Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surely they are like this because they can’t tell good from evil… And so none of them can hurt me.”

– Marcus Aurelius

"I'm not going to rush anything. I'm not going to stress out or worry about how things will work out for me. Instead of overthinking, I will align my faith with divine timing and trust that everything belongs in my life is making its way toward me right now."

– Idil Ahmed

"People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them."

– Epictetus

1. China Hack Enabled Vast Spying on U.S. Officials, Likely Ensnaring Thousands of Contacts

2. Politicians Aren’t What Make America Great

3. Netanyahu ousts defense minister, a political rival and fierce war critic

4. Whether Harris or Trump wins, Americans must unite to confront the enemies abroad

5. Many Ways to Fail: The Costs to China of an Unsuccessful Taiwan Invasion

6. Everyone in Congress Is Obsessed with This Book About the Post-Civil War Era

7. FBI reports new hoax videos, after warnings that Russia is trying to undermine election

8. As Middle East crisis grinds on, Pentagon shows signs of strain

9. After 20 years, memories of Fallujah linger for veterans still coming to terms with Iraq War

10. Inside China’s cognitive warfare strategy

11. America’s Friends and Foes Brace for a New World Under Trump

12. US Airborne Rangers parachute in to seize a Pacific airbase, preparing for war with China

13. Pictures: How Ukraine’s New Tank Armor is Changing Drone Warfare

14. Anti-Strategy in Ukraine: Loose Threads, Critical Asymmetry, and Gaping Holes

15. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 5, 2024

16. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 5, 2024

17. Collaboration in Conflict: Interagency Cooperation Lessons from Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq

18. Necropolitics in Modern Warfare: Understanding Paramilitary Violence in Ukraine

19. How Trump Will Change the World

20. America’s Era of Violent Populism

21. Why She Lost

22. Trump Wins the Election and a Second Chance

1. China Hack Enabled Vast Spying on U.S. Officials, Likely Ensnaring Thousands of Contacts

The only thing surprising about this is that there are still people who are surprised by this unrestricted warfare.

Excerpts:

Hackers burrowed deep into U.S. telecommunications infrastructure over eight months or more. With each layer of network infrastructure they unlocked, the Beijing-linked group studied how America’s communications wiring works without detection, carrying out targeted thefts, people familiar with the breach said.

The newly uncovered espionage campaign, earlier reported in September by The Wall Street Journal, is the latest in a long string of successes for China’s government hackers, as Western governments accuse Beijing of spying at an unprecedented scale.

But as U.S. officials and security experts piece together what the hackers—part of a group nicknamed Salt Typhoon by investigators—were able to achieve, they have assembled clues that fuel concerns that China’s mastery of cyber-espionage is dangerously advanced.

The hackers appeared to have had the ability to access the phone data of virtually any American who is a customer of a compromised carrier—a group that includes AT&T and Verizon—but limited their targets to several dozen select, high-value political and national-security figures, some of the people familiar with the investigation said.

China Hack Enabled Vast Spying on U.S. Officials, Likely Ensnaring Thousands of Contacts

Hackers scooped up call logs, unencrypted texts and some audio, piercing America’s communications infrastructure

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/china-hack-enabled-vast-spying-on-u-s-officials-likely-ensnaring-thousands-of-contacts-1340ba4a?st=euwkB8&utm

By Dustin Volz

Follow, Aruna Viswanatha

Follow, Drew FitzGerald

Follow and Sarah Krouse

Nov. 5, 2024 4:58 pm ET

Chinese hackers burrowed into U.S. telecommunications infrastructure over eight months or more. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Image

Hackers linked to Chinese intelligence used precision strikes to quietly compromise cellphone lines used by an array of senior national security and policy officials across the U.S. government in addition to politicians, according to people familiar with the matter.

This access allowed them to scoop up call logs, unencrypted texts and some audio from potentially thousands of Americans and others with whom they interacted. The emerging picture of the intrusion’s reach helps confirm the intelligence community’s concerns about the potentially dire national security consequences of the attack, the people said.

Hackers burrowed deep into U.S. telecommunications infrastructure over eight months or more. With each layer of network infrastructure they unlocked, the Beijing-linked group studied how America’s communications wiring works without detection, carrying out targeted thefts, people familiar with the breach said.

The newly uncovered espionage campaign, earlier reported in September by The Wall Street Journal, is the latest in a long string of successes for China’s government hackers, as Western governments accuse Beijing of spying at an unprecedented scale.

But as U.S. officials and security experts piece together what the hackers—part of a group nicknamed Salt Typhoon by investigators—were able to achieve, they have assembled clues that fuel concerns that China’s mastery of cyber-espionage is dangerously advanced.

The hackers appeared to have had the ability to access the phone data of virtually any American who is a customer of a compromised carrier—a group that includes AT&T and Verizon—but limited their targets to several dozen select, high-value political and national-security figures, some of the people familiar with the investigation said.

Hackers used stolen credentials to access parts of the management layer of the network at Lumen Technologies. Photo: Lindsey Wasson/Associated Press

The hackers also appear to have infiltrated communications providers outside the U.S., including at least one country that closely shares intelligence with the U.S., though it isn’t yet clear where or how extensively. Investigators expect more victims to be identified as the probe continues.

Investigators don’t yet know how China planned to use the information it allegedly stole. U.S. intelligence officials have warned for over a decade that Beijing has amassed an enormous trove of information on Americans in order to identify undercover spies, understand and anticipate decisions by political leaders, and potentially build dossiers on ordinary citizens for future use.

Though political figures are among those spied upon, officials don’t suspect the Chinese are seeking to use the access to disrupt or otherwise interfere in the presidential election.

U.S. security officials have said they are concerned that China is applying artificial intelligence to their stolen data to glean additional insights and create elaborate social maps of millions of Americans.

JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, was notified that he had been a target of the hacking group. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

“It’s a vulnerability that no one imagined or anticipated,” Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence panel, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Mark Warner, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said last week that it was “one of the most serious breaches” he had ever seen.

In a statement, a spokesman for the National Security Council said U.S. agencies across the federal government were “collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat” and were “surging support to affected entities and determining the full scope and impact on Americans, companies and the government.”

He added: “We are taking this matter very seriously.”

Breaking in

At Lumen Technologies, a carrier and government contractor whose network makes up a core piece of the global internet, hackers stole credentials to give themselves access to parts of the management layer of the company’s infrastructure in late summer. That access helped them quietly collect information about how network routers were configured and perform other reconnaissance for more than a month before they were caught.

In the broader attack on U.S. telecom networks, officials believe that the hackers also targeted systems that carriers use to comply with court-authorized surveillance requests. At Lumen, which doesn’t provide wireless service, the attackers didn’t steal any customer data or access its wiretap capabilities, according to people familiar with the matter. Lumen, which has contracts with the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies, was notified of the intrusion by a company that specializes in threat intelligence, the people said.

While the hackers appear to have used multiple vectors for their attacks on other telecom companies, they were able to gain some access in part by compromising routers from Cisco Systems and other equipment makers, some of the people said.

The hackers have also attempted to re-enter patched systems after being ejected from them by exploiting additional powerful vulnerabilities, some of which weren’t previously known to cybersecurity analysts. That bold behavior confounded some U.S. officials because it appeared the hackers were essentially scraping to stay inside systems long after their cover was blown, taunting investigators and continuing to collect data.

In one breakthrough, investigators have determined that the hackers were working on behalf of a Chinese intelligence agency, likely the Ministry of State Security, which is responsible for foreign intelligence collection. They have identified a specific Chinese contractor they believe carried out the attack, the people familiar with the inquiry said. The MSS often relies on contractors to carry out hacking missions.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington has previously denied the country’s involvement in the hack and accused U.S. spy agencies and cybersecurity firms of “secretly collaborating to piece together false evidence.”

What they took

The hackers were able to capture at least some voice audio from some compromised victims, including people affiliated with both Trump and Harris campaigns, investigators have learned. It is unclear whether they recorded actual calls, voice memos or something else.

After Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, was notified that he had been a target of the Salt Typhoon hacking group, he joked about it on a popular podcast. “It’s a pretty badass name, right? If they have anything on me, I can’t be too pissed off at them,” Vance told podcaster Joe Rogan.

In addition to surveillance on specific Americans, targeting of court-authorized wiretap systems has prompted fears Beijing was able to observe ongoing U.S. inquiries into Chinese spies and others.

The group behind the Salt Typhoon attacks has previously compromised some telecommunications infrastructure in Southeast Asia, according to cybersecurity researchers.

The Slovakia-based cybersecurity firm ESET has long referred to the Salt Typhoon hacking group as FamousSparrow and says it has previously broken into government agencies and hotel networks worldwide, including in France, the U.K., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and Brazil, among other countries. They were one of more than 10 advanced hacking teams caught exploiting a series of flaws in Microsoft’s Exchange email software in 2021, according to ESET.

The 2021 Exchange hack rendered an estimated tens of thousands of businesses and government networks vulnerable to intrusion. The Biden administration blamed China’s Ministry of State Security for those hacks, a callout that was joined by the U.S. and the European Union.

Robert McMillan contributed to this article.

Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com, Aruna Viswanatha at aruna.viswanatha@wsj.com, Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Sarah Krouse at sarah.krouse@wsj.com

Appeared in the November 6, 2024, print edition as 'China Hack Enabled Spying on U.S. Officials'.

2. Politicians Aren’t What Make America Great

I am remiss for missing this yesterday when it should have been sent out. But it is a useful reminder of ourselves and who we are.

After you read these two paragraphs I recommend you read them again (and maybe one more time for good measure).

Excerpts:

The secret to American success has never been the excellence of our technocrats, the honesty and transparency of our political system, or the sleek efficiency of our governing machine. It is the vigor and drive of a turbulent, nearly ungovernable society that pushes us ahead.

The disruptive innovations and sometimes eccentric political ideas of titans of business and finance from the age of Cornelius “The Commodore” Vanderbilt to that of Elon Musk have done much more for American success than any Big Policy Ideas hammered out in Harvard Yard. It’s the restless energy of people from all walks of life figuring out the quickest and easiest way to get what they want, not Five Year Plans cooked up in think tanks, that makes this country a nursery of innovation and a global driver of change. Waves of immigrants seeking better lives do much more for our country than waves of policy intellectuals seeking better jobs.

Politicians Aren’t What Make America Great

Our people and spirit matter more than an election. The U.S. is still a beacon of light.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/politicians-arent-what-make-america-great-e05c0083?st=eq5z12&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Walter Russell Mead

Nov. 4, 2024 5:02 pm ET

Early voters cast ballots at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Nov. 3. Photo: Niyi Fote/Zuma Press

Your Global View columnist is trudging to the voting booth this year with no spring in his step. Overseas, as the Pax Americana fades, the dire, potentially catastrophic consequences for human civilization fill me with foreboding. Neither candidate, to my mind, has demonstrated the mix of diplomatic skill and strategic vision that the geopolitical situation demands. I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but so far the signs are not good.

Our country’s division between a feckless and decadent establishment and a ragged, intellectually shaky populist insurgency doesn’t point to an easy way forward. And while we have had bitterly fought elections in the past, the grace that led Richard Nixon to concede in 1960 and Al Gore to give way 40 years later seems in perilously short supply. In my gloomiest hours I fear we are past choosing between the lesser of evils and are trying instead to discern which is the more survivable of two looming catastrophes.

But when I look back at almost 250 years of American independence, I feel better. We’ve had pretty rotten political leadership for much of our history. Neither Tippecanoe nor Tyler left much in the way of enduring policy accomplishments. The tombs of Franklin Pierce and Chester Arthur aren’t disturbed by throngs of pilgrims come to venerate their inspirational historical legacies. We’ve often been the bad kid in civics class. When Tammany Hall handed out Christmas turkeys to loyal supporters and votes were openly bought and sold at courthouses across the land, the world did not look to American democracy as a model of wise or rational governance. In no other country on earth could something called the Know Nothing Party become a significant political force.

And as I wrote in my book “Special Providence” almost 25 years ago, foreign and American observers alike have almost always thought of American foreign policy with a mixture of amusement, frustration and contempt. Think of Thomas Jefferson’s foolish embargo policy that bankrupted a host of American businesses and farmers without gaining anything from Britain or France. Neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump has proposed anything quite that stupid this time around. Yet.

Political polish and diplomatic finesse have never been our strong suits. The savvy statesmen and supercilious aristocrats of the great European empires laughed at our uncouth presidents and their bumbling diplomats. Fascist and communist dictators united to disparage America’s messy, ungoverned society and its enduring commitment to what they assured us were the outmoded ideas of political and economic freedom.

The secret to American success has never been the excellence of our technocrats, the honesty and transparency of our political system, or the sleek efficiency of our governing machine. It is the vigor and drive of a turbulent, nearly ungovernable society that pushes us ahead.

The disruptive innovations and sometimes eccentric political ideas of titans of business and finance from the age of Cornelius “The Commodore” Vanderbilt to that of Elon Musk have done much more for American success than any Big Policy Ideas hammered out in Harvard Yard. It’s the restless energy of people from all walks of life figuring out the quickest and easiest way to get what they want, not Five Year Plans cooked up in think tanks, that makes this country a nursery of innovation and a global driver of change. Waves of immigrants seeking better lives do much more for our country than waves of policy intellectuals seeking better jobs.

When disruptive technologies like fracking and artificial intelligence pop up, our European friends want to strangle them at birth lest they grow up to be sinners. Our Chinese competitors want to harness them immediately to the service of the Communist Party. Here, those new technologies get a chance to show what they can do. That’s partly because we are natural optimists who think change often works out for the best, and partly because our lax and messy system of governance isn’t very good at industrial policy of any kind.

Blue America and Red America are deeply divided, but they both remain deeply American. Blue California gave the Information Revolution to the world, and Blue San Francisco has welcomed robo-taxis onto its poop-strewn streets. Red Texas changed the world with the fracking revolution and is currently leading humanity’s journey to Mars. Transformational financial innovation pours out of Blue Manhattan, while Red Florida integrates immigrants from all over the world into a new version of the American dream.

Elections matter, but the spirit of a country matters more. Our nation’s leadership class may be weak, but the United States of America, warts and all, remains a beacon of hope in a world that needs all the light it can get.

Netanyahu ousts defense minister, a political rival and fierce war critic

Yoav Gallant clashed with Netanyahu over his handling of the war in Gaza and, more recently, over the enlistment of the ultra-Orthdox in the Israeli military.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/05/netanyahu-gallant-defense-minister-idf-gaza-lebanon/

7 min

120

Yoav Gallant, seen at a Thursday ceremony for military combat officers at an Israeli army base, was fired as defense minister Tuesday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)

By Shira Rubin and Lior Soroka

Updated November 5, 2024 at 6:37 p.m. EST|Published November 5, 2024 at 5:10 p.m. EST

TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, one of the most vocal and prominent critics of his war strategy and the country’s primary interlocutor with the Biden administration on military matters amid a widening conflict in the Middle East.

“In the midst of war, full trust between the prime minister and the defense minister is needed more than ever,” Netanyahu said in a video posted to X. “In recent months, this trust has eroded.”

Netanyahu said he decided to end Gallant’s tenure on Tuesday, and that he would be replaced by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a close ally with little military experience. He added that Gideon Saar, a former Netanyahu disciple, would replace Katz as foreign minister.

The surprise late-night announcement, released as Washington and much of the rest of the world was preoccupied with the U.S. presidential election, sent immediate shock waves across Israel. Thousands of protesters turned out in Tel Aviv, and prominent members of the security establishment condemned the move as an effort by Netanyahu to ensure his political survival at a time of growing national peril — with the country engaged in grinding wars in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and, increasingly, in direct conflict with Iran.

Israelis in Tel Aviv demonstrate Tuesday after Netanyahu sacked Gallant. (Ammar Awad/Reuters)

“This is politics at the expense of national security,” Benny Gantz, a former member of Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet, posted on X.

Tchelet Fried, a 26-year-old law student from Tel Aviv, who was out at the protest, said Gallant’s firing raised concerns that “what drives the prime minister is not just Israel’s security, but narrower political interests.”

Following World news

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She added that she came out that night with her friends. “We want our future here in Israel, and that’s why we are fighting.”

In a televised statement, Gallant said his dismissal was the result of three disagreements with Netanyahu: over the question of ultra-Orthodox enlistment in the military, his support for a cease-fire that would free the hostages in Gaza and his push for a national commission of inquiry into the failures of Oct. 7, 2023.

“Israel’s security is my life’s mission,” he said, as demonstrators blocked highways, set fires and blasted foghorns. “It’s time for change,” Gallant said.

“Minister Gallant has been a trusted partner,” Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said after the news broke Tuesday. “America’s commitment to Israel’s security remains ironclad and the U.S. Department of Defense will continue to work closely with Israel’s next Minister of Defense.”

Netanyahu said Gallant would be replaced by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, above, a close Netanyahu ally with little military experience. (Florion Goga/Reuters)

Netanyahu has clashed for months with Gallant, a political rival from his own Likud party who has publicly criticized the prime minister over what he characterized as a lack of strategic vision in Gaza and his failure to reach an agreement with Hamas that would return the dozens of hostages still languishing in Gaza.

But what may have sealed Gallant’s fate was his announcement Monday that the army would send conscription notices to thousands of young ultra-Orthodox men, following a decision by the nation’s Supreme Court this year requiring them to serve in the military. Ultra-Orthodox parties, a key part of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition, have fought for decades to enshrine military exemptions for students at religious schools, and had threatened to pull out of the government if draft notices went out.

Gallant has long argued that the ultra-Orthodox should not be able to dodge the country’s mandatory draft and, with Israel locked in the longest war in its history, he has doubled down, putting the prime minister’s coalition in jeopardy. It was “the most central issue for our existence and our future,” Gallant said Tuesday.

Ultra-Orthodox men clash with police at a military recruitment office in Kiryat Uno, Israel, in August. Gallant on Monday announced that the army would send conscription notices to thousands of young ultra-Orthodox men. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)

“Netanyahu could have made an appearance that it was for defense issues, but instead he made it purely political, tied to the issue of conscription,” said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist from Hebrew University who is in contact with senior members of Israel’s defense establishment.

“Netanyahu had to prove to the ultra-Orthodox that he would do anything for them, but he may have miscalculated,” she said, pointing to an Israeli public opinion poll in October that found more than 60 percent of Likud voters said that Netanyahu’s capitulation on the military conscription issue would “harm national security.”

It was not the first time the two men clashed over domestic issues. Netanyahu first attempted to fire Gallant in March 2023 after the defense minister criticized the government’s efforts to weaken Israel’s judiciary, but was forced to quietly back down after nearly a million Israelis took to the streets in protest — a spontaneous outpouring later dubbed “Gallant night.”

In September, Netanyahu entered negotiations to replace the defense minister just days before the Israeli military, under Gallant’s command, carried out a sweeping attack on Hezbollah pagers that preceded its ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Netanyahu tabled the discussion on Gallant, but had communicated to Israeli media that his ouster was only a matter of time.

Netanyahu and Gallant last week at a ceremony for military combat officers. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)

Netanyahu’s short-term effort to shore up his coalition could have far-reaching ramifications for Israel’s multifront conflict in the Middle East. Gallant kept in close contact with his U.S. counterparts, who often preferred to discuss the war with him than with Netanyahu, and would ask him to confirm assertions made by the prime minister, according to an Israeli close to Gallant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Last month, Netanyahu called off a planned trip by Gallant to Washington, demanding a call from Biden before his defense minister could depart. Gallant had met Thursday with White House representatives in Israel and, as recently as Monday, had talked by phone with Secretary of State Antony Blinken about military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

Gallant had advocated not just for a cease-fire and hostage-release deal in Gaza, but for eventual Palestinian rule over the enclave — in line with the Biden administration’s postwar vision — an outcome Netanyahu has rejected. When the prime minister has insisted that Israel keep up its military pressure on Hamas, Gallant has publicly contradicted him, saying Israel has achieved its goal of degrading the militant group’s capabilities and should look ahead to the day after.

“It is possible to bring back the hostages, and it involves compromises, some of which are painful,” Gallant said in his remarks Tuesday.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people and created a humanitarian catastrophe, triggering an unusual letter last month from U.S. officials demanding that Israel improve aid access to the enclave or risk a suspension of military aid.

In southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces has encountered stiff resistance from Hezbollah fighters, and Netanyahu is under pressure to wind down the war and follow through on his promise to allow some 60,000 displaced Israelis to return to their homes in the north.

Iran, meanwhile, has vowed to retaliate for Israel’s attack on military facilities last month, and hawkish voices in Israel are calling for direct strikes on the country’s nuclear program.

Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister who has long pushed for Gallant’s ouster, congratulated Netanyahu on his decision Tuesday. “With Gallant … it is not possible to achieve absolute victory,” he said in a post on X.

Missy Ryan in Washington contributed to this report.

View 3 more stories
By Shira Rubin
Shira Rubin is a reporter for The Washington Post based in Tel Aviv. She covers news from Israel, the Palestinian territories and the region, with a focus on politics, culture, science and women's health.follow on X @shira_rubin
By Lior Soroka
Lior Soroka is a Tel Aviv-based freelance reporter covering the Israel-Gaza war and the wider conflict in the Middle East. Soroka worked for Haaretz from 2013 to 2022, focusing on the arts, and in Kan News' podcast division from 2018 to 2021. He is an alumnus of the International Journalists' Programmes.

4. Whether Harris or Trump wins, Americans must unite to confront the enemies abroad

Conclusion:

The American people vote today, and have an important role to play in thwarting the enemies’ malevolent plans for this country. We must quickly begin to heal, not exacerbate, the grievous wounds that the two major political parties have visited on the country during this terrible political season and for years before. That will be difficult if the election results are as close as the polls indicate, but all citizens must do their part to defeat America’s real enemies.

Whether Harris or Trump wins, Americans must unite to confront the enemies abroad

by Joseph Bosco, opinion contributor - 11/05/24 10:00 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4970689-axis-evil-united-states-election-day/?utm

The tyrannical rulers of the anti-West Axis of Evil — Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — have a stake in America’s Election Day. They are hard at work pursuing their shared goal of undermining and defeating America, from without and from within. The wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are the present arenas for military confrontation that is indirect — so far.

Though no U.S. troops are on the ground in either place, the flow of arms and material resources to America’s allies and partners has become an increasing financial drain and a distraction of diplomatic and political attention.

Former officials and other national security experts have complained that weapons sent to Ukraine are weakening our ability to help defend Taiwan from an attack by China, which they see as a greater threat to U.S. national security than Russia. Taiwan is a critical supplier of computer chips not only to the U.S. but to the world economy. And its strategic location as part of the first island chain that lies between China and the open ocean makes it a vital target in Beijing’s expansionist drive in the Indo-Pacific.

Yet, two years into the defense of Ukraine, some of the same experts who said it was a lower security priority than Taiwan now argue that even Taiwan’s defense is too costly and too dangerous because it risks direct conflict with China.

The rationale for extreme caution reinforces the enemies’ expectation that the West will eventually wilt as it did when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, when it seized Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014, and when it failed to deter Russia’s fully expected third invasion of a neighboring country in 2022. They believe Washington and its allies will not continue to bear the burden of policing the Free World even though only a U.S.-led coalition can meet the challenge. The United Nations as presently structured, with two of the world’s evildoers wielding veto power, cannot carry out its self-declared mission “to take effective collective measures … for the suppression of acts of aggression.”

On the political front, the aggressors’ main target of opportunity is today’s U.S. presidential election. As they have done for more than a decade, America’s adversaries have intervened with misinformation and disinformation campaigns. They seek to influence voters to support candidates and policies favorable to the foreign powers’ aims. More importantly, over the long run, they strive to sow domestic disunity and chaos among the American people and undermine their faith in our democracy.

The America-haters are united in the latter objective, pitting Americans against one another, even though their respective national interests may sometime diverge.

In 2024, members of the Axis favor different presidential candidates. Russia, given Donald Trump’s long-stated admiration for Vladimir Putin, clearly wants the former president back in the White House. Iran, on the other hand, would like to have a Kamala Harris administration that would continue the Biden-Harris policies of accommodating Iran’s interests.

While Trump’s one-day plan to end the Ukraine conflict would force Ukraine to concede some territory to Russia, Trump has made clear that he would be tough on Iran. Beijing also favors Harris because of Trump’s past hostility toward China during the pandemic, when he felt compelled to state that he had not been somehow been duped by Xi Jinping.

Whoever the next president is, he or she needs to make a fresh start with the new Congress on foreign policy decisions and national security funding. With the election about to be behind us, past positions, mistakes and political posturing must be put aside and the incoming administration must come to grips with the new reality that a formidable group of enemies has gathered and is actively colluding to bring down the United States. We have long been in Cold War II and are at the beginning of World War III unless U.S. leaders take the measures needed to halt the downward cycle.

North Korea has already unexpectedly opened a new front in the war against the West by injecting itself as a participant in the existing conflict in Ukraine. Within weeks of Pyongyang and Moscow signing a mutual defense pact in June, the Biden administration warned that any North Korean troops joining Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would quickly become “cannon fodder.” Yet, four months later, when the North Korean contingency is actually upon us, the surprised administration is only now beginning to consult with NATO allies about an effective response. President Biden needs quickly to coordinate with President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO allies to stop North Korea before it sees a green light to go further with its reckless action.

Harris as vice president can be expected to support that decision if Biden makes it. Trump, whether he will be Biden’s successor or not, needs for once to rally around the flag when a foreign policy is sound and support an administration that is not his own — just as Democrats need to leave politics at the water’s edge if Trump returns to office.

The American people vote today, and have an important role to play in thwarting the enemies’ malevolent plans for this country. We must quickly begin to heal, not exacerbate, the grievous wounds that the two major political parties have visited on the country during this terrible political season and for years before. That will be difficult if the election results are as close as the polls indicate, but all citizens must do their part to defeat America’s real enemies.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies, a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute and member of the advisory board of The Vandenberg Coalition.

5. Many Ways to Fail: The Costs to China of an Unsuccessful Taiwan Invasion

Excerpts:

A military failure would be even more costly. To begin with, Taiwan would be lost to China forever; absent a total transformation of mainland China’s political system, a Taiwan that had survived the worst China could throw at it would have little incentive to consider unification in the future. The U.S. and perhaps others might grant formal recognition of Taiwan independence.

A sober recognition of the enormous and inevitable cost should constitute the primary deterrent to a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Such abject failure would pose a severe threat to the CCP’s legitimacy and hold on power. Unification is the “sacred duty of all Chinese people,” enshrined in law and declared a top-level strategic objective by every leader from Mao to Xi. In the runup to war, the political mobilization campaign would loudly proclaim that war was the only way forward, the only remaining path to unification despite the enormous cost in blood and treasure. In the wake of a failure to conquer Taiwan, CCP leaders would be scrambling to assert a formula proclaiming strategic victory despite the military outcome, in a desperate effort to save their own skins. It is not at all clear whether they could succeed.

Failure in Taiwan, and the attendant damage to China’s military and security apparatus, would also offer a golden opportunity for separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang and could give rise to other movements in Inner Mongolia, in the ethnic Korean areas of northeast China, and along the southwest frontier. External opponents such as India and Vietnam would feel emboldened to act on long-standing territorial disputes.

Finally, a failed war over Taiwan would severely damage China’s global standing. Besides being locked into long-term hostile relations with many of the world’s greatest powers, China would be much reduced economically, less able to sustain projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative, and perhaps less able to act decisively due to political contention at home. Xi’s ambitious mid-century goal of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” could become a sad delusion.

Many Ways to Fail: The Costs to China of an Unsuccessful Taiwan Invasion

KEY TAKEAWAYS

China has spent over two decades preparing to conquer the island, but success is far from certain.

An invasion could go wrong for several reasons, many of which are out of Beijing’s control.

A failed war would severely damage China’s global standing, economy and the CCP’s grip on power.

https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/11/many-ways-fail-costs-china-unsuccessful-taiwan-invasion?utm_source=usip.org

usip.org

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

/ READ TIME: 12 minutes

By: Lonnie Henley

Failure to Gain Air Superiority

Before the PLA can begin moving hundreds of thousands of soldiers across the Taiwan Strait, it must protect the enormous fleet of troop carriers and support ships from enemy air attack. That in turn requires neutralizing Taiwan’s long-range air defense weapons, grounding the Taiwan air force and holding off U.S. air strike forces launched from aircraft carriers and land bases in Japan, Guam and elsewhere.

The PLA’s tools for gaining air superiority around Taiwan are PLA Rocket Force ballistic and cruise missiles; PLA Air Force bombers, fighters and drones; cyber-attacks on communications and power systems; and long-range surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) along China’s coast and aboard PLA Navy warships. This is a formidable air superiority force, both in numbers and in the quality of its weapons and platforms. If successful, it will provide significant protection to the invasion fleet and forces ashore in Taiwan. If the PLA cannot gain air superiority, however, the entire operation is vulnerable to withering U.S. air attacks. There are several major ways it could fail.

Inability to generate enough sorties. An enduring weakness of the PLA Air Force has been its reliance on mediocre aeroengines imported from Russia and even poorer quality engines manufactured in China. There has been a risk of catastrophic failure if the engines are flown too many hours or subjected to great stress. As a result, the air force has been forced to replace engines after a few hundred hours of operation and return them for depot-level overhaul.
At a peacetime operational tempo, this is a manageable burden, but in a large-scale high-intensity conflict, the PLA Air Force may not have enough spare engines to sustain high sortie rates after the first week or two. Recent reports suggest the aeroengine sector has finally overcome its long-standing challenges and is beginning to produce better engines. But this claim has been made several times in the past two decades, and even if it is finally true, it will take years to re-engine the entire fleet.
Inability to suppress Taiwan’s air defenses. An early priority would be for the PLA Rocket Force to open the door for air operations over Taiwan by attacking air bases, radars, SAM sites, command centers and supporting communications. At some point, however, the rocket force will expend its inventory of ballistic and cruise missiles and the PLA Air Force will be left to deal with Taiwan’s remaining air defenses. The biggest challenge will be short-range Taiwanese systems, such as Avenger and Land Sword II, which are less dependent on radars than long-range systems and therefore harder to find and kill. In the worst case (for China), the surviving Taiwanese SAMs will severely limit PLA air operations over Taiwan, impeding air landings, strikes and resupply of invading ground troops.
U.S. suppression of PLA surface-to-air missiles. In addition to destroying Taiwanese air defenses, the PLA needs to minimize U.S. air power around Taiwan. The PLA Rocket Force and Navy can attack U.S. carriers and air bases throughout the western Pacific, but the main weapons for controlling airspace around Taiwan are the large array of long-range SAMs, radars, sensors and data integration systems along the Chinese coast. This integrated Chinese air defense system (IADS) may or may not stop U.S. stealth aircraft — although it’s unlikely — but it poses a formidable threat to fourth-generation fighters, conventional bombers, and the large force of tankers, air warning and control systems, air surveillance systems, maritime patrol aircraft and other “high-value air assets” essential to U.S. air combat operations.
A key, perhaps decisive, unknown is whether U.S. forces can neutralize this enormous IADS network designed explicitly to counter U.S. air power. There is nothing in the public domain to suggest they can, but undoubtedly there are well-funded projects working hard on the problem. If U.S. forces have or can develop such a capability, the Chinese landing force and key targets inside China will be naked in the face of massive air strikes and the entire Chinese operation will probably fail.

Failure to Get Enough Forces Ashore

Foreign analysts assess that the PLA would attempt to put some 400,000 troops ashore through a very limited set of landing beaches, seized ports and air landing sites. For comparison, the Normandy invasion involved roughly 130,000 personnel ashore on D-Day and 326,000 by the end of the first week across much more hospitable beaches. There are many ways the landing could fail.

Inability to execute large, complex operation. A “joint island landing campaign” has been the focus of many PLA training exercises, but none have involved anywhere near the number of forces, vessels, aircraft and support structures of an actual invasion, not by two orders of magnitude. Getting one brigade ashore in a choreographed three-day exercise is a step toward getting 40 brigades ashore under heavy fire, but a small step.
A particularly difficult challenge will be mobilizing and coordinating thousands of civilian ships that the PLA will rely on to supplement PLA Navy vessels in a crossing operation. The largest exercises to test such a capability have involved around two dozen civilian ships, barely a hint of what a full-scale crossing would require. And movement across the strait is just one component of a huge joint PLA campaign.
The PLA has a great many shortcomings, as they are painfully aware. China has not fought a large war since 1953 and has never fought a modern high-technology war. There is no way they can know in advance whether they can really execute such a large and complex operation.
U.S. success against the invasion fleet. The most obvious point of attack for U.S. and Taiwan defenders is the enormous fleet of military and civilian vessels attempting to cross the Strait. Attacking surface ships, even from outside the Chinese air defense envelope, also plays to U.S. strengths in long-range precision strikes. It would certainly not be a cakewalk; the sheer number of targets challenges the U.S. ability to deliver munitions in quantity, and the PLA will complicate the problem as much as possible with jamming, decoys, air and missile defenses, attacks on supporting air and space assets, and attacks on carriers and air bases. Nonetheless, there is a reasonable chance that with the right weapons and operational concepts, U.S. forces could destroy enough of the invasion fleet to defeat the landing.
Taiwan success at the beachheads. There are few places an amphibious landing force can get ashore due to mud flats, cliffs and urban buildup. The Taiwan army, for all its many shortcomings, is at least heavily focused on defending the landing beaches, and the terrain strongly favors them. Some wargames conclude that Taiwan can fend off a Chinese landing, provided that it has extensive American air and naval support; others do not.
Climate change. If the Taiwan coastline makes a landing difficult, the Strait itself is equally inhospitable, influenced by the world’s most active Asian monsoon system, where wind and sea states are frequently unfavorable and tropical storms are common. Climate change will make these factors even less predictable. The PLA may time its crossing to reduce the seasonal risk, but there is no guarantee.

Failure after Getting Ashore

Achieving a beachhead does not secure victory for the PLA. If Taiwan defenders resist vigorously and the island’s people and leaders maintain the will to fight (granted, a significant “if”), the PLA faces a difficult task in compelling Taiwan’s surrender and gaining effective control of the island.

Inability to sustain its forces on island. If getting hundreds of thousands of troops ashore is a daunting logistical challenge, sustaining them in protracted combat operations could be even more difficult. Moving the required volume of supplies would require defending cargo ships crossing the Strait, keeping major ports in operation, and keeping on-island transportation links intact, all soft targets for U.S. strikes and Taiwan defenders.
Inability to compel surrender. Movement on Taiwan is difficult enough in peacetime rush hour, much less after weeks of intense conflict. PLA forces would confront densely urbanized terrain, heavily damaged infrastructure and very difficult topography. Defenders would enjoy many bottlenecks to delay or thwart the PLA advance toward Taipei. Even after a successful thrust to decapitate the political leadership or compel its surrender, the PLA could face a difficult long-term pacification campaign with no guarantee of success. Opinion varies widely on this point, in both Taiwan and the United States; some expect Taiwan to collapse at the first blow, others see Taiwan fighting on for months or years in defiance of the aggressor. The PLA seems to expect a straightforward advance on Taipei and prompt surrender, but that may prove wrong.

Other Ways to Fail

All the above could involve other contributing breakdowns. The PLA “counter-intervention campaign” against U.S. forces in the region could prove inadequate, either because U.S. forces are better able than expected to defend against missile strikes or the PLA is unable to track and target mobile forces. The PLA could suffer much higher casualties than expected, or it could fail to protect economic and political targets inside China, compelling the regime to seek a face-saving political resolution short of military victory. The anticipated effort by internal or peripheral opponents to take advantage of the conflict for their own ends could pose a greater threat than expected to regime survival, compelling Beijing to reprioritize other theaters above Taiwan. Once a war over Taiwan is underway, this would take a very grave threat indeed, but such things can happen.

Strategic Costs of Failure

Any war over Taiwan would involve enormous costs for China, regardless of the military outcome. The war itself would entail a massive economic toll from the physical destruction of Chinese forces and infrastructure, a near-total disruption of foreign trade during the conflict, and economic sanctions as severe and wide-ranging as the United States and its partners could manage. Win or lose, Beijing would face enduring hostility from Washington, Tokyo, Canberra and others, with long-lasting impact on China’s economy and international standing. Even a victorious PLA would suffer heavy losses to personnel and platforms and a near-total expenditure of munitions and materiel, requiring decades to rebuild. A sober recognition of this enormous and inevitable cost should constitute the primary deterrent to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, even more than the calculus of whether the military operation would succeed.

A military failure would be even more costly. To begin with, Taiwan would be lost to China forever; absent a total transformation of mainland China’s political system, a Taiwan that had survived the worst China could throw at it would have little incentive to consider unification in the future. The U.S. and perhaps others might grant formal recognition of Taiwan independence.

A sober recognition of the enormous and inevitable cost should constitute the primary deterrent to a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Such abject failure would pose a severe threat to the CCP’s legitimacy and hold on power. Unification is the “sacred duty of all Chinese people,” enshrined in law and declared a top-level strategic objective by every leader from Mao to Xi. In the runup to war, the political mobilization campaign would loudly proclaim that war was the only way forward, the only remaining path to unification despite the enormous cost in blood and treasure. In the wake of a failure to conquer Taiwan, CCP leaders would be scrambling to assert a formula proclaiming strategic victory despite the military outcome, in a desperate effort to save their own skins. It is not at all clear whether they could succeed.

Failure in Taiwan, and the attendant damage to China’s military and security apparatus, would also offer a golden opportunity for separatists in Tibet and Xinjiang and could give rise to other movements in Inner Mongolia, in the ethnic Korean areas of northeast China, and along the southwest frontier. External opponents such as India and Vietnam would feel emboldened to act on long-standing territorial disputes.

Finally, a failed war over Taiwan would severely damage China’s global standing. Besides being locked into long-term hostile relations with many of the world’s greatest powers, China would be much reduced economically, less able to sustain projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative, and perhaps less able to act decisively due to political contention at home. Xi’s ambitious mid-century goal of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” could become a sad delusion.

Lonnie Henley is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an independent consultant who served four decades in the United States Intelligence Community, including 17 years in senior East Asia-related posts. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily of any part of the United States Government.

PHOTO: Taiwanese soldiers during an amphibious landing drill on the beach in Pingtung, Taiwan, on Thursday, July 28, 2022. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Times)

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s).

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6. Everyone in Congress Is Obsessed with This Book About the Post-Civil War Era

Excerpts:

In the Gilded Age and today, when these elections are going to be really close, and they’re going to be undone two years later, four years later. That’s the other thing that’s most similar is just — we’re in a loop with no resolution. And everyone thinks every election will be decisive and will obliterate the enemy.

And it’s because we’re using the political system for something it’s actually really bad at. We’re using the electoral system to resolve a culture war and it never can. The electoral system is good at putting people in power to pass or block legislation. It’s terrible at deciding what pronouns we should use or whatever. So, we’ll never be able to resolve it because we’re using a stapler as a telephone. It’s just not designed for what we’re asking it to do for us. It’ll never be satisfying.

Everyone in Congress Is Obsessed with This Book About the Post-Civil War Era

A historian who has studied the post-Civil War era reminds us that culture wars drive turnout as well as partisanship. And the cure doesn’t always work as intended.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/05/congress-post-civil-war-book-00187281

By Jonathan Martin

11/05/2024 05:00 AM EST

Jonathan Martin is POLITICO’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. He’s covered elections in every corner of America and co-authored a best-selling book about Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Politico

A historian who has studied the post-Civil War era reminds us that culture wars drive turnout as well as partisanship. And the cure doesn’t always work as intended.

Jon Grinspan’s book has quietly become something of a cult favorite with lawmakers also eager to understand this new, convulsive era of politics. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

11/05/2024 05:00 AM EST

Jonathan Martin is POLITICO’s senior political columnist and politics bureau chief. He’s covered elections in every corner of America and co-authored a best-selling book about Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

If nothing else, the age of Trump has made abundantly clear that the post-World War II political consensus in America is over. With elections more an outgrowth of identity than a reflection of preference, the country has returned to a post-Civil War politics, when, as the saying went, people “vote as they shot” in the years after the war.

I’ve been thinking about that period for two years, since reading Jon Grinspan’s book, The Age of Acrimony: How Americans Fought To Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915. Grinspan, a historian at the Smithsonian, details another period of technological disruption, high immigration rates and, yes, close presidential races with soaring turnout and anger that metastasized into violence. And he also writes about how it ended after the turn of the century, chronicling the reformers who sanitized politics into what it was until the first decades of this century.

It turns out I’m not the only one who has turned to the past to better grasp the present. Grinspan’s book has quietly become something of a cult favorite with lawmakers also eager to understand this new, convulsive era of politics — and what can be done to tame it. Former Senator Roy Blunt gave copies to each of his Republican colleagues when he retired in 2023, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) invited Grinspan to his office to discuss the book and Representative Andy Kim (D-N.J.), who memorably helped clean up the Capitol after the Jan. 6 riot, also sought out the author.

Last week, I used a day back in Washington to go visit Grinspan at his office. He sweetened the deal by laying out some artifacts for my visit: Lincoln’s pocket watch (with a watchmaker’s hidden scrawl), a 19th Century torchlight and an ABC News commemorative bottle of booze from the Reagan-Gorbachev Reykjavik Summit. OK, I may have eyed the last one while nosing through the archives.

As thousands of people walked below Grinspan’s window on the National Mall to line up for Vice President Kamala Harris’s rally a few blocks up Constitution Avenue, I asked him about his book, these two similar political moments and why he thinks politicians are so eager for answers from history.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you do a book on this period in history?

A couple reasons. One: It’s not well-known. And I really feel like we have the same discussions over and over again about politics in America and they all start at Reagan. So, what is the deep history of this democracy? We have the oldest, running Constitution in the world. The Democratic Party is the oldest party in the world. The Republican Party is only a little younger. And yet our discussions are 20 years deep, 30 years deep. This is the era with the highest turnouts. It’s the era with really intense participation and engagement. It’s the era with high political violence and partisanship. It just seemed like it’s the area that’s talking to now.

And politics is identity.

Absolutely. It’s a diverse nation. It’s also a very shaken nation in the ways that our lives are shaken today. You don’t have the stable institutions of the 20th century, in the 19th century and today. And so people are looking for some new identity. And they grab onto the parties as the thing to do. You go to the Democratic saloon and you drink with the Democrats, or the Republicans, or what have you.

I had a wise politician who was frustrated about his challenges of not being able to run statewide as a Democrat in the South tell me: “We don’t have elections anymore, we have a census.” It doesn’t matter who the party nominates. The candidates are irrelevant. All that matters is the [party] letter after their name. And you just tell me the census data and I’ll tell you the results. That feels a lot like this period too, where you just told me the state and its ethnic and racial makeup, and you could probably tell me the results of the election.

Absolutely. In a way it’s making politics actually converge with culture. One of the things about the 20th century, it doesn’t [converge] that much. The way people talk in the bars is not the way they talk in the White House. We are in an era now and previously where actually politics and culture are more closely tied and reflect each other more. All these animosities we feel in the rest of society are actually showing themselves in the political culture.

The crassness, the crude language.

Yeah. Why should you only behave that way in the saloon and act differently in public? And they’re kind of in an era where they converge more. And then we create these norms in the 20th century of restraint, independence, privacy, don’t talk about politics at the dinner table.

Sex, politics and religion. Those were the no-no’s.

Yeah. Don’t talk about those, I shouldn’t know how you vote, I shouldn’t be able to guess what party you support.

It’s the sort of WASP-ization of politics, right?

Yeah. You could write a book called the WASP Renaissance. Because a lot of those people in the late 19th century feel like they’re losing control of society. Their great grandparents founded this country and then you have these Irish, German, Italian, Jewish, whatever people who are working class and didn’t go to Harvard and they’re voting in bigger numbers.

There are always going to be more voters, if it’s just by the numbers, who are not wealthy than who are wealthy.

They don’t even use summer as a verb.

They don’t. They don’t even have summer houses. That’s what Teddy Roosevelt’s dad said. When he was running for nomination [as Collector of Customs in the Port of New York] he loses the nomination. Doesn’t get confirmed. He dies a couple months later. But he writes a letter to Teddy Roosevelt saying I’m really glad I didn’t get that gig because I would never have been able to go out to your house on Long Island in the summer. The Irish ward boss doesn’t have a house on Long Island.

Politics is the outlet. It’s the avocation, the vocation, it’s everything.

And then they built this culture of restraint, of civility. And it’s got a lot of good things. But it’s a creation.

And there’s an artifice to it, too. By the 21st century, all these politicians are using these phrases like “the distinguished gentleman” or “my good friend.” Or they’re acting overly decorous in a way that reflects a 20th century black and white film of America. No one talks like that anymore in real life. And Trump comes along, and he’s the first politician who sounds like how people actually speak. He’s not doing the “My good friend across the aisle” bullshit anymore.

Yeah. There’s a lot of voters — I don’t want to judge them — who would rather their politician talk like somebody on reality TV than somebody in Parliament 100 years ago. So maybe they just expect politics to look like the rest of their lives.

How many times have we all heard: “Why do you like Trump? ‘He says what I’m thinking.’”

I don’t quote him much, but Steve Bannon said, “Politics is downstream of culture.” The same bad behavior you see in the supermarket, you see in Congress.

But where it gets more alarming, is when it goes beyond the rhetorical, because we start imitating the culture. Not just rhetorically, but in terms of violence, in terms of settling disputes through weapons.

The president always has been expected to act with virtue, with restraints. Even in the bare knuckle, ward boss politics of the 19th century — the president was like the national grandfather who’s supposed to be likable, polite, dignified. And now we have this world where the president isn’t expected to act that way. And they have 10 times the power in the nuclear weapons or whatever that they had previously. So we have this 19th century private behavior, 20th century imperial presidency, locked up in the most powerful person on the planet. Also, if the politics is a result of what’s going on in our culture, we can’t actually expect any politician to solve this problem. We blame the politicians for not being able to solve our problems, when it’s so much bigger than one office.

I think the next book I might write is on political bosses. When you read about the old bosses, you think they’re these big guys who ran the country. They’re really surfing on top of a wave. They’re dependent on the winds of the public. The senators who decry this stuff, they don’t have much agency to change all that much.

In the 19th century, though, pre-television, pre motion-picture movies, no pro sports. Politics was literally the only game in town.

The only national event is the presidential election. It’s also how you get all these jobs and money.

It’s entertainment. It’s identity. And it’s a job. It’s money, it’s cash.

And these people are hungry for it. A lot of them, recent immigrants, people who have moved across the country, they had some old culture, they had some old ritual.

This is the way of belonging.

Absolutely, feeling like they’re a part of it. And having some power in a system where they have no power. If you’re a middle-aged worker and you’re working in a factory all day …

You were saying a minute ago, that once again, politics has become a way of expressing belonging. Organized religion has waned. Technology has separated us physically in a lot of ways. Here’s one way we can find belonging and meaning.

Yeah. And all these clubs emerge in the 20th century, people joined the Boy Scouts or the Lions.

Now, I think we all know people like this, they’ll retire, or they’ll lose their job, or they’ll get divorced. Or they’ll have some new thing in their life that makes them isolated. And they’ll get really into watching MSNBC or Fox News or whatever. And six months after that thing that isolates them, they’ll be so much more partisan and amped up about politics because it’s always waiting for you. It always wants your attention.

Your book, though, is not a nostalgic tale. You deal with the upsides and the downsides of both the pre-reform era and the post-reform era. It’s not a fairy tale. There’s upsides to a private ballot booth. There’s upsides to reform. There’s more control, it’s more sanitized. But turnout collapses.

And it collapses most among vulnerable people. Among poor people, uneducated people, immigrants, younger people, African Americans. It collapses among all the populations who are easiest to cut off and the electorate you get is richer, whiter …

The reform, on one hand, improves the system. But on the other hand, it also limits the system and narrows it.

In 1876, over 80 percent of voters go to the polls. A generation later, in 1924, 49 percent — half of those who can vote — can even bother to go to the polls. And remember, that’s eligible voters. But those eligible voters typically live in households with mothers, daughters, sisters, people who can’t vote but they still care. And they still argue about it at the taverns and at the dinner table and at the workplace.

Participation was high because people saw the stakes as being high. And they saw this, it wasn’t just pistachio vs. strawberry. It was, no, no, if we don’t register our vote, the bad guys are going to win.

Yeah, every election is: “This is the last one, this is the one before the next Civil War.” Two hundred, 150 years later, you can see how silly it is every time they say: “This election will decide the future.” And we hear this in 2024, 2020, 2016. And they all do, kind of. But none of them do, at the same time. It’s like we’re in a loop and we’ve been in this loop before.

Do you take solace from the fact that the period you wrote about was rowdy, it was violent, it was really challenging at times, people died — but we got through it? Or do you view that as an ominous warning sign?

Other people take solace in it. I was surprised by how many people were like “I thought this was a hopeful book and I found it kind of nice to think that things have been bad in the past but we’ve have gotten out of it.” Some people look for inspiration. That’s not what I want from history.

You view it as more of a warning sign?

No, I view it more as cultural change over time. I tried really hard to not favor one over the other. It’s more exciting, the first one, right? This rowdy, big public, violent book about politics. It’s more fun to write about. It’s harder to get people excited about civility. But I wouldn’t want to vote in 1880. I’d rather vote in 1930 or whatever. So, which world do you actually want to live in? And the answer is neither. They both have strengths and weaknesses.

Because one was all too real. And the other was sanitized, but that was the problem. It was sanitized.

Yeah. It was deliberately sanitized. They sanitized it, they got rid of the parts they found impure. I think when people were marching around in 2016 and 2020 saying this is not normal, they had this unarticulated vision of what a normal election had looked like. What a good election looked like. What good politics looked like.

Tell me about the reaction to this book. Why do you think lawmakers have taken to this book, I know Senators Blunt and Romney read it.

I’ve also had some nice conversations with Jim Cooper, who was a representative from Tennessee, [New Jersey and California lawmakers] Andy Kim and Mark DeSaulnier. If anybody is supposed to have agency and control, it’s politicians. We assume they have some sort of leadership. But they’re as at sea as the rest of us. And a lot of them, especially people who have been around for a while, they’ve seen this sea change and they don’t quite understand it, either.

They’re looking for answers.

Senator Romney asked me, ‘How do we make it better?’ or ‘How did they make it better in the 1890s?’

But the answer is that they sanitized it. It wasn’t necessarily better. It was cleaner. Less folks were engaged.

When people say our politics are broken, it assumes there was a time where they were unbroken. And really they just broke it differently in different eras. And there’s never been a perfect election or a perfect republic. It’s always going to be deeply flawed. The other thing is, if I were a politician, maybe there’s a sense of guilt. They’ve watched things get worse, and they really have very little ability to make it better. They’re trying to understand where this comes from as a personal question.

But you were struck by people thinking it was a happy story.

I just think we have these two completely bipolar versions of American history. One is that everything’s been perfect and we had this wonderful heritage. And the other is everything’s evil and horrible. And this is a way to show that this is a system that never has fully worked. But also isn’t evil and the end of the world. I just think that’s dissatisfying.

So what prompted the reform? This is now the end of the 19th century. What prompts the reform?

A lot of it is class conflict. Upper middle-class people who do not like this big, working class democracy. It’s loud and messy — and these new immigrants, they’re the bad ones. They’re coming from Italy or Russia or whatever. When an elite population feels like it’s losing control of society, it can really act out. And the people who, in the beginning of the 19th century, felt like they ran the country, if you look at who’s making money and winning elections in 1880, 1890, it looks like these bosses and these new populations and these tycoons. They’re not who was supposed to run the country.

So, there’s a backlash. But at the same time, there’s a really good reason to want no violence in an election. So it’s not like these guys are horrible, evil. The people with the really bad motivations are tied up with the people with the best motivations. And that’s a progressive era thing.

Now, it feels as though we’re at the end of another era of reform, the post-Watergate reforms are eroding, the FEC is a shadow of itself.

No one who wins this election is going to have a landslide, take over Congress, be able to pass laws. We’re locked in this cycle of these really close elections, like the 1880s, 1890s, when a couple thousand voters decide things and then they lose in the next election.

We don’t have blowouts.

In the Gilded Age and today, when these elections are going to be really close, and they’re going to be undone two years later, four years later. That’s the other thing that’s most similar is just — we’re in a loop with no resolution. And everyone thinks every election will be decisive and will obliterate the enemy.

And it’s because we’re using the political system for something it’s actually really bad at. We’re using the electoral system to resolve a culture war and it never can. The electoral system is good at putting people in power to pass or block legislation. It’s terrible at deciding what pronouns we should use or whatever. So, we’ll never be able to resolve it because we’re using a stapler as a telephone. It’s just not designed for what we’re asking it to do for us. It’ll never be satisfying.

Politico

7. FBI reports new hoax videos, after warnings that Russia is trying to undermine election

FBI reports new hoax videos, after warnings that Russia is trying to undermine election

NPR · by Shannon Bond · November 5, 2024

Foreign adversaries are expected to boost election fraud claims after Nov. 5. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

This story originally appeared as part of NPR's live coverage of the 2024 election. For more election coverage from the NPR Network head to our live updates page.

On Tuesday evening, the FBI called out three fake videos and press releases, which it says are the latest in a series “designed to mislead the American public” about the 2024 election.

The hoaxes include a fabricated statement from the FBI to journalists and bloggers “against publishing information about violence at polling stations,” claiming that doing so could provoke more such incidents.

Another fake is a video impersonating the FBI and another federal agency, making a joint statement suggesting schools suspend in-person classes through Nov. 11 because “the risk of school shooting and riots has increased significantly” due to the election.

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A third fake video claims the bureau received “9,000 complaints about malfunctioning voting machines” that were allegedly submitting votes for one candidate.

The FBI said in each case, the fake is “not authentic, is not from the FBI, and its contents are false.”

The bureau has warned about other fabricated videos and statements using its name and insignia to spread false claims of voter fraud and security warnings in recent days. Researchers at Antibot4Navalny, which tracks Russian disinformation, has said the fakes are likely created by Russia.

America's geopolitical adversaries, particularly Russia, Iran, and China, have been active in trying to influence this year's election, as part of their larger goals to sow chaos and discredit democracy.

Russia is angling to boost Trump, as it did in the previous two presidential elections, while Iran is trying to undermine the former president, intelligence officials and private-sector researchers say. China does not appear to have a preference in the presidential race, but has targeted congressional races.

All three regularly seize on divisive issues, from immigration to abortion to Israel's war in Gaza, to exacerbate discord among Americans. And they've all experimented with using artificial intelligence to churn out more misleading content.

People cast their in-person early ballot for the 2024 general election at the Northwest Activities Center on Oct. 29, in Detroit, Mich. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images/AFP

The stakes could be even higher after Nov. 5 as foreign adversaries are expected to boost election fraud claims and manufacture their own material to cast doubt on the results. Russia is behind a fake video showing ballots being destroyed in Pennsylvania that circulated widely on social media last week, for example.

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On Monday, a joint statement from federal agencies warned: "Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences."

Foreign countries are better prepared to exploit the potential uncertainty of the post-election period this year, thanks to what they learned from the 2020 cycle and a better understanding of what happens after polls close, a recently declassified intelligence assessment concluded.

Russia and Iran could even escalate to inciting violence, by stoking threats towards election workers and promoting protests, intelligence officials have said.

NPR's Camila Domonoske contributed to this report.

NPR · by Shannon Bond · November 5, 2024

8. As Middle East crisis grinds on, Pentagon shows signs of strain

Question: What if we were engaged in Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO)? Should this be a wake up call for our nation (not just our military)?

As Middle East crisis grinds on, Pentagon shows signs of strain

For the first time since the opening weeks of the war in Gaza, the U.S. will have no aircraft carrier nearby. The shakeup overlaps with a weapons shortage that has left the military spread thin.

9 min

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A fighter jet on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea in 2019. (Jon Gambrell/AP)

By Dan Lamothe and Abigail Hauslohner

November 5, 2024 at 4:58 p.m. EST

The open-ended crisis in the Middle East has begun to squeeze the Pentagon, fueling unease over the U.S. military’s ability to balance imminent threats to American interests there with longer-term objectives as Russia and China test Washington elsewhere in the world.

Signs of strain were underscored in recent days by a decision to withdraw the sole U.S. aircraft carrier in the region, the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose imposing presence defense officials credit with helping to contain the ongoing violence between Israel, Iran and its network of well-armed proxies.

The Biden administration has kept at least one, and sometimes two, aircraft carriers in the Middle East for more than year, since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 spawned a multifaceted conflict with no end in sight. When the Lincoln departs in coming days, the Defense Department instead will rely on a mix of other forces, including naval destroyers, B-52 bombers and land-based fighter jets, to sustain its expansive and potentially combustible deterrence mission that stretches from the eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf and other volatile shipping routes around the Arabian Peninsula.

Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters that the new deployments will provide a “significant amount of capability on par with what we’ve been doing in the Middle East” since the crisis there began.

The shake-up occurs as the Pentagon grapples, too, with shortages of key munitions it has used to fend off attacks by Yemen’s Houthis, who have waged an aggressive, months-long campaign targeting commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and to help Ukraine resist Russia’s nearly three-year-old incursion. U.S. military officials have acknowledged also that they are struggling to distribute enough air-defense systems to protect assets and allies in Eastern Europe along with those in the Middle East, and analysts warn the strain could hinder Washington’s ability to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.

The Lincoln, and the dozens of combat aircraft that operate from its flight deck, was scheduled to deploy to the Asia-Pacific region as part of a Pentagon strategy meant to show force in an area where key U.S. partners have had to contend with an expansionist China and a wildly unpredictable North Korea. In August, after tensions between Israel and Iran hit a peak with the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the carrier was ordered from the Pacific to the Middle East and later had its deployment extended as senior officials evaluated the potential risks of making such a significant shift.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon in May. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

The quandary simmered for weeks, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, weighing various options mindful of the mounting demands the Middle East conflict has imposed on U.S. personnel and equipment, and Washington’s ability to address other pressing geostrategic objectives. Brown said in a recent interview that the Pentagon must “step back and take a look” at the totality of what’s being asked of the military, “not just in the Middle East but really all around the world.”

The chairman’s force-posture recommendations go to Austin, who ultimately makes the weighty decisions that could create long-term complications for the Pentagon. Those considerations require “very real trade-offs,” said a senior defense official familiar with this thinking, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military movements.

“I don’t think there are any easy decisions,” the official said.

Outsize demands on the Navy

When the Gaza war began, the Pentagon moved quickly to reinforce its presence in the Middle East, shuffling around tens of thousands of troops, realigning defenses and deploying dozens of attack aircraft to complement Israel’s Iron Dome air defenses and project a message of deterrence to Iran and its proxies. The ongoing crisis has affected the Navy like no other service.

In the days after Hamas attacked Israel, President Joe Biden announced that a deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Gerard Ford and its escort ships would be extended to help protect the Jewish state as another carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, was dispatched to the region. The Eisenhower strike group also carried out an extended assignment, from November 2023 until June. In that time, U.S. personnel launched hundreds of weapons at a total cost of more than $1 billion, according to Navy data.

The Eisenhower was replaced in the Middle East by the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, and Austin ordered the Lincoln to join it after the assassination of Haniyeh prompted Iranian threats of retaliation. In late September, when Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in Lebanon triggered additional declarations from Tehran, Austin extended the Lincoln. In recent days, it was in the Gulf of Oman with several escort ships, defense officials said.

Another aircraft carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, deployed from Virginia in September and in recent days was in the North Sea for a scheduled deployment to Europe, where Russia’s actions in Ukraine and beyond have been met with alarm. Officials said the Truman could be diverted to the Middle East if necessary.

Another concern, officials say, is the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group, a three-ship flotilla carrying U.S. Marines and sailors and various aircraft that has been in the eastern Mediterranean since late June due to concerns that a U.S. evacuation from Lebanon may be necessary. Those ships and personnel have been deployed since April, and several defense officials familiar with the situation said there is no similar replacement ready to step in because of the Navy’s long-standing struggle to maintain its modest fleet of such vessels.

James Foggo III, a retired Navy admiral, said the extended deployments have enhanced security in the Middle East but will result in second-order effects that include delayed maintenance, upended training schedules and shortfalls in munitions.

“Two more months — 60 more days — of wear and tear on the ship means more things need to be fixed,” Foggo said. “It’s very important to be able to fix the ship … and to get it back in the rotation.”

The Navy’s top officer, Adm. Lisa Franchetti said in a recent event at the Atlantic Council that she is focused on addressing challenges that have caused delays when ships require extensive maintenance after deployments. Franchetti said she has set a “stretch goal” of having 80 percent of the Navy’s ships and aircraft available to be surged in a crisis by 2027. That number, she told reporters recently, was 36 percent in 2022 and had come up to 67 percent as of June.

A drain on weapons stocks

In the past year, the United States has spent at least $22.7 billion on military aid to Israel and U.S. operations in the region, according to a cost analysis by the Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. The authors of the analysis said that is a “conservative” estimate that does not include additional U.S. security assistance provided to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and other U.S. partners.

More than $4.8 billion has been spent to boost offensive and defensive operations in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden where, the analysis found, “the U.S. Navy has been intercepting Houthi drones and missiles on a near-daily basis.” The Watson Institute’s report calls the operation “the most sustained military campaign by American forces” since the height of the Pentagon’s extended bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

William D. Hartung, one of the co-authors, said in an interview that one of the major problems is “the context in which this is happening.” He cited the Ukraine war, the conflict in the Middle East and the need to keep munitions on hand for any confrontation with China.

Rising tensions with China have focused heavily on its plans for the self-governing island of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory. China has dramatically expanded the size of its military and its presence in the South China Sea in recent years, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has suggested Beijing may eventually attempt to seize it by force. The United States has sought to counter China’s influence by expanding its networks of allies and partners in the region.

Hartung, an analyst at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, which advocates military restraint, said that after years of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, the United States has shifted from having American boots on the ground to a strategy focused on arming allies and partners.

“It ends up that could have its own disastrous results,” Hartung said, alluding in part to the depletion of U.S. stocks. “It’s not as safe an alternative as maybe they thought.”

Foggo, the retired Navy admiral, said it is clear the Biden administration has sought to grow production of key munitions. But Washington could still do more, he said, including utilizing the Defense Production Act, a law that grants the president power to take control of key components of industry to bolster national defense.

During a recent panel discussion, Becca Wasser, a senior fellow in the defense program at the Center for a New American Security, said it appears the Houthis are waging a “cost-imposition campaign” intended to wear down the United States until it is forced to change its policy or retreat. She cited the Navy’s heavy use of pricey Tomahawk cruise missiles and the Standard Missile-2, a surface-to-air missile that sailors have used to ward off incoming drones and missiles in the Red Sea.

Should the Navy end up in any conflict with China, Wasser noted, it’s probable the United States would need to rely on such rounds — and a lot of them.

“The rate of fire for those is really high,” said Wasser. “If you look at the rate of build, that circle does not square.”

View 3 more stories

By Dan Lamothe

Dan Lamothe joined The Washington Post in 2014 to cover the U.S. military. He has written about the Armed Forces for more than 15 years, traveling extensively, embedding with five branches of service and covering combat in Afghanistan.follow on X @danlamothe

By Abigail Hauslohner

Abigail Hauslohner is a Washington Post national security reporter focused on Congress. She was previously a roving national correspondent, writing on topics ranging from immigration to political extremism. She covered war and politics in the Middle East for seven years, and joined the Post in 2012 as Cairo bureau chief.follow on X @ahauslohner

9. After 20 years, memories of Fallujah linger for veterans still coming to terms with Iraq War

After 20 years, memories of Fallujah linger for veterans still coming to terms with Iraq War

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · November 5, 2024

U.S. Marines prepare to patrol Fallujah, Iraq, to clear the city of insurgent activity and weapons caches during the second Battle of Fallujah, Nov. 26, 2004. The Marines are, left to right, Staff Sgt. Eric Brown, Sgt. Aubrey McDade, Cpl. Steven Archibald and Lance Cpl. Robert Coburn. Twenty years later, McDade and others say they are still coming to terms with what would be known as the bloodiest single battle of the Iraq War in the years following the 2003 invasion. (U.S. Marine Corps)

Even the dead insurgents lining the streets and alleys of Fallujah were a threat to the U.S. Marines pushing into the Iraqi city two decades ago.

Troops shot up the often boobytrapped corpses lying ahead of them as a precaution. Enemy snipers hid in the buildings. Others sprung from spider holes and fired from a high-powered Western arsenal that included .50-caliber machine guns, much of it seized from earlier fights.

The initial push on Nov. 7, 2004, marked the start of what would turn out to be the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War, confronting U.S. forces with fighting on a scale not seen since Vietnam.

Twenty years later, memories from the battle, which killed nearly 100 U.S. service members, remain raw for many who fought there. And some continue to grapple with the legacy of what it all meant.

“I kind of came to grasp that, you know, the world’s probably a worse place for what we did,” said Marine veteran Alex Nicoll. “People died, limbs were lost, and I don’t know if any outcome came of it.”

Nicoll and a group of Fallujah veterans reflected on their experiences and the battle’s legacy as part of a special commemoration sponsored by the organization Disabled American Veterans.

“It’s pretty impressive when rules of engagement are thrown out the window, the wall of lead that comes with Marines,” Nicoll said in his video testimonial. “I’m glad I got to see that. For a just reason or not? That’s debatable. But it’s irrelevant, too. We got to be a part of Marines being unleashed.”

Like the Iraq War itself, the battle has left conflicted feelings. The bravery of U.S. forces in Fallujah and the hardships they endured are now part of military lore.

The battle showcased how an unleashed Marine Corps, backed by U.S. soldiers, could lay waste to a tough adversary in brutal urban warfare conditions.

Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade Reconnaissance Troop clear houses in Fallujah on Nov. 15, 2004. The soldiers were part of the largest single urban battle of the Iraq War in the years following the 2003 invasion. (Kimberly Snow/U.S. Army)

Yet the battle didn’t pave the way to a bigger turnaround in a war that had many dark days ahead. It would be more than two years before the tide started to clearly turn, with the 2006 “Anbar Awakening” and the troop surge of 2007 eventually helping to quell much of the fighting.

But even those successes proved to be short-lived. When U.S. forces pulled out in 2011, Iraq was in shambles and Iran’s influence in the country was larger than ever. By 2014, a new group of militants that came to be known as ISIS was on the march.

Complicated retrospective

The legacy of Fallujah is muddled in ways other major operations in history aren’t, such as the great battles of World War II that are memorialized every year for the role they played in American victories in Europe and the Pacific.

In Iraq, there were none of the traditional measures of military success — no unconditional surrenders, no peace treaties — that helped make the sacrifices at Fallujah seem worth the cost.

The November battle was launched months after a precursor in Fallujah was called off amid international outcry over the scale of civilian casualties.

Hundreds of Iraqi civilians were believed to have been killed during that clash between U.S. forces and insurgents. After pulling out of the city on May 1, 2004, the U.S. turned the mission over to the Iraqi Fallujah Brigade, which quickly folded.

Spc. Stephen Lewis, Staff Sgt. Nicholus Danielsen and Staff Sgt. Jimmy Amyett, top to bottom, clear a house in southern Fallujah, Nov. 19, 2004. The second Battle of Fallujah began Nov. 7, 2004, claiming the lives of nearly 100 U.S. service members. (Kimberly Snow/U.S. Army)

Many of those Iraqi troops joined up with the insurgents. After the American withdrawal, Fallujah festered throughout the summer, becoming the center of opposition to the U.S.-led coalition.

The city also served as the main base for the militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who directed numerous high-profile kidnappings, executions and beheadings of foreigners.

By the end of the summer, American commanders and the Iraqi government had determined that an operation to clear the city of an estimated 4,000 insurgents would be needed.

Responsibility for the second Battle of Fallujah, known as Operation Phantom Fury, fell to I Marine Expeditionary Force, which commanded a contingent of more than 12,000 U.S. troops drawn from every Pentagon service and an array of coalition soldiers.

Perhaps the biggest problem facing them would be distinguishing guerrilla fighters from civilians still trapped in their homes. Civilian casualty estimates from the battle ranged between 580 and 800.

On Nov. 8, U.S. forces stormed into the city. While the Marine Corps was the main element, the U.S. Army also played a large role.

Then-Staff Sgt. David G. Bellavia, an Army squad leader, on the third day of the battle charged into a house infested with insurgents, doing battle from room to room in close-quarter combat.

Bellavia was credited with singlehandedly saving an entire squad, and in 2019 he received the Medal of Honor, becoming the first living Iraq War veteran to receive the honor.

“Men go into battle because it is our love of nation, our way of life and our love of those we serve with side by side,” Bellavia said during a ceremony at the time. “We defend, we avenge, we sacrifice, we bleed and we are willing to die for this unique creation, the United States of America.”

President Donald J. Trump presents the Medal of Honor to former U.S. Army Staff Sgt David G. Bellavia during a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C., June 25, 2019. Bellavia was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions while serving as a squad leader with the 1st Infantry Division in in Fallujah, Iraq when a squad from his platoon became trapped by intense enemy fire. (Kevin M Roy/U.S. Army)

Staff Sgt. David G. Bellavia in Iraq in 2004. In 2019 he received the Medal of Honor, becoming the first living Iraq War veteran to receive the honor. (U.S. Army)

Medals and memories

Scores of valor medals were awarded in the aftermath of the fighting, including at least 10 Navy Crosses for Marines.

Then-Sgt. Aubrey McDade, a machine gun squad leader, was one of the recipients of the Navy Cross, the military’s second-highest combat medal.

But McDade said he struggled for years to come to terms with the carnage he had witnessed and the screams in battle he heard from injured Marines.

“I struggled so bad,” he said during his testimonial shared with the Disabled American Veterans organization. McDade compared his recollections to being in a trance and being “forced to watch a movie I didn’t want to watch.”

Nicoll also struggled for years after the war. He and his team did battle in what came to be known as the “House of Hell,” where bullets and grenades were flying everywhere as they fought off scores of insurgents. During the shootout, Nicoll was badly injured.

Amid the mayhem, then-Cpl. Robert Mitchell, Nicoll’s squad leader, was putting a tourniquet on Nicoll’s leg when an insurgent lunged at them. Mitchell pulled his combat knife and, in a swipe, instantly killed the fighter, according to the Marine Corps’ account.

Mitchell went on to receive the Navy Cross for his actions.

“In those situations, you just react and decide how to gain the upper hand,” Mitchell told the student media at Arizona State University in a 2012 interview. “Your training takes over and you forget about everything else because one of your guys is injured and you have to be there for him.”

The experience of Fallujah drew him closer to his fellow Marines, Mitchell said.

“When you think you are in the worst situation possible, whether it’s in training or in combat, there is always someone who knows just what to say to make light of the situation,” he said.

Nicoll, who lost his leg below his left knee in Fallujah, said it took him about 15 years to find new purpose in life.

Now he works as a motorcycle mechanic. But all these years later, he said, there’s no replacing the bonds formed under fire.

“You’re never going to get those buddies again,” Nicoll said.

Soldiers of Task Force 2-7, 1st Cavalry Division, pay final respects to Sgt. Jonathan Shields and Spc. Jose Valez during a memorial service on Camp Taji, Nov. 27, 2004. Shields and Valez were among nearly 100 service members that were killed during the second Battle of Fallujah. (Benjamin Cossel/U.S. Army)

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · November 5, 2024

10. Inside China’s cognitive warfare strategy

Excerpts:

Likely: The West is caught unprepared by China’s cognitive warfare

Should the West fail to act, it faces a scenario in which China is able to hone its information and cognitive warfare capabilities to the point that it can manipulate the perceptions and decisions of its adversaries with increasing effectiveness. This could afford Beijing a strategic advantage, potentially obviating the need for kinetic conflict to achieve its long-term aim of national rejuvenation by 2049, including the annexation of Taiwan.

Globally, China would likely be poised to further extend its ideological reach, leveraging its ability to collect and exploit vast amounts of data on foreign populations to influence key decision-makers. Meanwhile, the West, largely unprepared for this type of warfare, would see its alliances fray, its internal cohesion erode and pro-China narratives steadily gain ground across the globe.

Less likely: Western nations integrate strategies to counter Chinese influence

If Western nations are able to swiftly recognize the need to integrate cognitive and information warfare into their military strategies, Beijing’s growing dominance in this domain could still be curtailed. Such an approach would involve not only the effective dissemination of counter-narratives to blunt Chinese influence, but also the deployment of cyber tools and AI to disrupt the CCP’s cognitive warfare efforts. With carefully targeted information operations, too, the West could begin to recover its waning influence across the Global South. Though the threat of kinetic conflict would persist, a blend of conventional, information, and cognitive deterrence could prove sufficient to keep China from securing a clear advantage.

Inside China’s cognitive warfare strategy

Beijing is leveraging advanced technologies like AI to gain strategic advantages without conventional combat.

POLITICS

https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/china-cognitive-warfare/

gisreportsonline.com · November 5, 2024

POLITICS

November 5, 2024

Inside China’s cognitive warfare strategy

Aleksandra Gadzala Tirziu

Reading time: 13 min

Beijing is leveraging advanced technologies like AI to gain strategic advantages without conventional combat.

The popular influencer Vica Li presents herself as a lifestyle and travel blogger on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Despite her positioning as an independent content creator, she has connections to CGTN, a Chinese state-run media outlet, and her content often aligns with Chinese government narratives. © www.youtube.com/@vicachinese6048

In a nutshell

China’s strategy focuses on media influence and cognitive warfare
The Chinese military aims to manipulate its opponents’ thoughts
The West risks falling behind if it fails to take cognitive warfare seriously

Amid rising geopolitical tensions, much attention is being paid to the need to rebuild and revitalize Western defense industries, particularly in the United States and Europe. The growing threat of conflict with China, especially over Taiwan, has sharpened this focus. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made clear that China is preparing for “worst-case and extreme scenarios,” ready to face “high winds, choppy waters and even dangerous storms.” Its military is fast modernizing, with a shipbuilding capacity that outstrips that of the U.S. by a factor of 200, and a nuclear arsenal expanding faster than that of any other nation. Meanwhile, the U.S. lacks the shipyards needed to build and maintain its fleets, and Europe’s military capacity is weak, at best.

In this context, the Western preoccupation with bolstering its military hardware is understandable. Yet what such a focus overlooks is that, for Beijing, the true battlefield is not one of missiles or ships, but in the domains of information and cognitive warfare. People’s Liberation Army manuals describe cognitive warfare as its “fundamental function” and “the basis for the ability to accomplish military tasks.”

Soon after he took control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President Xi urged China’s military to expand an “ideological concept of information warfare,” to spread Beijing’s preferred narratives and silence global dissent, as well as one of cognitive warfare, to shape the perceptions and behaviors of its adversaries.

In contrast, since the end of the Cold War, the West has been primarily focused on conventional warfare. For the U.S., in particular, the Gulf War and later conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan seemed to reinforce this focus, with military spending having increased by 129 percent between 1989 and 2010. In the process, information warfare largely fell by the wayside. Now, with China, along with Russia and Iran, having intensified its efforts in this domain, the West is left to catch up. Should it fail to do so, and fail to deter Beijing, it risks the likely subversion of its citizens, the unraveling of critical alliances and the advance of China’s new world order.

‘Tell China stories well’

Information warfare is nothing new for the CCP. Since the 1920s, it has employed such tactics against Taiwan, seeking to sow division and weaken the resolve of its population, with the ultimate aim of annexing the island nation without recourse to overt military action. Taiwan often serves as a testing ground for Beijing’s political warfare strategies, which it then deploys elsewhere.

China’s information warfare assumes a variety of guises. Chief among them is media influence, which includes disseminating propaganda through print, radio, television and social media, as well as censorship. It also includes training foreign journalists and social media influencers in CCP narratives and techniques.

“Tell China stories well, spread China’s voice well,” President Xi told Chinese state broadcaster Central China Television (now China Global Television Network, or CGTN), in 2017. Since assuming the chairmanship of the CCP in 2012, President Xi has significantly boosted Beijing’s efforts to undermine its adversaries and promote ideological cohesion among its allies, particularly across the Global South. “If we do not actively educate and correctly guide [the foreign masses], others could preemptively seize discursive power,” warns a 150-page textbook released in 2022 by the CCP’s Central National Security Commission and its Central Propaganda Department.

This focus on narrative and discourse ultimately seeks to help achieve China’s national rejuvenation, rooted in a vision of China and the world that aligns with the CCP’s perspective of both. After all, it is difficult to emerge as a global superpower absent buy-in for your norms and ideals. Since 2012, then, China has spent upwards of $10 billion annually on its foreign propaganda efforts.

Facts & figures

China’s cognitive warfare tactics

Western nations risk falling behind if they fail to adapt to China’s cognitive warfare methods.

Across Africa, every CCP-affiliated news agency has established a presence. CGTN, which is overseen by the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department, operates 35 bureaus across the continent’s 54 nations. In Europe, it has bureaus in London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels, while its production center in Washington, D.C. anchors its American presence. Other CCP-controlled outlets, including China Daily, Xinhua, People’s Daily and China Radio International (CRI), have similarly extended their global reach. The aim is clear: to disseminate CCP-approved narratives and amplify China’s cultural presence around the world.

This ambition is pursued through a variety of methods, from direct broadcasts to more opaque approaches, like strategic content placements in partnership with local media outlets. CCP officials and state media documents have referred to this practice as “borrowing a boat to reach the sea.” In print media, China Watch, a paid news-like advertising supplement from China Daily, has appeared in major newspapers around the world. In the U.S., it has been periodically included in the print editions of papers such as the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. “Diaoyu Islands Belong to China,” declared one China Watch advertisement in the New York Times. “From Revolution to the Great Power,” asserted another in Switzerland’s leading daily, the Neue Zurcher Zeitung. An unsuspecting reader might readily accept both claims to be true.

Yet what Beijing calls the Diaoyu Islands are, in fact, the Senkaku Islands, which are internationally recognized as part of Japanese territory. And though Beijing may wish to be regarded as a “great power,” that does not necessarily make it so.

In the Czech Republic, commercial radio stations have received content, including pre-written scripts, from CRI. The content mirrors CCP talking points on issues like Taiwan and the Russian war in Ukraine, and routinely promotes positive narratives about President Xi. In France, the public television network TV5Monde has had a “content promotion agreement” in place with CCTV since 2014.

Social media platforms such as TikTok, WeChat and Xiaohongshu – an Instagram-like app also known as RED – have opened up additional avenues for such efforts. Through these platforms, Beijing leverages seemingly apolitical content to promote its narrative of China’s global role, advance CCP ideology and dampen criticisms of its policies. A recent study by the U.S.-based Network Contagion Research Institute indeed found that TikTok, “through the use of travel influencers, frontier lifestyle accounts, and other CCP-linked content creators, the platform systematically shouts down sensitive discussions.” As much as 93 percent of TikTok’s content is either apolitical or pro-China, with users “appear[ing] to absorb these biased narratives unwittingly.”

In social media as in traditional journalism, the CCP trains and finances foreign influencers and journalists. Between January 2020 and August 2021, for instance, 156 CCP-controlled accounts on U.S.-based platforms posted more than 546 pro-CCP messages on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), and shared content from state media outlets such as CGTN, Global Times, Xinhua and China Daily. Many of these posts followed CCP-organized tours for prominent foreign influencers, particularly to Xinjiang, in a bid to counter international outrage over Beijing’s genocide in the region. Ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics, too, Beijing paid U.S.-based consulting firm Vippi Media $300,000 to recruit influencers tasked with amplifying CCP-approved narratives about “China’s history, culture, modern life, new trends.”

Each year, thousands of journalists from across Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe are trained in China on similar themes, as well as CCP media tactics. Courses are hosted by institutions like the Communications University of China, under the CCP’s Ministry of Education, and the School of Journalism and Communication at Renmin University, supported by the China Media Group.

Given the CCP’s rejection of Western notions of journalism and its insistence that “the media and publishing should be subject to Party discipline,” the content of such trainings can be readily inferred. The result is a growing global network of voices ready to “tell China stories well.”

Fighting in the cognitive domain

It is one thing to attempt to indoctrinate foreign audiences with your worldview; to try to exert direct control over an adversary’s will is quite another. Yet the CCP has been pursuing such a strategy through its concept of “intelligentized warfare.” First introduced by the CCP in 2019, this innovative military concept centers on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to manipulate human cognition. It is defined by four key features: enhanced information-processing capabilities, rapid decision-making, swarm tactics and cognitive warfare. In the near term, this strategy is being honed to enable the CCP to bring Taiwan under its control without resorting to conventional conflict. Yet it is likely Beijing aims to eventually extend this tactic further afield.

While the Party has yet to provide an official definition of intelligentized warfare, several Chinese military strategists have described it as “integrated warfare waged in land, sea, air, space, electromagnetic, cyber, and cognitive arenas using intelligent weaponry and equipment and their associated operation methods, underpinned by the IoT [Internet of Things] information system.” Chinese researchers maintain that human cognition is at the core of such an approach – indeed, at the core of future warfare – and that through direct interference or subconscious control of an adversary’s mind it might be possible to induce mental damage, confusion or even hallucinations – conditions which could compel enemies to yield to Beijing’s demands or surrender.

How Beijing intends to operationalize this concept remains uncertain. Currently, the CCP appears to pursue a strategy that combines intimidation through military action with information warfare, as previously described. Looking ahead, Chinese strategist Pang Hong Liang, a pioneer in intelligentized warfare, has proposed, for example, that advanced unmanned systems designed to mimic small animals could be used to stealthily infiltrate the spaces of key decision-makers, such as presidents or combatant commanders, with the intention of intimidating or eliminating them.

Success in such operations would require large volumes of detailed personal information to accurately identify and target individuals. Beijing, fortunately for its purposes, has already amassed a vast trove of personal data on, for instance, U.S. citizens. This includes the confidential records of 21.5 million individuals from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as well as sensitive data concerning more than 100,000 U.S. Navy personnel. China has also gathered data on thousands of European officials, which it has selectively used to influence discussions on Europe-China ties. While data from the Global South is less readily available, the breadth of China’s economic, political and military operations in those regions suggests similar volumes of personal information are being gathered.

There remains considerable debate about whether the Chinese military can achieve these aims. Questions persist around the coordination of such operations across its armed forces, and whether the People’s Liberation Army would be able to execute such strategies on a global scale, beyond its immediate focus on Taiwan. Doubts also persist as to whether the CCP is able to attract and retain the talent needed to successfully integrate AI into its military operations, and whether it might keep pace with its rivals, which are also advancing their own AI-driven capabilities. Nevertheless, should the West ignore CCP efforts, it could find itself outflanked in the future.

Tepid Western deterrence

Despite such looming threats, Western national security policymakers remain largely unprepared to systematically operationalize information warfare strategies. In the U.S. Air Force, for instance, information warfare operations are “conducted on an ad hoc basis,” without “clearly delineated roles and responsibilities,” which makes them unsuited for large-scale, sustained campaigns.

The U.S. Navy similarly lacks a cohesive operational and tactical framework for future maritime warfare. A “War of 2026” scenario recently published in Proceedings, the U.S. Naval Institute’s monthly magazine, highlighted that under its current force structure, the U.S. Navy would be cognitively outmaneuvered. The scenario suggested that “thousands of U.S. sailors – avid users of TikTok and other media under China’s influence” would be “manipulated to the point that many [would refuse] to fight.”

More by Aleksandra Gadzala Tirziu

The European Union has also recognized “foreign influence manipulation and interference” as a growing threat. However, the bloc has yet to establish a standardized terminology or develop a cohesive, actionable framework to combat this threat effectively. Current efforts remain fragmented, with notable emphasis placed on countering “disinformation and misinformation” – terms that are often encompass domestic EU narratives that diverge from those endorsed by Brussels technocrats. The use of the EU’s Digital Services Act, intended to curb “illegal or otherwise harmful content and activities online,” against figures such as Elon Musk and Telegram founder Pavel Durov reflects this tendency. Such actions also suggest a tendency toward reactive, rather than broader strategic, initiatives in information warfare.

In the domain of cognitive, or intelligentized, warfare, Western military forces and policymakers have similarly struggled to align their institutions and infrastructures to detect and combat the cognitive warfare campaigns being waged by China and other adversaries against their populations – or those yet likely to emerge. While NATO’s Allied Command Transformation is in the process of developing a “Cognitive Warfare Concept” and the U.S. Department of Defense has increased spending on electronic warfare and expanded its cyber operations budget, neither has yet put in place wider operational concepts necessary to employ their cognitive warfare capabilities in support of their security aims. The proposed U.S. defense budget for 2025 also includes cuts to Military Information Support Operations – commonly known as psychological operations – that target foreign audiences.

Ongoing kinetic conflicts in Ukraine and across the Middle East make it unlikely that Beijing will abandon the physical domain entirely in favor of cognitive and information warfare. As Western nations hone their conceptions of information and cognitive warfare, then, they face the added challenge of integrating such approaches with more conventional military tactics. Coordination is key: The effective shaping of adversarial perceptions depends not only on controlled information flows, but also on the projection and use of physical force, in tandem with digital campaigns. The West would do well to grasp this sooner than later.

Scenarios

Likely: The West is caught unprepared by China’s cognitive warfare

Should the West fail to act, it faces a scenario in which China is able to hone its information and cognitive warfare capabilities to the point that it can manipulate the perceptions and decisions of its adversaries with increasing effectiveness. This could afford Beijing a strategic advantage, potentially obviating the need for kinetic conflict to achieve its long-term aim of national rejuvenation by 2049, including the annexation of Taiwan.

Globally, China would likely be poised to further extend its ideological reach, leveraging its ability to collect and exploit vast amounts of data on foreign populations to influence key decision-makers. Meanwhile, the West, largely unprepared for this type of warfare, would see its alliances fray, its internal cohesion erode and pro-China narratives steadily gain ground across the globe.

Less likely: Western nations integrate strategies to counter Chinese influence

If Western nations are able to swiftly recognize the need to integrate cognitive and information warfare into their military strategies, Beijing’s growing dominance in this domain could still be curtailed. Such an approach would involve not only the effective dissemination of counter-narratives to blunt Chinese influence, but also the deployment of cyber tools and AI to disrupt the CCP’s cognitive warfare efforts. With carefully targeted information operations, too, the West could begin to recover its waning influence across the Global South. Though the threat of kinetic conflict would persist, a blend of conventional, information, and cognitive deterrence could prove sufficient to keep China from securing a clear advantage.

For industry-specific scenarios and bespoke geopolitical intelligence, contact us and we will provide you with more information about our advisory services.

11. America’s Friends and Foes Brace for a New World Under Trump

Life in this new world is about to get real interesting: "May you live in interesting times."

America’s Friends and Foes Brace for a New World Under Trump

Foreign governments have readied plans for a second term, expecting swerves on trade and security policy

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas-friends-and-foes-brace-for-a-new-world-under-trump-b7c1ef42?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1&mc_cid=cb0cc19a40

By Daniel Michaels

, Jason Douglas

, Kim Mackrael

and Jiyoung Sohn

Nov. 6, 2024 6:09 am ET

In Ukraine, a Donald Trump presidency increases uncertainty about Kyiv’s ability to fend off Russia. Photo: Genya Savilov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Leaders of U.S. allies and adversaries on Wednesday braced for quick shifts in American economic policy and the country’s approach to relations with the rest of the world as the scale of Donald Trump’s victory became clear.

Trump, whose Republican party also regained control of the Senate, has pledged to increase import tariffs and cut support for allies that don’t spend adequately on defense. He has also said he would work for a rapid end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Global heads of state and government congratulated Trump on his win, which could jolt both U.S. friends and foes.

For China, Trump’s return promises to ignite a new phase in a trade war that began during his first term of office at a time when broader relations between Washington and Beijing are strained.

Trump on the campaign trail floated plans to impose tariffs of 60% on all Chinese imports, a significant increase from the more modest tariff increases on some Chinese goods that were a signature policy of his first term as president.

In the Middle East, a second Trump administration is likely to go back to a “maximum pressure” policy on Tehran, as it did during Trump’s first term, according to people briefed on thinking within Trump’s circles.

That could reshape dynamics in a region where Iran and its proxies are engaged in a multi-front conflict with Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump supporter who quickly congratulated him, could push back harder against Iran.

New U.S. trade barriers would be painful for China. Photo: Cfoto/Zuma Press

For Ukraine, where Russian troops control almost 20% of the country, a Trump presidency increases uncertainty about Kyiv’s continued ability to fend off Moscow’s invading forces without the enormous financial and material support the U.S. has provided.

President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Trump on “his impressive election victory” and lauded Trump’s “commitment to ‘peace through strength.’” But the two have had at-times fraught relations, and prominent Trump backers have expressed wariness about U.S. support for Ukraine.

Many Ukrainians are concerned that Trump may weaken Kyiv’s hand by cutting critical military and financial support or seeking a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that could cede territory and influence to Moscow. Putin has repeatedly said he is only interested in a peace deal that would disarm Ukraine and prevent it from joining NATO.

At North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels, officials now face questions about the U.S.-led organization’s future. Trump has repeatedly spoken harshly of the military alliance because most European members have long lagged behind the U.S. on military spending.

European outlays have reversed over recent years, rising sharply after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Whether the increase, which began during Trump’s first administration—soon after Moscow began hostilities toward Kyiv—will be sufficient to placate a new Trump team remains an unknown that has alliance diplomats on edge.

NATO’s new Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who as Dutch prime minister pushed against Trump in 2018, has recently been talking up the alliance’s need to spend and do more. On Wednesday morning he quickly congratulated Trump.

Trump’s victory could lead to a reshaping of dynamics in the Middle East. Photo: jack Guez/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In Iran, leaders could face harder pushback from Israel. Photo: Abedin Taherkenareh/Shutterstock

“I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength through NATO,” Rutte said. “Through NATO, the U.S. has 31 friends and Allies who help to advance U.S. interests, multiply American power and keep Americans safe.

But further increases in military spending will require action by governments and legislatures among the alliance’s 32 members—29 of which are European—so fast action is difficult.

Nearby in Brussels, European Union officials have plans to respond to pressure from Trump, who during the election campaign repeatedly voiced anger with the U.S. trade deficit with the EU in physical goods.

EU officials and diplomats emphasized in recent weeks that they don’t want a trade war. But they said Europe would be ready to respond with targeted countermeasures if the next U.S. administration moves ahead with heavy tariffs.

“Millions of jobs and billions in trade and investment on each side of the Atlantic depend on the dynamism and stability of our economic relationship,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Decisions on which American goods might be targeted for retaliation would depend on the details of any U.S. trade measures, as well as which U.S. states and electoral districts are viewed as the most politically sensitive.

Europe’s response would likely follow a familiar playbook. After Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs on Europe during his first term, the EU hit back with its own tariffs on a range of U.S. products, including bourbon whiskey from Kentucky, the home state of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen Photo: olivier Matthys/Shutterstock

European officials have also looked at what the bloc could offer to the U.S. on trade, including the possibility of greater cooperation on agricultural machinery, diplomats said. Cooperation countering China is another olive branch Brussels may offer Washington.

China, which the U.S. widely sees as an adversary both economically and militarily, promises to be a prime focus for Trump, starting with high tariffs.

New U.S. trade barriers would be painful for China’s economy. High tariffs would severely pinch trade with the U.S., perhaps by as much as 70%, according to Oxford Economics, reducing China’s share of U.S. imports to as little as 4%, from around 14% in 2023.

Chinese companies are in worse shape to weather higher tariffs than they were during Trump’s first term. Weak spending at home has contributed to almost two years of falling prices for manufactured goods, crushing corporate profit margins and pushing many firms into the red.

However, just as in the first phase of the trade war, Beijing has tools to lessen the hit from tariffs and for responding to the U.S. Policymakers could cut interest rates and extend tax rebates and other perks to exporters, economists say.

Like the EU, Beijing could also try to force the U.S. to reconsider trade actions by retaliating, potentially by raising tariffs on U.S. products such as motorcycles and bourbon, or by withholding supplies of critical minerals needed in high-tech industries such as chip making. It could also weaken its currency, enabling it to pick up market share in markets other than the U.S., economists say.

How much a second Trump administration will tap allies for help pressuring Beijing is a big question for Washington’s longtime friends.

South Korea bet big on the Biden presidency, with its leader singing “American Pie” at the White House last year and its corporate titans pouring tens of billions of dollars into the U.S.’s semiconductor, electric-vehicle and green energy sectors. That helped propel South Korea to a record-high trade surplus with the U.S. in the first half of 2024, rising about 55% year-on-year to roughly $29 billion, according to official Seoul estimates.

Now that looks like a tenuous spot with Trump, who has previously taken aim at trade imbalances with other nations and could tilt away from Biden’s industrial policy. The share prices of South Korea’s EV battery makers and solar-panel manufacturers nosedived on Wednesday.

North Korea is more of a wild card. During Trump’s first term, Kim Jong Un gave priority to sanctions relief and met with the U.S. leader three times. But after talks sputtered, Kim gave priority to self-reliance inside North Korea, then struck a tight pact with Putin that includes a recent deployment of troops. Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal has only improved in recent years.

“Kim Jong Un may feel like he was completely betrayed by the American side” by Trump after their summits ended without a deal, said Sheen Seong-ho, an international-security professor at Seoul National University. “So he may take on a much tougher position.”

Laurence Norman, James Marson and Benoit Faucon.

Coverage of the U.S. election was watched closely in Seoul. Photo: Kim hong-ji/Reuters

Write to Daniel Michaels at Dan.Michaels@wsj.com, Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com, Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com and Jiyoung Sohn at jiyoung.sohn@wsj.com

12. US Airborne Rangers parachute in to seize a Pacific airbase, preparing for war with China

This article seems to really want to highlight HIMARS and ATCACMS but uses the Rangers as the attention getter while talking about the history of airborne operations (and their futility based on the historical example of the Germans). Seems almost like an article of non-sequiturs.

But why is all this necessary? "Tier One and Tier Two?" I do not think they mean what the author thinks they mean.

Excerpt:

The war game in Palau – a tiny island country 1,400 miles southeast of Taiwan – began with five USAF Boeing C-17 airlifters and one Australian air force C-17 flying to Palau’s Roman Tmetuchl International Airport apparently from Guam, 800 miles to the east. Inside some of the four-engine C-17s: US Army Airborne Rangers from the elite 75th Ranger Regiment.

US Rangers are a so-called “Tier Two” special operations force like most US spec-ops forces including the majority of the Navy SEAL teams, Army Green Berets etc. “Tier One” – nowadays aka “Special Mission Units” – are small elites within the Tier Two elites: a handful of units including the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (aka DevGru or SEAL Team Six), Army 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta (Delta Force) and others.

Britain nowadays has Rangers as part of its newly formed Ranger Regiment, but they are more focused on partnering with allied forces around the world – their nearest US equivalent is probably the Green Berets. The British equivalent of the US Rangers, meanwhile, would be 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment – permanently assigned to the UK Special Forces as the Special Forces Support Group, and with a different and arduous entry and training pipeline via the other, regular Para battalions.

Meanwhile in the Pacific it seems the US Rangers parachuted onto the airfield, simulating its capture. In actual practice, such a battle would probably be furious – and costly for the attackers. The German Fallschirmjager paratroops, who pioneered parachute-borne airfield seizures during World War II, suffered 44 per cent casualties capturing Allied air bases in Crete in 1941 and subsequently abandoned the idea. British paras jumping in to seize El Gamil airfield during the Suez crisis did so easily, but the Egyptian defenders were scarcely world-class opposition. Russian VDV airborne troops attempting to seize Hostomel airbase in Ukraine at the start of the 2022 invasion were bloodily repulsed.

The Telegraph Follow

US Airborne Rangers parachute in to seize a Pacific airbase, preparing for war with China

Sometimes rotary wing just hasn’t got the reach

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/05/us-army-rangers-parachute-assault-pacific-airbase-china-war/

Story by David Axe

• November 5, 2024 • 4 min read

US Army parachute troops practice an assault. The elite 75th Ranger Regiment recently practiced such an assault on an air base in Palau - Jason Weeding/Australian Army/Reuters

Airfields are few and far between across the vast reaches of the western Pacific Ocean. Every strip of concrete capable of launching and landing military aircraft is precious. And that’s why, in October, the US Army practiced seizing a Pacific airfield.

During, say, a war with China over Taiwan, the Army might try to capture Chinese airfields on reclaimed reefs in the China Seas and turn them over to the US Air Force or, at the very least, deny them to Chinese forces. But the Army clearly expects the Chinese to fight for every square foot of concrete – and to swiftly counterattack in an attempt to retake any runways they lose.

The war game in Palau – a tiny island country 1,400 miles southeast of Taiwan – began with five USAF Boeing C-17 airlifters and one Australian air force C-17 flying to Palau’s Roman Tmetuchl International Airport apparently from Guam, 800 miles to the east. Inside some of the four-engine C-17s: US Army Airborne Rangers from the elite 75th Ranger Regiment.

US Rangers are a so-called “Tier Two” special operations force like most US spec-ops forces including the majority of the Navy SEAL teams, Army Green Berets etc. “Tier One” – nowadays aka “Special Mission Units” – are small elites within the Tier Two elites: a handful of units including the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (aka DevGru or SEAL Team Six), Army 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta (Delta Force) and others.

Britain nowadays has Rangers as part of its newly formed Ranger Regiment, but they are more focused on partnering with allied forces around the world – their nearest US equivalent is probably the Green Berets. The British equivalent of the US Rangers, meanwhile, would be 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment – permanently assigned to the UK Special Forces as the Special Forces Support Group, and with a different and arduous entry and training pipeline via the other, regular Para battalions.

Meanwhile in the Pacific it seems the US Rangers parachuted onto the airfield, simulating its capture. In actual practice, such a battle would probably be furious – and costly for the attackers. The German Fallschirmjager paratroops, who pioneered parachute-borne airfield seizures during World War II, suffered 44 per cent casualties capturing Allied air bases in Crete in 1941 and subsequently abandoned the idea. British paras jumping in to seize El Gamil airfield during the Suez crisis did so easily, but the Egyptian defenders were scarcely world-class opposition. Russian VDV airborne troops attempting to seize Hostomel airbase in Ukraine at the start of the 2022 invasion were bloodily repulsed.

Where it’s possible, air assault forces today tend to prefer the use of helicopters or tiltrotors to parachutes. Rotary wing aircraft deliver troops as formed units, rather than scattering and mixing them up as mass parachute operations do. They also offer fire support and an option for retreat.

But even relatively long-ranging tiltrotors could struggle to cover the huge distances of a Pacific war; helicopters even more so. Many missions that might arise in the Island Chains could only be carried out by long-ranging C-17s or other jet transports – and that would mean parachutes, unless the planes were able to land by surprise.

What happened after the parachute assault in Palau represents a new wrinkle in airfield-seizure tactics. A C-17 landed at Roman Tmetuchl International Airport and disgorged a wheeled High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System launcher from the Army’s 17th Field Artillery Brigade.

HIMARS, which the Ukrainian army has been using to devastating effect against invading Russian forces, can fire an array of guided rockets against targets on land and at sea hundreds of miles away. With the help of some US Space Force communications specialists who apparently fed the HIMARS crews targeting data via satellite, the launcher in Palau fired six rockets – and then rolled back onto the C-17 for the long trip back to Hawaii via Guam.

The Army frequently rehearses airfield seizures. The Army and the US Marine Corps also frequently rehearse the rapid insertion of HIMARS to remote bases. It’s rarer for the services to combine these operations. But it also makes sense for precision rocket launchers to join in the airfield assaults.

An ATACMS missile launches. The box holding an ATACMS can alternatively hold six shorter-ranged GMLRS rockets, also highly effective weapons. The Himars launcher vehicle can be carried in a C-17 transport plane

That’s because, in a major war with China, the Chinese almost certainly would move fast to recapture any of their airfields the Americans seize. The counterattacks could come by air, land or sea. A HIMARS is powerless to intervene in an aerial assault, but it can smash up incoming overland and amphibious attacks with aplomb.

Just one of the HIMARS’ Army Tactical Missile System rockets can range 190 miles and scatter nearly a thousand grenade-size bomblets, any one of which could kill a soldier, immobilize a vehicle or punch a hole in the topside of a ship. Ukraine often aims its ATACMS at Russian training bases near the front line, peppering the assembled trainees with lethal fragments.

The Palau exercise points the way forward for base-hungry American forces in the Pacific. Rangers seize an airfield; HIMARS helps the Rangers defend the airfield until heavier reinforcements can fly in.

The addition of HIMARS to the traditional airfield op addresses a worrying lack of real-world evidence that lightly-armed infantry can capture and hold an airstrip all on their own against a determined foe. “Since World War II, the use of parachute forces has been in increasingly permissive environments against … ill-equipped and poorly-organized opponents,” R F M. Williams wrote in a 2021 article in Military Review.

It should go without saying the Chinese military is neither ill-equipped nor poorly-organized. It might take some serious firepower to permanently wrest control of a front-line base from Chinese forces. Especially a base as valuable as an air base.

13. Pictures: How Ukraine’s New Tank Armor is Changing Drone Warfare

Photos and video at the link: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/pictures-how-ukraine%E2%80%99s-new-tank-armor-changing-drone-warfare-213576

Pictures: How Ukraine’s New Tank Armor is Changing Drone Warfare

The National Interest · by Peter Suciu · November 5, 2024

What You Need to Know: Ukraine has adopted advanced protective measures for main battle tanks (MBTs) to counter drone threats on the frontlines, moving beyond makeshift solutions to purpose-built armor.

-Developed by Metinvest under Rinat Akhmetov's Steel Front initiative, these steel screens shield vulnerable areas like engines and ammo compartments from explosives dropped by drones.

-Unlike DIY options, these screens use high-grade steel for optimal strength without impairing tank maneuverability or visibility. While installation is complex, frontline reports indicate a 30-40% increase in vehicle survivability, allowing crews to survive attacks and evacuate safely. The protective screens may redefine MBT resilience in modern warfare.

Steel Screens for Tanks: Ukraine’s Answer to Drone Threats

Ukraine's Steel Front Takes Shape: The use of drones and other unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in Ukraine has changed the role of the main battle tank (MBT) – where the powerful behemoths can be all too easily targeted, disabled, and even destroyed. Both Moscow and Kyiv have looked at ways to increase the survivability of their MBTs, and that has included ad hoc solutions that include netting, strapping wooden logs to the side, and notably welding "cope cages" over the turret and engine compartments.

However, those ad hoc solutions have given way to more carefully planned options, and Ukraine has been looking to utilize more carefully planned protection. This has included specially-designed protective screens – developed by Metinvest, and based on the framework of Rinat Akhmetov's Steel Front. The screens were meant to help counter drones and even explosive devices that are now being used on the frontlines.

"The primary objective of these screens is to save the lives of soldiers. Additionally, they protect the most vulnerable parts of the vehicles, such as the engine and ammunition, from attacks from above, as drones often drop explosive devices from this trajectory," explained Oleksandr Myronenko, chief operating officer of Metinvest Group.

He told The National Interest that the screens were designed to block or reduce the impact of explosives dropped by drones. Each screen can be installed directly on the vehicle and provide protection both in combat and while stationed in shelters. Sandbags or netting are also used only when storing vehicles in fixed positions.

"The screens are made from high-quality steel, which increases their resistance to explosions," said Myroneko. "Simple DIY methods, like homemade metal grids, cannot always achieve the same level of strength or consistent protection."

As the adversary's primary goal is to immobilize the vehicle first and then destroy it if possible, most of the drones and loitering munitions that the Kremlin's forces are employing have been tasked with rendering a tank immobile.

"Our screens function as nets that prevent drones from making contact with the vehicle’s body," added Myroneko. "This helps to protect both the vehicle and its crew."

Not a Frontline Application

The first cope cages appeared just months after Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Drones proved to be an unexpected game changer for Kyiv, and dozens or perhaps even hundreds of Russian tanks were subsequently targeted.

Russian troops took those ad hoc measures, but in some cases, it impacted the operations of the tank and even diminished some capabilities. The Steel Front screens developed by Metinvest were designed to provide added protection without compromising the vehicle's fighting abilities.

The only downside is that it can't be installed at the front. More than just a welder and a few tools are required. But the results can pay off quickly.

"Depending on the vehicle model – including the Abrams, Bradley, Leopard, etc. – installing a screen takes a team of 10–12 people approximately 12 hours on average," said Myroneko. "This includes securing the screens, testing compatibility, and conducting mobility and combat-readiness tests. This process is relatively quick, allowing vehicles to be prepared for battle in a short time."

In addition, the protective screens were designed so that they do not affect the mobility or combat capabilities of the vehicles.

"The focus was on maintaining the maneuverability of tanks and armored vehicles," Myroneko continued. "The average weight of a grid screen for a tank is about 430 kg, which is negligible given the overall weight of the tank."

He also explained that all of the components are made from steel, including the metal structures for the frame, metal grids, and sheet metal.

"However, these do not impair maneuverability, speed, or combat mission execution," Myroneko stressed. "The screen structures are positioned in a way that does not obstruct the driver’s view or block essential functions, such as movement, shooting, ventilation, or cooling systems."

According to Metinvest, soldiers on the frontlines have claimed the screens can increase a vehicle's survivability increase by 30-40%.

"We have documented real cases where vehicles were stopped on the battlefield, but thanks to our screen, the crew remained alive and unharmed," said Myroneko. "The soldiers were able to evacuate, and the vehicle was later retrieved for repair."

It isn't clear how many MBTs and other armored vehicles have been fitted with the screens but each one could be another game changer.

Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].

Image Credit: Main image is from Creative Commons. All others are from Metinvest Group.

The National Interest · by Peter Suciu · November 5, 2024

14. Anti-Strategy in Ukraine: Loose Threads, Critical Asymmetry, and Gaping Holes

Excerpts:

Russia's war against Ukraine accentuates divergences in the NATO alliance. If Donald Trump is elected U.S. president those divergences will widen. His previous statements create doubt about U.S. intent and commitment. According to his former National Security Advisor John Bolton, “The odds that he will withdraw from NATO are very high.” Grand strategy will return to Europe in force, and without the United States as NATO’s center of gravity that presents a threat to European unity and peace. These divergences can and do become Russian attack surfaces. They also point to the importance of an ongoing U.S. role in European security as the actor that coordinates and moderates these different strategic perspectives. A U.S. withdrawal from NATO would result in greater tension between these strategic perspectives and make other aspects of European cooperation more difficult to sustain. Germany's leaders don't want to alienate Russia in the long-term. They, along with France and Italy, ultimately seek balance. The Baltics and other frontline states would like to see the Russian Federation dismantled. The consequence may be increased instability and disunity in Europe—a primary Russian strategic objective. That would be most dangerous to Eastern Europe, thus further widening the split from the rest of the continent.

The Warsaw Security Forum revealed significant flaws in NATO's approach to Ukraine. Nevertheless, these types of summits play an important role in bringing together the defenders of the liberal, rules-based global order for increased solidarity, mutual respect, and understanding. Consolidating these core countries is an essential task as they prepare for the coming existential competition between divergent visions of global order. Sadly, for those committed to victory in Ukraine they leave untouched the challenge of finding a way to bypass the loose threads, balance the asymmetries and fill the gaping holes. The camp of Transatlantic restrainers may continue rooting for the Anti-Strategy, but the only pathway to success for Ukraine and European unity is for NATO to have an explicit strategy for victory.

Anti-Strategy in Ukraine

By Jahara Matisek & Michael Miklaucic , Will Reno

November 06, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/11/06/anti-strategy_in_ukraine_1070265.html?mc_cid=cb0cc19a40

Anti-Strategy in Ukraine: Loose Threads, Critical Asymmetry, and Gaping Holes

NATO has an Anti-Strategy problem, good intentions for Ukraine but highly flawed planning. Translated into practice: Washington outsources escalation management to Moscow. It allows Russia to dictate the actions and reactions to its invasion and occupation of Ukraine on its own terms. Moreover, NATO’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia exhibits loose threads, critical asymmetries, and gaping holes in the NATO fabric. Of the loose threads the most errant is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the “illiberal democrat” who empathizes with Vladimir Putin, obstructs Ukraine support, and supports Russia’s war effort through Hungary’s continued dependence on Russian oil and gas. The most jarring asymmetry juxtaposes the assertiveness of the frontline states such as Poland, the Baltics, and new NATO members Finland and Sweden, against the hesitant caution of the core NATO powers including the United States, France, and especially Germany. Among the gaping holes none is more glaringly self-evident than the hole where a unified strategy for victory in Ukraine should be.

We attended the Warsaw Security Forum (WSF) 2024, which convened in early October with over 2,600 participants from 90 countries and 30 governmental delegations. NATO’s self-admiring unity in supporting Ukraine was on exuberant display, though the specter of Orban and his pro-Russian colleagues throughout right-wing Europe was notable by their non-presence. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is another loose thread whose government halted military aid to Ukraine and sought to open communications channels with Moscow. A menagerie of populist parties including Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland party (AfD), Slovakia’s neo-fascist Republika, Orban’s Fidesz party in Hungary, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians Party, the Revival party in Bulgaria, and France’s Rassemblement National party sympathize with Russia. And perennial NATO bad boy Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he trusts Russia “just as much as I trust the West.” Türkiye has become the biggest buyer of Russian fossil fuels, purchasing over $45 billion worth in 2023. These are just some of the loose threads.

What about the asymmetry? There is a seam in Europe dividing the frontline states from the core NATO powers—Germany, France, and the United States—that runs roughly along the old NATO-Warsaw Pact divide. Those who lived under Soviet rule and domination such as the Baltic States and Poland advocate for policies that degrade and exhaust Russian military capabilities as much as possible. Having spoken to several Polish and Baltic defense officials at the WSF event, many confided their desire to insert forces into Ukraine, but are being restrained by Germany and the United States. The security of these Eastern European countries is directly connected to a Ukrainian victory rather than a frozen conflict that prolongs instability. Finland, once a part of the Russian Empire and a target of Stalin's 1939-40 plan to return "lost" provinces to the Soviet Union, shares this historical legacy. The newest NATO member, Sweden also shares a visceral distrust of Russia and is a strong proponent of a definitive Ukrainian victory.

Meanwhile, the United States has been hesitant, even reluctant despite its bold rhetoric. American aid packages and military support to Ukraine have been piecemeal and subject to delays and bureaucratic hurdles, consistently one step behind Ukraine’s needs. The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) was off the table and then Ukraine got them. Next the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) was off the table; then Ukraine got them. The U.S. provided Abrams tanks only after the UK offered Challenger tanks and Germany allowed Leopard II tanks to be exported to Ukraine only on the condition that the United States committed to providing Abrams. It was only in August 2023 that the United States allowed the transfer of European-owned F-16 fighters to Ukraine, the first F-16s arriving a year later. The United States continues to impose restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American weapon systems, handicapping Ukraine’s ability to retaliate effectively against Russia’s relentless assault.

The frontline states are less risk adverse than the traditional NATO powers, despite the likelihood that any escalation would take place on their territory. In fairness, those traditional NATO powers are also the nuclear powers, and as such are imbued with the existential responsibility of avoiding nuclear war. Their reluctance to escalate is understandable even if this asymmetry is eroding alliance resolve.

These loose threads and the asymmetry between the NATO frontline and nuclear powers leave a gaping hole where a strategy should be. Tellingly NATO’s Ukraine webpage omits strategy. None of the frequently asked questions refers to a NATO strategy. On August 24 this year former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, “We must continue to provide Ukraine with the equipment and munitions it needs to defend itself against Russia’s invasion. This is vital for Ukraine’s ability to stay in the fight.” “Staying in the fight” is not a strategy; it is the epitome of the Anti-Strategy. The closest thing to a strategic goal for Ukraine was U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s April 2022 assertion that, “we want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” Despite Austin’s statement, rather than leading NATO the United States has equivocated, not wanting Ukraine to lose the war, yet unwilling to take the risks associated with Ukraine winning. “We will be with you for as long as it takes,” the U.S. says, but Ukraine hears whispers of “unless it takes too long.”

This Anti-Strategy approach dominates NATO today. It consists of a series of fragmented and reactive measures, rather than a cohesive, long-term strategy to effectively counter Russian aggression in Europe. At risk is democratic solidarity and the incremental erosion of a whole and free Europe. NATO’s disjointed and feckless actions unguided by a unified vision rely far too heavily on economic sanctions to pressure Russia. While these measures have hurt the Russian economy, their impact on Russia's strategic calculations have been limited, revealing the inadequacy of economic tools absent the real threat of hard power.

Providing military aid to Ukraine is inherently fraught with risk. NATO must navigate the complex challenge of ensuring aid reaches the front lines while avoiding actions that could escalate the conflict to the nuclear threshold. Coordinating a unified strategic response has proven difficult as varied levels of commitment and differing strategic priorities among allies complicate efforts to present a cohesive front. Germany is the most hesitant, but the United States has also been an obstacle. The Biden administration does not seem to understand how Moscow exploits U.S. escalation paranoia with threats of nuclear reprisals. They should understand that Russia’s partners have red lines as well, especially regarding nuclear weapons. Russia’s first use would most likely lead to universal—including Chinese and Indian—condemnation. A senior European defense leader at WSF who knows Russia advises, “Russia is bluffing!” Russia’s effective disinformation and infiltration of right-wing parties in many NATO member states helps obscure these signals, distract attention, and expose vulnerabilities in NATO's ability to effectively counter influence operations.

Russia's war against Ukraine accentuates divergences in the NATO alliance. If Donald Trump is elected U.S. president those divergences will widen. His previous statements create doubt about U.S. intent and commitment. According to his former National Security Advisor John Bolton, “The odds that he will withdraw from NATO are very high.” Grand strategy will return to Europe in force, and without the United States as NATO’s center of gravity that presents a threat to European unity and peace. These divergences can and do become Russian attack surfaces. They also point to the importance of an ongoing U.S. role in European security as the actor that coordinates and moderates these different strategic perspectives. A U.S. withdrawal from NATO would result in greater tension between these strategic perspectives and make other aspects of European cooperation more difficult to sustain. Germany's leaders don't want to alienate Russia in the long-term. They, along with France and Italy, ultimately seek balance. The Baltics and other frontline states would like to see the Russian Federation dismantled. The consequence may be increased instability and disunity in Europe—a primary Russian strategic objective. That would be most dangerous to Eastern Europe, thus further widening the split from the rest of the continent.

The Warsaw Security Forum revealed significant flaws in NATO's approach to Ukraine. Nevertheless, these types of summits play an important role in bringing together the defenders of the liberal, rules-based global order for increased solidarity, mutual respect, and understanding. Consolidating these core countries is an essential task as they prepare for the coming existential competition between divergent visions of global order. Sadly, for those committed to victory in Ukraine they leave untouched the challenge of finding a way to bypass the loose threads, balance the asymmetries and fill the gaping holes. The camp of Transatlantic restrainers may continue rooting for the Anti-Strategy, but the only pathway to success for Ukraine and European unity is for NATO to have an explicit strategy for victory.

Lieutenant Colonel Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek, PhD, (@JaharaMatisek) is a military professor in the national security affairs department at the United States Naval War College, research fellow with the European Resilience Initiative Center, and United States Department of Defense Minerva co–principal investigator for improving United States security assistance. He has published over one hundred articles and essays in peer-reviewed journals and policy-relevant outlets on strategy, warfare, and security assistance. He is a command pilot that was previously an associate professor in the Military and Strategic Studies Department at the United States Air Force Academy.

Michael Miklaucic lectures at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and is Editor Emeritus for the journal PRISM, having recently retired as a Senior Fellow of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. He previously served in various positions at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of State, including USAID representative on the Civilian Response Corps Inter-Agency Task Force, as the Senior Program Officer in the USAID Office of Democracy and Governance, and Rule of Law Specialist in the Center for Democracy and Governance. In 2002-2003 he served as the Department of State Deputy for War Crimes Issues and was responsible for U.S. relations with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), war crimes issues and negotiations in East Timor and Cambodia, and the early implementation of the Sudan Peace Act.

Dr. William Reno is a professor and chair of the Political Science Department at Northwestern University. He has conducted fieldwork and interviews in conflict zones across Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for over thirty years, having authored three books: Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone, Warlord Politics and African States, and Warfare in Independent Africa. He has published over two hundred articles in peer-reviewed journals and policy-relevant periodicals, and edited volumes on civil wars, rebels, and military assistance. He is the principal investigator for the US Department of Defense Minerva-funded program studying how the United States can improve foreign military training.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, Department of the Air Force, or Department of Defense. This article was supported by Levy Chair and Ruger Chair funds at the US Naval War College and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA9550-20-1-0277.

15. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 5, 2024

Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, November 5, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-november-5-2024

Fatah is attempting to extend its control over the Gaza Strip after the October 7 War, but Fatah’s lack of pro-Fatah Palestinian Authority (PA)-affiliated military forces in the Gaza Strip will make this extremely difficult. Fatah and Hamas have met in Cairo for the past several days to discuss post-war governance in the Gaza Strip and reportedly agreed in principle to form an administrative committee to manage civil affairs, including humanitarian aid. Hamas reportedly demanded that the committees only include PA civilian employees and remain independent of the PA itself. Fatah Chairman and PA President Mahmoud Abbas demanded in response to Hamas that the committee must be administratively and financially subordinate to the PA or Fatah would not agree to a deal. Either plan will not lead to renewed PA control in the Gaza Strip, however. Hamas guerrilla cells remain active across the Strip, and these cells would attack any attempt by the PA to replace Hamas’ political control with Fatah-affiliated or -dominated PA political control. Hamas likely continues to believe that controlling these committees would enable it to preserve its influence in the Strip.

Fatah likely views the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hamas’ weakened military position as an opportunity to confront Hamas over Hamas' efforts to maintain control in the Gaza Strip. An anonymous PA official noted that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on October 16 has created an opening for further discussions with Hamas or alternative governance plans for the post-war Gaza Strip. It does not appear that Hamas has altered its position vis-a-vis political control in the Gaza Strip since Sinwar’s death. Hamas has long attempted to maintain control or influence over any post-war political organization in the Gaza Strip.

Key Takeaways:

Post-War Control in the Gaza Strip: Fatah is attempting to extend its control over the Gaza Strip after the October 7 War, but Fatah’s lack of pro-Fatah Palestinian Authority (PA)-affiliated military forces in the Gaza Strip will make this extremely difficult. Fatah likely views the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hamas’ weakened military position as an opportunity to confront Hamas over Hamas efforts to maintain control in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Military Operations in the Gaza Strip: Israeli forces are conducting a major clearing operation across the northern Gaza Strip to disrupt militia reconstitution efforts. Palestinian militia elements could continue attacks in Jabalia after the IDF withdrew there in May 2024, though it was unclear how effective the Hamas military organization in Jabalia would continue to function. Hamas’ military wing has probably attempted to rebuild itself where possible in Jabalia since May 2024. It is unclear how successful these efforts would have been, however, given Hamas’ inability to resupply its fighters and attrition during Israeli operations in May.

Iraqi Militias and Ballistic Missiles: The commander of Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Sayyid al Shuhada boasted about Iranian-backed Iraqi militia ballistic missile capabilities on November 5, likely to deter potential Israeli strikes in Iraq. The Iranian-backed Iraqi groups probably also seek to message their strength to gain more influence within the Axis of Resistance amid the severe weakening of the Axis’ previous crown jewel, Hezbollah. The Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have deepened collaboration with the Houthis since October 7, 2023, which could give Iraqi militias access to the knowledge necessary to do rudimentary ballistic missile production.

Russia Launches Iranian Satellites: Russia launched the Iranian Kowsar high-resolution sensing satellite and Hodhod communications satellite into orbit using a Russian Soyuz rocket on November 5, which Iran could use to collect imagery on US and Israeli assets and bases in the region. Omid Faza’s founder, Hossein Shahrabi Farahani, who previously headed US-sanctioned Iran Electronics Industries (IEI) Space Group, created the company in 2018 with several unspecified Amir Kabir University students.

Israeli Defense Minister Fired: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on November 5. Netanyahu explained his decision by citing a "crisis of trust” that had emerged between him and Gallant.

Hamas Price Gouging Aid in the Gaza Strip: Gazans protested price gouging of humanitarian aid and goods in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, on November 4 and 5. It is notable that Palestinian civilians are protesting in Deir al Balah given that it remains a Hamas stronghold.

16. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 5, 2024

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 5, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-5-2024

The first North Korean forces have likely officially engaged in combat against Ukrainian troops in Kursk Oblast. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov stated in an interview with South Korean national broadcaster KBS on November 5 that Ukrainian forces engaged in "small-scale" clashes with North Korean troops in Kursk Oblast but emphasized that it will take more time for the entire contingent of North Korean forces to deploy to Kursk Oblast and enter combat. A source in Ukraine's special services also told Ukrainian outlet Suspilne that the first combat clashes between Ukrainian and North Korean forces have occurred but stated that these are not "large connections" between Ukrainian and North Korean forces. Umerov noted that it would be difficult for Ukrainian forces to quickly ascertain North Korean casualty counts from the initial fighting because North Korean soldiers have been "mixed in" with the Russian army and are "disguised" as soldiers from the Republic of Buryatia, which notably suggests that the Russian military is trying to integrate North Korean combat power into the Russian force structure, as opposed to maintaining separate North Korean units fighting under Russian command. North Korean force structure under Russia’s command remains unclear, however. Umerov forecasted that more North Korean personnel will finish deploying within a few weeks once they complete training in the Russian Far East. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky estimated on November 4 that there are already 11,000 North Korean personnel in Kursk Oblast, although the majority of this number is likely not yet on the frontline. ISW continues to assess that Russia will likely leverage North Korean manpower to first and foremost repel the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast, and that in return North Korean troops hope to gain combat and military-technical experience in the conditions for a contemporary and technologically driven war.

Key Takeaways:

The first North Korean forces have likely officially engaged in combat against Ukrainian troops in Kursk Oblast.

The Kremlin appointed the first-ever "Time of Heroes" program participant to a federal-level position, furthering its ongoing effort to staff government positions with pro-war veterans and set long-term conditions for the militarization of Russian government bodies from local to federal levels.

Russia launched two Iranian-made satellites into orbit on November 5 via a Russian space-launch vehicle, furthering a trend of Russian-Iranian bilateral space cooperation.

Russian forces recently advanced southeast of Kupyansk, northwest of Kreminna, in Chasiv Yar, near Toretsk, southeast of Pokrovsk, northeast of Kurakhove, near Vuhledar, and north of Robotyne.

Ukrainian forces recently regained lost positions south of Chasiv Yar.

The Russian military is struggling to maintain a sufficient number of quality personnel within traditionally elite forces.

17. Collaboration in Conflict: Interagency Cooperation Lessons from Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq

"Long term policy planning". Do these four words go together in the US national security domain?'''

Excerpt:

Lastly, long-term policy planning in conflict zones requires greater integration between the State and Defense Departments. CJTF-OIR has been a prolonged combat operation: 2024 marks its tenth anniversary. Campaign plans and integrated country strategies are multiyear planning tools, and as such, need to adjust to the reality on the ground. This is particularly important in Iraq as the overall military mission shifts from counter-ISIS combat operations to an advise-and-assist role with local partners. Stability operations dictate cooperation with civil authorities, something the State Department is uniquely qualified to do. Both the State and Defense Departments would benefit from enhanced collaboration in the realm of policy planning to synchronize theater-wide goals, resource allocation, and coordinating engagement with civil authorities. Interagency cooperation is imperative for success in conflict zones and beyond, provided policy planners can work together.

Collaboration in Conflict: Interagency Cooperation Lessons from Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by John Govern · November 6, 2024

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“Defense is from Mars, State is from Venus.” For diplomats and military leaders, this saying speaks to the apparent futility of interagency cooperation, with the two departments separated by seemingly intractable differences in character and organization. Yet, both diplomacy and military force have their own unique limitations that necessitate collaboration, difficult as it often proves to be. One important constraint of military force is that military operations should be transitory. Setting exit criteria is critical for US military planners, especially with a security handover to a local partner. To this end, interagency cooperation between the Defense Department, State Department, and other agencies is essential.

Unlike a military presence, diplomatic contingents are permanent and can further US foreign policy goals long after conflicts have ended. Civilian agencies are vital in transitioning from combat operations to stability and reconstruction. One of many examples is the work by the State Department and USAID—the US Agency for International Development—during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on civil reconstruction efforts through the two organizations’ Joint Strategic Plans. If Defense Department goals include transitioning to civil authority, US civilian agencies must be part of the plan. Nonetheless, current models of interagency cooperation can experience tension, as was the case recently during the Combined Joint Task Force–Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) campaign in Iraq. Learning from examples like this can help integrate agencies in future conflict zones.

Policy Planning Methods and Means

As distinct instruments of foreign policy, the State and Defense Departments have separate strategies: campaign plans for the Defense Department, and integrated country strategies for the State Department. Both are nested with the US National Security Strategy published by the executive branch and detail the strategic goals for each organization, as well as the means to achieve them. They also serve as the declarations of US foreign policy and defense objectives for these agencies when published. Campaign plans and integrated country strategies can act as both public affairs initiatives and internal planning documents. As such, these are a useful starting point for collaborating with outside agencies.

However, the two strategies differ significantly in formulation and composition. In addition to the National Security Strategy, campaign plans also take inspiration from the National Defense Strategy and the National Military Strategy. Under the Defense Department, each geographic combatant command is responsible for developing an individual combatant command campaign plan, tailored to each region’s unique threats, state and nonstate actors, and other considerations. Within combatant command campaign plans are further campaign plans for specific combat operations—like CJTF-OIR, the counter-ISIS campaign encompassing Iraq and Syria. Campaign plans are not necessarily limited to one specific country, unlike the State Department’s integrated country strategies, which are the four-year strategies for individual countries (integrated mission strategies are the equivalent State Department plans for international organizations). Like campaign plans, they are informed by the National Security Strategy, but with the additional input of Joint Strategic Plans with USAID and regional or functional bureau strategies. Campaign plans are generally more conditions-based than integrated country strategies. While campaign plans specify transitions between operational phases tied to military objectives, an integrated country strategy focuses more on long-term conditions within a country over a given four years.

Comparing integrated country strategies and campaign plans reveals initial limitations to interagency cooperation. The State and Defense Departments both nest their policy planning within executive branch guidance from the National Security Strategy, yet threat responses can be isolated from external influence. Agencies risk planning in a vacuum when it comes to global threats or regional instability. Integrated country strategies and campaign plans are end products of extensive internal planning, meaning agency plans harmonize only after experiencing friction in practice. Although some coordination bodies exist, such as the Office of State-Defense Integration, each department retains parallel funding, logistics, and command structures when responding to immediate global crises. This continues to play out in conflict zones today, most notably in the counter-ISIS campaign in Iraq.

Intertwining State and Defense in Iraq

The 2014 military intervention in Iraq was radically different from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), which began with the US-led invasion in 2003. During OIF, coalition forces occupied large swaths of military bases and infrastructure deemed mission essential. However, nearly all of these facilities were transferred to the nascent Iraqi security forces during the OIF drawdown in 2011. Some facilities were parceled up between different entities, like the massive Victory Base Complex, the former headquarters for Multinational Force–Iraq in western Baghdad. Victory Base Complex had portions demilitarized near the Baghdad International Airport and others transferred to Iraqi security forces’ control, while part of the complex was also turned over to the State Department (becoming the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center). Between 2011 and 2014, the enduring physical US presence in Iraq was thus largely limited to the State Department’s embassy and consulates. This, combined with the Iraqi abandonment of most military bases in northern Iraq during the ISIS offensive in 2014, meant that when the CJTF-OIR mission began, there was minimal military infrastructure in Iraq for personnel to fall in on.

These operational constraints required the United States to share facilities with local partners as the counter-ISIS campaign ramped up. US and coalition forces joined with Iraqi security forces at Forward Operating Base Union III in Baghdad and al-Asad Air Base in Anbar Governorate, or with the Peshmerga at Erbil Air Base in Iraqi Kurdistan. This was a significant change from the massive complexes of OIF operated solely by the US military. When US forces moved to occupy Union III in Baghdad’s International Zone, they found another unlikely partner—the State Department. Union III was in the heart of Baghdad’s city center, close to the diplomatic quarter and foreign embassies. As the home to both CJTF-OIR headquarters and the Joint Operations Command–Iraq, it was important to keep Union III operational despite logistical isolation in a dense urban environment.

One solution was its proximity to the Baghdad embassy complex. Originally constructed during OIF, this complex remains the largest embassy in the world and features extensive force protection, often being compared to a city within a city. More importantly for CJTF-OIR planners, the embassy complex also provided a logistical lifeline; not only did it have internal power generation and wastewater management facilities, but it also had existing service support contracts for basic life support. Considering the difficulties of establishing LOGPAC (logistics package) services at Union III (i.e., using Army organic sustainment networks to provide life support), CJTF-OIR planners opted to share contracted life support services with the Baghdad embassy complex through an interagency agreement. Interagency cooperation was not just limited to contracting support. The Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center near the airport was a key sustainment and transportation hub for US personnel in the greater Baghdad area. In addition to being the closest aircraft landing strip to the international zone, it also hosted a Role 3 hospital staffed by US military personnel. This increased integration between the US Mission in Iraq (the formal term encompassing all State Department operations in Iraq) and CJTF-OIR initially proved valuable, but problems would develop after the Israel-Hamas conflict began.

Challenges During the Ongoing Militia Campaign

The aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas in Israel impacted US military and diplomatic presence throughout the region. Following the Hamas attacks, Iranian-aligned militia groups began a sustained campaign of attacks on US personnel stationed at facilities throughout Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. This campaign consisted of persistent rocket, missile, and drone attacks, including one-way attack unmanned aircraft systems. In the first few months, US facilities targeted in Iraq included al-Asad Air Base, Erbil Air Base, and the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center. Attacks were indiscriminate in targeting both US military facilities and US diplomatic compounds.

The deteriorating security situation prompted different responses from the US military and diplomatic contingents. The US Mission in Iraq evacuated a significant number of personnel deemed nonessential across its embassies and consulates to minimize risk. This amounted to nearly 23 percent of the overall mission staff, but more significantly was a 47 percent overall reduction in those providing service support—decreases that an inspector general report found to be “stressing Mission Iraq’s ability to maintain adequate life support provisions,” including preventative maintenance and emergency services. US embassy operations carried on due to the simultaneous drawdown in nonservice support staff, thereby reducing the mission’s footprint and support requirements.

The nonessential personnel evacuation also included contractor support to military personnel on Union III. However, unlike the US Mission in Iraq, CJTF-OIR responded to the increased threat level by augmenting personnel in theater and elevating force posture. The Defense Department announced the deployment of additional Patriot missile battalions and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery capabilities into the theater. At the same time that the State Department was seeking to limit its footprint in Iraq, the Defense Department was increasing its own. The timing of the drawdown particularly impacted base operations systems through degraded maintenance capabilities and life support services. Additionally, the strained logistics system slowed or prevented the distribution of material from the Counter-ISIS Train and Equip Fund to Iraqi partners. Although the evacuation of nonessential personnel was a State Department decision, it hamstrung its military partners in the Baghdad area until services were restored some months later. The critical omission here was failing to account for differences in risk threshold between the State and Defense Departments. By tethering contract support but retaining their respective threat mitigation strategies, both parties set themselves up for failure in an environment where joint cooperation is key to success.

Takeaways for Interagency Policy Planning

Policy planners need to recognize several factors to improve interagency cooperation in conflict zones. First, they must acknowledge that foreign adversaries will often not make a distinction between US diplomatic and military sites, and may target both. The recent anti-US campaign by Iranian-aligned militia groups in Iraq illustrates this. US foreign policy stances on regional conflicts can increase the risk to US personnel abroad—in this case, perceived support for Israel during the war against Hamas was the trigger for the militias’ campaign. Diplomatic compounds proved as likely and vulnerable a target as regional military bases. Policy planners must be proactive when faced with similar regional threats. Increased force posture should require not only augmenting security at diplomatic compounds but also State and Defense Department coordination on countermeasures. Asymmetric threats like Iranian-aligned militias demand a multilayered response with military actions and diplomatic initiatives to cease hostilities. Using the subsequent airstrikes on the militia leaders as an example, the military’s State Department counterparts are crucial to minimizing political blowback from military actions, given their role as interlocutors with foreign governments. Acting in isolation from each other only lessens the efficacy of any threat response.

Secondly, interagency logistical cooperation in conflict zones should limit its scope and scale for two reasons: divergent risk thresholds and different sustainment needs. Shared contracted support may be useful for solving short-term logistical problems, but when security situations deteriorate, the State Department will evacuate personnel long before the US military would choose to. These nonessential staff drawdowns have occurred twice in Iraq since CJTF-OIR began: in 2019 before the storming of the US embassy and in 2023 after the Israel-Hamas War began. When logistics support provided by the State Department to the US military is removed, this can create unplanned gaps in sustainment coverage. Bidding for new service support contracts is a lengthy process, and emergency LOGPAC is not a long-term solution. To maintain consistent sustainment coverage, US military planners need to prioritize organic logistics support. This avoids complications from differing risk thresholds. By providing more planning certainty through organic sustainment, US military forces can also tailor that support to operational needs without the limitations imposed by an interagency agreement.

Lastly, long-term policy planning in conflict zones requires greater integration between the State and Defense Departments. CJTF-OIR has been a prolonged combat operation: 2024 marks its tenth anniversary. Campaign plans and integrated country strategies are multiyear planning tools, and as such, need to adjust to the reality on the ground. This is particularly important in Iraq as the overall military mission shifts from counter-ISIS combat operations to an advise-and-assist role with local partners. Stability operations dictate cooperation with civil authorities, something the State Department is uniquely qualified to do. Both the State and Defense Departments would benefit from enhanced collaboration in the realm of policy planning to synchronize theater-wide goals, resource allocation, and coordinating engagement with civil authorities. Interagency cooperation is imperative for success in conflict zones and beyond, provided policy planners can work together.

Captain John F. Govern is an Army officer with service in the infantry and military intelligence branches. In 2023, he deployed to Iraq in support of CJTF-OIR with the 10th Mountain Division. He is currently serving as a squadron S2 in the 2d Cavalry Regiment in Vilseck, Germany.

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

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by John Govern · November 6, 2024

18. Necropolitics in Modern Warfare: Understanding Paramilitary Violence in Ukraine

I was not familiar with the term "necropolitics"

Excerpt:

The use of death squads and paramilitary forces, especially under a necropolitical lens, suggests that terror will continue to be a hallmark of modern conflict. Today, the challenge of understanding and addressing these actors lies in recognizing how governments use necropolitics to control populations while distancing themselves from direct violence. As the world watches the situation in Ukraine, it becomes increasingly apparent that necropolitics is not just a theory but a harsh reality shaping the lives of millions. Understanding necropolitics sheds light on this disturbing trend and urges the international community to rethink how it addresses state-sponsored terror in an age where the lines between state and non-state actors blur dangerously.

Necropolitics in Modern Warfare

By Matthew P. Arsenault

November 06, 2024

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/11/06/necropolitics_in_modern_warfare_1070269.html?mc_cid=cb0cc19a40

Necropolitics in Modern Warfare: Understanding Paramilitary Violence in Ukraine

In Ukraine, as paramilitaries and private military forces wreak havoc on civilian areas, the horror of modern conflict once again confronts the global community. The role of death squads and paramilitary groups has become disturbingly prominent in today’s wars, revealing how certain states wield power through violent, irregular forces. These groups, with ambiguous ties to their sponsoring governments, execute a shadowy form of power known as necropolitics, where the authority to decide who lives and who dies is outsourced to irregular forces. This dark and often overlooked dimension of contemporary war sheds light on how some governments strategically use paramilitaries and death squads to control populations, sow fear, and skirt accountability.

What is Necropolitics?

Necropolitics, coined by philosopher Achille Mbembe, goes beyond the traditional notion of state power. Rather than focusing on governance through institutions and laws, necropolitics looks at how certain governments assert control by dictating the terms of life and death. Building on Michel Foucault’s ideas of biopolitics—the regulation of populations through state power—necropolitics turns this on its head, revealing a political order based on the active marginalization, suffering, or outright elimination of targeted populations.

This shift from governance to a politics of life and death is evident when states tacitly (or explicitly) allow non-state actors, like paramilitaries and death squads, to operate outside of the usual accountability structures. These groups become tools for states to control and subdue populations while maintaining plausible deniability of state involvement in atrocities. Instead of overt military action, the state opts for irregular forces to avoid accountability while achieving brutal objectives.

The Rise of Death Squads and Paramilitaries

In 21st-century conflicts, paramilitaries and death squads play increasingly prominent roles. These groups, operating outside formal military structures, are often unleashed to intimidate, terrorize, or eliminate those who oppose the state or challenge its authority. Their actions target specific groups or communities, functioning as tools of terror and suppression. This was seen, for example, in Russia’s use of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces and “private” military companies in Ukraine. These forces not only enabled the state to extend its power beyond its borders but also allowed it to intimidate civilians without the direct visibility and scrutiny that conventional military operations would bring.

The Power of Plausible Deniability

This type of delegated violence aligns with necropolitics by allowing states to exert control without explicit involvement. As the literature on death squad violence outlines, paramilitary groups such as those deployed by Russia are purposefully detached from formal state structures. By outsourcing violence to these groups, states create a buffer that obscures responsibility. When reports of civilian massacres, such as those in Bucha, Ukraine, emerge, states can redirect blame toward “rogue” forces or “independent” actors, even though the reality is often one of implicit state endorsement.

The detachment is strategic. In Ukraine, as in other places, Russia has faced international condemnation for direct military operations and atrocities. By relying on death squads and paramilitaries, Russian leadership can avoid full accountability while achieving a similar outcome—widespread fear and suppression. This setup allows states to enforce terror without crossing the visible boundaries of international law, showcasing necropolitics at work.

The Role of “Othering” in Necropolitics

Necropolitics also brings to light a darker side of identity politics in conflict. Paramilitary violence often targets specific groups marked as “the other,” creating a justification for these groups’ subjugation or even extermination. In the case of Ukraine, Russian forces have positioned Ukrainian civilians as part of an “enemy” population, a group whose survival is framed as secondary to Russia’s strategic interests. This aligns with what Mbembe calls the “death-world”—a realm where the line between life and death is blurred, where survival is tenuous, and where civilians live in constant fear of lethal force.

The concept of the “other” also plays into the brutal calculations that characterize necropolitics. Culturalist theories of political violence point to a pattern in which social and cultural differences become tools for justifying death squad violence. For example, local identities, traditions, and allegiances that differ from those of the state or dominant group are often reframed as existential threats. In Ukraine, historical tensions between Eastern and Western ideologies and allegiances can deepen the justifications used by those in power to wield paramilitary violence.

The Calculated Rationality Behind Death Squads

While necropolitics might suggest chaos or arbitrary violence, it is far from random. Rational choice theory, another key perspective, argues that states use these groups in calculated, rational ways. Death squads are mobilized as cost-effective, deniable tools for states that face internal or external pressure. In Serbia, for example, during the Bosnian Civil War, international constraints limited Serbia’s ability to intervene openly. Instead, Serbian leaders opted to “subcontract” violence by using paramilitary units against Bosniaks and Croats, which allowed them to distance themselves from the massacres while achieving their objectives.

In Ukraine, similar rational calculations might explain the increasing reliance on paramilitaries. Faced with international scrutiny, Russian leaders can maintain their influence in the conflict while keeping their hands ostensibly clean. By using paramilitaries, the Russian state avoids the diplomatic and legal repercussions associated with direct military intervention, a clear example of necropolitics operating through rational state interest.

A Grim Future

The use of death squads and paramilitary forces, especially under a necropolitical lens, suggests that terror will continue to be a hallmark of modern conflict. Today, the challenge of understanding and addressing these actors lies in recognizing how governments use necropolitics to control populations while distancing themselves from direct violence. As the world watches the situation in Ukraine, it becomes increasingly apparent that necropolitics is not just a theory but a harsh reality shaping the lives of millions. Understanding necropolitics sheds light on this disturbing trend and urges the international community to rethink how it addresses state-sponsored terror in an age where the lines between state and non-state actors blur dangerously.

Matthew P. Arsenault holds a PhD in political science and has worked on issues of political violence across academia, government, and the private sector.

19. How Trump Will Change the World

It is going to be quite a ride..

Conclusion:

Trump has won the chance to determine U.S. national security policy and will wield the impressive power embodied in the men and women now waiting to work for him. The Trump team has more than enough confidence. The world will soon learn whether it also has enough wisdom.

How Trump Will Change the World

The Contours and Consequences of a Second-Term Foreign Policy

By Peter D. Feaver

November 6, 2024

Foreign Affairs · November 6, 2024

A gray rhino—a predictable and long-foreseen disruption that is still shocking when it occurs—has crashed into American foreign policy: Donald Trump has won a second term as president of the United States. Despite polls predicting a nail-biter, the final results were fairly decisive, and although we do not know the precise composition of the new order, we know Trump will be at the top of it.

Trump’s win in 2016 was far more of a surprise, and much of the debate in the weeks after Election Day revolved around the questions of how he would govern and how dramatically he might seek to alter the U.S. role in the world. Owing to Trump’s unpredictability, erratic style, and less-than-coherent thinking, some of those same questions remain open today. But we have far more information now after four years of watching him lead, four more years of analyzing his time in office, and a year of witnessing his third campaign for the White House. With that data, it’s possible make some predictions about what Trump will try to do in his second term. The known unknown is how the rest of the world will react and what the ultimate outcome will be.

Two main things are clear. First, as in Trump’s first term (and as in all presidential administrations), personnel will shape policy, and various factions will jockey for influence—some with radical ideas about transforming the administrative state and American foreign policy, others with more conventional views. This time around, however, the more extreme factions will have the upper hand, and they will press their advantage to ice out more moderate voices, hollow out the ranks of civilian and military professionals they see as “the deep state,” and perhaps use the levers of government to go after Trump’s opponents and critics.

Second, the essence of Trump’s approach to foreign policy—naked transactionalism—remains unchanged. But the context in which he will try to carry out his idiosyncratic form of dealmaking has changed dramatically: the world today is a far more dangerous place than it was during his first term. Trump’s campaign rhetoric painted the world in apocalyptic terms, portraying himself and his team as hard-nosed realists who understood the danger. But what they offered was less realism than magical realism: a set of fanciful boasts and shallow nostrums that reflected no genuine understanding of the threats the United States faces. Whether Trump can in fact protect American interests in this complex environment may depend on how quickly he and his team jettison the campaign caricature that persuaded a little more than half the electorate and instead confront the world as it really is.

THE PERSONNEL IS POLITICAL

The first task Trump faces will be the formal transition. Even under the best of circumstances, this is a difficult bureaucratic maneuver to execute, and it is doubtful it will go smoothly this time. Trump has already registered his disdain for the process and, to avoid being subject to stringent ethical constraints, has refused so far to cooperate with the General Services Administration, which provides the infrastructure that allows a government in waiting to garner the information it needs to be ready on day one. The absence of a traditional transition may not slow the incoming administration down all that much, however, since it already outsourced most of the work to the Heritage Foundation’s infamous Project 2025 and the less well-known transition project of the America First Institute. The work done by MAGA true believers on those projects is far more consequential and more indicative of what an incoming Trump administration will do than anything developed by the nominal transition effort co-chaired by former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The transition will be even less consequential if the Trump team follows through on its plans to forgo FBI background checks and instead have the president grant security clearances solely on the basis of internal campaign vetting, allowing Trump to prevent his preferred personnel choices from being blocked by any skeletons in their closets. Such a radical step would probably be legal, but only after Trump is inaugurated. In the meantime, the outgoing Biden administration would be limited in its ability to coordinate with the incoming Trump team in the traditional way because Trump’s staffers would not have clearances.

This will matter even more if Trump decides to put into senior positions some of the fringe characters who now dominate his inner circle. Even if Trump does not carry out the wildest notions he floated during the campaign—the retired football star and failed 2022 Senate candidate Herschel Walker will not be in charge of missile defense, for instance—he might bring in to national security posts individuals such as the retired general Michael Flynn or Steve Bannon, whose brushes with the law would normally block them from service in the national security state. Either way, he will arrive with a team determined to carry out many of the same schemes that less radical figures managed to talk Trump out of pursuing in his first term. For instance, after losing the 2020 election, Trump wanted to impose a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan in his waning weeks as commander in chief: the same kind of disastrous retreat that President Joe Biden authorized a half year later. But when some on his remaining national security team pointed out the risks of this maneuver, Trump relented.

In Trump’s second term, the more extreme factions of his administration will have the upper hand.

During his first term, Trump’s national security political appointees could be placed in one of three categories. The first and perhaps largest one consisted of people with genuine expertise who might have gotten positions in a normal Republican administration, albeit probably a couple of levels below the ones they came to occupy in Trumpworld. They tried to implement the president’s agenda as best they could amid the chaos, and most of the good things that happened can be credited to them: for example, the effort to turn former President Barack Obama’s rhetorical “pivot to Asia” into a reality with meaningful strategic partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region mostly happened below Trump’s radar and continued along similar tracks in the Biden administration, advanced by like-minded strategists.

A smaller but vastly more influential group was made up of veteran senior officials who had fixed ideas about where national security policy should go and believed they could engineer those outcomes despite Trump’s hypertransactionalism by emphasizing how the alternative policy would signal weakness. Examples include H. R. McMaster and John Bolton, who served as Trump’s second and third national security advisers, respectively. In their memoirs, they point to what they considered to be genuine policy achievements: McMaster got Trump to agree to a surge of U.S. troops into Afghanistan in 2017 and Bolton got Trump to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. But McMaster, Bolton, and every other senior figure who took that approach wound up leaving the administration after recognizing that Trump would always find a way to slip loose from the harness and bolt, undercutting whatever policy good they otherwise thought they might achieve. Even some of those who made it to Biden’s inauguration in 2021 without quitting have offered me remarkably candid assessments in private that confirm the picture of Trump as reckless and anything but a national security mastermind, regardless of what they have said publicly.

The third category was a small but influential group of MAGA true believers and chaos agents who sought to carry out Trump’s whims without any clarification or regard for the consequences. They had a cramped view of loyalty, believing that the boss should get what he appeared to ask for and not hear about the unintended consequences of those moves lest he change his mind when fully apprised of the facts. For instance, the risky attempts to retreat from Afghanistan and other NATO commitments in the waning days of the first term were engineered by junior staffers who were left in charge after more senior leaders had cleared out and who sought to prevent Trump from being fully advised on what his directives would actually yield.

In the coming Trump administration, there will still be the conventional Republicans seeking a once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity and willing to risk the self-immolation that might befall them if they somehow run afoul of Trump. No one should denigrate their service, since without them, Trump will not be the best president he can be. There will still be the ideologues who think they know the right strategy to follow and believe they can channel Trump into doing what they consider to be the right thing—for example, abandoning Ukraine to the predations of Russian President Vladimir Putin while stiffening U.S. deterrence of China, an approach that might seem clever in an academic seminar or a newspaper op-ed but likely will not work in real life. And thanks to the Heritage Foundation and the America First Institute, there will be plenty of chaos agents for whom destroying the existing system of national security policymaking, which has preserved American interests for 80 years, will be a feature of Trump 2.0, not a bug. The difference is that this time, the third group will be larger and more influential than last time.

The essence of Trump’s approach to foreign policy—naked transactionalism—remains unchanged

This poses a serious challenge to the custodians of the existing system of national security policymaking: the uniformed military and the civil service that make up the vast majority of people tasked with overseeing any president’s agenda. Trump and his team have made it clear that they prioritize loyalty above all. And they may have the simplest of loyalty tests: ask any individual in a position of authority whether the election of 2020 was stolen or whether the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol was an act of insurrection. As Trump’s running mate JD Vance has demonstrated, there is only one way to answer those questions that Trump will accept.

A litmus test like that could allow Trump to politicize the senior ranks of the military and the intelligence services by promoting only individuals he believes are “on the team.” Members of the civil service would enjoy more job security and insulation from political pressure, unless the Trump team pursues its plan to reclassify thousands of professional civil servants as political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president, thus making them relatively easy to remove for political reasons.

The military and the civil service are unlikely to take any provocative action that would trigger, let alone justify, such a purge. They understand that they are not the “loyal opposition”—a role reserved for the minority party in Congress and watchdogs in the media and the policy commentariat. Pursuant to their oaths of service and their professional ethic, professionals in the national security state will be preparing themselves to help Trump as best they can.

But Trump may decide he can get the cooperation or capitulation he seeks simply by leaving the threat of a purge hanging in the air—and he would be right. At a minimum, he is likely to fire some senior figures, in an echo of Voltaire’s advice to eliminate some French generals to strike fear into the hearts of others. The question is whether high-level career officials will follow the best practices of civil-military relations and give their candid advice to Trump and his senior political appointees even when that advice is unwanted. If they do, they can help him be the best commander in chief he is capable of being. If they do not, it may not matter whether they are purged or kept in place, since they will not be effective either way.

ALLIES AND ADVERSARIES

American voters made their choice, and the machine of government in Washington will now accommodate itself to Trump one way or another. But what about the rest of the world? Most U.S. allies viewed a Trump victory with dread, believing that it would be a decisive nail in the coffin of America’s traditional global leadership. There is plenty to criticize about American foreign policy since World War II, and U.S. allies never tired of airing their complaints. But they also understood that the postwar era was vastly better for them than the era that preceded it, during which Washington shirked its responsibilities— and millions paid the ultimate price as a result.

When the American electorate chose Trump the first time, U.S. allies reacted with a variety of hedging strategies. This time around, they are in a much weaker position owing to their own internal challenges and to the threats posed by Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. U.S. allies will attempt to flatter and appease Trump and, to the extent that their laws allow them, offer him the blandishments and emoluments that proved the best way to get favorable terms during Trump 1.0. Trump’s transactional, short-term approach will likely produce a mirror image among the allies, who will seek to get what they can and avoid giving anything in return—a form of diplomacy that at best produces faux cooperation and at worst lets problems fester.

By contrast, among U.S. adversaries, Trump’s return will present abundant opportunities. Trump has promised to try to force Ukraine into conceding territory to Russia, solidifying Putin’s gains from the invasion. Unlike many campaign promises, this one is believable, because Trump has surrounded himself with anti-Ukraine and pro-Putin advisers. His plan for Ukraine is also likely to be implemented since it falls entirely within the range of presidential prerogative. The only question is whether Putin will accept a partial surrender with the understanding that he can always grab the rest of Ukraine’s territory once Trump has successfully imposed “neutrality” on Kyiv or whether Putin will call Trump’s bluff and demand full capitulation immediately.

The benefits for China are less obvious, since several of Trump’s key advisers indulge in the magical realism of thinking that the United States can sacrifice its interests in Europe while somehow also shoring up deterrence against Chinese predations in East Asia. The initial steps the new Trump administration takes in Asia might look hawkish at first glance. For instance, if Trump can put in place the massive tariffs he has proposed levying on Chinese goods, China’s economy might experience some pain, although the pain to U.S. consumers would be greater and more immediate. And Trump would likely look for a way to flex U.S. military might in Asia to signal a break with what he has depicted as Biden’s weakness.

Most U.S. allies viewed a Trump victory with dread.

But it is doubtful the tariffs would meaningfully change China’s policies or that performative hawkishness would translate into a sustained military buildup in Asia. For one thing, Trump has imposed certain conditions on defending Taiwan, demanding that Taipei quadruple its defense spending to qualify for stronger American support. This fanciful strategy could well collapse from its own contradictions, and it is possible that the Chinese-Russian partnership would find itself with the prospects of American retreat in both major theaters.

During the campaign, Trump and Vance cast themselves as men of peace while deriding Vice President Kamala Harris and her allies as warmongers. Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s most loyal advisers, provided a vivid picture of the alleged choice. “This isn’t complicated,” he posted on the social media platform X. “If you vote for Kamala, Liz Cheney becomes defense secretary. We invade a dozen countries. Boys in Michigan are drafted to fight boys in the Middle East. Millions die. We invade Russia. We invade nations in Asia. World War III. Nuclear winter.”

This implied portrait of Trump as a cautious dove should be jarring to anyone who remembers his first-term threats to unload “fire and fury” on North Korea or his risky assassination of a top Iranian general. The undiluted isolationism of his campaign messaging could prove to be a straitjacket that paralyzes the Trump administration’s foreign policy at a critical time. But Trump famously wriggles free from such fetters and resists being hemmed in. As McMaster describes in his memoir, Trump’s savvier aides would use this to their advantage, casting whatever they wanted him to do as the very thing that his enemies said he could not do. That gambit would work in limited ways for a little while, but at some point, Trump would inevitably move in a completely different direction. This time around, that impulsivity might wind up thwarting, rather than empowering, the more extreme factions on his team.

Trump has won the chance to determine U.S. national security policy and will wield the impressive power embodied in the men and women now waiting to work for him. The Trump team has more than enough confidence. The world will soon learn whether it also has enough wisdom.

PETER D. FEAVER is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University and the author of Thanks for Your Service: The Causes and Consequences of Public Confidence in the U.S. Military. From 2005 to 2007, he served as Special Adviser for Strategic Planning and Institutional Reform on the staff of the National Security Council.

Foreign Affairs · November 6, 2024

20. America’s Era of Violent Populism

Is anyone questioning the legitimacy of the election last night?

What I think we have to really watch out for is how our foering adversaries try to build on the divisions and stake chaos and violence. We need leaders from both sides to come together against these external threats.

Conclusion:

Many political elites will remain committed to the next president, but others will side with and reinforce those constituents who doubt the legitimacy of the new government. Far from paying a political penalty for election denialism and his role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Trump has benefited tremendously from this behavior. Alas, this sends a dark message to future American political leaders: undermining the legitimacy of the winner pays political dividends. American democracy may eventually recover, but its biggest tests still lie ahead.

America’s Era of Violent Populism

Whoever Wins the Election, Expect More Polarization and Political Upheaval

By Robert A. Pape

November 5, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Robert A. Pape · November 5, 2024

The U.S. government is heading toward a major crisis of legitimacy—that is, a weak or even fractured consensus among the American people on whether their representatives in Washington truly deserve their allegiance. This crisis is not one that the presidential election is likely to resolve, and it may well lead to more contentious and violent politics in the coming months and years.

As I argued recently in Foreign Affairs, U.S. politics has entered an era of violent populism, with historically high levels of political violence on both the right and the left that have been growing worse for years. This trend is driven, in large part, by the country’s ongoing transition from a white-majority to a white-minority society. The panic and grievances (real and imagined) that have accompanied this demographic shift help account for the meteoric rise of Donald Trump, as well as for both parties’ heightened focus on immigration.

The 2024 presidential election season has been the most violent since that of 1968—a year roiled by nationwide protests against racism at home and militarism abroad and marred by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. This year, there have been two assassination attempts against Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, as well as threats to election officials across the country. And if Trump loses, many Americans fear that he will disavow the results and incite violence to overturn them, as he did after the 2020 election, an effort that culminated in an insurrectionary riot at the U.S. Capitol, on January 6, 2021.

The era of violent populism is likely to continue and even worsen, with growing polarization, logjams in decision-making in Washington, and increasing risks of political upheaval. U.S. states may seek to prevent the implementation of national policies that conflict with their constituents’ views. And the country’s internal political turbulence will compromise Washington’s ability to provide leadership on the world stage.

A LEGITIMACY CRISIS

As the democratic theorist David Eastman explained in 1965, legitimacy entails more than a belief that government processes are followed; it involves “a strong inner conviction of the moral validity” of the governing authority. A government is legitimate when its citizens accept that it rightfully holds and exercises power, when public institutions are free of corruption, and when state officials abide by democratic norms.

The United States was already on the verge of a legitimacy crisis before the election. According to national surveys by the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, public confidence in American democracy has been at worrisome levels throughout 2024. Almost half of the public (45 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of Republicans) believe that “elections will not solve America’s most fundamental political and social problems.” Nearly as many (42 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Republicans) think that “political elites, both Democrats and Republicans, are the most immoral and corrupt people in America.”

Most worrisome, the public is sharply divided on how the outcome of the election will affect democracy. Nearly nine in ten Democrats (86 percent) agree that Donald Trump is a “danger to democracy,” and two out of three Republicans say that “Kamala Harris is a danger to democracy.” Forty-four percent of Democrats and 48 percent of Republicans worry that if their preferred presidential candidate loses, “people like me will be second-class citizens.”

The era of violent populism is likely to continue and even worsen.

Put differently, many Americans are worried not just about short-term policies related to the economy, immigration, and health care but also about the durability of American democracy itself. Many are deeply concerned about the health of public institutions, and many doubt that the results of this election will be a genuine expression of the people’s will.

If recent elections are a guide, those who support the losing candidate are likely to believe that the winner is illegitimate. In a poll taken a week after the 2016 election, a third of Democrats said that they believed that Trump’s win was illegitimate. And to this day, according to poll after poll, a majority of Republicans believe that Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election.

The most worrisome scenario for this election is also the most likely: a narrow initial victory by one side that leads to weeks of recounts and court challenges, fostering suspicions about the ultimate result. The news media may declare a winner relatively soon after polls have closed, but the perceived legitimacy of the new president may begin to erode from that point onward.

NO WAY OUT

Which exact pathway Washington will take toward declining legitimacy depends on which candidate is declared the winner. If Kamala Harris prevails, Trump and the right-wing media will likely allege that there has been mass voter fraud. As in the run-up to the 2020 election, they have already seeded this claim in the form of assertions and legal cases against the legitimacy of certain voters in key states. The difference is that many of Trump’s supporters have grown more skeptical and more radical over the past four years. The number of Republicans who doubt Harris’s legitimacy could be significantly higher than those who doubted Biden’s. The immediate risks of January 6–style mob violence and lone wolf attacks are significant, as more people would likely answer Trump’s calls to “fight like hell.”

Even if Trump wins the count in the Electoral College, he is still likely to lose the popular vote. And so the more fundamental charge lobbed against him will be that he does not represent the general will of the people. An absence of immediate violence following a Trump victory should not be read as a sign of smooth sailing going forward. If Trump manages to set in motion the draconian mass deportation program he has proposed, it will require the significant use of force on the part of law-enforcement authorities, which in turn could engender violent resistance. He may also follow through on his threat to deploy the U.S. military against protesters.

Many political elites will remain committed to the next president, but others will side with and reinforce those constituents who doubt the legitimacy of the new government. Far from paying a political penalty for election denialism and his role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Trump has benefited tremendously from this behavior. Alas, this sends a dark message to future American political leaders: undermining the legitimacy of the winner pays political dividends. American democracy may eventually recover, but its biggest tests still lie ahead.

ROBERT A. PAPE is Professor of Political Science and Director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats.

Foreign Affairs · by Robert A. Pape · November 5, 2024

21. Why She Lost

A sobering read for Harris supporters.

Argument

An expert's point of view on a current event.

Why She Lost

Despite a platform focused on winning back the working class, Kamala Harris and her party had lost too many of them already.

A pencil drawing of the headshot of Michael Hirsh

Michael Hirsh

By Michael Hirsh, a columnist for Foreign Policy.

Foreign Policy · by Michael Hirsh

United States
North America

November 6, 2024, 6:10 AM

The postmortems about U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election will go on for a long time. Many books will be written, pundits’ reputations made and unmade, and academic careers launched as the polling data behind this baffling, unprecedented election are pored over for years to come. But as a first rough draft of history, there are a few ominous road markers that stand out.

After a remarkable start to her campaign, Harris failed to close the deal rhetorically. In an unfortunate echo of Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016, Harris spent far too much time trying to argue that Trump was unfit for the presidency and too little time delivering a coherent message about why she would be better. Despite overpowering Trump in their only debate on Sept. 10 and raising more than $1 billion in donations in just three months—a new record—Harris often floundered when challenged to deliver a convincing summary of her agenda on critical issues such as the economy and immigration. She also fumbled badly in explaining her flip-flops on issues such as fracking (which she once opposed and later supported, but without pointing out the simple fact that improved technology had made it environmentally safer). That led Wall Street Journal commentator Peggy Noonan to label Harris an “artless dodger.”

And, in the end, Harris failed to find a politically agile way of distancing herself from her unpopular boss, U.S. President Joe Biden.

In an interview with Politico in the final weeks before the election, Trump campaign manager Jason Miller put his finger on what he called the turning point of the race. This came after weeks of polling in Harris’ favor following her abrupt—and, by some accounts, undemocratic—emergence at the top of the ticket on July 21. Miller said it was Harris’ botched answer to an easy question from a friendly TV anchor, Sunny Hostin, co-host of The View, who asked Harris on Oct. 8 if she would have done anything differently from Biden over the past four years. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris awkwardly responded, horrifying her advisors and sparking an eruption of Trumpian triumphalism online. In subsequent weeks, Harris tried to recover, telling CNN, “[My administration] will not be a continuation of the Biden administration,” but the damage was done. “Who would have thought that Sunny Hostin from The View really killed Kamala Harris’s candidacy?” Miller said. “But you can make the case that Sunny did.”

In fact Harris may have faced a nearly impossible task in trying to overcome Biden’s consistently poor disapproval ratings, with some two-thirds of voters or more believing the nation was on the wrong track. Through most of 2024, Biden and leading members of his party convinced themselves that he’d earned a second term handily based on his remarkable legislative record, including a major bipartisan infrastructure spending bill, historic climate investment, and the CHIPS and Science Act, all of which poured billions of dollars into manufacturing and clean energy. One reason Biden refused to step aside for as long as he did, despite concerns about his age and mental acuity, was that he was convinced voters would sooner or later realize how effective a president he’d been.

Indeed, after the 2022 midterm elections, when the Democrats performed far better than pundits had predicted and ascribed that to anti-Trump sentiment, Biden sounded overconfident, if anything. Speaking to reporters the day after the midterm elections, the president was asked what he might do differently to address voters’ concerns about the economy and the widespread sentiment that the country was generally moving in the wrong direction. He replied, “Nothing.”

And the economic news only seemed to get better. To the surprise of nearly every economist, the Biden administration managed to avoid a recession (with a lot of help from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell). By the spring and summer of 2023, inflation was beginning to recede and polls were showing that Biden’s age and competence, rather than his agenda, were the chief issues.

But Biden’s approval ratings barely budged beyond 40 percent or so, even after he left the race on July 21 under pressure from his party and handed the baton to Harris. Inflation—driven in part by Biden’s huge spending programs—remained a nagging issue, and voter sentiment about Biden’s agenda continued to register in seriously negative numbers that made Harris’ candidacy an uphill climb all the way.

Trump won the crucial contest of definition, if for all the wrong reasons. After Biden’s long delay in withdrawing from the campaign, Harris was thrust from the vice presidential shadows into public view but had scarcely more than three months to sell herself. Trump has had eight years to do the same—including the four years of his first term as president and the four years since. This culminated in a primary battle against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Trump’s former United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, that allowed him to redefine his presidency, absurdly, as one of the best in U.S. history. With inflation and two wars raging abroad, many voters fondly recalled a pre-pandemic world that was mostly at peace and economically prosperous under Trump. After Trump decisively won the GOP nomination, even Republicans like Haley who had once opposed him kowtowed and embraced his falsehoods—most of them, anyway.

At the same time, the public and Trump’s base had become so inured to the unrelenting tide of negative news about him that it almost didn’t seem to matter that he was indicted on 91 felony counts and convicted of 34 of them, or that he’d been twice impeached and found liable for sexual abuse. Every outrageous name Trump called Harris—“low-IQ individual,” “crazy Kamala,” “comrade Kamala,” and so on—gained fresh coverage and appeared to appeal to many voters. Trump’s unmatched talent at escalation dominance in the media—always grabbing the bigger headline by finding something more outrageous to say—was decisive.

Nor did it seem to matter that most of what Trump said was false. Indeed, the 2024 presidential campaign—far more than the elections of 2016 or 2020—marked a moment of maximum polarization in U.S. political dialogue, in which the public struggled to find an authoritative source of truth or fact. The political debate became a cesspool of false narratives, made-up memes, and deepfakes—mostly driven by Trump’s innumerable lies. By the fall, the United States had descended into a truly Orwellian universe in which Trump, the most effective hatemonger in U.S. political history, could declare that it was Harris who was running a “campaign of hate” and could describe the violent Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection he incited as a “day of love”—and still be accepted by his millions of devout followers.

The 2024 race was also skewed by foreign disinformation campaigns deployed by U.S. adversaries such as Russia, China, and Iran, whose influence operations were far more sophisticated than before and ran rampant while U.S. tech companies gave up most of their policing efforts and all but surrendered their platforms to such abuse.

2024 became, in other words, an ideal environment for the return of Trump.

The political landscape had shifted in ways the Harris campaign didn’t really understand, with cultural issues playing a much bigger role than they had in a long time—even possibly trumping economic issues. Put another way, the takeover of the Democratic Party by progressive, so-called woke issues was devastating to Harris’s campaign, especially as Trump and the Republicans successfully painted her as an unreconstructed left-winger. After a fast start aided by media that was largely sympathetic and even desperate to see Harris win—which allowed her to avoid interviews for more than a month—the vice president found herself battling a tide of voter discontent about the more progressive elements of the Biden agenda. As Fareed Zakaria recently noted in the Washington Post, “The strongest economy in the world has not paid off” for Biden or Harris, amounting to “yet one more powerful signal that our politics are in the midst of a great upheaval, as economic issues give way to cultural ones.”

The upshot was that, despite a platform focused on winning back the working class economically, Biden and Harris lost too many of them culturally, especially when it came to a blue-collar rebellion against so-called woke issues such as preventing bans on transgender athletes in public schools, defunding the police, and so-called cancel culture. As Democratic strategist James Carville warned several years ago, “stupid wokeness” had become a huge messaging problem for the Democrats, especially when it came to winning over male voters. The Trump team played to this vulnerability with savage effectiveness. In one ad aired during major sporting events, the Trump campaign even quoted a fervent Harris supporter—a popular Black podcast host named Charlamagne tha God—questioning Harris’s previous support of taxpayer-funded surgery for transgender prisoners. “I was like, ‘Hell no, I don’t want my taxpayer dollars going to that,’” Charlamagne said in the ad. (He later filed a cease-and-desist motion against Trump.)

Many fear that the United States is not ready for a woman president after all, despite Harris’s role as the first female vice president. Though no hard evidence yet exists to support this theory, some of the most decisive polling in the race showed overwhelming advantages for Harris from women—but large and growing margins for Trump among men. Many of these male doubts about the vice president were fanned with fierce cynicism in what was known as Trump’s “bro-whispering” strategy—with Trump sitting for interviews with influencers, comedians, and podcasters who have huge audiences of young men. Many of these target audiences were young white men who felt sidelined by progressive causes that tend to favor women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and minorities, and who weren’t as responsive to Harris’s relentless focus on reproductive rights. But Trump also reached out to young nonwhite voters.

According to polling by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, the amount of male voters under 30 who identified as Republican increased by seven points since 2020. John Della Volpe, director of the institute, said that Trump won many of this group “by weaving a hypermasculine message of strength and defiance into his broader narrative that undermines confidence in democratic institutions.”

This post is part of FP’s live coverage with global updates and analysis throughout the U.S. election. Follow along here.

Foreign Policy · by Michael Hirsh

22. Trump Wins the Election and a Second Chance

My question is will Americans now return to the belief in the integrity of our elections? The people (through the States and the electoral college) decided on the next president. There is no indication that any of the allegations of widespread fraud took place. I do not see any calls for challenges of the election process in any of the states (yet - but I don't think we will). Does this election allow us to return to a belief in our constitutional election processes?

After the peaceful transfer of power takes place in January will the American people return to focus on making the great American experiment work again?

Trump Wins the Election and a Second Chance

He owes his remarkable comeback victory over Kamala Harris to his personal resilience and Biden’s failures.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-wins-2024-election-kamala-harris-joe-biden-gop-democrats-80888467?mod=hp_opin_pos_2

By The Editorial Board

Nov. 6, 2024 2:34 am ET

Donald Trump Photo: Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Donald Trump, meet Grover Cleveland, the only other President in U.S. history to win a second term after losing his first bid for re-election. It’s a remarkable accomplishment and a political comeback for the ages. How he’ll use it to achieve a legacy larger than the divisiveness of the last eight years is the question for the next four.

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To say the former President has been a portrait in resilience is the political understatement of the 21st century. He was all but written off as a future candidate after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, including by us. But Democrats helped to revive him with their one-sided Jan. 6 investigation and their partisan use of lawfare. The Bragg indictment in New York on jerry-rigged charges may have sealed Mr. Trump’s path to the nomination. The courage he showed after the first assassination attempt was also a defining campaign moment.

His victory on Tuesday in the end wasn’t as close as the polls suggested. He won back states he lost in 2020, and he did so with a coalition that included more young voters, and more black and Hispanic men. He reduced his margin of defeat in states he lost by enough that he may even win the national popular vote. It’s a bigger win than in 2016.

Yet Mr. Trump’s comeback wouldn’t have been possible without the policy failures of the Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats. He won again because President Biden failed to deliver the unity and prosperity he promised, and because over four years voters have soured on the results of his progressive policies.

Mr. Biden veered left to unite Democrats, rather than unite the country, and he believed the historians (that means you, Jon Meacham) who told him he could be another FDR. He put Elizabeth Warren in charge of his regulators, and Nancy Pelosi in charge of his agenda for the first two years on Capitol Hill.

The result was a decline in real wages as inflation soared, a divisive cultural agenda driven by identity politics, chaos at the southern border, and the collapse of American deterrence abroad. The exit polls show the economy in particular was Mr. Trump’s best issue. No matter the media lectures that the economy is great, voters who depend on wages and salaries (not assets) felt differently.

Democrats tried a late course correction by pushing Mr. Biden out of the race when it became clear he would lose, and it almost worked. Kamala Harris tried to pitch herself as a “new way forward,” but she couldn’t escape her four-year association with Mr. Biden. In the end she also failed to persuade enough people she was up to the job as President in a world of growing geopolitical danger.

Given these fundamentals, Republicans had the political advantage, and perhaps a younger GOP nominee without the baggage of Jan. 6 might have won a bigger victory. Exit polls show the threat to democracy and Mr. Trump’s character were big Democratic advantages. But Democrats overplayed their hand even here, as their comparisons to fascism and Hitler weren’t believable.

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Can Mr. Trump govern in a second term more successfully than he did in the first? The House majority was too close to call as we went to press. But he’ll have a working GOP majority in the Senate, with at least 51 seats and perhaps more as we write this. That will help with the confirmation of his cabinet nominees and judges.

But he will have to choose carefully because his nominees will have to pass muster with what we will call the McConnell Caucus. That’s McConnell, as in Mitch, the Kentucky Senator who will no longer be GOP leader and probably won’t run for re-election in 2026. He will be liberated to act without worrying about his backbenchers. He will have allies in Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and perhaps others.

Nominating the likes of Jeffrey Clark or Ken Paxton as Attorney General won’t fly. His successful first-term nominees knew how to navigate Washington, pursuing policies with care to defeat opponents in the bureaucracy and press. He needs more Mike Pompeos and Gene Scalias.

If Mr. Trump makes a priority of seeking revenge against his opponents, he will squander political capital and quickly lose whatever goodwill his victory earns him. Ditto if he focuses on responding to every critic who insults him. We realize that asking Mr. Trump to act with self-restraint and political grace is the triumph of hope over hard experience. But he could set the right tone by promising to pardon Hunter Biden after he takes office and vowing not to prosecute Joe Biden.

The overriding policy message from the exit polls is that Mr. Trump needs to keep his eye focused clearly on economic growth. He has a mandate to repeal electric-vehicle mandates and the climate commands of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Above all he needs growth with low inflation that raises incomes, especially for American households who don’t have stocks or own a home. Extending the pro-growth planks of his 2017 tax reform and deregulation to unleash business investment will be crucial. He won’t get that result by adopting the income redistribution or union feather-bedding favored by the big-government right.

Most second terms fail, but then Mr. Trump’s second term is unlike any other in more than a century. To adapt Democrat Rahm Emanuel’s famous political dictum, a second chance would be a terrible thing to waste.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

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