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1. China unlikely to try to militarily seize Taiwan in near future, top U.S. general
2. China Moves to Quash Online Rumors That Taiwan War Looms
3. DOD Releases 2021 Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China
4. Save The Stranded: A Post Afghan-American War Project: A Story of Starvation
5. Veterans are united on wanting accountability for the war in Afghanistan
6. Reducing Civilian Harm in Urban Warfare: A Commander’s Handbook
7. Blue Flag exercise has Israel’s enemies seeing red
8. Royal Marines Commandos force US Marine Corps troops to surrender in training exercise
9. The AP Interview: Justice Dept. conducting cyber crackdown
10. Bernard-Henri Levy’s dispatches from troubled lands
11. Pentagon details China info war on U.S.
12. Radicalization's path: In case studies, finding similarities
13. What drove the United States to AUKUS?
14. Gaza Conflict 2021 Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War
15. The Implications of Simultaneous Conflicts in South Korea and Taiwan
16. Myanmar Resistance Groups Lure and Aid Military Defectors
17. Design the Littoral Combat Team Around Its Core Mission
18. SOCOM Commander: Navy SEALS to Focus on Strategic Reconnaissance, Working with Partners
19. Marine Corps Seeks ‘Fundamental Redesign’ to Recruiting, Retention, Careers
20. The U.S. Risks Catastrophe if It Doesn't Clarify Its Taiwan Strategy
21. US strategic clarity on Taiwan wouldn’t unleash a spiral of escalation
22. Chinese People Think China Is Popular Overseas. Americans Disagree.
23. Army relieved ‘old school’ battalion leader over poor command climate
24. Pentagon: Chinese nuke force growing faster than predicted
25. 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) Wreath-Laying Ceremony to Commemorate President John F. Kennedy's Contributions to the U.S. Army Special Forces
26. Unleashing the U.S. Military’s Thinking about Cyber Power
27. A Japanese Seaplane Could Be the Difference-Maker for the U.S. Military
28. China's advice to stockpile sparks speculation of Taiwan war
29. Military Special Operations Forces Adapt to New Warfare - The War Horse
1. China unlikely to try to militarily seize Taiwan in near future, top U.S. general
I saw a comment on a list serv from a brilliant strategic thinker - we have to be able "to win without fighting AND win with fighting." It is not either/or but both/and. The Chinese appear to be trying to do both - or at least the perception of winning by fighting improves the opportunity to win without fighting.
China unlikely to try to militarily seize Taiwan in near future, top U.S. general
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army General Mark A. Milley, responds to questions during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on "Ending the U.S. Military Mission in Afghanistan" in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, U.S., September 29, 2021. Rod Lamkey/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - China is unlikely to try to militarily seize Taiwan in the next couple of years, even as its military develops capabilities that would enable forcibly retaking the self-ruled island, the top U.S. general said on Wednesday.
"Based on my analysis of China, I don't think that it is likely in the near future -- being defined as, you know, six, 12, maybe 24 months, that kind of window," General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Aspen Security Forum, when asked if China was preparing to make a move on Taiwan in the near future.
"Having said that, though, the Chinese are clearly and unambiguously building the capability to provide those options to the national leadership if they so choose at some point in the future. But near future? Probably not. But anything can happen."
Reporting by Phil Stewart
2. China Moves to Quash Online Rumors That Taiwan War Looms
Lead with influence. Doth China protest too much?
China Moves to Quash Online Rumors That Taiwan War Looms
Bloomberg News
November 3, 2021, 2:36 AM EDT Updated on November 3, 2021, 4:39 PM EDT
- State media dispute posts circulated as evidence of conflict
- Episode shows Beijing’s challenge in managing heated rhetoric
Chinese state media have sought to quiet online speculation that a conflict with Taiwan may be imminent, in a sign of how heated rhetoric between Washington and Beijing was feeding public concern about the risk of war.
Chinese social media networks have seen a flurry of chatter about a possible Taiwan crisis in recent days, seemingly fueled by Beijing’s call for citizens to stockpile food and an unrelated message claiming to show the nation was preparing to mobilize military reserves. The surge came after a report by China’s state broadcaster saying that Taiwanese were hoarding their own survival supplies.
On Tuesday, the Economic Daily published a commentary urging the public “not to over read” a Ministry of Commerce statement encouraging families to stock up on some daily necessities due to supply-chain concerns. Then, late Tuesday, a social media account affiliated with the official People’s Liberation Army Daily newspaper denounced the mobilization rumors as a “vile” and “malicious fabrication.”
“It will not only cause negative impact to the state, the military and society, it could also lead to severe consequences,” said the account, Junzhengping. One screenshot of a text message widely circulated on social media urged reserves to “get ready for being recalled at anytime” because “the Taiwan issue was very grim.”
On Wednesday morning, the Junzhengping denial was among the top-trending topics on the Weibo social media network. Still, the war talk continued to simmer, with a 63-year-old video of PLA generals singing that they “will definitely plant the flag of victory on Taiwan” getting more than 130 million views.
The controversy shows the challenge President Xi Jinping’s government faces in trying to manage Chinese public sentiment over Taiwan, even with its vast censorship powers. Over months of saber-rattling over Taiwan, authorities have sometimes needed to step in to tone down the rhetoric and at other times faced backlash for perceived weakness.
The PLA sent more than 200 military planes into Taiwan’s air-defense-identification zone last month, amid national day celebrations on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden affirmed the U.S.’s commitment to the island’s defense and Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen confirmed assistance from U.S. military advisers, something long viewed a potential justification for war by Beijing.
Taiwan’s military representative in the U.S., General Chien-Feng Yu, told Politico that it’s clear China isn’t looking to start a conflict. China is conducting training flights, he said, though the risk of miscalculation is always a possibility.
Yet the official China Daily newspaper warned in an editorial Sunday that Tsai and her Democratic Progressive Party were “leading Taiwan to an abyss.” The paper cited a senior Chinese official’s pledge to spend the island’s post-unification revenue on improving the well-being of its residents as a remark that shows “confidence that the Taiwan question will be settled in the foreseeable future.”
Taiwan Outgunned in Matchup of Military Might
Source: U.S. Department of Defense
Chinese reports that Taiwanese people were hoarding supplies were largely dismissed in Taipei, where residents have lived with the threat of Chinese invasion for more than 70 years. Still, a poll conducted last month by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation found that 28.1% of respondents agreed that China would attack “sooner or later,” compared with 23.7% who disagreed.
Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper, offered a strategic rationale for the government’s rhetoric in a commentary published Monday. Hu argued that “peaceful reunification” would likely result from applying enough pressure to make the DPP leadership believe it had no choice but to surrender.
“Personally, I believe there is still a chance for peaceful reunification, but it must be based on the condition that the DPP authority feels cornered and will perish if they do not accept reunification,” Hu said.
— With assistance by John Liu, Jing Li, and Samson Ellis
(Adds Taiwan general’s comments in eighth paragraph.)
3. DOD Releases 2021 Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China
This should be the authoritative open source reference for information on China, its military. and its threat. Hopefully researchers, the press, and pundits will refer to this report for information.
DOD Releases 2021 Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China
Immediate Release
Nov. 3, 2021
The Department of Defense announces the release of its annual report on “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.” The congressionally mandated report serves as an authoritative assessment on military and security developments involving the PRC.
This year’s report provides a baseline assessment of the Department’s top pacing challenge and charts the maturation of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
The report accounts for the PRC’s evolving national strategy and outlines the strategic objectives driving the PLA’s defense policy and military strategy. It also covers key developments of the PLA’s military modernization and reform, and provides insights into the PRC’s regional and global ambitions.
This includes the PLA developing the capabilities to conduct joint long-range precision strikes across domains, increasingly sophisticated space, counterspace, and cyber capabilities, and accelerating the large-scale expansion of its nuclear forces.
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4. Save The Stranded: A Post Afghan-American War Project: A Story of Starvation
Documenting a humanitarian crisis in real time
Save The Stranded: A Post Afghan-American War Project
by Scott Chapman
Since the last military flight out of Kabul and the Khider District Massacre, both events occurring on 30 August 2021, Chapman and Pritchard have co-authored a story every day about Afghans in peril.
PUBLISHED ON 29 OCT 2021
A Story of Starvation
Shona ba Shona (translation: shoulder to shoulder) is an organization of Military Senior Leaders, SOF Operators, Senior Executives, Thought Leaders in Media and Academia, and International Law Experts. Our present focus is the humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan. Many of us received protection and endured hardships with our Afghan friends. We understand the process to successfully integrate people from an environment of peril to an environment of safety. Members of our board have assisted in successful refugee relocation from places like Vietnam, Somalia, and Iraq.
We direct both material and personnel support where it’s needed most. We provide a direct conduit of information flowing from the ground to the highest levels of our country’s executives and to the executive branches of our allies. We share information, best practices, and cross level knowledge with all organizations with similar goals. Winter is coming, both figuratively and literally, and Shona ba Shona will provide humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan. In this capacity, we will share with you stories of the beautiful people of Afghanistan many of us have known for almost two decades
This is the story of three families:
In the States on the east coast, we wake at 4:30 to the constant thrum of messages coming across our phones. While messages come all night long, 4:30 rings out like the start of a horse race. The gates open and the sprint through the day commences. The time zone differences are brutal. Kabul, Afghanistan is 8.5 hours ahead of EST in the States. It’s 4:30am EST, and Afghans in peril seek food, safe shelter to stay ahead of the Taliban, and medical care before their day ends and curfew begins. It’s three hours until the sun comes up in the States and four hours until the sun goes down in Kabul.
The Ahmadi (name changed) family had a nice life. Married for ten years, Rafay worked as an accountant for a private company funded by the U.S. Department of State, and his wife worked as an interpreter. They had a house, two cars and three young children. When the Afghan Government fell to the Taliban, Rafay lost his job and his medical identity was in the State biometric system making it easy for the Taliban to track him if he attempted to travel. Within a week, the Taliban came to the Ahmadi house. They took the cars, smashed the furniture and windows, and lit the house on fire. The Ahmadi’s had left two days prior, and moved into hiding with friends. Their bank accounts seized, a former work associate demanded Rafay do accounting work on the side for free via computer. If Rafay didn’t do the work, the former work associate said he would tell the Taliban where Rafay’s parents lived. Yesterday, Rafay Ahmadi texted they were out of food and could no longer leave the house.
The Khan (name changed) family is a large one. Saimal and his wife raised two boys and a daughter. All received formal education. Saimal worked as training manager for Raytheon, an American company, which manufactures Black Hawk helicopters. His two boys became journalists and married, and his daughter became a teacher. They lived within several miles of each other and enjoyed weekly family get togethers - three generations of the Khan family living a good life. The day the President of Afghanistan fled the country in a helicopter full of cash and cars, Saimal and his two sons went to their local bank to clear out their accounts. The Taliban surrounded the bank and fired shots down the street towards Saimal and his boys. They ran. The Taliban searched for all members of the Khan family. In Afghanistan, the entire family is held responsible for the sins of one. With the father working for Raytheon, the two boys having reported as journalists on the Taliban, and the daughter teaching in a local school, the Taliban marked the Khan family for execution. They fled and live in a house belonging to a distant relative under a fake name and pray for evacuation. Yesterday, they called and said they could no longer go outside because a neighbor had been watching them and asking questions. They had food for only one more day.
Zohra (name changed) grew up in a small family with two brothers. One of her brothers had two children and his wife died from endometritis. Several years later, her brother remarried, and there were problems with the stepmother. Zohra volunteered to care for his two boys with assistance from her parents. Sadly, her parents died from chronic medical issues within two years of each other while she completed her graduate degree in business administration. A single mother, technically a single aunt, Zohra started her own food packaging business growing it to over a hundred employees and marketed it with a culinary magazine with favorite recipes and local stories. Her other brother became the Chief Financial Officer, and business flourished until the second week of August 2021 when the Taliban burned her office and fired rocket propelled grenades into her plant killing her brother and several workers. Zohra fled with her two nephews and moved into one room of a distant cousin’s unoccupied house. There is no power, and they have not been outside in more than two months. A neighbor, who was bringing them food and charging Zohra’s phone, disappeared two days ago. Yesterday, Zohra texted that she and her nephews had run out of food.
Three families without food, without money, without hope for evacuation, and going into a dark and desolate winter where people burn feces for heat when the wood runs out. Maybe by a miracle, or maybe by the miracle of many people working tirelessly behind the scenes thousands of miles away, these three families woke to food at their front door. If it sounds implausible, it’s not. It’s just Wednesday morning in the States, and the day is just getting started.
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5. Veterans are united on wanting accountability for the war in Afghanistan
Calm and rational calls for accountability. Unlike others.
Excerpts:
The proposed Afghanistan War Study Commission would be tasked with examining all military and diplomatic activities surrounding the war, along with how decisions were made, and what role congressional oversight played during the war. That study would include a diverse set of voices and expertise chosen in a bipartisan manner.
While a completely apolitical and dispassionate commission is beyond the realm of the possible — anyone qualified to serve on such a commission would bring their own prejudices and preconceived notions to the task, and members appointed by lawmakers and the president are, by definition, political – her proposed design is the best available option.
The commission would exclude current and former members of Congress, as well as those who played a direct role in decision-making and operations during the war. This is a sensible choice. Intimate involvement in operations could diminish honest evaluation of how the war played out.
Veterans are united on wanting accountability for the war in Afghanistan
The Hill · by Luis Cardona and Will Fischer, opinion contributors · November 3, 2021
Like many of our fellow veterans, we were deeply unsettled by the collapse of the Afghan government to the Taliban after decades of American effort to stabilize Afghanistan. We felt intense sadness and anger when 13 American troops were killed in a bombing outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. Several of those killed were just a few months older than the war they were serving in.
The veteran community was hit hard. For 20 years, we made every sacrifice, suffered loss, and did everything we were asked — and it now felt like it had been for nothing. We know our brothers and sisters served honorably and courageously, but watching the fall happen so quickly was disheartening, even if it may have been an inevitable end.
Now that U.S. involvement in the war is over, Congress has rightly begun hearings and investigations. But what we’ve seen so far has been a shortsighted review of the evacuation efforts and partisan bickering that accomplishes nothing.
Our organizations regularly disagree with each other on policy issues. But as veterans, we fought together, bled together, and mourned the losses of our friends together.
That bond unites us without disagreement on this issue: The American people, and especially America’s veterans, deserve a comprehensive investigation into the totality of the Afghanistan War, and accountability for those who instituted, oversaw, and perpetuated its missteps while misleading the American people about the war’s progress.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a veteran herself, recently introduced a bill that would establish a commission to study the course of the war in Afghanistan, from the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, through the last days of the evacuation, and every strategic move in between.
The proposed Afghanistan War Study Commission would be tasked with examining all military and diplomatic activities surrounding the war, along with how decisions were made, and what role congressional oversight played during the war. That study would include a diverse set of voices and expertise chosen in a bipartisan manner.
While a completely apolitical and dispassionate commission is beyond the realm of the possible — anyone qualified to serve on such a commission would bring their own prejudices and preconceived notions to the task, and members appointed by lawmakers and the president are, by definition, political – her proposed design is the best available option.
The commission would exclude current and former members of Congress, as well as those who played a direct role in decision-making and operations during the war. This is a sensible choice. Intimate involvement in operations could diminish honest evaluation of how the war played out.
The commission would provide accountability for the war and its coordinators by creating actionable recommendations and an unclassified report at the end of the review. The American public deserves to know exactly how the military and U.S. political leaders conducted America’s longest war and why certain decisions were made.
We believe such a commission would provide invaluable lessons from the last 20 years, to help ensure the United States doesn’t repeat the mistakes that led from early success to ultimate failure in Afghanistan.
We hope to see this commission established and endorse Duckworth’s attempt to attach her provision to the annual defense authorization bill.
But even more, we hope it can play a role in shifting how the United States approaches foreign policy. We can’t afford to ignore the lessons of the past, nor would it honor those who sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan to do so.
Luis Cardona, a U.S. Army veteran, is federal affairs liaison at Concerned Veterans for America.. Will Fischer, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and veteran of the war in Iraq, is a senior adviser to VoteVets.
The Hill · by Luis Cardona and Will Fischer, opinion contributors · November 3, 2021
6. Reducing Civilian Harm in Urban Warfare: A Commander’s Handbook
I wonder if the service doctrine experts can review this for potential use.
Reducing Civilian Harm in Urban Warfare: A Commander’s Handbook
ref. 4569
The handbook identifies the extent of civilian harm resulting from combat taking place in urban areas. It highlights those aspects of the Law of Armed Conflict which are particularly relevant in urban areas. It presents to military commanders at brigade and battalion level a series of examples of good practice to reduce civilian harm, grouped under the headings of doctrine; training; planning and conduct of operations. It also offers specific guidance on operations that might not be conducted routinely by armed forces, such as planning and conducting evacuations and the screening of populations. It is relevant to commanders in state armed forces worldwide, particularly those involved in writing doctrine, overseeing training or planning for combat in urban areas.
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7. Blue Flag exercise has Israel’s enemies seeing red
Blue Flag exercise has Israel’s enemies seeing red
By Bradley Bowman, Brig. Gen. Jacob Nagel (ret.) and Ryan Brobst
The exercise provided flight crews an opportunity to share best practices, improve interoperability, and refine the integration of fourth- and fifth-generation fighter aircraft operations. Much to the chagrin of those who seek to delegitimize, isolate and attack Israel, the exercise also demonstrated growing international respect for Israel as a regional leader and military power with deep operational experience.
France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States all sent fighter aircraft and personnel to Israel to participate in Blue Flag 2021. Participating aircraft included Israeli F-35Is, F-15Ds and F-16Cs; French Rafales; U.K. Typhoons; Italian F-35s and G550 early warning aircraft; German Typhoons; Greek F-16s; and Indian Mirage 2000s. The United States had wanted to send F-35A aircraft in addition to the F-16C aircraft that participated, but couldn’t due to scheduling challenges.
Blue Flag 21 participants fly together after the exercise kicked off at Uvda Air Base, Israel, on Oct. 17, 2021. (Courtesy of the Israeli Air Force)
In total, an estimated 1,500 service members participated. Flight crews honed their air-to-air and air-to-ground skills, and practiced suppressing enemy air defenses, going up against Israeli F-16Cs from the 115th Aggressor Squadron, which modeled the capabilities and tactics of potential adversaries. These aggressor aircraft were augmented by unmanned aerial systems and helicopters as well as a Patriot battery simulating an enemy surface-to-air missile threat.
Blue Flag 2021 marked a number of historic firsts. The exercise featured the first French Rafale fighter squadron in Israel, the first Indian Mirage fighter squadron in Israel and the first British fighter squadron in Israel since the country was established in 1948.
The participation of France, the United Kingdom and India in Blue Flag 2021 suggests each government saw practical operational benefits from sending crews and aircraft to the Israeli exercise, and was happy to signal increased diplomatic support for the state of Israel.
Despite the efforts of Israel’s adversaries, Jerusalem now fields its most capable military ever and is more diplomatically integrated in the region than it has been since Israel’s founding. Recognizing that fact, the Pentagon moved Israel this year from U.S. European Command’s area of responsibility to that of U.S. Central Command, which includes the Middle East.
Israel’s growing regional integration was demonstrated by the Blue Flag 2021 exercise’s most important first: the visit by UAE Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Nasser Mohammed al-Alawi.
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Elianny Rodriguez tests communication equipment in pilots’ helmets during Blue Flag 21 on Oct. 24, 2021. (Tech. Sgt. Maeson L. Elleman/U.S. Air Force)
Israel and the United Arab Emirates, along with Bahrain, signed the Abraham Accords in 2020, codifying normal relations and catalyzing growing cooperation in a number of economic, scientific and social fields. Israel-UAE cooperation increasingly also includes the security sector.
A major reason for this growing cooperation is the fact that Iran continues to export terrorism that targets Israelis, Americans and Arabs alike, while inching toward a nuclear weapon capability that will endanger them all. This is incentivizing an increasingly unified and capable American, Israeli and Arab military coalition.
That dynamic was on full display on Oct. 30 in a separate development when aircraft from Israel, Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia (at different times) accompanied a U.S. B-1B strategic bomber in its flight around the Arabian Peninsula. Riyadh’s willingness to participate for a second time this year in a multilateral patrol mission involving Israel is worth noting.
The United States, Israel and their Arab partners, however, should not be satisfied with this progress. They should look for additional opportunities to deepen mutually beneficial security cooperation. This cooperation strengthens the readiness of each military, improves their ability to operate together and sends a positive deterrent message to Tehran.
The good news is that the respective militaries are already moving that direction. The Blue Flag exercise represents a “stepping-stone toward regional and international cooperation,” Israeli Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin said last month. There are several immediate opportunities the United States and our Middle Eastern partners should not miss.
Terrorist threats to shipping and offshore energy infrastructure in the Middle East are growing. Israeli and Emirati ships have been attacked. Meanwhile, with Iran’s help, Hezbollah has armed itself with a variety of weapons designed to attack maritime targets, and Hamas tried to target gas installations off the Israeli coast during the Gaza conflict in May.
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The United States has renewed military support and assistance for the Lebanese Army following remarks from Israeli officials on a potential “disastrous war” with Lebanon. A particular thorn in Israel’s side: the Block 9 oil and gas field located in a disputed territory off the countries’ maritime borders.
To strengthen maritime capabilities and deterrence, Israel should invite the United Arab Emirates (and Egypt) to participate in the next Noble Dina exercise. This Israeli-hosted exercise focuses on maritime situational awareness, counterterrorism and port defense (among other skills), all of which would improve Israeli and Emirati security.
In the air domain, Israel should invite the United Arab Emirates to send aircraft and fighter crews to the next Blue Flag exercise in two years. For its part, Abu Dhabi should invite Israel to participate in the next UAE-hosted Desert Flag exercise.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates already participate in the Greek-hosted Iniochos exercise, last conducted in April. To extend Arab-Israeli security cooperation further, Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi should work with Athens to invite Egypt and Jordan to join the next Iniochos exercise as full participants (not simply as observers).
The Pentagon should also encourage both Israel and the United Arab Emirates to send robust contingents to the next Red Flag exercise at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
In the land warfare domain, Abu Dhabi should invite the Israel Defense Forces to participate in the next UAE-U.S. Iron Union exercise hosted by the United Arab Emirates. There is good reason to do so: As Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September, “Iran plans to arm its proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon with hundreds, and then thousands of these deadly drones [Shahed-136s].”
If the IDF were to attend the Iron Union exercise, Emirati, American and Israeli forces could work together, for example, to strengthen and rehearse the defense of bases and ground maneuver forces against swarms of enemy drones. Developing, fielding and honing improved defenses against drones is a top priority for U.S. Central Command, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The United States, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and others are right to celebrate the success of the Blue Flag 2021 exercise. Given the growing threats, however, they should not spend too much time congratulating themselves and would be wise to get to work now on urgent next steps.
Bradley Bowman is the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Retired Brig. Gen. Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at FDD. He previously served as head of Israel’s National Security Council and as acting national security adviser. Ryan Brobst is a research analyst at the center.
8. Royal Marines Commandos force US Marine Corps troops to surrender in training exercise
Royal Marines Commandos force US Marine Corps troops to surrender in training exercise
The Royal Navy Commandos alongside troops from allied countries held a five-day battlefield simulation in which they were victorious over their American counterparts.
Wednesday 3 November 2021 23:00, UK
Royal Marines and allies forced US troops to surrender days into a training exercise at an enormous battleground facility in the California desert.
The Ministry of Defence explained that the battle exercise was testing the deployment of the new Littoral Response Group (LRG) in a guerrilla war-fighting facility on the west coast of America against well-equipped US Marine Corps opponents.
But during a five-day exercise, the culmination of two months of training in the Mojave Desert, the US Marine Corps asked for a "reset" after the Royal Marines dominated the battle, reported The Daily Telegraph.
Image: The LRG is a new warfighting group led by the Royal Marines Commando
The LRG is one of two new Royal Navy task groups focused on commando forces that are able to respond to world events, with one to be based in Europe and another in Oman, focused on military threats east of the Suez Canal.
LRG South, the Oman-based force, proved victorious in a five-day operation known as Green Dagger, which saw allies from the US, Canada, UAE, and the Netherlands take on the Marine Corps.
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The LRG South is being built around 40 Commando, part of the UK's internationally renowned light infantry forces, alongside Dutch troops who form part of the LRG.
Dr Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia who has been a consultant for the Foreign Office, wrote in 2018 of how a retired Russian officer told him: "Britain has always had the best light infantry in the world, and the b******* get places faster than we would like."
Image: British and allied forces defeated the US Marine Corps
The commandos proved superior to the US Marine Corps while conducting their exercises at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, a sprawling training ground covering an area similar in size to Luxembourg.
The exercise focused on three urban sprawls defended by allied forces, the largest of which is comprised of 1,200 buildings that have been purpose-built for military exercises.
The LRG won decisive battles early on, according to the Royal Navy, but soon found the Marine Corps pushing into allied territory.
To counter the advance, commandos and allies carried out raids behind enemy lines, infiltrating the US Marine Corps' position and striking assets critical to the US defence and ability to coordinate their own attacks.
Image: The exercise took place in a special training facility in the Mojave Desert
"Our success has proved the new commando force concept is more lethal and sophisticated than ever before and I am immensely proud of every member of the LRG and their vital contributions," said Lieutenant Colonel Andy Dow, commanding officer of 40 Commando.
"Operating alongside our partners from the USA, Netherlands, Canada and the UAE gives us a fantastic opportunity to test, integrate and continue to push our capabilities in new and innovative directions."
"Throughout this deployment our focus has been on integrating game-changing capabilities from across the commando force to deliver disproportional effect in the face of a free-thinking peer adversary," Lt Col Dow added.
Image: The US Marine Corps reportedly asked for a 'reset' after the Royal Marines dominated the battle
When the exercise concluded with a last-minute assault, the allied forces successfully repelled them and the game eventually finished with the British and allied forces controlling more than two thirds of the entire battlefield.
The Ministry of Defence said that the deployment had ensured that the commando element of LRG South is ready for operations from next year, reacting to unfolding events around the world.
LRG North has already been deployed to the Baltic this year, it said.
9. The AP Interview: Justice Dept. conducting cyber crackdown
Excerpts:
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that “in the days and weeks to come, you’re going to see more arrests,” more seizures of ransom payments to hackers and additional law enforcement operations.
“If you come for us, we’re going to come for you,” Monaco said in an interview with the AP this week. She declined to offer specifics about who in particular might face prosecution.
The AP Interview: Justice Dept. conducting cyber crackdown
AP · by ERIC TUCKER · November 4, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is stepping up actions to combat ransomware and cybercrime through arrests and other actions, its No. 2 official told The Associated Press, as the Biden administration escalates its response to what it regards as an urgent economic and national security threat.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said that “in the days and weeks to come, you’re going to see more arrests,” more seizures of ransom payments to hackers and additional law enforcement operations.
“If you come for us, we’re going to come for you,” Monaco said in an interview with the AP this week. She declined to offer specifics about who in particular might face prosecution.
The actions are intended to build off steps taken in recent months, including the recent extradition to the U.S. of a suspected Russian cybercriminal and the seizure in June of $2.3 million in cryptocurrency paid to hackers. They come as the U.S. continues to endure what Monaco called a “steady drumbeat” of attacks despite President Joe Biden’s admonitions last summer to Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after a spate of lucrative attacks linked to Russia-based hacking gangs.
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“We have not seen a material change in the landscape. Only time will tell as to what Russia may do on this front,” Monaco said.
Another official, National Cyber Director Chris Inglis, painted a rosier picture, telling lawmakers Wednesday that the U.S. had seen a “discernible decrease” in attacks emanating from Russia but that it was too soon to say why.
But Monaco added: “We are not going to stop. We’re going to continue to press forward to hold accountable those who seek to go after our industries, hold their data hostage and threaten economic security, national security and personal security.”
Monaco is a longtime fixture in Washington law enforcement, having served as an adviser to Robert Mueller when he was FBI director and as head of the Justice Department’s national security division. She was a White House official in 2014 when the Justice Department brought a first-of-its-kind indictment against Chinese government hackers.
Monaco’s current position, with oversight of the FBI and other Justice Department components, has made her a key player in U.S. government efforts against ransomware. That fight has defied easy solutions given the sheer volume of high-dollar attacks and the ease with which hackers have penetrated private companies and government agencies alike. How much lasting impact the latest actions will have is also unclear.
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Though not a new phenomenon, ransomware attacks — in which hackers lock up and encrypt data and demand often-exorbitant sums to release it to victims — have exploded in the last year with breaches affecting vital infrastructure and global corporations.
Colonial Pipeline, which supplies roughly half the fuel consumed on the East Coast, paid more than $4 million after a May attack that led it to halt operations, though the Justice Department clawed the majority of it back by gaining access to the cryptocurrency wallet of the culprits, known as DarkSide. The public should expect to see more such seizures, Monaco said.
The splashy attacks elevated ransomware as an urgent national security priority while the administration scrambled to stem the onslaught.
Inside the Justice Department, officials in April formed a ransomware task force of prosecutors and agents, and they’ve directed U.S. attorney offices to report ransomware cases to Washington just as they would terrorism attacks.
It has also tried prosecutions, extraditing from South Korea last month an accused Russian hacker, Vladimir Dunaev, who prosecutors say participated in a cyber gang whose malicious software — “Trickbot” — infected millions of computers.
“You’re going to see more actions like you saw last week in the days and weeks to come,” Monaco said.
Still, holding foreign hackers accountable in the U.S. is notoriously difficult, and ransomware gangs are abundant. Even if recent attacks haven’t generated the same publicity as the ones last spring, Monaco said there’s been no discernible change in behavior by opportunistic hackers still targeting a range of industries with attacks that threaten to paralyze crucial business operations — or force multimillion-dollar payouts.
Monaco said she’s sympathetic to the hard decisions companies must make, in part because she’s had experience confronting criminals’ monetary demands.
As homeland security and counterterrorism adviser in the Obama administration, she helped craft a policy on Americans held hostage overseas. The policy reiterated that ransom payments for hostages were discouraged and illegal, but also made clear that prosecutors didn’t plan to prosecute families who made such payments.
“What it reflects, and frankly what the whole endeavor reflected, was a sense on Lisa’s part that this was an area where you needed an extraordinary balance between policy and humanity,” said Joshua Geltzer, the Biden administrator’s deputy homeland security adviser who worked with Monaco in the Obama White House.
The U.S. government has publicly discouraged ransomware payments but Monaco — who during the Obama administration faced criticism from hostage families about the government’s response to their plight — says the administration is trying to listen to and work with victimized companies.
Officials have shown no interest in prosecuting companies that pay ransom to hackers, though Monaco did announce last month that the department was prepared to sue federal contractors who fail to disclose that they’ve been hacked or who fail to meet cybersecurity standards.
“We have experienced where companies do not pay the attention they need to on this front,” Monaco said.
Ransomware attacks have flourished even as the federal government grapples with more old-fashioned, albeit sophisticated, cyber espionage. The Justice Department was among the agencies hit hard by the SolarWinds breach, in which Russian government hackers exploited a supply chain vulnerability to gain access to the networks of federal departments and private companies.
It was a reminder, she said, that no one is immune from a sophisticated breach.
“We need to practice what we preach and be doing the same type of vigilance on our cybersecurity that we are asking companies to do,” she said.
____
AP · by ERIC TUCKER · November 4, 2021
10. Bernard-Henri Levy’s dispatches from troubled lands
Excerpts:
There also is a section titled, “My Creed,” which includes a chapter titled: “The Adventurer: A Self-Portrait,” in which he declares that he never sets out “on a reporting trip without the firm intention of intervening in what I see and changing what I show.” In his Epilogue, he writes: “Often when I leave on a reporting trip my children and others close to me worry. ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ they ask.” But he firmly believes “that if risks there be, they are noble risks that must be taken.”
Did I mention that BHL is something of a self-promoter? Still, he’s telling stories that need to be told.
Bernard-Henri Levy’s dispatches from troubled lands
They deserve attention - self-promotion notwithstanding
OPINION:
Bernard-Henri Lévy is a philosopher, author, filmmaker, reporter, and bon vivant. Born in Algeria, the scion of a wealthy family (he owns a palace in Marrakech), he is French, Jewish, atheist, and a self-described “Baudelairean.” (I don’t know what that means either.)
His hair is graying but not yet gray, insouciantly long in the back. His suits are bespoke. His crisp white shirts have mandarin collars, with a few buttons left unbuttoned. At 72, he is slim and fit, as peripatetic and intrepid as ever.
In France, he is often referred to simply as BHL, and that’s what I’ll call him here since “Mr. Lévy” just doesn’t sound right. That he is something of a self-promoter goes without saying, though I’m saying it anyway.
But we should give credit where credit is due: BHL uses his extravagantly cultivated celebrity to bring attention to people and places in severe distress yet ignored by major media and assisted incompetently – if at all – by the politicians and bureaucrats we insist upon calling “the international community.”
Just before and even during the global pandemic, he visited eight such “hotspots,” witnessing atrocities and tragedies, and speaking with those suffering and, in many instances, dying.
He has a new book and film based on his journeys: “The Will to See: Dispatches from a World of Misery and Hope.” In them, he is admirably unconcerned with the demands of the “politically correct” mobs.
For example, he has a chapter titled, “Nigeria’s Christians Are Under Siege!” In the 1980s, I spent a fair amount of time as a foreign correspondent in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, with its largest economy.
There were ethnic and religious divisions back then, but a jihad was not being waged. What’s taking place now, BHL writes, “is a massacre of Christians on a scale that appears to exceed even what the Christians of the Middle East have undergone.”
This slaughter, he makes clear, is being carried out primarily by the Fulani, once known as pastoral nomads of the Sahel: “The Fulani storm in on their long-saddle motorcycles, three to a bike, shouting, ‘Allahu Akbar.’ They torch houses…before the villagers can take shelter or flee, the Fulani are upon them, in their houses, swinging their machetes, chasing cries in the night, seeking out pregnant women, burning, pillaging, raping.
“They do not always kill everyone. At a given moment they stop. They recite a verse from the Koran…Survivors are needed to tell the tale, to spread fear from village to village, to bear witness that the Fulani, fearing nothing but Allah, are capable of anything.”
He notes that “radical mosques” are “springing up as fast as the churches burn down.” Behind the violence, he sees the hand of Boko Haram, the terrorist group that savagely preys on “all of the unbelievers, Christians and Muslims alike, of Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon and beyond.”
Attempts to defeat Boko Haram have been unavailing. “It’s hardly surprising,” a Nigerian attorney tells BHL. “The high command of the Nigerian army is Fulani. The whole administration is Fulani.” He adds that President Muhammadu Buhari, “who depends on subsidies from Ankara and Qatar, is a Fulani.”
During a discussion at the Hudson Institute last week, BHL adds that the Nigerian government has been “poisoned by Islamism.”
His chapter on Afghanistan is based on a visit he made to that devastated land in August of 2020. President Trump had concluded a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban who continued, nonetheless, to murder Afghans regarded as insufficiently submissive. At Hudson, BHL calls President Biden’s chaotic and bloody retreat last August, a “catastrophe.”
He indicates that the leaders of France, Germany, and Britain foresaw that a precipitous withdrawal would be tantamount to surrendering to the Taliban and its ally, al Qaeda. I ask him: Why didn’t those leaders make a serious effort to persuade Mr. Biden to reconsider, to pause, to consult with them before bugging out? He doesn’t have a good answer.
In his chapter on Somalia, BHL highlights the nefarious role being played by the Turks. They have a “spanking-new embassy – standing, not leveled; plus a colossal military base from which they never emerge; Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s name is plastered in roman and Arabic characters all along the main arteries.” BHL is struck by the Turkish government’s “complacency toward al-Shabaab fundamentalism, which is not far from the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
BHL’s other chapters recount visits to Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan, where an imprisoned Islamic State terrorist “shouts at me in his northern French accent, ‘We know who you are!’”; Ukraine, where he embedded with special forces fighting pro-Russian separatists; Bangladesh where he was honored as “veteran Lévy” for his activism in their liberation movement of the 1970s; Lesbos where he met with refugees determined to resettle in Europe; and Libya, where he is attacked by “armed men in sand-colored uniforms, accompanied by jeering civilians armed with Kalashnikovs, who begin firing and shouting ‘Jewish dog!’” In all these dispatches, I find more misery than hope.
There also is a section titled, “My Creed,” which includes a chapter titled: “The Adventurer: A Self-Portrait,” in which he declares that he never sets out “on a reporting trip without the firm intention of intervening in what I see and changing what I show.” In his Epilogue, he writes: “Often when I leave on a reporting trip my children and others close to me worry. ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ they ask.” But he firmly believes “that if risks there be, they are noble risks that must be taken.”
Did I mention that BHL is something of a self-promoter? Still, he’s telling stories that need to be told.
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times.
11. Pentagon details China info war on U.S.
Political warfare. Just saying:
Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience to include another state's government, military, and/or general population. Governments use a variety of techniques to coerce certain actions, thereby gaining relative advantage over an opponent. The techniques include propaganda and psychological operations (PSYOP), which service national and military objectives respectively. Propaganda has many aspects and a hostile and coercive political purpose. Psychological operations are for strategic and tactical military objectives and may be intended for hostile military and civilian populations. Smith, Paul A., On Political War (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1989)
Chinese Three warfares:
Psychological Warfare seeks to disrupt an opponent’s decision-making capacity; create doubts, foment anti-leadership sentiments, deceive and diminish the will to fight among opponents.
Legal Warfare (“lawfare”) can involve enacting domestic law as the basis for making claims in international law and employing “bogus” maps to justify China’s actions.
Media Warfare (or public opinion warfare) is the key to gaining dominance over the venue for implementing psychological and and legal warfare.
•What is the major difference in the views of conflict, strategy, and campaigning between Russia, China, Iran, nK, AQ, and ISIS and the US?
–The psychological takes precedence and may or may not be supported with the kinetic
–Politics is war by other means
–For the US kinetic is first and the psychological is (a distant) second
–War is politics by other means
•Napoleon: In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one
•In the 21st Century the psychological is to the kinetic as ten is to one
•The US has to learn to put the psychological first
–Can a federal democratic republic “do strategy” this way?
–Or is it only autocratic, totalitarian dictatorships that can “do strategy” this way?
Pentagon details China info war on U.S.
NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
China is engaged in influence operations targeting U.S. society aimed at building support for the communist nation’s policies and strategies, according to the Pentagon‘s latest annual report on the Chinese military.
“The PRC conducts influence operations, which target cultural institutions, media organizations, business, academic, and policy communities in the United States, other countries, and international institutions, to achieve outcomes favorable to its strategic objectives,” the report said.
Little academic research has been done in the United States to track the influence operations, which have been successful in shaping Americans’ understanding of China. Many media organizations and think tanks often reflect Chinese government propaganda and messages, such as the theme that China poses no threat to the U.S.
Beijing uses its funding and access to travel in China as means of influencing American institutions to avoid criticizing threatening activities such as human rights violations and China‘s spread of nuclear arms and equipment around the world.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “seeks to condition domestic, foreign, and multilateral political establishments and public opinion to accept Beijing‘s narratives and remove obstacles preventing attainment of goals,” the 192-page report contends. Beijing‘s communist leaders believe open democratic societies are more susceptible to its influence operations.
According to the report, the People’s Liberation Army is using the “three warfares concept” to guide its activities: psychological warfare, public opinion warfare and legal warfare. All have been in the military‘s playbook since at least 2003.
The report notes that the PLA is developing advanced “digital influence capabilities” in its information warfare campaigns by incorporating artificial intelligence, which it hopes will improve the quality and deniability of its messaging.
The Chinese military has even created a special service for information and influence campaigns, called the Strategic Support Force. Within the force, the network systems department is in charge of information warfare using cyberwarfare, technical reconnaissance, electronic warfare (EW) and psychological warfare.
“By placing these missions under the same organizational umbrella, the PRC seeks to remedy the operational coordination challenges that hindered information sharing under the PLA’s pre-reform organizational structure,” the report said.
The network system department is in charge of the three warfares operations.
The information warfare component seeks to “demoralize adversaries [and] influence foreign and domestic public opinion,” the report said.
“Psychological warfare uses propaganda, deception, threats and coercion to affect the adversary’s decision-making, while also countering adversary psychological operations,” according to the report.
Public opinion warfare involves spreading information for public consumption that will guide and influence public opinion and build support from domestic and international audiences. And legal warfare is the exploitation of laws to gain international support, limit political repercussions and sway target audiences.
Increasingly, the Chinese are using digital influence operations as well, including efforts to support China‘s interpretation of the “one-China policy” regarding Taiwan; to back the economic expansionist development scheme called the Belt and Road Initiative; to gain support for China‘s takeover of democratic Hong Kong; and to back Chinese disputed territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea.
“PRC influence operations are coordinated at a high level and executed by a range of actors, such as the United Front Work Department, the Propaganda Department and the Ministry of State Security (MSS),” the report said.
The operations often target overseas Chinese or ethnic Chinese living abroad through what the report called “soft-power engagements.” Blackmail and coercion to manipulate overseas Chinese also are used, such as threatening ethnic Uyghurs living in the United States with imprisonment of family members in China.
The operations also are used to support the acquisition of American technology, such as the “Thousand Talents Program,” which has recruited several U.S. researchers who were paid covertly by China. Some of the more than 200,000 Chinese students in the United States also are ordered to spread the official Chinese government line, such as opposing Tibetan human rights activists and the Dalai Lama.
The main vehicles are Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSA) and Confucius Institutes, which seek to support Chinese policies and lodge protests on college campuses over activities that “fail to comport with Beijing‘s narrative,” the report said.
“The PRC’s foreign influence activities are predominantly focused on establishing and maintaining influence with power brokers within foreign governments to promote policies that the PRC views will facilitate its rise, despite Beijing‘s stated position of not interfering in foreign countries’ internal affairs,” the report says.
Chinese diplomats also seek to influence well-connected Americans by providing assistance and calling for “win-win cooperation” through trade and diplomacy.
Some nations are fighting back. The European Union, Australia and New Zealand are seeking ways to curb the influence operations.
The report said the PLA has voiced concern that the United States is using the internet and social media to undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power domestically. The PLA, in response, is researching digital influence operations by sending teams to Russia, Israel, Belarus and Germany to study operations there.
The PLA may set up its own Twitter account and other accounts on Western social media. The military also is using covert social media accounts for its political influence operations.
PLA Strategic Support Force personnel “may have conducted a covert social media campaign to support pro-PRC candidates and try to sway the outcome of the 2018 Taiwan election,” the report said.
The PLA also is preparing to use “deep fakes” — high-quality doctored videos designed to smear public figures.
“In 2019, PLA personnel also suggested training [artificial intelligence] algorithms to autonomously create content and coordinate influence activity between different fake accounts,” the report said.
BEIJING NOW WANTS MILITARY SUPERIORITY OVER U.S.
As part of its drive to develop a world-class military by 2049, China‘s leaders are seeking to achieve superiority over the United States, according to the Pentagon‘s latest report on China‘s military power.
“It is likely that [China] will seek to develop a military by mid-century that is equal to — or in some cases superior to — the U.S. military, and that of any other great power that Beijing views as a threat to its sovereignty, security and development interests,” the report said.
As part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s drive for national rejuvenation, “it is unlikely that the [Chinese Communist Party] would aim for an end state in which China would remain in a position of military inferiority vis-a-vis the United States or any other potential rival,” the report states.
The report was produced in part by the Defense Intelligence Agency and reverses judgments some 25 years ago in earlier annual reports that said China had few global ambitions and sought mainly to limit its military buildup to forces that could retake Taiwan. The Pentagon now believes China will not settle for less than being the world’s most powerful nation.
However, the People’s Liberation Army is not likely to mirror the U.S. military in terms of capabilities and power.
“The PRC will likely seek to develop its ‘world-class’ military in a manner that it believes best suits the needs of its armed forces to defend and advance the country’s interests and how the PLA — guided by the Party — adapts to the changing character of warfare.”
The report notes that the Chinese military is not a national army like those of other nations.
“The PLA is the principal armed wing of the CCP and, as a party-army, does not directly serve the state,” the report says.
“As a party-army, the PLA is a political actor. As a constituency within the Party, it participates in the PRC’s political and governance systems. As the ultimate guarantor of the Party’s rule and political and governance systems, the PLA’s missions include formal and informal domestic security missions in addition to its national defense missions.”
Visible differences between the party and PLA leaders are extremely rare, and official propaganda in recent years has emphasized absolute party control over the PLA — despite the fact that the officer corps is almost exclusively made up of Communist Party members.
• Contact Bill Gertz on Twitter @BillGertz.
12. Radicalization's path: In case studies, finding similarities
Excerpts:
Research shows that people who espouse conspiracy theories tend to do poorer on measures of critical thinking. They reduce complex world problems — the pandemic, for instance — to simplified and reassuring answers, says Ziv Cohen, a forensic psychiatrist and expert on extremist beliefs at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University.
Rather than attributing a job loss to the effects of globalization, for instance, one might see it as the result of a conspiracy that someone in particular has engineered.
“It gives us answers,” he says, “that are much more appealing emotionally than the real answer.”
That’s where the stories of Jensen and Wahab seem to intersect. Both were seeking something. Both found answers that were enticing, attractive — and distorted versions of reality.
“For reasons he does not even understand today, he became a ‘true believer’ and was convinced he (was) doing a noble service by becoming a digital soldier for ‘Q,’” Davis, Jensen’s lawyer, wrote in a June court filing. “Maybe it was mid-life crisis, the pandemic, or perhaps the message just seemed to elevate him from his ordinary life to an exalted status with an honorable goal.”
But is that goal ever reached? Is comfort ever found? Oddly, and perhaps counterintuitively, research has shown that when extremists’ conspiracy theories are reinforced, their anxiety levels rise rather than fall, Cohen says. He likens the comfort to a drug — one that requires increasingly more consumption to take effect. Which helps perpetuate the cycle.
Says Cohen: “People seem to not be able to get enough of a conspiracy theory, but they’re never quite satisfied or really reassured.”
Radicalization's path: In case studies, finding similarities
AP · by HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, KATHY GANNON and ERIC TUCKER · November 4, 2021
In the months before he was charged with storming the Capitol, Doug Jensen was sharing conspiracy theories he’d consumed online. But it hadn’t always been that way, says his brother, who recalls how he once posted the sort of family and vacation photos familiar to nearly all social media users.
A world away, Wahab hadn’t always spent his days immersed in jihadist teaching. The product of a wealthy Pakistani family and the youngest son of four, he was into cars and video games, had his own motorcycle, even studied in Japan.
No two ideologues are identical. No two groups are comprised of monolithic clones. No single light switch marks the shift to radicalism. The gulf between different kinds of extremists — in religious and political convictions, in desired world orders, in how deeply they embrace violence in the name of their cause — is as wide as it is obvious.
But to dwell only on the differences obscures the similarities, not only in how people absorb extremist ideology but also in how they feed off grievances and mobilize to action.
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For any American who casts violent extremism as a foreign problem, the Jan. 6 Capitol siege held up an uncomfortable mirror that showed the same conditions for fantastical thinking and politically motivated violence as any society.
The Associated Press set out to examine the paths and mechanics of radicalization through case studies on two continents: a 20-year-old man rescued from a Taliban training camp on Afghanistan’s border, and an Iowa man whose brother watched him fall sway to nonsensical conspiracy theories and ultimately play a visible role in the mob of Donald Trump loyalists that stormed the Capitol.
Two places, two men, two very different stories as seen by two close relatives. But strip away the ideologies for a moment, says John Horgan, a researcher of violent extremism. Instead, look at the the psychological processes, the pathways, the roots, the experiences.
“All of those things,” Horgan says, “tend to look far more similar than they are different.”
THE AMERICAN
America met Doug Jensen via a video that ricocheted across the Internet, turning an officer into a hero and laying bare the mob mentality inside the Capitol that day.
Jensen is the man in a dark stocking cap, a black “Trust the Plan” shirt over a hooded sweatshirt, front and center in a crowd of rioters chasing Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer, up two flights of stairs. One prominent picture shows him standing feet from an officer, arms spread wide, mouth agape.
When it was all over, he’d tell the FBI that he was a “true believer” in QAnon, that he’d gone to Washington because Q and Trump had summoned “all patriots” and that he’d expected to see Vice President Mike Pence arrested. He’d say he pushed his way to the front of the crowd because he wanted “Q” to get the credit for what was about to happen.
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He’d tell his brother the photos were staged, how the police had practically let him in through the front door (prosecutors say he climbed a wall and entered through a broken window) and that some officers even did selfies with the crowd.
William Routh of Clarksville, Arkansas, had an unsettled feeling about that day even before the riot and says he cautioned his younger brother. “I said, if you go down there and you’re going to do a peaceful thing, then that’s fine. But I said keep your head down and don’t be doing something stupid.”
In interviews with the AP days and months after his younger brother’s arrest, Routh painted Jensen — a 42-year-old Des Moines father of three who’d worked as a union mason laborer — as a man who enjoyed a pleasant if unextraordinary American existence. He says he took his family to places like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park, attended his children’s sporting events, worked to pay for a son’s college education, made anodyne Facebook posts.
“I have friends that I speak to constantly that have conspiracy theories,” Routh said, “but this was a shock to me more than anything, because I would not have thought this from my brother Doug, because he’s a very good, hardworking family man and he has good values.”
Exactly who Jensen is, and how much knowledge he had of the world around him, depends on who’s talking.
A Justice Department memo that argued for Jensen’s detention cites a criminal history and his eagerness to drive more than 1,000 miles to “hear President Trump declare martial law,” then to take it into his own hands when no proclamation happened. It notes that when the FBI questioned him, he said he’d gone to Washington because “Q,” the movement’s amorphous voice, had forecast that the “storm” had arrived.
His lawyer, Christopher Davis, countered in his own filing by essentially offering Jensen up as a dupe, a “victim of numerous conspiracy theories” and a committed family man whose initial devotion to QAnon “was its stated mission to eliminate pedophiles from society.”
Six months after the insurrection, the argument resonated with a judge who agreed to release Jensen on house arrest as his case moved forward. The judge, Timothy Kelly, cited a video in which Jensen referred to the Capitol building as the White House and said he didn’t believe Jensen could have planned an attack in advance “when he had no basic understanding of where he even was that day.”
Yet less than two months after he was released, Jensen was ordered back to jail for violating the conditions of his freedom. Though barred from accessing a cellphone, he watched a symposium sponsored by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that offered up false theories that the presidential election’s outcome was changed by Chinese hackers. A federal officer making the first unannounced visit to Jensen found him in his garage using an iPhone to watch news from Rumble, a streaming platform popular with conservatives.
Davis, who weeks earlier had asserted that his client “feels deceived, recognizing that he bought into a pack of lies,” likened his client’s behavior this time to an addiction. The judge was unmoved.
“It’s now clear that he has not experienced a transformation and that he continues to seek out those conspiracy theories that led to his dangerous conduct on Jan. 6,” Kelly said. “I don’t see any reason to believe that he has had the wake-up call that he needs.”
Precisely when and how Jensen came to absorb the conspiracies that led him to the Capitol is bewildering to Routh, who says he took Jensen under his wing during a challenging childhood that included stays in foster care and now feels compelled, as his oldest living relative, to speak on his behalf.
When Jensen was questioned by the FBI, according to an agent’s testimony, he said for the last couple of years he’d return home from an eight-hour workday and consume information from QAnon. In the four months before the riot, the brothers communicated about QAnon as Jensen shared videos and other conspiracy-laden messages that he purported to find meaning in but that Routh found suspect.
It was a period rife with baseless theories, advanced on the Internet and mainstream television, that an election conducted legitimately was somehow stolen in favor of Democrat Joe Biden. “It was just out there. It is on the internet everywhere,” Routh says.
Routh, who says he’s a Republican who supported Trump, maintains his brother and others like him were frightened by the prospect of a Biden victory. Before Jan. 6, Routh says, “We have been being told for the last — what? — seven, eight months that if the Democrats get control, we’re losing our country, OK? That scares a lot of people.”
He says he understands the anxiety of Trump supporters who fear the country may get more radical on the left. He has friends in oil fields and the pipeline industry who don’t know “if they’re going to be able to feed their families again.” As Routh criss-crossed the country as a truck driver, he says the idea Trump would lose re-election seemed unfathomable given that virtually everyone he met, everywhere he went, was pushing “Trump, Trump, Trump.”
When Routh looks at the photos of Jensen and the group he was with Jan. 6, he doesn’t see a determination to physically hurt anyone or vandalize the building. And despite the QAnon T-shirt, and despite the statement to the FBI that he was “all about a revolution,” Routh insists his brother was more a follower than a leader. Jensen is not among those charged with conspiracy or with being part of a militia group, and though prosecutors say he had a pocket knife with him, his lawyer says it was from work and he never took it out.
“He had a lot of influence from everybody else there,” Routh said this summer as he awaited a judge’s ruling on his brother’s bond motion. “And he has always been the kind of kid that says, ‘I can do that.’”
Two days after the riot, back home in Iowa, Jensen walked 6 miles (9.66 kilometers) to the Des Moines police department after seeing he was featured in videos of the chaos, an FBI agent would later testify. There, the FBI says, he made statements now at the center of the case, including admitting chasing Goodman up the stairs, that he yelled “Hit me. I’ll take it” as the officer raised a baton to move him back and that he profanely bellowed for the arrests of government leaders.
Though prosecutors suggest he had the presence of mind to delete potentially incriminating social media accounts from his phone, he also seemed uncertain — confused, even — during his encounter with law enforcement. As officials questioned him, according to an FBI agent’s testimony, he said words to the effect of, “Am I being duped?”
THE PAKISTANI
Wahab had it all. The youngest son of four from a wealthy Pakistani family, he spent his early years in the United Arab Emirates and for a time in Japan, studying. Wahab liked cars, had his own motorcycle and was crazy about video games.
His uncle, who rescued the 20-year-old from a Taliban training camp on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan earlier this year, asked that his full name not be used because in the northwest where the family lives, militants have deep-reaching tentacles. But more than that, he worries about his family’s reputation because of its prominence. He agreed to be quoted using his middle name, Kamal.
The family has business interests scattered across the globe. Kamal is one of five brothers who runs the family-owned import/export conglomerate. Each brother in turn has groomed and primed their sons for the business. Wahab’s older brothers are already running overseas branches of the family business.
Wahab’s future was to be no different. He returned to Pakistan in his early teens from abroad. Being the youngest son in a society that prizes males, he was spoiled. His older brothers sent him “pocket money,” his uncle said. Other than school, Wahab had few responsibilities.
His uncle blamed his slide to radicalization on the neighborhood teens Wahab hung out with in their northwest Pakistan hometown — not to mention video games and Internet sites.
Wahab’s friends introduced him to dozens of sites, his uncle said. They told of Muslims being attacked, women raped, babies brutally killed. The gruesomeness was horrifying, though Kamal says there was no way to know what was true — or if any had been doctored. But for Wahab, the images were deeply disturbing.
“He felt like he hadn’t known what was going on, that he had spent his life in darkness and he felt he should be involved. His friends insisted he should. They told him he was rich and should help our people,” his uncle said.
To his uncle, Wahab seemed to become increasingly aggressive and fixated on violence with the seemingly endless hours he spent playing video games. One in particular, called PUBG, was all the rage with Wahab and his friends.
“All the boys loved it,” Kamal said. “For hours they would play as a team against the computer.”
On pubgmobile.com, the game is described as focusing “on visual quality, maps, shooting experience ... providing an all-rounded surreal Battle Royale experience to players. A hundred players will land on the battleground to begin an intense yet fun journey.” Wahab’s uncle said he’d be shouting instructions as he played, interacting with teammates.
Suddenly, earlier this year, Wahab disappeared. His parents, frantic, searched everywhere. Wahab wasn’t the first in the family to flirt with extremism. His cousin Salman had joined the local Pakistani Taliban years before. But he was different: He’d never been interested in school and was sent to a religious school, or madrassa, for his education. The family had long given up on him.
Salman swore he hadn’t seen Wahab and knew nothing of where he might be — or if he had even joined jihad.
Suspicion then fell on Wahab’s friends. Family members were certain they’d induced him to defend against attacks that Wahab and his friends were convinced were being waged against Muslims, simply because of their religion.
The family used its influence and money to press the fathers of Wahab’s friends to find the 20-year-old. They finally located him at a Pakistani Taliban training camp, where Kamal said Wahab was being instructed in the use of small weapons.
Such camps are also often used to identify would-be suicide bombers and instruct them in the use of explosives, identification of soft targets and how to cause the greatest destruction. The Pakistan Taliban have carried out horrific attacks; in 2014, insurgents armed with automatic rifles attacked a public school, killing more than 150 people, most children, some as young as 5.
When Wahab’s father discovered his son was at a training camp, he was furious, said his uncle.
“He told the people, ‘Leave him there. I don’t accept him as my son anymore.’ But I took it on myself to bring him back,” Kamal said. He said he didn’t ask Wahab about the camp or why he wanted to go — or even such basics as how he got there.
“I didn’t want him talking about any of it. I didn’t want to know why he went because then I knew he would start to get excited again and he would start thinking about it all over again,” Kamal said. “Instead, I took a firm face with him.”
His uncle told Wahab he was getting another chance — his last.
“I told him, ‘Now it is on me. I have taken the responsibility. You won’t get another chance. If you do anything again then I will shoot you,’” his uncle said. In Pakistan’s northwest, where tribal laws and customs often decide family disputes and feuds, the threat was most likely not an idle one.
Today, Wahab is back in the family business, but his uncle says he is closely watched. He isn’t allowed to deal with the company finances and his circle of friends is monitored. “Right now we don’t trust him. It will take us time,” his uncle says.
Fearful that others among Wahab’s siblings and cousins could be enticed to extremism, the family has imposed greater restrictions on young male relatives. Their independence has been restricted, Kamal says: “We are watching all the young boys now, and most nights they have to be home — unless they tell us where they are.”
___
Moral outrage. A sense of injustice. A feeling that things can only be fixed through urgent, potentially violent action.
Those tend to motivate people who gravitate toward extremism, according to Horgan, who directs the Violent Extremism Research Group at Georgia State University. He says such action is often seen as necessary to ward off a perceived impending threat to one’s way of life — and to secure a better future.
“Those similarities you will find repeated across the board, whether you’re talking about extreme right-wing militias in Oklahoma or you’re talking about a Taliban offshoot in northwest Pakistan,” Horgan says.
The world views driving extremist groups may feel fantastical and outrageous to society at large. But the true believers who consume propaganda and align themselves with like-minded associates don’t see it that way. To them, they possess inside knowledge that others simply don’t see.
“There’s a contradiction, because they are committed insiders but part of their insider status is defined by pitting themselves against an outsider whose very existence is said to threaten their own,” Horgan says. “They pride themselves on being anti-authoritarian. Yet conformity is what binds them together.”
Research shows that people who espouse conspiracy theories tend to do poorer on measures of critical thinking. They reduce complex world problems — the pandemic, for instance — to simplified and reassuring answers, says Ziv Cohen, a forensic psychiatrist and expert on extremist beliefs at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University.
Rather than attributing a job loss to the effects of globalization, for instance, one might see it as the result of a conspiracy that someone in particular has engineered.
“It gives us answers,” he says, “that are much more appealing emotionally than the real answer.”
That’s where the stories of Jensen and Wahab seem to intersect. Both were seeking something. Both found answers that were enticing, attractive — and distorted versions of reality.
“For reasons he does not even understand today, he became a ‘true believer’ and was convinced he (was) doing a noble service by becoming a digital soldier for ‘Q,’” Davis, Jensen’s lawyer, wrote in a June court filing. “Maybe it was mid-life crisis, the pandemic, or perhaps the message just seemed to elevate him from his ordinary life to an exalted status with an honorable goal.”
But is that goal ever reached? Is comfort ever found? Oddly, and perhaps counterintuitively, research has shown that when extremists’ conspiracy theories are reinforced, their anxiety levels rise rather than fall, Cohen says. He likens the comfort to a drug — one that requires increasingly more consumption to take effect. Which helps perpetuate the cycle.
Says Cohen: “People seem to not be able to get enough of a conspiracy theory, but they’re never quite satisfied or really reassured.”
___
Associated Press writer David Pitt in Des Moines contributed to this report.
AP · by HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, KATHY GANNON and ERIC TUCKER · November 4, 2021
13. What drove the United States to AUKUS?
Excerpts:
The desire to empower America’s closest allies; the need to demonstrate the US commitment to, and prioritisation of, the Indo-Pacific region; the respect for and trust of Australia; the drive to balance Beijing with more robust defence capabilities for its allies; and the hope that bold actions will galvanise more nations to act all played a part in Washington’s decision to support AUKUS. Canberra may have initiated this deal with London, but Washington rightly saw the opportunity to advance its own strategic goals.
Australia’s 2020 defence strategic update concluded that the regional security environment was deteriorating more rapidly than earlier assessments indicated, requiring new thinking and new action.
Recognition of an altered landscape and the need to mobilise greater collective efforts can produce radical shifts in what is necessary, and what is possible.
During America’s Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared, ‘The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.’ Thus he laid the political, moral and strategic groundwork for the Emancipation Proclamation to formally abolish slavery in America. ‘As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.’ Attempting to motivate his fellow Americans, Lincoln concluded that his nation could succeed only by concert, not with, ‘Can any of us imagine better?’ but with, ‘Can we all do better?’ That simple statement preceded one of the boldest acts of statecraft in American history.
Many questions about AUKUS remain unanswered, and critical ones may not yet have been asked. But Washington and Canberra seem to have made the same bet, that only collective effort, and not individual actions, will produce lasting security and stability.
What drove the United States to AUKUS? | The Strategist
September was a dizzying month in Australian foreign policy, especially in the Australian–American relationship. In quick succession were the 70th anniversary of ANZUS, the announcement of the new AUKUS defence partnership, the annual AUSMIN consultations and the Quad’s first in-person leaders’ meeting. The pace was relentless and the consequences breathtaking, with AUKUS the most notable development.
Much Australian commentary has focused on what drove Canberra to join this partnership—the potential risks and benefits, the political dimensions and the challenges. Less discussed are the multiple factors that drove Washington to this decision. None relate to over-the-top claims that it was motivated by a desperate and provocative grasp at preserving its primacy. Understanding the multiple rationales at work is key to determining how important AUKUS is to America, the strength and durability of its commitment, and the likely evolution of this rapidly changing partnership.
AUKUS represents a sea change in US strategic thinking towards empowering its allies, redistributing its forces around the Indo-Pacific, and better integrating its allies into its supply chains and industrial planning to deal with an increasingly aggressive China. This requires sharing sensitive technologies, deepening intelligence cooperation, pooling resources and changing domestic legislation around export controls. It could fundamentally change America’s engagement with the region, its approach to technological acquisition, and its relationship with Australia and other allies.
Given the strategic, bureaucratic and legislative hurdles, this will be no mean feat. So, what explains this shift in Washington’s attitude? Several factors, as it turns out.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly asserted that alliances are America’s greatest asset and pledged that his administration will repair and reinvest in them. This isn’t simply a desire to apply rhetorical balm after four years of disruptions, although that’s undoubtedly at work too. For Biden, as with nearly all his predecessors, this is a matter of security.
‘When we strengthen our alliances,’ Biden told America’s diplomats shortly after becoming president, ‘we amplify our power as well as our ability to disrupt threats before they can reach our shores.’ This straightforward logic has guided American policymakers for decades: there’s safety, and power, in numbers and threats are best confronted as far from the American homeland as possible.
For Washington, AUKUS is a tangible demonstration of its commitment to allies under duress. More significantly, it is a recognition that in a deteriorating security environment with a shifting balance of power, America is prepared to significantly augment close allies’ capabilities and enable them to do more.
Similarly, America needs to address persistent questions about its commitment to, and staying power in, the Indo-Pacific. Foreign observers have obsessed over how inwardly focused America is, where its actual, as opposed to stated, priorities lie, and its ability to defend itself and others from emerging threats.
America’s allies and partners have asked these questions out of a sense of concern; its adversaries out of a sense of opportunity. In recent months, such concerns were heightened in the aftermath of America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and growing alarm over Taiwan’s vulnerability. AUKUS will not put an end to those debates, but willingly sharing the crown jewels of America’s technological and military prowess is a big step forward.
Just as significant, AUKUS will help shift America’s strategic focus and lay the foundation for a significantly expanded regional presence. Related to this is the message intended simultaneously for external audiences and domestic ones that the needs of the Indo-Pacific will take priority over other interests and drive bureaucratic choice and resource allocation.
The special regard that Australia is held in, by both American policymakers and the American public, combined with Washington’s desire to do more to help Australia respond to China’s bullying, also helps account for Washington’s willingness to pursue this deal. Australia and America have had a close relationship for decades but, over the past several years, a special interest in, and respect for, Australia’s own policies has grown in the US.
Australia is seen a canary in the coalmine, often the first to experience and be forced to respond to various forms of Chinese coercion and political interference. In Washington, politicians and policymakers now cite Australia as an example of both what Chinese coercion looks like and how to respond. This, and not paeans to the countries’ shared history on battlegrounds, is what is driving Washington’s desire to work more closely with Australia. That sentiment is true at both the elite and popular levels.
Polling reveals that Americans are willing to take significant risks to defend Australia. Biden’s statement that the ‘US has no closer or more reliable ally than Australia’ should be seen as a reflection of these views, and a desire to help turbocharge Australia’s efforts.
Of course, America’s desire to shore up its alliances and display its Indo-Pacific focus goes far beyond its relationship with Australia. But given the amount of trust required to share nuclear secrets and collaborate on cutting-edge technology, AUKUS could only have been undertaken with the closest of allies. As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared in May, ‘The US will not leave Australia alone on the field.’ AUKUS should be seen as a significant attempt to make good on that statement.
In strategic terms, AUKUS is largely driven by Washington’s recognition that it needs more capable players in the field (or, rather, in and under the sea) to help correct a shifting balance of power. China’s decades-long economic expansion has allowed its rulers to rapidly modernise its military. Beijing now possesses the world’s second largest defence budget, fields the largest conventional missile force, and controls the biggest navy and coastguard.
While China has poured resources into defence and rapidly grown its forces, the US and its allies and partners have not kept pace. The US still has a military advantage over China, but the gap has been rapidly closing in Asia, and in certain domains it may already have been erased. Without an urgent drive to address such trends, the regional balance of power may soon tip in China’s favour.
Responding to such imbalances requires greater numbers and more advanced capabilities. AUKUS holds out the possibility of fielding more forces and upgrading their capabilities. As China has not yet developed robust anti-submarine capabilities, nuclear-powered submarines can offset Beijing’s advantages—if more Australian, British and American submarines can be put in the water on an accelerated timeline.
A final American motivation is the hope that AUKUS will galvanise greater investments, efforts and collaborations by other nations concerned by the rapid growth of China’s military and its increasingly assertive use. While the sensitivity of the technology being shared and the complexity of the logistical requirements mean AUKUS will remain limited, the idea of nations working together to balance China’s rise is by no means exclusionary. This can already be seen with Japan’s and India’s contributions to the Quad.
Southeast Asia’s initial response to AUKUS has been more varied, but Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines have all shown a willingness to enhance their defence capacities and augment their security partnerships, even if defence spending across the region remains low.
Europe too has shown interest in increasing its military presence, which makes it even more important to encourage greater regional involvement by France, despite its loss of Australia’s submarine contract. Some of these efforts are more aspirational than others, but the more coordinated efforts take place, the more convincing becomes the argument that Beijing is no longer operating in a permissive security environment.
The desire to empower America’s closest allies; the need to demonstrate the US commitment to, and prioritisation of, the Indo-Pacific region; the respect for and trust of Australia; the drive to balance Beijing with more robust defence capabilities for its allies; and the hope that bold actions will galvanise more nations to act all played a part in Washington’s decision to support AUKUS. Canberra may have initiated this deal with London, but Washington rightly saw the opportunity to advance its own strategic goals.
Australia’s 2020 defence strategic update concluded that the regional security environment was deteriorating more rapidly than earlier assessments indicated, requiring new thinking and new action.
Recognition of an altered landscape and the need to mobilise greater collective efforts can produce radical shifts in what is necessary, and what is possible.
During America’s Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared, ‘The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.’ Thus he laid the political, moral and strategic groundwork for the Emancipation Proclamation to formally abolish slavery in America. ‘As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.’ Attempting to motivate his fellow Americans, Lincoln concluded that his nation could succeed only by concert, not with, ‘Can any of us imagine better?’ but with, ‘Can we all do better?’ That simple statement preceded one of the boldest acts of statecraft in American history.
Many questions about AUKUS remain unanswered, and critical ones may not yet have been asked. But Washington and Canberra seem to have made the same bet, that only collective effort, and not individual actions, will produce lasting security and stability.
14. Gaza Conflict 2021 Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War
November 3, 2021 | FDD Press
Gaza Conflict 2021
Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War | Available November 3, 2021
Jonathan Schanzer
fdd.org · by Jonathan Schanzer Senior Vice President for Research · November 3, 2021
About
The May 2021 conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas generated headlines around the world. However, much of the reporting ignored the history, funding, political dynamics, and other key components of the story. Hamas initiates conflict every few years. But the reporting rarely improves. Social media has only further clouded the picture. Hamas is rarely held responsible for its use of “human shields,” blindly firing rockets at civilian areas in Israel, or diverting aid that should benefit the people of Gaza.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, has been the primary patron of Hamas since the group’s inception in the late 1980s. Hamas has received additional assistance over the years from Qatar, Turkey and Malaysia. These countries are fomenting conflict, while others, such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have tried to minimize it. Gaza is therefore ground zero in a struggle for the future stability of the Middle East.
The Biden administration has important choices to make. Its intent to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal could have significant consequences, given that sanctions relief to Iran will likely yield a financial boon for Hamas, along with other Iranian proxies. The Biden administration must also come to terms with “The Squad” — a small but loud faction of the Democratic Party that seeks to undermine the US-Israel relationship.
Available on
November 3, 2021
Order Today
Reviews
“In an accessible, concise narrative geared toward the general public, the volume begins with a history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a special focus on the rise of Hamas. Central to the author’s motivation in writing the book is his belief that the Western media failed to accurately cover the war. In addition to the media downplaying ‘the brutality of Hamas’ and neglecting to acknowledge ‘how far Israel went to protect its own people’ through defensive rather than offensive tactics, the volume argues that the role of Iran in stoking the conflict was insufficiently analyzed by Western journalists.” –Kirkus Reviews
“Jonathan Schanzer does a great service by documenting what life is really like under Hamas-rule in Gaza. He explains what the Western media consistently fails to report about the nature of the Hamas-Israel conflict, especially the role of its biggest enabler: Iran. For those interested in the truth about the 2021 Gaza war and the history leading up to the conflict, his book is a must-read.” –Amb. Nikki R. Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
“Dr. Jonathan Schanzer is an indispensable expert on conflict and opportunities in the Middle East, sought out by policymakers on both sides of the aisle in Washington. Here he employs brilliant research and trenchant analysis to uncover the true sources of the recent outbreak of violence between the terrorist group Hamas and Israel. This is the manual for anyone looking to understand the true dynamics at play in the conflict over Gaza, and what it means for the United States, Israel, and our key interests in the region.” –Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ)
“Jonathan has long provided extremely valuable analysis on defining moments of conflict in the Middle East. Now he gives us an impeccable analysis on what’s really driving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and why the international community has it so wrong. Highly recommended for anyone searching for a deeper understanding of the Gaza war.” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL)
“If you want to understand the hell in a very small place that is Gaza, read this book. In telling the story of the 2021 war between Israel and Hamas, Jonathan Schanzer exposes fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of Hamas and its sources of external support. Gaza Conflict 2021 explains past events in a way that illuminates the future — a future in which more conflict appears inevitable.” –H.R. McMaster, author of Dereliction of Duty and Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World
“Jonathan Schanzer’s new book provides a wide and clear picture on the roots and history of Hamas, as well as the terrorist group’s present and future. It is a must-read to understand the context for the 2021 Gaza confrontation. It fills the gaps that the international media missed. It also explains the substantial and negative role of the Islamic Republic of Iran, including its support for terror activities all over the world, and the way it wields local proxies to battle Israel.” – Meir Ben-Shabbat, former Israeli national security adviser
fdd.org · by Jonathan Schanzer Senior Vice President for Research · November 3, 2021
15. The Implications of Simultaneous Conflicts in South Korea and Taiwan
Can there be a "win-hold-win?" Or can the US and its allies conduct two major theater wars (MTW) simultaneously? We must keep in mind that north Korea has the potential to be a spoiler in Great Power Competition (or strategic competition).
Recall our first action in 1950 when northK Korea attacked the South was to send 7th Fleet ships to the Taiwan Straits. If there was a conflict over Taiwan what would/could we do to deter conflict on the Korean peninsula assuming the Kim family regime would exploit a war over Taiwan?
Excerpts:
How can the United States best prepare for two simultaneous major conflicts in East Asia? The answers are numerous and range from posturing additional forces in the region to securing commitments from other allies and partners to deter aggression from North Korea and China. Another key mechanism that must not be overlooked is incentivizing South Korea and Taiwan to acquire the appropriate capabilities required to specifically defeat North Korean and Chinese invasion forces, respectively. For South Korea, that might include anti-missile systems, platforms to counter maritime special operations forces insertion, and advanced weaponry and equipment for its ground forces. For Taiwan, acquisition of anti-ship and -air missiles and hardening of critical infrastructure may be the wisest investments. Taiwan has previously been criticized for both with questionable operational value in the face of the growing Chinese threat, but relevant defense investments become dire when accounting for the potential division in U.S. attention and resources towards multiple contingencies.
The purpose of this article is not to specify which equipment South Korea and Taiwan must acquire; rather, it is to emphasize that the military equipment they do acquire must be based on North Korea and China’s current and future military capabilities that are expected to be employed for an attack on South Korea and Taiwan. By acquiring appropriate capabilities, the two countries will significantly raise the risk of attack by their adversaries, perhaps to the degree that they reassess the likelihood of a successful invasion. At a minimum, by developing the ability for a self-sufficient defense, South Korea and Taiwan will be helping themselves by enabling the United States to employ its limited resources efficiently to support the defense of the two countries, especially if anticipating simultaneous conflicts.
The acquisition of “flashy” capabilities may be tempting in general and more so if they are perceived to signify an advanced military; however, all military equipment has a limited scope, and acquiring a specific capability creates an opportunity cost that prevents a country from acquiring another, more-justified capability. This is an especially important point to consider for South Korea and Taiwan, which have an aggressive neighbor whose stated policy is to unify with each country.
The Implications of Simultaneous Conflicts in South Korea and Taiwan
By Ki Suh Jung
On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea, sparking the Korean War. The following day, President Harry Truman ordered U.S. air and naval forces to support South Korea’s defense, which the United States would soon thereafter bolster with ground forces. On the same day, President Truman directed the U.S. Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait to prevent any conflict between the Republic of China (henceforth Taiwan) and People’s Republic of China (henceforth China), each of which had been vying to unify with the other under its leadership. Had China taken advantage of the U.S. focus on the Korean peninsula by launching a large-scale invasion of Taiwan (for which it had been preparing), U.S. leadership would have faced the difficult decision between leaving Taiwan to fend for itself or diverting resources from the Korean War to support Taiwan. Although the United States was able to deter China from invading Taiwan in 1950 despite its concurrent commitment of forces to defend South Korea against North Korean aggression, it may not be so successful today or in the near future given the current trend in the balance of military power. Therefore, South Korea and Taiwan must develop credible self-defense capabilities with an eye toward future North Korean and Chinese threats to better support the joint response effort with the United States, which may find itself engaging in a two-front conflict.
Today, both the Korean peninsula and Taiwan Strait remain as flashpoints. South Korea and North Korea are still in a state of war with each other, and the risk of a forcible unification with Taiwan by China has been increasing in conjunction with China’s growing assertiveness in both rhetoric and action. If South Korea is attacked again, the United States has already committed to “mutually meet the common danger,” as stated in the two countries’ mutual defense treaty. While the United States does not make a similar commitment to Taiwan – the U.S.-unilateral Taiwan Relations Act only states that the United States will “maintain the capacity…to resist any resort to force…on Taiwan” – President Joe Biden has thus far for Taiwan. Also, a recent survey showed that the majority of Americans would favor defending Taiwan with U.S. forces if China were to invade the island. Certainly, neither Biden’s statements nor the survey results equate to a shift in the U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity,” but they do indicate that in a Taiwan Strait contingency, U.S. leadership will seriously consider the level of support for Taiwan, as it did during the mid-20th century.
If the challenges facing the United States in those flashpoint areas have largely remained unchanged, so have the opportunities for China. A future Korean peninsula conflict would consume much of the focus and resources of the U.S. military in the region, which China can exploit to attempt to solve the Taiwan question. However, a scenario in the reverse sequence is also plausible. If China’s leaders determine that a peaceful unification with Taiwan will not be possible by 2049 – the date by which the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” is to be achieved – they may decide to resort to force. If the United States commits forces in defense of Taiwan, North Korea may sense a weakness in the U.S.-South Korea alliance and also launch an attack on its southern neighbor. As China and North Korea are treaty allies, they may discuss, plan, and execute such a two-pronged attack specifically designed to split US forces. After all, in 1950, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung sought and received approval from China’s (and the Soviet Union’s) leaders prior to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea.
While there are presently no indications that a major conflict in the Korean peninsula is imminent or even brewing, the two Koreas have come close to war before, perhaps most recently in 2010 following the sinking of South Korean navy ship Cheonan and bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island. Even as South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in pushes for a breakthrough in inter-Korean relations in his final months in office, however, the two countries are seemingly engaged in an arms race, with North Korea recently having tested a hypersonic missile and South Korea a submarine-launched ballistic missile.
On the other hand, cross-strait relations have deteriorated in recent years and Taiwan has come to dominate the discussion surrounding the U.S.-China strategic competition. Amid revelations of U.S. forces training the Taiwanese military, Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen has expressed “faith” that the United States would support the defense of the island. China has reinforced its vows for unification with Taiwan with its military aircraft’s incursions into Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone at an unprecedented frequency and numbers as well as military exercises in the vicinity of the island. And unlike in 1950, when the U.S. military was undeniably superior to China’s, China has embarked on an impressive modernization streak and has “achieved parity with – or even exceeded – the United States in several military modernization areas.” If China is determined to unify with Taiwan by force, it will most likely be undeterred by a U.S. show of force.
How can the United States best prepare for two simultaneous major conflicts in East Asia? The answers are numerous and range from posturing additional forces in the region to securing commitments from other allies and partners to deter aggression from North Korea and China. Another key mechanism that must not be overlooked is incentivizing South Korea and Taiwan to acquire the appropriate capabilities required to specifically defeat North Korean and Chinese invasion forces, respectively. For South Korea, that might include anti-missile systems, platforms to counter maritime special operations forces insertion, and advanced weaponry and equipment for its ground forces. For Taiwan, acquisition of anti-ship and -air missiles and hardening of critical infrastructure may be the wisest investments. Taiwan has previously been criticized for both with questionable operational value in the face of the growing Chinese threat, but relevant defense investments become dire when accounting for the potential division in U.S. attention and resources towards multiple contingencies.
The purpose of this article is not to specify which equipment South Korea and Taiwan must acquire; rather, it is to emphasize that the military equipment they do acquire must be based on North Korea and China’s current and future military capabilities that are expected to be employed for an attack on South Korea and Taiwan. By acquiring appropriate capabilities, the two countries will significantly raise the risk of attack by their adversaries, perhaps to the degree that they reassess the likelihood of a successful invasion. At a minimum, by developing the ability for a self-sufficient defense, South Korea and Taiwan will be helping themselves by enabling the United States to employ its limited resources efficiently to support the defense of the two countries, especially if anticipating simultaneous conflicts.
The acquisition of “flashy” capabilities may be tempting in general and more so if they are perceived to signify an advanced military; however, all military equipment has a limited scope, and acquiring a specific capability creates an opportunity cost that prevents a country from acquiring another, more-justified capability. This is an especially important point to consider for South Korea and Taiwan, which have an aggressive neighbor whose stated policy is to unify with each country.
In both the U.S.-South Korea mutual defense treaty and Taiwan Relations Act, the United States effectively declared that peace and security in the Western Pacific is of national interest and it will strive to maintain them; but the United States cannot go alone, and it needs allies and partners. South Korea and Taiwan can support this common endeavor by investing in the appropriate capabilities vis-à-vis their adversaries’. Such deliberate choices are not for the primary benefit of the United States, but for South Korea and Taiwan themselves. History hints that in the future, the fate of the two countries might be more-closely-linked than currently realized. For the United States to support the continued security and stability of the two countries and the greater region, South Korea and Taiwan must themselves make wise decisions to bolster their security.
Ki Suh Jung is a U.S. Navy foreign area officer with experience in the Asia-Pacific. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Featured image: U.S.-made CM-11 tanks are fired in front of two 8-inch self-propelled artillery guns during military drills in southern Taiwan on May 30, 2019. (Photo via Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images)
16. Myanmar Resistance Groups Lure and Aid Military Defectors
I hope the UW and PSYOP doctrine experts are studying the implications of cyber capabilities on resistance and unconventional warfare. (I am very confident they are)
Myanmar Resistance Groups Lure and Aid Military Defectors
A digital campaign has contributed to a small but steady stream of soldiers who are leaving their posts
“I listened to it and realized our beliefs were exactly the same,” he said.
Since the military seized power in a coup on Feb. 1, opposition groups say more than 2,500 police and soldiers have defected. They claim numbers have risen modestly since early September, when a rival shadow administration called the National Unity Government, formed by ousted civilian leaders in hiding, declared support for an armed struggle against the regime.
Defense analysts say defections don’t appear to threaten the military’s cohesion, but they signal weak morale that could frustrate part of the junta’s strategy to gain full control of the country. The military is carrying out an offensive across the country’s northwest, an anti-junta stronghold where the army is trying to uproot suspected insurgents and will have to defend its gains in the long-term with rank-and-file manpower.
So far, defections have occurred as a slow but consistent trickle of individuals with a range of motivations. They include a few officers with ranks as high as army major, but most are lower-ranking noncommissioned officers, foot soldiers and police. Some have expressed opposition to the coup and military violence against civilians, others had personal grievances such as not being allowed to visit ailing relatives amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Htet Aung lives in a secret location with other defectors in Myanmar's remote borderlands.
Photo: Htet Aung
The shadow National Unity Government is actively urging soldiers to defect and runs a program called People’s Embrace to document their departures and provide them refuge. Another independent group run by defectors-turned-activists, called People’s Soldiers, operates a digital outreach campaign and a network of volunteers offering safe passage, shelter and food.
They say they aim to exploit low morale as conflict goes on, and are encouraging collective desertion.
“Defections only really have broader significance when units defect, what we haven’t seen yet is the key move from disgruntled individuals to entire units,” said Anthony Davis, an analyst with the defense publisher Janes. “That tells you that to date, unit cohesion has remained remarkably strong.”
People’s Soldiers says it has about 50 volunteers working full time and hundreds of others providing assistance, including a team of about 20 dedicated to recruitment. They mainly reach soldiers through their official Facebook page, though several independent activist groups have launched cyber operations that help broaden their reach.
“‘Defections only really have broader significance when units defect, what we haven’t seen yet is the key move from disgruntled individuals to entire units’”
— Anthony Davis, analyst with Janes
These groups have manually created hundreds of fake Facebook accounts loaded with what looks like pro-military content to befriend soldiers and infiltrate their social-media ecosystem. Once the accounts amass enough followers and gain access to groups popularly viewed by soldiers, they share subversive content including links to information on how to defect.
The groups aren’t expressly dedicated to sharing information about defection, but are a key conduit for linking soldiers with groups such as People’s Soldiers.
Those who are interested are given a crash course in digital security, advised to install the encrypted messaging app Telegram and contact the group’s co-founder, former army captain Nyi Thuta, who defected in late February.
Mr. Htet Aung was one of more than 160 soldiers who fled with the group’s help. He said that after the first time he noticed a post about defection, he laid awake in bed each night for weeks, secretly scrolling through online testimony of deserters on his mobile phone and deleting his browser history before going to sleep. By early September, he had made up his mind.
People’s Soldiers say loyalty to the military is fragile among young soldiers who enlisted over the past decade, while the country was under democratic rule. Some, including Mr. Htet Aung, even supported Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained since her government was ousted in February. Mr. Htet Aung said he was shocked and disappointed by the coup.
“I’m the only soldier in my entire family,” said Mr. Htet Aung, who enrolled at a military technology academy at the age of 17 to study mechatronics engineering. “I admired soldiers for their selflessness, I wanted to be dignified and serve my country.”
After graduation, he was assigned to a research unit where he helped develop communications infrastructure for the military. But shortly after the coup, he was reassigned as a security guard outside government buildings occupied by officers, where he was armed and ordered to use deadly force against intruders. He said he never had to, but once fired two warning shots to ward off protesters.
“I didn’t want to do what they said I had to do,” he said.
After contacting People’s Soldiers, they helped him plot his escape from the barracks and sneak him into rebel-controlled territory, a paranoid three-day journey during which he disguised himself as a peasant and changed vehicles several times with the help of anonymous middlemen waiting for him at rendezvous points in towns along the way.
He now lives communally in a bamboo shelter with other deserters in what they call a “liberated zone,” a secret location in the country’s remote borderlands. Some fled with their entire families, others sneaked away without telling relatives, and don’t know when, if ever, they’ll be able to speak with or see them again. A few have taken on new roles advising a coalition of rebel groups known as the People’s Defense Force through videoconference calls, sharing intelligence on military strategy and giving basic weapons training.
“The junta’s worst fear is that the people and soldiers will unite against them,” said Mr. Nyi Thuta, the former army captain who helped found People’s Soldiers.
An army parade in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, in March.
Photo: stringer/Reuters
But the risks of desertion are high, including long prison sentences and possibly death. Soldiers are surveilled and their digital devices checked. The junta has also ordered internet blackouts in areas of heightened conflict, an effort aimed at hobbling communication among insurgents that also makes it hard for defectors’ groups to reach those most likely to break ranks.
Myanmar’s military remains one of the region’s most powerful, with a significant arms advantage over its opponents, and defections are unlikely to alter the balance. But they are increasingly seen by the democratic opposition as an important pillar in their multidimensional effort to chip away at the military’s dominance and stave off a crushing defeat.
“We are opening them a door and sending them a signal that they can join us,” Zin Mar Aung, the chief diplomat representing the shadow government, said in a recent interview. “We are saying to those who don’t want to serve the junta, ‘You don’t have to.’”
17. Design the Littoral Combat Team Around Its Core Mission
Conclusion:
The two types of units in combination will provide a critical ability—the MLR diminishes enemy fleet action, while the 2030 MEU strikes decisively.
Design the Littoral Combat Team Around Its Core Mission
For expeditionary advanced base operations, Marine Corps littoral regiments must be less infantry-centric, designed to intercept ships and aircraft, and be able to establish forward arming and refueling points.
By Lieutenant (junior grade) Jeong Soo Kim, U.S. Navy
November 2021 Proceedings Vol 147/11/1,425
Marine Corps Force Design 2030 and its follow-on for constructive experimentation, the Tentative Manual for Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, call for a radical rethinking of the Marine Corps' structure. The current vision is to employ two littoral combat–focused units—the infantry-centered Marine littoral regiment (MLR) and the 2030 Marine expeditionary unit (MEU). Instead of being infantry-centered, however, the two units should complement each other and be task-tailored to execute the core mission outlined in the Tentative Manual.
As the Marine Corps sees its ability to destroy ships as a future core competency, it has committed to increasing the number of rocket artillery and antiship missile batteries from 7 to 21. This investment is paired with decreasing the number of infantry battalions from 24 to 21, and by modernization initiatives that add organic unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems, loitering munitions, and additional training to make the infantry battalion a more mature, lethal unit. In terms of the primary purpose of the MLR and MEU, the former is a defensive, blunting force that uses stand-off weapons and dispersion to complicate enemy fleet maneuver. The 2030 MEU, by contrast, is an offensive force that allows the combatant commander to commit a significant amount of multidomain combat power to a decisive moment and place in a naval campaign. Despite these divergent operational roles, the Tentative Manual aims to design both the littoral combat team (LCT) component of the MLR and the ground combat element (GCE) element of the 2030 MEU centered on a modernized infantry battalion.
An infantry-centric MEU GCE makes sense, but an infantry-centric LCT will result in a force that falls short of the unit’s intended expeditionary advanced base operational role. Despite significant modernization in munitions and sensors, an infantry battalion that uses manportable missiles, sensors, and crew-served weapons will never possess sufficient range or lethality to be a credible threat against advanced warships and other naval assets. In an austere expeditionary advanced base designed to intercept hostile ships and aircraft or establish expeditionary forward arming and refueling points (FARPs), any personnel that do not operate advanced munitions, crew critical command-and-control nodes, or produce combat aircraft sorties are simply a logistical burden with little utility. For a ship-killing and air power–enabling LCT to be effective, its foundational units must focus on these two tasks: killing ships and refueling and rearming combat aircraft. In the LCT, the infantry community must support the missile artillery and FARP units to ensure they best employ their sensors, weapons, and equipment.
Focus on Long-Range Fires
The current littoral combat team proposal in the Tentative Manual envisions the following: an infantry-focused battalion task force augmented with missile artillery and engineering assets. The manual directs the LCT to provide the MLR commander with the capability to operate multiple EABs, including those specialized for fires and FARP. However, for a unit tasked to project precision firepower toward the sea and support FARPs, the proposed structure is fundamentally unbalanced. It is designed for an infantry battalion trained to fight in close combat, but the enemy intends to fight from afar. The proposed LCT structure is more suited to repel a landing force on an island, with the missile battery attacking amphibious ships while the infantry battalion closes with and destroys landing parties with small watercraft and vehicles.
A Marine Corps rifleman with 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, 3rd Marine Division, provides security during air assault training at Marine Corps Training Area Bellows, Hawaii. In future littoral combat teams, the infantry element must support the missile artillery and forward arming and refueling point units. Credit: U.S. Marine Corps (Alexis Moradian)
Instead, LCTs should be centered on fires and FARP operations as their two main functions. Infantry should be used as a supporting element that provides force protection to EABs in hostile areas. Infantry elements should counter incursions and conduct reconnaissance, while carrying out raids against forces that directly threaten the LCT. To fulfill this role, LCT infantry units should be company-sized and trained to detach squads to platoon-sized elements to protect and defend multiple EABs.
In line with the LCT’s antiship mission, an additional missile-firing battery and reinforced communication platoon need to be added. The additional missile battery will allow the LCT to establish EABs more capable of conducting saturation attacks against air-defense systems, while the reinforced communication platoon will ensure links between dispersed missile batteries and command-and-control nodes. As well, the reinforced communication platoon will ensure the receipt of timely targeting data from external sensors. Further supporting these missions, the FARP company should be transferred from the littoral antiair battalion to the LCT, thereby establishing EABs that can conduct FARP operations.
More Infantry Skills for the LCT
Apart from the ability to close with and destroy the enemy, an infantry core competency is the ability to survive, maneuver, and fight in austere expeditionary environments. Infantry Marines are trained to survive using the gear on their backs and to conduct large-scale tactical operations on foot with limited motorized support. While offensive infantry operations in an LCT may be less common, the grit and ability to sustain a fight in austere conditions is a skill that will be critical in EAB operations.
When logistics are contested, EABs will not be guaranteed a consistent supply of fuel, food, water, and other essential supplies. The Navy is now addressing logistics in contested environments by exploring the utility of unmanned semisubmersible vessels, such as those used by drug smugglers. Regardless of potential innovations, however, EABs must be prepared to live without all but the most critical supplies while sustaining credible combat power. For EAB operations to be effective, infantry skills will be essential in the various LCT units. This will enable teams to live and fight in increasingly austere field conditions.
Moreover, austere bases inside an enemy’s weapon engagement zone significantly raise the risk of raids and seizure attempts by hostile amphibious forces. For a reinforced platoon-sized EAB to deter and repel such attempts, even non-infantry Marines assigned to LCTs must train with a renewed emphasis on combat skills. Methods to achieve this goal could include establishing intermediate career courses at the School of Infantry for noncommissioned and staff noncommissioned officers with a focus on coordinating EAB defensive operations. Austere logistics and EAB defensive operations problems could be added to training that certifies an LCT to deploy. And infantry “tactical advisor” billets could be established in non-infantry LCT units. These initiatives will allow for more effective employment of Marines in a tactical environment while facilitating unit-level infantry training.
A U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II receives fuel at a forward arming and refueling point (FARP) during exercise Summer Fury 21 in Moses Lake, Washington. Establishing and securing FARPs will be a core mission for future littoral combat teams. Credit: U.S. Marine Corps (Levi Voss)
Reserve the Infantry for Decisive Action
The transition of an LCT from an infantry-centric to a fires-centric force does not mean the infantry is obsolete in a future fight in the Pacific. An LCT designed around fires, aviation support, and austere operations does not provide the combatant commander with critical options to wrest islands from enemy control, nor does it give the commander an ability to repel a hostile landing force. While a fires-based LCT may sway a naval campaign by projecting significant combat power seaward and blunting enemy offensive capabilities, an infantry-based MEU GCE will be critical to secure not only island objectives, but also urban areas in the Indo-Pacific.
The Marine infantry battalion’s restructuring and investments in organic UAS, electronic warfare, and organic precision fires move the force in the right direction. They will allow a battalion to detect, strike, and destroy enemies from longer distances, as well as ensure combat superiority in close contact. Furthermore, this future infantry battalion, reinforced with precision missile artillery, long-range unmanned surface vessels, more capable MEU aviation combat elements, and technologically advanced MEU logistics combat elements, will constitute a formidable force capable of decisively seizing objectives.
Fires-Centric MLR Is Combat Effective
An LCT that centers on deploying fires and FARP EABs will be able to operate more effectively as a stand-in force, blunting and depleting the enemy more proficiently than an infantry-centric LCT. By fielding more antiship missile batteries, the LCT can become a greater threat to hostile fleet assets by saturating their air-defense systems. In addition, an organic FARP company will enable tactical air mobility, as well as support fifth-generation combat aircraft from unexpected locations, to disrupt hostile air-defense plans. If increased missile and combat air sorties cannot neutralize amphibious threats, EABs staffed with Marines with specialized training in defensive operations can repel such incursions. This type of MLR, making use of small EABs supporting each other via detection and fires, will be a lethal and persistent force that can severely hinder enemy fleet maneuver and add significant combat power to friendly fleet forces.
The two types of units in combination will provide a critical ability—the MLR diminishes enemy fleet action, while the 2030 MEU strikes decisively.
18. SOCOM Commander: Navy SEALS to Focus on Strategic Reconnaissance, Working with Partners
The Law: Title 10 Sec. 167
(k)Special Operations Activities.—For purposes of this section, special operations activities include each of the following insofar as it relates to special operations:(1)Direct action.
(2)Strategic reconnaissance.
(3)Unconventional warfare.
(4)Foreign internal defense.
(5)Civil affairs.
(6)Military information support operations.
(7)Counterterrorism.
(8)Humanitarian assistance.
(9)Theater search and rescue.
(10)Such other activities as may be specified by the President or the Secretary of Defense.
USSOCOM SOF Core activities:
Core Activities
Direct Action
- Short-duration strikes and other small-scale offensive actions employing specialized military capabilities to seize, destroy, capture, exploit, recover, or damage designated targets.
Special Reconnaissance
- Actions conducted in sensitive environments to collect or verify information of strategic or operational significance.
Unconventional Warfare
- Actions to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power.
Foreign Internal Defense
- Activities that support an HN's internal defense and development (IDAD) strategy and program designed to protect against subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to their internal security, and stability, and legitimacy.
Civil Affairs Operations
- CAO enhance the relationship between military forces and civilian authorities in localities where military forces are present.
Counterterrorism
- Actions taken directly against terrorist networks and indirectly to influence and render global and regional environments inhospitable to terrorist networks.
Military Information Support Operations
- MISO are planned to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals in a manner favorable to the originator's objectives.
- United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) conducts internet-based MISO in partnership with United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) to expose, counter, and compete against adversary malign activity and disinformation throughout USSOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility. These on-going and enduring activities are coordinated with U.S. government agencies and implemented in accordance with U.S. law and DoD policies.
Counter-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Activities to support USG efforts to curtail the conceptualization, development, possession, proliferation, use, and effects of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), related expertise, materials, technologies, and means of delivery by state and non-state actors.
Security Force Assistance
- Activities based on organizing, training, equipping, rebuilding, and advising various components of Foreign Security Forces.
Counterinsurgency
- The blend of civilian and military efforts designed to end insurgent violence and facilitate a return to peaceful political processes.
Hostage Rescue and Recovery
- Offensive measures taken to prevent, deter, preempt, and respond to terrorist threats and incidents, including recapture of U.S. facilities, installations, and sensitive material in overseas areas.
Foreign Humanitarian Assistance
- The range of DOD humanitarian activities conducted outside the US and its territories to relieve or reduce human suffering, disease, hunger, or privation.
SOCOM Commander: Navy SEALS to Focus on Strategic Reconnaissance, Working with Partners - Seapower
A U.S. Navy SEAL throws an M18 colored smoke grenade during a sweep of a training compound during Sentry Rescue IV, a joint command initiative to develop tactics, techniques and procedures for personnel recovery scenarios, Arkansas, Aug. 26, 2021. U.S. AIR NATIONAL GUARD / Tech. Sgt. Brigette Waltermire
ARLINGTON, Va. — The commander of the nation’s special operations forces said the Navy’s SEALs will have an important role in the future in enabling commanders to understand the enemy’s capabilities and intentions.
The SEALs, along with the special operations forces of the other U.S. military services, have had a super-sized role in the Southwest Asian wars since 9-11, serving at the forefront of U.S. and coalition forces in the low-intensity conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and other locations.
With U.S. focus on deterring a future conflict with China and shifting the focus to high-end operations, the 70-000-strong special operations forces (SOF) also are shifting focus.
Speaking to the Military Reporters and Editors at a symposium in Arlington, Army Gen. Richard D. Clarke, commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, said the SOF are “more integrated than ever before,” including with inter-agency partners.
Clarke said he sees Navy SEALS as ‘working with partners, able to train, and also to conduct another key mission or activity, which is strategic reconnaissance. They can get in places that no one else can get they can be in the littorals — in subsea/subsurface domain — and are critical.”
Clarke said SOF are more than just a direct-action raid force, but the force will still maintain that capability, one which “we have honed to an exquisite degree.”
The commander said the SOF benefits from working closely with the general-purpose forces and that his command will look for every opportunity to leverage high-end training for its forces.
19. Marine Corps Seeks ‘Fundamental Redesign’ to Recruiting, Retention, Careers
Keep young Marines longer? But then they won't be young.
Marine Corps Seeks ‘Fundamental Redesign’ to Recruiting, Retention, Careers
Commandant wants to keep young Marines longer, bring in older ones with skills.
The Marines, long known for their high turnover rate, can no longer afford to let so many experienced troops leave, the commandant said in a new report that says the way the Corps handles personnel is “overdue for a fundamental redesign.”
“Technology is changing, the human marketplace is changing at such a rate that…our system will break on itself at some point in the next few years, and I don’t know when, where we wouldn't be able to recruit, we wouldn't be able to retain the talent that we need,” Berger told reporters at the Pentagon ahead of the report’s release.
Competition with China requires the Marine Corps to improve how it invests in its force.
“My assumption is we will not have a technological advantage, we will not have a numerical advantage. And it will be an away game for us. We will be on the short end of all three. What we will have, what we need is the intellectual edge. That's what we have to have. Because if you're smaller and they got better tech or the same as you do, and you're fighting a long distance from them, you better have smarter, more capable leaders,” Berger said.
The new system will aim to treat Marines as rare and valuable talent, not just “inventory” to place in jobs, Berger said.
He wants the service to use the report as an “action plan” to develop and implement its initiatives, largely starting next year and achieving the full transition no later than 2025.
One of the major changes Berger wants to tackle is rebalancing recruitment and retention of Marines. Currently, his service discharges 75 percent of first-term Marines, which means finding and training about 36,000 new recruits every year, the report said. The high turnover rate and predominately young force means that the service lacks stable force numbers and mature leaders.
Berger said science and their own data shows that Marines who are in their mid- to late twenties have a higher athletic performance compared to those 17 to 22. Older people also overall make better decisions and have more cognitive function.
“Maturing the force by retaining a greater percentage of qualified first-term Marines will improve decision-making, problem solving, and risk assessment among our junior leaders, with immediate positive effects on our performance in competition and combat,” the report said.
He also wants the service to improve how it evaluates potential recruits. Right now the service uses the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery or ASVAB, and a strength test. Next year, the Marine Corps will roll out more assessment tools intended to determine what careers are best for each recruit and predict whether they will stay for their entire contract. About 20 percent of recruits do not complete their first enlistment, which costs the service hundreds of millions of dollars each year, according to the report. A new comprehensive psychological evaluation will aim to determine whether a recruit is a good fit for military service.
Berger wants to recruit more mid-career people with valuable skills, like in cyber and artificial intelligence. They should join the Marine Corps with a rank that matches their education and experience instead of starting from the bottom. The service already allows lateral moves in career fields like medical or law; erger wants to expand that list.
“Why would we start her as a private when we need her skills, the technical skills, or whatever it is, that’s up here? That's stupid of us. In talent management, we're dumping all that and telling her to go to start at the bottom,” Berger said of the current system.
Taking a page from the other military services, the Marine Corps is also developing an online marketplace to list available jobs and allow people to apply to them. Officers will be offered access to the marketplace first and then senior enlisted. The service is still looking at how to change up the assignments process for junior enlisted Marines.
The marketplace will allow commanders to describe expectations for the job and what professional and educational backgrounds they are looking for, the report states. Commanders may eventually be able to interview Marines for the job, but first the service wants to develop “suitable controls to eliminate bias.”
“For Marines, a talent marketplace will increase available information about billet openings, improve transparency, and provide individuals with far greater influence over their future assignments,” the report said.
Berger’s talent management system plan also addresses two major quality-of-life issues: frequent moves and parental leave. Starting next year, the Corps will try to keep Marines and their families at one duty station as long as there are career growth opportunities available to them. The emphasis on new assignments and not physically moving the Marine will provide more stability for the family as well as units, the report said.
Berger also wants to increase parental leave for primary caregivers up to a year and for secondary caregivers up to 12 weeks, the same as federal employees. However, the service would need authorization to make these changes. Until then, primary and secondary caregivers in 2022 can ask for these longer leave periods by extending their service contracts for the same amount of time.
“We're in a market for talent. So the Marine that we trained for four or 10 years, we need to work hard to keep. And if the reason that they're leaving is they can't see past either ‘I can have a military career or I can have a family,’ if that's the fork in the road, we have to pull out the stops to try to find ways where we can keep them,” he said.
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20. The U.S. Risks Catastrophe if It Doesn't Clarify Its Taiwan Strategy
Excerpts:
The overarching approach of such a strategy is simple: confront where we must—on the issues described above—but seek cooperation wherever we can find it between the two nations. Some examples might be environmental and climate alignment; biomedical research and preparation for the inevitable next pandemic; and arms control talks on nuclear weapons and cyber tools. At a minimum we need straightforward and dedicated communication paths between senior U.S. officials and their Chinese counterparts. We had them with the Soviets in the Cold War, but they are not in existence today. Alongside such “hot lines,” we need detailed protocols describing how our military forces should interact when they encounter each other—staying a set number of miles apart, restricting overflights without warnings, prohibiting turning on fire control radars.
Crisp, professional signaling and communications to Beijing are essential, especially in regard to Taiwan. Our nominated Ambassador—career diplomat and deeply experienced foreign service leader Nicholas Burns—cannot get to China soon enough. And above all, Dr. Campbell’s China strategy needs to be launched at hypersonic speed—right now we need strategic ideas as much as we need missiles. The good news is that there is broad bipartisan agreement on the immediacy of the challenges—now we need a plan.
The U.S. Risks Catastrophe if It Doesn't Clarify Its Taiwan Strategy
IDEAS
TIME · by Sailing True North: Ten Admirals and the Voyage of Character
At a recent CNN town hall, President Biden strongly and directly promised to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion, saying bluntly “Yes, we have a commitment to do that,” when asked about the situation. But the U.S. very specifically does not have such a commitment. In fact, for decades our policy has been one of so-called “strategic ambiguity,” i.e. choosing not to be definitive as to how the U.S. would respond to an invasion from the mainland of what Beijing regards as its renegade province. Recently, the presence of U.S. troops on the islands became public, provoking angry protests from China.
The White House and the Pentagon promptly walked back the president’s comments, saying the he did not want to signal a change in U.S. policy, and that “strategic ambiguity” remained the policy of the U.S. Ironically, that policy flows from the 1979 Taiwan Relations act, essentially a carefully worded law that allowed the U.S. to support Taiwan in many ways while still recognizing Beijing. This is the heart of the “one China” policy, something then Senator Joe Biden supported while on the Senate Foreign Affairs committee as a junior member.
Some wags have called the President’s comments and the clean-op a shift from “strategic ambiguity” to “strategic confusion.” Jokes aside, there is an urgent need for a coherent national policy not just on the Taiwan issue, but on the larger question of U.S.-China policy. The danger of a miscalculation is growing, and both the U.S. and China are becoming increasingly aggressive in their policies toward the island. Dr. Kurt Campbell, the highly regarded Senior Director on the National Security Council staff with responsibility for U.S. Asian policy, is working on such a broad policy document, which has been rumored for release over the past several months. At the recent Nikkei Virtual Global Forum, Dr. Campbell said that the Biden administration was “committed” to avoiding conflict with China. The question in regard to Taiwan is how to do so.
Many experts, including the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Richard Haass, are calling for a more explicit policy of “strategic clarity” in the case of an attack on the island of Taiwan—meaning that the U.S. should lay out the precise financial, diplomatic, and military responses it would take in the case of an invasion. Others are calling for the U.S. to draw closer to Taiwan through economic, diplomatic, and military mechanisms—including deploying more troops to the island (to date, only very small numbers of special forces have been sent for training purposes), selling more advanced weapons systems (such as advanced sea mines, anti-ship missiles, and missile defense systems), and providing higher-level visits from administration officials in Taipei and Washington.
The reality on the placid waters of the South China Sea is that U.S. and Chinese warships and aircraft are in near constant contact as the US and its allies conduct “freedom of navigation patrols,” designed to show that the vast body of water remains international high seas. And all of this comes with a backdrop of rapidly rising Chinese naval, air, and space capability that it can deploy in the South China Sea. While the U.S. remains the preeminent global military power, in the relatively small sea and air space around Taiwan, it would be possible for China to over-master the U.S. forward deployed Seventh Fleet. While the U.S. could “swing” additional carriers and other naval forces from around the world, the question is whether that could happen in time to forestall a successful Chinese invasion.
China has other options as well, notably cyberattacks. With one of the top offensive cyber capabilities in the world, Beijing can use electrons in the place of missiles and damage Taiwanese electric grids, command & control networks, logistic hubs, financial accounts, and military installations. Such attacks could cripple the Taiwanese economy in preparation of an attack, or be used in conjunction with traditional military actions.
The People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN) is also increasing its operations with fellow Pacific naval power Russia— including a provocative “show the flag” cruise around the home islands of Japan last week. A naval blockade of Taiwan would put significant pressure on the U.S. and Taiwan’s other trading partners to intervene, especially considering the criticality of Taiwan’s highly advanced microchip production role in the global economy.
In response, the U.S. has been ramping up work with its allies in Asia including energizing the concept (and actual military operations) of the quad nations (U.S., India, Australia, Japan); encouraging Japan to significantly increase their defense budget; pushing NATO allies to deploy to Asia as part of “freedom of navigation patrols” in the South China Sea (U.K., France, Germany have committed to doing so); providing the Australians with nuclear submarine technology; exchanging high-level defense visits with Vietnam; pursing military technology that would be critical in a conflict with Beijing (cyber, space, AI, unmanned systems, and hypersonic missiles) and negotiating new basing agreements with Japan and South Korea.
Clearly a modern day “great game” in East Asia is afoot, and Taiwan is at the center of it. The U.S. urgently needs to clarify its strategic approach to the region and identify a coherent whole-of-government and indeed whole-of society approach to dealing with China. Major U.S. companies are deeply invested in China, and our economies are utterly intertwined. A conflict would be a disaster for both nations. What is needed is a multi-pronged strategy that has a military component to create deterrence, especially in cyber, artificial intelligence, space operations, and maritime operations; a diplomatic approach to solidify the so-called “quad” alignment; a values-based strategic communication pillar to solidify support in the region for democracy, liberty, and human rights; an economic approach that emphasizes reciprocal market access for both sides and sanctions on intellectual property theft; and finally a tech structure that emphasizes international standards on everything from crypto-currency to privacy regulations.
The overarching approach of such a strategy is simple: confront where we must—on the issues described above—but seek cooperation wherever we can find it between the two nations. Some examples might be environmental and climate alignment; biomedical research and preparation for the inevitable next pandemic; and arms control talks on nuclear weapons and cyber tools. At a minimum we need straightforward and dedicated communication paths between senior U.S. officials and their Chinese counterparts. We had them with the Soviets in the Cold War, but they are not in existence today. Alongside such “hot lines,” we need detailed protocols describing how our military forces should interact when they encounter each other—staying a set number of miles apart, restricting overflights without warnings, prohibiting turning on fire control radars.
Crisp, professional signaling and communications to Beijing are essential, especially in regard to Taiwan. Our nominated Ambassador—career diplomat and deeply experienced foreign service leader Nicholas Burns—cannot get to China soon enough. And above all, Dr. Campbell’s China strategy needs to be launched at hypersonic speed—right now we need strategic ideas as much as we need missiles. The good news is that there is broad bipartisan agreement on the immediacy of the challenges—now we need a plan.
TIME · by Sailing True North: Ten Admirals and the Voyage of Character
21. US strategic clarity on Taiwan wouldn’t unleash a spiral of escalation
Excerpts:
Seen in this light, it’s obvious that the prospect of a spiral dynamic would quickly discredit a move away from strategic ambiguity. Fortunately, however, the spiral model is not applicable to the Taiwan case.
China wants to see Taiwan reunited with the mainland and so, in that limited and specific sense, it does have ‘aggressive intent’. Critically, too, it is neither self-deluded about its ambition nor blind to the fact that it is a major concern to the US. Indeed, China has enshrined its plans for Taiwan in law for all to see. So, were the US to commit to help Taiwan, it’s hard to see how China could interpret that as anything more sinister than what it is: an attempt to deter China from attacking Taiwan.
And even if China were otherwise liable to misinterpret a commitment to help Taiwan, its awareness of other factors would rule that out. If the US had any aggressive intent towards China, it could have acted on that when China was weaker. It certainly wouldn’t have helped China grow at a rate unmatched in modern history. Besides, China has a nuclear deterrent. In short, East Asia today is in no way like early 20th century Europe, and the idea that the US harbours ambitions against China is pure fantasy.
Strategically, it could still make sense for China to try to raise the spectre of the spiral model. However, China’s rhetoric suggests that even it recognises that this would be unconvincing. In response to Biden’s comments, for instance, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin didn’t accuse the US of ambitions against China but of emboldening ‘separatist forces’ and thereby risking a conflict provoked by Taiwan.
Again, in considering a move away from strategic ambiguity, the US still must determine if a commitment could be formulated that would adequately mitigate this specific risk. But closer examination suggests that it can safely put to one side the main worry about deterrence in general.
US strategic clarity on Taiwan wouldn’t unleash a spiral of escalation | The Strategist
As tensions across the Taiwan Strait rise, pressure is growing on the US administration to deter China more effectively by giving up on strategic ambiguity and moving towards a policy of strategic clarity. Indeed, last month we may have had an indication that this is already occurring. When asked at a CNN townhall whether the US would come to Taiwan’s defence if China attacked, President Joe Biden didn’t equivocate: ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we have a commitment to do that.’
This has been universally reported as a provocative misstatement. The reaction from Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund, is emblematic: ‘The President has a tendency to make gaffes but this is potentially quite dangerous … This is the only issue the US and China could go to war over so it’s something the administration has to be very careful on.’
There are a couple of issues with that interpretation. First, it’s possible that Biden’s statement was intentional. Given that he has said similar things in the recent past, it may be that he has decided to signal a move away from strategic ambiguity on an unofficial level. We’ll have to wait and see if he continues to contradict the official line.
More importantly, though, we should question whether Biden’s statement was in fact dangerous since ideally deterrence should reduce the chances of conflict.
There are two main reasons why someone might think a move away from strategic ambiguity would be a mistake. The most obvious points to the danger of emboldening Taiwan to provoke a conflict with China. While the US could condition a commitment to help Taiwan on Taiwan not declaring independence, it would be difficult not to incentivise lesser provocations. Lurking in the background, though, is a suspicion about deterrence in general. The basic worry is that, far from dampening the potential for conflict, making threats merely pours fuel on the flames, a dynamic the political scientist Robert Jervis has called the ‘spiral model’.
According to deterrence theory, the only hope you have of preventing an adversary from acting on a sincere threat is to communicate that, were they to do so, you would put up such a fight that they would be left regretting their decision. While a conflict can still occur if your adversary doesn’t consider you credible, this at least minimises the chances of that happening.
According to the spiral model, in contrast, matching a threat with a threat just makes things worse. Suppose A threatens B not because it covets B’s territory or resources but because it suspects B has aggressive intent (the situation of the US vis-à-vis China). If B has no such intent, and doesn’t recognise A’s mistake, it will simply view A as aggressive. If B then responds as deterrence theory says it should—with a threat of its own—it will just confirm A’s worse fears, leading to a spiral of escalation. This is worrying because, as the situation heats up, so does the risk that one party will launch a ‘preventive’ attack.
The poster child for the spiral model is sometimes thought to be the July Crisis of 1914 that led to the outbreak of World War I. The immediate parties to the crisis—Austria-Hungary and Serbia—were principally concerned with preserving territory rather than expanding it, as was Serbia’s patron Russia. And even Austria’s ally Germany, which did have imperial ambitions, didn’t want a war on two fronts. Yet, from Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia on, each threat was perceived by its target as revealing aggressive intent. Combined with the belief that technology favoured early movers, the dispute escalated from threats, to mobilisations, to, eventually, a ‘preventive’ attack.
Seen in this light, it’s obvious that the prospect of a spiral dynamic would quickly discredit a move away from strategic ambiguity. Fortunately, however, the spiral model is not applicable to the Taiwan case.
China wants to see Taiwan reunited with the mainland and so, in that limited and specific sense, it does have ‘aggressive intent’. Critically, too, it is neither self-deluded about its ambition nor blind to the fact that it is a major concern to the US. Indeed, China has enshrined its plans for Taiwan in law for all to see. So, were the US to commit to help Taiwan, it’s hard to see how China could interpret that as anything more sinister than what it is: an attempt to deter China from attacking Taiwan.
And even if China were otherwise liable to misinterpret a commitment to help Taiwan, its awareness of other factors would rule that out. If the US had any aggressive intent towards China, it could have acted on that when China was weaker. It certainly wouldn’t have helped China grow at a rate unmatched in modern history. Besides, China has a nuclear deterrent. In short, East Asia today is in no way like early 20th century Europe, and the idea that the US harbours ambitions against China is pure fantasy.
Strategically, it could still make sense for China to try to raise the spectre of the spiral model. However, China’s rhetoric suggests that even it recognises that this would be unconvincing. In response to Biden’s comments, for instance, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin didn’t accuse the US of ambitions against China but of emboldening ‘separatist forces’ and thereby risking a conflict provoked by Taiwan.
Again, in considering a move away from strategic ambiguity, the US still must determine if a commitment could be formulated that would adequately mitigate this specific risk. But closer examination suggests that it can safely put to one side the main worry about deterrence in general.
22. Chinese People Think China Is Popular Overseas. Americans Disagree.
Excerpts:
The widening perception gap between the Chinese and Western publics is alarming, but not surprising. The pandemic and the ensuing geopolitical tussles have merely amplified pre-existing tensions and long-standing resentment; the writing had always been on the wall. As China rises, it needs to learn the ropes of navigating a world that is not necessarily receptive toward its actions – especially when couched in the trenchant, absolutist rhetoric that has undergirded its recent statements. China must also be wary of conflating what it sees with the full reality – though this is a fact that I believe many in the bureaucratic and political system are well aware of. The perception gap between the Chinese public and the international community (at least significant segments of it) is widening, and this alone is a cause for concern.
Yet concurrently, those in the West who are seeking to engage China on dialogue and forthcoming exchanges must continue to do so. An isolated, cut-off, and alienated China is in the interest of neither the country’s 1.4 billion population, nor the world at large. Ameliorating conflicting interests and incentives requires a basic alignment of understanding. Aligning understanding, in turn, behoves tact and moderation.
Chinese People Think China Is Popular Overseas. Americans Disagree.
The widening perception gap between the Chinese and Western publics points to long-term divergence.
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The Carter Center-RIWI published a joint survey of Chinese public opinion earlier this month. The results reveal two significant findings – the first, is that the attitudes of the Chinese public (at least, its netizens) toward the West, specifically the United States, have considerably soured over recent years; the second, is that a vast majority of the Chinese population remains convinced that China’s international reputation is broadly, if not very, favorable.
These findings must be situated within the backdrop of two broader trends. The first concerns the worsening perceptions of China across vast swathes of the global community. A Gallup poll in February 2021 suggested that the percentage of Americans who viewed China as the United States’ greatest enemy surged to 45 percent, doubling of the 2020 figures. Unfavorable views of China have climbed in countries ranging from Australia, the Netherlands, to the United Kingdom, with many expressing skepticism toward the Chinese leadership’s ability to “do the right thing” internationally.
This particular trend reflects the souring relations, escalating tensions, and increasingly bellicose rhetoric directed toward each other by Beijing and Washington. Yet this fact alone poses less of a cause for concern, arguably, than what could be termed a second-order perceptual misalignment – many amongst the Chinese population are increasingly convinced that China is regarded highly favorably internationally, notwithstanding the above poll results and data. The view that China offers a cogent, effective, and functional alternative to the Western liberal democratic model – to some extent grounded in Beijing’s swift and meticulous responses to the COVID-19 pandemic – has bolstered domestic convictions that the Chinese model of governance is on the rise, as liberal democracy gradually declines from its discursive zenith. The perception that China enjoys vast international prestige, then, goes hand-in-hand with the emotivist-normative judgment that the “China Model” (which, in practice, resembles a work-in-progress within academic and think-tank circles, yet is certainly portrayed as holistic rival to the “Western Way”) is here to stay – at least, within Chinese borders.
Making Sense of Perceptual Misalignment
How do we make sense of the perceptual misalignment between how the Chinese public believe the country is perceived overseas, and the (arguably) tarnished reputation that the country possesses abroad?
There is a tempting tendency on the part of certain commentators to jump to the conclusion that the Chinese public – predictably and systemically – are “brainwashed” or “manipulated” by the ruling regime into delusional thought. Yet this is far too hasty, unnuanced, and uncharitable a characterization – the Chinese public are not lemmings. To posit that state engineering and manipulation of information is the primary factor in the perception gap is ill-backed-up by proof and evidence. Recent literature has suggested two significant trends that are worthy of our consideration, when reflecting upon China’s foreign policy, nationalism, and interactions between Beijing and the world at large.
First, the increasing heterogeneity of the Chinese public should render us skeptical of the view that the Chinese public are shaped wholly by homogenous forces – in a top-down manner – as envisioned by certain popular accounts. Cheng Li’s seminal work “Shanghai Middle Class: Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement” which points to the rise of an eclectic, open-minded, progressive middle class is equally skeptical of American hegemony and authoritarian encroachment. Shanghai epitomizes the cosmopolitan, 21st-century Chinese city, one in which passionate nationalism is moderated and enhanced by attraction to capitalist, open-market values. Kerry Brown’s “China in Five Cities” highlights the versatility and lucidity of Hong Kong and Xi’an citizens, who reimagine and explore their Chinese identities through the lenses of Westernized and historically embedded local cultures, respectively. These works highlight the fact that Chinese citizens – especially as compared with the pre-reform and opening era – are increasingly clued in and conjoined with the international pulse. To suggest that access to free, open internet remains impossible would be an anachronistic judgment – even despite the fact that many information resources remain, of course, de jure restricted. Returnees from overseas education and work have often profound and experience-informed insights into “the grass on the other side.” These points all remind us to be wary of essentialist explanations that deprive citizens – whether grassroots, entrepreneurial, or wealthy – of their agency.
Second, Chinese public discourses concerning foreign policy are shaped by a multitude of factors – and not all of them involve, or are steered exclusively by the top-level government (i.e. the State Council and its associates). Yu Jie’s recent briefing to Chatham House highlights the role played by provincial-level authorities, state-owned enterprises, and other associated local or provincial actors in shaping Chinese foreign policy. It is fair to say that the conjoined efforts of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party, the United Front Work Department, and the Ministry of State Security mean many Chinese citizens are vastly influenced by state ideology – yet it would be unfair to dismiss the room for provincial and local contestation over the precise boundaries of such ideologies and tenets.
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Both points hopefully elucidate reasons why we should be skeptical of the “top-down imposition” story. The next step in our exploratory exercise, then, is to consider the possibility of alternative explanations at work here. I suggest that there are two possible explanations.
The first concerns the organic ascent in narratives centered around “self-strengthening,” a concept which offers both the normative justification, and what is widely viewed as the empirical evidence, for China’s “return” to its rightful place at the table internationally. Self-strengthening – drawing upon the imagery of national strength (hence the Chinese cybersphere’s invoking of “qiangguo” or “strong nation,” as a self-description) and defiance of “foreign enemies” – is taken as more than merely an aspirational goal; it is equally construed as what has been occurring over the past decades, and as what is likely to continue into the future decades. Many in the Chinese public – including the highly educated and affluent – are convinced that China has been working toward catching, and will soon overtake, the United States in raw economic and strategic/political terms. The perception that China enjoys prestige and celebration abroad, then, could be interpreted as an organic byproduct of such confidence – which could well be misplaced, but is by no means fabricated or imposed through the state apparatus alone.
The second point – one that Jude Blanchette makes in his incisive commentary on the poll results – is that “it’s important that those of us in ‘the West’ don’t assume that the world shares our narrative on Beijing.” To this, I would add that over the past five years, perceptions of China have not declined by much – and have plausibly improved – across countries and regions that are traditionally neglected by much of the international commentariat. A plurality or majority of populations across all Latin American and African states view China’s growing economy as a positive for their countries. Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Nigeria, and Argentina, as of 2019, recorded double-digit increases in their populations’ positive ratings of China’s economic ascent. Few among these, if any, are traditional allies to the West – though they certainly cannot be easily reduced into being members of an ostensible “China” bloc. Hence, if we are to interpret the way the Chinese netizens view the international community as reflecting a particular segment of the world’s countries – namely, countries that have grown to be more receptive toward China – then the self-assessment scores would not, after all, be so outrageous. The obvious counterpoint/caveat here is this: We do not, as of now, know what a majority of Chinese netizens construe to be the international community; nor, indeed, do we have sufficient evidence to conclude that they do or do not care for the views of the amorphous “West” – much of this requires further appraisal and investigation.
So What Gives? What Now?
There are three upshots to draw from the above. First, Beijing needs to take somewhat seriously the above misalignment – not because they are losing international support from allies that remain steadfastly committed to China, but because the increasing bifurcation between the Chinese public’s understanding of the international community that matters, and the actual international community whose investment, capital, and interactions with China have been a primary engine promulgating its growth would only be to the detriment of the country’s population. Highlighting the hostile opprobrium from the West need not mean capitulating to them – indeed, there could well be self-interest-centered reasons for the ruling party and the population alike to rally around a more affirmative, productive variant of competitive nationalism, which would yield positive impetus for constructive, profound societal transformations. Yet in order for pragmatic policymakers and bureaucrats to acquire the political capital to push for moderated and flexible stances on matters where compromise can indeed be sought, the status quo has to been recognized as problematic.
Second, those who call for an explicit counteracting and reprobation directed toward Beijing’s state media and propaganda apparatus in order to transform “hearts and minds” on the ground in China are fundamentally mistaken. They make the convenient assumption that animosity toward the West is the product of party concoction and stimulation, as opposed to genuine grievances that Chinese citizens have come to cultivate toward what they identify as exclusionary, interventionist, and condescending rhetoric from their Western counterparts. The reductionist frame – that those who eschew the West and what they have to offer must therefore be brainwashed – is unhelpful, patronizing, and inconducive toward rehabilitating images of the United States or, indeed, the much-maligned Five Eyes, in China. If Washington is genuinely concerned about its image and soft power in China – which it should be – it would benefit from recognizing that painting Chinese citizens as an oppressed monolith that lacks access to free-flowing information, and are hence universally ignorant, cannot possibly serve anyone’s interests, barring those who enjoy infantalizing China in their politically charged rhetoric.
Third and finally, the China-watching community should move past focusing exclusively on the liberal West’s attitudes toward China. The perceptions, judgments, and attitudes of those residing in non-Western, or non-liberal democratic states, are equally important in gauging global opinion. If those in the “democratic” world are indeed seeking to revamp their image and render their brand of liberal democracy once again attractive to folks beyond their conventional sphere of influence, then it is high time to recognize that the grievances toward the Washington-led order are very much real. China may not provide a comprehensive alternative or panacea to it, but the West is in for a slog, as opposed to walkover, when it comes to regaining the hearts and minds of those alienated by decades of perceived neoliberalism and hawkish interventionism.
The widening perception gap between the Chinese and Western publics is alarming, but not surprising. The pandemic and the ensuing geopolitical tussles have merely amplified pre-existing tensions and long-standing resentment; the writing had always been on the wall. As China rises, it needs to learn the ropes of navigating a world that is not necessarily receptive toward its actions – especially when couched in the trenchant, absolutist rhetoric that has undergirded its recent statements. China must also be wary of conflating what it sees with the full reality – though this is a fact that I believe many in the bureaucratic and political system are well aware of. The perception gap between the Chinese public and the international community (at least significant segments of it) is widening, and this alone is a cause for concern.
Yet concurrently, those in the West who are seeking to engage China on dialogue and forthcoming exchanges must continue to do so. An isolated, cut-off, and alienated China is in the interest of neither the country’s 1.4 billion population, nor the world at large. Ameliorating conflicting interests and incentives requires a basic alignment of understanding. Aligning understanding, in turn, behoves tact and moderation.
23. Army relieved ‘old school’ battalion leader over poor command climate
I think this is why the previous standard line was along the lines to not comment on ongoing investigations. But the information environment has changed conditions. This incident and the actions surrounding it are likely to be studied in leadership, SJA, and PAO PME (and command courses).
Army relieved ‘old school’ battalion leader over poor command climate
The Army relieved a South Korea-based battalion commander in May after an investigation sparked by anonymous racism complaints revealed not Equal Opportunity violations but rather a “negative command climate” within the unit, according to a report Army Times obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
The unit’s command sergeant major was officially reinstated following the investigation, but he was quickly replaced.
In December 2020, Army officials announced the command team of the 602nd Aviation Support Battalion, Lt. Col. Sean McBride and Command Sgt. Maj. Mario Salomone III, was “immediately” suspended when 8th Army “received allegations of racism, bigotry and discrimination in one of our formations via the Eighth Army Anonymous Assistance line.”
However, the ensuing Army Regulation 15-6 investigation found that McBride and Salomone did not violate the service’s Equal Opportunity policies.
“I am continuing to pursue options for appeal of this investigation and am humbled by and grateful for the outpouring of support I’ve received from those I’ve served with over the past 26 years,” McBride told Army Times when reached for comment. “More importantly, I’m proud of the soldiers of the Warhorse Battalion who continued to provide dedicated support to their fellow soldiers despite a global pandemic and challenging command climate on the Korean Peninsula. It was an honor to serve as their commander and I remain tremendously impressed by their accomplishments.”
But McBride’s rebuttal memo, which Army Times also obtained, expressed dismay at how senior leaders had announced the suspension following anonymous complaints that ultimately weren’t substantiated as EO violations.
“Commanders at echelon made public statements announcing my suspension from command and accusing me and CSM Mario Salomone of racism, bigotry, and discrimination on their official Twitter feeds,” McBride said in the memo. “Articles [about the suspension] define my online persona to this day. My professional and personal reputation has been destroyed [by unsubstantiated allegations].”
Salomone voiced similar frustrations in a phone interview with Army Times.
“If you were to Google my name, [the ‘racist’ label], that’s the first thing that comes up,” Salomone explained. “I feel that [the announcement of the suspension] was not the proper way to do it. We could have had some more privacy...for those allegations, that, as we [now] know, were not true.”
The 2nd Infantry Division said in an emailed statement that commanders and command sergeants major are “expected to uphold the highest standards and create and maintain a proper environment” in their units.
McBride was relieved by “Maj. Gen. [Steven] Gilland [the former division commander]...due to his lack of confidence in their ability to continue to command and lead the battalion,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Donald, the command’s spokesman, in a statement that did not name either soldier.
Salomone was reinstated following the investigation, Donald confirmed, despite the investigator recommending that he be relieved.
Donald declined to comment on any further administrative action against either leader, citing privacy regulations.
What the investigation found
The investigation’s findings and recommendations memorandum, completed on March 17, offers some detail, though Army officials cited a FOIA exemption for overseas troops to redact every single name in the document other than Gilland’s. Context clues and descriptions, however, permitted Army Times to match some investigative findings to either McBride or Salomone.
Army Times also obtained a redacted final findings memorandum by Gilland, which overrode some of the investigator’s findings and recommendations after considering appeals from the two leaders.
The investigating officer found that the command team “fostered a non-cohesive unit and created a negative command climate.”
Both leaders “can be described as having abrasive leadership styles, similar to what was previously acceptable in the Army,” the investigator said, adding that the leadership style was “old school.”
McBride, according to the investigator, displayed “abrasive language and erratic behavior” and did not provide “enough guidance, direction, or communication to his subordinates.” The investigator also found that McBride “made misleading or false statements as part of the investigation” and allowed Salomone to “overextend his reach” in interactions with junior officers.
Gilland ultimately disapproved the false statements finding after McBride’s appeal.
Both leaders, the investigator said, failed to embody qualities set forth in the service’s leadership doctrine.
“I’ve done a lot of self-reflection [about my leadership],” Salomone explained to Army Times. “I didn’t always have that cheerleader attitude…I don’t smile a lot, so some people mistake that for ‘old school’ and anger.”
Salomone also said the investigator did not interview any of his company first sergeants. The senior NCO, who is nearing medical retirement, said he ultimately “disagreed” with the finding.
“I’ve spent 26 years in the Army and this is how I’m walking away,” Salomone added.
The battalion commander’s appeal materials argued that the investigator’s adverse findings mostly relied on statements from soldiers who had previously received non-judicial punishment from him.
But the anonymously-alleged EO violations that sparked the investigation — and a parallel 8th Army investigation of the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, the 602nd ASB’s parent unit — were not substantiated or did not rise to the level of “race- or gender-based discrimination,” according to the memo.
Still, the investigator concluded that the command team could have given a “perception” of bias, “while in reality it was more likely...the result of a counterproductive leadership approach.”
Gilland, the division’s commanding general, disagreed and did not approve any overarching adverse findings related to racial bias or discrimination.
According to the investigator, one member of the command team “made unintended comments that were discriminatory based on national origin” when he told a subordinate that she “needed to make her soldier, who is an African male from Nigeria, stronger, because people who are from his background and/or country are not tough.”
The investigation does not clarify which of the two leaders made the comments due to the redactions.
The same member of the command team said that the majority of punishments handed down in the battalion “were [against] soldiers of color” and said in his sworn statement that they “needed to do a better job at addressing this problem,” the investigator said.
The other member of the command team “unprofessionally commented on a soldier’s national origin to another spouse,” according to the investigator. The redacted leader told a spouse that a soldier of Japanese origin who faced civilian charges from Korean authorities was “fucked” and “need[ed] not to be Japanese” if he wanted to receive a fair trial in the local courts.
South Korea and Japan have longstanding animosity dating back to the island nation’s colonization of the Korean peninsula and Japanese atrocities from World War II.
Gilland ultimately disapproved the Japanese national origin portion of the IO’s finding after considering all appeals. He instead faulted the leader for using unprofessional language and for discussing the issue with a subordinate’s spouse.
The investigating officer recommended that both McBride and Salomone be relieved. But in May, Gilland only relieved McBride, while reinstating Salomone.
But the senior NCO was immediately replaced after his reinstatement — the battalion held a ceremony in June to welcome a new command team.
A parallel investigation into the division’s aviation brigade found that its climate “is healthy and functioning effectively.”
Davis Winkie is a staff reporter covering the Army. He originally joined Military Times as a reporting intern in 2020. Before journalism, Davis worked as a military historian. He is also a human resources officer in the Army National Guard.
24. Pentagon: Chinese nuke force growing faster than predicted
Pentagon: Chinese nuke force growing faster than predicted
WASHINGTON (AP) — China is expanding its nuclear force much faster than U.S. officials predicted just a year ago, highlighting a broad and accelerating buildup of military muscle designed to enable Beijing to match or surpass U.S. global power by mid-century, according to a Pentagon report released Wednesday.
The number of Chinese nuclear warheads could increase to 700 within six years, the report said, and may top 1,000 by 2030. The report did not say how many weapons China has today, but a year ago the Pentagon said the number was in the “low 200s” and was likely to double by the end of this decade.
The United States, by comparison, has 3,750 nuclear weapons and has no plans to increase. As recently as 2003 the U.S. total was about 10,000. The Biden administration is undertaking a comprehensive review of its nuclear policy and has not said how that might be influenced by its China concerns.
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The annual "China Power Report" points to using force against Taiwan as a motivation for military modernization.
The report does not suggest open conflict with China but it fits an emerging U.S. narrative of a People’s Liberation Army, as China calls its military, intent on challenging the United States in all domains of warfare — air, land, sea, space and cyberspace. Against that backdrop, U.S. defense officials have said they are increasingly wary of China’s intentions with regard to the status of Taiwan.
“The PLA’s evolving capabilities and concepts continue to strengthen (China’s) ability to ‘fight and win wars’ against a ‘strong enemy’ — a likely euphemism for the United States,” the report said, adding that it makes China more capable of coercing Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as its territory.
Wednesday’s report is the latest reminder to Congress, already leery of Beijing’s military ambitions, that the Pentagon’s frequent promises to focus more intently on countering China have moved only incrementally beyond the talking stage. The Biden administration is expected to take a new step by following through on its announcement in September of plans to increase the U.S. military presence in Australia, in addition to a controversial decision to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
China’s military modernization is proceeding on a wide front, but its nuclear advances are especially notable.
The Chinese may already have established what is known as a nuclear triad — the combination of land-, sea-, and air-based missiles that the United States and Russia have had for decades, the report said. To its existing land- and sea-based nuclear forces China is adding an air-launched ballistic missile.
The Pentagon report was based on information collected through December 2020 and so does not reflect or even mention Gen. Mark Milley’s expression of concern last month about Chinese hypersonic weapon tests last summer that he said came as a troublesome surprise. Wednesday’s report only referred to the widely known fact that China had fielded the DF-17 medium-range ballistic missile, equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle designed to evade American missile defenses.
In remarks shortly before the report’s release Wednesday, Milley told the Aspen Security Forum that the hypersonic missile test and other Chinese advances are evidence of what is at stake for the world.
“We are witnessing one of the largest shifts in global and geostrategic power that the world has witnessed,” he said.
The Pentagon report said China is pursuing a network of overseas bases that “could interfere with” U.S. military operations and could support Chinese military operations against the United States. President Xi Jinping has said China plans to become a global military power by 2049.
The Pentagon’s wide-ranging assessment of China’s military strategy and force development is the latest in an annual series of reports to Congress and in some respects was more detailed than previous versions. For example, it questioned China’s compliance with international biological and chemical weapons agreements, citing studies conducted at military medical institutions that discussed identifying, testing and characterizing groups of “potent toxins” that have civilian as well as military uses.
The basis of the Pentagon’s prediction that China will vastly increase its nuclear arsenal is not spelled out in Wednesday’s report. A senior defense official who briefed reporters in advance of the report’s public release, and thus spoke on condition of anonymity, said the forecast reflects several known developments, such as China’s addition of a nuclear bomber capability, as well as public statements in Chinese official media that have made reference to China needing 1,000 nuclear weapons.
The report also asserted that China has begun construction of at least three new missile fields that “cumulatively contain hundreds” of underground silos from which ICBMs could be launched.
The report provided no details on the new missile fields, but private nuclear analysts have reported that satellite imagery shows what appear to be vast new missile silo fields under construction in north-central China. In an update published Tuesday, analysts Matt Korda and Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists said they have seen continued construction progress and have discovered “unique facilities that appear intended to support missile operations once the silo fields become operational.”
One of those facilities, they said, is a complex in the mountains surrounded by what appear to be four tunnels into underground facilities. The tunnels are under construction and there are large amounts of excavated soil dumped nearby. This facility’s function is unknown but “could potentially involve missile and/or warhead storage and management,” the analysts said.
Other structures under construction may be technical service facilities and launch control centers, they said.
25. 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) Wreath-Laying Ceremony to Commemorate President John F. Kennedy's Contributions to the U.S. Army Special Forces
It was an honor to attend the annual ceremony yesterday. There are 14 photos at the link.
1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) Wreath-Laying Ceremony to Commemorate President John F. Kennedy's Contributions to the U.S. Army Special Forces
ARLINGTON, VA, UNITED STATES
11.03.2021
The 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) hold a wreath-laying ceremony at the gravesite of President John F. Kennedy in Section 45 of Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, Nov. 3, 2021. The ceremony is held yearly to commemorate President Kennedy’s contributions to the U.S. Army Special Forces, including authorizing the “Green Beret” as the official headgear for all U.S. Army Special Forces and his uncompromising support to the regiment. (U.S. Army photo by Elizabeth Fraser / Arlington National Cemetery / released)
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This work, 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne) Wreath-Laying Ceremony to Commemorate President John F. Kennedy's Contributions to the U.S. Army Special Forces [Image 14 of 14], by Elizabeth Fraser, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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26. Unleashing the U.S. Military’s Thinking about Cyber Power
Excerpts:
Doctrine is a jump-off point for military thinking, not a limiter. It can lag rather than lead. But it is a mistake to underestimate its importance as both a record and driver of concepts and organization. In this case, it chronicles more than 20 years of Department of Defense efforts to make the intellectually useful concept of “information” into one that is organizationally useful. Overbroad concepts and the organizations built on them are unwieldy. But narrowing the scope risks excluding capabilities. Thinking about cyber power has historically been hostage to this discussion.
Rather than insisting that cyber is an information-related capability in the information environment, it might be better to untether cyber power from the broader conversation about information. This is especially true because the everyday use of the term “information” is narrower than Rona’s and may lead commanders to overlook cyber-physical capabilities.
Then it should be possible to take a fresh look at the full range of cyber capabilities and effects to develop concepts for them and consider how they are best organized and manned, and how and where they should be integrated in planning and exercises. Cyber-physical operations may differ from cyber influence operations, including the circumstances under which they are likely to be used, the risk they pose to civilians, their legal implications, the way in which they would be integrated into planning and exercises, and their staffing (e.g., perhaps electrical engineers and scientists rather than psychologists or public affairs specialists). It may be that they require different specializations and enabling organizational structures.
Joint doctrine is ever evolving and new doctrine on information may soon emerge. It should not inadvertently create blind spots by marginalizing thinking about cyber-physical effects.
Unleashing the U.S. Military’s Thinking about Cyber Power - War on the Rocks
In February 2021, a cyber attacker tried to poison the water in Oldsmar, Florida. The hacker gained access to a program used to control a water treatment plant and attempted to increase the amount of lye, which is used to regulate pH levels, in the water to unsafe levels. An alert plant operator saw his mouse moving on its own and stopped the attack. Similar unsuccessful attacks have occurred in Israel, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Ellsworth, Kansas. In October 2021, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency issued an alert regarding ongoing cyber threats to U.S. water and wastewater systems.
This is an example of a cyber attack with physical effects made possible by manipulation of computers that are increasingly used as controllers of machines, physical systems, and processes. Proof-of-concept “cyber-physical” attacks have been conducted on generators, cars, cranes, and satellites. Attackers can commandeer systems or cause physical damage, as demonstrated by the STUXNET worm, which was used to damage Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges and slow the enrichment process. And as the attacks on water systems illustrate, they could even cause bodily harm.
That computer controllers can be attacked is not news to the U.S. Department of Defense. A 1997 exercise demonstrated the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and military control centers to cyber attacks. The President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection warned in its follow-on report: “Today, the right command sent over a network to a power generating station’s control computer could be just as devastating as a backpack full of explosives, and the perpetrator would be more difficult to identify and apprehend.”
Military thinking about computers and networks began as part of a broader discussion of information in war that included both information for humans and signals for machines. Joint doctrine continues to tie cyber power to that discussion even as information was gradually narrowed to focus on information for humans, leaving cyber attacks with physical effects, like those on the water treatment plants, out of the discussion. Filing cyber power under “information” risks shaping how commanders understand what cyber power can do, how the military organizes itself to exercise cyber power, and where and how cyber power is included in planning and exercises. To ensure that the Department of Defense is poised to exploit and defend against the full range of cyber capabilities, cyber power should be considered independently of the broader discussion of information.
Defining Information War
In the beginning, the discussion of “information” in “information war” included signals intended for humans and machines. In 1975, Thomas Rona, an electrical engineer for the Boeing Aerospace Company, wrote a paper for the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment titled Weapons Systems and Information War. Rona explained that modern weapons systems were increasingly dependent on external communications links such as command and control links, navigation information, and sensors. These links were vulnerable to attack and the fight to protect or compromise them is what Rona termed “information war.”
Rona’s definition of “information” was an engineer’s, rooted in Claude Shannon’s information theory. He defined “information” as electrical, optical, acoustic, or fluid signals that “convey the state of, or the inputs available to, a given subsystem to others.” Information was an input to both human and “automated decision making,” in which a signal was processed to produce an output according to a set of rules — a definition that includes an analog electronic circuit. In “information war,” an attack could involve deceiving a human, spoofing or jamming a signal, or physically destroying a machine.
The Department of Defense formally introduced the idea of “information warfare” in a classified instruction in 1992. Its concept, like Rona’s, included information for both people and machines. A 1996 public brochure defined information warfare as involving “actions taken to achieve information superiority by affecting adversary information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks while defending one’s own.” Information warfare, in this understanding, “targets and protects information, information transfer links, information gathering and processing nodes, and human decisional interaction with information systems.”
From Systems and Processes to Decision-Making
In 1996, the Department of Defense replaced the instruction on information warfare with an instruction on “information operations” to widen the focus on information to other agencies and perhaps to assuage concerns that the Pentagon was seeking to militarize the Internet.
In 1998, the first joint doctrine on information operations was published. The doctrine stated that information operations seek to “affect the information-based process, whether human or automated. Such information dependent processes range from National Command Authorities-level decision making to the automated control of key commercial infrastructures such as telecommunications and electric power.” “Information warfare” was redefined as a special case of information operations during crisis or conflict.
Information operations protected or exploited “the information environment,” defined as “[t]he aggregate of individuals, organizations, or systems that collect, process, or disseminate information; also included is the information itself.” Although the internet had not yet been invented when Rona wrote, the doctrine recognized “computer network attack” as an important capability for information operations, as well as operations security, military deception, psychological operations, electronic warfare, physical attack and destruction, and special information operations.
The doctrinal definitions of “information” and “data” were drawn from the Department of Defense dictionary. These were also double-barreled, applying to humans and machines. The Department of Defense dictionary defined “information” as follows: “1. Facts, data, or instructions in any medium or form. 2. The meaning that a human assigns to data by means of the known conventions used in their representation.” Data was defined as a “[r]epresentation of facts, concepts, or instructions in a formalized manner suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing by humans or automatic means. Any representations such as characters or analog quantities to which meaning is or might be assigned.”
In 2006, joint doctrine on information operations was revised. The term “information warfare” was removed from joint doctrine altogether. “Information operations” were redefined to focus on human and automated decision-making, rather than systems and processes. “Computer network operations” were listed as a “core capability” of information operations along with electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations, military deception, and operations security. This revision subordinated computers and networks to information operations.
Information Operations: Now Just for Humans
But computers and networks began to take on a life of their own. In 2000, the Joint Chiefs of Staff named “information” as a “domain” of warfare, but the 2004 National Military Strategy listed “cyberspace,” rather than “information,” as a “domain” of conflict, referencing “threats in cyberspace aimed at networks and data critical to [U.S.] information-enabled systems.” In 2008, the White House produced the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative to coordinate cyber policy across the interagency process. The Department of Defense dictionary defined “cyberspace” as “[a] global domain within the information environment consisting of the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers.” In May 2010, the National Security Strategy listed “secure cyberspace” among the nation’s security objectives and identified “cyber” as a “domain,” along with land, air, sea, and space, pointing to the cyber vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure such as electric grids. U.S. Cyber Command became operational the same month. In 2011, the Department of Defense released a strategy for operating in cyberspace. It explicitly referenced the dependence of the “security and effective operation of U.S. critical infrastructure” on “cyberspace, industrial control systems, and information technology that may be vulnerable to disruption or exploitation.”
Between 2012 and 2014, joint doctrine on information operations was revised and information operations and cyberspace operations were differentiated. In 2012, joint doctrine on information operations, which the Pentagon felt had proved to be too broad, was revised and the concept narrowed. References to “automated decision making” were dropped. The doctrine now focused on operations to influence human “target audiences,” such as “allies, multinational partners, adversaries, or potential adversaries.” (Although this is often the ultimate objective of warfare, which would suggest that everything done in war and much of what is done in competition is an “information operation,” the doctrine appears to focus on more proximate effects.)
The doctrine also revised the relationship between computers and networks and information operations. “Computer network operations” were no longer listed as a core capability. Instead, they are one of many “information-related capabilities” that are integrated to influence target audience decision-making by shaping the information provided to them or from them. Other capabilities include strategic communication, interagency coordination, public affairs, civil-military operations, information assurance, space operations, military information support operations, intelligence, military deception, operations security, special technical operations, electromagnetic spectrum operations, and key leader engagement. In a tacit recognition of non-informational cyber effects, the doctrine stated that cyberspace operations “when in support of [information operations], deny or manipulate adversary or potential adversary decision making.”
The glossary offered no definition of “information,” and the definition of “information” was also removed from the Department of Defense dictionary. The definition of “data” would be gone by 2013. But in the doctrine on information operations, “information” was redefined as “data in context to inform or provide meaning for action,” while “data” was defined as “interpreted signals that reduce uncertainty or equivocality.” Consistent with influence operations, these definitions suggest that information and data are for human audiences who are informed, find meaning, interpret, or are uncertain or equivocal. The redefinition of “information operations” as operations designed to influence human decisions, maintained in revisions in 2014, and the deletion of the double-barreled definition of “information,” left a doctrinal vacuum with respect to cyber-physical effects.
Cyber-Physical Effects as Afterthought
Joint doctrine continues to subordinate thinking about cyberspace to the concept of information although it offers no definition of “information.” It defines cyberspace as “a global domain within the information environment.” Cyberspace is “wholly contained within the information environment” because “all [cyberspace operations] require the creation, processing, storage, and/or transmission of information.” It is a “medium through which other information activities and capabilities may operate,” including supporting automated decision-making. It refers to cyberspace operations as an “information activity and capability.” However, it also notes that cyberspace operations are not limited to information-specific objectives, but they can produce physical effects, including affecting weapon systems and command and control processes, and may rise to the level of use of force. This is hard to square with current definitions. It may harken back to a pre-2012 understanding of “information” and “information operations.”
In short, cyber power in joint doctrine is tethered to information operations and filed under the conceptual header of “information,” but “information” is no longer defined to include signals intended for machines. Cyber-physical effects are acknowledged in joint doctrine on cyberspace operations but receive comparatively little attention.
The Department of Defense is still using “information” as a unifying concept, although there is no consensus on what the word means. In 2017, the Joint Chiefs of Staff named information as a “joint function” to encourage the grouping of functionally related capabilities. The services have their own organizations under “information” headings, although the emphasis appears to be less a top-down exercise in conceptual purity than a bottom-up effort to eliminate stovepiping and capture the benefits of tighter integration of various capabilities — including cyber power. The Air Force defines “information warfare” as “the employment of military capabilities in and through the information environment to deliberately affect adversary human and system behavior and to preserve friendly freedom of action during cooperation, competition, and armed conflict” in order “to influence or change perceptions, actions, and behaviors in a manner that is consistent with [U.S.] interests.” The Sixteenth Air Force seeks “convergence” of weather, public affairs, cyberspace operations, electronic warfare, information operations, and intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance. The Navy stood up the Information Warfare Enterprise to “advance, align, deliver, support and sustain [information warfare] capabilities.” It defines “information warfare” as “[t]he integrated employment of the Navy’s information-based capabilities (communications, networks, intelligence, meteorology, oceanography, cryptology, electronic warfare, cyberspace operations, and space) to degrade, deny, deceive or destroy the enemy’s warfighting capabilities, or to enhance the effectiveness of friendly operations across all domains.” The Marine Corps created Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups, integrating cyber, signals intelligence, electronic warfare, and information operations. The Army moved away from “information warfare” and is developing the concept of “information advantage,” currently considered to include five major tasks: “enabling decision-making; protecting friendly information; informing and educating domestic audiences; informing and influencing international audiences; and conducting information warfare.”
No More Cyber Football
Doctrine is a jump-off point for military thinking, not a limiter. It can lag rather than lead. But it is a mistake to underestimate its importance as both a record and driver of concepts and organization. In this case, it chronicles more than 20 years of Department of Defense efforts to make the intellectually useful concept of “information” into one that is organizationally useful. Overbroad concepts and the organizations built on them are unwieldy. But narrowing the scope risks excluding capabilities. Thinking about cyber power has historically been hostage to this discussion.
Rather than insisting that cyber is an information-related capability in the information environment, it might be better to untether cyber power from the broader conversation about information. This is especially true because the everyday use of the term “information” is narrower than Rona’s and may lead commanders to overlook cyber-physical capabilities.
Then it should be possible to take a fresh look at the full range of cyber capabilities and effects to develop concepts for them and consider how they are best organized and manned, and how and where they should be integrated in planning and exercises. Cyber-physical operations may differ from cyber influence operations, including the circumstances under which they are likely to be used, the risk they pose to civilians, their legal implications, the way in which they would be integrated into planning and exercises, and their staffing (e.g., perhaps electrical engineers and scientists rather than psychologists or public affairs specialists). It may be that they require different specializations and enabling organizational structures.
Joint doctrine is ever evolving and new doctrine on information may soon emerge. It should not inadvertently create blind spots by marginalizing thinking about cyber-physical effects.
M.A. Thomas is a research professor of cyber warfare and strategy at the Air Force Cyber College. She holds a B.A. in computer and information science from the University of California, Santa Cruz, a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard University.
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Air University, the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other U.S. government agency.
27. A Japanese Seaplane Could Be the Difference-Maker for the U.S. Military
A Japanese Seaplane Could Be the Difference-Maker for the U.S. Military - War on the Rocks
On Jan. 23, 1992, a U.S. Air Force F-16 — Clan 33 — collided with its air refueling tanker during a ferry flight to the United States. The pilot ejected over the ocean some 625 miles east of Tokyo, well outside the unrefueled range of any rescue helicopters. No vessels were in place to rescue the downed pilot. Yet, just four hours later, Japanese forces found and saved the pilot. They didn’t use a ship or a helicopter. They used a seaplane, the aptly named Seagull 81.
During World War II, Japan, like most other nations with maritime operations, maintained a large and capable fleet of seaplanes. The United States lost interest, however. The U.S. military gave up its seaplanes for four reasons: First, World War II ended with a network of long runways in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. This made the seaplane’s ability to land on water seem less relevant. Second, the “next generation” of seaplanes, the R3Y Tradewind and P6M Seamaster, both ran into development problems. Third, the U.S. Navy, faced with a shrinking budget, chose to prioritize carriers and ballistic missile submarines over other platforms and missions. Fourth, and finally, without Navy funding, no other service was going to fund seaplane development from scratch. The last American military seaplane flight took place in 1967, although the Coast Guard used them until 1983.
Yet Japan’s interest continued. In 1966, as the United States was winding down its own seaplane operations, Japan awarded Shin Maywa a contract to develop a military seaplane. That contract resulted in the highly capable US-1 seaplane. Today, Japan continues to operate an updated version of this seaplane, the US-2.
As the United States increasingly focuses on competition in the Indo-Pacific, and as elements of the U.S. military look specifically to amphibious aircraft, it would do well to consider acquiring these handy Japanese seaplanes. The US-2 is a proven and in-production design that would enhance joint capabilities from day one. Further, buying a small number of US-2s would allow the U.S. military to experiment with seaplane operations at a relatively low cost, with little to no research or development required. Finally, buying from a Japanese aircraft company would help strengthen the U.S.-Japanese alliance and highlight the bi-directional benefits of the relationship.
The US-2
The US-2 is a technological marvel. Featuring a top speed of over 300 miles per hour, a max gross takeoff weight of over 100,000 pounds, and an un-refueled range approaching 3,000 miles, the US-2 excels in its primary mission of search and rescue. With rescue operations in the North Pacific in mind from inception, the US-2 can operate in waves up to 10 feet high. This makes it capable of operations in the open ocean for more than 95 percent of the year. Open-water capability is one of the distinct advantages of a true seaplane over a float-equipped aircraft. Not only can the US-2 search, at range, for downed aircrew, but it can also land and recover them.
Buying the US-2 would instantly improve the ability of US forces to conduct search and rescue operations in the Pacific. Figure 2 shows the relative coverage improvement of a US-2 over a HH-60W, the Air Force’s Blackhawk-derived rescue helicopter, or a V-22, the convertible helicopter-aircraft tilt-rotor in use by the joint force. While HH-60s do typically operate in tandem with HC-130s, C-130 transports specially manned and configured for the rescue mission, the pairing is not guaranteed. If the HC-130 suffers a malfunction or is otherwise unavailable, the HH-60 is limited to its own operational radius. US-2s, on the other hand, provide a self-contained rescue capability at range.
Figure 2: Map showing the relative range of a rescue helicopter versus the US-2 seaplane. Range circles are approximate. V-22 range based on MV-22 in ferry configuration with max internal fuel (auxiliary tanks). Note: its actual radius of operation is likely to be significantly smaller (approximately 500 miles unrefueled, in line with the HH-60).
Such a capability would come without any meaningful increase in cost. Operating costs could be expected to be on the approximately $12,000 per flight hour (estimate based on the JRM Mars and Be-200 used as firefighting tankers), in line with the combined $15,000 cost of operating a HC-130J ($6,000 per hour) and HH-60W ($9,000 per flight hour), and far lower than the V-22’s hourly cost of over $20,000 (numbers based on Defense Department reimbursement rates — an imperfect but directionally accurate metric). The per-unit cost of the US-2 could be expected to be under $150 million, driven that high largely due to the very low rate of production. The combined HC-130J Combat King and HH-60W Jolly Green II team, in comparison, currently costs approximately the same. While the nearly $100 million V-22 combines the attributes of both the HC-130 and HH-60, it also suffers from a relatively limited unrefueled range. For example, V-22s typically plan for a 500-mile unrefueled combat radius, well short of the US-2s 1,400-mile radius. While adding internal fuel tanks can extend the V-22s radius out to approximately 1,000 miles, they are not typically flown in this configuration, and the aircraft loses significant internal volume. While air-to-air refueling can extend the range of any appropriately equipped aircraft, this increases cost dramatically. Additionally, it requires the right tanker to be in the right place at the right time. Moreover, V-22 squadrons do not typically train for or support the combat search and rescue mission (they lack the specialized personnel of the rescue squadrons), although they can perform it if required. If the United States desires a self-contained open-ocean rescue capability at ranges exceeding 1,000 miles, it needs to strongly consider the seaplane.
While seaplanes are not cheap, choosing to not buy them could be an extremely expensive mistake. Currently, it costs approximately $6 million to train an F-16 pilot and approximately $10 million to train an F-35 or B-2 pilot. In a conflict with a peer adversary, aircraft will be lost, and pilots will eject over the sea. Besides the economic and moral reasons to recover pilots, there is also an effectiveness argument: Pilots will be more likely to press home their attacks knowing they have a good chance of rescue. Hence, it is important the United States make the effort to recover pilots from the open ocean in wartime.
As the American military and its allies contemplate combat air operations over the vast expanses of the Pacific, they should weigh the advantages of seaplane-facilitated combat search and rescue. It would be surprising to many whose lives were saved by seaplanes — among them Eddie Rickenbacker, George Gay, and countless others — that the United States flies no rescue seaplanes today. The US-2 could solve that problem.
Experimentation, Now
Besides offering immediate enhancement of combat search and rescue capabilities, the US-2 offers a platform through which American forces can experiment with the unique attributes of seaplanes. Seaplanes are, as I wrote previously, no panacea. They have real limitations, as do all aircraft. But in a future conflict where runways are under attack, the ability to land on the ocean could be an extremely relevant capability. While Air Force Special Operations Command has begun efforts to build a float-equipped C-130, this will take time and money without any guarantee of success. The US-2 is here, today, and it works. Acquiring US-2s would allow the United States to begin to refine use cases and understand how best to employ — or not employ — seaplanes.
Seaplanes could help the U.S. military solve several challenges in the Indo-Pacific, particularly the problems inherent to distributed operations. While the US-2 was designed for search and rescue and maritime reconnaissance, it is not difficult to imagine other uses for the aircraft, such as logistics support to far-flung forces. Seaplanes like the US-2 could help insert forces in otherwise inaccessible locations, keep them supplied, and evacuate them if necessary. In one hypothetical scenario, US-2s could infiltrate an unmanned aerial vehicle team onto a forward island to provide targeting support for strike aircraft. Additionally, although the US-2 was not designed from the start for movement of significant cargo, modifications could conceivably allow it to help sustain larger combat forces.
Leaders might even consider converting the US-2 into an air-to-air refueling platform. These tankers could refuel from ships, pre-placed fuel bladders, other aircraft, or from airfields and fuel farms close to the sea. If runways were available, they could land there as well. The ability to stage tankers forward from the ultimate unimproved surface — the ocean — would allow strike aircraft and other forces to project power under contested conditions. Not all these modifications would need to happen immediately. Initially, and in the spirit of a minimum viable product, the US-2 could be equipped only to refuel probe equipped aircraft. Boom integration, while offering numerous benefits, would be a more difficult task.
Figure 3: A Navy US-2, painted in legacy colors, refueling a flight of Navy/Marine Corps F-35s (image courtesy of Hangar B Productions).
Consider, for example, a US-2 equipped with air refueling pods similar those carried by C-130s. The US-2 carries approximately 60,000 pounds of fuel. It could fly approximately 600 miles from a forward operating location, offload 30,000 pounds of fuel, and return to land. That’s double the MQ-25 Stingray’s projected offload. Moreover, the US-2 would achieve that without taking up hangar space on a carrier or needing a catapult. Put another way, a single US-2 would be able to extend the range of a flight of four F-35Cs by 40 percent or double the range of two V-22s.
Another potential application of the US-2 would be in a role like that of the HC-130 and MC-130 (the Air Force’s special operations C-130), supporting rescue missions and special operations forces. Leaders in the rescue community should analyze the addition of a team of US-2s and V-22s as part of the shift to operations in the Pacific. Here, the US-2 could be equipped with air-to-air refueling equipment, or simply act as a mothership for helicopters and other vehicles. The ability to land on water would — as Air Force Special Operations Command has outlined — add flexibility and provide joint force commanders with more options. One asymmetric capability offered by a seaplane would be to “loiter” on the surface of the water. With good weather conditions, it is not unreasonable to imagine a seaplane landing on a body of water, shutting down its engines, and waiting days to support or accomplish a mission while its crew lived aboard. Such a concept would place a premium on the greater seakeeping ability of a seaplane over a floatplane.
Figure 4: A hypothetical Air Force US-2, painted in low observable colors, used for supporting special operations forces (image courtesy of Hangar B Productions).
Finally, the US-2 could act an element of the Navy’s maritime reconnaissance and strike complex. While the P-8 brings many capabilities to the joint force, it’s fundamentally a modified airliner. It requires runways — and long ones at that — to operate. The US-2 could conceivably be fitted with hardpoints to carry weapons or dispensers to deploy sonobuoys for anti-submarine warfare. Such an idea is not without precedent. The US-2’s predecessor, the US-1, carried sonobuoys and torpedoes. It was also able to deploy a dipping sonar from its hull after landing on the ocean. Similar modifications to the US-2 could turn it into a lethal patrol aircraft, in turn providing the Navy with a highly survivable and adaptable capability.
The US-2 could also provide naval forces with an enhanced ability to service, deploy, and recover unmanned surface and unmanned underwater vehicles. Seaplanes such as the US-2 could fly to forward locations, land, deploy an underwater glider or other vehicle, and return weeks later to recover it, download data, and otherwise support operations. This could significantly reduce the transit time for those vehicles and in turn increase their time on station. Furthermore, the ability of naval forces to deploy these unmanned vehicles over greater areas, and move them with greater speed, would only add uncertainty to adversary planning.
Figure 5: A Navy patrol seaplane, painted in VP-40 colors, equipped with sonobuoys and other sensors (image courtesy of Hangar B Productions).
Forward, Together
Outside of the operational and technical reasons to purchase US-2s, there is also the matter of diplomacy. Simply put, buying a Japanese designed and manufactured seaplane would further improve the U.S.-Japanese alliance. In 2020, for example, Japan had over $20 billion in active arms sales from the United States. The July 2020 decision to authorize a $23 billion request from Japan to procure F-35 fighters was the second largest foreign military sale ever authorized. These purchases directly support U.S. jobs and domestic imperatives.
Shin Maywa is a smaller company, and the Japanese military can only afford to order so many US-2 seaplanes (nine, in fact). An order by the United States would help to keep this unique industry in a good financial position and to support the Japanese economy. It is rare for a nation to have built up too much goodwill. Buying Japanese is also the only realistic option outside of indigenous development. Currently, only three other countries are building capable seaplanes: China, Canada, and Russia. Purchasing Russian or Chinese seaplanes is a political non-starter, and Canada’s seaplane is both much smaller than the US-2 and optimized for fire bombing. If the United States wants to buy a seaplane optimized for operations in the Pacific, it should buy the US-2. Lastly, buying Japanese would remind America’s allies that the United States has no monopoly on innovation: Capable systems are capable systems, regardless of origin.
Diplomacy through the prism of arms purchases is not novel. The recent AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-United States) submarine deal further highlighted the diplomatic power of sharing technology. It is not difficult to imagine a world with the US-2 as a component of an arms agreement between nations such as Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and the United States.
If positive diplomacy is not enough of an impetus, there is also the specter of competition with China. China’s new seaplane, the AG-600, provides both a military and diplomatic capability. For example, early reports about the aircraft indicated that both Malaysia and New Zealand had expressed interest in the capability. China could potentially use the aircraft as part of its own diplomatic efforts. Surely, the United States would prefer regional partners to use aircraft designed by allies as opposed to those designed by adversaries.
Conclusion
As the United States pursues domestic designs for amphibious aircraft, it would be wise to consider off-the-shelf solutions as well. Whether it be a platform for search and rescue, a tool for experimentation, or a symbol of America’s commitment to the U.S.-Japanese alliance, there are few downsides to purchasing small numbers of the US-2.
Practically, the United States military should take three actions in the near term. First, it should explore the cost of purchasing a relevant number of aircraft from Japan and compare that cost to ongoing development efforts. Second, it should determine — through various methods — the relative efficacy of purchasing aircraft like the US-2 compared to other proposed solutions. Third, the United States should conduct limited exchange programs with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force to acquire operational experience in amphibian operations prior to U.S. capabilities coming online. Even if the United States ultimately determines purchasing the US-2 does not make sense for whatever reason, it will still benefit from a better understanding of allied capabilities and amphibious aircraft capabilities writ large.
These steps by the U.S. military should simultaneously be combined with efforts by the State Department and other government agencies to identify areas of synergy. Where can the United States spend its finite defense dollars in ways that have disproportionate positive impact on its position in the Pacific? Purchasing US-2s might mean everything to a downed pilot or stranded reconnaissance team, but there’s also the reward of furthering the alliances crucial to preventing conflict in the first place.
David Alman is an officer and pilot in the Air National Guard. He holds a B.S./M.S. in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect those of his civilian employer, the U.S. Air Force, or the Department of Defense. The author has no financial interest in any seaplane development, although he admittedly would love to fly one. He is especially grateful to Adam Burch of Hangar B Productions for the artwork featured here.
28. China's advice to stockpile sparks speculation of Taiwan war
Influence operations? But if there is conflict in and around Taiwan what are we going to do about the immediate semiconductor shortage? The Chinese may be told to stockpile necessities but in the west so many of our "necessities" require semiconductors.
China's advice to stockpile sparks speculation of Taiwan war
AP · by KEN MORITSUGU · November 4, 2021
BEIJING (AP) — A seemingly innocuous government recommendation for Chinese people to store necessities for an emergency quickly sparked scattered instances of panic-buying and online speculation: Is China going to war with Taiwan?
The answer is probably not — most analysts think military hostilities are not imminent — but the posts on social media show the possibility is on people’s minds and drew out a flurry of war-mongering comments.
Taiwan is a self-governing island of 24 million people China regards as a renegade province that should come under its rule. Tensions have risen sharply recently, with China sending a growing number of warplanes on sorties near the island and the U.S. selling arms to Taiwan and deepening its ties with the government.
Most residents interviewed in Beijing, the Chinese capital, thought war was unlikely but acknowledged the rising tensions. They generally favored bringing Taiwan under Chinese rule by peaceful means, the official position of China’s long-ruling Communist Party.
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“I don’t feel panic but I think we should be more alert about this than in the past,” said Hu Chunmei, who was taking a neighborhood walk.
War fears or not, there were scattered reports of runs on rice, noodles and cooking oil in some Chinese cities, according to local media. The more immediate worry for some was the possibility of neighborhood lockdowns as a COVID-19 outbreak spreads in several provinces.
The government moved quickly to try to tamp down fears with assurances of sufficient supplies. A bright yellow sign in an aisle of a Beijing supermarket asked customers to buy reasonably and not to listen to rumors or stockpile goods.
The online speculation started with a Commerce Ministry notice posted Monday evening about a plan to ensure the supply and stable price of vegetables and other necessities for the winter and spring. A line in it encouraged families to store some necessities for daily life and emergencies.
That was enough to set off some hoarding and a discussion on social media that the ministry could be signaling people should stock up for war.
China’s state media has covered the rising tensions with Taiwan heavily, including the often-tough words exchanged between China on one side and the U.S. and Taiwan on the other.
“It is natural to have aroused some imagination,” social commentator Shi Shusi said. “We should believe the government’s explanations, but the underlying anxiety deserves our thought.”
He said the populist views cheerleading for war don’t represent majority opinion but do send a signal or warning to Taiwan.
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Other developments fueled the war speculation. One person shared a screenshot of a list of recommended emergency equipment for families issued in August by the government in Xiamen, a coastal city near an outlying Taiwanese island. An unverified report — denied Wednesday by a military-affiliated social media account — said veterans were being called back to service to prepare for combat.
It’s difficult to gauge how many people interpreted the notice as a possible prelude to war, but the reaction was strong enough to prompt a state media response the next day.
The Economic Daily, a government-owned newspaper, said people’s imagination shouldn’t run so wild, explaining that the advice was meant for people who may find themselves suddenly locked down because of a COVID-19 outbreak.
Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times newspaper, blamed the the online speculation on the amplification of public opinion during a time of tension.
“I do not believe that the country wants to send a signal to the public at this time through a notice from the Commerce Ministry that people need to ‘hurry up and prepare for war,’” he wrote.
Zhang Xi, another Beijing resident, ruled out the possibility of war and counseled patience in a dispute extending to when Taiwan and China split during the civil war that brought Mao Zedong’s Communists to power in 1949.
“This is a leftover from history, and it’s impossible to solve this right away,” she said.
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Associated Press researcher Yu Bing, video producers Olivia Zhang and Caroline Chen and photographer Ng Han Guan contributed to this report.
AP · by KEN MORITSUGU · November 4, 2021
29. Military Special Operations Forces Adapt to New Warfare - The War Horse
I did a fairly extensive interview with Kevin Maurer
Military Special Operations Forces Adapt to New Warfare - The War Horse
A laboratory with real stakes.
That’s what a former commander of one of the Army’s top-tier special operations units called Afghanistan. It was a place, over two decades of war, where a generation of special operations units honed their skills carrying out missions ranging from kill-or-capture raids to training Afghan soldiers. With the war in Afghanistan officially over, the U.S. military—especially the special operations community—sees an uncertain future.
“We learned a lot of stuff [in Afghanistan],” says the former Army commander, who spoke under condition of anonymity because he still serves in the military. “We’ve used the lab to hone the tools, but you’re going to pay a penalty. There will be a dividend that we’ll get back in terms of pressure on the force. There is a cost to being constantly deployed. There is also the cost of not being directly engaged in the job you signed up to do all the time.”
America’s secret warriors—who cemented themselves as the nation’s “go-to” force—will need to find that balance in a world where the global order has changed. They will need to pivot to a fight that includes more than just insurgents and terrorists. Experts, from the top of the chain of command to the team room, all agree terrorism isn’t going away, but the world they spent the last two decades fighting has.
U.S. Special Forces Soldiers, attached to Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan, alongside Afghan agents from the National Interdiction Unit, set fire to a field of marijuana found outside of a compound housing a drug lab during an operation in the Ghorak district, Helmand province, Afghanistan, in 2016. The operation was conducted to disrupt and destroy drug labs owned by the Taliban in the area. Photo by Sgt. Connor Mendez, courtesy of the U.S. Army.
SOF is experiencing an identity crisis, says David Maxwell, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who specializes in irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. “Joint Special Operations Command’s mission of counterterror is never going away. It is necessary. We’ve raised our counterterror capability to an exquisite level. We’re going to sustain and protect that. The other side is harder to describe.”
But life after America’s longest war for special operations is one of opportunity and provides a return to smaller missions that are just as strategic, if not more, than the big, headline-making battles of the past 20 years. Special operations forces (SOF) will build partnerships with militaries around the world and focus on great power competition—namely countering China and Russia, even as they change how they fight from capture and kill attacks to psychological warfare and influencing local politics.
SOF units are made up of service members from every service. In the Navy, they’re SEALs. The Army has Special Forces—nicknamed Green Berets because of their iconic hats, Rangers, and soldiers specializing in civil affairs and psychological operations. The Air Force special operations is trained to rescue pilots and call in airstrikes. Marine special operations are called Marine Raiders—the nation’s newest SOF community—and can do everything from reconnaissance to commando raids.
Since the 1980s, SOF has gained prominence from pop culture icons like Special Forces soldier John Rambo in First Blood and the subsequent sequels, and shows about Navy SEALs on network TV. This came after high-profile missions like the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, made famous by Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down; operations against rebels in Colombia; leading the assault in Afghanistan on horseback; and finally killing Osama bin Laden in a daring raid in Pakistan in May 2011. SOF has become the icon of the war on terrorism, and, arguably, the bearded, night vision-wearing SOF operator is a new American idol.
U.S. Marine Corps Raiders with the 3d Marine Raider Battalion fire an M224 mortar at Eglin Range, Florida, in 2018. Photo by Senior Airman Joseph Pick, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. Portions of this image were obscured by the Defense Department for security reasons.
Even as special operations forces retrain for the changing mission, the road map isn’t new: We’ve been here before. They’ll go back to training foreign armies like they did in Colombia and across the African continent. They’ll gather intelligence and track suspected terrorists and conduct violent raids, but unlike what they did during the war, they won’t return to a firebase in the target country. Once again, SOF fighters will sink into the shadows, their mission needing more intellect than brawn.
“They’ll play on the edge of empire,” a former Marine Raider says.
‘You’re Not Going to Take China in China’
The Pentagon has already dubbed it “over-the-horizon operations,” alluding to drone strikes, cyberwarfare, and small-unit raids. The cadence of operations would resemble American operations in Yemen and Somalia, where drone strikes and lightning-fast raids with no enduring presence on the ground were the order of the day. This also plays into bigger strategic moves against China and Russia, several sources told The War Horse.
Across the globe, China is involved in everything from resource extraction—especially rare earth metals—to infrastructure projects like roads, dams, and energy and agriculture projects. China was one of the first countries to reach out to the Taliban government in hopes of exploiting Afghanistan’s estimated $1 trillion to $3 trillion in rare earth metals.
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The Chinese have repeated this playbook in Africa and Latin America, leading to massive investment in exchange for mining and access to commodities. Since 2008, China has provided more than $35 billion in loans to Latin American countries, Shamaila Khan, director of emerging market debt at Alliance Bernstein, told CNBC.
“You’re not going to take China in China,” says an intelligence sergeant who worked with tier-one units. “You’ll take China on in Africa, Afghanistan, and in Iran and Syria.”
The danger of terrorism also serves as a constant threat. SOF is arrayed to fight both with kill and capture missions, but also by partnering with foreign militaries to increase capability, several sources told The War Horse. The performance of the Afghan military at the end of the war notwithstanding, SOF has had some success mentoring militaries in Africa and Latin America, especially in Colombia versus the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia.
It just takes a long damn time to do it right. That’s why retired Admiral Bob Harward, a SEAL who led special operations units in the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, thinks Special Operations Command (SOCOM) should take the reins and lead the way.
“Ever since 9/11, what was the job of SOCOM?” he says. “They were responsible for synchronizing the war on global terrorism. But it gave them no real authority. Terrorism is going to be a growing problem again, not a shrinking problem. And all the services and everyone else wants to focus on China. I think this is the perfect time for the U.S. government to designate SOCOM as the lead on the global war on terrorism.”
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Kenneth Tovo, deputy commander with U.S. Division-Central, greets Iraqi Police Brig. Gen. Khalid, dean of the Al Anbar Police Training Center, in Habbaniyah, Iraq, in 2010. Photo by Spc. Gary Silverman, courtesy of the Defense Department.
In addition to staying focused on a persistent threat, this move would keep SOF engaged with partners across the globe. Retired Lt. Gen. Kenneth Tovo, former commander of Army Special Operations Command, said SOF is uniquely capable of getting on the ground, training partner forces, and understanding issues in the “human domain.” Small teams of Special Forces or SEALs are the canary in the coal mine. When something does happen, the relationships and ground truth are there, according to Tovo.
“You need to have presences,” Tovo says. “We’re going to always be a crisis action force. We’ve developed relationships and partners to help develop a U.S. reaction.”
‘Direct Conflict Doesn’t Make Sense’
SOF exists to fight in uncertainty, but it’s about to enter a world of competitors and state actors looking for an adjusted world order. One expert said the current order resembles the 19th century—not the dual-superpower Cold War. Multipolar. Global with regional actors and terrorism.
“If that is the case, your next assumption is direct conflict doesn’t make sense,” the former Army commander said. “When they do need to act, it will be fast and limited and offset our advantages. SOF will be the deterrent. You’re going to deter through shoulder-to-shoulder operations. Win by points, not by knockout.”
Maxwell says SOF is the military’s best tool to solve complex military problems and create issues for the nation’s adversaries. He imagined a scenario where local dissidents are organized and resourced to carry out operations in Russia or China. SOF can leverage populations to exploit cracks and fissures that can generate challenges for the nation’s opponents.
A Green Beret assigned to 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), is notionally decontaminated by a soldier with 110th CBRN Battalion, 48th Chemical Brigade, during training in November 2020. This event was part of a week of training for the Green Berets that included practicing special reconnaissance and sabotage operations. Photo by Pfc. Thoman Johnson, courtesy of the U.S. Army.
“I’d make a case for resistance in Afghanistan,” Maxwell says. “It is going to emerge. There is a lot of application for that potential. Popular resistance against Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.”
Called the resistance operating concept, the goal is to make sure American allies can resist an invasion from a power like Russia or China. That means making sure SOF and resistance groups can plan together.
“An adversary knowing that you have this resistance capability, there is an organization that exists, and that your people are willing to resist is a strong message of deterrence,” Fiala said during the podcast.
‘This Is Really Warfare of the Mind’
But SOF’s hardest mission might be online.
“You’ve got to be fit and tactically proficient,” Tovo says. “But this is really warfare of the mind. It is less about if you can shoot three-inch dots at 100 meters.”
A 1951 paper examining psychological warfare in Korea concluded it was an inexpensive, effective weapon that is bound to prove more effective as we continue to learn to perfect our technique.
The Information Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, which opened in August, stands as another step to improve technique. It will consolidate the Army’s psychological operations capabilities so it could provide “influence artillery” to forward units and teams, said Col. Ed Croot, chief of staff at 1st Special Forces Command, during a virtual presentation in February for AFCEA TechNet Augusta, according to C4ISRNET.
“There’s a unique threat audience, a unique friendly audience, a unique neutral audience that has to do with that influence and information piece,” Croot said during his presentation. “It’s extremely difficult to be able to move fast in that space.”
Staff Sgt. Nicole Woltman, human resources noncommissioned officer, Special Operations Detachment-Pacific, prepares for her recertification jump at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, in 2018. Photo by Joseph Siemandel, courtesy of the U.S. National Guard.
The meme is the new leaflet, Maxwell says.
“It is easier to put a hellfire on the forehead of a terrorist than put an idea between his ears,” he says. “We should think not in terms of dropping commandos into China to destroy targets, but indirectly take on China in the influence realm.”
But one of the biggest shifts for SOF units might be the absence of a war.
Tovo said down in the team room there is a lot of hand-wringing because most of the force has a lot of combat time, but that will shift to peacetime engagement as SOF positions itself for strategic competition. This pause might lead to a much-needed reset. A former Marine forces special operations command officer said special operations became a hammer when it should have remained a scalpel.
“You want to kick down doors, shoot bad guys in the face,” he says. “We’ve vastly relied on SOF on the perception of reliability. We’ve become so risk averse. An Army 11B or Marine rifleman can do that job. Killing people is easy. The hard part is modifying human behavior.”
‘We’re Overdue for Something to Wake Us up Again’
And it isn’t just the behavior of the enemy. Cleaning up SOF culture will likely need to happen as well after several high-profile incidents that have exposed issues in SOF culture.
In 2019, a SEAL platoon from SEAL Team 7 was sent home from Iraq after allegations of drinking and sexual assault, and after six SEALs tested positive for cocaine and other banned substances. Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Gallagher, a former member of SEAL Team 7, faced a court martial for war crimes charges including murder, but was only convicted and later pardoned for posing for a picture with a dead body. Two SEAL Team Six operators and two Marine Raiders were convicted or pleaded guilty in events surrounding the strangulation death of a Special Forces soldier in Mali in 2017.
Marines with 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, conduct bobs with their hands and feet bound together for a time limit of five minutes at the Courthouse Bay Training Tank aboard Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, in 2015. Approximately 20 Marines from 2nd Recon Battalion participated in a two-week predive course in which they conducted exercises that would ready them for combatant diver course. Photo by Cpl. Preston McDonald, courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps.
Harward says special operations units—particularly the tier-one units like SEAL Team Six and Delta Force—created a caste system with those units acting above their parent conventional forces.
“You look at some of the premier units, their longest deployment is four months,” Harward says. “They train and stay in nice hotels, they travel, they have a pretty good life, where some of the heavier lifting is done from those guys who do full six-month deployments. We recognized when we first created some of these organizations, we were having those problems. I don’t think we’ve proactively have addressed that in the fashion it needs to be.”
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A former intelligence sergeant said every decade, SOF restructures to better position itself to address current threats.
“We’re overdue for something to wake us up again,” a former intelligence sergeant said. “We’re operating in a more complex world. We need to pull back and restructure and kill some of the current organizations and start something new from scratch.”
What that new organization looks like is unclear, but it will face a new world where the meme is as important as a gun and where the adversary could be a peer.
This War Horse feature was reported by Kevin Maurer, edited by Kelly Kennedy, fact-checked by Ben Kalin, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar.
Kevin Maurer
Kevin Maurer is an award‐winning journalist and the bestselling coauthor, with Mark Owen, of No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden; No Hero: The Evolution of a Navy SEAL; and, with Tamer Elnoury, American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent. He has covered the military—particularly the airborne and special operations forces—for 17 years, including embeds in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, and east and central Africa. He lives in North Carolina.
