Quotes of the Day:
"Question: Why are we Masters of our Fate, the captains of our souls? Because we have the power to control our thoughts, our attitudes. That is why many people live in the withering negative world. That is why many people live in the Positive Faith world."
- Alfred A. Montapert
“It is not to political leaders our people must look, but to themselves. Leaders are but individuals, and individuals are imperfect, liable to error and weakness. The strength of the nation will be the strength of the spirit of the whole people.”
- Michael Collins
Since the Korean War, U.S. and South Korea have established an enduring friendship with shared interests, such as denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, combating aggression abroad and developing our economies.
-Charles B. Rangel
1. Russia says it's pulling back some troops from Ukraine border
2. Russian Artillery Moving Into "Attack Positions" Along Ukraine Border: Report
3. Ukraine-Russia tensions: Russia pulls some troops back from border
4. Just Whom Would a Russian 'False Flag' Operation Seek to Convince?Just Whom Would a Russian 'False Flag' Operation Seek to Convince?
5. Blinken’s Indo-Pacific trip to reassure US allies
6. Bahrain chooses alignment with Israel over submission to IranBahrain chooses alignment with Israel over submission to Iran
7. Opinion | Does Putin want a diplomatic solution in Ukraine? It’s not looking that way.
8. Ukraine’s Capital Awaits a Potential Russian Attack With Determination, Calm
9. Russia sending troops, equipment closer to Ukraine, satellite images show
10. How Technology Is Opening a Window onto Russian Military Activity Around Ukraine
11. The Lesson Stalin Could Teach Putin About Invading a Neighbor
12. ‘Mercenaries have skills armies lack’: former Wagner operative opens up
13. Russian drones shot down over Ukraine were full of Western parts. Can the U.S. cut them off?
14. Advising everywhere: Army SFABs go smaller, farther
15. Here’s the gear SFAB teams require for far-flung global missions
16. Col. Owen Ray may lose Special Forces tab, lawyer doxxed prosecutor’s kids ahead of trial
17. ‘When your stomach is empty, it feels even colder’: In Afghanistan, desperate for the next meal
18. Ukraine Is a Wake-Up Call for America
19. Is the Russian President a Strategic Master or a Strategic Failure?
20. Russia vs Ukraine could provide invaluable lessons on what truly works in modern warfare
21. Why China’s Threat to Punish Outspoken Olympians Rings Hollow
22. Readout of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl Virtual Quad Meeting with France, Germany, and the UK
23. FDD | Iran’s Cyber Operations Against Turkey Should Be a Wakeup Call for Erdogan
1. Russia says it's pulling back some troops from Ukraine border
"Russia says". Conflicting reporting.
Russia says it's pulling back some troops from Ukraine border
Axios · by Rebecca Falconer
Some Russian troops near Ukraine's border are returning to their bases after completing missions, but other large-scale drills remain ongoing, Russia's defense ministry said on Tuesday.
Why it matters: It's a sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be willing to de-escalate the crisis, but the threat of war isn't over yet, per the New York Times.
Details: "The units of the Southern and Western military districts, having completed their tasks, have already begun loading onto rail and road transport and will begin moving to their military garrisons today," spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
- "A number of combat training exercises, including drills, have been conducted as planned," Konashenkov added.
"The Russian Armed Forces are continuing a range of large-scale exercises for operational training of troops and forces. Practically all military districts, fleets and the Airborne Troops are taking part."
— Russian defense ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov
What they're saying: "The path for diplomacy remains available if Russia chooses to engage constructively," White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing on Monday.
- "However, we are clear-eyed about the prospects of that, given the steps Russia is taking on the ground in plain sight."
Worth noting: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a news conference on Monday that while he wanted his country to join NATO "for our security," he conceded this could remain "a dream," according to the NYT.
What to watch: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was traveling to Moscow from Kyiv on Tuesday to meet with Putin in an attempt to avert war.
Axios · by Rebecca Falconer
2. Russian Artillery Moving Into "Attack Positions" Along Ukraine Border: Report
As I read reports of how Russia will supposedly attack Ukraine I see shades of the Soviet Red Army (e.g, importance of artillery). The new Russia Army may have a lot of similarities with the "Krasnovian" doctrine we used to use to train against the Soviets.
Russian Artillery Moving Into "Attack Positions" Along Ukraine Border: Report (Updated)
American officials have warned Ukraine's President that Russia could kick off a major military incursion this Wednesday.
Screen capture via Twitter
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CBS News has reported that Russian artillery units have moved into "attack positions" in preparation for a new invasion of Ukraine, citing U.S. officials. At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that he has been informed that the Kremlin will launch this operation this Wednesday, February 16th, and that he has declared the day a holiday to demonstrate the country's unity in response.
"Some Russian units have left their assembly areas – the bumper-to-bumper formations seen in satellite photos – and are beginning to move into 'attack positions,' according to the [U.S.] official," CBS News' story said. "This movement marks a change since Sunday, when some of the units had left the assembly areas but had not yet taken what could be viewed as attack positions."
For weeks now, experts and observers have also been scrutinizing publicly available satellite images of areas of southwestern Russia and Belarus near those countries' borders with Ukraine, as well as pictures and videos taken by individuals on the ground, all showing a steady torrent of Russian forces flowing into those regions. Reports indicate that Russia has moved at least 60 percent of all of its battalion tactical groups, its primary ground combat formations, to locations near the country's borders with Ukraine, as well as into neighboring Belarus. Some of these elements have come all the way from the opposite side of the country. The Russian government says that this is all ostensibly for exercises, though it has long been understood that if a new invasion of Ukraine comes, it would most likely come during these drills or shortly after their conclusion.
These deployments have included air and naval assets, in addition to ground forces. For instance, just this weekend, a new image from Planet Labs emerged showing that the number of Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack aircraft Luninets Air Base in Belarus had jumped from 15 to 32. It's not clear whether these are all Belarusian or Russian jets, or a mixture of aircraft from both countries. An S-400 long-range surface-to-air missile unit also now appears to be operational at that base.
Though there does not appear to be any independent analysis yet showing these new worrisome movements by Russian artillery units, this report is certainly in line with recent public warnings from American officials, as well as other reports citing anonymous U.S. government sources. This includes stories in the past few days that say that the Kremlin could launch a large-scale military incursion into Ukraine as soon as this Wednesday, February 16.
American officials have declined to confirm or deny whether or not they believe that Russia will kick off this operation on this specific day. However, they, among others, have consistently said that the Kremlin is in a position now to launch such a military intervention at a time and place of its choosing.
"We cannot perfectly predict the day, but we have now been saying for some time that we are in the window, and an invasion could begin – a major military action could begin – by Russia in Ukraine any day now," U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN's "State of the Union" this weekend when asked about these reports. "That includes this coming week before the end of the Olympics."
Experts and observers had suggested that any new Russian invasion of Ukraine would come after the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, which are scheduled to conclude on February 20. The belief has been that Putin would be unlikely to do anything that would distract from that event and potentially embarrass one of his key international partners, Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
"We have seen over the course of the past 10 days a dramatic acceleration in the build-up of Russian forces and the disposition of those forces in such a way that they could launch a military action essentially at any time," Sullivan said during his recent interview on CNN. "They could do so this coming week, but of course, it still awaits the go-order [from Russian President Vladimir Putin]."
“If there is a military invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it’s likely to begin with a significant barrage of missiles and bomb attacks,” he added. “It would then be followed by an onslaught of a ground force moving across the Ukrainian frontier."
Travel alerts from the U.S. State Department and the foreign ministries of a number of other countries advising their nationals to leave Ukraine now while it is still possible to do so only further underscore that there are very real fears that a major conflict in Ukraine is about to erupt. Dutch airline KLM has already suspended flights to the country over security concerns and there are reports that others may follow suit, especially if insurance companies start refusing to cover commercial aviation activities in the region as the crisis deepens.
For his part, Ukrainian President Zelensky has sought to temper concerns about an impending Russian invasion, but he also appears to be increasingly swayed by the seriousness of the information he is receiving from the United States and other international partners.
"We don't stare at someone else's, but we won't give our own. We have an amazing army. Our guys have a unique combat experience and modern weapons. This is already times stronger than the army eight years ago," he said in a statement today. "We are told that February 16 will be the day of attack. We will make it a day of unity. The decree has already been signed. This afternoon we will hang national flags, put on blue-yellow ribbons and show the world our unity. We all want to live happily, and happiness loves the strong. We have never been able to give up and we are not going to learn it."
Ukrainian officials have since denied that Zelensky, who has been publicly skeptical of the February 16 date, was in any way confirming intelligence indicating that Russia would actually launch an attack in 48 hours.
At the same time, this follows comments from the Ukrainian President earlier today about his country potentially becoming a member of NATO that were almost certain to provoke the ire of Russia.
"It is understandable that we would like to join NATO," Zelensky said while speaking alongside Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz. "It would guarantee our security, our territorial integrity. This [the right of Ukraine to seek NATO membership] is also enshrined in the Ukrainian legislation, in the constitution of Ukraine."
Separately, Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom, clarified recent statements that seemed to suggest that his country would be willing to give up its NATO ambitions as a concession to Russia. Prystaiko's comments echoed those of Zelensky, reiterating that Ukraine has a legal right under its own laws to choose for itself whether or not to join an alliance like NATO.
“We are not a member of NATO right now and to avoid war we are ready for many concessions and that is what we are doing in conversations with the Russians,” Prystaiko told the BBC. “It has nothing to do with NATO, which is enshrined in the constitution."
Since the country gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Ukrainian government has expanded military-to-military ties with NATO, as an organization, and individual member states. The United States and other countries within this alliance have been important suppliers of weapons and other military aid in recent weeks – including Lithuania's delivery of U.S.-made Stinger shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, among other materiel, just this weekend – to help bolster Ukraine's capabilities and general capacity to defend against any future Russian aggression.
Over the past few weeks, NATO members, especially the United States, have also steadily deployed more of their own forces to bolster the alliance's force posture along its eastern flank. The stated objective of these deployments, which have included a slew of air, ground, and naval assets, including the arrival of eight additional U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagle combat jets in Poland just today, is to demonstrate the strength and unity of NATO, as well as deter potential Russian aggression. U.S. officials have declined to rule out the possibility that any new major conflict in Ukraine might have spillover effects in neighboring NATO countries.
The Kremlin has made clear that it sees preventing Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO as a "red line" issue. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a televised meeting today that the Kremlin continues to receive "unsatisfactory" responses from members of that military alliance in regards to this demand and other proposals it has offered for how to deescalate the situation regarding Ukraine.
Still, Lavrov did seem to leave open the possibility, at least publicly that the Kremlin could find some kind of non-military solution to the brewing crisis.
"It seems to me that our [diplomatic] possibilities are far from exhausted," he told Putin. "At this stage, I would suggest continuing and building them up."
"We have already warned more than once that we will not allow endless negotiations on questions that demand a solution today," he added. "I must say there are always chances."
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who had his own televised meeting with Putin today, further insisted that the Kremlin has no plans to invade Ukraine and that its forces deployed in the country's western regions and in Belarus would return to their home stations following the conclusion of the currently planned exercises. "Some exercises are ending and others will be over in the near future," he said.
This is, of course, not the first time Shoigu has insisted that Russia has no intention of launching military action against Ukraine, despite clear evidence of Russia already being engaged in such operations. In addition, after Russian officials announced a similar withdrawal following a buildup of forces near the country's borders with Ukraine for "exercises" last year, it became clear that some units, as well as large stockpiles of materiel, had actually remained in place.
Beyond this, Russia appears to have rejected recent efforts to use other confidence-building mechanisms to try to defuse concerns over its intentions. Ukrainian officials say that the Kremlin has not responded to formal requests made through Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for additional information to prove that its "exercises" in western Russian and Belarus are what they are said to be. State-run Russian media outlet RIA Novosti reported that a top Russian diplomat, Konstantin Gavrilov, said the country has no intention of attending an OSCE meeting today to discuss its military movements in and around Europe.
Ukrainian officials have gone on the record to accuse Russia of already conducting a variety of covert and clandestine operations to destabilize the country, including cyberattacks, economic warfare, and hundreds of fake bomb threats. The U.S. and British governments had previously issued statements about intelligence indicating that Russia had established networks inside Ukraine for the express purpose of seizing control of the government in the event of a new invasion, as well. There have been reports that the Kremlin, or its proxies, could attempt to stage some kind of false flag attack as a pretext for a Russian intervention, too.
All told, new reports and other developments surrounding Ukraine are now emerging at an extremely fast pace, and the overall situation continues to be extremely fluid. At the same time, if Russia is indeed poised to launch a new large-scale military operation against its neighbor, it will not be long before the entire world becomes aware of it.
Update 6:55 PM EST:
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has reiterated the Russian government's public position that it is open to further negotiations over the crisis. At the same time, he has also stressed that any resolution to the current situation has to address Russia's broader security concerns, such has those relating to NATO.
"First of all, President Putin has always been demanding negotiations and diplomacy. And actually, he initiated the issue of security guarantees for the Russian Federation," Peskov said. "And Ukraine is just a part of the problem, it’s a part of the bigger problem of security guarantees for Russia and, of course, President Putin is willing to negotiate."
Separately, Politico has reported that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan outlined a number of key items regarding Ukraine during a call with members of the House of Representatives. This includes that the Pentagon is looking into ways to continue sending military aid to the Ukrainian armed forces via land routes in the event that it is no longer possible to make those deliveries via air.
Update 10:20 PM EST:
The U.S. State Department has issued updated travel advisories for the countries of Belarus and Moldova. American citizens are now advised not to travel to Belarus, as well as Moldova's breakaway Transnistria region, in part because of concerns related to the crisis surrounding Ukraine. U.S. citizens already in Belarus or Transnistria are advised to leave as soon as possible.
The advisory for Belarus now includes the following:
On January 31, 2022, the Department of State ordered the departure of family members of U.S. government employees from Embassy Minsk.
Due to an increase in unusual and concerning Russian military activity near the border with Ukraine, U.S. citizens located in or considering travel to Belarus should be aware that the situation is unpredictable and there is heightened tension in the region. On February 12, 2022, the Department of State ordered the departure of most U.S. direct hire employees from Embassy Kyiv due to the continued threat of Russian military action. Potential harassment targeted specifically at foreigners is also possible. Given the heightened volatility of the situation, U.S. citizens are strongly advised against traveling to Belarus.
The U.S. government’s ability to provide routine or emergency services to U.S. citizens in Belarus is already severely limited due to Belarusian government limitations on U.S. Embassy staffing.
The advisory for Moldova now includes the following:
Do not travel to Transnistria due to an increase in unusual and concerning military activity around Ukraine. Transnistria is a breakaway region that is not under the control of the Moldovan government in Chisinau. U.S. citizens should depart immediately via commercial or private means. Visitors may encounter difficulties at checkpoints along roads leading into and out of Transnistria. Taking photographs of military facilities and security forces is prohibited and may result in trouble with authorities.
The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens traveling in Transnistria as U.S. government employees have restrictions on traveling to the area.
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3. Ukraine-Russia tensions: Russia pulls some troops back from border
Still "Russia says"
Ukraine-Russia tensions: Russia pulls some troops back from border
Published
9 minutes ago
A Russian military build-up around Ukraine has sparked alarm
Russia says it is pulling back some of its troops from near Ukraine after a build-up raised fears of an invasion.
The defence ministry said that large-scale drills continued but that some units were returning to their bases.
Ukraine warned to wait to see proof of the pull-out, saying "when we see the withdrawal, then we'll believe the de-escalation".
More than 100,000 Russian troops have massed at Ukraine's border. Russia has always denied it is planning an attack.
The build-up has brought increasingly grave warnings, with the US saying an invasion could come at any time.
Russia has been seeking guarantees that Ukraine will not be allowed to join Nato, something the security bloc has rejected.
In another development, the Russian parliament has voted in favour of asking President Vladimir Putin to recognise the two self-declared republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine as independent.
Russia has granted citizenship to at least 720,000 people in the two regions, the scene of an insurgency that began in 2014.
If Mr Putin were to recognise the two breakaway regions it would violate peace agreements.
In its statement, Russia's defence ministry said it was withdrawing some of the troops conducting exercises in military districts bordering Ukraine.
"A number of combat training exercises, including drills, have been conducted as planned," defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
Some exercises are continuing, such as a large joint Russia-Belarus drill, due to end on 20 February.
A British government source said it was waiting to see the scale of the withdrawal, saying it would have to make a difference to the ability to invade to be meaningful.
Media caption,
Watch: Russia video appears to show tanks leaving Ukrainian border area
But the announcement was enough for both Ukraine and Russia to claim victory in the stand-off.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dymytro Kuleba said "we have managed together with our partners to deter Russia from any further escalation".
A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said the day "will go into history as the day western war propaganda failed. They have been disgraced and destroyed without a single shot being fired."
For weeks there have been regular reports of Russia increasing troop numbers near the border with Ukraine.
Now Moscow has announced that - drills over - some units are returning to base.
A sign of de-escalation? Possibly. But caution is required. The number of troops packing up and moving back is unclear.
Moscow, of course, has insisted all along it has no plans for a military escalation in Ukraine. The Russian authorities have dismissed claims by Western governments that a Russian invasion is imminent.
President Putin's spokesman said the Kremlin leader had mocked such assertions.
"Sometimes [Putin] even jokes about it," Dmitry Peskov told journalists. "He asks us to check whether they [in the West] have published the exact time that war will start."
Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in Moscow for talks with President Putin as part of diplomatic efforts aimed at warding off a potential crisis.
Mr Scholz has faced criticism for his response to the tensions.
He has refused to commit publicly to scrapping the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany in the event of Russian aggression against Ukraine, saying only that all sanctions options remain on the table.
This is in contrast to US President Joe Biden, who has said the scheme would be halted if Russia invades.
4. Just Whom Would a Russian 'False Flag' Operation Seek to Convince?
This is why the Biden administration is correct to expose the Russian strategy. It can inoculate people to the false flag operation if it occurs and by exposing it perhaps the Russians will not execute (with the accusation that the US was just making it up and it is the US that is offering "propaganda. That is a criticism we have to be willing to accept - if the Russians do not attack because we have expressed and attacked their strategy then it will be worth it. Unfortunately the administration will likely be criticized for being wrong, overly alarmists, or at worst lying about the Russian activity. That is something we are going to have to ive with if our main objective is to deter conflict).
But by the administration making the intelligence public, VOA and RFE/RL can report on it because it is news. VOA and RFE/RL are penetrating Russia and getting messages to the Russian people so if the intended target of the false flag is the Russian people they may be receiving external information that will counter and complicate Russian government efforts.
Just Whom Would a Russian 'False Flag' Operation Seek to Convince?
Russians themselves are likely the main target of the recent crescendo of disinformation, mostly from Moscow-backed separatists in Ukraine
Russia Has Been Prepping Its Population for a ‘False Flag’ Operation For Months
Just whom would a Russian “false flag” operation seek to convince? Western audiences have been warned for weeks that Moscow may try to stage a purported provocation for invading Ukraine—but foreigners may not be Vladimir Putin’s target.
Russians are living in a completely different information environment than their Western counterparts, especially when it comes to Ukraine. Over the last several months, the country’s largely state-controlled media has been rife with statements from Russian proxy forces.
Denis Pushilin, who heads the Donetsk People’s Republic, or DNR; Leonid Pasechnik, leader of the Russia-backed Luhansk People's Republic, or LPR, and their subordinates like LPR official Ivan Filiponenko, have been laying the groundwork for false claims that Ukrainians have attacked Russian forces.
Russian separatists’ claims about Ukrainian government activity are a regular feature of the eight-year conflict. They frequently proffer accusations about violations of the Minsk II ceasefire agreement. But as Russian military forces have been building up on the Ukrainian border, these public comments have become more and more extreme.
In November, Russian separatist forces claimed that the United States had shipped botulism toxins to the government in Kiev. In December, they claimed that Ukraine was pushing heavy military equipment and Ukrainian forces into the region at a rate not seen since 2014.
In January, they claimed that Ukrainian forces had set up headquarters in school houses and that they were placing mines and explosive devices in schools elsewhere. They said that Ukraine has been working with the United States to plan attacks on separatist and civilian targets in the Russian-held region, and that Ukrainian soldiers were firing machine guns at apartment buildings.
This month has brought the most outlandish claims yet, including accusations that Ukrainian forces are finalizing plans for airstrikes and a major offensive against separatist forces. They also claimed that the Ukrainian government had asked embassies around the world to forcibly return fighting-age Ukrainian men to prepare for the coming military strike, and that the government was evacuating Ukrainian citizens from the places it intended to strike. Other claims said the British government was working with Ukrainian forces to stage a terrorist attack according to these Kremlin-backed separatists, and that Ukraine was blocking humanitarian assistance. And last week, Pushilin claimed that his forces had discovered more than 100 mass graves complete with the bodies of women and children.
Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine, called the escalating rhetoric part of Moscow’s effort to justify its military buildup to the Russian populace. “I would expect it to have gone up recently because it's consistent with Russia's military,” Volker said. “This is standard fare for the Russians. They just make stuff up and accuse others of doing things that are provocative, which are not true.”
Nina Jankowicz, a global fellow a the Wilson Center and the author of the book How to Lose the Information War: Russia, Fake News and the Future of Conflict, said, “Many of these quotes are attempts by the so-called DNR and LNR leaders to lay the pretext for further hostilities and blame whatever violence occurs on the Ukrainian government or the West. They ignore the facts on the ground regarding the war: that Russia began it, unprovoked; that it continues to fund the republics in Donbas; does not provide enough humanitarian assistance for the elderly left behind in the region; and often makes it impossible for the Ukrainian government to deliver such assistance as well; and that the separatist governments have been responsible for atrocities and human rights abuses since the beginning of the conflict. “
To Western audiences, the claims by Russian sources might sound dubious to downright ridiculous. If the Ukrainian government were really filling mass graves and planning terrorist attacks, then surely human rights groups and governments would be highlighting and denouncing such activity. But consider the effect any one of those statements might have in the Russia information vacuum, presented and repeated without any rejoinder from Ukrainians, independent human rights observers, or anyone else that might undermine the Kremlin narrative.
One State Department official said that the Kremlin has diligently been working to paint Ukraine and Ukrainian forces in the east of the country as criminal, inhumane, and increasingly aggressive. “These Russian narratives distract from [Russia’s] long and ongoing history of actions against its neighbors by first, blaming the West for escalating tensions, second, highlighting supposed humanitarian issues in Ukraine that Russian ‘intervention’ could solve; and third, promoting Russian nationalism to encourage domestic support within Russia for military action,” the official said. “To generate pretexts for military action, justify a Russian ‘intervention,’ and sow division in Ukraine, Russian influence actors and disinformation outlets are fabricating fictional Ukrainian provocations and spreading disinformation via all of their pillars – state media and official messaging, proxy sites, and social media amplifiers.”
Those statements from Russian separatist forces are echoed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who presents the Russian government’s position that Ukraine is responsible for the buildup of Russian forces on its border because it never implemented what it agreed to under the Minsk ceasefire provisions.
That’s a lie, Volker said. “They just keep saying and saying and saying it and eventually people start to believe them. Publics or officials in France or Germany, they say ‘Oh, Ukrainians, you know, we know you're trying but you should do more!’ That's exactly what Russia wants, whereas Russia denies that it is a party to the Minsk agreements. It denies that it has forces in eastern Ukraine. It denies that the LPR and DPR are illegal armed groups, which are prohibited under Minsk. They just reject it completely.”
What effect does the continuous repetition of a dubious statement have psychologically in an audience? Studies suggest it makes those statements more believable.
5. Blinken’s Indo-Pacific trip to reassure US allies
US influence in the region is waning?
A key point in this excerpt from "one top official:"
During his latest act of shuttle diplomacy, the chief US diplomat met counterparts from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, better known as the Quad, and visited some South Pacific Islands, the first by any top US cabinet official in almost four decades, in order to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
Crucially, the Biden administration not only announced new ambassadorial appointments to key Asian capitals, but also released its much-ballyhooed “Indo-Pacific Strategy” paper. This calls on the US and its allies to “build collective capacity within and beyond the region” to ostensibly counter the growing influence of authoritarian superpowers, namely China.”
Blinken’s visits to Australia, Fiji and Hawaii were crucial since, as one US top official put it, “the United States doesn’t have the luxury to only focus on one region or one problem at a time.”
Blinken’s Indo-Pacific trip to reassure US allies
With US influence waning in the region, and China’s rising, Washington aims to rebuild its standing with old alliesWith US influence waning in the region, and China’s rising, Washington aims to rebuild its standing with old allies
If there is one thing that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is best known for during his previous stint as a top national security official in the Obama administration is his famous dictum, “superpowers don’t bluff.”
Now America’s chief diplomat, Blinken is scrambling to reassure allies and strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific that America’s expressed commitment to the region is no bluffing matter.
After an impressive start to its Asian diplomacy last year, the Biden administration rekindled simmering fears of American strategic retrenchment after its disastrous exit from Afghanistan.
The ongoing crisis in Ukraine, and the widening shadow of war in Europe, have only reinforced anxieties over America’s wherewithal to compete with an ascendant China in the Indo-Pacific.
In response, Blinken embarked on a high-profile visit to the region even as top US officials, including Biden, have warned that a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine could begin “at any time” this week.
During his latest act of shuttle diplomacy, the chief US diplomat met counterparts from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, better known as the Quad, and visited some South Pacific Islands, the first by any top US cabinet official in almost four decades, in order to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
Crucially, the Biden administration not only announced new ambassadorial appointments to key Asian capitals, but also released its much-ballyhooed “Indo-Pacific Strategy” paper. This calls on the US and its allies to “build collective capacity within and beyond the region” to ostensibly counter the growing influence of authoritarian superpowers, namely China.”
Blinken’s visits to Australia, Fiji and Hawaii were crucial since, as one US top official put it, “the United States doesn’t have the luxury to only focus on one region or one problem at a time.”
Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is greeted by Indonesian Foreign Ministry Director-General Retno Marsudi on her arrival in Bali, Indonesia, for the ASEAN and East Asian Summits on November 17, 2011. Photo: WikiCommons
Hilary started the ball rolling
A decade ago, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton effectively announced the US’ pivot to the Indo-Pacific in an oft-cited article, where she emphasized the emergence of the region as a “key driver of global politics.”
“As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point,” Clinton wrote, laying out the foundations of the Obama administration’s Pivot to Asia (P2A) policy, which was first announced before the Australian Parliament in 2011.
“One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment – diplomatic, economic, strategic and otherwise – in the Asia-Pacific region,” she continued.
Crucially, the former American chief diplomat underscored the need for the US to double down on its leadership role in the region amid tectonic shifts in the regional balance of power, especially with the rise of China.
Nevertheless, Clinton remained confident that “American leadership” will continue “well into this century,” while emphasizing the need for the US to replicate its prior establishment of a “comprehensive and lasting transatlantic network of institutions and relationships” in the Indo-Pacific.
By and large, however, the US’s pivot to the region has remained an unfinished project. The former Trump administration’s perfunctory nixing of the Transpacific Partnership Agreement has effectively left America with no credible economic alternative to China, which has launched a whole host of international economic initiatives in recent years.
The 2020 elections, however, saw the en masse return of top Obama administration officials to power, including Biden and Blinken. There is, accordingly, a profound realization that the US is in catch-up mode in the region, thus the Biden administration’s ‘hyper-diplomacy’ in the past year.
Antony Blinken and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne at the Quad Foreign Ministers Ministerial Meeting in Melbourne, Australia, on February 10, 2022. Photo: WikiCommons
The Quad gathers
In Canberra, Blinken met his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan for the fourth Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in just over two years.
“We are focused on working closely with Indo-Pacific partners to address the region’s most important challenges. Working together as the Quad, we are more effective in delivering practical support to the region,” the four powers said in a joint statement.
“Quad partners champion the free, open and inclusive rules-based order, rooted in international law, that protects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of regional countries,” the official statement continued.
During his stay in Australia, Blinken admitted: “We have a bit of a challenge with Ukraine and Russian aggression. We’re working 24/7 on that.” But he emphasized how “each of you knows this better than anyone else, that so much of this century is going to be shaped by what happens here in the Indo-Pacific region,” he added.
“More than ever before, we need partnerships, we need alliances, we need coalitions of countries willing to put their efforts, their resources, their minds into tackling these problems,” Blinken added. He constantly emphasized the four powers’ “shared vision” for a “free and open society” as a thinly-veiled jab at the Communist regime in Beijing.
Blinken also became the first US Secretary of State to visit Fiji in 36 years, a new theater of Sino-American competition in recent years.
“We see our long-term future in the Indo-Pacific,” the US’s chief diplomat said, standing next to Fiji’s acting leader, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, amid political turmoil in the Pacific Island nation. “It’s as simple and basic as that.”
During his visit, Blinken announced that the US would soon open a new embassy in the neighboring Solomon Islands, which has been engulfed in widespread violence amid domestic disagreements over the country’s governance and, more broadly, relations with China.
A warm welcome in Fiji
The US diplomat pledged expanded non-traditional security assistance to the region to battle climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic as well as illegal fishing.
“America is uniquely positioned to be a direct partner to Fiji for peace and climate security,” the acting Fijian leader said, expressing gratitude for the renewed US focus on the long-neglected region. “We need American might and its mind as well as pioneering solutions and investments,” he added.
“The fact is, they have not been present in this space for a long time now,” Sayed-Khaiyum told the media.
As Blinken prepared to leave Australia for Fiji, the White House released an 18-page document outlining the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, emphasizing a need to “shape the strategic environment” in which rivals such as China operate, including to “deploy advanced war-fighting capabilities” to key allies and strategic partners across the region.
The document, the first of its kind by the Biden administration, bluntly mentions “mounting challenges” posed by an resurgent China as the key force behind “intensifying American focus” on the Indo-Pacific.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] is combining its economic, diplomatic, military and technological might as it pursues a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power,” the document states.
“Our collective efforts over the next decade will determine whether [China] succeeds in transforming the rules and norms that have benefitted the Indo-Pacific and the world,” the strategic paper continues.
The Biden administration also cites China’s economic coercion of key allies such as Austrsalia amid ongoing diplomatic spats, India’s border disputes in the Himalayas with China and expanding Chinese military activities across adjacent waters, including the Taiwan Strait.
In the document, the Biden administration stands in solidarity with regional allies, who “bear much of the cost of China’s harmful behavior.”
This fleet of Chinese ships sparked a diplomatic row last year after parking at a reef off the Philippines for weeks. Photo: AFP / National Task Force-West Philippine Sea
The China challenge
In response to the China challenge, the US aims to upgrade its relations with a broad network of allies and strategic partners in the region, including “our five regional treaty alliances – with Australia, Japan, the [Republic of Korea], the Philippines, and Thailand” as well as “strengthening relationships with leading regional partners, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Pacific Islands.”
Overall, the new Indo-Pacific strategy paper outlines five key areas of focus for the US: 1, advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific, 2, building connections within and beyond the region, 3, driving regional prosperity, 4, bolstering Indo-Pacific security and, 5, building regional resilience to transnational threats.
Nevertheless, the Biden administration has made it clear that itseeks neither conflict nor confrontation, since “our objective is not to change China but to shape the strategic environment in which it operates.”
Projecting a full-spectrum American regional leadership, the document also emphasizes Washington’s commitment to addressing a whole host of non-traditional security threats, including climate change and post-pandemic recovery.
“We will not have the luxury of choosing between power politics and combatting transnational threats; we will rise to our leadership charge on diplomacy, security, economics, climate, pandemic response and technology,” the document states, emphasizing how the 21st century will “demand more of the United States in the Indo-Pacific than has been asked of us since the Second World War.”
Blinken’s Indo-Pacific trip to reassure US allies
If there is one thing that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is best known for during his previous stint as a top national security official in the Obama administration is his famous dictum, “superpowers don’t bluff.”
Now America’s chief diplomat, Blinken is scrambling to reassure allies and strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific that America’s expressed commitment to the region is no bluffing matter.
After an impressive start to its Asian diplomacy last year, the Biden administration rekindled simmering fears of American strategic retrenchment after its disastrous exit from Afghanistan.
The ongoing crisis in Ukraine, and the widening shadow of war in Europe, have only reinforced anxieties over America’s wherewithal to compete with an ascendant China in the Indo-Pacific.
In response, Blinken embarked on a high-profile visit to the region even as top US officials, including Biden, have warned that a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine could begin “at any time” this week.
During his latest act of shuttle diplomacy, the chief US diplomat met counterparts from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, better known as the Quad, and visited some South Pacific Islands, the first by any top US cabinet official in almost four decades, in order to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
Crucially, the Biden administration not only announced new ambassadorial appointments to key Asian capitals, but also released its much-ballyhooed “Indo-Pacific Strategy” paper. This calls on the US and its allies to “build collective capacity within and beyond the region” to ostensibly counter the growing influence of authoritarian superpowers, namely China.”
Blinken’s visits to Australia, Fiji and Hawaii were crucial since, as one US top official put it, “the United States doesn’t have the luxury to only focus on one region or one problem at a time.”
Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is greeted by Indonesian Foreign Ministry Director-General Retno Marsudi on her arrival in Bali, Indonesia, for the ASEAN and East Asian Summits on November 17, 2011. Photo: WikiCommons
Hilary started the ball rolling
A decade ago, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton effectively announced the US’ pivot to the Indo-Pacific in an oft-cited article, where she emphasized the emergence of the region as a “key driver of global politics.”
“As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point,” Clinton wrote, laying out the foundations of the Obama administration’s Pivot to Asia (P2A) policy, which was first announced before the Australian Parliament in 2011.
“One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment – diplomatic, economic, strategic and otherwise – in the Asia-Pacific region,” she continued.
Crucially, the former American chief diplomat underscored the need for the US to double down on its leadership role in the region amid tectonic shifts in the regional balance of power, especially with the rise of China.
Nevertheless, Clinton remained confident that “American leadership” will continue “well into this century,” while emphasizing the need for the US to replicate its prior establishment of a “comprehensive and lasting transatlantic network of institutions and relationships” in the Indo-Pacific.
By and large, however, the US’s pivot to the region has remained an unfinished project. The former Trump administration’s perfunctory nixing of the Transpacific Partnership Agreement has effectively left America with no credible economic alternative to China, which has launched a whole host of international economic initiatives in recent years.
The 2020 elections, however, saw the en masse return of top Obama administration officials to power, including Biden and Blinken. There is, accordingly, a profound realization that the US is in catch-up mode in the region, thus the Biden administration’s ‘hyper-diplomacy’ in the past year.
Antony Blinken and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne at the Quad Foreign Ministers Ministerial Meeting in Melbourne, Australia, on February 10, 2022. Photo: WikiCommons
The Quad gathers
In Canberra, Blinken met his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan for the fourth Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in just over two years.
“We are focused on working closely with Indo-Pacific partners to address the region’s most important challenges. Working together as the Quad, we are more effective in delivering practical support to the region,” the four powers said in a joint statement.
“Quad partners champion the free, open and inclusive rules-based order, rooted in international law, that protects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of regional countries,” the official statement continued.
During his stay in Australia, Blinken admitted: “We have a bit of a challenge with Ukraine and Russian aggression. We’re working 24/7 on that.” But he emphasized how “each of you knows this better than anyone else, that so much of this century is going to be shaped by what happens here in the Indo-Pacific region,” he added.
“More than ever before, we need partnerships, we need alliances, we need coalitions of countries willing to put their efforts, their resources, their minds into tackling these problems,” Blinken added. He constantly emphasized the four powers’ “shared vision” for a “free and open society” as a thinly-veiled jab at the Communist regime in Beijing.
Blinken also became the first US Secretary of State to visit Fiji in 36 years, a new theater of Sino-American competition in recent years.
“We see our long-term future in the Indo-Pacific,” the US’s chief diplomat said, standing next to Fiji’s acting leader, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, amid political turmoil in the Pacific Island nation. “It’s as simple and basic as that.”
During his visit, Blinken announced that the US would soon open a new embassy in the neighboring Solomon Islands, which has been engulfed in widespread violence amid domestic disagreements over the country’s governance and, more broadly, relations with China.
A warm welcome in Fiji
The US diplomat pledged expanded non-traditional security assistance to the region to battle climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic as well as illegal fishing.
“America is uniquely positioned to be a direct partner to Fiji for peace and climate security,” the acting Fijian leader said, expressing gratitude for the renewed US focus on the long-neglected region. “We need American might and its mind as well as pioneering solutions and investments,” he added.
“The fact is, they have not been present in this space for a long time now,” Sayed-Khaiyum told the media.
As Blinken prepared to leave Australia for Fiji, the White House released an 18-page document outlining the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, emphasizing a need to “shape the strategic environment” in which rivals such as China operate, including to “deploy advanced war-fighting capabilities” to key allies and strategic partners across the region.
The document, the first of its kind by the Biden administration, bluntly mentions “mounting challenges” posed by an resurgent China as the key force behind “intensifying American focus” on the Indo-Pacific.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] is combining its economic, diplomatic, military and technological might as it pursues a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power,” the document states.
“Our collective efforts over the next decade will determine whether [China] succeeds in transforming the rules and norms that have benefitted the Indo-Pacific and the world,” the strategic paper continues.
The Biden administration also cites China’s economic coercion of key allies such as Austrsalia amid ongoing diplomatic spats, India’s border disputes in the Himalayas with China and expanding Chinese military activities across adjacent waters, including the Taiwan Strait.
In the document, the Biden administration stands in solidarity with regional allies, who “bear much of the cost of China’s harmful behavior.”
This fleet of Chinese ships sparked a diplomatic row last year after parking at a reef off the Philippines for weeks. Photo: AFP / National Task Force-West Philippine Sea
The China challenge
In response to the China challenge, the US aims to upgrade its relations with a broad network of allies and strategic partners in the region, including “our five regional treaty alliances – with Australia, Japan, the [Republic of Korea], the Philippines, and Thailand” as well as “strengthening relationships with leading regional partners, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Pacific Islands.”
Overall, the new Indo-Pacific strategy paper outlines five key areas of focus for the US: 1, advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific, 2, building connections within and beyond the region, 3, driving regional prosperity, 4, bolstering Indo-Pacific security and, 5, building regional resilience to transnational threats.
Nevertheless, the Biden administration has made it clear that itseeks neither conflict nor confrontation, since “our objective is not to change China but to shape the strategic environment in which it operates.”
Projecting a full-spectrum American regional leadership, the document also emphasizes Washington’s commitment to addressing a whole host of non-traditional security threats, including climate change and post-pandemic recovery.
“We will not have the luxury of choosing between power politics and combatting transnational threats; we will rise to our leadership charge on diplomacy, security, economics, climate, pandemic response and technology,” the document states, emphasizing how the 21st century will “demand more of the United States in the Indo-Pacific than has been asked of us since the Second World War.”
6. Bahrain chooses alignment with Israel over submission to IranBahrain chooses alignment with Israel over submission to Iran
Excerpts:
For Islamist Iran, all the bullying of Bahrain and the missile strikes at the UAE might have been designed to convince these Gulf nations that their only safety comes from bowing to Tehran’s hegemony. But Iranian behavior has actually pushed Manama and Abu Dhabi in the opposite direction. The only way to deal with Tehran, they have become convinced, is by sticking to an alignment with militarily strong nations such as the United States and Israel.
While a common front against Iran might have brought Gulf countries and Israel closer together militarily, this is not a cold peace like the one Israel has had for decades with Egypt and Jordan. Israel’s trade with the UAE has already reached high levels, while normalization with Israel at cultural and social levels is happening fast in both the UAE and Bahrain.
Iran’s policies seem to have backfired. Gantz’s visit to Manama was only the tip of the iceberg.
Bahrain chooses alignment with Israel over submission to Iran
by Hussain Abdul-Hussain | February 14, 2022 10:18 AM
Since the announcement of the Abraham Accords in August 2020, ties between Bahrain and Israel have grown steadily, reaching a milestone last week when an Israeli military aircraft, carrying Defense Minister Benny Gantz, touched down in Manama. It was the first Israeli military plane to fly over Saudi Arabia and land in a Gulf country.
Bahrain has long suffered from Iranian bullying. In 2007, Hussain Shariaatmadari, an aide to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, wrote that Bahrain was once a Persian province that Western powers unlawfully separated from Iran. In 2017, the state-owned daily Iran reiterated this claim, asserting that until 1956 Bahrain had been Iranian, with a 70% Persian-speaking Shiite population. In other words, Bahrain belongs to Iran, and its independence is not acceptable.
Neither history nor demographics supports Tehran’s claims. Today, the majority of Iranians who live on the east bank of the Persian Gulf, under Iranian sovereignty, are ethnic Arab citizens of Iran who suffer under immense discrimination and a policy of Persianization.
An island nation that could just about fit inside the Washington Beltway, Bahrain needs allies. Now it has found in military cooperation with Israel a good way to deter Tehran. Close ties to the Jewish state were once unthinkable for the Arab Gulf monarchies, but Iran has kept up its threats despite mounting evidence that it is driving its adversaries closer together.
In Bahrain, the Israeli defense minister met with top officials, including King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa and Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al Khalifa. Gantz also signed a memorandum of military cooperation with his Bahraini counterpart Abdullah al Nuaimi.
The memorandum accorded the Israeli navy basing rights in Bahrain, also home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, according to Israeli media reports. David Salama, the Israeli navy chief, implicitly substantiated such reports when he said that cooperation with Bahrain “will bring safe passageway and a secure maritime area for the State of Israel [like it does] for our partners in the U.S. Central Command.”
Cognizant that military cooperation between Bahrain and Israel will make Iranian bullying harder, Tehran-funded media threatened Manama, citing an attack that pro-Iranian militia launched on an alleged Mossad office in Iraqi Kurdistan. State-backed outlets quoted Israeli reports about the basing agreement, while pundits argued that the real added value to Israeli military power would be Bahrain’s proximity to Iran. “Israel will use Bahrain as a platform to conduct its intel operations” directed against Islamist Iran, an analyst wrote.
Only 170 nautical miles separate Bahrain’s Sitra port from the Iranian docks of Bushehr.
Inside Bahrain, parties sponsored by Tehran sent their supporters to the streets to protest Gantz’s visit. Pictures of the protest showed less than two dozen young men carrying placards that read: “Death to Israel. Death to America.” Other signs showed a drawing of the “sword of Imam Ali,” affirming that protesters were Shiite Islamists loyal to the Iranian regime.
Bahrain’s Sunnis, however, took a different approach. While Bahraini Salafists did not praise military cooperation between their country and Israel, they signaled their support for the country’s leadership. Many of them took to social media to congratulate their national army on its annual day of recognition, which fell on the day following Gantz’s visit.
Other Bahraini Salafists were busy raising awareness and funds to support Syrian refugees suffering from a brutal winter in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.
In deepening its alliance with Israel, Bahrain has not been alone. Tehran’s proxies in Yemen fired Iranian ballistic missiles last month at both civilian and military targets in the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s hostility since the signing of the Abraham Accords has only affirmed the pact’s value. After deploying its third in line to reason with top officials in Tehran in December, the UAE has since received Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Isaac Herzog. After his meeting with Herzog late last month, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed said they discussed their “common view of the threats to regional stability and peace, particularly those posed by militias and terrorist forces,” and the UAE and Israel’s “shared understanding of the importance of taking a firm stance against them.”
For Islamist Iran, all the bullying of Bahrain and the missile strikes at the UAE might have been designed to convince these Gulf nations that their only safety comes from bowing to Tehran’s hegemony. But Iranian behavior has actually pushed Manama and Abu Dhabi in the opposite direction. The only way to deal with Tehran, they have become convinced, is by sticking to an alignment with militarily strong nations such as the United States and Israel.
While a common front against Iran might have brought Gulf countries and Israel closer together militarily, this is not a cold peace like the one Israel has had for decades with Egypt and Jordan. Israel’s trade with the UAE has already reached high levels, while normalization with Israel at cultural and social levels is happening fast in both the UAE and Bahrain.
Iran’s policies seem to have backfired. Gantz’s visit to Manama was only the tip of the iceberg.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @hahussain.
7. Opinion | Does Putin want a diplomatic solution in Ukraine? It’s not looking that way.
I think he may want a successful political warfare operation that will achieve his objectives (including undermining the US and its allies) and give the appearance of a diplomatic solution.
Opinion | Does Putin want a diplomatic solution in Ukraine? It’s not looking that way.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian saber dance continued Monday, with his top aides suggesting the possibility of diplomacy and de-escalation even as Russian troops remained poised for attack on the border of Ukraine.
Will he or won’t he invade? Putin loves to keep the world guessing. Biden administration officials, knowing they can’t read Putin’s mind, continue to prepare for both possibilities — a Russian invasion or a round of diplomacy.
Monday’s contradictory signals illustrated the strange shadow play of the Ukraine crisis. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Putin in a televised meeting that diplomatic possibilities were “far from exhausted” and recommended “continuing and intensifying them.” And Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that some of the “exercises” that have sent more than 130,000 Russian troops toward attack positions would be ending soon.
Yet U.S. intelligence detected no signs Monday of de-escalation on the ground. Instead, some Russian units continued to move forward. And the Russian news agency TASS quoted the leader of a Russia-backed separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine, saying that the situation was “unstable” and Ukrainian “professional saboteurs” might be preparing to attack. That sounded like a version of the “casus belli” that Russia seeks.
Putin seems convinced that this ever-intensifying war of nerves is helping Russia. But White House officials believe this tactic may be backfiring in two ways: Some Russian officials, uncertain of Putin’s endgame, are questioning his brinkmanship; and Western nations, unsettled by Russian bullying, are rallying around a NATO alliance that seemed depleted just two years ago.
The Biden administration may be overly optimistic about a crisis that could still be in its early stages. But officials believe that Putin’s threats have made U.S. allies in Europe and Asia recognize the importance of U.S. leadership and military power, galvanizing partnerships abroad that the Trump administration severely weakened. Officials see Putin’s actions as a wake-up call for the West — and in that sense, a big strategic boost for what had been a sagging United States.
For the Biden administration, the underlying puzzle in the Ukraine crisis is what might be called the “Putin factor.” The Russian leader turns 70 this year. He has the military power to flex his muscles and burnish his legacy by regaining a piece of the old Soviet Union. Putin operates in such isolation that foreign visitors sometimes aren’t allowed to see him; instead, some are instructed to fly to Moscow and talk by a dedicated landline to the invisible, unapproachable Kremlin leader.
U.S. officials believe that some of Putin’s advisers see danger ahead if Putin invades but they aren’t able to get this message to the boss. The sanctions that would follow an assault on Ukraine would make it hard for Russia to sell its energy abroad or to buy the technology it needs to supply its defense industry, let alone the rest of the economy. Russia’s financial reserves are large, but they would quickly be depleted as it sought to bolster its currency and pay its bills. U.S. officials reckon that under sanctions, Russia would be starved of inputs, and China, its only major ally, couldn’t fill the gaps.
President Biden has looked for a pathway for Putin to back away from this crisis. In a phone call Saturday with the Russian leader, Biden is said to have countered Putin’s claims that the West doesn’t address his security concerns by summarizing the ways America is prepared to discuss shared stability for Europe. To Putin’s insistence that the United States ignores Russia’s “red lines,” Biden counseled continued dialogue. The leaders talked about follow-on meetings, but no real channel for discussion has opened yet.
An impasse remains on Putin’s fundamental demand for a NATO guarantee that Ukraine won’t ever become a member. A statement by Ukraine’s ambassador to London that Kyiv was ready to give up its aspirations for NATO membership was quickly disavowed Monday by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kyiv. But even on this question, formulas may be found to finesse the difference — stating the widely understood reality that Ukraine won’t join NATO any time soon without formally guaranteeing it.
Putin’s course may already be set for Kyiv. It’s hard to imagine that he has moved a vast army to the Ukraine border twice in the past year, only to retreat. Only Putin knows what he will do next in this self-created crisis. But even he can’t answer the classic question: Tell me how this ends?
8. Ukraine’s Capital Awaits a Potential Russian Attack With Determination, Calm
Excerpts:
Some others, however, are already relocating. The Ukrainian Leadership Academy, which runs a program for high-school graduates, has moved its students from Kyiv and the cities of Mykolaiv, Mariupol and Kharkiv to the western Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk.
“Those places are not under as much risk in case of an escalation,” said the academy’s chief executive, Roman Tychkivskyy. “Even if the enemy decides to also occupy western Ukraine, it will take them time to get there.”
Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine, which sits just over an hour’s drive from the Polish border, has already become the country’s backup hub. The Canadian Embassy now operates out of a hotel near the city’s medieval Market Square.
The U.S. relocated to Lviv a skeleton staff providing limited consular services. Western Ukraine, which belonged to Poland before World War II, experienced several years of anti-Soviet insurgency after 1945 and would be particularly hard for a Russian occupation force to control.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said his city is bracing for hundreds of thousands of newcomers from the rest of Ukraine should full-scale war erupt in coming days. “My family can accept another family,” he said. “And I think the majority of other Lviv families will take in another family.”
Ukraine’s Capital Awaits a Potential Russian Attack With Determination, Calm
Even as the mood shifts and Kyiv empties of foreigners, there are few signs of panic among residents
By Yaroslav Trofimov | Photographs by Anastasia Vlasova for The Wall Street Journal
Updated Feb. 15, 2022 4:52 am ET
WSJ · by Yaroslav Trofimov | Photographs by Anastasia Vlasova for The Wall Street Journal
Hotels and nightclubs have emptied of tourists and many foreign businesspeople have left, too. And Ukrainians, many of whom initially dismissed the troop buildup as a hollow threat and America’s reaction as overblown, say they are increasingly worried that a bloody conflict is coming.
“There has been a turning point in the popular mind-set,” said economist Oleksiy Kushch. “People are starting to sense war.”
On the surface, life carries on. Stores are fully stocked. Restaurants and bars are busy. Couples carry Valentine’s Day bouquets. The Kyiv opera theater performed “Romeo and Juliet” on Sunday night. ATMs keep dispensing cash. Nobody is digging trenches, putting up blackout curtains or taping windows.
The exchange rate of the hryvnia, Ukraine’s currency, is holding for now.
But many businesses report that foreign counterparts are pausing transactions, waiting to see whether this ancient city of three million people will become a war zone. Though the Ukrainian hryvnia’s exchange rate is holding for now, thanks to central-bank intervention, capital outflows are putting the banking system under growing strain.
The airline industry is also under pressure. Kyiv on Sunday rushed a $583 million fund for the industry after one of the country’s main airlines, Sky Up, said it was suspending operations because its insurers refused to cover flights in Ukrainian airspace. Another carrier, Ukraine International Airlines, said Monday it was forced to send five leased Boeing 737-800 planes to Spain because insurers terminated coverage for the country. The remainder of its fleet is still operating.
Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine, said the city is bracing for hundreds of thousands of newcomers should full-scale war erupt.
“While the military threat is possible but for now remains theoretical, the military tension has already caused irreversible damage to Ukraine’s economy,” said Halyna Yanchenko, the deputy head of the majority coalition in Ukraine’s parliament.
Despite the growing realization that a Russian military invasion is a real possibility, there are few outward signs of panic. That is a change from the chaotic events of 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula and began the war in the eastern Donbas region in response to an uprising that ousted a pro-Russian president in Kyiv.
“In 2014, there was a fear of the unknown,” said Ms. Yanchenko. “Now, everyone has been tempered by war. People have become stubborn. They are ready to do anything to repel this bloodthirsty aggressor.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday criticized foreign embassies for leaving Kyiv and urged some 20 Ukrainian lawmakers traveling overseas and business tycoons who have been leaving the country to return immediately. “My own family is always with me, always with Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said. “A citizen is not someone who carries a passport but someone who chooses to remain in Ukraine, today.”
Victoria Voytsitska, a former parliament member who now works in investment and real estate, drove on Monday to western Ukraine with her 6-year-old son and her 20-year-old daughter, to deposit them with her husband’s parents. This was the first day Ms. Voytsitska could leave home quarantine after having contracted Covid-19. Most other cars she saw at the highway gas station were also filled with children.
“There is no reason for our kids to be in Kyiv, especially if there is a full-scale Russian military operation,” she said. After a short rest in her in-laws’ home, Ms. Voytsitska set out for a long drive back to the Ukrainian capital, where she said she planned to join the new territorial defense force. “If, God forbid, the calamity does happen, there will be plenty of things for us to do in Kyiv,” she said. “We will be busy.”
Ukraine’s interior minister, Denis Monastyrski, who commands the police and National Guard troops, said in a Monday address that the government wouldn’t allow a repeat of the events of 2014, when Russian-backed militants seized or attempted to seize government buildings by force in several cities across eastern and southern Ukraine.
This time, “they will be shot on the spot by our special forces without any warning or hesitation,” Mr. Monastyrski said. “It’s not 2014. Ukraine is stronger and more organized.”
Ukrainian lawmaker Mustafa Dzhemilev, a leader of the Crimean Tatars who had to leave the peninsula after the Russian occupation of 2014 and moved to Kyiv, said he has no intention of going anywhere this time.
An angel-shaped toy with wings the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
“People are thinking more about how to defend the city than how to escape it,” he said. “Ukraine is not what it used to be, and Russia will not have a walk in a park here.”
Anastasia, a 27-year-old information-technology specialist in Kyiv who didn’t want her last name used, said she is also staying put, at least for now: “I don’t want to create panic and I want to continue living our normal lives.”
However, she said she has prepared a go bag in case she has to leave with a first-aid kit, documents, cash and a battery-powered radio to help her keep abreast of the news. She is still looking for a good map for when mobile-phone service goes down and she can no longer use the internet.
She said she would travel to her parents’ home in western Ukraine in case authorities declare a general mobilization. Her boyfriend, a medical doctor, is likely to join the military if war begins.
Lviv, which sits just over an hour’s drive from the Polish border, has already become the country’s backup hub.
Some others, however, are already relocating. The Ukrainian Leadership Academy, which runs a program for high-school graduates, has moved its students from Kyiv and the cities of Mykolaiv, Mariupol and Kharkiv to the western Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk.
“Those places are not under as much risk in case of an escalation,” said the academy’s chief executive, Roman Tychkivskyy. “Even if the enemy decides to also occupy western Ukraine, it will take them time to get there.”
Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine, which sits just over an hour’s drive from the Polish border, has already become the country’s backup hub. The Canadian Embassy now operates out of a hotel near the city’s medieval Market Square.
The U.S. relocated to Lviv a skeleton staff providing limited consular services. Western Ukraine, which belonged to Poland before World War II, experienced several years of anti-Soviet insurgency after 1945 and would be particularly hard for a Russian occupation force to control.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said his city is bracing for hundreds of thousands of newcomers from the rest of Ukraine should full-scale war erupt in coming days. “My family can accept another family,” he said. “And I think the majority of other Lviv families will take in another family.”
Lviv’s central market square.
Standoff With Russia
News and insights on the rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine and the West, selected by the editors
WSJ · by Yaroslav Trofimov | Photographs by Anastasia Vlasova for The Wall Street Journal
9. Russia sending troops, equipment closer to Ukraine, satellite images show
Russia sending troops, equipment closer to Ukraine, satellite images show
Russian troops are moving out of staging areas and heading toward combat positions as it builds up its capacity to attack Ukraine, according to new satellite images released Monday by Maxar Technologies.
Maxar collected new satellite images Sunday and Monday that reveal increased Russian military activity in western Russia, Belarus, and Crimea.
“Significant new activity includes the arrival of several large deployments of troop and attack helicopters, new deployments of ground attack aircraft and fighter-bomber jets to forward locations, the departure of multiple ground forces units from existing garrisons along with other combat units seen in convoy formation,” Maxar said in a release explaining the images it is sharing.
Image 1 of 23
Rechitsa, Belarus Overview shows Russian troops and military equipment in Rechitsa, Belarus, Feb. 4, 2022 (Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies)
For months, Russia has been building up its troop levels around Ukraine to the point where U.S. officials say it could launch an attack at any time.
The Pentagon Monday afternoon said it still does not know if Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to launch an attack. But they say he is ready if he so choses.
“Even over the last 24 to 48, over the course of the weekend, Mr. Putin has added military capability along that border with Ukraine and in Belarus,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday afternoon. “He continues to add to his readiness. He continues to give himself more options, should he pursue a military path here.”
Putin “continues to advance his readiness, should he choose to go down a military path here, and should he choose to invade again, he is doing all the things you would expect him to do to make sure he’s ready for that option, or options,” Kirby said.
While Ukrainian military officials have long said they anticipated Putin was planning to attack, U.S. officials have been more urgent in their warnings about the immediacy of any action.
“I would tell you that we have been very transparent with our Ukrainian partners about the intelligence assessments that we’ve been seeing and the things that we’ve been seeing in that environment, and I’m comfortable and confident that it has been of a sufficient level of detail to convince,” Kirby said.
President Joe Biden spoke to Putin in a phone call on Saturday, but the White House did not signal the call diminished any possible threat of an imminent war in Europe.
American officials now say Russia has more than 130,000 troops near the Ukraine border.
The satellite images released by Maxar in the last several months show troops stationed around Ukraine to the north, around the western border with Russia, and on the Crimean Peninsula. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
This map shows the locations of Russian troops near Ukraine shown in new satellite images. (Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies)
Biden has promised that American troops will not be sent into Ukraine in the event of a Russian incursion. Kirby told reporters Friday that some U.S. troops may help Americans who evacuate Ukraine if there is an invasion. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday announced the temporary relocation of embassy operations in Ukraine from Kyiv to Lviv “due to the dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces.” He “strongly” urged “any remaining U.S. citizens in Ukraine to leave the country immediately.”
10. How Technology Is Opening a Window onto Russian Military Activity Around Ukraine
Excerpts:
Identifying patterns makes it possible for computers to evaluate information for deception and credibility and predict future trends. For example, machine learning can be used to help determine whether information was produced by a human or by a bot or other computer program and whether a piece of data is authentic or fraudulent.
And while machine learning is by no means a crystal ball, it can be used – if it’s trained with the right data and has enough current information—to assess the probabilities of certain outcomes. No one is going to be able to use the combination of OSINT and machine learning to read Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mind, but the tools could help analysts assess how, for example, a Russian invasion of Ukraine might play out.
Technology has produced a flood of intelligence data, but technology is also making it easier to extract meaningful information from the data to help human intelligence analysts put together the big picture.
How Technology Is Opening a Window onto Russian Military Activity Around Ukraine
Scraping Twitter is becoming as important as billion-dollar spy satellites.
BY CRAIG NAZARETH
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PRACTICE OF INTELLIGENCE & INFORMATION OPERATIONS
FEBRUARY 14, 2022 02:19 PM ET
As the U.S. and other NATO member governments monitor Russia’s activities and determine appropriate policy responses, the timely intelligence they rely on no longer comes solely from multimillion-dollar spy satellites and spies on the ground.
Social media, big data, smartphones and low-cost satellites have taken center stage, and scraping Twitter has become as important as anything else in the intelligence analyst toolkit. These technologies have also allowed news organizations and armchair sleuths to follow the action and contribute analysis.
Governments still carry out sensitive intelligence-gathering operations with the help of extensive resources like the U.S. intelligence budget. But massive amounts of valuable information are publicly available, and not all of it is collected by governments. Satellites and drones are much cheaper than they were even a decade ago, allowing private companies to operate them, and nearly everyone has a smartphone with advanced photo and video capabilities.
This democratization of intelligence collection in most cases is a boon for intelligence professionals. Government analysts are filling the need for intelligence assessments using information sourced from across the internet instead of primarily relying on classified systems or expensive sensors high in the sky or arrayed on the planet.
However, sifting through terabytes of publicly available data for relevant information is difficult. Knowing that much of the data could be intentionally manipulated to deceive complicates the task.
Enter the practice of open-source intelligence. The U.S. director of national intelligence defines Open-Source Intelligence, or OSINT, as the collection, evaluation and analysis of publicly available information. The information sources include news reports, social media posts, YouTube videos and satellite imagery from commercial satellite operators.
OSINT communities and government agencies have developed best practices for OSINT, and there are numerous free tools. Analysts can use the tools to develop network charts of, for example, criminal organizations by scouring publicly available financial records for criminal activity.
Private investigators are using OSINT methods to support law enforcement, corporate and government needs. Armchair sleuths have used OSINT to expose corruption and criminal activity to authorities. In short, the majority of intelligence needs can be met through OSINT.
Even with OSINT best practices and tools, OSINT contributes to the information overload intelligence analysts have to contend with. The intelligence analyst is typically in a reactive mode trying to make sense of a constant stream of ambiguous raw data and information.
Machine learning, a set of techniques that allows computers to identify patterns in large amounts of data, is proving invaluable for processing OSINT information, particularly photos and videos. Computers are much faster at sifting through large datasets, so adopting machine learning tools and techniques to optimize the OSINT process is a necessity.
Identifying patterns makes it possible for computers to evaluate information for deception and credibility and predict future trends. For example, machine learning can be used to help determine whether information was produced by a human or by a bot or other computer program and whether a piece of data is authentic or fraudulent.
And while machine learning is by no means a crystal ball, it can be used – if it’s trained with the right data and has enough current information—to assess the probabilities of certain outcomes. No one is going to be able to use the combination of OSINT and machine learning to read Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mind, but the tools could help analysts assess how, for example, a Russian invasion of Ukraine might play out.
Technology has produced a flood of intelligence data, but technology is also making it easier to extract meaningful information from the data to help human intelligence analysts put together the big picture.
[The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories. Weekly on Wednesdays.]
11. The Lesson Stalin Could Teach Putin About Invading a Neighbor
Is Putin's arrogance such that he thinks he can be more successful than Stalin?
The Lesson Stalin Could Teach Putin About Invading a Neighbor
Magazine
The Soviet Union’s attack on Finland in 1939 ended surprisingly badly for the much larger aggressor.
Finnish troops on skis defending the front from Petsamo on the Arctic coast to the Karelian Isthmus, near Leningrad. | Keystone/Getty Images
By Casey Michel
02/14/2022 01:15 PM EST
Casey Michel is an investigative journalist based in New York.
Earlier this month, American officials made a stunning allegation: Moscow had begun production of a “graphic propaganda video” that would show the aftermath of an alleged attack on ethnic Russians inside Ukraine. The video, featuring clips of corpses and actors in mourning, would justify the need for Russian troops to invade to stop a supposed “genocide.”
The existence of such a video is still under debate, and more recent intelligence assessments from White House officials indicate that a Russian invasion might come as early as this week, preceded by a barrage of missile strikes and cyberattacks. Still, there’s little reason to think Russian officials wouldn’t have at least considered a false flag attack as a pretext for an invasion that has been preemptively condemned by much of the West. This is a regime that has all but perfected disinformation operations over the past decade, from pumping lies about Russian responsibility for the destruction of passenger planes to hiring actors in 2014 to claim Ukrainians had “crucified” a young boy.
Nor would Putin’s regime be the first dictatorship to resort to a false flag attack to cloak its aggression abroad. In the early 1930s, Japanese forces detonated a stretch of railway in northern China, blamed it on the Chinese and used it as a pretext to invade Manchuria. A few years later, in 1939, the Nazis faked a Polish raid on a German broadcasting tower as a predicate to launching a full-scale invasion of their eastern neighbor, sparking the Second World War in Europe in the process.
That same year, though, there was another false flag attack that was, at least at the outset, just as successful as the Japanese or Nazi variants. This attack hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves, but there are lessons buried in it for officials in both Kyiv and Moscow if they want to avoid a looming catastrophe.
In late 1939, Joseph Stalin stared at a map of the USSR’s northwestern borderlands, feeling buoyed by recent developments. The Soviet despot had recently inked a nonaggression pact with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, keeping the bellicose Nazis at a distance. He’d also held Japanese forces at bay in the east, stabilized his southern flank, and begun gobbling up the Baltic States. But there was one security concern that was top of Stalin’s mind: Finland.
The Finnish border was less than 20 miles from Leningrad’s outer reaches, well within range of a potential assault. Technically, the Soviets and the Finns had reached a formal agreement recognizing Finland’s independence; the border had been established in 1917, as the Russian empire convulsed in the civil war that resulted in communist victory. For Stalin, however, the Finnish presence near the Soviets’ only Baltic port, an area that housed about one-third of Soviet military industry, was unacceptable. And he was determined to change it.
As Stanford scholar Stephen Kotkin’s recent biography of the Soviet leader illustrates, Stalin hardly cloaked his desires. “We cannot do anything about geography, nor can you,” Stalin declared to one Finnish official. “Since Leningrad cannot be moved, the frontier must be moved farther away.” (Not that the Finns had any misconceptions about Stalin; as Kotkin writes, “To the leaders of Finland’s parliamentary democracy, Stalin was a gangster.”)
Efforts at diplomacy predictably failed, not least because of Stalin’s intransigence. “Is it your intention to provoke a conflict?” the perplexed Soviet foreign minister asked Stalin at one point. Stalin only smiled in response. The answer quickly became clear.
But one question remained: how to manufacture a reason for invasion. The Soviets and Finns, after all, maintained a nonaggression pact, and no one would credibly look at the Finns — with a population of only 4 million, against the Soviet Union’s 170 million — as aggressors. With state propaganda outlets pumping out anti-Finnish propaganda, and with Soviet officials in the Kremlin purring that Soviet troops would conquer Helsinki in as little as three days, Stalin spied a solution.
On Nov. 26, five shells and a pair of grenades blasted a Soviet position along the Soviet-Finnish border. Four died, including multiple Soviet soldiers, along with nine others injured. Though a Finnish investigation promptly fingered Soviet troops as the ones who’d fired upon — and killed — their own troops, the Soviets moved just as quickly. Claiming they were coming to the defense of “democratic forces” against a “fascist military clique” running Helsinki, Stalin immediately announced support for a new “People’s Government,” headed by a hand-picked Finnish communist. Over 100,000 Soviet troops rolled in, facing off against a country without an air force, with hardly any armored vehicles, and without even any wireless technology at its disposal. Left adrift by Western partners, the Finns stood alone. And Stalin stood ready to carve up the country as he desired.
It was, Kotkin wrote, Stalin’s “first genuine test as a military figure since the Russian civil war.” And it was a test he would fail, in spectacular fashion.
The first signs that the Soviet incursion would not be as easy as Soviet leaders had promised came early.
Following the formation of a puppet government, Stalin assumed he could rally the Finnish working class to the Soviet banner — an assumption that almost immediately collapsed. (As one Soviet reporter wrote, “This [Soviet-backed] government exists only on paper.”) Instead of bowing to a new puppet regime, Finns of all backgrounds rallied around a national identity that had coalesced in response to the Soviet incursion. Rather than a war about Moscow’s specific border claims, the war, to Finns, suddenly turned on the question of Finland’s national existence.
Finns acted swiftly. In the country’s east, directly in line of Soviet troops, Finland constructed the so-called Mannerheim Line, a stretch of pillboxes, bunkers and buildings with armor-plated roofs, all of which combined to slice apart Soviet regiments struggling through Finnish bogs and marshes. Elsewhere, fleeing Finns left behind booby-trapped radios and gramophones, which impoverished Soviet conscripts raced to — and promptly died trying to loot. Ingenious civilians glued portraits of Stalin to assorted buildings, spinning Soviet troops into confusion about their targets. Other Finnish resisters targeted Soviet tanks with Molotov cocktails. “I never knew a tank could burn for quite that long,” one Finn quipped.
Most remarkably, the Finns used their knowledge of local terrain against the invaders. Maneuvering on skis, the Finns would “climb the pine trees, conceal themselves behind the branches, pull white sheets or camouflage garments over themselves, and become completely invisible,” a shocked Stalin said. Elsewhere, Finnish snipers became known as “White Death.”
All of this Finnish national unity, this Finnish ingenuity, this Finnish resilience — knocked the Soviet giant on its heels. At home, citizens’ confidence in the Kremlin, which viewed the Finns as something hardly worth a fully mobilized war, collapsed. Soviet corpses, frozen and frostbitten, continued to pile up. After two months of battle, little Finland pushed its gargantuan neighbor to the brink of defeat, and to the edge of catastrophe.
Eventually, even Stalin realized he’d underestimated his supposedly inconsequential neighbor. Unleashing a so-called wall of fire artillery bombardment, the Soviets finally broke the Finnish line months after they’d originally planned. The Finnish government called for talks, which the bleeding Soviets were happy to oblige.
In negotiations, the Soviets finally, formally grabbed the territory they sought — about 10 percent of Finland’s total territory — pushing the border dozens of miles west and giving Leningrad breathing room. But the price Moscow paid was a terrible one, even given all the horrors of the following years: five times as many dead, nearly 400,000 casualties in total in just three total months, and an even higher daily casualty rate than legendarily horrific WWII battles like Stalingrad. And this isn’t even considering the broader geopolitical context.
Instead of ending up occupied by Soviet forces — a fate that befell Finland’s Baltic neighbors, smothered by the Soviets for the half-century that followed — the Finns stiff-armed Stalin’s forces and avoided becoming a Soviet satellite state, both during World War II and the decadeslong Cold War. Retaining its independence, Finland emerged as a European David against a communist Goliath. Likewise, thanks to Soviet intransigence, the League of Nations promptly voted to expel the Soviet Union — the only time the infamously feckless league opted for such a tack.
“Finland — superb, nay, sublime — in the jaws of peril, Finland shows what free men can do,” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said. “The service rendered by Finland to mankind is magnificent.”
To be sure, there are whole range of differences between the Finland of the late 1930s and the Ukraine of today.
At its broadest, Europe is incomparably more stable in the 21st century than it was 80 years ago, as the continent barreled toward genocide and megalomania during the era of Stalin, Hitler and Benito Mussolini. And the goals in staving off Russian aggression are different; where Finland stood isolated, just hoping to hold on to whatever independence it could, Ukraine is tacking toward a mutual security pact with a range of other European and North American partners. And to his limited credit, Stalin hardly ever claimed that Finland was a core, constituent part of the Soviet project. Putin, on the other hand, has claimed Ukraine and Russia are “one people,” and that Ukraine is “not a real country.”
But peel past the broader differences, and the similarities between Ukrainian and Finnish attempts to counter Moscow’s imperialism are surprisingly aligned — and, perhaps for Putin, concerningly so.
Both states are smaller, post-colonial neighbors on Moscow’s western flank, having only recently declared independence from the Kremlin — an independence Soviet and Russian leaders see as something optional, and gained only when Moscow was at its weakest. “The status quo which was established 20 years ago, when the Soviet Union was weakened by civil war, can no longer be considered as adequate to the present situation,” one Soviet official said shortly before the Finnish invasion. That language parallels Putin’s recent claims that the West took advantage of Russian weakness in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse — and that the time for revision of that post-Cold War arrangement is nigh.
And then, just as now, there is a mixture of arrogance and chauvinism emanating from the Kremlin, which sees its newly independent neighbors as effective vassals, as states whose sovereignty remains conditional, and which can be easily steamrolled by a revamped Russian military. The Finns, though, quickly disabused Stalin of the notion that anything about invasion would be easy — or that anyone would flock to a puppet regime propped by patrons in Moscow.
There’s little reason to think anything would be different in Ukraine. Thanks in large part to Russia’s initial 2014 invasion, this past decade has seen an unprecedented burst of a kind of civic nationalism in Ukraine, of a rallying to a Ukrainian national identity. Any dreams of broad swaths of Ukrainian populations welcoming Russian troops are long buried — a reality that Putin, cosseted among hard-line advisers, doesn’t seem to have registered. Assuming an easy conquest of Ukraine, a country 10 times the size of 1939’s Finland, is a fool’s errand. (Indeed, one European Union diplomat downplayed the likelihood of an imminent invasion this way: “It would be such a mistake by Putin. War is costly, Ukraine will fight them with everything.”)
Maybe most importantly, just as with Finland, any incursion into Ukraine would only drive the country further toward other Western partners. Just look at the results of Moscow’s 2014 invasion; where less than one-third of Ukrainians backed NATO membership a decade ago, a clear majority of Ukrainians now favor joining the alliance. Just as Soviet aggression against Finland created a clear adversary on its western flank, Putin’s irredentism in Ukraine is forging not only a renewed national identity, but a country driving firmly into Western partnership.
And maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise. Whether overseen by Stalin or Putin, Moscow’s lurch toward imperialism, targeting populations who’ve previously escaped the Kremlin’s settler-colonial embrace, has consistently resulted in those border countries opting for partnerships elsewhere. Save for anomalies like Belarus, with a dictator backed by Moscow, Russia’s western reaches are now lined with adversaries and antagonists of Moscow’s own making. Even modern Finland, which has become an effective stand-in for the notion of neutrality, is now making noise about joining NATO.
And why wouldn’t they? “The same things always happen,” one Finn quoted in a recent New York Times piece said, discussing Russian belligerence on its western border and the similarities between Finland and Ukraine. All of which means one thing. Putin, just as Stalin over 80 years ago, might launch an invasion of a western neighbor, and use a false flag to do so. But if he does, he could well be met with embarrassment, disgrace, and strategic failure.
12. ‘Mercenaries have skills armies lack’: former Wagner operative opens up
I hope Sean McFate will respond to this.
‘Mercenaries have skills armies lack’: former Wagner operative opens up
Marat Gabidullin has written memoir about fighting for Wagner because Russians should know ‘mercenaries exist’
Sitting in a cafe in an upmarket Moscow suburb, the former mercenary Marat Gabidullin looked a long way from the battlefields of Syria where he fought half a decade ago.
Gripping his recently finished memoir, In the Same River Twice, the first published account of fighting for the secretive Russian mercenary outfit Wagner, Gabidullin said: “I wrote this because I realised it’s time for our country to face the truth: mercenaries exist.”
At 55, he’s an imposing figure, with his face and muscular arms covered in scars. “We, in Russia, prefer not to discuss our mercenaries,” he added. “It doesn’t fit the official narrative.”
In 2015, Gabidullin, a Russian airborne forces veteran and former bodyguard, joined Wagner, at the time a relatively unknown mercenary group. He was soon deployed to fight in Syria alongside the Russian army supporting President Bashar al-Assad, quickly rising to command one of Wagner’s five units there.
Established in 2014 to support pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Wagner is allegedly funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a powerful businessman closely linked to Vladimir Putin who has faced western sanctions.
From the company’s inception, it has been shrouded in mystery. On paper, the firm does not exist, with no company registration, tax returns or organisational chart to be found.
Western governments and academics argue that Wagner is an unofficial foreign policy tool of the Kremlin, deployed where Russia wants to extend its influence or create upheaval. Prigozhin and Moscow have denied any knowledge of Wagner; officially, private military companies remain illegal in Russia. Representatives for Prigozhin have not responded to requests for comment.
Gabidullin made no attempt to deny Wagner’s existence or its active role in Russian security interests. In contrast, he said one of his main motivations behind writing the book was to bring mercenary companies such as Wagner “out of the shadow”, highlighting their potential benefits for Russia’s foreign policy goals.
“Mercenary groups are nothing to be ashamed of, they exist everywhere, but we lie about them,” he said. “We have specialised skills that a normal army lacks.”
The memoir, based on events Gabidullin claims he witnessed, follows three years of Wagner’s Syrian campaign. It describes some of the mercenaries’ big battles, including two operations to liberate the ancient city of Palmyra. Scores of Wagner soldiers are believed to have fought and died in Syria since the conflict began in 2011.
The ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria after intense battles in 2016 in which Wagner is said to have taken part. Photograph: AP
“The Russian army’s achievements in Syria were largely because of the mercenaries’ sacrifices. That fact is completely ignored by the military establishment and not known to the wider public,” Gabidullin complained, grumbling that “mediocre” Russian army generals received promotions based on Wagner’s successes.
The memoir also describes mercenaries’ day-to-day lives, including occasional looting, and his commanders’ missteps.
Gabidullin, whose hearing has suffered after years of fighting, also said he participated in the 2018 Battle of Khasham, where hundreds of Russian mercenaries were reportedly killed after US airstrikes against pro-regime forces, in what is believed to be the deadliest clash between Russia and the US since the cold war.
“We should never have been there; our leadership messed up. The Americans knew exactly where we were,” he said, recalling those events.
Post-Syria, Wagner’s notoriety has increased after reported operations in Central African Republic and Libya – resource-rich countries in which Russia has strategic interests. The group’s growing influence has also divided Mali and its European partners after the west African nation deployed Wagner fighters in December.
And as tensions have escalated over Ukraine in recent months, Reuters reported that unnamed Russian mercenaries have been sent to separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine. Last week, the US-based Daily Beast claimed that Wagner soldiers are being moved from Africa, possibly towards Ukraine.
Gabidullin said he had “vaguely heard” of mercenary deployments in Ukraine, quickly adding that a Russian invasion would be a “fatal” mistake. “I believe that war between Ukraine and Russia will be a complete disaster for Russia. Under no circumstances should this be allowed. Ukraine is our brother.”
Throughout the conversation, Gabidullin looked somewhat agitated, his piercing blue eyes darting around the empty cafe. He said he worried about the consequences of publishing his book and was eager to avoid mentioning his alleged former boss, Prigozhin.
“I suspect that there will be attempts by [Prigozhin] to discredit me. I am walking on a tightrope here,” he said.
He first wanted to publish the memoir in 2020 but quickly withdrew his book after pressure from “certain people”. This time, however, he decided to not hold back and found a “brave” publisher in the city of Ekaterinburg. The Paris-based Michel Lafon publishing house is also planning to distribute a French version.
“I thought to myself, ‘Enough, it’s time to get out of the shadows.’ I will not be dissuaded from publishing again. Because it is not just about me,” said Gabidullin.
He pointed to how the ban on private military companies in Russia pressures family members of deceased mercenaries to remain quiet about their loved ones. Gabidullin hopes his book will help lift the veil of secrecy around his former profession.
Marat Gabidullin holding his memoir, In the Same River Twice. Photograph: Egor Slizyak
“This current situation does not suit many of my comrades. More importantly, it does not suit the dead mercenaries’ parents and relatives, who cannot even talk openly about how their son or brother died. They can only whisper it.”
While Gabidullin’s memoir challenges the official narrative regarding the existence of mercenaries in Russia, a separate PR campaign also sprung up last year to promote the activities of groups like Wagner.
Russian state television recently screened numerous patriotic action movies produced by Prigozhin-linked firms, depicting unnamed Russian “military instructors and volunteers” fighting in eastern Ukraine, Central African Republic and Mozambique – places where Wagner fighters have reportedly been active.
The films, which Gabidullin dismissed as “trash”, portray heroic Russians saving local people from violent rebels. They stand in stark contrast to recent UN reports accusing Wagner operatives of raping civilians in Central African Republic or allegations that Wagner soldiers tortured and killed a prisoner in Syria.
Confronted with these accusations, Gabidullin said he never saw his comrades engaged in such acts but added that such crimes were to be expected given the group’s current shadowy status. “The state puts mercenaries in a situation where they can act outside the law, and a soldier is forced to establish his own moral norms. But, of course, we should investigate that messed-up stuff.”
13. Russian drones shot down over Ukraine were full of Western parts. Can the U.S. cut them off?
Russian drones shot down over Ukraine were full of Western parts. Can the U.S. cut them off?
Surveillance drones contained computer chips and components made in the U.S. and Europe. Washington is considering steps to block this trade.
In early 2017, Ukrainian forces battling Russia-backed separatists shot down a drone conducting surveillance over Ukraine’s eastern flank.
The unmanned aircraft — nearly six-feet long, with a cone-shaped nose and a shiny gray body — had all the external characteristics of a Russian military drone. But when researchers cracked it open, they found electronic components manufactured by a half-dozen Western companies.
The engine came from a German company that supplies model-airplane hobbyists. Computer chips for navigation and wireless communication were made by U.S. suppliers. A British company provided a motion-sensing chip. Other parts came from Switzerland and South Korea.
“I was surprised when we looked at it all together to see the variety of different countries that had produced all these components,” said Damien Spleeters, an investigator with the U.K.-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR) group, who traveled to Ukraine to dissect several drones. All were loaded with Western electronics.
Without those parts, said Spleeters, who summarized his findings in a report funded by the European Union and Germany, Russia would have found it “much more difficult to produce and operate the drones, for sure.”
As tensions mount over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials are considering trade sanctions designed to deprive Russia of foreign-made computer chips and electronics. Spleeters’s investigation shows how profoundly the ban could hurt Russia’s military — and why it might be hard to pull off.
Russia is known for its scientists and hackers but makes little of its own electronics or computer hardware, relying largely on imports. Yet blocking the flow of these goods could prove difficult.
Some of the drone components that CAR identified traveled to Russia via obscure middlemen and small trading companies whose businesses could be tough to track.
What’s more, the relatively small quantities that Russia’s military is likely to need might allow it to acquire components surreptitiously, said Malcolm Penn, the chief executive of London-based semiconductor research firm Future Horizons.
“If you only want 500 or 1,000 it’s easily doable, and very hard to stop,” he said. “All throughout the Cold War, when in theory there were no exports to the Soviet Union, that didn’t stop them from getting things. There are always men with suitcases that go out to the Far East and buy stuff and come back.”
Another big wild card is China, which could thwart any U.S. attempt to choke off chips to Russia. CAR estimated that the drones it examined were built between 2013 and 2016, when Western suppliers were more dominant in the chip industry. China has since become a much bigger manufacturer of electronic components, and is unlikely to fully comply with any attempted blockade, technology experts said.
Russia relies on Asian and Western countries to supply most of its consumer electronics and computer chips, which are the brains that make electronics function. Russia’s imports of these goods in 2020 exceeded $38 billion, according to United Nations trade data.
The Soviet Union had a variety of small semiconductor factories churning out chips, mostly for military use, according to Penn, who visited some of the facilities in the early 1990s. But the Soviet breakup pushed Russia into a long period of turmoil that thwarted development of high-tech industries and manufacturing.
“The microelectronics industry was completely decimated in the 1990s,” said Sam Bendett, a Russian-military analyst at the Virginia-based research group CNA. “It was just easier to import these technologies, which were widely available in the global market.”
The Russian and Ukrainian embassies in Washington didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Russia retains some manufacturers that produce chips of older designs, including Mikron, which was founded in Soviet times near Moscow. Enterprises in the country also design chips known by the names Baikal and Elbrus — the latter are used by the military — but send many of the designs to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip foundry, for fabrication.
Russian defense contractors in recent years have claimed to have revived some domestic manufacturing of high-tech military equipment, including drones and their components, Bendett said.
The United States and the European Union already restrict their exports of defense-related electronics to Russia and have toughened those rules in recent years. Yet Russian networks have found ways around those obstacles. In 2015, several Russian agents were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, federal charges of using a Texas-based company they set up to illegally export high-tech chips to Russian military and intelligence agencies.
Under the broader blockade that U.S. officials are considering, the United States could compel many countries worldwide to cut their chip exports to Russia by telling them they aren’t allowed to use U.S. technology to make components for Russian buyers. Most chip factories worldwide, including those in China and Taiwan, use U.S. manufacturing tools or software in their production process, analysts said.
The United States could limit the ban to Russia’s military and high-tech sectors or could apply it more broadly, potentially depriving Russian citizens of some smartphones, tablets and video game consoles, The Washington Post recently reported, citing administration officials.
At the invitation of Ukraine’s security services, Spleeters from CAR flew to Kyiv in late 2018 to dissect the drone that was shot down in 2017.
Using a duffel bag stuffed with screwdrivers, Allen keys and cameras, Spleeters disassembled and photographed the aircraft, looking for serial numbers and markings that could help identify where the parts came from.
He and his colleagues then contacted the component suppliers to try to trace how the parts wound up in the drone.
One motion-sensing chip was manufactured by the British company Silicon Sensing Systems, which makes components for drones, car navigation systems and industrial machinery. The company told CAR that it sold the chip in August 2012 to a Russian civilian electronics distributor, sending it via UPS in a package with 50-odd components, according to the CAR report.
The Russian distributor told Silicon Sensing that the chip was to be used in a drone; it later added that it sold the chip to a Russian entity called ANO PO KSI, which it said purchased such items for educational institutions in Russia, according to the CAR report.
On its website, ANO PO KSI describes itself as a nonprofit that makes high-tech products, including document scanners and cameras, for the Russian government and business customers. The organization didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In an email to The Post, Silicon Sensing said it “vigorously” complies “with all export control laws and policies everywhere we do business.”
“These components were sold in 2012 to a commercial company that was not on an embargo list at that time. We have ceased doing business with that company and any related entities,” Silicon Sensing added.
The drone also contained U.S.-made components designed for navigation and wireless communication. One of the suppliers, Digi International, based in Hopkins, Minn., told CAR that it sold the wireless communications component to a U.S.-based distributor in March 2012, but that the distributor was unable to identify the ultimate recipient, according to the CAR report.
Digi International told The Post that it screens all sales to be sure it isn’t supplying any prohibited parties in violation of U.S. export control laws.
“We do not know how the product in question ended up in a Russian drone. We do not condone the use of our modules by foreign actors in military use cases,” the company said in an emailed statement.
Maxim Integrated, of San Jose, Calif., told CAR that it manufactured a navigation component found in the drone in 2013 and shipped it to its distributors in January 2014. It added that the component “is not designed for use in unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Maxim’s parent company, Analog Devices, declined to clarify for The Post what the component is used for. In an emailed statement, the company said it “is committed to full compliance with U.S. laws including U.S. export controls, trade sanctions and regulations.”
Other companies in Switzerland and the U.K. told CAR they were unable to track the chain of suppliers that had handled their components.
The drone’s engine — a single-cylinder unit with an electronic ignition — traveled a particularly mysterious route, from a small company near Frankfurt, Germany, that makes parts for model airplanes.
The company, 3W-Modellmotoren Weinhold, which didn’t respond to The Post’s request for comment, told CAR that it had sent the engine to World Logistic Group, a company based in the Czech Republic, in October 2013.
The Czech company, which ceased operations in 2018, could not be reached for comment. The company was founded in the spa town of Karlovy Vary in 2008 by two residents of Moscow, according to Czech business registration documents identified by CAR and reviewed by The Post.
From 2012 to 2014, a third Moscow-area resident served as a director of the company, according to those documents. CAR researchers found that this person was also a member of an advisory council to the Main Directorate of Public Security for Moscow’s regional government.
The directorate was established to “implement state policy in the field of public and economic security,” according to the website of Moscow’s regional government.
According to CAR, similar drone models have been recovered after flying over Syria and Libya, countries where Russian troops or mercenaries have also engaged in military action. Lithuania, a member of NATO, discovered an identical model that crashed on its territory in 2016. That one contained foreign-made components and Russian software, according to CAR and Lithuanian security services.
The case shows “that Russia uses [drones] for intelligence collection not only in conflict zones but also in peacetime in neighbouring NATO countries,” Lithuanian authorities said in a 2019 document.
Natasha Abbakumova in Moscow contributed to this report.
14. Advising everywhere: Army SFABs go smaller, farther
The Army's got this. Time to shift SF back to the OSS (note tongue in cheek).
Seriously, there is enough work to go around. And as we look at places like Ukraine, SF is being used appropriately to implement the resistance operating concept and unconvetional deterrence, something which the SFABs are not suited for. It all comes down to the right division of labor and using the right force for the right mission
Advising everywhere: Army SFABs go smaller, farther
MIRAMAR, Florida — Staff Sgt. Derek Wooderson pushes his foreign counterpart to understand that sharing information among the team is critical to success.
Wooderson lays out how U.S. soldiers make sure everyone in the team, especially the staff, knows what others are doing.
But his intelligence counterpart in the fictional Latin American nation of “Ziwa” isn’t having it.
The soldier who’s role playing as the Ziwa counterpart for this 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade pre-deployment exercise doesn’t want to share the information with others.
Wooderson explains that even though the staffer they’re talking about works logistics, he needs to know the operations and intel information. For example, the weather report. If it rains, it will have an effect on delivering supplies. But the Ziwa role player still isn’t buying it. He says that’s not how he works. Wooderson suspects something else, but he has to approach the issue with tact.
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Each team must operate independently, providing their own medical, communications and logistics needs.
Soldiers in the Army’s SFABs have to be masters at building rapport with foreign partners — their first, and maybe most important duty. Rapport with new partners is becoming more important as Afghanistan-focused, brigade-sized deployments shifted to four to 12-soldier teams, run by a captain, alone in the hinterlands of the world.
SFAB teams are asked to train partners on better marksmanship or logistics, while also sending “strategic signals” to adversaries such as Russia and China that American forces are there, helping their neighbors get better, and keeping an eye on them. That means grinding it out in the mud with partner forces, meeting with foreign generals and officials, while briefing back their activities to the U.S. embassy staff and combatant commanders.
To do all that, the part diplomat, part combat-ready force, must set aside some of their own ideas and exercise a rare skill – listening.
During the Ziwa partner exercise, the U.S. staff sergeant counters, curious if his partner has security concerns with sharing information to the staff. That’s not it, at least that’s not what the partner can tell him. So Wooderson backs off, ensuring that at least the information that needs communicating gets to the right level.
“So, is your commander briefed on that information?” Wooderson asked.
“Yes, absolutely. ... He is informed. The staff is informed,” the Ziwa role player responded. That will have to suffice for now.
The 1st SFAB exercise Army Times observed in late January topped off a year-long pre-deployment process that saw more than a dozen advisor teams train individually and collectively on marksmanship, communication, language skills, medical, cultural and social sensitivities. The teams will be sent to at least three countries in U.S. Southern Command – Panama, Honduras and Colombia. There are possibilities that others could be added during their six-month deployment beginning this summer.
The January validation exercise saw battalion staff with the 1st SFAB working with role players to push a division-level scenario at their home station of Fort Benning, Georgia. After that, batches of the SFAB’s teams went on separate, weeklong evaluations here, at the Ronald O. Harrison National Guard Readiness Center, Miramar, Florida.
Staff Sgt. Derek Wooderson, 1st SFAB intel advisor, talks with his host nation ‘Ziwa’ counterpart, role-played by Sgt. 1st Class Brandon Billings, during the unit’s January validation exercise at the Ronald O. Harrison National Guard Readiness Center, Miramar, Florida ahead of their upcoming six-month SOUTHCOM deployment. (Army)
In air-conditioned classrooms and open-air tents, amid long grasses and palm trees with humming generators under sunny, blue-skies and weather in the upper 70s to low 80s, the teams ran through a series of training lanes. They tested their ability to plan operations with counterparts, react to incoming fire and medical emergencies and interact with high-level foreign partners and U.S. leadership.
Soldiers are anticipating pushback, even from their foreign partners.
Ronald Johnson, a retired Army colonel and Green Beret worked as a role player during the SFAB exercise. He remembers times on deployments early in his career when counterparts would tell him that America had lost in Vietnam so they didn’t need him teaching them how to fight an insurgency. Role players such as Johnson and 1st Sgt. Clinton Bitzer, with the Army National Guard’s 54th SFAB, are posing those same arguments to these soldiers about Afghanistan.
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“Special Forces is very good at training tactical-type units; They’re very good at accompanying tactical-type units," McConville said. “But SFABs build a professional military force, which is different."
In a separate intel briefing as the SFAB soldiers and role players talk over a map, Bitzer, in character, bristles a bit.
“I haven’t worked with the [Americans] at all and I’m really concerned they are going to leave us like they did in Afghanistan,” Bitzer said.
While SFAB soldiers must acknowledge that thinking, their job is to show their partners that the U.S. military still offers the best partnership, training and advising.
“You may have to prove yourself,” Johnson tells these soon-to-deploy soldiers.
‘Morales, you’re the blood donor’
Driving down a dirt road at the Miramar facility, the advisor team’s white van is “t-boned” at an intersection. As part of the drill, 1st Sgt. Francisco Rodriguez, acts injured.
Staff Sgt. Emily Clymer, the team medical advisor, jumps into action, directing soldiers around her to help stabilize Rodriguez, get out the backboard and move him out of the van for medical transport.
As soldiers fly around, grabbing gauze, checking vitals and calling for support, bad news comes across the radio.
There are riots in this Ziwa city. They’re estimating six hours to get Rodriguez to the approved hospital.
“Morales, you’re the blood donor,” Clymer said.
The team found another hospital, not on the approved list but closer and ready to accept patients.
Once strapped to the board, they lift the injured first sergeant into the van and drive around to the “hospital.”
Maj. Katie Westerfield, the 1st SFAB brigade surgeon, plays the role of a doctor who only speaks Spanish at the fictional hospital.
Clymer relays emergency info to the doctor. The doctor wants to know how they’ll pay for treatment. Not all hospitals accept U.S. government health insurance. Sometimes soldiers need cash or a call from the embassy to get medical help.
U.S. soldiers from the 54th SFAB and Drug Enforcement Administration agents instruct Guyana Defence Force soldiers on room clearing tactics during Tradewinds 2021, Camp Seweyo, Guyana, June 19, 2021. (Spc. N.W. Huertas/Army)
Each of the SFAB soldiers has gone through Tactical Combat Casualty Care. But Clymer has prepped her team with additional skills, sent them videos, even pestered them during downtime to sharpen their medical knowledge.
After the event, she’s impressed, they’d never practiced the backboard movement, other than watching videos, but the team executed well.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, units might have hospitals a few blocks away. But for other teams in remote locations of Africa or on islands in the Pacific, a handful of soldiers may have to keep each other alive for hours, even days.
Rapid growth, more to follow
These four to 12-soldier teams are at the center of a mission in which the U.S. wants to woo partners away from promises of gear and infrastructure funding that Russia and China dangle before less affluent nations.
Kicking off in 2017 under then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, the SFABs were the professionalized, institution-driven way in which the Army was going to run security force assistance for allies and partners.
Security force assistance isn’t a new concept. It’s gone by a lot of names, including, “foreign internal defense,” and “train, advise, assist.” The United States conducted versions of this mission during the Vietnam War. Before that, British forces in World War II conducted partisan training and gave assistance to nations fighting the Germans.
But, for the U.S. Army, the SFABs were the first of its kind, “purpose-built” formation for advising, officials said.
The Army stood up its 1st SFAB and deployed the bulk of the brigade, about 800 soldiers, to Afghanistan in 2018. But even before the U.S. exit from Afghanistan in August 2021, the command signaled that full brigade deployments wouldn’t be the future.
Instead, the SFAB command wanted to push small teams of four to a dozen soldiers, headed by a captain, to various partner nations to build long term relationships – and go back to those countries year after year.
Or, as Col. Jonathan Chung, 5th SFAB commander, put it to Army Times: “How did I know that my first date with my spouse was successful?” he said. “It led to a second date.”
Candidates endured SFAB Assessment & Selection in May 2021 at Fort Benning. (Sgt. 1st Class Christopher E Walters/Army)
Maj. Gen. Scott Jackson, a career infantry officer, had spent time in combat zones in Iraq living alongside partners. That experience drove his own empathy for partner forces and making them better.
In May 2017 he was tasked with building the 1st SFAB and getting it to Afghanistan by early 2018. The then-Col. Jackson had four captains, two majors and three staff sergeants. What began as an 18-month timeline shrank to seven months.
“It was a pure and simple startup. We built things from the ground up,” Jackson said. “You’re not only standing up a new unit. You’re standing up a new type of unit.”
As they added soldiers, mostly volunteer senior enlisted with combat experience, Jackson noted some patterns in those who excelled.
“Every good advisor is a good soldier,” he said. “But not every soldier is a good advisor. This is a different skill set.”
The SFABs went from one brigade in one country to deploying to 24 nations in the first two years. They’ve since deployed to 54 countries, where they have a “persistent presence” in 22 and an “episodic presence” in 32, according to Security Force Assistance Command.
In 2020, the Army “regionally aligned” the SFABs:
- 1st SFAB to SOUTHCOM
- 2nd SFAB to AFRICOM
- 3rd SFAB to CENTCOM
- 4th SFAB to EUCOM
- 5th SFAB to INDOPACOM
- Army National Guard’s 54th SFAB aligned to each combatant command where needed.
The Army sent 4th SFAB to Europe this past year after having conducted multiple rotations of assigned teams to areas of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Middle East deployment work began for 3rd SFAB in 2019.
Staff Sgt. Emily Clymer, left, 1st SFAB medical advisor, renders aid in training drill while Staff Sgt. Fabian Borja, right, assists during the unit’s January validation exercise in Florida. (Army)
Jackson shared anecdotes of small teams having big impacts across various regions. One very small team managed to poke some big adversaries.
A four-soldier team from 5th SFAB ran the unit’s first deployment to Mongolia in 2020. They laid low for most of the deployment, keen not to cause any friction for their Mongolian hosts. They trained Mongolian soldiers in field artillery and helped build a training center.
But, when the Mongolian chief of land forces held a ceremony to honor his soldiers, he specifically asked the SFAB team to present those awards.
Sitting in the stands? Russian and Chinese delegates. That small presence, Jackson said, shows adversaries that the United States is on their periphery, even where they’re not aware.
Culture matters
Because SFAB teams are so small, they not only have to know their job at an expert level, but they also need to know how the whole team operates.
And sometimes, everyone needs a refresher.
That’s how members of Maj. Eric Cannon’s team out of 2nd Battalion, 5th SFAB, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, found themselves doing waterborne training with rubber boats ahead of their deployment to Indonesia.
The team had to conduct beach landings during Exercise Garuda Shield 2021 with their partners.
That small unit work is part of what drew Cannon to volunteer for the SFAB assignment.
A member of the Guyanese Defense Force is advised by 54th SFAB adviser Sgt. Tyler Hammond during Tradewinds 2021, at Camp Stephenson, Guyana, June 15. (Spc. N.W. Huertas/Army)
“In the small teams everybody has to be mature, professional, everybody’s an NCO or an officer. We hold everybody accountable, [and] have a lot of hard conversations,” he said. “We work together and learn a lot more.”
Sgt. 1st Class Robby Batongtong, also with 5th SFAB, was part of the SFAB teams that deployed ahead of the large-scale Exercise Balikatan in the Philippines last year. During the event, other SFAB teams came in for short trips to assist with training for things like artillery and engineer work, a kind of training “surge” to add capacity.
While both spent time almost daily with their counterparts doing military and physical training, a lot of time was spent alongside partners at cultural events, getting to know what was important to them both personally and professionally.
Cannon said their Indonesian partners loved to dance and perform karaoke in their off time. And they made sure their American teammates participated.
“They were pretty persistent about getting us on stage,” Cannon said. “We did it but we definitely need to practice.”
Tactics: the key difference
A huddle of about a dozen soldiers and role players watches the screen in near silence back at the Florida Guard training center where SFAB soldiers round out their pre-deployment training.
Blue icons shift across the screen, tracking the movements of the “Ziwa” forces alongside their U.S. counterparts in this simulated air assault.
“So here we’ve hit phase line red,” said Capt. William Michitsch, 1122 team leader, who wears a 3rd Ranger Battalion combat patch.
“Llame otro comandante,” said retired Lt. Col. Rich Bautista, a Green Beret veteran of global deployments, including Latin America, as he plays the role of “Col. Cortez.”
“Let higher know,” his translator said.
Michitsch relays the message.
A few minutes later, during the attack, “Cortez” asks if there are any wounded in the fighting and how Charlie Company is doing in the assault.
They’re still engaging.
Maj. Marcos Traverzo, far left, 1st SFAB logistics advisor and a company commander, conducts remote briefing during the unit’s January validation exercise in Florida. (Army)
Less than 15 minutes later, the assault is complete. Three companies have taken the objectives, with the help of U.S. air support and advisors like Michitsch.
“Call the brigade and tell them that the bridges are secure and they can pass through,” Michitsch said.
“Excellente,” Bautista said.
Following the event, Bautista explained that what Michitsch did was very similar to what a young officer or NCO might face, providing support and coordinating but letting the partner commander make the calls.
That scenario was a kind of culminating event for the team, showing they could rapidly plan and execute a successful mission with their partner. But it took a year of training, weeks or months of relationship building and clear communication to make it happen.
“He’s making decisions, he walks in the room, he commands the fight, he commands the plan. Every once in awhile he looks over to me,” Michitsch said. “Usually, I concur.”
That’s where top leadership wants these small, dispersed, captain-led teams — in the middle of complex areas that have strategic importance, strengthening partners while nibbling at the edges of adversaries in their own backyards.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
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15. Here’s the gear SFAB teams require for far-flung global missions
My recommendation to the SFABs is to not become too equipment centric or dependent.
Here’s the gear SFAB teams require for far-flung global missions
The Army’s Security Force Assistance Brigades have a unique mission that falls somewhere between conventional soldiering and the decades-long work of foreign internal defense.
An SFAB soldier’s gear needs to mirror that blended mission, with some elements of conventional units but with the likelihood they could be in an unsupported location far from the main force.
And each SFAB is now regionally aligned with its own geographic combatant command, meaning the range of weather, terrain and technology needed varies widely.
Army Times spoke with Security Force Assistance Command officials about those needs recently, and previously covered a 2021 industry day in which the heads of all things gear for SFABs laid out what they think these units need now and in the near future.
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A captain leads a team of four to 12 soldiers.
They’ll be as well equipped in those areas as modernized light infantry units in the near future.
SFAC officials told Army Times that the brigades and their teams will be modernized alongside other conventional units, getting all of the gear, weapons and equipment that comes standard.
Maj. Gen. Scott Jackson, SFAC commander, said that as his brigade returned home from Afghanistan in 2019, the material requirements for that brigade fit the mission seamlessly.
But, Jackson said, as the brigades have moved “to ever more decentralized operations around the world” they’re shifting focus to “maintain those critical capabilities at ever smaller scale.” He pointed specifically to communications, sustainment and medical equipment.
Soldiers from 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade build their communications system during a field training exercise Oct. 24, 2017, at Fort Benning, Georgia. (Sgt. Arjenis Nunez/Army)
At last year’s SFAB industry day presentation, Maj. Ryan Mabry, with the Army Capabilities Manager for SFAB, was looking to industry to provide full-motion video at the tactical level.
At that time, the teams lacked the ability to view such video across multiple waveforms using encryption. That’s handicapped advisors when separated from their squadron or battalion.
Each battalion was working off two One System Remote Video Terminals in their operations sections, but those were not dismountable. SFABs want a dismountable device capable of full-motion video feeds across all waveforms and frequencies.
On the medical side, teams may have hospital access in more developed areas. But if they’re stuck on an outpost or island without backup, they may need to provide their own medical care. Something that few units have had to do for any sustained period for much of the past two decades during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“SFAB medical capabilities have increased with an emphasis on non-trauma medicine, as well as delayed evacuation medical care,” Jackson said.
An advisor with 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade assists a soldier from the Philippine Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team during a foot march near Fort Magsaysay, Philippines, in July 2021. (Army)
The two-star added that all soldiers receive Tactical Combat Medical Care courses, normally for senior medics. Also, the medics are trained in delayed evacuation casualty management and prolonged field care.
Officials at the 2021 industry day labeled low-level teams as having, “extremely constrained medical capability.” They were unable to provide prolonged field care and could not sustain for up to 72 hours, if needed.
At that time, the necessary medical equipment was held at the battalion level and team level soldiers had no point-of-care laboratory, imaging, patient hold, blood or tactical nursing capability.
What the SFABs want is the ability to treat, test, image and resuscitate wounded for 72 hours at the team level until they’re able to get them to the next echelon of care.
Beyond lifesaving, small teams must also run their own logistics to a point.
Jackson said the teams will need to be self-sufficient, sometimes with contracted support, but optimally, with their own capabilities. That means finding electrical power, be it in the steppes of Mongolia or the highlands of Colombia, far from an electrical outlet or massive forward operating base.
That means not just generating power, but managing it, too, ACM materials team member Bill Morgan told industry officials last year.
“I need a smart way to harvest, store, share any type of power,” Morgan said.
The teams also need light, sustainable water purification for all their water-based needs — hydration, cooking, cleaning and bathing.
Lastly, although the SFABs will have access to Humvees and JLTVs, those are not ideal for all-terrain and don’t quite fit the whole team, anyway. The teams run from four to 12 soldiers. Most will have eight or more.
The two vehicles don’t offer the right kind of deployable, transportable, mobile movement that these teams will need in both permissive and non-permissive terrain, officials said.
Right now, SFAB teams are working with the JLTV, Humvee and M115A1 Expanded Armament Carrier, or EAC.
But they need a seven to a nine-seat vehicle that can handle a 70% off-road mission profile, officials said.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
16. Col. Owen Ray may lose Special Forces tab, lawyer doxxed prosecutor’s kids ahead of trial
A tragic story on many levels that will continue to have implications for the regiment and the military.
Col. Owen Ray may lose Special Forces tab, lawyer doxxed prosecutor’s kids ahead of trial
A retired Green Beret colonel could lose his Special Forces tab, as his civilian criminal case over kidnapping and domestic violence charges took a turn last week when the former officer’s defense attorney exposed the names, ages and an address for the prosecutor’s children, who are also victims of domestic violence, according to court documents.
Col. Owen Ray’s attorney also exposed the dates of birth and other identifying information for Ray’s own children, who are victims and witnesses in the ongoing case, through an “unintentional oversight,” the defense acknowledged in court filings.
Ray, a former 1st Special Forces Group commander, faces trial in Pierce County, Washington, on charges stemming from an hours-long armed police standoff in December 2020. During the standoff, Ray allegedly held his family hostage at gunpoint, put on his boots to stomp his wife’s face and chest in front of their children, and threatened to kill police and himself.
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Ray is currently being held on two counts of felony harassment, one count of kidnapping, two counts of assault and one count of reckless endangerment.
The Army quietly allowed Ray, who last served as chief of staff of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord-based I Corps, to retire on Sept. 30 with an honorable discharge.
“Many people [in the special operations community] generally aren’t happy with the outcome” of Ray’s military discipline, explained a source directly familiar with the move to revoke Ray’s Special Forces tab and Green Beret. “The perception is that he got off scot free...whereas a [staff sergeant] in his position would have gotten fried.”
Special Forces officials “initiated tab revocation in recent weeks,” the source said. Ray has approximately two weeks to appeal the decision to Maj. Gen. Thomas Drew, the chief of Human Resources Command.
According to Army awards regulations, the commander of the Special Warfare Center and School can revoke the tab and beret if a soldier “has committed any act or engaged in any conduct inconsistent with the integrity, professionalism, and conduct of a SF Soldier.” The regulation isn’t clear on who initiates that action for a retiree, though.
According to the source, 1st Special Forces Command created an internal policy in 2021 to initiate tab revocation for domestic violence incidents, sexual assaults and gun crime.
Ray’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the retired officer’s Special Forces tab.
A botched court filing
Ray’s attorney and former Pierce County prosecutor Jared Ausserer also had to revise and redact a recent, 256-page motion filed Jan. 26 asking the judge to disqualify one of the prosecutors on the case.
Ray’s defense team was attempting to disqualify Pierce County deputy prosecutor Coreen Schnepf because her conduct has been biased, according to the motion. The defense questioned her objectivity because Schnepf is a victim of domestic violence herself, according to a press kit on Ray’s website and the motion.
Ray faces more than two decades in prison if convicted of his alleged crimes — first degree kidnapping, two counts of second degree assault, two counts of felony harassment and reckless endangerment. According to court documents, Schnepf offered a plea deal to Ray that would give him roughly eight years in prison.
The former Green Beret’s defense team pointed at charges and sentences in other domestic violence cases and said the initial plea deal offered to Ray was unfair. Prosecutors called that assertion “disingenuous” in their Feb. 4 response because it left out subsequent negotiations.
Col. Owen G. Ray is pictured here during a change of command ceremony July 9, 2020, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. (Pfc. Gaozong Lee/Army)
“This motion has nothing to do with…[Schnepf’s] conduct,” said Mary Robnett, Pierce County’s top prosecutor, in court filings. “The real issue here is Ray is unwilling to accept the statutory consequences of his conduct.”
Robnett also condemned Ausserer for “interject[ing] the names and ages of [Schnepf’s] children for no legitimate purpose.”
After Army Times asked a representative for Ausserer and Ray why the children’s information was listed in the public filings, the defense asked the judge to seal the motion to disqualify Schnepf pending redactions to the documents.
The defense attorney said in a Feb. 7 sworn statement that the failure to redact personal information from the motion’s supporting documents was an “unintentional oversight,” and Judge Stanley Rumbaugh granted the request to seal. But the redacted documents had been available to the public for 12 days before Ausserer filed that request.
“Any attachments I filed in that motion were...provided in response to a public records request,” Ausserer told Army Times in a Friday voicemail. “I took steps to...redact that information out as a courtesy to the prosecutor.”
In his memorandum included with the original motion, Ausserer said in his own words that the children of Ray and Schnepf “are similar in age and both of their sons are named [redacted by Army Times].”
A press kit available for download on Ray’s website also includes the children’s shared name. A new, redacted version of the motion, which Ausserer filed Feb. 8, removed the shared name.
Ray’s PR campaign
Despite the filing misstep, Ray’s public relations campaign has gained ground in recent months. A litigation communications firm, ANACHEL Communications, sent out a press release and fielded media inquiries on Ray’s behalf.
Ray wrote an article in November asserting that his breakdown and actions were “from the cumulative impact of untreated mental and physical health issues, operational and career stress across a career in SOF.”
The next month, according to public records, Ray’s team registered a sleek new website detailing his story and mental health resources that includes “testimonials” from former colleagues, though it’s not clear where the quotes originate.
One purported endorsement comes from former President Barack Obama, for whom Ray carried the “nuclear football” for more than two years.
Later in December, the editorial board of the Tacoma News-Tribune argued that “regardless of what you think of Ray or his alleged crimes, the issues he describes in his op-ed — including the need to address military mental health, reduce stigma and rethink warrior culture — demand our attention.”
Robnett, the Pierce County prosecutor, argued that the case should be settled at trial if Ray’s team isn’t satisfied with plea offers.
“[Ray] does not have the right to dictate what charges he faces,” she said in the state’s response. “But he does have the right to proceed to trial. This Court should deny his motion so the case may proceed to trial.”
Ray’s trial is tentatively scheduled to begin March 23.
Davis Winkie is a staff reporter covering the Army. He originally joined Military Times as a reporting intern in 2020. Before journalism, Davis worked as a military historian. He is also a human resources officer in the Army National Guard.
17. ‘When your stomach is empty, it feels even colder’: In Afghanistan, desperate for the next meal
‘When your stomach is empty, it feels even colder’: In Afghanistan, desperate for the next meal
In the first of a three-part series, Grid looks at life in Afghanistan, six months after the U.S. left and the Taliban took power.
February 15, 2022
What Khadim can’t get out of his head is how the man started sobbing like a small child. “He was a former soldier,” the 60-year-old shopkeeper in Herat, Afghanistan’s third-largest city, told Grid, describing the desperate customer who appeared on his doorstep the other day.
Like millions of Afghans, the ex-soldier’s family was in dire need of that most basic necessity: food.
He wasn’t just any soldier — he had been a member of Afghanistan’s elite special forces. And his unit had been at the forefront of the fight against the Taliban insurgents who seized power six month ago, as the last American troops left the country. He had tried and failed to flee the country, and he told Khadim he had sold his possessions; his family now leads a desperate, nomadic existence, moving from house to house on an almost monthly basis. Finding work — a struggle for anyone as the Afghan economy crumbles — is a virtually impossible challenge for someone who fought against the country’s new rulers.
“We both cried,” Khadim said. He gave the man flour, cooking oil, and some rice and some beans. “I told him to pay me whenever he gets a job. He was desperate. He was broken.”
He is not alone. Six months after the U.S. departure, nearly 23 million Afghans — or more than half the population — are facing acute food shortages. The U.N. warns that nearly 9 million people are at risk of starvation as food prices rise, job losses multiply and the Afghan banking system teeters near collapse. The International Labour Organization estimates that half a million Afghans have lost their jobs as a result of the U.S. exit. That toll is expected to balloon by several hundred thousand by the middle of this year.
View from the marketplace
Grid spoke to shopkeepers in the capital, Kabul, and beyond — Herat in the west, Badakshan in the northeast and Bamiyan, in central Afghanistan — to gauge how life has changed since the fall of the government last August. Without exception, these merchants described a dangerous spiral: As incomes have dried up, their customers have bought less, or visited the markets less frequently; at the same time, the shopkeepers themselves have struggled to source essential goods. That, along with a precipitous collapse in the local Afghani currency, has sent prices of basic staples soaring.
Grid gathered data from several cities, where the local marketplaces offer a snapshot of the crisis — a look at how the supply crunch and currency collapse have put a basket of basic goods out of reach for so many.
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Until last summer, a kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of potatoes, for example, cost roughly 21 cents (U.S.). Today, it’s almost twice that in many places. In mountainous Badakhshan, the price has more than doubled, to an average of 47 cents. Chicken costs around a third more than it did then. It’s the same story with beans, flour and other staples. For millions of Afghans, routine trips to the market have become heart-rending experiences.
So too with visits to the bank.
Zarif, a shopkeeper in Kabul, said he faced multiple problems sourcing supplies — including finding the cash he needs to pay wholesalers. One day in early February, he spent around five hours waiting in a bank queue, only to find, when he finally reached the cashier, that the branch was out of money. “I couldn’t even scream at [the cashier],” he said. “It was not his fault. Sometimes it is impossible to describe the situation. You have to be here to see how bad it is.” In an echo of his compatriot from Herat, Zarif added: “I cried on the way home.”
The crisis in liquidity has less to do with Taliban rule; it is more a function of decisions made by the international community.
As Grid reported in January, the U.S. and other countries have frozen more than $8 billion in Afghan government funds because they refuse to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate leaders of the country. Meanwhile the Taliban remains subject to U.S. and international sanctions that block its access to the global financial system. The result: The banking system has been crushed and the new government has struggled to pay salaries. Around three-quarters of the previous government’s budget was covered by international funds. For its part, the Taliban has tightened limits on bank withdrawals, and forbidden transactions in anything but the local Afghani tender, further complicating things for a cash-reliant economic system in which — until last year — the use of American dollars was widespread.
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(A recent U.S. decision to divide some $7 billion in frozen Afghan government assets between a fund for victims of the 9/11 attacks and humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan has sparked outrage inside the country — including among many who detest the Taliban. The White House has been criticized for using any Afghan funds to address 9/11-related claims at a time when millions of people in Afghanistan are going hungry.)
The various restrictions have punished even those fortunate enough to have sources of income, or savings in the bank. “In Herat, you can withdraw only 5000 Afghanis [or around $54] per week from the bank. Imagine that you have a family with 10 members — like my own,” said Khadim, “What can you buy with that money? Can you feed everyone properly? No. The situation is critical.”
Limits elsewhere are more generous, but nowhere near high enough, several Afghans told Grid. In any case, banks often don’t have physical cash on hand, as Zarif saw firsthand in Kabul. Word that a branch might have money to dispense spreads fast, and then “you have to wait in these endless lines,” Zarif said.
Off the payroll
Others don’t bother with the lines because they have no money left in their accounts. Razia, a government medical worker, said she hadn’t been paid since the U.S. forces left. The Taliban authorities have told her they don’t have the funds. “The situation really is like hell on earth,” the 28-year-old told Grid. “We don’t live. We just breathe.”
When the Taliban took over, Razia was among the hundreds of thousands of Afghans on the government payroll, the vast majority of whom were paid using those international funds. Although nongovernmental agencies have stepped in to pay thousands of Razia’s colleagues around the country, she is among those still waiting — and still working — in the hope that they might one day receive even part of what they are due.
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But hope, like so much else, has become a precious commodity in Afghanistan.
Aesfa, a 53-year-old single mother in Badakhshan, told Grid she is filled with fear for the future. Afraid and worried — mostly for her family.
She has seven children — five daughters, two sons. Local Taliban leaders won’t allow women to work. One of her sons is in school. Her husband died years ago. That left her eldest son, aged 25, until last summer the sole breadwinner for the family. Today he can no longer appear in public, much less look for work, because of what he did before the Americans left: fight the Taliban, alongside local forces deployed by the U.S.-backed government.
Over the past six months, Aesfa has depleted her savings; she now relies on handouts from neighbors and others in her community to feed herself and her children. There is no regular income and no hope of one, she told Grid. Some of those market staples now seem like luxuries. “I can’t remember what chicken tastes like,” she said.
In January, the United Nations launched the largest humanitarian appeal in its history for a single country — $4.4 billion, to avert a humanitarian catastrophe inside Afghanistan. Martin Griffiths, the U.N. Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief chief, implored the international community not to “shut the door on the people of Afghanistan.”
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He might have been thinking of Aesfa, in Badakshan.
“The weather is cold,” she said, “and when your stomach is empty it feels even colder.”
18. Ukraine Is a Wake-Up Call for America
Why do they always leave out Korea? (Yes my bias is showing)
Excerpts:
Today, we face a hostile China along with an embittered Russia and radical Islamic theocracies in Iran and in Afghanistan. The only way to deal with these multiple threats at an affordable price is to have swords with which we can threaten what our enemies fear most.
That sword should have military and non-military components. The Department of Defense is now considering how to compete in a world with multiple hostile great powers. This effort should be supported.
At a minimum, it should not be hamstrung by the lack of budget approved by Congress. In many ways, our adversaries fear our non-military ability to support those who seek liberty in their own countries, as the United States supported the Polish workers and as the Israeli government assisted Soviet Jews in the 1970s and 1980s.
A call for military and non-military swords is not wishful thinking. The swords should be used carefully, as should all sharp implements, but it is naïve to think we can prevail without them.
Ukraine Is a Wake-Up Call for America
Hard power still matters and the world is still a dangerous place.
At this point, it is not known if Vladimir Putin will carry out the invasion of Ukraine that he has so thoroughly prepared. But it is not too soon to reflect on the truths that this crisis has already revealed.
The first and most obvious revelation is that war among great powers is not obsolete. It is true that Europe has recently enjoyed the longest period of peace in its history, but the spread of anti-war, cosmopolitan values has been confined to northwest and central Europe. In east and southern Europe—as well as in China, South Asia, and the Middle East—ethnic or religious nationalism that uses historical trauma to create a culture of resentment which justifies wars of revenge and retribution is alive and is actively stoked by authoritarian governments (and occasionally democracies) for their own purposes.
We are not living in a Citizen of the World era, in which war is anathema to “civilized” nations. Nor are we living in a world in which cyber attacks and economic sanctions have replaced kinetic warfare. Information warfare, of which cyber war is a subset, is as old as kinetic war, and has always been a complement to combat—to real war, as Clausewitz called it. The ability to engage in combat is itself a form of psychological or information war. Information war can enable combat capabilities, but can seldom win without them. We have preferred to ignore this. Vladimir Putin has kindly reminded us.
Podcast · February 14 2022
Sexual anarchy, trucker protests, rumors of war, and Trump’s feral ego. Will Saletan and Charlie…
Second, the United States cannot defend itself by staying at home. The identity of the United States derives from its principles, the principles in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Who we are is not defined by sacred territory or ancestral race, but by universal values.
Because of this, attacks on those values necessarily threaten us. If we do not uphold our values at home, we are weaker abroad. And if we do not uphold those values abroad, we call into question why we would uphold them at home. If oppression is acceptable for foreigners, why is it not acceptable for us? Either “all men are created equal,” or they are not.
Third, the United States cannot defend others or itself with shields alone. There has been intelligent discussion of how defensive military technology can now make small countries such as Ukraine or Taiwan “porcupines” that are costly to attack. But even porcupines cannot endure protracted campaigns conducted by enemies many times their size and armed with nuclear weapons.
Nor can the United States defend itself with shields alone. The unhappy history of military isolationism in the 1930s and the astronomical costs of anti-bomber and anti-missile defenses in the 1950s should be a caution. If we are purely defensive, the enemy can attack us when and where he chooses. If we try to be able to defend ourselves wherever he attacks, we will spend ourselves into bankruptcy. A sword that deters the enemy by threatening what he values has been proven to be superior to a quest for leakproof defenses, however valuable limited defenses may be.
Today, we face a hostile China along with an embittered Russia and radical Islamic theocracies in Iran and in Afghanistan. The only way to deal with these multiple threats at an affordable price is to have swords with which we can threaten what our enemies fear most.
That sword should have military and non-military components. The Department of Defense is now considering how to compete in a world with multiple hostile great powers. This effort should be supported.
At a minimum, it should not be hamstrung by the lack of budget approved by Congress. In many ways, our adversaries fear our non-military ability to support those who seek liberty in their own countries, as the United States supported the Polish workers and as the Israeli government assisted Soviet Jews in the 1970s and 1980s.
A call for military and non-military swords is not wishful thinking. The swords should be used carefully, as should all sharp implements, but it is naïve to think we can prevail without them.
19. Is the Russian President a Strategic Master or a Strategic Failure?
Is the Russian President a Strategic Master or a Strategic Failure?
Gregory Sims served in the CIA’s Clandestine Service for over thirty years, including multiple field tours as Chief and Deputy Chief of CIA stations. He is currently retired and living in Huntsville, AL. He can be found on LinkedIn.
OPINION — As a national leader, Vladimir Putin deserves respect. You underestimate him at your peril. But it is a qualified respect. Putin wields the levers of statecraft with skill and intelligence, but he is not the strategic maestro he is often credited as being – that is if your definition of strategic mastery has anything to do with the direction he is taking Russia and what that means for its future.
Putin deserves credit for providing a measure of stability after the chaos of the immediate post-Soviet period, with its gangster capitalism, Boris Yeltsin’s alcohol-fueled buffoonery, and the near disintegration of state power. But once stabilized and aided immensely by a coincidentally beneficial upswing in cyclical energy prices, Putin reverted to his Soviet instincts with his stress on popular subservience and top-down control, aka the “power vertikal,” and his fixation with external enemies.
He has been slowly turning Russia back into the USSR, minus communist ideology but adding ubiquitous corruption at the highest levels. We saw how that ended: a national security state with a hollowed-out economy relative to its natural and human resources that failed to keep up with the developed world in terms of standard-of-living, the dynamism of its civil society, and eventually even its ability to develop the advanced technologies needed for credible global competition.
It is true that Putin’s geopolitical maneuverings often run rings around the leaders of the Western democracies, but that is frankly a low bar. Autocrats are always nimbler because their whims can turn national policy on a dime. Democracies, with their unruly press, inconvenient legislatures, constraining laws, independent courts, but most of all those pesky competitive elections, are far clumsier to manage…by design. They are mostly sluggish and reactive when coping with fluid international situations, and I would thus ascribe Putin’s ability to outfox them less to strategic genius than to basic executive competence paired with a freer internal hand for tactical maneuver.
In strategic terms, and largely due to Putin’s actions, Ukrainians are more distant from Russians than they have ever been. Consequently, the only way Russia can recover Ukraine as an ally in the near term is through coercion. To me this suggests strategic failure more than strategic mastery. Even if he succeeds in physically subduing Ukraine, it will be unsustainable in the long term–the strategic term–against a country that is larger than France in both size and population. Ukraine is not Chechnya.
Ultimately, judgment of Putin’s strategic prowess rests on the degree his actions add to or detract from Russia’s overall potential. After more than 20 years in power, Russia’s economy, demographics, and civic vitality–the foundation of any country’s power–are at best stagnant. Through his cynical and primitive conception of basic human nature Putin squanders the advantages of an immensely creative population and a land richly endowed with natural resources to chase the glory of transient tactical victories against fabricated “anti-Russian” enemies he falsely insists darkly conspire to break and subjugate it. That is unsound strategy at its most elemental level. Vladimir Putin is truly gifted in his ability to spring surprises, and no doubt he has more still in store for us. But that is not the same as strategy. It is thus worth asking the Russian people, if your leader believes you are incapable of considering and freely debating potential strategies for Russia’s future, and that you are unfit to choose your own leaders in non-curated elections offering genuine strategic options for your country, who is the real anti-Russian?
Read more expert-driven national security perspectives, insights and analysis in The Cipher Brief
20. Russia vs Ukraine could provide invaluable lessons on what truly works in modern warfare
I recall military observers learning lessons from operations in Crimea in the 19th Century.
Russia vs Ukraine could provide invaluable lessons on what truly works in modern warfare - Breaking Defense
A Ukrainian serviceman rides atop of an APC with Javelin anti-tank missiles during a military parade in Kiev on August 24, 2018. The weapons will be a key part in Ukraine’s defense against a Russian invasion. (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)
With multiple media reports saying Russia plans to invade Ukraine in the next 48 hours, the chances of avoiding a major conflict between Moscow and Kyiv seem slim. If Russia does start a conflict, it will pit two modernized militaries against each other, with very different tactics: Russia’s traditional military might against more of an insurgent Ukraine. In doing so the conflict, along with incurring with very real human costs, could provide real-world answers for the many questions facing America’s military as it seeks to modernize for the future, writes Mark Cancian of CSIS.
A war between two highly developed nation-states like Russia and Ukraine offers the rare opportunity to see how modern weapons work, and more importantly, how they interact in an action/counteraction that is impossible to simulate in peacetime. Are tanks obsolete? Is cyber a game-changer? Unfortunately, with such a war seemingly imminent, military analysts may get a chance to make such assessments based on battlefield experience rather than peacetime exercises and analysis.
To be clear: no one wants to see war between Russia and Ukraine, one the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has predicted will be “horrific” for civilians, to happen. There is still a hope such a conflict can be avoided. But if it is happening, it is incumbent upon us to learn what we can. Here, then, are five dynamics to watch.
1. Are tanks still viable on the modern battlefield? Analysts have been predicting the end of tanks since the introduction of long-range precision antitank missiles in the early 1970s. Yet, tanks maintained their battlefield primacy in the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 -1988, and the US wars in Iraq (1991, 2003). Over time, however, these antitank weapons have become longer-range and smarter. For example, the Javelin antitank missile that the United States has provided to Ukraine has a 4,000-meter range and fire and forget guidance, which allows operators to hide from adversaries. The high-capacity warhead and top attack make the system highly lethal.
Inside the US military, there is no clear agreement on tanks. The US Army continues to buy tanks at the rate of about 100 per year and has fielded one additional armored brigade combat team in the last few years. It maintains an armored brigade combat team in Eastern Europe on a rotational basis to reassure and defend the eastern European NATO allies. The Army believes in tanks.
The Marine Corps does not believe in tanks. It dumped all of them last year and deems its antitank weapons capable of handling any armored threats it might face. It regards the results of the Nagorno-Karabakh War of 2020 as evidence that drones dominate tanks.
So, who is right? The Russians field a large tank force and will use it in any conflict with Ukraine; while the Ukrainians have armor, it is largely outdated and they are expected to rely heavily on antitank weapons, including American-provided Javelins. The success or failure of that tank force will give insights into how the United States should structure its tank and antitank forces in the future.
2. Is cyber really a game-changer? Many digital proponents argue that cyber has the potential to cripple, if not outright defeat, adversaries before forces even engage. They point to past attacks on operating systems, weapons guidance, communications, geolocation, and web operations. They look for a “cyber Pearl Harbor” that cripples an adversary at the start of the conflict. The recent book, 2034: a Novel of the Next World War by retired Adm. James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman, envisions Chinese cyber capabilities crippling the US Pacific Fleet and allowing its destruction.
On the other hand, there are analysts who argue that cyber is overrated and unproven, without major operational results to date. They point out that if cyber has not shown a decisive capability by now, the capability probably does not exist. After all, the events that proponents point to as “cyber Pearl Harbors” produced minor effects, like shutting down some websites for a short time or making some local operations difficult, hardly the sinking of eight battleships, destruction of 300 aircraft, and killing of over 2,400 Americans implied by the name.
The problem with cyber operations is that the capabilities are hard to truly judge because of the secrecy. Many tools rely on adversary vulnerabilities discovered ahead of time. Exploiting these vulnerabilities are generally single-use opportunities because once a power uses them, its adversaries will quickly develop countermeasures. Thus, it’s unclear whether countries like Russia are holding some powerful weapon and just waiting for the right moment for a devastating but one-time use, or whether such powerful weapons simply do not exist. The answer will shape US cyber operations and determine whether they are a primary or supporting effort in future conflicts and whether US military operations, which rely on network conductivity, are safe.
3. Are helicopter operations viable when the adversary has even decent air defenses? Helicopters are integral to the operations of US military forces, with a total US inventory of about 4,500. The Army is particularly invested in helicopters, with about 3,100 conducting a wide variety of transportation and attack functions. There is even an air assault division, the 101st.
During the Vietnam War, the Army perfected airmobile tactics whereby helicopters would insert troops deep inside an adversary’s terrain, making a lodgment before the adversary could react. Attack helicopters provided mobile fire support for ground forces.
However, helicopters are extremely vulnerable since they fly low and slow. In Vietnam, the United States lost 5,600 helicopters. During the Russian war in Afghanistan, the United States supplied anti-aircraft Stinger missiles to the mujahedin opposition. These wreaked havoc on Russian helicopters, limiting their operations. In the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the one heliborne operation ran into serious problems because of ground fire.
The Russians have a lot of helicopters and the doctrine to use them. Ukrainians have a limited but nevertheless effective anti-helicopter capability. The Russians may try to insert special forces or even infantry formations deep inside Ukraine to disrupt operations and perhaps hit key targets. Will this be successful, or will anti-aircraft weapons exact such a toll that such operations become infeasible? And if Russia can’t handle the fairly limited Ukrainian air defense options, what does it say about the use of rotorcraft against a great power armed with more advanced capabilities? The answer will indicate whether the US heavy investment in helicopters is warranted.
4. Is it still possible to launch an amphibious assault on a hostile shore? Amphibious assaults arguably won World War II for the Western allies. Landings in North Africa (Nov. 1942), Sicily (July 1943), Salerno (Sept. 1943), and Normandy (June 1944) allowed the Western allies to come to grips with the German and Italian forces. In the Pacific, the Marine landings on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa became the stuff of legends. The Army had its own series of major amphibious operations in the Pacific.
In the modern era, the Marines never faced a truly opposed landing, but the British did. In May 1982 the British landed on the Falkland Islands to drive out the Argentinian forces that had seized the islands the month before. The assault was a success, though with high casualties among the ships.
The Russians are now threatening the Ukrainian coast with a landing force embarked on amphibious ships. If they can land and seize territory, that would argue that amphibious assaults are still possible. That success or failure means a lot for the Marine Corps as it thinks about the future of its central mission.
5. Has the artillery come to dominate the modern battlefield? The French in World War I used to say: the artillery conquers, the infantry occupies. World War II seemed to give tanks and aircraft a more prominent role. Subsequent wars, particularly in the Middle East, continued to give armor and airpower the major role, while insurgencies focused on infantry. Artillery always had a role, but a supporting one.
Modern artillery has two capabilities unavailable before: precision, long-range munitions that can hit targets exactly, and sensors like UAVs that can find targets with greater facility. This “reconnaissance/strike capability” has opened tantalizing possibilities. In the 2014 conflict between Ukraine and Russia, a Russian artillery missile strike reportedly annihilated two Ukrainian battalions.
If such capabilities are dominant on the modern battlefield, the emphasis in US forces should shift from the infantry and armor to the artillery.
The need for caution: Predicting the future of warfare between major powers by looking at the experience of conflicts with smaller powers is a tricky business. A US-Russia or US-China conflict might look very different from a Russia-Ukraine conflict. A lesson in humility comes from the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. Although it was a Civil War, the Germans and Italians supported the nationalists while the Soviet Union supported the Republicans. Many saw the conflict as a forerunner of the Second World War. However, the Spanish Civil War seemed to indicate that future conflicts would be primarily infantry affairs, with tanks and airpower providing useful but supporting roles. The experience in World War II was quite different.
Nevertheless, the shortage of crystal balls being what it is, a Russia-Ukraine war will provide the best insight available into the dynamics of the future battlefield. Military analysts will mine it for lessons to be learned and shape US forces and doctrine as a result.
Mark Cancian, a member of the Breaking Defense Board of Contributors, is a retired Marine colonel now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
21. Why China’s Threat to Punish Outspoken Olympians Rings Hollow
Excerpts:
Pleas about China’s crimes against humanity should not be limited to figure skaters, let alone Americans. When it comes to human rights, there is strength in numbers and China’s security apparatus would be hard-pressed to silence every athlete who speaks out. Even better, President Biden and other leaders should publicly state that the arbitrary arrest of any Olympic athlete would be met by the full force of their governments.
While it may be too late to completely boycott the games, Olympians need not legitimize China’s horrific actions in the eyes of the world or domestically in China. Adolf Hitler managed to do as much with the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, overcoming boycott threats from the United States and Europe. And, the world knows what followed. Let’s make sure history does not repeat itself in Beijing.
Why China’s Threat to Punish Outspoken Olympians Rings Hollow
It would create a diplomatic crisis, which should be the last thing the Xi regime wants.
From left: U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, IOC President Thomas Bach, Xi Jinping and his wife his wife, Peng Liyuan, at the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Photo by Anthony Wallace/Getty Images.)
China remains on high alert as the Olympics take place in Beijing. It’s not the Omicron variant that is making China nervous, even though hundreds of Olympic participants have already tested positive for COVID-19. Instead, China’s leaders appear increasingly concerned that Olympians could speak out about the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims, even going so far as threatening to arrest Olympians who do.
But China’s intimidation tactics ring hollow, namely because arresting outspoken Olympians would magnify attention on the Uyghurs’ plight and undermine Xi Jinping’s efforts to leverage the Olympics as a platform to resurrect China’s badly battered image. Beyond that, doing so would all but eliminate China’s chances of hosting a future Olympics, which would be a serious blow to Xi’s great-power ambitions.
“Any behavior or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against the Chinese laws and regulations, will be subject to certain punishment.” This warning was issued in the weeks before the games by Yang Shu, the deputy director general of international relations for the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee. Yang’s message to Olympians was clear—talk about human rights at your own risk. Relatedly, Chinese authorities began pre-emptively detaining human rights activists before the opening ceremony earlier this month, fearful they could stir up trouble.
China’s latest moves come as more countries express concerns about the campaign of internment, forced sterilization, and rape inflicted on millions of ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang Province, above all the Uyghurs. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet is reportedly concluding an inquiry into China’s crimes against humanity. While Chinese officials have prevented Bachelet from traveling to China to conduct a proper investigation, U.N. officials familiar with the report have referred to it as “deeply disturbing.”
These and other mounting threats come at a delicate time for Xi. Recent economic data suggests China’s industrial output has cratered as Xi’s zero-COVID policies have forced millions into extended pandemic lockdowns. Ominously, China’s top law enforcement body remarked that with “the economic downturn, some deep-seated problems may surface.” China’s slowdown poses a direct threat to Xi and the CCP, whose political legitimacy is tied to their economic stewardship.
With China’s economy in disarray and growing concerns about Xi’s standing, the last thing China’s leaders want is a major diplomatic crisis, let alone the prospect of sanctions after arbitrarily detaining an Olympic athlete.
Indeed, global perceptions of China have tanked in response to Beijing’s refusal to collaborate with international investigations into COVID-19’s origins. Xi’s maximalist approach to China’s near abroad, including its repeated incursions into Taiwan’s airspace, has further isolated China. Arresting an Olympian would only harden negative views about Beijing, especially in Europe, where several countries have begun questioning the ethical and moral risks of deepening economic ties with China.
What’s more, arresting an Olympian would seriously undercut Xi’s narrative about China’s ostensible respect for international norms, as well as his attempts to position China as an alternative to the United States. And Beijing must maintain a good reputation on both fronts if it wants to host a third Olympic Games, let alone usher in a new China-centric global order.
To select future hosts, votes are conducted by secret ballot among the International Olympic Committee’s 101 members. At the U.N., where votes are open, China can promise aid or threaten to withhold it as a means of influencing a vote. Yet thanks to the IOC’s secret ballots, there is less risk should a country vote against China—that is so long as the U.S. rallies like-minded nations to vote for a democratic alternative.
In the leadup to the games, several U.S. Olympians voiced concerns about China’s human rights atrocities. U.S. figure skater Timothy LeDuc called human rights abuses in China “horrifying,” while three-time Olympic ice dancer Evan Bates called the situation “abysmal” and “tearing at the fabric of humanity.” Bates’ remarks were seconded by American figure skaters and fellow Olympians Nathan Chen and Vincent Zhou, both of whom are of Chinese descent.
Pleas about China’s crimes against humanity should not be limited to figure skaters, let alone Americans. When it comes to human rights, there is strength in numbers and China’s security apparatus would be hard-pressed to silence every athlete who speaks out. Even better, President Biden and other leaders should publicly state that the arbitrary arrest of any Olympic athlete would be met by the full force of their governments.
While it may be too late to completely boycott the games, Olympians need not legitimize China’s horrific actions in the eyes of the world or domestically in China. Adolf Hitler managed to do as much with the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, overcoming boycott threats from the United States and Europe. And, the world knows what followed. Let’s make sure history does not repeat itself in Beijing.
Craig Singleton, a former U.S. diplomat, is a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research institute focused on foreign policy and national security.
22. Readout of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl Virtual Quad Meeting with France, Germany, and the UK
I wonder why they used "Quad" in this context? Could that confuse people? Are we going to have a Euro-Atlantic Quad and an Indo-Pacific Quad? Quad - EA and Quad - IP.
Ofr do we just routinely use quad for a meeting with four countries? Such as bilateral, trilateral and quad. That is probably how the first meeting with India, Australia, Japan, and the US was described but somehow it retained the quad moniker.
Readout of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl Virtual Quad Meeting with France, Germany, and the UK
Immediate Release
Feb. 14, 2022
Department of Defense Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Anton T. Semelroth provided the following readout:
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl participated in a virtual meeting today with French Ministry of the Armed Forces Director General for International Relations and Strategy Alice Guitton, German Federal Ministry of Defense Director General for Security and Defense Policy Detlef Wächter, and UK Ministry of Defence Director General Security Policy Dominic Wilson.
The leaders previewed the forthcoming NATO Defense Ministerial, discussing a range of security challenges facing the Alliance, including Russia’s continuing military build-up in and around Ukraine and Belarus. They underscored the importance of Alliance unity and reaffirmed unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. They also discussed developments related to mutual security interests, including in Africa and the Middle East.
Dr. Kahl, Ms. Guitton, Dr. Wächter, and Mr. Wilson agreed to remain in touch on these important issues.
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23. FDD | Iran’s Cyber Operations Against Turkey Should Be a Wakeup Call for Erdogan
Excerpt:
Despite Erdogan’s antisemitic and anti-Israel track record, Jerusalem appears cautiously open to improving relations. Haaretz quoted an Israeli diplomatic source as saying, “With Turkey we move forward with great caution. Very slowly. They are no great friends of Iran, to put it mildly, and we can’t afford to assume some mantle of purity that will prevent us from creating alliances.” Tehran’s hostile moves, including its latest cyber operation, offer the Turkish president an opportunity to correct course by prioritizing Turkey’s national interests instead of his misguided Islamist agenda, which Tehran has exploited skillfully to this day.
FDD | Iran’s Cyber Operations Against Turkey Should Be a Wakeup Call for Erdogan
fdd.org · by Aykan Erdemir Turkey Program Senior Director · February 14, 2022
February 14, 2022 | Policy Brief
Iran’s Cyber Operations Against Turkey Should Be a Wakeup Call for Erdogan
As Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signals his intention to mend ties with Israel, Iranian state-sponsored hackers have been targeting government and private-sector entities across Turkey, researchers at Cisco Talos Intelligence Group revealed in January. Iran’s latest cyber operation should be a wakeup call for Erdogan, who has a troubling history of aiding and abetting the Islamic Republic, including through his facilitation of Tehran’s sanctions-evasion schemes.
Cisco Talos, one of the world’s largest commercial intelligence teams, exposed that the hacker group MuddyWater masqueraded as the Turkish Health and Interior Ministries to trick targets into downloading malware. Last month, U.S. Cyber Command officially determined that MuddyWater is “a subordinate element within the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security.” Iranian hackers targeted the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, among other organizations. The researchers at Cisco Talos did not assess the motivation behind the operation but noted that MuddyWater has previously conducted espionage, stolen intellectual property, and used ransomware and other destructive malware.
Although Erdogan has supported Tehran over the years by facilitating Iranian evasion of U.S. sanctions, Turkey has been a regular target of cyber espionage by various Iranian hackers dating back to 2014. MuddyWater alone has conducted numerous operations against Ankara over the past five years.
MuddyWater’s latest campaign coincides with Ankara’s ongoing attempts to normalize relations with Israel. This is consistent with the Iranian threat group’s operations against the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait following the Abraham Accords — a U.S.-brokered agreement normalizing relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors, including the United Arab Emirates. Tehran’s concerns about warming Turkish-Israeli ties is one possible explanation for Iran’s cutoff of natural gas to Turkey last month.
There are other reasons why MuddyWater’s bosses in Tehran may be desperate for the latest intelligence on Ankara’s deliberations. The two nations are at loggerheads in Syria and Iraq — the latest manifestation of their age-old competition for hegemony in the region. Earlier this month, Kataib Hezbollah, one of Tehran’s Iraqi proxies, warned that Turkish forces in Iraq must withdraw “before it’s too late,” providing just the latest evidence of rising tensions between Ankara and the Islamic Republic.
Against Iran’s persistent cyber threats, Israel could be a good partner for Ankara. Jerusalem remains Tehran’s top target and possesses some of the strongest cyber capabilities in the world. Other Middle Eastern states have already tapped into Israeli knowhow. Following the Abraham Accords, Reuters reported that Israeli and Emirati cyber security chiefs were sharing information about cyber threats to their nations.
Until now, Erdogan has been openly hostile toward Israel’s normalization with its neighbors. He joined Iran and Hamas in condemning the accords and even threatened to suspend diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi. Turkey hosts “the terror command post of Hamas abroad,” stated then-Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in 2016. Ending Ankara’s support for Hamas terrorists, who have made Turkey their largest base outside of Gaza, would likely be a prerequisite for beginning to revive Turkey and Israel’s robust diplomatic, security, and intelligence cooperation that characterized the 1990s. A good first step, especially if Ankara is interested in cyber cooperation with Israel, would be to shutter Hamas’ once-secret headquarters in Istanbul — revealed in a 2020 Times report — for conducting cyberwarfare and counter-intelligence operations.
Despite Erdogan’s antisemitic and anti-Israel track record, Jerusalem appears cautiously open to improving relations. Haaretz quoted an Israeli diplomatic source as saying, “With Turkey we move forward with great caution. Very slowly. They are no great friends of Iran, to put it mildly, and we can’t afford to assume some mantle of purity that will prevent us from creating alliances.” Tehran’s hostile moves, including its latest cyber operation, offer the Turkish president an opportunity to correct course by prioritizing Turkey’s national interests instead of his misguided Islamist agenda, which Tehran has exploited skillfully to this day.
Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Annie Fixler is deputy director of FDD’s Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI). They also contribute to FDD’s Iran Program. For more analysis from Aykan, Annie, the Turkey and Iran programs, and CCTI, please subscribe HERE. Follow Aykan and Annie on Twitter @aykan_erdemir and @afixler. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_Iran and @FDD_CCTI. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
fdd.org · by Aykan Erdemir Turkey Program Senior Director · February 14, 2022
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FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
