Quotes of the Day:

"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph." 

– Theodore Roosevelt

"It is easier to love humanity than to love your neighbor." 

– Eric Hoffer

"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." 

 – P.J. O'Rourke

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 20, 2024

2. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, February 20, 2024

3. The revolution that wasn’t: How AI drones have fizzled in Ukraine (so far)

4. Russian Troops Left Their Warehouse Doors Open. Ukrainian Drones Flew Right Inside—And Blew Up A Bunch Of Armored Vehicles.

5. China Is Practicing How to Sever Taiwan’s Internet

6. The future of disinformation — this time in Mississippi

7. Strategy and the Lessons of the Russo-Ukraine War by Mick Ryan

8. Taiwan’s Theory of the Fight

9. What the Ukraine War, Taiwan, and Gaza Have in Common

10. Russian Offensive Resistance Operations

11. Supporting Ukraine and Israel Will Help Deter Aggression Around the World by Bradley Bowman and H.R. McMaster

12. The Real Roots of Xi Jinping Thought

13. How Israel’s war went wrong

14.

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 20, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-20-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Ukraine has been defending itself against illegal Russian military intervention and aggression for 10 years.
• Russia’s grand strategic objective of regaining control of Ukraine has remained unchanged in the decade since its illegal intervention in Ukraine began.
• Russia worked hard to obfuscate its grand strategic objectives of regaining control of Ukraine between 2014 and the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
• Russian military intelligence is reportedly learning from its failures in recent years and has renewed efforts against NATO states.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu preened themselves on the Russian seizure of Avdiivka.
• Shoigu also claimed that Russian forces completely seized Krynky in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast, although available open-source visual evidence and Ukrainian and Russian reporting suggests that Ukrainian forces maintain their limited bridgehead in the area.
• The Kremlin likely prematurely claimed the Russian seizure of Krynky to reinforce its desired informational effects ahead of the March 2024 presidential election, although the Kremlin is likely setting expectations that the Russian military may fail to meet.
• The New York Times (NYT) reported that the Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka may have left hundreds of Ukrainian personnel “unaccounted” for.
• Ukrainian officials launched an investigation into additional apparent Russian violations of the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war (POWs) in Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Russian forces made a confirmed advance west of Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire frontline.
• The Kremlin continues to promote Russia’s efforts to expand its defense industrial base (DIB).
• Zaporizhia Oblast occupation authorities are expanding public services provision in occupied parts of the oblast to consolidate bureaucratic control and generate dependencies on the occupation administration.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Feb 20, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 20, 2024

Karolina Hird, Riley Bailey, Nicole Wolkov, Grace Mappes, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan

February 20, 2024, 8:45pm ET

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

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was 2pm ET on February 20. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the February 21 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

Ukraine has been defending itself against illegal Russian military intervention and aggression for 10 years.[1] Russia violated its commitments to respect Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity and began its now decade-long military intervention in Ukraine on February 20, 2014 when Russian soldiers without identifying insignia (also known colloquially as “little green men” and, under international law, as illegal combatants), deployed to Crimea.[2] The deployment of these Russian soldiers out of uniform followed months of protests in Ukraine against pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for refusing to sign an association agreement with the European Union (EU) that the Ukrainian Rada had approved.[3] The Yanukovych government killed and otherwise abused peaceful Ukrainian protestors, leading to an organized protest movement calling for Yanukovych’s resignation. This Ukrainian movement — the Euromaidan Movement — culminated in Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity during which the Rada voted to oust Yanukovych who then fled to Russia with the Kremlin’s aid. Russian President Vladimir Putin viewed these events as intolerable and launched a hybrid war against Ukraine as the Euromaidan Movement was still underway with the goal of reestablishing Russian control over all of Ukraine. Russia’s military intervention in Crimea and the Donbas in 2014 violated numerous Russian international commitments to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, including Russia’s recognition of Ukraine as an independent state in 1991 and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which Russia specifically committed not to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty or territorial integrity.[4]

Russia’s grand strategic objective of regaining control of Ukraine has remained unchanged in the decade since its illegal intervention in Ukraine began. Russia’s overarching strategic objective in Ukraine, as first manifested in the 2014 invasion of Crimea and the Donbas, has been and remains the destruction of Ukraine’s sovereignty and the re-establishment of a pro-Russian Ukrainian government subservient to Moscow’s direction. Russia began immediate efforts to dismantle and eradicate Ukrainian identity in Crimea, consolidate its military presence on the peninsula, and forcibly integrate Crimea into the Russian Federation along multiple avenues, all while promoting a parallel political subversion campaign to destroy Ukraine’s ability to resist dominant Russian influence.[5] 

Russia worked hard to obfuscate its grand strategic objectives of regaining control of Ukraine between 2014 and the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. The Kremlin successfully employed disinformation to obfuscate Russia’s objectives in Ukraine for many Western leaders. Putin learned valuable lessons from the way the West responded to Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine and tailored Russia’s information operations to mask his grand strategic intent towards Ukraine in the years leading up to the 2022 full-scale invasion. Putin succeeded in convincing many Western leaders that Russia had limited objectives in Ukraine: that Moscow only sought control over Crimea, or that Russia sought only to occupy parts of eastern Ukraine, for example.[6] Russia also obfuscated its true intentions in Ukraine by promulgating the lie that Russia’s actions in Ukraine were aimed at preventing NATO expansion. The Euromaidan Movement and the Revolution of Dignity were never about NATO — they were about Ukraine’s desire to associate with the EU. In the years between 2014 and 2022, however, Russia managed to pollute the global information space with the fallacy that pro-NATO policies in Ukraine forced Russia’s hand. While the mechanisms Russia uses to cloak its intentions in Ukraine have adapted and evolved in the past decade, Russia’s grand strategic objectives of controlling Ukraine and denying Ukrainians their right to choose their own future have persisted and likely will not change until Russia is defeated. The Kremlin continues information operations to persuade Western audiences and leaders that Russia has limited objectives in Ukraine in order to fuel calls for negotiations on terms that would destroy Ukraine’s independence and damage the West.

Russian military intelligence is reportedly learning from its failures in recent years and has renewed efforts against NATO states.[7] The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) published a report on February 20 arguing that Russian special services aim to expand their capacity in several ways that pose strategic threats to NATO members, including rebuilding their recruitment, training, and support apparatus to better infiltrate European countries; adopting the Wagner Group’s former functions and pursuing aggressive partnerships with African countries to supplant Western partnerships; and using Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov to significantly expand Russian influence among Chechen and Muslim populations in Europe and the Middle East to ultimately subvert Western interests.[8] RUSI noted that Russian intelligence services have suffered a slew of intelligence failures in the past several years, including the Russian Federal Security Service’s (FSB) botched poisoning of now-deceased opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the FSB’s overconfident assessment of Russian military capabilities ahead of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the mass expulsion of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) operatives from embassies across the globe, and Bellingcat’s exposure of the Russian Main Military Intelligence Directorate’s (GRU) Unit 29155’s failed poisoning of defected Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal.[9] RUSI noted that the GRU reformed Unit 29155 and formed a “Service for Special Activities” to increase operational security and data security and is beginning to recruit individuals with no military experience to make it harder for the West to identify them.[10] RUSI reported that Russian Presidential Administration Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko is in charge of creating “special committees” to run information operations against the West, an assessment that is consistent with previous reporting from the Washington Post about purported Kremlin documents outlining Kiriyenko’s roll in wide-scale disinformation campaigns.[11]

The Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation similarly reported on February 20 that Russian special services have significantly increased their operations in NATO member states and Ukraine as part of large-scale disinformation efforts aimed at demoralizing the Ukrainian military.[12] Estonian Security Police, for example, reported that Estonian security services have detained 10 people for participating in alleged Russian special services activity in Estonia between December 2023 and February 2024.[13] Such subversive control tactics likely support the Kremlin’s near- and medium-term goals of spoiling Western military assistance to Ukraine and rebuilding intelligence capacities in support of long-term objectives against NATO states.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu preened themselves on the Russian seizure of Avdiivka. Shoigu briefed Putin about the seizure of Avdiivka and the wider Russian war effort in Ukraine in a February 20 meeting during which Putin and Shoigu both amplified an information operation that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) began on February 19 that aims to sow resentment and distrust against the Ukrainian command for an allegedly chaotic Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka.[14] Shoigu used the briefing and a subsequent interview with Kremlin newswire TASS to portray the five month long attritional Russian offensive operation to seize Avdiivka as an astounding success with minimal losses, despite the fact that Ukrainian and Russian estimates place Russian losses in the fight for Avdiivka between 16,000 and 47,000.[15] Shoigu argued that the Russian operation to seize Avdiivka was an operational success because Ukrainian forces had long fortified the settlement, but Shoigu did not claim that the seizure of the settlement would provide any specific operational benefits — as he recently claimed about the Russian seizure of other small settlements in Donetsk Oblast.[16] Shoigu also claimed that Russian forces conducted up to 450 high-precision airstrikes per day during the last days of the Russian effort to seize Avdiivka.[17] ISW assesses that Russian forces likely established temporary limited and localized air superiority during this time, and Shoigu is likely attempting to portray this temporary period as a persisting Russian capability.[18] Putin’s and Shoigu’s attempts to establish the seizure of Avdiivka as a major battlefield victory within the Russian information space likely aim to portray the Russian war effort in Ukraine as increasingly successful and portray Putin as a competent wartime president ahead of his assured reelection in March 2024.[19] The Kremlin’s efforts to highlight Russian success in Avdiivka also mutually supports increasing Russian efforts to use the seizure of the settlement to generate panic in the Ukrainian information space and weaken Ukrainian morale.[20]

Shoigu also claimed that Russian forces completely seized Krynky in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast, although available open-source visual evidence and Ukrainian and Russian reporting suggests that Ukrainian forces maintain their limited bridgehead in the area. Shoigu claimed during his briefing with Putin that Russian forces cleared Krynky, although Putin claimed that Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) and “Dnepr” Grouping of Forces Commander Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky told him that a handful of Ukrainian personnel remained in the settlement.[21] Shoigu refuted Teplinsky’s claim and portrayed Russian efforts to eliminate the bridgehead as a successfully completed effort and praised unspecified VDV elements and the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade as distinguished units for their role in the operation, a typical Kremlin accolade following the Russian seizure of a tactical objective.[22] ISW has not observed any visual evidence of recent notable Russian advances near the limited Ukrainian bridgehead in and near Krynky as of the time of this publication, and Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Colonel Nataliya Humenyuk reported that Ukrainian forces continue to gradually expand their bridgehead in the area.[23] Russian milbloggers claimed that regular positional fighting continued near Krynky on February 19 and 20 and did not note any Russian success in the area.[24]

The Kremlin likely prematurely claimed the Russian seizure of Krynky to reinforce its desired informational effects ahead of the March 2024 presidential election, although the Kremlin is likely setting expectations that the Russian military may fail to meet. Humenyuk identified Russian efforts to eliminate the Ukrainian bridgehead as a Russian effort to achieve informational objective ahead of the Russian presidential election, and Shoigu framed the Russian effort in east bank Kherson Oblast as similar to the seizure of Avdiivka.[25] Shoigu claimed that Russian forces have destroyed up to 3,500 Ukrainian personnel in east bank Kherson Oblast since the start of larger-than-usual Ukrainian ground operations in the area in October 2023.[26] Shoigu called the alleged Russian seizure of Krynky the official end of the Summer 2023 Ukrainian counteroffensive.[27] The Kremlin notably has delayed acknowledging the Russian seizure of the theater-wide initiative in Ukraine, likely out of potential concerns about Russian capabilities to advance, and Shoigu likely formally announced the “end” of the Ukrainian counteroffensive to publicly highlight that Russia has the initiative.[28] The Kremlin’s willingness to rhetorically address the tempo and initiative of Russian offensive operations in Ukraine may be due to increasing Kremlin confidence about Russian prospects and a conscious effort to support Kremlin narratives about the war as the presidential elections approach. The Kremlin may increasingly claim battlefield victories in Ukraine without full assurances of Russian tactical and operational success to support informational efforts that simultaneously glorify Putin and demoralize Ukraine, although such increasing rhetorical confidence may create expectations in the Russian information space that the Russian military cannot meet. Chechen Akhmat Spetsnaz Commander Apty Alaudinov notably claimed that he expects that Russian forces will successfully complete Putin’s Special Military Operation by September 2024, a forecast that is extremely implausible.[29]

The New York Times (NYT) reported that the Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka may have left hundreds of Ukrainian personnel “unaccounted” for. The NYT reported on February 20, citing two Ukrainian soldiers, that about 850 to 1,000 Ukrainian personnel “appear to have been captured or are unaccounted for” following the Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka.[30] The NYT reported that unspecified senior Western officials stated that the range of apparent Ukrainian personnel losses “seemed accurate.” The NYT reported that some unnamed Western officials stated that Ukrainian forces failed to conduct an orderly withdrawal from Avdiivka on February 16 and 17, which resulted in an apparent "significant number of soldiers captured.” Personnel who are “unaccounted for” include those killed in action, wounded in action, missing in action, and captured. ISW has not yet observed open-source visual evidence of massive Ukrainian personnel losses or the Russian captures of Ukrainian prisoners at such a scale, and the Russian information space customarily displays such evidence when it has it. The lack of open-source evidence does not demonstrate that the NYT’s report is false, however, and ISW continues to monitor the information space for evidence on which to base an assessment of the outcome of the Ukrainian withdrawal. The Kyiv Independent reported on February 20 that some Ukrainian forces conducted a disorderly withdrawal from the Zenit strongpoint south of Avdiivka and experienced high losses.[31] ISW has observed that this Ukrainian position was the only identified tactically encircled position at the time of the Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka.

Ukrainian officials launched an investigation into additional apparent Russian violations of the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war (POWs) in Zaporizhia Oblast.[32] The Ukrainian Prosecutor General stated on February 20 that it launched an investigation into footage published on February 20 showing Russian forces executing three Ukrainian POWs near Robotyne on February 18.[33] The killing of POWs violates Article III of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs.[34] The Ukrainian Prosecutor General previously launched investigations into footage showing a Russian execution of Ukrainian POWs and Russian soldiers using Ukrainian POWs as human shields near Robotyne in December 2023.[35] ISW has recently reported on several such apparent war crimes in Zaporizhia and Donetsk oblasts.[36]  Russian President Vladimir Putin made a point of remarking on Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian POWs on February 20, claimed that Russia holds POWs in accordance with international conventions, and declared that Russian forces must act in the same way in Avdiivka, likely in an attempt to deflect responsibility for high-profile apparent Russian war crimes away from himself. Putin is likely concerned about international repercussions for his subordinates’ actions.[37] The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023, which has likely impeded his ability to travel internationally, and Putin may have explicitly addressed Ukrainian POWs given recent international attention on Russian atrocities in Ukraine in order to protect himself against another such international legal ruling against him.[38]

Key Takeaways:

• Ukraine has been defending itself against illegal Russian military intervention and aggression for 10 years.
• Russia’s grand strategic objective of regaining control of Ukraine has remained unchanged in the decade since its illegal intervention in Ukraine began.
• Russia worked hard to obfuscate its grand strategic objectives of regaining control of Ukraine between 2014 and the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
• Russian military intelligence is reportedly learning from its failures in recent years and has renewed efforts against NATO states.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu preened themselves on the Russian seizure of Avdiivka.
• Shoigu also claimed that Russian forces completely seized Krynky in east (left) bank Kherson Oblast, although available open-source visual evidence and Ukrainian and Russian reporting suggests that Ukrainian forces maintain their limited bridgehead in the area.
• The Kremlin likely prematurely claimed the Russian seizure of Krynky to reinforce its desired informational effects ahead of the March 2024 presidential election, although the Kremlin is likely setting expectations that the Russian military may fail to meet.
• The New York Times (NYT) reported that the Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka may have left hundreds of Ukrainian personnel “unaccounted” for.
• Ukrainian officials launched an investigation into additional apparent Russian violations of the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war (POWs) in Zaporizhia Oblast.
• Russian forces made a confirmed advance west of Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire frontline.
• The Kremlin continues to promote Russia’s efforts to expand its defense industrial base (DIB).
• Zaporizhia Oblast occupation authorities are expanding public services provision in occupied parts of the oblast to consolidate bureaucratic control and generate dependencies on the occupation administration.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Positional engagements continued along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on February 20 but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline in this area. Russian and Ukrainian sources reported that fighting continued northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka; southeast of Kupyansk near Tabaivka; north of Kreminna near Zhytlivka; west of Kreminna near Terny, Torske, and Yampolivka; and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[39] Ukrainian Khortytsia Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash noted that the Russian grouping in the Kupyansk-Kreminna direction is comprised of 122,000 personnel: 42,000 in the Kupyansk direction, 57,000 in the Lyman direction (west of Kreminna), and 23,000 in the Siversk direction (south of Kreminna).[40] Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reported that elements of Russia’s 1st Tank Regiment and 15th Motorized Rifle Regiment (both of the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division, 1st Guards Tank Army, Western Military District [1st GTA, WMD]) are struggling to advance towards Kupyansk from the southeast near Tabaivka and Krokhmalne, so the Russian command has redeployed at least three assault units — each up to a company in size — to the area to support efforts to break through Ukrainian lines and advance northwest of Svatove.[41] Mashovets also noted that elements of the 6th Combined Arms Army (WMD) are trying to move across the Oskil River west of Synkivka to push on Kupyansk from the west bank of the river but are unable to do so because of heavy Ukrainian artillery fire.[42] Mashovets stated that elements of the 4th Tank Division (1st GTA, WMD) and 144th Motorized Rifle Division (20th Combined Arms Army, WMD) are operating west of the Terny-Yampoliva area and struggling to eliminate Ukrainian positions on the Zherebets River west of Kreminna.[43]

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

Positional engagements continued near Bakhmut on February 20, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Positional engagements continued northwest of Bakhmut near Bohdanivka and Khromove; west of Bakhmut near Ivanivske; and southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka and Andriivka.[44] Ukrainian Khortytsia Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Ilya Yevlash stated that Russian forces continue attempts to advance to Chasiv Yar (west of Bakhmut) and are transferring reserves to the Bakhmut direction.[45] Russian milbloggers claimed that the Russian military transferred some unspecified Russian forces from the Avdiivka direction to the Bakhmut area.[46] Elements of the Russian 331st Airborne (VDV) Regiment (98th VDV Division) continue operating northwest of Bakhmut.[47]

Russian forces recently advanced northwest of Avdiivka. Geolocated footage published on February 20 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced on the eastern outskirts of Lastochkyne (northwest of Avdiivka).[48] Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) “Sparta” Battalion Commander and Speaker of the DNR Parliament Artem Zhoga claimed that Russian forces have cleared Avdiivka.[49] Positional engagements continued northwest of Avdiivka near Stepove and Lastochkyne; west of Avdiivka near Sieverne; and southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske and Nevelske.[50] Elements of the Russian 30th Motorized Rifle Brigade (2nd Combined Arms Army [CAA], Central Military District) and 9th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st DNR Army Corps [AC]) are reportedly operating near Lastochkyne and Pervomaiske, respectively.[51]

Russian forces reportedly advanced southwest of Donetsk City amid continued positional engagements on February 20. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces advanced in Pobieda (southwest of Donetsk City) along the O0532 (or T0524) Pobieda-Vuhledar highway, although ISW has not observed visual confirmation of this claim.[52] Russian and some Ukrainian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces withdrew from Pobieda, although ISW has not observed visual evidence of a Ukrainian withdrawal at this time.[53] Positional engagements continue west of Donetsk City near Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Novomykhailivka and Pobieda.[54] Elements of the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) and 39th Motorized Rifle Brigade (68th AC, Eastern Military District) reportedly continue operating near Novomykhailivka.[55] Elements of the Russian 238th Artillery Brigade (8th CAA, Southern Military District) reportedly continue operating near Heorhiivka.[56]

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

Russian forces recently marginally advanced near the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border as positional fighting continued in the area on February 20. Geolocated footage published on February 20 shows that Russian forces marginally advanced north of Shevchenko (southeast of Velyka Novosilka and southwest of Vuhledar).[57] Positional fighting continued southwest of Velyka Novosilka near Malynivka; south of Velyka Novosilka near Staromayorske; and southeast of Velyka Novosilka near Shevchenko, Prechystivka, and Zolota Nyva.[58] Footage published on February 19 and 20 shows elements of the Russian 35th Combined Arms Army (Eastern Military District [EMD]) striking Ukrainian positions near Hulyaipole and elements of the Russian 11th Air and Air Defense Forces Army (Russian Aerospace Forces and EMD) striking Ukrainian positions near Malynivka.[59]

There were no confirmed changes to the frontline in the Robotyne area on February 20.[60] Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces captured a tactically significant height between Robotyne and Verbove (northeast of Robotyne) and that Russian forces have advanced between 700 meters and two kilometers forward during offensive operations in the area since February 17.[61] The milbloggers claimed that Russian forces, including elements of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division (58th Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District) and Russian Airborne (VDV) elements, continued attacking Robotyne from the west and south between Verbove and Robotyne.[62] Some Russian milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian forces continue counterattacks in and near Robotyne to recapture lost positions.[63] Elements of the Russian BARS-1 (Russian Combat Army Reserve) formation are reportedly operating near Verbove, and elements of the Russian 136th Artillery Regiment (likely a reconstituted Soviet-era unit) are operating in the Orikhiv direction.[64]

Positional fighting continued near Krynky on east (left) bank Kherson Oblast on February 20 despite Russian military officials’ claims that Russian forces completely captured the settlement.[65] Geolocated footage published on February 19 shows Ukrainian forces conducting a HIMARS strike against a Russian mobile Zala drone launcher near Stara Mayachka.[66] Footage posted on February 20 shows the Russian 81st Volunteer Spetsnaz Brigade operating near Krynky.[67]

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

Russian forces conducted a medium-sized combined drone and missile strike against Ukrainian rear areas on the morning of February 20. Ukraine’s Air Force reported that Russian forces launched two S-300/S-400 missiles from Belgorod Oblast; one Kh-31 air-to-surface missile from occupied Zaporizhia Oblast; and 23 Shahed-136/131 drones from Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai.[68] Ukrainian forces destroyed all 23 Shaheds over Kharkiv, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, and Mykolaiv oblasts.[69] Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat reported that Russian forces are increasingly operating A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft closer to Russian borders and in the direction of Belarus due to recent successful Ukrainian shootdowns of Russian aircraft, including fighter bombers and an A-50 over the Sea of Azov in January.[70]

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

The Kremlin continues to promote Russia’s efforts to expand its defense industrial base (DIB). Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed on February 20 that Russia has increased the production of tanks by a factor of six and is also focused on modernizing tanks.[71] Ukrainian sources previously stated that Russia’s reported tank production numbers in recent years largely reflect restored and modernized tanks drawn from storage rather than new production.[72] Latvian Defense Ministry's State Secretary Janis Garisons stated on December 13 that Russia can ”produce and repair” about 100-150 tanks per month, and Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev suggested in March 2023 that Russian can produce roughly 125 tanks per month.[73] Russia’s ability to modernize and use tanks retrieved from storage still gives Russian forces an advantage on the battlefield in the overall number of available tanks for operations.

Russian First Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Sergei Kiriyenko and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev reportedly created the “Soyuz” volunteer detachment comprised primarily of athletes.[74] Russian opposition outlet Vazhnye Istorii reported on February 20 that Kiriyenko and Trutnev raised 634 million rubles ($6.8 million) from Russian businesses, including Russian-state owned nuclear company Rosatom and Russian-state owned bank Sberbank, and recruited personnel through the Russian Union of Martial Arts (RSBI).[75] Vazhnye Istorii reported that personnel of the ”Soyuz” volunteer detachment trained at the Russian Special Forces University in Gudermes, Chechnya, and that RSBI Co-Chairman Ramil Gabbasov is the commander of the detachment.[76] The ”Soyuz” volunteer detachment reportedly deployed to Ukraine at an unspecified time after its creation in December 2023.[77]

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

The Ukrainian General Staff reported on February 20 that Ukrainian defense industrial base (DIB) manufacturers have started serial production of 2S22 155mm self-propelled “Bohdana” artillery systems.[78] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the “Bohdana” artillery system can shoot 100 shells per day and only needs to fire one shell to "warm up“ the artillery barrel whereas Soviet-era Msta-B artillery systems need to fire two shells to do so.[79]

Swedish Minister of Defense Pål Jonson announced a $683 million security assistance package to Ukraine on February 20, Sweden’s largest aid package for Ukraine to date.[80] Jonson stated that the package will include artillery ammunition, RBS70 portable air defense systems, anti-tank missiles, Carl Gustaf recoilless rifles, hand grenades, 10 CB-90 fast assault watercraft, and 20 boats.[81] The aid package also includes roughly 1 billion Swedish Kroner ($96.5 million) for the joint Swedish-Danish procurement of CV-90 armored vehicles for Ukraine.[82]

Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair announced on February 19 that Canada will send more than 800 SkyRanger R70 drones to Ukraine as part of an upcoming aid package.[83] Blair stated that the drones are valued roughly at $95 million and that the package is a part of the $500 million of security assistance that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in June 2023.[84]

Ukraine continues to sign agreements with German manufacturers aimed to expand Ukraine’s DIB. Ukrainian defense industry company Ukroboronprom announced on February 20 that it signed a memorandum of understanding with Germany company MDBA Deutschland GmbH for the research, development, and production of air defense systems, specifically for countering drones.[85] Germany company Dynamit Nobel Defense announced on February 20 that it is considering localizing production of Panzerfaust-3 anti-tank weapons in Germany as part of cooperation agreements that it signed with Ukroboronprom on February 17.[86]

Germany is reportedly planning to provide Ukraine with long-range strike capabilities. German outlet BILD reported on February 20 that the Bundestag plans to vote on an aid package for Ukraine in the coming week that will include artillery ammunition, equipment, and weapons to Ukraine.[87] BILD reported that the draft proposal includes the delivery of additional long-range weapons systems ”to enable targeted attacks on strategically relevant targets” in the Russian rear and suggested that these systems might be Taurus missiles.[88]

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

Zaporizhia Oblast occupation authorities are expanding public service provision in occupied parts of the oblast to consolidate bureaucratic control and generate dependencies on the occupation administration. Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky stated on February 20 that Russian authorities are opening the largest “My Documents” public services center in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast, which will provide over 30 public services to over 137,000 people.[89] The available public services include registration for real estate services, individual insurance account registration (SNILS), compulsory medical insurance, tax identification numbers, and other similar services.[90] The “My Documents” service functions throughout the Russian Federation and abroad to provide various public service documents to Russian citizens and is now operating in occupied Ukraine likely to force residents of occupied areas to interact with Russian bureaucratic organs to receive documents for the most basic public services.[91] ISW has assessed that such bureaucratic control programs allow occupation authorities to collect private data on residents of occupied areas and renders occupied areas reliant on the occupation administration for bureaucratic support.[92]

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Russia continues attempts to use its BRICS chairmanship to forward its foreign policy objects and expand Russian influence abroad. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela on February 20, and Maduro stated that Venezuela intends to join BRICS in the near future.[93] Maduro amplified boilerplate Kremlin narratives attempting to portray Russia as winning its war in Ukraine and blaming the West and NATO for the onset of the war.[94]

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko reiterated Kremlin narratives on February 20 that attempt to portray the West as conflict-seeking and a threat to both Russia and Belarus.[95] Lukashenko accused the West of attempting to sow internal instability in Belarus and conduct false flag attacks ultimately aimed at undermining Belarusian sovereignty.[96]

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

2. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, February 20, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-february-20-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Iraq: Russia may be setting conditions to supplant the United States as a security partner in Iraq in anticipation of the United States possibly reducing its military presence there.
• Northern Gaza Strip: The Israel Defense Forces launched a new, “division-wide” clearing operation in the Zaytoun and Shujaiya neighborhoods in eastern Gaza City.
• Southern Gaza Strip: The Israel Defense Forces assessed that it will complete ground operations in Khan Younis in the next few days, according to an Israeli Army Radio correspondent.
• Political Negotiations: Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Cairo to discuss a ceasefire in Gaza with Egyptian officials.
• West Bank: Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian fighters nine times.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah conducted at least six attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.
• Yemen: The Houthis claimed three drone attacks targeting US and Israeli targets.
• Iran: International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said that Iran is continuing to produce highly enriched uranium at an elevated rate.

IRAN UPDATE, FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Feb 20, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Iran Update, February 20, 2024

Annika Ganzeveld, Andie Parry, Johanna Moore, Amin Soltani, Kathryn Tyson, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

The Iran Update provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities abroad that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests. It also covers events and trends that affect the stability and decision-making of the Iranian regime. The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) provides these updates regularly based on regional events. For more on developments in Iran and the region, see our interactive map of Iran and the Middle East.

Note: CTP and ISW have refocused the update to cover the Israel-Hamas war. The new sections address developments in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as noteworthy activity from Iran’s Axis of Resistance. We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations. This map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

Russia may be setting conditions to supplant the United States as a security partner in Iraq in anticipation of the United States possibly reducing its military presence there. Russian Ambassador to Iraq Elbrus Kutrashev has met with several senior Iraqi political and military officials to discuss security cooperation since late January 2024. Kutrashev met with:

• Iraqi Shia cleric and politician Ammar al Hakim on January 31;
• Iraqi Popular Mobilization Committee Chairman Faleh al Fayyadh on February 1;
• Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani on February 5; and
• Asaib Ahl al Haq Secretary General Qais al Khazali on February 20.

Kutrashev’s meetings notably included discussing deepening security cooperation with prominent Iranian-backed security figures. Kutrashev and Fayyadh discussed “exchanging experiences” between Russia and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), which is an Iraqi security service that contains several Iranian-backed Shia militias.[1] Kutrashev also discussed Russian support for the Iraqi armed forces when meeting with Khazali.[2] Iraqi state media reported that Kutrashev and Khazali discussed Russia’s role in “arming and developing the capabilities of Iraqi security and military forces.”[3] Engaging Khazali on this subject is especially noteworthy, given that he heads Iranian-backed militia Asaib Ahl al Haq, which is part of the PMF. Kutrashev and Khazali also discussed counterterrorism cooperation. Kutrashev previously told Russian media in January 2024 that Russia seeks to expand its “presence” in Iraq and “invest additional resources in areas related to security.”[4]

Iran and its Iraqi proxy and partner militias have intensified their campaign to expel the United States from Iraq since October 2023 and have accordingly launched regular attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria within this timeframe.[5] These attacks aim to erode US willingness to maintain a military presence in the Middle East.[6] The United States and Iraqi federal government began negotiations over the status of the US-led international coalition in Iraq in late January 2024, which is around the same time that Kutrashev’s meetings began.[7] The United States and international coalition forces are deployed in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi federal government to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Russia may seek to replace the United States as the main provider of military equipment and training to the Iraqi armed forces. An Iraqi Parliamentary Security and Defense Committee member claimed on February 20 that the United States has threatened to stop providing military equipment and training to Iraq to pressure the Iraqi federal government to keep US forces.[8] CTP-ISW cannot verify this claim. Russia could exploit a potential vacuum in US military support to Iraq by providing Iraqi forces with small arms and spare parts in the short-term. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would likely prevent it from being able to supply Iraqi forces with high-end systems, such as tanks, helicopters, and aircraft, however. The US Defense Department reported in February 2023 that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has hindered Iraq’s ability to access spare parts for its Russian-designed Mi-17 helicopters.[9] The United States began replacing Iraq’s Mi-17 helicopters with US-made helicopters around February 2023.[10]

Key Takeaways:

• Iraq: Russia may be setting conditions to supplant the United States as a security partner in Iraq in anticipation of the United States possibly reducing its military presence there.
• Northern Gaza Strip: The Israel Defense Forces launched a new, “division-wide” clearing operation in the Zaytoun and Shujaiya neighborhoods in eastern Gaza City.
• Southern Gaza Strip: The Israel Defense Forces assessed that it will complete ground operations in Khan Younis in the next few days, according to an Israeli Army Radio correspondent.
• Political Negotiations: Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Cairo to discuss a ceasefire in Gaza with Egyptian officials.
• West Bank: Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian fighters nine times.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah conducted at least six attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.
• Yemen: The Houthis claimed three drone attacks targeting US and Israeli targets.
• Iran: International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said that Iran is continuing to produce highly enriched uranium at an elevated rate.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Erode the will of the Israeli political establishment and public to launch and sustain a major ground operation into the Gaza Strip
• Degrade IDF material and morale around the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a new, “division-wide” clearing operation in the Zaytoun and Shujaiya neighborhoods in eastern Gaza City on February 20.[11] An Israeli Army Radio correspondent said that two brigades will clear the remaining Hamas infrastructure in eastern Gaza City over the next several weeks.[12] Local Palestinian sources reported Israeli armor operated on Road 8 and near the Dawla Roundabout in southern Zaytoun on February 20. Israeli ground forces have not operated in these areas at a large scale since late December 2023.[13] Israeli forces concluded a similar division-wide clearing operation in western Gaza City on February 15.[14] The IDF disclosed through an Israeli Army Radio correspondent on February 5 that it identified a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) cell in Zaytoun neighborhood as responsible for most of the rocket attacks into Israel in recent weeks.[15]

The IDF Arabic-language spokesperson issued evacuation orders for parts of Jabalia and Turkmen neighborhood south of Gaza City on February 20.[16] The order requested residents immediately evacuate to the al Mawasi humanitarian zone in the southwest Gaza Strip. Palestinian journalists reported Israeli ground forces operated within the evacuation zone on February 20.[17]

The IDF assessed that it will complete ground operations in Khan Younis in the next few days, according to an Israeli Army Radio correspondent.[18] Israeli forces operating under the 36th Division, 98th Division, and 162nd Division continued to clear Khan Younis of Palestinian militia infrastructure, weapons, and fighters.[19] Israeli forces are killing about half the Palestinian fighters per day than they did at the start of the operation in Khan Younis, according to unspecified IDF sources.[20] The IDF estimated that it has killed about 2,900 Palestinian fighters in Khan Younis since beginning operations there.[21] The 98th Division, the division leading clearing operations in Khan Younis, will deploy to Rafah or the central Gaza Strip in the coming days.[22]

Palestinian militias continued to attack Israeli forces in Khan Younis on February 20. PIJ fighters targeted six Israeli infantrymen who were operating in a building with a thermobaric rocket in western Khan Younis refugee camp.[23] Hamas fighters targeted another six Israeli infantrymen with an explosive device in western Khan Younis City.[24] Both groups claimed the attacks killed and wounded Israeli forces.

US and Israeli officials quoted in Axios disclosed that the IDF may not advance into Rafah until mid-April, despite Israeli officials' public announcements about an earlier timeline.[25] Israeli War Cabinet Minster Benny Gantz said on February 18 that Israeli forces will enter Rafah at the start of Ramadan around March 10 if Hamas does not release the remaining Israeli hostages the group holds.[26] The IDF is expected to present an operational plan for a Rafah ground operation and civilian evacuation to the Israeli security cabinet in the coming days.[27]

The Israeli Chief of Staff Major General Herzi Halevi issued a letter to Israeli commanders stressing the standard conduct of war on February 20.[28] Halevi wrote, “we are not on a killing spree, revenge, or genocide” and issued orders to “not to use force where it is not required, to distinguish between a terrorist and [not] a terrorist, not to take anything that is not ours a souvenir or a military item and not to shoot revenge videos.”[29] He also noted that the IDF would begin to pursue absentee soldiers.

Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Cairo to discuss a ceasefire in Gaza with Egyptian officials on February 20.[30] US National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk will hold talks with Egyptian officials on February 21 before meeting with top Israeli officials the next day.[31] The Qatari Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson confirmed that all parties are participating in ongoing hostage exchange deal talks.[32] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to send an Israeli delegation to Cairo for follow-up talks on February 14.[33]

Palestinian militias did not conduct indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel on February 20.

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward the West Bank and fix them there

Israeli forces have clashed with Palestinian fighters nine times in the West Bank since the CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on February 19[34]

This map is not an exhaustive depiction of clashes and demonstrations in the West Bank.|

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Draw IDF assets and resources toward northern Israel and fix them there
• Set conditions for successive campaigns into northern Israel|

Lebanese Hezbollah has conducted at least six attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on February 19.[35] Hezbollah claimed six attacks using rockets and unspecified guided munitions targeting Israeli forces and military infrastructure north of Margaliot.[36]  The IDF confirmed that Hezbollah fired an anti-tank guided missile that detonated near Margaliot.[37]

Recorded reports of attacks; CTP-ISW cannot independently verify impact.

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

• Demonstrate the capability and willingness of Iran and the Axis of Resistance to escalate against the United States and Israel on multiple fronts
• Set conditions to fight a regional war on multiple fronts

The United States and Iranian-backed Iraqi militias reached an “undeclared truce” during a meeting at Baghdad International Airport on January 29, according to an independent Iraqi outlet.[38] The truce followed the one-way drone attack that killed three US service members in northeastern Jordan on January 28.[39] Western media has attributed the attack to Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah.[40] The US delegation’s meetings with Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leaders and Iraqi officials coincided with IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani’s visit to Baghdad on January 29.[41] Reuters reported that Ghaani directed the militias to “pause” their attacks targeting US forces during his visit to Baghdad.[42] Kataib Hezbollah subsequently announced the suspension of its “military and security operations” targeting US forces on January 30.[43] An independent Iraqi outlet claimed that another Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, initially vowed to continue its attacks targeting US forces before suspending its attacks “without an official announcement.”[44] The US Defense Department deputy press secretary stated on February 14 that Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria had not attacked US forces since February 4.[45] The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has not claimed an attack targeting US forces in this time.[46] An unspecified security source told Reuters on February 10 that US air defense systems intercepted one-way attack drones targeting Conoco Mission Support Site in eastern Syria, however.[47]

The rate of intra-Shia assassinations in Iraq has increased in February 2024, highlighting schisms among between the Shia factions.

• Unspecified gunmen shot and killed a senior Asaib Ahl al Haq official in Maysan Province on February 4.[48] CTP-ISW previously assessed that followers of Iraqi nationalist Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr may have been responsible.[49] Sadr’s followers, known as Sadrists, have significant influence in Maysan Province, and Sadrist militiamen have previously assassinated local Asaib Ahl al Haq-affiliated officials.[50]
• Unspecified gunmen shot and killed two of Hadi al Ameri’s relatives in northern Baghdad on February 18.[51] Ameri is the secretary general of the Iranian-backed Badr Organization. The Iraqi Interior Ministry claimed that the gunman assassinated Ameri’s relatives due to a “land dispute.”[52]
• Unspecified gunmen kidnapped and killed a Sadrist named Ayser al Khafaji in Babil Province on February 19.[53] Sadrist social media accounts blamed Khafaji’s death on Asaib Ahl al Haq.[54] Sadrists and members of the Khafaji clan—a major Shia clan in southern Iraq—gathered in Hillah, Babil Province, on February 20 to protest Khafaji’s death.[55]

The Houthis claimed three drone attacks targeting US and Israeli targets on February 20.[56] Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said that Houthi fighters launched an unspecified number of drones targeting US Navy ships in the Red Sea and Eilat on February 20.[57] He added that Houthi fighters fired anti-ship missiles at the Israeli MSC Silver in the Gulf of Aden on the same date.[58]

An unspecified merchant vessel transiting through the Red Sea reported that two drones followed it for approximately 30 minutes on February 19.[59]

US Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted strikes on Houthi targets on February 19 and 20 that presented “imminent threats” to merchant and US naval vessels in the region.[60] US forces destroyed a one-way attack drone prepared to launch from western Yemen.[61] US and coalition forces separately intercepted 10 one-way attack drones over the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.[62] The USS Laboon intercepted a likely Houthi anti-ship cruise missile ”headed in its direction.”[63]

The French Ministry of Defense reported on February 20 that a French frigate intercepted two Houthi one-way attack drones over the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.[64] The French Ministry of Defense said the drone originated from Yemen.[65]

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said on February 19 that Iran is continuing to produce highly enriched uranium at an elevated rate.[66] Grossi told Reuters that Iran is currently producing 60 percent highly enriched uranium (HEU) at a rate of seven kilograms per month. This rate is higher than its three kilogram per month enrichment rate between June and November 2023. Grossi added that he will travel to Tehran on an unspecified date in the coming weeks. Grossi last visited Tehran in March 2024.[67]

Iran has stockpiled at least five nuclear bombs worth of HEU, given its stockpile of 128.3 kilograms of 60 percent HEU as of October 28, 2023.[68] The IAEA defines 25 kilograms of 20 percent or more enriched HEU as a ”significant quantity” for ”which the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive cannot be excluded.”[69] Iran has no plausible civilian use for 60 percent HEU but can use it in a compact nuclear explosive or further enrich it to 90 percent weapons-grade uranium.

3. The revolution that wasn’t: How AI drones have fizzled in Ukraine (so far)

"AI drones"

Excerpts:

However, that doesn’t mean AI won’t scale up in other conflicts with other combatants, especially high-tech nations with big defense budgets like the US and China. But even for those superpowers miniaturizing AI to fit on drones is daunting: There’s good reason headline-grabbing AIs like ChatGPT run on massive server farms.

But that does not make the problem impossible to solve — or that it has to be solved 100 percent. AI still glitches and hallucinates, but humans make deadly errors all the time, in and out of combat. A civilian analogy is self-driving cars: They don’t need to avoid 100 percent of accidents to be an improvement over human drivers.

By definition, in any group of humans, performing any given task, “fifty percent of people will be below average,” Kott noted. “If you can do better than ‘below average,’ you’re already doubled effectiveness of your operations.”

Even modest improvements can have major impacts when you’re waging war on a massive scale, as in Ukraine — or any future US-China conflict. “It doesn’t have to be 100 percent,” Kott said. “In many cases 20 percent is good enough, much better than nothing.”

Western demands for high performance don’t mesh with the realities of major war, he warned. “We demand complete reliability, we demand complete accuracy, [because] we are not in existential danger, like Ukraine,” Kott said. “Ukrainians don’t specify perfection. They can’t afford that.”

The revolution that wasn’t: How AI drones have fizzled in Ukraine (so far) - Breaking Defense

Last fall, both Russia and Ukraine boasted of fielding drones that tracked targets using AI algorithms. Now new expert analysis suggests that neither side got it to work well enough for war — but the US and China might.

By  SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.

on February 20, 2024 at 9:30 AM

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · February 20, 2024

Ukranian servicemembers launch an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) which is equipped with a thermographic camera, in Zaporizhzhia region, southeastern Ukraine. (Dmytro Smolienko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — “The war in Ukraine is spurring a revolution in drone warfare using AI,” blared a Washington Post headline last July. Then, in the fall, a flurry of reports said that both Russia and Ukraine had deployed small drones that used artificial intelligence to identify and home in on targets. Having on-board AI meant that the drones, versions of the Russian Lancet and the Ukrainian Saker Scout, wouldn’t need a human operator to guide them all the way to impact.

If this AI had proved itself in battle, it really would have been a revolution. Electronic warfare systems designed to disrupt the operator’s control link — or worse, trace the transmission to its source for a precision strike — would have been largely useless against self-guided drones. Skilled and scarce drone jockeys could have been replaced by thousands of conscripts quickly trained to point-and-click on potential targets. And instead of every drone requiring an operator staring at its video feed full-time, a single human could have overseen a swarm of lethal machines.

All told, military AI would have taken a technically impressive and slightly terrifying step towards independence from human control, like Marvel’s Ultron singing Pinnochio’s “I’ve got no strings on me.” Instead, after more than four months of frontline field-testing, neither sides’ AI-augmented drones seem to have made a measurable impact.

In early February, a detailed report from the Center for a New American Security dismissed the AI drones in a few lines. “The Lancet-3 was advertised as having autonomous target identification and engagement, although these claims are unverified,” wrote CNAS’s defense program director, Stacie Pettyjohn. “Both parties claim to be using artificial intelligence to improve the drone’s ability to hit its target, but likely its use is limited.”

Then, on February 14, an independent analysis suggested that the Russians, at least, had turned their Lancet’s AI-guidance feature off. Videos of Lancet operators’ screens, posted online since the fall, often included a box around the target, one capable of moving as the target moved, and a notification saying “target locked,” freelance journalist David Hambling posted on Forbes. Those features would require some form of algorithmic object-recognition, although it’s impossible to tell from video alone whether it was merely highlighting the target for the human operator or actively guiding the drone to hit it.

However, “none of the Lancet videos from the last two weeks or so seem to have the ‘Target Locked’ or the accompanying bounding box,” Hambling continued. “The obvious conclusion is that automated target recognition software was rolled out prematurely and there has been product recall.”

Don’t Believe The (AI) Hype

It’s impossible to confirm Hambling’s analysis without access to Russian military documents or the drone’s software code. But Pettyjohn and two other drone experts — both fluent Russian-speakers who are normally enthusiastic about the technology — agreed that Hambling’s interpretation was not only plausible but probable.

“This is a fairly detailed analysis, looks about right to me,” said Alexander Kott, former chief scientist at the Army Research Laboratory, in an email calling Breaking Defense’s attention to the Forbes piece. “It is difficult to know for sure…I have not seen an independent confirmation, and I don’t think one can even exist.”

“I think it’s accurate,” said Sam Bendett of CNA, a think tank with close ties to the Pentagon, in an email exchange with Breaking Defense. (Bendett also spoke to Hambling for his story).

“This technology needs a lot of testing and evaluation, this technology needs a lot of iteration, [and] many times the technology isn’t ready,” he had told Breaking Defense before the Forbes story was published. “I think it’s a slow roll because both sides want to get it right. Once they get it right, they’re going to scale it up.

“This is in fact technologically possible,” Bendett said. “Whoever gains a breakthrough in drone technology and quickly scales it up gains a huge advantage.”

But that breakthrough clearly hasn’t happened here, Pettyjohn told Breaking Defense. “Russian industry often makes pretty outlandish claims about its weapons’ capabilities, and in practice we find that their performance is much less than promised … This has been most prominent with autonomous systems, as Sam Bendett and Jeff Edmonds found in their CNA report on uncrewed systems in Ukraine.”

The Ukrainians don’t seem to have done better, despite similar media hype.

“There are lots of really exciting reports out there about the Saker Scout and the autonomous target recognition software that the Ukrainians have been developing,” Pettyjohn said. “If Saker Scout does what it’s supposed to …. it could go off, find a target, and decide to kill it all on its own without a human intervening.”

“Whether it can actually do this… it’s hard to sift through,” she continued. “I am definitely on the skeptical side.”

The Real AI Revolution – Date TBD

So what would it really take for Russia and Ukraine — or for that matter, the US or China — to replace a human operator with AI? After all, the brain is a biological neural network, honed over millions of years of evolution to take in a dazzling array of sensory data (visual, audio, smell, vibration), update an internal 3D model of the external world, then formulate and execute complex plans of action in near-real time.

For AI to match that capability, it needs what theorists of combat call “situational awareness,” Kott told Breaking Defense. “[Like] any soldier… they need to see what’s happening around them.” That requires not just object recognition — which AI finds hard enough — but the ability to observe an object in motion and deduce what action it is in the middle of performing, Kott argues.

That’s a task that humans do from infancy. Think of a baby saying “mmmm” when put in their high chair, even before any food is visible: That’s actually a complex process of observing, turning those sensory inputs into intelligible data about the world, matching that new data with old patterns in memory, and making inferences about the future. One of the most famous maxims in AI, Moravec’s Paradox, is that tasks humans take for granted can be confoundingly difficult for a machine.

Even humans struggle to understand what’s going on when under stress, in danger, and facing deliberate deception. Ukrainian decoys — fake HIMARS rocket launchers, anti-aircraft radars, and so on — routinely trick Russian drone operators and artillery officers into wasting ordnance on fakes while leaving the well-camouflaged decoys alone, and machine-vision algorithms have proven even easier to deceive. Combatants must also keep watch for danger, from obviously visible ones the human brain’s evolved to recognize — someone charging at you, screaming — to high-tech threats unaided human senses can’t perceive, like electronic warfare or targeting lasers locking on. A properly equipped machine can detect radio waves and laser beams, but its AI still needs to make sense of that incoming data, assess which threats are most dangerous, and decide how to defend itself, in seconds.

But the difficulty doesn’t stop there: Combatants must fight together as a team, the way human have since the first Stone Age tribe ambushed another. Compared to rifle marksmanship and other individual skills, collective “battle drills,” team-building, and protocols for clear communication under fire consume a tremendous amount of time in training. So great-power projects for military AI — both America’s Joint All-Domain Command & Control and China’s “informatized warfare” — focus not just on firepower but on coordination, using algorithms to share battle data directly from one robotic system to another without need for a human intermediary.

So the next step towards effective warfighting AIs, Pettyjohn said, “is really networking it together and thinking about how they’re sharing that information [and] who’s actually authorized to shoot. Is it the drone?”

Such complex digital decision-making requires sophisticated software, which needs to run on high-speed chips, which in turn need power, cooling, protection from vibration and electronic interference, and more. None of that is easy for engineers to cram into the kind of small drones being used widely by both sides in Ukraine. Even the upgraded Lancet-3 fits less than seven pounds (3 kg) of explosive warhead, leaving little room for a big computer brain.

The requisite engineering — and the cost — may prove too much for Russia or, especially, Ukraine, many of whose drones are hand-built from mail-order parts. “Given the very low cost of current FPV [First-Person View] drones, and the fact that many of them are assembled by volunteers literally on their kitchen table… thee cost-benefit tradeoffs likely remain uncertain,” Kott told Breaking Defense.

“The reason you’re seeing so many drones [is] that they’re cheap,” Pettyjohn agreed. “On both sides…they’re not investing in increased defenses against jamming… because it would make them too expensive to afford in the numbers that they’re needed. They’d rather just buy lots of them and count on some of them making it through.”

RELATED: Dumb and cheap: When facing electronic warfare in Ukraine, small drones’ quantity is quality

So even if Russia or Ukraine can implement on-board AI, she said, “it’s not clear to me it will scale in this conflict, because it depends a lot on the cost.”

However, that doesn’t mean AI won’t scale up in other conflicts with other combatants, especially high-tech nations with big defense budgets like the US and China. But even for those superpowers miniaturizing AI to fit on drones is daunting: There’s good reason headline-grabbing AIs like ChatGPT run on massive server farms.

But that does not make the problem impossible to solve — or that it has to be solved 100 percent. AI still glitches and hallucinates, but humans make deadly errors all the time, in and out of combat. A civilian analogy is self-driving cars: They don’t need to avoid 100 percent of accidents to be an improvement over human drivers.

By definition, in any group of humans, performing any given task, “fifty percent of people will be below average,” Kott noted. “If you can do better than ‘below average,’ you’re already doubled effectiveness of your operations.”

Even modest improvements can have major impacts when you’re waging war on a massive scale, as in Ukraine — or any future US-China conflict. “It doesn’t have to be 100 percent,” Kott said. “In many cases 20 percent is good enough, much better than nothing.”

Western demands for high performance don’t mesh with the realities of major war, he warned. “We demand complete reliability, we demand complete accuracy, [because] we are not in existential danger, like Ukraine,” Kott said. “Ukrainians don’t specify perfection. They can’t afford that.”

breakingdefense.com · by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. · February 20, 2024

4. Russian Troops Left Their Warehouse Doors Open. Ukrainian Drones Flew Right Inside—And Blew Up A Bunch Of Armored Vehicles.

Should have listened to their mothers and closed the door behind them//

Russian Troops Left Their Warehouse Doors Open. Ukrainian Drones Flew Right Inside—And Blew Up A Bunch Of Armored Vehicles.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/20/russian-troops-left-their-warehouse-doors-open-ukrainian-drones-flew-right-inside-and-blew-up-a-bunch-of-armored-vehicles/?utm

David Axe

Forbes Staff

I write about ships, planes, tanks, drones, missiles and satellites.

34

Feb 20, 2024,07:19pm EST

FPV drones burn down a warehouse full of Russian vehicles.VIA CENSOR

Seemingly emboldened by the Russian conquest of Avdiivka, a former Ukrainian stronghold in eastern Ukraine, the Russian army reportedly shipped some of its best armored vehicles to southern Ukraine in anticipation of a separate offensive.

But Ukrainian forces located the warehouses where the Russians were stashing the T-72 and T-80 tanks, a BMP-3 fighting vehicle and a BREM engineering vehicle.

And then some very skilled Ukrainian drone operators from the Separate Presidential Brigade flew their explosives-laden first-person-view drones through the warehouses’ open doors and systematically demolished the vehicles inside. “As if in a shooting range,” according to Ukrainian media outlet Censor.

Soon the warehouses were burning. And the vehicles inside—two tanks, a BREM, a BMP and several gun-trucks and supply trucks together worth millions of dollars—cooked. There’s video of the whole debacle.

The cost of the strike to the Ukrainians? Just $5,000, according to Censor.

The drone raid is notable not just for the extreme skill of the Ukrainian operators, but also for the apparent range of the strike. The Russian army isn’t likely to pack tanks and BMPs into warehouses within normal range of Ukraine’s two-pound FPV drones. Two miles or so.

The implication is that the Ukrainians extended the range of their first-person quadcopters, possibly by flying them in a long formation with a larger “repeater” drone that captured, and rebroadcast, the FPVs’ command signals. With the help of a repeater drone, an FPV might range more than 10 miles.

But if the Ukrainians could locate a warehouse complex full of tanks 10 miles behind the front line, why not strike it with much heavier weapons than drones—artillery, rockets, even glide-bombs—and guarantee the instantaneous destruction of the entire complex?

The answer is obvious. The United States was the main supplier of Ukraine’s heavy munitions, and Russia-aligned Republicans in the U.S. Congress since October have refused to vote on fresh aid to Ukraine. Ukrainian forces are running out of their heaviest weapons.

They’re not running out of drones, however. A network of thousands of small workshops spread across Ukraine, and funded in great part by small donations, churns out at least 50,000 FPV drones a month. More and more, these $500 drones are doing the work that artillery would do faster and more destructively.

In that sense, the warehouse raid is bad news for Ukraine. Yes, it’s embarrassing for the Russians that they lost, miles from the front, nearly a company of vehicles to a handful of tiny drones.

But it’s equally appalling to the Ukrainians that they had little choice but to attack with drones instead of with, say, M30/31 rockets.

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David Axe

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I'm a journalist, author and filmmaker based in Columbia, South Carolina.

5. China Is Practicing How to Sever Taiwan’s Internet

Excerpts:

In the future, more submarine cables will be placed underneath the seabed to make them less exposed to damage—but that, too, depends on the 60 cable ships being available. If Chinese fishing and cargo vessels want to accidentally damage or sever the 15 undersea cables connecting Taiwan to the rest of the world, the near future thus offers enticing prospects. Indeed, given the world’s dependence on the cables and the few ships that can service them, the near future offers tempting prospects for any country ready to create a few more “accidents” at sea.

Cable sabotage could become our era’s blockade—and unlike past generations’ blockades, it can be conducted on the sly. No wonder other telecom operators are studying CHT’s backup operations, because they, too, could be forced to deploy such measures, in Taiwan and beyond. And let’s hope many countries study Taiwan’s response. Responding to a devastating but invisible blockade could become one of the thorniest diplomatic challenges facing Western governments.

China Is Practicing How to Sever Taiwan’s Internet

The cutoff of the Matsu Islands may be a dry run for further aggression.

Braw-Elisabeth-foreign-policy-columnist3

Elisabeth Braw

By Elisabeth Braw, a columnist at Foreign Policy and a senior associate fellow at the European Leadership Network.

Foreign Policy · by Elisabeth Braw

• Economics
• Taiwan
• Elisabeth Braw

February 21, 2023, 4:36 PM

As the United States was watching the skies in the aftermath of the spy balloon incident, China may have been acting at sea. In early February, maritime vessels disabled the two undersea cables connecting Taiwan’s Matsu Islands, a tiny archipelago just 10 nautical miles off China’s coast, to the internet. Now residents of the islands face highly reduced internet connectivity until the cables are repaired. The activity looks like targeted harassment by Beijing—or an exercise in preparation for cutting off the whole of Taiwan.

On Feb. 2, a Chinese fishing vessel sailing close to the Matsu Islands severed one of the two cables, which connect the islands with Taiwan proper. Then, six days later, a Chinese freighter cut the second cable. Speaking shortly after the second cable was cut, Wong Po-tsung, the vice chair of Taiwan’s National Communications Commission, told reporters that there was no indication the incidents were intentional. It’s not uncommon for undersea cables to be damaged—but losing two in a row is either really unfortunate or quite possibly not a coincidence. Either way, Matsu Islands residents are now left with only rudimentary internet access: The islands’ commercial telecommunications provider, Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), has set up free, round-the-clock Wi-Fi in its stores on the islands and launched a backup microwave system for phone calls and state communications.

The Matsu Islands’ 12,700 or so residents will have to live without the cables for many more weeks; a repair vessel will arrive on April 20 at the earliest, and the repairs will require further time. The residents have experience living with damaged undersea cables. CHT reports that the cables were damaged five times in 2021 and four times last year, though nowhere near as badly as this time. During such periods of impaired internet connectivity, “it would take more than 10 minutes to send a text message, and sending a picture would take even longer,” Lii Wen, the Matsu Islands head of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), told the Taipei Times, adding that “the booking system in hostels and logistics services cannot function normally either, let alone viewing content and films on social media.”

With both cables down, even moderately slowed-down internet immobilizes daily life. Beijing is watching to see how island residents get on with this impediment to their existence—and to see how they manage to communicate with Taiwan proper. It’s also keeping close military watch of what it considers a renegade region. Taiwan’s offshore islands have always been its Achilles’s heel; in 1958, China shelled the Matsu Islands and the neighboring island of Kinmen. Last summer, the People’s Liberation Army Navy conducted large exercises near the island, purportedly in response to then-U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, though their large and well-executed nature suggested they had been planned long in advance.

Indeed, it’s striking how often Chinese vessels have damaged the undersea cables connecting islands in recent years. It’s especially striking because it’s no mystery where the world’s 380 undersea cables are located. On the contrary, there are maps detailing their location to ensure that fishing vessels don’t accidentally harm them while dragging their nets. By and large, this works: The International Cable Protection Committee reports that each year there are between 100 and 200 cases of damage to the cables and only 50-100 of those incidents involve fishing vessels; the rest are the result of construction and other activity. The incidents involving damage to the cables connecting the Matsu Islands are, in other words, disproportionately frequent.

What’s more, to date they have primarily involved the Chinese excavators that park themselves off the islands and dig up sand (which I wrote about for Foreign Policy last year). Given that undersea cables have a diameter of 17-21 millimeters (roughly the size of a garden hose), it would require an unbelievable amount of bad luck to accidentally damage them as often as Chinese vessels do—let alone to take out two in a row.

Chinese excavators parking themselves in Taiwanese waters and taking Taiwanese sand are classic gray-zone aggression: It’s not a military attack, but it’s also not nothing. Indeed, every time they appear, Taiwanese coast guard vessels have to travel to the site and instruct the vessels to leave (though they can’t be sure the uninvited visitors will do so in an expeditious manner). Every time, the diggers harm the maritime wildlife and the seabed. And because they often harm the undersea cables in the process, they harm the Matsu Islands’ ability to function and to communicate with Taiwan proper and the wider world.

Given that the undersea cables’ locations are known, this frequent and now jacked-up harm to the Matsu Islands doesn’t look like accidental damage—it looks like harassment of Taiwan. After the most recent incident, the DPP accused China of deliberately damaging the cables given how often they’re broken. The incidents could even be an exercise in preparation for a communications cutoff of Taiwan proper. Fifteen undersea cables connect the main island with global telecommunications.

CHT plans to, at least partly, ensure the Matsu Islands’ connectivity by laying another cable, and this time it will be buried underneath the seabed. The cable will, however, only be in place in 2025. In the meantime, CHT has to pay for the backup internet system, and it’s also waiving island residents’ internet fees. When the repair ship arrives, fixing the two cables will cost CHT between $660,000 and $1.3 million.

Causing such costs is also part of gray-zone aggression. If a company suffers losses as a result of geopolitical aggression, its insurer may not cover it: Russia’s devastating NotPetya cyberattack resulted in massive lawsuits between multinationals and their insurers. While CHT’s conversations with its underwriter are naturally confidential, the two will have to agree on whether the severing of the cables was accidental damage or an act of harm initiated by another government to weaken Taiwan. Either way, CHT or its insurer has to pay for repeated damage that goes far beyond what’s typical for undersea cables. What happens if CHT backs out of providing connectivity to the Matsu Islands on the grounds that constant cable repairs are making it too difficult and expensive? As I’ve outlined in other pieces and this report, geopolitical confrontation risks making parts of global business uninsurable.

And there’s another problem facing CHT, Taiwan, and indeed every country: the shortage of cable ships. The reason CHT has to wait until the end of April, or later, for repairs to begin is that there are only 60 cable vessels around. (Take a look at them here.) It’s a good thing that these scruffy-looking ships exist; indeed, without them the internet would not operate. But not only are the cable ships few in number—they’re also getting on in years. As Dan Swinhoe reports for DCD Magazine, no new cable ships were delivered between 2004 and 2010, and only five ships were delivered between 2011 and 2020. “Only eight of those 60 ships are younger than 18, with most between 20 and 30 years old. 19 are over 30 years old, and one is over 50,” Swinhoe notes. Like the world’s undersea cables, the cable ships are privately owned—and the market, as of yet, seems to have no interest in improving things. This might be a chance for governments—especially the world’s predominant naval powers, such as the United States—to step in. Alternatively, cable operators, which include not just telecommunications firms but tech giants like Google, too, might want to buy their own cable ships.

In the future, more submarine cables will be placed underneath the seabed to make them less exposed to damage—but that, too, depends on the 60 cable ships being available. If Chinese fishing and cargo vessels want to accidentally damage or sever the 15 undersea cables connecting Taiwan to the rest of the world, the near future thus offers enticing prospects. Indeed, given the world’s dependence on the cables and the few ships that can service them, the near future offers tempting prospects for any country ready to create a few more “accidents” at sea.

Cable sabotage could become our era’s blockade—and unlike past generations’ blockades, it can be conducted on the sly. No wonder other telecom operators are studying CHT’s backup operations, because they, too, could be forced to deploy such measures, in Taiwan and beyond. And let’s hope many countries study Taiwan’s response. Responding to a devastating but invisible blockade could become one of the thorniest diplomatic challenges facing Western governments.

Foreign Policy · by Elisabeth Braw

6. The future of disinformation — this time in Mississippi

The future of disinformation — this time in Mississippi

Politico · by MOHAR CHATTERJEE · February 20, 2024

One of the strangest glimpses into the future of information warfare might be what’s happening in Jackson, Miss., where a man named Ramzu Yunus is trying to launch an independent nation for people of African descent on Facebook.

His secessionist movement — while very local and very fringe — already has the backing of an intricate, global cross-platform propaganda network called the Russophere.

Last year, Yunus tried to drum up support for a similar separatist movement in Detroit, and has touted support from Russia on his Facebook page. In Texas, a different Russian influence campaign is amplifying calls for a “Texas secession” and an imminent “civil war” over the border crisis.

What might seem from the outside like an eccentric group of grassroots campaigns is a new front for a global pro-Russia disinformation operation — one that extends to the developing world as well, according to a new report by UK-based AI intelligence group Logically.

Logically’s researchers, who specialize in tracking disinformation networks across social media platforms like Telegram and Facebook, say these online campaigns follow a pattern they’ve seen in Africa, where the Kremlin is stoking anti-colonial sentiment against Western powers.

Nick Backovic, one of the report’s lead researchers, said Yunus’ blatant pro-Russia claims and focus on reaching untapped U.S. audiences with anti-West messaging is an “easily replicable framework” that could “snowball” and potentially destabilize populations across the country.

Like the African campaigns, Yunus’ American campaigns are racially loaded: They try to pit people of African descent against the U.S. government. In African countries, the campaigns pit local populations against Western colonial powers, specifically France.

Yunus claims financial and ideological support from the Russian government and PMC Wagner, the Russian paramilitary group formerly run by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, now closely affiliated with Vladimir Putin.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because Prigozhin was also behind the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll farm that stoked civil discord in the U.S. and elsewhere during the 2016 elections.

Logically said that Yunus confirmed its findings that he was speaking to Kremlin officials about his separatist campaigns, and said Yunus showed the researchers an invitation from a deputy of the Russian legislature to speak on Russia-Africa relations. (The Kremlin did not confirm the report, Logically told DFD. )

Contacted by POLITICO, The State Department declined to comment on Russophere or Yunus’ campaigns.

The online propaganda effort in Texas isn’t a Yunus operation, but speaks to the variety of ways deliberate disinformation is still being seeded in hyperlocal ways. It’s part of the massive, ongoing Russian state-linked campaign called “Doppelganger” which uses bot accounts on social media platforms — primarily X — to push narratives that exploit lightning-rod issues like the border crisis.

The Texas operation aims to stoke pro-Trump and anti-Biden sentiment among other narratives, according to the Russian disinformation research group Antibots4Navalny, which is tracking the influence network. (The group is unaffiliated with the namesake dissenter, the late Alexei Navalny.)

Over Signal, an Antibots4Navalny researcher told DFD that“selling “separatism” is “long known as one of Kremlin’s favorite tactics to"divide & conquer,” along with exploiting immigration — both stimulating influx of it and playing with fear of it from conservative audiences.” The researcher requested anonymity for the sake of personal safety.

“Lately, some episodes worth mentioning for the U.S. are exploiting discontent specifically from people of color,” the Antibots4Navalny researcher added. “Beyond increasing tensions between social groups and pressure on authorities, separatism can help with whataboutism: ‘Why should Russia give freedom to Crimea / ex-Ukrainian territories if the U.S. does not do the same to Texas, Michigan nor Mississippi?’”

And if that move sounds familiar — that’s because there’s a very deep history of the Soviet Union exploiting American racial tensions for its own advantage, fomenting separatism in a nation deeply divided over civil rights.

A year into monitoring Yunus’ U.S. separatist movements online, Backovic says it’s important not to dismiss the narratives he is peddling to specific communities in the U.S.

“If we look back, sometimes these things can seem very wacky at the beginning and still have the potential to do damage,” he said. “If you look at QAnon on 4chan and how that blew up… just because it seems wacky, doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.”

Drone defenses on the radar

In diplomatic circles, Brussels is well-known as a hotbed for spying.

But drones peeping on sensitive public buildings open up a new front for foreign adversaries looking to access the very core of the E.U. — so much so that the European Commission is looking for companies that could deploy their anti-drone defenses at its Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels, POLITICO Europe’s Bjarke Smith-Meyer reported this morning.

“The Commission, together with other stakeholders and the host country [Belgian] authorities, are looking at possible measures to address the threat,” a spokesperson said.

Authorities in Brussels have mostly banned drones from flying around the Belgian capital without prior authorization. It’s not clear yet what kind of anti-drone technology the Commission will deploy to fend off surveillance and attack drones. –Christine Mui

Read my lips: no new deepfakes

There’s still an unsettled question hanging over ongoing attempts to regulate AI-generated content ahead of the 2024 elections: Who should make the rules?

The fake Joe Biden robocall in New Hampshire last month jolted policymakers into high gear to prevent more instances of what’s become the standout AI controversy of the 2024 campaign. But as Mallory Culhane reported for Morning Tech (for Pros!), it’s state lawmakers and agencies — like the FTC and FCC — that have taken the lead on regulating AI use in election-related content, while Congress dithers on passing federal legislation.

New polling from the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute shared exclusively with DFD found that an overwhelming majority, 84% of respondents, supported holding AI companies, not just individuals, liable when bad actors use their software to generate misleading political content. That’s true across party lines, with 74% of Democrats, 71% of Republicans, and 63% of independents saying they would back legislation reflecting that.

In fact, three-quarters of all respondents would go so far as to call for making attempts to use deepfake technology to influence elections illegal — with broad bipartisan support. The FCC’s recent vote to ban AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal got a big nod of approval from 81% of polled voters. The think tank surveyed 1,103 American voters with a margin of error of 4.6 percentage points. –Christine Mui

7. Strategy and the Lessons of the Russo-Ukraine War by Mick Ryan

Strategy and the Lessons of the Russo-Ukraine War

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/strategy-and-the-lessons-of-the-russo?r=7i07&utm

MICK RYAN

FEB 21, 2024

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Image: President Zelenskyy Twitter / X

This week, there are a lot of articles that explore the lessons, or more accurately the many observations, about the war in Ukraine since February 2022. I will be contributing to this with a couple of articles for publications here in Australia.

But it is impossible to cover all the major observations from the war at this point for a variety of reasons.

First, because the war is still active. Some lessons will not be apparent until the war is ended. Second, we only see a small part of the war, be it for security reasons or because of the fog and friction inherent in all forms of war. And finally, wars such as this are massive national undertakings, of which military operations are just one component. Getting a sense of the lessons from all elements of national power applied by Ukraine and Russia, and for how they interact, will take years or even decades to decipher.

But at this point of the war, we must be drawing initial observations. Every bit of knowledge, even if incomplete, is valuable.

The world is moving at a very fast pace. Technological developments and changes in the geostrategic environment mean that when a nation does generate some form of advantage, it is transitory. Advantage might last for months, weeks, days or even hours in the current environment. But rather than constantly making your own mistakes in adapting to change, a clever institution should learn from the mistakes of others.

Many western nations will be studying the conduct of this war for a variety of lessons that might be applicable to them. We know the Chinese will certainly be doing so. They have been studying the western way of war for decades, particularly since the 1991 Gulf War.

In this article, I would like to delve into one particular aspect of the war: strategy.

This is a word for which there are many definitions. At heart, strategy is an undertaking that is about generating advantage over a competitor. But it is a concept that originally emerged from the theory and practice of war and is now used in nearly every societal endeavour. But using the term and doing strategy well are two very different things.

There are five lessons about strategy from the past two years of the war in Ukraine that I intend to examine. I would emphasise that this is not an exclusive list of lessons. However, the strategic lessons examined in this article are as follows:

1.         Observation 1: Strategy Matters

2.         Observation 2: Strategy must be led. 

3.         Observation 3: Strategy and Influence are Indivisible.

4.         Observation 4: National Resilience Underpins National Strategy

5.         Observation 5: Strategy Must Constantly Adapt

1. Strategy Matters

As the Russians have rediscovered in Ukraine, getting strategy right is critical to effective military operations. The price of strategic incompetence is military organisations being used for unclear or unachievable political objectives, poorly resourced, out of balance in their capabilities, poorly led or a combination of all four. Ultimately, bad strategy is punished on the battlefield, as the Russians have experienced on multiple occasions in this war. And, if there are enough of these battlefield defeats, they can eventually lead to national humiliation, disgrace or defeat.

In the case of Russia, the opportunistic and narrow approach to strategy taken by Putin initially led to a string of battlefield defeats, economic sanctions and the humiliation of a nation that thought itself still a superpower.

The Russians proved that effective strategic thinking is more important than tactical excellence (although the Russians initially poor at both). Alan Millett and Williamson Murray have noted that “it is more important to make correct decisions at the political and strategic level than it is at the operational or tactical level. Mistakes in operations and tactics can be corrected, but strategic mistakes live forever.”

At the same time the Ukrainians appear to have developed a more robust approach to strategic thinking and action. The ultimate test of Ukrainian strategy has been in two different but related endeavours: first, on the battlefield, and, second, in the strategic information and diplomatic arenas. In both these areas, the Ukrainian strategy for the first 18 months of the war proved to generally more resilient and successful than that of the Russians. More recently, shortfalls in resources and an underestimation of the Russian ability to adapt has undermined some elements of Ukrainian strategy.

Effective strategic thinking and strategy development must be applied to the alignment of political objectives with the means available to achieve them. That is, strategy needs to be resourced appropriately. This includes the allocation of personnel to the right areas of government and the military, and provision of sufficient quantities of equipment and munitions. Resourcing of strategy also includes sustaining an industrial base that can expand when the occasion arises.

And good strategy in the military context should ensure a close alignment of military capability with political objectives. This is a key observation from the war. The Ukrainians better prepared their military for the type of war that was most likely – a Russian invasion. And when that invasion eventuated, they were better at adapting than the Russian military.

The Russians on the other hand had a poorly aligned military posture and structure with the political demands of Putin in February 2022. With the poor assumptions about Ukrainian military capacity and their national willingness to fight baked into the Russian strategy, it was almost inevitable that there would be a misalignment between what Putin wanted, and the Russian military’s capacity to achieve it.

This alignment of strategy is broader than national capacity – it must include alliances and coalitions. A lesson of the war has been the centrality of alliances and their contribution to security in the 21^st century security environment. A moribund NATO has in the past two years been infused with energy and new purpose in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

While Ukraine is not (yet) a member of NATO, and the alliance has stopped short of deploying forces to Ukraine, it has demonstrated a resolve since 24 February which had not been obvious before then. This is an important lesson about why alliances – with the right purpose - remain an important element of how the West plans and execute strategy in the 21^st century.

Three other basic aspects of the ‘strategy matters’ lesson re-learned in the past two years are worthy of examination.

First, good strategy accepts that war is possible. This is an essential starting point for useful national and military strategies. Too often, many in our community want to wish away the possibility of large-scale war. As John Mueller wrote in 1990, “war is apparently becoming obsolete, at least in the developed world: in an area where war was once often casually seen as beneficial, noble, and glorious, or at least as necessary or inevitable, the conviction has now become widespread that war would be intolerably costly, unwise, futile, and debased.” While one might hope this is the case, using it as a starting assumption for any nation’s approach to strategy would be extraordinarily foolish. The actions of Russia in the past two years should disabuse many of the notion expressed by Mueller.

Second, while strategy matters, so do the assumptions that underpin strategy. While much is written about strategy, in government, the military and business, far less is written about strategic assumptions, how to make them explicit, and how to test, modify and discard them when required. In his handbook on strategy and defence planning, Colin Gray explores strategic assumptions. He describes how “defence planning has always been extraordinarily vulnerable to potential errors in assumptions…. defence planning is conducted for safe passage through the terra incognita of the future. Futurological net assessment of conflict requires the making of assumptions for every component vital to the analysis.” So, making valid assumptions in strategy is hard. That doesn’t absolve nations and institutions from doing their best to validate their assumptions that inform strategy and its implementation.

Good strategic assumptions are underpinned by good intelligence. There have been many examples of poor intelligence – in collection, analysis and use – before and during the war. Before the war, both the Russians and the Ukrainians had active intelligence campaigns. The Russians undertook widespread infiltration of Ukrainian institutions, including their national intelligence apparatus and political system, in the hope that Russian forces would be welcomed into Ukraine. But over the past two years, both the Russians and Ukrainians have leveraged a new era meshed civilian and military sensor network, as well as new AI-supported data management and analytics, to improve their visibility and analysis of tactical and strategic events.

Third, no individual weapon, institution or idea is strategically decisive. There has been much reporting on ‘war winning weapons’ in particular during this war, or ‘war winning’ offensives. The introduction of the US HIMARS long range artillery rocket system in 2022 is one example of such unjustified exuberance, but so too were early reports of the Russian use of Iranian-made kamikaze drones. There is little historical precedent that offers evidence for such a view, although there are many precedents for people thinking that such ‘silver bullets’ are possible. Good strategy eschews the myth of wonder weapons.

Image: Official site of the President of Ukraine

2. Strategy Must Be Led

The war in Ukraine have also shown (again) that ambiguity and uncertainty are central to warfare, regardless of how many tweets and TV reports that observers might view. The old idea of ‘fog of war’, described by Clausewitz in On War, has new meaning in a world where people can access all the information they desire and remain no wiser about what is occurring in a conflict.

Because of this, people and organisations also keep getting surprised. In war, surprise occurs at every level as the combatants – and national leaders - seek new sources of advantage. And, the greatest source of advantage, in all forms of war and in every era of human existence, is good leadership.

Good military leadership is vital. But effective national leadership is even more important in war. It is an essential part of executing strategy. Notwithstanding his declining popularity in Ukraine, the most important leader in the past two years has been President Zelensky. He was underestimated by Western leaders and analysts before the war. Since the invasion began, he has unified his people, exhorted courage from his military and inspired observers around the world. And has reinforced the will of his people.

This ‘will’ is a vital aspect to executing strategy, and winning wars. Clausewitz describes its centrality to war when he writes that “war is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will”. The poise, leadership and personal bravery demonstrated by President Zelensky has been an important part of sustaining Ukrainian will.

National will, or ‘the will of the people’, has had multiple impacts on the implementation of Ukrainian strategy. First, it has demonstrated to external observers that Ukraine is worth assisting. Many nations will assist other when they demonstrate a determination to help themselves first, and this is what Ukraine has done. The resulting external assistance has seen the development, implementation and ongoing evolution of an immense international regime of sanctions against Russia. It has resulted in massive amounts of lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine, and an outpouring of moral and diplomatic support from almost every nation on the planet.

This the power of competent (even charismatic) strategic leaders matters. As such, an important lesson which has been relearned in the past two years is the power of effective strategic leadership. To ensure effective planning and execution, strategy must be led.

3. Strategy and Influence are Indivisible

The old saying that ‘information is power’ has probably never been truer than in the contemporary era. Russia has on the surface been bad. But they have had the Chinese essentially repeating their messages and have been focussed on audiences in India and Africa. They probably knew they would get little cut through in Europe or other western oriented nations.

Ukraine until recently has been excellent at strategic influence. It has run a model program to influence western governments and solicit aid and diplomatic assistance since the invasion in February 2022. This government effort has been supplemented by the Ukrainian telecommunications industry keeping their phone and internet network functional, allowing citizen journalists to transmit images of the war, including Russian atrocities.

But these efforts have been undermined in the past year by much improved Russian misinformation campaigns in democracies, and strategic influence operations with its partners and the global south. The failure of the 2023 counteroffensive, leaks about the differences in strategic views during the planning for the counteroffensive, recruiting corruption issues, and the rolling civil-military crisis that was recently resolved with the removal of General Zaluzhnyi have all taken a toll on Ukraine’s reputation.

On top of this, the Hamas massacres in Israel in October 2023, and the subsequent Israeli military operations in Gaza have also drawn attention away from Ukraine. In particular, the decline in media attention means many politicians have seen it as an opportunity to focus on advocacy for other issues.

A final aspect of the strategic information competition is deception and Operational Security. Ukraine has been effective at this, and while the flow of strategic influence material has been high, the flow of factual information has been much smaller. The Russians have not been as good, and many western oriented social media platforms, satellite mapping and open-source intelligence feeds have openly supported Ukraine.

This remains an important part of strategy, and it along with deception, are military and strategic arts which the West has rediscovered in the past two years.

Image: @DefenceU Twitter / X

4. National Resilience is a foundation for strategy

Ukraine offers many lessons on the subject of strategic resilience. Whether it is access to fuels (and additives), the foundations for medicines or access to advanced weapon systems for our defence, assured access to these in good times and bad is crucial.

The past two years has seen the return of wars which feature a competition of industrial systems. It is a conflict that has seen consumption of materiel and humans at a scale not seen since the Second World War. The war has been a massive consumer of people, equipment, fuel, and munitions. It has necessitated large-scale mobilization of people, technology and industry by Ukraine and Russia as well as by those supporting them.

A fundamental reassessment is needed to understand the quantity and quality of munitions and weapon systems – and the industry to produce them - needed by European, American and other nations in the event of a prolonged war in Ukraine, or in the event of another large-scale war occurring in Asia. Assumptions about the scale, duration and intensity of warfare must be reset based on future industrial scale war.

Preparing for such a conflict requires good strategy, the allocation of resources, the skilling of an expanded workforce, the construction of modern munitions production factories and the expanded stockpiling of precision, and non-precision, munitions.

But national resilience is about more than access to commodities and weapons. As Ukraine has shown, terrestrial, sea cable and satellite communications network is critical. So, too, are other aspects of resilience, including national unity, trust in government, and an enhanced capacity for responding to natural disasters. Civil defence is also an important part of this national resilience model. It includes the physical elements – shelters, emergency services, etc and the information aspects – national unity, trust in government, keeping people informed.

Strategic resilience is about ensuring strategy is resourced appropriately. Whether it is the allocation of personnel to the right areas of government and the military, or provision of sufficient quantities of equipment and munitions, as strategist Bernard Brodie once wrote “strategy wears a dollar sign.” Resourcing of strategy includes sustaining an industrial base that can expand when the occasion arises, or when the need to deter an adversary is necessary, as well as the access to the industrial capacity of allies

5. Strategy is Adaptive

To be effective, strategy must constantly adapt.

War often tends towards escalation; this is one of Clausewitz’s basic tenets. This is driven by a range of factors including the desire to generate new advantages by one side or the other, the geographical spread of conflict, the introduction of new technologies or warfighting concepts, the political or military outcomes of ‘sunk costs’, battlefield defeats and changes in the circumstances of alliances and security partnerships.

In the first year of the war, the Ukrainians were able to evolve various aspects of their strategy more quickly than the Russians. However, in the past year of so, the Russians have demonstrated the ability to improve their ability to learn. As I wrote in a recent Foreign Affairs article:

After two years of war, the adaptation battle has changed. The quality gap between Ukraine and Russia has closed. Ukraine still has an innovative and bottom-up military culture, which allows it to quickly introduce new battlefield technologies and tactics. Russia, on the other hand, is slower to learn from the bottom up because of a reluctance to report failure and a more centralized command philosophy. Yet when Russia does finally learn something, it is able to systematize it across the military and through its large defense industry.

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

The ability to continuously assess the strategic environment and make changes, large and small, to strategy is vital. This is not a new lesson but is one that has been reinforced in the past two years. Strategy must be adaptive.

Image: @DefenceU Twitter / X

Surprise is Inevitable

Once a war begins, it rarely precedes as expected.

Surprise is one of the great continuities in war. It is how adversaries seek to generate an advantage over each other. Regardless of technological developments which inform military and national security affairs, which speed them up and make them more lethal, surprise is here to stay. The past two years of war in Ukraine has provided many case studies where all the technology in the world has not prevented humans from innovating, deceiving and surprising their enemies.          

Because of this, national and military leaders, institutions, and ideas must provide for enhanced resilience in military and national capacity. And they must possess the ability to anticipate surprise at the strategic and tactical levels and, if surprised, be sufficiently resilient to survive and adapt.

The importance of good strategy and its continuous evolution was reinforced by President Zelenskyy in his recent speech appointing General Syrskyi as military commander-in-chief, where he noted that:

I expect the following changes in the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the near future: A realistic, detailed action plan for the Armed Forces of Ukraine for 2024 must be presented. It must take into account the real situation on the battlefield now and the prospects.

This is the Presidential direction for a new defence strategy for 2024.

There are many lessons in the development, execution, resourcing and adaptation of strategy from the past two years that General Syrskyi and his senior planners can draw upon.

8. Taiwan’s Theory of the Fight

Excerpts:

Tucked into the body of the text, Lee quotes Muhammed Ali to sum up his theory of mobility and survivability: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can’t hit what the eyes can’t see.” In fact, Ali’s boast is an apt metaphor for the Overall Defense Concept writ large: Equip Taiwan with a force that can survive an enemy barrage by dispersing and then hit back. It is a good plan. Ali’s “rope-a-dope” tactic to defeat George Foreman actually inspired Ivan Arreguín-Toft’s opening anecdote in his classic article on “how the weak win wars.” By exploiting the vulnerabilities of objectively stronger powers the small can, and often have, managed to control the large. That said, it is worth remembering Mike Tyson’s observation too: “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” How Lee’s concept — elegantly conceived and forcefully argued — works in practice is wholly contingent on the decisions policymakers make today and the will with which people in Taiwan prepare to resist.

Taiwan’s Plan for Victory is a polemic for remaking a military in the face of a vast conventional threat. Lee is persuasive and cogent. How best to cooperate with Taiwan’s military as the Overall Defense Concept gains traction with current leaders will be hotly debated, particularly in the U.S. special operations community. In this, Lee’s book is a starting point for future and more constructive conversations about U.S. support and collaboration. Someone should secure the rights and translate it. People’s Liberation Army officers will undoubtedly take note as well. That’s likely a good thing. In making such an effective case for Taiwan’s ability to “use the small to control the large,” Lee may well have already achieved some deterrent effect against invasion.

Taiwan’s Theory of the Fight - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Tommy Jamison · February 21, 2024

In 1874, the Japanese Meiji government dispatched a punitive expedition to Taiwan. Its leaders sailed with instructions to exact retribution on indigenous islanders who, in 1871, had captured and executed a group of shipwrecked sailors. Unable to mount any resistance to Japan’s newly acquired steamships, Chinese Qing officials watched helplessly as Japanese forces crossed the sea, landed on Taiwan, and killed dozens of native Taiwanese. Humiliated by the attack, Qing leaders debated the best strategy to prevent future Japanese incursions. Some advocated acquiring “strong ships and powerful cannon” to symmetrically match the Japanese at sea. Others saw in new asymmetric technologies like the torpedo —cheap, concealable, lethal — a means of achieving deterrence by denial. Tempted by both strategies, the Qing built a strategically confused program of coastal defenses and an ocean-going fleet. In 1894, Japan — undeterred — engaged and decisively defeated the Qing at sea and ashore in the First Sino-Japanese War, annexing Taiwan as a colony in 1895.

The basic contours of this Qing-era debate over how to defend Taiwan resonate today — so too do the risks of getting strategic choices wrong. Like Qing officials taking stock of the whirlwind Japanese expansion in the 19th century, Taiwan’s leaders are now at a crossroads, facing down a rising power in the Western Pacific during a period of technological flux and political uncertainty.

In crowded field of work by scholars and officials exploring Taiwan’s security, Lee Hsi-ming’s Taiwan’s Plan for Victory: An Asymmetric Strategy of Using the Small to Control the Large (2022) stands out as both a theoretical framework for deterrence and a set of concrete proposals for asymmetric resistance against a People’s Liberation Army invasion. Lee, Taiwan’s chief of the general staff from 2017 to 2019, argues for reorganizing Taiwan’s military in a “paradigm shift” away from expensive “traditional” platforms and instead instituting an “Overall Defence Concept” relying on small, mobile, distributable, and lethal weapons to deter a numerically and materially superior People’s Republic of China. If deterrence fails, “overall defense” also promises the tactics and weapons to survive an initial attack and then, Lee claims, defeat an enemy landing force.

Lee’s case tracks closely to a policy proposal he made in 2018, summarized by Drew Thompson here and in Lee’s own words in The Diplomat and at the Hoover Institution. The 2022 monograph’s goal, however, is more ambitious than these earlier efforts: to shape not just official policy, but mainstream opinion in Taiwan and, one suspects, in the United States and People’s Republic of China as well. Writing in 2022, Lee also had the advantage of evidence from recent conflicts in Afghanistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Ukraine.

In all, Lee’s book is a window onto strategic debates in Taipei with implications for the United States and the People’s Republic of China. It persuasively argues that if (if!) Taiwan moves quickly, it can build a credible deterrent by restructuring its military from a force based on “concentration, fixed-defenses, and control” (集中、固守、控制) to one relying on “dispersal, mobility, and denial” (分散、機動、拒止). This shift would revolutionize Taiwan’s military and civil society, presenting new opportunities for the United States and challenges for the People’s Republic of China. Military officers and defense contractors across the Pacific should take note of what tactics and technologies might support the Overall Defense Concept — and which ones the concept will render obsolete. Strategists interested in a cross-strait crisis, “air sea battle,” or “anti-access/area denial” should read Lee with an eye toward how Taiwan will participate in its own defense. If nothing else, Lee should be congratulated for his effort. Having made a successful case for how Taiwan might frustrate an armed invasion, Lee has already improved the credibility of Taiwan’s deterrence.

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The Overall Defense Concept and its Implementation

A graduate of the U.S. Naval War College, Lee is steeped in theories of threat perception, loss of strength gradient, and deterrence. Indeed, Thomas Schelling runs like a leitmotif through the text. Lee is also finely attuned to the contours of U.S. political debate over both Taiwan and Indo-Pacific strategy. He is hopeful that the United States would intervene in the event of an invasion or blockade. That said, he believes Taiwan should develop an organic theory of defense that can operate successfully with or without U.S. support. Taiwan’s “America Complex” has for too long encouraged leaders to purchase conventional and at times archaic weapons for which Taiwan now has little use. Troubled by the parallel problems of foreign technological dependency and U.S. “strategic ambiguity,” Lee stresses that Taiwan should articulate a reasonable theory of self-reliance as the foundation of a credible deterrence.

Lee’s basic problem is how to defend Taiwan given the growing disparity in military funding between Taipei and Beijing. He notes that Taiwan’s “traditional” defense policy is rooted in superiority on the sea and in the air with weapons that are “small in number, exquisite in quality, and high in effectiveness.” Air superiority and sea control in conjunction with U.S. support safeguarded Taiwan against invasion for decades, most dramatically in the Taiwan Strait crises of the 1950s. Lee recalls, for example, that the first time a Sidewinder missile was used in combat was over the Taiwan Strait, allowing the Republic of China Air Force an edge over the People’s Liberation Army. While this worked well in the past, Lee believes that, given the scope of the People’s Liberation Army’s investment in ships and planes since the 1990s, it is manifestly impossible for Taiwan to keep pace in a plane for plane, ship for ship competition. Taiwan’s traditional navy (especially small craft like the Tuo Chiang corvette) and air force (newly acquired F-16s) will continue to be useful in peacetime as symbols of military power and a deterrent against People’s Republic of China incursions into Taiwan’s air and sea space (what Lee calls “gray zone” operations). These assets will not, though, meaningfully contribute to deterring or defeating “the existential threat of a military invasion of Taiwan” (武力犯臺). Leaders on both sides of the strait understand that if put to test in symmetrical battle, Taiwan’s traditional force would collapse. Worse yet, the destruction of squadrons of fighter planes and ships would harm Taiwan’s ability to resist by tanking civilian morale in the opening days of the war.

Recognizing the conventional superiority of the People’s Liberation Army, Lee makes the best of Taiwan’s weakness by advancing an asymmetric strategy of “overall defense.” This is nothing less than an effort to deny the People’s Liberation Army the ability to militarily unify Taiwan via a layered, cross-domain thicket of cheap, resilient weapons, leveraging resources from across civilian society for support. In the near and intermediate term, Lee argues, it is best to set aside anachronistic fantasies of “sea control” (控制) and instead focus on denying (拒止) the People’s Liberation Army Navy and Air Force the air and sea superiority that are prerequisites for a “triphibious” invasion. The tools and tactics Taiwan needs to achieve this strategic effect are not prestige weapons, but rather “a great quantity of mobile, distributable, accurate, and lethal little things” (大堆機動、分散、精準、致命的小東西).

If Taiwan’s military is unable to defeat a People’s Liberation Army invasion force at sea, or on the shore, it will be necessary to “deny in depth” using a host of cheap and man-portable weapons as well as a flexible and survivable command system. Toward that end, Lee also suggests a “territorial defense force” of mobilized civilians; something that would make an occupation of Taiwan tremendously expensive. Popular military participation, or the “communitization” (社區化) of resistance, would also, Lee notes, help correct a lack of military knowledge among ordinary citizens. This in mind, the concept is better translated as “comprehensive” than “overall defense.” It offers layers of denial comprehensively across domains at sea, in the air, on shore, and in depth against an assault. It is also comprehensive in that successful implementation hinges on the integration of civilian and military resources — or the “whole of society.”

Lessons from Other People’s Wars

Lee’s theory is buoyed by evidence from recent wars — mostly Afghanistan, Armenia-Azerbaijan, and Ukraine. From the collapse of Afghanistan’s government in 2022, Lee concludes that it is imperative for Taiwan to build defensive capabilities that can succeed with or without the United States. Lee sums up his thinking with a dose of optimism tempered by realism, urging Taiwan to be “thankful for support, but unafraid to resist alone” (有，感谢，没有，无惧). It is no time for wishful thinking or naivete. Lee cites Sun Tzu: “Do not count on your enemy’s reticence to attack, but rather depend on your own readiness to receive them.”

In Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian 2022 invasion, Lee finds a role model for how to asymmetrically defeat a Eurasian hegemon, as well as insight into the evolving nature of conflict. There are positive and negative lessons here. On the one hand, the failures of the Russian army show the perils of centralized command and control and insufficiently robust logistics networks. On the other, Ukraine’s success in blunting the initial Russian invasion is a tremendous encouragement to Lee. He explores in detail the possibilities of new technologies like drones and electronic warfare. More important still, he notes, is the underlying power of a popular and motivated resistance. Failure to “get real” about a territorial defense force in Taiwan would be to waste the lessons of the Ukraine war. Whether Ukraine’s citizen-soldiers ultimately manage to oust Russia from the Donbas and Crimea is irrelevant to Lee. Taiwan need not win back territory in mainland China to achieve its aims — it is enough to simply frustrate Beijing’s political ambitions at forceful unification through a comprehensive and credible deterrent.

Of course, members of the People’s Republic of China security studies community are also studying these foreign wars. If the available literature is any guide, national security experts in Beijing have taken a different set of lessons from Ukraine: namely, that the People’s Republic of China has the industrial base and technical proficiency to succeed where the Russians failed. Unfortunately, in the absence of overt hostilities it is impossible to know who is right.

A Plan Among Many

In comparative context, Lee’s book is a variation on the theme of “whole of society” resistance popularized over the past decade. Like other works written for relatively small nations on the borders of Eurasian hegemons — notably Otto Fiala’s Resistance Operating Concept and NATO’s Comprehensive Defense Handbook — Lee’s work is a provocation about how “the weak can defeat the strong” through collective mobilization and civil-military integration. Lee likely owes a debt to these authors, at least by osmosis. Indeed, he is explicitly interested in the territorial defense forces of the Baltic States as possible models for Taiwan.

Rhetorically, at least, Lee’s inspiration seems closer to home: China’s own history of resistance and civil war in the 20th century. Mao Zedong was fond of the phrase “to defeat the strong with the weak” (以弱胜强) and faith in that proposition lay at the heart of his “military romanticism” about the ability of people to overcome material deficiencies. Lee appropriates (in what may be a deliberate irony) Mao’s language and reforms it as “to control the large with the strong.” Lee also proposes a “protracted” campaign of resistance against a lodged invasion force, reminiscent of Mao’s campaign of “protracted warfare” in 1938 against Japan. Lee’s plan is specific to the present, but it shares a great deal with earlier forms of asymmetric defense.

Geographically, Lee’s argument has particular value to other insular nations. Transferring insights from Fiala’s Resistance Operating Concept to maritime states poses a number of problems: Where is the front line? How do ordinary citizens respond to incursions into air and sea space? What about the piecemeal annexation of small offshore islands or the possibility of a blockade? Lee has thoughts on all these subjects. His work may be appealing for the Philippines or Japan, island nations in the midst of their own debates about force structure and spending. Actually, Lee’s table of contents tracks closely with another small island on the edge of Eurasia facing down a continental hegemon: the United Kingdom in 1939–1941. Lee’s plan to deny the People’s Liberation Army command of the air, sea, shore, and landing zones is an echo (at times nearly word for word) of Winston Churchill’s call to fight on the seas, in the air, on the beaches, landing grounds, streets, and hills.

Further Challenges and Opportunities

Any book as ambitious as Lee’s is bound to raise as many questions as it answers. The foremost concerns dependency. Lee is suspicious of Taiwan’s dependency on a handful of expensive platforms acquired from the United States. But instituting the “Overall Defense Concept” in the near term means new contracts for U.S.-made systems. On an intermediate timeline, an authentically self-reliant defense would require more investment in indigenous programs and a domestic industrial base. Taiwan’s media routinely celebrates the achievements of domestic weapons manufacturers, but it remains unknown if these firms could sustain Taiwan in combat.

Moreover, Lee’s almost singular commitment to asymmetric resistance likely overstates the benefits of comprehensive defense relative to other forms of deterrence. Lee categorically rejects “deterrence by punishment” as ineffective because Taiwan lacks nuclear weapons and should not risk provoking Beijing by obtaining them. That is sensible, but it is hardly self-evident. North Korea transformed its deterrent capability by obtaining nuclear weapons, despite objections from the international community. Nuclear weapons were central to U.S. plans to defend Taiwan, and even its offshore islands, for decades during the Cold War. It is possible that Lee’s skepticism toward nuclear weapons doubles as a critique of Taiwan’s long-range conventional missile program — a program he sees as at best quixotic and at worst a waste of finite resources. In both cases, Lee contends that deterrence by punishment is as likely to provoke a war with the People’s Republic of China as prevent one.

Lee has blindspots as well, notably regarding “gray zone” operations. His definition of “gray zone” warfare — to him the incursion of People’s Liberation Army assets into Taiwan’s waters and skies to erode confidence and readiness — is quite narrow. A truly comprehensive defense would have to take into account threats like psychological and political warfare. Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense already has a Political Warfare Bureau that could be enlisted toward those ends.

Then there is the question of civil-military relations in the shadow of Taiwan’s military dictatorship. Any attempt at full scale mobilization or a “whole of people defense” (全民防衛,) carries within it real risks to the autonomy of civil society — exactly the sort of freedoms that Taiwan is keen to preserve. Would the people of Taiwan be willing to defend their democracy if doing so means becoming a garrison state? Is it possible to construct a robust territorial defense force, while still preserving civil society’s independence? Lee seems to believe the answer is yes, but the text is not clear about a risk inherent to “comprehensive defense” strategies generally: by militarizing society they can destroy the very freedoms that they intend to safeguard.

Stylistically, the book can be repetitive, but that is as much feature as bug. Lee writes on the explicit assumption that certain readers will skim or skip chapters, making it necessary to reiterate points. The Kindle edition also comes with only a handful of citations. This misses an opportunity to connect Lee’s work to the raucous debate about comprehensivedefense and irregular warfare underway globally.

Conclusion

Tucked into the body of the text, Lee quotes Muhammed Ali to sum up his theory of mobility and survivability: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can’t hit what the eyes can’t see.” In fact, Ali’s boast is an apt metaphor for the Overall Defense Concept writ large: Equip Taiwan with a force that can survive an enemy barrage by dispersing and then hit back. It is a good plan. Ali’s “rope-a-dope” tactic to defeat George Foreman actually inspired Ivan Arreguín-Toft’s opening anecdote in his classic article on “how the weak win wars.” By exploiting the vulnerabilities of objectively stronger powers the small can, and often have, managed to control the large. That said, it is worth remembering Mike Tyson’s observation too: “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” How Lee’s concept — elegantly conceived and forcefully argued — works in practice is wholly contingent on the decisions policymakers make today and the will with which people in Taiwan prepare to resist.

Taiwan’s Plan for Victory is a polemic for remaking a military in the face of a vast conventional threat. Lee is persuasive and cogent. How best to cooperate with Taiwan’s military as the Overall Defense Concept gains traction with current leaders will be hotly debated, particularly in the U.S. special operations community. In this, Lee’s book is a starting point for future and more constructive conversations about U.S. support and collaboration. Someone should secure the rights and translate it. People’s Liberation Army officers will undoubtedly take note as well. That’s likely a good thing. In making such an effective case for Taiwan’s ability to “use the small to control the large,” Lee may well have already achieved some deterrent effect against invasion.

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Dr. Tommy Jamison is a historian at the Naval Postgraduate School and a 2024 Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow—Japan. The views expressed do not represent the opinions of the Department of Defense or the Council on Foreign Relations.

Image: NASA

Book Reviews

warontherocks.com · by Tommy Jamison · February 21, 2024

9. What the Ukraine War, Taiwan, and Gaza Have in Common

What the Ukraine War, Taiwan, and Gaza Have in Common

In confronting all three foreign policy dilemmas, Washington needs to incorporate an understanding and acknowledgment of the things the United States has done that contributed to them.

The National Interest · by Paul Heer · February 20, 2024

In confronting all three foreign policy dilemmas, Washington needs to incorporate an understanding and acknowledgment of the things the United States has done that contributed to them.

Washington is grappling with seemingly intractable foreign policy dilemmas involving the Russian war in Ukraine, percolating tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. In each case, the United States has failed or refused to wholly confront its own share of responsibility for creating the problem. This has profound implications for establishing a stable peace in these three hotspots.

In the case of Ukraine, much ink has been spilled in the debate over the extent to which NATO expansion in the decades after the Cold War fueled Putin’s decision to launch the war. Washington’s response to the invasion has largely treated that debate as irrelevant. Instead, it has essentially adopted the premise that Putin never got over the collapse of the Soviet Union and always intended to reincorporate Ukraine into Russia forcefully. This perspective has largely ignored evidence and historical logic that the invasion was not inevitable and was contingent on external variables, including U.S. actions.

In his seminal 2021 essay “On the Historical Unity of Russian and Ukrainians,” Putin wrote that after the Soviet collapse, Moscow “recognized the new geopolitical realities and not only recognized but, indeed, did a lot for Ukraine to establish itself as an independent country.” This was because “many people in Russia and Ukraine sincerely believed and assumed that our close cultural, spiritual, and economic ties would certainly last. . . . However, events—at first gradually and then more rapidly—started to move in a different direction.” These “events” included Ukrainian political developments that led to closer ties between Kiev and the West. “Step by step,” Putin wrote, “Ukraine was dragged into a dangerous geopolitical game aimed at turning Ukraine into a barrier between Europe and Russia.” But the West deflected Moscow’s concerns about this trajectory.

In his recent interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, Putin reiterated this narrative. He said Russia had “agreed, voluntarily and proactively, to the collapse of the Soviet Union” because it “believed that this would be understood . . . as an invitation for cooperation and associateship” with the West. This could have taken the form of “a new security system” that would include the United States, European countries, and Russia—rather than the enlargement of NATO, which (according to Putin) Washington promised would extend “not one inch” to the east. Instead, there were “five waves of expansion,” and “in 2008 suddenly the doors or gates to NATO were open” to Ukraine. However, Moscow “never agreed to NATO’s expansion, and we never agreed that Ukraine would be in NATO.” Putin went on to blame the subsequent war on what he characterized as the U.S.-backed, anti-Russian “Maidan Revolution” in Ukraine in 2014, the West’s embrace of Kiev at Russia’s expense, and Washington’s persistent disregard of Moscow’s security concerns.

It is easy to dismiss Putin’s narrative as self-serving, disingenuous propaganda. He is indeed a monstrous figure, as the recent death of imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny demonstrates. But that does not address—instead, it evades—the historical question of whether U.S. policies toward NATO expansion in general and Ukraine’s candidacy in particular contributed to Putin’s ultimate decision to invade Ukraine.

As a diplomatic historian, I think the evidence clearly shows they did. That is not to claim that it was “all about” NATO expansion; it obviously was not. However, it is equally obvious that “a different set of U.S. policies over the past several decades would have made [the invasion] less likely,” as scholar Stephen Walt wrote two years ago. The point here is not to revive the debate about NATO expansion but only to highlight that denying its relevance in favor of the assertion that Putin always planned to fulfill a revanchist goal of annexing Ukraine ignores historical evidence and logic to the contrary—presumably at least in part to absolve the United States of any accountability for the historical circumstances that led to the war.

In the case of Taiwan, the prevailing narrative in Washington is that cross-Strait tensions have escalated because Chinese leader Xi Jinping also has revanchist goals. He is determined and impatient to achieve Taiwan’s “reunification” with the mainland during his tenure and is preparing to attack the island if he deems that necessary. According to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chinese leaders have decided that the “status quo is no longer acceptable [and] that they wanted to speed up the process by which they would pursue reunification.” This includes “exerting more pressure on Taiwan” and “holding out the possibility if that didn’t work of using force to achieve their goals.”

However, this ignores or denies the extent to which Beijing’s hardline approach is a response to actions and statements by both Taiwan and the United States. Under President Tsai Ing-wen since 2016, Taipei has been incrementally retreating from a “one China” framework, with such steps as renouncing a supposed prior agreement with Beijing to “agree to disagree” on the definition of “one China” and adopting the position that Taiwan is “already a sovereign independent country.” Chinese leaders view this redefinition of “the status quo” as a unilateral change. Perhaps more importantly, Beijing interprets Washington’s tacit acquiescence to this change as indicating that the United States itself is retreating from its own “one China policy” and moving toward a de facto “one China, one Taiwan” policy in violation of the U.S.-China normalization agreements.

Although Washington insists that its “one China policy” remains intact, the credibility of such assurances is eroding as Washington continues to push the envelope on “unofficial” U.S.-Taiwan relations—such as with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022—and with earlier statements by a Pentagon official about the strategic importance of Taiwan that ostensibly provided the rationale for supporting its permanent separation from China. But as with its disavowal of any culpability for the origins of the war in Ukraine, Washington holds Beijing exclusively responsible for the escalation of tensions and the risk of conflict on the Taiwan Strait.

In the case of Gaza, the United States is facing the spread of conflict in the Middle East in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel and Jerusalem’s strong and sustained military response. The violence has already spread to attacks by Yemeni Houthi militants against Western commercial ships in the Red Sea and direct attacks on U.S. military forces by Iranian-backed militants in Iraq and Syria. Although Washington focuses on the responsibility of Hamas for the outbreak and spread of violence, Arab groups across the region view the U.S. role through the prism of Washington’s longstanding support for Jerusalem, which has facilitated or at least not constrained Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and resistance to a “two-state solution”—the latter of which Washington has long advocated.

Although President Biden recently called Israel’s prosecution of the war “over the top,” this criticism has been marginal and slow in coming. In the meantime, Washington risks reinforcing historical Palestinian and other Arab resentment of implicit U.S. support for Israeli actions and the lack of progress toward a Palestinian state. Rather than confront that accountability, Washington is inclined—as with Putin and Xi as discussed above—to attribute the crisis in Gaza almost exclusively to Hamas.

None of this is meant in any way to excuse Putin, Xi, or Hamas for their ample share of responsibility for the prevailing circumstances in Ukraine, Taiwan, and Gaza, respectively. They all merit condemnation for appalling actions and policies. However, their guilt does not erase the U.S. involvement in developing those circumstances. Washington’s promotion of Ukraine’s membership in NATO, the incremental erosion of its “one China policy,” and its inability or unwillingness to check Israel’s encroachment on Palestinian territories are inescapable factors that have contributed to these three crises. In varying degrees, the United States has been inattentive to or dismissive of the perspectives of Russia, China, and the Palestinians. A lack of strategic empathy has thus constrained Washington’s ability to recognize or at least acknowledge the extent to which Putin’s decision to wage war in Ukraine, Xi’s coercive behavior toward Taiwan, and Hamas’s decision to strike violently at Israel were motivated—at least in part—by what they perceived as U.S. disregard for their security concerns, or neglect of prior U.S. commitments to address those concerns.

Washington’s gradual consideration of Ukraine’s membership in NATO—which basically expanded as an alliance designed to exclude and target Russia—reflected indifference to historical Russian threat perceptions, and especially the significance to Russia of having a vital portion of its former empire aligned against it under seemingly hostile foreign protection. It overlooked or denied the possibility that Moscow was prepared to let Ukraine be independent as long as it remained neutral.

Similarly, Washington’s strengthening embrace of Taiwan in ways arguably inconsistent with commitments to Beijing in the Three Communiques—essentially based on U.S. withdrawal from involvement in the Chinese Civil War—reflects an apparent retreat from those commitments and neglect of the relevance of that prior history. It also ignores or denies the possibility that Beijing’s subsequent behavior has been—at least in some measure—a response to these actions by the United States and separatist steps by Taiwan that they have implicitly encouraged.

Finally, Washington’s support for Israel’s right to defend itself against the terrorist attacks by Hamas, although wholly appropriate, sidesteps the issue of the nature and scope of Jerusalem’s “over the top” response. More importantly, it avoids the possibility that, or the extent to which, the Hamas attacks had their origins in decades of Israeli policies of occupation and control that have constrained or deprived Palestinians while delaying indefinitely their hopes for their own state—and which, from a Palestinian perspective, have been facilitated by U.S. support for Israel.

Washington thus bears some accountability for the historical origins of what has been happening in these three places. The United States, of course, must push back forcefully against Putin’s barbarism, Xi’s saber-rattling, and Hamas’ terrorism. Yet, pursuing long-term solutions to the predicaments that are playing out in Ukraine, Taiwan, and Gaza—or even finding ways to de-escalate and manage them—will require acknowledging and confronting their multiple sources. And those sources include the role played by the United States in contributing to each situation.

Moreover, Washington’s denial—or revisionism—about U.S. policies that helped to fuel current or potential crises only makes them more intractable by ignoring a core element of each crisis and thus inhibiting an honest and objective understanding of its nature. This obstructs or closes off the potential for reassessing U.S. policies, which might be vital to identifying solutions. Washington, for example, could be reconsidering the idea of an alternative European security architecture that does not revive a new Cold War.

Even if Russia is defeated in Ukraine, it is not going to go away. Similarly, the United States could consider credible assurances to Beijing that restore confidence in the “one China” normalization agreements that sustained cross-Strait stability for decades. Beijing is not looking for an excuse to attack Taiwan; it is still asking for reasons not to. Finally, Washington could look at incentives for Israel to de-escalate the war in Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank and to resuscitate progress toward a two-state solution. Even if Hamas is defeated, the Palestinian issue is not going away.

In confronting all three foreign policy dilemmas, Washington needs to incorporate an understanding and acknowledgment of the things the United States has done that contributed to them. Reluctance to do so in the past has predictably led to our failure—or refusal—to see what was coming. Unless we overcome these willful blind spots, Washington will fail to see what is coming next—and then again blame it all on the bad guys.

About the Author

Paul Heer is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He served as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia from 2007 to 2015. He is the author of Mr. X and the Pacific: George F. Kennan and American Policy in East Asia (Cornell University Press, 2018).

Image: U.S. Navy Flickr.

The National Interest · by Paul Heer · February 20, 2024

10. Russian Offensive Resistance Operations

Russian Offensive Resistance Operations

irregularwarfarecenter.org

February 21, 2024

D. Jonathan White

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Russian offensive resistance operations include the recruiting, training, and equipping of irregular forces abroad for the pursuit of national objectives. For example, in the Ukrainian province of Zakarpatia, a right-wing Polish nationalist threw a Molotov cocktail into the window of the Hungarian Cultural Centre in Uzhhorod in 2018. In another example, Alexander Zakharchenko, a Ukrainian of Russian heritage in Donetsk, was so outraged by the 2014 Euromaidan protests in Kyiv that he went out to his garden, unearthed weapons that he had buried there, and joined the effort to found the Donetsk People’s Republic, a puppet regime controlled by Moscow. This paper will analyze how and why Russia conducts offensive resistance operations and will conclude with some policy recommendations for targeted Western governments. Russian offensive resistance operations refer to activities undertaken by Moscow in foreign countries, where they exploit divisions, often based on ethnicity, in the targeted nation to achieve political objectives through the use of coercive diplomacy.

Photo of Igor Girkin-Strelkov, a GRU office who helped organize offensive resistance operations in Ukraine prior to Russia’s invasion, on Wikimedia Commons

Russia’s activities today are not without historical precedent. In the 19th century, Imperial Russia recruited foreign fighters to join Russian troops. Further, during the Balkan wars of the 1870s, “Tsar Alexander II granted official permission to active service military personnel to take part in hostilities in the Balkans” supporting the Serbs and later the Bulgarians.

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has actively engaged foreign citizens to orchestrate resistance against the governments of those nations in alignment with Russian policy objectives. In the 1990s, in regions such as Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, it appears that support for separatist movements did not necessarily emanate from the Kremlin’s direct orders. However, it did occur with the tacit consent of local Russian authorities, notably the Russian army. Under the Putin regime, the Russian government continues to support offensive resistance operations that serve its interests.

In Ukraine in 2014, some of the most notable examples of these activities unfolded. Nikolay Mitrokhin delved into this subject in an insightful article published in 2015. In Crimea, Russia enlisted men who participated in protests against the Ukrainian government in Crimea (referred to as the rent-a-mob). These rent-a-mobs surrounded Ukrainian army installations, effectively preventing Ukrainian army units from leaving their barracks without endangering civilians. This tactic granted Russian forces the freedom to take control of Crimea. Locally recruited men surrounded and “secured” airports while seizing key infrastructure. Mobs obstructed Ukrainian army convoys, took over townhalls, and seized police stations.

It is worth noting that these activities may not receive official funding from the Russian government. Pro-Russian Ukrainian Alexander Khodakovsky, Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, and Putin adviser Sergey Glazyev have each played a role in recruiting and financing pro-Russian rent-a-mobs. All these individuals have varying degrees of personal connections to Putin. Khodakovsky recruited and led the Vostok Battalion in Donbas. Malofeyev had previous associations with Alexander Borodai and Igor Girkin, who later became Prime Minister and Defense Minister of the separatist People’s Republic of Donetsk. The so-called “Glazyev tapes,” intercepted telephone calls between Sergey Glazyev and organizers on the ground in Ukraine, contain discussions about Russians paying to support protest activities. Glazyev emphasized the importance of making the protests appear spontaneous and organic. At times, the Russians recruit, equip, and train individuals for immediate deployment, while at other times, they sow seeds that may not bear fruit for several years. The key point is that just because Russian actions are not immediately impending does not mean Russia is not quietly preparing for future contingencies.

Recruiting

In the post-Soviet era, Russia continues to recruit ethnic Russians both within and outside the boundaries of the Russian Federation. During the Transnistria conflict in Moldova in the 1990s, numerous Russian Cossacks went to Transnistria, ostensibly to safeguard fellow Russians. To protect ethnic kin within Transnistria, it appears that local Russians organized themselves into militias, with some support from proximate Russian officials, particularly army commanders, though there is no evidence this was directed by the Yeltsin Administration.

In the Ukrainian crisis of 2014, several events occurred that implied priorRussian preparation by the Russian government. In the middle of events in Crimea, Ukrainian Admiral Sergei Yeliseyev announced he was resigning from the Ukrainian Navy and accepting the position of Deputy Commander in the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Yeliseyev’s replacement, Rear Admiral Denis Berezovsky, followed suit the next day. The turning of a Ukrainian admiral during the Crimea invasion was probably not accomplished on the spur of the moment. Russian intelligence set the groundwork before the crisis by recruiting Ukrainian officers such as Yeliseyev. One Ukrainian officer who remained loyal to Ukraine said, “generals… came to persuade me” to defect, playing on their shared service in the Soviet Navy. Ukrainian SBU general Alexander Petrulevich noted that “Russian secret services set the groundwork for the separatist uprising well before President Yanukovich fled Kyiv.”

Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, was identified in 2014 by the European Union as an officer in the Russian Army’s military intelligence unit, the GRU. In February 2014, Girkin appeared in Crimea, introduced himself to Crimean separatists as “the Kremlin’s emissary,” and assisted in negotiations concerning Ukrainian naval officers switching allegiance to the Russian navy. While in Crimea, Girkin recruited a militia unit comprising volunteers from Russia, Crimea, and other regions of Ukraine, particularly the Donbas. He organized, trained, and employed this militia unit to assist in securing Crimea. Once operations in Crimea concluded, Girkin led the unit to Donetsk. Notably, Girkin indicated that two-thirds of the militia unit consisted of Ukrainian citizens, although many were ethnically Russian, and most had combat experience. Recruiters like Girkin may have targeted Zakharchenko.

In Georgia, hostilities erupted in Abkhazia and South Ossetia following the Soviet Union’s dissolution. The Kremlin did not establish separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but it leveraged Abkhaz and South Ossetian separatists. In 2014, GRU Colonel General Anatoli Zaitsev discussed the effectiveness of “partisan forces” in supporting offensive operations. His article, “Partisan Methods,” described how the Republic of Abkhazia’s GRU equivalent uncovered alleged plans of the Georgia special forces to strike high-value targets within Abkhazia. In response, Zaitsev endorsed the idea of recruiting offensive partisans for diversions such as raids, ambushes, and reconnaissance in strategic offensive operations.

In 2016, the Russian GRU attempted to create a resistance network in Montenegro to obstruct the country’s path to NATO membership. The Montenegrin special prosecutor for organized crime and corruption, Milivoje Katnic, disclosed that the plot involved as many as 500 individuals. If accurate, this would have required extensive recruiting. According to the UK investigative journalistorganization Bellingcat, members of this conspiracy included at least two Russian GRU officers, Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Nikolaevich Moiseev, suggesting that the GRU may be recruiting non-Russians for operations beyond Russia.

Russia analyst Mark Galeotti argued that actors in the Russian foreign policy apparatus act as “political entrepreneurs.” They receive broad policy guidance from the Kremlin, then devise methods to pursue those objectives within their geographic or functional areas. if these ideas show promise, they are presented to the Kremlin. Upon approval, they receive resources and are executed. Montenegro appears to represent one such gambit. While Vladimir Putin may not have initiated the operation, he likely sanctioned it upon being briefed.

In a broader context, Russian political entrepreneurs are likely developing ideas to advance Russian objectives in other locations. These plots have not been activated yet, and their activation may depend on Russian strategic objectives and the conditions in the relevant countries.

Another likely example occurred in Moldova in 2017. Moldova expelled GRU agents for recruiting “volunteers” to serve in Donbas. The volunteers were ethnic Gagauz, a Turkic people who practice Orthodox Christianity. The Gagauz were intended to undergo paramilitary training near the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and then join the fighting in Donbas. There are likely other cases where the GRU maintained operational security successfully, and Russian offensive resistance activities, like the submerged part of an iceberg, remain undetected. However, their lack of detection does not indicate inactivity.

Training

Russian intelligence services engage with foreign resistance members through various means, including training. For example, in Serbia, the ENOT Corporation, described as a “Russian ultranationalist organization,” established a paramilitary camp for Serbian children near Mount Zlatibor, Serbia, with support from the Russian embassy in Belgrade. The primary aim was not to employ children for immediate Russian policy objectives but rather to sow seeds that may bear fruit later. The young Serbians received instruction in survival skills, mountaineering, basic military training, first aid, self-defense techniques, and attended lectures on Serbian and Russian history. This camp was eventually shut down by Serbian authorities, and the were sent home. The Russian ENOT Corporation’s website indicated the presence of other camps elsewhere in Europe.

Similar Russian activities occurred in Latvia. From 2013 to 2018, Latvian children, likely from the Russophone minority, participated in youth military training camps inside Russia conducted by “veterans of military intelligence.”

Russian officers are further involved in training individuals who share similar views in other EU countries. In Estonia, Russian guest instructors, believed to be intelligence officers, have been engaged in teaching systema, a practical Russian martial art. In Latvia, the government expelled Russians who were participating in paintball and airsoft competitions. These martial activities serve as a means to gather local pro-Russian individuals and introduce them to Russian intelligence operatives. This may serve as preparatory work for an as yet, undetermined future need, or it may merely be a pretext for making contact with like-minded ethnic Russians in those countries, with only a vague idea of how Russian intelligence might eventually utilize them.

Russia also conducts training for adults aimed at more immediate action. As previously mentioned, the GRU operates paramilitary camps in Rostov-on-Don for men recruited to fight in Donbas. In 2020, an organization in Kaliningrad conducted marksmanship training alongside the “Union of the Polish First Army,” a Polish group opposing the EU and advocating for the so-called “Russian World.”

Equipping

Russian operatives interact with resistance forces through equipping them and storing supplies when not immediately required. This technique has historical roots in the Cold War as a tool of the KGB. As mentioned, Alexander Zakharchenko unearthed his Donbas weapons cache to participate in the rebellions of 2014, though he did not reveal his original supplier. While it is possible that some of these weapons may have been procured through illegal means before 2014, a more probable explanation is that they were supplied to him at some point preceding the Euromaidan protests. Russian intelligence agencies were involved in delivering weapons to other locations at that time. Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, a Russian intelligence service colonel, played a pivotal role in coordinating the delivery of weapons from the Russian Federation to the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. The Russian program of equipping separatists in the Donbas even included the provision of Buk anti-aircraft missiles.

In countries that do not share a border with Russia, the challenge of equipping resistance forces is surmounted by Russian operatives in creative ways. In Slovakia, an armed camp was established with assistance from Slovak state officers. A Slovak nationalist group, led by Josef Hambalek, created a military-style camp outside Bratislava, which incorporated military equipment borrowed from the Slovakian military. The visibility of this activity increased when the Russian motorcycle gang Night Wolves visited. This prompted concerns among Slovak authorities, leading to the recovery of the borrowed equipment.

How Russia Utilizes Offensive Resistance Operations

For decades, the Russian Federation has employed offensive resistance operations for various purposes. Pro-Russian insurgents have formed the cadres of armies in Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. When the Russian government aims to alter the policies of a targeted government, it may employ a rent-a-mob to protest these policies, or at the very least, to create the appearance of local opposition. For example, on 26 February 2014, in Sevastopol, Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior troops attempting to disarm the Sevastopol Berkut (riot police) were obstructed by a pro-Russian mob. Later, recruiting tables for local militias were set up in Sevastopol, and anti-Maidan individuals signed up. Subsequently, checkpoints were established on roads leading to Sevastopol and manned by former Berkut officers, Crimean Cossacks, and Cossacks from Russia’s Kuban region. In Donetsk and Lugansk, insurgent forces initially recruited in Crimea played a key role in seizing government police facilities:

“In Donetsk and Kharkov, crowds of protesters stormed and occupied the regional governors’ offices. In Lugansk, they occupied the local office of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), where they seized a large number of small arms. In Mariupol, the second- largest city of Donetsk Region, protesters occupied the city prosecutor’s office.”

On 12 April 2014, Girkin and a group of fifty-two men seized the police station and the SBU office in Sloviansk, Ukraine. Later, twenty of Girkin’s men seized the police station in Kramatorsk. These actions aimed to address the imbalance of forces favoring the government. At this stage, the insurgents had personnel but lacked weapons, while the government had weapons, but lacked personnel. In other instances, mobs obstructed government forces and seized their weaponry. On 16 April 2014, elements of the Ukrainian 25th Airborne Brigade entered Kramatorsk and were surrounded by pro-Russian civilians. To avoid using force against civilians, the Ukrainian commander eventually surrendered his weapons and equipment to the mob, which then handed them over to Girkin’s men. On 29 April, a group of men under the command of Valerii Bolotov “stormed the most important administrative buildings in Luhansk.”

In 2018, Konstantin Sivkov, a professor and Russian army officer, digested the country’s experience in Ukraine. In the Military-Industrial Courier, he discussed offensive Russian resistance operations conducted by what he referred to as “Active Irregular Forces.” The tasks he mentioned included “deploying a group of irregular formations in a given area and maintaining control over it, political and diplomatic registration, planning and organizing hostilities, and conducting them to achieve ultimate political goals.” Currently, offensive resistance activities fall under Russian intelligence agencies, such as the GRU, but it is evident that some in the Russian defense establishment are already thinking about offensive resistance operations.

The ongoing debate revolves around whether Vladimir Putin is an opportunist or a strategist. In general, it appears that the Kremlin pursues operational readiness and strategic flexibility, establishing the ends in the broadest possible manner. Junior officers are tasked with finding ways to achieve these ends and requesting the means to implement the strategy.

What is to be done?

When responding to these activities, liberal governments aim to respect the rights of their citizens, even those who may hold grievances against the government and harbor subversive agendas. Nevertheless, some prudent actions are available. First, Western government intelligence and law enforcement agencies, if not already doing so, should infiltrate organizations suspected of working with Russian agents in building offensive resistance organizations. This could be achieved through undercover police officers. Second, Western governments should attain membership lists for these organizations, whenever possible. In the event of crisis, the Russians are likely have a list of members they may wish to contact. Western governments should have their own version of these records. Finally, a delicate balance must be struck in deciding whether to prosecute or exploit for intelligence purposes. National authorities may have to choose between law enforcement who may prefer to arrest suspects as soon as there is sufficient evidence for a conviction, and intelligence agencies who may prefer to keep the subject under surveillance to gather more intelligence.

Apprehending some perpetrators can lead to those not arrested going into hiding, making them harder to locate. It should be kept in mind that once Serbian officials shut down the Mount Zlatibor youth paramilitary camp, the ENOT web page declared that “from now on, we will be carrying out our operations in a much more clandestine manner.” This did not imply they would stop their activities but rather that they will become more secretive.

The stakes are high. In the worst-case scenario, if the government waits too long to arrest perpetrators, the Russians can use them as a cadre of insurgent forces, or “muscle,” for protests, as they did in Donbas, with disastrous consequences for the Ukrainian government. By acting proactively, Western governments can protect themselves and their societies.

The number of people involved in Russian recruitment, training and equipping may be relatively small in specific locations. In periods of political instability, a small number of motivated, trained, and equipped individuals can exert significant influence on larger events. Russia has shown itself to be willing and able to leverage local collaborators to pursue political objectives.

D. Jonathan White spent 25 years in the US Army, 22 of that in Special Forces. He earned a PhD in military history in 2017. He has worked for NATO since 2015 at the NATO Special Operations University in Belgium and at Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia.

irregularwarfarecenter.org

11. Supporting Ukraine and Israel Will Help Deter Aggression Around the World by Bradley Bowman and H.R. McMaster

Supporting Ukraine and Israel Will Help Deter Aggression Around the World

Newsweek · by Bradley Bowman and H.R. McMaster Foundation for Defense of Democracies · February 20, 2024

The U.S. Senate voted 70-29 last week to approve more than $95 billion in assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The bill's fate in the House of Representatives remains uncertain. As our representatives in Congress contemplate next steps, it is worth surveying the increasingly connected threats Americans and our allies confront.

Americans tend to miss the connections between the conflicts and looming crises in Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific. That is a problem because overlooking those connections results in missed opportunities to counter aggression and prevent violence from spreading.

Consider the relationship between Beijing and Moscow, which is closer today than it has been in decades. Just weeks before Russia's unprovoked reinvasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin and Chairman Xi Jinping announced a "no limits" strategic partnership and a "new era" of international relations. Moscow expressed support for Beijing's position on Taiwan, and Beijing echoed Putin's talking points on NATO. Together, they denounced AUKUS, a trilateral partnership between Australia, Britain, and the United States designed to deter aggression and secure a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Accordingly, after Putin launched the largest invasion in Europe since World War II on February 24, 2022, it was hardly surprising to see Beijing take a number of steps to help him. Beijing diplomats and wolf warriors amplified the Kremlin's propaganda and misinformation, which has cynically characterized Putin's "special military operation" as an act of defense against NATO and an effort to "denazify" a country led by a Jewish president.

Beijing provided Putin with electronics and hardware for use against Ukraine and helped Moscow evade Western sanctions. Beijing also was happy to increase its purchases of Russian oil and gas, providing Putin the cash he needed to fund his increasingly expensive war. Moreover, China and Russia have been increasing their combined military exercises. In August 2023, an 11-vessel Chinese-Russian naval flotilla patrolled near the coast of Alaska after operating in the Sea of Japan.

Unfortunately, Iran and North Korea were happy to join the Sino-Russian axis.

Iran has provided Russia with thousands of Shahed kamikaze drones to attack Ukrainians and their infrastructure. Those same types of drones have been used to attack U.S. troops in the Middle East. Now, Iran appears to be on track to acquire Russian Su-35 fighter jets, among other advanced military capabilities, which could increase Tehran's confidence that it could sprint to a nuclear weapons capability and repel attacks designed to stop it.

Iran has also been busy building its relationship with China. Tehran and Beijing signed a 25-year "strategic partnership" in March 2021. Under the deal, Tehran gets lots of Chinese investments, and China gets lots of Iranian oil. That inflow of cash will help reduce the impact and leverage of Western sanctions, making Tehran even less likely to negotiate in good faith in the future regarding its nuclear program.

A leaked copy of the agreement called for the two countries to conduct combined military training, exercises, and weapons development, and to share intelligence. Then, in July 2023, Iran officially became a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was founded in 2001 by China and Russia.

This pool photograph distributed by Russian state owned agency Sputnik shows Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping heading to a group photo session during the third Belt and Road Forum for International... This pool photograph distributed by Russian state owned agency Sputnik shows Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping heading to a group photo session during the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 18, 2023. Grigory SYSOYEV / POOL / AFP/Getty Images

Not to be left out of the growing axis of aggressors, North Korea has provided Russia artillery rounds and missiles for use in Ukraine. In exchange, Pyongyang has sought military assistance from Russia for conventional military technologies, such as fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missiles, as well as for its ballistic missile and satellite programs, and possibly its nuclear program.

So, what's to be done?

First, Americans should realize that our adversaries appreciate the value of partners, and we should too. The United States is the most powerful nation on the planet, but it still needs help. America's allies and partners are grand strategic assets to be strengthened and nurtured—not burdens to be jettisoned. Statements or actions that undermine NATO, for example, are deeply damaging and short-sighted, inviting the very aggression the alliance was created to deter—and has successfully deterred for more than seven decades.

Second, Americans should appreciate that support for beleaguered democratic partners such as Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan is a wise and affordable investment, not charity. For less than 3 percent of what Washington spent on the Pentagon over the same period, U.S. security assistance has helped Ukraine deliver body blows to the second-leading military threat Americans confront, decreasing the chances of Kremlin aggression against NATO—all without putting our troops in harm's way.

Israel, for its part, is battling Hamas, an Iran-backed terrorist organization that has a cozy relationship with the Kremlin. Hamas' original charter makes clear that it is committed to the murder of Jews and the extermination of the state of Israel. The horrors of October 7, which included heinous acts of infanticide, rape, torture, and kidnapping, should put to rest any lingering questions about whether Hamas still harbors such views. Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East, is fighting on the front lines in the battle between civilization and barbarism. Helping Israel is helping ourselves.

Meanwhile, Beijing is sprinting to field a military capability to conquer Taiwan and take away the freedom of millions of people there. If deterrence fails in the Taiwan Strait, as it did in Ukraine, the costs for Americans could be even more severe, likely involving direct war between the United States and China. It would be far less costly to invest decisively in Taiwan's deterrent capabilities now than to deal with a war there that could have been prevented.

Finally, Americans should recognize that the outcomes in Ukraine and the Middle East will influence Beijing's thinking about Taiwan. Defeating Russia in Ukraine and Iran's terrorist network in the Middle East are important American objectives on their own; they are also vital to preventing another disastrous war.

If Beijing and Pyongyang conclude that aggression worked in Ukraine and the Middle East—and see the United States and its allies lose interest over time and abandon beleaguered democracies—aggression will only become more likely in East Asia. That realization helps explain why Taipei has made clear that it wants Kyiv to succeed.

Xi Jinping is likely asking himself and his advisers whether the United States would stand with Taipei if Beijing launches aggression in the Taiwan Strait. To help answer that question, he will look to votes in Washington and American actions in Ukraine and the Middle East. What America does could have decisive implications for war and peace in the Pacific.

Lieutenant General (ret.) H.R. McMaster is the Chair of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was the 26th assistant to the president for national security affairs. Bradley Bowman serves as senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at FDD.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.

The Real Roots of Xi Jinping Thought

Excerpts:

If a sincere effort at a Marxism-Confucianism fusion could get off the ground, it might help address this anomie by allowing China to hold two ideas at once. A Marxist worldview anticipates a future that continues to be shaped by dramatic changes and convulsive confrontations with, for instance, the challenges of a clean energy transition, U.S. hegemony, or the liberal international order. A worldview informed by Confucianism can accommodate the idea that China will need more calm, predictability, and stability in the future—and that direct military confrontations would likely undercut China’s own interests.

Chinese political thought retains liveliness and diversity: it is a work in progress. In 2019, Bai Tongdong, a philosopher at Fudan University in Shanghai, published a book called Against Political Equality. Despite the provocative title, the work is a strong defense of liberalism, arguing that some forms of nondemocratic rule, such as a meritocracy based on Confucian values, could better preserve liberal values than democracy can. Other Chinese thinkers who are often considered realists also wrestle with classical ideas; in his 2011 book Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, for instance, the international relations scholar Yan Xuetong draws on premodern Chinese thinking to interpret the contemporary global order.

Given the precedents over centuries of Chinese philosophy for the kind of synthesis Xi is attempting, it is curious that he relies so heavily on very ancient sources. A television series reconciling Confucianism with modernity could easily have been longer and richer: Kang, the New Text thinker, might have appeared to discuss Confucius’s role as a reformer. The maverick twentieth-century thinker Liang Shuming could have debated Mao about what, precisely, constitutes “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” In fact, these two thinkers did conduct a lively debate about just that, in 1946. But to acknowledge the New Text thinkers in particular might be dangerous because they valued internal debate and plurality of thought.

Xi’s effort to synthesize Confucius and Marx is not invalid, as an exercise. It is worth lingering, however, on the fact that Wang’s original Chinese text was published in 2004. Only two decades ago, China’s intellectual environment was very different. Academics were freer to debate various political alternatives, and the media could risk more pointed political commentary. Chinese identity is still multiple, not monolithic, and Chinese thought has always best contributed to China’s flourishing when it has been free and disputatious, not closed and sterile. This is the aspect of Chinese tradition that today’s CCP cannot afford to ignore.

The Real Roots of Xi Jinping Thought

Chinese Political Philosophers’ Long Struggle With Modernity

By Rana Mitter

March/April 2024

Published on February 20, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism · February 20, 2024

In 2023, Hunan TV, China’s second-most-watched television channel, unveiled a series called When Marx Met Confucius. The conceit was literal: actors playing the two thinkers—Confucius dressed in a tan robe and Karl Marx in a black suit and a leonine white wig—met at the Yuelu Academy, a thousand-year-old school renowned for its role in developing Confucian philosophy. Over five episodes, Marx and Confucius discussed the nature of politics, arriving at the conclusion that Confucianism and Marxism are compatible—or that Marx may have subconsciously drawn his theories from a Confucian well. In one episode, Marx noted that he and his companion “share a commitment to [political] stability,” adding that “in reality, I myself was Chinese for a long time,” suggesting that his thinking had always been harmonious with traditional Chinese worldviews.

The series was backed by the Chinese Communist Party and formed part of President Xi Jinping’s sweeping political project to reconceptualize his country’s ideological identity. Since taking office in 2012, Xi has made it imperative for Chinese people to understand his interpretation of Chinese ideology, which he calls “Xi Jinping Thought.” Bureaucrats, tycoons, and pop stars have been required to endorse it; students now learn it in school; CCP members must use a smartphone app that regularly communicates its precepts. Key to Xi’s thought is pairing Marxism with Confucianism: in October 2023, he declared that today’s China should consider Marxism its “soul” and “fine traditional Chinese culture as the root.”

Xi’s efforts to redefine China’s ideological underpinnings feel increasingly urgent as a slowdown in growth has fed doubts among investors and public distrust at home. He leads a country whose economic might is far more respected than its form of government: China has now won a place among the world’s major economies but remains an aspirant within the international order. To the frustration of Xi and other Chinese leaders, Western countries will be reluctant to accept China’s global influence unless China conforms to modern liberal values. But his attempted synthesis of Marx and Confucius has prompted bafflement, even mockery, among observers outside and inside China.

Over the past century, Chinese communist thinkers have tended to believe that a flourishing future demands a complete break from the past. China’s formative early Marxist thinkers, in particular, generally condemned Confucianism, a philosophy that stresses hierarchy, ritual, and a return to an idealized past. Mao Zedong and other Chinese Marxists believed that Confucianism was theoretically incompatible with Marxism, which celebrates revolution and perpetual change, and that its practical influence on politics had made China weak. Confucian thinking, in their view, had generated a moribund bureaucracy that failed to adapt to the challenges of modernity; this renunciation found its ultimate expression during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, when the Chinese Red Guards dynamited the philosopher’s tomb before hanging a naked corpse in front of it.

But erasing the past in a country with so rich a history was always a struggle. It has consistently also seemed to matter to Chinese thinkers, and Chinese people in general, that their country should be seen as responding to political change with methods derived from a recognizably Chinese source. Even as many of China’s early-twentieth-century political theorists condemned Confucianism, other thinkers strove to show that China did not have to imitate Western ideas—be they nationalist, liberal, or Marxist—to modernize. They found a road map for a different but potentially effective kind of modernization within the universe of traditional Chinese ideas.

Illustration by Cristiana Courceiro; Photo Source: Reuters, Wikimedia Commons, Unsplash

In The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, his magnum opus, Wang Hui, a scholar of Chinese language and literature at Tsinghua University, returns to the late-nineteenth-century thinkers who worked to reshape Chinese philosophy. First published in Chinese in 2004, it appeared last year in a new English edition, the work of several translators under the direction of Michael Gibbs Hill. Although the translation clocks in at over 1,000 pages, it represents just over half of the four-volume Chinese original. Wang analyzes the connections between political theory and more concrete issues of governance over a millennium of Chinese history. But he notes that “explanations of modern China cannot avoid the question of how to interpret” the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1912. Wang’s deep exploration of the work of a group of late Qing thinkers implies that China’s embrace of Marxism did not, in fact, arise from a wholesale rejection of Confucianism. Chinese Marxism may have had the space to emerge precisely because these late thinkers sought to apply Confucian thought to the challenges of modernity.

The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought is densely detailed, but a fine introduction by Hill helps situate the English-language reader. And the text brilliantly reveals a China that has always been lively and pluralist in its political thought. That picture is at odds with the typical perception held by outside observers—and even some Chinese historians—that Chinese thought has been monolithic and prone to sudden ruptures.

In one sense, The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought makes Xi’s attempted synthesis of Marxism and Confucianism seem less implausible. It has a history; serious thinkers have tried it before. Many writers have suggested that Xi’s “ideological work” does not or cannot have any relevance to ordinary Chinese people, who increasingly struggle with material problems such as making hefty mortgage payments or providing health care for their elders. But China’s anomie is also a crisis of national identity. And implicitly, Wang’s book suggests that efforts to redefine the country’s ideology could help address that crisis.

But Wang’s analysis also reveals where the CCP is going astray. The party expresses its new ideology in simplistic, brassy terms, drawing on unsubtle readings of classics and disallowing critiques. The thinkers who argued for Confucianism’s relevance at the turn of the twentieth century believed that a key to that relevance was letting thinkers debate Chinese philosophy’s very nature.

PHILOSOPHERS AND KINGS

Wang, one of contemporary China’s most influential intellectuals, has frequently written about the period after the communist revolution. A participant in the 1989 student movement for democratic reforms, he became a leading member of what others have called China’s “New Left” in the 1990s. In his 2010 book, The End of the Revolution, he criticized China’s turn toward marketization in the 1990s.

In The Rise of Chinese Thought, however, Wang does not deal explicitly with any aspect of China’s turbulent twentieth-century history. Mao makes just one appearance. In this work, Wang is more interested in earlier Chinese thinkers who had already wrestled with the challenges posed by modernity, arguing that when China changed, it did so by drawing on internal resources. (The later volumes, not translated in Hill’s edition, do move into the early twentieth century.)

Wang’s study begins in the Song (960–1279) and Ming (1386–1644) dynasties with neo-Confucianism, a school of thought that adapted traditional Confucianism in the face of challenges by Taoism and Buddhism. His analysis gains its strongest contemporary salience when he discusses a strain of thought that emerged toward the end of the Qing dynasty. At the height of the Qing era, China doubled its population and ran immensely successful military campaigns that expanded its territory. Europeans sought to buy and copy its distinctive art and porcelain. But by the end of the nineteenth century, economic failures and a defeat at the hands of the British in the Opium Wars had brought China to a point of existential crisis. After China was forced to sign humiliating treaties with a host of rising powers including Japan, Russia, and the United States, it appeared as if it might simply be unfit to flourish in the modern era.

One potential conclusion was that Chinese traditions were antiquated and had to be jettisoned in favor of Western ideas, including nationalism and Marxism. Wang argues that the problem that bedeviled the late Qing empire was not just a geopolitical one in which other states had secured material advantages over China. It was a crisis of worldview. Scholars have long asserted that the ways in which Confucianism was applied to nineteenth-century Chinese politics had left the country sclerotic—unable to engage with modern Western ideologies such as capitalism, liberalism, and nationalism. Confucianism’s emphasis on tradition and respect for hierarchy had justified an entrenched, sometimes corrupt bureaucracy that failed to respond deftly to foreign invasions and internal revolts or to maintain sufficient tax revenue to maintain security and infrastructure.

By the late nineteenth century, economic failures had brought China to a point of existential crisis.

But Wang also suggests that this kind of stagnation is not inherent in Confucianism. In fact, the Confucian thought-world was capacious and flexible. Confucian thinkers often relished encounters with foreign ideas, incorporating or synthesizing them to adapt China to new historical conditions. Notably, toward the end of the nineteenth century, thinkers in the “New Text” movement—so called because it drew on texts written in a new script unveiled by the ancient Han dynasty—explored ways in which their own Confucian cultural universe might reshape itself when confronted by Western ideas.

Modernity did not, Wang argues, present them with an unanswerable challenge, setting up a clash between the old and the new. Instead, the New Text thinkers proposed that translating Confucian rites or principles into laws could accomplish a “grand reunification” of those principles with the new demands posed by globalization and Western imperialism. The New Text thinkers wanted to find ways to push back against the debilitating influence of government corruption. Wang describes how the prominent New Text thinker Wei Yuan challenged Chinese leaders’ presumption that Confucianism demanded they strictly privilege ideas and strategies that had arisen from within China. He sought to dissolve the distinction between “inside” and “outside”; that allowed him to argue for military modernization that incorporated Western innovations, including new measures for defending China’s frontiers and the construction of a shipyard and arsenal in southern China. Thinkers such as Kang Youwei discovered modernizing elements within Confucianism, arguing that a proper interpretation revealed it to have components that could parallel or meet the energy of Western modernizing ideas. Drawing on Confucian theories, Kang formulated the idea of datong, or “great unity,” a day “when everything on earth, great or small, far or near, will be as one.”

Kang saw no distinction between holding a Confucian worldview and advocating a world that dismissed borders as meaningless. His proposals won him influence, and he played a central role in the 1898 Hundred Days’ Reform movement, which aimed to move China toward a constitutional monarchy resembling Japan’s. Alarmed, China’s conservative ruler, the empress dowager Cixi, ordered his arrest and forced him into exile. But his ideas did not die. The late Qing era was a time of great intellectual ferment, and Chinese thinkers—some in exile in Japan—continued to debate theories such as Kang’s in an array of new journals.

The New Text thinkers’ stance arguably enabled the next generation to be open to Marxism. In 1925, the author Guo Moruo wrote about Marx “entering the Confucian temple” in a short story that partly inspired Hunan TV’s new series. In a 1939 text titled “How to Be a Good Communist,” Liu Shaoqi, a central figure in the Chinese communist revolution, referred to communist “virtues,” a phrasing more Confucian than materialist.

CRISIS OF FAITH

The Rise of Chinese Thought is, in one sense, historical scholarship. But its account of the intellectual world of the late Qing dynasty shines a sharp light on China today. One of the central propositions advanced by the late Qing thinkers was that China needed not merely to find a way out of the crisis facing China at that time but also to embed the solution in premodern Chinese cultural forms. The situation facing the late Qing thinkers might not appear remotely similar to that of today’s China. When they were writing, China was deeply mired in fiscal crisis and beset by internal rebellions; many of its rural areas were deeply impoverished, and its sovereignty had been hugely compromised by foreign invasions and the imposition of biased treaties. China now boasts immense economic and military strength. There are no meaningful threats to its national sovereignty.

But like many countries on the rise today, China does not feel a sense of ownership over the world’s international norms, which were largely created by the West in the twentieth century. Chinese elites believe that these norms and their universalist intellectual premises have largely been imposed on China. And despite China’s strength, it is increasingly afflicted by a sense of crisis. This sentiment is partly a reaction to material circumstances. China’s urban youth unemployment, now estimated at 20 percent or higher, and a growing rural-urban inequality are rooted in economics. So, too, is the difficulty that Chinese families now have in meeting their mortgage payments or coping with inadequate health care and pensions.

China’s sense of anomie is also sociological, however, especially for young people. It cannot be resolved by economic fixes alone. The recent era of spectacular economic growth generated a self-concept among Chinese citizens: China is a daring, rising power, and being Chinese means being on the cutting edge. The core of that understanding is now being challenged. China’s astonishing growth trajectory appears to have crested, leaving not only people’s bank accounts hollowed out but their sense of identity, as well.

Today, the word that many Chinese professionals often use to describe themselves is “depressed.” In a culture in which acknowledging mental health problems is profoundly stigmatized, 35 percent of respondents to a 2020 national survey said they were experiencing distress, anxiety, or depression. On social media, young Chinese people express disillusionment and disaffection, declaring that they are “lying flat” (tangping) or “rotting away” (bailan). The COVID-19 lockdown period eroded trust in the state.

CCP members reflected in a party emblem, Beijing, February 2019

Jason Lee / Reuters

More and more, young Chinese professionals in business, academia, and the media are confronted with restrictions that they find baffling. (For instance, many Chinese students are eager to study abroad, but many are also told that if they do, their rise in the Chinese bureaucracy will be hampered.) As China’s population starts to age, young people are becoming aware that the costs of looking after elderly parents will fall heavily on their shoulders.

Such developments do not make life in China intolerable, as it was for the late–Qing dynasty thinkers. But they do make it unsatisfying. China may be able to go on creating solid economic growth. “Solid but not spectacular,” however, is unexciting. “Weak and fragile” would be worse.

Many Western observers point to Japan as a warning to China about what happens when a property bubble collapses and a country enters a period of aging. Yet Japan remains a powerful global economy with an important regional role and a reputation for being one of the best places in the world to live. China may well be able to follow Japan’s track by adjusting its domestic economy to create new service-sector jobs and concentrating on elder care. Such a China could be a decent place to live. But it would not provide the heroic energy that underpins a rising power.

TRADITIONAL MEDICINE

In this context, it makes a bit more sense that Xi has begun trying to present a refreshed ideology that fuses a Marxist view of society with a Confucian one. Marxism promotes self-criticism, and when applied to real politics has tended to lead to purges. These are phenomena Xi wishes to avoid at a fragile political moment. On the surface, his synthesis may appear to be just an effort to defend himself and the party against criticism, since Confucianism prioritizes stability and respect for authority.

Wang’s study, however, implicitly suggests that Confucianism and Marxism may not be inherently incompatible. His analysis has immense relevance for China today, even if he does not address contemporary China directly. His work shows that the effort to use traditional Chinese philosophy to face emerging challenges has a precedent. Recently, I spoke to a student enrolled in a prominent school of Marxism-Leninism in China. “What does Marxism mean to you?” I asked her. She explained that studying Marxism offered her a way of reflecting on her personal development. Marxism, she said, gave her profound peace of mind.

I was intrigued, I told her. What she described sounded more like Confucianism than Marxism to me. Perhaps she had simply absorbed some of Xi’s growing emphasis on traditional culture. But perhaps, intuitively, it seemed to her that elements of the two philosophies were compatible—and it was comforting to her to feel that her own culture had some answers to her generation’s dispiriting sense of uncertainty and driftlessness.

Only two decades ago, Chinese academics were freer to debate political alternatives.

If a sincere effort at a Marxism-Confucianism fusion could get off the ground, it might help address this anomie by allowing China to hold two ideas at once. A Marxist worldview anticipates a future that continues to be shaped by dramatic changes and convulsive confrontations with, for instance, the challenges of a clean energy transition, U.S. hegemony, or the liberal international order. A worldview informed by Confucianism can accommodate the idea that China will need more calm, predictability, and stability in the future—and that direct military confrontations would likely undercut China’s own interests.

Chinese political thought retains liveliness and diversity: it is a work in progress. In 2019, Bai Tongdong, a philosopher at Fudan University in Shanghai, published a book called Against Political Equality. Despite the provocative title, the work is a strong defense of liberalism, arguing that some forms of nondemocratic rule, such as a meritocracy based on Confucian values, could better preserve liberal values than democracy can. Other Chinese thinkers who are often considered realists also wrestle with classical ideas; in his 2011 book Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power, for instance, the international relations scholar Yan Xuetong draws on premodern Chinese thinking to interpret the contemporary global order.

Given the precedents over centuries of Chinese philosophy for the kind of synthesis Xi is attempting, it is curious that he relies so heavily on very ancient sources. A television series reconciling Confucianism with modernity could easily have been longer and richer: Kang, the New Text thinker, might have appeared to discuss Confucius’s role as a reformer. The maverick twentieth-century thinker Liang Shuming could have debated Mao about what, precisely, constitutes “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” In fact, these two thinkers did conduct a lively debate about just that, in 1946. But to acknowledge the New Text thinkers in particular might be dangerous because they valued internal debate and plurality of thought.

Xi’s effort to synthesize Confucius and Marx is not invalid, as an exercise. It is worth lingering, however, on the fact that Wang’s original Chinese text was published in 2004. Only two decades ago, China’s intellectual environment was very different. Academics were freer to debate various political alternatives, and the media could risk more pointed political commentary. Chinese identity is still multiple, not monolithic, and Chinese thought has always best contributed to China’s flourishing when it has been free and disputatious, not closed and sterile. This is the aspect of Chinese tradition that today’s CCP cannot afford to ignore.

• RANA MITTER is S. T. Lee Chair in U.S.-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School and the author of China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism.

Foreign Affairs · by China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism · February 20, 2024

​13. How Israel’s war went wrong

How Israel’s war went wrong

The conflict in Gaza has become “an era-defining catastrophe.” It’s increasingly clear what — and who — is to blame.

By Zack Beauchamp@zackbeauchampzack@vox.com  Feb 20, 2024, 6:00am EST

Vox · by Zack Beauchamp · February 20, 2024

At the end of November, Israeli reporter Yuval Abraham broke one of the most important stories of the war in Gaza to date — an inside look at the disturbing reasoning that has led the Israeli military to kill so many civilians.

Citing conversations with “seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community,” Abraham reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had changed its doctrine to permit far greater civilian casualties than it would have tolerated in previous wars. IDF leadership was greenlighting strikes on civilian targets like apartment buildings and public infrastructure that they knew would kill scores of innocent Gazans.

“In one case,” Abraham reported, “the Israeli military command knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander.”

Abraham’s reporting showed, in granular detail, the ways that this war would not be like others: that Israel, so grievously wounded by Hamas on October 7, would go to extraordinarily violent lengths to destroy the group responsible for that day’s atrocities. In doing so, it would commit atrocities of its own.

At least 28,000 Palestinians are already confirmed dead, with more likely lying in the rubble. Around 70 percent of Gaza’s homes have been damaged or destroyed; at least 85 percent of Gaza’s population has been displaced. The indirect death toll from starvation and disease will likely be higher. One academic estimate suggested that nearly 500,000 Palestinians will die within a year unless the war is brought to a halt, reflecting both the physical damage to Gaza’s infrastructure and the consequences of Israel’s decision to besiege Gaza on day three of the war. (While the siege has been relaxed somewhat, limitations on aid flow remain strict.)

A girl pushes a cart loaded with a jerrycan while walking past the rubble of a building that was destroyed during Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 14, 2024.

Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images

Displaced Palestinians stand outside their tents in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 14, 2024.

Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images

The Israeli government describes civilian death as a regrettable but inevitable consequence of waging a war to eliminate Hamas. But as of right now, that goal is still very far away — and may ultimately prove to be impossible.

There’s no doubt that the IDF has done significant damage to Hamas's infrastructure. Israel has killed or captured somewhere around one-third of Hamas’s fighting force, destroyed at least half of its rocket stockpile, and demolished somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of its tunnel network under Gaza. The more the war goes on, the higher those numbers will become.

But as significant as these achievements are, “none of them come close to eliminating Hamas,” says Dan Byman, a professor at Georgetown who studies Israeli counterterrorism policy.

The group, he explains, has “very deep roots in Gaza” — ones that could only be permanently removed if Israel had a good plan for a postwar political arrangement in Gaza. Yet at present, Israel still has no plan at all. With support for Hamas rising in reaction to Israeli brutality, Israel runs a real risk of actually strengthening the terrorist group’s political position in the long run.

A world where hundreds of thousands of Gazans suffer and only Hamas benefits is the worst of all possible worlds. Yet it is increasingly looking like a likely one.

How did we get here?

The truth is that this nightmare was depressingly predictable. When I surveyed over a dozen experts about the war back in October, they warned that Israel had a dangerously loose understanding of what the war was about. The stated aim of “destroying Hamas” was at once maximalist and open-ended: It wasn’t clear how it could be accomplished or what limit there might be on the means used in its pursuit.

Israel’s conduct in the war so far has vindicated these fears. The embrace of an objective at once so massive and vague has dragged Israel down the moral nadir documented in Abraham’s reporting, with unclear and perhaps even self-defeating ends. It is a situation that Matt Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, terms “an era-defining catastrophe.”

Things did not have to be this way. After the horrific events of October 7, Israel had an obviously just claim to wage a defensive war against Hamas — and the tactical and strategic capabilities to execute a smarter, more limited, and more humane war plan.

The blame for this failure lies with Israel’s terrible wartime leadership: an extremist government headed by Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, a venal prime minister currently on trial for corruption who has placed his personal interests over his country’s even during wartime.

“You couldn’t have had a worse government to respond to a worse moment,” says Dov Waxman, the director of UCLA’s Center for Israel Studies. “People like to separate the war from the government that’s running it, but I think you can’t.”

It’s not too late for Israel to try something different.

While Netanyahu won’t change course voluntarily, both Israeli voters and the Biden administration have significant leverage over their policies. Their combined pressure might produce either a change in policy or a change in government, pulling Israel away from the abyss.

And in the longer run, a postwar Israel might begin reckoning with the deeply mistaken assumptions behind its terrible policy — and, in doing so, transform the future of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The inevitability of atrocity

Michael Walzer is the world’s greatest living military ethicist. His 1977 book Just and Unjust Wars is the seminal modern text in what’s called “just war theory,” the branch of political philosophy dedicated to examining when and how war can be waged ethically. Whether one agrees with it or not, his work is the baseline by which all other work in the field is judged and has influenced law and policy around the world.

On the American left, Walzer is also known as one of Israel’s most famous defenders. In a 2017 essay, he describes Just and Unjust Wars as the outgrowth of his attempt to reconcile his opposition to the Vietnam War with his support for Israel’s 1967 war against its Arab neighbors. After October 7, he has repeatedly defended Israel’s right to defend itself and put the majority of the moral blame for human suffering on Hamas. “Israel’s military response to the atrocities of October 7th is a just and necessary war,” he wrote in December.

Yet when we spoke in early February, Walzer was far more critical of Israel’s war effort than I expected.

“Israel has created new conditions on the ground [that] made it virtually impossible to continue the war” ethically, he told me. “I am hoping for a kind of ceasefire.”

Walzer is referring to the geography of the fighting. When Israel began its ground offensive in Gaza, it concentrated the fighting in the northern Gaza Strip — instructing Palestinian civilians to flee to the south to stay out of harm’s way. But today, Israel is threatening a major ground offensive in the southern city of Rafah, where huge numbers of Palestinian civilians have fled with nowhere else to go. For Walzer, Israel cannot wage war justly when Gazan civilians truly cannot escape.

Palestinians inspect the damage to residential buildings in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on February 12, 2024.

Fatima Shbair/AP Photo

But Walzer also pointed to a deeper moral problem with Israel’s seemingly impossible objective of destroying Hamas.

Generally, just war theorists believe that war cannot be ethically waged without having “reasonable prospects for success.” The logic is intuitive: War inevitably involves a lot of killing, and killing can only be justified if it accomplishes a greater good. If the objective behind the killing is impossible (or extremely implausible), then there is no greater good to be won from the bloodshed.

Walzer believes that many Israelis, traumatized by the events of October 7, did not fully appreciate how intermingled Hamas — the de facto government of Gaza — was with Gazan society. It’s an organization made up of not only tens of thousands of fighters, but also many civilian functionaries and a vast physical infrastructure. Truly destroying such an entity cannot reasonably be accomplished through force of arms alone — at least not without a yearslong military campaign and an unthinkable amount of civilian death.

Some Israelis are beginning to acknowledge this reality. In January, Gadi Eisenkot — a senior minister in Israel’s wartime Cabinet — declared that “whoever speaks of absolute defeat [of Hamas] is not speaking the truth,” and that Israeli hostages in Gaza could only be brought home as part of a ceasefire deal. A classified Israeli military intelligence assessment, reported by Israel’s Channel 12 news station, predicts that Hamas will persist as a terrorist organization even if Israel destroys much of its more conventional military capabilities.

“It was when they grasped the extent of the embeddedness and the tunnel city that they realized that was not a possible goal and therefore not a just goal,” Walzer says, speaking of his contacts in Israel. “The goal as stated on October 8 wasn’t wrong because we [outside Gaza] were so ignorant of what Hamas had become.”

Walzer may be judging Israel’s leadership a bit too leniently. Hamas’s deep entrenchment in Gaza was well-known prior to the war and was part of the reason previous Israeli governments had opted not to destroy the militant group. But Walzer is correct that the nature of the objective shapes the war’s morality — even down to the kinds of tactics Israel was willing to employ.

In previous wars with Hamas, Israel’s primary objective had been degrading Hamas’s military capabilities and deterring it from attacking Israel in the near future. These are relatively limited aims that can be accomplished through more discriminate military means. Israel didn’t need to destroy every Hamas rocket launcher or kill every commander — but rather do just enough damage to buy itself some safety.

“If your war aim is complete destruction of your adversary, then the military advantage of every strike increases because it’s a greater contribution to that aim,” says Adil Haque, a professor who studies the law and ethics of war at Rutgers University. “Given the physical layout of Gaza, you’re already setting yourself on a path toward killing tens of thousands of civilians.”

A significant level of civilian death is inevitable in urban warfare, and especially in Gaza given Hamas’s despicable tactic of stationing military assets in and around schools and hospitals. The IDF is facing a profoundly challenging operating environment with few true historical parallels.

Yet this does not absolve Israel of its decision to adopt a maximalist war aim or the unusually brutal tactics that followed from it. These were choices Israeli leaders made — and they were the wrong ones.

Men walk through the rubble of a mosque that was destroyed during Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 14, 2024.

Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images

The damning failure to plan for war’s end

Lt. Col. Raphael Cohen is no one’s idea of a dove. As a US Army military intelligence officer, Cohen served two tours of combat duty in Iraq at the height of the anti-American insurgency. Now a reserve officer, he spends his days running a program on military strategy and doctrine at the RAND Institute. He has publicly argued that the reality on the ground in Gaza left Israel with little choice but to engage in the kind of war that it’s currently waging.

Yet there’s one area where Cohen’s review of Israel’s conduct is quite harsh: its lack of planning for the day after the war.

“They need to take the non-lethal side of the operation seriously,” he told me in late January. “If you don’t get the postwar planning right, whatever tactical gains you get are going to be fleeting.”

In the outlines offered by Israeli leadership early in the war, “destroying Hamas” could only be accomplished by replacing its regime in Gaza with something new and durable. In October, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said this explicitly — that the war must end with the “creation of a new security regime in the Gaza Strip [and] the removal of Israel’s responsibility for day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip.”

Regime change is the only conceivable way Israel could deliver on its long-shot objective of destroying Hamas. Yet, shockingly, Israel has no clear plan for what comes next. Every source I spoke to with knowledge of Israeli planning confirmed this; so does a volume of publicly available reporting and some recent comments from Netanyahu spokesperson Avi Hyman.

“All discussions about the day after Hamas will be had the day after Hamas,” Hyman said during a press briefing.

For quite some time after the war began, Israel refused to even conceive of a postwar plan. Some sources told me that preparations are getting underway, but there are still no firm conclusions nor any clear route to them. Netanyahu has publicly rejected an American proposal to place the Palestinian Authority (PA), led by the moderate Fatah faction based in the West Bank, in charge of Gaza after the war. He has offered no alternative in its place.

Without a postwar plan, Israel risks something worse than failing to defeat Hamas: bolstering it.

Masked men wearing Hamas headgear at a demonstration in Beirut on October 20, 2023.

Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images

According to Devorah Margolin, an expert on Hamas at the center-right Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the entire point of the October 7 attack was to provoke a massive Israeli response. Handbooks and guidance sheets discovered on killed and captured Hamas fighters revealed instructions to be graphically, sadistically violent — instructions we know were fully carried out.

“The goal of that [ultraviolence] was to create a visceral response from Israel that would be seen as so disproportionate that the violence it carried out on October 7 was pushed to the side, and that Israel would be seen as the irrational actor,” she tells me. “In that sense, I think they actually succeeded.”

In the long run, making Israel look like the depraved side serves two strategic goals for Hamas. First, it puts the Palestinian issue back at the top of the Arab and international political agenda. Second, it convinces Palestinians that Israel must be fought with arms — and that Hamas, rather than the more peace-oriented Fatah, should be leading their struggle. Polling data both in Palestine and elsewhere suggest that they have made inroads on both fronts since October 7.

By inflicting mass suffering on Palestinians without a long-term plan for addressing the political consequences of their misery, Israel is playing right into Hamas’s hands. The current Israeli approach is less likely to destroy the militant group than to strengthen it.

Blame Bibi

Natan Sachs is the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution — making him, more or less, the leading Israel expert at one of Washington’s leading nonpartisan think tanks. Few people outside of Israel know the country’s politics better than he does.

When I spoke with Sachs in February, he told me that the mood in Israel “remains extremely grim and extremely vulnerable.” Israel’s war reflects a public that remains traumatized by October 7 and is convinced that they can only be protected by inflicting maximum destruction on Israel’s enemies.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is intentionally stoking the fury. “Responsible leadership would not only channel the anger and the need for prevention in the future,” he says. “It would also try to shape public expectations about what the future might be.”

This behavior is even worse than it sounds. Netanyahu is stoking war fervor without engaging in any serious planning for the postwar environment. It’s clear, both from speaking with knowledgeable observers and reading the Israeli press, that Netanyahu’s government is at the heart of this essential gap.

“When you talk to the IDF folks, their issue is like any military’s — they follow the guidance they’re given from politicians, and there is no clear guidance,” Cohen tells me. “They feel hamstrung because they can’t get out too far ahead of where the government is.”

Discontent with Netanyahu from inside the military is starting to go public. In late January, Defense Minister Gallant warned that “political indecision may harm the progress of the military operation” — suggesting that the government is shirking its duty to “discuss the plan … and determine the goal.”

Why is Netanyahu refusing to do his job? The most likely explanation is crass politics.

The prime minister’s ongoing corruption trial is very serious, with a conviction potentially leading to an extended stay behind bars. His primary motivation is staying in office and using that power to keep out of prison, which requires keeping his government together. As a result, his far-right coalition partners in the Religious Zionism faction — who oppose any Palestinian political control over Gaza and want to rebuild Israeli settlements there — have extraordinary influence over his decision-making.

Benjamin Netanyahu with far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir last May.

Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP/Getty Images

To avoid crossing the far right, Netanyahu won’t allow for any serious planning for the war’s end. The necessary parts of any plan — adopting a concrete and achievable vision for victory and a realistic vision for a postwar order — would necessarily infuriate Religious Zionists and likely cause them to quit the coalition, thus throwing the country to new elections that Netanyahu will likely lose. The prime minister is very literally putting his own interests above the nation’s — something that Sachs says “wouldn’t be the case with many other [Israeli] leaders.”

“This specific individual,” he adds, “is a constant politician — even in the worst of times.”

Of course, pinpointing the roots of Israeli failures isn’t quite that simple. Israelis across the political spectrum immediately called for “destroying” Hamas in the wake of October 7, an understandable response to the day’s horror. Polling shows that the public is deeply divided on what the postwar political order in Gaza should look like, with no single option commanding majority support. Israelis are still traumatized and adrift, confident only that a return to the prewar status quo isn’t an option.

But, as Sachs pointed out, it’s not a leader’s job to follow public opinion but rather to mold it. A moment when people are scared and uncertain, where the old security paradigm seems broken and no new one has emerged to replace it, is exactly the kind of time where leaders with vision can convince the public to follow them toward a better future.

“Every question about Israel’s response has to be considered in light of the members of this government, and particularly Netanyahu’s dependence on the far right,” says Waxman, the UCLA professor.

So if “Blame Bibi” is an oversimplification, it’s not much of one. At its heart, the war has gone badly because the man leading it is not up to the task. So long as his government remains in power, the odds of Israel climbing out of its moral and strategic nadir are negligible.

Can things get better?

Dana El Kurd is a senior nonresident fellow at the Arab Center Washington and a leading expert on Palestinian politics. When we talked about the scale of suffering in Gaza, the pain in her voice was palpable. “There’s not even words I can put to it,” she told me.

Despite this, she managed to have some empathy for Israelis — and warn that their current approach isn’t going to make anything better for them. Based on everything she knows about the internal political dynamics of Palestine, continued mass killing will only empower its violent radicals in the long run.

“I totally understand the shock of the October 7 moment, and what it might have meant to Israelis who thought they were immune,” she tells me. But making [Gaza] uninhabitable...is not going to resolve the conflict.”

Palestinian children are silhouetted on a damaged tent following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on February 12, 2024.

Fatima Shbair/AP Photo

Palestinians inspect damage to residential buildings in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on February 12, 2024.

AP Photo/Fatima Shbair

The first step for things getting better is for Israel to take what El Kurd is saying seriously — and fundamentally revise its war aims accordingly.

Israel could do this by committing to a version of the American proposal for the PA to take over Gaza, reorienting its strategy around laying the groundwork for PA entry. The PA has its flaws — it is both demonstrably corrupt and authoritarian — but it is at least credibly committed to peace. And there is no real alternative: An international occupation of Gaza is extremely unlikely, and an indefinite Israeli occupation would be a disaster for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

“The big thing is that something needs to replace Hamas in Gaza, and I think the Biden administration pushing the PA is appropriate,” Byman says. “God help us all, but this is the best we got.”

An alternative option is Israel abandoning its current hope for regime change in Gaza, instead seeking an indefinite ceasefire with Hamas in exchange for full release of the remaining Israeli hostages. This outcome would almost certainly leave Hamas in power. But it would stop a war that’s currently helping no one, allow for a flood of humanitarian aid to help Gazan civilians, and accomplish what a majority of Israelis now see as the primary war aim, bringing the hostages home.

These approaches have their problems, but both are much better than the status quo. Yet Netanyahu has ruled them out, believing that his right flank would abandon him were he to take either option. This means one of two things has to happen: Netanyahu needs to be forced to hold elections or somehow pressured into changing policy.

Part of the pressure will inevitably come domestically. Israeli frustration with the government’s handling of the war, especially its inability to bring the hostages home, is rising. 2024 has seen some return to anti-government protests that were common before the war (though currently at a much smaller scale).

Relatives of Israeli hostages protest against Netanyahu’s government’s refusal to call a ceasefire and exchange hostages with Gaza, in Jerusalem on February 10, 2024.

Saeed Qaq/Anadolu via Getty Images

Other forms of pressure should come from foreign powers — which is also already happening. A group of Arab states are drafting a proposal in which they offer to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel in exchange for a ceasefire and “irreversible” moves toward a Palestinian state. The United States has issued a first-ever executive order sanctioning violent settlers in the West Bank — an economic weapon that could easily be directed against the extremist ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet.

These efforts can and should be expanded, especially on the American side. President Biden’s early and loud support for Israel after October 7 has bought him extraordinary goodwill inside Israel, where he has a roughly 68 percent approval rating. His popularity vastly outstrips Netanyahu’s, which means that the prime minister’s current antagonistic approach toward the White House may be a political miscalculation.

But even if Netanyahu can be forced to change course — or simply forced out of power — the underlying problem will not be resolved. What is needed is not just a temporary peace, but a means to start addressing the roots of the conflict to ensure that the fighting doesn’t start up again.

“The main thing is that people aren’t trying to solve the conflict,” el-Kurd insists. “That’s why the conflict is ongoing.”

Any kind of real solution, then, aims at not just a temporary end to the fighting but resetting the fundamental dynamics of the conflict that brought us to such a terrible place.

“Out of a deal to secure the release of the hostages could become a lasting ceasefire. And out of a lasting ceasefire could become a political process leading to the creation of a Palestinian state,” says Waxman.

This is hard to imagine in the midst of war, with Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians surging and the two-state solution polling poorly among Israelis. But what’s true now may not continue to be true after the shooting stops. Aluf Benn, the editor of leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz, calls the period after October 7 “a turning point”: a moment where the traditional contours of politics have been called into question and it’s possible for things to go differently.

“It is up to Israelis to decide what kind of turning point it will be,” he writes in Foreign Affairs.

Benn is pessimistic that Israelis will take the opportunity to turn toward peace on their own. But there are also signs that the far right’s star is fading in Israel. And with the rest of the world renewing its attention to the conflict, new ideas are starting to emerge. The Arab states’ decision to tie future normalization to a Palestinian state, together with at least some American willingness to put pressure on Israel to change course, are signs that fundamental assumptions are being challenged.

“The only silver lining of things being what they are is that, when they are so bad, people are actively thinking about making it better,” says Mira Sucharov, a political scientist at Carleton University in Ottawa.

That this passes for optimism is a testament to the grim reality on the ground. So many innocent people have already died, and more will die every day until the war ends. Nothing can bring them back to life.

But holding out some hope, even amid the darkness, is better than a descent into nihilism: a belief that Palestinians are defined by Hamas or Israelis by Netanyahu. They are not. We outsiders owe them faith that their basic decency can triumph.

Vox · by Zack Beauchamp · February 20, 2024

​14. Preparing for war, social unrest or a new pandemic? Chinese companies are raising militias like it’s the 1970s

Preparing for war, social unrest or a new pandemic? Chinese companies are raising militias like it’s the 1970s

Analysis by Laura He, CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/21/business/china-corporate-militias-resurgence-int-hnk

 7 minute read 

Updated 9:45 AM EST, Wed February 21, 2024

More than 500 new recruits of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) pictured on September 15, 2020 in Kunming, Yunnan province. China's volunteer brigades support the PLA. Liu Ranyang/China News Service/Getty Images

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.

Hong KongCNN — 

Chinese companies are doing something rarely seen since the 1970s: setting up their own volunteer armies. At least 16 major Chinese firms, including a privately-owned dairy giant, have established fighting forces over the past year, according to a CNN analysis of state media reports.

These units, known as the People’s Armed Forces Departments, are composed of civilians who retain their regular jobs. They act as a reserve and auxiliary force for China’s military, the world’s largest, and are available for missions ranging from responding to natural disasters and helping maintain “social order” to providing support during wartime.

The forces, which do not currently operate outside China, have more in common with America’s National Guard than its militia movement, which refers to private paramilitary organizations that usually have a right-wing political focus.

The establishment of corporate brigades highlights Beijing’s growing concerns about potential conflict abroad as well as social unrest at home as the economy stumbles, analysts say.

The revival is also seen as a response to the pandemic, and part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s efforts to tighten Communist Party control over society, including the corporate sector.

“The return of corporate militias reflects Xi’s rising focus on the need to better integrate economic development with national security as the country faces a more difficult future of slower growth and rising geopolitical competition,” said Neil Thomas, a fellow for Chinese politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

“Corporate militias under military leadership could help the Communist Party more effectively quell incidents of social unrest such as consumer protests and employee strikes,” he said.

China’s economy grew 5.2% in 2023, slightly better than the official target that Beijing had set. But the country is facing a myriad of challenges, including a record property downturn, surging youth unemployment, deflationary pressure, rising corporate defaults and mounting financial stress at local governments.

Protests appear to be spreading as frustration grows. The number of labor strikes and demonstrations surged to 1,794 in 2023, more than doubling from 2022, when 830 cases were recorded, according to data from the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based non-profit organization that monitors workers’ protests.

Just over a year ago, protesters clashed with police at the world’s biggest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, as anger boiled over against Foxconn for reneging on promises to increase pay and benefits to attract workers back after the pandemic.

Outside the corporate sector, militia units are often organized by local governments and universities, according to rules on militia work. These units still exist in most of these places today, only on a much smaller scale than in previous decades.

Depositors protest at the Henan branch of China's banking regulator in 2022 after their funds were frozen. From Lan Nuo Nuo in February

Variety of firms

Most of the companies that have so far announced militias have been state-owned enterprises (SOE), which are directly owned by central or regional governments.

But in December, Yili Group, the world’s fifth largest dairy producer, became the first major privately-controlled Chinese company in recent history to set up a People’s Armed Forces Department unit.

Yili is not majority controlled by the state, but the local government in Hohhot, the city where it is based, has an 8.5% stake, according its most recent exchange filings.

It did not provide any details about the strength of the force or the demographics of the employees who have joined up. According to China’s Military Service Law, male militia members should be 18 to 35 years old. There is some flexibility for people with special skills. Women are also eligible to join, though age requirements have not been specified in the law.

Yili’s unit will be under the direct management of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) garrison in Inner Mongolia, the area where the company is based, and the regional government’s Communist Party committee.

The unit was formed to build a national defense force based at Yili, which can “serve in peacetime, cope with emergencies, and respond in wartime,” said Huang Zhiqiang, executive vice-chairman of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, at a ceremony in the regional capital of Hohhot. A senior military official for the region and the city’s party secretary were also present.

It was latest in a slew of militias established by major Chinese companies in the past year.

An Yili production line in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, on May 29, 2023. Yili Group is China's biggest dairy producer. Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images

In September, the Shanghai Municipal Investment Group, a government-owned property developer and construction firm, set up a People’s Armed Forces Department unit. It would be overseen by the Shanghai garrison of the PLA, according to Jiefang Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party in the city.

Liu Jie, the garrison’s commander, said the militia would assist the army in duties such as providing jobs to demobilized veterans or recruiting soldiers for the military.

At least 14 other state-owned firms have done the same last year, according to CNN’s analysis of state media reports.

They include Mengniu Dairy, China’s second-largest dairy producer; Hai’an Urban Construction Investment and Development in Nantong city, Jiangsu province; three property construction, transportation and water services companies in Huizhou city, Guangdong province as well as nine firms in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.

At a press conference in October, a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry said the push to set up militias at state-owned companies was to “strengthen national defense development.”

A long history

China’s militias predate the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic. In fact, they originated in the 1920s and supported the Communist Party in its numerous battles. After 1949, when the party took control of mainland China, the units were eventually embedded into governments, schools and companies.

The forces were prevalent during the Maoist era from 1949 to 1976 and peaked in the late 1950s — with 220 million members — when military tension was high with the United States over Taiwan, according to government documents.

Militias are a key part of China’s military, which is composed of two full-time professional forces: the PLA and the People’s Armed Police, which is tasked with internal security. Militias play a supporting role to the PLA, according to the country’s defense law.

By enrolling a large number of civilians into the brigades, Mao Zedong, China’s revolutionary leader, said he was enhancing the country’s defense against the threat of “imperial forces” such as the United States. But historians said Mao used the forces to promote his personal agenda and consolidate his power.

He embedded the brigades into the People’s Communes, huge collectives formalized in 1958 that managed almost all economic and political activities in rural China. The communes were a central part of Mao’s Great Leap Forward campaign, a disastrous effort to galvanize agriculture and raise steel production through collectivization that resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Mao also expanded the militia system to suppress and intimidate people who opposed his radical policies, while developing a cult of personality within and outside the party.

Armed police officers and soldiers training in seawater in Fangchenggang City, China's Guangxi autonomous region, on July 24, 2023 Costfoto/NurPhoto/Getty Images

After Mao’s death in 1976, the country started shifting its focus to economic growth rather than political struggle. As the economy took off, membership of militias collapsed to 8 million by 2011, according to most recently available data from the national defense ministry.

Although some SOEs retained their militias, they hadn’t previously existed in major private enterprises until recently, as the private sector only started to re-establish itself after 1978, when China implemented free-market reforms.

Why now?

The resurgence of corporate militias is likely driven by the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent crisis in the real estate sector, according to Timothy Heath, senior international defense researcher at Rand Corporation.

“The Covid-19 pandemic could have played a role in motivating central leaders to seek more effective organizations and forces in society who could help manage and coordinate responses to major national emergencies such as pandemics,” he said.

A years-long property market slump has triggered a widespread mortgage strike. Since 2022, angry homebuyers in many Chinese cities have refused to pay their mortgages for unfinished apartments after cash-strapped developers delayed or abandoned construction.

The fallout from the real estate slump has spread to the financial sector, causing some major shadow banks to default on their investment products, which in turn has stirred demonstrations by people who lost money.

The re-establishment of the People’s Armed Forces Departments is also related to Xi’s larger effort to overhaul the Chinese military, Heath added. The Chinese leader has made no secret of his goal to “modernize” the PLA and transform it into a “world class” fighting force.

“The main purpose of the changes is to improve the military’s ability to carry out a defense mobilization of assets. This can, in the long run, save the PLA resources by delegating some duties to militia forces to care for,” Heath said.

Willy Lam, senior fellow of the Jamestown Foundation, points to a sense of déjà vu.

“We are seeing the revival of Mao’s key slogans — ‘the people’s warfare’ and ‘the organic co-existence of the civilian and military sectors,’” he said.

That might reflect Beijing’s desire to further tighten control over society and put the country on a war footing, just like Mao did in 1950s and 1960s.

Anti-landing spikes placed along the coast of Taiwan's Kinmen islands, which lie just two miles from the Chinese coast (in background), as pictured on October 20, 2020 Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images

In the longer term, Xi might be preparing for an invasion of Taiwan, when “much of China will become militarized,” Lam said, adding that big cities could be turned into “militarized zones” or “ports.”

Xi has vowed that the island’s eventual “reunification” with the mainland is “a historical inevitability.” China’s ruling Communist Party views Taiwan as part of its territory, despite having never controlled it.

“If more and more citizens become members of their militia, their nationalistic fervor will supposedly be raised,” Lam said.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com