Quotes of the Day:

"Have more than you show, Speak less than you know."

-William Shakepeare

"An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself."

- Albert Camus

"There is only one way to happiness. Stop worrying about things you cannot control."

- Epictetus

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 20, 2023

2. Rattled by China, U.S. and allies are beefing up defenses in the Pacific

3. Cloak-and-dagger moves allow Biden to sneak into Ukraine’s war zone

4. Is Pentagon planning up to the job for great power competition?

5. Managing Risk for Special Operations Forces in Large-Scale Combat Operations

6. Putin says Russia will suspend role in New START nuclear accord with U.S.

7. Special Operations News Update - Feb 21, 2023 | SOF News

8. The Persistence of Great-Power Politics

9. The Dollar Still Dominates

10. Biden 'photo op' in Kyiv not enough, US must send more lethal aid: top foreign affairs Republicans

11. China, Russia and the U.S. ‘Red Line’ on Ukraine

12. Taiwan is bolstering military exchanges with U.S., President Tsai says

13. Power-Grid Attacks Surge and Are Likely to Continue, Study Finds

14. AI-wielding tech firms are giving a new shape to modern warfare

15. In Northern Ukraine, a Different Sort of War Game

16. Opinion | They said tanks were obsolete. Now, Ukraine can’t get enough of them.

17. Of Strategy and Schnitzel: Munich Security Conference 2023

18. Biden Just Destroyed Putin’s Last Hope

19. Biden’s Military-First Posture in the East Is a Problem

20. U.S. must field space-based kill capabilities to deter enemies

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-20-2023

Key Takeaways

• US President Joe Biden visited Kyiv on February 20 ahead of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine signaling continued US commitment to supporting Ukraine in its efforts to liberate its territory.
• Ukrainian officials continue to respond to statements made by unspecified US defense officials on the pace and prospects of the war as it approaches the one-year mark.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced the formal integration of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics’ (DNR/LNR) militias into the Russian Armed Forces on February 19 in response to growing criticism about reported command changes within the proxy units.
• The decision to reorganize the DNR and LNR militias amidst an ongoing offensive likely indicates that the Russian MoD does not understand the scale of the challenges of integrating irregular forces into a professional military during intensive combat operations.
• The restructuring of proxy militias suggests that the Russian military command is trying to achieve all its desired reforms while the Russian MoD has the favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• The Russian military command has likely cut off Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s independent access to artillery shells and heavy weaponry as part of the effort to professionalize the Russian conventional forces.
• Prigozhin may have misrepresented the devastating impact of the lack of artillery ammunition on Wagner to mask his true frustrations with Wagner’s inability to have and operate its own artillery systems.
• Chechen Republic head Kadyrov likely attempted to assuage Prigozhin’s possible anger at Kadyrov’s likely refusal to join Prigozhin’s informational campaign against the Russian MoD.
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the US government is concerned about China’s possible consideration of sending lethal aid to Russia.
• The Russian MoD likely responded to a call for the Russian military to systematically target electrical infrastructure supporting Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs) by setting possible informational conditions for strikes aimed at forcing emergency shutdowns at these NPPs.
• Russian forces continued ground assaults along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut as well as in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area and western Donetsk Oblast.
• Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces continue to militarize the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
• Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces may be struggling to repair air defense systems deployed in Ukraine.
• Russian occupation authorities are using an "anti-terrorist" commission to justify seizing and nationalizing assets in occupied Crimea for economic and military benefit.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 20, 2023

Feb 20, 2023 - Press ISW

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understandingwar.org

Riley Bailey, Kateryna Stepanenko, Karolina Hird, Nicole Wolkov, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan

February 20, 8:45 pm 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.

US President Joe Biden visited Kyiv on February 20 ahead of the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and announced that the US will provide an additional $500 million in military assistance to Ukraine, including howitzer shells, anti-tank missiles, air surveillance radars, and other aid.[1] US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that the Biden administration notified Moscow of Biden’s visit shortly before his departure for Ukraine for "deconfliction purposes."[2] Biden’s visit and the timing of his trip to Europe clearly signal continued Western support for Ukraine following concerted Russian efforts to deter Western military aid and political support.

Ukrainian officials continue to respond to statements made by unspecified US defense officials on the pace and prospects of the war as it approaches the one-year mark. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on February 20 that Ukraine will continue to defend Bakhmut but "not at any cost."[3] Zelensky and Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov also emphasized that Ukrainian troops are continuing to prepare for counteroffensives in the near term.[4] Zelensky and Reznikov’s statements are likely direct responses to unspecified US defense officials, who reportedly told the Washington Post on February 14 that the United States is concerned about Ukraine’s ability to defend Bakhmut while also pursuing counteroffensive operations.[5] ISW continues to assess that Ukraine’s decision to defend Bakhmut is a strategically sound effort to pin Russian forces in a discrete area of the front and attrit them, Zelensky likely tempered his administration’s stance on Bakhmut to make a limited rhetorical concession to US officials.[6] It has long been clear that Ukraine would not continue to defend Bakhmut at the risk of seeing large numbers of Ukrainian troops encircled in the city, so Zelensky’s comment is not likely a real change in Kyiv’s strategy.

Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence member Fedir Venislavskyi notably stated on February 19 that Russia has "all combat-ready units on the line of contact In Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, and partly in Zaporizhia Oblast," reaffirming the assessment that Russia does not have a large uncommitted combat ready reserves that can be deployed and change the course of operations.[7] These Ukrainian statements are consistent with ISW’s assessment that Ukraine has the capacity to regain the initiative in 2023 with sufficient and timely Western backing.[8]

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed the formal integration of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics’ (DNR/LNR) militias into the Russian Armed Forces on February 19 in response to growing criticism about reported command changes within the proxy units. The Russian MoD denied reports about the alleged dismissal of officers of the integrated DNR and LNR’s 1st and 2nd Army Corps, likely in response to widespread milblogger and proxy criticisms about the reported dismissal of DNR Militia Spokesman Eduard Basurin on February 17.[9] Basurin discussed his dismissal in a publicized meeting with Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin on February 19 in which he stated that such command changes will "harm" proxy commanders and servicemen.[10] Basurin noted that servicemen in occupied Donetsk Oblast trust their commanders and would be demoralized if those commanders were replaced by people they did not know. Basurin stated that it is important to warn about ongoing command changes and questioned who would be defending Russia if the newly integrated proxy units refuse to fight as a result of the Russian professionalization effort.

The decision to reorganize the DNR and LNR militias amid an ongoing offensive likely indicates that the Russian MoD does not fully grasp the scale of the underlying challenges of integrating irregular forces into the professional military, especially during a period of intense combat operations. The DNR and LNR forces are currently fighting in Donbas in support of Russia’s goal to reach the administrative borders of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and such untimely restructuring of the command structure may reduce cohesion within the proxy units and between them and Russian forces. Russian forces have suffered from their own shortcomings in unit cohesion and will likely face greater tensions with the proxy militias that were not trained to professional standards. Proxy elements have also repeatedly complained about receiving unequal treatment from the Kremlin, and Russian mobilized servicemen have recently accused the DNR and LNR formations of abuse and discrimination in turn.[11] This reorganization may upset and demoralize proxy elements that have enjoyed a great deal of independence as irregular militants for nine years and may risk alienating them amidst the offensive for Donbas. Russia needs DNR and LNR units—which have not been historically effective forces—to maintain positions in western Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as conventional Russian troops pursue an offensive on select frontlines in eastern Ukraine.

The restructuring of proxy militias also suggests that the Russian military command is trying to achieve all desired reforms while the Russian MoD has the favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian military command may recognize that Russia does not have the combat capability to reach the administrative borders of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the short term and is likely trying to rush through some planned reforms before Putin again becomes disillusioned with the Russian MoD’s inability to secure meaningful advances. The Russian military command may alternatively be deluded about its ability to rapidly and seamlessly complete professionalization objectives to aid the ongoing offensive and may not perceive the problems inherent in conducting a significant military reform while pursuing difficult offensive operations. The Russian MoD has been trying to simultaneously professionalize different aspects of Russian forces by targeting Wagner’s influence, integrating mobilized servicemen into proxy and conventional formations, and introducing personal grooming standards and operational security procedures.[12] These efforts would be logical if Russia had initiated them during peacetime but are a bureaucratic burden that will likely generate further discontent toward the already heavily scrutinized Russian MoD. The Russian military command is embarking on too many drastic changes that will either require time or will cause significant tensions that will hinder their full execution even as it orders its forces to conduct extremely challenging military operations that are likely beyond their capabilities in any event.

The Russian military command has likely cut off Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s independent access to artillery shells and heavy weaponry as part of the effort to professionalize Russian conventional forces. Prigozhin stated on February 20 that the Russian military command had stopped providing artillery shells to Wagner as a result of his "complicated relationships" with unspecified but likely Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) officials.[13] Prigozhin claimed that Wagner has "complete shell hunger" as a result of Russian military officials ignoring his demands and introducing new limitations and restrictions on his ammunition procurement. Prigozhin claimed that Wagner servicemen are experiencing twice the number of casualties (without specifying the comparandum) because they are unable to suppress Ukrainian artillery fire and noted that Wagner had sufficient ammunition during the tenure of former Commander of the Russian Joint Grouping of Forces in Ukraine, Army General Sergey Surovikin. Prigozhin denied rumors of having a personal relationship with Surovikin, but noted that he used to meet up with and call Surovikin when he visited the frontlines. Prigozhin also noted that Wagner had been receiving some weapons from unnamed generals and officers who had violated the military code to help him. The Russian MoD has also reportedly cut off Prigozhin’s ability to recruit prisoners and train at select training grounds belonging to the Russian Armed Forces.[14] A milblogger observed that Prigozhin was repeating the experience of former Russian officer Igor Girkin, who led proxy units in Donbas in 2014, claiming that the Russian MoD had also cut off Girkin’s access to reinforcements and supplies while blaming him for losing ground in Slovyansk.[15]

Prigozhin’s appeal may have misrepresented the devastating impact of the lack of artillery ammunition on Wagner to mask his true frustrations with Wagner’s inability to have and operate its own artillery systems independent of conventional Russian units. Prigozhin demanded that the Russian military leadership set aside its principles and save Wagner servicemen by providing shells. It is unlikely that Wagner is operating in the Bakhmut direction completely without artillery support, however. Wagner is likely receiving artillery support from the conventional Russian forces that have been supporting Wagner operations in the area since the Wagner offensive culminated.[16] The Russian military command may have stripped Wagner’s privileges to independently use its own artillery systems, which Prigozhin sought to portray as disregard for Wagner servicemen’s lives. Prigozhin’s rhetoric was partially successful as some prominent milbloggers expressed solidarity with Wagner—even stating that those who boycott Prigozhin are boycotting Russian President Vladimir Putin.[17] Others complained that paramilitaries should not be allowed to replace conventional forces.[18] Prigozhin’s appeal further indicates that Wagner is dependent on the provision of heavy weapons and ammunition by the Russian MoD, and further confirms that Wagner is not the sole force operating around Bakhmut given the ongoing artillery fire in the area.

Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov likely publicized a meeting he had with Prigozhin on an unspecified date in order to assuage Prigozhin’s possible anger at Kadyrov’s likely refusal to join Prigozhin’s informational campaign against the Russian MoD. Kadyrov posted a picture on February 19 showing him meeting with Prigozhin on an unspecified date and applauded the Wagner Group for its success and work in Ukraine.[19] Kadyrov’s endorsement of Prigozhin and the Wagner Group followed Kadyrov‘s equally effusive endorsement of the Russian MoD on February 18, suggesting that Kadyrov is likely trying to maintain his relationships with the MoD and the Kremlin without incurring Prigozhin’s criticism. [20] Kadyrov did not state that he intends to form a paramilitary company in an unspecified timeframe, as some Western reporting of his comments suggested. Kadyrov rhetorically commented that he might compete with Prigozhin’s Wagner Group one day following the completion of his work in the civil service as Chechen Republic head.[21] Kadyrov has governed the Chechen Republic as its dictator since 2007 and is unlikely to leave his position there any time soon unless he improbably receives a promotion of some sort—certainly not by choice. His observation about "competing" with Wagner was thus likely meant as a compliment to Prigozhin rather than a statement of Kadyrov’s own intentions. Kadyrov already effectively has his own paramilitary structure in the form of the Chechen combat units that he raises and over which he appears to retain some command and control.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US government is concerned that China is considering providing lethal aid to Russia. Blinken stated in an interview with CBS News on February 19 that he told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference that Chinese lethal support to Russia would have "serious consequences" for US-Chinese relations.[22] The US Treasury and State Department have sanctioned Chinese Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute Company (Spacety China) for providing satellite imagery of Ukraine to Wagner.[23]

The Russian MoD likely responded to a call for the Russian military to systematically target electrical infrastructure supporting Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs) by setting possible informational conditions for strikes aimed at forcing emergency shutdowns at these NPPs. The Russian MoD falsely claimed on February 19th that Ukrainian officials are planning false-flag attacks at hazardous radiation facilities in Ukraine to accuse Russian forces of conducting indiscriminate strikes on these facilities in violation of the Convention on Nuclear Safety ahead of the 11th emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly on February 22.[24] A prominent Russian news aggregator recently called on the Russian military to systematically target electrical substations external to Ukrainian NPPs in order to force Ukrainian officials to conduct emergency shutdowns at the plants.[25] The Russian MoD may be starting an information operation aimed at setting informational conditions for conducting such strikes and the potential radiological incidents that could result from systematically depriving the facilities of energy. The attacks advocated by the Russian news aggregator would not likely generate radiological incidents, but attacking anywhere near nuclear power plants always carries some risk of such incidents. Previous Russian strikes against critical infrastructure facilities in Ukraine do not suggest that Russian forces are systematically targeting electrical infrastructure specifically associated with NPPs at this time, however. The Russian MoD’s statement may also be attempting to set informational conditions for a potential radiological incident at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in light of reports that Russia’s draining of the Kakhovka Reservoir may be putting the ZNPP’s cooling system in peril.[26]

Key Takeaways

• US President Joe Biden visited Kyiv on February 20 ahead of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine signaling continued US commitment to supporting Ukraine in its efforts to liberate its territory.
• Ukrainian officials continue to respond to statements made by unspecified US defense officials on the pace and prospects of the war as it approaches the one-year mark.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced the formal integration of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics’ (DNR/LNR) militias into the Russian Armed Forces on February 19 in response to growing criticism about reported command changes within the proxy units.
• The decision to reorganize the DNR and LNR militias amidst an ongoing offensive likely indicates that the Russian MoD does not understand the scale of the challenges of integrating irregular forces into a professional military during intensive combat operations.
• The restructuring of proxy militias suggests that the Russian military command is trying to achieve all its desired reforms while the Russian MoD has the favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• The Russian military command has likely cut off Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s independent access to artillery shells and heavy weaponry as part of the effort to professionalize the Russian conventional forces.
• Prigozhin may have misrepresented the devastating impact of the lack of artillery ammunition on Wagner to mask his true frustrations with Wagner’s inability to have and operate its own artillery systems.
• Chechen Republic head Kadyrov likely attempted to assuage Prigozhin’s possible anger at Kadyrov’s likely refusal to join Prigozhin’s informational campaign against the Russian MoD.
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the US government is concerned about China’s possible consideration of sending lethal aid to Russia.
• The Russian MoD likely responded to a call for the Russian military to systematically target electrical infrastructure supporting Ukrainian nuclear power plants (NPPs) by setting possible informational conditions for strikes aimed at forcing emergency shutdowns at these NPPs.
• Russian forces continued ground assaults along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations around Bakhmut as well as in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area and western Donetsk Oblast.
• Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces continue to militarize the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).
• Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces may be struggling to repair air defense systems deployed in Ukraine.
• Russian occupation authorities are using an "anti-terrorist" commission to justify seizing and nationalizing assets in occupied Crimea for economic and military benefit.

We do not report in detail on Russian war crimes because those 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 population and specifically on combat in Ukrainian urban areas. We utterly condemn these Russian violations of the laws of armed conflict, Geneva Conventions, and 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 Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied Areas

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1-Luhansk Oblast (Russian objective: Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and continue offensive operations into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and northern Donetsk Oblast)

Former Russian officer and prominent milblogger Igor Girkin claimed on February 19 that Russian forces crossed the border into Kharkiv Oblast from Russia (Russian troops already occupy part of Kharkiv from Luhansk Oblast) and occupied one or two unspecified border settlements.[27] Girkin claimed that skirmishes between Ukrainian and Russian forces along the border of Sumy Oblast intensified.[28] ISW has no independent confirmation that Russian forces have crossed the border into Kharkiv Oblast and seized settlements but has previously assessed that the threat of cross-border raids from Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk oblasts into northern and northeastern Ukraine is likely an attempt to force Ukraine to deploy limited elements to these areas to protect against such attacks, thus dispersing Ukrainian troops as Russian forces continue offensive operations elsewhere in the theater.[29] The Russian military does not have the combat power necessary to launch a new major assault from Ukraine’s northern borders at this time.

Russian forces continued ground assaults in the Kupyansk area northwest of Svatove on February 19 and 20. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled assaults on Hryanykivka (53km northwest of Svatove) and Masyutivka (51km northwest of Svatove).[30] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are conducting successful offensive operations in the Kupyansk direction despite their slow pace and that Ukrainian forces announced civilian evacuations in Kupyansk in anticipation of surrendering the settlement.[31] Russian milbloggers claimed on February 19 that Russian forces conducted positional battles on the Dvorichne-Hryanykivka line toward the Ukrainian bridgehead across the Oskil River.[32]

Russian forces continued ground assaults near Kreminna on February 19 and 20. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled assaults near Kreminna, Chervonopopivka (6km north of Kreminna) and Bilohorivka (10km south of Kreminna).[33] Geolocated footage posted on February 19 shows that Russian forces have made marginal advances near Torske, 15km west of Kreminna.[34] A Russian milblogger claimed on February 19 that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) comprise the main strike force near Kreminna.[35] It is unclear if VDV forces are reinforcing or relieving elements of the 144th Motorized Rifle Division (144th MRD) that have been engaged in decisive offensive operations on this axis since early January and may be at or near culmination. Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces on the Svatove-Kreminna line are conducting active defense and slowly advancing but are unable to break through Ukrainian lines.[36] A Russian source also claimed that Ukrainian forces sent reinforcements to Torske (14km west of Kreminna) in case elements of the 144th MRD resume an assault.[37] A milblogger claimed on February 20 that Russian forces tried to advance toward Bilohorivka and Makiivka (22km northwest of Kreminna), and attacked near Hryhorivka (10km south of Kreminna, Serebrianske forestry area) and Zarichne (17km west of Kreminna).[38]

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 continued ground attacks around Bakhmut and made incremental tactical gains between February 19 and 20. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian troops repelled Russian attacks near Bakhmut itself; north of Bakhmut near Vasyukivka (10km north), Dubovo-Vasylivka (8km north) Berkhivka (6km north); northeast of Bakhmut near Vyimka (22km northeast) and Fedorivka (15km northeast); and west of Bakhmut near Ivanviske (5km west) and Chasiv Yar (10km west).[39] Geolocated footage posted on February 19 shows Russian forces removing a Ukrainian flag from a building in Paraskoviivka (5km north of Bakhmut), confirming Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin’s February 17 claim that Wagner captured the settlement.[40] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) issued a statement on February 20 that "volunteers of assault detachments," paratroopers, and Southern Military District (SMD) units took Paraskoviivka, continuing the Russian MoD’s efforts to undermine Wagner’s role in securing gains around Bakhmut by calling the group "volunteers of assault detachments."[41] Additional geolocated footage posted on February 19 shows marginal Russian advances on the eastern and northeastern outskirts of Bakhmut.[42] Russian sources claimed that following the capture of Paraskoviivka, Wagner forces are attacking toward Berkhivka and Yahidne (on the northwestern outskirts of Bakhmut) in order to encircle the northern tip of Bakhmut.[43] Russian milbloggers additionally reported that Russian troops are advancing along certain streets in eastern and southwestern Bakhmut and trying to regain lost positions on the Chasiv Yar-Ivanivske line near the T0504 Kostyantynivka-Chasiv Yar-Bakhmut highway following a Ukrainian counterattack in the area.[44]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area on February 19 and 20. The Ukrainian General Staff did not confirm any ground attacks in this area on either February 19 or 20 but noted that Russian forces continued unspecified offensive actions in the Avdiivka direction.[45] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted limited ground attacks on the northwestern outskirts of Donetsk City on February 19 and cut a section of the N20 Donetsk City-Kramatorsk highway near Vesele, northeast of Avdiivka.[46] Russian milbloggers emphasized that the situation in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area is very difficult and has taken on a positional nature due to continued Ukrainian counterattacks and the pervasive exhaustion of troops of the Donetsk People‘s Republic (DNR).[47] Russian milbloggers continued to discuss purported Russian operations in the western part of Marinka on both February 19 and 20.[48]

Russian forces continued offensive operations in western Donetsk Oblast on February 19 and 20. The Ukrainian General Staff did not confirm any ground attacks southwest of Donetsk City in the Vuhledar area on either February 19 or 20 but noted that Russian troops continued unspecified offensive operations in this direction.[49] Geolocated footage posted on February 19 shows that troops of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade have reached certain settlements on the southern outskirts of Vuhledar, which is consistent with Russian milblogger claims that naval infantry elements are attacking towards the outskirts of Vuhledar from the direction of Mykilske, just southeast of Vuhledar.[50] Several milbloggers circulated footage on February 20 reportedly of Russian naval infantry elements storming a Ukrainian trench and engaging in small-arms fire at point-blank range near Vuhledar.[51] A Russian milblogger noted that the offensive in this area has "bogged down" despite active actions of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade and 338th Guards Rocket Artillery Brigade (Eastern Military District).[52] Several Russian sources emphasized the role of TOS-1A thermobaric artillery systems in supporting Russian operations in this sector.[53]

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

Russian sources reportedly conducted a limited ground attack in Zaporizhia Oblast on February 19. A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces conducted a localized offensive near Novodanylivka, Zaporizhia Oblast.[54] Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral advisor Petro Andryushchenko stated on February 20 that Russian forces are concentrating forces near Orikhiv and will likely deploy roughly 15 Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs) worth of personnel to the area by February 24.[55] Andryushchenko claimed that Russian forces are concentrating these forces in preparation for offensives from the direction of Robatyne (14km south of Orikhiv), Pyatikhatky (25km southwest of Orikhiv), and Novopokrivka (15km southeast of Orikhiv).[56] ISW has not observed Russian forces recently concentrating forces in the Orikhiv area.

Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces continue to militarize the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). Ukrainian state nuclear energy agency Energoatom reported on February 20 that Russian forces deployed more than 600 mobilized personnel and cadets to the ZNPP and are continuing to build fortifications and military facilities around the ZNPP’s dry spent nuclear fuel storage facility.[57] Energoatom also reported that Russian forces have stationed a machine-gun position on the roof of the fifth power unit at the ZNPP.[58] Russian forces may be increasing efforts to militarize the ZNPP to increase pressure on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in negations concerning the creation of a safety zone around the ZNPP, likely hoping to prompt the IAEA to concede on formally recognizing Russia’s control of the plant.

Ukrainian officials reported that Russian reconnaissance groups are decreasing their activity in the Dnipro River delta near Kherson City. Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Natalia Humenyuk reported on February 20 that Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups are continuing to unsuccessfully attempt to establish positions in the delta but that the overall pace of their activities is declining.[59] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces destroyed a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group attempting to land on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River in the direction of Dudchany, Kherson Oblast on February 18.[60]

Russian officials formally accused Ukrainian special services of conducting a terrorist attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge in Crimea on October 8, 2022. Russian Investigative Committee Head Alexander Bastrykin stated on February 19 that the committee's investigation into the October 8 explosion on the bridge proves that Ukrainian Special services planned and coordinated a terrorist attack.[61] Russian President Vladimir Putin used the explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge as a pretense to justify the start of Russia’s campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure, and the Kremlin may use the findings of this investigation as a pretense for future actions in Ukraine.[62]

Ukrainian officials reported that Ukrainian forces are continuing to target Russian logistics in southern Ukraine. Humenyuk reported on February 20 that Ukrainian forces are continuing to target Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to inhibit logistical capacity in southern Ukraine.[63] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on February 20 that Ukrainian Special Operations Forces elements actively use drones to strike Russian logistics on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River near Kherson City.[64]

Russian forces continued routine fire west of Hulyaipole and in Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, and Kherson oblasts on February 19 and 20.[65] Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces struck Kerson City, Ochakiv, Mykolaiv Oblast, and Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.[66] Humenyuk reported that Russian forces have increased their shelling of Kherson Oblast as well as in the area of the Kinburn Spit in Mykolaiv Oblast over the past week.[67] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported on February 20 that Russian forces used incendiary and phosphorous munitions while shelling settlements on the west (right) bank in Kherson Oblast.[68] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces shelled Hola Prystan, on the east (left) bank of the Dnipro River, on February 19 as part of an ongoing effort to accuse Ukrainian forces of striking civilian targets in occupied areas and engender anti-Ukrainian sentiment amongst residents.[69]

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

Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces may be struggling to repair air defense systems deployed in Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff reported on February 19 that Russian forces are unable to conduct routine maintenance of S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems due to difficulties in delivering components and conducting repairs under combat conditions.[70] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces withdrew some S-300 systems from deployment points in Ukraine and have transferred them to repair facilities in Russia.[71] The reported transfer of the S-300 systems suggests that Russian forces have used these systems so heavily that maintenance capabilities at lower echelons are inadequate to repair them. The reported Russian withdrawal of these systems from frontline areas may weaken Russian air defense capabilities in Ukraine and could be an indicator that Russian forces are facing wider maintenance issues for air defense systems.

Russian officials claimed that Russian manufacturers are producing more strategic missile systems. Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec head Sergey Chemezov claimed on February 18 that Russia has increased the production of Kinzhal hypersonic missile systems and that Rostec now produces huge volumes of products for the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), in some cases increasing production of certain products by a factor of 50.[72] Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov previously reported that Russian forces have 84 percent of their stock of Kinzhal missiles remaining and that Russia has produced 47 percent of its pre-war stock of the missiles since the beginning of the invasion.[73] The claimed increased Russian production of strategic hypersonic missiles may allow the Russian military to conduct a further series of missile strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure but will not grant Russian forces the tactical capability to improve their offensive operations in Ukraine this winter.

Russian sources continue to report that Iranian cargo flights are regularly arriving in Moscow, likely delivering Iranian-made weapons systems or components. A Russian milblogger claimed that an Iranian Saha Airlines cargo plane flew from Tehran to Moscow on February 18 and that an Iranian Il-76TD flew from Tehran to Moscow on February 20, its fourth flight to Moscow in the last 10 days.[74] ISW continues to assess that Russia is relying on the Iranian military for technological support and weapons systems for use in Ukraine.

A reported scandal involving a Russian drone manufacturer’s improper facilities prompted calls for mass drone production. A Russian source claimed on February 19 that Lancet drone manufacturer and Kalashnikov Concern subsidiary Zala Aero is involved in a scandal for producing drones in the same building as a public sauna and regularly disregarding safety precautions at a facility in Izhevsk, Udmurt Republic.[75] Russian forces use Lancet drones in loitering munitions strikes against Ukrainian targets throughout Ukraine, and improper facilities may impact the effectiveness of these systems. Another Russian drone and weapons manufacturer, Lobaev Arms, responded to the situation and called for Russian officials to allow manufacturers to mass produce drones in whatever facilities are available, including within the Kremlin itself.[76]

Ukrainian officials released an audio intercept on February 19 detailing significant desertion among Wagner Group convict recruits and continued poor operational security among Russian personnel in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) released an audio intercept on February 19 in which a Russian soldier states that 200 Wagner Group convict recruits deserted with their weapons from positions roughly 50km away from Vuhledar, Donetsk Oblast.[77] The Russian soldier also states that 80 Russian personnel died in an unspecified area of Donetsk Oblast when their cell phone use allowed Ukrainian forces to locate them and conduct a strike on their location.[78]

Activity in Russian-occupied Areas (Russian objective: consolidate administrative control of and annexed areas; forcibly integrate Ukrainian civilians into Russian sociocultural, economic, military, and governance systems)

Russian occupation authorities are using an "anti-terrorist" commission to justify seizing and nationalizing assets in occupied Crimea for economic and military benefit. Crimea occupation State Council Chair Vladimir Konstantinov announced on February 19 that the Crimean occupation administration has nationalized 700 objects of moveable property and real estate belonging to Ukrainian and Baltic businessmen, whom they have accused of committing unfriendly actions against Russia and maintaining connections with the Ukrainian government.[79] Konstantinov stated that the Crimean anti-terrorist commission seized land plots, buildings, premises, objects of unfinished construction, warehouses, and other property, amplifying assessments that the goods are worth tens of billions of rubles (at least $10 million) and that the assets will provide significant support to the Crimean occupation administration and Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.[80]

Russian officials and occupation authorities continue to lean on the education apparatus to consolidate societal control of occupied territories. Head of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Leonid Pasechnik claimed on February 20 that Russian officials will appropriate 5,000 rubles (approximately $66) per month to Russian teachers in occupied territories, the same amount guaranteed to teachers in Russia.[81] Pasechnik claimed that teachers in occupied territories will soon receive remuneration for their mentorship for January and February, emphasizing that teachers are "second mothers" to school-aged children.[82] Pasechnik noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared 2023 the "Year of the Teacher and Mentor."[83] Kherson Oblast Occupation Head Vladimir Saldo also met with Deputy Chairman of the All-Russian Public and State Organization for Russian Military History Nikolai Osvienko on February 19 to discuss the preservation of the Kherson Oblast’s military-historical heritage and the application of patriotic education for children.[84] Osvienko reportedly created a Russian Military Historical Society branch for occupied Kherson Oblast that will engage with the education for young people.

Russian occupation officials from occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia oblasts attended a "We Are Together" meeting with First Deputy Chief of Staff of Russian Presidential Administration Sergey Kiriyenko in Rostov-on-Don on February 18. The Donetsk People’s Republic Head (DNR) Denis Pushillin, Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Head Leonid Pasechnik, Zaporizhia Oblast Occupation Administration Head Yevgeny Balitsky, and Saldo informally met with volunteers and representatives of the Russian humanitarian movement "People’s Movement" (Nadorodnyi Front).[85] Saldo stated that People’s Movement is now heavily involved in providing direct assistance to the Russian forces in Kherson Oblast by bringing ammunition and equipment.[86] Kireyenko claimed that more than 250,000 volunteers are involved in the "We Are Together" movement throughout Russia, and Pasechnik discussed the development of the volunteer movements.[87]

Significant activity in Belarus (ISW assesses that a Russian or Belarusian attack into northern Ukraine in early 2023 is extraordinarily unlikely and has thus restructured this section of the update. It will no longer include counter-indicators for such an offensive.

ISW will continue to report daily observed Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus, but these are not indicators that Russian and Belarusian forces are preparing for an imminent attack on Ukraine from Belarus. ISW will revise this text and its assessment if it observes any unambiguous indicators that Russia or Belarus is preparing to attack northern Ukraine.)

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and the Belarusian Security Council are considering a law on the creation of a Belarusian People’s Militia. Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin stated on February 20 that the Belarusian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Ministry of Internal Affairs worked together on the draft law to protect rural settlements and individual district cities.[88] Khrenin stated that everyone should be able to take up arms to protect their homes and claimed that the People’s Militia may grow to 100,000 to 150,000 people.[89] Khrenin also notably differentiated the People’s Milita from Territorial Defense forces and noted that the People’s Milita will operate on a more localized basis than traditional Territorial Defense operations.[90] This draft law is likely an effort by Lukashenko and his administration to install localized and grassroots law enforcement systems and is therefore likely an effort to signal to a domestic audience as opposed to setting conditions for involvement in the war in Ukraine.

Polish authorities will close the last operating border checkpoint with Belarus on February 21. The Polish Ministry of the Interior and Administration announced on February 20 that, starting on February 21, it will begin limiting the movement of Belarusian vehicles through the Kukuryki-Kozłowicze crossing in response to Belarusian restrictions on Polish carriers.[91]

The Belarusian 19th Separate Mechanized Brigade traveled up to 180km on February 19 as part of a combat readiness check.[92]

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.

[3] https://meduza dot io/news/2023/02/20/zelenskiy-ukraine-vazhno-zaschitit-bahmut-no-ne-lyuboy-tsenoy ; https://www.corriere dot it/esteri/23_febbraio_19/zelensky-intervista-italia-meloni-ucraina-48025496-b080-11ed-bbef-91b6ba0d81d3.shtml?refresh_ce

[4] https://meduza dot io/news/2023/02/20/zelenskiy-ukraine-vazhno-zaschitit-bahmut-no-ne-lyuboy-tsenoy ; https://www.corriere dot it/esteri/23_febbraio_19/zelensky-intervista-italia-meloni-ucraina-48025496-b080-11ed-bbef-91b6ba0d81d3.shtml?refresh_ce; https://babel dot ua/texts/90710-ministra-oboroni-mayzhe-vidpravili-u-vidstavku-a-potim-zelenskiy-use-peregrav-mi-zapitali-chomu-a-shche-pro-jihniy-nastup-i-nash-kontrnastup-pro-avianaloti-i-bahmut-interv-yu-z-oleksiyem-reznikovim

[7] https://www.ukrinform dot ua/rubric-ato/3672113-fedir-venislavskij-predstavnik-prezidenta-u-parlamenti-clen-komitetu-vr-iz-pitan-nacbezpeki-i-oboroni.html

[59] https://suspilne dot media/390716-zelenskij-vviv-u-diu-sankcii-sodo-333-rosian-ukraina-gotuetsa-do-provokacij-24-lutogo-362-den-vijni-onlajn/; https://suspilne dot media/390785-u-timcasovo-okupovanih-naselenih-punktah-hersonsini-rosijski-okupanti-oblastovuut-kativni-gumenuk/

[61] https://tass dot com/russia/1578535

[63] https://suspilne dot media/390152-vijskovi-rf-na-hersonsini-oboronautsa-ta-posiluut-kontrbatarejnu-borotbu-gumenuk/

[67] https://armyinform dot com.ua/2023/02/19/vorog-vdayetsya-do-inshoyi-taktyky-i-intensyvnosti-raketnyh-obstriliv-ale-meta-u-nyh-ta-sama-vrazyty-nashu-energetychnu-infrastukturu-nataliya-gumenyuk/

[72] https://www.interfax doc ru/russia/886840

[77] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/okazyvaetsia-80-trupov-nakh-i-v-donetske---ykh-sobraly-chtob-prezydenta-poslushat.html

[78] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/okazyvaetsia-80-trupov-nakh-i-v-donetske---ykh-sobraly-chtob-prezydenta-poslushat.html

[79] https://ria dot ru/20230219/natsionalizatsiya-1852940782.html; https://t.me/readovkanews/52977

[80] https://ria dot ru/20230219/natsionalizatsiya-1852940782.html; https://t.me/readovkanews/52977

[88] https://www.belta dot by/society/view/kto-popadet-v-narodnoe-opolchenie-i-kakie-zadachi-ono-budet-vypolnjat-hrenin-otvetil-na-glavnye-voprosy-551278-2023/ ; https://t.me/modmilby/23180

[89] https://www.belta dot by/society/view/kto-popadet-v-narodnoe-opolchenie-i-kakie-zadachi-ono-budet-vypolnjat-hrenin-otvetil-na-glavnye-voprosy-551278-2023/ ; https://t.me/modmilby/23180

[90] https://www.belta dot by/society/view/kto-popadet-v-narodnoe-opolchenie-i-kakie-zadachi-ono-budet-vypolnjat-hrenin-otvetil-na-glavnye-voprosy-551278-2023/ ; https://t.me/modmilby/23180

understandingwar.org

2. Rattled by China, U.S. and allies are beefing up defenses in the Pacific

Graphics and photos at the link,  A comprehensive look at INDOPACOM security.

Rattled by China, U.S. and allies are beefing up defenses in the Pacific

But ‘everything needs to go faster,’ says Indo-Pacific command’s top admiral

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/20/china-taiwan-invasion-deterrence/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_national-security

By Ellen Nakashima and  Christian Shepherd 

Updated February 20, 2023 at 9:48 a.m. EST|Published February 20, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST

CAMP SMITH, Hawaii — The Chinese spy balloon spotted over sensitive nuclear sites in Montana and shot down by a U.S. fighter jet earlier this month jolted the nation.

But for Adm. John Aquilino, commander of all U.S. military forces in the Indo-Pacific, it was only the latest in a string of provocations that includes missiles fired over Taiwan following a visit by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in August, China’s rapidly growing nuclear arsenal and a pair of Chinese surveillance balloon sightings in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands last year.

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Add to that North Korea’s record number of missile launches last year, Beijing’s “no limits” relationship with Moscow and China’s unrelenting expansion of militarized air bases in the South China Sea, and “the current environment is probably the most dangerous I’ve seen in 30 years of doing this business,” Aquilino said in a recent interview in his hilltop office overlooking Pearl Harbor.

North Korea fires long-range missile after threatening action against U.S.

The provocative actions taken by China, North Korea and Russia have prompted the United States and its closest allies in the Indo-Pacific to ramp up military capabilities and deepen their cooperation. “They’re bolstering their own defenses, they’re looking to strengthen their alliances and partnerships with the United States in particular, and they’re reaching out to each other,” said Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs. “All of these things are happening at once.”

A smoke trail from a solid-fuel rocket test launch is illuminated in the night sky above Goyang, South Korea, on Dec. 30, 2022. (Ahn Young-Joon/AP)

The trend, the Biden administration says, reflects efforts to create a free and prosperous Indo-Pacific through the steady forging of partnerships — moving toward what it calls a “latticework” of mutually reinforcing coalitions.

Much of the progress is becoming evident only recently.

In December, Japan announced it will massively hike its defense budget and buy U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles. The Philippines this month said it would allow U.S. troops to access four additional military sites in the country. And Australia is expected in the coming weeks to unveil a path forward to acquire nuclear-powered submarines with the help of the United States and Britain — a plan, officials said, that is likely to include rotational deployment of U.S. submarines in Australia to help the navy there train its crews.

MILITARY BASES OPERATED BY THE U.S.:

NAVAL BASES OPERATED BY:

China

Philippines

Australia

Japan

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JAPAN

CHINA

Hawaii

Senkaku Islands

(U.S.)

TAIWAN

Spratly

Islands

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AUSTRALIA

SAMUEL GRANADOS / THE WASHINGTON POST

Source: Janes

At the same time, some countries are wary of being seen as aligned too closely with the United States. Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, for instance, are focused on avoiding crossfire in the great-power competition and say they do not wish to be forced to choose between China and the United States.

India, an important partner in the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, has been willing to cooperate with the United States in military exercises and most recently in defense technology. But, keen to preserve its policy of strategic autonomy, it has avoided becoming part of any multilateral security arrangement or joining any coalition to pressure Russia or China.

Pentagon warns of China's plan for dominance in Taiwan and beyond

Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s eye-watering military growth — already boasting the world’s largest navy and last year conducting more ballistic missile tests than the rest of the world combined — has stoked regional fears that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a possibility. Though it might not be imminent, some top U.S. generals are warning that American troops had better be ready.

Admiral John C. Aquilino, left, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, looks at videos of Chinese structures and buildings on board a U.S. P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance plane flying over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea on March 20, 2022. (Aaron Favila/AP)

Indeed, the United States itself, Aquilino said, needs to improve its own force posture in the region.

“Everything needs to go faster,” he said. Everyone needs “a sense of urgency, because that’s what it’s going to take to prevent a conflict.”

A new forward-leaning security projection

In the commander’s foyer sits a 3D model of an artificial island built by the Chinese atop a reef in the South China Sea. It’s outfitted with a 3,000-meter runway and fighter jet hangars. For scale, a replica of the Pentagon fits in the island’s harbor, dwarfed by the 680-acre island that was constructed several years ago for use by the Chinese military.

Chinese structures and buildings on the man-made Fiery Cross Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea are seen on March 20, 2022. (Aaron Favila/AP)

It’s a reminder of how quickly China has expanded its military reach into the region, rattling neighbors such as Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines.

“It’s having an effect,” Aquilino said. “Nations are operating in ways they haven’t operated before.”

He pointed to a six-nation exercise in the Philippine Sea in October 2021 that came together with such speed and stealth that it had no name. It featured the U.S. carriers Carl Vinson and Ronald Reagan, and the British carrier Queen Elizabeth, as well as a Japanese carrier and a Dutch destroyer, synchronizing with aircraft and undersea maneuvers, as well as space and cyberspace operations.

European and NATO countries, too, are concerned about the growing threats in the Indo-Pacific.

Last summer, Aquilino’s command completed the largest-ever maritime exercise off the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California with 26 nations, several dozen ships, three submarines, 170 aircraft and more than 25,000 personnel. Participants included Chile, Indonesia, Tonga, France, Germany, India and Japan.

Japan, in particular, has come a long way in a short time to acknowledging the regional threat China and North Korea pose. In December, it abandoned a half-century of restrained defense spending and committed to nearly doubling its defense budget over five years — which would make it the world’s third largest. It also announced it will develop a counterstrike missile capability. Japanese officials, for domestic political purposes, downplay the shift as defensive.

In this handout photo, members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force 5th Surface-to-Surface Missile regiment stand by for inspection during the Rim of the Pacific 2022 exercise on July 16, 2022, in Kauai, Hawaii. (Sgt. Gary Singleton, Commander, U.S. 3rd Fleet)

But they are candid about the urgency.

“The reason we have to put up arms is because of the increasingly severe and complex security challenges in the region, which are posed by North Korea, China and Russia,” Noriyuki Shikata, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet press secretary, said in an interview. “Given the security landscape in Asia, we are obliged to respond by building up our defenses. So we need to improve our deterrence capabilities.”

Along with the Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can reach mainland China, Japan has agreed to let the U.S. Marine Corps revamp a unit in Okinawa so that they can rapidly disperse to fight in remote islands closer to Taiwan. This new Marine littoral regiment will be equipped with anti-ship missiles that could, experts say, be fired at Chinese ships in a Taiwan contingency.

U.S., Japan set to announce shake-up of Marine Corps units to deter China

Tokyo also intends to integrate its self-defense forces into U.S. military exercises in Australia, a deepening of the trilateral security arrangement that officials say is emblematic of a growing latticework.

For instance, North Korea’s provocations have drawn long-standing rivals South Korea and Japan closer, and an emerging partnership links the United States, the Philippines and Japan. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made a state visit to Tokyo this month during which he signed several agreements, including on defense cooperation.

South Korean Marine Corps soldiers at a military checkpoint on Baengnyeong Island, South Korea, on March 30, 2021. Since fighting ended in the Korean War nearly seven decades ago, Baengnyeong has been a key location for U.S. allies in Seoul to spy on North Korea. (SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg News)

The last year has been “an incredible inflection point” for countries like Japan, said Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador in Tokyo. “Japan has gone from a mind-set of alliance protection to a mind-set of alliance projection. That is the new paradigm for the United States and Japan and for the region.”

Australia is expected in the coming weeks to unveil a plan with the United States and Britain to help it develop nuclear-powered submarines. When the subs are built and operating, which officials say probably will be sometime in the 2030s, the initiative, referred to as AUKUS, could prove to be one of the most significant force modernization efforts in the region.

“The progress has been substantial,” said one U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. “They’re moving closer to a major announcement. Not only will this involve the mechanics and finances around building a submarine, but it will also have substantial elements of joint crew training, facilities maintenance and other areas of integration that promise to bring the three navies ever closer together.”

Deploying U.S. nuclear submarines in Australia — even on a rotational basis — would be significant, experts say, as a base in the Indian Ocean would be outside the range of most Chinese missiles. “But the main reason it would be significant is it would show the Australians are serious about getting ready to deploy their own nuclear-powered subs,” said Michael J. Green, chief executive of the United States Studies Center at the University of Sydney and a White House Asia aide in the George W. Bush administration.

U.S. will share nuclear submarine technology with Australia as part of new alliance, a direct challenge to China

The AUKUS deal has angered the Chinese, who view it as a deliberate provocation and accuse the United States and partners of trying to contain China through an “Anglo-Saxon clique.” China’s Foreign Ministry has attacked the arrangement as potentially undermining the international nuclear nonproliferation regime.

Australia notes that the Non-Proliferation Treaty does not bar a nonnuclear weapon state from acquiring naval nuclear propulsion technology. The Australian submarines would not carry nuclear weapons. A foreign affairs department spokesperson said AUKUS “will be fully consistent” with the treaty.

Seeking to stay out of the fray

Not all countries are as eager to trumpet their deeper defense cooperation ties with the United States — or China, for that matter.

In Thailand, a long-standing ally in Southeast Asia, defense officials said that the United States appeared to be paying more attention to the region as China ramps up its efforts to expand its influence. But Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantravanich, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said Thailand did not want to be “manipulated” by either country.

“We have to maintain our status as neutral,” Kongcheep said from Bangkok.

Thailand last year said it would purchase a significant amount of military equipment from the United States and begin a program — the first of its kind between the two countries — to share information on defense technologies. The program will also naturally lead to the exchange of military personnel, said Panitan Wattanayagorn, chief of the Thai government’s security affairs committee. “We don’t lose anything” with these agreements, Panitan said, adding that he does not think they stop Bangkok from continuing to strengthen its relationship with Beijing.

Like Thailand, the South Koreans don’t want to get caught in the crossfire between China and the United States, said Markus Garlauskas, director of the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative and a former national intelligence officer for North Korea in the U.S. intelligence community. He noted a Korean saying: “When whales fight, a shrimp’s back gets broken.”

Home to more than 28,000 U.S. troops, South Korea in recent years has shown a willingness to align itself more clearly with the United States than it did in previous years, analysts say. In December, for instance, South Korea issued an Indo-Pacific strategy that, though it didn’t mention China, echoed similar strategies issued by the United States, Japan and Australia. Opinion polls show that public sentiment has turned against China in recent years, as Koreans felt “bullied” by Chinese economic retaliation in 2017 after the installation of a U.S. antimissile battery in response to threats from North Korea, Garlauskas said.

Seoul views increasing cooperation with the United States and Japan, in both exercises and communication, as a key part of assuring the public about South Korea’s security, a senior South Korean official said. Its Defense Ministry announced it will hold a one-day tabletop nuclear exercise at the Pentagon this week.

South Koreans wonder: Will the U.S. still protect us if North Korea launches a nuclear strike?

India, which will host this year’s Group of 20 meeting of the world’s leading economies and aspires to great-power status in its own right, has come to view China as its principal adversary following several years of violent border clashes with Chinese troops that have caused fatalities on both sides. That has pushed New Delhi closer to Washington.

President Biden, center, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, India's Minister of Defense Rajnath Singh, right, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin take part in a virtual meeting with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House in Washington on April 11, 2022. (Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post)

Just last month, Washington and Delhi held the inaugural meeting of a strategic partnership announced in May by Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that encourages their domestic industries to jointly develop artificial intelligence, jet engines and semiconductors. And last year, in a first, a U.S. Navy ship arrived in India for repairs — a significant step for the Indian shipbuilding industry and the bilateral defense relationship. This cooperation comes against the backdrop of intensification of U.S.-India military exercises over the last several years.

“India, for its own reasons, has now decided to become part of a broader set of balancing coalitions against China in the Indo-Pacific,” said Ashley Tellis, an India expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But while India is happy to receive technology assistance and conduct joint military exercises, both of which help it develop its own capabilities, “they do not want to convey to anyone, including the Chinese, that there is somehow a U.S.-India alliance against China,” Tellis added.

Biden administration officials often hold up the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “the Quad,” as an example of their Indo-Pacific strategy taking hold. Formed by Japan, Australia, India and the United States as an ad hoc effort to coordinate humanitarian relief during the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, it languished for years, then was revived during the Trump administration and has since evolved to serve as a geopolitical counterweight to China. Beijing has accused the four countries of seeking to form an “Asian NATO,” though the partnership lacks a mutual defense commitment.

And while Japan and Australia are crucial to any U.S.-led regional effort to deter China from invading Taiwan, India has few direct equities there.

“They wish the Taiwanese well, but they’re not going to come to their rescue,” Tellis said.

A key variable is Seoul. “Whether South Korea supports Taiwan or remains neutral could play a huge role in whether or not China chooses to pursue aggression against Taiwan,” Garlauskas said, also noting the United States has military forces stationed on the Korean Peninsula that could reach the Chinese mainland.

When it comes to the rest of the allies and partners, the difference between countries such as Japan and Australia on the one hand, and Thailand and Indonesia on the other, is that the former feel a “very clear sense of direct threat” from China, said Christopher B. Johnstone, a former White House director for East Asia who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Japan has seen a decade of Chinese aggression over the Senkaku islands, administered by Tokyo but over which Beijing lays claim. In August, as part of military drills in response to Pelosi’s visit, China fired ballistic missiles over Taiwan that landed in waters off Japan, in its exclusive economic zone. Australia has been on the receiving end of China’s efforts to weaponize economic ties, slapping draconian tariffs on coal, wine and other goods after Australia’s prime minister early in the coronavirus pandemic called for a global inquiry into the virus’s origins.

In recent weeks, Canberra and Beijing have made an effort to stabilize their relationship, but that will not undermine the deepening security partnerships Australia is forging with the United States, Britain and other allies, Australian officials say.

“[F]or Australia, the sense of China as a bully that seeks to intimidate its neighbors — that became much more visceral over the last few years,” Johnstone said.

Meanwhile, with much of Southeast Asia and Oceania, “none of them are choosing China,” Green said. “They’re just trying to stay out of the fray as best they can.”

Deployed and dispersed

Improving the U.S. military’s capabilities in the region increasingly depends on cooperation from allies and partners, officials say. In particular, China’s growing arsenal of precision-guided missiles presents a threat to the U.S. Air Force in the region.

This photo provided by the South Korean Defense Ministry in Seoul shows two U.S. Air Force B-1B strategic bombers, right, South Korean Air Force F-35 fighter jets, bottom, and U.S. Air Force F-22 stealth fighter jets flying over the Yellow Sea between China and the Korean Peninsula during a joint air drill. (South Korean Defense Ministry/AFP)

“If you have all of your aircraft in a few very large bases, and they shut the airfield down, then you can’t get airborne,” said Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces.

The service has been shifting from large, centralized bases to networks of smaller airfields dispersed around the region at sites hosted by partner nations including Japan, the Philippines and Micronesia.

Under the “agile combat employment” strategy, the Air Force operates temporarily out of an airfield in, say, Palau, shuttling personnel and aircraft as the need arises. It has been lengthening runways and positioning munitions, food and water at sites across the region.

David Panuelo, Micronesia’s president, said in a recent interview that the United States was upgrading an airfield and seaport on his country’s island of Yap with the aim of preventing war with China, not starting one. “We do that through a deterrent,” he said.

Panuelo said he believed Washington’s efforts in the region were beginning to have an effect. “Pacific nations are looking at the alignment of their relationships,” he said, citing a failed Chinese effort last year to reach a regional security pact and other recent setbacks for Beijing.

The U.S. military is also seeking to gain access to more locations in the region.

U.S. military poised to secure new access to key Philippine military sites

This month Manila announced it had granted the United States access to four new Philippine military sites, bringing the total to nine on the archipelagic nation. Officials did not specify what types of bases — Army or Navy, for instance — and said announcements of exact sites awaited negotiations with local officials. However, officials said at least two of the four are expected to be on the island of Luzon, whose northernmost tip is just a couple hundred miles from Taiwan.

Putting quills on the porcupine

China’s aggressive response to Pelosi’s visit last summer, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s securing of a third term have sparked a realization in Taiwan that the self-governing island needs to be better prepared to defend itself in the event of a conflict.

Tourists look on as a Chinese military helicopter flies past Pingtan Island in Fujian province, one of mainland China's closest points to Taiwan. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has extended compulsory military service from four months to one year. But that isn’t enough, argue experts, who when speaking of Taiwan’s defense say that it needs to resemble a porcupine bristling with quills — boasting a variety of nimble weapons systems that would make it dangerous to would-be attackers.

But the Taiwanese military is “still stuck on the idea of fighter jets, warships and tanks,” said retired Adm. Lee Hsi-ming, Taiwan’s top military leader from 2017 to 2019.

Lee, like U.S. military officials and defense experts, wants to see Taiwan focus more on less costly, more mobile weaponry — such as anti-ship cruise missiles and naval mines — that can nonetheless inflict pain on an adversary and more readily survive Chinese attacks.

“Suddenly asking them to spend less on tanks and more on Javelins or Stingers — it’s not an easy change to make,” Lee said, referring to the shoulder-fired missiles that proved critical in helping Ukraine stop Russian forces from taking Kyiv.

Lee argued that Taiwan would benefit from a demonstration of intent from Washington about its readiness to defend Taiwan in a conflict. Though President Biden has on at least four occasions publicly affirmed that the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense, Washington’s official policy remains one of “strategic ambiguity” — designed to keep China guessing about whether an invasion of the island would see the U.S. military enter the fray.

Harpoon A-84 anti-ship missiles and AIM-120 and AIM-9 air-to-air missiles are prepared for weapons-loading drills in front of a F-16V fighter jet at the Hualien Airbase in Taiwan on Aug. 17, 2022. (Johnson Lai/AP)

“You need to show China that preparations are taking place,” Lee said. “It can’t just be empty talk.”

U.S. commanders agree.

'The stronger Taiwan is all the way around, the higher the deterrent value that is, and the greater the chance we have that China will decide that now is not the time” to invade, said Wilsbach.

CIA Director William J. Burns said this month that his agency had intelligence indicating that Xi has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be capable of a successful military invasion of Taiwan by 2027, when the PLA will mark its centennial, though he hastened to add that it doesn’t mean China’s president will order one then.

Still, that’s a useful milestone against which Taiwan should pace its defensive preparations, Lee said. “[T]he intricate complexity of cross-strait relations means that for Taiwan, it’s not so important to pay close attention to 2024, 2025, or 2027. The most important thing is to work out how soon we can be ready.”

The backlogged U.S. defense production system is also a major challenge, experts noted, now stretched even tighter by the war in Ukraine. “Look at how we have been buying F-16s for five or six years but we still don’t have them,” Lee pointed out. “What can we do to immediately deter China and defend ourselves? That’s where we need to be investing.”

U.S. capabilities need to advance, too, Aquilino said. One of the things he’s pushing for are advanced long-range missiles that can be launched from air or sea to take out an adversary’s ships in the region.

Back in his office, overlooking the military base that was the site of a catastrophic surprise attack more than eight decades ago for which the U.S. military was not prepared, Aquilino is determined that the United States not witness another Pearl Harbor.

Much has changed since then. The U.S. military holds more than 100 exercises with countries in the Indo-Pacific each year. Aquilino commands 375,000 troops and civilians in the region. And, after China, the top five economies in the region are all democracies.

But Beijing, which is developing advanced hypersonic missile capabilities and is on course to have 1,500 nuclear weapons in the next decade, is threatening to destabilize what Aquilino calls the “rules-based order” that has enabled nations “over the past eight decades to be secure, sovereign, prosperous.''

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has given him two missions, he said. The first: to do everything in his power to avoid a war in Pacific. “We spend a lot of time working to prevent that conflict,” he noted.

The second mission, if it comes to war, is to fight and win. “If deterrence fails,” Aquilino said, “Indo-Pacom is prepared to do that mission as well.”

Shepherd reported from Taipei, Taiwan. Michelle Ye Hee Lee in Tokyo, Gerry Shih in Delhi, Michael E. Miller in Sydney, Rebecca Tan in Singapore and Wilawan Watcharasakwet in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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By Ellen Nakashima

Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter with The Washington Post. She was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, in 2018 for coverage of Russia's interference in the 2016 election, and in 2014 and for reporting on the hidden scope of government surveillance.  Twitter

By Christian Shepherd

Christian Shepherd is China correspondent for The Washington Post. He previously covered the country for the Financial Times and Reuters from Beijing.  Twitter

3. Cloak-and-dagger moves allow Biden to sneak into Ukraine’s war zone

An interesting read on the planning and travel

Not mentioned is that POTUS' military aides had to carry the football to Kyiv.

Cloak-and-dagger moves allow Biden to sneak into Ukraine’s war zone

Unusual news blackout, elaborate feints surround Biden’s visit to a city under regular bombardment

By Matt Viser and  Cleve R. Wootson Jr. 

February 20, 2023 at 6:26 p.m. EST

The Washington Post · by Matt Viser · February 20, 2023

WARSAW — As President Biden stepped out of a golden-domed church during his unannounced, high-stakes trip to Kyiv — a city under regular bombardment from Russian forces — an air-raid siren abruptly went off, signaling that a Russian military jet armed with missiles had taken off from its home territory.

The plane ultimately did not pose a threat to Biden’s location; U.S. officials had tried to reduce the risks by taking the extraordinary step of informing Moscow of Biden’s planned visit ahead of time. But the shrill alarm was a reminder of the peril of an American president visiting a war-besieged capital in a region where military groups and mercenaries are not known for following the rules.

“There was still risk — and is still risk — in an endeavor like this,” said Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, speaking by cellphone as he accompanied the president out of Ukraine on Monday. Among the striking features of the whirlwind visit was Biden’s use of a train that had been set aside for him to get in and out of Ukraine, a necessity given the dangers of traversing Ukrainian airspace.

Biden told his aides months ago he wanted to travel to Ukraine, but he only made the final decision on Friday after a last-minute huddle in the Oval Office and phone call with his national security cabinet, according to Jon Finer, Biden’s principal deputy national security adviser.

That decision set in motion a stealthy plan that involved a close hold on information, with just two journalists summoned that afternoon and told of the trip so they could prepare to be on it. They were told to watch for an email with the subject line “Arrival instructions for the golf tourney” that would provide further instructions.

Saturday evening appeared routine for the president, perhaps by design. He was slated to visit Poland to mark the Ukraine war’s first anniversary, but that trip was not scheduled to start until Monday. Biden and first lady Jill Biden attended Saturday night Mass at Georgetown University, visited an exhibit at the National Museum of American History and dined on rigatoni at the Red Hen, a trendy D.C. restaurant known for its pasta.

Just hours later, in the predawn darkness Sunday, Biden and his team boarded a small government aircraft and departed for the war zone. Only three White House officials accompanied the president: Sullivan; Jen O’Malley Dillon, the deputy chief of staff; and Annie Tomasini, director of Oval Office operations and one of Biden’s closest personal aides.

A small medical staff also came along, as did security officers and the official White House photographer — a bare-bones operation compared to the president’s usual entourage.

Rather than taking the large aircraft presidents usually use for their official travel, Biden boarded an Air Force C-32, which is generally utilized to fly into smaller airports. Before takeoff, the plane sat in the dark, its shades drawn, away from the tarmac where it is usually parked for presidential travel.

When the plane lifted off at 4:15 a.m., it kicked off a nearly 22-hour journey involving planes, motorcades and trains that would deliver Biden nearly 5,000 miles away in Kyiv for his meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The trip exposed the commander in chief to security risks in a war zone where no U.S. troops are stationed. It represented a gamble that a dramatic gesture could help galvanize American support for the war, provide a shot of energy to the global coalition opposing Russia and raise the morale of Ukrainians themselves.

Despite the dangers, Biden and his inner circle had decided that the powerful image of Biden embracing Zelensky in the Ukrainian homeland was worth it. “President Biden felt that it was important to make this trip, because of the critical juncture that we find ourselves at as we approach the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine,” Sullivan said.

As the possibility of a visit gained momentum, U.S. and Ukrainian officials had kept in frequent contact to weigh the risks and strategize on how to mitigate them. “Obviously, this was all worked very closely between the White House and the highest levels of the Ukrainian government, who have become quite adept at hosting high level visitors — although not one quite like this,” Finer said.

After a refueling stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany — where the plane’s shades were kept down during the hour-and-15-minute stop — Biden finally landed at Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport in Poland. His motorcade drove about an hour to the Ukrainian border, with the sirens off to avoid drawing attention.

Upon arriving at Poland’s Przemysl Glowny train station, Biden boarded a train that was under heavy security and had few onlookers. The eight-car train rumbled through the Polish and Ukrainian countryside for more than 10 hours, mostly in the dark with little visible outside beyond streetlights and shadows, with a few brief stops to pick up additional security personnel.

It was not the way a president usually travels, but Ukrainian airspace has been shut down since the outset of the war, making trains an essential source of weapons, food, equipment and supplies for nearly a year. The tracks and vehicles have come under fire from Russian forces, but they have been quickly repaired by Ukrainian crews. A love of trains is part of Biden’s public image — he commuted on Amtrak throughout his 36 years in the U.S. Senate — but this rail trip was unlike any other.

On a typical trip, the stops often feature Ukrainian husbands and fathers saying long farewells to their families as they head off to combat. Closer to the border, Ukrainian soldiers scrutinize passports and overturn sleeper beds looking for deserters and stowaways. But with foreign leaders visiting during the war to show support, Ukrainian officials have become adept at transforming the trains for VIP use.

U.S. officials said the lack of American troops in Ukraine made this operation especially tricky. “Unlike previous visits from presidents to war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. obviously does not have a military presence on the ground in Ukraine, which made a visit from a sitting president all the more challenging,” said Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director. “But this was a risk that Joe Biden wanted to take.”

Biden arrived at the Kyiv-Pasazhyrsky station in the Ukrainian capital at about 8 a.m. local time, as the city buzzed with rumors of a high-level visitor and numerous streets were blocked off by security. Biden, wearing a blue-and-yellow striped tie to showcase the colors of Ukraine’s flag, was greeted on arrival by Bridget Brink, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

“It’s good to be back in Kyiv,” he said after stepping off the train.

Biden then was driven to the Mariinsky Palace, the official residence of Ukraine’s president, where he met with Zelensky — dressed in his signature black sweatshirt with dark green pants and beige boots — and his wife, Olena Zelenska.

“Thank you for coming,” Zelensky said. Biden responded, “It’s amazing to see you. More importantly, how are the children?”

He signed a guest book, closing with “Slava Ukraini!” or “Glory to Ukraine!” And he told Zelensky, “Kyiv has captured a part of my heart, I must say.”

The two presidents left the palace for St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Cathedral in Kyiv, a symbolic venue where they took a stroll as photographers and passersby snapped photos and videos. The footage was widely distributed, and the news blackout was broken. As the leaders left the church, the air raid sirens rang out overhead.

Andriy Sybiha, Zelensky’s foreign affairs adviser, said the sirens went off because of “the threat of a missile attack in connection with the departure of the Russian plane.” Sirens often sound when Russian planes with missile capabilities take off in Russia or Belarus, since those aircraft can strike sites in Ukraine within minutes.

After the church visit, Biden and Zelensky laid a wreath at a memorial for Ukrainians who have been killed since 2014, when Russia seized the territory of Crimea. Biden then traveled to the American Embassy in Kyiv to greet its personnel.

He was back at the Kyiv train station by a little after 1 p.m. local time, heading toward Warsaw, which he is scheduled to visit Tuesday and Wednesday before returning to Washington.

During the visit to Kyiv, Biden noted that he has traveled there several times, including just days before ending his vice-presidential term. But never have the stakes been so high, or the risks so great.

“Each time, more significant,” Biden said.

David Stern in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Annabelle Timsit in London contributed to this report.

By Matt Viser

Matt Viser is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined The Post in October 2018, covering the midterms and the 2020 presidential election. He was previously deputy chief of the Washington bureau for the Boston Globe, where he covered Congress, presidential campaigns in 2012 and 2016, and John Kerry’s tenure as secretary of state.  Twitter

By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.

Cleve R. Wootson Jr. is a White House reporter for The Washington Post.  Twitter

The Washington Post · by Matt Viser · February 20, 2023

4. Is Pentagon planning up to the job for great power competition?

This is a very important question. And somewhat iconic since the NDS places so much emphasis on "campaigning."

But is more math and science better or is more art better (and deep understanding of the human domain)? Or what is the right balance between the two?

Excerpt:

The report’s authors propose the Pentagon incorporate the mathematical concept of Bayesian reasoning with data analysis and expert opinions to more accurately identify and account for risks.

Is Pentagon planning up to the job for great power competition?

militarytimes.com · by Joe Gould · February 17, 2023

WASHINGTON ― As Russian forces massed on Ukraine’s border in 2021 and 2022, China flew a record numbers of sorties into the airspace around Taiwan. When Pentagon leaders are faced with two separate crises like this, do they need to adjust their plans for conflicts and disasters in other regions?

They do, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which calls for the Pentagon to adopt a more dynamic approach to assessing risks, one it says would be attuned to the tempo of great power competition.

The report’s authors propose the Pentagon incorporate the mathematical concept of Bayesian reasoning with data analysis and expert opinions to more accurately identify and account for risks.

“Contingency plans are done largely in a bit of a vacuum, and as you and I work on plans we assess them as independent and discrete,” said Benjamin Jensen, who authored the report with Marine Corps Lt. Col. Peter Combe and researcher Adrian Bogart. Jensen is the think tank’s senior fellow for wargaming and strategy.

While the military’s contingency plans are closely held and considered classified, the report’s authors shine a spotlight on the processes involved. Based on Pentagon documents such as the National Military Strategy and National Defense Strategy, the Joint Staff prepares the Joint Strategic Campaign Plan, which outlines priorities for contingency plans for each of the military’s geographic combatant commands, including what potential crises to focus on and how often to update plans.

Because those contingency plans tend to be updated every two years, when a crisis occurs, they must be updated on the fly. That leaves decision-makers behind the curve and “prone to condensed timelines, friction, and uncertainty,” the authors write.

The report notes the Pentagon’s risk assessment methodology begins with identifying a threat or hazard, then makes subjective assessments of how probable it is and how severe it would be, and finally recommends a course to avoid or mitigate it.

The authors say those assessments should also communicate unknown factors ― especially when they relate to adversary intent, which is notoriously hard to read ― and try to quantify uncertainty.

“Risk communication to policymakers should not be presented in terms of ‘Chinese vertical escalation in the Straits of Luzon is X percent likely.’” the authors write. “Rather, risk communication should be presented as: ‘We assess Chinese horizontal escalation in the Straits of Luzon is X percent likely. However, we do not understand the decisionmaking process between the Chinese Communist Party Politburo, the uniformed officers of the Central Military Commission, and President Xi and see this decision as altering the escalation threshold.’”

“Sadly, such qualifications tend to be treated as equivocating by a profession trained to see risk as deterministic,” they add.

The authors argue the Pentagon must embrace Bayesian theory, a mathematical formula used to update assumptions about the probability of an event as more evidence emerges. Named after Thomas Bayes, the 18th-century statistician who developed it, the theory is used in modern times to make decisions based on incomplete information, like medical diagnoses and financial forecasting.

A Bayesian approach would be coupled with “constant, near-real-time updating” ― for example, using battlefield events in Ukraine to help global contingency planners beyond Europe. As Russia fires more cruise missiles at the Ukrainian electric grid, the thinking goes, Moscow may be less likely to pursue military operations against Japan in the disputed Northern Territories.

The Pentagon has “outdated models compared to finance and insurance, and there’s no reason we can’t connect these plans and automate them to better look at our global portfolios, versus every crisis being unique,” Jensen said.

The report recommends the Joint Staff boost data analytics training for staff advisers and adopt broad cross-functional teams to update risk assessments. For example, a Pentagon Ukraine team would be led by U.S. European Command and hosts representatives of other geographic commands, the State Department’s Russia and Ukraine teams, the CIA and Baltic State representatives, as well as private experts and researchers.

The Pentagon has been reticent to discuss its operational plans openly. Asked whether the number of munitions expended in Ukraine is influencing contingency plans for other parts of the globe, the Pentagon’s press secretary, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, declined to answer directly, citing security reasons.

“We’re not going to do anything that’s going to affect our readiness or our ability to meet our national security requirements,” Ryder said at a press conference last month. “When it comes to being able to ensure that we can support Ukraine, but also meet our own readiness needs, there are ongoing and active discussions as part of this process to ensure that we have what we need and that we can continue to replenish our stocks.”

About Joe Gould

Joe Gould is the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He served previously as Congress reporter.

5. Managing Risk for Special Operations Forces in Large-Scale Combat Operations

Excerpts:

This difference in operating environments doesn’t necessarily require special operations commanders to “reframe and reassess how they view risk,” as argued by Spencer Reed in a recent article for War on the Rocks. Experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq did not create a generation of risk-averse special operations commanders who refuse to conduct missions unless conditions are perfect. No matter what the operating environment is, commanders are expected to manage risk properly, avoid unnecessary risk, and apply appropriate levels of aggression. Reed is correct in pointing out many of the ways in which future missions will differ from past ones, but special operations forces are already preparing for this, training for the unknown, and incorporating lessons learned from previous conflicts when appropriate. Through updates to doctrine, habitual training exercises, and resource acquisition and development, special operations forces are actively working to effectively manage risk in a variety of operating environments, including during large-scale combat.

...

Managing risk is a central part of any commander’s decision-making process, helping to “maintain combat power while ensuring mission accomplishment in current and future operations.” Large-scale combat operations like those expected in the future are likely to result in a catastrophic loss of life and resources, and special operations forces won’t be exempt from those effects.

The prospect of large-scale conflict makes it even more important for commanders to identify and mitigate risk to the greatest extent possible so that they can both accomplish assigned missions and preserve forces for the next fight. By properly managing risk and applying controls, special operations commanders can effectively apply combat power at the right place and time in support of the joint forces. This isn’t risk aversion — it’s simply how to fight a war in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Managing Risk for Special Operations Forces in Large-Scale Combat Operations - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Tim Ball · February 21, 2023

In October 2001, under the cover of darkness, teams of American Green Berets landed in Afghanistan. This was the initial U.S. response to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The nation was still in shock, and the Bush administration knew it had to demonstrate American resolve. The United States needed to show that it would bring those responsible to justice.

Afghanistan was landlocked, with neighboring countries less than supportive of a U.S. military intervention. Therefore, with no feasible options for an immediate response by the conventional military, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of CIA assets and special operations forces as the opening salvo of what would eventually be known as the Global War on Terror. The Green Berets linked up with Afghan Northern Alliance tribes, and then, with the assistance of American airpower, conducted offensive operations to defeat the Taliban government in a matter of weeks. The mission was a stunning success. It was also incredibly risky, with minimal support available to the teams on the ground.

For the next twenty years, special operations forces perfected tactics, techniques, and procedures to drastically reduce the amount of risk associated with their operations. However, with renewed focus on large-scale combat operations against a peer threat, special operations forces are confronting radically different operating environments than those they grew accustomed to in Iraq and Afghanistan. Special operations forces will likely find themselves in a “deep” fight, fending for themselves for an unspecified amount of time, with minimal or no support available.

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This difference in operating environments doesn’t necessarily require special operations commanders to “reframe and reassess how they view risk,” as argued by Spencer Reed in a recent article for War on the Rocks. Experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq did not create a generation of risk-averse special operations commanders who refuse to conduct missions unless conditions are perfect. No matter what the operating environment is, commanders are expected to manage risk properly, avoid unnecessary risk, and apply appropriate levels of aggression. Reed is correct in pointing out many of the ways in which future missions will differ from past ones, but special operations forces are already preparing for this, training for the unknown, and incorporating lessons learned from previous conflicts when appropriate. Through updates to doctrine, habitual training exercises, and resource acquisition and development, special operations forces are actively working to effectively manage risk in a variety of operating environments, including during large-scale combat.

Iraq and Afghanistan — Avoiding Risk or Managing It?

The army defines risk as the “probability and severity-driven chance of loss, caused by threat or other hazards.” Twenty years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan provided an immeasurable amount of experience and knowledge on how to reduce risk, and this informs special operations today.

Over the past two decades, special operations forces developed and implemented numerous controls — actions taken to eliminate a hazard or reduce risk. By the end of combat operations in both countries, approval of missions was often dependent on the presence of these controls. Without them, missions were often delayed or canceled altogether. As both wars progressed, and more controls were made available, the term “risk-averse” entered the lexicon of deployed troops. It was intended as a demeaning term for commanders who were insufficiently aggressive in approving missions to go after the enemy unless every possible risk had been avoided. But were commanders really risk-averse, or were they simply ensuring that all available controls were implemented?

In his article, Reed listed “seven deadly norms of risk avoidance” that emerged from the Global War on Terror. Amongst these were the requirement that operators wear body armor on missions, that there be intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets overhead, that teams travel in armored vehicles, and that forces operated within a “golden hour” of medical evacuation to higher level care. These aren’t “norms of risk avoidance,” they’re simply controls put in place by commanders to lower risk to their subordinates, their resources, and the mission itself. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the operating environment often dictated that if these controls weren’t in place, commanders would be accepting unnecessary risk, violating the principles of risk management.

Reed also mentions the refusal to operate in GPS- or communications-denied environments as a norm of risk avoidance by special operations forces. Neither of these environments were prevalent during the Iraq or Afghanistan campaigns, and their absence does not imply a refusal by special operations forces to operate in their presence. The potential for those environments once again being prevalent in a large-scale conflict is already being confronted head-on by special operations forces.

None of this is to say that there weren’t risk-averse commanders in Iraq or Afghanistan. However, if the immediate success or failure of an individual mission wouldn’t affect the overall success or failure of a campaign, commanders would be accepting unnecessary risk if they sent special operations forces to conduct a mission without all available controls in place. Just because commanders waited for a different time or place where controls were readily available doesn’t automatically mean that they were risk-averse.

On the opposite end of the risk management spectrum, an overly aggressive commander can not only put their subordinates’ lives at risk, but their decisions can also lead to strategic level fallout that can jeopardize operations. In 2017 in Niger, a special operations commander ordered a ground force to pursue a high-value individual without numerous controls in place. Islamic State fighters ambushed the ground force, killing four American soldiers, thus sparking political and strategic-level debate over the presence of U.S. forces in Africa.

Reed is right in saying that the operating environments that special operations forces will face in the future will likely be drastically different from those of the past 20 years. The Army’s recently updated FM 3-0: Operations codifies its new operating concept, known as “multi-domain operations.” This focuses on large-scale combat operations, envisioning combined-arms maneuver against a peer adversary. The role for special operations forces in this concept is somewhat vague, but they are most frequently mentioned as part of deep operations, defined as “tactical actions against enemy forces, typically out of direct contact with friendly forces, intended to shape future close operations and protect rear operations.” Put more colloquially, they would be expected to operate alone and unafraid, likely in support of a conventional maneuver force. Reed’s concern is that special operations forces would be reliant upon controls that are no longer available in this environment. However, special operations forces are already preparing to do exactly what doctrine tells them to when managing risk: react to changes within an operational environment.

Risk Management in Large-Scale Combat Operations

To understand how special operations forces are preparing for a “deep fight,” it’s helpful to start with the combatant command charged with the development and employment of special operations forces, U.S. Special Operations Command. Within this command, multiple staff directorates focus on adequately preparing special operations forces for whatever missions they might conduct.

While special operations forces are known primarily for conducting irregular warfare, they should also consider what might be asked of them during large-scale combat operations. Based on Department of Defense guidance, U.S. Special Operations Command, along with each service-specific special operations component, helps to develop strategy specific to special operations forces. It also designs special operations-specific exercises to help to test concepts for how special operations forces would operate in a given environment. From this, U.S. Special Operations Command can understand what resources are required at the tactical level and then work to either develop or acquire the technology required to enable special operations forces in order to reduce risk to the mission and the force.

At the theater special operations command level, special operations forces are not only continuously employed as part of FM 3-0’s “competition below the threshold of conflict,” but they are also employed in regularly occurring exercises, often as part of a larger combatant command exercise. These exercises give special operations forces the ability to test new equipment and to determine if tactics, techniques, and procedures are adequate for a given environment. This is also where many “risk avoidance norms” are cast aside and completely forgotten, and where new controls are tested and refined.

A recent tweet from Special Operations Command – Europe showed a nearly 90-second video of “prolonged field care.” The narrator explains that the concept is for environments where they can’t call in a helicopter, or might not have access to a hospital, exactly the controls that were in place in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given the possibility of conflict with Russia in northern Europe, special operations forces have trained in cold weather and Arctic environments for decades, with renewed interest over the past few years. This environment is unforgiving and special operators have dedicated time to developing controls that will enable them to survive prolonged operations with minimal support.

These exercises are not limited to Europe. In the Pacific, special operations forces are training in jungle warfare, subjecting themselves to a harsh and unforgiving operational environment that American forces haven’t had to confront for some time. They spend time living and surviving in the jungle without body armor or vehicles for transport, refining many of the controls originally developed in the jungles of Vietnam. Army special operations forces have also been participating in National Training Center and Joint Readiness Training Center rotations with conventional forces for years. Scenarios at these training centers are fully focused on the execution of large-scale combat operations in an uncertain and rapidly changing operational environment. They often deny friendly forces many of the controls that existed in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as consistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets overhead, forcing today’s special operators to innovate when it comes to risk management.

A current Army special forces officer described this operational environment: “From a technical and non-technical perspective, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance looks much different on today’s battlefield, as does our tactical deployment. The truth is that the traditional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance we got used to in Iraq and Afghanistan is somewhat obsolete, and we’re adjusting to what modern combat would look like for us.”

Within each of these exercises, special operations forces are determining what will and won’t work going forward. It’s a constant test of their equipment, tactics, techniques, and procedures. Along the way, special operations commanders are conducting risk management for operational environments that are nothing like what they experienced in Iraq or Afghanistan. Special operations are engaged in ongoing preparation for the next fight and they are not constrained by previous views on risk management from more predictable and supported environments.

Conclusion

Managing risk is a central part of any commander’s decision-making process, helping to “maintain combat power while ensuring mission accomplishment in current and future operations.” Large-scale combat operations like those expected in the future are likely to result in a catastrophic loss of life and resources, and special operations forces won’t be exempt from those effects.

The prospect of large-scale conflict makes it even more important for commanders to identify and mitigate risk to the greatest extent possible so that they can both accomplish assigned missions and preserve forces for the next fight. By properly managing risk and applying controls, special operations commanders can effectively apply combat power at the right place and time in support of the joint forces. This isn’t risk aversion — it’s simply how to fight a war in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Become a Member

Lt. Col. Tim Ball is a U.S. Army special forces officer, currently serving as a professor of military science at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The views here do not represent those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Tim Ball · February 21, 2023

6. Putin says Russia will suspend role in New START nuclear accord with U.S.

Putin says Russia will suspend role in New START nuclear accord with U.S.

By Mary Ilyushina, Robyn Dixon and  Niha Masih 

February 21, 2023 at 12:29 a.m. EST

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/21/putin-speech-ukraine-state-of-nation/

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in a state of the nation address Tuesday that Moscow was “suspending” its participation in the New START nuclear nonproliferation agreement, the last remaining arms control treaty between the United States and Russia.

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Putin said Russia will not “withdraw” completely from the treaty, which has been extended to run through Feb. 4, 2026, but he said that Russia would not allow NATO countries to inspect its nuclear arsenal. He accused the alliance of helping Ukraine conduct drone strikes on Russian air bases that host strategic bombers that are part of the country’s nuclear forces.

The 2011 treaty placed “verifiable limits” on the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads deployed by the countries.

“Our relations have degraded and that’s completely and utterly the U.S.’s fault,” Putin said.

“If the U.S. conducts tests, then so will we,” Putin said. “Nobody should have any illusions that global strategic parity can be destroyed.” n case the U.S. conducts them first. Other nonproliferation agreements, including the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF treaty, have fallen apart in recent years.

“If the U.S. conducts tests, then so will we,” Putin said. “Nobody should have any illusions that global strategic parity can be destroyed.”

In a broad speech, Putin ranged from accusing the West of a plot to destroy Russia to promising to build a new highway from Moscow to Vladivostok. He attempted to portray Russia as open and resilient, ascending to the lost status of an independent superpower in a neo-Soviet vision for Russia’s future.

The Russian leader pointedly steered clear of his disastrous military defeats in Ukraine and growing casualties, glossed over economic challenges brought on by the war, and portrayed the international isolation as a way for Russia to cleanse itself from harmful alien ideologies.

Putin kicked off the speech with an already routine mix of fervent anti-Western attacks and conspiratorial tropes about Ukraine’s “neo-Nazi regime,” once again falsely claiming that the war was initiated by the West, forcing Russia to respond. The Russian president, who for most of the first year of his full-scale invasion refused to use the word “war,” used it during his speech but only to cast blame on others for the military conflict that began on his orders.

“They were the ones who started the war,” Putin said, referring to Ukraine and Western “elites” supporting Kyiv. “We used force and continue to use it to stop it.”

While Putin has often said that Russia acted in response to the 2013-14 pro-democracy Maidan revolution in Ukraine, it was Russia that invaded and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, a move that fomented a war in the eastern Donbas region in which the Kremlin armed and supported pro-Russian separatists ever since.

Putin accused the West of “using Ukraine both as a battering ram against Russia and as a training ground,” warning that increased Western military aid would prompt a tougher response from Russia: “One circumstance should be clear to everyone — the more long-range Western systems will come to Ukraine, the further we will be forced to push the threat away from our borders.”

Putin skipped a similar speech to lawmakers last year and it marks his first public comments after President Biden’s surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday meant as a show of solidarity and the unity of Western allies behind Ukraine.

“Putin’s war of conquest is failing,” Biden said Monday in a joint statement with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Kremlin has notched incremental gains in eastern Ukraine in recent weeks, but its grinding efforts have not delivered any particularly symbolic victories, such as a conquest of Bakhmut.

Typically, more than 1,000 guests are in attendance for Putin’s state of the nation speech, including lawmakers, judges, regional administrative officials and religious leaders, Tass reported. This year, Putin has also asked veterans of his invasion to attend.

Putin, czar with no empire, needs military victory for his own survival

The address takes place exactly a year after Putin declared two eastern regions of Ukraine under the control of Russian proxies — Donetsk and Luhansk — to be sovereign states, falsely accusing Kyiv of committing genocide there and paving the way for the war. In September, Putin illegally claimed the annexation of those regions and two others, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, declaring that Russia would use all means at its disposal to defend them.

Putin, 70, is increasingly isolated and faces pressure on all sides. Many elite business executives and officials are privately convinced the war was a mistake, even as hard-line nationalists criticize Russian military commanders and press for a sharp escalation to crush Ukrainian resistance.

Recent polls reflect declining levels of support in Russia for continued fighting, while Western analysts estimate the war has killed tens of thousands of the Kremlin’s troops and led to a historic exodus from the country. Nearly half of respondents to a poll said they were nervous or cautious about the future of Russia, said the Levada Center, the country’s most reputable social researcher, in February. Slightly more than 50 percent supported peace talks with Ukraine, the center found in a November survey.

Western officials have in recent weeks pledged heavier arms and ammunition to Ukraine in anticipation of a Russian spring offensive. But the shape of the war remains unclear, with no guarantee that Western public opinion will continue to be as strongly in support of Kyiv, The Washington Post has reported.

7. Special Operations News Update - Feb 21, 2023 | SOF News

Special Operations News Update - Feb 21, 2023 | SOF News

sof.news · by SOF News · February 21, 2023

Curated news, analysis, and commentary about special operations, national security, and conflicts around the world.

Photo / Image: 20th SFG(A) Mountain Team members conduct backcountry movement on skis in Colorado. Mountain SFODAs specialize in negotiating highly technical mountainous terrain in Winter and Summer Alpine enviornments. Image 20th SFG(A).

Do you receive our daily newsletter? If not, you can sign up here and enjoy it five (almost) days a week with your morning coffee (or afternoon tea depending on where in the world you are).

SOF News

COL Joe Celeski – RIP. Colonel (Ret.) Joseph Cileski, age 69, died on February 13, 2023. He retired from a thirty-year career with the U.S. Army in September. When serving as 3rd Special Forces Group commander he deployed to Afghanistan where he was the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force – Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A) commander. Obituary. Cileski was the author of The Green Berets in the Land of a Million Elephants. Watch a video of Cileski talking about the secret special operations war in Laos. (C-SPAN2 Book TV, March 2019, one hour).

Maj. Gen. Gary Harrell – RIP. Retired Green Beret Gary Harrell died at age 71. He had served for three decades of service with the U.S. Army to include numerous tours in SOF units to include Delta Force. He served as commander of Special Operations Command – Central (SOCCENT) during the beginning phases of the Global War on Terror (GWOT). “Harrell Dies in Tennessee”, Coffee or Die Magazine, February 14, 2023. Obituary.

New Cdr for SOJTF-Levant (OIR). Brig. Gen. Philip Ryan, CG, U.S. Army Special Operations Aviation Command; Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is to be assigned as commander, Special Operations Joint Task Force-Levant, Operation Inherent Resolve, Kuwait.

News on SOCPAC Cdr. Navy Rear Adm. (lower half) Jeromy B. Williams has been nominated for appointment to the grade of rear admiral. Williams is currently serving as commander, Special Operations Command Pacific, U.S. Special Operations Command, Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii.

Rangers Take ‘Best Medic’ Competition. Two Rangers from the 6th Ranger Training Battalion took top honors in a three-day event at Fort Polk. “Meet the winners of the 2023 Army’s Best Medic Competition”, Army.mil, February 14, 2023.

Retired SF COL to Receive MoH. A retired Special Forces officer who served in Vietnam receive the MoH from President Biden. “Biden to award Medal of Honor to Black Vietnam War vet who’s waited decades”, The Washington Post, February 13, 2023.

Marine Raiders. The history, organization, TTPs, training pipeline, equipment, weapons, and missions of MARSOC units is examined in this article by Michael Ellmer. “Marine Raiders: Always Faithful, Always Forward”, Grey Dynamics, February 14, 2023.

Decker With the Panthers. A former Special Forces officer who served two tours in Iraq is now the new vice president of development for a NFL team. “Panthers add Brian Decker, former “GM for Special Forces”, Panthers,com, February 16, 2023.

SOTTACs, JTACs, CCTs, and TACPs – A Brief. There is a lot of confusion about who is a Joint Terminal Air Controller or JTAC. In Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (official YouTube trailer), Jake Gyllenhaal plays a Special Forces solder with a JTAC patch on his uniform. Is that accurate? Max Hauptman explains in “JTAC vs TACP: A user’s guide to the troops who call in close air support”, Task & Purpose, February 10, 2023.

Wingsuiting at 150 MPH. A wingsuit skydiver from Argentina talks about his dangerous sport. “Flyin Squirrel”, Harvard Magazine, March 2023.

Britt Slabinski – MoH Recipient. A retired Navy SEAL is profiled in this article. The Battle of Takur Ghar, Afghanistan in 2022 is where Slabinski was leading a recon team on top of a 10,000-foot snow-covered mountain that led to a fierce fight with the Taliban. Read about it in “Medal of Honor Recipient: Britt Kelly Slabinski”, Informed Insight, February 21, 2023.

Bonuses for NSW Operators. The U.S. Navy is offering large cash re-enlistment bonuses to veteran Navy special warfare sailors. The bonus system for keeping highly-skilled members of the military community on active duty have worked for many decades. Read more in “Attrition: U.S. Navy Bonuses for Special Operations Sailors”, Strategy Page, February 20, 2023.

3rd ASOS Developing Arctic Skills. In an operation designed to test the capabilities of Airmen and equipment in extreme-cold long-distance movements, members of the 3rd Air Support Operations Squadron took a 130-mile trek in Alaska. The TACPs support the 11th Airborne Division based in Alaska. “3rd ASOS Arctic Warfighters participate in Operation Agipen 2”, Pacific Air Force, February 10, 2023.

SOA AAR. The Special Operations Association held its annual convention this past October 2023. It was a week-long event bringing together former an current members of the U.S. special operations community. Read the SOA’s AAR on the convention dated February 2023, PDF, 72 pages.

SOF Injured in ISIS Raid. U.S. service members and one combat dog were injured on February 16, 2023 during a night helicopter raid in northeast Syria that killed a senior ISIS leader. They are reported to be receiving medical treatment at a facility in Iraq. The raid was conducted in conjuntion with members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). “Four US service members injured in ISIS helicopter raid”, The Hill, February 17, 2023.

CIA’s Spec Ops Center. Jordan Smith details the covert action and paramilitary operations division of the Central Intelligence Agency. He says that this organization is the ‘third option’ for the resovling of U.S. crisis or problems abroad. The first would be the State Department using diplomacy and the second the Department of Defense using its military forces. The third option, is using the CIA’s Special Activities Center of the Directorate of Operations (DO). Read more in “CIA Special Activities Center: The Third Option”, Grey Dynamics, December 6, 2022.

193rd SOW Receives 1st MC-130J Commando II. The Pennsylvania Air National Guard unit has taken possession of its first Commando II transport. The unit previously operated the EC-130J Commando Solo as part of the airborne Military Information Support Operations broadcasting platform. The MC-130J is used to conduct low-level infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply of special operations forces. “US Air National Guard unit receives first MC-130J special operations transport”, Defence Blog, February 11, 2023.

AFSOC Recruiting. The Air Force Special Operations Recruiting Wing is tasked with providing a talent pool of skilled, qualified, and diverse applicants to the AF Special Warfare training programs. “Special Warfare, Air Force Recruiting Teams Develop Programs, Scour Nation to Attact Candidates”, Special Warfare Training Wing, February 15, 2023.

Not Guilty. Irene Loewenson provides a detailed look at the MARSOC 3 trial. Four years ago in January 2019 a military contractor and retired Green Beret died after an altercation outside of a bar in Irbil, Iraq. Three members of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command were charged with homicide in connection with the retired Special Forces NCO’s death. “Verdict, not guilty: An inside look at the homicide trial of 2 Marines”, Marine Corps Times, February 16, 2023.

International SOF

NORSOF Checking Out Arctic Gear. Norwegian special operators staged the Arctic Warrior Experiment inviting participants from eight countries to test their latest cold weather gear in rugged terrain. “Norway special operators field pitches on fresh, Arctic-capable gear”, by Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo, Defense News February 9, 2023.

SAS Recruiting Women. The ban on women serving in the UK’s Army frontline units was lifted in 2018. However, up to this point, there are no women in the Special Air Service or Special Boat Service. One in ten of the armed forces are women. So far, only two women are believed to have tried the selection proscess. “Elite SAS launch recruitment drive to encourage women to join its ranks”, Mirror, February 11, 2023.

Video of Canadian Sniper Shot Causes Concern with CANSOF. A recent podcast that depicted a Canadian sniper taken a long-range shot of an ISIS fighter has placed a former member of Joint Task Force Two (JTF2) and a former U.S. Navy SEAL in hot water. “Former Navy SEAL in Canada’s crosshairs after publishing video of world’s longest sniper shot”, Task and Purpose, February 17, 2023.

UAS Solution for NATO SOF. Two drone firms are going to provide a unmanned aerial system that meets the requirements of all-weather functionality, quick deployment, hand launchability, and more. “Rheinmetall and AeroVironment Join Forces for NATO Special Forces Project”, Defense Advancement, February 10, 2023.

Bio on Maj. Gen. Sidney Shachnow. A Lithuanian Jew who experienced and survived the Holocaust eventually became a U.S. citizen and would go on to serve with the U.S. Army’s Special forces. He retired as a major general. “Sidney Shachnow: The Holocaust Survivor Who Became a Green Beret”, War History Online, February 9, 2023.

Seaspray. A covert air unit was a collaborative effort between the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Army that began in 1981. The clandestine air power organization grew out of the revolution in Iran and failure of Operation Eagle Claw – an attempt to rescue U.S. citizens held hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Read more in “SEASPRAY: Clandestine Air Operations and Covert Activity”, by Alec Smith, Grey Dynamics, February 12, 2023.

Rhodesian SAS. Learn about the history, organization, training, equiment, and missions of the Rhodesian Special Air Service. This special forces unit was active during the time of the white minority-ruled Rhodesia. It was based on the British Special Air Servie – which they were originally a part of. The SAS was extremely active during the year-long Rhodesian Bush War. “The Rhodesian SAS”, by Aidan Hickey,Grey Dynamics, February 18, 2023.

Elite Australian Dive Team in Vietnam. It has been 56 years since the arrival of the Australian Naval Clearance Diving Team in South Vietnam. They were a group of men who put their lives at risk in a complex and dangerous mission risk by clearing underwater mines and obstacles during the Vietnam War. “Anniversary of the Arrival of Australian Naval Clearance Divers in Vietnam”, Veteran Web, February 6, 2023.

Ukraine Conflict

Biden Visits Ukraine. The US president made his first visit to the war zone just ahead of the 1-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. “Biden arrives in Kyiv on surprise visit to war zone”, Politico, February 20, 2023.

SOF, Ukraine, and Propaganda. An interesting article by Caitlin Johnstone about a possible attempt by U.S. special operations forces to employ ‘propaganda’ in the Ukraine conflict. “Pentagon Wants to Return Special Ops Propagandists to Ukraine”, Scheerpost, February 12, 2023. Read more in “Pentagon looks to restart top-secret programs in Ukraine”, Stars and Stripes, February 10, 2023.

Former GB Describes Fighting in Ukraine. William Brangham, a former Green Beret with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, fought for the Ukrainians for over ten months last year. Listen to a podcast describing his time in Ukraine. “Former Green Beret who fought for Ukraine offers perspective on war, how to counter Russia”, PBS, February 14, 2023, 7 minutes.

SFA and Ukraine. In 2022 the United States provided Ukraine with over $20 billion in security assistance. The authors of this article provide some recommendations on how to better provide SFA to Ukraine. “More Bang for the SFA Buck: Improving US Security Force Assistance in Ukraine and Beyond”, Modern War Institute at West Point, February 15, 2023.

Commentary

Roles and Limitations of SOF. David Ucko argues that SOF can play a vital role in countering threats by Russia and China. However, to do so, he believes that SOF must recalibrate, changing their composition and their focus. “Indispensable but Insufficient: The Role and Limits of Special Operations in Strategic Competition”, Lawfare Blog, February 19, 2023.

SOF – Too Big? R.D. Hooker provides his perspective on the U.S. special operations community – it is a little too big, over-staffed, draws too much talent from the conventional forces, redundant, and it is a stovepiped community insulated from the established chains of command across the globe. “America’s Special Operations Problem”, Joint Force Quarterly, National Defense University Press, January 2023.

And a Response. Charlie Black provides his comments n the R.D. Hooker essay in the above paragraph. He believes that Hooker’s argument is a misinterpretation of recent historical events and derives some generalized conclusions from a relativetly small number of incidents or events. “Challenging the ‘Problem of Special Operations and USSOF'”, Small Wars Journal, February 20, 2023.

More Thoughts on IW. Mark Grdovic, a retired Special Forces officer and currently a Senior International SOF Advisor within the USSOCOM J3 – International Division, provides his thoughts on how the U.S. military is addressing how it will institutionalize the topic of Irregular Warfare (IW). “Untangling the Gordian Knot that is Irregular Warfare”, Small Wars Journal, February 9, 2023.

GSOF and IW. The Global Special Operations Foundation has made Irregular Warfare a central theme in its 2023 SOF Imperatives effort. Read more in 2023 SOF Imperatives, PDF, 4 pages.

Managing Risk for SOF. Tim Ball wirtes on “Managing Risk for Special Operations Forces in Large-Scale Combat Operations”, War on the Rocks, February 21, 2023.

OSINT and ‘Special Forces’. Jeff Giesea argues that a new approach is needed for how the United States generates open source intelligence products. He points to U.S. Army Special Forces as a model for how hybrid intelligence operators could fill this role. “America Needs Special Forces for Open-Source Intelligence”, Small Wars Journal, February 12, 2023.

Upcoming Events

Februrary 28 – March 2, 2023

Special Air Warfare Symposium

Globa SOF Foundation

April 5-6, 2023. San Diego, California

Warrior West

ADS

April 14-16, 2023. Fort Benning, Georgia

Best Ranger Competion

May 8-11, 2023. Tampa, Florida

SOF Week

USSOCOM

May 16-18, 2023. Fort Bragg, NC and via Zoom

Geostrategic Symposium 2023

USASOC

May 22-26, 2023. Indianapolis, Indiana

Special Forces Association Convention

June 21-22, 2023

Warrior East

ADS

August 5, 2023. Perdido Key, Florida

Deep Dive 2023 Combat Diver Reunion

CDF

Podcasts, Videos, Pubs, and Movies

Movie –The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. A story of Britain’s World War II Special Operations Executive (SOE) is being filmed – with initial work being done in Turkey. The SOE was also known as Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, a term applied by some senior members of the Uk military who were disdainful of SOE tactics. “Cameras Now Rolling on Movie About Churchill’s Securet WWII Spec Ops Unit”, Military.cojm, February 14, 2023.

Video – The Role of Special Operations in Great Power Competition. The U.S. House Armed Services Committee heard testimony from Seth Jones and Dr. David Ucko about SOF and GPC. February 8, 2023, YouTube, one hour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tDmJxPkIYI&t=982s

Video – Psychological Operations – Narrative. Col. Jeremy Mushtare, Dr. Ajit Mann, and Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Brian Steed discuss the use of narrative in PSYOP. 1st Special Forces Command, YouTube, January 29, 2021, one hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2-m9CHG7sw

Video – USASOC Command Video 2022. United States Army Special Operations Command PAO, February 8, 2023, YouTube, 3 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClWZjoNwOxA

Podcast – Theory and Practice of Proxy Warfare in Strategic Competition. LTG (Ret.) Ken Tovo, Dr. Vladimir Rauta, and Dr. Nakissa Jahanbani are the guests for a podcast about special operations forces as well as conventional forces that engage with proxy forces. Social Science of War Podcast, Modern War Institute at West Point, February 20, 2023, 51 minutes.

Podcast – 5th Generation Warfare. Boone Cutler is the guest of this podcast where he talks about the ongoing conflicts and the importance of understanding irregular warfare. He is the co-author of The Citizens Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare. February 10, 2023, one hour.

Podcast – That Others May Live: CSAR in Future Conflicts. Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, February 18, 2023, 36 minutes. An assortment of guests are featured in this podcast that discuss the challenges facing the USAF’s Combat Search and Rescue mission as it adapts to changing global threats.

Armor. The mounted maneuver journal for Fall 2022 has now been posted online. PDF, 53 pages.

https://www.dvidshub.net/publication/issues/66234

Podcasts

SOFCAST. United States Special Operations Command

https://linktr.ee/sofcast

The Pinelander. Blacksmith Publishing

https://www.thepinelander.com/

The Indigenous Approach. 1st Special Forces Command

https://open.spotify.com/show/3n3I7g9LSmd143GYCy7pPA

Irregular Warfare Podcast. Modern War Institute at West Point

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/irregular-warfare-podcast/id1514636385

sof.news · by SOF News · February 21, 2023

8. The Persistence of Great-Power Politics

Excerpts:

No matter what critics may say, accepting that certain countries will be able to exercise more power in the regions closest to them does not necessarily condemn small countries to conquest by their larger neighbors. Consider the last year again: despite accepting that direct intervention would be too costly, for example, the United States has not abandoned Ukraine to its fate. In contrast, the U.S. government has provided substantial amounts of military and financial aid, carefully calibrated to remain below the threshold that might lead to broader war. Ukraine may be outside the U.S. sphere of influence, but the United States is helping it resist being incorporated into a Russian sphere.

Such strategies can and should be applied elsewhere. Small states can build up their own military capabilities and receive support from other countries to make themselves an unappetizing meal for their larger neighbors. Rather than performative gestures that suggest support for Taiwanese independence, for example, policymakers should invest now in helping the island to defend itself through an appropriately diversified “porcupine” strategy. Not only is it far more effective to conduct such buildups before any potential war, but if executed wisely, this approach may even be able to prevent that war from ever happening.

To adopt these strategies, however, policymakers must learn the right lessons from the war in Ukraine. If policymakers can reject premature triumphalism, acknowledge the practical limits to American power, learn to delegate defense to the states at the pointy end of the spear, and grow more comfortable with the ambiguity needed to navigate the dangerous areas where spheres of influence overlap, they may be able to avoid disaster.

The Persistence of Great-Power Politics

What the War in Ukraine Has Revealed About Geopolitical Rivalry

By Emma Ashford

February 20, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Emma Ashford · February 20, 2023

This article is part of an ongoingxamining what a year of war in Ukraine has revealed.

At the Munich Security Conference in February 2022, mere days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s newly minted foreign minister, argued that Europe faced a stark choice between “Helsinki or Yalta.” To one side was the 1975 conference in Finland, where 35 countries signed an agreement that recognized Europe’s post–World War II boundaries as final and called for the promotion of international cooperation and human rights; to the other was the 1945 summit in Crimea, where Western leaders betrayed the countries of eastern Europe by granting Stalin free rein in the region. The choice, Baerbock said, was “between a system of shared responsibility for security and peace’’ or “a system of power rivalry and spheres of influence.” By March, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, was claiming that the West had made the right decision in refusing to discuss the issues of NATO enlargement or of Ukrainian neutrality. “Putin is trying to turn back the clock to another era—an era of brutal use of force, of power politics, of spheres of influence, and internal repression,” she argued. “I am confident he will fail.”

One year into the war, this view—that spheres of influence are a thing of the past—is more widely held than ever. The first major war on European soil since World War II is seen by many American and European foreign policy elites, paradoxically, not as a sign that the realities of rivalry and international power politics are back, but rather that Western values and security cooperation can triumph over them. For many commentators in the United States, U.S. President Joe Biden’s response to the war has been his biggest foreign policy triumph and a clear sign that U.S. foreign policy is on the right track. Indeed, the National Security Strategy that the White House released in October all but took a victory lap, noting, “We are leading a united, principled, and resolute response to Russia’s invasion and we have rallied the world to support the Ukrainian people as they bravely defend their country.”

Take a step back from the triumphalism, however, and that picture is less clear. The war in Ukraine is—if not precisely a deterrence failure for the United States—then at least a clear failure of U.S. policy decisions over the last few decades to maintain peace in Europe. It is certainly true that the war has shown the West’s willingness to confront the return of power politics. But it has also shown the practical limitations of that strategy. The last year has been not a refutation of a world of rivalry, great-power competition, or spheres of influence, as some have described it, but rather a demonstration of what all these look like in practice. It proves that the United States cannot always deter a resolute revisionist state without bearing unacceptably high costs and risks.

This misdiagnosis matters: if policymakers view the war in Ukraine as a triumph of U.S. policy, they will be more likely to make similar mistakes elsewhere. And as the United States enters a period of growing contestation over the borders of the Western sphere of influence, and how it will interact with those of Russia and China, learning the correct lessons from Ukraine could not be more urgent.

POLICY FAILURE

Many assessments published after Biden’s tenure hit the two-year mark have glossed over the president’s first year in office, praising his response to the invasion of Ukraine without considering his messaging about the impending crisis over the course of 2021. “Biden’s Russia policy is arguably the most successful in more than a decade,” crowed the scholar Liana Fix. Even critics of the foreign policy status quo have deemed the administration’s handling of the crisis adept, with Stephen Wertheim and Matt Duss, for example, contending that “Biden has dealt with Russia adroitly.” They are undoubtedly correct. The Biden administration has responded pragmatically and competently to the biggest geopolitical crisis in decades, first warning of the likelihood of war and then providing support for Ukraine, all the while keeping one eye on the risk of escalation.

But few observers commented on the first year of Biden’s term in the same way. Most failed to highlight the mismatch between the administration’s statements prior to Russia’s invasion and the White House’s response afterward. As late as December 2021, for example, administration officials were promising that the United States’ commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty was “unwavering”; in November of that year, they privately discussed sending U.S. military advisers to assist the Ukrainians. But by February 24, 2022, the administration’s tone had decisively shifted: the United States would not engage directly in the fighting in Ukraine. The U.S. response would be hands-off, participating in the war via sanctions, aid, and intelligence support.

This was quite clearly the correct choice. Direct U.S. involvement in a war with a nuclear-armed Russia would be a disastrous mistake. But it calls into question the administration’s strategy for preventing the war in preceding months. By all accounts, Biden had decided weeks or even months in advance of the invasion that the cost of fighting Russia directly would be too high; administration officials openly mused about arming a future Ukrainian insurgency after a widely expected Russian victory. Yet if they knew all along that the odds of preventing conflict were slim—and that the United States would not directly engage—then why did they not consider other policy options, such as offering a moratorium on admitting Ukraine to NATO? Why continue to play such an exceptionally poor hand in the hope it would deter Russian action?

Learning the correct lessons from Ukraine could not be more urgent.

The most likely answer is that they were unwilling to acknowledge what an open admission that the United States wouldn’t defend Ukraine would imply more broadly about U.S. power in a period of growing rivalry: that it is limited in what it can achieve. This cognitive dissonance cannot be entirely blamed on the Biden administration. The idea that Ukraine and Georgia would someday join NATO—and that to accept any other course would be to accept limits on U.S. power—has been an underlying assumption of U.S. foreign policy since at least the George W. Bush administration, even as many other member states rejected the idea.

Indeed, particularly after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, it was commonly understood among foreign policy elites that NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia was more aspirational than practical. As the scholar Michael O’Hanlon put it last February, weeks before the invasion: “To say that Ukraine won’t be joining NATO soon (if ever) is not a concession to Putin, but an acknowledgment of reality.” Yet even as war loomed, U.S. policymakers were not willing to acknowledge that reality, making clear that they would not discuss NATO’s open-door policy with Russia.

It is impossible to know whether offering some compromise on Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO would have prevented war. Russian demands for Ukraine to remain nonaligned might also have precluded closer ties to the EU, something many Ukrainians would have been less likely to accept. Others have suggested that the war was the inevitable result of President Vladimir Putin’s insatiable revisionist and imperialist impulses. His rhetoric often suggests that he views Ukraine less as a country than a wayward Russian province. He may have chosen to roll the dice regardless, viewing potential territorial gains as more valuable than Western political concessions.

But it would take a truly blinkered view of the region to argue that the inflexible policies pursued by U.S. policymakers in eastern Europe over the last few decades played no role at all in the run-up to the war. The unwillingness to contemplate any alternative path for Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other states contributed to a toxic stew of political disputes, security fears, and imperialist ambition that ultimately brought the region to the brink of war. Whatever the final outcome of this war, that it happened at all is a policy failure.

WHY “SPHERES OF INFLUENCE” ARE BACK

In 2017, when the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy hailed the return of “great power competition,” it kicked off a debate in Washington over the definition of that term. Few suggested that it might mean a return to open conflict on the periphery of Europe. But the war in Ukraine is highlighting the costs that great-power competition can bring if poorly managed. And it shows the potential for catastrophe if U.S. policymakers cannot move past their unipolar mindset.

In a broader geopolitical sense, the war in Ukraine marks the return of contestation over spheres of influence in world politics. At its simplest, a sphere of influence is an area where a great power can shape political or economic outcomes—and attempt to exclude rival states from doing so—even though they don’t directly control the territory. Perhaps because “sphere of influence” emerged as a term of art during the heyday of imperial colonialism, or perhaps simply because it has often been put into practice in amoral ways, it has come to have a strong negative connotation. It prompts images of the Yalta conference and the arbitrary divisions of Europe after World War II or of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler in Munich in 1938. Detractors contend that spheres of influence are morally indefensible, as the great powers condemn smaller countries to suffer at the hands of their larger neighbors.

Yet this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept. A sphere of influence does not have to be some kind of courtesy offered by one great power to another over the heads of smaller, more vulnerable states. It is more often a mere fact, an assertion of geography and power. A sphere of influence is simply a place where one great power asserts dominance and another is afraid or unwilling to challenge it because the perceived costs are simply too high. Consider the case of Afghanistan: in an 1869 letter, the Russian foreign minister sought to reassure his British counterpart that Afghanistan lay “completely outside the sphere within which Russia might be called upon to exercise her influence.” The two countries would later formalize this arrangement as well as set clear lines over which state would have influence in which parts of Persia, in the 1907 Anglo-Russian Entente. Both reflected a simple reality: the Russians did not believe that the benefits of fighting the British for Afghanistan or for control of all of Persia would be worth the costs.

Some commentators suggest that we cannot accept such arrangements, arguing that the world has moved past these antiquated, colonialist ideas into a more enlightened era. But the truth is more mundane. During the unipolar moment, the period of U.S. global dominance that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States simply did not need to concern itself much with the question of spheres of influence because its power was unchallenged. The political scientist Graham Allison put it succinctly: U.S. policymakers had ceased to recognize spheres of influence, but “not because the concept had become obsolete. Rather, the entire world had become a de facto American sphere.”

Whatever the final outcome of this war, that it happened at all is a policy failure.

Thus when Russia asserted in 1999 during NATO’s Kosovo intervention that the former Yugoslavia fell within its sphere of influence, going so far as to send Russian paratroopers on a quixotic quest to seize Pristina’s airport, the United States was able to largely brush off the complaint. It was clear that Russia, whose paratroopers were forced to beg their NATO counterparts for food and supplies, did not have the power to back up its assertions. Likewise, when China engaged in saber rattling with Taiwan in the mid-1990s, the United States responded with a massive show of military force, sailing a carrier group through the Taiwan Strait and forcing Chinese leaders to back down.

Washington’s insistence in recent decades that spheres of influence should not exist was as much a declaration of its own global reach and primacy as anything else. Today, however, the world is entering a period of contestation over the limits of American power, as Russia and China are increasingly capable of asserting their own interests in the areas nearest to their borders.

The United States refused to discuss NATO’s open-door policy before the invasion of Ukraine for one key reason: that doing so might deny the agency of states in eastern Europe to make their own foreign policy choices. Just weeks before the invasion, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked about the open-door policy. “There will be no change,” he said, adding that “there are core principles that we are committed to uphold and defend,” including “the right of states to choose their own security arrangements and alliances.”

But the last year has demonstrated that this approach is insufficient, in part because it failed to account for Russian agency. Faced with the prospect of Ukraine’s slipping out of its orbit and unable to achieve any concessions from Western states, Putin opted to gamble on a risky and costly military expedition instead. And even as the military campaign has experienced significant setbacks, he has been willing to take ever more dramatic steps to try and control Ukraine, from mass mobilization of Russian troops to widespread bombardment of civilian infrastructure.

The results have certainly been catastrophic for Russia: it has achieved almost none of its original aims, Kyiv remains independent, the Russian economy is in decline, and tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are dead. But the invasion has also imposed immense costs on the people of Ukraine along with significant costs and the risk of escalation for Europe and the United States. If the war in Ukraine is a success story for the Biden administration or for its predecessors, it is a pyrrhic one.

GREAT-POWER COMPETITION DOESN’T MEAN WHAT YOU THINK

In a 2008 speech, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice proclaimed her confidence in a vision of “a world in which great power is defined not by spheres of influence or zero-sum competition, or the strong imposing their will on the weak.” Yet 15 years later, all of these features are back with a vengeance. Far from refuting the brutal nature of international politics, the war in Ukraine has demonstrated the unpleasant realities of contestation over spheres of influence between the great powers.

It has also forcefully revealed the limits of U.S. power to deter actors in the places nearest and dearest to them through nonmilitary means. Committing the United States to fight directly in these areas would entail unacceptably high risks and costs to the American people, something that Biden himself has acknowledged, telling reporters, “We will not fight the third world war in Ukraine.”

At the same time, however, Washington’s foreign policy elites show little recognition that the principle of avoiding a great-power war over peripheral interests might apply elsewhere. Take Taiwan: public opinion strongly opposes fighting China directly over Taiwan, and war games suggest that such a choice could be disastrous for the United States. Yet American policymakers continue to toy with the idea of shifting from the U.S. government’s long-running policy of strategic ambiguity toward a firmer stance of open military support for Taiwan. Given Beijing’s apparent growing determination to achieve reunification with the island, this may amount to making the same mistakes as those made in Ukraine. Any attempt to clarify that Taiwan is outside Beijing’s sphere of influence could end up provoking the very war that the United States wishes to avoid.

The world is entering a period of contestation over the limits of American power.

No matter what critics may say, accepting that certain countries will be able to exercise more power in the regions closest to them does not necessarily condemn small countries to conquest by their larger neighbors. Consider the last year again: despite accepting that direct intervention would be too costly, for example, the United States has not abandoned Ukraine to its fate. In contrast, the U.S. government has provided substantial amounts of military and financial aid, carefully calibrated to remain below the threshold that might lead to broader war. Ukraine may be outside the U.S. sphere of influence, but the United States is helping it resist being incorporated into a Russian sphere.

Such strategies can and should be applied elsewhere. Small states can build up their own military capabilities and receive support from other countries to make themselves an unappetizing meal for their larger neighbors. Rather than performative gestures that suggest support for Taiwanese independence, for example, policymakers should invest now in helping the island to defend itself through an appropriately diversified “porcupine” strategy. Not only is it far more effective to conduct such buildups before any potential war, but if executed wisely, this approach may even be able to prevent that war from ever happening.

To adopt these strategies, however, policymakers must learn the right lessons from the war in Ukraine. If policymakers can reject premature triumphalism, acknowledge the practical limits to American power, learn to delegate defense to the states at the pointy end of the spear, and grow more comfortable with the ambiguity needed to navigate the dangerous areas where spheres of influence overlap, they may be able to avoid disaster.

• EMMA ASHFORD is a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University. She is the author of Oil, the State, and War: The Foreign Policies of Petrostates.

Foreign Affairs · by Emma Ashford · February 20, 2023

9. The Dollar Still Dominates

And we need to make sure it always does. It is the US' super power and what makes the US a superpower.

Excerpts:

Great-power competition poses serious risks to the dollar’s dominance in the global economy. Geopolitically induced dollar support is, however, working to stabilize and increase dollar holdings. The coalition behind the sanctions against Russia is broad, wealthy, and militarily powerful, and its objective of ending Russia’s barbarous war is widely shared, even by those not participating in the sanctions. And even though many countries look on the sanctions against Russia with alarm, they have other geopolitical reasons to support the dollar. For in a less secure world, countries privilege survival and are more likely to support states capable of helping them secure their territorial integrity, giving the United States an edge due to its vast security network.

The dollar-centered financial system is becoming less widespread but more entrenched where it persists. To safeguard the existing currency hierarchy and limit the long-term trend toward currency multipolarity, the United States must use economic statecraft in ways that promote the public good of a liberal international order. The United States will not be able to afford to alienate key allies or a large portion of the international community and still preserve the unipolar dollar era.

The Dollar Still Dominates

American Financial Power in the Age of Great-Power Competition

By Carla Norrlöf

February 21, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Carla Norrlöf · February 21, 2023

The centrality of the U.S. dollar in world affairs is mainly determined by economic factors, but geopolitical forces are threatening to weaken its top spot in the currency hierarchy. U.S. sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have pushed some countries to further reduce their reliance on the dollar. The geopolitical tug of war between allies and foes, liberal and illiberal states carries high stakes. “Great powers have great currencies,” quipped the Nobel laureate Robert Mundell. If the currency system were to become multipolar, U.S. monetary perks would recede, as would the United States’ global economic influence and its ability to use dollars as an alternative to military force when policing international order.

A more fragmented global economy in which security partnerships determine economic relations is coming into view. But an end to the dollar’s dominance is still unlikely. Countries participating in the sanctions against Russia or benefiting from U.S. currency coercion aimed at upholding the liberal international order’s core principle of nonaggression have no incentives to diversify away from the dollar. Even countries opposing Western sanctions are likely to stick with the dollar to preserve their own security and U.S. security guarantees in a hardening geopolitical climate.

In today’s fraught international environment, countries are returning to Cold War logic, questioning the sustainability of systemwide economic interdependence over privileged economic ties with friends. With the United States at the center of the largest security network in the world, the dollar stands to benefit from this shift, even though it will simultaneously be counterbalanced by the currencies of geopolitical rivals. This bifurcated dynamic, in which U.S. supporters shore up dollar dominance and Washington’s detractors reduce their dollar dependence, nonetheless represents the most important threat to the dollar’s global prominence since the arrival of the euro in 1999.

The dollar is the preferred currency of governments, accounting for approximately 60 percent of central bank reserves in late 2022, compared to the euro’s 20 percent, and the yen’s six percent. Individually, the pound, the Chinese yuan, and the Canadian and Australian dollar represent less than five percent of government reserves. The dollar is also dominant, though less so, in private markets.

Yet pessimism about the dollar’s future abounds. Rana Foroohar of the Financial Times has warned of a “post-dollar world”; her colleague Martin Wolf worries that dollar dominance will give way to a bipolar international monetary system, with the United States at one end and China at the other. Gita Gopinath, the deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, sees sanctions ushering in a fragmented, multipolar currency order. Big banks are also skeptical about the prospects of continued dollar dominance. Zoltan Pozsar of Credit Suisse believes a multipolar, commodity-based currency order lies ahead. A year ago, Goldman Sachs’s Cristina Tessari and Zach Pandl cautioned the dollar might follow the fate of the British pound and become a second-tier currency.

If predictions about a coming multipolar currency order are correct, the United States will undergo a meaningful decline in its power base and in its ability to project power, with broader implications for international stability and order. By rethinking how it imposes sanctions, however, the West can help protect the dollar’s standing. The United States and its allies can design sanctions in a way that will prevent the unipolar currency order from further eroding. Namely, they must build broad sanctions coalitions in which participation is strictly voluntary and those who do not join are not forced to choose sides. Countries imposing sanctions should recognize the consequences these punishing measures have on third parties and, whenever possible, take steps to alleviate those unintended effects. Sanctions should be reserved for the clear-cut cases in which the international order is under threat, as in Ukraine, and should not be used for parochial purposes, as when sanctions were reinstated against Iran in 2018, even though it hadn’t broken the terms of the nuclear deal, and when the Trump administration imposed overly harsh sanctions on Cuba. Imposing sanctions to pursue narrow U.S. interests raises legitimate fears among countries that they could be targeted next and therefore motivates them to find alternatives to the dollar. But if the United States and its allies resort to sanctions to preserve the central elements of the liberal international order, the dollar should keep its place as the currency of choice.

THE RENMINBI AND THE RUBLE

China and Russia are openly taking steps to raise the attractiveness of alternative currencies for international economic and reserve purposes, building multinational financial infrastructure to promote trade and investment in renminbi and rubles. China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System acts like a clearing-house, similar to the U.S. Clearing House Interbank Payments System. Comparing these platforms reveals the gulf between them. The Chinese system, or CIPS, processes approximately 15,000 transactions per day, amounting to the dollar equivalent of $50 billion. Meanwhile, CHIPS, the U.S. version, processes 250,000 transactions per day, exceeding $1.5 trillion. CIPS makes it possible to clear and settle cross-border exchange in renminbi. Once China develops a financial messaging system, the cross-border settlement of yuan-denominated transactions can occur independently of the global SWIFT interbank messaging service dominated by the West. Russia, for its part, created what it calls the System for Transfer of Financial Messages after it invaded Ukraine in 2014. The express purpose of SPFS is to allow users to bypass SWIFT. There were roughly 400 users before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but according to Russia’s central bank, demand increased significantly afterward.

Complementing these systems is a series of bilateral treaties that intend to facilitate trade and investment in non-Western currencies. China and Russia signed a bilateral treaty in 2019 with the goal of promoting their national currencies for trade settlement. India has created a Special Rupee Vostro Account, which countries can credit to encourage settlement of trade and investment with India in Indian rupees. India and Russia have also tried to encourage trade denominated in their currencies by reintroducing the rupee-ruble Cold War currency mechanism shortly after the sanctions against Russia were imposed in 2022. Under this scheme, settlement would occur directly between Russian banks holding rupees in India and Indian banks holding rubles in Russia.

After the 2008 financial crisis, China began funneling renminbi to other countries by extending bilateral swap lines, allowing foreign central banks to acquire Chinese yuan in exchange for their own currency. Making renminbi available to foreign governments is a prerequisite for its use by governments and private actors, and the ability to act as the lender of last resort in times of crisis is an important aspect of reserve currency status. China’s largest line, amounting to $24 billion, is with Russia. More recently, China has collaborated with the Bank for International Settlements to create a renminbi liquidity arrangement to support contributing central banks during emergencies. The central banks of Chile, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore have pledged $2 billion each to the reserve pool held in Basel, Switzerland, where the BIS is headquartered. China’s reserve and liquidity provision remains small, compared with the supply of the U.S. Federal Reserve, but it is sure to grow. In 2016, the International Monetary Fund updated the reserve basket of currencies that defines its so-called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the reserve asset in which the IMF denominates its loans to governments, to include the Chinese yuan.

Pessimism about the dollar’s future abounds.

China is also promoting the use of renminbi by creating digital payment alternatives, such as the e-CNY, a digital currency the country’s central bank began to offer in 2016 and introduced as a payment option for anyone attending the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. When fully implemented, the e-CNY will function independently of other payment and financial messaging systems. By promising cheaper, faster, and safer transactions, a Chinese digital currency can speed up the internationalization of the renminbi. All these developments will make the renminbi more widely accessible and liquid and, therefore, will promote its use for trade and investment.

Joint efforts to decimate the dollar are also being discussed by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, known as the BRICS. Together, these countries have explored issuing a joint reserve currency with the explicit purpose of bypassing the dollar and other major Western currencies. The common currency would be based on a basket of BRICS currencies and would serve as an alternative to the IMF’s reserve basket of currencies, although little progress has been made since its June 2022 announcement. China, India, and Russia, however, agreed to expand trade and promote their national currencies in international payments at a September summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Dollars remain the currency of choice for governments, firms, and financial institutions to conduct trade and investment, but cross-border exchange in alternative currencies is progressing. Oil is one of the world’s leading export products. Using dollars to pay for oil is therefore seen as an important element in maintaining the dollar’s role as the default currency for international payments. China, Russia, and countries in the Middle East and South Asia are trying to move away from oil settlement in dollars. China and Russia are promoting their national currencies in oil trade. China and Saudi Arabia are drawing up plans to invoice oil in renminbi. Russia and India are exploring the use of the dirham, the currency of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to settle oil deals among them. Russia and Iran are considering the use of a gold-backed stablecoin for international payments.

If oil producers insist on settling oil transactions in Chinese renminbi, Russian rubles, Indian rupees, the UAE’s dirham, or non-dollar-backed stablecoins, the dollar’s role will decline. The use of renminbi to trade oil among countries not involving China also stands to raise the significance of the renminbi as an international currency. Third-party use of the dirham will likewise raise its international role, although it is unlikely to become a major international currency. The rupee is a more likely contender as an international currency, but so far it is used only in bilateral trade. The ruble is also used in bilateral trade and highly unlikely to join the currency major league. Even if these currencies are primarily used for bilateral trade, the dollar will be used relatively less frequently, undermining its status.

CHOOSING SIDES IN AN ECONOMIC SHOWDOWN

As China and Russia are making moves to promote the use of their currencies, the United States is pressuring countries to join the sanctions regime against Russia, with consequences for the dollar’s primacy. U.S. dollar dominance depends on the disproportionate use of dollars relative to other currencies by governments and private actors. Governments use and hold dollar reserves in order to intervene in foreign exchange markets and to defend the prices of their currencies, particularly during times of crisis. Governments with difficulty instilling confidence in their own currencies “peg” the value of those currencies to the dollar to stabilize their exchange rates. Private actors, including individuals, businesses, and financial institutions, also use dollars to conduct trade and investment.

Sanctions stop most of these activities dead in their tracks. Sanctions may be limited to preventing certain government officials, private individuals, or entities from accessing dollar-denominated assets or making dollar-based transactions. Sanctions can also be more comprehensive, locking banks and other key entities out of using dollars. Extreme forms of economic coercion, such as freezing central bank reserves, deny a foreign government the ability to use reserves to intervene in foreign exchange markets and provide dollar funding to its economy.

Since last February, 44 countries—Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the United States, and nearly all of Europe—have imposed sanctions on Russia for violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity and waging war on its population and institutions. These countries stand united in seeking to uphold an international environment free from military coercion, terrorism, human rights abuses, and authoritarian coups. Western sanctions include a freeze on Russia’s central bank reserves, disconnecting major Russian banks from SWIFT, foreign currency restrictions, and sanctions and asset freezes on more than 10,000 individuals, entities, vessels, and aircraft. Additional measures include export controls on dual-use goods, an oil-price cap, a ban on gold imports from Russia, superyacht confiscations, travel bans, and the exodus of many Western countries from Russia.

By rethinking how it imposes sanctions, the West can help protect the dollar’s standing.

The sanctions against Russia are contributing to a realignment of global currency holdings. The countries supporting sanctions on Russia have strong geopolitical incentives to continue holding and using dollars for international reserve and payment purposes since doing so reinforces the constraining impact of the sanctions and helps ensure their future effectiveness. Any economic incentives these governments previously had to diversify away from traditional currencies, particularly the U.S. dollar, by increasing the proportion of other currencies in their reserves and international transactions must now be weighed against the geopolitical incentives to hold dollars. As security concerns eclipse economic ones, the United States and Europe are limiting their economic dependence on foreign adversaries and pushing to relocate manufacturing and supply chains to allied nations in what has come to be known as “friend shoring.” Just as countries are beginning to source goods and inputs from friendly nations, they are likely to adopt the currencies of friendly nations. The size of the sanctioning coalition, the number of nonparticipating sanctions supporters, and the number of countries under the U.S. security umbrella, make large-scale currency diversification away from the dollar unlikely, as shown by two recent studies.

Together, the coalition arrayed against Russia accounts for more than 90 percent of global currency reserves, approximately 80 percent of global investment, and 60 percent of world trade and world economic output. Overcoming that dominance would be difficult even if every country that has declined to sanction Russia fell in line behind an organized anti-dollar coalition.

Countries not participating in sanctions against Russia do not necessarily disagree with the goals behind them: ending the war in Ukraine and deterring future territorial aggression. And many of those countries still have incentives to strengthen the global dollar-centered system. Fully half of the United States’ formal security allies are not participating in the sanctions regime against Russia. Together, this group of countries, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Turkey, represents six percent of the world’s GDP, seven percent of global trade, and two percent of global investment. Developing countries that have not sanctioned Russia are feeling the brunt of the sanctions’ secondary effects: inflation, currency depreciation, and supply chain shortages. Still, they are unlikely to respond to this fallout by siding with Russia unless the West inflicts further pain on them—for example, by diverting aid to Ukraine and cutting off foreign aid to them.

With geopolitical tensions rising, it is likely that an old security logic for the use of the dollar will take hold. Historically, allies have offered currency support in exchange for defense commitments. Most famously, the United States stationed 200,000 troops in West Germany during the Cold War. In return, President John F. Kennedy asked Berlin to procure military equipment as a way of reducing the U.S. current account deficit, supporting the dollar, decreasing the outflow of gold, and bolstering the credibility of the fixed dollar-gold regime arising from U.S. military spending. When security concerns receded after the Cold War, economic calculations took over, with geopolitics taking a back seat in determining dollar holdings and transactions. But with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the security drivers of economic exchange have returned with a vengeance.

BUCK UP

Great-power competition poses serious risks to the dollar’s dominance in the global economy. Geopolitically induced dollar support is, however, working to stabilize and increase dollar holdings. The coalition behind the sanctions against Russia is broad, wealthy, and militarily powerful, and its objective of ending Russia’s barbarous war is widely shared, even by those not participating in the sanctions. And even though many countries look on the sanctions against Russia with alarm, they have other geopolitical reasons to support the dollar. For in a less secure world, countries privilege survival and are more likely to support states capable of helping them secure their territorial integrity, giving the United States an edge due to its vast security network.

The dollar-centered financial system is becoming less widespread but more entrenched where it persists. To safeguard the existing currency hierarchy and limit the long-term trend toward currency multipolarity, the United States must use economic statecraft in ways that promote the public good of a liberal international order. The United States will not be able to afford to alienate key allies or a large portion of the international community and still preserve the unipolar dollar era.

• CARLA NORRLÖF is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto.

Foreign Affairs · by Carla Norrlöf · February 21, 2023

​10. Biden 'photo op' in Kyiv not enough, US must send more lethal aid: top foreign affairs Republicans

Excerpt:

"I hope POTUS’ visit to #Kyiv will be followed with action – including quickly sending F-16s to Ukrainian forces. We must demonstrate that the U.S. remains committed to helping #Ukraine defend itself against #Russia's violent aggression," Risch stated in a tweet Monday.

Biden 'photo op' in Kyiv not enough, US must send more lethal aid: top foreign affairs Republicans

Rep. McCaul, Sen. Risch say White House needs to send Ukraine F-16s, long-range missiles

By Brianna Herlihy , Kelly Laco | Fox News

foxnews.com · by Brianna Herlihy , Kelly Laco | Fox News

Video

Russia and China are joining forces to ‘challenge’ US: Koffler

Former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Rebekah Koffler says the Chinese spy flight showed the U.S., China and Russia a "glaring gap in our airspace security."

Top Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees said President Joe Biden's surprise "photo op" in Ukraine on Monday is not a sufficient response and said the U.S. needs to send more lethal aid to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia.

"It’s good President Biden visited Ukraine, but a photo op isn’t enough," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who chairs the House committee. "He needs to get Ukraine the weapons they need to win now, especially ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System), instead of slow-rolling them."

The top Republican on the Senate committee, Jim Risch of Idaho, agreed that more lethal force is needed and called on Biden to send fighter aircraft.

"I hope POTUS’ visit to #Kyiv will be followed with action – including quickly sending F-16s to Ukrainian forces. We must demonstrate that the U.S. remains committed to helping #Ukraine defend itself against #Russia's violent aggression," Risch stated in a tweet Monday.

GOP LAWMAKERS SLAM BIDEN FOR UKRAINE TRIP, NEGLECTING EAST PALESTINE, SOUTHERN BORDER: 'THEY CAN KEEP HIM!'

President Joe Biden, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy embrace as they say goodbye at the Memorial Wall of Fallen Defenders of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 20, 2023. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

RUSSIA MUTED ON BIDEN'S UKRAINE VISIT, MOSTLY VIEWED AS 'THEATRICS': EXPERT

ATACMS is a 190-mile range missile that would far outperform the artillery currently in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's arsenal, which have a range of about 50 miles.

But last week, the Biden administration announced it would not be sending ATACMS to the front lines in Ukraine because doing so would reduce the U.S. military stockpile to a level that would affect military readiness. But some military experts say that excuse from the White House is "weak."

"ATACMS is fired by rocket artillery systems that have already been transferred to Ukraine," the Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote in an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner on Saturday. "Modern variants of the missile have a 500-pound warhead and 300-kilometer range, well beyond the 85-kilometer range of Ukraine’s current Western-supplied rockets," the group said.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas (AP Photo / Andrew Harnik / File)

BIDEN'S SURPRISE VISIT TO KYIV WILL HAVE 'ZERO' IMPACT ON RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT, PUTIN EXPERT SAYS

"The bottom line is that there are still thousands left in U.S. and allied stockpiles," the group said.

The Biden administration's refusal to send Ukraine F-16s and ATACMS comes even after bipartisan calls to do so.

On Thursday, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers, including Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., sent a letter to the White House to ask Biden to "provide Ukraine with increased air superiority capability, including the F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft requested by [Kyiv], or similar fourth-generation aircraft, as soon as possible."

President Joe Biden, left, walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Feb. 20, 2023. (Evan Vucci / Pool / AFP via Getty Images)

"We believe providing Ukraine with fourth generation fighter aircraft represents a sound strategic investment in bolstering [Kyiv's] military capability and bringing this conflict to a just conclusion," they said.

This month, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in support of sending ATACMS and fourth-generation aircraft to Ukraine.

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House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez, D-N.J., did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

The comments from the top GOP lawmakers are out of step with other Republicans who on Monday rebuked Biden for his trip to the war-torn region instead of visiting East Palestine, Ohio, where a recent train derailment led to a major leak of toxic chemicals.

Brianna Herlihy is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

foxnews.com · by Brianna Herlihy , Kelly Laco | Fox News

11. China, Russia and the U.S. ‘Red Line’ on Ukraine

China, Russia and the U.S. ‘Red Line’ on Ukraine

What will Biden do if Beijing sends military aid to Moscow?

By The Editorial BoardFollow

Feb. 20, 2023 6:13 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-russia-and-the-us-red-line-biden-kyiv-beijing-weapons-support-russia-putin-decoupling-364e400f

President Biden’s visit to Kyiv on Monday was an important symbolic display of American support for Ukraine, and credit to him for traveling into a war zone. But the bigger Ukraine news in recent days may be the public alarms coming from U.S. officials that China could soon provide Russia with military aid.

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“The concern that we have now is, based on information we have, that they’re considering providing lethal support,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CBS News on Sunday. “And we’ve made very clear to them that that would cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship.” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield went further on CNN, saying Chinese military aid “would be a red line.”

The use of “red line” as a diplomatic ultimatum has a degraded reputation after President Obama declared one to deter chemical-weapons attacks in Syria but then failed to enforce it when those weapons were used. Is the Biden Administration more serious about enforcement now, and what would that mean?

The concern is heightened after what appears to have been a contentious meeting between Mr. Blinken and China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference over the weekend. The U.S. pursued China for the meeting, hoping to reset relations after the spy balloon episode.

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Mr. Wang finally granted the meeting, but China boasted in a public readout afterward that the U.S. had sought the bilateral session. The implication of the U.S. as supplicant was clear. Mr. Blinken said afterward that China had offered no apology for sending the balloon over U.S. airspace and military sites.

Mr. Wang reinforced the point in his public remarks in Munich, chastising the U.S. for what he called an “absurd and hysterical” response to the balloon. He also blamed the U.S. for being an obstacle to peace in Ukraine. Mr. Wang was heading to Moscow after Munich even as Mr. Biden was going to Kyiv.

The U.S. says China has provided Russia with technical and economic support for the war, but so far not weapons. Mr. Blinken’s alarm about the prospect is warranted because it would exacerbate the conflict, add to the bloodshed, and make it harder for Ukraine to recapture occupied territory. It would also extend the war, further depleting the West’s weapons stockpiles that are already stretched after a year of backing Ukraine.

To put it more bluntly, arming Russia would be a new and explicit demonstration of China’s hostile intentions toward the U.S. and the West. It would certainly erase Beijing’s seeming desire since the Biden meeting with President Xi Jinping in Bali late last year to put U.S.-China relations on a better course. It would also require a firm U.S. response, which would have to include further economic decoupling.

But Mr. Xi and his war hawks may be willing to take that risk if they want to prevent a Russian defeat in Ukraine. China may want to bleed the West of its weapons and see if Russia can outlast political support in Washington and European capitals for Ukraine. This would be foolish, and bad for China and the world, but the possibility is one more urgent reason for Members of both parties in Congress to get serious about rebuilding U.S. defenses.

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Journal Editorial Report: The week's best and worst from Kim Strassel, Jason Riley and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly

Appeared in the February 21, 2023, print edition as 'China, Russia and the U.S. ‘Red Line’'.

12. Taiwan is bolstering military exchanges with U.S., President Tsai says

Taiwan is bolstering military exchanges with U.S., President Tsai says

Reuters · by Sarah Wu

TAIPEI, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Taiwan is bolstering its military ties with the United States and will cooperate even more closely with it and other friendly nations to deal with "authoritarian expansionism", President Tsai Ing-wen told visiting U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday.

The United States, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with Chinese-claimed Taiwan but is the island's most important international backer and arms supplier, a consistent source of friction in Sino-U.S. relations.

While the United States no longer maintains military bases in Taiwan, the two have a good military relationship that has become closer as China steps up pressure to try and force Taiwan to accept Chinese sovereignty.

"Taiwan and the United States continue to bolster military exchanges, and going forward Taiwan will cooperate even more actively with the United States and other democratic partners to confront such global challenges as authoritarian expansionism and climate change," Tsai told the lawmakers at her office in Taipei.

She gave no details.

Illustrating those close military ties with the United States, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China Michael Chase, arrived in Taiwan last week for a visit, two sources familiar with matter said earlier. It was not clear if he was still in Taiwan.

Ro Khanna, a member of the U.S. House China Select Committee and who is leading the U.S. bipartisan delegation, told Tsai the group was there to strengthen both security and economic ties.

"We come here to strengthen the economic relationship. Representing Silicon Valley I particularly appreciated the meeting with Dr Morris Chang," he said, referring to the founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (2330.TW), the world's largest contract chipmaker.

"How we can continue to build the economic partnership on technology and also of course the partnership on military and defence," Khanna added.

In August, China staged military exercises near Taiwan to express anger at then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei.

Taiwan's democratically elected government rejects China's sovereignty claims and says only the Taiwanese people can decide their future.

Reporting by Sarah Wu; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Sarah Wu

13. Power-Grid Attacks Surge and Are Likely to Continue, Study Finds

71% increase in attacks.

Excerpts;

In 2013, snipers targeted a large-scale transmission substation near San Jose, Calif., and raised fears that the country’s power grid was vulnerable to terrorism. The attack took out 17 transformers critical to supplying power to Silicon Valley, authorities said. A former federal regulator at the time called the event “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred.”

The attack resulted in stronger physical security standards for such large-scale substations that, if compromised, could result in outages for thousands of people. Mr. Cancel said federal regulators have directed NERC to re-evaluate those standards and determine whether they should apply to a broader range of assets.

The December outages in North Carolina occurred when attackers shot small-scale distribution substations owned by Duke Energy. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said it is currently investigating the incidents.

Bonnie Titone, Duke’s chief information officer, said the company is working to improve its security practices and invest in measures to secure the grid better, in part by installing technologies to help keep power flowing in the event part of the system is damaged.

“No utility has the ability to prevent this from happening,” she said. “You can have all the cameras in the world, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be able to deliver reliable power because of that.”

Power-Grid Attacks Surge and Are Likely to Continue, Study Finds

Confidential analysis shows sharp rise in targeting of facilities with gunfire, intrusion and vandalism

https://www.wsj.com/articles/power-grid-attacks-surge-and-are-likely-to-continue-study-finds-e7dfbc0b?mod=hp_lead_pos6

By Katherine BluntFollow

Feb. 21, 2023 7:00 am ET

Physical attacks on the U.S. power grid rose 71% last year compared with 2021 and will likely increase this year, according to a confidential industry analysis viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

A division of the grid oversight body known as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation found that ballistic damage, intrusion and vandalism largely drove the increase. The analysis also determined that physical security incidents involving power outages have increased 20% since 2020, attributed to people frustrated by the onset of the pandemic, social tensions and economic challenges.

The NERC division, known as the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or E-ISAC, recorded the sharp increase in incidents in 2022, driven in part by a series of clustered attacks on infrastructure in the Southeast, Midwest and Pacific Northwest. One of the most significant incidents occurred in early December when attackers targeted several substations in North Carolina with gunfire, leaving roughly 45,000 people in the dark.

Workers conducting maintenance on power lines in Baltimore, where authorities uncovered a plot to attack five substations in the area.

PHOTO: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

The E-ISAC study of grid attacks, which other U.S. government agencies have said are on the rise, is more robust than publicly available data sets. The division’s data includes some nonpublic reports that utilities and grid authorities file with federal agencies or NERC, as well as voluntary disclosures made confidentially. The division tracked a significant increase in mandatory reports last year.

The division wrote that it is reasonably likely that the uptick in such attacks will continue this year based on the number and nature of recent attacks, some of which appear to have been carried out by members of extremist groups aiming to destabilize the grid.

Manny Cancel, E-ISAC’s chief executive, declined to discuss the confidential materials but confirmed that the division has tracked an uptick in serious incidents since 2020. The number of politically or ideologically motivated attacks appears to be growing, he said, though it is difficult to identify the reasons for each one. 

“There seems to be a pattern where people are targeting critical infrastructure, probably with the intent to disrupt,” he said. “Going back to the 2020 presidential election, as well as the recent midterm elections, we’ve seen an uptick in chatter and an uptick in incidents as well.”

Earlier this month, federal authorities charged the founder of Atomwaffen, described as a neo-Nazi network by civil-rights organizations, and a woman he met while in prison with an alleged plot to attack the Maryland power grid. The two planned to shoot up five substations that serve the Baltimore area, federal authorities said. 

Attacks on substations in North Carolina left roughly 45,000 people without power.

PHOTO: KARL B DEBLAKER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Brian Harrell, former assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security, said there has lately been a notable increase in conversations among extremists about targeting critical infrastructure.

“These groups are talking to each other, and they’re learning from each other,” he said. “It gets a lot of people’s attention when you start turning off the lights, and I think that’s what they’re craving.”

Authorities and utilities say they have long been aware of the vulnerability of the power grid, a vast network of wires running from power plants and substations, many of which are located in remote areas. Power companies take numerous measures to secure their infrastructure, but some of it remains difficult to protect depending on location and a range of other factors.

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In 2013, snipers targeted a large-scale transmission substation near San Jose, Calif., and raised fears that the country’s power grid was vulnerable to terrorism. The attack took out 17 transformers critical to supplying power to Silicon Valley, authorities said. A former federal regulator at the time called the event “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred.”

The attack resulted in stronger physical security standards for such large-scale substations that, if compromised, could result in outages for thousands of people. Mr. Cancel said federal regulators have directed NERC to re-evaluate those standards and determine whether they should apply to a broader range of assets.

The December outages in North Carolina occurred when attackers shot small-scale distribution substations owned by Duke Energy. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said it is currently investigating the incidents.

Bonnie Titone, Duke’s chief information officer, said the company is working to improve its security practices and invest in measures to secure the grid better, in part by installing technologies to help keep power flowing in the event part of the system is damaged.

“No utility has the ability to prevent this from happening,” she said. “You can have all the cameras in the world, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be able to deliver reliable power because of that.”

Write to Katherine Blunt at katherine.blunt@wsj.com

14. AI-wielding tech firms are giving a new shape to modern warfare

AI-wielding tech firms are giving a new shape to modern warfare

Ukraine is a testing ground for companies like Anduril and Palantir

The Economist

Much of the Western military hardware used in Ukraine sounds familiar to any student of 20th-century warfare: surface-to-air missiles, anti-tank weapons, rocket launchers and howitzers. But Ukraine’s use of Western information technology, including artificial intelligence (ai) and autonomous surveillance systems, has also had a powerful, if less visible, impact on Russian forces. Commercial vendors supply Ukrainian troops with satellites, sensors, unmanned drones and software. The products provide reams of battlefield data which are condensed into apps to help soldiers on the ground target the enemy. One American defence official calls them, appreciatively, “Uber for artillery”.

Behind this new form of warfare are some of the most unconventional minds in American tech. Everyone knows about Elon Musk, whose rocket company SpaceX put Starlink satellites at the service of Ukraine (though he has now restricted access from the battlefield). Your columnist recently met two other iconoclastic entrepreneurs. One is Palmer Luckey, a 30-year-old who in 2017 co-founded Anduril, a maker of surveillance towers, drones, unmanned submarines and an AI-driven system that supports them, called Lattice. With his trademark flip-flops, Hawaiian shirts and goatee, he is an atypical defence contractor (Tony Stark, Marvel’s gadget-obsessed “Iron Man”, springs to mind). Yet the startup is already shaking up the traditional model of military procurement in America. In its short life, it has won contracts in America and Australia. It provides autonomous systems to Ukraine. When it last raised money in December, it was valued at $8.5bn.

The other is Alex Karp, an eccentric doctor of philosophy with an Einstein-like mop of hair. (Mr Karp used to sit on the board of The Economist’s parent company.) Palantir, his Denver-based software firm, builds digital infrastructure to help clients manage lots of data, be it on security threats, health-care systems or factories’ productivity. Like SpaceX, it has blazed the trail for civilian-military ventures since he co-founded it two decades ago. He makes bold claims. Palantir, he says, has changed the way Ukrainian troops target the enemy, and even the nature of counter-terrorism. He credits its software with saving millions of lives during the covid-19 pandemic. It may not all be gospel truth (the description of British journalists he delivers while staring at Schumpeter—“bad teeth, hard questions”—is only half true). Yet there is little doubt Palantir is supporting Ukraine both on the ground and as part of NATO’s intelligence network. On February 13th, when it reported its first-ever quarterly profit and Mr Karp hinted that his firm might be an acquisition target, its market value rose to $21bn.

Both men are cut from similar cloth. They are Silicon Valley renegades. They criticise big tech for abandoning its historic link with America’s defence establishment. They lament the fast pace of civilian-military fusion in China, which they see as a potential threat to the West. To a greater or lesser degree, they are linked to Peter Thiel, a right-wing venture capitalist. Mr Thiel chairs Palantir and his Founders Fund was an early backer of Anduril (both names echo his love of J.R.R. Tolkien). To some that makes them creepy. Still, using different business models, both highlight how sclerotic the traditional system of “prime” defence contracting has become. They offer intriguing alternatives.

Like a prime contractor, Anduril only sells to military customers. But unlike defence giants such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, it does so while taking all the research-and-development (R&D) risk on its own shoulders. Mr Luckey is a born innovator. As a teenager, he invented the Oculus virtual-reality headset that he later sold to Facebook for $3bn. Walk with him through the arsenal of airborne and subsea devices on display at Anduril’s headquarters in Southern California and his wonkishness as he explains the gadgetry is almost overwhelming.

His business acumen is no less sharp. He and his executives have no time for the Pentagon’s traditional “cost-plus” procurement system. Though it may be necessary for big projects like fighter planes and aircraft-carriers, they say, in general it distorts incentives, creating a risk-averse, expensive and slow-moving defence juggernaut. Rather than waiting for government contracts, Anduril creates what it thinks defence departments need, and uses iterative manufacturing and a lean supply chain to make products quickly and relatively cheaply.

It is fiercely competitive. Compared with the prolix, PowerPoint-heavy bidding processes for prime contracts, Anduril relishes the cut-and-thrust of “shoot-offs”, or competitions in which the Department of Defence (DoD) tests commercial products against each other. Its success rate is high. In 2020 it won a big contract to provide surveillance towers on America’s border with Mexico. Last year it secured $1bn from the DoD to provide autonomous counter-drone systems. It is building underwater vehicles the size of buses to patrol waters off Australia. Though there is an element of the “America first” crusader about Mr Luckey, he leaves no doubt that he intends Anduril to be a big, profitable business.

Lords of the slings

Palantir has tentatively started to achieve that status, but with a “dual-use” business model. It works for private clients as well as governments (albeit only ones friendly with America). Both on the battlefield and in business, its software cuts through the thickening fog of data to enable quick decision-making. Other dual-use firms are increasingly winning defence contracts. The Pentagon’s Defence Innovation Unit, set up in 2015, supports a big increase in the use of commercial technologies, such as AI, autonomy and integrated systems, to speed up the responsiveness to global threats.

Ukraine is a good testing ground. It is also a good simile. The struggle of tech Davids taking on America’s military-industrial Goliath is not dissimilar to tech-enabled Ukrainian troops battling the turgid might of Russia. ■

Read more from Schumpeter, our columnist on global business:

To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology, sign up to the Bottom Line, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.

The Economist

15. In Northern Ukraine, a Different Sort of War Game

In Northern Ukraine, a Different Sort of War Game​

​

The New York Times · by Maria Varenikova · February 21, 2023

By Andrew E. Kramer and Maria Varenikova

Feb. 21, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Russian forces are shelling border areas there to tie up thousands of Ukrainian troops that might otherwise defend against attacks farther south.

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Ukrainian soldiers at a position near the border with Russia this month. Ukrainian officials say Russia is tying down their troops in the region to keep them from battlefields farther south.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

By Andrew E. Kramer and

Feb. 21, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

SLAVHOROD, Ukraine — Out in the snowy fields and birch and oak forests along the far northeastern border with Russia, the war on the Ukrainian side is mostly one of watching and listening.

Working in shifts in the town of Slavhorod, just a mile or two from the border with Russia, Ukrainian soldiers were recently peering through a powerful set of field binoculars at their counterparts milling about a position on the Russian side. From time to time, Russian attack helicopters buzzed about, as artillery fire boomed from the Russian side, as it does nearly every day.

But none of that was cause for concern for the Ukrainian soldiers, even as officials in Kyiv and military analysts have issued a stream of warnings about an imminent Russian offensive, possibly around the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion on Friday.

“We cannot say they are preparing for something. They don’t have heavy weapons to attack,” said Col. Roman Tkach, a border guard officer. “Most likely, they are shooting to keep our forces stretched along the border.”

The fiercest battles in Ukraine are raging elsewhere along a 600-mile crescent from south to east within Ukraine’s borders. If a major Russian counteroffensive does eventually materialize, analysts say it is most likely to occur farther south, in the Donbas region and around Zaporizhzhia.

A different war game seems to be playing out in the Sumy region along the far northern border areas, where cross-border shelling has been occurring for months.

With the help of a powerful telescopic instrument, Ukrainian border guard soldiers in the country’s northeast keep an eye on nearby Russian positions.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

Armies typically fire artillery bombardments to soften defenses for ground assaults. But in northern Ukraine, Russia has fired away at civilian and military targets without any follow-up, apparently with the aim of tying up tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers far from the more decisive battles in southeastern Ukraine, analysts say.

Indeed, along the northern border, the Ukrainian military has dug mazes of fresh trenches. Armored vehicles rumble along the roads, and soldiers fan out to staff the fortified positions, all this activity done to prepare for an offensive that might not come anytime soon.

At the Ukrainian position near Slavhorod, the soldiers look out over the golden stubble of a harvested wheat field dusted with recent snows, receding into gently rolling farm fields and a reedy swamp, from which flocks of robins flutter up whenever a car passes.

The State of the War

• Biden Visits Kyiv: President Biden traveled covertly to the besieged Ukrainian capital, hoping to demonstrate American resolve and boost shellshocked Ukrainians. But the trip was also the first of several direct challenges to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
• Portending a Global Rift: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that China is strongly considering giving military aid to Russia, a move that would transform the war into a struggle involving three superpowers.
• A Russian Mole in Germany?: A director at Germany’s spy service was arrested on suspicion of passing intelligence to Russia. German officials and allies worry just how deep the problem goes.

A Russian position stands only a mile or two away, visible through the field binoculars, with Slavhorod lying in between. Although the Ukrainian soldiers can clearly see the Russian infantry position across the valley in Russia, they do not fire artillery at it. Their infantry position, in contrast, is regularly shelled.

That is because the Ukrainian government permits its forces only to return fire at Russian artillery, not strike preemptively at Russian infantry positions. And they have to use their Soviet-era weaponry, not the more powerful and accurate howitzers or guided rockets provided by the United States and other allies, who fear attacks on Russian territory with Western weaponry could escalate the war into direct conflict between Russia and NATO.

That limitation is a source of considerable frustration for the Ukrainians all along the front.

The entrance to a dugout next to a Ukrainian checkpoint in the Sumy region. Ukrainian forces there are frustrated by rules of engagement that prevent them from firing on Russian infantry positions.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

“It’s one thing for an army to fight an army, another thing when they fight civilians,” said Lieutenant Kostyantyn, who was commanding a position to the south in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. He and other soldiers asked to be identified only by first name and rank, for security reasons. “I want to tear Russians apart with my bare hands.”

When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, border guards were ordered to pull back from Slavhorod and most points at or near the border, said a Ukrainian commander, Colonel Serhiy.

A hidden camera that Colonel Serhiy set up in Slavhorod captured Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers rumbling in just after dawn, he said. Then they rumbled back the other way, having taken a wrong turn. That typified the Russian assault, Colonel Serhiy said. Bogged down after a month of punishing ambushes, the Russians eventually retreated.

Safely across the border, the Russian army began shooting back into Ukraine in barrages that have become more intense in recent months. “Every day since, the border regions are shelled,” Colonel Serhiy said.

Russia has fired rocket artillery and incendiary shells that burst in the air above the ground, sending down a brilliant, white rain of burning phosphorous and other chemicals, sent jets and attack helicopters on sorties and deployed sabotage units to slip across the border and plant land mines.

A Ukrainian military report of shelling on Wednesday, for example, cited artillery strikes on dozens of villages, all along the border. “We file reports like that every day,” Colonel Serhiy said.

If Russia were to alter its strategy and once again try to sweep through the north, the Ukrainians would be ready, Gen. Viktor Nazarov, an adviser to the commanding general in Ukraine’s army, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, said in an interview.

In that event, General Nazarov said, Ukraine would respond with artillery and ground assaults on supply lines, ammunition depots and command points, and combat would swirl 30 or so miles into the Russian regions of Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk.

“It will mean war will take place on the territory of the Russian Federation,” General Nazarov said. “It is not a red line we are afraid of crossing. They have fear themselves, because it would influence the population living there. The impression will be that the situation is not controlled, that the war has come to their own homes.”

For now, as the war drags on, Russian artillery is firing into border villages like Slavhorod, a jumble of wood and brick homes, corrals for livestock, and apple orchards. About a quarter of its 224 houses have been damaged, said its mayor, Ina Kononenko, with one bombardment in October destroying the health clinic, school and cultural center. To date, only one resident has died in the shelling, the soldiers said.

The destroyed cultural center in Slavhorod.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

But the residents live in constant fear. “We live on a box of gunpowder that could explode at any moment,” Ms. Kononenko said. “What can I tell you, yes, they fire artillery at us sometimes,” she said. “We were all very afraid. They shoot at us for no reason.”

For Svitlana Hlyanko, 41, the barrage that destroyed her house began with deafening explosions.

She huddled in a corner of a room with her three children, she said, and when it was over, she walked out to find gaping craters in a field a dozen yards away. She and the children were unharmed, but the shells had sprayed the house with shrapnel and shattered all the windows, rendering it uninhabitable.

In the town of Vovchansk about 90 miles from Slavhorod and a mile or two from the Russian border, shells whistle in nearly every day. Of a prewar population of 17,000, about 4,000 remain.

Svitlana Hlyanko and her daughter Anastasia in front of their new home in Slavhorod. They moved after Russian shelling badly damaged their former house.Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times

“Russia fires randomly into the town but aims precisely at infrastructure,” such as the central heating plant and electrical substations, said the mayor, Tamaz Hambarashvily.

Left without electricity or heat from the shelling, residents get by with wood stoves and kerosene lamps.

“I wish they would not shell the power lines,” said Nadia, a 73-year-old retiree, who asked that only her first name be used for safety, lest Russia reoccupy her town. “When we have electricity, we are alive. With no electricity, we will freeze like field mice.”

Olha Kostashenko, 47, lives with her husband in Vovchansk, spending much of her time underground for safety, showing the toll of the shelling on people living along the border.

“I organized a little room for myself in the basement and mainly stay here and cry each time there is a shelling,” she said. “Here in the basement, I have candles, a power bank, a flashlight, a little electric heater and I knit socks, just to do something and not go mad.”

The New York Times · by Maria Varenikova · February 21, 2023

16. Opinion | They said tanks were obsolete. Now, Ukraine can’t get enough of them.

Opinion | They said tanks were obsolete. Now, Ukraine can’t get enough of them.

The Washington Post · by Antony Beevor · February 21, 2023

Antony Beevor, a former tank commander with the British Army during the Cold War, is the author of “Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921.”

Vladimir Putin, obsessed with the Red Army’s capture of Berlin in 1945, clearly thought that his columns of tanks advancing on Kyiv from Belarus almost a year ago would bring rapid victory. Many of the crews adopted the idea of their World War II predecessors and attached iron bedsteads to the exterior of their armor, hoping that they would detonate any antitank missiles prematurely. Instead, it raised the profile of their vehicles and attracted the attention of Ukrainian groups hunting them on foot with shoulder-borne missile launchers.

Those hunters took to their task with enthusiasm, shredding Russia’s armored columns and sending Putin’s forces reeling back toward the border. This extraordinary debacle prompted many military commentators in the West to conclude that the era of the tank was finally over.

How wrong they were. Over the past few months, we’ve seen what amounts to a remarkable revival of the role of the main battle tank — and by the very same people who seemed to be accelerating its demise last spring. Ukraine’s pleas for heavy armor have finally been answered. After long hesitation, 12 Western countries, known as the “tank coalition,” have responded with promises of Leopards, Abrams and Challengers — amounting to more than 200 of them, almost an entire armored division.

But the Ukrainians want even more. They clearly don’t think tanks are obsolete — and they’re right.

Opinions on the war in Ukraine after one year

One year ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. Post Opinions is marking the anniversary with columns looking at all that has transpired and what may lie ahead.

The Editorial Board looked for solutions, calling on the United States and its European allies to intensify their military, economic and diplomatic support for Kyiv. Vladimir Putin hopes for a stalemate, the Editorial Board writes, and the West needs to fuel a game-changing shift in momentum.

In an op-ed adapted from her Feb. 9 speech at the “Rebuilding Ukraine, Rebuilding the World” conference at Harvard, Oleksandra Matviichuk writes that it is not only wrong but also immoral not to provide weapons for Ukraine.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling describes the Ukraine war as a slugfest, not a stalemate. He outlines five phases of the war and predicts that Ukraine’s forces will ultimately prevail.

Columnist Jason Willick looks at the war through the lens of U.S. politics. President Biden, he says, is positioned to take advantage of divided government by using as his foil Republicans who oppose continued support for Ukraine.

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Now, it is certainly true that modern antitank missiles — such as the NLAWs and Javelins that proved so effective against Putin’s Cold War-era T-72 tanks — have given infantry formidable new defenses against tanks. Military commentators have also cited the devastating destruction of armored vehicles by Azerbaijani drones in the second Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 2020.

Even before the Russians’ humiliating defeat ahead of reaching Kyiv, some NATO armies were already planning a switch from main battle tanks to lighter armored fighting vehicles. (The British Army placed its hopes on the Ajax fighting vehicle, which turned out to suffer some serious design flaws.) The U.S. Marine Corps also recently announced plans to reduce its tank formations as part of a massive reorganization — but this has less do with skepticism about tanks than with the Marines’ increasing focus on the Far East and Pacific theater, where the terrain is less favorable to the heavy Abrams.

But the Ukrainians face different challenges: above all, how to retake territory wrested from them by a numerically vastly superior Russian force. And offense is the realm where main battle tanks, when used correctly, can produce unrivaled results. Much depends on how they are deployed in combined arms operations, preferably with drone support and air cover from fighters that might yet be provided by European allies. Ukrainian crews have shown great ingenuity in extending the range of the 125mm main armament on captured Russian tanks by up to 10 kilometers. This is done by increasing their elevation and by targeting with drone spotters.

Once they arrive on the battlefield, the Ukrainians’ new weapons should prove instrumental in resisting any renewed Russian onslaughts. But if Kyiv can master the art of combining its tanks with infantry, drones and air assets, the Ukrainian army might well want to punch a hole in Russian defense lines in eastern or southern Donbas to provoke a chaotic retreat.

Opinion writers on the war in Ukraine

Post Opinions provides commentary on the war in Ukraine from columnists with expertise in foreign policy, voices on the ground in Ukraine and more.

Columnist David Ignatius covers foreign affairs. His columns have broken news on new developments around the war. He also answers questions from readers. Sign up to follow him.

Iuliia Mendel, a former press secretary for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, writes guest opinions from inside Ukraine. She has written about trauma, Ukraine’s “women warriors” and what it’s like for her fiance to go off to war.

Columnist Fareed Zakaria covers foreign affairs. His columns have reviewed the West’s strategy in Ukraine. Sign up to follow him.

Columnist Josh Rogin covers foreign policy and national security. His columns have explored the geopolitical ramifications of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Sign up to follow him.

Columnist Max Boot covers national security. His columns have encouraged the West to continue its support for Ukraine’s resistance. Sign up to follow him.

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In either case, far from seeing the end of the tank era predicted so recently, we would witness a full-blooded replay of World War II tank tactics. The compulsion to summon echoes of World War II should, however, be firmly resisted even if the Ukrainians do decide to use the tanks together as an armored fist. The contemporary problem they face could well be an attack by drone swarms, so much will depend on the rapid delivery of fighter aircraft. Allied tanks are far better protected than the old Soviet-era T-72s, but their tracks remain vulnerable and a hit there could bring them to a halt.

Even so, the West is clearly betting that an influx of main battle tanks can help the Ukrainians make important territorial gains — of which the most critical would involve Crimea. Kevin Kühnert, the secretary general of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s own Social Democratic Party, recently stated that there were “no restrictions on the territories that Ukraine could liberate with the help of German tanks,” even if Scholz himself clearly remains nervous.

The thinking is clear. Putin’s reputation and support in Russia were built on the seizure of Crimea in 2014. Its recapture with the help of the “tank coalition” thus represents the best way of bringing him down and avoiding the dangers of a frozen conflict. Only a relatively small advance is needed to bring his bridge over the Kerch Strait to the Crimean peninsula under direct fire, provoking a panic-stricken exit by recent Russian settlers. Whether NATO tanks will arrive in time to accomplish the breakthrough needed to achieve that climax will be one of the key questions in the outcome of the war.

The Washington Post · by Antony Beevor · February 21, 2023

17. Of Strategy and Schnitzel: Munich Security Conference 2023

Excerpt:

Giving his own final address in 2017, McCain shared why he had participated in this once-wonky, once-sedate conference for more than three decades. “We come to Munich,” he said, “year in and year out — to revitalize our common moral purpose, our belief that our values are worth the fighting for.” And so they are.

That, more than anything else, sums up the 2023 Munich zeitgeist.

Of Strategy and Schnitzel: Munich Security Conference 2023 - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Richard Fontaine · February 20, 2023

My first Munich Security Conference, back in 2005, was a wonky gathering of transatlantic security policymakers. All the proceedings took place in the Bayerische Hof ballroom, and a cloud hung over the largely European (and theoretically nonsmoking) audience. Delegates’ eyes lit with excitement as they debated NATO’s strategic concept, evaluated the war in Iraq, and urged each other (but not their own governments) to boost defense spending. Beer flowed liberally — brats were consumed en masse.

Nein more. The beer and brats remain, but the conference has grown bigger, global in scope and participation, glitzier and replete with media and roving security details. Getting a seat for the most popular speakers means showing up well before a session begins. Side events compete with off-the-books gatherings, dinners, and (I’m not making this up) a foosball tournament. The net effect is more Zirkus than Konferenz.

But there was something else this year. Most speakers and delegates shared a sense of threat. They sought unity and action. They believed that the future of world order turns on the outcome in Ukraine. The last full in-person conference, in 2020, focused on “Westlessness,” an Elmer Fudd-sounding neologism connoting uncertainty about Western coherence and purpose. No more. The West is now unified in its aims. It is the West’s capacity and endurance that are in question.

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Representatives from the U.S. government showed up in strength this time: the vice president, secretary of state, CIA director, U.S. trade representative, and almost 50 members of the House and Senate — including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Mike Turner. The leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and other countries spoke. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky kicked off the proceedings with a remote address from Kyiv.

The discussions crossed many topics, but four themes struck me as emblematic of the 2023 Munich zeitgeist. Ukraine naturally dominated the focus from beginning to end. Leaders are focused less on abstract questions of global order and more on pedestrian issues like industrial production and munitions stocks. The transatlantic allies are united, but problems remain on the horizon. And, in the end, John McCain’s views have taken root in Western leadership.

Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine

Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming focus was on Europe’s first state-on-state land war since 1945. Russian officials were disinvited (as were Iranians). This is the first time they didn’t attend the conference since the 1990s, when it was a more tightly focused transatlantic affair. European anger at Moscow was exceeded only by the support for Ukraine. Americans may have arrived with Chinese balloons on the mind, but the talk was virtually all Ukraine, all the time.

Vice President Kamala Harris accused Russia of crimes against humanity and pledged America’s enduring support for the Ukrainian government. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to “double down” on Britain’s military support for Kyiv. President Emmanuel Macron called on allies to intensify weapons deliveries and said France is “ready for a prolonged conflict.” Chancellor Olaf Scholz even urged countries to join Germany in sending tanks to Ukraine. The West is, they all said, in this for the long haul, and will support Ukraine for as long as it takes.

The corridor talk was considerably more anxious. The Russian spring offensive has begun. While optimists pointed to tank deliveries and the coming Ukrainian counter-offensive, worries about a prolonged war abounded. Western support cannot remain at current levels indefinitely. Political support may ebb, stockpiles are dwindling, and populations could grow less generous over time. In a long war of attrition, Moscow might have the upper hand.

Perhaps sensing such sentiments, Zelensky’s overarching plea in his speech was to move fast. “We need to hurry up,” he said, with the delivery of new weapons systems and other forms of support. “We need speed.” Much discussion revolved around how best to answer that call. No magic solutions emerged.

Guns and Ammo

Most conferences feature abstract discussions about international order and its discontents. This year’s focused on the more concrete — even mundane — issues that undergird that order. The Ukrainian military is, Europeans acknowledged, firing ammunition faster than the continent’s industry can produce it. The United States remains the largest source of military assistance but has constraints on its own stockpiles and production lines.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for a joint effort to scale up munitions production. Secretary of State Antony Blinken entered into a discussion of weapons maintenance, training, and incentives to keep military production lines open. Everyone — Ukraine, Europe and now countries in Asia — wants to rearm. But how, and on what timeline?

Allied Solidarity

External threats pull allies together, and this year features a big one. Long gone are debates over Iraq and Afghanistan, charges of American unilateralism, and criticism of European quiescence. No one harangued allies about free-riding or pointed out their failure to spend two percent of GDP on defense.

Instead, each leader urged the others to be more ambitious. Scholz pledged permanently to spend two percent of GDP on defense — and his defense minister said that two percent should be the NATO floor from which allies aim higher. Japan’s foreign minister outlined his country’s intent to double defense spending and acquire new strike capabilities. He joined South Korea’s foreign minister in talking about cooperation against Asian threats. The insecurity bred by today’s global fragmentation is unifying likeminded countries.

Where’s China?

Remarkably little of the conference focused on China, the stated top priority of U.S. foreign policy. Beijing’s diplomat Wang Yi claimed that Washington downed China’s balloon (which was, he said, a civilian instrument that veered off course) “to divert attention from its domestic problems.” Hardly persuasive to skeptical listeners, Wang also encouraged Europe to “manifest its strategic autonomy” — from America, presumably. Asked to reassure that China wasn’t planning imminent escalation against Taiwan, Wang demurred. “Let me assure the audience,” he said instead, “that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory. It has never been a country and it will never be a country in the future.”

In fact, however, little of the conference focused on the Indo-Pacific and, where it did, a strong Ukraine angle prevailed. Harris’ one mention of China, for instance, was in a warning not to provide lethal support to Russia. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg observed that “What is happening in Europe today could happen in Asia tomorrow.” Asian representatives agreed, and expressed concern that Moscow’s invasion could invite action by would-be aggressors in Asia. But while back in Washington, policymakers think about China, in Europe they think about Russia.

John McCain Won

The congressional delegation, now led by Senators Lindsey Graham and Sheldon Whitehouse, still goes by the name “CODEL McCain” some six years after his last appearance in Munich. McCain went to the conference year after year, and over time his speeches nearly produced a call-and-response quality. The senator would warn about Russian repression — President Vladimir Putin’s “creeping coup,” he called it two decades ago — and external aggression. He implored the world to keep an eye on Ukraine. He urged strong transatlantic solidarity in the face of common threats, as rivalry and conflict are no thing of the past. He insisted that the West was bound by interests and values, that power matters, and that the transatlantic partners must be strong and active rather than weak and inward-looking. Democracy, he emphasized, is worth cherishing and preserving in our own countries and abroad.

The general reaction to such appeals was often grudging, bordering on outright disagreement. Europe had domestic concerns, its leaders argued, and had to keep foreign activism and defense spending in check. In a globalized world, the task is to employ economic interdependence rather than deterrence in the face of challenges. Pointing out Russian transgressions is undiplomatic and unhelpful — we have no choice but to live with Moscow. For all the rosy talk of shared transatlantic values, maybe Europe and America weren’t quite so similar after all.

The invasion of Ukraine has ushered in a new strategic era, and the new reality permeated every speech delivered in Munich this year. Macron denounced “a Russia which has chosen war,” and the Wagner Group, a “neo-mafia medium of Russia.” Scholz decried Moscow’s “imperialist war of aggression” and implored others to send weapons to Ukraine. In place of Russian and Iranian officials, human rights activists represented the two countries.

One after another, policymakers emphasized the need for Western unity and strength, the bonding power of shared values, and the imperative to be active in defending a liberal international order. Yes, autocracies were represented in Munich. But the feel was more like a gathering of the free world.

Amid it all, Vance Serchuk, who as a former Senate staffer has witnessed many a Munich Security Conference, said it quietly: McCain won Munich. The addresses delivered by Scholz and Macron and Sunak and so many others were McCain-like speeches. The stress on shared ideals, the focus on power and unity, the diagnosis of revisionist powers, the defense of international order, the emphasis on democracy’s strengths, even calling out Russian misbehavior: it was all there, again and again.

Giving his own final address in 2017, McCain shared why he had participated in this once-wonky, once-sedate conference for more than three decades. “We come to Munich,” he said, “year in and year out — to revitalize our common moral purpose, our belief that our values are worth the fighting for.” And so they are.

That, more than anything else, sums up the 2023 Munich zeitgeist.

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Richard Fontaine is chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security and former foreign policy advisor to Sen. John McCain.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Richard Fontaine · February 20, 2023

18. Biden Just Destroyed Putin’s Last Hope

Excerpts:

The Russia-Ukraine war is not merely a humanitarian calamity, a monstrous collection of crimes against humanity, a gross violation of solemn agreements and international law. It is also a watershed, in which much will be determined about the future of the international system. It could lead to a very dark place, not different in kind from that of the 1930s and 1940s, if the dictators get their way. But, if the liberal democracies unite and display the resolve, enterprise, and military capacity that they have shown before, that outcome can still be avoided.

To that end, nothing matters more than American leadership, the recovery of the prestige and weight that has been wasted or diffused over the last few decades. We are not near the conclusion of this war, and there is much of a tangible nature that needs to be done to bring the conflict closer to its end. Words and gestures are critical, but only when accompanied by deeds. But for now, by taking a bold step, President Biden has made the future for Ukraine, for Europe, and for the cause of freedom under the law a great deal brighter.

Biden Just Destroyed Putin’s Last Hope

The president’s visit to Ukraine was a gut punch to the Russian leader.

By Eliot A. Cohen

The Atlantic · by Eliot A. Cohen · February 20, 2023

The long-range missiles matter. So do the super-accurate artillery shells, the surface-to-air missiles, and the winter weather gear; the training in the English countryside or the muddy Grafenwöhr maneuver grounds; and the intelligence provided from the eyes in space and the ears on airplanes that circle outside the battlezone.

President Biden’s visit to Kyiv matters just as much as any of these.

Other heads of government preceded him, earning deserved credit. But it is an altogether different thing when the president of the United States—who is, indeed, the leader of the Free World—shows up. His words mattered. He pledged “our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” And even more importantly, that the United States will stand with Ukraine “as long as it takes.”

Symbols matter: a Kennedy or a Reagan at the Berlin wall, a Churchill with a cigar and a bowler, for that matter a green-clad Zelensky growling “I need ammunition, not a ride.” Simply by taking the hazardous trip to Kyiv, Biden made a strategic move of cardinal importance.

While the president clearly intended to bolster the confidence of Ukraine, and the commitment of ambivalent Europeans and neo-isolationist Americans, his real audiences lay elsewhere, as his remarks about Western strength indicated. Russia has cycled through a series of theories of victory in Ukraine—that Kyiv’s leaders would flee, that Ukraine’s population would not fight, that its army would be crumpled up by a sudden blitz or by grinding assaults. It has been reduced to one last hope: that Vladimir Putin’s will is stronger than Joe Biden’s. And Biden just said, by deed as well as word, “Oh no it’s not.”

This is a gut punch to Russia’s leader. The Russians received word of the trip, we are informed—and presumably the threat, stated or implied, that they would get a violent and overwhelming response if they attempted to interfere with it. For a leader obsessed with strength, like Putin, that is a blow. His own people will quietly or openly ask, “Why could we not prevent this?” And the answer, unstated, will have to be, “Because we were afraid.”

The visual contrast between an American president with his signature aviator sunglasses walking in sunny downtown Kyiv with the pugnacious and eloquent president of Ukraine and a Russian president who has yet to visit the war zone is also striking. Not to mention the difference between an American president who mingles with others, shaking hands, hugging and slapping backs, and a Russian president who keeps his subordinates at a physical distance, and who has to be surrounded by flunkies and actors when he supposedly meets with normal people. No belligerent words from the Kremlin will change those visual images, which will be seen in Russia as well as around the world.

This was not a stunt, but rather an act of statesmanship. Biden’s visit comes at a moment when much hangs in the balance. The Chinese have begun making noises about arming Russia, according to the United States government, which would be a very great change in this war. The Western allies, including the democracies of Asia, have begun mobilizing their military industries. The Russian offensives that were supposed to produce large gains timed to the anniversary of the invasion have instead carpeted the Donbas with the bodies of thousands of men who learned too late, as one French World War I general put it, “Fire kills.” And meanwhile, Ukraine is building up a force to use in its own counteroffensive.

The Russia-Ukraine war is not merely a humanitarian calamity, a monstrous collection of crimes against humanity, a gross violation of solemn agreements and international law. It is also a watershed, in which much will be determined about the future of the international system. It could lead to a very dark place, not different in kind from that of the 1930s and 1940s, if the dictators get their way. But, if the liberal democracies unite and display the resolve, enterprise, and military capacity that they have shown before, that outcome can still be avoided.

To that end, nothing matters more than American leadership, the recovery of the prestige and weight that has been wasted or diffused over the last few decades. We are not near the conclusion of this war, and there is much of a tangible nature that needs to be done to bring the conflict closer to its end. Words and gestures are critical, but only when accompanied by deeds. But for now, by taking a bold step, President Biden has made the future for Ukraine, for Europe, and for the cause of freedom under the law a great deal brighter.

The Atlantic · by Eliot A. Cohen · February 20, 2023

19. Biden’s Military-First Posture in the East Is a Problem

​Neglecting economic ties? Really? I will grant that the presence of the US military is one of the only visible ways to demonstrate a pivot to Asia.

Conclusion:

The first line of Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy is succinct and clear: “The United States is an Indo-Pacific power,” the document released last year reads. There are, it boasts, more members of the U.S. military based in the region than in any other outside the U.S. itself. But if the U.S. wishes to maintain the lofty position in which it sees itself, an economic policy that complements its military presence appears to very much be needed.

​

Biden’s Military-First Posture in the East Is a Problem

A singular focus on countering the threat of Chinese aggression made America neglect economic ties in the Indo-Pacific.

By Timothy McLaughlin

The Atlantic · by Timothy McLaughlin · February 20, 2023

Changi Naval Base, which sits on the east coast of Singapore near the busy shipping lanes of the Singapore Strait, has in the first months of 2023 been welcoming well-armed American visitors. Less than two weeks into the new year came a visit from the USS Makin Island, an amphibious assault ship. Days later, the USS Nimitz, an aircraft carrier with a small city’s worth of crew members, made a port call—accompanied by three destroyers.

These types of visits are the most visible aspect of the increased military cooperation that is characteristic of President Joe Biden’s strategy for the Indo-Pacific, the region that encompasses the expanse of sea and nations from America’s Pacific coast to the Indian Ocean. U.S. troops have access to five military bases in the Philippines, which is a former U.S. colony and America’s oldest treaty ally in Asia. Earlier this month, the two countries reached an agreement that gives U.S. forces access to four more. That announcement followed a decision by American and Japanese officials to enhance their military cooperation.

The aim—sometimes spoken, other times left unsaid—of such developments is to counter China’s more assertive presence in the region. Washington now views Beijing as a growing threat to America and its partners and allies there. These concerns have only intensified since a spy balloon launched by China was shot down two weeks ago. Hence the Biden administration’s focus on defense and security in the Indo-Pacific.

Anne Applebaum: China’s war against Taiwan has already started

That focus, however, means that the administration has failed to advance a strong economic policy to match the military buildup. A remarkably broad-based consensus that this is a problem has coalesced both in D.C. foreign-policy circles and among political leaders in regional capitals. President Biden’s one significant gesture in this direction, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, was met with near-universal disappointment when it was unveiled last year.

Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister, diplomatically referred to the short, buzzword-filled document as “baby steps”—and that was one of the most optimistic takes on the plan. Inu Manak, a trade-policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that it would “likely be a missed opportunity to deepen economic ties across the Pacific.” Van Jackson, a former Pentagon official who now lectures on international relations at Victoria University of Wellington, was more blunt—“no substance” was his verdict—when we spoke recently. “It exists to say they are doing something on political economy,” he said. But “just because they put the words there doesn’t mean it amounts to anything.”

The origins of this situation can be traced in part to Biden’s years as vice president in the Obama administration. Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” was much hyped at the time. Although this supposed strategic realignment of U.S. foreign policy looked promising on paper, it largely failed to materialize. Amid the challenges of other domestic and international developments, the plan languished, with few accomplishments other than, eventually, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This major trade agreement encompassing 12 Pacific Rim countries, including the U.S., and comprising about 40 percent of the global economy was finalized in early 2016.

Read: Biden looks east

By then, the deal had come under intense criticism in the U.S. Disliked by labor unions, it also faced bipartisan opposition in Congress and was never ratified. Donald Trump, who was highly critical of the agreement on the campaign trail, pulled the U.S. out of it on his first day in office, in 2017. (Hillary Clinton, who had earlier cheered the deal as secretary of state, also turned against it.) The countries involved moved on without the United States, signing an alternative deal in 2018; China applied to join it in 2021.

Trump himself obsessed over striking a trade deal with China and attempting to improve relations with North Korea. Yet he largely shunned Southeast Asia during his presidency, never bothering to show up at regional meetings.

Since taking office, Biden deserves credit for “not doing anything egregiously bad” in the Indo-Pacific, according to Blake Herzinger, a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. But this is more by default than design, as two major foreign-policy challenges have drawn the White House’s attention away from the region: first, the withdrawal from Afghanistan; second, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. has cut the number of its naval transits through the Taiwan Strait, which have elicited furious reactions from Beijing in recent years. The frequency of “freedom-of-navigation operations,” as the U.S. calls passages through the South China Sea to challenge unlawful territorial claims, has also gone down. These changes were welcome in the region because they helped “cool down things with China,” Herzinger told me.

Although these more high-profile maneuvers have been reduced, Biden’s approach remains one that “prioritizes, very openly, [America’s] relationship with allies and partners,” according to Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore who specializes in maritime security and naval affairs. The White House’s focus is on more low-key military bilateral engagements with other partners and countries, as well as larger multicountry exercises. “These are often overlooked,” Koh told me, “but might be more useful in building those relationships to begin with.”

Read: Hillary Clinton’s hard choice on free trade

Still glaringly absent, two years into Biden’s presidency, is a cohesive economic vision that could advance American interests. Missing from the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, most notably, was any mention of tariff reductions or addressing other market-access issues.

Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, has acknowledged “a lot of swirl about the fact that there is not tariff liberalization” in the framework. But she has defended this omission as a necessary step away from “traditional” trade deals that have contributed to the current “fragility” of economic ties in the region. This pitch has made few converts. A recent survey conducted across Southeast Asia by the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singapore-based think tank, found that 42 percent of respondents were uncertain about the effectiveness of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Some 47 percent believed that it would have a positive impact in the region. Negotiations over the framework continue.

According to Herzinger, people like the United States not “because it is a democracy” but “because it is a powerful market and drives innovation.” Ideally, he said, countries in the region “want to see Washington get into trade agreements.” In his view, it is “likely to our detriment” that the U.S. is failing to participate.

Fundamentally, the U.S. still labors under a belief that “our military commitments are the oxygen that makes everything else in Asia possible,” Jackson, the Victoria University of Wellington lecturer, told me. “And it is security that underwrites everything.” Although the U.S. is focused on trying to contain and challenge China through sanctions, tariffs, and economic blacklists, he said, Washington appears to have given little, if any, thought to the effect of these measures in a region where China is the dominant economic force.

“The national securitization of the Asian political economy threatens the actual lifeblood of the region,” he said. “There seems to be no appreciation of that, because China remains 10 feet tall in the imagination of everybody in the Beltway.”

Jackson has laid out a number of progressive measures he believes could improve the political economy not just in the Indo-Pacific but across the global South, including trade agreements that incorporate measures to protect labor rights and improve supply chains, as well as reforms to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Read: To China, all’s fair in love and trade wars

If the U.S. were to offer debt restructuring for countries in the region, which some experts have warned faces a mounting indebtedness crisis, that would be a bold way for the U.S. to reposition itself. Cambodia, where the U.S. is critical of expanding Chinese influence, owes the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars for a loan the country took in the early 1970s. Its longtime leader, Hun Sen, has called the debt “dirty” and appealed to multiple administrations to clear the obligation to repay it in full.

If the U.S. fails to act on that, Jackson told me, it will be helping fuel a “perverse cycle,” in which countries burdened by debt have little option but to seek additional capital from China. A concerted economic initiative from the U.S. could begin to address the problem, but “it is not possible to do that and chase shadows around the world.”

The first line of Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy is succinct and clear: “The United States is an Indo-Pacific power,” the document released last year reads. There are, it boasts, more members of the U.S. military based in the region than in any other outside the U.S. itself. But if the U.S. wishes to maintain the lofty position in which it sees itself, an economic policy that complements its military presence appears to very much be needed.

The Atlantic · by Timothy McLaughlin · February 20, 2023

20. U.S. must field space-based kill capabilities to deter enemies

U.S. must field space-based kill capabilities to deter enemies

By Robert Joseph - - Monday, February 20, 2023

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

OPINION:

The missile threat from North Korea is rapidly outpacing our planned response in both numbers and sophistication. We must deploy advanced capabilities in space if we are to meet our national security requirements. The greatest obstacle to moving forward is ideology, not technology or affordability. Failing to act will leave the United States open to nuclear blackmail and attack.

Earlier this month, Kim Jong Un presided over yet another military parade, this time to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Korean People’s Army. The most prominent weapons on display were the intercontinental range ballistic missiles with the ability to strike anywhere on the U.S. homeland.

These included at least 11 Hwasong 17 missiles on transportable erector launchers and five other launchers with canisters reportedly representing mock-ups of solid fueled long-range missiles currently under development. Once fielded, these missiles will represent a major advancement in the threat as their greater mobility will significantly complicate the targeting challenge to destroy them on the ground — left of launch, in Pentagonese. In turn, their improved survivability will place even more reliance on the ability to intercept these missiles in flight.

U.S. intelligence agencies will be keen to assess the implications of the weapons Pyongyang has shown the world. The fact that both the Hwasong 17 and the canisterized mockups have been seen before should not lead to the conclusion that their appearance is just for show. Instead, the numbers and types of missiles observed is further evidence that the North is aggressively expanding its missile force sufficient to overwhelm American defenses, a stated goal of the Kim regime.

In December, Pyongyang announced that the latest solid rocket motor test was successful. And in the past year, the North has conducted a record number of ballistic missile tests of all ranges. Accompanying the growth in the missile threat is an equally rapid increase in the North’s nuclear weapons arsenal, with Western estimates predicting that North Korea could have in excess of 200 warheads in the next four years.

This unprecedented expansion of the North’s capabilities to hold American cities hostage puts enormous pressure on U.S. missile defenses to protect the homeland. These defenses were designed 20 years ago for a different threat, to intercept “handfuls of missiles,” not the much larger force being built by North Korea.

The key questions are: Can the next-generation interceptors currently being developed keep pace with the emerging threat, particularly as the threat continues to accelerate both quantitatively and qualitatively? Would adding more of these new interceptors, even with multiple kill capabilities, be an effective and executable option, or would it simply extend obsolescence? While many of the operational capabilities of the next-generation interceptor are classified, we now know enough about the threat to question the efficacy of the program of record in meeting the threat. Simply put, unless we pursue further advanced capabilities, the missile threat from North Korea will outpace the U.S. ability to defend against it.

Moreover, the question of missile defense requirements reaches beyond the need to defend against North Korea. Given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated threats of limited nuclear strikes and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s military buildup in preparation for war against Taiwan, we need to reassess the role of defenses in deterring their coercive threats, as well as the capabilities needed to achieve this objective.

To strengthen deterrence of Moscow and Beijing from threatening and executing such attacks, it is not necessary to create an impenetrable shield capable of intercepting every Russian and Chinese ballistic and hypersonic missile. Rather, the goal should be to strengthen deterrence through defenses that increase the uncertainties in the calculations of the attacker — to undermine his confidence that he will achieve the attack’s objectives. Again, the current U.S. response is neither designed for nor capable of countering the threat.

To defend against North Korea and Iran in the future and to deter Russian and Chinese coercive attacks, the United States must field space-based capabilities, including space-based kill capabilities. While past Republican and Democratic administrations have favored ground- and sea-based capabilities, the threat has fundamentally changed. Today, a space-kill capability has become a critical component of the layered missile defense architecture. It is technologically feasible and affordable and the only means to provide an effective boost phase defense needed to defeat present and emerging threats.

Ground- and sea-based interceptors cannot substitute for space-based assets as they cannot be cost-effectively scaled to counter the threats. In the meantime, while space-based capabilities are developed, ground- and sea-based interceptors should be upgraded to improve reliability and operational effectiveness. Promising airborne boost phase capabilities should also be pursued. These can serve as an interim hedge against the threat and a supplement to the space-based force in the future.

As far as the United States is concerned, the Biden administration will almost certainly oppose any effort to deploy advanced missile defenses in space out of misplaced concern about militarizing space. This ideological resistance ignores the actions of Russia and China, both of whom are deploying advanced space and counterspace capabilities. But Congress, as it has done in the past, can act by first funding the development and testing of critical capabilities, such as sensors, that will provide key elements of the infrastructure for a U.S. space-based system. This will allow a new president to accelerate the fielding of the missile defenses essential to meet our national security deterrence and defense requirements.

• Robert Joseph served as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security in the George W. Bush administration.

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De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com