Quotes of the Day:

"Political war is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, political being understood to describe purposeful intercourse between peoples and governments affecting national survival and relative advantage.' Political war may be combined with violence, economic pressure, subversion, and diplomacy, but its chief aspect is the use of words, images, and ideas, commonly known, according to context, as propaganda and psychological warfare."

- Paul Smith, On Political War

“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh out.”

- Epictetus

Characteristics of the American Way of War (4 of 13)

4. Problem-solving and Optimistic. Holding to an optimistic public culture characterized by the belief that problems can always be solved, the American way in war is not easily discouraged or deflected once it is exercised with serious intent to succeed. That is to say, not when the American way is manifested in such anti-strategic sins against sound statecraft as the "drive-by" cruise missile attacks of the late 1990s. The problem-solving faith, the penchant for the engineering fix, has the inevitable consequence of leading U.S. policy, including its use of armed force, to attempt the impossible.67 After all, American history is decorated triumphantly with "impossible" achievements, typically against physical geography. Conditions are often misread as problems. Conditions have to be endured, perhaps ameliorated, and generally tolerated, whereas problems, by definition, can be solved.

There are two ways in which an American way of war imbued with a problem-solving spirit is apt to stray from the path of strategic effectiveness. First, irregular enemies, terrorist-insurgents, are not usefully regarded as problems to be solved. As we have observed already, these irregulars are waging a protracted war, eschewing the kind of open engagements that might just produce a clear-cut military decision. Since the irregular foe cannot be brought to battle en masse, he is not a problem that the Army can solve tactically or operationally. Instead, following classic COIN doctrine, the problem of the insurgent is best treated as a condition that has to be addressed indirectly, as security is provided for, and hopefully the trust is gained of, the local people. That has to be a slow, gradual process. If one does not understand that and act accordingly, one has no future in COIN.

-Colin Gray, 2006

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 9, 2023

2. Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine opts to fight on in Bakhmut

3. U.S. intensifying 'every leg of nuclear triad' to ensure deterrence: Gen. Cotton

4. In new cyber workforce strategy, DoD hopes 'bold' retention initiatives keep talent coming back

5. China, Myanmar, North Korea listed as ‘worst of worst’ in freedom report

6. US gearing up for gray zone space warsUS gearing up for gray zone space wars

7. What the Neocons Got Wrong by Max BootW

8. The CIA Says It's Already Fighting Russia's Wagner Mercenaries Abroad

9. CONGRESS SHOULD MANDATE HUMAN RIGHTS VETTING FOR PARTNER FORCES: THE CASE FOR CLOSING THE SECTION 127E LOOPHOLE

10. The Asia-Pacific Is More Important to the US Than the Euro-Atlantic

11. The missile that could save Taiwan from a Chinese invasion

12. Soldiers receive first permanent duty station in Poland

13. Who “Does” MDO? What Multi-Domain Operations Will Mean For—and Require Of—the Army’s Tactical Units

14. Biden’s $842B Pentagon Budget Proposal Would Boost New Weapons

15. In a Changing Security Environment, Defend Your Values

16. Opinion | China is pushing America’s Asian allies together

17. Unfrozen: How the State Department Has Reversed Its ‘Draconian’ Cuts in Just Two Years

18. Biden budget includes billions for Pacific islands in bid to ‘out-compete’ China

19. How to avoid war over Taiwan

20.  Blacks in SOF

1. RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 9, 2023

Maps/graphics: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-9-2023

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces conducted the largest missile strike across Ukraine of 2023 likely only to advance Russian state propaganda objectives.
• Russian forces likely advanced northwest of Bakhmut amid a likely increased tempo of Russian offensive operations in the area.
• The Wagner Group’s offensive operation in eastern Bakhmut appears to have entered a temporary tactical pause and it remains unclear if Wagner fighters will retain their operational preponderance in future Russian offensives in the city.
• Russian forces may be preparing to resume offensive operations around Vuhledar, although persistent personnel and ammunition issues will likely continue to constrain Russian forces from advancing.
• Internal dynamics within the Russian military may be driving the potential resumption of costly offensives near Vuhledar that offer little prospect of operational benefit.
• Russian authorities are likely formalizing structures to create and coopt volunteer-based military formations under state-owned energy companies in order to distribute accountability, reduce burdens on the national budget, and avoid sanctions.
• The Transnistrian occupation government accused the Ukrainian government of involvement in a claimed terrorist plot, likely as part of the Russian information operations to undermine Ukrainian credibility and destabilize Moldova.
• Russian forces continued to conduct ground attacks throughout the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut but have not completed a turning movement or enveloped or encircled the city.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations along the outskirts of Donetsk City and near Vuhledar.
• Russian strikes completely disconnected the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, from all external power sources for 10 hours.
• Ukrainian officials reported that Russian occupation authorities are preparing for a spring 2023 mobilization wave in occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that may include male teenagers born in 2006.
• Russian officials and occupation authorities are continuing efforts to integrate occupied territories into the Russian political and bureaucratic systems.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 9, 2023

Mar 9, 2023 - Press ISW

Download the PDF

Riley Bailey, Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, Angela Howard, George Barros, Layne Philipson, and Frederick W. Kagan

March 9, 8:00 pm ET

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

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 maps that ISW produces daily by showing a dynamic frontline. ISW will update this time-lapse map archive monthly.

Russian forces conducted the largest missile strike across Ukraine of 2023 so far on March 9, but the attack likely only served Russian state propaganda objectives. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces targeted Ukrainian critical infrastructure with 84 different missiles including 28 Kh-101/Kh-555 and 20 Kalibr cruise missiles, six Kh-22 anti-ship missiles, six Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, two Kh-31P supersonic anti-ship missiles, six Kh-59 guided missiles, and at least 13 S-300 air-defense missiles.[1] Russian forces also attacked Ukraine with eight Iranian-made Shahed–136 drones, which Ukrainian officials noted likely sought to distract Ukrainian air defense systems before the missile strikes.[2] Ukrainian forces reportedly shot down 34 of the 48 Kalibr and Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles and four Shahed-136 drones.[3] Ukrainian officials also noted that all eight of the Kh-31P and Kh-59 missiles did not reach their intended targets. Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat noted that Ukrainian forces did not have the capacity to shoot down some of the Russian missiles—likely referring to Kinzhal and S-300 missiles.[4] The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces conducted “high precision long range air, sea, and land-based missile strikes” targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure, military-industrial complexes, and energy infrastructure supporting the Ukrainian military as retaliation for the alleged incursion into Bryansk Oblast on March 2.[5]

Ukrainian officials, Russian milbloggers, and social media footage indicate that Russian forces overwhelmingly targeted energy infrastructure across Ukraine. The head of the Ukrainian state electricity transmission operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrynskyi, stated that Russian missile strikes once again targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure, but yet again failed to achieve Russia’s ongoing goal of destroying Ukrainian power supplies.[6] Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated that Russian strikes hit eight energy sites resulting in power outages in some areas of the country.[7] The Kyiv City Military Administration reported that preliminary data showed that Russian forces may have used Kinzhal missiles to strike unspecified infrastructure, while social media footage showed smoke rising from one of Kyiv’s thermo-electric power plants.[8] Russian milbloggers amplified footage and reports of the aftermath of strikes on energy facilities in the cities of Kyiv, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Odesa, Kirovohrad, and Kharkiv among others.[9] ISW continues to assess that these missile strikes will not undermine Ukraine’s will or improve Russia’s positions on the frontlines.

The Kremlin likely deliberately launched missiles that Ukrainian air defenses cannot intercept to achieve results within the Russian information space despite the dwindling supplies of such missiles. Ihnat noted that Russia has up to 50 Kinzhal missiles and had used some missiles that it cannot replace. Russian President Vladimir Putin likely used these scarce missiles in fruitless attacks to appease the Russian pro-war and ultranationalist communities, which have overwhelmingly called on him to retaliate for the Bryansk Oblast incident on March 2.[10] Russian milbloggers and propagandists have also criticized the Russian missile campaign for failing to make Ukraine “freeze” over the winter in late February and early March before the spring season.[11] Putin likely attempted to offset these narratives with another missile attack similar to the ones that Russia conducted in the fall of 2022, using advanced missiles to guarantee some damage in Ukraine. Russian milbloggers did not overwhelmingly support today‘s strikes, however, noting that the Kremlin needs to fundamentally change its targeting approach given that Ukraine has adapted to the established attack pattern against its energy infrastructure.[12]

Russian forces likely advanced northwest of Bakhmut on March 9 amidst a likely increased tempo of Russian offensive operations in the area. Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Wagner Group fighters completely captured Dubovo-Vasylivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), and geolocated footage published on March 9 indicates that Wagner forces likely captured the settlement.[13]The likely capture of Dubovo-Vasylivka corresponds with the potentially increased tempo of Russian offensive operations northwest of Bakhmut in recent days.[14] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted at least 30 percent of their assaults in Ukraine northwest of Bakhmut on March 8.[15] The Ukrainian General Staff has not reported Russian assaults near Khromove since March 1, and Ukrainian forces have reportedly reestablished river crossings in the area after Russian forces reportedly destroyed a bridge in the area on March 4.[16] ISW has assessed that Ukrainian forces have likely pushed Russian forces back from Khromove since the Ukrainian General Staff’s reporting of the March 1 assaults, and the reported establishment of pontoon bridges suggests that Ukrainian forces are strengthening their positions around the critical ground lines of communications (GLOCs) near Khromove. Russian forces may be temporarily focusing their operational efforts northwest of Bakhmut to set conditions for future offensive operations aimed against these strengthened Ukrainian positions around Khromove or intended to bypass them in a larger envelopment.

The Wagner Group’s offensive operation in eastern Bakhmut appears to have entered a temporary tactical pause and it remains unclear if Wagner fighters will retain their operational preponderance in future Russian offensives in the city. There have been no reports of Wagner fighters conducting offensive operations from eastern Bakhmut into central parts of the city since Russian forces captured all of eastern Bakhmut located east of the Bakhmutka River on March 7.[17] Wagner fighters have been conducting highly attritional frontal assaults on eastern Bakhmut for nine months and are likely not prepared to conduct a crossing of the Bakhmutka River to the Bakhmut city center at this time. The frontal offensive on eastern Bakhmut likely consumed a significant amount of Wagner personnel and resources, although it is not yet evident whether this effort has caused Wagner’s offensive within Bakhmut itself to culminate. Ukrainian Eastern Grouping of Forces Spokesperson Serhiy Cherevaty stated on March 9 that an increasing number of unspecified Russian airborne and mechanized reinforcements have recently arrived at Bakhmut.[18] The arrival of an increased number of conventional Russian forces to the area may suggest that Russian forces intend to offset the possible culmination of Wagner's offensive operations in Bakhmut with new conventional troops. Wagner Group fighters may also be conducting a temporary tactical pause to wait for these conventional Russian reinforcements and replenish themselves in preparation for costly operations within central Bakhmut.

Russian forces may be preparing to resume offensive operations around Vuhledar, although persistent personnel and ammunition issues will likely continue to constrain Russian forces from advancing. Social media footage published on March 8 reportedly shows personnel of the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 58th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District appealing to the Russian military command for more artillery ammunition before they replace the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade of the Pacific Fleet near Vuhledar and conduct ground attacks in the area.[19] The 155th Naval Infantry Brigade bore a significant proportion of the catastrophic losses that Russian forces suffered in their culminated three-week February offensive to capture Vuheldar and has reportedly been reconstituted at least seven times since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[20] Russian forces may be rotating in the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade to replace a severely degraded formation in hopes of renewing offensives near Vuhledar, although this one-for-one replacement does not represent a Russian reinforcement of this effort. Personnel of the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade detailed that they need to conserve their artillery ammunition as Russian forces send the majority of artillery shells to forces fighting around Bakhmut.[21] The 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade is unlikely to achieve tactical advances near Vuhledar that the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade, 40th Naval Infantry Brigade, and other Russian formations failed to make following months of preparation to start offensives in this direction. The likely degradation of other units in the area, significant equipment losses, and the reported continued artillery constraints will likely prevent Russian forces from securing significant tactical gains if they decide to resume offensives in the area.

Internal dynamics within the Russian military may be driving the potential resumption of costly offensives near Vuhledar that promise little operational benefit. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reportedly ordered Eastern Military District (EMD) commander Colonel General Rustam Muradov to take Vuhledar at any cost to settle widespread criticism within the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) about the lack of progress and significant losses in the Vuhledar area.[22] Shoigu recently visited Muradov in western Donetsk Oblast likely to assess the viability of the Vuhledar offensive as well as Muradov’s continued role as EMD commander.[23] ISW previously assessed that Muradov would need new manpower and equipment reserves to follow through on Shoigu’s reported instructions, and the one-for-one replacement of the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade by the 136th Motorized Rifle Brigade does not represent a notable fraction of the reinforcements likely required.[24] It is still not clear if Shoigu has decided to provide Muradov with the necessary resources to resume offensives, but Muradov may decide that he needs to resume offensive operations regardless to demonstrate his competence as EMD commander. ISW assesses that Russian forces would need to advance upwards of 24km from the current frontlines around Vuhledar for this offensive to support operations elsewhere in Donetsk Oblast, a rate of advance that Russian forces have not achieved since the first months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.[25] The resumption of costly offensives around Vuhledar would be a misallocation of already degraded forces to an increasingly nonsensical operational effort, but Muradov’s personal motivations may cause Russian forces in the area to resume these operations nonetheless.

Russian authorities are likely establishing volunteer-based military formations under Russian state-owned energy companies in order to distribute responsibility and accountability for managing units, alleviate burdens on the national budget and regional budgets, and draw on the financial resources of those entities. The BBC reported on March 9 that the Russian Tax Service entered the Zaporizhia-based Sudoplatov volunteer battalion into the register of Russian legal entities—making the battalion a state unitary enterprise.[26] The BBC added that the Russian Tax Service registered the battalion under the same address as state-owned enterprises Tavria-Energo and State Grain Operator.[27] The registration may be connected to the emerging Kremlin effort to establish a state-controlled armed formation analogous to the Russian Combat Army Reserve (BARS) units under Gazprom subsidiary Gazprom Neft.[28] The creation of state-controlled military formations legally nested under energy companies could allow the Kremlin to reduce logistical burdens on the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and regional administrations, delegate clear responsibility for recruitment, recruit volunteers without committing additional federal funding, and provide a hedge against the limitations of the Wagner Group private military company (PMC). The decision to register the Sudoplatov battalion in proximity with Tavria-Energo, an organization that, unlike Gazprom, is not included in the US Treasury Department’s sanctions lists, may provide additional financial incentives, as Tavria-Energo may aid the Sudoplatov battalion in circumventing financial hurdles that a Gazprom Neft-affiliated volunteer formation would face.[29]

The Transnistrian occupation government accused the Ukrainian government of plotting to kill Transnistria’s president, likely as part of the ongoing Russian information operations to undermine Ukrainian credibility and destabilize Moldova. The Transnistrian occupation Ministry of Security Services accused six people, including Ukrainian nationals and Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) personnel, on March 9 of plotting to assassinate senior Transnistrian occupation officials and the occupation head Vadim Krasnoselsky.[30] The SBU stated that the Transnistrian authorities’ accusation is a Kremlin information provocation.[31] ISW has previously reported on increasing Russian information efforts to destabilize Moldova and even draw Transnistria into the war.[32] The Kremlin also tried to undermine Ukraine’s credibility through the recent claimed border incursions in Bryansk Oblast.[33]

Key Takeaways

• Russian forces conducted the largest missile strike across Ukraine of 2023 likely only to advance Russian state propaganda objectives.
• Russian forces likely advanced northwest of Bakhmut amid a likely increased tempo of Russian offensive operations in the area.
• The Wagner Group’s offensive operation in eastern Bakhmut appears to have entered a temporary tactical pause and it remains unclear if Wagner fighters will retain their operational preponderance in future Russian offensives in the city.
• Russian forces may be preparing to resume offensive operations around Vuhledar, although persistent personnel and ammunition issues will likely continue to constrain Russian forces from advancing.
• Internal dynamics within the Russian military may be driving the potential resumption of costly offensives near Vuhledar that offer little prospect of operational benefit.
• Russian authorities are likely formalizing structures to create and coopt volunteer-based military formations under state-owned energy companies in order to distribute accountability, reduce burdens on the national budget, and avoid sanctions.
• The Transnistrian occupation government accused the Ukrainian government of involvement in a claimed terrorist plot, likely as part of the Russian information operations to undermine Ukrainian credibility and destabilize Moldova.
• Russian forces continued to conduct ground attacks throughout the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut but have not completed a turning movement or enveloped or encircled the city.
• Russian forces continued offensive operations along the outskirts of Donetsk City and near Vuhledar.
• Russian strikes completely disconnected the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, from all external power sources for 10 hours.
• Ukrainian officials reported that Russian occupation authorities are preparing for a spring 2023 mobilization wave in occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts that may include male teenagers born in 2006.
• Russian officials and occupation authorities are continuing efforts to integrate occupied territories into the Russian political and bureaucratic systems.

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

• Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine (comprised of two subordinate main efforts)
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #1—Capture the remainder of Luhansk Oblast and push westward into eastern Kharkiv Oblast and encircle northern Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Subordinate Main Effort #2—Capture the entirety of Donetsk Oblast
• Russian Supporting Effort—Southern Axis
• Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts
• Activities in Russian-occupied Areas 

Russian Main Effort—Eastern Ukraine

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

Russian forces continued to conduct ground attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on March 9. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful operations towards Hryanykivka (54km northwest of Svatove), Bilohorivka (12km south of Kreminna), and Spirne (25km southeast of Kreminna).[34] Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast Head Serhiy Haidai reported that Chervonopopivka (6km northwest of Kreminna) remains contested and that control of the settlement changes frequently, and that Russian forces retreated from advanced positions near Chervonopopivka to reconstitute.[35] Haidai also stated that Russian forces attack less frequently near Svatove than on other areas of the front.[36] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces fought northwest of Kreminna near Ploshchanka (16km northwest) and the Zhuravka gully (18km northwest).[37] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces are trying to advance south of Kreminna from Fedorivka (33km southwest) to Vesele (31km south) and conducted ground attacks near Vyimka (26km south) and Spirne (25km southeast).[38] The milblogger also reported that Russian forces have not succeeded in advancing near Bilohorivka despite weeks of offensive operations.

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

Russian forces continued offensive operations in and around Bakhmut on March 9 but have not completed a turning movement, envelopment, or encirclement of the city. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near Bakhmut, within 11km northwest of Bakhmut near Orikhovo-Vasylivka and Dubovo-Vasylivka, and within 15km southwest of Bakhmut near Ivanivske and Oleksandro-Shultyne.[39] Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed that Wagner Group fighters completely captured Dubovo-Vasylivka (6km northwest of Bakhmut), and geolocated footage published on March 9 indicates that Wagner forces likely captured the settlement.[40] Prigozhin added that fighting is ongoing on the outskirts of Dubovo-Vasylivka.[41] Another Russian milblogger claimed that Wagner fighters and conventional Russian forces jointly captured Orikhovo-Vasylivka (11km northwest of Bakhmut), although ISW has not observed any visual confirmation of these claims.[42] Geolocated footage published on March 8 indicates that Russian forces secured marginal gains in southern Bakhmut along the T0513 highway.[43] Russian milbloggers claimed that Wagner fighters conducted assaults towards the western parts of Bakhmut, near Bohdanivka (5km west of Bakhmut), on northern parts of Bakhmut from Yahidne (2km north of Bakhmut), and on the southern parts of Bakhmut from Opytne (2km south of Bakhmut).[44] The Russian milblogger also claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted counterattacks in the eastern part of Bakhmut.[45]

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the outskirts of Donetsk City on March 9. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Avdiivka; within 9km north of Avdiivka near Kamianka and Krasnohorivka; and within 36km southwest of Avdiivka near Sieverne, Pervomaiske, Nevelske, Marinka, and Novomykhailivka.[46] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces broke through Ukrainian defenses near Sieverne (7km west of Avdiivka) from the direction of Opytne (3km south of Avdiivka).[47] A prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces retreated from positions south of Avdiivka to fortified positions in Avdiivka’s industrial zone.[48] The milblogger claimed that elements of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) 2nd Army Corps captured Vesele (7km north of Avdiivka), although the milblogger claimed that the formation is a former Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) People’s Militia formation and therefore may have meant the DNR 1st Army Corps.[49] Another milblogger claimed that Russian forces cut a section of the H-20 highway near Vesele and attacked in the direction of Oleksandropil (17km north of Avdiivka).[50]

Russian forces conducted localized assaults near Vuhledar (30km southwest of Donetsk City) on March 9. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Vuhledar.[51]

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

Ukrainian forces conducted a likely HIMARS strike against a Russian transport hub in Volnovakha, Donetsk Oblast on March 9. Russian occupation authorities accused Ukrainian forces of conducting a strike against an auto transport enterprise in Volnovakha (north of Mariupol at the N20 and T0509 intersection), and geolocated imagery shows severe damage to the building and some busses.[52] Russian sources claimed that the strike destroyed 10 civilian buses.[53] Wagner Group forces reportedly used busses to transport Wagner personnel through southern Ukraine, as ISW has previously reported.[54]

Russian strikes completely disconnected the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, from all external power sources for 10 hours on March 9.[55] Ukrainian nuclear energy operator Energoatom reported that the ZNPP went into full blackout mode, forcing the plant to rely on emergency backup diesel generators to sustain the ZNPP’s essential functions.[56] International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi emphasized that this is the first time the ZNPP lost all external power since November 2022, and the sixth time in the ZNPP’s history.[57] The ZNPP had never lost all power prior to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Grossi expressed frustration at complacency in allowing the security situation at the ZNPP to deteriorate and called for an immediate commitment to protecting the ZNPP.[58]

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

Russian authorities likely are intensifying recruitment efforts in occupied Ukrainian territories. Ukrainian officials reported on March 9 that Russian occupation authorities are preparing for a spring 2023 mobilization wave in occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and that local military recruitment officers requested that educational institutions submit rosters of all boys born in 2006 by April 1.[59] ISW first reported on March 6 that Ukrainian officials observed instances of occupation authorities registering male teenagers born in 2006.[60] Zaporizhia Oblast Occupation Head Yevheny Balitsky also claimed on March 9 that occupation authorities began forming the “Zaporizhia People’s Militia” (“narodnoe opolcheniye”—not an army corps as in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts), an alleged all-volunteer reserve of current and former Zaporizhia Oblast residents.[61]

Friction between and differences in the treatment of mobilized Russian soldiers and Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR/LNR) forces continue to fuel complaints and public appeals. A Russian milblogger amplified a video on March 8 of a crowd of soldiers in Russia’s 1004th Regiment, composed of mobilized soldiers from Kaliningrad, arguing with their commander about their subordination to DNR forces. The soldiers accused DNR commanders of dividing the 1004th Regiment’s elements and sending them on frontal assaults without breaks. They demanded Russian commanders reassign them to territorial defense forces—as Russian officials allegedly promised they would be when they were called up—and threatened to start a fight or commit mass suicide.[62] A Russian opposition news source stated on March 8 that approximately 500 residents of occupied Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts signed an appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin requesting the demobilization of Luhansk and Donetsk oblast residents over the age of 50. The residents reportedly argued that LNR and DNR soldiers should have equal rights and obligations as all Russian citizens, but LNR and DNR forces do not grant mobilized Luhansk and Donetsk oblast soldiers the dismissal rights afforded by the Russian military.[63]

Russian authorities continue to prosecute limited Russian resistance to mobilization and the Russian war in Ukraine. A Russian state-backed news agency reported on March 9 that a Karelia Republic court sentenced an 18-year-old student to two months imprisonment for treason due to his social media calls to help Ukraine and prevent the Russian military from achieving its goals.[64] Russian youth activist organization “The Civil Alliance of Russia” stated on March 8 that Russian security forces arrested its vice chairman for allegedly attempting to sabotage a railway in Petrozavodsk, Karelia Republic.[65]

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

Russian officials and occupation authorities are continuing efforts to integrate occupied territories into the Russian political and bureaucratic systems. Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) Head Leonid Pasechnik claimed that Russia’s “United Russia” ruling political party began accepting documents to register as candidates for preliminary voting in occupied Luhansk Oblast on March 9.[66] Secretary of the Luhansk branch of United Russia and Chairman of the LNR People’s Council Denis Miroshnichenko is the first registered candidate for preliminary voting in occupied Luhansk Oblast.[67] Miroshnichenko claimed that residents in occupied Luhansk Oblast may submit documents for candidacy until April 27.[68] Pasechnik claimed that United Russia will form candidate lists for deputies for the People’s Council of the LNR and deputies of the city council in Luhansk City based on the results of the preliminary voting for final voting at an unspecified time.[69]

Russian officials continue to set conditions for the September local elections in occupied territories. Kherson Occupation Administration Head Vladimir Saldo claimed on March 9 Russian officials have established a regional election commission in occupied Kherson Oblast that has begun work to form territorial election commissions in occupied territories.[70] Saldo also claimed that occupied Kherson Oblast will hold elections for deputies of the Kherson Oblast occupation legislative administration in September 2023.[71]

Russian occupation authorities are intensifying filtration measures and law enforcement efforts in occupied territories, likely in response to continued Ukrainian partisan activities. The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on March 9 that Russian President Vladimir Putin tasked the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) with improving the “anti-terrorism system” on the ground and intensifying work against Ukrainian partisans.[72] Ukrainian Kherson Oblast Military Administration Advisor Serhiy Khlan stated on March 8 that Russian occupation authorities are intensifying security measures at checkpoints in occupied Kherson Oblast.[73] Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo announced on March 9 that he signed an order to strengthen control of all checkpoints in occupied Kherson Oblast, citing threats of “terrorism” as justification to intensify filtration measures.[74] Saldo claimed that authorities in occupied Zaporizhia, Luhansk, and Donetsk oblasts will soon introduce similar measures.[75] Saldo also claimed that officials of the territorial and regional branches of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs opened a police laboratory for genetic research in occupied Kherson Oblast.[76] Saldo claimed that the laboratory has begun conducting examinations of evidence left at crime scenes and emphasized expectations that the laboratory will have a significant impact on the identification of those engaging in criminal activity.[77]

Russian forces continue to forcibly evacuate Ukrainian children to Russia. Head of the “Save Ukraine” fund Myroslava Kharchenko stated on March 9 that were 38 children present in Bakhmut on March 7 but that only 19 children remain as of March 9, stating that Russian forces have forcefully evacuated an unknown number of those children to Russia.[78] Kharchenko also stated that Russian forces are using drones to target busses evacuating Ukrainian children from areas of combat in occupied territories, recalling instances in which Russian forces dropped mines around moving evacuation busses holding children.[79]

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

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

Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported on March 9 that Russia is planning a large-scale provocation on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border on March 11 to falsely portray Ukrainian forces as threatening Belarusian critical infrastructure.[80] The GUR emphasized that Ukrainian forces do not conduct operations on Belarusian territory.

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.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0dX2SbAxXZnt3fZSPXyG... https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0WNnrBDcGRWJPBokBfNQ...

[2] https://armyinform.com dot ua/2023/03/09/devyat-raket-bulo-zbyto-nad-mykolayivshhynoyu-try-nad-hersonshhynoyu-shist-nad-odeshhynoyu-nataliya-gumenyuk/

[3] https://armyinform.com dot ua/2023/03/09/vorog-z-troh-moriv-zavdav-masovanogo-raketnogo-udaru-po-ukrayini-cziyeyi-nochi-yurij-ignat/; https://t.me/CinCAFU/402

[4] https://suspilne dot media/408354-zelenskij-pidtrimav-aktivistiv-u-tbilisi-zinka-vpiznala-sina-na-video-z-rozstrilom-ukrainca-379-den-vijni-onlajn/

[5] https://t.me/mod_russia/24711

[6] https://suspilne dot media/408354-zelenskij-pidtrimav-aktivistiv-u-tbilisi-zinka-vpiznala-sina-na-video-z-rozstrilom-ukrainca-379-den-vijni-onlajn/

[7] https://kyivindependent dot com/national/ukraine-war-latest-russia-launches-largest-missile-attack-against-ukraine-since-january

[8] https://twitter.com/MaxRTucker/status/1633689731753017345

[9] https://t.me/readovkanews/54291; https://t.me/milinfolive/97807; https...

[10] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[11] https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1631259048384372739

[12] https://t.me/readovkanews/54324 ; https://t.me/readovkaru/2642

[13] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/570 ; https://twitter.com/EjShahid/...

[14] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[15] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[16] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02P8sbU4VtovKwKEXGmq... ua/2023/03/04/dosvid-nashyh-zbrojnyh-syl-dozvolyaye-perebudovuvaty-oboronu-pid-bahmutom-cherevatyj/ ; https://t.me/notes_veterans/8387; https://t.me/notes_veterans/8397 ; ...

[17] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[18] https://suspilne dot media/408558-ce-golovnij-napramok-udaru-voroga-cerevatij-pro-boi-na-bahmutskomu-napramku/

[19] https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1633613230382694400  

[20] https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1633613230382694400  ; https... ua/2023/02/27/rosiyany-trymayut-trupy-svoyih-soldativ-na-skladah-aby-ne-vyplachuvaty-groshi-ridnym-spovid-okupanta/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VyogLhqX9E&ab_channel=Центрнаціональногоспротиву

[21] https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1633613230382694400  

[22] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign... https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=943286790440734

[23] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[24] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[25] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[26] https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-64899262 ; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/09/voyuyuschuyu-v-ukraine-dobrovolcheskuyu-gruppirovku-vpervye-zaregistrirovali-kak-kommercheskoe-predpriyatie-v-rf

[27] https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-ass...

[28] https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-ass...

[29] https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/

[30] http://mgb.gospmr dot org/news/v-pridnestrove-predotvrashhen-terakt-podozrevaemye-zaderzhany/; https://t.me/readovkanews/54327 ; https://t.me/readovkanews/54328; https://www.eurointegration.com dot ua/news/2023/03/9/7157643/; https://t.me/readovkanews/54333

[31] https://t.me/SBUkr/7420

[32] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[33] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign... https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-ass...

[34] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02y8faMuVZ86t6tTTvAk...

[35] https://t.me/serhiy_hayday/9595

[36] https://t.me/luhanskaVTSA/9151

[37] https://t.me/rybar/44405

[38] https://t.me/wargonzo/11294

[39] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid02y8faMuVZ86t6tTTvAk... https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0dX2SbAxXZnt3fZSPXyG...

[40] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/570 ; https://twitter.com/EjShahid/...

[41] https://t.me/concordgroup_official/570

[42] https://t.me/strelkovii/4165

[43] https://twitter.com/neonhandrail/status/1633557517577093120; https://twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1633522204003520512

[44] https://t.me/boris_rozhin/80027 ; https://t.me/wargonzo/11294

[45] https://t.me/wargonzo/11294

[46] https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0dX2SbAxXZnt3fZSPXyG...

[47] https://t.me/wargonzo/11294

[48] https://t.me/strelkovii/4165

[49] https://t.me/strelkovii/4165

[50] https://t.me/wargonzo/11294  

[51] https://t.me/strelkovii/4165

[52] https://t.me/nm_dnr/9987; https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1633807872688635905?s=20; https://t.me/WarInMyEyes/2762; https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1633806721964560384?s=20; https://t.me/RtrDonetsk/15633; https://t.me/RtrDonetsk/15634; https://twitter.com/EjShahid/status/1633...

[53] https://t.me/rian_ru/196417; https://t.me/WarInMyEyes/2762; https://t.me/RtrDonetsk/15633; https://t.me/NeoficialniyBeZsonoV/23056

[54] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[55] https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=586306246871538&set=a.2904034297... https://t.me/energoatom_ua/12282

[56] https://t.me/energoatom_ua/12272

[57] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/director-general-statement...

[58] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/director-general-statement...

[59] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/03/09/vorog-gotuye-novu-hvylyu-mobilizacziyi-na-donbasi/; https://t.me/andriyshTime/7493

[60] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign...

[61] https://t.me/BalitskyEV/853; https://t.me/grey_zone/17634

[62] https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1633518847671123968; https://t...

[63] https://t.me/astrapress/22524

[64] https://tass dot ru/proisshestviya/17229565 ; https://meduza dot io/news/2023/03/09/v-karelii-18-letnego-studenta-arestovali-po-obvineniyu-v-podstrekatelstve-k-gosizmene

[65] https://garalliance dot ru/2023/03/08/%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%82%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B8-%D1%84%D1%81%D0%B1-%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B6%D0%B0%D0%BD-%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B5-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B4%D1%81/; https://t.me/astrapress/22520

[66] https://t.me/glava_lnr_info/856

[67] https://t.me/glava_lnr_info/856

[68] https://t.me/glava_lnr_info/856; https://er dot ru/activity/news/sekretar-luganskogo-otdeleniya-edinoj-rossii-predsedatel-narodnogo-soveta-lnr-denis-miroshnichenko-pervym-v-regione-podal-dokumenty-dlya-uchastiya-v-predvaritelnom-golosovanii-partii

[69] https://t.me/glava_lnr_info/856

[70] https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/530

[71] https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/530

[72] https://sprotyv.mod.gov dot ua/2023/03/09/putin-doruchyv-fsb-posylyty-borotbu-z-ukrayinskym-pidpillyam/

[73] https://www.facebook.com/sergey.khlan/posts/pfbid0uMhck1nh1dzeJxaVUSDRvx...

[74] https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/523  

[75] https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/523  

[76] https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/531

[77] https://t.me/SALDO_VGA/531

[78] https://suspilne dot media/408741-vijskovi-rf-poluut-dronami-na-evakuacijni-avtobusi-z-ditmi-koordinatorka-fondu-save-ukraine/

[79] https://suspilne dot media/408741-vijskovi-rf-poluut-dronami-na-evakuacijni-avtobusi-z-ditmi-koordinatorka-fondu-save-ukraine/

[80] https://gur.gov dot ua/content/okupanty-planuiut-masshtabnu-provokatsiiu-na-ukrainsko-biloruskomu-kordoni-orhanizatsiiu-vysvitlennia-podii-dorucheno-propahandystu-soloviovu.html

File Attachments: 

Kharkiv Battle Map Draft March 09,2023.png

Donetsk Battle Map Draft March 09,2023.png

Kherson-Mykolaiv Battle Map Draft March 09,2023.png

Zaporizhia Battle Map Draft March 09,2023.png

DraftUkraineCoTMarch09,2023.png

2. Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine opts to fight on in Bakhmut

Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine opts to fight on in Bakhmut

March 10, 20235:52 AM ESTLast Updated an hour ago

Reuters · by Reuters

March 10 (Reuters) - Ukraine has decided to fight on in the ruined city of Bakhmut because the battle there is pinning down Russia's best units and degrading them ahead of a planned Ukrainian spring counter-offensive, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

FIGHTING

* The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was reconnected to Ukraine's energy grid, grid operator Ukrenergo said, after it lost power during a wave of air strikes.

* Ukraine's military said its forces had repelled 102 Russian attacks on the eastern mining town of Bakhmut in the past 24 hours.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.

ECONOMY/DIPLOMACY

* Expressing a readiness to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin to call for peace, Pope Francis said the conflict in Ukraine was fuelled by "imperial interests, not just of the Russian empire, but of empires from elsewhere".

* Russia said a landmark deal to ensure the safe export of grain from Ukraine's Black Sea ports was only being "half-implemented", raising doubts about whether it would allow an extension of the agreement due to expire next week.

* Several tankers loaded with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) have been unable to cross under Russia's Crimea bridge due to security restrictions, traders said on Friday, prompting suppliers to use other routes out of Russia.

* German Chancellor Olaf Scholz can detect no willingness on the part of Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, he told the NBR group of German newspapers.

* Turkey has acknowledged that Sweden and Finland have taken concrete steps to meet Ankara's concerns over their bids to join NATO and the three will hold further meetings, Sweden's chief negotiator in the accession process said.

Compiled by Reuters editors

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Reuters

3. U.S. intensifying 'every leg of nuclear triad' to ensure deterrence: Gen. Cotton

While this is important and it is necessary to make these statements. We should ask do these statements reassure the Korean people in the South and do they contribute to deterrence of the Kim family regime.

These comments make sense to national security practitioners but we need to consider what it will take to reassure the Korean people in the South as well as Japan about our commitment to extended deterrence. Of course the most important target remains Kim Jong Un himself (as well as his military leadership to include his second tier military leaders).

U.S. intensifying 'every leg of nuclear triad' to ensure deterrence: Gen. Cotton | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 변덕근 · March 10, 2023

By Byun Duk-kun

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Yonhap) -- The United States is enhancing every component of its nuclear capabilities to deter any potential aggression from North Korea, Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said Thursday.

The Air Force general noted the threat posed by North Korea continues to grow but so does U.S. deterrent capabilities.

"North Korea continues to be a rogue actor and poses a threat to the United States and our allies," Gen. Cotton said in a hearing before the Senate Committee on Armed Services.

"North Korea conducted an unprecedented number of missile launches in 2022 and its new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), referred to as KN-28, highlight that the security challenge continues to grow," he added.

Youtube

https://youtu.be/CoCC0GTHN8M

Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, is seen delivering remarks during a Senate armed services committee hearing in Washington on March 9, 2023 in this captured image. (Yonhap)

North Korea fired 69 ballistic missiles last year, nearly three-times more than its previous annual record of 25. The country has also conducted nine ICBM tests in less than a year with its latest ICBM launch taking place last month.

Cotton emphasized the importance of effective extended deterrence, as well as strong alliances, to meet threats and challenges posed by North Korea.

"We are meeting today's challenges with integrated deterrence," he said. "Our unmatched network of allies is a key component of integrated deterrence and these relationships are underpinned by our extended deterrence commitments."

"These commitments are enabled by a safe, secure, effective and credible nuclear deterrent. The credibility of our extended deterrence commitments is not only part of the nation's iron-clad commitment to our allies, but it's also essential in limiting proliferation," added Cotton.

Extended deterrence refers to U.S. commitment to defend its allies, using all its military capabilities, including nuclear weapons when necessary.

Cotton said the U.S. is developing or recapitalizing "every leg of the nuclear triad" to further enhance its extended deterrence.

"The nation's nuclear forces underpin integrated deterrence and enables the U.S., our allies and our partners to confront aggressive and coercive behavior," Cotton told the hearing.

"To ensure our continued ability to serve as the bedrock of integrated deterrence, we are recapitalizing every leg of the nuclear triad, and the nuclear command control and communication systems," he added.

bdk@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 변덕근 · March 10, 2023

4. In new cyber workforce strategy, DoD hopes 'bold' retention initiatives keep talent coming back

There are recruiting and retention issues across the entire force. Does one size fit all or do we need to tailor efforts by branch and discipline? Hopefully these efforts will pay off and maybe some will be useful for other branches and services.

In new cyber workforce strategy, DoD hopes 'bold' retention initiatives keep talent coming back - Breaking Defense

"Everyone recognizes our shortages and our problem," Mike Gorak said. "So we're going to try new things and we're going to try innovative things, which, not all will work. and that's okay."

breakingdefense.com · by Jaspreet Gill · March 9, 2023

The Pentagon logo, after some technical difficulties. (Graphic by Breaking Defense)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s biggest challenge when it comes to developing its cyber workforce isn’t attracting personnel, it’s retaining them. And with a long-awaited cyber workforce strategy finally released today taking direct aim at that problem, the real question is whether DoD can effectively implement it.

The DoD Cyber Workforce Strategy [PDF] is meant to guide the Defense Department on how to close its cyber workforce development gaps and retain talent from now until fiscal 2027. In a briefing with reporters today ahead of the strategy’s release, Mark Gorak, DoD chief information office’s principal director for resources and analysis, said DoD has “chosen to be bold” with the new strategy.

“Everyone recognizes our shortages and our problem,” Gorak said. “So we’re going to try new things and we’re going to try innovative things, which, not all will work. and that’s okay. My thinking is, again, we haven’t kept pace with what we’ve been doing now. So let’s try some new things and try to make those work.”

The strategy, some of which was revealed last month as Breaking Defense reported, outlines four “human capital pillars,” or broad goals: identifying workforce requirements, recruiting talent, developing talent to meet mission requirements and retaining talent.

That last effort is DoD’s biggest struggle when it comes to the cyber workforce because it can’t compete with the private sector on salary, Gorak said today. So they’re not going to, exactly.

“So we have to compete on mission and other tangibles to the department — leadership, organizational culture, mission is the key there,” he said. “However, it’s okay, because…the United States needs this talent, corporations need this talent and we need theirs. So I view it as a partnership between the department and federal agencies and industry, private sector, that we all work together.”

As part of creating that “flow” between industry and DoD, the strategy calls for DoD to pilot an “apprenticeship program to develop dedicated employment exchanges with the private sector,” or as Gorak put it, maintain the relationships with DoD personnel who might leave the private sector and then want to come back to the Pentagon.

The strategy also notes that DoD has started implementing “new authorities for the workforce to provide flexibility in the management and maturity of current and future workforce members.”

RELATED: DoD’s New Cyber Workforce Strategy Creates New AI, Data-Focused Work Roles

There needs to be a “cultural shift” within DoD in how it acquires and manages talent in order to overcome recruitment and retention challenges, said Patrick Johnson, director of the DoD CIO’s workforce innovation directorate.

The strategy notes that the cyber talent pipeline is still limited and DoD must expand the workforce with diverse roles. As part of that push, the new strategy calls for developing an enterprise-wide talent management program to unify the workforce under a “common umbrella” and shifting how it attracts talent to include previously “untapped or under-represented sources of talent.”

“Cyber work roles are performed by a mix of DoD civilian employees in the competitive service and excepted service, military officers and enlisted personnel and contracted support personnel,” the strategy says. “This strategy must drive unity of effort across organizations.”

The Pentagon has been hyping up the release of the cyber workforce strategy for months and is now in the process of implementing the efforts laid out within the document. Those are currently in their initial stages and a separate implementation plan will be released “soon,” Gorak said.

According to the strategy, when it comes to implementation, DoD “must continue to mature and measure these initiatives to advance the agility and capability of the cyber forcework across the DoD enterprise, at the component level and within individual commands.” The strategy instructs DoD to establish a “Cyber Workforce Development Fund” to accelerate its implementation and review existing authorities to attract a broader pool of talent.

Gorak added that the DoD CIO’s office is currently trying to get all the military services engaged and incentivized to get on board with the new strategy.

In a lead up to the strategy’s release, DoD published Manual 8140.03, the Cyberspace Workforce Qualification and Management Program. The memo, signed on Feb. 13, establishes baseline standards for the qualification of DoD’s cyberspace workforce and includes new artificial intelligence, software and data-focused work roles.

Gorak said DoD CIO’s office worked with the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office and the Under Secretary of Researching and Engineering Office to develop those work roles.

“So with that framework, we’re able to work and identify the workforce we have to have specific targets, for instance, for incentives, and also to clearly show within the work roles are shortages,” he said.

5. China, Myanmar, North Korea listed as ‘worst of worst’ in freedom report

See the RFA graphic on areas "not free" for RFA coverage at the link: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/freedom-house-china-myanmar-03092023142745.html

China, Myanmar, North Korea listed as ‘worst of worst’ in freedom report

Chinese Communist Party plays ‘leading role’ in promoting autocracy, think tank says.

By Matt Reed for RFA

2023.03.09

rfa.org

The Chinese Communist Party plays “a leading role in promoting authoritarian norms” around the world as some leaders show a willingness to collaborate in spreading new forms of repression, according to a report from Washington-based think tank Freedom House.

However, even as democratic freedom suffers global setbacks, fundamental rights continue to have “an appeal and capacity for renewal” in places like Myanmar, where people have shown they are willing to risk their lives in pursuit of freedom, the report found.

Among the 56 countries listed as “Not Free” around the world, North Korea, China and Myanmar were listed as among “the worst of the worst.” Additionally, out of 39 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, nine were listed as “not free” and 13 were deemed only “partly free.”

“Political rights and civil liberties declined across the region as authoritarian forces moved to consolidate their power,” the report said. “The trend was most dramatic in Afghanistan and Myanmar, where elected civilian leaders were forced from office.”

The report noted the arrests in early 2022 of prominent pro-democracy politicians in Hong Kong who took part in primary elections to consolidate the democratic opposition. They continued to be detained through December’s Legislative Council balloting – something that Freedom House said “underscored Beijing’s success in dismantling the territory’s semi-democratic institutions.”

Crackdowns in Asia also affected journalists and civil society movements, especially in countries whose institutions were already vulnerable, the report said.

China, Myanmar

“In China, one of the world’s most restrictive media environments, journalists faced heightened scrutiny and rigorous political indoctrination when attempting to renew their press licenses, and even individuals who engaged in solitary forms of protest were punished with prison sentences,” it said.

The biggest contraction in freedom took place in Myanmar, which has seen the widespread arrests of civilian political leaders following the 2021 military coup d’etat, Freedom House said.

“Over a thousand people have been killed as security forces crack down on pro-democracy protests, and thousands of others have been thrown in jail and tortured,” the report said. “The military authorities imposed curfews, repeatedly shut down the internet, raided universities, and searched for human rights defenders and pro-democracy activists to arrest.”

The country’s recent turmoil is “another sign that international deterrents against antidemocratic behavior are losing force,” the report said. However, Freedom House noted that “a widespread civil disobedience movement against the military coup has persisted in the face of violent reprisals.”

Resistance has denied the military regime “legitimacy and crippled its ability to function as a government, reflecting both the people’s commitment to democracy and the power it gives them to shape events.”

In Singapore, authorities forced one of the few independent news outlets to close after its license was suspended. And in Thailand, authorities expanded their ability to prosecute people for publishing news that could incite fear in the public.

A security officer stands guard after the second plenary session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday, March 7, 2023. Credit: AFP

China’s leading role

Worldwide, the enemies of liberal democracy “are accelerating their attacks” as regimes “have become more effective at co-opting or circumventing the norms and institutions meant to support basic liberties, and at providing aid to others who wish to do the same,” the report said, noting that there have been 16 consecutive years of decline in global freedom.

“The leaders of China, Russia, and other dictatorships have succeeded in shifting global incentives, jeopardizing the consensus that democracy is the only viable path to prosperity and security, while encouraging more authoritarian approaches to governance,” it said.

The Chinese Communist Party “offers an alternative to democracies as a source of international support and investment, helping would-be autocrats to entrench themselves in office, adopt aspects of the CCP governance model, and enrich their regimes while ignoring principles like transparency and fair competition,” the report said.

“At the same time, the CCP has used its vast economic clout and even military threats to suppress international criticism of its own violations of democratic principles and human rights, for instance by punishing governments and other foreign entities that criticize its demolition of civil liberties in Hong Kong or question its expansive territorial claims.”

Freedom House pointed to a Marriott hotel’s refusal to host a November 2021 World Uyghur Congress gathering in the Czech Republic, saying it preferred to observe “political neutrality.” New Zealand’s Parliament also refrained from identifying Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang province as a genocide after the trade minister said such language could hurt economic relations with China.

Turkey was once a haven for Uyghurs fleeing China, but the country “has increasingly shifted its stance to meet Beijing’s demands” by making it more difficult for Uyghurs to obtain permanent residence permits, the report found.

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

rfa.org

6.  US gearing up for gray zone space warsUS gearing up for gray zone space wars

Excerpts:

Malcolm Davis points out in a June 2021 article for The Strategist that the key to space-based gray zone operations is to mask aggressive acts behind commercial activities while exploiting the resulting confusion and plausible deniability.

Davis also notes that space-based gray zone operations increase the risk of orbit, given the borderless nature of the space domain, dual-use space technology and the difficulty of responding to events thousands of kilometers above the ground.

Dean Cheng, in a January article for GIS, notes the challenges posed by the growing role of space companies that function as independent strategic players that nonetheless become extensions of state power.

Cheng notes space companies now provide critical capabilities, including high-resolution earth imaging, data relay, and Internet access, that were previously the sole domain of state space programs. 

Cheng notes that Western space companies may coordinate with Western governments in deciding to whom they provide services, while non-Western space companies, such as those established in Asia, Latin America and Africa, may disregard Western sensitivities in choosing and supplying their clients.

Cheng also mentions that, at present, space companies generally lack a unified set of norms and standards, a problem that is intensifying as more players enter the scene. Cheng also says that space companies may ally themselves with specific states or become tools of national power.

US gearing up for gray zone space wars

US defense planners formulating responses to possible Russia or China attack on privately-run, military-oriented Starlink satellite system

https://asiatimes.com/2023/03/us-gearing-up-for-gray-zone-space-wars/https://asiatimes.com/2023/03/us-gearing-up-for-gray-zone-space-wars/

By GABRIEL HONRADA

MARCH 10, 2023By GABRIEL HONRADA

MARCH 10, 2023

Russia sees a military threat in SpaceX's Starlink satellite system. Conceptual Image: Facebook

US defense planners are mulling response options to an adversary attack on privately-owned, military-oriented satellites amid rising concerns of gray zone warfare in space.

This month, The Washington Post reported that the US is developing policy responses to a possible Russian or other adversary state attack on the Starlink satellite constellation.

Starlink, operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, has given Ukraine a decisive edge in the ongoing conflict, providing battlefield communications, artillery fire direction and supporting drone operations.

However, the report mentions that those responses are still being formulated, as several US agencies work to develop a policy framework to set reaction parameters if a satellite owned by a US commercial company comes under attack.

“First, commercial companies are thinking very clearly and carefully about, can we be involved? Should we be involved? What are the implications of being involved? … And on our side, it’s exactly the same thing. Should we depend on commercial services? Where can we depend on commercial services?” said General David Thompson, US Space Force Vice Chief of Operations.

Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system has given Ukraine an edge in its war with Russia. Image: Twitter

Thompson’s comments, reported by the Washington Post, reflect the threat mentioned last October by Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Nonproliferation and Arms.

Vorontsov said the growing use of privately-owned satellites to support military operations is “an extremely dangerous trend that goes beyond the harmless use of outer-space technologies and has become apparent during the latest developments in Ukraine,” the Washington Post report said. He also warned that “quasi-civilian infrastructure may become a legitimate target for retaliation.” 

In response to Vorontsov’s comments, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated that any attack on US infrastructure would be met with a response in a time and manner of its choosing.

The partnership between space companies and governments blurs the distinction between commercial and national capabilities. The resulting ambiguity creates confounding situations on how to respond to a state attack against commercial satellites supporting military operations.

The threat aligns with the basic principle of gray zone warfare, which involves coercive action short of military force.

Malcolm Davis points out in a June 2021 article for The Strategist that the key to space-based gray zone operations is to mask aggressive acts behind commercial activities while exploiting the resulting confusion and plausible deniability.

Davis also notes that space-based gray zone operations increase the risk of orbit, given the borderless nature of the space domain, dual-use space technology and the difficulty of responding to events thousands of kilometers above the ground.

Dean Cheng, in a January article for GIS, notes the challenges posed by the growing role of space companies that function as independent strategic players that nonetheless become extensions of state power.

Cheng notes space companies now provide critical capabilities, including high-resolution earth imaging, data relay, and Internet access, that were previously the sole domain of state space programs. 

Cheng notes that Western space companies may coordinate with Western governments in deciding to whom they provide services, while non-Western space companies, such as those established in Asia, Latin America and Africa, may disregard Western sensitivities in choosing and supplying their clients.

Cheng also mentions that, at present, space companies generally lack a unified set of norms and standards, a problem that is intensifying as more players enter the scene. Cheng also says that space companies may ally themselves with specific states or become tools of national power.

Destructive anti-satellite missile tests generate huge amounts of space debris that can endanger other satellites and manned spacecraft. Photo: Atalayar

He mentions that Chinese and Russian space companies are state-owned or heavily integrated into their respective national industrial complexes. He also notes that Chinese, Russian and US space companies are expected to side with their state supporters.

Given that, Cheng says that Western firms may seek protection by siding with Western governments or remaining neutral in cases of conflicting interests.

He also says that space companies founded by emerging players in Asia, Latin America, and Africa will likely reflect their home government’s foreign policy, which may not align with those of more prominent players such as the US, China and Russia.

As space becomes more crowded with private firms, enacting norms for responsible use may become more challenging. In a May 2021 article for Defense One, Patrick Tucker notes that major space players such as China, Russia and the US seem halfhearted or disinterested in pushing for space norms and agreements that may curtail any military advantage and hold them responsible for their actions. 

While Tucker notes that the US is reaching out to “like-minded countries” to create norms for the use of space, it has yet to enter into any legally binding agreements.

Despite the US declaring a self-imposed moratorium on testing destructive anti-satellite missiles of the like China and Russia have under development, the US is pursuing more potent satellite-killing technologies such as ground-based mobile lasers, radiofrequency jammers, microwave weapons and even hunter-killer satellites.

7. What the Neocons Got Wrong by Max Boot

Excerpts:

So what was neoconservatism about? In the very first issue of the neoconservative publication The Public Interest, in 1965, its founders—Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol—expressed suspicion of all attempts to oversimplify complicated public policy issues by falling back on “ideology, whether it be liberal, conservative or radical.” That magazine would become a forum for dense, closely argued essays on vexing social science problems, not for sweeping ideological manifestos. In explaining the name of their magazine, Bell and Kristol cited the columnist Walter Lippmann’s definition of the “public interest”: “The public interest may be presumed to be what men would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, acted disinterestedly and benevolently." Sexist language aside, that remains a good guide to public policy, whether at home or abroad—and it is one that I regret to say I sometimes disregarded in my zeal to spread freedom.

Lippmann, it should be noted, was originally a liberal internationalist whose views were not all that different from those of the modern neocons. He began his long and influential journalistic career as a liberal idealist who helped draft President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points to “make the world safe for democracy” and ended it as a liberal realist who opposed U.S. intervention in Vietnam. That’s a trajectory I can understand.

What the Neocons Got Wrong

And How the Iraq War Taught Me About the Limits of American Power

By Max Boot

March 10, 2023

Foreign Affairs · by Max Boot · March 10, 2023

Shortly after September 11, 2001, I became known as a “neoconservative.” The term was a bit puzzling, because I wasn’t new to conservatism; I had been on the right ever since I could remember. But the “neocon” label came to be used after 9/11 to denote a particular strain of conservatism that placed human rights and democracy promotion at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. This was a very different mindset from the realpolitik approach of such Republicans as President Dwight Eisenhower, President Richard Nixon, and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and it had a natural appeal to someone like me whose family had come to the United States in search of freedom. (We arrived from the Soviet Union in 1976, when I was six years old.) Having lived in a communist dictatorship, I supported the United States spreading freedom abroad. That, in turn, led me to become a strong supporter of military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Traditional conservatives, such as U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, wanted to teach the Taliban and Saddam Hussein a lesson and then depart each country as quickly as possible. The neoconservative position—which eventually triumphed in the George W. Bush administration—was that the United States could not simply topple the old regimes and leave chaos in their wake. The Americans had to stay and work with local allies to build democratic showcases that could inspire liberal change in the Middle East. In this way, Washington could finally lance the boil of militant Islamism, which had afflicted America ever since the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.

Regime change obviously did not work out as intended. The occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq were, in fact, fiascos that exacted a high price in both blood and treasure, for both the United States and—even more, of course—the countries it invaded. As the saying goes, when the facts change, I change my mind. Although I remain a supporter of democracy and human rights, after seeing how democracy promotion has worked out in practice, I no longer believe it belongs at the center of U.S. foreign policy. In retrospect, I was wildly overoptimistic about the prospects of exporting democracy by force, underestimating both the difficulties and the costs of such a massive undertaking. I am a neocon no more, at least as that term has been understood since 9/11.

Today, I am much more cognizant than I once was of the limitations of American power and hence much more skeptical of calls to promote democracy in China, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Venezuela, and—fill in the blank. The United States should continue to champion its ideals and call out human rights abuses, but it should do so with humility and not be ashamed to prioritize its own interests. Foreign policy cannot be solely or even mainly an altruistic exercise, and attempting to make it so is likely to backfire in ways that will hurt the very people Americans are trying to help.

Above all, the United States must be more careful about the use of military power than it was in the heady days of the “unipolar moment” following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The era of great-power competition is back with a vengeance. Although the United States remains the world’s strongest military power and has interests and responsibilities around the world, it cannot afford to squander its strength in conflicts of marginal importance.

THE REGIME CHANGE FALLACY

Twenty years ago, in early 2003, Saddam was clinging to power, and the Bush administration was preparing to launch an invasion to overthrow him. I would never have supported military action had I known that he was not actually building weapons of mass destruction, but what I really wanted was to get rid of Iraq’s cruel dictator, not just his purported weapons program. One of the central arguments that I and other supporters of an invasion made was that regime change could trigger a broader democratic transformation in the Middle East. I now cringe when I read some of the articles I wrote at the time. “This could be the chance to right the scales, to establish the first Arab democracy, and to show the Arab people that America is as committed to freedom for them as we were for the people of Eastern Europe,” I wrote in The Weekly Standard—the now defunct flagship of the neoconservative movement—a month after 9/11. “To turn Iraq into a beacon of hope for the oppressed peoples of the Middle East: Now that would be a historic war aim.”

In hindsight, that was dangerous naivete born out of a combination of post–Cold War hubris and post-9/11 alarm. I desperately wanted to believe that spreading freedom could solve the security dilemmas confronting the United States—that by doing good in the world, it could also serve its national security interests.

It would have been nice if it had worked out that way, but it didn’t, and I should have realized at the time how far-fetched the entire mission was. Who were Americans to think that they could transform an entire region with thousands of years of its own history? I am still kicking myself for not paying greater attention to a wise op-ed I ran in 2002, when I was the op-ed editor at The Wall Street Journal. Under the headline “Don’t Attack Saddam,” the experienced foreign policy hand Brent Scowcroft accurately predicted that an invasion of Iraq would require “a large-scale, long-term military occupation” and “swell the ranks of the terrorists.” I discounted such warnings because I was dazzled by the power of the U.S. military after its victories in the Gulf War and the invasion of Afghanistan—and dazzled also by the arguments of neoconservative scholars such as Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami that Iraq offered fertile soil for democracy. In hindsight, I am amazed and appalled that I fell prey to these mass delusions.

Like the war in Vietnam, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq offered a potent warning about the dangers of good intentions gone awry. The 2011 U.S. intervention in Libya under the Obama administration, which I also supported, later confirmed on a smaller scale those same lessons. The United States and its allies bombed Muammar al-Qaddafi’s forces, leading to his overthrow and murder, but the result was not the blooming of a Jeffersonian democracy in the desert. To this day, Libya remains trapped in a Hobbesian hell of internecine warfare and lawlessness. In all those countries, the United States was so eager to spread democracy, just as it was once eager to contain communism, that it inflicted great misery on the very people it was supposed to be helping—and then left them in the lurch.

As a result, I am hardly alone in souring on wars of regime change. I have even become skeptical of trying to foment regime change by covert action or strict sanctions—policies that many still advocate in such countries as China, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela, where odious, anti-American regimes have faced large protest movements in the recent past. Covert actions seldom work. Witness the failure of U.S.-supported rebels to topple the murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the failure of U.S.-supported rebels to topple Saddam before 2003. Sanctions are often unavoidable when the United States wants to impose a cost on rogue regimes for their wrongdoing, but (with only a few exceptions, such as apartheid South Africa) they generally are not effective in bringing down autocrats.

GETTING REAL ON IRAN

Yet many of my erstwhile ideological allies have not reached the same conclusions about the folly of regime change. Last October, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which is often described as a neoconservative think tank, released a paper calling for the “maximum support for the Iranian people.” Most of what the report recommended—such as using “cyber capabilities in support of protesters,” enabling “censorship circumvention,” expanding “human rights sanctions,” and condemning “Iran within international organizations”—was eminently sensible. Much of it, indeed, was already being implemented by the Biden administration. But FDD went too far in calling for an end to diplomatic efforts to get Iran to rejoin the nuclear deal that U.S. President Donald Trump foolishly exited in 2018. This was one of the worst foreign policy decisions in U.S. history. Iran had been abiding by the accord, but today, it is a nuclear threshold state with enough highly enriched uranium to produce at least one nuclear weapon.

The United States is running out of options to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The only obvious alternative to a diplomatic solution is a military solution. Years ago, I might have said this was a risk worth running (indeed, I basically suggested as much in 2011), but, given how advanced the Iranian nuclear program has become, I no longer believe that. As I wrote in 2019, air strikes are unlikely to destroy all of Iran’s well-protected nuclear facilities, and they could well trigger a regional conflagration. They could even backfire by convincing Iran to actually build a nuclear weapon. It would be wonderful if liberal protesters were to overthrow the regime and end its nuclear program, but most Iran experts seem to agree that there is no imminent danger of regime collapse. Indeed, protests that began in the fall have already waned. And there is no reason to think that any amount of U.S. intervention, short of outright invasion, could hasten the fall of the ayatollahs.

Opponents of diplomacy with Iran contend that the country would be strengthened by the windfall it would receive if it rejoined the nuclear deal and sanctions were lifted. In truth, the regime has no trouble funding its security forces and repressing dissent even without a nuclear deal. By one count, from mid-September 2022 to early January 2023, 516 protesters had been killed and more than 19,200 arrested. But even if it were true that a nuclear deal would strengthen the state’s capacity for internal repression, that would be a price worth paying for the United States if it actually led Iran to stop its rush to build the bomb. An Iran with nuclear weapons would threaten the United States and its allies and would likely lead some of its neighbors (such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey) to acquire nukes of their own.

The United States is running out of options to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Of course, the whole debate is academic at the moment, because the hard-liners in Tehran have shown no willingness to rejoin a deal they abhor as much as U.S. and Israeli hard-liners do. No doubt, like other dictators around the world (such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Un), the mullahs have studied recent history and drawn the logical conclusions: Qaddafi and Saddam were overthrown by the United States after giving up their weapons of mass destruction programs. Hence, any dictator who wants to stay in power should develop a nuclear arsenal. This is yet another way that the U.S. zeal in spreading democracy has backfired. The error was compounded in the case of Iran by Trump’s exit from the imperfect but important nuclear deal without having a Plan B. His decision will be scrutinized for years to come as a case study of the dangers of prioritizing politics above prudence in the conduct of foreign affairs.

At this point, there are few good options left with Iran. U.S. or Israeli covert action—assassinating weapons scientists or spreading computer viruses—will only slightly delay a program that can soon produce a nuclear weapon. Washington should keep trying to reach a diplomatic breakthrough, but assuming that fails, it will need to rely on deterrence and containment, as it did during the Cold War. That means resisting the spread of Iranian power by working through regional allies such as Israel and the Gulf states and making clear to Iran that any use of nuclear weapons would lead to its own destruction.

No matter how abhorrent the Iranian regime is, the United States should, if possible, return an ambassador to Tehran to open lines of communication. Likewise, Washington needs to maintain close contact with Beijing to avoid a nuclear confrontation, even as it condemns the regime’s egregious human rights abuses, from Xinjiang to Hong Kong. So, too, does the United States need to talk to Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, even as it condemns the murder of The Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi and the imprisonment of dissidents. The United States cannot simply cut off a country that is a key ally against Iran and the world’s top oil exporter.

THE WORLD AS IT IS

Dealing with repressive regimes is unsavory and unpopular—for good reason—but in most cases, the United States doesn’t have the luxury of simply cutting them off and slapping them with sanctions. Such policies may be morally satisfying, but they are not particularly effective. As I suggested in November, to the outrage of the right, the United States might be able to do more for the people of Cuba and Venezuela by easing sanctions in return for human rights improvements rather than demanding regime change. Likewise, it should not be afraid to offer North Korea an easing of sanctions in exchange for a freeze or rollback of its nuclear program, even if that results in more money for the country’s Stalinist regime. (Of course, Pyongyang has shown no interest in such a deal.)

Washington should still call out human rights abuses. It should still champion liberal dissidents, such as the Russian political prisoners Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Ilya Yashin and the brave Iranian demonstrators risking arrest and execution. It should send military aid to embattled democracies, from Ukraine to Taiwan. Even though I am no longer as idealistic as I once was, I have not become the kind of self-styled realist who blames the United States for Russian aggression or thinks that it should sacrifice Ukraine as the price of peace. Nor do I approve of a president kowtowing to dictators (as Trump did). The United States remains the world’s most powerful liberal democracy, and it has a moral obligation to at least speak up for its principles.

But there is a crucial difference—one I did not sufficiently appreciate in the past—between defending democracy and exporting democracy. The United States has a better track record of the former (think Western Europe during the Cold War) than the latter (think Afghanistan and Iraq). Twenty years ago, many advocates of regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan, myself included, were misled by the U.S. success in transforming Italy, Germany, and Japan after World War II. What we failed to grasp was that these countries benefited from unique historical circumstances—including high levels of economic development, widespread social trust, strong states, and a blank slate created by defeat in a total war—that, it turns out, are nearly impossible to replicate. It was and is foolish to try.

Outsiders can barely understand local societies, much less manipulate them successfully.

Even when it comes to defending democracy, Washington must sometimes make difficult decisions based on a realistic assessment of local conditions far removed from the airy abstractions favored in U.S. political debates. Both South Korea and South Vietnam were worth defending from communist aggression, but the Koreans showed greater skill and willingness to fight for their own freedom than the South Vietnamese did. The United States needs to be hardheaded in its assessment of where it has local partners that can be successful and where it doesn’t.

Ukraine easily meets the test, because its government enjoys the enthusiastic support of its people, and its military has shown itself to be skilled and motivated. By contrast, the regime that the United States and its allies created in Kabul after the overthrow of the Taliban never had sufficient popular legitimacy. As a result, the Afghan military had insufficient motivation to fight on its own. I still opposed the pullout negotiated by Trump and executed by President Joe Biden because I thought it was possible to keep the Taliban out of power at relatively low cost, and I feared the dangerous signal that a U.S. exit would send to other aggressors. Today, I favor maintaining U.S. military advisers in Iraq as a hedge against the power of Iran and the resurgence of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). But those are much more modest objectives than the ones I envisioned 20 years ago. The time I spent with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past two decades gave me a greater appreciation for the importance of local dynamics. No matter how powerful or well intentioned, outsiders can barely understand local societies, much less manipulate them successfully.

At one time, for example, I believed that Ashraf Ghani would be an ideal president for Afghanistan because he was a Western-educated technocrat who wasn’t corrupt. When he came to power in 2014, I wrote, “If anyone is qualified to tackle Afghanistan’s problems, he is.” But he turned out to be a terrible wartime leader who did not rally his people and fled before the Taliban even entered Kabul. I didn’t expect much, by contrast, from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former television comedian. But he has turned out to be a Churchillian figure worthy of the United States’ unstinting support. In truth, even if Ukraine weren’t a liberal democracy, it would still make sense for Washington to back it in order to uphold the principle that international borders cannot be changed by force. (That was why Washington was right to defend Kuwait in the Gulf War and South Korea in the Korean War.) But that Ukraine is a liberal democracy makes it easier to rally to its side.

VALUES, MEET INTERESTS

There is, of course, an age-old debate in U.S. foreign policy over the role of values versus interests. In the 1820s, when the Greeks were fighting a war of independence, many American philhellenes wanted to aid their struggle against the cruelty of the Ottoman Empire. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams resisted those entreaties, famously proclaiming that America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.” In the past, I have bridled at Adams’s words, which have often been cited by isolationists. But I now have a greater appreciation for his conservative wisdom. As it happened, the Greek rebels won their war of independence with support from France, Russia, and the United Kingdom. But far from ushering in a new Periclean age, they created a barely functional monarchy overseen by foreign kings and punctuated by military coups.

I still favor U.S. international leadership and support of allies, including a strong U.S. military presence in the three centers of global power—Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia—where their deployment is essential to maintain order and deter aggression. But I would no longer make democracy promotion the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, because I don’t have much confidence that the United States knows how to do it successfully and because other priorities (such as economic security and national security) have to be considered, too.

Biden discovered the difficulty of orienting U.S. foreign policy around support for democracies when he held a Summit for Democracy in December 2021. Some of the countries invited to the virtual meeting, such as India, Pakistan, and the Philippines, are hardly paragons of liberal democracy. Not invited were outright dictatorships, such as Singapore, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam, even though the United States has many shared interests with them. Predictably, the summit achieved little, because a mere commitment to democracy is hardly enough to mobilize joint action among 110 countries from all corners of the globe. Besides their democratic political systems, after all, what do Zambia and Uruguay really have in common?

Indeed, the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not break down neatly along democratic-authoritarian lines, with many democracies in the “global South”—such as Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa—refusing to sanction Russia. Unlike the broader group of the world’s democracies, NATO has staunchly supported Ukraine because most of its members—with the partial exceptions of increasingly autocratic Hungary and Turkey—are united by both values and interests. The U.S. alliances with Australia, Japan, and South Korea are success stories for the same reason, although it is worth remembering that the United States fought for South Korea long before it was a democracy.

Hope is not the basis for a sound foreign policy.

The world is an ugly place, and U.S. officials must deal with it as it is, without imagining that they have more power to transform it than they really do. In the real world, the United States often has to work with regimes it abhors, whether China or Saudi Arabia. Only in the movies and the fantasies of progressive activists is the CIA powerful enough to overthrow any leader on the planet. Its actual record of covert action is far less impressive, and on those few occasions when it helped pull off successful coups, the results have usually backfired. The Iranian mullahs still teach their people about American perfidy by citing the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953.

In the modern world, dictators have proved distressingly talented at using high-tech surveillance tools to suppress popular uprisings. Over the past 20 years, according to the scholar Erica Chenoweth, the success rate of mass protests has declined substantially. It was not terribly surprising, therefore, that China was able to put an end to protests against Xi Jinping’s “zero-COVID” policy through a combination of repression and conciliation.

Anyone expecting that a people power revolution will usher in a liberal, pro-Western government any time soon in Beijing, Tehran, or Moscow, if only the United States provides more support to protesters, is engaged in wishful thinking. Such hopes may come true, but hope is not the basis for a sound foreign policy. Washington should support liberal protesters with words of encouragement, communications technologies, and other nonmilitary assistance, but it should not count on their success, and it should keep in mind that when a dictatorship falls, the alternative is not always preferable. Remember that Ayatollah Khomeini followed the shah of Iran and that anarchy followed Qaddafi. Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal who should be on trial in The Hague, but if he does lose power, his successor may not be a liberal figure like Navalny. It could be an even more reckless, ultranationalist hard-liner who might actually use Russia’s nuclear arsenal in Ukraine rather than merely threatening to do so. Even in Iran, today’s theocracy might be replaced not by a liberal democracy but by a junta of hard line generals that would be more secular but no less dangerous. There is, alas, little reason other than wishful thinking to expect that other nations will evolve along Whiggish lines into model, Western-style democracies.

Dictatorships are, in fact, proving more resilient than many democracies. Even in the United States and India, the world’s two largest democracies, freedom has been under siege in recent years. Elsewhere, in countries including Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russia, and Tunisia, democracy briefly took hold and then has been lost to cunning strongmen. Even in eastern Europe, where the spread of freedom in the 1990s inspired me and so many others across the world, democracy in Hungary and Poland has regressed. I have long ago been cured of the democratic triumphalism born of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now, I am much more acutely conscious of the difficulties of creating liberal democracies that last.

OLDER AND WISER

After two decades of bitter experience, I am trying harder than I did in my callow youth to reconcile the aspirations of idealism with the restraints of realism. I still believe the United States should continue to promote human rights and defend democracy, but I have sadly concluded that U.S. foreign policy should not fixate on exporting democracy. That may make me an ex-neocon—a neocon mugged by reality—if “neocon” is taken to mean “a fervent promoter of exporting democracy.” But in some ways, I am harkening back to the vision of the original neocons, who were united in their opposition to Soviet designs but hardly advocated a crusade for freedom abroad.

I now occupy a chair at the Council on Foreign Relations named in honor of Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, a former Democrat who was one of the most important neocon intellectuals in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was growing up. She first came to fame by writing a 1979 Commentary article called “Dictatorships and Double Standards” that argued for making common cause with “moderate autocrats friendly to American interests” despite their human rights violations. That led directly to her appointment as U.S. ambassador to the UN under President Ronald Reagan. As a member of Reagan’s cabinet, she did not want to support the United Kingdom during the 1982 Falklands War because she viewed the Argentine military junta as a bulwark against the expansion of communism in Latin America. Later, long after leaving office, she came to oppose the U.S. invasion of Iraq, arguing that “Iraq lacked practically all the requirements for a democratic government.” Kirkpatrick’s worldview should make clear that democracy promotion was hardly integral to neoconservatism as originally conceived.

So what was neoconservatism about? In the very first issue of the neoconservative publication The Public Interest, in 1965, its founders—Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol—expressed suspicion of all attempts to oversimplify complicated public policy issues by falling back on “ideology, whether it be liberal, conservative or radical.” That magazine would become a forum for dense, closely argued essays on vexing social science problems, not for sweeping ideological manifestos. In explaining the name of their magazine, Bell and Kristol cited the columnist Walter Lippmann’s definition of the “public interest”: “The public interest may be presumed to be what men would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, acted disinterestedly and benevolently." Sexist language aside, that remains a good guide to public policy, whether at home or abroad—and it is one that I regret to say I sometimes disregarded in my zeal to spread freedom.

Lippmann, it should be noted, was originally a liberal internationalist whose views were not all that different from those of the modern neocons. He began his long and influential journalistic career as a liberal idealist who helped draft President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points to “make the world safe for democracy” and ended it as a liberal realist who opposed U.S. intervention in Vietnam. That’s a trajectory I can understand.

• MAX BOOT is Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam.

Foreign Affairs · by Max Boot · March 10, 2023

8. The CIA Says It's Already Fighting Russia's Wagner Mercenaries Abroad

Excerpts:

“Our assessment is that the Wagner Group is a vicious, aggressive organization which has posed a threat not just to the people of Ukraine,” said Burns in response to questions from various senators. He pointed out that the mercenary group, whose chief is Yevgeniy Prigozhin (who first came to prominence in Russia as a catering oligarch from St. Petersburg), is currently in charge of most of the fighting in the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. “But I've also seen it, in my own travels in West Africa and the Sahel, where I think the deeply destabilizing impact of Wagner can be seen in a lot of very fragile societies right now.”

...

But Burns was clear that the CIA is working hard to counter Wagner and its operations, with the help of the French government (a former colonial power in the region) and other allied nations.

“We work as an agency, along with our partners, to help many of those governments and many of our security service partners to resist that,” he said in the hearing. “We work with the French and with other countries, other allies in that effort as well.

“But we take very seriously the threat posed by [Wagner] in everything we can to counter it and disrupt it.”

The CIA Says It's Already Fighting Russia's Wagner Mercenaries Abroad

CIA Director Bill Burns says the spy agency is doing everything it can to counter and disrupt the Wagner Group, which has been accused of war crimes.

By Ben Makuch

Vice · March 8, 2023

In a plot that seems fit for a spy flick, the Central Intelligence Agency says it is fighting secret operations against Russian mercenaries led by a villainous caterer.

CIA Director Bill Burns said that the agency is doing everything in its power to counter the Wagner Group—a key Kremlin ally and private military contractor with thousands of soldiers fighting everywhere from regional conflicts in Africa to Ukraine—today during a public hearing for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

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“Our assessment is that the Wagner Group is a vicious, aggressive organization which has posed a threat not just to the people of Ukraine,” said Burns in response to questions from various senators. He pointed out that the mercenary group, whose chief is Yevgeniy Prigozhin (who first came to prominence in Russia as a catering oligarch from St. Petersburg), is currently in charge of most of the fighting in the besieged Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. “But I've also seen it, in my own travels in West Africa and the Sahel, where I think the deeply destabilizing impact of Wagner can be seen in a lot of very fragile societies right now.”

As a means of exporting Russian influence abroad, President Vladimir Putin has dispatched the Wagner Group to West Africa and the Sahels as a sort of Kremlin shadow army fighting with national governments in a series of intractable conflicts. The mercenary group has also been involved in suspicious mining and natural resource extractions, with some of its fighters accused of rape and torture, while they appear openly at the side of national leaders and militia commanders alike.

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• Do you have any tips on the Wagner Group? We’d love to hear from you. Contact Ben Makuch on email at ben.makuch@vice.com or on the Wire app @benmakuch.

Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, did not respond to a request for comment on the Wagner Group and its activities. In the past, the Russian government has always denied it has anything to do with Wagner.

But Burns was clear that the CIA is working hard to counter Wagner and its operations, with the help of the French government (a former colonial power in the region) and other allied nations.

“We work as an agency, along with our partners, to help many of those governments and many of our security service partners to resist that,” he said in the hearing. “We work with the French and with other countries, other allies in that effort as well.

“But we take very seriously the threat posed by [Wagner] in everything we can to counter it and disrupt it.”

In the merry-go-round of Russian politicians outside of Putin, Prigozhin emerged in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as a leading military figure that often shows up in eastern Donbass—the main site of fighting in the war—clad in military attire to check in on his soldiers.

Just today he posted on his personal Telegram account that he was on a casual “business trip in the territory of Donbass” and didn’t want to discuss media inquiries regarding the many sanctions against him, his mother, and his company.

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“As for the challenge of my sanctions and the sanctions against PMC Wagner,” he said after posting an image of himself and other soldiers holding Kalashnikov rifles. “I am not going to challenge them and I believe that at the moment they are imposed quite reasonably.”

Colin P. Clarke, an analyst on the mercenary group and the director of research at intelligence consultancy firm the Soufan Group, said he isn’t surprised that the CIA chief said the agency is covertly at war with Wagner. But he added that the Biden administration, “more broadly lacks a comprehensive strategy to deal with” the group and needs to go further.

“The U.S. is used to dealing with terrorist and insurgent groups, but the administration has not been nimble in responding to the threat posed by private military companies like Wagner, which are essentially paramilitary proxies acting as an extension of the Russian state,” he said in an email to VICE News. “The Treasury Department listed Wagner as a transnational criminal organization, but that designation doesn't go far enough in countering the threat.”

There is also a growing movement within the U.S. government to designate Wagner as an official terrorist organization among groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. In early March, Attorney General Merrick Garland said he wouldn’t “object” to designating Prigozhin’s mercenary outfit with the official distinction. If that terror designation did happen, it would immediately hamper Wagner from engaging in the global economy along with other legal penalties and make their African operations more difficult to carry out.

Vice · March 8, 2023

9. CONGRESS SHOULD MANDATE HUMAN RIGHTS VETTING FOR PARTNER FORCES: THE CASE FOR CLOSING THE SECTION 127E LOOPHOLE

I did not know there was a loophole for 127E.

In my younger days I used to be opposed to the Leahy Amendment lamenting the extra work required and that it hindered our ability to conduct partner force operations and training. I was for expediency over values. But I know now that protecting our values is protecting our interests. Today many will still argue that we should forgo human rights vetting in favor of getting the job done with indigenous forces. 

However, if we profess to defend the rules based on international order (how many times did senior leaders use this phrase in recent testimony?) then we need to uphold those rules and one In my experience with relationships among partner forces, many came to admit that the human rights vetting process both moderating the behavior of some personal or some partner forces were pleased that certain units which they knew were acting contrary to their national interests were prohibited from receive advice and assistance from US forces.

A good solution would be for State and DOD to collaborate on vetting without Congress making it a requirement. It might create some good will with Congress for State and DOD.

We might have to sacrifice short term expediency for the long term objectives. Sometimes you have to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. (Actually you have to do this all the time).

But I know this is an unpopular position that I hold.

CONGRESS SHOULD MANDATE HUMAN RIGHTS VETTING FOR PARTNER FORCES: THE CASE FOR CLOSING THE SECTION 127E LOOPHOLE - Irregular Warfare Initiative

irregularwarfare.org · by Sarah Harrison · March 10, 2023

In July 2022, Representative Sara Jacobs and Senator Chris Van Hollen proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2023 that would have required human rights vetting for assistance provided by US special operations forces under Section 127e of Title 10, US Code. While the Department of Defense Leahy law effectively requires human rights vetting of other kinds of DoD assistance to foreign security forces, DoD has unilaterally determined that these strictures do not apply to assistance provided under 127e. The proposed amendment, which was intended to close this loophole, did not make it into the final version of the NDAA. Understanding this failure could help guide future legislative attempts to require human rights vetting of this DoD authority.

“127 echo,” as it’s referred to within DoD, authorizes the secretary of defense, with the concurrence of the relevant chief of mission, to spend up to $100 million each fiscal year “to provide support to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals engaged in supporting or facilitating authorized ongoing military operations by United States special operations forces to combat terrorism.” Under the proposed Jacobs-Van Hollen amendment, support under 127e would have been prohibited from going to units of foreign security forces if, after vetting, there is credible information that the intended recipient unit committed a gross violation of human rights.

The Jacobs-Van Hollen amendment passed in the House version of the NDAA. Yet after weeks of deliberations in the Senate, the amendment did not make it out of conference (in full or in part) and into the recently concluded NDAA. Opponents of the amendment argued that the bill’s sponsors did not identify a specific problem that would require Congress to mandate human rights vetting of the assistance provided under 127e. That perspective, coupled with objections by both legislators and DoD that human rights vetting would restrain the counterterrorism operations of US special operations forces, felled the amendment.

I served four years in the Office of the General Counsel at DoD. During that time, I participated in many rigorous interagency discussions on issues related to security assistance and human rights vetting. From my perspective, a lack of mandated human rights vetting for Section 127e reflects a significant gap in consistently considering human rights and rule of law values in US security engagements. At the moment, there are already concerning transparency issues with respect to the use of 127e and accompanying barriers to oversight. Jacobs and Van Hollen were correct in trying to resolve the human rights vetting gap; the Senate made a mistake in failing to, at the very least, legally require human rights considerations before the Pentagon provides assistance to units of foreign security forces under 127e.

Partner Forces in Africa. Source.

A Gap in Human Rights Vetting

The Leahy laws, which I have written about in the context of Ukraine and Israel, require the Department of State and DoD to prohibit assistance to a unit of a foreign security force when the departments have credible information that the unit has committed a gross violation of human rights—the worst kinds of human rights violations security forces can commit, including extrajudicial killings; torture; cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment; or other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, or security.

Before 2014, the DoD Leahy law only applied to authorities that allowed DoD to train foreign security forces. In 2014, Congress expanded the DoD Leahy law to apply to “training, equipment, or other assistance.” After the law was amended, DoD determined that 127e’s predecessor, a recurring NDAA provision, was not subject to the DoD Leahy law. This interpretation means that DoD assistance provided to units of foreign security forces under 127e could legally go to units that DoD and the Department of State have credible information committed a gross violation of human rights (for instance, a unit that extrajudicially killed civilians or tortured detainees).

Current policy under US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) requires that, before providing support under a 127e program, special operations forces must vet the intended recipients for counterintelligence and force protection purposes. The policy does not explicitly require human rights vetting. However, in briefings with Congress, according to congressional staffers I have spoken to, DoD officials assert that they in fact do conduct human rights vetting, even if it is not written directly into the USSOCOM guidance for relevant commands.

At the same time, DoD officials have been resolute in pushing back on a Leahy law–like human rights vetting process for 127e, claiming there are no current human rights–related issues with units of foreign security forces receiving support under 127e and that it would be too cumbersome to vet through the State Department, inhibiting special operations forces’ ability to execute programs in a timely manner. They have made the common strategic argument to sympathetic lawmakers that, to be effective in great power competition, the US military will have to work with unsavory partners, and extending human rights vetting in this instance would tie their hands. These arguments have left the Senate resistant to changing the law.

The same arguments have been tested more broadly in the context of the Leahy laws regarding security cooperation and security assistance programs. In general, US officials who work on these assistance programs, whether they be at a combatant command, at a US embassy, or in Washington, tend to oppose any potential roadblocks to building a military partnership. The officials’ priority is executing the program. When faced with human rights vetting under the Leahy laws, these officials often make the same arguments that congressional staffers say DoD is making to Congress—that vetting is time consuming, that it is sometimes detrimental to the relationship, and that US partners already comply with human rights law, so there is no need for rigorous vetting.

But when the Leahy laws are applied, these enduring criticisms of human rights vetting fail. First, DoD is often hard-pressed to provide the Department of State—which conducts all human rights vetting for implementation of the State and DoD Leahy laws—with specific cases in which vetting prevented a security cooperation or assistance activity from taking place in a timely manner (outside of contexts where there is credible information of gross violations of human rights). And second, there are cases every year that require prohibition of assistance to units of foreign security forces due to credible information of gross violations of human rights—cases that would not have been identified but for the State Department vetting process.

Partner forces in Europe. Source.

Bad Partners Make Bad Policy

There are other strong arguments that support application of the Leahy laws, even in the context of great power competition, many of which the laws’ architect, Senator Patrick Leahy, himself has made. The laws are intended to prevent US complicity in human rights violations and to encourage accountability among US security partners and allies. They prevent US taxpayer money from going to predatory forces—forces that often undermine the goal of long-term stability, especially in fragile states, as reflected in Patricia Sullivan’s research, or serve repressive governments, as described by Kristen Harkness. And the laws work to institutionalize a US value—respect for human rights—on both sides of security partnerships when expediency and biases might otherwise drive the decisions of US policymakers.

These arguments also apply to 127e programs. Indeed, 127e should already be subject to the DoD Leahy law. Section 127e authorizes DoD-funded support to units of foreign security forces. However, DoD has told Congress that support under 127e is not in their view “assistance” because the end result is operational support by the foreign partner unit to US special operations forces—an interpretation that some staffers on the Hill I have spoken with agree is too clever by half. With this interpretation, what DoD avoids detailing to Congress are the tangible benefits the partner units receive, sometimes in direct payments. The DoD-funded support of $100 million each fiscal year increases the capacity and capability of these units to operate successfully against terrorist threats—which is why the support is given. There is no justifiable reason not to consider this assistance under the Leahy laws.

What’s more, when some lawmakers rejected the idea that there could be a problem with the specific partners who benefit from the 127e program, they did so simply by relying on DoD’s assertion that no such problems exist. To disprove this, details of past behavior of 127e foreign security forces would be needed to show that there are issues with current or past partners under the program. But programs executed under 127e are classified, meaning the recipients of 127e assistance are unknown to the public and most members of Congress. Any real oversight is impossible: there is no effective mechanism for transparency and no way to know about problems when they arise, unless sitting in the relevant office at USSOCOM. One US special forces operator, for example, told me of past issues with security partners in West Africa who were known to often commit gross human rights violations but continued to receive assistance. Although it’s unclear whether these units were supported under a 127e program, incidents like this underscore why it is critical to vet recipients before partnering and to require the prohibition of assistance once credible information of gross human rights violations is available.

And it is far better to require human rights vetting in statute as a matter of law than via policy guidance alone. Section 127e currently requires notification to the defense committees of use of the authority with a list of detailed information, including steps taken to ensure that the recipients of support have not engaged in human rights violations. But this is not a requirement for vetting through the State Department, nor does it prohibit assistance to units when credible information of gross violations of human rights is discovered. DoD argues that it is current policy that USSOCOM must take into account human rights considerations before a 127e program is approved. But the 127e vetting policy itself does not explicitly require vetting. Since such a vetting requirement is not in the written policy, it is difficult to imagine vetting for human rights violations is a consistent practice across all 127e programs, if it’s even a practice at all. And recent serious ethical issues within special operations forces reinforce real limitations to relying on their discretion alone.

Leahy Lessons

If human rights vetting for 127e occurs as DoD describes to Congress, dozens of cases tested by the Leahy laws show that even when there is overwhelming credible information of violations, and assistance is prohibited as a matter of law, it is still difficult for policymakers to accept such conclusions given the strong policy incentives not to restrict assistance (for instance, out of a reluctance to upset a partner). In many instances, assistance is only restricted because it was a matter of law to do so. Having an institutionalized mechanism to override individual policy preferences helps to make upholding human rights consistent across US security policy. It should be no different for a US special operations forces authority.

The State Department’s Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) is the most well-equipped component of the US government to conduct human rights vetting of security forces. DRL holds the expertise and manpower to conduct human rights vetting and has proven it can do the work in a timely, and even classified, manner for all relevant security cooperation and security assistance programs. There is no equivalent vetting entity at the Department of Defense.

Finally, as a matter of getting the law right, the Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser should be consulted on questions of law related to gross violations of human rights. Although DoD judge advocates and civilian counsel have extensive training, they do not have the same human rights law expertise that resides in the legal adviser’s Office of Human Rights and Refugees. The law is clear in many cases, which can make advising straightforward, but in other cases, determining the appropriate legal standards and whether the facts meet them can be technically demanding, even for experts. The Office of Human Rights and Refugees has a team of lawyers who focus on human rights law and who have been critical in guiding Leahy law determinations at both State and DoD. Bypassing their expertise could mean missing critical legal analysis of potential gross human rights violations.

Partner forces and US SOF. Source.

The Way Forward

While efforts to mandate vetting might have failed, some members of Congress managed to include helpful language in the Joint Explanatory Statement, a nonbinding document that accompanies the NDAA. In that statement, Congress requests the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict and the USSOCOM commander to review and update written guidance for 127e, to include “vetting of supported groups and individuals, to the extent practicable, for human rights.” In the same section, Congress also requests two briefings from both officials, one on the updated written guidance and another on monitoring and evaluating the programs under 127e.

The requests in the Joint Explanatory Statement are a start, but they should not be the final acts of Congress. Implementation of the Leahy laws has proven that institutionalizing human rights considerations in security partnerships is necessary to prevent individual policymakers from taking shortsighted actions that embolden bad actors and undermine security initiatives in the long run. The administration of President Joe Biden could reassess the 2014 statutory interpretation and conclude that the plain language of both statutes indicates that security forces that receive assistance under 127e are covered by the DoD Leahy law. Given the administration is unlikely to take that step since it would require reversal of a long-standing DoD position, legislators should act again to require human rights vetting.

The absence of Leahy vetting is just one element of the broader structural design of 127e that cuts the State Department out of the loop. Section 127e requires only concurrence by the relevant chief of mission to execute a program in a foreign country, leaving out input from State Department officials in Washington. Another step Congress should take to strengthen 127e would be to require secretary of state concurrence. This would help improve oversight and coordination within the executive branch and ensure foreign policy decisions sit with the department in charge of foreign policy making.

A divided 118th Congress creates challenges for sponsors of a new bill and old obstacles will persist, mainly in the relevant committees. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees too often act as an arm of DoD instead of as its oversight bodies. When faced with efforts to apply the Leahy law or require concurrence above the level of chief of mission at the State Department, the defense committees accepted at face value what they were told by operators when they should have made a concerted effort to more carefully scrutinize and regulate 127e. US special operations forces should not be allowed to provide assistance without the same legal limits as other security assistance programs and without more scrutiny across the executive branch. It is especially because their work is so highly secretive that these mandates are necessary.

Sarah Harrison is a Senior Analyst in the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group. Before Crisis Group, Sarah served for more than four years as Associate General Counsel at the Department of Defense’s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs. From 2020 to 2021, Sarah taught international law as an adjunct professor for the Georgetown University Law Center. From 2015 to 2017, Sarah served as Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Sarah has also worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross, The White House Office of Legislative Affairs, Human Rights First and the American Civil Liberties Union.

All information provided in this article has been provided by third parties since the author’s departure from the Department of Defense.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

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irregularwarfare.org · by Sarah Harrison · March 10, 2023

10. The Asia-Pacific Is More Important to the US Than the Euro-Atlantic

Is "strategic sequencing" another way of saying "win-hold-win?" (remember win-hold-win? or 2 MTWs or 1 MTW and 1 LRC)

We must remember that the enemies have a vote in the "strategic sequencing." And it might be even within the Asia-Pacific rather than between Asia and Europe (e.g. Taiwan and north Korea)

Excerpts:

The United States, therefore, faces two great power challenges, one in Europe and one in the Asia-Pacific. Common sense would suggest that the Biden administration needs to engage in strategic sequencing – to develop and implement a peacetime foreign policy version of Rainbow-5. If it does so, a realistic strategic assessment would conclude that Washington should have an “Asia-Pacific first” policy because China by all metrics except nuclear weapons (and that may be changing) poses the greater threat. So strategic sequencing would prioritize the Asia-Pacific over the Euro-Atlantic. But the United States is pouring billions of dollars and vast amounts of military supplies into Ukraine, prioritizing the Euro-Atlantic theater over the Asia-Pacific.

A Russian victory in Ukraine or a negotiated settlement that left Russia in control of some eastern provinces of Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula would not undermine the balance of power in the Euro-Atlantic, but China’s control of Taiwan would seriously undermine the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific. That is the stark geopolitical reality. But the very worst-case scenario would be if our refusal to engage in strategic sequencing results in the United States fighting a two-front war in Europe and the western Pacific.

Such a war would be a replay of World War II – only worse because both sides would have nuclear weapons. Novelists in “2034” and “Ghost Fleet” have provided horrific glimpses of what such a war would be like. Let’s hope we are not sleepwalking into World War III.

The Asia-Pacific Is More Important to the US Than the Euro-Atlantic

Washington needs to enact the concept of “strategic sequencing” to avoid fighting a two-front war against nuclear-armed rivals.

thediplomat.com · by Francis P. Sempa · March 9, 2023

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The great Dutch American geopolitical strategist Nicholas Spykman wrote in “The Geography of the Peace” that “The United States must recognize once again, and permanently, that the power constellation in Europe and Asia is of everlasting concern to her, both in time of war and in time of peace.” Spykman wrote this in the midst of World War II, when the United States was simultaneously at war with great powers in Europe and Asia.

But in truth, American statesmen and strategists have long recognized that U.S. security depends on the balance of power in Europe and Asia, which is worth remembering today as the United States faces off with Russia in Eastern Europe and China in the Asia-Pacific. But U.S. power and resources are not limitless, and the challenges posed by China and Russia today are not of similar geopolitical importance. U.S. policymakers need to make choices based on strategic assessments of relative threats – and the greater threat is in the Asia-Pacific.

The Founding Fathers understood the importance of the balance of power, because they knew that the United States only achieved independence from Great Britain with the help of France and, to a lesser extent, Spain, who both aided the U.S. cause not because of friendship or goodwill but to weaken their European rival. During the Napoleonic Wars, American elder statesman Thomas Jefferson expressed the geopolitical concern that if “all Europe,” including Great Britain, fell to Napoleon Bonaparte, “he might spare such a force to be sent in British ships as I would as leave not have to encounter.” And Congressman John Randolph, in a speech opposing the U.S. declaration of war against Britain in 1812, warned that if Napoleon conquered both Russia and England, France would be “the uncontrolled lords of the oceans” and in a position to gravely threaten U.S. security.

Throughout the 19th century, the United States carved out its own continental empire across the center of North America, but did so always paying attention to the balance of power across the oceans. This was especially true during the U.S. Civil War when the Lincoln administration conducted skillful private and public diplomacy to persuade Britain and France against formally recognizing the Confederacy. Lincoln and his foreign policy advisers also understood that events in Europe – especially in Italy and Prussia, and the “great game” rivalry between Britain and Russia – caused Europe’s statesmen to focus their attention on Europe instead of the war in North America.

During the latter half of the 19th century, the United States purchased Alaska, explored the possibility of a canal across the Central American isthmus, annexed Hawaii, and as a result of the Spanish-American War acquired territories in the western Pacific Ocean. The United States, in the naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan’s words, was “looking outward.” And Mahan, who was one of the most influential public intellectuals of that time, wrote prolifically (“The Problem of Asia,” “The Interest of America in International Conditions,” “Naval Strategy”) about the importance of the balance of power in Asia and Europe to U.S. security.

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As World War I approached, U.S. diplomat Lewis Einstein wrote an essay in The National Review in which he noted that the “European balance of power has been such a permanent factor since the birth of the republic that Americans have never realized how its absence would have affected their political status.” But President Woodrow Wilson sold Americans on the need to go to war by invoking ideology instead of geopolitics, portraying the war as being waged for “democracy” instead of the restoration of the balance of power. In World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt appealed to both democracy and geopolitics, promoting the “Four Freedoms,” but also warning Americans that if the Axis powers controlled Europe, Asia, Africa and the oceans, the United States “would be living at the point of a gun – a gun loaded with explosive bullets, economic as well as military.”

Spykman was not the only American observer during World War II to emphasize the importance of the Eurasian balance of power. The influential journalist Walter Lippmann in 1943 wrote “U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic,” in which he explained that “American security has … always extended to the coastline of Europe, Africa, and Asia,” and that the “strategic defenses of the United States … extend across both oceans and to all trans-oceanic lands from which an attack by sea or by air can be launched.”

But Lippmann also warned U.S. policymakers to avoid imperial overstretch. The United States, he wrote, must align its commitments to its resources. And after the war, Lippmann expanded on this theme in his book “The Cold War,” in which he criticized the seemingly limitless commitments of the Truman administration’s policy of containment as expressed in the so-called “Truman Doctrine” and in George F. Kennan’s essay in Foreign Affairs, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.”

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What Lippmann was promoting then is what contemporary strategists such as A. Wess Mitchell and Hal Brands are calling “strategic sequencing.” Strategic sequencing, writes Mitchell, is “how great powers avoid multi-front war” and manage “more than one major power simultaneously in peacetime.” Hal Brands describes strategic sequencing as a strategy “that seeks to manage several volatile problems without either retreating dramatically or having them climax in quick succession.” It involves, Brands explains, “resolving certain matters quickly while delaying confrontation elsewhere” and “playing for time, by deferring the choice between confrontation and capitulation.”

Washington engaged in strategic sequencing in World War II by adopting a “Europe first” strategy, even though it was Japan that attacked the United States in the Pacific. That strategy was formulated before the outbreak of war in a plan known as “Rainbow-5,” which prioritized the defeat of Germany and Italy in Europe, while deferring victory against Japan in the Pacific and Asia. Germany, U.S. strategists determined, posed a greater threat to U.S. security than did Japan. Restoring the balance of power in Europe at that time took precedence over restoring the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific.

Not everyone agreed with this strategic sequencing plan. General Douglas MacArthur and U.S. naval chiefs believed that the Asia-Pacific was the more important theater of war. FDR and Winston Churchill decided otherwise. After the war, the Euro-Atlantic theater remained the strategic priority of U.S. defense policy, yet during the next two decades the United States fought two very costly wars on the Asian mainland. And while the Cold War ended in Europe in 1989-1991 with the fall of the Soviet empire, a new Cold War was brewing in Asia despite efforts on the part of the United States and its allies to welcome a rising China into the “rules-based international order.”

And while China rose economically and militarily in the Asia-Pacific, the Euro-Atlantic alliance – with the United States leading the way – expanded its boundaries to the western border of Russia in what George Kennan called the “most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold war era.” Fourteen more countries along Russia’s border eventually joined NATO, producing the nationalist and imperialist reaction from Russia that Kennan predicted – Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 (seizing Crimea), and Ukraine again in 2022.

Meanwhile, China under Xi Jinping launched a Eurasian geopolitical offensive known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), declared a Chinese version of the Monroe Doctrine in the East and South China Seas, continued its massive conventional and nuclear weapons buildup, and became ever more threatening to Taiwan. At the same time, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared their “strategic partnership” and “no limits” relationship, thus forming a version of the old Sino-Soviet bloc of the early 1950s that so worried strategists and policymakers in Washington.

The United States, therefore, faces two great power challenges, one in Europe and one in the Asia-Pacific. Common sense would suggest that the Biden administration needs to engage in strategic sequencing – to develop and implement a peacetime foreign policy version of Rainbow-5. If it does so, a realistic strategic assessment would conclude that Washington should have an “Asia-Pacific first” policy because China by all metrics except nuclear weapons (and that may be changing) poses the greater threat. So strategic sequencing would prioritize the Asia-Pacific over the Euro-Atlantic. But the United States is pouring billions of dollars and vast amounts of military supplies into Ukraine, prioritizing the Euro-Atlantic theater over the Asia-Pacific.

A Russian victory in Ukraine or a negotiated settlement that left Russia in control of some eastern provinces of Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula would not undermine the balance of power in the Euro-Atlantic, but China’s control of Taiwan would seriously undermine the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific. That is the stark geopolitical reality. But the very worst-case scenario would be if our refusal to engage in strategic sequencing results in the United States fighting a two-front war in Europe and the western Pacific.

Such a war would be a replay of World War II – only worse because both sides would have nuclear weapons. Novelists in “2034” and “Ghost Fleet” have provided horrific glimpses of what such a war would be like. Let’s hope we are not sleepwalking into World War III.

thediplomat.com · by Francis P. Sempa · March 9, 2023

​11. The missile that could save Taiwan from a Chinese invasion

One type of missile is a war winner?

Excerpts:

Of all the platforms and weapon systems employed in these war games, two similar and specific types of missile stood out as particularly essential to defending Taiwan: the AGM-158B Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) and its ship-hunting sibling, the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM).

According to the CSIS report, America’s stockpiles of varied-purpose JASSM-ERs will reach as high as 3,650 units by 2026, while its stockpile of maritime-specific LRASMs will only reach 450 or so. And that may be a problem, as the LRASM could neuter much of China’s invasion without having to fly or sail many American assets into range of China’s anti-ship or anti-air weapon systems.

The missile that could save Taiwan from a Chinese invasion

sandboxx.us · by Alex Hollings · March 9, 2023

According to a recent series of war games carried out by a Washington DC-based think-tank, preventing the success of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could all come down to a single American missile system and its effective use against China’s invasion fleet.

A 165-page report released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), titled The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan outlined the outcomes of 24 wargame scenarios in which China launches a full-scale invasion in 2026. Leveraging the full breadth of unclassified information about each country’s respective military capabilities, stockpiles, and doctrine, the project team played each scenario through the end of the heaviest fighting, and the results were largely positive for those in the West… though positive is a subjective term.

While the United States was able to successfully help defend Taiwan in nearly all instances, every victory came at an incredible cost — including massive warships like aircraft carriers and dozens, if not hundreds, of tactical aircraft.

Of all the platforms and weapon systems employed in these war games, two similar and specific types of missile stood out as particularly essential to defending Taiwan: the AGM-158B Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) and its ship-hunting sibling, the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM).

According to the CSIS report, America’s stockpiles of varied-purpose JASSM-ERs will reach as high as 3,650 units by 2026, while its stockpile of maritime-specific LRASMs will only reach 450 or so. And that may be a problem, as the LRASM could neuter much of China’s invasion without having to fly or sail many American assets into range of China’s anti-ship or anti-air weapon systems.

The AGM-158B JASSM-ER

JASSM-ER launched by a B-2 Spirit (U.S. Air Force photo)

The JASSM-ER is a conventionally armed, low-observable, air-launched cruise missile that first entered service in 2014. While its predecessor, the AGM-158 JASSM, was powered by a turbojet engine, the JASSM-ER swaps that out for a turbofan more like the powerplants found in tactical fighters. That new engine, alone with a re-organized internal structure for added fuel storage, increased the weapon’s range from around 230 miles (370 kilometers) to better than 620 miles (1,000 kilometers).

The missile is guided throughout most of its flight via an internal inertial navigation and GPS unit that was originally developed for weapons like AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), which is actually a glide bomb, but once it’s in close quarters, it transitions to an infrared seeker for terminal guidance.

JASSM-ER in flight (Photo by Lockheed Martin, Courtesy of the U.S. Air Force)

That seeker can read more than just heat signatures, however, and it reportedly leveraged three-dimensional targeting models to locate and identify its intended target as it closes in. The missile can store up to eight different target images for multiple potential targets.

The missile carries a 1,000-pound WDU-42/B penetrating warhead, which includes at least 240 pounds worth of AFX-757 — a new form of explosive developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory/High Explosives Research and Development Facility, Eglin AFB, Florida.

The AGM-15C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM)

LRASM being fired by a B-1B Lancer (U.S. Air Force photo)

The AGM-158C LRASM was based directly on the JASSM-ER, entering service four years after its sibling in 2018. While the LRASM shares a number of components with other JASSMs, its targeting and guidance suite is said to be unique. Unlike other missiles, the LRASM doesn’t need to have an intended target when launched. Instead, the missile can reportedly conduct autonomous targeting, leveraging a combination of passive RF data-link and onboard systems to identify enemy vessels in-flight, choosing a target once it finds it.

While not quite as long-legged as the JASSM-ER, the LRASM can strike targets as far as 230 miles out, giving launching aircraft plenty of distance to avoid the types of surface-to-air missile systems commonly leveraged by Chinese naval vessels, and with appropriate mission planning and support, could likely allow launch platforms to even avoid enemy fighter patrols.

The AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile would be essential to the defense of Taiwan (Lockheed Martin photo)

The LRASM can be carried in large numbers by bombers or in smaller numbers by a variety of fighters. The B-1B Lancer can reportedly carry 24, the B-2 Spirit can carry 20, and the B-52H can carry 20, while the Navy’s Super Hornets as well as Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons can reportedly carry one or two each. The LRASM is too large to be carried internally by the F-35, but it can be carried externally.

Can the JASSM-ER become an anti-ship missile to save Taiwan?

LRASM striking a maritime target in testing. (Lockheed Martin)

The AGM-158C LRASM would play a pivotal role in engaging China’s amphibious invasion fleet as it crossed the Taiwan Strait and attempted to establish a strategic foothold, but with only 450 or so of these missiles to leverage and the expectation that Chinese missile defenses will have some level of success intercepting these subsonic missiles, the stockpile would not be sufficient to end the conflict decisively.

However, if the infrared-imaging seeker on the JASSM-ER proves effective at engaging moving ships at sea, that could dramatically shift the way American forces could leverage the JASSM family of missiles in such a conflict.

If the longer-ranged JASSM-ER can engage maritime targets, the U.S. would have enough platforms and missiles to launch massive volleys of these missiles at Chinese ships from hundreds of miles away. And while the LRASMs would still prove most effective at engaging ships, Chinese missile defenses couldn’t afford to ignore the slightly less-capable JASSM-ERs. As a result, the overwhelming number of missiles would saturate defenses to the point that it would be impossible to stop most from finding their targets.

In fact, as the CSIS put it, “In games where the JASSM-ER has maritime strike capabilities, the abundance of U.S. munitions made U.S. strategy an almost uncomplicated exercise.”

Read more from Sandboxx News

• Taiwan Strait Crises: How history is repeating itself in the Pacific
• US warns China to not send weapons and ammo to Russia
• What does the invasion of Ukraine mean for China and Taiwan?
• Controlling killer swarms of swarms: Inside DARPA’s AMASS
• The US military would likely prevail against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan (but at great cost)

sandboxx.us · by Alex Hollings · March 9, 2023

12. Soldiers receive first permanent duty station in Poland

Soldiers receive first permanent duty station in Poland

armytimes.com · by Jonathan Lehrfeld · March 9, 2023

Sgt. Walter Malecki achieved a milestone for the Army in February when he arrived at Camp Kosciuszko in west-central Poland.

The security cooperations specialist is one of the first soldiers to receive a permanent change of duty station to Poland, joining the service’s Victory Corps at its new forward headquarters on NATO’s eastern flank.

“[Malecki] is not just another [s]oldier changing duty stations,” Command Sgt. Maj. Christopher A. Prosser said in a service release Wednesday. “His presence here, as a U.S. Army [s]oldier, continues to solidify our relationship with Poland.”

RELATED

V Corps home in Poland gets new name

At a NATO summit this summer, Biden announced the U.S. would make the V Corps headquarters in Poland permanent.

In the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden announced at a NATO conference in June 2022 the permanent presence of U.S. forces in Poland. There are approximately 10,000 American personnel currently stationed on rotation there, the Department of State said in October 2022.

Poland, a strategic NATO ally, led calls to send Western tanks to defend its neighbor Ukraine and continues to be a principal contributor of military aid to the country.

Command Sgt. Maj. Christopher A. Prosser, right, shakes the hand of Sgt. Walter Malecki, left, at the Poznan Airport, Feb. 10, 2022. (Spc. Devin Klecan/Army)

“The permanent presence of V Corps [s]oldiers in Poland plays a vital role by boosting and assuring operational readiness,” the release said.

Victory Corps, which the Army resurrected to help oversee forces in Europe, splits its headquarters between Camp Kosciuszko in Poznan, Poland, and Fort Knox, Kentucky.

RELATED

Army announces overseas deployments for these units

The deployments are to Europe, South Korea and the Middle East.

By Staff Reports

The new permanent tours in Poland, also open to Reserve and National Guard soldiers, are slated to last one year and would be unaccompanied by family, the release said. Previously, soldiers assigned to V Corps were required to do nine-month rotations.

About Jonathan Lehrfeld

Jonathan is a staff writer and editor of the Early Bird Brief newsletter for Military Times. Follow him on Twitter @lehrfeld_media

13. Who “Does” MDO? What Multi-Domain Operations Will Mean For—and Require Of—the Army’s Tactical Units

Conclusion:

That denied environment that I was told to expect during ROTC field training isn’t necessarily wrong. It certainly depicts part of what we may experience in the next fight. But it fails to reflect both the breadth and the volume of contact that we will experience, and it certainly does not capture all that MDO is. Clarifying the concepts of the new FM 3-0 and defining roles allows us to better prepare for our operating environment. Whether your role is to integrate MDO, to employ capabilities as part of a multidomain operation, or simply to work to survive and operate in the environment, we all have a part to play in the Army’s new operating concept. It’s not a concept of the future—it’s occurring now, it’s radically different, and we must prepare.

Who “Does” MDO? What Multi-Domain Operations Will Mean For—and Require Of—the Army’s Tactical Units - Modern War Institute

mwi.usma.edu · by Rebecca Segal · March 10, 2023

“You need to be prepared to operate in an environment where your radio communications will be denied, where using your cell phone will get you killed, and where your GPS, if it is working at all, may be providing inaccurate information.” I’ve heard this kind of guidance for training since my first field exercises, through ROTC, in 2014. At that point, it seemed to me to be largely a justification for the frequent map-and-compass-based land navigation and drilling on encrypted radio operations. More recently, I have seen people use it to describe multidomain operations (MDO), the Army’s new operating concept. It’s significant that this set of environmental characteristics both represents a fundamental basis of the Army’s overall operating concept and describes the challenges faced by units at the lowest levels—providing a connective tissue, in a sense, between the big picture and small-unit activities. But that translation of operating concept to tactics remains underexplored. How do multidomain operations translate to the brigade combat team level and below, where the focus is entirely on the tactical fight?

The Army’s recently released Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations describes an operating environment in which we are under constant contact in all domains, the adversary is collecting data to use as ammunition, and there is no sanctuary. Even being out of a direct- or indirect-fire weapons range does not mean safety from space and cyber threats. We can no longer return to a forward operating base and reasonably assume we will not be in contact: there is no fully secured area anymore. Furthermore, with the adversary’s investment in their capabilities, we can no longer assume we have domain superiority when we are in contact.

Adversaries have built offensive and defensive networks so that we are at risk of surveillance and potentially in contact, anytime and anywhere. The networks are integrated across all domains to make them more resilient against our targeting and more lethal in targeting us. The Army’s recognition of the urgent needs to address these realities have driven a transformational change to how we fight, culminating in FM 3-0. In the manual’s foreword, Chief of Staff of the Army General James McConville urges leaders at all echelons to understand and apply the multidomain principles to their formations. While MDO is partly an evolution of previous concepts like AirLand Battle, Full Spectrum Operations, and Unified Land Operations, it also requires a radically different mindset, including at the tactical level. An example is what is now required to mask your position. Simply camouflaging yourself with some face paint and well-placed sticks is entirely insufficient when there are capabilities that can pick up what is being said in a room through high-speed video footage of the vibrations of a potato chip bag lying around the speaker.

One of the key aspects of the new concept is “convergence,” which is the Army’s solution to attacking the adversary’s integrated defensive and offensive capabilities. “Convergence,” according to FM 3-0, “is an outcome created by the concerted employment of capabilities from multiple domains and echelons against combinations of decisive points in any domain to create effects against a system, formation, decision maker, or in a specific geographic area.” Key to the convergence concept are the integration of offensive capabilities from multiple domains and the employment of that integrated set of effects against a target or system. Integrating the tenet of convergence will be critical to successful attacks in the multidomain operating environment.

Returning to the issue of what MDO looks like when applied at the tactical level, there is an even more fundamental question that must first be addressed: Who does MDO? This question can be broken down into the two key constituent elements of convergence: integration and employment. For the first part, at what echelons does MDO integration occur? Given the significant staff undertaking required to integrate, synchronize, and converge capabilities across the space, cyber, air, land, and sea domains, a staff that can handle complex planning operations is necessary. The Army assesses a corps to be the optimal echelon for this. Below these echelons, then, are the units employing capabilities across multiple domains in support of multidomain operations.

While FM 3-0 states that “all operations are multidomain operations,” there is a difference between multidomain operations and operating in multiple domains, and understanding that difference is important for each echelon to clearly define, and prepare for, its role. Again, MDO requires convergence. Therefore, simply jamming a radio, hacking into a computer, or shooting artillery at a target, even if occurring simultaneously, would be operating in multiple domains but not necessarily conducting multidomain operations. To make those effects multidomain operations, they must be integrated together to “create effects against a system”; it would need to be setting conditions by jamming the radio of an adversary system, while also hacking its defensive radar, and then shooting artillery at the system. Furthermore, simply relying on intelligence capabilities that pull from different domains—like a GPS device or a computer—doesn’t make an operation suddenly count as MDO.

However, just because there’s a difference between multidomain operations and operating in multiple domains doesn’t mean that with adoption of the new FM 3-0 that there isn’t also an increased emphasis on echelons below divisions being able to both operate successfully in the new environment and employ capabilities across multiple domains. Units must recognize that they will be operating in environments where capabilities across all domains are degraded. Beyond that, tactical-level units are going to be in constant contact, across all domains, not only affecting their command-and-control capabilities, but, more urgently, posing a massive threat to their survivability. Masking positions with terrain, operating in dispersed formations that displace frequently, being aware of what satellites are overhead and able to observe friendly formations, communicating at the minimum radio power, and preventing phones in the field are only the beginning of understanding how to survive in such an environment. Units may, technically, have been operating in multiple domains previously, whether through using their communications systems that rely on space assets, leveraging a joint cyber asset, or even conducting some localized electronic warfare jamming, but besides not necessarily amounting to doing MDO, these practices also don’t accurately reflect the sheer volume of contact that will occur across all domains. In the future, our new operating concept may also mean that units get tactical-level offensive capabilities in nonkinetic domains to increase their chances of not only surviving, but also being able to conduct their missions.

To give an example, it’s possible that a corps staff will be using the tenets of MDO to set conditions for an airborne operation, specifically focusing on getting planes through contested airspace by using all available assets to neutralize the adversary’s protection and antiaircraft capabilities. To do this successfully, the corps must integrate multiple assets onto single target sets, which could be a combination of using electronic warfare to take out communications capabilities, space effects to prevent adversarial satellite navigation systems from working, a cyberattack on a radar system’s computer, or preparatory fires on the antiaircraft system itself. Due to the extensive planning, target system analysis, and layering of multiple domains, the aircraft is then able to come in and drop paratroopers.

Once on the ground, the divisions, brigades, and battalions are going to experience contact in all domains—their radios will be jammed, they’ll be shot at, their GPS will be unreliable, and they’ll be under constant observation in every domain every time they present a signature. They’ll simply be fighting to survive by masking, dispersing, and displacing. But it will require even more than that for the tactical levels to be able to not just survive, but fight back, in each domain. In this instance, the corps is conducting multidomain operations by integrating capabilities and the divisions and below are participating in MDO by integrating and employing capabilities across multiple domains.

To prepare for the new operating environment depicted by FM 3-0, at the division and above levels this will require fully integrating MDO into division and corps warfighters. Below that level, it will require both giving soldiers the understanding of the part they’re playing in MDO and, crucially, also giving them realistic training for what the battlefield will look like in modern environments characterized by large-scale combat operations. Units need the ability to see themselves in all domains on the battlefield to understand how to operate both offensively and defensively across all domains. Further, leaders need access to the capabilities that FM 3-0 highlights like electromagnetic emission masking, tools to counter unmanned systems, and deceptive emitters so they have the ability to do something about what the enemy is doing to them. We wouldn’t go to combat having only trained on a rifle in a classroom and we can’t go to combat having only trained on nonkinetic integration in that way either. It’ll take time to figure out exactly what echelon needs which capabilities—what the breakdown of tactical space and cyber capabilities looks like, for example—and then to get those capabilities in the hands of the right people. But until we start experimenting in the right controlled environments and training events, we will not get the essential buy-in from the force to be successful in multidomain operations. There are initial signs that this integration and experimentation are beginning to happen, and now is the time to double down on these efforts and ensure they extend across the entire Army.

That denied environment that I was told to expect during ROTC field training isn’t necessarily wrong. It certainly depicts part of what we may experience in the next fight. But it fails to reflect both the breadth and the volume of contact that we will experience, and it certainly does not capture all that MDO is. Clarifying the concepts of the new FM 3-0 and defining roles allows us to better prepare for our operating environment. Whether your role is to integrate MDO, to employ capabilities as part of a multidomain operation, or simply to work to survive and operate in the environment, we all have a part to play in the Army’s new operating concept. It’s not a concept of the future—it’s occurring now, it’s radically different, and we must prepare.

Captain Rebecca Segal is a field artillery officer, a graduate of Amherst College, and a Massachusetts native.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Sgt. Julian Padua, US Army

mwi.usma.edu · by Rebecca Segal · March 10, 2023

14. Biden’s $842B Pentagon Budget Proposal Would Boost New Weapons

Biden’s $842B Pentagon Budget Proposal Would Boost New Weapons

The spending plan also proposes industrial-base investments.

defenseone.com · by Marcus Weisgerber

The Biden administration is proposing a $842 billion Pentagon budget for 2024 that boosts spending on new drones, combat jets, hypersonic missiles, and submarines.

That’s up roughly $25 billion—about 3 percent—from the $817 billion appropriated four months ago for the current fiscal year, but the real change will depend on this year’s inflation rate.

The spending plan, announced on Thursday, highlights how Pentagon’s priorities are shifting in response to China’s weapons developments. Pentagon officials are expected to hold briefings about the 2024 spending plan on Monday, when more detailed budget justification documents are sent to Congress.

“The budget prioritizes resources for critical investments enabling the [Defense] Department to continue implementation of the National Defense Strategy, including building the right mix of capabilities to defending against current and future threats,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

In addition to China, which the administration calls the “pacing challenge,” the budget request also takes a number of steps to counter Russia.

“It outlines crucial investments to out-compete China globally and to continue support for Ukraine in the face of unprovoked Russian aggression,” Biden wrote in his “budget message” to Congress.

The budget proposal is sure to face resistance from House Republicans who have criticized the record-high defense spending of recent years and the transfer to Ukraine of billions of dollars in American weapons and aid.

But other Republicans were quick to call the proposed increase too small. Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., said in a Thursday statement that the Biden administration proposal “displayed indifference and weakness toward our national security.”

On the Senate side, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Biden's budget “woefully inadequate and disappointing.”

“It does not even resource his own National Defense Strategy to protect our country from growing threats around the world,” Wicker said in a Thursday statement. “This defense budget is a serious indication of President Biden’s failure to prioritize national security.”

The Democratic leader of the Senate Armed Services Committee took a middle line.

“Some will inevitably say the topline is too much, while others will claim it is not enough,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. said in a statement. “I say America’s defense budget should be guided by our values, needs, and national security strategy.”

Over the past two years, Congress has added tens of billions of dollars to Biden’s defense spending request in response to record-high inflation and support to replenish weapons given to Ukraine.

If lawmakers continue that trend, “The result will be the highest military budget since World War II, far higher than at the peaks of the Korean or Vietnam Wars or the height of the Cold War, said William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Progressive Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “This enormous sum is far more than is needed to provide an effective defense of the United States and its allies.”

Biden’s budget request “in key technologies and sectors of the U.S. industrial base such as microelectronics, submarine construction, munitions production, and biomanufacturing,” the document states. A fragile U.S. supply chain exacerbated by the pandemic has caused numerous problems for weapons manufacturers.

“[T]he Budget modernizes and expands the production capacity of the industrial base to ensure the Army can meet strategic demands for critical munitions,” the document states.

Munitions factories have been stressed as the U.S. allies need to replenish stocks of weapons given to Ukraine over the past year.

“[T]he U.S. aerospace and defense industry relies on the administration’s budget request as a roadmap for investments in innovative technology, a resilient supply chain, and a vibrant workforce,” said Eric Fanning, CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group that represents large and small defense contractors. “We need strong investment to meet the Administration’s National Defense Strategy, address inflation, and build up key munitions and production lines — not only to maintain our own stockpiles but also to support our allies and partners.”

Earlier this week, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the budget proposal would call for boosting production of warplanes.

“Investing in this mix of aircraft provides an opportunity to increase the resiliency and flexibility of the fleet to meet future threats, while reducing operating costs,” the document states.

For the Navy, the administration said it is proposing “executable and responsible investments” in the fleet.

“[T]he Budget makes meaningful investments in improving the lethality and survivability of the fleet, particularly improving undersea superiority,” the document says.

The spending plan also calls for increased spending on ‘the development and testing of hypersonic strike capabilities while enhancing existing long-range strike capabilities to bolster deterrence and improve survivability.”

It also includes funds for “ongoing nuclear modernization programs” including new nuclear command, control, and communications networks needed to transmit launch codes between new intercontinental ballistic missiles, stealth bombers, and submarines.

The spending plan includes $9.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, efforts being taken to bolster the U.S. infrastructure in response to China. It also includes $6 billion to counter Russia through support for Ukraine and NATO allies.

defenseone.com · by Marcus Weisgerber

15. In a Changing Security Environment, Defend Your Values

This complements the 127E article.

During the Cold War it was a values narrative that contributed to our success:

America’s inclusive narrative, and its capacity to learn, remain a beacon for the world.

​Every organization and agency of the USG (to include the military) should have the ​above phrase as its prime directive for finleucne oepraitons, psychological operations, public affairs, and public diplomacy.

In a Changing Security Environment, Defend Your Values

By Ali Soufan and NAUREEN CHOWDHURY FINK

MARCH 10, 2023 05:00 AM ET

defenseone.com · by Naureen Chowdhury Fink

Soldiers, Marines, and Dutch troops conduct rigging inspections during an air assault course at Camp Georgoulas, Volos, Greece, Feb. 9, 2023. Army Spc. Robert Faison

Get all our news and commentary in your inbox at 6 a.m. ET.

Ideas

America’s inclusive narrative, and its capacity to learn, remain a beacon for the world.

Ali Soufan and

|

March 10, 2023 05:00 AM ET

The wars in Ukraine, Yemen, and Syria remind us that the world has faced war for longer than it has enjoyed peace, and not without great cost and grave risk to the aspirations for a more stable rules-based international order. But as multiple crises occur across several regions, so too have new platforms of cooperation emerged, including informal inter-governmental bodies, coalitions, and other multilateral arrangements.

Out of a unipolar post-Cold War order has emerged one that is more multipolar, where alliances and partnerships shift as events may warrant. India, which helped found the Cold War’s non-aligned movement, is now viewed as a key U.S. partner to counter China via its involvement into the Quad, albeit one that maintains some relations with Beijing via its membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It is worth asking: are we seeing the emergence of a new global order, and how can we make sure our defense and diplomacy reinforce our core values?

The current wave of crisis and complexity is shaped by the unprecedented scope and scale of disinformation, abetted by mass communication technologies, polarization, and hostile state and nonstate actors seeking to exploit this environment. We live in a time where “fake news” can travel farther and faster than reliable, fact-checked information. Deep political divisions, often exacerbated by mainstream politicians and challenges to pluralist democracy in many states, have created space for the deployment of conspiracy theories, mis- and disinformation (and sometimes simply the truth) to damage public trust in government. These dynamics are seen in a mainstreaming of extremist discourse even at the highest levels of government and media. Many have come to recognize that violent extremism does not just stem from hostile and foreign non-state actors, but also from segments of their own populations.

Terrorist groups are evolving as well. In many places, their threat is closely linked to strategic competition among states vying for influence and resources in places such as Africa and Afghanistan. ISIS and Al-Qaida continue to inspire affiliates and support across Africa. Jihadist violence threatens to spill over porous borders and vulnerable spaces to destabilize states in the Sahel, where the death toll of terrorism has grown tenfold in 15 years. At the same time that European states have drawn down counterterrorism operations there, Kremlin-linked mercenary groups appear to have gained traction. However, many countries are increasingly confronting threats linked to violent far-right movements—or even actors swayed by multiple and overlapping ideologies. While several countries have already designated violent far-right groups as terrorists, the transnational dimensions of this threat will likely lead to calls for greater international cooperation.

With more countries focused on strategic—or “great power”—competition, there is a risk that policymakers neglect the often-close relationships between terrorism, conflict, and inter-state competition. Some states may set values aside in the interest of accessing resources and influence. China, which has detained nearly a million of its own Muslim citizens in Xinjiang in conditions described similarly to concentration camps, remains unbowed in its quest for increased strategic influence through economic incentives like the Belt and Road Initiative, incursions into the South China Sea, and veiled military threats towards Taiwan.

The United States has learned the hard way that pursuing strategies that institutionalize violations of human rights cannot deliver long-term security. America’s story has been one of power, but it is also one of values. Because U.S. has not always delivered on those values, it has sometimes appeared to global audiences hypocritical in advancing actions to reinforce them. Yet America stands ready to do so today in Ukraine, where the principles that shape our global order—including the sovereignty of borders—are being challenged on the frontlines.

The United States’ military might is unparalleled. But perhaps more importantly, in a world where expressions of xenophobia and intolerance are once again growing louder, America’s inclusive narrative, and its capacity to learn and adapt, stands out. Faced with an inflection point that will determine the future global order, we must ensure that our investments in hardware and security are matched by our support for those who are fighting for their own opportunities to build strong, democratic, and resilient nations, from the schoolrooms of Afghanistan, to the cities of Iraq that have triumphed over ISIS’ distorted and evil narratives, and the battlefields of Ukraine.

Ali Soufan is, a former FBI special agent and a leading national security and counterterrorism expert, is the CEO of The Soufan Group, Founder of The Soufan Center, and author, including of ‘The Black Banners (Declassified): How Torture Derailed the War on Terror after 9/11’ (W. W. Norton, 2020).

Naureen Chowdhury Fink is the Executive Director of The Soufan Center. She previously served as senior policy adviser on counterterrorism and sanctions at the United Kingdom’s Mission to the United Nations.

16. Opinion | China is pushing America’s Asian allies together

As Bonaparte said, "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

Excerpts:

It’s fashionable these days in Washington to assign primary blame to the United States for the downturn in U.S.-China relations. Some claim America’s hawkish stance is the result of politicized groupthink in Washington. The Chinese government exploits this navel-gazing by claiming that Washington is the only reason that China’s international standing is at an all-time low. Chinese propaganda outlets even blamed the new South Korea-Japan thaw on the United States, accusing South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol of “serving as a pawn of the U.S.”

The reality, though, is that the new moves toward cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo are not the result of what people in Washington are thinking or saying. In fact, the U.S. government wasn’t significantly involved in this diplomatic achievement, although President Biden did praise it after the fact.

Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida each took a significant political risk by opening a new chapter in their countries’ relations. But they did it because they believe that the global strategic environment is changing fast and that China’s expansion poses a challenge neither can deal with alone.

Opinion | China is pushing America’s Asian allies together

The Washington Post · by Josh Rogin · March 9, 2023

South Korea and Japan have been estranged neighbors for decades, but now they’re moving to establish a new partnership — and not because the United States told them to. Both countries are rethinking their security posture because they realize the need to counter China’s increasingly aggressive regional expansion. America’s Asian allies are speaking clearly about the rising danger in the Pacific, and the United States should listen.

This week’s historic warming of ties between Seoul and Tokyo was almost completely overlooked in Washington, where pundits and politicians alike have chosen to focus on the latest kerfuffle with Beijing. China’s new foreign minister warned of “conflict and confrontation” unless Washington backs off of its competitive strategy. President Xi Jinping blamed China’s economic woes on the United States and its policy of “containment, encirclement and suppression.”

It’s fashionable these days in Washington to assign primary blame to the United States for the downturn in U.S.-China relations. Some claim America’s hawkish stance is the result of politicized groupthink in Washington. The Chinese government exploits this navel-gazing by claiming that Washington is the only reason that China’s international standing is at an all-time low. Chinese propaganda outlets even blamed the new South Korea-Japan thaw on the United States, accusing South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol of “serving as a pawn of the U.S.”

The reality, though, is that the new moves toward cooperation between Seoul and Tokyo are not the result of what people in Washington are thinking or saying. In fact, the U.S. government wasn’t significantly involved in this diplomatic achievement, although President Biden did praise it after the fact.

Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida each took a significant political risk by opening a new chapter in their countries’ relations. But they did it because they believe that the global strategic environment is changing fast and that China’s expansion poses a challenge neither can deal with alone.

Yoon made the first move, by pledging that South Korean funds will be used to compensate World War II victims of Japan’s forced-labor practices, thereby removing a major hurdle that had frozen Tokyo-Seoul collaboration. He said last week that Japan had “transformed from a militaristic aggressor of the past into a partner that shares the same universal values with us.”

Kishida responded this week by praising Yoon’s actions and pledging to deepen ties with Seoul. This sets the stage for Japan to resume cooperation on everything from intelligence-sharing to supply chains. Next week, Kishida is expected to host Yoon for a summit. Kishida might also invite Yoon to the Group of Seven leaders’ meeting in May in Hiroshima. In April, President Biden will host Yoon for a state dinner.

Washington policymakers tend to view Asia through only the lens of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. But these moves by Tokyo and Seoul show that the problems with Beijing don’t originate in the United States. It is China’s behavior, not Washington’s hawkishness, that is exacerbating tensions in the region.

“Those waving their finger at what they call China policy ‘groupthink’ take a very Washington-centric view of how we got here,” said Eric Sayers, nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “This [Washington] consensus developed after years of diplomatic nudging from our allies in the region, asking us to do more to balance against Chinese coercion.”

Japan is doubling its defense spending over the next five years because it deems that necessary for its defense. South Korea is weaning itself off dependence on the Chinese market and supply chains to protect its own economy. To be sure, both countries also have an interest in managing tensions with China, but they realize that countering its challenge to regional security must take priority.

Asian allies are calling for more U.S. engagement in the region — but they want engagement with them, not with China. They have realized that like-minded countries need to spend more time working with one another and less time trying to conciliate leaders in Beijing and Pyongyang.

Washington needs to make more efforts to reassure Asian allies that the United States is committed to the region, and not just militarily. The U.S. economic investment strategy in Asia is seen as thin on substance. Regional leaders don’t see much impact from the Biden administration’s trade strategy.

“We don’t want a war with China, not a cold one, not a hot one,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.), the ranking Democrat on the new congressional select committee on U.S.-China relations, told me. “We want peace. We want a durable peace. But to achieve that peace, we have to deter aggression.”

That’s not dangerous groupthink. That’s a rational, bipartisan approach for defending American interests and promoting American values. The demand signal is coming from U.S. allies in the region who are on the front lines. They are mobilizing to meet this challenge head-on, and Washington must respond to their calls for help.

The Washington Post · by Josh Rogin · March 9, 2023

17. Unfrozen: How the State Department Has Reversed Its ‘Draconian’ Cuts in Just Two Years

Good. Make the State Department strong again! (slight humor)

Excerpts:

Blinken has vowed to grow the Foreign Service, but the employees State has hired elsewhere are making an impact. With the staff that State has already added, it has launched the Office of China Coordination, stood up a paid internship program and spearheaded new diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives.

State is “leveraging its human resources to further its mission of leading America’s foreign policy to advance the interests and security of the American people,” the spokesperson said.

The department is working to define the skills and expertise it will need in the future to better target its recruiting and workforce development efforts.

“We need to ensure that the department is organized and resourced, and that our workforce is equipped with the skills and abilities to develop and execute U.S. foreign policy,” the spokesperson said.

Advocates for the department’s mission and workforce will continue to push for more, especially as emerging crises ranging from Ukraine to Turkey continue to put additional strains on its employees.

“We think they’re going in the right direction,” Neumann said. “We’re not satisfied.”

Unfrozen: How the State Department Has Reversed Its ‘Draconian’ Cuts in Just Two Years

Biden promised to revive a "hollowed out" federal workforce, and at one agency, he has.

defenseone.com · by Eric Katz

Two weeks into President Biden’s presidency, he took a trip to the State Department’s headquarters in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood and told the employees there he needed them. Badly.

“The main message I want to communicate to you all is whether you're part of the newest class of foreign service officers or you’ve been here for decades in the civil service or foreign service, or you’re locally employed staff, you’re vital and the strength of our nation depends in no small part on you,” Biden said. “You are the center of all that I intend to do. You are the heart of it.”

Vice President Kamala Harris joined Biden on his cross-town field trip and acknowledged State had endured a “difficult” four years under President Trump. Under his administration, Biden added, the department’s workforce would be “entrusted and empowered to do your job.”

“I believe in you,” Biden said. “We need you, badly.”

The civil service at State had suffered the second largest losses of any department under Trump, with more than 10% of employees heading for the exits without replacements. Under Secretary Rex Tillerson, State implemented a hiring freeze that extended well beyond the one Trump issued across the rest of government. Tillerson’s successor, Mike Pompeo, lifted the freeze, but the department never recovered. The workforce processing refugees was “decimated,” a Biden administration official said. Employees working on climate issues felt so neglected they left in droves. Passport services were overwhelmed, leading to an unprecedented backlog.

“The impact on the civil service was draconian,” said Ronald Neumann, a long-time State executive and former ambassador who currently serves as president of the American Academy of Diplomacy.

The impact on the civil service was draconian.

-- Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy

The impact on the civil service was draconian.

From a numbers perspective, at least, Biden has delivered on his promise. State has grown its civil service by 10% since the president’s inauguration, according to data provided by the department, restoring the workforce to its pre-Trump level. The department has “maximized the use of available hiring flexibilities,” a spokesperson said, including by converting those brought on in early-career programs to full-time positions, utilizing direct hiring and tapping into special authorities for Peace Corps volunteers and others. It has ramped up its use of cross-government certificates to quickly hire “a high volume” of employees at high-priority positions, such as foreign affairs officers and data scientists.

Still, with current Secretary Anthony Blinken looking to create new bureaus and launch new initiatives, the department has been forced to tread carefully.

“Like any organization facing reduced staffing, the State Department had to carefully allocate its resources based on priority,” the spokesperson said. “The department did so by prioritizing the most pressing foreign policy and security issues.”

The shortages were widespread and the Biden administration was forced to spring into action to address critical issues. It launched a staffing surge initiative at the Bureau of Consular Affairs, for example, to address the passport backlog as Americans began traveling again amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also focused efforts on key administration priorities, such as global health, climate change, cybersecurity and competition with China. Blinken has launched the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, as well as the Data Diplomacy Initiative, which required a further infusion of personnel.

“Modernization is about ensuring that we’re organized, staffed, and equipped to take on the challenges of the 21st century,” the spokesperson said. “This requires recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and creating an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive and deliver on the mission.”

For Julie Nutter, the director of professional policy issues at the American Foreign Service Association, that commitment marks the beginning of State moving in the right direction.

“We have been asking for more positions and funding for a number of years,” Nutter said. The growth under Biden within the civil service “reflects not just the need for more people but the type of topics State has been focusing on.”

Unlike Foreign Service positions, civil servants are hired for specific roles. That has enabled State to focus on refilling its climate expertise and growing its cyber capacity. Hiring for the more generalized Foreign Service, however, has lagged and remains a priority for AFSA.

The Foreign Service rolls have remained almost exactly unchanged since Biden came into office at around 13,500 employees. The State spokesperson noted that while hiring has grown, so too have retirements spiked. The department has received funding for more positions and expects to finally grow its diplomatic corps in 2023.

Neumann and Nutter agreed State remains chronically understaffed within the Foreign Service and have for years called for a “float” within its ranks—a cadre of employees not actively deployed who can focus on training and filling in as needed, similar to how the military operates. State is a “fully deployed organization,” Neumann said.

“When you had Ebola, when you had COVID and you had thousands of Americans trying to get home, they had to cut other work that still goes on to find people,” the former ambassador said.

Blinken has vowed to grow the Foreign Service, but the employees State has hired elsewhere are making an impact. With the staff that State has already added, it has launched the Office of China Coordination, stood up a paid internship program and spearheaded new diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility initiatives.

State is “leveraging its human resources to further its mission of leading America’s foreign policy to advance the interests and security of the American people,” the spokesperson said.

The department is working to define the skills and expertise it will need in the future to better target its recruiting and workforce development efforts.

“We need to ensure that the department is organized and resourced, and that our workforce is equipped with the skills and abilities to develop and execute U.S. foreign policy,” the spokesperson said.

Advocates for the department’s mission and workforce will continue to push for more, especially as emerging crises ranging from Ukraine to Turkey continue to put additional strains on its employees.

“We think they’re going in the right direction,” Neumann said. “We’re not satisfied.”

defenseone.com · by Eric Katz

18. Biden budget includes billions for Pacific islands in bid to ‘out-compete’ China

Is this strategic competition? Should we get into a bidding war? I hope we are investing ni the South Pacific because it supports our mutual interests and this is not simply a bidding war with China. 

Biden budget includes billions for Pacific islands in bid to ‘out-compete’ China

Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau stand to benefit as White House warns of Beijing’s intent and ability to ‘reshape the international order’

The Guardian · March 10, 2023

Alarmed by China’s success in wooing Pacific island nations, the Biden administration is proposing to spend billions from its federal budget to keep three of those countries in the US orbit.

President Joe Biden’s spending plan, released on Thursday, includes more than $7.1bn in funding for the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. The money is included in the $63.1bn request for the state department and the US Agency for International Development.

The White House said the payments were part of its strategy to “out-compete China” and strengthen America’s alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. But apart from direct military programs, they are the largest single budget line for the region in the spending plan.

Biden unveils ‘blue-collar’ budget plan with tax hikes for America’s wealthiest

Read more

The defence department’s portion of the budget request – totalling $842bn — prioritises ramping up the US military presence in the Indo-Pacific.

“China is the United States’ only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it,” the White House said.

“During these unprecedented and extraordinary times, the budget requests both discretionary and mandatory resources to out-compete China and advance American prosperity globally,” it said.

The money, to be paid out over 20 years, would extend agreements with the three states under which the US provides them with essential services and economic support in exchange for military basing rights and other preferential treatment.

The so-called “Compacts of Free Association” deals were due to expire later this year and next, and US officials say China has been trying to exploit extension negotiations for its own advantage.

It is unclear if Congress would approve such aid. The overall budget proposal faces certain opposition in the Republican-led House of Representatives and some Republican lawmakers are pushing for severe foreign aid cuts as they look to slash federal spending. But members of Congress have shown rare bipartisan unity on countering China, offering the prospect that the Pacific Island aid could be seen more favourably.

If approved by Congress, Micronesia would receive $3.3bn, the Marshall Islands $2.3bn and Palau $890m between budget years 2024 and 2044. In addition, $634m would be allocated to the US postal service to continue to operate the three countries’ mail.

Under the Compacts of Free Association that date to the 1960s, the US provides the three countries with postal services and runs their weather forecasting, air traffic control and emergency management operations. In return, the US gets basing rights for military, intelligence, telecommunications and space exploration facilities.

However, islanders have long complained that previous agreements did not adequately address their needs or long-term environmental and health issues caused by US nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s.

Over the past several years, China has sought to exploit divisions between the US and the islands in a bid to expand its influence in the region, alarming both the Trump and Biden administrations, which have tried to blunt those efforts.

The present compacts with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia expire this year and the one with Palau expires in 2024. But in January the administration signed memorandums of understanding on their renewals with the Marshalls and Palau and a month later with Micronesia. All are contingent on congressional approval of the budget.

China steadily poached allies from Taiwan in the Pacific, including Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, in 2019. The US announced plans last year to reopen an embassy in the Solomon Islands, which has signed a security agreement with China.

The Guardian · March 10, 2023

19. How to avoid war over Taiwan

No kIdding: "A superpower conflict would shake the world"

Conclusion:

America and today’s Chinese regime will never agree about Taiwan. But they do share a common interest in avoiding a third world war. The first 15 years of the American-Soviet cold war featured a terrifying mixture of brinkmanship and near-catastrophic mistakes, until the Cuban missile crisis prompted a revival of diplomacy. This is the terrain the world is now on. Unfortunately, the potential common ground between America and China on Taiwan is shrinking. Somehow, the two rival systems must find a way to live together less dangerously. 

How to avoid war over Taiwan

A superpower conflict would shake the world

The Economist

EUROPE is witnessing its bloodiest cross-border war since 1945, but Asia risks something even worse: conflict between America and China over Taiwan. Tensions are high, as American forces pivot to a new doctrine known as “distributed lethality” designed to blunt Chinese missile attacks. Last week dozens of Chinese jets breached Taiwan’s “air defence identification zone”. This week China’s foreign minister condemned what he called America’s strategy of “all-round containment and suppression, a zero-sum game of life and death”.

As America rearms in Asia and tries to galvanise its allies, two questions loom. Is it willing to risk a direct war with another nuclear power to defend Taiwan, something it has not been prepared to do for Ukraine? And by competing with China militarily in Asia, could it provoke the very war it is trying to prevent?

No one can be sure how an invasion of Taiwan might start. China could use “grey-zone” tactics that are coercive, but not quite acts of war, to blockade the self-governing island and sap its economy and morale. Or it could launch pre-emptive missile strikes on American bases in Guam and Japan, clearing the way for an amphibious assault. Since Taiwan could resist an attack on its own only for days or weeks, any conflict could escalate quickly into a superpower confrontation.

Rather than the trenches and human-wave attacks seen in Ukraine, a war over Taiwan could involve a new generation of arms, such as hypersonic missiles and anti-satellite weapons, causing untold destruction and provoking unpredictable retaliation. The economic fallout would be devastating. Taiwan is the world’s essential supplier of advanced semiconductors. America, China and Japan, the three largest economies, and among the most interconnected, would deploy sanctions, crippling global trade. America would urge Europe and its other friends to impose an embargo on China.

War is no longer a remote possibility, because an unstated bargain has frayed. Since the 1970s America has been careful neither to encourage Taiwan formally to declare independence nor to promise explicitly to defend it. While not ruling out force, China has said it would favour peaceful reunification. But those positions are changing. President Xi Jinping has told the People’s Liberation Army to be ready for an invasion by 2027, says the cia. President Joe Biden has said that America would defend Taiwan if China were to attack (aides say policy is unchanged). The military balance no longer so clearly favours America as it did in the 1990s. And public opinion has shifted in Taiwan, not least because of how China has snuffed out freedoms in Hong Kong. Only 7% of Taiwanese favour reunification.

Both sides are shoring up their positions and trying to signal their resolve, with destabilising consequences. Some acts generate headlines, as when Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House of Representatives, visited Taipei last year; others are almost invisible, such as the mysterious severing of undersea internet cables to remote Taiwanese islands. Diplomacy has stalled. Top American and Chinese defence officials have not spoken since November. During the recent spy-balloon incident, a “hotline” failed when China did not pick up. Rhetoric aimed at domestic audiences has grown more martial, whether on the American campaign trail or from China’s top leaders. What one side sees as a defensive act to protect its red lines, the other sees as an aggressive attempt to thwart its ambitions. Thus both sides are tempted to keep hardening their positions.

It is unclear how far America would go to defend Taiwan. The island is not a domino. China has some territorial designs beyond it, but does not want to invade or directly rule all of Asia. And as our special report explains, it is unclear how many Taiwanese see China as a real threat, or have the stomach for a fight.

The Taiwanese, like the Ukrainians, deserve American help. The island is admirably liberal and democratic, and proof that such values are not alien to Chinese culture. It would be a tragedy if its people had to submit to a dictatorship. If America walked away, the credibility of its security umbrella in Asia would be gravely in doubt. Some Asian countries would accommodate China more; South Korea and Japan might seek nuclear weapons. It would boost China’s worldview that the interests of states come before the individual freedoms enshrined in the UN after the second world war.

But the help Taiwan receives should aim to deter a Chinese attack without provoking one. America needs to consider Mr Xi’s calculus. A blanket American security guarantee might embolden Taiwan to declare formal independence, a red line for him. The promise of a much larger American military presence on Taiwan could lead China to invade now, before it arrives. A botched invasion, however, would cost Mr Xi and the Communist Party dearly. America needs to calibrate its stance: reassure Mr Xi that his red lines remain intact, but convince him that aggression carries unacceptable risks. The goal should not be to solve the Taiwan question, but to defer it.

Taiwan has avoided provocation. Its president, Tsai Ing-wen, has not declared independence. But it needs to do more to deter its neighbour, by boosting defence spending so that it can survive longer without American help, and by preparing its citizens to resist grey-zone tactics, from disinformation to vote-rigging. For its part, America should try harder to reassure China and to deter it. It should avoid symbolic acts that provoke China without strengthening Taiwan’s capacity to defend itself. It should keep modernising its armed forces and rallying its allies. And it should be prepared to break a future blockade, by stockpiling fuel, planning an airlift, providing backup internet links and building an allied consensus on sanctions.

America and today’s Chinese regime will never agree about Taiwan. But they do share a common interest in avoiding a third world war. The first 15 years of the American-Soviet cold war featured a terrifying mixture of brinkmanship and near-catastrophic mistakes, until the Cuban missile crisis prompted a revival of diplomacy. This is the terrain the world is now on. Unfortunately, the potential common ground between America and China on Taiwan is shrinking. Somehow, the two rival systems must find a way to live together less dangerously. ■

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The Economist

20. Blacks in SOF

I commend this video from JSOU done by our SF brother Mike Clark. I learned a lot and it provided some excellent perspectives we should understand.

Michael Clark

https://youtu.be/NoNcvEpzgKI

This is a project I wrote and produced for Black History Month. I hope people find this informing. It’s a 2 part panel with the second panel being released tomorrow 10 March. I remember back in 2000 when I was stationed in 1st Battalion 1st Special Forces Group in Okinawa my then Battalion Commander David Maxwell sent a study produced by the Rand Research Institute asking the question of why Black numbers in Special Operations Forces are low. I’ve been asked that on many occasions and have been asked by other Black soldiers who were not SF as to why I became SF and how are they treating me as a Black SF soldier and a true minority over in Special Forces. So for Black History Month I wanted to do something so I figured why not put a panel of Black SOF Operators speaking on their experiences so our stories could inform, inspire, and educate not just Black Servicemen and women but all Americans. De Oppersso Liber

325 views Mar 8, 2023

Blacks in SOF - Panel 1

For Black History Month JSOU has hosted a panel of Black SOF Operators to share their experiences while serving in SOF. The purpose of the panel is to educate, inform and inspire all Americans with stories of these Black SOF Operators.

The views expressed in this video are entirely those of the speaker(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy, or position of the United States Government, Department of Defense, United States Special Operations Command, or the Joint Special Operations University

For more information follow us on our website and social media platforms.

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De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com