Quotes of the Day:

“Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

“The executive power in our government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. The tyranny of the legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will continue to be so for many years to come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant period.”

― Thomas Jefferson, Democracy in America

“For this was the other thing that Elric knew: that to compromise with Tyranny is always to be destroyed by it. The sanest and most logical choice lay always in resistance.”

― Michael Moorcock , The Revenge of the Rose

1. New Army chief, looming force structure shakeups and new weapons: Army 2023 in review

2. How Putin’s Right-Hand Man Took Out Prigozhin

3. DOD Announces Release of Department of Defense Instruction and Website on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response

4. The New U.S. Department of Defense Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response

5. Japan to Send U.S. Patriot Missiles, Creating Deeper Pool for Ukraine Air Defenses

6. The War in Ukraine Has Created a New ‘Axis of Evil’

7. U.S. to Clamp Down on Financial Firms That Help Russia Buy Military Supplies

8. How pro-Russian 'yacht' propaganda influenced US debate over Ukraine aid

9. Opinion | Gaza and Ukraine are very different wars, but they teach similar lessons

10. Tell China: We Will Defend Our Democracy

11. Maritime Maneuvers: Navigating Irregular Warfare in Yemen’s Civil War

12. Israel broadens Gaza assault ahead of Security Council aid vote

13. In Dealing With the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, America Has No Easy Way Out

14. Export Controls Are Only a Short-Term Solution to China’s Chip Progress

15. House Panel Calls on Pentagon to Explain Osprey Safety Record

16. US Bans Pentagon From Using Chinese Port Logistics Platform

17. Europe Must Ramp Up Its Support for Ukraine

18. Inside The Private Security Forces Protecting Red Sea Shipping

19. UKRAINE, GAZA, AND THE U.S. ARMY’S COUNTERINSURGENCY LEGACY by Gian Gentile

20. Army Uprising: Snowflakes Online Rants Go Viral

21. Opinion | How the battle for democracy will be fought — and won

22. Preventing conflict in the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula

1. New Army chief, looming force structure shakeups and new weapons: Army 2023 in review

Excerpts:

After serving a stint as the acting chief due to Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s blanket hold on military nominees, George was sworn in as the 41st Army chief in September and brought with him four focus areas — warfighting, delivering ready combat power, undergoing continuous transformation and strengthening the profession of arms.

...

Those organizational changes have not yet been formally unveiled but could include force structure changes (i.e., the composition of brigade combat teams) and deciding on just which echelon elements like the multi-domain task force and security force assistance brigade should fall under.

...

George, along with Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, briefed lawmakers about force structure changes to address their recurring challenge and detail plans to make adjustments to account for fewer soldiers. Those plans, not formally unveiled, include cuts to “over structure” at bases around the country, looking at the right mix of military occupational specialty numbers inside units, and cutting back the number of Army special forces, Wormuth told reporters in October.

...

Beyond those looming changes, George and other service leaders spent 2023 looking at ways to replenish weapon stockpiles — depleted first by the war in Ukraine and later between Israel and Hamas — and boost munition production.

New Army chief, looming force structure shakeups and new weapons: Army 2023 in review - Breaking Defense

breakingdefense.com · by Ashley Roque · December 21, 2023

Land Warfare

on December 21, 2023 at 2:23 PM

Then Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George answers questions from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing on July 12, 2023. (US Army/Sgt. David Resnick)

WASHINGTON — US Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville bid adieu to the service this summer, handing the baton and a host of imperatives, from a munition production ramp up to a fight for more recruits to his successor, Gen. Randy George.

After serving a stint as the acting chief due to Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s blanket hold on military nominees, George was sworn in as the 41st Army chief in September and brought with him four focus areas — warfighting, delivering ready combat power, undergoing continuous transformation and strengthening the profession of arms.

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

“We’re going to have to change how we’re organized … That’s one of the things that we have to go down the focus areas and ask four-star commanders and sergeant majors to take a look at and review,” the four-star general said at the Maneuver Warfighter Conference just days before his swearing in. “How are we structured and what needs to adjust based on the advances that we’re seeing? We are [also] going to have to change how we train.”

Those organizational changes have not yet been formally unveiled but could include force structure changes (i.e., the composition of brigade combat teams) and deciding on just which echelon elements like the multi-domain task force and security force assistance brigade should fall under.

In addition, George stepped into the role in 2023 when his service continues to face a recruitment shortfall with no end in sight. When fiscal 2023 ended on Sept. 30, for example, the service met its end-strength of goal of 452,000 active-duty soldiers thanks to stronger retention numbers. However, it fell 10,000 recruits short of its 65,000 “stretch goal” and from that 55,000 total, 4,600 people would enter the service in FY24 as part of the delayed entry program.

George, along with Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, briefed lawmakers about force structure changes to address their recurring challenge and detail plans to make adjustments to account for fewer soldiers. Those plans, not formally unveiled, include cuts to “over structure” at bases around the country, looking at the right mix of military occupational specialty numbers inside units, and cutting back the number of Army special forces, Wormuth told reporters in October.

Beyond those looming changes, George and other service leaders spent 2023 looking at ways to replenish weapon stockpiles — depleted first by the war in Ukraine and later between Israel and Hamas — and boost munition production.

While Congress has not yet approved the FY24 defense spending bill, the request includes dollars for several multi-year munition buys to include an ask for Patriot interceptors and Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS), a move acquisition officials contend will help provide industry with stability.

Service leaders are waiting to see how that spending request shakes out, but also spent the year chasing a plan to produce 100,000 155mm artillery rounds per month by 2025, and awarded $1.5 billion worth of contracts in the second half of September alone to get there. Part of that plan, though, hinges on the White House’s recent supplemental spending request which includes $3.1 billion for 155mm production and facilities.

House and Senate lawmakers have yet to approve the bill, in part because of a brewing disapproval by some House Republicans about continuing to provide military aid to Ukraine, but Army acquisition head Doug Bush warned in October that if the service does not receive those dollars for the 155mm, “We won’t get to” that 100,000 round production goal.

In addition to phoning in ways to ramp up munition production and secure that industrial base, in 2023 service leaders celebrated a few weapon modernization milestones and overcame some hurdles which include:

• The decision to narrow the M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle replacement field from five candidates down to just American Rheinmetall and General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS);
• Awarding AM General with a $9.7 billion production deal for the next Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) iteration and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) denying incumbent Oshkosh Defense’s protest of the deal;
• A decision to scrap development of an M1 Abrams System Enhancement Package version 4 (SEPv4), in favor of a more ambitious upgrade dubbed the M1E3 Abrams that is envisioned as lighter and more survivable;
• Pentagon acquisition authorities approving full-rate production for the Army’s delayed Integrated Battle Command System, a move that enables the service to proceed with production of the centerpiece of its air and missile defense modernization strategy;
• The GAO denying Sikorsky-Boeing’s protest of the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) award, enabling the Army and Bell Textron to proceed with the V-280 Valor tiltrotor as the new aircraft design; and
• General Electric beginning deliveries of the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) after a lengthy delay, a move that will enable two Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft prototype teams to complete building out their helos and get them up in the air.

Read more at Breaking Defense →

breakingdefense.com · by Ashley Roque · December 21, 2023

2. How Putin’s Right-Hand Man Took Out Prigozhin

A fascinating read. Is "truth" stranger than fiction?

How Putin’s Right-Hand Man Took Out Prigozhin

Nikolai Patrushev, a top ally of the Russian leader for decades, put in motion the assassination of the mutinous chief of the Wagner mercenary group

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/putin-patrushev-plan-prigozhin-assassination-428d5ed8?mod=hp_lead_pos7

By Thomas GroveFollow

, Alan CullisonFollow

 and Bojan PancevskiFollow

Dec. 22, 2023 12:01 am ET

On the tarmac of a Moscow airport in late August, Yevgeny Prigozhin waited on his Embraer Legacy 600 for a safety check to finish before it could take off. The mercenary army chief was headed home to St. Petersburg with nine others onboard. Through the delay, no one inside the cabin noticed the small explosive device slipped under the wing.

When the jet finally left, it climbed for about 30 minutes to 28,000 feet, before the wing blew apart, sending the aircraft spiraling to the ground. All 10 people were killed, including Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner paramilitary group.

The assassination of the warlord was two months in the making and approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s oldest ally and confidant, an ex-spy named Nikolai Patrushev, according to Western intelligence officials and a former Russian intelligence officer. The role of Patrushev as the driver of the plan to kill Prigozhin hasn’t been previously reported.  

The Kremlin has denied involvement in Prigozhin’s death, and Putin offered the closest thing to an official explanation for the plane’s fiery crash, suggesting a hand grenade had detonated onboard.

None of that was true. 

Hours after the incident, a European involved in intelligence gathering who maintained a backchannel of communication with the Kremlin and saw news of the crash asked an official there what had happened.

“He had to be removed,” the Kremlin official responded without hesitation.

Collision course

Patrushev had warned Putin for a long time that Moscow’s reliance on Wagner in Ukraine was giving Prigozhin too much political and military clout that was increasingly threatening the Kremlin.

With tens of thousands of troops and lucrative gold, timber and diamond operations in Africa, Prigozhin managed a multibillion-dollar empire overseas. But back in Russia and on the battlefield in Ukraine, his public confrontations with the military’s top brass over weapons and supplies had put him on a collision course with the Kremlin.

When that boiled over into an outright mutiny in late June against Russia’s military commanders—with an armed march on Moscow by some of Wagner’s 25,000 fighters and tanks—Patrushev stepped in to ward off the biggest challenge yet to Putin’s more than two-decade rule. He also saw an opportunity to eliminate Prigozhin for good.

The wreckage of the crashed private jet that carried Prigozhin. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

In interviews with Western intelligence agencies, former U.S. and Russian security and intelligence officials, and former Kremlin officials, The Wall Street Journal unearthed new details about the mutiny and murder of Russia’s most powerful warlord and the previously unknown role of Patrushev in reasserting Putin’s authority over an increasingly unstable Russia.

Through the power of state-controlled media and his own persona, Putin has unsettled the West with his image as a determined adversary who rules Russia alone. In fact, he is kept in power by a vast bureaucracy that has proven durable through deepening hostilities with the West and rising domestic divisions over the botched invasion of Ukraine.

Controlling the levers of that machine is Patrushev. He has climbed to the top by interpreting Putin’s policies and carrying out his orders. Throughout Putin’s reign, he has expanded Russia’s security services and terrorized its enemies with assassinations at home and abroad. More recently his profile has grown, backing Russia’s invasion, and his son Dmitry, a former banker, has been appointed agriculture minister and is touted by some as a potential successor to Putin. 

Patrushev’s handling of Prigozhin has helped Putin claim control ahead of the presidential elections next year.

Former colleagues of Patrushev describe him as a sober bureaucrat who, like Putin, spurns the media, relying on daily readouts about the world from Russia’s security services. Like Putin, he joined the spy services in the 1970s, and stuck with the service through the collapse of the Soviet Union when other officers flocked to more lucrative jobs in Russia’s nascent private sector. 

Patrushev, 72, sees Russia locked in a struggle with the U.S., which he has said wants to steal Russia’s oil and minerals. He salts conspiracy theories into speeches and interviews. Earlier this year, he told Russia’s Izvestia newspaper that the U.S. is plotting to take over Russia because a massive volcanic eruption in Wyoming could soon make it uninhabitable. 

His role in some of the darker chapters of Putin’s presidency underscores the often deadly consequences for anyone who falls afoul of the Kremlin.

Russian officials and Patrushev didn’t respond to requests for comment.

U.S. officials said soon after Prigozhin’s death that preliminary government assessments found the crash was the result of an assassination plot.

Rise of the spy

In photos of him and Putin, Patrushev is a figure in the background, mostly unnoticed in an unremarkable dark suit. Daily, he travels in a Russian-made Aurus limousine to his spartan office in the presidential administration complex, steps away from the Kremlin, said former Kremlin officials. His phone calls are usually encrypted.

Patrushev plunged into the world of spycraft at an early age in the Soviet city of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. Recruited into the KGB after earning a degree in engineering, he attended the spy service’s academy in Minsk. He soon worked in counterespionage and as an officer responsible for security in a region bordering Finland. 

With Putin, he suffered the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decline of the security services while the government of President Boris Yeltsin attempted to introduce Western-style economic reforms. When Yeltsin appointed Putin in 1999 to prime minister, Putin recommended Patrushev as his replacement to lead the new version of the KGB, the FSB. 

Putin, center, when he was prime minister, spoke to Patrushev, left, then head of the FSB, in 1999. PHOTO: REUTERS

Putin’s rise to the presidency the following year buttressed Patrushev’s authority. The men were linked by common origins and convictions that only strong security services could make Russia strong. 

As head of the spy agency, Patrushev began to reinvent the organization and referred to it in an interview at the time with the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets as Russia’s “new nobility.” 

It was a sensitive moment for the new president, and Patrushev showed he was ready to help. In his first year as president, Putin was threatened by revelations that he had served as an adviser to a real-estate company being investigated in Europe for money laundering. Patrushev traveled to Ukraine to take possession of damaging evidence from that country’s security service, according to audiotapes leaked from the Ukraine president’s office. Parts of the tapes were later verified by the U.S. government. Putin denied any wrongdoing, and the scandal later died down.

Patrushev soon signaled that traitors to the Kremlin would suffer. In 2006, Russia passed a law effectively legalizing extrajudicial killings of Russians abroad deemed terrorists or extremists. Months later, a former FSB agent, Alexander Litvinenko, who had fled to London and wrote about Putin and his own work as a spy, was killed by a dose of a radioactive substance in his tea. A British judge said that Patrushev probably approved the murder.

As FSB director, Patrushev had hoped to foster cooperation with the West’s own antiterror efforts, which were then in full bloom in the U.S. after the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. But Litvinenko’s poisoning, which contaminated a sushi restaurant in downtown London, began to sow questions about any cooperation. The assassination was one of the first of more mysterious killings of Russian émigrés in Europe and the Middle East that Western officials suspected were linked to Moscow.

When Russia convened an international counterterrorism conference in the city of Khabarovsk in 2007, the CIA declined to send any high-ranking officials, instead offering a lower-profile group headed by a former CIA station chief, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen. Mowatt-Larssen said Patrushev took him aside to say he was offended. “He said ‘Please take this message back to the CIA,’” Mowatt-Larssen said. “‘You aren’t taking us seriously.’” 

In 2008, Putin promoted Patrushev to secretary of Russia’s national security council, a post that confers little formal power. But Patrushev’s personal gravitas, his proximity to Putin and his role as de facto head of its security services for more than two decades has made him the second most powerful person in Russia. 

His new role also gave him the mandate to strengthen Russia’s ties abroad. Soon he was acting as a kind of hybrid intelligence official and diplomat, visiting some of the world’s most powerful leaders. The feverish pace of Patrushev’s travel schedule contrasted with how little was actually known about his meetings. 

Patrushev and Putin on a helicopter to visit a military outpost in Nalchik, Russia, near Chechnya, in 2008. PHOTO: MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/RIA NOVOSTI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

‘We know who our enemies are’

One of the few public glimpses into his activities was in 2016 when he went to clean up a mess left after the failure of a political interference operation in the tiny Balkan nation of Montenegro. Russia’s military intelligence had tried to cause unrest to prevent it from joining NATO.

The operation, run from neighboring Serbia, failed, and the Russian agents were publicly exposed, causing fallout for Moscow’s allies in the region. Patrushev traveled to Serbia to reassure the government and brought the operatives home. Montenegro joined NATO a year later.

Most of his work was done in the shadows. His plane was spotted in Oman in 2020 at the same time that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was there, prompting accusations in Ukraine that the two had held a secret meeting. Both Zelensky and the Kremlin denied it. 

Separately, in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Patrushev’s plane also appeared in Jakarta at the same time as a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was rolling out the White House strategy for regulating the contested Indian and Pacific Ocean region. The U.S. and Moscow each issued statements that no meeting took place.

Earlier, as indications grew of warming ties between Moscow and Beijing, the U.S. tried to talk the Kremlin back from an alliance with China. During the Trump administration, top White House officials met with Patrushev in Geneva to discuss prisoner exchanges and an extension of an arms control agreement. 

A White House specialist on China, Matthew Pottinger, unveiled historical maps of Russian territories claimed by Beijing meant to underscore the threat China posed to Moscow. Patrushev listened patiently and then scoffed. “We know who our enemies are,” he said, according to one U.S. official who attended the meeting. 

A former senior White House official said Patrushev has been a key conduit between Moscow and Beijing. “If Putin had been deposed or killed earlier this year by Wagner Group, I suspect Beijing would have made efforts to install Patrushev as Putin’s replacement,” the former official said.

John Bolton, who met with Patrushev numerous times as national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, said that Patrushev was always professional, never raising his voice in negotiations or showing much interest in small talk. 

Bolton said he got a taste of anger only once, during a meeting in 2019, when their conversation turned to Ukraine. “We got a 20 minute oration about Ukraine and the history of it,” said Bolton. “It was very emotional and uncharacteristic for him.”

Patrushev would become one the biggest defenders of the Ukraine invasion.

Russian expectations were disappointed in the first days of the conflict in February 2022. By the fall of last year, Russian forces were crumbling in the face of Ukrainian offensives in the south and north of the country, with tens of thousands of casualties.

The Kremlin called on Prigozhin and his Wagner fighters to buttress Russia’s failing war effort with his paramilitary group. Prigozhin’s rapid rise would soon worry Patrushev.

A still from a Prigozhin video shows Prigozhin with Wagner troops on May 5. He often criticized Russian military leaders. PHOTO: PRIGOZHIN PRESS SERVICE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

March to Moscow

A former prison convict and hot-dog vendor from Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg, Prigozhin became a caterer for Putin and used his contacts to build a sprawling private military company. Over the past decade it fought wars in Ukraine, Syria and North Africa for the Kremlin. 

The group had also gained a foothold in sub-Saharan Africa where it traded timber, gold, cash and diamonds for providing security to leaders—an important channel of geopolitical influence for Russia. 

In Ukraine, Prigozhin threw his support behind Putin’s invasion, winning key battles, while hurling public criticism at Russia’s commanders for their military losses.

His social media tirades against Chief of General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu—combined with the successful advances of his troops in eastern Ukraine—got him noticed in Moscow and won him powerful enemies, including Patrushev. 

In Prigozhin’s tirades against Shoigu, those inside the Kremlin saw Putin’s longtime tactic of keeping his subordinates divided by allowing feuds. But in the war, the warlord’s accumulation of power had made him a danger to the president.

“Everyone told Putin it was a mistake to have a parallel army,” said one former Kremlin official, who had at times worked with both Putin and Patrushev. “When he spits in the face of the military leadership every day—you have yourself a problem.”

Patrushev began to warn Putin about Prigozhin during the summer months of 2022. But the warnings fell on deaf ears while Wagner made progress on the battlefield. 

That changed when Prigozhin called Putin and complained rudely about his lack of supplies, said the former Russian intelligence officer, who maintains ties to people close to Putin and his spy chief. Prigozhin needed guns and bullets and his men were dying in large numbers.

The call happened in October with others in the office, the former agent said, including Patrushev, who heard the former caterer scold the president. Later Patrushev would use the call as a reason Putin should distance himself: The warlord had become dangerous, with no respect for the Kremlin’s authority.

By December it was clear Patrushev had won. Even as Prigozhin publicly railed against the military and his lack of supplies, Putin ignored him. Calls went unanswered. By early June, the Kremlin effectively announced plans to dismantle Wagner as a fighting force in Ukraine, ordering its fighters to register with Russia’s defense ministry.

On Friday June 23, Prigozhin launched a mutiny, taking his 25,000 men and tanks from the battlefield in Ukraine and marched them toward the southern city of Rostov-on-Don to take the Russian armed forces’ southern military district headquarters. The plan, on what he called his “march of justice,” was to confront Gerasimov and Shoigu, who had been there for meetings but escaped before Prigozhin arrived.

Prigozhin during his mutiny on June 24. PHOTO: ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/REUTERS

Prigozhin sent another column of tanks and soldiers toward Moscow.

With Putin at a villa far outside of the city, Patrushev took over, organizing a flurry of phone calls to persuade Prigozhin to stand down, according to Western intelligence assessments and the former Russian intelligence officer.

Patrushev asked officers sympathetic to Prigozhin to try to get through to him. Five calls to Prigozhin from the Kremlin went unanswered. He also looked for mediators, and calls were made to the governments of Kazakhstan and Belarus, both members of a Russian-led military alliance made up of former Soviet states.

The call to Kazakhstan was insurance against a worst-case scenario. The year before, Russia had sent it troops to restore order after violent riots broke out. The hope now was Kazakhstan would return the favor if the Russian military couldn’t hold the rogue army back, said a Western intelligence official and the former Russian intelligence officer. But president Kassym Jomart Tokayev declined, having distanced himself after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In the end, the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said in a public statement at the time he agreed to help, calling Prigozhin multiple times over the course of more than six hours and ferrying messages between the warlord and Moscow. Ultimately, he delivered an offer hashed out by Patrushev: If Prigozhin turned his troops around, his men would be allowed to decamp to Belarus.

Lukashenko had several rounds of talks with Prigozhin, as well as Putin, his press service said in a statement to the Journal. “The talks delivered success,” the statement said.

In a late morning television appearance, Putin called Prigozhin and the Wagner leadership traitors, helping persuade him to take the offer, which included retaining control of his overseas operations, such as those in Africa. 

While Prigozhin and his fighters hadn’t encountered active resistance from the military, most units they encountered weren’t joining them either. By early Saturday evening, Prigozhin’s mutiny had come to an end. 

Prigozhin’s fighters who were heading toward Moscow stopped and some began marching toward camps putatively prepared for them in Belarus. Prigozhin himself disappeared from social media.

For the rest of the summer, an uneasiness settled on Moscow. Few in the Kremlin believed that Prigozhin would get away with an armed mutiny with no consequences.

Patrushev would prove them right.

Patrushev in 2015. He is Putin’s oldest ally and confidant. PHOTO: SASHA MORDOVETS/GETTY IMAGES

The killing

After the mutiny, the Kremlin did little publicly to limit Prigozhin’s life. He traveled to Africa to check in on his operations there. He was also allowed to continue working in St. Petersburg and around Russia, said Maksim Shugaley, who worked for Prigozhin at a think tank. But, he said, Prigozhin was wary. 

“He knew he had enemies and that something could happen to him, but as far as he was concerned he was abiding by the deal,” Shugaley said. 

Mowatt-Larssen, the former CIA station chief, said that Prigozhin might have appeared to be free, when in fact he was being closely watched. His mutiny had exposed a deep rift in Putin’s system of running the country, as well as dissatisfaction in the military, which had done little to oppose his march, he said. 

“You can see what Putin’s plan was—to keep the dead man walking so they could continue to find out what happened,” he said, meaning the Kremlin was looking for Prigozhin’s collaborators. 

In the beginning of August, as most of Moscow went on vacation, Patrushev, in his office in central Moscow, gave orders to his assistant to proceed in shaping an operation to dispose of Prigozhin, said the former Russian intelligence officer. Putin was later shown the plans and didn’t object, Western intelligence agencies said.

Several weeks later, following his tour through Africa, Prigozhin was waiting at a Moscow airport while safety inspectors finished a check on the plane. It was during this delay that a small bomb was placed under the wing, said Western intelligence officials.

The jet departed after 5 p.m. and reached an altitude of 28,000 feet. But after more than half an hour, the aircraft swiftly lost altitude and crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino. Witness videos show that after an explosion, a jet with a detached wing fell from the sky.

Within days, Russian media reported that DNA tests confirmed Prigozhin had died in the crash. Nine others were killed with him, including the Wagner group’s commander, Dmitry Utkin, another Wagner associate, two pilots and a 39-year-old flight attendant. 

Warren P. Strobel and Max Colchester contributed to this article.

Write to Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com, Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com and Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com

3. DOD Announces Release of Department of Defense Instruction and Website on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response

The 52 page DOD Instruction (DODI) 3000.17 can be downloaded here: https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/300017p.pdf. (as an aside the DOD Directive [DODD} 3000.07 Irregular Warfare is only 14 pages long).

The DOD website for Harm mitigation is here: https://policy.defense.gov/OUSDP-Offices/Civilian-Harm-Mitigation-and-Response/. (as another aside there is no DOD webs ite for irregular warfare).

In case you have not noticed this statement is on all DOD press releases: 

The Department of Defense provides the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security.

When I was in the Army I always knew that our mission was to fight and win the nation's wars. Just saying.

DOD Announces Release of Department of Defense Instruction and Website on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response

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Release

Immediate Release

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Today, the Department of Defense released the DOD Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response, which establishes the Department’s enduring policies, responsibilities, and procedures for mitigating and responding to civilian harm.

In a Jan. 2022 memorandum, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III directed the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy to develop a Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) to outline steps the Department will take and the resources required to implement appropriate recommendations from recently completed studies of civilian harm, and to complete and present to him for signature a DOD Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response. On August 25, 2022, the Department of Defense released the CHMR-AP, which laid out a comprehensive approach, reinforcing that the Department of Defense’s efforts to protect civilians are the responsibility of all leaders throughout the Department.

This DOD Instruction is a milestone in the implementation of the CHMR-AP. The issuance of this policy continues the process of improving the Department’s approach to mitigating and responding to civilian harm, including by formalizing DOD policies, responsibilities, and procedures related to CHMR and by creating a reinforcing framework of processes and institutions which will improve strategic outcomes and optimize military operations.

The DOD Instruction further ensures operational commanders are supported with institutional resources, tools, and capabilities to effectively implement law of war protections of civilians, and to enable further steps to protect civilians and to respond appropriately when civilian harm occurs.

In addition to the issuance of the DOD Instruction, the Department has created the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response website in accordance with the CHMR-AP, which will serve as a repository for DOD policies, reports and other information related to civilian harm mitigation. The website also provides a link to the previously published webpage with guidance for reporting civilian casualties.

The DOD Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response can be found here.

The link to the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response website can be found here.

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The Department of Defense provides the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security.

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4. The New U.S. Department of Defense Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response

An explanation of the new DODI 3000.17 from the Director of the Office of Harm Mitigation which resides in ASD SO/LIC.

Does anyone in DOD pay attention to what comes out of ASD SO/LIC?

Excerpts:

Definition of Civilian Harm

Lastly, another important innovation in the CHMR DoDI is the articulation of a definition of civilian harm. For the purpose of the issuance, DoD defines civilian harm as follows:

Civilian casualties and damage to or destruction of civilian objects (which do not constitute military objectives under the law of war) resulting from military operations. As a matter of DoD policy, other adverse effects on the civilian population and the personnel, organizations, resources, infrastructure, essential services, and systems on which civilian life depends resulting from military operations are also considered in CHMR efforts to the extent practicable. These other adverse effects do not include mere inconveniences.

This definition is consistent with the DoD Law of War Manual which, in its discussion of proportionality and the prohibition on attacks expected to cause excessive incidental harm, states that “[t]he totality of the expected loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects incidental to the attack must be considered,” but that “[m]ere inconveniences or temporary disruptions to civilian life need not be considered in applying this rule.” The DoDI’s definition of civilian harm, however, is notable in that it also reflects DoD’s policy to consider, to the extent practicable, a broad range of adverse effects on the civilian environment which may adversely affect civilians.

Conclusion

The DoD Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response is an enduring policy issuance that institutionalizes the Department’s approach to mitigating and responding to civilian harm. It is also a critical element of CHMR-AP implementation. The new CHMR DoDI provides important policy guidance to shape how DoD conceptualizes, considers, assesses, investigates, and responds to civilian harm. Together with the CHMR-AP, the new CHMR DODI will formalize DoD policies, responsibilities, and procedures related to CHMR and create a reinforcing framework of processes and institutions specifically designed to improve DoD’s approach to mitigating and responding to civilian harm, which will also improve strategic outcomes and optimize military operations.

The New U.S. Department of Defense Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response - Lieber Institute West Point

lieber.westpoint.edu · by Dan E. Stigall · December 21, 2023

On August 25, 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III approved and released the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP)—an action plan that creates new institutions and processes to strengthen the Department of Defense’s (DoD) ability to mitigate civilian harm during military operations, thereby optimizing aspects of military operations and improving strategic outcomes. Since that time, DoD has been steadily implementing the initial phases of that action plan. On December 21, 2023, a key element of CHMR-AP implementation was achieved when Secretary Austin approved Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 3000.17 on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response.

The CHMR DoDI represents a significant step toward achieving the objectives set forth in the CHMR-AP. Where the action plan laid out a series of major steps to improve DoD’s approach to CHMR, consistent with national-level policy (including Executive Order 13732) and legislation (including Section 936 of the NDAA for FY 2019, as amended (10 USC 134 note), the CHMR DoDI sets out Department-wide policies, responsibilities, and procedures, and will serve as an enduring framework for DoD efforts for many years to come. Notably, we believe this is the first policy issuance by any military in the world to take such a comprehensive approach to CHMR.

What is a DoD Instruction and Why Is the Issuance of This DoD Instruction Important?

A DoD Instruction is one of the internal issuances that the DoD uses to establish Department-wide policy and assign responsibilities to specific DoD components. Formalizing policy in a DoDI ensures policy guidance is clear, authoritative, and consistent across the Department and through personnel changes. The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy has led the drafting and coordination of this DoDI, a lengthy and thorough process that allowed us to socialize this complex and nuanced subject matter and responsibilities across the Department.

That coordination process with individual DoD components (e.g., the Combatant Commands, Military Departments) that will be implementing it allowed them to bring their expertise to bear in developing the policy guidance. This DoDI had been in the process of development for several years before Secretary Austin issued the CHMR-AP. The final round of internal DoD review of the document included a focus on ensuring that the DoDI fully aligned with the actions and objectives set forth in the CHMR-AP. Although Office of the Secretary of Defense Component Heads (e.g., Under Secretary of Defense for Policy) usually issue DoDIs, Secretary Austin decided to personally approve this instruction.

Policy Direction

The issuance of the CHMR DoDI will ensure that ongoing CHMR efforts endure by formally establishing appropriate policies and responsibilities within DoD associated with civilian harm mitigation and response. On that score, a principal element of DoD’s CHMR policy, as articulated in the DoDI, “is to support commanders with institutional resources, tools, and capabilities to effectively implement law of war protections of civilians and civilian objects, and to enable further steps to protect civilians and civilian objects and to respond appropriately when civilian harm occurs.”

At the direction of Secretary Austin, the DoDI adopts a comprehensive approach, reinforcing that DoD’s efforts to protect civilians are the responsibility of all leaders throughout the Department. It confirms that DoD’s CHMR policy—one that “is based on strategic, moral, policy, operational, legal and other considerations”—is designed to advance “U.S. national security interests, including by furthering strategic objectives to achieve long-term strategic success, enhancing the effectiveness and legitimacy of military operations, and demonstrating moral leadership.” While DoD has always sought to mitigate the risk of civilian harm, this is the first formalization of a Department-wide institutional approach that prioritizes CHMR, as a matter of policy, across military operations.

Leadership

The CHMR DoDI institutionalizes a leadership framework that is largely derived from the CHMR-AP but goes beyond that action plan to further guide executive direction across the force on CHMR. The DoDI institutionalizes the CHMR Steering Committee—the senior-level implementation forum that is tri-chaired by the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD(P)), the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the Comptroller. It also formalizes the responsibilities of the Secretary of the Army as the Joint Proponent for CHMR and designates the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD(P)) as “the Principal Staff Assistant to oversee the activities of the Joint Proponent for CHMR on the Secretary of Defense’s behalf.”

In addition, to confirm sustained senior level attention, the DoDI also requires the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E)), the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (USD(A&S)), the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security (USD(I&S)), the Secretaries of the Military Departments, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Combatant Commanders to identify a lead general officer, flag officer, or senior executive service (SES) official under their authority, direction, and control to coordinate their respective organization’s CHMR-related efforts. The DoDI further emphasizes that “Commanders at all levels have a great responsibility to exercise the leadership necessary to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and civilian objects during military operations involving the use of force.”

Force Development

A fundamental aspect of the CHMR DoDI is the effort to strengthen the capability, capacity, and readiness of the force to mitigate and respond to civilian harm. This includes responsibilities for leaders of key force development organizations, including USD(R&E), USD(A&S), and the Secretaries of the Military Departments, related to:

– identifying capability needs for weapons, weapon systems, and other technical systems relevant to CHMR;

– developing, acquiring, and fielding weapons, weapon systems, and other technical systems; and

– identifying relevant potential capability improvements that further enable the discriminate use of force in different operational contexts, including by reducing risk to civilians and civilian objects while enabling the same or superior combat effectiveness.

Notably, it also requires USD(A&S) and USD(R&E) to incorporate CHMR into policies, guidance, and processes for system safety, and to provide advice to the CHMR Steering Committee regarding options for weapons system and other technologies to enhance DoD’s ability to mitigate and respond to civilian harm. This catalyzes DoD’s efforts to explore and potentially harness emerging technologies (potentially including artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality technologies and other technologies) to enhance battlefield awareness, improve target identification, and maximize the efficacy of military operations.

Likewise, the CHMR DoDI makes clear that the Secretaries of the Military Departments’ responsibilities include organizing, manning, training, equipping, and sustaining forces; tracking military forces’ readiness; developing doctrine and operating concepts to help mitigate and respond to civilian harm resulting from U.S. military operations, and incorporating CHMR objectives into exercises, training, and professional military education.

Reflecting a recognition that capability development must be informed by the requirements of operational commanders, the DoDI directs Combatant Commanders to identify capability requirements for mitigating and responding to civilian harm when developing integrated priority lists, including capabilities that improve commanders’ and their units’ situational awareness of the operational environment with respect to the presence of civilians and civilian objects. Moreover, it provides for the development of professional tracks, skill identifiers, and certification requirements for key CHMR personnel and functions (e.g., Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Officers) which will further support CHMR personnel actions ongoing across the Department consistent with the CHMR-AP. Through these and related efforts, the Department will improve its capabilities, capacity, and readiness to mitigate and respond to civilian harm.

Planning and Operations

Consistent with the CHMR-AP, the CHMR DoDI requires incorporation of CHMR considerations throughout all steps of the joint planning process and the joint targeting process. It requires the Chairman of the Joint Staff to incorporate across joint doctrine a clear definition of the “civilian environment;” to incorporate CHMR into doctrine and guidance, including as relates to joint planning, joint operations, and joint targeting (including both deliberate and dynamic targeting); and to ensure that efforts to mitigate civilian harm are considered when planning military operations, developing and reviewing plans and orders, within the Joint Staff’s purview, and when communicating guidance related to operations. Likewise, the DoDI directs Combatant Commanders to identify and integrate approaches for mitigating and responding to civilian harm across all levels of command into plans, operations, exercises, and training, including by incorporating clear end-state objectives with respect to the protection of civilians and civilian objects as part of overall mission objectives. It further dedicates a procedural section to mitigating civilian harm, providing Department-wide direction that will inform future planning and conduct of operations. In doing so, it makes clear that this direction applies to U.S. forces regardless of whether U.S. forces are operating alone or in coordination with allies and partners.

Intelligence and Awareness

A key conceptual underpinning of the CHMR-AP is a focus on the “civilian environment,” including the civilian population and the personnel, organizations, resources, infrastructure, essential services, and systems on which civilian life depends. This is because DoD can better protect civilians during armed conflict by enhancing commanders’ awareness and understanding of the civilian environment and elevating the importance of civilian protection throughout planning and operations.

Consistent with the CHMR-AP, the CHMR DoDI provides direction to identify capability improvements that will improve situational awareness for commanders and their units, including the presence of civilians and civilian objects that may be at risk, and implement information collection and dissemination processes to enhance awareness of civilian population density, demographics, and dynamics, and the locations and functions of civilian objects. It specifies responsibilities for the leaders of force development organizations, including USD(R&E), USD(A&S), and the Secretaries of the Military Departments, related to their role in developing, acquiring, sustaining, and fielding capabilities that will improve situational awareness of the operational environment for commanders and their units, including the presence of civilians and civilian objects that may be at risk.

Additionally, the CHMR DoDI includes responsibilities for USD(A&S) and USD(I&S) to provide guidance related to the development and fielding of intelligence sensors and other battlespace awareness capabilities to enable enhanced understanding of civilians and civilian objects throughout the joint targeting process.

Critically, it encourages DoD components to seek out external information regarding civilians, civilian objects, and civilian harm, including by working with other USG departments and agencies and maintaining channels for engagement with civil society organizations. And, perhaps most importantly, it formalizes a number of critical enduring responsibilities for USD(I&S), which together will improve DoD’s understanding of the civilian population—including population density, dynamics, and demographics, patterns of life, and cultural norms and practice—and civilian objects, including as relate to programs and resources within the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, information collection, and processes for disseminating information to support military operations. Together, this direction will serve to expand DoD’s knowledge of the civilian environment and support DoD’s ability to mitigate civilian harm.

Assessments and Investigations

The DoDI for the first time formalizes in DoD policy a requirement to assess civilian harm resulting from military operations and standardizes civilian harm assessment processes across DoD. As RAND’s Congressionally-directed independent assessment of U.S. Department of Defense Civilian Casualty Policies and Procedures noted, prior to 2014, administrative investigations, such as those conducted under Army Regulation 15-6, were the primary tool used to investigate potential instances of civilian harm. A more expedient modality, Civilian Casualty Credibility Assessment Reports (CCARs), were later “developed in the context of OIR [Operation INHERENT RESOLVE] to allow the military to more quickly process—relative to investigations—reports of civilian casualties occurring in greater numbers and from a diverse array of external sources.”

While such assessment procedures have been used by various commands and described in annual DoD reports to Congress, DoD has never before issued standard procedures for assessing civilian harm across the force. The DoDI will enable DoD to more effectively assess the effects of military operations on civilians, and is consistent with the legislative requirement articulated in Section 1057 of the NDAA for FY2018, as amendedfor DoD to report annually on civilian casualties in connection with U.S. military operations.

The CHMR DoDI reflects a tripartite framework based on existing practice: (1) initial reviews; (2) civilian harm assessments; and (3) investigations. The DoDI requires that the results of civilian harm assessments indicate whether it was “more likely than not” that civilian harm occurred and provides guidance on the “more likely than not” standard, which reflects the command’s best understanding based on the information available at the time of the assessment and the reality that information during military operations including with respect to the outcomes of operations, is often lacking or incomplete. The DoDI specifically notes that “if there is reason to believe that civilians were injured or killed—or, when the scope of a civilian harm assessment includes damage or destruction of civilian objects, that civilian objects were damaged or destroyed—and that such harm resulted from U.S. military operations, and if other available information does not provide greater reason to believe that civilians were not killed or injured as a result of U.S. military operations, then the “more likely than not” standard would be met. This and other guidance in the DoDI will address concerns that DoD has not clearly communicated its standards for assessing reports of civilian harm.

Additionally, consistent with RAND’s recommendation to “use a range of estimates of civilian casualties to improve the accuracy of assessments,” and a recommendation from the 2018 Joint Civilian Casualty Review conducted under then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dempsey, the CHMR DoDI specifies that “[i]f civilian casualties are assessed more likely than not to have resulted from U.S. military operations, the assessment’s results will include, to the extent practicable, an estimated number of civilian casualties with an upper and a lower bound, if there is insufficient information available to assess a particular number of civilian casualties,” and provides as an alternative that “the upper bound estimate may be reported.”

The CHMR DoDI articulates the purposes of initial reviews, civilian harm assessments, and investigations. It also provides guidance on the content of those mechanisms and requires that assessments and investigations into civilian harm are conducted in a timely matter and archived in a common data platform that is being developed by the Army.

As described in the DoDI, the first step of initiating a civilian harm assessment is to conduct an initial review to correlate reports of civilian harm with operational data to identify potential operations that may have resulted in civilian harm. If this initial review identifies U.S. military operations that may have resulted in civilian harm, the relevant command may then conduct a civilian harm assessment to ascertain whether civilian harm more likely than not resulted from U.S. military operations. Commands may instead initiate investigations of civilian harm to answer questions not sufficiently addressed by, or outside the scope of, a civilian harm assessment; to inquire into potential misconduct not within the purview of a military criminal investigative organization, or related matters that may have contributed to civilian harm; or to facilitate a more detailed inquiry into matters that a relevant authority deems to be sufficiently complex or significant as to warrant the use of command investigative mechanisms.

Supporting these procedures, the DoDI also requires the creation of new positions that have not previously existed in the Department. Consistent with the CHMR-AP, the DoDI calls for Combatant Commands to designate in preparation for crisis or conflict a senior Civilian Harm Assessment and Investigation Coordinator to oversee assessments and investigation processes, be responsible for civilian harm assessments conducted under their purview, and ensure recommendations of civilian harm assessments and investigations feed back into command learning processes. It also requires Combatant Commands to establish or maintain Civilian Harm Assessment Cells in preparation for and throughout the duration of a crisis or conflict, and provides specific details regarding the responsibilities and composition of these cells.

Critically, like the CHMR-AP, the CHMR DoDI provides needed flexibility to ensure its applicability across the spectrum of conflict. For instance, the DoDI recognizes that in large scale combat operations it will not be possible to conduct such civilian harm assessments for every incident of civilian harm, and instead directs that “Civilian harm assessments will be conducted at the most detailed scale practicable given mission requirements, the availability of resources, and other operational factors, consistent with CCDR [Combatant Commander] guidance.” Further the DoDI notes, “In many operational contexts, it may not be appropriate or practicable to conduct civilian harm assessments in response to all information indicating damage to or destruction of civilian objects may have occurred. Instead, CCDRs will provide guidance specifying the criteria under which they expect civilian harm assessments to be conducted for civilian objects.” Such flexibility provides Combatant Commanders the ability to adapt CHMR practices to different operational contexts.

Response and Acknowledgement

The CHMR DoDI states that DoD will acknowledge civilian harm resulting from U.S. military operations and respond to individuals and communities affected by U.S. military operations. The DoDI is fully consistent with the approach outlined in the CHMR-AP, which seeks to “ensure the availability of a diverse menu of response options to respond to individuals and communities affected by U.S. military operations.” The DoDI notes that, depending on available authorities, responses may take a wide range of forms, including responses at the individual or community level. It notes that responses may include but are not limited to: written or spoken acknowledgments and condolences; condolence payments in accordance with section 1213 of the NDAA for FY 2020, as amended (10 USC § 2731 note); medical care; repairs to damaged structures and infrastructure; ordnance removal; and/or locally held commemorative events or memorials. Such responses, when appropriate and permitted by applicable law, will help to address the direct impacts of civilian harm. Consistent with the CHMR-AP, DoD also continues to identify available authorities that can be used to respond to civilian harm and pursue new authorities where warranted.

The CHMR DoDI also establishes procedural guidance for publicly reporting information about civilian harm, requiring Combatant Commands to publish such reports on at least a quarterly basis, except as provided for (e.g., no incidents in which civilian casualties may have resulted were newly identified or reported) or where withholding information is warranted (e.g., to protect the integrity of ongoing investigations).

Learning and Analysis

The CHMR DoDI lays out a new Departmental approach to analyzing civilian harm and disseminating lessons learned, recommendations, and effective practices related to CHMR. The newly established Civilian Protection Center of Excellence will lead the effort to conduct this analysis, and it will work to incorporate and institutionalize such lessons, recommendations, and practices into doctrine; plans; capability requirements; operational processes; training; and tactics, techniques, and procedures to continuously improve the DoD’s ability to mitigate and respond to civilian harm. At the same time, the DoDI requires, for example, USD(P) and the military departments, to conduct studies and analyses to inform their respective CHMR efforts, and it includes analysis of civilian harm incidents, patterns, and trends among the list of tasks appropriate for civilian harm assessment cells.

Allies and Partners

The CHMR DoDI includes guidance for U.S. military forces to apply CHMR policies and practices in all phases of multinational operations and operations with non-state armed groups. Reflecting this guidance are a number of responsibilities for Combatant Commanders and other heads of DoD Components related to planning and conducting operations with allies and partners, and a dedicated subsection that identifies steps that DoD Components will take when U.S. forces are operating with ally and partner forces to incorporate CHMR considerations into planning and operations.

The CHMR DoDI further guides DoD efforts to shape and support efforts to help ally and partner forces in implementing effective CHMR practices, including by integrating such support into DoD security cooperation and security assistance. It includes among the responsibilities of USD(P) the responsibility to provide guidance that addresses the comprehensive integration of CHMR as a component of security cooperation. One aspect of this is the development of civilian harm baseline assessments of allies and partners (CBAPs). CBAPs will address the ability, willingness, norms, and practices of allies and partners to mitigate and respond to civilian harm.

The CHMR DoDI also directs the Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) to coordinate integration of CHMR into programs and activities across the security cooperation enterprise. This includes advising on integration of CHMR into security cooperation programs and identifying and analyzing relevant technology and training offerings to our partners and allies. The Director of DSCA also identifies arms transfers and activities within U.S. security cooperation and security assistance programs, including the transfer or sale of defense articles and services, that may warrant providing ancillary capabilities to further mitigate civilian harm.

Definition of Civilian Harm

Lastly, another important innovation in the CHMR DoDI is the articulation of a definition of civilian harm. For the purpose of the issuance, DoD defines civilian harm as follows:

Civilian casualties and damage to or destruction of civilian objects (which do not constitute military objectives under the law of war) resulting from military operations. As a matter of DoD policy, other adverse effects on the civilian population and the personnel, organizations, resources, infrastructure, essential services, and systems on which civilian life depends resulting from military operations are also considered in CHMR efforts to the extent practicable. These other adverse effects do not include mere inconveniences.

This definition is consistent with the DoD Law of War Manual which, in its discussion of proportionality and the prohibition on attacks expected to cause excessive incidental harm, states that “[t]he totality of the expected loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects incidental to the attack must be considered,” but that “[m]ere inconveniences or temporary disruptions to civilian life need not be considered in applying this rule.” The DoDI’s definition of civilian harm, however, is notable in that it also reflects DoD’s policy to consider, to the extent practicable, a broad range of adverse effects on the civilian environment which may adversely affect civilians.

Conclusion

The DoD Instruction on Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response is an enduring policy issuance that institutionalizes the Department’s approach to mitigating and responding to civilian harm. It is also a critical element of CHMR-AP implementation. The new CHMR DoDI provides important policy guidance to shape how DoD conceptualizes, considers, assesses, investigates, and responds to civilian harm. Together with the CHMR-AP, the new CHMR DODI will formalize DoD policies, responsibilities, and procedures related to CHMR and create a reinforcing framework of processes and institutions specifically designed to improve DoD’s approach to mitigating and responding to civilian harm, which will also improve strategic outcomes and optimize military operations.

***

Dan E. Stigall is the Director for Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response (CHMR) Policy in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Irregular Warfare and Counterterrorism, Special Operations & Low-Intensity Conflict, OSD (Policy). From January – August 2022, he served as Team Lead for the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) Tiger Team. The author would like to extend his sincere thanks to Anna Williams, Cara Negrette, and the other defense professionals who worked long hours contributing to the development of the CHMR DoDI.

Photo credit: Staff Sgt. Oscar Gollaz, U.S. Army

lieber.westpoint.edu · by Dan E. Stigall · December 21, 2023

5. Japan to Send U.S. Patriot Missiles, Creating Deeper Pool for Ukraine Air Defenses

​The US is the "cut out" for both Korea and Japan for weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.

Japan to Send U.S. Patriot Missiles, Creating Deeper Pool for Ukraine Air Defenses

Tokyo breaks from longstanding weapons-export restraints and looks to add dozens of interceptors to American stockpiles

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/japan-to-send-u-s-patriot-missiles-creating-deeper-pool-for-ukraine-air-defenses-ae8d4316?mod=Searchresults_pos4&page=1

By Alastair Gale

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 and Chieko Tsuneoka

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Updated Dec. 22, 2023 4:22 am ET

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries makes Patriot missiles under license from Lockheed Martin and RTX. PHOTO: KYODONEWS/ZUMA PRESS

TOKYO—Japan said Friday it would provide Patriot missiles to the U.S., bolstering global stocks as Ukraine defends itself from a new wave of Russian missile attacks.

Tokyo is set to transfer dozens of the interceptor missiles, which are used to shoot down ballistic missiles and other aerial threats, from its own supplies, starting as early as the first quarter of 2024, according to a U.S. official.

The decision is a landmark for Japan, which has had a self-imposed ban on weapons exports for decades as a legacy of its desire to stay out of global conflicts following World War II.

The war in Ukraine and Tokyo’s concerns about China and North Korea have prompted a rethink in Japan about its contribution to international security. On Friday, the Japanese government said it would loosen controls on defense exports to allow weapons made in Japan under license to be sent to the license-issuing country.

Japan’s 

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries makes Patriot missiles under license from U.S. defense contractors Lockheed Martin and RTX, formerly Raytheon Technologies. “This initiative has great significance from the perspective of strengthening the Japan-U.S. alliance,” said Japanese government spokesman, Yoshimasa Hayashi.

Kyiv has stepped up calls for air defense support from its allies as Russia begins a fresh winter offensive against Ukrainian infrastructure using cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. 

Five Patriot batteries from the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands provide Ukraine’s most effective layer of defense against ballistic missiles, but stocks of the interceptor missiles, which can cost millions of dollars each and take years to make, have been stretched by Russia’s sustained attacks.

The impact of Japan’s shipments will depend on how many missiles the U.S. in turn provides to Ukraine. Lockheed Martin makes around 550 Patriot interceptor missiles each year, which are also deployed in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.

A Japanese defense official said the timing and scale of the missile transfer has yet to be worked out. Tokyo said there would be no degradation of its ability to defend itself from ballistic missiles from North Korea or elsewhere.

Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, said Friday’s decision showed Tokyo’s commitment to supporting international security, coming after Japan’s decision to sharply raise military spending and deepen a defense partnership with South Korea.

“It helps us manage our inventory of Patriots, given Ukraine and the Middle East, with a little more flexibility and strategic deployment,” Emanuel said.

President Biden has praised the defense buildup led by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who met Biden at Camp David in August. PHOTO: MICHAEL REYNOLDS/ZUMA PRESS

Members of Japan’s coalition government have been debating changes in defense export rules for months, with some wary of antagonizing China or eroding the pacifist principles of Japan’s postwar constitution.

Japan still bans the shipment of weapons to countries involved in a conflict, meaning it can’t send Patriot missiles directly to Ukraine.

South Korea has weapons-export restrictions that are similar to Japan’s, but Seoul agreed to provide hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to the U.S. to increase supplies to Ukraine. Japan and the U.S. have discussed the possibility of a similar arrangement to supply Japanese-made artillery shells, but the talks haven’t progressed far.

Since Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, Japan has provided some modest military support to Kyiv, including helmets and bulletproof jackets. On a visit to Hiroshima in May for a Group of Seven summit meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refrained from including Japan in his calls for military support.

Ukrainian tank crews take part in a drill not far from the front line in the Donetsk region. PHOTO: ANATOLII STEPANOV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Ukraine wasn’t mentioned in the Japanese government statement about Patriot exports. Instead, Tokyo officials said the move would bolster Japan’s alliance with the U.S. and underpin regional security.

Nonetheless, security analysts said it showed Japan is willing to find new ways to play a bigger role in international security.

“This is a significant step for Japan, one that reinforces its commitment since the war began to support Ukraine’s defense,” said Christopher Johnstone, a former U.S. National Security Council official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. 

Japan has also been building closer security ties with some Asian countries as a bulwark against China, while trying to foster growth in its defense industry. Earlier this week, the Philippines installed a radar system provided by Japan that will help Manila monitor Chinese ships and airplanes following clashes in the South China Sea.

Peter Landers contributed to this article.

Write to Alastair Gale at alastair.gale@wsj.com and Chieko Tsuneoka at chieko.Tsuneoka@wsj.com

6. The War in Ukraine Has Created a New ‘Axis of Evil’

Axis of authoritarians who are pure evil.

Finally people are recognizing the contributions of north Korea and the Kim family regime to conflict areas around the world.

The War in Ukraine Has Created a New ‘Axis of Evil’

Russia is turning to Iran and North Korea for military supplies and diplomatic support.

https://www.wsj.com/world/the-war-in-ukraine-has-created-a-new-axis-of-evil-cd50a398?mod=Searchresults_pos5&page=1

From left: North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose countries have grown closer since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. PHOTO: FROM LEFT: MIKHAIL METZEL/SPUTNIK/REUTERS; MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS; IRANIAN RELIGIOUS LEADER PRESS OFFICE/GETTY IMAGES

By Yaroslav TrofimovFollow

Dec. 21, 2023 11:00 am ET

Beaming at every turn, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un toured the jewels of Russia’s military industries in September. A guest of President Vladimir Putin, he gawked at the plant making Su-35 jet fighters, inspected a Russian Navy frigate and examined the Kinzhal missiles at the Vostochny spaceport.

Soon thereafter, trainloads of North Korean artillery shells started rolling to Russian troops in Ukraine—by American calculations, as many as one million munitions, or roughly three times what European nations had been able to supply in a whole year.

Another increasingly important partner of Russia, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, visited with Putin this month. Iranian ammunition and drones have played a major role in the Russian war effort. Now Raisi discussed the desired payback: sophisticated Russian aircraft and air defenses that would make it much harder for the U.S. or Israel to strike Iran and its nuclear program.

President George W. Bush used the term “axis of evil” to describe North Korea, Iran and Iraq in 2002, in his first State of the Union speech after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The idea was ridiculed by many at the time. But now an axis uniting Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang has become a geopolitical reality—and with a revisionist and reckless Russia at its center, it poses a growing threat to the U.S. and its allied democracies.

President George W. Bush introduced the term ‘axis of evil’ in his 2022 State of the Union address. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

“These countries are showing an excellent burden-sharing. And when it comes to Ukraine, there is an unholy alliance of these forces which have achieved a war economy, whereas we in the West are unable to achieve an increase in the production of ammunition,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, a German lawmaker and a former senior officer of the German General Staff.

This new axis is coalescing as the U.S.-led Western alliance is showing systemic cracks. Indispensable American aid to Ukraine has been stalled because of Republican opposition in Congress, and EU efforts to confront Russia have been sabotaged by Hungary. Neither the U.S. nor Europe has been willing or able to boost military production to match Russia’s recent growth in manufacturing ammunition and weapons.

China, another authoritarian power, is friendly to the burgeoning Russia-Iran-North Korea axis but has not joined it militarily—though it may do so in the future, if Western resolve flags. “The Chinese are watching: how do we behave? And our responses are vague and not corresponding to our needs,” said Artis Pabriks, a former Latvian defense and foreign minister who now heads the Northern Europe Policy Center, a think-tank. “We have deeply underestimated the impact of Russian aggression in Ukraine.”

China’s President Xi Jinping (left) and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at a reception in the Kremlin, March 21, 2023. China is friendly to the Russia-North Korea-Iran axis but has not joined it militarily. PHOTO: PAVEL BYRKIN/SPUTNIK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A new acronym has already emerged in Washington to denote this autocratic lineup: the CRINKs, meaning China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. These countries have increasingly aligned their positions not just on Ukraine, but on other crises that pit them against the U.S., such as the war in Gaza.

Such diplomatic coordination shouldn’t be underestimated, said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat and a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee. “Russia gives Iran and North Korea acceptance and credibility, and it’s also one of the things that China provides to Russia: that they are not alone in the international community,” she said.

During George W. Bush’s presidency two decades ago, Russia was positioning itself as a responsible global power, and cooperated with the U.S. and other Western allies in moderating Iranian and North Korean behavior. Even after Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014, it was one of the parties to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal through which the Obama administration aimed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Until 2017, Russia voted for U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea.

But when the 2022 invasion of Ukraine failed to achieve regime change in Kyiv and prompted the West to funnel money and weapons to the Ukrainian government, Moscow’s calculations changed. With Russia crippled by Western sanctions, Putin has turned to other rogue states that could provide him with valuable military aid, and that crave Russia’s own technologies.

Iran’s Shahed drones entered combat in Ukraine in October last year, and have been extensively used against Ukrainian power stations, port infrastructure and military targets. Production of the drones is now partly localized inside Russia. Such field-testing in real combat conditions, against Western-supplied air defenses, has allowed Iran to improve the design and the effectiveness of its drones, military officials say.

A building in Kyiv destroyed by a Russian attack using an Iranian-made drone, October 2022. PHOTO: OLEKSII CHUMACHENKO/SIPA USA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

So far, Iran has stopped short of providing Russia with ballistic missiles, using that step as a bargaining chip in its talks with the West. Such restraint, however, could disappear now that attacks by Iranian-backed Hamas have sparked war in Gaza.

“The Iran-Russian military cooperation is really reaching new heights. It’s a stunning turn of events,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group. Military ties between Moscow and Tehran were solidified by Russia entering the Syrian war in 2015, he said, and if Iran obtained Russian aircraft and air-defenses, it could project military power across the Middle East. “Nobody else is willing to give them that kind of weapons,” Vaez said.

The Iranian missile program, and its military industries in general, have long benefited from North Korean know-how. But Russia has weapons that North Korea doesn’t produce. Iran’s weakest point is its lack of modern combat aircraft, and it has already signed agreements to obtain Russian Su-35 jets.

While the Soviet Union used to be a formal ally of North Korea, post-1991 Russia was wary, developing close ties with South Korea instead. That coldness turned into a nearly-obsequious courting of Kim when the Russian army confronted an ammunition shortage this summer. Accustomed to an overwhelming artillery advantage on the battlefield, Russian troops in southern Ukraine suddenly found themselves facing superior Ukrainian firepower on some sections of the front. Ironically, a large share of the artillery ammunition used by Ukraine during its summer offensive was provided, via American intermediaries, by South Korea.

In July, weeks after the Ukrainian offensive began, Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to Pyongyang. At a military parade to mark the 70^th anniversary of the North Korean “victory” over American forces, he stood next to Kim as troops marched by. When Kim made a weeklong visit to the Russian Far East two months later, he was showered with honors—a contrast to the relatively cool reception he had been given on his previous trip in 2019.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (center) with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (left) in Pyongyang, July 2023. Shoigu’s visit was part of Moscow’s effort to negotiate for supplies of North Korean munitions. PHOTO: KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“We’re in a different world. Russia’s war has been unfolding in ways not entirely according to Putin’s plans,” said Sung-Yoon Lee, a specialist on North Korea at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. “Putin needs Kim, and Kim needs Putin. In this new environment, he added, the old Cold War dynamics in East Asia have returned, with Russia, North Korea and China on one side and the U.S., South Korea and Japan on the other.

This doesn’t entirely align with Beijing’s interests. China, unlike Russia, North Korea or Iran, has a trade-dependent global economy. For now, at least, it is seeking not to further damage relations with the U.S. or Europe—one reason why Chinese leader Xi Jinping has declined to provide weapons to Russia. Beijing is also wary of Russia encroaching upon its own privileged relationship with North Korea.

“It’s not in Xi’s interests that the Russians are pulling the Korean peninsula into the war in Ukraine,” said Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., and a former senior White House official. “It’s just causing a tightening of the U.S.-Japan-South Korea relationship, which makes China’s neighborhood even more difficult.”

What exactly North Korea has gotten from Russia so far is unclear. Pyongyang successfully launched its first spy satellite at the end of November after previous failed attempts, an achievement that U.S. officials said could have been a result of Russian assistance. But so far there is no public evidence that Russia is sharing the ballistic-missile and submarine technology particularly sought by Kim.

“Russia wants artillery shells, but in return for that, you don’t have to help the North Koreans with cutting-edge military technology. There are other things that Russia can do: financial assistance, food aid, energy,” said James Brown, a professor of political science at Temple University in Japan. “It seems like Russia is deliberately playing up, for political reasons, the idea that they could provide advanced military technology. It’s a way to threaten South Korea and Japan that, if they continue to support sanctions and assist Ukraine, it will have consequences for them.”

7. U.S. to Clamp Down on Financial Firms That Help Russia Buy Military Supplies

U.S. to Clamp Down on Financial Firms That Help Russia Buy Military Supplies

By Alan Rappeport

Reporting from Washington

Dec. 22, 2023, 6:00 a.m. ET

The New York Times · by Alan Rappeport · December 22, 2023

President Biden will sign an executive order granting the Treasury Department broader powers to curb the flow of weapons components.

Investigators examined a crater caused by a Russian missile in Kyiv this month.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

Dec. 22, 2023, 6:00 a.m. ET

The Biden administration is planning to crack down on banks and financial services firms that are helping Russia evade strict sanctions on access to military technology and equipment that are aiding its war against Ukraine, according to senior administration officials.

The move, which will be announced on Friday, comes after attempts by the United States to curb Russia’s access to supplies that it needs to build more missiles and other weapons have proved to be unsuccessful.

The United States and Europe have imposed strict sanctions on Russia over the past two years. But an illicit network of traders and smugglers, working with the assistance of shadowy financial firms, has been helping Russia gain access to banned products that it needs to restock its military arsenal.

Moscow’s intelligence services and Ministry of Defense have turned to networks that are facilitating Russia’s access to banned materials by exporting them to other countries from which they can be shipped to Russia more easily. That has allowed Russia to gain access to critical technology that can aid its military.

Finding new ways to constrain Russia’s ability to restock its military supplies is increasingly important as Western aid to Ukraine is drying up.

On Friday, President Biden will sign an executive order giving the Treasury Department the authority to impose sanctions on banks and other financial institutions that are enabling these elicit transactions and allowing smugglers to get paid. Senior administration officials described the new powers as a tool that would allow the United States to throw sand in the gears of Russia’s military industrial complex.

Western financial institutions have largely stopped doing business with Russia. But administration officials said they expected that the threat of new sanctions would encourage American and European financial firms to exert pressure on banks in other countries to steer clear of Russian smuggling schemes.

American and European officials have already been working with banks to develop a warning system to alert governments to possible sanctions violations. As of September, American banks had alerted the U.S. government to 400 suspicious transactions.

The Biden administration has been heavily reliant on the private sector to police its sanctions program.

This week, it announced that it would require maritime insurers and financial services firms to more rigorously enforce the price cap that the Group of 7 nations have imposed on Russian oil exports by collecting additional documentation about the contents and prices of oil shipments.

As part of that beefed-up policy, other participants in the energy trade supply chain will have to be ready to provide more information about ancillary costs, such as shipping fees, that traders have been inflating to disguise higher prices that are being paid for Russian oil.

Alan Rappeport is an economic policy reporter, based in Washington. He covers the Treasury Department and writes about taxes, trade and fiscal matters. More about Alan Rappeport

The New York Times · by Alan Rappeport · December 22, 2023

8. How pro-Russian 'yacht' propaganda influenced US debate over Ukraine aid

"Narrative laundering."

Excerpts:

Although the yacht rumour is false, the BBC has discovered the story was given a major boost by a Russia-linked website that pretends to be located in Washington.

It is, researchers say, a "likely purpose-built tool for narrative laundering with links to the Russian government".

How pro-Russian 'yacht' propaganda influenced US debate over Ukraine aid

20th December 2023, 04:53 EST

By Olga Robinson, Shayan Sardarizadeh and Mike Wendling

BBC Verify and BBC News

BBC

By Olga Robinson, Shayan Sardarizadeh and Mike WendlingBBC Verify and BBC News

Getty Images

A website founded by a former US Marine who now lives in Russia has fuelled a rumour that Volodymyr Zelensky purchased two luxury yachts with American aid money.

Despite the false claim, the disinformation plot was successful. It took off online and was echoed by members of the US Congress making crucial decisions about military spending.

It was an incredible assertion - using two advisers as proxies, Mr Zelensky paid $75m (£59m) for two yachts.

But not only has the Ukrainian government flatly denied the story, the two ships in question have not even been sold.

Despite being false, the story reached members of the US Congress, where leaders say any decision on further aid to Ukraine will be delayed until next year.

Some are vehemently opposed to further support.

On X, formerly Twitter, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said: "Anyone who votes to fund Ukraine is funding the most corrupt money scheme of any foreign war in our country's history."

She linked to a story containing the yacht rumour.

Tom Tillis, a Republican Senator and a supporter of military aid to Ukraine, spoke to CNN shortly after senators held a closed-door meeting with Mr Zelensky last week.

"I think the notion of corruption came up because some have said we can't do it, because people will buy yachts with the money," Mr Tillis said. "[Mr Zelensky] disabused people of those notions."

Mr Tillis has butted heads with another Republican Senator, J D Vance, who has also mentioned Mr Zelensky and ships in the same breath.

While discussing budget priorities on a podcast hosted by former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Mr Vance said: "There are people who would cut Social Security, throw our grandparents into poverty, why? So that one of Zelensky's ministers can buy a bigger yacht?"

Although the yacht rumour is false, the BBC has discovered the story was given a major boost by a Russia-linked website that pretends to be located in Washington.

It is, researchers say, a "likely purpose-built tool for narrative laundering with links to the Russian government".

The 'Washington' website with roots in Russia

The story first emerged in late November on an obscure YouTube channel - one with only a handful of followers and just a single video in its feed.

The next day, it was picked up by a site called DC Weekly, alongside pictures of the two yachts - called Lucky Me and My Legacy - and documents purportedly confirming the sale of the boats to Zelensky's associates.

But the luxury yacht brokers where both vessels are listed for sale said that the allegations are false. The sales documents appear to be forgeries. And instead of having been purchased by Zelensky or his close advisers, both Lucky Me and My Legacy are still up for sale.

Behnemar

The Lucky Me is still up for sale

The DC Weekly story touched off a blaze of online speculation, with multiple sources linking to the story and content citing the story across multiple platforms.

However, the site is not, as the name implies, a weekly publication - nor is it based in the US capital.

Research by Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren, disinformation researchers at Clemson University, shows that DC Weekly was started by John Mark Dougan, a former US Marine and Florida police officer who moved to Russia in 2016.

Mr Dougan spent three years as a deputy with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office, then after he left in 2009 he started a website spreading rumours about his former employers.

Since moving to Russia he has reinvented himself as a journalist covering the invasion of Ukraine, and has spread a number of false and baseless claims - for example that Russia was attempting to destroy biological weapons labs.

DC Weekly, the Clemson researchers discovered, is full of news stories copied from other sites and rewritten by artificial intelligence engines. The site's "reporters" have fake names along with headshots copied from elsewhere on the internet.

Mixed in with the rewritten stories - apparently designed to give the site a sheen of legitimacy - are dubious original reports.

One such story was the origin of the yacht claim, and the Clemson researchers tracked how the story spread widely after DC Weekly published its version.

Evidence collected by the researchers indicates that the site continued to be connected to the same server as several of Mr Dougan's other websites. BBC Verify also found that part of the DC Weekly website is hosted on a server in Moscow.

Earlier this year Mr Dougan was identified as being a DC Weekly commentator when he gave several talks at an academy affiliated with the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"It is pretty obvious to me that Dougan has been involved with DC Weekly for a long time, and remains connected to the infrastructure behind it," Mr Warren said.

DCWeekly

DC Weekly includes news stories rewritten by artificial intelligence - and original stories that include false information

Mr Dougan said via text message that he "emphatically denies these assertions", and that he sold DC Weekly for $3,000 several years ago. He said he does not recall the person he sold it to and has lost the paperwork due to being kicked off payment platforms and losing access to email accounts because of financial sanctions against Russia. He says he has nothing to do with the site's current operations.

The researchers say the site is part of a much larger pro-Russia propaganda machine.

"Whether this one particular guy is behind it doesn't really matter much," Mr Warren said. "The key point is that it is an important element in a very substantial and effective pro-Russian influence operation that needs to be exposed and understood."

The Ukrainian President's Office said of the DC Weekly story: "All information in this article is fake. Zelensky and his family members do not and did not have any yachts."

Mr Tillis and Ms Greene were contacted for comment.

A spokesperson for Mr Vance said: "For years, everyone in the West recognised that Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Somehow everyone forgot that just as we started sending them billions of dollars in foreign aid."

Costume jewellery

The yacht story piles fictional stories onto existing concerns about corruption, which has been a long-running problem in Ukraine. Tackling it is one of the tests the country would have to pass to join Western institutions like the European Union.

According to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, Ukraine ranks 116th out of 180 countries, although efforts in recent years have seen its position significantly improve.

• Ukraine's hopes of rebuilding rely on fighting corruption

But the attention given to the country's real and ongoing corruption issues has been mild compared to online chatter over false stories backed up by fake documents and shadowy social media accounts.

In October, a widely shared claim on social media stated that President Zelensky's wife spent a fortune on jewellery in New York while the Ukrainian president was in the city speaking to the United Nations.

YOUTUBE

The woman claimed Mrs Zelenska got her fired, before brandishing a fake $1.1m receipt

Like the yacht rumour, this claim originated on a YouTube channel with very few followers and just one video. The video featured a woman who said she is from Benin. She claimed to work at Cartier on New York's Fifth Avenue.

The woman showed a receipt dated 22 September, with Mrs Zelensky's name on it and a bill for $1.1m for a bracelet, earrings and a necklace.

Facial recognition tools threw up a close match between the woman in the video and photos from social media profiles of a woman who lives in St Petersburg, Russia. When we looked at the pictures of the woman it appeared to be the same person as the one in the YouTube video.

The story went viral on Facebook, TikTok and Telegram. Russia's UK embassy X account shared it with the comment: "Best use of UK taxpayers money ever".

But the receipt is a clear fake. By 21 September, Mr and Mrs Zelensky had left New York and travelled to Canada.

One English-language site was instrumental in spreading the rumour - DC Weekly.

@ZelenskyyUa

President Zelensky and Olena Zelenska arrived in Canada on 21 September

BBC Verify and the Clemson researchers found a number of DC Weekly articles posted between August and December this year that followed the same pattern.

The articles falsely alleged that Prince Andrew made a secret visit to Ukraine, that Ukraine provided weapons to Hamas, that an American non-profit organisation harvested organs in Ukraine and that Zelensky's administration allowed Western companies to use Ukrainian farmland for disposal of toxic waste.

Stories on DC Weekly were often published within days after allegations first appeared on YouTube.

In addition to DC Weekly, some of the allegations - including those about Cartier jewellery and yachts - also appeared on several pro-Kremlin English-language websites as well as legitimate news websites in Africa that accept "sponsored" (paid-for) content.

Some of the stories were picked up by other outlets and accounts. But with the story about the yachts, the people behind DC Weekly appear to have achieved a level of success that had previously eluded them - their allegations being repeated by some of the most powerful people in the US Congress.

Additional reporting by Paul Myers

BBC

9. Opinion | Gaza and Ukraine are very different wars, but they teach similar lessons

Excerpts:

Reliance on technology brings its own vulnerabilities. Hamas carried out its long-planned assault with startling success by using simple expedients — such as attacking cell towers with drones — to blind Israel’s high-tech monitoring systems. Russia, meanwhile, has used more advanced electronic warfare systems to jam the GPS guidance of Ukraine’s U.S.-made rocket systems. Both examples show other adversaries, from China to Iran, how to blunt the United States’ military edge by blinding U.S. sensors.

“I am always concerned about sabotage of technology-driven systems (e.g., GPS),” retired U.S. Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel, a former head of Central Command, told me in an email. “I am also worried that the ubiquity of technology is making it a cheap resource for everyone — including terrorist organizations.”

The final lesson from the Ukraine and Gaza wars is the need for a robust defense-industrial capacity, because high-intensity conflicts always consume vast quantities of ammunition. The proliferation of rocket technology makes it especially critical to maintain supplies for missile-defense systems such as Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow and Ukraine’s Patriot, IRIS-T and NASAMS batteries.

...

Whatever happens in the future, both Israel and Ukraine have already suffered heavy losses because they were caught off-guard by enemy attacks. That should offer an urgent warning to the Pentagon to learn the right lessons from the ongoing conflicts as it prepares its own forces for the wars of the future. As Israel and Ukraine remind us, the price of unreadiness will be paid in blood.

Opinion | Gaza and Ukraine are very different wars, but they teach similar lessons

By Max Boot

Columnist

|

Follow

December 20, 2023 at 6:15 a.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Max Boot · December 20, 2023

At first glance, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza don’t appear to have much in common. The fight in Ukraine is a conventional conflict pitting two states against each other, while the Gaza War pits a conventional military against a terrorist organization. Yet, as I’ve been talking in recent weeks with current and retired U.S. generals and civilian analysts who are studying both conflicts, I have concluded that they actually reinforce many of the same lessons. Those are lessons that the U.S. military urgently needs to internalize.

Hamas isn’t just a terrorist organization, after all. It’s a quasi-governmental entity that entered the war with an estimated 30,000 fighters — and, just like the Russian army in Ukraine, it has engaged in terrible war crimes. In both cases, the brutal violence is intended to terrorize its enemies into surrender. Hamas leaders appear to not care about the terrible costs inflicted on civilians — or even on their own fighters — by the war they started on Oct. 7. (Note that they don’t open their tunnels to shelter civilians from Israeli bombing.) Likewise, the Kremlin has shown a shocking willingness to not only kill Ukrainian civilians but also its own soldiers, who have been sacrificed in “meat grinder” assaults for a few meters of ground.

The wars in both Gaza and Ukraine should remind complacent Western leaders that our adversaries do not share our liberal values and, thus, are much less casualty-conscious than Western militaries are. That gives them a major military advantage.

Ukraine’s commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, recently admitted to the Economist that he was wrong to believe that he could stop the Russian onslaught by inflicting heavy casualties on the invaders. But even though U.S. intelligence estimates that 315,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded, Vladimir Putin just keeps on attacking. So, too, Israeli commanders are mistaken if they think that inflicting pain and suffering on Palestinian civilians will lead Hamas to stop fighting. This is known to intelligence analysts as “mirror imaging,” and it’s a critical mistake to avoid.

Gen. James E. Rainey, commander of the U.S. Army Futures Command, recently told me that the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts should both remind us “that war remains primarily a human endeavor, land is decisive, urban conflict is as unavoidable as it is undesirable, and close combat proficiency at the small unit level is required and decisive.”

Such conclusions might seem obvious, but they run counter to the modern tendency in the West, including in both the Israeli and U.S. armed forces, to try to reduce warfare to a long-range targeting exercise utilizing precision strike systems. Those capabilities remain important, but both Ukraine and Israel are learning anew the need for ground forces that can close with, and destroy, enemy forces in close-quarters combat.

Attacking is particularly hard to do in cities, where buildings offer cover for defenders and civilians are in the line of fire. Ukraine has seen a series of bloody battles waged in and around cities such as Mariupol, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Kherson. Now, in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces are fighting simultaneously in two major urban areas — Gaza City and Khan Younis — where Hamas’s vast tunnel network presents another threat dimension. Given that about 68 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050, it’s vitally important to master what the U.S. military calls MOUT: military operations on urbanized terrain.

U.S. forces have experience in recent decades fighting in Fallujah and Ramadi and supporting local forces fighting Islamic State in Mosul and Raqqa, but they have not faced the kinds of challenges that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is encountering in more built-up urban areas. “When was the last time a U.S. infantry battalion cleared a hospital — or a skyscraper?” write retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. David W. Barno and defense analyst Nora Bensahel in War on the Rocks. “The U.S. military would not be able to rely solely on standoff tactics and precision strikes during urban operations in a large city. … This means that U.S. military ground forces … should be better organized, trained, and equipped for intense urban fighting.”

Another lesson taught in Ukraine, and reinforced in Gaza, is “that we must engage and win the information war,” retired U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, a former supreme allied commander Europe, told me. “This means dominating the news cycle, producing compelling visual content (think TikTok-style video) and putting forward competent, believable spokesmen.”

Ukraine has done a better job of information operations than Israel because it has a better story to tell — it is the victim of unprovoked aggression, and it is not killing Russian civilians. The civilian death toll is entirely on Ukraine’s side, helping to generate popular sympathy for its cause. By contrast, Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields, making it inevitable that Israeli combat operations will inflict large numbers of civilian casualties. (More than 18,700 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry.)

Israel insists that it abides by the laws of war, but such arguments count for little compared with the emotional power of a photo of a dead Palestinian child. In the battle of victim narratives, Israel’s most effective counter has been to expose the depravity of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack — for example, by highlighting Hamas’s use of sexual violence against Israeli women. Even so, there’s little question that Israel is losing the information war, and that could lead it to lose the whole war.

Another important point was made to me by retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who says that we should have “a healthy skepticism of intelligence assessments.” He points out that while the U.S. intelligence community accurately predicted that Putin would invade Ukraine, it did not anticipate how successfully Ukraine would resist the invasion.

Israel’s intelligence and military establishments, for their part, vastly underestimated Hamas’s capabilities in much the same way that the United States did with al-Qaeda before Sept. 11, 2001. As the New York Times reported: “Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened …. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.” Complacency is one of the deadliest military sins — and one of the hardest to avoid when dealing with less powerful adversaries.

Reliance on technology brings its own vulnerabilities. Hamas carried out its long-planned assault with startling success by using simple expedients — such as attacking cell towers with drones — to blind Israel’s high-tech monitoring systems. Russia, meanwhile, has used more advanced electronic warfare systems to jam the GPS guidance of Ukraine’s U.S.-made rocket systems. Both examples show other adversaries, from China to Iran, how to blunt the United States’ military edge by blinding U.S. sensors.

“I am always concerned about sabotage of technology-driven systems (e.g., GPS),” retired U.S. Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel, a former head of Central Command, told me in an email. “I am also worried that the ubiquity of technology is making it a cheap resource for everyone — including terrorist organizations.”

The final lesson from the Ukraine and Gaza wars is the need for a robust defense-industrial capacity, because high-intensity conflicts always consume vast quantities of ammunition. The proliferation of rocket technology makes it especially critical to maintain supplies for missile-defense systems such as Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow and Ukraine’s Patriot, IRIS-T and NASAMS batteries.

Both Israel and Ukraine are counting on replenishment from the United States. Yet even if Congress could get its act together to provide critically needed support (which is in serious doubt at the moment), the U.S. defense industry cannot produce enough munitions to go around. “Our defense industrial base has atrophied over the past 30 years and has now become a critical vulnerability,” Lute noted. The war in Gaza should reinforce the message of the war in Ukraine about the need to reinvigorate U.S. defense production.

As of this writing, the outcomes in both Gaza and Ukraine remain uncertain. We don’t know whether Ukraine will receive the support it desperately needs from Washington, given growing Republican isolationism; if it doesn’t, the results could be catastrophic. In the case of Israel, it’s not clear whether the IDF will have the time it wants to destroy Hamas amid growing global outrage over the number of civilian casualties it is inflicting.

Whatever happens in the future, both Israel and Ukraine have already suffered heavy losses because they were caught off-guard by enemy attacks. That should offer an urgent warning to the Pentagon to learn the right lessons from the ongoing conflicts as it prepares its own forces for the wars of the future. As Israel and Ukraine remind us, the price of unreadiness will be paid in blood.

The Washington Post · by Max Boot · December 20, 2023

10. Tell China: We Will Defend Our Democracy

"Deterrence for democracy."

Excerpts:

And once Chinese election operations have been normalized, it will be harder for Western democracies to take back control. Even assuming they have the political will to do it, responding after a long interval of relative passive absorption will be perceived by China and others as a sudden, even unprovoked, act, inadvertently risking a disproportionate Chinese climb up the escalation ladder in response.

Establishing deterrence against these election operation tactics, then, will require openly telling China what to expect if it is caught. The democratic West needs, perhaps with the Five Eyes nations in the lead, to develop a “code of conduct” to respond to political warfare aimed at its elections. In doing so, the United States and its allies must communicate to the People’s Republic of China what commensurate targets Western governments would be willing to hold at risk should Beijing further interfere in democratic systems.

Liberal democracy is critical infrastructure, as vital to the functioning of the United States and our democratic allies as advantages in high technology or communications networks. The CCP knows it. The time is now for the West to establish deterrence for democracy, just as we do with other critical infrastructure.

At the 2023 New York Times DealBook summit, Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen noted that Chinese election operations are just a fact of life on the island of Taiwan. That could be the American future if we do not, like Ebenezer Scrooge, take heed of the lessons of past, present, and yet-to-come before it is too late.

Tell China: We Will Defend Our Democracy

The time is now for the West to establish deterrence for democracy, just as we do with any other piece of critical infrastructure.

The National Interest · by Zac Morgan · December 20, 2023

Chinese election interference is on track to become just another cost of doing democracy in the West. From New Zealand to Australia, Canada to the United States, the liberal democracies have learned, often the hard way, that the West’s unfriendly competition with Beijing seems to ultimately involve the Chinese government targeting their political systems.

Most recently, the Canadian government announced that “Members of Parliament, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, were the targets of a disinformation campaign … carried out by the Chinese government in August and September.” This particular effort involved “Spamouflage … .a tactic that uses networks of new or hijacked social media accounts to post and amplify propaganda messages across multiple platforms.” In particular, this “spampaign” appeared to involve the use of deep fake videos and a bot network which “post[ed] waves of social media posts and videos that called into question the political and ethical standards of [legislators] … using a popular Chinese-speaking figure in Canada.”

Notwithstanding the revelations that China appears to have interfered directly in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections, this rollout strongly suggests that Beijing is not letting accusations that it is picking winners and losers in foreign elections slow down its targeting of America’s allies.

We often call this sort of activity “political” or “election interference,” whether it involves targeting specific lawmakers for victory or defeat, allegedly recruiting malleable candidates in Vancouver, or impersonating Americans on social media to promote an electoral message. It is an accepted term, but it is an incomplete one. These types of election-focused or political system-targeting operations are best understood as an act of political warfare.

As George Kennan defined it in 1948, “Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine in time of peace … the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert.” Warfare without warfare, if you will. Understanding foreign political interference through this lens is psychologically important. Election interference can be complacently withstood as just something that regrettably happens. Recognizing election operations as political warfare, even if they are well to the left of military-to-military conflict, counsels a different response. Put simply, with apologies to American hero Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer, “if it’s warfare, we can deter it.”

Western governments seem to have recently experienced at least three forms of election-related political warfare from adversary states: attempts to influence the electorate through astroturf social media campaigns, hack-and-leak operations of personal data of the politically powerful, and direct campaign interference, such as efforts to recruit individuals to stand as candidates or other backing of a preferred candidate.

Positioning against all of these tactics will inevitably vary with the threat level they pose. Hack-and-leak operations, for example, might be deterred merely through better or more robust cybersecurity protocols—which may account for why “China, thus far, has not employed [such] target hacks to power their election influence operations against the U.S.” Coordinated defense, user education, and the like could raise the cost of carrying out such targeted hacks by rendering the operation less likely to succeed.

The other two buckets of interference, however, are more challenging to build resiliency against. Fundamentally, they require high levels of social trust and citizen patience—and a willingness of governments to own embarrassing facts and elevate national security above party politics to “develop safety valves for swift and dispassionate reviews of election interference claims.”

Such post hoc analyses of an election operation carried out by China or other adversaries may well provide lessons learned that the target state and its democratic allies may take advantage of. Still, the downside is that relying on absorbing political warfare and then figuring out how the hits were played is inherently reactive and operates on a significant time lag. The Canadian public inquiry’s preliminary report into China’s activities in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections is scheduled for release at the end of February 2024 and, accordingly, may be helpful for the United States in preparing for potential Chinese interference in its November 2024 election. But it will, of course, be years late for any members of parliament who were unseated by China’s efforts and impossible for any voters who may have been hoodwinked to recall their cast ballots.

Moreover, even when election operations are not well-targeted, their revelation can have second-order effects that send a democracy into a tailspin. Even if China failed as a matter of voter persuasion, recent experience in the United States after Russia engaged in largely fruitless pro-Donald Trump activity in the 2016 election suggests the mere revelation of a serious effort by Beijing to back one nationwide candidate over another would have profound effects on the public discourse surrounding any ensuing elected administration.

China’s efforts in Canada and elsewhere demonstrate that the Chinese Communist Party is comfortable conducting political warfare through spampaigns. According to the New York Times, citing intelligence and other elected officials, China “has built support for its positions in diaspora communities and interfered in elections.” Governments must protect and defend their citizens and political systems from Beijing’s political warfare, and it pays best to do so proactively through deterrence. Every election where the attacked government only responds after the fact with public inquiries and efforts to reduce the supply of targets by hardening civil society, however well-intended, ultimately will only further normalize Chinese meddling.

And once Chinese election operations have been normalized, it will be harder for Western democracies to take back control. Even assuming they have the political will to do it, responding after a long interval of relative passive absorption will be perceived by China and others as a sudden, even unprovoked, act, inadvertently risking a disproportionate Chinese climb up the escalation ladder in response.

Establishing deterrence against these election operation tactics, then, will require openly telling China what to expect if it is caught. The democratic West needs, perhaps with the Five Eyes nations in the lead, to develop a “code of conduct” to respond to political warfare aimed at its elections. In doing so, the United States and its allies must communicate to the People’s Republic of China what commensurate targets Western governments would be willing to hold at risk should Beijing further interfere in democratic systems.

Liberal democracy is critical infrastructure, as vital to the functioning of the United States and our democratic allies as advantages in high technology or communications networks. The CCP knows it. The time is now for the West to establish deterrence for democracy, just as we do with other critical infrastructure.

At the 2023 New York Times DealBook summit, Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen noted that Chinese election operations are just a fact of life on the island of Taiwan. That could be the American future if we do not, like Ebenezer Scrooge, take heed of the lessons of past, present, and yet-to-come before it is too late.

Zac Morgan is an attorney specializing in First Amendment and campaign finance law. He previously worked for the Institute for Free Speech and currently serves as counsel to Commissioner Allen Dickerson of the Federal Election Commission. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not express an official view of the U.S. government.

Image: Shutterstock.

The National Interest · by Zac Morgan · December 20, 2023

11. Maritime Maneuvers: Navigating Irregular Warfare in Yemen’s Civil War

Irregular warfare - the dominant form of warfare today. It is the military contribution to political warfare. And the axis of authoritarians are conducting an advanced form of political warfare by employing proxies to create dilemmas for the US and like minded democracies who are trying to uphold the rules based international order.

Maritime Maneuvers: Navigating Irregular Warfare in Yemen’s Civil War - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by James P. Micciche, Adam K. Christensen · December 21, 2023

Before the 2018 National Defense Strategy recognized Irregular Warfare (IW) as a key competency for the Joint Force, a unique cell of Navy Surface Warfare and intelligence officers, an Army Civil Affairs Team (CAT), and Royal Navy (UK) personnel initiated a maritime irregular warfare campaign in the early stages of Yemen’s civil war. Led by the Maritime Coalition Coordination Cell (MCCC), this 18-month campaign successfully restricted adversary access to proxies, bolstered humanitarian efforts, and facilitated a shift in control to an international authority. The MCCC’s experience managing effects of this conflict provides lessons for conducting irregular warfare in the maritime domain, particularly in establishing clear objectives, building and maintaining human networks, effective information sharing, and integrating military actions with diplomatic and economic initiatives. The MCCC’s lessons apply not only to strategic competition with the PRC but also on the remerging threat to the Red Sea by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

Responding to the Yemeni Civil War: The MCCC’s role in irregular warfare

Long plagued by civil wars, extremism, and poverty, Yemen faced a new crisis in January 2015 when the Houthi-Saleh alliance overthrew the sitting government. This sparked a civil war, drawing in Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and leading to a United Nations arms embargo. The conflict, characterized by extensive air strikes and missile use, also posed major maritime challenges, including threats to the Bab-el-Mandeb oil transit route, through which an estimated 6.2 million barrels of oil, accounting for approximately 9% of the world’s seaborne traded petroleum, passed daily. Recognizing that most Yemenis depended on maritime-transported food imports for survival, the US Navy responded by establishing the MCCC.

This multinational organization was tasked not only with securing oil routes and enforcing the arms embargo, but also with protecting essential food shipments into Yemen. Addressing these interconnected challenges involved building a network of diverse partners to lessen the Civil War’s impact. Over its 18 months of operational activity, this network was instrumental in understanding the dynamic interests of influential regional and international actors and working towards realigning objectives to support all partners and foster compromise. The network was one of the most important tools in effectively transitioning the MCCC into an internationally recognized mechanism under the UN while concurrently addressing the humanitarian crisis and countering conditions that foster extremism and terrorism.

MCCC’s approach and successes

The MCCC’s strategy for Yemen did much to stabilize the region, supporting foreign internal defense and counterterrorism. In particular, four lines of effort were key to the MCCC’s success: goal alignment, network building, information sharing, and aligning military actions with diplomatic and economic initiatives. Despite limited resources, the MCCC improved the ability of regional partners to focus limited resources on interdicting small vessels, a greater smuggling threat, and worked with a wide range of unified action partners to help foster a multilateral approach. The MCCC’s approach offers a model for future engagements, particularly in the Indo-Pacific and in addressing emerging crises like Gaza where maritime humanitarian delivery and deconfliction are highly likely. Additionally, in late 2023 the Houthis, who still control most of western Yemen, have begun targeting commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea in their efforts to support Hamas in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. This capability has already begun affecting commercial maritime shipping and calls for a multinational solution in which industry plays a major role.

Setting, changing, and achieving objectives through a network

The US Navy, USAID, and the Department of State always aimed to transition the MCCC’s functions to an internationally recognized organization. Although the campaign’s end goal consistently focused on transition, the specifics of who would take over the MCCC its functions evolved up until the day the United Nations Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen (UNVIM) began operations. The MCCC developed its initial objective in collaboration with the State Department, USAID, and policymakers in Washington, D.C., a luxury not all organizations engaged in irregular warfare are afforded. Despite this alignment of policy and strategy, the MCCC learned that in any form of warfare, allies and partners often have a significant say, sometimes even more than the adversary.

One major challenge of working with multiple partners was identifying and understanding their interests to find a mutually agreeable end state. This task was more complex than just overlapping two circles in a Venn diagram; the MCCC had to consider half-a-dozen shifting, interrelated circles across each element of national power. Regular and open engagement with partners through liaison officers stationed at their headquarters, operations centers, or embassies was key to managing this intricate problem. This network not only helped establish the initial goals for the MCCC but also quickly identified shifts in partners’ interests based on battlefield developments, allowing for the adjustment of goals and objectives within the constraints of the adversary and complex operating environment.

As the coalition’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia’s main objective was to stop the influx of illicit cargo into port facilities that could strengthen the Houthi regime and enable attacks on Saudi territory. The Saudis initially blockaded the ports to halt commercial maritime traffic and prevent arms trafficking as outlined by UNSCR 2216. While this blockade achieved the coalition’s goal, it exacerbated the humanitarian crisis, as 90% of all goods in Yemen, including food, are imported. This action inadvertently drove neutral parties toward the Houthis and, in some cases, towards groups like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Islamic State Yemen Province (ISIS-Y). To mitigate these secondary effects and counter negative press and Iranian propaganda, the MCCC worked with diplomatic partners to find a solution that supported Saudi security goals while allowing legitimate shipping into the port facilities and deconflicting humanitarian access in a war zone.

The solution that all parties eventually supported was transitioning to an independent mechanism for processing humanitarian access and screening, verifying, and inspecting all incoming commercial cargo vessels. This allowed the Saudi and Emirati navies to focus on intercepting small crafts used for weapons trafficking. This mechanism also served as an interim extension of the Yemeni Ministry of Transportation, with the long-term goal of returning governance to the internationally recognized Republic of Yemeni Government (ROYG). The MCCC quickly realized it needed a network of unified action partners for this interim solution.

Building and “fighting” through a network

Using Naval Co-operation and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS) Reserve officers from the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, who were commercial mariners in their civilian lives, the MCCC began collecting data, identifying best practices, and working with agencies to ensure the flow of aid and necessary commercial goods into Yemen.

These efforts led to relationships with various intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which provided goods and services for Yemen and advised Saudi naval leadership on how to best deconflict humanitarian access to an active warzone. After recognizing the diversity and number of involved parties and their diverging interests, the MCCC expanded its network to include organizations like the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) and Office of Coordination Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA), as well as port operators and commercial shipping lines. These organizations also highlighted a shared need for a rapid process to verify legitimate cargo to ease Saudi concerns while delivering lifesaving aid into Yemen.

The MCCC’s first priority was to establish relationships that would support their operations and set the stage for a transition to what would become the UNVIM. Initially, the MCCC built networks based on existing military-to-military relationships developed through security cooperation and exercises in Saudi Arabia, primarily with the Royal Saudi Naval Forces and 5th Fleet personnel. The MCCC also collaborated with NGOs, IGOs, and diplomatic partners and brought in a US Army CAT from the 83rd Civil Affairs Battalion to focus on this effort. Using a combination of NCAGS and their assigned CAT, the MCCC worked with commercial shipping agencies and private firms in Yemen. A core group of military, commercial, diplomatic, and humanitarian actors soon formed the foundation of the MCCC’s center of gravity – its network of unified action partners. The general framework of the MCCC’s network is depicted in the figure below.

A Diagram Showing the Four Primary Partner Groups MCCC Built Their Network Around

The MCCC’s network expanded rapidly, mainly the principle of open and candid information sharing was its foundation. The MCCC made all its data available to any partner willing to work with them or the coalition. It published weekly reports on the conditions of Yemeni ports, updates on threats and security concerns, expected wait times, and running totals on imported cargo. Examples of these reports are depicted below. The MCCC also informed coalition forces and UN officials of any suspicious vessels applying for entry to Yemeni ports for follow-up search or interdiction. Furthermore, the MCCC maintained a watch, and any partner could reach out and submit questions via phone or email, increasing bidirectional information sharing within the network. Conducting over 90% of its daily activities on unclassified networks was key to the MCCC’s success and a vital reason for its seamless transition of databases, processes, and reporting mechanisms to the UN in spring 2016. Any organization taking a similar approach to irregular warfare must also strive to operate unclassified and openly, regardless of institutional and organizational resistance.

Examples of MCCC’s weekly reports

Although the 5th Fleet rapidly mobilized military capabilities for initial deconfliction and coordination, growing regional demands led to a consensus that transferring long-term responsibility to groups specializing in humanitarian aid and commercial cargo oversight would be more effective. Also, the more the US military became the visible face of maritime access and deconfliction into Yemen, the more vulnerable the Republic of Yemen Government (ROYG) and coalition became to malign influence operations, and the greater the loss of legitimacy for ROYG and other regional actors. Additionally, during this period, US Central Command was conducting Operation Inherent Resolve, and any military resources dedicated to Yemen detracted from the United States’ primary regional effort of defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Having senior leaders within 5th Fleet recognize the need for non-military and international solutions to the problem in Yemen and empowering the MCCC to pursue such a course of action was critical to enduring success and a reason UNVIM is still operational today, seven years after taking over from the MCCC. Frequent meetings with the State Department’s Yemen Affairs Unit, video calls with USAID in D.C., and regular interactions with UN and NGO officials were key to aligning military efforts with interagency activities. In fact, this approach foreshadowed the 2023 Joint Concept for Campaigning, which emphasizes that during strategic competition, “the Joint Force will routinely play a mutually supporting role with other USG departments and agencies, allies and partners, and other interorganizational partners.”

While the military aspect of the MCCC was not the primary focus, it was crucial to its success. Before the UNVIM became operational, US naval intelligence frequently identified vessels carrying suspected contraband. This intelligence enabled the Royal Saudi Naval Forces and Emirati vessels to interdict these ships and prevent their entry into Yemeni ports. Furthermore, many essential relationships underpinning the MCCC’s network stemmed from longstanding contacts established through regional naval exercises and operations in the region. These relationships leveraged the infrastructure of the Combined Maritime Forces, established in the early 2000s, to work collaboratively with volunteer member nations and enhance maritime security in the region.

In addition, the MCCC’s military training and security cooperation activities aimed to bolster partner capabilities at both the tactical and theater strategic levels of war. On the tactical front, the focus was on enhancing partner naval forces’ ability to conduct seaborne visit, board, search, and seizure operations, essential for interdicting small vessels used in smuggling. Strategically, the training enabled the Saudi military to develop civil-military coordination and humanitarian deconfliction mechanisms. These were vital for managing access to conflict zones, protecting humanitarian actors, and gaining an advantage in the information and human dimensions of warfare.

The power of common goals

During its tenure, the MCCC enhanced US engagement and influence in the Middle East, improved cooperation with regional partners, and effectively managed large quantities of humanitarian aid. It played a key role in facilitating commercial access to Yemen’s western coast ports and supported partners with vital data and information, thereby strengthening maritime security in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The success of the MCCC was largely due to its ability to align goals with international partners, share information openly, and coordinate its efforts with other instruments of national power. The MCCC’s innovative approach to complex maritime challenges offers valuable lessons for dealing with similar issues in the Indo-Pacific and potential humanitarian responses to conflicts like the war in Gaza. This model set by the MCCC not only underscores the power of collaborative and adaptive strategies in irregular warfare but also stands as a testament to the potential of innovative solutions in shaping a more stable and secure global maritime landscape. Moreover, at the time of publication Yemen is once again playing a disruptive role in the maritime domain and whatever solution is implemented it will require some form of civil-military coordination between the region’s naval forces and commercial shippers as well as enduring presence from regional partners. The MCCC offers a potential framework to begin planning such a solution.

James P. Micciche is a US Army Strategist and is currently assigned to XVIII Airborne Corps. From 2015 to 2016 his Civil Affairs Team was assigned to the MCCC and he served as the organization’s civ-mil liaison. He holds degrees from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and Troy University.

Adam K. Christensen is a US Navy Surface Warfare Officer and is currently assigned to US Strategic Command. From 2015 to 2016 he was the MCCC’s Maritime Operations Officer. He holds degrees from Oregon State University and University of Massachusetts.

Main image: Guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) and patrol coastal ship USS Hurricane (PC 3) sail in the background as Sailors inventory a large quantity of urea fertilizer and ammonium perchlorate discovered on board a fishing vessel intercepted by U.S. naval forces while transiting international waters in the Gulf of Oman, Nov. 9. (U.S. Navy photo by Sonar Technician (Surface) 1st Class Kevin Frus)

irregularwarfare.org · by James P. Micciche, Adam K. Christensen · December 21, 2023

12. Israel broadens Gaza assault ahead of Security Council aid vote

Israel broadens Gaza assault ahead of Security Council aid vote

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-security-council-delays-vote-gaza-aid-until-friday-2023-12-22/?utmaccfcf3

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams

December 22, 20236:27 AM ESTUpdated 32 min ago

[1/5]Palestinians carry a casualty near the site of an Israeli strike on a car, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip December 22, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem Acquire Licensing Rights

SummaryCompanies

• LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:Some East Jerusalem mosques close for Friday prayers, urge worshippers to pray at Al Aqsa to 'break the siege'Israeli military orders residents of Al-Bureij, in central Gaza, to move immediately 'for your safety'Gaza health authorities say 20,057 Palestinians killed 53,320 wounded since Oct. 7

CAIRO/JERUSALEM, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Israeli forces signalled they were widening their ground offensive with a new push into central Gaza on Friday, as the U.N. Security Council was expected to vote on a resolution to increase humanitarian aid to stave off the threat of famine.

As hopes faded for an imminent breakthrough in talks this week in Egypt aimed at getting warring Israel and Hamas to agree to a new truce, air strikes, artillery bombardments and fighting were reported across the Palestinian enclave.

Israel's military on Friday ordered residents of Al-Bureij, in central Gaza, to move south immediately, indicating a new focus of the ground assault that has already devastated the north of the Strip and made a series of incursions in the south.

Israel's government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to eradicate Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza, after its fighters launched a cross-border raid on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

But the soaring death toll during the Israeli military campaign of retaliation has drawn increasing international criticism, even from staunch ally the United States.

In its latest update on casualties, Gaza's health ministry said 20,057 Palestinians had been killed and 53,320 wounded in Israeli strikes since Oct. 7.

The Israeli military has expressed regret for civilian deaths but blamed Iran-backed Hamas for operating in densely populated areas or using civilians as human shields, an allegation the group denies.

Israel says 140 of its soldiers have been killed since it launched its ground incursion into Gaza on Oct. 20.

UNRELENTING WAR

In the latest accounts of fighting on Friday, residents reported Israeli tank shelling of eastern areas of Al-Bureij, the subject of the latest military evacuation order.

Israeli forces have previously engaged with Hamas gunmen on the edges of Al-Bureij but have yet to thrust deeper into the built-up area, which grew out of a camp for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Israeli-Arab war.

Hamas-affiliated Shehab news agency reported heavy shelling and air strikes on Jabalia al-Balad and Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza, and that Israeli vehicles were trying to advance from the western side of Jabalia amid the sound of gunfire.

Air strikes were also reported in Khan Yunis and Rafah, in the south.

The Israeli military said in a statement its air force destroyed a long-range missile launch site in Juhor ad-Dik, central Gaza, from which, it said, "recent launches into Israeli territory were carried out" - a possible reference to an attack on Tel Aviv on Thursday.

The war in Gaza has fuelled tensions at other regional faultlines.

Israel and Iranian-back Hezbollah have repeatedly traded fire across Israel's northern border with Lebanon, and Houthi militants of Yemen, also Iran-backed, have attacked ships in the lower Red Sea, increasing the risks of trade disruption.

Violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority dominated by Hamas rivals Fatah has limited self-rule.

Around the Al Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem, there were calls for worshippers to attend Friday prayers outside in defiance of orders that for weeks have limited access to the flashpoint site to women and the elderly.

Islam's third holiest site, built on ground revered by Jews who know it as Temple Mount, has long been at the heart of tensions between Jews and Muslims.

Some mosques in East Jerusalem closed their doors on Friday and urged people to go to Al Aqsa and pray at the gates of the mosque "to break the siege".

Police fired smoke to disperse small groups of youths who gathered near the Old City and at mosques in East Jerusalem but police also distributed footage showing worshippers arriving calmly.

UN AND CAIRO TALKS

Negotiations had continued on Thursday to try to avoid a U.S. veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution, drafted by the United Arab Emirates, that would demand that Israel and Hamas allow "the use of all land, sea and air routes to and throughout the entire Gaza" for humanitarian aid deliveries.

On Thursday night in New York, after weeks of talks and a vote delayed for days, the vote by the Security Council was put off again until Friday, despite the U.S. saying it could now support an amended proposal.

A Nov. 24-Dec. 1 humanitarian pause helped to increase aid deliveries to Gaza. A report by a U.N.-backed body said the entire population of Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger. The risk of famine is increasing each day, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said.

The pause led to the release of more than 100 hostages held by Hamas since Oct. 7 and in exchange, 240 Palestinians were freed from Israeli jails.

But in a statement on Thursday that dampened hopes of a breakthrough, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a smaller group also holding hostages in Gaza, rejected any deals about exchanges of hostages and Palestinian prisoners "except after a full cessation of aggression" by Israel.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was in Cairo for a second day of negotiations, however, which ended late on Thursday. While mediating countries including Egypt and Qatar have previously met separately with Israel, Hamas and other groups, there were no details on who might be engaged with any Israeli party.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said negotiations on a hostage release were continuing but declined to provide details.

Reporting by Bassam Masoud in Gaza, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Writing by Grant McCool and Alex Richardson; Editing by Diane Craft and Nick Macfie

13. In Dealing With the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, America Has No Easy Way Out

Excerpts:

Can any of this succeed with the current Israeli and Palestinian leadership at the helm? Not a chance. Netanyahu must go. And Abbas, too. But even if they stay in power in the near term, the United States has stronger options. Biden must not threaten to withhold necessary military assistance from Israel. But he can make it clearer to the Israelis that the continued strength of their relationship with Washington rests on Israel understanding that it cannot reoccupy Gaza, and that their ultimate security guarantee will be a peace agreement with a similarly peace-minded Palestinian state. By framing his rhetoric as the kind of straight talk that Netanyahu avoids, Biden may be able to influence Israeli attitudes without diminishing his chances of re-election in 2024.

Most government policy memos, including many we wrote during our service in the U.S. State Department, propose three options: a bold one that suggests moves the policymaker will find difficult to swallow, a status quo option that allows the policymaker to believe that not much needs to be done, and a “Goldilocks” option that proposes just enough action to show muscle but not enough to ruffle feathers. Often, the Goldilocks option is chosen: it affords a sense of movement while incurring minimal risks.

Yet there will be no Goldilocks option available in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war. Biden should adopt a determined stance—in words and deeds—that seriously advances the prospect of a two-state solution. Should he gain a second presidential term, the groundwork he lays in 2024 toward a more lasting resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will position him well to engage more intensively: the situation cannot be allowed to deteriorate until after the U.S. election season passes. Great political and practical pressures weigh on Biden, should he should choose to be bold. But far greater risks may emerge if he doesn’t.

In Dealing With the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, America Has No Easy Way Out

Biden Must Take Risks, Talk Straight, and Act Boldly

By Aaron David Miller and Daniel C. Kurtzer

December 22, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Aaron David Miller and Daniel C. Kurtzer · December 22, 2023

Wars in the Middle East rarely end cleanly. Some observers, however, have expressed the hope that the Israel-Hamas war could upend a dangerous status quo and eventually lead to more stability in the region. The war is often compared to the October 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and the combined forces of Egypt and Syria, largely because of the magnitude of Israel’s intelligence failures, the Israeli public’s loss of faith in their government, and the national trauma that followed.

But the truth is that any meaningful comparison ends there. More than 2,800 Israelis were killed in the Yom Kippur War. Yet that conflict never incorporated the kind of sadistic, indiscriminate torture, killing, and hostage-taking that Hamas perpetrated in October 2023—nor the subsequent large-scale airstrikes by Israeli forces that have already resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. The 1973 war lasted merely three weeks and quickly entered a relatively well-structured disengagement agreement brokered by the United States, launching a process that led to a landmark Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed by two strong leaders: the charismatic, heroic Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat and the tough Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

By contrast, the two traumatized societies that emerge from the current war will face a level of anguish, casualties, and devastation that will demand a herculean task of physical reconstruction and psychological healing. As many as 1,400 Israelis and 18,000 Palestinians have died so far. Some 150,000 Israelis and upward of 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced from their homes. In the West Bank, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raids and extremist settler vigilantism have already led to the deaths of over 260 Palestinians, the arrests of nearly 2,000, and the displacement of almost 1,000 from their lands. The ideas that Israel, after completing its military operations to disable Hamas, will make a full exit from Gaza and that the Palestinian Authority (PA) can quickly and authoritatively take over are not realistic. And this war does not have heroic leaders: both sides suffer from profoundly ineffectual governance.

There is no realistic prospect in the near term of a dramatic, uplifting denouement to the conflict that validates each side’s sacrifices and provides relief and hope for the future. In late October, U.S. President Joe Biden declared that the region must not return to its pre–October 7 status quo. If Biden wants change, however, his administration must undertake bolder policy moves—ones that firmly guide the region toward a two-state solution. Policymakers may wish to avoid bold moves in a fast-changing situation: such moves will be practically difficult and politically risky. But the facts on the ground suggest that the region cannot return to its unstable prewar status quo. Instead, without careful guidance, a new status quo is likely to emerge that will be even more problematic. Only bold American leadership now will support a good outcome in the aftermath of this war.

UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM

In waging war in Gaza, Israeli officials have stated that their goals are to destroy Hamas and then demilitarize and deradicalize Gaza. What these leaders mean by “deradicalize” remains unclear. But even if the Israelis succeed in destroying Hamas’s military capabilities, they will not simply declare mission accomplished in Gaza and depart. Israel’s leaders have ruled out both Hamas and the PA as governing authorities, and Israel will thus likely remain in Gaza for an extended period.

Israel already controls Gaza’s land, sea, and air access, as well as its electromagnetic spectrum. Even if Israel succeeds in ending Hamas’s rule in Gaza, it will undoubtedly want to retain some authority, ensuring at a minimum that all imports with dual-use military purposes are carefully monitored and controlled. Continued friction with the United Nations and other international aid organizations—already high thanks to Israel’s military operations and the deaths of thousands of Gazans, including UN aid workers—is inevitable.

If Israel tries to remain in Gaza for an extended time, it will face residual attacks from Hamas and other terrorist organizations and enormous challenges in maintaining law and order. Even as some Israeli officials speak of exiting Gaza, they also talk openly about the necessity of creating long-term “buffer zones” and about Israel’s overall responsibility for security. But the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and those in the Arab states will surely refuse to be subcontractors for Israel’s security operations.

Simply put, no bright line will separate war from peace in this conflict. Instead, Israel’s military actions in Gaza will likely transition from an intensive air and ground campaign to more targeted operations, and Israel will be part of the Gazan landscape for some time. Try as Israel might to avoid former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s “Pottery Barn” rule—you break it, you own it—an extended Israeli presence in Gaza will inevitably involve taking on more, not less, responsibility for and involvement in the territory’s affairs. And that is likely to inflame tensions with whoever comes to formally govern Gaza.

A LIMITED PARTNER

On paper, the best option for Gaza’s future over the long term is Palestinian governance led by a revitalized and legitimized PA. The PA already helps cover Gaza’s public-sector employees’ salaries and assists in paying for the area’s electricity. The international community sees it as the legitimate authority in Gaza as well as in the West Bank. Earlier this month, in a meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan talked about the role a revitalized PA might play in governing Gaza.

But because of its own dysfunction—and, in no small measure, Israeli policies—the PA has become weak and ineffectual. Palestinians perceive it to be corrupt, nepotistic, and authoritarian: in an Arab Barometer survey of Gazans conducted just before October 7, a majority of respondents considered the PA to be a burden on the Palestinian people. Abbas is 87 and in the 19th year of what was supposed to be a four-year term. He refused to hold new elections in 2021 and has increasingly lost touch with young Palestinians. When respondents in the same Arab Barometer poll were asked whom they would vote for if presidential elections were held in Gaza, 32 percent chose the imprisoned Fatah activist Marwan Barghouti and 24 percent chose the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Only 12 percent chose Abbas.

During this war, the PA has been unable to protect Palestinians in the West Bank from IDF raids and attacks by settler vigilantes, let alone influence the course of Israel’s operations in Gaza. Hamas’s stock, meanwhile, has risen in the West Bank since its October 7 terror attack and its negotiated release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. For many Palestinians who distrust Abbas and revile Israel’s recent actions, Hamas is becoming the only game in town.

Restoring the Palestinians’ faith in the PA will take a great deal of effort and time. It would require the PA to run fair and free elections in the West Bank and Gaza and to convince voters that it really will aim to end Israel’s occupation and create an independent Palestinian state. Should it succeed, Israel would also need to demonstrate its commitment—in words and actions on the ground—to advancing a two-state outcome. And with the current Israeli government, this scenario is impossible.

POWER GRAB

In one sense, it is not a surprise that the Israel-Hamas war broke out in Gaza rather than in the West Bank. Gaza has often been at the center of tensions between the Israelis and the Palestinians: the first intifada began in Gaza in 1987, and in the twenty-first century, Gaza has been the focal point of at least six significant Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition has focused on the West Bank, attempting to create the conditions for annexation. In the first half of 2023, Netanyahu’s government pushed any possibility of a two-state solution further away by advancing or approving permits for 13,000 new housing units in West Bank settlements, the highest number recorded since 2012.

The fact that Netanyahu presided over the worst terror attack and the worst intelligence failure in Israel’s history, as well as the bloodiest single day for Jews since the Holocaust, has discredited his leadership. Many observers have reasonably presumed that his political career will soon reach its end, as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s did after the Yom Kippur War. But Netanyahu will fight to hang on to power. Facing indictments for breach of trust, bribery, and fraud, Netanyahu desperately wants to avoid jail. Already, he has broken with tradition by suggesting that he will organize the inquiry into the government failures that preceded Hamas’s attack; the resulting inquiry will lack the legal authority of a state commission.

For now, Netanyahu retains a comfortable 74-seat majority in the Knesset, and he has shown he is willing to pay any price to extremist and haredi partners to keep his ruling coalition intact. In May 2023, the Knesset passed Netanyahu’s budget, cementing the coalition’s grip on power until 2025. The terms of the emergency government Israel created days after the war broke out foreclosed taking up any legislation unrelated to the prosecution of the war. Netanyahu’s government is likely to survive for some time to come.

Netanyahu will continue to come under public pressure to step down. Some well-respected former leaders of Israel’s security establishment have already called on him to resign. If he refuses to do so, however, there is no clear mechanism to remove him from office—even though his trial has now resumed.

Should Netanyahu remain in power, the situation in the West Bank is likely to deteriorate.

In the meantime, Netanyahu is moving to shore up support among his right-wing partners. In fact, his administration appears to be taking advantage of the attention Gaza is drawing away from the West Bank to pursue more settlement expansion and repress the Palestinians. Since October 7, extremist settlers in the West Bank have been involved in scores of incidents of aggression and intimidation against Palestinians, forcing at least a thousand—including entire shepherding communities—off their land. A third of these episodes involved settlers drawing firearms on Palestinians. In almost half the total incidents, the IDF accompanied or actively supported the settlers.

If the IDF succeeds in its war aims by killing Hamas’s top leaders, Netanyahu could even regain some support. Israel’s electorate had shifted to the right well before this war. Hamas’s terrorism may well encourage a further radicalization of the Israeli population.

Should Netanyahu remain in power for any extended period of time, the situation in the West Bank is likely to continue to deteriorate, possibly leading to a Palestinian uprising stimulated in part by extremist settlers. He will also exploit for his own benefit whatever the United States decides to do or not do. If Biden tries to revive the peace process, Netanyahu will likely emphasize what he has already told his Likud Party: that only he can stop the creation of an independent Palestinian state. If, on the other hand, Biden assesses that the chances of a two-state peace process are nonexistent in the near term, Netanyahu will trumpet his ability to convince the Americans to stay out of his way.

BINARY OPTIONS

For the United States, the policy dilemmas appear terribly complex. But after 56 years of Israeli occupation with no end in sight, these dilemmas need to be settled sooner rather than later. The United States’ choice is binary—either try to help create the conditions for a two-state solution or adjust to a postconflict situation that is worse than the status quo ante, resolves no underlying issues, and probably sets up the conditions for another war.

Pushing hard for a two-state solution would be complicated. The United States would have to help orchestrate several critical processes simultaneously: setting in place Gaza reconstruction mechanisms to be ready to operate the day the IDF leaves, bringing reluctant Arab parties on board to help maintain law and order and set up interim governance in Gaza, keeping the remnants of Hamas at bay, compelling the PA to restructure itself so it can regain the confidence of the Palestinian public, and addressing legitimate Israeli security concerns.

This course of action by the United States would also be politically risky: it could have the unintended effect of giving Netanyahu a campaign tool to remain in power. Success is far from assured. The United States will be dealing with traumatized leaders who may be unwilling or unable to make big decisions. And the Israelis and the Palestinians have failed many times to create a pathway to peace when the external context was far less fraught than it is today.

Even if Netanyahu leaves office, no other top politician in Israel appears anxious to embark down a path of peace.

As a potential peace broker, the United States also lacks credibility. To move toward a two-state solution, Arabs and Europeans would need to have faith in the United States’ intentions and follow-through. The United States’ vetoes and no votes in the UN Security Council and the General Assembly on resolutions for humanitarian cease-fires have not inspired confidence. And even those allies that trust Washington to implement its plans will wonder what will happen if Biden loses his upcoming re-election bid.

But the alternative approach—hoping for a return to the pre–October 7 status quo without a serious effort by the United States to advance the prospects for a lasting peace—could be worse. Even if Netanyahu leaves office, no other current top politician in Israel appears anxious to embark down a path of peace. And there are no Palestinian leaders with the gravitas and political weight to engage seriously with Israel in the aftermath of the conflict. Some speak of Barghouti as a potential Palestinian leader, but he is serving five life sentences for murdering Israelis and has no track record in political life that suggests he would be a peacemaker.

Stimulating the PA to reform itself is a task beyond the capability of the United States alone. Washington will need to act in concert with others to get the PA to do what it has resisted doing for decades: become less authoritarian, fight corruption, and agree to hold new elections for its presidency and its Legislative Council. Pressuring the PA to reestablish its legitimacy among Palestinians will require significant efforts by Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—the so-called Arab Quartet—as well as the EU, which has always played an important role in Palestinian institution building. To bring about this multilateral effort, however, Arab actors will need to see a clear American policy that goes beyond Gaza and focuses on ending the decades-long conflict.

CALCULATED RISK

But the risks of advocating for a two-state approach are worth taking. Other actors will take the measure of U.S. credibility from what Washington is prepared to do to confront the inconvenient realities that will almost certainly define the postconflict landscape. The Biden administration has the smarts and the backbone to follow through even when the going gets tough. And the going will get tough. A bold effort to push a two-state solution, however, could attract support from Arab states to help ensure basic law and order, interim governance, and reconstruction in Gaza, as well as a safety net for the PA as it embarks on the necessary efforts to reform itself.

The question facing the Biden administration is what can it realistically do in the year before the upcoming U.S. presidential elections given the constraints posed by American politics and those it is likely to encounter in Israel, among the Palestinians, and throughout the Arab world. In the near term, the United States can take actions that would help overcome some early obstacles to a two-state solution. First, Biden should continue to press Israel to quickly end its intense ground and air campaign—which is certain to keep causing substantial civilian casualties—in favor of more focused and targeted operations.

His administration must also push hard for an increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance that enters Gaza, including by ensuring that the recently opened Kerem Shalom border crossing remains open and pressing for the resumption of negotiations to release Hamas’s remaining Israeli hostages. And the administration must press Israel and the PA to clamp down on violence by extremist settlers and Palestinian militants in the West Bank.

The risks of advocating for a two-state approach are worth taking, and the Biden administration has the smarts to follow through.

Third, the United States needs to ensure that Israel respects U.S. guidelines on Gaza, including no reduction of Gaza’s territory, no forced relocations of Gazans, and Palestinian governance. U.S. officials should make clear, both in their public statements and in their private contacts with Israelis and others, that Gaza and the West Bank must remain one integral unit and that the PA will eventually resume its governance of Gaza.

The United States will also need to be proactive in trying to ensure that conflict along the Israeli-Lebanese border does not erupt into a full-scale war. At least 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes in the north of Israel. If the 2006 UN Security Council resolution mandating Hezbollah’s withdrawal north of the Litani River is not enforced, Israeli may deploy its military to contain Hezbollah, which could prompt a full-blown war with a terrorist organization far more potent than Hamas. To blunt this risk, the United States will need to maintain the deterrent military forces it dispatched to the region in October 2023.

Finally, the Biden administration must make sure that all regional players understand that a two-state solution is the United States’ preferred outcome. It must define a pathway toward that outcome that clarifies what steps each side must take to create the right environment for eventual negotiations. U.S. leaders should tell the Israeli people that it is time for them to face the fundamental choice the country has avoided since 1967: Will Israel occupy Palestinian territory indefinitely, or can it live alongside a Palestinian state? The United States must send the message to the Palestinians that the time has come for them, too, to make a choice: Will they remain under occupation or reform their governance? U.S. leaders must work closely with key Arab countries such as Egypt, the Gulf states, and Jordan to support these shifts. Saudi Arabia, given its interest in normalization with Israel, will have an especially important role to play.

THE ONLY GOOD BET

Can any of this succeed with the current Israeli and Palestinian leadership at the helm? Not a chance. Netanyahu must go. And Abbas, too. But even if they stay in power in the near term, the United States has stronger options. Biden must not threaten to withhold necessary military assistance from Israel. But he can make it clearer to the Israelis that the continued strength of their relationship with Washington rests on Israel understanding that it cannot reoccupy Gaza, and that their ultimate security guarantee will be a peace agreement with a similarly peace-minded Palestinian state. By framing his rhetoric as the kind of straight talk that Netanyahu avoids, Biden may be able to influence Israeli attitudes without diminishing his chances of re-election in 2024.

Most government policy memos, including many we wrote during our service in the U.S. State Department, propose three options: a bold one that suggests moves the policymaker will find difficult to swallow, a status quo option that allows the policymaker to believe that not much needs to be done, and a “Goldilocks” option that proposes just enough action to show muscle but not enough to ruffle feathers. Often, the Goldilocks option is chosen: it affords a sense of movement while incurring minimal risks.

Yet there will be no Goldilocks option available in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war. Biden should adopt a determined stance—in words and deeds—that seriously advances the prospect of a two-state solution. Should he gain a second presidential term, the groundwork he lays in 2024 toward a more lasting resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will position him well to engage more intensively: the situation cannot be allowed to deteriorate until after the U.S. election season passes. Great political and practical pressures weigh on Biden, should he should choose to be bold. But far greater risks may emerge if he doesn’t.

AARON DAVID MILLER is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and a former State Department Middle East analyst and has served as a negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations.

DANIEL C. KURTZER is former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel. He is S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.

Foreign Affairs · by Aaron David Miller and Daniel C. Kurtzer · December 22, 2023

14. Export Controls Are Only a Short-Term Solution to China’s Chip Progress

Excerpts:

The U.S. Department of Commerce issued updated implementing rules for chip export controls on Oct. 17, 2023, slightly over one year after the original controls were first announced. The updated rules largely build on the originals, adding firms to the Entity List and strengthening restrictions on both select advanced semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to correct for unexpected loopholes and address leakage. If the United States decides to impose even more chip restrictions on China over the coming year, it needs to be careful not to cut off its nose to spite its face. Some lawmakers, notably Rep. Mike Gallagher (chair of the House select committee on China), has called for an end to all U.S. technology exports to Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. While there is nothing wrong with investigating whether the Huawei phone bypassed U.S. sanctions, if the United States wants to win the chip war with China, it cannot just cripple China’s semiconductor sector — it needs to also ensure the success of American semiconductor companies. Placing very extreme, blanket restrictions on China would do the opposite of that.

Moreover, the further export controls get from the cutting edge of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, the less indispensable U.S. semiconductor technology becomes. This means that new controls will be less effective because China can simply import controlled technologies from producers other than the United States. Though the United States has so far been able to align its controls with the Netherlands and Japan, this alignment was not without considerable delay, and similar alignments are not guaranteed going forward. Issuing additional export controls on less indispensable U.S. technology also means that U.S. semiconductor companies miss out on revenue in the near term, even if they enjoy an initial revenue spike from China stockpiling equipment. Whereas companies could theoretically divert chip sales to countries other than China to make up for lost sales, in reality these sales are unlikely to match massive Chinese market demand. Today, the COVID-19 semiconductor boom has faded, as higher interest rates have dampened purchases of products that use semiconductors. The U.S. government should therefore have strong justification before cutting off these companies’ main source of revenue at a time when they are bracing for uncertainty.

Export Controls Are Only a Short-Term Solution to China’s Chip Progress - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Megan Hogan · December 22, 2023

On Aug. 29, 2023, during the latter half of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s four-day trip to Beijing and Shanghai, Huawei Technologies Co. quietly released a new phone called the Mate 60 Pro. Despite its inconspicuous introduction, the Mate 60 Pro proceeded to dominate the American news cycle the following week, after a bombshell teardown of the phone concluded that it was powered by a Kirin 9000s semiconductor chip fabricated in China by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation— in other words, that China can produce 7-nanometer chips in spite of U.S. restrictions, and possibly on a massive scale.

This technological breakthrough sparked panic throughout Washington, leading many to conclude that U.S. efforts to constrain China’s semiconductor development were ineffective. In reality, though, the significance of the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation breakthrough was greatly overstated: China was already well on its way to 7-nanometer chip fabrication.

Rather than discredit the Biden administration’s approach, the Huawei breakthrough should help to recalibrate it going forward. Even though the current “small yard, high fence” strategy is working, it is not infallible. China will continue its efforts to become self-reliant in semiconductor production. Its semiconductor supply chain can be reorganized over time, generating chokepoints in countries other than the United States, including China and its allies. As a result, winning the chip war with China requires retaining dominance in advanced semiconductors (chips of 8 nanometers or smaller) and reducing dependencies on Chinese “legacy chips” (those 28 nanometers or larger). Moreover, Washington should monitor and respond to China’s growing competitiveness in the legacy chip sector. And if policymakers decide to further tighten chip controls in the near term, they should ensure these measures do not threaten the success of American semiconductor firms.

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How Did China Achieve Its “Breakthrough”?

Last year, in October 2022, the Biden administration imposed sweeping export controls on China, prohibiting the sale of certain advanced semiconductor chips, the sophisticated equipment required to manufacture them, and semiconductor expertise from the United States. U.S. export controls were meant to freeze China’s semiconductor suite at the 14-nanometer level. The controls specifically included a 14-nanometer threshold for logic chips and licenses for exports to 14-nanometer and sub-14-nanometer semiconductor fabrication plants in China, effectively prohibiting the sale of any U.S. goods or expertise to these facilities. This, however, was an unrealistic goal.

For a start, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation achieved its 7-nanometer breakthrough months, if not a full year, before the Biden administration imposed export controls on China. In a July 2022 report, TechInsights, a Canadian semiconductor analysis firm, concluded that the company had been able to produce 7-nanometer chips since 2021. It further concluded that they took the technological leap from 14-nanometer to 7-nanometer chips in two years, faster than both Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung. Such leapfrogging, while unusual, is certainly plausible. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation’s co-CEO, Liang Mong Song, was previously an executive at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest contract manufacturer of semiconductor chips. There, Liang had been found guilty of leaking secrets to Samsung, including 28-nanometer process technology. Indeed, TechInsights said in its July 2022 report that “there are many similarities in process technologies, designs and innovations between Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation’s 7nm and TSMC’s 7nm.”

In general, semiconductor firms can use either extreme ultraviolet lithography machines or deep ultraviolet lithography machines to achieve sub-10-nanometer chip production. These machines are extremely expensive and highly sophisticated, with extreme ultraviolet lithography machines being the most advanced. The market for these technologies is also highly concentrated; Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography, the Dutch chip manufacturing equipment giant, has a monopoly over extreme ultraviolet lithography machines and a near monopoly over deep ultraviolet lithography machines. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation manufactured its 7-nanometer chips using imported chipmaking equipment from abroad. However, the company has been prohibited from importing extreme ultraviolet lithography machines since December 2020, after it was placed on the U.S. Entity List. Instead, it was forced to rely on less-advanced deep ultraviolet lithography machines to achieve its breakthrough.

China’s access to foreign deep ultraviolet lithography machines is not in violation of current U.S. export controls. Though the United States struck a deal with Japan and the Netherlands in late January 2023 to restrict exports of advanced chip manufacturing equipment to China, the actual implementation of this agreement did not come until months later. Japan’s new export control rules were issued in May 2023 and took effect in July 2023, while the Netherlands’ new export control rules were issued in September 2023 and will not take effect until Jan. 1, 2024, almost a full year after the original agreement was made. To manufacture the 7-nanometer Kirin 9000s chips for Huawei, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation could have therefore either manufactured the chips using foreign deep ultraviolet lithography machines legally procured prior to the October 2022 export controls (i.e., a “stockpile” scenario) or in the 9–10 months following the controls (in accordance with new Japanese and Dutch export controls, respectively).

A Win for the United States, Not China

Knowing that Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation could produce 7-nanometer chips in 2022 (if not 2021) using less sophisticated equipment, it was unrealistic to presume that imposing export controls (particularly export controls that were initially uncoordinated with allies) could cause the company to technologically regress. We should instead judge China’s domestic advancements in semiconductor production by how well they adhere to the objective of U.S. export controls — namely, by how well they are impeded.

By that criteria, the launch of the Huawei Mate 60 Pro phone cannot be considered an extraordinary win for China. While Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation is certainly capable of producing 7-nanometer chips, the likelihood that it can mass-produce these chips is low. The Mate 60 Pro sales themselves are evidence of this: The phone sold out almost immediately and seems only to have been available in limited quantities, suggesting limited inventory. Jeffries analysts believe that Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation can produce only a “very small” volume of 7-nanometer chips and that Huawei may be powering some Mate 60 Pros with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company chips stockpiled prior to the 2022 U.S. export controls. The inclusion of these stockpiled chips is definitely possible: Some early users of the Mate 60 Pro reported it using NAND flash memory chips made by SK Hynix (a South Korean chipmaker that suspended chip sales to Huawei after the Chinese firm was hit by U.S. sanctions). SK Hynix has since opened an investigation into the use of its chips in the new Huawei phone.

For the chips that Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation did manufacture, analysts are currently trying to determine the “yield,” or efficiency, of China’s 7-nanometer chip production. Some research firms forecast the company’s manufacturing process yield rate at below 50 percent while TechInsights analysts predict above 50 percent, considering the good condition of the 7-nanometer chips they have examined. Compared to the industry norm of 90 percent or more, however, both yields are very low. As China did have the capacity to manufacture, but not mass produce, 7-nanometer chips prior to U.S. export controls, this implies that Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation was intent on improving its 7-nanometer yield at the time the controls were imposed. Evidence of minimal improvement in this area is a win for the United States, not for China.

In short, Huawei’s chip progress does not necessarily mean that U.S. export controls are failing. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation’s ability to eventually scale 7-nanometer production was never guaranteed, but it was always a possibility. This is particularly true as the co-CEO has a history of leaking technology secrets and the company had relatively unfettered access to Japanese and Dutch chipmaking equipment for months following U.S. export controls in October 2022. Rather than bemoan the “defeat of U.S. chip sanctions,” U.S. lawmakers should be pleased that Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation is focused on trying to scale production at 7 nanometers and that China has asked Raimondo to ease export controls. It would be far more alarming if, for example, the company were pursuing 5-nanometer chip production today. And even if it is secretly pursuing 5-nanometer chip production now, 3-nanometer production is almost certainly out of reach because China is prohibited from purchasing extreme ultraviolet lithography machines from Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography, the world’s sole producer.

Implications for the United States

What should be of concern to U.S. lawmakers is China’s significant investments in legacy chip manufacturing. The majority of China’s manufacturing capacity today is concentrated in “legacy chips” — chips of 28 nanometers or larger. Over the next 3 to 5 years, China is expected to add “nearly as much new 50-180 nanometer wafer capacity as the rest of the world” as well as construct 26 fabrication plants through 2026 that use 200-millimeter and 300-millimeter wafers — 10 more plants than in the Americas. China’s ambition to dominate global legacy chip production poses a grave economic and national security threat to the United States, as legacy chips underpin everything from dishwashers to military weapons systems. Just as it did with solar, China could box out foreign competitors through dumping, rendering the United States — and the rest of the world — dependent on China for mature chips.

There is also China’s increasing self-reliance in chip production. TechInsights found that, in addition to the 7-nanometer chip, half to two thirds of the silicon used in the new Huawei phones was produced domestically in China. Previously, this amount was only one third. Similarly, four of the eight central processing units, the graphics processing unit, and the neural processing unit of the Mate 60 Pro’s “system on a chip” were designed and adapted by Huawei. Previously, all of these components relied entirely on designs by Arm, a British semiconductor and software design company. China is clearly becoming increasingly self-reliant in developing its own chipmaking capacity, and at a very rapid pace. But the extent to which China is sacrificing performance and cost efficiency to be self-reliant is unclear.

Though the new Huawei phones seem to show that the Biden administration’s “small yard, high fence” approach is working, it is wrong to assume that U.S. export controls will effectively hobble China’s semiconductor ambitions for years. China has launched a whole-of-nation plan to become self-reliant in semiconductor production, and U.S. export controls are merely supercharging this development. It is true that current export controls make it very difficult for China to advance in chip technology, but the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation breakthrough is evidence that Chinese chip foundries can produce better semiconductors with older tools. Further, as time progresses and China’s stockpile of chips, chipmaking equipment, and spare parts runs low, industrial espionage will become increasingly important to the success of China’s whole-of-nation mission. It is reasonable to assume that American technology is at risk of being stolen or replicated.

The U.S. Department of Commerce issued updated implementing rules for chip export controls on Oct. 17, 2023, slightly over one year after the original controls were first announced. The updated rules largely build on the originals, adding firms to the Entity List and strengthening restrictions on both select advanced semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to correct for unexpected loopholes and address leakage. If the United States decides to impose even more chip restrictions on China over the coming year, it needs to be careful not to cut off its nose to spite its face. Some lawmakers, notably Rep. Mike Gallagher (chair of the House select committee on China), has called for an end to all U.S. technology exports to Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. While there is nothing wrong with investigating whether the Huawei phone bypassed U.S. sanctions, if the United States wants to win the chip war with China, it cannot just cripple China’s semiconductor sector — it needs to also ensure the success of American semiconductor companies. Placing very extreme, blanket restrictions on China would do the opposite of that.

Moreover, the further export controls get from the cutting edge of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, the less indispensable U.S. semiconductor technology becomes. This means that new controls will be less effective because China can simply import controlled technologies from producers other than the United States. Though the United States has so far been able to align its controls with the Netherlands and Japan, this alignment was not without considerable delay, and similar alignments are not guaranteed going forward. Issuing additional export controls on less indispensable U.S. technology also means that U.S. semiconductor companies miss out on revenue in the near term, even if they enjoy an initial revenue spike from China stockpiling equipment. Whereas companies could theoretically divert chip sales to countries other than China to make up for lost sales, in reality these sales are unlikely to match massive Chinese market demand. Today, the COVID-19 semiconductor boom has faded, as higher interest rates have dampened purchases of products that use semiconductors. The U.S. government should therefore have strong justification before cutting off these companies’ main source of revenue at a time when they are bracing for uncertainty.

Become a Member

Megan Hogan is the Eranda Rothschild Foundation Junior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. She works on international trade issues, including digital trade, semiconductor export controls, and U.S.-Chinese relations. She is also the founder of DisinfoLab, a student-led disinformation research lab based at the College of William & Mary’s Global Research Institute.

Image: Wikimedia

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Megan Hogan · December 22, 2023

​15. House Panel Calls on Pentagon to Explain Osprey Safety Record

Excerpts:

Concerns among some military families and engineers about the Osprey’s unusual design—a hybrid of a helicopter and an airplane—were highlighted this week by The Wall Street Journal.

The Osprey has become a military workhorse, especially in the Marine Corps, because of its unique attributes. Like a helicopter, it can take off, hover and land vertically. At the same time, it boasts the higher speed, range and altitude of a fixed-wing aircraft, with the ability to fly up to 300 miles an hour for more than 400 miles while carrying up to 24 people.

More than 450 Ospreys have been produced by a joint venture between 

Textron’s Bell unit and Boeing. The Army last year selected a design similar to the Osprey to replace its Black Hawk helicopter fleet, awarding a contract to Bell in a deal estimated by analysts to be worth up to $70 billion. The new craft, the Bell V-280 Valor, can fly faster and farther than the Osprey.

House Panel Calls on Pentagon to Explain Osprey Safety Record

U.S. military fleet of more than 400 tilt-rotor aircraft has been grounded since deadly crash in Japan

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/house-panel-calls-on-pentagon-to-explain-osprey-safety-record-dc7f7e2c?st=z7xvfop3zmsuvip&utm_source=pocket_saves

By Doug Cameron

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Dec. 21, 2023 9:00 am ET

The Osprey, a hybrid of a helicopter and an airplane, has become a workhorse in the U.S. military owing to its unique attributes. PHOTO: U.S. NAVY/ZUMA PRESS

House investigators have called on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to explain problems with the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and what the Pentagon is doing to ensure its safety following a series of crashes that have claimed dozens of service members’ lives.

The U.S. military’s fleet of more than 400 Ospreys has been grounded since Dec. 6 following the crash of an Air Force aircraft off the coast of Japan that claimed eight lives.

The Committee on Oversight and Accountability said in a letter to Austin that it was investigating “long-term problems” with the Osprey. The panel called for additional oversight before the Pentagon expands its use of the tilt-rotor design.

“The Committee remains concerned about safety and performance issues surrounding the Osprey program,” wrote Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.), the committee’s chairman, requesting related documents and information from the Pentagon by Jan. 4.

Concerns among some military families and engineers about the Osprey’s unusual design—a hybrid of a helicopter and an airplane—were highlighted this week by The Wall Street Journal.

The Osprey has become a military workhorse, especially in the Marine Corps, because of its unique attributes. Like a helicopter, it can take off, hover and land vertically. At the same time, it boasts the higher speed, range and altitude of a fixed-wing aircraft, with the ability to fly up to 300 miles an hour for more than 400 miles while carrying up to 24 people.

More than 450 Ospreys have been produced by a joint venture between 

Textron’s Bell unit and Boeing. The Army last year selected a design similar to the Osprey to replace its Black Hawk helicopter fleet, awarding a contract to Bell in a deal estimated by analysts to be worth up to $70 billion. The new craft, the Bell V-280 Valor, can fly faster and farther than the Osprey.The committee said it recognized the advantages of the tilt-rotor design, as well as the 27,000 jobs tied to the Osprey. The latest versions cost $120 million each, said the committee, and are due to fly until 2055.

“However, if the same tilt-rotor technology is planned for use in civilian aircraft or in future military aircraft, additional oversight is needed to ensure public safety,” said the committee.

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The Pentagon’s grounding of the Osprey aircraft is altering the military’s plans for exercises near China. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday reports on how the suspension could affect readiness in the Pacific. Photo: U.S. Marines/Zuma Press

The Pentagon has spent two years working to improve the safety of its aircraft and rotorcraft after a congressional commission in December 2020 identified failings with training, aging aircraft and spare-parts shortages. 

U.S. military officials say the Osprey remains a safe aircraft to fly.

The House Oversight Committee last held a hearing on the Osprey in 2009. One problem with the Osprey that has dogged the military since then is a gearbox malfunction known as “hard clutch engagement” that can cause power to surge in one rotor, destabilizing the aircraft.

“In the years since that hearing, additional reports from government watchdogs revealed problems in the Osprey program, yet our service members remain in harm’s way without resolution of known mechanical issues,” said the committee.

The grounding of the entire Osprey fleet has created a logistical challenge for the Marines, who have about 300 of the aircraft, as well as for the Navy, which had started using them to supply aircraft carriers. The Air Force mainly deploys them for special forces. The Pentagon hasn’t said when or if they might return to full operations. It has said an initial probe tied the recent crash off Japan to mechanical issues.

Textron and Boeing, through a spokesman, have said they were ready to assist the investigation into the crash off Japan. They declined to comment further.

Write to Doug Cameron at Doug.Cameron@wsj.com

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

Appeared in the December 22, 2023, print edition as 'House Panel Calls on Pentagon to Explain Osprey Safety Record'.

​16. US Bans Pentagon From Using Chinese Port Logistics Platform

US Bans Pentagon From Using Chinese Port Logistics Platform

Jessica Stone

voanews.com · December 22, 2023

washington —

The U.S. Congress has passed legislation that would ban the Pentagon from using any seaport in the world that relies on a Chinese logistics platform known as LOGINK.

LOGINK, by tracking cargo and ship movements, lets Beijing monitor America's military supply chain, which relies on commercial ports, according to sponsors Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Michelle Steel.

Their amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2024 also bans federal funding of any port that uses LOGINK. The spending bill passed December 14 and the LOGINK ban goes into effect six months after the bill is signed. President Joe Biden has not yet signed the NDAA.

Steel, in an email interview with VOA, called LOGINK's threat "very serious" because it operates under the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing already has investments in about 100 ports in more than 60 nations.

SEE ALSO: China's Global Network of Shipping Ports Reveal Beijing’s Strategy

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), which monitors the national security implications of U.S.-China trade, said in a September 2022 report, "LOGINK's visibility into global shipping and supply chains could also enable the Chinese government to identify U.S. supply chain vulnerabilities and to track shipments of U.S. military cargo on commercial freight."

A spokesperson for the Pentagon's U.S. Transportation Command told VOA via email on Tuesday, "USTRANSCOM understands the visibility into global logistics China has through their Belt and Road Initiative and related public-private arrangements."

LOGINK partners with more than 20 ports worldwide, including six in Japan, five in South Korea and one in Malaysia. There are also at least nine across Europe and three in the Middle East. There are no LOGINK port contracts in the U.S., according to the commission's report, which says Beijing subsidizes the free platform.

Under the NDAA, Congress must commission a study of how foreign influence at the 15 largest American container ports "could affect" U.S. national and economic security.

"Chinese companies are operating ports in the United States, which poses a national security risk to our critical infrastructure. This report will spur policy to counter that risk," said Ivan Kanapathy, who served on former President Donald Trump's National Security Council as director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia. He is now a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington referred VOA to China's General Administration of Customs for comment, but an email inquiry received no reply.

'Major step' by Congress

Michael Wessel, an original member of the USCC who helped write the report, now heads a consulting firm, the Wessel Group. He told VOA the legislation is "a major step taken by Congress to begin to address the challenge of the threat posed by LOGINK."

Wessel and others say an alternative to LOGINK needs to be developed.

Gabe Collins, a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and a former Department of Defense China analyst, told VOA he's not seen an alternative to LOGLINK "that can operate at that scale."

Collins estimates that LOGINK collects data on as much as half of all global shipping capacity — through contracts with ports and data sharing agreements with existing logistics networks.

He said the U.S. ban sends a "demand signal" telling the marketplace it must invent an alternative to LOGINK, though he said it could take as long as five years to develop one.

Washington's new ban also requires the secretary of state to begin negotiations with allies and partners to remove LOGINK from their ports. Compliance must begin in six months.

It is unclear how the amendment will affect ports worldwide used by the U.S. military. The International Association of Ports and Harbors told VOA it would need more time to survey its members on how they might respond to the new legislation.

Randall Schriver, former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, said that while working with the USCC in April, he discovered some European leaders were in the dark about LOGINK and its monitoring capacity.

"These were administrative matters handled at a lower level, and they were going with a cheap but good product without thinking through all of the possible implications," he said.

voanews.com · December 22, 2023

17. Europe Must Ramp Up Its Support for Ukraine

Excerpts:

Because Russian forces have dug deep into trenches and now hide behind miles of mines, much of Ukraine’s war effort no longer takes place along the frontlines. Ukraine now focuses on targeting Russian supply lines and infrastructure within Russian-occupied territory and in Crimea, which holds symbolic importance for the Russian people, especially since Putin annexed the peninsula in 2014. By targeting Putin’s pressure points and aiming to inflict painful defeats on Russia in the Black Sea or in Crimea, Ukraine is hoping to galvanize public sentiment in Russia against the war and its ringleader. Such a shift in public attitudes is a precondition for negotiations; to be willing to talk and compromise, Putin must first be under severe pressure at home. The second precondition is a military one: Putin must also be certain that he can achieve nothing more by force. Ukraine must therefore win the upper hand on the battlefield.

Forcing Ukraine to negotiate under the current circumstances would destroy all its hopes to align more closely with the West—hopes that are a little brighter after the EU’s decision to approve negotiations toward allowing Kyiv entry into the bloc. Putin will continue to target and destabilize Ukraine through all means available. It was Putin’s fear, after all, of having another flourishing Western country along Russia’s border that propelled him to attack in the first place. A defensive strategy focused solely on dialogue with Russia is at best fundamentally flawed—and at worst catastrophically naive. Such a strategy would lead to a partitioned Ukraine with no hope of joining NATO, as no NATO country would want to risk being drawn directly into a lingering conflict with Russia. Without NATO deterrence, Putin would be free to recover, regroup, and eventually attack again. And Ukraine would not be the only country at risk of a renewed assault; other states such as Moldova and the Baltic countries would be under constant threat, as well. Europe can prevent this nightmare scenario from happening only if it sheds its illusions and wholeheartedly commits to Ukraine’s defense.

Europe Must Ramp Up Its Support for Ukraine​

Abandoning Kyiv Would Embolden Russia—and Lead Only to More War

By Norbert Röttgen

December 22, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Norbert Röttgen · December 22, 2023

With Ukrainian forces stalled on the battlefield, and major aid packages for Kyiv blocked by Hungary in the EU and by Republican policymakers in the United States, the Western alliance in support of Ukraine appears increasingly weak and divided. Several scholars and policymakers have assessed this scenario—and reached the conclusion that a pivot to a defensive strategy could eventually bring Putin to the negotiating table. According to that line of thought, a new approach focused on securing territories that Ukraine already controls would consolidate Western support and eventually demonstrate to Russia that it cannot outlast Ukraine’s war effort. But that analysis reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the Russian president and how he thinks. Any Western backtracking will only encourage Putin to double down on his assault on Ukraine. As long as he believes that military success is possible, Putin will refuse to negotiate—and he will keep fighting.

With that reality in mind, Western policymakers must revise their approach to supporting the Ukrainian war effort. Ukraine’s partners should move from a halfhearted to a full-throated offensive strategy that provides the embattled country with all the weapons necessary to gain the upper hand and push back Russian forces. Europe, in particular, should do more. This includes delivering the maximum possible quantities of materiel from the EU’s existing stockpiles of relevant weapons systems, boosting military production, and expanding each country’s production capabilities. Specifically, Europe can and should give far more middle- and long-range cruise missiles to Kyiv. Doing so would allow Ukraine to target Russian infrastructure in the occupied territories while shielding its soldiers from the hazards of the frontlines. Europe must also speed up and extend the delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, which would enable the country to establish air superiority. Coupled with the dispatch of additional air defense systems, such as Patriot and IRIS-T missiles, such aid would allow Ukraine to effectively pressure Russian forces and win the upper hand on the battlefield.

Only then, with Russia on the back foot, will negotiations become possible. Only then will Western policymakers be able to achieve the real criteria for a victory: ensuring that Putin’s war of aggression does not pay off for Russia and that Europe does not continue to be a theater of war. Should the West capitulate to fatigue and infighting, however, it will simply play into Putin’s hands. A Russian triumph would set the stage for further war across the continent, bringing turmoil ever closer to NATO territory.

AVOIDING SELF-DEFEAT

The current situation on the battlefield is indeed alarming for Ukraine and its partners. Russian forces have dug in behind miles of minefields and trenches, making it incredibly difficult and costly for Ukrainian soldiers to gain territory. A stalemate has set in; the conflict, now approaching its third year, has already exacted hundreds of thousands of military and civilian casualties and is becoming a brutal war of attrition. But those making the case for negotiations with Moscow fail to mention the context in which this worsening situation arose. Kyiv has not achieved major battlefield gains because its partners in the United States and Europe have not provided the necessary weapons to gain air control and effectively penetrate Russian positions and infrastructure in the occupied territories and Crimea.

As the war has dragged on, Russia has succeeded in firing up its military industrial complex and adjusting to a wartime economy. Its material capabilities have now surpassed those of Ukraine, which continues to depend on arms supplies from the West. Although Ukraine’s partners have retained stockpiles of certain precision weapons, including Taurus cruise missiles, they are running out of other key materiel—specifically ammunition. Despite early warnings that ammunition would eventually run low, the European Union has failed to increase its production capabilities, owing to a lack of planning and foresight. At the current rate, the bloc will be unable to fulfill its commitment to provide one million shells and missiles to Ukraine by March 2024. And this lag is having consequences on the ground; whereas Russia uses between 25,000 and 30,000 shells a day, Ukraine fires a meager 7,000 shells a day. Facing critical shortages, Ukrainian troops have been forced to ration their use of ammunition. No NATO government would ever put its military in such a position of having to fight a war without sufficient ammunition, precision weapons, and air support.

Part of the problem is that many European leaders have failed to clearly state an objective for aid to Ukraine, and have instead pursued a vague and often halfhearted strategy of support. Their incremental approach to assistance hasn’t equipped Kyiv to achieve a major breakthrough during Ukraine’s summer offensive. Policymakers within the German government and the Biden administration, in particular, continue to view the delivery of every weapons system through the lens of how Russia will respond, with the fear of escalation constraining what kind of aid Ukraine receives. The reality is that Russia has already fully escalated in terms of its conventional military capabilities and is unlikely to take the nuclear route for two reasons: first, out of fear of U.S. retaliation; and second, given the opposition of China, Russia’s indispensable ally, to nuclear escalation, a clear redline for Beijing.

Putin must not be allowed to imagine that there is any merit to his heinous invasion; if he triumphs, wars of aggression in Europe may well become more common. From the perspective of Kyiv and its partners, this means that at a minimum Ukraine’s prewar boundaries must be reinstated. Kyiv is not only fighting to regain its territory but also defending the fundamental right of self-determination of states, as well as the largely peaceful order that has prevailed in Europe since the end of World War II. It is a goal that liberal democracies in the West and around the world should be united in supporting—particularly throughout Europe, where war has returned to the continent.

SHEDDING ILLUSIONS

There is widespread agreement among many observers and policymakers that the war in Ukraine can likely only end with negotiations. A satisfactory agreement, however, will not be achieved from a position of Ukrainian weakness. Given Putin’s track record, there is no reason to believe that a defensive approach by Ukraine and its partners would incentivize Russia to move toward a cease-fire, as some, such as Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, have suggested. Quite the contrary: Putin has made it clear that he does not want to negotiate. He wants to win this war, which has become a matter of his political and personal survival. The war has come at a huge cost for Russia, and Putin must have something to show for it. To assume that he might seize the opportunity to stanch the bloodletting is wishful thinking, and has nothing to do with the Putin who has bombed Ukrainian civilians, helped the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launch a horrendous war against his own people, and overseen a brutal occupation of Chechnya in the early 2000s. Unsurprisingly, his price for even opening negotiations with Kyiv is essentially a total Ukrainian surrender. And in return he promises nothing.

Rolling back support for Ukraine would diminish rather than increase Russia’s appetite for negotiations. Putin would gain the upper hand and have no reason to engage in dialogue if he senses the possibility of a military victory. Russia’s expanded military-industrial complex can sustain a years-long war effort; Europe, on the other hand, has not increased its military output and will soon run out of the vital military systems that Ukraine so desperately needs. Knowing this, Putin just needs to wait. Time is on his side.

The lack of spine shown here by the United States and the EU could have important consequences for the rest of the world. If the West backed down in the face of Putin’s advances, or revealed that it is not capable of substantially ramping up support for Ukraine, such a failure would signal weakness to China and other revisionist powers such as Iran. It would also send a disastrous message to other key allies such as the Philippines and Taiwan, which rely on U.S. military support for their safety and territorial integrity. Shifting to a dedicated offensive strategy and helping Ukraine succeed against Russia would help deter China in the Indo-Pacific and reassure U.S. and EU allies. Every Republican arguing that the United States must focus on China and leave Europe to the Europeans should keep in mind that allowing Russia to triumph in Ukraine would only encourage the worst, most aggressive instincts in Beijing.

CLEAR EYES, FULL AID

But just as the United States must not waver in its support for Ukraine, Europe must do more to step up and provide for its own defense—especially given the prospect of the return of Donald Trump to the Oval Office. In the event that Trump is reelected, Europeans must be able to sustain the Ukrainian war effort on their own. Europeans cannot escape the geography

of our continent; we are not separated by a vast ocean from the war. Thus, we do not have a choice but to ensure a Ukrainian victory. It is our collective peaceful European order that is under attack by Russia. Although single-handedly supporting Ukraine would be considerably more difficult, it is not impossible. Germany’s GDP alone is almost twice as big as Russia’s; the EU’s as a whole is seven times larger.

To activate the EU’s potential as a geopolitical player, and to build a sustainable coalition in support of Ukraine, Germany needs to live up to its leadership role in the bloc. It must act as a bridge builder between eastern Europeans who are well aware of the Russian threat close to their borders and western Europeans who feel relatively safe in their homes far away from the Ukrainian frontlines. Although valuable time has been lost, it is not too late for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to act decisively. Scholz has taken some important steps; in 2023, German military support for Ukraine totaled some four billion euros, including weapons systems such as tanks and missile defense systems—a sum that will be doubled in 2024. This large-scale aid is all the more exceptional given Germany’s long-standing pacifism, which has historically led Berlin to refuse to send weapons to conflict zones. But given Germany’s untapped capacity, as well as what a victory for Ukraine and Europe will entail, it is not enough.

As long as he believes that military success is possible, Putin will refuse to negotiate.

To continue the strikes against Russian infrastructure and supply lines, Ukraine needs cruise missiles such as Taurus systems to hit targets beyond the frontlines, as well as fighter jets to establish air control and air defense to protect its soldiers in the trenches. To date, Germany has withheld Taurus cruise missiles on the grounds that there are still technical challenges that must be resolved in order to restrict the missiles’ range. The real, highly cynical reason for not delivering these weapons is that they are extremely effective, and Scholz fears that the successful use of these weapons could prompt Russian escalation. Although Germany has already delivered several Patriot missile defense systems which now successfully shield the skies above Kyiv, it can and should provide more, at a time when Russia is intensifying its drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. If Berlin feels some consternation regarding the provision of these systems, it must understand that providing Ukraine with all the weapons it needs to wear down and defeat Russian forces is in the security interests of every European state.

Scholz’s biggest shortcoming is that he has remained vague when discussing the West’s objectives in its support for Ukraine. He continues to use an ambiguous formula in which, as he has said, “Russia must not win, Ukraine must not lose.” Scholz must call Russia’s war what it is: an attack on peace in Europe that poses an existential risk to Germany and the continent. This kind of explicit support, polling shows, would be met with widespread approval from the German public.

CRACKING DOWN

Beyond expanding their military production capacity, Ukraine’s partners can and should do much more to slow down Russia’s arms production, starting with the proper enforcement of their own sanctions regimes. Many of the high-precision machines used in Russia to produce systems such as cruise missiles are U.S. and German products. Russia continues to maintain and purchase these machines. This is possible because German authorities do not properly enforce European sanctions. Russia has often managed to evade restrictions by operating through third countries such as Kyrgyzstan, where German exports have skyrocketed since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022. Once there, exports such as machinery, motor vehicles, and parts—which have gone up by more than 5000 percent—continue on to Russia. Proper enforcement of EU sanctions, including tailoring them in a way to prohibit such circumvention via third parties, would hamper Russia’s ability to repair, maintain, and procure spare parts for this critical machinery, ultimately slowing Russia’s weapons production.

In addition, U.S. and European policymakers should do far more to target Russia’s main weapons suppliers: North Korea and Iran. Although North Korea is internationally recognized as the pariah state that it is, the Islamic Republic is treated differently by the international community. There is a rationale behind this behavior; the United States and Europe still hope to renegotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran, after the Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018. But the regime has demonstrated no serious interest in reviving the agreement, having rejected the EU’s proposal for a new deal in 2022. Instead, the Islamic Republic has provided Russia with kamikaze drones since mid-2022, including some 1,700 Shahed drones that year. Russia and Iran have also signed a billion-dollar weapons deal, which aims to build 6,000 drones on a Russian site by 2025. Moreover, the Iranian-made drones used to attack Ukrainian infrastructure and bomb Ukrainian cities are often manufactured using Western components. Washington and Brussels should enact much tougher sanctions on the regime for aiding Russia’s war effort and restrict their own trade with Iran to reduce the chances of delivering commodities that can aid Iran’s drone-making effort.

PLAYING THE LONG GAME

Because Russian forces have dug deep into trenches and now hide behind miles of mines, much of Ukraine’s war effort no longer takes place along the frontlines. Ukraine now focuses on targeting Russian supply lines and infrastructure within Russian-occupied territory and in Crimea, which holds symbolic importance for the Russian people, especially since Putin annexed the peninsula in 2014. By targeting Putin’s pressure points and aiming to inflict painful defeats on Russia in the Black Sea or in Crimea, Ukraine is hoping to galvanize public sentiment in Russia against the war and its ringleader. Such a shift in public attitudes is a precondition for negotiations; to be willing to talk and compromise, Putin must first be under severe pressure at home. The second precondition is a military one: Putin must also be certain that he can achieve nothing more by force. Ukraine must therefore win the upper hand on the battlefield.

Forcing Ukraine to negotiate under the current circumstances would destroy all its hopes to align more closely with the West—hopes that are a little brighter after the EU’s decision to approve negotiations toward allowing Kyiv entry into the bloc. Putin will continue to target and destabilize Ukraine through all means available. It was Putin’s fear, after all, of having another flourishing Western country along Russia’s border that propelled him to attack in the first place. A defensive strategy focused solely on dialogue with Russia is at best fundamentally flawed—and at worst catastrophically naive. Such a strategy would lead to a partitioned Ukraine with no hope of joining NATO, as no NATO country would want to risk being drawn directly into a lingering conflict with Russia. Without NATO deterrence, Putin would be free to recover, regroup, and eventually attack again. And Ukraine would not be the only country at risk of a renewed assault; other states such as Moldova and the Baltic countries would be under constant threat, as well. Europe can prevent this nightmare scenario from happening only if it sheds its illusions and wholeheartedly commits to Ukraine’s defense.

• NORBERT RÖTTGEN is a member of the German Bundestag and its Foreign Affairs Committee. He served as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee from 2014 to 2021 and was Federal Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety from 2009 to 2012. 

Foreign Affairs · by Norbert Röttgen · December 22, 2023

18. Inside The Private Security Forces Protecting Red Sea Shipping

Inside The Private Security Forces Protecting Red Sea Shipping

How armed contractors operate aboard ships and the ways they’ve been adapted to the eruption in hostilities around the Bab el-Mandeb strait.

BY

HOWARD ALTMAN

|

PUBLISHED DEC 21, 2023 1:05 PM EST

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · December 21, 2023

Nearly every day, private armed security teams (PASTs) stationed on a floating armory somewhere in the Indian Ocean will get a message from supervisors at Ambrey, a U.K.-based firm specializing in maritime risk management. They are to grab their L1A1 SLR or Steyr Scout rifles and head out to a commercial ship sailing to the narrow and increasingly dangerous Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Once on board, the PAST will provide armed security, overwatch and help the crews take all the safety precautions possible for a trip through waters where U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have conducted over 100 drone and ballistic missile attacks, targeting 10 merchant vessels in the past month. This is in addition to boarding attempts and even seizing ships outright. These activities are ongoing in a region that's already a piracy epicenter.

“Ambrey is operating somewhere between 500 and 600 transits a month in the Red Sea at this current time," said Joshua Hutchinson, a former Royal Marine commando now serving as the company’s Managing Director of Risk and Intelligence. “Clearly, there's a natural increase in demand because of the threat that is emerging in the market.”

Ambrey data shows nearly three dozen Houthi-related incidents in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait in just the past month. (Ambrey incident map)

Security At Sea

The company, formed in 2010 to combat Somali piracy, has grown to the world’s largest maritime risk management firm, said Hutchinson. Armed security is one part of a much larger portfolio that includes providing proprietary data-driven intelligence about looming threats that helps shipping companies mitigate risks.

Ambrey has thousands of trained contractors working for it. They are prior military, “so they’ve got experience with weapons,” said Hutchinson, adding that they go through “an extensive maritime training program and are licensed and certified annually.”

The crews operate on ships in teams of between three and eight at a time, the latter figure used only in the most exigent of circumstances, said Hutchinson. The number of guards per team depends on the size of the vessel and the potential risk of the transit.

They use bolt action or semi-automatic rifles like the L1A1 and Steyr because they operate under British maritime law, which precludes the use of fully automatic weapons in these circumstances.

“So you show your weapons to potential perpetrators,” said Hutchinson. “If you're fired upon, you have to make an assessment to return accurate fire to deter a threat.”

That's exactly what happened on Dec. 13, when Ambrey armed guards aboard the M/T Ardmore Encounter exchanged fire with Houthis approaching in a skiff.

"An armed team on a skiff approached the Ardmore vessel," said Hutchinson. "The armed team used the correct rules of force. Showed their weapons and they were fired upon. They returned accurate fire and the skiff left the area."

The Houthis then fired two ground-based anti-ship ballistic missiles at the vessel that missed, a U.S. military official told The War Zone at the time.

The security teams, however, do much more than fire at threats.

They offer advice and training to the master of the vessel's crew. They identify the location of anti-piracy barriers and door chocks. They make sure there’s a citadel - a pre-planned, secure location where the crew can shelter during an attack or boarding. There are separate locations depending on whether there is a threat from above or the surface. Ambrey security guards also provide around-the-clock watch.

In addition, a lot of the security work takes place ahead of time. It starts with Ambrey's Guardian digital watchkeeping service. That consists of "pre-voyage planning with the vessel prior to entering a high risk area," said Hutchinson. "We will do a best management check, we'll choose the best route for that master that may change depending on dynamic elevated threat areas. It also comes down to potentially the time of day, depending on the size and class or the vessel, then then on top of that, we'll start to look at better mitigating factors for that particular vessel in terms of what else can be done."

Ambrey tracks 250,000 commercial vessels around the world and has technology to pick up anomalies in course and speed, Hutchinson said. The company feed constant information to vessels about best routes to avoid threats in the first place, including proximity to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iranian Navy assets, and Houthi-controlled areas.

The use of drones "in a direct attack is deliberate and intelligence led," the company's website states. "Avoid predictable routing behavior. Adjust routing, even by small margins, and avoid contested waters and higher risk areas."

Nothing, of course, is guaranteed. On Nov. 23, the cargo ship CMA CGM Symi was hit by what Hutchinson said was an Iranian-made Houthi Shahed-136 variant while transiting the Indian Ocean south of Oman, Hutchinson said.

You can see that attack in the video below Hutchinson shared with The War Zone. The drone strikes the ship and the ensuing explosion sparks a fire that was eventually extinguished.

The CMA CGM Symi cargo vessel burning in the Indian Ocean after a suspected Houthi drone attack. (Ambrey photo)

The aftermath of the suspected Houthi drone attack on the CMA CGM Symi. (Ambrey photo)

Listening To Attacks Unfold

Though based in London, Hutchinson has a good sense of what commercial ships being attacked by Houthi drones and missiles are going through. That’s because he and his colleagues listen live to the radio transmissions from the ships as part of their job.

“Anyone going into the area right now will be fully aware of what it feels and sounds like,” he told The War Zone.

The first transmission is usually from the Houthis. He shared an audio file of one such encounter. It is now used for training purposes, but he would not say which incident it was from for security reasons.

“You have just five minutes. If you don't alter your course at this time you'll be attacked, over,” the Houthis demanded over the radio.

“It’s very disorientating for a ship’s master to hear that,” said Hutchinson. You can listen to the radio exchange below:

What usually happens next is that a warship in the area will respond, telling the commercial vessel to alter its course away from Yemeni waters. That's what happened in this situation.

“Then the Yemeni authorities will come back and say ‘if you do not pull into port, we will target your vessel,’ which is probably a sinking, sickening feeling for the master to know that at that moment in time, they are being targeted on the radars.”

At that point, the ships go on high alert.

“The security team will be making sure the crew is safe,” said Hutchinson, adding even as a combat veteran, “nothing can prepare you for the shock and impact of any ballistic weapon, regardless of size.”

“Most likely, there will be a shudder, a sonic ballistic sound that they will feel. And then there is disorientation that will always come in terms of what's happened? Where did it happen? Is everybody okay?”

The next step, said Hutchinson, is “consolidation after impact, making sure the team goes through the process of reporting it to the relevant authorities. We always advise our team that in that moment, it's about the life of the individuals on board that vessel, keep the vessel on course, secure life, and then go through the procedure.”

All private security firms, of course, operate knowing that warships are the only ones able to directly counter drones and missiles.

"Fortunately, there is a lot of support in the area from warships, rescue centers and joint coordination centers," said Hutchinson, like Task Force 153, charged with international maritime security and capacity-building in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and the Gulf of Aden.

As we have reported previously, warships from the U.S., U.K. and France have downed dozens of Houthi drones and missiles in the past month since the attacks began in the wake of the Israel-Gaza war.

French Navy (Marine Nationale) FREMM Frigate Languedoc, patrolling off the coast of Yemen, shot down a Houthi drone after an attack on the oil tanker Strinda Dec. 11. (French Navy)

In just one day alone last week, the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Carney downed 14 drones , a U.S. military official told The War Zone. The Type-45 destroyer HMS Diamond downed one drone targeting merchant shipping in the Red Sea with a Sea Viper missile.

Among the 10 commercial vessels targeted, Hutchinson said "very luckily, there's been a very small amount of non-life threatening injuries." Only one ship - the MSC Palatium III - was unable to get underway after being struck by a Houthi ballistic missile that caused a fire on Dec. 15. The Liberian-flagged cargo vessel was fired upon by two Houthi ballistic missiles, but one missed. The incident took place about 30 nautical miles southwest of Mokha, Yemen, according to the Royal Navy's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. The Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Mason responded.

The USS Mason responded to an emergency call from an oil tanker that was fired upon by Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles that missed. U.S. Navy photo by Bill Mesta/released

Coordination With The Military

Ambrey has "an open channel of communications with all naval assets and reporting bodies in the area," said Hutchinson. That includes Task Force 153, as well as U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT).

"I've got to be careful of how we talked about how we do that, because there's a level of intellectual property. But yes, we have a an open channel where we would naturally report incidents and we are encouraged to do so," he said, adding that's been standard practice for the past decade.

"When we report, they will make their own decision of escalation and prioritize," he said of the maritime task force.

The Type-45 destroyer HMS Diamond, which downed a Houthi drone, is part of a new coalition to help defend the Red Sea against Houthi threats. (Royal Navy photo) Royal Navy

Task Force 153 did not return a message seeking comment about how it interfaces with these contractors. NAVCENT spokesman Cmdr. Mike told us that its Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping (NCAGS) maritime liaison officers "have a close relationship with the global maritime community of interest, including companies, organizations and flag states."

He could not comment specifically on Ambrey's activities.

Ambrey would like to play a role in the newly formed Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG), a so-far 19-member coalition operating under Task Force 153 leadership designed to protect commercial shipping against Houthi threats.

Details of exactly what OPG will do remain nebulous. Like many in the shipping industry, Ambrey has a lot of questions about exactly how it will work.

“I think what the international community shipping wants to understand timeframes,” he said. "Where will these assets be based? How long before they get there? What areas are they covering? What's their reaching capability? And I think that's the kind of stuff that we that the industry will need."

“We want to see that as well,” said Hutchinson, “because we want to work with them. Only when those details become clear will there be an understanding.”

“There can't be a dark fleet of warships, because that does not provide public security to the international community,” he added. “So they need to be transparent around that. But the problem is, you know, there's tactical warfare going on, where the Houthis have said, ‘we will target you.’ So I honestly can't see how they're going to be able to de-escalate the situation. But I think offering that support is paramount, because we're really, we're in an unprecedented time.”

Hutchinson said his company can provide intelligence assistance about vessel locations, routes and threat patterns.

"Ambrey’s focus is to get information to the right people as quickly as possible to prevent the loss of lives, time and money," he said.

Despite all the unknowns, Hutchinson said he's "highly confident that [OPG] will make a difference because if I was on board a vessel, I would feel much more confident around the capability they’ve proven shooting down UAVs and missiles and raising the profile of those situations. But is that sustainable in the long term? And is the cost of doing that scalable?"

The Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) fires a Standard Missile (SM) 2 to defeat a combination of Houthi missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles in the Red Sea, Oct. 19, 2023. Carney is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations to help ensure maritime security and stability in the Middle East region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Aaron Lau)

If the Houthis continue to escalate their attacks on shipping, the answers to those questions will be become increasingly important.

We've reached out to the Pentagon for more details about OPG and how or if they see private security firms playing a role. We will provide updates as we continue to monitor the development of the new coalition at this critical point in time.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that there were no Ambrey PAST on the Symi.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

thedrive.com · by Howard Altman · December 21, 2023

19. UKRAINE, GAZA, AND THE U.S. ARMY’S COUNTERINSURGENCY LEGACY by Gian Gentile

Excerpts:

There are several other large insights from Ukraine and Gaza that the U.S. Army and joint force should pay attention to. The most immediate and apparent is that attrition of manpower and equipment is integral to large-scale combat operations. In Ukraine, for example, nearly two years into the war, Russia has suffered close to 300,000 casualties, of which approximately 120,000 have been killed in action. When one compares this to nearly 41,000 Americans killed in the seven-year war in Vietnam, one can appreciate the high amount of attrition in the Ukraine War. 

The U.S. joint force is arguably one of the most competent and professionalized power-projection military forces in the world, with an abundance of exquisite, precise weaponry. Indeed, a large insight emerging from Ukraine specifically is the importance of having plentiful stockpiles of precision and non-precision munitions. A robust U.S. defense industrial base, therefore, is needed to sustain U.S. support efforts in Ukraine and Israel and, if need be, allow the U.S. joint force to sustain any major combat operations in the future.

Another significant insight that has become clear from the Ukraine War, and is emerging from Israel’s war in Gaza, is that the offensive is still the dominant form of warfare. In the initial months of the Ukraine War, a popular argument among some defense analysts was that the defensive had become ascendant in modern war. 

Not true.

Ukraine’s, desire to produce a mechanized offensive force to break through the current stalemate and evict Russian ground forces from its lands is a testament to the dominance of the offensive. The only way Ukraine can hope to evict Russian forces from its homeland is through offensive operations. Staying on the defensive for Ukraine will only aide Putin’s maximalist aims in Ukraine. Similarly, Israel’s war in Gaza further proves the flawed thinking that the defensive has become the dominant form of war. Does anyone really believe that Israel’s military can achieve its political aim of Hamas’s destruction by remaining on the defensive?

Lastly, and probably most importantly, Ukraine and Gaza demonstrate that war is “cruelty and you cannot refine it,” as Union General William Tecumseh Sherman noted more than 150 years ago during the American Civil War.

The U.S. Army therefore must finally jettison the leitmotif from its counterinsurgency legacy that wars can be won by soldiers wearing velvet gloves and applying supposed cutting-edge, enlightened counterinsurgency methods designed to protect populations and bring about victories in a more precise and principled way. Former Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen encapsulated this rosy view of war in 2010 when he said:

We must not look upon the use of military forces only as a last resort, but as potentially the best, first option…we must not try to use force only in an overwhelming capacity, but…in a precise and principled manner. Ukraine and Gaza show that Sherman’s view of war as “cruelty” that cannot be “refined” is as correct today, and will likely remain so into the future, as it was in 1864.

UKRAINE, GAZA, AND THE U.S. ARMY’S COUNTERINSURGENCY LEGACY

 GIAN GENTILE  DECEMBER 21, 2023 8 MIN READ

https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/learning-lessons-4/?utm

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth and final in a four-part series of articles on how national security professionals should (and should not) approach the fraught task of learning lessons from something as complex as war. We have assembled a team of sharp minds and pens in the business to apply their varying perspectives to the question opened by the Army War College’s Chase Metcalf, how do we think about learning lessons from war? It is a fitting end to 2023 and, unfortunately, will likely be essential in 2024 as well.

For the U.S. Army specifically, the lessons “learned” from previous counterinsurgency operations quickly became a kind of intellectual straitjacket during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza offer a laboratory of study for military professionals, historians, and analysts. Studying a current war to help organizations understand and prepare for future conflict is not new. Future U.S. Civil War Union General George B. McClellan, for example, went to Crimea in 1855 with two fellow West Point graduates to gain insights from the Crimean War for application to future combat. Ten years later, it was common for British army officers to spend time with the Confederate Army, so that they too might study operations in the American Civil War and apply what they had learned to their army back home.

In the same spirit, it makes perfect sense for American military organizations to study both the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza, and to draw insights from both. 

But as the U.S. Army studies these two wars for insights, let’s drop the “learned” from the phrase “lessons learned.” Lessons learned assumes that an insight—a “lesson”—from these current wars can also, at the same time, be “learned”—that is, incorporated into the training and strategies of another military. This is a highly problematic assumption.

For the U.S. Army specifically, the lessons “learned” from previous counterinsurgency operations quickly became a kind of intellectual straitjacket during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. There was only one perceived way to do a counterinsurgency operation correctly: which was to follow the appropriate “lessons” from history, and strictly adhere to the directives in the U.S. Army’s 2006 counterinsurgency field manual, Field Manual (FM) 3-24. This field manual was written under the supervision of General David H. Petraeus, and it came to embody the sort of intellectual straitjacket that considered any type of creative thinking about U.S. military strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, any idea that could not be found within its pages, as a kind of heresy. For example, the first chapter of FM 3-24 directed counterinsurgent forces in any war to view a population in one specific way:

In any situation, whatever the cause, there will be [a population that has] …an active minority for the cause [of the counterinsurgent]; a neutral or passive majority; an active minority against the cause.

But does such a view describe the population of Baghdad in 2006, at the height of the Shia-Sunni civil war? Does such a view, for that matter, reflect what Israeli soldiers are experiencing in Gaza today? During America’s counterinsurgency wars, the advocates of counterinsurgency (COIN) pushed the construction of this narrative, which many in the U.S. Army came to believe. By the same token, they argued if this population-centric counterinsurgency narrative drawn from the “lessons” of history could just be “learned,” the U.S. would eventually prove successful in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only as the result of U.S. wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan—and especially the latter—have shown, the COIN advocates were wrong; that narrative was proven time and again to be a false one.

And yet during the Iraq and Afghanistan years, the COIN advocates deployed so called “lessons learned” from previous counterinsurgency wars, such as the British in Malaya in the 1950s and the U.S. in Vietnam from 1965-1972, arguing that those wars demonstrated there was a “right way” to do counterinsurgency. In Iraq, from 2003 to 2006, and in Afghanistan, as early as 2005, the COIN advocates argued that U.S. Army had not fully come to understand those lessons. The U.S. Army was failing in Iraq, they argued because the Army was not applying the lessons of a population-centric counterinsurgency strategy.

During these years in the mid-2000s, the arguments of the COIN advocates became so hyper-charged that they began to make assertions that all future wars would not be anything like the large scale combat operations of the past, but instead would be wars fought among the people, over “hearts and minds.” These advocates went so far as to argue that the “strategic environment” had changed so much with Iraq and Afghanistan that a full restructuring of the U.S. Army was necessary in order to optimize it for future counterinsurgency operations. 

Even today, the remnants of the COIN advocates’ way of thinking still lingers. Political scientist Robert Pape, for example, recently argued in a CNN opinion piece that Israel should pay attention to the lessons of the U.S. counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and understand what he called “counterinsurgency math.” In his piece, Pape quoted General Stanley McChrystal from a 2009 speech where McChrystal suggested that the right approach for Afghanistan was the same as Petraeus’s counterinsurgency approach in Iraq: protect the population, separate the people from the insurgents, kill or capture the latter, be patient, and, if you do all of this, you will likely succeed. Yet the idea that Petraeus’s counterinsurgency methods in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 turned the war around and chalked up a win for the U.S. Army have been, at this point, largely and effectively disputed.  

Fortunately today for the national security of the United States, the U.S. Army did not transition to a force for “war among the people” as some COIN advocates would have liked; nor should it listen now to current analysts advocating for these lingering, failed ideas.

Indeed, if there is one large insight that has emerged from the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza, it is that large scale combat operations are decidedly not a thing of the past…

But imagine if the U.S. Army had done what the COIN advocates had called for, and reorganized to optimize for future COIN operations because it thought conventional, high-intensity combat operations were a thing of the past? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the resultant high-intensity conventional combat, and Israel’s conventional approach to destroying Hamas in urban combat, and the direction of future wars that these current wars point to, shows that such a reorganization would have been, a monumental mistake for the U.S. Army and the joint force. 

Indeed, if there is one large insight that has emerged from the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza, it is that large-scale combat operations are decidedly not a thing of the past, and that the US Army, along with the rest of the joint force, might well find itself in a similar kind of shooting war in the near future. 

So as we go forward in preparing for present and future war, let’s avoid the type of intellectual straitjacket that the counterinsurgency era had on the U.S. Army.

Indeed—and this is especially true for the U.S. Army—Ukraine and Gaza offer a view into the types of combat that U.S. forces mostly did not experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the case of Ukraine, that is sustained large-scale combat between two conventional forces. With Israel’s war in Gaza, it is a sustained level of high-intensity urban combat against a guerilla force. To be sure, in Iraq there were intermittent periods of high-intensity urban combat in cities such as Baghdad and Fallujah, but not in the way that in unfolding in Gaza. 

There are several other large insights from Ukraine and Gaza that the U.S. Army and joint force should pay attention to. The most immediate and apparent is that attrition of manpower and equipment is integral to large-scale combat operations. In Ukraine, for example, nearly two years into the war, Russia has suffered close to 300,000 casualties, of which approximately 120,000 have been killed in action. When one compares this to nearly 41,000 Americans killed in the seven-year war in Vietnam, one can appreciate the high amount of attrition in the Ukraine War. 

The U.S. joint force is arguably one of the most competent and professionalized power-projection military forces in the world, with an abundance of exquisite, precise weaponry. Indeed, a large insight emerging from Ukraine specifically is the importance of having plentiful stockpiles of precision and non-precision munitions. A robust U.S. defense industrial base, therefore, is needed to sustain U.S. support efforts in Ukraine and Israel and, if need be, allow the U.S. joint force to sustain any major combat operations in the future.

Another significant insight that has become clear from the Ukraine War, and is emerging from Israel’s war in Gaza, is that the offensive is still the dominant form of warfare. In the initial months of the Ukraine War, a popular argument among some defense analysts was that the defensive had become ascendant in modern war. 

Not true.

Ukraine’s, desire to produce a mechanized offensive force to break through the current stalemate and evict Russian ground forces from its lands is a testament to the dominance of the offensive. The only way Ukraine can hope to evict Russian forces from its homeland is through offensive operations. Staying on the defensive for Ukraine will only aide Putin’s maximalist aims in Ukraine. Similarly, Israel’s war in Gaza further proves the flawed thinking that the defensive has become the dominant form of war. Does anyone really believe that Israel’s military can achieve its political aim of Hamas’s destruction by remaining on the defensive?

Lastly, and probably most importantly, Ukraine and Gaza demonstrate that war is “cruelty and you cannot refine it,” as Union General William Tecumseh Sherman noted more than 150 years ago during the American Civil War.

The U.S. Army therefore must finally jettison the leitmotif from its counterinsurgency legacy that wars can be won by soldiers wearing velvet gloves and applying supposed cutting-edge, enlightened counterinsurgency methods designed to protect populations and bring about victories in a more precise and principled way. Former Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen encapsulated this rosy view of war in 2010 when he said:

We must not look upon the use of military forces only as a last resort, but as potentially the best, first option…we must not try to use force only in an overwhelming capacity, but…in a precise and principled manner. Ukraine and Gaza show that Sherman’s view of war as “cruelty” that cannot be “refined” is as correct today, and will likely remain so into the future, as it was in 1864.

Gian P. Gentile is a retired U.S. Army colonel, who served for many years as a history professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Gentile has also been a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and is a senior historian at the RAND Corporation as well as the Director of the RAND Arroyo Center.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.

Photo Description: Afghan National Army Commandos with the 6th Special Operations Kandak, patrol an alley in Tagab district, Kapisa province, Afghanistan, Feb. 11, 2013. The Commandos participated in counter-insurgency operations to clear the area of hostile strongholds.

Photo Credit: U.S. Army Photo by Pfc. James K. McCann, Some rights reserved

20. Army Uprising: Snowflakes Online Rants Go Viral

I still think we have to find a way to positively exploit this. Just discounting these as snowflake rants is not going to help. Perhaps the answer lies in this paragraph. I bet Russian and Chinese soldiers have far worse complaints but are prevented by fear and through coercion to never voice them.

Excerpt:

The situation begs the question of whether this is a uniquely American issue or if similar sentiments are found within the ranks of other nations’ armed forces. Are soldiers from countries like Russia and China facing the same struggles but choosing to remain silent, or is this a reflection of a broader generational shift in attitudes towards authority and institutional life?

Army Uprising: Snowflakes Online Rants Go Viral - FreshOffThePress

freshoffthepress.org · by Editorial Team · December 21, 2023

In recent times, a concerning trend has emerged from the ranks of the United States Army. A series of online videos have surfaced, showcasing young soldiers expressing their discontent with various aspects of military life. These digital outbursts, primarily shared on TikTok, have cast a spotlight on what some perceive as the cold realities of service, including complaints about inadequate food, insufficient pay, and an overall lack of personal freedom.

The phenomenon, which could be described as a “TikTok mutiny,” involves Generation Z army recruits who have taken to the platform over the past three years. Their grievances are not minor; they range from criticisms of the quality of meals provided to them, to challenges with fitness tests, and feelings that their pay does not reflect the demands of their roles. The overarching sentiment is one of disillusionment, with some going so far as to actively discourage others from enlisting.

Young members of the U.S. Army are throwing a TikTok “mutiny” to complain about “sh*tty food,” being pushed to stay in shape, their freedoms being “suppressed,” and more. pic.twitter.com/72z8L3i5hl

— Global Dissident (@GlobalDiss) December 18, 2023

One particular video that gained traction features a soldier lamenting the lack of privacy, respect from leadership, and sleep, alongside the need for better compensation. This viral spread of dissatisfaction among the troops is troubling, especially considering the potential implications for future recruitment and the morale of current service members.

Another soldier’s contribution to the discourse includes a list of reasons not to join the military, shared with his tens of thousands of followers. His points touch on the low pay and lack of autonomy experienced by soldiers, further fueling the narrative of discontent within the armed forces.

'TIKTOK MUTINY' | GEN Z SOLDIERS REBEL

Gen Z soldiers like Anthony Laster and Shemar Williams have turned to TikTok to discourage military enlistment.

"No Privacy, The Pay Sucks, Shitty Food, Disrespectful Leadership, NO SLEEP!” – Anthony Laster.

U.S. Army is already… pic.twitter.com/LPxrbpjpRE

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 18, 2023

The issue extends beyond individual complaints, as female soldiers have also voiced their concerns through the platform. Their objections mirror those of their male counterparts, suggesting that the sense of frustration is pervasive across gender lines. One female soldier warns her audience about the stringent physical requirements and the pressure to avoid injuries, which are often blamed on the soldiers themselves.

This online venting session has not gone unnoticed. It partially explains the alarming shrinkage of the military to its smallest size since before World War II. The candid sharing of these experiences paints a picture of a generation at odds with the traditional military structure and culture.

The response from the military has been to attempt a return to more traditional, perhaps masculine, advertising campaigns in hopes of addressing the severe recruiting shortfall. However, despite these efforts, the numbers continue to dwindle, raising questions about the effectiveness of current strategies to attract and retain personnel.

The situation begs the question of whether this is a uniquely American issue or if similar sentiments are found within the ranks of other nations’ armed forces. Are soldiers from countries like Russia and China facing the same struggles but choosing to remain silent, or is this a reflection of a broader generational shift in attitudes towards authority and institutional life?

As the military grapples with these challenges, it becomes clear that a new approach may be necessary to bridge the gap between the expectations of younger recruits and the realities of military service. The armed forces must find a way to address these grievances while maintaining the discipline and structure that are essential to their operation. Only then can they hope to restore the image of military life and reinvigorate their recruitment efforts.

freshoffthepress.org · by Editorial Team · December 21, 2023

21. Opinion | How the battle for democracy will be fought — and won

Add this to Gene Sharp's from Dictatorship to Democracy. Another tool in the democracy toolkit to fight the axis of authoritarians.

Opinion | How the battle for democracy will be fought — and won

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · December 21, 2023

Annals of Autocracy

Opinion How the battle for democracy will be fought — and won

By the

|

December 21, 2023 at 7:30 a.m. EST

(Washington Post staff/iStock images)

In September last year, three days after widespread protests broke out across Iran over the death of a young woman detained for not fully covering her hair with a hijab, the authorities blocked the internet.

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old from Iran’s Kurdistan province, had been visiting Tehran with her family when the morality police arrested her. Her family says she was beaten in jail, and she died in a hospital on Sept. 16. Around the country, people took to the streets, led by women demanding the right to dress as they chose.

The government cut off internet access in parts of Kurdistan, Tehran and elsewhere, according to NetBlocks, which tracks internet outages. Iran’s theocratic rulers apparently intended to keep demonstrators in the dark about protests spreading in neighboring towns and cities. Both WhatsApp and Instagram were shut down.

But a little-known channel helped millions of Iranians stay in the know. A nongovernmental organization in Los Angeles, NetFreedom Pioneers, had created a method to bypass the internet entirely and broadcast files — text, audio or video — from commercial satellites to anyone with a receiver dish. It is called Toosheh, or Knapsack. The group collected photos and news reports from social media platforms and elsewhere, uploaded them to a satellite and then down to homes in blacked-out Iran. The news was easily shareable on a flash drive.

Toosheh, founded by an Iranian émigré, brought fresh and uncensored information into a censored country, offering a ray of hope in the struggle between forces of dictatorship and democracy.

For more than a decade and a half, autocracy has been steadily advancing around the globe. Dictators routinely arrest their foes, including those demanding basic rights such as freedom of expression. But they have modernized their methods, taking control of the internet and using it to broadcast disinformation while censoring the truth. They have forced independent media to close and aimed surveillance at social media and the people who use it. They have created firewalls and imposed internet shutdowns. Freedom House found in its latest annual survey of political rights and civil liberties that democracy has been in decline for 17 years — and one of the biggest drivers has been attacks on freedom of expression.

But there are ways to confront the forces of authoritarianism, especially on the information battlefield, where the future of democracy may be decided for millions of people. The stakes are enormous: Will open societies thrive and grow, or will more of the globe fall under the sway of dictatorships such as the one in China, where information manipulation is the norm and surveillance technology watches over everyone, all the time?

Breaking through the firewalls

What makes Toosheh effective is its simplicity. It uses existing technology and current set-top boxes and commercial satellite receivers. Although Iran’s government has tried to prohibit ownership of satellite dishes, the ban is barely enforced, and they have proliferated. Evan Firoozi, executive director of NetFreedom Pioneers, estimated that Toosheh has reached 10 percent of the households in Iran, which has a population of about 90 million.

How Toosheh works

• The tool embeds digital files — such as images, text and audio files — into a video stream.

• The video is uploaded to a satellite and broadcasted in a free signal that can be captured by satellite dishes around the globe.

• The idea is that people flipping through satellite TV channels would eventually bump into the broadcast.

• For those on the receiving end, the channel looks like a slideshow that explains how to download and decode the files.

• Users can record the slideshow stream, save it to a computer or flash drive, and then use a special app to extract the content packages.

• The packages can contain news articles, music, PDFs and software. They can also include educational content, such as yoga and photography classes, and entertainment, such as funny videos.

How Toosheh works

• The tool embeds digital files — such as images, text and audio files — into a video stream.

• The video is uploaded to a satellite and broadcasted in a free signal that can be captured by satellite dishes around the globe.

• The idea is that people flipping through satellite TV channels would eventually bump into the broadcast.

• For those on the receiving end, the channel looks like a slideshow that explains how to download and decode the files.

• Users can record the slideshow stream, save it to a computer or flash drive, and then use a special app to extract the content packages.

• The packages can contain news articles, music, PDFs and software. They can also include educational content, such as yoga and photography classes, and entertainment, such as funny videos.

Every day, Toosheh recipients can download 1.2 gigabytes of data an hour for up to four hours. The files are scrambled but reassembled on arrival into their native formats, such as videos, photos or texts, transferrable directly to a flash drive. The system requires nothing new — the satellites are already in position, and NetFreedom Pioneers can be up and running in any part of the world in less than 24 hours. It is rapidly scalable. While Iran has tried periodically to jam the satellite signals in some places, it hasn’t been able to block the transmissions entirely or permanently.

“One of the main reasons for the protests to spread around the country is that people are hearing that other people are protesting,” Mr. Firoozi told us. “So they get the courage to go out and start protesting.” Toosheh delivers straight news so people can see what is happening elsewhere. The project could be used for closed societies outside Iran, such as Afghanistan under the Taliban, as well as for populations caught in wars or natural disasters.

Another promising approach is known as internet circumvention, allowing people online to pierce firewalls, evade censorship and gain free access to independent information from around the globe. Not long ago, circumvention techniques, such as virtual private networks (VPNs), which create a separate, protected tunnel through the internet, were a niche technology with an uneven record. Now they have improved, and the number of users has exploded.

From 2012 to 2019, Radio Free Asia nurtured an in-house pilot program, the Open Technology Fund, to find ways to evade censorship and surveillance for both its audiences and its journalists. In 2019, the effort was spun out into an independent nonprofit, with congressional funding of $40 million this year, working to bolster circumvention tools and protect the security and privacy of users. Previously, users looked to circumvention tools only when there was a crisis — there would be a spike, then usage would settle back down. “In the last two years, that has completely changed,” Laura Cunningham, the fund’s director, told us. The circumvention tools, apps such as Psiphon and Lantern, have become an everyday reality. As many as 1 in 4 adults in Iran are using them. Worldwide, the number of average monthly users of the circumvention tools supported by the Open Technology Fund has soared from 9 million to 40 million.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty saw demand for its coverage soar, about half of it from Russia and half from Ukraine. (The organization suspended operations inside Russia following years of pressure from the government, relocating staff to Prague and elsewhere.) To avoid censorship or interference from Moscow, the Open Technology Fund scrambled in a matter of months to build a system of mirror sites that would allow users in Russia to seamlessly access the RFE/RL news stories from social media without using a complex VPN. The sites are essentially reproductions, and users from within Russia can get to them unimpeded when they click on short URLs. They are now in place for 342 websites of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, assuring that such outlets as Voice of America and RFE/RL can continue to reach audiences in closed societies. The mirrors remove the burden from the user, making circumvention much easier for millions of readers and viewers.

Helping protesters see one another

In China’s authoritarian system, the knowledge of protests — what happened, where and when — is prohibited information. The government stopped publishing data about “mass incidents” more than a decade ago, and independent researchers who collected it have been arrested. China fears contagion: If people find out others are protesting, they might be inspired to follow. There are many protests in China, but the censors go to great effort to scrub them from news and social media, especially when they start to get shared.

All through the summer and early autumn last year, protests took place against China’s rigid “zero covid” policy, which imposed draconian lockdowns. Then, on Nov. 24, came a fire in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region in western China that is home to a persecuted minority, the ethnic Uyghurs. Around 8 p.m., a high-rise residential building erupted in flames. With the area locked down for covid, at least 10 people — and maybe as many as 44 — were killed, trapped in the building. The blaze deepened the anger in the country.

Two days later, students at a university in Nanjing began holding up blank sheets of paper, a protest tactic to evade censorship or arrest while also mocking it. The white-paper protests spread to other universities, and then demonstrations broke out in major cities. Freedom House’s China Dissent Monitor found 75 protest events that week. Social media posts, protest signs and other images spread online faster than China’s censors could scrub them; people learned about others’ grievances, protests and dissent.

A month earlier, a courageous dissident, Peng Lifa, had hung protest banners from the Sitong Bridge in Beijing just as the Communist Party was convening for its congress held every five years. He criticized zero-covid policies and demanded political reform, including the ouster of President Xi Jinping. After the Urumqi fire, in demonstrations in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, protesters invoked language from Mr. Peng’s banner, including “We don’t want lockdowns, we want to eat.” The result was a decentralized movement — people were communicating indirectly through signs and slogans.

China’s security services rounded up students in the white-paper protests. But it was too late. The movement had rattled China’s leadership. On Dec. 7, Mr. Xi abruptly reversed the zero-covid policy.

A key takeaway: Seeing people actively protest inspires others who share their dissatisfaction. Making this happen is a goal of the China Dissent Monitor, a project that Freedom House started last year. Using artificial intelligence and other methods, it harvests and preserves information about dissent from multiple sources before Chinese censors erase it and charts the events in a database, creating an open record. While it is still difficult to get the information disseminated inside China, the group is trying different channels, including VPNs. The China Dissent Monitor has also built a gallery of photos and videos of demonstrations inside the country, a kind of Instagram of Chinese protest that is a powerful tool to show China’s people the breadth of activism — just what the government wants to hide.

During the white-paper protests, Li Ying, a Chinese artist in his 30s living in Italy, known as “Teacher Li,” had a huge impact. Out of reach of China’s censors, he collected protest information and images sent to him on Twitter, then broadcast them in a stream of reports in real time, becoming a singular point of contact for those who wanted to know what was happening. Through Mr. Li, the protesters were able to “see” one another. Although Twitter is blocked in China by the Great Firewall, people on the mainland can access it through VPNs. According to the Wall Street Journal, his posts from late November to mid-December last year had more than 1.3 billion views, a brilliant example of circumvention at work.

Mr. Li wrote an open letter to the Chinese authorities in the early days of the protests, saying he had received death threats and insisting they back off. “I’m not afraid of you anymore,” he wrote. “Don’t try to silence me.” He warned he would be replaced by others if anything happened to him.

Toward a new playbook

While these efforts are pushing back against autocracy, democracies need to do far more.

Russia and China, friends “without limits,” often assert that democracy has run its course, that it is incapable of governing, that authoritarian models work better. President Vladimir Putin of Russia told a conservative audience recently that the ideas of the United States have become “decrepit” and added, “We see it, and everyone sees it now. It is getting out of control and is simply dangerous for others.” Both Russia and China have launched fusillades of disinformation intended to confuse people, besmirch democracy and subvert it from within. For example, Facebook announced recently that it had removed 4,789 fake accounts based in China that were impersonating Americans and intended to create chaos in the lead-up to next year’s U.S. presidential election. The illiberal regimes are at war with the democracies on the battlefield of information and ideas. The democracies are taking a battering — and need to respond.

Sanctions are slow and don’t often result in change. For instance, the United States in August sanctioned 101 officials in Belarus for falsifying results of the 2020 election there, including visa bans on judges who sentenced people to prison for social media posts. But the Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, went right on arresting people and imprisoning them.

The United States has a well-established set of programs to advance democracy, overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy. They provide training in independent media, draft laws, bolster civil society and encourage free elections around the world. There’s also important work in journalism from the outlets under the U.S. Agency for Global Media, such as Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America, which are designed to offer straight news and information and thus contribute to advancing democratic ideals. They are essential. But the existing U.S. government democracy effort, about $3 billion a year, less than four-tenths of a percent of the defense budget, is grossly under-resourced compared with the investments made by Russia and China.

It has long been true that the strongest argument for democracy around the world is the example of the United States. But the showcase is no longer enough. Powerful dictatorships that rely on deceit and manipulation are using new tools and technologies. Democracies need new thinking to respond.

One place to start is to build an uninhibited rebuttal of the narrative offered by dictatorships. A counternarrative must assert the basic values and ideals of democracy in a way that is credible and persuasive. The world’s democracies should create a system to fight back that can speak plainly and consistently about the inherent advantages of democratic systems, while admitting the imperfections, and use creative ways to illuminate the flaws and depredations of authoritarian regimes.

This will require hard work by the Biden administration, Congress and democratic allies around the world. It must go beyond summits and talking. Perhaps there is a model in the way that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation reimagined problem-solving in global public health. Or perhaps existing U.S. organizations — such as Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Agency for Global Media — and similar groups here and abroad can, together, build a renewed campaign. It will require a major boost in resources. It must speak with absolute clarity; foreign audiences will be sensitive to spin and put off by clumsy sloganeering.

The mission is no less than explaining to the world why freedom matters to everyone, every day.

Authoritarian regimes often suffer brain drain. Open societies should leverage this for a renewed battle for democracy, taking advantage of talent spread around the world. Diasporas are rich with knowledge and should be brought into the effort.

Another idea is to focus more urgently on countries that are sliding backward but have not yet fallen entirely into dictatorship. It makes sense to catch them sooner rather than later. Remember the shining moment when Sudan’s population seemed headed for a democratic opening after the overthrow of dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir? Could more have been done to save Sudan’s future for democracy before it fell into civil war? Often there is a fragile and rapidly closing window for action.

These are a few ideas, but the most important message is that autocracy is on the march in today’s world, and democracy must confront this profound threat.

The Washington Post · by Editorial Board · December 21, 2023

22. Preventing conflict in the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula

Excerpts:

The main takeaway from this conference was the imperative to enhance bilateral and multilateral dialogue and cooperation, with a focus on reducing existential threats and fostering regional and global stability and security.

Indeed, witnessing Russia’s war in Ukraine, with significant casualties and suffering, and Israel’s war with the Hamas terrorist organization, and the heavy casualties and suffering in Israel and Gaza, it’s doubly important that the U.S. and China work harder at ensuring that we not only prevent any future conflict between our two countries in the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait but that we ALSO collaborate to end ongoing conflicts and prevent the potential for a future war on the Korean Peninsula.

As we correctly analyze what more we could have done to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine and what preemptive actions could have been taken to prevent Hamas from its barbaric attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, future generations will look back on how well we managed U.S.-China relations to ensure that conflict was prevented, and cooperation was enhanced for the common good of all nations.

Preventing conflict in the South China Sea and the Korean Peninsula

Working for the common good of all nations

washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

In this image from video handout provided by the Philippine Coast Guard, a Chinese Coast Guard ship, bottom, uses water cannon Philippine coast guard patrol ship, BRP Cabra, center, as it approaches Second Thomas Shoal, locally known as Ayungin Shoal, … In this image from video handout … more >

By Joseph R. DeTrani - - Thursday, December 21, 2023

OPINION:

At a Track 2 conference (former officials and academics) with China on U.S.-China relations, convened after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, conference in San Francisco, one of the subjects discussed was the need to avoid military confrontation.

There was considerable discussion about tension in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait and the need to establish rules of engagement to reduce risks in maritime encounters.

A good portion of that discussion dealt with the ongoing pressure from China on the Philippines in the South China Sea and China’s interference with Philippine efforts to resupply a small Philippine garrison on the Second Thomas Shoal.

Cited were Chinese coast guard vessels and fishing boats actively interfering with Philippine efforts to resupply the garrison, disabling a Philippine vessel with water cannons, and colliding with another Philippine vessel. In response, the U.S. made it clear to China that an armed attack against Philippine forces would activate the U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty.

Most thought that tension in the South China Sea could quickly and unexpectedly escalate, with the potential for eventual conflict. Indeed, the sense was that it was the South China Sea that required immediate attention. Tension in the Taiwan Strait with the coming presidential elections in January was also of concern, especially given Chinese naval and air activities around Taiwan.

All agreed that restoring leadership communications and military-to-military relations were positive deliverables from the summit of President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the APEC conference.

But it will be incumbent on these senior officials, with expanded communications with Cabinet and lower-level officials, to ensure that our two countries don’t stumble into accidental conflict and war due to misunderstanding or miscommunications related to developments in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

Also discussed was the exponential escalation of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities and the potential for conflict on the Korean Peninsula and throughout Northeast Asia. China’s leadership role in convening the Six-Party Talks with North Korea was discussed, with some commentary on the value of China again working with the U.S. to get North Korea back to the negotiating table.

These and other issues were discussed, including Russia’s invasion of and war with Ukraine and Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 Israeli and foreign nationals and taking 236 hostages. Economic challenges, climate change and managing artificial intelligence were other issues discussed, all requiring greater U.S.-China collaboration.

The main takeaway from this conference was the imperative to enhance bilateral and multilateral dialogue and cooperation, with a focus on reducing existential threats and fostering regional and global stability and security.

Indeed, witnessing Russia’s war in Ukraine, with significant casualties and suffering, and Israel’s war with the Hamas terrorist organization, and the heavy casualties and suffering in Israel and Gaza, it’s doubly important that the U.S. and China work harder at ensuring that we not only prevent any future conflict between our two countries in the South China Sea or Taiwan Strait but that we ALSO collaborate to end ongoing conflicts and prevent the potential for a future war on the Korean Peninsula.

As we correctly analyze what more we could have done to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine and what preemptive actions could have been taken to prevent Hamas from its barbaric attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, future generations will look back on how well we managed U.S.-China relations to ensure that conflict was prevented, and cooperation was enhanced for the common good of all nations.

• Joseph R. DeTrani served as special envoy for the Six-Party Talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006 and as director of the National Counterproliferation Center. The views expressed here are the author’s and not those of any government agency or department.

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washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com