Quotes of the Day:

"Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps fear of losing power."

– John Steinbeck

“Don’t just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.”

– George Carlin

“Be curious not judgmental”

– Walt Whitman

1. Defining the Indefinable: A Critical Analysis of Current Irregular Warfare Doctrine

2. China military now a ‘significant threat’ capable of winning in a conflict with U.S., says report

3. Kyiv Claims Successful Strike on Command Post in Russia’s Belgorod Region

4. Conflicts "Eating Into" Critical Munitions Stockpiles Needed For China Fight Top U.S. Officer In Pacific Warns

5. US to begin providing anti-personnel mines to Ukraine

6. The Osprey’s Safety Issues Spiked Over Five Years

7. Pentagon misstated how Special Operations troops died off Cyprus last year

8. JUST IN: Indo-Pacom Needs More than Drones for Air Superiority, Commander Says

9. Deterring the Nuclear Dictators

10. NATO Must Respond to Russian Shadow War on European Soil

11. A ‘hammer attack’ just outside Boise: Indian, U.S. special forces train for urban raids

12. Army taps ‘Ghost Fleet’ authors to write novel on multi-domain warfare

13.  Fiction for a future war by Mick Ryan

14. INDOPACOM is replacing a pile of partner-nation networks with just one

15. Reviewing a past attempt to "reform" US international broadcasting

16. Trump administration may signal a radical shift in the Indo-Pacific, experts say

17. ‘We must be ready’: INDOPACOM chief sounds alarm on China’s interest in invading Taiwan

18. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 19, 2024

19. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 19, 2024

20. Russia Has Suffered Colossal Losses in Ukraine. Is Its Army Depleted?

21. Beyond Sanctions: Economic Warfare and Modern Military Conflict

22. America Needs a New National Strategy for Irregular Warfare

1. Defining the Indefinable: A Critical Analysis of Current Irregular Warfare Doctrine

​Excerpts:

Conclusion

The evolution of irregular warfare's definition reflects broader changes in military understanding, but current attempts to be inclusive while remaining distinctive create significant conceptual challenges that undermine utility. The recent Army University Press video and current Joint doctrine exemplify these challenges, demonstrating how attempts to precisely define irregular warfare through methods, characteristics, and restrictions result in logical contradictions and practical limitations.

The solution lies in returning to first principles: warfare as the genus and the relationship between primary belligerents as the differentia. This actor-based definition - that irregular warfare occurs between state and non-state actors - provides clear delineation while maintaining operational flexibility. Contemporary resistance operations demonstrate the enduring validity of this approach, as it accommodates modern operational complexity while maintaining conceptual clarity.

Military theorists and practitioners must consider whether maintaining increasingly complex definitions serves strategic thinking, or whether returning to simpler, clearer conceptual frameworks better captures operational reality. Without clear delineation, irregular warfare becomes indistinguishable from warfare itself, losing its value as a distinct concept. Current doctrine's qualifying characteristics and arbitrary requirements further limit the concept without adding meaningful specificity.

The challenge of defining irregular warfare has broader implications for future doctrine development. As the joint force continues to evolve and adapt to changing operational environments, clear and logically sound definitions become increasingly crucial. Rather than attempting to create all-encompassing definitions that try to capture every aspect of a concept, future doctrine might benefit from more focused definitions that clearly delineate distinct phenomena while providing the operational flexibility needed to address emerging challenges.

1 day ago14 min read

Defining the Indefinable: A Critical Analysis of Current Irregular Warfare Doctrine

By Duc DuClos

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/defining-the-indefinable-a-critical-analysis-of-current-irregular-warfare-doctrine?utm

“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” — Socrates

“Precision of language leads to precision in thought.” — Anonymous

Introduction

On November 1st, 2024, the Army University Press YouTube channel released a comprehensive examination of irregular warfare doctrine. This professionally produced video, part of the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate's ongoing doctrinal review, weaves together combat footage, historical imagery, and dynamic graphics with insights from academic scholars, military practitioners, and senior leaders. While presenting an authoritative view of irregular warfare's doctrinal evolution, the video inadvertently demonstrates the SOF community's broader challenges in conceptualizing this complex form of conflict. Through its attempt to capture every aspect of irregular warfare, the video reflects the current definitional challenges facing military doctrine writers and practitioners.

The video's examination begins with Clausewitz's enduring principle that "the character and form of war are constantly changing, yet its fundamental nature remains the same." This observation proves particularly relevant as the U.S. military adapts irregular warfare capabilities—honed through two decades of counterterrorism operations—to address Great Power Competition. However, the video's subsequent attempts to define irregular warfare reveal definitional challenges shared by current joint doctrine, suggesting systemic issues in how the military conceptualizes irregular warfare. These challenges extend beyond mere terminology to fundamental questions about the nature of irregular warfare itself.

The term "irregular warfare" has undergone a significant transformation, evolving from a straightforward descriptor of warfare conducted by irregular forces to an increasingly complex doctrinal concept. This evolution mirrors broader changes in military thinking, where simple descriptive terms often evolve into technical concepts laden with specific requirements and restrictions. The video demonstrates how this transformation, while attempting to add precision, often achieves the opposite effect—creating confusion rather than clarity.

This pattern reveals a fundamental challenge in military theory: the tendency to substitute detailed description for clear definition. As Clausewitz reminds us, doctrine should guide judgment rather than replace it. Yet current doctrinal attempts, exemplified both in the video and recent joint publications, risk undermining the concept's utility by simultaneously broadening its scope while constraining its application through arbitrary requirements and restrictions.

The video's definitional struggles mirror broader doctrinal challenges facing the military community. Both the video and current joint doctrine demonstrate a pattern of accumulating descriptive characteristics and operational restrictions rather than providing clear definitional differentiation. Through examining the parallel evolution of irregular and guerrilla warfare concepts, and analyzing various definitional approaches through classical definitional theory, this analysis reveals how current attempts to define irregular warfare have created a paradox that undermines both theoretical understanding and practical application.

Theoretical Framework: Understanding Definition

Classical definitional theory provides essential analytical tools to evaluate various irregular warfare definitions, including those presented in recent doctrine and the Army University Press video. Aristotle's approach to definition, outlined in Categories and Topics, requires two components: genus (the broader category to which something belongs) and differentia (the specific characteristics that distinguish it from other members of that category). This framework reveals how military definitions often describe rather than define concepts, particularly in attempts to characterize irregular warfare.

Early understandings of irregular warfare demonstrated this Aristotelian clarity. They established warfare as the genus and the relationship between actors—specifically the involvement of non-state participants or irregulars—as the key differentia. This actor-centric differentiation provided clear delineation: conventional warfare occurred between state actors, while irregular warfare involved at least one non-state participant. Contemporary conflicts illustrate the enduring relevance of this distinction, as seen in Ukraine where resistance forces maintain their irregular character despite operating alongside state military forces in territorial defense.

The evolution away from this clear framework has produced several distinct approaches to defining irregular warfare. These approaches, while attempting to capture modern operational complexity, often fail to meet basic definitional requirements. Most current attempts, including those presented in the video and joint doctrine, either lack proper differentia (failing to distinguish irregular warfare from other forms of warfare) or improperly restrict the concept through artificial limitations. This pattern creates particular challenges for SOF practitioners developing partner nation resistance capabilities, where clear conceptual understanding proves crucial for effective operational implementation.

Historical Evolution and Semantic Drift

The semantic evolution of irregular warfare parallels that of guerrilla warfare, a comparison that reveals crucial insights into how military concepts drift from their original meanings. Both terms initially described warfare based on the nature of its participants rather than their methods. The term "guerrilla warfare" emerged from the Peninsular War (1808-1814), derived from the Spanish "guerra" meaning war, and "ilia," meaning small—a straightforward description of warfare conducted by small, irregular forces.

Historical documents reveal the clarity of this actor-based understanding. British officers serving with Spanish irregulars consistently used "guerrilla" to describe the fighters themselves, not their tactics. During the American Revolution, period documents described Francis Marion's forces as "partisan forces" or "irregular troops," though they employed what modern doctrine would call "irregular tactics." The Boer War (1899-1902) correspondence similarly emphasized the irregular status of Boer commandos rather than their methods. This actor-centric understanding maintains relevance today, as demonstrated by resistance movements that retain their irregular character despite employing diverse tactical approaches.

The conceptual transformation began in the early 20th century through influential theorists who systematized irregular warfare approaches. T.E. Lawrence's Arab Revolt experiences, documented in "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" (1926), demonstrated how conventional forces could adopt irregular methods. Mao Zedong's "On Guerrilla Warfare" (1937) further shifted focus from actors to methods, presenting guerrilla warfare as a tactical system available to any force. These works initiated a conceptual shift that accelerated through subsequent decades, contributing to current definitional challenges.

The post-World War II period marked a crucial doctrinal transition. While early military publications maintained some actor-based distinction, terminology increasingly emphasized methods over participants. This evolution continues in current doctrine and the recent Army University Press video, which define irregular warfare through methods, purposes, and effects rather than by its participants. This shift mirrors contemporary challenges in partner nation development, where practitioners must balance traditional resistance capabilities with modern operational requirements.

This semantic drift from clear actor-based definition to various method-based approaches has produced several competing definitional frameworks, each revealing different aspects of the challenge. As demonstrated in both current joint doctrine and the Army University Press video, these approaches often create more confusion than clarity, failing to provide clear delineation while simultaneously restricting operational utility.

Approaches to Defining Irregular Warfare: A Critical Analysis

The evolution of irregular warfare concepts has produced several distinct definitional approaches, each revealing different aspects of this complex challenge. The recent Army University Press video and current joint doctrine exemplify these approaches, demonstrating how well-intentioned attempts to capture modern operational complexity often create more problems than they solve. When examined through Aristotelian definitional theory, each approach fails to provide the clear differentiation necessary for proper definition.

The Doctrinal Authority Approach (Doctrine as Dogma)

The most problematic definitional attempt relies on circular logic: something is true simply because doctrine says so. Both the video and current joint publications exemplify this when asserting that irregular warfare must include "indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities" solely because doctrine mandates these characteristics. While doctrine provides essential guidance, treating it as infallible creates a logical fallacy of appeal to authority. As seen in current resistance operations in Ukraine, effective irregular warfare often defies such doctrinal restrictions.

The Semantic Expansion Approach (The Adjective Problem)

This approach attempts to define irregular warfare by liberally applying "irregular" as a modifier to various military concepts. Current doctrine and the video demonstrate this tendency through references to irregular operations, activities, approaches, effects, capabilities, and even irregular warfare campaigning. This linguistic expansion creates meaningless terminology - what exactly makes an operation or effect "irregular"? The approach shifts the definitional problem without solving it, complicating rather than clarifying the concept.

The Universal Inclusion Approach (The Kitchen Sink)

Current joint doctrine and the video demonstrate a tendency to treat irregular warfare as a catch-all term encompassing virtually every military activity outside large-scale combat operations. This approach sweeps in information operations, cyber operations, human domain operations, space operations, and various special operations missions under the irregular warfare banner. The definition expands further to include any activity that assures partners or coerces adversaries. This approach violates basic logic - if irregular warfare includes everything, it effectively means nothing. Recent Baltic and Nordic defense preparations demonstrate this problem, where the overly broad definition of irregular warfare complicates rather than clarifies resistance planning.

The Methodological Dichotomy Approach (Direct versus Indirect)

This approach creates an artificial distinction between irregular warfare's supposedly indirect methods and conventional warfare's direct approaches. Such categorization ignores operational reality. Operation Desert Storm, while featuring direct force-on-force engagements, relied heavily on indirect psychological effects. Conversely, irregular forces often engage in direct tactical actions. Ukraine's territorial defense forces exemplify this, conducting both direct defense of territory and indirect resistance activities. Successful operations employ whatever methods circumstances require, regardless of doctrinal categorization.

The Target Differentiation Approach (Population-Centric)

The attempt to differentiate irregular warfare through its focus on populations versus military forces fails under both historical and contemporary scrutiny. Conventional warfare has long targeted civilian populations to affect enemy decision-making, from World War II strategic bombing to modern Russian operations in Ukraine. Meanwhile, irregular forces frequently focus on military targets. This approach creates a false dichotomy that neither reflects historical experience nor serves current operational needs in developing partner nation resistance capabilities.

The Temporal Prevalence Approach (Frequency and Gray Zone)

Some attempts to define irregular warfare focus on its temporal characteristics - either its frequency or its place in the competition continuum. The video echoes Max Boot's observation that "irregular warfare happens more regularly than regular warfare," yet even Boot maintained an actor-based definition rather than defining through frequency. Similarly flawed is the attempt to restrict irregular warfare to "gray zone" activities before conventional conflict. Modern conflicts demonstrate that regular and irregular warfare often occur simultaneously - from Vietnam's parallel conventional and unconventional campaigns to Ukraine's current integration of resistance operations with conventional defense. Temporal characteristics cannot define warfare's fundamental nature.

The Operational Characteristics Approach (Methods-Based)

The attempt to define irregular warfare through specific techniques like indirect action, asymmetric warfare, or information operations fundamentally misunderstands the nature of warfare itself. These methods appear throughout military history in clearly conventional conflicts. Current doctrine's emphasis on "asymmetric" approaches particularly fails logical scrutiny - the notion of truly symmetric warfare represents a theoretical impossibility. From ancient battles to modern hybrid threats, warfare inherently involves exploiting or managing asymmetries. The methods employed flow from the nature of the actors involved, not vice versa.

The Effects-Based Definitional Approach (Contextual Purpose)

The most recent doctrinal attempt defines irregular warfare through intended effects - to assure partners or coerce adversaries. This definition fails basic logical scrutiny as these purposes characterize all military activities. Conventional deterrence assures allies and coerces adversaries; diplomatic efforts serve the same purposes. Current support to Ukraine's territorial defense and resistance capabilities demonstrates how both regular and irregular operations serve these purposes. Effects cannot differentiate irregular warfare from other military or diplomatic activities.

Analysis of Current Joint Doctrine Definition and Description

While the Army University Press video attempts to clarify irregular warfare doctrine, it instead reflects fundamental definitional issues pervading current military thought. Joint Publication 1 Chapter II exemplifies these challenges, incorporating multiple problematic approaches while adding restrictive requirements. The latest Joint definition, dedicating 614 words to irregular warfare, demonstrates a paradoxical approach - simultaneously too broad in scope yet too restrictive in application.

Base Definition and Initial Description Analysis

The chapter opens with irregular warfare as:

 "a form of warfare where states and non-state actors campaign to assure or coerce states or other groups through indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional warfare."

This definition immediately incorporates several problematic approaches previously identified.

The Effects-Based Approach appears in the focus on activities that "assure or coerce" - characteristics common to all military operations. The Universal Inclusion Approach manifests in encompassing all activities by "states and non-state actors," while the Semantic Expansion Approach emerges in descriptions of warfare that "seeks to create dilemmas and increase risks." None of these characteristics distinguish irregular from regular warfare.

Most significantly, the definition mishandles actor relationships by suggesting irregular warfare is defined by who can conduct it rather than by the relationship between primary belligerents. Recent operations in Ukraine illustrate this confusion - while both state and non-state actors conduct operations, their relationship to their opponent in the conflict defines whether warfare is regular or irregular, not merely their presence.

The Three Variables: Compounding Definitional Problems

Additionally, JP1 introduces three "essential characteristics" of irregular warfare - indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities. Rather than clarifying the concept, these variables add layers of logical contradiction while demonstrating multiple problematic approaches previously identified.

The treatment of "indirect activities" exemplifies the Methodological Dichotomy Approach, attempting to distinguish irregular warfare through intermediary operations. However, conventional forces routinely use direct and indirect approaches. Current Ukrainian conventional operations demonstrate this overlap – both regular and irregular forces employ direct and indirect methods based on operational requirements, not doctrinal categorization.

The "non-attributable activities" requirement creates perhaps the most glaring contradiction. By defining irregular warfare through activities that "conceal the source or sponsorship," this restriction creates an immediate paradox - how can a published doctrinal concept require non-attribution? This requirement also contradicts historical and contemporary practice, from openly acknowledged support to the French Resistance to current territorial defense preparations in Baltic nations.

The "asymmetric activities" characteristic reveals the Operational Characteristics Approach's fundamental flaw. While the chapter initially ties asymmetry to power disparity between actors, it then acknowledges that stronger parties may also employ asymmetric approaches. This admission effectively negates asymmetry as a differentiating characteristic - if both strong and weak forces employ asymmetric approaches, how does this distinguish irregular from regular warfare?

Institutional Requirements and Contradictions

The chapter on IW concludes with an institutional requirement that appears driven more by organizational equity than operational reality: "All IW operations and activities require conventional force lead, facilitation, or participation." This mandate contradicts both historical evidence and the chapter's own acknowledgment that non-state actors conduct irregular warfare. More importantly, it demonstrates how the current doctrine has moved from defining irregular warfare to describing it and even prescribing its execution, conflating conceptual understanding with operational requirements.

Compounding Problems and Practical Implications

The JP1 chapter's attempt to define irregular warfare through layered descriptions and requirements creates cascading contradictions undermining its practical utility. These contradictions manifest both within individual sections and across doctrinal guidance as a whole.

The campaign planning guidance particularly exemplifies these contradictions. While mandating integration with "broader, long-term USG effort across relevant instruments of national power," the chapter simultaneously directs proactive operations to "deny access or create dilemmas for an opponent's government." This creates fundamental confusion about whether irregular warfare requires comprehensive government integration or permits independent military operations. Current resistance preparation efforts in partner nations highlight this tension as practitioners balance whole-of-government approaches with tactical resistance requirements.

The chapter's treatment of objectives further demonstrates these contradictions. It states that irregular warfare aims to "erode an adversary's legitimacy and influence over a population and exhaust its political will—not necessarily to defeat its armed forces." Yet it later prescribes using irregular warfare to "deter, delay, disrupt, or degrade opponents," suggesting direct military objectives. This confusion about fundamental purposes complicates both doctrinal development and operational planning.

The Need for Clear Delineation

The analysis of Joint Publication 1 reveals a fundamental problem in current military thinking: the attempt to define a concept through accumulated characteristics and restrictions rather than clear differentiation. This approach, reflected in both doctrine and the Army University Press video, has produced guidance that fails to define while over-prescribing operational requirements.

The current treatment particularly fails by mishandling the relationship between state and non-state actors. By stating that irregular warfare can be conducted "BY states and non-state actors" rather than focusing on the relationship BETWEEN primary belligerents, the definition loses the essential characteristic that historically provided clear differentiation. Contemporary resistance operations demonstrate why this distinction matters - the presence of state forces supporting irregular warfare does not transform it into conventional warfare.

The Actor-Based Solution (Participant Differentiation Approach): Return to Logical Foundation

The clearest and most logically sound approach defines irregular warfare based on the relationship between its primary belligerents: state-versus-state conflict represents conventional or regular warfare. In contrast, the conflict between state and non-state or irregular actors represents irregular warfare. This approach satisfies Aristotelian definitional requirements by providing both genus (warfare) and differentia (the nature of the primary opposing forces). Importantly, this represents a return to the original historical understanding of irregular warfare - warfare conducted by "irregulars" - before semantic drift, similar to what occurred with the term guerrilla warfare, began adding layers of complexity and confusion to the concept.

This definitional clarity extends beyond simple categorization. The fundamental relationship between state and non-state actors naturally drives many characteristics commonly associated with irregular warfare, from asymmetric capabilities to indirect approaches. However, these characteristics emerge as natural consequences of the actor relationship rather than defining requirements. Baltic resistance preparations demonstrate this principle - the methods and approaches flow from the irregular nature of the forces involved, not from doctrinal prescriptions.

Importantly, this actor-based definition focuses on the primary belligerents in the conflict - the main opposing forces. The presence of supporting state forces conducting Foreign Internal Defense (FID) or Unconventional Warfare (UW) does not change the fundamental nature of the conflict. State forces supporting an irregular force against another state in UW are participating in irregular warfare; they are not making it conventional warfare. Similarly, state forces supporting another state against irregular forces in FID are participating in irregular warfare; their presence does not change the basic nature of the conflict between state and irregular forces.

This definitional approach provides clear analytical utility while accommodating the complex reality of modern conflicts with multiple supporting actors. It allows partners to develop comprehensive resistance frameworks without artificial doctrinal constraints. Most importantly, it provides military practitioners with a clear foundation for understanding and conducting irregular warfare operations, which is particularly vital as partner nations develop whole-of-society defense and resistance programs.

Implications for Military Theory and Practice

The return to an actor-based definition of irregular warfare carries significant implications for military doctrine, planning, and operations. Unlike the current doctrinal approach that simultaneously tries to include everything while restricting execution, an actor-based definition provides clear delineation while maintaining operational flexibility.

First, this approach eliminates the need for arbitrary restrictions on methods or requirements for specific force participation. The natural dynamics of state versus non-state conflict drive operational approaches based on tactical and strategic necessity rather than doctrinal mandate. This clarity particularly benefits partner nations developing resistance capabilities, allowing them to focus on effective irregular warfare methods without artificial constraints.

Second, understanding irregular warfare through the lens of primary belligerents helps practitioners focus on developing essential partner relationships and building holistic defense and resistance capabilities. This becomes particularly important as partner nations develop whole-of-society approaches to national defense. The Nordic total defense concept and Baltic resistance preparations demonstrate how clear conceptual understanding enables effective integration of population-based capabilities alongside conventional forces.

Conclusion

The evolution of irregular warfare's definition reflects broader changes in military understanding, but current attempts to be inclusive while remaining distinctive create significant conceptual challenges that undermine utility. The recent Army University Press video and current Joint doctrine exemplify these challenges, demonstrating how attempts to precisely define irregular warfare through methods, characteristics, and restrictions result in logical contradictions and practical limitations.

The solution lies in returning to first principles: warfare as the genus and the relationship between primary belligerents as the differentia. This actor-based definition - that irregular warfare occurs between state and non-state actors - provides clear delineation while maintaining operational flexibility. Contemporary resistance operations demonstrate the enduring validity of this approach, as it accommodates modern operational complexity while maintaining conceptual clarity.

Military theorists and practitioners must consider whether maintaining increasingly complex definitions serves strategic thinking, or whether returning to simpler, clearer conceptual frameworks better captures operational reality. Without clear delineation, irregular warfare becomes indistinguishable from warfare itself, losing its value as a distinct concept. Current doctrine's qualifying characteristics and arbitrary requirements further limit the concept without adding meaningful specificity.

The challenge of defining irregular warfare has broader implications for future doctrine development. As the joint force continues to evolve and adapt to changing operational environments, clear and logically sound definitions become increasingly crucial. Rather than attempting to create all-encompassing definitions that try to capture every aspect of a concept, future doctrine might benefit from more focused definitions that clearly delineate distinct phenomena while providing the operational flexibility needed to address emerging challenges.

References

Doctrine

Department of the Army. Army Doctrine Publication 3-0: Operations. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 2019.

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 1, Volume 1: Joint Warfighting. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, August 2023.

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 3-05: Special Operations. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2023.

Books

Aristotle. "Categories and Topics." In The Complete Works of Aristotle, edited by J. Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Lawrence, T.E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. London: Private Publication, 1926.

Mao Zedong. On Guerrilla Warfare (Yu Chi Chan). Translated by S.B. Griffith. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1937.

Articles

Murphy, Timothy J. "Misconceptions about Irregular Warfare." Parameters 54, no. 1 (2024): 15-28.

Multimedia

Army University Press. "Irregular Warfare: Defining the Indefinable." YouTube Video, 25:00. Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, November 1, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vfPOPVaHvM

Additional Credits

The categorization and analysis of definitional approaches presented in this article emerged through numerous discussions with Mr. Serge French of USSOCOM. His persistent questioning and rigorous examination of how irregular warfare is—and isn't—defined helped crystallize many of the logical fallacies and problematic approaches identified here. The release of the Army University Press Irregular Warfare video provided a timely example of these definitional challenges, but the theoretical framework for analyzing these approaches developed through intellectual discourse with Mr. French. His commitment to precise military thought and clear conceptual understanding significantly influenced the development of this analytical framework.

About the Author

CW5 Maurice "Duc" DuClos currently serves as a Guest Lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. His professional background includes various positions at the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS), 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) and 2/75th Ranger Battalion.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Special Operations Command, Joint Special Operations University, or the Naval Postgraduate School.

2. China military now a ‘significant threat’ capable of winning in a conflict with U.S., says report

​Excerpts:

Chinese military aggression in the South China Sea escalated to new levels as well this year with increasingly dangerous and violent actions against the Philippines inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone.

“China’s officials continued to leverage lawfare tactics to attempt to normalize their efforts to impose their will upon other countries in the region through coercive and illegal actions, superior force, and numbers,” the report said.

The report offered some 32 recommendations to address the China security challenges, including a proposal for the U.S. government to launch a “Manhattan Project-like” program to develop artificial intelligence technologies. Other measures call for restricting U.S. trade and investment that could assist the Chinese military and calling out unfair trade practices by China.

“We offer this report to Congress in the hope that it will be useful in helping guide policies for the U.S.-China relationship that advance American interests and values,” said Robin Cleveland, chair of the commission, and Reva Price, the vice chair, in an opening statement of the report.

China military now a ‘significant threat’ capable of winning in a conflict with U.S., says report

Beijing escalating coercion against Japan, congressional panel warns

washingtontimes.com · by Bill Gertz

By - The Washington Times - Tuesday, November 19, 2024

China’s military power poses an acute threat to the United States and Beijing’s forces could now potentially defeat the U.S. military in a future regional conflict, according to a congressional commission report made public Tuesday.

The report, based on both classified and unclassified information and hearings, also warned that Beijing is escalating tensions in the Indo-Pacific region against Japan, in addition to continued military pressure targeting Taiwan and the Philippines further south.

Two decades of large-scale military expansion by China focused on building large numbers of missiles, ships, aircraft and other systems for a future Indo-Pacific conflict, said the 793-page report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

“As a result, U.S. forces and bases in the region would face a significant threat from the [People’s Liberation Army] in any regional contingency involving treaty allies and/or security partners, and the outcome of any such conflict is far from certain,” the report states.

China’s communist leaders view the U.S. military bases and activities in the region as “hostile” and “threatening,” and have been preparing for a future U.S. intervention should China take military action against Taiwan or in the South China Sea.

In preparation for such a conflict, China’s military has significantly upgraded PLA’s command and control systems to find, target and attack U.S. forces and those of regional allies, using missiles and electronic warfare, the report said.

“China has significantly improved each of these capabilities over the past two decades, with an increased capability to disrupt or paralyze an adversary’s C4ISR system and a large arsenal of missiles with ranges capable of posing a threat to U.S. forces,” the report said, using the military term for command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

The PLA also is working to improve the quality of its soldiers and counter with new U.S. strike capabilities and Washington’s closer security ties with allies, the report said.

Despite numerous indicators in the report that China is preparing for war with the U.S., the report concluded Beijing does not believe that an armed clash is imminent.

“There is ample evidence that China’s armed forces are enhancing their general military preparedness, but little evidence they are mobilizing for an imminent conflict at this time,” the report said.

American allies such as Japan, the Philippines and Australia view the Chinese military expansion as a major security threat and have increased collaboration with the U.S. However, the three allies have differing priorities and, in some cases, lack the political will to side strongly with the U.S. in confronting Chinese aggression.

A U.S.-China war could be triggered if China’s leaders use force to pursue claims in the South China Sea, East China Sea or against Taiwan. The report noted that advanced and improved PLA weapons include a large and growing arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles, air defense systems, advanced fighter jets, maritime forces and electronic warfare weapons.

For attacking U.S. military command and control, the PLA has developed directed energy weapons and anti-satellite weapons.

The U.S. military is working to increase both missile defenses and missile strike capabilities in the region, for itself and for regional partners. For example, both Japan and Australia are buying hundreds of longer-range Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles capable of hitting targets inside China.

New U.S. military concepts such as dispersing forces geographically in the region and integrating war fighting capabilities will contribute to the survivability of U.S. and allied forces, the report said.

The commission report identifies Chinese coercion and intimidation of Taiwan, which China has vowed one day to control, as a major flashpoint. Beijing is increasing military pressure on the new administration of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, labeling his government as “separatist.”

Large military exercises around Taiwan over the past two years were “designed to suggest that Beijing’s planning for hostilities includes blockade scenarios,” the report said. Near daily PLA warplane and warship incursions around Taiwan are another indicator.

Taiwan has bolstered its defenses with U.S. assistance and internal reforms focused on developing asymmetric warfare capabilities and improved military training. But domestic factors and “China’s near-daily coercion” have made enhancing the island’s defenses a problem.

According to the report, between September 2023 and September 2024, a total of $1.26 billion in military hardware was approved for sale to Taiwan. However, many of the arms shipments have been delayed, including transfers of new F-16 fighters.

Regarding Japan, the report found that Chinese naval and coast guard ships near Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and flights near Japanese airspace in the East China Sea were “a significant escalation from previous activity,” the report said. Both Tokyo and Beijing claim sovereignty over the uninhabited Senkakus.

Chinese military aggression in the South China Sea escalated to new levels as well this year with increasingly dangerous and violent actions against the Philippines inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone.

“China’s officials continued to leverage lawfare tactics to attempt to normalize their efforts to impose their will upon other countries in the region through coercive and illegal actions, superior force, and numbers,” the report said.

The report offered some 32 recommendations to address the China security challenges, including a proposal for the U.S. government to launch a “Manhattan Project-like” program to develop artificial intelligence technologies. Other measures call for restricting U.S. trade and investment that could assist the Chinese military and calling out unfair trade practices by China.

“We offer this report to Congress in the hope that it will be useful in helping guide policies for the U.S.-China relationship that advance American interests and values,” said Robin Cleveland, chair of the commission, and Reva Price, the vice chair, in an opening statement of the report.

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

Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

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3. Kyiv Claims Successful Strike on Command Post in Russia’s Belgorod Region

​Excerpts:

In the city of Gubkin, Belgorod Oblast, Russia, the command post of the Sever military grouping was successfully struck, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) reported on Wednesday, Nov 20. Residents of Gubkin observed thick black smoke, noted its odor, and heard loud explosions.

Videos circulating online show dense black smoke, likely after the strike. However, HUR did not specify the exact timing of the attack. The intelligence service also did not disclose details about the method of the strike or its potential consequences.

Nonetheless, military intelligence concluded its message with the now customary: “For every crime committed against the Ukrainian people, there will be an appropriate and just retribution.”

Kyiv Claims Successful Strike on Command Post in Russia’s Belgorod Region

kyivpost.com · by Kyiv Post · November 20, 2024

Ukrainian intelligence reported a successful strike on the Sever military command post in Gubkin, causing explosions and thick black smoke in the city.

by Kyiv Post | November 20, 2024, 1:04 pm

Photo:HUR

In the city of Gubkin, Belgorod Oblast, Russia, the command post of the Sever military grouping was successfully struck, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) reported on Wednesday, Nov 20. Residents of Gubkin observed thick black smoke, noted its odor, and heard loud explosions.

Videos circulating online show dense black smoke, likely after the strike. However, HUR did not specify the exact timing of the attack. The intelligence service also did not disclose details about the method of the strike or its potential consequences.

Nonetheless, military intelligence concluded its message with the now customary: “For every crime committed against the Ukrainian people, there will be an appropriate and just retribution.”

Вибухи і густий дим ― у місті ґубкін на росії уражено командний пункт угруповання військ “сєвєр”

У місті ґубкін бєлгородської області успішно уражено командний пункт угруповання військ “сєвєр” російської окупаційної армії.

 https://t.co/tajxCVIwrX pic.twitter.com/44OcsKD0VM

— Defence intelligence of Ukraine (@DI_Ukraine) November 20, 2024

The Sever military grouping was formed from border forces in the Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod regions. It was led by Colonel General Alexander Lapin, who previously ordered the dissolution of the defense council of Kursk Oblast before Ukraine’s intensified operations in the region.

According to the media outlet Informational Resistance, the Sever grouping initially included the 11th Army Corps and units of the 6th Combined Arms Army, with plans to incorporate formations from Karelia and the Leningrad region.

The group reportedly had up to 48,000 personnel, over 350 tanks, approximately 950 artillery systems, and several operational-tactical missile systems. Its area of responsibility covered northern Kharkiv and Russia’s border regions.

This is not the first attack on a Russian city. In September of this year, Gubkin experienced a Ukrainian drone strike, which damaged residential buildings and vehicles, though no injuries were reported.

kyivpost.com · by Kyiv Post · November 20, 2024

4. Conflicts "Eating Into" Critical Munitions Stockpiles Needed For China Fight Top U.S. Officer In Pacific Warns

Conflicts "Eating Into" Critical Munitions Stockpiles Needed For China Fight Top U.S. Officer In Pacific Warns

The admiral's remarks are the latest admission that stocks of critical munitions are a growing concern due to fighting in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Joseph Trevithick

Posted 12 Hours Ago

twz.com · by Joseph Trevithick

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The U.S. military risks going into a potential major fight with China with insufficient stocks of Patriot surface-to-air interceptors and other key munitions due to obligations in the Middle East and Ukraine, the top officer in the Pacific has warned. America’s armed forces need to not only replenish that inventory, but grow it further, to be adequately prepared for a high-end scenario in the Pacific, especially a conflict over Taiwan.

U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), talked bluntly about his concerns at an open event at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C., hosted earlier today.

Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, speaks at AFCEA’s TechNet Indo-Pacific in Honolulu, Oct. 24, 2024. USN

At one point in the discussion, Paparo was asked a direct question about whether ongoing fighting in Ukraine and in and around the Middle East were impacting U.S. military preparedness in his part of the world.

“Up to this year, where most of the employment of weapons were really artillery pieces and short-range weapons, I had said not at all,” he said. “But now, with some of the Patriots that have been employed, some of the air-to-air missiles that have been employed, it is now eating into [our] stocks. … and to say otherwise would be dishonest.”

Ukraine has received a number of Patriot surface-to-air missile systems and interceptors to go with them from the U.S. military and other Western partners. Patriots were also among the air and missile defense systems employed in the defense of Israel against Iranian attacks in April.

Ukrainian personnel remove camouflage netting from a Patriot launcher. Ukrainian Air Force Ukrainian personnel remove camouflage netting from a Patriot launcher, which is loaded with missile canisters associated with older interceptors like the PAC-2-series. Ukrainian Air Force

The U.S. military has supplied a variety of other air and missile defense capabilities to Ukraine since 2022. American forces have also expended significant numbers of surface-to-air and air-to-air munitions in operations to shield friendly warships and commercial shipping in and around the Red Sea from Houthi militants in Yemen, as well as while defending Israel. This includes SM-2, SM-3, and SM-6 ship-launched surface-to-air interceptors and AIM-9X and AIM-120 air-to-air missiles. Ground-based National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), examples of which have been supplied to Ukraine, can also fire AIM-9Xs and AIM-120s.

The US Navy Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Carney fires an SM-2 missile at Houthi threats in October 2023. USN The U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Carney fires a missile at a Houthi threat in October 2023. Also visible in the foreground is a Phalanx CIWS. USN

A variety of other surface and air-launched munitions have gone to Ukraine and/or have been expended in the course of operations against the Houthis and elsewhere in the Middle East, as well. One prime example of this is supplies of Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) short-range ballistic missiles to Ukrainian forces, which they have just recently gotten American approval to employ against targets inside Russian territory. In the past, Army officials have explicitly cited incoming stocks of new Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) short-range ballistic missiles as helping free up ATACMS for Ukraine.

A US Army M270-series launcher fires an ATACMS missile. US Army

“If there are X [munitions in the] inventory of the United States of America, which is fungible across all theaters, that can be applied equally across any contingency, … none are reserved for any particular theater,” expending them elsewhere “inherently, it imposes costs on the readiness of America to respond in the Indo-Pacific region,” Paparo explained.

“The Indo-Pacific region… is the most stressing theater for the quantity and quality of munitions, because the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is the most capable potential adversary in the world,” he continued.

“We should replenish those [munition] stocks and then some. I was already dissatisfied with the magazine depth,” America’s top officer in the Pacific, who took up the post in May, added. “I’m a little more dissatisfied with the magazine depth. You know, it’s a time for straight talk.”

Paparo is not the first to raise the alarm about what the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are doing to U.S. munition stockpiles. Navy officials have been especially open about the worrying number of missiles and other weapons that have been expended against Houthi and Iranian threats. Concerns about the adequacy of U.S. stocks of certain munitions also predate these current crises, as the The War Zone has highlighted in the past.

An SM-3 missile at the moment of launch. The first combat employment of this anti-ballistic missile interceptor was in April 2024 against Iranian ballistic missiles headed toward Israel. USN An SM-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptor at the moment of launch. USN

There have already been growing calls from inside America’s armed forces, as well as Congress and elsewhere, to replenish those inventories and grow them beyond their previous size. There is also an emerging consensus that expanding and diversifying the U.S. industrial base available to produce key munitions, as well as developing and fielding lower-cost capabilities that are faster to produce, is increasingly critical. The Patriot interceptors and other munitions Paparo alluded to today are not bought off the shelf, are full of high-end and often unique components, and can take months or even years to procure.

As indicated by his “magazine depth” remarks, Paparo is already very outspoken on these issues, especially when it comes to preparing for a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, in the South China Sea, or elsewhere in the Pacific. Paparo has previously discussed efforts to help the Taiwanese defend themselves through the use of hordes of kamikaze drones and other uncrewed platforms in the air, on the waves, and underwater that would turn the battlespace around the island into a “hellscape” for invaders, as you can read more about here.

Speaking today, Paparo stressed his belief that the U.S. military should be working to prepare for a potential fight around Taiwan as soon as possible rather than with an eye toward being ready to do so by 2027. U.S. officials regularly cite past statements by Xi Jinping telling the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to at least be prepared by that year to successfully execute an armed intervention against the island.

“The closer we get to it [2027], the less relevant that date is, and the more we must be ready today, tomorrow, next month, next year, and onward,” Paparo said at Brookings.

With a new presidential administration on the horizon and concerns about at best flat defense budgets in the coming years, there are many new questions facing the U.S. military when it comes to things like replenishing munitions and its general global posture. Regardless, when it comes to Ukraine, specifically, “ATACMS may be the last major offensive weapons system left that the U.S. has to take off its shelf and hand to” that country, according to a separate report just today from Politico, which only underscores Paparo’s remarks.

The current head of INDOPACOM has certainly made clear that he believes that there is a worrisome shortfall of critical munitions, which would be doubly concerning should a high-end fight with China break out.

Geoff Ziezulewicz contributed to this story.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

• Land
• Maritime Surface-To-Air Missiles
• Naval Munitions
• Sea
• Surface-To-Air Missile Systems

Joseph Trevithick

Deputy Editor

5. US to begin providing anti-personnel mines to Ukraine

​Will some anti-landmine group accuse POTUS of contibuting to "war crimes?"

Excerpts;

The Ukrainians have been making their own land mines, and U.S.-supplied nonpersistent ones would be safer, he said, adding that the United States has long provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines.

The unnamed U.S. official noted that Russia has sown thousands of anti-personnel mines in Ukraine; few if any are non-persistent.

“On the note of Russia’s mines being littered throughout eastern Ukraine, we are already providing post-conflict remediation for mines and unexploded ordinance will already be required for eastern Ukraine. We will continue to support Ukraine’s efforts on this,” the official said.

In 2022, the Biden administration decided to “align its policy concerning use” of antipersonnel landmines “outside of the Korean Peninsula” with key provisions of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction—commonly known as the Ottawa Convention. The convention requires states to stop making, using, and transferring anti-personnel land mines, and to destroy any stockpiled mines except for the “minimum number absolutely necessary” for training purposes, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.

US to begin providing anti-personnel mines to Ukraine

Bradley Peniston

By Bradley Peniston

Executive Editor, Defense One

November 20, 2024 07:37 AM ET

defenseone.com · by Bradley Peniston

Ukrainian soldiers walk towards their fighting position, in the direction of Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on November 17, 2024. Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images

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Policy

Policy shift reflects changing Russian tactics and Ukrainian needs, a U.S. official says.

|

November 20, 2024 07:37 AM ET

• Ukraine
• Russia
• Pentagon

By Bradley Peniston

Executive Editor, Defense One

November 20, 2024 07:37 AM ET

VIENTIANE, Laos—The United States will begin to send anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, a Biden administration policy shift that reflects changing Russian tactics and Ukrainian needs, a U.S. official said here.

The mines will be “non-persistent”—that is, they become inert after a set amount of time—after ”anywhere from 4 hours to 2 weeks,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The United States has sought commitments from the Ukrainians on their use, to further limit the risk to civilians. We expect Ukraine would use these mines on its own territory. The Ukrainians are committed to not employing them in areas populated with their own civilians,” the official said.

Asked about the not-yet-officially-announced policy shift, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the mines would help Ukraine repel Russian advances that have in recent months been led by dismounted troops instead of armored vehicles.

“What we've seen most recently is because the Russians have been so unsuccessful in the way that they have been fighting, they've kind of changed their tactics a bit, and they don't lead with their mechanized forces anymore. They lead with the dismounted forces who are able to close and do things to kind of pave the way for mechanized forces,” Austin told reporters here.

The Ukrainians have been making their own land mines, and U.S.-supplied nonpersistent ones would be safer, he said, adding that the United States has long provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines.

The unnamed U.S. official noted that Russia has sown thousands of anti-personnel mines in Ukraine; few if any are non-persistent.

“On the note of Russia’s mines being littered throughout eastern Ukraine, we are already providing post-conflict remediation for mines and unexploded ordinance will already be required for eastern Ukraine. We will continue to support Ukraine’s efforts on this,” the official said.

In 2022, the Biden administration decided to “align its policy concerning use” of antipersonnel landmines “outside of the Korean Peninsula” with key provisions of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction—commonly known as the Ottawa Convention. The convention requires states to stop making, using, and transferring anti-personnel land mines, and to destroy any stockpiled mines except for the “minimum number absolutely necessary” for training purposes, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.

6. The Osprey’s Safety Issues Spiked Over Five Years

​A long read with multiple charts, graphics, and photos at the link.

The Osprey’s Safety Issues Spiked Over Five Years

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/11/20/the_ospreys_safety_issues_spiked_over_five_years_1073409.html?mc_cid=0bac6fe15c

By Tara Copp , Kevin Vineys , Aaron M. Kessler

U.S. Air Force

Osprey flight engineer Tech Sgt. Brett McGee sits on the back open ramp of the V-22 and holds the aircraft’s .50 caliber gun as the crew flies over a New Mexico training range Oct. 9, 2024, near Cannon Air Force Base. (AP Photo/Tara Copp)

CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AP) — Over a New Mexico training range named the Hornet, two Osprey aircraft speed 100 feet off the ground, banking hard over valleys and hills as they close in on a dusty landing zone.

A flight engineer in the back braces a .50-caliber machine gun over the edge of the Osprey’s open ramp as desert shrubbery blurs past. The aircraft’s joints shift and rattle, and there is little steady to hold on to until the Osprey touches down with a bump, flooding seats with rust-colored dust.

After being grounded for months following a crash last November that killed eight U.S. service members in Japan, the V-22 Osprey is back in the air. But there are still questions as to whether it should be.

The Pentagon bought the V-22 Osprey more than 30 years ago as a lethal hybrid, with the speed of an airplane and the maneuverability of a helicopter. Since then, 64 personnel have been killed and 93 injured in more than 21 major accidents.

Japan’s military briefly grounded its fleet again late last month after an Osprey tilted violently during takeoff and struck the ground. And four recent fatal crashes brought the program the closest it’s come to being shut down by Congress.

To assess its safety, The Associated Press reviewed thousands of pages of accident reports and flight data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, interviewed more than 50 current and former program officials, crew members and experts, and flew both simulator and real training flights.

The AP found that the top three most serious types of incidents rose 46% between 2019 and 2023, while overall safety issues jumped 18% in the same period before the fleet was grounded.

Yet current and former Osprey pilots — even those who have lost friends in accidents or been in crashes themselves — are some of the aircraft’s greatest defenders.

Ospreys have been deployed worldwide — landing in deserts and on ship decks, rescuing U.S. service members from ballistic missiles in Iraq, evacuating civilians in Niger and even standing by ready to protect the president during a surprise trip to Ukraine last year.

“There’s no other platform out there that can do what the V-22 can do,” said former Osprey pilot Brian Luce, who has survived two crashes. “When everything is going well, it is amazing. But when it’s not, it’s unforgiving.”

Unlike other aircraft, the Osprey’s problems have not leveled off as the years passed, instead they spiked — even as the number of hours flown have dropped. Many of those incidents can be directly tied to the aircraft’s design, experts said.

Parts are wearing out faster than planned, and it’s so complex that a minor mistake by a pilot can turn deadly.

While some aspects of the Osprey are now getting modified to make it more reliable, it’s unlikely the Osprey’s core design will change. With about 400 aircraft that cost between $75 million and $90 million apiece, a major upgrade to the fleet could cost billions.

One pilot survives two crashes

Brian Luce poses for a portrait inside of the Wright Patterson AFB Air Force Museum, Aug. 9, 2024, in Dayton, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean)

In 2010, Luce was the co-pilot in an Osprey crash in Afghanistan that killed his aircraft commander, flight engineer, an Army Ranger and a translator.

There was no enemy fire. In the final seconds of flight, as the Osprey converted to land like a helicopter, it dropped at a rate of more than 1,800 feet per minute. The crash investigation was inconclusive but found possible crew errors and said the engines may have lost power from sucking in too much dust.

Two years later, Luce was the aircraft commander overseeing a co-pilot on a Florida training range. Luce’s aircraft was flying low to the ground and about 750 feet behind the lead Osprey — three times the safe minimum distance required.

Despite being football fields apart, when both Ospreys banked, their change in position put one of Luce’s rotor blades inside the 25-foot vertical separation they needed. It crossed into the wake of the lead aircraft — a turbulent and unpredictable wash of air so strong that crews nicknamed it “Superman’s cape.”

In seconds, Luce’s Osprey nearly inverted and began dropping at more than 2,800 feet per minute before crashing and catching fire.

All five crew members survived. As the most seriously injured were airlifted out, Luce called his wife at the time, his voice shaking.

“It happened again,” he said.

She did not have to ask what he meant.

Both the 2010 and 2012 crashes exposed issues with the Osprey that the military still faces today.

After Luce’s 2012 crash, Osprey pilots warned investigators that the program was in trouble, according to investigation interviews obtained by the AP. Pilots couldn’t get enough training hours. Ground maintenance crews couldn’t keep enough aircraft flying due to a shortage of parts.

If another Osprey goes down, we’re done. This program’s done.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, during a hearing this spring.

To meet cost and schedule targets, the Pentagon’s Osprey program office allowed manufacturers Bell Flight and Boeing to turn the Osprey over to the military without fully identifying all the ways the aircraft could run into trouble, a 2001 Government Accountability Office report found.

So even by Luce’s 2012 crash, the military still didn’t know the full size of the Osprey’s wake, crash investigators found.

“The fact that they fell out of the sky just defies logic,” Luce’s commander Lt. Col. Matt Glover told crash investigators in documents reviewed by the AP.

“I wish I could say there’s not going to be a next one, but where we are right now, is it ‘if’ or ‘when,’” said a second pilot, who was flying the Osprey in front of Luce’s and whose name is redacted.

The Osprey’s safety record has been challenged in multiple congressional hearings over the years. But each time, it has returned to flight. Some members of Congress have said there is no more margin for error.

“If another Osprey goes down, we’re done. This program’s done,” Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Osprey program officials during a hearing this spring.

The design of the Osprey is a big challenge

In the 1980s, when the $56 billion V-22 program was in its early stages for Bell Flight and Boeing, the Marine Corps controlled the Osprey’s final design because it committed to buying the most. The Marines wanted an aircraft that could carry at least 24 troops, but only take the same small space on a ship deck as the CH-46 helicopter, which the Osprey was replacing.

Experts say design choices have affected the Osprey’s safety since:

— The Osprey’s proprotors, which work as propellers while flying like an airplane and as rotor blades when functioning as a helicopter, are too small in diameter for the aircraft’s weight, which can top out at 60,500 pounds.

— The Osprey’s entire engine, transmission and proprotors rotate to a vertical position when it flies like a helicopter, which compromises the engines.

— That vertical rotation is at the core of what makes the Osprey complex. Crews must watch numerous factors: speed, the angles of the engine and rotor blades, and the up or down position of the aircraft’s nose, related to the Osprey’s weight and center of gravity to keep it from crashing.

The Osprey is twice as heavy as the CH-46, so the rotor blades needed to be longer but couldn’t be because they would have hit the body of the aircraft or the tower on the ship deck. Instead, the Osprey’s engines had to be more powerful to help the shorter blades generate enough lift.

That creates fast, violent airflow through the rotor blades, which can quickly destabilize the Osprey if one engine has more power than the other.

More powerful engines also meant they would weigh more. So engineers designed them to rotate and used their exhaust thrust to help lift the Osprey off the ground.

“It’s an aircraft with a huge amount of performance packed into a very compact space. What that means is that it’s a real hot rod to fly,” said Richard Brown, a rotorcraft specialist at Sophrodyne Aerospace. “But it also has these foibles which are baked into the design.”

Osprey crashes go back decades

Wreckage of a U.S. Military MV-22 Osprey is seen in shallow waters of Nago, Okinawa, southern Japan, Dec. 14, 2016, after it crashed landed. (Yu Nakajima/Kyodo News via AP, File)

Problems with the vertical engine caused the aircraft’s first fatal accident in 1992. Oils that had pooled while the Osprey was flying like an airplane spilled down into the engine as it rotated to a vertical helicopter position, catching fire and killing seven crew.

In December 2000, repeated transitions to helicopter mode — where the engine and rotor blades rotate upward like an elbow joint — wore down one of the hydraulic lines in an Osprey to the point that it ruptured in flight, killing four Marines. That led to a grounding and system redesign.

Dust can be dangerous, too. When the Osprey hovers in helicopter mode, the air and exhaust it creates can kick up a wall of dust and debris that can get sucked back into the engines, clogging and degrading them.

An MV-22 Osprey takes off as Japan Ground Self-Defense Force guards take part in drill with U.S. Marines in Gotemba in March 2022. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

In 2015, a Marine Corps Osprey hovering for 45 seconds in Hawaii disturbed so much sand and dust the crew had to abort and try again to land, because they could no longer see. On their second attempt, the Osprey’s left engine stalled and the aircraft dropped flat, killing two Marines.

“I heard what sounded like the entire aircrew yelling ‘power, power, power,’” a surviving Marine told investigators, according to redacted interviews obtained by the AP. “The ceiling opened like a sardine can.”

After the accident, the Marine Corps put out new guidelines reducing the amount of time the aircraft could hover in dusty environments.

But two years later, dust was a factor again. Pilots of a Marine Corps Osprey that had been dropping off troops in landing zones in Australia all day were concerned enough about the aircraft’s weight and potential accumulated dust in the engines that they wanted troops to pour out their water jugs to cut weight.

On their final flight, as the Osprey neared the deck of the transport ship USS Green Bay, it dropped. Airflow generated by the Osprey had reflected off the ship deck and backed up through the rotors.

The ceiling opened like a sardine can.

A Marine who survived a 2015 crash.

The pilots applied full throttle but the engines could not produce enough power to compensate for the loss. The Osprey kept falling, clipped the side of the ship and fell into the ocean, killing three.

“It just felt like there was nothing you could do,” the lead pilot told investigators. “I don’t recall seeing anything with the gauges at this point. I just remember being very frightened.”

The Osprey’s manufacturers, Bell Flight and Boeing, both referred questions about whether design changes could be made to either the rotors or engine orientation to the Pentagon.

In a statement to the AP, Bell said it took the heavier loads into account in its aircraft.

“While the capabilities of the Osprey have evolved over the years, the envelope of the aircraft based on configuration to support the varied missions has actually not adjusted significantly and was anticipated by the original design,” Bell said.

The aging aircraft is wearing down

The Osprey’s design strains critical components inside, especially in helicopter mode — and those parts are wearing out faster than expected.

When the Osprey is flying like a helicopter, everything has to work harder, because the engines and rotors are supporting the full weight of the aircraft. In airplane mode, the rotors only have to overcome the aircraft’s drag, said Brown, the rotorcraft expert.

Air Force crews fly the heaviest Osprey variant because of all the special instruments needed to allow it to fly secret missions, such as conducting rescues or inserting special operations forces in hostile territory.

Master Sgt. Frank Williams, the production superintendent of the 20th Special Operations aircraft maintenance squadron at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M.,shows where hydraulic lines at the joint of the rotating engine and transmission need to be checked on the Osprey after flights. (AP Photo/Tara Copp)

In helicopter mode, they have to use an option called “interim power” to land safely, said Glover, the former Osprey squadron commander. The option surges more power, but that also can overtax the gears in the Osprey’s transmission, known as the proprotor gearbox.

“Bell-Boeing and the Marines had said: ‘Hey, you’re not supposed to use that thing very often. We don’t recommend it.’ Well, the Air Force, we’ve got to use it because we are heavy,” Glover said. “If you don’t use it, you won’t have the power to land.”

Japan’s defense ministry blamed human error for its most recent accident, where the Osprey tilted and struck the ground, because the pilots did not engage the interim power option as they hovered like a helicopter during takeoff. The ministry announced last week that its Ospreys had been cleared to return to flight.

The strain from helicopter mode shows in the Osprey’s transmission. A total of 609 have had to be replaced in the past 10 years, according to data obtained by the AP.

Wear and tear also puts a large demand on ground maintenance crews, who closely track components in the aircraft’s drive system to monitor strain. After each flight, they examine the Osprey’s engines, transmission and hydraulic lines for signs of stress.

On the hydraulic lines, “if one of those comes loose, it’s a problem,” said Master Sgt. Frank Williams, an Osprey maintenance supervisor at Cannon Air Force Base. “You have to pay attention.”

In response to questions from the AP, the Marine Corps said the Osprey is still one of its safest aircraft. Over the past decade, the rate that it experienced the worst type of accident resulting in either death or loss of aircraft was 2.27 for every 100,000 hours of flight. The Marines said that compares with 5.66 for its other heavy lift helicopter, the CH-53.

Those numbers don’t tell the whole story. The Marines’ three most serious categories of accidents climbed from 2019 to 2023, even as the number of hours they flew dropped significantly — from 50,807 in fiscal 2019 to 37,670 in 2023, according to data obtained by the AP.

The Air Force’s Osprey has a much higher rate of the worst type of accidents per 100,000 flight hours than its other major aircraft, and its incidents also climbed even as flight hours dropped.

The AP also found that the rise in safety problems over the past five years largely involved the Osprey’s engine or drive system.

There were at least 35 instances where crews experienced an engine fire, power loss or stall, 42 issues involving the proprotors and at least 72 instances of the gears inside the transmission or drive system becoming so stressed they flake off metal chips that can quickly endanger a flight.

Pilots have to fly perfectly

A V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft taxi’s during a mission in western Iraqi desert, Oct. 13, 2008. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic, File)

The Osprey’s complexity tests its crews.

Pilots control the angle of the engines and proprotors with a small notched wheel they move with their thumbs. It’s sensitive to the touch — too much of a nudge and the engines’ angle changes by several degrees. And they have to watch a computer display to see the angle.

As the engines and rotor blades begin to rotate upward, the flight controls inside the cockpit change, too — from working like the controls inside an airplane to operating like those in a helicopter.

“You have to just mentally switch, while you are on approach, what your hands are doing,” said Osprey pilot Capt. Christian Eells.

The aircraft’s computer is designed to autocorrect for a pilot if their movement of the wheel could result in the Osprey’s internal components being damaged. But that adds to the danger if a pilot can’t quickly force the nacelles, which house the engines, upward to slow down the aircraft, Luce said.

“It will not prevent you from stalling, sinking rapidly or entering any other unsafe flight,” Luce said. “But if you are going too fast, it will not only prevent you from raising the nacelles to slow down, the flight control computers will bounce the nacelles forward” to reduce strain on the gears — which speeds the Osprey up, he said.

If there are other complications in flight or a pilot is distracted or misses the significance of an aircraft warning light, those mistakes can turn dangerous quickly.

Lt. Col. Seth Buckley, the 20th Special Operations Squadron director of operations at the Cannon base, acknowledged that he puts a lot of pressure on his crews to be perfect.

“You have to take that mindset because there are so many things you can do in this aircraft to induce worse problems,” Buckley said.

Reminders of why hang inside the squadron’s heritage room at Cannon, where they have put up a wooden memorial plaque with eight upside-down shot glasses for the friends they lost last November in Japan.

Osprey pilots Capt. Christian Eells, left, and Capt. Matthew Gulotta stand Oct. 8, 2024, at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., beside a memorial to the Air Force Special Operations Command Osprey callsign “Gundam 22" that crashed off the coast of Japan in November 2023, killing all eight service members aboard. (AP Photo/Tara Copp)

Many of them also wear black metallic memorial bands on their wrists, with the Nov. 29, 2023, crash date and the Osprey’s call sign, “Gundam 22,” etched in.

Osprey faces investigations

The most recent accidents have spurred new lawsuits and congressional investigations.

Family members of the five Marines killed in a 2022 crash in California, caused by an unprecedented dual failure of the Osprey’s clutch, are suing Bell and Boeing, and the maker of the engines, Rolls-Royce. Some of the families of the eight Air Force members killed last November in the Japan crash, which was caused in part by weakened metals in a critical transmission gear, also have hired a lawyer.

“Ultimately, the goal is an Osprey that is as airworthy and in as safe a condition as possible,” said attorney Tim Loranger, who is representing the families.

Following the Japan crash, the military grounded the fleet for three months. Congress also was investigating, and there was frustration from some lawmakers that the Osprey returned to flight before those reviews were complete.

In the meantime, it’s been difficult to get a clear picture of how the aircraft’s manufacturers are responding. After investigations into the Japan and Australia crashes were released this year, neither Bell Flight nor Boeing commented, citing pending litigation.

Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, which runs the joint Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy Osprey program, is working on a variety of upgrades that should make the aircraft easier to maintain and looking at how else the program can be improved.

“This is the appropriate time to be looking at systemic improvements to the platform,” former program manager Marine Corps Col. Brian Taylor said in a statement.

But it’s unlikely to change any of the fundamentals of vertical engines or rotor size. Those problems are getting fixed in a new aircraft called the Valor that Bell Flight is selling to the Army.

The Valor looks a lot like the Osprey, but it’s smaller. The Valor’s engines stay in a horizontal position. Its smaller size means the rotor blades are more proportional with the aircraft’s weight, which reduces strain on all the other components.

The Valor “captured many lessons learned from both tiltrotor and helicopter previous experience,” Bell said in a statement.

What comes next for the Osprey?

Wreckage of a U.S. Military MV-22 Osprey is seen in shallow waters of Nago, Okinawa, southern Japan, Dec. 14, 2016, after it crashed landed. (Yu Nakajima/Kyodo News via AP, File)

Air Force leadership is watching the Osprey closely, investing in improvements to the engine to make it easier to maintain and looking at future alternatives. The Navy has taken steps to keep more of its legacy aircraft carrier transport planes around in case it can’t make the Osprey work.

The Marine Corps is committed to flying its hundreds of Ospreys through 2050. But it’s also doing a study to decide whether to “significantly modernize the MV/22 and/or begin the process to move forward” to a next-generation assault aircraft, Lt. Gen. Bradford Gering, Marine deputy commandant of aviation, said in a statement.

Until it has a new option, the Air Force is looking at what can be done to ensure pilots get the time and training needed to master the Osprey, Air Force special operations commander Lt. Gen. Michael Conley said.

“What I don’t want is someone in my seat 10 years from now say, ‘You know back in 2010, 2012, 2024, you knew crews weren’t getting enough flight hours, you knew there were maintenance challenges, and here we are having the same discussion,’” Conley said.

But it’s also about realizing that aspects of how the Osprey flies won’t change, Buckley said.

“What you have to do is reduce your exposure,” Buckley said.

For example, simulators can now model the full “Superman’s cape” phenomenon, and crews can train to it. But there are still unknowns.

“I do think that we’re still — and maybe even to this day — to a degree working through all the ins and outs aerodynamically what is different about this that has never been seen before with any other aircraft,” Buckley said.

But that doesn’t mean ground it, he said.

In Iraq, Buckley flew a mission where the Osprey was the only aircraft that could help save a service member’s life after a vehicle rollover.

“There wasn’t another plane flying in the sky because the weather was so bad,” Buckley said. “We flew up and down the line of the haboob trying to get around it, but the lightning was too bad, so we penetrated.”

“To this day, that guy is with his family,” he said.

Buckley understands the risks in a different way than many of his crews. He was a high school senior when his 25-year-old brother, 1st Lt. Nathaniel D. Buckley, died in an AFSOC MC-130H cargo aircraft crash in 2002.

In his office, Buckley pointed to the American flag that the Air Force presented to his family after his brother’s death.

“I think my job here is to ensure that I’m going to push it to the level that we are making sure we aren’t delivering any more of these,” he said.

Lt. Col. Seth Buckley, director of operations at a Osprey squadron at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., lost his brother in an Air Force Special Operations Command MC-130H crash (AFSOC) when he was still in high school. (AP Photo/Tara Copp)

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

7. Pentagon misstated how Special Operations troops died off Cyprus last year

Pentagon misstated how Special Operations troops died off Cyprus last year

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/11/19/blackhawk-helicopter-crash-cyprus-israel-gaza/?utm

A helicopter deployed in response to fighting in Gaza crashed during target practice, not aerial refueling, as the military initially said.

An Army Black Hawk lands aboard the USS Boxer in the Pacific Ocean in December 2023. (Cpl. Joseph Helms/15th Marine Expeditionary Unit)

By Kyle Rempfer

Updated November 19, 2024 at 7:24 p.m. EST|Published November 19, 2024 at 11:38 a.m. EST

A secretive U.S. Army helicopter unit sent to the Mediterranean last year in response to Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel was conducting nighttime target practice when one of its crews crashed into the sea after a diving attack, killing all five on board, according to a mishap report obtained by The Washington Post.

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The report, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, contradicts how the Pentagon described the sensitive incident after it occurred on Nov. 10, 2023, as the Biden administration sought to show support for Israel and discourage adversaries such as Iran from further fomenting tensions. Days after the crash, a Defense Department statement said the Black Hawk helicopter was conducting aerial refueling training when an in-flight emergency caused it to crash.

In their report, Army investigators said instead that the helicopter had been performing gunnery training along with two other specially designed MH-60M Defensive Armed Penetrators, which are outfitted with more offensive weaponry than is typical of Black Hawk designs. The crews flew out of Akrotiri in southern Cyprus, refueled in the air and proceeded to test their weapons on a 37-gallon barrel afloat below, the report said. The helicopter that crashed did not pull up in time after firing its guns and hit the water at a speed of roughly 140 mph. The aircraft then rolled and sank rapidly, the report said.

The MH-60M and its crew were part of the elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which rapidly dispatched assets to the region for “rotary wing fires support” early on in the Gaza crisis, the mishap report said. The Pentagon seldom publicly acknowledges the movement of such units, known to whisk top Special Operations forces on and off battlefields, and any disclosure of their presence practicing strafing attacks so close to the fighting between Israel and Hamas probably would have faced blowback among opponents of U.S. support for the Jewish state.

Following World news

Following

In response to questions about the discrepancy, a spokeswoman for U.S. Army Special Operations Command told The Washington Post that in recent days military officials had distributed a corrected version of the original news release from last November and updated the version appearing on the Defense Department’s website.

Lt. Col. Allie Scott, the spokeswoman, explained the error by saying authorities possessed limited information about the crew’s activities in the crash’s immediate aftermath. “The refueling was a portion of the training, one could not happen without the other,” Scott told The Post, adding that “the loss was overwhelming and there was an immediate need to communicate.”

Witnesses aboard other aircraft saw the accident occur, according to the mishap report, which contains substantial redactions. They told investigators there had not been a Mayday call by the MH-60M pilots before their aircraft hit the water.

The report includes a half-dozen recommendations to prevent future accidents, but the details were redacted along with investigators’ precise findings. Scott also declined to address what had gone wrong during the training mission or say what changes have been made as a result.

The attack maneuver the pilots were practicing begins with the helicopter climbing upward and then diving sharply, almost creating a feeling of weightlessness for those on board, before pulling up, said Alan Mack, a retired Army master aviator who flew with the 160th SOAR.

“If you misjudged the pull or you didn’t see the water, or the swells were higher than anticipated, then there’s no time for a Mayday call,” Mack said, cautioning that given the report’s redactions, it’s difficult to know for certain what went wrong — be it mechanical issues or unexpected surf conditions.

Though the crews had advanced night vision goggles, the illumination from moonlight, which that technology relies on in part, was at just 12 percent, the report determined. Mack said those are poor conditions but not abnormal for the 160th SOAR.

“The 160th strives to fly during zero illumination, because the enemy nowadays typically has night vision capabilities,” Mack said, meaning U.S. forces train to operate during degraded conditions to maintain their edge. “So if you’re going to do a hostage rescue, you’re going to try to do it during zero illumination.”

The heavily censored mishap report compiled by the U.S. Army’s Combat Readiness Center said the crash was considered partially survivable, and some survival equipment worn by individuals did not function as designed.

Search crews observed aircraft debris in the water along with multiple chemical light sticks and a seven-person inflatable raft, the report said. The bodies of two of the five crew members were recovered — one died of drowning and the other of trauma wounds, autopsies showed. How long it took to find the men was redacted in the report.

The Army identified the five crew members killed in the accident as Chief Warrant Officer 3 Stephen R. Dwyer, 38, of Clarksville, Tenn.; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Shane M. Barnes, 34, of Sacramento; Staff Sgt. Tanner W. Grone, 26, of Gorham, N.H.; Sgt. Andrew P. Southard, 27, of Apache Junction, Ariz.; and Sgt. Cade M. Wolfe, 24, of Mankato, Minn.

Israel’s war in Gaza has since broadened into an invasion of southern Lebanon. Since the Black Hawk crash last year, U.S. involvement in the crisis has deepened. American troops have been sent to Israel to operate an advanced antimissile system, U.S. F-15E Strike Eagles have been used to shoot down attack drones, and naval destroyers have intercepted missiles. A U. S-led coalition, meanwhile, has conducted routine offensive strikes on militants in Yemen who, citing Israel’s war in Gaza, have targeted numerous commercial and military vessels transiting the Red Sea.

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By Kyle Rempfer

Kyle Rempfer works on The Washington Post's general assignment desk, helping cover national and international news.follow on X @kyle_rempfer

8. JUST IN: Indo-Pacom Needs More than Drones for Air Superiority, Commander Says

JUST IN: Indo-Pacom Needs More than Drones for Air Superiority, Commander Says

11/19/2024

By Laura Heckmann

Defense Dept. photo

The war in Ukraine has brought microscopic attention to unmanned systems and drone warfare, and while U.S. operations in the Indo-Pacific have much to learn from the conflict’s use of unmanned systems, when it comes to air superiority in the region, drones aren’t going to cut it, the head of Indo-Pacific Command said.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of Indo-Pacific Command, said during a Brookings Institution event Nov. 19 that when it comes to drones, “certainly these systems are ideal in enclosed spaces — if you can deploy it.”

But “when you’re finished doing this, you’re going to have to sustain those forces” stationed in Okinawa over wide-ranging space, he said. The event moderators noted the massive Indo-Pacific region includes 36 countries, 60 percent of the world’s population and two-thirds of the world’s economy. 

To sustain forces over such a vast geographic area, “you’re going to need air superiority and maritime superiority,” Paparo said. “How am I going to do that?” Not with drones, he said.

“In today's world, with greater AI tools, with greater autonomous [systems], with the proliferation of unmanned capabilities, the more unmanned capabilities you can use, the better,” he said. However, the economics of attritable systems need to be navigated with the understanding that they should “end with an ‘H’ or a ‘T’”  — as in hundreds or thousands of dollars. “Reusable systems can end with a different number. We shouldn't confuse that when we're making these choices.”  

The laws of physics also need to be respected, he said. “And that is the Pacific is contested space over about 8000 miles of ocean by about 8000 miles of ocean, and so a pocket drone that can stay airborne for an hour ain't going to do it.”

Paparo said there needs to be an understanding between what is timeless and what is timeful, “and knowing the difference among all those systems is the coin of the realm” along with “an engineering-level understanding” of the adversary’s kill web “from the sea bed to the heavens” to find its “brittleness, how to affect it, how to do so serially.”

Small unmanned systems have a place, but where that is needs to be understood as well, he said.

“And then know when you can use smaller systems. Know when you must muster large energy systems — knowing what's timeless, knowing what's timeful, applying economies of scale, engineering, that is the key,” he said.

He said “everyone is stuck in this paradigm of either/or” when it comes to unmanned systems. In Ukraine — ground zero for the ever-evolving drone landscape — “there is a line of fire that’s supported by 32 countries of air superiority and secure lines of communication,” he said. “And on the other side, it's supported by a rebuilt war machine and 12 time zones of air superiority and lines of communication.”

In the middle is a war of attrition, “where we’re learning a lot about [electronic warfare], and we’re changing the game,” he said. “And there's a lot to be learned in there, but if you think that's all of it and we can quit on everything else in the Pacific, how are we going to sustain everything else if we completely give up on air and maritime superiority in the Pacific?”

Paparo painted a sarcastic picture of what that would look like. “Let's just quit on everything. We got some drones. All right, well the PRC has got 2,100 fighters. They've got three aircraft carriers. They have a battle force of 200 destroyers. Oh, well, roger, we got a couple drones. No problem. Yeah, we got the Ukraine thing licked,” he said.

He reiterated that for enclosed spaces and executing sea denial, small unmanned systems “can be a very key capability,” but for air and maritime superiority, which are going to be “very important over wide expanses … that means energy and energy density,” and the coin of the realm is “dazzle, deceive, destroy an enemy's capability, see and sense the battlespace, maneuver in periods where an enemy can't see, bring long-range fires on an enemy, gain that capability to maneuver and sustain across seven joint functions.”

One of those joint functions is sustainment, he said, and “some of those people on Okinawa … I don’t think a victory garden is going to do it for some folks over the course of the war.”

9.  Deterring the Nuclear Dictators

​Excerpts:

Washington should assess the feasibility of fielding some portion of the future ICBM force in a road mobile configuration—an approach that would involve mobile launchers that could be quickly relocated. It should also speed efforts to develop new countermeasures to respond to the advanced missile defenses of U.S. adversaries and plan for a portion of the future bomber fleet to be on a continuous alert status.

Finally, the Trump administration should get serious about rebuilding the U.S. defense industrial base. It should rapidly review the Biden administration’s 2023 Defense Industrial Strategy and October 2024 expanded guidance, updating and revising both as necessary. It should promulgate this guidance and immediately convene a summit with the secretary of defense and the CEOs of major defense firms (and perhaps their major subtier suppliers, as well) with the goal of expanding the base and making it more agile as rapidly as possible.

The incoming administration will undoubtedly face calls to hold a full-blown Nuclear Posture Review to examine and validate existing policy. Every administration since 1952 has reviewed its predecessor’s nuclear (and other) defense policies, but it has only been since 1994 that this has involved a large interagency review. These full-scale reviews have on occasion been statutorily mandated, but all have been hugely time consuming and on balance have taken a year or more to complete.

Given that the current guidance—with the recent Biden changes—is fully up to date and more than adequate to guide the command’s planning, there is no need for the Trump administration to conduct a massive review. A quick senior-level review within the administration should suffice. This not only will preserve a well-functioning policy but also will avoid a waste of senior-level focus and get the much-needed updated plans in place sooner. The new administration will surely face significant new challenges to U.S. nuclear deterrence. The United States and its allies simply do not have the luxury of waiting another three years for these challenges to be met.

Deterring the Nuclear Dictators

To Confront China, Russia, and North Korea, Trump Should Forgo a Review and Speed Up the Arsenal’s Modernization

By Madelyn Creedon and Franklin Miller

November 20, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Madelyn Creedon and Franklin Miller · November 20, 2024

For more than three decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States and its allies faced no serious nuclear threats. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been rattling his nuclear saber in a manner reminiscent of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Chinese President Xi Jinping has directed a dramatic buildup of China’s nuclear arsenal, a project whose size and scope the recently retired commander of U.S. Strategic Command has described as “breathtaking.” The Russian and Chinese leaders have also signed a treaty of “friendship without limits.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is supplying weapons and troops to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, and North Korea is improving its ability to strike both its neighbors and the U.S. homeland with nuclear weapons, as it demonstrated with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launch on October 31.

These developments pose far-reaching challenges to U.S. national security. The United States no longer has the luxury of ignoring nuclear dangers and concentrating on deterring a single adversary. To address this new reality, the Biden administration has modified U.S. nuclear targeting guidance in order to be able to deter China and Russia simultaneously. It is also developing new nuclear delivery systems, platforms, and warheads. But Washington’s efforts to modernize the aging U.S. nuclear deterrent have been hampered by inadequate industrial base capacity, materials and labor shortages, and funding gaps. What needs to be done is clear: the next administration should dispense with undertaking an extensive review of either the nuclear deterrence policy or the modernization plans. There is a huge need to just get on with the work of modernization and fix the problems.

MORE ADVERSARIES, LESS TIME

Over the past three decades, incoming administrations have generally undertaken a Nuclear Posture Review, a time-consuming process to determine U.S. nuclear policy and strategy for the next five to ten years. To understand why the new Trump administration should limit itself to doing a quick update of the Biden guidance rather than a complete Nuclear Posture Review, it is important to recognize the threat and how rapidly it has grown. Although Russia got off to a slow start in its nuclear modernization program, that effort is now largely complete. Russia has achieved a modern strategic triad of land-based intercontinental missiles, strategic submarines and their associated missiles, and bombers and their air-launched cruise missiles. Each element of the updated triad is a significant improvement over previous capabilities, and some are also destabilizing to the existing strategic balance : the Russian Sarmat, for example, a massive missile designed to replace the heavy SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, can carry a large number of nuclear warheads designed to attack American ICBMs in a first-strike scenario.

Several new Russian nonstrategic systems are deeply disturbing. The Poseidon, an intercontinental-range nuclear torpedo, for example, is designed to devastate large coastal areas and render them unfit for habitation for centuries to come. Of even more concern is Russia’s effort to rebuild all elements of its regional nuclear forces—short- and medium-range missiles that can be launched from the ground, sea, or air. These systems are clearly intended to intimidate Moscow’s neighbors and lend substance to Russia’s new nuclear doctrine, announced by Putin in September, in which the Kremlin broadened the circumstances in which it might use nuclear weapons.

China has been modernizing its nuclear forces even faster. Beginning around 2020, Xi ordered a massive and rapid expansion of China’s arsenal. The number of strategic nuclear weapons the country deploys is projected to double from 500 to 1,000 by 2030 and to reach at least 1,550 by the middle of the next decade. Beijing has already achieved a capable strategic triad, smaller but similar to that of the United States and Russia, and it is also expanding and diversifying its regional nuclear forces. Unlike Russia and the United States, China nominally adheres to a “no first use” policy. But its nuclear forces have in fact acquired first-strike and launch-on-warning capabilities.

Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles in a military parade, Beijing, October 2019

Jason Lee / Reuters

Although China’s and Russia’s growing arsenals pose serious challenges, the United States’ nuclear deterrence policy is fully capable of dealing with them. For more than 45 years, U.S. policy has focused on deterring aggression against vital national interests and those of U.S. allies by maintaining the ability to target the assets that potential adversaries value most: themselves and their leadership cadre, the security infrastructure that keeps them in power, selected elements of their nuclear and conventional forces, and their war-supporting industries. In the past, such adversaries might have been leaders of the Soviet Union; today, they are the regimes of Putin, Xi, and Kim.

Nonetheless, the growth of Chinese nuclear capabilities will present a new challenge by introducing a third major nuclear superpower by the mid-2030s. In order to prepare for the possibility of coordinated or opportunistic aggression by both Russia and China, U.S. President Joe Biden announced in June modified U.S. targeting guidance, which, as the National Security Council official Pranay Vaddi has put it, is designed to “deter Russia, the PRC, and North Korea simultaneously.” Vaddi went on to say, with reference to U.S. nuclear forces, that the country “may reach a point in the coming years where an increase in current deployed numbers is required.”

Left unstated but highly important is determining the correct size of the U.S. arsenal. Crucially, the United States’ deployed nuclear force must be sufficiently large to cover the targets that potential enemies value most, as defined by the most recent targeting guidance and any subsequent updates. But contrary to what some commentators have suggested, the United States need not and absolutely should not increase its nuclear arsenal to match that of Russia’s and China’s combined. The new guidance, when fully implemented, will provide a strong and effective deterrent. As a result, the incoming Trump administration should avoid the years-long guidance development process that new administrations traditionally undertake—beginning with a Nuclear Posture Review.

Rather than trying to rewrite the Biden administration’s already updated guidance, the new administration should focus on those areas in which the United States does have problems: the slow progress of its own nuclear modernization, the large gaps in its conventional deterrent, and the significant weaknesses in the U.S. defense industrial base.

THREE THINGS AT ONCE

The original creation of the U.S. nuclear triad was not the result of strategic calculation. The combination of land-based missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and strategic bombers arose initially as a result of interservice rivalry in the 1950s. But the combination of different flight profiles and basing modes proved to be highly valuable. The first real triad was fielded by the Kennedy administration. Two decades later, the Reagan administration modernized those forces: it gave the Minuteman ICBMs new motors and guidance systems, designed a new class of strategic submarines equipped with new missiles, and provided the aging bomber force with then stealthy, long-range cruise missiles to ensure their continued effectiveness. By the turn of the twenty-first century, however, the Reagan-era triad had become antiquated and should have been replaced. But U.S. strategists were diverted from this task by a combination of geopolitical assessments—that Putin, for example, who had come to power only a few years earlier, was not a threat to the United States or its Western allies and that the overall nuclear threat had diminished—and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In 2010, the Obama administration, as part of its efforts to ratify the New START treaty, a bilateral arms reduction agreement with Moscow, initiated a program to replace all three legs of the triad. But the Obama plan immediately ran into challenges, including budget caps, an inadequate industrial base, workforce retirements, and the need for parts and materials that no longer existed. Sadly, all the elements of this program are behind schedule and over budget. The three legs of the U.S. triad are still safe, secure, and reliable, but they have been operating well beyond their intended lifespan.

The challenge now is how to replace the legs of the triad simultaneously—a huge undertaking. Minuteman III ICBMs were first deployed in the mid-1970s and upgraded in the 1990s. By now, their component parts are obsolete and their lifespan cannot safely be extended much beyond the mid-2030s. Ohio-class submarines were designed to operate for around 30 years; 11 out of the 14 boats currently in commission have served longer than that, and several have been in commission for more than 35 years. The air-launched cruise missile, deployed in 1980 to extend the utility of the Eisenhower-era B-52, had a design life of ten years and is still in service. (It is now scheduled to be retired at the end of this decade or early next.)

The U.S. nuclear arsenal need not and absolutely should not match that of Russia’s and China’s combined.

Many of the replacement weapons themselves have run into development challenges. The Sentinel ICBM, which was approved in 2014, has incurred a major cost overrun, in part because it requires the refurbishment of the Minuteman silos and a new command-and-control system. The navy has recently said that the first Columbia-class missile submarine—which is designed to replace the Ohio-class boats—may be delayed by one to two years because of the defense industry’s inability to produce key components. Although many defense analysts think that the United States needs at least 200 of the new B-21 bombers to be able to conduct both conventional and nuclear missions, the program has been inexplicably limited to just 100 aircraft. The new cruise missile that is intended for both the B-21 and B-52—a missile known as the long-range stand-off weapon, or LRSO—has had its near-term funding slashed. This has forced the military to rely further on an outdated cruise missile that was designed to evade 1980s-era Soviet air defenses, not the more advanced systems Russia uses today.

An additional weakness is the U.S. regional nuclear deterrence force. During the Cold War, the United States deployed several thousand theater-range nuclear systems, but more than 90 percent of these were eliminated through a series of bilateral accords with the Soviet Union and Russia in 1991 and 1992. As is well known, Moscow reneged on its commitments and rebuilt its ground, naval, and air short- and medium-range nuclear forces. The United States has a small number of air-delivered bombs in Europe and no dedicated deployed regional nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Although Washington does not need to replicate the numbers it maintained during the Cold War, it does need more flexible options. Congress directed the Biden administration to build and deploy a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) to provide enhanced deterrence to U.S. partners in the Pacific and to its NATO allies, but this capability won’t be available for another decade or more.

TIRED TANKERS, WITHERING WARHEADS

Although nuclear forces provide the backbone of U.S. deterrence, conventional forces are the United States’ first line of defense. If conventional forces are sufficiently strong, they can deter the initial stages of aggression by Russia and/or China, and the questions of war and nuclear attacks could be avoided. But here, too, there have been recurring failures.

For example, the air force does not have enough aerial tankers to support conventional or nuclear forces in multiple theaters. Tankers are needed to refuel U.S. forces in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific—a dauntingly large geographic area. But for four long years, the air force has put off the issue, occasionally offering the prospect of a “bridge tanker” option but never acting on it. And because the international situation has deteriorated further over those four years, the air force has a greater tanker shortfall—perhaps 100 or more—than it did in 2021.

The navy has dropped from its 2025 budget request a Virginia-class submarine—the newest and most capable class of nuclear-powered fast attack submarines—because of conflicting priorities with surface ships and defense industry delays. The United States’ nuclear-powered attack submarine force is well below what is necessary to provide a simultaneous deterrent in both the North Atlantic and the Pacific. Similarly, the navy’s mismanagement of ship and submarine overhauls has resulted in years-long delays on badly needed assets. In the same vein, the navy has complained for over a decade about Russia’s and China’s growing ability to block others from entering the waters and air space around their periphery. Yet it treats the best countermeasure—the hypersonic conventional prompt strike (CPS) missile—as if it is a luxury. Deployment will occur in dribs and drabs until the middle of the next decade, even though U.S. combatant commanders in the European and Asia-Pacific theaters are deeply worried about the next three to four years.

U.S. military officers monitoring a Minuteman III test launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, March 2015

Michael Peterson / U.S. Air Force / Reuters

Apart from effective delivery systems, the United States needs to update the nuclear warheads or bombs that these systems will carry. In the hopeful period after the end of the Cold War, China, Russia, and the United States, along with all other nuclear weapons states, signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a multilateral agreement to stop all explosive nuclear testing. Although the treaty has never entered into force, the United States has unilaterally adhered to it. As a result, the country has had to rely on means other than testing in the monitoring and development of its nuclear stockpile.

When Washington signed the treaty, it assigned the Department of Energy to establish a program to scientifically replicate the data that had been previously gathered from nuclear testing. This program was extraordinarily successful, and the DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration have been able to maintain all remaining warheads in the U.S. nuclear stockpile through life-extension programs. But now that most of the warheads have either been or are in the process of being “life extended,” the NNSA must start to design and develop new nuclear weapons using these same scientific and computational capabilities, rather than testing.

This will not be easy. For one thing, the NNSA must relearn design and manufacturing skills and requalify existing vendors or find new ones. The bigger challenge, however, is the NNSA production complex. Unlike the NNSA’s science and computational facilities, the production complex was largely ignored after the Cold War. NNSA is now struggling to keep obsolete facilities—a few of which date back to the Manhattan Project or the early days of the Cold War—functioning until they can be replaced. This massive construction program is also behind schedule and over budget. There are many reasons for this, including a lack of skilled workers, design difficulties, and a diminished industrial base, but generally this work hasn’t been done in 25 years.

As NNSA shifts from extending the lifespan of existing warheads to making new ones, the production complex must relearn how to produce key components or materials or find substitutes and adapt to modern manufacturing techniques. A new round of budget caps is further constraining the ability of the complex to modernize.

GET IT DONE

The primary task facing the Departments of Defense and Energy right now is getting the new systems built. The new secretary of defense should draw on the lessons of Reagan’s defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, who, during the triad modernization effort of that era, instituted a series of ongoing reviews of all three programs. For each program, he required the service secretary, the service chief, and the program manager to report to him every three months on program status and on efforts to fix any apparent problems.

The service secretariats have now proved themselves unreliable and untrustworthy: the new defense secretary should institute Weinberger-style reviews for the Sentinel ICBM, the Columbia-class submarine, the B-21 bomber, and probably the LRSO missile programs. The administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, in conjunction with the secretary of energy, should adopt a similar process to review the NNSA warhead and construction programs.

The B-21 Raider, a strategic bomber developed for the U.S. Air Force, in Palmdale, California, December 2022

U.S. Air Force / Reuters

The secretary of defense should institute similar reviews for redressing the tanker shortfall and the delays in Virginia-class submarine production, along with speeding the development of the CPS missile and the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N). These reviews should seek to enable the two major submarine producers to increase their output as quickly as possible; accelerate the deployment of CPS missiles, even through stopgap nontraditional means such as box launchers on large deck ships; initiate an immediate program to buy new tankers and fill in gaps in the inventory with leased tankers until enough new aircraft can be built and deployed; and assure and accelerate the development of the SLCM-N missile.

Given the possibility of further delays in these efforts, the new administration should provide sufficient funding to ensure that existing deployed systems—such as the U.S. nuclear command, control, and communications network, known as NC3, and the Ohio-class submarines—can continue to operate past their currently planned retirement dates and that the life-extension programs for current stocks of warheads are fully funded.

The United States will have to keep the old systems safe, secure, and reliable to continue to deter Russia and China. This will become especially crucial after the New START treaty expires in February 2026. To hedge against the premature retirement of an existing platform, the incoming administration should be prepared to begin a major effort to assure resilience and flexibility. It can do this by adding warheads to existing Minuteman and Trident 2 missiles; restoring, on Ohio-class submarines, the submarine-launched ballistic missile tubes that were disabled according to New START and loading Trident 2 missiles in them; procuring additional Trident 2 missile motors to allow a sufficient pool of test assets to exist after reloading the empty tubes; and “re-converting” to a nuclear role those B-52 bombers that were rendered incapable of launching a nuclear weapon under New START.

Additionally, the administration should seek to increase strategic deterrent forces beyond the current budget horizon. It can do this by planning to deploy Sentinel missiles in a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) configuration, allowing a single missile to attack several targets at once; increasing the planned number of deployed long-range stand-off weapons; increasing the planned number of B-21 bombers and aerial tankers an expanded force would require; increasing the planned production of Columbia-class submarines and their Trident ballistic missile systems; and accelerating the development and deployment of the D5LE2 replacement missile.

The Trump administration should get serious about rebuilding the defense industrial base.

Washington should assess the feasibility of fielding some portion of the future ICBM force in a road mobile configuration—an approach that would involve mobile launchers that could be quickly relocated. It should also speed efforts to develop new countermeasures to respond to the advanced missile defenses of U.S. adversaries and plan for a portion of the future bomber fleet to be on a continuous alert status.

Finally, the Trump administration should get serious about rebuilding the U.S. defense industrial base. It should rapidly review the Biden administration’s 2023 Defense Industrial Strategy and October 2024 expanded guidance, updating and revising both as necessary. It should promulgate this guidance and immediately convene a summit with the secretary of defense and the CEOs of major defense firms (and perhaps their major subtier suppliers, as well) with the goal of expanding the base and making it more agile as rapidly as possible.

The incoming administration will undoubtedly face calls to hold a full-blown Nuclear Posture Review to examine and validate existing policy. Every administration since 1952 has reviewed its predecessor’s nuclear (and other) defense policies, but it has only been since 1994 that this has involved a large interagency review. These full-scale reviews have on occasion been statutorily mandated, but all have been hugely time consuming and on balance have taken a year or more to complete.

Given that the current guidance—with the recent Biden changes—is fully up to date and more than adequate to guide the command’s planning, there is no need for the Trump administration to conduct a massive review. A quick senior-level review within the administration should suffice. This not only will preserve a well-functioning policy but also will avoid a waste of senior-level focus and get the much-needed updated plans in place sooner. The new administration will surely face significant new challenges to U.S. nuclear deterrence. The United States and its allies simply do not have the luxury of waiting another three years for these challenges to be met.

• MADELYN CREEDON was Chair of the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission and Principal Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration from 2014 to 2017.
• FRANKLIN MILLER was a member of the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission and served for three decades as a senior Nuclear Policy and Arms Control Official in the Pentagon and on the National Security Council Staff.

Foreign Affairs · by Madelyn Creedon and Franklin Miller · November 20, 2024

10. NATO Must Respond to Russian Shadow War on European Soil

​Conclusion:

It is amazing that Washington remains reluctant to provide certain weapons systems to Ukraine, and has waited until now to approve the use of others against military targets on Russian soil because of fears of “escalation,” when Russia has been escalating lethal operations against NATO for a decade. Shutting down the Kremlin’s “shadow fleet” of sanction-busting oil tankers that carry seventy percent of its oil exports is another possible retaliatory step. This could be done by enforcing maritime safety and environmental laws that these tankers often do not meet, sanctioning the countries and companies that register them, and blocking their access to the Danish and Turkish straits, which will undercut Russia’s economy at a time when its liquid assets are depleting. Until there are vigorous and impactful responses to these operations to convince the Kremlin that its game of political terrorism against NATO is not worth the costs, we can expect more of the same; and in the future, possibly on U.S. soil as well. 

NATO Must Respond to Russian Shadow War on European Soil 

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/nato-must-respond-to-russian-shadow-war-on-european-soil

Posted: November 20th, 2024

By Philip Wasielewski

Philip Wasielewski is the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Center for the Study of Intelligence and Nontraditional Warfare and a Senior Fellow in FPRI’s Eurasia Program. He previously served as a paramilitary case officer with a 31-year career in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.

OPINION — The year 2024 has seen a spate of terrorist attacks strike Europe, and surprisingly, hardly anyone seems to care. Unlike previous waves of terrorism that have hit the continent, the perpetrator of this wave is not a home-grown terrorist group like the old Baader-Meinhof gang. Instead, the perpetrator is the Russian Federation, striking NATO targets on NATO soil. Russia’s lethal operations are meant to create fear and coerce governments to refrain from acting against Moscow’s interests. In other words, Moscow’s actions are political terrorism. NATO must respond forcefully to these attacks so that Russia recognizes the inviolability of NATO soil. A failure to do so raises a risk that the alliance will face not only continued attacks, but likely ones of increased lethality.  

The nature of the attacks 

Russian attacks against NATO nations in 2024 have been consistent and widespread. In April, a mysterious explosion rocked the United Kingdom’s only 155mm artillery shell manufacturer, while the same week German authorities arrested two German-Russian nationals for planning to sabotage arms shipments to Ukraine and attack U.S. military facilities. Later in the year, security alert levels were raised at several U.S. bases in Europe over possible Russian-sponsored attacks.  

That last item bears repeating: U.S. military authorities believed it was prudent to raise terrorist alert levels due to the real possibility of a Russian attack on U.S. troops in a NATO country. 

This was not an overreaction. Russia had already shown a willingness to conduct sabotage or even assassination operations in Europe. In the first half of 2024, Poland arrested eighteen Russian agents on charges of planning sabotage operations. Kremlin-linked plots have included arson attacks on a Warsaw shopping mall, an IKEA warehouse in Vilnius, a museum in Riga, a Prague bus depot, an industrial estate in London, and a metals factory in Berlin. This summer, according to U.S. officials, Russia planned to assassinate a German arms manufacturer and other European defense industry executives whose companies supply weapons to Ukraine. French authorities arrested a Russian intelligence officer for planning to “destabilize” the summer Olympic Games in Paris, just days before French rail lines were disrupted by a “coordinated sabotage” attack prior the games’ opening ceremony. There have been two attempts, one in Germany this summer and one in the United Kingdom last month, to place incendiary devices onboard cargo planes that security officials believe were Russian inspired. 

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A history of Russian threats 

These events represent an unnerving departure from even Russia’s past low norms regarding lethal operations on foreign soil, and are consistent with a growing list of Kremlin-sponsored lethal operations or attempted operations worldwide since Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. 

For example, in 2014, Russian military intelligence (GRU) agents blew up two Czech arms depots that were scheduled to provide ammunition to Ukraine, killing two innocents and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of nearby villagers. In 2015, GRU officers with ties to the poisoning of British double agent Sergei Skripal were implicated in similar poisonings against Bulgarian arms manufacturer Emil Gebrev, his son, and his company’s production manager. Gebrev’s firm supplies munitions to Ukraine. In 2021, Bulgarian authorities uncovered links between Russian nationals and explosions at six arms depots belonging to Gebrev’s company between 2011 and 2020. In 2023, another arms depot of Gebrev’s suspiciously caught fire.  

Additionally, in 2016, the GRU organized a coup attempt aimed at preventing Montenegro from joining NATO. The coup, which included plans to assassinate Montenegro’s prime minister, was fortunately thwarted. Also beginning in 2016, a series of unexplained neurological maladies, called Havana Syndrome, began to plague American officials, not just overseas but even in front of the White House. A 60 Minutes report revealed Russian government complicity in Havana Syndrome attacks. Finally, Russia currently provides targeting support for Houthi missile strikes that have not only attacked US and UK warships near the Red Sea but also have sunk a UK-registered merchant ship and otherwise disrupted global shipping. 

A new mindset in Moscow 

These actions demonstrate a new Kremlin mindset, one that neither respects NATO territorial integrity nor cares about harming NATO citizens and property. Yet one would not know this judging by NATO’s passive response. The recent NATO summit declaration made only oblique reference to these events and announced no concrete retaliatory actions. While Washington worries about Russian responses to Kyiv’s attempts to defend itself, Moscow steadily escalates its own lethal actions in NATO countries; some of which could be considered events worth invoking NATO’s Article V. Continued NATO passivity to Russian lethal operations will only encourage the Kremlin to escalate further. In Putin’s mind, restraint is weakness and therefore something to be exploited. 

NATO, including the United States, must take measures commensurate with this threat. Our responses should not be symmetrical, which would lower ourselves to the Kremlin’s level, but asymmetrical to harm the Kremlin where it hurts: in Ukraine and in its pocketbook.  

It is amazing that Washington remains reluctant to provide certain weapons systems to Ukraine, and has waited until now to approve the use of others against military targets on Russian soil because of fears of “escalation,” when Russia has been escalating lethal operations against NATO for a decade. Shutting down the Kremlin’s “shadow fleet” of sanction-busting oil tankers that carry seventy percent of its oil exports is another possible retaliatory step. This could be done by enforcing maritime safety and environmental laws that these tankers often do not meet, sanctioning the countries and companies that register them, and blocking their access to the Danish and Turkish straits, which will undercut Russia’s economy at a time when its liquid assets are depleting. Until there are vigorous and impactful responses to these operations to convince the Kremlin that its game of political terrorism against NATO is not worth the costs, we can expect more of the same; and in the future, possibly on U.S. soil as well. 

11. A ‘hammer attack’ just outside Boise: Indian, U.S. special forces train for urban raids

​Excerpts:

India’s “deepening relationship” with the U.S. adds it to “the bulwark of nations committed to countering Beijing’s malign influence,” according to a report by the institute.

This month, part of that relationship-building is taking place in Ada County. Since early November, nearly 100 American Green Berets and Indian Special Forces have been training together at the Orchard Combat Training Center, a combined arms training site about 20 miles south of Boise. The nearly 200,000-acre training site provides “some of the best training ranges in the world,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Borders, a public affairs officer for the Idaho National Guard.

A ‘hammer attack’ just outside Boise: Indian, U.S. special forces train for urban raids

https://www.aol.com/hammer-attack-just-outside-boise-110000478.html

Sarah Cutler

November 19, 2024 at 8:00 PM

A desire to counter China’s influence has pushed the relationship between India and the U.S. to “new heights” in recent years, most visibly with Indian President Narendra Modi’s official state visit to Washington, D.C., in 2023, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace.

India’s “deepening relationship” with the U.S. adds it to “the bulwark of nations committed to countering Beijing’s malign influence,” according to a report by the institute.

This month, part of that relationship-building is taking place in Ada County. Since early November, nearly 100 American Green Berets and Indian Special Forces have been training together at the Orchard Combat Training Center, a combined arms training site about 20 miles south of Boise. The nearly 200,000-acre training site provides “some of the best training ranges in the world,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Borders, a public affairs officer for the Idaho National Guard.

An AH-64 Apache helicopter takes part in an exercise at the Idaho National Guard’s Orchard Combat Training Center south of Boise in 2022.

The environment in Southern Idaho “resembles a lot of the areas where the U.S. military and our partners have operated over the last couple of decades,” he told the Idaho Statesman by email. Just this year, this training environment has drawn forces from Singapore, Canada, Poland and Germany to train with Idaho National Guardsmen at the Orchard Combat Training Center and the nearby Mountain Home Air Force Base, Borders said.

This year’s Exercise Vajra Prahar — which roughly translates to “hammer attack” in Hindi — is the 15th held between the U.S. and India’s Special Forces, alternating each year between sites in each country. This year’s training focuses on counterinsurgency operations, urban raids and the use of unmanned aerial systems, said Prakash Gupta, India’s consul general in Seattle, and exercise organizers, whose comments Borders shared by email.

More broadly, the training helps both forces prepare to fight together, building relationships, enhancing “interoperability” and ensuring each side is familiar with the other’s approach and operating procedures, organizers said.

“This training has allowed both forces to be ready to operate, fight, and thrive in austere, rugged, and divers(e) environments, ensuring a free and open IndoPacific,” they said.

An observer watches exercises at the Orchard Combat Training Center south of Boise in 2022.

The exercise is set to run through Friday. Organizers said Ada County residents were unlikely to see or hear anything unusual during the training, given forces’ use of small arms. The exercise’s culminating missions were set to involve helicopters at the Idaho Air National Guard’s Gowen Field and Mountain Home Air Force Base.

The U.S. Department of Defense predicted in 2023 that India would be a “critical strategic partner” of the U.S. given both countries’ involvement in a “strategic security dialogue” with Australia and Japan.

India’s involvement “demonstrates a new and growing willingness to join the United States to protect and advance a shared vision of a free, open and rules-based global order,” according to an official Defense Department publication.

Gupta said the U.S. partnership with India was on “firm ground” with bipartisan American support.

“India and the U.S. have to work together no matter how geopolitics looks,” he said.

12. Army taps ‘Ghost Fleet’ authors to write novel on multi-domain warfare

Army taps ‘Ghost Fleet’ authors to write novel on multi-domain warfare

militarytimes.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · November 19, 2024

The Army’s concept of future warfare is getting the Tom Clancy treatment.

At the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference held in Washington in October, a session on the service’s plans to improve professional writing contained a teaser for a first-of-its-kind project: a novel envisioning a future conflict in a technology-infused battlefield.

“Task Force Talon: A Novel of the Army’s Next Fight,” written by “Ghost Fleet” authors August Cole and P.W. Singer, will “share the real-world lessons from Field Manual 3.0, as well as lessons learned from both contemporary conflicts and recent Army exercises and training,” according to an excerpt provided exclusively to session attendees.

The FM 3-0, most recently updated in October 2022, covers Army operations. As then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville wrote in the manual’s forward, it’s intended to demonstrate “the first principles of speed, range, and convergence of the cutting-edge technologies needed to achieve future decision dominance and overmatch against our adversaries.”

Task Force Talon is the name of the Army unit that provides ballistic missile defense for the island U.S. territory of Guam.

The protagonist of the novel is Maj. Derek Washington, who finds himself in the middle of a large-scale combat operation shortly after deploying to an unnamed allied country to join his new unit.

“As [Washington’s] unit faces overwhelming odds and new threats ranging from cyber attacks to drone strikes, he must learn both how to lead under fire and how to win the kind of war that the U.S. has not fought for generations,” the distributed synopsis states.

Warfighting tech described in the excerpt includes tactical augmented reality glasses; persistent hostile drone surveillance; micro-targeted disinformation targeting military families, including AI-generated video and audio; and next-gen dashboard screens fusing satellite data and ground networks.

Cole and Singer have pioneered the deliberate use of fiction to gain insights about the future of warfare and the integration of emerging technologies.

The civilian duo’s novel “Ghost Fleet,” published in 2015 and describing a successful attack by China against the U.S. that begins with a Pentagon-infiltrating computer virus, was embraced by numerous generals and flag officers. In the Marine Corps, for example, it spurred workshops and discussions that encouraged troops to brainstorm about the tools and information they’d need on the battlefield of the future.

Singer and Cole ultimately launched Useful Fiction, a partnership through which they hold writing workshops for U.S. and allied military entities including U.S. Special Operations Command and the Air Force’s Air University, among others.

At the Oct. 16 AUSA panel session, Singer described a “double challenge” that forward-looking organizations face, first to understand and frame new technologies and opportunities, and then to communicate the need to evolve and adapt to their members.

“How do you gain and retain attention when so much else is competing for it, whether it’s all the other publications out there, to what’s in their email inbox, to just the scarce resources of time?” Singer said.

He described storytelling as “literally the oldest communication technology of all,” capable of engaging the emotions and imagination in a way PowerPoint cannot. Story can also reframe the concept of change to organization members, he said.

“Change management programs are more likely to succeed when you’re able to tell the story of why we need to change, tell the story of what success will look like, what we’re headed towards,” Singer said. “Most importantly, you’re able to tell your organization you are characters. You are heroes in this story of change, rather than victims of it.”

While the Army has not announced a release date for “Task Force Talon,” Singer said more information about the project’s publication and the Army’s plans for it would be made public “in coming months.”

The information about the new novel was revealed as part of a presentation from The Harding Project, an Army initiative launched in 2023 and led by Lt. Col. Zachary Griffiths, to improve the service’s professional journals and encourage more soldiers to write and publish for the benefit of their fellow troops.

Disclaimer: Hope Hodge Seck has worked as a consultant for Useful Fiction.

13. Fiction for a future war by Mick Ryan

Excerpts:

Recently, a new term has been developed to describe these fictional stories about military endeavours. The term, FICINT, is an acronym for fictional intelligence. Most often, it has been applied to stories about future warfare to elicit insights for those involved in the design of military forces for future conflict. As Peter Singer and August Cole, authors of the influential novel of a future war, Ghost Fleet, explain in Thinking The Unthinkable With Useful Fiction:

FICINT remains ideally suited to a world not just of technologies evolving at machine speed and geopolitics undergoing systemic changes, but also in the midst of a historical crisis that tests the limits of our comprehension. It can spread research in a manner that is understandable, and more shareable, as well as foster emotional connections that make readers, in turn, more likely to drive change. FICINT can aid in answering the question of ‘what do we do next’ as timelines move forward at an unpredictable pace which every organisation has to contend with, whether it is planning for war or justifying the next budget.

Last year, I published my own attempt to examine the future contours of war with my novel White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan. The novel used my previous book, War Transformed, as the intellectual foundation for how conflict was evolving and applied it to explore how a future Chinese invasion of Taiwan might play out. I used the lessons I had taken from watching the war in Ukraine, but I also sought to emulate and pay tribute to those many authors, from Chesney to Hackett to Clancy, who had contributed to the genre of military fiction in the preceding decades. Like them, I hoped to use fiction to prompt new and different thinking about war, military theory and the necessary innovations of Western militaries in the face of evolving threats and technologies.

The Hunt for Red October, and Clancy’s successive novels, played a pivotal role in shaping public awareness and understanding of modern military operations from the 1980s onwards. While previous writers of military fiction had included elements of military technology and strategy, Clancy’s meticulous research and attention to detail provided an unprecedented, informed view of military capabilities that underscored the capacity of technology to upend global affairs. The success of his debut novel propelled military fiction beyond its niche audience of enthusiasts, introducing complex military themes to a mainstream readership and reinforcing the connection between global politics and technology through the Cold War and into the digital revolutions of the information age. Clancy’s breakthrough inspired a wave of subsequent works that blended high-stakes action with accurate portrayals of military technology, personnel, operations, and informed speculation about the next frontier of conflict. In reshaping the genre, The Hunt for Red October set a new standard for thrilling military stories that continues to influence contemporary authors who aspire to Clancy’s level of authenticity and narrative mastery, and who hope to use fiction to plan for the future of war.

Essays

Fiction for a future war

https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/fiction-for-a-future-war/

• November 19, 2024
• Mick Ryan
• Themes: Fiction, War

Forty years after The Hunt for Red October redefined military fiction, the genre continues to explore the impact of technological innovation on warfare, building on a long tradition of speculative novels that foreshadowed the destructive evolutions of human conflict.

The novel The Hunt for Red October debuted in the United States on 1 October 1984. Published by a small publisher, the US Naval Institute Press, the book went on to become hugely successful in the United States and beyond. Ronald Reagan publicly praised the book and even invited its author, former insurance salesman Tom Clancy, to visit the White House. ‘They’re not just novels’, explained George H.W. Bush’s vice president, Dan Quayle. ‘They’re read as the real thing.’

Clancy’s novels made him the most successful fiction writer of the 1980s, and his first three – The Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, and The Cardinal of the Kremlin – were hugely popular representations of the drama of the Cold War in the Reagan era. The Hunt for Red October follows a rogue Soviet submarine captain who attempts to defect to the United States with a state-of-the-art nuclear submarine, igniting a tense standoff between American and Soviet forces, and the CIA analyst tasked with facilitating his defection.

The novel raised the standard for military thrillers in a decade of new-age military technology such as the futuristic ‘Star Wars’ missile defence system, which, to the Soviets, appeared as if it could upend the delicate strategic balance of the Cold War. As a contemporary New York Times review of the book noted: ‘It’s not heroes and villains who keep the plot afloat, or in this case submerged. Rather, it’s the sophisticated technology available to modern navies, and Mr Clancy describes its uses with a thoroughness bordering on folly.’

Because of its thorough treatment of cutting-edge military technology, The Hunt for Red October is considered a pioneering work in a new generation of military thrillers that feature higher levels of technical accuracy. Clancy’s extensive research ensured that his portrayal of military technologies – such as submarines, naval warfare, and radar systems – was highly realistic. Following the publication of Clancy’s debut novel, military thrillers began to focus more on technical and tactical precision. Authors such as Harold Coyle, Larry Bond, Dale Brown and Stephen Coonts followed in Clancy’s footsteps, each incorporating complex military systems and tactics into their fictional works. Clancy and this next generation of military fiction authors popularised the ‘techno-thriller’, a subgenre that remains highly popular in military literature and for a wider audience today.

However, The Hunt for Red October was simply the next step in a genre of writing that originated in the 19th century. Military fiction emerged as societies and their military institutions sought to understand and adapt to the wide-ranging and rapid technological changes that occurred during the Second Industrial Revolution in the latter half of that century. With that great change came new opportunities and fears.

In the late 1860s an officer in the British Army’s Royal Engineers named George Chesney became concerned with the poor state of the British Army. After failing to achieve any action through writing letters of concern, he decided to author a fictional story highlighting the shortfalls in Britain’s defence. Entitled The Battle of Dorking, his story described an invasion of Britain by a ‘German-speaking’ nation which he called The Enemy.

The story, published in 1871 in the wake of the Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian War, was a sensation. As Lawrence Freedman notes in his book, The Future of War: A History, Chesney’s work quickly sold over 80,000 copies and sparked a national debate about Britain’s defences. The Battle of Dorking was the start of the genre of fiction about the potential for, and the nature of, future conflicts.

The Battle of Dorking would be the book that originated the category of literature about a potential invasion of Britain at the turn of the 20th century. In the lead-up to the First World War, several other books joined this genre. One of the best-known is William Le Queux’s The Invasion of 1910, published in 1906. The key theme in Le Queux’s book was the British military’s lack of preparedness for a European war. The book described a German invasion force landing on the east coast of England and fighting its way into London. Eventually, the British turn the tide on their invader through a popular uprising, liberating their nation. Over one million copies of the book edition were sold, and it was translated into 27 languages.

On the other side of the English Channel, the antagonist of many British military fiction novels was also producing literature for a future war that speculated about what conflict would look like against the British. Perhaps the best-known writer was the Prussian General and military historian Friedrich Adam Julius von Bernhardi. After the Franco-Prussian War and the end of his career as an army corps commander in Westphalia, from 1909 Bernhardi dedicated himself to writing on military subjects. Unlike many of the pre-war authors, he eventually got to put into practice many of his ideas, serving with distinction in the German Army on both the Eastern and Western fronts throughout the First World War.

In 1911, Bernhardi published his best-known work, Germany and the Next War. Gaining popularity among German nationalists, it became even more widely read in Britain when a translated edition was released in 1912. Many in Britain believed it provided evidence of the ill intent that Germany harboured towards them. The book is bellicose in character, and at one point, Bernhardi describes war as a ‘biological necessity of the first importance’. But Germany in the Next War was also a detailed examination of Germany’s place in the world and its aspirations (or at least those of the author) to become a world power. The book proposed the character of the next war while conducting in-depth examinations of German land and naval power. Bernhardi also notably recommended the development of what he called an ‘air fleet’.

Across the Atlantic, American author Frank Stockton described a different vision of future war. Published in 1889, Stockton’s The Great War Syndicate described a war between the United States and England. The twist of this story is that 23 ‘great capitalists’ form a syndicate in America and propose to the US Congress that they take charge of the war. The syndicate would ‘assume the entire control and expense of the war, and to effect a satisfactory peace within one year’. Stockton’s book was prescient, and it remained relatable to generations of readers familiar with the power of the military-industrial complex.

Another early work of speculative military fiction that has made a lasting impact is H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds. Unlike other stories centred on the threat of invasion from across the Channel or the Atlantic, this tale features an invader that does not even originate from Earth. Wells explored the theme of future war through the lens of science fiction – an invasion from Mars. Originally serialised in 1897 by Pearson’s Magazine in England and by Cosmopolitan in the United States, it was published as a novel in 1898.

Wells’ story is significant for several reasons. First, it was one of the earliest novels to explore conflict between humans and aliens, and its themes have permeated science fiction for over 120 years. It also serves as an exploration of conflict with ‘the other’. Most European and American future-war literature of the time dealt with familiar adversaries, as well similar methods of warfare, weapons, and ways of thinking. The War of the Worlds diverged from this approach by having its protagonists face an entirely new enemy, whose weapons, tactics, strengths, and weaknesses were unknown to Earth’s defenders.

The novel contained important themes that would manifest in the wars of the first half of the 20th century. Wells described a vision of total war – destruction without moral limitations – that emerged during the First World War. The widespread death and devastation depicted in Wells’ novel became a reality for cities including London, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo, and many others during the second great war from 1939 to 1945. Wells also focused on the Martians’ destruction of key infrastructure, the lifelines of the Second Industrial Revolution. The emphasis on demolishing British railways, weapon stores, and telegraph lines during the alien invasion presaged the Allies’ focus on destroying German infrastructure during the Second World War.

Over 400 military fiction novels were published between The Battle of Dorking and the start of the Great War in 1914. These pre-war novels laid the foundation for what would become a flood of military fiction after the Second World War. Military fiction truly came of age during the Cold War, in the shadow of nuclear tensions, great power conflicts, and the threat of total destruction, when technologies such as atomic weapons, radar and computing magnified the capabilities and dangers of modern war.

Yet fiction was also a valuable medium for exploring the enduring friction, chaos, and uncertainty inherent in warfare through the ages. The concept of ‘friction’ in war – the myriad factors that complicate military operations – was first articulated by Carl von Clausewitz in his 19th-century work, On War. This uncertainty in military affairs, whether stemming from the unpredictable actions of friendly and enemy forces during conflict, or the ambiguity surrounding a potential adversary’s readiness during peacetime, has been a consistent theme in military fiction across all eras.

In Joe Haldeman’s 1974 science fiction novel The Forever War – an allegory of the Vietnam War – the concept of friction is explored through the prolonged and enigmatic conflict between humans and the alien Taurans. The narrative delves into how miscommunication, cultural misunderstandings, and the vast distances involved in interstellar warfare amplify the uncertainties inherent in military engagements. When the two sides eventually find a way to communicate, their first exchange is the question: ‘Why did you start this war?’ This poignant moment exemplified the enduring, tragic miscalculations and misunderstandings that Clausewitz identified as central to the friction of conflict.

Military fiction novels, like The Hunt for Red October, prominently feature the effects of new technologies on the ancient phenomenon of war. From the strategic implications of the railway and telegraph in stories of the American Civil War, to the early 20th-century speculations of authors such as Le Queux and Bernhardi, and the depictions of machine guns, aircraft, and tanks in the literature of the First World War, authors have consistently explored how technological advancements alter war strategies and outcomes. Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October centres on an advanced nuclear submarine equipped with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system that makes it virtually undetectable. This technology has the potential to shift the balance of power of the Cold War by enabling surprise attacks without warning. As with the perceived threat of Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars system of satellites to destroy incoming missiles, the real danger of Clancy’s submarine was that it invalidated decades of strategic thought around nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction, giving whichever side which held its technology a profound advantage. Through his stories, Clancy showed how the technological innovations of the 1980s reshaped military tactics, international relations, and the decisions of those involved in the high-stakes games of the Cold War.

In the 40 years since The Hunt for Red October was published, military fiction has maintained its popularity, foreshadowing the technological innovation of conflict after the Cold War. Dale Brown, for example, has been a prolific author in the field, focusing on stories about technology innovation in air forces, and how the character of air warfare might evolve because of these disruptive technologies. Over the decade after The Hunt for Red October was published, Brown’s novels such as Day of the Cheetah (1989), and Night of the Hawk (1992) set new standards for advanced aerial technologies and warfare. Fiction about the future of war has tracked evolving geopolitics, too, as international affairs reverted to technological competition between great powers. John O’Brien has authored novels focused on war in the Western Pacific, such as the Tipping Point series, while writers like Thomas Wing (author of Against All Enemies), Rick Campbell (the Trident Deception series), James Rosone and Miranda Watson (the Red Storm series), and R.G. Roberts (the Cardinal Virtues series) have produced future-focused, high-technology thrillers in response to the changing strategic security environment, and the re-emergence of Russia and China as significant powers.

Militaries also recognise the virtue of fiction as a speculative tool for contemplating the future of conflict. Retired senior military officers have sought to leverage their long military experience to explore contemporary security threats through the lens of high-technology military conflict. The standard was first set by Sir John Hackett with his 1980 novel, The Third World War: August 1985 about a possible clash between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. In response to recent events, former military officers have produced works including 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, co-authored by retired US Navy Admiral James Stavridis, and General Sir Richard Shirreff’s prescient 2016 novel, War with Russia.

Recently, a new term has been developed to describe these fictional stories about military endeavours. The term, FICINT, is an acronym for fictional intelligence. Most often, it has been applied to stories about future warfare to elicit insights for those involved in the design of military forces for future conflict. As Peter Singer and August Cole, authors of the influential novel of a future war, Ghost Fleet, explain in Thinking The Unthinkable With Useful Fiction:

FICINT remains ideally suited to a world not just of technologies evolving at machine speed and geopolitics undergoing systemic changes, but also in the midst of a historical crisis that tests the limits of our comprehension. It can spread research in a manner that is understandable, and more shareable, as well as foster emotional connections that make readers, in turn, more likely to drive change. FICINT can aid in answering the question of ‘what do we do next’ as timelines move forward at an unpredictable pace which every organisation has to contend with, whether it is planning for war or justifying the next budget.

Last year, I published my own attempt to examine the future contours of war with my novel White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan. The novel used my previous book, War Transformed, as the intellectual foundation for how conflict was evolving and applied it to explore how a future Chinese invasion of Taiwan might play out. I used the lessons I had taken from watching the war in Ukraine, but I also sought to emulate and pay tribute to those many authors, from Chesney to Hackett to Clancy, who had contributed to the genre of military fiction in the preceding decades. Like them, I hoped to use fiction to prompt new and different thinking about war, military theory and the necessary innovations of Western militaries in the face of evolving threats and technologies.

The Hunt for Red October, and Clancy’s successive novels, played a pivotal role in shaping public awareness and understanding of modern military operations from the 1980s onwards. While previous writers of military fiction had included elements of military technology and strategy, Clancy’s meticulous research and attention to detail provided an unprecedented, informed view of military capabilities that underscored the capacity of technology to upend global affairs. The success of his debut novel propelled military fiction beyond its niche audience of enthusiasts, introducing complex military themes to a mainstream readership and reinforcing the connection between global politics and technology through the Cold War and into the digital revolutions of the information age. Clancy’s breakthrough inspired a wave of subsequent works that blended high-stakes action with accurate portrayals of military technology, personnel, operations, and informed speculation about the next frontier of conflict. In reshaping the genre, The Hunt for Red October set a new standard for thrilling military stories that continues to influence contemporary authors who aspire to Clancy’s level of authenticity and narrative mastery, and who hope to use fiction to plan for the future of war.

14. INDOPACOM is replacing a pile of partner-nation networks with just one

​Communications are key to coalitions.

Excerpt:

In February, the IMN stood up with initial operating capacity for Keen Edge, a long-running U.S.-Japan exercise that this year included Australian forces for the first time. The network was subsequently approved for use by the Five Eyes, the intelligence alliance of the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. IMN was also used in June’s Valiant Shield, a larger multinational wargame designed to boost interoperability. Over the summer, South Korea was added to the IMN. Next up, the Philippines.

INDOPACOM is replacing a pile of partner-nation networks with just one

Imagine holding multi-country exercises without using thumb drives or multiple screens.

By Lauren C. Williams

Senior Editor

November 18, 2024

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

After years of building bespoke networks to connect with individual allied and partner militaries, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is preparing to bring nearly two dozen countries into a single network in 2025.

This INDOPACOM Mission Network, or IMN, is meant to replace the current unwieldy situation with a single seamless and secure platform that provides a common operating picture, file transfer, voice and chat tools. And while the IMN itself is meant for high-level information-sharing, it is intended to eventually enable new tactical networks as well.

“Most of our operations are not just joint, they are combined, they're multilateral, and this network of alliances and partnerships are, in fact, our key strategic asymmetric advantage,” Adm. Sam Paparo, who leads the command, said last month at the AFCEA TechNet conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. Paparo said the IMN will make it “so that we're operating off the same picture at all times, we're able to pass mission orders at all times, so that we're able to achieve unity of effort at all times.”

As INDOPACOM expanded its exercises with regional militaries over the years, it often tailored a new network for each new partner or ally, ultimately creating some 20 of these bespoke networks. This made adding partners to multilateral wargames increasingly complicated, said Brig. Gen. Mark Miles, who led the command’s Command, Control, Communications and Cyber Directorate until a few months ago.

“For example, if we're doing an exercise with Japan and then at the last minute we include Australia, that's two different networks. We have a network we use to share with Japan, and we have a network we use to share with Australia. And, to collaborate across those two networks involved manual data movement, so thumb drives or CDs, or sometimes people looking at two different monitors,” said Miles, who is now deputy commander of the U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence.

Over the past two years, Miles led the effort to create a network that could securely accommodate all, or at least most, of INDOPACOM’s partners.

In February, the IMN stood up with initial operating capacity for Keen Edge, a long-running U.S.-Japan exercise that this year included Australian forces for the first time. The network was subsequently approved for use by the Five Eyes, the intelligence alliance of the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. IMN was also used in June’s Valiant Shield, a larger multinational wargame designed to boost interoperability. Over the summer, South Korea was added to the IMN. Next up, the Philippines.

“We're currently participating in Exercise Bold Quest 24 as proof of concept for our Indo-Pacific Mission Network Tactical Data Center. And by 2025, in the summer, our mission network will reach full operational capability during Exercise Pacific Sentry,” Paparo said.

Once IMN gains approval by the National Security Agency, the admiral said, its zero trust architecture “will be operationalized with our allies and partners.”

By the end of next year, INDOPACOM aims to connect 23 nations with key applications like phone and video calls, chat tools, file sharing, email, and a common operational picture.

Miles said the IMN is built to accommodate other militaries’ varying technical abilities and security requirements, using on-premise and cloud-based solutions.

“There are limitations to what we can put in the cloud. So I would say it's a hybrid. And I'll also say that we built and designed and architected the network with the ability to move it to the cloud at some time in the future. So we did that by building everything containerized,” he said.

Paparo said the new network would help with one of his command’s top priorities: “counter-C5ISR and T,”—that is, “the ability to dazzle, deceive, destroy…at times of our choosing, [our] adversary's ability to see and sense the battle space. And to do so while being interoperable with our allies and partners.”

Army’s tactical network

IMN’s use focuses on a strategic or perhaps operational, level. But the network’s architecture also makes it possible to link with platforms—dubbed “tactical mission partner environments”—that connect military units at lower echelons.

The first of these will likely be deployed by U.S. Army Pacific Forces, which has been testing out preliminary equipment sets in various coalition exercises.

“It's iterative, and it's evolving,” Gen. Charles Flynn, then the commander of U.S. Army Pacific, told reporters in May. ”Because the partner plays a role here, we have to do continual assessments of that architecture to make sure that we don't expose them or us the challenges with that communications network.”

The effort is being led by I Corps, the Army Pacific formation based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. The corps is currently in Japan, setting up for a mega wargame that will test the MPEs capabilities.

“We are going to be the first tactical mission partner environment network that gets connected to the INDOPACOM Mission Network. That's our goal,” said Col. Rett Burroughs, I Corps’ chief information officer. “All the way down and put it into vehicles that move and put it on the backs of soldiers that walk.”

Burroughs said the corps has been installing networking gear in various partner nations over the past year.

“We actually have our tactical server infrastructure in place all across the Pacific. We can now talk on our mission partner environment with the Australian 1st Division in Brisbane. We have our connection in Thailand and the Philippines,” he said.

But the networking software is coming more slowly. Over the past year, I Corps created and tested a tactical network between the U.S., Japan, and Australia with a simple goal: enable an Australian service member to send an email to her Japanese counterparts. There’s no data-sharing policy between the three nations, which limits what can be shared between their respective networks.

“If you, from the Australian side, were going to send me, a Japanese officer, an email, you can't send an attachment. We would actually take that attachment and we would just make it disappear. But the body of the text would go through,” Burroughs said.

I Corps aims to test and refine the new system in December.

“We're throwing our warfighter exercise that [U.S. Army Forces Command] requires us to do every two years on top of an [U.S. Army Pacific] exercise that we do every year. So we're going to mash two exercises into one…it's going to be a pretty chaotic event for us communicators, to say the least, because it's never been done before,” Burroughs said. “We're going to refine them to make them simpler, more effective, and just a little more seamless to the operator so they don't have to take as many steps,” like being able to find files easier.

The goal is to inform the Army, Indo-Pacific Command, and the Joint Staff on “what we know works in the Pacific” using real-world test cases at scale to form requirements.

“Technologically, there's nothing that we can't do,” Burroughs said. “Everything that we see in science and science fiction, we can do it. But policy has to dictate what we're actually allowed to do. So those trilat agreements…military-level discussions, those are happening and those have to happen in order for us to modernize.”

defenseone.com · by Lauren C. Williams

​15. Reviewing a past attempt to "reform" US international broadcasting

​A detailed analysis here (and Matt can provide much more). It is amazing how we (or at least I) do not know about the history of public diplomacy and the use of information to support US national security. And we just throw around terms very casually had have no idea what they mean. That is why Matt Armstrong's analysis (and histories) are so important if we are going to get public diplomacy and information operations right. See the photo at the link to understand Matt's point.

Excerpts:

If you're interested, I’d happily explain any of the points above or detail the relevant arguments, issues, reports, etc. Comment on the post or reply to it if you received it from my substack in your inbox.

Some may not be aware that President Carter changed the US Information Agency’s (USIA) name to USICA, and that didn’t go over well. I don’t know of solid examples of USICA getting confused with the CIA, but it was an argument around then and made since.

When I entered the “public diplomacy” world near the turn of the century (to earn a Master of Public Diplomacy), I was told USIA went by USIS, for US Information Service, “because USIA sounds too much like CIA.” That, I since learned, was bogus: USIS existed for decades before USIA was around. USIS was often the known “brand” in many countries well before USIA entered the scene. USIS was a product or service where USIA was the agency. So the parting picture / parting shot today will be of a USIS product from September 1945 rather than a cycling pic.

The address in the header still stands and can be found here. This bulletin came out as USIS was transitioned from OWI to State under the executive order issued August 31, 1945, abolishing OWI and ordering the transfer of OWI’s (and those of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs) international information programs to the State Department.

Reviewing a past attempt to "reform" US international broadcasting

When framing obscures important details

https://mountainrunner.substack.com/p/reviewing-a-past-attempt-to-reform?utm

Matt Armstrong

Nov 21, 2024

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In September, I wrote about my disappointment in how a bill to “reform” the Broadcasting Board of Governors, now called the US Agency for Global Media, was described in an otherwise thoughtful and deeply researched book on the agency. See here and a follow-up here. This is the book passage I objected to:

For these reasons, an ambitious restructure was proposed in a bipartisan bill introduced in 2014 by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) (Weed 2016; Metzgar 2013). The Royce-Engel bill proposed creating a new International Communications Agency within the State Department, headed by the CEO. It also proposed to amalgamate surrogate stations into a single network, which VOA would supply with content, as well as continuing to carry government editorials. Controversially, the bill proposed to revoke legislation seen by journalists as forming the statutory firewall: that is, the International Broadcasting Act (1994) and VOA’s Charter (1976). Instead, the bill proposed to introduce new objectives “clarifying” that the purpose of all US-funded international media was to support US foreign policy.

The description above grossly mischaracterized what the bill would have done to the agency. In my first post, I described the setup for the bill, along with evidence disputing the framing. In my second post, which is linked above, I provided further explanation because, as the title of the post suggested, some readers lost the forest from the trees described in the first post.

This update will be shorter than either. In both of those posts, I shared an email I wrote to a colleague in July 2015 on the second iteration of the 2014 bill described above. The second iteration of the bill, which thankfully failed as well, showed the severest faults in the first bill were intended as they remained. In both the 2014 and 2015 iterations, the main feature of the bills was not creating a new International Communications Agency (ICA), whether in the State Department or otherwise, but creating a separate organization that included three of the agency’s five networks with the secondary feature of plan​ting time bombs in ICA.

See the prior posts if you’re interested or need to review the conversation. This background may be helpful when considering what may be coming for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and its components.

To veer of the purpose of this post, I’ll post comments later on the Project 2025 section about USAGM and the Voice of America (VOA). It is worthwhile to look at the critique, some of which is relevant and should be discussed. I’ll say now that the author included a curious, inexplicable error in their brief history of VOA: “The original network, VOA, functioned under the Office of Coordinator of Information as early as 1941, the War Department’s Office of War Information from 1942 to 1945, the State Department from 1945 to 1953, …” Did you catch it? The author states the Office of War Information (OWI) was under the Department of War. A friend asked me if I knew where that reference originated since we knew that OWI was not under the War Department. I tried different Google searches to see if there was a specific source the author used for that reference. I couldn’t find a particular source. However, when I used part of the sentence as my search term, Google AI’s overview above the search results told me OWI “operated under the War Department 1942 to 1945.” Interesting.

Let’s return the attention back to the bill to “reform” the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). To repeat myself, I included an email I wrote in July 2015 in the two posts linked above. Below is an email I wrote to a colleague in May 2014, immediately after the bill was publicly introduced, where I highlighted parts of the bill I took issue with, explaining the intended purpose of the particular element, describing the issue around this element, and my suggestion on remedying this element since I considered it a damaging defect. As a reminder, I served as a Governor on the BBG from 2013 to 2017, and these were my own thoughts. Neither staff nor anyone else contributed to these (so don’t try to blame anyone else).

Submitted for your reading pleasure:

1. Use of 'public diplomacy'

intended purpose: to link the agency to foreign policy

issue: a[s] defined in 4490 and as commonly used in the US and abroad, 'public diplomacy' intends to create a relationship between peoples. This agency does 'share America's story' but not for the same reasons [as] the State Department. We 'share' the U.S. for three deeply related reasons. First, to counter propaganda about our history, our domestic events, policies, and more. Second, to create a frame of reference for non-US audiences to better understand our policies, our actions, and the statements of our leaders. Third, which often the most important and comprehensive reason, to provide an alternate view of their domestic situation (i.e. race relations, elections, health, etc), to see what is possible, what the freedom to speak and disagree can look like, and more. 

The use of 'public diplomacy' is at odds with the mission stated elsewhere in 4490 on where the agency should focus its efforts. 

This agency is about more than creating and disseminating content. It is primarily about the freedom of news, the freedom to speak and the freedom to listen. Our anti-censorship and internet freedom programs are a part of this, but not the only part. We need to emphasize this broader mission better. The use of the term also assumes this agency operates in areas where the U.S. matters most, but in fact, many of our markets the U.S. is not a key actor. We need to focus on the audience, not the U.S. 

suggestion: remove references to 'public diplomacy' and insert text about the uniqueness of the agency, its mission and its value. There are several key efforts underway, and about to start, to correct the internal, and external, narrative of this agency that will remove any lingering and erroneous notion that we are 'another news agency' or that BBC or CNN is our competition or peers of this agency. Suggested starting points is the following text from the **draft** mission statement (last revised Feb 19): 

The BBG is a unique and necessary instrument of U.S. foreign policy. We provide an important and necessary capability not provided by any other government agency, commercial operation, or non-governmental organization. By focusing on creating access to the news and information audiences need, and creating spaces for them to engage and share the information, we empower people to hold their government accountable, to know the facts about their adversaries (and our adversaries), to understand and develop rule of law, human security, and to better know and understand the United States. Further, these activities create the space for audiences to understand and engage the efforts of other U.S. Government agencies. 

The BBG has no peer. No other government agency, commercial entity, or non-governmental organization does what we do. Our purpose, from the founding of a civilian Voice of America in late 1945 to the present day, has been to put ourselves out of business by establishing both the demand for and the existence of free and vibrant media in other lands. We operate where commercial agencies cannot or will not go. Our competition is ignorance, governments that try to hide the truth from their people, and international media that distort, obfuscate, and ignore the truth.  

2. Two CEOs

intended purpose: to provide a single authority over each the grantee and the federal entity. 

issue: It is not clear how the CEOs will work together and it could be interpreted that they are equals. We need more integration, not disaggregation. 

suggestion: change the grantee chief to 'president', make the grantee chiefs 'director' to create equality with the Voice of America leadership. Subordinate grantee president to agency CEO. 

3. Grantee Control

intended purpose: control of the grantee by the agency is assumed to be through meetings and grant management. 

issue: it has been recently demonstrated that the agency lacks the authority to manage the grantees under the grant mechanisms. Hill staff believe if we had the right grant officers and leadership we would be able to exercise the necessary direction over the grantees to make sure they work with the agency, across borders, etc. However, the OMB sided with the grantees earlier this year, and against the OIG and the Board, stating the these grantees are different and additional control is not allowed. The current 4490 does allow the agency to terminate funding to the grantee, but this is unlikely under any scenario but the most extreme over time.

suggestion: add necessary language in 4490 to authorize the agency to exercise the necessary direction over the grantee through the grant mechanism and any other methods necessary. 

4. Grant Board

intended purpose: provide a 'local' advisory and oversight function to the grantee leadership. 

issue: this increases the chance of dissent within the agency. It is also redundant: the function of advising the agency has, since 1948, been in the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, formerly the Advisory Commission on Information. The at most incremental value of this board is likely to be outweighed by the additional bureaucratic burden of managing it, funding it, and integrating and deconflicting its input with the agency and other directions and requirements.

suggestion:  eliminate the board. Remind the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy of its role to provide relevant and timely guidance, with additional legislation if necessary (but unlikely), and confirm members to the Commission that are appropriate for the task.   

The grantee is not NED or Freedom House and the structure does not need to mirror those entities. The agency, and the grantee, may share objectives, but we are content creators. This board undermines the agility the grantee and the agency requires and will likely undermine the ability to control or direct the grantee as required to be efficient, effective, and to prevent duplication in the absence of the first two. 

5. Hiring of IBB and VOA staff

intended purpose: restrict automatic promotions to and hiring of GS14/15 positions to address needs of a modern communication agency. 

issue: this process may not work as intended and may create additional friction on bringing in the right people. Lack of appropriate skills is in more levels than 14/15.

suggestion: allow the CEO to manage the issue of staffing and skills. Provide, if necessary, additional funding to offer buy-outs. See Defederalization Strategy below.

6. International Communications Agency

intended purpose: break from 'BBG' name

issue: besides association with President Carter's attempt to rename USIA, 'ICA' is easily misread as CIA, especially in other language where the word order changes.

suggestion: rename the agency the Voice of America or we can identify an appropriate name that crosses languages.  

Related to 4490, not in 4490, but perhaps should be in: 

a. Duplication across the Executive branch

Several other executive branch departments and bureaus attempt to do news media, local communication platforms, and anti-censorship in duplication with our efforts. But they lack the same time horizons, understanding of the technologies, have a different measurement of success (and failure), and more. We should have less cross-agency duplication. 

b. Establish a grantee to execute unique projects and receive funds from the private or commercial sector

We need to centralize our ability to gather funds from across the interagency and create a better ability to get funds from the private sector. This is a different organization than the Consolidated Grantee in structure and function. The BBC created its own, which also permits some additional non-standard funding opportunities. 

c. Defederalization Strategy

A modern media agency needs an agility to acquire the right skills and technologies which the federal agency lacks. However, there must remain a federal hub, or nub, to integrate with the federal government, to own federal assets as necessary (e.g. a transmitter placed on Embassy grounds, integration with national security meetings, security clearances, etc.). We may find it desirable to defederalize some of our broadcasting capabilities but the current grantee is not the right fit. 

If you're interested, I’d happily explain any of the points above or detail the relevant arguments, issues, reports, etc. Comment on the post or reply to it if you received it from my substack in your inbox.

Some may not be aware that President Carter changed the US Information Agency’s (USIA) name to USICA, and that didn’t go over well. I don’t know of solid examples of USICA getting confused with the CIA, but it was an argument around then and made since.

When I entered the “public diplomacy” world near the turn of the century (to earn a Master of Public Diplomacy), I was told USIA went by USIS, for US Information Service, “because USIA sounds too much like CIA.” That, I since learned, was bogus: USIS existed for decades before USIA was around. USIS was often the known “brand” in many countries well before USIA entered the scene. USIS was a product or service where USIA was the agency. So the parting picture / parting shot today will be of a USIS product from September 1945 rather than a cycling pic.

The address in the header still stands and can be found here. This bulletin came out as USIS was transitioned from OWI to State under the executive order issued August 31, 1945, abolishing OWI and ordering the transfer of OWI’s (and those of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs) international information programs to the State Department.

16. Trump administration may signal a radical shift in the Indo-Pacific, experts say

​I truly hope the President-elect will recognize the value of our silk web of alliances, partners, and relationships to US national security and in particular for winning strategic competition with China.

Trump administration may signal a radical shift in the Indo-Pacific, experts say

Stars and Stripes · by Alex Wilson · November 19, 2024

Christopher Johnstone, a managing principal for The Asia Group, speaks to reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, Nov. 19, 2024. (Jeremy Stillwagner/Stars and Stripes)

TOKYO — President-elect Donald Trump will probably prize deals with individual Indo-Pacific countries over multinational partnerships, a strategy likely to allow China to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its allies, two strategy advisers said this week.

Trump may depart significantly from President Joe Biden’s agenda for curtailing Beijing’s influence, although both see China as the primary U.S. competitor, Christopher Johnstone, a managing principal at The Asia Group, a strategic advisory firm, said Monday at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.

The Biden administration pursued cooperation among its allies and partners, for example, by increasing cooperation and ties between the U.S., Japan and South Korea. Trump is more likely to pursue individual agreements and pressure allies into spending more on defense.

“He brings a deep skepticism about allies and has tended to view them as free riders who have often taken advantage of the United States,” Johnstone told reporters.

Japan this year announced a plan to increase defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, but Johnstone expects Trump to press for at least 3%.

Trump during his first term pushed South Korea to pay more of the cost to keep American forces stationed in the country or face their withdrawal.

“I think we have to assume that’s also a conversation that could return,” Johnstone said.

Trump has at times been a strong supporter of Taiwan, but also expressed displeasure with its defense spending and “questioned the importance of Taiwan to the United States,” he said.

Faced with Trump’s plans to use tariffs and other trade deals to distance the U.S. economy from China, Beijing is likely to retaliate, Johnstone said.

“[China is] likely to seek to divide Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia, possibly by offering separate inducements and separate incentives related to trade and investment; to attempt to divide the progress that’s been made,” he said.

China may also test Trump’s commitment to Taiwan and keeping open the South China Sea through increased military activity in the area, Johnstone said.

China views Taiwan, a functionally democratic island separated from the mainland by the 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, as a breakaway province that must be reclaimed, by force if necessary.

Abraham Denmark, a senior adviser for the Asia Group, speaks to reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, Nov. 19, 2024. (Jeremy Stillwagner/Stars and Stripes)

Abraham Denmark, a senior adviser for the Asia Group, said Taiwan presents the greatest potential for conflict. Chinese President Xi Jinping has set 2027 as the year Beijing should “ready to take Taiwan by force,” Denmark said.

“It doesn’t mean that they will try to do that,” he said. “But it does, I think, signify that the potential for conflict in East Asia, if not high, is a very real possibility that we cannot ignore.”

Most Indo-Pacific nations seek stable relationships with both countries, Denmark added.

“I expect countries to continue to hedge for the most part and try to maintain as robust a relationship they can with the United States, while trying to muddle through with China,” he said.

Stars and Stripes · by Alex Wilson · November 19, 2024

17. ‘We must be ready’: INDOPACOM chief sounds alarm on China’s interest in invading Taiwan

​CINCPAC ... er.. I mean Commander, INDOPACOM is making a lot of news these days. When he comes to Washington he makes news.

‘We must be ready’: INDOPACOM chief sounds alarm on China’s interest in invading Taiwan

Stars and Stripes · by Caitlyn Burchett · November 19, 2024

Airman Anthony Hyler signals to a CH-53E Super Stallion on the flight deck of the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Somerset in the South China Sea, May 24, 2024. (Evan Diaz/U.S. Navy)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. has witnessed in recent months a historic amount of large military exercises conducted by China, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Tuesday as he sounded the alarm about a potential invasion of Taiwan.

“Over the summer, I saw the most rehearsal and the most joint exercises from the People’s Republic of China that I had ever seen — with the widest geography, the most joint operations for air, missile, maritime power that I had seen over an entire career of being an observer,” Adm. Samuel Paparo said during a Brookings Institution panel.

A fleet of 152 vessels, as well as 200 combat amphibious vehicles, were spotted on a single day, Paparo said, which was evidence of an upward trajectory and modernization of the People’s Liberation Army.

The People’s Republic of China has indicated its forces would be ready for conflict by 2027. The country has a growing interest in invading Taiwan. China regards the democratically governed island as a renegade province that must, at some point, accede to Beijing’s control.

China’s military in recent years has increasingly encroached on Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, the area just beyond its airspace.

In May, China simulated bomber attacks and ship-boardings during two days of military exercises around Taiwan. On Tuesday, Paparo said China conducted a second military demonstration near Taiwan in October that coincided with the Taiwan National Day holiday.

Adm. Samuel Paparo leads a talk at the Indo-Pacific Irregular Warfare Symposium in Honolulu on Aug. 15, 2024. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)

Additionally, Paparo highlighted, China has a growing partnership with Russia. In July, Russian and Chinese bombers were spotted flying together near Alaska for the first time. Last week, Vice Adm. Peter Gautier, deputy commandant for U.S. Coast Guard operations, told lawmakers the service recently witnessed the Russian border guard and Chinese coast guard conducting a joint patrol high in the Bering Sea, marking the first time the two countries have conducted joint operations in Arctic.

“This is the military environment that we find ourselves in in 2024,” Paparo said.

Now, conflicts around the world — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing conflicts between Israel and Iran-backed proxy groups — are eating up U.S. inventory of high-end capabilities, such as Patriot air defense missiles, Paparo said.

“Inherently, it imposes costs on the readiness of America to respond in the Indo-Pacific region, which is the most stressing theater for the quantity and quality of munitions, because the [People’s Republic of China] is the most capable potential adversary in the world,” he said.

In August, the U.S. purchased approximately $19.6 million worth of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors, or PAC-3 missiles, the Japanese Defense Ministry’s agency for acquisition, technology and logistics said in a Sunday news release. The number of missiles included in the deal was not disclosed.

The U.S. promised to send Ukraine 500 Patriot missiles and short-to-medium range missiles early this month, the Wall Street Journal reported.

U.S. stocks of PAC-3 missiles, commonly used in the MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system, have decreased over the past year due to U.S. support for Ukraine.

Paparo said he is “dissatisfied” with the U.S. magazine depth and stressed a need to “replenish those stocks, and then some.”

“The closer we get to [2027], the less relevant that date is, and the more we must be ready today, tomorrow, next month, next year and onward,” Paparo said.

Stars and Stripes reporter Wyatt Olson contributed to this report.

Stars and Stripes · by Caitlyn Burchett · November 19, 2024

18. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 19, 2024

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 19, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-19-2024

Ukrainian forces have defended against Russia's full-scale invasion for 1,000 days and continue to demonstrate incredible resilience against Russian aggression. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022 under the incorrect assumption that Ukraine would fail to defend itself and that Russian forces would be able to seize Kyiv City and install a pro-Russian proxy government in three days. One thousand days later, Ukrainian forces have successfully pushed Russian forces from their most forward points of advance in Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Poltava, and Mykolaiv oblasts and continue their daily fight to liberate occupied territory in Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, and Kherson oblasts and Crimea. Russian forces are currently advancing throughout eastern Ukraine, and Ukrainian officials have recently warned about the possibility of an imminent Russian offensive operation in Zaporizhia Oblast. Russian President Vladimir Putin is simultaneously waging an informational war against the West, Ukraine, and the Russian population aimed at convincing the world that Russian victory is inevitable, and that Ukraine stands no chance. This informational effort is born out of Putin's fear and understanding that sustained Western military, economic, and diplomatic support for Ukraine will turn the tide of the war against Russia.

Russia has accumulated a significant amount of risk and a number of ever-increasing constraints on its warfighting capabilities over the last 1,000 days. Russia began the war with a poorly organized and understaffed military comprised of contract military personnel and limited number of conscripts due to his incorrect assumption that Ukraine would fold and fear that general mobilization could threaten the stability of his regime. Russia largely relied on a combination of volunteer contract servicemembers, mobilized personnel, and irregular formations (such as the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic Army Corps [DNR/LNR AC], the Wagner Group, and Russian Volunteer Corps) to wage Putin's war without general mobilization. This system has provided the Kremlin the manpower necessary to support operations so far, but there are mounting indicators that this system is beginning to teeter. Recent Western estimates of Russian manpower losses suggest that Russian forces are currently losing more troops per month than Russia’s ongoing crypto-mobilization efforts can sustain, and open-source evidence indicates that Russia may not be able to sustain its current rate of armored vehicle and tank losses in the medium term as Russia burns through its stockpiles of Soviet-era equipment. The upcoming 2025 year will only increase the manpower and materiel constraints on the Russian military if Russia attempts to sustain its current offensive tempo, and Putin continues to appear averse to such measures given Russian society's growing disinterest in fighting in Russia’s war, the Russian economy’s limitations including a significant labor deficit and high inflation, and continual aversion to bearing the burden of additional wartime costs. Russia cannot maintain its current tempo indefinitely. Putin will likely need to take disruptive and drastic measures - including another involuntary call up of the mobilization reserve - to overcome these growing limitations as the war protracts.

Ukraine, meanwhile, continues to improve its warfighting capabilities and prepare itself to be self-sustainable in the long term. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented Ukraine's "Internal Resilience Plan" to the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) on November 19. The plan is comprised of 10 points that establish Ukraine's strategic objectives during and after the end of Russia's full-scale invasion. The core points of the plan outline Ukraine's focus on maintaining unity and cooperation with its partners; specific measures to stabilize the frontline and increase Ukrainian military's technological efficiency; the expansion of Ukraine's domestic industrial base (DIB) production capabilities and joint DIB partnerships; the establishment of an economic policy to support Ukrainian industries and businesses; the protection of Ukraine's energy infrastructure; and the establishment of a new internal and border security system. The plan also outlines a vision to create effective local administrations, improve social and veteran policies, and strengthen Ukraine's cultural sovereignty both domestically and abroad. Zelensky emphasized in his speech to the Verkhovna Rada that Ukraine has taken many steps to improve its DIB and has already produced over 2.5 million mortar and artillery rounds in 2024. Zelensky added that Ukraine plans to produce at least 3,000 cruise missiles and 30,000 long-range drones in 2025 and that Ukrainian brigades should raise their own funding to appropriately supply themselves with drones without bureaucratic limitations. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced on November 19 that the Verkhovna Rada approved the 2025 defense and security budget of 2.23 trillion hryvnias (around $54 billion) and allocated a record-breaking 739 billion hryvnias (around $17.9 billion) for the Ukrainian DIB and weapon procurement. ISW continues to assess that Ukraine has a chance to dramatically expand its DIB and stand on its own two feet in the future if its partners empower Ukraine now.

Ukrainian forces conducted the first ATAMCS strike on Russian territory overnight on November 18 to 19, hitting a Russian ammunition depot in Karachev, Bryansk Oblast – days after obtaining permission to conduct such strikes. Ukrainian military officials, including the Ukrainian General Staff, reported on November 19 that Ukrainian forces struck the Russian military's 67th Main Military and Artillery Directorate (GRAU) arsenal of the 1046th Logistics Support Center near Karachev on the night of November 18 to 19 and that the strike caused an initial detonation and 12 secondary explosions. A Ukrainian military source told Ukrainian outlet RBK-Ukraine on November 19 that Ukrainian forces used US-provided ATACMS missiles to conduct the strike. Head of Ukraine's Center for Combatting Disinformation Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko stated that the 67th GRAU arsenal contained artillery ammunition, including North Korean-provided shells, as well as guided glide bombs, air defense missiles, and rockets for multiple launch rocket launchers (MLRS). The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces launched six ballistic missiles, including ATACMS, at a military facility in Bryansk Oblast and that Russian S-400 and Pantsir air defense systems shot down five missiles and damaged one. The Russian MoD claimed that missile fragments fell onto a military facility in Bryansk Oblast, causing a fire, but that the strike did not cause any damages or casualties. Russian opposition outlet Astra stated that Ukrainian forces also struck the "Veza" ventilation plant and buildings in Karachev, Podsosonki, and Baykova. Russian sources posted footage purportedly showing the ATACMS strike and its aftermath.

Key Takeaways:

• Ukrainian forces have defended against Russia's full-scale invasion for 1,000 days and continue to demonstrate incredible resilience against Russian aggression.

• Ukraine continues to improve its warfighting capabilities and prepare itself to be self-sustainable in the long term.

• Ukrainian forces conducted the first ATAMCS strike on Russian territory overnight on November 18 to 19, hitting a Russian ammunition depot in Karachev, Bryansk Oblast — days after obtaining permission to conduct such strikes.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin signed Russia's updated nuclear doctrine on November 19 in a clear response to the Biden Administration's decision to greenlight long-range strikes into Russia and as part of Putin's ongoing efforts to influence Western decision-makers into shying away from providing additional support to Ukraine.

• Russia’s adoption of an amended nuclear doctrine is the latest iteration of now-frequent Russian nuclear saber-rattling and does not represent a substantial change in Russia’s nuclear posture, doctrine, or the threat of the employment of nuclear weapons.

• The Kremlin has continuously attempted to use nuclear saber-rattling to deter Western military support for Ukraine, and the Kremlin's ongoing efforts to inject nuclear threats into the information space indicates that the Kremlin is concerned about the battlefield impacts of Ukrainian strikes into Russia with Western-provided weapons.

• Ukraine only recently has started receiving the weapons systems and military capabilities necessary to wage modern large-scale combat operations, and Ukraine may be able to conduct operationally significant counteroffensives in the future, provided the West reinforces building Ukrainian capabilities at scale.

• Russian forces recently advanced in the main Ukrainian salient in Kursk Oblast and in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area, and Ukrainian forces recently advanced north of Kharkiv City. 

19. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 19, 2024

Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 19, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-november-19-2024

Hamas and other unidentified Palestinian militias have formed a combined force to stop armed gangs from looting humanitarian aid, which indicates that Hamas has only limited control of the Gaza Strip. It remains unclear if Hamas distributes the aid equitably after it recovers stolen aid. Reuters reported on November 19 that Hamas and other militias created a force called the Popular and Revolutionary Committees in November 2024 to address rising Palestinian civilian anger at aid seizures and price gouging. Palestinian sources claimed that this newly created force has conducted multiple operations this month, killing several armed looters. The IDF has repeatedly said that armed groups loot humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. Armed criminal groups seized 98 out of 109 aid trucks in an incident in the southern Strip on November 16. A Hamas official told Reuters that the force shows Hamas’ continued control of governance in the Gaza Strip. The reality that criminal organizations are capable and willing to interdict these aid shipments indicates that these groups no longer fear Hamas to the degree they did pre-war. This suggests that Hamas’ ability to maintain control over the Strip has weakened considerably. The creation of a combined organization to counter this loss of control indicates Hamas is taking steps to regain control over the Strip, however.

Israeli media reported on November 18 that Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar met with Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin in Turkey on November 16 to discuss efforts for a ceasefire-hostage deal in the Gaza Strip. Israeli media reported on November 17 that Hamas’ political leadership had relocated from Qatar to Turkey after Qatari officials reportedly ordered Hamas’ political leadership to relocate from Qatar. Hamas and an anonymous Turkish diplomat both denied on November 18 that Hamas’ political leadership had relocated from Qatar to Turkey.



Key Takeaways:



• Humanitarian Aid: Hamas and other unidentified Palestinian militias have formed a combined force to stop armed gangs from looting humanitarian aid, which indicates that Hamas has only limited control of the Gaza Strip. The reality that criminal organizations are capable and willing to interdict these aid shipments indicates that these groups no longer fear Hamas to the degree they did pre-war. This suggests that Hamas’ ability to maintain control over the Strip has weakened considerably. The creation of a combined organization to counter this loss of control indicates Hamas is taking steps to regain control over the Strip, however.

• Gaza Strip Ceasefire: Israeli media reported on November 18 that Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar met with Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin in Turkey on November 16 to discuss efforts for a ceasefire-hostage deal in the Gaza Strip.

• Israeli Ground Operations in Lebanon: An Israeli Army Radio correspondent reported on November 19 that the 36th Division has advanced northwest from Chama to a hilltop overlooking the Lebanese coast.

• Lebanon Ceasefire: US special envoy Amos Hochstein discussed Hezbollah’s response to the US-drafted ceasefire agreement with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut on November 19. Unspecified Israeli officials told Axios that a recent intensification of Israeli air operations and expansion of ground operations in Lebanon is intended to increase pressure on Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire.

• Lebanese Armed Forces-Hezbollah Relations: The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF)’s unwillingness to directly confront Hezbollah in the south will complicate the success of the ceasefire agreement. The LAF will need Hezbollah’s approval to deploy troops to the south to enforce a ceasefire deal and will avoid confronting Hezbollah fighters directly to avoid “trigger[ing] internal strife,” according to sources close to the army and unspecified officials talking to Reuters.

• UNIFIL: Hezbollah fired a rocket barrage towards Israel that truck UN Position 5-42 near Ramyeh, southwestern Lebanon. UNIFIL said that “likely non-state actors” fired a barrage of rockets that hit the base and injured four Ghanian peacekeepers. The only non-state armed groups operating in southern Lebanon are Hezbollah and groups that Hezbollah permits to operate in southern Lebanon. 

20. Russia Has Suffered Colossal Losses in Ukraine. Is Its Army Depleted?

​Soldiers do not grow on trees. I guess that is why they need replacements from the north Korean People's Army.

Excerpts:

The Pentagon previously said that it had estimated Russian (as well as Ukrainian) losses based on a variety of sources that included satellite imagery, communication intercepts, government statements, social media posts and news articles. U.S. officials note the resulting numbers are “low confidence assessments.”

Military analysts and statisticians said the lack of transparency, and the catchall nature of Western estimates of Russian casualties, made them, at best, an unreliable snapshot of the war.

What it all means

To be sure, losses are just one side of the coin. In a war of attrition as in Ukraine, the supply of new troops is another crucial variable.In June, Russia’s Defense Ministry counted 33 million men eligible for military service, according to a government database obtained by Meduza. This compares with six million potential soldiers who lived in Ukraine before Russia’s invasion in 2022. Just over half of those have since been registered in the country’s military service database.About 900 men joined the Russian forces every day in the first half of this year, according to an analysis of Russian budget data by Janis Kluge, a Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a research organization.

They are drawn by ever-rising sign-up bonuses, salaries and compensation payments that will change the financial fortunes of a recruit’s family, regardless of whether he lives or dies. The Kremlin has also looked beyond its borders for new fighters, attracting volunteers from dozens of developing nations and troops from its ally North Korea.

This rate of recruitment has allowed the Russian military not only to replenish losses, but also to create new units. This month, the Pentagon said Kremlin had amassed a combined force of 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops to expel Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region of Russia.

Russia Has Suffered Colossal Losses in Ukraine. Is Its Army Depleted?

Researchers and journalists have found innovative ways to measure Russia’s ability to keep fighting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/world/europe/russia-troops-losses-ukraine.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm

A cemetery for fallen Russian soldiers in Ulan-Ude, Russia, last year.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

By Anatoly Kurmanaev

Reporting from Berlin

Nov. 19, 2024

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Russia’s military made its largest territorial gains in more than two years in October, as it pressed farther into Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region — but at a heavy cost.

British and Ukrainian military officials, as well as BBC researchers, claim that Russia suffered its highest rate of dead and injured soldiers during that month. The arrival of thousands of North Korean troops in Russia is also raising questions about whether the Kremlin has enough soldiers to make up for its losses.

What do we really know about Russia’s casualties and its ability to replace them?

The losses that matter

It is difficult to obtain concrete information about Russian casualties, which comprise deaths and injuries. Moscow has an incentive to minimize its losses and rarely discloses any information; Ukraine and its allies have an incentive to overstate them.

Even if they are accurate, the Western casualty estimates usually lump together deaths with all injuries. Military experts say that category is too broad to fully explain the state of the war. Lightly wounded soldiers can quickly recover, for example.

What determines a military’s true ability to fight are its irreplaceable, irrecoverable or permanent losses — soldiers who are dead or so seriously injured that they will never see battle again.

Image

Ukrainian servicemen carrying the body of a Russian soldier from a destroyed building at the Sudzha Border Crossing in August.Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

Russia and Ukraine treat such statistics as state secrets.

Ukraine guards its casualty figures especially closely, restricting journalists’ ability to report on the topic, withholding information from allies and halting the publication of demographic data.

Some independent Russian journalists and researchers have found innovative ways to count Russia’s dead and wounded, digging up information from diverse sources like obituaries, cemeteries, disability payments and notary databases.

Their calculations begin to show a more accurate toll of the war, shedding light on Russia’s ability to continue the fight. They also suggest that Russia has lost more soldiers in this war than any industrialized nation has in a conflict since World War II.

Counting obituaries and burials

Journalists from the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona and the BBC Russian Service have been counting Russian soldiers who have died in Ukraine since the early months of the invasion. Their methods are based on collecting and cross-checking public information such as obituaries and cemetery burials.

Tips, Clips and a Giant SpreadsheetJournalists and volunteers use news articles, tombstone photos and other open-source information to tally the Russian toll.

This work has produced the most comprehensive database of confirmed Russian combat deaths: 78,000 soldiers by November, not including the Ukrainian separatists and foreigners fighting for Russia. (A similar, but less transparent, account of Ukraine’s losses found 65,000 dead soldiers by mid-November.)

Mediazona’s tally is incomplete: Some soldiers leave no trace when they die. The journalists estimate that they have recorded about half of all Russian military deaths.

Counting inheritances

Another independent Russian news outlet, Meduza, collaborated with Mediazona and the BBC for a statistical analysis of war casualties.

Their main tool is Russia’s public notary database, which contains all inheritance cases opened by the relatives of killed soldiers. To collect the data, Meduza and Mediazona journalists must outsmart government programmers who try to block them from locating and downloading inheritance entries.

Image

A billboard advertising a bonus for soldiers who enlist in the Russian Army in St. Petersburg, Russia, last month.Credit...Anatoly Maltsev/EPA, via Shutterstock

Once the data is collected, the journalists use statistical tools developed during the pandemic to calculate how many military-age Russian men became subjects of inheritance proceedings since the invasion. This analysis of excess mortality led the journalists to estimate Russia’s total military deaths at nearly 150,000 by the end of October.

Counting the wounded

After estimating the number of dead Russian soldiers, journalists from the BBC, Mediazona and Meduza collaborated on the next task: quantifying Russia’s severe battlefield injuries.

They consulted military experts, analyzed leaked personnel lists and looked at statistics on veterans’ compensation payments. They concluded that for every dead Russian soldier, about two more were seriously injured.

That ratio is a rough approximation, they cautioned. It will fluctuate throughout the same war, as weapons, medical equipment, weather and tactics change.

Adding up the estimated number of dead and the seriously injured, Meduza estimated that Russia’s military had suffered a total of 405,000 irreplaceable losses by late October. Using a similar method, Olga Ivshina of the BBC estimated 484,000 irreplaceable Russian losses in the same period.

Assessing military intelligence

The military intelligence agencies of Ukraine and many NATO nations produce their own estimates of Russian casualties. They all claim that Russia has lost 600,000 to 700,000 in dead and wounded soldiers as of October.

These agencies do not disclose their methods. The numbers they make public usually represent the top range of their internal estimates and include light injuries, according to officials and military analysts familiar with the calculations.

Image

Part of a military tag found with the body of a Russian soldier near Koroviy Yar, Ukraine, last year.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times

The Pentagon previously said that it had estimated Russian (as well as Ukrainian) losses based on a variety of sources that included satellite imagery, communication intercepts, government statements, social media posts and news articles. U.S. officials note the resulting numbers are “low confidence assessments.”

Military analysts and statisticians said the lack of transparency, and the catchall nature of Western estimates of Russian casualties, made them, at best, an unreliable snapshot of the war.

What it all means

To be sure, losses are just one side of the coin. In a war of attrition as in Ukraine, the supply of new troops is another crucial variable.

In June, Russia’s Defense Ministry counted 33 million men eligible for military service, according to a government database obtained by Meduza. This compares with six million potential soldiers who lived in Ukraine before Russia’s invasion in 2022. Just over half of those have since been registered in the country’s military service database.

About 900 men joined the Russian forces every day in the first half of this year, according to an analysis of Russian budget data by Janis Kluge, a Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a research organization.

They are drawn by ever-rising sign-up bonuses, salaries and compensation payments that will change the financial fortunes of a recruit’s family, regardless of whether he lives or dies. The Kremlin has also looked beyond its borders for new fighters, attracting volunteers from dozens of developing nations and troops from its ally North Korea.

This rate of recruitment has allowed the Russian military not only to replenish losses, but also to create new units. This month, the Pentagon said Kremlin had amassed a combined force of 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops to expel Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region of Russia.

Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Oleg Matsnev contributed research from Berlin.

Anatoly Kurmanaev covers Russia and its transformation following the invasion of Ukraine. More about Anatoly Kurmanaev

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 20, 2024, Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: Counting Casualties From the War in Ukraine Is a Thorny Task. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

21. Beyond Sanctions: Economic Warfare and Modern Military Conflict

​Excerpt:

As both Russia and Ukraine fail to achieve decisive breakthroughs, both sides are engaging more and more in directing a part of their military means toward destroying economic production, broadening the war of attrition beyond the strictly military dimension of the conflict. From a Western perspective, there are concerns that certain of the Ukrainian actions could have negative spillover effects across the interconnected world economy. However, economic coercion played a prominent role in the major conflicts of the twentieth century, and the ongoing war in Ukraine suggests that it is likely to do so in present and future conflicts, as well. A thorough understanding of economic warfare, therefore, is vital—most notably the fact that it is a broad spectrum, not only limited to indirect (diplomatic and legislative) measures such as sanctions. As history has shown, a successful economic war campaign also extends beyond blocking an adversary’s access to critical goods at their origin or by hampering the import process and can include targeting critical components at the adversary’s destination by means of direct action. Similar actions, including those targeting Western nations, are increasingly evident well beyond the Russia-Ukraine War—the Houthi long-range strikes on cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz highlight these emerging threats. Collectively, these trends reinforce the urgent need to strengthen measures that shield our economic resilience from adversarial acts of economic coercion.

Beyond Sanctions: Economic Warfare and Modern Military Conflict - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Pieter Balcaen · November 20, 2024

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With the war in Ukraine approaching the end of its third year, the military conflict has become a war of attrition. Russia has understood the importance of shifting to a war economy to sustain this war of attrition, devoting a large share of its industrial capacity to the war effort. Hence, while analysis of the war must account for the military attrition taking place, it is equally or even more important to consider the economic dimension of this attrition.

Contemporary discussions on economic warfare and economic coercion, including those examining the war in Ukraine, focus primarily on diplomatic and legislative actions (e.g., the use of negative sanctions). These sanctions consist of a series of boycotts, embargos, blacklists, quotas, and asset freezes that are widely accepted as a low-risk, less-costly alternative to military force. From a historical point of view, however, economic coercion often takes a much broader form, as was the case in the major conventional wars of the twentieth century. Furthermore, strategic thinking about economic warfare during those conflicts reserved an important role for the military, including the use of naval power to impose blockades in World War I and the use of strategic bombing to accelerate the effects from blockades in World War II.

An exploration of economic warfare in historical high-intensity conventional conflicts highlights the importance of disorganizing an opponent’s economy using military means as part of the total war effort. By understanding this fact and the strategic perspective that undergirded it, we can complement the current prevailing Western views of economic coercion, which predominantly focus on using economic (nonmilitary) means such as sanctions to weaken an adversary.

Large-Scale Economic Warfare: Historical Insights

Although the use of economic coercion in some form is perhaps as old as human conflict itself, the notion of “the economic weapon” gained most of its traction beginning with World War I. The foundations for these developments are the Allied Powers’ efforts to obstruct their adversaries’ import and export of goods, mainly by means of blockades. During the interbellum period, a broad range of new sanctioning tools (blacklisting, import and export rationing, asset freezes, and preclusive purchasing) were further developed.

When World War II broke out, the Allies again devoted substantial resources to economically weaken the Axis Powers. These efforts were crafted by specific organizations devoted to planning and applying economic warfare—like the British Ministry of Economic Warfare, founded on September 3, 1939. The resources devoted to devising Great Britain’s economic warfare campaign are illustrated by looking at the composition of the ministry. At its height in October 1942, its staff comprised 1,358 personnel.

The Ministry of Economic Warfare applied two broad categories of action: indirect action through diplomatic and legislative means and direct action through military means. Whereas the forms of indirect action can mainly be considered as extensions of the traditional blockade measures (e.g., setting up blacklists or forcing ships to pass via contraband-control ports), economic pressure was also exerted in a direct way by means of strategic bombing. The British considered that strategic bombing could be a powerful complement to the traditional blockade, accelerating its effects. Ideally, a first part of the strategy should focus on preventing the adversary from getting its supplies, while the other part should hit specific parts of the opponent’s industry to aggravate the shortages created by the blockade.

The Ministry of Economic Warfare supported the strategic bombing campaign by means of its Industrial Intelligence Centre, which was responsible for creating industrial target reports and industrial damage reports. Throughout 1942, the ministry selected a broad range of targets, prioritized by economic importance (and the selection of industries that could create bottlenecks in the German war economy), as well as by feasibility (in terms of bomber range) and vulnerability. Although some successes were achieved (toward the end of the war repeated attacks on the oil industry, steel production, railways, and waterways inflicted substantial damage on the German economy), the strategic bombing campaign was overall not assessed to have achieved its desired results. This was mainly due to the relatively low accuracy of bombers at the time, resulting in expensive campaigns and high-risk missions.

Besides the objective of physically preventing the adversary from continuing the war effort, it’s also important to mention that a part of the early historical thinking around economic warfare started from an irregular warfare philosophy. More specifically, it was thought that economic coercion could be used to shape the collective behavior of human populations, creating chaos and unrest with the aim of encouraging them to revolt against their own governments.

Contemporary Direct Economic Warfare

The current conflict landscape includes two examples where actors have turned to the use of direct economic warfare: Houthi attacks (using drones and long-range missiles) against merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and a variety of activities in the Russia-Ukraine War. The latter of these two examples serves as a particularly valuable case study to understand the role of economic warfare in modern military conflict.

Both Ukraine and Russia have made considerable efforts to exhaust each other economically. During the first phases of the conflict, Russia resorted to a rather traditional naval blockade in the Black Sea, landlocking the country by occupying a large number of important ports. By doing so, it was able to severely reduce Ukrainian exports of goods, given that 75 percent of Ukraine’s prewar foreign trade took place via the Black Sea. The West on the other hand mainly supported Ukraine in an indirect way by implementing a series of diplomatic and legislative decisions. This primarily consisted of the expansion of sanctions that had been in place against Russia since 2014—including travel bans, asset freezes, prohibition of imports of a large series of Russian goods, blocking the export of goods critical for Russia’s war industry, a price cap on Russian oil, and a recent ban on reexporting Russian liquified natural gas outside the European Union.

In addition, the war in Ukraine has also been characterized by direct military-enabled economic warfare, aimed at destroying each other’s economic capacity and industrial base. These actions have been supported by technological advances, including the accelerating evolution of drone and cyber capabilities. Besides the unprecedented use of small tactical drones, Russia has also employed hundreds of long-range Shahed strike drones against Ukrainian critical infrastructure (mainly energy and military-industrial infrastructure). These drones have several advantages, compared to the strategic bombing campaigns of earlier conflicts: they have a low cost (generally, they are substantially lower cost than the air defense missiles used to shoot them down), they can cover extended distances, and they are difficult to detect by radar as they travel at low altitude. The consequences for Ukraine are not to be underestimated: it is assessed that 90 percent of the nonnuclear power-generating capacity has been destroyed over the last year. Consequently, restoring Ukraine’s energy infrastructure before this winter has been one of the priorities of Western support to Ukraine.

Similarly, Ukraine has also made use of drones to counter or to conduct economic warfare. It has successfully disrupted Russia’s economic naval blockade by means of naval drones, forcing Russia to relocate its Black Sea Fleet. As of October 2023, Ukraine stepped up its efforts to target the Russian economy by adapting a similar strategy of direct action—for instance, by targeting dozens of oil refineries with long-range strategic drone strikes, covering distances up to 1,400 kilometers of the Russian border. These attacks have drawn a lot of attention, as Russia’s oil-refining capacity was assessed to be reduced by 17 percent in July 2024.

Takeaways for Future Economic Warfare

By examining the use of economic warfare in current conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine War against the contextual backdrop of historical cases, three conclusions emerge. First, economic intelligence is of growing importance. In an increasingly connected and globalized world, the effects of every attempt to dislocate an adversary’s economy by means of direct attacks need to be analyzed ahead of any action, assessing all possible secondary fallout effects and the impact on friendly nations’ economies—including that of the nation undertaking the action. Historical lessons highlight the importance of pulling in supply chain specialists or establishing a nuclei of trained soldier-economists (resulting in a better coordination and synchronization of economic warfare, nested in the operational campaign plan). Institutions as large as the Ministry of Economic Warfare are, however, not a necessity. The conflict in Ukraine has also demonstrated the potential of mobilizing broad public support by leveraging people with specialized backgrounds. These organized online communities are able to support the Ukrainian military via open-source intelligence and inflict economic pain by means of actions in cyberspace. The best example is the IT Army of Ukraine, consisting of thousands of volunteer tech specialists. The IT Army is already supporting the long-range strikes on oil refineries by conducting cyberattacks against Russian internet providers, disrupting the video feeds around areas where Ukrainian drones would attack.

Second, current evolutions in unmanned sea and aerial vehicles are revolutionizing some of the more classic approaches to economic warfare, such as blockades and targeted destruction of vital economic infrastructure. So, for example, while the Russian Navy deployed its massive Black Sea Fleet to impose a maritime blockade, Ukraine succeeded in disrupting this blockade and reopening its trade routes by making use of cheap unmanned surface vessels. Offensively, the repeated strategic strike campaigns against Russian key industries offer a good example how an adversary’s economy can be targeted with increased precision, in an inexpensive way, while avoiding human losses. Hence, whereas direct economic warfare previously required the deployment of conventional military capabilities (i.e., naval and air), similar objectives can now be achieved in an irregular way.

Finally, while drone attacks don’t yet have the destructive potential to destroy large-scale industries (due to drones’ limited payloads), we also need to reflect on secondary, nonphysical effects stemming from deep strikes such as the Ukrainian targeting of oil refineries. These examples highlight the importance of including direct economic warfare in Ukraine’s irregular warfare strategy. Russia is, for example, coerced to make difficult choices regarding the positioning of its air defense systems. Moreover, it also has to divert labor forces it could otherwise use for its war economy to repair damaged facilities. Given Ukraine’s ambition to further increase the quality and quantity of its long-range drones, Russia will likely be further forced to channel a part of its wartime efforts to deal with this problem. In addition, the Russian government’s ability to defend against these attacks will be further questioned, as more refineries (or even the strategic pipelines connecting the Ural Mountains and Siberia with the Baltics and the Black Sea) come into striking range. Indeed, as the strikes continue, certain companies have already taken matters into their own hands by protecting their infrastructure with metal nets and by setting up their own mobile air defense groups armed with machine guns. Moreover, growing digital connectivity creates more opportunities to exploit these actions in the information environment. Although it seems unlikely that targeting key Russian economic infrastructure would provoke mass mobilization or internal protests—since history has shown that such objectives are rarely achieved—the potential for a new form of economic unrest, manifested in decreased consumer confidence, could be an outcome. This drop in consumer confidence, which reflects citizens’ expectations about the economy and typically drives consumer spending, could negatively impact a country’s GDP growth.

As both Russia and Ukraine fail to achieve decisive breakthroughs, both sides are engaging more and more in directing a part of their military means toward destroying economic production, broadening the war of attrition beyond the strictly military dimension of the conflict. From a Western perspective, there are concerns that certain of the Ukrainian actions could have negative spillover effects across the interconnected world economy. However, economic coercion played a prominent role in the major conflicts of the twentieth century, and the ongoing war in Ukraine suggests that it is likely to do so in present and future conflicts, as well. A thorough understanding of economic warfare, therefore, is vital—most notably the fact that it is a broad spectrum, not only limited to indirect (diplomatic and legislative) measures such as sanctions. As history has shown, a successful economic war campaign also extends beyond blocking an adversary’s access to critical goods at their origin or by hampering the import process and can include targeting critical components at the adversary’s destination by means of direct action. Similar actions, including those targeting Western nations, are increasingly evident well beyond the Russia-Ukraine War—the Houthi long-range strikes on cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz highlight these emerging threats. Collectively, these trends reinforce the urgent need to strengthen measures that shield our economic resilience from adversarial acts of economic coercion.

Senior Captain Dr. Pieter Balcaen is a Belgian military officer and conducts research in the field of defense economics.

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, or that of any organization the author is affiliated with, including the Belgian Armed Forces.

Image credit: kyiv.dsns.gov.ua

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Pieter Balcaen · November 20, 2024

22. America Needs a New National Strategy for Irregular Warfare

I have a completed draft of an irregular warfare NSDD XX prepared for the new admsintration.

America Needs a New National Strategy for Irregular Warfare

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/america-needs-a-new-national-strategy-for-irregular-warfare/

nationalsecurityjournal.org · by David Maxwell · November 19, 2024

The Treaty

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In 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 32 (NSDD-32), which outlined a comprehensive strategy for countering Soviet expansionism and influence worldwide. This directive provided clear guidance on employing all elements of national power – diplomatic, informational, military, and economic – to advance U.S. interests and counter Soviet aggression.

Today, the United States faces a similarly complex global security environment, with challenges ranging from great power or strategic competition to transnational terrorism.

To effectively navigate these challenges, the U.S. needs a new national strategy for irregular warfare (IW) that builds on the legacy of NSDD-32 while adapting to 21st century realities.

The need for a comprehensive IW strategy has become increasingly apparent in recent years. In their recent article, Thomas Marks and David Ucko lament that there is struggle for an IW strategy. The revisionist powers of China and Russia are employing their own forms of political warfare and hybrid approaches through the “Little Green Men” and “Unrestricted Warfare.” The rogue and revolutionary powers of Iran and North Korea conduct their own unique forms of unconventional and political warfare. These adversaries are adept at operating in the “gray zone” between peace and open conflict, using a range of irregular approaches to advance their interests while avoiding direct military confrontation with the United States.

A New National Strategy for Irregular Warfare, Explained

A Reagan-like NSDD for irregular warfare would provide several key benefits. First, it would clearly articulate U.S. policy and objectives related to IW, providing strategic guidance to the entire national security apparatus. LTG (RET) Charles Cleveland, et. al., notes, “There is no overarching U.S. government policy or strategy for irregular warfare.” A new directive could fill this gap, aligning efforts across the government and with international partners.

Second, an IW-focused NSDD would help institutionalize irregular warfare capabilities and mindsets throughout the U.S. national security enterprise. Despite two decades of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations, the U.S. military and other agencies still struggle to fully embrace IW concepts. Again, LTG (RET) Charles Cleveland, et. al., notes “The U.S. military has failed to master irregular warfare above the tactical level.” A high-level directive would signal the importance of IW and drive institutional change.

Third, a new NSDD could provide a framework for integrating IW with other elements of national power. NSDD-32 emphasized the need to employ all instruments of national power in a coordinated manner. A modern IW strategy, also perhaps echoing George Kennan in 1948, should similarly outline how diplomatic, informational, military, and economic tools can be leveraged synergistically to achieve U.S. objectives in competitive environments short of conventional war.

Fourth, an IW-focused directive could help balance the current emphasis on preparing for large-scale combat operations. While conventional deterrence and warfighting capabilities remain vital, the 2022 National Defense Strategy acknowledges that most competition and conflict occurs below the threshold of traditional warfare. A national IW strategy would ensure appropriate attention and resources are devoted to operating effectively in this critical space.

Fifth, a new NSDD could provide guidance on ethical and legal considerations in irregular warfare. As IW often involves working “through, with, and by” partner forces and operating in legally ambiguous environments, clear policy direction on these issues is essential.

To be effective, a modern NSDD for irregular warfare should incorporate several key elements:

-A clear articulation of U.S. interests and objectives related to IW, including countering malign influence, supporting resistance movements, and building partner capacity.

-Guidance on roles and responsibilities across the interagency, including lead and supporting relationships for different IW activities.

-Direction on developing and maintaining critical IW capabilities, including in emerging domains like cyber and information operations.

-A framework for assessing and mitigating strategic and operational risks associated with IW activities.

-Guidance on strengthening alliances and partnerships to conduct effective IW globally.

-Direction on resourcing and institutionalizing IW capabilities for long-term competition.

Critics may argue that a high-level directive is unnecessary or that IW should remain the purview of special operations forces. However, the complex nature of modern conflict demands a whole-of-government approach to irregular warfare. The necessary ability to solve complex political-military problems through unconventional means – should inform U.S. strategy and operations across the board.

In conclusion, a Reagan-like NSDD focused on irregular warfare would provide the strategic guidance and institutional impetus needed to compete in today’s security environment effectively. By clearly articulating U.S. policy, aligning interagency efforts, and institutionalizing IW capabilities, such a directive could significantly enhance America’s ability to advance its interests and counter adversary aggression across the spectrum of conflict.

As the United States navigates an era of renewed great power competition and persistent irregular threats, a comprehensive national strategy for IW is not just desirable but essential.

About the Author: David Maxwell

David Maxwell is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia Pacific region. He specializes in Northeast Asian Security Affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. He is Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a Senior Fellow at the Global Peace Foundation. Following retirement, he was Associate Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is on the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society and is a contributing editor to Small Wars Journal.

nationalsecurityjournal.org · by David Maxwell · November 19, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com