Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Note: I am traveling this week and will be in a different time zone so my daily news distribution will be on a different schedule.

Quotes of the Day:

"This is how it works," he told the court. "They put one man in prison to make millions scared...

"(A)ll of this, the National Guard, this [defendant's] cage. It's a show of weakness, just weakness. ... You can't lock up millions and hundreds of thousands of people. And I very much hope that people will be more and more aware of this. And when they're aware, a moment will come when all this will crumble.

"My life probably isn't worth a penny," Navalny said.

"And I want to say that there are many good things in Russia now, and the best are these very people who are not afraid, who don't cast their eyes down at the table, and who will never give up our country to a bunch of corrupt officials who have traded our motherland for their own palaces, vineyards, and aqua-discos."

– Alexei Navalny (his speech to the court)

"In the darkest of times, it is our unity and resilience that shine the brightest."

– Cho Man-sik (Korea freedom fighter)

"The Special Operations community is rooted in unconventional warfare."

– Brandon Webb (former Navy SEAL)

1. Opinion | The Evil Empire collapsed. Putin’s regime will, too.

2. What Feckless Americans Can Learn From Navalny’s Bravery

3. Does the United States Need a New Ukraine Strategy?

4. Trump Foreign Policy 2.0: Fewer Allies, Less Trade, More Loyalists

5. Urban warfare expert says Israeli military taking unprecedented steps to protect Gaza civilians

6. Alexei Navalny’s Death Marks End of Political Dissent in Russia

7. Alexei Navalny has no heir: Is this the end of Russia's opposition?

8. What Americans Owe Ukraine

9. Alexei Navalny’s Last Laugh

10. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 17, 2024

11. America can’t ignore the national security concerns tied to the LNG freeze

12. NSA’s transformation from secret agency to public cybercrime warrior

13. Posing as Americans, Chinese accounts on X aim to divide and disrupt

14. The Untold Story of the Ukrainian Helicopter Missions During the Mariupol Siege

15. The Fall of Avdiivka: Implications and Russia's Next Moves by Mick Ryan

16. JPMorgan Hires Retired General Mark Milley as Senior Adviser

17. A terrifying new world order has emerged from Putin's war in Ukraine

18. Japan steps up lobbying in Washington, hedging for Trump's return

19. Why are Japan and the U.K. in a recession if the U.S. is doing well?

20. US deploys half of its aircraft carriers to China’s doorstep

21. Trump, NATO, and Nuclear Deterrence by Sir Lawrence Freedman

22. ICJ Declines Application But Says Israel 'Duty Bound' to Protect Civilians

23. Iran, wary of wider war, urges its proxies to avoid provoking U.S.

1. Opinion | The Evil Empire collapsed. Putin’s regime will, too.

Conclusion:

If these evils are to be vanquished, they must be fully understood — and condemned. There must be a moral awakening. That can’t happen without the leadership of the prisoners of conscience, who — like Navalny and Kara-Murza and the countless others imprisoned alongside them — have the moral courage, democratic vision and political fearlessness to chart a new path for Russia. They deserve our full solidarity since the fate of freedom far beyond the borders of Russia rests heavily on the success of their struggle.

Opinion | The Evil Empire collapsed. Putin’s regime will, too.

By Natan Sharansky and Carl Gershman

February 17, 2024 at 12:53 p.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Natan Sharansky · February 17, 2024

Natan Sharansky, the Soviet dissident and refusenik, and Carl Gershman, the founding president (now retired) of the National Endowment for Democracy, are both members of the board of the 30 October Foundation.

In the long line of people who have been victims of Soviet and Russian dictators, Alexei Navalny was extraordinary. He dedicated himself to unmasking the cynical, corrupt nature of Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship. And he succeeded, revealing the truth to the world.

He was so dedicated to exposing the nature of Putin’s regime that he chose to return to Russia to force his would-be murderers to make their villainy public. In going back, he showed the people of Russia and the world that he was not afraid — and that neither should they be afraid to act.

In a letter he wrote to one of us from prison, Navalny stated that the “virus” of freedom will never be killed and that hundreds of thousands of people will continue to fight for freedom and against the war in Ukraine.

This was also the message that Vladimir Kara-Murza sent earlier this week from his solitary cell in a “special regime” prison colony in Omsk, Russia. Kara-Murza, a Post contributing columnist, suffers from polyneuropathy, a disease affecting peripheral nerves that has resulted from two near-fatal attempts by the Russian regime to poison him, in 2015 and again in 2017. He, too, is fighting on with astonishing courage.

In so doing, Navalny and Kara-Murza, as well as hundreds of other dissenters, activists and protesters, have followed in the footsteps of Andrei Sakharov and other Soviet dissidents who showed that, with courage and moral clarity, it is possible to change the world.

Kara-Murza said after his sentencing that while he had initially expected that his imprisonment and trial would resemble what the Soviet dissidents experienced in the 1960s and ’70s, he now saw parallels with the Stalin period. There is no question that the Kremlin’s campaign of political repression is intensifying. According to Memorial, a human rights organization that continues to monitor the arrest of dissidents despite it being muzzled by courts, Russia now holds 676 political prisoners, nearly four times the number in 2018 and more than in the waning years of the Soviet Union. Nearly all independent political figures from the Russian opposition who have not fled the country are now behind bars or under house arrest, including Kara-Murza’s friend and political ally Ilya Yashin, who is serving an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence for “spreading false information” about Russian massacres of civilians in the city of Bucha, near Kyiv.

The scope of political repression extends far beyond the vocal democratic opposition. According to OVD-Info, a Russian nongovernmental organization that tracks detentions, more than 8,500 administrative cases have been initiated under Article 20.3.3 on “discrediting the armed forces.” This includes Alexei Moskalyov, a single father who was sentenced to two years in jail for discrediting the Russian army after his then 13-year-old daughter drew an antiwar picture in school.

They are not the only victims. Their families, many with young children, have been left to survive on their own, often with no source of income or other support. To help them, Kara-Murza announced from prison, before he was sent to Omsk, that he will donate the funds he received from three human rights prizes — some 110,000 euros — to provide direct financial support to the families of Russian political prisoners. To do this, he and his wife, Evgenia, have founded the 30 October Foundation, named after the Day of Political Prisoners that was established by Soviet dissidents in 1974. The foundation continues in the tradition of Yelena Bonner’s fund to help children of political prisoners and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Russian Social Fund to aid political prisoners and their families, both established in the 1970s.

The political prisoners in Russia, along with thousands of antiwar protesters across the country who have risked arrest, are the cutting edge of a larger movement of political opposition. People are mounting a collective response to the growing number of political prisoners. Networks inside and outside Russia continue to organize letter-writing campaigns to these captives, providing them with independent news and information to counteract the propaganda that is prevalent in Russian jails. In addition, crowdfunding campaigns have collected significant donations. A telethon organized by several independent media outlets last June raised 34.5 million rubles ($415,000) to defend people facing criminal prosecution for demonstrating against the war.

It would be profoundly wrong to assume that there is no possibility for a democratic opening in Russia, especially considering the devastating consequences of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Navalny and Kara-Murza have said repeatedly that a reckoning will come — that there will be another window of opportunity, not unlike the 1990s following the collapse of Communist rule. But this time, Russians must not repeat the terrible mistake of failing to break with the evils of the past — the brutal dictatorship and repression, the foreign aggressions, the Orwellian system of lies and subverting not just the truth but normal human values.

If these evils are to be vanquished, they must be fully understood — and condemned. There must be a moral awakening. That can’t happen without the leadership of the prisoners of conscience, who — like Navalny and Kara-Murza and the countless others imprisoned alongside them — have the moral courage, democratic vision and political fearlessness to chart a new path for Russia. They deserve our full solidarity since the fate of freedom far beyond the borders of Russia rests heavily on the success of their struggle.

The Washington Post · by Natan Sharansky · February 17, 2024

2. What Feckless Americans Can Learn From Navalny’s Bravery

We must wake up to Putin.

Excerpts:

In other words, from the very dawn of his rule, Putin has been associated with repression, deceit and brutality toward his own people. Russia has also destabilized or attacked its neighbors, from Georgia to Moldova, Estonia and Ukraine, and according to the F.B.I. interfered in the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

That is the Russia that Navalny stood against. And that is the Russia that too many Americans have buttressed by opposing aid to Ukraine.

It’s natural to see the loss of Russia’s most important opposition figure as a sign of Putin’s commanding power, but I wonder if it isn’t also a sign of his insecurity.

A Russian dissident, Vladimir Kara-Murza, wrote a few days ago in The Washington Post, “Even from a Russian prison, I can see Putin’s weakness.” And Navalny himself once said: “If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power.”

Those are words that Russians and Ukrainians alike should take to heart, but it’s also a message to American members of Congress and right-wing partisans who have become Moscow’s fellow travelers. May Navalny’s heroic sacrifice wake them up.

OPINION

NICHOLAS KRISTOF

What Feckless Americans Can Learn From Navalny’s Bravery

Feb. 16, 2024

Credit...Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters

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By Nicholas Kristof

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/opinion/aleksei-navalny-putin-russia.html

Vladimir Putin’s Russia has just become even more bleak and soulless with the reported death in an Arctic prison of Aleksei Navalny, the 47-year-old dissident who showed immense bravery and humor as he tried to bring democracy to his homeland.

Navalny’s strength, resilience and courage contrast with the fecklessness of so many Americans dealing with Putin. From Donald Trump to Tucker Carlson, a remarkable number of American leaders and their mouthpieces roll over before the Russian president.

“Why do Trump and his congressional enablers want to further appease this Russian tyrant?” Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, asked after the news broke of Navalny’s death.

I hope Navalny’s example will fortify Americans and Europeans alike, for despite all our resources we have not shown a sliver of the strength that he did.

The most fundamental test of our fortitude is simple: Will the United States continue to support Ukraine as it tries to fight off Russian invaders? I hope Navalny’s sacrifice helps us find the will to stand up to Putin.

Navalny was Russia’s foremost dissident and opposition leader but also emerged as something of a Mandela of our age. Despite being poisoned and repeatedly punished with long bouts of isolation in remote prisons, Navalny stood unbroken. He continued to mock Putin and denounce the invasion of Ukraine.

His wit and refusal to bow to authority made him a Kremlin nightmare. Sent to the gulag, he mischievously attempted to unionize prisoners and guards alike.

As recently as Thursday, he appeared by video in a court hearing and jokingly asked for part of the judge’s salary. “Because I am running out of money, thanks to your decisions,” Navalny explained, referring to fines imposed on him.

No wonder Navalny is reported dead. So many brave Russians — journalists, lawyers, political figures — have died after challenging the authorities. It’s baffling how many Americans have responded in the opposite way, by acting as Putin’s poodles.

Tucker Carlson managed a 127-minute interview with Putin this month without even asking a single question about Navalny. It was such a softball interview that Putin professed exasperation at the deference and said he wished he’d been asked sharper questions.

Carlson even embarked on what seemed a promotional tour of Putin’s Russia, praising Moscow. “It is so much nicer than any city in my country,” he said. “It is so much cleaner and safer and prettier, aesthetically, its architecture, its food, its service, than any city in the United States.”

And the Moscow subway? “There’s no graffiti. There’s no filth. There are no foul smells,” Carlson said. “There are no bums or drug addicts or rapists or people waiting to push you onto the train tracks and kill you. No, it’s perfectly clean and orderly.”

And grocery shopping? It’s a bargain! Carlson goes shopping in Moscow, spends less money than he expects and says the experience radicalized him against America’s leaders. He doesn’t seem to understand that Russians spend four times as much of their income on food as Americans, and that prices are cheap because Russia is a poor country with a weak currency.

It is of course true that Moscow has a beautiful subway, and I’ve no objection to commentators pointing that out — or wondering aloud why American cities can’t have mass transit as nice. But it is profoundly troubling when American sycophants seem eager to whitewash Putin’s brutality, largely ignore his victims and score political points at home in ways that burnish Russian dictatorship and diminish American democracy.

(After news of Navalny’s death, Carlson seemed to pirouette. “It’s horrifying what happened to Navalny,” he told The Daily Mail. “The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it.”)

Navalny’s daughter, Dasha, a student at Stanford, told me last year that she had had reservations when her father decided to return to Russia voluntarily in 2021 after Russian agents had apparently poisoned him and nearly killed him. He knew the risks he faced, yet he went ahead. “My personal preference would have been that he stayed with me,” she said. “But I never questioned his decision to go back.”

“I’m super worried about him always, as a daughter,” she added. “I have it in the back of my head that maybe he shouldn’t be doing this. But it’s what he’s passionate about, and for the greater good of the country.”

Today’s right-wing affection for Putin is an echo of the traditional myopia that ideologues have had for overseas dictators, including the left’s onetime fondness for Mao. Today’s version, led by Trump himself, is dangerous — witness Trump’s recent suggestion that he might invite Russia to attack NATO allies that did not pay enough for arms — and it’s also oblivious to Putin’s long history of brutality at home and abroad.

Putin solidified his grip on power in 1999, in the aftermath of several mysterious apartment bombings that killed more than 300 people. Putin blamed Chechen terrorists and began a war in Chechnya that presented him as a decisive, tough patriot defending his nation’s interests. However, there have long been suspicions that the bombings were orchestrated by Russian security authorities themselves, to give Moscow an excuse to crack down. We still don’t know for sure, but my view and that of many others is that on balance the evidence suggests that the authorities were more likely to have planned the bombings than Chechen terrorists.

In other words, from the very dawn of his rule, Putin has been associated with repression, deceit and brutality toward his own people. Russia has also destabilized or attacked its neighbors, from Georgia to Moldova, Estonia and Ukraine, and according to the F.B.I. interfered in the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

That is the Russia that Navalny stood against. And that is the Russia that too many Americans have buttressed by opposing aid to Ukraine.

It’s natural to see the loss of Russia’s most important opposition figure as a sign of Putin’s commanding power, but I wonder if it isn’t also a sign of his insecurity.

A Russian dissident, Vladimir Kara-Murza, wrote a few days ago in The Washington Post, “Even from a Russian prison, I can see Putin’s weakness.” And Navalny himself once said: “If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power.”

Those are words that Russians and Ukrainians alike should take to heart, but it’s also a message to American members of Congress and right-wing partisans who have become Moscow’s fellow travelers. May Navalny’s heroic sacrifice wake them up.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads.

Nicholas Kristof became a columnist for The Times Opinion desk in 2001. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, for his coverage of China and of the genocide in Darfur. @NickKristof

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 18, 2024, Section SR, Page 3 of the New York edition with the headline: What We Can Learn From Navalny. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

3. Does the United States Need a New Ukraine Strategy?

Some commentary on the Carlson/Putin interview.

Quite an argument between Ashford and Kronenig on who was right and wrong on Ukraine strategy.

Excerpts:

MK: Trump’s word choice certainly caused a stir, and people close to the campaign have said we shouldn’t take his statement literally. But I agree he does have a point. Allies need to step up. Ten years after their reaffirmation to do so at the 2014 Wales summit, too few NATO allies are meeting their 2 percent of GDP defense spending obligation.

This is not, in my view, only an issue of fairness, but also of successful global strategy. If the free world is going to deter (and, if necessary) defeat China and Russia (and Iran and North Korea) at the same time, then the United States can’t do it on its own. We need Europe’s help.

EA: Wow, Matt Kroenig arguing that Europeans need to do more on defense? Now I know that we’re making progress.

MK: To be fair, I have been making this case for a while. You mean you don’t read everything I write? I just think Europe should do more while the United States continues to lead in Europe, while I think you and others argue Europe should do more so the U.S. can exit Europe.

EA: Fair point. And whichever version of European strategic “autonomy” or “capability” one favors, some progress is being made. You’ll be pleased to hear that the newest data shows 18 European states will meet the 2 percent of GDP goal next year. But it’s still not enough and needs to be matched with improving capabilities and building out an appropriate force that can defend Europe without significant U.S. involvement. 2024 is going to be an interesting year on this front; will the specter of a second Trump presidency finally push European states to get their acts together on defense? Will congressional Republicans buck Trump, or will they veto further Ukraine aid?

Perhaps we can get Carlson back from Moscow to interview some folks and find out? I’m sure Trump would be happy to explain ancient American history to him, like the question of who lost the 2020 election.

IT'S DEBATABLE

Intervention or Restraint? A Washington debate on pressing issues for policymakers.

Does the United States Need a New Ukraine Strategy?

Amid chaos in Congress and an election campaign, the Biden administration may be forced to reconsider the viability of its approach toward Kyiv.

By Emma Ashford, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program at the Stimson Center, and Matthew Kroenig, a columnist at Foreign Policy and vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Foreign Policy · by Emma Ashford, Matthew Kroenig

February 16, 2024, 3:33 AM

Matt Kroenig: Hi, Emma! I usually like turning to you for insights on President Vladimir Putin and Russia, but your insights may be dated. Unlike Tucker Carlson, you haven’t spent hours chatting with the dictator lately.

Emma Ashford: Having seen most of that interview, I’m mostly grateful for the fast-forward button. He usually doesn’t let his guests talk much, but I guess he was intimidated by Putin this time. Tucker spent hours being lectured about medieval Russian history and other irrelevant issues. Putin came across as a smug, spoiled leader who never gets told that he’s wrong by anyone.

But the fact that Carlson went to Moscow to do that interview—and the fact that the Kremlin was willing to grant it—says a lot about the state of the Ukraine debate in America at this point: growing disenchantment among grassroots Republicans and growing partisan rancor on the question of future funding.

Did you glean any insights from Putin’s pontificating?

MK: Well, you are right that the debate on Ukraine strategy is at an inflection point, and I think that would be a good topic for the rest of the column.

But starting on the Carlson interview, I had several takeaways. First, I thought it was genuinely enlightening to hear Putin’s view of the world. Even if you disagree, it provided a window into his mindset. He seemed to genuinely believe, for example, that he was right to detain Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, because his investigative reporting turned up information that Putin considered classified.

Second, I found it humorous, but also a bit uncomfortable, as Putin occasionally insulted someone who was trying to do his reputation such a huge favor. Did you catch the bit when he said it is understandable that Carlson wasn’t accepted into the CIA as a young man because it is a “serious organization”?

Third, and most importantly, it further revealed that Putin’s reason for invading Ukraine wasn’t about recent history, mistakes America made, etc., but about ancient (or at least medieval) history. Putin is intent on resurrecting the Russian Empire, and the West is right, in my view, to defend the more civilized European order in place today. (I enjoyed the tweet from the former Mongolian president, joking that if current borders should be based on medieval maps, then Ulaanbaatar has some boundaries it would like to adjust.)

Your thoughts?

EA: We’re absolutely not getting into a discussion of which people lived where in ancient times. You promised me we wouldn’t have to talk about the Middle East for at least one column! But I would like to place my ancient Scottish claim to most of Roman Britain. I hear Cumbria is nice in the spring.

The interview was certainly worth watching. And it’s always amusing to watch Carlson getting mocked. But in all seriousness, Putin did himself no favors here. It’s a sign of how out of touch he and his regime are that he took an ideal opportunity to reach out to disaffected GOP voters in the United States and convince them that support for Ukraine is a waste and instead turned it into a restatement of all of his pet peeves and historical minutiae.

This continues a general trend with Russia in recent years: Its election interference and meddling in Western societies would probably be more effective if it actually bothered to learn more. I’ll give you an example: The Russians have been trying to boost the “Texit” campaign, a few crazy people who want Texas to secede from the United States. I’m pretty sure that’s not going to work. We can at least count ourselves lucky that they’re just really bad at understanding how to appeal to Americans.

It’s also more evidence that the disaffection about Ukraine aid in the United States really isn’t a Russian plot, as some pundits are starting to claim. It’s about broad-based unhappiness about the amount of money that’s being sent over there, the question of why European states aren’t contributing more, and why the Biden administration appears to have no endgame for resolving the conflict.

These are all objections that were raised by Senate Republicans during the debate on the supplemental Ukraine aid bill, and former U.S. President Donald Trump has started calling for aid to be provided only if it is a loan to be paid back.

MK: Speaking of the endgame, let’s talk about Ukraine strategy. We had dueling pieces (here and here) on this topic in recent weeks. We both argue for a shift to defense, but, unlike you, my co-author, former U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and I argue for new measures to pressure Putin and anchor Ukraine in the West.

We largely agree that Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive was less successful than many had hoped, and it is unlikely that future counteroffensives will be any more successful in the near term. We also agreed that Kyiv should, therefore, shift to more of a defensive strategy, including with enhanced air and missile defense, to protect the territory it already controls and prevent future Russian land grabs.

But we disagree on what the other elements of an adapted Ukraine strategy should look like. Hadley and I argue that in addition to shifting to defense, Kyiv should pressure Putin by conducting strikes and special operations attacks against Russian forces, bases, and supply lines in Crimea and supply lines in western Russia and that the United States and Western supporters should provide the longer-range weapons with larger payloads without restrictions in order to conduct those strikes.

We also argue that aid should increasingly focus on incentivizing joint ventures between Western defense firms and Kyiv to help Ukraine strengthen its indigenous defense-industrial base and make it less dependent on foreign aid.

Finally, we argue that this could bring down the violence at the line of contact between the opposing forces and help to pave the way for a path to the EU and NATO for Ukraine, even as Russian occupation of parts of the country continue. Ukraine and the West should recognize all of Ukrainian territory and pursue efforts to reclaim it through negotiation.

We think that this is a pretty good strategy that could wind down the war and result in an independent Ukraine within internationally recognized borders, anchored in the West, and capable of defending itself.

EA: Matt, it sounds like you’re saying that Ukraine may not be able to reclaim the entirety of its territory by force. Protecting the territory it already controls and seeking to stabilize the conflict is the position I’ve been taking for 18 months now. That’s a pretty big shift for you! Would you like to admit I’m right publicly?

MK: No. You were wrong and I was right. As I have argued, the best strategy at the start of the war would have been to define a clear end state of Ukrainian victory and Russian defeat, and give Kyiv everything it needed to win war decisively. If the West had followed that strategy, the war would be over by now and Ukraine would be in full possession of its internationally-recognized territory.

Instead, fearing Russian “escalation,” the West dithered and was cautious and indecisive in its approach to arming Ukraine. They lost valuable time and, now, after two years, the Russian invaders are dug in. Historians will look back on this period as a huge missed opportunity.

Given where we are now, therefore, it is time to shift approach. And, correct me if I am wrong, but the strategy Hadley and I lay out is still much more muscular than what you recommend and still retains the goal of Ukraine joining NATO and reclaiming all of its lost territory.

Even if the administration does manage to scrounge up some extra aid, stockpiles of everything from ammunition to long-range strike systems are running low.

EA: The pace of arming Ukraine was very reasonable given the risks of potential escalation and the available supplies at the time. It wouldn’t have been realistic to do massively more.

And yes –your strategy would differ from mine in that it still has Ukraine engaging in a strike campaign and other expensive and challenging offensive operations. I can’t see how that succeeds now, especially since it’s completely divorced from fiscal and supply-related realities. The White House is out of money to send new weapons to Ukraine.

The supplemental for an additional $60 billion might have passed the Senate, but the speaker of the House probably isn’t going to bring it up for a vote. Even if the administration does manage to scrounge up some extra aid, stockpiles of everything from ammunition to long-range strike systems are running low. There’s literally not enough to send in the quantities you’re talking about, and every additional missile that Washington sends to Ukraine (or to the Middle East) takes away supplies from other areas like Asia.

That’s why I continue to think that a purely defensive strategy in Ukraine is about the best that can be achieved. Defense is a lot cheaper, relies on plentiful supplies like mines, doesn’t require lots of advanced systems, and even European states can provide money and civilian equipment that’s useful for creating static defenses like trenches or dragon’s teeth.

I mean, even a defensive campaign is going to struggle to procure the needed supplies of anti-air capabilities or artillery ammunition; Ukraine is going to have to make some difficult choices about what to protect in coming months. So where are you going to get the supplies for the deep-strike campaign you’re proposing?

Republican infighting continues as emergency crisis response funding is put on ice.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials sound the alarm as aid to Kyiv is held hostage by congressional battles over the U.S. southern border.

MK: The U.K. and France are already providing the Storm Shadow/SCALP missile. And we argue that Germany should provide the Taurus missile and the United States should send the longer-range unitary warhead ATACMS.

You are right that there are real political challenges to getting the aid through Congress. But the $60 billion package you just mentioned was passed by the Senate. House Speaker Mike Johnson has previously voiced support for arming Ukraine but faces a difficult political balancing act and wants to rewrite the legislation to include provisions for border security. Moreover, the European Union recently announced a new $54 billion aid package to Ukraine.

So, yes, there are challenges, but I suspect the Western effort to contain Russia in Ukraine will continue—for now.

It’s always been utterly ridiculous that the United States was contributing more to Ukraine than its closest neighbors.

EA: Maybe. But Johnson just lost another seat from his majority with the election of a Democrat in George Santos’s old seat, and if he goes against the will of too many of his members, he’ll likely lose the speakership, just like Kevin McCarthy did. I’m no domestic politics wonk, but I heard he can only lose two or three folks before he’ll have problems. So I’m not sure this will come to the floor, at least not in this form.

I think the odds are better if the administration were to try to negotiate or reduce its ask. Right now, the White House’s entire strategy appears to be yelling at those who oppose the supplemental, whether that’s progressives on Israel or conservatives on Ukraine. That may make for good political theater—and good attack ads—but it’s not actually going to move the needle.

If anything, it will probably make folks in Congress dig in their heels more. Senator J.D. Vance, who’s one of the bill’s most ardent opponents, was not wrong when he asked the White House “to articulate what the ambition is, what is $61 billion going to accomplish that $100 billion hasn’t.” It hasn’t done that!

And European elites aren’t helping. Even Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham took to the Senate floor to complain about rude tweets from Polish leaders calling the GOP un-American. If you’ve lost Graham on defense spending, then you probably need to rethink your strategy.

A better approach might be to try to find a lower ask: a smaller amount of funding, funding tied to certain approaches to ending the conflict or to European contribution levels, or funding that prevents its use on certain key military systems for the Indo-Pacific. Any of these might help to assuage concerns in Congress and would keep a lower level of aid flowing to Ukraine—ensuring it doesn’t lose—while addressing the very real concern that the war in Ukraine is just turning into another forever conflict the United States is backing with no real strategy.

MK: Republicans in Congress have continually referenced the lack of a strategy, and I do think the Biden administration has a simple solution to that problem. You and I have just laid out coherent strategies; it should adopt one of our proposals!

And you mention tying funding to European contribution levels, but, as you know, after a slower start, European giving to Ukraine is now actually outstripping that provided by the United States.

EA: It’s good to see European states stepping up with spending increases; this is first and foremost a European conflict and about European interests. It’s always been utterly ridiculous that the United States was contributing more to Ukraine than its closest neighbors.

Don’t be fooled by some of the charts that are out there showing that European states are now giving more than the United States. Those are comparing apples and oranges: future European commitments against existing U.S. ones. If things continue as they are, then Europeans will indeed end up contributing more, and that is great. But it remains to be seen if we’ll get there. The Germans have had serious trouble meeting their post-Ukraine budgetary commitments to defense, for example.

MK: So, given your focus on Europe doing its fair share, I guess this means you fully endorse Trump’s statement this week about NATO allies failing to meet their burden-sharing pledges. For those who somehow missed it, he said: “You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”

EA: Well, I wouldn’t endorse that because I’m not a Mafia don trying to shake down some poor business owner for protection money. That’s what he’s saying, right? That if European states don’t pay up, he’ll let Russia invade them? It’s gross, unpresidential—and entirely in keeping with Trump’s personality and history.

But there’s a reason that these remarks are also popular. European states have been free-riding on U.S. protection for decades. They cut way back on defense spending after the Cold War and only recently started to increase again. Even those spending increases don’t necessarily mean that Europe has the defense capabilities it needs to defend itself. I think a lot of voters are fed up paying for rich European states’ defense when there are things we can’t fund here at home; Trump’s remarks resonate with them. I’d like to see a more equal U.S.-Europe defense relationship, and that will take spending increases from Europe.

MK: Trump’s word choice certainly caused a stir, and people close to the campaign have said we shouldn’t take his statement literally. But I agree he does have a point. Allies need to step up. Ten years after their reaffirmation to do so at the 2014 Wales summit, too few NATO allies are meeting their 2 percent of GDP defense spending obligation.

This is not, in my view, only an issue of fairness, but also of successful global strategy. If the free world is going to deter (and, if necessary) defeat China and Russia (and Iran and North Korea) at the same time, then the United States can’t do it on its own. We need Europe’s help.

EA: Wow, Matt Kroenig arguing that Europeans need to do more on defense? Now I know that we’re making progress.

MK: To be fair, I have been making this case for a while. You mean you don’t read everything I write? I just think Europe should do more while the United States continues to lead in Europe, while I think you and others argue Europe should do more so the U.S. can exit Europe.

EA: Fair point. And whichever version of European strategic “autonomy” or “capability” one favors, some progress is being made. You’ll be pleased to hear that the newest data shows 18 European states will meet the 2 percent of GDP goal next year. But it’s still not enough and needs to be matched with improving capabilities and building out an appropriate force that can defend Europe without significant U.S. involvement. 2024 is going to be an interesting year on this front; will the specter of a second Trump presidency finally push European states to get their acts together on defense? Will congressional Republicans buck Trump, or will they veto further Ukraine aid?

Perhaps we can get Carlson back from Moscow to interview some folks and find out? I’m sure Trump would be happy to explain ancient American history to him, like the question of who lost the 2020 election.

Foreign Policy · by Emma Ashford, Matthew Kroenig

4. Trump Foreign Policy 2.0: Fewer Allies, Less Trade, More Loyalists

Sigh... fewer allies? That is certainly troubling.

Trump Foreign Policy 2.0: Fewer Allies, Less Trade, More Loyalists

Biden and others warn another Trump term would yield global chaos and an emboldened Putin

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-foreign-policy-2-0-fewer-allies-less-trade-more-loyalists-ac2429d0?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

By Alex LearyFollow and Andrew RestucciaFollow

Updated Feb. 17, 2024 12:00 am ET

WASHINGTON—A new trade war with China, weakened alliances in Europe—and more praise to and from authoritarian leaders.

As Donald Trump closes in on the Republican presidential nomination, his foreign-policy agenda is coming into sharper relief following the incendiary suggestion that he would encourage Russia to attack NATO nations that fall short on defense-spending goals. Trump’s views largely track those of his first term. But if elected again, he would face a more unstable world while trying to further withdraw the U.S. from longstanding military and economic pacts. And he would likely have a more loyal cadre of national-security officials to carry out his wishes.

Trump has avoided specifics on how he would handle current conflicts, including the war in the Middle East, while making the audacious claim that he could settle the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. He is selling as assets his unpredictable style and relationships with the world’s pre-eminent strongmen: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

“I know Putin very well—very smart, very sharp,” Trump said during a rally earlier in February. “They hate when I say that. They say, ‘Oh, you called President Xi of China…a very smart man.’ They ask me, ‘Is he smart?’ I said, ‘Well, let’s go a step above that. Let’s say he’s a brilliant guy.’ ”

Satellite Images Show Russia Increasing Nuclear Capability in Belarus

Higher trade barriers

Broadly, Trump has proposed a 10% tariff on all imported goods, a move business and economic leaders say would be devastating for the U.S. economy, and he has floated much higher rates for China. He is itching for a tariff fight with European carmakers and has promised to once again withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords. He has declared that Biden’s fledgling economic cooperation pact with 13 Indo-Pacific countries would be dead on arrival. On Monday, Trump spoke with a number of Republican senators about his idea to turn foreign aid into a loan.

“His frame of mind is that if you want us to defend you, you have to spend money. You want a better trade environment, well, give us a better trade environment,” said Nadia Schadlow, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who served as deputy national security adviser for strategy in the Trump administration.

Trump has said he would push for greater military spending to deter adversaries from challenging the U.S. or starting other wars. As president, he proposed withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea, Germany and other countries. He has said he would expand domestic energy production to offset a reliance on foreign supplies and has promised to impose severe immigration controls, all under his America First agenda.

“It’s a reaction to the mistakes by the globalists and neocons of the past 25 years or more, and it’s struck a chord with the American people,” said Fred Fleitz, who served as chief of staff to John Bolton when he was Trump’s national security adviser. Polls have shown that Republicans, in particular, have grown less eager during the Trump era for the U.S. to play a leading role in world affairs.

Bolton, whom Trump fired in 2019 in part because he was too hawkish, has turned on his former boss. Bolton has warned that Trump would isolate the U.S. from its allies and possibly pull out of NATO altogether, contending that Trump, as president, considered withdrawing from the alliance in 2018.

The Biden campaign on Friday said it was launching an ad in the battleground states Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania highlighting Trump’s position on NATO and asserting that the only time the alliance has had to act to defend a member was after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Last year Congress quietly included a bipartisan amendment in the annual defense-policy bill, which Biden signed into law. It requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate or an act of Congress before any president could “suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw” from NATO. The amendment bars any funding from being used for a withdrawal.

Rep. Andy Barr (R., Ky.) said that reaction to Trump’s comments has been hyperbolic and that his statements are promoting conversations in Europe that encourage NATO allies to do more on their own. “That in itself strengthens NATO,” he said.

He said he didn’t agree with Trump’s language suggesting that Russia should attack NATO allies who didn’t pay up. “It’s important for any president to understand how comments can be misperceived, let me put it that way,” Barr said. “What we need is deterrence, and anything that could be misinterpreted as not committed to NATO, that undermines basic deterrence.”

More White House loyalists

Personnel would be a key factor in the shape of Trump’s foreign policy in a second term. The Republican Party is divided over how aggressive the U.S. should be on the world stage, with some taking a more hawkish approach and others making the case that America should withdraw and refocus on domestic affairs. Trump is poised to surround himself with the latter.

His current advisers on foreign policy and national security include Keith Kellogg, a former national security adviser to Mike Pence when he was vice president; Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s former trade representative; Richard Grenell, a former ambassador and acting director of national intelligence; the former intelligence chief John Ratcliffe; and the former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, among others. All of them are viewed as candidates for key roles in another Trump administration.

Foreign-policy and national-security advisers to Trump include, clockwise from upper left, Keith Kellogg, Robert Lighthizer, Richard Grenell and John Ratcliffe.

AL DRAGO/BLOOMBERG NEWS (4)

Some former Trump administration officials have privately expressed concern that in a potential second term the government would be stocked with few senior officials who would be willing to oppose Trump’s most radical ideas. Trump frequently complained during his four years in office that his staff wasn’t loyal enough to him—with Bolton and some others with differing foreign-policy views pushing back internally. He is planning to purge those who aren’t in lockstep with his agenda, according to people close to him.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas) told reporters Friday that it would be important for the next Trump administration to have traditionalists like himself in it, since “it’s important to have his ear, to make sure he doesn’t get off the reservation.”

Trump’s potential return to the Oval Office comes as America’s adversaries are becoming more formidable.

“One big difference from the past is this axis of disrupters: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea,” Schadlow said. “They are functioning as a much more cohesive coalition than in the past. That is a new dynamic he would have to manage.”

On Iran, Trump would return to the tougher policies of his first term, when he terminated the Obama-era accord to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump allies have said it is likely he would seek new sanctions, but the candidate hasn’t been specific about how he would handle current hostilities.

People close to Trump said he could look to expand on the Abraham Accords, a marquee achievement of his first term that forged Israeli relations with several Arab states. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, played a central role in negotiating the accords. Kushner, who started a private-equity firm that has raised money from Saudi, Emirati and Qatari investors, has said he wouldn’t rejoin the White House if Trump won a second term. But he is nonetheless expected to be influential from the sidelines.

A White House ceremony marking the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020. PHOTO: ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Trump would also have to deal with an increasingly bellicose North Korea, which U.S. officials say is now supplying weapons to Russia. Trump was initially hostile to Kim, promising in 2017 that threats would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” but he then sought a high-stakes rapprochement that failed to achieve a deal. Trump was fond of what he said were “love letters” sent to him by the North Korean dictator.

Trump has said little about how he would approach the country in a second term; in December he dismissed a Politico report that said he was considering a shift in U.S. policy that would allow Pyongyang to keep its nuclear weapons but stop making new ones, in exchange for a break on economic sanctions.

Mixed approach to China

On China, Trump has promised an even more aggressive approach on trade, saying he wants to revoke normal trading relations, a legal step that would automatically raise levies on everything from toys and aircraft to industrial materials. He has talked of tariffs exceeding 60%.

The prospect of another Trump presidency is stirring up some anxiety in Beijing.

On the one hand, some officials there believe that Trump could accelerate America’s decline if he were to win the election, and that his apparent reluctance to defend Taiwan could help ease bilateral tensions over the most sensitive issue to the Chinese leadership. But others worry that his tough stance on trade could deal a huge blow to already strained economic relations between the two world powers—ties Beijing has long viewed as the foundation of the bilateral relationship.

Meantime, Trump continues to marvel at Xi’s iron rule over his country, building on a trend of showing praise toward autocratic leaders who demonstrate strength. Trump has also praised the Hungarian leader, Viktor Orban, and pledged to visit Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist.

Xi has made it clear he wants to take Taiwan, a self-ruled island, under Beijing’s control, drawing warnings from U.S. political leaders. Trump has recently sidestepped the matter, though he has claimed China wouldn’t try anything on his watch.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s statements on the status of Taiwan have drawn concern in the U.S. PHOTO: JU PENG/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS

“If I answer that question, it’ll put me in a very bad negotiating position,” he said on Fox News last summer when asked whether the U.S. should defend Taiwan, adding, “With that being said, Taiwan did take all of our chip business.” Taiwan is a leading producer of semiconductors.

Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, a consulting firm, said Trump’s unpredictability could cause some world leaders to think twice about clashing with the U.S. He pointed to Trump’s January 2020 decision to kill Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds force.

“They understood that Trump was a complete loose cannon,” Bremmer said of Iran. “I think there is an argument to be made that Biden’s much more incremental and cautious policy has led the Iranians to feel like they’ve got a lot more rope before they’re facing any serious risk themselves.”

The former president’s approach could also backfire, according to Bremmer, who added that there were no major wars taking place during Trump’s time in office.

“It’s like Clint Eastwood: Do you feel lucky? And how many times do you actually want to feel lucky with the number of conflicts we’re talking about here,” Bremmer said, describing the uncertainty of a second Trump term.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), an ally of the former president, said dark predictions regarding a second Trump term will be proven false.

“Everyone said in 2015 and 2016, that Trump would be erratic, that he would start wars and his temper would result in loss of American life,” he said. “Quite the opposite. Trump gave us peace through strength.”

Lindsay Wise and Lingling Wei contributed to this article.

Write to Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com and Andrew Restuccia at andrew.restuccia@wsj.com

5. Urban warfare expert says Israeli military taking unprecedented steps to protect Gaza civilians

Unfortunately this is not sufficient to counter the propaganda narratives of Hamas and their sympathizers. Logical analysis will not trump the emotional narratives. But that does not mean we must not try.

Urban warfare expert says Israeli military taking unprecedented steps to protect Gaza civilians

'Israel has taken more steps to avoid harming civilians than any other military in history,' says West Point professor

By Ruth Marks Eglash Fox News

Published February 17, 2024 10:00am EST

foxnews.com · by Ruth Marks Eglash Fox News

JERUSALEM — One of the top urban warfare experts in the U.S. believes the Israeli military is taking unprecedented measures — above and beyond what most armies do — to avoid harming Palestinian civilians as it battles the Islamist terror group Hamas in Gaza.

He adds that comparisons cannot be drawn between the intensity of the four-month-old war and other recent conflicts.

As Israel gears up for what could be the fiercest and most complicated battle in the Strip’s southernmost city, Rafah, John Spencer, chair of the Urban Warfare Studies Modern War Institute at West Point and an author of multiple books on the subject of urban warfare, told Fox News Digital the "steps that Israel has taken to prevent casualties is historic in comparison to all these other wars."

"Israel has taken more steps to avoid harming civilians than any other military in history," said Spencer, who served for more than 25 years in the U.S. military, reaching the rank of major. He says that such lengths would set a new standard that other Western militaries would struggle to follow in the future.

UN, HUMAN RIGHTS, MEDIA GROUPS RELY ON HAMAS DEATH TOLL IN 'SYSTEMATIC DECEPTION': EXPERT

IDF officers go over maps in Khan Younis, Gaza. (IDF Spokesman's Unit)

Israel launched its war in the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack that killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw some 240 people taken hostage, including babies, children, women and the elderly. Since starting its ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave, however, Israel’s military has faced sharp criticism as even its close allies, including the U.S., cite a death toll based on Hamas data.

According to figures published daily by the Hamas-run Health Ministry, the number of deaths has surpassed 28,000, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants. On Tuesday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said that at least a third of those killed, some 10,000, were Hamas terrorists, including many of the Iranian-backed group’s commanders.

"What has really blown my mind is that Israel issued maps to the civilians [in Gaza] telling them where they would be operating each day. … I've never seen a military do that"

"Despite the numbers, Israel is setting the bar very high on civilian harm mitigation steps," said Spencer, who is also host of the "Urban Warfare Project" podcast and serves as the chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the New York-based Madison Policy Forum.

IDF troops in Khan Younis. (IDF Spokesman's Unit)

He outlined how the Israeli military took measures that no other military, including the U.S., has previously taken during war, such as calling and texting individuals to warn them of a forthcoming air strike and sharing maps with plans for military maneuvers in certain areas.

"We’ve never called everybody in a war environment. We’ve never actually sat down thousands of soldiers in call centers and had them call into the combat area trying to reach imams and mayors in an effort to get everybody get out of harm's way," noted Spencer.

BIDEN ADMIN CONTINUES PUSH FOR TWO-STATE SOLUTION AS CRITICS WARN: 'EFFORTS REPEATEDLY FAIL'

An aerial view of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees tent camp, where hundreds of Gazan families fleeing Israeli attacks are trying to survive with limited means and difficult conditions in Khan Younis, Gaza, Nov. 27, 2023. (Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

"The element of surprise is usually a top priority in wars, but Israel is giving up all of that in order to prevent civilian harm"

"As someone who teaches division level urban warfare, what has really blown my mind is that Israel issued maps to the civilians [in Gaza] telling them where they would be operating each day. … I've never seen a military do that," said Spencer, who visited Israel last month and toured the combat zone in and around Gaza.

"Doing this puts the attacking military at a disadvantage because it signals to the defending military what they’re doing," he said. "The element of surprise is usually a top priority in wars, but Israel is giving up all of that in order to prevent civilian harm.

"If that is going to be the standard going forward, I don't know how the U.S. military and others are going to do that. We’re not going to send text messages. We’re not going to be able to put out maps, even if we do decide to give warnings."

IDF Activity in Gaza (IDF Spokesman's Unit)

Spencer, who has examined U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan and multiple other modern-day conflicts, said those criticizing Israel, including the media and countries such as South Africa, are ignorant of previous conflicts and a failure to fully understand the laws of warfare.

South Africa recently brought a case to the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

ISRAEL REJECTS UN, AID AGENCIES CRITICISM THAT GAZA IS ON BRINK OF STARVATION: 'NO SHORTAGE OF FOOD'

"There are a couple of camps of people observing the Gaza War," he said. "One group sees anything Israel does as wrong because they believe that Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinian people are the oppressed. So, no matter the context of the Oct. 7 attack or the hostages, anything Israel does is with ill intention.

A picture taken from the border between Israel and Gaza shows leaflets being dropped by the Israeli army over Gaza City telling people to evacuate the area on November 16, 2023. Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

"The other camp, particularly in the United States, is made up of people that are really bad at history, even our own history," said Spencer, pointing out that few people study the details of modern-day urban combat.

"It is hard to find people who actually know what the army did in our own conflicts in places like Fallujah and Mosul [in Iraq]," he said, pointing out that using Google or Wikipedia references to find out more about conflicts that might be considered similar to Gaza fails to provide adequate information.

This photograph taken on January 20, 2024 in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip shows a man holding one of the leaflets, which were dropped by Israeli forces over the city, showing portraits of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel. The leaflet reads (bottom-right) "Do you want to go home? Please report any information if you recognise any of them." (AFP via Getty Images)

"When the war in Gaza started, for example, people Googled it and found articles saying Gaza is the densest place on earth and that just became a worldwide slogan," Spencer noted. "People do need comparisons if they’re really honestly trying to understand versus just grasping at anything that makes Israel look bad. But no [other military] has ever faced anything like this."

Using the example of Hamas’ vast network of terror tunnels that snake below many urban areas in Gaza, Spencer emphasized that the realities of warfare in the Palestinian enclave were unlike anywhere else.

"Tunnels aren’t new, but building them underneath civilian structures for the sole purpose of using the laws of war against the military is," he said. He added that general ignorance about urban warfare and the unique setting of Israel’s particular war in Gaza, combined with a lack of knowledge about the laws of war, meant Israel was being held to unfair standards.

EXCLUSIVE: ISRAEL CREATES AI PLATFORM TO MONITOR THE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION IN GAZA

Smoke rises over buildings as Israeli airstrikes continue in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza, Oct. 9, 2023 (Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

"There's a lot of myths out there, including among those who took Israel to the ICJ," Spencer said. "The case against Israel included a lot of myths, not just about what happened but what is lawful, what is historical precedent and what’s happened in the past."

Discussing the Geneva Conventions, a series of international humanitarian laws written following World War II to enshrine legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war, Spencer said they were designed to never repeat what happened in Europe, "but it’s like we want to erase our memory as well."

"I think the Geneva Conventions were amazing and good to enforce, but the problem is people don’t understand that what they're seeing is actually what it looks like to follow the rules," he said. "We build a system where people who don't want to follow rules, like Hamas, want to use those rules against the people following them.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"I want the world to do more to stop people who don't follow the laws," said Spencer. "Israel is not only being held to a ridiculous standard that nobody else has ever been held to. But it is also really testing the post-World War II way of warfare against a context that nobody else has faced."

foxnews.com · by Ruth Marks Eglash Fox News

6. Alexei Navalny’s Death Marks End of Political Dissent in Russia

This seems to run counter to Oped from Natan Sharansky and Carl Gershman.

Alexei Navalny’s Death Marks End of Political Dissent in Russia

Street protests and activism tolerated by Putin before the war in Ukraine have largely vanished

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/alexei-navalnys-death-marks-end-of-political-dissent-in-russia-92cb69b9?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Ann M. Simmons

Follow and Matthew Luxmoore

Updated Feb. 17, 2024 12:00 am ET

Alexei Navalny has no heir

Is this the end of Russia's opposition?

Ian Garner

FEBRUARY 16, 2024 5 MINS

unherd.com · by Ian Garner · February 16, 2024

When Alexei Navalny chose to board a flight to Moscow in January 2021, the opposition leader must have known his death was all but inevitable. After surviving one assassination attempt, and staring down the barrel of a long jail sentence handed down by Russia’s corrupt judiciary, Navalny chose to martyr himself in the name of overthrowing Putin. Yet today, he leaves behind him no united opposition, no leader to occupy his place, and little hope that tomorrow will be any brighter for the Russian Federation.

In the three years since his return to Russia, the former lawyer and blogger made occasional appearances by fuzzy video link from remote Russian jails to respond to absurd charges. His emaciated body showed the signs of extreme suffering. Russia’s kolonii — penal colonies for hardened criminals — are brutal places at the best of times. But Navalny received a special diet of inhuman torture. Months spent alone in solitary confinement in freezing conditions and on meagre rations destroyed his health. The state even refused for long periods to turn his cell’s lights off, and blasted political propaganda into his room for hours on end.

Yet Navalny, astonishingly, seemed to remain in rude psychological health. In court the day before he died, the political prisoner was seen laughing and joking — he rarely took the regime’s show trials seriously, choosing to mock rather than participate in them — and he regularly wrote searing critiques of the Putin regime and its wars from his jail cell. When his lawyers were able to reach him, they shared these materials through Navalny’s popular social media feeds. Navalny’s body may have been broken, but he remained conscious of both Russia’s politics and, presumably, the terrible fate that awaited him.

When Navalny burst onto the political scene in the early 2010s, he used social media to bring hundreds of thousands of Russians to protest on the streets against the Russian state’s corruption and criminality. Writing on his personal blog, Navalny laid into the elites and gave voice to the opposition: “We are not cattle or slaves. We have a voice and the strength to defend it.” This handsome and youthful lawyer spoke in the language of the young, using the communications platform of the young, to rile up opposition to Vladimir Putin’s criminal regime. And Navalny’s overarching message, broadcast at a time when mass oppression was only just beginning in post-Soviet Russia, was simple: anybody but Putin.

A skilled political operator, writer, and orator, Navalny appealed to Russians from across the spectrum to band together and give Putin the boot. In those early marches, which centred on opposition to the undemocratic presidential election of 2012, Navalny called on everyone from greens to communists, liberals, and nationalists to join his campaign. Showing little regard for who he worked with, Navalny soon found himself the leader of an informal grouping whose leaders are today, like Ilya Yashin, in jail — or, like Boris Nemtsov, long ago killed by the regime. Nobody at the time knew how to speak to or unite such a broad spectrum of Russia’s disparate opposition as Alexei Navalny.

Yet it was this very strategy of unity that provoked the greatest criticism of Navalny. The leader’s alignment with the far-Right and earlier support for nationalist policies — he would later apologise for alluding to Muslims as “cockroaches” in a 2007 video — has tarnished his reputation with Ukrainians in particular. Photographs of Navalny marching alongside the far-Right haunt any mention of the leader in online fora, and critics regularly accused him of equivocating over the fate of Crimea in 2014. Navalny was never the liberal white knight that some in the West may have hoped he would be.

Nonetheless, Navalny was the only opposition leader in the last 24 years of Putin’s increasingly totalitarian rule to offer a serious path out of dictatorship, oligarchy, and extreme nationalism. While Navalny’s poll ratings in the abortive electoral campaigns he was involved in never suggested that he had garnered mass support — indeed, his approval rating among the Russian public was actually falling fast in recent years — his publicity team reached a huge online audience and, through their campaign efforts abroad, built serious political links with policymakers around the world. For example, the team’s expose of Putin’s opulent palace on the Black Sea Coast, built with embezzled funds, has been watched over 100,000,000 times on YouTube.

Putin may have controlled the mass media, but Navalny’s team deftly skirted official restrictions to reach a huge audience. Almost everybody in Russia had heard of Alexei Navalny and knew he represented genuine opposition to Putin (whom Navalny christened “the old man in his bunker” — an out of touch, cranky grandpa bent on destroying Russia). In a country whose politics has been littered with fake opposition candidates, Navalny was, for better or worse, the most recognisable and the only alternative to Putin for the majority of Russians.

It may be a coincidence that Navalny’s tragic death in Russia’s far-flung Yamalo-Nenets region comes just a month before the country goes to vote in a presidential election — or, more accurately, participates in the latest coronation of Vladimir Putin. However, it also follows both last week’s news that Putin challenger and soft opposition candidate Boris Nadezhdin has been barred from the ballot paper. These stories only add to the countless reports of the arrests, beatings, and killings of opposition journalists and politicians all over Russia over the past two years. The 2010s generation of opposition leaders and supporters are broken, battered, and destroyed. Now their greatest hope has been killed.

The days when opposition candidates could be allowed to operate in Russia’s peripheries, or even to make a brief appearance in election campaigns, are long gone. Those “vegetarian times”, as Navalny’s former press secretary Anna Veduta once described them to me, have been replaced by oppression that harks back to the darkest days of the 20th century. Now the regime is using new media to turn the screw even tighter, constantly disrupting and diminishing any sparks of opposition before figures like Alexei Navalny are allowed to fan the flames of revolt. Whenever a new campaign is launched, it is instantly drowned out with the noise of bots, trolls, and Putinist true believers — and its proponents are tossed into Russia’s rotting jails. In these circumstances, how can a new, untarnished, and popular Navalny emerge?

“How can a new, untarnished, and popular Navalny emerge?”

Navalny’s greatest achievement was to unite the opposition under the “everyone but Putin” banner in the early 2010s. He built bridges between opposing, fragmented groups. Without Navalny, it would have been impossible to imagine communists marching alongside greens against Putin. The Russian opposition today desperately needs a figure with the psychological fortitude and self-sacrificial character of Alexei Navalny: somebody who is brave enough to stay in Russia, speak the truth without regard for the consequences, and to create new momentum for an “anybody but Putin” campaign. As of today, both analysts watching from abroad and the many Russians who knew Alexei Navalny’s name would agree that no such figure exists.

Perhaps that figure might be Navalny’s wife, Yuliia, who made an uncompromising and powerful public speech calling for revenge against her dead husband’s murderers shortly after hearing news of his passing. Perhaps it will be an unknown, a young Russian who will take TikTok or some other new technology by storm, as Alexei Navalny did in 2011. But in a world where Putin’s control of mainstream and social media looks stronger than ever, and where the regime is using ever more extreme means to oppress its population, Alexei Navalny’s death signals a newer, bleaker future for Russia.

Ian Garner is a historian and analyst of Russian culture and war propaganda. His latest book is Z Generation: Russia’s Fascist Youth (Hurst).

irgarner

unherd.com · by Ian Garner · February 16, 2024

8. What Americans Owe Ukraine

Professor Allison poses an interesting hypothetical question.

Excerpts:

As we admire and thank the brave Ukrainian soldiers who have been killing and dying on the battlefield, we must also recognize that their success would not have been possible with the vital lifeline of arms, ammunition, and money from the US and Europe. Over the past two years, the free world has given Ukraine some $230 billion in aid, with the US providing $45 billion in military assistance and $30 billion in non-military (humanitarian and financial) aid and the Europeans giving $50 billion in military aid and $114 billion in non-military aid.

Last month, the EU voted an additional $54 billion for Ukraine. On Monday, the Senate passed legislation appropriating another $60 billion in military and economic aid that should allow Ukrainian warriors to fight Russians to a point where it will be in a position to negotiate with Russia to end this war.

Members of the House of Representatives now face a fateful choice. Those who fail to vote to provide essential assistance to Ukraine will be remembered for having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

What Americans Owe Ukraine

Imagine that two years ago—before Putin invaded Ukraine—someone had come to the US with a credible proposition to hobble Russia’s military threat to Europe for the decade ahead without the loss of a single American soldier. How much would Americans have been willing to invest in that initiative?

The National Interest · by Graham Allison · February 16, 2024

A quarter of our $800 billion dollar defense budget? A tithe a year for several years?

Imagine further that the proposal would also:

-Awaken our European NATO partners to the reality of bloody, large-scale combat in the 21st century—motivating them to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in building their own defense capabilities?

-Persuade two of the most militarily capable European nations—Finland and Sweden—to join NATO and thus significantly enhance its deterrent strength.

-Deliver to Putin a huge strategic failure—by decisively defeating his attempt to capture Kyiv and essentially erase Ukraine from the map.

-Persuade the nation with the most important economy in Europe—Germany—to eliminate its dependence on Russia for cheap energy and begin building up its own military forces.

-Revitalize the transatlantic alliance in a sustained coordinated campaign to defeat Russian aggression by arming and funding Ukraine and weakening Russia by imposing the most -comprehensive economic sanctions in history.

And if that were not enough, even arousing the individual who has the most sway with Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, to warn him both privately and publicly against any “threat or use of nuclear weapons”—thus strengthening the “nuclear taboo” that has emerged over the past 78 years since nuclear weapons were last used in war.

Had such a proposal been offered, it would have seemed unbelievable and likely dismissed as too good to be true. But if we examine what has actually happened over the 24 months since Putin invaded Ukraine, one incandescent fact is impossible to deny. Thanks to Ukrainians’ remarkable courage, determination to fight for their own freedom, and resilience, the adversary whom the US threat matrix had ranked as the second most capable military power in the world has been. Putin’s forces failed in their lightening attack aimed at capturing Kiev. Ukraine’s military recovered more than half of the territory Russia seized in the first chapter of the war. And Ukraine has fought Russia to a standstill at which it has been unable to make any significant advances for more than a year.

The US is fortunate to have our nation’s most insightful Russia watcher now serving as Director of CIA. Bill Burns has analyzed Putin for decades and dealt with him directly over the years he served as US Ambassador to Moscow. Last month, Burns summarized as the telling bottom lines in this war: “At least 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank inventory has been destroyed, and Putin’s vaunted decades-long military modernization program has been hollowed out.” Without the loss of the life of a single American soldier, Putin’s military threat to NATO has been substantially diminished.

As we admire and thank the brave Ukrainian soldiers who have been killing and dying on the battlefield, we must also recognize that their success would not have been possible with the vital lifeline of arms, ammunition, and money from the US and Europe. Over the past two years, the free world has given Ukraine some $230 billion in aid, with the US providing $45 billion in military assistance and $30 billion in non-military (humanitarian and financial) aid and the Europeans giving $50 billion in military aid and $114 billion in non-military aid.

Last month, the EU voted an additional $54 billion for Ukraine. On Monday, the Senate passed legislation appropriating another $60 billion in military and economic aid that should allow Ukrainian warriors to fight Russians to a point where it will be in a position to negotiate with Russia to end this war.

Members of the House of Representatives now face a fateful choice. Those who fail to vote to provide essential assistance to Ukraine will be remembered for having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

About the Author

Dr. Graham Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught for five decades. Allison is a leading analyst of national security with special interests in nuclear weapons, Russia, China, and decision-making. Allison was the “Founding Dean” of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and until 2017, served as Director of its Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs which is ranked the “#1 University Affiliated Think Tank” in the world.

Image Credit: U.S. Government and Shutterstock.

The National Interest · by Graham Allison · February 16, 2024

9. Alexei Navalny’s Last Laugh

Excerpts:

I remember a call I made to Nemtsov in September 2014, a few months before his death. I was reporting from a village in Dagestan with a sad name: Vremenny, or “temporary.” Russian security forces were demolishing houses there to punish the families of people accused of terrorism. I remember seeing the remains of children’s toys sticking up from the ground after the bulldozers had been through.

This was the year of Putin’s military intervention in the Donbas region of Ukraine, and of his annexation of Crimea. Nobody was paying much attention to human rights in a remote part of the North Caucasus. When I told Nemtsov something about my assignment in one of “the ’stans,” he laughed. When I explained where, he commented, “Dagestan will be always hot.” And then he said, “Listen, if I don’t joke, I will go nuts in our reality.” I spoke with him again, some weeks later, at his house in central Moscow. He told me that some of his friends were advising him to get out. “Why should I run?” he said. “Let Putin and his thugs run.”

That was my last interview with Nemtsov. When someone dies, you try to remember the last conversation you had with them. In 2020, I interviewed Navalny on camera for a documentary. I recall that he expressed a firm belief that, in 10 years’ time, we would speak again—and he would explain exactly how he’d won the war against corruption and for political freedom in Russia.

He was smiling. But this time, perhaps, he wasn’t joking.

Alexei Navalny’s Last Laugh

Something I’ve seen in Putin’s most effective opponents: Even if it costs them their life, they defy him with humor.

By Anna Nemtsova

The Atlantic · by Anna Nemtsova · February 17, 2024

A dark, satiric sensibility is a basic qualification for anyone in the Russian opposition. Those leaders I knew in Moscow, before I left Russia in 2022, liked to crack jokes during interviews with journalists and to judges at court hearings.

Boris Nemtsov, though he had been arrested many times and knew he should worry for his life, would laugh at President Vladimir Putin’s Russia as the “gangster state of absurdity.” He told the story of the time pro-Putin activists had sent a prostitute to his vacation hotel in a bungled attempt to fabricate kompromat.

In 2015, Nemtsov was shot in his back as he strolled across a bridge near the Kremlin. Some of his associates thought that it was, in the end, his mockery of Putin that had marked him out as a target for assassination. (Nemtsov and I shared a name, but we were not related.)

When I learned of Alexei Navalny’s death in prison on Friday, I posted on social media a picture of him with Nemtsov: both with big, radiant smiles, standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a banner that advertised an opposition rally in that spring of 2015. “How beautiful these men are, unlike that miserable little greedy coward,” one Russian follower commented.

Beautiful, perhaps. Brave, certainly. When I think of the two of them, I will always remember the words written on a piece of paper that Navalny held at one of his court hearings: “I am not afraid and you should not be afraid.” Navalny was still smiling and laughing on the eve of his death, as a video of his appearance at a court hearing on Thursday attests. The next day, he reportedly fell ill and collapsed after a walk in the compound of the former Soviet Gulag prison in the Arctic Circle where he was sent last year.

Anne Applebaum: Why Russia killed Navalny

“Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” President Joe Biden said at a White House news conference on Friday. Human-rights defenders who know Russia’s prison system agree. “Of course, he was murdered by a chain of actions ordered by Putin or by his men,” Sergei Davidis, the head of the political prisoners support program at the Memorial Human Rights Center, told me. “They were killing Navalny for a long time: First they poisoned him with Novichok, then arrested him illegally, then put him in solitary confinement for 300 days.”

Navalny was always angry at the corrupt and stupid public officials who, as he saw it, were robbing the Russian people. In one of several interviews I recorded with him, he referred to the Kremlin elite as an “idiotic regime.” But he was also critical of the “Western enablers,” the bankers, lawyers, and accountants who launder the oligarchs’ money abroad through real-estate deals in London, New York, and elsewhere.

Russia holds more than 500 political prisoners, according to the most recent tallies by Davidis’s group and U.S. officials. Deaths in prison are common. “Our group is monitoring the health of political prisoners; we are worried about at least four people who are in a critical condition,” he told me. Many wonder why Navalny returned to Russia from Germany, in 2021, after already suffering so much and in such open defiance of the opponent he called “Putin the thief.” “Navalny’s sacrifice will always be remembered,” Davidis said.

“I understand why Navalny returned to Russia, why Nemtsov came back,” Boris Vishnevsky, a member of the St. Petersburg city council, told me on Friday. He was mourning Navalny’s death, despite political differences they had had in the past. Vishnevsky’s opposition party, Yabloko, had previously criticized Navalny for participating in ultranationalist rallies. But Vishnevsky had since taken Navalny’s side. “As soon as Alexei returned to Russia and ended up behind bars, I immediately spoke against his arrest,” he said.

Graeme Wood: What Tucker Carlson saw in Moscow

He understood the actions of Nemtsov and Navalny as very deliberate. “If you are a politician or an independent journalist in Russia today, you have to overcome fear,” he told me. “They made a decision to become martyrs.”

I remember a call I made to Nemtsov in September 2014, a few months before his death. I was reporting from a village in Dagestan with a sad name: Vremenny, or “temporary.” Russian security forces were demolishing houses there to punish the families of people accused of terrorism. I remember seeing the remains of children’s toys sticking up from the ground after the bulldozers had been through.

This was the year of Putin’s military intervention in the Donbas region of Ukraine, and of his annexation of Crimea. Nobody was paying much attention to human rights in a remote part of the North Caucasus. When I told Nemtsov something about my assignment in one of “the ’stans,” he laughed. When I explained where, he commented, “Dagestan will be always hot.” And then he said, “Listen, if I don’t joke, I will go nuts in our reality.” I spoke with him again, some weeks later, at his house in central Moscow. He told me that some of his friends were advising him to get out. “Why should I run?” he said. “Let Putin and his thugs run.”

That was my last interview with Nemtsov. When someone dies, you try to remember the last conversation you had with them. In 2020, I interviewed Navalny on camera for a documentary. I recall that he expressed a firm belief that, in 10 years’ time, we would speak again—and he would explain exactly how he’d won the war against corruption and for political freedom in Russia.

He was smiling. But this time, perhaps, he wasn’t joking.

The Atlantic · by Anna Nemtsova · February 17, 2024

10. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 17, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-17-2024

Key Takeaways:

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Russian forces have established “full control” over Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast as Russian forces continued to advance in the settlement on February 17, and Ukrainian forces have likely withdrawn from Avdiivka.
Russian sources largely characterized the Ukrainian withdrawal as disorganized and costly and claimed that Russian forces managed to encircle large Ukrainian groups in Avdiivka, but ISW has observed no evidence supporting these Russian claims.
Russian forces appear to have temporarily established limited and localized air superiority and were able to provide ground troops with close air support during the final days of their offensive operation to capture Avdiivka, likely the first time that Russian forces have done so in Ukraine.
Delays in Western security assistance may lead to further significant constraints on Ukrainian air defenses that could allow Russian forces to replicate the close air support that facilitated Russian advances in Avdiivka at scale in Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down three Russian fighter aircraft—two Su-34s and one Su-35—over Donetsk Oblast on February 17, likely having committed scarce air defense assets to help cover the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Avdiivka.
Russian authorities arrested several hundred demonstrators on February 17 amid slightly larger demonstrations responding to imprisoned opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s death.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced on February 17 that the US sent $500,000 of forfeited Russian funds to Estonia to repair Ukraine’s energy infrastructure
Russian forces made confirmed advances near Bakhmut and Avdiivka and in western Zaporizhia Oblast
Russian occupation authorities continue efforts to propagandize and militarize Ukrainian youth in occupied areas.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 17, 2024

Feb 17, 2024 - ISW Press

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 17, 2024

Grace Mappes, Riley Bailey, Karolina Hird, Angelica Evans, and Frederick W. Kagan

February 17, 2024, 7:10pm ET

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

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 3:40pm ET on February 17. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the February 18 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Russian forces have established “full control” over Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast as Russian forces continued to advance in the settlement on February 17, and Ukrainian forces have likely withdrawn from Avdiivka. Shoigu reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the evening of February 17 that elements of the Russian Central Grouping of Forces are completing the capture of Avdiivka and clearing areas where Shoigu claimed Russian forces had trapped Ukrainian forces.[1] Putin credited the 30th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army [CAA], Central Military District [CMD]); 35th, 55th, and 74th Motorized Rifle Brigades (all of the 41st CAA, CMD); 1st, 9th, and 114th Motorized Rifle Brigades and 1454th Motorized Rifle Regiment and 10th Tank Regiment (all of the 1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps [AC]); and the 6th, 80th, and 239th Tank Regiments (all of the 90th Tank Division, 41st CAA, CMD) for capturing Avdiivka under the leadership of Russian Center Group of Forces commander Colonel General Andrei Mordvichev.[2]

Geolocated footage published on February 17 shows that Russian forces advanced into northern Avdiivka along the railway line, in the eastern part of the Avdiivka Coke Plant, and in the industrial area near the Avdiivka quarry in northeastern Avdiivka.[3] Additional geolocated footage shows that Russian forces advanced into central Avdiivka from the south and captured the City Administration and Palace of Culture buildings.[4] Russian milbloggers largely claimed that Russian forces captured most of Avdiivka except for some of the western outskirts and advanced up to Lastochkyne (west of Avdiivka), though some prominent milbloggers claimed that pockets of Ukrainian forces remain in the western part of the Avdiivka Coke Plant, in the Khimik Microraion in southwestern Avdiivka, and in the residential area in southeastern Avdiivka.[5]

Ukrainian officials indicated that Ukrainian forces inflicted heavy losses on Russian forces during the defense of and withdrawal from Avdiivka — the Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Press Service reported that Ukrainian forces inflicted losses of 20,018 personnel, 199 tanks, and 481 armored combat vehicles in the Tavriisk direction (from Avdiivka through western Zaporizhia Oblast) between January 1 and February 15, with the majority of those losses inflicted near Avdiivka.[6] A Ukrainian soldier reportedly operating near Avdiivka stated that Russian forces lost hundreds of personnel just on February 17 and suffered massive losses on February 16.[7] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Commander Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi stated that some Ukrainian forces were captured during the withdrawal from Avdiivka but that the withdrawal largely occurred according to plan and that Russian forces did not complete their intended encirclement of Ukrainian forces.[8]

Russian sources largely characterized the Ukrainian withdrawal as disorganized and costly and claimed that Russian forces managed to encircle large Ukrainian groups in Avdiivka, but ISW has observed no evidence supporting these Russian claims. Russian ultranationalist milbloggers largely amplified the same few videos of a handful of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) captured near Avdiivka to claim that Russian forces managed to surround large groups of Ukrainian forces in the settlement.[9] Russian milbloggers also claimed that Ukrainian forces suffered exorbitant losses in Avdiivka due to a disorderly withdrawal, and Shoigu similarly claimed that Ukrainian forces lost over 1,500 personnel in the past 24 hours.[10] Russian milbloggers usually publish and heavily amplify footage of the capture of Ukrainian POWs and footage of war dead during battles of high informational importance, and the footage that Russian milbloggers have amplified thus far is not consistent with Russian claims about Ukrainian casualties and the capture of Ukrainian POWs.[11] The Russian milbloggers also amplified limited footage of a handful of Ukrainian personnel withdrawing under fire to support claims that the withdrawal was disorganized, but this footage alone does not indicate that there were large chaotic Ukrainian withdrawals.[12] Some milbloggers also amplified footage showing Ukrainian forces walking freely in the open while withdrawing.[13]

The lack of footage supporting Russian claims that the withdrawal was orderly or that Russian forces took many Ukrainian POWs does not by itself disprove the Russian claims, but this lack of such footage is very unusual for the information environment when Russian forces capture a settlement. The Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) publishes extensive drone footage of areas in which the 1st DNR Army Corps operates, including the Avdiivka area, and Russian forces tend to publicize extensive Ukrainian losses to demonstrate the scale of their success.[14] Though the current Russian information space does not glorify battlefield horrors as much as Wagner Group affiliated sources did during the captures of Soledar and Bakhmut in winter and spring 2023, Avdiivka is such a prominent area of the front that the lack of filming or amplifying footage of such events is unusual if those events occurred as claimed.[15]

Russian forces appear to have temporarily established limited and localized air superiority and were able to provide ground troops with close air support during the final days of their offensive operation to capture Avdiivka, likely the first time that Russian forces have done so in Ukraine. The spokesperson for a Ukrainian brigade operating near Avdiivka stated on February 17 that Russian forces launched 60 KAB glide bombs at Ukrainian positions in Avdiivka over the past day, and a Ukrainian soldier operating in the area stated that Russian forces launched up to 500 glide bombs at Avdiivka in recent days.[16] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Commander Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi stated that Russian forces conducted 73 airstrikes in the Tavriisk direction (Avdiivka through western Zaporizhia Oblast) on February 14, a record number, as Russian forces intensified their tactical turning movement in Avdiivka.[17] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed on February 17 that Russian forces launched 250 FAB glide bombs at one specific area in Avdiivka alone in the past 48 hours.[18] Russian sources widely credited the Russian use of glide bombs with allowing Russian forces to overcome Ukrainian defenses in Avdiivka, and some Russian milbloggers asserted that Russian forces have air superiority in the area.[19]

Russian forces have gradually increased their use of glide bombs throughout the theater since early 2023, but the recent mass use of glide bombs in Avdiivka is the first time that Russian aviation has used these bombs at scale to provide close air support to advancing infantry troops.[20] A Russian Storm-Z instructor claimed that Russian forces have previously struggled to conduct mass airstrikes in close air support operations and expressed hope that Russian aviation operations in Avdiivka will herald a change in Russian operations elsewhere along the frontline.[21] The Russian ability to conduct these mass strikes for several days in the most active part of the frontline suggests that Ukrainian forces were not able to deny them access to the airspace around Avdiivka, and Russian forces likely leveraged this temporary localized air superiority to facilitate the capture of much of the settlement.

Delays in Western security assistance may lead to further significant constraints on Ukrainian air defenses that could allow Russian forces to replicate the close air support that facilitated Russian advances in Avdiivka at scale in Ukraine. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov stated on February 17 that one of the main lessons learned from the defense of Avdiivka is that Ukrainian forces need modern air defense systems to prevent Russian forces from using glide bombs.[22] Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat stated that Ukrainian air defenses need to shoot down the Russian Su-34 and Su-35 attack aircraft that launch the glide bombs in order to stop the strikes.[23] Glide bombs have a range up to 70 kilometers, and Russian forces widely began using the glide bombs in an effort to allow tactical aircraft to conduct strikes from further behind the frontline in order to minimize Russian fixed and rotary wing losses in Ukraine.[24] Ukrainian forces need large numbers of air defense systems that can effectively target Russian aircraft at these ranges. Ukrainian officials have stressed that Ukraine is facing a “critical shortage” of air defense missiles, and the New York Times reported on February 9 that American officials assess that Ukrainian air defense missile stocks will run out in March 2024 without further replenishment by Western security assistance.[25]

Limited effective air defense systems, dwindling air defense missiles stocks, and continued Russian missile and drone strikes against rear population centers are likely forcing Ukraine to make difficult choices about what areas of the frontline receive air defense coverage.[26] Recurring temporary localized and limited Russian air superiority would likely allow Russian forces to more aggressively pursue operational advances along the frontline. Widespread interrupted air superiority would allow Russian forces to conduct routine large-scale aviation operations and bomb Ukrainian cities beyond the frontline to devastating effect.

Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down three Russian fighter aircraft—two Su-34s and one Su-35—over Donetsk Oblast on February 17, likely having committed scarce air defense assets to help cover the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Avdiivka. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that Ukrainian forces shot all three of the aircraft down while they were sortied to conduct glide bomb strikes.[27] Russian sources largely disputed the shootdowns, but claims diverged between various Russian milbloggers. Some Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian sources are lying about the shootdowns, others claimed that the Su-34s returned to their base, but the fate of the Su-35 is unclear, and some others claimed that Russian forces accidentally shot down the Su-35 in a friendly fire incident.[28] Ukrainian Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk posted Cospas-Sarat satellite data, however, that apparently shows the locations of the downed planes.[29] Ukrainian forces possess the capabilities to shoot down such high-value aviation assets when modern air defense systems and missiles are available and may have used those systems during the critical period of the withdrawal of Ukrainian ground forces from Avdiivka.[30]

Russian authorities arrested several hundred demonstrators on February 17 amid slightly larger demonstrations responding to imprisoned opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s death. Russian opposition news outlets reported that Russian law enforcement has detained at least 350 people in over 30 Russian cities as crowds gathered to lay flowers in honor of Navalny over the last two days, including an estimated 230 people on February 17 alone.[31] Russian opposition sources also published footage of unspecified Russian actors picking up flowers laid at the Solovetsky Stone in Moscow City and other temporary memorials to Navalny throughout Russia on the night of February 16 to 17, attempting to erase any evidence of previous demonstrations.[32] Russian authorities seemed to tolerate smaller public gatherings immediately following the announcement of Navalny’s death but appeared less tolerant of and engaged in more concerted efforts to suppress the second day of larger demonstrations.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced on February 17 that the US sent $500,000 of forfeited Russian funds to Estonia to repair Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.[33] The DoJ reported that the US acquired the funds after breaking up an illegal procurement network attempting to import US-made high-precision machine tools to Russia.[34] US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monavo stated that this announcement demonstrates the resolve of the US and Estonia in cutting off Russia’s access to critical Western technology.[35]

Key Takeaways:

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Russian forces have established “full control” over Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast as Russian forces continued to advance in the settlement on February 17, and Ukrainian forces have likely withdrawn from Avdiivka.
Russian sources largely characterized the Ukrainian withdrawal as disorganized and costly and claimed that Russian forces managed to encircle large Ukrainian groups in Avdiivka, but ISW has observed no evidence supporting these Russian claims.
Russian forces appear to have temporarily established limited and localized air superiority and were able to provide ground troops with close air support during the final days of their offensive operation to capture Avdiivka, likely the first time that Russian forces have done so in Ukraine.
Delays in Western security assistance may lead to further significant constraints on Ukrainian air defenses that could allow Russian forces to replicate the close air support that facilitated Russian advances in Avdiivka at scale in Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down three Russian fighter aircraft—two Su-34s and one Su-35—over Donetsk Oblast on February 17, likely having committed scarce air defense assets to help cover the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Avdiivka.
Russian authorities arrested several hundred demonstrators on February 17 amid slightly larger demonstrations responding to imprisoned opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s death.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced on February 17 that the US sent $500,000 of forfeited Russian funds to Estonia to repair Ukraine’s energy infrastructure
Russian forces made confirmed advances near Bakhmut and Avdiivka and in western Zaporizhia Oblast
Russian occupation authorities continue efforts to propagandize and militarize Ukrainian youth in occupied areas.

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1 – Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2 – Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
Russian Supporting Effort – Southern Axis
Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign
Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
Russian Technological Adaptations
Activities in Russian-occupied areas
Ukrainian Defense Industrial Base Efforts
Russian Information Operations and Narratives
Significant Activity in Belarus

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces reportedly advanced west of Kreminna amid continued positional fighting along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on February 17. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced east of Terny (west of Kreminna), although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[36] Positional fighting continued northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka; west of Kreminna near Terny, Yampolivka, and Torske; and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[37] The spokesperson for a Ukrainian brigade operating in the Kupyansk direction stated on February 17 that Russian forces continue to transfer new personnel and equipment to the area in order to conduct tactical-level rotations and replenish losses.[38] Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces struck Kupyansk with up to 12 glide bombs.[39]

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

Russian forces recently marginally advanced near Bakhmut as of February 17. Geolocated footage published on February 17 shows that Russian forces marginally advanced southeast of Bohdanivka (northwest of Bakhmut).[40] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces recently advanced towards Ivanivske (west of Bakhmut) 600 meters from the north and 500 meters from the east.[41] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces marginally advanced near Vyimka (northeast of Bakhmut).[42] ISW has not observed confirmation of either Russian claim. Positional fighting continued near Bohdanivka and Ivanivske; southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka and Andriivka; and south of Bakhmut near Pivdenne and Niu York.[43]

See the topline text for ISW’s daily update on the situation in Avdiivka.

Limited positional fighting continued southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske and Nevelske on February 17.[44]

Positional fighting continued west of Donetsk City near Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Pobieda and Novomykhailivka on February 17.[45] Elements of the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) continue to operate near Novomykhailivka, and elements of the 11th Air and Air Defense Forces Army (Russian Aerospace Forces and Eastern Military District) reportedly operate near Vodyane (southwest of Donetsk City and near Vuhledar).[46]

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

The Ukrainian General Staff reported limited positional engagements in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia border area near Prechystivka (southeast of Velyka Novosilka) and Staromayorske (south of Velyka Novosilka) on February 17.[47] The Russian 11th Air and Air Defense Army (Russian Aerospace Forces and Eastern Military District) is reportedly conducting glide bomb strikes against Ukrainian positions in Staromayorske.[48]

Russian forces recently made a confirmed advance in western Zaporizhia Oblast amid increased Russian claims that Russian forces have resumed offensive operations in this sector of the front. Geolocated footage posted on February 17 shows that Russian forces recaptured a position south of Robotyne.[49] Several Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces launched a renewed offensive effort towards Robotyne and are now actively storming the settlement, with some milbloggers claiming that Russian forces have advanced as far as the western outskirts of Robotyne.[50] One milblogger claimed that Russian airborne (VDV) forces began an offensive operation near Robotyne a week ago and have advanced up to 1.5 kilometers.[51] ISW has not yet observed visual evidence of Russian gains in Robotyne itself, nor of Russian offensive preparations or activation in this area. Some Russian milbloggers refuted claims of offensive activation near Robotyne and reported that Russian forces have only intensified aviation and artillery activity, not ground attacks.[52] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful attacks near Robotyne, Verbove (east of Robotyne), and Mala Tokmachka (northeast of Robotyne).[53] Elements of the Russian 70th and 71st Motorized Rifle Regiments (both of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division, 58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) and the 7th and 76th VDV Divisions are reportedly operating in the Robotyne area.[54] Elements of the Russian 49th Special Airborne Brigade (a newly formed brigade that is reportedly subordinated to the 58th CAA) are reportedly preparing for assaults near Kamyanske, about 35km northwest of Robotyne.[55]

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted a missile strike on Russian rear areas in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast on February 17. Russian and Ukrainian sources reported explosions in Melitopol and Russian air defense intercepting objects near Tokmak.[56]

Positional engagements continued in east bank Kherson Oblast on February 17, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area.[57]

Russian Air, Missile, and Drone Campaign (Russian Objective: Target Ukrainian military and civilian infrastructure in the rear and on the frontline)

Nothing significant to report.

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

A Russian milblogger reported on February 17 that Russian forces are testing the “Hermes” missile system in Ukraine and at training grounds in Russia.[58] Russian media previously reported on February 7 that the “Hermes” system would likely soon arrive at the front in Ukraine.[59] The “Hermes” is a guided missile system that can be launched in ground or air mode and can also be used as an anti-ship missile or coastal defense system.[60] The Tula Instrument Design Bureau is in charge of the development and production of the “Hermes” system.

Ukrainian Defense Industrial Efforts (Ukrainian objective: Develop its defense industrial base to become more self-sufficient in cooperation with US, European, and international partners)

Ukraine and its European allies continue efforts to build up their respective defense industrial bases (DIB) and innovate and adapt new battlefield technology. European Commission President Ursala von der Leyen stated on February 17 that the European Union (EU) is currently considering ways to integrate Ukrainian domestic defense production with European companies and that the EU intends to open an innovation office in Kyiv.[61] Von der Leyen stated that the European Commission will announce a new plan to build up Europe’s DIB in the coming weeks that will emphasize increasing investment in European DIB companies and learning from Ukrainian battlefield innovations. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Lieutenant General Ivan Havrylyuk stated on February 17 that Ukrainian manufacturers are modernizing and producing new anti-tank guided missile (ATGMs) systems, drones, ammunition for thermobaric artillery systems and grenade launchers, and air defense systems that should increase the stealth of Ukraine’s air defense operations.[62]

Ukrainian state-owned joint-stock company Ukroboronprom (Ukrainian Defense Industry) stated on February 17 that it signed a cooperation agreement with German Dynamit Nobel Defense company, a subsidiary of the Israeli Rafael company.[63]

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

Russian occupation authorities continue efforts to propagandize and militarize Ukrainian youth in occupied areas. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky announced on February 17 that Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation Rosatom helped create a “youth chamber” in the Enerhodar city council, which will be the first youth self-government body in occupied Ukraine.[64] Balitsky noted that youth chambers will help occupation authorities form a personnel reserve from which to recruit and staff local governments. The Enerhodar youth chamber, along with other similar youth civic engagement programs, are likely meant to force Ukrainian adolescents to engage with Russian-controlled local political processes and prepare them for service in occupation administrations later in life. Ukrainian Zaporizhia Oblast Head Ivan Fedorov stated that Russian occupation authorities are creating military camps to teach children military skills, and that schools in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast are functioning as propaganda and militarization centers.[65] Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Artem Lysohor similarly reported that the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) is starting a cadet corps for daughters of LNR servicemembers who have died in the war in order to militarize young girls by exposing them to military-patriotic programming and pro-Russian military ideologies and potentially prepare them for military service when they come of age.[66]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed on February 17 that Moldovan laws simplifying travel between Moldova and Romania and adopting Romanian as the official state language of Moldova are antithetical to Moldova’s national interests and endanger the rights and cultures of people living in Transnistria and Gagauzia.[67] Kremlin officials and mouthpieces have recently intensified rhetorical efforts aimed at preventing Moldova’s integration into the European Union (EU) and setting conditions to justify future Russian aggression against Moldova.[68]

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

11. America can’t ignore the national security concerns tied to the LNG freeze

America can’t ignore the national security concerns tied to the LNG freeze

BY GEN. JAMES L. JONES, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 02/17/24 1:00 PM ET

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4472566-america-cant-ignore-the-national-security-concerns-tied-to-the-lng-freeze/

As former national security advisor to President Obama and former supreme allied commander of NATO, I am compelled to call attention to the significant national security ramifications involved in the administration’s decision to pause new U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export licenses.

Stated simply, the LNG permit pause is a boost to Vladimir Putin and his persistent quest for leverage against our European allies and the transatlantic community. Putin has long used Europe’s dependence on Russian gas as a weapon of manipulation and extortion for geostrategic advantage. In turn, he has funneled his energy revenue into propping up his morally bankrupt government and for sowing instability around the world culminating in his savage invasion of Ukraine and threats against broader Europe.

Last year, U.S. exports of LNG totaled 86 million tons, with the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Germany — key NATO allies — accounting for more than half of that volume. With Eastern Europe gripped by war, limiting America’s critical LNG lifeline downstream is a gut punch to our partners — one warmly welcomed by Putin knowing what it could mean.

As Eurogas President Didier Holleaux puts it, this LNG embargo could “spark a new period of price volatility in Europe,” undermining the significant work it took for Europe to slash dependence on Russian gas by two-thirds in the past two years alone. Now substantially freed from Putin’s grip, a long-term LNG permit embargo could eventually put America’s allies right back into Russia’s energy crosshairs.

Make no mistake, the resilience and energy security of NATO allies are squarely in the U.S. national security interest, particularly in these precarious times — without ignoring or diminishing the importance of working diligently and globally to meet the severe challenges posed by climate change.

Measured in both security and climate objectives, America’s allies in Asia have much to lose as well. Not only will restraints on U.S. LNG exports likely result in Asian buyers, including key allies, to resort to supplies from Russia but ironically decreased market volume would jeopardize Asia’s climate goals.

As Asian Natural Gas and Energy Association President Paul Everingham wrote to Energy Secretary Granholm, “Energy security and the energy transition will be elusive for the people of Southeast Asia” under limited LNG exports.

That’s because burning gas, as opposed to the coal that has long fueled Asian economies, results in about half the greenhouse emissions. The real-world cause and effect of U.S. actions in this regard must be carefully evaluated given that climate policy is the countervailing consideration to the adverse geostrategic implications. What is certain is that global malefactors will be ready to pounce if this moratorium stands. Russia expects a new major LNG export facility to come online this year, and Iran expects to do the same in coming years.

The stakes are high. America can’t afford to underestimate the boost to Putin’s long-term ambitions and the potential geopolitical impacts of limiting the United States’ ability to help promote the energy security and resilience of our allies. We can’t wish away the potential that U.S. supplies will be supplanted by Russian and Iranian LNG, and worse for the environment, backtracking from the LNG bridge to a low carbon future to greater reliance on coal.

As the administration and Congress evaluate this policy, our leaders must heavily weigh these factors, the significant geopolitical ramifications and what this could mean for friends and allies whose resilience and security are closely tied to our own.

Gen. Jim Jones, founder of Jones Group International, served as the 21st U.S. national security advisor during the Obama administration. A retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general, Jones also served as the 32nd commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and supreme allied commander of NATO.

12. NSA’s transformation from secret agency to public cybercrime warrior

Excerpts:

We welcome the newfound openness and transparency around previously secretive national instruments of power cultivated by the National Security Agency in recent months, and we look forward to continued collaboration with all of our government and commercial sector colleagues to enhance global security.

We, along with many of our anonymous colleagues who have transitioned between federal service and the private sector, remain committed to making a positive impact on American national security and supporting our country’s global allies in collaboration with agencies that must necessarily emerge from the shadows. In short, we look forward to the dance ahead.

NSA’s transformation from secret agency to public cybercrime warrior

By Adam Maruyama and Andrew Borene

Feb 16, 10:38 AM

federaltimes.com · by Adam Maruyama · February 16, 2024

The National Security Agency, once so secretive that its acronym NSA was jokingly referred to by intelligence insiders as “No Such Agency,” is out of the shadows.

NSA’s Cybersecurity Director Rob Joyce even appeared recently at New York City’s International Conference on Cyber Security to warn about the new dangers AI will raise as an enabler of increasingly sophisticated espionage, terrorist attacks and criminal activity.

Joyce and other NSA leaders now regularly speak in public, unclassified forums about the NSA’s offensive and defensive cyber missions. Organizationally, NSA now collaborates openly with other agencies in defense, law enforcement, and homeland security to openly discuss foreign efforts to infiltrate American and allied information networks, threaten our critical infrastructure, and disrupt our supply chains.

In the highly classified world of U.S. intelligence, it’s been eye-opening to us, as former intelligence officers, to witness this transformation as an agency once shrouded in secrecy becomes engaged as a public relations enterprise. Yet we recognize this level of transparency is precisely what American industrial leaders and the general public need-to-know to develop active whole-of-society defenses in an era of nation-state threats to our private sector.

Our most challenging adversaries – chiefly China and Russa – have broadened their cyber operations focus to encompass ever larger segments of the allied private sector beyond the traditional Defense Industrial Base (DIB), into multiple areas of critical infrastructure, financial services, law firms and academia where they can either steal proprietary information or secure vulnerabilities for future exploitation.

Early in our own careers, there were some little-known organizations in the NSA outbuildings that hid within the puzzle of acronym soup. One was dedicated to creating the cyber operations capabilities needed to combat terrorists and maintain allied geopolitical advantage, and another was focused on protecting American national secrets through information assurance. Even for officers with full Top Secret clearances, the prevailing mantra when it came to working with or for those organizations was “Don’t call them, they’ll call you.”

That kind of hiding in the shadows has changed dramatically in this past decade, as the NSA increasingly uses special functions to inform and collaborate with the public about threats.

Today’s NSA Cyber Directorate operates with a remarkably different approach. Its Cyber Collaboration Center, under the leadership of Morgan Adamski, provides advice and threat information to both cleared and uncleared cybersecurity professionals worldwide.

The breadth and depth of the Intelligence Community’s collaboration with the industry haves most recently been visible in its public messaging on VOLT TYPHOON, China’s operation to attempt to establish cyber footholds in privately-operated utility companies across the United States.

The gravitas of NSA lifting its veil of secrecy to collaborate with public-facing agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has helped raise the trust across the public-private divide both interpersonally and at organizational levels. Furthermore, the women and men of the NSA Cyber Directorate have lent their deep expertise in cyber operations to co-author deep analyses of how VOLT TYPHOON actors are attempting to remain hidden within our infrastructure.

By providing systems integrators and other defense suppliers with the necessary tools to navigate necessarily Byzantine regulations such as the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) process and labyrinthine cybersecurity technology markets, NSA’s Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Services Program contributes to economic growth and the stability of the complex defense supply chain, while also ensuring that suppliers are protected by trusted and assured solutions.

These unprecedented degrees of sharing and collaboration, not only with impacted organizations, but also with the American public who rely on the infrastructure those organizations provide, can and must continue.

We believe collaboration to develop whole-of-society cybersecurity and cyber resilience is the only way to counter threat actors who strike at the services underpinning our national security and our economic prosperity.

As the range and agility of threats to the US continue to expand, we urge not only NSA but also the broader Intelligence Community to collaborate with threatened sectors and the security industry at large to develop holistic solutions for our most pressing security challenges. We propose three potential initiatives:

1. Expanding Government Partnerships with Industry.

The Intelligence Community should broaden its outreach efforts beyond critical infrastructure sectors to build a more robust security framework capable of preventing and responding to emerging threats, even in under-resourced industries. Outreach and sharing should include not only threat intelligence, but development of best practices and preventative architectures that make impacted sectors more resilient to any threats that may present themselves. As our adversaries become more agile, we believe that expanding both the number of sectors engaged and the topics for collaboration building on the good work of the Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) established by CISA is critical to maintaining secure foundations and increasing trust between the government and private sector.

2. Collaborating on Forward-Looking Threat Assessments and Professionalized Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT).

As the volumes of publicly available information, and commercially available information, continue to grow exponentially, intelligence agencies and the private sector can collaborate to form a shared understanding of the threat landscape. This collaboration can both shed light on a hidden threat environment through shared insights and enhance both classified collection efforts and open-source intelligence (OSINT) collection while developing privacy standards that are needed by all participants to preserve government equities, protect proprietary business information, and preserve privacy rights of individuals. The need to balance ethical, policy, and legal considerations in OSINT is why we advocate for a professionalization of the discipline both in and out of government.

3. Creating and Engaging in Joint Technical Assurance Frameworks.

As the security of the technology ecosystem becomes increasingly crucial, the Intelligence Community should engage actively with CISA and the industry on assurance frameworks like CISA’s “Secure by Design” initiative. This focus should go beyond mere patch hygiene to encompass more robust preventive technologies. The Intelligence Community’s expertise in testing and ensuring the security of the world’s most secure networks can provide valuable insights and lessons learned for federal civilian agencies and commercial organizations seeking to apply assurance-level principles to their technology.

We welcome the newfound openness and transparency around previously secretive national instruments of power cultivated by the National Security Agency in recent months, and we look forward to continued collaboration with all of our government and commercial sector colleagues to enhance global security.

We, along with many of our anonymous colleagues who have transitioned between federal service and the private sector, remain committed to making a positive impact on American national security and supporting our country’s global allies in collaboration with agencies that must necessarily emerge from the shadows. In short, we look forward to the dance ahead.

Adam Maruyama is Field Chief Information Security Officer at Garrison Technology, a deep tech cybersecurity company. He is a former U.S. intelligence officer. Andrew Borene is Executive Director for Global Security at Flashpoint, an international threat intelligence firm. He is also a former U.S. intelligence officer.

13. Posing as Americans, Chinese accounts on X aim to divide and disrupt

Conclusion:

Researchers said that China, again like Russia, has also begun planting articles advancing its political views on what appear to be local news sites. One campaign that the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab recently attributed to a Beijing marketing company included 123 websites in 30 countries.

Posing as Americans, Chinese accounts on X aim to divide and disrupt

X hasn’t sent a representative in months to biweekly information-sharing meetings with other social media companies

By Joseph Menn, Aaron Schaffer, Naomi Nix and Clara Ence Morse

February 16, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Joseph Menn · February 16, 2024

Propaganda accounts controlled by foreign entities aiming to influence U.S. politics are flourishing on X even after they’ve been exposed by other social media platforms or criminal proceedings, a Washington Post analysis shows.

Previously, tech companies including Twitter, Facebook owner Meta and Google’s YouTube worked with each other, outside researchers and federal law enforcement agencies to limit foreign interference campaigns, following revelations that Russian operatives used fake social media accounts to spread misinformation and exacerbate divisions in 2016.

But X has been largely absent from that effort since Elon Musk bought it in 2022, when it was still Twitter, and for months hasn’t sent representatives to biweekly meetings in which the companies share notes on networks of fake accounts they are investigating or planning to take down, according to other participants. “They just kind of disappeared,” one said.

The result has been that accounts spreading disinformation that the other social media companies took down remain active on X. That allows the disinformation to be spread from there, including back to the other platforms.

“Anyone trying to run a disinformation campaign is going to do it across multiple mainstream platforms,” said Yael Eisenstat, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Cybersecurity for Democracy. “With foreign influence, we are less protected than we were in 2020.”

The last X representative to attend one of the information sharing sessions was Ireland-based expert Aaron Rodericks, said the people familiar with the meetings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. Rodericks was suspended from X after liking posts critical of Musk and is suing him and the company. Before that, Twitter’s representative was its safety chief, Yoel Roth, who resigned not long after Musk’s takeover and had to flee his home after Musk wrongly implied that he was soft on pedophiles.

One result: In the months since Meta identified 150 artificial influence accounts on X in a series of public reports last year, 136 were still present on X as of Thursday evening, according to The Post’s review. That includes a Turkey-based account with more than 1 million followers and five other accounts that have X’s blue check mark designating them as verified.

Most troubling to some researchers, out of 123 accounts that Meta called out in May, August and December for participating in deceptive China-based campaigns, all but eight remain on X.

Meta said this week that such China-based campaigns have been multiplying: Of 10 networks taken down by the company since 2017, six were identified in the past year.

“There has been a markedly increased emphasis in [Communist] Party leadership in taking a much more robust approach to influencing foreign audiences through all tools available at their disposal,” said Kieran Green, an analyst for advisory firm Exovera and the lead author of a study being published Friday on Chinese censorship and propaganda for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a body Congress created in 2000 to monitor U.S.-China relations.

“Methods include flooding hashtags with junk, impersonating high-profile experts that are critical of the government and using bot accounts to give the false impression of social consensus,” Green said. “The object is not necessarily to change hearts and minds but to muddy the discourse to the degree that it’s impossible to form an anti-China narrative.”

Meta and YouTube declined to comment. X did not respond to a request for comment.

The retreat by X is just one of the new challenges in the quest to counter determined foreign interference.

The U.S. government stopped warning social networks about disinformation campaigns in July, after a court ruling barred some communications between the White House and tech companies over censorship concerns. Tech companies have also slashed thousands of workers — some of whom were responsible for guarding their platforms against misinformation — while reversing policies prohibiting some election-related lies.

“The industry has sort of regressed. We staffed up, got everything into what was going to be the best trust and safety of its time before the 2020 election. And, all of that has now gone back to pre-2016 preparedness,” said Anika Collier Navaroli, a senior fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University and a former senior Twitter policy official.

“You’re seeing the lack of communication between government and companies, the lack of communication between companies and companies. That’s something that took a very long time to work on,” Navaroli said.

In addition, probes by House Republicans and lawsuits by conservative activists have forced some disinformation researchers to rethink efforts to study or counter the spread of online misinformation as they battle accusations that their work leads to censorship.

Though some Chinese propaganda is focused on deflecting concerns about its human rights record, treatment of Hong Kong and ambitions in the South China Sea, it has increasingly sought to stoke existing U.S. divisions in the same way Russia has, researchers said. Chinese influence operations have rapidly expanded to more platforms and more languages, Microsoft reported in September.

In the past few weeks, one of the X accounts listed by Meta as part of a covert China-based campaign, @boltinMich2800, has posted links to stories about hot-button political issues on obscure media sites. Some of them covered political events such as the Ohio governor’s veto of a bill restricting transgender care for teens or the qualification of candidates for a televised debate.

Other posts and reposts promoted far-right ideas, including that of “banning” liberal financier George Soros from politics.

Another account in the same network, @JeroenWolf52208, has been posting right-wing takes on race and the Texas border controversy, as well as a story on Israel’s war plans from Russia’s government-controlled RT. The two accounts did not respond to direct messages sent on X.

A separate preliminary analysis from Stanford University researchers of Meta’s November quarterly report on what is known as coordinated inauthentic behavior found 86 of those accounts are still active on X. Of those accounts, two were connected to Russia, three to Iran and the remaining 81 were connected to China.

The analysis, shared exclusively with The Post, found that the majority of the China-based accounts are posing as North Americans, sometimes scraping photos from real Americans’ LinkedIn pages but changing their names. The accounts often post about China, Elon Musk, President Biden and the U.S. election.

“The presence of these accounts reinforces the fact that state actors continue to try to influence U.S. politics by masquerading as media and fellow Americans,” said Renée DiResta, the technical research manager for the Stanford Internet Observatory. “Ahead of the 2022 midterms, researchers and platform integrity teams were collaborating to disrupt foreign influence efforts. That collaboration seems to have ground to a halt; Twitter does not seem to be addressing even networks identified by its peers, and that’s not great.”

Meanwhile, an account that is accused of being run by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security is still on X 10 months after U.S. prosecutors cited its tweets in a criminal complaint. It posted as recently as Jan. 24.

The Post was able to link the account, @Bag_monk, to the “912 Special Project Working Group” by comparing the text of two of its tweets to those referenced by prosecutors in an April 2023 complaint, which match verbatim.

Prosecutors at the time described the unit as being part of a “broad effort to influence and shape public perceptions of the [Chinese] government, the [Chinese Communist Party] and its leaders in the United States and around the world.”

The account appears tied to dozens of accounts on X and other platforms that post and repost inflammatory messages. On Thursday, the London nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue issued a report connecting some of the indictment’s posts to Spamouflage, a seven-year-old covert influence campaign suspected of being driven by the Chinese Communist Party.

The content includes negative depictions of both Biden and former president Donald Trump, as well as material that “appears aimed at creating a sense of dismay over the state of America without any clear partisan bent. It focuses on issues like urban decay, the fentanyl crisis, dirty drinking water, police brutality, gun violence and crumbling infrastructure,” wrote Elise Thomas, an analyst at the institute.

Some images shared by @Bag_monk and similar accounts have six fingers or body parts that blend together, an indicator that they may have been created with artificial intelligence tools.

The apparent AI-generated images also depict Trump in an orange prison jumpsuit. One such graphic, which also depicted Biden and his son Hunter, was posted by 10 separate accounts. Their posts all used the same caption and were published after federal prosecutors last year charged Trump with illegally retaining classified documents. The posts garnered around 16,900 views altogether, according to X’s public tabulation.

Researchers said that China, again like Russia, has also begun planting articles advancing its political views on what appear to be local news sites. One campaign that the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab recently attributed to a Beijing marketing company included 123 websites in 30 countries.

Will Oremus contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Joseph Menn · February 16, 2024

14. The Untold Story of the Ukrainian Helicopter Missions During the Mariupol Siege

The Untold Story of the Ukrainian Helicopter Missions During the Mariupol Siege

BY JOHN SPENCER AND LIAM COLLINSFEBRUARY 15, 2024 4:00 AM EST

Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, codirector of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project and host of the “Urban Warfare Project Podcast.” He served for 25 years as an infantry soldier, which included two combat tours in Iraq. He is the author of the book “Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connection in Modern War” and co-author of “Understanding Urban Warfare.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

Liam Collins is executive director of the Madison Policy forum and a fellow at New America Foundation. He was the founding director of the Modern War Institute at West Point and served as a defense advisor to Ukraine from 2016 to 2018. He is a retired Special Forces colonel with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Horn of Africa, and South America. He is co-author of the book Understanding Urban Warfare.

TIME

On February 24, 2022, 5:30 am Moscow time, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced to the world that Russia was initiating a “special military operation” to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine. In reality, Russia was launching a full-scale invasion to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected government. Bombs began to fall on cities across Ukraine the moment Putin ended his speech. While the air campaign continued, Russian forces descended on Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Sumy, and other large cities.

A major portion of Putin’s force also converged on Mariupol. Prior to the invasion, Mariupol was Ukraine’s tenth-largest city with an estimated population of 431,000. More importantly, it was one of Ukraine’s largest ports that serviced approximately 2550 ships and 17 million tons of cargo annually. Located on the Sea of Azov, it was the largest city along the “land bridge” that connected the Donbas, Ukrainian territory that Russian-led separatists seized in 2014-2015, with the Crimean Peninsula that Russia had illegally annexed in 2014.

Russian forces rapidly attacked the city from three directions. Russian forces and Russian-controlled military forces from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics advanced on Mariupol from the city’s northeast. Russian Naval Infantry advanced on the city’s west, after having conducted an amphibious landing on February 25. Russian forces originating from Crimea and advancing through Berdyansk had reached Mariupol’s west and began initial assaults into the city on February 27. By March 2, less than a week into the war, Russian forces had surrounded Mariupol by land and sea. With the rest of the country under siege, the limited Ukrainian forces now trapped in the city were left to defend it without any hope of reinforcements or resupply.

The Russian attackers quickly pushed the greatly outnumbered defenders into a large industrial zone along the city’s southeastern coastline that included the Azovstal steel plant. The plant’s many underground passages and bunkers offered an ideal location for the defender’s headquarters and as much of a rear area as possible for a surrounded force. The remnants of disparate defending forces fell under the command of Lt. Col. Denys Prokopenko (call sign “Redys,” pronounced “Red-Is”), the regimental commander of Ukraine’s National Guard Azov Regiment. This force included what remained of his Azov Regiment and elements from the 12th National Guard Brigade, 36th Separate Marine Brigade, Border Guards, KORD Special Police (similar to U.S. SWAT), Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and Territorial Defense Forces.

Over the next couple weeks, the situation in Mariupol looked more and more grim. Prokopenko’s small force, numbering approximately 3,000 with varying levels of military training, was surrounded by approximately 20,000 Russian forces. The Ukrainian defenders lacked the necessary weapons to hold back the advancing Russian armor and mechanized infantry units and were being constrained into a smaller and smaller space. Their ammunition was running dangerously low, casualties continued to mount, and they had little ability to treat wounded soldiers and no ability to evacuate them. Medical personnel were forced to conduct amputations without painkillers and infections became deadly. The Ukrainian defenders maintained their morale against these immense odds, but morale alone would not be enough. Even highly motivated soldiers require ammunition and medical supplies to sustain a fight.

A secret and dangerous mission

Even though Ukrainian leaders knew that Mariupol was lost, holding onto Mariupol was strategically important. The small number of defenders were tying up tens of thousands of Russian forces and preventing Russia from moving them to support offensive operations elsewhere. At this point in the war, it was not clear that Ukraine would hold Kyiv and if the capital fell, so would the nation. Defending Kyiv was the priority, so the Ukraine’s military leadership could dedicate little to support Mariupol’s defenders.

Thus, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence within Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, developed an audacious, and what many might consider a foolhardy plan to reinforce the desperate defenders. His plan: Conduct a resupply mission into Mariupol by helicopters that had to fly through advanced Russian air defense systems. According to retired U.S. Army Aviation Colonel Jimmy Blackmon, “This mission would require practiced skill for highly trained and proficient crews. It’s not a mission you would consider for an aviator’s first combat experience.”

The infiltration flight would take 80 minutes, 42 of which would be flown over enemy-controlled territory. Sometimes it is said that for military operations “speed is security,” and this mission followed that age-old adage. The helicopters would fly at maximum speed and minimum height, below the tree line many areas, to minimize their exposure to Russian air defenses. They would be flying what pilots call nap-of-the-earth. Flying so low would reduce their risk to enemy air defense systems but would put them at risk from rocket propelled grenades—the weapons that Somalis used to shoot down U.S. helicopters in Mogadishu in 1993.

If they were lucky, they would avoid trees, powerlines, missiles, and rockets to reach their objective: The Azovstal steel plant where the Ukrainian defender had established their headquarters. As hard as getting in might be, getting out might be even tougher because they would have to fly a similar flight path home, with the Russians now alerted to their presence. It would be similar climbing Mount Everest, where far more die during the descent than during the ascent.

The Ukrainians conducted their first helicopter resupply mission on March 21, 2022 when two Mi-8 helicopters launched from an airfield outside Dnipro, 82 kilometers northeast of Mariupol. After taking off, the helicopters headed southeast before continuing to the coast. As planned, they flew low and fast…maybe too fast as one of the helicopters damaged its wheel when it hit a tree. Luckily, this was the only damage they sustained as they were able to complete the mission and deliver critically needed ammunition, medical supplies, and Starlink internet terminals.

The Ukrainians launched their second resupply mission a few days later. This mission looked much like the first, but the Russians would not be caught by surprise a second time. The Russians hit one of the helicopters with missile, but luckily for the Ukrainians it failed to explode. The missile did, however, pierce one of the helicopter’s engines, forcing the pilots to shut it off. Despite the gaping hole in the side of aircraft, the pilots were able to continue flying, albeit slower, and limp back to Dnipro along with approximately twenty wounded soldiers that had been loaded onto the helicopter at the Azovstal steel plant.

Pilot VitaliyCourtesy of Vitaliy

The pilot and the third mission

Vitaliy served as a helicopter pilot in the Ukrainian Army in the early 1990s. His combat experience, however, only included flying transport missions during peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia. He served his mandatory service time and then left the military to fly commercially for the next two-plus decades. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Vitaliy was mobilized on March 14.

On March 22, Vitaliy and other pilots were summoned to Kyiv for training. Vitaliy did not find the training to be particularly unique, but he was a bit surprised when he was asked to fly at night using night vision goggles, something he had not done in a very long time.

On March 26, Vitaliy was partnered with a co-pilot and a flight engineer and ordered to fly to an airfield outside Dnipro. When Vitaliy asked, “Why Dnipro?” He was given no answer, just that it would be a simple mission. It was clear that they had a mission planned for him, but they did not seem particularly keen to share the details, so Vitaliy did not ask any more questions.

The following day, Vitaliy and his crew arrived at the airfield outside of Dnipro. Immediately after landing, Vitaliy once again asked about the mission. The short reply, “You are going to Mariupol,” told him all he really needed to know. He knew this would be nothing like the transport missions that he had flown more than 20 years earlier. This would be a combat mission against a military that was ranked as the second most powerful in the world. The crews that had flown on of the two previous missions were there and they talked Vitaliy and his crew through the map and showed them some videos. The command element then provided them additional details about the mission. They would fly directly into Mariupol using two Mi-8s, deliver supplies, pickup casualties, and then fly out, refueling on the way back.

Soldiers from the Intelligence Directorate explained the mission and briefed the crews with the details of the Russian air defenses. They told the crews that the helicopters would be loaded with weapons and medicine only. Upon landing, they would keep their engines running and have only ten minutes to unload the supplies and onload critically wounded fighters. Additionally, one intelligence officer would ride in each helicopter. This last part Vitaliy found surprising. In all his previous missions, he had never flown with an intelligence officer onboard. He could have guessed possible reasons for such an unorthodox move. Maybe the officer was there to gather intelligence that would be useful for future resupply missions or for the operational fight. Perhaps, he was there to deliver intelligence and directives to Mariupol’s defenders. Maybe he was there to ensure, by threat of force, if necessary, that the flight crew did not abort the mission prematurely. Given the responses that he received from previous questions, Vitaliy thought it best not to ask and thus, he was never certain as to the officer’s purpose.

On the night on March 27, they loaded the helicopter with the carefully manifested ammunition and medicine. But almost as soon as they finished loading, they were told that they needed to carry an additional 200 kilograms of medicine. They had carefully calculated the helicopter’s maximum weight-carrying capacity and were now being directed to carry 200 additional kilograms. Something had to give. They could not reduce the payload, nor could they eliminate anyone from the crew. Thus, Vitaliy decided that their only option was to remove the helicopter’s weapons. They would have to fly defenseless, an extremely risky proposition given a helicopter on the previous mission had been hit by enemy fire. But the crew understood the dire circumstances being faced by the brave defenders of Mariupol. Those fighters were at risk every day. They would only be at risk for a single mission, although that risk seemed almost astronomical.

After loading the helicopter, they had to wait. Like any pilot who has ever flown what had a strong possibility of being a one-way mission, the anticipation killed Vitaliy. He prayed to God, “Let’s make it tomorrow.” Late in the night, the command element told Vitality the mission would go the following day. The command element provided the mission brief which directed the flight path, the exact time and location they needed to cross the enemy’s frontline (so that artillery could create a distraction to cover the crossing), the current enemy composition and disposition to include their air defenses (that included Pantsir-S1 air defense units but not Buk anti-air missile systems), and precise landing spots for each aircraft inside Mariupol’s Azovstal steel compound.

After placing the updated enemy air defense positions on a map overlay, Vitaliy determined the flight path they were given would not work, so he changed it, notifying the command element so that the artillery fires required to support the infiltration would remain synchronized. After completing their mission planning, they went to sleep. After waking up, they made a final call with the ground commander, Lt. Col. Prokopenko. When Prokopenko stated, “all clear,” they knew the mission was a go. Shortly before takeoff, they were given one final instruction: This was not a two-helicopter mission, it was two missions with one helicopter each.

An experienced pilot like Vitaliy knew what this meant. Even if the two helicopters were infiltrating and exfiltrating together, if something should happen to one of the helicopters, the other must continue the mission even if they could help the downed crew. This ran counter to everything he had been trained but he understood that this was one of those rare times when the mission of delivering supplies and evacuating the wounded trumped everything else, including a helicopter and its crew.

Like the previous missions, the flight would be approximately 80 minutes, with half of it over enemy-controlled territory. Vitaliy and his crew flew started in hours of darkness, but it was dawn by the time they reached the sea. Tensions climbed when they crossed into Russian-controlled territory and remained high until they exited nearly 90 minutes later. They flew the first segment under night vision goggles, approximately ten to fifteen meters above ground level. Once the sun began to rise, they were able to ditch their night vision goggles and fly closer to the ground.

Vitaliy saw some enemy positions during the infiltration flight, but the more immediate threats were obstacles such as trees and powerlines. Vitality did not know if the Russians were asleep, confused, or just in awe at a passing Ukrainian helicopter. All that mattered was that Vitaliy and his crew did not receive any fire. The flight was eerily quiet and lacked the chatter Vitaliy was used to when flying transport missions. The only comments made during the flight was Vitaliy asking his flight engineer, “How long to the sea?” Once they got closer, Vitaliy asked him to, “Count it down by kilometers.” They did not even talk when they saw Russian positions. Since they had ditched their defensive weapons, there was nothing they could have done anyway.

Once Vitaliy reached the sea, he flew so low he thought he was touching the water at times. Since the buildings at the Azovstal steel plant stretched many meters into the sky, Vitaliy knew that it would be impossible to miss. But a heavy fog covered the entire coastline, so now he was not so sure. Eventually, he saw the plant’s prominent pipes poking through the fog and felt some relief. As he approached the plant, Vitaliy saw the large power lines, 30 to 40 meters in height, that pilots from the previous missions had described. Vitaliy climbed out of the low sea level flight path high enough to clear the wires and then immediately dove back down into the plant to make his landing spot. It was likely the most dangerous part of the flight, due to being so exposed and vulnerable, during daylight hours right in front of Russian besieging the plant. To make matters worse, this was the third time that helicopters had flown this same approach, so surprise was seemingly lost.

Service member of the Ukrainian armed forces is seen within the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works complex in Mariupol, Ukraine, in this handout picture taken May 7, 2022. Dmytro Orest Kozatskyi—Azov regiment press service /Handout via Reuters

Vitaliy felt relief after he cleared the powerlines and completed the dive, but the mission would only get harder. Vitaliy now had to rapidly identify the exact landing spot within the complex compound and then hit the landing while avoiding the plant’s vertical obstacles that seemed to be everywhere. Additionally, being allowed only ten minutes on the ground, if he landed in the wrong location, he might be forced into leaving before all the supplies could be offloaded or the casualties onloaded. Staying any longer not only risked additional exposure to enemy fire, but more importantly, they only carried enough fuel for a limited time on the ground. If they stayed too long, they would not be able to make it back. Upon identifying the correct landing sport, Vitaliy felt what must have been at least the tenth sigh of relief and then proceeded to land at the exact coordinates he had been given.

Immediately after landing, fighters seemingly appeared out of nowhere and immediately started offloading the supplies. After such a stressful flight, Vitaliy needed a short break, so he stepped out the helicopter and hugged many of the fighters. He remembered embracing one fighter, turning to look at his copilot and by time Vitaliy turned his head back, the fighter was gone. Vitaliy had never met any of the fighters before, but he immediately felt an immense respect and brotherhood for them. With high-risk missions like this that served a common purpose, it is not uncommon for people to feel an intense kinship with people they have only briefly or may have never met and that is what Vitaliy was experiencing.

Once Mariupol’s fighters had off-loaded the ammunition and medicine, they rapidly loaded their severely wounded into the helicopter while its engines were still running. Vitaliy heard one of fighters frantically screaming, “Do it faster!” Vitaliy approached the leader and said, “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. We are here. We will take everyone.” Vitaliy was willing to risk additional time on the ground to get as many wounded out as the helicopter could hold. After the last casualty had been loaded, Vitaliy looked at his watch. They had been on the ground twelve minutes.

After liftoff, Vitaliy pushed the aircraft to its limits, flying it as fast as it could go. During the exfiltration flight, Vitaliy only wanted to know when he was out of enemy territory. They flew directly to a site on the Ukrainian side of the front that had been established to refuel the helicopters—a forward arming and refueling point (FARP) in military parlance. To maximize the carrying capacity of the aircraft, they only carried enough fuel to make it to the friendly lines. Thus, they had to refuel to make it back to the airfield. The fuel consumption for the flight had been meticulously calculated. Vitaliy had spent an extra two minutes at the Azovstal plant, but he knew this was within the small buffer of fuel reserve that had been built into the mission. Once they reached the refuel site, they turned the engines off and felt a huge rush of relief. After refueling, they flew back to the Dnipro site where a massive convoy of ambulances was waiting to evacuate the casualties.

The volunteer fighter

The aircrews were not the only ones willing to risk their lives to get to Mariupol. While Vitaliy’s helicopter was loaded with only ammunition and medical supplies, some of the sorties also carried volunteer fighters to help reinforce Prokopenko’s defense. Ruslan Serbov, callsign “David,” was one such fighter. Ruslan had previously served in the Azov Regiment, Prokopenko’s unit that was currently leading the defense of Mariupol, and as a member of the Presidential Guard unit. When the Russians invaded, Ruslan was living in Kyiv.

At the end of March, Ruslan saw a message in a closed Telegram room asking for volunteer fighters to join the Azov unit in the defense of Mariupol. He had read the news of the Russian attack so he knew that the city’s defenders had been cut off weeks earlier and were facing a much larger Russian force that surrounded the city. Yet, Ruslan did not hesitate despite the great risk. He followed the instructions from the Telegram group and immediately took a train from Kyiv to Zaporizhya where he met Ukrainian intelligence officers and other volunteers. After a quick assessment, he along with other volunteers conducted some quick refresher training. By early April, they moved him to Dnipro to be flown into Mariupol on one of the secret helicopter missions.

Ruslan was likely flown in on the fourth or fifth mission. On the night of his flight, he was so nervous that he could not sleep. He remembers lifting off at 2 AM, April fifth, and the harrowing nap-of-the-earth flight on the way in. He swore the helicopters were touching the water when they flew over the sea. He had given himself a “50/50 chance” of surviving the flight. he figured if the Russians did not get the aircraft, powerlines or trees would. His aircraft included the standard crew—pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and intelligence officer—along with three other volunteer fighters and a bunch of ammunition and medical supplies.

After landing, he was immediately assigned to the Azov Regiment’s 1st battalion. A few hours later, they moved him to a building within the Azov steel plant compound and assigned him to stand guard on the fifth floor of the building. The following morning, he observed a small team of Russians moving and immediately engaged them with his rifle. The fellow soldiers in his position told him that he should not have engaged them. They were only sent out to bait the Ukrainians into shooting at them, so that it would give away their position. After giving away their positions, the Russians would launch artillery strikes or use tanks or other higher caliber weapons such as artillery to eliminate them. Ruslan described the Russians using “waves of humans” as cannon fodder. They seemed to care little for the soldiers’ lives and only viewed them as a tool to identify Ukrainian defensive positions.

Ruslan said the fighting was fierce and, at times, desperate. On the evening of May 15, he was part of a squad that was attempting to rescue a wounded soldier in the open between a giant ore pile and the railroad tracks within the steel factory compound. But it was a trap. As soon as they reached the solder, Russians ambushed them with heavy machine gun fire and anti-tank munitions. One of the anti-armor rounds hit Ruslan. He believed it had been fired from a MATADOR 90-mm man-portable, disposable anti-armor system. It was a weapon system meant for vehicles, not humans.

The round hit him in his left leg, severing his foot (he showed us a photograph of his severed foot still inside its boot that a fellow solider had taken the following day) and peppered his entire lower body with shrapnel. It knocked Ruslan unconscious. He drifted in and out of consciousness before he awoke in a dark bunker under the Azovstal plant. The bunker was full of severely wounded soldiers. Ruslan was in immense pain and lacking the necessary medical supplies to treat him, he asked his friend, “Shoot me.” But his friend replied, “Not today.”

The following morning, someone told Ruslan that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had ordered the defenders to surrender in a negotiated deal with the Russians. As happens all too often in war, Ruslan was injured only hours before the call had been made.

Despite the surrender, Ruslan was not immediately returned to Ukrainian hands. The details as to how the two sides would exchange prisoners of war were included in the agreement. Prior to being returned, the Russians transported Ruslan to the Donetsk Hospital to treat and stabilize him. But Ruslan described the hospital as having only very basic medical supplies and equipment and not much better than the bunker that had been treated in after being injured. Being one of the more severely injured prisoners of war, Ruslan was one of the first to be exchanged. After being returned, Ukrainian doctors were forced to amputate most of his leg due not only to the injury but also due to an infection that had resulted from the sub-standard treatment that he had received.

He later authored the book, Mariupol: The Book of the Brave, that describes his fight in Mariupol. In the eyes of many Ukrainians, Ruslan is a hero. He conducted an extremely risky flight just to get to Mariupol, and then fought for many weeks, against great odds, against a vastly superior foe. Yet, Ruslan is adamant that he is no hero. In his book and in our conversations with him, he stated, “I am not a hero. All the heroes are dead. I was just lucky.”

Conclusion

The story of these missions is not their brazen audacity, but the bravery of the pilots and soldiers involved. The military leadership must have factored the psychological ability of the crews to conduct the operation, because they never allowed a pilot to fly the mission a second time. While having an experienced pilot that had flown the route previously offered immense benefit, they obviously felt that the stress of flying the mission a second time was too great. It was the rare case where it is better not to know what you are up against, because if you did, you probably would not even try. .

Each flight team experienced a similar yet unique experience to that of Vitaliy and his crew. All the helicopters survived the first four missions. The Ukrainians lost their first helicopter on the fifth mission after Russians shot down one of the helicopters during exfiltration. On the sixth mission, the Ukrainians had an Mi-24 attack helicopter fly near enemy air defenses to distract them. Unfortunately, it did not work as the Russians successfully engaged both Mi-8s during exfiltration. Luckily, both were able to crash land into Ukrainian controlled territory. The composition and fate of the seventh mission remains unknown, at least publicly. All that is certain is that it was the final resupply mission.

A Ukrainian soldier stands inside the ruined Azovstal steel plant prior to surrender to the Russian forces in Mariupol, Ukraine, May 16, 2022. Dmytro Kozatski—Azov Special Forces Regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard Press Office via AP

In total, the Ukrainians flew missions consisting of a total of 16 helicopters. They delivered over thirty tons of precious cargo and 72 reinforcement soldiers, and evacuated 64 critically wounded soldiers. They lost three helicopters during exfiltration, but all 16 helicopters were able to deliver their payloads to the defenders of Mariupol.

After the seventh mission, the Intelligence Directorate assessed that it was too risky to conduct any more resupply missions. But by this time, the valiant defenders of Mariupol had helped Ukraine achieve its strategic objective and its first real victory in the war: Ukraine had successfully defended its capital. The last Russian forces withdrew from the Kyiv region on April 6, around the time of the fifth resupply mission.

No doubt it was a difficult decision, but with ammunition and medical supplies running out and no ability to resupply them, President Zelensky saw no other option than to order Prokopenko to surrender. Zelensky knew these stubborn fighters would never surrender on their own and to fight to death with ammunition nearly exhausted served no tactical, operational, or strategic purpose. A surrender would allow these heroes to live and fight another day.

Many know that the defenders of Mariupol held out for an unimaginable 83 days. But few know the story of the seven resupply missions. And while it can never be known how much longer the resupply missions allowed the defenders to hold out, it is almost certain they would not have made it to 83 days without them. Likewise, Russia made most of its gains during the opening weeks of the war. So, it will never be known how significant of an impact the 3,000 fighters had on the larger war by tying up tens of thousands of Russian fighters, but it is reasonable to conclude the impact was significant. At a minimum, it prevented the Russian’s from capturing the city of Zaporizhzhia, at least according to a military statement. In the end, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov’s secret resupply missions may have been extremely risky, but they were never foolhardy because he knew the capability and will of the Ukrainian people.

TIME

15. The Fall of Avdiivka: Implications and Russia's Next Moves by Mick Ryan

Excerpts:

While the Ukrainians will seek to deny Russia any significant advances on the ground, or against the Ukrainian air defence system, this year, they will also have an important goal in their strategic influence operations. Through their resilience, courage and defence against the Russians this year, the Ukrainians will seek to demonstrate again how worthy they are of our support.

It is a sad indictment on western publics that such efforts are necessary again to reinvigorate the provision of military, financial and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. But, strategic patience is not a fundamental characteristic of democracies in the 21^st century.

As we ponder the full range of implications of the fall of Adviivka, we should consider Zelenskyy’s speech at the Munich Security Conference this week. He stated that:

If we don’t defeat Putin now, it won’t eventually matter who is the president of Russia. Because every new Russian dictator will remember how to maintain power by annexing the lands of other peoples, killing opponents, and destroying the world order.

The loss of Avdiivka is no time for hand wringing. Such things happen in war. But it is time to redouble western physical, intellectual and moral support to Ukraine. The west must continue to assist them this year and beyond to defeat not only the Russian military in Ukraine, but the idea of the predatory, brutal world that Putin seeks.

The Fall of Avdiivka

Implications and Russia's Next Moves

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-avdiivka?utm

MICK RYAN

FEB 17, 2024

∙ PAID

Image: @IAPononmarenko at Twitter / X

Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment. We are taking measures to stabilize the situation and maintain our positions. General Syrskyi Telegram post

The Ukrainian city of Avdiivka has fallen to the Russian forces. In a Telegram post, the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Syrskyi, notes that “I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines.”

The recent Battle of Avdiivka is actually the second major battle fought for the city. During the war in Donbas a major battle for the city and its surrounds took place in 2017. Since then, the city has been further fortified by the Ukrainians and viewed as launch point for a future return of Ukrainian forces – and the Ukrainian government – to the nearby Russian occupied city of Donetsk.

The city was subject to attack almost from the beginning of the 2022 large scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

These Russian assaults stepped up in late 2023.

In several bloody attacks by Russian mechanised units, the Ukrainians inflicted heavy casualties on Russian forces. But, demonstrating the target fixation that they showed at Bakhmut, the Russians persisted. Adapting their approach, including the use of tunnels and a mix of mounted and dismounted tactics, the Russians eventually focussed on the envelopment of the city and nearby coke plant.

The creeping Russian offensive, making the most of Ukrainian personnel and artillery shortfalls, has seen the Russians successfully force a Ukrainian withdrawal from the city. Both sides have suffered significant casualties as a result.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has stated that Russian forces have established “full control” over Avdiivka. This is to be expected, but one wonders why this statement didn’t come from the overall Russian commander in Ukraine, General Gerasimov.

Implications of the Fall of Avdiivka

The situation on the ground remains unclear. However, there will be an array of tactical, strategic and political implications of the Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka.

Tactical Implications. Tactically, Ukrainian ground troops will need to fall back on prepared defensive positions. This will be essential so Russia cannot follow up retreating troops and exploit beyond Avdiivka. Tactical withdrawals are always messy affairs, and are hard to plan and execute competently. Withdrawals, which are considered a ‘retrograde operation’ in U.S. Army doctrine, are designed to allow a force to disengage from the enemy and redeploy on a new mission or to a new location, while minimising casualties.

I explored the basics of such a tactical withdrawal, and the key planning principles, in a post before the Russian withdrawal from Kherson in 2022. You can read that post here.

If the order to withdraw is given too late, holding open the shoulders of withdrawal routes can be very difficult and costly in personnel, equipment and fires. As such, a well planned and executed withdrawal can be the difference between whether wounded are evacuated or not. It can also determine whether precious munitions and equipment is left behind or taken out by withdrawing forces. And finally, it can impact on how many forces are able to be extracted to occupy subsequent defensive lines to the rear.

Another tactical implication is that closing the ‘Avdiivka pocket’ will be a significant achievement for the Russian forces because they will have a straightened front line. Notwithstanding the casualties suffered in taking the Avdiivka pocket, this will free up some forces for rest, creation of reserves, or a subsequent push against new Ukrainian forces in their new defensive locations to the west and northwest of Avdiivka.

The quality and depth of the defensive scheme established by the Ukrainians west of Avdiivka will be critical in the coming days. If sufficient mines, obstacles, engineers, artillery, armoured vehicles, EW and UAV for reconnaissance and surveillance are available, this will aid their defensive operations. This of course will also require sufficient frontline and reserve troops, deployed in depth.

Strategic Implications. The fall of Avdiivka will also have strategic implications.

First, the Russian success at Avdiivka provides additional evidence that Russia indeed holds the strategic initiative in the Russo-Ukraine War. It is the Russian high command that now decides where and when attacks and offensives occur across Ukraine. This will be difficult situation for the new Ukrainian military commander-in-chief to reverse. Especially if U.S. assistance does not kick in.

Another strategic implication of the fall of Avdiivka is that it makes any future Ukrainian liberation of Donetsk much harder while providing Russia with other options for offensives in the east and south as the northern Spring approaches. The Russians may wish to exploit their success in the Avdiivka area, hoping that subsequent defensive positions are weaker than those they overcame in the just completed battle.

Alternatively, the Russians might seek to switch their main effort on the ground to elsewhere in the east, in Donetsk or Luhansk, or in the south. They have options to do so with known force concentrations in the northeast and elsewhere. This poses a significant dilemma for Ukraine in where it might deploy its ground forces, key enablers such as air defence, artillery and engineers, as well as its operational reserve forces.

Another strategic implication is that while the Ukrainians appear to have inflicted significant casualties on the Russians in the Second Battle for Avdiivka, this will not have made a significant difference in correlation of forces. The attacks by the 3 ^rd Assault Brigade in particular apparently inflicted grievous losses on the Russians. But at the same time Ukrainian forces have also been overrun in places, resulting in large casualties. Ukraine can’t afford such large losses. Russia can.

Another strategic implication is that this victory will give the Russians more confidence. It may be a pyric victory in some respects for the Russians but does represent the capture of a city in which both Ukraine and Russia have invested political value. This moral aspect of war is crucial. The confidence that is taken from such battlefield successes can be infectious among military leaders and their soldiers.

A final strategic takeaway from Avdiivka is that Russia has continued to adapt and improve their battlefield performance. I recently explored this issue in an article for Foreign Affairs. As I noted in that article:

The longer this war lasts, the better Russia will get at learning, adapting, and building a more effective, modern fighting force. Slowly but surely, Moscow will absorb new ideas from the battlefield and rearrange its tactics accordingly. Its strategic adaptation already helped it fend off Ukraine’s counteroffensive, and over the last few months it has helped Russian troops take more territory from Kyiv. Ultimately, if Russia’s edge in strategic adaptation persists without an appropriate Western response, the worst that can happen in this war is not stalemate. It is a Ukrainian defeat.

Admittedly this Russian adaptation is from a low base. But it should still be a concern for Ukrainian tactical commanders and strategic leaders. We need to have humility in assessments of Russian capabilities and find ways to interfere with their systemic learning of battlefield lessons.

Political Implications. Politically, this victory is great news for Putin and terrible news for Zelenskyy. The fall of Avdiivka is exactly the type of victory the Putin was seeking in the lead up to his March elections. Importantly it gives Russia additional material for its global strategic influence and disinformation operations.

As this recent New York Times article notes, Russia is placing even more emphasis on disinformation to influence politicians in the west about the prospects for Ukraine. The key Russia message, particularly after Avdiivka, will be that “Russian victory is inevitable; don’t waste resources supporting it.”

This isn’t true of course. But for some politicians, certain tech CEOs and ‘thought leaders’ looking for excuses to not support aid to Ukraine in the U.S. Congress and elsewhere, this Russian messaging will give them heart and new material.

The loss of this eastern Ukrainian city, which has held out since 2014, is politically problematic for President Zelenskyy. Having just emerged from a difficult civil-military crisis, the fall of Avdiivka will impact on how he is viewed by both his domestic audience as well as foreign audiences. The last thing that the Ukrainian President needs right now is for a sense that “the wheels are falling off” his government to develop at home and abroad.

Possibly, there will also be a lingering sense that the civil-military crisis of the last few months may have delayed a decision about Avdiivka. I am not sure this is actually the case but there are sure to be some in Ukraine and beyond who link the two issues. Russia especially will seek to perpetuate the perception of ongoing civil-military mayhem in Ukraine that we have observed in the last few months.

Zelenskyy’s government will be concerned about civilian morale after the loss of another Ukrainian city. While Ukrainian polls at the end of December 2023 demonstrated continuing high support for, and confidence in, the military, this was not so for confidence in the Ukrainian President. The December 2023 poll showed that trust in Zelenskyy declined to 62%, compared to 84% in a similar poll the previous December. It will be interesting to see how the loss of Avdiivka, and the recent firing of General Zaluzhnyi, has impacted confidence in the Ukrainian president.

And at the interface of politics and the military in Ukraine, the loss of Avdiivka will bring even greater focus on the challenges of 2024 for those developing the Ukrainian military strategy for 2024. This was the key task that Zelenskyy directed in his statement appointing Syrskyi as Commander-in-Chief. While Ukrainian military planners have generally proved to be innovative and resilient during the war, this loss will bring additional clarity to their task for a strategy that allows Ukraine to defend itself this year, while reconstituting its forces for future offensives to liberate Ukrainian territory.

Russia’s Next Moves

In my recent Ukraine Campaign Update, I explored why Russia might step up its offensive campaigns for a wide scale Spring Offensive on the ground, in the air and in the area of strategic influence. First and foremost are political reason politics. Conducting a large-scale offensive against undermanned and under gunned Ukrainian troops may assist Putin in his re-election campaign and also exploit the U.S. Congress’s disfunction and inability to pass a bill on military assistance to Ukraine.

The Russian president will also have an eye on regaining Russian prestige in the international community, and this year will at a minimum seek to reverse Ukraine’s gains in its 2023 counteroffensive and the 2022 Kharkiv offensive. Putin will also want to begin wh shaping the strategic environment for any potential future military adventures beyond Ukraine. He and members of his government have already threatened a variety of nations in eastern Europe. As such, Russian offensives in Ukraine this year also telegraph to other European nations what will happen to them if they continue to resist Russian supremacy in its region.

Strategically, a Russian spring offensive could build on Avdiivka and pre-empt Ukrainian attempts to undertake offensive operations in 2024, while also seeking to seize additional territory. Not only would securing more of Ukraine hurt Zelenskyy politically, but it could also gain Russia more defensible geography in eastern Ukraine in anticipation of any 2025 Ukrainian offensives.

As I noted in my previous post, Putin will also have an eye on the clock. He knows that Europe is slowly stepping up its industrial production. And he appreciates that even dictators don’t have blank cheques and unlimited people and time to win wars. The Russian president may see a strategic opportunity to bring the war to an end that is advantageous to him in 2024.

That’s the array of reasons for why Russia might step up its offensive campaigns against Ukraine in the spring. As such, what might be the Russia’s next steps?

It is likely that the Russians will want to reinforce their Avdiivka victory with follow-up successes elsewhere. The Russians already have limited offensives underway in the south, as well as in multiple locations in the east. It is likely to continue these in the short term. Doing so poses a dilemma for the Ukrainians about where the Russian main effort might fall once the ground dries out and larger scale offensive actions are possible.

The new series of Russian attacks against Robotyne in the south should be seen in this context.

While the Russians will certainly wish to reverse the limited Ukrainian gains in the south in 2023, this may also serve as part of a strategic deception campaign to keep the Ukrainian guessing about where any large-scale Russian ground attack might take place. With troops concentrations in several locations in the south and east, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief will be placing a high priority on his strategic and operational collection systems to gain intelligence and decide on the optimum locations and composition for his operational level reserves in the south and east.

Fortunately, the Ukrainian capacity for collecting information using its own autonomous systems, tactical reconnaissance, alliance intelligence and HUMINT has evolved and improved over the past two years. Additionally, the density of sensors deployed across the battlespace by both sides ensures that massing for large scale offensives is increasingly difficult. Because of this, Ukraine is like to have some warning of where any major Russian spring offensive will be focussed.

Image: ISW Map overlaid with author graphics

But Russian troop concentrations in multiple locations remain a challenge for Ukraine. The have been undertaking offensive operations on multiple axes since the end of last year. This is indicative of some rebuilding of Russian forces as well as a Russian assessment of Ukrainian weaknesses in the wake of the 2023 counteroffensive. The Russians might be able to use any of these locations in southern and eastern Ukraine as a launch pad for a main effort, with the others as supporting efforts.

Conclusion

From these tactical, strategic and political challenges in the wake of the fall of Avdiivka, there are lessons to be learned for Ukraine’s strategy this year. Perhaps the most important is that we should take heed of how Ukrainian shortfalls in personnel and munitions will shape the battlefield in 2024. However, this should not be a licence to indulge in too much doom and gloom.

Losing battles is a natural element of any war. It is inevitable for even the finest military organisations to be surprised and to lose battles – or even campaigns – as part of a larger war effort. What differentiates good armies from bad ones is that they can learn from such losses and then produce more battlefield victories which lead to winning wars.

Russia has demonstrated the ability to learn and improve, but so too have the Ukrainians throughout the war. While the Second Battle of Avdiivka was an important battle and provides useful insights, we cannot and should not judge the trajectory of the war in 2024 by this battle alone. The Ukrainians are sure to be focussed on developing a 2024 military strategy that blunts what will probably be a major Russian spring ground offensive, while reconstituting for 2025.

While the Ukrainians will seek to deny Russia any significant advances on the ground, or against the Ukrainian air defence system, this year, they will also have an important goal in their strategic influence operations. Through their resilience, courage and defence against the Russians this year, the Ukrainians will seek to demonstrate again how worthy they are of our support.

It is a sad indictment on western publics that such efforts are necessary again to reinvigorate the provision of military, financial and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. But, strategic patience is not a fundamental characteristic of democracies in the 21^st century.

As we ponder the full range of implications of the fall of Adviivka, we should consider Zelenskyy’s speech at the Munich Security Conference this week. He stated that:

If we don’t defeat Putin now, it won’t eventually matter who is the president of Russia. Because every new Russian dictator will remember how to maintain power by annexing the lands of other peoples, killing opponents, and destroying the world order.

The loss of Avdiivka is no time for hand wringing. Such things happen in war. But it is time to redouble western physical, intellectual and moral support to Ukraine. The west must continue to assist them this year and beyond to defeat not only the Russian military in Ukraine, but the idea of the predatory, brutal world that Putin seeks.

16. JPMorgan Hires Retired General Mark Milley as Senior Adviser

Princeton, Georgetown, and now JP Morgan. I hope the former CJCS is not spreading himself too thin.

JPMorgan Hires Retired General Mark Milley as Senior Adviser

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-15/jpmorgan-hires-retired-general-mark-milley-as-senior-adviser?utm

By Hannah Levitt

February 15, 2024 at 4:00 PM EST

JPMorgan Chase & Co. brought on retired General Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a senior adviser.

Milley, who spent more than four decades in the US military, will advise the bank’s board of directors, senior leaders and clients on dangers around the world, Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon told employees in a memo Thursday.

Mark MilleyPhotographer: Nathan Howard/Sipa/Bloomberg

“His guidance will enable us to better anticipate and navigate geopolitical issues — and other risks and opportunities — that could impact our business and the communities we serve,” Dimon wrote.

Milley’s appointment at the biggest US bank adds to a roster of former military leaders, White House staff, diplomats, cybersecurity officials and even spies enlisted to help Wall Street navigate global tensions and other emerging threats. In a letter to shareholders last year, Dimon said inflation and interest rates don’t worry him as much as potential international conflicts, cyber attacks, nuclear proliferation and market disruption.

“There are no shortages of geopolitical challenges and opportunities, and I look forward to helping the firm and their clients navigate them,” Milley said in a separate statement.

17. A terrifying new world order has emerged from Putin's war in Ukraine

As Totsky said: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

Excerpts:

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy was right when he described Putin as ‘the ringleader of a new form of fascism’. It is vital that we recognise this.

Ukraine is the conflict of our age because in it you find everything that is forming the present and what might well create our future: U.S. dysfunction, European pusillanimity, Russian brutality, growing Chinese influence and the emergence of two clear sides.

But it has also shown what we can achieve when we are united and determined.

Two years on, Putin’s dream of conquering Kyiv remains just that. The Ukrainians, without a navy to speak of, have inflicted strategic defeat on Russia in the Black Sea (not least because of British help behind the scenes).

This war comes at a high price, no doubt, and at a time when it might seem we can ill afford it.

But if we don’t pay the price now, we will eventually be forced to pay a far higher one.

We must not abandon Ukraine.

If we do, it is not just our allies, it is ourselves we will betray.

A terrifying new world order has emerged from Putin's war in Ukraine

We may not want war, but war is on our doorstep. A terrifying new world order has emerged from the conflict in Ukraine. If the West runs now, we'll pay a high price, writes DAVID PATRIKARAKOS

By DAVID PATRIKARAKOS

PUBLISHED: 06:54 EST, 17 February 2024 | UPDATED: 15:25 EST, 17 February 2024

Daily Mail · by David Patrikarakos · February 17, 2024

A new age was born in Ukraine. I saw its first beginnings in 2014, shortly after Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea, and then its full emergence as the Kremlin’s forces rumbled across the borders on February 24, 2022.

Putin’s act of savage imperialism unveiled a new brutal reality. The post-war world, in which states like Russia had at least to pretend to abide by basic international norms and Europe was safe under the umbrella of U.S. security guarantees, is dead.

Over the past two years, I have reported from all three fronts in Ukraine: southern, eastern and northeastern. What I have seen is not simply a land-grab by a sordid dictator, it is the emergence of a new global conflict.

Putin has returned industrial war to our continent. Once more, thousands of miles of trenches stretch across front lines.

Once more, tens of thousands of Europeans are dying on its battlefields. And back at home, we are still unprepared for what is to come.

Putin sent his army into Ukraine, assured by his assorted regime of thugs and sycophants that resistance wouldn’t last more than three days and that the would-be occupiers would be welcomed.

Of course, Ukrainians greeted the invaders not with flowers but with Western-supplied Javelin and NLAW anti-tank weapons. Their spirit and resolve stunned the world.

And in Washington, London and across Europe the strangest thing happened: Unity. We saw the bravery of the Ukrainians, and it gave us the resolve to help them.

Ukrainian soldiers fire towards Bakhmut as Russia's war with Ukraine continues

Putin thought we would just stand by. After all, we watched him destroy Chechnya, rumble into Georgia and then steal Crimea — and we did nothing each time.

Meanwhile, he watched us lose in Iraq, do nothing while President Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people, and then finally scuttle out of Afghanistan.

The decadent West, Putin concluded, had no stomach for the fight.

But this time it acted. The United States sent billions of dollars of arms and aid. Even Europe stepped up.

Putin has always been clear. All he needs to do is wait. The West and its allies will tire; their countries are divided, their populations fickle.

The Russian leader has many advantages but, above all, he benefits from what I call the ‘despot dividend’.

Democracies plan with election cycles in mind. Their leaders can be voted out, their policies opposed.

But no one is voting Putin out. His people may suffer but they do so in silence.

Few are foolish enough to oppose his will.

Two years on, it looks as if he was right. The early days of Ukrainian successes are over. The turning point was last year’s Ukrainian counteroffensive that promised so much but delivered so little.

In February 2023, Zelensky tweeted: ‘We know that 2023 will be the year of our victory!’ However, throughout that year, Ukraine liberated just 395km2 of territory, while Russia captured an additional 683km2; it now controls 18 per cent of Ukraine.

And in those occupied territories, a process of sinister ‘Russianisation’ is underway. Receiving benefits or services without a Russian passport is now almost impossible.

Last year, Moscow’s education minister Sergey Kravtsov announced that Moscow was ‘carrying out systematic work’ to integrate children into the Russian educational system ‘as quickly as possible’.

The Kremlin knows that Ukrainian youth are its future. The longer Russia holds these areas, the more they cease to be Ukraine. For Putin, waiting is winning.

This story of how we got here is depressing for many reasons, not least because it was avoidable. First there was the lull in Ukrainian military operations in the winter of 2022-23, which gave the Russians time to build vast defences.

On the northeastern front, a battalion commander explained to me that the Russians had been able to dig three lines of defences with minefields 500 metres deep. There was no longer an easy way to break through.

Then there was the issue of the weapons. Every Ukrainian I have met is almost embarrassingly grateful for the weapons we send.

But they wondered why they always come after the window for their maximum efficacy had passed; and why they are given just enough to hold the Russians at bay, but not to drive them from Ukraine.

I still don’t have an adequate answer for them.

Why have we spent so much money and invested so many resources in Ukraine’s war effort, only to do three-quarters of what is necessary?

And, of course, the Russians have learned. While many crowed over their early blunders, soldiers on the front lines kept warning me: the Russians are not stupid.

In September 2022, a Ukrainian counteroffensive sent the enemy fleeing from the Kharkiv region. The Russians had been holding that front with just two or three understrength battalions. In 2023, they began to defend key positions with six or more battalions, with additional ones ready for rotation.

This speaks to perhaps the most important truth of this war: the numbers are inescapable. Once more, we return to the despot dividend.

According to a December 2023 U.S. intelligence report, Russia has suffered 315,000 dead and wounded — a staggering number that would have brought down almost any Western government.

But Putin is accountable to no one. During the Battle of Bakhmut — one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the war so far — I embedded with Ukrainian special forces.

They faced endless enemy attacks that they named ‘meat waves’ because, no matter how many of their soldiers died, the Russians happily continued to send more ‘meat’ to the grinder.

Despite these huge losses, Russian numbers are growing. At the start of 2023, Moscow had 360,000 troops in Ukraine. By the beginning of this year, it was 470,000, and there is talk of yet another wave of mobilisation following the Russian Presidential ‘election’ in March.

The war is becoming one of attrition: and, unless we supply the advanced weapons Ukraine needs, there will be only one winner.

By contrast, Ukraine is a democratic state with just under a third of Russia’s population. It’s hard to get accurate casualty figures because the Ukrainians rarely share them but, according to a U.S. official in August of last year, Kyiv had suffered around 70,000 dead and 100-120,000 wounded.

According to the UN, civilian deaths in Ukraine passed 10,000 in November 2023, which, given my experience of Russian attacks, seems an underestimation.

When Putin invaded, thousands of Ukrainian patriots rushed to join up. They were the best the country had to offer: smart, brave, technologically capable.

But since the beginning of last year, Kyiv has had to rely on mobilisations. Those called up to the front are often reluctant recruits, and if they are keen they are often inadequately trained.

During World War II, 22 weeks was the minimum Britain required to train a soldier for combat readiness. In 2022, such was the desperate need for troops at the front that the British-led, multi-national Operation Interflex gave Ukrainian troops a mere five weeks.

And that was for those who signed up willingly. Press gangs now operate in Ukraine.

A friend recently arrived at Kyiv train station to be greeted by a phalanx of masked soldiers looking for military-age males. Those found without papers excusing them from service were yanked off to army centres, ready for the front.

‘Hey, guys, why are you covering your faces?’ my friend asked the soldiers at the station. ‘What can I say?’ came the grinning reply. ‘Our skin is too sensitive for sunlight.’

As the war has worsened so has Ukraine’s political dysfunction. Recruitment was at the heart of a public fallout between Zelensky and former Chief of Staff Valerii Zaluzhnyi. In a November 2023 interview with the Economist, Zaluzhnyi said: ‘Sooner or later we are going to find we simply don’t have enough people to fight.’

A month later, Zelensky claimed that Zaluzhnyi had asked him to authorise a draft of 450,000 to 500,000 men — putting the responsibility for an unpopular move onto his general. It was the beginning of the end.

Earlier this month, Zelensky fired him. Many saw it as a political move. Zelensky’s popularity has plummeted — his net trust rating fell from 75 per cent in February 2023 to 44.5 per cent in January 2024 — while Zaluzhnyi is now the most popular figure in Ukraine.

Blame-shifting, finger-pointing and the fear of a popular rival: yet more problems that Putin doesn’t have to contend with.

Right now, the next six months look bleak. Talking in December about a possible end to the war, Zelensky admitted that ‘no one knows the answer.

‘Even respected people, our commanders, and our Western partners who say that this is a war for many years, they do not know.’

A military expert recently told me that if Ukraine receives the promised weaponry, it should hold its existing territory. Without it, retreat is almost certain. Zaluzhnyi’s replacement, Oleksandr Syrskyi said that Ukraine’s goal is ‘holding our positions . . . exhausting the enemy by inflicting maximum losses’.

The plan is clear: hold, reconstitute as far as possible, and hope sufficient support comes for a counteroffensive next year.

But that support is now in doubt. It is Washington’s aid that Ukraine needs most and if it has often come late under President Biden, it has at least come.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed a $95 billion aid bill of which $61 billion was earmarked for Ukraine. But now it goes to a Republican-held Congress.

Republican Senator Rick Scott has promised that the bill will ‘never pass in the House; will never become law’. Behind this recalcitrance sits the possible next U.S. President, Donald Trump, who still terrifies Republican lawmakers into submission. Last week he posted his thoughts to his Truth Social platform: ‘We should never give money anymore without the hope of a payback or without “strings” attached,’ he wrote. ‘The USA should be “stupid” no longer!’

All of this means that a stench of defeatism now wafts through certain sections of elite opinion.

Recently, Elon Musk, a man whose energetic ignorance of world affairs could power a fleet of his own Teslas, smugly opined that ‘there is no way in hell’ that Putin could lose the war.

‘This spending does not help Ukraine; prolonging the war does not help Ukraine,’ he said. ‘Having these boys die for nothing is wrong and needs to stop.’

It was cowardice and callousness smothered in bogus altruism. Ukrainians know what is coming if Moscow wins, and they have not only a right but a duty to defend themselves from the rape, torture and genocide that the Russians mete out.

This sort of talk must not stand because, believe me, this war is not just about Ukraine, but about the continuation of the world we helped build in the aftermath of World War II. We lost in Iraq, we lost in Afghanistan and, unless we find a little more courage, we will lose in Ukraine.

How many defeats can the West suffer without paying a severe price? The truth is, we’re paying already. Our enemies are emboldened; our deterrence shot.

The world has sundered once more. On one side is the West and its allies. On the other, a conglomeration of squalid states centring on Iran, Russia and China who want to wound us wherever they can. Ukraine is a front in this war (as is Israel) and they will attack us everywhere they see opportunity.

I say to Mail readers: you may not want war, but war is on your doorstep. Ignoring it will not make it melt away. You may not be interested in Moscow and Beijing and Tehran but, believe me, they are very much interested in you.

If we lose to Russia in Ukraine — and we do so because of our own division and lack of resolve — it will prove that all the Iranian and Russian rhetoric about the West’s weakness and decadence is right.

It will validate China’s message to the global south: ‘Hitch yourself to us because the West is finished.’

When China’s President Xi met Putin in March 2023, his words were chilling. ‘Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years,’ he declared. ‘And we are driving change together.’

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy was right when he described Putin as ‘the ringleader of a new form of fascism’. It is vital that we recognise this.

Ukraine is the conflict of our age because in it you find everything that is forming the present and what might well create our future: U.S. dysfunction, European pusillanimity, Russian brutality, growing Chinese influence and the emergence of two clear sides.

But it has also shown what we can achieve when we are united and determined.

Two years on, Putin’s dream of conquering Kyiv remains just that. The Ukrainians, without a navy to speak of, have inflicted strategic defeat on Russia in the Black Sea (not least because of British help behind the scenes).

This war comes at a high price, no doubt, and at a time when it might seem we can ill afford it.

But if we don’t pay the price now, we will eventually be forced to pay a far higher one.

We must not abandon Ukraine.

If we do, it is not just our allies, it is ourselves we will betray.

Daily Mail · by David Patrikarakos · February 17, 2024

18. Japan steps up lobbying in Washington, hedging for Trump's return

Please go to the link below to view all the lobbying forms that work for Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and India. Fascinating.

Excerpt:

Ishii's proposal was to launch a joint, legal influence campaign in Washington with the likes of Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Taiwan, "so Trump feels there is a trend for supporting the defense of Taiwan."

U.S. ELECTIONS 2024

Japan steps up lobbying in Washington, hedging for Trump's return

Embassy retains an army of advisers, but weak currency causes headaches

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/U.S.-elections-2024/Japan-steps-up-lobbying-in-Washington-hedging-for-Trump-s-return?utm

KEN MORIYASU, Nikkei Asia diplomatic correspondent

February 18, 2024 00:27 JST

WASHINGTON -- The Japanese government is bolstering lobbying efforts in the U.S., signing up new firms and casting a wider net of advisers to navigate the political landscape, with an eye on the possible return of the unpredictable Donald Trump to the White House.

The Japanese Embassy in Washington added three lobbying or advisory firms to its roster last year, according to information disclosed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The three firms are Ballard Partners, a Florida-based lobbying firm close to Trump; theGROUP D.C., which is close to the Congressional Black Caucus; and West Wing Writers, a speechwriting firm founded by former President Bill Clinton's speechwriters.

This brings the total active lobby firms retained by the embassy to 20. Japan's government-related lobby spending in the U.S. reached $49.34 million in 2023, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan research group that tracks money in U.S. politics. That is a 13.4% increase from the year before and a 28.5% increase compared with 2019. It is an 82.5% increase from 2015, the year before Trump was first elected.

Brian Ballard, president of Ballard Partners, was described by Politico in 2018 as "the most powerful lobbyist in Trump's Washington." Shortly after Trump's inauguration in 2017, Ballard opened an office in Washington and expanded his practice from Florida.

In an interview with Nikkei Asia, Ballard said the firm has advised 20 or so foreign countries over the past seven years and four are current clients: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Liberia and Japan.

"President Trump is a known quantity. You know what you're getting with him," he tells his curious clients. "He is 'America First.' If you're an ally of America, and you are America's friend, there's no better friend than President Trump. If you don't pay your bills, you're not America's ally when America needs you, I think you can understand, President Trump is not going to be that supportive of your agenda."

Ballard declined to share details about his relationship with the former president but the two have known each other for nearly 30 years and Ballard has been a top fundraiser in Florida. The embassy initially brought on a team of Ballard lobbyists for assistance with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' trip to Japan in April last year, but the focus has since shifted to Trump.

A diplomat from another embassy in Washington, speaking on background, said the Japanese Embassy's efforts to plan for a possible Trump return has been notable. This month, Reuters reported that Japanese officials have been reaching out to think tanks and former U.S. officials aligned with Trump to try to send a message to the former president not to strike a deal with China. Such a deal could upend years of collective efforts among Group of Seven leaders to rein in Beijing, the thinking goes.

The hiring of speechwriters at West Wing Writers could be part of an effort to tailor Japan's messaging in such a way. The contract with the Japanese Embassy states that the firm will provide speech writing services for the ambassador on six keynote speeches in a year.

This stands in contrast to South Korea, which has maintained a low-key stance on reaching out to Trump. A source said that President Yoon Suk Yeol has personally instructed the embassy in Washington not to engage with the Trump team, so as not to antagonize relations with the Biden White House. OpenSecrets data shows South Korea's government-related lobby spending in the U.S. to have been $12.08 million in 2023, down 55.6% from the year before.

Japan has been reminded about the importance of lobbying in Washington in recent months when the announcement of Nippon Steel's acquisition of U.S. Steel was met with a chorus of opposition from lawmakers and trade unions.

"Neither U.S. Steel nor Nippon reached out to our union regarding the deal," United Steelworkers International President David McCall said in a statement issued Dec. 18, the day the $14 billion deal was announced.

Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, where U.S. Steel is headquartered, called it "absolutely outrageous" that the iconic steelmaker was being sold to a foreign nation.

Following the backlash, Nippon Steel, which does not have a Washington office and had not engaged in lobbying until then, hired K Street heavyweight Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld to work on the deal.

Japan's weak currency is one major headache for the Japanese government. The retainer fee for Ballard is $25,000 per month, as is the fee for theGROUP D.C. The embassy also pays $15,520 per month to Hogan Lovells, a lobby firm it has had relations spanning decades. Fees have risen dramatically in recent years. In 1998, for instance, Hogan's retainer fee (then called Hogan & Hartson) was $40,000 for a full year.

One question in the minds of all foreign missions in Washington is what a second Trump term may look like in terms of policy. Would he look to secure his legacy with tangible results, or would he fundamentally change the way Washington is governed by sacking civil servants and replacing them with conservative-leaning personnel, as has been proposed by conservative think tanks?

Ballard tells his clients to look at what Trump did in his first term. "Border security is something he was a huge winner on. Getting inflation eradicated, ending wars, those are the things when he was president, there was no disputing. We were at peace, we had an economy that was roaring and there was no inflation," he said.

But Masafumi Ishii, Japan's former ambassador to Indonesia, said that regardless of his intentions, Trump's indifference to Taiwan alone could lead to dangerous outcomes.

There are two cases where China may start a military operation to take over Taiwan, Ishii told a seminar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Monday.

"First is if Taiwan declares independence. Second, if it becomes clear that the U.S. does not intend to defend Taiwan in a time of crisis, I think the temptation on the part of China is too big to resist," he said. "My feeling is that Trump may make this second case happen even without realizing it."

Ishii's proposal was to launch a joint, legal influence campaign in Washington with the likes of Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Taiwan, "so Trump feels there is a trend for supporting the defense of Taiwan."

Trump always "rides on the tide and never goes against the tide because he has no strong principles to do so," Ishii said.

If so, the logical path for Japan and America's allies is "to create a tide justifying the defense of Taiwan," he said.

19. Why are Japan and the U.K. in a recession if the U.S. is doing well?

02-17-241:46 AM

Why are Japan and the U.K. in a recession if the U.S. is doing well?

As some of the world’s biggest economies stumble into recession, the United States keeps chugging along.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91031943/why-are-japan-and-the-uk-in-a-recession-if-the-u-s-is-doing-well

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS5 MINUTE READ

As some of the world’s biggest economies stumble into recession, the United States keeps chugging along.

Both Japan and the United Kingdom said Thursday their economies likely weakened during the final three months of 2023. For each, it would be the second straight quarter that’s happened, which fits one lay definition for a recession.

Yet in the U.S., the economy motored ahead in last year’s fourth quarter for a sixth straight quarter of growth. It’s blown past many predictions coming into 2023 that a recession seemed inevitable because of high interest rates meant to slow the economy and inflation.

Give much of the credit to U.S. households, who have continued to spend at a solid rate despite many challenges. Their spending makes up the majority of the U.S. economy. Government stimulus helped households weather the initial stages of the pandemic and a jump in inflation, and now pay raises are helping them catch up to high prices for the goods and services they need.

On Thursday, a report showed that fewer U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week. It’s the latest signal of a remarkably solid job market, even though a litany of layoff announcements has grabbed attention recently. Continued strength there should help prop up the economy.

Of course, risks still loom, and economists say a recession can’t be ruled out. Inflation could reaccelerate. Worries about heavy borrowing by the U.S. government could upset financial markets, ultimately making loans to buy cars and other things more expensive. Growing losses tied to commercial real estate could mean big pain for the financial system.

But for now the outlook continues to appear better for the U.S. than many other big economies. The mood on Wall Street is so positive that the main measure of the U.S. stock market, the S&P 500 index, topped the 5,000 level last week for the first time.

“First and foremost, it’s important to emphasize that the market’s performance is more a reflection of a thriving economy rather than unwarranted ‘animal spirits’ from investors,” said Solita Marcelli, chief investment officer, Americas, at UBS Global Wealth Management.

When it upgraded its forecast for global growth in 2024 a couple of weeks ago, the International Monetary Fund cited greater-than-expected resilience in the U.S. economy as a major reason.

Several unique characteristics of the U.S. economy have sheltered it from recessionary storms, analysts say. The federal government provided about $5 trillion in pandemic aid in 2020 and 2021, far more than overseas counterparts, which left most households in much better financial shape and supported consumer spending well into 2023.

The Biden administration has also subsidized more construction of manufacturing plants and infrastructure through additional legislation passed in 2021 and 2022 that was still having an impact last year. About a quarter of the U.S. economy’s solid 2.5% growth in 2023 was made up of government spending. Republican critics, however, charge that the extended spending contributed to higher inflation.

“We had some policies that I do think helped us a lot,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG. “But also the structure of our economy is so much different.”

Americans have been better protected from rising rates than U.K. counterparts, for example, because most U.S. homeowners with mortgages have long, 30-year fixed rates. As a result, the Federal Reserve’s rapid rate hikes of the past two years—which have lifted mortgage rates from around 3% to about 6.7%—have had little effect on many U.S. homeowners.

Yet their British counterparts carry mortgages that have to be renewed every two to five years. They’ve struggled with rapidly rising mortgage rates as the Bank of England has lifted borrowing costs to combat inflation.

Catherine Mann, a member of the Bank of England’s interest-rate setting committee, said Thursday that the U.K. economy’s slowdown should be temporary. There are already signs in business surveys that the economy is picking back up, she added.

“The data we have today is rear-view mirror,” she said on the sidelines of an economic conference in Washington, D.C. Forward-looking reports “are all looking good.” Like the Fed, the Bank of England is considering reducing its benchmark rate once it is confident inflation is under control.

Another benefit for the United States is that it experienced a surge in immigration in recent years, which has made it easier for businesses to fill jobs and potentially expand their operations, leading to more people earning wages and then spending those earnings.

Japan, by contrast, is rapidly aging and has seen its population shrink for years, as it is less open to foreign labor. A declining population can act as a powerful drag on economic growth.

In Europe, sentiment is weak among consumers who are still feeling the effects of higher energy prices caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Even China, whose economy is growing faster than that of the U.S., is under heavy pressure. Its stock markets have been among the world’s worst recently due to worries about a sluggish economic recovery and troubles in the property sector.

The U.S. economy faces its own challenges. Its growth is forecast to cool this year as big hikes to interest rates by the Federal Reserve make their way fully through the system.

A report on Thursday may have given a nod to that. Sales at U.S. retailers slumped by more in January from December than economists expected.

Some pillars of support for consumer spending may be weakening. Student loan repayments have resumed, consumers have largely spent their pandemic stimulus money, and credit-card balances are high.

Perhaps most frustrating is the fact that prices for things at the market are still much higher than they were before the pandemic. Lower inflation means prices are rising less quickly from here, not that they’re falling back to where they used to be.

Coping with inflation remains of top concern for U.S. consumers, except for those making more than $150,000, according to a recent survey by Morgan Stanley.

When McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski discussed his company’s latest quarterly results, he said he’s not seeing much change in behavior among middle- and upper-income customers. But “where you see the pressure with the U.S. consumer is that low-income consumer, so call it $45,000 and under. That consumer is pressured.”

—By Stan Choe and Christopher Rugaber, Associated Press

20. US deploys half of its aircraft carriers to China’s doorstep

US deploys half of its aircraft carriers to China’s doorstep

Navy reinforcements heading to the Pacific amid sabre rattling over nuclear weapons and territorial disputes

Nicola Smith,

ASIA CORRESPONDENT

16 February 2024 • 5:43pm

The Telegraph · by Nicola Smith,

The USS Abraham Lincoln is thought to be heading towards the Western Pacific Credit: GETTY IMAGES/JOE RAEDLE

The United States is expected to deploy almost half of its aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific this year, as military tensions continue to rise over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and China’s territorial claims.

Three US aircraft carriers from the 11-strong fleet are already in the region, with two more on the way – an unprecedented number intended as a strong signal of deterrence, reported the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

The USS Abraham Lincoln was spotted earlier this month leaving its home port in San Diego, California, and heading towards the Western Pacific, according to the US Naval Institute’s Fleet and Marine Tracker.

The US Navy has also confirmed the USS George Washington will return this year to Japan, where it will replace the USS Ronald Reagan as the centrepiece of the US 7th Fleet’s carrier strike group.

The arrival of further aircraft carriers is the latest show of force in the Pacific Credit: MCSN JASON WHITE/NAVY OFFICE OF INFORMATION

Last month, the USS Carl Vinson joined South Korea and Japan in conducting perhaps their biggest-ever combined naval exercises in an act of sabre rattling towards nuclear-armed North Korea.

The Carl Vinson Strike Group also joined the USS Theodore Roosevelt in a multi-large deck drill with Japan in the Philippine Sea that included a test of air warfare operations.

Over the past year, there have been multiple confrontations between Beijing and Manila over territorial disputes.

Deploying the “most visible assets” in the military sent a “very clear signal to adversaries,” Brian Hart, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told the SCMP.

Western allies are determined to maintain a presence in the Pacific despite demands of war elsewhere Credit: US NAVY/GETTY IMAGES ASIAPAC

“Given the war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East, and the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, the US military wants to signal that it can handle those situations while remaining focused on the priority theatre, which is the Indo-Pacific,” he added.

According to the newly released military balance report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies: “Western states are trying to balance their focus on the war in Ukraine with their largely trade driven strategic interests in Asia.”

The UK intends to return an aircraft carrier battlegroup to the Indo-Pacific in 2025, and Germany has announced it will send two warships to the region in 2024.

China is also ramping up its naval capabilities and, over the next couple of years, the People’s Liberation Army navy will undertake intensive trials of its third and most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian (Type-003).

The Telegraph · by Nicola Smith,

21. Trump, NATO, and Nuclear Deterrence by Sir Lawrence Freedman

I wonder how the nuclear and deterrence theorists factor in these comments to actual deterrence in "in practice."

Trump, NATO, and Nuclear Deterrence

https://samf.substack.com/p/trump-nato-and-nuclear-deterrence?r=7i07&utm

The challenge for Britain and France

LAWRENCE FREEDMAN

FEB 18, 2024

∙ PAID

In the control room of HMS Viligant, one of the UK’s four nuclear-warhead carrying submarines.

In a recent post dealing with anxieties about a future war with Russia and whether young people in the UK would be prepared to fight for their country, I suggested that there was a potentially larger issue to be addressed about the role of the UK’s nuclear forces. If, as a result of Donald Trump returning to the presidency, European members of NATO can no longer rely on the US for its nuclear umbrella, would the UK be expected to take its place, on its own, or in concert with France?

Trump and NATO: Seeking a Divorce

Campaigning in Conway South Carolina on 10 February, Donald Trump promised his audience that he would be tough with America’s free-loading allies once he got back to the White House. He described a conversation from his previous stint with an unnamed leader ‘of a big country.’ As this country had failed to pay its dues its defence was being subsidised by the United States. According to Trump the encounter went as follows:

Unnamed leader: ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?

Trump: ‘“You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent.’

Unnamed leader: ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’

Trump: ‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.

The moral of the story for Trump was that his tough stance led the allies to pay up. But the underlying attitude it reveals goes much further. It is bad enough casting doubt on whether alliance commitments would be met. Quite another, and in contrast to President Biden’s promise to defend ‘every inch’ of NATO territory, to encourage aggression.

This was not the first time Trump had told this story. He had already done so in August 2018.

‘Someone said, “Sir!” Someone calls me Sir, that that shows me respect. He says, “would you leave us if we don’t pay our bills?” They hated my answer. I said, “Yeah, I would consider it.” They hated the answer … l. But if I said, “No, I won’t leave you. I promise you we will always protect you.” Then they will never pay their bills. So I said, “Yes, I will leave you.” You could see those checkbooks coming out for billions of dollars. They paid their bills. I think we will pick up in the next short while over $100 billion.’

This version of the story just left his pressure doing the trick and the delinquent ally paying up without him needing to threaten to abandon NATO to Putin. (The fact that this story has been repeated does not make it true. It is highly unlikely that any leader of a big European country would have shown such deference. When someone calls Trump ‘Sir’ in one of his anecdotes that is usually a clue that he has made it up.)

This was before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has somewhat changed the context. Trump has never hidden his dislike for alliances but during his first term his senior officials in key national security positions worked hard to limit the potential damage. Some later told the New York Times that ‘several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.’ He thought the alliance pointless and a drain on the US. A member of the European Commission has recounted how in a meeting with the Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen in 2000 he said ‘You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you.’ He added, ‘By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO.’ His former national security advisor, John Bolton, predicts that he probably would seek to get out of NATO during a second term.

Trump certainly view the alliance in transactional terms as he views all relationships, assuming that European contributions to the collective defence are in effect repayments to the US. (He is also proposing switching from foreign assistance to loans). But even if Europeans spend more, which they are doing and should do more, it may still not make much difference to his attitudes. As Fred Kaplan notes Trump exaggerates the impacts his bluster had on past spending. It was going up before he became president, following Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014, and it continues to do so.

It is best therefore to assume that this is more than transactional. When coupled with his instructions to Republicans in the House of Representatives to block more aid to Ukraine, it would be unwise to assume that his disinterest in opposing Putin is just for show. Before his latest remarks the possibility that he might try to take the US out of NATO was already taken sufficiently seriously for the US Senate to pass a bipartisan bill prohibiting any President doing this without Senate approval or an Act of Congress. That reduces the potential disruption but does not get to the main risk, which would be that Trump would simply ignore his alliance obligations.

Article V and Security Guarantees.

The key security benefit that NATO provides to its members lies in the commitment under Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty.

‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.’

This is taken as the gold standard of security guarantees, which is why Ukraine is so keen to become a member of the alliance. But there is no automaticity. ‘As it deems necessary’ is quite a get out. An individual state may deem it necessary to do nothing at all, and if that is the United States then that leaves a large hole in the collective defence. So vital is the US to every aspect of the alliance’s capability, including the integrated military command, that its absence could be crippling.

The combination of concerns about what Russia might do next should it find some way to defeat Ukraine and the prospect of a Trump victory in the November elections has added urgency to discussions of when and how Europeans should take more responsibility for their own defence. The European position would look a lot healthier if defence spending was much higher – closer to 3% than 2% (or in many cases 1.5%) of GDP. Given their combined wealth compared to Russia’s, it really should not be beyond them to match it in conventional forces.

Extended Deterrence

But there is another problem. The US has a massive nuclear arsenal, there to deter any aggression against NATO countries but especially nuclear attack. The credibility of this deterrent has been questioned ever since it was first extended to Europe in the 1950s, at least as soon as Russia (then Soviet Union) had the intercontinental capability to retaliate in kind.

The problem was normally put as ‘Would a president put New York and Chicago at risk for Berlin or Paris?’ Many US policymakers have answered probably not, although usually in the context of arguing for a boost to conventional defences to reduce NATO’s dependence on nuclear threats. This is Robert McNamara, US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1967 in an interview for a TV documentary long after he had retired:

‘in 1962 with President Kennedy and later perhaps in '64 with President Johnson -I had long discussions with each President and said in effect that I didn't believe there was any circumstance without any qualification what so ever, in which we should ever initiate the use of nuclear weapons. Now that was contrary to the NATO strategy which we had proposed for flexible response, not yet accepted by NATO. But even in the strategy we proposed, there were certain circumstances -- those that I call circumstances of last resort -- in which the use of...the initiation of the use of nuclear weapons was called for. But I was saying to the Presidents that even in those circumstances, I cannot conceive of a situation in which it would be in the interest of NATO for you to authorize initiating the use of nuclear weapons. And without qualification, I recommend against this.

Now this was not saying that there would be no response in the event of first use by the Soviet Union/Russia but the sentiment was clear.

The declaratory policy did not change. The readiness to use nuclear weapons on behalf of allies stayed official policy. This is what NATO’s 2022 Strategic concept says:

‘The fundamental purpose of NATO’s nuclear capability is to preserve peace, prevent coercion and deter aggression. Nuclear weapons are unique. The circumstances in which NATO might have to use nuclear weapons are extremely remote. Any employment of nuclear weapons against NATO would fundamentally alter the nature of a conflict. The Alliance has the capabilities and resolve to impose costs on an adversary that would be unacceptable and far outweigh the benefits that any adversary could hope to achieve.’

Note that this keeps the focus on an adversary using the weapons first but does not preclude taking the nuclear initiative.

Whether or not the US would ever put itself at nuclear risk even after allies had been attacked can only be a matter of speculation, but the possibility that it might is important and has a deterrent effect. Because of the catastrophic consequences of miscalculation, deterrence depends on an adversary accepting the possibility, which might be quite small, that the US President would authorise nuclear use. It does not depend on certainty. As former UK Defence Minister Denis Healey (1964-70) explained, it

‘only takes a 5 percent credibility of American retaliation to deter an attack, but it takes a 95 percent credibility to reassure the allies.’

Yet whatever the doubts of allies they really have had no alternative but to profess their confidence in the US nuclear guarantee. This is an issue not just in Europe but also in East Asia – Japan, South Korea, Australia all rely on the same guarantee. They are all anticipating a Trump presidency with the same apprehension. For now they are all signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. If they could no longer rely on the US then they could abandon the Treaty and embark on their own nuclear programmes. Some would find this easier than others but for all it would be expensive and take time. It would mean moving to a world of few nuclear states to one of many. Recent proliferation has been confined to antagonists of the West - North Korea with Iran not too far away. More western states might join the mix if they no longer felt that they could shelter under the US nuclear umbrella.

So for now there are still only two other nuclear powers in NATO, the UK and France. This is what NATO’s strategic concept says about their role;

The strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States, are the supreme guarantee of the security of the Alliance. The independent strategic nuclear forces of the United Kingdom and France have a deterrent role of their own and contribute significantly to the overall security of the Alliance. These Allies’ separate centres of decision-making contribute to deterrence by complicating the calculations of potential adversaries.

This language gets tweaked occasionally but the same words have now been used for decades. The basic formulation can be traced to the 1974 ‘Ottawa declaration.’ The idea of the ‘separate centres of decision-making’ goes back to the late 1950s when the French were seeking a rationale for developing their own weapons without casting doubt on the deterrent effect of the American arsenal (although eventually under President Charles de Gaulle they did just that). The answer was to express confidence in the Americans but worry that this might not be shared by the Soviets. Even if Moscow was prepared to dismiss the Americans could they really be sure of dismissing the British and French as well? They would have to make the correct call on all three capitals.

This was not a particularly compelling concept. Its advantage was that it avoided justifying an independent national force on the grounds that the American could not be trusted, even if that was the underlying motive. This was a time when the Americans were hostile to more nuclear powers as complicating crisis management. McNamara was quite damning in July 1962:

‘limited nuclear capabilities, operating independently, are dangerous, expensive, prone to obsolescence, and lacking in credibility as a deterrent. Clearly, the United States nuclear contribution to the Alliance is neither obsolete nor dispensable.’

Attitudes like this convinced the French that their force must be independent of the United States in all its aspects. That remains its position. While it is happy to be described as having a ‘deterrent effect’ for the rest of NATO, it does not participate in NATO’s nuclear planning mechanisms and its forces are not formally assigned to NATO. President Macron has described it as strengthening the “Alliance’s nuclear culture”.

The UK nuclear commitment to NATO

Suspicions in the UK government that McNamara’s July 1962 speech were also directed at them seemed to be confirmed when not long after the US cancelled the Skybolt air-to-ground missile that the UK planned to fit on RAF V-bombers for its nuclear strike force. In a hurriedly convened summit in Nassau, President Kennedy met Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and agreed to sell the UK Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles, carrying British warheads and deployed on British nuclear submarines. In this the US did the UK a favour because it made it much easier for it to sustain a nuclear force thereafter. Submarine-delivered weapons are far less vulnerable to preemption than air-delivered. The structure of the UK nuclear force still follows the lines set in 1962.

This is also the case with its NATO commitment. Under the Polaris Sales Agreement the UK submarines equipped with the Polaris missile would ‘… be used for the purposes of international defence of the Western Alliance in all circumstances.’ But as always there was a get out. Macmillan added the clause …except where Her Majesty’s Government may decide that supreme national interests are at stake.’ One is left trying to imagine circumstances involve nuclear use when supreme national interests are not at stake. Nonetheless, unlike France, the UK participates actively in NATO’s nuclear planning.

The Economist has described as the ‘most sensitive issue’ following a US withdrawal as ‘how Europe’s two nuclear-weapons states, Britain and France, can provide greater deterrence for European allies in the absence of an American nuclear umbrella.’ In the past when the issue of a more European-based security guarantee has come up these countries have issued a strong preference for the United States as their main protector. Whatever else they get instead will be seen as second-best, not even as understudies that had long prepared to take a leading role but only as bit-part players awkwardly thrust into the spotlight.

Both will think that past investments in their nuclear capabilities are vindicated in terms of their own national security. Russia would think twice before taking on either (although Russian propagandists do seem to have a thing about Britain). Neither of them however are obvious candidates for the first wave of a Russian invasion. The countries neighbouring Russia are the most obviously vulnerable and so the issue would still be the readiness to step up when they might otherwise hope to escape the worst of a new war.

In November 2010, along with other measures to encourage more cooperation in the defence field, Prime Minister David Cameron and President Nicholas Sarkozy signed an agreement on nuclear cooperation,. The opening paras in the preamble stated:

‘Mindful of their common defence interests and of the importance of nuclear deterrence, a core element of their national and Allied defence strategies, and bearing in mind that they do not see situations arising in which the vital interests of either Party could be threatened without the vital interests of the other also being threatened, ‘

‘Being determined to maintain only a minimum credible nuclear capability, consistent with the strategic and security context of their commitments under ARTICLE 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, done at Washington on 4 April 19491, and considering that their nuclear forces contribute to Europe’s security as a whole,’

They agreed to cooperate on a) safety and security of nuclear weapons; b) stockpile certification; and c) countering nuclear or radiological terrorism. They also agreed to build ‘jointly dedicated radiographic and hydrodynamics facilities.’

Last May a Franco-British summit reaffirmed the intent of the 2010 agreements and added a ‘Joint Nuclear Commission’ to serve ‘as the principal forum for bilateral discussion and the elaboration of common positions where possible, on nuclear deterrence, non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament issues.’ Getting the two countries positions aligned has never been simple but there is now more urgency to this cooperation.

When the size of the UK and French arsenals is compared with the US and Russia they appear quite puny. Russia has 5,889 warheads to the US’s 5,244. When it was announced in 2021 that the UK numbers were going up from 180 to no more than 260 there was some tut-tutting in the disarmament community. France reportedly has around 300. But enormous destruction can still be caused with only a few nuclear weapons. The eight ballistic missiles with five warheads (the load of one of the Dreadnought Class submarines currently under order for the UK) could still cause massive devastation in Russia. Despite claims about advances in anti-submarine warfare Russia could not be sure of finding the submarines to stop them firing their missiles.

As Bruno Tertrais observes in a thorough assessment of the issue, in which he argues against a ‘Euro-bomb’ (or anything which involved shared decision-making and in favour of both London and Paris confirming their wider European role,

a smaller arsenal can deter a major power provided it has the ability to inflict damage seen as unacceptable by the other party. … Most importantly, again, deterrence exercised by a European power might be seen as more credible than when it is exercised by a distant protector.

Over time if military cooperation between the US and UK actually stopped, with the US refusing to honour its contracts, the British would have problems sustaining their capabilities after about six months (and that would be only one of many problems faced by the UK: both the RN and RAF would face experience severe difficulties). But even Trump would find that an extreme move. And so long as everything is in working order then contrary to what is often supposed, the US could not stop the launch of UK missiles.

Preparing for the Worst

All of these issues have been addressed before. This is not the first time that Europe has feared being abandoned by the US, although Trump is the first prospective president to be quite so explicit about his desire to cut loose from his allies. What should be the response now?

First, Biden is still the president and he, or another Democrat, may well be for the coming years. It would be unwise to get so preoccupied with the prospect of a Trump presidency that current patterns of cooperation are damaged.

Second, even if he does become president, Trump is never wholly predictable – it is hard to know how he would react if he felt Putin was deliberately making him look weak and foolish. Putin has stated a preference for Biden as ‘more experienced, predictable, an old-school politician’, something of a doubled-edged endorsement, while also observing that Trump was right to question NATO.

Assuming that he does not find a way to make himself president for life, another Trump term could still be a blip rather than a long-term change. It could make for some alarming moments in crisis management and transatlantic cooperation but as with his first term the long-term effects may be less than supposed. He will still face inertia from the ‘deep state’, and especially the armed forces who get many of their roles and missions from their alliance obligations. Against this Trump may be less concerned when making key appointments with demonstrating respectability as he was in 2017 and more concerned with finding individuals who share his prejudices.

Third, there is a consensus across the US national security establishment that Europe should do more for its own defence. Russia is now a highly militarised state that will remain on a war footing for some time. Europe needs to invest for the long term, taking into account the hard lessons from the Russo-Ukraine War, and finding ways to be far more efficient with their spending.

Fourth, the UK and France do not need to make any new declarations about their commitment to European security. Those they have made suffice although some reaffirmation might be helpful. The issue, as with the US, is how much these commitments can be relied upon. It is never helpful to get into elaborate scenarios about the circumstances in which nuclear weapons will be used. As noted earlier, deterrence does not depend on certainty but possibility that should the moment come the weapons might be launched.

Fifth, with their smaller arsenals they may still be assumed to offer less deterrence, and not a lot can be done to change that. But the two countries need to show that they take the issue seriously. The UK might need to wean itself away from dependence on US cooperation (although this will neither be simple nor quick). But it can enhance cooperation with France.

Sixth, European countries should keep in mind that the first line of deterrence lies in conventional capabilities and demonstrated resilience.

Hopefully Trump will not get a second term and a transatlantic crisis can be avoided. Even without Trump, this will remain the most challenging period for European security since the early 1960s, and the belief that the Europeans should do more for their own security is not unique to Trump. As I argued in my previous post governments need to find ways of talking about these issues without descending into panic or complacency, but the seriousness of the situation must be acknowledged.

22. ICJ Declines Application But Says Israel 'Duty Bound' to Protect Civilians

ICJ Declines Application But Says Israel 'Duty Bound' to Protect Civilians

ipsnews.net · by Cecilia Russell · February 18, 2024

South Africa vs Israel: ICJ Reclines SA’s New Application But Says Israel Duty Bound to Protect Civilians

By Reprint | | |

The International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the UN, holds public hearings on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case South Africa v. Israel on 11 and 12, 2024, at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court. Credit: ICJ

JOHANNESBURG, Feb 18 2024 (IPS) - The International Court of Justice has declined the South African government’s urgent application for further measures to prevent an “unprecedented military offensive against Rafah,” but reiterated that Israel is bound to protect civilians in the country.

South Africa argued in an urgent application that this military offensive “announced by the State of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large-scale killing, harm, and destruction in serious and irreparable breach both of the Genocide Convention” and of the Court’s Order of January 26, 2024.

In a letter to South Africa and the State of Israel, the court noted it’s concern about the recent developments in the Gaza Strip and in Rafah, saying that the military developments “‘would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences,” as stated by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

However, while this situation demanded the immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measure indicated by the court in January, the new developments did not require additional measures.

“The Court emphasizes that the State of Israel remains bound to fully comply with its obligations under the Genocide Convention and with the said Order, including by ensuring the safety and security of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

In its application, South Africa noted that:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF and security establishment to submit a plan to evacuate Rafah and destroy the four Hamas battalions in the area.

Rafah, normally home to 280,000 Palestinians, currently houses—primarily in makeshift tents—more than half of Gaza’s population, estimated at approximately 1.4 million people, approximately half of them children, who had fled to the city from homes and areas largely destroyed by Israel.

The International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Special Rapporteur had also expressed concern about the conditions and the threat of evacation, and military offensives, with UNICEF urgently highlighting the “need” for “Gaza’s last remaining hospitals, shelters, markets and water systems”—which are in Rafah—”to stay functional”, underscoring that “[w]ithout them, hunger and disease will skyrocket, taking more child lives

Israel argued in response that South Africa’s request was an attempt to relitigate “through a truncated process in which it alarmingly sought to deprive Israel of the right to be heard.”

Instead of a “significant development” in Gaza, South Africa’s request was in fact based on an “outrageous distortion” and was the “depiction of a limited operation on the night of 11 February 2024, which was directed at military targets and enabled the release of two Israeli hostages—Fernando Merman, aged 60, and Luis Har, aged 70—from over four months in captivity as an ‘unprecedented military offensive’.”

It also accused South Africa of neglecting to inform the court that “Hamas continues to demonstrate its contempt for the law, including by refusing to release the hostages immediately and unconditionally. Nor is there any mention made of ongoing negotiation efforts by relevant stakeholders, currently underway, to pursue a release of the hostages that may create conditions for a humanitarian pause in the hostilities.”

The Court in January had ruled that Israel should, in accordance with the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention, in particular: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

This includes ensuring its military doesn’t commit any of the acts and directing Israel to use measures to punish direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

It was also told to take immediate and effective measures to enable both basic services and humanitarian assistance, preserve evidence related to the allegations of genocide and submit a report to the court on the measures taken to give effect to the order.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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IPS UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, Nigeria, South Africa, Israel, Palestinians, Gaza

ipsnews.net · by Cecilia Russell · February 18, 2024

23. Iran, wary of wider war, urges its proxies to avoid provoking U.S.

Does this come with a wink and nod to those proxies?

Iran, wary of wider war, urges its proxies to avoid provoking U.S.

By Susannah George, Dan Lamothe, Suzan Haidamous and Mustafa Salim

February 18, 2024 at 1:00 a.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Susannah George · February 18, 2024

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran, eager to disrupt U.S. and Israeli interests in the Middle East but wary of provoking a direct confrontation, is privately urging Hezbollah and other armed groups to exercise restraint against U.S. forces, according to officials in the region.

Israel’s brutal war on Hamas in Gaza has stoked conflict between the United States and Iran’s proxy forces on multiple fronts. With no cease-fire in sight, Iran could face the most significant test yet of its ability to exert influence over these allied militias.

When U.S. forces launched strikes this month on Iran-backed groups in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, Tehran publicly warned that its military was ready to respond to any threat. But in private, senior leaders are urging caution, according to Lebanese and Iraqi officials who were briefed on the talks. They spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive conversations.

Israel-Gaza war

(Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images)

Footage and satellite imagery show that Egypt is clearing off, and building a wall around a plot of land along its border with the Gaza Strip, amid fears of an Israeli offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

For context: Understand what’s behind the Israel-Gaza war.

End of carousel

U.S. officials say the message might be having some effect. As of Saturday, Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria hadn’t attacked U.S. forces in more than 13 days, an unusual lull since the war in Gaza began in October. The militants held their fire even after a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad killed a senior Kataib Hezbollah official.

“Iran may have realized their interests are not served by allowing their proxies unrestricted ability to attack U.S. and coalition forces,” one U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

The Biden administration has taken a similarly cautious approach with Iran. In launching dozens of strikes Feb. 2 — retaliation for a drone strike last month that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan — U.S. forces targeted Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria but did not strike inside Iran.

U.S. diplomats, meanwhile, are pressuring Israel and Hamas to agree on a cease-fire in Gaza. During the negotiated pause in the fighting in November, attacks by Iran-backed groups dropped across the region.

To emphasize the new directive, Iran has dispatched military leaders and diplomats across the region to meet with local officials and militia members.

“Iran is doing its utmost to prevent the expansion of the war and the escalation from reaching the point of no return,” said an Iraqi official with close ties to Iranian-backed forces there.

Days after Kataib Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack that killed the three U.S. Army reservists, an Iranian military commander landed in Baghdad last month to meet with the group’s leaders. The commander pressured it to issue a statement suspending attacks on U.S. targets.

The leaders were unhappy with the suspension, the Iraqi official said, but acceded to the request of the country that has trained and armed their forces.

Still, the exchange might also have demonstrated the limits of Tehran’s influence: After the U.S. strikes, the group reversed itself, pledging “painful strikes and broad attacks.”

It’s been a balancing act for Iran since Oct. 7, when Hamas’s surprise attack on Israeli communities near Gaza triggered the war there.

The Iran-backed groups form the self-styled “axis of resistance,” a loose alliance of armed militias that includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria. Tehran uses them to spread its influence across the region and serve as a forward line of defense against the United States and Israel.

Though they’re funded and trained by Iran, the groups operate independently and outside Tehran’s formal security apparatus. The arrangement has allowed them to advance Iranian policy aims while insulating Tehran from direct responsibility — and possible retaliation — for their actions.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian praised the groups during a recent visit to Lebanon and promised continued support. He told reporters in Beirut that Israel sought “to drown the United States in the swamp of war in the Middle East.”

But in private, Iranian emissaries have adopted a more measured tone. They’ve praised Hezbollah’s sacrifices but cautioned that war with Israel would risk precious gains in the region.

Iranian officials met with members of Hezbollah this month in Lebanon. One Hezbollah member summarized Tehran’s message: We are not keen on giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu any reason to launch a wider war on Lebanon or anywhere else.

The axis of resistance, the Iranian officials told the Hezbollah leaders, is winning. The war in Gaza has shifted the world’s focus back on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and complicated plans for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to normalize ties with Israel.

But those gains could be lost, the officials warned, if Israel opens another front in Lebanon. The Hezbollah member summarized the message: Netanyahu is squeezed in the corner now. Don’t give him a way out. Let us not give him the benefit of launching a wider war because this would make him a winner.

In Iraq, the message was slightly different. Renewed conflict in Iraq, the Iranian officials said, risked upsetting momentum behind talks on a U.S. military withdrawal from the country, according to the Iraqi official. Iran has long sought to push U.S. forces out of the region; Tehran would view a pullout from Iraq as a major victory.

U.S. officials have expressed openness to withdrawing some forces from Iraq but privately add that the Iraqi government appears concerned about a full withdrawal and seems to want continued help countering the remnants of the Islamic State.

The Iranian campaign appears to have been effective. While there are near daily deadly attacks across Israel’s border with Lebanon, Hezbollah’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, has stopped short of declaring war. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have refrained from launching attacks since Feb. 4, despite the U.S. strike Feb. 7 that killed senior Kataib Hezbollah official Abu Baqir al-Saedi.

Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday that U.S. forces retain the right to self-defense if they are threatened or attacked.

Asked if the militia attacks were over, he declined to speculate.

“We’ll see,” he said. “I don’t want to predict the future. We’re staying focused on the mission we were sent there to do.”

One Iran-backed group has given no indication of standing down. The Houthis in Yemen have disrupted global trade by harassing commercial shipping through the Red Sea, a key link between Asia, Europe and the Americas to protest the Israeli campaign in Gaza.

They’ve launched at least 48 attacks since November, according to U.S. defense officials, including missile strikes, attack drones and uncrewed boats lade with explosives. The attacks have prompted shipping companies to avoid the area, adding time and money to costs.

The Houthis launched two missiles into the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on Monday and an anti-ship ballistic missile into the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday. On Thursday, an anti-ship ballistic missile launched from Houthi territory struck the cargo ship M/V Lycavitos, causing minor damage, U.S. military officials said.

U.S. forces have maintained a steady drumbeat of strikes on Houthi targets. Defense officials have cast them as self-defense, often against weapons that were staged to be launched.

The longer the war in Gaza continues, the more difficult it could become for Iran and the United States to avoid escalation.

“Certainly, I welcome the fact that attacks have seemed to have stopped,” said Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, a retired Marine Corps general who oversaw U.S. operations across the Middle East as chief of U.S. Central Command from 2019 to 2022.

“But we know from hard experience that setting deterrence in the Middle East is something that has to be constantly revisited and refreshed,” he said. “Organizations have a short memory in the Middle East for things like this.”

He questioned whether the United States might have forestalled some of the attacks if it had responded sooner and more forcefully to them.

Even if Tehran has directed its proxies to stand down, he said: “It doesn’t mean they control every one.”

“There’s always going to be some guy that doesn’t get the word.”

The Washington Post · by Susannah George · February 18, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

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

Access NSS HERE

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