Quotes of the Day:
“Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.”
- Peter Drucker
"Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider."
- Francis Bacon
"I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians."
- Charles de Gaulle
1. Biden to award three Medals of Honor for combat actions in Iraq, Afghanistan
2. NSA Sullivan: US "will take every action" to prevent forced absorption of Taiwan by China
3. These countries have announced diplomatic boycotts of the Beijing Olympics
4. From ‘Maximum Pressure’ to ‘Minimal Resistance’
5. Winning the Fight Taiwan Cannot Afford to Lose
6. Fellow Guardsmen Push for Soldier in Jan. 6 Mob to Be Allowed to Continue Serving
7. New National Defense Strategy to Be Released Early 2022
8. Concept of Integrated Deterrence Will Be Key to National Defense Strategy, DOD Official Say
9. Integrating deterrence across the gray — making it more than words
10. Taiwan Has Proven Possibilities of Alternative Path to Chinese Communist Party, DOD Official Says
11. Behind the smokescreen of Kremlin lies lurk the Russian military deployments
12. China’s democracy is about social concerns, not ‘who’s the coolest, who’s the handsomest’: scholars
13. The Indigenous Approach: The Premier Partnered Irregular Warfare Force - Maj. Gen. Angle on the Command's Vision
14. EXPLAINER: What does an Olympic diplomatic boycott achieve?
15. Left of Beep: The United States Needs an Algorithmic Warfare Group
16. Xi Jinping’s New World Order- Can China Remake the International System?
17. FDD | The Middle Kingdom Meets Higher Education
18. SEAL Team 8 commander died Tuesday following training accident
19. Taming the “Grey Zone”
20. US 'democracy summit' a master class in hypocrisy
21. Falsifying Russia’s History Is a Step Toward More Violence
22. By Land, Sea, Air: Green Berets Get Mission-Ready
1. Biden to award three Medals of Honor for combat actions in Iraq, Afghanistan
Finally, due recognition.
Is the awards process broken?
Biden to award three Medals of Honor for combat actions in Iraq, Afghanistan
Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee, left, Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe and Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Celiz are expected to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's top award for valor in combat, this month. (U.S. Army photos)
Today at 3:28 p.m. EST|Updated today at 6:58 p.m. EST
The Biden administration is planning to award Medals of Honor to three U.S. soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to people familiar with the matter, a group that includes the first Black service member to be recognized with the nation’s top combat distinction for either conflict.
The soldiers are Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, who suffered mortal injuries in Iraq while rescuing fellow soldiers from a burning vehicle in 2005; Master Sgt. Earl Plumlee, a Special Forces soldier who fought off Taliban suicide bombers in Afghanistan in 2013; and Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Celiz, an Army Ranger who died after stepping between Taliban fighters targeting a U.S. helicopter evacuating his fellow soldiers in 2018.
Recognition for each — the nation’s highest for battlefield valor — could happen as soon as Dec. 16, four current and former U.S. officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of an expected White House announcement.
Spokespeople for the White House and the Pentagon declined to comment.
The awards come as the administration pivots away from 20 years of counterinsurgency wars, and four months after a chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan in which some Americans and Afghan partners were left behind. Advocates have long pressed for awards for Cashe and Plumlee after earlier nominations were denied, while Celiz’s case surfaced more recently.
Each case entails extraordinary circumstances.
Cashe, 35, was a platoon sergeant on Oct. 17, 2005, when his hulking Bradley Fighting Vehicle rolled over a bomb near Samarra, Iraq. The blast ruptured a fuel tank inside the vehicle, setting the vehicle and soldiers inside on fire. Cashe, despite suffering initial injuries in the explosion, stepped into the fiery vehicle’s back door numerous times to pull soldiers to safety. He died about three weeks later.
Cashe, of Oviedo, Fla., was quickly nominated for the Silver Star, the U.S. military’s third-highest award for valor in combat. But as the details of his actions became clear, his case entered a bureaucratic purgatory in which his commanding officers nominated him for the Medal of Honor, and the Army declined to approve it.
Cashe will become the first Black U.S. service member to receive the Medal of Honor for actions in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Cashe’s sister, Kasinal Cashe White, said in a phone interview on Wednesday that she could not be any happier.
“After 16 years of just emotional torture for us, he’ll get what he deserves,” she said, her voice catching. “It means that all this time, I’ve been right: My baby brother will go down in history. It means a poor boy from Oviedo did it right.”
White said she was waiting to hear more details from U.S. officials so that she can book plane tickets for the White House ceremony.
“If they would make the official announcement so that the family can make plans, that would be great,” she said.
Plumlee was a staff sergeant with 1st Special Forces Group on Aug. 28, 2013, when Taliban fighters detonated a 400-pound truck bomb, breaching the outside wall of his base in Ghazni, Afghanistan. He found himself in a firefight in which suicide bombers blew themselves up no more than a few feet away from him, and he engaged them at point-blank range.
Plumlee, in a 2016 interview with The Washington Post, recalled taking fire from numerous directions, with some rounds missing his head by mere inches. At one point, he shot an insurgent, and the man’s suicide vest detonated in a ball of fire.
“I thought a tank had hit him with its main gun, or something,” Plumlee recalled. “I actually looked around to see if the Polish tanks had showed up.”
Plumlee was recommended for the Medal of Honor by his commanding officers, and received backing from several top generals, including Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., who went on to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But the Army decided in 2015 to award Plumlee the Silver Star instead, prompting then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter to request an inspector general investigation of the case. Army officials involved in the process gave investigators varying reasons why they did not support the case, triggering outcry from combat veterans who have long thought the Medal of Honor review process is too arbitrary.
Plumlee, who previously served as a Marine, said he did not “lie awake every night burning up with anger” about how his award had been downgraded. But he did have friends who were angry about it, he said.
“I kind of have mixed emotions about it,” Plumlee said in 2016. “I kind of have a lot of trust in the system, but if somebody says it’s broken, maybe it is.”
Celiz, 32, was a combat engineer with the elite 75th Ranger Regiment on July 12, 2018, when he stepped out from behind cover and put himself between a U.S. helicopter carrying out a medical evacuation and enemy fighters who peppered the aircraft with gunfire, according to an Army account of the battle.
A pilot in the helicopter, Capt. Ben Krzeczowski, credited Celiz, of Summerville, S.C., with protecting them.
“My aircraft would have been critically damaged if it weren’t for Chris, and we owed him our lives,” said Krzeczowski, who received a Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in the same battle.
Celiz was on his fifth deployment with his Ranger battalion, and had previously deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan before joining the elite unit.
Other cases are still under review, U.S. officials said.
By law, Medals of Honor must be awarded within five years of the combat action recognized, but in legislation passed early this year, Congress cleared a path for additional consideration for Cashe, Plumlee and two other soldiers. One of them, retired Col. Ralph Puckett, 95, received the Medal of Honor in May for valor in the Korean War in 1950. No resolution has emerged in the case of the other veteran, Dwight Birdwell, who received two Silver Stars for valor in Vietnam in 1968.
Dan Lamothe joined The Washington Post in 2014 to cover the U.S. military and the Pentagon. He has written about the Armed Forces for more than a decade, traveling extensively, embedding with each service and covering combat in Afghanistan numerous times. Twitter
2. NSA Sullivan: US "will take every action" to prevent forced absorption of Taiwan by China
There is actually more in this article about Russia, Ukraine, and Iran than China and Taiwan.
Excerpts:
A reporter asked: “Some observers have described a nightmare scenario where President Putin invades Ukraine and also, simultaneously, President Xi [Jinping, 習近平] uses force to ‘reunify’ Taiwan with China. Is the US prepared to deal with such a scenario?”
“The United States is going to take every action that we can take, from the point of view of both deterrence and diplomacy, to make sure that the Taiwan scenario you just described never happens and to try to avert the invasion and deter the invasion into Ukraine,” Sullivan said.
“The sum total of the efforts we have undertaken over the course of the past eight months in the Indo-Pacific have also all been geared towards avoiding any kind of scenario where China chooses to invade,” he said.
Thu, Dec 09, 2021 page1
- US promises ‘action’ in China scenario
- BIDEN-PUTIN TALKS: The national security adviser said Washington’s efforts over the past eight months in the Indo-Pacific have been to avoid an invasion scenario
- AP, WASHINGTON
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The US “will take every action” in diplomacy and deterrence to prevent the forcible unification of Taiwan by China in concurrence with a hypothetical Russian invasion of Ukraine, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday.
Sullivan made the comment at a White House news conference following a teleconference between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier that day over the military standoff between Russia and Ukraine.
A reporter asked: “Some observers have described a nightmare scenario where President Putin invades Ukraine and also, simultaneously, President Xi [Jinping, 習近平] uses force to ‘reunify’ Taiwan with China. Is the US prepared to deal with such a scenario?”
- US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan speaks at a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The United States is going to take every action that we can take, from the point of view of both deterrence and diplomacy, to make sure that the Taiwan scenario you just described never happens and to try to avert the invasion and deter the invasion into Ukraine,” Sullivan said.
“The sum total of the efforts we have undertaken over the course of the past eight months in the Indo-Pacific have also all been geared towards avoiding any kind of scenario where China chooses to invade,” he said.
Biden and Putin were still far apart after their two hours of talks on a crisis caused by Moscow massing of tens of thousands of troops near the border with Ukraine.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with US President Joe Biden via a video call in Sochi on Tuesday.
Photo: AFP
Biden delivered a simple message: Invade Ukraine again and face painful sanctions that will do resounding harm to your economy.
Putin had his own blunt take, telling the US president that “the Russian troops are on their own territory, and they don’t threaten anyone,” said Yuri Ushakov, who advises Putin on foreign affairs.
With no immediate breakthrough to ease tensions on the Ukraine question, the US emphasized a need for diplomacy and de-escalation, while issuing stern threats to Russia about the high costs of a military incursion.
Biden “told President Putin directly that if Russia further invades Ukraine, the United States and our European allies would respond with strong economic measures,” Sullivan said.
Biden told Putin that the US would also “provide additional defensive material to the Ukrainians ... and we would fortify our NATO allies on the eastern flank with additional capabilities in response to such an escalation,” Sullivan said.
White House officials said that Biden is not interested in sending US troops to defend Ukraine.
However, Sullivan said that potential efforts to bolster regional allies could lead to additional deployments of troops to eastern European NATO allies.
Ushakov dismissed the sanctions threat during his own comments to reporters following the leaders’ meeting.
“While the US president talked about possible sanctions, our president emphasized what Russia needs,” Ushakov said. “Sanctions aren’t something new, they have been in place for a long time and will not have any effect.”
He described the presidents’ video conference as “candid and businesslike,” adding that they also exchanged occasional jokes.
In a brief snippet of the start of their meeting that was broadcast by Russian state television, the two leaders offered friendly greetings to each other.
“I welcome you, Mr President,” Putin said, speaking with a Russian flag behind him and a video monitor showing Biden in front of him.
At the White House, Sullivan called it “a useful meeting,” allowing Biden to lay out in candid terms where Washington stands.
Sullivan said that Biden and Putin had a “good discussion” on efforts to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power and called it an area where the two countries could cooperate.
“The more Iran demonstrates a lack of seriousness at the negotiating table,” the more there will be a sense of unity among the US and the parties to the 2015 nuclear accord, including Russia and the EU, he said.
Additional reporting by staff writer
3. These countries have announced diplomatic boycotts of the Beijing Olympics
So far.
These countries have announced diplomatic boycotts of the Beijing Olympics
Several countries, including Canada and Australia, have announced they will join the U.S. in a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to protest human rights abuses committed by China's government.
Driving the news: Leaders have faced pressure from human rights groups and others to boycott the Games, pointing to the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China's Xinjiang region and other abuses.
Countries that have announced diplomatic boycotts include....
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United States: White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Team USA athletes "have our full support," but the U.S. will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Games, citing "the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses."
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Australia: Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia would follow the U.S. in a diplomatic boycott, calling it the "right thing to do."
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Canada: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted that "Canada remains deeply disturbed by reports of human rights violations in China. As a result, we won’t be sending diplomatic representatives to Beijing for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games."
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United Kingdom: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that no U.K. ministers would attend the Games, saying it was “effectively” a diplomatic boycott.
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Lithuania: Several Lithuanian officials have announced they will not attend the Games, per public broadcaster LRT.
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The big picture: A Chinese official told Reuters that the U.S. would "pay a price," warning of countermeasures though not explicitly stating what they may be.
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The Chinese Embassy in Australia issued a statement accusing Australia's government of "political posturing."
Worth nothing: New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson told reporters Tuesday that NZ officials also wouldn't attend the Beijing Games, citing "a range of factors but mostly to do with COVID."
Editor's note: This story will be updated as more announcements are made.
4. From ‘Maximum Pressure’ to ‘Minimal Resistance’
Excerpts:
Step one requires scheduling a special IAEA Board meeting to condemn Iran’s nuclear advances and safeguards violations and give Tehran a deadline for compliance. If Iran fails to meet the board’s deadline, the board should refer Iran’s case back to the U.N. Security Council.
At the Security Council, the United States and the E3 must “snap back” international sanctions on Tehran that are currently suspended under Resolution 2231, which enshrines the JCPOA. Russia and China can veto new Iran sanctions at the Security Council, but a provision in the JCPOA means they cannot prevent the restoration of prior resolutions and their penalties.
Separately, the U.S. and Europe must backstop international pressure with action of their own. The parties must prepare a new set of sanctions that would be triggered absent Iran’s clear nuclear restraint and rollback.
In addition, America must bolster its military deterrence against Iran. Washington should express an unambiguous willingness to use force to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. The administration can try to change Iran’s impression about American will by forcefully responding to drone and rocket attacks from Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq and by empowering the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s newly established “Task Force 59,” which can become an effective tool against Iranian maritime escalation. Ultimately, the Islamic Republic is unlikely to change course unless it knows that further malfeasance invites ruin.
Iran’s amassing of atomic knowledge and its willingness to run greater risks is driving it closer to the nuclear weapons threshold, after which stopping Tehran’s forward momentum might be impossible. In a 2012 debate, then-Vice President Biden said of Iran, “facts matter.” President Biden must recognize the fact that his Iran policy risks giving birth to an Iranian threshold nuclear capability. Washington should embrace pressure before it’s too late.
From ‘Maximum Pressure’ to ‘Minimal Resistance’
The Biden administration has barely responded to Iran’s escalation of its nuclear program.
(Photograph by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Last week marked the first time the Biden administration partook in indirect negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s new ultra-hardline government. Unsurprisingly, after days of discussion, no deal was clinched to revive the faltering 2015 nuclear accord. Iran made maximalist demands and upended initial agreements reached during previous rounds of talks. Washington now faces the uphill challenge of containing Tehran’s expanding nuclear program while recalibrating its Iran policy.
Tehran is increasingly comfortable with reducing international monitoring of its atomic activities and making irreversible nuclear advancements on the ground. The regime may even be inclined to push uranium enrichment to weapons grade. Tehran’s more recent boldness stems in great part from signals Washington sent throughout 2021 that the United States is unwilling to hold the regime accountable.
A close look at Iran’s nuclear advances over the past two and a half years shows Tehran’s most egregious nuclear violations occurred under Biden’s watch. The Trump administration’s May 2018 withdrawal from the nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), provided an avenue—and political argument—for Iranian escalation, yes. But withdrawal merely expedited the fait-accompli of Iran’s growing enrichment capacity. It didn’t create it. The 2015 accord had already allowed for significant Iranian nuclear expansion after 2026.
Tehran’s initial responses to Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign was to absorb what it hoped would be a short-lived attempt at unilateral sanctions. In May 2019, however, Iran embarked on a policy of graduated escalation in which it incrementally and overtly breached the JCPOA’s limits. The regime also embraced other forms of escalation—particularly in the maritime and regional domains—in hopes of generating sufficient fear and leverage to make the Trump administration end its mounting pressure policy.
Despite early fears that Tehran might use the withdrawal to dash to a weapon, at the start of 2020, even nonproliferation experts supportive of the JCPOA assessed that Iran was not expanding its nuclear program as quickly as it could. While Tehran touted the end of all nuclear-related restrictions and continued growing its uranium stockpile, its advances up until late 2020 paled in comparison to the nuclear risk-taking that followed.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, candidate Joe Biden sought a sharp contrast with the Trump administration’s Iran policy, which he critiqued as risky and war-prone. By pledging to restore the deal Trump left, which offered sanctions relief in exchange for temporary nuclear limitations, the Biden team implied that military force would not be on the table as a tool of counterproliferation.
Weeks after Biden’s election, Iran’s Guardian Council approved a new parliamentary law mandating a significant escalation of the country’s nuclear activities. Both events would foreshadow the conflicting sensibilities guiding Washington and Tehran in 2021: risk-aversion and restraint by the former and risk-tolerance and escalation by the latter.
Starting in January 2021, Iran resumed enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity, a level technically considered highly enriched and an activity that Tehran had paused in 2014. Iran carried this out at Fordow, a highly fortified enrichment bunker that the West failed to shutter in previous rounds of nuclear talks. In February, the regime pulled out of an inspection agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that gives greater insight into nuclear activities, and threatened to delete agency recordings and data at relevant Iranian sites. In April, Iran began to enrich uranium to 60 percent purity, a historic first for the Islamic Republic, putting it a stone's throw from 90 percent, the ideal level for atomic weapons.
In 2021, Iran also began to phase-in hundreds of advanced centrifuges, machines that can more efficiently produce enriched uranium than older, JCPOA-permitted models. Advanced machines are essential for any Iranian attempt to “sneak out” of its nonproliferation commitments—read: Make a covert dash for a bomb.
In August, Iran reportedly produced 200 grams of uranium metal using 20 percent enriched uranium. Tehran has no immediate civilian need for the material, which can be used in the core of a nuclear weapon.
Iran also stepped up production of advanced centrifuge parts days ahead of the latest nuclear talks. On the third day of negotiations, Tehran started enriching uranium at Fordow using a cascade of advanced centrifuges known as the IR-6, which can enrich uranium at more than five times the speed of Iran’s first-generation machines.
The totality of these moves have implications for a future nuclear weapons program and offer the Islamic Republic technical and engineering feats that cannot be unlearned, regardless of any deal.
The U.S. response to Iran’s advances has been almost non-existent. Along with its European partners, Washington failed to backstop the IAEA—even as its director general likened Tehran’s reduced monitoring as putting the agency in a position of “flying in a heavily clouded sky.” At all quarterly IAEA Board of Governors meetings in 2021, the parties failed to censure Tehran over nonproliferation safeguards violations.
Moreover, in the absence of vigorous U.S. sanctions enforcement and additional penalties against illicit Iranian oil exports, Tehran continued selling oil to China, providing the Islamic Republic with greater financial incentive to resist diplomatic entreaties for restraint.
In 2021, the Biden administration also resisted taking a hardline against Iran-backed terrorism and other activities. Washington removed Iran-backed militants in Yemen from the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list, gave only a muted response to the attempted kidnapping of a U.S. citizen on American soil, and reportedly withdrew missile defenses from the Middle East at a time when Iran’s missile capabilities were rapidly evolving.
Throughout, the Biden administration continued denigrating the notion of pressure on Iran and showed no real indication of a “Plan B,” other than blaming its predecessor.
Put differently, the Biden campaign, and later the administration’s own words and deeds, cemented an impression for Iran’s leaders that America was uncomfortable with escalation and eager for any agreement—even a lesser one—that could be spun as capping Iran’s nuclear program. Underwriting this view was the United States’ bungled exit from Afghanistan in August. As the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said a month later, “The America of today is not the America of the past ten, twenty, or thirty years.” Without counterpunches from Washington, Tehran’s revolutionaries proved once again that old habits die hard: The regime pocketed each concession and continued escalating.
Predictably, Iran has come to the latest negotiations with an attitude of obstinance, levying major demands for sanctions easing, and making the U.S. and European quest to return to the deal nearly futile. On December 3, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—the “E3”—issued one of their clearest and sternest rebukes, noting, “Over five months ago, Iran interrupted negotiations, and since then, Iran has fast-forwarded its nuclear program.” The E3 concluded, “Time is running out.”
As is evident from the timeline of Iran’s nuclear advances, an American willingness to turn the other cheek has only invited additional escalation. Yet Tehran’s economy, still faltering from Trump-era sanctions, remains vulnerable to revived international pressure. To change Iran’s calculus, Washington and its European counterparts must now flip the script.
Step one requires scheduling a special IAEA Board meeting to condemn Iran’s nuclear advances and safeguards violations and give Tehran a deadline for compliance. If Iran fails to meet the board’s deadline, the board should refer Iran’s case back to the U.N. Security Council.
At the Security Council, the United States and the E3 must “snap back” international sanctions on Tehran that are currently suspended under Resolution 2231, which enshrines the JCPOA. Russia and China can veto new Iran sanctions at the Security Council, but a provision in the JCPOA means they cannot prevent the restoration of prior resolutions and their penalties.
Separately, the U.S. and Europe must backstop international pressure with action of their own. The parties must prepare a new set of sanctions that would be triggered absent Iran’s clear nuclear restraint and rollback.
In addition, America must bolster its military deterrence against Iran. Washington should express an unambiguous willingness to use force to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. The administration can try to change Iran’s impression about American will by forcefully responding to drone and rocket attacks from Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq and by empowering the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s newly established “Task Force 59,” which can become an effective tool against Iranian maritime escalation. Ultimately, the Islamic Republic is unlikely to change course unless it knows that further malfeasance invites ruin.
Iran’s amassing of atomic knowledge and its willingness to run greater risks is driving it closer to the nuclear weapons threshold, after which stopping Tehran’s forward momentum might be impossible. In a 2012 debate, then-Vice President Biden said of Iran, “facts matter.” President Biden must recognize the fact that his Iran policy risks giving birth to an Iranian threshold nuclear capability. Washington should embrace pressure before it’s too late.
Behnam Ben Taleblu is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Andrea Stricker is research fellow. They both contribute to FDD’s work on Iran and non-proliferation matters. Follow Andrea on Twitter @StrickerNonpro. FDD is a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
5. Winning the Fight Taiwan Cannot Afford to Lose
Winning the Fight Taiwan Cannot Afford to Lose
by Drew Thompson
About the Author Drew Thompson is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Senior Research Scientist at CNA Corporation.
Key Points
◆ Taiwan has begun to embrace a new asymmetric defense approach focused on fighting in the littoral with smaller, more survivable systems. This is key to defeating a Chinese invasion.
◆ Support from President Tsai Ingwen has been high but there is resistance from some senior members of Taiwan’s defense establishment who favor more expensive conventional systems.
◆ Personnel recruitment and logistics are two key elements that the Overall Defense Concept and Taiwan’s defense strategy need to address.
◆ The United States should not only provide critical defense items to Taiwan but also help Taipei refine its new defense strategy and improve interoperability between U.S. and Taiwan armed forces.
6. Fellow Guardsmen Push for Soldier in Jan. 6 Mob to Be Allowed to Continue Serving
So I wonder how this PFC (or anyone who participated in an insurrection) will answer the questions below for his security clearance?
Are you now or have you EVER been a member of an organization dedicated to terrorism, either with an awareness of the organization's dedication to that end, or with the specific intent to further such activities?
Have you EVER knowingly engaged in any acts of terrorism?
Have you EVER advocated any acts of terrorism or activities designed to overthrow the U.S. Government by force?
Have you EVER been a member of an organization dedicated to the use of violence or force to overthrow the United States Government, and which engaged in activities to that end with an awareness of the organization's dedication to that end or with the specific intent to further such activities?
Have you EVER been a member of an organization that advocates or practices commission of acts of force or violence to discourage others from exercising their rights under the U.S. Constitution or any state of the United States with the specific intent to further such action?
Have you EVER knowingly engaged in activities designed to overthrow the U.S. Government by force?
Have you EVER associated with anyone involved in activities to further terrorism?
Fellow Guardsmen Push for Soldier in Jan. 6 Mob to Be Allowed to Continue Serving
The chain of command for a National Guardsman who pleaded guilty to being a part of the mob that ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 is closing ranks and begging the Army to allow him to continue serving.
Pfc. Abram Markofski is set to be sentenced Friday. He faces up to six months in prison and has already agreed to pay a $500 fine for his role in the riot, which did an estimated $1.4 million in damage to the Capitol.
The mob, which Markofski has admitted to joining, stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the peaceful transition of power, one of the most perilous moments for democracy in the history of the country that the soldier had sworn an oath to defend.
As part of a plea agreement, federal prosecutors are seeking a two-week prison sentence, according to court records.
A spokesperson with the Wisconsin Guard would not say whether the state is considering giving Markofski the boot, or if he was deployed to Washington, D.C., as a part of the state's mission to secure the Capitol following Jan. 6. Markofski's lawyer did not respond to requests for comment ahead of this article's publication.
Markofski serves in Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry Regiment, a National Guard unit based in River Falls, Wisconsin. He also attended Special Forces Selection in October, a course to weed out which soldiers qualify to attempt a career in the Green Berets, but failed the physical fitness test and was swiftly sent home, according to a spokesperson for the special warfare center and school.
Multiple Army leaders penned character statements for Guard officials and the Department of Justice, saying Markofski was caught up in the moment and that he should be able to continue his military career. Five soldiers who wrote character references supporting Markofski -- including one officer, four noncommissioned officers, and one junior ranked soldier who served as Markofski's team leader -- all either did not respond to Military.com's request for comment or said that they were told they were forbidden from communicating with the press.
"I am fully aware of the severity of PFC Markofski's actions. I understand that he must be held accountable for his actions," 2nd Lt. Joel Stevenson, Markofski's platoon leader, said in a letter. "My most humble request is that you allow him to continue service. In my professional opinion as one of his mentors, and as a witness of PFC Markofski's moral character, I truly believe that he is an asset to the United States Army."
Federal prosecutors say Markofski and a friend traveled more than 800 miles to Washington, D.C., from Madison, Wisconsin, to attend a rally held by then-President Donald Trump, who urged his supporters to march on the Capitol as the election he lost was being certified, saying they should "never concede" and that if they "don't fight like hell," they "aren't going to have a country anymore."
Markofski admitted to being in the building for at least 40 minutes, after a swarm of thousands of Trump supporters assaulted police officers and managed to get inside of the heart of the U.S. government.
Some of his fellow Guardsmen say that the days when he traveled to D.C. and participated in the violent mob do not represent Markofski's character.
"I believe that his actions on January 6th were due to a bad decision without ill or malicious intent," Sgt. 1st Class Tristan Babl, Markofski's platoon sergeant, said in a memo. "In discussions with him, he has taken responsibility for his actions and to the best of my knowledge, been honest and truthful about the event. I do not have any concerns with PFC Markofski's continued service in my platoon. If given the opportunity to continue his career, I have no doubt that he would continue to be an invaluable asset to his unit and the [Wisconsin Army National Guard]."
His team leader, Spc. Kenneth Stowe, said Markofski's secret security clearance is under review and that the events of Jan. 6 were a "lapse of judgment on his part" that should not affect the rest of his career.
The Guard has been slow to take action against members accused of participating in the violence at the Capitol as their legal cases have progressed. There's nothing requiring that the Guard wait for the conclusion of those cases, and service members often are forced out quickly for nonviolent infractions, such as smoking marijunana. Another Guardsman, Cpl. Jacob Fracker, a Virginia Guard infantryman, is in a non-drilling status but hasn't been removed from the service component.
"The events of Jan. 6 were a great way for the military to come to understand the real world effects of the disinformation and targeting of our community," Kristofer Goldsmith, an Army veteran and CEO of Sparverius, an intelligence firm that researches online extremism and disinformation campaigns, said in an interview. "What the military considers a problem vs. permissible is fundamentally wrong. If you're an insurrectionist, you deserve to be brought to justice. If you smoke a joint, it is at the end of a career -- insurrection is exponentially worse."
Many of those involved in the Capitol attack held the false belief that the election was stolen from Trump, despite there being no evidence of that being the case. Extremism in the military has been a top focus of Pentagon officials this year. However, there is virtually no data showing how entrenched extremist beliefs are in the ranks.
7. New National Defense Strategy to Be Released Early 2022
Note the response to the criticism on the Global Posture Review.
Also Note the NSS will come out before the NDS. I wonder how closely the authors of the two documents are coordinating and synchronizing their efforts as these two strategies are obviously being written and coordinated nearly simultaneously.
New National Defense Strategy to Be Released Early 2022
The document will follow the release of the new National Security Strategy.
A new National Defense Strategy is expected to be released early next year following the release of the other strategic documents, the Pentagon’s top policy official said Wednesday.
“We have a number of strategic reviews underway all at the same time. We have the National Defense Strategy, and then nested under that will be the Nuclear Posture Review and the Missile Defense Review. And of course, the NDS itself is nested under the National Security Strategy. So, I think we should expect that the National Security Strategy will come out first, shortly followed by the NDS. I would hope that we would see that early in the new year,” said Colin Kahl, defense undersecretary for policy, at Defense One’s 2022 Outlook 2022 conference.
The current National Defense Strategy,dates to 2018. Released by former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis under President Trump, it announced a pivot toward great power competition with China as well as Russia and other adversarial states. President Biden’s administration released its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance document in March.
The Pentagon finalized the Global Posture Review on Nov. 29, ahead of the upcoming National Defense Strategy and National Security Strategy because the White House tasked the department to provide it sooner, Kahl said. The posture review also informs the upcoming NDS, which will then inform future posture decisions.
“All these things are living frameworks,” he said.
Kahl pushed back on criticism surrounding the release of the Global Posture Review and the expectation that it would provide major strategic shifts as the DoD pivots towards great power competition, especially in the Indo-Pacific region. The review is classified and the Pentagon only released a statement and held a news conference to describe its contents.
“I understand the criticism, but I think it fundamentally misunderstands the purpose of the document. The purpose of the document was not to define our global posture for all time. Instead, it's largely a strategic framing and disciplining document. It's meant to provide a structure around which the department can prioritize not only our current posture, but the posture decisions we make in the months and years ahead,” he said.
Kahl highlighted the “major muscle movements” they are making in the Indo-Pacific region, which the posture review identified as the priority theater.
“We announced rotational fighter and bomber deployments to Australia. That kind of got lost in all the other news about AUKUS, but it's a big deal,” he said. “Meanwhile, we're making investments and improving our infrastructure in places like Japan, Guam, and the Pacific Islands and in Australia.”
Other posture review-related decisions include permanently stationing a previously rotational attack helicopter squadron and an artillery division headquarters in the Republic of Korea as well as improvements to shipyards in Guam and other regional locations.
8. Concept of Integrated Deterrence Will Be Key to National Defense Strategy, DOD Official Say
A component of resilience, particularly among our allies, should be unconventional deterrence.
I would frame integrated deterrence as a trinity: nuclear deterrence, conventional deterrence (built on the foundation of our alliance system), and unconventional deterrence (The premise is simple – deter unwanted competition with little risk of escalation through the credible threat of unconventional warfare.
The goal of UD is not to destabilize the societies of our enemies, rather the goal of UD is to deter our enemies from destabilizing our own society, and those of our Allies and Partners. See HERE)
Excerpts:
"We also have to make ourselves more resilient because frankly, we know that our adversaries have developed theories of victory, cognizant that they wouldn't do particularly well in a protracted conflict with the United States," he said. "So they don't intend to fight a protracted conflict. Instead, they intend to blind us and deafen us and slow us down."
Information operations against the United States may cause the United States to turn inward focused on domestic matters, he said. "We have to make our systems and our networks and our critical infrastructure much more resilient, so that they can ride out early attacks on those networks that are aimed to prevent us from moving forward to defend our allies," he said. "Resilience will be a major theme."
The nuclear deterrent remains important. "The secretary has spoken about the need to continue modernizing the nuclear triad to make sure that we have a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent as the ultimate backstop," Kahl said. "But we'll also develop additional capabilities."
Finally, the whole alliance system is crucial to integrated deterrence. "We have to work alongside our allies and partners so that our adversaries know that they're not just taking on the United States, they're taking on a coalition of countries who are committed to upholding a rules-based international order," Kahl said.
Concept of Integrated Deterrence Will Be Key to National Defense Strategy, DOD Official Say
While the National Defense Strategy won't be released until next year, it is no secret that the concept of integrated deterrence will play a large part in the document.
210420-F-ZB805-0760
Air Force Staff Sgt. Jacob Heaton provides training to the Łask, Poland Air Base fire department about danger zones and how to approach an F-15E Strike Eagle while it is running in April. The U.S. and Polish military forces work together to build interoperability across all domains.
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Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, fleshed out the concept during the Defense One Outlook 2022 summit. He said the concept "will inform almost everything that we do."
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has spoken about the concept since taking office last January. He calls it a new way of approaching deterrence.
Kahl discussed both sides of the concept: integration and deterrence. "In terms of integrated … we mean, integrated across domains, so conventional, nuclear, cyber, space, informational," he said. "[It is also] integrated across theaters of competition and potential conflict [and] integrated across the spectrum of conflict from high intensity warfare to the gray zone."
The concept in this case also means integration of all instruments of national power. Most importantly it means being "integrated across our allies and partners, which are the real asymmetric advantage that the United States has over any other competitor or potential adversary," Kahl said.
Tradewinds 2021
Army Capt. Will Nogueras, a Florida National Guard team leader, maintains surveillance during Tradewinds 2021, Camp Seweyo, Co-operative Republic of Guyana in June. Tradewinds 2021 is a U.S. Southern Command sponsored Caribbean security-focused exercise in the ground, air, sea and cyber domains, working with partner nations to conduct joint, combined and interagency training focused on increasing regional cooperation and stability.
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While deterrence has been the heart of U.S. defense policy since the Cold War, it has a different meaning as part of integrated deterrence, he said. "We need to think about deterrence differently given the existing security environment, and the potential scenarios for conflict that we're trying to deter," Kahl said. "We at [the] Department of Defense need to have the capabilities and the concepts to deny the type of rapid fait accompli scenarios that we know potential adversaries are contemplating, so they can't make a rapid lunge at our partners and allies before they believe the United States can show up."
The United States must be able to deny those scenarios.
"We also have to make ourselves more resilient because frankly, we know that our adversaries have developed theories of victory, cognizant that they wouldn't do particularly well in a protracted conflict with the United States," he said. "So they don't intend to fight a protracted conflict. Instead, they intend to blind us and deafen us and slow us down."
Information operations against the United States may cause the United States to turn inward focused on domestic matters, he said. "We have to make our systems and our networks and our critical infrastructure much more resilient, so that they can ride out early attacks on those networks that are aimed to prevent us from moving forward to defend our allies," he said. "Resilience will be a major theme."
Group Meeting
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers remarks during the Ukrainian Navy day part of Exercise Sea Breeze 2021, July 4, 2021. Exercise Sea Breeze is a multinational maritime exercise co-hosted by U.S. Sixth Fleet and the Ukrainian Navy in the Black Sea since 1997. Sea Breeze 2021 is designed to enhance interoperability of participating nations and strengthen maritime security and peace within the region.
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Photo By: Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Trey Fowler
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The nuclear deterrent remains important. "The secretary has spoken about the need to continue modernizing the nuclear triad to make sure that we have a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent as the ultimate backstop," Kahl said. "But we'll also develop additional capabilities."
Finally, the whole alliance system is crucial to integrated deterrence. "We have to work alongside our allies and partners so that our adversaries know that they're not just taking on the United States, they're taking on a coalition of countries who are committed to upholding a rules-based international order," Kahl said.
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9. Integrating deterrence across the gray — making it more than words
I hope the staffers drafting the NSS and especially NDS will read and consider the ideas in this paper.
Integrating deterrence across the gray — making it more than words
By Katie Crombe, Steve Ferenzi and Robert Jones
Dec 8, 09:12 PM
“The United States has yet to articulate a comprehensive approach to deterring competitors in the gray zone.”
— Kathleen H. Hicks, et al.
Much over the course of the past year has been said (and re-said) about “integrated deterrence.” From our point of view, deterrence is fundamentally about shaping adversary decision calculus which requires, inter alia, communication. Communication is about messaging and perceptions. Yet, in today’s discussions on integrated deterrence, we are losing sight of this important relationship. Integrating deterrence is not so much about developing the perfect strategy that incorporates allies or the interagency, and even less so about working across every military domain. This is nothing new. Instead, right now it is more about articulating what is missing — the political, cognitive, and irregular spaces of the gray zone where China, Russia, and Iran (among others) are actually advancing their interests. While we are not trailblazing a new idea here, it is important to revisit certain fundamentals. The gray zone was a side show during the counterterrorism era, and we cannot afford to let it fade another shade lighter now. The military must remain proactive in competition, and ready for crisis and conflict, not just one of them.
Irregular warfare is not the panacea, but it is perhaps the best opportunity space to shape adversary decision calculus in ways that other military tools cannot. The exhaustive argumentation over defining integrated deterrence, “strategic competition,” or any other moniker is not where we should spend time. A “good enough” answer is visible, and we must act to prevent further erosion of our advantages. This good enough answer involves two practical aspects: expanding the aperture beyond a traditional understanding of deterrence to account for irregular warfare and acknowledging the unique role that special operations forces play in campaigning to deter states in the gray zone. Special operations forces do this now and look to expand their strategic effectiveness in the future.
Baselining deterrence theory — setting up for expansion
Denial makes potential opposing actions infeasible or too costly, usually through some form of defense that makes the adversary think twice before acting. Punishment, on the other hand, threatens severe penalties for unacceptable behavior, usually through retaliation in kind or in escalation. Underpinning both mechanisms is the clarity and credibility of the deterrent signal — the message and perception. If the adversary cannot understand the message or does not believe it, then it is moot and may lead to a deterrence failure.
Integrated deterrence will be a cornerstone of the next national defense strategy, so it is vital to scope the concept correctly. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is right to acknowledge a role for integrated deterrence to address gray zone challenges, which nests neatly with the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance to “better compete and deter gray zone actions.” However, there is danger that high-end challenges like space and nukes may sideline it. We offer considerations for campaigning in the gray zone — focused on irregular warfare, to ensure it becomes more than a platitude. Ultimately, what we are focused on are those problematic acts of competition occurring below the threshold of traditional deterrence. This is where “war without fighting” is waged.
Irregular and gray — closing the gap in a non-traditional way
Enter irregular warfare as a solution. Irregular warfare offers human-focused deterrence to close the gap by expanding on traditional methods of denial and punishment. The Swiss model of deterrence by resistance is one such example that has been subject of discussion since the 1980s, with the idea recently entering serious dialogue in the security community for today’s challenges. We propose three forms of (irregular) deterrence by denial to add to the body of deterrence literature and practice: cognitive access denial; physical denial through support to resistance; and financial access denial. We also offer two forms of (irregular) deterrence by punishment: unconventional warfare; and subversion.
Financial access denial can deny adversaries the influence derived from coercive economic statecraft. This approach hardens partner commercial sectors and influencers against adversary proxy, patronage, or corruption networks and state-owned enterprises. Counter-threat finance proved essential in the counter-violent extremism fight. While Chinese infrastructure spending through One Belt, One Road is qualitatively and quantitatively different than threat finance in Iraq, adapting those tools and enhancing the scale and scope of interagency tools like those found in the Treasury and Commerce Departments could prove critical to deterring gray zone behavior. This is also an entree for increased partnership with the commercial sector and a greater societal approach to strategic competition.
Punishment through unconventional warfare involves supporting resistance movements to destabilize places critical to the strategic interests of adversaries, whether internal or external to their borders. Punishment by subversion similarly may include imposing costs and creating dilemmas indirectly through cognitive and virtual vectors by shaping and amplifying grievances that divert resources, challenge adversaries’ cohesion, and undermining their strategic positions.
Counter-revolution, not evolution
For irregular warfare, we have an opportunity to optimize that utility now and effect a counter-revolution that returns special operations forces’ employment to its roots in psychological warfare, building partner resilience, support to resistance, sabotage, and subversion. We offer five key aspects of how special operations forces enable (irregular) deterrence in the gray zone.
Relationships with allies and partners. The global special operations forces network enables long-term relationships — a vital center of gravity with allies, partners, and nongovernmental organizations — that provide an advanced understanding of resilient and exploitable populations. Special operations forces integrate with these populations to reduce information stovepipes, assure allies and partners, and enhance signaling. Fostering societal resilience against subversion makes adversary coercion more difficult, while hardening partner forces and populations simultaneously assures allies and partners of U.S. commitment to their defense.
Presence and understanding. Deterrence requires assessing relative national power and interests through the lens of the human dimension to better conduct holistic net assessments that account for our own capabilities as well as those of potential adversaries and partners. Special operations forces’ access to key leaders and populations, and persistent forward presence in both permissive and denied environments — including the information environment and across the electromagnetic spectrum — enable a more robust net assessment of U.S., partner, and adversary power to apply the right tool at the right place and time to deter. This includes collection on and defeat of “hard targets” across military domains.
Continuing habitual linkages with interagency. Special operations forces are proven team players who build coalitions, which can (with the proper authorities) naturally extend the scope, scale, and reach of deterrent tools across the interagency. When dealing with adversary economic coercion, special operations forces can serve as a tipping and cueing function to agencies such as the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Controls by enhancing sanctions support capability on the ground or in the information environment. Likewise, special operations forces can amplify State Department-led public diplomacy at the country team level through military information support operations and civil-military engagement, or via U.S.-based operational support. Overall, special operations forces’ unobtrusive, small footprint can augment interagency efforts to create time and space for policy makers, mitigate violence, and foster understanding, influence, and interpersonal relationships.
Deterring Where it Matters
China and Russia erode America’s position of advantage because we often lack the will, theories of victory, and future-looking concepts to challenge them in the gray zone. “Integrating” deterrence will not solve this until we move beyond legacy ideas that hamstring our approach — limiting factors that exist not only in our budgets, but between our ears. This means expanding the aperture beyond a traditional understanding of deterrence — acknowledging that irregular warfare is a critical missing ingredient — and that special operations forces are uniquely suited to serve as an integrator in this approach. To close the gap and make integrated deterrence a reality we can start with a few actions across strategy, legislation, and daily campaigning.
First, the next national defense strategy must explicitly account for irregular warfare as a tool for strategic competition and deterring gray zone actions. The 2018 National Defense Strategy created momentum but ultimately relegated irregular warfare to an annex. While placing it in an annex may have served to “focus efforts,” we need irregular warfare to instead serve as an integrated cornerstone. Explicitly weaving irregular warfare into the primary document would elevate its importance as a signal to the entire defense enterprise, and more importantly — to our adversaries and challengers.
Next, the Defense Department can work with Congressional partners to revise legislation that inhibits the combatant commands’ ability to foster partner nation resilience against China and Russia. This could include updating Section “333″ — currently geared toward building partner capacity to conduct counterterrorism, border security, and maritime security operations, to a wider remit including strategic competition. It also should include revising Title 10 U.S. Code § 322 to remove the “primary purpose clause” that limits the purpose of joint combined exchange training exercises to training U.S. special operations forces as the primary mission. This will allow a refocus on fostering partner nation resilience against coercion and subversion as a priority objective. We could start with the next National Defense Authorization Act, similar to how the Fiscal Year 2022 proposal directs a briefing on the progress of the Irregular Warfare Annex’s implementation.
Closing the gray zone deterrence gap requires a little bit of critical thinking to move outside our comfort area and venture into spaces where China and Russia are making gains. At a minimum this means conceptually expanding on traditional methods of deterrence by denial and punishment — by using irregular warfare. These ideas should be adopted into strategy, legislation, and campaigning — beginning with the coming national security strategy and national defense strategy.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Special Operations Command, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Lt. Col. Katie Crombe is an Army Strategist and Director of the U.S. Special Operations Command Central J5 Strategy, Plans, and Policy Division. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in National Security Affairs from the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. She is also a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute and has published previously in War on the Rocks and Army Magazine.
Lt. Col. Steve Ferenzi is an Army Strategist and Special Forces officer in the U.S. Special Operations Command Central J5. He contributed to the development of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the 2018 National Defense Strategy and holds a Master of International Affairs Degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Mr. Robert C. Jones is a retired Army Special Forces Colonel and the principal strategist for the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Donovan Integration Group. He holds a Juris Doctorate Degree from the Willamette University College of Law, a Masters in Strategic Studies from the Army War College, and is a non-resident fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS).
Editor’s note: This is an Op-Ed and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please contact Military Times managing editor Howard Altman, haltman@militarytimes.com.
10. Taiwan Has Proven Possibilities of Alternative Path to Chinese Communist Party, DOD Official Says
Excerpts:
Through smart investments and key reforms, Taiwan can send a clear signal that its society and armed forces are committed and prepared to defend Taiwan, Ratner said, adding, "Without question, bolstering Taiwan self-defenses is an urgent task and an essential feature of deterrence."
Tsai Ing-wen, the president of the Republic of China, has prioritized the development of asymmetric capabilities for Taiwan's self-defense that are credible, resilient, mobile, distributed and cost-effective, he noted. "Asymmetric capabilities, however, are only one part of the deterrence equation. Taiwan must complement investments in these critical capabilities with equal focus on enhancing resilience, supporting civil-military integration and building a strategy that includes defense in depth."
In addition to the provision of defense, arms and services to Taiwan, the Defense Department remains committed to maintaining the capacity of the United States to resist the resort to force or other forms of coercion that might jeopardize the security of the people on Taiwan, he said, noting, "and let me be clear that this is an absolute priority."
Taiwan Has Proven Possibilities of Alternative Path to Chinese Communist Party, DOD Official Says
In stark contrast to deepening authoritarianism and oppression in the People's Republic of China, Taiwan has proven the possibilities of an alternative path to the Chinese Communist Party, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told a Senate panel today.
Ocean Ops
The guided-missile destroyer USS Barry conducts routine underway operations in the South China Sea, Nov. 21, 2020. Barry is forward-deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific
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Ely Ratner testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the future of U.S. policy in Taiwan.
"Unfortunately, although the PRC publicly advocates for peaceful unification with Taiwan, leaders in Beijing have never renounced the use of military aggression," he told Senate members. "In fact, the [The People's Liberation Army] is likely preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force while simultaneously attempting to deter, delay or deny third-party intervention on Taiwan's behalf."
The PRC threat to Taiwan, however, is not limited to invasion or blockade, he noted, adding the PLA is conducting a broader coercive campaign in the air and maritime domains around Taiwan. "These operations are destabilizing, intentionally provocative, and increase the likelihood of miscalculation," Ratner said.
Nevertheless, he added, although the PLA's actions are real and dangerous, and PLA modernization is unlikely to abate, the PRC can still be deterred through a combination of Taiwan's own defenses, its partnership with the United States and growing support from like-minded democracies.
Celebratory Handshake
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III congratulates Ely Ratner after administering the oath of office to the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, on Air Force E-4B en route to Singapore, July 25, 2021. This was part of a seven-day trip that included Singapore, Hanoi, Vietnam, and Manila, the Philippines, meeting with key leaders reaffirming defense relationships and conducting bilateral meetings with senior officials.
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Through smart investments and key reforms, Taiwan can send a clear signal that its society and armed forces are committed and prepared to defend Taiwan, Ratner said, adding, "Without question, bolstering Taiwan self-defenses is an urgent task and an essential feature of deterrence."
Tsai Ing-wen, the president of the Republic of China, has prioritized the development of asymmetric capabilities for Taiwan's self-defense that are credible, resilient, mobile, distributed and cost-effective, he noted. "Asymmetric capabilities, however, are only one part of the deterrence equation. Taiwan must complement investments in these critical capabilities with equal focus on enhancing resilience, supporting civil-military integration and building a strategy that includes defense in depth."
In addition to the provision of defense, arms and services to Taiwan, the Defense Department remains committed to maintaining the capacity of the United States to resist the resort to force or other forms of coercion that might jeopardize the security of the people on Taiwan, he said, noting, "and let me be clear that this is an absolute priority."
The PRC is DOD's pacing challenge and a Taiwan contingency is the pacing scenario, Ratner said. "We are modernizing our capabilities, updating U.S. force posture and developing new operational concepts accordingly. [The] department's efforts to deter PRC aggression and enhance Taiwan's defenses will not be in isolation. Countries throughout the Indo-Pacific and beyond recognize the PRC aggression against Taiwan would have serious consequences for their own interests in our increasingly voicing concerns about PRC coercion and potential aggression against Taiwan.
Takeoff Time
An MH-60R helicopter, assigned to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 51, takes off from the flight deck of the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin) as it conducts routine operations in the Taiwan Strait, Aug. 18, 2020. Mustin is forward-deployed to the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.
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"As evidenced by a number of recent multilateral operations and exercises, the department is focused on enhancing our regional cooperation as a means of bolstering deterrence," he said.
11. Behind the smokescreen of Kremlin lies lurk the Russian military deployments
Behind the smokescreen of Kremlin lies lurk the Russian military deployments - EU vs DISINFORMATION
Spread of pro-Kremlin disinformation tries to conceal the true breadth and intentions behind Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine.
Such troop movements are not unheard of; we all might still remember a similar build-up that took place last April, which now looks like a dress rehearsal for the ongoing deployment. Nevertheless, this time both the official rhetoric and the bellicose talk on pro-Kremlin outlets make the situation far more worrisome from both Ukrainian and the Western perspectives.
Never believe anything until it is denied by pro-Kremlin outlets
Bad habits die hard
Talks about “spheres of influence” and “limited sovereignty of nations” to freely decide over their future and destiny, are yet another indicator of the Kremlin’s failure and inability to see history as it truly was, and draw the conclusions necessary to try not to repeat their old mistakes.
A re-evaluation of past wrongdoings could start, for example, by the Kremlin reaffirming the Russian commitment to “respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine” and to “refrain from the threat or use of force” against Ukraine, as laid out in the Budapest Memorandum on security assurances.
Other notable pieces of disinformation:
12. China’s democracy is about social concerns, not ‘who’s the coolest, who’s the handsomest’: scholars
From the Chinese propaganda mouthpiece the Global Times. How do you characterize these four foreign scholars writing from China? Have they been co-opted or coerced? Who is funding their work in China?Are they useful idiots or something more?
China’s democracy is about social concerns, not ‘who’s the coolest, who’s the handsomest’: scholars - Global Times
The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee presides over the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in Beijing, capital of China. Photo: Xinhua
Editor's Note:
The so-called Summit for Democracy hosted by the Biden administration kicked off on Thursday. Many have seen this event as an attempt to isolate China, which the US portrays as a non-democratic country. How do knowledgeable foreign scholars view China's democracy? Four scholars from Russia, the UK, the US, and Germany shared their points of view with the Global Times in this regard.
Yury Tavrovsky, head of "Russian Dream-Chinese Dream" analytic center of the Izborsk Club.
Beijing does not try to teach democracy with Chinese characteristics to other peoples. At first glance democracy with Chinese characteristics looks as unusual as Chinese characters. There is no alphabet and there are no letters in Chinese but whole words written in the form of characters. Chinese democracy also operates not with individuals but with masses of people.
China's political system today is as different from Western democracy as Chinese characters are from the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets. But it does not make this system inferior or less attractive. The Chinese call their political system "people-centered socialist democracy" and they have gained remarkable and globally eye-catching social and economic achievements. They have also developed an efficient market economy, which is the second biggest in the world. In the past 10 years they have rapidly improved the livelihoods of Chinese people and eliminated poverty for the first time in human history. Per capita GDP as well as national GDP have doubled and the middle class is now about 450 million people.
The Chinese political system for several decades has avoided populist radicalism. Despite incomes inequalities, vicious conflicts have been prevented among different social groups. Although Chinese people sometimes express opinions on the internet in a fierce manner, China's social governance has generally maintained order.
The Chinese call their political system "whole-process people's democracy" and it is firmly based on local traditions and current realities. It looks as harmonious in the Chinese political landscape as a beautiful pagoda. To challenge it with a rather shaky and dilapidated Western skyscraper is not wise and may even be dangerous.
Martin Jacques, a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University until recently, a visiting professor at the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University, and a senior fellow at the China Institute, Fudan University
The West believes that its model is universal and has long sought to impose it on others. In contrast, China believes its model is not for export, that it is distinctive to China, although, that said, the developing world is seeking to learn as many lessons as it can from it.
The Western attempt, in this context, to present the future of governance as a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism entirely misses the point. The challenge facing the world, whatever the tradition of governance, is the quality and effectiveness of governance. It is on this ground that the West is losing the argument and will lose it even more decisively in the future.
China, in contrast, does have a concept of the world that is integral to the history of Chinese civilization, namely tianxia, or "all-under-heaven." In the era of globalization and climate change, a concept of the world, rather than just the nation-state is essential. That is why the Chinese proposition for a "shared destiny for mankind" is fundamental to a new way of thinking about the world and democracy.
Kenneth Hammond, professor of East Asian and global history at New Mexico State University
Western-style democracy overwhelming has been self-defined as having elections on some basis. Here in the US, we have elections at set intervals. At those intervals, voters can go to the polls, and they vote. The way that they make their decisions is strongly influenced by the money that gets spent on advertising and propaganda, and all these other things. But that is what we think of as democracy.
China's process is very different, because it's not based on this kind of public display of a political debate and then "let's pick the winner". It involves a lot of what we might consider a consultative process. They may have somewhat divergent ideas, opinions, and proposals about policies. Those things get articulated in a variety of ways. A lot of that is going on within the membership of the Communist Party of China. The thing that's difficult for people in the West to understand or work with is the idea that there's a lot of debate, discussion, contention, rivalry, and different points of view. That process in China doesn't go on the front page. In China, you don't make a big display. But instead, that process goes on, and then once decisions are reached, once a kind of consensus emerges, then the question becomes putting that into practice, and that's when things move out into the public sphere.
That's very consistent with China's traditional political culture. That idea is it's not good for people to contend with each other for who's the coolest, who's the most electable, who's the handsomest, or things of that nature. Petty interests debated in public don't make for good government. It's very different from the way things have been done here, especially in the modern period in the West. I do think it's a democratic process in China. It's not the same kind of process that we have here. But it is a process that leads to the articulation and the effective management of social concerns.
Peter Herrmann, professor at the Human Rights Centre at the Law School, Central South University, China, and member of the European Academy of Science and Arts
Democracy is about human rights. Democracy is about the climate of trust.
In the West, if there is something going wrong, when there are complaints with respect to so-called liberal rights or political rights, there is a huge outcry, in particular when it happens in countries like China, Cuba, or in Latin America. However, when the same happens to economic and social rights, no voice is heard. In many European countries, hospitals do not have sufficient capacity; important surgeries are being delayed because of the new waves of the pandemic. This is important for democracy: First and foremost, I have to survive, and then I can think about how I want to get involved.
The other thing is that of course it is not just about surviving. Human rights are about having rights to determine one's own life, the way I want to live. This is about a way of living together with others.
What strikes me here in China is "trust". When I arrived here, I didn't have my own telephone number, nor could I surf the internet. People gave me the internet connection. All I did on the internet was on their record. They trusted me not to abuse it.
I see other small things like this. Food is ordered and left on the table, in a large room or on the fences (by delivery guys). You would not trust anybody in Europe to do this. But here, people trust that others won't take it.
Human rights are about trust and trust is about having conditions in which I can trust. If I live under conditions where I have completely fend for myself, , then that is a completely different story.
13. The Indigenous Approach: The Premier Partnered Irregular Warfare Force - Maj. Gen. Angle on the Command's Vision
MG Angle describes "who we are" the command's vision - mission, value, and culture.
The Indigenous Approach
1st Special Forces Command (Airborne)
-
Government 4.8 • 49 Ratings
The Premier Partnered Irregular Warfare Force - Maj. Gen. Angle on the Command's Vision
Listen on Apple Podcasts
In this episode, we sit down with Maj. Gen. Richard Angle to discuss the command's new Vision: a one-page document titled "Who We Are."
You can find the new Vision document here: https://www.soc.mil/USASFC/HQ.html
14. EXPLAINER: What does an Olympic diplomatic boycott achieve?
EXPLAINER: What does an Olympic diplomatic boycott achieve?
GENEVA (AP) — Diplomatic boycotts of the Olympics aim to snub host nations while keeping athletes free to compete.
A small cascade of government boycotts hit China on Wednesday, less than two months before the Beijing Olympics open.
The impact of these political weapons on athletes at the games should be close to zero, and viewers should see no difference in their broadcast content.
Their aim is calculated to hurt the pride of host nations such as China, which often have both sports and politics mixed into their motives for staging events as big as an Olympics or soccer’s World Cup.
In Australia, then the United Kingdom and Canada, governments announced their refusal to send officials to the Winter Games being held Feb. 4-20. The move against China started in the United States on Monday.
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Those countries are longtime diplomatic allies that want to shine attention on China’s human rights record, and especially the treatment of its Muslim-majority Uyghur people that some call genocide.
The sting will also be felt by the International Olympic Committee, whose leaders have a keen sense of its potential place in world politics even while touting the neutrality it is bound to by the Olympic Charter.
IOC leaders like to burnish the Olympic brand by saying their sports event is the only one to bring more than 200 national teams together in peace and friendship as an example to the world.
Any diversion from the message of global unity is unwelcome.
OLYMPIC MISSION
The Olympic Charter is the code of rules and bylaws that governs the IOC and “sets forth the conditions for the celebration of the Olympic Games.”
Rule 2 relating to the “Mission and role of the IOC” helps explain why any boycott is treated as an affront to its principles.
It includes: “To take action to strengthen the unity of the Olympic Movement, to protect its independence, to maintain and promote its political neutrality and to preserve the autonomy of sport.”
For the IOC, political neutrality should mean not calling out an Olympic host nation for its policies and conduct outside of sports or not connected to staging the games.
“We always ask for as much respect as possible from the political world and the least possible interference on our sports and Olympic world and ideals,” senior IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch said this week.
BOYCOTT HISTORY
The IOC still carries emotional scars from the peak period of more than 100 countries combined staging full boycotts of three straight Summer Games from 1976 to 1984.
The 1976 Montreal Olympics was hit mostly by African countries protesting New Zealand taking part after its rugby team toured Apartheid-era South Africa.
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The 1980 Moscow Olympics went ahead without the United States and dozens of other teams protesting the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
The Soviet bloc and some allies retaliated with a boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Thousands of athletes missed competing at an Olympic Games four decades ago. None should miss the Beijing Winter Games because of a diplomatic boycott.
VIP VISITORS
Who will stay at home instead of traveling to Beijing next February? Senior lawmakers and diplomatic officials, mostly, when the opening ceremony is held Feb. 4.
There is no diplomatic obligation on heads of state to attend an Olympic Games, and attending a Winter Games is less of a hot ticket than the summer edition.
It is, however, nice to show up for an old ally’s party or build alliances with potential new friends.
Then-President George W. Bush went to Beijing for the opening of the 2008 Summer Games that was supposed to be a coming-out party for a more welcoming China.
Pence found himself in an awkward situation sitting close to North Korea’s delegation at an opening ceremony at Pyeongchang that became a celebration of a relatively short-lived thaw in relations between the Korean neighbors.
The Korean accord had been warmly encouraged by the IOC, seeming to bend its definition of political neutrality to the limit.
CHINA’S REACTION
China’s reaction to the spreading diplomatic boycott has ranged from “not bothered at all” to “clearly quite bothered.”
The U.S. announcement Monday prompted the Chinese Embassy in Washington to publish in a tweet: “In fact, no one would care about whether these people come or not, and it has no impact whatsoever on the #Beijing2022 to be successfully held.”
In Beijing, the foreign ministry said the Americans were interfering “out of ideological prejudice and based on lies and rumors.”
Australia was dismissed Wednesday as “immature, arrogant and stupid to follow the US” by the Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper. “Countries with rationality would think of the interests of their own people instead of cooperating with the US’ futile stunt.”
FUTURE REPRISALS
Adding piquancy to the current boycott is that it’s being done by reliable recent and future Olympic host nations.
The U.S. and Australia hosting the Summer Games, in 2028 at Los Angeles and 2032 in Brisbane, could provoke Chinese reprisals.
American Olympic officials are also likely to seek IOC support for staging the Winter Games again at Salt Lake City, which was also the 2002 host.
Canada hosted the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and when London staged the 2012 Olympics, the mayor of the city was Boris Johnson. He announced the U.K.’s diplomatic boycott in its parliament Wednesday as prime minister.
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More AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
15. Left of Beep: The United States Needs an Algorithmic Warfare Group
Another AWG
Conclusion:
Reviving a scrappy concept that grew out of a war focused on counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism for AI-powered great-power war may seem as ridiculous as gluing a giant ladybug to a Stryker’s turret. But keep in mind Willie’s wisdom that “it’s all just data,” and it starts to make a lot more sense.
Left of Beep: The United States Needs an Algorithmic Warfare Group - War on the Rocks
“We look like assholes with that roach up on there,” the Army sergeant said, revealing his bloodshot eyes as he tilted his augmented-reality rig back on his helmet.
“Chernobyl Ant,” mused the scout platoon’s lieutenant, running a gloved hand over the bunches of red and black fabric, bound in silvery reflective line. Fuzzy-looking stalks jutted forward, lined up with the turret’s missile mounts. “Used to fish dry flies like these in Yellowstone, run ‘em right along the bank. Drove the trout nuts.”
“It’s not supposed to look like a roach or an ant. It’s a ladybug,” said Willie. He moved with care as he descended from the vantablack, rattle-can-painted Stryker, using pock marks in the wheeled vehicle’s armor as toe holds. The lieutenant climbed down after the Algorithmic Warfare Group advisor, wondering how this 28-year-old MIT data science Ph.D. was really holding up. He still had his rock climber’s shoulders, but he now moved like a much older man — perpetually stooped by the weight of his laptop backpack that he never took off. They’d all had to run, far more than they ever expected, as the platoon dodged Russian artillery barrages once a day, never staying put more than a few hours at the most.
“Well, I’ll take a picture for my daughter then,” said the lieutenant.
“Woah, dude. Careful there. Don’t kick that shroom,” said Willie, watching the officer climb down to the wet mud. Like the giant insect decoy on top of the Stryker’s turret, the purple mushroom-like foam pieces glued to its reactive armor were designed to fool artillery spotter drones.
These organic shapes confounded machine vision and made the Stryker look like a civilian panel van. They’d been on the Strykers for a couple weeks. Then, 24 hours ago, the Algorithmic Warfare Group’s (AWG’s) adversarial systems back at Fort Meade had devised the ladybug countermeasures, and the designs were rushed out to the dozens of AWG advisors in the European theater who printed, crafted, and constructed them as fast as they could. The advisors worked with their hands a lot, but many of them were also as adept at finding relevant local data, messy as it might be, that could help identify targets and feed back into predictive models at the Fort. Their predecessors had moved around Iraq and Afghanistan schooling U.S. forces on how to combat advanced improvised explosive devices and grenade-dropping quadcopters. This new generation of advisors moved between Army and Marine Corps companies and platoons throughout the Baltics helping American and allied forces dodge Russian drones and thwart disinformation campaigns.
“So they have three-foot ladybugs in Lithuania?” a private asked. “At least that’s what the Russians think, you’re telling me? I don’t know, man.”
“It’ll work,” said Willie. “Trust me.”
“I trust you plenty, just not the AIs behind. If our company gets wiped out when the Russians waste an entire grid square, I guess we’ll know,” said the lieutenant. He’d heard stories about the old AWG in Afghanistan, grizzled Delta-type operators trooping around with the grunts and doling out Obi-Wan Kenobi warrior wisdom while they snacked on handfuls of Motrin. This was something altogether different.
“That’s data too,” said Willie. “It’s all just data.”
In and around the Defense Department, there is an awareness that the prevailing sides of future conflicts will be those who persistently take a bottom-up approach to designing, experimenting with, and fielding capabilities centered around AI systems. Yet, there is an underappreciated risk that now this building wave of knowledge and innovation won’t actually filter down in time to shape the tactics of frontline U.S. units, where it will be badly needed.
It’s time to establish a joint Algorithmic Warfare Group that turns the first AWG’s “left of boom” mantra into “left of beep.” An “AWG 2.0” would focus on the inevitable autonomy and robotics move-countermoves of 2020s conflict. Its inspiration is the up-close advisory work of the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, which recently cased its colors. From countering novel threats from drones or grenades in Iraq to pathfinding tactics for underground operations, until it shut down in 2020, the Asymmetric Warfare Group focused on helping the Army adapt during wartime. Its members, often former special operations forces, were both observers and advisors who teamed with handpicked enlisted soldiers and officers from units working in harm’s way. An AWG 2.0 advisory unit would develop countermeasures to AI-driven combat and information systems like machine vision and autonomous drones. It would also develop new rules for acquiring, sharing, and processing the myriad data necessary to prevail in this new era of conflict.
Starting this decade, AI — which is essentially a family of software systems of greater and greater self-directed and thought-like capabilities — will bring to warfare a generational change and will introduce new risk for the U.S. military. The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence concluded in its final report this summer that “America is not prepared to defend or compete in the AI era” and that the Defense Department, and the intelligence community, should become “AI ready” by 2025.
AI will help U.S. commanders speed up machine and human decisions in the heat of battle, allow ever more connected autonomous robotic systems to take center stage in kinetic operations, and introduce unequaled operational efficiencies that will save money and lives with everything from personnel management to aircraft maintenance. How quickly and effectively each group has integrated these new software systems will heavily influence, if not determine, which side will prevail in conflicts. To get a sense of how transformative it will be to the U.S. military, consider the central role different AI capabilities have at some of the world’s most powerful — and valuable — American companies in sectors like social media (Facebook and Twitter), data search and management (Google and Amazon), personal technology (Apple), and transportation (Uber and Tesla).
Move Fast and Build Things
The AWG 2.0 could eventually support all of the services but should begin by helping ground units develop adversarial deception, targeting, and effects tactics to degrade or deny an opponent’s AI systems. As the vignette above shows, AWG advisor could help dispersed Army units spoof machine-vision software used by an adversary’s low-flying artillery-spotter drones. AI-powered systems on those drones will be common as commanders drown in more video feed and visual data than human analysts can keep up with. Tricking those machine-vision systems will help U.S. forces hide in plain sight, or at least buy them time to leave an area or prepare for contact. This might be done by literally crafting glue-on three-dimensional objects to confound machine vision or simpler visual tricks that result in pixel spoofing that can “turn a car into a dog.”
There is ample opportunity to draft, bureaucratically speaking, from this summer’s initiative unveiled by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks to send teams of data experts to all of the U.S. combatant commands to help identify areas that can be improved as the department lays a foundation for an AI-integrated force. This could start with Army and Marine Corps infantry, logistics, artillery, as well as special operations elements such as Army Special Forces and Marine Raiders. U.S. Special Operations Command’s tactical data teams point to the viability of this concept. Over time, wherever U.S. forces (including not just the Navy but the Coast Guard) are deployed in conflict zones, there should be AWG 2.0 advisors working with their carefully selected partners.
An AI Ph.D. Trained in CQB
In the near term, a first step would be to attach individual, or small teams of, AWG 2.0 advisors to Special Forces A-Teams and Raider teams on their deployments to the Baltics, the Arctic, and China’s Pacific periphery. At the outset, they would be observing and learning as much as advising, in turn disseminating that data and knowledge for the next phase. AWG advisors would then begin advising conventional units immediately on experimentation with what was learned from the deployed advisors. Further expansion — to the Navy’s surface fleet, for example — depends on myriad factors. But, given the many types of AI systems that can profoundly impact American forces, such ambitions are not out of line with the threat — or opportunity.
The group could start with about two dozen advisors and researchers, who would initially work on a short-term rotational basis with U.S. forces. Talent is everything in the hyper-competitive field of civilian AI research, and the same will be true for AWG 2.0. Though its focus would fundamentally be on an emerging technology that is admittedly hard to define even for experts, AWG 2.0’s success will come from its people more than code or data sets. The ideal advisor would be a lot like Willie in the narrative above: an AI-focused Ph.D. trained in close-quarters battle, to riff on the ideal of the Office of Strategic Services described by William Donovan during World War II as a Ph.D. who could win a bar fight. Different than AWG 1.0’s heavy draw from the special operations community, AWG 2.0 advisors would ideally have academic, government, or private-sector experience in computer and data sciences, along with related military training or education. The AWG program would start them out with rudimentary tactics and battlefield proficiency to facilitate integration into operational units, with the idea of building “soldier” skills out over time.
Traditional staffing and work arrangements won’t likely work, even more so in the pandemic era. AWG 2.0 needs to embrace a distributed or network organizational model that dispenses with hierarchy and allows for flexibility to attract and retain the unique people who can be advisors. While not cheap, the investment in flexibility up front will pay off in future effectiveness because the right people will be doing the work. They need not have military experience to be sure but it would make sense to pair those who don’t with someone who does when they are sent forward to work with U.S. units.
Top Cover
Where to nest a potentially disruptive organization like an AWG 2.0 within the Defense Department may be a thorny issue. One sensible path would be to create a hub at Fort Meade as the Asymmetric Warfare Group once had. AWG 2.0 would bureaucratically exist under the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and its budget lines to keep it as close to the government and industry AI expertise and data that will be central to its success.
While there is a risk that linking AWG 2.0 with the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center saddles it with bureaucratic baggage, the reality is that a protective parent is crucial. A crucial job for AWG’s parent is to shield the sure-to-be disruptive people from pushback and to ensure AWG advisors have a direct line to their supported unit’s senior commanders — even all the way up to the service chiefs. The importance of this direct line of communication should not be underestimated: When AWG 2.0 members and their uniformed partners find instances out in the field where U.S. forces are ill-prepared for the algorithmic warfare era, it is sure to ruffle feathers, if not provoke outright hostility.
Wartime Data Access
After adversarial AI tactics, data access would be a second focus area for the Algorithmic Warfare Group. Getting a set of rules around wartime — not peacetime — data sharing and access is too important to leave until a crisis is underway. There are substantial legal, commercial, and normative hurdles to negotiating relationships between private and public sector entities and the militarily relevant information they have. By developing operational and tactical perspectives on which data is most relevant, AWG can be an important advocate — and testbed — for these new data-access paradigms.
Moreover, within these knotty questions is an opportunity for the Defense Department to lead on ethical data use. By taking an applied, but considered, approach leveraging recent policy work on “responsible” AI, American military data standards could set a high bar that the private sector might even seek to follow. Allies are integral to this, and identifying allied nations, and companies, who can quickly become partners in Europe and the Asia-Pacific should be a priority.
NATO allies in Northern Europe, such as Norway, or friendly nations along China’s periphery, like Australia, are also natural partners for AWG 2.0 when it comes to how to share relevant and often sensitive data. They are also wrestling with the same questions about how to transform their forces for the AI era while confronting the gaps they have in defeating threats like autonomous undersea systems; swarming aerial drones; and millions of highly targeted, rage-inducing social media posts. The operational relevance is real: In the narrative, a Lithuanian army intelligence unit that captured, and exploited, a Russian drone or control unit to identify its specific sensors or algorithms might have shared Willie’s information about which of his cartoon-like machine-vision countermeasures would be effective.
Reviving a scrappy concept that grew out of a war focused on counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism for AI-powered great-power war may seem as ridiculous as gluing a giant ladybug to a Stryker’s turret. But keep in mind Willie’s wisdom that “it’s all just data,” and it starts to make a lot more sense.
August Cole is a non-resident fellow at the Krulak Center For Innovation and Future Warfare at Marine Corps University and is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center on Strategy and Security. A former Wall Street Journal reporter, he has written commissioned fiction in support of the Defense Science Board’s AI Ethics Task Force and the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence and has worked as a futures consultant for an AI company. He also leads the AI and Strategy team for the Peace Research Institute of Oslo’s “Warring with Machines” project. With Peter W. Singer, he is co-author of Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War (2015) and Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution (2020). Cole and Singer are principals at Useful Fiction LLC, which works with U.S. and allied defense and security organizations on narratives, foresight, and training.
16. Xi Jinping’s New World Order- Can China Remake the International System?
Perhaps if we allow him to.
Excerpts:
Faced with significant international headwinds, Xi has responded by raising the stakes. He appears unwilling to moderate his ambition, except in areas that do not compromise his core political and strategic priorities, such as climate change. An optimal—although still unlikely—outcome would be for Xi to engage in a series of internal ongoing and implicit tradeoffs: claim regional economic leadership but step back from military aggression in the region, take pride in arresting the spread of COVID-19 but acknowledge the weakness of Chinese vaccine innovation, trumpet success in eliminating terrorist attacks in Xinjiang but begin the process of releasing the “reeducated” Uyghur Muslims from the labor camps. This would enable Xi to maintain a narrative of success in advancing Chinese centrality while nonetheless responding to the most significant concerns of the international community.
Whether Xi is able to realize his ambition will depend on the interplay of many factors, such as the continued vitality of the Chinese economy and military and the support of other senior leaders and the Chinese people, on the one hand, and the ability of the world to continue to resist Chinese coercion and the capacity of the world’s democracies and others to articulate and pursue their own compelling vision of the world’s future, on the other. Perhaps most important to Xi’s success, however, will be his ability to recognize and address the vast disconnect between what he wants to deliver to the world and what the world wants delivered from him.
Xi Jinping’s New World Order
Can China Remake the International System?
January/February 2022
Xi Jinping savored the moment. Speaking before China’s annual gathering of nearly 3,000 representatives to the National People’s Congress in Beijing in March 2021, the Chinese president took a post-pandemic victory lap, proclaiming that his country had been the first to tame COVID-19, the first to resume work, and the first to regain positive economic growth. It was the result, he argued, of “self-confidence in our path, self-confidence in our theories, self-confidence in our system, self-confidence in our culture.” And he further shared his pride that “now, when our young people go abroad, they can stand tall and feel proud—unlike us when we were young.” For Xi, China’s success in controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus was yet more evidence that he was on the right track: China was reclaiming its historic position of leadership and centrality on the global stage. The brief official history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that was published the following month reinforced his assessment. It claimed that Xi had brought China “closer to the center of the world stage than it has ever been. The nation has never been closer to its own rebirth.”
China already occupies a position of centrality in the international system. It is the world’s largest trading power and greatest source of global lending, it boasts the world’s largest population and military, and it has become a global center of innovation. Most analysts predict that China’s real GDP will surpass that of the United States by 2030 to make it the largest economy in the world. Moreover, as the evolution of the pandemic has illustrated, China’s response to global challenges has profound implications for the rest of the world.
Yet even as Xi’s ambition and China’s global prominence have become indisputable, many observers continue to question whether Beijing wants to shape a new international order or merely force some adjustments to the current one, advancing discrete interests and preferences without fundamentally transforming the global system. They argue that Beijing’s orientation is overwhelmingly defensive and designed only to protect itself from criticism of its political system and to realize a limited set of sovereignty claims. That view misses the scope of Xi’s vision. His understanding of the centrality of China signifies something more than ensuring that the relative weight of the country’s voice or influence within the existing international system is adequately represented. It connotes a radically transformed international order.
In Xi’s vision, a unified and resurgent China would be on par with or would surpass the United States. China is the preeminent power in Asia, and its maritime domain has expanded to include control over contested areas in the East China and South China Seas. The United States has retreated back across the Pacific to assume its rightful place as an Atlantic power. Moreover, the formidable network of U.S. alliances that has underpinned the international system for more than 70 years is dissolving in favor of a proposed Chinese framework of dialogue, negotiation, and cooperation. China’s influence also radiates through the world via infrastructure ranging from ports, railways, and bases to fiber-optic cables, e-payment systems, and satellites. In the same way that U.S., European, and Japanese companies led the development of the world’s twentieth-century infrastructure, Chinese companies compete to lead in the twenty-first century. Xi ably uses China’s economic power to induce and coerce compliance with his vision.
This shift in the geostrategic landscape reflects and reinforces an even more profound transformation: the rise of a China-centric order with its own norms and values. However imperfectly, the post–World War II international order was shaped primarily by liberal democracies that were committed in principle to universal human rights, the rule of law, free markets, and limited state intervention in the political and social lives of their citizens. Multilateral institutions and international law were designed to advance these values and norms, and technology was often used to bolster them. Yet Xi seeks to flip a switch and replace those values with the primacy of the state. Institutions, laws, and technology in this new order reinforce state control, limit individual freedoms, and constrain open markets. It is a world in which the state controls the flow of information and capital both within its own borders and across international boundaries, and there is no independent check on its power.
Chinese officials and scholars appear assured that the rest of the world is onboard with Xi’s vision, as they trumpet, “The East is rising, and the West is declining!” Yet many countries increasingly seem less enamored of Xi’s bold initiatives, as the full political and economic costs of embracing the Chinese model become clear. At the People’s Congress, Xi exuded the self-confidence of a leader convinced that the world is there for China’s taking. But his own certainty may be a liability, preventing him from recognizing the resistance Beijing is stoking through its actions abroad. Xi’s success depends on whether he can adjust and reckon with the blowback. Failing to do so could lead to further miscalculations that may end up reshaping the global order—just not in the way Xi imagines.
Reunifying the Motherland
Xi’s path to a reordered world begins by redrawing the map of China. In an October 2021 speech, Xi asserted, “The historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled and will definitely be fulfilled.” Asserting sovereignty over long-contested territories—particularly those Beijing terms its core interests: Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and Taiwan—is Xi’s number one priority.
Beijing has already dealt with Hong Kong. In 2020, China imposed a national security law on the city that effectively ended its autonomy under the “one country, two systems” governance model that was put in place in 1997 at the time of Hong Kong’s handoff from London to Beijing. In a matter of months, Beijing undermined the city’s long-standing commitment to basic human rights and the rule of law and transformed Hong Kong into just another mainland Chinese city.
Xi has also made progress in asserting Chinese sovereignty in the South China Sea. He has created and militarized seven artificial features in the sea and laid claim to scores of other islands and stretches of maritime territory. He increasingly deploys China’s powerful navy, newly armed coast guard, and vast fishing fleet to intimidate the five other nations with overlapping claims—Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam—and to assert control in disputed waters. Throughout the pandemic, Xi has also taken advantage of other countries’ distraction to press additional territorial claims: for more than 100 days in a row, Chinese vessels sailed into waters off Japan and around a number of contested islands there that China calls the Diaoyu Islands and Japan calls the Senkaku Islands; a Chinese coast guard vessel rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat; Chinese military aircraft flew over disputed waters claimed by both China and Malaysia; and China and India engaged in their first deadly border conflict in four decades.
Xi’s path to a reordered world begins by redrawing the map of China.
No map of China would be acceptable to Xi, however, if it did not reflect mainland Chinese control over Taiwan. At the 19th Party Congress, in October 2017, Xi declared that unification with Taiwan was one of 14 must-do items necessary to achieve the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” He has further underscored the importance of unification with his vivid imagery: “People on both sides of the strait are one family, with shared blood. . . . No one can ever cut the veins that connect us.”
Xi speaks about unification with Taiwan with increasing frequency and urgency. He remains convinced that Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is advancing an independence agenda, claiming that the island nation’s “independence separatism” remains the “most serious hidden danger to national rejuvenation.” Since Tsai came to power, in 2016, Xi has cut off the long-established cross-strait dialogue; dramatically reduced the number of mainland tourists permitted to travel to Taiwan, from 4.2 million in 2015 to 2.7 million in 2017, contributing to a drop in the island’s annual tourism revenue from $44.5 billion to $24.4 billion; convinced seven of the 22 remaining states that formally recognize Taiwan as the Republic of China to abandon Taipei for Beijing; and prevented Taiwan from participating in the World Health Assembly briefings in the early months of the pandemic. During Tsai’s 2020 reelection campaign, CCP hackers also allegedly spread disinformation designed to undermine her. Beijing’s increasingly threatening military exercises along Taiwan’s coast provoke frequent talk of a possible Chinese military attack.
Xi’s efforts to intimidate Taiwan have failed to convince the island nation to embrace unification. Instead, they have produced a backlash both within Taiwan and abroad. A greater percentage of Taiwanese than ever before—64 percent—favor independence, and few Taiwanese retain faith that a “one country, two systems” framework could ever work, particularly in the wake of the crackdown in Hong Kong. A growing number of countries have also stepped up to offer support to Taiwan. In an unprecedented policy shift, Japan asserted in 2021 that it had a direct stake in ensuring Taiwan’s status as a democracy. Several small European countries have also rallied to Taiwan’s diplomatic defense: the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Slovakia have all welcomed the Taiwanese foreign minister for a visit. For its part, the United States has supported a wide array of new legislation and diplomatic activity designed to strengthen the bilateral relationship and embed Taiwan in regional and international organizations.
Bye-Bye, Miss American Pie
China is also busy trying to lay the foundation for the country to supersede the United States as the dominant force in the Asia-Pacific. Describing the Asia-Pacific as a “big family” and claiming that “the region cannot prosper without China” and “China cannot develop in isolation from the region,” China’s leaders portray the Asia-Pacific as seamlessly integrated through Chinese-powered trade, technology, infrastructure and shared cultural and civilizational ties. Xi has been particularly successful in cementing China’s position as the regional economic leader. China is the largest trading partner of virtually all the countries in Asia, and in 2021, the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations together ranked as China’s top trading partner. At the end of 2020, Xi concluded the negotiations over the Chinese-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which includes China, ten Southeast Asian countries, and Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. In a bold gambit, Xi has also advanced China for membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Japanese-led free-trade agreement. This would make China the dominant economic player in the two most important regional trade agreements in the most economically dynamic region of the world; the United States would remain sidelined.
China has been less successful in its efforts to position itself as the region’s preeminent security actor, a role long played by the United States. In 2014, Beijing proposed a new Asian security order managed by Asian countries. China’s defense minister has crisscrossed the Asia-Pacific region with the message that countries there “should adhere to the principle that regional issues should be solved by the regional countries through consultation.” Chinese officials have also tried hard to paint U.S. alliances as anachronistic relics of the Cold War and as hostile to China.
Yet Beijing’s military assertiveness in the region has directly undermined its push for leadership. A survey of Southeast Asian experts and businesspeople found that less than two percent believed that China was a benign and benevolent power, and less than 20 percent were confident or very confident that China would “do the right thing.” Nearly half of those polled believed that China was a “revisionist power” that intended to transform the region into its sphere of influence. (In contrast, over two-thirds of the interviewees were confident or very confident that Japan would “do the right thing” by contributing to global peace, security, prosperity, and governance.) China’s behavior has also reenergized the Quad partnership, which includes Australia, India, Japan, and the United States; spurred the establishment of a new trilateral security pact among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; and prompted several European countries, including France, Germany, and the Netherlands, along with NATO, to deepen their security engagement in the Asia-Pacific. Even Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who earlier threatened to end his country’s alliance with the United States and called China “a good friend,” is now upgrading the Philippines’ defense relationship with Washington as he prepares to leave office.
The Dragon’s Bite
Xi’s ambition for Chinese centrality on the global stage is exquisitely captured by his Belt and Road Initiative. Launched in 2013, the initiative not only offers a physical manifestation of Chinese centrality through three overland and three maritime corridors that will connect China to Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa but also evokes historical memories of the Silk Road and of Chinese centrality during imperial times. In its original conception, the BRI was a vehicle for Chinese-led hard infrastructure development along the six corridors. Today, BRI offshoots include so-called digital, health, and polar Silk Roads, and all countries are welcome to participate.
Unlike traditional infrastructure investment supported by multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, China is a one-stop shop. It provides the financing and the labor and materials for its projects; in many instances, it also skips time-consuming evaluations of financial risk, processes of transparent and open bidding, and assessments of environmental and social impacts. It is China’s own development model gone global.
The BRI has positioned China at the center of the international system, with its physical, financial, cultural, technological, and political influence flowing to the rest of the world. It is redrawing the fine details of the world’s map, with new railroads and bridges, fiber-optic cables and 5G networks, and ports with the potential for housing Chinese military bases. By one assessment, the BRI now touches more than 60 countries and has exceeded $200 billion in Chinese investment. Some countries, such as Pakistan, are being transformed by the BRI, with energy projects, new roads, and a massive upgrade of both its Gwadar port and its digital infrastructure. Others have more limited but overwhelmingly positive exposure. In Greece, for example, Chinese investment in the port of Piraeus has contributed to making it one of the top ports in Europe and among the top 50 in the world. Brazilian officials and scholars are excited about the possibility of the BRI not only developing infrastructure projects in their country but also advancing innovation and sustainability efforts.
The Belt and Road Initiative has placed China at the center of the international system.
Xi has also conceived of the BRI as a conduit through which China can transmit its political and cultural values. In a major address in October 2017, Xi advanced China’s development model as one worth emulating, and Beijing now offers an extensive array of political training programs. Tanzania, which is a BRI pilot country for Chinese political capacity building, has modeled its cybersecurity law after that of China and worked with Beijing to constrain social media and the flow of information on the Internet. The governments of other countries, such as Uganda, have been eager recipients of Chinese technology and training to help them monitor and track political opposition figures. And political parties in Ethiopia, South Africa, and Sudan have participated in CCP training on the structure of the CCP, CCP-grassroots relations, and the Chinese propaganda system. China’s Digital Silk Road, which includes undersea cables, e-payment systems, surveillance technologies, and 5G networks, among other digital connectivity technologies, is particularly valuable as a means of transmitting Chinese political and cultural values. In Kenya, for example, Beijing provided not only satellite television for more than 10,000 people but also tens of thousands of hours of Chinese programming. Kenya’s airwaves, as well as those in other parts of Africa, are now filled with martial arts films, dramas about life in China, and documentaries that promote a CCP political narrative—such as one focusing on Japanese atrocities in World War II—that have been dubbed into local languages.
Yet the BRI has become increasingly bumpy. Although it can bring the benefits of China’s infrastructure-heavy development model, it also carries with it all the externalities: high levels of debt, corruption, environmental pollution and degradation, and poor labor practices. Popular protests have proliferated throughout host countries. In Kazakhstan, citizens have demonstrated repeatedly against Chinese mining projects and factories that pollute the environment and use Chinese rather than local labor. Similar protests have erupted in Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, and Zambia. Still other countries, including Cameroon, Indonesia, Kenya, and Pakistan, have reported problems with corruption in their BRI projects. And some countries, such as Azerbaijan and Mongolia, no longer expect that the gains from their BRI projects will ever exceed the costs. Many countries have put projects on hold or canceled them outright: of the 52 coal-fired power plants planned for development through the BRI between 2014 and 2020, 25 were shelved and eight canceled. (China’s September 2021 commitment not to build new coal-fired power projects abroad suggests that many of the shelved projects will ultimately be canceled.) A 2018 study found that 270 out of the 1,814 BRI projects undertaken since 2013 have encountered governance difficulties; these troubled cases accounted for 32 percent of the total value of the projects.
Beijing itself may be reconsidering its BRI commitments. Investment levels have declined steadily since 2016, and some of the presumed political benefits have not materialized. A review of the top ten recipients of BRI investments, for example, reveals no direct correlation between the levels of investment and the countries’ support for China on critical issues, such as Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and Chinese actions in Xinjiang. As with China’s assertiveness on its borders, the BRI has also stoked a backlash. It has sparked competitive initiatives by Japan and other countries to offer infrastructure financing and support with higher standards and more benefits for local workforces.
Other efforts to enhance Chinese cultural influence are also encountering difficulties. For example, Xi has championed the adoption of Chinese-language and Chinese cultural offerings through the establishment of Confucius Institutes in overseas universities and classrooms. For many educational institutions, Beijing’s financial support for these institutes was essential to their ability to offer Chinese-language training. As a result, they proliferated rapidly. Over time, however, the more coercive undertone of the initiative undermined its early success. In 2011, Li Changchun, then a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, stated, “The Confucius Institute is an appealing brand for expanding our culture abroad. It has made an important contribution toward improving our soft power. The ‘Confucius’ brand has a natural attractiveness. Using the excuse of teaching Chinese language, everything looks reasonable.” Per Beijing’s requirements, contracts between local academic institutions and the Confucius Institutes remained sealed, and the teachers and the curricula were determined by Beijing—a concession most universities would make for no other outside partnership. In addition, a few of the institutes tried to shape broader university policies around issues related to China, warning against hosting the Dalai Lama, for example. As scholars and politicians in Canada, Sweden, the United States, and elsewhere began to question the integrity of the enterprise, the allure of the institutes dimmed.
A Chinese-built railway in Mombasa, Kenya, October 2019
Baz Ratner / Reuters
By 2020, China had put in place only slightly more than half the 1,000 Confucius Institutes it had hoped to establish. And their impact as a source of soft power appears to be limited. In Africa, where China has established 61 Confucius Institutes, a survey revealed that 71 percent of citizens believe that English is the most important language for the next generation to learn; 14 percent selected French, and only two percent chose Chinese. And in Kazakhstan, where the daughter of the former prime minister has been an outspoken champion of China and Chinese-language study, a public opinion survey conducted by the Eurasian Development Bank revealed that only one in six Kazakhs view China as a “friendly country.”
Initiatives such as the BRI and the Confucius Institutes offer an attractive vision of Chinese centrality that has been somewhat undermined by unattractive Chinese governance practices, but much of Beijing’s effort to advance Chinese centrality relies explicitly on coercion. China’s pandemic diplomacy, for example, highlighted for many people the coercive nature of Chinese efforts to shape the world around them. China’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomats weaponized the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) by threatening to cut off supplies to countries that criticized China. They also went on the offensive to spread disinformation about the origins of the virus to deflect attention from Chinese culpability. When Australia called for an investigation into the origins of the virus, Beijing slapped restrictions and tariffs on some of Australia’s most popular exports.
China’s use of economic leverage to coerce international actors is long standing and well known. Beijing threatened the international airline, retail, film, and hotel industries with serious financial repercussions, for example, if they did not recognize Chinese sovereignty claims regarding Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and Taiwan in their published material. In the wake of the now famous tweet by Daryl Morey, then the Houston Rockets’ general manager, in support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, Chinese stores pulled Rockets-branded products from their shelves, and China Central Television stopped broadcasting NBA games. CCTV announced, “We believe that any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability are not within the scope of freedom of speech.” Beijing effectively signaled that it believed it had the right to control the speech of any individual anywhere in the world. Shortly thereafter, Beijing expelled several Wall Street Journal reporters in response to an opinion piece the newspaper published with a title describing China as the “Sick Man of Asia.” And perhaps as a sign of how such policies might evolve, a government office in Beijing proposed in 2020 that any criticism of traditional Chinese medicine—one of Xi’s special interests—should be made illegal.
Chinese coercion is most effective in shaping the behavior of individual actors. Many multinational corporations eventually succumb to Chinese pressure and adjust the way they conduct business. Some, however, quietly attempt to maintain their principles, even while appearing to acquiesce to Chinese demands. In the airline industry, for example, some airlines have dropped Taiwan from their websites but still identify it separately from mainland China and quote ticket prices in Taiwan’s currency instead of in yuan. Also important, China has overwhelmingly failed in its attempts to use its economic leverage to compel countries such as the Philippines and South Korea, among others, to change their policies on issues such as competition in the South China Sea and the deployment of the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile system. Beijing also failed in its effort to short-circuit Canada’s judicial process concerning the detention of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei, by imprisoning two Canadian citizens as political leverage. Ultimately, Meng spent almost three years under house arrest before her case was settled.
TUGGING ON THE REINS
Chinese centrality on the global stage emanates overwhelmingly from its economic wherewithal—its position as a driver of global growth and trade and the opportunity it affords to other countries for access to its vast market. Increasingly, however, Xi’s initiatives are raising questions about how China’s economy will engage with the rest of the world. His tenure has been marked by a series of policies, such as Made in China 2025, that enhance government control and work to insulate the Chinese economy from outside competition. In 2020, Xi articulated an economic paradigm of “dual circulation,” envisioning a largely self-sufficient China that could innovate, manufacture, and consume—all within its own economy. It would continue to engage with the international economy through exports, its critical supply chains, and limited imports of capital and know-how. Within China, Xi has also significantly enhanced the control of the CCP over the decision-making power of Chinese companies.
These moves away from greater economic reform and opening have introduced a new set of issues in Beijing’s relations with the rest of the world. Many countries no longer have confidence in the independence of Chinese companies from the government and are now tightening the access that Chinese firms have to their markets and increasing export controls on sensitive technologies to Chinese companies. Beijing’s coercive use of PPE early in the pandemic also raised alarm bells over dependence on Chinese supply chains, leading countries to encourage their companies to return home or move to friendlier pastures. The allure of the Chinese economy as both a market and a leader in global trade and investment remains strong, but Xi’s policies are diminishing, rather than enhancing, the type of consistency and predictability that economic actors desire when they consider where to invest their time and capital, and they are therefore raising a new set of challenges for Xi’s vision of Chinese centrality.
Xi also seeks to exert greater control in the existing international architecture of global institutions. He has called openly and repeatedly for China to lead in the reform of the global governance system—to transform the values and norms that underpin the international system to align with those of China. He and other Chinese officials argue that the current rules-based order does not adequately reflect China’s voice or that of the developing world. Instead, it was created and perpetuated for the advantage of a small number of liberal democracies. Xi wants the values and norms embedded in these institutions to reflect instead Chinese preferences, such as elevating the right to development over individual political and civil rights and establishing technical standards that enable state control over the flow of information.
Xi’s ambition holds little attraction for much of the rest of the world.
China’s approach is both tactical and strategic. Chinese officials are primed to assert Chinese national interests even if they are at cross-purposes with the interests of the international institutions in which they serve. In 2020, the Twitter account of the International Civil Aviation Organization, for example, blocked users who supported ICAO membership for Taiwan. In another instance, Dolkun Isa, one of the world’s leading Uyghur activists, was physically prevented from speaking before the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2017. Wu Hongbo, the Chinese official serving as undersecretary-general for the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, later appeared on Chinese television to claim responsibility for blocking Isa’s appearance, noting, “We have to strongly defend the motherland’s interests.” Similarly, in 2019, the French newspaper Le Monde reported that Beijing had threatened to block agricultural exports from Brazil and Uruguay if the two countries did not support the Chinese candidate for director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Xi is also committed to a long-term strategy to transform broader global norms in areas such as Internet governance, human rights, and technical standards in ways that elevate state control over individual rights and liberties. In each of these areas, China has sought to secure leadership positions for Chinese officials or other friendly actors in the relevant institutions and supporting committees, flooded meetings with Chinese participants, and poured financial resources into trying to shape the agendas and outcomes of policy debates. Over time, the strategy has paid off. For example, Chinese proposals that advocate state control of the flow of information to every network-connected device are under active development and consideration at the United Nations.
Xi has, furthermore, signaled his intention to lead in the development of norms in areas where they are not yet fully established, such as space, the maritime domain, and the Arctic. In the case of the Arctic, Xi has already moved aggressively to try to enhance China’s role in determining the region’s future. Despite being 900 miles away from the Arctic Circle, China has provided training and financial support for thousands of Chinese researchers on Arctic-related topics, supported joint research and exploration with Arctic countries, built a fleet of state-of-the-art icebreakers, and funded research stations in several Arctic countries. Among the observer countries to the governing Arctic Council, China is overwhelmingly the most active, hosting scientific conferences, submitting papers for review, and volunteering to serve on scientific committees. Xi has attempted to assert China’s rights in the decision-making process around the Arctic by referring to China as a “near Arctic power” and reframing the Arctic as an issue of the global commons, necessitating negotiations among a broad array of countries. But as with other areas of Chinese foreign policy, assertiveness here comes with a price. Although China has made strides in inserting itself into the development of norms around the Arctic, it has also lost ground as Arctic countries have become less inclined to accept Chinese investment as the result of concerns over potential security risks.
Xi’s more activist approach has also sparked new interest among many countries in bolstering the current rules-based order. Countries have coalesced, for example, to prevent UN agencies and programs from automatically supporting the inclusion of the BRI in their mission statements or initiatives. They are rallying to support candidates for leadership in UN agencies and other multilateral institutions who will bring a strong commitment to openness, transparency, and the rule of law. And they are drawing attention to cases in which China appears to be unduly influencing or undermining best practices, such as the World Health Organization’s initial reluctance to address China’s lack of transparency during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sacrificing the War to Win the Battle
China’s desire to rearrange the world order is an ambitious one. The United States’ leadership on the global stage, its democratic alliance system, and the post–World War II liberal international order are deeply entrenched. Still, Chinese officials argue that the last two centuries, when China was not the dominant global economy, were a historical aberration. They claim that U.S. leadership is waning. As He Yafei, former vice minister of foreign affairs, has asserted, “The end of Pax Americana, or the American Century, is in sight.” Chinese leaders and many international observers express confidence that Beijing is well along the path to success. The renowned Fudan University scholar Shen Dingli has characterized China as occupying the “moral high ground” in the international community and acting as “the leading country in the new era.” Xi himself has described China’s rejuvenation as “a historic inevitability.”
There is reason for Xi’s optimism. China has clearly made progress in each of the dimensions that he has identified as essential for reform, and the reputation and influence of the United States have been battered by domestic strife and a lack of leadership on the global stage.
Yet it appears equally plausible, if not more so, that China has won a few battles but is losing the war. Xi’s bullish assessment of China’s pandemic response may resonate at home, but the international community retains vivid memories of Beijing’s bullying diplomacy, coercive PPE practices, military aggression, repression in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and continued belligerence around determining the origins of the virus. Xi wants China to be “credible, lovable, and respectable” in the eyes of the international community, but his actions have yielded public opinion polls that reflect record-low levels of trust in him and little desire for Chinese leadership. Many initiatives to cement Chinese centrality, such as the BRI, the Confucius Institutes, and global governance leadership, are now sputtering or stalling as the full economic and political costs of acquiescence to Chinese leadership become clear to the rest of the world.
Burning an effigy of Xi in Kolkata, India, June 2020
Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters
The international community might also be forgiven for wondering what beyond centrality Xi desires. He has made clear that he wants China to play a dominant role in defining the rules that govern the international system. But as the United States retreated from global leadership during Donald Trump’s presidency, Xi proved unwilling or unable to step into the United States’ shoes to marshal the international community to respond to global challenges or to serve as the world’s policeman. China may simply want to enjoy the rights, but not the full responsibilities, that traditionally accrue to the world’s most important power.
Xi’s ambition for Chinese centrality on the global stage holds little attraction for much of the rest of the world, and in the current context of mounting international opposition, his outright success appears unlikely. Yet if Xi perceives that his strategy is unraveling, the result for the international community could be as challenging as if he were to succeed. In recent months, Xi has alarmed global leaders by cracking down on China’s world-class technology sector, eradicating the last vestiges of democracy in Hong Kong, and flexing China’s military muscles through a hypersonic missile test. And the potential looms large for further, even more destabilizing actions, such as resorting to the use of force to unify with Taiwan. Xi has not articulated a peaceful path forward for unification with the island nation, and he has already demonstrated a willingness to engage in risky military behavior in the East China and South China Seas and on the border with India.
Faced with significant international headwinds, Xi has responded by raising the stakes. He appears unwilling to moderate his ambition, except in areas that do not compromise his core political and strategic priorities, such as climate change. An optimal—although still unlikely—outcome would be for Xi to engage in a series of internal ongoing and implicit tradeoffs: claim regional economic leadership but step back from military aggression in the region, take pride in arresting the spread of COVID-19 but acknowledge the weakness of Chinese vaccine innovation, trumpet success in eliminating terrorist attacks in Xinjiang but begin the process of releasing the “reeducated” Uyghur Muslims from the labor camps. This would enable Xi to maintain a narrative of success in advancing Chinese centrality while nonetheless responding to the most significant concerns of the international community.
Whether Xi is able to realize his ambition will depend on the interplay of many factors, such as the continued vitality of the Chinese economy and military and the support of other senior leaders and the Chinese people, on the one hand, and the ability of the world to continue to resist Chinese coercion and the capacity of the world’s democracies and others to articulate and pursue their own compelling vision of the world’s future, on the other. Perhaps most important to Xi’s success, however, will be his ability to recognize and address the vast disconnect between what he wants to deliver to the world and what the world wants delivered from him.
17. FDD | The Middle Kingdom Meets Higher Education
This excerpt on Confucius Institutes (CI) jumped out at me from the monograph:
CI operations in the United States and abroad are funded by the CCP’s Propaganda Department, which is formally affiliated with the UFWD.34 Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology has estimated that in 2019 alone, the CCP allocated $2.6 billion to support UFWD operations, with nearly $600 million allocated for “influencing foreigners and overseas Chinese communities.”35 These figures underscore the UFWD’s centrality in enabling the CCP’s access to and influence over foreign audiences and actors, including in academia. Li Changchun, a former member of China’s Politburo Standing Committee, said it best during a speech at the CI program’s Beijing headquarters in November 2011. “Using the excuse of teaching [the] Chinese language,” she noted, “everything looks reasonable and logical.”36 Thus, many U.S. universities have unwittingly advanced China’s military and technological modernization under the guise of academic and cultural collaboration.
FDD | The Middle Kingdom Meets Higher Education
How U.S. Universities Support China’s Military-Industrial Complex
fdd.org · by Craig Singleton Adjunct Fellow · December 9, 2021
Introduction
Confucius Institutes (CIs) are Chinese government-sponsored organizations offering Chinese-language, cultural, and historical programming at the primary, secondary, and university levels worldwide. CIs are also a key element in China’s “united front,” a network of groups and key individuals that seek to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). CIs further serve as platforms that advance facets of China’s military-civil fusion (MCF), a national strategy aimed at acquiring the world’s cutting-edge technologies — including through theft — to achieve Chinese military dominance. China’s CI-enabled initiatives include the establishment of academic and research partnerships between top-tier American institutions and Chinese universities supporting Beijing’s military-industrial complex.
Between 2018 and 2021, the number of CIs operating in the United States fell from 113 to 34. Only four of these 79 closures were attributed to national security concerns, despite ample evidence that China leverages relationships with U.S. universities to acquire the technology and talent Beijing needs to win its strategic competition with the United States. CI closures began in earnest only after Congress passed legislation that bars universities hosting CIs from receiving certain types of funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The universities that have resisted shuttering their CIs are ones that do not receive federal funding jeopardized by this new legislation.
Troublingly, a CI closure often does not result in the severance of ties between its American host and the CCP-selected Chinese sister university that supported the CI’s programming. Following at least 28 of the 79 documented closures, U.S. universities that shuttered their CIs chose to maintain, and in some cases expand, their relationships with their Chinese sister universities, many of which support China’s defense industry. This support includes directly enabling Beijing’s intelligence apparatus as well as underwriting China’s nuclear weapons sector and cyber-espionage platforms.
Documenting the evolving relationships between these U.S. and Chinese universities, both before and after a CI closure, remains challenging. U.S. universities are not required by federal law to disclose details about their partnerships with Chinese or other foreign universities. Several schools have voluntarily published their CI contracts and copies of their academic partnership agreements with Chinese universities. Requests under the Freedom of Information Act have led to the release of several more. These documents are essential to understanding how CIs operate, yet still provide only a partial view.
As of August 2021, there were 34 active CIs in the United States, spread across 20 states. Twenty-eight of these CIs were hosted by U.S. universities; five were co-located in K-12 school districts; and one was hosted by a private educational organization, the China Institute in Manhattan. Of the 28 universities currently hosting a CI, 10 maintain active sister-school relationships with Chinese universities conducting classified research in support of China’s defense establishment. Curiously, only one of these Chinese schools, Sichuan University, is on the U.S. Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security’s Entity List, which restricts the exportation of sensitive items to designated entities and individuals. Sichuan University earned its designation for supporting China’s nuclear weapons program. At present, U.S. universities are under no legal or regulatory obligation to sever ties with Chinese universities supporting China’s military, even when those Chinese universities appear on the Entity List.
This report analyzes CI closures between 2018 and 2021. First, it evaluates the rationales that U.S. universities provided when announcing the closures. It also demonstrates that dozens of U.S. universities have voluntarily elected to maintain or expand partnerships with their Chinese sister universities long after shuttering their CIs. Relatedly, the report examines how these Chinese universities provide direct support to China’s MCF program and defense industry. Lastly, the report examines the 34 remaining CIs across the United States and offers a series of policy recommendations aimed at uncovering, and even neutralizing, China’s ability to leverage CIs and their associated academic partnerships to access sensitive U.S. research and development (R&D).
American efforts should include increasing transparency surrounding CI-enabled agreements between U.S. and Chinese universities and better educating U.S. universities about the risks of partnering with entities affiliated with China’s defense buildup. Additionally, the U.S. government should foster alternative Chinese-language initiatives to outcompete CI language programming. The U.S. government should also establish legal and regulatory guardrails to neutralize China’s ability either to acquire foundational knowledge or to access more sensitive research being conducted on U.S. college campuses. These guardrails should include measures to address due-diligence and counterintelligence gaps in the U.S. government’s National Industrial Security Program (NISP), which ensures that cleared U.S. defense entities working on lucrative U.S. government contracts protect classified information. Such entities include U.S. universities that support NISP-related projects while simultaneously partnering with Chinese universities tied to China’s military.
18. SEAL Team 8 commander died Tuesday following training accident
Leading from the front. A reminder that training is dangerous. Rest in peace frogman.
SEAL Team 8 commander died Tuesday following training accident
The Navy SEAL who died Tuesday after being injured in a fast-rope training event last week has been identified as the commanding officer of SEAL Team 8, Cmdr. Brian Bourgeois.
Naval Special Warfare Command has released few other details so far on what happened, but Bourgeois, 43, was injured during the training evolution Saturday in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
He was taken to Norfolk Sentara General Hospital following the accident and died there.
“An incident like this weighs heavily on us all,” Capt. Donald Wetherbee, commodore for Naval Special Warfare Group 2, said in a statement. “Brian was as tough as they come, an outstanding leader and a committed father, husband and friend. This is a great loss to everyone who knew him. He will be greatly missed.”
Wetherbee said that the command is providing support to Bourgeois’s family and fellow unit members.
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The Navy’s special operations forces have been focused on counterterrorism operations but now must begin to evolve beyond those missions.
SEAL Team 8′s executive officer has temporarily assumed command of the Virginia-based unit, according to the command, which did not identify the officer, citing operational security.
While the details of the accident remain under investigation, the command said the findings will be made available “at the appropriate time.”
Brian’s wife and family were with him when he passed, said Rear Adm. H.W. Howard, the commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare Command, in a message to the community.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the Bourgeois family — and we will ensure our community remains in support of and in relationship with Brian’s family and his five children, for life,” he wrote.
“Brian was one of our very best leaders, who possessed all the attributes to make our force effective,” Howard said in an official statement. “We will miss his charismatic leadership and faithful stewardship of our standard. His legacy carries on in teammates he served with, led and mentored.”
Bourgeois attended the U.S. Naval Academy, was commissioned in May 2001 and went on to serve in the naval special warfare community for more than two decades.
His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star with Combat “V” device and the combat action ribbon.
Navy records show he made commander in 2017 and joined SEAL Team 8 in November 2020.
Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.
19. Taming the “Grey Zone”
Below this article I have pasted an outline rollup of some of the gray zone thinkers and links to resources.
Excerpts:
Grey zone tactics have been comfortable bedfellows of post-truth politics. Secrecy is difficult, but by exploiting the ambiguity of a situation a state can communicate toughness to domestic and foreign audiences alike. Importantly, these cases are different from coercive economic sanctions or political donations. They’re also different from the generally uncoordinated Belt and Road Initiative. As such, they call for different responses.
Without reining in the use of the term grey zone, analysts and officials alike risk overestimating the utility of grey zone tactics. Russia has incurred costly sanctions following the annexation of the Crimean peninsula. China’s belligerence in the South China Seas has left the Philippines and Vietnam embittered, causing them to strengthen ties with the United States.
There is still work to do in setting out a definition of grey zone threats. Such conceptual boundaries will be important because if Australians see grey zone tactics in China’s every move, the term isn’t helping them understand anything at all.
Taming the “Grey Zone”
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recent articles
It has become something of a catch-all phrase. But if
everything is a grey zone tactic, to what extent is this helpful?
Unease about so-called “grey zone” tactics is increasingly in vogue. From a position of relative obscurity, the term has surged onto the official agenda. There was no mention of “grey zone” in Australia’s 2016 Defence White Paper, but it appears 11 times in the 2020 Defence Strategic Update.
In Australian foreign policy and defence circles, a dizzying array of action has been grouped under the label of grey zone tactics. Speaking at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in 2019, Chief of the Defence Force General Angus Campbell made the grey zone a synonym for political warfare. Quoting George Kennan, he declared that “Political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation’s command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives”. The Defence Strategic Update is similarly sweeping, defining grey zone tactics as military or non-military, including measures such as interference, disinformation campaigns and economic coercion. Grey zone tactics have even featured in discussions of the Belt and Road Initiative.
The grey zone has become something of a catch-all phrase. But to what extent is this helpful?
The Defence Strategic Update gives a sweeping definition of grey zone tactics as military or non-military
(Patrick W. Menah/US Navy/Flickr)
The very notion of grey zone tactics should be treated with caution not least because it can smuggle assumptions about intentions and capabilities. Positing an action as a grey zone tactic can lead analysts to think of the other country as a mastermind, with a long-term plot to undermine their enemies. Everything done is assumed as a further trap.
But some things definitely aren’t grey zone tactics. If it’s China that Australia is worried about, Beijing’s policies can be subject to pressures such as intra-elite and inter-bureaucratic competition. The Belt and Road Initiative, for example, has been characterised as a geopolitical strategy to trap developing countries into debt, making them malleable to Beijing’s demands. Yet the evidence suggests that fears of the “debt trap” are overstated, that the initiative is primarily driven by economic factors, and that it is surprisingly lacking in central management.
China’s trade restrictions on Australian barley and beef are likewise not evidence of a plan driven by some strategic mastermind. Imposed after Prime Minister Scott Morrison voiced his support for an independent inquiry on the origins of the coronavirus, it is tempting to interpret the restrictions as punishment for speaking out – yet China’s actions against Australia fits a recent pattern of “diplomatic self-sabotage”. Beijing has also recently demanded foreign recipients of its personal protective equipment publicly voice their support for its coronavirus response, for instance, burning up much goodwill. It’s not the grey zone – it’s reactionary and ill-tempered diplomacy.
China’s actions against Australia fits a recent pattern of “diplomatic self-sabotage” (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)
The term “grey zone” should not be consigned to the bin, but it is important to be disciplined in when to use it. If everything is a grey zone tactic, analysts miss out on what the term can help them understand. One distinctive feature of a grey zone tactic is that it occurs between the realm of covert and overt. Specialists in intelligence history, Rory Cormac from the University of Nottingham and Richard J. Aldrich from the University of Warwick, call this the realm of “implausible deniability”. In other words, grey zone tactics are open secrets. An example is Russia’s use of paramilitaries in Ukraine, the so-called “little green men”. Russia initially denied such involvement but that belied the evidence. It is also no secret that China uses fishing vessels in its South China Sea operations.
Grey zone tactics have been comfortable bedfellows of post-truth politics. Secrecy is difficult, but by exploiting the ambiguity of a situation a state can communicate toughness to domestic and foreign audiences alike. Importantly, these cases are different from coercive economic sanctions or political donations. They’re also different from the generally uncoordinated Belt and Road Initiative. As such, they call for different responses.
Without reining in the use of the term grey zone, analysts and officials alike risk overestimating the utility of grey zone tactics. Russia has incurred costly sanctions following the annexation of the Crimean peninsula. China’s belligerence in the South China Seas has left the Philippines and Vietnam embittered, causing them to strengthen ties with the United States.
There is still work to do in setting out a definition of grey zone threats. Such conceptual boundaries will be important because if Australians see grey zone tactics in China’s every move, the term isn’t helping them understand anything at all.
Megan Price is a Sessional Lecturer in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland where she was awarded her PhD in International Relations (2019). Her work is broadly concerned with military action and the politics of international legitimacy.
Gray Zone Writings
•Gray Zone Thinkers
•2010 QDR, page 73 – “gray area phenomena”
•Gen Votel March 2015 Congressional testimony
•DEPSECDEF Robert Work April 2015 Army War College
•USSOCOM White Paper September 2015
•Mike Mazarr December 2015 7 Hypotheses of the Gray Zone
•Hal Brands February 2016 Paradoxes of the Gray Zone
•Frank Hoffman 2016 The Contemporary Spectrum of Conflict
•Joseph L. Votel, Charles T. Cleveland, Charles T. Connett, and Will Irwin January 2016 UW in the Gray Zone
•Autilio Echevarrio April 2016 Operating in the Gray Zone
•Nathan Freier, et el, Army War College, June 2016, Outplayed Regaining the Strategic Initiative in the Gray Zone
•Adam Elkus December 2015 You Cannot Save the Gray Zone Concept
•Gray Zone 1
•Gen Votel March 2015 Congressional Testimony:
–Actors taking a “gray zone” approach seek to secure their objectives while minimizing the scope and scale of actual fighting. In this “gray zone” we are confronted with ambiguity on the nature of conflict, the parties involved and the validity of the legal and political claims at stake. These conflicts defy our traditional views of war and require us to invest time and effort in ensuring we prepare ourselves with the proper capabilities, capacities, and authorities to safeguard US interests.
–
•Gray Zone 2
•DEPSECDEF Robert Work at the Army War College, April 2015:
–Argued that adversaries are increasingly using “Agents, paramilitaries, deception, infiltration, and persistent denial to make those avenues of approach very hard to detect, operating in what some people have called ‘the gray zone.’ Now, that’s the one in which our ground forces have not traditionally had to operate, but one in which they must now become more proficient.”
•Gray Zone 3
•USSOCOM White Paper September 2015:
–Gray zone challenges are defined as competitive interactions among and within state and non-state actors that fall between the traditional war and peace duality.
–They are characterized by ambiguity about the nature of the conflict, opacity of the parties involved, or uncertainty about the relevant policy and legal frameworks.
–Gray zone challenges are not new
•Gray Zone 4
•Mike Mazarr’s gray zone hypothesis:
–Argues that three elements – rising revisionist intent, a form of strategic gradualism, and unconventional tools – are creating a new approach to the pursuit of aggressive aims, a new form of conflict.
–Evidence from a number of ongoing campaigns by China and Russia, suggests that gradual gray zone strategies may be becoming the tool of choice for states wanting to reframe the global order in the 21st century.
–The idea of competing below the threshold of war is hardly new: States and non-state actors have employed gray zone approaches for thousands of years most ambitiously during WWII and the Cold War.
–Nonetheless, this analysis finds reason to believe that gray zone conflict represents an identifiable and intentional strategy for several states, and a phenomenon of growing importance.
–If this hypothesis is valid, then the US needs to become more adept at operating in the environment.
•(I could not agree more)
•Gray Zone 4 (Continued)
Mike Mazarr’s Seven Hypotheses:
1.Gray Zone campaigns will constitute the default mode of conflict in coming decades.
2.Gray Zone Strategies require a new theory of conflict
3.Gray Zone campaigns generate a sense of persistent warfare
4.Gray Zone conflict increases the potential for inadvertent war
5.Gray Zone campaigns undermine deterrence
6.Gray Zone Conflict depends upon larger social, political and economic factors for success of failure
7.Gray Zone Campaigns have powerful limitations
•Gray Zone 5
•Hal Brands’ paradoxes of the gray zone:
•
1.“Gray zone” cannot mean everything if it is to mean anything
2.Gray zone challenges are the wave of the future—and a blast from the past
3.Gray zone conflict reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of the international order
4.Gray zone strategies are weapons of the weak against the strong—and of the strong against the weak
5.Confronting gray zone challenges requires both embracing and dispelling ambiguity
6.Gray zone conflict is aggression, but military tools are only part of the response
7.America is not poorly equipped for the gray zone—but it may not be fully prepared
8.Gray zone challenges can be productive and counterproductive at the same time
–
•Gray Zone 6
•Frank Hoffman illustrates the spectrum of conflict
•Gray Zone 6 (continued)
The larger problem is that the U.S. has a strategic culture that does not appreciate history or strategy, nor does it devote sufficient attention to the breadth of adversaries facing it and the many different forms that human conflict can take.
At least three consequences can be expected from a flawed grasp of contemporary conflict:
•Unreasonable political and public expectations for quick wins at low cost,
•An overly simplistic grasp of the application of blunt military power and what it will supposedly achieve, and
•Naïve views of both adversaries and the context for conflict.
•Gray Zone 7
•Unconventional Warfare in the Gray Zone By Joseph L. Votel, Charles T. Cleveland, Charles T. Connett, and Will Irwin
–The Gray Zone is characterized by intense political, economic, informational, and military competition more fervent in nature than normal steady-state diplomacy, yet short of conventional war. It is hardly new, however. The Cold War was a 45-year-long Gray Zone struggle in which the West succeeded in checking the spread of communism and ultimately witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. To avoid superpower confrontations that might escalate to all-out nuclear war, the Cold War was largely a proxy war, with the United States and Soviet Union backing various state or nonstate actors in small regional conflicts and executing discrete superpower intervention and counter-intervention around the globe. Even the Korean and Vietnam conflicts were fought under political constraints that made complete U.S. or allied victory virtually impossible for fear of escalation.
•Gray Zone 8
•Autulio Echevarria:
–Coercive Strategies and a New Campaign Construct needed.
–Recent events in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and the South China Sea continue to take interesting, if not surprising, turns. As a result, many security experts are calling for revolutionary measures to address what they wrongly perceive to be a new form of warfare, called “hybrid” or “gray zone” wars, but which is, in fact, an application of classic coercive strategies. These strategies, enhanced by evolving technologies, have exploited a number of weaknesses in the West’s security structures.
–To remedy one of those weaknesses, namely, the lack of an appropriate planning framework, this monograph suggests a way to re-center the current U.S. campaign-planning paradigm to make it more relevant to contemporary uses of coercive strategies.–
•Gray Zone 9
•Outplayed: Regaining Strategic Initiative in the Gray Zone, A Report Sponsored by the Army Capabilities Integration Center in Coordination with Joint Staff J-39/Strategic Multi-Layer Assessment Branch
•
•Joint ground force commanders—but especially the U.S. Army—will benefit from a thorough reimagining of the potential of expeditionary forces and operations. As it applies to the gray zone, U.S. ground forces need the capability to deploy in large numbers to perform a wide range of missions: enable and support allies, partners, and sister U.S. joint forces; build foreign partner capacity; counter adversary unconventional warfare (UW) campaigns; and perform more traditional offensive and defensive operations (often against hybrid opponents). This requires examining and developing capabilities to defeat A2AD and rapidly delivering ground capabilities on short notice and limited advanced planning.
•
•Gray Zone 9 (Continued)
•This study found UW to be a final area of unique ground force vulnerability for the United States and its partners as they assess and contend with gray zone challenges. As currently defined by American Joint military doctrine, UW is the collection of activities that enable the overthrow of a government through proxy actors in overtly denied areas. U.S. UW vulnerability emerges in both an offensive and defense context. Offensively, UW provides U.S. decision-makers with a baseline capability for covert degradation of an adversary’s control over contested territory. Defensively, Russian and Iranian UW efforts are currently presenting U.S./partners thorny challenges in Europe and the Middle East. In both instances, U.S. forces are increasingly unfamiliar with the associated ground force demands that might result.
•
•For example, SOF UW competency has atrophied with the substantial counterinsurgency and counterterrorism demands of the last decade and a half. For their part, GPF have never been required to understand UW as a concept. Improvement is essential on both counts.
•
• A sharper offensive UW instrument will be an important tool for pressuring active gray zone revisionist powers who themselves employ UW to aggressively undermine U.S. partners. Likewise, deep understanding of UW on the part of GPF forces will enable them to engage in defensive UW activities to generate greater resilience among the same at risk partners. Finally, a more robust ground force UW capability that can understand, prosecute, and defend against it, employing the widest set of military and non-military tools, may require a new military competency in “political warfare.” This specific focus would enable both conventional and SOF to grasp the underpinnings and requirements necessary for prosecuting offensive and defensive UW activities against sophisticated gray zone actors.
•Gray Zone 10
•Adam Elkus debunks the gray zone concept:
–In Fifty Shades of Gray in WOTR:
•There’s only one problem: The “gray wars” concept lacks even the most basic strategic sense. Like the book and movie 50 Shades of Grey, the gray wars concept grossly over-exaggerates its own transgressions from the norm.
•First, it should be observed that this definition, which is applied to both wars with Vladimir Putin’s deniable “little green men” and Middle Eastern wars in Iraq and Syria featuring mobile combined arms maneuver, is incoherent.
–You Cannot Save the Gray Zone Concept in WOTR:
•He has have argued, in part, that the gray zone concept merely puts a new spin on older and more well-understood ideas from political science, military history, and strategic theory about how actors pursue strategic objectives under constraint.
•
•Bottom line I think for Adam is that since the gray zone provides nothing new from the existing norm it is; therefore, unhelpful.
•That may be the case or perhaps not.
•Most importantly if policymakers and strategists are embracing it and it helps them to understand and articulate strategic challenges then it may be of value.
•We need to decide whether to embrace it – it may not be perfect but to help us think strategically with a common frame of reference then we need to “make a decision and then make the decision right.” – making the decision right is the equivalent of “doing strategy.”
•
Gray Zone
My characterization (unpublished) (Maxwell):
1.Cooperation
2.Competition
3.Conflict
–I would characterize the threats we face in terms of the Gray Zone as a spectrum of cooperation, competition, and conflict in that space between peace and war. We seek and desire cooperation, we have to be able to compete, and while we want to avoid conflict we must prepare for it. One of the important forms of conflict can be described by revolution, resistance, insurgency, terrorism, and civil war (RRIT & CW)) with our adversaries from AQ to ISIS to the Russian Little Green Men to the Iran Action Network or China’s PLA all executing strategies of modern unconventional warfare, with their own unique characteristics, to exploit the conditions of revolution, resistance, insurgency, terrorism and civil war (RRIT &CW) to achieve their strategic political objectives.
A Characterization of SOF in The Gray Zone
(Maxwell)
•We face competition, not only among state actors and state and non-state actors but also in two competing ideas - one is the national interest to maintain a stable rules based international nation-state system based on respect for and protection of sovereignty. This idea can be supported in part through the application of one of the major special warfare activities: foreign internal defense in which SOF and other US military and government agencies seek to assist friends, partners, and allies in their own defense and development programs so that they can defend themselves against lawlessness, subversion, insurgency, and terrorism that would threaten their sovereignty. The other idea is a fundamental human right which is the right of a people to seek self determination of government and this can be supported by the special warfare activity of unconventional warfare which consists of activities to enable a resistance or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power. These two competing ideas must be reconciled through the correct application of national statecraft and political warfare, supported by special warfare in the gray zone.
•We still need the scalpel of surgical strike to capture/kill high value targets wherever necessary to support US national security.
Gray Zone: Old is New Again
•Tim Thomas writing in 2004: Reflexive control is defined as a means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to incline him to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action. Even though the theory was developed long ago in Russia, it is still undergoing further refinement. Recent proof of this is the development in February 2001, of a new Russian journal known as Reflexive Processes and Control. https://www.rit.edu/~w-cmmc/literature/Thomas_2004.pdf
•When we examine Russian actions (or Chinese or Iranian or north Korean or AQ or ISIS) we should consider the concept of reflexive control and ask ourselves some questions to ensure we do not fall victim to it?
–1. How do they want us (the target of reflexive control) to act?
–2. How do they expect us to act?
–3. What is the objective they are trying to achieve?
–4. How do we react to counter their objectives? (counter their objectives and not simply try to counter their tactics and actions)
–5. How do we act to seize the initiative? (i.e., move from defense to offense, from reaction to action)
Are IW and the “Gray Zone” new ideas in the 21st Century?
•Sam Sarkesian in Unconventional Conflicts in a New Security Era: Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, in 1993
•
–Asymmetric conflicts: For the US these conflicts will be limited and not considered a threat to its survival or a matter of vital national interests; however, for the indigenous adversaries they are a matter of survival.
–Protracted Conflicts: Require a long term commitment by the US, thus testing the national will, political resolve, and staying power of the US.
–Ambiguous and Ambivalent Conflicts: Difficult to identify the adversary, or assess the progress of the conflict; i.e., it is rarely obvious who is winning and losing.
–Conflicts with Political-Social Milieu Center of Gravity: The center of gravity will not be the armed forces of adversaries as Clausewitz would argue but more in the political and social realms as Sun Tzu espouses.
20. US 'democracy summit' a master class in hypocrisy
From another CCP mouthpiece. Note: The author is a US writer with China Daily.
US 'democracy summit' a master class in hypocrisy
Luo Jie/China Daily
If you thought discourse in the United States couldn't get more childish, think again: This week, the White House is convening the geopolitical equivalent of the He-Man Woman-Haters' Club from Our Gang.
The club has an official name, of course; the Summit for Democracy, wherein US President Joe Biden and 110 of his closest friends have a super-secret special meeting in their treehouse to talk about how great they are. But however hard they try to gussy it up, this affair is no different from what Spanky, Alfalfa and Buckwheat got up to in those Hal Roach short films decades ago.
As per usual, the US has appointed itself supreme authority — this time of the dictionary. Just like "freedom" and "human rights", we can count "democracy" as another term that's lost all meaning after years of being trotted out by the country that cares about it the least. Because aren't all the best democratic processes the ones where the guy with the most money and guns tells everyone what to do?
That's only half a joke. Of the 110 supposedly willing participants in this "democracy summit", many are host to US military bases and troops. Indigenous resistance to US military presence — some might say occupation — is frequently suppressed by comprador governments, who depend on American largesse to fill their coffers. This inconvenient fact, among many others, makes it hard to take this week's charade seriously.
We might, for instance, ask Salvador Allende of Chile or Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo how the US treats elected leaders who dare to espouse an alternate path for their people — if the CIA hadn't masterminded their assassinations. Even when countries follow the US model, if the results don't favor US interests those who get elected tend to find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun. Or lately, fleeing their homes as color revolutions facilitate the installment of new, more amenable leadership.
Some may complain these examples are old, from the height of the Cold War. But removal of inconvenient leaders, most of them socialists, by the American military-intelligence complex didn't stop after the Soviet Union ended in 1991 — and it's naïve to believe otherwise. Notably absent from the hallowed list of this week's "democratic" participants are Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua. These three Latin American countries have regularly scheduled multiparty elections, but because those elections put left-wing governments into power that oppose US hegemony they are decried as illegitimate, and their leaders as dictators.
It should come as no surprise these countries' poor treatment in the press comes with protracted efforts to overthrow their leadership; to cite only two examples, former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez survived an ouster in 2002 and Bolivia's Evo Morales was deposed in a fascist coup in 2019 before returning the following year when his party won back the presidency. These anti-democratic moves, just like their Cold War antecedents, were cheered on by the same media that now purports to be defenders of freedom, democracy and human rights.
So it's not even about US-style democracy in the abstract. It's about whether a given "democracy" benefits the US economically and politically. We see this in the summit invitations extended to Israel, a country presiding over a regime of brutal apartheid against Palestinians; Brazil, where judicial shenanigans remove leftist leaders or block their candidacies; and India, where state-supported pogroms on Muslims go unnoticed to ensure participation in US-led military alliances. As with so many things where America is concerned, geopolitical expediency trumps any imaginary commitment to principle.
How popular can the US' brand of "democracy" be if its existence requires enforcement at gunpoint or, at the very least, the toeing of a particular line? How many countries in the world would, if given the choice, willingly submit to a "rules-based order" that has kept them under colonial and neocolonial domination for decades? Since a global majority names the US as the greatest threat to world peace, the answer isn't hard to imagine.
But these run-of-the-mill hypocrisies only scratch the surface. There's a much deeper issue underpinning US "democracy" and all its contradictions, and it's one Marxists have known about for some time. As Vladimir Lenin said in State and Revolution, "The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them." He was paraphrasing Karl Marx and writing over 100 years ago, but those words are as true as they've ever been.
Whatever form it takes, under capitalism democracy is little more than a pantomime show. It's an instrument of class rule, one which provides a vehicle for more efficient exploitation. But all the smoke and mirrors in the world can't obscure this fundamental fact, and the American people know it on some level — even if they don't articulate it in those terms.
Is it, after all, a democratic right to live in poverty? To work multiple jobs and barely keep your head above water? To worry over being one of the millions evicted amid a still-raging pandemic? Is it a democratic choice to decide between risking one's life at work or one's livelihood in unemployment or debt peonage?
Nearly 800,000 people in the US have had even those meager "rights" stripped from them, as their democratic government elected to let them die. This is what critics of countries like China don't understand: You could hold an election every day of the year, but they wouldn't mean squat if things didn't improve for the working majority.
This is entirely by design. To quote Lenin again: "Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich…that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see restrictions [that] exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy." In the US, these restrictions most obviously manifest through voter suppression targeting minority groups, but the political system itself is built on a rotten foundation. It is not a government "of the people, by the people, for the people," as Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, but one of the capitalists, by the capitalists, for the capitalists. The people don't enter into it — except as sources of wealth extraction.
China, however, turns this relationship on its head. The Communist Party, the country's leading political organ, is a body with membership from the whole of Chinese society, but its base of support was forged in an alliance of workers and peasants. That alliance continues to predominate, ensuring the working majority remains the primary focus when crafting policy and allocating resources.
In countries like the US, the affluent form interest groups to protect and expand their profits; communists' only interest group is the people. If action is taken in China or other countries governed by communist parties, social benefits and costs are factored in long before anyone considers what the bourgeoisie will think. Because why should we? They aren't the majority, and if their ideas were put to a vote they'd lose every time. "More money for us", sad to say, remains quite unpopular.
There are other aspects of what China terms its whole-process democracy that could, and should, be addressed in greater detail. Whole-of-society participation in the political process through oversight, consultation, public review, grassroots governance and many other avenues make China a far more democratic society than the US and its hangers-on will ever give it credit for.
But that's a topic for another time. For now, I'll leave you with one last quote:
"If the people are awakened only for voting but enter a dormant period soon after, if they are given a song and dance during campaigning but have no say after the election, or if they are favored during canvassing but are left out in the cold after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy."
That's not Marx or Lenin. That's Chinese President Xi Jinping, and he's saying exactly what they would if they were alive today.
The author is a US writer with China Daily. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not represent the views of China Daily and China Daily website.
If you have a specific expertise and would like to contribute to China Daily, please contact us at opinion@chinadaily.com.cn , and comment@chinadaily.com.cn
21. Falsifying Russia’s History Is a Step Toward More Violence
Conclusion:
They may be right. Let me return to where I began: Dictators distort the past because they want to use it. Putin certainly wants to use the past to stay in power. If Russians are nostalgic for their old dictatorship, then they have less reason to push back against the new one. He may also want to use the past to give legitimacy to violence—Russians who have no awareness of what Moscow did to Ukraine in the past will feel no sense of guilt about repeating old patterns of aggression. History does contain lessons, and here is one of them: If Putin plans to turn his falsely heroic vision of Russia’s past into a justification for another war in the present, he won’t be the first autocrat to do so.
Falsifying Russia’s History Is a Step Toward More Violence
By attacking the past, Putin and his supporters are also attacking the future.
One night in October, a group of masked men burst into the Moscow offices of Memorial, the celebrated Russian historical society and civil-rights organization, and disrupted a screening of Mr. Jones, a film about the Ukrainian famine of 1932–33. They shouted, gesticulated, and chanted “fascists” and “foreign agents” at the audience. Police were called, but they allowed the masked men to escape. Instead of chasing the intruders, officers barred the doors of the building and interrogated members of the audience until long past midnight.
This week, as Russian troops and armored trucks are inexplicably gathering on the borders of Ukraine, the event at the Moscow theater seems retrospectively more ominous, the moment when the “normal” pressure on Memorial and other Russian civic institutions turned more sinister. Something about it also felt familiar to Irina Shcherbakova, a Russian historian who writes about Germany and is one of the organization’s original founders. That evening, she told me, reminded her of another one: In 1930, Joseph Goebbels, then the Nazi Party leader in Berlin, sent a mob of thugs to block the showing of a movie. They shouted, gesticulated, released mice into the theater, and threw stink bombs. Frightened, the audience left.
The movie Goebbels didn’t like was All Quiet on the Western Front, which graphically depicted the horrors of the First World War and thus disrupted the more heroic version of German history preferred by the Nazis. Mr. Jones, the film the Russian government doesn’t like, tells the story of a Welsh journalist, Gareth Jones, who was the only Western writer to report on the Ukrainian famine. Filmed by the great Polish director Agnieszka Holland, Mr. Jones contains horrific scenes of peasants who are starving to death. They are starving not because their harvest failed, but because the Soviet leadership has confiscated their food. That story disrupts the more heroic version of Soviet history preferred by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former officer of the KGB, the institution that organized the famine 90 years ago.
The attack on All Quiet on the Western Front was a harbinger of what was to come: In 1933, the Nazis took over Germany and banned the movie altogether. A few years later, the entire country, blinded by the Nazi vision of Germany’s past, was at war. Dictators distort the past because they want to use it: to stay in power, to bully opponents, to persuade people to commit acts of mass violence.
The attack on Mr. Jones also heralded a change. In November, the Russian prosecutor general asked the Russian Supreme Court to shut down Memorial altogether. Ostensibly, this was because Memorial had been designated a “foreign agent” and hadn’t complied with all of the laws that foreign agents are required to obey. But this excuse is farcical. Memorial was founded in 1987 by Russians, for Russians, and it has been dedicated to Russian history and Russian civil liberties ever since. If it is closed, that’s because the Russan government is determined to return to the pre-1987 Soviet world of repression, state-sponsored terror, and falsifed history.
How did Russia get to this point? Thirty years ago, after the U.S.S.R. came to an end, the Russian state that succeeded it was focused on the present and the future: economic reform, political reform, opening to the world. Thirty years ago, Memorial was a hive of energy, each corner of its small pink-stone building in central Moscow stuffed with books, papers, and people drinking tea. When I first started spending time there, in the 1990s, Memorial was assembling a library that would eventually contain a wide assortment of memoirs and monographs on Soviet repression, in multiple languages. It was archiving photographs and oral histories, and assembling the world’s largest collection of objects from the Gulag: prisoners’ uniforms, tools, paintings, sketches, carvings.
Some of these projects had started before Memorial even existed. One of the group’s other founders, the late Arseny Roginsky, began collecting the names of Stalin’s victims back in the 1970s, when doing so was still illegal. This was an act of faith: “I had to assume that history would outlast stupidity and cruelty,” he told David Remnick, who quotes him in his book Lenin’s Tomb. Roginsky went to jail for his efforts. But in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Memorial ceased to be a dissident organization. Historians from Memorial often worked in tandem with state archivists. They used newly available Soviet sources to produce an astonishing array of books and document collections. In 2000, they produced the first complete list of the Soviet Gulag camps, with a brief history of each one; in 2016, this material became an interactive online map. Over time, Memorial created a list of more than 3 million victims of Stalinism, and eventually made that available online too. In that era, I met historians affiliated with Memorial in many obscure corners of Russia—Syktyvkar, Vorkuta, Petrozavodsk—where there used to be Gulag camps. In some places they had cordial relationships with local governments, though in others the state was simply indifferent. In the 1990s, many officials viewed archival work, including mine, as a somewhat eccentric and harmless activity. Some girl from America wants to look at old papers? She’s welcome to them.
Putin’s determined re-politicization of history has changed all of that. He began by bringing back annual celebrations, complete with Soviet flags and uniforms, of the 1945 victory in what is still called, in literal translation, the “Great Fatherland War”—as if no one else fought the Nazis. He brought back the Soviet national anthem. Slowly, Stalin was whitewashed. Nostalgia for his victories was pumped up to new levels. In 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Russians were repeatedly told on state television and in thousands of social-media posts that they were fighting a war against “fascism” once more.
As stupidity and cruelty again began to outpace history, clashes between Memorial and the organs of the state intensified. Perhaps this was to be expected, because Roginsky, Shcherbakova, and the others at Memorial were not doing history for history’s sake. They were investigating Stalinism in the past precisely because they wanted to block the return of Stalinism in the present. Toward that end, Memorial helped create public monuments to Stalin’s crimes, including a boulder from the Solovetsky Islands, the site of the first Soviet camp for political prisoners, which was placed right in front of KGB headquarters in Lubyanka Square. They also began investigating modern Russian human-rights violations in the present—most dramatically in Moscow’s campaign against rebels in Chechnya.
Memorial ended that project after one of its investigators, Natalia Estemirova, was kidnapped and murdered there in 2009. But since then other, less obviously political activities have become dangerous too. For years now, Memorial has worked with schoolteachers all over Russia, among other things encouraging children to ask their grandparents what they remember of the Soviet Union, and to write down those stories. This, Shcherbakova told me, is now the most controversial thing Memorial does. “It’s dangerous for schools to work with us. Sometimes it is forbidden to work with us.” But not only schools are intimidated. Archives, libraries, academic institutions—all of them, she told me, are now afraid to work with the organization that pioneered the study of Soviet repression in Russia.
Educators’ and researchers’ fear is not unreasonable. Memorial employees are now regularly questioned and investigated by police. Sometimes their family members are subjected to similar harassment. Yuri Dmitriev, a historian and an archeologist who heads Memorial’s local chapter in Karelia, a region in northwest Russia, has paid an even higher price. Since 2016, Dmitriev—who has probably identified more mass-burial sites and found more bodies of Stalin’s victims than anyone else in Russia—has been in and out of prison while fighting grotesque, clearly fabricated charges of sexual assault.
In the face of this aggression, Memorial has not backed down. Instead, the organization has been systematically preparing itself for the worst by digitizing its archives. In recent days, thousands of people have come to Memorial’s Moscow headquarters to view its public exhibits, but also to sign petitions and express their support. Even if they don’t know much about the organization, Shcherbakova told me, people come because they understand what its closure would symbolize: “If this is happening to Memorial, then something bad may be coming.”
They may be right. Let me return to where I began: Dictators distort the past because they want to use it. Putin certainly wants to use the past to stay in power. If Russians are nostalgic for their old dictatorship, then they have less reason to push back against the new one. He may also want to use the past to give legitimacy to violence—Russians who have no awareness of what Moscow did to Ukraine in the past will feel no sense of guilt about repeating old patterns of aggression. History does contain lessons, and here is one of them: If Putin plans to turn his falsely heroic vision of Russia’s past into a justification for another war in the present, he won’t be the first autocrat to do so.
22. By Land, Sea, Air: Green Berets Get Mission-Ready
I just have to send this since it is my old unit that I commanded in 2000-2002. Proud to have served with great men like these.
By Land, Sea, Air: Green Berets Get Mission-Ready
Green Berets assigned to the 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) conducted a full mission profile training exercise at Ukibaru Island, Okinawa, Japan.
Full Mission Profile
Green Berets attempt to establish radio communications during a full mission profile training exercise at Ukibaru Island, Okinawa, Japan,Nov. 23, 2021.
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Photo By: Army Courtesy Photo
VIRIN: 211123-A-A4204-1006M
Full Mission Profile
Green Berets exit from the rear of a Marine Corps C-130 airplane during a military freefall high altitude high opening jump at Ukibaru Island, Okinawa, Japan, Nov 23, 2021.
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Photo By: Army Courtesy Photo
VIRIN: 211123-A-A4204-1007M
The exercise brought together several detachments to perform scout swimmer, underwater beach landing and military freefall high altitude, high opening infiltrations onto the island with support from a Marine Corps C-130 airplane.
This joint rehearsal served as a milestone in the unit's efforts to support the Indo-Pacific Command's integrated deterrence strategy.
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V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
