Quotes of the Day:
"The Revolution... was the result of a mature and reflecting preference for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence."
- Alexis De Tocqueville
“It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.”
- James Baldwin (1924-1987), author
"The first article of the Bill of Rights provides that Congress shall make no law respecting freedom of worship or abridging freedom of opinion. There are some among us who seem to feel that this provision goes too far, even for the purpose of preventing tyranny over the mind of man. Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty. The external threat to liberty should not drive us into suppressing liberty at home. Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination."
- Harry Truman
1. US Army Creates Single Vaccine Effective Against All COVID, SARS Variants
2. Putin’s Ukraine calculation
3. Putin does not need to invade Ukraine to get his way
4. Harvard professor Charles Lieber convicted of lying about ties to China
5. Biden administration starts denying Afghans' requests to enter U.S.
6. Making Indo-Pacific alliances fit for deterrence
7. Japan agrees to higher tab for hosting US forces over next five years
8. Excerpt: Autobiography tells story of ‘Special Duties Pilot’
9. Putin says Russia has 'nowhere to retreat' over Ukraine
10. Exclusive: U.N. proposing paying nearly $6 million to Taliban for security
11. Biden administration must step up support of Afghan visa processing
12. How weather is playing a role in information warfare
13. What the Chinese Think They Know About US Nuclear Strategy
14. America Is Losing the Ball on White Supremacist Terror Groups
15. Opinion | Putin wants us to negotiate over the heads of our allies. Washington shouldn’t fall for it.
16. China’s Spat With Lithuania Is a Test for the World’s Democracies
17. Sticks and Stones: Realism, Constructivism, Rhetoric, and Great Power Competition
18. Checkmate. Putin has the West cornered
19. The Berlin Crisis, Ukraine, and the Five Percent Problem
20. The Problem with Drones that Everyone Saw Coming
21. Almost 50 Republicans back Navy SEAL lawsuit over vaccine mandate
1. US Army Creates Single Vaccine Effective Against All COVID, SARS Variants
This is one of the great public goods of the US military. From Malaria tro hopefully now COVID/SARS. Yes it is a readiness issue for the military but if this vaccine is proven then it will be invaluable for the public.
US Army Creates Single Vaccine Effective Against All COVID, SARS Variants
Within weeks, Walter Reed researchers expect to announce that human trials show success against Omicron—and even future strains.
Within weeks, scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to announce that they have developed a vaccine that protects people from COVID-19 and all its variants, even Omicron, as well as from previous SARS-origin viruses that have killed millions of people worldwide.
The achievement is the result of almost two years of work on the virus. The Army lab received its first DNA sequencing of the COVID-19 virus in early 2020. Very early on, Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch decided to focus on making a vaccine that would work against not just the existing strain but all of its potential variants as well.
Walter Reed’s Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, completed animal trials earlier this year with positive results. Phase 1 of human trials, which tested the vaccine against Omicron and the other variants, wrapped up this month, again with positive results that are undergoing final review, Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch, said in an exclusive interview with Defense One.
Unlike existing vaccines, Walter Reed’s SpFN uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces for its vaccine, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein.
“It's very exciting to get to this point for our entire team and I think for the entire Army as well,” Modjarrad said.
The vaccine’s human trials took longer than expected, he said, because the lab needed to test the vaccine on subjects who had neither been vaccinated nor previously infected with COVID. The rapid spread of the Delta and Omicron variants made that difficult.
“With Omicron, there's no way really to escape this virus. You're not going to be able to avoid it. So I think pretty soon either the whole world will be vaccinated or have been infected,” Modjarrad said.
The next step is seeing how the new pan-coronavirus vaccine interacts with people who were previously vaccinated or previously sick. Walter Reed will be hiring a yet-to-be-named industry partner for that wider rollout.
“We need to evaluate it in the real-world setting and try to understand how does the vaccine perform in much larger numbers of individuals who have already been vaccinated with something else initially…or already been sick,” Modjarrad said, adding that the new vaccine will still need to undergo phase 2 and phase 3 trials.
He said nearly all of Walter Reed’s 2,500 researchers have had some role in the vaccine’s nearly-two-year development.
“We decided to take a look at the long game rather than just only focusing on the original emergence of SARS, and instead understand that viruses mutate, there will be variants that emerge, future viruses that may emerge in terms of new species. Our platform and approach will equip people to be prepared for that.”
2. Putin’s Ukraine calculation
Excerpts:
Is a diplomatic resolution still possible? The path is narrow, and time might be running out. There are proposals to place limits on, and improve the transparency of, conventional forces in Europe. But Russia has rejected many such proposals in the past, and complex arms negotiations would take considerable time. These diplomatic options would not satisfy Putin’s wish to create a ‘Greater Russia’, suggesting that the Kremlin will not rule out military options.
These come in many shapes and sizes. A full-scale Russian invasion would undoubtedly lead to an open-ended conflict that, whatever the original intention, is bound to spill over Ukraine’s borders. If that happened, all options would be on the table for NATO. Severe sanctions and other measures would further squeeze Russia’s already dim economic prospects—even if it secures support from China. More to the point, NATO would finally roar forward to Russia’s border by deepening its presence in its member states that border Russia.
Given this foreseeable outcome, an invasion would be folly in the extreme. But this scenario cannot be ruled out. The Kremlin’s record of profound mistakes in its policy towards Ukraine is long. And while many in Moscow already doubt the rationality of Putin’s aggressive revisionism, their voices carry no weight.
Another more imminent possibility is that the Kremlin will try to provoke Ukraine into doing something that would justify a smaller-scale invasion of the kind we saw in 2014 and 2015. But the escalation risk would be severe, and even a small invasion would expose Russia to severely damaging consequences. Either way, Putin has embarked on a dangerous path.
It is not too late to prevent Putin’s script from becoming a tragedy. Let us hope that he has not been reading Chekhov, who famously advised against introducing a gun in the first act unless it will be used in the second.
Putin’s Ukraine calculation | The Strategist
As reports pile up about Russia’s military mobilisation on Ukraine’s border and the Kremlin’s diplomatic demands, questions abound. What is going on? What will come next? Will Russia invade?
In fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin is following an eight-year-old script.
In the northern autumn of 2013, Putin’s government launched a multifaceted offensive to prevent Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia from signing free-trade agreements with the European Union. That set off a gradually deepening crisis that would profoundly alter Ukraine’s domestic politics, Russia’s position in Europe and the future of NATO. Less than a year later, Russia annexed Crimea and embarked on a barely disguised effort to dismantle the rest of Ukraine. The Kremlin then launched two more incursions into eastern Ukraine to save the separatist statelets that it had managed to set up there.
Since then, 14,000 people have died in this low-level ‘frozen’ conflict. The EU and the US regularly renew their sanctions on Russia, and the United Nations General Assembly regularly condemns Russia’s behaviour and reaffirms the sanctity of state borders. Not only did Putin fail to derail the EU–Ukraine free-trade agreement; he also managed to transform Ukraine from a friendly neighbour into a country that regards Russia as dangerous and hostile. Invading other countries is a historically proven way to make lasting enemies.
Putin now faces the embarrassing prospect of being remembered as the Russian leader who lost Ukraine. He will have set his country back three centuries, to the time before Peter the Great. Even the collapse of the Soviet Union eventually may come to seem less important than Putin’s blunders over the past decade.
Nonetheless, Putin appears to have spent his Covid-19 isolation reading history. This summer, he produced a remarkable essay effectively calling for a greater Slavic empire. Suggesting that power over Ukraine and Belarus ultimately lies within the Kremlin’s walls, he made clear that he intends to recover what his previous miscalculations lost.
The subsequent evolution of Putin’s thinking is unknown. But it is plausible that he spotted weakness in the chaotic US exit from Afghanistan and surmised that America is not keen on yet another foreign entanglement. Whatever Putin’s reasoning, he has since abandoned further dialogue with Ukraine’s leaders, sent German and French mediators packing and concentrated a massive number of tanks in the border region. His goal is to pressure the US to agree to a series of radical demands for restructuring European security; chief among these is that the US rescind its promise, first made in 2008, that Ukraine will someday be invited to join NATO.
Putin’s strategic intent in 2014—to stop the agreement with the EU—ultimately failed. Now, his immediate focus is on regional security issues. Russian officials and state media have been issuing shrill warnings and spinning ominous tales about the US placing missiles in Ukraine to strike Moscow. There is talk of genocide against Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population, and of Ukraine’s imminent entry into NATO.
None of these claims bears the faintest resemblance to the truth. But opinion polls suggest that the propaganda has been effective. Around 39% of Russians believe that war is imminent, and this figure is likely to grow as the Kremlin continues to stoke fear among the population.
In the meantime, Putin has tasked his diplomats with securing US and EU agreement to his maximalist formal demands for a new security order. The manoeuvre is eerily reminiscent of the infamous deal-making done at Yalta in 1945, when the Allied powers discussed how Germany and Europe would be carved up after World War II.
Yet while a further expansion of NATO is not in the cards, the alliance will not accept an arrangement that denies any country the right to shape its own destiny. This issue is bigger than Ukraine. The president of Finland, whose country shares a long border with Russia, has been vocal in pointing out that the option of applying for NATO membership is key to Finnish security. Though he has no intention of launching a membership bid, he can’t allow any outside power to limit his country’s sovereignty. Likewise, countries across Central and Eastern Europe fear that giving in to one Kremlin demand will only invite more.
Is a diplomatic resolution still possible? The path is narrow, and time might be running out. There are proposals to place limits on, and improve the transparency of, conventional forces in Europe. But Russia has rejected many such proposals in the past, and complex arms negotiations would take considerable time. These diplomatic options would not satisfy Putin’s wish to create a ‘Greater Russia’, suggesting that the Kremlin will not rule out military options.
These come in many shapes and sizes. A full-scale Russian invasion would undoubtedly lead to an open-ended conflict that, whatever the original intention, is bound to spill over Ukraine’s borders. If that happened, all options would be on the table for NATO. Severe sanctions and other measures would further squeeze Russia’s already dim economic prospects—even if it secures support from China. More to the point, NATO would finally roar forward to Russia’s border by deepening its presence in its member states that border Russia.
Given this foreseeable outcome, an invasion would be folly in the extreme. But this scenario cannot be ruled out. The Kremlin’s record of profound mistakes in its policy towards Ukraine is long. And while many in Moscow already doubt the rationality of Putin’s aggressive revisionism, their voices carry no weight.
Another more imminent possibility is that the Kremlin will try to provoke Ukraine into doing something that would justify a smaller-scale invasion of the kind we saw in 2014 and 2015. But the escalation risk would be severe, and even a small invasion would expose Russia to severely damaging consequences. Either way, Putin has embarked on a dangerous path.
It is not too late to prevent Putin’s script from becoming a tragedy. Let us hope that he has not been reading Chekhov, who famously advised against introducing a gun in the first act unless it will be used in the second.
3. Putin does not need to invade Ukraine to get his way
Yep. But we default to planning for invasion (which may of course be the worst case so it does have to be planned for). But there are alternatives but these depend on what the objective is for Ukrain? What is Putin's description of the acceptable, durable political arrangement that will protect his interests satisfactorily?
For alternative actions and activities all we need to do is read Gerasimov.
Russian New Generation Warfare and the Future of War:
As a result, it follows that the main guidelines for developing Russian military capabilities by 2020 are:
i. From direct destruction to direct influence;
ii. from direct annihilation of the opponent to its inner decay;
iii. from a war with weapons and technology to a culture war;
iv. from a war with conventional forces to specially prepared forces and commercial irregular groupings;
v. from the traditional (3D) battleground to information/psychological warfare and war of perceptions;
vi. from direct clash to contactless war;
vii. from a superficial and compartmented war to a total war, including the enemy’s internal side and base;
viii. from war in the physical environment to a war in the human consciousness and in cyberspace;
ix. from symmetric to asymmetric warfare by a combination of political, economic, information, technological, and ecological campaigns;
x. From war in a defined period of time to a state of permanent war as the natural condition in national life.
http://www.naa.mil.lv/~/media/NAA/AZPC/Publikacijas/PP%2002-2014.ashx
Thus, the Russian view of modern warfare is based on the idea that the main battlespace is the mind and, as a result, new-generation wars are to be dominated by information and psychological warfare, in order to achieve superiority in troops and weapons control, morally and psychologically depressing the enemy’s armed forces personnel and civil population. The main objective is to reduce the necessity for deploying hard military power to the minimum necessary, making the opponent’s military and civil population support the attacker to the detriment of their own government and country. It is interesting to note the notion of permanent war, since it denotes a permanent enemy. In the current geopolitical structure, the clear enemy is Western civilization, its values, culture, political system, and ideology.
http://www.naa.mil.lv/~/media/NAA/AZPC/Publikacijas/PP%2002-2014.ashx
Putin does not need to invade Ukraine to get his way
World leaders must not let images of tanks panic them into forgetting Russia has other options than invasion – and none of them mean its demands must be met.
EXPERT COMMENT
21 DECEMBER 2021 3 MINUTE READ
Senior Consulting Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme
But the Kremlin may have entirely different outcomes in mind. Based on past performance it is reasonable for Moscow to hope that at least some of the treaty proposals will be accepted. And there are plenty of options for attacking Ukraine that are less costly, and more manageable, than another land invasion.
It is true the draft treaties should be emphatically rejected because even though some may superficially appear reasonable, the way they would be implemented (and breached) by Russia means nothing in them should be acceptable. The clauses on rolling back US and NATO security guarantees for Europe resemble a criminal gang on the edge of town demanding houses in their neighbourhood remove their locks and alarms, cancel their home insurance, and declare the area a no-go zone for police.
This should not be the subject of negotiation without counter-proposals to Russia that would instead foster genuine peace and security on Russia’s periphery. But the danger is that, although unacceptable, some of what Russia asks may nevertheless be granted because conflict-averse Western leaders have a track record of accepting Russia’s demands through being terrified of the alternative.
By constantly driving home warnings of nuclear escalation – repeated even in the texts of the treaties – Russia is trying to panic the West into rolling back its own security as a preferable alternative to open warfare.
This should not be the subject of negotiation without counter-proposals to Russia that would instead foster genuine peace and security on Russia’s periphery
This is part of the reason for intensive efforts by Moscow to force the pace, accompanied by further threats. Russia does not want its demands punted off into the long grass of lengthy negotiations – the last thing a con-man wants is for his victim to have time to go away and think about it.
But the urgency also reflects the limited time Russia can keep large numbers of troops on the Ukrainian border pretending to be about to invade. And that is an essential component of keeping Europe and the US focused on a need to de-escalate – deterring themselves instead of Russia.
By presenting all its demands at once, Moscow could get traction with at least some of them. Russia may be hoping for ‘middle ground’ between its proposals and the status quo – and will get it if short-sighted politicians consider it a success that some are rejected but Russia still goes away temporarily satisfied.
Invasion by default?
Russia is holding the West mesmerised with the prospect of a new land invasion of Ukraine after a trial run in the spring confirmed the highly gratifying effect for Moscow of troop build-ups on the border.
It seems likely the troops opposite Ukraine – and others on the move across the country – are ready for a fight if necessary. But it is hard to see how rolling tanks across the border would serve Russia’s aims when far cheaper and more controllable options exist for inflicting damage on Ukraine.
For now, the biggest incentive to Russia to mount a land operation against Ukraine is provided by Ukraine’s friends when they point out they will not support Kyiv militarily
Overrunning a substantial area of Ukraine is widely dismissed as unfeasible, but even a limited land grab would serve little purpose when Russia can already exert political leverage through its control of parts of the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia could instead be considering a temporary incursion – raiding, destroying, and then withdrawing – but much the same effect could be achieved from across the border.
Stand-off strikes using missiles, or potentially a destructive cyber onslaught, could target military command and control systems or civilian critical infrastructure and pressure Kyiv into concessions and its friends abroad into meeting Russia’s demands.
And removing the troop concentrations from the Ukrainian border need not be a climbdown by Russia, especially if they move west to form a permanent contingent in Belarus – directly threatening not only Ukraine’s northern flank, but also NATO members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
For now, the biggest incentive to Russia to mount a land operation against Ukraine is provided by Ukraine’s friends when they point out they will not support Kyiv militarily. Both the US and now the UK have publicly ruled out direct support.
It is baffling why leaders do this – for all it may be unrealistic to expect US or British troops to arrive to defend Ukraine, advertising this fact to Moscow only provides comfort, confidence, and encouragement to Russia’s planners by instantly removing a wide range of worst-case scenarios from their risk calculus.
The message must be about more than Ukraine
Both Russia’s threats and its demands should be considered coolly. It may not be planning a new invasion of Ukraine except as a last resort, and so treating invasion as the first option distorts responses and plays into Russia’s manipulation.
But also the demands should not be entertained and legitimized through negotiation. Most of all, the conversation must be about more than Ukraine. The West tells Russia “do not escalate in Ukraine”. But it omits the broader message that Russia does not have rights over other countries either, because the age of empires in Europe is over.
Russia’s current leadership has no aspiration to develop into a normal country which co-exists peacefully with its neighbours. Instead, it clings to a notion of great power rights and status incompatible with 21st century Europe. For too long the criminal gang on the edge of town has been treated as respectable members of the community – after all, they hold seats on the town council, shares in local businesses, and inconveniently control much of the town’s energy supply.
But Moscow’s atavistic fetishising of its Soviet past is just the outward symptom of a mindset from a different age, and one regressing still further from what the West should find tolerable. When Russia kits out its hockey team pretending to be the USSR, this should be no more acceptable than if the German national football team took to adorning its kit with Nazi heraldry.
The terms of the conversation must be changed and, when stating its core principles, the West must, for once, mean it. Russia may well see this as an invitation to a trial of strength. But the sad fact is there may be no other way to resolve the vast gulf between what Russia and the West consider an acceptable security architecture in Europe.
It is normal, natural, and human to hope there must be a resolution that does not involve a bloody, messy, tragic, and senseless confrontation. But it would be a dangerous mistake to turn that hope into an assumption, and for all decisions to be driven by it. Once Russia has made the choice to attempt to force the issue through military intimidation, the rest of Europe does not have a wide choice of how to react – it must either respond in kind, or surrender.
4. Harvard professor Charles Lieber convicted of lying about ties to China
Do not lie to the FBI. Oh and do not take money from the PRC either. But a $50,000 per month salary? I wonder if he thought he was just that good and deserving or did he really understand what was expected of him for that kind of money?
Harvard professor Charles Lieber convicted of lying about ties to China
Axios · by Rebecca Falconer
Harvard University professor Charles Lieber was convicted Tuesday in connection with lying to U.S. federal authorities about his ties to China.
- He was also found guilty of two counts of making and subscribing a false income tax return and two charges of failing to file reports of foreign bank in China and financial accounts with the Internal Revenue Service.
The big picture: Lieber had pleaded not guilty of all charges related to his affiliation with the Beijing-run Thousand Talents Program and China's Wuhan University of Technology (WUT).
- "Under the terms of Lieber’s three-year Thousand Talents contract, WUT paid Lieber a salary of up to $50,000 per month, living expenses of up to $150,000 and awarded him more than $1.5 million to establish a research lab at WUT," per the DOJ.
- "In 2018 and 2019, Lieber lied to federal authorities about his involvement in the Thousand Talents Plan and his affiliation with WUT."
What's next: The court has yet to schedule a sentencing date, but Lieber faces up to five years in prison for the making false statements charge, according to the DOJ.
Axios · by Rebecca Falconer
5. Biden administration starts denying Afghans' requests to enter U.S.
Biden administration starts denying Afghans' requests to enter U.S.
WASHINGTON, D.C. —
The Biden administration has issued dozens of denials to Afghans seeking safety in the United States through a fast-track for legal entry called humanitarian parole.
Under humanitarian parole, which is not a pathway to citizenship, the federal government can cut through the red tape of the typical visa process to temporarily allow people to enter the U.S. for emergency or public interest reasons. Advocates say the government belatedly set unnecessarily steep barriers that many Afghans can’t surmount.
Parole is issued on a case-by-case basis and typically reserved for dire circumstances, such as giving someone a few days to visit a dying loved one, but it has also been used to quickly bring in thousands of people in the aftermath of wars or environmental disasters.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which typically processes 2,000 parole applications annually, has been flooded with more than 30,000 from Afghans alone since July. With a filing fee of $575 per person, that translates to an infusion of more than $17 million for the agency.
So far, Citizenship and Immigration Services has approved 135 cases.
Spokeswoman Victoria Palmer said the agency has increased the number of staffers working on parole cases fivefold to 44 officers. She added that parole is not intended to replace established processing channels under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for people who have fled their country of origin and are seeking protection.
In some limited circumstances, protection needs are so urgent that obtaining protection via that process is not realistic, she wrote in a statement, adding: “This, along with other, multiple factors are taken into consideration when USCIS assesses whether urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit parole warrants a favorable exercise of discretion.”
With no way to quickly leave Afghanistan, even those with family ties to the U.S. could wait more than a decade because of massive visa backlogs.
Applicants must also complete in-person vetting and biometrics screenings before they can be approved for parole. Because the embassy in Kabul is closed, applicants must travel to a third country to do so, Palmer said.
That’s assuming they can sneak past the Taliban to leave.
Jaci Ohayon, a Colorado-based immigration lawyer, received denials Friday for 14 members of a California man’s family. The 39-year-old owns a research firm in Afghanistan that worked significantly with the U.S. government on women’s empowerment issues and asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal against the firm and his family.
The Taliban recently broke into the firm multiple times, the man said in an email, beating up the security guards, pointing guns at their heads and asking repeatedly where his family was. They confiscated documents, equipment and armored vehicles lent by the U.S. government, he said.
The California man, who is a legal U.S. resident, wants to help his parents and siblings escape. Six siblings have pending special immigrant visa applications based on their work at the firm, which has more than 200 employees, Ohayon said. A different family member was recently killed by the Taliban, she said.
Ohayon plans to request the government reconsider the denials, adding photos of the slaying and stills from security video of Taliban members stealing equipment as additional evidence. Parole applications for 22 other relatives remain pending.
“It’s heart-wrenching to receive such a denial when I am on the ground, risking my life and my family’s life, working for U.S. government interest,” the man said in his email.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Seth Moulton, along with 53 other lawmakers, sent a letter to the federal agency on Monday expressing alarm about the “restrictive and inconsistent” humanitarian parole processing. They asked agency officials to justify what they consider changes to the requirements for Afghans to prove they need parole despite the agency’s discretional authority.
The lawmakers also urged the agency to create a special parole program for Afghans that would go beyond the program established for those evacuated by U.S. forces.
“Tragically, tens of thousands of Afghans and their families now face persecution and death threats from the Taliban, as well as threatened deportation back to Afghanistan for those who made it to third countries,” the lawmakers wrote. “We urge you to ensure that all vulnerable Afghans, including those in third countries and those still stranded in Afghanistan, are paroled into the United States and not left to languish in legal limbo.”
Some 75,000 Afghans evacuated during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal and were brought in under humanitarian parole, which lasts two years and qualifies beneficiaries for work permits and temporary refugee assistance. More than half are ineligible for the special immigrant visas given to those who worked directly with the federal government and will have to seek asylum or other protections before their parole expires or possibly face eventual deportation.
That means many Afghans currently in the U.S. fall under the same category as the journalists, human rights activists, women and others now facing danger and denials of their parole requests from outside the country.
Kyra Lilien, a lawyer at Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay, has received 13 denials for members of two Afghan families. She filed the applications in late August when advocates thought they could get families on evacuation flights if they had a notice that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had received their parole request and it was pending.
Jewish Family & Community Services is also a refugee resettlement agency and has helped arriving Afghans move to the Bay Area for years. The resettlement staff is largely Afghan, Lilien said, and has been submitting humanitarian parole applications for their own families.
Among the denials are those for an elderly mother, disabled daughter and another daughter who serves as their caretaker. They are relatives of of two green card holders who live in the U.S. The women can’t physically sneak over the border to escape.
“The people who are getting denied now are the same people who were being scooped into the bellies of airplanes in August,” she said. “It’s just that the door is closed.”
Recently, Lilien spoke with a man in the U.S. whose father was a high-ranking Afghan government official and could have a strong case under the stringent humanitarian parole criteria. The father fled Afghanistan but remains in hiding. The Taliban recently visited the local mosque where the family had lived and offered a cash reward for his capture.
But the mosque’s imam is too scared to provide a sworn statement. Without that third-party evidence, Lilien thinks even a man in clear, imminent danger such as that father wouldn’t qualify for parole.
6. Making Indo-Pacific alliances fit for deterrence
A view from Australia.
Note the recommendation for engaging populations on these issues. Seems like this should be a no brainer but I think we too often overlook it and then wonder why populist, nationalist (nativist?) sentiment derails foreign policy.
Excerpts:
How can US alliances in the Indo-Pacific start building a common understanding of escalation and a common deterrence culture? In our recently published, edited open-access book, leading Indo-Pacific, European and US experts address that very question. Three distinct, but closely related, findings emerge from their analysis.
...
First, there’s a need to move from consultation over US nuclear posture and deterrence, which often entails the US informing allies what has happened, to a more genuine joint development of assessments, concepts and planning for deterrence.
...
Second, Indo-Pacific allies urgently need to more systematically address their own force structures and the ‘hardware’ cooperation aspects of deterrence in their alliances.
...
The third theme to emerge from the volume is the need for governments to properly engage populations about all of these issues.
...
The claim of a binary choice between seeking nuclear disarmament and relying on deterrence is a false one, because it ignores that the ultimate goal of increased security depends on the broader strategic environment in which it is sought. It’s time for Indo-Pacific allies, including Australia, to start articulating the value of nuclear weapons for regional security against the threats we face today, even as they remain committed to nuclear disarmament if and when circumstances render that feasible.
Making Indo-Pacific alliances fit for deterrence | The Strategist
As great-power competition intensifies, the role of deterrence and the potential for escalation have taken on renewed importance in the security calculations of Australia and other US allies. How to manage deterrence and escalation is an inherently political question. For deterrence to be effective, allies have to find ways to agree and credibly commit to what they are willing to do for each other. And nowhere is this more important than in relation to the role of US nuclear weapons.
Ahead of the highly anticipated release of the Biden administration’s nuclear posture review in early 2022, attention has turned to the role that allies play in US nuclear policy. Recent reporting indicates that US allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific have pushed back against moves by Washington to limit, in declaratory terms, the circumstances in which it would consider using nuclear weapons.
While in the past some US allies expressed sympathy for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, none today is willing to sign it, as their focus has turned to the challenges of deterrence and escalation in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. However, allies can’t afford to simply react to changes in US policy. They must actively prepare for and seek to manage escalation in a broader geostrategic, technological and political context.
US allies therefore need to become more embedded in, and proficient with, discussions with Washington over escalation and nuclear deterrence. In the Euro-Atlantic area, NATO is rediscovering its integrated approach to deterrence strategy and posture—including the ‘sharing’ of US nuclear weapons. Even in the Indo-Pacific, long gone are the days when the US and its allies were content with a division of labour that saw Washington manage the risk of great-power conflict with little input from its allies.
Consultations with Japan and South Korea on extended deterrence have created an expectation of greater transparency from Washington over the circumstances in which the US would employ nuclear weapons. Still, alliances in the Indo-Pacific remain far from the necessary political and military discussions to achieve deterrence communication, alignment of force structure and posture, and crisis management. And no framework exists for managing enduring differences about how allies engage their respective populations, and communicate to adversaries, on the sensitive issue of nuclear weapons.
How can US alliances in the Indo-Pacific start building a common understanding of escalation and a common deterrence culture? In our recently published, edited open-access book, leading Indo-Pacific, European and US experts address that very question. Three distinct, but closely related, findings emerge from their analysis.
First, there’s a need to move from consultation over US nuclear posture and deterrence, which often entails the US informing allies what has happened, to a more genuine joint development of assessments, concepts and planning for deterrence. Even if deterrence dialogues and committees established in the US–Japan and US–Korea alliances a decade ago have (in NATO terms) helped ‘raise the nuclear IQ’ in these alliances, there are limitations that can arise from constrained formats that encourage a perception of the US ‘educating’ its allies rather than the development of concepts and strategies that guide a common approach.
Second, Indo-Pacific allies urgently need to more systematically address their own force structures and the ‘hardware’ cooperation aspects of deterrence in their alliances. In Australia’s case, new conventional long-range strike capabilities are emerging, yet thinking about their use and effect remains nascent and focused on the tactical level. In the Japanese and South Korean cases, conventional strike capabilities now provide these allies with greater options for direct influence on the dynamics of escalation. At the same time, the limits of US nuclear posture in the Indo-Pacific—whose visible elements today rest solely on nuclear-capable aircraft based outside the region—are also coming into sharper relief through the increasing vulnerability of these forces, the overuse of strategic bombers for signalling, and the lack of any significant adjustment in the face of major strategic shifts since US nuclear weapons were withdrawn from the region in 1991.
The third theme to emerge from the volume is the need for governments to properly engage populations about all of these issues. A key lesson from NATO’s travails of the 1970s and 1980s is that agreeing on and implementing changes to force structure and posture to improve deterrence capabilities and operational effectiveness are insufficient if these same measures fail to reassure allies’ own populations. Like deterrence, reassurance is ultimately psychological, but there’s reluctance today in many countries to publicly address requirements for deterrence and escalation management, or even arms control.
The claim of a binary choice between seeking nuclear disarmament and relying on deterrence is a false one, because it ignores that the ultimate goal of increased security depends on the broader strategic environment in which it is sought. It’s time for Indo-Pacific allies, including Australia, to start articulating the value of nuclear weapons for regional security against the threats we face today, even as they remain committed to nuclear disarmament if and when circumstances render that feasible.
Ultimately, developing a shared understanding of escalation dynamics; maintaining political unity about a shared approach to deterrence; moving from consultation to joint assessment, policy and planning; conducting reviews of alliance force structure and posture and their implications for escalation; and engaging in public campaigning for nuclear deterrence are all mutually reinforcing.
Together, these measures would be transformative for US alliances in the Indo-Pacific because they involve accepting a degree of heightened strategic risk that many allies have so far eschewed. Failure to agree on expectations and commitments in relation to deterrence and escalation pathways runs the risk of the US and its allies not being able to take unified action during a crisis.
The adverse implications for the future of US alliances in the Indo-Pacific that would inevitably flow from this should be enough to energise policymakers to strive for closer cooperation on deterrence and escalation.
7. Japan agrees to higher tab for hosting US forces over next five years
Is this more than the US requested per some earlier reports? If so then the Art of the Deal needs a new chapter (apologies for the attempt at some humor)
Excerpts:
News of the increase comes after President Joe Biden’s administration called for Japan to bear more of the cost to deal with China, which is building up its military strength in the region.
The new agreement significantly cut utility contributions for U.S. military bases and added a new category to cover the procurement of materials and equipment for joint training, Hayashi said.
“We significantly reduced utility costs, where it is difficult to directly see the contribution to strengthening the deterrence and readiness of the Japan-U.S. alliance,” he said.
The Japanese share of utility costs will be reduced from about 61% to about 35% in five years, he said.
Instead, 20 billion yen will be allocated for joint training, Hayashi said.
“Such equipment and materials will not only ensure the readiness of the U.S. Forces but also can contribute to enhanced capabilities of the Self-Defense Forces of Japan for greater Alliance deterrence and readiness,” the news release said.
Japan agrees to higher tab for hosting US forces over next five years
Members of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit sail near Mount Fuji aboard the dock landing ship USS Germantown, Feb. 21, 2021. (Brandon Salas/U.S. Marine Corps)
TOKYO – Japan has agreed to increase its share of funding for U.S. troops stationed in Japan to 1.06 trillion yen, or $9.3 billion, over the next five years, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Tuesday.
The increase comes to approximately 211 billion yen, or $1.8 billion, per fiscal year, Hayashi said during a news conference. Japan allocated about 201.7 billion yen for fiscal year 2021 under the current agreement, according to the defense ministry.
The new agreement will take effect in April, when the Japanese fiscal year starts.
“We have been holding discussions based on the recognition of need to strengthen deterrence and readiness of Japan-U.S. alliance,” Hayashi said.
He said that it is also necessary “to support the stable presence of U.S. forces in Japan while the security environment surrounding Japan is becoming more severe in light of the difficult financial situation in Japan.”
Bilateral defense cooperation under this cost-sharing agreement will contribute to the “enhancement of readiness and resilience of the Alliance, including by improving the interoperability of U.S. Forces and the Self-Defense Forces of Japan,” the ministry’s news release said Tuesday.
Interoperability describes the ability of a country’s armed forces to use another country’s training methods and military equipment.
News of the increase comes after President Joe Biden’s administration called for Japan to bear more of the cost to deal with China, which is building up its military strength in the region.
The new agreement significantly cut utility contributions for U.S. military bases and added a new category to cover the procurement of materials and equipment for joint training, Hayashi said.
“We significantly reduced utility costs, where it is difficult to directly see the contribution to strengthening the deterrence and readiness of the Japan-U.S. alliance,” he said.
The Japanese share of utility costs will be reduced from about 61% to about 35% in five years, he said.
Instead, 20 billion yen will be allocated for joint training, Hayashi said.
“Such equipment and materials will not only ensure the readiness of the U.S. Forces but also can contribute to enhanced capabilities of the Self-Defense Forces of Japan for greater Alliance deterrence and readiness,” the news release said.
The new agreement covers labor costs for 23,178 local employees and training relocation costs, approximately 11.4 billion yen, which is about the same as the current amount, the release said.
The cost-sharing agreement for U.S. forces stationed in Japan is usually renewed every five years. However, the two countries agreed to extend it for fiscal 2021 as the U.S. was transitioning from the Trump administration to the Biden administration.
Hana Kusumoto
8. Excerpt: Autobiography tells story of ‘Special Duties Pilot’
Another work about our OSS heroes.
Excerpt: Autobiography tells story of ‘Special Duties Pilot’
The 885th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) (Special) did not fly ordinary missions. But, John M. Billings was no ordinary pilot. The most eventful mission Billings flew was the inspiration behind “Inglorious Basterds,” but the real story is even more remarkable.
Until I came to the end credits, I sat through the whole movie without realizing it was inspired by Operation Greenup and OSS [Office of Strategic Services] agent Fred Mayer. The vengeful Jewish-American soldiers in the fictionalized Inglourious Basterds resembled Mayer only in the respect that he was a German-born Jew who sought revenge against the Nazis. For Fred and his fellow agents, also European-born Jews, victory was achieved not by scalping German heads but by infiltrating enemy ranks to gain vital intelligence. Greenup was one of the most successful covert missions of World War II, saving thousands of lives and accelerating the war’s end in Europe. If you want to know the real story about Fred and Operation Greenup, watch The Real Inglorious Bastards, a documentary made in 2012. Fred was my hero and closest friend until his death on April 15, 2016, at age ninety-four.
The war in Europe was finally grinding down, and by the winter of 1945, the Germans were on the run. Innsbruck, their last stronghold, was the most heavily fortified territory of the Third Reich. The OSS needed to gather intelligence regarding Nazi movements of munitions and supplies down through the Brenner Pass, which forms the border between Italy and Austria. This was a mystery because all the railroad bridges going through the pass had been bombed by Allied planes, yet supplies were still getting through.
The top-secret mission was to drop three agents behind enemy lines over a frozen lake 10,000 feet above sea level in the Austrian Alps. The steep mountain peaks were heavily guarded by anti-aircraft, and the operation was so dangerous that the British Royal Air Force, as I learned later, refused to go. Naturally, I signed up for the job. “If they’re crazy enough to jump there,” I told the officer, “I’ll be crazy enough to take them.”
On a cold, dark night — the date was February 20, 1945 — a windowless panel truck from headquarters in Bari pulled up under the wing of my B-24. As always, I’d started the engines at the designated time, checked them out, then taxied to the end of the runway where our crew was waiting for the “Joes”' arrival. From the cockpit, we couldn’t see the three agents and dispatcher/jumpmaster as they climbed out of the truck and headed to the rear of the plane. The truck backed out, and an officer walked around to signal me that all was clear. I could feel the adrenaline pumping as I took off, excited to be on such an important mission. Two hours later, as we were en route to the target point, I got this message from a radio operator: “In the event there is no reception,” she said, “or if you can’t see the drop site, or if for any reason you can’t complete the mission, do not return to home base, but instead, go to Cyphon.” That was the code name for Rosignano Airfield, about 500 miles from Brindisi.
We climbed until we were over the Alps and at the drop site. Smitty, the navigator, said he knew the lake was below us. Imagine a giant soup bowl with a rim about 13,000 feet above sea level, whereas the drop zone was 10,000 feet. We were supposed to drop the agents into the bowl. The only problem was, we couldn’t see anything because of heavy cloud cover. There was no way I was going to let three men jump out of the plane without being able to see the ground, even though I had every confidence in Smitty for accuracy. It was too much to ask. We flew off for about twenty miles and stayed on a straight line, then turned around on the same line to take another look. It was still a no-go. So, we went to the alternate Rosignano. Our passengers remained incognito as they were directed to their tents for the night and we to ours.
In line at the mess hall for breakfast the next morning, I spotted the four strangers, all of whom appeared to be in their early twenties, and introduced myself and my crew. “Won’t you join us at our table?” I asked, gesturing for them to sit down. Now, the only thing we knew about these men is that we were taking them on a secret mission to gain intelligence. As their identities were concealed, the information I include following each agent’s name is what I learned much later.
The team leader was a good-looking, dark-haired man of slight build. “Joe,” AKA Fred Mayer, was the son of Jewish parents and born in the Black Forest area of Germany. His father, Heinrich, had been awarded an Iron Cross in the German Army in World War I. When the Nazis came to power, his wife begged him to leave, but he said, “No, they’re not going to bother me. I’m a war hero! My distinguished military record will protect us.” But with growing antisemitism, the handwriting was on the wall for Jews. Heinrich realized he had to get his family out of the country and moved them to Brooklyn in 1938.
After high school, Fred worked as a diesel mechanic, and when Pearl Harbor was bombed, he joined the army. To show you the stuff he was made of, when he was in training and playing war games, he went to the mock headquarters and arrested the brigadier general running the exercise. The general protested that he was breaking the rules, but Fred stood his ground. “The rules of war are to win,” he said. Afterwards, at the briefing to discuss the success of the “war,” the general told him he was in the wrong outfit. “You need to be in intelligence.”
Fred was indeed the ideal OSS candidate and absolutely fearless. He was a risk-taker, spoke German and two other European languages, and was trained in demolition, hand-to-hand combat, and other martial skills. Officials at the OSS headquarters in Bari wanted to give him a forged document that would allow him to get away with things when he was doing his spy stuff. “No,” he said. “I don’t want it. You can give it to me, but I’ll just throw it away. I’ll handle things myself.” As we sat around the table drinking coffee, Dick started speaking to Fred in German. He, too, had German parents and the two men seemed to have quite a lot to talk about.
The second “Joe” was the radio operator, a Dutch boy named Hans Wynbert. He had a long face, a big grin, and indeed looked like a schoolboy. Like Fred, he was also Jewish. Hans and his twin brother had been sent to America by their parents to escape the Nazis in Holland. Tragically, his mother, father, and younger brother were captured, sent to Auschwitz, and never heard from again.
The third agent was Franz Weber. He was Austrian, a devout Catholic, and a disaffected officer in the Wehrmacht. He had intentionally gotten too close to the front lines so he could be captured. With the OSS needing more European recruits to infiltrate the enemy, Fred dressed as a German officer and slipped into a POW camp in southern Italy, pretending to be a prisoner. There he found Franz and persuaded him to become the third member of the Operation Greenup team. Of great advantage was the fact that Weber’s family lived near Innsbruck in a village called Oberperfuss that would later become a protective home base for the agents.
The fourth “Joe” was Walter Hass, the jumpmaster, also Jewish. He’d fled Nazi Germany with his family and eventually emigrated to America. Recruited by the OSS, his job was to check the equipment and oversee the parachute jumps to ensure safety and timing. Normally, as mentioned, personnel would be dropped at 600 feet altitude and supplies at 300. Fred demanded we drop the agents at 300 to avoid radar detection. “My best wish would be for the parachute to open and my feet touch the ground,” he said. That was a little too much precision to ask for!
The next day, a P-38 Lockheed Lightning was sent out to check on the weather to see if conditions were suitable for our mission. Now, the P-38 was a great fighter plane but also excellent for recon missions and equipped with the most sophisticated cameras of their time. To lighten the plane so it could fly high and fast, there were no guns aboard. When the pilot came back, he said, “Don’t even try.” So, we spent the entire day together sitting around and swapping stories.
The third day, another no-go, was the day I let Fred fly my plane. Fred could tell you anything, and in fact, he did tell me anything, including his aviation background, all the airplanes he’d flown – he even told me about the time he stole a Junkers airplane from Franco. The way he talked, you couldn’t not believe. So, when we found out that we weren’t going down that day, Smitty asked if we could go on a short test flight to check out the accuracy of the airspeed gauges. He always wanted to calibrate everything to the nth degree, so I agreed. Then I told Fred we’d be going on a test ride. “You want to come along and fly the airplane?” I asked. “Ja,” he said, and before long, he was in the co-pilot’s seat. He admitted he’d flown many airplanes except for the B-24 and said for me to do take-off and landing – he could handle everything else.
We took off from Rosignano and did our calibration run. Afterward, I said, “Okay, Fred, it’s your airplane.” Without a blink, he pulled the power back and leveled off over the harbor at about a hundred feet, the height of a sailboat mast. Then he flew toward a cut in the mountain on the shore and did a beautiful Immelmann. (This is a half loop followed by a half roll. It reverses direction and increases altitude.) I thought, “Boy, is he a good aviator!” The whole flight lasted about thirty-five minutes.
Several weeks later, Colonel Monroe McClusky summoned me to his office at Brindisi. For what seemed an eternity, I stood at attention in front of his desk. Finally, he spoke. “So, why did you buzz the base headquarters at Rosignano? What in the hell am I supposed to tell the base commander?” “Well, sir, I didn’t really have a reason. But honest, I didn’t know it was headquarters.”
“NOW you know where it is, and as a matter of fact, we’re going to be moving there soon!” I didn’t say a word about Fred who, by then, was undercover in enemy territory. Many years afterward, Fred admitted that he’d had exactly one glider lesson! He was a natural-born pilot. I’ve never known anyone like him. In fact, I was quoted in a New York Times story that came out after his death. “I was in awe of him. He was born without the fear gene. He feared nothing, and he was able to be whatever he needed to be.”
On February 23, the P-38 came back and reported large breaks in the clouds over the Alps. Again, we launched. Six hours and fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the designated site, only to see heavy overcast and no visibility. On the 24th, we stood down again, but that night, Fred, Walter, Smitty, and Dick pored over the maps and found a secondary site. “This will work,” Smitty said. “It’s a bit farther away and will delay the arrival in Innsbruck by a day. But it would save the mission.”
The next day, February 25, we were given the okay to go, and this time we were determined to make it happen.
John Billings took his first plane ride in 1926, began taking piloting lessons in 1938, and has been flying ever since. Having joined the U.S. Army Air Forces in July 1942, he was assigned to fly the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber. He completed fifty-three missions during the war, thirty-nine of which were for the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime predecessor to the CIA, and the U.S. Special Operations Command.
Editor’s note: This is a book excerpt and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please contact Military Times managing editor Howard Altman, [email protected].
9. Putin says Russia has 'nowhere to retreat' over Ukraine
How about just sending the troops home? (apologies for sarcasm).
What is a "military technical" response? Does that mean cyber attack(s)?
Putin says Russia has 'nowhere to retreat' over Ukraine
- Summary
- Says Russia may adopt 'military-technical' response
- Ukraine says it's ready to talk in any format
- U.S., NATO say they will engage with Moscow
Dec 21 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia had no room to retreat in a standoff with the United States over Ukraine and would be forced into a tough response unless the West dropped its "aggressive line".
Putin addressed his remarks to military officials as Russia pressed for an urgent U.S. and NATO reply to proposals it made last week for a binding set of security guarantees from the West.
"What the U.S. is doing in Ukraine is at our doorstep... And they should understand that we have nowhere further to retreat to. Do they think we’ll just watch idly?" Putin said.
"If the aggressive line of our Western colleagues continues, we will take adequate military-technical response measures and react harshly to unfriendly steps."
Putin did not spell out the nature of these measures but his phrasing mirrored that used previously by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who has warned that Russia may redeploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in response to what it regards as NATO plans to do the same. read more
Russia rejects Ukrainian and U.S. accusations that it may be preparing an invasion of Ukraine as early as next month by tens of thousands of Russian troops poised within reach of the border.
It says it needs pledges from the West - including a promise not to conduct NATO military activity in Eastern Europe - because its security is threatened by Ukraine's growing ties with the Western alliance and the possibility of NATO missiles being deployed against it on Ukrainian territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy said on Friday that he was ready to meet Russia for "direct talks, tête-à-tête, we don't mind in what format". But Moscow has said repeatedly it sees no point in such a meeting without clarity on what the agenda would be.
A Kremlin statement said Putin stressed in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron that reconvening the four-power Normandy group - which brings together the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany - would require concrete steps by Kyiv to implement existing peace agreements. Ukraine says it is Russia and its proxies who are refusing to engage.
With Western powers keen to show Russia they are solid in their support of Ukraine and NATO, Germany's new Chancellor Olaf Scholz also spoke by phone with Putin.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday ruled out an in-person meeting between Biden and Putin for now. "I think we have to see if, in the first instance, there’s any progress diplomatically," Blinken said in a news briefing when asked if an in-person summit could happen to try to ease the tensions.
1/3
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an expanded meeting of the Defence Ministry Board in Moscow, Russia December 21, 2021. Sputnik/Mikhail Tereshchenko/Pool via REUTERS
U.S. SUPPLIES
Karen Donfried, the U.S. State Department's top diplomat for Europe, said in a briefing with reporters that Washington was prepared to engage with Moscow via three channels - bilaterally, through the NATO-Russia Council that last met in 2019, and at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
In the meantime, she said, the United States would continue to send military equipment and supplies to Ukraine in the weeks and months ahead - something that has antagonised Moscow.
"As President (Joe) Biden has told President Putin, should Russia further invade Ukraine, we will provide additional defensive materials to the Ukrainians above and beyond that which we are already in the process of providing," she said.
Washington is considering tough export control measures to disrupt Russia's economy if Putin invades Ukraine, a Biden administration official told Reuters, and the measures would be discussed in a meeting of senior officials on Tuesday. read more
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would seek meaningful discussions with Moscow early next year.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu alleged that more than 120 U.S. private military contractors were active in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops have been fighting Russian-backed separatists since 2014, and said they were preparing a "provocation" involving chemical substances.
He offered no evidence in support of the claim, which Pentagon spokesman John Kirby described as "completely false".
Throughout the crisis, Russia has veered between harsh rhetoric, calls for dialogue and dire warnings, with Ryabkov repeatedly comparing the situation to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.
Many of Moscow's demands, including for a block on NATO membership for Ukraine and the withdrawal of U.S. and other allied troops from Eastern Europe, are seen as non-starters by Washington and its partners.
But rejecting them out of hand would risk closing off any space for dialogue and further fuelling the crisis.
Reporting by Maxim Rodionov, Andrew Osborn, Olzhas Auyezov, Polina Devitt, Natalia Zinets in Kyiv, Daphne Psaledakis, Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis and Idrees Ali in Washington, Sabine Siebold and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Angus MacSwan
10. Exclusive: U.N. proposing paying nearly $6 million to Taliban for security
Will money guarantee the security of UN personnel and missions?
Excerpts:
“The United Nations has a duty as an employer to reinforce and, where necessary, supplement the capacity of host states in circumstances where U.N. personnel work in areas of insecurity,” deputy U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq wrote in an email in response to Reuters’ questions about the proposed payments. He did not dispute the contents of the document.
Several experts said the proposed payments raise questions about whether they would violate U.S. and U.N. sanctions on the Taliban and their top leaders, and whether the United Nations could detect diversions of funds for other purposes.
Exclusive: U.N. proposing paying nearly $6 million to Taliban for security
A Taliban fighter guards a street in Kabul, Afghanistan November 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ali Khara/
WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) - The United Nations is proposing to pay nearly $6 million for protection in Afghanistan to Taliban-run Interior Ministry personnel, whose chief is under U.N. and U.S. sanctions and wanted by the FBI, according to a U.N. document and a source familiar with the matter.
The proposed funds would be paid next year mostly to subsidize the monthly wages of Taliban fighters guarding U.N. facilities and to provide them a monthly food allowance under an expansion of an accord with the former U.S.-backed Afghan government, the document reviewed by Reuters shows.
The plan underscores the persisting insecurity in Afghanistan following the Islamist Taliban’s takeover in August as the last U.S. troops left, as well as a dire shortage of funds hampering the new government because of a cutoff of international financial aid.
“The United Nations has a duty as an employer to reinforce and, where necessary, supplement the capacity of host states in circumstances where U.N. personnel work in areas of insecurity,” deputy U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq wrote in an email in response to Reuters’ questions about the proposed payments. He did not dispute the contents of the document.
Several experts said the proposed payments raise questions about whether they would violate U.S. and U.N. sanctions on the Taliban and their top leaders, and whether the United Nations could detect diversions of funds for other purposes.
“What it comes down to is there is no proper oversight,” said the source, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter.
Those under sanctions include deputy Taliban leader and Interior Ministry chief Sirajuddin Haqqani. He heads the Haqqani network, a faction blamed for some of the bloodiest attacks over 20 years of war. The United States, which says Haqqani is close to al Qaeda, is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
The U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) budget is “currently under review,” but the mission “maintains full compliance with all U.N. sanctions regimes,” Haq said.
He did not respond to a question about whether the proposed payments would breach U.S. sanctions.
A U.S. Treasury Department official said the Taliban and the Haqqani network remain designated under the U.S. government's counterterrorism sanctions program and that unauthorized people supporting them "risk exposure to U.S. sanctions."
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to comment on the U.N. proposal.
FOOD SHORTAGES, ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
The proposed funds would bolster the cash-strapped Taliban’s ability to protect some 3,500 U.N. personnel in Kabul and 10 field offices. Many are striving to help the country of 39 million cope with food shortages amid a public services breakdown and an economic collapse accelerated by the evaporation of foreign financial aid.
The U.N. document says most of a proposed $4 million security budget for 2022 shared by the 20 U.N. agencies operating in Afghanistan “constitutes payments in respect of supplementing host nation resources for their primary responsibility to protect U.N. personnel (as foreseen in our SOMA).”
SOMA stands for a Status of Mission Agreement with the former government. Under the accord, the United Nations subsidized the costs to the Interior Ministry of police who protected U.N. facilities, the source said.
Most of the $4 million would boost the wages of individual Taliban members by $275-to-$319 per month and provide a monthly food allowance of $90 per person, “which was previously only paid in the regions but now also extended to Kabul,” the document said.
UNAMA would spend an additional nearly $2 million “for similar services” outside the security budget shared with other U.N. agencies, the document added.
“The U.N. system provided allowances to personnel who perform supplementary security services which are critical to the safety of personnel and compounds, as well as operations and movements in the country,” said Haq.
Such funds, he said, are paid directly to recipients "and not through the de facto authorities.”
Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney
11. Biden administration must step up support of Afghan visa processing
Biden administration must step up support of Afghan visa processing
As of last week, the State Department said that 62,000 Afghan applicants for U.S. visas remain in Afghanistan.
As they reckon with Taliban violence, economic decline, and a devastating food crisis, around 33,000 Afghans have undergone sufficient vetting that they "could be eligible for immediate evacuation." The remaining 29,000, likely among the 30,000 Afghan applicants for humanitarian parole visas, are hampered by slow processing speeds for determination and vetting.
This situation hearkens back to the bureaucratic heel-dragging that haunts the State Department’s Special Immigrant Visa program. Feroza, whose name has been changed for her protection, is no longer eligible for an SIV, as she watched the Taliban kill her SIV applicant husband several weeks ago. The State Department did not respond to questions about visa eligibility for individuals like Feroza, though a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official tells me being a family member of an SIV applicant is one of several "strong, positive factors" pointing to provision of a humanitarian parole visa.
Unfortunately, USCIS has created new barriers to granting humanitarian parole visas, with demands that some applicants provide "third party evidence … documenting threats or risks of serious harm." As administration officials told Axios, humanitarian parole is only intended "for people in extreme circumstances."
But this seems an apt description of the circumstances facing a 22-year-old Hazara policewoman who shuttles between freezing abandoned buildings to protect her family members from Taliban reprisals, or the former National Directorate of Security employee who hunkers down inside a friend's closed business every day in case his in-laws make good on threats to turn him in to the Taliban.
Last week, the U.N. deputy commissioner for human rights said that 72 extrajudicial killings of former Afghan security personnel have been "attributed to the Taliban." As the country is in the grips of inflation and a food crisis, Taliban oversight of some international aid distribution could render it incredibly dangerous for former government personnel or activists to seek assistance. Despite these conditions, a USCIS official tells me the agency is "prioritizing the parole applications for Afghan nationals outside of Afghanistan."
Because the U.S. Embassy in Kabul has suspended operations, even a determination of visa eligibility is daunting for applicants. Processing and vetting must take place in a U.S. embassy, which requires endangered Afghans to travel through Taliban checkpoints and across borders, some of which are closed. USCIS did not respond to a question about expectations for Afghans to undertake such a dangerous journey. A State Department official tells me they are "working to find ways to facilitate travel for those who do not have all the required documentation."
Since late September, the Washington Post reports that only around 3,000 Afghans have successfully been evacuated from Afghanistan. Now, winter conditions make evacuation flights nearly impossible. Though not corroborated elsewhere, Pakistan Aviation reports that as of Dec. 12, the Taliban had stopped evacuation flights altogether, likely in an effort to pressure the international community into releasing Afghanistan’s frozen financial holdings.
In response to questions about the myriad threats to visa applicants, the State Department told me it "encourage[s] Afghanistan’s neighbors to allow entry for Afghans and coordinate with humanitarian international organizations to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghans in need" and requests that states "uphold their respective obligations related to Afghan refugees or asylum seekers."
The onus, however, is on the State Department and USCIS to focus on fulfilling promises made to Afghan allies. Those who now face death because they placed their trust in the United States.
Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance writer from the Detroit area.
12. How weather is playing a role in information warfare
Remember there is weather in space. And solar flares can wreak havoc on HF communications or so my SF communications sergeant used to counsel me!
How weather is playing a role in information warfare
WASHINGTON — Hacks, leaked documents and information operations orchestrated through social media were the pinnacle of information warfare in the last couple of years. But for the U.S. military, there is another sphere leaders are eyeing: weather.
In response, some branches have brought weather units and related data into the information warfare fold.
Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, commander of 16th Air Force, told C4ISRNET in a September interview that environmental intelligence and the service’s weather wing proved to be “incredibly capable [of] handling a lot of big data and then being able to make sense of it, understand how weather is impacting adversary decision-making.”
The 16th Air Force was created in 2019 and is the service’s first information warfare command. It brought the 557th Weather Wing under its purview along with intelligence, cyber and electromagnetic spectrum organizations.
That wing has three key missions under the context of information warfare: identify and create space in multiple areas to ensure friendly forces can operate with near impunity; predict adversarial behavior based on environmental conditions; influence adversarial behavior.
“Weather operations achieve U.S. decision advantage and imposes costs on U.S. adversaries. That’s our goal, that’s what we’re trying to get after,” Col. Patrick Williams, commander of the 557th Weather Wing, said in a November interview. “We apply science to missions to generate outcomes.”
For its part, the Navy also integrated weather into its information warfare activities with Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command.
“When we talk about and we think about information warfare, it’s really about do we have the greatest and the best understanding of the battlespace,” Rear Adm. Ron Piret, the command’s chief, told C4ISRNET in a December interview.
Information warfare is “not only a recognition of, ‘Hey, what is going on at the moment,’ but what can we predict into the future that then allows us to not only ensure the fleet safety but also maximize or optimize the fleet’s lethality and its maneuverability, both in space and in time. That’s how we think about information warfare, and certainly oceanography is a central role in that.”
For the 557th Weather Wing, Williams said its members solve problems for customers. For example, a combatant or air component commander might approach the wing with a problem set, which is solved using weather or meteorological principles.
“A neat way to look at this is we truly believe that weather drives behavior,” he said. “If I apply that same principle because the laws of physics don’t change with political boundaries … in the Pacific: Hey, why does that Chinese fleet take a hard left turn? Well, when you overlay a weather map on top of that, it makes a whole lot of sense.”
Weather data can also help friendly forces make decisions regarding assets and operations. From a defensive perspective, it can provide units with information about assets or people to move or evacuate — especially if they’re in the way of a forthcoming storm — and what runways are unusable, or even run models to help with the recovery of downed assets.
“How the ocean is going to behave with the passing of a typhoon or hurricane or any weather system certainly impacts the surface ships as well as what’s going on in the atmosphere for safety of flight or the right platform being planned or made available for any type of operation,” Piret said. “Our ability to know the current battlespace environment better than anyone is critical. ... If we know what’s going to happen in the environment sooner and farther out than our adversaries, then we can utilize our fleet and our joint forces to a greater extent.”
Weather data and operations also have an offensive component. Though vague, given the sensitivity of operations, Williams did say the idea is to deter the adversary by denying and projecting information that will encumber the decision-making process.
“Whether it is, ‘Hey, I want to expose the fact that the adversary cannot do something’ or ‘They don’t have a capability of doing something that the world may have thought they had,’ ” he said. “I know they’re bogged down in that particular area, now’s the best time to strike.”
From the Navy’s perspective, Piret said the service tries to understand an adversary’s limitations and capabilities to create models to indicate if the enemy is likely to use certain platforms in specific conditions.
Broadly, this weather support can occur at all levels of warfare, from the strategic to the tactical ends.
Some of these weather capabilities and forecasts even extend beyond Earth’s terrestrial borders.
“Most people don’t realize it, but there actually is weather in space,” Williams said.
While this doesn’t resemble rain or clouds, the sun is emitting particles, and electrons and protons can bombard the Earth from space, sometimes disrupting communications.
“If the sun is doing weird things, some frequencies may not be as usable as other frequencies during one of those storms,” Williams said. “If we know that, now we have an ability to predict maneuver space within the satellite world, within the space world.”
Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for C4ISRNET, covering information warfare and cyberspace.
13. What the Chinese Think They Know About US Nuclear Strategy
Excerpts:
...Beijing aimed to become “a mature nuclear weapon state and a quasi-peer to the United States in the nuclear realm.”
Roberts went on to say that China “is not becoming a Russia-like peer with a nuclear force sized and operated in ways very similar to that of the United States. Nor is it becoming a near-peer with a nearly-as-good nuclear force. But it is becoming a quasi-peer—with a nuclear force that is resilient in the face of potential attack and capable of assured retaliation at a level and scale posing a significant threat to the United States, and with the apparent intent to use that force to safeguard China’s interests at both the strategic and regional levels of war.”
Roberts wrote that essay and another for the December 2020 Livermore publication which he edited titled, Taking Stock, U.S.-China Track 1.5 Nuclear Dialogues. It describes in detail how from 2004 through 2019, Chinese and American experts gathered once or twice a year in Beijing or Hawaii to discuss nuclear policy in a program of dialogues financed by the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).
What the Chinese Think They Know About US Nuclear Strategy
Fine Print
OPINION — Despite U.S. officials regularly voicing concern about lack of knowledge as to where China’s nuclear weapons program has been going, officials have known for years that Beijing aimed to become “a mature nuclear weapon state and a quasi-peer to the United States in the nuclear realm.”
That’s a quote from a year-old essay by Dr. Brad Roberts, who has, since 2015, served as the director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Before that, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy from 2009 – 2013.
Roberts went on to say that China “is not becoming a Russia-like peer with a nuclear force sized and operated in ways very similar to that of the United States. Nor is it becoming a near-peer with a nearly-as-good nuclear force. But it is becoming a quasi-peer—with a nuclear force that is resilient in the face of potential attack and capable of assured retaliation at a level and scale posing a significant threat to the United States, and with the apparent intent to use that force to safeguard China’s interests at both the strategic and regional levels of war.”
Roberts wrote that essay and another for the December 2020 Livermore publication which he edited titled, Taking Stock, U.S.-China Track 1.5 Nuclear Dialogues. It describes in detail how from 2004 through 2019, Chinese and American experts gathered once or twice a year in Beijing or Hawaii to discuss nuclear policy in a program of dialogues financed by the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).
Attending the 22 meetings, were experts from think tanks and academia, as well as former and current officials and junior and senior members of both countries’ military – all participating in their private capacities. They were referred to as Track 1.5 meetings vice Track 1 sessions, when officials gather for official meetings, and Track 2 where attendees are primarily academics.
The dialogues were most useful during the Obama years when, as described in Taking Stock, sessions included “briefings on official documents such as DoD NPRs [U.S. Defense Department Nuclear Posture Reviews] and MND’s [China’s Ministry of National Defense] Defense White Papers, as well as interpretation of each other’s nuclear policy/strategy, employment principles, deployment postures, and development strategies.”
Also discussed, as listed in Taking Stock, were future issues such as “emerging technologies including missile defense, hypersonic weapons, space, cyber, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and implication to global, regional and bilateral strategic relation/stability, as well as cooperation in international rule setting for military application of emerging technologies.”
DTRA terminated the sessions in March 2020, following declining Chinese participation and the Trump administration’s frustration with China’s failure to agree to join the U.S. in three-way official arms control talks with Russia.
In September 2020, Roberts’ Center for Global Security Research, in partnership with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, held a two-day workshop with a dozen experts from both countries to review years of nuclear-focused dialogues and identify emerging problems and opportunities to improve the relationship.
That September 2020 session ended with both sides leaving the door open for the future resumption of these dialogues.
In her post-workshop analysis of the situation, Dr. Yao Yunzhu, a retired Major General in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and now a senior advisor to the China Association of Military Sciences, showed a sophisticated understanding of why the U.S. has not ever adopted, as China says it has, the so-called No First Use (NFU) declaratory posture when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Dr. Yao wrote, “The fact that the United States does not adopt an NFU strategy does not
necessarily mean that it holds a first-use policy. The nuclear weapon’s role in U.S. national security has been shrinking since the end of the Cold War and the nuclear weapon will be used only as a last resort and in extreme circumstances.”
She also indicated that she understood why China’s expansion of its nuclear arsenal would have a reaction in the U.S.
“Although the nuclear weapon has not been a big factor in defining the China–U.S. relationship,” Dr. Yao wrote, “it’s becoming more weighty as China expands its arsenal and the bilateral relationship turns tense, competitive, and even confrontational.”
Anyone who has read the Pentagon’s 2020 and 2021 reports on Chinese weaponry, which projected that Beijing could have at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, would think this to be a major growing threat to the U.S. That is despite the fact that today the U.S. has 1,550 nuclear warheads currently deployed on American ground- and sub-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bombers and another 2,000 warheads in storage stockpiles.
When it came to Taiwan, Dr. Yao pointed out that during early discussions, the Chinese brought up the issue of “U.S. military support to Taiwan and the potential role of nuclear weapons in a cross Taiwan Strait military conflict.” She wrote that “an understanding emerged in early dialogues that the nuclear weapon would have little or no role in a conflict over Taiwan.”
However, when the Trump 2018 Nuclear Posture Review adopted the U.S need for additional low-yield nuclear weapons and their possible deployment to East Asia for limited conflict, the Chinese feared that meant they could be used to defend Taiwan.
Dr. Yao wrote, “The ongoing discussion of the potential roles of nuclear weapons in a war over
Taiwan became more substantive, with a clarification of different perceptions of where the burden of escalation would fall (each believing it would fall on the other) and the consequences of nuclear first use.”
On the U.S. side, a different result could be seen in the November 2021 Pentagon report on Chinese weaponry which stated, “By late 2018, PRC [People’s Republic of China] concerns began to emerge that the United States would use low -yield weapons against a Taiwan invasion fleet, with related commentary in official media calling for proportionate response capabilities.” That concern was echoed in the Pentagon document which reported that China had already developed its own lower-yield weapon.
Another Chinese contributor to Taking Stock, and attendee at the September 2020 workshop, was Professor Li Bin of the Institute of International Studies of Tsinghua University. A specialist in Sino-US relations in the areas of nuclear weapons and arms control policy, Prof. Li has contributed to both Chinese and American publications and lectured in both countries.
In his essay in Taking Stock, Prof. Li said there is a need to explore arms control ideas different from Cold War thinking. Instead, he suggested, “One possible direction is to devalue nuclear weapons. If nuclear weapons are considered to be usable or considered to be major determinants of leadership roles, countries would have strong interests in keeping large numbers of these weapons. Therefore, we need to make an effort to reduce the roles of nuclear weapons and create conditions for nuclear disarmament.”
That view is somewhat in line with President Biden’s March 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance which said, “We will take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, while ensuring our strategic deterrent remains safe, secure, and effective and that our extended deterrence commitments to our allies remain strong and credible.”
I first learned about the unpublicized Track 2 and 1.5 meetings from a November 2021 article in Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party’s daily English-language tabloid, which said it “has learned that there have been many ‘track two’ talks between China and the US on the nuclear issue.”
That same article said, “What we need to establish is a fully effective nuclear deterrence to exclude the possibility of the U.S. exercising nuclear blackmail against China at a critical moment.”
Searching further, I found that back in December 2016, Global Times foresaw today’s Chinese nuclear buildup.
Five years ago, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper wrote, “China doesn’t have to join in the ‘nuclear arms race,’ but we do need to redefine our nuclear arsenal ‘sufficiency’…With both the U.S. and Russia believing that their nuclear arsenals are ‘not enough,’ it’s imperative for China to speed up the development of its nuclear weapons.”
The article also recognized that today’s nuclear weapons have a use other than for warfighting. “A common misinterpretation is that nuclear weapons will not be used and therefore are a waste of resources. Yet, we believe that Russia is using its nuclear weapons everyday as a strategic deterrence to the U.S.,” the article said.
In July 2020, Hu Xijin, editor in chief of Global Times, called on China to build more nuclear missiles to respond to unprecedented security challenges from the US.
Hu wrote in the Chinese equivalent of Twitter: “Hurry up and build more nuclear missiles to deter the US lunatics. China having more powerful nuclear arsenal is the most important leverage to keep American arrogance below a safety line. Nothing else is very effective.”
Drs. Roberts, Li and Yao have written about two decades of nuclear-focused U.S.-Chinese 1.5 dialogues which at times in the past, helped create a better understanding of each country’s strategic and tactical nuclear approaches. The dialogues are worth restarting in order to identify emerging problems and look at opportunities to improve the relationship and perhaps set a foundation for the inevitable official Track 1 negotiations on nuclear and other advanced weapons between Washington and Beijing.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief
14. America Is Losing the Ball on White Supremacist Terror Groups
America Is Losing the Ball on White Supremacist Terror Groups
Other countries are taking the lead in cracking down on U.S.-based groups.
Foreign Policy · by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Varsha Koduvayur · December 21, 2021
In late November, Australia became the latest country to list the Base, a U.S.-based neo-Nazi group, as a terrorist organization. Australia’s move is indicative of militant white supremacist groups’ growing global reach. In turn, Canberra’s move highlights the need for Washington, which has only designated a single such group as a terrorist organization, to wield that power more aggressively.
Designating white supremacist groups as terrorist entities, as Australia has done, will be a key step to fighting the threats they pose. Designations allow governments to curb the groups’ operational capabilities by making it illegal to give them money or any other material support. Designations have been a primary means of combatting terrorism in the past two decades as Washington focuses on stopping the flow of terrorist financing.
Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said the Base posed a “credible” threat to the country, and it was “known by security agencies to be planning and preparing terrorist attacks,” fulfilling the criteria for the group’s listing as a terrorist organization under the Australian Criminal Code Act. Earlier this year, media reports revealed the Base had plotted to expand into Australia and had targeted six Australian men—including a teenager—for recruitment, with the goal of starting a cell in the country. Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, cautioned that Australians as young as age 16 were being radicalized to support a race war, a dynamic that could potentially provide the Base with fertile territory for its expansion plans.
In late November, Australia became the latest country to list the Base, a U.S.-based neo-Nazi group, as a terrorist organization. Australia’s move is indicative of militant white supremacist groups’ growing global reach. In turn, Canberra’s move highlights the need for Washington, which has only designated a single such group as a terrorist organization, to wield that power more aggressively.
Designating white supremacist groups as terrorist entities, as Australia has done, will be a key step to fighting the threats they pose. Designations allow governments to curb the groups’ operational capabilities by making it illegal to give them money or any other material support. Designations have been a primary means of combatting terrorism in the past two decades as Washington focuses on stopping the flow of terrorist financing.
Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said the Base posed a “credible” threat to the country, and it was “known by security agencies to be planning and preparing terrorist attacks,” fulfilling the criteria for the group’s listing as a terrorist organization under the Australian Criminal Code Act. Earlier this year, media reports revealed the Base had plotted to expand into Australia and had targeted six Australian men—including a teenager—for recruitment, with the goal of starting a cell in the country. Mike Burgess, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, cautioned that Australians as young as age 16 were being radicalized to support a race war, a dynamic that could potentially provide the Base with fertile territory for its expansion plans.
The Base was established in 2018 by Rinaldo Nazzaro, a U.S. citizen living in Russia. Although the group has not carried out any attacks, its explicit goals make the dangers associated with the group clear enough. The Base’s ideology is accelerationist: The group aims to commit violent acts to foment a civil war, overthrow the current system, and ultimately establish a white ethno-state. Nazzaro, who goes by the pseudonym Norman Spear, has defended the use of terrorism to achieve the Base’s goals. In a June 2018 post on Gab, the social network associated with a far-right user base, he wrote “it’s only terrorism if we lose—If we win, we get statues of us put up in parks.” The group’s ideology is also overtly antisemitic; Nazzaro tweeted in 2018 that his goal was to “prepare for the armed struggle against ‘Z0G,’ [sic]” using the acronym for “Zionist Occupied Government,” a term often employed by white supremacists that reflects the belief that Jews secretly control the U.S. government. Nazzaro went on to state his mission was to free “our people from Z0G oppression.”
Designating these groups as terrorist entities would deprive them of access to the U.S. financial system.
The Base’s members have undergone explosives and weapons trainings in so-called hate camps, located in the United States. They consider themselves hardcore survivalists, and the group emphasizes skills that can help them in what they see as the impending race war, such as survival tactics, weapons usage, guerrilla warfare, and more. Members regularly call for mass violence in their online communications. The Base has tried to create cells in several other countries and claims it has operations in Australia, Canada, and South Africa.
In October, two members were sentenced to prison for plotting to carry out an attack at a gun rights rally in Richmond, Virginia. In February, a member pled guilty for stirring up an intimidation campaign against Jewish Americans and Black Americans, during which he encouraged his online followers to vandalize property belonging to these two groups, calling it “Kristallnacht” in reference to the 1938 Nazi pogrom. Three other Base members were charged in Georgia for being part of a criminal street gang and for plotting to murder a couple they thought belonged to the far-left group Antifa.
Australia’s designation follows similar moves by Britain and Canada, both of which designated the Base as a terrorist group earlier this year. This means these countries can now deprive the group of access to their financial systems and prosecute people supporting the organization.
Australia’s move—and those by other U.S. allies—puts the spotlight on Washington. Why does the United States lag so far behind many other countries in cracking down on militant hate groups? Despite the presence of a deep, networked white supremacist movement on its soil, Washington has been slow to designate such groups as terrorist organizations. To date, the United States has imposed sanctions on only one white supremacist group: the Russian Imperial Movement, which was designated a terrorist organization in April 2020.
One limiting factor is U.S. law, which only allows for foreign groups to be labeled terrorists. The Base, for example, does not fall in this category since it is based in the United States. The prospect of congressional action to change the law and allow the designation of domestic groups is dim, and there is significant resistance from both sides of the aisle: Progressive Democrats are concerned anti-terrorism legislation could trample civil liberties while many Republicans worry such legislation could open the door to targeting people for their political views.
Germany offers an important precedent for legal change. After the 9/11 attacks, the country tightened loopholes in its laws that allowed terrorists to live and fundraise in Germany after the revelation that some of the 9/11 hijackers spent years living in Hamburg, plotting the operation from there. The change allowed Germany to prosecute terrorist activities even if the terrorists were members of foreign outfits that only operated outside of Germany and without direct involvement of German citizens. (In essence, it was the opposite problem: The United States shields domestic terrorists while Germany shielded foreign ones.)
Many commentators contend that current U.S. legislation is more than sufficient to counter white supremacist groups. If so, U.S. federal and state authorities should more aggressively use the current laws.
Indeed, several militant white supremacist groups could, in all likelihood, be designated terrorist entities without any changes to the law. These include Sonnenkrieg Division, a British-based group, and Feuerkrieg Division, founded in the Baltics with members in Europe and the United States. Both groups are foreign offshoots of Atomwaffen Division, a U.S.-based accelerationist group that advocates for a race war.
Why does the United States lag so far behind many other countries in cracking down on militant hate groups?
Other groups that could be designated terrorist entities under U.S. law include three British groups: the white power skinhead group Blood & Honour (B&H), its affiliate Combat 18 (C18), and the neo-Nazi group National Action. B&H has chapters throughout Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and the Americas. C18 has been called the “armed branch” of B&H and is responsible for murders and bombings. Another group that could potentially be designated a terrorist organization is the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), a Scandinavia-based group whose members have carried out bombings.
Close U.S. allies have taken steps against these groups. Britain has proscribed Sonnenkrieg, Feuerkrieg, and National Action under its anti-terrorism law; Australia has designated Sonnenkrieg, Canada has banned B&H and C18, and Finland has banned NRM.
This existing patchwork of proscriptions and designations would be significantly strengthened by similar moves from the U.S. State or Treasury Departments. If they used their designation powers more aggressively against white supremacist groups, it would boost intelligence coordination against these groups—especially among the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing allies (Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States)—and help establish a more uniform baseline to raise global pressure for how countries counter these militant groups.
Designating these groups as terrorist entities would also have a material, strategic benefit. It would deprive them of access to the U.S. financial system. Further, by employing sanctions and raising surveillance, Washington would be better equipped to respond quickly to any future white supremacist attacks. Designations would also carry symbolic weight, particularly given the current dearth of U.S. designations against white supremacist groups.
One thing is for certain: Canberra’s designation shows how the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol—where many of the insurrectionists donned military gear and white supremacist paraphernalia and were members of organized hate groups—and increased white supremacist attacks in recent years continue to reverberate around the world. Australia and many other countries know designations are an effective tool to counter the most violent and virulent groups. It’s time for Washington to recognize it too.
Foreign Policy · by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Varsha Koduvayur · December 21, 2021
15. Opinion | Putin wants us to negotiate over the heads of our allies. Washington shouldn’t fall for it.
Conclusion:
There are many other important European security issues that also need new attention. But this list of amendments to the Russian draft treaties is a good place to test whether Putin is serious about an actual negotiation on a new European security architecture — or whether he’s interested merely in issuing an ultimatum, designed purposely to be rejected, as a pretext for greater military action against Ukraine.
Opinion | Putin wants us to negotiate over the heads of our allies. Washington shouldn’t fall for it.
The Washington Post · by Michael McFaulContributing columnist Today at 2:22 p.m. EST · December 21, 2021
Last week, the Russian government took the highly unusual decision to publish two draft treaties, complete with articles and formal legalistic language, on European security — one between Russia and NATO, one between Russia and the United States. During my five years in the Obama administration, I often participated in talks with the Russians on major agreements, including two that we succeeded in completing, the New START Treaty and Russia’s accession agreement to the World Trade Organization. In those serious negotiations, Moscow never started by issuing a list of demands.
In fact, few serious negotiations begin with one side drafting, let alone publishing, an entire agreement. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s move has the feel of an ultimatum. And ultimatums, as we know from history, are often pretexts for annexation or war. Leaders in Washington, Brussels and Kyiv should be worried that Putin does not really want to negotiate a new agreement on European security. His deployment of 175,000 troops on the border suggests, instead, that he is more interested in escalating the current war in eastern Ukraine.
Many of the demands in the draft treaties now floated by Putin, however are nonstarters and violate agreements Moscow signed before. To mention but one example, great powers cannot dictate to other countries what multilateral organizations that can and cannot join — contrary to Moscow’s expressed desire to limit’s Ukraine choices regarding affiliations with European security institutions. That violates the Helsinki Final Act. Still, a few ideas in the Russian treaties are worthy of discussion, including limits on arms, deployments and exercises.
But if there is to be a serious negotiation on a new European security architecture, then the Russian government must accept two kinds of friendly amendments to their draft proposals — changes in the participants and an expansion of the agenda.
First, on participants. As made clear by his proposals for a treaty between the United States and Russia, Putin wants a replay of the 1945 Yalta agreement (in Russia they even speak of “Yalta 2.0”). In this new version, the United States and Russia (this time excluding Britain) would carve out spheres of influence in Europe. That is completely unacceptable.
Putin also wants to negotiate a second treaty on NATO with Washington — over the heads of many European countries. That is also a nonstarter. All European countries would have to be included in such negotiations. The Organization for European Security and Cooperation in Europe is the obvious venue, whose members include the United States, the other members of NATO and Russia, but also Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan. We need a Helsinki 2.0, not a Yalta 2.0, so that smaller countries in Eastern Europe can be assured that Moscow and Washington will be discussing “nothing about us without us.”
Second, the menu of European security issues outlined in the Russian proposals must be expanded dramatically. Russian actions and policies undermining European security must also be addressed, not forgotten. Here are some additional amendments to the Russian draft treaties.
To enhance European security and strengthen the sovereignty of all European countries, Russia must agree to withdraw its soldiers and weapons from the territory of the Republic of Moldova.
To jump-start real negotiations to restore the territorial integrity of Georgia, Russia must renounce its recognition of the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries.
To recommit to the set of treaties, agreements and multilateral institutions that helped to strengthen European security at the end of World War II, including most importantly the norm against annexation, Russia must return Crimea to Ukraine and end support for violent separatist movements in eastern Ukraine.
To enhance strategic stability in Europe, Russia must remove its SS-26 Iskander missiles from Kaliningrad and all other deployment locations that allow this highly accurate missile to attack European targets in minutes. Russia should also remove from Kaliningrad all tactical nuclear weapons. Talks on new limits on these kinds of weapons throughout Europe could then begin.
To strengthen the sovereignty of all members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Russia must commit to stopping the theft of digital property, ending direct support of anti-democratic individuals and organizations, and curtailing disinformation operations that aim to disrupt free and fair elections and democratic practices more broadly.
To enhance the security of individual Europeans — a norm codified in numerous European security agreements that Moscow has already signed — Russia must commit to ending assassination operations, such as those conducted in the European cities of London, Moscow, Salisbury, Berlin and Tomsk. Russia also must pledge to stop aiding European dictators who kill and arrest Europeans exercising freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.
There are many other important European security issues that also need new attention. But this list of amendments to the Russian draft treaties is a good place to test whether Putin is serious about an actual negotiation on a new European security architecture — or whether he’s interested merely in issuing an ultimatum, designed purposely to be rejected, as a pretext for greater military action against Ukraine.
Opinion by Michael McFaul
Michael McFaul is director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Hoover fellow at Stanford University and a contributing columnist to The Post. He is the author of "From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia." Twitter
The Washington Post · by Michael McFaulContributing columnist Today at 2:22 p.m. EST · December 21, 2021
16. China’s Spat With Lithuania Is a Test for the World’s Democracies
Excerpts:
This isn’t just a European problem. The U.S. has been leading the charge on competition with China in part by calling for greater cooperation among the world’s democracies. Yet Washington has largely proved allergic to steps that could hurt its own economic interests. The countries that have suffered most for tangling with China, then, are smaller ones.
This isn’t good strategy. Yes, the EU needs stronger measures for deterring economic coercion of its members. Yet the larger democratic world needs better mechanisms for blunting that coercion and responding collectively. Think of this as an economic “Article 5” — the idea embodied in U.S. defense pacts that an attack against one is an attack against all. Not least, the world’s democracies must deepen their economic integration so they are less vulnerable to Chinese pressure in the first place.
Competing effectively with China requires a measure of near-term economic pain. The democratic world can best meet that challenge by pulling together.
China’s Spat With Lithuania Is a Test for the World’s Democracies
The U.S. and EU need to get better at helping small countries withstand Chinese pressure.
December 21, 2021, 7:00 AM EST
China’s push for global supremacy is playing out in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, but also in the quieter coercion that Beijing practices every day. The latest target of this pressure is Lithuania, which is paying an economic price for snubbing China diplomatically. The case is a reminder that the democratic world must either unite against Chinese pressure or see countries picked off one by one.
Lithuania is no stranger to great power coercion. The country was swallowed up by Joseph Stalin in 1939, and conquered by Germany two years later. After then being “liberated” by the Red Army, it was held captive by the Soviet Union for nearly half a century. Lithuania finally reclaimed its independence in 1991, only to be threatened today by Vladimir Putin’s Russia — and by Xi Jinping’s China.
The dispute with China began earlier this year when Lithuania withdrew from the “17+1” bloc in Eastern Europe, a subgroup of the European Union that China often uses to divide and influence the EU as a whole. Lithuania then upgraded diplomatic relations with Taiwan, becoming the only European country to permit a Taiwanese representative office (short of a full embassy) on its soil.
Beijing furiously withdrew its ambassador from Vilnius and then halted, unofficially, all bilateral trade with Lithuania — the sort of embargo often reserved for wartime or dealings with the world’s worst regimes.
What’s more, Beijing has tried to make this punishment multilateral, pressuring EU businesses to cease importing Lithuanian goods. Just as the U.S. has used the reach of the dollar to compel other countries to halt trade with Iran, China is using its market power to push other countries to choose between Vilnius and Beijing.
That’s not all. After China opted to downgrade bilateral diplomatic relations, jeopardizing the legal immunity of Lithuanian officials in China, Vilnius chose to shutter its embassy rather than risk becoming the next victim of China’s hostage diplomacy.
This dispute has revealed the emergence of a far more aggressive Chinese sanctions policy, as well as an intensifying global struggle over Taiwan. Beijing may be whittling down the number of countries that officially recognize the island, yet Taiwan has been expanding ties with the U.S., Japan, Australia and other democracies. One reason China is bringing down the hammer now may be that it fears Taipei has the diplomatic momentum.
The crucial question, though, is whether the world’s democracies will stand with one of their own. Lithuania isn’t the first to anger China and suffer the consequences: Australia, Canada, South Korea and Norway are among those that have found themselves in similar diplomatic rows with Beijing. China’s strategy for dividing its rivals involves singling out the more vulnerable states and using its vast market power — or simply its diplomatic ruthlessness — to coerce them.
Admittedly, the strategy hasn’t always worked. In late 2020, Australia responded to a raft of Chines sanctions by choosing Washington’s side in the new cold war. Two years before that, Chinese hostage-taking served mainly to alienate Canada. Lithuania, for its part, is not deeply dependent on trade with China. But its case is nonetheless sobering, because it exposes the democratic world’s inability to help its weaker members withstand Chinese pressure.
Criticism from the EU got Beijing to relax its most egregious sanction against Lithuania — its delisting by Chinese customs agencies. But China appears to be keeping in place other unofficial restrictions and can easily tighten the screws again. The EU is considering an anti-coercion instrument that would allow it to strike back with reciprocal sanctions in such cases, yet this is probably years from becoming a reality. So Lithuania and the EU find themselves appealing for help to a slow and toothless World Trade Organization.
This isn’t just a European problem. The U.S. has been leading the charge on competition with China in part by calling for greater cooperation among the world’s democracies. Yet Washington has largely proved allergic to steps that could hurt its own economic interests. The countries that have suffered most for tangling with China, then, are smaller ones.
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This isn’t good strategy. Yes, the EU needs stronger measures for deterring economic coercion of its members. Yet the larger democratic world needs better mechanisms for blunting that coercion and responding collectively. Think of this as an economic “Article 5” — the idea embodied in U.S. defense pacts that an attack against one is an attack against all. Not least, the world’s democracies must deepen their economic integration so they are less vulnerable to Chinese pressure in the first place.
Competing effectively with China requires a measure of near-term economic pain. The democratic world can best meet that challenge by pulling together.
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17. Sticks and Stones: Realism, Constructivism, Rhetoric, and Great Power Competition
A view from Singapore.
Conclusion:
The US-China bilateral relationship is the most important one in the world today. As a rising power, China needs to reassure others that its objectives are peaceful, and that it is willing to abide by the international system that has allowed it to prosper. For the United States, rather than accepting the realist worldview of inevitable competition, constructivism places the prerogative back on policymakers to define their national interests and ultimately construct their desired realities; great power competition is a means, not an end. Constructivism provides options for the United States to dampen this competition such that it does not lead to conflict. Significant political commitment and farsightedness are also necessary to provide sufficient time to overcome entrenched identities. Yet, it is this rigidity in identities that allows cooperative elements, once ingrained, to persist as a stabilizing force of the international order.
Sticks and Stones: Realism, Constructivism, Rhetoric, and Great Power Competition - Modern War Institute
Introducing the 2018 National Defense Strategy, then US Secretary of Defense James Mattis remarked that “Great Power competition, not terrorism, is now the primary focus of US national security.” His comments reflect the bipartisan view that a rising and increasingly assertive China threatened the United States’ post–Cold War hegemony, and it compelled the United States to adopt a more competitive approach. Indeed, confrontation has characterized the Sino-American relationship in recent years, with tensions escalating across a multitude of issues. To realists, this competition is not unexpected in the anarchic international system; constructivists, however, argue against such a pessimistic outlook. Rather than an inherently anarchic international system, constructivists such as Alexander Wendt believe that ideas and identities govern international relations; great power competition exists because states create it. Therefore, by recognizing that identities are social constructs, influenced through rhetoric, malleable through interactions, but often entrenched and requiring time to change, constructivism provides US policymakers with a broader range of options to avoid spiraling towards material competition with China.
The realist school of international relations contends that the absence of a supranational authority to impose order inevitably produces anarchy in the international system, which requires rational states to rely on themselves to achieve security. States, then, pursue their interests through the accumulation of relative, often material, power. Under such zero-sum conditions, competition and conflict are thus natural and inevitable; as realist John Mearsheimer claims, “The world is condemned to perpetual great-power competition.”
In contrast, constructivism argues that the structures governing international relations, such as anarchy, are not inherent but are social constructs; intersubjective understanding of ideas, beliefs, and identities provide meaning and guide states’ behaviors, which consequently establishes structures (norms, conventions, and institutions) that define reality. Wendt’s example perfectly frames the theory: five hundred British nuclear weapons are less threatening to the United States than five North Korean ones, despite the material disparity, because of the different meaning and identities attached to both states. Similarly, the international system does not automatically make the United States and China rivals—states mutually constitute such identities. Unlike realism, which prescribes competition as inevitable, constructivism is agnostic toward either competition or cooperation—it focuses on the social processes that produce these outcomes.
One social process that influences identity is rhetoric. Hence, the United States’ frequent use of anti-China rhetoric, in speeches and official documents, describes China as a “pacing threat” and “rival,” establishes competition as a norm, and constructs an antagonistic US-China relationship. Constructivist Nicholas Onuf explains that repeated speech acts establish meaning, and this creates social rules that regulate behaviors, therefore constructing reality. Worryingly, the frequency of anti-China language has increased in recent years. Foundational American strategy documents such as the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and the National Military Strategy label China as the preeminent threat, and the recent Interim National Security Strategic Guidance explicitly calls for the United States to “out-compete” China and “hold countries like China to account.” US politicians have also actively fueled the anti-China rhetoric, with examples such as former President Donald Trump’s use of “China virus” to describe COVID-19 or the bipartisan framing of various proposed legislation as anti-China bills, including the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 and the Ensuring American Global Leadership and Engagement (EAGLE) Act.
The sustained influence of anti-China rhetoric portrays China as an adversary to overcome, further extending the United States’ strategic mistrust of China beyond material rivalry. Per Wendt’s articulation that actors operate based on attached beliefs and identities, this mistrust produces a US-China relationship underscored by competition, even in areas where cooperation would be feasible. In contrast, by avoiding excessive anti-China rhetoric, US policymakers could dampen the antagonistic view of China. Scholars Gavan Duffy and Brian Frederking found that speech acts by the Soviet Union and the United States contributed to ending the Cold War by progressively dismantling the Cold War’s social rules and structures. Similarly, a more accommodating narrative toward China could help de-escalate bilateral tensions and provide policymakers greater flexibility in engaging China. Recognizing that US-China competition could be a socially created construct that the United States can proactively alter, rather than realism’s inevitable endgame, opens the possibility of pursuing selective cooperation.
Beyond establishing identities through rhetoric, constructivism argues that identities are not immutable—they are modifiable through reciprocal interactions. Repeated antagonistic US-China interactions result in hostile interpretations of intent, fueling a vicious cycle of deeper mistrust and competition. Conversely, to avoid spiraling toward conflict, US policymakers could selectively cooperate with China in areas that are not inimical to US national interests. Both climate change and piracy are transnational threats, which adversely impact both countries’ security and require collective action to address. Cooperation on these issues can help build trust and create shared knowledge so that the relationship does not need to be zero-sum.
Cooperation with China also establishes the norm that the character of the relationship is not binary; strategic competition does not need to be absolute and can coexist with cooperation. Over time, such interactions could shift the underlying beliefs, interests, and strategic cultures of both countries. For instance, even at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union cooperated at various levels to advance nuclear nonproliferation, and these interactions altered the Soviet Union’s identity and helped to facilitate the peaceful conclusion of the conflict. Therefore, through selective cooperation with China, the United States has the opportunity to influence and inject balance and avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy of great power competition.
While socially constituted identities are malleable, identities are often entrenched within states and their societies. Hence, transformative efforts typically require an extended period to take effect. For instance, despite globalization and the potentially normative effects from increased transnational interactions, history—which is integral in constructing identities—continues to burden many states in their foreign policy and international relations. Predisposed by their post–World War II national identities, studies have found that many Chinese and Koreans continue to harbor negative impressions of Japan today. Similarly, despite their economic strength, the persistence of Japan and Germany’s post–World War II military pacifism highlights the rigidity of identities. Thus, policymakers implementing a constructivist approach to alter identities, beliefs, and cultures would need to adopt a long-term horizon and not expect immediate results. This would require consistent policy direction that transcends administrations, to provide the extended time horizon necessary to effect change. For example, China’s incremental advances in the South China Sea and its Belt and Road Initiative projects reflect a long-game strategy that underscores the pertinence of time in reconstructing China’s global identity.
Conversely, failure to recognize the importance of time in shaping identities might cause policymakers to mistakenly assess the effectiveness of certain measures. Flawed assessments, coupled with pressures to produce short-term tangible results, may inadvertently lead policymakers toward more extreme assertive actions. However, these actions tend to reflect a marked departure from established ideas and constructs. Therefore, they could be unanticipated and are prone to misinterpretation. Inadvertently, this might reinforce existing identities and result in a counterproductive outcome that political scientist Aaron Friedberg describes as “hardening.” Hence, time possesses strategic value.
The US-China bilateral relationship is the most important one in the world today. As a rising power, China needs to reassure others that its objectives are peaceful, and that it is willing to abide by the international system that has allowed it to prosper. For the United States, rather than accepting the realist worldview of inevitable competition, constructivism places the prerogative back on policymakers to define their national interests and ultimately construct their desired realities; great power competition is a means, not an end. Constructivism provides options for the United States to dampen this competition such that it does not lead to conflict. Significant political commitment and farsightedness are also necessary to provide sufficient time to overcome entrenched identities. Yet, it is this rigidity in identities that allows cooperative elements, once ingrained, to persist as a stabilizing force of the international order.
Stanley Lim is a lieutenant colonel with the Singapore Army and is currently attending the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College. Besides command appointments at the platoon and company levels, he previously worked on enhancing Singapore’s defense diplomacy efforts in the Singapore Ministry of Defence.
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, or that of any organization the author is affiliated with, including the Singapore Armed Forces, the Singapore Ministry of Defence, or the Singapore Government.
Image credit: Ron Przysucha, US State Department
18. Checkmate. Putin has the West cornered
Excerpts:
At home, Putin has been brandishing the state's power through fear and cohesion -- chiefly by banning civil society groups, jailing high profile opponents and threatening Russian nationals who work for foreign embassies.
What are the tools left in the West's diplomatic toolbox? Depressingly few. But some options remain: banning Russians from travel, blocking those multimillion dollar property deals which have transformed London and Miami into playgrounds for wealthy Russians -- even ordering the immediate expulsion of Russian nationals from Western countries. In other words, whatever it takes short of direct military conflict.
Clearly, video chats with Biden and threats from European leaders of "serious consequences" will not deter Putin. With an invasion of Ukraine imminent, the West needs to clarify the pain that awaits Putin should he decide to make his next move.
The appearance of a lack of resolve, whether in diplomacy, on the battlefield or on the chessboard, is never a winning strategy.
Checkmate. Putin has the West cornered
Opinion by Michael Bociurkiw
Updated 7:56 PM ET, Tue December 21, 2021
CNN · by Opinion by Michael Bociurkiw
Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) is a global affairs analyst and a former spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is the author of the book Digital Pandemic and host of the podcast "Global Impact." He is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
(CNN)As 2022 nears, the West is trying to figure out Russian President Vladimir Putin's next move on a complex geopolitical chessboard -- and preparing an "aggressive package" of sanctions, should he decide to make another land grab in Ukraine.
Tensions are now at their highest since 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea and dispatched "little green men" into Ukraine's Donbas region. An all-out land invasion of Ukraine is now a real possibility.
But let's face it. Putin could care less about the West's threats, sitting as he does in the enviable position of being able to call the shots.
Michael Bociurkiw
Europe is in the grip of an energy crisis with low reserves. And with Russia supplying some 40% of the European Union's gas imports, the Kremlin has already shown its ability to checkmate the West's harshest sanctions by limiting production and potentially triggering rolling blackouts across the continent.
Putin's endgame is USSR 2.0, coming almost 30 years to the day the Soviet Union collapsed. His next moves come at a delicate geopolitical moment, with Western fears of a Ukraine invasion, the colonization of Belarus, a Europe-wide energy crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stepping down as EU chief negotiator and concerns over US President Joe Biden's discombobulated foreign policy.
Read More
If you've any doubt about Putin's plans to roll back the clock, just read his 5,000-plus-word essay on why Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are doomed without closer integration with Mother Russia. Or his audacious demands Friday for a veto on who joins the NATO alliance and limits in stationing troops and weaponry in any country which joined the alliance after 1997.
Without firing a shot, Putin has managed to send the West into a collective panic -- or at least into a position where they feel the need to appease the aging autocrat.
For the past four months, and particularly between September 7 and December 5 according to western intelligence sources quoted by CNN, Putin has been amassing tens of thousands of troops and heavy weaponry as close as 30 miles to Ukraine's borders. U.S. intelligence reports suggest a build-up of up to 175,000 troops, enough to stage a swift and immediate incursion.
Another land grab would add to the territory seized in 2014 when Russia illegally annexed Crimea and sent Russian-backed combatants into the heavily industrialized eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.
With so much muscle, Putin could be gunning for a land bridge between Russia proper and Crimea -- a move which could be designed in part to free-up water resources blocked by Ukraine in the North Crimean Canal, which once accounted for up to 85% of the peninsula's water needs.
Most recently, Putin opened up another front with the West by establishing a military alliance with the man often dubbed "Europe's last dictator," Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. Emboldened by the Kremlin's backing, Lukashenko has acted with impunity by jailing opponents, forcing down a Ryanair jet with a political opponent onboard and sending migrants toward its border with EU neighbors.
Yet, as recently as Thursday, European leaders were responding to Putin's bullying tactics and intimidation by trying to nudge him toward the bargaining table. This could be a sign that the bloc fears that even if they sign off on further harsh sanctions on Russia should an invasion take place, Putin could respond by holding back gas production.
Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and security services expert, told me that the country is already heavily sanctioned, and that targeted Russian companies have been effectively inoculated with lucrative contracts from the defense forces and intelligence entities.
Russia has likely seen the impact of the 2018 harsh western sanctions on Iran and calculated it can withstand punitive measures even if it means suspension from the international SWIFT payment system.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Russia and China pledged this week to work jointly toward a closed trading network that would reduce dependence on the international financial system and limit transactions in US currency.
At home, Putin has been brandishing the state's power through fear and cohesion -- chiefly by banning civil society groups, jailing high profile opponents and threatening Russian nationals who work for foreign embassies.
What are the tools left in the West's diplomatic toolbox? Depressingly few. But some options remain: banning Russians from travel, blocking those multimillion dollar property deals which have transformed London and Miami into playgrounds for wealthy Russians -- even ordering the immediate expulsion of Russian nationals from Western countries. In other words, whatever it takes short of direct military conflict.
Clearly, video chats with Biden and threats from European leaders of "serious consequences" will not deter Putin. With an invasion of Ukraine imminent, the West needs to clarify the pain that awaits Putin should he decide to make his next move.
The appearance of a lack of resolve, whether in diplomacy, on the battlefield or on the chessboard, is never a winning strategy.
CNN · by Opinion by Michael Bociurkiw
19. The Berlin Crisis, Ukraine, and the Five Percent Problem
Strategic patience has such terrible connotations and baggage. Sometimes you need it. But to have such patience also requires a long term, coherent, sustainable, and effective strategy.
Conclusion:
Russia has made a series of security demands, some of which (like rolling NATO’s military deployments back to where they were in 1997 or guarantees that NATO would not engage in military activities in Eastern Europe) are clearly going nowhere. Others (including confidence-building measures in the Black Sea and the Baltic and a new agreement on intermediate-range missiles) are certainly worth exploring. Russian diplomats have claimed that their demands come as a package: take it or leave it, they say, and accept responsibility for the outcome (war). It’s a militant gamble, and it ought to be met with careful, calibrated diplomacy and active involvement by the United States. It is important to unpack the Russian proposals and perhaps salvage something from them that will give Putin a dignified way out of the unpleasant situation he presently finds himself in. Such negotiations are unlikely to deliver breakthroughs. At best, we can perhaps reach a stalemate that will persist for 10, 20, even 30 years. But if the Cold War has taught us anything, it is that it often pays to be patient.
The Berlin Crisis, Ukraine, and the Five Percent Problem - War on the Rocks
Could World War III start over Ukraine? Probably not — at least not in the short run. There would be little appetite in the broader region for a military showdown with Russia, and Ukraine would have to fall back on its own forces. But the consequences could still be dire, both for Kyiv and the region. Ukraine might not survive as a sovereign state. Other predatory powers might draw their own lessons. And — for all the intentions to the contrary — there would always remain the possibility of inadvertent escalation that may yet turn the Russo-Ukrainian conflict into a broader conflagration and upend the European order as we know it.
All of this will make you reach for the bookshelf to see if we encountered anything similar in the past, and how we managed to survive. It’s under “B.”
The Berlin crisis (1958 to 1961) offers important lessons for the present dilemmas in Ukraine. The conflict over Berlin pitched Moscow against Washington, bringing the two to the brink of a nuclear war, but Soviet and American leaders eventually found enough wisdom to come back from the precipice.
Khrushchev vividly described Berlin as the testicles of the West, which he could squeeze to make the Americans squeal. Behind such bravado, though, was a deep sense of insecurity about Moscow’s deteriorating position in East Germany in general and in East Berlin in particular. Faced with the grim realities of life under communism, the East Germans (especially the younger professionals) were voting with their feet, crossing the street into West Berlin — a Western outpost in the heart of communist East Germany. In 1957 alone some 250,000 left, leaving East Germany on the brink of ruin. The situation called for an urgent solution.
On Nov. 27, 1958, Khrushchev produced his so-called Berlin ultimatum, giving the United States and its allies six months to sign a peace treaty with Germany that would lead to their withdrawal from West Berlin. If they refused, he threatened, Moscow would sign its own separate treaty with East Germany, which (by implication) could then expel the Western powers from the city.
Faced with a predictably negative Western reaction, the Soviet leader subsequently extended the “deadline” by another six months. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, while firm on Berlin, tried to massage Khrushchev’s ego by inviting him for a visit to the United States. Khrushchev’s trip there, and talks with Eisenhower at Camp David, even fed hopes of an early end to the Cold War. These hopes were shattered, though, when on May 1, 1960, Soviet forces shot down an American U-2 spy plane piloted by Gary Powers. Khrushchev demanded Eisenhower’s apology, received none, and stormed out in rage from the four-power summit in Paris, convened in a bid to lessen the East-West tensions.
When later that year John F. Kennedy was elected president, Khrushchev agreed to meet him in Vienna. He had hoped to intimidate the youthful president into yielding to his demands on Berlin. Before setting out for Austria, Khrushchev held a council in the Kremlin, where he spelled out his approach to the Berlin problem. The key question for him was how hard to push the Americans without accidentally causing war.
That “son of a bitch” Kennedy, Khrushchev told his colleagues, understood that “the correlation of forces has changed” and therefore America had to take the Soviet Union seriously. By this, he meant that the United States would not risk a suicidal war with the Soviet Union, armed with a thermonuclear arsenal, over a bubble of Western control in the heart of the Soviet bloc that Moscow could easily pop. Khrushchev just did not believe it. Nor did he think that the United Kingdom and France, which also occupied West Berlin, would support a general war in Europe over the matter that could easily turn nuclear. “They are smart people, and they understand this,” he concluded.
But there were doubts, too. The Soviet leader just could not be sure that — contrary to common sense — the United States would not resort to war to defend its position in Berlin. “They will try to scare us with war — of course, they are trying to scare us,” Khrushchev reasoned. Was it all bluff? “The most dangerous [country] is America. It really has the power … One cannot rely on America because their decisions have no logic, but they are made under influence of particular groups and a random combination of factors.”
Khrushchev had to weigh his chances: How hard could he push to get what he wanted without triggering a war that he most certainly wanted to avoid? It came down to a calculation of probability, and here Khrushchev gave the following assessment. “Any business,” he said, “is risky. And this risk that we are taking — it’s justified. I’d say, if we were to take a percentage, it’s more than 95 percent chance that there won’t be a war.”
95 percent? Not bad for a gambler. This calculation underpinned Khrushchev’s hawkish approach to his summit with Kennedy in June 1961. As he told his colleagues beforehand, “Politics is politics. If we want to conduct our policy, and for our policy to be recognized and respected, and feared, we must be firm.”
But the American president did not yield to pressure. The summit was a grim draw. “It is up to the U.S. to decide whether there will be war or peace,” Khrushchev said in conclusion, adding ominously that his decision to sign a peace treaty was “firm and irrevocable.” In response, Kennedy merely observed that “it would be a cold winter.”
Yet when push came to shove, instead of putting his probability calculation to the test to see if he could coerce the Americans into his preferred solution of the German problem, Khrushchev folded. On Aug. 13, 1961, East German authorities, acting with Soviet support, drew barbed wire along the perimeter of West Berlin. The temporary barriers were later replaced with a hideous concrete wall that “solved” the problem of the refugees. Henceforth anyone trying to flee risked death. The window to freedom was slammed shut.
This was not an elegant solution from Moscow’s perspective. The United States and its allies remained entrenched in West Berlin. But the Soviet leader decided not to risk the possibility of a conflict — the less than 5 percent chance that things might go awry. Was it really only 5 percent? No one could really tell. No one could guarantee that, once escalation began, it would not spiral out of control.
Later that fall, the Soviets and the Americans nearly came to blows over access rights at one of the checkpoints along the newly constructed wall. The tank stand-off at Checkpoint Charlie was a pointer to the dangers of inadvertent escalation. Fortunately, both sides had enough common sense to slowly retreat from the abyss. The wall remained in place for nearly 30 years, a forbidding symbol of the Cold War and a reminder that as much as each side had riding on its preferred outcome, they had no other realistic option but to retreat and compromise.
Much in the current stand-off between Russia and the West over Ukraine is reminiscent of the earlier Cold War conflict over Germany. By building up a military force along Ukraine’s borders, President Vladimir Putin is seeking to coerce the West into accepting his demands, which include official assurances from NATO that Ukraine (and Georgia, for good measure) would never be admitted into the alliance.
Khrushchev’s words still echo through the Kremlin corridors. “Politics is politics. If we want to conduct our policy, and for our policy to be recognized and respected, and feared, we must be firm.”
Yet, like Khrushchev then, Putin today is secretly weighing his chances of success. What if his gamble failed and he had to either de-escalate (and so lose credibility) or carry out his threats and invade Ukraine? What would the West do? What are the chances of a broader regional conflagration?
These are all great imponderables. For despite President Joe Biden’s preoccupation with China, despite America’s recent disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and despite the exploitable fissures inside NATO and the European Union, the West’s reaction is difficult to foresee. There may be a 95 percent chance that Putin would get away with an invasion, perhaps even an annexation of Donbas. He managed it before in Crimea and faced tolerable consequences. But the other 5 percent weighs heavier and heavier as the stakes grow larger and larger.
A smart Western policy would be to maintain this uncertainty in Putin’s mind. This would not mean reckless saber-rattling. The task at hand is to avoid war. But the West should remember that a war can only be avoided through deterrence and polite but firm refusal to yield to military pressure. Leave it to the Russians to fire the first shot. In 1961 Khrushchev wisely decided not to. Putin is more than his match in intelligence and common sense.
There is, however, another side to the conflict in Ukraine. The key lesson of the Berlin crisis is that inelegant outcomes are sometimes the only viable outcomes. The construction of the Berlin Wall 60 years ago was a human tragedy that helped to avoid a bigger tragedy still — an East-West war over Germany. This lesson should not be lost on policymakers today — in the West as much as in Russia and Ukraine. A frozen conflict is far better than an open war.
Russia has made a series of security demands, some of which (like rolling NATO’s military deployments back to where they were in 1997 or guarantees that NATO would not engage in military activities in Eastern Europe) are clearly going nowhere. Others (including confidence-building measures in the Black Sea and the Baltic and a new agreement on intermediate-range missiles) are certainly worth exploring. Russian diplomats have claimed that their demands come as a package: take it or leave it, they say, and accept responsibility for the outcome (war). It’s a militant gamble, and it ought to be met with careful, calibrated diplomacy and active involvement by the United States. It is important to unpack the Russian proposals and perhaps salvage something from them that will give Putin a dignified way out of the unpleasant situation he presently finds himself in. Such negotiations are unlikely to deliver breakthroughs. At best, we can perhaps reach a stalemate that will persist for 10, 20, even 30 years. But if the Cold War has taught us anything, it is that it often pays to be patient.
Sergey Radchenko is the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
20. The Problem with Drones that Everyone Saw Coming
Process, decision-making, and leadership. Not drones. It should not matter what the platform is.
The Problem with Drones that Everyone Saw Coming
Just because drone warfare is less dangerous for American soldiers does not mean it is more effective.
A new trove of Pentagon documents revealed by the New York Times shows once again that drone warfare does the United States more harm than good. U.S. drone strikes, which have killed many hundreds of civilians in the greater Middle East, radicalize enemies, keep the United States involved in wars long past their expiration date, and cause post-traumatic stress for those running the drone program.
The general argument for using drones is that these uncrewed, generally precision-guided weapons can accomplish many of the desired effects of general conventional war at a far lower cost. Proponents argue that drones send a credible signal to adversaries that the U.S. can fight wars indefinitely, that they allow Washington to mostly withdraw from the Middle East, and the reusable nature of new drones keeps U.S. troops out of harm’s way.
This could not be further from the truth. Even if drones do send a credible signal to adversaries, that does not matter unless those adversaries stop fighting. The opposite is true. Because drone strikes kill families and innocent civilians, they lead to radicalization.
The New York Times reports show that 1,417 civilians have been killed in U.S. drone strikes in the Middle East. This means that the United States is playing right into the narrative anti-American terrorist organizations use to radicalize recruits. Reporting shows that the Islamic State has used footage from the aftermath of drone strikes in its propaganda videos. It is not difficult to convince someone that a far-off country hates them after you show them footage of what a drone strike did to a family in their country.
The impact of this is stark. Recent research finds that, when attacks successfully kill a cell’s leader in Pakistan, the resulting power vacuum typically leads to a nearly 30 percentage point-increase in attacks over the next three to six months. Other research finds similar effects in Yemen, Somalia, and the Middle East as a whole.
Beyond increasing the number of enemy troops, drones allow for primacy on the cheap. They are attractive to presidents because they demonstrate “doing something” to fight terrorism. In 2013, CIA Director-appointee John Brennan said drones are best at deterring future terrorist attacks. Furthermore, successful drone strikes increase presidential approval ratings despite things like weak economies more than is seen with traditional uses of force. Thus, even if the president is unsure of drones’ efficacy, the future benefits from this “cheap primacy” are undoubtedly attractive.
The problem is that this also means an extension of forever wars. The U.S. drone program fits well with the “over the horizon” operations Washington continues to conduct in Afghanistan, despite knowing that its partners have the perverse benefit of mandating Washington’s involvement in the region. Beyond that, the United States is using drone warfare to aid Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen that has led to the largest manmade humanitarian crisis in history.
Finally, the cost to American soldiers from using drones is not cheap. A 2011 Pentagon study found that drone pilots experience post-traumatic stress at the same rate as pilots of manned aircraft, a cost that persists long after the fighting has stopped. Beyond the burden for taxpayers, these former drone pilots face a life of nightmares and flashbacks, which can reduce their ability to work and maintain relationships. Recent psychology research affirms this point, finding that drone operators have higher chances of having PTSD, emotional exhaustion, and burnout compared to manned aircraft pilots. Policymakers cannot justify drone warfare on the claim that it does not cause harm to American soldiers, just because they are physically far from harm.
It is attractive to focus on how drones allow for primacy on the cheap. Yet, by increasing the number of terrorists and psychologically damaging American soldiers – all while allowing forever wars to endure – drone warfare hurts the United States and target countries. Warfare on the cheap is still war, primacy on the cheap is still primacy, and Washington’s policymakers should operate on this reality.
Jordan Cohen is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute and a PhD candidate in political science at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Jonathan Ellis Allen is a research associate at the Cato Institute.
21. Almost 50 Republicans back Navy SEAL lawsuit over vaccine mandate
Sigh... Our adversaries are saying, my job is done here. Watch the collapse from within.
Almost 50 Republicans back Navy SEAL lawsuit over vaccine mandate
The group of lawmakers, which includes nine senators and 38 representatives, is led by Sens. Ted Cruz, Jim Inhofe and Roger Marshall.
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 26 Navy SEALs and nine special operations crewmembers. | Philippos Christou/AP Photo
12/20/2021 02:40 PM EST
A group of 47 Republican lawmakers filed an amicus brief in support of a federal lawsuit brought by more than two-dozen Navy SEALS seeking a religious exemption to the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate.
The suit, which names President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, will be heard in a federal courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas, on Monday. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 26 Navy SEALs and nine special operations crewmembers.
The group of lawmakers, which includes nine senators and 38 representatives, is led by Sens. Ted Cruz, Jim Inhofe and Roger Marshall, whose amendment preventing the dishonorable discharge of service members refusing the vaccine was included in the National Defense Authorization Act that’s now headed to President Joe Biden’s desk.
The lawsuit was filed in November by the First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based non-profit law firm that, according to its website, is “dedicated exclusively to protecting religious liberty for all Americans.”
The lawsuit states the mandate violates their First Amendment rights, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
So far, none of the roughly 12,000 service members who have requested religious exemptions from the federal vaccine mandate has received one. The Air Force is processing 4,700 requests, while the Navy is working through about 2,700. The Marine Corps and Army is reviewing 3,100 and 1,700 requests, respectively.
The Marine Corps has already separated 103 troops for refusing the vaccine, and the Air Force trimmed 27 this month, as the deadlines to get the shots have passed.
The vast majority of service members have received their vaccination shots, with all of the services reporting numbers well above the national average.
The Army and Navy are each at about 98 percent, while the Air Force stands at 97.5 percent and the Marine Corps at 95 percent.
Approximately 72 percent of the U.S. population has been vaccinated.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
