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(Note: I will be traveling to Warsaw, Poland and Clark Air Base in the Philippines over the next 10 days so my emails will be at different times. I will be spending a bit of time in the air so I may not have the connectivity to provide my daily news distro but I will catch up.)
Quotes of the Day:
"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often, we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."
- John F. Kennedy
"Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying."
- Simone de Beauvoir
"All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory."
~Viet Thanh Nguyen
1. Ukraine works to restore water, power after Russian strikes
2. Taiwan votes in local elections billed as message for China and the world
3. Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party likely to face defeat at local elections: Observers
4. U.S. Expands Bans of Chinese Security Cameras, Network Equipment
5. Is there a difference between TikTok in the U.S. and China? A social media analyst compares it to opium and spinach
6. Ex-US Marine General Among Russia's Wagner Mercenaries: Founder
7. 9DASHLINE — The US-Japan Alliance and Europe: Furthering the existing web of trilaterals and minilaterals
8. China intensifies disinformation, cyberattacks on Taiwan: report
9. To fight West’s ‘hybrid warfare’, Russia to ban ‘LGBT propaganda’
10. Russia Creates Disinformation Militia on Social Media - Diálogo Américas
11. Artillery Is Breaking in Ukraine. It’s Becoming a Problem for the Pentagon.
12. The Future of American Warfare Is Unfolding in Ukraine
13. Top Polish general: No need for Ukrainian forces to change tactics near border
14. IPhone city clashes reviving ‘zero-Covid’ fears
15. The CIA is looking for Russians who are 'disgusted' with the Ukraine war to recruit as spies
16. Andor: Star Wars Recreates the Battle of Algiers (And It Works)
17. US to supply Thailand, Philippines with modular nuclear reactors
18. Riots serve an unexpected lesson in the Pacific
19. ‘The Peacemaker’ Review: Ronald Reagan’s Cold War
20. Thailand’s Navy Chief Says Country Could Cancel Chinese Sub Contract
1. Ukraine works to restore water, power after Russian strikes
Putin continues his evil campaign against Ukrainian civilians. He is trying to conduct a war of exhaustion - the objective being to defeat a nation's will to fight. But what Putin doesn't seem to realize is that these attacks harden the Ukrainian will to survive, fight, and win.
While Putin tries to conduct a war of exhaustion against Ukraine and the West/NATO/EU, it may be Russia that is the one being exhausted. And perhaps the Ukrainian are executing the Nietzsche strategy - that which does not kill me makes me stronger.
Ukraine works to restore water, power after Russian strikes
AP · by JAMEY KEATEN and SAM MEDNICK · November 26, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities endeavored Saturday to restore electricity and water services after recent pummeling by Russian military strikes that vastly damaged infrastructure, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying millions have seen their power restored since blackouts swept the war-battered country days earlier.
Skirmishes continued in the east and residents from the southern city of Kherson headed north and west to flee after punishing, deadly bombardments by Russian forces in recent days. The strikes have been seen as attempts at Russian retribution against Ukraine’s beleaguered but defiant people after Ukrainian troops over two week ago liberated the city that had been in Russian hands for many months.
“The key task of today, as well as other days of this week, is energy,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly televised address late Friday. “From Wednesday to today we have managed to halve the number of people whose electricity is cut off, to stabilize the system.”
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He said, however, that blackouts continued in most regions, including Kyiv, the capital.
“In total, more than 6 million subscribers are affected. On Wednesday evening, almost 12 million subscribers were cut off,” Zelenskyy added.
Europe scrambles to help Ukraine keep the heat and lights on
Russia steps up missile barrage of recaptured Ukrainian city
Germany, France pledge mutual support to avert energy crunch
Trial begins for 2 Swedes charged with spying for Russia
He allowed himself a rare show of pique about how Kyiv authorities were faring, alluding to “many complaints” with the rollouts of “points of invincibility” — public centers where residents can stock up on food, water, battery power and other essentials — in the capital.
“Please pay attention: Kyiv residents need more protection,” he said. “As of this evening, 600,000 subscribers have been disconnected in the city. Many Kyiv residents were without electricity for more than 20 or even 30 hours.”
“I expect quality work from the mayor’s office,” he said, alluding to the administration of Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
The president and the mayor have sporadically sparred since Zelenskyy took office in 2019. Zelenskyy has accused Klitschko and officials around him of corruption, while Klitschko contends the president’s office has put him under political pressure.
Early Saturday, the Kyiv municipal administration said water connections had been restored throughout the city, but that about 130,000 residents remain without electricity.
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City authorities said Saturday morning that all power, water, heating and communication services would be restored within 24 hours.
The scramble to restore power came as Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo met Saturday with Zelenskyy in Kyiv. De Croo tweeted that Belgium was “releasing new humanitarian and military aid,” but gave no immediate details.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians were marking the 90th anniversary of the start of the “Holodomor,” or Great Famine, that killed more than 3 million people over two years as the Soviet government under Josef Stalin confiscated food and grain supplies and deported many Ukrainians.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz marked the commemoration by drawing parallels with the impact of the war on Ukraine — a key supplier of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other foodstuffs — on world markets. Exports from Ukraine have resumed under a U.N.-brokered deal but have still been far short of pre-war levels, driving up global prices.
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“Today, we stand united in stating that hunger must never again be used as a weapon,” Scholz said in a video message. “That is why we cannot tolerate what we are witnessing: The worst global food crisis in years with abhorrent consequences for millions of people – from Afghanistan to Madagascar, from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa.”
He said a World Food Program ship was in the process of delivering Ukrainian grain to Ethiopia, and Germany was adding another 10 million euros to efforts to help expedite grain shipments from Ukraine.
In Kherson, residents continued to flee — or try to. A salvo of missiles struck the recently liberated city for a second day on Friday.
“I have no money, I can’t even buy gas for the car,” said Iryna Rusanovska, standing on the street near the bodies of three people who died from a strike on Thursday. She said wants to take her family to western Ukraine or out of the country.
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Some 100 Kherson residents hopped aboard a government-chartered train in a first organized evacuation on Friday, and buses were expected to ferry others to shelters in the cities of Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, the Ministry of Reintegration said.
___
Mednick reported from Kherson, Ukraine.
AP · by JAMEY KEATEN and SAM MEDNICK · November 26, 2022
2. Taiwan votes in local elections billed as message for China and the world
What message will the elections send and what message will the PRC receive?
Taiwan votes in local elections billed as message for China and the world | CNN
CNN · by Story by Reuters · November 26, 2022
Story by Reuters
Published 10:39 PM EST, Fri November 25, 2022
Staff prepare the ballot box ahead of election day in Taipei, Taiwan, November 26, 2022.
Ann Wang/Reuters
Polls opened in Taiwan on Saturday in local elections that President Tsai Ing-wen has framed as being about sending a message to the world about the island’s determination to defend its democracy in the face of China’s rising bellicosity.
The local elections, for city mayors, county chiefs and local councillors, are ostensibly about domestic issues such as the Covid-19 pandemic and crime, and those elected do not have a direct say on China policy.
But Tsai has recast the election as being more than a local poll, saying the world is watching how Taiwan defends its democracy amid military tensions with China, which claims the island as its territory.
China carried out war games near Taiwan in August to express its anger at a visit to Taipei by then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and its military activities have continued, though on a reduced scale.
Taiwan’s main opposition party the Kuomintang, or KMT, swept the 2018 local elections, and has accused Tsai and the DPP of being overly confrontational with China. The KMT traditionally favours closer ties with China but strongly denies being pro-Beijing.
The election is happening a month after the end of the 20th congress of China’s Communist Party, where President Xi Jinping secured an unprecedented third term in office – a point Tsai has repeatedly made on the campaign trail.
Although the outcome of the election will be an important measure of popular support for both parties, it cannot necessarily be read as an augur for the next presidential and parliamentary races in 2024.
Tsai and the DPP heavily defeated the KMT in 2020 despite their setback at the 2018 local polls. Her second term in office runs out in 2024 and she cannot stand again as president because of term limits.
Both parties have concentrated their efforts on wealthy and populous northern Taiwan, especially the capital, Taipei, whose current mayor, from the small Taiwan People’s Party, cannot stand again after two terms in office.
Taiwanese elections are raucous and colourful affairs, with candidates touring their districts on the backs of trucks and SUVs seeking support, with music blaring and campaign flags fluttering.
There is also a vote on lowering the voting age to 18 from 20, which both parties support.
The election results should be clear by early evening on Saturday.
CNN · by Story by Reuters · November 26, 2022
3. Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party likely to face defeat at local elections: Observers
Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party likely to face defeat at local elections: Observers
Various polls have shown that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party could lose in more than half of the 22 counties and cities up for grabs.
channelnewsasia.com
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is likely to face a major defeat in Saturday’s (Nov 26) local elections.
Various polls so far have shown that the DPP could lose in more than half of the 22 counties and cities up for grabs, with observers largely attributing it to public discontent towards the DPP administration.
The ruling party suffered a big defeat at the 2018 local election, ending up winning in just six counties and cities out of the 22 available. And history is likely to repeat itself for this election, largely due to public discontent towards the DPP government’s domestic policies.
More than half of Taiwanese are unhappy with the way it handled its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, according to various polls. A slowing economy has also eroded voters' confidence in the government.
“The economic environment is bad. It’s not just the impact from COVID-19,” said Mr Andrew Yang, secretary general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies (CAPS) think tank.
“If the government cannot stabilise the economy or provide some hope for future growth, then it is not good for the livelihoods of ordinary citizens.”
Taiwan’s economic growth this year is expected to fall to 3.76 per cent, nearly half of last year’s 6.57 per cent growth, due to slowing global demand and inflationary pressures.
TAIPEI MAYORSHIP RACE CRUCIAL FOR PRESIDENCY BID
The Taipei mayorship, a key race to watch in the local elections, is an important stage for politicians to stake their claim to Taiwan's presidency.
Former Taiwanese presidents Ma Ying-jeou and Chen Shui-bian both helmed the Taipei mayorship before taking the island's top job.
One strong contender for Taipei mayor is Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Chiang Wan-an, a rising star with a legacy to follow.
The 43-year-old is the great-grandson of former Taiwanese president Chiang Kai-shek, who led the party for five decades. His grandfather, Chiang Ching-Kuo, is also a former president.
But his family name has been a topic of debate by rival politicians.
Mr Chiang, a corporate lawyer in the United States before returning in 2013, was elected as a KMT legislator in Taipei in 2016. He quit this year to take part in the mayorship race.
Kuomintang candidate Chiang Wan-an is the great-grandson of former Taiwanese president Chiang Kai-shek, who led the party for five decades. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
Mr Chiang aims to make Taipei the next Silicon Valley, and has promised to address the capital’s ageing infrastructure and population drain.
On ties with China, he disagrees with the proposed “one country, two systems” model but supports KMT's version of the 1992 consensus.
Taipei's former deputy mayor Vivian Huang has also thrown her hat into the ring as an independent candidate, but is seen to have strong ties with the Taiwan People's Party (TPP).
The 53-year-old, a lawyer by trade, aims to build Taipei into a city that integrates the different cultures of immigrants.
If elected, Ms Huang said she hopes to bridge the differences between the pan-blue KMT and pan-green DPP political camps, and form a coalition government comprising people from different backgrounds that puts the people first.
Independent candidate Vivian Huang, seen to have strong ties with the Taiwan People's Party, aims to build Taipei into a city that integrates the different cultures of immigrants. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
Meanwhile, the DPP has put forward former health minister Chen Shih-chung for the Taipei mayoral election.
The 68-year-old, who became health minister in 2017, rose to prominence as the face of the government's COVID-19 response and his reputation peaked when the island boasted a strong record of keeping the virus at bay.
But that popularity has plummeted after the virus landed on Taiwan's shores, with critics accusing him of resting on his laurels.
Some observers are also unsure if his election manifesto, which focuses on social welfare policies such as long-term healthcare and boosting birth rates, is strong enough.
CAPS’ Mr Yang said: “I think he fails to deliver the (manifesto). You must have good policies. It's very important to people’s daily lives. If there aren’t any good policies, they don’t know what you can do for Taipei.”
Mr Chen is not the only DPP candidate having a hard time. Various polls have shown that more than half of the DPP candidates are trailing behind their KMT rivals.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party has put forward former health minister Chen Shih-chung to contest in the Taipei mayoral election. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
UNCLEAR IF LOCAL POLLS WOULD AFFECT PRESIDENTIAL VOTE
Although the local elections are widely seen as a precursor to the 2024 presidential race, results can still turn out differently as shown back in 2020.
That was when President Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP won the presidential election, despite the rival KMT's landslide victory in the earlier local elections in 2018, following the implosion of the anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, incumbent Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je has indicated his intent to run for the 2024 presidency.
The chairman of the TPP, widely lauded as "the third force", is the first to publicly announce his candidacy with the presidential race still two years away.
Analysts believe the outcome of Taiwan’s presidential fight would be influenced more by geopolitical forces.
This is especially after Chinese President Xi Jinping refused to renounce the use of force against Taiwan in his recent speech at the 20th Communist Party Congress.
While it is unclear how much the local election results would influence the 2024 presidential vote, a DPP defeat could be seen as a vote of no confidence in the ruling party, said observers.
“The DPP is likely to use its resources as the ruling party to its advantage. And it will continue to play the China card,” said Associate Professor Huang Kwei-bo of the National Chengchi University.
“Whether that will work depends on the development of the US-China rivalry and China’s behaviour towards Taiwan.”
channelnewsasia.com
4. U.S. Expands Bans of Chinese Security Cameras, Network Equipment
When is the TokTok ban coming and what will be the reaction in the US? Especially among people and those addicted to TikTok. (see this article about addiction: https://www.deseret.com/2022/11/24/23467181/difference-between-tik-tok-in-china-and-the-us)
U.S. Expands Bans of Chinese Security Cameras, Network Equipment
FCC move blocks Dahua, Hikvision and other Chinese manufacturers from selling new equipment
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-expands-bans-of-chinese-security-cameras-network-equipment-11669407355?mod=hp_lead_pos2
By Drew FitzGerald
Updated Nov. 25, 2022 9:16 pm ET
The Federal Communications Commission voted 4-0 to ban sales of new telecom and surveillance equipment made by several Chinese companies, arguing that their ownership and practices threaten U.S. national security.
The rule change affects 10 companies already subject to other restrictions and prohibits them from marketing or importing new products. They include security-camera makers Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., 002415 -0.96%decrease; red down pointing triangle Hytera Communications Corp. 002583 -1.43%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co. 002236 -0.42%decrease; red down pointing triangle and telecom equipment makers Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. 000063 0.66%increase; green up pointing triangle
The FCC made its order public Friday. The latest order stops short of requiring U.S. equipment buyers to remove items they have previously purchased or stripping authorizations for electronics models that already exist.
A spokesman for Hikvision said the FCC’s decision won’t protect U.S. national security, “but will do a great deal to make it more harmful and more expensive for U.S. small businesses, local authorities, school districts, and individual consumers.”
A Huawei spokeswoman declined to comment. Representatives from Hytera, Dahua and ZTE couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. The technology companies have spent months protesting the proposed ban in regulatory filings.
The FCC’s move is the latest by U.S. officials to crimp China’s technology sector and could challenge a tentative rapprochement struck by President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping earlier this month. The two leaders agreed to try to arrest the downward spiral in U.S.-China relations and to resume high-level contacts and find areas of cooperation, like working on climate change.
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Since the Biden-Xi meeting at midmonth, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen held talks with China’s central bank governor and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also met with his Chinese counterpart.
Still, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has said the onus on improving ties is on the U.S., which he said must respect Chinese interests. Among the sore points is an October decision by the Biden administration to ban the export to China of cutting-edge semiconductors and the tools to make them to hobble key Xi goals to boost Chinese technology and military capabilities.
ZTE and especially Huawei previously have been hit by U.S. export controls and faced pressure campaigns by Washington on other countries to restrict business with the Chinese telecommunications equipment makers. The surveillance equipment makers have also been recent targets of the Biden and Trump administrations and U.S. regulators.
Russian security software maker Kaspersky Lab is also on the list of tech companies covered by the sanctions.
Hikvision said earlier this month in an FCC filing that a ban would represent an “unprecedented, unjustified, and unlawful action to ban authorization of end user video surveillance equipment that may never be connected to any public telecommunications or broadband networks.”
Chinese technology companies have spent months protesting the proposed U.S. ban on exports of cutting-edge semiconductors and the tools to make them.
PHOTO: ALEX PLAVEVSKI/SHUTTERSTOCK
Chinese companies have made limited inroads in U.S. cable and cellphone networks over the past decade, but their foothold in the commercial surveillance market runs deeper. Hikvision is the top worldwide seller of professional security equipment by revenue and ranks No. 5 in the U.S., according to market researcher Omdia.
The bipartisan FCC decision adds to a growing list of U.S. rules designed to choke off Chinese technology companies’ access to American infrastructure that officials consider especially vulnerable to potential spying or disruption. The FCC in 2019 blocked businesses that receive federal telecom subsidies from buying Huawei or ZTE equipment. That restriction hurt Huawei’s fledgling sales to rural cable and wireless companies, but stopped short of an outright ban.
The FCC later launched a rule-making process to draw a list of foreign technology companies that “pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons.” The agency in 2021 said it was considering whether its authority over radio signals could be used to restrict covered companies’ authorizations to sell wireless devices.
—Charles Hutzler contributed to this article.
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com
Appeared in the November 26, 2022, print edition as 'Bans of Chinese Technology Expand'.
5. Is there a difference between TikTok in the U.S. and China? A social media analyst compares it to opium and spinach
Is this a line of effort from Unrestricted Warfare. Is this an act of subversion?
From Unrestricted Warfare in 1999. Think about how these excerpts are coming to fruition today.
Now that it has come on the stage of action and has rendered obsolete the traditional divisions of labor prevailing in a society characterized by big industry, warfare no longer is an exclusive imperial garden where professional soldiers alone can mingle. A tendency towards civilianization has begun to become evident [see Endnote 6]. Mao Zedong's theory concerning "every citizen a soldier" has certainly not been in any way responsible for this tendency. The current trend does not demand extensive mobilization of the people. Quite the contrary, it merely indicates that a technological elite among the citizenry have broken down the door and barged in uninvited, making it impossible for professional soldiers with their concepts of professionalized warfare to ignore challenges that are somewhat embarrassing. Who is most likely to become the leading protagonist on the terra incognita of the next war? The first challenger to have appeared, and the most famous, is the computer "hacker." This chap, who generally has not received any military training or been engaged in any military profession, can easily impair the security of an army or a nation in a major way by simply relying on his personal technical expertise.
...
Even those golden rules and precious precepts which we have always upheld also begin to reveal a contrary tendency and become a means for some nations to be able to launch attacks against other nations or certain organizations and individuals to do so against the entire society. It is similar to [the following scenarios]: when there is a computer then there is a computer virus, and when there is currency there is monetary speculation, freedom of faith and religious extremism and heretical religions, common human rights and national sovereignty, free economics and trade protection, national autonomy and global unification, national enterprises versus transnational corporations, information liberalization and information boundaries, and the sharing of knowledge and the monopoly of technology. It is possible for each field that at any moment tomorrow there will break out a war where different groups of people are fighting at close quarters. The battlefield is next to you and the enemy is on the network. Only there is no smell of gunpowder or the odor of blood. However, it is war as before, because it accords with the definition of modern warfare: forcing the enemy to satisfy one's own interests. It is very obvious that none of the soldiers in any one nation possesses sufficient mental preparation against this type of new war which completely goes beyond military space. However, this is actually a severe reality which all soldiers must face.
Is there a difference between TikTok in the U.S. and China? A social media analyst compares it to opium and spinach
Although they’re owned by the same company, China’s version of TikTok offers a child-friendly version, with educational videos and a time limit, that isn’t offered in the U.S.
By Ashley Nash
Nov 24, 2022, 10:35am EST
https://www.deseret.com/2022/11/24/23467181/difference-between-tik-tok-in-china-and-the-us
In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” a tech expert stated that the U.S. version of TikTok — a Chinese-owned social media platform — is different than the Chinese version of the app, comparing the two experiences to opium and spinach.
China’s version of TikTok
Although they’re both owned by ByteDance, Douyin — China’s version of TikTok — offers a different version of the social media app that is unavailable to the rest of the world, especially for children.
“It’s almost like they recognize that technology is influencing kids’ development, and they make their domestic version a spinach version of TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world,” Tristan Harris, a former Google employee, and advocate for social media ethics, said of China’s approach to TikTok.
“If you’re under 14 years old, they show you science experiments you can do at home, museum exhibits, patriotism videos and educational videos,” said Harris, according to “60 Minutes,” adding that children in China were limited to only 40 minutes a day on the app.
“There’s a survey of pre-teens in the U.S. and China asking, ‘what is the most aspirational career that you want to have?’ and in the U.S., the No. 1 was a social media influencer, and in China, the No. 1 was astronaut,” Harris said. “You allow those two societies to play out for a few generations and I can tell you what your world is going to look like.”
How does the U.S. compare?
In the U.S., TikTok is known for its addicting, personalized and predictive algorithm, specifically tailored to the interests of whoever is scrolling, according to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal.
TikTok doesn’t have a specific version made for children, and limits are completely voluntary and can be set up by parents if they wish to do so, according to “60 Minutes.”
Dr. Nia Williams, a researcher at Bangor University who specializes in children’s mental health, told BBC that TikTok’s “short and sweet” video format is designed to give hits of dopamine with each video, keeping users addicted.
“TikTok has videos you might find funny, and you want to see them because they make you feel good. That’s the main nucleus of all sorts of different addictions,” Williams said. “Whatever you search for on TikTok, that algorithm will be kept. The more you search for things that you like, they will be aware of what you like and that’s what you will be fed.”
“It’s a multimillion-pound industry and they will be making money from adverts that will feed into different algorithms,” Williams added.
Taking action
According to previous Deseret News reporting, the FBI recently spoke out about its concern about the personal information TikTok collects, stating potential national security concerns. In 2020, President Donald Trump expressed his own concerns over the app and attempted to outlaw its usage within the U.S. His efforts were paused by President Joe Biden in 2021, per the Deseret News.
Earlier this year, at least eight states launched an investigation into TikTok, researching the effect of the app on the mental health of teens and children, the Deseret News reported.
“Our children are growing up in the age of social media — and many feel like they need to measure up the filtered versions of reality that they see on their screens. We know this takes a devastating toll on children’s mental health and well-being,” said Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general.
deseret.com · by Ashley Nash [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone] · November 24, 2022
6. Ex-US Marine General Among Russia's Wagner Mercenaries: Founder
I have seen no other reports on this. Disinformation? Surely.
Ex-US Marine General Among Russia's Wagner Mercenaries: Founder
By AFP - Agence France Presse
November 25, 2022
https://www.barrons.com/news/ex-us-marine-general-among-russia-s-wagner-mercenaries-founder-01669401607
The head of the Russian mercenary outfit Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Friday that a former US Marine general was working for the group.
In response to a request for comment from Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Prigozhin said: "There are not very many Finnish citizens in the Wagner PMC, about 20 people. But for obvious reasons, I cannot give exact information about them".
"I have a very good opinion about the Finns on the battlefield. They are fighting in a British battalion (as part of Wagner PMC), which is commanded by a US citizen, a former general of the Marine Corps," Prigozhin said as quoted by the press service of his company Concord.
Prigozhin, dubbed "Putin's chef" because of his Kremlin catering contracts, has been hit with EU and US sanctions.
In September he disclosed for the first time that he founded the Wagner group in 2014 to fight in Ukraine and acknowledged its presence in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
For years, the Wagner group has been suspected of playing a role in realising the Kremlin's overseas ambitions, including in Ukraine where Wagner fighters have been at the forefront of Moscow's February offensive.
This month Wagner opened a headquarters in Russia's second city of Saint Petersburg.
bur/pvh
The Barron's news department was not involved in the creation of the content above. This story was produced by AFP. For more information go to AFP.com.
© Agence France-Presse
7. 9DASHLINE — The US-Japan Alliance and Europe: Furthering the existing web of trilaterals and minilaterals
Conclusion:
A US-Japan Alliance-Plus engagement with Europe is certainly not devoid of challenges. First of all, such mechanisms would most likely encounter strong criticism from China, which has generally denounced regional US-led minilaterals as mechanisms aimed at containing Beijing and as tools reflecting Washington and its allies’ ‘Cold War mentality’. Second, a divergence of interests and priorities among European actors, the US, and Japan remains. This is evident if we consider Europe’s more cautious approach to the Indo-Pacific and China. For example, Europeans appear to be more interested in the mercantile rationale rather than in the strategic competition that animates US-Japan security relations. A carefully calibrated approach that keeps these challenges in mind is a must when exploring avenues for US-Japan-Europe trilaterals and/or minilateral collaborations. Even so, developing cross-regional consultative mechanisms that enhance connectivity among US allies should only be welcomed.
9DASHLINE — The US-Japan Alliance and Europe: Furthering the existing web of trilaterals and minilaterals
WRITTEN BY ALICE DELL’ERA
25 November 2022
9dashline.com
The US-Japan security partnership has long functioned as the cornerstone of America’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Since the end of the Cold War, this alliance has evolved, with Japan progressively assuming a greater share of the responsibility of securing regional peace and stability. Most notably, since the 2000s, the alliance has extended out of the traditional hub-and-spoke structure of the Cold War, reaching out to other regional actors with the aim of establishing a networked security structure that could better address the growing challenges of a more complex and competitive strategic environment. The two allies have both individually and jointly pursued this ‘bilateralism-plus’, through nurturing a variety of trilateral and minilateral regional mechanisms that extend out of their bilateral alliance.
So far, this has predominantly remained an intra-regional issue, involving actors such as the Republic of Korea, Australia, and India. In light of Europe’s tilt towards the Indo-Pacific, novel opportunities to further US-Japan Alliance-centred networks are emerging. Developing trilateral and/or minilateral consultative mechanisms that create connections between Europe and the US-Japan Alliance could open up new avenues for practical cooperation among these actors. This goal resonates well with the Biden Administration's objective to “create ‘greater connectivity’ among democratic partners and allies of the United States, one that goes beyond regional coalitions”.
Building networks with Europe
Exploring avenues for trilateral and/or minilateral cooperation with European partners does not need to start from a blank slate. Such informal liaisons with Europe could be built out of the existing structures that Japan has established over the past two decades. Through its diplomatic outreach, Japan has progressively deepened its relations with European countries — mainly France, the UK, and Germany. Attempts to engage with Europe intensified during the first Abe Cabinet, under the ‘Arc of Freedom and Prosperity Initiative’. While this initiative advocated constructing an ‘arc’ of democracies along the outer rim of Eurasia, the Japanese government also conceived it as a means to build a ‘bridge’ between the US and Asia through Europe. Once Abe returned to power in 2012, he renewed his efforts in developing Japan’s ties with European partners.
In light of Europe’s tilt towards the Indo-Pacific, novel opportunities to further US-Japan Alliance-centred networks are emerging.
In 2013, Japan and France issued a roadmap that aimed to develop political, security, and defence dialogues and cooperation. The following year, the two held their first 2+2 meeting. Similarly, London and Tokyo asserted their “dynamic strategic partnership” in 2014, and later launched their own 2+2 in 2015. Over the past eight years, Japan-European relations have further matured. Cooperation between Japan and France deepened as Paris developed its Indo-Pacific strategy — the first European actor to do so. In 2019, the two partners updated their cooperation roadmap, in which they pledged to strengthen their security cooperation across diverse projects. They also established new mechanisms, such as the Japan-France Comprehensive Maritime Dialogue and a Working Group on the Indo-Pacific.
In 2017, the UK and Japan elevated their relations to the level of a global strategic partnership and issued a joint statement on security. The two also worked on negotiating a historic Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA), which was reached (in principle) last May and, according to leaks, is set to be signed this December. This would be Japan’s third RAA and the first with an extra-regional partner. Progress in developing Japan-Europe relations has also extended to Germany. While relations between Tokyo and Berlin have traditionally focused on both political and economic dimensions, security and defence have emerged over the last few years as new areas for cooperation. In 2021, the two countries launched their first 2+2 — a historic event, given Berlin’s traditional resistance to such mechanisms. Recently, the two partners also agreed to negotiate an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement — a deal that Japan already shares with its two other European partners.
Tokyo has engaged with the three European actors in terms of defence, including through joint military training. While Franco-Japanese bilateral exercises had been taking place since the early 2010s, by 2018 they had expanded beyond “goodwill training”. A similar trend has been evidenced by British participation in more advanced joint exercises and port calls. Lastly, in 2021, after a 20-year hiatus, the German frigate Bayern visited Tokyo on its first Indo-Pacific deployment. Recently, Berlin also held joint air force exercises with Japan’s Air Self-Defence Force (ASDF).
Some of these military exercises and training already involve the United States in either a trilateral, quadrilateral, and/or minilateral form. For example, Washington, Tokyo, and Paris held their first trilateral exercise in 2015 — which London joined two years later. The UK, Japan, and the US navies also signed a trilateral cooperation agreement in 2019. Other notable examples of joint exercises include the French-sponsored La Perouse and ARC21, as well as Germany’s participation in the US-Japan 2021 ANNUALEX. These minilateral exercises already entail some degree of coordination at the operational level. Nonetheless, other forms of joint political and security consultations could substantiate this cooperation.
Why US-Japan-Europe networks matter
Multiple analysts have pointed to the added value of trilaterals and minilaterals in the context of Indo-Pacific security. One argument is that their flexibility and informality enable consensus-building and the exchange of ideas. Some argue that such informal structures have the potential to encourage the “pooling of capabilities and resources”, thus facilitating additional divisions of responsibility and labour. These benefits extend beyond intra-regional mechanisms and are just as valid for cross-regional arrangements.
An extra-regional US-Japan Alliance-Plus approach could prove beneficial for all actors involved. Most importantly, mechanisms connecting European allies and the US-Japan Alliance could function as discussion forums to identify the crucial security challenges that intersect both the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions. Such platforms could prompt better coordination between the US, Japan, and European partners, as these actors could more directly compare notes on their unilateral and joint initiatives. This, in turn, could open new areas for collaboration among these like-minded partners.
From Europe’s perspective, these potential trilateral and/or minilateral consultative mechanisms could give European actors the space to voice their own outlook, ensuring that European viewpoints are incorporated into Japanese and American perspectives. For Washington, such forms of engagement could, in turn, provide the opportunity to identify and build on existing synergies with the European Indo-Pacific approach, while leveraging and balancing what many in Europe see as excesses of the American strategy. Last but not least, from a Japanese perspective, these mechanisms could help sustain European interest in the Indo-Pacific region, an objective that is very dear to the Japanese government.
A bumpy road ahead
A US-Japan Alliance-Plus engagement with Europe is certainly not devoid of challenges. First of all, such mechanisms would most likely encounter strong criticism from China, which has generally denounced regional US-led minilaterals as mechanisms aimed at containing Beijing and as tools reflecting Washington and its allies’ ‘Cold War mentality’. Second, a divergence of interests and priorities among European actors, the US, and Japan remains. This is evident if we consider Europe’s more cautious approach to the Indo-Pacific and China. For example, Europeans appear to be more interested in the mercantile rationale rather than in the strategic competition that animates US-Japan security relations. A carefully calibrated approach that keeps these challenges in mind is a must when exploring avenues for US-Japan-Europe trilaterals and/or minilateral collaborations. Even so, developing cross-regional consultative mechanisms that enhance connectivity among US allies should only be welcomed.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Alice Dell’Era is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at the Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs at Florida International University, and a Junior Fellow at the Centro Studi Geopolitica.info. Her research focuses on the US alliance network and security in the Indo-Pacific. Image credit: European Union, 2022.
9dashline.com
8. China intensifies disinformation, cyberattacks on Taiwan: report
"Cognitive Warfare."
China intensifies disinformation, cyberattacks on Taiwan: report
Beijing's campaign focuses on cognitive warfare, Japanese think tank says
RYO NEMOTO, HIDEAKI RYUGEN and YU NAKAMURA, Nikkei staff writers
November 26, 2022 04:14 JST
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Taiwan-tensions/China-intensifies-disinformation-cyberattacks-on-Taiwan-report
TOKYO/TAIPEI -- China's armed forces are increasingly engaging in nonmilitary warfare on Taiwan that weaponizes disinformation and psychological manipulation, according to a report released Friday by a Japanese Defense Ministry think tank.
The annual China Security Report, published by the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS), focuses on the cognitive warfare being adopted by the Chinese Communist Party. That approach propagates information useful to the party through social media platforms and cyberspace.
China is fielding highly diversified influence operations, according to the report. They include "public opinion warfare" to influence perceptions, "psychological warfare" that relies on intimidation, and "legal warfare" that takes the battle to the courts.
China envisions the use of these "three warfares" in tandem with military operations, according to the report. These influence operations "are wide ranging and present a major threat to Taiwan," the report concluded.
For example, China would spread disinformation, sail naval vessels in Taiwan's contiguous zone and conduct military exercises, according to the report, with the aim of causing mass panic on the self-governed island.
When it comes to Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambition to unite Taiwan with the mainland, the report highlighted Taiwan's view that China looks to "win without a fight" before the U.S. military moves to intervene. China's influence operations would be a concrete approach to attain that outcome.
According to the report, China created the Strategic Support Force to run influence operations as part of Xi's military reforms in 2015. The unit is responsible for carrying out cyber and electronic warfare, as well as space operations.
The Strategic Support Force appears to be "deeply engaged in the struggle for the psychological and cognitive domain," the report said.
Taiwan sustained 1.4 billion cyberattacks between September 2019 and August 2020, according to the NIDS paper. The attacks hit political, economic and military entities, and were apparently attempts to destroy or steal data.
There is evidence that Chinese actors are spreading harmful information under the guise of Taiwanese users, according to the report.
In April 2020, during the height of the pandemic, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said he had been subject to racial slurs on the internet from Taiwanese accounts.
Taiwan responded by saying the slurs originated from China, but were made under the pretense of being Taiwanese people.
"It can be interpreted that this was an attack with elements of an influence operation to control the thought process of Director-General Tedros," the report said.
China has also used its media to increase pressure on Taiwan. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the Communist Party-affiliated newspaper Global Times published an editorial that Taiwan's pro-independence factions could not rely on the U.S. to achieve their goals, the NIDS report noted.
Opinion polls cited in the report showed confidence significantly dropped among the Taiwanese public that the U.S. would get involved in a conflict on the island. With U.S. President Joe Biden declaring that troops would not be sent to Ukraine, the Global Times editorial was an example of China seeking to exploit the situation, according to the report's analysis.
Furthermore, the report highlighted a case in which a member of a Taiwanese pro-unification party allegedly received financial support from a Chinese intelligence agency. In another case, a retired Taiwanese military officer was contacted by apparent Chinese spies.
The report noted the possibility that China could be overestimating the impact of its influence operations, which can be difficult to gauge. China's one-party system, with Xi consolidating power at the top, has few mechanisms to correct a faulty course.
Beijing has a tendency to continuing with operations that do more to stoke antipathy toward China than sway their targets, the report said.
During the early days of the Ukraine invasion, Russia failed to seize the upper hand in the propaganda war, as Western governments and companies worked to take down disinformation. The Japanese report said this development showed China "the limits of using nonmilitary methods."
Taiwan is preparing to hold quadrennial local elections Saturday, raising concerns about attempts by Beijing to affect results through cyberattacks or disseminating fake news.
But "Chinese interference in our election is not as prevailing as previous elections," Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told reporters Wednesday, while noting it is an issue Taiwan constantly faces.
A wave of cyberattacks believed to be connected to China came in August, when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island. Digital signs at convenience stores and near a major train station were apparently hacked to display messages criticizing Pelosi and the trip.
9. To fight West’s ‘hybrid warfare’, Russia to ban ‘LGBT propaganda’
Some irony here.
Parallels to some western political factions?
To fight West’s ‘hybrid warfare’, Russia to ban ‘LGBT propaganda’
The Sydney Morning Herald · by Filipp Lebedev · November 24, 2022
By Filipp Lebedev
November 25, 2022 — 6.01am
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Moscow: Russia’s parliament approved on Thursday a bill that widens a prohibition of “LGBT propaganda” and restricts the “demonstration” of LGBT behaviour, making any expression of an LGBT lifestyle almost impossible.
Under the new law, which still needs the approval of the upper house of parliament and President Vladimir Putin, any action or information that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality - whether in public, online, or in films, books or advertising - could incur a heavy fine.
A woman holds a poster depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin during a protest in front of the Russian embassy in Madrid, Spain in 2013.Credit:AP
Previously, the law had outlawed only promotion of LGBT lifestyles aimed at children. The new bill also bans the “demonstration” of LGBT behaviour to children.
Lawmakers say they are defending traditional values of the “Russian world” against a liberal West they say is determined to destroy them - an argument also increasingly being used by officials as one of the justifications for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.
Authorities have already used the existing law to stop gay pride marches and detain gay rights activists. Rights groups say the new law is intended to drive so-called “non-traditional” LGBT lifestyles practised by lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people out of public life altogether.
The State Duma, The Federal Assembly of The Russian Federation, in Moscow. Credit:AP
‘Hybrid warfare’
“LGBT today is an element of hybrid warfare and in this hybrid warfare we must protect our values, our society and our children,” Alexander Khinstein, one of the bill’s architects, said last month.
Legal experts said the vagueness of the bill’s language gives room for law enforcers to interpret them as broadly as they wish, leaving members of the LGBT community in a state of even greater uncertainty.
Kseniya Mikhailova of the LGBT support group Vykhod (“Coming Out”) said adults-only gay bars or clubs would probably still be allowed to function, although perhaps not to advertise, but that same-sex kissing in public might be taken as an infraction.
And she said same-sex couples would begin to fear that their children might be taken from them on the grounds that they were having an LGBT lifestyle demonstrated to them.
The law stipulates fines of up to 400,000 roubles ($9790) for individuals and up to 5 million roubles for legal entities. Foreigners could face 15 days of arrest and subsequent expulsion.
Mikhailova said the original ban nine years ago on LGBT “propaganda” towards minors had triggered a wave of attacks on the LGBT community, and that it could now expect a “tsunami” because the amendment in effect “says the state is not against violence towards LGBT people”.
Political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann said the law aimed to prohibit anything that showed LGBT relations or inclinations to be “socially acceptable” or “equal to so-called traditional family relations or sexual relations”.
“People - authors, publishers, just people - will think twice before even mentioning anything related to LGBT,” she said in an interview from Cologne, Germany.
Schulmann said the bill was also a “huge win” for the communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, which had already “assumed the powers of a political police” and now had the authority and responsibility to monitor all kinds of information in search of LGBT propaganda.
The video-sharing app TikTok was fined 3 million roubles last month for promoting “videos with LGBT themes”, while Russia’s media regulator asked publishing houses to look at withdrawing all books containing “LGBT propaganda” from sale.
Reuters
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The Sydney Morning Herald · by Filipp Lebedev · November 24, 2022
10. Russia Creates Disinformation Militia on Social Media - Diálogo Américas
Russia Creates Disinformation Militia on Social Media - Diálogo Américas
dialogo-americas.com · November 22, 2022
A multilingual Telegram channel sponsored by the Russian government serves as a repository for Russian propaganda videos about the war in Ukraine, Nisos, a U.S.-based digital intelligence firm that monitors disinformation and other cyberthreats, said in an October report.
“The videos can be downloaded directly from Telegram and that erases the trail that experts are trying to follow […],” said Patricia Bailey, senior intelligence analyst at Nisos, Voice of America reported.
“For the [Vladimir] Putin regime, narrative positioning is crucial: starting with the justification of the invasion in response to Ukraine’s intention to join NATO to the accusations of Nazism made against the Zelenskyy government. These are the bases of an argument that is flowing on social media and where few trace its origin to the Kremlin,” María Isabel Puerta, political scientist, PhD in Social Sciences, and professor at Valencia College in Orlando, Florida, told Diálogo on November 6. “For Russia, counter-information is important, as are social networks, because they are environments vulnerable to disinformation.”
The videos available in 18 languages were disseminated on various social media through profiles with a “coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB),” meaning that these are “coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate and achieve a strategic goal, where fake accounts are a central part of the operation,” Meta, the technology company formerly known as Facebook, indicated in a statement.
“The Russian state-controlled international news outlet RT is sponsoring the initiative as one of many recent tactics for circumventing Western bans on its media content,” Nisos said in the report. “The channel’s videos all tell the same story from different angles, claiming that the Russian military is generously saving a Ukrainian population besieged by a corrupt, genocidal government and by Nazi militants.”
Nisos identified 275 users on Twitter who post the videos and 123 users who post messages with identical syntax. Most do not use a human face as a profile picture and have linked to Russian ministries, embassies, and/or media accounts. In addition, other accounts function as amplifiers of the profiles of ministries, Russian embassies, and multilingual editions.
According to Nisos, the content was most frequently found in Spanish and Italian, followed closely by English, French, and Japanese. The second-tiered languages were German, Chinese, Turkish, Polish, and Russian.
Russian disinformation has triggered responses from neighboring countries. For example, the Kremlin claimed that Ukraine could use a “dirty bomb” on its own territory and then blame them, Swiss information platform SwissInfo reported on October 24. This Russian disinformation elicited a reaction from Poland, who believed that Russia’s intentions were to use this lie and take it out of context.
“In a blatant effort, Russia is trying to make an international issue in a bid to affect the relations between Ukraine and the West and stir up mistrust towards Kyiv,” Stanisław Żaryn, Poland’s secretary of state, said via Twitter. “It is also likely that these lies, currently high on the agenda of Russian propaganda, serve as an information background for possible Russian false-flag attacks that the Kremlin would later blame on Ukraine. Russia uses lies and false accusations to cover its own crimes.”
Dr. Puerta believes that Twitter currently lacks controls, making it much easier for disinformation to spread. “That’s what regimes like that of Vladimir Putin take advantage of. This is a backlash, due in part to the sweeping success of unchecked communication technology.”
Nisos concludes that this disinformation strategy took advantage of Twitter accounts that were already active to boost the profiles of Russian embassies or Russian media in various languages. Finally, it warns that further crossover from Telegram to newer social media platforms could be dangerous.
dialogo-americas.com · November 22, 2022
11. Artillery Is Breaking in Ukraine. It’s Becoming a Problem for the Pentagon.
Weapons testing is great but there is no better test than operating weapons in field and war conditions. I imagine we are gathering a lot of data to support maintenance projections which hopefully is informing our industrial base. We should be using Ukraine for data on "demand history" for stickage of repair parts and replacements.
I recall when we were about to receive the new HMMWVs in Korea in 1986. We had a great maintenance warrant officer who wanted to ensure we maintained a high readiness rate (we were stationed on the DMZ afterall). When the new vehicles were fielded we were only authorized three lines of PLL (prescribed load list) of spare parts. All three lines had to do with the run flat tires. Nothing at all for the drive train (to include glow plugs which were notoriously ruined by new drivers trying to start the vehicles without using the proper procedure). So this smart warrant officer made phone calls to other units in the US and Europe that had received HMMWVs over the past year and asked for their demand histories. (back in the days of autovon or DSN phone calls and snail mail). He collected a lot of data, conducted some analysis and determined that we should stock about 90 lines of PLL to ensure we maintain our readiness rates. He submitted his analysis to the DISCOM and was basically told to shut and color and that we would not be authorized additional PLL until we had built up our own demand history which of course meant suffering through lower readiness rates. Seemed pretty foolish to us but we could not get higher headquarters to budge. The rationale was the manufacturer had done the analysis and told the Army all that it needed was these three lines and this was a way to keep costs down (at the expense of readiness). I relay all this to ask if we will use Ukrainian data to improve our maintenance processes for all these weapons systems?
Artillery Is Breaking in Ukraine. It’s Becoming a Problem for the Pentagon.
Ukrainian soldiers are firing thousands of shells daily, forcing the U.S. to replace gun barrels across the border in Poland.
nytimes.com · by Thomas Gibbons-Neff · November 25, 2022
Western-made artillery pieces like the M777s sent by the Pentagon gave Ukrainian soldiers a lifeline.Credit...Libkos/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Ukrainian troops fire thousands of explosive shells at Russian targets every day, using high-tech cannons supplied by the United States and its allies. But those weapons are burning out after months of overuse, or being damaged or destroyed in combat, and dozens have been taken off the battlefield for repairs, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials.
A third of the roughly 350 Western-made howitzers donated to Kyiv are out of action at any given time, according to U.S. defense officials and others familiar with Ukraine’s defense needs.
Swapping out a howitzer’s barrel, which can be 20 feet long and weigh thousands of pounds, is beyond the capability of soldiers in the field and has become a priority for the Pentagon’s European Command, which has set up a repair facility in Poland.
Western-made artillery pieces gave Ukrainian soldiers a lifeline when they began running low on ammunition for their own Soviet-era howitzers, and keeping them in action has become as important for Ukraine’s allies as providing them with enough ammunition.
The effort to repair the weapons in Poland, which has not previously been reported, began in recent months. The condition of Ukraine’s weapons is a closely held matter among U.S. military officials, who declined to discuss details of the program.
“With every capability we give to Ukraine, and those our allies and partners provide, we work to ensure that they have the right maintenance sustainment packages to support those capabilities over time,” Lt. Cmdr. Daniel Day, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command, said in a statement.
When the ammunition for Ukraine’s Soviet-era guns, which fire shells 152 millimeters in diameter, grew scarce shortly after the invasion, NATO-standard howitzers that fire 155-millimeter shells became some of Ukraine’s most important weapons, given the vast stockpiles of compatible shells held by Kyiv’s partners.
The Pentagon has sent 142 M777 howitzers to Ukraine, enough to outfit about eight battalions, the most recent tally of U.S. military aid to Ukraine shows. Ukrainian troops have used them to attack enemy troops with volleys of 155-millimeter shells, to target command posts with small numbers of precision-guided rounds and even to lay small antitank minefields.
Both Russia and Ukraine have struggled to meet the demand for artillery ammunition on the front. Russia has turned to North Korea for ordnance, and Ukraine has requested more shells from its allies.
The United States has shipped hundreds of thousands of rounds of 155-millimeter ammunition for Ukraine to fire in the largest barrages on the European continent since World War II and has committed to providing nearly a million of the shells in all from its own inventory and private industry.
Ukrainian forces have also received 155-millimeter shells from countries besides the United States. Some of those shells and propellant charges had not been tested for use in certain howitzers, and the Ukrainian soldiers have found out in combat that some of them can wear out barrels more quickly, according to U.S. military officials.
After the damaged howitzers arrive in Poland, maintenance crews can change out the barrels and make other repairs. Ukrainian officials have said they would like to bring those maintenance sites closer to the front lines, so that the guns can be returned to combat sooner, the U.S. officials and other people said.
The work on the howitzers is overseen by U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, but may soon fall under a new command that will focus on training and equipping Ukrainian troops.
“It’s not altogether surprising that there are maintenance issues with these weapons,” said Rob Lee, a military analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “They didn’t get a full training package for them and then were thrown into the fight, so you are going to get a lot of wear and tear.”
The Western artillery weapons provided to Ukraine, in the form of rocket launchers and howitzers, have sharply different maintenance needs. Of the former, HIMARS vehicles need little work to keep firing their ammunition, which is contained in pods of pre-loaded tubes. But howitzers are essentially large firearms that are reloaded with ammunition — shells weighing about 90 pounds each — and fired many hundreds or thousands of times, which eventually takes a toll on the cannon’s internal parts.
The nature of the artillery duels, in which Ukrainian crews often fire from extremely long distances to make Russian counterattacks more difficult, places additional strain on the howitzers. The larger propellant charges required to do that produce much more heat and can cause gun barrels to wear out more quickly.
Currently, Ukrainian forces are firing 2,000 to 4,000 artillery shells a day, a number frequently outmatched by the Russians. Over time, that pace has caused problems for Ukrainian soldiers using M777 howitzers, such as shells not traveling as far or as accurately.
Some of the issues can be traced, in part, to the howitzer’s design. Built largely with titanium, which is lighter than steel but just as strong, the weapon is easier to move on the battlefield and quicker to set up than earlier guns — a clear advantage for the United States when it began using the M777 in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s.
In those wars, unlike in Ukraine, the M777 was generally used to fire small numbers of shells in support of troops.
The United States did, however, get a glimpse of what might happen to Ukraine’s M777 howitzers five years ago, during the campaign to defeat the Islamic State.
In 2017, a Marine artillery battery from Camp Lejeune deployed to Syria with four M777 guns and fired more than 23,000 rounds of 155-millimeter ammunition in five months of supporting combat operations in Raqqa — nearly 55 times what a typical battery of that size would normally fire in a year of peacetime training.
As a result, three of the battery’s howitzers had to be removed because of excessive wear over the course of that deployment and were replaced with guns held in reserve in Kuwait.
When one of the howitzers went down, the others simply fired more, an option the Ukrainians are forced to choose daily.
nytimes.com · by Thomas Gibbons-Neff · November 25, 2022
12. The Future of American Warfare Is Unfolding in Ukraine
There are no cookie cutter solutions to various security challenges. One size does not fit all. Ukraine and Afghanistan are as different as apples and oranges (or wheat and opium). That said there is a lot to learn from the Ukraine situation on many different levels.
The Future of American Warfare Is Unfolding in Ukraine
Aid to Ukrainian forces is achieving more than the long U.S. intervention in Afghanistan did.
By Phillips Payson O’Brien
The Atlantic · by Phillips Payson O’Brien · November 25, 2022
American military aid to Ukraine has been remarkably effective, especially in comparison with the long, ill-fated U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan. A recent statement by General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helps explain why. “Ukrainians are not asking for anyone to fight for them,” Milley said. “They don’t want American soldiers, or British, or German, or French, or anybody else to fight for them. They will fight for themselves.” The Ukrainians want only the means to defend themselves against Russian invaders, he said, adding that the United States would provide support “for as long as it takes.” By providing advanced weaponry and reliable intelligence, the United States and its allies have allowed Ukraine to inflict large losses on Russian armed forces and roll back earlier Russian territorial gains.
America’s failure in Afghanistan, by contrast, seemed so complete in 2021 that it may have encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The American response to this year’s crisis—providing a high level of military support without deploying American forces—is not just the best way to help Ukraine secure its independence and thwart Putin. It also offers a model for how the U.S. should define its international military involvement.
From the December 2022 issue: The Russian empire must die
Although the decline of U.S. power has been significantly overstated in some quarters, America’s economic decline relative to the rest of the world is real. Economic strength and technological strength have become more dispersed around the globe, and over time military strength is likely to follow the same pattern. This is one reason avoiding boots-on-the-ground interventions will become ever more of an imperative. The presumption that the U.S. needs to deploy ground forces in a fighting capacity if it wants to achieve meaningful results from interventions has been evident again and again since the 1980s. Yet the reality has often been the opposite. The more the U.S. takes over and inserts its own forces into a conflict, the more expensive and, in most cases, counterproductive the intervention becomes. Such conflicts are also more polarizing for American society—as U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Iraq, and to a lesser extent Afghanistan demonstrate. Meanwhile, avoiding ground wars but relying on financial aid, advanced technology, intelligence, and even diplomatic coordination and outreach is something the U.S. actually can do effectively.
The shambolic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Kabul—after two decades of effort, many billions of dollars, and many civilian and military deaths—ended one of the most counterproductive and wasteful interventions that the U.S. has ever staged. Americans had lavished resources on the official Afghan army, but it put up only the meekest of resistance to the advancing Taliban before melting away. Some Afghan soldiers even changed sides. Within days after the U.S. departure, the Taliban, which the Americans had deposed in 2001, returned to power—making the U.S. look demoralized and indecisive to, among other observers, the Russian government. When combined with an ongoing American strategic pivot toward emerging conflicts in East Asia, the outcome in Afghanistan seemed to preclude a strong U.S. intervention on Ukraine’s behalf. Indeed, many commentators argued that helping Ukraine would be pointless, because an American commitment would not make a material difference in stopping the Russian assault.
But in fact, the U.S. has helped the Ukrainians not only resist the initial onslaught, but begin driving Russian forces back. Washington has provided the Ukrainian armed forces with a range of equipment, including both supplies for individual soldiers, such as body armor and small arms, and large, sophisticated weaponry, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. Ukrainian forces are also receiving expedited training and regular support—from outside Ukraine’s borders, notably—on how to maintain and repair American-made military equipment. The extensive real-time intelligence cooperation between Washington and Kyiv has given the Ukrainian military the ability to strike vital Russian facilities quickly and effectively.
Impressively and somewhat surprisingly, the kind of intervention that the U.S. has overseen in Ukraine has helped reinvigorate NATO. The alliance, which seemed close to moribund a year ago, has a renewed sense of purpose and will soon gain two strategically important members: Finland and Sweden. Being a member of NATO now looks like a great strategic asset—as Ukraine’s desire to join it demonstrates. Western assistance for Ukraine has been so effective that some voices are now arguing Ukraine must be restrained by the U.S. and forced to negotiate, lest the war become too embarrassing for Putin.
The differences between America’s roles in Ukraine and Afghanistan suggest a rule for the future: The United States should avoid direct fighting overseas to the extent possible and should intervene in wars only to support peoples and nations that want to fight for themselves. Ukrainians have fought for their country with tenacity and skill, mastered complex weapons systems at their own initiative, and maintained high morale. The U.S. is aiding them, but it is the Ukrainians—everyday soldiers, senior generals, civilians under bombardment, top government officials, and diplomats marshaling international support—who are ultimately determining their own fate.
Phillips Payson O’Brien: Russia just showed why it’s floundering in Ukraine
Although the 2001 U.S. intervention in Afghanistan received early support from multiple Afghan factions, U.S. forces bore the burden of exercising military control as time passed. The abortive attempt to create a new Afghan army yielded a force apparently lacking independence of thought and action. The same seems to have been the case for the U.S.-backed Afghan government, which was unable to command the loyalty of enough Afghans to hold power without American military support.
Sadly, the U.S. frequently forgets lessons from history. In Vietnam, the U.S. ended up sabotaging its own efforts by gradually sidelining the army of South Vietnam and regularly undermining the South Vietnamese government’s legitimacy. In replacing local forces, American military leaders reasoned that more U.S. involvement would achieve key goals, without appreciating how the deployment of more American personnel reshaped and complicated the conflict.
Many of America’s greatest Cold War successes derived from helping one side in a conflict rather than sending U.S. troops to fight. In the 1980s, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, American aid to the local mujahideen was extremely effective in helping them repel a far more technologically advanced military power. Elsewhere, aid to dissident groups opposing communism in Eastern Europe paid off handsomely. Basic support ultimately helped make the struggle for political rights in Eastern Europe impossible for a declining Soviet Union to manage.
While the downsides of direct deployment of U.S. troops have grown clearer, the benefits of showing restraint and scaling American intervention to help others fight for themselves have grown. The lessons of Afghanistan and Ukraine should inform American planning about, for instance, how best to help Taiwan defend itself against a future invasion from mainland China. As the Ukrainians have shown, American equipment is often generations better than that of other powers. Decades of heavy investment in satellites and other intelligence-collection devices have allowed the U.S. to provide support in a variety of ways. The war in Ukraine proves that the U.S. can provide more effective strategic aid than any other country in the world—without necessarily having to rely on sending its own troops.
The Atlantic · by Phillips Payson O’Brien · November 25, 2022
13. Top Polish general: No need for Ukrainian forces to change tactics near border
Advice for every advisor out there. Listen to this General.
"I cannot imagine myself telling Ukrainians, 'Change your position because it's not sufficient for me.'"
Top Polish general: No need for Ukrainian forces to change tactics near border - Breaking Defense
“I do not expect any change in Ukrainian performance because they are fighting for their country," said Gen. Rajmund Andrzejczak, chief of staff of the Polish armed forces. "I cannot imagine myself telling Ukrainians, 'Change your position because it's not sufficient for me.'"
By VALERIE INSINNA
on November 23, 2022 at 2:04 PM
breakingdefense.com · by Valerie Insinna · November 23, 2022
Rajmund Andrzejczak is the Chief of the General Staff for Poland. (Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
HALIFAX — Regardless of the result of the investigation into a projectile that exploded in Poland and killed two civilians last week, Poland’s top general is adamant that Ukraine should not change its tactics and procedures.
Instead, Russia must be made to answer for its indiscriminate barrage of missile attacks so close to the border of a NATO member — a “risky game” that Moscow is aware could ramp up tensions, Gen. Rajmund Andrzejczak, chief of staff of the Polish armed forces, said in an exclusive interview with Breaking Defense.
“It’s not about Ukraine or Ukrainian air defense systems, it’s about who initiated this situation [and] why Russia is escalating and firing and targeting infrastructure so close to the Polish border,” he said on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum.
“I do not expect any change in Ukrainian performance because they are fighting for their country. They are protecting all their cities and towns. They are fighting for all citizens. I cannot imagine myself telling Ukrainians, ‘Change your position because it’s not sufficient for me.'”
An investigation into the incident could be complete, “in a matter of days,” according to Andrzejczak.
Previously, Polish President Andrzej Duda said the preliminary results of the investigation into the Nov. 15 incident pointed to a stray Ukrainian missile from a Russian-made S-300 air defense system that accidentally entered Polish airspace. Duda has characterized the event as a “shared tragedy” that was “absolutely not a deliberate event.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have voiced support for the Polish assessment, while at the same time underscoring Russia’s ultimate culpability due to its invasion of Ukraine and continued cruise missile attacks.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has maintained that Ukraine was not responsible for firing the errant missile.
RELATED: Zelensky advisor: Important to wait for results of Poland missile explosion investigation.
Ultimately, Andrzejczak said that the question of attribution is not as important as understanding how the situation on the battlefield laid the groundwork for the incident — a situation where Russia is “escalating the situation closer and closer to the Polish border.” On the day of the mishap, Russia was firing hundreds of missiles at a time, intentionally taking out critical infrastructure and often dealing damage to civilian infrastructure as well.
“It looks like Russia is not able to detect [and effectively target] Ukrainian forces. And now they are killing innocent people because it’s the only way they can achieve their objectives, which is absolutely far away from the standards of Western civilization,” he said.
To try to prevent Ukrainian loss of life, the Ukrainian military responded by using whatever it has on hand — whether US or European-made air defense systems, or older Soviet-era ones. When trying to intercept an enemy missile, it is typical to shoot two to three missiles for every enemy one in the hopes of being able to take down as many as possible, Andrzejczak said.
“If you’re sitting in a position and missiles are coming to your town, and your mom and your sister and kids are still over there, there’s not very much concern. You’re firing what you have,” he said.
In response to the incident, Poland “increased readiness” of certain military units, increasing Air Force patrols and moving some air defense equipment and intelligence assets to try to strengthen the Polish military’s ability to defend against stray missiles invading its airspace.
Poland also accepted an offer from Germany to send additional Patriot air defense systems, to be positioned near the border with Ukraine. The two countries are also working out plans to deploy German Eurofighter Typhoons to augment the Polish air force.
However, even with the added air defense capability, there is risk of a similar mishap occurring if Russia continues raining missiles on Ukrainian cities near Poland, Andrzejczak said. “There’s no single system [that gives] 100% effectiveness.”
breakingdefense.com · by Valerie Insinna · November 23, 2022
14. IPhone city clashes reviving ‘zero-Covid’ fears
Spot report/intel report.
As we looked for deals on iPhones yesterday we learned that the supply chain for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have been affected by the factory friction in China. There were no inventories of these phones. But there were plenty of iPhone 14 Plus devices so there are deals out there.
IPhone city clashes reviving ‘zero-Covid’ fears
Chaotic scenes of violence and unrest at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou-based factory show China isn’t out of the Covid woods yet
asiatimes.com · by Jeff Pao · November 25, 2022
IPhone maker Foxconn imposed Friday a five-day anti-epidemic operation at its Zhengzhou-based factory in its latest bid to locate all Covid carriers and isolate them from the facility.
The anti-virus operation was launched after video footage showed hundreds of Foxconn factory workers clash with police on Tuesday and Wednesday. The company has since offered to pay newly-hired workers to leave the company to avoid further unrest, CNN reported.
The clashes are the latest imagery to put markets on edge as earlier hopes for a quick exit from “zero-Covid” measures start to wane. Covid cases have continued to rise since the central government unveiled on November 11 a 20-point notice to ease anti-epidemic rules.
On Thursday, China reported 32,695 new Covid cases, more than the daily peak recorded in Shanghai between March and May this year. More than 90% of the identified infected were asymptomatic, government officials said.
Although local governments have refrained from citywide lockdowns, residents are still adversely affected by frequent PCR tests and small area lockdowns.
The anti-Covid measures are starting to impact social stability, including in economic hubs like Guangzhou and Zhengzhou where people and law enforcement officers have recently clashed over restrictions. Last week, residents in Guangzhou were seen tearing down barriers that surrounded their homes.
In late October, thousands of workers at Foxconn’s iPhone factory in Zhengzhou were seen in social media posts climbing the facility’s fences to escape lockdown measures, with some reportedly walking 10 hours to return to their home areas.
Chinese social media has been full of footage of workers walking home from the Foxconn factory. Image: BBC / Screengrab
On October 30, the factory said it would double daily bonuses from 50 yuan (US$6.89) to 100 yuan for workers who could show up between October 26 and November 11. It also paid a premium to lure workers to return to the production lines.
But due to salary disputes, thousands of Foxconn workers rallied in the Zhengzhou Science Park on Tuesday and Wednesday. Citing an unnamed source, Reuters reported on Friday that Foxconn’s iPhone production in Zhengzhou could drop by 30% in November from normal levels due to the unrest.
Lou Yangsheng, party secretary of central Henan province, on Tuesday visited the Foxconn factory and urged the local government to restore order and ensure smooth operations at the facility.
Lou emphasized that the Foxconn factory played an important role in maintaining Henan’s external trade.
Yang Guoxing, a Chinese expert on industrial agglomeration, said the Zhengzhou government should provide support to the Foxconn factory, which he said is one of the most important supply chains in the world.
Yang said that if the Foxconn factory could return to normal operations, the economy and job markets in Henan would be stabilized.
A Henan-based commentator said people should not defy the Covid rules as protests and riots would only make the situation worse. He said the government will further ease Covid rules when the coronavirus wanes.
However, a Beijing-based commentator said it is time to consider the “living with the virus” strategy as the current Omicron variant isn’t as lethal as previous strains.
He said people mistakenly calculated that the Covid-19 death rate in Hong Kong was 2.35% as 10,634 out of 452,483 Covid patients died. However, he said if natural deaths were deducted from the figure then the Covid death rate was only about 0.12%.
He estimated based on unclear modeling that if China eases its Covid rules then around 450 million people will be infected and 540,000 will likely perish. He said such a mortality figure seems high but actually is insignificant as 8.9 million people die in China every year.
On November 11, the central government announced that the standing committee of the CCP Central Committee’s politburo had decided to relax China’s Covid rules. It urged local governments not to expand without limits the scale of their lockdown measures or freely suspend classes, production and transport.
A State Council logistics task force told Xinhua on Friday that some local governments were still irregularly blocking domestic roads and interprovincial highways, although the 20-point notice urged against such measures.
It said local governments should ensure the smooth transportation of food and necessaries, and should not stop postal and express delivery services.
However, it has become increasingly challenging for local governments to cut off virus transmission chains without large-scale lockdowns, according to some medical experts.
Chongqing in Central China recorded 6,500 infections on Thursday, around 95% of which were asymptomatic.
The People’s Daily reported that the Chongqing municipal government will fully implement Beijing’s 20-point notice while achieving “zero clearance” at the community level within a short time.
The report said Chongqing has implemented strict anti-epidemic rules in high-risk districts and has urged people to stay at home since November 20.
Covid testing in Chengdu. Image: Screengrab / BBC News
Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan visited Chongqing on Tuesday and Wednesday and ordered the municipal government to locate all the Covid patients at the community level and send them to quarantine centers as soon as possible.
Sun said Chongqing must ensure the smooth operations of its auto factories.
In Beijing, 1,845 cases were reported on Thursday, up from 1,611 on Wednesday. The city government locked down individual residential buildings where infections were found.
Some residents rushed to purchase food online as they were worried about potential wider lockdowns. Most online grocery shops stopped taking new orders as they were running out of capacity to deliver, reports said.
Read: Stocks jump, workers run away over China Covid tales
Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3
asiatimes.com · by Jeff Pao · November 25, 2022
15. The CIA is looking for Russians who are 'disgusted' with the Ukraine war to recruit as spies
It would be a dereliction of duty not to try to recruit these potential spies.
The CIA is looking for Russians who are 'disgusted' with the Ukraine war to recruit as spies
Business Insider · by Sophia Ankel
A man crosses the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) seal in the lobby of the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
- The CIA's deputy director of operations said last week the agency is looking for Russian recruits.
-
During an event at George Mason University, David Marlowe said the agency is "open for business."
- Marlowe added the CIA is looking for Russians who are "disgusted" with the war in Ukraine.
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The Central Intelligence Agency is looking for Russians who are "disgusted" with the Ukraine war to recruit them as spies, David Marlowe, the agency's deputy director of operations, said last week.
Marlowe told an audience at George Mason University's Hayden Center in Fairfax County, Virginia, that Putin was "at his best moment the day before he invaded [Ukraine]" because he had "all the power that he is ever going to have."
"He squandered every single bit of that," Marlowe said, before adding: "We're looking around the world for Russians who are as disgusted with [Putin's actions] as we are. Because we're open for business."
His comments were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which pointed out similarities to comments from former senior CIA officers, who have said that disaffection with the war in Ukraine has provided fertile ground for recruiting disgruntled military officials, oligarchs who have been financially impacted by the war, and those who have fled the country.
Marlowe was speaking alongside CIA Deputy Director for Analysis Linda Weissgold in his first in-person public appearance since taking over as the CIA's espionage chief last year, according to the Journal.
A video of the event was published by The Hayden Center on Monday.
Marlowe's comments come after a top British intelligence official revealed last week that European countries have expelled over 400 Russian officials suspected of being spies this year.
MI5 Director General Ken McCallum praised the intelligence community for its role in the ongoing Ukraine war and said these actions have "struck the most significant strategic blow against the Russian Intelligence Services in recent European history."
CIA Director William Burns appointed Marlowe as the agency's deputy director of operations in June 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported. He is a veteran officer who served overseas for many years "in several of the largest and most complex environments, including war zones," a CIA spokeswoman told the Journal at the time.
Business Insider · by Sophia Ankel
16. Andor: Star Wars Recreates the Battle of Algiers (And It Works)
Hmmmm... Heresy I know, but I have never been a StarWwars fan (and in fact have only seen bits and parts of the movies over the years). But with a compression to the Battle of Algiers I may have to watch it.
Andor: Star Wars Recreates the Battle of Algiers (And It Works)
19fortyfive.com · by Robert Farley · November 24, 2022
With the new Disney+ series Andor, somebody decided to make Battle of Algiers, But in Space. Against all odds, it works.
The Star Wars saga has a history of borrowing liberally from foreign and English language films. George Lucas famously borrowed scenes and concepts from Japanese and German media such as Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress and Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will in the original trilogy. Conceptually, the saga is very nearly a meta-commentary on the synthesis of Western and Eastern forms of drama, undergirded by the “Force,” an in-universe mcguffin that carries the story along while ensuring dramatic tension along the way.
Andor, Explained
Within this saga Andor is an odd kind of animal. There are no Jedi, no Sith, and relatively few cute CGI aliens. There is as of yet no Rebel Alliance, the organization which sets the saga in motion by destroying the Death Star, a terrifying representation of imperial power.
But there are rebels, and those rebels need to do things such as steal an Imperial payroll, sacrifice an entire squadron of fighters, and engage in a series of shady financial ventures in order to hold itself together.
The series leans into the anti-colonial, anti-imperial foundations of the saga, tracking the development of a budding insurgency, including a central character who initially has no interest in participating in a rebellion.
It is, in short, the Battle of Algiers, But in Space.
The Battle of Algiers, Star Wars Style
Battle of Algiers, a 1966 film by Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, depicted the struggle between Algerians rebels and French municipal authorities between 1954 and 1957. The film describes both sides of the battle, giving voice to Algerian rebels and to the French soldiers and bureaucrats fighting to keep Algeria part of France.
Violence spirals upwards, with French government forces responding to shootings and bombings with ever more vicious repressions, including systematic torture. Most of the main Algerians characters are killed, but the resistance awakens nationalist feelings that eventually force the French to abandon the country.
Re-creating the Battle of Algiers within the Star Wars universe is… an ambitious effort.
For one, British and American actors have historical dominated the Star Wars universe, with the former generally playing the Imperial role and the latter the Rebel role. The casting of Diego Luna, one of very few human characters in Star Wars to speak English without either a British or American accent, is hardly accidental to the thrust of the series. Luna’s accent marks him as part of the colonial other, a rather different perspective on rebellion than the aristocrats who typically represent the leadership of the Rebel Alliance. Indeed, the contrast between Luna’s Cassian Andor and the American-accented flyboy Han Solo is glaring; Andor feels like his survival is at stake, while Solo is in the game for the money and the adventure.
Much like the Battle of Algiers, the structure of Andor is built around a set of spirals of violence. Andor is hassled by cops, to which he responds by killing them. A manhunt results in a series of home invasions that drive unrest. Andor finds himself in the middle of a successful heist, which results in a wave of repression that accidentally sends him to prison, where brutality results in a revolt. The final episode begins with the careful construction of an improvised explosive device, a scene that Pontecorvo would have no troubling understanding, and that in fact echoes several similar scenes in Battle of Algiers.
Like Pontecorvo, Andor showrunner and writer Tony Gilroy recognizes that that machinery of death can be starkly beautiful. The terrifying attractiveness of Colonel Mathieu, commander of the French paratroopers dispatched to bring order to Algiers, has long been represented in Star Wars by Darth Vader and of course by the Death Star. Star Wars has always fetishized the fascist aesthetic of the Empire, much as Pontecorvo was fully aware of the visual power of paratroopers marching through a city in good order.
But the entire point of Star Wars is that even the most frightening and cruel machineries of death are themselves vulnerable. The depiction of the functional life of Imperial oppression has the uncanny ring of truth, especially with respect to the security service. The Imperial security bureaucracy is inhabited by a collection of fools, dedicated public servants, indifferent yet competent bureaucrats, and zealous defenders of the ideology of Empire. In a scene familiar to anyone who has worked in an administrative bureaucracy, upon learning that a rebel contingent was massacred with no survivors, an intelligence community officer announced that she would have liked to had a “voice in the room” in favor of torturous interrogation.
Like Pontecorvo, Gilroy recognizes that the rebels also have internal struggles. Andor himself has little interest in the Rebellion (as opposed to rebellion) until he is personally affected by Imperial violence. The Rebel Alliance does not exist as of yet in Andor’s timeline, but a disparate group of resistance figure struggle against the Empire in their own way.
Chief among these is Luthen Rael, a financier and organizer played by Stellan Skarsgaard, who underlines the moral queasiness of a campaign to violently overthrow the government. The political component of what will become the Rebellion is offered by Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma, although unlike her Battle of Algiers counterpart she manages to survive the series and see the end of the Empire.
Andor Means Star Wars Goes in a New Direction
Much like the Battle of Algiers, the story of Cassian Andor ends with most of the central figures dying in the struggle. Andor is a prequel to Rogue One, the 2015 film that described the operation to seize the technical plans of the Death Star and pass them on to the Rebel Alliance. Cassian dies during the Battle of Scarif, and there is good reason to expect that many of the main characters of Andor will not survive the second season, as few have appeared in the extensive canonical materials that cover the Galactic Civil War.
Altogether, Andor represents an extraordinarily ambitious effort to take the Star Wars saga in a new direction, one that echoes some of the most significant cinema ever made.
Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), and Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.
Note: This piece has been updated to fix a naming mistake.
19fortyfive.com · by Robert Farley · November 24, 2022
17. US to supply Thailand, Philippines with modular nuclear reactors
Great headline, but the article notes that experts say we are years away from this capability. Hopefully this capability will exist during the unification process in Korea. These could have potential in a post war or post regime collapse and even peaceful unification process scenarios.
US to supply Thailand, Philippines with modular nuclear reactors
benarnews.org
The United States says it will help Thailand and the Philippines with a new civilian nuclear technology to reduce climate-damaging emissions, but experts warn the final products are years away from being operational and other hurdles exist.
Plans by the U.S. to supply its longtime Southeast Asian allies with so-called small modular reactors (SMRs) were unveiled during Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to both countries in recent days.
While attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in Bangkok last weekend, Harris launched a new clean energy partnership with Thailand.
From there, the vice president went to the Philippines where she announced that Washington and Manila were starting negotiations on the 123 Agreement, which would allow for civilian nuclear cooperation.
The U.S. nuclear technology plans for Thailand and the Philippines are firsts involving Southeast Asian nations.
The SMRs, which can be as small as a bucket and transportable, are to be constructed under “the highest standards of safety, security and nonproliferation,” officials said.
Another country in Southeast Asia that has shown interest in developing such reactors – Indonesia – appears to be looking at designs from several countries.
In a press release, the White House said the new partnership with Thailand would “build capacity for the secure and safe deployment of advanced nuclear reactor technologies.”
“This partnership will help Thailand take advantage of the unique benefits of SMRs that provide 24/7 reliable power, complement other clean energy sources, use a small land footprint and incorporate advanced safety features.”
The Thai government has set a goal of Net Zero Emissions by 2065, but no timeline for the SMR partnership. Washington praised the “unique benefits” of reactors which, besides providing reliable power, also fight climate change.
Small modular reactors generally are defined as advanced nuclear reactors with a capacity of less than 300 MW, according to the International Energy Agency.
A reactor could be as small as a five-gallon (18.9-liter) bucket. The traditional design has fuel and control rods, and energy is transported through boiling water, according to NuScale, a U.S. SMR manufacturer, which estimated initial costs at about U.S. $500 million.
The agreement with Manila calls for the U.S. and the Philippines to cooperate on advanced nuclear technologies to ensure energy security as that Southeast Asian country transitions to clean energy.
Once in force, the 123 agreement “will provide the legal basis for U.S. exports of nuclear equipment and material to the Philippines. The United States is committed to working with the Philippines to increase energy security and deploying advanced nuclear reactor technology as quickly as safety and security conditions permit to meet the Philippines’ dire baseload power needs,” the White House said in a statement.
Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s father, the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, the Philippines began construction of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in 1976, in an area about 100 km (62 miles) west of Manila. The plant, constructed above a major fault line, was mothballed amid safety concerns after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Today, the Philippines runs a couple of research reactors for training and education purposes while Thailand has no nuclear power.
Energy choices
In Thailand, the government’s energy choices are SMRs, wind, solar and high-efficiency combined cycle power plants using both gas and steam turbines, according to a research paper by Tanagorn Kwamman of the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology.
The reactors, which boast zero greenhouse gas emissions, can be factory-made, transportable and relocatable, making them suitable for remote areas or industrial parks.
Tanagorn said Thais were concerned about safety in light of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster caused by a tsunami in Japan. Other obstacles are the limited number of investors and the lack of domestic laws and regulation of nuclear activities.
John Timmer, science editor of Ars Technica, a web portal focusing on science and technology, said that with nuclear reactors, the principle is always “safety first.”
“The approval process for that reason tends to be long and includes a lot of documentation,” he said.
“The SMRs are designed to be much safer, but they haven’t been built (in the U.S.) in a final form yet, so it’s difficult to say whether the real-world experience will show that to be the case and also how useful they’ll be for addressing climate change,” Timmer told BenarNews.
“I’ve been hearing about SMRs for about a decade,” he said, adding that “until we build and get a sense what operating them is like and what costs are like, I’m going to be a bit skeptical.”
The International Energy Agency said most SMR projects are in the “conceptual design” stage, noting China and Russia are among countries that operate SMR prototypes.
Cost is another obstacle.
“We’ve never built one of these, so this is going to be a learning experience and for the first few years. It’s going to be more expensive and more complicated to complete,” Timmer said.
‘Widespread misconceptions’
Economist John Quiggin, a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, listed economic viability of nuclear power plants compared to coal, gas or solar and wind facilities as one of the “widespread misconceptions.”
“When pressed, nuclear fans will mostly shift the argument to the ill-defined notion of ‘small modular reactors,’ which don’t actually exist, and may never [exist],” Quiggin said, noting there are operating examples of small reactors, but “those are made on a one-off basis and are expensive because they forgo size economies.”
Once the reactors can be factory-produced “the ‘modular’ idea is to counter this loss with the economic gains of high-volume,” he said.
“There has been a lot of talk lately about a revival of nuclear power, partly in response to the need to replace the energy previously supplied by Russia, and partly as a longer-term response to climate change,” Quiggin said.
While in office U.S. President George W. Bush launched a nuclear power program, which led to talks of a “nuclear renaissance” but yielded only two projects despite no effective opposition “except from consumers objecting to the massive costs.”
Quiggin expects that the number of SMRs constructed will be also “tiny.”
“The work of decarbonizing energy supply will be done almost entirely by the sun and the wind,” he said.
Jason Gutierrez in Manila contributed to this report.
benarnews.org
18. Riots serve an unexpected lesson in the Pacific
We must understand the conditions of potential civil unrest throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
Appreciate the context, understand the problem(s), and develop approaches.
Riots serve an unexpected lesson in the Pacific | Lowy Institute
A new report on civil unrest in the region calls for a longer
and wider lens in analysing reasons and rationales.
lowyinstitute.org · by Anouk Ride
“Do you think there will be riots today?” is a common question I get in my message box each time there are political controversies in Solomon Islands.
A number of colleagues and I had predicted key elements of the devastating Honiara riots that occurred in November 2021. However, the scale of those riots was also shocking, causing an estimated SBD$811 million (AU$149 million) in damage. A year later, Chinatown is still in ruins and some Asian businesses, having literally been burned down twice in riots (in 2006 and again in 2021), will never return to Solomon Islands. Police and armed forces personnel from Australia and other countries remain in Solomon Islands under bilateral security treaties. Such interventions illustrate how the costs of unrest spread beyond the affected country to other nations and regional institutions.
A quarter of the fourteen Pacific Island countries have experienced riots in the past 15 years.
So, how predictable are riots in the Pacific? What is common to riots across the region? Why do governments seem unable to control them? These questions were addressed as part of a research report released on 21 November that I wrote for the Australia Pacific Security College. The report is an initial comparison and analysis of the actors, grievances, targets and responses across thirteen major riot events that occurred in the Pacific Islands region between 2006 and 2021.
A quarter of the fourteen Pacific Island countries have experienced riots in the past 15 years, including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. Despite the differences between these countries, there are some similarities, particularly when it comes to the grievances of rioters.
Responses by security partners such as Australia have previously included capacity building activities in the form of police training (Defence Department)
The report finds that the usual and combustive grievances leading to riots in the Pacific context include: dissatisfaction with national governments and/or perceptions of corruption; political transitions (in terms of leadership or systems); and resentment arising from perceived benefits given by government to foreign migrants and businesses. The presence of large youth populations in cities may also be a factor, but more so in dynamic relation to other issues such as socialisation of youth to violence and their own experiences of marginalisation. How the process of protesting or rioting plays out also matters. In particular, how leaders engage, or not, with peaceful protesters can influence the behaviour of rioters. Expectations of leadership or changes to governance (such as action against corruption) that are not met, or met with stony silence, are tinder for riots, it seems.
Responses by national governments and security partners such as Australia, New Zealand and more recently China, lack depth.
Most of what the public knows about riots comes via the media, which gives the sense that riot events are here today, gone tomorrow. However, just as wars are analysed with long and wide lenses, so too should riots be evaluated. One of the few Pacific analyses of riots that takes this wider view, by Steven Ratuva, tracks back two centuries to fully assess the “watershed moment” that was the 2006 riots in Tonga.
Responses by national governments and security partners such as Australia, New Zealand and more recently China, also lack depth. Responses that Australia provided to the Pacific 15 years ago did not change in 2021: more security personnel (usually foreign and temporary); and capacity building activities such as police training and “crowd control” equipment. In Solomon Islands in the past 12 months, “gifts” of weapons and equipment have piled up, as both China and Australia fight for influence in the police force and national political leadership. Meanwhile, in Papua New Guinea, official figures confirm seven people were killed by police firing into crowds of protestors in the last 15 years, more than double the number killed by rioters. Conversely, in Vanuatu, the work of chiefs has been useful in quelling unrest and preventing further acts of violence in situations of rioting.
Despite documents such as the Boe Declaration, in which Pacific leaders take a human security approach, and significant experience in regional conflict resolution, there is little application of these approaches to places experiencing riots. The report suggests looking beyond riot events as matters for police response only, to matters that the development, peace and security sectors should coalesce around for positive change. This includes addressing grievances and triggers that contribute to riots, networking local initiatives that promote peace (such as crime prevention, youth projects, and community policing) and understanding more about riot processes to prevent them in future.
“Are there going to be riots today?” will most likely be a question that can never be answered definitively. However, national and international agencies can be less reactive and more preventative by understanding local dynamics that can avert or limit riot events, and learning from, rather than repeating, the Pacific experiences of riots.
lowyinstitute.org · by Anouk Ride
19. ‘The Peacemaker’ Review: Ronald Reagan’s Cold War
Another one for the "to read" pile.
Excerpts;
“The Peacemaker” is not a just-so story. Mr. Inboden criticizes the 40th president’s management style and aversion to personal conflict and says that both weaknesses were behind the Iran-Contra scandal that almost got Reagan impeached. He points out that the clarity of vision and purpose Reagan brought to the Cold War was lost in the sands of the Middle East. And Mr. Inboden is critical, perhaps overly so, of Reagan’s occasionally ambivalent treatment of anticommunist autocracies allied with the U.S. Not even Reagan himself was a Reaganite 100% of the time.
Still, this comprehensive and judicious book shows what is a possible when a president understands the symmetry of American interests and American ideals. In a dangerous world, the peacemaker stood firm. And an evil empire came crashing down.
‘The Peacemaker’ Review: Ronald Reagan’s Cold War
Reagan sought neither appeasement nor war with the Soviets, but their negotiated surrender.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-peacemaker-book-review-ronald-reagans-cold-war-11669396368?mod=books_arts_lead_story
By Matthew Continetti
Nov. 25, 2022 12:14 pm ET
‘Some people say I’m very simplistic, but there’s a difference between being simplistic and simple,” Ronald Reagan told a visitor to his home in January 1977. “A lot of very complex things are very simple if you think them through.” A moment passed and Reagan continued: “Keeping that in mind, my theory of the Cold War is, we win and they lose. What do you think about that?”
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The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink
By William Inboden
Dutton
608 pages
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The visitor, Republican official Richard V. Allen, was gobsmacked. Never during his years in government had he heard someone say that America’s goal in the Cold War ought to be victory over the Soviet Union. Mr. Allen was thrilled to meet a leader who shared his values and goals. He had arrived at Reagan’s home wanting to ask the former California governor to endorse his own bid for New Jersey governor. By the time he left, Mr. Allen had decided to end his exploratory committee and join Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign as foreign-policy adviser.
Reagan’s confidence that the Cold War could be won made him unusual. At the time, both Republicans and Democrats believed that America was in decline. Communism was on the march in Afghanistan, Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Then, in 1980, President Jimmy Carter seemed hapless and ineffectual after he failed to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. The CIA mistakenly believed that the Soviet economy was growing. The policies of arms control and détente —or direct negotiations—were ascendant.
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How Ronald Reagan took on the Soviet Union, the mystery of Cleopatra, the Marx Brothers’ secret weapon and more.
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William Inboden’s masterly diplomatic history “The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink” reveals the qualities that made Reagan an extraordinary president who established the conditions for the collapse of Soviet communism. The biggest difference between Reagan and his immediate predecessors—as well as most of his successors—was the democratic idealism he displayed that day in 1977.
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At almost every juncture, Reagan rejected the advice of former president Richard Nixon, whose realist worldview privileged China over Japan, geopolitics over economics, equilibrium over victory, and stability over human rights. Reagan envisioned a future where high technology, a universal commitment to freedom and dignity, and a willingness to risk confrontation with the enemy resulted in a global democratic revolution and the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Inboden, who heads the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas, convincingly argues that Reagan sought neither appeasement nor war with the Soviets, but rather their negotiated surrender. He believed that the integration of force with diplomacy would pressure the Soviet system on multiple fronts and drive the Communists to appoint a leader willing to make concessions. His defense buildup was as much about quality as quantity: Advanced weapons such as stealth aircraft and precision-guided missiles gave America a competitive edge over the sheer mass of the Soviet war machine.
Reagan also authorized huge military exercises to demonstrate U.S. capabilities and coordination with allies. He imposed export controls on technology that crippled Soviet innovation and growth. He aided anticommunist insurgencies. And his advocacy of religious liberty inspired dissidents behind the Iron Curtain.
Reagan’s horror of nuclear war led him to envision a world where nuclear weapons would be obsolete. Woven into Mr. Inboden’s story are the many times that Reagan saw the potential for nuclear catastrophe. In 1979 the commander of the North American Air Defense Command, or NORAD, told him that the U.S. had no defense against a Soviet missile strike. In 1981 he took a flight on a special Air Force One called the “Doomsday Plane” that had been made to withstand nuclear fallout. In 1982 he became the first president to participate in a continuity-of-government exercise, codenamed “Ivy League.” Reagan watched helplessly as a simulated nuclear exchange destroyed his beloved country.
The following spring Reagan proposed the development of technology that could intercept nuclear missiles before they hit their targets. Both his secretaries of defense and state were against his plans for a Strategic Defense Initiative. They were not alone. The many critics of Reagan’s antiballistic missile shield followed Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in calling it “Star Wars.”
Scientists said SDI wouldn’t work. Arms controllers said it would increase the chances of nuclear escalation. None of them understood that Reagan had redefined the arms race to America’s advantage. “It put the Soviets on the defensive,” writes Mr. Inboden, “fueling the Kremlin’s perennial fear of America’s technological prowess.”
Reagan’s re-election accelerated the Soviet demise. His popular mandate persuaded Moscow to resume arms-control negotiations. And when the third Soviet leader in as many years died the following spring, the Politburo elevated reformer Mikhail Gorbachev to the position of general secretary. Gorbachev ordered an aide to assess his American counterpart. “Reagan is trying persistently to capture the initiative in international affairs,” the aide reported. “He would like to solve a number of problems in the context of [his] dream about a ‘great peace-maker president.’ ”
In November 1985 the two leaders met in Geneva. Prior to the summit, Reagan once more departed from Nixon’s example, making it clear to his team that any arms reductions would not affect his human-rights policy or defense spending. His exchanges with Gorbachev were cordial but unproductive: Gorbachev rejected Reagan’s criticism of Soviet human-rights abuses, and Reagan would not abandon SDI. When they met the next year in Reykjavík, Gorbachev again demanded that Reagan end the missile-defense program. Reagan said no and returned to America empty-handed.
Or so it seemed. Mr. Inboden catalogs the ways in which the Soviet Union was under terrible stress. Reagan’s energy policy and alliance with the Saudis contributed to a plunge in the price of oil that drained the Kremlin’s finances. The “Reagan Doctrine” of aid to anti-Soviet freedom fighters sapped Moscow of blood and treasure.
Pope John Paul II led a religious revival that delegitimized Soviet rule over Eastern Europe. Gorbachev’s program of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) generated greater demands for freedom within Russia. And the disaster at the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear-power plant exemplified the disrepair of Soviet infrastructure and the pathologies of Communist government.
By the spring of 1987, the Soviets agreed to separate SDI from Reagan’s “zero option” proposal for both sides to withdraw intermediate-range nuclear forces, or INF, from Europe. Reagan accepted the Soviet initiative despite criticism from his allies in the American conservative movement. His strategy of freedom was bearing fruit. In December, Gorbachev visited Washington to sign the INF Treaty. The following May, Reagan traveled to Russia for the first time. Standing under a bust of Lenin, he told students at Moscow State University: “A people free to choose will always choose peace.”
SDI was a gamble that paid off. As Mr. Inboden proceeds year by year through the 1980s, one is reminded of both Reagan’s courage and history’s contingency. Reagan’s dreams might not have become reality if he had succumbed to the assassin’s bullet in the spring of 1981, if he had let the air controllers keep their jobs that summer, if he had listened to Nixon and not appointed George Shultz secretary of state in 1982, if the crisis over the Soviet shootdown of a Korean passenger jet had turned into war in September 1983, or if the economy had failed to recover by November 1984. Reagan’s opponents said that his dogged support for human rights and missile defense was both counterproductive and a distraction from good relations with the Soviets. Rather than conform to the accepted interpretation of reality, he sought to establish new facts on the ground that favored the expansion of freedom.
“The Peacemaker” is not a just-so story. Mr. Inboden criticizes the 40th president’s management style and aversion to personal conflict and says that both weaknesses were behind the Iran-Contra scandal that almost got Reagan impeached. He points out that the clarity of vision and purpose Reagan brought to the Cold War was lost in the sands of the Middle East. And Mr. Inboden is critical, perhaps overly so, of Reagan’s occasionally ambivalent treatment of anticommunist autocracies allied with the U.S. Not even Reagan himself was a Reaganite 100% of the time.
Still, this comprehensive and judicious book shows what is a possible when a president understands the symmetry of American interests and American ideals. In a dangerous world, the peacemaker stood firm. And an evil empire came crashing down.
Mr. Continetti is the Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair in American Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism.”
Appeared in the November 26, 2022, print edition as 'We Win and They Lose'.
20. Thailand’s Navy Chief Says Country Could Cancel Chinese Sub Contract
Thailand’s Navy Chief Says Country Could Cancel Chinese Sub Contract
The disagreement over the choice of propulsion system continues to dog the controversial and costly deal.
thediplomat.com · by Sebastian Strangio · November 23, 2022
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Thailand’s government has again stated that it is prepared to pull out of a controversial Chinese submarine deal if the conditions of the procurement cannot be met. In 2017, Thailand agreed to pay 13.5 billion baht (currently around $373.9 million) for the procurement of an S26T Yuan-class submarine from the state-owned China Shipbuilding & Offshore International Co (CSOC), with delivery expected in 2023.
But earlier this year, construction on the submarine ground to a halt when Germany’s Motor and Turbine Union company said that it would not supply its cutting-edge MTU396 diesel engines to CSOC for installation in the Thai submarine. The German company said it was barred from making the sale due to a European Union government embargo on the sale of military items to China, imposed in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacres.
In response, CSOS has offered to install a Chinese-made engine in the submarine or to offer Thailand two decommissioned boats from the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
At first, the Thai government refused, insisting that the German engines be installed as per the letter of the contract. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha even raised the possibility that the deal could face the axe. “What do we do with a submarine with no engines? Why should we purchase it?” he told reporters in March.
But perhaps realizing that it faces a choice between canceling the procurement, with potential fallout for its broader relationship with China, and coming to some sort of compromise, the Thai government appears to have softened its demand. According to a report yesterday in the Bangkok Post, Adm Choengchai Chomchoengpaet, the commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Navy told reporters that the Thai navy now wants the Chinese navy to guarantee the Chinese-made CHD620 engine that CSOC has proposed using in lieu of the German propulsion system.
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“There is a delay in clarification about the engine,” he said. “The first-stage test of the engine was completed. The second stage concerns spare parts. He said the navy will discuss the submarine procurement project with CSOC early next month, during which Thai officials will ask for a clear timeframe for the boat’s construction.
When asked whether the navy could terminate the procurement project if its conditions were turned down, the Post reported that Choengchai said, “Yes. At this stage, it can be terminated anytime.”
As I noted in March, it is difficult to understand why neither side anticipated the possible complications in procuring a German propulsion system, given that the EU embargo has been in place for more than three decades. In a letter to the Bangkok Post published in February, Germany’s defense attaché to Thailand, Philipp Doert, wrote that the Chinese government “did not ask/coordinate with Germany before signing the Thai-China contract, offering German MTU engines as part of their product.”
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Observers have long questioned the wisdom or necessity of Thailand acquiring submarines, a goal of the RTN since the 1960s, and the specific Chinese deal was criticized as a costly extravagance during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many Thais were struggling to get by. Indeed, the pandemic forced the government to postpone its planned purchase of two more Yuan-class subs, at a cost of 22.5 billion baht ($621 million).
Whether the growing frustration on the Thai side results in the cancellation of the submarine contract remains to be seen. Any decision to back out of the project would have to be weighed against the possible impacts on relations with China, and the additional cost of procuring equivalent submarines from elsewhere. As such, the two sides will likely reach some sort of face-saving compromise that allows the RTN finally to achieve its dream of obtaining a submarine fleet – albeit a fleet of just one boat.
STAFF AUTHOR
Sebastian Strangio
Sebastian Strangio is Southeast Asia editor at The Diplomat.
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thediplomat.com · by Sebastian Strangio · November 23, 2022
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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