West following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 pushed it to seek out new partners for its anti-American agenda. It found one in Iran, which is willing to supply Moscow with the drones and ammunition that it desperately needs to prosecute its war in Ukraine. The Kremlin also viewed Iran with some degree of admiration given the latter’s defiance of Western demands despite the heavy sanctions imposed on it for doing so. Tehran’s regional proxies, including the Houthis, are also increasingly viewed by Moscow as potential partners for a global anti-Western coalition, and their terrorist attacks are cheered on by Russian propagandists.

One of the major surprises over the past year’s war in the Middle East has been the capability and determination of the Iranian-backed Houthis to launch attacks against Israel and international shipping in the Red Sea. The Yemeni rebels, previously seen as posing only a limited threat to their neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula, have resisted international diplomatic and military efforts to halt their attacks. The U.S.-led coalition appears at a loss for how to stop this threat, for which it suffers reputational damage while Moscow exploits this opportunity to accuse Washington of responsibility for the regional escalation.

The fact that the Houthis remain a defiant irritant that undermines Western economies, drains their military resources (particularly missile defense), tarnishes their prestige, and creates policy dilemmas for their leaders is what made them such an appealing partner for Russia. The change in Russia’s approach to global geopolitics is evident from the stark difference in Moscow’s reaction to the current disruption of Red Sea shipping when compared with its response to the 2019 Iranian attack on United Arab Emirates tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Whereas in 2019 Moscow had a vested interest in the stability of international shipping and condemned the attacks, today, after Russia has been heavily sanctioned and forced into the shadow economy, the Kremlin is only too pleased to see a disruption in global trade that negatively impacts the United States and its allies.

Furthermore, the Kremlin identified the Western difficulty to counter the Houthi aggression as a possible area for horizontal escalation with the United States. On June 5, Putin warned the United States and its NATO partners that if they allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory with the long-range precision missiles they provide it, then Russia will consider selling a similar class of weapons to U.S. adversaries in other regions. The Houthis were considered possible recipients of the Russian arms alluded to by Putin.

Russia does not need the Houthis to win in order for them to remain useful — only to not lose. It has since turned this practical anti-Western alignment of interests into a “principled position” from Moscow’s perspective in which unofficial representatives have even expressed disappointment that moderate Arab states have not followed the Houthi example by taking more aggressive steps against Israel.

It would appear that the Kremlin has adopted a hardline anti-Israel position in order to cultivate support in the Global South and delegitimize the West. This represents a dramatic shift in Russian policy toward Israel, because while the two countries were not allies or partners, they did have a working relationship that enabled them to build a deconfliction mechanism in Syria and arrange for amicable public meetings between premiers. Now, Moscow is willing to support the Houthis’ “death to Israel” chants so long as it is accompanied by actions (and chants) that seek “death to America.” The Kremlin is adopting this approach despite Israel’s effort to maintain relations with Moscow by refusing to fall in line with its Western allies’ position on the war in Ukraine, with Jerusalem avoiding forceful statements against Russia and declining to provide lethal aid to Ukraine.

What’s Next

How might Russia’s relationship with the Houthis develop? At this time, there are four main vectors of Russian support.

First, in the diplomatic realm, Russia is hosting Houthi delegations at a growing frequency in order to provide the isolated Yemeni terror group with a boost of international legitimacy. At the U.N., Russia is also taking steps to oppose anti-Houthi resolutions. Moscow has not yet taken steps to disband the U.N.’s panel of experts on Yemen, which is highly critical of the Houthis and Iran. But its success in doing so for the panel on North Korea sent a clear message to the U.N.’s Yemen experts: Putin does not want to appear in these annual reports, and insistence on including Russia will likely result in the dissolution of this important investigative body.

Second, when it comes to intelligence and advisory support, Russia is allegedly providing targeting information and instruction in support of the Houthi campaign in the Red Sea. The Kremlin’s advisors in Sanaa allegedly snuck into Yemen under the guise of humanitarian aid workers. Moscow’s intention is to exploit Houthi maritime attacks against Western commercial and military vessels in order avenge U.S. and U.K. intelligence support for Ukraine in the Black Sea. Despite Houthi promises that Russian and Chinese ships would not be attacked, ships carrying Russian commodities have been hit several times by the Houthis (presumably in error). Still, Moscow believes that Russian ships are relatively safe when navigating the Bab al-Mandab straits.

Third, it is possible that Moscow will increase the flow of its military hardware to the Houthis. Until now, there has been sparse information regarding Russian weapons in Houthi hands. The U.N. Panel of Experts has reported on limited numbers of small arms and anti-tank guided missiles produced by Russia and used by the Houthis, but there was no indication that these weapons had been delivered directly from Russia to the Houthis rather than purchased from or transferred by third parties like Iran or Syria. But in recent months, there has been a flurry of reports about impending arms deals in which Moscow would directly provide materiel to the Yemen rebels. For example, a shipment of Russian small arms (AK-74s), valued at $10 million, is expected to be delivered to the Houthis as early as October 2024. Reuters also reported that Iran brokered talks between the Kremlin and Sanaa in which the parties discussed the possibility of transferring Russia’s advanced Yakhont (SS-N-26) anti-ship missiles to the Houthis.

Fourth, following their publication of a video pleading for help returning to Yemen, it is evident that Yemenis were sent by Houthi affiliates to fight on behalf of Russia in Ukraine. This arrangement was facilitated by Al Jabri General Trading and Investment Co. SPC, which is owned by Abdul Wali al-Jabri, both of which are based out of Oman. Al-Jabri was a member of parliament of the government of Yemen until he defected to the Houthis in 2011 and was appointed by the rebels to the rank of major general. Since then, he apparently developed ties with the most senior Houthi intelligence and political leaders, and he was even injured while fighting on behalf of the regime. The deployment of Yemenis alongside Russian forces likely provides Sanaa with much-needed influxes of cash, enables Yemenis living under Houthi rule to learn from the comparatively professional Russian military, and may ingratiate the Houthis in Moscow.

Both words and deeds provide consistent indications that the Russian-Houthi relationship is advancing and could, in the future, incorporate more meaningful support for the Houthi campaign to sow chaos in the region. This may constitute a quantum leap in Houthi capabilities in the event that Russia provides the group with supersonic anti-ship missiles, sophisticated air defense, or advanced military industry know-how for indigenous weapons production. These capabilities could make Houthi military supply chains more redundant and resilient, its military capabilities more dangerous, and its decision-making even more defiant and less susceptible to external pressures.

Complications

Yet, despite warnings of a possible major Russian weapons shipment to the Houthis since June 2024, the two have thus far only closed a single small arms deal (that we are aware of); this may point to the fact that the Russians are hesitating due to conflicting interests.

Even presuming that the Kremlin wants to support the Houthis to the extent that it is able, Moscow is operating under significant constraints. In the geopolitical realm, Russia supplying the Houthis with advanced weaponry would be viewed as a reckless and hostile act by the Houthis’ Gulf neighbors. In other words, Moscow would be building its relations with the impoverished wildcard in Sanaa at the expense of established relations with stable and prosperous countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia, which occasionally makes veiled threats to stop cooperating with Moscow on energy-related issues, is an important factor in Russian decision-making when considering major weapons supply to the Houthis.

Russia is currently in a sensitive economic situation in which it is heavily dependent on cooperation with Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus and comes to the table with a weak bargaining position. Therefore, it is entirely conceivable that Russian flirtations with the Houthis are also intended to generate leverage vis-à-vis the Saudis, as Moscow seeks credit for not following through in ways that would dramatically impact the conflict. This also coincides with discussions between Riyadh and Washington about a possible defense treaty, which appear likely to continue regardless of who wins the upcoming U.S. presidential election and could further weaken Moscow’s influence in the Gulf. Rather than accommodate Saudi apprehensions, at present it appears that Moscow calculated that it is more beneficial for the Russians to maintain ambiguity in their relations with the Houthis.

Still, if the Kremlin feels that the Houthi distraction in the Red Sea provides it with breathing room in Ukraine, it is conceivable that Russia will find creative ways to help the group while minimizing potential diplomatic blowback from the Gulf. This could take the form of indirect and plausibly deniable assistance, like Russia providing Iran with weapons that ultimately leak into Yemen, or by reversing a U.S. tactic and transferring weapons captured in Ukraine to the Houthis.

Secondarily, and on a purely practical level, Moscow is struggling to meet its own military industrial needs in Ukraine, and so supplying the Houthis with advanced capabilities would require it to prioritize the Yemeni terror group’s needs above those of its own military. Thus far in its war on Ukraine, Russia has needed to import basic military supplies from substandard suppliers like North Korea, and so it hardly seems to be in the position to export advanced weapons to faraway clients who may not even be able to pay for them. Still, if it were deemed a political necessity to support the group, Russia could very likely muster up some of its older systems in order to donate them to “a good cause.” These would foreseeably be weapons that are of lesser value on the battlefield in Ukraine. Therefore, the main stumbling blocks of this cooperation appear to be political and not operational.

From Sanaa’s perspective, the Houthis are intrigued by the prospect of cooperation with Russia and the dividends it could yield the group in the military and diplomatic realms. Until now, the group has been almost entirely dependent on the Iranian-led axis for its arms and international recognition. This axis is led by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, and it consists of Lebanese Hizballah, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, numerous Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and Hamas in Gaza. While there is undoubtedly tighter collaboration between these organizations in recent years, the similarity between these organizations (as militias or struggling regimes in dysfunctional states) creates a limitation for the degree to which they can provide especially novel or useful assistance to one another. Diversifying its sources for military and political support would make the Houthis more independent, and potentially more resilient. With the axis in crisis after numerous setbacks in its war against Israel, including the assassinations of key Hizballah, Hamas, and Iranian figures in the axis, Russian overtures could not have come at a more opportune moment.

The Kremlin’s relationship with a radical Shia organization classified as a terrorist group by the U.N. Security Council might seem unusual in some ways. But Russia is very pragmatic and flexible in its definition of terrorism: It has just delisted the Taliban from its register of terror organizations and has, since the Soviet times, maintained strong connections to radical militant organizations. A shared vision of a future, one with diminished U.S. influence, provides the Russians and the Houthis sufficient basis for cooperation.

At present, major arms deals in which the Kremlin provides Sanaa with game-changing weaponry remain plausible but not inevitable. Russia favors the Houthis in the Yemeni civil war, but the relationship is plagued by constraints relating to Russian priorities. In addition to long-standing geopolitical considerations, Moscow will likely take recent Israeli successes and axis failures into account when considering to what extent and how it ought to tie its fortunes to those of Tehran. There can be no doubt that Russian-Houthi ties are advancing, but thus far they appear to be doing so at a leisurely pace dictated by Moscow.

Become a Member

Ari Heistein is an advisor to Israeli startups seeking to sell to the U.S. federal government and a consultant on issues relating to Yemen. He has previously worked in business development for an Israeli cyber intelligence company and served as a research fellow and chief of staff at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

LTC (res.) Daniel Rakov is a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, focusing on Russian strategy in the Middle East. He previously worked for other Israeli think-tanks and served until 2018 in the Israel Defense Forces military intelligence (Aman).

Image: Antti Salonen via Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Ari Heistein · October 24, 2024

13. Israel, Hezbollah, and Arab Hostility

Excerpts:

As an advocate of peace and the strongest power—both politically and militarily—with interests across the region, the United States should take a leading role in reinforcing its own policies of a two-state solution, security for all regional states within internationally recognized borders, and containment of Iranian regional hegemony. Unlike Israel, the United States has used distinct lines of effort—including diplomatic, economic, and military approaches—to pursue its regional interests. Washington should exercise its leverage over Israel to promote its own objectives. Fortunately, an excellent mechanism already exists in the Arab Peace Initiative, a Saudi plan endorsed by the League of Arab States that promised Israel full peace and normalization if it withdrew from all occupied Arab territories and accepted an independent Palestinian state. A revival of the initiative, possibly with an Arab League revalidation, might revitalize US efforts to promote peace in the region.

Israel has so far ignored this plan, which holds the promise of ending all Arab-Israeli disputes, preferring instead to develop bilateral relations with individual Arab states, a much more time-consuming approach with no guarantee of future success. The United States could adopt a revived Arab Peace Initiative as its own, pressuring Israel to accept it, with carrots and sticks. Among the carrots could be promises of US-Gulf financial support to strengthen the Lebanese government and armed forces, to isolate Hezbollah, and possibly to work for an enlarged and more powerful UNIFIL with an expanded security mandate. Further, reconstruction of Palestinian infrastructure—and society—after Israel’s devastation of Gaza and its decades-long neglect of Palestinian economic needs in the West Bank would also be underwritten by US-Gulf funding. Among the sticks could be a US signal that it would attach enforceable conditions on Israel’s use of American offensive weapons, as it does for all other recipients of US arms.

In short, the United States should pressure Israel to take steps that are for its own good. US relations with Israel should be judged by the extent to which Jerusalem assists Washington in realizing US policy objectives in the region. Most observers would agree that Israel would need a new, forward-looking post-war government to consider a different trajectory than the one it is currently on, dominated as it is by strategically ineffectual military action. There would likely also need to be a strategic re-evaluation in the United States, which has so far been reluctant to place conditions on support to Israel. If Washington is serious about re-directing its resources away from this region and toward strategic competition with China and other near-peer competitors, it needs a Middle East region that is easy to exit, no longer requiring frequent US involvement.

Israel, Hezbollah, and Arab Hostility - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by Amir Asmar · October 24, 2024

Israel is conducting extensive attacks against Lebanon—for the sixth time in their shared history—after months of a military back-and-forth with the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah. In late September, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Hasan Nasrallah, as part of a systematic offensive against dozens of Hezbollah military sites in Lebanon, reportedly to “preempt” Hezbollah’s retaliation for Israel’s July assassination of another senior leader, Fouad Shukr. Despite Israeli promises of a limited incursion, the escalation in the military pas-de-deux both have been engaged in since the Gaza war began on October 7 last year is expected to have severe humanitarian consequences in affected areas and beyond and to promote economic and political instability. Apart from the combat, the conflict highlights not only the enduring hostility between Hezbollah and Israel but also the limitations of relying on military force to secure Israel’s long-term position in the region.

Israel’s conflict with Lebanon is unique among those with the Arab states because Lebanon is unique. It has always been fundamentally unstable, having been created as a beachhead for French imperialism, with weak nationalist credentials. Due to its social, political, and military weaknesses, Lebanon suffered the consequences of the Arab-Israeli conflict, specifically Palestinian displacement, more deeply than others. Lebanon’s weak sectarian government and ineffectual military unraveled in 1975 under the pressure of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict being fought on its territory, inaugurating a 16-year civil war. Despite its weakness, however, Lebanon has consistently frustrated Israeli designs to pacify the country.

Israel, Hezbollah, and Arab Hostility – Insider: Short of War

None of Israel’s previous military engagements in Lebanon achieved meaningful progress toward a peaceful status quo. In fact, it could be argued that Israel’s operations in Lebanon have laid the foundations for subsequent, more violent engagements. Jerusalem’s security challenges that stem from across the Lebanese border—and those in Palestinian territories, for that matter—are political problems that do not lend themselves to military solutions. Israel needs to consider a paradigm shift away from its tendency to prioritize the use of its military in favor of a more comprehensive approach—using political, diplomatic, economic, as well as military means—to address security challenges. This approach must include acknowledging Arab territorial concerns.

Decades of Strategic Failure

From its 1978 invasion of Lebanon to combat Palestinian guerrillas to its 1982 attempt to install a compliant Lebanese government, Israel has consistently failed in its efforts to pacify the country. In fact, its 1982 invasion, including attacks against Shia communities in the south, inadvertently strengthened Hezbollah, the militia established by Iran to fight on the Shia’s behalf. By 1985, Israel was exhausted by intensifying Hezbollah resistance and withdrew to the security zone it had established along the border in 1978. With assistance from other resistance groups, Hezbollah had done greater damage to Israel in two years than Palestinian guerrillas had in a decade. In May 2000, under a persistent Hezbollah war of attrition, Israel abandoned its security zone, retreating to the UN-designated border. Moreover, its proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army, also collapsed, and Israel had effectively been ejected from Lebanon. In 2006, Hezbollah killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others, demanding the release of Israeli-held Lebanese prisoners in exchange for returning the soldiers. As Israel responded with airstrikes, a 34-day conflict—bizarrely referred to in Israel as the “Second” Lebanon War—erupted in which some 1,200 Lebanese died and 4,400 wounded, mostly civilians. Israel’s reported 158 deaths were mostly soldiers.

Since Israel’s last invasion of Lebanon in 2006, the border had been relatively quiet with each side anticipating a conflict but looking to put it off. Occasional Hezbollah rockets or drones into Israel did not lead to serious escalation, while Israel reportedly violated Lebanese airspace an estimated 22,000 times between 2007 and 2022.

In October 2023, Hezbollah began a campaign of attacks, in sympathy with the Palestinians, designed to distract the Israeli military from full focus on Gaza. Hezbollah’s attacks resulted in the evacuation of some 61,000 residents of northern Israel; Israel’s reprisals triggered an exodus of more than 100,000 Lebanese from the country’s south. Increasingly daring Hezbollah rocket attacks and Israeli retaliation have now escalated into a full-blown conflict, one that the Biden Administration desperately and vainly had tried to forestall.

Hezbollah which—despite its claims of victory—suffered a decisive operational defeat at the hands of the Israelis in 2006, has been reinforced with more advanced weapons from Iran. Its new arsenal, if fully deployed, likely would result in much greater destruction to Israel in infrastructure damage and loss of life than in 2006. Although the current Israeli campaign has eliminated many Hezbollah leaders and diminished its operational capabilities, it is highly improbable that Hezbollah has lost the ability to severely damage Israel’s northern settlements and displace their residents, the Israeli casus belli for expanding the conflict. Moreover, due to its participation in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime, Hezbollah’s fighters are more experienced and battle-tested than they have ever been.

As stated above, Israeli life is already dramatically affected with tens of thousands displaced from the north of the country with Hezbollah continuing to attack northern and central Israel; this is separate from those displaced from the south by the war with Hamas. The displaced are living in hotels, subsidized by the Israeli national budget, already in deficit. If the past is any indicator, an Israeli operation to clear southern Lebanon of Hezbollah fighters and positions will only yield temporary benefits. There is no force likely to engage the militia that could compel Hezbollah to withdraw permanently from the border—not the Lebanese Armed Forces, which are too weak; not UNIFIL, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon created in 1978, which is not an offensive combat force; and not Israel, which has failed to achieve this for some 40 years.

In my judgment, Israel’s strategic failures in Lebanon have left it with its most deadly, determined, and militarily competent Arab foe ever, extra-motivated by the need to avenge Israel’s assassinations of its top leaders, and benefitting from support of the lone state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East, Iran. Israel’s past military successes against Hezbollah have not eliminated the threat nor secured Israel’s future. Jerusalem’s vast military arsenal cannot overcome committed guerrilla fighters, indifferent to personal danger or to civilian casualties, or their steadfast state sponsor. Moreover, Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal can reach deeper into Israel than in previous conflicts. In many ways, Israel’s conflicts with Hezbollah and Hamas are similar. The fundamental problems are not military and are not solvable by military operations, which seem better suited to temporarily diminishing the threat, rather than eliminating it.

A Necessary Paradigm Shift

Israel needs a paradigm shift in its approach to hostile neighbors, particularly Hezbollah. In fairness, Israel has few options to change the landscape in Lebanon—or in the occupied Palestinian territories, for that matter—apart from removing the casus belli: the continued occupation of Arab territories it has conquered. Hezbollah’s given reason for its fight against Israel is that it continues to occupy Lebanese territory, namely the Shebaa Farms region, which Lebanon claims. Hezbollah also gives the liberation of the Palestinian-occupied territories—the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip—as a reason for its conflict against Israel, as demonstrated by its present engagement in support of Hamas.

Concerns over Arab territory must also be addressed head-on for Israel’s own strategic benefit. Israeli leaders’ argument that there are no consequences to ignoring Palestinian demands for their own territorial state is obviously in error, demonstrated not only by Hezbollah’s joining the October 7 conflict but also by broader Arab reluctance to normalize relations with the Jewish state. Countries such as Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia which have frequent informal ties to Israel continue to refuse to normalize relations until the issues of its occupation of Arab territories and Israel’s corresponding toxicity to their populations are resolved. As of early 2023, Muscat—which continued to support the Arab Peace Initiative—could not accept normalization with Israel just as Netanyahu’s far-right government promised to further dispossess Palestinians, and it is difficult to imagine that it has moved closer to normalization with Israel a year into the Gaza War. Meanwhile, Doha—which had called on Israel not to use the events of October 7, 2023, as a pretext for initiating a disproportionate war against Palestinian civilians in Gaza—squarely blamed Israel for the escalation after October 7, 2023, and pointed to repeated raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of Israeli police as further provocation. In Saudi Arabia, the number of respondents in an Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) poll who opposed normalization with Israel grew from 38 percent in 2022 to 68 percent in this year’s poll. Separately, the ACRPS poll also indicates that the majority of respondents from countries whose governments have already signed peace or normalization agreements with Israel—including Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco, as well as Sudan—oppose their countries’ recognition of Israel.

While it would be naïve to conclude that Israel would defuse all of its enemies’ motivations by returning all Arab territories it occupies, it would likely be facing significantly reduced hostility, if it no longer occupied them. Further, it would not stand alone—in a conflict with Iran, for example—if it demonstrated good faith in efforts to resolve outstanding issues with its Arab neighbors.

Role of the United States

As an advocate of peace and the strongest power—both politically and militarily—with interests across the region, the United States should take a leading role in reinforcing its own policies of a two-state solution, security for all regional states within internationally recognized borders, and containment of Iranian regional hegemony. Unlike Israel, the United States has used distinct lines of effort—including diplomatic, economic, and military approaches—to pursue its regional interests. Washington should exercise its leverage over Israel to promote its own objectives. Fortunately, an excellent mechanism already exists in the Arab Peace Initiative, a Saudi plan endorsed by the League of Arab States that promised Israel full peace and normalization if it withdrew from all occupied Arab territories and accepted an independent Palestinian state. A revival of the initiative, possibly with an Arab League revalidation, might revitalize US efforts to promote peace in the region.

Israel has so far ignored this plan, which holds the promise of ending all Arab-Israeli disputes, preferring instead to develop bilateral relations with individual Arab states, a much more time-consuming approach with no guarantee of future success. The United States could adopt a revived Arab Peace Initiative as its own, pressuring Israel to accept it, with carrots and sticks. Among the carrots could be promises of US-Gulf financial support to strengthen the Lebanese government and armed forces, to isolate Hezbollah, and possibly to work for an enlarged and more powerful UNIFIL with an expanded security mandate. Further, reconstruction of Palestinian infrastructure—and society—after Israel’s devastation of Gaza and its decades-long neglect of Palestinian economic needs in the West Bank would also be underwritten by US-Gulf funding. Among the sticks could be a US signal that it would attach enforceable conditions on Israel’s use of American offensive weapons, as it does for all other recipients of US arms.

In short, the United States should pressure Israel to take steps that are for its own good. US relations with Israel should be judged by the extent to which Jerusalem assists Washington in realizing US policy objectives in the region. Most observers would agree that Israel would need a new, forward-looking post-war government to consider a different trajectory than the one it is currently on, dominated as it is by strategically ineffectual military action. There would likely also need to be a strategic re-evaluation in the United States, which has so far been reluctant to place conditions on support to Israel. If Washington is serious about re-directing its resources away from this region and toward strategic competition with China and other near-peer competitors, it needs a Middle East region that is easy to exit, no longer requiring frequent US involvement.

Amir Asmar was a senior executive and long-time Middle East analyst in the US Department of Defense, where he authored analyses and provided intelligence briefings to decision-makers throughout the executive and legislative branches. He is an adjunct professor at the National Intelligence University, and his writings can be found at the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Politics Review, the Atlantic Council, and other publications.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.

Image Description: Bombings in South Lebanon (20 September 2024) (Via Wikimedia Commons)

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

14. Contemplating Naval Combat in the Western Pacific 80 Years After the Largest Sea Battle in History

Conclusion:

On the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, let us not forget that some 15,000 sailors lost their lives in the span of four days in October 1944. Another epic clash of warships in the Western Pacific – and the deaths of countless Chinese and American sailors – should be avoided with skillful and active diplomacy.

Contemplating Naval Combat in the Western Pacific 80 Years After the Largest Sea Battle in History

thediplomat.com

The Battle of Leyte Gulf holds important lessons for a hypothetical China-U.S. naval clash – and Chinese strategists know it.

By Lyle Goldstein

October 24, 2024

An explosion on the USS St. Lo (CVE-63) after she was hit by a kamikaze attack off Samar during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Oct. 25, 1944.

Subscribe for ads-free reading

Many experts have probed the causes of the current South China Sea dispute, with explanations varying from national pride and natural resources to vital maritime trade routes and even to nuclear strategy. Yet the rich historical background of naval combat in the waters of the Philippines is too often neglected. This October, Americans are proudly celebrating the 80th anniversary of the stunning triumph of U.S. sailors and the maritime service in history’s largest ever naval battle: the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Today, American strategists are once again focused on the prospect of large-scale naval combat in the western Pacific. The prospect of a naval war with China, a country that now possesses an estimated 230 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States, is daunting. In this article, I not only explore the epic collision of two massive armadas and related strategic lessons from the Battle of Leyte Gulf, but also use unique Chinese military documents to discuss how contemporary Chinese strategists are similarly studying this classic naval clash of arms.

In the Pacific theater of World War II, the “miracle” at Midway in mid-1942 had given way to the bloody attritional battles of Guadalcanal and Tarawa in 1943. Americans gained many lessons in these initial campaigns, including the crucial role of logistics and the need to rotate personnel frequently given the intensity of combat. In mid-1944, the United States pierced Japan’s final defense line with its invasion of Saipan, near present-day Guam.

At that point, the two main leaders of the U.S. war effort in the Pacific, Admiral Chester Nimitz and General Douglas MacArthur, came to an understanding that the Philippines needed to be liberated before the U.S. could make a final assault on Japan proper. Military leaders in Tokyo saw a final opportunity to halt the American onslaught by inflicting a major defeat on the U.S. Navy in the vicinity of the Philippines. The elaborate plan involved throwing all of Japan’s major naval assets, including its vaunted super-battleships and the last of its carriers, into this last desperate fight and dividing its fleet in order to lure the Americans into a trap.

This trap involved using the remaining Japanese aircraft carriers approaching from the north as bait to lure the main forces of the American fleet away from the landing zone off the island of Leyte – thus allowing Japan’s two other surface squadrons approaching from the west and south to pounce. The U.S. Navy skillfully succeeded in unhinging this elaborate Japanese plan through careful reconnaissance that revealed Japan’s disparate forces, as well as with aggressive attacks by American submarines, PT boats, destroyers, and especially its overwhelming airpower. Despite these successful initial actions for the American side, the “fog of war” nevertheless did prompt U.S. Admiral William Halsey to partially take the bait, rushing Task Force 34 north to attack Japan’s carrier force.

This decision momentarily put the U.S. landing force off Leyte in grave jeopardy. A number of U.S. warships, including some escort-type aircraft carriers, were sunk by a still powerful Japanese surface action group that managed to penetrate into Leyte Gulf. Distraught by the momentary success of the Japanese fleet, Nimitz sent Halsey one of the most famous messages in U.S. naval history: “Where is Task Force 34 … The world wonders.”

Only the incredible heroics of American destroyers USS Samuel B. Roberts and USS Johnston among other forces in this grouping succeeded in preventing a significant U.S. disaster. Their aggressive tactics and self-sacrifice convinced Japanese Admiral Takeo Kurita to back off and retreat at the most critical moment. That fateful decision by Kurita allowed the Americans to claim a lopsided victory, sinking 28 Japanese ships to just 12 American losses that also tended to be smaller ships. This major victory, albeit a closer shave than U.S. Navy leaders might have hoped for, cemented the inevitability of Japan’s defeat less than a year later.

Early in 2024, the Chinese military newspaper Guofang Bao published a “Battle Case Review” of the epic naval engagement described above. The People’s Liberation Army Navy had written a similar study of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in its official monthly magazine, Dangdai Haijun, in late 2023. For a growing naval force that is lacking, to a large extent, the experience of large-scale naval warfare, such historical studies are of substantial importance.

Perhaps bearing a prospective campaign for Taiwan in mind, the analysis initially focused on the Americans’ successful amphibious landing, noting that U.S. ground forces were able to “land smoothly … [due to the] large-scale bombing … that completely eliminated the [Japanese] air threat.” The analysis emphasized the U.S. ability to “carry out high-density, uninterrupted, multi-firepower saturation attacks on the same important enemy targets from different directions.”

Similarly, Chinese strategists examining the Battle of Leyte Gulf emphasized the importance of “gathering multi-domain superior combat forces [in order to] … annihilate the enemy in waves.” Furthermore, such multi-domain forces should bring about a “situation of dispersing and preserving strength and a timely gathering of superiority.”

This Chinese analysis made the important observation that asymmetric warfare applies to strong powers as well as weak ones. It recommended that Chinese strategists “actively seek asymmetric combat advantages over the enemy …using fast to defeat slow… [and] more to defeat fewer.”

Finally, this Chinese military assessment was sharply critical of Japanese Admiral Kurita’s hesitation in the final phase of the battle. The article concluded with the observation that “the biggest mistake in deploying troops is hesitation.” The article argued that Chinese military leaders must, despite “intensified fog on the battlefield,” be “decisive… seize the opportunity, and win the victory.”

For the United States, there are also lessons to be drawn. In the early stages of the war, the Imperial Japanese Navy was significantly underestimated by U.S. military planners. Such biased appraisals partially explain the initial setbacks for the United States in the Pacific War. In evaluating China’s intensive naval buildup, then, U.S. leaders should avoid hubris and overconfidence.

In fact, the PLAN is already ahead in certain key domains of naval warfare, including with respect to hypersonic missile development and deployment. As noted above, moreover, the stark asymmetry favoring China in terms of shipyard capabilities could benefit Beijing’s fleet and related military ambitions before, during, and after a naval war.

Washington should act cautiously in both the South China Sea and on the sensitive Taiwan issue, as well. In both cases, the U.S. would do well do avoid another mistake of the early 1940s that helped to inadvertently set Tokyo’s brazen and reckless Pearl Harbor attack into motion: pushing a rival great power into a corner.

On the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, let us not forget that some 15,000 sailors lost their lives in the span of four days in October 1944. Another epic clash of warships in the Western Pacific – and the deaths of countless Chinese and American sailors – should be avoided with skillful and active diplomacy.

Authors

Guest Author

Lyle Goldstein

Lyle Goldstein is the director of the Asia Engagement Program at Defense Priorities.

Subscribe for ads-free reading

thediplomat.com

15. China’s Agents of Chaos: The Military Logic of Beijing’s Growing Partnerships

Excerpts:

Grouping China and its partners could also help Washington unify its own coalition. Europe may not fully grasp the threat Beijing poses to the international order, but it surely understands the dangers emanating from Moscow. Yet the United States has not done nearly enough to explain to European countries why China and Russia are broadly connected, instead emphasizing the narrow links Beijing has to Moscow’s invasion. If Washington can explain the bigger relationship, Europeans will be more likely to take Beijing’s security challenge seriously and be more proactive in attempting to shape its behavior.

Yet the United States should still avoid an ideological approach. Although it should treat these autocratic countries as a bloc, it should avoid framing the global competition as one of democracies against autocracies. Autocratic partners (such as Saudi Arabia) will not want to help Washington prevail against China if the contest is about systems of government. Neither will many potential democratic partners in the developing world, such as Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa. In fact, China has built a wide network of friends by being regime agnostic and focusing on development. In his speeches to foreign audiences, for example, Xi loves to play up Beijing’s respect for “state sovereignty,” its commitment to “noninterference,” and its desire to see poor countries grow rich. The developing world has listened. In the summer of 2024, when Xi met with José Ramos-Horta, the president of East Timor—a small, impoverished, and highly democratic state—Ramos-Horta declared that he did not care about great-power rivalries or the character of his country’s allies. If China can alleviate East Timor’s poverty and malnutrition, Ramos-Horta said, “then China is my hero.”

Washington should take a page from Beijing’s book. If it wants to be the leader of the whole world, not just the free world, it will need to gain support from developing democracies and autocracies alike. (According to Freedom House, 80 percent of people on earth live in countries that are either not free or only partly free.) It needs to be more agile, tailoring its offerings and messaging to address what each country cares about. This process involves not only offering more aid but also contributing to the right types of projects, such as ones related to health care, higher education, and cybersecurity. It means greater diplomatic engagement, military cooperation, and people-to-people ties.

It is true that, by applying more pressure, Washington and its allies may push Beijing to forge stronger connections with Iran, North Korea, and Russia. But China already substantially benefits from these relationships, so the United States has no choice but to take a tougher stance. The reality is that anything the United States does to impose costs on China will upset Beijing. The only way to avoid that is to give it what it wants, which is territorial control over Taiwan, maritime control of the South China Sea, and economic, military, and political dominance in Asia. Washington cannot be afraid to make China pay for helping bad actors, especially when holding back lets Beijing pretend to be above the fray.

China’s Agents of Chaos

The Military Logic of Beijing’s Growing Partnerships

By Oriana Skylar Mastro

November/December 2024

Published on October 22, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Upstart: How China Became a Great Power · October 22, 2024

At a joint press conference in June 2024, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg fretted over the strengthening ties between China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. They are hardly the only politicians to have done so. The informal pact between these four autocracies has become a major focus in Washington, described by both Democratic and Republican officials as a new “axis of evil.” These countries, analysts point out, coordinate military and diplomatic activity. They have similar rhetoric and common interests. And they seem to share one aim above all: weakening the United States.

Each of these countries, by itself, has formidable capabilities. But China is the bloc’s central player. It has the biggest population and economy, and it doles out the most aid. Beijing is North Korea’s primary trade ally and benefactor. It has helped Iran contend with international sanctions, signing a “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement with Tehran in 2021. And China has provided Russia with over $9 billion in dual-use items—goods with both commercial and military applications—since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. This support has kept Russia’s economy from collapsing, despite Western sanctions aimed at crippling the country’s war effort. (Chinese goods now make up 38 percent of all imports into Russia.)

But China doesn’t want to be seen as the leader of this group. It doesn’t even want to be viewed as a member. In April 2023, Chinese Premier Li Qiang claimed that “China-Russia relations adhere to the principles of nonalignment, nonconfrontation, and nontargeting of third parties.” In 2016, Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Fu Ying said that Beijing had “no interest” in forming “an anti-U.S. or anti-Western bloc of any kind.” The government has, accordingly, refrained from signing defense treaties with Iran and Russia. It sometimes works against Iranian, North Korean, and Russian positions in international conflicts.

There is a reason for this ambiguity. China wants to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant power, and although partnering with Iran, North Korea, and Russia helps Beijing in that effort, the trio can also undermine its aims. The three states weaken Washington by attracting its resources and distracting it from Beijing. But they have also greatly antagonized powerful neighbors—such as Germany, Japan, and Saudi Arabia—that China doesn’t want to alienate. As a result, Chinese officials must walk a fine line. Their relationship with the axis must be close enough that they can wield it, but not so close that they are blamed for its misbehavior.

Unfortunately, the United States is letting China have the best of both worlds. Washington has been too focused on figuring out whether these countries will form a traditional defense alliance to understand Beijing’s existing entrepreneurial approach to partnerships—or to see that it is very successful. Under the present arrangement, Iran, North Korea, and Russia all cause trouble for the West. Yet because those countries are not formal Chinese allies, Washington’s partners have not penalized China for their transgressions. In fact, if anything, the axis is splitting the U.S. alliance system. Many of the United States’ friends, preoccupied with their own regional troublemakers, have refused to join with Washington in its competition against Beijing.

China’s approach could be especially effective in the event of a war. If Beijing and Washington had to battle, the axis is now powerful enough and coordinated enough on military matters that it could fight together and defeat the United States. But because axis states are not a tightly coordinated bloc, they could just as easily launch separate conflicts that divide American resources, distract U.S. allies, and thus help Beijing prevail.

Washington must therefore change course. Rather than trying to guess how close these countries are to each other or working to pull them apart, the U.S. government must start treating them as the autocratic bloc they are. It must encourage its allies around the globe to do the same. And it needs to treat China as the master of the axis—whether or not that is the reality of the situation.

HALF IN, HALF OUT

In 1950, at the onset of the Cold War, the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet Communist Party formalized a 30-year Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance. The agreement, forged in the aftermath of the Communists’ victory over the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, was framed by both sides as the natural coming together of two revolutionary socialist states. As such, it called on Beijing and Moscow to defend and consult each other “regarding all important international questions affecting the common interests of the Soviet Union and China.”

In practice, however, the Chinese-Soviet relationship quickly became complicated. The countries did often collaborate, most notably by supporting North Korean founder Kim Il Sung in his war against South Korea. But they also clashed over who would lead the communist bloc. Beijing and Moscow, for example, vied to arm the North Vietnamese. China resisted Soviet efforts to forge a détente with the United States.

Today, China’s relationship with U.S. antagonists is again half in, half out. There is, on the one hand, plenty of cooperation. In 2021, Beijing renewed the Chinese–North Korean mutual defense treaty, and as of 2023, China purchases 90 percent of Iran’s oil. China, Iran, and Russia conduct regular joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman. And in 2018, China agreed to join Russia in a national military exercise in which the two countries practiced, among other things, how they might handle war on the Korean Peninsula. But Beijing has not endorsed the invasion of Ukraine, nor has it provided direct military aid. When Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met in June and signed a treaty in which they pledged to support each other militarily if either was attacked, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called it a bilateral matter between Moscow and Pyongyang. When the United Arab Emirates had a maritime dispute with Iran, Beijing released a joint statement with the UAE declaring its support for a “peaceful solution.” And in January 2024, Chinese officials told their Iranian counterparts to curb Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, signaling that continued hostilities might jeopardize their economic relationship.

During the Cold War, China paid a price for sending mixed messages to its Soviet ally. Over time, Moscow moved away from Beijing, eventually leading to what analysts call the Sino-Soviet split. But this time, China’s authoritarian partners appear not to mind Russia’s behavior. Despite Beijing’s detachment, China is getting natural gas from Russia at a 44 percent discount compared with what Europe pays. Iran did not sign a letter condemning China for its violence against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and Tehran has offered Beijing political support for its takeover of Hong Kong and its claims to Taiwan.

All the while, Beijing has managed to stay on good terms with most U.S. allies. South Korea, and to a degree Japan, does not fully support U.S. deterrence efforts against China. Beijing remains both Japan’s and South Korea’s largest trading partner, even though it aids North Korea. Beijing has put enough distance between itself and Moscow that the EU felt comfortable trading over $800 billion in goods with China in 2023, or 15 percent of the EU’s total trade. During his 2023 visit to China, French President Emmanuel Macron said that his country would not blindly follow the United States in crises that are not its concern, specifically in reference to Taiwan. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has on multiple occasions claimed that Germany is not a part of a geopolitical bloc and will not join one. Similarly, China’s partnership with Iran has not jeopardized its ties with the Gulf States or Israel.

ORDER OF DISORDER

At first, it may seem as if China’s mixed approach to Iran, North Korea, and Russia should be tolerable for the United States. Under the status quo, after all, China is not giving Russia outright military aid with which to attack Ukraine. Beijing continues to support diplomacy to halt Iran’s nuclear program. The EU-Chinese relationship, meanwhile, could moderate Iran’s behavior.

The status quo is better than a situation in which Beijing provides full-throated support for these countries. But U.S. officials should take no comfort in the current situation. Neither the distance between China and its partners nor Beijing’s outreach to the West has truly acted as a constraint. China may occasionally wag its finger at Iran or quietly criticize Russia, but when push comes to shove, it is giving an enormous amount of help to these states. Beijing, for example, bolstered a disinformation campaign in 2022 claiming that U.S.-funded Ukrainian biolabs were making biological weapons—helping provide the justification for the invasion of Ukraine. The states work together to challenge the traditional human rights language used by international institutions, arguing that concepts such as civil liberties and the rule of law are exclusively Western constructs. Iran, North Korea, and Russia all use Chinese technology to repress their populations.

Beijing’s support for these states is most pronounced on matters of security and defense. It has provided them with sophisticated military technology and assistance. It has shared intelligence with Russia, including from its extensive satellite network, helping Moscow’s war efforts. Moscow, in turn, supplies Beijing with billions of dollars in weapons annually. These shipments have dramatically improved China’s ability to target U.S. jets, bases, and ships. Moscow has also given Beijing technology it can use to develop or enhance its domestic weapons production.

Russia’s partnership with China adds a terrifying new dynamic to U.S. nuclear calculations.

Partly as a result of this cooperation, the United States may be at a military disadvantage for the first time in decades. China alone has more active soldiers than does the United States. Beijing and Moscow together have more warships and tanks than Washington. Given how readily the former two governments cooperate, there is a good chance they might overpower U.S. forces if they fought together in a single military theater—for example, if China and Russia aid North Korea in a war against its southern neighbor or if Russia helps China with an attack on Taiwan.

The autocratic quad could also wreak havoc by fighting separately but simultaneously. The United States would struggle to win a two-front war. Instead, the American armed forces are structured to fight one major war while deterring smaller regional conflicts. That means if wars were raging in Europe, in the Middle East, on the Korean Peninsula, and over Taiwan, the United States would have to leave all but one of those theaters to largely fend for itself, at least initially.

Many U.S. allies have capable militaries that could battle axis members. But because they face their own regional demons, they are reluctant to help other states with their conflicts. In the event of a multifront war, they will want to keep their forces at home for self-defense. That means Washington cannot count on its allies to help U.S. troops even where it needs them most. If, for instance, the United States focused on defending Taiwan while North Korea was trying to seize South Korea, then Seoul and Tokyo would be either entirely or largely unwilling to give the United States support. In fact, concerns about North Korea have already made South Korea reluctant to let U.S. forces stationed within its borders take any actions beyond the Korean Peninsula. Europe, trying to protect its commercial ties, would almost certainly stay out of such a conflict.

To be sure, China would struggle to help its partners with their own fights if it had to take on the United States. During the Chinese Civil War, the Communists lost Taiwan partly because they chose to aid North Korea, giving U.S. President Harry Truman time to dispatch the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait and prevent an invasion. Chinese leader Xi Jinping will not want to repeat that mistake.

An Iranian soldier at a joint naval drill between China, Iran, and Russia in the Gulf of Oman, March 2023

Iranian Army / West Asia News Agency / Reuters

But any of these axis members can create crises that divert U.S. and allied resources without launching risky, full-blown conflicts. They can also give China an edge without joining its war. Russia, for example, could help China withstand an energy blockade by sending it oil and gas overland. The Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline, which sends Russian oil to Asian markets, can export about 35 million metric tons annually to China. The Power of Siberia pipeline, which transports natural gas to China, is expected to send 38 billion cubic meters per year by 2025—nearly equal to the amount of natural gas consumed annually by Australia. Moscow could also contribute its capital and labor to help China with manufacturing. The two states already have joint manufacturing systems in place, including those related to making weapons.

If Moscow chose to become just slightly more involved in a U.S.-Chinese war, it would create even bigger headaches. Russian fighter jets, for instance, could conduct defensive joint air patrols with Chinese forces, as they have done in the past. The United States might then refrain from hitting Chinese targets, if only to stop Russia from becoming a direct combatant.

Whatever Russia’s degree of involvement, its partnership with China adds a terrifying new dynamic to U.S. calculations. In the past, the United States has never had to contend with more than one nuclear peer. Now, with Beijing and Moscow, it has two. Unfortunately for Washington (and the world), attempts to prevent conflict with one of these governments could undermine deterrence against the other. For example, the United States signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with the Soviet Union in 1987 to eliminate their ground-launched intermediate-range missiles. It broadly succeeded and lowered tensions between the two countries. But the deal also left Beijing unconstrained, helping it gain a significant regional advantage in intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Future negotiations between any two of the three countries could again give the third an incentive for nuclear proliferation.

UNITE AND CONQUER

Some American strategists have suggested that to handle this axis, Washington should try dividing it. U.S. officials appear to be listening. In March 2023, for example, Blinken sought to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow by preying on the latter’s insecurities: “Russia is very much the junior partner in this relationship,” he said. Such efforts could hark back to the Cold War, when Washington worked to divide the fraught Chinese-Soviet axis. As Beijing and Moscow grew more distant, U.S. diplomats established channels of communication with their Chinese counterparts, leading to U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. Seven years later, China and the United States established formal relations. Eventually, they even worked together to spy on the Soviets.

But today, such efforts would be for naught. The autocratic axis provides Beijing with political support, energy supplies, and technology that it just cannot get from the West. Attempts to convince any of these countries that their autocratic colleagues present a greater threat than the United States are as ineffective as they are foolish.

Instead of trying to split the bloc, the United States must do the opposite: treat its members as entirely interlinked. That means ensuring poor behavior on the part of one leads to penalties for the others. Instead of exclusively sanctioning Chinese companies that support Russia’s war effort, the United States could treat the Chinese state as a supporting entity and implement economic restrictions against the whole country. It could tell Beijing those restrictions will remain in place until Russia comes to the negotiating table. Beijing will cry foul, claiming it has no influence over Moscow. This might, indeed, be the case. But with skin in the game, China will work harder to acquire the influence it needs to successfully pressure Russia.

If Washington wants to be the leader of the whole world, it will need to gain support from autocracies.

Grouping China and its partners could also help Washington unify its own coalition. Europe may not fully grasp the threat Beijing poses to the international order, but it surely understands the dangers emanating from Moscow. Yet the United States has not done nearly enough to explain to European countries why China and Russia are broadly connected, instead emphasizing the narrow links Beijing has to Moscow’s invasion. If Washington can explain the bigger relationship, Europeans will be more likely to take Beijing’s security challenge seriously and be more proactive in attempting to shape its behavior.

Yet the United States should still avoid an ideological approach. Although it should treat these autocratic countries as a bloc, it should avoid framing the global competition as one of democracies against autocracies. Autocratic partners (such as Saudi Arabia) will not want to help Washington prevail against China if the contest is about systems of government. Neither will many potential democratic partners in the developing world, such as Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa. In fact, China has built a wide network of friends by being regime agnostic and focusing on development. In his speeches to foreign audiences, for example, Xi loves to play up Beijing’s respect for “state sovereignty,” its commitment to “noninterference,” and its desire to see poor countries grow rich. The developing world has listened. In the summer of 2024, when Xi met with José Ramos-Horta, the president of East Timor—a small, impoverished, and highly democratic state—Ramos-Horta declared that he did not care about great-power rivalries or the character of his country’s allies. If China can alleviate East Timor’s poverty and malnutrition, Ramos-Horta said, “then China is my hero.”

Washington should take a page from Beijing’s book. If it wants to be the leader of the whole world, not just the free world, it will need to gain support from developing democracies and autocracies alike. (According to Freedom House, 80 percent of people on earth live in countries that are either not free or only partly free.) It needs to be more agile, tailoring its offerings and messaging to address what each country cares about. This process involves not only offering more aid but also contributing to the right types of projects, such as ones related to health care, higher education, and cybersecurity. It means greater diplomatic engagement, military cooperation, and people-to-people ties.

It is true that, by applying more pressure, Washington and its allies may push Beijing to forge stronger connections with Iran, North Korea, and Russia. But China already substantially benefits from these relationships, so the United States has no choice but to take a tougher stance. The reality is that anything the United States does to impose costs on China will upset Beijing. The only way to avoid that is to give it what it wants, which is territorial control over Taiwan, maritime control of the South China Sea, and economic, military, and political dominance in Asia. Washington cannot be afraid to make China pay for helping bad actors, especially when holding back lets Beijing pretend to be above the fray.

ORIANA SKYLAR MASTRO is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the author of Upstart: How China Became a Great Power.

Foreign Affairs · by Upstart: How China Became a Great Power · October 22, 2024

16. The Nuclear Brain Trust

Conclusion:

In 2003, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, reflecting on the enduring lessons of the Cuban missile crisis, warned that “the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.” “Is it right and proper,” he asked, “that today there are 7,500 strategic offensive nuclear warheads, of which 2,500 are on 15- minute alert, to be launched by the decision of one human being?” During the most harrowing nuclear crisis in history, Kennedy assembled the ExComm to try to mitigate the danger McNamara would later cite. Although the world looks much different now than it did during the Cold War, with new rivals and alliances and a more complex set of imperatives guiding geopolitics, it is no less dangerous. Requiring that presidents consult with others before making the most fateful decision in human history would make the United States and the world a safer place.

The Nuclear Brain Trust

Presidents Shouldn’t Make the Biggest Decision by Themselves

By Anthony Lake and Steven Andreasen

October 24, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Anthony Lake and Steven Andreasen · October 24, 2024

In the decades since their invention, nuclear weapons have become much more lethal. Blasts once measured in kilotons are now measured in megatons, and warheads once dropped by slow-flying bombers are now delivered by fast-flying and deadly-accurate ballistic missiles. Over the same period, the number of nuclear-armed states has grown from one to nine. Roughly half of today’s global nuclear inventory lies in the hands of Russia, China, and North Korea, all of which represent threats to the United States. Nuclear risks have multiplied, and the scenarios for the use of such weapons have grown ever more complex.

Yet today, as in past decades, U.S. presidents have the sole authority to make the most consequential decision the country may ever face. Not only might any president be overwhelmed by the gravity of a nuclear threat (or the appearance of one); even when facing no imminent threat, a president of unreliable temperament might choose to unilaterally launch a nuclear attack with huge and deadly consequences. Without consulting any other official, presidents can order a nuclear strike against another country, even if that country has not threatened nor attacked the United States. In reality, the only checks on this singular power of the president are the military officers charged with transmitting and executing the president’s order. They could decide to disobey the command on the grounds that it violates U.S. or international law. But it is hard to imagine an officer doing so. In a moment of acute crisis, the fate of the world could rest solely on the shoulders of the president. Expecting one fallible human being to bear the burden of such power and responsibility is dangerous and unnecessary.

With the growing possibility that a state or nonstate actor might actually use nuclear weapons against the United States or its allies, Washington must refresh the procedures through which the president can make the ultimate, fateful choice. In a fraught moment 62 years ago, President John F. Kennedy consulted with a body of senior officials during the Cuban missile crisis. Cooler heads prevailed and Kennedy averted nuclear war. As nuclear threats proliferate, the United States could reduce the risk of a catastrophic miscalculation if it required the president to consult, when possible, with a team of official advisors before sanctioning any use of nuclear weapons.

THE SPEED FIXATION

For much of the last eight decades, the United States’ nuclear decision-making process has prioritized speed and efficiency above more considered calculation. The process has its origins in the 1960s and 1970s, when the Soviet Union developed increasingly lethal nuclear weapons that could be launched in a massive “bolt from the blue” attack: an assault as surprising as Japan’s strike on Pearl Harbor in 1941 but far more devastating, in that the Soviet Union could target U.S. leaders, command and control centers, and a significant portion of the country’s nuclear arsenal and thereby make it impossible for Washington to retaliate against Moscow effectively. To deter such a Soviet attack, U.S. officials designed policies and procedures for nuclear use meant to ensure that if the Soviet Union were to strike first, the United States would still maintain an effective command and control network and have nuclear forces sufficient to launch retaliatory strikes of their own. Washington wanted Moscow to understand that it could not hit the United States with impunity. Speed was a top priority in contending with such a scenario: experts estimate that the president could have less than ten minutes of deliberation before having to order a nuclear response.

Washington’s process for authorizing the use of nuclear weapons is straightforward. Using the “nuclear football,” a briefcase that contains the United States’ atomic war plans and enables the president to communicate with the military, the president selects from a number of attack options developed in advance and issues a launch order to the Pentagon and the United States Strategic Command, the military body responsible for strategic nuclear deterrence. The order is then relayed to the nuclear forces via an Emergency Action Team at the Pentagon, where it is verified to ensure it originated with the president. The Pentagon then passes along the order in a short message, and the order is executed by Strategic Command. This process was devised to allow the president to retaliate against a surprise nuclear attack within minutes, but it can also be used to launch a nuclear first strike. In other words, the president could, without consulting any other human being, launch a nuclear weapon—with incalculable consequences for all of humanity.

Today, it is all too easy to imagine a crisis in which a president orders the use of nuclear weapons in the face of a perceived threat and explains the decision to Congress and the public only after the fact. Should Russia, for instance, hit Ukraine or a NATO ally that supports Ukraine with a nuclear weapon, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened he might be willing to do, such an attack could trigger a reflexive, immediate nuclear response from the U.S. president. So, too, could fabrications of warnings of a nuclear attack against the United States, spread through a cyber intrusion by state or nonstate actors or even accidentally by artificial intelligence, trigger a nuclear response. No matter who occupies the Oval Office, the president could end up making a hasty decision without consultation, potentially leading to global catastrophe.

COOLER HEADS

The complexity of nuclear threats demands a more rigorous process for pulling the nuclear trigger. Indeed, the existing process, designed in another era to deal with a very different threat posed solely by the Soviet Union, no longer fits the most likely escalatory scenarios today. Indeed, it only increases the chances of a mistaken or ill-considered use of nuclear weapons by a U.S. president. The decision-making process should require more systematic consultation, so that the president is not alone in wading through the many available options for nuclear use.

To be sure, the Constitution grants the president alone the authority to command forces and direct the conduct of military operations, and it is important that the president retain this authority under any reforms to update and strengthen the structure of nuclear decision-making. But no president should have to—or want to—make a unilateral decision to use nuclear weapons when there is sufficient time for consultation. Unfortunately, the current process gives the president exactly that dangerous authority.

The Cold War offers one useful example of presidential consultation during moments of potentially catastrophic escalation. In October 1962, Kennedy convened an Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or “ExComm,” a group of senior and former U.S. officials, to develop responses to the secret construction of missile sites in Cuba by the Soviet Union. Over a period of days, the group helped Kennedy conclude that he should authorize an American blockade to prevent the shipment of Soviet nuclear missiles into Cuba, rather than a conventional military strike that could well have set off a nuclear war. That example provides a blueprint for a more effective process through which presidents would receive the thorough and timely advice they need to inform any order they issue to use a nuclear weapon, when time allows it. Deliberation with a small and select group of experts and advisers would maximize opportunities for the development of alternatives to nuclear use.

No president should have to—or want to—make a unilateral decision to use nuclear weapons when there is sufficient time for consultation.

To be sure, such a process would be impractical in the event of a clearly imminent or ongoing nuclear attack on the United States. In that case, presidents must act as quickly as possible, even if that means not taking the time to speak with their advisers. In the case of a nuclear attack outside the United States, the president may have more time to consult with others. The president should also consult with advisers in the case of a limited nuclear explosion within the United States, or a nuclear attack on American forces abroad.

The consultations in the executive branch should include the vice president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, and the attorney general. The Speaker of the House and House minority leader, along with the Senate majority and minority leaders, would also be included so that senior elected representatives of Congress, endowed by the Constitution with the authority to declare war, could help inform the president’s decision-making. This would ensure appropriate consideration of strategic, military, diplomatic, and legal issues, both domestic and international.

In addition, at the beginning of a new administration, a president should convene a small group of senior officials, chaired by the secretary of defense, along with the secretary of state, the attorney general, and the director of national intelligence, to review and, if necessary, update the pre-planned targeting options that would be provided to the president in the event of a nuclear crisis. This review would ensure their consistency with existing civilian and military nuclear use guidance.

HANDING OVER NEW REINS

New, clear guardrails for presidential nuclear authority have been proposed before. Nuclear threat experts Sam Nunn and Ernest Moniz have previously suggested a similar system of consultation and targeting review. But no administration has put it in place. President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek re-election gives him a unique opportunity to pass on a reformed nuclear decision-making process to his successor. Using a presidential decision directive, an executive order setting national security policy, Biden could establish these new procedures while preserving the presidential authority to act unilaterally when time does not permit for consultation, thereby effectively enshrining an ExComm, an ad hoc body in Kennedy’s time, into the U.S. nuclear use protocols.

Biden has the authority to put these new guardrails in place by his successor’s Inauguration day in January 2025, marking the first time presidential guidance would be issued to update the process for nuclear use authority—a significant achievement. Of course, Biden’s successor could reverse this new directive and reinstate unconditional sole authority. But establishing a new protocol will set an important new precedent, and its dismantling would almost certainly ring alarm bells in Congress and among the public. No responsible commander in chief would dismantle a process for consultation with a small group of senior administration and elected officials when making the most consequential decision of that leader’s presidency, and potentially the country’s history. Indeed, action by a president to reinstate unconditional sole authority over nuclear decision-making could and should lead Congress to write such nuclear safeguards into law, with strong public support.

In 2003, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, reflecting on the enduring lessons of the Cuban missile crisis, warned that “the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.” “Is it right and proper,” he asked, “that today there are 7,500 strategic offensive nuclear warheads, of which 2,500 are on 15- minute alert, to be launched by the decision of one human being?” During the most harrowing nuclear crisis in history, Kennedy assembled the ExComm to try to mitigate the danger McNamara would later cite. Although the world looks much different now than it did during the Cold War, with new rivals and alliances and a more complex set of imperatives guiding geopolitics, it is no less dangerous. Requiring that presidents consult with others before making the most fateful decision in human history would make the United States and the world a safer place.

ANTHONY LAKE served as National Security Adviser in the Clinton administration.
STEVEN ANDREASEN is a Lecturer at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He served as the National Security Council’s Staff Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control from 1993 to 2001.

Foreign Affairs · by Anthony Lake and Steven Andreasen · October 24, 2024

17. How to fix the world: the elements of global stability

Excerpts;

To conclude, the world is coming perilously close to the abyss. The Eurasian Axis has consolidated more rapidly, especially since 2022, than our analysis has had time to adjust and process the implications of this process. Profound questions must now be asked about the real balance of power in the world, and the actionable margin of advantage that the West still retains – because, on current trends, the next phase of this multi-front confrontation might present us with a choice between general war or compromise (gradual, or sudden). The question is not what we would choose, but how to avoid that choice altogether and get ahead of it.

The default policy at present, inherited from the Cold War, is to stand firm, build up, and “deter” the adversary from going any further. The problem is that it’s not working that well any more, not least because today’s strategic landscape is so much more complex and our adversaries have so many more channels to disrupt and destabilise the West and, with us, the world.

No one has so far been able to explain exactly how we get out of this mess and break the spiral of escalation – how the CRINKs will be made to cease their aggression, or how they will lose the means and resources to continue it before we lose ours – without war. There seems to simply be an assumption that our default policy will somehow lead to another “Berlin Wall” moment, where the other side gives up and disintegrates. This assumption, of course, is shaped and maintained by the same “elites” responsible of the West’s serial strategic failures over the past three decades.

It needn’t be this way. There could be a path back to global stability – but we need to think bigger. The margin of Western ascendancy is still strong enough not just for deterrence (at least for now) but also for exploring, with a good degree of safety, the possibility of a “global reset”, negotiated with the singularly-vital purpose of restoring stability to the international system. All such moments in the modern history of mankind that have re-shaped world order – from Westphalia to Yalta – occurred after great wars. Perhaps we have learnt something and this time we’ll do it before.

How to fix the world: the elements of global stability

brusselssignal.eu · by Gabriel Elefteriu · October 24, 2024

The world has destabilised to a very large degree, very quickly. It is now riven with conflict and war. Geopolitically, it is splitting ever more sharply into two camps: the old, Western, US-led grouping around the G7, EU and NATO; and the newer “CRINKs” or the Eurasian Axis of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, broadly backed by other quasi-partners in BRICS or the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation).

American hegemony has been facing this trend for a couple of decades now, since the first offshoots of panic at the “Rise of China” in the mid 2000s. The response has come in stages. First, rebalancing: Obama’s Pivot to Asia. Then, containment: Trump’s trade wars and crackdown on the likes of Huawei, as well as boosting NATO. Finally, competition bordering confrontation: Biden’s post-Covid decoupling and security-heavy approach in the Indo-Pacific.

Throughout this period, the assumption has been that there is a policy “solution” to the authoritarian disruption of the world. A way to contain the problem and then somehow “defeat” it. Enable friends and allies on the front lines in Europe, Middle East and Asia to resist revisionist pressure and wear down the CRINKs until they crack. None of this was ever articulated in an actual strategy, but the vast advantage of the Western Alliance in terms of wealth, technology and military power has so far removed any serious argument for a need to compromise on the status quo. Who would want to back down while they’re nominally ahead?

This is what Thucydides Trap means: the established power would rather go to war to preserve its primacy than accept parity with a rival – for fear of ultimately losing even that. To the wider public in “free and open nations”, especially Western liberal democracies, this has been sold as an uncompromising defence of “liberal values” and the so-called “rules-based international order”. But it is really about preserving the dominant power position in the global system that has made America and the West the richest and most advanced nations on earth. Lose that position, and everything else inevitably comes into question sooner or later.

Any such uncompromising attitude against a rising rival inevitably leads to tensions, or indeed war. Compromise – called appeasement by some, détente by others – usually works no better over the long run, because it turns the possibility of the continued rise of a rival into a certainty if they are not actively challenged.

We have travelled a rather long way down this road by now, over the past decade in particular. Tensions have spilled over into open warfare in Ukraine and the Middle East, while the Western Pacific is a powder keg. Increasingly more observers note that things are coming close to a breaking point, i.e. a general conflagration. The arrival of North Korean troops in Ukraine – and now the suggestion of a matching move by South Korea – is only the latest indication of this domino effect.

The conclusion is that, despite its lingering ascendancy on paper, the Western Alliance might have lost the window of opportunity to neutralise these threats before they grew too big and inter-connected. Unfortunately, structural changes in the balance of power are not linear and cannot be observed in real time: they work like fuse bombs, with delayed effect. When they start to go off, it might be already too late to take decisive action. The cost of doing so now – through war, which is becoming the last resort – in order to bring the CRINKs in line, is prohibitive.

The time may be coming when we will have to step back from the brink and change the ultimate goal of our policy from the preservation of Western primacy to the restoration of global stability. The two used to be the same; no longer.

But what does that mean? What are the elements that would contribute to “stability” in a post-Western – though not strictly “multipolar” – world? The future is unknown, but what we do know – from the entire history of what today we call international relations – is that any stable world order must include some version of the following, adapted to our times:

First, a new system for managing great power relations. This was the original idea behind the P5, the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Their special right of veto reflected their great power status and role in shaping global affairs via the UN. Now the UN is not just dysfunctional, but discredited; the jury is out on whether it can or even should be “restored” to something approaching its original mission, according to its Charter.

In any case, as the world has largely reverted to its more natural state of pure power politics and military aggression, it is time to turn again to the only solution that we know has worked in the past as a stabilising device: a version of the “Concert of Powers”, the notion that emerged from the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

Inevitably, this is a prescription for Realpolitik, which some might say runs against the liberal foundations of the rules-based international order, i.e. against our “values”. Others would counter that this “order” has already crossed into myth, and that holding on to this illusion in the face of the brutal reality of war today is simply irresponsible.

A 21st century version of the Concert of Powers would necessarily have to include, below, a broader and more sophisticated system of consultation mechanisms that would take account of the views and interests of lesser, 2nd and 3rd rank “friends and allies” of the principals – such as the broader membership of the UN Security Council, or the other states in the G20.

The vital precondition for even beginning to build such a new system is a political resolution of current tensions. In other words, the necessary first step would be a general diplomatic settlement of all the major outstanding geopolitical issues between the principal powers of the two “camps”, the G7 and the CRINKs. In scope, it would have to be on the scale of Versailles 1919, and to include a number of separate agreements on the different matters at hand, from Ukraine to the Western Pacific.

A great deal of compromise will have to be accepted, the alternative being – likely – generalised warfare, whether immediate or a gradual slide into chaos across all key regions of the globe. However, compromise would not automatically have to mean a return to “spheres of influence”; adroit negotiations backed by force and political will can, arguably, still find an equitable equilibrium acceptable to all sides. Whether our failed and intellectually-exhausted foreign policy “elites” still have the wisdom to see such a project through, is a different question.

Without doubt, this would be the most difficult diplomatic and political challenge since the days of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years’ War; we should expect it to be so, given that the scale and even nature of our problems are very similar to those that confronted monarchs and diplomatists nearly 300 years ago.

Second, we’ll need a new global security architecture. The legacy UN system has clearly failed, and the US-led Western Alliance – broadly speaking – has also proven unable to deter major state aggression in Europe and the Middle East. This fact should not be in dispute, after Russia has literally invaded Ukraine and Iran has literally attacked Israel. Only China is still holding back over Taiwan, but it’s not clear for how long. It should be obvious to everyone that whatever “international security system” we think we still have in place right now, it is not working.

A new security system is therefore needed, and of course it will have to be conceived and negotiated in relation to the new Concert System described at Point One above. It would build upon existing security mechanisms – like NATO or AUKUS on our side, or the CSTO, SCO and others on the Eurasian Axis side – but seek to both connect and deconflict them.

The “connecting” aspect would, for the first time, impose a holistic, truly global-level view on the shape of this new security architecture. It would take into account the reality, already recognised in Western doctrine, that the Atlantic and the Pacific now form a single security continuum, the “Atlantic-Pacific”, as Britain’s top-level strategic documents call it. The current legacy post-1945 international system is not structured on this holistic principle. The very emergence of frameworks like the Quad or AUKUS are a symptom that such ad-hoc patches are needed to fix an outdated settlement. But stability can only come from a re-founding of the global architecture in a new “1945 moment”, with the participation of all key actors, rather than by applying one-sided band-aids.

The “deconfliction” of the existing defence and security structures of the two sides will have to be achieved by negotiating arms limitations, demilitarised zones, and verification and transparency mechanisms – in other words, arms and technology control agreements. Again, today this would represent an unprecedented challenge given the very long range, high speed weapons now in existence – such as hypersonics – and new technologies like AI which are inherently hard to control but can create enormous strategic advantage. The other challenge is in terms of scale, as new arms control agreements would have to be at least on the level of ambition of the1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), but replicated in Asia with China as well.

Of all the challenges to restoring global stability, the extreme difficulty of achieving robust arms control in the 21st century is the most worrying and hard to surmount. As vicious and violent as the political struggle between the West and the authoritarian revisionists is, political matters can ultimately – theoretically – be solved by negotiation; history abounds with such examples.

But the one element that is unique in our age is the spread of new technologies, from AI to quantum and to biotech, and the way they are proliferating across the world. These all have profound defence and security implications, but are near impossible to control via international agreements. Throughout history, negotiated settlements of disputes and conflicts have worked (where they have) because the factors underpinning national power – the key element in the system – were amenable to some form of negotiated limitation, or at least they were measurable to some degree. Today, that is very difficult – but, we must hope, not impossible.

Third, we’ll need a new arrangement for global trade and economic relations. The free trade system, that created so much wealth – and, indeed, fuelled even China’s rise – is in free fall. The WTO lies in tatters. With the return of great power competition, economic relations have increasingly become subordinated to security concerns, while Covid illustrated the vulnerability of global supply chains.

The entire system is defaulting to the instinctive, “emergency-mode” of decoupling, on a path to bifurcating into separate “economic spheres” broadly aligned to the two principal camps. Some players, like the EU, are trying to straddle both sides of this trend, but they increasingly risk falling between the stools.

None of this is good for business. With more trade barriers and protectionism (including through regulatory barriers) come higher costs and less global economic growth, as we are already seeing. This ultimately translates into more social problems as public spending is squashed between higher demand (especially in the West, as the baby boomer generation enters old age) and lower tax receipts together with ever higher interest payments on mounting debt.

Even the US is not immune to this problem, with debt servicing now taking up 23 per cent of the country’s tax and tariff intake, and the deficit galloping at 8 per cent this year. The picture is certainly more complex and diverse than this, at a global level, but the bottom line is that a splitting world economy, with trade wars and huge capital allocations driven by (unproductive) security reasons rather than economic logic, is making everyone poorer in the long run — and contributes decisively to global instability.

In this area, as in that of international security, a new global political settlement (per point no.1 above) should be paralleled by a new system of global free trade agreements and rules — under a reformed WTO if that is possible — as well as global accords on new regulatory regimes for data and key technologies that impact the financial system in particular, from AI to crypto.

All these are very big and seemingly intractable challenges, as they are often rooted in fundamentally divergent philosophies and core interests. The approach to data regulation, for example, is radically different in the US, the EU and in China. In the financial field, the CRINKs — via the BRICS — are on a mission to dethrone the dollar, which appears to be a binary strategic issue with little scope for a new settlement.

Yet, the reality that the current situation is ultimately bad — and highly risky — for everyone in the end, offers a strong incentive for negotiating mutually acceptable solutions that are genuine win-wins. A genuine “reset” at the top of the geopolitical food chain would completely “change the weather” (gradually, at least) in international relations, and make room for types of dialogue that are deemed unfathomable today.

Finally, we need a new cooperation system for planetary protection. This term should be taken to include all the major “global challenges” that we tend to think are the proper remit of UN-level coordination, given their transnational nature. From climate change in all its aspects, to global health, migration, and a variety of humanitarian issues, and including problems that affect the “global commons” — such as piracy at sea or debris in space — these are matters that, by definition, concern the entire planet and affect both geopolitical “camps” of our era, and are in their interest to solve.

The difficulty is, again, that the UN system is dysfunctional and often these global issues are “weaponised” for political reasons. Green policies, for example, originally presented as a way to combat climate change, have become a strategic instrument of economic “warfare”, best wielded, so far, by China.

In other instances, such as bio engineering and AI — which, aside from their economic application, also hold a potentially huge risk for humanity overall, both physically and morally — the UN is simply structurally unsuited for negotiating joint approaches at the speed of relevance.

Space is another clear example of this: orbital congestion from the rapid increase in debris and deployed satellites is on track to produce catastrophic, cascading collisions which could make space unusable for everyone. This would have incalculable consequences on Earth, given the extensive dependency of key infrastructures and services on satellite systems. Only a multilateral political agreement can sort this out, not just through better regulation (accepted and observed by all) but also through joint action on debris removal at scale. As the technologies involved in active debris removal can also be mistaken for military weapons, such a “space-cleaning” initiative must have buy-in and participation from all key space powers.

Whether it is climate change adaptation, environmental preservation and indeed regeneration, a genuinely functional and transparent global health protection system, or orbital stewardship and indeed planetary defence (against asteroids) – none of these can be achieved or managed properly, i.e. with an effectiveness and speed higher than the pace of degradation or risk, without genuine cooperation in the common interest among the great powers.

The degree of irresponsibility on all sides, as far as the long-term outlook of these global risks is concerned, is staggering. Geopolitical rivalry and national interests are taking precedence over collective safety from planetary-level catastrophes. This is not a friends-of-the-Earth, Greta-type talking point, but a cold reality. A new, sane, set of leaders could put the emotional, progressive nonsense aside, and start negotiating pragmatically with the great powers on the other side of the global divide a practical and effective suite of mechanisms and action-oriented institutions focused on first (re-)defining (in real, ideology-free terms), and then actually solving global problems – again, taking up an equitable share of the burden in the process. None of this is technically “impossible”.

To conclude, the world is coming perilously close to the abyss. The Eurasian Axis has consolidated more rapidly, especially since 2022, than our analysis has had time to adjust and process the implications of this process. Profound questions must now be asked about the real balance of power in the world, and the actionable margin of advantage that the West still retains – because, on current trends, the next phase of this multi-front confrontation might present us with a choice between general war or compromise (gradual, or sudden). The question is not what we would choose, but how to avoid that choice altogether and get ahead of it.

The default policy at present, inherited from the Cold War, is to stand firm, build up, and “deter” the adversary from going any further. The problem is that it’s not working that well any more, not least because today’s strategic landscape is so much more complex and our adversaries have so many more channels to disrupt and destabilise the West and, with us, the world.

No one has so far been able to explain exactly how we get out of this mess and break the spiral of escalation – how the CRINKs will be made to cease their aggression, or how they will lose the means and resources to continue it before we lose ours – without war. There seems to simply be an assumption that our default policy will somehow lead to another “Berlin Wall” moment, where the other side gives up and disintegrates. This assumption, of course, is shaped and maintained by the same “elites” responsible of the West’s serial strategic failures over the past three decades.

It needn’t be this way. There could be a path back to global stability – but we need to think bigger. The margin of Western ascendancy is still strong enough not just for deterrence (at least for now) but also for exploring, with a good degree of safety, the possibility of a “global reset”, negotiated with the singularly-vital purpose of restoring stability to the international system. All such moments in the modern history of mankind that have re-shaped world order – from Westphalia to Yalta – occurred after great wars. Perhaps we have learnt something and this time we’ll do it before.

Gabriel Elefteriu is deputy director at the Council on Geostrategy in London and a fellow at Yorktown Institute in Washington, D.C.

brusselssignal.eu · by Gabriel Elefteriu · October 24, 2024

18. We’ve had the victory pictures, but how is Israel aiming to actually win the war

Excerpts:

The government does not want to trigger a broader war with Iran, and emphatically wants to maintain the close military and diplomatic support of the United States. It sees both the need to respond to October 1 and to ensure ongoing American support as essential to restoring Israeli deterrence against the regime.

More broadly, the Biden administration remains convinced that a grander vision is achievable — as in, the deepening of a US-led alliance that sees Israel more deeply integrated into the region, a robust coalition against the regime in Tehran, with the key element of Israel-Saudi normalization. Mossad chief David Barnea, closer to Netanyahu than most of the key figures in Israel’s security establishment, and Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s leading ministerial confidant, are key Israeli players in this regard.

For now, the Saudis are keeping their options open. They maintain a degree of self-protecting diplomatic interaction with Iran, know they cannot take on the regime themselves, and wait to see how Israel and the US will fare in that endeavor.

They recognize that Netanyahu will not proclaim a clear readiness to advance toward Palestinian statehood, nor allow a formal role in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority — much of whose leadership eulogized the would-be genocidal Sinwar as a “great national leader.” But with the immense potential benefit of a dramatically enhanced relationship with the US, there may be Israeli diplomatic formulations that Riyadh could choose to portray as at least opening a diplomatic horizon for the Palestinians, thus assuaging its own Shiite minority and enabling an overt, deepened relationship with Israel.

In that context, the Saudis are doubtless hoping for the imminent return to the US presidency of the uber-confident, spare-me-the-details Donald Trump, rather than a cautious first-term Kamala Harris. As indeed, of course, is Netanyahu.

We’ve had the victory pictures, but how is Israel aiming to actually win the war

Sinwar and Nasrallah are gone, but their weakened terror groups are still dangerous and Iran’s regime is untouched. The IDF, Netanyahu government and US are working, sometimes in harmony, to change that

By David Horovitz Follow

23 October 2024, 4:28 pm

timesofisrael.com

This Editor’s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI’s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community here.

It was the elimination that Israel had desperately sought for a full year — arguably the ostensible victory picture: Yahya Sinwar, the primary figure in the most cataclysmic attack in the history of sovereign Israel, finally forced out of his tunnels into the open and killed by the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, his last moments and lifeless corpse there for all to see in the rubble to which he has reduced Gaza.

And the killing of Sinwar in Rafah last Wednesday was indeed an essential component in Israel’s necessary victory over Hamas — practically, in terms of his centrality to that terrorist-army-government bent on Israel’s destruction, and psychologically, in terms of Israel’s long climb out of the abyss into which Sinwar plunged us on October 7, 2023.

But his demise, as has been underlined every moment since it was confirmed, does not mark an absolute victory, does not complete a lasting, stable revival of Israeli security, and has not ended the war — not in Gaza, where the remains of Hamas continue to try to leverage the hostages to force an IDF withdrawal, and not on any of the other fronts from which Israel is being attacked.

This screen grab from a handout video released by the IDF on October 17, 2024, shows drone footage of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar moments before he was killed a day earlier in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood in the southern Gaza Strip. (IDF / AFP)

In Gaza, the war has metastasized from conflict between organized military forces on an urban battlefield, above and below ground, where Hamas wrongly believed its home advantage, years of planning, and absolute indifference to the deaths of Gaza’s civilians would defeat the IDF and enable its survival. Now, Hamas is engaged in guerrilla-style warfare, hurting the IDF wherever it can, and maintaining much of its authority in the lower two-thirds of the Strip.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories

By signing up, you agree to the terms

In the north of Gaza, with the focus on Jabaliya at present, the IDF is in the process of displacing the entire civilian population, moving the remaining 150,000 or so Gazans south as it seeks to eliminate any Hamas presence — monitoring Gazans as they evacuate, and arresting Hamas suspects among them as they go, and gradually turning the area into a kind of closed military zone.

A screenshot of video released by the IDF on October 19, 2024, shows Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar carrying a flatscreen television while escaping into a tunnel with his family the night before the Gaza-ruling terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught against Israel.

The goal appears to be to create a dependably safe, Hamas-free northern Gaza, managed by some kind of international mechanism, featuring a non-Palestinian Authority local bureaucracy, with civilians gradually returning, a possible role for private firms in distributing aid, and no prospect of Hamas regaining military or civil governance. Success in the north of the Strip, it is apparently hoped, would enable a gradual replication of that process through the center and south. An offer of safe passage for Hamas out of Gaza — akin to the PLO’s forced relocation from Lebanon to Tunis in 1982 — might enable a deal to secure the release of the hostages.

If that sounds vague and improbable, it’s partly because official Israel isn’t talking publicly about how this might play out, for domestic political and diplomatic reasons. But on the ground in northern Gaza, that mass displacement is happening right now.

Gazans walk with their belongings as they evacuate from Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip on October 9, 2024. (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP)

Hezbollah still potent, but cannot invade

In Lebanon, the targeted IAF strike that killed Hassan Nasrallah in his Beirut bunker on September 27, was, as with Sinwar, an essential component, but not the only such component, of definitive Israeli success.

A screenshot from video footage said to show the body of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah being extracted from the rubble of his destroyed bunker complex in Beirut, September 29, 2024. (X screenshot, used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)

Hezbollah’s leadership has been largely eliminated, thousands of its fighters have been killed and incapacitated, and a significant proportion of its weaponry has been destroyed.

But almost a month later, it is gradually reconstituting its leadership. Its armed forces still number in the tens of thousands. And if, as was being claimed this week, it retains some 30 percent of its rocket and missile capabilities, that would still leave it many times more powerful than most of the world’s armies, and far more potent than Hamas was at the start of this conflict.

Demonstrators hold pictures of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, during a protest vigil in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on September 28, 2024, a day after he was killed in an IDF strike in Beirut. (Mahmoud Zayyat / AFP)

On Wednesday morning, on the eve of Simhat Torah, a year by the Hebrew calendar since Hamas’s invasion and slaughter, central Israel woke up, just as it did so terribly a year ago, to sirens announcing rocket and missile fire — in what is becoming the new routine of attacks from across the northern border. Barely a day goes by without Hezbollah firing 100 or more rockets and missiles at northern and central Israel.

The terror group continues to intermittently outmaneuver Israel’s astonishing defense systems with its drones — most brazenly by hitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Caesarea home on Saturday, where an exploding UAV shattered a bedroom window. It has been profoundly shaken by the destruction of its leadership, but it has not been thoroughly cowed or deterred.

Damage caused to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea in a Hezbollah drone attack on October 19, 2024. (Courtesy)

What it was planning to do and can no longer do, however, is carry out a mass invasion of northern Israel. This month’s IDF ground operation is destroying Hezbollah’s infrastructure in a band several kilometers deep along the border. As things stand, the IDF would like to complete that operation within the next few weeks, and potentially enable the return of at least some of the tens of thousands of Israelis who have been forced from their homes in the north since October 8, 2023.

The north is and would still be vulnerable to Hezbollah fire, just like the rest of the country — but not to invasion. The IDF, which has overwhelming military primacy in Lebanon, does not anticipate going after Hezbollah’s entire rocket, missile and drone arsenal — deep, deep in Lebanon, including in Beirut and even beyond — unless the Netanyahu government has other ideas and instructions. Preventing, rather than eliminating, that ongoing Hezbollah danger, as far as the IDF is concerned, will require a diplomatic settlement, under which Israel would insist on freedom of action to tackle any Hezbollah return to the south.

An anti-Iran coalition?

As for the wider regional theater — and the strategic imperative to face down the regime in Iran — government officials are adamant that Israel must and will respond to the October 1 ballistic missile assault that sent most of the country dashing to bomb shelters and safe rooms. They recognize the potential for that Israeli response, in turn, to trigger further potential rounds of escalation.

The government does not want to trigger a broader war with Iran, and emphatically wants to maintain the close military and diplomatic support of the United States. It sees both the need to respond to October 1 and to ensure ongoing American support as essential to restoring Israeli deterrence against the regime.

More broadly, the Biden administration remains convinced that a grander vision is achievable — as in, the deepening of a US-led alliance that sees Israel more deeply integrated into the region, a robust coalition against the regime in Tehran, with the key element of Israel-Saudi normalization. Mossad chief David Barnea, closer to Netanyahu than most of the key figures in Israel’s security establishment, and Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s leading ministerial confidant, are key Israeli players in this regard.

This handout photo released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum shows relatives of Israelis held hostage in Gaza by Hamas meeting with visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, October 22, 2024. (Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

For now, the Saudis are keeping their options open. They maintain a degree of self-protecting diplomatic interaction with Iran, know they cannot take on the regime themselves, and wait to see how Israel and the US will fare in that endeavor.

They recognize that Netanyahu will not proclaim a clear readiness to advance toward Palestinian statehood, nor allow a formal role in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority — much of whose leadership eulogized the would-be genocidal Sinwar as a “great national leader.” But with the immense potential benefit of a dramatically enhanced relationship with the US, there may be Israeli diplomatic formulations that Riyadh could choose to portray as at least opening a diplomatic horizon for the Palestinians, thus assuaging its own Shiite minority and enabling an overt, deepened relationship with Israel.

In that context, the Saudis are doubtless hoping for the imminent return to the US presidency of the uber-confident, spare-me-the-details Donald Trump, rather than a cautious first-term Kamala Harris. As indeed, of course, is Netanyahu.

Republican presidential candidate former US president Donald Trump meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida. (AP/Alex Brandon)

Is our live war coverage important to you?

Are you relying on The Times of Israel for accurate and timely coverage right now? If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6/month, you will:

Support our independent journalists who are working around the clock;
Read ToI with a clear, ads-free experience on our site, apps and emails; and
Gain access to exclusive content shared only with the ToI Community, including exclusive webinars with our reporters and weekly letters from founding editor David Horovitz.

Join the Times of Israel Community Join our Community Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this

You're a dedicated reader

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

That’s why we started the Times of Israel eleven years ago - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.

So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.

For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Thank you,

David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel

Join Our Community Join Our Community Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this

timesofisrael.com

19. China, Russia target Pentagon agency with disinformation campaign

Target: DTRA.

China, Russia target Pentagon agency with disinformation campaign

washingtontimes.com · by Bill Gertz

By - The Washington Times - Wednesday, October 23, 2024

NEWS AND ANALYSIS:

China and Russia have joined forces in an aggressive disinformation campaign involving both covert and overt operations designed to discredit a key Pentagon agency.

The campaign against the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, known as DTRA, involves claims that the agency is involved in secret biological weapons work in Europe.

As a result, DTRA has launched a new counter-disinformation initiative that involves what U.S. defense officials say is a truth-based effort to more clearly explain the agency’s operations and mission.

The joint Chinese and Russian campaign has been underway for over two years, and officials described it is a classic joint information operation against the United States. The target is the DTRA’s “biological threat reduction” program that was launched in the 1990s as part of a post-Soviet effort to limit the spread of dangerous arms.

During Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin began claiming that a group of laboratories in Ukraine were actually U.S. “military biological laboratories” secretly engaged in making bioweapons. The Pentagon and U.S. government have tried since then to dispel the false narratives, with limited success.

“DTRA does not own any bio labs in Ukraine,” a DTRA fact sheet states. “Accusations of military biological activity or human experimentation are demonstrably false.”

The DTRA-sponsored program in Ukraine seeks to help consolidate and secure pathogens and work with the Ukrainians to help the government there detect and report disease outbreaks before they pose threats.

DTRA Director Rebecca Hersman criticized the China-Russia disinformation effort in a statement.

“These narratives are powerful because they’re scary and play on primal fears — especially the false biological narratives on the heels of a global pandemic,” she said. “Specifically, for DTRA, WMD foreign malign influence threatens our personnel, reputation and capacity to support our partners abroad to prevent WMD use.”

A DTRA spokesman said the agency is updating its website with recent examples including explaining how Chinese propaganda on the subject is recycling Russian propaganda. Russian forces took control of two of the laboratories after the invasion and continue to deny Ukraine access to the facilities.

The Russian and Chinese disinformation campaign has continued through false media reports, mainly in the developing world, and through sophisticated propaganda operations. Both authoritarian governments invest large-scale resources in their information operations.

For DTRA, the disinformation turned uglier in July when Russian state media aired a government “documentary” that was 80% focused on criticizing Ms. Hersman. The documentary was hosted by Maria Butina, who was convicted by the Justice Department in 2018 for acting as an unregistered Russian agent and subsequently returned to her homeland.

Other DTRA personnel, including Air Force Maj. Gen. Lyle K. Drew, its deputy director, have also been attacked in the campaign as nefarious actors.

DTRA officials have also been harassed by Russian propagandists as part of the campaign. Counter-disinformation officials said the program seeks to “name and shame” DTRA officials in seeking to promote the false narrative that Ukraine and the United States are engaged in building biological arms.

What was once a disinformation campaign exclusively conducted by Russia has since been joined by China in recent months. Beijing has tried to use the military biological lab narrative to divert attention from its handling of the early days of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. For several years, China has claimed the coronavirus behind the pandemic originated in a U.S. Army laboratory in the United States and not in Wuhan.

Recognizing its problem in dealing with disinformation, DTRA recently created a special unit focused on countering the narrative outside the United States, a defense official said.

The Defense Advanced Research Agency is also taking part in developing counter-disinformation efforts in support of DTRA.

“The bottom-line concept is bringing in as many information-related capabilities as possible in promoting the truth,” the official said.

The Congressional Research Service has also tried to debunk the Beijing-Moscow narrative alleging there are networks of “military biological laboratories” in Ukraine and elsewhere.

“To the contrary, the United States has cooperated with Ukraine on biological security programs ranging from laboratory security to disease surveillance and pandemic response,” the report said.

Congressional panel: China espionage on the rise

Chinese spying cases and transnational repression — the systematic effort to target overseas dissidents — is rapidly increasing in the United States, according to a new report by a House subcommittee.

Between January 2021 and this month, federal authorities logged more than 55 cases of China-related espionage in 20 states, the House Homeland Security subcommittee on counterterrorism, law enforcement and intelligence said in a recent report.

The cases involved the transmission of sensitive military information to Beijing, theft of trade secrets, harassment and repression of Chinese dissidents and obstruction of justice.

“The government of China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seriously threaten the economic well-being, homeland security and democratic values of the United States,” the report said. “Cases of Chinese espionage throughout the U.S. have expanded rapidly with Chinese nationals and non-Chinese individuals acting on behalf of the People’s Republic of China allegedly committing a variety of forms of espionage including but not limited to, government, military, and economic espionage.”

According to subcommittee statistics, between 2000 and 2023, 224 incidents of Chinese spying were detected against the United States. An estimated 80% of economic espionage prosecutions are linked to actions benefiting the Chinese system, and about 60% of all trade secrets theft cases were carried on by Chinese agents.

Billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. intellectual property stolen by China was estimated to have cost each American family about $4,000 to $6,000, the report said.

Regarding transnational repression, China’s government is the largest source of covert and overt attempts to silence dissidents outside China who are critical of the regime.

China expanding signals intelligence in South China Sea

Satellite images obtained by a British think tank reveal that the Chinese military is expanding capabilities on Triton Island in the South China Sea as part of a major electronic spy program based in the strategic waterway.

Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, revealed in a report published Oct. 17 that the new sites on Triton, when completed, will “significantly increase China’s signals intercept and electronic warfare capabilities across the disputed Paracel Islands archipelago and add to a wider surveillance network spanning much of the South China Sea.”

Chatham House analysts John Pollock and Damien Symon used satellite imagery to identify the military construction on Triton between August 2022 and September of this year, upgrading the island outpost China calls Zhongjian Dao with radar and other structures. The buildup has been underway since 2015.

“The enhanced facility on Triton is likely to offer a challenge to China’s competitors in the region and internationally,” the report said. China seized the Paracels from Vietnam in a 1974 naval battle, with competition for access to its waters increasing after the recent discovery of oil and gas reserves.

The new radar on the island was identified as a synthetic impulse and aperture radar, or SIAR, that can reportedly detect radar-evading stealth aircraft. The commercial spy satellite photos make clear that earlier assumptions that the People’s Liberation Army was building a long runway on Triton were incorrect.

The island is being used for the counter stealth radar and “a suspected launching point for an anti-ship missile battery,” the report said.

The new radar is thought to be linked electronically with at least three other anti-stealth aircraft radar systems on other Chinese bases in the South China Sea, including Hainan Island, a major military base.

The new radar base also limits Vietnam’s military forces by tracking and targeting naval vessels.

“The facility may also impede attempts by the American, British and Australian navies to challenge China’s ‘nine-dash-line’ claim by navigating the waters of the Paracel,” the report said.

Strategically, the expansion of the radar network in the Paracels could also erode U.S. and allied military technological superiority in the region, the report said.

• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.

Click to Read More and View Comments

Click to Hide

washingtontimes.com · by Bill Gertz

20. How I unmasked a Russian agent, one of Ukraine’s greatest enemies

How I unmasked a Russian agent, one of Ukraine’s greatest enemies

The inside story on how I uncovered Maria Butina, who later went on to be a convicted Russian agent.

https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/how-i-unmasked-a-russian-agent-one?utm

Tim Mak and Anastasiia Kryvoruchenko

Oct 24, 2024

∙ Paid

Editor’s note: Great, lasting journalism requires support. With the cold coming, we desperately need yours now.

Upgrade now!

Maria Butina speaks with journalists in Moscow on March 5, 2020. (Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)

Every great investigative story starts with an unlikely tip.

Usually it sounds just a little too wild to be true.

Oftentimes, these claims are impossible to prove.

So when I first heard about an unusual case of a Russian citizen in Washington, D.C., I was skeptical I could do anything with it. The claim came from someone who had firsthand knowledge and deep suspicions – but no hard evidence.

I was at the Tabbard Inn, a charming hotel near Dupont Circle in the nation’s capital, talking to a source who became increasingly animated over the course of our breakfast.

As rumors swirled about Russian involvement in the 2016 election, my source told me that he had observed this Russian citizen acting in very strange ways.

This woman, the source said, had been introducing herself differently depending on her audience.

Formerly a furniture store owner in Siberia, she presented herself as a powerful Russian central bank aide; a staunch advocate for gun rights; a Russian political representative; a graduate student; a journalist; or a conduit between Russia and the Trump campaign.

I could not have imagine how the intervening years would go, with the two of us living sort-of parallel lives: me now living in Ukraine, fighting to keep the story of this country’s resistance in the news – and her living in Russia as a member of the Russian Duma, one of the leading propagandists for the Putin regime’s illegal invasion.

This is the story of how I followed the rabbit hole down to see how far it went… and ended up breaking open the Maria Butina case, ultimately leading to her arrest, conviction and deportation from the United States.

In this undated handout photo provided by the Alexandria Sheriff's Office, Russian national Maria Butina is seen in a booking photo in Alexandria, Virginia. (Photo by Alexandria Sheriff's Office via Getty Images)

These reporter’s notebook stories are paywalled because they contain behind-the-scenes revelations meant only for our paid subscribers. Investigative journalism takes serious resources: if this story interests you, please upgrade to read on!

Upon her return to Russia, Butina – whose had supposedly been an anti-Putin activist – joined Putin’s party, United Russia. She later said that Ukrainians are bombing themselves, and that Russia does not strike civilian targets — an absurd claim.

Given the opportunity this past summer to appear on the BBC, Butina told an anchor that "Zelenskyy is not a legitimate leader now." She also claimed that she could not trust any non-Russian source of news, and that protests opposing the war were all organized by paid foreign agents.

Screenshot of a video where Butina is drawing a ‘Z’ on her lapel, as a sign of support for the Russian invasion.

But let’s rewind a little bit, back to where it all started, in 2016.

Butina had been projecting when talking about foreign agents.

She had herself been a Russian agent, but not a very smart or discreet one.

After that initial tip, I realized how brazen she had been. But it took a lot of work to break the story loose. First, I searched the web, to find her old blog posts and Twitter notes, which laid the foundation for more questions.

It gave me some hints to where she had been, and how she had asked then-candidate Trump a question about how the U.S. should have closer relations with Russia.

I also began working the phones, scouring social media for people who had connections with her.

As it turns out, my original tipster had not been the only one to be alarmed.

She held a birthday party shortly after Trump's election in November 2016, featuring an ice sculpture emblazoned with the Soviet hammer and sickle. She showed up dressed as the Russian Empress Alexandra, multiple people who had been there told me.

Repeatedly, she had bragged about her connections with the Russian government.

When I called up one of her former professors at American University in Washington, D.C., I was told that in one of her classes, she had claimed to be part of the Trump campaign's communications with Russia.

I wrote a story on that, raising alarm bells in D.C. and in the FBI (which wasn’t happy that I had managed to talk to one or several of their sources).

“Somebody really threw the three of us under the bus,” Butina wrote in an email after my story published. “Furthermore, this someone is well-informed.”

As I dug deeper, I realized that she had been deeply embedded in senior National Rifle Association circles, and helped a delegation travel to Russia.

I realized that they had met with a U.S.-sanctioned individual, the notorious Dmitry Rogozin, who now serves as a senator in occupied Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia.

I wrote another story on the NRA’s deepening ties with the Russian state.

I realized that the FBI was investigating when a source told me they had been interviewed. But I didn’t have enough evidence to publish it.

Then, in July 2018, she was arrested and charged. Agents found a note at her apartment, reading, “how to respond to FSB offer of employment?” – referring to the Russian successor to the KGB. She had also been seen with a Russian diplomat that prosecutors believed was a Russian intelligence officer.

She was later sentenced to 18 months in prison for being an unregistered Russian agent.

I would go on to write a book about the National Rifle Association, titled ‘Misfire,’ in which Butina was an important character.

She was later released from prison and sent back to Russia. I expected that to be the end of the story.

But in unexpected ways she still comes across my radar due to her staunch support of the invasion of a country I live in.

Maria Butina (C), who served nine months in a US jail for acting as a Russian government agent talks to the press as she arrives at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on October 26, 2019, a day after her release from prison. (Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images)

After the full-scale invasion, while I traveled all across Ukraine reporting on human stories to illustrate the war, she was sanctioned by the U.S. and Canada.

While I was telling the stories of civilian sites hit by Russian attacks, she was claiming that Ukraine was bombing itself as a provocation.

While I was walking around the wreckage of a children’s hospital bombed by Russian forces in Kyiv, she justified the attacks and claimed there was no hospital there.

She would become Putin’s propagandist, an English-speaking talking head for Russia’s ruling authoritarian government. I became the editor of a Kyiv-based publication focused on telling the truth about Russia’s lies.

In some fanciful moments I wonder what would happen if I were ever to be taken prisoner by Russian forces near the frontlines in Ukraine. I imagine that Maria Butina would show up to my cell – to gloat, to film, and to humiliate.

This is unlikely, of course. But in any case – somehow, I just don’t think my full story with Maria Butina is done being written.

Want to support our human interest reporting? Show your appreciation by hitting our tip jar. Funds go towards helping get cold weather gear for our team.

Tip Jar

NEWS OF THE DAY:

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

KEY NATO MEMBERS BLOCK UKRAINE INVITE: A core objective of President Zelenskyy’s ‘victory plan’ — joining the alliance to counter Russian aggression — is not supported by some NATO countries due to the ongoing war and the implications it would have for them, reports Politico.

The list of those opposed includes the U.S. and Germany — key allies and military providers of Ukraine; Hungary and Slovakia, whose current leaders tend to take a more pro-Kremlin side; as well as Belgium, Slovenia, and Spain. Meanwhile, Poland and the Baltic states are more enthusiastic about making Ukraine part of NATO.

N. KOREAN SOLDIERS ‘FAIR GAME’ IF THEY FIGHT IN UKRAINE: The U.S. recently made its first official announcement stating there is evidence that Pyongyang has sent at least 3,000 troops to fight on Moscow’s side in Ukraine. John Kirby, spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, confirmed that in this case, North Korean soldiers would become ‘fair targets’ and would be treated the same as Russian troops in terms of combat.

The first North Korean troops were expected to be deployed to the Kursk region on October 23. Two North Korean brigades, consisting of up to 6,000 soldiers each, are still undergoing training in Russia.

BELARUS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN 2025: The election is scheduled for January 26, 2025. The current president, Alexander Lukashenko, who has held the position since 1994 and is Putin’s closest ally, is expected to attempt to maintain his grip on power once again. He has been credibly accused of staging fraudulent elections and falsifying vote results.

The most recent case occurred in 2020. Despite strong opposition support for leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Lukashenko allegedly fabricated election results and retained his role. Mass protests erupted, but with Russia’s help, they were suppressed. More than 50,000 people have been imprisoned since 2020 for political reasons.

DOG OF WAR:

Today’s dog of war is this pup in a cute sweater, waiting with its owner for a hot drink to warm up - winter is coming soon.

Stay safe out there.

Best,

Tim

21. Russians Film Interrogation of Four Ukrainian POWs Before Executing Them

We must not overlook the brutality of Russian forces fighting Putin's War.

Russians Film Interrogation of Four Ukrainian POWs Before Executing Them

Russian forces seized the National Guardsmen during an assault on their position near Selydov, before filming the interrogation of the wounded, unarmed soldiers and then executing them.

by Kyiv Post | October 24, 2024, 3:12 pm

kyivpost.com · by Kyiv Post · October 24, 2024

by Kyiv Post | October 24, 2024, 3:12 pm

Russian demining team members work to clear an area in the city of Mariupol on July 13, 2022, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. (Photo by Olga MALTSEVA / AFP)

Russian troops executed four captured servicemen of near Selydove in the Donetsk region, according to a report from Kyiv’s Prosecutor General’s Office.

On Oct. 6, the four soldiers were manning defensive positions in the Selydove area when, at around 1:00 p.m. Russian forces launched an assault during which the National Guardsmen were seized.

JOIN US ON TELEGRAM

Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.

“Subsequently, representatives of the Russian Armed Forces filmed the interrogation of the wounded, unarmed National Guardsmen,” the report said.

The following day, after Ukrainian forces retook the lost positions, the bodies of the executed servicemen were discovered.

The killing of prisoners of war constitutes a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and qualifies as a serious international crime, the Prosecutor General’s Office said. A pre-trial investigation has been launched into violations of the laws and customs of war, combined with first degree murder contrary to the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Reports also emerged of 16 Ukrainian POWs executed by Russian forces in the Pokrovsk district of eastern Ukraine while attempting to surrender. A video released on Telegram on Oct. 1 showed the Ukrainian soldiers emerging from a trench and being lined up before Russian troops opened fire, killing them with automatic weapons. Those still alive were executed at close range.

On Oct. 7 Russian soldiers executed three unarmed Ukrainian POWs in the village of New York, also in the Donestk region, the incident being captured by a drone with the images later being released by the 12th Special Purpose “Azov” Brigade. On Oct. 18, Russian troops executed another two Ukrainian soldiers near Selydove.

Vuhledar: Why Ukrainian Troops Lost the Mining City

Despite the stubborn two-year defense of Vuhledar, Ukrainian troops left the city on the night of Oct. 2. Kyiv Post – with access to frontline sources – examines why.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General described the Pokrovsk incident as the largest recorded execution of Ukrainian POWs on the front lines. The exact date of the incident is under investigation.

Recent reports indicate a growing trend of executed captured Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines, with the Prosecutor General’s Office suggesting that Russia may be using these killings as a deliberate tactic.

Russian forces attempting to infiltrate Selydove

National Guard spokesman Ruslan Muzychuk told the Ukrainska Pravda outlet that Russian troops are making efforts to infiltrate Selydove.

“The enemy claims control of certain areas within the city,” Muzychuk said. “However, our units are actively working to control and eliminate the infantry attempting to penetrate the surrounding area and enter the city, especially from the direction of Mykhailivka. We are also preventing the enemy from establishing observation and firing positions.”

Muzychuk added that Russia is actively deploying aviation against Selydove. The outskirts of the town face frequent artillery bombardment, resulting in the widespread destruction of residential buildings throughout the town.

Russian forces are also conducting reconnaissance by combat in the forest belts surrounding the town, launching attacks on new areas, Muzychuk said.

In the past 24 hours, Russian troops have launched 19 attacks on Selydove, deploying a significant infantry force. Ukrainian Guardsmen reportedly repelled these assaults, killing more than 50 and wounding around 70 Russian soldiers.

kyivpost.com · by Kyiv Post · October 24, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website