Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“Man gives every reason for his conduct, save one, every excuse for his crimes, save one, every plead for his safety, safe one; and that one is his cowardice.”

– George Bernard Shaw

“If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you, but answer, ‘He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would have not mentioned these alone.’”

– Epictetus

“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”

– Ernest Hemingway

1. We Need to Be Irregular Warfare Hustlers, Not Just Irregular Warfare World Champions

2. Trump Considers Defense Financiers for a Top Spot at Pentagon

3. Ukraine Clings to Shrinking Sliver of Russia, Expecting Trump to Push for Peace Talks

4. Will Trump Help Ukraine Win?

5. Oboho commands 75th Ranger Regiment

6. The Patterns and Pitfalls of Technology Diffusion to Proxy Forces

7. Nato countries are in a ‘hidden cyber war’ with Russia, says Liz Kendall

8. How to Stop the United States and China from Sliding into War

9. Beyond TikTok — The National Security Risks of Chinese Agricultural Drones

10. Trump’s Cabinet: Many Ideologies Behind the Veil of ‘America First’

11. Closing the US Military’s Public Trust Deficit

12. Threat of global war ‘serious and real,’ Poland’s Tusk warns

13. Philippines President Slams Vice President’s Assassination Plot

14. Steel Company Tied to Deadly Air Force Osprey Crash Faced Defective Parts Lawsuit in 2001

15. Rebuild of historic Tun Tavern, birthplace of Marine Corps, ceremonially breaks ground in Philadelphia

16. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 24, 2024

17. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 24, 2024

18. Top NATO official calls on business leaders to prepare for 'wartime scenario'

19. US drawing up contingency plans for Taiwan emergency: Kyodo

1. We Need to Be Irregular Warfare Hustlers, Not Just Irregular Warfare World Champions

Excerpts:

The key to preventing escalations like Russia’s escalation in Ukraine will be to stop limiting our thinking to traditional deterrence through superior force. After all, the leaders of the United States and NATO deliberately and explicitly took their forces off the table, making them irrelevant to Putin’s calculations. The key to preventing escalation in such cases will not be merely to increase the costs of escalation to conventional warfare but to increase the positive incentives for the adversary to continue his losing IW strategy using a “hustler” approach.

Let’s consider an analogy. Imagine a large, violent, short-tempered young man who is an enthusiastic but mediocre pool player. Let’s further imagine that on two different nights, two different pool players walk into the bar and play pool against him. On the first night, the player who walks in is a world champion pool player. They will play exactly one game because the world champion will quickly and easily trounce and humiliate our large, violent, short-tempered young man. How will he respond to being humiliated and losing access to the pool table for the rest of the night? He might head home, watch some TV, and go to bed early. However, it is more likely that he will escalate his competition with the pool world champion by using his pool cue as a club, since it was not doing him much good as a pool cue. The best-case scenario for the world champion is that he collects whatever the bet was on the first game, but more likely he will never get that money, ruin a shirt in the scuffle, and he might even break his expensive pool cue or get seriously hurt.

Now let’s consider a different person walking into the same bar and challenging that same large, angry young man to a game of pool. This new guy is a good pool player, but he is not a world champion; he is a hustler. Our hustler could quickly and easily defeat the large, angry young man, but he does not do that. Instead, he keeps the game close, and there are follow-on games, and those are close as well. Sometimes the large, angry young man wins. Always, he thinks he could have won, and that he might win the next game, so he keeps playing pool against the hustler. They play all night, and when the bar closes, the hustler has collected a lot more money from the large, angry young man than the world champion did, and the young man did not escalate the competition to violence.

...

The hustler model is not just applicable to IW but should be considered in conventional warfare as well. Specifically, it is important to note that since 2022, whenever Russia faces an increased risk of defeat in conventional warfare in Ukraine, the Russians threaten to escalate to nuclear warfare. Since the level of outside support to Ukraine is a key factor in whether or not Russia will be defeated, Russian nuclear threats increase when the battlefield situation gets worse or outside support increases, and threats decrease when the battlefield situation improves and outside support decreases.14 These threats have been effective in discouraging or deterring the United States and other supporters of Ukraine from providing more effective assistance to Ukraine more rapidly and, arguably, have helped prevent Russia’s defeat in conventional warfare.

...

Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a shock in many ways. One of the shocks we have not fully recognized is that the invasion was Putin’s response to being defeated in IW by Ukraine and its partners. Incorporating this lesson into our understanding of IW is a critical next step in pushing our vision of IW beyond our experience in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency and into strategic competition against nuclear-armed peer and near-peer states. This article proposed adding a hustler approach to our current and preferred world champion approach to IW and even extended the hustler approach to conventional warfare. The world champion approach seeks rapid and decisive victory in one form of warfare without considering the adversary’s ability to escalate to a more lethal and expensive form of warfare. The hustler approach, on the other hand, seeks to keep the adversary in the game longer, without tempting him to escalate the conflict, by keeping alive his hope of winning, or at least improving his situation, without escalation. The hustler approach does not replace the world champion approach in all cases but instead puts another tool in our conceptual toolbox for strategic competition.

We Need to Be Irregular Warfare Hustlers, Not Just Irregular Warfare World Champions

armyupress.army.mil18 min

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http://armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/Nov-Dec-2024/Escalation-and-Irregular-Warfare?utm

Dr. Thomas R. Searle

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We all had many thoughts as we watched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine unfold in the winter and spring of 2022. One of them should have been, “This is the new price of victory in irregular warfare.” Nations do not resort to conventional invasions when they can achieve their goals through irregular warfare (IW). Russia’s total and permanent defeat in its IW campaign was evident from Vladimir Putin’s decision to escalate from irregular to conventional warfare. For anyone who was unsure about Russia’s defeat in IW, Putin announced that he had no other choice; he had to escalate to the largest war in Europe in almost eighty years.1 On the surface, this claim seems like an odd statement since Putin chose IW as his method for controlling Ukraine throughout the first twenty years of his reign. Thus, Putin’s claim that he had no choice did not mean he was ignorant of IW and could not think of other ways to control Ukraine; rather, he was announcing that all his IW efforts had failed. He was escalating to conventional warfare because he was defeated in IW, and conventional warfare was his only option to reverse that defeat.

Ukraine and its European and U.S. backers certainly wanted Ukraine to defeat Putin’s IW campaign, but they did not want to force Putin into the full-scale invasion he launched in response to Ukraine’s victory in IW. This article explains how things went so badly wrong and then provides a “hustler” strategy to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

Inappropriate Experience and False Assumptions About IW and Escalation

Two factors led the U.S. military, and by extension, U.S. allies and partners, astray concerning IW: inappropriate experience and false assumptions. The inappropriate experience came after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks when the United States focused on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency against foes like al-Qaida, the Taliban, al-Shabaab, the Islamic State, and other terrorists and insurgents. This provided a wealth of experience and hard-won knowledge about IW, but these opponents were typically fighting as hard as they could. They did not have vast but unused capability and capacity that needed to be deterred. As a result, the reasonable goal was to defeat these enemies as quickly and completely as possible, and the desire for rapid and decisive success also fit nicely with the preferences of the U.S. military.2 The December 2017 National Security Strategy officially shifted the focus from counterterrorism to great power competition and later strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia.3 Unlike terrorists, the PRC and Russia have enormous unused capability and capacities that needs to be deterred. The need to deter escalation calls into question the value of a decisive IW success, like that achieved by Ukraine, since that success led to unwelcome escalation in the form of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.

The United States also based its approach to IW against the PRC and Russia on a false assumption. The false assumption was that all U.S. adversaries, including Russia and the PRC, choose IW because they believed the United States would defeat them in conventional warfare.4 If true, this assumption would mean that U.S. conventional forces successfully deter all U.S. adversaries from a conventional war. However, this assumption is problematic in two ways. The first problem is that the PRC and Russia might not accept the notion of total and irreversible U.S. superiority in conventional warfare. For example, U.S. wargames do not indicate that the United States would be certain of defeating the PRC in a war over Taiwan.5 PRC estimates might well see a PRC victory as possible in the foreseeable future or even today. By the same token, before 2022, the Russians were not particularly awed by U.S. conventional forces. One global survey by U.S. News and World Report even ranked Russia as the world’s strongest military with the United States in second place.6 Even official U.S. national security documents list Russia and the PRC as “peers” or “near peers,” indicating that the United States itself did not believe a decisive U.S. victory over Russian or PRC conventional forces was guaranteed.

As they say, the first step in solving a problem is recognizing that we have one. Our experience in IW against terrorists and insurgents left us ill-prepared to discourage escalation since these adversaries had very limited ability to escalate. Russia and the PRC, on the other hand, can escalate to conventional and even nuclear warfare at any time. They pursue their goals through IW because it is a lower-cost option, not because it is their only option. U.S. conventional and nuclear forces, and the certainty of retaliation, make direct conventional or nuclear attack on the United States extremely costly and hence unlikely. However, there will be times and places, like Ukraine in 2022, when U.S. nuclear and conventional forces are “not on the table,” to use President Joseph Biden’s phrase.9 How can we discourage escalation to conventional warfare in such cases?

The key to preventing escalations like Russia’s escalation in Ukraine will be to stop limiting our thinking to traditional deterrence through superior force. After all, the leaders of the United States and NATO deliberately and explicitly took their forces off the table, making them irrelevant to Putin’s calculations. The key to preventing escalation in such cases will not be merely to increase the costs of escalation to conventional warfare but to increase the positive incentives for the adversary to continue his losing IW strategy using a “hustler” approach.

Let’s consider an analogy. Imagine a large, violent, short-tempered young man who is an enthusiastic but mediocre pool player. Let’s further imagine that on two different nights, two different pool players walk into the bar and play pool against him. On the first night, the player who walks in is a world champion pool player. They will play exactly one game because the world champion will quickly and easily trounce and humiliate our large, violent, short-tempered young man. How will he respond to being humiliated and losing access to the pool table for the rest of the night? He might head home, watch some TV, and go to bed early. However, it is more likely that he will escalate his competition with the pool world champion by using his pool cue as a club, since it was not doing him much good as a pool cue. The best-case scenario for the world champion is that he collects whatever the bet was on the first game, but more likely he will never get that money, ruin a shirt in the scuffle, and he might even break his expensive pool cue or get seriously hurt.

Now let’s consider a different person walking into the same bar and challenging that same large, angry young man to a game of pool. This new guy is a good pool player, but he is not a world champion; he is a hustler. Our hustler could quickly and easily defeat the large, angry young man, but he does not do that. Instead, he keeps the game close, and there are follow-on games, and those are close as well. Sometimes the large, angry young man wins. Always, he thinks he could have won, and that he might win the next game, so he keeps playing pool against the hustler. They play all night, and when the bar closes, the hustler has collected a lot more money from the large, angry young man than the world champion did, and the young man did not escalate the competition to violence.

What is the difference between the world champion and the hustler? They are both good pool players. In fact, the world champion is better at pool than the hustler is. So how did the hustler make more money than the world champion while also avoiding the risk of escalation and injury? The world champion had the mistaken idea that his goal should be a rapid, decisive victory and forgot the risk of escalation. The hustler, on the other hand, knew the goal was to keep the young man playing pool all night and to slowly take all his money while making escalation seem silly and unnecessary. The hustler did this by keeping the games close and letting his opponent win sometimes, so the young man would retain the hope of winning at pool and stay focused on that.

Applying the Hustler Model in Real-World IW

Taiwan is the obvious case for trying out this hustler model in the real world. For decades, opinion polling has indicated fewer than 10 percent of people in Taiwan support immediate or eventual unification with the PRC and rule by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).10 The more than 90 percent of Taiwanese who do not want to be ruled by the CCP are in a long-term IW struggle against the CCP and its determination to someday rule over them. The Taiwanese are supported in this struggle, to some extent, by the United States and other freedom-loving nations who hope the people of Taiwan can forever enjoy democracy and self-determination outside the control of the CCP. Some might claim this support constitutes IW against the CCP, or even the PRC. However, since IW does not have to include explicit announcements comparable to a declaration of war, there is room for disagreement over whether the United States is conducting IW against the CCP or merely trying to prevent the success of the CCP’s IW against Taiwan.

The people of Taiwan who are horrified by the prospect of being ruled by the CCP could attempt a rapid and decisive victory in IW/political warfare by pressing for a binding referendum in which the people of Taiwan would vote on whether they wanted to permanently reject the possibility of being governed by the CCP, outlaw the presence of the CCP on the islands, and enshrine these items in the constitution of a new independent nation of Taiwan. But while such an action might represent victory for the anti-CCP faction in IW against the CCP, it might also cause the CCP and PRC to escalate the conflict to a conventional invasion or even a nuclear strike, neither of which would be good for Taiwan. Instead of seeking rapid and decisive victory in IW, and increasing the risk of escalation, Taiwan’s anti-CCP majority might be better served by a “hustler” strategy of keeping hope alive in the CCP that peaceful unification is possible in the future. This would mean that there must always be a pro-unification party in Taiwanese politics with nontrivial representation in Taiwan’s legislature (the Legislative Yuan). The pro-unification party must retain some hope of increasing its influence or forming a coalition with other parties that might bring Taiwan under CCP rule. It would also mean enough economic interaction that the CCP would believe it had nonmilitary options for pressuring Taiwan, if necessary.

Can the Taiwanese deceive the CCP into continuing its losing IW strategy? The key to successful deception is to find something false the target person already believes and reinforce that belief. In our pool-playing example, the large, angry young man wants to believe he can win at pool, and by making the games close, the hustler keeps him deceived and keeps him playing pool rather than escalating to brawling. Likewise, the key to deceiving the Nazis about the location of the D-Day landing was to provide enough evidence to confirm their pre-existing expectation that the attack would come in the Pas-de-Calais, where the English Channel is narrowest.11 This evidence enabled the Nazis to discount the counterevidence and retain their false belief for weeks even after the D-Day landings.12 In the case of Taiwan, the CCP very much wants to believe that all ethnic Chinese, including those in Taiwan, want to be reunited with the Motherland and ruled from Beijing, that is, by the CCP. In the eyes of the CCP, China’s decades of unprecedented economic and technological success make joining the PRC the obvious and logical choice for anyone lucky enough to have the opportunity to do so. The Taiwanese would be well advised to regularly emphasize their cultural connection to the mainland and continuously praise the Chinese Communists for their successes, their efficiency, and their ability to get things done, while remaining politely silent, except among themselves, about China’s corruption scandals, oppression, abuse of Hong Kong, party purges, etc.

This approach may sound like a risky strategy for Taiwan. After all, the CCP rightly considers itself the world’s expert on united front strategies, that is, using cooperation with noncommunists to advance the goals of the CCP and expand the influence and control of the CCP.13 Allowing a pro-unification political party to have a nontrivial and legitimate role in Taiwanese politics would effectively bring agents of CCP influence, and even traitors, into position of real, if limited, power and authority. This weakens Taiwan, just as deliberately missing shots puts the hustler in a weaker position for winning pool games. But it decreases the risk of escalation and keeps the CCP playing IW, just as deliberately missing shots keeps the large, angry young man playing pool. The alternatives, such as outlawing pro-unification parties, barring CCP members from visiting Taiwan, arresting and deporting all CCP members currently on the islands, blocking all PRC media from reaching Taiwan, and all the other measures that would indicate that CCP IW against Taiwan is doomed to fail, would dramatically increase the risk of escalation to conventional invasion or nuclear annihilation.

For generations, the policies of Taiwan and its friends have successfully sustained both Taiwan’s independence and the CCP’s hope of future peaceful reunification, while not causing the CCP to escalate to conventional or nuclear warfare. This might be due to luck, CCP caution due to the risks of escalation, CCP optimism about the likelihood of peaceful reunification, CCP distraction by other priorities, a successful hustler strategy by Taiwan and its friends, some combination of these factors, or other factors. However, the hustler strategy cannot be discounted as a contributing factor, and hence, the hustler strategy should be part of U.S. thinking about IW now and in the future.

Broader Applicability of the Hustler Model

The hustler model is not just applicable to IW but should be considered in conventional warfare as well. Specifically, it is important to note that since 2022, whenever Russia faces an increased risk of defeat in conventional warfare in Ukraine, the Russians threaten to escalate to nuclear warfare. Since the level of outside support to Ukraine is a key factor in whether or not Russia will be defeated, Russian nuclear threats increase when the battlefield situation gets worse or outside support increases, and threats decrease when the battlefield situation improves and outside support decreases.14 These threats have been effective in discouraging or deterring the United States and other supporters of Ukraine from providing more effective assistance to Ukraine more rapidly and, arguably, have helped prevent Russia’s defeat in conventional warfare.

We should not think the Russian war in Ukraine is a unique case. Instead, we should recall that, during the Korean War, when the United States was the nuclear power facing the prospect of defeat in conventional warfare, it was the United States that started thinking about escalation to nuclear warfare.15 There were many calls in the United States for escalation to nuclear warfare during the Korean War, just as there are calls in Russia for escalation to nuclear warfare today.

Unfortunately, U.S. military thinkers, planners, and doctrine writers rarely took the lessons of Korea to heart and were left mentally unprepared for Russian nuclear threats in Ukraine. During the Cold War, the United States focused on avoiding conventional military defeat during a Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany. The prospect of a rapid and decisive U.S. victory over Warsaw Pact forces in conventional warfare was too remote to consider. Instead, questions about escalation to nuclear warfare focused on when, where, and how U.S. conventional defeat might become imminent and how escalation to tactical nuclear weapons could slow the advance of Warsaw Pact forces.16 There was also a great deal of thought given to how escalation might be managed once nuclear weapons were used on the battlefield.

After the Cold War, U.S. thinking about conventional warfare focused on achieving rapid and decisive victory against adversaries—such as Serbia, the Taliban, Iraq, and Libya—who could not escalate to nuclear warfare. However, as we look at the potential for conventional warfare against nuclear-armed foes, like Russia and China, we need to revisit the question of when and why a nuclear-armed nation might escalate from conventional to nuclear warfare and how that should influence our conventional doctrine.

A full discussion of the issue is outside the scope of this essay, but there is every reason to believe that escalation to nuclear warfare is closely related to whether a nuclear nation’s leadership believes they might lose in conventional warfare. The more likely and more costly conventional defeat becomes, the more likely the nation is to consider escalation to nuclear warfare rather than accept defeat. This makes sense logically and coincides with the observed results in the current Ukraine war and in the Korean War. We have seen Russian threats of nuclear warfare against Ukraine wax and wane inversely with Russian prospects for success. The same pattern was visible in Korea under the Truman administration.

From this evidence, it certainly appears there is a need for a hustler strategy in U.S. conventional warfare just as there is in U.S. IW. How do we know when rapid, decisive victory in conventional warfare will lead the adversary to escalate to nuclear warfare, and hence when we must avoid rapid, decisive victory in conventional warfare? In other words, when is it counterproductive to fight like the conventional warfare world champion and when must we be conventional warfare hustlers who keep the enemy in conventional warfare by keeping their hope of winning alive? Just as importantly, how do we convince a nuclear-armed adversary to accept disappointment or even defeat in conventional warfare rather than escalate to nuclear warfare? In Korea, both sides settled for a stalemate. In Vietnam, the United States settled for a “decent interval” to withdraw its forces before its ally was completely and permanently defeated. In Afghanistan, the Soviets first and later the Americans withdrew their forces and allowed their allies to be defeated. In all these cases it was not rapid and decisive enemy success that convinced the nuclear power to accept disappointment or even defeat rather than escalating to nuclear warfare. The nuclear power was also not deterred from escalating to nuclear warfare by the enemy’s nuclear weapons since neither the North Koreans (in the 1950s) nor the Vietnamese, nor the Afghans had nuclear weapons with which they could threaten the United States or the USSR. This suggests that an exhaustion strategy is required to defeat a nuclear power without leading to nuclear escalation. This conclusion requires more research, but it is beyond dispute that the hustler strategy is tailor-made to achieve adversary exhaustion without escalation, and the United States will need such strategies in the new era of strategic competition.

Conclusion

Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a shock in many ways. One of the shocks we have not fully recognized is that the invasion was Putin’s response to being defeated in IW by Ukraine and its partners. Incorporating this lesson into our understanding of IW is a critical next step in pushing our vision of IW beyond our experience in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency and into strategic competition against nuclear-armed peer and near-peer states. This article proposed adding a hustler approach to our current and preferred world champion approach to IW and even extended the hustler approach to conventional warfare. The world champion approach seeks rapid and decisive victory in one form of warfare without considering the adversary’s ability to escalate to a more lethal and expensive form of warfare. The hustler approach, on the other hand, seeks to keep the adversary in the game longer, without tempting him to escalate the conflict, by keeping alive his hope of winning, or at least improving his situation, without escalation. The hustler approach does not replace the world champion approach in all cases but instead puts another tool in our conceptual toolbox for strategic competition.

Notes

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-tells-russian-business-people-he-had-no-choice-over-ukraine-2022-02-24/.
Antulio J. Echevarria II, Rapid Decisive Operations: An Assumptions-Based Critique (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2014), 6, https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/50/.
The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The White House, December 2017), https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf; The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The White House, October 2022), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf.
John A. Pelleriti et al., “The Insufficiency of U.S. Irregular Warfare Doctrine,” Joint Force Quarterly 93 (2nd Quarter, 2019), https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-93/jfq-93_104_110_Pelleriti-et-al.pdf?ver=2019-05-14-220936-663.
Brad Lendon and Ivan Watson, “China Has the Power to Take Taiwan, but It Would Cost an Extremely Bloody Price,” CNN, 1 June 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/31/asia/china-taiwan-invasion-scenarios-analysis-intl-hnk-ml/index.html.
“These Countries Have the Strongest Militaries,” U.S. News and World Report, accessed 9 September 2024, https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/strong-military.
Jeff Mason, “Biden Says Putting U.S. Troops on Ground in Ukraine Is ‘Not on the Table,’” Reuters, 8 December 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-says-putting-us-troops-ground-ukraine-is-not-table-2021-12-08/.
If countries could count on NATO’s Article 5 protections without joining NATO, what would be the incentive to join? Finland and Sweden rushed to join NATO after Vladimir Putin invaded a non-NATO country. They would not have joined if they believed they could get Article 5 protections without becoming a member.
“Russia Ukraine: Sending US Troops Not on Table – Biden,” BBC News, 8 December 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59582013.
“Taiwan Independence vs. Unification with the Mainland (1994/12~2024/06),” Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, 8 July 2024, https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7801&id=6963.
“D-Day: The Allies Invade Europe,” National WWII Museum, 6 June 2024, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/d-day-allies-invade-europe.
Thaddeus Holt, The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War (New York: Scribner, 2004), 579–91.
“China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States,” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 24 August 2018, https://www.uscc.gov/research/chinas-overseas-united-front-work-background-and-implications-united-states.
Susan D’Agostino and François Diaz-Maurin, “Putin Threatens Again: An Updated Timeline on Potential Nuclear Escalation of the Russia-Ukraine War,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 29 February 2024, https://thebulletin.org/2024/02/putin-threatens-again-an-updated-timeline-of-commentary-on-potential-nuclear-escalation-of-the-russia-ukraine-war/.
Roger Dingman, “Atomic Diplomacy during the Korean War,” International Security 13, no. 3 (Winter 1988-1989): 50–91, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538736; Carl A. Posey, “How the Korean War Almost Went Nuclear,” Smithsonian Magazine (website), July 2015, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/how-korean-war-almost-went-nuclear-180955324/.
Charles N. Davidson, “Tactical Nuclear Defense—The West German View,” Parameters 4, no. 1 (1974): 47–57, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA510953.pdf.

Dr. Thomas R. Searle is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer with more than twenty-nine years of commissioned service. His combat deployments include Desert Shield/Storm, Allied Force, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom—Philippines, etc. He holds a BSE from Princeton University, an MSS from the U.S. Army War College, and a PhD from Duke University. He is currently a professor at the Joint Special Operations University.

2. Trump Considers Defense Financiers for a Top Spot at Pentagon

Buried lede: Someone from inside the Department is also being considered.

Excerpts:

“It’s pretty clear to everybody that the Defense Department is challenged by commercial technology and sabotaged by the procurement system,” said Steve Blank, founding member of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University. These candidates offer “a radical change with a fresh perspective not beholden to the status quo.”

Stephens was an early venture-capital investor in defense, a sector that had been for many years considered to be anathema for Silicon Valley. He has become a frequent public speaker to young founders and students about the merits of building for national security.

Venture-backed companies have consistently received about 1% of total Defense Department award spending annually, according to data from defense software company Govini. Most startup executives and investors say the department has made improvements in working with the startup sector, but it is too little and too slow.

“Founders who are coming from nothing and have a great idea and the ambition to go and build the future should be able to win, but the government hasn’t produced a lot of evidence that that’s the case,” Stephens told The Wall Street Journal in an interview last year. “The government has a responsibility to create an ecosystem that has open and fair competition.”

The two men aren’t the only ones in the running. Other candidates are being considered, including from inside the Defense Department.

Trump Considers Defense Financiers for a Top Spot at Pentagon

Choice of either a venture capitalist or private-equity investor could signal changes in how the Defense Department does business

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trump-considers-defense-financiers-for-a-top-spot-at-pentagon-12a77084?mod=hp_lista_pos1

By Becky Peterson

, Alexander Ward

and Heather Somerville

Nov. 24, 2024 6:58 pm ET

Stephen Feinberg, the co-chief executive of Cerberus Capital Management, is under consideration for the No. 2 job at the Pentagon. Photo: Peter Reitzfeld for The Wall Street Journal

Two financiers are in the running to be the deputy secretary of defense, a competition that pits a publicity-averse private-equity investor against an outspoken venture capitalist.

Trae Stephens, a partner at Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund venture-capital firm, is under consideration by President-elect Donald Trump to become the deputy secretary of defense, according to two people familiar with the transition. Billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg, who led the president’s intelligence advisory board in the first Trump administration, is also in the running, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

The selection of either investor could come as welcome news for the hundreds of new defense startups that have entered the military market in recent years.

Feinberg is a longtime Trump supporter and co-chief executive of Cerberus Capital Management, which has invested in a number of defense companies. Stephens is a venture capitalist who co-founded Anduril Industries, one of the most visible companies in a growing collection of highly valued defense-tech startups.

A spokesman for Feinberg said he hadn’t been offered any job in the administration. Stephens and a spokeswoman for Founders Fund declined to comment. Spokespeople for Trump didn’t return requests for comment.

The deputy secretary is the second-highest-ranking civilian in the Pentagon, and is in charge of running day-to-day operations, including the defense budget. Former Fox News commentator Pete Hegseth is Trump’s pick for the top job, though the National Guard veteran is facing questions about an alleged sexual assault, which he has denied.

No charges were ever filed in connection with the allegation.

The potential elevation of an investor in defense-tech startups to a senior position in the Pentagon would come as many new defense-tech companies have struggled to gain traction with the Pentagon, despite an influx of billions of venture-capital and private-equity dollars. Many of the new companies are surviving on small-dollar awards while most military spending flows to the so-called primes, or traditional weapons suppliers.

Both Stephens and Feinberg have pushed to invest in areas where they feel the government hasn’t moved fast enough. Feinberg, according to associates, decided to invest in hypersonics after growing concerned the U.S. was falling behind competitors such as China. Similarly, Stephens has warned that the U.S. defense companies have lost their edge, while Beijing is innovating faster.

“It’s pretty clear to everybody that the Defense Department is challenged by commercial technology and sabotaged by the procurement system,” said Steve Blank, founding member of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University. These candidates offer “a radical change with a fresh perspective not beholden to the status quo.”

Stephens was an early venture-capital investor in defense, a sector that had been for many years considered to be anathema for Silicon Valley. He has become a frequent public speaker to young founders and students about the merits of building for national security.

Venture-backed companies have consistently received about 1% of total Defense Department award spending annually, according to data from defense software company Govini. Most startup executives and investors say the department has made improvements in working with the startup sector, but it is too little and too slow.

“Founders who are coming from nothing and have a great idea and the ambition to go and build the future should be able to win, but the government hasn’t produced a lot of evidence that that’s the case,” Stephens told The Wall Street Journal in an interview last year. “The government has a responsibility to create an ecosystem that has open and fair competition.”

The two men aren’t the only ones in the running. Other candidates are being considered, including from inside the Defense Department.

Outsiders alone can’t overhaul the Defense Department, and it will require leadership familiar with navigating department bureaucracy and Capitol Hill, said Sally Donnelly, founding partner of Pallas Advisors, a Washington-based consulting firm for emerging technology companies.

“You need someone who knows the system well enough to crush the counterweights,” Donnelley said.

The consideration of Stephens is a sign of the rising profile in Washington of venture capital, a once-niche business that has grown into a trillion-dollar industry. Venture capitalists have increasingly descended on Washington to influence policy and regulation, and some of their biggest investment targets—defense, cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence—are subject to government regulation and bureaucracy.

Feinberg, who has long avoided media or public appearances, has taken a similar interest in national security. His firm, at least in the past, has focused on private-equity stakes in existing companies. However, Cerberus launched a venture-capital fund this year focusing on defense startups.

Vice President-elect JD Vance spent a brief time as a venture capitalist, and his friend, Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Sacks, co-hosted a fundraiser for Trump and spoke at the Republican National Convention.

Advocates of venture-funded defense startups have argued that these companies will be better able to build the sort of drones and AI-powered systems needed in a potential conflict with China.

“The clock is ticking,” said Jason Kaufman, managing director of Lincoln International, who advises tech companies that sell to government agencies. The Pentagon, he added, needs to get “onto a war footing with a sense of urgency.”

Write to Becky Peterson at becky.peterson@wsj.com, Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Heather Somerville at heather.somerville@wsj.com

3. Ukraine Clings to Shrinking Sliver of Russia, Expecting Trump to Push for Peace Talks

I am reminded of this quote:

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.

– Henry Kissinger

Is Ukraine the guerrilla army? Certainly, any Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia, even after a peace agreement or armistice will be met with Ukrainian guerrilla forces and resistance.

Ukraine Clings to Shrinking Sliver of Russia, Expecting Trump to Push for Peace Talks

Moscow’s forces have launched a massive counteroffensive to retake land in the Kursk region, a potential bargaining chip for Kyiv

https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-clings-to-shrinking-sliver-of-russia-expecting-trump-to-push-for-peace-talks-259341f7?mod=hp_lead_pos7

By Ian LovettFollow

and Nikita Nikolaienko | Photographs by Serhii Korovayny for WSJ

Updated Nov. 25, 2024 12:29 am ET

SUMY, Ukraine—In Russia’s Kursk region just north of here, Russian assaults are so intense that their infantrymen sometimes step on the bodies of fallen comrades, according to Ukrainian soldiers opposing them there.

Russian glide bombs weighing one ton crash onto Ukrainian supply roads. Ukraine launched a flurry of Western missiles in the opposite direction last week, apparently injuring a North Korean general.

“They’re assaulting all the time—morning, day, night,” said Geniy, a 30-year-old battalion commander with Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade.

The battle for control of Russia’s Kursk region has reached an intensity rarely seen during 2½ years of war, as each side tries to strengthen its position before President-elect Donald Trump, who wants both sides to negotiate, takes office in January.

Ukrainian battalion commander Geniy said his troops have faced increasing resistance in Kursk.

Moscow has deployed some 45,000 troops to the region, according to Ukrainian officials, including some of its best forces who are attacking in nonstop waves. Despite enormous casualties, the strategy appears to be working: In recent weeks, Russia has retaken nearly half the territory that Ukraine seized during its August incursion. Analysts say Russia may be planning an even bigger offensive there.

But Ukraine has also sent many of its best brigades to Kursk. In addition, President Biden’s decision last week to allow Kyiv to fire long-range American missiles into Russia has given Ukrainian troops a much-needed boost and a capability that could disrupt Moscow’s supply and command lines.

Trump’s pick to be national security adviser, Rep. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.), said that he had met with his counterpart in the Biden administration, and on Sunday expressed some support for the recent decision to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles, as well as land mines.

Will Trump Help Ukraine Win?

The former Soviet dissident Yuri Yarim-Agaev believes he will, because you can’t make a deal with a totalitarian like Vladimir Putin.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/will-trump-help-ukraine-win-war-against-russia-former-soviet-dissident-believes-he-will-20d5fade?mod=Searchresults_pos9&page=1

By Barton Swaim

Nov. 22, 2024 2:26 pm ET

Illustration: Barbara Kelley

Aberdeen, N.J.

If you believe the media, Donald Trump’s election cast Ukrainians into a state of misery. In fact, according to every source I queried, most Ukrainians now have a halting sense of hope. Mr. Trump’s ascendancy means that the bloody standoff to which the Biden administration has consigned them for nearly two years might, emphasis on might, begin to change.

For more than a year, the U.S. administration has supplied Ukraine with enough materiel not to lose the war, but not enough to win it. Several times, and for a variety of reasons, Washington has delayed military aid authorized by Congress, often ensuring the weapons showed up too late to do much good. The administration has restricted the Ukrainian military from firing U.S.-supplied missiles beyond certain ranges into Russian territory. The justification for these and related restrictions seems to be that Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets could provoke Vladimir Putin into nuclear retaliation. The fact that he required no provocation to invade Ukraine in the first place doesn’t seem to register. The policy’s upshot was to allow the Russians to move their materiel out of range, and to maneuver and resupply with impunity.

Most unpardonably, President Biden has almost totally neglected to explain to the American public his reasons for arming the Ukrainians. Into the silence, his critics on the right have inserted a variety of arguments for not arming them: Ukraine’s government is corrupt, Russia has legitimate territorial claims against it, the war is a distraction from China, and so on. Meanwhile the war in Europe has faded from the news (how’s that for a remarkable sequence of words?), Ukrainian flags have mostly disappeared from the windows of well-wishing American homes, and the war barely figured in the 2024 election.

This week, as if to concede its failure in Ukraine in its final weeks, the Biden administration scrapped its restrictions on the use of long-range missiles. Days later six U.S.-made ATACMs hit an ammunition warehouse in Russia’s Bryansk region, on Ukraine’s northern border. The policy reversal and consequent battlefield benefits to Ukraine come grievously late, but plainly Kyiv has fight left in it. Nearly three years after its leadership was expected to flee and its government to fall, Ukraine has managed to hold off its much larger foe. Thanks to a brilliant surprise attack last summer, Ukraine occupies several hundred square miles of Russian territory in Kursk. That Ukraine has performed so well despite the fetters placed on it by the U.S. administration tempts one to think that an emancipated Ukrainian military could win the war after all.

Mr. Trump has no easy choices on Ukraine. Continuing aid would displease some of his most committed and highest-profile supporters and require him and his national security advisers to articulate America’s interests in ways Mr. Biden never did.

On the other hand, cutting off Ukraine and forcing it to accept humiliating terms would make him what Mr. Biden became after the Afghanistan withdrawal—betrayer of a viable U.S. ally. The look for Mr. Trump will be worse: Unlike Afghanistan, there are no American soldiers in Ukraine, only American hardware. And with no U.S. troops to enforce a land deal, as in South Korea, very little time would pass before Mr. Putin recommences the war. Worst of all: Just as the Afghanistan debacle of 2021 occasioned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, in turn, the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, America’s abandonment of Ukraine would, as sure as the sun rises in the east, invite aggressions elsewhere around the globe.

There is a simple reason malign regimes can be counted on to capitalize on American retreat, as the Soviet dissident Yuri Yarim-Agaev put it to me in a conversation this week. Those regimes, he believes, each serve not separate and distinct ideologies but a single one.

Mr. Yarim-Agaev, 75, was born in Russia and attended the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In the 1970s he worked in physics, chemistry and applied mathematics at the Soviet Union’s Academy of Sciences. There, in 1976, he joined the Moscow Helsinki Group, an association of dissident scientists, writers, intellectuals and activists who openly demanded the U.S.S.R. abide by its commitments under the 1975 Helsinki Accords and guarantee its people freedom of thought, conscience and religion. (The government of Leonid Brezhnev had signed the accords in bad faith, as everybody knew.)

Some members of the Helsinki Group, such as Yuri Orlov and Natan Sharansky, were imprisoned for years. Others, like Mr. Yarim-Agaev, were exiled. He came to America in 1980 and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford. Later he worked for major banks and hedge funds, for which he developed mechanisms to measure financial risk. Mr. Yarim-Agaev is also a longtime campaigner for human rights. Over the decades he has begun several organizations that provide dissidents in totalitarian countries with laptop computers and other publishing tools.

Mr. Yarim-Agaev isn’t famous—he lacks even a Wikipedia page. But he has earned a reputation as someone who speaks perceptively on the global aims of antidemocratic regimes. He maintains many contacts in the Russian government.

“Can I offer drink?” he asks, pointing to a table laden with bottles in his New Jersey home, about an hour from Manhattan. At first I decline, but I note bowls of nuts and pretzels on the coffee table between us. It seems ungrateful not to accept.

I’m barely able to explain what I want to ask him when he begins: “The main thing to understand about this war is that it is not a war between Russia and Ukraine. It’s a war between totalitarian bloc and democratic alliance. It’s proxy war.” (Mr. Yarim-Agaev speaks excellent English but with a pronounced Russian accent; articles, which don’t exist in Russian, often go missing.) Russia’s invasion had nothing to do with territorial claims or security concerns, he insists. “It is first and foremost war against America. Putin’s aggression is for one and only one reason: Ukraine shows democratic way of development and pro-Western way, pro-American way, and becoming ally with America and the West.”

That doesn’t sound to me like a situation from which lasting peace terms are likely to emerge.

“No,” Mr. Yarim-Agaev says, “in totalitarian country, individual leaders don’t rule. Ideology rules. . . . Stalin, Mao, they never had power. They were always first priests and servants of ideology, and they couldn’t deviate from that ideology. If they did, that would be death for them. To stay in power, they must serve it.” Mr. Yarim-Agaev cites the example of Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet premier from 1958-64, whose modest attempts to soften state control of Soviet life ultimately got him ejected from power. To ask a dictator like Mr. Putin or Xi Jinping to behave in a way that contradicts his totalitarian ideology, Mr. Yarim-Agaev says, “would be to ask him to commit political suicide. He is not going to do that.” Mikhail Gorbachev was the exception that proved the rule.

With regard to Russia and its aims in Ukraine, he says, we aren’t dealing with an individual tyrant, Vladimir Putin. “We are dealing with ideology. And you cannot charm totalitarian ideology, you cannot have a good relationship with totalitarian ideology, you cannot make deals with it.”

So the question of Ukraine will have to be settled on the battlefield? “Yes,” he says.

In Mr. Yarim-Agaev’s view, Russian objectives in Ukraine aren’t substantively different from Iran’s designs on Israel, the Taliban’s on America, North Korea’s on South Korea and China’s on Taiwan. The vast cultural and political differences between these regimes obliges me to ask him to explain what he means by that term “totalitarian ideology.”

“It’s very simple,” he begins. “There is such a thing as totalitarian socialism. Now, all those countries are forms of totalitarian socialism. Totalitarian socialism can exist in three forms: international totalitarian socialism, which we also call communism; national totalitarian socialism, which we call Nazism, and religious totalitarian socialism, which we know in form of Islamism.” What these forms of tyranny have in common is an absolute commitment to destroy democratic capitalist nations, especially America.

Accordingly, Mr. Yarim-Agaev puts forward the provocative thesis that Iran wants to destroy Israel not because it’s a Jewish state. “Iran itself claims that Israel is little satan and big satan is the United States,” he points out. “So it always aims at America, and it does it through Israel. It’s not antisemitism, although the mullahs are antisemites. It’s because Israel is democratic country and American ally.”

Those of us who grew up during the Cold War aren’t accustomed to thinking of post-1991 Russia as a totalitarian country in the way Soviet Russia was. But Mr. Yarim-Agaev thinks Mr. Putin’s regime has combined some nationalistic elements of Nazism with the symbols and tactics of unreconstructed communism—“Lenin’s tomb still sits in the middle of Red Square,” he notes—to form a kind of hybrid totalitarianism.

Today’s Kremlin doesn’t repress and control Russian citizens the way it did under Soviet communism. Yet critics of the regime have a nasty habit of dying in unnatural ways. Two years ago the renowned ballet dancer Vladimir Shklyarov was quoted on Facebook as expressing opposition to the Ukraine invasion. On the day I spoke to Mr. Yarim-Agaev, Shklyarov “fell” from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment in St. Petersburg. Police ruled it an accident. He was 39.

Mr. Yarim-Agaev moves around the globe to reinforce his point that totalitarian ideologies of all kinds are undergirded by anti-Americanism. Wars and conflicts are happening all over the globe, but North Korea sends 10,000 troops only to Ukraine to aid Russia, and Iran sends drone technology to Russia in its war with an American ally. Iran, he says, isn’t a theocratic country, although it is ruled in part by mullahs. “It is also, and maybe more so, ruled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which is a military and not a religious force.” If Iran considered the Islamic creed the most important thing, Mr. Yarim Agaev says, “it couldn’t have good relationship with China, which persecutes its Uyghurs population. It couldn’t have a good relationship with Russia, which twice made war on Chechnya,” a mostly Muslim region. “Anti-American totalitarian ideology is the important thing.”

What about the fear of provoking Mr. Putin into the use of tactical nuclear weapons? “It’s blackmail, and nothing but that,” Mr. Yarim-Agaev says. “And first of all, all military experts say that tactical nuclear weapon doesn’t work. It is senseless—you cannot conquer with it because you shoot it in front of you and then you cannot enter the territory.” Never mind the assurance of counterattack, in which case “there would be no more Russia, and Russia knows that.”

The larger point, he says, is that Russia, Iran, China, North Korea and lesser totalitarian states—Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua—will do anything to avoid direct confrontation with the U.S. “They fight against America,” he says, “but they always fight through somebody else. They attack Israel, they attack Ukraine. China may attack Taiwan at any moment, maybe even the Philippines. But they don’t want confrontation with United States because they know that’s suicide.”

On this point I suspect Mr. Yarim-Agaev could speak indefinitely, and owing to the bourbon and a particularly addictive brand of pretzel, I am inclined to let him. But one point I need him to address: What about the argument, heard on segments of the right since the war began—Vice President-elect JD Vance has repeated the charge—that Ukraine is corrupt and certain to squander whatever aid the U.S. sends?

“Baseless,” Mr. Yarim-Agaev says. “The best proof that it isn’t so is the effectiveness of Ukraine’s army in using American weapons, which has exceeded Western military experts’ expectations. This would not have happened if significant part of our equipment had not reached its destination.” The claim has more to do, in his view, with the “completely erroneous” perception that Ukraine had something to do with Mr. Trump’s December 2019 impeachment and Mr. Biden’s election the following year. The assertion that venality is a sufficient reason for one democratic nation not to aid another in a time of war sounds particularly odd coming from political figures, like Mr. Vance, who allege corruption at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

For Mr. Yarim-Agaev, the risks of arming Ukraine, corrupt or not, are nothing compared with the peril of communicating weakness to Mr. Putin. “There is no way to pretend that Ukrainian defeat would be not one more defeat for America,” he says. “We just lost war in Afghanistan, and if we give up on Ukraine now, it’ll be followed by another loss. If Putin gets territories he already occupies, it’ll be clear victory for him, clear loss and defeat for Ukraine, and clear defeat for America.”

Giving up on Ukraine, or forcing it to accept terms odious to its people, “is incompatible with position, peace through strength,” Mr. Yarim-Agaev says, employing a phrase Mr. Trump and those around him often use. “You cannot implement policy of peace through strength by losing wars.”

Mr. Swaim is an editorial page writer for the Journal.

5. Oboho commands 75th Ranger Regiment

Oboho commands 75th Ranger Regiment

November 14, 2024

https://ung.edu/news/articles/2024/11/oboho-commands-75th-ranger-regiment.php

Col. Kitefre Oboho, a 2002 UNG alumnus, has taken command of the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, the Army's premier direction-action raid force.

Article By: Clark Leonard

Col. Kitefre Oboho, a 2002 University of North Georgia (UNG) alumnus, has taken command of the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment. Oboho began this new role in June after previously leading the 3rd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Moore, Georgia, since 2021.

"I'm humbled to serve our nation's finest. Every single day we wake up with a purpose to do something great for the nation and the Army," Oboho said. "It's a powerful initiative to get you moving every single day."

When he first joined the Corps of Cadets at UNG, Oboho didn't plan to commission, but the commitment to serve gained from the Corps of Cadets and seeing his friends on the commissioning track encouraged him to pursue a commission with the idea of serving three to four years after graduation. Twenty-two years after his graduation, he continues to rise the ranks of the Army's premier direct-action raid force, something he credits largely to his UNG experience.

"The expertise I gained, the friends I made, the commitment sewn in at a young age, made it easy to continue to serve, especially being around great people," Oboho said.

As a cadet, a trio of mentors made an indelible impact on Oboho. He pointed to Master Sgt. Tony Nunley, a Ranger non-commissioned officer and military science instructor who had served in Grenada and Panama and was "the epitome of what an officer should be."

Oboho said a conversation with retired Maj. Richard Neikirk, longtime former assistant commandant of cadets, during Oboho's orientation, cemented his decision to come to UNG.

Maj. Gen. Joe Jarrard, now National Guard Bureau director of operations, was an ROTC instructor during Oboho's time at UNG, and the two also linked up during several of their assignments in the Army. Jarrard "has always been a staunch supporter" of Oboho, the colonel said.

Many second lieutenants Oboho encounters are concerned about their next rating or evaluation. He encourages them to instead focus on what's most important.

"Don't worry about what you cannot control. Just go in there and be a good human being first. Good human beings take care of their subordinates. They have good character," Oboho said. "If your subordinates know you care about them and have their best interest at heart, they'll follow you to the end of the Earth."

Oboho's latest assignment allows him to lead over 3,000 soldiers stationed in Georgia and Washington state.

Multiple friends and fellow alumni from UNG supported Oboho at his change of command ceremony.

He earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from UNG and commissioned into the infantry in 2002, and he added a master's degree in defense analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School in 2015.

Oboho previously commanded the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd IBCT (Airborne) in Vicenza, Italy, from 2019-2021. From 2017-19, Oboho served as the aide de camp to then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley, who later served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The alumnus also held leadership positions with the 2nd Ranger Battalion from 2012-17, including executive officer, operations officer, company commander, and adjutant.

Oboho's awards and decorations include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal and the NATO Meritorious Service Medal.

He and his wife, Kai Hawkins Oboho, sponsor the Knox Kitefre Oboho Military Leadership Scholarship for UNG cadets. The scholarship honors their son Knox, who died in December 2014. Kai Oboho, a 2005 UNG alumna, is a Distinguished Military Graduate and a well-decorated combat veteran. The couple have two sons, Kope and Karter.

6. The Patterns and Pitfalls of Technology Diffusion to Proxy Forces

As an aside, Military Review devoted one entire issue to Irregular warfare (for which we are all grateful). But it (correctly) must focus on all aspects of warfare across the spectrum of conflict. So to get irregular warfare related essays nearly every day you can read them on Small Wars Journal.

Excerpts:

Proxy strategies are often seemingly advantageous for states seeking to exploit international affairs in third-party states in which the ability to achieve policy goals against a strategic adversary is present. The US’s reliance on Ukrainian and Iraqi land forces as substitutes for their own land forces in the Russo-Ukrainian War and the war against IS, respectively, are excellent examples of this situation. Nonetheless, proxy strategies come with considerable costs. Most scholarship on the subject places the costs on losses of control over a proxy, denying a proxy agency over their own self-interest, and similar subjects. Those are worthy considerations, but they provide an incomplete picture of the challenges of proxy strategy.

Principal actors seeking to use proxy strategies face three basic risks when they diffuse technologies to agents. First, the principal must appreciate that any technology used on the battlefield is likely to fall into an enemy’s hands. Thus, strategic competitors can quickly erode a principal’s asymmetric battlefield advantages by exploiting any captured weapon systems and other warfighting equipment. Second, the principal must appreciate that enemies on the battlefield will test their own warfighting capabilities against the principal-supplied technology and identify how to defeat the principal’s technology. This doesn’t mean that an enemy will identify how to defeat all of the principal’s weapons systems, but they will figure out how to neutralize many new technological innovations. This cycle, in turn, creates significant challenges for the principal, because they must subsequently identify how to defeat the enemy’s new battlefield strategies, while also developing new battlefield technology and employment methods. In short, the diffusion of technology to proxies creates a challenge-response cycle that the principal must always stay ahead of if they hope to retain asymmetric strategic and tactical advantages in armed conflict. Third, and finally, the diffusion of technology to proxies extends that conflict in time and space. Technological support to proxy forces allows those forces to remain engaged in a conflict longer than they would without external support. While this support might come with good will at heart, the technology diffusion to proxies causes the expansion of death, destruction, civilian harm, and collateral damage. This consideration, perhaps most of all, is what states must consider.

In conclusion, technology diffusion to proxies is an inevitable part of a state’s use of a proxy strategy. Yet, states must weigh the cost of proxy intervention against the nearly inevitable implications of that strategy. Moreover, states must not assume that a proxy strategy is inherently ‘safer’ for them than direct, conventional intervention. Though we cannot rewind a conflict and replay it with principal forces fighting instead of proxy forces, it is not beyond the realm of possible that direct intervention yields more decisive results, in a quicker time.

The Patterns and Pitfalls of Technology Diffusion to Proxy Forces

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2024/11/25/the-patterns-and-pitfalls-of-technology-diffusion-to-proxy-forces/

by Amos Fox

11.25.2024 at 06:01am

To continue on the topic of proxy not being pejorative, it is important to understand how technology diffusion in proxy strategies benefits and hurts states using proxy strategies in 21st century armed conflict. Many scholars and commenters have outlined that proxy strategies are a cost-effective way for one party to wage war against another party through an intermediary actor. To be sure, scholars like Tyrone Groh refer to a state’s use of proxy strategy as “the least bad option” for how to address many of the changes of strategic competition.

Considering the idea of a ‘least bad option,’ many features contribute to a good proxy strategy. This includes how to control (or manage) the proxy force in the field, how to overcome (or offset) a proxy’s agency costs, and how to support the proxy with technology to enable it to compete with state-based opponents. This latter consideration – technology diffusion to proxies – is a long-standing pillar of good proxy strategy. Technology diffusion, or providing proxies with weapon systems, intelligence gathering tools, and communications systems, is crucial for any proxy strategy to succeed, but it is not without cost.

This article examines the benefits and pitfalls that a state experiences when engaging in technology diffusion to proxies. I address this subject by looking at two questions. First, how does technology diffusion to proxies impact a conflict’s duration? Second, how does the diffusion of technology to proxies impact an adversary’s ability to understand principal-provided technology? This article uses the US-led war to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the Russo-Ukrainian War to support three findings.

States, and their militaries, must grapple with three strategic factors when making policy and strategy decisions pertaining to their potential involvement in a given conflict. First, technology diffusion to proxies extends a conflict’s duration. This is because the transfer of arms expands the proxy’s capacity to wage war, whether pursuant to their own interests or for those of their benefactor. Second, technology diffusion to proxies can easily lead to technology diffusion to one’s enemy. Third, the diffusion of technology to proxies can facilitate a loss of technological asymmetries. This results from an adversary’s active effort to find the gaps, loopholes, and other vulnerabilities in the principal’s military and intelligence gathering technology. The cumulative effect of these three findings is that proxy strategy might be the least bad option for many reasons, but policymakers, strategists, and senior military leaders must appreciate that proxy strategy can (and does) contribute to long, destructive wars of attrition and the loss of their own warfighting asymmetries.

Patterns and Pitfalls

Technology Diffusion to Proxies Means Extending a Conflict’s Duration

As a rule, one can generally assume that any contest between imbalanced forces will often go in favor of the stronger opponent, especially in situations in which the weaker opponent attempts to face the stronger opponent on the latter’s own terms. We find that this basic rule applies across the board, whether in sports, business, or military affairs. Yet, on occasions, weaker participants can find a way to sap the power differential that exists between them and the stronger actor or identify paths and partners to generate relative situational parity. This section explores that latter option – creating parity – and importantly, what impact that has on war.

Proxies emerge in one of two basic ways. Proxies are either (1) a pre-existing actor that a state (i.e., a principal) taps, or (2) states create proxies out of disparate groups and forge them into a generally cohesive force. This article refers to the pre-existing actor model as Situation A and Situation B is when a state creates a proxy force.

Situation A involves state-to-state principal-proxy relationships. A principal-proxy relationship temporarily existed between the US (the principal) and Iraq (the proxy) during Operation Inherent Resolve, for instance. By mid-2014, combat in Iraq demonstrated that Iraq lacked both the resources and tactics to defeat the Islamic State (IS) on its own. Early battles around Mosul, Ramadi, and Fallujah demonstrated that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) were no match for IS’s swift, brutal, and effective fighting force. Despite years of US military training and security assistance, Iraq’s IS-oriented policy aims exceeded what their military could accomplish on their own. Thus, the Iraqi military needed significant external support to eliminate IS’s pseudo-state in Iraq.

On the other hand, the US was interested in eliminating IS. Also being a policy goal for Iraq, this interest served both the US and Iraq. Then-US President Barack Obama stated that IS posed a danger to US national security, and accordingly, he would use the US military degrade and destroy it. Obama also stated that the US would not deploy a large land force to Iraq, but that it would operate through other intermediary forces, while providing a support to that surrogate from across the elements of US national power. In effect, Obama’s strategy framed a US proxy strategy to defeat IS, without using the phrase “proxy strategy.”

Thus, the US and Iraq formed a state-to-state principal-proxy union to fight IS. In this dyad, the US was as the principal, while Iraq served as the proxy. In this arrangement, the US provided Iraq with intelligence, weapons, strike support, and combat advisors. The Iraqis provided the preponderance of the combat forces to engage in direct physical combat with IS. The mutual US-Iraq policy aim to destroy IS annealed both actors, yet was not so overpowering that the one actor lost their agency to the other.

Agency, or the lack thereof, is often a criticism used to attack proxy strategy. The criticism of agency is often a strawman, however. Many critics fail to grasp that a handful of dyad archetypes exist and that properly identifying the dyad’s structure is critical to appreciating agency. Transactional proxy dyads are the most common state-to-state dyad, and those in which proxies most often retain agency over themselves, their self-interests, and their own activities.

Though we cannot rewind the conflict and let it playout with US intervention in Iraq, yet we can be certain in surmising that the US’s creation of the US-Iraq proxy dyad contributed to extending Iraq’s longevity in the conflict. For instance, had the US not created this political-military arrangement, Iraq would have certainly faltered, and given their combat record against IS to date, likely failed in any attempt to retake Mosul. Thus, one can deduce that technology diffusion to proxies, in this case through a state-to-state principal-proxy dyad, extends the duration of a conflict. In doing do, proxy strategies accelerate the death, destruction, collateral damage, civilian casualties, and civilian harm in a conflict. Put another way, proxy strategies are in womb from which wars of attrition emerge. To be sure, proxy strategies might be good for domestic politics of the principal state, but they are far from the “least bad” strategy for the proxy or the state in which the proxy war exists.

Moreover, one can easily replace Iraq in the situation outlined above and replace them with Ukraine, and replace IS with Russia, and find a near facsimile for the US’s approach to the Russo-Ukrainian War. The US and Ukraine’s national interest both reside in the restoration of Ukraine’s internationally recognized boundaries and the defeat of Russian armed forces in Ukraine. Setting emotion aside and examining the US’s arrangement with Ukraine from an analytical position, one can easily find the same state-to-state transactional principal-proxy dyad in Ukraine as in Iraq. Moreover, without the US’s creation of that dyad, Ukraine would have faltered in its defense due to the lack of modern warfighting and intelligence technology. Thus, like Iraq, technology diffusion in Ukraine has extended, or elongated, the conflict, at least as a conventional war, in ways that would have been inconceivable in any other circumstance.

Situation B differs from Situation A in meaningful ways. In Situation A, state-to-state connections were made to facilitate technology diffusion to proxies. In Situation B, however, states create proxies from any available nonstate forces. Subsequently, state forces, either directly, indirectly, or a blended version of directly and indirectly, provide their proxy with the technology it needs to accomplish its principal’s goals. In Syria, the US cobbled together the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from scratch to combat IS. After forming and training the SDF, the US provided (and continues to provide) the SDF with intelligence, weapons, strike, combat advisors, and other military technology, to enable it to do the preponderance of ground combat.

Technological support to proxy forces allows those forces to remain engaged in a conflict longer than they would without external support. While this support might come with good will at heart, the technology diffusion to proxies causes the expansion of death, destruction, civilian harm, and collateral damage.

Russia’s relationship with the Wagner Group is another example of the state-to-nonstate force proxy dyad. In addition to Wagner Group’s own technology procurement, the Kremlin directly and indirectly provided (and still provides) the Wagner Group with the military and information technology that it needs to help Russia accomplish the Kremlin’s policy objectives regarding Ukraine. Proxy war scholarship characterizes this relationship as a contractual proxy dyad.

To this end, Russia enlisted the Wagner Group in 2014 to help create a proxy army in Ukraine’s Donbas, as well as to contribute combat power during the 2014-2015 period of the Donbas campaign. More noticeable, the Wagner Group was used to devastating effect following Russia’s February 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine. The Wagner Group provided the nexus of combat power for battles in the Donbas, and at Bakhmut, Soledar, Avdiivka, and others. Following a mutiny in the summer of 2023, Wagner Group’s presence has lessened, but nonetheless, they remain a viable Russian proxy force.

In both the SDF and Wagner Group examples, the creation of each proxy dyad, and the subsequent diffusion of technology from the respective state to their proxy force, proves to be the causal mechanism that elongates each conflict. The SDF without US technology would drift back into an amorphous blend of nonstate forces operating toward their own aims. Likewise, the Wagner Group would have been far less successful on the battlefield without the influx and diffusion of Russian arms and intelligence.

In summary, technological diffusion to proxies, regardless of the type of principal-proxy dyad might well elongate a conflict. This elongation emerges because technology serves as the fuel that allows a proxy, which often comes with far more limited resources than the principal, to remain engaged in combat longer than their inherent technology capacity would otherwise allow.

Technology Diffusion to Proxies Means Technology Diffusion to Enemies

Following the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom / Operation New Dawn, the US sold the Iraqi military 140 M1 Abrams tanks. This was part of a larger package of foreign military sales that total $2.160 billion and came with a robust maintenance support package to boot. The sale sought to bolster the Iraqi Army’s 9th Armored Division, which was based at Camp Taji.

Yet, in 2014, IS slashed through western and northern Iraq, and in the process, took possession of several of these tanks as their Iraqi crews fled in despair. Reporting varies, but fighters from IS captured between six and 10 M1 Abrams tanks after Iraqi crewmen abandoned their positions. Later in Operation Inherent Resolve, Iranian-backed Shia military groups, commonly referred to as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), acquired as many as 10 M1 Abrams tanks. A 2017 Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General (IG) report to Congress stated that the PMF obtained these tanks from IS, and that IS acquired these tanks following battlefield routes of the ISF. Considering that Iranian military officers, often from the Islamic Republican Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, led or combat advised the PMF, as well as other Iranian proxies in the region, it is not a stretch to assume that some of these missing tanks made their way to Iran for technological exploitation. If not to transported to Iran, it would be illogical to assume that Iranian intelligence and Quds force operatives did not exploit those tanks for as much technological information as they could possibly retrieve at any number of exploitation sites within Iraq. Further speculation might suggest that Iranian intelligence could have very well share all, or portions of that intelligence to other state-based threats like Russia, China, and North Korea, although open-source reporting does current support this assumption.

In the Russo-Ukrainian War a similar incident occurred. In February 2024, Russian captured a US-provided Bradley Fighting Vehicle (Bradley). Although the Bradley does not possess the same technological innovations regarding its armor and its main gun’s firing computer, this is nonetheless troubling for the US. In May 2024, the Russian military also captured a Ukrainian M1 Abrams tank. Like the Bradley, it is not a stretch to assume that the Russian military is conducting a detailed exploitation of the M1 to better understand its armor, its firing system, and its other range of systemic capabilities. Both its tank and its Bradley – foundational components of the Army’s armored brigade combat team – are in the hands of threats eager to find any advantage against the US.

This problem is not limited to the US. In October 2024, reports emerged stating that Russia captured a German Leopard 2A6 tank during battle with Ukrainian forces. Further reports indicate that the Russian military shipped the tank to the Uralvagonzavod research laboratory for exploitation. Not only does this pose a significant risk to the German military, but it also weakens the strength of NATO land forces.

Thus, it is imperative to understand that although technology diffusion to proxies is a worthwhile endeavor, it certainly comes with high costs, such as losing technological advantages to strategic competitors.

Technology Diffusion to Proxies Means Information Diffusion to Enemies

Like the previous point, but slightly different, a state’s technological diffusion to proxies can, and does, result in adroit enemies learning how to overcome additional principal-provided technology. The TB2 Bayraktar, for instance, is instructive. Coming out of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Bayraktar gained the legend of warfighting supremacy, forever changing the character of warfare, and as many commenters emphatically (and erroneously) stated that the Bayraktar – and others like it – all but obviated tanks, armored land warfare, and large telluric military operations. The war in Ukraine, however, demonstrated that the Bayraktar had limited staying power, especially when faced against an adversary with sophisticated air defense capabilities. As Michael Kofman, Rob Lee, and others have noted, Russia was able to neutralize the Bayraktar within the first few weeks of the war, and essentially sidelined it for the remainder of the conflict. Yes, the Bayraktar was purchased by the Ukrainian military, but the principle of learning-in-contact is important when considering technology diffusion to proxies.

Kofman has also noted that the many of the US’s sophisticated munitions, whether fired by artillery, High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), or any other number of delivery systems, have been neutralized by a reflective Russian military. The Russians have been able to use cyber-attack, and other methods, to effectively neutralize many of the US-provided high-technology munition systems. This is certainly problematic for the US because it further erodes the US’s military advantages and demonstrates another negative aspect of providing highly sophisticated weaponry to battlefield proxies.

The US faced a similar situation during Operation Inherent Resolve. As we’ve already discussed, the US provided the Iraqi – its proxy against IS – with 140 M1 Abrams tanks. In October 2017, following a Kurdish independence referendum, the ISF invaded Iraqi Kurdistan to quell what the government of Iraq saw as a reemerging Kurdish independence movement. During the invasion, US-provided tanks moved on Kurdish forces in and around Erbil, Karbala, and other sites. Surprising to those paying attention, Kurdish forces unleashed Chinese made anti-tank rockets against US-supplied Iraqi M1 Abrams tanks. Much of the information pertaining to how this anti-tank system got into the hands of Kurdish forces remains veiled in secrecy. Nonetheless, this situation – and any others that might have occurred but not been reported – illustrate that US adversaries field-test their own weapon systems against US technology.

The lesson from US proxy strategies in Ukraine and in Iraq illustrate that technology diffusion to proxies can, and does, allow adversaries to field-test technology, identify practical methods to overcome US technology, and do so without having to directly confront the US military. Thus, technology diffusion to proxies provides a useful means for principal states to avoid the deployment of their own land forces at scale, doing so often results in competing state actors identifying technology, means, and methods for neutralizing US technological asymmetry.

Implications

Proxy strategies are often seemingly advantageous for states seeking to exploit international affairs in third-party states in which the ability to achieve policy goals against a strategic adversary is present. The US’s reliance on Ukrainian and Iraqi land forces as substitutes for their own land forces in the Russo-Ukrainian War and the war against IS, respectively, are excellent examples of this situation. Nonetheless, proxy strategies come with considerable costs. Most scholarship on the subject places the costs on losses of control over a proxy, denying a proxy agency over their own self-interest, and similar subjects. Those are worthy considerations, but they provide an incomplete picture of the challenges of proxy strategy.

Principal actors seeking to use proxy strategies face three basic risks when they diffuse technologies to agents. First, the principal must appreciate that any technology used on the battlefield is likely to fall into an enemy’s hands. Thus, strategic competitors can quickly erode a principal’s asymmetric battlefield advantages by exploiting any captured weapon systems and other warfighting equipment. Second, the principal must appreciate that enemies on the battlefield will test their own warfighting capabilities against the principal-supplied technology and identify how to defeat the principal’s technology. This doesn’t mean that an enemy will identify how to defeat all of the principal’s weapons systems, but they will figure out how to neutralize many new technological innovations. This cycle, in turn, creates significant challenges for the principal, because they must subsequently identify how to defeat the enemy’s new battlefield strategies, while also developing new battlefield technology and employment methods. In short, the diffusion of technology to proxies creates a challenge-response cycle that the principal must always stay ahead of if they hope to retain asymmetric strategic and tactical advantages in armed conflict. Third, and finally, the diffusion of technology to proxies extends that conflict in time and space. Technological support to proxy forces allows those forces to remain engaged in a conflict longer than they would without external support. While this support might come with good will at heart, the technology diffusion to proxies causes the expansion of death, destruction, civilian harm, and collateral damage. This consideration, perhaps most of all, is what states must consider.

In conclusion, technology diffusion to proxies is an inevitable part of a state’s use of a proxy strategy. Yet, states must weigh the cost of proxy intervention against the nearly inevitable implications of that strategy. Moreover, states must not assume that a proxy strategy is inherently ‘safer’ for them than direct, conventional intervention. Though we cannot rewind a conflict and replay it with principal forces fighting instead of proxy forces, it is not beyond the realm of possible that direct intervention yields more decisive results, in a quicker time.

Tags: Conflict Realism, proxy strategy, proxy warfare, Technology

About The Author

Amos Fox
Dr. Amos C. Fox is a Professor of Practice at Arizona State University. Amos is also a Contributing Editor at War on the Rocks where he co-hosts the Soldier Pulse and the WarCast podcasts. Amos also hosts the Revolution in Military Affairs podcast. Amos has upwards of 90 publications, to include the book Conflict Realism: Understanding the Causal Logic of War and Warfare. Amos has a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Reading, masters degrees from the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) and Ball State University, and a bachelors degree Indiana University-Indianapolis. Amos is also a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel.

7. Nato countries are in a ‘hidden cyber war’ with Russia, says Liz Kendall

Recognize, understand, EXPOSE, and attack the enemy's strategy.

Excerpt:

“Given the scale of that hostility, my message to members today is clear: no-one should underestimate the Russian cyber threat to Nato. The threat is real. Russia is exceptionally aggressive and reckless in the cyber realm.”

Nato countries are in a ‘hidden cyber war’ with Russia, says Liz Kendall

The Work and Pensions Secretary said the UK has to be ‘absolutely vigilant’ in its approach.

London Evening Standard · by William Warnes · November 24, 2024

William Warnes1 hour ago

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has said Nato countries are involved in a “hidden cyber war” with Russia.

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden will warn in a major speech next week that Russia is prepared to launch a series of cyber attacks on Britain and other Nato members as it seeks to weaken support for Ukraine.

Mr McFadden will say Moscow will “not think twice” about exploiting defence gaps to target UK businesses and allies must “not underestimate” the threat it poses.

Speaking to Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme, Ms Kendall said her colleague was right to say “there is not only the open military war with Russia as the aggressor, but there is also a hidden cyber war and that Russia will do everything in its power to destabilise not only within Ukraine but amongst the Nato allies”.

We have for many months ... really focused on making sure we have all the protections we need including cyber protections because there is a threat from Russia, this hidden warfare, as well as the open military aggression

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall

We have for many months ... really focused on making sure we have all the protections we need including cyber protections because there is a threat from Russia, this hidden warfare, as well as the open military aggression

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall

She added: “So, we have to be absolutely vigilant in that as a Government, but also in businesses and wider society to protect against those cyber hacktivists.

“We have for many months … really focused on making sure we have all the protections we need including cyber protections because there is a threat from Russia, this hidden warfare, as well as the open military aggression.”

In a speech to the Nato cyber defence conference at Lancaster House, Mr McFadden is expected to warn that cyber interference enables Russia to “turn the lights off for millions of people” and represents the “hidden war” it is waging against Kyiv, as first reported by the Sunday Telegraph.

He will say: “Military hard-power is one thing. But cyber war can be destabilising and debilitating. With a cyber attack, Russia can turn the lights off for millions of people. It can shut down the power grids. This is the hidden war Russia is waging with Ukraine.

“Given the scale of that hostility, my message to members today is clear: no-one should underestimate the Russian cyber threat to Nato. The threat is real. Russia is exceptionally aggressive and reckless in the cyber realm.”

Pat McFadden is to address the Nato cyber defence conference (Lucy North/PA)

PA Archive

Mr McFadden is expected to specifically call out Unit 29155, a Russian military unit the Government says was previously found to have carried out a number of attacks in the UK and Europe.

There are gangs of “unofficial hacktivists” and mercenaries not directly under the Kremlin’s control “but who are allowed to act with impunity so long as they’re not working against Putin’s interests”, he will say.

It comes after South Korea, a Nato Indo-Pacific partner, was targeted in response to its monitoring of the deployment of North Korean troops to Kursk, where Russia is fighting against Ukraine.

The attack has been widely attributed to a pro-Kremlin cyber gang, with Mr McFadden warning that such groups act with “disregard” for geopolitics and “with just one miscalculation could wreak havoc on our networks”.

The Cabinet Office minister is expected to set out details of how the UK will seek to boost its protections against emerging cyber threats in a speech on Monday, as well as how the country is stepping up work with Nato allies.

He and senior national security officials will also meet business leaders next week to discuss how they can protect themselves.

8. How to Stop the United States and China from Sliding into War

From the Quincy institute. A role for think tanks (Track II).

Excerpts:

Coordinating Track One and Track Two Dialogues

Achieving the above goals will take time and involve a considerable exploration of options and ideas in as frank and flexible an environment as possible. This cannot take place solely at the official Track One level. A sustained, unofficial Track Two dialogue, enjoying close contact with officials in both militaries and governments, will be essential to develop the above and other ideas in a more open, flexible, give-and-take environment.

Conclusion

The United States and China are ill-prepared to avert or manage a future political-military crisis. This greatly increases the chance that a future incident between them will escalate into a major conflict. Remedying this situation requires recognizing the problem and acting decisively to create the bilateral, civilian-led dialogue structures and processes needed to educate crisis handlers, and to create and put in place crisis prevention and management mechanisms. Senior leaders on both sides need to drive this process to overcome lower-level hesitation. This will take time, but there is no time to lose. The alternative is too onerous to contemplate.

How to Stop the United States and China from Sliding into War - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Michael D. Swaine · November 25, 2024

As anyone who has been paying attention to the increasingly fraught Sino–American relationship knows, the chance that the two nuclear powers could end up in a serious crisis, and possibly a major war, is significant and growing. Most notably, increasing tensions between China and several of its neighbors — including U.S. allies and partners from Japan to Taiwan, the Philippines, and India — have resulted in escalating incidents involving military and paramilitary forces that threaten to draw Washington and Beijing into a direct confrontation.

For example, recent violent clashes between the Chinese Coast Guard and the Philippine Coast Guard and Navy near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal have repeatedly pushed the Philippines to the brink of declaring the clashes as “armed attacks,” thereby activating the U.S.–Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty.

The danger of this situation is made worse due to the deep distrust that now exists between the two powers, their growing reliance on military deterrence over diplomacy in conducting bilateral relations, and, most importantly, the fact that they hold antagonistic views toward issues of high national interest on both sides, such as the fate of Taiwan. Taken together, these factors pose a major challenge to future efforts to avoid or defuse a Sino–American political-military crisis and thereby avert a major conflict.

In response to this dire situation, Beijing and Washington have in recent years undertaken several notable measures to avert and defuse a future bilateral crisis. These include the creation of a crisis hotline, voluntary protocols for on-the-scene operators to avoid or de-escalate accidental clashes at sea or in the air, and a military-to-military crisis communication working group to discuss how to improve crisis management.

While undoubtedly useful, such measures will almost certainly prove woefully inadequate in averting or defusing a future Sino-American crisis, thus leaving the two countries open to the possibility of a major war. This judgment results from many so-called Track Two dialogues and crisis simulations — consisting of unofficial interactions between former Chinese and American officials and military officers, plus policy analysts and scholars — as well as extensive materials research that I and colleagues in the United States and China have organized and led over more than 15 years.

These examinations have revealed an array of senior elite and lower-level perceptions, beliefs, and features of the intelligence and decision-making systems on both sides that are likely to increase miscalculations, misperceptions, and unclear signaling in a crisis, possibly resulting in deliberate or unintended escalation, an unnecessary or excessive use of force, and a level of inflexibility inhibiting de-escalation and a “way out.”

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Deeply Held Biases and Problematic Systems

Both historical studies and crisis dialogues and simulations have shown that the most basic feature undermining effective crisis avoidance and management is the growing tendency on both sides to view potential sources of Sino–American crises such as the Taiwan issue or maritime disputes in the South China Sea as non-negotiable, black-and-white threats. China views these as threats to territorial integrity, and the United States sees them as threats to alliance credibility. Such rigid, totalistic views inhibit the flexibility needed to avert or deescalate crises and instead inclines both sides to double down on demonstrations of resolve while ignoring possibilities for mutual accommodation.

More broadly, both sides have historically held strongly ideological views about the drivers of aggressiveness and risk-acceptance on the other side. In the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. military confidence, when combined with an image of China as a crisis-mongering communist aggressor, at times led U.S. decision-makers to downplay prudence in favor of conveying resolve through extremely strong coercive (including nuclear) threats and military alerts or displays.

On the Chinese side, Maoist assumptions about the U.S. desire to overthrow communist rule resulted in what Beijing believed were justifiably strong Chinese reactions — sometimes in a rigid tit-for-tat manner and other times via disproportionate escalation — intended to convey superior resolve despite material weakness. Chinese leaders also at times prized the deliberate cultivation of uncertainty in a crisis, again believing that it would compensate for China’s relative weakness vis-à-vis the United States.

Some of these dangerous assumptions about the other side’s intentions are now re-emerging in the worsening Sino–American strategic competition.

Other dangerous features of Chinese and American approaches to political-military crises have been revealed in numerous dialogues and simulations. These include a Chinese belief that Beijing enjoys an advantage over the United States in a so-called “balance of fervor” regarding sovereignty issues such as Taiwan, and a U.S. tendency to over-react to perceived Chinese provocations out of the supposed need to disabuse Beijing of the notion that the United States is less committed or has become less capable militarily.

The Chinese also often mix external with internal threats when assessing the nature of a crisis, thus raising the domestic stakes involved. In addition, simulations suggest that Beijing might see U.S. defensive military preparations, alerts, and mobilizations during a crisis as a form of escalation that justifies a dangerous tit-for-tat response. Chinese players have also viewed U.S. actions as more coordinated than they actually were and have also believed that movements of U.S. military forces constituted the most credible signals of intentional escalation, leading them to discount the de-escalatory meaning of direct diplomatic signals.

Adding to these problems, past historical crises have revealed the presence on the Chinese side of a stove-piped and fragmented intelligence and decision-making system that can slow reaction time, distort the assessment of information, and reduce signal clarity. The Chinese system also suffers from a strong tendency to avoid sending bad news upward in a crisis, due to a fear of reprisal by higher-ups.

On the U.S. side, in some simulations, American players have apparently assumed, often incorrectly, that they can finely calibrate the level of military coercion they apply via alerts and deployments, and that the Chinese side can accurately interpret such signals. At the same time, U.S. players have misinterpreted Beijing’s rhetorical warnings or time-bound ultimatums in a simulated crisis as “cheap talk” and thus underestimated the propensity of China to resort to military action.

Crisis simulations between Americans and Chinese have also revealed mistaken views of both country’s relations with third parties involved in a crisis that can produce miscalculations. These include the notion that dangerous allied actions always reflect American or Chinese views or, alternatively, will cause Washington or Beijing to make dangerous moves. And both powers tend to hold exceptional views of themselves (e.g., that China is a uniquely peaceful country or the United States uniquely principled), which can lead to the denigration of the other side and thus reduce incentives for signaling self-restraint.

Finally, beyond all these factors, several generic, signaling-related problems that can inadvertently escalate a crisis have emerged in our crisis simulations and dialogues. These include unclear or inconsistent use of various types of media; the unexplained use of military alerts and mobilization; differing views of what constitutes authoritative channels and when they should be used; differing interpretations of specific phrases and terms used in crisis signaling; and a lack of attention to, or awareness of, the historical or political context of a crisis.

Obstacles to Moving Forward

One might think that this wide array of features inhibiting effective crisis management would motivate both countries to work hard to educate decision-makers on the dangers involved and put in place more effective crisis prevention and management measures. But this is not happening. Too many officials and observers on both sides seem to think that having a hot line and some kind of military-to-military crisis dialogue is enough to avert or deescalate a crisis. And many individuals seem content to let crisis management remain within the purview of the two militaries or civilian defense officials. The above findings clearly call into question such naïve notions.

Equally important, present differences between U.S. and Chinese officials regarding the basic meaning and purpose of such a dialogue are clear obstacles to a more effective crisis dialogue.

While U.S. officials tend to stress measures to defuse an existing political-military crisis and prevent it from escalating to conflict (i.e., crisis management), Chinese officials point to the need to focus on avoiding crises in the first place by dealing with their likely causes (i.e., crisis prevention).

Chinese military officers in particular tend to suspect that Washington merely wants to use a crisis management dialogue to create guardrails that avoid a conflict while permitting the United States to continue its supposedly crisis-inducing activities near China. For their part, U.S. military and civilian officials suspect that Beijing simply wants to use a crisis prevention dialogue to challenge basic U.S. policies toward Taiwan and the South China Sea that China likely sees as the cause of any future political-military crises.

No substantive efforts at creating meaningful confidence-building measures and crisis mechanisms will occur as long as this difference remains and suspicious militaries on both sides largely dominate crisis dialogues.

Breaking the Impasse

Not all of the above negative features of crisis behavior, or the obstacles to an effective crisis dialogue, can be removed entirely. But their influence can be reduced through measures aimed at educating crisis managers and creating substantive civilian-led, crisis-handling mechanisms and processes.

As a first step in this direction, the most senior leaders on both sides need to clearly recognize the many obstacles to effective crisis prevention and management that exist and demand that the two governments work more energetically to reduce their influence, using both Track One (i.e., official) and Track Two (i.e., unofficial) military and civilian channels.

Such a clear demand signal from the top of each system would help to overcome the above-mentioned impasse over the basic meaning and purpose of crisis dialogues and mechanisms. Indeed, discussions with both U.S. and Chinese officials suggest that a common definition of the meaning and content of crisis prevention and management can be arrived at if senior leaders apply pressure on those defense officials leading the current Track One crisis dialogue (especially on the Chinese side) and open it up to greater civilian, non-defense agency involvement.

Create a Two-Tier, Civilian-Led Crisis Dialogue

One possible expanded civilian and military format for addressing both crisis prevention and management that senior leaders should endorse is a two-tier, coordinated bilateral dialogue structure.

A senior tier would be largely civilian-led and focused more on reducing policy-related sources of crises. Although Beijing will doubtless seek to use such a forum to continue to call for basic changes in U.S. policy that Washington finds unacceptable, the venue would at least take the discussion out of the more contentious military-to-military arena and thereby allow for greater flexibility in addressing the topic. For example, the discussion could go beyond basic policy issues to include crisis-prevention-oriented, confidence-building measures distinct from crisis management and communications.

A subordinate tier would include both civilian and military officials and focus on specific crisis management challenges of the sort outlined above. Coordination between the two tiers would take place via some overlapping membership and occasional joint meetings of the leading officials involved.

Participants in this structure should include military and civilian officials within agencies spanning the entire crisis decision-making system, from senior leadership to on-the-scene operators, including not only military entities but also regional and functional (e.g., arms-control-related) civilian agencies, and senior-level national security offices. The latter should include relevant bureaus in the U.S. State Department and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the National Security Council and the Foreign Affairs Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Committee.

Agreed-Upon Crisis Guidelines and Mechanisms

Such a two-tier structure should address a range of specific agenda items designed to overcome many of the above negative perceptual, structural, and process features operating on both sides and create effective crisis management mechanisms. They should include, first, the creation of an agreed-upon set of crisis prevention and management guidelines, or “dos and don’ts,” to be referenced by both sides prior to or during a crisis. These should include such commonsense notions as the use of clear, understandable signals, a focus on limited objectives and means, avoiding ultimatums and rigid tit-for-tat escalation, anticipating unintended consequences, and exchanging specific types of information when an incident occurs such as when any damage or casualties are sustained.

A second agenda item should consist of a lexicon or glossary of crisis terms that each side uses in crises, so that both sides have a better understanding of the meaning of terms used by the other side. This could help reduce misunderstandings about the other side’s thought processes and the meaning of its verbal signals.

Third, both sides should cooperate to produce a crisis manual that includes the other three sets of agenda items listed here and other information necessary for decision-makers on both sides to prevent and manage a Sino–American crisis, including reassuring explanations of policies that might be misinterpreted by the other side.

Fourth, and most importantly, both sides should produce proposals for specific policies, confidence-building measures, and crisis mechanisms that are intended to reduce the likelihood of a future crisis, slow the escalation of a crisis, or successfully de-escalate any crisis that might emerge.

This could include the development of a channel between trusted individuals (such as former officials) that exists outside of regular official interactions. Such a channel, often pointed to by former officials on both sides as a critical means of alleviating past crises, would also serve as a testing ground for specific ideas that could then be discussed at the official level.

A second crisis mechanism could be a crisis working group on early warning or a different sort of joint mechanism that includes mid-level representatives of military and foreign affairs offices. This group would be specifically tasked to identify actions taken by either or both sides that could generate a serious crisis and recommend actions for averting it.

Washington and Beijing should also consider holding regular crisis management exercises by senior decision-makers up to the head-of-state level, with the inclusion of outside crisis management specialists in both senior policy offices and the above-mentioned crisis working group. These would be hard steps to take but could add greatly to the ability of both sides to avert future crises.

Coordinating Track One and Track Two Dialogues

Achieving the above goals will take time and involve a considerable exploration of options and ideas in as frank and flexible an environment as possible. This cannot take place solely at the official Track One level. A sustained, unofficial Track Two dialogue, enjoying close contact with officials in both militaries and governments, will be essential to develop the above and other ideas in a more open, flexible, give-and-take environment.

Conclusion

The United States and China are ill-prepared to avert or manage a future political-military crisis. This greatly increases the chance that a future incident between them will escalate into a major conflict. Remedying this situation requires recognizing the problem and acting decisively to create the bilateral, civilian-led dialogue structures and processes needed to educate crisis handlers, and to create and put in place crisis prevention and management mechanisms. Senior leaders on both sides need to drive this process to overcome lower-level hesitation. This will take time, but there is no time to lose. The alternative is too onerous to contemplate.

Become a Member

Michael D. Swaine has been an expert on China and Asia-related security issues and an advisor to the U.S. government for over 35 years. He is currently a senior research fellow in the East Asia Program of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and held similar posts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the RAND Corporation.

Image: U.S. Department of State

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Michael D. Swaine · November 25, 2024

9. Beyond TikTok — The National Security Risks of Chinese Agricultural Drones

Excerpt:

While concerns about critical infrastructure espionage tied to Chinese drones are growing, their potential to dominate the food market, not to mention the potential to conduct biological warfare against crops, remains largely overlooked. As the Chinese agricultural technology juggernaut quietly grows, policymakers must act now to safeguard national security. Nations can protect their food security and economic interests by regulating the data collected by agricultural drones, preventing third-party access, and reassessing the broader strategic implications of these technologies. Yet, for now, the data gathered by these drones is far less regulated than the data collected by TikTok. Failure to act can give China a decisive advantage in any prospective future confrontation. Left unchecked, the exploitation of smart agriculture data could leave nations vulnerable to food-based coercion. If this were part of China’s asymmetric warfare strategy, they are clearly playing the long game for global dominance.

Beyond TikTok — The National Security Risks of Chinese Agricultural Drones - War on the Rocks

Claris Diaz and Emilian Kavalski

warontherocks.com · by Claris Diaz · November 25, 2024

While Washington fixates on TikTok’s potential to share personal data with Chinese intelligence for disinformation and hybrid warfare, a far more dangerous data-collecting technology is quite literally flying under the radar: Chinese-made agricultural drones. The threat that they pose to national security can be more devastating than any data scrubbed from social media platforms. These non-military drones, which are now embedded in global markets, go beyond tracking personal data — they collect highly specific agricultural data that could be weaponized to gain unprecedented leverage over critical food production, resources, and supplies. In response to growing levels of food insecurity driven by climate change and population growth, farmers around the world rely on new technologies that could help China gain a dominant position in the global food market. More radically, agricultural data can be used to unleash biological warfare against crops, annihilating an adversary’s food supply. Such scenarios pose a significant threat to national security, giving China more than one avenue to undermine critical infrastructures by wreaking devastating impacts on food availability, threatening trade and economic resilience, and undermining agricultural systems.

The high level of security vulnerabilities associated with smart agriculture technologies and the current lack of preparedness to address them make these technologies a potential target for any adversary. Deficient regulatory oversight increases the threats associated with agroterrorism from both state and non-state actors. Addressing the threat associated with Chinese-made technologies requires interdepartmental and interagency collaboration, as well as international regulatory frameworks to address the data privacy concerns related to smart agriculture technologies and to prevent misuse.

In this respect, farmers, national security establishments, and consumers will do well to take a page from the “know your farmer, know your food” campaign and demand to “know your technology, where it comes from, and who has access to your data.” As smart agriculture technology advances, it is crucial to prioritize data security and increase broader security awareness and practices in the agricultural sector. In the current confrontation with China, what often gets occluded is that at the heart of such technological innovation is not merely geopolitical competition but also working to create a more secure global food system.

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Beyond Telecommunications

Democratic capitals — from Washington, DC, to Tokyo — are concerned about their reliance on Chinese technologies and its implication for national security. While much of the focus remains on telecommunications companies and social platforms like TikTok and the potential misuse of personal data, this narrow scope overlooks broader vulnerabilities that pose far more significant risks.

Technological innovation is the centerpiece of leader Xi Jinping’s “China Dream,” which should turn the country into a leading global powerhouse by 2049. In this respect, it is crucial to shift the attention from just banning Chinese-developed technologies to examining their broader security implications and to hone a more meaningful national security policy and rhetoric to address their vulnerabilities. A recent report by the U.S. House of Representatives highlighted the threats posed by the use of Chinese drone technologies in academic research programs not merely for siphoning off raw data but also (and inadvertently) as a pathway for gaining backdoor access to university information technology systems and knowledge repositories.

The securitization of Chinese technologies began with measures against the telecommunications giant Huawei and its involvement in establishing 5G networks. Today, legislators across North America and Europe are deeply concerned about TikTok’s potential misuse of consumer data by its Chinese owner, ByteDance. This data could be shared with Chinese intelligence services and the military, posing a significant security threat. With the House of Representatives passing a bill on March 13 that ByteDance must divest its American assets or face a ban, House Republican Steve Scalise stressed that “this is a critical national security issue.” And while this may well be the case, the question remains whether a social media platform owned by a Chinese company is the critical national security concern.

The public and policy attention lavished on TikTok is an attempt to address the prospective threats associated with the data gathered by Chinese technologies. Yet, such attention seems to reflect perfectly the security theater underpinning much of the current securitization of Chinese technologies — it implements measures that provide the feeling of improved security while doing little to achieve it. While the Chinese Communist Party could use TikTok data for disinformation or hybrid warfare campaigns, social media–based manipulation is not a new issue, and recent reports show that China has been ineffective in such operations. Despite this, there is no discussion of other data-collecting technologies that can be harnessed to threaten national security in more destructive ways. One such overlooked technology is agricultural drones.

Drone Danger

The People’s Republic of China is the world leader in the agricultural drone industry, having experienced a drone revolution in agriculture since the late 2010s. Chinese-owned drone manufacturers XAG and DJI are leaders in the smart agriculture industry. These farming-specific drones can spray, feed, and monitor crops with more precision and speed than any human. They are fast-growing and one of the most widely used industry-level drones. Driven by advanced AI and cloud computing, any internet-connected device, such as a smartphone, can control data transfers and collection. These technologies revolutionize agricultural practices in response to the need for increased crop yields and viability in the face of climate change and the growing population. However, the very connected technologies that are changing agricultural operations and improving farming efficiency are posing qualitatively new challenges for national and food security. It seems that the bulk of the smart agriculture security debate is on cybersecurity and the potential threats posed by malware to hack farming data. Yet, when it comes to agricultural drones, owing to poor regulation, third parties can have access to the full spectrum of data gathered by these technologies without having to use illicit means.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have alerted officials that drones manufactured by DJI can threaten national security. Just this past January, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency published its cybersecurity guidance report blacklisting drones manufactured by DJI due to the threat of critical infrastructure espionage. At the center of these concerns is China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which dictates that all Chinese corporations must cooperate with intelligence services and give them access to data collected in China and internationally. Indeed, these drones capture high-definition aerial images and real-time recordings that can identify the location of critical infrastructure, but this is not the only concern. The pressing yet unaddressed issue is that these agricultural drones collect comprehensive food production data worldwide, which China can weaponize and use to exert influence.

As part of their investment strategy, the Chinese government has made military agreements with Chinese-owned agriculture drone manufacturers and agriculture research universities. Their Military-Civil Fusion strategy, integrating civilian technologies with military goals, enables the Chinese government to exploit critical farming data for economic and military advantages. To support sustainable food production by monitoring crop health and predicting crop yields, the drones collect alarmingly specific data about the crops and region of the customer using them. For example, a drone used for corn fields in the United States, one of the world’s biggest corn exporters, will collect detailed data about the area’s climate, soil conditions, and pest and disease susceptibility. The onboard AI can analyze this data to report crop vulnerabilities and identify optimum growth needs for these and other crops such as rice and wheat, foods on which much of the world’s population depends. From Brazil’s soy farms to Spain’s olive groves, the Chinese government can potentially access the farming data of any customer in any region.

This data exploitation will facilitate the Chinese government’s efforts to design “perfect” products that farmers will want for healthier crops and increased yield. Chinese drone manufacturer XAG has already signed agreements with Bayer and Chinese-owned Syngenta, two of the world’s foremost agricultural sciences corporations. Farming data shared with these research and development enterprises helps them create precisely what farmers need — fertilizers that optimize crop growth and quality, highly effective spray pesticides and fungicides, and genetically modified seeds that withstand drought and other extreme conditions. This may not matter now, but it will in the next few decades when farmers struggle to grow healthy crops, and there won’t be enough crops to feed the world.

Chinese companies are seeking to become the leading suppliers of smart agricultural technologies, which will help Beijing dominate the global food market. China can use price controls, set export restrictions, and implement trading fees for products that affect crop growth. This would also impact other sectors, such as the meat and dairy industry, since crops such as corn are used for livestock feed. In addition, China can establish trade agreements with other countries for food items they need, potentially reducing reliance on Western markets. This market influence strengthens China’s economic power and gives it significant political leverage. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has already warned about the Chinese Communist Party’s economic espionage efforts and plans to dominate the global market. In this respect, smart agriculture drones can become an important tool in China’s strategic outreach.

Conclusion

While concerns about critical infrastructure espionage tied to Chinese drones are growing, their potential to dominate the food market, not to mention the potential to conduct biological warfare against crops, remains largely overlooked. As the Chinese agricultural technology juggernaut quietly grows, policymakers must act now to safeguard national security. Nations can protect their food security and economic interests by regulating the data collected by agricultural drones, preventing third-party access, and reassessing the broader strategic implications of these technologies. Yet, for now, the data gathered by these drones is far less regulated than the data collected by TikTok. Failure to act can give China a decisive advantage in any prospective future confrontation. Left unchecked, the exploitation of smart agriculture data could leave nations vulnerable to food-based coercion. If this were part of China’s asymmetric warfare strategy, they are clearly playing the long game for global dominance.

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Claris Diaz is an independent researcher specializing in the political implications of emerging and disruptive technologies. With a master of arts in international security and development and building on her background as a scientist, she explores how technological advancements pose indirect threats to international security. She authored The Race to Feed the World: How a Plant Genomics Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Is Up Against the Clock (2021) and recently completed a study on China’s agricultural drones, analyzing their disruptive impact on global food security and geopolitical dynamics.

Emilian Kavalski is the NAWA chair professor at the Center for International Studies and Development in the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland) and the book series editor for Routledge’s Rethinking Asia and International Relations series. His expertise centers on decentralizing international relations theory and practice, with a focus on the rising influence of non-Western actors on the global stage. He is the author of four books, including The Guanxi of Relational International Theory (2018) and the editor/co-editor of twelve volumes, including The Routledge Handbook on Global China (2024).

Image: MB-one via Wikimedia Commons.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Claris Diaz · November 25, 2024

10. Trump’s Cabinet: Many Ideologies Behind the Veil of ‘America First’

A look beyond the (or deeper than) the caricature of "America First" and MAGA.

Excerpts:

Diversity of ideology and opinion is usually seen as a strength, not a defect, of presidential cabinets. But if there is a surprise about Mr. Trump’s choices in recent days, it is the range of experiences and worldviews that in some cases lie just beneath a veneer of recently declared Make America Great Again loyalty — and loyalty to Mr. Trump himself. It is hard to imagine a few of his picks sitting comfortably at a Trump rally.

“There is more ideological diversity here than I expected,” Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, noted on Saturday. “And if you look at this group in the context of history, there is some potential here for arguments and debates. If those debates are allowed to unfold in a civilized and open manner, history shows that such conflict has sometimes led to policies that worked.”

Even as the Republican Party has adopted the MAGA philosophy, it may have been unreasonable to expect that members of a Trump administration would all be cut from the same cloth.

“Consistency of ideology or anything else is the last thing we should expect in Trump’s nominees,” Chris Whipple, the author of “The Gatekeepers,” a book about White House chiefs of staff, said on Saturday. “That’s because there is no process in place to make these choices — it’s all according to the whim of the boss.”

Trump’s Cabinet: Many Ideologies Behind the Veil of ‘America First’

One faction of prospective nominees appears focused on revenge, another on calming markets and a third on relentlessly — perhaps hopelessly — cutting people and budgets.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/24/us/politics/trump-cabinet-america-first.html

If there is a surprise about President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choices to staff his administration in recent days, it is the range of experiences and worldviews among the picks.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

By David E. Sanger

David E. Sanger has covered five American presidents over more than four decades of reporting for The Times.

Nov. 24, 2024

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s final flurry of cabinet picks and other appointments rounded out what his aides described as a unified, loyal, MAGA-driven administration. But scratch the surface and there are at least three distinct factions and a range of ideologies, barely suppressed to get through the rigors of the confirmation process.

There is a revenge team, led by prospective nominees with instructions to rip apart the Justice Department, the intelligence agencies and the Defense Department, hunting down the so-called deep state and anyone who participated in the prosecutions of Mr. Trump.

There is a calm-the-markets team, which Mr. Trump hopes will be led by Scott Bessent, the Wall Street billionaire who Mr. Trump chose for Treasury secretary. Mr. Bessent can recite the MAGA lines about deregulation and lower taxes but would likely try to make sure Mr. Trump’s most extreme solutions, like inflation-inducing tariffs on foreign goods, do not end the post-election stock market surge.

And then there is a government shrinkage team, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whose goals are wildly ambitious, to put it mildly. They want to carve what Mr. Musk says will be “at least” $2 trillion from the annual federal budget, a figure that exceeds the annual cost of salaries for every federal employee. (For the record, the total federal budget in the 2024 fiscal year was $6.75 trillion.)

How these missions will mesh and where they will collide is one of the biggest unknowns of the incoming administration.

Diversity of ideology and opinion is usually seen as a strength, not a defect, of presidential cabinets. But if there is a surprise about Mr. Trump’s choices in recent days, it is the range of experiences and worldviews that in some cases lie just beneath a veneer of recently declared Make America Great Again loyalty — and loyalty to Mr. Trump himself. It is hard to imagine a few of his picks sitting comfortably at a Trump rally.

“There is more ideological diversity here than I expected,” Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian, noted on Saturday. “And if you look at this group in the context of history, there is some potential here for arguments and debates. If those debates are allowed to unfold in a civilized and open manner, history shows that such conflict has sometimes led to policies that worked.”

Even as the Republican Party has adopted the MAGA philosophy, it may have been unreasonable to expect that members of a Trump administration would all be cut from the same cloth.

“Consistency of ideology or anything else is the last thing we should expect in Trump’s nominees,” Chris Whipple, the author of “The Gatekeepers,” a book about White House chiefs of staff, said on Saturday. “That’s because there is no process in place to make these choices — it’s all according to the whim of the boss.”

Mr. Bessent made a late conversion to MAGA ideology. He seems to embrace Mr. Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs, though in recent weeks he has noted that imposing them gradually — a nuance Mr. Trump has not discussed — is critical to avoiding economic shocks.

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His identity as a gay, married father certainly clashes with the beliefs held by some of Mr. Trump’s evangelical and far-right-wing supporters. He told Yale’s alumni magazine in 2015 that “in a certain geographic region at a certain economic level, being gay is not an issue.” He added: “If you had told me in 1984, when we graduated, and people were dying of AIDS, that 30 years later I’d be legally married and we would have two children via surrogacy, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

Image

Scott Bessent, Mr. Trump’s choice for Treasury secretary, seems to embrace Mr. Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs, though in recent weeks he has noted that imposing them gradually.Credit...Jonathan Drake/Reuters

But more jarring to some of the MAGA faithful may be the fact that Mr. Bessent raised money for the presidential run of a Democrat, Al Gore, in 2000. Or that a dozen years ago he was chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management, the $30 billion instrument of George Soros, the subject of scores of right-wing conspiracy theories. When listing Mr. Bessent’s many qualifications for the job, Mr. Trump left off the fact that he is considered among Mr. Soros’s most successful protégés.

The newly named pick for labor secretary, Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer, also seems likely to straddle two camps. Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, an Oregon Republican who lost her seat in the House this month, often spoke of her father’s membership in the Teamsters and won the support of about 20 labor unions during her unsuccessful re-election bid.

As the G.O.P. moved quickly to solidify around Mr. Trump and promised to kill off government regulation, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer moved the other way. She was one of three Republicans who sponsored a 2023 bill that would have shielded workers seeking to organize union representation from retribution or firing, while giving new powers to the federal government to punish employers who violate workers’ rights.

It was not the only area where she saw more room for government intervention. “One of the things that transcends party is public safety,” Ms. Chavez-DeRemer said in an interview with The New York Times during her re-election bid. “People want to wake up in the morning, know that it’s safe to go to take their kids to school and drive on safe roads,” she added. “Those transcend party. Those are the kind of things I focus on.”

The news on Friday that she was named to head the Labor Department was hailed by the Teamsters and their president, Sean O’Brien. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. expressed wariness of Mr. Trump’s “anti-worker agenda” in a statement posted on social media, but conceded that “Lori Chavez-DeRemer has built a pro-labor record in Congress.”

One who does fit neatly into the mold of a Trump aide is Brooke Rollins, whom Mr. Trump named on Saturday as his choice for agriculture secretary. She served as domestic policy adviser in the first Trump administration, then became head of the America First Policy Institute, a sort of Trump government in waiting staffed with other former members of his administration.

Ms. Rollins’s organization has called for getting rid of civil-service protection for many federal employees, speeding gas and oil drilling on federal lands, and doing away with red-flag laws meant to keep guns from people who are deemed by a judge to be a danger to themselves or to others.

Then there is the national security team. Michael Waltz, the designee for national security adviser, was a strong advocate of sending more aid to Ukraine and doing whatever was necessary to push back the Russian invasion, until he voted against the $95 billion in additional aid to Ukraine in the spring.

His new deputy, Alex Wong, worked for Mitt Romney in 2012, part of a wing of the Republican Party that has never reconciled itself to Mr. Trump. But Mr. Wong worked at senior levels of the State Department on North Korea, helping to set up Mr. Trump’s two meetings with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. That diplomatic high-wire act was rooted in Mr. Trump’s belief that a combination of personal diplomacy and economic lures would drive Mr. Kim to give up his arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Image

Mr. Trump met twice with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, during his first term, hoping to contain North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

The effort failed: The talks collapsed, and the North Korean leader today has a larger arsenal than he did before the meetings. Mr. Kim has insisted that he is done talking to Washington. In the intervening years, Mr. Wong has served as the chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressionally appointed, bipartisan group studying the national security implications of America’s economic engagement with Beijing.

Such topics never had an airing during the campaign. Discussion of the complex economic, technological and military relationships with China was distilled by Mr. Trump to a declaration that tariffs would solve all problems. But his national security advisers clearly have a more nuanced view.

That leaves Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man and newest denizen of Mar-a-Lago, and Mr. Ramaswamy. They are supposed to head the “Department of Government Efficiency,” writing in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that “the entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic.”

The department, or “DOGE” as Mr. Musk calls it in a nod to the cryptocurrency dogecoin, is not actually a department at all, but a group of volunteers. But the two men insist their future department will have a direct pipeline to the White House Office of Management and Budget that will look to cut regulations, cut head counts and cut budgets.

They promised to focus first on “$500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended,” including grants to international organizations or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

(For perspective, the $535 million in federal funds to the public broadcasting group, which Mr. Trump’s supporters believe pays for liberally biased programming, would be a 0.026 percent down payment on Mr. Musk’s promised $2 trillion in cuts. Even eliminating the entire defense budget of the United States would not get him halfway to the goal.)

It remains to be seen how they will work with the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed head, Russell Vought. He was a major figure in Project 2025, which laid out a plan to rework the American government to enhance presidential power by tearing down and rebuilding executive branch institutions.

Maya C. Miller contributed reporting.

David E. Sanger covers the Biden administration and national security. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written several books on challenges to American national security. More about David E. Sanger

A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 25, 2024, Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: Inside the Trump Cabinet, There Are at Least Three Distinct Factions. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

11. Closing the US Military’s Public Trust Deficit

Excerpts:

Restoring the military’s apolitical stance is perhaps the most urgent priority in rebuilding trust. In an era of heightened political polarization, the perception of partisanship can be deeply damaging to the armed forces’ reputation. Senior leaders must avoid making public statements or endorsements that could be perceived as partisan, focusing instead on their primary mission of national defense. Reaffirming the military’s neutrality not only preserves its integrity but also ensures that it remains a unifying force in an increasingly divided society.

Finally, the military must address the needs of its veterans, whose experiences often shape public perceptions of the institution. Frustration with the Department of Veterans Affairs—including delays in healthcare access, inefficient claims processing, and insufficient mental health resources—has left many veterans feeling abandoned by the very institution they served. This dissatisfaction has far-reaching implications, as disillusioned veterans are less likely to recommend military service to their children, further exacerbating recruitment challenges. By improving the quality and efficiency of services provided to veterans, the military can not only support its former service members but also strengthen its broader reputation and recruitment efforts.

The stakes for addressing these challenges could not be higher. The military’s ability to maintain public trust and attract new recruits is directly tied to national security and strategic readiness. Rebuilding this trust will require bold leadership, innovative outreach, and an unwavering commitment to transparency and ethical standards. The time to act is now. By confronting these challenges head-on, the US military can reclaim its status as one of America’s most trusted institutions. This effort will not only bolster recruitment and readiness but also reinforce the vital bond between the armed forces and the citizens they serve. National security depends not just on advanced weaponry or strategic expertise but on the confidence of the public in the institution sworn to protect them.

Closing the US Military’s Public Trust Deficit - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Luke High · November 22, 2024

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Imagine a society where the cornerstone of national defense—its military—faces eroding confidence from the very citizens it serves. This crisis is not just a theoretical threat, but a reality reflected in a startling 2023 survey by the Reagan Foundation, which revealed that public trust in the US military has plummeted to 45 percent, down sharply from 70 percent in 2018. This decline, coupled with a shrinking pool of eligible recruits, jeopardizes the nation’s ability to maintain its security. The erosion of trust in the military not only challenges its operational capacity but also strikes at the heart of national identity. While the US military has long been seen as a pillar of strength and professionalism, its current struggle to maintain public confidence poses profound risks for national security, recruitment, and global standing. Addressing this crisis requires a deep examination of its causes, implications, and solutions.

Public trust in the military has ebbed and flowed in response to major events and societal shifts. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, widespread disillusionment left military confidence at an all-time low. Yet moments of triumph, such as the swift and decisive Operation Desert Storm in 1991, demonstrated the military’s competence and effectiveness, helping to restore its standing in the eyes of the public. The September 11 attacks represented another high-water mark for trust, with the military hailed as the nation’s protector in a time of unprecedented crisis. By 2009, confidence in the armed forces had climbed to an impressive 82 percent, according to Gallup polling. However, the optimism of the post-9/11 era has since eroded, with recent years characterized by a significant decline in public trust. The Reagan Foundation’s 2023 findings underscore the urgency of this issue, particularly among younger Americans. Only 33 percent of this demographic reported trust in the military, a stark reminder of the growing generational divide in perceptions of the institution.

The reasons for this decline are multifaceted and deeply interconnected. High-profile scandals involving misconduct among military leaders have cast a shadow over the institution’s integrity. Instances of ethical lapses, resource misuse, and sexual harassment have eroded confidence in military leadership, tarnishing its image as a bastion of professionalism. Moreover, the politicization of the armed forces has further weakened public trust. Traditionally, the military has maintained a staunchly apolitical stance, but recent events have blurred this critical boundary. The 2020 deployment of the National Guard during widespread protests, for example, sparked heated debates about the military’s role in domestic affairs and its ability to remain impartial. Such episodes contribute to the perception that the military is increasingly entangled in political controversies, putting at risk its reputation for neutrality and undermining its broader mission.

Perhaps no single event has done more to damage public trust than the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. What was meant to symbolize the conclusion of America’s longest war instead became a defining moment of disarray and failure. Images of desperate Afghan civilians clinging to departing aircraft, coupled with the tragic deaths of service members during the Kabul airport attack, captured the profound dysfunction of the evacuation effort. The rapid collapse of the Afghan government, despite two decades of US military support and training, further fueled public frustration and disillusionment. For many, the withdrawal represented not only a strategic failure but also a broader crisis of leadership and accountability within the armed forces. Polls conducted in the aftermath of the withdrawal revealed a sharp drop in public confidence, highlighting the enduring impact of such high-profile missteps.

Compounding these challenges is the military’s struggle to attract new recruits, a problem exacerbated by the erosion of trust. In 2023, the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps fell short of their recruitment goals by a staggering forty-one thousand personnel. To address this crisis, the Army reduced its end strength target from 485,000 to 465,000 for 2024. This shortfall underscores the urgency of addressing the recruitment crisis, particularly as the pool of eligible candidates continues to shrink. Today, only 23 percent of young Americans meet the stringent requirements for military service. Disqualifying factors such as health issues, behavioral problems, and criminal records further narrow the field, while the diminishing number of recruits with familial ties to the military—a historically reliable source of enlistment—has compounded the problem. As fewer families maintain a connection to military service, the institution faces an uphill battle in appealing to new generations.

Efforts to address these challenges have yielded some promising results. The Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course is one such initiative, aimed at preparing individuals who do not initially meet eligibility standards for service. By offering tailored academic tutoring and physical fitness regimens, the program helps recruits overcome barriers to entry and succeed in basic training. While such initiatives offer valuable short-term solutions, they cannot fully offset the broader trends of declining public trust and recruitment shortfalls. The program’s success illustrates that potential recruits exist in untapped populations, but scaling these efforts requires institutional commitment and investment.

A critical component of addressing these intertwined issues is modernizing the military’s public engagement strategies. Younger generations are increasingly disengaged from traditional forms of communication, making digital platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram essential for reaching this audience. These platforms not only allow for creative messaging but also offer an opportunity to humanize the military through personal stories from service members. Narratives that emphasize the benefits of military service—career development, education opportunities, and a sense of purpose—can resonate with young Americans who may not have previously considered enlistment. Strategic partnerships with influencers who align with military values can further amplify these efforts, helping the military break through the digital noise and connect with potential recruits.

Outreach efforts must also focus on building trust and visibility in underrepresented communities. Partnerships with schools, community organizations, and local businesses can open new recruitment pipelines and foster stronger relationships with the civilian population. Programs that provide mentorship and resources for students interested in military careers can help bridge the gap between perception and reality, making service feel both accessible and worthwhile.

Expanding the pool of eligible candidates requires reevaluating existing recruitment standards. Certain restrictions, such as those related to minor medical conditions or behavioral issues, may unnecessarily exclude individuals with the potential to succeed. By revisiting these policies and providing support through preparatory programs, the military can broaden its reach without compromising readiness. However, these efforts must be complemented by a commitment to addressing systemic issues within the institution. Leadership misconduct, for example, remains a significant obstacle to rebuilding trust. Greater transparency and accountability mechanisms are essential for demonstrating that the military holds itself to the highest ethical standards.

Beyond addressing internal challenges, the military should also emphasize its broader contributions to society. Humanitarian missions and disaster relief efforts are powerful examples of how the armed forces serve the public good beyond the battlefield. For instance, in the wake of recent hurricanes, the US Army played a critical role in recovery efforts, providing immediate aid to affected communities. From deploying engineers to repair vital infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, to delivering food, water, and medical supplies to isolated areas, the Army’s actions demonstrated its ability to respond swiftly and effectively to crises. The National Guard, a vital component of the Army, was particularly instrumental in coordinating evacuations, conducting search-and-rescue operations, and restoring essential services in disaster-stricken regions. These efforts not only saved lives but also showcased the military’s adaptability and commitment to serving the nation beyond the scope of combat.

Highlighting such contributions can counteract negative perceptions and remind civilians of the military’s indispensable role in both domestic and global stability. By emphasizing these noncombat missions, the armed forces can inspire pride and confidence, fostering a renewed sense of connection between the military and the citizens it protects. These stories of selfless service offer a compelling narrative that can help bridge the gap between the military and a public increasingly disconnected from its work.

Restoring the military’s apolitical stance is perhaps the most urgent priority in rebuilding trust. In an era of heightened political polarization, the perception of partisanship can be deeply damaging to the armed forces’ reputation. Senior leaders must avoid making public statements or endorsements that could be perceived as partisan, focusing instead on their primary mission of national defense. Reaffirming the military’s neutrality not only preserves its integrity but also ensures that it remains a unifying force in an increasingly divided society.

Finally, the military must address the needs of its veterans, whose experiences often shape public perceptions of the institution. Frustration with the Department of Veterans Affairs—including delays in healthcare access, inefficient claims processing, and insufficient mental health resources—has left many veterans feeling abandoned by the very institution they served. This dissatisfaction has far-reaching implications, as disillusioned veterans are less likely to recommend military service to their children, further exacerbating recruitment challenges. By improving the quality and efficiency of services provided to veterans, the military can not only support its former service members but also strengthen its broader reputation and recruitment efforts.

The stakes for addressing these challenges could not be higher. The military’s ability to maintain public trust and attract new recruits is directly tied to national security and strategic readiness. Rebuilding this trust will require bold leadership, innovative outreach, and an unwavering commitment to transparency and ethical standards. The time to act is now. By confronting these challenges head-on, the US military can reclaim its status as one of America’s most trusted institutions. This effort will not only bolster recruitment and readiness but also reinforce the vital bond between the armed forces and the citizens they serve. National security depends not just on advanced weaponry or strategic expertise but on the confidence of the public in the institution sworn to protect them.

Lieutenant Colonel Luke High is an Army marketing and behavioral economics officer currently serving as the associate director in the Directorate of Admissions at the United States Military Academy. Luke has served in various leadership roles in the 82nd Airborne Division, the 1st Armored Division, and the joint staff of United States Forces–Afghanistan. Luke holds an MBA from North Carolina State University and a master of military operational art and science from the Air Command and Staff College at the Air University.

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

Image credit: Hannah Frenchick, Joint Task Force-National Capital Region and the US Army Military District of Washington

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Luke High · November 22, 2024

12. Threat of global war ‘serious and real,’ Poland’s Tusk warns

Threat of global war ‘serious and real,’ Poland’s Tusk warns

“We feel that the unknown is approaching,” Polish prime minister says.

https://www.politico.eu/article/serious-threat-of-global-war-poland-donald-tusk-russia-ukraine-missiles/?utm

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine “is entering a decisive phase," Donald Tusk said in a speech to the Polish Teachers' Union. | Radek Pietruszka/EPA-EFE

November 22, 2024 4:11 pm CET

By Csongor Körömi

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned Friday that there is a "serious and real" threat of global war after this week's major escalation in the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine “is entering a decisive phase," Tusk said in a speech to the Polish Teachers' Union. "We all know it, we feel that the unknown is approaching. None of us knows the end of this conflict, but we know that it is taking on very dramatic dimensions at the moment,” he added.

“The events of the last few dozen hours show that this threat is really serious and real in terms of a global conflict,” Tusk said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed early Friday that Moscow fired a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile into Ukraine on Thursday in response to Kyiv's use of advanced weapons provided by the United States and the United Kingdom earlier this week.

Responding to Putin's announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia's decision was a sign of "how scared" the Kremlin is of Kyiv.

The Polish prime minister is not the only one to see the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine in ominous terms. A top U.K. military chief said on Thursday that Britain's armed forces would be ready to fight the Russian army "tonight" if Putin invades another Eastern European nation.

Ukraine's former military commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, said on Thursday that “we can absolutely believe that the Third World War has begun,” as Russia is being helped in its war by soldiers from North Korea, drones from Iran and weapons from China.

13. Philippines President Slams Vice President’s Assassination Plot

This is a helluva relationship between a President and a Vice President.

Philippines President Slams Vice President’s Assassination Plot

Political turmoil has escalated after Vice President Sara Duterte claimed to have arranged for President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s assassination if she is slain.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/25/world/asia/philippines-president-assassination-threat.html

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the Philippines with Vice President Sara Duterte in 2022, after their election victory. The alliance of their powerful political dynasties was supposed to be formidable, but it hasn’t lasted long.Credit...Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

By Sui-Lee Wee and Aie Balagtas See

Nov. 25, 2024, 5:10 a.m. ET

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the Philippines said on Monday that he was taking seriously “deeply concerning” threats that had been made against him, days after his vice president said she had arranged for an assassin to kill Mr. Marcos if she were murdered.

In a video address, Mr. Marcos said that “there have been a slew of reckless profanities and threats, including plans to kill some of us.” He did not directly mention Ms. Duterte.

“If it is so easy to threaten the life of a president, how much more for ordinary citizens?” he said. “Such criminal intent should never be tolerated. I will not take this sitting down.”

On Monday, the president’s security was tightened, two days after Ms. Duterte said in a virtual briefing that she had made arrangements for Mr. Marcos, his wife, Liza, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, who is the president’s cousin, to be murdered if she were killed. Ms. Duterte said on Monday that her remarks had been “maliciously taken out of logical context.”

The Department of Justice said it would issue a subpoena against Ms. Duterte, saying on Monday it will give her five days to explain herself before investigators.

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“The premeditated plot to assassinate the president as declared by the self-confessed mastermind will now face legal consequences,” Jesse Andres, the under secretary for the Justice Department, told reporters.

The Philippines is now bracing for a showdown between the Marcoses and the Dutertes. Ms. Duterte’s father, Rodrigo Duterte, was Mr. Marcos’s predecessor as president, and the Dutertes have been complaining publicly about the Marcoses for more than a year.

For a long time, Mr. Marcos remained largely silent about their remarks, including Ms. Duterte’s threat last month to behead him. Analysts say the president’s address on Monday was the clearest sign yet that he intends to confront the threats from the Dutertes directly.

Ms. Duterte made her latest remarks after her chief of staff was detained for contempt of the House of Representatives. The aide, Zuleika Lopez, said she had signed a letter asking state auditors not to comply with a subpoena from the House appropriations panel concerning the alleged misuse of funds by Ms. Duterte. The vice president was particularly incensed that Ms. Lopez was sent to prison.

“This country is going to hell because we are led by a person who doesn’t know how to be a president and who is a liar,” Ms. Duterte said. Then, using a Filipino vulgarity, she mentioned “Martin Romualdez, Liza Marcos, Bongbong Marcos.”

“I’ve already spoken to someone, so don’t worry about my security,” she said. “I told that person to kill B.B.M., Liza Araneta and Martin Romualdez if I were to be slain,” she added, referring to Mr. Marcos by the initials of his nickname. She said she had told a hit man: “After I die, don’t stop until you’ve killed them all.”

When Mr. Marcos and Ms. Duterte were elected in 2022, the two promised national unity. The alliance of their powerful political dynasties was supposed to be formidable: The Dutertes’ stronghold is in the south of the Philippines, and the Marcoses hold sway in the north.

But the marriage of convenience did not last long.

After Ms. Duterte’s speech, the National Security Council said it considered all threats to Mr. Marcos a matter of national security. And the presidential security group said “any threat to the life of the president and the first family, regardless of its origin — and especially one made so brazenly in public — is treated with the utmost seriousness.”

The chief of staff of the Philippine military, Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., said the military would remain neutral, but he reminded soldiers that they should not be shaken by recent political events and should remain loyal to the Constitution.

Politics in the Philippines

Why the Philippines’ Vice President Talked About Beheading Her Boss

Oct. 22, 2024

The Marcos-Duterte Ticket Won. Can This Philippine Alliance Last?

Jan. 10, 2023

Sui-Lee Wee is the Southeast Asia bureau chief for The Times, overseeing coverage of 11 countries in the region. More about Sui-Lee Wee

14. Steel Company Tied to Deadly Air Force Osprey Crash Faced Defective Parts Lawsuit in 2001

Are defense companies ever really held accountable?

Excerpts:

Military officials have refused to say whether they're still working with a company responsible for making the gear that failed on an Air Force V-22 Osprey aircraft and led to the deaths of eight airmen last year, despite long-running questions over the quality of the part and allegations of the manufacturer using lower-quality steel.

...

More than a decade before those incidents, Universal Stainless, the company responsible for manufacturing the gear that fractured on the Osprey in Japan, was sued in 2001 for allegedly producing defective steel that went into civilian aircraft engine crankshafts, according to court records.

"Universal falsely represented and certified its quality program so that customers would buy Universal steel," the lawsuit, filed in a Pennsylvania court, alleged.

The 2001 case, which was ultimately settled out of court, is an even earlier indication that Universal Stainless had issues producing quality aircraft parts to specification.

Steel Company Tied to Deadly Air Force Osprey Crash Faced Defective Parts Lawsuit in 2001

military.com · by Konstantin Toropin,Thomas Novelly · November 22, 2024

Military officials have refused to say whether they're still working with a company responsible for making the gear that failed on an Air Force V-22 Osprey aircraft and led to the deaths of eight airmen last year, despite long-running questions over the quality of the part and allegations of the manufacturer using lower-quality steel.

Internal Air Force safety reports reviewed by Military.com in August found that the failure of a single high-speed planetary pinion gear -- the cause of the deadly November 2023 crash in Japan -- was "similar to those seen on seven previous failures" going back to 2013. Those earlier failures occurred in gears made of the same metal.

More than a decade before those incidents, Universal Stainless, the company responsible for manufacturing the gear that fractured on the Osprey in Japan, was sued in 2001 for allegedly producing defective steel that went into civilian aircraft engine crankshafts, according to court records.

"Universal falsely represented and certified its quality program so that customers would buy Universal steel," the lawsuit, filed in a Pennsylvania court, alleged.

The 2001 case, which was ultimately settled out of court, is an even earlier indication that Universal Stainless had issues producing quality aircraft parts to specification.

Hunterbrook, an open-source investigative journalism and financial news source, published a deep-dive into the long-ranging issues with Universal Stainless last month, including the first mention of the 2001 lawsuit.

The Osprey manufacturer, Bell Flight -- the company that oversees the joint partnership of Bell and Boeing’s V-22 program -- and the military refused to tell Military.com whether Universal Stainless is still making components for the aircraft or what improvements have been made to prevent more issues, despite the 2001 lawsuit, internal knowledge of prior failures of Universal gears, and the deadly mishap that stemmed from the gear failure last year.

Universal Stainless did not return a request for comment.

'That's Glaring'

In the months after the deadly crash of the Air Force Osprey, which belonged to Air Force Special Operations Command and flew under the call sign Gundam 22, a pair of investigations found that the aircraft was brought down by the fracturing of the gear into five large pieces, which caused other failures in one of the two gearboxes that provide power to the Osprey's twin proprotors.

One of the investigations, the internal Safety Investigation Board report, found that the failure was due to the gear being manufactured with bits of material -- non-metallic inclusions -- that aren't part of the metal alloy, which eventually formed the starting point for a crack.

This mode of failure was "similar to those seen on seven previous failures in low-speed planetary pinion gears." The low-speed gears sit next to the same gear in the proprotor gearbox that failed in Gundam 22 and are made from the same alloy.

The office in the Pentagon that oversees the Osprey was made aware of the issue in 2014, according to the investigation.

Bell and Boeing, the two companies that work jointly to build the aircraft, sent the Osprey Joint Program Office a formal risk assessment titled "Gear Metal Raw Material Impurities" that laid out the risks but, according to the Air Force internal investigation, the notice "did not adequately assess risk of high-speed gear failure."

While Universal Stainless is one of three contractors that make gears for the aircraft, the Air Force's investigation noted that it "supplied a significant proportion" of the metal that is used in the Osprey's gearboxes.

Furthermore, when the Osprey Joint Program Office -- part of Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR -- received that notice it did not fully process it to determine whether the risks it outlined would just be accepted by the military or somehow mitigated.

It is not clear from the Air Force investigation why that did not occur, and NAVAIR refused to answer Military.com's questions on the topic in August, citing the "privileged" nature of the Air Force investigation.

The Air Force investigation did say that, in the wake of that risk assessment, "NAVAIR implemented contractual financial withholds in hope the contractor would correct deficiencies in the [alloy] processing that had resulted in previous gear failures." But investigators found that the measure didn't work and the metal continued to be flawed, "suggesting contractual financial withholds did not prompt corrective actions."

Retired Col. J.F. Joseph, a Marine Corps pilot and aviation expert witness, told Military.com that it would be notably concerning if the issue with the gears and alloys had been identified in the past and no action was taken.

"If in the safety analysis, in the previous mishaps, a deficiency in production or quality in production or in terms of materials used were identified at some point that could contribute or cause a mishap, and there was not a remedy taken, that's glaring," Joseph said.

'Defective Steel'

The 2001 lawsuit against Universal Stainless was brought by an aviation company called Teledyne Technologies that made aircraft engines for civilian aircraft. According to a Teledyne filing in the case, it brought the suit because Universal's defective steel resulted in crankshaft failures which, in turn, damaged the rest of the engine.

Teledyne said in its filing that it was forced to recall the part -- more than 200 crankshafts -- and replace them at its own expense at a cost of around $1.7 million.

"Of the crankshafts made from Universal steel that were returned pursuant to the recall and subsequently tested, approximately 92-93% were found to be made from defective steel," the court filing alleged.

A key contention in this lawsuit was the fact that Universal not only falsely certified the alloy as meeting specifications when it didn't, but that it wasn't even conducting the checks to know itself.

Teledyne lawyers said they learned through depositions that Universal had a standards manual. However, according to them, that manual laid out rules "that in reality did not exist, the regular performance of internal audits that were in reality never conducted, and purported compliance with certain military and industry specifications that were not complied with by Universal."

Citing a deposition with Universal's then-director of technology, Teledyne said that

"after months of continuing to produce defective steel, [Universal] 'got better' at making" the aviation-grade alloy, but "while Universal was 'getting better,' the steel it was producing was, among other things, being made into airplane engine parts."

The suit said that investigations found that Universal kept this problem from its board of directors, the company's quality managers, and customers. It went on to note that this secrecy "prevented customers ... from having the opportunity to conduct appropriate tests" that would have discovered the defect and allowed them to take appropriate action.

Moving forward to present day, the Air Force's internal investigation made similar allegations of shoddy and slapdash manufacturing processes against Universal.

Air Force investigators said they compared the work of Universal against Carpenter Technology -- a company that made some of the other gears in the proprotor gearboxes.

"Better incoming material quality and control, tighter inspection requirement, and on-site metallurgy support at Carpenter increased the likelihood of identifying and removing non-metallic inclusions from finished products more so than the process at Universal," the investigation found.

Moreover, investigators noted that Carpenter had voluntarily implemented a better testing procedure to detect non-metallic inclusions in its alloy, while Universal did not.

'Very Complex System'

Despite Air Force Special Operations Command's own investigative findings, Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, its top leader, told reporters at the Air and Space Forces Association's conference outside of Washington, D.C., in September that he didn't believe the November 2023 crash was caused by a bad part that Bell-Boeing should have manufactured better.

"I don't think it was poor material," Conley said at the time. "I don't think it failed before its time. I think a proprotor gearbox is a very complex system with parts moving very fast."

When asked this month whether Conley still stands by his statement after the issues with Universal Stainless went public, an AFSOC spokesperson said he stands by his comments.

However, the command declined to answer whether Universal Stainless is still supplying parts for the V-22 program.

Military.com also reached out to NAVAIR and Bell for this story with a host of questions raised by the lawsuit and its internal investigations.

After more than a week, NAVAIR refused to answer a single question, including whether Universal Stainless is still making parts for the Osprey.

Bell didn't address any of the questions relating to the lawsuit or the issues it raised. A spokesman argued that since the company was not involved in that litigation it wouldn't comment.

"Bell Boeing work very closely with the Joint Program Office to identify and address potential future issues, and we have done so since the beginning of the program," the spokesman said.

The spokesman also refused to say whether Universal Stainless is still making Osprey parts.

Joseph, the former Marine Corps pilot and aviation expert witness, told Military.com that if a part was identified as not being up to standards, it's paramount that the service is transparent about how it has remedied the issue, especially on an aircraft as complicated as the Osprey.

"It's like a recall on a car," Joseph said, describing his analogy as a gross oversimplification but an apt one. "It's no different than that other than this can really kill somebody with something with so many moving parts like a V-22."

military.com · by Konstantin Toropin,Thomas Novelly · November 22, 2024

15. Rebuild of historic Tun Tavern, birthplace of Marine Corps, ceremonially breaks ground in Philadelphia

Very cool.

I would definitely visit to have a beer or two.

Rebuild of historic Tun Tavern, birthplace of Marine Corps, ceremonially breaks ground in Philadelphia

Stars and Stripes · by Lydia Gordon · November 22, 2024

Members and friends of The Tun Legacy Foundation hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking for The Tun, a project to re-create the Tun Tavern, in Philadelphia on Nov. 10, 2024. (Nichole Hignett/True to Life Photography)

Philadelphia has hosted a ceremonial groundbreaking for “The Tun” as part of a project to re-create the historic tavern known to every Marine as the service’s birthplace.

Located just a few hundred feet from the original site, the project is spearheaded by The Tun Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit group led by Marine Corps veteran and Philly native Patrick Dailey.

While last week’s groundbreaking didn’t mark the official start of construction, the foundation used the occasion to celebrate the Marine Corps’ birthday as a symbolic milestone, affirming the project’s commitment to becoming a reality.

The original Tun Tavern served as a mariners’ bar and meeting place for several notable organizations, including the Society of St. George, the Pennsylvania Freemasons, St. Andrew’s Society, the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, the Navy and the Marines.

While the new tavern will honor its Marine Corps connection, The Tun will remain true to its historical roots, paying tribute to all six organizations, Dailey said.

“This is not a Marine Corps museum. We have one of those in Quantico,” he said. “This is a re-creation of a mariner’s tavern.”

Dailey plans for sections of the tavern to showcase its storied history.

An artist's rendering demonstrates the concepts for the interior of The Tun, a project led by The Tun Legacy Foundation to resurrect the historic Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. (Ballinger Architects)

An artist's rendering demonstrates the concepts for the exterior of The Tun, a project led by The Tun Legacy Foundation to resurrect the historic Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. (Ballinger Architects)

Original menus, donated by the Society of St. Andrew’s, will guide some of the offerings. Plans include a microbrewery and a colonial-style warehouse attached to the replicated tavern, to be dubbed the Peg Mullan’s Beefsteak Club, which is what the tavern was known as in the 1740s.

The target opening date is Nov. 10, 2025, to coincide with the Marine Corps’ 250th birthday, but financial challenges could delay the project.

The foundation has received two major donations of $1 million, along with more from fundraising events aided by volunteers, Dailey said. But they’ll need plenty more to fully realize the vision.

“If we don’t have enough funds, we’ll probably have to slow things down, which would be unfortunate,” Dailey acknowledged. He plans to host a commemorative event at the site next year, finished or not.

A more realistic opening date, according to Dailey, may be 2030, aligning with the 300th anniversary of the Freemasons, another key group from the original tavern’s history.

“People thank me for building the tavern,” Dailey said. “I’m not building the tavern — it’s a community effort.”

Contributions have come in many forms, including construction, labor and materials offers from veterans and industry professionals.

The foundation intends to donate all proceeds upon opening to veteran and educational organizations, creating a lasting legacy of service and community.

“I really would like to see it established as the place to go to experience a meal or experience colonial Philadelphia,” Dailey said. “It was such an iconic place in the history of Philadelphia and America.”

Information on the project and The Tun Legacy Foundation can be found at https://thetun.org/.

Stars and Stripes · by Lydia Gordon · November 22, 2024

16. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 24, 2024

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 24, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-24-2024

Russian forces’ recent confirmed battlefield gains near Vuhledar and Velyka Novosilka demonstrate that the war in Ukraine is not stalemated. The frontline in Donetsk Oblast is becoming increasingly fluid as Russian forces recently have been advancing at a significantly quicker rate than they did in the entirety of 2023. Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets stated on November 24 that Russian forces have seized Katerynivka, Yelizavetivka, Illinka, and likely Romanivka (all northeast of Vuhledar along the C051104 highway), and geolocated footage published on November 24 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced to the eastern outskirts of Yelizavetivka. Additional geolocated footage published on November 24 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced to central Trudove (north of Vuhledar). Russian forces also made recent confirmed advances in the Velyka Novosilka area, as geolocated footage published on November 23 and 24 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced south of Rozdolne (northeast of Velyka Novosilka) and to western Novodarivka (southwest of Velyka Novosilka). Russian forces have significantly increased the tempo of their advances in the Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, Vuhledar, and Velyka Novosilka directions since September 1, 2024, having gained at least 1,103 square kilometers in these areas since September 1, 2024. Russian forces, in contrast, only gained 387 square kilometers in all of 2023 due to Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive.

Russian forces’ advances in southeastern Ukraine are largely the result of the discovery and tactical exploitation of vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s lines. Russian forces have been making gradual, tactical advances in southeastern Ukraine since Fall 2024. Russian forces notably have not been able to restore operational maneuver seen during the initial months of Russia's full-scale invasion, and the current Russian tactical advances, although quicker now than in the months of positional warfare that characterized most of 2023 and early 2024, is still far below the Russian rate of advance in March 2022. Russian forces have succeeded in taking advantage of the seizure of Vuhledar for further offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast, contrary to an incorrect previous ISW assessment that forecasted otherwise. Tonight's assessment presents the following courses of action (COAs) that the Russian command may be considering given Russian forces’ recent advances.

COA 1: Russian forces advance southwest, east, and northeast of Velyka Novosilka to envelop the settlement from its flanks, bypassing the area immediately south of Velyka Novosilka.

COA 2: Russian forces advance to Andriivka (along the H15 highway and west of Kurakhove) from the south in support of Russian efforts to close the Ukrainian pockets near Kurakhove and level the frontline.

COA 3: Russian forces advance west and southwest from Selydove along the Pustynka-Sontsivka line in the direction of Andriivka to collapse the Ukrainian pocket north of Kurakhove and threaten Ukrainian egress routes.

It remains unclear which of the COAs the Russian command will pursue, if any. None of the COAs in this analysis were part of the Russian command’s initial objectives for its Fall 2024/Winter 2024-2025 campaign in Donetsk Oblast. The COAs have only emerged as possibilities following the Russian seizure of Vuhledar in October 2024 and tactical advances south of Pokrovsk and near Velyka Novosilka. The Russian command’s self-identified priority in Donetsk Oblast in late 2024 was the seizure of Pokrovsk – an objective the Russian command temporarily abandoned following stiff Ukrainian resistance on Pokrovsk’s outskirts. It is unclear how much advance preparation the Russian command has undertaken to exploit opportunities in this area of operations or what kind of resistance Ukrainian forces will provide as Russian forces advance. Ukraine notably blunted Russian offensive operations near Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk in 2024.

More Key Takeaways:

The Russian military command is likely planning on how to advance into the southeasternmost part of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast in support of Russia's longstanding objective to seize all of Donetsk Oblast.

Elements of the Russian Central, Eastern, and Southern military districts (CMD, EMD, and SMD) are conducting simultaneous, mutually supportive offensive operations in Donetsk Oblast and have recently made relatively rapid tactical advances. The Russian military command may be learning from some battlefield mistakes after three years of war, but the extent of this learning is currently unclear.

The Russian military command appears to be planning more complex operations, but Russian forces have yet to be able to restore operational maneuver to the battlefield and are instead still relying on their ability to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in the Ukrainian defensive lines to make gradual, tactical advances.

Ukrainian forces struck a Russian S-400 air defense system radar in an unspecified area in Kursk Oblast on the night of November 23 to 24.

Russia reportedly recruited hundreds of Yemeni nationals to fight in the Russian military amid growing cooperation between Russia, Iran, and Iran-backed Houthi movement.

Ukrainian and Russian forces recently advanced in the main Ukrainian salient in Kursk Oblast.

Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk, Pokrovsk, Vuhledar, and Velyka Novosilka, and Ukrainian forces recently advanced in the main Ukrainian salient in Kursk Oblast.

17. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 24, 2024

Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 24, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-november-24-2024

Lebanese Hezbollah is likely firing large numbers of rockets at Israel to pressure the Israeli government during ongoing ceasefire negotiations. Hezbollah fired about 250 rockets at civilian and military targets in Israel over seven hours on November 24, according to IDF reports. Some of the rocket fire targeted central Israel, but the majority of Hezbollah’s attacks on November 24 targeted northern Israeli towns. Hezbollah is likely attempting to demonstrate to the Israeli government and people that continuing the IDF’s military operations will not create entirely safe conditions to return northern Israelis to their homes and that a ceasefire deal is the only viable way to accomplish Israeli war aims. One of Israel’s stated war aims is to return Israeli civilians to their homes in the north.

Hezbollah conducted three rocket attacks targeting IDF bases and targets in Tel Aviv, Yavne, and Ashdod that it claimed were in retaliation for recent Israeli airstrikes on northern and central Beirut. Israeli Army Radio reported that Hezbollah fired four barrages of 17 launches into central Israel. These attacks follow Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem’s promise in a November 20 speech that Hezbollah would attack “the center of Tel Aviv” in response to the Israeli airstrikes. Hezbollah claimed that ”Beirut law applies to Tel Aviv” in a graphic published shortly after the attacks.

Key Takeaways:

Iran: A top adviser to the Iranian supreme leader discussed Lebanon and ceasefire negotiations, nuclear policy, and a potential Iranian response to Israel’s October 25 strike. Larijani stated that Iran will not “take any steps” to address the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) concerns about Iran’s nuclear program in the recent IAEA censure resolution if there is no compromise with the IAEA.

Jordan: An unknown gunman fired on a Jordanian police patrol near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, on November 23.

West Bank: Several Israeli settlers attempted to attack a senior IDF commander in Hebron, in the West Bank, on November 22.

Israeli Reservists: Israeli media reported on November 24 that the Israeli government is planning to extend reserve duty for 320,000 IDF reservists until March 2025.

Israeli Murdered in the UAE: The UAE Interior Ministry arrested three unspecified individuals for the murder of Israeli-Moldovan Rabbi Zvi Kogan in the UAE. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel will use “all means necessary...to the fullest extent of the law" to deal with the individuals responsible for Kogan’s murder.

Hezbollah Operations: Lebanese Hezbollah likely fired large numbers of rockets at Israel to pressure the Israeli government during ongoing ceasefire negotiations. Hezbollah fired about 250 rockets at civilian and military targets in Israel in seven hours on November 24, according to IDF reports. Hezbollah is likely attempting to demonstrate to the Israeli government and people that continuing the IDF’s military operations will not create entirely safe conditions to return northern Israelis to their homes and that a ceasefire deal is the only viable way to accomplish Israeli war aims. One of Israel’s stated war aims is to return Israeli civilians to their homes in the north.

Houthi-Russia Cooperation: Russia reportedly recruited hundreds of Yemeni nationals to fight in the Russian military amid growing cooperation between Russia, Iran, and the Iran-backed Houthi movement.

18. Top NATO official calls on business leaders to prepare for 'wartime scenario'

Top NATO official calls on business leaders to prepare for 'wartime scenario'

25 Nov 2024 07:52PM

(Updated: 25 Nov 2024 07:55PM)

channelnewsasia.com

The Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer speaks during an interview in Tallinn, Estonia, on Sep 16, 2022. (Photo: REUTERS/Janis Laizans)

25 Nov 2024 07:52PM (Updated: 25 Nov 2024 07:55PM)

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BRUSSELS: A top NATO military official on Monday (Nov 25) urged businesses to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly, in order to be less vulnerable to blackmail from countries such as Russia and China.

"If we can make sure that all crucial services and goods can be delivered no matter what, then that is a key part of our deterrence," the chair of NATO's military committee, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, said in Brussels.

Speaking at an event of the European Policy Centre think tank, he described deterrence as going far beyond military capability alone, since all available instruments could and would be used in war.

"We're seeing that with the growing number of sabotage acts, and Europe has seen that with energy supply," Bauer said.

"We thought we had a deal with Gazprom, but we actually had a deal with Mr Putin. And the same goes for Chinese-owned infrastructure and goods. We actually have a deal with (Chinese President) Xi (Jinping)."

Bauer noted western dependencies on supplies from China, with 60 per cent of all rare earth materials produced and 90 per cent processed there. He said chemical ingredients for sedatives, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and low blood pressure medicines were also coming from China.

"We are naive if we think the Communist Party will never use that power. Business leaders in Europe and America need to realise that the commercial decisions they make have strategic consequences for the security of their nation," Bauer stressed.

"Businesses need to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly. Because while it may be the military who wins battles, it's the economies that win wars."

Source: Reuters/ec

channelnewsasia.com

19. US drawing up contingency plans for Taiwan emergency: Kyodo

Should not be a surprise. As Admiral Kirby once said, the Department of Defense is one big planning organization and that is what it does: plan for all contingencies.

US drawing up contingency plans for Taiwan emergency: Kyodo

25 Nov 2024 05:14PM

channelnewsasia.com

US drawing up contingency plans for Taiwan emergency: Kyodo

Soldiers put up the antenna of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) during an airfield seizure exercise as part of the US-Philippines Balikatan joint military exercise at San Vicente Airport in Palawan, on May 1, 2024. (File photo: AFP/Jam Sta Rosa)

25 Nov 2024 05:14PM

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TOKYO: The United States is drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan and the Philippines in case of an emergency over Taiwan, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.

They will be incorporated in a first joint operation plan to be formulated in December, Kyodo reported late on Sunday (Nov 24), citing sources familiar with Japan-US relations.

A US Marine regiment which possesses the multiple-launch HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) would be deployed along Japan's Nansei island chain stretching from Kyushu to Yonaguni near Taiwan, Kyodo said.

From an early stage, if a Taiwan contingency becomes highly imminent, temporary bases will be set up on inhabited islands based on US military guidelines for dispatching marines in small formations to several locations, the report added.

Japan's military is expected to mainly engage in logistical support for the marine unit, including supplying fuel and ammunition, it said.

Kyodo added that the US Army would deploy Multi-Domain Task Force long-range fire units in the Philippines.

The Japanese and Philippines defence ministries were not immediately available for comment.

The US embassy in Manila declined to comment.

Asked about the report on Monday, Beijing's foreign ministry said that Taiwan is an "inalienable part of China's territory".

"China firmly opposes relevant countries using the Taiwan issue as an excuse to strengthen regional military deployment, provoke tension and confrontation, and damage regional peace and stability," foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

China is building up its military capacity while ramping up pressure on self-governed Taiwan.

Washington has been strengthening alliances in the region, while infuriating Beijing with regular deployments of ships and fighter jets in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

Source: AFP/dy

channelnewsasia.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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