Quotes of the Day:

The national security policy of the United States shall be guided by the following global objectives: (replace USSR/Soviet with China?)

To deter military attack by the USSR and its allies against the U.S., its allies, and other important countries across the spectrum of conflict; and to defeat such attack should deterrence fail.

To strengthen the influence of the U.S. throughout the world by strengthening existing alliances, by improving relations with other nations, by forming and supporting coalitions of states friendly to U.S. interests, and by a full range of diplomatic, political, economic, and information efforts.

To contain and reverse the expansion of Soviet control and military presence throughout the world, and to increase the costs of Soviet support and use of proxy, terrorist, and subversive forces.

To neutralize the efforts of the USSR to increase its influence through its use of diplomacy, arms transfers, economic pressure, political action, propaganda, and disinformation.

To foster, if possible, in concert with our allies, restraint in Soviet military spending, discourage Soviet adventurism, and weaken the Soviet alliance system by forcing the USSR to bear the brunt of its economic shortcomings, and to encourage long-term liberalizing and nationalist tendencies within the Soviet Union and allied countries.

To limit Soviet military capabilities by strengthening the U.S. military, by pursuing equitable and verifiable arms control agreements, and by preventing the flow of militarily significant technologies and resources to the Soviet Union.

To ensure the U.S. access to foreign markets, and to ensure the U.S. and its allies and friends access to foreign energy and mineral resources.

To ensure U.S. access to space and the oceans.

To discourage further proliferation of nuclear weapons.

To encourage and strongly support aid, trade, and investment programs that promote economic development and the growth of humane social and political orders in the Third World.

To promote a well-functioning international economic system with minimal distortions to trade and investment and broadly agreed and respected rules for managing

and resolving differences.

U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY, NSDD 32, May 20 1982. Copy 1 of 36, declassified from TS on 8/27/09  https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-32.pdf 

“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.” - Aristotle

“Prejudices are what fools use for reason.” - Voltaire

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 3 (Putin's War)

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (03.11.22) CDS comments on key events

3. The Case for Getting Rid of the National Security Strategy 

4. Biden's anti-strategic National Security Strategy

5. Improving Foreign Policy Outcomes Requires Investment in Alternative Perspectives

6. Withdrawal from TPP Has Forced the U.S. to Contain China

7. What If Ukraine Wins and Putin Is Removed?

8. Army to fix recruiting fraud cases, remove soldiers from FBI database

9. US, South Korea to extend military drills after North Korean launches

10. Pentagon To Launch New Study On How to Get at Hard, Deeply Buried Targets

11. Don Bolduc May Pull Off an Upset in New Hampshire

12. Secret War: Security cooperation programs have led U.S. forces into unauthorized hostilities alongside foreign partners.

13. China private security companies making a BRI killing

14. US military entering ‘window of maximum danger’ (Interview with Rep. Mike Gallagher)

15. ‘Two-minute drill’: Time is running out to break the Pentagon’s nominee logjam, Senate Dems say

16. The evolution of America’s China strategy

17. CCP constitutional change strengthens Xi’s power but avoids total personality cult

18. New Report Sheds Light on Pentagon’s Secret Wars Playbook

19. Good at Being Bad – How Dictatorships Endure

20. Why the US still has not defeated ISIS in Iraq and Syria, according to a new report

21.  Are we stuck with daylight saving time, or can we get rid of it?

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 3 (Putin's War)

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-3

Key Takeaways

• It is still unclear whether Russian forces will defend Kherson City despite the ongoing withdrawal of some Russian elements from northwestern Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces prematurely deployed newly mobilized personnel to offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast in the pursuit of minimal and operationally insignificant territorial gains.
• Russian outlets continued to publish contradictory and confusing reports about the dismissal of Colonel General Alexander Lapin from the position of CMD commander or commander of the Russian “central” forces.
• Russian authorities may be setting conditions to imminently transfer the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to the Russian power grid.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to conduct counteroffensive operations in the direction of Kreminna and Svatove.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City.
• The Russian military continues to face pronounced issues in the supply of critical military equipment.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense is likely continuing mobilization efforts covertly.
• Russian occupation officials continued forced evacuations in Kherson Oblast.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, NOVEMBER 3

Nov 3, 2022 - Press ISW

understandingwar.org

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 3

Kateryna Stepanenko, Riley Bailey, Grace Mappes, Yekaterina Klepanchuk, and Frederick W. Kagan

November 3, 9:15 pm ET

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

Russian forces are continuing to withdraw some elements from northwestern Kherson Oblast, but it is still unclear if Russian forces will fight for Kherson City. Kherson City occupation deputy Kirill Stremousov stated on November 3 that Russian forces “will most likely leave for the left (eastern) bank” of the Dnipro River urging civilians to evacuate from Kherson City “as quickly as possible.”[1] ISW has observed that Russian forces are continuing to prepare fallback positions on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro River while continuing to set up defensive positions northwest of Kherson City and transporting additional mobilized forces there, despite Stremousov’s statement.[2] Some Russian elite units — such as airborne forces and naval infantry — are reportedly continuing to operate on the right (western) bank of the Dnipro River and their full withdrawal from northern Kherson Oblast would be a clearer indicator that Russian forces will not fight for Kherson City or settlements on the right bank.[3] Stremousov also hypothesized about the probability of fighting in Kherson City and northern Kherson Oblast in the next two weeks, which may suggest that he anticipates some battles for Kherson City despite his comments about withdrawal.[4] Stremousov is also an unreliable source who has consistently issued contradictory statements and made emotional responses to events, and his public statements may be clouded by personal fears of losing his position within the occupation government.

Ukrainian and Russian sources also extensively discussed the reported closure of some Russian checkpoints in the vicinity of Kherson City, the theft of city’s monuments, and the removal of a Russian flag from the Kherson Oblast Administration building as indicators of an ongoing Russian withdrawal from the city.[5] A Russian outlet claimed that Russian officials removed the flag because the occupation administration moved to Henichesk by the Crimean border.[6] While the relocation of the Kherson Oblast occupation government may suggest that Russian forces are preparing to abandon Kherson City, it may equally indicate that they are setting conditions for urban combat within the city. Similar reports may arise in coming days given the ongoing forced evacuation of civilians from both right and left banks of the Dnipro River but may not indicate an immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Kherson City. The disposition of Russian airborne forces remains the best indicator of Russian intentions.

Russian forces prematurely impaled an insufficient concentration of mobilized personnel on offensive pushes near Bakhmut and Vuhledar, Donetsk Oblast, wasting the fresh supply of mobilized personnel on marginal gains towards operationally insignificant settlements. Ukrainian General Staff Deputy Chief Oleksiy Hromov stated on November 3 that one or two Russian motorized rifle companies with artillery and tank support conducted ground attacks within the past week to seize Pavlivka in an effort to reach Vuhledar, but that Russian forces have suffered losses due to Ukrainian defenses.[7] Russian sources also acknowledged on November 3 that the rate of Russian advances near Vuhledar is slow due to Ukrainian resistance and mud.[8] Hromov stated that Russian forces continue ground attacks at the expense of mobilized personnel, private military company forces, and former prisoners, and that the Russians conducted over 40 ground attacks in the Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and western Donetsk Oblast areas in the past 24 hours, sustaining over 300 casualties (100 killed) in just one direction.[9] ISW has previously reported on the slow Russian rate of advance in Donetsk Oblast and injudicious allocation of resources on the front lines.[10] Russian forces would likely have had more success in such offensive operations if they had waited until enough mobilized personnel had arrived to amass a force large enough to overcome Ukrainian defenses despite poor weather conditions. Russian attacks continuing current patterns are unlikely to generate enough momentum to regain the battlefield initiative. ISW offers no hypothesis to explain Russian forces’ impatience or their continued allocation of limited military assets to gaining operationally insignificant ground in Donetsk Oblast rather than defending against the Ukrainian counteroffensives in Luhansk and Kherson oblasts.

Russian outlets continued to publish confused reports regarding the dismissal and replacement of Colonel General Alexander Lapin from either his role as the commander of the Central Military District (CMD) or as the commander of the Russian “central” forces in Ukraine. The CMD press service told Kremlin-affiliated outlet Kommersant that the head of the organizational and mobilization department of the CMD, Major General Alexander Linkov, will temporarily replace Lapin as the CMD commander.[11] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has not officially announced Lapin’s dismissal or replacement, and the CMD did not specify if Linkov will also take charge of the “central” forces in Ukraine. Unnamed Russian MoD sources had previously told other Kremlin-affiliated outlets that Commander of the 8th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District (SMD) Lieutenant-General Andrey Mordvichev would command “central” forces while Lapin is on a three-week medical leave.[12] Milbloggers with ties to the Russian state media also recently claimed that Mordvichev will also command the CMD.[13] Such incoherent announcements by Russian MoD officials about the possible replacement of the second most-senior Russian commander in Ukraine is highly unusual for a professional military during a critical period of a war.

Russian authorities may be setting conditions to imminently transfer the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to the Russian power grid following the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) November 3 statements affirming that Ukrainian authorities are not misusing nuclear materials.[14] The IAEA also stated on November 3 that shelling damaged external powerlines to the ZNPP in Ukrainian-held territory at points 50-60km away from the plant, completely cutting power to the ZNPP just one day after Ukrainian authorities transferred two reactors to a hot shutdown mode to generate heat for Enerhodar.[15] This timing suggests that Russian authorities seek to force the transfer of the ZNPP to the Russian power grid by painting Russian control as the only viable option to provide electricity to the ZNPP and heat to Enerhodar and the surrounding area. The IAEA stated that backup generators are powering the ZNPP and have enough fuel for 15 days; Russian occupation authorities may transfer the ZNPP to the Russian power grid within this 15-day timeline.[16] Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev claimed on November 3 that Russian authorities prevented a Ukrainian “terrorist attack” at the ZNPP, further suggesting that Russian authorities intend to paint themselves as the only safe operator of the ZNPP contrary to the IAEA’s findings of no indications of undeclared Ukrainian nuclear activities.[17]

Key Takeaways

• It is still unclear whether Russian forces will defend Kherson City despite the ongoing withdrawal of some Russian elements from northwestern Kherson Oblast.
• Russian forces prematurely deployed newly mobilized personnel to offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast in the pursuit of minimal and operationally insignificant territorial gains.
• Russian outlets continued to publish contradictory and confusing reports about the dismissal of Colonel General Alexander Lapin from the position of CMD commander or commander of the Russian “central” forces.
• Russian authorities may be setting conditions to imminently transfer the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to the Russian power grid.
• Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to conduct counteroffensive operations in the direction of Kreminna and Svatove.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City.
• The Russian military continues to face pronounced issues in the supply of critical military equipment.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense is likely continuing mobilization efforts covertly.
• Russian occupation officials continued forced evacuations in Kherson Oblast.

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

• Ukrainian Counteroffensives—Southern and Eastern Ukraine
• Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of one subordinate and two supporting efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort—Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort—Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Ukrainian Counteroffensives (Ukrainian efforts to liberate Russian-occupied territories)

Eastern Ukraine: (Eastern Kharkiv Oblast-Western Luhansk Oblast)

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continued to conduct counteroffensive operations in the direction of Svatove and Kreminna on November 3. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed on November 3 that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian assault northwest of Svatove in the direction of Novoselivske, Luhansk Oblast (14km northwest of Svatove).[18] Ukrainian General Staff Deputy Chief Oleksiy Hromov reported on November 3 that Russian forces did strike Ukrainian positions in Novoselivske.[19] Russian sources claimed that Russian artillery units repelled Ukrainian formations that tried to advance towards Kreminna.[20] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces preemptively struck Ukrainian forces preparing to launch an assault west of Kreminna from Yampolivka (17km west of Kreminna).[21] The Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces also repelled Ukrainian assaults northwest of Kreminna in the directions of Makiivka (22km west of Kreminna), Ploshchanka (17km west of Kreminna), and Chervonopopivka (6km northwest of Kreminna).[22] A Russian milblogger claimed that the Ukrainian assaults west of Kreminna intended to cut the Kreminna-Svatove highway and gain access to Kreminna through the south.[23] ISW cannot independently verify the Russian claims about Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in the direction of Kreminna and Svatove.

Russian forces conducted assaults in eastern Kharkiv Oblast and western Luhansk Oblast to regain limited lost territory and to constrain the actions of Ukrainian forces on November 3. Ukrainian General Staff Deputy Chief Oleksiy Hromov reported that Russian forces conducted three offensive operations in separate unspecified directions in the direction of Kharkiv.[24] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults northwest of Kreminna near Makiivka and Nevske (18km northwest of Kreminna) and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna) in Luhansk Oblast.[25] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted the assaults northwest of Kreminna to push Ukrainian forces away from the R-66 highway that connects Kreminna and Svatove.[26] Hromov also reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations in five unspecified directions in the Kramatorsk operational direction.[27] Russian sources claimed that Russian forces also struck a factory in Kharkiv city that they claim produces munitions for HIMARS MLRS, an absurd claim.[28] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces continued routine indirect fire along the line of contact in eastern Ukraine.[29]

Southern Ukraine: (Kherson Oblast)

See topline text regarding reports of Russian withdrawal from Kherson City.

Ukrainian and Russian sources continued to offer limited information regarding the situation on the frontlines in northwestern and northern Kherson Oblast on November 3. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces struck liberated settlements of Khreschenivka and Bilyavka in the Beryslav Raion with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles and Uragan MLRS rockets.[30] Ukrainian General Staff Deputy Chief Oleksiy Hromov noted that Russian forces have increased their use of attack aviation in Kherson Oblast due to complications in logistics on the right (western) bank of the Dnipro River, likely as a result of the Ukrainian interdiction campaign.[31] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces repelled five Ukrainian attacks on Mylove, Sukhanove, Bruskynske, and Ishchenka, all located between T2207 and T0403 highways in northern Kherson Oblast.[32] A Russian milblogger noted that Russian forces continued to shell along the entire line of contact, but specifically focused on the areas of Posad-Pokrovske and Luch approximately 35km northwest of Kherson City.[33] Ukrainian servicemen told bne IntelliNews that Russian forces last conducted a reconnaissance-in-force attack in the vicinity of Snihurivka (about 60km east of Mykolaiv City) about a month ago.[34]

Ukrainian forces continued their interdiction campaign in Kherson Oblast on November 3 by targeting Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) and logistics. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian forces struck a Russian alternative river crossing route in the area of the Antonivsky Bridge, and geolocated footage reportedly showed a series of explosions on barges underneath the Antonivsky Bridge from the right (western) Dnipro River bank.[35] Social media footage also showed the aftermath of reported Ukrainian strikes on a pier near the Antonivsky Bridge, that shows destroyed ships reportedly involved in Russian river-crossing efforts.[36] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command also noted that Ukrainian forces struck an accumulation of Russian equipment in Chornobaivka (northwest of Kherson City) as Russian forces were transferring the equipment to another location.[37] Ukrainian forces reportedly eliminated 60 Russian servicemen in Pershotravneve, Mykolaiv Oblast in recent days, and destroyed four ammunition depots in Bashtanka and Beryslav Raions as well as six railway cars with fuel and lubricants.[38] Russian and local sources also reported Ukrainian strikes on the Kherson City shipyard.[39] Russian occupation officials accused Ukrainians forces of interfering with Russian evacuation processes by striking an administration building in Hola Prystan (about 13km southwest of Kherson City).[40] Ukrainian forces also reportedly launched strikes on Kakhovka Raion.[41]

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut on November 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled assaults on Bakhmut itself and near Verkhnokamianske (28km northeast of Bakhmut), Spirne (25km northeast of Bakhmut), and Mayorsk (20km south of Bakhmut).[42] Ukrainian General Staff Deputy Chief Oleksiy Hromov reported that Russian forces launched airstrikes on Ukrainian positions in Soledar and Bakhmut.[43] Hromov stated that Russian forces are attempting to block Bakhmut from the south and northeast and attempting reach Soledar to push towards Chasiv Yar.[44] A Russian source claimed that fighting is ongoing on the eastern and southern outskirts of Bakhmut to push Ukrainian forces to the right bank of the Bakhmutka River in the city.[45] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces struck the administrative building of the Stirol chemical plant in Horlivka with HIMARS and posted images of the damage, but it is uncertain whether Ukrainian forces used HIMARS.[46] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces struck Ukrainian positions in Toretsk, Donetsk Oblast.[47] Russian forces continued routine shelling in the Bakhmut area.[48]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area on November 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Pervomaiske (12km west of Avdiivka).[49] Russian sources claimed that Russian and Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) forces made unspecified advances near Avdiivka, Nevelske, Vodyane, and Marinka.[50] A Russian source claimed that Russian forces stormed Vodyane in the Donetsk City area in order to cut off a section of the M04 highway and conducted offensive actions in the direction of Pervomaiske to threaten Ukrainian forces in Krasnohorivka.[51] Hromov stated that Russian forces conducted airstrikes against Ukrainian positions near Vesele (roughly 5km north of Avdiivka) and Netaylove (roughly 14km west of Avdiivka).[52] Russian forces continued routine shelling in the Avdiivka area.[53]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast at a slowed rate of advance on November 3 (see topline text). The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian ground assaults near Pavlivka, Vodyane (roughly 6km northeast of Vuhledar), Prechystivka (12km west of Vuhledar), and Novomykhailivka (roughly 10km south of Marinka).[54] Russian sources claimed that fighting is ongoing in and on the northern outskirts of Pavlivka, near Prechystivka, and on the outskirts of Novomykhailivka.[55] Geolocated footage shows that Russian forces have advanced past Yehorivka (5km south of Pavlivka) to the southeastern outskirts of Pavlivka.[56] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted counterattacks towards Mykilske (4km southeast of Vuhledar) and Rivnopil (10km southwest of Velyka Novosilka), but ISW cannot verify the veracity of the Russian MoD’s claims.[57] The Ukrainian General Staff stated that Russian forces continued shelling along the line of contact, including Vuhledar, Pavlivka, Prechystivka, and Vodyane.[58]

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

Russian forces continued routine fire west of Hulyaipole and in Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv Oblasts on November 3.[59] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command stated that Russian forces targeted critical infrastructure facilities with an Iskander missile and kamikaze drones in the Kryvyi Rih area.[60] Ukrainian and Russian sources reported that Russian forces struck Zaporizhzhia City, Dnipro City, and Nikopol with kamikaze drones.[61] Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces also shelled Nikopol and Marhanets with MLRS and heavy artillery.[62] Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that Russian forces struck Mykolaiv City and other areas in Mykolaiv Oblast.[63]

Ukrainian forces likely struck a Russian military facility near Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast on November 3. Official Ukrainian sources reported unspecified explosions, likely from Ukrainian strikes, that destroyed the Refma factory building on the southeastern outskirts of Melitopol.[64] The Ukrainian sources stated that Russian military leadership used the site as a headquarters and that the strike destroyed 80 units of Russian military equipment.[65] Footage shows flying artillery rounds and audible explosions in the Melitopol area overnight.[66] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces shelled Melitopol, but Zaporizhia occupation official Vladimir Rogov claimed that Russian air defenses intercepted the rounds.[67]

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

The Russian military continues to face pronounced supply issues of critical military equipment. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on November 3 that the Russian military is struggling in Ukraine partially due to issues in sourcing artillery ammunition and armored vehicles.[68] The UK MoD reported that in mid-October Russian forces in Ukraine were losing more than 40 armored vehicles a day, which the UK MoD assessed was roughly equivalent to a battalion’s worth of equipment.[69] The UK MoD also reported that Russia has likely resorted to negotiating the supply of a 100 tanks and armored vehicles from Belarusian stocks in recent weeks.[70] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 3 that Russian forces have started removing military equipment from storage that has not undergone appropriate maintenance.[71] Russia will likely continue to face protracted issues in supplying critical military equipment to Russian forces in Ukraine.

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is likely continuing mobilization efforts covertly under the guise of forming volunteer units as of November 3. Ukrainian General Staff Deputy Chief Oleksiy Hromov reported on November 3 that Russian officials are continuing covert mobilization despite the announced end of partial mobilization efforts.[72] Russian sources reported that Russian officials in the Republic of Karelia and the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria are still issuing mobilization summonses.[73] Hromov reported that Russian military recruitment centers received an order to continue recruiting volunteers for contract service.[74] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that volunteers can be men with expunged criminal records as well as men of any age and any health condition despite official disabled status.[75] Russian military officials will likely continue mobilization efforts covertly in the short term and pursue crypto-mobilization efforts like the formation of volunteer units in the long term. The continuation of mobilization efforts and the pursuit of crypto mobilization will likely reduce the efficacy of the fall 2022 conscription cycle in the Russian Federation.

The Russian military continued to face issues in accommodating newly mobilized personnel as of November 3. Russian sources reported that mobilized personnel continue to not receive training, equipment, and supplies.[76] A Russian source reported on November 2 that mobilized personnel in Pskov are sick, starving, and sleeping on the streets.[77] The Russian military also continues to face issues with disorderly conduct among mobilized personnel. A Russian source reported that Russian military police appealed to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for help in restoring order after more than 350 drunk and disorderly mobilized personnel arrived at a train station in Belgorod Oblast.[78] The Russian military will likely continue to face issues in accommodating and incorporating newly mobilized personnel, especially as it continues to focus on replenishing depleted frontline units with newly mobilized personnel instead of adequately training them.

The Russian Military is unlikely to improve the quality of the training of its personnel despite proposals to do so. Crimean State Duma Deputy Mikhail Sheremet proposed on November 3 to increase the terms of service in the army to two years, which would allow for more time to train personnel.[79] The Russian military is unlikely to increase the time of training even if it increases the terms of service. Hromov reported on November 2 that the Russian MoD sped up courses for current cadets and moved their graduation from June 2023 to December 2022.[80] The Russian military is likely going to apply similar time constraints to its training of new conscripts regardless of an extension of their terms of service. The Russian military currently prioritizes getting personnel to frontline positions in Ukraine quickly and appears to view the quality of their training as an afterthought.

Russia continues to face social backlash due to the conduct of partial mobilization. Russian sources reported that mobilized personnel continued protests in Ulyanovsk over the lack of promised payments and are currently conducting a strike as of November 2.[81] Further social backlash is likely as Russian officials will likely fail to meet promises made to the public during partial mobilization.

Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of occupied and annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Russian occupation officials continued to forcibly evacuate residents in Kherson Oblast on November 3. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian occupation officials continued forced evacuations of settlements on the east bank of the Dnipro River from Velyka Znamyanka, Zaporizhia Oblast to Nova Kakhovka, Kherson Oblast, more than 100km apart.[82] Kherson occupation deputy head Kirill Stremousov called upon all residents who have not left the west bank of the Dnipro River to evacuate immediately.[83] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on November 3 that Russian occupation officials forcibly relocated Russian citizens associated with the Kherson occupation administration from Beryslav and Kozache to Henichesk.[84] The Resistance Center reported that some ordinary citizens remain near front-line positions in Beryslav and Kozache and that Russian occupation officials have forcibly relocated others through filtration centers to the Russian Federation.[85] The Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on November 3 that Russian occupation authorities are relocating children from boarding schools and prisoners in Kherson City to Russian-occupied Crimea under current evacuation measures.[86] Russian occupation officials are likely to continue to increase forced evacuation measures as the Ukrainian southern counteroffensive progresses.

Russian forces and occupation officials continued to employ coercive measures against residents and endanger civilian populations in Russian-occupied territories on November 3. Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) spokesperson Oleksandr Motyzyanyk reported on November 3 that Russian forces and occupation officials have used provisions under the martial law decree to increase filtration measures, force civilians to build fortifications, and steal Ukrainian property and historical items.[87] The GUR reported that Russian occupation officials are planning on confiscating all boats left in the Dnipro River and plan to seize solar energy equipment left by Ukrainian firms, and that Russian forces are currently seizing forcibly evacuated residents’ cars.[88] A geolocated imaged posted on November 3 shows Russian forces also pillaging the Kherson Art Museum.[89] Ukrainian sources reported that Russian occupation officials are increasing filtration measures in Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast and in Mylove and Novopskov in Luhansk Oblast.[90] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on November 3 that Russian forces use the civilian population in Svatove, Luhansk Oblast as “human shields” by placing Russian personnel in businesses and schools and requiring that residents show up to work and that children attend classes.[91] Russian occupation officials and forces are likely to continue to engage in measures that are coercive and that endanger residents living in Russian-occupied territories.

Russian and Ukrainian sources confirmed that Ukrainian and Russian officials completed a prisoner exchange on November 3. Russian sources announced on November 3 that Ukrainian and Russian officials released 107 prisoners of war in a one-for-one prisoner exchange.[92] The Ukrainian Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War confirmed that Russian forces released six Ukrainian officers, and 101 privates and sergeants.[93] The Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Denis Pushilin announced that 65 of the 107 released Russian prisoners are DNR and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) personnel.[94]

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

[2] https://t.me/russkiy_opolchenec/34830; https://intellinews dot com/ukraine-s-63rd-brigade-gears-up-for-kherson-push-261060/; https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1587426043484323847; https://t.me/sa...

[4] https://www dot mk.ru/politics/2022/11/03/stremousov-dopustil-aktivizaciyu-boev-v-khersonskoy-oblasti-v-blizhayshie-dve-nedeli.html

[7] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[9] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[11] https://www dot kommersant.ru/doc/5651092

[17] https://tass dot ru/politika/16235517; https://t.me/readovkanews/46081; https://t.me/readovkanews/46097; https://t.me/truekpru/97240

[19] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[24] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[27] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[31] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[34] https://intellinews dot com/ukraine-s-63rd-brigade-gears-up-for-kherson-push-261060/

[43] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[44] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[52] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[59] https://t.me/zoda_gov_ua/14396; https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[72] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[74] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[79] ru/novosti/obschestvo/V_Gosdume_predlozhili_uvelichit_srok_sluzhby_v_armii_do_dvuh_let/98557 ; https://t.me/bazabazon/14255

[80] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/bryfing-predstavnykiv-syl-bezpeky-ta-oborony-ukrayiny-4/

[84] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/11/03/okupanty-vyvozyat-do-genicheska-rosiyan-ta-kolaborantiv-z-pryfrontovyh-zon/

[85] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2022/11/03/okupanty-vyvozyat-do-genicheska-rosiyan-ta-kolaborantiv-z-pryfrontovyh-zon/

[86] https://gur(dot)gov.ua/content/v-khersonskii-oblasti-okupanty-planuiut-vyvezty-na-terytoriiu-rf-soniachni-elektrostantsii-ta-zaboronyly-korystuvatysia-chovnamy.html

[87] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2022/11/03/zaprovadzhennya-voyennogo-stanu-na-tot-spryamovane-na-zbilshennya-okupaczijnogo-tysku-na-ukrayincziv/

[88] https://gur(dot)gov.ua/content/v-khersonskii-oblasti-okupanty-planuiut-vyvezty-na-terytoriiu-rf-soniachni-elektrostantsii-ta-zaboronyly-korystuvatysia-chovnamy.html

understandingwar.org

2. Ukraine: CDS Daily brief (03.11.22) CDS comments on key events

CDS Daily brief (03.11.22) CDS comments on key events

Humanitarian aspect:

More than 1,255 children were affected in Ukraine as a result of the full-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation. As of the morning of November 3, 2022, the official number of child victims has not changed - 430. The number of injured has increased to more than 826.

Ukraine returned the fighters who defended "Azovstal", reported the Head of the President's Office, Andriy Yermak. Another exchange of prisoners of war took place today. 107 Ukrainian defenders from different military branches returned home, including three of the "Azov" regiment. 74 soldiers defended "Azovstal".

According to the regional military administrations, 10 civilians were killed, and 16 were injured as a result of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine during the past day, November 2, Deputy Head of the Office of the President Kyrylo Tymoshenko announced this on Telegram.

The army of the Russian Federation shelled eight regions of Ukraine during the past day, according to the consolidated information of the regional military administrations about the situation in the regions of Ukraine as of 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, November 3.

Consequences of enemy shelling on the morning of November 3

•      At night, the Russians struck the energy and water infrastructure facilities in Kryvyi Rih of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. In Pavlograd, the enemy targeted an industrial enterprise. A gas station burned down in Nikopol due to shelling. Shells also damaged houses, a college, a furniture factory, and an industrial enterprise.

•      On November 2, the enemy attacked the Vasylivskyi and Pologivskyi districts of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast. 16 reports were received about the destruction of houses (apartments) and infrastructure facilities.

•      In the morning, the enemy shelled the Krasnopilska community of Sumy Oblast with 7 mines. Preliminary no victims and destruction were reported.

•      On November 2, enemy shelling killed 3 civilians in Bakhmut and 1 in Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast. 5 more were wounded.

•      In Mykolaiv Oblast, an agricultural enterprise, a transformer substation, a water tower, and electrical poles were damaged by shelling. A residential building was destroyed in the Bashtansky district.

•      Yesterday, around 11:00 p.m., the enemy hit Kharkiv with 3 rockets. In the Kyiv district, 1 rocket damaged a building and a trolleybus, and the rest of the rockets hit the ground. Preliminary no victims were reported. The Russians also shelled the Kupyanskyi (1 dead, 1 wounded), Chuhuivskyi (5 wounded), and Kharkivskyi districts of the Oblast. Residential and public buildings were damaged.

In Kharkiv, heating points are being installed in metro stations, basements, warehouses and schools, the mayor of the city, Ihor Terekhov, said. Residents would be able to cook food, charge phones, get water and medicine, and spend the night. Additionally, all city districts would set up tents with heating equipment.

Occupied territories:

In the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Luhansk Oblasts, pressure on the local population continues and the number of cases of disappearances of local residents has increased, stated Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, a representative of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, at a briefing at the Military Media Center. Also, according to him, the Russian occupiers continued to steal material and historical values from the occupied territories.

Operational situation

(please note that this section of the Brief is mainly on the previous day's (November 2) developments)

It is the 252nd day of the strategic air-ground offensive operation of the Russian Armed Forces against Ukraine (in the official terminology of the Russian Federation – "operation to defend Donbas"). The enemy tries to maintain control over the temporarily captured territories, concentrates its efforts on restraining the actions of the Defense Forces, and conducts offensive operations in the Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Novopavlivka directions.

Over the past 24 hours, units of the Defense Forces repelled the enemy attacks in the areas of Makiivka, Nevske and Bilohorivka in Luhansk Oblast; Verkhnokamyanske, Spirne, Bakhmut, Mayorsk, Pervomaiske, Novomykhailivka, Vodyane, Pavlivka and Prechistivka in Donetsk Oblast.

The enemy is shelling units of the Defense Forces along the contact line, carrying out frontier fortification in certain directions and conducting aerial reconnaissance. It continues to strike critical infrastructure, violating the norms of International Humanitarian Law, laws and customs of war. Over the past 24 hours, the enemy has launched 3 missile and 24 air strikes, and carried out more than 80 MLRS rounds. More than 20 Ukrainian towns and villages were hit by the Russian military, including Kupyansk in Kharkiv Oblast, Kremenchuk in Poltava Oblast, Nevske in Luhansk Oblast, Vodyane, Vuhledar, Krasnohorivka and Nevelske in Donetsk Oblast, Smila in Cherkasy Oblast, Nova Kamianka in Kherson Oblast and Ternovy Pody in Mykolaiv Oblast. In the border areas, the enemy shelled Orlykivka and Murave in Chernihiv Oblast; Vilna Sloboda, Zapsilya and Kharkivka in Sumy Oblast; Alisivka, Ambarne, Anyskine, Gatyshche, Hlyboke, Zelene, Kozacha Lopan, Krasne, Mala Vovcha, Morokhovets, Ogirtseve, Okhrimivka, Sosnivka, Starytsia, Strilecha and Khrypuny in the Kharkiv Oblast.

There is still a threat of new strikes and the use of attack UAVs, particularly from the territory of the Republic of Belarus. The Republic of Belarus continues to support the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Defense Forces aircraft struck the enemy 21 times last day. Areas of concentration of enemy weapons and military equipment, as well as the position of the enemy's air defense

equipment, were affected. Ukrainian Air defense forces shot down 10 "Shahed-136" attack drones and "Orlan" UAV.

Ukraine's missile troops and artillery struck 5 areas of concentration of enemy manpower, weapons and military equipment, 2 ammunition warehouses and 3 other important military targets during the past day.

Two days ago, the enemy began transferring forces and equipment of the 67th separate special radio engineering regiment, consisting of 10-12 tactical groups, to the territory of Ukraine.

The Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus held an annual meeting of the Joint Board of Defense Ministries with the aim of strengthening the "joint military potential" of the Union State of Russia and Belarus to counter the "challenges and threats" of a military nature imposed by NATO.

The morale and psychological state of the personnel of the invasion forces remain low.

The Russian opposition publication "Mediazona" reported that the Russian troops are restoring camps with poor living conditions in Perevalsk, Luhansk Oblast, to hold the contract and mobilized servicemen who refuse to fight. The Russian forces used to have camps in Perevalsk, until they closed them in August after a protest by families of servicemen. The enemy command forces mobilized men to serve on the front lines or to join units of the "Wagner" PMC.

Kharkiv direction

• Zolochiv-Balakleya section: approximate length of combat line - 147 km, number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 10-12, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 13.3 km;

• Deployed enemy BTGs: 26th, 153rd, and 197th tank regiments, 245th motorized rifle regiment of the 47th tank division, 6th and 239th tank regiments, 228th motorized rifle regiment of the 90th tank division, 1st motorized rifle regiment, 1st tank regiment of the 2nd motorized rifle division, 25th and 138th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 6th Combined Arms Army, 27th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Tank Army, 275th and 280th motorized rifle regiments, 11th tank regiment of the 18th motorized rifle division of the 11 Army Corps, 7th motorized rifle regiment of the 11th Army Corps, 80th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 14th Army Corps, 2nd and 45th separate SOF brigades of the Airborne Forces, 1st Army Corps of so-called DPR, PMCs.

The enemy shelled the positions of the Defense Forces in the areas of Berestove, Dvorichna, Kamianka, Krokhmalne and Figolivka of the Kharkiv Oblast.

Ukrainian Defense forces continued counteroffensive actions in the direction of Svatove and Kreminna. Russian troops repulsed the assaults to the northwest of Svatove near Mykolaivka, Orlyanka of the Kharkiv Oblast and near Kuzemivka of the Luhansk Oblast, and the attack to the northwest of Kreminna in the direction of Makiivka, Ploshanka, and Chervonopopivka.

Ukrainian Defense forces are trying to get to Chervonopopivka to cut the road between Kreminna and Svatove.

Units of the Defense Forces repelled Russian assaults in the direction of Kreminna in the area of Makiivka, Nevsky, and Bilohorivka.

The enemy attacked to the west and south of Kreminna to restrain the counteroffensive actions of Ukrainian troops in the direction of Kreminna and Svatove.

In the temporarily occupied territory of the Luhansk Oblast, units of the Russian occupation forces continue to use the civilian population as "human shields". Thus, in Svatove, the occupiers continue to place their units in schools and businesses, and the local population is forced to continue working and sending children to classes, despite shelling.

Kramatorsk direction

● Balakleya - Siversk section: approximate length of the combat line - 184 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17-20, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 9.6 km;

● 252nd and 752nd motorized rifle regiments of the 3rd motorized rifle division, 1st, 13th, and 12th tank regiments, 423rd motorized rifle regiment of the 4th tank division, 201st military base, 15th, 21st, 30th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Combined Arms Army, 35th, 55th and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 3rd and 14th separate SOF brigades, 2nd and 4th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 2nd Army Corps, 7th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 1st Army Corps, PMCs.

The enemy fired from tanks, mortars, barrel and jet artillery at the positions of the Defense Forces in the areas of Grekivka, Nevske, Ploshanka and Sukhodil in the Luhansk Oblast and Terna and Yampolivka in the Donetsk Oblast.

Donetsk direction

● Siversk - Maryinka section: approximate length of the combat line - 235 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 13-15, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 17 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 68th and 163rd tank regiments, 102nd and 103rd motorized rifle regiments of the 150 motorized rifle division, 80th tank regiment of the 90th tank division, 35th, 55th, and 74th separate motorized rifle brigades of the 41st Combined Arms Army, 31st separate airborne assault brigade, 61st separate marines brigade of the Joint Strategic Command "Northern Fleet," 336th separate marines brigade, 24th separate SOF brigade, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 15th, and 100th separate motorized rifle brigades, 9th and 11th separate motorized rifle regiment of the 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, 6th motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.

The enemy shelled from tanks and artillery the areas of Andriivka, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Belohorivka, Verkhnyokamianske, Zelenopillya, Mayorsk, New York, Opytne, Rozdolivka, Siversk, Soledar, Spirne Kamianka, Maryinka, Nevelske, Novomykhailivka and Pervomaiske of the Donetsk Oblast. In addition, Russian troops struck Ukrainian targets on the western outskirts of Maryinka.

The aggressor continued offensive actions around Bakhmut and in the Avdiyivka-Donetsk area, but the Ukrainian Joint Forces repelled Russian assaults on Bakhmut itself and near Verkhnyokamyanske, Spirne, Mayorsk, Pervomaiske, and Novomykhailivka.

Units of the "Wagner" PMC are trying to break through the Ukrainian defenses in Soledar and Bakhmut; intense battles are taking place on the approaches to both cities.

The enemy struck near Pavlivka, Vodyane and Prechystivka. On the night of November 2, they attacked Ukrainian infrastructure objects with rockets and Iranian Shahed-136 in Vuhledar and Vodyane. This is the first confirmed use of the "Shahed-136" UAV in the Vuhledar area.

Russian troops suffered losses near Vuhledar. The fighting around Pavlivka has slowed but has not stopped, as Russian troops cannot overcome Ukrainian defenses. The enemy consolidated their positions near Novomykhailivka to attack Vuhledar from the east and cut the road in Novomykhailivka.

Zaporizhzhia direction

● Maryinka – Vasylivka section: approximate length of the line of combat - 200 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 17, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 11.7 km;

● Deployed BTGs: 36th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 29th Combined Arms Army, 38th and 64th separate motorized rifle brigades, 69th separate cover brigade of the 35th Combined Arms Army, 5th separate tank brigade, 37 separate motorized rifle brigade of the 36th Combined Arms Army, 135th, 429th, 503rd and 693rd motorized rifle regiments of the 19th motorized rifle division of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 70th, 71st and 291st motorized rifle regiments of the 42nd motorized rifle division of the 58th Combined Arms Army, 136th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 58 Combined Arms Army, 46th and 49th machine gun artillery regiments of the 18th machine gun artillery division of the 68th Army Corps, 39th separate motorized rifle brigade of the 68th Army Corps, 83th separate airborne assault brigade, 40th and 155th separate marines brigades, 22nd separate SOF brigade, 1st Army Corps of the so-called DPR, and 2nd Army Corps of the so-called LPR, PMCs.

The enemy shelled the Defence Forces' positions in Bohoyavlenka, Velyka Novosilka, Vremivka, Vuhledar, Novopil, and Pavlivka of the Donetsk Oblast, Dorozhnianka, Mala Tokmachka, Malynivka, Novoandriivka, Pavlivka, Stepove, and Shcherbaky of the Zaporizhia Oblast.

In recent days, the Ukrainian military's offensive actions made Russian troops transport more than 100 seriously wounded personnel to hospitals in Tokmak and Melitopol.

Tavriysk direction

-   Vasylivka – Stanislav section: approximate length of the battle line – 296 km, the number of BTGs of the RF Armed Forces - 39, the average width of the combat area of one BTG - 7,5 km;

-  Deployed BTGs of: the 8th and 49th Combined Arms Armies; 11th, 103rd, 109th, and 127th rifle regiments of the mobilization reserve of the 1st Army Corps of the Southern Military District; 35th

and 36th Combined Arms Armies of the Eastern Military District; 3rd Army Corps of the Western Military District; 90th tank division of the Central Military District; the 22nd Army Corps of the Coastal Forces; the 810th separate marines brigade of the Black Sea Fleet; the 7th and 76th Air assault divisions, the 98th airborne division, and the 11th separate airborne assault brigade of the Airborne Forces.

Areas of more than 30 towns and villages along the contact line were affected by the fire damage.

Russian troops are trying to hold their positions and are conducting defensive actions. The enemy is installing precast concrete bunkers in Hola Prystan and concrete bunkers in Kakhovka.

Russian reconnaissance groups clashed with Ukrainian troops near Dudchany.

Ukrainian troops made an unsuccessful attempt to break through Russian defenses in the Kherson Oblast. Russian troops repelled attacks in the direction of Ishchenka, Bruskynske, Sukhanove and Pyatykhatky.

Ukrainian troops continued to block concentration areas of Russian forces, logistics hubs and vehicles in the Kherson Oblast.

Russian occupying forces continued the forced "evacuation" of the population in the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts, mainly residents along the left bank of the Dnipro River from Velyka Znamyanka in the Zaporizhia Oblast to Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson Oblast. The Russian occupiers continue to steal and take away ambulances and equipment from hospitals in Hola Prystan to the city of Skadovsk.

Azov-Black Sea Maritime Operational Area:

The forces of the Russian Black Sea Fleet continue to project force on the coast and the continental part of Ukraine and control the northwestern part of the Black Sea. The ultimate goal is to deprive Ukraine of access to the Black Sea and to maintain control over the captured territories.

There are 10 ships and boats on combat duty in the open sea, among which there is one Kalibr missile carrier (small missile ship project 21631); the total salvo is 8 missiles.

Russian operational losses from 24.02 to 03.11

Personnel - almost 74,000 people (+730);

Tanks - 2,734 (+20)

Armored combat vehicles – 5,552 (+27);

Artillery systems – 1,755 (+22);

Multiple rocket launchers (MLRS) - 390 (+3); Anti-aircraft warfare systems - 198 (0); Vehicles and fuel tanks – 4,162 (+9); Aircraft - 277 (0);

Helicopters – 258 (0);

UAV operational and tactical level – 1,442 (+4); Intercepted cruise missiles - 397 (0);

Boats / ships - 16 (0).

Ukraine, general news

Ukrainian Parliament adopted the state budget for 2023. The GDP growth forecast is 3.2%. Revenues - 1.3 trillion UAH, expenses - 2.6 trillion UAH. Most of it is for defense (1 trillion hryvnias). The budget deficit is 20% of GDP. To cover it, Ukraine needs $38 billion of assistance. Inflation is 28%.

At a meeting in Kyiv, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal informed the UN and USAID's representatives about the regions' needs for the winter period and the need for humanitarian aid. He hopes they will help provide mobile boiler houses, generators, and other equipment, particularly for the repair of energy infrastructure.

Microsoft will provide $100 million in technology assistance to Ukraine, said Brad Smith, vice president of the company. Since the beginning of the war, Microsoft's total assistance to Ukraine has been over $400 million.

The total loss of Naftogaz of Ukraine in the first half of 2022 amounted to UAH 57.16 billion. As the company's press service reported, "Naftogaz of Ukraine has published consolidated financial statements for the first half of 2022, which independent international auditors reviewed," the message reads. At the same time, Naftogaz emphasizes that starting from April, despite active hostilities, the company was able to adapt to new conditions and secured a profit of UAH 420 million in the second quarter of 2022.

International diplomatic aspect

Ukraine managed to return 107 POWs, seventy-four of whom were heroic defenders of the Azovstal. One of the soldiers is a survivor of Russia's barbaric murder of at least 53 Ukrainian POWs in Olenivka, Donetsk region. Russians didn't allow any international organizations, including the Red Cross, to visit the place and investigate the war crime independently.

Russia has damaged power lines connecting Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in Europe, to the Ukrainian grid. The backup diesel generators can feed the cooling system for two weeks. The development "again demonstrates the plant's fragile and vulnerable situation… it's clearly not a sustainable way to operate a major nuclear facility. Measures are needed to prevent a nuclear accident at the site. The establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone is urgently needed," stated the IAEA Director-General.

"Based on the evaluation of the results available to date and the information provided by Ukraine, the Agency did not find any indications of undeclared nuclear activities and materials at the locations," was stated by the IAEA after in-field verification activities at three locations in Ukraine at the request of the Government of Ukraine. "The inspectors also collected

environmental samples for analysis at the IAEA's safeguards laboratories and its network of analytical laboratories. Environmental sampling is a commonly used safeguards measure with ultrasensitive analytical techniques that can provide information about past and current activities related to the handling of nuclear materials," reads the statement. So, the independent investigation mission proved Russians are lying about Ukraine's intention to produce and use "a dirty bomb."

The UN Security Council overwhelmingly rejected Russia's attempt to set up an investigation commission for its disinformation claims that Ukraine and the United States are carrying out "military biological" activities that violate the convention prohibiting the use of biological weapons. China sided with Russia on the vote. For some reason, a Russian diplomat accused a "colonial mentality," countries rejecting the false claims. He got a response from the US Permanent Representative, clarifying that the US voted against the resolution "because it is based on disinformation, dishonesty, bad faith, and a total lack of respect for this body."

"Putin continues to rely on his cabal of the selected elite to maintain control of his industrial complex and fuel his illegal invasion of Ukraine. Today we are sanctioning an additional four oligarchs who rely on Putin for their positions of authority and in turn fund his military machine", stated the UK government. The term "oligarch" is hardly applicable to those who were allowed by Putin's regime to gain or keep previously obtained fortune, and neither fully own it nor can refuse to spend it as the Kremlin wishes. Moreover, those people can't convert their money into influence over Putin's decisions. Anyway, they're part of the criminal regime. This time the blacklist is enriched by Abramov and Frolov, known for owning major stakes in Russian steel manufacturer Evraz, while Shaimiev and Shigabutdinov are connected to major petrochemical company AO TAIF.

Spain will deliver a new package of military assistance, including a battery of the Aspide anti- aircraft missile system, Hawk air-defense systems, anti-tank missile systems, and ammunition for them. Cambodia will send deminers to help train Ukrainians in clearing land mines. Being one of the heavily mined countries after three decades of war, Cambodia has the considerable experience that could significantly help Ukraine.

Elon Musk "told me personally that he will continue to support Ukraine and continue to provide Starlink to Ukraine," said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation. Earlier, the eccentric American entrepreneur had asked the Pentagon to take the financial burden of providing Ukraine with equipment and services. Starlink has been a crucially important component of Ukrainian defense since the all-out Russian.

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3. The Case for Getting Rid of the National Security Strategy 

An important article. I don't think we should get rid of the NSS. And this criticism is important because it can help influence future NSS work - especially if we can have a better debate of the strategy.

I think the key point is that we should keep in mind their point that real strategy is politically costly. When you have timid politicians and policymakers you will have a weak strategy.

Excerpts:

The big reason that strategy documents evade choice is that facing up to it is politically costly. Communicating publicly that an administration favors one program or agency over another creates a losing political constituency, and hence a fight and the expenditure of lots of political capital. Administrations evidently don’t see doing real strategy documents as worth the hassle. Instead, they promote a compromise that serves key agencies and stakeholders and thus suffer from the so-called Christmas tree problem, where each agency finds a place for its ornaments to protect its agendas.

...

U.S. security, in other words, militates against strategy debate. But we can attack the problem by encouraging competition within the national security apparatus, and government in general — a topic we have touched on at greater length elsewhere. Here are four suggestions to create more meaningful strategy debate.

...

U.S. security policy is hobbled, in a sense, by safety. Endangered and poor countries have to focus and make good investments to be safe. The United States is so safe and so rich that Americans can drift along pretending to run the world for $850 billion and congratulate themselves on their good luck with strategy documents that use airy language wearing the disguise of strategy. We’re a way away from a meaningful strategy debate, but step one is to stop pretending strategy documents are strategy.

The Case for Getting Rid of the National Security Strategy - War on the Rocks

JUSTIN LOGAN AND BENJAMIN H. FRIEDMAN

warontherocks.com · by Justin Logan · November 4, 2022

The Biden administration recently released its first National Security Strategy. As is the custom in Washington, the document was greeted with fanfare by bureaucrats eager to promote their work, beat reporters with deadlines to meet, and think tank pundits, who skim to find mention of their pet issues. But the National Security Strategy is a predictable sham. There is no real strategy to be found there because strategy documents do not prioritize among goals to guide resource allocation.

While national security strategy is unavoidable, “national security strategy” documents should end. The same goes for Quadrennial Defense Reviews and National Defense Strategies. They are a distraction from debate about real strategy — the unofficial but operative kind manifest in the defense budget. Those concerned about the need for strategy should focus on making the budget process more strategic, not on documents that are at best a vacuous public relations exercise.

U.S. strategy documents are the spawn of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which required administrations to draw up a “comprehensive description and discussion” of the “worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the United States … [and] the foreign policy, worldwide commitments, and national defense capabilities of the United States.” This was a well-meaning effort to coordinate agencies around a shared agenda, but it failed.

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The general rule for these documents is aspirational language that offends no major constituency by suggesting it is less important than any other, with occasional interludes of potentially harmful ideas. Strategy documents are rife with unsubstantiated claims about great historical shifts and talk about the how threats are complex but connected by some common sinew, like disorder or autocracy. The lesson is always that the United States must order the world to be safe, and that the things it values are mutually supportive. The implication is to keep doing what the United States is doing with more or less the same policies. If budgets are mentioned, it is to complain of their insufficiency.

Congress should end the requirement to produce strategy documents, or the White House should just stop complying and see if anyone minds. The point is not to abolish strategy. That is impossible, as strategy is more of a shared idea or operational code among policymakers about how to achieve security than one set of words about it. Rather, we recommend focusing on the budgetary choices where strategy manifests, in order to have more meaningful debate about American foreign policy and maybe even produce better policy outcomes. The flaws in the National Security Strategy are emblematic of U.S. strategy documents. Debates over defense budgets — precisely because they are so parochial and political — are a better vehicle to debate strategy.

The National Security Strategy Isn’t Strategy

We see three reasons to abolish strategy reviews, each evident in this latest National Security Strategy. One, the documents fail to meet the definition of strategy — they are lists of objectives, not a guide for choosing among them. Two, the operative definition of “national security” has been abused to the point that it is now indistinguishable from whatever the authors, or the public they envision, view as good, which exacerbates the inability to focus and prioritize. Three, where coherent, U.S. strategy documents tend to overgeneralize, making specific troubles seem like era-defining clashes, fueling the country’s powerful tendency to overreact to distant trouble.

Strategy is prioritization among competing goods, a guide to choice in resource allocation. By definition, strategy must say that some things are more important than others, and that all nice things do not go together. Like past National Security Strategy documents, the authors of the Biden administration’s version avoid choice and name-check basically all current security policies, alliances, and regions of the world as vital. U.S. security, the document contends, demands improving democracy and fostering innovation at home, confronting Russia, and containing China. The United States must also lead the creation of new global and regional institutions of democracies, win the support of the Global South in the global competition with autocracies, maintain a nuclear triad, prevent nuclear proliferation, stop pandemics, and suppress corruption.

The only possible exception to this litany of support is in the Middle East section, where the Biden administration suggests avoiding “grand designs” and regime-change wars. The problem is that even this section avoids making a hard policy choice. No mention is made of what impact this shift will have on U.S. forces in the region and whether these forces should be allocated elsewhere around the world, given the competing demands that U.S. strategy places on the military.

Instead, the document promises to fix extremism’s “root causes” in the Middle East with better government, and suggests a “framework” for helping regional partners “lay the foundation for greater stability, prosperity, and opportunity.” This approach relies on five principles and will work on fixing problems with Iran, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Israel, and Palestine, as well as dealing with climate change, refugee flows, and a host of other problems in the region. The Biden administration may wind up de-emphasizing the Middle East, but the document’s prescriptions do not contain a roadmap for doing so.

Real Strategy Is Politically Costly

The big reason that strategy documents evade choice is that facing up to it is politically costly. Communicating publicly that an administration favors one program or agency over another creates a losing political constituency, and hence a fight and the expenditure of lots of political capital. Administrations evidently don’t see doing real strategy documents as worth the hassle. Instead, they promote a compromise that serves key agencies and stakeholders and thus suffer from the so-called Christmas tree problem, where each agency finds a place for its ornaments to protect its agendas.

On the rare occasions when strategy documents do suggest a real policy choice, it’s generally because the administration has already made a choice that it wants to justify. For example, in 2012, the Obama administration released a defense strategy that said that ground forces would no longer be sized for counterinsurgencies — and hence shrunk — and that U.S. force structure in Europe would be reduced. This was a bit of real strategy, but one that responded to the need to comply with newly imposed budget caps and the struggles of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Notably, that was not a regularly scheduled defense review or national security strategy — it was a one-off response to sell a strategic shift already underway. The lesson is that circumstance requiring choice, not a legislated requirement to write a report every few years, produces strategy.

If Security Is Everything, Maybe It’s Nothing?

The second general problem evident in the national security strategy is the tendency to drain the term “national security” of meaning. We believe that national security threats call for expenditures primarily in the Defense Department aimed at killing enemy forces and destroying their materiel. By contrast, the view advanced in this National Security Strategy is that U.S. national security suffers from a “lack of health care” in various developing countries, different corporate taxation rates in developed countries, the absence of a “digital dollar,” and an array of other problems.

Whatever one thinks of these issues, they are indirectly tied to American national security, in the sense of the nation’s physical safety from attack. Security strategy is supposed to explain how to cause security for the country. If “national security” is basically everything good, it essentially means nothing, and discussion of its causes is impossible. Non-security goals are best addressed in non-security parts of the government. Calling them security threats detracts from efforts to shift focus, or even funds, to policies that advance them.

Strategy Documents Overgeneralize

Third, where they make coherent theoretical points, U.S. strategy documents suffer from what George Kennan called an “urge to seek universal formulae or doctrines in which to clothe and justify particular actions” that “causes questions to be decided on the basis of criteria only partially relevant.” The documents’ theories are mostly caliginous but occasionally they articulate a genuinely harmful idea.

This latest security strategy claims, for example, that “the most pressing strategic challenge facing our vision is from powers that layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy.” Accordingly, the United States must lead a global struggle between autocracies and democracies — plus some “like minded” “countries that do not embrace democratic institutions.” This is a reference to the Gulf-Arab monarchies. Somehow concern about Russia invading Ukraine and China menacing Taiwan gets transformed into a war of all against all. A coup in Mali is somehow supposed to be related to China and hence a threat. The document makes clear that the American public are to accept that the United Arab Emirates is on America’s side in this global fight, despite it being autocratic.

This overgeneralization is confusing because it tries to resist its own logic with these exceptions. It also generates new adversaries — by implying that countries like Vietnam, Egypt, Eritrea, and other autocracies with no special affection for Russia or China are locked into a binary struggle with the United States and its adversaries. If forced, some countries will choose China, if only because this offers tangible economic benefits. Sensible strategy should try to minimize enemies.

Security Strategy Cannot Escape Politics

These strategy documents help to distract experts and Congress from focusing on the closest thing we have to the real deal: the annual budgets for the Department of Defense and the Department of State. Budgets are not strategy, but they reflect it — strategy guides prioritization, and budgets execute that guidance by prioritizing. But they are resource-constrained and cannot evade choice, which is why “strategy wears a dollar sign.” If you want to see what the U.S. government is trying to do in the world, budgets can tell you far more than any National Security Strategy. Budgets show that the vast majority of U.S. security efforts remain devoted to conventional war in Europe and Asia, but also that any purported shift away from the Middle East is just talk, so far. Greater focus on defending Taiwan would be manifest in investment and basing choices that push air and especially naval forces toward East Asia for that fight — budgets show the limits of any such shift. Comparing the U.S. Agency for International Development’s budget to the Defense Department’s reminds us that talk of ramped-up aid to win hearts and minds in the developing world is exaggerated at best. Indeed, the United States will spend considerably more aiding Ukraine’s war with Russia than on foreign aid this year.

Advocates of the current strategy process will complain that the defense budget is political — beholden to parochial interests like agencies, contractors, and the congressional districts where they have production lines. But, as we have shown, that is also true of strategy and inevitable at least as long as big threats don’t loom. Strategy documents try by fiat to do what pressing danger does: unify people and agencies against a fixed target. This is futile. We should accept that strategy is political, not made in some laboratory that interest groups and ambition cannot penetrate.

A first step to having a more meaningful strategy debate would be to acknowledge that national security is neither sacred nor science. It is a compromise among competing agendas, and thus appropriately political, and a result not just of executive direction but of choices made in Congress, the most democratic branch of American government, an arena designed to resolve conflicting agendas.

The problem with the defense budgeting process, in terms of producing useful strategy debate, is that is that it is insufficiently contentious. The same compromises among agencies and interests that hobble strategy documents constrict debate about budgeting and underwrite a liberal hegemony strategy, which aims at policing the world to overawe rivals and keep allies and partners beholden. In some ways, this is a function of U.S. wealth and power — it bankrolls a large array of interests that would otherwise compete more for resources and tempts Americans with the illusion that they can avoid choice.

A More Competitive Strategy Debate

U.S. security, in other words, militates against strategy debate. But we can attack the problem by encouraging competition within the national security apparatus, and government in general — a topic we have touched on at greater length elsewhere. Here are four suggestions to create more meaningful strategy debate.

First, Congress should remember and exercise its foreign policy powers. For Congress to perform more meaningful oversight of defense spending and debate strategy more effectively, it needs to overcome the atrophy in thinking about strategic alternatives that decades of underuse have induced. That requires more experienced (and hence better paid) staff, beefed up support from the Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office to better frame strategic choices, and, most of all, members who are jealous of institutional prerogatives. Members that take up the constitution’s invitation to struggle for the privilege of shaping U.S. foreign policy can help to force the debates among competing goals that American strategy documents suppress.

Second, cap defense spending. Legislated spending caps can impose more choices on the budget and force the debate that more abundance would prevent, breaking up the usually aligned interests that make up the military-industrial-congressional complex. Something along these lines occurred 10 years ago when the Budget Control Act’s caps loomed — the services began to see counterinsurgency efforts as more of a threat to their core missions, but Congress kept raising the limits and letting the Overseas Contingency Operations budget bail the base budget out, lessening the effect. A softer version of this occurs when policymakers define national interests more broadly than defense spending can support, a problem that is arguably emerging today. The danger is that defense agencies may deal with cuts by sharing them equally, rather than competing. Caps should thus come with efforts by civilian leaders to manage competition within the Defense Department, which leads to our next suggestion.

Third, encouraging interservice competition for budget shares can juice debate about strategy. Instead of giving each service a roughly steady share of the budget, they should be rewarded for a defined objective. For example, a strategy that prioritized defending Taiwan against China would mean funding the Navy in particular — and submarines within the naval budget — perhaps causing service communities that lost out to argue for an alternative. Something like this occurred around nuclear weapons doctrine under President Dwight D. Eisenhower when his New Look (massive retaliation) strategy rewarded the Air Force at the expense of the other services.

Finally, security fears should compete more against non-security risks in the budget. One way to encourage this is to stop securitizing everything — pretending every problem that humans face is a security threat. Let’s admit, for example, that the novel coronavirus, and infectious diseases like it, are a far worse danger for Americans than security threats, not a species of them. Then we can ask whether the United States should reduce defense spending to buy something more relevant to its well-being, rather than casting disease as part of a swirl of trouble that the Defense Department combats.

U.S. security policy is hobbled, in a sense, by safety. Endangered and poor countries have to focus and make good investments to be safe. The United States is so safe and so rich that Americans can drift along pretending to run the world for $850 billion and congratulate themselves on their good luck with strategy documents that use airy language wearing the disguise of strategy. We’re a way away from a meaningful strategy debate, but step one is to stop pretending strategy documents are strategy.

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Benjamin H. Friedman is policy director at Defense Priorities. Justin Logan is director of foreign and defense policy studies at the Cato Institute.

Image: The White House

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Justin Logan · November 4, 2022

4. Biden's anti-strategic National Security Strategy

I recommend going back to President Reagan's 1982 National Security Strategy which was classified top secret and only 36 copies were originally distributed.

Excerpts:

Strategy, properly understood, is a complex phenomenon comprising a number of elements, including geography, history, political and military institutions, and economic factors. Accordingly, strategy can be said to constitute a continual dialogue between policy on the one hand and these various factors on the other, in the context of the overall international security environment.

Real strategy must also take account of such factors as technology, the availability of resources, and geopolitical realities. The strategy of a state is not self-correcting. If conditions change, policymakers must be able to discern these changes and modify the nation’s goals accordingly. The U.S. has faced substantial geopolitical changes of great magnitude since the end of the Cold War: the decline and then reassertion of Russian power, the expansion of terrorist organizations, the rise of China, disorder in the Greater Middle East, and the new geopolitics of energy. U.S. grand strategy must adapt to such geopolitical changes.

Biden's anti-strategic National Security Strategy

by Mackubin Owens November 03, 2022 11:00 PM

Washington Examiner · November 4, 2022

The Biden administration has just released its National Security Strategy, as mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. The NSS theoretically serves as the grand strategy document for the United States, linking the ends of policy and the means available to achieve them in light of limited resources.

In theory, the NSS shapes the National Defense Strategy and the Defense Strategic Guidance, documents developed and released by the secretary of defense as the basis of defense planning. It also affects the National Military Strategy, which is prepared by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and outlines how the military will implement its portion of the NSS.

In practice, the process of developing a unified strategy that coordinates all aspects of government is hard to implement effectively. The sequencing is rarely linear. The budget cycle intervenes, forcing the Defense Department and the independent services to make critical decisions without an agreed-upon strategy. And real-world events can disrupt the process, requiring a modification of the discourse, as was the case in 2001 following 9/11.

On Strategy

“Strategy” is best understood as the interaction of three factors, all within the context of risk assessment: Ends, the goals or objectives set by national policy that the strategic actor seeks to achieve; Means, the resources available to the strategic actor; and Ways, the strategic actor’s plan of action for utilizing the means available. In essence, a good strategy articulates a clear set of achievable goals, identifies concrete threats to those goals, and then, given available resources, recommends the employment of the necessary instruments to meet and overcome those threats while minimizing their consequences.

Typically, “strategy” now refers not only to the direct application of military force in wartime but also to the use of all aspects of national power during peacetime to deter war and, if deterrence fails, win the resulting conflict. In its broadest sense, strategy is grand strategy.

As Edward Mead Earle wrote in his introduction to Makers of Modern Strategy: “Strategy is the art of controlling and utilizing the resources of a nation — or a coalition of nations — including its armed forces, to the end that its vital interests shall be effectively promoted and secured against enemies, actual, potential, or merely presumed. The highest type of strategy — sometimes called grand strategy — is that which so integrates the policies and armaments of the nation that resort to war is either rendered unnecessary or is undertaken with the maximum chance of victory.”

Grand strategy is intimately linked to national policy in that it is designed to bring to bear all the elements of national power, military, economic, and diplomatic, in order to secure the ends of U.S. national policy — its interests and objectives. Although strategy can be described as the conceptual link between ends and means, it cannot be reduced to a mere mechanical exercise. Instead, it is a process, described by the late Colin Gray as “a constant adaptation to shifting conditions and circumstances in a world where chance, uncertainty, and ambiguity dominate.”

Strategy, properly understood, is a complex phenomenon comprising a number of elements, including geography, history, political and military institutions, and economic factors. Accordingly, strategy can be said to constitute a continual dialogue between policy on the one hand and these various factors on the other, in the context of the overall international security environment.

Real strategy must also take account of such factors as technology, the availability of resources, and geopolitical realities. The strategy of a state is not self-correcting. If conditions change, policymakers must be able to discern these changes and modify the nation’s goals accordingly. The U.S. has faced substantial geopolitical changes of great magnitude since the end of the Cold War: the decline and then reassertion of Russian power, the expansion of terrorist organizations, the rise of China, disorder in the Greater Middle East, and the new geopolitics of energy. U.S. grand strategy must adapt to such geopolitical changes.

Previous National Security Strategies

There have been two major criticisms of previous NSSs. First, that they have been long on aspirations and short on a discussion of the means to fulfill these aspirations. And second, that they have constituted, in the words of my Foreign Policy Research Institute colleague Nikolas Gvosdev, an “exercise in satisficing,” that is, accepting the first minimally satisfactory option for all parties rather than the optimal one, “between different bureaucratic and policy interests of the various departments of government and the political factions that make up [a president’s] administration.”

In my estimation, the best NSSs have addressed this first charge. Those would include the first one, which was issued during the Reagan administration, the one issued by George W. Bush after 9/11, the first one issued by Bill Clinton, and the one by Donald Trump. What these had in common were internal consistency and discussions of how we were going to achieve our objectives, rather than merely a wish list of aspirations.

As for the satisficing charge, I saw this firsthand when I served on the Joint Staff, J5 Strategy (DOD’s executive agency for the first Clinton NSS). I joked to my colleagues that every department had apparently submitted a term paper with a wish list of what it wanted included in the document. Fortunately, the National Security Council staff accepted 95% of the Joint Staff’s recommendations, which effectively eliminated most non-security-related topics in the document.

Competing National Security Strategies: Trump vs. Biden

President Joe Biden’s NSS does hit the mark on some issues, such as recognizing the threats that China and, to a lesser extent, Russia pose to the U.S. Nonetheless, it features the deficiencies of the worst previous iterations, especially those issued by Obama: It contains an aspirational wish list from all government departments and the “national security community,” which tends to favor a foreign policy approach based on “liberal internationalism,” is internally inconsistent and contradictory, and, most importantly, is “a-strategic,” that is, dismissive of geopolitics and the role of power in the international arena.

Biden’s NSS identifies two principal strategic challenges: competition between democracies and autocracies (i.e., China and Russia) and cooperation to address “shared challenges,” including climate change, arms control, food insecurity, global health threats, environmental problems, inequality among nations, and energy transition. Yet it prioritizes climate change and the “threat” of domestic terrorists over geopolitics.

While the document accuses China of having both the intent and ability to “reshape the international order,” it does not call for “containing” or “constraining” China. Instead, “we [will] compete vigorously” but also “manage the competition responsibly,” will “build mutual transparency” and “engage Beijing on more formal arms control efforts,” and “will always be willing to work with [China] where our interests align,” adding that disagreements should not “stop us from moving forward” and working together “for the good of our people and for the good of the world” on areas such as the “climate, pandemic threats, nonproliferation, countering illicit and illegal narcotics, the global food crisis, and macroeconomic issues.”

The NSS said we will not “withhold progress on existential transnational issues like the climate crisis because of bilateral differences.” There is no suggestion that we should link any cooperation with China to its international behavior, as we did with the Soviet Union during the Nixon administration. “The United States … has made it clear that we will not support the linkage of issues in a way that conditions cooperation on shared challenges,” especially “the climate crisis,” which is “the existential challenge of our time.”

The Biden NSS also stresses the alleged “domestic extremist threat” from U.S. citizens “motivated by racial or ethnic prejudice, as well as anti-government or anti-authority sentiment.” Such language echoes the election rhetoric of the administration, such as in Biden’s recent, intemperate speech in Philadelphia demonizing the millions of people who voted for Trump, making it quite clear that Biden’s NSS is intended more for a domestic audience than for an international one. To the extent that it addresses the latter, it embraces the “liberal internationalist” perspective favored by much of the U.S. “national security community.”

In contrast, Trump’s NSS reflected Trump’s preferred foreign policy perspective, one based on “realism” as opposed to liberal internationalism. It was drafted and coordinated by Trump’s national security adviser at the time, H.R. McMaster, and his deputy, Nadia Schadlow — splendid strategic thinkers in their own right who sought to produce a document that was true to the president’s perspective rather than the denizens of the national security community.

Trump’s NSS was based on four “pillars" — 1) protect the people, the homeland, and the American way of life, 2) promote American prosperity, 3) preserve peace through strength, and 4) advance American influence. Many of the most important features of the document stand in contrast to those that make Biden’s NSS so flawed.

First, consider its call for a healthy nationalism. The nationalism of his NSS was not the nationalism caricatured by Trump’s critics. It was not ethnic nor racial nationalism but civic nationalism, better described as patriotism. Throughout his presidency, Trump’s central belief was that the purpose of American power was to advance the interests of citizens.

Second, and relatedly, it took a “state-centric” view of international politics, one that approaches international institutions and “global governance” with great skepticism. It is in the interest of the U.S. to advance U.S. political, military, and economic strength, not to impose America’s will on others but to “secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.” This perspective reflects the view of George Washington University professor Henry Nau, who has argued, “The goal [of U.S. foreign policy] is a ‘republican world’ in which free nations live side by side, responsible for their own defenses and economies, and cut deals with other nations, including authoritarian ones, to the extent their interests overlap.”

By extension, Trump’s NSS rejected the contention that the U.S. should cede sovereignty to international institutions in order to be embraced by the mythical “international community.” Although it is in the interest of the U.S. to cooperate with others within this international system, such cooperation depends on reciprocity. This has been especially important in the areas of trade and alliances. In principle, free trade is good for countries in the international system. Trump contended that for too long, the U.S. had pursued trade agreements that were not in our interests. The principle of reciprocity was necessary to redress this imbalance.

Third, Trump’s NSS recognized the role of armed diplomacy. Policymakers have long treated force and diplomacy as an either-or proposition. But understood properly, force and diplomacy are two sides of the same coin. The threat of force increases the leverage of diplomats. The Trump administration’s approach to Iran and North Korea was a case in point, standing in contrast to the Biden administration’s approach to Iran and Russia.

Fourth, consider its prioritization of economic growth and leveraging the new geopolitics of energy. The Trump administration moved expeditiously to lift regulations that hampered U.S. domestic productivity across the board but especially in the area of energy production. While domestic oil and gas production has increased as a result of the revolution associated with hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and directional drilling, it did so despite the priorities of the Obama administration, which wished to decrease reliance on hydrocarbons. Trump made it clear he wishes to exploit America’s energy potential to take advantage of the new geopolitics of energy.

Finally, among its most important features was its defense of liberal principles. Although the U.S. is safer and more prosperous in a world populated by other democratic republics, prudence dictates that the U.S. attempt to spread its principles only when it can do so in a cost-effective manner. Trump’s NSS was roundly criticized by advocates of “cooperative security.” The problem with cooperative security is that it requires states in the international system to subordinate their interests to a fictional “international community” and act in accordance with a system that operates independently of national interest. Cooperative security also wrongly assumes that international participation is sufficient to sustain the liberal world order. It is not. It must be supported by a dominant power and influence.

U.S. policymakers have made a fetish of international organizations. Such organizations are means, not ends. In fact, the end or purpose of American power should be to secure the republic, protect its liberty, and facilitate the prosperity of its people. The U.S. is not “entitled” to wield its power for some “global good,” independent of national interests. Trump’s election in 2016 was due in part to the perception that U.S. power was not being used to advance the interests of citizens but in the service of others, i.e., the “international community,” international institutions, and the like.

A sound U.S. grand strategy would seek to assure the freedom, security, and prosperity of the U.S. A sound grand strategy would aim to enhance American power, influence, and credibility as the means for achieving those ends. Biden’s a-strategic National Security Strategy fails on both counts.

Mackubin Owens is a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a national security fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas, Austin.

Washington Examiner · November 4, 2022

5. Improving Foreign Policy Outcomes Requires Investment in Alternative Perspectives

Conclusion:

The U.S.-Cambodia example provides a deeper understanding of the dynamics at play when policymakers are framing policies involving other independent stakeholders. U.S. relationships with Cambodia and other nations have never been strictly centered around U.S. interests. Recognizing the danger of alignment, many smaller countries in Southeast Asia are pursuing a risk-mitigation strategy of hedging, using resources from China and the United States to maintain bilateral relationships with both countries.[15] In a multinational survey conducted across Southeast Asian nations in 2021, a majority of survey respondents believed that China and the United States will ask their country to choose between the two major powers and that making such a choice is not in their own best interest.[16] The U.S. must incorporate these varying perspectives in crafting deliberate consensus-based strategies in the Indo-Pacific.

Washington cannot afford a focus on unilateral U.S. perspectives, whether to prevent alienating potential partners or to forestall potential adversarial relations. When strategists center policy from a U.S. perspective, they ignore the real cultural risks that accompany those narrative frames. China is just as centered on their own conventional framing, with equally problematic results. Washington must counter Beijing’s growing influence across the instruments of national power without alienating potential allies and partners.

Improving Foreign Policy Outcomes Requires Investment in Alternative Perspectives

Heather Levy  November 3, 2022

thestrategybridge.org · November 3, 2022

The failure of national security planners to adequately incorporate multiple perspectives into United States foreign policy has proven costly both financially and in terms of failure to achieve policy objectives. This unilateral focus stems from a combination of limited thinking and limited planning resources that can be difficult to overcome. As global conditions change, however, U.S. policymakers must incorporate multiple perspectives into foreign policy planning. This is especially true in the Indo-Pacific region, where consensus-based discussions are likely to be prioritized over formal alliances and China is operating a parallel strategy in the same countries as the U.S.

Large investments become lost opportunities when great powers fail to adequately account for the perspective of other nations in their foreign policy. The U.S. has given over $3B in foreign aid to Cambodia over the past 30 years and conducted more than 10 annual security cooperation exercises between the U.S. and Cambodian military.[1] Despite the extent of the shared investments, the Cambodians permitted China to demolish U.S.-funded buildings on the Ream Naval Base in 2021 to facilitate Chinese-sponsored port development, and Phnom Penh has truncated U.S. access to the base.[2] The U.S. is not the only great power whose self-interested policy has resulted in unintended consequences. China spent $96B on infrastructure-related projects in the Philippines that ignored local environmental and hiring processes, generating geopolitical, environmental, and social issues that have undermined China’s national interests.[3]

Cambodian navy personnel at Ream naval base in 2019. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP)

In recent decades, the United States has been similarly myopic through a combination of heuristic bias among policy elites, resource limitations for its foreign policy institutions, and social systems in academia and policy-making circles that create and reinforce parochial thinking. Intellectuals and other policy elites must avoid such myopia and make a deliberate effort to recognize the significance of other countries’ perspectives by adopting a systems thinking approach. The Secretaries of State and Defense could support such a systems thinking effort through restructuring the way the U.S. formulates strategy documents to provide accountability and clarify the assumptions that inform alternate perspectives. U.S.-based academic institutions and think tanks could resource these efforts through prioritizing the hiring or scholarship of those with alternative perspectives in roles where they can integrate that knowledge into foreign policy works. To imbue these three efforts with a sense of criticality, intellectuals and policy elites must popularize an outcomes-based understanding of why perspectives beyond those of the global powers are important. There are sufficient examples to illuminate these outcomes already—from national security, economics, and overarching foreign policy perspectives.

Challenges and Advantages to Alternative Perspectives

Policymakers and academics use heuristics and are as susceptible to heuristic bias as the rest of the population.[4] Senior U.S. foreign policy decision makers, from State to Defense, must enforce a systematic approach to mitigating the effect of these potential biases if they are to develop truly insightful strategic objectives in conjunction with regional partners and allies.[5] Daniel Kahneman describes heuristic biases that can contribute to issues with a self-centered foreign policy and how they can be mitigated by starting from the perspective of other stakeholder countries. For example, Laos has demonstrated that their government perceives their best interest lies in continuing to conduct Mekong-related agreements with both China and the U.S rather than choosing one power over another. If Defense Department planners incorporate this perspective clearly into a theater posture plan, it could counteract the simple causal claim that the U.S. can gain primacy over China through developmental aid.[6]

Similarly, if State Department planners integrate other countries’ objectives into U.S. strategies, this could identify friction points early, mitigate the assumption that U.S. objectives take priority in international relationships, and clarify challenges to the U.S. strategic narrative. A more inclusive framing of the interests and issues involved can help policymakers avoid underestimating risk and overstating benefits by reconciling the relevant risk and interests of other nations with those of the U.S.[7] Washington, therefore, might have to acknowledge that despite a relative military and economic advantage over Phnom Penh, it might not be able to negotiate access to the latter’s naval facilities.

Policymakers must invest significant time and energy in analyzing third-party perspectives to adequately incorporate alternative ideas into policy documents. The limited time and expertise available for such analysis is a significant reason that the red team, representing the adversary, is rarely as well-represented as the blue team in an analysis.[8]

The sheer number of perspectives that influence global policy add to the length of an analysis and complication of the problem. For example, in an ends-ways-means approach to strategy for the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific, there are potentially hundreds of stakeholder countries, non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations (NGOs and IGOs), cultural groups, and other organizations that bring important perspectives to bear in the situation.[9] It is difficult and time-consuming to integrate these perspectives into an analysis of the situation. Researchers within the U.S. will not have equal access to foreign perspectives as they do domestic ones.

Even dealing with national governments, the U.S. may struggle to build a true picture of how multiple different nations perceive the various elements, for example, of the cultural exchanges and minor projects that make up the Belt & Road Initiative.[10] Micah Zenko describes the advantages of incorporating unique external perspectives into the decision-making processes of a business of government. Hiring and educating practitioners and academics with perspectives that are not centered around the U.S. can provide a more nuanced and consensus-based counterpoint to great power thinking.[11]

Defense policy makers must include people with diverse perspectives as the first part of a broadening process in national security decision making. Lasting effects require an established system for displaying those results. An understanding of multiple perspectives should be taught to aspiring strategists in their academic classes, which would ideally require an in-depth analysis as a part of a best-case strategy preparation.[12] If these multiple perspectives are applied through the lifetime of a strategy, they would help instruct the class on possible reactions, counterreactions and escalations from another point-of-view.

Practical Considerations

Both policymakers and the public have found it difficult to see the relevance of the interests and policy framings of minor stakeholders. Retired U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal was ridiculed in the press for a slide depicting the numerous perspectives that he considered within Afghanistan, but the single sheet of paper was designed to detail the number of factions and complexity involved in the region.[13] Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was similarly mocked by the American public for using the term “unknown unknowns,” in attempting to describe the dangers of false conviction.[14] In both cases, leaders attempting to describe the complexity of unknown or multiple perspectives were derided for their intellectual pretensions. Overcoming the desire for simplicity is a necessary prerequisite to establishing a complete, systems based policy.

Map and flag of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries (Rizky Jogja/Wikimedia)

Recently, applying this desire for simplicity to the question of foreign policy has included a desire to mandate political alignment of other nations with U.S. interests. When U.S. planners frame these relationships from a U.S.-centered perspective, they arbitrarily force stakeholder countries to choose between the U.S. and China as a preferred partner rather than developing a shared approach with collective objectives. Given the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) focus on consensus overall, U.S. strategists could improve their chances of overall success through early identification of regional perspectives on unilateral goals.

Conclusion

The U.S.-Cambodia example provides a deeper understanding of the dynamics at play when policymakers are framing policies involving other independent stakeholders. U.S. relationships with Cambodia and other nations have never been strictly centered around U.S. interests. Recognizing the danger of alignment, many smaller countries in Southeast Asia are pursuing a risk-mitigation strategy of hedging, using resources from China and the United States to maintain bilateral relationships with both countries.[15] In a multinational survey conducted across Southeast Asian nations in 2021, a majority of survey respondents believed that China and the United States will ask their country to choose between the two major powers and that making such a choice is not in their own best interest.[16] The U.S. must incorporate these varying perspectives in crafting deliberate consensus-based strategies in the Indo-Pacific.

Washington cannot afford a focus on unilateral U.S. perspectives, whether to prevent alienating potential partners or to forestall potential adversarial relations. When strategists center policy from a U.S. perspective, they ignore the real cultural risks that accompany those narrative frames. China is just as centered on their own conventional framing, with equally problematic results. Washington must counter Beijing’s growing influence across the instruments of national power without alienating potential allies and partners.

Heather Levy is an officer in the U.S. Army. She earned a Masters in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College and a Masters in International Public Policy from The Johns Hopkins University. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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Header Image: Refract, 2017 (Joseph Greve)

Notes:

[1] Office of the Spokesperson, “The United States-Cambodia Relationship,” Department of State, August 2, 2022. https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-cambodia-relationship/

[2] Abdul Rahman Yaacob, “Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base Attracts Competing Patrons,” East Asia Forum, September 5, 2022.https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/09/05/cambodias-ream-naval-base-attracts-competing-patrons/

[3] Aaron Jed Rabena, “The Belt and Road Initiative and the Philippines: Post-Duterte China Challenge,” March 25, 2022. https://fulcrum.sg/the-belt-and-road-initiative-and-the-philippines-post-duterte-china-challenge/

[4] Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science. 185(4157), 1124-1131.

[5] Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 29.

[6] Ibid., 29.

[7] Ibid., 32.

[8] Micah Zenko. Red Team: How to succeed by thinking like the enemy. Basic Books, New York: 2015, ix-xxi.

[9] Bonny Lin, Michael S. Chase, Jonah Blank, Cortez A. Cooper III, Derek Grossman, Scott W. Harold, Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Lyle J. Morris, Logan Ma, Paul Orner, Alice Shih, and Soo Kim, Regional Responses to U.S.-China Competition in the Indo-Pacific Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2020, 32-38.

[10] Michael S. Chase and Arthur Chan. China’s Evolving Approach to “Integrated Strategic Deterrence”. Rand Corporation, 2016.

[11] Zenko, 20-24.

[12] Celestino Perez, Jr.,“What Military Education Forgets: Strategy Is Performance,”.War on the Rocks, September 7, 2018. https://warontherocks.com/2018/09/what-military-education-forgets-strategy-is-performance/#:~:text=solely%20a%20discipline.-,Strategy%20is%20performance.,holds%20an%20MA%20and%20Ph.

[13] Elisabeth Bumiller, “We have Met the Enemy, And He Is PowerPoint,” New York Times, April 27, 2010. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html

[14] David Graham, “Rumsfeld’s Knowns and Unknowns,” The Atlantic, March 28, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/rumsfelds-knowns-and-unknowns-the-intellectual-history-of-a-quip/359719/

[15] Cheng-Chwee Kuik and Gilbert Rozman, “Light or Heavy Hedging: Positioning between China and the United States,” in Gilbert Rozman, ed., Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies 2015 (Washington, DC: Korea Economic Institute of America, 2015)

[16] Bonny Lin, Michael S. Chase, Jonah Blank, Cortez A. Cooper III, Derek Grossman, Scott W. Harold, Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Lyle J. Morris, Logan Ma, Paul Orner, Alice Shih, and Soo Kim, Regional Responses to U.S.-China Competition in the Indo-Pacific Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2020, 4-12.

thestrategybridge.org · November 3, 2022

6. Withdrawal from TPP Has Forced the U.S. to Contain China

I would argue one of the most egregious strategic mistakes of the 21st Century was withdrawal from TPP. It would likely not have prevented China's aggression but we would be in a better place strategically if we had remained part of the agreement.

Withdrawal from TPP Has Forced the U.S. to Contain China

19fortyfive.com · by George Monastiriakos · November 3, 2022

In 2017, I argued that U.S. grand strategy should prioritize the creation of a Pacific Community in Asia. Like NATO and the European Union in the Atlantic, this Pacific Community would help install a rules-based regional order, integrate the Asian economies, and institutionalize peace in the region. The foundation for this Pacific Community was the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

TPP offered a pragmatic roadmap for integrating China into a rules-based regional order. This would ease the transition to a more China-centric Asia. Instead, the Trump administration withdrew from TPP and launched a trade war against China. This shocked experts on both sides of the Pacific, drove a wedge in U.S.-China relations, and has since forced the U.S. to pursue what looks like a policy of containment.

U.S. withdrawal from the TPP was a colossal mistake. To put it simply: states that join multilateral trade agreements like TPP establish the rules that govern trade, reap the benefits of further economic integration, and gain negotiating leverage over nonparticipant states that want access to their markets. As the number of states who agree to the same legal framework increases, more nonparticipant states are incited to abide by the rules because nonadherence eventually renders their economies uncompetitive.

A U.S.-led TPP encompassed states that represented ~40% of global gross domestic product (GDP). Its U.S.-less successor, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), only represents ~13.5% of global GDP. Instead of signaling to China that 12 Pacific economies accounting for ~40% of global GDP agreed to conduct trade according to the same legal framework, the Trump Administration failed to lead by example and withdrew from the TPP.

The Trump Administration did not have the perspective to realize that TPP was part of a greater strategy to build an international rules-based economic order. While a U.S.-led TPP represented countries that accounted for ~40% of global GDP in the Pacific, similar rules-based economic orders already existed in North America (~30% of global GDP) and in Europe (~15% of global GDP). Since 2019, the preexisting rules-based economic orders in Europe and North America are also complemented by a free trade agreement between the European Union and Japan (~25% of global GDP). Altogether, this international rules-based economic order would have encompassed more than 50% of the global economy.

The pressure created by a comprehensive multilateral agreement like TPP was an excellent opportunity for the U.S. and its allies to ensure that the transition to a more China-centric Asia is as peaceful as possible. Given that U.S. influence over China’s policy decisions ranges from limited to nonexistent, joint U.S. and Chinese accession to the TPP would have opened the door to resolving disputes related to climate change, currency devaluation, intellectual property, cybersecurity, data protection, privacy, and maritime border demarcations. To be clear, any negotiating leverage the U.S. may have held over China through TPP has since evaporated.

The Trump Administration’s withdrawal from TPP has emboldened China to continue asserting itself in the neighborhood. Whether threatening forced reunification with Taiwan or island-building in the South China Sea to expand its Exclusive Economic Zone, gone are the days of Deng Xiaoping’s “hide your strength and bide your time.” While China’s successful authoritarian model of development makes the world less safe for democracy, U.S. protectionism also has unintended consequences.

Albeit for legitimate cybersecurity concerns, banning companies like Huawei from operating in the U.S. only incites China to invest more resources into important industries where U.S. companies are dominant. For example, Huawei is developing HarmonyOS as an alternative operating system to compete with Western staples like Android (71.55% of global market share) and iOS (27.8% of global market share). While Google and Apple maintain their respective market share, for the time being, they do not have access to the same resources as the Chinese state.

Moving forward, China’s competitive pricing and equal or higher levels of technological sophistication will continue expanding its global market share. For example, consider the growing market share of Chinese cellphone companies in emerging economies: as of September 2022, Huawei (11.47%), Tecno Mobile (10.31%), Infinix (6.76%), Xiaomi (5.69%), OPPO (4.3%) have more market share (38.53%) than South Korea’s Samsung (32.73%) and the U.S.’ Apple (13.21%) in Africa.

To be clear: U.S. strategy should have focused on getting China to the negotiating table and developing a set of rules that the competitive economies of the Pacific can agree on. U.S. adherence to TPP would’ve given the signatory parties – which included three of China’s top five trading partners – significant negotiating leverage over China. Now, that negotiating leverage is gone, and the U.S. meeting China halfway seems more distant with every passing day.

Worst of all, domestic pressures in the U.S. and other democracies make entering new comprehensive multilateral agreements like TPP improbable if not impossible. Moving forward, trade agreements will be bilateral rather than multilateral and focus on individual issues instead of multiple questions at a time. The 2019 U.S.–Japan Digital Trade Agreement is a good example.

Unfortunately, the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from TPP has forced the U.S. to disentangle the U.S.–China relationship and pursue what looks like a policy of containment. Nothing illustrates this better than the inability for the U.S. and China to cooperate during a global pandemic.

While strategic competition between the U.S. and China seems inevitable, competitive coexistence remains preferable. The Trump Administration blew a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen the relationship between the two most powerful states in the international system. This colossal mistake will not be forgotten any time soon.

George Monastiriakos is a lawyer licensing candidate and political science and history graduate who writes about politics and global affairs. He can be reached on LinkedIn or on Twitter @monastiriakos.

19fortyfive.com · by George Monastiriakos · November 3, 2022

7. What If Ukraine Wins and Putin Is Removed?

A great question. I personally think he needs to be removed in order for there to be a Ukraine victory. If a Ukraine victory is on the horizon I fear Putin might resort to nuclear weapons and when that happens no one will win for some time.

What If Ukraine Wins and Putin Is Removed?

19fortyfive.com · by James Fay · November 3, 2022

What if the current Ukrainian offensive leads to victory? What if Russia eventually accepts that the war is stalemated or lost and removes Vladimir Putin from power? That could bring a rare opportunity to correct Europe’s distorted boundary lines and usher in a decadeslong peace between Russia and the West.

For that to happen, the West must continue to pressure Russia with sanctions and resist the temptation to be too accommodating. Moscow understands that, ultimately, it has two options: resurrecting its ties with Europe or falling into China’s arms. The latter would be a strategic, military, cultural, and religious nightmare. The former should require significant concessions.

Here are the crucial issues:

– Ukrainian reconstruction: The Russian government, businesses, and oligarchs should pay an indemnity of hundreds of billions of dollars to restore the physical damage from the invasion.

– Military restrictions: Russia should be enjoined by treaty from maintaining any military or military-related naval vessels, drones, or military aircraft in the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea or the Sea of Azov for 50 years. Russia should also withdraw all its military and paramilitary units and weapons within at least 60 miles from its Western borders, from Finland in the north to Georgia in the south, including the Belarus border. This initiative would be analogous to the disarmed German Rhineland after World War I.

Once Russia has completed these land withdrawals and they have been in place for a few years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should commence a similar withdrawal of its forces away from the Russian border.

– War crimes: Russia must face penalties for its wartime atrocities. It should be required to hand over to Ukrainian courts any Russian soldier or civilian named in a war-crimes indictment and the commanding officer of any Russian military unit identified with a war crime. That goes for mercenaries, too. They have limited rights under international law and can be prosecuted for their battlefield actions. Turning mercenaries over to Ukraine for trial and punishment may deter mercenary service in future conflicts.

– Nuclear weapons: By treaty with NATO, Russia should agree to reduce its nuclear weapons immediately to a number and quality no more significant than those possessed by the U.S. and agree to inspections by NATO to guarantee compliance. Moscow, by treaty, should formally withdraw its threats to employ tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and pledge no first use of nuclear weapons as its new and permanent policy.

– Hacking: Russia should pledge to end hacking against any NATO country and abolish all public and private anti-Western hacking groups.

– Re-education: To ensure the Russian population understands the gravity of its leaders’ crimes and the reasons for the penalties associated with restitution, the Russian government should require newspapers, magazines, government and media blogs, television and radio stations, for two years, to publicize, without excuses, the gravity of Russian aggression and war crimes over the past 75 years. Russian textbooks and related reading should include accurate accounts of Russian aggression and war crimes in recent decades. These measures are similar to the acknowledgment that Germany had to make to expiate guilt for its aggression in World War II.

– China: While maintaining equitable diplomatic and trade relations with China, Russia must withdraw from the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship, which established close military, diplomatic, and economic relations between the two countries.

– Land: For decades, Moscow has stolen territory from its neighbors. Russia took parts of the region of Karelia and Salla and all of Petsamo from Finland in 1940, the South Kuril Islands (Northern Territories) from Japan in 1945, Transnistria from Moldova in 1992, Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia in 2008, and Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. All these territories should revert to their rightful owners. Kaliningrad, seized from Germany in 1945, belongs geographically with Poland. And Russia should withdraw its military, police, civilian and diplomatic forces from Belarus and pledge not to interfere in that nation’s elections or politics.

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What’s in it for Russia to make some or all of these concessions?

Once an agreement is reached with NATO nations, each would agree to a peace treaty and ease sanctions cautiously over ten or more years. Such easing might include a gradual increase in airline service between Russia and the West, a measured increase of Russian diplomats allowed in the West, an increase in Russian legal emigration to the West, expansion in the trade of nonstrategic goods, diminishment of financial restrictions, and the resumption of aircraft parts and service agreements with Western aircraft makers.

While implementing these punitive and restorative measures, NATO and nonmember Western countries should discuss long-term steps by which Russia could gradually integrate itself with Western economic, political, cultural and religious institutions. The European Union, which played a beneficial role in integrating the formerly communist societies of Eastern and Central Europe, could lead this endeavor.

The goal of these integrative measures would be an emergent democratic and free-market Russia proud of its newfound status as a leading member of the reconfigured West.

James Fay is a semi-retired California attorney, political scientist, and college administrator. He served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, 3rd Armored Division. He has published articles on the Helsinki Accords, NATO funding, and Higher Education reform. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, 19FortyFive, Real Clear World, the American Spectator, and the Washington Times.

Want More 19FortyFive articles, news, and analysis on the top military, defense, national security, as well as politics and economics news? Make sure to follow us on Google News, Flipboard, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. Also, please don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter here. You can also find our code of publishing ethics and standards here.

19fortyfive.com · by James Fay · November 3, 2022

8. Army to fix recruiting fraud cases, remove soldiers from FBI database

I hope the Army can do the right thing on this issue.

Army to fix recruiting fraud cases, remove soldiers from FBI database

armytimes.com · by Jonathan Lehrfeld · November 3, 2022

The Army expects to correct all cases by the end of this year for soldiers who were improperly linked to, or accused of, fraudulently earning bonuses as part of a recruitment program that was investigated from 2012 to 2016, according to the service’s Criminal Investigation Division.

About 1,900 Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers were inappropriately added to an FBI criminal database, and others to a Department of Defense database, CID officials said during a media roundtable Thursday morning.

The problems started for troops when they participated in the Guard-Recruiting Assistance Program, which ran from 2005 to 2012, but was shut down following allegations of fraud. Failures by the CID investigation that came next received national attention.

As one soldier put it in an opinion article for Army Times: Participating in G-RAP wasn’t a crime. But simply being investigated as though it was a crime has ruined lives and careers. Now, the Army appears to be correcting those mistakes.

“We expect to have the majority of these investigations reviewed and corrected by the end of 2022, though a few may extend into early 2023,” Gregory Ford, director of CID said Thursday.

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By Gilberto De Leon

“Simply put, proper procedures were not always followed,” he continued. “We acknowledge those mistakes and are taking action to correct these records.”

Improperly adding soldiers to criminal databases hurt them after they left the Army because they still needed to undergo background checks, said Doug O’Connell, a Texas lawyer and retired Army officer who has represented clients accused in the G-RAP debacle since 2014.

That could impact everyone from a physician assistant trying to get a medical license, to a veteran trying to become a police officer, O’Connell told Army Times by phone.

“The G-RAP program worked magnificently” when it came to helping meet recruiting targets, O’Connell said. “It went off the rails when CID agents made flawed assumptions and ruined people’s lives and Army leaders didn’t stand up for junior soldiers.”

Now, CID director Ford said, the Army is working to remove the affected individuals from the databases and notify them of the action. Soldiers who participated in G-RAP, or its smaller counterpart for the Army Reserve, AR-RAP, were offered $2,000 for each successful referral.

When the program came under scrutiny for millions in potential fraud, a CID investigation called Task Force Raptor put a stop to it.

Between 2012 and 2016, the Army conducted over 900 reviews, officials said at the Thursday roundtable, adding that 286 individuals faced administrative action while another 137 faced prosecution.

Ford noted that for those who were negatively impacted by the sweeping investigation, any sort of compensation or relief will likely be determined on an individual basis.

CID is encouraging soldiers and veterans to reach out via its website with updated contact information if they believe they’ve been impacted.

“We absolutely are and should be capable of conducting an investigation within the span and scope of this,” Ford said.

Within the next 90 days, the Army will complete a review of its policies, processes and training to ensure future investigations are conducted appropriately, he also shared.

For O’Connell, the Texas lawyer with G-RAP clients, the Army’s admission means the service Army has acknowledged some liability. It also comes, he added, as the service struggles with a large recruiting shortfall.

“The Army has repeatedly denied these same facts over the last decade,” O’Connell told Army Times. “The admissions today are the result of negative media coverage and a desire to resurrect the G-RAP program to compensate for failing recruiting numbers.”

Army Times reported in September that the National Guard is considering whether it will reestablish a national-level recruiting referral bonus program to address a worsening recruiting and end strength shortfall.

About Jonathan Lehrfeld

Jonathan is a staff writer and editor of the Early Bird Brief newsletter for Military Times. Follow him on Twitter @lehrfeld_media

9. US, South Korea to extend military drills after North Korean launches

​An agile alliance. There should be no doubt the US will respond and will not back down in the face of north Korean provocations.

US, South Korea to extend military drills after North Korean launches

Defense News · by Joe Gould · November 3, 2022

WASHINGTON ― The U.S. and South Korea announced Thursday they will extend joint military drills in the wake of North Korea’s saber-rattling this week, which included an intercontinental ballistic missile launch.

North Korea fired at least six missiles into the sea on Thursday and more than 20 missiles a day earlier, prompting condemnation from Seoul and Washington ― including U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after a prescheduled Pentagon meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jong-sup.

“I’ve consulted with Minister Lee and we’ve decided to extend Vigilant Storm, which is our long-scheduled combined training exercise, to further bolster our readiness and interoperability,” Austin said at a joint press conference.

“Our commitment to defending the ROK is ironclad. We strongly condemn the DPRK’s irresponsible and reckless activities,” Austin said, using acronyms for South Korea and North Korea. “We call on them to cease this type of activity and to begin to engage in serious dialogue.”

North Korea’s provocations came in reaction to the joint Vigilant Storm drills, which involve some 240 aircraft, including F-35s, and thousands of U.S. and South Korean troops. North Korea had issued a veiled threat Tuesday to use nuclear weapons, and the two countries fear North Korea might next undertake its first nuclear test since 2017.

Lee said Pyongyang is capable of a nuclear launch, but it’s unclear when it might happen or for what political aim.

Austin and Lee did not say how long the drills would be extended. However, North Korea has warned the decision to extend the air drills would spark “an uncontrollable phase,” South Korean media reported.

In a further sign of the tensions, both Austin and Lee said the alliance’s nuclear and conventional deterrents are in play, while Lee also warned that if Kim Jong Un uses nuclear weapons it would result in the end of his regime.

“Secretary Austin and I affirm that any nuclear attack by the DPRK, including the use of tactical nuclear weapons is unacceptable and would result in the end of the Kim Jong Un regime by the overwhelming and decisive response of the alliance,” Lee said. “This is a strong warning against the DPRK.”

In the wake of North Korea’s launches, Austin defended U.S. efforts to deter North Korea, saying the U.S. has shown its combat power and commitment by sending American fifth-generation fighter aircraft and the carrier Ronald Reagan to the region this year. Such deployments will continue on a routine basis, but there will be “no new deployment of U.S. strategic assets on a permanent basis,” he said.

As part of efforts to rebuild trilateral security cooperation between the U.S., South Korea and Japan, Lee said there’s new agreement to restart the Defense Trilateral Talks. The dialogues had been suspended for several years as longstanding tensions between South Korea and Japan flared, but Lee said South Korea had agreed to trilateral senior-level policy talks, information sharing and training.

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The White House did not provide evidence to support the new accusations or answer questions about how many weapons were involved.

South Korea and the United States also agreed this week to boost coordination in their monitoring of North Korea.

On Wednesday, Lee became the first South Korean defense minster to visit the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the agency in charge of processing and analyzing satellite imagery. NGA, which is headquartered in Springfield, Va., also delivers products to the intelligence community, military and policymakers.

South Korea’s defense ministry said Lee and NGA’s director, Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth, discussed ways to respond to North Korea and agreed to continue cooperation between U.S. and South Korea’s intelligence agencies regarding Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile arsenal.

Lee touted South Korea’s plan to deploy reconnaissance satellites as the key component of its kill-chain strategy, which calls for a preemptive strike as a means of deterring a North Korean nuclear attack.

The Biden administration’s National Defense Strategy, released late last month, puts a renewed focus on China and the Pacific, even as the Russia-Ukraine war dominates the headlines. It’s an open question, however, how much Seoul ― geostrategically pressed between the U.S. and China ― will talk about China in its upcoming strategy for the region, expected before the end of the year.

On Thursday, Lee did not mention China directly but said he and Austin agreed on the importance of the rules-based international order and about the need for peace and stability in the region.

“The Republic of Korea, as a responsible global pivotal state of the international community, will more closely cooperate with the United States ― the only ally of our nation ― in order to overcome global security challenges,” Lee said.

About Joe Gould

Joe Gould is the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He served previously as Congress reporter.​

10. Pentagon To Launch New Study On How to Get at Hard, Deeply Buried Targets

I think we have been studying this problem for years and we must continue to study this problem.

Excerpts:

Overall, the review makes clear that the United States will continue to modernize its bomber and submarine fleet and will replace the intercontinental ballistic missiles that make up the final leg of the triad with new missiles, as opposed to attempting to extend the life of the older ones. Johnson explained that the cost to repair the ICBMs was greater than just replacing them.

Pentagon To Launch New Study On How to Get at Hard, Deeply Buried Targets

A senior defense official explains the thinking behind the Biden Administration’s nuclear policy document.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

The newly released Nuclear Posture Review contained few surprises, but did call for the retirement of one element in the U.S. nuclear arsenal: the B83 megaton gravity bomb. Now, because of that decision, the United States must look at new means to get at deeply buried targets, a senior defense official said Tuesday.

“We're going to be doing a major study looking at what capabilities we could bring to bear to that challenge, whether those are nuclear or non-nuclear,” Richard Johnson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and counter weapons of mass destruction policy, said Tuesday at an Atlantic Council event.

The B83 can cause a 1.2 megaton explosion, nearly 80 times larger than the 15 kiloton explosion caused by the “Little Boy” bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima in World War II. Over time, Johnson said, large atomic gravity bombs have seen a “diminishment of usefulness.” The United States is moving in the direction of smarter weapons, like the so-called long-range stand-off weapon, an air-launched nuclear cruise missile, while China and Russia are focusing more on highly-maneuverable nuclear hypersonic missiles.

But big gravity bombs are useful for getting at hard and deeply-buried targets, referred to as HDBs. So the United States now needs strategies for those.

The review also discontinues research into the low-yield, sea-launched cruise missile, which had been in a developmental phase. That missile could also have gone onto lighter, smaller attack submarines that have not traditionally hosted nuclear weapons, Johnson said, which “kind of changes the mission a little bit of our submarines. We have different kinds of submarines for different missions, and there was lots of discussion about whether that would, you know, impact the effectiveness of those attack submarines,” in part because adversaries might assume that all U.S. attack submarines could be armed with nuclear missiles.

Overall, the review makes clear that the United States will continue to modernize its bomber and submarine fleet and will replace the intercontinental ballistic missiles that make up the final leg of the triad with new missiles, as opposed to attempting to extend the life of the older ones. Johnson explained that the cost to repair the ICBMs was greater than just replacing them.

By dropping the sea-launched cruise missile, the Biden administration took a softer line than some hawks, such as former Defense Secretary James Mattis, had advocated for. But some in the non-proliferation community still saw the review as a disappointment.

“Previous efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals and the role that nuclear weapons play have been subdued by renewed strategic competition abroad and opposition from defense hawks at home,” the Federation of American Scientists noted in a brief last week.

Stephen I. Schwartz, a nonresident senior fellow at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, told Motherboard that the review doesn’t do enough to challenge the military’s assumptions and preferences on nuclear weapons. Instead, he said, it “effectively rubber stamp[ed] both the posture and the weapons systems that are in place.”

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

11. Don Bolduc May Pull Off an Upset in New Hampshire

Don Bolduc May Pull Off an Upset in New Hampshire

Democrats got the Senate opponent they wanted. Maggie Hassan may pay the price.

By Andrew Cline

Nov. 3, 2022 6:20 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-new-hampshire-maggie-hassan-don-bolduc-election-midterms-nomination-gop-political-analysis-11667507255?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Concord, N.H.

Reporters and political analysts wove a single story line through this year’s U.S. Senate races: Poor Republican candidate selection put multiple winnable races in jeopardy for the GOP. There’s truth to that. Yet its quick acceptance left an equally obvious story underreported: Many of the Democrats are terrible candidates too.

Sometimes these two story lines collide. That’s the case in New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate race between Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan and outsider Republican Don Bolduc. When GOP primary voters in September rejected a more experienced candidate in favor of Mr. Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general, seasoned political observers agreed that Ms. Hassan had an easy path to re-election.

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The day after Mr. Bolduc’s nomination, Vox declared national Democrats the winner. On Oct. 7, Politico declared that “New Hampshire appears increasingly out of reach for the GOP.” Now the race is a statistical tie. The two most recent polls show Mr. Bolduc nosing ahead. The outsider Republican who’s never held elective office has a real shot at beating the polished attorney whose decadeslong political résumé includes stints as state Senate president, governor and U.S. senator. Team Hassan has to be wondering how it wound up in this position.

Ms. Hassan’s campaign and the national Democratic Party were so sure they wanted to face Mr. Bolduc that the Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC spent more than $3.2 million in the Republican primary to attack his leading opponent, state Senate President Chuck Morse. Democrats and Republicans alike assumed that Mr. Morse, a 10-year veteran of the state Senate, would have broader appeal. Insiders in both parties believed the brash Mr. Bolduc would turn off independents and suburban voters. And there was the money issue. Mr. Bolduc didn’t spend a dime on TV ads during the primary. He couldn’t afford them.

Mr. Morse knew the issues, appealed to moderates, and could raise money. But Republican voters weren’t in the mood for someone who’d spent time in the political system. Vikram Mansharamani, a newcomer who ran in the primary against Messrs. Bolduc and Morse, said that everywhere he went in the state, the message from GOP voters was resounding: We want an outsider.

In Mr. Bolduc, they got one. And that’s why Ms. Hassan is in trouble. If the mood of the electorate is such that plain-spoken authenticity beats focus-grouped inauthenticity, then Ms. Hassan is at a distinct disadvantage. She is smart and accomplished, but in 20 years of public service she has carefully crafted a public persona rooted in late-1990s Democratic centrism. When she speaks to the public—which isn’t often—she is cautious to a fault. Every statement seems painstakingly crafted to mystify rather than clarify.

Mr. Bolduc still doesn’t have any money. His campaign has raised a paltry $2.2 million and spent $1.9 million. Ms. Hassan’s campaign has raised $38.2 million and spent $36 million. Despite being outgunned financially, Mr. Bolduc has managed to tie the race going into the final weekend. How?

Most obviously, Mr. Bolduc is more aligned with a majority of New Hampshire voters on the issues. He supports cutting federal spending and taxes, increasing domestic energy production, controlling the border, protecting Second Amendment rights and limiting foreign military engagements. He talks about inflation and energy prices constantly. Reluctant to draw attention to her voting record, Ms. Hassan relentlessly attacks Mr. Bolduc on abortion and Social Security. Whenever she mentions the Democratic Party, it’s to say that she stood up to it on some small, forgotten bill.

Ms. Hassan’s campaign thought Mr. Bolduc would crumble under her attacks on abortion and his previous claims, since renounced, that the 2020 election was stolen. But painting him as an extremist is a challenge in a state where many of his views are essentially mainstream.

Beyond policy, there’s culture, and here Mr. Bolduc has another advantage. He has an everyman appeal that Ms. Hassan lacks. He’s no conventional politician. Asked a question, he gives a plain and direct answer. From his regulation Army haircut to his sensible shoes, he maintains an image that many in a rural state find familiar. Nothing about him seems the slightest bit calculated.

He’s taken this show on the road, to great effect. Since losing a bid for the Republican nomination against Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in 2020, he’s traveled the state in a continuous conversation with voters. He’s held dozens of town-hall meetings during this campaign, where he not only talks, he listens. At baseball games, fall fairs and town gatherings, it’s not uncommon to see Mr. Bolduc chatting amiably with strangers and letting kids pet his dog.

Ms. Hassan, by contrast, has a public persona that screams “political establishment.” She doesn’t release her public schedule, hasn’t had an open press conference in years, and studiously avoids engaging with anyone who isn’t screened by her staff. She had agreed to a debate hosted by the Nashua Chamber of Commerce, then said she would attend only if she and Mr. Bolduc weren’t on stage together.

New Hampshire is a quirky state that doesn’t mind sending unconventional outsiders to Washington. Mr. Bolduc is an outsider’s outsider. If he pulls this off, it will be an upset for the ages, due in part to his opponent’s impressive effort to maintain a protective buffer between herself and those she represents.

Mr. Cline is president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy.

12. Secret War: Security cooperation programs have led U.S. forces into unauthorized hostilities alongside foreign partners.

A critique of security cooperation/security assistance.

The 40 page report can be downloaded here: https://www.brennancenter.org/media/10388/download

​This includes a fairly comprehensive discussion of authorities.​

Table of contents:

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 

I. History and Overview of Constitutional War Powers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 

Early History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 

The Cold War. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 

September 11 and Its Aftermath. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 

II. Security Cooperation Authorities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 

10 U.S.C. § 333: The Global Train-and-Equip Authority. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 

10 U.S.C. § 127e: Surrogate Forces to Counter Terrorism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 

The § 1202 Authority: Surrogate Forces to Counter State Actors. . . . . . . . . . 21 

III. The Need for Reform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 

Preventing Unauthorized Hostilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 

Improving Congressional and Public Oversight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 

Restating and Enforcing the Balance of War Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 

Endnotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Secret War

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SUMMARY: Security cooperation programs have led U.S. forces into unauthorized hostilities alongside foreign partners. Congress must curb this dangerous and undemocratic practice.

• Katherine Yon Ebright

 PUBLISHED: November 3, 2022

Afghanistan, Iraq, maybe Libya. If you asked the average American where the United States has been at war in the past two decades, you would likely get this short list. But this list is wrong — off by at least 17 countries in which the United States has engaged in armed conflict through ground forces, proxy forces, or air strikes.footnote1_xxjkgmf1

For members of the public, the full extent of U.S. war-making is unknown. Investigative journalists and human rights advocates have cobbled together a rough picture of where the military has used force, but they rely on sources whose information is often incomplete, belated, or speculative. There is only so much one can learn about the United States’ military footprint from trawling Purple Heart ceremonies, speaking with retired military personnel, and monitoring social media for reports of civilian harm.footnote2_315axmq2

Congress’s understanding of U.S. war-making is often no better than the public record. The Department of Defense provides congressionally mandated disclosures and updates to only a small number of legislative offices. Sometimes, it altogether fails to comply with reporting requirements, leaving members of Congress uninformed about when, where, and against whom the military uses force. After U.S. forces took casualties in Niger in 2017, for example, lawmakers were taken aback by the very presence of U.S. forces in the country.footnote3_6hjnw493

 Without access to such basic information, Congress is unable to perform necessary oversight.

It is not just the public and Congress who are out of the loop. The Department of Defense’s diplomatic counterparts in the Department of State also struggle to understand and gain insight into the reach of U.S. hostilities. Where congressional oversight falters, so too does oversight within the executive branch.

This proliferation of secret war is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it is undemocratic and dangerous. The conduct of undisclosed hostilities in unreported countries contravenes our constitutional design. It invites military escalation that is unforeseeable to the public, to Congress, and even to the diplomats charged with managing U.S. foreign relations. And it risks poorly conceived, counterproductive operations with runaway costs, in terms of both dollars and civilian lives. So how did we get here?

Two sources of the government’s ability to wage war in secret are already the subject of much discussion. The first is the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which was enacted in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Notwithstanding the limitations in its text, the 2001 AUMF has been stretched by four successive administrations to cover a broad assortment of terrorist groups, the full list of which the executive branch long withheld from Congress and still withholds from the public. The second is the covert action statute, an authority for secret, unattributed, and primarily CIA-led operations that can involve the use of force.footnote4_3677le74

 Despite a series of Cold War–era executive orders that prohibit assassinations, the covert action statute has been used throughout the war on terror to conduct drone strikes outside areas of active hostilities.

But there is a third class of statutory authorities that enable undisclosed hostilities yet have received little public attention: security cooperation authorities. Congress enacted these provisions in the years following September 11 to allow U.S. forces to work through and with foreign partners. One of them, now codified at 10 U.S.C. § 333, permits the Department of Defense to train and equip foreign forces anywhere in the world. Another, now codified at 10 U.S.C. § 127e, authorizes the Department of Defense to provide “support” to foreign forces, paramilitaries, and private individuals who are in turn “supporting” U.S. counterterrorism operations.

While training and support may sound benign, these authorities have been used beyond their intended purpose. Section 333 programs have resulted in U.S. forces pursuing their partners’ adversaries under a strained interpretation of constitutional self-defense. Section 127e programs have allowed the United States to develop and control proxy forces that fight on behalf of and sometimes alongside U.S. forces. In short, these programs have enabled or been used as a springboard for hostilities.

The public and even most of Congress is unaware of the nature and scope of these programs. The Department of Defense has given little indication of how it interprets §§ 333 and 127e, how it decides which § 333 partner forces to defend, and where it conducts § 127e programs. When U.S. forces operating under these authorities direct or engage in combat, the Department of Defense often declines to inform Congress and the public, reasoning that the incident was too minor to trigger statutory reporting requirements.

Notwithstanding the challenges Congress has faced in overseeing activities under §§ 333 and 127e, Congress recently expanded the Department of Defense’s security cooperation authorities. Section 1202 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2018 largely mirrors § 127e, but instead of supporting U.S. counterterrorism efforts, the partner forces it covers are intended to support U.S. “irregular warfare operations” against “rogue states,” such as Iran or North Korea, or “near-peers,” such as Russia and China. Far beyond the bounds of the war on terror, § 1202 may be used to engage in low-level conflict with powerful, even nuclear, states.

Through these security cooperation provisions, the Department of Defense, not Congress, decides when and where the United States counters terrorist groups and even state adversaries. Moreover, by determining that “episodic” confrontations and “irregular” warfare do not amount to “hostilities,” the Department of Defense has avoided notification and reporting requirements, leaving Congress and the public in the dark.footnote5_zhdamx75

This report delves into the legal frameworks for conducting and overseeing security cooperation and identifies how those frameworks have inaugurated the modern era of secret war. It draws on public reporting and materials prepared by the Departments of Defense and State, as well as interviews with administration officials, congressional staffers, and journalists. Part I provides a brief history and overview of constitutional war powers and congressional oversight of the military; part II analyzes the suite of authorities under which security cooperation takes place; and part III identifies the constitutional defects of this secret war-making and proposes reforms to increase transparency and prevent abuse.

Endnotes

• footnote1_xxjkgmf
• 1 Nick Turse, Amanda Sperber, and Sam Mednick, “Inside the Secret World of US Commandos in Africa,” Pulitzer Center, August 11, 2020, https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/exclusive-inside-secret-world-us-commandos-africa (reporting that, as of 2017, U.S. special operations forces had engaged in combat in 12 countries across Africa, in addition to the U.S. intervention and subsequent involvement in Libya); Stephanie Savell, “The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force: A Comprehensive Look at Where and How It Has Been Used,” Costs of War Project, Brown University Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, December 14, 2021, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2021/Costs%20of%20War_2001%20AUMF.pdf (identifying additional hostilities in Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen); Nick Turse and Alice Speri, “How the Pentagon Uses a Secretive Program to Wage Proxy Wars,” Intercept, July 1, 2022, https://theintercept.com/2022/07/01/pentagon-127e-proxy-wars (discussing a proxy force program involving combat in Lebanon); and Linda Robinson, Patrick B. Johnston, and Gillian S. Oak, U.S. Special Operations Forces in the Philippines, 2001–2014 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016), 53, 70, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1200/RR1236/RAND_RR1236.pdf.
• footnote2_315axmq
• 2 See, e.g., Kyle Rempfer, “How US Troops Survived a Little-Known al-Qaeda Raid in Mali Two Years Ago,” Military Times, April 16, 2020, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/04/16/how-us-troops-survived-a-little-known-al-qaeda-raid-in-mali-two-years-ago; Wesley Morgan, “Behind the Secret U.S. War in Africa,” Politico, July 2, 2018, https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/02/secret-war-africa-pentagon-664005; and “Methodology,” Airwars, last accessed September 19, 2022, https://airwars.org/about/methodology.
• footnote3_6hjnw49
• 3 Valerie Volcovici, “U.S. Senators Seek Answers on U.S. Presence in Niger After Ambush,” Reuters, October 22, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-niger-usa/u-s-senators-seek-answers-on-u-s-presence-in-niger-after-ambush-idUSKBN1CR0NG.
• footnote4_3677le7
• 4 Presidential Approval and Reporting of Covert Actions, 50 U.S.C. § 3093 (1991). Covert action, as opposed to clandestine activity, is not merely secretive. It is designed to be deniable, such that the United States will be neither blamed nor held responsible for the action. Michael E. DeVine, “Covert Action and Clandestine Activities of the Intelligence Community: Selected Definitions in Brief,” Congressional Research Service, updated June 14, 2019, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/intel/R45175.pdf.
• footnote5_zhdamx7

13. China private security companies making a BRI killing

This is an area where we can advise and assist our friends, partners, and allies to counter Chinese malign activities as part of strategic competition.

China private security companies making a BRI killing

China’s use of PSCs expected to rise as Belt and Road Initiative projects face rising challenges in fraught geopolitical environment

asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · November 1, 2022

China’s private security companies (PSC) seem poised to play a larger role in securing the country’s expanding global interests, acting as a strategic tool to ensure an armed presence in key areas amid rising tensions with the United States.

In particular, China’s PSCs are expected to play a greater role in protecting Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects after President Xi Jinping’s remarks at the recently concluded 20th Communist Party Congress.

In his remarks, Xi stated that China would “strengthen our capacity to ensure overseas security and protect the lawful rights and interests of Chinese citizens and legal entities overseas,” implying a larger role for China’s PSCs.

Significantly, a PSC protects a single strategic point, such as an embassy, port or military base, while a private military contractor (PMC) engages in a wider variety of military operations.

In a 2018 report, the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies (MERICS) noted that out of 5,000 registered Chinese PSCs, 20 provide international services, with 3,200 personnel operating in countries ranging from Sudan, Pakistan and Iraq. The actual number, according to other sources, is probably much higher.

Even so, China plays a small part in the global – and lucrative – PSC industry. According to an October report by the Jamestown Foundation, a US-based think tank, the global PSC industry is worth between US$100-224 billion annually, with the US being the largest consumer of private military and security services.

Of that figure, China’s overseas PSC industry is believed to be worth just $10 billion. But that figure could rise dramatically alongside the growth of BRI projects, as noted by the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) in a 2018 report.

Paul Nantulya, a research associate with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, says that China’s strategic shift from Deng Xiaoping’s principle of “biding its time, hiding its strength, and never taking the lead” to global leadership has provided impetus for the expansion of China’s PSC industry, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) quoted him as saying.

“There will be more recruitment of security firms run by ex-People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and ex-Chinese police to provide security for Chinese state-owned enterprises involved in implementing the Belt and Road Initiative’s multimillion-dollar programs,” Nantulya said, according to SCMP.

A mountain pass along the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Image: Facebook

Pascal Abb from the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt points out that most BRI projects are overconcentrated in poor, unstable or conflict-ridden environments such as Pakistan, Myanmar, Nigeria and Sri Lanka.

“For example, after the [2021] coup in Myanmar, protesters in Yangon set fire to Chinese-owned textile factories, as punishment for what they saw as Chinese support for the new junta regime,” Abb says. He said that the BRI’s presence in conflict zones and often questionable project terms bring unique dangers, which opens markets for China’s PSCs.

Along those lines, Aaron Magunna, a European Foundation for South Asian Studies research analyst, says that the BRI has created and sustained overseas demand for China’s PSCs, citing their particularly pronounced presence in Cambodia.

China’s BRI expansion in high-risk countries in Africa, West Asia, Central Asia and Southeast Asia, often characterized by limited governance, weak institutions and chronic corruption, poses security dilemmas for Beijing, as noted in a September 2020 report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

The report notes that China’s cooperation with despotic local regimes and its own internal discriminatory behavior towards religious and ethnic minorities, including in Xinjiang, can turn BRI projects, assets and personnel into targets for discontent from disenfranchised, terrorist and extremist groups.

China’s particular military and political needs raise unique risks for its PSCs.

While the most direct course of action would be to deploy the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to secure China’s BRI projects, such a move might trigger perceptions of Chinese militarism, expansionism, and neo-colonialism – the very practices that President Xi often alludes to portray the US and West in a negative light in developing countries where China aims to get a BRI foothold.

At the same time, China may still face capability constraints in sustaining large-scale military operations far from its borders. In a July article in South China Morning Post, US Department of Defense (DOD) senior analyst Joshua Arostegui pointed to what he judged as surprising shortfalls in PLA logistics support, basing his conclusions on US military analysis of Chinese state footage focusing on the lack of PLA logistics infrastructure from logistics ships to aircraft aprons.

To compensate for these shortfalls, China may use PSCs as a persistent security element in its BRI projects to provide a low-level presence it may find more feasible to maintain.

At the same time, China’s PSCs may serve a larger geopolitical purpose, operating under a legal grey area. A January report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank notes that China exercises strict control over its security sector, limiting what its PSCs can do domestically and abroad.

The report states that Chinese PSCs that nominally operate independently may receive funding or contracts from the Chinese government, be under direct government control, or work for Chinese state-owned enterprises. The report notes a critical distinction between China’s PSCs and PMCs, noting that while China explicitly forbids PMCs, it legalized and regulated PSCs in 2009.

That tight state control may have helped China’s PSCs avoid entanglements in regional conflicts and the rogue violence associated with PMCs such as America’s Blackwater and Russia’s Wagner Group, notes Cortney Weinbaum in a March article for RAND.

Members of the Wagner Group in Syria. Photo: Twitter

However, she says that the growth of China’s PSCs may lead them to take a more militarized approach in future, exposing themselves to the pitfalls they were created and regulated to avoid in the first place.

Weinbaum notes that while China has shown strategic restraint in its use of PSCs, it has the option of widening employment to cover a broader range of military operations should China change its outlook.

It is thus plausible that China’s PSCs are quietly becoming an asymmetric means of force projection as Beijing weighs their global reach, plausible deniability, potential strategic effect on BRI host nations and relatively lower costs than traditional military deployments.

asiatimes.com · by Gabriel Honrada · November 1, 2022

14. US military entering ‘window of maximum danger’ (Interview with Rep. Mike Gallagher)

Conclusion:

So, if we don't move with urgency to restore deterrence with a meaningful investment in hard power and much more confident and strong leadership in the Pentagon and the White House, I fear we could find ourselves in a kinetic confrontation with China in the next couple years.

US military entering ‘window of maximum danger’

by Jamie McIntyre, Senior Writer |  November 03, 2022 11:00 PM

Washington Examiner · November 4, 2022

Rep. Mike Gallagher is one of the strongest voices in Congress advocating a robust U.S. military capable of confronting China and defending American interests around the world. The Princeton University graduate was first elected in 2016 to represent Wisconsin's 8th Congressional District, covering Green Bay and the Badger State's northeastern realm.

Gallagher spent seven years in the Marine Corps, including two tours in Iraq, and holds several advanced degrees, including a Ph.D. in international relations from Georgetown University. Gallagher, 38, spoke with Washington Examiner senior writer on defense and national security Jamie McIntyre about why he believes the United States is entering a "window of maximum danger."

[Note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.]

Washington Examiner: You were invited by the Heritage Foundation to preside over the release of its Index of U.S. Military Strength, which rates the readiness of the U.S. Army as “marginal,” the Navy and Space Force as “weak,” and the Air Force as “very weak” — the lowest grades in the nine-year history of the highly respected index. Only the Marine Corps, in which you served, and U.S. nuclear forces were rated “strong." What’s going on?

Rep. Mike Gallagher: I think it's a confluence of a few things. One, notwithstanding an infusion of dollars during the Trump administration to fix some readiness gaps, we've cut the military at a time when threats are increasing. Every budget proposed by recent presidents has amounted to a real term cut, at least the initial budgets [and that's what] the Biden budget was.

Two, we have the rise of China. We haven't really seen anything like we've seen with the massive military investment that China is making in its military. And of course, this isn't just a military threat. It's an economic threat. It's an ideological threat. And it's a threat for which we were completely unprepared. We were incredibly complacent, and we deluded ourselves with a naive assumption that integrating them into the global economy would moderate their political and military behavior. But precisely the opposite happened. They grew more aggressive, they militarized the South and the East China Sea, and of course, they have designs on taking Taiwan.

The third thing is that, in particular under the Biden administration, but also under the Obama administration, we have adopted a set of naive utopian assumptions about how the world works that has allowed liberal presidents to attempt to justify defense cuts. This idea that we've somehow evolved beyond wars of territorial expansion, that bad men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have some allegiance to the rules-based international order. So, all of this conspires to downgrade hard power and elevate soft power, and that's a recipe for deterrence failures.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., speaks during A House Republicans press conference on the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

(CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Washington Examiner: How do we see that playing out in the world today?

Rep. Gallagher: Look no further than Ukraine for evidence that that's precisely what happened. There, we relied solely on soft power. It was a perfect test of the Biden administration's defense strategy, the strategy of “integrated deterrence.” Integrated deterrence is all about cutting conventional hard power and making up the difference with soft power, with new technology and allies. Well, we tested that in Ukraine, and deterrence failed. It failed because we relied on the threat of sanctions and sternly worded statements. And even Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were forced to admit it failed, and the only thing that could deter Vladimir Putin was American hard power.

Washington Examiner: When you say the U.S. is divesting in “hard power” in favor of so-called “integrated deterrence,” can you help us cut through the jargon and understand what that means?

Rep. Gallagher: I mean, that is the problem. “Integrated deterrence” is jargon. It's unnecessary pseudo-academic jargon that's designed to cover what the Biden administration is trying to do — cut traditional conventional power: ships, planes, bombs, and instead invest in long-term technology. They're bragging about a 9.5% increase in research and development. I'm all for investing in hypersonics, directed energy, and AI, which will be critical for the future. But the problem is those technologies won't be ready for prime time within the next five years or, more likely, even within the decade. And if China makes a move in the near term, the exquisite technology that's going to be fielded in 2035 doesn't do a damn thing to deter China from taking Taiwan.

Washington Examiner: What kinds of things should the U.S. be doing now to prepare for the increasing threat from China?

Rep. Gallagher: I think the big lesson of Ukraine is that we really need to start procuring critical munitions at a rapid rate. We need to do what former Defense Secretary Robert Gates did for the MRAP [Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles] when it comes to LRASMs [anti-ship missiles], Javelins [anti-armor missiles], and Stingers [anti-aircraft missiles]. We need advanced energetics for an intermediate-range missile, now that we're no longer bound by the INS treaty. And all those things need to be fielded and stockpiled in the Indo-Pacific before the shooting starts, and there I've seen little to no progress. So, finding a way to invest more resources in hard power, in weapons, in particular, I think is going to have to be the mission of the next secretary of defense.

Washington Examiner: So again, you’re talking about hard power, a show of force, a flexing of military muscle?

Rep. Gallagher: What needs to be the primary focus of our efforts in the next Congress, at least on the Armed Services Committee, is to avoid a deterrence failure with Taiwan like we saw in Ukraine. It's all about surging hard power through Taiwan and throughout the first island chain. We have $14 billion worth of backlogged foreign military sales items that have been approved but not delivered to Taiwan. We need to get those delivered ASAP. Move Taiwan to the front of the [Foreign Military Sales] line. They're still behind Saudi Arabia in some cases.

Washington Examiner: Let's go back to the budget. It's true, as you say, that the Biden administration proposed a budget that would've amounted to a real cut in defense spending when inflation is factored in. But Congress on a bipartisan basis, as it's done in the past, has added billions more — $45 billion more just this fiscal year, bringing total defense spending to $847 billion for fiscal 2023. Shouldn't that be enough to buy a world-class military?

Rep. Gallagher: It should. And certainly, the money we infused over the top of the Trump administration budget helped with some of our readiness problems. But here's what we have now. But we have a new glitch in the matrix: inflation. You cited the $45 billion figure. Well, in the new Heritage report, they talk about how inflation has just stolen over $50 billion from the Army. The actual number of inflation is going to take in terms of purchasing power from the Pentagon over the course of the FYDP [Future Years Defense Program] is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. So, we're getting less defense at more cost because of the scourge of inflation.

Washington Examiner: Are we spending money on the wrong things?

Rep. Gallagher: In certain places, yes. To some extent, the military has the same problem that the rest of society does, which is that money for healthcare and retirement and overall personnel costs are crowding out all of our other priorities. The other thing that we've seen really explode since the early Cold War has been the bureaucracy in the Pentagon — with the Joint Staff of roughly 5,000 people and the Office of the Secretary of Defense of roughly 5,000 people. The entire acquisition workforce is almost the size of the Marine Corps. The DOD civilian workforce is greater than the size of the Army. So, our tooth-to-tail ratio is completely unbalanced. We're sapping resources that need to be going to the sharp end of the spear and instead spending it on an army of bureaucrats in the E-ring of the Pentagon.

Washington Examiner: How serious is the current recruiting crisis in maintaining a top-notch all-volunteer force?

Rep. Gallagher: It's incredibly serious. The Army missed its targets. All the other services are struggling too. The Marine Corps barely met its targets. And these problems tend to compound. We're seeing a large proportion of the young population in America who doesn't even want to serve just because of their views about the military. My concern is that the military has become politicized in recent years and that’s contributing to the recruiting crisis. We could have the best ships in world, and the most lethal planes in the world, but if you don't have fit, smart human beings that are willing to fight and die for your country, you don't have a strong military. It's all about the people that we get to serve. So, I'm very, very concerned about it. It's jeopardizing the continued existence of the all-volunteer force.

Washington Examiner: Can the country afford to both spend on so-called legacy systems while at the same time investing in technologies for future wars — robot systems, hypersonics, artificial intelligence?

Rep. Gallagher: Yes, I absolutely believe so. I mean, look at the Navy. The Navy's probably been the most challenging. The Navy didn't get the worst grade in the Heritage report, the Air Force did, but the Navy got rated as weak. Under the Biden plan, the Navy would shrink from roughly 296 ships to 280 ships in 2027. That's the worst possible time. That's the PLA's target date for taking Taiwan. It's their hundredth anniversary. So we'll be weakest when they intend to be strongest.

I see the path forward involving a mix of legacy systems and transformative technology. We need to send a strong signal to the ship-building industrial state that we are going to grow the fleet to 355 ships as quickly as possible as specified by law.

But because it's going to take us at least a decade to meaningfully increase the size of the Navy, we need a short-term hedging strategy, what I'm calling an anti-Navy — something we can absolutely build on the cheap and very quickly. You can surge long-range conventional precision fires in three concentric rings across the Pacific. On Taiwan itself, you can take advantage of loitering munitions to make Taiwan a very tough target. There's a variety of things you can do that wouldn't break the bank, that would push the timeline for a war with China over Taiwan into the 2030s when it's much more advantageous to us and when the Chinese are confronting a whole host of domestic dilemmas.

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Washington Examiner: You’ve said in recent speeches and writings that the U.S. is in the “window of maximum danger” when it comes to China and Taiwan. Why is that?

Rep. Gallagher: A few things. One, Xi Jinping is 69 years old. He just secured his third term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and reunification of Taiwan with the mainland, by force if necessary, is his legacy issue. Just look at what he has already gotten away with: effectively taking over Hong Kong, genocide, and covering up a coronavirus pandemic that's killed at least 6 million globally, with the actual number of excess deaths closer to 20 million by some estimates. Why would he not be emboldened at the moment?

So, if we don't move with urgency to restore deterrence with a meaningful investment in hard power and much more confident and strong leadership in the Pentagon and the White House, I fear we could find ourselves in a kinetic confrontation with China in the next couple years.

Washington Examiner · November 4, 2022

15. ‘Two-minute drill’: Time is running out to break the Pentagon’s nominee logjam, Senate Dems say

‘Two-minute drill’: Time is running out to break the Pentagon’s nominee logjam, Senate Dems say

By CONNOR O’BRIEN

11/03/2022 03:06 PM EDT

Politico

The need to confirm the president's picks will compete with government funding and defense policy bills in the lame duck.

Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed said confirming all of President Joe Biden's pending Pentagon nominees “turns on the election.” | Pool photo by Melina Mara

11/03/2022 03:06 PM EDT

Senate Democrats want to finish up confirmations of senior Pentagon nominees who have been stuck in limbo for months — but there may not be enough time to get the job done.

More than a dozen of President Joe Biden’s civilian nominees await action when the Senate returns after the Nov. 8 midterm elections that could swing control of the chamber.

The list includes those who would oversee weapons purchases and industrial policy as the Pentagon and defense contractors are scrambling to build missiles, drones and ammunition to send to Ukraine and replace depleted inventories for the U.S. and NATO allies.

Confirmations of Biden’s Pentagon picks have ground to a halt in recent months amid resistance from some Republicans, and no nominees have been confirmed since July. Once the Senate returns next week, the need to confirm those officials will compete with other priorities regardless of the election’s outcome, including passing defense policy, striking an agreement to fund the government, and confirming the president’s judicial nominees.

Any nominees who aren’t confirmed by the end of this Congress are sent back to the White House to be renominated and start the process over.

The possibility of the Senate flipping to Republicans adds urgency to getting Pentagon nominees confirmed by the end of the year. Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said confirming all pending Pentagon nominees “turns on the election.”

“If there’s a Democratic Senate in the next term, then we have a little more flexibility to move off of judges and move to other departments,” Reed said last month at a Council on Foreign Relations event. “If we lose the majority, which is 50-50 at the moment, then I think there will be an all-out push to get as many judges as possible confirmed and that will interfere with the ability to get DoD people in.”

While 43 of Biden’s Pentagon nominees have been confirmed over his first two years in office, 11 picks still await a final vote by the full Senate. Four of those nominees have been waiting for confirmation votes since March.

The nominees awaiting votes include the Pentagon’s top watchdog, the chief health official, two senior acquisition leaders and the department’s top legislative liaison.

Two more nominees, Biden’s picks to be inspector general of the National Reconnaissance Office and the Pentagon’s top manpower and reserve affairs official, await Armed Services confirmation hearings.

Much of the logjam stems from objections by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has blocked speedy confirmations in protest of Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Resistance from a lone senator can’t prevent nominees from getting on the job. But Hawley’s blockade forces Senate leaders to burn through more time on the floor by holding extra procedural votes.

A deal to approve a bloc of nominees that has broad bipartisan support could ensure that many officials get on the job by the new year and don’t have to repeat the process and possibly face a GOP-led Senate. But no such deal appears to be in the offing yet.

That’s time the Senate likely won’t have if Democrats are prioritizing putting judges on the bench before losing power, said Arnold Punaro, a former Senate Armed Services Committee staff director.

“Even if you argued that they’re going to work through Christmas and up until Jan. 2 when the new Congress gets sworn in … we’re under the two-minute drill, frankly, when it comes to legislative days,” Punaro said. “And you’ve got 25 judges on the calendar that clearly are a priority for the administration.”

He contends that with “significant headwinds,” the executive branch needs to pressure Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to make filling out the defense bench a priority in the lame duck session. Punaro is specifically pushing for confirmation of two acquisition and industry-related nominees: Radha Plumb to be the No. 2 acquisition and sustainment official and Laura Taylor-Kale to be the Pentagon’s industrial base policy chief.

Defense nominees should be a higher priority for the Senate “based on what they want our industry to do” to help arm Ukraine, he said.

“You’ve got to have people that you can work with that are Senate-confirmed,” Punaro said. “Career people are OK, but … there’s a difference.”

Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who died last week and whose career included a stint as the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer in the Obama administration, had even offered last month to help convince leaders to hold votes on Plumb and Taylor-Kale. Punaro said he and Carter discussed it several times, and the former Pentagon chief agreed to the approach the Friday before he died.

Also on the waiting list is Pentagon weapons tester Nickolas Guertin, who is Biden’s pick to be the Navy’s acquisition chief, though the White House hasn’t formally nominated him yet. His selection comes as the Navy battles with Congress over whether to scrap numerous vessels the service contends aren’t worth the cost to maintain. But the delay in Guertin’s nomination means his confirmation will likely get punted to the next session.

Former Pentagon inspector general Glenn Fine is also making the case for the Senate to confirm an IG, which has been filled on an acting basis for more than six years. Biden’s pick for the job, Robert Storch, was approved by the Armed Services Committee in March but still hasn’t received a vote. In an Oct. 20 Government Executive op-ed, Fine called the delay “a mistake.”

“Serving in an acting position is not the same as being the permanent office holder. Some people in the agency — and some even in the IG’s office — think they can wait you out,” Fine wrote. “And a permanent IG can more readily set strategic policy and make long-term personnel decisions.”

Then-President Donald Trump pushed Fine out of the acting job in early 2020, replacing him with Sean O’Donnell, inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency. O’Donnell still fills both posts nearly two years into the Biden administration.

“It’s hard enough to provide oversight of one agency as an IG. It’s virtually impossible to handle two IG jobs, particularly when one of them involves the largest agency in government,” Fine wrote.

Biden has nonetheless made progress in naming his Pentagon team despite the logjam. Just one post, the assistant secretary for acquisition, doesn’t have a nominee out of the 57 Senate-confirmed civilian Pentagon jobs.

Armed Services leaders, meanwhile, will be focused primarily on passing their annual defense policy bill when the Senate returns the week after the elections. With little time left in the session, Reed and ranking Republican Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma aim to quickly pivot to negotiations with the House and produce a compromise bill that can get to Biden’s desk by the end of the year.

It’s unclear whether Senate Democrats will force the issue on stalled national security nominees, a stalemate Reed chafes at.

“It’s annoying in a way, because we are talking about people who play key roles in ensuring the safety and the welfare of men and women in the field,” Reed said.

POLITICO

Politico

16. The evolution of America’s China strategy

Excerpts:

Even if Xi was the predictable product of a Leninist party system, there remains a question about timing. Modernisation theory—and South Korea’s and Taiwan’s real-world experiences—suggests that when per capita annual income approaches US$10,000, a middle class will emerge, and autocracy becomes harder to maintain, compared to the poor peasant society that came before. But how long does this process take? While Marx argued that it took time, Lenin was more impatient and believed that historical developments could be accelerated by a vanguard exercising control over society. Despite Xi’s talk of Marxism-Leninism, it’s clearly Lenin who is prevailing over Marx in today’s China.

Did the engagement strategy’s mistake lie in expecting meaningful change within two decades, rather than half a century or more? It’s worth remembering that Xi is only the fifth leader of the People’s Republic of China. And as the China expert Orville Schell argues, it is ‘patronizing to assume that Chinese citizens will prove content to gain wealth and power alone without those aspects of life that other societies commonly consider fundamental to being human’.

Unfortunately, policymakers are always under time pressure and must formulate strategic objectives for the here and now. Biden has properly done that. The question for the years ahead is whether he can implement his policies in ways that do not foreclose the possibility of more benign future scenarios, even while recognising that they are distant.

The evolution of America’s China strategy | The Strategist

aspistrategist.org.au · by Joseph S. Nye · November 3, 2022

In its new national security strategy, US President Joe Biden’s administration recognises that Russia and China each present a different kind of challenge. Whereas Russia ‘poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system … [with] its brutal war of aggression’, China is the only competitor to the US ‘with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective’. The Pentagon thus refers to China as its ‘pacing challenge’.

Now that Chinese President Xi Jinping has used the 20th congress of the Chinese Communist Party to consolidate his power and to promote his ideological and nationalist objectives, it is worth reviewing the evolution of America’s China strategy. Some critics see the situation today as proof that presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were naive to pursue a strategy of engagement, including granting China membership in the World Trade Organization. But while there was certainly excessive optimism about China two decades ago, it wasn’t necessarily naive.

After the Cold War, the US, Japan and China were the three major powers in East Asia, and elementary realism suggested that the US ought to revive its alliance with Japan, rather than discounting it as an outdated relic of the post-World War II era. Long before China was admitted to the WTO in 2001, the Clinton administration had reaffirmed the US–Japan alliance, which remains the bedrock of Biden’s strategy.

Clinton and Bush realised that Cold War-style containment of China would be impossible, because other countries, attracted to the huge Chinese market, would not have gone along with it. So, the US instead sought to create an environment in which China’s rising power would also reshape its behaviour. Continuing Clinton’s policy, the Bush administration tried to coax China to contribute to global public goods and institutions by acting as what then-deputy secretary of state Robert B. Zoellick called ‘a responsible stakeholder’. The policy was to ‘engage, but hedge’. While augmenting a policy of balancing power with engagement obviously did not guarantee Chinese friendship, it did keep alive possible scenarios other than full hostility.

Was engagement a failure? Cai Xia, a former professor at the CCP’s Central Party School in Beijing, thinks so, arguing that the party’s

fundamental interests and its basic mentality of using the US while remaining hostile to it have not changed over the past 70 years. By contrast, since the 1970s, the two political parties in the United States and the US government have always had unrealistic good wishes for the Chinese communist regime, eagerly hoping that [it] would become more liberal, even democratic, and a ‘responsible’ power in the world.

Cai is well placed to judge a policy that began with US President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. But some of those who have described engagement as naive ignore the fact that the ‘hedge’ or insurance policy came first, and that the US–Japan alliance remains robust today.

Of course, there were some elements of naivete, as when Clinton famously predicted that China’s efforts to control the internet would fail. He thought the task would be like ‘nailing Jell-O to a wall’, but we now know that China’s ‘great firewall’ works quite well. It’s also clear in retrospect that the Bush administration and that of his successor, Barack Obama, should have done more to punish China for its failure to comply with the spirit and rules of the WTO.

In any case, the Xi era has dashed the earlier expectations that rapid economic growth would produce greater liberalisation, if not democratisation. For a while, China allowed greater freedom of travel, more foreign contacts, a wider range of opinions in publications and the development of some civil society organisations, including some devoted to human rights. But all that has now been curtailed.

Were the basic assumptions of engagement wrong? Before taking office, two of the leading officials responsible for the Biden administration’s new strategy wrote that ‘the basic mistake of engagement was to assume that it could bring about fundamental changes to China’s political system, economy, and foreign policy.’ A more realistic goal, they concluded, is to seek ‘a steady state of clear-eyed coexistence on terms favorable to US interests and values’.

On balance, the Biden team is correct about being unable to force fundamental changes in China. In the first decade of this century, China was still moving towards greater openness, moderation and pluralisation. ‘When Mr. Xi took over in 2012, China was changing fast’, notes The Economist. ‘The middle class was growing, private firms were booming, and citizens were connecting on social media. A different leader might have seen these as opportunities. Mr. Xi saw only threats.’

Even if Xi was the predictable product of a Leninist party system, there remains a question about timing. Modernisation theory—and South Korea’s and Taiwan’s real-world experiences—suggests that when per capita annual income approaches US$10,000, a middle class will emerge, and autocracy becomes harder to maintain, compared to the poor peasant society that came before. But how long does this process take? While Marx argued that it took time, Lenin was more impatient and believed that historical developments could be accelerated by a vanguard exercising control over society. Despite Xi’s talk of Marxism-Leninism, it’s clearly Lenin who is prevailing over Marx in today’s China.

Did the engagement strategy’s mistake lie in expecting meaningful change within two decades, rather than half a century or more? It’s worth remembering that Xi is only the fifth leader of the People’s Republic of China. And as the China expert Orville Schell argues, it is ‘patronizing to assume that Chinese citizens will prove content to gain wealth and power alone without those aspects of life that other societies commonly consider fundamental to being human’.

Unfortunately, policymakers are always under time pressure and must formulate strategic objectives for the here and now. Biden has properly done that. The question for the years ahead is whether he can implement his policies in ways that do not foreclose the possibility of more benign future scenarios, even while recognising that they are distant.

aspistrategist.org.au · by Joseph S. Nye · November 3, 2022

17. CCP constitutional change strengthens Xi’s power but avoids total personality cult

Excerpts:

The military–civil fusion development strategy, which was added in the 19th party congress amendments, was left in place, indicating that the CCP hasn’t dropped the strategy to siphon off resources from the private sector. However, the party’s strengthening of unilateral monitoring and mobilisation of society has led to a deterioration of economic activity in the private sector and an exodus of skilled workers. This is reflected in the prevalence of the online slang term ‘run philosophy’ (润学), which means emigration from China to a country whose people have freedom and human rights.

These modest amendments to the party constitution are important in that they avoid institutionalisation of a personalist dictatorship under Xi. On the other hand, Xi’s authority has been strengthened in terms of party organisation and ideology. From now on, China will be led by a highly homogeneous CCP made up of cadres who have pledged their loyalty to Xi personally. The growing homogeneity of the leadership will lead to greater exclusivity and a lack of other perspectives, which will weaken the party’s policy-correction function. As a result, the CCP is set to be more insensitive to international political changes and more assertive towards the outside world.

CCP constitutional change strengthens Xi’s power but avoids total personality cult | The Strategist

aspistrategist.org.au · by Masaaki Yatsuzuka · November 4, 2022

The Chinese Communist Party adopted a resolution on an amendment to its constitution at the closing session of the 20th national congress. The constitution describes the role of the party and its organisational structure, principles and ideology. It is amended at every national congress, so the fact of the amendment itself is not unusual, but analysing its content provides a clue as to the direction that the current administration is taking in terms of organisation and ideology for the next five years.

The focus of attention was on whether Chinese President Xi Jinping would revive the role of ‘chairman’ (党主席制), removed in a 1982 amendment, to further strengthen his authority as he starts his third term in office. The 20th congress highlighted Xi’s dominance over personnel matters, but the collective leadership system was maintained in the party’s institutional structure. The prohibitions against ‘personalist dictatorship’ (个人专断) and ‘cult of the individual’ (个人崇拜) from the 1982 amendment are retained in the current constitution.

Why was the party chairmanship not restored? One possibility is that there was opposition inside the party. The process of amending the party constitution involves discussions in the standing committee of the Central Political Bureau, the politburo and the plenary session of the CCP Central Committee. Xi himself reportedly hosted five roundtable meetings during this process. The move may have met with opposition from the congress presidential delegation, which includes retired leaders. Former president Jiang Zemin reportedly approved of Xi’s continuation as leader but expressed his opposition to a personalist dictatorship in the party.

Another possibility is that Xi himself decided not to pursue the change. He made major amendments to the constitution at the 19th party congress and therefore may have thought there was no need to make a major one this time around. Indeed, the previous amendments clearly stated the various terms relating to ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’ (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想) and strengthened the authority of the Commission for Discipline Inspection, furthering Xi’s consolidation of power. These amendments opened the door for his third term.

In light of the previous amendments, the main aim this time was to entrench the default line set by Xi’s previous administrations. One theme of the amendments was about strengthening Xi’s authority over the CCP. The revised constitution includes ‘virtue first, meritocracy’ (以德为先，先人为贤) as a criterion for the training and selection of cadres. As the appointments to the central committee and the politburo at the 20th congress confirm, virtue can be interpreted as loyalty to Xi and his ideology. By extending these criteria to the base level of the CCP, Xi may be attempting to spread his own power across all party organisational structures.

This year’s amendments also indicate an effort to strengthen Xi’s ideological power. The addition of party history education is likely related to Xi’s adoption of a new party history resolution (历史决议) in 2021. Such resolutions are significant documents for party history and this one will likely be used to legitimise the current regime. The 2021 history resolution made no mention of opposition to personalist dictatorship and the collective leadership system (集体领导); those words are explicitly stated in the resolution adopted in 1981 soon after the Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong’s dictatorship. The new one, instead, focuses on praising Xi’s administration and thought. Now that Xi has taken over the authority to interpret party history, he has called on CCP members to study it.

In light of the major protests in Hong Kong in 2019, the change of wording to the unwavering adherence to the ‘one country, two systems’ (全面准确、坚定不移贯彻’一个国家、两种制度’) emphasises that only the CCP holds the right to interpret it. It was also newly stated that the CCP would oppose and curb the ‘Taiwan independence’ (台独). Until now, the CCP’s constitution had never mentioned a movement for Taiwan independence. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a Taiwan crisis is in the immediate future, but it at least reflects Xi’s impatience with the fact that his Taiwan policy is not working well.

Xi has increasingly made it clear that he is putting the party’s security and hold on power ahead of the economy. It’s symbolic that the phrase ‘sustainable development’ has been changed to ‘sustainable and safe development’, although the CCP continues to recognise that economic construction should be strongly promoted in the ‘socialist elementary stage’ (社会主义初期阶段). The previous amendment significantly strengthened the authority of the Discipline Inspection Commission, and the new one stipulates that discipline inspection groups will be set up in state-owned enterprises and social organisations.

The military–civil fusion development strategy, which was added in the 19th party congress amendments, was left in place, indicating that the CCP hasn’t dropped the strategy to siphon off resources from the private sector. However, the party’s strengthening of unilateral monitoring and mobilisation of society has led to a deterioration of economic activity in the private sector and an exodus of skilled workers. This is reflected in the prevalence of the online slang term ‘run philosophy’ (润学), which means emigration from China to a country whose people have freedom and human rights.

These modest amendments to the party constitution are important in that they avoid institutionalisation of a personalist dictatorship under Xi. On the other hand, Xi’s authority has been strengthened in terms of party organisation and ideology. From now on, China will be led by a highly homogeneous CCP made up of cadres who have pledged their loyalty to Xi personally. The growing homogeneity of the leadership will lead to greater exclusivity and a lack of other perspectives, which will weaken the party’s policy-correction function. As a result, the CCP is set to be more insensitive to international political changes and more assertive towards the outside world.

aspistrategist.org.au · by Masaaki Yatsuzuka · November 4, 2022

18. New Report Sheds Light on Pentagon’s Secret Wars Playbook

Will this report generate calls for proper congressional oversight? Will it force Congress to act?

New Report Sheds Light on Pentagon’s Secret Wars Playbook

The analysis suggests that the U.S. war in Somalia was waged with no clear legal basis.

Nick Turse

November 3 2022, 9:00 a.m.

The Intercept · by Nick Turse · November 3, 2022

The United States has fought more than a dozen “secret wars” over the last two decades, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law. Through a combination of ground combat, airstrikes, and operations by U.S. proxy forces, these conflicts have raged from Africa to the Middle East to Asia, often completely unknown to the American people and with minimal congressional oversight.

“This proliferation of secret war is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it is undemocratic and dangerous,” wrote Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “The conduct of undisclosed hostilities in unreported countries contravenes our constitutional design. It invites military escalation that is unforeseeable to the public, to Congress, and even to the diplomats charged with managing U.S. foreign relations.”

I’m in

These clandestine conflicts have been enabled by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, enacted in the wake of the September 11 attacks, as well as the covert action statute, which allows secret, unattributed operations, primarily conducted by the CIA. The United States has also relied on a set of obscure security cooperation authorities that The Intercept has previously investigated, including in an exposé earlier this year that revealed the existence of unreported U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Ebright documents so-called 127e programs, known by their legal designation, in those countries and 12 others: Afghanistan, Cameroon, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, and Tunisia, as well as a country in the Asia-Pacific region that has not yet been publicly identified.

The 127e authority, which allows U.S. commandos to employ local surrogates on U.S.-directed missions, targeting U.S. enemies to achieve U.S. aims, is just one of three low-profile efforts analyzed in the Brennan Center report. Another, 10 U.S. Code § 333, often referred to as the “global train-and-equip authority,” allows the Pentagon to provide training and gear to foreign forces anywhere in the world. The far murkier 1202 authority allows the Defense Department to offer support to foreign surrogates taking part in irregular warfare aimed at near-peer competitors like China and Russia.

The report, released Thursday, offers the most complete analysis yet of the legal underpinnings, congressional confusion, and Pentagon obfuscation surrounding these efforts and explains how and why the Defense Department has been able to conduct under-the-table conflicts for the last 20 years.

“The Brennan Center’s report underscores the need to shine a light on our defense activities that have been cloaked in secrecy for too long. At the bare minimum, the public and Congress need to know where and why we’re sending our service members into harm’s way,” Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told The Intercept. “I hope this report strengthens the urgency of Congress taking back its war powers, eliminating existing loopholes in security cooperation programs, and ensuring our strategies match our values, goals, and commitment to our service members.”

“Congress’s understanding of U.S. war-making is often no better than the public record,” writes Ebright. “The Department of Defense’s diplomatic counterparts in the Department of State also struggle to understand and gain insight into the reach of U.S. hostilities. Where congressional oversight falters, so too does oversight within the executive branch.”

Ebright’s analysis is particularly illuminating in the case of Somalia, where the United States developed two key proxy forces, the Danab Brigade and the Puntland Security Force. The CIA began building the Puntland Security Force in 2002 to battle the Al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabab and later the Islamic State in Somalia, or ISS. The force was transferred to U.S. military control around 2012 and went on to fight alongside U.S. Special Operations forces for a decade. “In Puntland, we built that capability, training them at the tactical level and in how to support themselves and follow a good counterinsurgency strategy against al-Shabab,” Don Bolduc, the former chief of Special Operations Command Africa and now the Republican candidate for Senate in New Hampshire, told The Intercept in a 2019 interview.

Ebright notes that the proxy fighters were “largely independent of the Somali government, despite being an elite armed brigade and one of Somalia’s most capable special operations units. And their relationship with U.S. forces was long kept secret, with U.S. officials disavowing the presence of military advisers in Somalia until 2014.”

More troubling, her analysis suggests that for a significant period of time, there was no clear legal basis for the U.S. military to fight alongside and direct these forces. The Obama administration designated al-Shabab an associated force of Al Qaeda and thus, a legitimate target under the 2001 AUMF in 2016. That administration did the same for the Islamic State in 2014, but ISS has never been publicly identified as an ISIS-associated force by any administration. This means that the Pentagon developed and fought alongside the Puntland Security Force from 2012 and the Danab Brigade from 2011 — under the 127e and 333 security cooperation authorities — before the AUMF was judged to authorize hostilities against al-Shabab and ISIS, much less ISS.

“The Department of Defense is unequivocal that it does not treat § 333 and 127e as authorizations for use of military force. The reality is not so clear,” writes Ebright. “After all, U.S. forces have used these authorities to create, control, and at times engage in combat alongside groups like the Puntland Security Force and Danab Brigade.”

Over the last 20 years, presidents have consistently claimed broad rights to act in self-defense, not only of U.S. forces but also for partners like the Puntland Security Force and Danab Brigade, which, Ebright notes, potentially allows the U.S. to fight remote adversaries in the absence of any congressional authorization.

Rep. Jacobs said it was difficult to assure the military community in her San Diego district “that we’re doing everything we can to keep them safe when Congress has such little information, let alone oversight over when, where, and how we’re using military force. Attempts to avoid scrutiny from Congress – and Congress’s own abdication of our war powers – is central to how we ended up in forever wars, the spike in civilian casualties, and failed strategies that waste taxpayer dollars and fuel the very conflicts we’re trying to solve.”

Expansive definitions of collective self-defense of proxies are also especially worrisome in regard to the 1202 authority, which requires even less oversight than 333 and 127e and is “used to provide support to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals” taking part in irregular warfare. While patterned after 127e, 1202 is aimed not at regional terrorist groups like al-Shabab and ISS but at “rogue states,” such as Iran or North Korea, or near-peer adversaries like Russia and China. “The executive branch’s broad interpretation of its use of force authorities, when combined with 1202, can lead to combat, which Congress hasn’t approved, against powerful states,” Ebright told The Intercept. “For the 1202 authority to have so little oversight when the risks it carries — when you’re running proxy forces against powerful, even nuclear-armed states — is a major mistake.”

The report offers suggestions for improving congressional and public oversight, enforcing the balance of war powers within the government, and preventing hostilities unauthorized by Congress. “Repealing §§ 333, 127e, and 1202 would return the balance of power to where it stood before the war on terror,” Ebright writes, forcing the Pentagon to convince Congress that building foreign proxies abroad is in the United States’s national security interest. This is critical given that working by, with, and through foreign surrogates and allies is key to the Pentagon’s global vision, according to the Biden administration’s recently released National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy.

“Both of those documents underscore that the DOD views security cooperation as the future of its approach,” Ebright told The Intercept. “Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill and in the broader public, we don’t have conversations about what this means, to the detriment of voters understanding where we’re at war and how this is going to affect military involvement and entrenchment abroad.”

The Intercept · by Nick Turse · November 3, 2022

19. Good at Being Bad – How Dictatorships Endure

Why is north Korea and the Kim family regime not included in a book about (or at least the review essay) about dictators and revolutions?

Excerpts:

In this regard, Revolution and Dictatorship adds to a growing body of work. Scholars such as Roberto Foa have argued that in recent decades, the state capacity of dictatorships has generally increased, at least when compared with democracies. Levitsky and Way’s analysis suggests that such strong states are better able to meet the social, economic, and external challenges they face and therefore are more resilient. In other words, the greater the number of strong-state dictatorships, the more durable the current autocratic wave will be. Even without the radicalism and extensive violence characterizing Levitsky and Way’s revolutionary regimes, dictatorships that can create cohesive elites and strong but politically subservient militaries and police forces while keeping opposition movements weak and divided are more likely to be resilient.

Thus, present-day revolutionary regimes such as communist China and the Islamic Republic of Iran possess cohesive military and political elites, and their opposition is practically nonexistent. This is surely why these regimes have been relatively stable over the past few decades. Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin, although his regime does not have revolutionary origins, also seems to have the military firmly under his control, has tied the country’s oligarchs to his rule through a web of corruption, and has eliminated all organized opposition. These factors may lead us to predict further stability. They have also likely helped persuade Putin not just that he could survive but that he could enhance his and his country’s standing by leading Russia into a war in Ukraine. The war has turned out to be far more difficult than he expected, however, and it remains unclear whether this military adventure will ultimately strengthen or weaken Putin’s hold on power. Levitsky and Way contend that violent conflicts during the early phases of a revolutionary regime are likely to strengthen it; perhaps we need more study of the factors or contexts that determine how well dictatorships can withstand violent conflicts that come later in their development.

Good at Being Bad

How Dictatorships Endure

By Sheri Berman

Foreign Affairs · by Sheri Berman · November 1, 2022

Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism

By Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way

Princeton University Press, 2022, 656 pp.

Buy the book 

In the early 1980s, the great scholar of democracy Robert Dahl observed that “in much of the world the conditions most favorable to the development and maintenance of democracy are nonexistent, or at best only weakly present.” Barely had Dahl penned these pessimistic words when it became clear that democracy was on the verge of its greatest historical efflorescence. During the late twentieth century, a democratic wave engulfed the globe, toppling dictator­ships in Africa, Asia, Latin America, southern and eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. By the beginning of the present century, the world had more democracies than ever before.

If Dahl turned out to be overly gloomy about the future of democracy, however, many of his successors would be far too optimistic. Francis Fukuyama’s often misunderstood concept of “the end of history”—positing that the world had reached “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government”—captured the era’s Zeitgeist. Many other social scientists produced books and articles seeking to fathom this democratic wave and whether the democracies it created would endure. Since Dahl and his counter­parts in the previous generation had not anticipated the wave, the scholarship that arrived in its immediate wake focused less on the preconditions supposedly associated with successful democracy and more on the process of democratic transition. This perspective, which came to be known as “transitology,” argued that the origins of democratic regimes—that is, the way they transitioned from dictatorship to democracy—critically affected their development and chances of success.

In fact, despite the extraordinary number of countries that embraced democracy, this democratic moment inevitably came to an end. As was the case in previous such waves in 1848, 1918, and 1945, the late-twentieth century democracy wave was followed by a strong undertow that pulled in the opposite direction. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, more countries were moving in an authoritarian direction than were democratizing. Consider Hungary, Thailand, and Turkey, where once promising democratic regimes have turned into de facto authoritarian ones. In response, scholars have again followed the historical cycle and are trying to determine whether the world is entering a new age of autocracy.

Into this debate step two of the most prolific and respected scholars of democracy and dictatorship, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way. Levitsky, an expert on Latin America, and Way, an expert on the countries of the former Soviet Union, bring together their immense regional and theoretical expertise in their new book, Revolution and Dictatorship. For those trying to understand where history is headed, their approach offers useful insights and lessons.

The book makes two related arguments. The first concerns the staying power of authoritarian regimes. To figure out whether the world is at the dawn of a new autocratic era, one needs standard criteria by which to assess contemporary dictatorships and determine which ones are likely to last. But since political scientists have largely neglected the study of authoritarian governments and what made some “successful” during the late-twentieth-century expansion of democracy, few scholars have discussed such criteria. Levitsky and Way address this gap, offering an argument about the political and institutional structures necessary for what they call “authoritarian durability.” The second argument they put forward concerns where these structures come from. Here Revolution and Dictatorship harks back to the perspective that transitologists adopted not that long ago: namely, that a regime’s origins critically affect its development and durability.

At a time when authoritarian states such as Russia and China are not only proclaiming that their regimes are superior to Western democratic ones but also becoming increasingly aggressive abroad, the debate about the durability of dictatorships is of more than passing interest. If these and other similar regimes share underlying features that can predict their longevity, as Levitsky and Way suggest, it is crucial that strategists and policymakers learn to recognize them.

BUILT TO LAST

Levitsky and Way begin their analysis with a commonsensical yet underappreciated insight: durable dictatorships, like durable democracies, require strong states capable of defending and controlling their territory, solving problems, and dealing with challenges to their stability. (Here and elsewhere, Revolution and Dictatorship echoes a classic study of the relationship between revolutionary regimes and state building, Theda Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions.) Scanning the history of modern dictatorships, Levitsky and Way identify three features in particular, or what they call “pillars,” of long-lasting authoritarian regimes.

The first is a cohesive ruling elite. This is necessary because authoritarian regimes are commonly undermined via internal schisms. Such divisions hinder a dictatorship’s ability to deal forcefully and effectively with problems, and they provide opportunities for opposition movements to entice elite defections from within the regime. As examples of this dynamic, Levitsky and Way offer the ruling parties in Georgia, Kenya, Malawi, Senegal, and Zambia, all of which were weakened or destabilized by intra-elite conflicts and/or suffered large-scale defections. By contrast, durable regimes such as Enver Hoxha’s Albania, communist China, Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and the Islamic Republic of Iran “suffered virtually no defections, often for decades.”

The second pillar of dictatorial durability is a powerful and loyal coercive apparatus. Authoritarian regimes often collapse as the result of mass uprisings or mobilized opposition. If the military, the police, or other arms of the state have interests that are independent of those of the regime, they are less likely to use violence against their fellow citizens to defend the regime when it has become unpopular. Therefore, strong dictatorships need armed forces, police, and intelligence agencies that are controlled by or fused with political authorities—for example, by being integrated into the ruling party or elite or by being overseen by political commissars or other party institutions. This is the case with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Similarly, authoritarian regimes often fall prey to coups, which are best guarded against by ensuring that the military’s interests coincide with those of the regime. Pakistan provides a classic example of the dangers of an independent military, with the country’s armed forces regularly intervening in politics and even overthrowing governments. During the Arab Spring, Egypt’s military abandoned longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak in the face of growing mass mobilization and foreign condemnation; two years later, it also toppled the semidemocratic Muslim Brotherhood regime that succeeded Mubarak once that government appeared weak and unable or unwilling to defend the military’s interests and prerogatives.

The third pillar of dictatorial durability is a weak and divided opposition. This helps prevent the planning of sustained mass protests and other forms of political activity that can undermine an authoritarian regime or force it to engage in violence against its own citizens, which would further feed dissatisfaction and dissent. In communist Vietnam, the authors note that by the 1960s, “all independent sources of power outside the state had been crushed, leaving opponents without a mass base.” Scholars and observers have also pointed to divisions between secular and Islamist oppositions as a key factor underpinning dictatorial durability in parts of the Muslim world.

STRENGTH FROM STRUGGLE

Despite their importance, Levitsky and Way argue, these sustaining features do not alone determine a regime’s longevity. It also matters how autocracies come to power. Revolution and Dictatorship asserts that dictatorships with revolutionary origins are “extraordinarily durable.” According to Levitsky and Way, such regimes last on average nearly three times as long as their nonrevolutionary counterparts; 71 percent of them survived for three decades or more, compared with only 19 percent of nonrevolutionary regimes. Although many authoritarian regimes collapsed at the end of the Cold War, some revolutionary governments, such as those of China, Cuba, and Vietnam, remained intact. Levitsky and Way define “revolutionary” regimes as those whose origins lie in mass movements that violently overthrow the old regime, subsequently produce a fundamental transformation of the state, and engage in radical socioeconomic and cultural change. The authors claim that 20 such regimes have existed since 1900.

Somewhat confusingly, however, they then differentiate within this category. They note that not all revolutionary regimes embark on radical paths after toppling the old regime. Some pursue moderate, or what they call “accommodationist,” courses instead, entailing more restrained state transformation and socioeconomic and cultural change. (Out of their 20 revolutionary regimes, three—Bolivia, Guinea-Bissau, and Nicaragua—fit in this category.) Levitsky and Way argue that this accommodationist path may seem sensible in the short term, as it creates less instability and chaos, but proves counterproductive in the long term because only radicalism triggers the “reactive sequence” they assert is necessary for authoritarianism to endure.

The key feature of this process is violent domestic and/or international counterreaction. The authors observe that “from revolutionary France to Communist Russia and China, to postcolonial Vietnam, to late twentieth-century Iran and Afghanistan, revolutionary governments have often found themselves engulfed in war” or other types of violent conflict. Sometimes a new revolutionary regime cannot survive such intense internal or external resistance: four of the 20 regimes they cite—the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, post–World War I Finland and Hungary, and the first Taliban regime in Afghanistan—did not. But by Levitsky and Way’s count, for a large majority of these regimes, the violent counterreactions created the conditions necessary for building the pillars of dictatorial durability.

Wars can help autocracies destroy alternative power bases.

Here is where the reactive sequence—a concept the authors borrow from the scholar James Mahoney—comes into play. First, the existential threat that violence and war pose to a new regime leaves no room for division or disunity; elite cohesion is the result. This cohesion is further cemented by the memory of war and the suffering it entailed, as well as by the ideological component of revolutionary regimes, which, Levitsky and Way argue, tends to “lengthen actors’ time horizons” and inhibit “short-term egoistic behavior.” In their view, “In Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Mozambique, and elsewhere, fear of annihilation amid civil or external wars generated a powerful and often enduring incentive to close ranks.” And this “siege mentality” helps explain why elites remained committed to the regime in these countries even in the face of economic and other crises.

Second, confronting the challenge of war on the heels of the old regime’s collapse pushes new revolutionary regimes to quickly construct a large security apparatus, as the Castro regime did in the face of a persistent U.S. military threat. By building such security forces from scratch, revolutionary leaders are in turn able to “penetrate the armed forces with political commissars and other institutions of partisan oversight and control.” And finally, Levitsky and Way find that counterrevolutionary conflict almost inevitably leads to the weakening or destruction of alternative power bases, not least because wars “provide revolutionary elites with both a justification and the means to destroy political rivals.”

While identifying the qualities that make autocracies last is a worthwhile goal, Levitsky and Way’s emphasis on revolutionary origins leaves some important questions unanswered. Unavoidably, scholars will differ over which regimes belong in the revolutionary category. It is not clear, for example, why regimes such as Bolivia’s or Nicaragua’s—which adopted moderate or “accommodationist” positions and accordingly achieved less than transformative social and economic change after taking power—should be considered “revolutionary.” Conversely, Levitsky and Way omit a number of regimes that fit the definition better than some they have included. Most interesting here are Benito Mussolini’s Italy and Adolf Hitler’s Germany, which the authors leave out on the grounds that these regimes came to power “through institutional means” that did not involve state collapse. Yet both were obviously revolutionary and transformed their states, societies, and cultures at least as much as and perhaps more than other regimes the authors include. Both also created cohesive elites, employed vast security forces, and successfully eliminated opposition groups. Nonetheless, rather than being strengthened, fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were undermined by the violent counterreaction—World War II—they triggered. This outcome challenges the causal chain that Revolution and Dictatorship posits. Also worth noting, as Levitsky and Way do, is the question of whether the “revolutionary” regimes discussed in Revolution and Dictatorship reflect in part the forces that were in play during a particular historical era: from the great ideological clashes that preceded World War II through the Cold War that followed it.

NURTURE OVER NATURE?

Today, pessimism about democracy is once more widespread. As noted above, however, the authoritarian resurgence should not come as a surprise: all previous waves have been followed by backsliding and the disappointment that inevitably accompanies it. Yet the authoritarian undertow of the past decade or so has been weaker than those that followed the previous waves. More of the new democracies created in this most recent wave have survived than did their counterparts in previous waves. And although the world has fewer democracies today than a decade ago, it has many more democracies than when the wave began in the 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps, just as Dahl’s pessimism in the 1980s turned out to be unwarranted, so, too, will be recent assertions, such as that made by the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban, that “the era of liberal democracy is over.”

Nonetheless, the number of countries becoming authoritarian has undoubtedly been growing. A crucial task for scholars, accordingly, is figuring out whether this trend will continue and whether the dictatorships produced by it will prove resilient. One way to tackle this question is to again focus on transitions. Indeed, the origins and early phases of a new regime’s existence critically shape the development of its institutions, power structures, international standing, and more. But transitions are only one piece of the puzzle. As with people, a regime’s birth can influence but not entirely determine its fate.

Dictatorships with strong state institutions may last longer.

One difficulty with Revolution and Dictatorship’s argument about revolutionary regimes is that few of them exist today. Instead, the most common type of contemporary dictatorship is what is often called “electoral autocracy.” Regimes such as Orban’s Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, and Narendra Modi’s India do not engage in extensive violence or in radical socioeconomic or cultural experiments. What they do instead is hold tainted elections and severely restrict critical features of liberal democracy such as a free press and civil society, checks on executive authority, an independent judiciary, and respect for civil rights and liberties. Levitsky and Way’s emphasis on revolutionary origins can explain only so much about these new autocracies. But the authors’ identification of the three pillars that make dictatorships work can help determine how likely they are to endure.

In this regard, Revolution and Dictatorship adds to a growing body of work. Scholars such as Roberto Foa have argued that in recent decades, the state capacity of dictatorships has generally increased, at least when compared with democracies. Levitsky and Way’s analysis suggests that such strong states are better able to meet the social, economic, and external challenges they face and therefore are more resilient. In other words, the greater the number of strong-state dictatorships, the more durable the current autocratic wave will be. Even without the radicalism and extensive violence characterizing Levitsky and Way’s revolutionary regimes, dictatorships that can create cohesive elites and strong but politically subservient militaries and police forces while keeping opposition movements weak and divided are more likely to be resilient.

Thus, present-day revolutionary regimes such as communist China and the Islamic Republic of Iran possess cohesive military and political elites, and their opposition is practically nonexistent. This is surely why these regimes have been relatively stable over the past few decades. Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin, although his regime does not have revolutionary origins, also seems to have the military firmly under his control, has tied the country’s oligarchs to his rule through a web of corruption, and has eliminated all organized opposition. These factors may lead us to predict further stability. They have also likely helped persuade Putin not just that he could survive but that he could enhance his and his country’s standing by leading Russia into a war in Ukraine. The war has turned out to be far more difficult than he expected, however, and it remains unclear whether this military adventure will ultimately strengthen or weaken Putin’s hold on power. Levitsky and Way contend that violent conflicts during the early phases of a revolutionary regime are likely to strengthen it; perhaps we need more study of the factors or contexts that determine how well dictatorships can withstand violent conflicts that come later in their development.

• SHERI BERMAN is Professor of Political Science at Barnard College. She is the author of Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day.

Foreign Affairs · by Sheri Berman · November 1, 2022

20. Why the US still has not defeated ISIS in Iraq and Syria, according to a new report

Excerpts:

While roughly 2,500 U.S. troops are still in Iraq and another 900 service members are in Syria to help prevent ISIS from mounting a comeback, the report cites several factors beyond the U.S. military’s control that have made their mission more difficult, including third-party actors, such as Iran; political instability, especially Iraq’s problems forming a government; and social-economic instability.

...

For now, the U.S. military’s strategy appears to be to continue to eliminate ISIS leaders. In February the group’s top leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi allegedly killed himself along with his wife and children during a U.S. special operations forces raid in Syria. U.S. special operators captured alleged ISIS bombmaker Hani Ahmed Al-Kurdi in June during another raid in Syria. And ISIS leader Mahir al-Agal, described as “a senior leader in the organization who was responsible for plotting attacks outside of Iraq and Syria” in the IG report, was killed in July by a drone strike in Syria.

It is unclear what steps the U.S. government could take to help address some of the political and socio-economic conditions that ISIS and other violent extremist groups have taken advantage of to reconstitute themselves, especially in Syria.

Why the US still has not defeated ISIS in Iraq and Syria, according to a new report

More than three years after losing its caliphate, ISIS is down but it’s certainly not out.

BY JEFF SCHOGOL | PUBLISHED NOV 3, 2022 5:40 PM

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · November 3, 2022

It’s been more than three years since the Islamic State appeared to be defeated after the terror group lost all the territory it had once controlled, and yet ISIS continues to wage an insurgency in both Iraq and Syria, according to the most recent quarterly report from the Lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent Resolve.

“Overall, compared with the same period in 2021, the frequency and severity of ISIS-claimed attacks decreased dramatically in Iraq, while attacks in Syria increased significantly, marking a rebound from historically low levels the previous year,” the report says.

Between July and September, ISIS carried out 74 attacks in Syria and 73 attacks in Iraq, the report says. Small cells based in rural areas mostly conducted hit-and-run attacks against local security forces along with occasional high-profile attacks in cities.

While roughly 2,500 U.S. troops are still in Iraq and another 900 service members are in Syria to help prevent ISIS from mounting a comeback, the report cites several factors beyond the U.S. military’s control that have made their mission more difficult, including third-party actors, such as Iran; political instability, especially Iraq’s problems forming a government; and social-economic instability.

US Special Forces provided armed training to 240 YPG/PKK members at the Al-Malikiyah district in the Al-Hasakah province, Syria on September 7, 2022. (Hedil Amir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

“In Syria, years of conflict and a collapsed economy have led to widespread displacement of civilians, and drought and the COVID-19 pandemic have increased an already urgent need for international humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,” the report says. “During the quarter, there was a cholera outbreak in Syria. Iraq also faces economic challenges while stabilization efforts are ongoing, threatening political stability and creating environments that allow [violent] extremist groups to operate.”

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For now, the U.S. military’s strategy appears to be to continue to eliminate ISIS leaders. In February the group’s top leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi allegedly killed himself along with his wife and children during a U.S. special operations forces raid in Syria. U.S. special operators captured alleged ISIS bombmaker Hani Ahmed Al-Kurdi in June during another raid in Syria. And ISIS leader Mahir al-Agal, described as “a senior leader in the organization who was responsible for plotting attacks outside of Iraq and Syria” in the IG report, was killed in July by a drone strike in Syria.

It is unclear what steps the U.S. government could take to help address some of the political and socio-economic conditions that ISIS and other violent extremist groups have taken advantage of to reconstitute themselves, especially in Syria.

“The volatile political landscape in northeastern Syria complicates execution of the defeat ISIS mission, CJTF-OIR [Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve] said,” according to the report. “ISIS exploits operational seams between conflicting sides and any pause in operations against the group creates opportunities for ISIS to exploit at-risk populations and regenerate its military strength.”

The U.S. military’s mission in Iraq and Syria has been further complicated by third-party countries, including U.S. adversaries Iran and Russia as well as NATO ally Turkey, the report found.

U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter gunners scan the desert while transporting troops on May 26, 2021 over northeastern Syria. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Iranian-backed militia groups carried out six roadside bombs attacks against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, as well as a drone attack against the Al Tanf Garrison in Syria, where U.S. forces are based, and a failed drone attack on U.S. forces at Ali al-Salem Airbase in Kuwait, according to the report.

Separately, Iranian officials have claimed to have launched at least 72 missiles against Kurdish groups operating inside Iraq, claiming that they were planning anti-government protests inside Iran, the report says.

Meanwhile, Turkish forces have continued to conduct military operations in Iraq and Syria, some of which have targeted the Syrian Democratic Forces, a group of mostly Kurdish fighters that fights against ISIS with U.S. military support.

“SDF leaders said that defending against Turkish operations jeopardizes their ability to conduct counter-ISIS activities and requires the SDF to balance competing priorities of the counter-ISIS campaign and protecting their communities,” the report says. “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s threat of a full-scale military incursion did not materialize after he failed to obtain support from Syria’s allies Russia and Iran.”

A US soldier walks with an AT4 anti-tank weapon during a joint military exercise between forces of the US-led Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve coalition against the Islamic State group and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province on September 7, 2022. (Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images)

All these factors help to explain how the U.S. military and its allies have managed to inflict severe damage on ISIS but not destroy the group completely.

Since losing its last enclave in March 2019, small pockets of ISIS fighters have remained spread across northern Iraq and Syria “where they occupy temporary hideouts in the countryside and are pursued by our partner forces,” Army Maj. Rachael L. Jeffcoat, a spokeswoman for Operation Inherent Resolve, told Task & Purpose on Thursday.

ISIS has been able to finance itself through smuggling and other illegal activities, and the group has sustained its manpower by radicalizing prisoners and civilians displaced by war who are living in camps, such as the al-Hol displaced persons camp in northeastern Syria where Syrian Democratic Forces spent two weeks in September disrupting an ISIS network, Jeffcoat said.

A picture shows the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, which holds relatives of suspected Islamic State group fighters in the northeastern Hasakeh governorate, during a security operation by the Kurdish Asayish security forces and the special forces of the Syrian Democratic Forces, on August 26, 2022. (Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images)

As of the end of September, about 54,000 people remain in the camp, mostly women and children, according to the Inspector General’s report.

In addition, U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq remain focused on helping Iraqi security forces plan operations against ISIS using troops and aircraft, Jeffcoat said.

“Whilst the ISF [Iraqi security forces] do still require coalition support and advice, the capability of our partner forces on the battlefield is steadily improving,” Jeffcoat said. “In Syria, conditions in both detention facilities and displaced persons camps are austere and history tells us that they are ideal for extremist groups like ISIS to exploit and radicalize vulnerable people,” Jeffcoat said.

With conditions in Syria and Iraq not expected to improve drastically anytime soon, the U.S. military’s mission against ISIS is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

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taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol · November 3, 2022

21. Are we stuck with daylight saving time, or can we get rid of it?

Sleep, light, and darkness are national security issues.

Are we stuck with daylight saving time, or can we get rid of it?

Shifting the clocks messes with people’s circadian rhythms — making everyone groggy, cranky and sometimes dangerously off their game.

Dan Vergano, Science Reporter, Matthew Zeitlin, Domestic Economics Reporter, Maggie Severns, Domestic Policy Reporter, Mariana Labbate, Global Editorial Assistant, and Kay Steiger, Managing EditorNovember 3, 2022

grid.news

THE NEWS

Hello darkness, my old end-of-the-workday friend. Standard time resumes in the U.S. Sunday, pushing — as the “fall back, spring forward” saying reminds — sunset and sunrise one hour earlier.

The official change occurs when 2 a.m. EDT falls back to 1 a.m. EST (or your time zone’s equivalent). Every state, except most parts of Arizona and Hawaii, observe daylight saving time. Daylight saving time (DST) was initially implemented as an emergency energy-saving measure during the world wars, but it stuck around, even if we’re all very sleepy because of it.

But do we actually need it anymore? Because, for the love of humanity, a whole lot of us would like to see it gone.

Pushing back the clock in winter is meant to give schoolchildren more morning sunlight on the way to school and to ensure more daylight during working hours for construction workers and other outdoor laborers. But whether the benefits in safety and energy savings outweigh the costs of shifted sleep cycles, drowsy commuters and confusion from misaligned clocks is a long-running source of disagreement.

THE CONTEXT

While recognized by most states, the current November-to-March return to standard time was only set by federal law in 2007. But there’s been a growing movement calling for ditching fall back and sticking with spring forward. Last year, the Senate unanimously voted to make daylight saving time permanent, but the legislation has been stuck in the House ever since, and it’s unclear if it will budge.

Who’s going to win this argument? The scales seem to be leaning toward a year-round daylight saving time clock — but (and sorry about this) only time will tell.

HEALTH LENS

The time shift isn’t great for your body — and is potentially dangerous

Fundamentally, shifting the clocks either way confounds people’s circadian rhythms, the 24-hour schedule followed by the metabolism that tells you when to eat, sleep, work and relax.

A rule of thumb is that for every hour that your sleeping time shifts, it takes a day to adjust, which means unless you want to have trouble getting to sleep on the Sunday night before your workweek starts (because your body will feel like it’s too early to get some shuteye), you might want to shift your clock back and go to bed earlier this Saturday instead.

Health-wise, the (immediate) good news is that the serious health effects are associated with the “spring forward” shift. Fatal car accidents increase around 6 percent on the days after that shift, for example. Heart attack rates go up as well, with studies finding a relative risk increase of 4 to 29 percent. There is also evidence for increased strokes, missed doctor’s appointments and even suicides.

Although many of the calls for abolishing the twice-yearly time change aim to make daylight saving time the permanent standard — arguing mainly that more evening light promotes physical and mental health — the American Academy of Medicine in a 2020 statement called for a permanent shift to standard time. Those hours of daylight better align with normal human circadian rhythms, which take their cues from sunlight exposure, the academy said.

— Dan Vergano

ECONOMIC LENS

The saving energy argument doesn’t really hold up

Energy consumption plays a pretty significant role in the discussion over whether to try to “save daylight” by taking out an hour in the spring — pushing back on the clock when it gets dark — and then “falling back,” so that the sun then rises “earlier.” People’s schedules are based on the clock, but the sun is doing its own thing. Daylight saving reapportions lightness and darkness ratios, so people have more waking/productive hours when it’s light out (and less electricity needed).

For that reason, DST has often been justified as an energy conservation measure, all the way back to World Wars I and II with national DST measures going into effect during World War I and World War II. But does it work?

The research says it actually doesn’t. Two economists, Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant, looked at the effects of DST on energy use after Indiana passed a law in 2006 mandating a statewide clock change in Indiana. Of the 7 million households included in the study, the researchers found that using DST actually increased electricity demand, with fall usage going up between 2 and 4 percent and overall use by 1 percent.

While DST worked to decrease the amount of energy people used for lighting, they found it increased when it came to air conditioning.

The economists explained that because peoples’ schedules don’t change, when daylight saving time is implemented in the spring, people still cool their homes in the evening, and evening hours are warmer.

There also appear to be more direct economic effects. One paper by Mark J. Kamstra, Lisa A. Kramer and Maurice D. Levi found that the returns in financial markets over daylight saving weekends “is markedly lower than expected.”

The economists also cite a bevy of research and historical data showing the negative effects of lost sleep, including some major ones — “the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, the near meltdown at Three Mile Island, the massive oil spill from the Exxon Valdez, and the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.”

That means on daylight saving weekends, returns are predictably lower than than the average regular weekend for every index they looked at, the researchers found. And “the magnitude of the mean return on spring daylight saving weekends … [is] between two to five times … that of ordinary weekends.” And get ready: “The effect of the daylight saving time change on returns is even stronger in the fall.”

— Matthew Zeitlin

POLICY AND DATA LENS

People want to get rid of changing the clock, but a federal law can’t seem to make it through

For years, ending daylight saving time has been a pet project for a handful of Capitol Hill lawmakers who would like to nix the practice. But it didn’t make headway in Congress until last spring, when the Senate surprisingly passed a bill getting rid of daylight saving time just a couple days after the annual March “spring forward” jolt in the clocks.

An unusual bipartisan duo of Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) co-sponsored the bill, called the Sunshine Protection Act, arguing it could help the economy and public health.

“If we can get this passed, we don’t have to keep doing this stupidity anymore,” Rubio said when promoting the bill on the Senate floor. The bill passed the Senate with unanimous consent, meaning no senators objected to its passing.

The Sunshine Protection Act didn’t go far in the House, where bigger legislative priorities and skepticism from some members of Congress led it to stall. Right now, hopes of it passing during this Congress are slim.

But 59 percent of people across the U.S., according to a YouGov poll from March, support ditching the clock change in favor of permanent daylight saving time. Some states are heeding that public interest and starting to evaluate their relationship with the practice on the state level. Arizona and Hawaii currently don’t observe daylight saving time at all, and at least 19 states have adopted resolutions or legislation to make daylight saving permanent — a show of their support on the issue.

— Maggie Severns and Anna Deen

GLOBAL LENS

Not all countries use daylight saving, but for different reasons

Countries such as South Africa and Peru don’t need the extra hour of light in the morning — the closer you get to the equator, the less difference in amount of sunlight throughout the seasons.

Mexico just got rid of its daylight saving, but not because of the country’s location. The Mexican congress voted against it in October (40 percent said no to the time change, 35 percent wanted to keep it) citing the right to health and safety, as well as electric energy savings.

Brazil had daylight saving, ditched it and now wants it back. Soon-to-be former president Jair Bolsonaro eliminated daylight saving in 2019, saying that energy savings were not significant enough, and many Brazilians found themselves commuting in the dark. Only two years later, in 2021, turning back the clock was up for debate again (and still is) after a severe drought in the country, which depends mainly on hydraulic energy, showed how, in this case, important those savings really were.

And here is some global cocktail party trivia for you: South Korea officially does not have daylight saving — except there was that one time. To accommodate international broadcasting during the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, the country turned its clocks back an hour. The same was proposed in Japan for the 2020 Summer Olympics, but this time, it was in order to prevent athletes from overheating. Japan, unlike South Korea, declined.

Ultimately, just like in the U.S., it’s a matter of constant debate in many countries — and for various reasons. South African researchers, for example, believe that implementing daylight saving could save them 0.2 to 0.5 percent of energy every year. Still, the country chooses not to observe it.

— Mariana Labbate

PARENTING LENS

Daylight saving changes really are disruptive for small children

Parents of the littlest of littles dread daylight saving time changes. That’s because young children need lots of sleep and often don’t adapt well to sudden changes in routine.

Research in this space is quite thin, but a 2019 study published in the journal Sleep found that changes in the clock usually result in a loss of sleep for kids, with longer and greater disruptions happening among infants and young kids.

The springtime change to daylight saving is less disruptive — with kids losing usually only 15-20 minutes of sleep. But, sorry parents, the fall time change on Sunday is the bad one. It can affect children’s sleep anywhere from seven to 28 days after the time change — although most toddlers do seem to average out around four days.

One option is to start readjusting bedtimes by 30 minutes three days ahead of the time change. That is, for parents who are organized enough to remember there is a time change coming up.

The only other real science about daylight saving and kids readily available was a 2014 meta study of nine countries that showed that more daylight evening hours (when daylight saving is in effect) tends to coincide with more physical activity for young children in the late afternoon and evenings, particularly for boys, and even adjusting for weather conditions (though the effect was much smaller in the U.S. than in Europe and Australia). As someone who takes her kids to the playground after school when it’s light out, this makes perfect sense.

— Kay Steiger

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com