Quotes of the Day:

"Man has never made any material as resilient as the human spirit." 

- Bernard Williams

"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much can be done if we are always doing." 

- Thomas Jefferson

"Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a dangerous enemy indeed." 

- Anne Rice

1. Army's Wormuth: Congress will soon hear plans to revamp force structure, trim SOF

2. Opinion | The Secret Memo From the General Who Foresaw Black Hawk Down

3. China's propaganda paper revels in US division over Ukraine aid

4. Communist rappers are luring China’s disgruntled youth

5. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, October 2, 2023

6. EXCLUSIVE: 55 Chinese sailors are feared dead after nuclear submarine 'gets caught in a trap'

7. A Tale of Two Systems: The Search for Relevant Military Health Care

8. Innovation, Technology, and the Future of National Defense: Preparing West Point Cadets and Faculty to Lead the US Army into Tomorrow

9. LGBTQ+ Inclusion and Military Professionalism

10. What do US Spies Do? Don't Ask America's Espionage Chiefs

11. Who Killed the Chinese Economy?

12. Rightsizing the Russia Threat

13. Telling the Truth About Taiwan By Eliot A. Cohen

14. China Is Suffering a Brain Drain. The U.S. Isn’t Exploiting It.

15. Why the “Mother of the Atomic Bomb” Never Won a Nobel Prize

16. Divining Xi's behavior: It's all about power

17. China foreign policy grossly misunderstood in the West

18. Russia and China on collision course as Beijing rejects Putin's price hike

19. Another One Flies the Coop: Russian Government Pilot on Vacation Defects to the US

20. AI and the Future of Drone Warfare: Risks and Recommendations

1. Army's Wormuth: Congress will soon hear plans to revamp force structure, trim SOF

I hope this can be worked out without causing long term damage in the Army-SOF relationship.

But with all due respect to the SECARMY she is presenting a strawman. It is a transition from COIN/CT to large scale combat operations. The Joint Pub 1, Warfighting says this.  

a.   Forms of Warfare. The US military recognizes two general forms of warfare— conventional and irregular—which may escalate to include the employment of nuclear weapons. JFCs choose to conduct warfare not in terms of an either/or choice but in various combinations that suit the strategic and operational objectives and that are tailored to a specific OE. In some cases, adversary actions force the JFC to select specific ways and means. Warfare does not always fit neatly into one of these subjective categories but incorporates all aspects of conventional warfare and irregular warfare (IW) when in tandem or parallel. Military activity (or inactivity) may be communicative if observed and perceived by actors as affecting them. A nation-state’s purpose for waging war is to impose its will on an enemy and avoid imposition of the enemy’s will. Winning a war requires creative, dynamic, and synergistic combinations of all US capabilities. Achieving strategic objectives often depends on the population indigenous to the OA accepting the imposed, arbitrated, or negotiated result.

It is NOT either/or. It is both/and.

And regardless of the views of many pundits SOF is the dominant force that contributes to irregular warfare. And the Army enabling forces that support SOF bring back unique and relevant skills for irregular warfare and operating in austere and non-standard environments that benefit the conventional forces just as the Rangers and Special Operations Aviators bring advanced skills and tactics, techniques, and procedures to the Infantry and Army Aviation.

And remember that Congressional intent in 1987 (Nunn Cohen Amendment) on ownership of low intensity conflict has never been realized. But Joint Pub 1, Warfighting, has properly described conventional and irregular warfare in a way that has never been done as effectively before.  

And lastly we only have a joint special operations force as a combatant command with service-like responsibilities in limited areas (budget, R&D, and procurement but NOT personnel management and force structure) because of Congress. But what Congress still needs to do is provide SOF with service authorities (and not service-like).

Army's Wormuth: Congress will soon hear plans to revamp force structure, trim SOF - Breaking Defense

“The Army is in a moment of transformation where we are really pivoting from [counterinsurgency] COIN and [counterterrorism] CT to large-scale combat operations: So, we've got to transform our force structure,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth.

breakingdefense.com · by Ashley Roque · October 3, 2023

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth Col. Samuel Miller, commander of the 7th Transportation Brigade, talk logistics during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2023. (US Army/Sgt. David Resnick)

AUSA 2023 — Army Secretary Christine Wormuth and Chief Gen. Randy George are planning to brief lawmakers on force structure changes prompted, in part, by recruiting woes and the pivot towards large-scale operations.

Ahead of next week’s Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, DC, the duo unveiled fiscal 2023 recruiting data today. When FY23 ended on Sept 30, the service met its end-strength of goal of 452,000 for active-duty soldiers thanks to stronger retention numbers. However, it was 10,000 recruits shy of its 65,000 “stretch goal” and from that 55,000 total, only about 4,600 people will ship out in FY24 as part of the delayed entry program.

While hitting that end-strength target is a plus for the Army, the active-duty force remains smaller than the 485,000 soldiers it had several years ago, and Wormuth and George are not banking on a quick bounce back to those figures. As such, they have been working on a people “night court” of sorts to decide how to make the most efficient use of the personnel available, and lawmakers are about to see that plan in the “very near future,” Wormuth said.

Until then, both leaders are remaining tight-lipped about specifics but offered a peek at what’s coming. For example, part of that plan involves cutting out “over structure” at bases around the country — essentially removing vacant seats due to end strength reductions. They are also looking at the right mix of military occupational specialty numbers inside units.

“The Army is in a moment of transformation where we are really pivoting from [counterinsurgency] COIN and [counterterrorism] CT to large-scale combat operations: So, we’ve got to transform our force structure,” Wormuth said.

“There are new capabilities that we need to bring into the force,” she later added. “So, that is the transformation of the force structure that we have been working on.”

That pivot also means a cut to the number of Army special forces, one group that grew over the past two decades due to the ballooning of demand for counter-terrorism and anti-insurgent capabilities, Wormuth confirmed.

“There’s some room to make some very modest targeted reductions there,” she added, while also noting that senior service leaders have been working with Special Operations Command and other stakeholders on the plan.

George, for his part, did not dive into possible force structure changes today, but just last month at a Maneuver Warfighter Conference, he said an evolution was afoot and that input from all four-star commanders and sergeant majors will be taken into account.

Any looming changes could emerge as a focal point during next week’s Army conference, so too could service plans to boost recruiting numbers.

As for changing how it recruits, that roadmap remains fluid, but Wormuth and George unveiled a handful of initiatives, including plans to expand the prospect market by targeting more youth with some college experience, creating new recruiting military occupational specialties, and putting a three-star general in charge of the Army Recruiting Command for a four-year stint.

breakingdefense.com · by Ashley Roque · October 3, 2023

2. Opinion | The Secret Memo From the General Who Foresaw Black Hawk Down

General Garrison came to Leavenworth soon after he became the SWCS commander and met with all SOF students. He shared that he wrote a letter to POTUS and accepted full responsibility. But those who served with him knew that he requested US armor (M1's) and AC-130 gunships but the SECDEF denied them. I recall him telling us why he wrote the letter and accepted full responsibility and did not blame POTUS or the SECDEF is because he felt it was his duty to protect the institution. 

Conclusion:

We will never know how things might have turned out if General Meade’s letter had been heeded or if General Garrison’s mission had been allowed to proceed. We do know that pulling the plug on the larger mission doomed Somalia to 30 years more of civil war, terrorism and international piracy.

Opinion | The Secret Memo From the General Who Foresaw Black Hawk Down

The New York Times · by Mark Bowden · October 2, 2023

Guest Essay

The Secret Memo From the General Who Foresaw Black Hawk Down

Oct. 2, 2023

Credit...Scott Peterson

By

Mr. Bowden is the author of “Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War.”

The Battle of Mogadishu in early October 1993 shocked most Americans. U.S. forces had been deployed to Somalia to support a U.N. humanitarian mission and had helped end a famine, saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Ten months later, there was pitched street fighting in Mogadishu, 18 dead American soldiers, more than a thousand Somali casualties and the horror, replayed over and over on TV, of American bodies being dragged through the streets by angry mobs.

The United States had just emerged from victory in the Cold War and the swift triumph of Desert Storm and had, perhaps, an unrealistic faith in its military potency. President Bill Clinton expressed this when he asked his staff, “How could this happen?” The battle ended the U.S. military mission and collapsed the U.N.’s effort. Somalia fell back into anarchy. It was a stunning reversal.

But not everyone was shocked. Maj. Gen. David Meade of the Army, whose command included the largest American component of the peacekeeping force in Mogadishu, had foreseen events clearly. Weeks before the battle, in a classified memo to the Army chief of staff, he warned that Somalia was about to erupt. “You’re likely to have a big fight over some period of time with considerable casualties,” he wrote. “And, in the end, you’re going to turn over the city to the Somalis.” General Meade urged immediate steps, which might have forestalled the incident we now call Black Hawk Down.

Why was he ignored?

After a long and distinguished career as an artillery commander, the general assumed command of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division in August 1993. He traveled to Mogadishu in September to inspect his Second Battalion, which was then the backbone of the U.N. military presence. On Sept. 15, the day he sent his secret cable, he had been there for only two days and was disturbed by what he found.

“We have a war going on in Somalia,” he wrote. “From a tactical and maybe operational perspective, it is not going well. Mogadishu is not under our control. Somalia is full of danger.”

The “momentum and boldness” of Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the leader of the city’s most powerful clan and the U.N. mission’s chief antagonist, General Meade wrote, were his prime concern. “The trend lines are in the wrong direction. Thus the mission overall and the security of the U.S. force are threatened.”

General Meade considered his message so urgent that he contravened the chain of command, sending it directly to Gen. Gordon Sullivan, the Army chief of staff. This was a serious faux pas. Indeed, not long after, General Meade’s career stalled at age 53. He may have been right, but no further promotion came. He retired two years later.

General Meade had his prescient cable declassified shortly before he retired in 1995, and while he never made it public, he wanted history to know about it. He gave a sealed copy to his friend Charles Krohn, a retired lieutenant colonel, who locked it away with a sheaf of other professional papers. David Meade died in 2019. Recently, Colonel Krohn cleaned out his safe, read the memo for the first time and then gave me a call.

“It shows he did his best to prevent what was going to happen,” said Colonel Krohn. “He must have known the risk he was taking going directly to the chief of staff.”

But just because General Meade’s plea did not provoke immediate action may not mean that no one listened. It’s just as likely that it was considered and simply decided against. Prescience shows only in history’s rearview mirror.

The Somalia intervention started in 1992 at the behest of the United Nations to halt interclan fighting and to deliver food to the starving. The effort had been an unqualified success, an example of post-Cold War American might doing good. But military missions have a way of creeping. Fearing that interclan conflict would reignite when the peacekeeping force withdrew, the U.N. mission morphed into a nation-building exercise. It began brokering a deal to merge Mogadishu’s warring clans into a stable coalition government. When Mr. Aidid, the most powerful of the warlords, resisted violently, Mr. Clinton dispatched a Special Operations unit called Task Force Ranger, under the command of Maj. Gen. Bill Garrison. He was charged with removing the belligerent leader and his organization from the equation.

So when General Meade wrote his cable, he was one of two major generals commanding U.S. forces in Mogadishu. His was a conventional Army unit working alongside foreign partners. General Garrison’s smaller force worked independently. It was a nimble, highly specialized infantry unit that worked by locating Aidid clan targets and then arresting them in surprise raids. By early October, they had conducted six raids, with mixed success. Mr. Aidid was still at large, but he had lost key people. The task force was making progress.

The veteran soldiers under General Garrison’s command were most likely more aware of the mounting danger than anyone else. These were men who volunteered for the Army’s riskiest missions. With each outing in Mogadishu, their reception from local Somalis worsened. Mr. Aidid’s patchwork militia was responding faster, and their volume of fire was increasing — small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

This is what General Meade had observed. In his cable he described a big clash between his peacekeepers and clan fighters in September. Three Americans had been wounded. The U.N. force escaped only by blowing a hole in the wall of its compound to avoid fighting its way to a gate.

“Aidid was able to round up and organize an effective fighting force in about two hours,” General Meade noted. Only a quick reaction force of reinforcements prevented the engineers and tankers under attack from being overwhelmed and killed, he wrote. The attack was “troublesome because of the boldness and commitment of the Aidid forces and the apparent planning that went into it.” General Meade estimated that 300 to 500 Somali fighters had assembled, bringing the peacekeepers under fire from all directions. “Aidid showed that in the urban environment he can own the ground,” he wrote.

At the time, the Army’s prevailing combat doctrine, famously enunciated by Gen. Colin Powell, called for committing U.S. troops only with clear, achievable goals and with enough force to overwhelm any resistance. The situation in Somalia was contravening that idea, and to General Meade, the historical echoes were clear: “All this, then, has much more the smell and feel of Vietnam, Waco and Lebanon than of Panama and Desert Storm.”

General Meade urged General Sullivan, the chief of staff, to immediately reinforce his battalion, impose a mandatory curfew and change the rules of engagement to allow, among other things, any Somali with a weapon to be shot on sight. Without those measures, he argued, a major clash would occur with many casualties on both sides — leading to a U.N. withdrawal and mission failure.

A few weeks later, that prediction came true. General Garrison launched his seventh raid, which was the subject of my book “Black Hawk Down.” Two of Mr. Aidid’s top lieutenants were arrested, but the raiders soon came under withering assault from all directions. Massed rocket-propelled-grenade fire brought down four Black Hawk helicopters, only two of which managed to limp safely to the task force’s base. The other two crashed in the city, requiring immediate rescue, splashing the firefight across the city. The battle raged for 18 hours until a large, armored U.N. convoy, including General Meade’s men and Pakistani and Malaysian armored vehicles, fought its way to the surrounded Americans.

It is easy to conclude, in retrospect, that none of this should have happened. How could General Sullivan have ignored General Meade’s advice?

History affords many examples of such unheeded warnings, so many that it illustrates a significant point: Few tragedies are ever wholly unforeseen. In early 1941, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew, cabled Washington to warn of “a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor.” The economist Roger Babson famously predicted an imminent stock market crash in September 1929, just weeks before Black Tuesday.

Such predictions stand out only in retrospect. They were, at the time, outliers. Most experts thought in 1941 that an attack on Pearl Harbor was improbable, if not impossible, and plenty of economists foresaw easy sailing for the stock market in 1929. That’s why the events came as a surprise — not because no one could see them coming but because men like Mr. Grew and Mr. Babson were outnumbered by equally qualified forecasters. In his best-selling book “The Big Short,” Michael Lewis profiles a handful of investors who foresaw the collapse of the U.S. housing market in 2008, shifted their portfolios accordingly and cashed out with billions when it occurred. Most people didn’t.

In September 1993, General Meade’s outlook was competing with General Garrison’s, and even in hindsight, it is not obvious that his judgment was superior. General Garrison had more combat experience. He believed his men were succeeding and continued believing it even after the Oct. 3-4 battle.

In fact, General Meade’s idea of defeating Mr. Aidid’s local insurgency by applying more force, introducing still more American troops into a hostile environment, sounded a lot more like Vietnam than what Task Force Ranger was attempting. General Garrison’s strategy was more artful, using small units to conduct pinpoint raids on targets. It is the way most American fighting has been done in the subsequent 30 years.

General Sullivan stuck with General Garrison’s view of the situation. He chose one two-star’s experience and daring over another’s cautious alarm. He lost that bet. General Garrison’s fatal mission apprehended its targets successfully and was within minutes of a clean withdrawal, but fate intervened, and General Meade had the grim satisfaction of being proved right.

That doesn’t mean the rest of his prophecy had to follow.

In the aftermath of the battle, Mr. Clinton might have redoubled Task Force Ranger’s mission against Mr. Aidid. It would have been politically difficult to stick with General Garrison, but the battle had decimated Mr. Aidid’s forces; some of his key associates had fled the city. The men of Task Force Ranger were eager to carry on and believed they were closer to success.

Instead, Mr. Clinton pulled the plug. General Garrison resigned.

We will never know how things might have turned out if General Meade’s letter had been heeded or if General Garrison’s mission had been allowed to proceed. We do know that pulling the plug on the larger mission doomed Somalia to 30 years more of civil war, terrorism and international piracy.

Mark Bowden is a journalist and the author of many books, including “Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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The New York Times · by Mark Bowden · October 2, 2023

3. China's propaganda paper revels in US division over Ukraine aid

So can those causing the division over aid to Ukraine be classified as useful idiots? Just asking. (of course they are not if they are taking objective, logical, and principled stands - but if they are doing it for political agendas that disregard national security then they are at the very least useful idiots).

China's propaganda paper revels in US division over Ukraine aid

Newsweek · October 2, 2023

China's state media on Monday published interviews with anti-war American commentators who predicted declining public support for Ukraine as the U.S. Congress heaved a sigh of relief following a last-minute spending compromise to avoid a government shutdown.

The Global Times newspaper, a hawkish tabloid published by the Communist Party's propaganda department, said weary Americans were likely to turn inward amid a sluggish economic rebound. "War fatigue," it said, may put the White House under pressure to slash funding for Kyiv in an election year.

The United States is Ukraine's strongest backer, having directed four rounds of assistance totaling about $113 billion, about half of which was military aid, since the war began. President Joe Biden has sought an additional $24 billion since August, but Congress voted to forgo $6 billion in additional security assistance in order to pass a stopgap funding bill just shy of the October 1 deadline.

Speaking at the White House on Sunday, Biden said bipartisan support for Ukraine remained strong despite the close call. "We will not walk away," he said. Meanwhile, Ukraine's months-long counteroffensive against invading Russian forces continues as the war approaches its second full year.

The White House is seen at dusk on September 30, 2023, in Washington, D.C., as the clock ticks toward a government shutdown amid a partisan struggle over federal budget items. Late on Sunday, President Joe Biden signed a stopgap funding bill to keep the U.S. government operational for another 45 years—but without $6 billion worth of security assistance for Ukraine. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Commentators in the Global Times suggested the recent impasse was a sign of things to come as Biden's reelection bid faces real challenges from a GOP opposition that includes former President Donald Trump. Instead of more funding for Ukraine, public sentiment could favor domestic "social programs or infrastructure needs," one said—or Democrats and Republicans could try to outdo one another by becoming even more hawkish.

Since the start of Russia's expanded war in Ukraine, however, China and its state-run press have sought to undermine U.S. staying power for another reason—Taiwan, the democratically governed island long coveted by successive leaders of the Communist Party.

America's attention, if waning on the Kremlin, would conceivably turn to Beijing, the interviewees said. However, U.S. division over further aid for Ukraine could reflect similar future sentiments about American public support for Taiwan, the Global Times guests argued—a scenario that would benefit the Chinese government's aims.

The U.S.'s "one China" policy states it does not recognize Taiwan's statehood and maintains only unofficial ties with the island's government. However, its long-running position of "strategic ambiguity" means it will neither commit nor rule out a military defense of Taiwan in the event of an armed conflict, despite Biden's offhand comments suggesting otherwise.

Taipei, meanwhile, has long rejected China's sovereignty claims and has vowed to defend itself with its own capabilities. The Taiwanese leadership has repeated this position amid renewed attention on the Taiwan Strait following Russia's invasion.

Some 40 percent of Americans believed their country was supporting Ukraine "too much," according to a poll conducted in September by ABC News and The Washington Post, while roughly half thought U.S. aid was currently the "right amount" or "too little."

A survey commissioned by Newsweek in April found nearly six in 10 Republican or Democratic voters were in favor of a military intervention by the United States and its allies in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Newsweek · October 2, 20234

4. Communist rappers are luring China’s disgruntled youth

Excerpts:

For the party, China’s youth are a growing problem. The economy is stagnating, unemployment is rife among the young and housing costs are sky-high. Late last year small youth-led protests broke out in several cities. They were aimed at Mr Xi’s draconian “zero-covid” regime (subsequently abandoned). With extraordinary bravery, a few demonstrators even called on Mr Xi to step down. He will be mindful of the pro-democracy turmoil of 1989, when some of the league’s cadres joined the protesters. That period of upheaval across the communist world haunts Mr Xi. He often harks back to the Soviet Union’s collapse, which he blames on a breakdown in ideological orthodoxy and discipline. “It doesn’t matter if the Communist Youth League makes a thousand mistakes,” he said in 2015, quoting Deng Xiaoping. “But one mistake it cannot make is to deviate from the party’s track.”

...

To Western ears, the rhetoric used by these accounts is often far from endearing. Mr Xi has pushed the new-look league to the front line of China’s online nationalism, using it to flood the internet with criticism of the West and anyone in China with negative views of the party. “Why can’t we voice our opinions?” he asked the league’s leaders in 2013. “Good prevails over evil. When positive voices online become powerful, the impact of negative public opinion can be reduced.”

...

As Mr Xi sees it, the league has a crucial role to play. Even a decade ago he was warning its cadres of a global “clash of ideologies” involving ceaseless efforts by “domestic and foreign hostile forces” to Westernise and divide China. This was making it even more imperative, he said, to provide China’s youngsters with “strong guidance” on their ideals and beliefs. Which is why, between occasional outings to revolutionary sites and performing good deeds in their neighbourhoods, recruits can expect plenty of time in the classroom, studying the thoughts of Mr Xi.

Communist rappers are luring China’s disgruntled youth

The party’s youth wing is growing inside companies

Oct 2nd 2023

The Economist

TO MARK CHINA’S National Day on October 1st, the Communist Youth League sent a message to its nearly 18m followers on Weibo, a microblog platform. “Today, as protagonists of this era, we will write new legends on this sacred land!” it urged. Attached was a music video, its lyrics suffused with similar patriotic rhetoric and interspersed with clips of speeches by Mao Zedong and the country’s current leader, Xi Jinping. So far, so predictable. The surprise was the singer and his style: a rapper whose early songs about drugs and violence were deemed unfit for public airing. GAI, as he is known, has turned a new leaf. He is now the league’s MC.

The Communist Party’s youth wing is a vast organisation that plays a big role in China’s political life. It indoctrinates people aged between 14 and 28 in the party’s ideology, provides a training ground for potential party members and helps the party to identify talent that can be groomed for high office. It also has an outward-facing task: spreading the party’s message among young people with no political ties. After he assumed power in 2012, Mr Xi clearly worried that the league was not up to the job. Officials admitted that it had become out of touch with young Chinese.

For the party, China’s youth are a growing problem. The economy is stagnating, unemployment is rife among the young and housing costs are sky-high. Late last year small youth-led protests broke out in several cities. They were aimed at Mr Xi’s draconian “zero-covid” regime (subsequently abandoned). With extraordinary bravery, a few demonstrators even called on Mr Xi to step down. He will be mindful of the pro-democracy turmoil of 1989, when some of the league’s cadres joined the protesters. That period of upheaval across the communist world haunts Mr Xi. He often harks back to the Soviet Union’s collapse, which he blames on a breakdown in ideological orthodoxy and discipline. “It doesn’t matter if the Communist Youth League makes a thousand mistakes,” he said in 2015, quoting Deng Xiaoping. “But one mistake it cannot make is to deviate from the party’s track.”

In June Mr Xi declared that since 2012, when he took power, the organisation had acquired a “brand new image”. But also that month the league’s chief, A Dong, said that amid “profound and complex changes” at home and abroad, “the overall fighting spirit and capabilities of the entire organisation urgently need to be improved.” This will involve pushing ahead with sweeping reforms that began in 2016. They range from cutting bloated management to beefing up the league’s grassroots presence and tightening controls over membership.

Honing the league’s propaganda skills is also a big part of this effort. People like GAI, whose real name is Zhou Yan, are helping. In 2018 Chinese netizens speculated that, after GAI’s rise to stardom on reality TV shows, his performing days on officially approved platforms might be numbered: that year the government reportedly ordered broadcasters not to use artists representing “hip-hop culture”, or even sporting tattoos (GAI has plenty of them: “Badkidz” says one in English). “Hip-hop’s prospects in China seem dim after Chinese rappers removed from TV shows”, said a headline in Global Times, a staunchly party-loving tabloid. The story noted GAI’s disappearance from the airwaves. But the newspaper’s prediction soon proved wrong. The league began to turn to rappers, including GAI, to make itself appear more in tune with the country’s youth.

Slick videos featuring these and other singers have been pushed out by the league through a plethora of social-media accounts. By August last year, the organisation’s central administration was running 26 of these with a total of more than 200m followers, according to China Youth Daily, the league’s newspaper. The league’s main account on WeChat had a following of 110m, making it one of the biggest accounts on social platforms, the report said. Online, the organisation began referring to itself as tuantuan (“league-league”). In Chinese, doubling a syllable makes a name sound cuter—pandas’ names are routinely formed this way.

Attack, attack

To Western ears, the rhetoric used by these accounts is often far from endearing. Mr Xi has pushed the new-look league to the front line of China’s online nationalism, using it to flood the internet with criticism of the West and anyone in China with negative views of the party. “Why can’t we voice our opinions?” he asked the league’s leaders in 2013. “Good prevails over evil. When positive voices online become powerful, the impact of negative public opinion can be reduced.”

League accounts have been used to heap vitriol on Western journalists, attack dissidents suspected of trying to foment a “colour revolution”, and to sow disinformation. In 2021 the league promoted a conspiracy theory that SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes covid-19, was developed in an American military lab at Fort Detrick in Maryland. The hashtag the league created on Weibo to spread this story was viewed 1.4bn times—an average of once per person in China. In recent weeks the league’s accounts have whipped up public anger against Japan for releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant, which was destroyed by a tsunami 12 years ago—ignoring support for the plan among many scientists elsewhere.

There is no doubt that nationalist rhetoric excites many young Chinese. It is less clear, however, how much the league’s online presence is helping it to recruit the kind of people it says it needs to create a reservoir of “healthy and vigorous new blood” for the party itself. Official statistics show that membership has fallen by nearly 20% since Mr Xi became China’s leader. Of Chinese aged 14 to 28, about one-third (nearly 74m people) are league members (league cadres can be older).

But this may not reflect any change in young people’s desire to join. Mr Xi’s reforms have aimed to make the league more elite. Teachers have been told not to sign up entire classes, as once was common (and is still the accepted practice for the Young Pioneers, a league-controlled organisation for children aged six to 14). Schools have been given quotas for how many students they can recruit.

The league is not trying to increase the ratio of members to non-members in its target age-group. Indeed, it has set a cap of 30% for 2025, which suggests that it plans little change. But it is trying to expand membership in private firms and NGOs. Among China’s 50m registered private firms, the league’s presence is still tiny. Between 2018 and January 2022, however, the number of league branches in such businesses more than tripled to above 300,000. In Yinchuan this year, league officials announced a plan to establish branches in all of the firms in the western city’s industrial parks by September. With the help of a recently developed database, known as Smart League Building, the organisation can keep much better tabs on such activity. All league members have to register their personal details on this system.

Mr Xi’s eagerness to boost the league’s influence may seem at odds with a common belief that at least part of his decade in power involved a struggle with senior leaders who had once served in senior roles in the league. Such officials are often referred to as members of the tuanpai, or “league faction”. Under Mr Xi they have become far more marginal at the top of the party hierarchy. But there is little evidence that the league has operated as a factional bastion—just that Mr Xi prefers to surround himself with former colleagues and underlings, and he has never served in the league. .Jérôme Doyon of Sciences Po, a university in Paris, notes that the league’s administration is still a big source of recruitment for leadership positions in the provinces.

As Mr Xi sees it, the league has a crucial role to play. Even a decade ago he was warning its cadres of a global “clash of ideologies” involving ceaseless efforts by “domestic and foreign hostile forces” to Westernise and divide China. This was making it even more imperative, he said, to provide China’s youngsters with “strong guidance” on their ideals and beliefs. Which is why, between occasional outings to revolutionary sites and performing good deeds in their neighbourhoods, recruits can expect plenty of time in the classroom, studying the thoughts of Mr Xi. ■

The Economist

5. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, October 2, 2023

Maps/graphics/citations: https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-2-2023

Key Takeaways:

• A prominent Russian milblogger and front-line unit commander claimed that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky “saved” the Russian 31st Guards VDV Brigade, which was fighting south of Bakhmut, mirroring claims made by a much smaller milblogger about VDV units in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• A Russian “Storm Z” assault unit instructor speculated that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) removed Lieutenant General Andrey Sychevoy from commanding the Bakhmut direction due to his poor performance.
• Ukrainian forces marginally advanced in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area amid continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast and near Bakhmut on October 2.
• Prominent actors in the Russian information space continue to speculate about the possible future of the Wagner Group under Rosgvardia.
• Interethnic tensions and claims about the superiority of Chechen “Akhmat” forces over regular Russian forces continue to generate controversy in the Russian information space.
• Russian forces conducted a small-scale Shahed-131/136 drone strike on Ukraine on the night of October 1-2 after Russian forces conducted a record number of drone strikes targeting Ukrainian grain and port infrastructure in September 2023.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Kreminna, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and reportedly advanced in some areas on October 2.
• The Russian “Vostok” Battalion continued to complain on October 1 that the Russian military command is not fulfilling its promises of having the unit fight as a second-echelon force and is not providing state awards.
• Russian occupation officials continued to transport Ukrainian children to Russia under the guise of educational trips.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, OCTOBER 2, 2023

Oct 2, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, October 2, 2023

Grace Mappes, Christina Harward, Angelica Evans, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Frederick W. Kagan

October 2, 2023, 7:30pm ET 

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 1:30pm ET on October 2. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the October 3 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

A prominent Russian milblogger and front-line unit commander claimed that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky “saved” the Russian 31st Guards VDV Brigade, which was fighting south of Bakhmut, mirroring claims made by a much smaller milblogger about VDV units in western Zaporizhia Oblast. Vostok Battalion commander Alexander Khodakovsky recalled a conversation with then-Commander of the 31st VDV Airborne Brigade Colonel Andrei Kondrashkin prior to Kondrashkin’s death around Bakhmut in mid-September, in which Kondrashkin revealed that his forces suffered personnel losses and that their motivation to fight dropped to a critical level.[1] Kondrashkin reportedly stated that the Russian military command demanded that his forces undertake “decisive actions,” while he knew that his personnel were suffering a critical lack of motivation. Khodakovsky noted that Kondrashkin refrained from raising his concerns to the military command and proceeded to blame his military failures on the lack of cohesion among Russian forces. Khodakovsky, in turn, noted that cohesion was not the problem, but rather that Kondrashkin needed to make a choice to either “waste” his troops in combat or protest the Russian military command’s order at the expense of his career. Khodakovsky observed that Kondrashkin never had a chance to make this choice because he sustained an injury in combat immediately after the conversation, and that Teplinsky “saved” the 31st VDV Brigade by taking the “remnants [of the brigade] under his wing” and giving them the opportunity to take a break from combat.

A Telegram channel that advocates for Teplinsky also amplified Khodakovsky’s account, claiming that Russian VDV forces – namely elements of the Russian 7th and 76th VDV divisions – are facing similar issues in western Zaporizhia Oblast.[2] The milblogger claimed that Teplinsky is no longer able to rescue these divisions, however, as he was quietly stripped of his responsibilities. ISW cannot confirm either Khodakovsky‘s or the pro-Teplinsky milblogger’s claims, but both narratives attempt to portray Teplinsky as a commander who values the wellbeing of his forces over his career – likely to advance political goals that could support changes in the Russian military command. Khodakovsky’s account of Kondrashkin’s dilemma prior to his death also supports ISW’s prior assessment that Ukrainian counteroffensive operations south of Bakhmut may be degrading Russian units defending and counterattacking the area.[3]

A Russian “Storm Z” assault unit instructor speculated that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) removed Lieutenant General Andrey Sychevoy from commanding in the Bakhmut direction due to his poor performance. The instructor claimed on October 1 that the Russian military command removed Sychevoy from his position for conducting unprepared and unsupported counterattacks south of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.[4] Sychevoy’s current formal position within the Russian military is unknown. Sychevoy previously commanded the Russian Western Group of Forces in Kharkiv Oblast until his dismissal in early September 2022, and this claim is the first observed speculation that Sychevoy has had a role in military operations in Ukraine since September 2022.[5] Prominent Russian ultranationalist media outlet Tsargrad claimed in August 2023 that Sychevoy refuses all journalistic requests for comment, indicating that Sychevoy retained an official position and may have intended to keep this position concealed.[6]

Ukrainian forces marginally advanced in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area amid continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast and near Bakhmut on October 2. Geolocated footage published on October 2 indicates that Ukrainian forces marginally advanced northwest of Novomayorske (18km southeast of Veylka Novosilka).[7] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Melitopol (western Zaporizhia Oblast) and Bakhmut directions.[8] ISW is updating its October 1 assessment that Ukrainian forces lost positions in a trench system southwest of Robotyne (13km south of Orikhiv) to Russian counterattacks between September 13 and 30.[9] Geolocated footage published on October 2 and satellite imagery indicate that Ukrainian forces likely retook these positions sometime between September 12 and 17 and currently hold them.[10]

Prominent actors in the Russian information space continue to speculate about the possible future of the Wagner Group under Rosgvardia. A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on October 2 that the Wagner Council of Commanders and Wagner Commander Anton Yelizarov (call sign “Lotos”) reached an agreement with Rosgvardia in which Wagner personnel must sign individual and group agreements to join Rosgvardia before January 1, 2024.[11] The milblogger claimed that the group agreements “serve as a guarantee that [Wagner] will not be ‘torn apart’” and that Wagner personnel will be able to keep their symbols and callsigns while serving under Rosgvardia. The milblogger claimed that although it is unclear where Rosgvardia will deploy its Wagner personnel in Ukraine, it will likely not be to the Bakhmut area where former Wagner personnel who signed contracts with the Russian MoD under former Wagner representative and current MoD employee Andrey Troshev are reportedly operating. The milblogger stated that the future of Wagner’s operations in Africa and the Middle East is also not clear as Rosgvardia has reportedly only approved Wagner’s use of aircraft for operations in the war in Ukraine and the new Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s son Pavel, is focusing only on Wagner’s business in Russia.[12] ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin’s ideas about the relationship(s) between Wagner elements and the Russian government are unclear at this time as Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly embraced Troshev and subordinated some Wagner elements to the Russian MoD on the one hand, while the Russian MoD will need to supply Rosgvardia with the equipment it lacks on the other.[13] Russian milbloggers’ continued discussion of the matter recently indicates that the relationship is likely still not fully defined or made public.

Interethnic tensions and claims about the superiority of Chechen “Akhmat” forces over regular Russian forces continue to generate controversy in the Russian information space. Chairman of the “Patriots of Russia” political party and the State Duma Committee on Nationalities Gennady Semigin reportedly published a since-deleted statement on the “Patriots of Russia” website in support of Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov’s son on September 29 after Kadyrov’s son was filmed beating a detainee accused of burning a Quran.[14] The post stated that “if the Russian soldier defended his ideals as uncompromisingly, then the [Chechen] Akhmat battalion would not have to kick the soldiers of the Russian Armed Forces onto the battlefield.”[15] Semigin’s post generated widespread criticism within the Russian information space on October 2, with one Russian official going so far as to call for Russian authorities to ban Duma members from speaking publicly about the war in Ukraine.[16] One Russian milblogger accused Semigin of attempting to incite ethnic hatred by comparing ”brave Chechens with cowardly Russians.”[17] Semigin later issued a statement on Telegram claiming that unspecified actors hacked the ”Patriots of Russia” website to publish the statement in protest of a bill on interethnic relations that his team was developing.[18] A milblogger also criticized Semigin‘s claim of a hacker posting the message, asking why Semigin did not take down the statement sooner or how Semigin was able to access the “Patriots of Russia“ website if it had been hacked.[19] ISW has long observed tensions between Chechen and non-Chechen officials and military units, and the continued emotional reaction within the Russian information suggests that these tensions are still present.[20]

Russian forces conducted a small-scale Shahed-131/136 drone strike on Ukraine on the night of October 1-2 after Russian forces conducted a record number of drone strikes targeting Ukrainian grain and port infrastructure in September 2023. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces launched seven drones from the Krasnodar Krai direction and that Ukrainian air defenses shot down four drones.[21] Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat stated that even though Russian forces have launched fewer drones in the past days, the Russian strikes still target Ukrainian military and infrastructure areas and are reconnoitering Ukrainian air defenses.[22] Ukrainian military expert Aleksandr Kovalenko stated on October 1 that Russian forces launched a record number of 521 drones that mostly targeted Ukrainian port and grain infrastructure in September 2023.[23] Kovalenko stated that Russia is still dependent on Iran for drone production due to issues with domestic production and that this September increase was due to Iran’s possible increased production from 100 Shahed-136 drones per month at the end of 2022 to 150-200 per month by May 2023.

Key Takeaways:

• A prominent Russian milblogger and front-line unit commander claimed that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky “saved” the Russian 31st Guards VDV Brigade, which was fighting south of Bakhmut, mirroring claims made by a much smaller milblogger about VDV units in western Zaporizhia Oblast.
• A Russian “Storm Z” assault unit instructor speculated that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) removed Lieutenant General Andrey Sychevoy from commanding the Bakhmut direction due to his poor performance.
• Ukrainian forces marginally advanced in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area amid continued counteroffensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast and near Bakhmut on October 2.
• Prominent actors in the Russian information space continue to speculate about the possible future of the Wagner Group under Rosgvardia.
• Interethnic tensions and claims about the superiority of Chechen “Akhmat” forces over regular Russian forces continue to generate controversy in the Russian information space.
• Russian forces conducted a small-scale Shahed-131/136 drone strike on Ukraine on the night of October 1-2 after Russian forces conducted a record number of drone strikes targeting Ukrainian grain and port infrastructure in September 2023.
• Russian forces conducted offensive operations near Kreminna, near Bakhmut, along the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line, in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and in western Zaporizhia Oblast and reportedly advanced in some areas on October 2.
• The Russian “Vostok” Battalion continued to complain on October 1 that the Russian military command is not fulfilling its promises of having the unit fight as a second-echelon force and is not providing state awards.
• Russian occupation officials continued to transport Ukrainian children to Russia under the guise of educational trips.

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

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian sources conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Kreminna on October 2. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on October 2 that Russian forces conducted an unsuccessful attack near Makiivka (22km northwest of Kreminna).[24] Ukrainian Eastern Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash stated on October 2 that elements of the Russian 25th Combined Arms Army (CAA) replaced elements of the Russian 41st CAA (Central Military District) and the 76th Air Assault (VDV) Division, which previously took heavy losses while operating near Kreminna.[25] Yelash stated that elements of the Russian 25th CAA have taken up defensive positions in the area but that Russian forces are not using these elements at a “high intensity.”[26] A Russian milblogger claimed that the Russian 21st Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army, Central Military District) is operating in the Svatove-Kreminna area.[27]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted unsuccessful ground attacks near Kreminna on October 2. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled two Ukrainian attacks near Dibrova (7km southwest of Kreminna) and Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna) in Luhansk Oblast.[28] A Russian milblogger claimed on October 1 that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Torske (12km west of Kreminna) and the Serebryanske forest area.[29]

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

Ukrainian forces continued offensive operations in the Bakhmut area but did not make any confirmed gains on October 2. Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash stated that heavy fighting continues south of Bakhmut near the railway line, along which runs the current Russian line of defense.[30] Yevlash stated that Russian forces aim to hold the defensive line along the railway south of Bakhmut at any cost. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces continued attempts to advance east of the railway line near Andriivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut) and that Ukrainian forces hold unspecified ”more advantageous” positions in the area.[31] A Russian source claimed that a Chechen “Akhmat” special forces detachment and the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade’s 1st Battalion (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] Army Corps) repelled a Ukrainian attack near Klishchiivka (7km southwest of Bakhmut).[32] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Andriivka.[33]

Russian forces continued counterattacks in the Bakhmut area but did not advance on October 2. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully tried to recapture lost positions near Andriivka.[34] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces counterattacked near Klishchiivka.[35]

Russian forces continued offensive operations on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on October 2 and reportedly advanced recently. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces captured several Ukrainian positions near Sieverne (6km west of Avdiivka), Keramik (14km northwest of Avdiivka) and Stepove (8km northwest of Avdiivka) on October 1 and 2.[36] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks east of Stepove and near Avdiivka, Keramik, Pervomaiske (11km southwest of Avdiivka), Marinka (on the western outskirts of Donetsk City), and Novomykhailivka (36km southwest of Avdiivka).[37]

Ukrainian forces reportedly counterattacked on the Avdiivka-Donetsk City line on October 2 but did not advance. The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks near Nevelske and Krasnohorivka (both immediately west of Donetsk City).[38] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces counterattacked against Russian forces towards Vodyane (7km southwest of Avdiivka), Opytne (3km southwest of Avdiivka), Krasnohorivka, and Novokalynove (11km northwest of Avdiivka).[39]

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

Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area and marginally advanced on October 2. Geolocated footage published on October 2 indicates that Ukrainian forces marginally advanced northwest of Novomayorske (18km southeast of Veylka Novosilka).[40] The Russian MoD claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Pryyutne (16km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[41]

Russian forces conducted offensive actions in the western Donetsk-eastern Zaporizhia Oblast border area but did not make any confirmed gains on October 2. A Russian milblogger claimed that there are unconfirmed reports that Russian forces advanced 100-150 meters east of Urozhaine (9km south of Velyka Novosilka) where elements of the Russian 36th Combined Arms Army (Eastern Military District) are operating.[42] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Staromayorske (9km south of Velyka Novosilka), Rivnopil (10km southwest of Velyka Novosilka), and Novodarivka (15km southwest of Velyka Novosilka).[43] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces attacked from Pryyutne but did not specify an outcome.[44]

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not advance on October 2. Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Novoprokopivka (13km south of Orikhiv) and Robotyne.[45] A Russian source claimed that Ukrainian forces are conducting daily offensive operations northeast of Robotyne.[46]

ISW assessed on October 1 that Ukrainian forces lost positions southwest of Robotyne to Russian counterattacks between September 13 and 30.[47] ISW is updating our assessment, however, based on new footage published on October 2 and satellite imagery, which indicates that Ukrainian forces still hold these positions and have held them since sometime between September 12 and 17.[48]

Russian forces conducted offensive operations in western Zaporizhia Oblast but did not advance on October 2. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked west of Verbove (18km southeast of Orikhiv).[49] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Russian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Verbove.[50]

A Ukrainian official stated that Russian forces are increasingly using aircraft to strike Kherson Oblast at night rather than during the day. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Captain First Rank Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces only launched two KAB-500 aerial bombs at Kherson Oblast on during the day October 1 but launched 18 KAB-500 bombs that night on October 1-2.[51] Humenyuk reported that the Russian strike damaged a hospital and critical infrastructure.

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

The Russian “Vostok” Battalion continued to complain on October 1 that the Russian military command is not fulfilling its promise of using the unit as a second-echelon force in combat and is not providing state awards.[52] The “Vostok” Battalion claimed that since the start of the full-scale invasion, its personnel have been fighting on the frontlines instead of performing “clearing” functions after assaults.[53] The “Vostok” Battalion claimed that 31 of its personnel died in combat and 151 were wounded over the past 19 months of combat and complained that Russian military command is not sufficiently awarding the battalion for its sacrifices as part of the Russian Operational-Combat Tactical Formation “Kaskad.”

A Russian milblogger observed that Russian forces are using outdated S-60 automatic anti-aircraft guns from the 1950s in the Kupyansk direction.[54] The milblogger stated that many social media users questioned the Russian MoD footage that showed Russian forces using an S-60 gun and asked about the age of these systems. The milblogger noted that while he does not doubt the effectiveness of Soviet armaments, he hopes that Russian forces will equip frontline units with new and modern equipment.

Former Wagner Group servicemen who have returned from Ukraine continue to commit crimes in Russia. A Wagner serviceman from Lipetsk Oblast reportedly killed his four-year-old stepdaughter and beat his wife months after returning from combat.[55] A pardoned convict who had served in Wagner reportedly escaped a detention center in Krasnodar Krai when serving a 10-day sentence for minor hooliganism charges.[56]

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

Russian occupation officials continued to transport Ukrainian children to Russia under the guise of educational trips. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation governor Yevgeny Balitsky stated on October 2 that the Russian Ministry of Culture transported over 300 Ukrainian schoolchildren from occupied Zaporizhia Oblast to Moscow and St. Petersburg to “educate” them about Russian culture.[57] Balitsky stated that more than 2,500 Ukrainian schoolchildren from occupied Zaporizhia Oblast in total will participate in this program.

The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian officials appointed 410 judges in occupied Ukraine from June 2023 to September 2023.[58] The Resistance Center noted that Russia intends for the expansion of occupation courts to intensify repressions in occupied areas.

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

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) stated on October 2 that Belarusian pilots conducted training exercises with Mi-35 helicopters and Iskander-M missile systems at unspecified training grounds in Belarus.[59]

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus as part of ongoing Kremlin efforts to increase their control over Belarus and other Russian actions in Belarus.

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

6. EXCLUSIVE: 55 Chinese sailors are feared dead after nuclear submarine 'gets caught in a trap'

Photos and graphics at the link: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12589429/chinese-sailors-trap-yellow-sea.html

EXCLUSIVE: 55 Chinese sailors are feared dead after nuclear submarine 'gets caught in a trap intended to snare British and US vessels in the Yellow Sea'

• Twenty-two officers were among the 55 reported to have died in the Yellow Sea
• China denies it happened - and apparently refused international assistance

By MARK NICOL, DEFENCE EDITOR

PUBLISHED: 17:25 BST, 3 October 2023 | UPDATED: 20:41 BST, 3 October 2023

Daily Mail · by Mark Nicol, Defence Editor · October 3, 2023

Fifty-five Chinese sailors are feared dead after their nuclear submarine apparently got caught in a trap intended to ensnare British sub-surface vessels in the Yellow Sea.

According to a secret UK report the seamen died following a catastrophic failure of the submarine's oxygen systems which poisoned the crew.

The captain of the Chinese PLA Navy submarine '093-417' is understood to be among the deceased, as were 21 other officers.

Officially, China has denied the incident took place. It also appears Beijing refused to request international assistance for its stricken submarine.

Illustrative photo shows the Long, a nuclear submarine, during a naval parade in 2019. 55 reportedly died after a Chinese nuclear submarine got caught in a trap in the Yellow Sea

The UK report into the fatal mission reads: 'Intelligence reports that on 21st of August there was an onboard accident whilst carrying out a mission in the Yellow Sea.

A type 093 submarine was apparently caught in a trap designed to snare British/US vessels

'Incident happened at 08.12 local resulting in the death of 55 crew members: 22 officers, 7 officer cadets, 9 petty officers, 17 sailors. Dead include the captain Colonel Xue Yong-Peng.

'Our understanding is death caused by hypoxia due to a system fault on the submarine. The submarine hit a chain and anchor obstacle used by the Chinese Navy to trap US and allied submarines.

'This resulted in systems failures that took six hours to repair and surface the vessel. The onboard oxygen system poisoned the crew after a catastrophic failure.'

As yet there is no independent confirmation of the suspected loss of the Chinese submarine in the public domain.

Beijing has dismissed open source speculation about the incident as 'completely false' while Taiwan has also denied internet reports.

Mail Plus approached the Royal Navy to discuss the details contained in the UK report but official sources declined to comment or offer guidance.

The UK report, which is based on defence intelligence, is held at a high classification.

A British submariner offered this explanation: 'It is plausible that this occurred and I doubt the Chinese would have asked for international support for obvious reasons.

'If they were trapped on the net system and the submarine's batteries were running flat (plausible) then eventually the air purifiers and air treatment systems could have failed.

'Which would have reverted to secondary systems and subsequently and plausibly failed to maintain the air. Which led to asphyxia or poisoning.

'We have kit which absorbs co2 and generates oxygen in such a situation. It is probable that other nations do not have this kind of tech.'

Xi Jinping toasts leaders and guests during an anniversary celebration of the PRC on September 28. China has officially denied the incident with the Type 093 submarine happened

The Chinese Type 093 submarines entered service in the last 15 years. The vessels are 351ft-long and are armed with torpedoes.

The Type 093s are among China's more modern submarines and are known for their lower noise levels.

The sinking is understood to have taken place in waters off China's Shandong Province.

Daily Mail · by Mark Nicol, Defence Editor · October 3, 2023

7. A Tale of Two Systems: The Search for Relevant Military Health Care

As an aside the Army gave me a right hip replacement at Fort Belvoir in 2019. I had a great US Air Force orthopedic surgeon.

A Tale of Two Systems: The Search for Relevant Military Health Care - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Philip Flatau · October 3, 2023

Congress fractured the Military Health System in 2018 when it moved military health care under the Defense Health Agency. Ever since, the Defense Health Agency has centralized resources and civilianized military health care to save money and provide care to more dependents and retirees. In turn, operational military leaders, facing a mission-ignorant health care system, have started paying for embedded medical care out of their operational budgets. Embedded at the unit level and outside the military treatment facility, this innovative care blends primary care, psychological health, and human performance in an interdisciplinary team approach. It helps get military members the care they need at a fraction of the Defense Health Agency’s budget. This decentralized health care system is mission-centric, having been used by Special Operations Command for the past 20 years.

In the current Military Health System, the warfighter is asked to schedule a 15-minute primary care appointment at the clinic. If the system works as designed, the member is sent to the correct network specialist weeks or even months later, while the unit and the operational mission are without the mission-ready teammate.

Hence, there is a discrepancy between the two systems. This is because operators prioritize relationships, access, cost savings, risk, and morale in ways the Defense Health Agency has not. The embedded model provides the agility and decentralized execution needed to support the warfighter and the future fight in a proactive approach.

Become a Member

Military health care is a vital part of the joint force. It should be held to standards Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, Air Mobility Command leader Gen. Mike Minihan, and former Air Force Special Operations Command leader Lt. Gen. Jim Slife have all called for. Currently, Defense Health Agency’s centralized bureaucracy lacks the concepts the joint force is striving to achieve: a department-wide disruption narrative emphasizing flexibility, autonomy, innovation, adaptation, collaboration, accepting risk, advancing mission command, and empowering execution. Instead, the current Military Health System is focused on financial efficiency and meeting administrative metrics. This dueling tension has led military medical professionals to question the agency’s priorities and support to the operational mission. As warfighting leaders clamor for the rapid, low-cost expansion of integrated operational support, their demand signal is a leading indicator of the military’s need. Is the Military Health System willing to accept the operational and medical risk of meeting medical needs outside the walls of the clinic to meet this growing demand?

Bandages, Beans, and Bullets

In the early 2000s, U.S. Special Operations Command led a paradigm shift in military health care, reclassifying warfighters as tactical athletes. This decision was driven by an understanding that “musculoskeletal injury accounts for the greatest number of medical visits and lost duty time in military populations.” By embedding comprehensive health care teams across the force to care for their operators, the special operations model spread across the conventional force. Today, multiple health care models exist across various bases and military branches because the effectiveness of multidisciplinary human performance support continues to earn operational adherents. One of the most apparent indications of effectiveness is the funding stream: operational leaders are paying for these programs out of their operational budgets. The Defense Health Agency, in contrast, has centralized resources. They have done so — undoubtedly with the best of intentions — to improve access to care for dependents and veterans. However, what is happening is that operations-ignorant medical leaders are now focused on the wrong thing: bureaucratic demands for efficiency. This, in turn, has harmed operational survivability, resilience, lethality, and readiness.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, has expressed specific concerns about this disconnect. When the Defense Health Agency proposed to cut nearly 13,000 military health care jobs, transitioning many active-duty billets to nondeployable civilian positions, “Milley raised questions over whether there would be a sufficient number of doctors, nurses, corpsmen, and medics to man combat hospitals and fighting units.” The Military Health System–led COVID-19 response, according to the Department of Defense Inspector General’s report, answers Milley’s question with a resounding no. The COVID-19 response denuded military treatment facilities of all but crisis caregivers, essentially terminating affirmative care to build survivability, resiliency, and readiness.

The bureaucratic Military Health System remains focused on health care delivery within hospitals and clinics mimicking the civilian hospital environment. As a result, hospital rank and file know little about novel integrated operational support concepts. Further distancing medical personnel, funding for the integrated medical model has come from nonmedical operational budgets at a fraction of the cost — using “bullets and beans” money to pay for bandages, to use a colloquial phrase. According to my correspondence with Air Force Special Operations Command A1Z, Mr. James Beaty and Chief of Sports Medicine, Lt Col Jordan Richardson, the 2023 human performance budget in U.S. Special Operations Command is a mere $100 million, while Air Force line commanders have requested nearly $76 million to support the integrated health care their missions demand. Round $176 million up to $200 million, and the combined “ask” for operationally focused medical care is still right of the decimal of the Military Health System’s fiscal year 2023 $55.8 billion portfolio.

Core Principles

The core concept of integrated health care teams is not new. Athletes at the collegiate and professional levels have had the advantage of this model for more than 100 years: first “trainers,” then sports medicine physicians (e.g., team doctors), physical therapists, nutritionists, sports psychologists, and the other supporting health care providers. Early aviators similarly had this advantage, exemplified by the career of Maj. Gen. Dr. Malcolm Grow, who entered the United States Army Medical Service in 1917. Dr. Grow studied the effects of the aviation environment on the human body. All that’s new is that more operational leaders are spending more operational dollars on integrated operational support to make up for the gaping holes in health care for warfighters. Five core principles of integrated operational support underpin its success: relationships, access, cost savings, risk, and morale.

The first principle is relationships. In the integrated operational support framework, teamwork between the multidisciplinary provider team and the operational command is foundational. This teamwork relies on relationship development and the trust that comes from it. Trust comes most quickly through shared experiences inside operational units. Embedded health care programs integrate caregivers, enabling relationships to grow and trust to develop. Trust enables a preventative approach to health care that is directly relevant to the operational environment. By understanding operational requirements before, during, and after military engagements, integrated medical teammates provide ready, relevant, reliable care to the warfighter. The Military Health System must value no higher priority than trusting relationships between the providers and the operational command team.

The second principle is the need to provide unfettered access to a multidisciplinary health care team. This contrasts with the standard goal of providing efficient care via “primary care referrals, 15-minute appointment slots, and tedious specialty appointing.” Even with the best care under this model, many servicemembers go outside the system to get the medical support they need. Rigidity and centralization exist to enable the Military Health System to meet the needs of warfighters, family members, retirees, and other beneficiaries despite resource gaps, access barriers, and the inevitable ignorance that comes from disconnection from the warfighter. Documenting the observed importance of access, a 2020 RAND study found access to be the key ingredient shared in the various integrated operational support model programs. In this regard, operational priorities, not budget or efficiency priorities advanced by the Defense Health Agency, must determine access to care.

The third principle is cost savings. These programs formerly relied on subjective anecdotes, but current research overcomes the difficulty of measuring success with tools built to measure hospital compliance. Imagine a physical therapist at a large hospital with a patient population of 4,000 who must see 15 patients a day (warfighters, family members, retirees, etc.) to meet Defense Health Agency access and cost metrics. In the integrated model, a physical therapist might only have a patient population in the hundreds, yet each member of that population represents over $1 million in military investment needed for warfighting missions. The hospital-model physical therapist can’t compete with this ratio of direct support to the warfighting mission. The integrated-model physical therapist can’t compete with hospital population access and cost metrics. The integrated model loses when measured with hospital tools, but if the metric is warfighting lethality, the integrated system wins big. Military leaders and Congress debate and legislate this balance, sometimes with contradictory language on either side. Fortunately, research continues to provide insight into the question of priority. A 2021 Air Force study of recruit training found that every dollar spent on an embedded integrated operational sports medicine team saved $10 in injury-related attrition. A similar but much larger 2022 Army study found every dollar spent on integrated medics saved $4. The third priority, then, is measuring cost savings not in the suburban dependent and retiree clinics but at the bleeding edge of the spear.

The fourth principle is assuming risk. This paradigm-shifting integrated health care model provides unit-level medicine in keeping with senior military leaders’ “intent to decentralize and transform.” Like their operational counterparts, medical leaders should focus on mission execution risk, with bean-counting risk clearly subordinated. Despite the Defense Health Agency’s tendency to be risk-averse, operational commanders tend to welcome risk if it can be mitigated and if they have a validated recommendation from medical leaders they trust. Can the Military Health System assume more risk with our operational colleagues to improve care? Basic standards and medical credentialing are critical, of course. But a civilian-heavy suburban outpatient clinic differs vastly from what is needed within an operational unit. The priority must remain focused on the warfighter.

Finally, the fifth principle is morale. The improved morale of members receiving agile, relevant, multidisciplinary care at the unit level makes connections that builds trust, encourages injury reporting, and increases retention, which saves money and time. For example, the Air Force Special Warfare Training Wing, in an unpublished human performance report that I have access to from 2022, notes that 70 percent of people exposed to the integrated model reported having human performance optimization services available influenced their decision to stay in the military. Ninety percent responded that the presence of integrated medical care led them to seek care for injuries and concerns they might otherwise have left unreported. Morale matters to providers as well. A study of burnout in a military medical center noted 56 percent of medical providers recorded emotional exhaustion, 30 percent expressed depersonalization, and 91 percent cited a feeling of a lack of personal accomplishment. Regardless of profession, military members want to be valued, trusted, and connected to a team connected to the mission. An expanding body of research shows the integrated model provides these opportunities — and it is why I’ve stayed in the Air Force while many other medical colleagues have separated.

An additional positive aspect of the model is its potential impact on recruiting. The Department of Defense is struggling to meet its national recruiting goals as a record-low number of individuals are eligible to serve, and few of those eligible desire to. An internal Department of Defense survey noted that “more than half of the young Americans who answered the survey — about 57 percent — think they would have emotional or psychological problems after serving in the military. Nearly half think they would have physical problems.” The integrated health care model could potentially influence recruitment if it is highlighted and advertised appropriately to counter this prevailing narrative.

Conclusion

Medical leaders face ongoing challenges, including the impossible task of balancing the Military Health System support to warfighters, family members, veterans, and other beneficiaries as congressionally directed. But if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. The tensions I’ve laid out should trigger discussions that lead to deliberate prioritization through the integrated operational support model’s medical agility and autonomy needed to support the current demands of strategic competition and to get ready for the future near-peer fight. This model can be developed and expanded across U.S. Special Operations Command and the Air Force at 0.3 percent of the Military Health System budget. For a total force initiative, it shouldn’t exceed 2 percent. Scaling up the integrated multidisciplinary model will distribute some hospital and clinical assets into operational units under the service medical departments. Transitioning the Defense Health Agency to focus on beneficiary care will also provide service medical departments with a clear focus to serve the warfighter population in a more relevant and effective manner.

Accelerating change will require difficult decisions and a clear understanding of operational priorities. As the Defense Health Agency centralizes resources and civilianizes the force, operational leaders are creating ways to integrate medical professionals into their formations. The integrated operational support model is relevant and cost effective and provides positive outcomes across multiple domains, including relationships, access, cost savings, risk, and morale. The Military Health System and the Defense Health Agency must innovate and transform their approach to operational medical support — or operational leaders will increasingly spend funds on bandages that are needed for bullets and beans.

Become a Member

Lt. Col. Philip M. Flatau is the deputy commander, 51st Medical Group, Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea. As the deputy commander, he supports leadership and direction to personnel across three squadrons in the Air Force’s most forward-deployed permanent wing.

The conclusions and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. government, Department of Defense, or Air University.

Image: U.S. Army

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Philip Flatau · October 3, 2023

8. Innovation, Technology, and the Future of National Defense: Preparing West Point Cadets and Faculty to Lead the US Army into Tomorrow

Conclusion:

The United States Military Academy at West Point continues to lead the way in developing leaders of character, and this intellectual theme is intended to help align, inspire, and energize our efforts to do so. By focusing on innovation and technology, we are investing in our future. We must continue to push the boundaries of what is possible to stay ahead of our adversaries, but always in a way that is consistent with our Army’s and our nation’s values. By doing so, we can prepare our cadets and faculty to meet the complex challenges of the twenty-first century and to help ensure the safety and security of our nation.

Innovation, Technology, and the Future of National Defense: Preparing West Point Cadets and Faculty to Lead the US Army into Tomorrow - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Steven Gilland, Shane Reeves · October 3, 2023

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It is 2033. A young infantry platoon leader is deployed to the frontlines of an austere environment, facing a peer adversary. This technologically advanced foe uses cyber warfare, advanced sensors, and autonomous drones to gather vast amounts of data, which is rapidly processed by artificial intelligence to enable lethal strikes by hypersonic missiles and other long-range fires. The platoon, along with its higher and adjacent units, is widely dispersed to lessen the potential damage of one of these strikes. Communications between these units are not functioning due to electromagnetic jamming, while GPS is also unavailable due to a successful barrage against the United States’ low earth orbit satellite constellation.

This is the future of national defense, and it will require the Army’s leaders to adapt to new and emerging threats. Every single platoon leader must be prepared for such a scenario—able to confront a highly capable opponent, while isolated, on a rapidly evolving battlefield. We will need these officers to not only respond quickly and effectively to new challenges, but also to do so with the moral and ethical judgment the American people expect of our fighting forces.

Preparing the Army’s junior leaders for the challenges ahead must begin as early as possible. Here at the United States Military Academy, we have forty-seven months in which to do so. At West Point, we have always been committed to preparing both our cadets and faculty to be leaders of character. Now we are committed to doing so in this new era of national defense, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and ethical decision-making needed to effectively lead in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments.

One of the greatest advantages we can give young Army leaders is the ability to innovate. Innovation and technology have always played a critical role in military operations. From weapons to equipment to communication and logistics, advances in technology inevitably revolutionize the way wars are fought. In today’s world, with the rapid pace of technological change and the growing complexity of the security environment, it is more important than ever to foster a culture of innovation within our Army.

It is with this in mind that we announce West Point’s intellectual theme for the 2023–24 academic year: “Innovation, Technology, and the Future of National Defense.”

This theme will bring together departments, directorates, centers, programs, and offices across the academy, providing cadets and faculty with the interdisciplinary knowledge to encourage discourse and more efficiently and effectively educate future US Army officers to fight and win.

Innovation and technology have long been a part of West Point’s leader development mission. However, this theme will deepen our efforts with a yearlong focus on ensuring our cadets and faculty can think nimbly, identify new solutions to complex problems, and communicate these ideas effectively to others. We will continue to build on exiting partnerships with organizations like the Combat Capabilities Development Command and Army Futures Command, which provide opportunities for cadets to conduct research on Army priorities such as high energy lasers. This research on cutting-edge technologies is also enabled by our research centers and supplemented by internships with private and public organizations across the country and around the world.

We are constantly recruiting talented leaders onto our staff and faculty, including the likes of Mr. Abdul Subhani, the academy’s distinguished chair of innovation and strategic engagement. We are also sharing the important research our innovative faculty and cadets are leading through platforms like the Inside West Point: Ideas that Impact podcast—ensuring their insights and ideas inform discussions about key challenges and their solutions.

Specific events throughout the year will include conferences, new podcast episodes, and fireside chats spread across the academic year. The year will culminate in our annual Projects Day Research Symposium, where cadets showcase their innovative projects and research.

The United States Military Academy at West Point continues to lead the way in developing leaders of character, and this intellectual theme is intended to help align, inspire, and energize our efforts to do so. By focusing on innovation and technology, we are investing in our future. We must continue to push the boundaries of what is possible to stay ahead of our adversaries, but always in a way that is consistent with our Army’s and our nation’s values. By doing so, we can prepare our cadets and faculty to meet the complex challenges of the twenty-first century and to help ensure the safety and security of our nation.

Lieutenant General Steven W. Gilland is currently serving as the superintendent at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Brigadier General Shane R. Reeves is currently serving as the dean of the academic board at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York.

The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Army, Department of Defense, or US government.

Image credit: Elizabeth Woodruff, United States Military Academy

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Steven Gilland, Shane Reeves · October 3, 2023

9. LGBTQ+ Inclusion and Military Professionalism

Excerpts:

The increase in political expression among soldiers and the subsequent scholarly discourse on military professionalism have created an opportunity for the US Army to help redefine the public’s perception of an apolitical military professional. By taking steps to improve LGBTQ+ representation on social media, in online materials, and in popular culture, the Army can help create an organization more representative of its members and reflective of the values it professes. Furthermore, increasing the level of organizational resources and support for LGBTQ+ soldiers will not only create a healthier and more fulfilling work environment for soldiers, but will also help solidify the notion that supporting LGBTQ+ service members is a matter of military professionalism, not political partisanship. It will provide an important example to the civilian population and the world that the US Army values the contributions and sacrifices of all soldiers, not just the straight ones.

LGBTQ+ Inclusion and Military Professionalism - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Austin Wilson · October 2, 2023

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Editor’s note: This is the latest article in “Rethinking Civ-Mil,” a series that endeavors to present expert commentary on diverse issues surrounding civil-military relations in the United States. Read all articles in the series here.

Special thanks to MWI’s research director, Dr. Max Margulies, and MWI research fellow Dr. Carrie A. Lee for their work as series editors.

Twelve years after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the US Army is at a turning point in how it portrays the modern military professional. As the American public has become increasingly polarized, who serves—and is celebrated for their service—has become a political and partisan issue. Meanwhile, the traditional American ethos concerning civil-military relations is deeply rooted in Samuel Huntington’s objective control paradigm, in which military professionals are tasked with being experts in the affairs of war and leaving the politics to civilians. Yet, as partisanship and political expression have become more prevalent among the rank and file, some leaders and scholars have argued that future military effectiveness depends on redefining what it means to be an apolitical member of the military. Ongoing discourse on this topic provides US Army leaders a chance to take steps to ensure that a new image of military professionalism encompasses greater inclusion for LGBTQ+ soldiers and their families. Doing so will not only bring due recognition and dignity to the contribution of such soldiers but will also demonstrate to the civilian public that support for LGBTQ+ service members is a simple matter of professionalism, not partisan preference.

While the Army has made progress on ensuring that LGBTQ+ soldiers are allowed to serve openly and without discrimination, these soldiers have not necessarily experienced full inclusion within their units. Throughout much of the Army, especially in combat arms branches, the culture remains strongly based on the idea of “masculine self-sufficient aloofness.” Popular perceptions of the warrior ethos—generally defined by unemotional and heteronormative independence—leave little room for gay identities, which remain largely “unacknowledged and otherwise marginalized,” even more than a decade after the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Simply being allowed to exist in a space does not imply acceptance by the others already there. Unit morale and organizational effectiveness depend on the perception that soldiers will have a positive work environment and respectful colleagues.

When LGBTQ+ soldiers perceive their workplaces as noninclusive, they feel obligated to hide or downplay parts of their identities. Not only does this distract them from delivering on their full professional potential, but it also impacts the unit’s effectiveness by fostering an atmosphere of secrecy, distrust, and suspicion. Fixing this issue requires leadership at all echelons to openly demonstrate their support for LGBTQ+ inclusion, rather than simply assuming inclusion exists because discrimination is technically prohibited. Specifically, there are two areas in which the Army can make strides in improving LGBTQ+ inclusion as an organization: visibility and supporting resources.

Shortcomings

The first area in which the Army can improve inclusion is addressing its current lack of LGBTQ+ visibility and representation, both within the service and how it presents itself to the public. Most notable is the near-total absence of LGBTQ+ images on the Army’s social media pages. For example, even during Pride Month one must diligently search the Army’s Facebook page for LGBTQ+ content. In June 2022, the only reference to Pride Month was approximately seven seconds of a ninety-second video that included content pertaining to four other unrelated topics. These seven seconds, shrewdly tucked away in the middle of the video, could very easily be perceived by viewers as a sign that Army leadership remains so uncomfortable with LGBTQ+ soldiers that they may only be publicly acknowledged in an inconspicuous manner.

Other public-facing Army products also lack LGBTQ+ representation. One may click on a plethora of Army websites, recruitment videos, or official brochures and see that when an image of an “Army family” is presented, it is invariably heterosexual. For example, every image portraying a family on the Army Quality of Life web page and GoArmy Family Benefits web page is comprised solely of male-female couples. These are just two out of many Army websites that fail to include LGBTQ+ imagery.

The same lack of representation is evident in popular portrayals of soldiers in film and television. Mainstream entertainment productions often include portrayals of American men and women in uniform, yet perpetually omit the stories of LGBTQ+ soldiers that also serve. If the Department of Defense’s goal in working with filmmakers is to “accurately depict military stories,” it is so far failing by not including the stories of LGBTQ+ service members. While the department cannot dictate what Hollywood produces, its substantial influence in the industry is key to promoting more inclusive representation of LGBTQ+ service members. It has a responsibility to ensure that it uses its connections to advocate for accurate representation of all service members, including the queer ones.

Addressing this lack of representation is important for two key reasons. When decisions are being made, members of an organization want to know that their voices and input are genuinely heard, even if their ideas are not ultimately implemented. Increased representation will signal to LGBTQ+ soldiers and families that their contributions matter, and that the Army genuinely values their service. This will have positive effects on morale, cohesion, and ultimately, retention. Studies show that when individuals feel more comfortable presenting their full identities at work, they experience higher job satisfaction and lower levels of work-related anxiety. Additionally, some authors suggest that LGBTQ+ personnel are more inclined to remain with an organization they believe is more inclusive. The Army risks losing valuable talent and resources by having to recruit and train replacements for those who leave the organization for more inclusive employers.

Moreover, representation has a significant impact on socialization and identity development. Young adults spend many hours per week consuming images and information through the internet and digital media, and often rely on the narratives these sources provide to form their identities. This means that LGBTQ+ soldiers will be less inclined to identify with the values of the Army so long as they do not see themselves represented by it. Conversely, potential recruits from the LGBTQ+ community who see themselves represented by the Army will be more likely to join because they can visualize themselves contributing and being appreciated for their service.

The second area in which the Army can improve inclusion is examining the level of professional resources and support it provides to LGBTQ+ soldiers and families. The equal opportunity program provides some level of support in that it explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and allows soldiers to report violations of this policy. However, because the program grants commanders the sole authority and responsibility to enforce the program within their units, its success is dependent on whether the commander happens to agree with the purpose of the program and faithfully carries it out. Furthermore, the availability of punitive measures for discrimination does not imply that the overall atmosphere of the unit is conducive to LGBTQ+ inclusion. Veritable inclusion would entail commanders’ consistent public affirmation of LGBTQ+ support and repudiation of the “heteromasculine” military culture, which perpetuates the idea that LGBTQ+ soldiers should suppress their identities to avoid offending heteronormative sensitivities. Consequently, the atmosphere created by the equal opportunity program is not necessarily one of tolerance or understanding unless the commander explicitly makes it so.

Possible Solutions

There are specific steps that Army leadership can take to remedy these shortcomings in ways that highlight the military professionalism of its LGBTQ+ members. In terms of representation, the first step leaders should take is to simply include more LGBTQ+ imagery and content on social media. In celebration of Pride Month, post content highlighting the contributions of LGBTQ+ soldiers to the Army. In September, post content recognizing the anniversary of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Even without special occasion, the Army could simply include photos of LGBTQ+ couples in order to increase queer visibility.

Moreover, Army leaders should incorporate LGBTQ+ imagery into public-facing digital media and advertisements. For example, in April 2022, a short video appeared on the GoArmy YouTube channel that advertised paid parental leave as an Army benefit. It’s a funny and relatable commercial that depicts a young couple waking up in the middle of the night when their newborn baby begins to cry. Using a gay or lesbian couple in the same situation would be a simple way to include LGBTQ+ imagery in a supportive and constructive manner. This kind of realistic representation is exactly what the LGBTQ+ community is asking for: to see normal people with normal lives who simply happen to be gay. The same principle applies to Army websites. Exchange some of the photos of heterosexual couples with homosexual ones, and the Army will have made important progress in improving LGBTQ+ representation.

Finally, the Army can improve representation by lobbying for more queer visibility in popular culture. The Department of Defense has long maintained a relationship with Hollywood in order to shape popular perception of the military, yet images and representation of queer soldiers remain largely unseen. At a minimum, the Army should advocate for greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters and narratives in films or series that involve the military. For example, in a deployment homecoming scene writers could include a lesbian couple and their children hugging for the first time in months. Or they could devise a plot in which a trans soldier is a unit’s respected weapons expert. These experiences are just as real and valid as the traditional cisgender, heterosexual narratives that are usually depicted. Of course, DoD cannot force Hollywood to produce such stories but advocating for their inclusion is an easy way to better represent the LGBTQ+ military experience.

Increasing queer visibility in such a manner would be beneficial to public perception of the military and LGBTQ+ service members alike. It would demonstrate that although LGBTQ+ individuals share different interests and experiences, they are just as committed to the Army’s mission and contribute just as much as their straight colleagues to the organization’s success. To some, these changes may seem inconsequential, but they reflect a monumental shift in both awareness of and appreciation for the service of LGBTQ+ soldiers.

Looking inward at the resources and support it provides soldiers, the Army should facilitate the creation of a service-wide forum such as an affinity group or professional networking organization for LGBTQ+ service members and allies. Undoubtedly, such an organization would be a novelty for the Army. Some might claim that it would reflect a sense of favoritism or political bias, but in reality it would significantly contribute to the goals of the 2020 Army People Strategy by supporting greater diversity and inclusion, emotional well-being, and authentic leadership. Within an Army-sanctioned organization, queer soldiers could meet openly to discuss common questions and challenges, provide insight into their experiences, and be a visible part of the Army community. There are already some notable LGBTQ+ military-wide organizations, such as SPARTA or The Modern Military Association of America, but their services focus mostly on national education and advocacy, and their members encompass veterans and service members from all military branches. As a result, these forums are less prepared to tailor their services to the specific needs of local Army communities. They also only help to connect service members who are out of the closet and take significant personal initiative to find and link up with them. A professional organization endorsed by the Army would provide a more accessible space for closeted soldiers to seek information and help destigmatize the idea of coming out. By amplifying the voices and visibility of LGBTQ+ soldiers, the organization would demonstrate to those still closeted that there are plenty of other soldiers who have experienced similar concerns and anxieties while serving in the Army. It would provide an example of the type of support and camaraderie available to them should they decide to reach out. Ultimately, the organization would significantly increase LGBTQ+ visibility and understanding and help promote an Army-wide culture of solidarity and inclusion.

The creation of an affinity group could also assist immensely with efforts to collect valuable data that is needed to increase awareness and representation of LGBTQ+ service members in research and policy circles. Current estimates of the number of queer soldiers are just that: estimates. They remain “undercounted and underrepresented” in the types of data sources that inform decisions on health care, funding, training, research, and other services. By not collecting this type of data, the Army inadvertently deprives LGBTQ+ soldiers of an essential tool they need to advocate for better resources and representation. Moreover, the fact that the Army does not collect this data signals to soldiers and the public that it is acceptable to ignore the needs of the LGBTQ+ population. Creating a service-wide support and networking organization would facilitate the collection of important data, help promote discussions that have historically been stigmatized, and greatly increase LGBTQ+ visibility in the Army.

The increase in political expression among soldiers and the subsequent scholarly discourse on military professionalism have created an opportunity for the US Army to help redefine the public’s perception of an apolitical military professional. By taking steps to improve LGBTQ+ representation on social media, in online materials, and in popular culture, the Army can help create an organization more representative of its members and reflective of the values it professes. Furthermore, increasing the level of organizational resources and support for LGBTQ+ soldiers will not only create a healthier and more fulfilling work environment for soldiers, but will also help solidify the notion that supporting LGBTQ+ service members is a matter of military professionalism, not political partisanship. It will provide an important example to the civilian population and the world that the US Army values the contributions and sacrifices of all soldiers, not just the straight ones.

Captain Austin Wilson is a US Army field artillery officer currently serving in South Korea. He was previously assigned to 2nd Cavalry Regiment at Rose Barracks, Germany. He has served in support of Enhanced Forward Presence in Poland and Operation Inherent Resolve in Kuwait and Iraq. He holds a BA in European Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and is a student of the MA in Global Security Studies program at Johns Hopkins University.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image: Soldiers participate in US Army Central’s Pride Month observance (credit: Sgt. Amber Cobena, US Army)

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Austin Wilson · October 2, 2023

10. What do US Spies Do? Don't Ask America's Espionage Chiefs

A particular issue, those concerned said, is how US intelligence agencies are using "open-source" data, including information sold by data brokers.

What do US Spies Do? Don't Ask America's Espionage Chiefs

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/intelligence-chiefs-miss-deadline-on-how-they-define-spying

By Katrina Manson and Peter Martin

October 2, 2023

US intelligence agencies blew through a Sept. 30 deadline to define 23 terms such as "open source intelligence" and "signals intelligence" that would help explain how they conduct espionage. That's prompting fresh concern from Congress and civil-society groups.

"How the government defines 'open-source intelligence' gets at the heart of the problem," Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said in a statement to Bloomberg News. He said he's been asking the Office of Director of National Intelligence to be transparent with the American public "for years."

"This isn't just about legalistic definitions," Wyden said. "It's about letting Americans know whether highly personal information about them that the government has purchased" is handled the same way as public information published by the media, he said.

Back in 2022, Congress passed a law that demanded US intelligence chiefs define the terms that shape how the US conducts spying and the role of each agency. Figuring that out determines who can use what tools to engage in spying – and how money and power shake out across the country's 18 spy agencies.

A spokesperson for Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told Bloomberg News that the panel has yet to receive those definitions.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. The Defense Department didn't reply to requests for comment.

A particular issue, those concerned said, is how US intelligence agencies are using "open-source" data, including information sold by data brokers.

Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, said the definitions "have major implications for Americans' privacy and civil liberties." He said they can determine the kinds of sensitive information that agencies like the Department of Homeland Security are authorized to collect about Americans.

"Both Congress and the public should know how the intelligence agencies are drawing these critical lines," he said. He called Sept. 30 "an important deadline."

The definition of "open-source intelligence" is particularly pressing, said Sean Vitka, senior policy counsel for the advocacy group Demand Progress, given that it can include commercial information. He argued that the government has yet to provide sufficient disclosures about its purchases of information from data brokers, who can sell geolocation and other data gleaned from internet browsing and mobile phone use.

"This is a practice that should have been debated publicly before it was in operation and missing a deadline is simply inadequate," Vitka said.

— With assistance by Daniel Flatley and Roxana Tiron

11. Who Killed the Chinese Economy?

Who Killed the Chinese Economy?

The Contested Causes of Stagnation

By Zongyuan Zoe Liu; Michael Pettis; Adam S. Posen

October 3, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Zongyuan Zoe Liu; Michael Pettis; Adam S. PosenOctober 3, 2023 · October 3, 2023

 In response to The End of China’s Economic Miracle

By Adam S. Posen

Fall Guy

By Zongyuan Zoe Liu

Inherited Trauma

By Michael Pettis

Posen Replies

By Adam S. Posen

Fall Guy

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

In “The End of China’s Economic Miracle” (September/October 2023), Adam Posen describes China’s recent economic challenges as a case of “economic long COVID.” Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “extreme response to the pandemic,” he posits, triggered “the general public’s immune response” and “produced a less dynamic economy.” Posen’s analogy is creative and insightful. But his diagnosis misses the chronic diseases that afflicted China’s economy well before the COVID-19 pandemic: an exhausted growth model, stunted population growth thanks to the “one-child policy,” and, most notably, Xi’s failures of leadership.

Xi is not to blame for the Chinese economy’s deepest structural problems. He is, however, responsible for the government’s failure to deal with them. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping initiated sweeping economic reforms after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Standing apart from previous Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders, particularly Mao Zedong, Deng took an open and pragmatic approach toward economic development. He rebooted China’s relationship with the United States, observing in 1979 that “all countries that fostered good relations with the United States have become rich.” When China’s economy faltered after the government’s crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, he headed off a downward spiral by clearly reiterating the party’s commitment to economic reforms, especially during an influential 1992 tour of southern China.

Over the last 45 years, China has transformed from one of the world’s poorest and most isolated countries into the heart of the global supply chain. That economic rise, however, was built on a system of financial repression that prioritized investment and exports over domestic household consumption, leading to harmful stagnation on the demand side of the economy. Posen identifies the first quarter of 2020 as the “point of no return” for the Chinese economy, but it has faced looming problems for at least a decade. The workhorses of its growth model were already tiring years ago.

When Xi became president, in 2013, he had an opportunity to focus on domestic demand-side economic reform by shifting government policy to promote consumption over investment and by developing a more robust social welfare system. Instead, the cumulative policy shocks of Xi’s first two terms worsened the structural challenges that were dragging down—but not yet crashing—China’s economy. They also badly weakened the confidence that undergirded Deng’s opening-up era.

Xi focused on projects that prioritized state-led investment and diverted resources from supporting households, such as the 2013 Belt and Road Initiative and the 2015 “Made in China 2025” strategic plan, which aimed to reduce China’s dependence on foreign technology. He greatly expanded the role of state-planned industrial policies and, by emphasizing the role of the CCP and the government in commanding capital management, diminished the space consumer-oriented private entrepreneurs need to flourish.

China’s economic rise was built on financial repression.

Posen is justified in warning that Xi’s mishandling of the pandemic will likely “plague the Chinese economy for years.” But he is wrong to imply that historians will look back on the COVID-19 era as a critical juncture for China’s economy rather than one step on a long path. Well before the pandemic, Xi’s aggressive promotion of a military-civil fusion strategy prompted U.S. leaders to enhance investment screening and export controls; these Western restrictions have raised the cost of his drive for technological supremacy, requiring the state to commandeer additional national resources.

China’s stepped-up military activity around Taiwan, which also predated the pandemic, has stoked a gloomy perception in China that armed conflict is inevitable. China’s one-child generation would shoulder the weight of such a conflict, an immense threat that few families are prepared to cope with. Many China watchers underestimate the degree to which the souring of Western confidence in China has negatively affected Chinese people’s willingness to spend and to take economic risks. Pessimism from abroad contributes to the Chinese population’s mass loss of confidence, which James Kynge of The Financial Times has aptly characterized as a “psycho-political funk.”

In essence, Xi did not assemble China’s economic time bomb, but he dramatically shortened its fuse. Posen argues that for ordinary Chinese people, the CCP has now become “the ultimate decision-maker about people’s ability to earn a living or access their assets.” To some degree, this has always been the case in China; what has changed is the way the party reacts to economic difficulties. In the past, it responded with reform and pragmatism. By contrast, Xi’s instinct has been to meet every challenge with political and economic retrenchment.

Pessimism from abroad contributes to the Chinese population’s mass loss of confidence.

Still, it is premature to imagine that China’s economy has peaked. Xi abruptly reversed course on his “zero COVID” policy when its costs became untenable; he should do so on his economic and political strategies, as well—and he may. Historically, the Chinese people have tended not to look back on political upheavals after moving past them.

Posen suggests that the West might benefit from a Chinese decline. But the West has a genuine interest in preventing China’s economic downfall. Given the size and importance of the country’s economy, a full-blown financial crisis in China would have far greater consequences than other previous emerging-market crises. And a crisis would complicate the West’s transition to clean energy since China is the dominant producer of the technologies and minerals needed for that transition.

Instead of looking for opportunities in China’s economic struggles, U.S. and European Union leaders should communicate their interest in preventing a Chinese economic crisis. One necessary first step is to create a shared entity list to coordinate investment screening and export controls on potential dual-use technologies. This move could minimize the potential that strategically motivated investors will access sensitive technologies. If Washington and Brussels fail to clarify the intentions of their “de-risking” strategies, however—or if they meet Xi’s aggression with chest-thumping—they may legitimize his claims that economic containment is to blame for China’s economic woes and that further isolation is the only antidote.

ZONGYUAN ZOE LIU is Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions.

Inherited Trauma

Michael Pettis

Posen correctly identifies the problems the Chinese economy faces, including weak consumption, anemic business investment, surging debt, and rising financial uncertainty among Chinese households. But his explanation of what has gone wrong misses the mark, neglecting the structural sources of China’s economic malaise.

Posen writes that China’s economic troubles are the result of President Xi Jinping’s turn against the private sector in recent years, especially in response to the COVID-19 crisis. Under Xi, he argues, the Chinese Communist Party “has reverted toward the authoritarian mean.” He proposes that in response to “the government’s intrusion into economic life” and the increasingly visible “threat of state control in day-to-day commerce,” an anxious Chinese public is saving more and spending less, yielding a “less dynamic economy.”

This account gets the causality backward. The problems facing the Chinese economy are not the consequence of recent policy shifts; they are the almost inevitable result of deep imbalances that date back nearly two decades and were obvious to many economists well over a decade ago. They are also the problems faced by every country that has followed a similar growth model.

In the 1970s, the economist Albert Hirschman argued that any successful growth model has obsolescence built into it, because it is designed to address and resolve particular economic imbalances. This is the case for the Chinese growth model. In the late 1970s, the Chinese economy was stunted by decades of civil war, conflict with Japan, and Maoism. It was among the most severely underinvested in the world for its level of social and institutional development. The high-savings, high-investment model that the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping implemented in the 1980s and 1990s succeeded because it closed, faster than in any other country in history, the gap between the existing level of investment and the level the country could productively absorb.

Investment in China has continued to rise, even as it has progressively generated less value.

China closed this gap around 2006. Once it did so, however, it should have switched to a different growth model, one that prioritized consumption over investment. This would have required developing a new set of business, legal, financial, and political institutions to promote the higher household income and stronger social safety net that undergirds a more consumption-driven economy. But like similar countries that reached this pivot point, such as Brazil in the 1970s and Japan in the 1980s, China did not reform its growth model. In fact, from 2006 through 2011, its household consumption as a percentage of GDP fell even faster than it had in the 1980s and 1990s, to 34 percent, compared with over 50 percent, on average, in the rest of the world.

Hirschman would have predicted this. A successful growth model, he noted, develops its own set of institutions, along with powerful constituencies that benefit disproportionately from these institutions, making the model politically difficult to transform. As the elites who benefit from the model expand their wealth and power, Hirschman argued, they become motivated to entrench it.

This is what happened in China. In the past two decades, investment in China has continued to rise as rapidly as ever, even as it has progressively generated less and less value for each dollar invested. Overall growth has increasingly been driven by asset bubbles, especially in real estate, and an unsustainable rise in debt. Worse, over this period, business investment has become constrained by China’s extraordinarily low consumption rate, as shaky domestic demand discouraged private businesses from expanding production.

At the same time, the locus of Chinese economic activity shifted away from sectors of the economy constrained by hard budgets and a profit imperative, mainly the private sector, and toward sectors that are not so constrained, such as the public sector and those parts of the private sector with guaranteed access to liquidity—real estate, for example. The turn against the private sector was not the result of Xi’s particular ideology. It may have been accommodated by his rhetorical and policy shifts, but it was driven by something deeper: the growing imbalances in China’s economy and Beijing’s need to maintain high GDP growth rates.

Government intrusion is not China’s biggest problem.

Some economists presume that any rapid growth is, by definition, a consequence of private-sector initiatives and that any slowdown arises from excessive government intervention. But that was certainly not the case in China. On the contrary, government intervention drove China’s ferocious growth in its first decades of economic reform. Beijing enacted policies to force up the savings rate and corral the resulting savings into a highly controlled financial system that heavily subsidized infrastructure and the manufacturing sector with very low interest rates, preferential lending, an undervalued currency, and other direct and indirect transfers. These subsidies made China’s logistical and transportation infrastructure the best in the world and its manufacturers the most competitive, albeit at the expense of Chinese households. Posen writes of “government intrusion” as if it is something new and unwelcome, but it in fact created the conditions for China’s spectacular growth through the middle of the first decade of this century.

Today, even as it raises costs for businesses, government intrusion is not China’s biggest problem. Its biggest problem is that it has not substantially adjusted its growth model. Retaining its current high-investment model distorts the distribution of income and keeps domestic demand too weak to support domestic business investment. And because this weak demand constrains the growth of private businesses, China has had to rely on an expanding public sector to deliver the level of growth Beijing deems politically necessary.

Government intrusion, in other words, is the consequence of weak private investment, not its driver. This distinction matters enormously when thinking about how China can fix its economic woes. It must address the demand side of the economy by strengthening the share of its GDP that Chinese households retain. Until Beijing does so, or until it is willing to accept much lower growth rates, the role of the government in the economy must necessarily expand relative to that of the private sector. Even if Beijing decided to reduce government intrusion, growth would not pick up except at the margin, and China’s overall growth rate would continue to decline, probably to below two to three percent.

MICHAEL PETTIS is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Professor of Finance at Peking University, and the author of Trade Wars Are Class Wars.

Posen Replies

Adam S. Posen

Two things can be true at once: China’s structural economic issues have reduced its growth rate over time, and increased intrusion into everyday life by the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping has changed the economic behavior of the country’s people, reducing the growth rate even further. As any economy develops, its growth rate slows because of the accumulation of capital (including infrastructure), a diminishing rate of urbanization, and, usually, a declining birth rate. This slowdown is expected and inevitable over the long term, and it typically does not disrupt normal commercial life. The emergence of “economic long COVID” in China, however, is a special case. The abandonment of autocratic self-restraint by Xi and the leadership of the CCP was not inevitable, and it drove a marked change in the behavior of Chinese households, as well as in their responses to government policies.

My analysis is supported by data gathered since Xi took office—and especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic—on Chinese savings, investment, capital outflows, and durable goods consumption. In their responses to my article, Zongyuan Zoe Liu and Michael Pettis go doggedly narrow; they neglect the importance of Xi’s behavior in shaping outcomes and even seem to deny that the economic regime has changed.

Pettis’s claim that “government intervention drove China’s ferocious growth in its first decades of economic reform” sets the stage for his argument that increased and arbitrary government intervention is merely a continuation of past practice. The important role of government investment in Chinese development in the 1980s and 1990s is undeniable; China’s industrial policies, which the CCP borrowed from Japan and Singapore, did help it up the value chain in trade. Those actions alone, however, did not deliver the miraculously high Chinese growth rates from 1980 to 2008.

Total investment, public and private, remains elevated, but it declined as a share of GDP from 47 percent in 2011 to below 43 percent in 2016, where it remained before declining further this year after the collapse of China’s real estate sector. Pettis is thus incorrect when he claims that “in the past two decades, investment in China has continued to rise as rapidly as ever.” And the evidence does not support his claim that “China has had to rely on an expanding public sector to deliver the level of growth Beijing deems politically necessary.” Nonprivate fixed asset investment—the best available proxy for public investment—began to decline in 2016, when it was at 26 percent of Chinese GDP. By 2021, it was down to 21 percent, rising only slightly in 2022, to 22 percent. And it was government regulation that, in 2020, killed the long-running residential property boom, steps the CCP took because the private sector was driving growth in ways the party did not like.

The abandonment of autocratic self-restraint by Xi and CCP leadership was not inevitable.

Simply put, Chinese growth has not been largely, let alone entirely, driven by public and government-directed investment. On the contrary, as the economist Nicholas Lardy established in his 2014 book, Markets Over Mao, the market-oriented reforms led by Deng Xiaoping drove growth and restrained the party. The clearest evidence is that between 1980 and 2013, the year Xi took control, China’s private investment grew at 2.6 times the pace of state investment. And during that same period, the share of state investment fell from 80 percent to roughly 33 percent of total investment. Similarly, private urban firms employed only 150,000 Chinese workers in 1980, or 0.2 percent of urban workers; by 2012, that number had grown to over 252 million, or 68 percent of urban workers. Put another way, between 1980 and 2012, private firms accounted for 95 percent of the growth in urban jobs in China.

More fundamentally, it makes little sense to lump together the state infrastructure investments in the pre-Xi era and Xi’s draconian government intrusions, including the arbitrarily applied “zero COVID” policy and its abrupt lifting, which induced economic and social whiplash. From 1978 to 2012, the Chinese leadership undertook a number of policies that were explicitly market-oriented or supportive of private markets: China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization, which allowed the private sector the right to trade internationally; its 2002 “Three Represents” amendment to the CCP charter, acknowledging the need to develop the private sector; a law instituted in 2007 that codified private property rights; a program of state-owned enterprise reform that took place between 1998 and 2002 and reduced state-sector employment in cities by 30 percent; and many moves over the decades that opened the country to foreign investment.

By contrast, the CCP’s policies under Xi have rapidly increased the investment going to state-owned enterprises, and the share of credit going to the private sector peaked in 2015 and has declined steadily since. The party has also intruded more and more into the operations of private companies, including through a September 2020 directive to expand the CCP’s role in private firms’ corporate governance. Between 2012 and 2019, cumulative growth in credit to private firms was 10 percent, a huge slowdown that brought it in line with growth in state investment. And between January 2022 and June 2023, growth in private investment declined to half the level of growth in state investment, a change driven by the residential real estate collapse.

Liu makes an argument similar to Pettis’s—that the structures of the Chinese economy driving growth have remained largely constant. But even she notes additional policy areas in which Xi has increased government intervention at the expense of the private sector and raised barriers to private international commerce, notably the “Made in China 2025” strategic plan and the Belt and Road Initiative. These points support my argument that the present is a deviation from more than three decades of the preceding Chinese leadership’s relative self-restraint on economic intervention.

China developed economic long COVID thanks to Xi’s shift to more autocratic economic management.

When discussing political economy, it is always wise to cite Albert Hirschman, but Hirschman’s logic does not support Pettis’s case. If, as Pettis’s paraphrase of Hirschman suggests, a successful growth model “develops its own set of institutions, along with powerful constituencies that benefit disproportionately from these institutions, making the model politically difficult to transform,” then China’s enormously successful private-sector elites should have better entrenched their economic position. But they cannot because the autocratic rulers of China have decided to take away their property rights and livelihoods at will. The relevant Hirschman insight is from his profound 1970 treatise, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, which explains the three choices citizens have when forming a relationship with their rulers. Voice, as in criticism of government policies that could lead to civic political action, has always been severely limited by the CCP, and its use of electronic surveillance and repression has only grown in recent years. Loyalty, essentially accepting that what the party leadership does on policy is right, was and largely remains the default. But that has been the case only as long as everyday commercial life was productive and undisturbed—which it has not been in recent years. That leaves only exit, and people in China have increasingly resorted to that option under Xi’s autocracy: Chinese households are building up their liquid savings instead of consuming durable goods; small enterprises are remaining liquid and investing less, to reduce the risk of expropriation; and, in many cases, better-off Chinese citizens are physically exiting by moving their assets, some of their production, and their families abroad.

All the structural problems Liu and Pettis identify in China’s economy exist and have long existed. But Xi’s deliberate and widening violation of his predecessors’ “no politics, no problem” compact, particularly during the pandemic, changed the game. My critics’ structuralist approach to analyzing China misrepresents the sources of the country’s astonishing past growth and fails to explain the shifts unfolding today. A narrow, structuralist reading would predict that the Chinese economy would react especially well to measures that stimulate consumption and private credit, since the relative benefits to households of those measures versus government investment would be high. In fact, Chinese consumers have been notably sluggish in responding to the stimulus measures introduced since the end of 2022, even when they targeted subsidies for auto sales or mortgage payments.

China developed economic long COVID thanks to Xi’s shift to a more autocratic approach to managing the economy. This syndrome was not inevitable, and it was not foreseen. And it will be very difficult for the autocrat who caused it to cure it.

12. Rightsizing the Russia Threat

Excerpts:

An understanding of Putin as a tactician is not necessarily reassuring. His ambitions may well expand in the future just as they have contracted in the past—and if Russia’s power can enable that expansion, then threat assessments should change. Moreover, even with his current limited capabilities, Putin can still inflict major damage on Ukraine and its people. Russia has pounded Ukrainian ports and industrial and energy facilities and has mined many agricultural fields. Its naval blockade has obstructed exports of grain, steel, and other commodities on which the Ukrainian economy (and that of many other countries) critically depends. In 2022, the Ukrainian economy shrank by a third, and it is hard to imagine how a substantial recovery could take place before Moscow stops bombing major cities and infrastructure and lifts the blockade. Further, Ukraine is by far the most powerful of Russia’s non-NATO neighbors. In other words, even with his current capabilities and a tactician’s mindset, Putin could pose an insurmountable threat to Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and other former Soviet republics. U.S. allies in NATO might be safe, but that’s cold comfort to people in those countries.

For governments, rightsizing the Russia threat—that is, adopting an understanding of Putin as a tactician operating under significant constraints—should form the basis for determining appropriate policy responses to his actions. Policymakers should recognize that Putin’s goals might well be a moving target and avoid static assessments. Regularly testing the proposition that he might have adjusted to new circumstances would be a sensible approach.

Regardless, a proper understanding of the threat Russia poses must begin with an accurate appraisal of Russian power. Putin might harbor fantasies of world conquest. But at the moment, his military cannot even fully conquer any of the four Ukrainian provinces he claims to have annexed last year. Ultimately, those are the constraints that should bound the debate about the extent of the threat.

Rightsizing the Russia Threat

Whatever Putin’s Intentions Are, He Is Hemmed In by Limited Capabilities

By Samuel Charap and Kaspar Pucek

October 3, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Samuel Charap and Kaspar Pucek · October 3, 2023

Since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022, debates have raged in the West about how to properly respond to Moscow’s aggression. But those debates are limited by a lack of agreement about the goals of that aggression and, ultimately, what kind of threat Russia really represents. Arguably, understanding the Russia threat is a first-order priority: unless Western governments get that right, they risk either overreacting or underreacting.

Officials and scholars who have proffered their views of Russian goals tend to see them in quite stark terms. Many have made the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a maximalist whose ambitions go far beyond Ukraine. Others portray Putin as obsessed with Ukraine—or more specifically, obsessed with erasing it from the map. Such assessments of Putin’s intentions, however, are often unmoored from any consideration of his capabilities. If one accepts the formulation that a threat must be assessed based on an adversary’s intentions and capabilities, then the limits of what Putin can do establish which of his ambitions are relevant for understanding the threat posed by Russia—and which merely reflect the powers of his imagination.

Over the past 20 months, the world has learned much about what Putin can and cannot do. When one considers that evidence, a different view of Putin and the threat he represents emerges: a dangerous aggressor, for sure, but ultimately a tactician who has had to adjust to the constraints under which he is forced to operate.

WHAT DOES PUTIN WANT?

Some prominent Russia analysts have claimed that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is merely the first step in a much larger attempt at domination that will extend beyond Ukraine. Putin, in this view, is a maximalist. As the scholars Angela Stent and Fiona Hill argued in Foreign Affairs: “[Putin’s] claims go beyond Ukraine, into Europe and Eurasia. The Baltic states might be on his colonial agenda, as well as Poland.” In this view, Russia’s progressively greater use of military force in its foreign policy since the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 is part of a continual process that has yet to peak. Putin, accordingly, will not stop until he has restored some version of the Russian Empire or at least a sphere of influence that goes beyond Ukraine. As Hill and Stent put it in a different article: “If Russia were to prevail in this bloody conflict, Putin’s appetite for expansion would not stop at the Ukrainian border. The Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and many other countries that were once part of Russia’s empire could be at risk of attack or subversion.”

If Putin does harbor such imperialist ambitions in eastern Europe, his intentions would partly resemble those of Hitler and Stalin. Some leaders, particularly in parts of formerly communist Eastern Europe that fell under Nazi occupation during World War II and Soviet occupation and control after it, have not shied away from making the analogy explicit. For example, in June 2022, Polish President Andrzej Duda criticized German and French attempts at diplomacy with Russia by rhetorically asking: “Did anyone speak like this with Adolf Hitler during World War II? Did anyone say that Adolf Hitler must save face? That we should proceed in such a way that it is not humiliating for Adolf Hitler? I have not heard such voices.”

Other analysts and policymakers have portrayed Putin as essentially a génocidaire—a man bent on destroying not only the Ukrainian state but also its people and culture. As the historian David Marples put it: “The Russian leadership seeks to depopulate and destroy the entity that since 1991 has existed as the independent Ukrainian state.” The writer Anne Applebaum concurs: “This was never just a war for territory, after all, but rather a campaign fought with genocidal intent.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described “an obvious policy of genocide pursued by Russia,” a charge backed by the odious practices of Russian forces: the mass killings of civilians, the torture and rape of detainees, the deliberate bombing of residential neighborhoods, and the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. In his September 2022 address to the UN General Assembly, U.S. President Joe Biden stated that “this war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple, and Ukraine’s right to exist as a people.” The legislatures of Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have joined that of Ukraine in formally declaring Russia’s aggression in Ukraine a genocide.

It now seems patently obvious that Putin’s motives went far beyond defense.

The trouble with seeing Putin as a maximalist or a génocidaire is that it ignores his inability to be either one of those things—unless he resorts to use of weapons of mass destruction. When Russia’s conventional military was at the peak of its power at the start of the war, it was incapable of taking control of any major Ukrainian city. Since the retreat from Kyiv and the northeast, Russian forces have demonstrated little capacity to conduct successful offensive operations. Their last attempt—a winter offensive in the south of the Donetsk region—ended in a bloodbath for the Russian side. At this rate, Putin will never succeed at taking control of Ukraine by force, let alone wipe out its inhabitants, even if Western support for Kyiv wanes. If he cannot take Ukraine, it seems far-fetched that he could go beyond it. These Russian weaknesses are widely invoked, but they are usually ignored in assessments that focus on Putin’s intentions.

Moreover, Moscow’s soft-power instruments have been revealed to be equally ineffective as its hard power ones. Despite many fears to the contrary, German dependence on Russian natural gas has not allowed Moscow to stop Berlin from leading efforts to counter aggression in Ukraine. In addition, the shallowness of Russia’s capital markets and the general weakness of its industrial sector have driven former Soviet countries toward the West and China in search of trade opportunities and investments—despite elaborate attempts by Moscow to foster economic integration in the region. In addition, Putin’s Russia, unlike its Soviet predecessor, has no power of attraction with which to co-opt foreign elites into larger political projects. The Kremlin under Putin has neither a powerful, transnational ideology nor a developmental model that could attract elites outside its borders. Whatever soft power Russia wielded to attract elites through more banal means—say, bribery on a grand scale—has been largely squandered by now, thanks to the brutality of its war.

The Ukraine war has revealed that Putin does not have the resources—short of using nuclear weapons—to fulfill maximalist or genocidal objectives. The Russian military has improved its performance during the war; its destructive power should not be dismissed. And Putin's intentions do matter. But it is now clear that his forces cannot defeat the Ukrainian military, let alone occupy the country. Perhaps he might dream of wiping Ukraine off the map or of marching onward from Ukraine to the rest of the continent. But his dreams matter little if he cannot realize them on the ground.

PAVED WITH BAD INTENTIONS

A smaller but vocal group of analysts takes a markedly different view of Putin’s intentions, claiming that he is a fundamentally defensive actor who seeks (like all leaders of major powers, this group alleges) to prevent threats to his homeland from materializing. Rather than trying to conquer Ukraine, let alone Europe, Putin has been waging a reactive war to keep the West out of his backyard. The political scientist John Mearsheimer, the most prominent exponent of this view, has argued that “there is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine.” He has also written that “there is no evidence Russia was preparing a puppet government for Ukraine, cultivating pro-Russian leaders in Kyiv, or pursuing any political measures that would make it possible to occupy the entire country and eventually integrate it into Russia.” In other words, Russia has been playing defense, and Putin is merely pushing back against Western encroachment. He seeks nothing more than security for his country.

But this portrayal of Putin clashes with the reality of Russia’s actions. It now seems patently obvious that Putin’s motives went far beyond defense. It is difficult to see the Russian attempt to take Kyiv in the first weeks of the war as anything other than a regime-change operation. And British, Ukrainian, and U.S. intelligence agencies have all judged that the Kremlin attempted to prepare various Ukrainian figureheads to lead a Russian puppet regime in Kyiv and steer the country back into Moscow’s orbit. (One such figurehead, Oleg Tsaryov, even directly confirmed his presence in Ukraine on the day the full-scale invasion began, declaring on the Telegram social media platform that “Kyiv will be free from fascists.”)

Still, to accurately assess the Russia threat, the clear evidence of Putin’s initially expansive intentions must be coupled with the equally clear evidence of Russia’s limited capabilities, which have been on vivid display since February 2022 and which appear to have forced Putin to adjust his aims. Putin may well have been seeking to conquer Ukraine in the initial stage of the war, but following the failure of that plan, he (at least temporarily) downsized his goals. He withdrew his forces from around the capital and other cities in the northeast of Ukraine in early April 2022; they have never returned. As Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, has testified to Congress: “Putin is likely better understanding the limits of what his military is capable of achieving and appears to be focused on more limited military objectives for now.” The best way to understand Putin, then, is not as an offensive maximalist, a génocidaire, or a wholly defensive actor, but rather as a tactician who adjusts his ambitions to accord with the constraints under which he operates. Analysis of the Russia threat should focus less on what he might aspire to and more on what he plausibly can get with the power he has.

DEALING WITH A TACTICAL ADVERSARY

An understanding of Putin as a tactician is not necessarily reassuring. His ambitions may well expand in the future just as they have contracted in the past—and if Russia’s power can enable that expansion, then threat assessments should change. Moreover, even with his current limited capabilities, Putin can still inflict major damage on Ukraine and its people. Russia has pounded Ukrainian ports and industrial and energy facilities and has mined many agricultural fields. Its naval blockade has obstructed exports of grain, steel, and other commodities on which the Ukrainian economy (and that of many other countries) critically depends. In 2022, the Ukrainian economy shrank by a third, and it is hard to imagine how a substantial recovery could take place before Moscow stops bombing major cities and infrastructure and lifts the blockade. Further, Ukraine is by far the most powerful of Russia’s non-NATO neighbors. In other words, even with his current capabilities and a tactician’s mindset, Putin could pose an insurmountable threat to Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and other former Soviet republics. U.S. allies in NATO might be safe, but that’s cold comfort to people in those countries.

For governments, rightsizing the Russia threat—that is, adopting an understanding of Putin as a tactician operating under significant constraints—should form the basis for determining appropriate policy responses to his actions. Policymakers should recognize that Putin’s goals might well be a moving target and avoid static assessments. Regularly testing the proposition that he might have adjusted to new circumstances would be a sensible approach.

Regardless, a proper understanding of the threat Russia poses must begin with an accurate appraisal of Russian power. Putin might harbor fantasies of world conquest. But at the moment, his military cannot even fully conquer any of the four Ukrainian provinces he claims to have annexed last year. Ultimately, those are the constraints that should bound the debate about the extent of the threat.

• SAMUEL CHARAP is a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation and a co-author of Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia. He served on the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State during the Obama administration.
• KASPAR PUCEK is a Lecturer in International and Russian and Eurasian Studies at Leiden University and an Associate Fellow at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague.

Foreign Affairs · by Samuel Charap and Kaspar Pucek · October 3, 2023

13. Telling the Truth About Taiwan By Eliot A. Cohen

Excerpts:

And not least important: Another liberal democratic state would be snuffed out, in a world in which free government, liberty, and rule of law are already under pressure.

Eighty-five years ago, the leader of the world’s greatest global power shrugged off interest in a “quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing.” There are those who would say the same today of Ukraine. Neville Chamberlain’s foolish words were seared in the memory of an earlier generation, who learned the hard way that the stakes in such places can be far larger and far graver than domestically obsessed politicians might imagine.

It is now generally acknowledged that history is very far from being at an end and that, pressing as they are, issues of transnational significance such as climate change and environmental degradation are not the only urgent ones. We are back in a world of great-power politics, and to deal with it, those who make policy need to do the simplest, if sometimes the hardest, thing: start with the truth, and take prudent but firm steps to undo the effects of falsehood.

Telling the Truth About Taiwan

On a recent visit, a series of conversations brought home to me just how pernicious our falsehoods have been.

By Eliot A. Cohen

The Atlantic · by Eliot A. Cohen · October 3, 2023

For some 50 years, American policy toward Taiwan has been based on the assertion that people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits believe that they are part of the same country and merely dispute who should run it and precisely how and when the island and the continent should be reunified. It is a falsehood so widely stated and so often repeated that officials sometimes forget that it is simply untrue. Indeed, they—and other members of the foreign-policy establishment—get anxious if you call it a lie.

It may have been a necessary lie when the United States recognized the People’s Republic of China, although it is more likely that the United States got snookered by Chinese diplomats in the mid-1970s, when they needed us far more than we needed them. It may even be necessary now, but a lie it remains. Acknowledging this fact is not merely a matter of intellectual hygiene but an imperative if we are to prevent China from attempting to gobble up this island nation of 24 million, thereby unhinging the international order in Asia and beyond.

On a recent visit to Taiwan, I had the chance to talk with the president, the candidates to replace her, senior ministers, academic experts, diplomats, and soldiers. Those conversations brought home to me just how pernicious the falsehood has been. Taiwan is an independent country. Its people have (on the evidence of repeated polling) little interest in becoming part of the mainland, and by substantial majorities consider themselves more Taiwanese than Chinese. It has its own currency, a thriving economy, lively democratic politics, sizable armed forces, a more and more desperate foreign policy—everything that makes a country independent.

From the January/February 2023 issue: I went to Taiwan to say goodbye

The reflexive reaction of American officials and experts today when one mentions Taiwan is, as in the past, a red-faced insistence that they better not go for independence. Those officials rarely produce evidence that the Taiwanese are about to declare independence. They do not even seem to realize that Taiwan already is independent in every meaningful sense. They are just conditioned to fulminate, grimly or histrionically depending on their nature.

This finger-wagging is a pompous assertion of hegemony over a protectorate that we have yet to say unambiguously we will protect. When President Joe Biden repeatedly lets slip that we would do so with force, his aides, in a bureaucratic reflex created by years of unthinking habit, insist that the president does not mean it. As a result, once again Americans have set up a minor ally for failure, and then blamed them for our shortsightedness.

In this case, 50 years of being told, in effect, to sit in a corner and not disturb the grown-ups has made Taiwan more difficult for the United States to defend, and less able to defend itself. Because of Taiwan’s military isolation, its armed forces are literally insular, inexperienced, and deprived of all the benefits that countries like South Korea or Japan get from regular, routine training and operation with the U.S. armed forces. Because the United States, in a superfluity of cleverness and caution, continues to refuse to say whether it would fight for Taiwan, the Taiwanese themselves are not sure that they would adopt the New Hampshire motto “Live free or die.” And honestly, who can blame them?

Lie follows lie. A president of Taiwan cannot visit the United States—rather, they are “in transit” somewhere else, usually one of the few Caribbean countries (St. Kitts, for example) that China has not yet coerced into cutting diplomatic recognition. The United States has an “American Institute in Taiwan,” not an embassy. The deputy assistant secretaries of state responsible for Taiwan (and the same goes for those in the Defense Department, of course) cannot visit the country. The handful of American service personnel there cannot go about in uniform. The U.S. does not openly conduct exercises with the forces with which it would—maybe—fight side by side. All this when Washington needs, more than ever, intimate connections with Taiwan.

It is a comfortable lie, which the government is unwilling to acknowledge as such, let alone confront, because the United States has allowed China’s Communist rulers to shape how we understand this part of the world. And while China prepares its forces for a bloody invasion of the island, its real strategy is more that of the constant squeeze, in multiple dimensions simultaneously—bribing countries to drop their recognition of Taiwan, pushing it out of international forums, seducing and suborning Taiwanese surrogates and likely collaborators, and an intense ramping up of military operations around the island to unnerve its population and exhaust its defenders. In the past, the Chinese armed forces rarely crossed the “median line” between the island and the mainland—now they do so routinely. China periodically fires missiles near the island. It has violated the Taiwanese air-defense interception zone so far this year several times more frequently than it did in 2020. And, of course, it maintains a drumbeat of threats directed as much against the United States as against Taipei.

From the December 2022 issue: Taiwan prepares to be invaded

The Chinese are masters at the art of incremental and psychological pressure, which suggests the counter—namely, doing the same to them. Why not let American military personnel operate on the island in uniform? Why not let senior diplomats and defense officials visit? Why not conduct open training? Why not, come to think of it, maintain a knowing silence the next time President Biden slips and says that we would defend the island? The Chinese would react—but then again, American inaction over Chinese base-building in the South China Sea merely encouraged more such activity. Passivity is the greater danger here.

And the United States should be prepared to fight for Taiwan. Should the island fall to China, America’s most potent geopolitical rival will have gained the world’s 21st-largest economy, roughly equivalent to Switzerland’s or Poland’s. China would also gain a dense clot of advanced technology, particularly in the area of computer chips. A key piece of the so-called first island chain in the Pacific would be in hostile hands, endangering the sea lanes of our closest Pacific allies, particularly Japan. American credibility would take a brutal blow, and our allies would have to wonder whether they should accommodate China or resort to the development of their own nuclear arsenals to substitute for the guarantees of an unreliable superpower.

And not least important: Another liberal democratic state would be snuffed out, in a world in which free government, liberty, and rule of law are already under pressure.

Eighty-five years ago, the leader of the world’s greatest global power shrugged off interest in a “quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing.” There are those who would say the same today of Ukraine. Neville Chamberlain’s foolish words were seared in the memory of an earlier generation, who learned the hard way that the stakes in such places can be far larger and far graver than domestically obsessed politicians might imagine.

It is now generally acknowledged that history is very far from being at an end and that, pressing as they are, issues of transnational significance such as climate change and environmental degradation are not the only urgent ones. We are back in a world of great-power politics, and to deal with it, those who make policy need to do the simplest, if sometimes the hardest, thing: start with the truth, and take prudent but firm steps to undo the effects of falsehood.

The Atlantic · by Eliot A. Cohen · October 3, 2023

​14. China Is Suffering a Brain Drain. The U.S. Isn’t Exploiting It.

We fear them as spies rather than having confidence in our ability to effectively influence them (and vet them).

China Is Suffering a Brain Drain. The U.S. Isn’t Exploiting It.

By Li Yuan

Oct. 3, 2023, 12:00 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by Li Yuan · October 3, 2023

China’s brightest minds, including tech professionals, are emigrating, but many are not heading to America. We spoke to them to ask why.

Credit...Xinmei Liu

By

Oct. 3, 2023, 12:00 a.m. ET

They went to the best universities in China and in the West. They lived middle-class lives in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and worked for technology companies at the center of China’s tech rivalry with the United States.

Now they are living and working in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia — and just about any developed country.

Chinese — from young people to entrepreneurs — are voting with their feet to escape political oppression, bleak economic prospects and often grueling work cultures. Increasingly, the exodus includes tech professionals and other well-educated middle-class Chinese.

“I left China because I didn’t like the social and political environment,” said Chen Liangshi, 36, who worked on artificial intelligence projects at Baidu and Alibaba, two of China’s biggest tech companies, before leaving the country in early 2020. He made the decision after China abolished the term limit for the presidency in 2018, a move that allowed its top leader, Xi Jinping, to stay in power indefinitely.

“I will not return to China until it becomes democratic,” he said, “and the people can live without fear.” He now works for Meta in London.

I interviewed 14 Chinese professionals, including Mr. Chen, and exchanged messages with dozens more, about why they decided to uproot their lives and how they started over in foreign countries. Most of them worked in China’s tech industry, which was surprising because the pay is high.

But I was most surprised to find that most of them had moved to countries other than the United States. China is facing a brain drain, and the United States isn’t taking advantage of it.

In the 1980s and 1990s, when China was poor, its best and brightest sought to study and work — and stay — in the West. Emigration, on net, peaked in 1992 with more than 870,000 people leaving the country, according to the United Nations. That number fell to a low of roughly 125,000 in 2012, as China emerged from poverty to become a tech power and the world’s second-biggest economy.

The Chinese government worked hard to keep them, rolling out incentives to lure back scientists and other skilled people. In 2016, more than 80 percent of Chinese who studied abroad returned home, according to the Ministry of Education, up from about a quarter two decades earlier.

The trend has reversed. In 2022, despite passport and travel restrictions, more than 310,000 Chinese, on net, emigrated, according to the U.N. data. With three months to go this year, the number has reached the same level as the whole of 2022.

“I will not return to China until it becomes democratic,” said Chen Liangshi, who works for Meta in London.Credit...Alex Ingram for The New York Times

Quite a few people I interviewed said, like Mr. Chen, that they had started thinking of leaving the country after China amended its Constitution to allow Mr. Xi to effectively rule for life. The “zero-Covid” campaign, with nearly three years of constant lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines, was the last straw for many of them.

Most people I interviewed asked that I use only their family names for fear of government retaliation.

One of them, Mr. Fu, worked as an engineer at a state-owned defense tech enterprise in southwestern China when he decided to leave. He found that after the constitutional amendment, he and his colleagues spent more time participating in political study sessions than working, forcing everyone to work overtime.

As Mr. Xi increasingly ruled by fear and propaganda, the social and political atmosphere grew tense and suffocating. Mr. Fu said he had become estranged from his parents after arguing about the necessity of the strict pandemic restrictions, which he objected to. He barely spoke with anyone and lived in a political closet. Late last year, he quit and applied for a work visa in Canada. Now, he and his wife are on their way to Calgary, Alberta.

Most of the emigrants I spoke to, explaining why they did not pick the United States, cited America’s complicated and unpredictable process for applying for visas and permanent residence status.

The number of student visas granted by the United States to Chinese nationals, long a starting point for promising future emigrants, began to fall in 2016, as relations between the countries deteriorated. In the first six months of 2023, Britain granted more than 100,000 study visas to Chinese nationals, while the United States granted roughly 65,000 F1 student visas.

Mr. Fu said he hadn’t considered the United States because he studied at a university that is on Washington’s sanction list and he worked at a defense company — both could make it tough for him to pass the U.S. government’s security screening procedure. But he said he would eventually like to work in the country, which he idolizes.

Some tech professionals chose Canada and European countries over the United States because of their better social benefits, work-life balance and gun control laws.

When Ms. Zhang decided to emigrate in July 2022, she made a list: Canada, New Zealand, Germany and Nordic countries. The United States didn’t make it because she knew it would be extremely difficult for her to get a work visa.

Ms. Zhang, 27, a computer programmer, felt the hustle culture of Silicon Valley was too similar to China’s grueling work environment. After putting in long hours at a top tech company in Shenzhen for five years, she was done with that. She also sought a country where women were treated more equally. This year, she moved to Norway. After paying taxes for three years and passing the language exam, she will get permanent residency.

Ms. Zhang said she didn’t mind that she was making about $20,000 less than in Shenzhen, and paying higher taxes and living expenses. She can finish her day at 4 p.m. and enjoy life outside work. She doesn’t worry that she will be considered too old for employment when she turns 35, a form of discrimination that many Chinese experience. She doesn’t live in constant fear that the government will roll out a policy like “zero Covid” that will turn her life on its head.

Most of the tech professionals I talked to took a pay cut when they emigrated. “I feel like I’m paying for liberty,” said Mr. Zhou, a U.S.-educated software engineer who quit his job at an autonomous-driving start-up in Beijing. He now works at an automobile company in Western Europe. “It’s worth it,” he said.

Another emigrant, Mr. Zhao, described his long and anxious journey to the United States.

He grew up in a poor village in China’s eastern Shandong Province and came to the United States for a doctoral degree in engineering five years ago. At the beginning, he intended to return after graduation later this year — China was on the rise, he believed, unlike America.

But China’s response to the pandemic caused Mr. Zhao to start questioning his beliefs.

“I can’t go back to a country where everything was built on lies,” he said.

But it won’t be easy to stay in the United States. Mr. Zhao has a job offer and will get temporary employment status as a graduate in a STEM, or science or engineering, field. That will last three years. He will participate in a lottery for an H-1B work visa. He did the math: There’s a 40 percent chance he won’t win the lottery by the end of the three years. He might have to go back to school to remain in the United States, or ask his company to transfer him to a foreign post.

“Sometimes when I think about this at night, I feel that life is full of misery and uncertainty,” Mr. Zhao said. “Then I can’t sleep.”

Li Yuan writes the New New World column, which focuses on the intersection of technology, business and politics in China and across Asia. More about Li Yuan

The New York Times · by Li Yuan · October 3, 2023

​15. Why the “Mother of the Atomic Bomb” Never Won a Nobel Prize

Why the “Mother of the Atomic Bomb” Never Won a Nobel Prize

By Katrina Miller

Katrina Miller, a science reporter, recently earned a Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Chicago. She is the third Black woman from her university to have done so.

• Oct. 2, 2023

The New York Times · by Katrina Miller · October 2, 2023

Lise Meitner, the Austrian-born physicist, was a longtime collaborator of Otto Hahn, who won the Nobel Prize in 1946. She did not share in the award with him.

Lise Meitner developed the theory of nuclear fission, the process that enabled the atomic bomb. But her identity — Jewish and a woman — barred her from sharing credit for the discovery, newly translated letters show.

Lise Meitner, the Austrian-born physicist, was a longtime collaborator of Otto Hahn, who won the Nobel Prize in 1946. She did not share in the award with him.

• Oct. 2, 2023

There is a memorable scene in “Oppenheimer,” the blockbuster film about the building of the atomic bomb, in which Luis Alvarez, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, is reading a newspaper while getting a haircut. Suddenly, Alvarez leaps from his seat and sprints down the road to find his colleague, the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

“Oppie! Oppie!” he shouts. “They’ve done it. Hahn and Strassmann in Germany. They split the uranium nucleus. They split the atom.”

The reference is to two German chemists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, who in 1939 unknowingly reported a demonstration of nuclear fission, the splintering of an atom into lighter elements. The discovery was key to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret American effort led by Oppenheimer to develop the first nuclear weapons.

Except the scene is not entirely accurate, to the chagrin of some scientists. A major player is missing from the portrayal: Lise Meitner, a physicist who worked closely with Hahn and developed the theory of nuclear fission.

Meitner was a giant in her own right, a contemporary of Nobel laureates like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and Max Planck. After the second atomic device was dropped on Nagasaki, the American press dubbed her the “mother of the atomic bomb,” an association she vehemently rejected.

Only Hahn won the Nobel Prize for nuclear fission. In his acceptance speech, he referred to Meitner with a German term that means assistant or employee, according to Marissa Moss, the author of a recent book about Meitner. “Or a co-worker at best,” she said.

In 2022, Ms. Moss sifted through Meitner’s archive at the University of Cambridge. Since then, she has translated hundreds of letters between Meitner and Hahn, written in German, which she says offer a more nuanced perspective of their relationship’s demise. That insight also challenges a common perception that Meitner accepted the outcome of the Nobel Prize without resentment.

The snub was about more than just gender, according to Ms. Moss. “It’s easy to say she didn’t get it because she was a woman,” Ms. Moss said. “One doesn’t think a woman is going to make noise about things.” Ms. Moss also believes Meitner’s heritage was at play: “This is a case where it was because she was a Jew.”

Dr. Meitner and Otto Hahn in a Berlin laboratory in 1909.

In 1947, Meitner wrote to her nephew Otto Robert Frisch, a Jewish physicist who also contributed to the discovery of nuclear fission: “I know that his attitude contributed to the Nobel committee deciding against us,” she said of Hahn, in a letter translated by Ms. Moss. “But that is purely private stuff that we don’t want to make public.”

Nobel Week is a moment when the scientific community celebrates its greatest achievements but also, increasingly, examines oversights and injustices. Lise Meitner is one of many women in science who failed to receive due credit for their work, including, perhaps most notably, Rosalind Franklin, the chemist who contributed to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA in 1953.

“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of women who achieve something great in science that just didn’t get recognized in their lifetime,” said Katie Hafner, the host of the podcast “Lost Women of Science.” Ms. Hafner recently completed a two-part episode about Meitner, the second half of which opens with the fateful Oppenheimer scene. Unlike other figures on her podcast, Ms. Hafner said, “Lise Meitner is not lost.”

But, she added, “she is misunderstood.”

A Radioactive Trailblazer

From the beginning, Meitner was breaking glass ceilings. Born in 1878 in Vienna, she began studying physics privately, as women in Austria were not allowed to attend college until 1897. In 1901, she enrolled in graduate school at the University of Vienna; five years later she earned a doctorate in physics, only the second woman from her university to do so.

Meitner spent the rest of her career working among the greats. She moved to the University of Berlin and began auditing classes taught by Max Planck, who won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics — and who generally did not allow women to attend his lectures.

In Berlin, Meitner also met Otto Hahn, a chemist who was around her age and had a more progressive attitude about working with women. Hahn was also eager to collaborate with Meitner, as physicists tended to have a better grasp on radioactivity, the energy emitted by unstable atomic nuclei, than chemists. But, as a woman, Meitner was not allowed upstairs in Hahn’s lab. So she worked — without pay — in the basement. (When she needed to use the restroom, Ms. Moss said, Meitner had to dash across the street.)

In 1912, Meitner and Hahn moved to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. Together, they discovered a new element named protactinium. When the men at the Institute were drafted during World War I, Meitner was given her own physics lab and the title of professor, a position that granted her recognition and the independence to pursue her own research.

But outside the realm of science, the walls were closing in. Antisemitism was on the rise, and in 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. Many Jewish scientists left the country, but Meitner stayed, thinly protected by her Austrian citizenship and keen to hang on to the rare opportunity for a woman to conduct scientific research.

“I love physics with all my heart,” she wrote in a letter to a friend. “I can hardly imagine it not being part of my life.”

In 1938, Germany invaded Austria, leaving Meitner subject to the full extent of the Nazi regime. She opted to flee. The Nobel physics laureate Niels Bohr arranged for her to escape by train.

Meitner eventually made her way to Sweden, devastated at having had to leave behind her life’s work and concerned about the safety of her family.

She continued collaborating with Hahn by mail. He ran experiments, and she interpreted findings he did not understand. One result stumped them both: When uranium atoms were bombarded with neutrons, the neutron should have been absorbed and an electron released, creating a heavier element. Instead, Hahn found barium, a much lighter element. They were baffled.

The finding was outside of Hahn’s expertise as a chemist. “Perhaps you can come up with some sort of fantastic explanation,” he wrote in a letter to Meitner translated by Ruth Lewin Sime, a chemist at Sacramento City College who published a biography of Meitner in 1996. “If there is anything you could propose that you could publish, then it would still in a way be work by the three of us!”

Hahn and his colleague Fritz Strassmann submitted the results for publication in December of 1938. Their tone was uncertain. “There could perhaps be a series of unusual coincidences which has given us false indications,” they wrote in German.

Meitner was not included as an author, nor was there any mention of her contribution to the work.

A Theory Is Born

A lecture on the atom in the 1950s attended by, from left in front row, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Otto Stern and Lise Meitner.Credit...CBW/Alamy

In Sweden, Meitner mulled over the results with Frisch, her physicist-nephew. One snowy day, Frisch recalled in a memoir, they took a walk, eventually stopping to sit on a tree trunk and scribble calculations on scraps of paper.

Uranium was extremely unstable, they realized, and likely to fracture on impact with, say, a neutron. Those fragments would be violently blasted apart. If one of those pieces were barium, Meitner mused, the other would have to be another light element called krypton. She computed the energy driving the blast using Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc².

Hahn and Strassmann had split the atom.

“We have read and considered your paper very carefully,” Meitner wrote to Hahn in January 1939. “Perhaps it is energetically possible for such a heavy nucleus to break up.” In a later letter, she expressed disappointment at being absent: “Even though I stand here with very empty hands, I am nevertheless happy for these wonderful findings.”

Meitner and Frisch published their theoretical interpretation of Hahn and Strassmann’s results in the February 1939 edition of the journal Nature. Frisch and Meitner devised experiments to test their hypothesis. In the following weeks, they published two more papers with the results, which became the first physical confirmation of what Frisch coined “nuclear fission.”

Behind the scenes, Meitner and Hahn’s correspondence spiraled into misunderstanding. Hahn thought that she was angry that he had published without her. “What else could I have done?” he wrote to Meitner. “Believe me, it would have been preferable for me if we could still work together and discuss things as we did before!”

Hahn was also receiving pushback for working with a Jewish scientist. “I don’t give these things much weight, of course, but didn’t want to confess to the gentlemen that you were the only one who found out everything immediately,” he wrote Meitner in 1939.

Later that year, Germany invaded Poland. World War II had begun. And the race was on to build an atomic bomb.

Word spread about nuclear fission. Though a single split atom did not generate enough energy for potential use in a weapon, some speculated that a chain reaction could do the trick. Bombarding uranium with neutrons not only produced lighter elements; it also created more neutrons. If those neutrons collided with more uranium, the reaction might sustain itself.

The American government assembled the Manhattan Project to develop such a weapon. Many of Meitner’s peers, including Frisch and Bohr, became involved. Einstein did not, although he had written a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging him to secure uranium and fund chain reaction experiments.

Meitner, though she had been invited, refused to join. (“I will have nothing to do with a bomb!” she famously said.) In 1945, after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to the end of the war, some newspaper stories claimed that Meitner had smuggled the recipe for the weapon out of Nazi Germany in her purse. She dismissed them. “You know so much more in America about the atomic bomb than I,” she told The New York Times in 1946.

In 1945, Hahn was nominated for the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, one year late, for the discovery of nuclear fission. Meitner and Frisch were also nominated for the physics prize that year. But only Hahn won.

A ‘Firm Tradition’

Meitner arriving in New York for a U.S. visit in January 1946. “You know so much more in America about the atomic bomb than I,” she told The New York Times that year.Credit...Associated Press

Details of Nobel Prize deliberations remain secret for 50 years after an award is given. After the documents surrounding Hahn’s win were released, science historians published an analysis of the deliberations in Physics Today in 1997. “None of this embittered Meitner,” they wrote. “She complained very little, and forgave a great deal.”

Ms. Hafner takes issue with that stance. “Who is going to say, ‘Hey, I’m bitter’?” she said. “What are the optics of that?”

Ms. Moss thinks bitter is the wrong word. “She was very, very hurt,” she said of Meitner, at both the lack of credit and the passive loyalty she felt Hahn had to Germany.

“It was quite clear to me that Hahn was completely unaware of his unfriendly behavior,” Meitner wrote to a friend in 1946. “Naturally, the time together with him was somewhat painful, but I was prepared for it and held myself firm, bringing up no personal debates.”

Meitner was nominated again — five times — for the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics. According to the authors of the Physics Today article, the Nobel committee argued that it was “firm tradition” to award the prize for experimental, rather than theoretical, discoveries.

But Demetrios Matsakis, a retired physicist of the U.S. Naval Observatory, said it is impossible to separate the “interplay between experimentalists and theorists. They need each other.” (Dr. Matsakis learned of Meitner in 2018, and was inspired to petition to rename another radioactive process, to recognize Meitner’s role in that discovery.)

Hahn deserved the award, but Meitner did, too, Dr. Matsakis said: “She should have gotten the Nobel Prize. There’s really no question about that.”

As an inverse comparison, scientists note the case of Chien-Shiung Wu, a Chinese American physicist who ran experiments showing that some particle interactions do not obey mirror symmetry. In 1957, two of Wu’s male colleagues won the Nobel Prize in Physics for building the theory confirmed by her results.

The award recipient — the experimentalist or the theorist — “seems like it was reversed in these two cases,” said Harry Saal, a physicist who studied under Wu at Columbia University. “And in both cases the woman got screwed.”

Memorializing Meitner

Meitner with Otto Hahn in 1959, to inaugurate the Hahn-Meitner-Institut Berlin, now the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin.Credit...Heinrich Sanden Sr./Associated Press

In his later years, Hahn seemed to try to make amends. He and Meitner remained friends, and he offered her a head position at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, which she declined. In 1948, he nominated her for the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Meitner went on to be nominated 46 times for the Nobel in both physics and chemistry, but she never won. (To date, only four women have won in physics, most recently in 2020, and only eight have won in chemistry.)

In 1968, Meitner, then 89, died in England. An obituary that ran in The Times referred to her as an “atomic pioneer” and the “scientific partner of Otto Hahn, the Nobel Prize-winning nuclear chemist and the discoverer of nuclear fission.”

In 2020, the official Nobel Prize account on X, formerly known as Twitter, acknowledged that both Hahn and Meitner discovered nuclear fission. The post was accompanied by artwork showing Meitner standing behind Hahn, to the outrage of many people.

Any effort to award a Nobel to Meitner posthumously would be in vain. “Once a Nobel is given, there is no going back,” Dr. Sime said. The best that can be done is to acknowledge Meitner in the present, she added — and her omission from the new Oppenheimer film “was not excusable.”

Ms. Moss is still translating Meitner’s letters; so far, she has worked through more than 700 pages. “Now I’m just doing it because I fell in love with her,” she said. “She’s an incredible person.” She plans to write another book about Meitner with all the material that did not make it into the first one.

Earlier this year, Ms. Hafner and a friend visited Meitner’s grave, located in a tiny English churchyard “in the middle of nowhere,” she said. It took them half an hour to find the faded tombstone, which was overgrown with weeds.

Ms. Hafner was surprised at how unremarkable the grave was for such “a giant in science,” she said. Still, she was comforted to find a stone perched atop the marker, a Jewish practice to honor the dead. Ms. Hafner added visitation stones for herself, Ms. Moss, Bohr, Einstein, Frisch and even Hahn.

This is how people are remembered, Ms. Hafner said. “Until we chip away at this and continue to remind people of the important work she did, it just won’t get recognized,” she added. So “we do everything we can to set the record straight.”

Katrina Miller is a science reporting fellow for The Times. She recently earned her Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Chicago. More about Katrina Miller

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The New York Times · by Katrina Miller · October 2, 2023

16. Divining Xi's behavior: It's all about power

Excerpts:

And it’s almost as if Xi were daring the Americans to “do something.” It’s a miracle that Chinese naval and air interdictions of US and allied aircraft and ships haven’t killed somebody yet.

The China-Philippines dispute at Second Thomas Shoal will come to a head sooner or later. And the Americans will either get directly involved or else leave the Filipinos in the lurch again. The latter would shake the US-Philippines alliance, to say the least.

Yet, Team Biden still seems to prioritize more discussions over strengthening America’s defense. Where’s the plan for rebuilding US shipbuilding or the US Navy?

Instead, as one acquaintance put it: “It would seem that the American leadership is firmly trying to walk back confronting China.”

The US leadership talks (over and over) about the need to “stabilize” and “responsibly manage” the US-PRC relationship through “intensive diplomacy” and talking things out with Beijing.

As if US administrations (bar one) hadn’t tried this over the last 50 years. Beijing is glad to have Team Biden think that’s still possible. And Xi is acting accordingly. He is getting ready.

Divining Xi's behavior: It's all about power

Disappearing officials could be Xi’s version of ‘draining the swamp’ but could also signal he’s gearing up for a showdown with the US

asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · October 3, 2023

In China, espionage laws are being tightened and senior officials are “disappearing” — most recently the defense minister. Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is throwing its weight around in the region.

Here’s the thing to remember when considering Communist China: It’s all about power and control for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and especially for whoever is at the top. Xi Jinping also has to control the CCP and that’s still a work in progress. It always is.

Regarding the “disappearing officials” and the defense minister, in particular, one hopes the CIA and the rest of the US intelligence community with their US$80 billion budget know the answer and aren’t just speculating like the rest of us.

But here’s how I see it.

There probably isn’t a single Chinese official at these levels who isn’t guilty of corruption. And even if there are a few “clean” ones, as Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria said, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”

So it is unlikely that the minister got caught because of “corruption,” unlikely that Xi is just cleaning out a corrupt official or three. “Corruption” seems to be the modern version of the Maoist era’s “counter-revolutionary activities.” It’s the go-to, catch-all charge for getting rid of people and making it look like they were guilty of something.

So why is Xi doing it?

Defense Minister Li Shangfu at the Asian Security Conference in Singapore on June 4, 2023. Photo: Kyodo

Possible motives

It could be the officials’ poor performance. The PLA has flubbed some exercises. And it has exhibited some serious failings.

Or maybe they just weren’t taking things seriously enough and Xi didn’t think he’d gotten their attention or could count on them.

Maybe. But the PLA has had problems for years and the Chinese talk about it all the time. Note frequent complaints about the PLA’s “peace disease” and other military shortcomings.

I suspect Xi is worried about something internally. He might see opposition forming in certain quarters. He’s no doubt got plenty of enemies after purging his rivals over the years. This is the nature of dictatorships and regimes that rule by force and intimidation. All opposition is rooted out – even preemptively, and even where it does not exist.

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Instill enough fear and it’s less likely anyone will take down the boss. Or so the theory goes.

Or perhaps Xi wants to get his team of totally pliant toadies and incompetents in place. Men who pose no threat to him – and who will follow orders when he makes a move somewhere? Say, against Taiwan, India, Mongolia or Japan?

Xi has clearly been trying to get control of the economy as well – particularly, the more productive parts that aren’t under tight enough state control. It seems as if Xi were purposely tanking the economy – wouldn’t mind making the middle class and the more prosperous coastal provinces toughen up.

Maybe this is Xi’s version of “draining the swamp.”

Harassing foreign firms in China seems an act of self-harm. But think about it in terms of consolidating power and control and there’s a logic. Still, it’s only doable if Xi thinks he can get away with it.

And that suggests contempt for foreign businessmen who, Xi must reckon, will put up with any amount of abuse if they think they can make money in China.

But to do that, Xi’s got to have confidence that China can withstand any pressure or backlash that comes from this clampdown.

Xi also seems to have been sanction-proofing China for a while now. It’s not sanction-proofed just yet, but if he’s willing to have his own citizens “eat bitterness” it may not matter so much.

What’s the end game?

• Achieve regional domination and control.
• Teach the Japanese a lesson.
• Drive the Americans out of Asia.
• And – ultimately – have global dominance.

Perhaps Xi reckons the timing is right in terms of China’s military capability, economic power and demographics as well as the PRC’s overseas foreign influence.

For all the news that the United States has been kind of waking up to the China threat, and the Europeans, as well, there are plenty of other countries that are aligning with the PRC.

Latin America and Africa almost seem like clean sweeps for Beijing at the moment. Parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands are either on China’s side or wavering. And the Persian Gulf and Middle East have seen recent Chinese inroads as well.

No more following Deng Xiaoping‘s admonition about biding one’s time and hiding capabilities.

Xi must also like what he sees the United States doing to itself. He may doubt the US capability to restore its economic independence and clout. And to get its military where it needs to be within the next 5-10 years, if that.

Indeed, the PRC knows many of the people on Team Joe Biden from way back. It could be counting on their proclivity to back down and “talk,” while offering concessions to ensure the Chinese don’t walk away from the table.

One fairly imagines Beijing won’t mind getting another four years of this crowd.

Is Xi going to roll the dice and start a fight?

I don’t know. But he might be sorely tempted.

What a fight would look like and where it would happen is up for debate. But Taiwan and the South China Sea seem likely.

Even if there’s no shooting yet, Xi is pushing if you look at Chinese moves around Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan. The PLA is doing more things, more often, in more places – and sometimes it’s even bringing its friends in the form of Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend an official welcome ceremony at the Grand Kremlin Palace, in Moscow, March 21, 2023. Photo: Alexey Maishev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool

And the Chinese military keeps improving its capabilities. All this PLA activity influences and wears out the opponent. It also lets the PLA and Beijing size up their targets’ military responses and capabilities as well as their political backbone to stand up to Chinese pressure.

Of course, it can also have the opposite effect. It could motivate these nations to strengthen defenses and alliances. And to some extent, it is.

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Regardless, Xi is doubling down.

How about the US?

And it’s almost as if Xi were daring the Americans to “do something.” It’s a miracle that Chinese naval and air interdictions of US and allied aircraft and ships haven’t killed somebody yet.

The China-Philippines dispute at Second Thomas Shoal will come to a head sooner or later. And the Americans will either get directly involved or else leave the Filipinos in the lurch again. The latter would shake the US-Philippines alliance, to say the least.

Yet, Team Biden still seems to prioritize more discussions over strengthening America’s defense. Where’s the plan for rebuilding US shipbuilding or the US Navy?

Instead, as one acquaintance put it: “It would seem that the American leadership is firmly trying to walk back confronting China.”

The US leadership talks (over and over) about the need to “stabilize” and “responsibly manage” the US-PRC relationship through “intensive diplomacy” and talking things out with Beijing.

As if US administrations (bar one) hadn’t tried this over the last 50 years. Beijing is glad to have Team Biden think that’s still possible. And Xi is acting accordingly. He is getting ready.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He is the author of the book When China Attacks: A Warning To America. This article was originally published by JAPAN Forward and is republished with permission.

asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · October 3, 2023

17. China foreign policy grossly misunderstood in the West

The five:

1. It’s not a grand scheme

2. China deals with democracies

3. China’s role in the world order

4. China’s historical experience

5. The appeal of Chinese aid

Excerpts:

While these images have been popular in Western media coverage of Chinese foreign policy, they overlook the role of the country receiving aid in choosing to accept Chinese finance and how this also appeals as an alternative to Western aid packages which traditionally come with many conditions relating to governance.

Chinese military leader and strategist Sun Tzu once emphasized the importance of knowing one’s enemies as well as oneself; these words are especially pertinent in understanding China today.

China foreign policy grossly misunderstood in the West

Five things the West gets dangerously wrong about China’s worldview and global ambitions

asiatimes.com · by Tom Harper · October 3, 2023

China’s capacity to surprise Western politicians was demonstrated recently when Chinese leader Xi Jinping was unexpectedly absent from the G20 summit. There were a few reasons why this G20 might have been less important for Xi, including the rising influence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China) partnership.

But often Western reactions to a Chinese decision can come from a lack of understanding of Beijing’s motivations. A deeper knowledge of China would help the West interpret Beijing’s actions more clearly, helpful at a time when many analysts see China as a potential challenger to the US as the dominant world power.

With this in mind, here are five things that the West often gets wrong about Chinese foreign policy.

1. It’s not a grand scheme

In the Western media, Chinese foreign policy has often been seen as a grand scheme to secure world leadership. Such an image has been popular with Western politicians, such as South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, who claimed that China had a “2000-year plan to destroy the US.”

However, Chinese policy is not quite the labyrinthine plot that it has often been presented as. An example of this can be seen in “Wolf Warrior diplomacy”, which has often been interpreted as a long-term, calculated strategy of Chinese aggression to Western leaders.

But another way of looking at Wolf Warrior diplomacy is as an opportunistic response to the bellicose rhetoric of the former US president Donald Trump’s administration as well as a need to cater to nationalism at home. Showing Chinese leaders “talking tough” to their foreign counterparts also plays well with a domestic audience, and can divert attention from a poorly performing economy.

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Equally, grander Chinese initiatives, such as the Belt and the Road Initiative (BRI), which provides aid and finance to African and South American countries to create new infrastructure, may also have been created as a response to outside developments, particularly the US pivot towards expanding its influence in Asia, from 2010.

Chinese foreign policy has largely been devised in response to recent developments rather than being a long-term scheme for domination.

2. China deals with democracies

Another common fear is that Beijing has encouraged the rise of political authoritarianism in other countries. The Chinese model of economic development has ratcheted up fears of China attempting to spread its political system beyond its national borders.

But, some of the biggest advocates of the China model have been the political elites in developing nations, many of whom have a colonial history, and who appreciate that China offers an alternative to the West in attracting investment.

Overall though, Beijing generally takes a laissez-faire approach towards the internal politics of its partners, with China being willing to deal with democracies and dictatorships, rather than forcing its partners to fall in line with its own political system.

A historical map of the Silk Road, linking China to its trade routes. Map: Dimitrios Karamitros / Shutterstock via The Conversation

3. China’s role in the world order

One of the most common depictions of China in recent years has been of it as a revisionist power that seeks to overthrow the liberal rules-based world order and international bodies.

Such an image was popularized by Graham Allison’s 2017 book Destined for War, which warned of a China seeking to overthrow US domination. It presents the China-US relationship as the latest in the long line of great power relationships that follow the same pattern.

However, while China wishes to amend certain areas of the post-Cold War system, most notably it being centered around the US and liberal values, it does not wish to fully overturn the whole system.

For instance, China has played a significant part in established international bodies, such as the United Nations. China was also one of the primary beneficiaries of post-Cold War globalization, with China’s rapid development being achieved partially through this economic model.

4. China’s historical experience

One of the greatest challenges posed by Chinese foreign policy is that it questions many of the dominant understandings of international relations, which have been grounded in the experiences of the West.

But China draws on a different history, one that includes its own dominant position internationally, but also its defeat and occupation. Beijing references this past when talking of the “Century of Humiliation” (1839-1949), a period when China was dominated and occupied by colonial powers. This powerful image can rally the domestic population as well as build a common cause with developing nations, many of which are former colonies themselves.

China’s golden ages of the Han, Tang and Song dynasties (202BC-1279) have also influenced Chinese thinking. This was a time of huge cultural and economic influence, with Asia trade centered around the Silk Road.

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The Silk Road refers to a historical network of highly lucrative trade routes linking a powerful China to the rest of the world, and used to sell its products for centuries. Its ambitions to build a new version of this can be seen in the BRI, which gives China a “new Silk Road.”

It is by understanding the logic behind these legacies that one can see Chinese foreign policy more clearly.

5. The appeal of Chinese aid

China’s financial aid and investment projects in developing countries are sometimes portrayed as simply bribing corrupt states or ensnaring them with “debt trap diplomacy.”

While these images have been popular in Western media coverage of Chinese foreign policy, they overlook the role of the country receiving aid in choosing to accept Chinese finance and how this also appeals as an alternative to Western aid packages which traditionally come with many conditions relating to governance.

Chinese military leader and strategist Sun Tzu once emphasized the importance of knowing one’s enemies as well as oneself; these words are especially pertinent in understanding China today.

Tom Harper is Lecturer in International Relations, University of East London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

asiatimes.com · by Tom Harper · October 3, 2023

18. Russia and China on collision course as Beijing rejects Putin's price hike

​Trouble in the axis.

Russia and China on collision course as Beijing rejects Putin's price hike

Newsweek · by Brendan Cole · October 3, 2023

Russia's state energy holding company, Inter RAO, has started restricting electricity supplies to China after Vladimir Putin's key ally and trading partner rejected a price hike.

The dispute stems from China facing severe electricity problems due to droughts and limits on increasing domestic coal production, while Russia is trying to offset the slump in its currency, which has hurt export revenues.

One expert told Newsweek that China is displaying a "hard-nosed" negotiating approach over Russia's demand and that it's in a strong bargaining position.

Western sanctions on Russia, which followed Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, have forced Moscow to pivot to other trade markets, with Russia terming countries "friendly" and "non-friendly." Putin championed this new world order and touted Moscow's strong ties with Beijing during a visit to Moscow in March of Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 21, 2023. The countries are in dispute over the demand by Russia's state energy holding Inter RAO to raise prices for electricity. Getty Images

Outside the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union of other former Soviet states, China was the biggest market for Russian electricity exports in 2022, receiving a record 4.7 billion kWh (kilo watt/hour), Russian state news agency Tass reported.

Inter RAO said that new export duties that came into force on October 1 would mean it would raise electricity prices by 7 percent for customers in China, as well as in Mongolia, Azerbaijan and the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.

Moscow announced in September that these export duties would be linked to the ruble exchange rate on certain goods between 4 percent and 7 percent, if the ruble was less than 80 to the U.S. dollar.

On Tuesday, the Russian currency traded at 99 to the greenback. Oil and gas were among Russian exports exempt from the price hike that has come into force.

In August, Russian business newspaper Kommersant reported that Inter RAO representative Alexandra Panina had told reporters that if the price were to be rejected it may "completely cut off" electricity supplies.

"Talks with China are continuing," an Inter RAO representative told Reuters. "We are starting partial restrictions from today." Mongolia agreed to Russia's price rise.

"Chinese energy firms and the state have always been famously hard-nosed and very patient in energy negotiations with Russia," said Thomas O'Donnell, a Berlin-based geopolitical analyst and energy expert who is a global fellow with the Wilson Center think tank.

"China has reaped great benefits for squeezing Russia when in a bind to export oil and gas," he told Newsweek, with Beijing getting beneficial prices for piped gas and cheaper oil after Putin's "fiasco" of losing the European market due to sanctions.

"The Russian state power export monopoly can't make a profit, or very little with a 7 percent export tax," O'Donnell said. "So it must demand higher rates from their biggest customer, China, and some other customers."

He said that Chinese resistance to paying higher rates for Russian electricity imports suggests that "given the power sector crisis in China, it may aggressively turn to LNG gas imports for generation."

"Unlike last year's winter, when still under COVID lockouts, it resold LNG deliveries, greatly benefiting Europe. This could change Europe's luck this winter to secure sufficient non-Russian natural gas," he said.

Newsweek has contacted Inter RAO by email for comment

Newsweek · by Brendan Cole · October 3, 2023

19. Another One Flies the Coop: Russian Government Pilot on Vacation Defects to the US

Will this complicate our hostage negotiations with Russia? Will they now demand that this Russia be forcibly returned in a trade for our wrongfully detained Americans (hostages)?

Another One Flies the Coop: Russian Government Pilot on Vacation Defects to the US

kyivpost.com

The Cold War cliché of a Russian pilot defecting to the West is now repeating itself.

by Kyiv Post | October 3, 2023, 1:13 pm |

A Russian Mil Mi-8 military helicopter flies over a joint Russian and Turkish convoy (not pictured) as it patrolls in oil fields near the town of al-Qahtaniyah, in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province close to the Turkish border, on February 4, 2021. (Photo by Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP)

• F-16
• Armed Forces of Ukraine

A Russian combat pilot defected to US authorities because he opposed his country’s invasion of Ukraine, Monday news reports said.

The officer in Russia’s internal security troops Rosgvardia turned himself over to State Department officials at the US Embassy in the United Arab Emirates.

The original source of news of the defection appears to have been a Telegram channel called Dose Shpiona, and possibly linked with Ukrainian intelligence services. The information platform usually features information on reports of clandestine activities in the Russo-Ukraine war.

According to that report, a Russian flight officer identified as Senior Lieutenant Garichenko (call sign “Gavr”), was allowed by his chain of command to go on leave in the UAE with his family in late September, giving him the opportunity to quit his military service and defect.

Gavrichenko made the decision to burn bridges with Kremlin authorities because he and his family disagreed with Moscow’s decision to start a major war by invading Ukraine, and because of an upcoming assignment to combat duty. He offered his readiness to cooperate with US authorities, the report said.

According to the report, another pilot identified as Anton Vasil’ev, a classmate with Gavrichenko during training at Ivanovo air base in central Russia, moved to Los Angeles, California before the war started and was in contact with Gavrichenko and instrumental to his defection. Kyiv Post was unable to verify the Dose Shpiona account.

More on this topic

NYT: Russia Suspected of Testing Secret Nuclear-Powered Intercontinental Missile

The secrecy surrounding the project, with its remote launch pad, has made test site monitoring difficult. And questions remain about dangers surrounding radioactive debris from its nuclear reactor.

News of yet another embarrassing-for-the-Kremlin defection of a trained pilot to Russia’s (according to Moscow-controlled media) greatest geopolitical opponent the US followed an unsanctioned flight by Russian helicopter pilot Captain Maksim Kuzminov, who on Aug. 23 flew a Russian air force Mi-8AMTSh helicopter to Ukrainian lines and handed it and himself over to Kyiv authorities.

According to Ukrainian official statements, agents from Ukraine’s national military intelligence agency were in contact with Kuzminov for weeks before the actual defection. His escape flight through Russia’s air defense network was, according to Ukrainian statements, tense but uneventful until landing, when two Russian flight crew unaware of the planned defection attempted to avoid capture. Ukrainian troops meeting the defection flight shot the pair dead.

Kuzminov’s defection and images of him and his helicopter were splashed across Ukrainian websites and social media. According to those reports, Kuzminov received a reward of $500,000, asylum and new residency documents for himself and his family, who had traveled to Ukraine prior to Kuzmimov’s theft of the Mi-8 from Russian authorities.

The first widely reported to have defected from military service in the Russo-Ukrainian War is Lieutenant Dmitry Mishov, formerly a member of the Russian Air Force’s 15th Brigade of Army Aviation. A trained navigator, Mishov walked into Lithuania in June and asked for asylum, telling authorities in Vilnius he disagreed with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and did not want to be responsible for killing or wounding Ukrainians.

According to Russian state-controlled media, a member of the Russian military going over to Russia’s opponents is guilty of treason and could face up to a life sentence in prison. Some Moscow talk shows have called for the penalty to be changed to execution.

One of the most famous Russian pilot defections took place during the Cold War when Viktor Belenko flew his MiG-25 (NATO: “Foxbat”) from a Soviet base in Vladivostok to Hakodate Airport on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido in 1976.

The US took possession of the plane and dismantled it, discovering it was no threat based on its antiquated vacuum tube electronics and one-time-use disposable engines. At the time, future president and then-CIA Director George H. W. Bush said the information garnered by dismantling, examining, and analyzing the Foxbat was an “intelligence bonanza for the West.”

Belenko was granted permanent asylum in the US and wrote a book published in English entitled “MiG Pilot.” He was then granted citizenship by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and became a US aerospace engineer. Belenko, 76, still lives in the United States.

The US government later returned Belenko's entire MiG-25 aircraft back to the Kremlin in multiple wooden crates.

kyivpost.com

20. AI and the Future of Drone Warfare: Risks and Recommendations

AI and the Future of Drone Warfare: Risks and Recommendations

justsecurity.org · by Brianna Rosen · October 3, 2023

October 3, 2023

The next phase of drone warfare is here. On Sep. 6, 2023, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks touted the acceleration of the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative – an effort to dramatically scale up the United States’ use of artificial intelligence on the battlefield. She rightfully called it a “game-changing shift” in national security. Under Replicator, the U.S. military aims to field thousands of autonomous weapons systems across multiple domains in the next 18 to 24 months.

Yet Replicator is only the tip of the iceberg. Rapid advances in AI are giving rise to a new generation of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) that can identify, track, and attack targets without human intervention. Drones with autonomous capabilities and AI-enabled munitions are already being used on the battlefield, notably in the Russia-Ukraine War. From “killer algorithms” that select targets based on certain characteristics to autonomous drone swarms, to many observers the future of warfare looks increasingly apocalyptic.

Amidst the specter of “warbot” armies, it is easy to miss the AI revolution that is underway. Human-centered or “responsible AI,” as the Pentagon refers to it, is designed to keep a human “in the loop” in decision-making to ensure that AI is used in “lawful, ethical, responsible, and accountable ways.” But even with human oversight and strict compliance with the law, there is a growing risk that AI will be used in ways which fundamentally violate international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL).

The most immediate threat is not the “AI apocalypse” – where machines take over the world – but humans leveraging AI to establish new patterns of violence and domination over each other.

Drone Wars 2.0

Dubbed the “first full-scale drone war,” the Russia-Ukraine War marks an inflection point where states are testing and fielding LAWS on an increasingly networked battlefield. While autonomous drones reportedly have been used in Libya and Gaza, the war in Ukraine represents an acceleration of the integration of this technology into conventional military operations, with unpredictable and potentially catastrophic results. Those risks are even more pronounced with belligerents who may field drones without the highest level of safeguards due to lack of technological capacity or lack of will.

The lessons from the war in Ukraine include that relatively inexpensive drones can deny adversaries air superiority and provide a decisive military advantage in peer and near-peer conflicts, as well as against non-state actors.

The United States and other countries are taking these lessons seriously. Mass and speed will apparently dominate the future drone wars, as the United States – through Replicator and other initiatives – seeks to develop the capacity to deploy large amounts of cheap, reusable drones that can be put at risk to keep pace with adversaries such as China. Increasingly, discrete drone strikes against non-state actors will be displaced by AI-enabled drone swarms that communicate with each other and work together (and with humans) to destroy critical infrastructure and other targets.

This emerging technology poses even greater risks to civilians than the drone wars of the past. Unlike conventional drone warfare, which is vetted and controlled by human operators, the new drone wars will be more automated. Human-machine collaboration will pervade nearly every stage of the targeting cycle – from the selection and identification of targets to surveillance and attack. The largest shift will be the least visible, as proprietary algorithms sift through reams of intelligence data and drone feeds to compile target lists for human approval.

While humans may continue to sign off on the use of lethal force, AI will play a more pervasive role in shaping underlying choices about who lives and dies and what stands or is destroyed.

As AI reduces human involvement in killing, drone warfare will most likely become less explainable and transparent than it is now. This is true not only for the public – which is already kept in the dark – but also for government officials charged with implementing and overseeing the drone program.

The problem of explainability, where humans cannot fully understand or explain AI-generated outcomes, is a broader issue with AI that is not limited to drone strikes. Computational systems that rely on AI tend to be opaque because they involve proprietary information, evolve as they learn from new data, and are too complex to be understood by any single actor.

But the problem of explainability is particularly acute when it comes to drone warfare.

In the sprawling U.S. interagency process, military and intelligence agencies rely on different information streams, technology and bureaucratic procedures to support the drone program. These agencies are developing their own AI tools which are highly classified and based on algorithms and assumptions that are not shared with key policymakers or the public. Add to this mix AI systems producing outcomes that cannot be fully understood and it will be impossible for government officials to explain why an individual, for example, was mistakenly targeted and killed.

The problem of explainability will foster a lack of accountability in the coming drone wars – something that is already in short supply. When civilians are mistakenly killed in AI-enabled drone strikes, Pentagon officials will also be able to blame machines for these “tragic mistakes.” This is especially the case for drone swarms, where drones from different manufacturers may fail to communicate properly, despite the Pentagon spending millions of dollars on the technology. As drones begin to talk to each other as well as to humans, the accountability and legitimacy gap between the human decision to kill and the machines performing the lethal act is likely to grow.

Minding the Gap

These challenges are well known, and the Pentagon has long touted a policy of “responsible AI” that aims to address them through a labyrinth of laws and regulations. This sounds good on paper, but the conventional drone program, too, was promoted as being “legal, ethical, and wise” before serious concerns about civilian harm surfaced. If the past drone wars are any indication, truly responsible AI drone warfare similarly may prove elusive, particularly where gaps in protection arise in the various legal, ethical, and policy frameworks that govern AI use.

For this reason, several states and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have proposed banning weapons systems that lack meaningful human control and are too complex to understand or explain. In the first United Nations Security Council meeting on AI in July, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres proposed that states adopt within three years a “legally-binding instrument to prohibit lethal autonomous weapons systems that function without human control or oversight, which cannot be used in compliance with international humanitarian law.”

But even if states agree to such a ban in principle, significant questions remain. What legal limits must be placed on autonomous weapons systems to ensure compliance with IHL? What type and degree of human control is needed to ensure that future drone strikes meet the IHL principles of necessity, proportionality, and discrimination, as well as precaution? Is compliance with IHL sufficient or is a new treaty required? While many states have called for such a treaty, the United States, Russia, and India maintain that LAWS should be regulated under existing IHL.

As the new drone wars become more ubiquitous, the exceptional rules that are said to apply in war – notably the lower levels of protections afforded by IHL – risk becoming the default regime. In the long term, the practical effects of this are the continued erosion of the prohibition on the use of force and the adoption of increasingly permissive interpretations of international law. The full costs and consequences of these developments are still emerging, but the precedents set now are likely to undermine individual rights in pernicious and irreversible ways.

To counter this trend, states at a minimum should reaffirm the application of IHRL within and outside of armed conflict. The individualisation and automation of war has prompted a turn toward principles enshrined in IHRL, such as a stricter interpretation of the necessity criterion under certain conditions and similarly the provision that force should be used only if bystanders are unlikely to be harmed. Yet while IHRL offers additional protections beyond IHL, the precise interaction between IHL and IHRL is disputed and varies according to state practice. Fundamentally, these legal regimes were not designed to regulate non-traditional conflicts and non-traditional means of using lethal force, and gaps in legal protections are likely to grow wider in the coming drone wars.

These gaps have prompted the ICRC to emphasize “the need to clarify and strengthen legal protections in line with ethical considerations for humanity.” In cases not covered by existing treaties, Article 1(2) of Additional Protocol I and the preamble of Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions, commonly referred to as the “Martens Clause,” provide that individuals should be protected by customary IHL, as well as the “principles of humanity and the dictates of public conscience.”

But ethical considerations may diverge substantially from the law. The relationship between morality and law is a longstanding scholarly debate beyond the scope of this article. Briefly, the law serves a different purpose from morality insofar as it must consider the effect that conventions will have on behavior, degrees of epistemic uncertainty in the real world, and anarchy in the international system. Under these circumstances, the morally optimal laws may be, in the words of Henry Shue, just those that “can produce relatively few mistakes in moral judgment – relatively few wrongs – by angry and frightened mortals wielding awesomely powerful weapons.”

The unpredictable and complex nature of AI, however, complicates efforts to discern, ex ante, the right course of action. Even when humans follow all the legal and policy guidelines, the gap between human decision-making and machine action implies that outcomes may not be moral. Far from it.

What is moral may not be legal or wise – and vice versa.

Policy guidance, meanwhile, is not a substitute for the protections that the law affords. The newly crafted U.S. Presidential Policy Memorandum (PPM), for example, is supposed to provide additional protections above what the laws of war require for direct action, that is, drone strikes and special operations raids. But the policy guidance is not legally binding, can secretly be suspended at any time, contains numerous exemptions for collective and unit self-defense, and applies to only a fraction of U.S. drone strikes outside of “areas of active hostilities,” notably in Iraq and Syria.

Moreover, the policy guidance was written with conventional drone strikes in mind. As the world stands at the precipice of a new phase in AI-driven drone warfare, it is time to rethink the rules.

Walking Back from the Precipice

There have been a number of proposals for regulating lethal autonomous weapons systems, including AI-enabled drones. But if the past drone wars are any indication, these regulations are still likely to fall short. Human oversight and compliance with existing laws and standards is essential, but not sufficient.

To more fully protect civilians in the coming drone wars, U.S. policymakers should take the following steps as a matter of urgency:

1. Develop a U.S. government-wide policy on the use of AI in drone warfare. While the Department of Defense has published numerous guidelines on AI and autonomous weapons systems, these directives do not necessarily apply to other agencies, such as those in the U.S. Intelligence Community. This oversight is deeply concerning given the crucial role that these other agencies may play in identifying, vetting, and attacking targets on a routine basis.
2. Follow the “two-person rule.” During the Cold War, the two-person rule required two or more authorized individuals to be present when nuclear weapons or material were being repaired, moved, or used. This rule was designed to prevent nuclear accidents or misuse that could pose significant risks to human life. AI-enabled weapons have similar potential for catastrophic results and should follow the same rule for all drone operations.
3. Reduce the accountability gap. Increasing autonomy in drone warfare will make strikes more unpredictable, resulting in mistakes that cannot be attributed to any particular individual. To reduce this risk, the timeframe between when humans approve a target for lethal action and when drones take that action should be minimized to mere seconds or minutes, not days or months. Under no circumstances should drones be allowed to independently target individuals who are on a pre-approved (human approved) “kill list.”
4. Conduct and publish routine AI health audits. To mitigate the problem of explainability, humans must check AI and AI must check itself. “Checking AI” can be a powerful tool in ethical audits, helping humans test AI systems and identify flaws or underlying biases in algorithms. AI health checks must be performed at regular intervals, and the results should be briefed to members of Congress (e.g., the Gang of Eight), and a redacted version should be made available to the public.

Pandora’s box has been opened, but policymakers can still place necessary guardrails on the AI revolution in drone warfare. In the words of Martin Luther King, the United States is “confronted with the fierce urgency of now” and there is “such a thing as being too late.”

Image: Drone swarm (via GettyImages).

justsecurity.org · by Brianna Rosen · October 3, 2023

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