Quotes of the Day:

"When a man unprincipled in private life[,] desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper . . . despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind."

— Alexander Hamilton

“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

― Thomas Jefferson

“Silent acquiescence in the face of tyranny is no better than outright agreement.”

― C.J. Redwine, Defiance

1. Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Nears Its 10th Anniversary

2. We cannot ignore China’s information warfare any longer

3. Open letter to the Leaders of the United States Congress (Ukraine)

4. Russia Tried to Weaken Democrats Ahead of 2022 Midterm Vote, U.S. Spy Agencies Say

5. China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy: A Blueprint for Technological Superiority

6. The Humility Deficit: Failing to Understand and Respect Our Enemies in the Modern Era by Mick Ryan

7. A new deal gives the US military 'unimpeded access' to Sweden's bases — including a vital outpost in the heart of northern Europe

8. Volodymyr Zelensky: Ukraine must fight on, Ukrainians must fight

9. Global Dexterity Exercise Strengthens Partnerships in Indo-Pacific

10. The United States is producing more oil than any country in history

11. How an ‘unprecedented’ shooting study may shake up Marine marksmanship

12. The Rise of the Information-State: Imagined Communities and the Roots of Conflict in the Information Age

13. Teens struggle to identify misinformation about Israel-Hamas conflict — the world's second "social media war"

14. The Real Russian Nuclear Threat

15. Special Operations News - December 18, 2023 | SOF News

16. China's "Unrestricted Warfare" Against the US

17. China is backing opposing sides in Myanmar’s civil war

18. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 19, 2023

19. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, December 19, 2023

20. Ukraine army wants to mobilise half a million more

21. High-tech trench warfare: 5 hard-won lessons-learned for the US from Ukraine

22. Analysis For Israel, this war is about more than recovering hostages and destroying Hamas — and it could last a long time by Mick Ryan

23. Can Alex Garland’s Civil War somehow be apolitical?

24. U.S. Naval Deterrence Is Going, Going, Maybe Even Gone

25. The 52 definitive rules of flying

1. Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Nears Its 10th Anniversary

From the CEO of one of the most innovative and important NGOs in the US. (but I am biased as one of the members of the board of advisors)

Conclusion: 

Ukrainians need Washington to catch up with the American public and provide Kyiv the assistance it needs to win. If our political leaders hand Russia a victory, we will live with the consequences for generations.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Nears Its 10th Anniversary

If Putin wins, it will heighten dangers in Africa, the Middle East and Taiwan.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-invasion-nears-its-10th-anniversary-personal-donation-nonlethal-aid-56dae514?utm

By Jim Hake

Dec. 19, 2023 2:18 pm ET

Spirit of America Europe Regional Project Manager Matt Dimmick hands out ballistic helmets and bulletproof vests to Ukrainian soldiers. PHOTO: SPIRIT OF AMERICA

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in 2014. When I visited the front lines in Donetsk the following year, I met with Alexander Grozdkov, a Ukrainian army commander. He personally had recovered the bodies of more than 600 Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russians. In 2016 I was with Ukrainian soldiers in Chermalyk, another front-line position in the Donbas, a day after Russian artillery had killed two of their comrades.

More than 14,000 people died in the region between 2014 and 2021 thanks to Russian aggression. Moscow agreed to cease-fires in those years, but its fire never ceased. Vladimir Putin was never stopped. He launched a full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

Since then I’ve been to Bucha, where locals are trying to overcome the horrors of mass graves and war crimes. In October 2022, I stood with a Ukrainian father in the bombed-out remains of his dining room as he showed me videos of his children playing there before Russia attacked. I spent an afternoon with a Ukrainian medic who requested we not provide ambulances marked with red crosses because that would make them bigger targets. I spoke with Ukrainian students whose village the Russians had occupied in a classroom the Russians had used for “interrogations.” The students told me how snipers had targeted them when they left their homes. Young and old, military and civilian, Ukrainians know Mr. Putin won’t stop unless he is defeated.

My team at Spirit of America, a nonprofit that works alongside U.S. troops and diplomats abroad, contends with Russia’s threats to freedom and democracy every day. We see Russia’s fingerprints on the worst things happening in the world.

In Iraq and Syria, where we help communities fight terrorism, U.S. troops and their partners are under fire from Iranian proxy militias. The thugs in Moscow back the thugs in Tehran. In West Africa, we support U.S. troops in their effort to stop the spread of violence that has surged since Russia backed a series of military coups against democratic leaders. In Taiwan, our team is supporting civil defense and preparedness. Everyone understands that deterring aggression in Taiwan depends on stopping Mr. Putin in Ukraine. Russia supports Hamas’s terrorism against Israel. Its propaganda fuels conflict and erodes support for democracies around the world. Each of these problems will worsen if Russia is victorious in Eastern Europe.

Americans have donated more than $66 million to Spirit of America to help Ukraine’s military with nonlethal assistance such as surveillance drones, secure communications equipment and trauma kits. Razom, another nonprofit, has distributed more than $100 million in food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Ukraine’s front-line communities. Philanthropist Howard Buffett’s foundation has invested more than $500 million to help Ukraine, including funding for demining agricultural fields and providing food and other essentials for families living in formerly occupied areas.

Ukrainians need Washington to catch up with the American public and provide Kyiv the assistance it needs to win. If our political leaders hand Russia a victory, we will live with the consequences for generations.

Mr. Hake is founder and CEO of Spirit of America.

2. We cannot ignore China’s information warfare any longer

Political warfare with Chinese characteristics. Can we execute a superior form of political warfare?

Excerpts:

As Gallagher noted, “Cognitive warfare is not something we tend to think about here in the West. Sure, we have ideas like soft power, but they’re not a national strategy. We don’t really do propaganda here. … How do we fight back on the battlefield of people’s minds while staying true to our values?” 

We knew how to do that during the Cold War. Fighting communist lies and siding with the people against their tyrannical rulers was, by definition, being true to our own values. Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and Natan Sharansky all publicly attested to the tremendous spiritual sustenance America’s open moral support provided the dissident movements in their peaceful resistance to despotism. 

Ronald Reagan welcomed the war of ideas as a safer and more rational alternative to a shooting war between the United States and the Soviet Union. When Soviet leaders came to the U.S., they were always free to engage with ordinary Americans. In return, Reagan insisted that when he visited the Soviet Union for official meetings, he would also be allowed to address the people directly, including students and Soviet dissidents.  

It is unimaginable that under Xi Jinping, such access would be freely allowed today — but U.S. leaders don’t even use their considerable negotiating leverage to demand it. 

Ambassador Burns also said in his interview that “No one in his right mind wants a war between America and China.” But the way to avoid that catastrophe is to engage in and win the information war China is already waging against us. 

“The crumbling of a regime always starts in the realm of ideas.” 

We cannot ignore China’s information warfare any longer 

BY JOSEPH BOSCO, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 12/19/23 10:00 AM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4367330-we-cannot-ignore-chinas-information-warfare-any-longer/?utm

An important but little-noticed hearing took place on Capitol Hill last week, before the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. The subject was China’s disinformation campaign against the West, and the chairman, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) laid out the challenge. 

“In Xi Jinping’s view, the war has already started on the most important battlefield: your mind. The CCP calls it cognitive domain warfare, part of their larger political warfare strategy.”  

Gallagher quoted from a handbook of “military political work” that President Xi invokes to motivate his subordinates: “The crumbling of a regime always starts in the realm of ideas … changing the way people think is a long-term process. Once the front lines of human thought have been broken through, other defensive lines also become hard to defend.” 

The regime that Xi and his “no-limits strategic partner,” Vladimir Putin, openly seek to “crumble” is nothing less than the rules-based post-World War II international system led by the United States. China and Russia, with their authoritarian allies, North Korea and Iran, see information warfare as a key component in their strategy. 

The United States and other Western countries have belatedly awakened to the more conventional aspects of the multi-dimensional challenge from communist China and its revisionist allies.  

U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said last week that the U.S. and China are “in a competitive relationship” regarding their militaries and economies. He did not mention the intense ideological struggle that is being actively waged every day by Beijing without an adequate, broad-based response from Washington. 

The Trump and Biden administrations, recognizing the danger of China’s stranglehold over Western economies — and despite the objections of many in the business world — launched a campaign of de-coupling critical supply-chain components from China. Europeans, seeking to preserve economic relations with China in non-strategic areas, prefer to call it de-risking. 

In the military domain, the U.S, and its allies in the Indo-Pacific and Europe are prudently coordinating their defense capabilities in response to Beijing’s massive military buildup and aggressive actions. Nevertheless, China continues to expand its capabilities and to maintain its strategy of intense pressure on the West, deploying the psychological element of a new Cold War.  

Chinese leaders intend to achieve their objective not simply through economic entanglement and military coercion but by destroying the West’s will to resist. “The crumbling of a regime always starts in the realm of ideas.” 

While Xi’s handbook was intended as guidance for China’s leadership, it contains powerful messages for the West. Washington and its allies once recognized the decisive role that the dissemination of truthful information plays in the face of existential challenges from hostile regimes. The campaign of speaking democratic truth to totalitarian power and to oppressed populations was instrumental in winning the original Cold War. Across U.S. administrations, that strategy needs to be resuscitated to win the current fateful challenge from the world’s leading authoritarian powers. 

Xi and his colleagues know how glasnost (political openness) and perestroika (political restructuring) brought down the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, which is why they are tightening their grip rather than relaxing it. It was why, post-Mao and pre-Xi, Deng Xiaoping, that “great reformer,” ordered the People’s Liberation Army to use its tanks and guns against the millions of students and workers gathered peacefully in Tiananmen Square and hundreds of other Chinese cities to plead for a modicum of political reform.  

The Chinese Communist Party’s visceral fear of the Chinese people is manifested in every aspect of Xi’s rule and has reached new heights of suspicion and paranoia. Exploiting that vulnerability presents the West with a far safer, non-kinetic way to influence positive change in China’s communist government — something Richard Nixon envisioned in 1967 when he wrote that for the world to be safe, the “goal should be to induce change.” 

The Chinese people, like the East European and Russian populations before them, are America’s natural and necessary allies against the system that oppresses them and endangers the world. Washington’s moral and ideological support for the populations subjugated by Soviet communism was a key to their peaceful liberation from totalitarianism. 

Instead, as Gallagher and his witnesses showed, China wages Cold War II against the West and largely has the information arena to itself. The disparity in access to the Chinese and American publics shows the one-sided Cold War that is underway.  

It was evident in the juxtaposition of two points in the testimony of Miles Yu of the Hudson Institute. He told the committee that, from its inception, Twitter was blocked from China. Yet, he also noted that China’s TikTok is rampantly deployed in America as “a particularly powerful tool for the CCP to maximize their chaos narrative of American democracy, and tout China as a guarantor of peace and stability.”  

As Gallagher noted, “Cognitive warfare is not something we tend to think about here in the West. Sure, we have ideas like soft power, but they’re not a national strategy. We don’t really do propaganda here. … How do we fight back on the battlefield of people’s minds while staying true to our values?” 

We knew how to do that during the Cold War. Fighting communist lies and siding with the people against their tyrannical rulers was, by definition, being true to our own values. Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and Natan Sharansky all publicly attested to the tremendous spiritual sustenance America’s open moral support provided the dissident movements in their peaceful resistance to despotism. 

Ronald Reagan welcomed the war of ideas as a safer and more rational alternative to a shooting war between the United States and the Soviet Union. When Soviet leaders came to the U.S., they were always free to engage with ordinary Americans. In return, Reagan insisted that when he visited the Soviet Union for official meetings, he would also be allowed to address the people directly, including students and Soviet dissidents.  

It is unimaginable that under Xi Jinping, such access would be freely allowed today — but U.S. leaders don’t even use their considerable negotiating leverage to demand it. 

Ambassador Burns also said in his interview that “No one in his right mind wants a war between America and China.” But the way to avoid that catastrophe is to engage in and win the information war China is already waging against us. 

“The crumbling of a regime always starts in the realm of ideas.” 

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 served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA. 

3. Open letter to the Leaders of the United States Congress (Ukraine)

Open letter to the Leaders of the United States Congress

https://thealphengroup.com/2023/12/18/open-letter-to-the-leaders-of-the-united-states-congress/?utm

thealphengroup.com · by Aiden Roberts · December 18, 2023

Mr Mitch McConnell, US Senate

Mr Chuck Schumer, US Senate

Mr Hakeem Jeffries, US House of Representatives

Mr Steve Scalise, US House of Representatives

December 18th, 2023

Sirs,

Open letter to the Leaders of the United States Congress

The undersigned members of The Alphen Group (TAG) urge the United States Congress to approve expeditiously the Administration’s request for continuation of assistance to Ukraine, a sovereign nation that was attacked without provocation by Russia and now is valiantly defending its territory, democracy, and the rule of law.

Ukraine’s fight is not only in defense of its own sovereignty and territory, but also on behalf of the West, its values and way of life, which Russia seeks to replace with an international system more welcoming for dictatorships. Russian President Vladimir Putin has no apparent intention to reverse Russia’s aggression or to seek a negotiated settlement on any terms other than complete victory. The United States and its allies must help Ukraine prevent Russia from winning a victory that would both be disastrous for the people and country of Ukraine and threatening the future security of the United States and its allies.

We do not take this position lightly but rather following debate among ourselves around the costs and benefits of a variety of US and NATO policy approaches. This war is at a tipping point at which decisions made by the United States and its NATO allies and partners will determine whether the outcome is favorable to their interests or disastrous for Ukraine and the West. The West must convince Putin that time is not on his side. American aid combined with continued European assistance will do that. Failure of the United States to lead would create conditions for a Russian victory.

Strong action supporting Ukraine at this point would fundamentally strengthen NATO cohesion. The European NATO allies have made important contributions to Ukraine’s defenses and aspirations to become a member of the European Union (EU) and NATO. The EU’s recent decision to open membership negotiations with Ukraine was a major step forward toward Ukraine’s goal of joining Europe and the West. We are urging European and Canadian leaders and parliamentarians to continue their support. In many cases, European allies have been the first to provide certain categories of weapons, such as tanks and longer-range missiles. They have paid large costs implementing sanctions against Russia and shifting away from dependence on Russian energy.

Ukraine is still resolute, but it lacks the means to achieve decisive battlefield results. Accordingly, the United States needs to accelerate the delivery of fighter aircraft and long-range artillery that Ukraine must have to succeed and end the conflict. If implemented beginning in early 2024, Ukraine can be equipped with the capabilities it needs to succeed by year’s end.

Not continuing U.S. support for Ukraine would be a huge failure of bipartisan foreign and defense policy and would weaken America’s leadership internationally as well as in Europe. Importantly, reaffirmed U.S. and European support would send a strong message to China, Iran and other authoritarian regimes that aggression against their neighbors cannot succeed.

A Ukrainian success in 2024 would have far-reaching effects, not only in Europe but globally. A defeated Russian military cannot pose a direct threat to its neighbors for years to come. Aggressive and authoritarian regimes like China, North Korea and Iran would be chastened, not encouraged. The stability of the international system and the rule of law would be strengthened. Global food security and supply chain disruptions would be eased. Most importantly, the prospects for direct conflict with the Russian Federation would be greatly reduced with a Ukraine whole and free.

For these reasons, we urge Members of Congress of both parties to recognize the critical importance of maintaining and increasing support for Ukraine, on behalf of U.S. interests and those of the international system more broadly. Any other choice would represent a failure of U.S. leadership, opening the door to a much more dangerous world in the future.

Michal Baranowski, Poland, Director, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Rob Bertholee, The Netherlands, former Director-General Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service

John Bruni, Australia, Founder/CEO, Sage International, Australia

Paul Beaver, United Kingdom, former Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Defence Committee

Robert Bell, United States, former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investment, and Defense Advisor, US Mission to NATO

Hans Binnendijk, United States, former Special Assistant to the President for Defense Policy

Henrich Brauss, Germany, former NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Policy and Planning

Jan Broeks, Netherlands, former Director-General, NATO Military Staff

Kerry Buck, former Canadian Ambassador to NATO

Vincenzo Camporini, Italy, former Chief of Defense Italian Armed Forces

Ivo Daalder, United States, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, 2009-2013

Marta Dassù, Italy, Senior Advisor for European Affairs, Aspen Institute Italia

Gordon B. Davis, Jr. United States, Major General, U.S. Army (ret), former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General

Sławomir Dębski, Poland, Director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs

Camille Grand, (France), former NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Defence Investment

Sir Christopher Harper, United Kingdom, former Director-General, NATO International Military Staff

Ben Hodges, United States, former Commander, United States Army Europe

James Holland, United Kingdom, Historian

R.D. Hooker, Jr., United States, former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe and Russia, National Security Council

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, The Netherlands, former NATO Secretary General

Peter Hudson, United Kingdom, former Commander, NATO Maritime Command

Giedrimas Jeglinskas, Lithuania, former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Executive Management

Karl-Heinz Kamp, Germany, former President of the Federal Academy for Security Policy

Sarah Kirchberger, Germany, Director, Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University

Thomas Kleine Brockhoff, Germany, Director, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Berlin

Imants Liegis, Latvia, former Minister of Defence and Ambassador

Julian Lindley French, United Kingdom, Chairman, The Alphen Group

Stephen Neil MacFarlane, Canada, former Lester B. Pearson Professor of International Relations, Oxford University

Antonio Missiroli, Italy, former NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Emerging Security Challenges

Zaneta Ozolina, Latvia, Professor, Chair, Latvian Foreign Affairs Council

Giampaolo di Paola, Italy, former Chairman, NATO Military Committee and Minister of Defence of Italy

Jean-Paul Perruche, France, former Head of the EU Military Staff

Eric Povel, The Netherlands, former NATO Public Affairs Officer

Sten Rynning, Denmark, Professor of Business and Social Sciences, University of Southern Denmark

Diego Ruiz Palmer, United States, former NATO Special Advisor for Net Assessment

Paul Schulte, United Kingdom, former Director of Proliferation and Arms Control, UK Ministry of Defence

Hanna Shelest, Ukraine, Director of Security Studies and Global Outreach, Foreign Policy Council, Ukrainian Prism

Richard Shirreff, United Kingdom, former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander

Stanley R. Sloan, United States, former Senior Specialist, International Security Policy, Congressional Research Service

Carsten Sondergaard, Denmark, former Ambassador to NATO and to Russia

Stefano Stefanini, Italy, former Ambassador to NATO

Jim Townsend, United States, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy

Patrick Turner, United Kingdom, former NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Operations; Assistant Secretary-General for Policy and Planning

Sandy Vershbow, United States, former NATO Deputy Secretary General and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia

Peter Watkins, United Kingdom, former Director General, Security Policy, Strategy & International, UK Ministry of Defence

Anna Wieslander, Sweden, Chair of the Board, Institute for Security and Development Policy

Rob de Wijk, The Netherlands, Professor and Founder Hague Centre for Strategic Studies

All signatories participate in a personal capacity.

Photo Credit: Louis Velazquez on Unsplash

thealphengroup.com · by Aiden Roberts · December 18, 2023

4. Russia Tried to Weaken Democrats Ahead of 2022 Midterm Vote, U.S. Spy Agencies Say

No surprise here. But I am sure this will be discounted by certain factions.

I do think it is important to recall the words in former President Trump's 2017 National Security Strategy (on page 14). No American should disagree with these words. Members of all political parties should be working to live by these ideas. If you do disagree with these words and ideas please let me know.

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

Access NSS HERE

Russia Tried to Weaken Democrats Ahead of 2022 Midterm Vote, U.S. Spy Agencies Say

The Kremlin’s operations likely sought to erode support for Ukraine, according to a new report

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/russia-tried-to-weaken-democrats-ahead-of-2022-midterm-vote-u-s-spy-agencies-say-f7978d09?utm

By Dustin Volz

Dec. 18, 2023 8:36 pm ET

WASHINGTON—The Russian government and its proxies attempted to denigrate the Democratic Party and undermine voter confidence ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, an operation that most likely sought to weaken U.S. support for Ukraine, U.S. intelligence agencies said.

China also tacitly approved efforts to try to influence a handful of unidentified midterm races, though it refrained from favoring one party, as Beijing exhibited a greater willingness to target the U.S. with election-influence activities than it has previously, according to a newly released intelligence community assessment. Iran also was blamed for trying to undermine confidence in U.S. democracy, while other foreign governments, including Cuba, were said to have experimented with small-scale U.S. influence pushes.

The findings come amid rising concerns from U.S. officials and security experts about foreign adversaries potentially pouring ample resources into interfering in the 2024 presidential election contest eight years after Russia engineered a multipronged interference campaign to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, his Democratic foe in the 2016 election. 

Such fears have been fanned by advances in artificial intelligence and other technologies that could be weaponized by bad actors to sow chaos and confusion in the lead-up to a likely rematch between President Biden and Trump. The former president has criticized U.S. military aid to Ukraine and claimed that, if elected again, he could broker a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia in 24 hours.

Russia, China and Iran have all previously denied meddling in U.S. electoral politics. Representatives for those governments didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the new report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Biden in Washington earlier in December, when. Zelensky appealed to Congress for continued military aid for Ukraine. PHOTO: ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES

The report, which is heavily redacted and was written last December, though only declassified Monday, contains few specifics about the influence attempts conducted leading up to the 2022 midterms, but what is generally described appears to be unsophisticated, scattered and unlikely to have been meaningfully effective. Tactics included covert use of social-media accounts and proxy websites, payments to online influencers, and enlistment of public relations firms, with a frequent focus on amplifying existing narratives within the U.S., it said.

“We did not observe a directive from any foreign leader to undertake a comprehensive, whole-of-government influence campaign, something not seen since 2016,” it said, though it added that the scale and scope appeared to exceed what was detected during the 2018 cycle.

The Kremlin’s targeting of the 2022 election didn’t appear to involve “concerted efforts to shape specific outcomes” of individual congressional races or involve the targeting of election infrastructure, such as voting machines. It also didn’t include hack-and-leak operations “despite the collection of some potentially compromising material,” the report said.

“While Russian officials most likely recognized that U.S. support for Ukraine was largely bipartisan, Russian influence actors disproportionately targeted the Democratic Party, probably because Moscow blames the U.S. president for forging a unified Western alliance and for Kyiv’s continued pro-Western trajectory,” the report said. Russia also criticized a small number of Republican politicians that the Kremlin perceived as anti-Russian, it said.

Among the identified tactics deployed by Moscow was a campaign to amplify questions about whether U.S. aid to Ukraine to support the war would continue if power changed hands in Congress following the midterms. Republicans won control of the House in the 2022 elections, and Democrats kept power in the Senate.

While Democrats and Republicans both largely supported providing aid to Ukraine at the outset of the war, which began in February 2022, Republican support has eroded over time. Some conservative lawmakers have delayed the latest round of Ukraine funding until they achieve concessions they want on border security.

Ukrainian troops entered Kherson after the Russian army had withdrawn from the city, which was captured soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. PHOTO: MARIA SENOVILLA/SHUTTERSTOCK

The desire to harm the Democratic Party at times appeared to affect Russia’s prosecution of the war itself. The report says that Russian military officials delayed withdrawal from the Ukrainian city of Kherson until after the midterms to avoid giving Democrats a perceived win before the election. Russia announced its withdrawal a day after the election.

The report also said that Chinese government cyber actors “scanned more than 100 U.S. state and national political party domains,” an activity security officials have likened to driving around a neighborhood to gauge whether certain homes may be susceptible to a break-in. Further details about the scanning are redacted, but the report added that agencies didn’t observe China targeting specific election infrastructure. 

A separate report on 2022 released Monday by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security said no evidence was found of compromised voting systems.

Iran additionally strove to exploit “perceived social divisions and undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions” in the midterm cycle, the intelligence report said. But those efforts appeared to be rather limited, it said, because of Tehran grappling with internal unrest and viewing midterm elections as less relevant to its security interests. The report also said that Iran suffered from resource limitations stemming from its “separate overseas election influence operations,” which probably included efforts against Albania, Bahrain and Israel.

Cuba is the only other country named in the report, which said it attempted to undermine certain congressional and gubernatorial candidates—specifically in Florida—perceived as hostile. Those efforts sought to influence perceptions of politicians in both parties, the report said.

A redacted section indicates other foreign influence operations were detected originating from other countries as well. Likewise, a section focused on the potential threats to the 2024 elections is almost entirely redacted.

Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com

Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the December 19, 2023, print edition as 'Intelligence Report Says Russia Targeted Midterms'.

5. China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy: A Blueprint for Technological Superiority

Conclusion:

The United States cannot prevent China from harnessing emerging industries to boost its military might, but it can minimize the possibility for the PLA to overshadow the US military. The sooner it adjusts its response to MCF to bolster its own industries and help establish international guidelines for MCF-targeted technologies without directly provoking the CCP, the sooner it will be able to mitigate any possibility of Chinese military superiority.

China’s Military-Civil Fusion Strategy: A Blueprint for Technological Superiority - Foreign Policy Research Institute

fpri.org · by Nicholas R. Licata

Bottom Line

• Although China’s military-civil fusion (MCF) strategy is yet to yield new weapons, the United States must take steps today to mitigate future leverage for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
• The United States should endeavor to boost its AI, nuclear, and genetic sectors to offset China’s advantage in integrating them into its military capabilities.
• When responding to China’s MCF, the United States should avoid broad restrictions that could harm American businesses and lead to Chinese industrial independence.

In an effort to transform the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) into the most technologically advanced military in the world, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is systematically reorganizing its science and technology sectors to ensure that new innovations simultaneously advance the growth of its military capabilities. This “Military-Civil Fusion” (MCF, 军民融合) strategy targets technologies such as quantum computing, semiconductors, 5G, nuclear technology, aerospace technology, gene editing and artificial intelligence to achieve military dominance. While other nations have tried this strategy before, China’s MCF is expansive and institutionalized in a way that exceeds previous efforts. China is likely to produce a variety of new weapons of mass destruction using this policy in the next decade and threaten the United States’ regional interests more than it already has. MCF is still in its early stages but if the United States does not catch up with China’s strategy soon, it risks being technologically outpaced.

MCF applications in China date back to the 1980s and 1990s, but the concept of MCF as a core national policy is a relatively new phenomena under the Xi presidency, tailored to a globalized commercial ecosystem. In pursuing MCF, the CCP has gone as far as to establish the Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development in 2017 to oversee its integration, and shows little signs of slowing down. Recent documents and initiatives such as the 13th Five-Year Plan and 19th National Congress of the CCP describe a MCF framework that is early in its actualization, but capable of posing significant security challenges for the United States and its Indo-Pacific allies.

Despite how recently China enshrined MCF in its national agenda, the United States already recognizes it as a major concern for its interests in the Indo-Pacific. While China has been seeking avenues to potentially develop key technologies via MCF, the United States has been vocal in accusing China of corporate espionage and undermining American companies. Among the sectors targeted by MCF, artificial intelligence (AI), nuclear energy, and gene editing are at particular risk of these practices, and have the most substantial implications for PLA strategic dominance over the United States. Left unchecked, these could lead to the manufacture of weapons that shift how wars operate in the future. AI may lead to advances in defense equipment such as missiles, command decision making, and military simulation. Nuclear energy can be repurposed to increase the number of nuclear warheads China already has or improve the destructive potential of its arsenal. Strides in gene editing such as CRISPR-Cas9 could result in genetic weapons of mass destruction. Considering the existential threats MCF poses for its security, the United States must respond quickly before it is surpassed by China’s military.

Due to the dual-use nature of these technologies, they offer civilian applications in addition to military uses. This presents a major dilemma for the United States in navigating MCF: While these technologies may lead to the development of highly dangerous weapons and technologies, they are each a part of sectors which are already deeply integrated into US-China trade. Any move it makes to restrict Chinese gains in these industries risks significant economic blowback via trade restrictions, boycott campaigns, unilateral sanctions or other coercive means. In its strategy to counter MCF, the United States is responsible for drawing the line on Chinese technological advancements in a way that does not sacrifice its industries and risk handing leverage to China.

Thus far, the United States has implemented policies which restrict the flow of information China uses to bolster the PLA, such as visa limits for exchange students and restrictions on the sale of goods necessary to create technologies targeted by MCF. While these measures impede the rate at which China can gain technologies critical to improving its military technology, they incur staggering consequences for the United States’ technological innovation and corporations. For example, the United States recently faced backlash due to additional limits it plans to impose on the sale by American firms of advanced semiconductors in order to curtail China’s progress on AI. Some American chip makers such as Nvidia, Intel, and AMD earn as much as a third of their revenue from Chinese buyers. By halting shipments of these chips, the United States risks gutting the industry overnight and accelerating China’s development of an independent chip industry. It runs similar risks in other sectors targeted under MCF, which are similarly integrated into each other’s economies.

The United States should continue to identify specific MCF sectors which have the most potential to influence Chinese state behavior and lead to creation of highly dangerous weapons, but not impose measures which explicitly discriminate against Chinese corporate interests and accelerate Chinese industrial independence. Instead, Washington should endeavor to strengthen its own technological base in these industries, and collaborate with other actors to establish international guidelines and regulations which prevent China from acquiring the most destructive forms of these technologies. By gradually reorganizing its supply chains in MCF-targeted industries, the United States can de-risk its trade with China and protect technological innovation without having to fully decouple and cause the CCP to ramp up its industrial independence. As for international frameworks, the United States should consider propositions which aim to regulate, not prevent the production of these technologies. For example, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s “position on autonomous weapon systems” allows the production of AI-based weapons systems while establishing critical humanitarian guidelines to prevent misuse. By doing this, the United States could limit China’s acquisition of advanced weapons of mass destruction without directly threatening it.

The United States cannot prevent China from harnessing emerging industries to boost its military might, but it can minimize the possibility for the PLA to overshadow the US military. The sooner it adjusts its response to MCF to bolster its own industries and help establish international guidelines for MCF-targeted technologies without directly provoking the CCP, the sooner it will be able to mitigate any possibility of Chinese military superiority.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.

Nicholas R. Licata

Nicholas R. Licata is pursuing his B.A. in Political Science and International Relations at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in the Class of 2024. He is interning with the FPRI Asia Program for fall 2023 and spring 2024.

fpri.org · by Nicholas R. Licata

6. The Humility Deficit: Failing to Understand and Respect Our Enemies in the Modern Era by Mick Ryan

Excerpts:

As I highlighted earlier in this piece, the under estimation of the enemy is hardly a new phenomenon. But we possess thousands of years of examples to guide us in our actions, extraordinarily clever people and new era technologies like artificial intelligence that permit more forensic examination of one’s adversary than ever before.

One could be overly fatalistic and accept that such events are just an inevitable part of war. But, I would like to think that in the modern era we might at least be able to minimise its occurrence even if we can’t remove it entirely.

And we can start by ensuring that our institutions and individuals have the right incentives to be more curious, and more humble, about our known and potential enemies. This can be hard in military institutions where decisiveness, courage and confidence are valued. It can be even more difficult where political leaders don’t value the questioning of long-held strategic assumptions. But we have to try.

The price of eschewing such humility is very high indeed.

The Humility Deficit

Failing to Understand and Respect Our Enemies in the Modern Era

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-humility-deficit?r=7i07&utm

MICK RYAN

DEC 18, 2023

Image: Business Insider

In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes that “there’s nothing more insufferable than people who boast about their own humility.” Aurelius isn’t being derogatory about the virtue of humility. Indeed, he often writes of it as a positive characteristic throughout his meditations. For me, his words actually speak to the unwitting over estimation of one’s personal capacity.

Perhaps more importantly, it speaks to the the arrogance of institutions that not only over appreciate their own strengths but concurrently under estimate the strengths of their competitors. Many organisations fall into this trap. But, for the purposes of this article, I will restrict my examination to military institutions.

This humility deficit has been on my mind this week as I visited Israel.

In a variety of discussions with current and retired military and national security personnel, as well as journalists, think tank personnel and Israeli citizens, the magnitude and multiple layers of failure that led to 7 October have been quite stark. And while there are political, military and intelligence aspects to this, at heart, Israel’s security establishment under estimated the ability of Hamas to plan and execute the kind of complex attack that they conducted on 7 October.

As I listened to the many stories about the day, it occurred to me that this had been a massive failure of humility.

There are many reasons why military organisations fail. History is littered with the detritus of failed organisations and warfighting concepts that we can explore in exquisite detail. From the failure of the Roman legions at Lake Trasimene or the Teutoburg Forest, through to the French failure in May and June of 1940, there are a multitude examples of defeats that have a common theme for the defeated: a failure of humility.

A failure of humility occurs when a military force fails to undertake the intellectual efforts to understand their adversary. In essence, it is a symptom of failing to respect the capabilities of one’s enemy. And while there may be many, many historical examples of failures of humility in military institutions, the modern era also has exemplars we need to study. In particular, the last couple of years have seen three examples of a lack of humility that have resulted in tragic outcomes for the military forces involved: the Russians in 2022; the Ukrainians (and their western supporters) in 2023; and, Israel on 7 October 2023.

Russia 2022. There have been a range of examinations of the failure of the Russians to rapidly capture Kyiv in the early days of their February 2022 large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian intelligence had provided an inaccurate picture of national resolve. The Ukrainian government, instead of cutting and running at the first sight of Russians (as the FSB hoped) stayed and rallied the nation.

The Russian Army proved unable to execute combined arms operations in a way that overcame Ukrainian resistance. Western assistance was provided that supported the Ukrainian concept of defence in the north. And, of course, the Ukrainians mounted a stout, heroic defence of their nation that compromised the air-land operation at Hostomel, forcing the reliance on an overland advance on Kyiv which the Ukrainians hounded at every step.

Ultimately however, the Russians had grossly underestimated the Ukrainians. Their assumptions about the lack of national unity, the fighting power of the Ukrainian military and the support that might be provided by the West were all wrong. Had the Russians been more cautious in their appreciation of the threats to their intended takeover of Ukraine, not assumed they would be able to take over the country in ten days, and demonstrated just a modicum of humility, February 2022 may have turned out very differently for Ukraine and Russia. We would certainly be in a very different war than we are at present.

The 2023 Counteroffensive. Unfortunately, the Russian operational shortfalls of 2022 has not been the only failure of humility in the Ukraine War. This year, expectations in the media, western governments and in Kyiv itself were very high for the counteroffensive against the Russians. After Russia’s early failures in the war, and the Ukrainian successes in the Kharkiv and Kherson campaigns of late 2022, the influx of more western munitions, artillery, and armoured vehicles was expected to underpin a decisive campaign in southern Ukraine in 2023.

The Russians did not see it this way. After their humiliations in Kharkiv and Kherson, they had focussed on the construction of an extensive belt of fortifications in southern Ukraine. Now known as the Surovikin Line, this was constructed in the full view of Ukraine’s tactical reconnaissance forces as well as western space-based surveillance systems (civil and military). Coupled with greatly enhanced Russian reconnaissance-fires complex that utilised drones, loitering munitions and a reduced ‘detection to destruction’ cycle, the deep minefields and multiple defensive lines should have given more pause than it did with Ukrainian and NATO planners.

Regardless of who is to blame to raising expectations of Ukrainian success in the south, these expectations dashed upon the minefields, trench lines and drone-fires complexes of the Russians in the south. Ultimately, we had underestimated the Russians. It was a collective failure of humility among Ukrainian and western planners and politicians.

The 7 October Massacre. This brings me to the examination of the Hamas massacres in southern Israel on 7 October. A broad range of issues contributed to the ultimate failure of the IDF to protect its citizens on that awful day. According to many I spoke to this week, the over reliance on remote intelligence and strike had led to an under appreciation of OSINT and HUMINT. There have been multiple stories of the ignoring of young soldiers and non-commissioned officers who reported Hamas preparations before 7 October. The Israelis even had a copy of the Hamas plan. And, the higher levels of the military and political classes also believed that Hamas was now moderating its behaviour and more interested in governance in Gaza.

All of this resulted in a drastic under estimation of the will and capacity of Hamas to plan and execute the kind of operation that it conducted on 7 October. Hamas undertook a carefully planned operation which relied on simultaneity, attacking military headquarters (including the Division HQ) and sensors to overwhelm IDF command and control. It effectively used deception in the lead up to the attacks. And when it did launch the operation, it relied on speed and shock action to rapidly surge forces into many settlements across southern Israel for several hours while the IDF either didn’t understand what was happening or was unable to act decisively.

Every IDF officer I spoke with this week, and every retired senior officer, admitted to a deep sense of shame about failing to defend their people. They had under estimated a known enemy with a public agenda to destroy the state of Israel who had rehearsed its battle plans in public. There were many kinds of failure in the lead up to, and on, 7 October (I will write about this separately) but a failure of humility in the IDF and the government is perhaps one of the worst kinds.

The common theme of these modern failures is the inability to give one’s enemy adequate credit for being a thinking, complex and adaptive entity that studies its adversary and plans accordingly.

As I highlighted earlier in this piece, the under estimation of the enemy is hardly a new phenomenon. But we possess thousands of years of examples to guide us in our actions, extraordinarily clever people and new era technologies like artificial intelligence that permit more forensic examination of one’s adversary than ever before.

One could be overly fatalistic and accept that such events are just an inevitable part of war. But, I would like to think that in the modern era we might at least be able to minimise its occurrence even if we can’t remove it entirely.

And we can start by ensuring that our institutions and individuals have the right incentives to be more curious, and more humble, about our known and potential enemies. This can be hard in military institutions where decisiveness, courage and confidence are valued. It can be even more difficult where political leaders don’t value the questioning of long-held strategic assumptions. But we have to try.

The price of eschewing such humility is very high indeed.

7. A new deal gives the US military 'unimpeded access' to Sweden's bases — including a vital outpost in the heart of northern Europe

Nothing is ever "unimpeded." I am sure country clearance is required at a minimum. And as noted though unspoken, no nuclear weapons will be stored in the country.

Excerpts:

The agreement gives US forces access to several Swedish bases and facilities, allows the US to preposition equipment in the country, and establishes conditions under which US troops deployed to Sweden will operate. It will permit US forces to quickly react to a crisis in the area.

The agreement "sends a strong signal that we remain committed to addressing security challenges together," Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson said. Although not explicitly mentioned in the agreement, Jonson said that no US nuclear weapons will be stored in Sweden.

...

According to the agreement, the US will receive "unimpeded access" to and "use" of 17 Swedish facilities, five of which are air bases or airports and one a harbor.

Four of these facilities, including two air bases, are within the Arctic Circle, where the US military and its NATO allies have been spending more time in recent years.

A number of the other Swedish facilities the US will receive access to lie along the Baltic Sea. The Russian city of St. Petersburg and its Kaliningrad exclave also border the sea, but the rest of its coastline is occupied by NATO members — Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland — leading to the Baltic being described as a "NATO lake."

A new deal gives the US military 'unimpeded access' to Sweden's bases — including a vital outpost in the heart of northern Europe

Business Insider · by Constantine Atlamazoglou

Military & Defense

Constantine Atlamazoglou

2023-12-18T11:37:01Z

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A Swedish Gripen E fighter jet over Gotland Island in May 2022.HENRIK MONTGOMERY/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

• The US and Sweden signed a defense cooperation agreement on December 6.
• The agreement grants the US access to and use of 17 Swedish facilities, including on Gotland Island.
• Gotland is a strategically valuable outpost in the middle of the Baltic Sea.

On December 6, the US and Sweden signed a defense cooperation agreement that will significantly strengthen their military links and increase US presence in an important region amid heightened tension with Russia.

The agreement gives US forces access to several Swedish bases and facilities, allows the US to preposition equipment in the country, and establishes conditions under which US troops deployed to Sweden will operate. It will permit US forces to quickly react to a crisis in the area.

The agreement "sends a strong signal that we remain committed to addressing security challenges together," Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson said. Although not explicitly mentioned in the agreement, Jonson said that no US nuclear weapons will be stored in Sweden.

Sweden had traditionally been militarily non-aligned, working closely with NATO but never joining, but Russia's attack on Ukraine last year led to it apply to join NATO alongside Finland.

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Sweden's application has yet to be approved, but Jason Moyer, an associate at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington DC, said the defense cooperation agreement "provides some stability and assurances" for Sweden, further enmeshes it within NATO, and deepens its bilateral relationship with the US.

Accessing crucial locations

Military vehicles and personnel in the village of Endre on Gotland Island during an exercise in June 2022.Narciso Contreras/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

According to the agreement, the US will receive "unimpeded access" to and "use" of 17 Swedish facilities, five of which are air bases or airports and one a harbor.

Four of these facilities, including two air bases, are within the Arctic Circle, where the US military and its NATO allies have been spending more time in recent years.

A number of the other Swedish facilities the US will receive access to lie along the Baltic Sea. The Russian city of St. Petersburg and its Kaliningrad exclave also border the sea, but the rest of its coastline is occupied by NATO members — Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland — leading to the Baltic being described as a "NATO lake."

Perhaps the most important of those Swedish facilities are the ones around Visby on Gotland Island.

A US Marine Corps vehicle lands on Gotland Island during an exercise in June 2022.US Navy/MCS Seaman Keith Nowak

The island, which is Sweden's largest and has a population of about 60,000, sits in the middle of the Baltic, roughly halfway between Sweden and the three Baltic countries, and looks over sea lanes Russian forces would have to traverse to reach Kaliningrad or the Atlantic.

In the event of a war, forces on Gotland could support the Baltics and Poland, pressure Kaliningrad, and limit Russian naval activity in the Baltic. Conversely, if Russia captured the island, it could better isolate the Baltic states and pressure allied shipping, denying NATO freedom of movement in the area.

Gotland's location has thus given it prime military importance. During exercises there in 2017, the commanding general of US Army Europe at the time told the island's Swedish garrison that they had "a strategically very important task here. I do not think there is any island anywhere that is more important."

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Swedish troops in Gotland's Visby harbor during an exercise in September 2016.Soren Andersson/TT News Agency via REUTERS

Sweden demilitarized the island in 2005, as tensions with Russia declined following the Cold War. But Stockholm reintroduced a permanent garrison in 2016, following Russia's attack on Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Sweden has continued to increase its defenses on the island by deploying a mechanized and an amphibious battalion. In 2021, it reintroduced medium-range surface-to-air missiles batteries, which can take down jets, missiles, and drones. Sweden regularly holds exercises with NATO militaries on the island.

Besides the facilities, the ability to preposition and store materiel in Sweden would allow the US to use the country's "geostrategic location at the center of the Nordics to supply allies in the Baltic Sea region in the event of an expanded campaign of Russian aggression," Moyer told Business Insider.

Nordic agreements

Norwegian, Latvian, Finnish, Danish, Swedish, Estonian, Icelandic, and Lithuanian officials on Gotland after a Nordic-Baltic Defense Ministers' meeting in September 2022.FREDRIK SANDBERG/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images

The Nordic region is increasingly being integrated intro a transatlantic security framework, Moyer said. Sweden's parliament still needs to approve the agreement for it to go into effect, which it is expected to do in 2024, and it will be one of several the US has with countries in the region.

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In 2021, the US signed a defense cooperation agreement with NATO member Norway granting it access to Norwegian bases and the ability to preposition materiel there. The agreement went into effect last year.

The US and Finland are poised to sign their own defense cooperation agreement. Among the Finnish facilities that the US will gain access is Russarö Island. The island, which is off-limits to the public, sits at the opening of the Gulf of Finland, a channel connecting St. Petersburg to the Baltic Sea. The US is also negotiating a defense cooperation agreement with Denmark, which sits at the mouth of the Baltic Sea.

"These agreements play a vital role in deterring Russian aggression," Moyer said. "Russia has the capacity to reconstitute much of its military capabilities in the next 3-5 years. Now is the time to tangibly move forward on defense cooperation amongst allies."

Constantine Atlamazoglou works on transatlantic and European security. He holds a master's degree in security studies and European affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. You can contact him on LinkedIn and follow him on X/Twitter.

Business Insider · by Constantine Atlamazoglou

8. Volodymyr Zelensky: Ukraine must fight on, Ukrainians must fight

This is what President Zelensky said, in short.

Volodymyr Zelensky: Ukraine must fight on, Ukrainians must fight

ukrinform.net

On December 19, Volodymyr Zelensky gave his third major press conference since Russia’s full-scale invasion. At the two-hour event that was held in the capital city of Kyiv and lasted two hours, the head of state spoke to journalists about the hottest topics of the past days and months. Those included efforts to repel Russia’s onslaught, the latest battlefield developments, the main priorities and challenges Ukraine will face in 2024, current relations with partners, military and financial aid, and generally the issues related to international support for Ukraine, which is currently being undermined by internal political squabbles in the US and within the EU.

This is what President Zelensky said, in short.

Weapons

“I would like to praise our partners and our Air Force of Ukraine. What’s happening with the strengthening of our air defense is very important. This winter is different, with losses and challenges. But we are getting stronger and more powerful. I had a serious trip. Several new Patriot systems will arrive in Ukraine to protect our country this winter. This is a very important result,” said the president.

"I promised not to reveal the numbers while they keep protecting us. But I’d like to thank my partners. Both Patriot and NASAMS systems form a powerful package," Zelensky noted.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive

"As for the reduction of (Western - ed.) aid and whether it had an impact. Uncontrolled sky on Ukraine’s part affected our southern operation in 2023. We have no control of the sky, we have no sufficient amount of ammunition. But this doesn’t mean we will not find a way out, or that we haven’t already found one. But to this end, we need support because some things we simply don't have. We’re working on it," said Zelensky.

According to the president, military tactics may change after the outcome of Ukraine’s efforts in the country's south in 2023 are taken into account.

"The strategy cannot be changed, according to our Constitution - these are all our territories. (…) We will see things clear by the end of the year but we will for now reserve information on our next plans and next steps, I'm sorry," the president added.

At the same time, President Zelensky said Ukraine had not achieved the desired results during the summer counteroffensive. "We wanted to get quicker results. From this point of view, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact."

According to the president, Ukraine had not received all the required weapons sytems from its allies, and limited capabilities do not allow for running an offensive.

“Defeat”

Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized the fact that any discussions of Ukraine's “defeat” are off the table since Russia failed to achieve any of its military objectives set for 2023.

"As for the battlefield situation, Russia has not achieved any results over this year. I am not talking of the past year, 2022, I am talking 2023. None of the objectives. This, by the way, is also confirmed by the fact that the Kremlin's messaging hasn’t changed, their “special military operation” objectives remain the same and they are clear: the occupation of our state, and then there was the objective that they were changing in their rhetoric: advancing to the administrative borders of Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine – ed.)/ They never achieved this either. Therefore, there’s no sense to claim any “defeat” (on the part of Ukraine - ed.). Russia did not prevail. (Seizing Kyiv in – ed.) three days? What are you talking about?... Two years! Our soldiers dare doing a good job, our people are doing a good job. I once again thank them for that."

Ukraine will not lose the war even if support from international partners continues to decline, Zelensky believes.

"No, I don't think so. We were in the most difficult situation and we were almost completely occupied, at least our country’s central regions... We were under a full blockade. We got out of this, and perhaps it’s people, God, our partners, I don't know who else, but all of that helped... Now we have a different situation. And I agree that we’re facing challenges – we need so much more aid in terms of artillery rounds, ATGMs, artillery systems, especially 185mm, repairing these systems, delivering them, etc., but the hubs are being deployed little by little..." Zelensky stressed.

Country’s main achievements in 2023

Ukraine’s main achievement is "preserving our country’s yellow-blue flag," said the president of Ukraine. The second important achievement is the historic victory of our country’s “Europeanness” and getting closer to achieving justice.

The [resident emphasized Ukraine’s major sacrifices on its path toward the European Union. "We are fighting for our future ourselves, not for the future that Russia seeks to choose for us. A historic victory for Ukraine is very serious. We went through two waves - the launch of negotiations on joining the EU and a full-scale war."

Security guarantees

President Zelensky spoke of the progress the country has made in obtaining "security guarantees" from its partners. The leader stressed that earlier on Tuesday, he had another conversation with partners precisely on this issue.

"This is an ongoing process. It goes a bit slower than I expected. We just spoke with the team today on security guarantees, on the ways to get closer to the relevant decision. A lot depends on us in this respect. We very often blame our partners for certain issues, but we must be fair – a lot depends on us, too," he said.

According to Zelensky, Ukraine's task is to properly convey its vision to partners. This has not yet been achieved, but globally, in the matter of guarantees, the ball is on the Ukrainian pitch, he emphasized.

The end of war

"Will the war end in 2024? I don't think anyone knows the answer. Even when our respected Western partners talk about (the war potentially lasting – ed.) for years, they don’t know... Opinions often differ from reality... War, victory, defeat, stagnation – they all depend on many decisions, directions, and risks, but mostly on all of us. If we don’t lose our resilience, we will end the war earlier than that. If we do much more than each of us can, I’m sure we’ll be able to bring victory closer," Zelensky said.

The vision of victory

"Someone started suggesting, 'Come on, right here, where we are now, it's already a victory, we haven't been occupied…' When you come to the USA or EU, the fact that Russia failed to destroy us is already a victory for them. I’m skeptical about that," he said.

"Ukraine must fight on, Ukrainians must fight. That’s because no one guarantees that, when tomorrow we reach the line where the onslaught started, which will already be an overly difficult task, what happens next? What security guarantees do we get? Who guarantees we’ll be safe with Russia? It is clear that the farther Russia retreats, the weaker it will be, starting with their leader and ending with their presence on international platforms. This is important, and we must use this time. And God help Ukraine actually get this opportunity."

The Black Sea

The head of state thanked the Security Service operatives, the Ministry of Defense, and the Navy primarily for the great and really important victory in the Black Sea.

"This is part of the ‘southern operation’. Everyone in Ukraine and beyond highly appreciates the effort to deprive Russia’s Navy of total dominance in the Ukrainian Black Sea and the ability to impose on us what we should do and what we should export. This effort ended the blocking of Ukraine's economy, which gives Ukrainian military the opportunity to stand strong on their land. Also, destroying the Russian fleet is forcing them to withdraw from Ukraine’s territorial waters," Zelensky emphasized.

Orbán and Trump

“I never spoke to Orbán about a ceasefire or dialogue with Putin. He may have raised the issue with his friends or leaders abroad. There was something about that in his speech, but it seems off to me. Sometimes his policies are not too friendly to us, and I told him that,” the president said.

During a brief encounter in Argentina, Zelensky asked Orbán why they could not set up a formal bilateral meeting, and "he could not give an answer."

"Ex-US President Donald Trump, if he wins the upcoming elections, will definitely pursue a different policy toward Ukraine. He is a different person. It’s not we, it’s their people who elect a president for themselves. I’m not sure that the country’s policy, the US policy, will change in relation to Ukraine," Zelensky emphasized.

"If the policy of the next president, whoever he may be, is different toward Ukraine, if it’s cooler or more domestic-oriented, more economical, I think these signals will greatly affect the course of the war in Ukraine. That’s because if one powerful spare part falls out, the mechanism starts to crumble."

US and EU aid

According to the president, continued assistance on the part of the US would send a signal to EU member states to provide more aid, too. As for the US assistance, Zelensky said "it seems that aid will come very soon."

"As for financial assistance, we are working very hard. I am sure that the United States will not betray us and that whatever we have agreed on, the United States will fulfill in full... We expect this help, they are aware of the details, what we need, how it will affect things, they are aware of how changing dates affects things. I think I found an understanding with President Biden and senators, we met with both parties. We’ll see, it’s all about the dates."

"As far as the EU is concerned, stakes were high, everyone bet high. We achieved one victory. As for EUR 50 billion, I’m sure, we have already achieved this, too, and the question is now about the relevant timing."

"The de-focus of Ukraine's support on various media platforms, in the information field abroad, affects assistance we’re receiving." According to the president, Russia has succeeded in this regard and this must be admitted. The president added that Russia saw no battlefield gains, but had some in the diplomatic domain.

Ukraine has already sealed long-term financial aid commitments from Belgium, Denmark, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Germany, Sweden, and Japan.

Zelensky said, without specifying the currency in question, that today, "Ukraine has received commitments of 1.7 billion from Belgium 4.2 billion from Denmark, 2.3 billion from South Korea, hundreds of millions from Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands, 7.5 billion from Norway, 2 billion from France, 8 billion from Germany, a little more than half a billion from Sweden, and also there will be multibillion-dollar aid from Japan." According to Zelensky, this multi-year aid is a powerful basis in case any risks arise for Ukraine.

The head of state also noted the importance of German support, the world’s second largest, and thanked the leader of Germany, Olaf Scholz.

"Today he (Scholz - ed.) is seriously helping us. We expect another Patriot system from him personally, and this is a very important decision for us. We understand where it will be deployed, how it will help the region that is fighting for its life every day," Zelensky emphasized.

Fortifications

Work on border fortifications should be standardized and the Kharkiv region should be taken as a solid example.

"First of all, a decision was made not to start, but to continue and strengthen (the work - ed.), and this is very important. There are regional state administrations, which for the most part have been doing all the work since the outset of the war. I emphasize that what they have done and what I see in Kharkiv region – how they have joined efforts with military specialists and construction companies, drew up a budget together with businesses – it is a powerful effort, and I am grateful to them for that," the president said.

Relations with Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi

Volodymyr Zelensky declares that he has a “working relationship” with the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, and that is he expects to hear from the command the details of combat missions and defense efforts.

"We need strong steps and results. That's all, that's my attitude. I do not go down the road of complications in terms of personalities. The state of Ukraine is not about personal issues. I plan to keep working, I'm awaiting decisions on mobilization, I'm awaiting decisions so that we help our people on the front lines, I'm awaiting very specific things on the battlefield. The strategy is clear, now I want to see the details."

Polish border blockade

Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Poland for the substantial assistance provided since Russia’s large-scale invasion, but he spoke emotionally about the blocking of borders for the export of Ukrainian products by Ukraine’s western neighbor.

"I believe that you helped us as much as you could, and we stood for you and keep standing, as much as we can. I had a strong relationship with your Cabinet. Then there came the blockade of our borders. See, this is not about business in times of war. Ukraine faced serious difficulties in exporting its goods against the background of Russia’s ongoing large-scale military aggression. It was about survival. We did not have the Black Sea Corridor through which grain could be exported. What do we have if we have no sea. And when we were told to go for a compromise, I asked, what is the compromise? Is the compromise about not all of us surviving, not exporting all the grain? I said, okay, let's not sell grain in Poland, but let it be exported," the president said.

According to Zelensky, in the period from April to September "it was very difficult." "We lost hundreds of millions of dollars, part of the harvest. We sustained losses daily. We began to lose political relations. I emphasize once again, I am grateful to your people, but please understand, I am not being pathetic, I am protecting the interests of my country at war. I said, just let us export it. And they didn't let us export it. And this wasn't right," he emphasized.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hopes that the new Polish government will unblock the border.

"You have a new government ... and I will believe that the new government will remove this whole blockade, which is artificial. We are ready (to make sure – ed.) that people in Poland lose nothing, but the issue of grain must not be politicized," he emphasized.

Arms production

Next year, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to get a million drones produced domestically.

"I also have a positive vision toward increasing the production of drones and setting up special units. There must be a management structure for operating drones. It mustn’t be Soviet-style, but instead it must be really simple to deploy quickly."

He said that at the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Staff meeting held recently, the issue of drone production and supply was on top agenda.

"And I really don't enjoy the fact that logistically we still have the bureaucratic Soviet process, where we had 26,000 drones stocked in the warehouse rather than be delivered to the front. It was a very loud Staff meeting, but we must not have such problems ever. I'm just shocked, how can something we produce just not be delivered?... We will tackle the logistical issue. Our soldiers will get domestically produced drones for their brigades. Regarding production, we will produce a million drones next year," he said.

Military draft

At the meeting of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Staff, the military suggested that another 400,000-500,000 people be drafted into the army, and work is currently underway to draw up a concrete plan that will be presented to Parliament: "This is a very serious number so I need more arguments."

"In this mobilization law, you must provide answers to me, to the public, most importantly to the general public. So they started working on this plan. I haven't seen demobilization there yet, although I think that's No. 1 issue. And the question is not how this process is referred to. The main thing is that it be fair to our mighty soldiers," Zelensky added.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would not sign off the law on mobilizing women into the army.

"Women - no, I will not sign that. As for (men from the age of – ed.) 25 years, if all the arguments are laid out, and today I see that they need that, then I will agree with it," Zelensky said, answering the question of whether he would sign the law in case it passes Parliament, laying down the norms providing for the mobilization of women, as well as men under 27.

The Peace Formula

"When the leaders' summit is held... there will be an agreement between the countries on the fundamental things with which we will begin to work and prepare the corresponding document. When the document is ready, it will be handed over to representatives of Russia through intermediaries. If they (Russia, - ed.) are ready to accept the document, it will mean that the issue of negotiations is on the table," the president emphasized.

War in Israel

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine recognizes both the independent people of Israel and the independent people of Palestine. However, he cannot equate the situation in the Gaza Strip with Ukraine's war with Russia.

"Russia's occupation and invasion of Ukraine did not start off with a terrorist attack on Russian soil by people holding Ukrainian citizenship. Nobody did that. We lived in our independent state and the enemy came to us and killed our people."

According to Zelensky, the war in the Middle East is affecting aid to Ukraine, and the world has become unfocused in its consolidation around Ukraine.

"This is a complex issue and it greatly affects the stability of Ukraine. This (war in the Middle East, - ed.) is a tragedy, I understand, but we have a full-scale war here. My condolences to the families of all those who died in that tragedy, Russia has succeeded, it must be admitted, in doing a very serious job... Some countries began to hesitate, balancing as to who to help first, Israel or Ukraine."

As for the trip to the region, Zelensky signaled his readiness at the very outset of the conflict. "Perhaps they had other priorities. I can't play too much with the schedule and my priorities because I'm running a country at war."

Reopening the Boryspil Airport

Boryspil Airport is like the Black Sea. This is a very serious operation. The reopening of Boryspil would be a victory for Ukrainian air defense. This will show that Ukraine is winning and this is very serious, it is a powerful economic step as well... The question of the reopening of Boryspil is being put forward before our colleagues, and Ukraine knows exactly what it needs to this end," said the president.

Personnel issues

President Zelensky says he cannot afford to get rid of anyone from his team at the moment because it will make the state weaker.

"As for my team, if I lose my team, and I have a small one – just five to six managers, we will become weaker. There will be fewer air defense capabilities, less aid. I can't afford it."

President Volodymyr Zelensky agrees that many MPs do not act in line with their status, but at the moment he cannot dissolve the Verkhovna Rada because then elections will have to be held.

"As for our lawmakers, they should only do their job and be moral leaders. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. What can I do as President? I cannot dissolve our Parliament because elections cannot be held amid war."

President Zelensky said that work is currently underway to reduce the expenses of government officials as much as possible.

"I want to cut this government, I have no money. I am working to ensure that more money goes to the front lines. But if there are no people there at all, it will be difficult for us to manage the state."

POW swaps

Zelensky confirmed that the process of POW exchange has slowed down: "Maybe the government really doesn't communicate this issue too well, so I will pass it on to (Ombudsman Dmytro – ed.) Lubinets and (defense intelligence chief Kyrylo – ed.) Budanov. This track is operable but it really slowed down due to reasons originating in Russia, and these are very specific reasons. The track will reopen."

According to Zelensky, the exchange of prisoners of war is a rather complicated issue, especially if it is about prisoners in Crimea. However, he recalled that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised assistance in this matter.

"As for the Crimean residents. This is a complicated story. There is nothing to thank international organizations for as they could not do anything. I worked a lot on this issue with Erdogan. So far, my dear President Erdoğan has not shown results regarding all the prisoners who were in Crimea."

Joining NATO

Ukraine has never received an invitation to partially join NATO. According to the president, Ukraine's accession to NATO is the most powerful option for supporting Ukraine.

"But we are not invited to NATO. Also, signals about partial membership are, frankly, delusional. What for? We have never received such an offer. Never, from any of the partners. And to be honest, it's hard to imagine how this can be done," said Zelensky.

He noted that the accession to NATO "in parts" bears high risks and threatens a direct conflict between the Alliance and Russia, since Kyiv does not recognize the temporarily occupied territories as Russian.

Talks with Russia

President Volodymyr Zelensky noted that the issue of negotiations with the Russian Federation is not relevant today, adding that he is seeing no signals from Russia in this regard.

Fighting corruption

Volodymyr Zelensky noted his efforts to get the parliament to vote for all anti-corruption laws: "It is important to me that we fight corruption risks as much as possible. Partners say that the funding they provide for weapons are currently not at risk because reforms are being implemented in Ukraine. Corruption must be prosecuted. It is very important. Law enforcement, anti-corruption agencies, and the SBU will definitely do their job, and we will see fair sentences."

By Maryna Dmytriv and Myroslav Liskovych

Photo: Ruslan Kaniuka

ukrinform.net

9. Global Dexterity Exercise Strengthens Partnerships in Indo-Pacific

Nothing like US airpower.

Global Dexterity Exercise Strengthens Partnerships in Indo-Pacific

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Air forces from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom recently teamed up for an exercise in Queensland, Australia.

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During Exercise Global Dexterity, the U.S. Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Air Force integrated personnel with the goal of developing multilateral tactical airlift and airdrop capabilities between the three nations.

Exercise Global Dexterity

U.S. Air Force loadmasters mission plan alongside their Australian counterparts during Exercise Global Dexterity, at Royal Australian Air Force Base Scherger, Dec. 4, 2023.

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Exercise Global Dexterity

Air Force Capt. Charles Keller flies a low-level training flight around the skies of Papua New Guinea during Exercise Global Dexterity, Dec. 5, 2023.

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Exercise Global Dexterity

A Royal Australian Air Force C-17 Globemaster III flies in a training flight formation during Exercise Global Dexterity 23-24 around the skies of Papua New Guinea, Dec. 6, 2023.

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Maintainers from each nation worked together to ensure all aircraft were safe to train and fly daily.

Exercise Global Dexterity

Air Force Tech. Sgt. Anthony Goodman inspects the engine of a C-17 Globemaster III during Exercise Global Dexterity 23-2 at Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley, Nov. 29, 2023.

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Exercise Global Dexterity

Air Force Staff Sgt. Cody Ray prepares a C-17 Globemaster III engine for an inspection during Exercise Global Dexterity 23-2 at Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley, Nov. 29, 2023.

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This was the first time the Royal Air Force participated in this exercise working together with American and British members to strengthen military partnerships and demonstrate mission capabilities in wartime, peacetime and humanitarian operations throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

Exercise Global Dexterity

A Royal Australian Air Force C-17 Globemaster III flies in a training flight formation during Exercise Global Dexterity 23-24 around the skies of Papua New Guinea, Dec. 6, 2023.

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Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific: https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/Focus-on-Indo-Pacific/

Air Force Australia United Kingdom partnerships Global Dexterity Indo-Pacific

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10. The United States is producing more oil than any country in history

Excerpts:

The United States is set to produce a global record of 13.3 million barrels per day of crude and condensate during the fourth quarter of this year, according to a report published Tuesday by S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Last month, weekly US oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That’s just above the Donald Trump-era record of 13.1 million set in early 2020 just before the Covid-19 crisis sent output and prices crashing.

That’s been helping to keep a lid on crude and gasoline prices.

US output – led by shale oil drillers in Texas and New Mexico’s Permian Basin – is so strong that it’s sending supplies overseas. America is exporting the same amount of crude oil, refined products and natural gas liquids as Saudi Arabia or Russia produces, S&P said.

The United States is producing more oil than any country in history | CNN Business

CNN · by Matt Egan · December 19, 2023

Despite claims that President Biden has waged a war on American energy, the United States is pumping record amounts of oil.

Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

New York CNN —

As the world grapples with the existential crisis of climate change, environmental activists want President Joe Biden to phase out the oil industry, and Republicans argue he’s already doing that. Meanwhile, the surprising reality is the United States is pumping oil at a blistering pace and is on track to produce more oil than any country has in history.

The United States is set to produce a global record of 13.3 million barrels per day of crude and condensate during the fourth quarter of this year, according to a report published Tuesday by S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Last month, weekly US oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That’s just above the Donald Trump-era record of 13.1 million set in early 2020 just before the Covid-19 crisis sent output and prices crashing.

That’s been helping to keep a lid on crude and gasoline prices.

US output – led by shale oil drillers in Texas and New Mexico’s Permian Basin – is so strong that it’s sending supplies overseas. America is exporting the same amount of crude oil, refined products and natural gas liquids as Saudi Arabia or Russia produces, S&P said.

People walk through the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Dec. 4, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Peter Dejong/AP

‘Verge of complete failure’: Climate summit draft drops the mention of fossil fuel phase-out, angering advocates

“It’s a reminder that the US is endowed with enormous oil reserves. Our industry should never be underestimated,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group.

Record-shattering US production is helping to offset aggressive supply cuts meant to support high prices by OPEC+, mainly Saudi Arabia and Russia. Other non-OPEC oil producers including Canada and Brazil are also pumping more oil than ever before. (Brazil is set to join OPEC+ next year.)

The strength of US output has caught experts off guard. Goldman Sachs analysts on Sunday cut their forecast for oil prices next year. The bank said the “key reason” behind the lowered forecast is the abundance of US supply.

Global demand for crude oil is set to hit a record in 2024 – but it will “easily be met” by the growth in supply, according to S&P’s projections.

Gas prices near $3

All of this has helped to keep oil prices relatively in check. After flirting with $100 a barrel earlier this year, crude has since tumbled back to the $70 to $75 range.

A shipping container belonging to Hapag-Lloyd moves through the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt October 5, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters

Oil price gains and shipping headaches after Red Sea attacks risk new wave of inflation

Energy prices have jumped this week after BP halted shipments through the Red Sea due to security concerns. Still, US oil is trading below $74 a barrel, well below where it was when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

Gas prices neared the psychologically important level of $4 a gallon in September. But prices at the pump have since fallen sharply, helping to ease inflationary pressure on the US economy.

The national average for a gallon of regular gas stood at $3.08 a gallon on Tuesday, down from $3.14 a year ago, according to AAA.

‘Biden’s war on energy’

Despite record-setting production, Biden has come under fire for his energy policy.

“Unfortunately, this Administration continues to pursue policies designed to limit access to new production—most notably on federal lands and waters. The world will continue to demand more energy, not less, and we urge policymakers to recognize the role American energy production can play as a stabilizing force for consumers here at home and around the world,” American Petroleum Institute Senior Vice President of Policy, Economics and Regulatory Affairs Dustin Meyer, said in a statement on Tuesday.

In September, the House subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held a hearing titled: “Biden’s War on Domestic Energy Threatens Every American.”

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska warned in a floor speech that the Biden administration’s war on energy is a “gift to our adversaries.”

Earlier this month at a GOP presidential primary debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to “open up all of our domestic energy for production” to “lower your gas prices.” DeSantis made a similar comment at the CNN town hall last week.

That the US is about to produce more oil than any country ever before undercuts the argument that Biden has waged a war on American energy.

Presidents don’t set oil production

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s Biden policies that have paved the way for record US oil production, nor that the White House would rush to take credit for that.

McNally, a former energy official to former President George W. Bush, said there isn’t that much presidents can do about US oil production, short of taking drastic emergency powers.

Unlike OPEC nations, the United States oil output is largely set by the free market.

“It’s not like President Biden or any president has a dial in the Oval Office to increase production,” McNally said.

Instead, the spike in US output has been driven by smarter and more efficient operations by oil companies. Energy firms have figured out ways to squeeze more and more oil out of the ground – often without increasing drilling dramatically.

The shale oil revolution has been driven by new drilling techniques that have unlocked new resources. But this technique can be more complex and requires vast amounts of water.

‘Kicking and screaming’

Yet McNally said the White House has been forced to shift its tone on fossil fuels from the climate-focused stance of 2020 and early 2021 to something more neutral.

Last year, gas prices spiked above $5 a gallon following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which set off a panic in the oil market. Biden urged US oil companies to pump more oil – exactly the opposite of what climate scientists are calling for.

In March, the Biden administration even approved the Willow oil drilling project, a controversial ConocoPhillips drilling venture in Alaska that had been stalled for decades. That green light came in the face of deep criticism from climate groups worried about the environmental and health risks.

“President Biden has been dragged kicking and screaming from his initial keep-it-in-the-ground strategy towards a more pragmatic policy,” McNally said, noting the administration was “mugged by the reality of high gas prices and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

CNN · by Matt Egan · December 19, 2023

11. How an ‘unprecedented’ shooting study may shake up Marine marksmanship

How an ‘unprecedented’ shooting study may shake up Marine marksmanship

militarytimes.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · December 19, 2023

In 2018, Marine Corps Combat Development and Integration published an internal capabilities assessment of service marksmanship that exposed glaring gaps not only in how Marine shooters trained, but also what the service knew about how they were performing on the range.

Now the Corps is attacking those problems by making big investments in sophisticated marksmanship simulators and participating in a wide-ranging study that will challenge every assumption about how to teach Marines to get rounds on target.

The new study of Marine Corps marksmanship, set to take place over three fiscal years, is being undertaken by the Naval Health Research Center, with funding from the Office of Naval Research. It follows a recently concluded 2022 study focused on gathering better live-fire data that researchers say resulted in the proposal of a new training and readiness standard, now under consideration, emphasizing moving targets.

Enabling this research will be eight new advanced small arms lethality trainers, or ASALTs, ordered through an $11.3 million contract between Marine Corps Systems Command’s Program Manager for Training Systems and Virginia-based company Conflict Kinetics.

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‘Every Marine a rifleman’ still relevant, says sergeant major of the Corps

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By Philip Athey

Set to be installed at all major Marine Corps bases beginning with Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, these enclosed trainers, also known as Gunfighter Gyms, use advanced simulation technology and adaptive artificial intelligence to take Marines through a spectrum of marksmanship training scenarios while collecting data to improve their performance.

The Marine Corps had discussed investing in ASALT trainers for years, even, according to Conflict Kinetics, installing one at 2nd Marine Division out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, for a two-year study period in 2019.

“Key to ASALT is its ability to capture rich human performance data to inform better warfighter training, including the transfer to live fire and force-on-force training readiness,” the company said in a November release announcing the contract.

The Naval Health Research Center researchers who spoke with Marine Corps Times said they’re unaware of any previous research effort comparable in size and scope to what they’re now undertaking.

Already, they said, they’ve completed a literature review of all previous studies and reports having to do with marksmanship training and shooting simulators, enabling them to embark on a “blank slate” approach in their study of what makes an effective shooter.

‘We’re already experts’

While major military investments have been made in drone and electronic warfare, technological investments in small arms tools and training were comparatively minimal, according to Joe Hamilton, the marksmanship and tactical research lead for the Naval Health Research Center.

“Marksmanship does get taken for granted,” he said.

A reason for that, he said, was because the only consistent metric to evaluate shooting proficiency was range qualification, on which he said about 80% of Marines consistently earned an “expert” shooting badge.

“There’s no demand signal in this space, because we’re already experts,” he said, citing a typical line of thinking. “Why would we index on our expert task?”

Yet both the literature review and the Marines’ recent shooter study showed significant gaps in the service’s ability to train as it fights.

The 2018 Marine Corps Rifle Marksmanship Lethality Capabilities-Based Assessment, or CBA ― a redacted copy of which was reviewed by Marine Corps Times ― found that the existing rifle training tables failed to accurately represent current and future combat operating environments.

While major military investments have been made in drone and electronic warfare, technological investments in small arms tools and training were comparatively minimal, according to Joe Hamilton. (Naval Health Research Center)

“Marine Corps rifle marksmanship facilities must not only support necessary marksmanship training, but also enable new, innovative modifications to the marksmanship program to advance marksmanship lethality,” the document found. “Range facilities must be multifunctional and not limited to a specific [course of fire] due to physical constraints.”

The Naval Health Research Center researchers will now work to “validate and optimize” use of the pricey new trainers by evaluating shooters in simulators and on the range. They’ve even developed a tool, the Joint Marksmanship Assessment Package, or JMAP, that creates a “digital score sheet,” linking a tablet to precision tracking devices such as an acoustic timer that can show the cadence between initial shots and following rounds.

“When I say [I want] more data granularity, it’s not the sort of whiz-bang fancy stuff,” Hamilton said. What we need is better information about the hits. I don’t want to just know, did you hit the torso.”

Hitting and leading moving targets

Several shooting challenges were isolated as pain points for the Marine Corps, including shooting at night, hitting moving targets, and leading targets, or aiming in front of a target so the bullet trajectory intersects with the target’s travel path, according to multiple sources who reviewed the full Marine Corps Rifle Marksmanship Lethality Capabilities-Based Assessment report.

Leading in particular is a complex skill and difficult to demonstrate or train to on a conventional range.

Col. Gregory Jones, commander of Weapons Training Battalion, out of Quantico, Virginia, told Marine Corps Times, “Back in the ‘70s … they were having people with a paper target and a stick just run really fast in the pit.”

“And that’s sort of what we do now.”

While the Marine Corps’ increasing adoption of robotic “trackless mobile infantry targets,” or TMITs, has offered more options for training on lead, that skill has not historically been built into simulators like the Marines’ older indoor simulated marksmanship trainer.

How to best teach lead on moving targets, a task among ASALT’s objectives that requires introducing a mathematical timing element, is among what Jones calls the “scientific experiments” that the Naval Health Research Center can undertake. And this is an example of where a paradigm shift might occur when it comes to evaluating proficiency on the range.

“If you are able to basically measure how quick and accurate someone is versus how accurate they are, there’s a floor, no ceiling,” Jones said. “When your lethality is measured this way, we can see how good you can be, and … the ceiling starts to be the limits of an individual Marine’s ability.”

Integrating ranges and simulators

The Marine Corps has taken substantial steps already to inject more realism into marksmanship assessments.

The service rolled out a new rifle qualification program in 2021 that required Marines to wear combat gear, hit moving targets and fire on targets in sequence. It was challenging enough that the Corps this year changed policy to give more Marines a chance to shoot expert if they missed it the first time.

In 2022, the service also introduced the Advanced Marksmanship Training Program, with 28 modules and 600 pages of material, as the new shooting curriculum for the infantry community.

The new ASALTs, however, will give Marines a chance to train regularly on scenarios too complex or dangerous to execute on a range, such as “shoot/don’t-shoot” dilemmas and high-pressure, rapidly changing decision-making drills that introduce more of the stressors of combat.

“You can’t train that at scale [on a range],” Hamilton said.

Alison Rubin, vice president of Conflict Kinetics, told Marine Corps Times that while she couldn’t go into detail about how the proprietary simulators work, a key feature is their emphasis on massive data collection and aggregation: 70 points of data per shot.

“It’s a whole different approach than what standard small arms simulators have done,” she said.

Timothy Dunn, principal investigator for Naval Health Research Center’s Expeditionary Cognitive Science (ExCS) Group, said the center planned to provide the Marine Corps with a validation report by the end of this fiscal year demonstrating the performance difference between shooting on the range in the simulator.

The year after, they plan to focus on optimization, delving into scenarios where they can ramp up physiological, social and cognitive stress within the simulator and assess how those factors affect marksmanship and operational outcomes.

The last year of the study, Dunn said, will be the “science project” portion: researchers will be able to design scenarios to test optimization theories and play with variables beyond the most intuitive shooting inputs.

So can we develop these unique scenarios that transfer over to actual operational performance in some way,” Dunn said. “That idea of transfer is sort of the golden goose within cognitive science, being able to train something on a related but not the same task, and you see benefits in other things as well.”

A new era of data-based marksmanship

While it’s not yet clear what changes may be prompted by these new data-collection efforts, Jones believes a new era of data-based marksmanship is beginning with the 2022 Naval Health Research Center study, which he said he’s still awaiting.

“The CBA is sort of like the Old Testament: This is what the Marine Corps, you’re not doing well, and you should do these things,” Jones said. And then, from my understanding, we’ll get this report, and then that starts to be the New Testament.”

When Jones was a captain at Quantico’s Officer Candidates School, he said, his commanding officer had a striking photograph above his desk: a Marine wading through a swamp in the Philippines, his M16 service rifle clutched protectively above his head. In his own quarter-century of service, Jones said, that image has remained with him: a lance corporal and his rifle. As he ponders the future, Jones said providing the best support and training for Marines who stand at risk against the enemy remains an inspiration.

“That’s the neatest thing about all this: we can actually go from Industrial-Age models where we give Marines ammo and we push them through a range that was developed in 1907, then actually take training, enhanced training methodologies enabled by technology, redefined training programs, redefined definitional authority, and really built an information-age individual marksmanship training program that embraces data analytics,” Jones said.

Such a program, he said, would “pay it forward” from his generation to the young Marines now entering the fight, carrying rifles very similar to the M16 borne by the grunt in the Philippines.

“That’s what I’m most excited about,” Jones said.

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militarytimes.com · by Hope Hodge Seck · December 19, 2023

12. The Rise of the Information-State: Imagined Communities and the Roots of Conflict in the Information Age

​"Digital nation building."  An interesting concept.

And of course the battlefield of human terrain is where information is contested.

Excerpts:

If one were to consider the information domain as terrain, then in Mahanian and Corbettian fashion, security for the state means contesting and gaining superiority in the relevant information spaces, and proactively commanding them. The metropoles of adversarial information-states must be aggressively sought out and torn down, replaced with informational bastions that prop up the state’s own belief system. A failure to do so inherently cedes control of the domain to potential adversaries, allowing them to shape the information battlespace according to their own ambitions.

However, due to the unique characteristics of the information domain’s terrain, conflicts fought there will revolve around symbols and narratives rather than actual firepower. Imagined communities will be at the forefront of conflict in the information age and in this sense the world is already at war, only a war that is being waged across the information domain’s vast untamed landscape.

The Rise of the Information-State: Imagined Communities and the Roots of Conflict in the Information Age - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Ian Li · December 19, 2023

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As the fighting continues to rage in Gaza, an equally intense struggle is taking place in the information domain between the supporters on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The weaponization of information is not in itself new—it is a central component of the military theorist Evgeny Messner’s influential Cold War–era conceptualization of war, known as “subversion-war” (myatezhevoyna), and its post–Cold War progeny in the form of Aleksandr Dugin’s “net-centric war” and Igor Panarin’s theory of information warfare. In the same vein, the recent concept of Russian hybrid warfare (gibridnaya voyna), popularized following its use during the 2014 annexation of Crimea, places significant emphasis on the employment of informational tools to achieve strategic outcomes, and information warfare continues to feature extensively in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.

The Information Threat

It can be said that information warfare is very much an intrinsic part of interstate conflict today with the information domain being perceived as a new arena of war, often mentioned in the same breath as the digital environment. Indeed, there is a synergistic relationship between the two, with new digital technologies such as social media and artificial intelligence enhancing the efficacy and reach of informational tools. Understandably, there is a growing interest among governments to understand the methods by which actors, whether state or nonstate, pursue their interests in the information domain and to find ways to mitigate the threat posed.

Singapore, for example, set up a Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods on January 11, 2018 to examine the problem of fake news and to recommend possible solutions, resulting in the passing of a comprehensive piece of legislation on May 8, 2019—the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act—which allows the authorities to formally intervene in the event that false or misleading statements that threaten the public interest are being circulated, thereby arresting the harmful effects of disinformation. Similar laws have likewise been passed in other parts of the world.

However, the phenomena of the widespread pro-Palestinian protests across the globe following Hamas’s October 7 attack, in not a few cases in opposition to their respective governments’ official stances on the incident and Israel’s response, highlights a new perspective on conflict in the information age. The method-centric study of information warfare assumes a top-down order of action—the actor initiates the action, which then utilizes the information domain to achieve an outcome. The protests suggest, however, that there is also a more organic ground-up effect.

The Ground-Up Effect

A simple mapping of the protests around the world paints a very diverse backdrop to the movement, spanning across multiple continents and regions. Putting aside the assumed sympathies shared by groups in countries with a cultural, ethnic, or religious affinity to the Palestinian people, what is most intriguing is exactly the diversity of those who have chosen to identify with the movement. There have notably been protests across the Western and Latin worlds, and in parts of East Asia, all typically considered to be culturally distinct from the Middle East. And while the Palestinian diaspora has undoubtably been involved, a deeper survey of the participants suggests that the protests cut across traditional social barriers such as culture, religion, ethnicity, gender, and age.

Furthermore, despite their ubiquity, the protests as a global phenomenon appear to be spontaneous, with little or minimal coordination between the groups hailing from different countries, or even within the same one. At the same time, the ideas espoused and the symbols embraced across groups bear at the very least a superficial commonality, from the obvious display of Palestinian flags and keffiyeh scarves to the use of the more ambiguous and controversial “from the river to the sea” slogan. How then do we explain the consistent markers, appropriated from their original and more limited scope, that characterize most protest groups? To answer this, one must look to the idea of the information-state—the digitally pumped nation-state of the information age.

Imagined Communities vs. the State

The political scientist Benedict Anderson, in his influential study of nationalism, famously argued that the nation is an imagined political community. It is imagined because it represents a shared fraternity that exists despite the impossibility of all its members having face-to-face contact with each other or understanding every facet of its constitution.

At the same time, the Israeli academic Yael Tamir rightly points out that national identity is also defined by its exclusivity from other groupings, its members bound together by a distinct and shared sense of destiny—an us and them kind of perspective. In the process of its construction, it may appropriate or construct national narratives and symbols, whether accurately or otherwise, as a means of embellishing the resulting belief system. Ultimately, though, the “truth-content” of these beliefs, as both Anderson and Tamir describe, is less important than the extent to which its members embrace them.

It is also worth pointing out that the nation is not the same as a state, the latter being a sovereign political entity whose government exercises control over a spatially defined area, including all the peoples and resources that reside within it. States in turn form the building blocks of today’s international system, their respective existences formally recognized within the framework of the United Nations. Historically, there has been a close relation between the concepts of nation and state as states have tended to form around national identities as such communities sought a form of political expression on the international stage. Naturally, stability is more likely when the territorial boundaries of a state correspond with a population that subscribes to a largely homogeneous national identity—the ideal nation-state.

This is, however, rare, especially with states that boast a strong tradition of immigration. These inevitably are comprised of a multitude of communities, often with competing national identities. Where these disparate groups can coexist within the governing framework of the state, the collective interest is served and harmony is maintained. Unfortunately, intergroup tension and the resulting desire for greater political autonomy has been the source of many conflicts in the postwar era, most starkly demonstrated in the tumultuous breakup of Yugoslavia.

Digital Nation Building

Historically, information has been an important factor in the formation of nations—Anderson credited the birth of modern nationalism to the advent of the printing press, which helped facilitate the organization of communities around national belief systems in a way that would have previously been impossible. Yet, despite the increased reach afforded by the then new modes of communication, nations were still for the most part limited in their extent by the physical constraints imposed by geography. The print media, while groundbreaking, was still not dynamic enough to allow the information revolution to transcend terrestrial boundaries.

Resultingly, states have generally formed across contiguous land areas, the political avatars of these emerging communities that, with perhaps the exception of the colonial era’s globe-spanning maritime empires, were organized along geographical lines as much as they were along national ones. Even in cases of imperial expansion, most colonial satellites continued to foster national identities distinct from the metropole, leading to the waves of independence movements witnessed during the period of postwar decolonization.

The advent of the information age has, however, transformed the information domain’s terrain. Digital platforms have expanded the possibilities for greater connections between distant people groups, allowing for a more fluid transfer and exchange of ideas. This has inherently revolutionized the framework by which nations can be organized. With distance and geography no longer limiting factors, information-based communities can form across noncontiguous spaces. Like how the sea lines of communication were essential to the growth and survival of the colonial maritime empires, these new emerging nations are linked by a web of digital arteries.

Naturally, as new communities coalesce according to the contours of the emerging information landscape, it creates friction with existing national belief systems—again, as Anderson described, nations are themselves imagined communities—leading to new sources of conflict. Thus, conflict in the information domain should not be seen as being solely actor-driven, although this is still an important factor—it is also the product of spontaneous collective action driven by digitally enabled social forces.

The Information Terrain

Addressing threats in the information domain requires more than simply responding to or preventing the actions undertaken by actors—again, these can be states or nonstates, but their role has traditionally been emphasized in conceptualizations of the information domain. A deep appreciation of how the information landscape has evolved is needed to tackle the roots of conflict. New information-based states, or even empires, must be identified to find the sources of tension, specifically the metropoles and the corresponding digital lines of communications that connect these information nodes to their satellites.

The complexity of this lies though in the unique characteristics of the information domain’s terrain. Like the air domain, it is largely ubiquitous, existing wherever there is digital infrastructure. However, while a permanent presence in the air cannot be established due to the immutable law of gravity, it is possible to leave a persistent footprint in the information domain, specifically when there is an uptake of the communicated ideas by the target audience. At the same time, while there is a physical intersection between the air, sea, and land domains—the traditional spaces in which conflicts occur—the information domain stands on its own. Information-states therefore exist simultaneously with their physical counterparts, sometimes overlapping with, but not always corresponding to the same territorial boundaries.

If then, as Anderson argues, the nation is but an imagined community, the competing identities that coalesce within the information domain represent a very real threat to the notion of the state and all that it stands for. When the information-state’s value proposition becomes influential enough to convince a substantial portion of the state’s population to question their national allegiance, the propensity for instability and conflict increases. This is especially true when the premise of the emerging community is married to a clear political direction, such as was the case with ISIS. It is no surprise then that intense conflict in the information domain often precedes war, such as was witnessed in the buildups to Russia’s hybrid war in the 2014 Ukraine crisis and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Command of the Information Domain

If one were to consider the information domain as terrain, then in Mahanian and Corbettian fashion, security for the state means contesting and gaining superiority in the relevant information spaces, and proactively commanding them. The metropoles of adversarial information-states must be aggressively sought out and torn down, replaced with informational bastions that prop up the state’s own belief system. A failure to do so inherently cedes control of the domain to potential adversaries, allowing them to shape the information battlespace according to their own ambitions.

However, due to the unique characteristics of the information domain’s terrain, conflicts fought there will revolve around symbols and narratives rather than actual firepower. Imagined communities will be at the forefront of conflict in the information age and in this sense the world is already at war, only a war that is being waged across the information domain’s vast untamed landscape.

Ian Li is an associate research fellow with the Military Studies Programme at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

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

Image credit: Ted Eytan

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Ian Li · December 19, 2023

13. Teens struggle to identify misinformation about Israel-Hamas conflict — the world's second "social media war"

I do not think we can trust TikTok (or most social media platforms) to police their sites. Frankly it is the responsibility of the user/consumer to exercise critical thought and then we as parents need to help teach our children to think critically. Of course I do believe that TikTok is supporting the CCP's unterschied warfare and it is a contributor to subversion against the US political system and US culture.

 Counterintuitively, perhaps one best ways to reduce TikTok influence is for us older people to start using it. It seems that every platform that becomes popular with old people loses interest with young people and they move on to something else. Trying to ban TikTok will only make it more popular with the youth. Of course us older people are not going to use TikTok because we know the security risks.

Teens struggle to identify misinformation about Israel-Hamas conflict — the world's second "social media war"

BY TOM HANSON, LAURA GELLER, ALEXIS GUERRERO, AARON MUNOZ, MICHAEL BOTSFORD, JOSH PENA

UPDATED ON: DECEMBER 19, 2023 / 12:34 PM EST / CBS NEWS

CBS News

Decimated neighborhoods. Injured children. Terrorized festivalgoers running for their lives. Since the brutal war between Israel and Hamas began nearly three months ago, Maddy Miller, a 17-year-old high school senior in Dallas, Texas, has been trying to make sense of the horrific scenes unfolding daily on her phone.

"I'll just open TikTok or Instagram and it's like, 'here's a clip from inside Israel or inside Palestine,'" Miller said. "Sometimes I just need to sit down for like 10 minutes and actually figure out what's happening. It's hard to know what's real and what's fake."

In February 2022, the war in Ukraine began to play out on Tik Tok and Instagram. The conflict in the Middle East is now the second war to be viewed in vivid, and often intimate, vignettes on social media, where 51% of younger Gen Z teens get their news, according to a Deloitte survey. The war between Israel and Hamas has also sparked a tidal wave of misinformation and disinformation, which is reaching American teens like Miller.

In a packed classroom at Highland Park High School, Miller and about 30 other students study media literacy, a course many teens across the United States are not required to take. Texas is one of only four states in the U.S. that mandate a media literacy curriculum in all public schools beginning in kindergarten. Fourteen other states offer some form of media literacy education or online resources to public school students.

Media literacy classes

As part of every lesson, Brandon Jackson teaches students the tools needed to spot misinformation, which is false or misleading, and disinformation, which is deliberately deceptive. He also tests his students using real-world examples of fake videos that circulate on social media.

"The whole point of this is to analyze large international news events," Jackson told his students. "How does information change when you're looking at it on social media? Is it manipulative?"

Despite the technological edge young Americans have over older generations, Stanford University researchers Sam Wineburg and Joel Breakstone say teenagers' ability to identify misinformation on social media is concerningly low.

"Video has a kind of immediacy, but we need to help people understand how to evaluate a video," Wineburg said. "Is the person who's providing the video an objective source? Does that person, are there reputational costs if that person is wrong, or are they some 'rando' that has sensationalist footage and is a rage merchant?"

Stanford research shows tech-savvy teens are still falling for fake videos 01:15

Wineburg and Breakstone tested the ability of high schoolers to identify misinformation on social media. They chose more than 3,000 students, whose backgrounds reflected the demographics of the U.S., and asked them to determine whether or not an anonymous video was real or fake.

"The video purported to claim to show voter fraud in the United States," Breakstone explained. "If you did a quick internet search, within 30 seconds you could discover that the video actually showed voter fraud in Russia. However, out of those more than 3,000 students, how many students actually discovered the link to Russia? Three. That's less than one-tenth of 1%."

The experiment

A CBS News investigation revealed how quickly mis- and disinformation is reaching teenage accounts on social media. In an experiment, a team of journalists set up three different profiles on Instagram and TikTok.

One account searched simple terms on Israel; another searched simple Palestinian terms; and the last account searched both. Each alias also followed several accounts with more than 1,000 followers and "liked" a handful of posts for each one.

While the faux-teen accounts were initially fed typical teenage content, like posts about getting ready for high school and makeup tutorials, on TikTok and Instagram, the algorithms also took into account the searches. Not long after the search terms were entered, each feed was flooded with war-related content, including misinformation.

In a widely debunked video, a person, who claimed to work at a hospital in Gaza, alleged Hamas had overrun the facility. TikTok

In one widely debunked video, a person, who claimed to work at a hospital in Gaza, alleged Hamas had overrun the facility. She said she had to perform surgery on a child without morphine. An analysis revealed the video was staged and even the explosions were manufactured. Another now-debunked video claimed to show an Iranian warplane landing on an Israeli aircraft carrier.

"It looks like a video game to me," said Dan Evon at the News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan group that advocates for media literacy in schools.

Evon has spent his career deciphering fact from fiction on social media. He also teaches young people how to spot mis- and disinformation. Key to that is what he calls "pre-bunking": equipping them with the tools to help identify misinformation before they fall for it.

"The same tip that I give every single time is to slow down," said Evon. "Look for authenticity; look for the source; look for evidence; look for reasoning and to look for the context."

"More dangerous paths"

From the highly publicized resignation of the president of the University of Pennsylvania, to high school walkouts in San Francisco and New York City, the war has undeniably created a tense climate in schools nationwide. Reports of antisemitic and Islamophobic threats and violence have soared.

"It doesn't feel like we're living in 2023. Feels like we're living in Nazi Germany," one student said.

Experts like Evon, Breakstone and Wineburg said false or misleading information can intensify the already heated debates about this conflict.

"When young people are developing their views about the world, false claims alter that," Evon said. "They drag people down more dangerous paths."

The students at Highland Park High School agree.

"It can just be really dangerous if we don't seek out the real information," Miller said. "I hope that people in our generation start to become more educated about issues."

Response from TikTok

CBS News discussed the experiment findings with spokespeople from TikTok. After the team sent the company links to examples of misinformation, those posts were removed.

"TikTok works relentlessly to remove harmful misinformation, and partners with independent fact-checkers who assess the accuracy of content in more than 50 languages," a TikTok spokesperson said. We've removed more than 131,000 videos for misinformation since the start of the Israel-Hamas war and direct people searching for content related to the conflict to Reuters."

TikTok spokespeople also said:

• Our Community Guidelines are clear that we do not allow inaccurate, misleading, or false content that may cause significant harm to individuals or society, regardless of intent. We reviewed content sent to us by CBS and have removed those that violate our policies.
• We use a combination of technology and human moderation to enforce those guidelines, and we review content at multiple stages including initial upload, when content is reported to us and as it rises in popularity.
• We have over 40,000 talented safety professionals dedicated to keeping TikTok safe. We also rely on independent fact-checking partners and our database of previously fact-checked claims to help assess the accuracy of content. We work with 17 fact checking partners globally, who cover over 50 languages globally.
• We provide access to authoritative information at the very top of search to provide access to facts. For example, searching for "Israel" on TikTok directs people to resources from Reuters.

Response from Meta about Instagram

"We've taken significant steps to fight the spread of misinformation using a three-part strategy – remove content that violates our Community Standards, flag and reduce distribution of stories marked as false by third-party fact-checkers," a Meta spokesperson said. "We also label content and inform people so they can decide what to read, trust and share."

The Meta spokesperson also said:

• We're working with third-party fact-checkers in the region to debunk false claims. Meta has the largest third-party fact checking network of any platform, with coverage in both Arabic and Hebrew, through AFP, Reuters and Fatabyyano. When they rate something as false, we move this content lower in Feed so fewer people see it.
• We recognize the importance of speed in moments like this, so we've made it easier for fact-checkers to find and rate content related to the war, using keyword detection to group related content in one place.
• We're also giving people more information to decide what to read, trust, and share by adding warning labels on content rated false by third-party fact-checkers and applying labels to state-controlled media publishers.

CBS News

14. The Real Russian Nuclear Threat

Excerpts:

The unfortunate truth is that Washington cannot deter Putin from escalating to the point where he uses nuclear weapons because of the war in Ukraine. Although he would not take such escalation lightly, nor dismiss the serious risks for Russia, Putin would anticipate that he could win the war of wills in a nuclear crisis. If it wants to avoid a nuclear standoff, Washington must therefore take a different tack. U.S. policymakers should instead pursue policies aimed at subverting Russia’s decision-making, so that if Putin orders escalatory steps he faces internal pushback. That means they need to try empowering Russian officials who want to obstruct any effort by Putin to go nuclear. Doing so will not be easy, given that U.S.-Russian relations are about as poor as can be. But Washington can start by engaging more with Moscow, odious as that may seem. The only way for U.S. officials, including in the intelligence community, to cultivate dissent among Russian officials is to forge more direct contacts.

The United States must also persuade Russian officials that there are paths out of Ukraine that do not end in either victory or a humiliating defeat. Washington could, for example, suggest that only the most senior officials could be punished for starting the war, that any reparations to Ukraine would be limited, and that there is a path for lifting sanctions against Russia and allowing the state to reenter the community of nations. But exactly what such an outcome would entail need not be spelled out explicitly. Top Russian officials simply have to know that their choice is not between capitulation and nuclear escalation.

Still, the United States cannot bank on Russian officials to stop Putin from using nuclear weapons. They must simultaneously rally neutral states to pressure Moscow away from escalation. They need to push these states to be clear in their conversations with Russian officials that any nuclear use is illegitimate, and that it would lead to them severing all direct and tacit support for Russia’s war effort. China’s and India’s public warnings about nuclear strikes were both positive signs, but they and other countries—like Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, all of which are helping keep the Russian economy afloat—can do more.

And they must. Nuclear brinkmanship is a dangerous game, particularly with an authoritarian leader such as Putin. This is no time for complacency. For the world to head off nuclear war, countries will have to persuade Moscow that victory in Ukraine is simply not worth the costs of bringing the world to the precipice—or over it.

The Real Russian Nuclear Threat

The West Is Worried About the Wrong Escalation Risks

By Peter Schroeder

December 20, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Peter Schroeder · December 20, 2023

To hear U.S. officials tell it, there is little risk that the war in Ukraine will lead to nuclear escalation. “We don’t have any indication that Mr. Putin has any intention to use weapons of mass destruction—let alone nuclear weapons,” said White House spokesperson John Kirby in January. At a Senate hearing in early May, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines stated that Russia was “very unlikely” to use its nuclear arsenal. Yes, CIA Director William Burns said a February speech, the United States must take Putin’s nuclear saber rattling seriously. But the purpose of such rhetoric, Burns continued, was “to intimidate us, as well as our European allies and Ukraine.” It was not to signal that Russia was actually thinking about using its weapons.

Washington’s incredulity is to some extent understandable. The advent of the war triggered fears of outright nuclear conflict between the West and Russia. That period of somewhat frenzied speculation has passed. The war has since settled into a grinding—but conventional—stalemate. To be sure, U.S. officials are still concerned that Russia may use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. “I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in June. The risk, he continued, is “real.” But officials do not appear to believe that the war in Ukraine could lead Russia to use its nuclear arsenal against a NATO state, however furious it is at the West for supporting Ukraine.

That is a mistake. U.S. officials have it backward. It is actually quite unlikely that Russian President Vladimir Putin will use a nuclear weapon on the battlefield in Ukraine, but it is very possible that he will move toward using one against NATO. Unlike the West, Putin may not fear a nuclear standoff: he is well versed in Russia’s nuclear arsenal and the tenets of nuclear deterrence, and possibly sees himself as uniquely suited to navigating a nuclear crisis. And Putin has been remarkably consistent that Russia is willing to use nuclear weapons against NATO to defend its interests in Ukraine. Even eight years ago, in a television interview done a year after Russia invaded Crimea, Putin declared that he had been ready to place Russian nuclear forces on alert to prevent Western forces from interfering in Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula.

Russian nuclear weapons use is not imminent. But if Putin does escalate the war, for instance by attacking NATO with conventional weapons, he will likely move very swiftly, so as not to give the United States a chance to maneuver away from a crisis. Washington will struggle to deter a Kremlin so emboldened. Ukraine is too central to the Kremlin’s ambitions—and too secondary to the United States’—for Putin to believe any American threats. Ultimately, Putin will expect the United States to back down before fighting a nuclear conflict over land so far from home.

To avoid the worst, the United States needs to find new ways to prevent Russia from using its arsenal. It must persuade the country’s officials, including ones along the military command chain, to subvert and obstruct decisions that might lead to a nuclear attack. It needs to convince Russian elites that their country can concede on Ukraine without suffering a catastrophic defeat. It must rally other countries, especially neutral ones, to delegitimize nuclear use and convince Putin that he will be making a dreadful mistake if he turns to his nuclear arsenal. And it must do so now. That way, Washington can avoid having to make dangerous decisions later, under the intense pressure of a nuclear standoff.

LOCKED AND LOADED

Russia has not been bashful about its nuclear arsenal. From the moment the country launched its invasion, Moscow has tried to intimidate the world by gesturing at its weapons. Shortly before attacking Ukraine, Russia carried out an unusually timed exercise of its nuclear launch systems. A year later, in February 2023, it suspended participation in the New START treaty, which regulated how many nuclear weapons Moscow and Washington could have. In March, the Kremlin announced that it would move some of its nuclear weapons into Belarus. In October, Putin suggested that Russia might restart nuclear testing. All the while, Russian government officials have threatened to launch a nuclear attack, as former President Dmitriy Medvedev did in July, when he said Russia could “use nuclear weapons” to conclude the war in a few days.

U.S. officials, of course, have paid attention to these threats, but they have not been convinced by them. They imagine that Moscow may use small, so-called tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield, but not large, so-called strategic ones against NATO states. According to Politico, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told U.S. experts in February that there was little fear that Russia would use strategic nuclear weapons in Ukraine or against the West, but some remained concerned that Russia could use tactical weapons. Putin, their thinking goes, might use these weapons to help Russian forces halt a Ukrainian attack that appeared on the verge of taking back Crimea or inflicting a significant defeat that threatened to push Russian forces out of eastern Ukraine.

But the growing complacency among U.S. officials is based on a misunderstanding of Putin’s rhetoric and the dynamics that keep Moscow from using nuclear weapons. When Putin invokes his arsenal, he is not trying to warn that Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Rather, his rhetoric is designed to threaten NATO itself. It is a blinking red light, a warning to American decision-makers that Moscow is willing to create a nuclear confrontation with Washington if needed to win in Ukraine.

So long as Putin remains optimistic about Russia’s odds, he is unlikely to rock the boat in Ukraine.

To see why, consider, first, the state of the battlefield. Tactical nuclear weapons would do little to help Russia break the stalemate. Ukrainian forces are well entrenched along a frontline that extends for roughly 600 miles, and so even dozens of tactical weapons would not be enough to let Russia push through. Even if they were, Russia does not have the maneuverable reserve forces needed to exploit any opening created by these weapons. A nuclear attack would, of course, be a terrifying event for Ukrainians to witness, but it would still not break the will of the Ukrainian people or compel Kyiv to surrender. Ukrainians have fought with tremendous courage through all kinds of atrocities, and a tactical nuclear attack would only be another entry in the register of Russian brutality. Ukrainians have said as much when responding to polls. According to surveys by the Munich Security Conference and Ukrainian think tanks, the country’s public is unwilling to surrender to Moscow and stop fighting even in the face of nuclear threats.

If anything, tactical nuclear strikes would hurt Russia’s war effort. Such attacks would likely strengthen the West’s desire to help Ukraine, just as it was starting to ebb. (Western politicians of all stripes have a strong incentive to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used in war.) A nuclear strike might also prompt China and India—the Kremlin’s two most important international partners—to abandon Russia. Both Beijing and New Delhi have already made public statements designed to dissuade Moscow from using nuclear weapons. They would not be happy if Putin ignored them.

For Putin, there is little to gain from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and much to lose. In fact, right now he believes that there is little to gain from using nuclear weapons anywhere. Putin thinks that Russia can win in Ukraine by conventional means. “Almost along the entire frontline, our armed forces, let’s put it modestly, are improving their position,” he said in a December 14 press conference. He also noted that Western support for Kyiv appears to be in decline, declaring that soon, the “freebies” afforded to Ukraine would “run out.” So long as Putin remains optimistic about Russia’s odds, he is unlikely to rock the boat by engaging in escalation.

But Putin may not always feel this way. If the West makes a strong, renewed commitment to support Kyiv as it tries to retake all occupied territory and provides Ukraine with long-term financing support and a bolstered defense industry, Putin might decide that he may not be able to grind Ukraine down through attritional warfare. If, in addition, Western economic sanctions finally start to significantly disrupt the Russian economy, Putin may conclude that time is not on his side. Russia’s president might decide to double down instead of waiting Ukraine out. The real escalation risks would then start.

ZERO TO SIXTY

For the United States and its allies, the first set of escalatory risks might seem like more bluster. The Kremlin, for example, could begin by moving its big, long-range nuclear weapons carriers into deployed and dispersed positions, beyond their normal bases, which are vulnerable to U.S. attacks. It could, for example, send the bulk of its ballistic missile submarines out to sea, move large numbers of its strategic missile forces into the vast Russian forests, and load nuclear weapons onto strategic bombers. Such actions fall well short of actually using nuclear bombs, but they would still be deeply alarming. They would undoubtedly catch Washington’s attention, dramatically heighten tensions, and immediately force Western leaders to account for the risk of nuclear war in their calculus.

From there, Moscow might actually begin using force against NATO. It could down a NATO aircraft over an allied country or international airspace. It could attack a NATO ship in the Black Sea. Or it could attack what it claimed were arms convoys bound for Ukraine while they were moving through a country in NATO’s eastern flank. Such steps would quickly expand the scope of the conflict, bringing NATO into the fight. Moscow might augment this step by detonating a nuclear weapon in the open ocean, in what is called a demonstration strike.

Finally, in a worst-case scenario—one where the Kremlin sought to shock the world into ending the war in Ukraine quickly and on Putin’s terms—Russia could actually launch a nuclear weapon directly at NATO territory. Although Putin seemed to pour cold water on the idea in October, saying that Russia did not need to lower the threshold for nuclear use at an annual forum, it might look necessary if the war was clearly trending against Russia. Eighty percent of military aid to Ukraine flows through one airbase in eastern Poland, and so that base probably would be a prime target. The United States might then retaliate with a nuclear strike of its own, bringing the world to the edge of destruction.

It may not take long, from the time he begins escalating, for Putin to move from sharp nuclear signaling and conventional attack to ordering a nuclear strike. If Putin were to escalate slowly, launching smaller attacks and seeing how NATO reacts, he would risk inciting a conventional conflict—probably with NATO forces intervening directly into Ukraine and possibly within Russia itself—in which the West has a clear advantage. NATO’s conventional forces are superior to Russia’s, and so Putin will not want to give Washington time and space to react, allowing it to bring its capabilities to bear. He will therefore want to reach the nuclear level—where Russia is a peer of the United States—as quickly as possible.

Washington cannot deter Putin from escalating.

U.S. officials, of course, do not want Moscow to resort to nuclear weapons, even though they seem unconvinced that he will. As a result, they have attempted to scare Russia away from escalating by threatening “catastrophic consequences,” as the White House put it in September 2022, should Putin use his arsenal. But such warnings are unlikely to deter Russia’s president. Putin will see this threat as a bluff; he knows that, ultimately, Washington does not want to risk a nuclear conflict over Ukraine. He is also profoundly committed to winning in Ukraine, to the point where he might decide to rapidly escalate even if he thought the United States was serious about responding with force. He probably would doubt the severity of any U.S. threat and calculate that, in the end, Washington would choose to compromise rather than launch nuclear strikes against Russia itself, which could entail a nuclear response against the U.S. homeland.

The unfortunate truth is that Washington cannot deter Putin from escalating to the point where he uses nuclear weapons because of the war in Ukraine. Although he would not take such escalation lightly, nor dismiss the serious risks for Russia, Putin would anticipate that he could win the war of wills in a nuclear crisis. If it wants to avoid a nuclear standoff, Washington must therefore take a different tack. U.S. policymakers should instead pursue policies aimed at subverting Russia’s decision-making, so that if Putin orders escalatory steps he faces internal pushback. That means they need to try empowering Russian officials who want to obstruct any effort by Putin to go nuclear. Doing so will not be easy, given that U.S.-Russian relations are about as poor as can be. But Washington can start by engaging more with Moscow, odious as that may seem. The only way for U.S. officials, including in the intelligence community, to cultivate dissent among Russian officials is to forge more direct contacts.

The United States must also persuade Russian officials that there are paths out of Ukraine that do not end in either victory or a humiliating defeat. Washington could, for example, suggest that only the most senior officials could be punished for starting the war, that any reparations to Ukraine would be limited, and that there is a path for lifting sanctions against Russia and allowing the state to reenter the community of nations. But exactly what such an outcome would entail need not be spelled out explicitly. Top Russian officials simply have to know that their choice is not between capitulation and nuclear escalation.

Still, the United States cannot bank on Russian officials to stop Putin from using nuclear weapons. They must simultaneously rally neutral states to pressure Moscow away from escalation. They need to push these states to be clear in their conversations with Russian officials that any nuclear use is illegitimate, and that it would lead to them severing all direct and tacit support for Russia’s war effort. China’s and India’s public warnings about nuclear strikes were both positive signs, but they and other countries—like Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, all of which are helping keep the Russian economy afloat—can do more.

And they must. Nuclear brinkmanship is a dangerous game, particularly with an authoritarian leader such as Putin. This is no time for complacency. For the world to head off nuclear war, countries will have to persuade Moscow that victory in Ukraine is simply not worth the costs of bringing the world to the precipice—or over it.

• PETER SCHROEDER is an Adjunct Senior Fellow in the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. He served as the Principal Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council from 2018 to 2022 and was a member of the Senior Analytic Service at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Foreign Affairs · by Peter Schroeder · December 20, 2023

15. Special Operations News - December 18, 2023 | SOF News

Special Operations News - December 18, 2023 | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · December 18, 2023

Curated news, analysis, and commentary about special operations, national security, and conflicts around the world.

Photo / Image: U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to 2nd Battalion, 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade conduct an airborne operation in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Operation Northern Delay at Aviano Air Base, Italy on March 22, 2023. Photo by Spc. Alisha Grezlik

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SOF News

More SOF Helicopters. The U.S. Army Special Operations Aviation Command (USASOAC) has awarded Boeing a substantial contract to manufacture six remanufactured MH-47G Block II aircraft. “US Special Forces to receive additional MH-47G helicopters”, Defense Blog, December 12, 2023.

RIP. Retired USAF Chief Master Sgt Alan T. Yoshida, a combat controller who was awarded the Silver Star as one of the original “Horse Soldiers” that routed the Taliban in 2001, died on Dec. 9 at the age of 51. “Legendary Combat Controller and Afghanistan ‘Horse Soldier’ dies at 51”, Task and Purpose, December 13, 2023.

Nepal DREE. A U.S. Navy SEAL Team conducted a joint training exchange alongside the Nepali Army and members of the Nepali Army Special Operations Force (SOF) Brigade near Kathmandu, Nepal from October 30 to November 6, 2023. The two-week training exchange consisted of a week-long subject matter expert exchange (SMEE) and a week-long multilateral disaster response training.

The first week of the joint training included classroom instruction from Nepali Special Operators and instructors from the Nepali Army’s High Altitude Mountain Warfare School. “Nepali Army, U.S. navy SEALs strengthen Joint Partnership”, DVIDS, December 18, 2023.

UAV Contract. General Atomics secured a $200 million contract for special operations UAV modifications integration. GA-ASI will install Special Operations Forces peculiar modifications into the MQ-9 and MQ-1C UAVs, produce aircraft modification kits and conduct analysis and studies to inform future SOF-p improvements. (GOVCONWIRE, Dec 18, 2023)

Best Ruck? Packs are as essential for the military as bullets and chow. But for decades, two rucks have weighed down more military backs than any others. That’s the O.G. All-Purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment (ALICE) pack and the Modular Lightweight Load Carrying Equipment (MOLLE) pack. (editor note: no mention of the Lowe in this article) “MOLLE vs. ALICE: Which pack reigns supreme?”, Task and Purpose, December 15, 2023.

USAF Pararescue. Read a basic explainer into the U.S. Air Force’s elite pararescuers or PJs. “Air Force Pararescue: What Do They Do?”, Simple Flying, December 16, 2023.

S-MET. The Airborne and Special Operations Test Directorate conducted various testing on the Small Multipurpose Equipment Transport, to include a Simulated Airdrop Impact Test to ensure the system could withstand impact forces of hitting the ground after the low-velocity airdrops. “Airborne Soldiers Drop Test New Small Multipurpose Equipment Transport”, Army.mil, December 13, 2023.

Social Hierarchy of SOF. This article is a humorous look at the special operations world. The writer uses the university campus as a method of describing the various U.S. SOF units. From the ‘new guys on the block’ (freshmen) to the ‘handpick individuals’ who get to join an exclusive college club (grad students). “The Social Hierarchy of US Special Operations Units”, SANDBOXX, December 13, 2023.

International SOF

General Sir Roly Walker. The next head of the British Army has a special forces background. As well as serving as a commander at company, squadron, battlegroup, brigade and Special Forces group levels, Walker has also served in Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Who is the new Army chief who led Special Forces?”, Forces.net, December 12, 2023.

Italian SOF Validated by NATO. Allied Special Operations Forces Command and an Italian Special Operations evaluation team recently validated an Italian Special Operations Land Task Group (SOLTG) and a Special Operations Air Task Unit (SOATU) in central Italy to ensure high level readiness for NATO special forces. “Allied Special Operations Forces Command Validates Italian Special Operations”, NATO, December 13, 2023.

French Commandos Marine. The Commandos Marine are a French special operations force (SOF). They operate under La Force Maritime des Fusiliers Marins et Commandos (FORFUSCO) interjoined with the French Navy (Marine Nationale) and are under the command of the French Special Operations Command (SOC). Read more about them in “Commandos Marine: The French SBS”, by Joseph Balodis, Grey Dynamics, December 14, 2023.

Korean SOF Train with US. South Korea and the United States have recently staged a combined special operations exercise amid joint efforts to reinforce deterrence against North Korean military threats. “S. Korea, US stage joint special operations forces drills”, The Korea Times, December 18, 2023.

Colombian SOF and SOCSOUTH. On December 7, 2023, the United States and Colombia signed the Capability Development Action Plan for Colombian Special Operations Forces 2025-2029. The signing of the document between Colombia and the United States, will enhance synchronization of security cooperation as well as efforts to obtain mutual goals of regional stability and the professional exchange of ideas, experiences, and practices between the two partner nations over the next five years. “Colombia’s Special Operations Forces and SOCSOUTH Sign Historic Agreement”, Dialogo-Americas, December 7, 2023.

Protecting Afghan Commandos. Former operatives from Afghan Territorial Force 444 and Commando Force 333 – known as The Triples – should be allowed to relocate to Britain. The units were set up, trained and funded by British forces, but fell under the control of the Afghan security forces, meaning they did not immediately qualify for the UK’s ARAP (Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy) scheme. However, many UK veterans believe former members of The Triples should meet the ARAP criteria. “UK has duty to protect ex-Afghan Special Forces operators from Taliban”, Forces.net, December 13, 2023.

SOF History

Capture of Saddam Hussein. On December 13, 2003, Iraq President Saddam Hussein was captured hiding in a hole at a farmhouse in Adwar, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit. Task Force 121, a joint special operations team, conducted the operation. The TF was assisted by elements of the 4th Infantry Division. (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Saddam_Hussein

Just Cause. On December 20, 1989, the entire 75th Ranger Regiment participated in Operation Just Cause (Panama). Parachute assaults were conducted onto Torrijos/Tocumen International Airport, Rio Hato Airfield and other locations to neutralize Panamanian Defense Forces. USASOC History Office, https://arsof-history.org/arsof_in_panama/index.html

Churchill’s Secret Army. During World War II the Allied forces developed a clandestine organization that could operate in occupied countries. The Special Operations Executive or SOE was, informally, known by a few different names – ‘The Baker Street Irregulars’, ‘Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare‘, and ‘Churchill’s Secret Army’. Read the history of the SOE in “Special Operations Executive” Churchill’s Secret Army”, by Javier Sutil Toledano, Grey Dynamics, December 13, 2023.

Vietnam-Era SDV. The Mark VII Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV) was used in the late 1960s and 1970s. “This Underwater Vehicle Was Used by Navy SEALs in Vietnam”, by Carl O. Schuster, History.net, December 14, 2023.

History of the KA-BAR. On December 9, 1942, after the start of World War II, KA-BAR submitted a knife to the United States Marine Corps in hopes that it would become a general issue to that branch of the military. The USMC KA-BAR was adopted by the Marines as well as the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Underwater Demolition Teams. Years after World War II, many KA-BAR knives were unofficially reactivated in the Korean, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Iraqi Freedom conflicts. Learn more about the KA-BAR in these three one-minute videos. “KA-BAR and the Marine Corps”, DVIDS, December 12, 2023. Part one, part two, and part three.

Conflict in Israel and Gaza

Conflict Update. Three Israelis who escaped captivity from Hamas hostage takers were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza. The Pentagon has ordered a US aircraft carrier to remain in the Mediterranean Sea near Israel. (AP News, Dec 15, 2023). Israel is coming under increasing international pressure to ease up its offensive in Gaza. U.S. warships in the Red Sea continue to intercept incoming missiles fired toward Israel and drones targeting commercial shipping from areas of Yemen controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. (Navy Times, Dec 16, 2023)

Testimony Blowback. The ramifications of the testimony before Congress by three Presidents of leading educational institutions continues. The president of the University of Pennsylvania has resigned. The presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University have had to issue statements explaining (and apologizing) for their testimony. In addition, the president of Harvard University had to issue an explanation for past academic work after weathering accusations of plagiarism – and she has had several ‘mistakes’ in past writings ‘corrected’ in the past week. The three university presidents declined to say that calls for the genocide of Jewish people would violate university policies.

References: Map Gaza Strip (2005), and more maps of Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Israel.

Ukraine Conflict

Conflict Update. Morale within the Ukrainian military may be slipping due to the long two years of fighting and stalemate on the battlefield. This, coupled with Republican threats to curtail aid to the beleaguered country is putting in doubt the ability of Ukraine to continue its counteroffensive. The Ukrainian troops are facing artillery munition shortages – which is forcing them to scale back some operations. (Reuters, Dec 18, 2023)

Aid For Ukraine. Ukrainian President Zelensky arrived in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, to address Congress and meet with President Biden about continuing aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Congress is adjourning for the holiday season and will not be back until early January. The White House is warning that it will run out of money to help Ukraine’s military combat Russia’s invasion by the end of the year. Some Republicans are tying the Ukraine aid request to increased security along the southern U.S. border. Instances of sabotage of critical targets in Russia have been taking place – compliments of Ukrainian special operations commandos. (Business Insider, Dec 17, 2023)

Study – Losing Ukraine. The Institute for the Study of War has released a report that details the military, strategic, and financial implications of a Russian victory in Ukraine. The study states that the United States has a much higher stake in Russia’s war on Ukraine than most people think. “The High Price of Losing Ukraine”, ISW, December 14, 2023.

The Ground Robots of Ukraine. Unmanned ground vehicles are bringing much-needed supplies to Ukrainian and Russian soldiers on the battlefield. Some of them appear to be made with commercial off the shelf components. “Crude ground robots emerge on the battlefields of Ukraine, experts say”, C4ISRNET, December 15, 2023.

Resiliency and Urban Reconstruction. Recent history has shown that leaving a city’s defense to its nation’s borders is a dangerous proposition. It is time that Kyiv, and other cities in nations that border expansionist neighbors, once again make the defense part of city planning. “Rebuilding Resiliency: Kyiv’s Opportunity to Bolster Its Defense”, War on the Rocks, December 12, 2023.

Interactive Map. Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine by the Insitute for the Study of War and Critical Threats.

On storymaps.arcgis.com

Commentary

About Those Cuts to SOF. Lt. Col. Doug Livermore, a Special Forces officer, shares his perspective on proposed cuts to the special operations force structure. “Counterpoint to U.S. Special Operations Forces Cuts”, Military Review, Army University Press, December 2023.

IW Funding. Irregular Warfare proponents are wrestling with how to bring their domain into a new era – and to convince others that it is still needed. This new NDAA provides about $20 million for SOF to be able to conduct IW. “As irregular warfare comes to a crossroads, Congress chips in”, Defense One, December 17, 2023.

DoS and Fighting Disinformation. The Department of State is coming under criticism for not taking the offensive in the information domain. (New York Times, Dec 14, 2023). (subscription)

Assistance to Taiwan. China is accelerating its military modernization and some national security experts are predicting that it could have the ability to seize Taiwan as soon as 2027. There are military commentators that believe the U.S. should proactively position itself ‘left of the boom’. “Five Recommendations for Left of Boom Security Assistance to Taiwan”, War on the Rocks, December 18, 2023.

National Security

NDAA. The National Defense Authorization Act may soon be passed by Congress. The 3,000-page document would then be signed by President Biden before the end of the year. Some of the provisions include a 5.2% pay increase, increased maternity leave, and raising fitness standards for infantry, cavalry scouts, and Special Forces. There are several changes that affect the National Guard. “Guard Gets Some Wins in Compromise Defense Bill”, NGAUS, December 13, 2023.

Deterring China. Stepped up Chinese aggression in the South China Sea is becoming a growing flashpoint. The Navy’s 7th Fleet, headquartered in Japan, is increasing its exercises in the region and including more foreign nations in the training. “Increased military exercises with Pacific allies seek to deter China, top U.S. admiral says”, Washington Times, December 15, 2023.

Border Security. Thousands of illegal immigrants cross the southern border of the United States each day. Many of the ‘sanctuary cities’ of the U.S. have maxed out in their ability to house, feed, and support the many people who arrive on buses each day at their shelters. The journey for these people seeking a better economic life begins in a perilous stretch in Central America. “The jungle between Columbia and Panama becomes a highway for migrants from around the world”, AP News, December 17, 2023. Things at the U.S. southern border are not getting any better. Monday, December 18, 2023, saw the highest number of illegal immigrants encountered by the CBP in a single day ever. “Biden border crisis shatters record with 14,509 illegal immigrants encountered in one day”, Washington Examiner, December 19, 2023.

International Migrants Day – December 18th. The United States has led the largest expansion in decades of lawful migration pathways to help vulnerable migrants, refugees, and other displaced persons. Tens of thousands of individuals have benefited from rapid processing and support through the Safe Mobility initiative since its launch in June 2023. We have resettled more refugees than any other country in the world, welcoming more than 3.5 million refugees into communities across the country since 1975. This count, of course, is just those who are legally in the country. U.S. Department of State, December 18, 2023.

Great Power Competition

New Russian Diaspora. Since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, hundreds of thousands of Russians — if not more than a million — have fled the country. Activists, journalists, intellectuals, businesspersons, and software engineers have sought a combination of freedom, safety, and prosperity outside their country’s borders, often at significant material risk to themselves and their families. Read of detailed analysis of this topic by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan: “In From the Cold: The Struggle for Russia’s Exiles”, Center of European Policy Analysis, December 12, 2023.

Russia in Africa. Paramilitary organizations have stepped into a vacuum left by military forces of the west. “Russia Deepens Counter-Terrorism Ties to Sahelian Post-Coup Regimes”, The Jamestown Foundation, December 15, 2023.

Old Salt Coffee is a corporate sponsor of SOF News. The company offers a wide range of coffee flavors to include Green Eyes Coffee, a tribute to those Navy special operations personnel who operate in the night.

Afghanistan

Iranian and Pakistan Deportations of Afghans. In the last three months, Iran and Pakistan have forced around 850,000 undocumented Afghan nationals to return to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, officials reported Sunday. The crackdown on Afghans illegally residing in the neighboring countries is ongoing, despite warnings by the United Nations that a harsh winter and an uncertain future await returnees in their crisis-ridden, impoverished nation. “Taliban: Iran Deports Almost 350,000 Afghans Within 3 Months”, Voice of America, December 11, 2023.

Resettlement via Germany. For the past two years (off and on) the U.S. Department of State has been relocating Afghans with pending Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) applications to the United States; but not before they are ‘processed’ at an intermediate location – usually Doha, Qatar. Now this relocation effort is also taking place at an intermediate location in Germany as well. It’s part of a ramped-up worldwide effort by the State Department to resettle thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government, along with their families, but who haven’t yet received special immigrant visas. “Afghans again being flown to US base in Germany before resettlement”, Stars and Stripes, December 11, 2023.

Middle East

ISIS in Syria. The Islamic State is continuing its campaign of violence in Syria. Much of its attacks is against Syrian regime forces. It mounted a successful offensive in October and maintain some of its gained territory during November. Read more in “ISIS Redux: The Central Syria Insurgency in November 2023”, Counter Extremism Project, November 2023. Over 4,400 Da’esh fighters and their relatives have been repatriated to their countries of origin from camps in northern eastern Syria in 2023. Over 47,000 individuals from more than 60 countries remain in camps administered by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Iraq. Iranian-backed militias have resumed attacks on U.S. facilities across Iraq in the past several weeks. Munitions have been targeted against U.S. facilities at Erbil International Airport, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and Al Asad Air Base in Anbar Province.

Political Signaling. Iran and its proxies are using attacks (rockets and drones) for political signaling. They may be creating escalation challenges that bring them closer to war with the United States. U.S. interests in the Iraq and Syria have attacked over 100 times since mid-October 2023. “How Iranian-Backed Militias Do Political Signaling”, Lawfare, December 18, 2023.

Operation Prosperity Guardian. A new task force has been formed to protect merchant ships and commercial boats from the aerial attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Canada, United Kingdom, France, Bahrain, Italy, Norway, Seychelles, Spain, and the United States are participants in Operation Prosperity Guardian. Large maritime companies have been redirecting transit routes to avoid the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. (DoD, Dec 18, 2023) See also “Why Are the Houthis Attacking Now?”, by Nicholas Brumfield, Foreign Policy Research Institute, December 15, 2023.

Africa

Report – Coups and U.S. Aid to African Nations. Events in Africa and Burma have brought attention to a provision in annual State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPS) appropriations legislation that restricts U.S. foreign assistance following a coup d’état. One particular case is the recent coup in Niger. As Congress considers SFOPS appropriations for FY2024 and beyond, it may revisit the law restricting aid (Section 7008), examine its impact, and weigh whether its application supports congressional intent. Coup-Related Restrictions in U.S. Foreign Aid Appropriations, Congressional Research Service, CRS IF11267, updated December 12, 2023. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11267

AU Mission in Somalia Drawing Down. The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia on Sunday resumed handing over security responsibilities to Somali government forces after a three-month pause. (Voice of America, Dec 17, 2023)

End of MINUSMA in Mali. The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA, UN Fact Sheet) was established on April 25, 2013, to stabilize the country after the Tuareg rebellion of 2012. In June 2023, a new government came to power in a coup. It quickly withdrew the mandate for MINUSMA (UN Fact Sheet), forcing the mission and all of its staff to depart the country by the end of the year. A European SOF element – Task Force Takuba (SOF News) – has already departed Mali. Listen to a podcast on how the UN mission in Mali was conducted. “Searching for Peace in Timbuktu: The UN Mission in Mali”, War Room, Army War College, December 12, 2023, 25 mins.

SOF News Book Shop

View our selection of books about special operations forces at the SOF News Book Shop.

Reports, Podcasts, Videos, and Movies

Movie Trailer – Civil War. A Civil War in the United States. Could be interesting. In theaters April 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDyQxtg0V2w

Civil Affairs Briefings. A number of briefings are now being displayed on the website of the Civil Affairs Association that are the result of a recent conference held December 8-10, 2023.

9/11 – VCF. The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF), Congressional Research Service, CRS R45969, updated December 18, 2023, PDF, 12 pages.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45969

Upcoming Events

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October 16-19, 2024

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October 22-25, 2024

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Special Forces Association – Tampa, Florida

SOF News is not a ‘money making’ enterprise; but we do have administrative, operating, and publishing expenses. Individuals and businesses provide the funds to defray these expenses. Their contributions are deeply appreciated. Learn how you can support SOF News.

sof.news · by SOF News · December 18, 2023

16. China's "Unrestricted Warfare" Against the US

We all need to play "Go."

Conclusion:

China's war against the US further embraces a prominent degree of deception. While US policy makers are gaming out strategies to limit China's aggression in the Pacific, Beijing is pursuing a policy of encirclement of the US. The CCP's overall gameplan resembles the Chinese game of "Go" where two opposing players attempt to surround each other. Unlike Chess, the winner conquers without seizing pieces; it triumphs by suffocating the adversary. Rather than fight a war, China apparently is hoping to envelop the US in Latin America by establishing Chinese-controlled ports and numerous bilateral Belt and Road bilateral projects in Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil, and Argentina.

China's "Unrestricted Warfare" Against the US

gatestoneinstitute.org · by Lawrence A. Franklin · December 20, 2023

• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Chinese President Xi Jinping, has, over the years, by espionage, intellectual property theft, hacking, spying and militarizing artificial islands, initiated a bitter conflict between China and the US.
• China appears determined to "neutralize" states that might challenge its claim to the South and East China Seas. If successful, China's naval assets will dominate a large portion of the world's commercial sea lanes, if the US is unable -- or unwilling -- to knit together a serious formal military alliance of democratic states in the Indo-Pacific.
• Rather than fight a war, China apparently is hoping to envelop the US in Latin America by establishing Chinese-controlled ports and numerous bilateral Belt and Road Initiative projects in Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil and Argentina.
• Is the US ready?

China appears determined to "neutralize" states that might challenge its claim to the South and East China Seas. If successful, China's naval assets will dominate a large portion of the world's commercial sea lanes, if the US is unable -- or unwilling -- to knit together a serious formal military alliance of democratic states in the Indo-Pacific. Pictured: Sailors and fighter jets on the deck of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy aircraft carrier Liaoning in the sea near Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong province on April 23, 2019. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AFP via Getty Images)

China is fully engaged in a multi-front war against the United States. This "unrestricted warfare" against America has several dimensions: technological, space, military, political, economic, digital, psychological, informational and diplomatic. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) openly declared a "people's war" against the US in a May 14, 2019 edition of the People's Daily.

The CCP, led by Chinese President Xi Jinping, has, over the years, by espionage, intellectual property theft, hacking, spying and militarizing artificial islands, initiated a bitter conflict between China and the US.

CCP propaganda, however, claims that China is supposedly only responding to America's instigation of a "new cold war" against the People's Republic of China (PRC), depicted as a policy to "contain China's rise."

The two all-encompassing themes of the CCP's offensive are China's Global Security Initiative (GSI) and a Global Developmental Initiative (GDI).

The GSI was fully unveiled in the September 2022 meeting of the "Heads of State Council" of the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Xi personally defined the GSI as a global alternative to "bloc politics" such as NATO.

China appears determined to "neutralize" states that might challenge its claim to the South and East China Seas. If successful, China's naval assets will dominate a large portion of the world's commercial sea lanes, if the US is unable -- or unwilling -- to knit together a serious formal military alliance of democratic states in the Indo-Pacific.

China's proliferating ballistic missiles, tipped with nuclear warheads, appear intended as a checkmate deterrence against any sustained US-led effort to oppose a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. China already has a formidable array of weaponry based in its coastal provinces opposite Taiwan, to deter the US from engaging in armed conflict with China in the Western Pacific.

China also has more than 28,000 migrants who have illegally crossed the US southern border – many clean-cut men of military age, unaccompanied by family, who show up in groups. One cannot just leave China the way one leaves the US. It is difficult, therefore, not to suspect that these men have been sent by the CCP as sleeper cell saboteurs, waiting to inflict small but deadly strikes on American infrastructure, such as electric grids, airports, water reservoirs, communications towers, bridges, tunnels, shopping malls, apartment complexes, and so forth.

Recently a secret illegal laboratory, "filled with infectious agents, medical waste and hundreds of mice bioengineered 'to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus,'" was discovered in Reedley California when a municipal code enforcement officer saw a garden hose attached to a "building presumed to be vacant".

According to Reedley City Manager Nicole Zieba, "They never had a business license.... The city was completely unaware that they were... operating under the cover of night."

The lab, it turned out, was owned by a fugitive, Jiabei Zhu, who has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), now active in more than 155 countries, was created ostensibly toward accomplishing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, including ending poverty, establishing food security. In practice, the BRI is assuring education warfare against the West, as well as presumably helping developing nations cultivate acceptance for the Chinese Communist Party model of governance. Many of the BRI projects have turned out to be debt-traps: China lends a developing country funds for a Chinese-built infrastructure project; then, if the country is unable to repay the debt, China offers to accept instead a port, airbase, rare earth minerals or other assets in lieu of repayment.

China also appears determined to emerge as the world's leader in critical emerging technologies. China already is leading in some of these military applicable technologies such as: hypersonic flight, electric batteries and radio-frequency communications. One report claims that China already maintains a lead over the US in 37 out of 44 critical technologies.

In March and August of 2020, China threatened to restrict exports of life-saving medicines to the US.

Chinese operatives have been digging up genetically modified seeds in the US Midwest, for transfer to China.

China's war against the West also includes a massive effort to steal intellectual property from US and European research laboratories. This dimension of China's war is run by the CPC's United Front Work Department. The feel-good name of this CCP agency is the Chinese People's Association of Friendship with Foreign Countries. Its purpose is to facilitate the transfer of vital technologies and expertise from the West to China by creating an atmosphere of cooperation. This CCP front group's objective is to implement a global approach to acquire any defense-related data that might serve China's goals.

Beijing's intelligence collection activities include the "Thousand Talents Program," which recruits American scientists by offering research grants to study in China, and by using Confucius Institutes on university campuses to recruit talented students. The Thousand Talents Program ostensibly demonstrates to faculty and impressionable students the superiority of Chinese culture and why it is praiseworthy to embrace China's accomplishments. In reality, these CCP institutions seem, like TikTok, to be indoctrination devices, to program academics to denigrate America and support China,

An effort to close down Confucius Institutes in the US has apparently been ineffective: they simply changed their name and resumed operation. They are now also infiltrating children's education, from high schools down to kindergarten.

A darker side of these all-out intelligence-collection operations involves attempts to coerce Chinese-American professionals to cooperate with the CCP by pressuring them to return to China or threatening their family members who still reside in China.

There are, of course, many documented cases of agents of the CCP offering Americans "financial incentives" in exchange for "access" to people, information or both, as Peter Schweizer details in his book, Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win.

Theft of intellectual property also includes all companies in China being legally obligated to have Community Party officials embedded in their workforces, including in joint ventures of Chinese companies with Western companies. Such joint ventures are also required to transfer to the Chinese "partner" any privately produced advances in critical technologies.

China's theft of US technologies and co-opting of US human resources are also being aided by a vast network of digital hackers, described by FBI Director Christopher Wray as "a cyberespionage program so vast that it is bigger than all of its major competitors combined."

The diplomatic and economic dimension of China's total war strategy against the US involves establishing rival political and economic blocs such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). BRICS is designed to draw non-Western developing countries to align their economic futures with China's politically authoritarian planned economy model as opposed to the West's democratic free-market model. BRICS has recently expanded its membership, which now includes Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saydi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. China, the dominant voice in BRICS, projects a disingenuous benevolent image to its members as well as to the so-called "Global South," especially to impoverished countries in Africa. The ultimate objective of China's "Global South" strategy is to supplant Western economic and diplomatic dominance, and China is facilitating this goal by challenging the US dollar as the world's reserve currency.

China's face to neighboring states is even more threatening. Chinese diplomats display a coercive attitude toward the states of Southeast Asia with which China has conflicting territorial and maritime claims. This pattern of aggressive behavior is often referred to by critics as "wolf warrior diplomacy."

For example, China has exhibited belligerent behavior toward Japan, Australia and the Philippines. The Philippine government has accused Chinese "maritime militia" ships of swarming the Philippine-claimed Scarborough Shoal.

In 2020, Chinese Coast Guard vessels rammed Vietnamese fishing boats in waters off the Paracel Islands.

China has also of blinded US pilots with lasers and buzzed US jets.

From ancient times, Chinese Emperors assumed that nearby states were tributary societies, using a China-centric pejoratively referred to as "nan yang," (South Seas/Southeast Asia.) Vietnam, for instance, was once referred to as "Annam," the implication being, pacified southern regions.

The Chinese Communist Party appears determined to "neutralize" states that might challenge its claim to the South and East China Seas. If successful, China's People's Liberation Army naval assets will dominate a large portion of the world's commercial sea lanes. If the US is unable -- or unwilling -- to knit together a serious formal military alliance of democratic states in the Indo-Pacific, this Chinese objective may be attainable.

China's ambitious space program is also geared to create -- entirely separate from the US -- a rival constellation of satellites, space station, and -- we are not making this up -- claims to extraterrestrial sites on the moon and ultimately on Mars. Beijing also appears poised to challenge the US in near-earth space by having launched a fleet of anti-satellite devices with the capability of blinding America's satellites that collect and transmit intelligence in a pre-war environment.

Although the PLA's Strategic Rocket Force is not yet on par with US or Russia in its quantity of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), but in the South China and East China Seas Beijing has recently upgraded its rocket inventory deployment with the DF-17 (Dong Feng) a hypersonic longer range missile. Even so, the CCP plans to produce and deploy hundreds more Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) capable of striking the US Mainland.

Silos for China's additional ICBMs are already under construction in northwest China at Hami in Xinjiang Province and near Yumen in Gansu Province. China's growing ICBM nuclear warhead-equipped strategic rocket force appears to be intended as a checkmate deterrence against any sustained US-led effort to oppose a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. China already has a formidable array of weaponry based in Chinese coastal provinces opposite Taiwan, to deter the US from opposing an armed conflict with China in the Western Pacific.

China's war against the US further embraces a prominent degree of deception. While US policy makers are gaming out strategies to limit China's aggression in the Pacific, Beijing is pursuing a policy of encirclement of the US. The CCP's overall gameplan resembles the Chinese game of "Go" where two opposing players attempt to surround each other. Unlike Chess, the winner conquers without seizing pieces; it triumphs by suffocating the adversary. Rather than fight a war, China apparently is hoping to envelop the US in Latin America by establishing Chinese-controlled ports and numerous bilateral Belt and Road bilateral projects in Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Brazil, and Argentina.

Is the US ready?

gatestoneinstitute.org · by Lawrence A. Franklin · December 20, 2023

17. China is backing opposing sides in Myanmar’s civil war

Excerpts:

These ethnic armies are not straightforward Chinese proxies. They advance their own interests, including by gaining territory, while aligning themselves with other groups that are less friendly to China, such as Myanmar’s increasingly well-organised pro-democracy faction. Yet China has periodically pulled their strings, with the recent offensive apparently a case in point. On December 10th it sought to capitalise on the militias’ advance by issuing arrest warrants for ten scam bosses operating in northern Myanmar. Four days later, apparently content that its objective had been served, it brokered the ceasefire.

Now China is again cosying up to the junta, which still controls most of Myanmar’s airports, banks and big cities, including the capital, Naypyidaw. Despite Western sanctions, it buys fighter jets from China and Russia that enable it to carry out indiscriminate bombing of civilians in areas controlled by its enemies. China will by and large back the generals in Myanmar; sometimes it will support their foes. This divide-and-rule policy is not responsible for the disaster in Myanmar. But it is probably making it worse. 

China is backing opposing sides in Myanmar’s civil war

But it doesn’t want the murderous junta to fall

Dec 19th 2023 | CHIANG MAI

The Economist

When Myanmar’s junta toppled the country’s elected government and seized power in February 2021, China called it a “major cabinet reshuffle”. After that bloody coup sparked a civil war, in which thousands have been killed, almost two million displaced and the generals’ crimes against humanity have mounted, China stood by the generals. It has condemned Western sanctions on Myanmar’s army as “exacerbating tensions”. As Myanmar’s largest trading partner, China has sold the junta over $250m in arms. Yet in late October China appeared to reconsider its interests in its war-ravaged neighbour.

This was illustrated by a major offensive against the army in northern Myanmar carried out by a coalition of ethnically based militias, known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which has links to China’s security services. Operating close to the border with China, in an unruly jungle area informally considered part of China’s sphere of influence in Myanmar, the alliance swiftly became the biggest security challenge to the junta yet. With no discouragement from China—and even modest help, Burmese analysts allege—its forces claim to have seized over 200 army bases and four border crossings that are vital for trade with China.

image: The Economist

Inspired by this success, the junta’s many other armed opponents—ethnic and political players in an increasingly complicated conflagration—redoubled their attacks, spreading the conflict across two-thirds of the country, according to the UN. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced since the onset of the offensive, which is known as Operation 1027, after its start date on October 27th. Tellingly, the Brotherhood Alliance announced that one of its goals was to eliminate a network of online scam operations that over the past three years has sprung up along the Myanmar-China border. A major security concern of China’s, these operations are estimated to be behind the trafficking of 120,000 unsuspecting workers to Myanmar, many of them Chinese, and to generate billions of dollars a year in revenues, much of it fleeced from Chinese victims.

By November there was speculation that China had switched sides in the conflict, and that the junta’s days were numbered. Signalling its displeasure, the generals permitted their supporters in November to stage rare anti-China protests in several cities. China has since taken steps to reassure the junta. It has conducted joint naval exercises with Burmese vessels. In early December China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, met Myanmar’s deputy prime minister, Than Swe, in Beijing. Then, on December 14th China announced that it had brokered a temporary ceasefire between the army and the ethnic militias.

The episode encapsulates the self-interested, though sometimes seemingly conflicted, way in which China operates towards Myanmar, to the detriment of its 54m people. The dissonance is explained by tensions between China’s strategic interests, which combine economics with a desire to keep the country from veering towards its pro-Western democrats, and its shorter-term security worries.

Although India and Russia also do business with the junta, China has by far the deepest economic links to Myanmar. Despite the war, it has pushed ahead with a plan to build a network of roads, railways, pipelines and ports through the country that could give it direct access to the Indian Ocean. China sees this as an alternative route to the choke-point of the Strait of Malacca, through which most maritime trade to and from China flows. China has pledged to invest over $35bn in this ambitious project. By contrast, India plans to invest only $500m in a road-building project to link Myanmar to north-eastern India.

China’s long-term investment and relative aversion to Myanmar’s democrats has made it a firm ally of the country’s army, which has been in power for most of Myanmar’s independent history. Yet China’s security interests in the country can also be more tactical. Ever since Myanmar gained independence in 1948, its government has failed to control its jungly borderzone. China has, as a result, worried about insecurity spilling across the 2,000km (1,250 miles) of frontier between the two countries. This jeopardises its infrastructure investments, many of which run along the border, and at times flushes refugees and drugs and other contraband into China. The online scam industry is the latest such worry.

The enormous scale of the criminality, and the involvement of Chinese in it as victims and perpetrators, have made it a Chinese foreign-policy priority. In May, China’s then foreign minister, Qin Gang, visited Myanmar to demand the junta crack down on the scam industry. Tens of thousands of Chinese nationals had by then been trafficked to Myanmar, imprisoned in large, sweatshop-like compounds, and forced to scam people online through bogus romantic relationships and investment schemes. Those who refuse to comply may be tortured or killed. Yet Myanmar’s army, which is both incompetent and believed to have been paid off by the scammers, did nothing to disrupt them. Thus, China appears to have turned to the ethnic militias instead. The members of one, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, are mostly ethnic Chinese; many of these fighters speak Mandarin.

These ethnic armies are not straightforward Chinese proxies. They advance their own interests, including by gaining territory, while aligning themselves with other groups that are less friendly to China, such as Myanmar’s increasingly well-organised pro-democracy faction. Yet China has periodically pulled their strings, with the recent offensive apparently a case in point. On December 10th it sought to capitalise on the militias’ advance by issuing arrest warrants for ten scam bosses operating in northern Myanmar. Four days later, apparently content that its objective had been served, it brokered the ceasefire.

Now China is again cosying up to the junta, which still controls most of Myanmar’s airports, banks and big cities, including the capital, Naypyidaw. Despite Western sanctions, it buys fighter jets from China and Russia that enable it to carry out indiscriminate bombing of civilians in areas controlled by its enemies. China will by and large back the generals in Myanmar; sometimes it will support their foes. This divide-and-rule policy is not responsible for the disaster in Myanmar. But it is probably making it worse. ■

The Economist

18. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 19, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-19-2023

Key Takeaways:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly invoking the Kremlin's pre-invasion pseudo-historical rhetoric to cast himself as a modern Russian tsar and framing the invasion of Ukraine as a historically justified imperial reconquest.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated during the Russian MoD Collegium on December 19 that the Russian MoD will prioritize continuing the war in Ukraine and training newly formed units and formations in 2024, while also reiterating threats against Finland and the wider NATO alliance.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an end-of-the-year press conference on December 19 during which he commented on Russia’s continued unwillingness to negotiate, his confidence in future Western aid provisions, Ukrainian domestic weapons production, and possible future mobilization in Ukraine.
• Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin discussed Russian and Chinese economic cooperation and bilateral relations with Chinese Premier Li Quang in Beijing on December 19.
• Russian forces made confirmed advances northeast of Kupyansk, north of Bakhmut, and southwest of Avdiivka, and continued positional meeting engagements along the entire line of contact.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that the Russian military intends to recruit up to 745,000 contract personnel by the end of 2024 at the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) Collegium on December 19.
• Russian authorities continued attempts to use military conscription in occupied Ukraine to augment force generation efforts and legitimize Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, DECEMBER 19, 2023

Dec 19, 2023 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 19, 2023

Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, Nicole Wolkov, Christina Harward, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

December 19, 2023, 8:15pm ET 

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

Click here to see ISW’s 3D control of terrain topographic map of Ukraine. Use of a computer (not a mobile device) is strongly recommended for using this data-heavy tool.

Click here to access ISW’s archive of interactive time-lapse maps of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These maps complement the static control-of-terrain map that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 3:15pm ET on December 19. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the December 20 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly invoking the Kremlin's pre-invasion pseudo-historical rhetoric to cast himself as a modern Russian tsar and framing the invasion of Ukraine as a historically justified imperial reconquest. Putin addressed the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) Collegium on December 19 and largely reiterated boilerplate Kremlin rhetoric on the war in Ukraine by blaming NATO and the collective West for encroaching on Russia's borders and exculpated himself for issues faced by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine by deflecting the blame towards the Russian MoD bureaucracy.[1] Putin additionally lauded Russian battlefield operations and Russia's defense industrial base’s net output in 2023, furthering several of his standard talking points. Putin once again invoked the concept of "compatriots abroad" when discussing residents in "southeastern Ukraine" who, he asserted, have historical, cultural, and linguistic attachments to Russia, in order to justify the invasion of Ukraine on ideological grounds. ISW previously assessed that Putin rhetorically contextualized Russia's maximalist objectives in Ukraine within a wider framing of Russian "sovereignty" at Putin’s “Direct Line” event on December 14.[2] Putin notably claimed that while Russia is the sole guarantor of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, Russia will also not interfere in "territorial disputes" in western Ukraine, where he claimed that many residents want to return to either Poland, Romania, or Hungary, concluding that "history will put everything in its place."

Putin's claim that Russia can be the only true guarantor of Ukraine's sovereignty is not a new narrative. In a 2021 essay entitled "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians," Putin similarly claimed that "true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible precisely in partnership with Russia."[3] In the same essay, Putin also utilized a pseudo-historical framework of Ukraine’s and Russia's relationship that essentially defines the lands of modern, sovereign Ukraine as either part of Malorossiya (Little Russia), Novorossiya (New Russia), or fragments of other historical empires.[4] This essay dismissed Ukraine's historical claim to its own sociocultural development, historical sovereignty, and territorial integrity, which the Russian Federation formally recognized and, indeed, guaranteed, in 1994.[5] During the December 19 Collegium Address, Putin further engaged with this pseudo-historical framing to suggest that western Ukraine is also not truly Ukrainian and claimed that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin "gave it away" to Ukraine from pieces of Poland, Romania, and Hungary following the Second World War.[6] Putin baselessly claimed that people living in western Ukraine want to return to their "historical homeland," suggesting that western Ukraine could feasibly return to 17th-century conceptions of state borders and become parts of Poland, Romania, or Hungary. This statement suggests that Putin is selectively weaponizing facets of Eastern and Central European history as they suit his ideological line to further rhetorically strip Ukraine of its internationally recognized sovereignty.

Putin's MoD Collegium claims are rife with rhetorical contradictions and are dependent on tenuous historical allegories that fall apart when considered in different historical contexts. During a November 28 speech at the World Russian People's Council, Putin defined the concept of the "Russian World" (Russkiy Mir) as "all other peoples who have lived and are living in [Russia]," geographically defined as what belonged to Ancient Rus (Kyivan Rus), the Kingdom of Muscovy, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the contemporary Russian Federation, which suggests that Putin was broadly including parts of eastern European states such as Poland and Romania in this conception of the Russian World.[7] During the December 19 Collegium Address, however, Putin appeared to diverge from this maximalist interpretation of the Russian World by differentiating Poland, Romania, and Hungary as having their own historical claims to western Ukraine.[8] These contradictions emphasize the fact that Putin relies on historical narratives that intentionally ignore contemporary contexts when they are suitable to the Kremlin narrative. The contradictions also exhibit another known characteristic of Russian information operations, which is that Russian information operations often are not necessarily internally consistent with each other. Based on Putin's interpretation of eastern European history, the modern map of Europe could also ridiculously be redrawn with Poland and Sweden controlling the Baltic States and parts of Belarus and Russia, and the Russian borders extending to Alaska and the California coast.[9] One could also make an absurd and nonsensical argument that a revived Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania has rights to most of eastern Europe and parts of western Russia. Putin’s selective references to convenient historical “claims” reflect the facile nature of his narrative.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated during the Russian MoD Collegium on December 19 that the Russian MoD will prioritize continuing the war in Ukraine and training newly formed units and formations in 2024, while also reiterating threats against Finland and the wider NATO alliance. Shoigu stated that the Russian military is undergoing work to expand its combat power to 1.32 million personnel from 1.15 million in accordance with Putin’s December 1 decree.[10] ISW previously assessed that Russian this decree was likely a formal recognition of the Russian military’s current end strength and not an order to immediately increase the number of Russian military personnel, and Shoigu appears to be merely reamplifying Putin's original statement as opposed to outlining major changes in Russian end strength.[11] Shoigu stated that the Russian military formed two fully-equipped armies (likely in reference to the newly formed 18th and 25th Combined Arms Armies), a mixed aviation corps, four divisions, including 50 other units and formations of lower echelons, 18 brigades, and 28 regiments in 2023.[12] Shoigu initially outlined the creation of these new formations on paper at the MoD Collegium in December of 2022, the establishment of several of which ISW has independently confirmed.[13] It is highly unlikely that any of these new formations are "fully equipped" or operating at their doctrinal end strengths at this time, however.[14]

Shoigu reiterated that the Russian military is forming the Leningrad Military District (LMD) and Moscow Military District (MMD) in connection with Finland’s accession to NATO and the upcoming accession of Sweden.[15] Shoigu also announced that Russia will prioritize implementing operational and combat training measures to combat the “threats of further NATO expansion east” in 2024.[16] Shoigu’s attempt to present the creation of the LMD and MMD as a response to alleged "NATO expansion” echoes an ongoing Russian information operation aimed at shifting responsibility for the war in Ukraine away from Russia to the West by framing Russia’s actions as reactive. Finland and Sweden only applied to join NATO shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, likely fearing further Russian aggression on their borders.[17] Russia’s decision to reform the Western Military District (WMD) into the LMD and MMD is part of a long-term restructuring and expansion effort that aims to prepare Russia for a potential future large-scale conventional war against NATO while balancing the Russian operational requirements in Ukraine.[18]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an end-of-the-year press conference on December 19 during which he commented on Russia’s continued unwillingness to negotiate, his confidence in future Western aid provisions, Ukrainian domestic weapons production, and possible future mobilization in Ukraine. Zelensky stated that the Kremlin did not achieve its military objectives in Ukraine in 2023, likely referring to Russia’s inability to occupy the entirety of its illegally annexed territory, particularly by failing to reach the administrative borders of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.[19] Zelensky stated that Ukraine is working on a peace formula at international summits to possibly present to Russia in the future but that the issue of negotiations with Russia is currently “irrelevant” as Putin’s recent statements about Russia’s unchanged goals in Ukraine indicate that Putin does not want peace. (ISW has long assessed that Russia is unwilling to negotiate with Ukraine in good faith.)[20] Zelensky expressed confidence that the US and EU will provide aid to Ukraine in the near future.[21] Zelensky noted that Ukraine will domestically produce one million drones and increase production of artillery in 2024, and that Ukraine is working to produce unspecified projectiles and create the infrastructure needed to deliver domestically produced weapons to the front. Zelensky stated that financing issues have prevented him from making a decision on the Ukrainian General Staff’s proposal to mobilize an additional 450,000–500,000 military personnel. Zelensky also emphasized that he would not sign a possible future bill on the mobilization of women but that he may lower the mobilization age to 25.[22] Zelensky answered a question about the possible dismissal of Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, stating that he and Zaluzhnyi have a "working relationship."[23] Russian sources have increasingly been promoting reports about internal Ukrainian political-military tension in an effort to discredit Ukrainian leadership, sow domestic distrust between Ukrainian citizens and the government, and weaken Western support for Ukraine.[24]

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin discussed Russian and Chinese economic cooperation and bilateral relations with Chinese Premier Li Quang in Beijing on December 19.[25] Mishustin claimed that Russia and China have “completely gotten rid of third-country currencies in mutual transactions” in 2023 and that both countries are strengthening their business contacts and increasing the share of national currencies in mutual transactions. Mishustin added that one of Russia's most important strategic objectives is to bring the trade and investment between Russia and China to a higher level.[26] Mishustin arrived in Beijing to attend the 28th regular meeting of heads of the Russian and Chinese governments and will also meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping over the next two days.[27]

Key Takeaways:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly invoking the Kremlin's pre-invasion pseudo-historical rhetoric to cast himself as a modern Russian tsar and framing the invasion of Ukraine as a historically justified imperial reconquest.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated during the Russian MoD Collegium on December 19 that the Russian MoD will prioritize continuing the war in Ukraine and training newly formed units and formations in 2024, while also reiterating threats against Finland and the wider NATO alliance.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an end-of-the-year press conference on December 19 during which he commented on Russia’s continued unwillingness to negotiate, his confidence in future Western aid provisions, Ukrainian domestic weapons production, and possible future mobilization in Ukraine.
• Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin discussed Russian and Chinese economic cooperation and bilateral relations with Chinese Premier Li Quang in Beijing on December 19.
• Russian forces made confirmed advances northeast of Kupyansk, north of Bakhmut, and southwest of Avdiivka, and continued positional meeting engagements along the entire line of contact.
• Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that the Russian military intends to recruit up to 745,000 contract personnel by the end of 2024 at the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) Collegium on December 19.
• Russian authorities continued attempts to use military conscription in occupied Ukraine to augment force generation efforts and legitimize Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.

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

• Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Russian Technological Adaptations
• Activities in Russian-occupied areas
• Russian Information Operations and Narratives

NOTE: ISW has restructured the operational kinetic axis sections of the daily Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment to more accurately reflect the positional nature of fighting on the battlefield. Operational kinetic axis paragraphs will be shorter and more synthetic to convey the same assessment in fewer words and not to overwhelm the reader with long lists of settlement names. The level of detail included in the report has not decreased. The report’s endnotes still contain the same level of sourcing, and ISW encourages readers interested in tactical granular details to read them. ISW will explicitly flag major operational inflections in axis text as usual, so the lack of named settlements should not be taken as an indication of gains or losses of territory or changes in the frontline. ISW will lead operational axes with confirmed map changes to accord with the daily map products produced by the Geospatial Intelligence Team, supplemented by Ukrainian and Russian claims, and will also list order of battle (ORBAT) details in each axis section when available.

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Russian forces recently made a marginal confirmed advance northeast of Kupyansk. Geolocated footage published on December 18 indicates that Russian forces marginally advanced north of Synkivka (northeast of Kupyansk).[28] Russian and Ukrainian sources stated that fighting continued northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka and Petropavlivka.[29]

Russian and Ukrainian forces did not advance along the Svatove-Kreminna line and conducted positional engagements on December 19. Ukrainian and Russian sources stated that fighting occurred northwest and west of Kreminna near Makiivka, Terny, and the Serebryanske forest area.[30] Elements of the 24th Spetsnaz Brigade and the 20th Combined Arms Army (Western Military District) are reportedly operating in this area.[31]

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Donetsk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, the claimed territory of Russia’s proxies in Donbas)

Russian forces recently made a confirmed advance north of Bakhmut. Geolocated footage published on December 12 indicates that Russian forces advanced northwest of Bilohorivka, Donetsk Oblast, 15km northeast of Bakhmut.[32] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Pazeno, 15km north of Bakhmut.[33]

Russian forces reportedly advanced northwest and southwest of Bakhmut. Russian milbloggers claimed that claim Russian forces captured the Chronobilets gardening community southwest of Bakhmut, although ISW has not yet observed visual confirmation of this claim. Russian sources claimed that Russian forces also advanced northwest of Bakhmut near Khromove and Bohdanivka, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of these claims.[34] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked on the western outskirts of Bakhmut and southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka.[35] Russian and Ukrainian sources stated that fighting occurred northwest of Bakhmut near Bohdanivka; west of Bakhmut near Ivanivske; and southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.[36] Ukrainian military officials stated that the Russian military command is using its most combat-capable airborne (VDV) and naval infantry units, and “Storm-Z” and “Storm-V” units comprised mostly of prisoner recruits, in the Bakhmut direction and that Russian forces’ goal is to attack Chasiv Yar (10km west of Bakhmut).[37] The Russian MoD stated that elements of the Russian 98th VDV Division are operating north of Bakhmut and that elements of the Russian 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade (Northern Fleet) are operating in the general Bakhmut direction.[38] A Russian milblogger claimed that elements of the Russian 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Luhansk People’s Republic [LNR] Army Corps) are operating southwest of Bakhmut.[39]

Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka. Geolocated footage posted on December 18 shows that Russian forces made a marginal gain just north of Pervomaiske (about 10km southwest of Avdiivka) around December 15.[40] Additional geolocated footage posted on December 19 shows that Russian forces have also marginally advanced in the quarry area southwest of Avdiivka.[41] One Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces achieved tactical successes southwest of Avdiivka.[42] Several Russian sources additionally claimed that Russian forces are trying to push Ukrainian forces out of positions in the Avdiivka Coke Plant (on the northwestern outskirts of Avdiivka), and that Russian forces are advancing on the northern flank of Avdiivka near Stepove.[43] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Avdiivka itself, as well as northwest, southwest, and directly west of Avdiivka.[44] A Russian source claimed that elements of the 41st Combined Arms Army (Central Military District) are operating in the Avdiivka area.[45]

Russian forces recently made marginal advances southwest of Donetsk City. Geolocated footage posted on December 19 shows that Russian forces have made a small gain along Tsentralna Street on the eastern outskirts of Novomykhailivka (10km southwest of Donetsk City).[46] Russian forces reportedly captured an agricultural complex on the southwestern outskirts of Novomykhailivka, although ISW has not yet observed visual evidence to corroborate this claim.[47] Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) Advisor Yan Gagin claimed that Ukrainian forces abandoned several positions along the defensive line near Novomykhailivka, which ISW also cannot verify.[48] Russian and Ukrainian forces continued positional engagements near Novomykhailivka and in Marinka and Krasnohorivka (directly on the western outskirts of Donetsk City).[49] A reconnaissance company of the 20th Motorized Rifle Division (8th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) is reportedly fighting in the Marinka area.[50]

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

Russian and Ukrainian forces did not advance in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on December 19.[51] Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that elements of the 60th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (5th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Eastern Military District [EMD]) are operating in the Velyka Novosilka direction; elements of the 394th Motorized Rifle Regiment (127th Motorized Rifle Division, 5th CAA) are operating south of Velyka Novosilka near Staromayorske; and elements of the 37th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade (36th CAA, EMD) southeast of Velyka Novosilka near Novodonetske.[52]

Geolocated footage published on December 18 indicates that the Russian frontline of troops is further east of Novoprokopivka (directly south of Robotyne) than previously assessed, though this advance is likely not the result of a Russian counterattack and is unlikely to have taken place over the past 24 hours.[53] Ukrainian forces may have withdrawn to more defensible positions closer to Robotyne. Russian forces reportedly advanced 700 meters between Robotyne and Verbove (9km east of Robotyne) and continued counterattacking west of Robotyne, from Verbove, and northeast of Robotyne in the direction of Novofedorivka.[54] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Robotyne and west of Novopokrovka to the northeast of Robotyne.[55] A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces tried to attack west of Robotyne.[56]

Russian and Ukrainian forces engaged in positional engagements on the east (left) bank of Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast. Ukrainian forces reportedly retained their positions in Krynky on the east bank despite Russian counterattacks in the area.[57] Russian and Ukrainian sources indicated that both sides are effectively using drones in the Kherson direction, and Russian forces reportedly continue facing equipment shortages necessary for evacuation of wounded on the east bank.[58]

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

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that the Russian military intends to recruit up to 745,000 contract personnel by the end of 2024 at the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) Collegium on December 19.[59] Shoigu’s figure likely includes the number of contract soldiers (kontraktniki) and volunteers (dobrovoltsy) in irregular formations, as well as personnel recruited through conscription since the Russian military began requiring all volunteers to sign volunteer service contracts with the Russian MoD in July 2023.[60] Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev claimed on December 1 that the Russian military recruited over 452,000 contract, volunteer, and conscripted military personnel since January 1, 2023.[61] The contract soldiers that the Russian military intends to recruit are likely less skilled and experienced than the Russian military’s pre-war professional long-service contract soldiers who suffered heavy losses at the beginning of the war, due to limited Russian training capacity and degraded training quality.[62] Russian officials have routinely inflated and altered the stated number of Russian military personnel by purposefully including and excluding different categories of Russian military personnel in reported figures.[63]

Shoigu stated that the Russian MoD simplified the procedure for obtaining combat veteran status, amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s thinly veiled criticism of Russian military bureaucracy.[64] Putin called on the Russian MoD at the Russian MoD Collegium on December 19 to promptly resolve problems to provide combat veteran status and the accompanying benefits to all war participants.[65] Shoigu stated that the Russian MoD has issued 458,000 combat veteran certificates, including 50,000 in December 2023 alone, and that all Russian participants in the war in Ukraine will their certificates “soon.”[66] Shoigu stated that the Russian MoD will begin issuing electronic identification cards for veterans in 2024 and is likely trying to posture the MoD's efficacy against Putin's continued tactic criticism.[67]

Russian companies are reportedly acquiring microchips and other communications technology through a network of Chinese, Moroccan, and Turkish intermediaries. The New York Times (NYT) reported on December 19 that Russian companies are evading Western sanctions by buying microchips for advanced computing and weapons systems, telecommunication equipment, surveillance gear, and drones through intermediary companies based in China, Morocco, and Turkey.[68] NYT reported that China and Hong Kong have supplied 85 percent of all imported semiconductors to Russia from March 2022 to September 2023, a reported 27 percent increase in imports since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[69]

Republic of Bashkortostan Head Radiy Khabirov announced on December 19 that Bashkortostan’s 2024 budget is allocating 4.6 billion rubles (about $50.8 million) to supporting the war in Ukraine. Khabirov stated that the Bashkortostan is allocating 2.8 billion rubles of the total 4.6 billion to support volunteers and mobilized personnel and to purchase anti-drone guns, vehicles, medicine, and other goods needed at the frontline. The other 1.8 billion rubles will reportedly fund local measures, support for veterans and their families and payments to the families of dead and wounded soldiers.[70] Bashkortostan has formed at least seven volunteer battalions to fight in Ukraine of which at least four have already deployed to Ukraine.[71] ISW has frequently assessed that Russian regions appear to be bearing the financial brunt of the federal government's war effort.[72]

Russian Technological Adaptations (Russian objective: Introduce technological innovations to optimize systems for use in Ukraine)

The Ukrainian Crimean-based “Atesh” partisan group claimed to have obtained secret information which indicates that Pelcom Dubna Machine Building Plant in Moscow Oblast is unable to fulfil its annual state defense order for Kh-32 cruise missiles.[73] Atesh stated that the plant only produced 61 of 80 missiles planned to be made by November 10. The plant reportedly needs to produce 19 more missiles by the extended deadline at the end of December. Atesh added that the plant supplies these missiles to the Russian 52nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment (22nd Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Division) and military unit 35020-V of the Belaya Air Base.

Russian Strategic Missile Forces Commander Colonel General Sergei Karakayev announced on December 19 that the next regiment equipped with the Avangard missile systems with guided warhead was activated in Orenburg Oblast.[74]

Russian forces are continuing their efforts to develop naval drones to use in operations against Ukrainian forces. Russian state outlet TASS, citing an unnamed Russian defense industrial base (DIB) source, claimed that Russian specialists are developing a surface assault drone equipped with a payload of up to 10 kilograms, which can be increased to 100 kilograms. TASS claimed that the surface drone will have an operating range of up to 20 kilometers and that Russian officials plan to test these drones in February 2024.[75]

Russian state outlet Ria Novosti claimed that Russian forces are using modernized Pantsir-SM anti-aircraft missile and gun systems in Ukraine.[76] Ria Novosti claimed that Pantsir-SM systems have demonstrated a significantly increased combat effectiveness in relation to the Pantsir-S and have longer detection ranges.[77]

UK-based investigative organization Conflict Armament Research (CAR) stated that Russia is modernizing its universal planning and correction modules (UMPCs) used on aerial bombs and is attempting to hide the origin of some of its foreign commercial components, likely in order to prevent future sanctions.[78] CAR analyzed two Russian UMPCs recovered near Bakhmut in January 2023 and near Orikhiv in October 2023, and stated that the UMPC recovered in October 2023 contained a more elaborate electronic system, including the Russian Kometa satellite navigation module used in various Russian reconnaissance drones and the Russian-produced version of the Shahed-136 drones. The US Department of Treasury sanctioned the Russian producer of the Kometa system in November 2023.[79] CAR stated that both recovered UMPCs had their markings removed, likely to prevent the tracing of their components. Russian forces have increased their usage of glide bombs with UMPCs in southern Ukraine, and more recently, in eastern Ukraine.[80] Russian state RIA Novosti claimed on December 1 that the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) will reportedly begin training Su-34 pilots en masse to operate glide bombs with UMPCs for use in Ukraine.[81]

Activities in Russian-occupied areas (Russian objective: Consolidate administrative control of annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian citizens into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Russian authorities continued attempts to use military conscription in occupied Ukraine to augment force generation efforts and legitimize Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. Ukrainian Presidential Representative in Crimea Tamila Tasheva stated on December 19 that Russian authorities have conscripted 44,500 Crimeans into the Russian military and have opened 497 criminal cases for conscription evasion.[82] Tasheva stated that Russia has conducted 18 conscription campaigns in occupied Crimea since 2014.[83]

Russian authorities continued attempts to quiet dissent and eradicate cultural identities in occupied Crimea. Tasheva stated that Russian authorities are holding 191 political prisoners in Crimea, including 123 Crimean Tatars, likely as part of efforts to quiet dissent in occupied Crimea.[84] Russian occupation authorities have persistently persecuted Crimean Tatars, many of whom have openly opposed Russian occupation since 2014, as part of ethnic cleansing campaigns in occupied territories.[85]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu introduced a new false state narrative that Ukraine will not be able to repay the West for military aid during his speech the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) Collegium on December 19.[86] Shoigu claimed that Ukraine is a bankrupt country since it needs to repay many loans to the West. Shoigu's comment likely intends to discourage further Western military and financial aid to Ukraine and negatively influence Ukrainian citizens’ perception of Ukraine’s future.

Russian state media and milbloggers deliberately used Ukrainian officials' statements to launch a false narrative that Ukraine is planning to mobilize women in an ongoing effort to destabilize Ukrainian society.[87] Russian state outlet TASS misrepresented a Ukrainian deputy’s statements to claim that “the situation in Ukraine may deteriorate so much that the mobilization of women will be required.” The Ukrainian deputy originally discussed conditions under which the government may consider mobilizing women if it is necessary for defensive operations as a hypothetical scenario – rather than signaling that Ukraine is imminently preparing to mobilize women at large.[88]

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova attempted to further an information operation weaponizing deepening US-Finnish defense ties. Zakharova claimed that the US-Finnish Defense Cooperation Agreement threatens Russian security.[89] The Russian Foreign Ministry (MFA) announced that it summoned Finnish Ambassador to Russia Antti Helanterya for questioning regarding the alleged “build-up of NATO military potential” on Russia’s border.[90] The Russian MFA’s claims are consistent with Russian attempts to frame Finland’s accession to NATO as a threat to Russia, despite Finland joining NATO out of fear of further Russian aggression on its borders after Russia‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[91]

Significant activity in Belarus (Russian efforts to increase its military presence in Belarus and further integrate Belarus into Russian-favorable frameworks and Wagner Group activity in Belarus)

Nothing significant to report.

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

19. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, December 19, 2023

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-december-19-2023

Key Takeaways:

1. Israel has degraded Hamas’ North Gaza Brigade, which is consistent with CTP-ISW's observation that Israel appears to be nearing the final stages of its clearing operation in the northern Gaza Strip. Palestinian militias continued attacks targeting Israeli forces east of Jabalia.
2. Israeli forces continued clearing operations in Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.
3. Palestinian militias are continuing to use the relative safe haven of the Gaza Strip’s Central Governorate to attack Israeli forces south of Gaza City.
4. Palestinian fighters continued to conduct a deliberate defense against Israeli advances in Khan Younis. The IDF deployed an additional brigade to Khan Younis
5. Palestinian militias mortared Israeli forces in the central and southern Gaza Strip. The al Qassem Brigades conducted at least two indirect fire attacks into Israel from the Gaza Strip.
6. Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian fighters seven times across the West Bank. Hamas continues to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinian militias in the West Bank.
7. Iranian-backed fighters, including Lebanese Hezbollah, conducted four attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.
8. Israel seeks a deal to push Lebanese Hezbollah forces “roughly six miles” from the Israel-Lebanon border to prevent possible LH cross border attacks, according to US and Israeli officials.
9. The Iraqi High Electoral Commission released preliminary results for the Iraqi provincial council elections. Shia parties, including those affiliated with Iran, won the largest count of votes in Baghdad and most of Iraq’s southern provinces.
10. The Jordanian Air Force conducted airstrikes on Iran-linked drug smuggling targets in Salkhad, Suwayda Province, Syria.
11. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced Operation Prosperity Guardian in response to Houthi attacks on international shipping around the Red Sea. The Houthi attack campaign targeting commercial shipping continues to achieve one of its desired effects of disrupting Red Sea maritime traffic headed to Israel.
12. Fighters from the Balochi Salafi-jihadi group Jaish al Adl were likely responsible for an improvised explosive device attack targeting an IRGC Special Forces Brigade near Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchistan Province.

IRAN UPDATE, DECEMBER 19, 2023

Dec 19, 2023 - ISW Press

Iran Update, December 19, 2023

Ashka Jhaveri, Andie Parry, Annika Ganzeveld, Amin Soltani, Peter Mills, Kathryn Tyson, Brian Carter, Alexandra Braverman, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00pm ET

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. For more on developments in Iran and the region, see our interactive map of Iran and the Middle East.

Note: CTP and ISW have refocused the update to cover the Israel-Hamas war. The new sections address developments in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as noteworthy activity from Iran’s Axis of Resistance. We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Key Takeaways:

1. Israel has degraded Hamas’ North Gaza Brigade, which is consistent with CTP-ISW's observation that Israel appears to be nearing the final stages of its clearing operation in the northern Gaza Strip. Palestinian militias continued attacks targeting Israeli forces east of Jabalia.
2. Israeli forces continued clearing operations in Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.
3. Palestinian militias are continuing to use the relative safe haven of the Gaza Strip’s Central Governorate to attack Israeli forces south of Gaza City.
4. Palestinian fighters continued to conduct a deliberate defense against Israeli advances in Khan Younis. The IDF deployed an additional brigade to Khan Younis
5. Palestinian militias mortared Israeli forces in the central and southern Gaza Strip. The al Qassem Brigades conducted at least two indirect fire attacks into Israel from the Gaza Strip.
6. Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian fighters seven times across the West Bank. Hamas continues to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinian militias in the West Bank.
7. Iranian-backed fighters, including Lebanese Hezbollah, conducted four attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.
8. Israel seeks a deal to push Lebanese Hezbollah forces “roughly six miles” from the Israel-Lebanon border to prevent possible LH cross border attacks, according to US and Israeli officials.
9. The Iraqi High Electoral Commission released preliminary results for the Iraqi provincial council elections. Shia parties, including those affiliated with Iran, won the largest count of votes in Baghdad and most of Iraq’s southern provinces.
10. The Jordanian Air Force conducted airstrikes on Iran-linked drug smuggling targets in Salkhad, Suwayda Province, Syria.
11. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced Operation Prosperity Guardian in response to Houthi attacks on international shipping around the Red Sea. The Houthi attack campaign targeting commercial shipping continues to achieve one of its desired effects of disrupting Red Sea maritime traffic headed to Israel.
12. Fighters from the Balochi Salafi-jihadi group Jaish al Adl were likely responsible for an improvised explosive device attack targeting an IRGC Special Forces Brigade near Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchistan Province.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to launch and sustain a major ground operation into the Gaza Strip
• Degrade IDF material and morale around the Gaza Strip.

Israel has degraded Hamas’ North Gaza Brigade, which is consistent with CTP-ISW's observation that Israel appears to be nearing the final stages of its clearing operation in the northern Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced the beginning of clearing operations in Jabalia on November 18.[1] The IDF reported on December 19 that it completely “dismantled” Hamas’ three battalions operating in Jabalia.[2] About 500 suspected Palestinians fighters surrendered to Israeli forces in the Jabalia refugee camp, some of whom belong to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).[3] Israeli Army Radio reported that the IDF fought “hard battles” in Jabalia against Palestinian militias for more than two weeks until Israeli forces had killed over 1,000 fighters.[4] IDF Brigadier General Itzik Cohen said that the fighting in Jabalia "resulted in the dismantling of the military capacity” of Hamas’ North Gaza Brigade.[5] The IDF estimated on December 19 that there are only a few militia fighters left in the Jabalia area.[6]

Palestinian militias continued attacks targeting Israeli forces east of Jabalia. Palestinian militias continued to defend against Israeli advances east of Jabalia city. The al Qassem Brigades—the militant wing of Hamas—claimed two attacks on Israeli forces using thermobaric rockets and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) in Tal al Zaatar, north of Jabalia refugee camp.[7] The al Quds Brigades—the militant wing of PIJ—mortared Israeli forces in the same area.[8] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades—the self-proclaimed militant wing of Fatah—claimed a complex attack on Israeli forces advancing in the Jabalia refugee camp using small arms and RPGs.[9] The al Nasser Salah al Din Brigades—the militant wing of the Popular Resistance Committees—claimed an attack on Israeli forces east of Jabalia city for the first time since December 13.[10]

Israeli forces continued clearing operations in Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City on December 19. The IDF located an IED planted inside a clinic in Shujaiya in addition to finding other weapons in the area.[11] The al Quds Brigades claimed that its fighters clashed with seven Israeli infantrymen on the Israeli forward line of advance in the neighborhood.[12] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades also said that its fighters clashed with Israeli forces in central Shujaiya.[13]

Israeli special operations forces operated inside a Hamas tunnel system in Gaza city on December 19. The Israeli defense minister said on December 12 that Israeli troops had descended deep underground to locate Hamas bunkers, command centers, communication rooms, and weapon storage sites.[14] Hamas published a video showing a dead Israeli working dog in a Hamas tunnel in Sheikh Radwan on December 15, demonstrating the presence of both Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters in the tunnels.[15] Palestinian militia fighters have used tunnel shafts to maneuver through the strip and to ambush Israeli forces[16] The IDF has located about 1,500 tunnel shafts and routes in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip.[17]

Palestinian militias are continuing to use the relative safe haven of the Gaza Strip’s Central Governorate to attack Israeli forces south of Gaza City. The al Qassem Brigades claimed three attacks using thermobaric rockets and RPGs on Israeli forces in Mughraqa, just north of Wadi Gaza.[18] The National Resistance Brigades—the militant wing of Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)—mortared Israeli vehicles advancing north of Juhor ad Dik.[19] The IDF reported on December 19 that Israeli forces destroyed a tunnel shaft south of Gaza City.[20] Israeli forces conducted an airstrike targeting a large number of militia fighters who fled into a building.[21]

Palestinian fighters continued to conduct a deliberate defense against Israeli advances in Khan Younis on December 19. The al Quds Brigades shelled Israeli support sites and ground lines of communication (GLOC) as part of the Palestinian militias’ efforts to disrupt and harass Israeli GLOCs in Khan Younis.[22] Palestinian militias previously targeted the Israeli GLOC on December 15.[23] Palestinian fighters also attacked Israeli artillery units east of Khan Younis with mortars on December 19.[24] The IDF moved elements of its Artillery Corps into the Gaza Strip on December 10.[25]

The al Qassem Brigades attacked Israeli infantry conducting clearing operations in urban areas of Khan Younis on December 19. Al Qassem Brigades fighters rigged a house to explode in Khan Younis, detonating it when Israeli forces entered the building.[26] The al Qassem Brigades claimed that it trapped Israeli forces in a house and detonated anti-personnel charges and thermobaric shells in a separate incident.[27] The al Qassem Brigades claimed both attacks killed and wounded Israeli forces but did not provide evidence for the claim. Palestinian militias continued to attack Israeli infantrymen and vehicles in Khan Younis using RPGs, mortars, and rockets.[28]

The IDF deployed an additional brigade to Khan Younis on December 19. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated that the IDF is expanding clear operations around Khan Younis by deploying an additional brigade and engineering force to the area.[29] The IDF 55th Brigade continued operations in Khan Younis by raiding weapons storage facilities, clearing houses, and engaging in close-range clashes with Palestinian fighters on December 19.[30]

Israel conducted an airstrike to kill a Hamas financier, Subhi Ferwana, who the IDF said was a vital resource for the al Qassem Brigades.[31] The IDF reported that Ferwana was involved in transferring millions of dollars to Hamas and its al Qassem Brigades. The militia used the funds to pay salaries and build its military capabilities during the war.[32]

Palestinian militias mortared Israeli forces in the central and southern Gaza Strip on December 19. Israeli forces have not commenced major, large-scale clearing operations in most of the central Gaza Strip at this time. The al Quds Brigades mortared Israeli soldiers east of Maghazi in Gaza’s Central Governorate.[33] The al Qassem Brigades launched mortars at Israeli forces east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.[34]

The al Qassem Brigades conducted at least two indirect fire attacks into Israel from the Gaza Strip on December 19. The al Qassem Brigades fired a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv.[35] The al Qassem Brigades also filmed its fighters launching rockets from the Gaza Strip at unspecified locations in Israel. [36] The al Quds Brigades and other Palestinian militias did not claim indirect fire attacks into Israel on December 19. The low rate of indirect fire attacks into Israel is consistent with CTP-ISW's assessment that Israeli forces are likely degrading Hamas’ capacity to conduct indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

Recorded reports of rocket attacks; CTP-ISW cannot independently verify impact.

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward the West Bank and fix them there

Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian fighters seven times across the West Bank on December 19.[37] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades fired small arms and detonated IEDs targeting Israeli forces in Azzun, west of Nablus.[38] Unspecified fighters "confronted“ Israeli forces during Israeli operations in Aqraba, southeast of Nablus, as well.[39] The IDF demolished the Aqraba home of a Palestinian fighter, who attacked Israelis in the West Bank in August 2023.[40] The Jenin Battalion of the al Quds Brigades separately fired small arms at Israeli forces in Jenin.[41]

The IDF arrested ten individuals across the West Bank, including four Hamas fighters.[42]

Hamas continues to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinian militias in the West Bank. The al Qassem Brigades said that it launched rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel on December 19 to commemorate Palestinian fighters killed in the West Bank.[43] The al Qassem Brigades said that it wrote the names of militia fighters from the West Bank-based Lions’ Den militia and al Qassem Brigades on the rockets. The Lions’ Den and Hamas have expressed support for and alignment with one another throughout the Israel-Hamas war.[44] Hamas has repeatedly called for escalation against Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, especially since the war began.[45]

This map is not an exhaustive depiction of clashes and demonstrations in the West Bank.

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward northern Israel and fix them there
• Set conditions for successive campaigns into northern Israel

Iranian-backed fighters, including Lebanese Hezbollah (LH), conducted four attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel on December 19.[46] LH claimed two anti-tank guided missile attacks targeting Israeli military positions.[47] The al Qassem Brigades fired a 12-rocket salvo targeting civilians in Kiryat Shmona.[48] The group claimed that it conducted the attack in retaliation for Israel’s ground operation in the Gaza Strip.

Israel seeks a deal to push LH “roughly six miles” from the Israel-Lebanon border to prevent possible LH cross border attacks, according to US and Israeli officials.[49] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that they seek to prevent LH from returning the positions along the Israel-Lebanon border that Israeli airstrikes have destroyed since October. Austin said Washington understood Israeli concerns and asked for “time and space” for diplomatic efforts to remove LH from the border. Netanyahu and Gallant agreed to give the Biden administration time for a diplomatic solution but added that they “wanted to see progress in the next few weeks,” according to Israeli officials. Israeli officials seek to use diplomatic measures to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which bars LH military units from operating south of the Litani River.[50]

The deputy chairman of the LH Executive Council said on December 19 that Israel is “too weak” to attack or “impose [its] conditions” on Lebanon. LH Executive Council Deputy Chairman Ali Damoush said that the “only option” to protect Lebanon is “resistance, not the international community, the United Nations, or the [UN] Security Council.”[51] The LH Executive Council is responsible for implementing the group’s policy in specific areas, including media, health, social, education, and political issues.[52] It notably does not implement foreign policy.[53] LH Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah manages LH’s external relations directly, rather than through the Executive Council.[54] Damoush said that Israel is “too weak” to carry out its “threats” to use military force to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701.[55]

Israeli tanks fired at and artillery shelled a Syrian Arab Army (SAA) outpost in southern Syria on December 18 in retaliation for rocket fire from Syria toward the Golan Heights earlier that day.[56] The IDF said that unspecified fighters fired several rockets from Syria. The rockets did not land in the Golan Heights, however.

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Demonstrate the capability and willingness of Iran and the Axis of Resistance to escalate against the United States and Israel on multiple fronts
• Set conditions to fight a regional war on multiple fronts

The Iraqi High Electoral Commission (IHEC) released preliminary results for the Iraqi provincial council elections on December 19.[57] Iraq held provincial council elections on December 18 for the first time since 2013.[58] Iraqi provincial councils are authorized to appoint and remove governors as well as approve provincial director-general positions and approve provincial security plans.[59]

• Parties and coalitions aligned with the Shia Coordination Framework—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi parties—won the largest count of votes in Baghdad and most of Iraq’s southern provinces.[60] The We Build Coalition, which is headed by Iranian-backed Badr Organization Secretary General Hadi al Ameri, won the most votes in Al Qadisiyah, Babil, Dhi Qar, Maysan, and Najaf provinces in southern Iraq.[61] These provinces are predominantly Shia.[62] Poor Iraqi Shia in southern Iraq have historically supported Iraqi nationalist Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr, who has competed with Iranian-backed parties for political influence on several occasions in recent years. Sadr called for a boycott of the provincial council elections, claiming that participation in the elections “would reinforce the dominance of a corrupt political class.”[63] Maysan Province recorded the lowest voter participation rate of 29 percent.[64] The State of Law Coalition, which is headed by former Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, won the highest number of votes in southern Iraq’s Muthanna province.[65] Maliki and his party are part of the Shia Coordination Framework.
• The Diyalatna al Watan Alliance, which appears to be affiliated with the Badr Organization, won the most votes in Diyala Province.[66] Diyala is a diverse province that includes Shia and Sunni Muslims as well as various ethnic groups, including Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen.[67] The Diyalatna al Watan Alliance reposted a statement from Badr Organization Secretary General Hadi al Ameri thanking citizens for voting in the elections.[68]
• The Nineveh Liahliha Party, which is led by former Nineveh Governor Najm al Jubouri, won the most votes in Nineveh Province.[69] Najm al Jubouri submitted his resignation as the governor of Nineveh on November 26.[70] IHEC barred al Jubouri from running in the provincial elections based on corruption charges brought against him by the Accountability and Justice Commission.[71] The Shia Coordination Framework enabled Jabouri’s disqualification, as the coalition spearheaded a series of amendments to Iraq’s election laws in March 2023, one of which barred individuals charged with corruption from participating in elections.[72] Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al Sudani appointed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF)-affiliated Abdul Qadir al Dakhil as the acting governor of Nineveh on November 27.[73] The Kurdish Democratic Party won the second highest number of votes in Nineveh Province.[74]
• The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan won the most votes in Kirkuk Province.[75] Kirkuk Province recorded the highest voter participation rate of 65 percent.[76]

The 28th PMF Brigade deployed to Khanaqin, Diyala Province on December 19.[77] The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq established the brigade in 2014 and its founder, Jalal al Din al Saghir, has previously pledged allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.[78] PMF spokesperson Sadiq al Husseini said on December 19 that the PMF would extend its “security alert” in Diyala Province for 24 hours to support security forces in the “post-general voting phase.”[79]

The Jordanian Air Force conducted airstrikes on Iran-linked drug smuggling targets in Salkhad, Suwayda Province, Syria, on December 18.[80] The targets facilitated drug smuggling from Syria into Jordan and the Gulf states. The airstrikes follow small arms clashes between the Jordanian forces and Iran-linked individuals trying to smuggle drugs and weapons through the Jordan-Syria border between December 12 and 18.[81] The weapons included rocket launchers, anti-personnel mines, and other explosives. Jordan previously conducted airstrikes in Suwayda targeting Iran and LH-linked targets tied to drug smuggling in May 2023.[82]

Jordanian officials have previously expressed concern about Iran-linked security threats beyond drug and weapons smuggling.[83] The Jordanian armed forces shot down three drones that entered Jordan from Syria in August 2023.[84] Jordanian officials linked the drones to Iran-backed militias in Syria. Iranian-backed militias in Syria often use these drones to fly drugs over the border, but the drones could also be used to conduct attacks on civilian and military targets inside Jordan, including US forces stationed inside the country.[85] Iran-backed groups have also used Jordanian territory to smuggle weapons into Israel and the West Bank.[86]

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced Operation Prosperity Guardian on December 18 in response to Houthi attacks on international shipping around the Red Sea.[87] A senior US military official stated that the Houthis have conducted one-way drone and missile attacks targeting 10 merchant vessels linked to over 35 different nations in recent weeks.[88] Operation Prosperity Guardian will operate under Combined Maritime Task Force 153, which was established in April 2022 to improve maritime security in the Red Sea.[89] The United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, and Spain will support the US-led effort.[90] Politico reported that ten more countries have signed onto the new maritime task force but that they do not want to be publicly named as participating in the operation.[91] Austin encouraged the 39 members of Combined Maritime Task Force 153 to work with the United States to deter future Houthi aggression in the Red Sea on December 19.[92]

The Houthi attack campaign targeting commercial shipping continues to achieve one of its desired effects of disrupting Red Sea maritime traffic headed to Israel. The Chinese state-owned shipping company COSCO, which is the world’s fourth largest shipping company, announced it was suspending shipments through the Red Sea on December 19.[93] Shipping companies with a combined market share of over percent of global shipping have announced that they will no longer travel through the Red Sea in recent days in response to Houthi aggression.[94]

Senior Houthi officials are continuing to threaten attacks against commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam accused the United States of “militarizing” the Red Sea and claimed that the US-led coalition would not alter the Houthis’ support for Palestine.[95] Salam threatened that the Houthis would continue attacks in the Red Sea until humanitarian aid is allowed into the Gaza Strip.[96] The conditions in which the Houthis would cease attacks are unclear given that humanitarian aid has entered the Gaza Strip on several occasions in recent weeks.[97] Houthi Supreme Political Council member and key powerbroker Mohammed al Houthi falsely claimed on December 19 that the Houthis do not want to close the Bab al Mandeb to trade and that the Houthis only target Israeli ships and ships heading to Israel.[98] Several of the ships that the Houthis have attacked in recent days were en route to destinations outside of Israel, such as Saudi Arabia.[99]

Fighters from the Balochi Salafi-jihadi group Jaish al Adl were likely responsible for an improvised explosive device attack targeting an IRGC Special Forces Brigade near Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchistan Province, on December 19. A 110th Salman Farsi Independent Special Forces Brigade support vehicle struck a roadside IED near Zahedan.[100] Iranian media stated that there were no injuries or significant damage to the vehicle. No group has claimed responsibility at the time of writing. Jaish al Adl conducted a two-stage ambush and raid targeting an Iranian police station in Rask, Sistan and Baluchistan Province, on December 15, killing 11 Law Enforcement Command officers.[101] Iranian officials blamed Israel for the December 15 attack.[102] Iranian judicial authorities executed an unspecified individual in Sistan and Baluchistan Province on December 16 for allegedly cooperating with the Mossad to assist anti-regime militias in the province.[103] Jaish al Adl has previously conducted IED attacks in Iran, although such attacks are very rare.[104]

The Iranian ambassador to Russia read a statement by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf at a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Moscow on December 19.[105] The CSTO is a Russia-led collective defense military alliance. Ghalibaf in the statement called for establishing a Palestinian state in Jerusalem to achieve regional stability.[106] Ghalibaf also stated that regional conflicts should be solved by regional powers and warned international actors not to get involved. implying that the United States should not involve itself in the Israel-Hamas war. The Belarusian, Kazakhstani, and Tajikistani parliamentary heads attended the CSTO session as well.[107]

Iranian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister for Political Affairs Ali Bagheri Kani met with Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Yoko Kamikawa in Tokyo on December 19.[108] The two discussed bilateral relations and the Israel-Hamas war. Bagheri called for an immediate ceasefire and claimed that ethnic cleansing is occurring in the Gaza Strip without providing evidence. Kamikawa emphasized the need to send humanitarian aid to the citizens of the Gaza Strip.

20. Ukraine army wants to mobilise half a million more

Is this possible?

Excerpts:

Zaluzhny angered the presidential administration last month when he told The Economist that the war was at a stalemate, a claim that was disputed by Zelensky. On Monday, the general also criticised Zelensky’s decision to dismiss regional military draft office chiefs as part of a crackdown on corruption. “These were professionals, they knew how to do this, and they are gone,” Zaluzhny said. His comments came after Ukraine’s SBU security service said a listening device had been discovered in Zaluzhny’s office.

Although Zelensky still retains broad support, his trust levels have fallen from 84 per cent to 62 per cent, according to a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. In contrast, Zaluzhny enjoys the trust of 88 per cent of Ukrainians, the same poll indicated.

Officials in Kyiv have denied that there is any conflict between the president and the head of the armed forces. “I have a working relationship with Zaluzhny,” Zelensky said at his press conference. “He must answer for the results on the battlefield.”

He was also asked if the war with Russia could end next year. “No one knows the answer,” he said. “Even respected people, our commanders and our western partners, who say that this is a war for many years, they do not know.”

Ukraine army wants to mobilise half a million more

Zelensky says he has yet to make a final decision on the military’s request

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/zelensky-dissent-generals-ukraine-war-declining-support-q6j3zqtls?utm

Marc Bennetts, Kyiv

Tuesday December 19 2023, 9.45pm GMT, The Times

Ukraine’s generals are seeking to mobilise up to half a million new soldiers to push back Russia’s invading army, President Zelensky said as concerns grow over the future of western military aid to the country.

Most Ukrainian soldiers at the front are believed to be volunteers, many of whom have been fighting almost non-stop since the start of Russia’s invasion last year. Under Ukrainian law, only males aged 27 to 60 can be mobilised, although younger men can volunteer to fight. Conscripts aged 18 to 20 cannot be sent to the battlefield.

Speaking at his annual press conference in Kyiv, Zelensky said that he had yet to make a final decision on the army’s request to swell its ranks. “I said that I would need more arguments to support this move. Because first of all, it’s a question of people, secondly, it’s a question of fairness, it’s a question of defence capability, and it’s a question of finances.”

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Even before the war, Ukraine’s population of around 43 million people was less than a third of Russia’s, meaning that President Putin is able to try and grind down Kyiv’s forces through sheer weight of numbers.

At the start of the invasion there were long queues at military recruitment offices as people rushed to sign up to defend Ukraine. Today, many of those volunteers have been killed or injured or are simply exhausted and Ukraine is struggling to replace them. The government has mobilised people to fight but the exact number is a state secret.

“I’m on the edge of a breakdown,” a 50-year-old Ukrainian soldier told The Times this week, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I don’t know how much longer I can go on.”

Zelensky suggested that a victory for Donald Trump at next year’s presidential elections in the United States could lead to a domino effect of western countries cutting assistance to Ukraine. Trump, who is expected to easily secure the Republican Party nomination, is ahead of President Biden in some opinion polls. He has pledged to resolve the war in Ukraine in 24 hours by forcing Zelensky to “make a deal”; a comment widely seen as meaning he would pressure him to surrender territory to Moscow.

Zelensky’s meeting with President Biden in the White House failed to break the deadlock in Congress

EVAN VUCCI/AP

Although Zelensky did not directly criticise Trump, he said it was clear that he would “have a different policy” towards Ukraine than the Biden administration if he returned to the White House.

“If the policies of the next president, whoever he or she might be, are different, are colder, more inward looking, or more frugal, I think those signals will have a very big impact on the course of the war in Ukraine. Because that’s how the whole world works. If one strong part falls out, the mechanism starts to fall apart,” he said.

Republicans in the US Congress are refusing to approve a further $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine until the White House agrees to immigration reforms. There is also increasing scepticism within the Republican Party that Ukraine would be able to push back Russian forces even if it receives the assistance it is seeking, after its eagerly anticipated summer counteroffensive spluttered to a standstill with only minimal gains achieved.

A trip by Zelensky to Washington this month failed to break the deadlock in Congress, with Biden warning that a failure to provide more weapons would be a “Christmas gift” for Putin.

A listening device was found in the office of General Zaluzhny, the head of Ukraine’s armed forces

VALENTYNA POLISHCHUK/GLOBAL IMAGES UKRAINE/GETTY IMAGES

Last week Hungary blocked a European Union financial aid deal for Ukraine, while fewer than half of the one million artillery shells that the EU promised have been delivered. However, European leaders have promised that they will not abandon Kyiv.

A report by the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, warned that Russia could conquer all of Ukraine if the US and Europe stop providing military assistance. “Such an outcome would bring a battered but triumphant Russian army right up to Nato’s border from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean,” it wrote.

Zelensky’s comments on mobilisation came after a top Ukrainian general said that troops along the entire front line were facing ammunition shortages and had been forced to downsize some operations because of a decrease in foreign assistance. “The volumes we have are not sufficient, given our needs,” General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said.

General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said on Tuesday that Russian forces were on the offensive across eastern Ukraine. “The situation is complicated,” he wrote on Telegram. He added that Russia had superiority in numbers of troops as well as weapons and was trying to push further into the Donetsk region.

Although Russian casualties are estimated by western intelligence to be equivalent to 90 per cent of the 360,000-strong army that invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has managed to replenish its forces by recruiting prisoners and carrying out a nationwide mobilisation last year.

This time last year Zelensky was basking in the success of stunning Ukrainian advances that routed the Russian army in the east, north and south of the country. His star has fallen since then amid speculation of a rift with General Valerii Zaluzhny, the head of Ukraine’s armed forces. He has also been criticised by Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, who accused him of “authoritarian” tendencies.

Zaluzhny angered the presidential administration last month when he told The Economist that the war was at a stalemate, a claim that was disputed by Zelensky. On Monday, the general also criticised Zelensky’s decision to dismiss regional military draft office chiefs as part of a crackdown on corruption. “These were professionals, they knew how to do this, and they are gone,” Zaluzhny said. His comments came after Ukraine’s SBU security service said a listening device had been discovered in Zaluzhny’s office.

Although Zelensky still retains broad support, his trust levels have fallen from 84 per cent to 62 per cent, according to a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. In contrast, Zaluzhny enjoys the trust of 88 per cent of Ukrainians, the same poll indicated.

Officials in Kyiv have denied that there is any conflict between the president and the head of the armed forces. “I have a working relationship with Zaluzhny,” Zelensky said at his press conference. “He must answer for the results on the battlefield.”

He was also asked if the war with Russia could end next year. “No one knows the answer,” he said. “Even respected people, our commanders and our western partners, who say that this is a war for many years, they do not know.”

21. High-tech trench warfare: 5 hard-won lessons-learned for the US from Ukraine

Excerpts:

Yet Ukraine proved it had learned from its own and others’ painful experiences with Russia and armored its digital backbone with extensive help from Western governments and tech firms. Putin’s hackers tried for a knockout blow but found themselves in a protracted slugging match with Ukrainian cyber warriors. In the words of Illia Vitiuk, cybersecurity chief for the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU): “If you have 12 rounds in a boxing match … we are in probably round eight now.”“

There’s been sort of this assumption … that there’s just going to be this massive, disruptive, decisive round of disruptions,” said Michael Martelle, a scholar at the National Security Archive. “The term ‘cyber Pearl Harbor’ just won’t die, even though it really needs to.”

High-tech trench warfare: 5 hard-won lessons-learned for the US from Ukraine - Breaking Defense

From expendable drones, to ad hoc battle networks, to hacker “armies” of volunteers, the war in Ukraine has shown the big-spending US military new ways to fight in the Information Age.

By  SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · December 19, 2023

Ukrainians train with handheld drones. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON – What high-tech weapons really work? What tactics make the difference between victory and death? There’s no test like the test of battle, and the US military has been watching the war in Ukraine with a keen and anxious eye. It’s another question whether the Pentagon bureaucracy is learning the right lessons about cheap drones, real-time intelligence-sharing and the weaponization of the Internet.

The dramatic defeats and victories of 2022 have settled in 2023 into a slow-motion meatgrinder, a conflict where cutting-edge technology combines with brutal battles of attrition over minefields and trench lines. Like the Malayan Emergency before Vietnam, the Spanish Civil War before World War II or the Russo-Japanese War before World War I, Putin’s bloody debacle in Ukraine is full of warnings for the next big conflict we all hope won’t ever come. But if it does come, the US had better have heeded at least these five lessons:

[This article is one of many in a series in which Breaking Defense reporters look back on the most significant (and entertaining) news stories of 2023 and look forward to what 2024 may hold.]

Over more than a decade of guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, American commanders got used to large, lavishly equipped Forward Operating Bases blessed with everything from Burger Kings to live video feeds from surveillance drones. As early as 2016, then-Chief of Army Staff Gen. Mark Milley warned such big, static targets would not last long against a well-armed foe with their own scout drones and long-range artillery. But it took Russia’s 2022 invasion of western Ukraine to drive the point home. Battlefield lessons began informing official Army doctrine and driving decisions on procurement of command, control, and communications gear.

This past May, the three-star chief of the Combined Arms Center, Lt. Gen. Milford Beagle, and two of his subordinates published a Military Review article that grimly called Ukraine “The Graveyard of Command Posts.” I talked to Beagle and his team for more about their dark vision of the future battlefield and how to survive it. Their ideas ranged from cutting-edge technology, like moving non-essential data from bulky “tactical servers” to the cloud, to old-school soldiering tricks, like hiding your command post in the basement of a rubbled building.

“This is something I think all armies are going to wrestle with,” Beagle told Breaking Defense. “The US Army certainly has. [But] we can better protect ourselves, reduce risk, even with the technologies that are emerging out there currently.”

High tech doesn’t always mean high cost. One of the most striking developments in Ukraine — popularized by propaganda videos from both sides — is the ubiquity of drones. But as anti-aircraft defenses and electronic warfare units adapted to the threat, both sides moved away from the larger drones like the Turkish Bayraktar TB2, with its 40-foot-wingspan, towards smaller drones, even Chinese DJI Mavics less than 10 inches wide, that were both harder to target and cheaper to replace. One report estimated that Ukraine alone was losing up to 10,000 drones a month, mostly to Russian jammers disrupting their remote control links.

Even so, five independent experts agreed that it was still more cost-effective to buy cheap drones in bulk and treat them as essentially disposable, rather than try to upgrade them with better defenses against electronic warfare, let alone physical gunfire. “Commercial quadcopter and FPV [First Person View] drones are treated as expendable munitions,” said Samuel Bendett of CNA. “It’s not cost-effective to proof them against EW.”

That’s a hard lesson for the US procurement bureaucracy to learn. “We are losing out on the requirement to get these systems into the hands of soldiers at every echelon,” said retired US Army two-star Patrick Donahoe. “It’s got to be expendable.”

How did so much video of Ukrainian battles get into all our social media feeds in the first place? In large part because both sides crowdsourced propaganda — once the business of state bureaucracies and government-friendly corporate giants — by mustering millions of supporters online to edit, distribute and hype up their combat footage. Just as ubiquitous, cheap drones played a major role in collecting unprecedented quantities of video from the war zone, ubiquitous, cheap internet access (and video editing tools) played a major role in distributing it.

So the internet has become a major tool of wartime mass mobilization in the 21st century, just as then-novel media like radio and newsreels were in World War II. But mass mobilization has its limits, then and now. It’s a lot easier to make people feel like they’re participating in the great crusade than to turn their well-intentioned efforts in practical impacts on the battlefield. That said, sometimes people’s feelings are the point: Public morale has been a make-or-break-it factor in conflicts as different as World War I and Vietnam.

In May, the Center for Strategic & International Studies released a 64-page report bundling research from US and European scholars that delved deep into Ukrainian and Russian efforts to raise “IT armies” and hacker militias. While these groups’ hacks have been technically crude and dubiously effective, contributor Erica Lonergan wrote, “the act of collectively conducting relatively simple cyberattacks thus builds and reinforces community, providing something around which to rally and energize supporters.”

Joint All-Domain Command & Control, or JADC2 — occasionally seen with a “C” at the beginning to add “Combined”— is the Defense Department’s all-encompassing acronym for a future communications system linking all the armed services and, when “combined,” US allies. Aided by artificial intelligence, JADC2 would let units across land, sea, air, outer space and cyberspace (the five “domains”) share targeting data and coordinate strikes in near-real-time.

Actually building such a meta-network has proven a tremendous technical and organizational challenge, although the Air Force, Space Force, Army and (most secretively) the Navy all have conducted intriguing experiments. Yet it’s Ukraine that has actually implemented, in combat, the rapid digital sharing of targeting data from “sensor to shooter,” from a surveillance drone or human observer to an artillery battery or missile launcher. The role of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites in relaying this kind of targeting data is well known. But, the Ukrainians also get at least some guidance from Western intelligence agencies, drawing on their own vast networks of air and space surveillance assets, and Ukraine routinely uses Western software, much of it provided free or bought “off the shelf” from friendly foreign firms.

In some ways, Ukraine’s lack of established “legacy” equipment has given it an advantage over the US, argued the former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, retired Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright. “We have a legacy force that needs to be brought forward,” he said. “You can’t just say, you know, wave your hand and it’s all of a sudden digital. It doesn’t work that way. That is tens of billions of dollars [and] probably ten years to do it effectively.”

Putin is far from the first head of state seduced by the siren of a short, victorious war won with a swift knockout blow. Men marched off to World War I boasting they’d be “home by Christmas.” But it wasn’t just Russian paratroopers and tanks that fell fatally short of their objectives in early 2022: It was Moscow’s vaunted cyber/electronic warfare forces as well.

In 2007, Russian hackers took much of Estonia offline, while in 2014, Russian electronic-warfare troops shut down Ukrainian military radios. The fear among many cyber pundits and US officials was of a “Cyber Pearl Harbor,” where Russia, China or some other sophisticated threat would hack into American or allied networks and bring both government agencies and critical infrastructure to a crashing halt.

Yet Ukraine proved it had learned from its own and others’ painful experiences with Russia and armored its digital backbone with extensive help from Western governments and tech firms. Putin’s hackers tried for a knockout blow but found themselves in a protracted slugging match with Ukrainian cyber warriors. In the words of Illia Vitiuk, cybersecurity chief for the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU): “If you have 12 rounds in a boxing match … we are in probably round eight now.”

“There’s been sort of this assumption … that there’s just going to be this massive, disruptive, decisive round of disruptions,” said Michael Martelle, a scholar at the National Security Archive. “The term ‘cyber Pearl Harbor’ just won’t die, even though it really needs to.”

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · December 19, 2023

22. Analysis For Israel, this war is about more than recovering hostages and destroying Hamas — and it could last a long time by Mick Ryan

Excerpts:

A long war would have several serious implications. Israelis and Palestinians will continue to suffer and die. More broadly, the US and Europe will need to normalise splitting their attention (and resources such as munitions and intelligence) between the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

And for Australia, it will mean that the US administration, which is also about to launch into an election year, will be further distracted from Indo-Pacific affairs.

The full fallout of Hamas' October 7 massacres is yet to be revealed. It is also unclear what actions Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran and Israel will take from here.

But one thing that is certain is that Israel and Hamas are now locked in a deathmatch each is determined to win.

This is an existential conflict, and it is a struggle that may continue for some time to come.

Analysis For Israel, this war is about more than recovering hostages and destroying Hamas — and it could last a long time

ABC.net.au · by Mick Ryan · December 18, 2023

For almost all of its modern history, the state of Israel has engaged in relatively short wars. This is a function of its geography and its small population.

The 1967 and 1973 wars lasted for six and 20 days respectively. Its wars in Gaza have also been short. None of its wars there in 2008, 2012, 2014 or 2021 lasted more than a couple of months. Similarly, the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War lasted a month.

However, despite its preferences, there have been times when Israel has had to fight for much longer periods. These include the first and second intifadas and the Lebanon War from 1982 to 1985.

Today's Israel-Hamas War may also continue for a considerable amount of time. There are three reasons for this.

The first reason is that Israel has extensive aims for the current conflict. While many reports characterise Israel's Gaza objectives in terms of Hamas and hostages, this is only part of the story. In addition to dismantling Hamas and recovering all Israeli hostages taken on October 7, Israel has four other objectives. These need to be understood when considering how long this war might last.

The four additional aims include ensuring there is no threat to it from Gaza in the long term, strengthening the security of Israeli citizens, restoring Israel's deterrence against repeat attacks on civilians, and vitally, restoring the physical and psychological security of border settlements in the south and the north.

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The earthquake of October 7

This last objective is critical to the country. The social contract between Israelis and their military was shattered by IDF failure on October 7. The sense of trust that kibbutz residents close to Gaza had in their army to defend them prior to October 7 evaporated as thousands of Hamas operatives engaged in their brutal rampage of murder, rape, looting and kidnapping. This trust cannot be re-established in weeks or even months. Nor are the other objectives likely to be achieved in this time.

The second reason why this may be a long war is that October 7 was an earthquake in Israeli security affairs and those of the wider region. The effects of that day will continue to reverberate for some time. The impacts, besides the current Gaza war, include the unanticipated expansion of the Houthi threat south of Israel, increasing tensions in the West Bank, and the ongoing attacks across the northern border of Israel.

Australia denounces extremist Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank

Australia joins more than a dozen countries and the EU in expressing "grave concern" over violent attacks.

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More broadly, beyond the borders of Israel there has been a step-up in attacks against US bases across the Middle East, as well as a global surge of misinformation and propaganda about the Israeli operation in Gaza. Each of these conflicts, part of an overall conflagration that sees no sign of abating soon, is complex. None have simple solutions and all will take some time to resolve.

Finally, this is likely to be a long war because that is what Hamas wants. It's why it conducted its attacks against Israel in the manner it did. To bring the Palestinian issue back to the fore, the organisation goaded Israel into a broader conflict. In this respect, they have succeeded.

The war in Gaza would be significantly shortened if Hamas released the hostages. This would also save the lives of many Palestinians. But now they have their war and the opportunity to conduct a global information campaign against Israel, Hamas is unlikely to take a backward step.

A long war would come at a heavy cost

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar studied Israel and learned Hebrew during his time in prison. He understands the Israelis well. He knows that if he can sustain the war, Hamas might continue degrading Israeli citizens' confidence in their military's ability to secure border regions. This will have an economic impact, eventually increase domestic political instability and increase migration out of Israel by families who no longer feel safe there.

All of these, at least in the mind of Sinwar, help achieve the Hamas goal of extinguishing the state of Israel.

Israel's efforts to combat this means weeks of heavier combat in Gaza. Even when the intensity of ground combat inevitably reduces, Israel will undertake months or years of raids and air strikes to continue dismantling Hamas.

Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar.(AP: Adel Hana)

A long war would have several serious implications. Israelis and Palestinians will continue to suffer and die. More broadly, the US and Europe will need to normalise splitting their attention (and resources such as munitions and intelligence) between the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

And for Australia, it will mean that the US administration, which is also about to launch into an election year, will be further distracted from Indo-Pacific affairs.

The full fallout of Hamas' October 7 massacres is yet to be revealed. It is also unclear what actions Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran and Israel will take from here.

But one thing that is certain is that Israel and Hamas are now locked in a deathmatch each is determined to win.

This is an existential conflict, and it is a struggle that may continue for some time to come.

Mick Ryan is a strategist and retired Australian Army major general. He served in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a strategist on the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is also a non-resident fellow of the Lowy Institute and at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who he recently travelled to Israel with.

ABC.net.au · by Mick Ryan · December 18, 2023

23. Can Alex Garland’s Civil War somehow be apolitical?

Quite a bit of analysis based on a movie trailer. It will be fascinating to see how this movie is received and what controversy it sparks.

I have always asked those who think there is a coming civil war to tell me what it looks like? I would never envision a Texas-California alliance.

But the question we should ask ourselves is whether we want a civil war or whether we are committed to making our republic and our great American experiment continue to work. If we support and defend the Constitution of the US we should be working together to ensure it continues to function. What kind of rule would we rather have in place of our Constitution? Will violence ensure continued constitutional rule? (I think not)

Can Alex Garland’s Civil War somehow be apolitical?

Polygon · by Clayton Ashley · December 19, 2023

Ex Machina director Alex Garland looks like he will try to do the impossible when his new film Civil War hits theaters in 2024: depict a second civil war in the United States without directly engaging with the politics of why that war is taking place. It’s not hard to see why Garland might want to avoid thorny connections between the movie and the very real politicians and political groups openly calling for succession and open conflict in the United States. Maybe he believes there’s enough value in the arresting visuals of a modern America under siege.

That said, it’s still audacious to try to remove the politics from even a fictional civil war, a fight typically born out of a political disagreement that can’t be resolved by any other means besides open conflict. Whatever disagreement is at the heart of the conflict, which the first trailer carefully avoids pinning down, puts California and Texas in the same boat, which sounds unthinkable at the present moment. And for that reason, a map graphic created based on the trailer has obviously gone viral.

You obviously want to live in the Florida Alliance. pic.twitter.com/3EGQ6cpqkK

— Bizlet (@bizlet7) December 18, 2023

It’s not that I’m not open to a movie depicting a bipartisan internecine war in the United States — I just want to know how we got there. Wars start for material reasons, which is why, not to be pedantic, they’re typically political.

Yes, we’ve seen attempts to abstract politics in fictional wars, by fans and creatives alike. Often the politics of fantasy and science fiction warfare are more metaphorical or allegorical. Sometimes war movies focus on the intimate, interpersonal effects that wars have on people with the politics staying more abstract. Sometimes there’s a Godzilla.

But Garland’s movie is called Civil War, and it has nation-spanning scope. It has Nick Offerman as the president making speeches and the Lincoln Memorial getting blown up. It’s not an abstract or philosophical question to ask in a country whose most bloody conflict was its first civil war, which was fought over a very hotly contested human rights issue. Apologies, I want to know why that country would devolve into civil war for a second time! Especially when today political parties are openly calling into question how we teach that very history.

It’s a saving grace that Twitter won’t really be around to supercharge the discourse for this movie, which, whether it delivers answers or not, will stir up inane conversations about which state has more military bases. We’ve had more than enough armchair strategists making ridiculous assumptions about how a “red state-blue state” conflict would actually play out. Leaving open the big question of motivation does not feel like a bold gesture.

It’s not as if we’re lacking for possibilities here. I’m not even talking about next year’s election. What about climate change turning the central United States into a desert, forcing east and west into a resource war, a la The Water Knife? Or a president openly refusing to assist states from the opposite political party after a massive ecological disaster, fracturing the country on political lines? Or a simmering religious and legal conflict over reproductive rights breaking out into open conflict?

Civil War, at least as presented in the trailer, seems to focus on how little people in the United States seem to care about the conflicts its empire perpetuates around the world… until it comes home. Garland wouldn’t be the first to make that point: other films and graphic novels certainly have, though through engaging directly with the politics of the day, not hiding from them. This feels especially important when making a movie that draws on the wounds of the American civil war, wounds the country has still not fully healed from. (For a shocking but fascinating deep dive on that topic, check out this Spike Lee-produced mockumentary Confederate States of America)

In our current, fragile state, we might need something more daring than an apolitical action movie about a new civil war. I am willing to see where Garland takes us, but right now I have a map — and it’s sending me spiraling.

Polygon · by Clayton Ashley · December 19, 2023

24. U.S. Naval Deterrence Is Going, Going, Maybe Even Gone

We should pay attention to one of our foremost naval experts and strategists, Jerry Hendrix.

Conclusion:

America’s failure to expand and maintain its fleet, or stand by its word, may have already entirely eroded U.S. naval deterrence. The Navy’s budget, size and force architecture all need urgent attention from Congress if the U.S. is to preserve its ability to deter its enemies. Failure to do so imperils global trade as well as America’s place in the world and the safety of its people.

U.S. Naval Deterrence Is Going, Going, Maybe Even Gone

A new report expounds on the clear lesson of recent Houthi attacks: America isn’t very scary anymore.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-naval-deterrence-is-going-going-maybe-even-gone-iran-houthi-attacks-red-sea-097cf61f?utm

By Jerry Hendrix

Dec. 19, 2023 6:29 pm ET

The U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Carney transits the Suez Canal, Oct. 18. PHOTO: US NAVY/REUTERS

Recently the news broke that the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Carney had fended off several missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea. While Biden administration officials tried to frame the battle, for a battle it surely was, as the Carney’s defending nearby merchant ships, it seems clear that Iranian-supplied Houthis were targeting the Carney directly as well as the commercial ships it was accompanying.

This was only one of several recent assaults on American naval assets in the region. They have happened despite the presence of the Ford carrier strike group in the eastern Mediterranean and the Eisenhower strike group in the Gulf of Aden—a conventional level of naval deterrence that should have reduced aggressive activities by U.S. enemies. Instead, Iran attacked American ships and allies.

These events show that American naval deterrence is failing, and a recent report from the Sagamore Institute concludes that it could soon evaporate.

The report, “Measuring and Modeling Naval Presence,” models the effect of various ships and combinations of ships across a mix of maritime regions. The model pitted an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the U.S. Navy’s current utility platform of choice, against a People’s Liberation Army Navy Luyang III destroyer in several locations ranging from the high seas to the waters approaching the Taiwan Strait. It suggested that the deterrent value of American Navy ships operating in close proximity to a determined adversary has recently declined.

While the report said the American Navy currently maintains “presence dominance,” the ability to maintain its values and interests upon the high seas, it also indicates that the U.S. margin of naval leadership is shrinking and America could swiftly lose its ability to maintain mare liberum, the free sea. This would have huge negative implications for the global economic system, which depends on open seas to move 80% of the volume of the world’s $100 trillion global domestic product.

The causes of this sudden decline lie not in the physical characteristics of individual American warships. The Burke-class destroyers, which include the USS Carney, remain the best destroyers currently in active service worldwide. But the shrinking American fleet—down from a Reagan administration high of 594 ships in 1987 to 291 ships today—and the rapid expansion of the Chinese navy—composed of 340 warships today and expected to rise to 400 ships by 2025—has placed the value of American presence in question.

Noncorporeal factors keep the U.S. fleet competitive in conventional deterrence—namely the global perception that Americans are willing to defend their interests and that their military is manned, equipped and trained to go to war at a minute’s notice. Peace through strength requires more than numbers. But the Biden administration’s numerous foreign-policy setbacks in Afghanistan, Ukraine and the Middle East have undercut Americans’ will to fight and displayed a weakness of leadership and strategy to the country’s enemies. It is also becoming obvious that Washington hasn’t maintained its existing battle force. Even replacement weapons for ship’s magazines are in short supply. The world can see this, which might explain Iran’s boldness in the face of U.S. naval patrols.

America’s failure to expand and maintain its fleet, or stand by its word, may have already entirely eroded U.S. naval deterrence. The Navy’s budget, size and force architecture all need urgent attention from Congress if the U.S. is to preserve its ability to deter its enemies. Failure to do so imperils global trade as well as America’s place in the world and the safety of its people.

Mr. Hendrix, a retired U.S. Navy captain, is a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute.

WSJ Opinion: Takeaways From the 2023 Reagan National Defense Survey

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The '2023 Reagan National Defense Survey' highlights China as the greatest national security threat to the U.S. and finds strong support for arming Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Images: Zuma Press/AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the December 20, 2023, print edition as 'U.S. Naval Deterrence Is Going, Going, Maybe Even Gone'.

​25. The 52 definitive rules of flying

A PSA from the Washington Post. Actually there are many good rules that we should hopefully already know and be following.

See the properly formatted article at the link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/interactive/2023/flying-airport-etiquette/?utm

The 52 definitive rules of flying

A HANDBOOK FOR BEHAVING LIKE A CIVILIZED PERSON, FROM AIRPORT ARRIVAL TO LANDING

By Natalie Compton and 

Andrea Sachs

Dec. 14 at 9:00 a.m.

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Humans are a basically civilized species. We know not to go barefoot in restaurants, treat our friends’ living rooms like landfills or nap on the shoulder of our office cubicle mate. And yet, as soon as we step inside an airport or onto a plane, our manners seem to vanish. Perhaps it’s the delirium of travel or the belief that everyday rules do not apply to vacations, much like calories don’t count on holiday and foreign currencies aren’t real money. Or maybe there has never been a canon for proper passenger behavior — until now.

Etiquette is more important than ever these days. For most of this year, more than 2 million people have been streaming through security checkpoints each day, according to the Transportation Security Administration. One ill-placed limb on the arm rest or acrid hard-boiled egg can sour the air travel experience for many.

To help you become a model passenger, we compiled 52 rules that cover every step in the flying process, from arriving at the airport to exiting the aircraft. To reinforce these tenets, we inserted several pop quizzes. Ace these tests and adopt these behaviors and you will earn your wings — angel’s, not pilot’s.

Pre-flight

1

1

Dress comfortably, but not too comfortably.

Going to the airport should look a lot like going to a doctor’s office. You’re out in public, surrounded by other people. You don’t have to impress anybody — we’re not insisting on going full suit — but consider shooting for a notch or two above the bare minimum.

And for the record, the best way to avoid getting kicked off your flight for wearing a controversial shirt is to skip the controversial shirt.

2

2

Don’t ask your friends for a ride to the airport.

No one likes fighting airport traffic. But if your best friend (or partner or parent) asks you to take them, do it.

3

3

Don’t show up late and expect to cut the line.

Living for the thrill of cutting it close means accepting your fate when it doesn’t work out. You don’t get to jump the line at baggage drop and check in, and you certainly don’t deserve to be rescued at security, either. If you’re late, prepare to wait.

4

4

Abandon your partner if they don’t have TSA PreCheck.

How many times have you reminded them to get TSA PreCheck? And how many times have they let you down? Not this time, not again. Tell them you’ll see them on the other side.

[Why you need a travel uniform]

5

5

Get your life together before getting in line at security.

If you’re not PreCheck, the stakes of the security line are higher. There are more moving parts to juggle, more opportunities to slow down the delicate flow of traffic, more opportunities to get yelled at. That is to say: lace-up knee-high boots are for your checked bag, not grinding the procession to a halt while you figure out how to de-boot. Have your jangly belongings out of your pockets, liquids dumped and outerwear off by the time you walk up to the X-ray, please.

QUIZ

Who deserves a ride to the airport?

Your new love interest

Your parents

Your kids

All of the above

6

6

Peanut butter is a liquid. Don’t even try.

Trying to sneak contraband in your carry-on slows down the line, an infraction that deserves a place among the Seven Deadly Sins. Save yourself and look up TSA’s rules before packing something egregious, like a full-sized shampoo bottle. Remember that if you can spill it, spread it, spray it, pump it or pour it, TSA will likely chuck it if it’s over 3.4 oz.

7

7

Pack your snacks, but not a tuna sandwich.

To quell your hangry self, you will need a snack plan. Unfortunately, you can’t rely on Starbucks; those wraparound lines will only poke the beast. Carry a mix of foods that are portable but not pungent. If your cat likes it, consider it a no.

8

8

Airport beers are acceptable at 10 a.m.

So are 10 a.m. burgers. Because the airport is a parallel dimension where the normal rules that govern humanity are cast aside. But some normal rules still exist, so don’t get blackout drunk at the airport bar.

9

9

BYO water bottle.

Cabin air can be as dry as a desert, so you’ll need to hydrate. Bottled water sold at airports is either wildly overpriced or, if you’re flying out of Los Angeles or San Francisco, banned. Unless you’re a camel, bring a reusable water vessel that you can fill up after security. Stick with legal liquids: no booze.

10

10

Tip where tipping is due.

You can skip the tipping screen when you buy a pack of gum at Hudson News, but don’t forget the Uber driver, wheelchair porter, curbside luggage valet and airport shuttle driver.

11

11

Leave the speakerphone gossip for home.

Believe it or not, you can take FaceTime calls with headphones, too.

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12

12

And absolutely no calls in the bathroom.

Seriously, stop doing this.

13

13

We love your dog, but he needs to mind his manners, too.

The airport is not doggy day care, so don’t let your pet roam free. Use this opportunity to show off your pup’s leash skills, which are often better than toddlers on tethers.

14

14

The gate is not your living room.

You’ve seen gate campers — bags everywhere, limbs draped over chairs. Maintain some spatial awareness for those around you, and stop taking up two extra seats with your bags. If you do picnic, clean up your trash before boarding.

15

15

It’s not your bedroom, either.

See No. 14 re: spatial awareness. But we get it, we’ve been there. Sometimes you have to sleep at the airport. Just don’t do it at a busy gate.

[It’s almost 2024. Don’t travel without considering the new tech etiquette.]

QUIZ

Who gets a tip at the airport?

Rental car agents

Flight crew

Hudson News cashiers

Wheelchair assistants

16

16

Don’t be an outlet hog.

We all depend desperately on technology (can you even get on a flight without a smartphone these days?), so show your fellow traveler some empathy if you’re dealing with a crowded outlet situation. If you’re charging a laptop and a phone, consolidate those devices and charge your phone via that laptop instead of using two precious public plugs. Even better, pack a portable charger so you don’t have to enter the fray in the first place.

17

17

You can’t self-upgrade your boarding group.

It’s printed right there on your boarding pass (and yes, your mobile one, too). There’s no escaping your boarding group destiny, unless of course you’re one of the special groups announced by the gate agent. Avoid gate lice tendencies to crowd the area until you’re summoned.

18

18

Sorry, your crossbody bag is a personal item.

It’s two carry-ons per person, and they mean it. Don’t try to hide it under your coat. Consolidate before you board.

19

19

Accept your fate if you’re told to check your bag.

Gate agents sometimes require passengers to check their bags because of diminishing overhead bin space and time constraints. Don’t pout or kick the wheels of your rollaboard. Graciously accept the bag tag, roll your belongings down the jet bridge and use your free hands for greater good, such as helping another passenger.

[Do you know how to tip? Take this quiz to find out.]

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The Flight

20

20

Say hi to your flight crew.

Imagine the plane is a friend’s home. When you enter it, give the hosts — in this case, the flight attendants — a warm greeting. A cheerful welcome sets the tone for your flight, and it might even earn you some bonus points as the teacher’s pet.

21

21

Find your seat, and get out of the aisle.

Hopefully when you did that consolidating, you prepared yourself for a smooth landing once you found your seat. You should be able to toss your carry-on in the overhead space near you and be ready to go with a personal item — not bobbling around a bunch of bags, looking for your headphones, holding up the boarding process.

22

22

Don’t touch other people’s stuff.

You found a place to put your bag in the overhead bin but it’ll require a little Tetris to pull off. Because you never know who’s about to fly off the handle, ask around before moving someone’s stuff. Better yet, ask the flight attendant to help negotiate space.

23

23

Respect bin space.

Most crowded flights are pressed for bin space (see above), so keep your storage conservative. Overhead compartments are primarily for carry-ons that don’t fit under the seat. Everything else is extra and should be stored up top only when everyone has boarded and at least attempted to store those bigger bags first. Then you can stake more square footage.

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24

24

No one wants to switch seats with you, so don’t ask.

Should you ever switch assigned seats? It depends on who you ask. Unless you’re offering someone the chance to swap their economy middle seat sadness for something better (an aisle in comfort plus? A window seat in business?), just sit where you’re booked.

25

25

Take a hint if your neighbor doesn’t want to chat.

Plenty of travelers are down to chat — and plenty more think doing so is akin to committing a crime. Look for signs to distinguish one group from the other. They can be obvious: headphones in, eye mask on, a T-shirt that says “Don’t talk to me.”

26

26

Flight attendants are the law.

Despite what you may think, a flight attendant’s job is to keep you safe, not serve you drinks. Listen to their briefings, respect their orders and please take your headphones off when they’re talking to you.

27

27

Don’t try to open the emergency door.

There are a zillion other ways to get attention; don’t go with “guy who tries to open airplane door.” First of all, it won’t open at cruising altitude. Secondly, even the attempt is a serious offense.

QUIZ

Reclining your airport seat is okay:

When someone in front of you has reclined. Chain reaction.

During a red eye

Always, who cares?

28

28

Keep your limbs to yourself.

As they say: Point knees ahead, and do not spread. (Okay, no one says that but maybe they should start.)

29

29

No reclining. No exceptions.

Okay, there are a few exceptions. You may recline on: redeye flights; if the seat behind you is empty, or inhabited by a small child; if you ask the person behind you and they don’t mind. But that’s it!

30

30

Middle seat gets both armrests. Period.

This rule is so important that it should be engraved on the doorway of the plane. Does the middle-seat passenger have to use the arm rests? No. But should they be made available to the cursed soul trapped in airplane purgatory? Yes. It’s not a conversation. It’s a given.

[The rules of the middle seat]

31

31

The aisle seat is the gatekeeper of the row.

You’ve chosen this life. If your neighbors need to use the bathroom, it’s your burden to bear to get up as many times as they need. It doesn’t mean your seatmates should abuse this privilege, though.

32

32

The window seat controls the shade.

Window seat: You’re the boss. Everyone else: If you wanted to gaze out the window, you should have booked the window.

33

33

Keep your shoes on.

And your socks, you animal.

34

34

Your seat is not a spa.

That means absolutely no nail clipping, nail filing or nail painting in your seat. Ditto for spraying perfumes and colognes, teeth brushing and shaving. Before you partake in any airplane grooming, ask yourself “what’s the risk of [this product/my rogue DNA] landing on my neighbor?” Respect innocent bystanders accordingly.

35

35

Watch what you’re watching.

Everyone can see your screen, so choose your content wisely. And while you’re at it, choose that content on your screen gently. There’s usually a head on the other side of that seat back screen you’re jabbing.

36

36

No headphones, no sound.

Listening to music or TV without headphones is an ick so offensive, airlines actually have policies against it.

37

37

Soup is not a plane food.

There are plenty of foods out there that do pair well for plane travel. There are plenty more that don’t, such as foods prone to splashing, wafting or crumbling into a million pieces when you bite into it.

38

38

The flight attendant button is not a vodka tonic button.

Consider it the 911 call of the sky — something to use in case of emergency, not in case of thirst to quench.

39

39

No fighting.

Do we even have to say it? (Apparently, we do.)

40

40

Your neighbor’s shoulder is not your pillow.

You’re not watching a romantic movie with your sweetheart, so keep all of your body parts inside your personal space. If your head tends to loll, buy a neck pillow that will double as a buffer.

41

41

Respect the seat belt sign.

When the pilot switches on the seat belt sign, resist the urge to use the lavatory or visit a friend you have been ignoring since takeoff. Strapping in keeps everyone safe. In fact, even when the icon is not lit up, keep your belt on in the event of surprise bumps.

42

42

Vaping is considered smoking.

And neither is allowed on planes.

43

43

The beverage cart is not an open bar at a wedding.

A drink can calm your nerves, but a drunk can ruin the flight. Airlines don’t limit the number of cocktails you can order, but flight attendants will cut you off if you appear tipsy. Also, no dipping into your duty-free booze. It’s the law.

44

44

Don’t treat the bathroom like Keith Moon’s hotel room.

Leave the lavatory in pristine condition. Fully flush the toilet, clean up any splashes or toothpaste gobs and toss your paper towel in the proper bin. Before exiting, check your shoes for any hitchhiking squares of toilet paper.

45

45

Don’t yell at crying babies.

What is helpful: Showing the parent some compassion, or turning on your noise-canceling headphones and letting it go. What isn’t: Telling parents to make their baby shut up. Kids exist. They’re on planes, in airports. Get over it. You might even get a goody bag out of the deal.

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Post-flight

QUIZ

It’s okay to stand up and deplane:

As soon as you land

When the seat belt sign goes off

When the row in front of you has exited

46

46

If you clap when the plane lands, be prepared for side-eye.

Unless cheering is a cultural tradition, resist the urge to turn the cabin into a sports stadium. Save your appreciation for disembarkation. (See No. 50.)

47

47

Don’t crowd the aisle.

You hear the ding. You want to flee the aircraft. That’s understandable. But instead of giving into that Pavlovian response to make a run for it, respect the order of deplaning and wait until the row before you has exited. Bonus points if you let travelers with tight connections go ahead of you.

48

48

Just like national parks, leave no trace.

Just because you can leave your trash behind when you deplane doesn’t mean you should. Clean up after yourself, like an adult. And if your kid makes a mess, say by spilling popcorn everywhere, it’s your responsibility to clean it up. Flight attendants and cleaning crews already have enough to do in the mere minutes they have to turn a plane before its next flight.

49

49

You’ve got two hands. Lend one to your fellow travelers.

When retrieving your carry-on from the bin, offer to grab your neighbors’ belongings as well, especially if they are on the short or frail side. If someone’s bag is behind you, organize a fire brigade, so they don’t have to swim upstream.

50

50

Say bye and thank you to your crew.

Humanity, remember?

51

51

Don’t crowd the baggage carousel.

Baggage claim pickup can be a totally unremarkable experience, and it can also be a madhouse. Like when hordes of panicked travelers rush the carousel like it’s about to disappear. Civility goes out the window as pushy strangers vie to get their bag first in a contest that doesn’t exist. Don’t join the fray. Sit back, wait until you see your bag, then proceed to the conveyor belt like a professional.

52

52

Don’t ask someone to pick you up.

It’s way worse than drop-off.

About this story

Editing by Amanda Finnegan and Gabe Hiatt. Art direction and design by Katty Huertas. Design editing by Christine Ashack. Copy editing by Jamie Zega. Illustrations by iStock.

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