Quotes of the Day:

“Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody's power, and it is not easy.” 

– Aristotle

“If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.” 

– Confucius

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” 

– Soren Kierkegaard

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 12, 2024

2. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, March 12, 2024

3. Gen. Mark Milley’s Second Act: Multimillionaire

4. America’s Leaders Don’t Understand Nuclear Weapons

5. Competing for Advantage: The Chinese Communist Party, Statecraft, and Special Operations

6. ‘Exposing China’s bad behavior won’t lead to war’

7. US Key to Philippines’ Plan to Tap Oil, Gas in South China Sea

8. Call for Articles: Military Review Special Edition on Irregular Warfare

9. How Israel Mastered Information Warfare in Gaza

10. The West Is Still Oblivious to Russia’s Information War

11. Israel Needs a New Strategy

12. Forever Putinism

13. Could a TikTok Ban Actually Happen?

1. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 12, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-12-2024

Key Takeaways:

• The All-Russian pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), and Siberian Battalion conducted a limited cross-border incursion into Belgorod and Kursk oblasts on the morning of March 12.
• The New York Times (NYT) reported that Russian and Ukrainian forces have differential advantages and disadvantages in their electronic warfare (EW) capabilities.
• US Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) 2024 Annual Threat Assessment reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably believes” that Russian forces have blunted Ukrainian efforts to retake significant territory and that US and Western support to Ukraine is “finite.”
• US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced an emergency military aid package valued at $300 million for Ukraine on March 12.
• Lithuanian and French authorities are expected to meet in Paris in the coming days to discuss accelerating support for Ukraine.
• The Kremlin continues to assert its right, contrary to international law, to enforce Russian federal law on officials of NATO members and former Soviet states for actions taken within the territory of their own countries where Russian courts have no jurisdiction, effectively denying the sovereignty of those states.
• The Kremlin recently implemented a series of personnel changes in the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), Rosgvardia, and the Russian military command.
• Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan stated that Armenia would leave the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) if the CSTO fails to meet certain Armenian expectations, as Armenia continues to distance itself from Russian security relations.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on March 12.
• The Kremlin is reportedly considering raising taxes, likely as part of efforts to increase federal budget revenues to fund its war in Ukraine.
• Russian Presidential Administration Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko continues to pursue industrial projects in occupied Ukraine.

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT, MARCH 12, 2024

Mar 12, 2024 - ISW Press

Download the PDF

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 12, 2024

Angelica Evans, Christina Harward, Nicole Wolkov, Kateryna Stepanenko, and Frederick W. Kagan

March 12, 2024, 8pm ET 

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

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

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

Note: The data cut-off for this product was XXpm ET on March 12. ISW will cover subsequent reports in the March 13 Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment.

The All-Russian pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), and Siberian Battalion conducted a limited cross-border incursion into Belgorod and Kursk oblasts on the morning of March 12. Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) Spokesperson Andriy Yusov stated on March 12 that elements of the RDK, LRS, and the Siberian Battalion were involved in clashes in Belgorod and Kursk oblasts.[1] Russian sources initially denied reports of the incursion but later claimed that Russian forces repelled Russian pro-Ukrainian forces with tank, armored vehicle, and drone support attacking near Odnorobivka, Kharkiv Oblast and Nekhoteevka and Spodaryushino, Belgorod Oblast.[2] Footage published on March 12 shows Russian pro-Ukrainian forces operating near Nekhoteevka and Spodaryushino in Belgorod Oblast and in Tetkino, Kursk Oblast.[3] LSR forces reportedly seized Tetkino, although Russian sources claimed that Russian airborne conscripts repelled all the assaults in Tetkino.[4] ISW has previously observed reports that Russia uses conscripts to defend its border with Ukraine against limited incursions and assessed that this is likely due to Russia’s unwillingness to transfer forces away from the frontline elsewhere in Ukraine.[5] Russian milbloggers noted that the incursion came days before the Russian presidential election on March 17, and several Russian milbloggers warned that there might be additional incursions in the coming days.[6]

The New York Times (NYT) reported that Russian and Ukrainian forces have differential advantages and disadvantages in their electronic warfare (EW) capabilities. NYT reported on March 12 that Russian forces have more EW equipment but that Russian EW capabilities are spread out unevenly along the front and that Russian armored vehicles are vulnerable to Ukrainian drone strikes due to their lack of mounted EW equipment.[7] The NYT stated that Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB) has adopted a “top down” approach to drone production with “heavy military oversight” that has made Russian drones “predictable” and lacking variety. This lack of variation has reportedly made it easier for Russian units to coordinate their drones’ flight paths and jammers so that they can jam Ukrainian drones without jamming their own. ISW has previously reported that the effectiveness of Russian EW systems is inconsistent across the front.[8] Russian milbloggers have routinely complained about Russian forces’ lack of EW systems in the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast, for example.[9] Russian milbloggers have also recently criticized the Russian military command’s failure to properly equip Russian forces with drones and EW systems after an unsuccessful Russian mechanized assault near Novomykhailivka, Donetsk Oblast.[10]

The NYT noted that Ukraine’s DIB, on the other hand, has allowed non-military companies to fund and supply drones to Ukrainian forces, which has allowed Ukrainian drone units to test different technologies, procurement processes, and combat missions on the battlefield. The NYT reported that a Ukrainian sergeant commanding a drone platoon stated that Ukrainian and Russian forces are engaged in a “constant arms race” in which one side improves its drone technology, forcing the other side to find a new way to combat this improvement.[11] ISW has also previously reported that Ukraine has over 200 companies (most of which are privately owned) producing various drones for the Ukrainian military as of October 2023.[12] Moscow Duma Deputy Andrei Medvedev recently stated that Russia has opted to mass produce drones, leading to the production of large numbers of drones that lack the technological adaptations needed to compete with Ukrainian drones.[13] Medvedev noted that Ukrainian forces are constantly improving their drones. ISW has observed how recent Russian drone and missile strike packages are also characteristic of the constant air domain offense-defense innovation-adaptation race in which Russia and Ukraine are engaged.[14] Ukrainian and Russian capabilities will likely vary across space and over time as one side will be unlikely to gain a decisive advantage across the entire frontline or permanently in one sector of the front. There will likely be opportunities to take advantage of these shifting variations.

US Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) 2024 Annual Threat Assessment reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably believes” that Russian forces have blunted Ukrainian efforts to retake significant territory and that US and Western support to Ukraine is “finite.”[15] The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment reported that Russia “almost certainly” does not want to engage in a direct military conflict with the United States or NATO but “will continue asymmetric activity below what it calculates to be the threshold of military conflict globally.”[16] ISW continues to assess that Russia continues to threaten NATO states and is setting conditions to justify future escalations against NATO states but does not assess that Putin desires direct full-scale war with NATO at this time.[17] US National Intelligence Director Avril Haines noted the importance of US security assistance to Ukraine to help Ukrainian forces maintain their previously liberated territories, especially amid “the sustained surge in Russian ammunition production and purchases from North Korea and Iran.”[18] ISW has previously assessed that the United States remains the only immediate source of necessary quantities of essential military equipment such as M1 Abrams tanks, armored personnel carriers, advanced air defense systems such as Patriots, and long-range strike systems - equipment that previous US aid packages prioritized.[19]

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced an emergency military aid package valued at $300 million for Ukraine on March 12.[20] Sullivan stated that the aid package is comprised of new funding made available by cost saving measures in unspecified Pentagon weapons contracts.[21] Unnamed US officials told CNN that the new funding is a result of “good negotiations” and “bundling funding across different things” but noted that this is not a sustainable long-term solution to aiding Ukraine, calling the package a “one time shot.”[22] This funding does not appear to be part of the reported $4 billion in presidential drawdown authority fund still available for Ukraine.[23] Sullivan stated that the aid package would provide Ukrainian forces with enough ammunition to last “a couple of weeks” and noted that this package “does not displace and should not delay the critical need” to pass a supplemental aid package for Ukraine.[24]

Lithuanian and French authorities are expected to meet in Paris in the coming days to discuss accelerating support for Ukraine. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda stated on March 12 that he will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris to discuss ways to accelerate support for Ukraine, to strengthen the security of NATO’s eastern flank, and to increase European defense production.[25] Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis stated on March 11 that “now is the time to debate” sending Western military personnel to Ukraine and the “red lines that [the West] has imposed on [itself]” in response to recent French discussions about sending Western military personnel to Ukraine.[26] French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné stated on March 9 during a meeting with Baltic and Ukrainian officials that Ukraine could use foreign troops for operations such as demining and that Russia should not be able to tell the West how to aid Ukraine by setting arbitrary “red lines.”[27]

The Kremlin continues to assert its right, contrary to international law, to enforce Russian federal law on officials of NATO members and former Soviet states for actions taken within the territory of their own countries where Russian courts have no jurisdiction, effectively denying the sovereignty of those states. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) placed the Estonian Minister of Internal Affairs, Lauri Laanemets, on its online Russian wanted list.[28] Kremlin newswire TASS reported on March 12 that Russian law enforcement agencies stated that Laanemets is wanted for the destruction and damage of Soviet war monuments.[29] The Russian MVD previously put other Baltic and Polish officials, including Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, on the wanted list for the same charges despite Russia’s lack of legal authority to prosecute foreign citizens for allegedly violating Russian laws in foreign states.[30] The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) also banned 347 citizens from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, including many high-ranking Baltic officials, from entering Russia for allegedly having “hostile” policies towards Russia, interfering in Russian internal affairs, persecuting Russian-speaking populations, demolishing Soviet monuments, “glorifying Nazism,” and supplying Ukraine with weapons.[31] The Russian MFA claimed that it could expand the list “at any time.” Russia has previously used narratives about Russia’s right to protect its “compatriots abroad” (which includes Russian speakers), its alleged fight against neo-Nazism, and its dissatisfaction with the treatment of Soviet monuments in former Soviet states to justify its invasions of Ukraine and aggression against other countries, including NATO member Estonia, in the past.[32] ISW continues to assess that Russia‘s attempted use of pseudo-legal mechanisms against Baltic officials are part of the Russian efforts to set informational conditions justifying possible Russian escalations against NATO states in the future.[33]

The Kremlin recently implemented a series of personnel changes in the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), Rosgvardia, and the Russian military command. Russian sources reported that the Russian military command named Lieutenant General Andrei Bulyga Deputy Defense Minister for Logistics.[34] Kremlin newswire TASS reported that Bulyga previously served as Russian Western Military District (WMD) Deputy Commander for Logistics, and a Russian insider source, which has previously provided accurate reports regarding Russian command changes, claimed that Bulyga previously served in the Central Military District under Russian Colonel General Aleksandr Lapin, who is reportedly the current Russian Ground Forces Commander.[35] Russian State Duma Committee on Information Policy Head Alexander Khinshtein stated on March 11 that Russian President Vladimir Putin reappointed Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Kuzmenkov as Rosgvardia Deputy Director overseeing rear areas and logistics and claimed that Kuzmenkov’s return to Rosgvardia means that Kuzmenkov has “completed his tasks” at the Russian MoD.[36] The Russian insider source claimed that the Russian military command appointed Lieutenant General Alexander Peryazev and Igor Seritsky as deputy commanders of the Moscow Military District and Lieutenant General Esedulla Abechev as Deputy Commander of the Leningrad Military District.[37] Peryazev reportedly previously served as the Commander of the Russian 6th Combined Arms Army (WMD); Seritsky reportedly previously served as the Deputy Commander of the WMD; and Abechev reportedly previously served as the Deputy Command of the 8th Combined Arms Army (Southern Military District).[38]

Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan stated that Armenia would leave the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) if the CSTO fails to meet certain Armenian expectations, as Armenia continues to distance itself from Russian security relations. Pashinyan stated on March 12 that the CSTO must clarify its “zone of responsibility” in Armenia and pledge to defend Armenia against foreign aggression, likely referencing Article 4 of the CSTO Treaty that parallels Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and states that aggression against one CSTO member state is aggression against all member states.[39] Pashinyan stated that Armenia would leave the CSTO at an unspecified date if the CSTO’s answers to Armenia’s questions do not correspond with Armenia’s expectations.[40] Pashinyan expanded on his February 22 statement that Armenia “essentially” froze its CSTO membership and explained that Armenia does not participate in CSTO sessions, does not have a permanent representative in the CSTO, did not appoint a CSTO Deputy Secretary General, and does not express opinions on documents circulating in the CSTO.[41] CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov stated on March 12 that Armenia has not recently participated in that CSTO secretariat, but that Armenia has not made any official statements about its suspension of CSTO membership.[42] Pashinyan also stated on March 12 that Russian border guards will leave Zvartnots International Airport in Yerevan by August 1, 2024, following a March 6 announcement that Armenia officially informed Russia that “only Armenian border guards” should perform duties at the Zvartnots Airport.[43] Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed on March 12 that Russia received Armenia’s notification that it is terminating Russian border guards’ operations at the Zvartnots Airport.[44]

Key Takeaways:

• The All-Russian pro-Ukrainian Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), and Siberian Battalion conducted a limited cross-border incursion into Belgorod and Kursk oblasts on the morning of March 12.
• The New York Times (NYT) reported that Russian and Ukrainian forces have differential advantages and disadvantages in their electronic warfare (EW) capabilities.
• US Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) 2024 Annual Threat Assessment reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably believes” that Russian forces have blunted Ukrainian efforts to retake significant territory and that US and Western support to Ukraine is “finite.”
• US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced an emergency military aid package valued at $300 million for Ukraine on March 12.
• Lithuanian and French authorities are expected to meet in Paris in the coming days to discuss accelerating support for Ukraine.
• The Kremlin continues to assert its right, contrary to international law, to enforce Russian federal law on officials of NATO members and former Soviet states for actions taken within the territory of their own countries where Russian courts have no jurisdiction, effectively denying the sovereignty of those states.
• The Kremlin recently implemented a series of personnel changes in the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), Rosgvardia, and the Russian military command.
• Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan stated that Armenia would leave the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) if the CSTO fails to meet certain Armenian expectations, as Armenia continues to distance itself from Russian security relations.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Donetsk City amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on March 12.
• The Kremlin is reportedly considering raising taxes, likely as part of efforts to increase federal budget revenues to fund its war in Ukraine.
• Russian Presidential Administration Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko continues to pursue industrial projects in occupied Ukraine.

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

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

Russian Main Effort – Eastern Ukraine

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

Positional engagements continued along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on March 12 but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces marginally advanced near Synkivka (northeast of Kupyansk) and that Russian forces pushed Ukrainian forces back 200 meters in a forest area east of Yampolivka (west of Kreminna).[45] Positional fighting continued northeast of Kupyansk near Synkivka, southeast of Kupyansk near Tabaivka, west of Kreminna near Terny, southwest of Kreminna near Hryhorivka, and south of Kreminna near Bilohorivka.[46] Elements of the Russian 138th Motorized Rifle Brigade (6th Combined Arms Army, Western Military District) are reportedly operating in the Kupyansk direction.[47]

Ukraine’s Internal Ministry reported on March 12 that Russian forces destroyed an apartment building in Kupyansk during a guided aerial strike.[48]

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

Russian forces recently marginally advanced southwest of Bakhmut. Geolocated footage published on March 12 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced north of Klishchiivka (southwest of Bakhmut).[49] Positional engagements continued west of Bakhmut in the area east of Chasiv Yar and in Ivanivske; and southwest of Bakhmut near Klishchiivka, Andriivka, Stupochky (likely referring to combat engagements taking place in the direction of Stupochky), Pivdenne, and Pivnichne.[50] Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces continue to hold positions in western Ivanivske and that Russian forces do not control most of Ivanivske, contrary to some Russian claims.[51] A Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces control 60 percent of Ivanivske, but ISW has not observed visual evidence of this claim.[52] Elements of the Russian 98th Guards Airborne (VDV) Division reportedly continue to operate in the Bakhmut direction; elements of the Russian 102nd Motorized Rifle Regiment (150th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th Guards Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) are reportedly operating near Ivanivske; and reconnaissance elements of the 11th Separate Guards VDV Brigade are reportedly operating west of Bakhmut.[53]

Geolocated footage published on March 11 indicated that Russian forces recently advanced east of Nevelske (southwest of Avdiivka), while the Russian MoD claimed that Russian forces seized the entire settlement on March 12.[54] ISW has not observed visual evidence confirming that Russian forces seized Nevelske, and some Russian sources refuted the Russian MoD’s claim. A Russian milblogger involved with the training of Russian personnel claimed that Russian forces responsible for attacking Nevelske claimed that they did not capture the settlement, while a Kremlin-affiliate milblogger noted that there is no footage confirming the Russian advance, likely because Russian forces are still securing the area near Nevelske.[55] The Ukrainian General Staff notably did not state that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian attacks near Nevelske in its evening situational report in contrast with earlier routine statements that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults near the settlement.[56] Geolocated footage published on March 12 also indicates that Russian forces recently advanced east of Pervomaiske (southwest of Avdiivka), and a prominent Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces control about a third of the settlement.[57] ISW has not observed footage confirming the Russian milblogger’s claim. Positional engagements continued northwest of Avdiivka near Berdychi, Semenivka, and Novobakhmutivka; west of Avdiivka near Orlivka and Tonenke; and southwest of Avdiivka near Pervomaiske and Nevelske.[58] A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger added that Ukrainian forces stabilized the situation in the Avdiivka direction after transferring reinforcements.[59] Elements of the Russian 9th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps) are reportedly operating in the Pervomaiske area.[60]

Russian forces recently marginally advanced west and southwest of Donetsk City. Geolocated footage published on March 11 indicates that Russian forces recently made limited advances along the H-15 highway, which runs south of Marinka (west of Donetsk City).[61] Geolocated footage published on March 12 indicates that Russian forces also recently advanced on the northeastern outskirts of Novomykhailivka (southwest of Donetsk City).[62] One Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced near the Marinska Dam (west of Donetsk City and east of Heorhiivka).[63] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Dmytro Lykhoviy stated that Ukrainian forces are carrying out rotations in the Tavriisk direction (Avdiivka through western Zaporizhia Oblast).[64] Positional engagements continued west of Donetsk City near Krasnohorivka and Heorhiivka and southwest of Donetsk City near Pobieda and Novomykhailivka.[65] Elements of the Russian 238th Artillery Brigade (8th CAA, SMD) are reportedly operating near Heorhiivka.[66]

Positional engagements continued in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area on March 11, and a Ukrainian military official recently stated that Russian forces resumed assaults on this frontline. Positional battles continued south of Velyka Novosilka and southeast of Velyka Novosilka near Shevchenko.[67] Lykhoviy stated on March 11 that Russian forces recently resumed infantry attacks in the Donetsk-Zaporizhia Oblast border area and are currently focusing on Staromayorske and Urozhaine (south of Velyka Novosilka).[68]

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

Positional engagements continued in western Zaporizhia Oblast but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline on March 12. Positional engagements continued near Robotyne and Verbove (east of Robotyne).[69] Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Captain Dmytro Lykhoviy stated that Russian forces continue to pressure the Robotyne area, but the intensity of assaults has decreased.[70] Elements of the Russian 69th Covering Brigade (35th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Eastern Military District [EMD]) reportedly continue to operate in the Zaporizhia direction, and elements of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division (58th CAA, Southern Military District [SMD]) are reportedly operating near Robotyne.[71]

Positional engagements continued in the east (left) bank of Kherson Oblast near Krynky, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline on March 12.[72] Ukrainian Southern Operational Command Spokesperson Colonel Nataliya Humenyuk stated that Russian forces continue to assault Ukrainian positions in the east bank of Kherson Oblast without the support of armored vehicles to exhaust Ukrainian forces instead of pursuing tactical goals.[73] Humenyuk noted that Ukrainian forces have observed elite Russian airborne (VDV), territorial defense, naval infantry, mobilized, and “Z” assault elements operating in the Kherson direction.

Russian occupation forces continue to operate the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) improperly and unsafely. Energoatom Head Petro Kotin stated that Russian authorities unsuccessfully attempted to connect the ZNPP to the Russian power system and dismissed the last 400 “qualified” Ukrainian workers who were responsible for the ZNPP’s safety in February.[74] International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Rafael Grossi stated that “the situation [at the ZNPP] is not stable in the long-term,” but that the current staff present can function in the ZNPP’s present shutdown configuration.[75]

The Ukrainian Navy reported on March 11 that the Ukrainian Air Force conducted a successful strike near the occupied Kinburn Spit, Mykolaiv Oblast on the Russian Mechanik Pogodin tanker, which Russian forces have been using as a surveillance post, electronic warfare (EW) deployment point, and first-person view (FPV) drone launching point.[76] The Ukrainian Navy reported that the Mechanik Pogodin washed onto the Kinburn Spit after Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (KHPP) in the summer 2023.[77] The Ukrainian Navy stated that the Mechanik Pogodin meets the definition of a military object under the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea articles 40 and 60, which state that an enemy merchant vessel may become a military objective if it is “being incorporated into or assisting the enemy’s intelligence gathering system, e.g., engaging in reconnaissance, early warning, surveillance, or command, control and communications missions.”[78]

Humenyuk stated that the Russian military is conducting personnel changes and searching for a new naval commander who can find “creative solutions” to develop Russia’s naval activity.[79] Russian sources claimed on March 10 that Northern Fleet Commander Admiral Alexander Moiseev replaced Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy.[80] Humenyuk also stated that Russian missile carriers’ operations in the Black Sea are somewhat limited because Russian maintenance facilities for missile carriers are in occupied Crimea and Russian forces fear Ukrainian strikes on these ships near Crimea.[81]

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

The Ukrainian General Staff reported on March 12 that Russian forces launched 22 Shahed-136/131 drones at targets in Ukraine on the night of March 11 to 12.[82] Ukrainian forces reportedly downed 17 Shahed drones, including eight drones over Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.[83] Ukrainian officers reported that Russian drones struck a hotel in Kharkiv Oblast and an infrastructure facility in Kremenets, Ternopil Oblast, and Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian drones also struck an energy facility in Brody, Lviv Oblast.[84] Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command reported that Ukrainian forces downed a Russian Kh-59 missile over the Black Sea.[85] The Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office reported that Russian forces also struck Selydove, Donetsk Oblast with six S-300 missiles, injuring two civilians.[86]

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

The Kremlin is reportedly considering raising taxes, likely as part of an effort to increase federal budget revenues to fund its war in Ukraine. Bloomberg reported on March 11 that Russian authorities are considering raising the personal income tax from 15 percent to 20 percent for people earning more than five million rubles (about $54,000) annually and raising taxes from 13 percent to 15 percent for those who earn less than five million rubles, according to sources involved in the discussions.[87] Russian authorities are also reportedly considering raising corporate taxes from 20 percent to 25 percent. Bloomberg reported that sources indicated that the Kremlin is likely to decide on the issue in the summer of 2024 and that the Russian government believes the start of new presidential terms is the best time to pass reforms that are unpopular domestically.

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) 2024 Threat Assessment reported on March 11 that China is supporting Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB), including by providing dual-use material and components for weapons.[88] The ODNI reported that trade between China and Russia has been increasing since February 2022 and that China’s exports of goods that can potentially have military uses increased more than three times since 2022.

Russian sources, including the Russian MoD, claimed on March 12 that a Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft crashed in Ivanovo Oblast after a fire broke out during takeoff.[89]

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

Nothing significant to report.

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

Note: ISW will be publishing its coverage of Ukrainian defense industrial efforts on a weekly basis in the Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment. ISW will continue to track developments in Ukrainian defense industrial efforts daily and will refer to these efforts in assessments within the daily Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment and other ISW products when necessary.

ISW is not publishing coverage of Ukrainian defense industrial efforts today.

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

Note: ISW will be publishing coverage of activities in Russian-occupied areas twice a week in the Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment. ISW will continue to track activities in Russian-occupied areas daily and will refer to these activities in assessments within the daily Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment and other ISW products when necessary.

Russian Presidential Administration Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko continues to pursue industrial projects in occupied Ukraine. Kiriyenko and Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) Head Denis Pushilin visited occupied Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast and inspected the Avdiivka Coke Plant on March 12.[90] Kiriyenko claimed that Russian occupation authorities intend to restore the Avdiivka Coke Plant and claimed that the damage to the plant is not as severe as the damage to the Azovstal Metallurgical Plant in occupied Mariupol.[91] Kiriyenko likely has financial interests in pursuing the building of industrial capacity in occupied Ukraine as Kiriyenko routinely visits occupied Ukrainian territories and even arrived in Mariupol as Russian forces were finishing the seizure of Azovstal in May 2022 as Kremlin-appointed curator for Donbas issues.[92] Kiriyenko and Pushilin also met with the commanders of the 114th Motorized Rifle Brigade (1st DNR Army Corps).[93] Russian President Vladimir Putin credited the 114th Motorized Rifle Brigade for the seizure of Avdiivka on February 17, and its units reportedly continue operating near Avdiivka.[94]

Russian officials continued to deny Ukraine’s independence and culture, as well as the fact that Russian authorities are illegally deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. Kremlin-appointed Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova claimed on March 12 that there are “no foreign children in Russia” and that “multinationalism is one of the foundations” of Russia.[95] Kherson Oblast occupation governor Vladimir Saldo claimed on March 12 that children in Ukraine “want to live in Russia” because Ukraine is already a “dependent” state that cannot provide for younger generations.[96] The US Department of State announced on March 7 that the United States has joined the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children to support the safe return of Ukrainian children whom Russian authorities have illegally deported or forcibly transferred.[97]

Kremlin officials continue efforts to utilize legal mechanisms to legitimize Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory. Russian State Duma Deputy Konstantin Zatulin and Senator Sergei Tsekov introduced a bill to the Duma that would invalidate the decision to transfer Crimea from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954.[98] Putin similarly signed a law in June 2023 that denounced the 2004 Ukrainian-Russian treaty that included stipulations that the Sea of Azov is historically internal water of both Russia and Ukraine, claiming that Ukraine lost its status as a littoral state of the Sea of Azov when Russia (illegally) annexed Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts in 2022.[99] It is unclear why the Kremlin puts stock in such meaningless maneuvers considering that it has already seized Crimea by force and illegally annexed it. Ex post facto legal manipulations add no real legal legitimacy to Russia’s actions. These actions also ignore the fact that Russia committed to respecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity, including Crimea, in 1994 in exchange for Ukraine’s return of Soviet nuclear weapons remaining in Ukraine after the USSR’s collapse.

Russian Information Operations and Narratives

Head of the Sumy Oblast Military Administration Volodymyr Artyuk stated on March 12 that information circulating online about a possible Russian attack in Sumy Oblast is not true and is part of Russian efforts to destabilize and increase panic in Sumy Oblast.[100] Artyuk stated that Ukrainian authorities have not observed any Russian strike groups near the borders with Sumy Oblast. ISW also assesses that Russia has not amassed reserves in the vicinity of Sumy Oblast for any significant military undertaking.

Kremlin officials continue to use escalatory rhetoric as part of efforts to deter Western aid provision to Ukraine. The German Bundestag reported on March 11 that all indications surrounding the leaked phone conversation between German military officers discussing the possible provision of Taurus missiles to Ukraine point to a Russian “hack and leak operation.”[101] Chairperson of the Russian State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin claimed on March 12 that Russia perceives conversations between German military personnel about possible Ukrainian strikes on Crimea as “aggression” and a “threat to [Russia’s] security” that “leads to the outbreak of full-scale third world war, nuclear [war].”[102] The assertion that discussions of actions not subsequently taken amount to “aggression” is bizarre. ISW continues to assess that Russian nuclear “red lines,” which Ukrainian forces have crossed several times over the course of the war without prompting a Russian nuclear strike, are most likely information operations designed to deter Ukrainian and Western action to defeat Rusia’s invasion of Ukraine.[103]

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

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced on March 12 that Belarusian officials are participating in the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) command and staff training on March 12 and 13.[104]

Russian Special Presidential Representative for Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Bakhtiyor Khakimov stated on March 12 that Russia expects Belarus to join the SCO on July 4 and that Belarus’ accession to the SCO will be one of the “key results” of the upcoming summit.[105]

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

2. Israel–Hamas War (Iran) Update, March 12, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-march-12-2024

Key Takeaways:

• Northern and Central Gaza Strip: The IDF 162nd Division continued to operate in the northern and central Gaza Strip.
• Southern Gaza Strip: Palestinian militias continued to conduct a deliberate defense of Hamad neighborhood, northern Khan Younis.
• Political Negotiations: The Qatari foreign affairs minister said that Israel and Hamas are “nowhere near a deal” regarding a ceasefire deal and prisoner-for-hostage exchange.
• IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani alluded to the need for Hamas to “negotiate firmly” in the ceasefire negotiations, possibly indicating support for Hamas’ maximalist position.
• West Bank: IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani claimed that the Israeli fear of Palestinian operations in the West Bank “reached its peak” in the current Persian calendar year (March 2023-March 2024) during an interview with Iranian state media.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah launched over 100 rockets targeting Israeli forces in the Golan Heights.
• The IDF Air Force conducted airstrikes targeting Hezbollah military infrastructure in Beqaa and Baalbek Governorates.
• Iraq: The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed a drone attack targeting Ben Gurion Airport in Lod, Israel.
• Iraq and Syria: The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) assessed that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias will “almost certainly” resume attacks targeting US forces in Iraq and Syria
• Yemen: The Houthi movement launched two anti-ship missiles on March 11 that targeted a Singaporean-owned, Liberian-flagged merchant vessel in the Red Sea.
• US CENTCOM confirmed that it conducted preemptive strikes targeting 18 Houthi anti-ship missiles and an unmanned underwater vessel in Houthi-controlled Yemen.

IRAN UPDATE, MARCH 12, 2024

Mar 12, 2024 - ISW Press

Iran Update, March 12, 2024

Ashka Jhaveri, Annika Ganzeveld, Amin Soltani, Andie Parry, Alexandra Braverman, Elizabeth Volynsky-Lauzon, Anne McGill, Kathryn Tyson, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET 

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

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

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

Key Takeaways:

• Northern and Central Gaza Strip: The IDF 162nd Division continued to operate in the northern and central Gaza Strip.
• Southern Gaza Strip: Palestinian militias continued to conduct a deliberate defense of Hamad neighborhood, northern Khan Younis.
• Political Negotiations: The Qatari foreign affairs minister said that Israel and Hamas are “nowhere near a deal” regarding a ceasefire deal and prisoner-for-hostage exchange.
• IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani alluded to the need for Hamas to “negotiate firmly” in the ceasefire negotiations, possibly indicating support for Hamas’ maximalist position.
• West Bank: IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani claimed that the Israeli fear of Palestinian operations in the West Bank “reached its peak” in the current Persian calendar year (March 2023-March 2024) during an interview with Iranian state media.
• Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights: Lebanese Hezbollah launched over 100 rockets targeting Israeli forces in the Golan Heights.
• The IDF Air Force conducted airstrikes targeting Hezbollah military infrastructure in Beqaa and Baalbek Governorates.
• Iraq: The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed a drone attack targeting Ben Gurion Airport in Lod, Israel.
• Iraq and Syria: The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) assessed that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias will “almost certainly” resume attacks targeting US forces in Iraq and Syria
• Yemen: The Houthi movement launched two anti-ship missiles on March 11 that targeted a Singaporean-owned, Liberian-flagged merchant vessel in the Red Sea.
• US CENTCOM confirmed that it conducted preemptive strikes targeting 18 Houthi anti-ship missiles and an unmanned underwater vessel in Houthi-controlled Yemen.

Gaza Strip

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) 162nd Division continued to operate in the northern and central Gaza Strip on March 12.[1] The IDF Nahal Brigade (162nd Division) located and destroyed rocket launchers that Palestinian fighters previously used to launch rockets into Israel.[2] Israeli forces directed an airstrike in the area targeting Palestinian fighters who had launched two rockets at them.[3]

A Palestinian activist separately reported sounds of clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters south of Gaza City on March 12.[4]

Palestinian militias continued to conduct a deliberate defense of Hamad neighborhood, northern Khan Younis, on March 12. Three IDF brigades have been clearing Hamad of Palestinian fighters and military infrastructure since March 3.[5] The IDF had intelligence that Palestinian fighters retreated from other areas in Khan Younis to hide in Hamad.[6] Israeli forces directed airstrikes to kill Palestinian cells and located weapons in buildings during clearing operations on March 12.[7] Four Palestinian militias claimed attacks targeting Israeli forces in Hamad using mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and other unspecified explosive devices.[8]

Israeli forces continued clearing operations in other sectors of northern Khan Younis on March 12. The IDF Bislamach Brigade have killed over 100 Palestinian fighters by sniper fire, mortar and shell fire, and airstrikes over the past two weeks in Qarara, northern Khan Younis, and in eastern Khan Younis.[9] Israeli forces located infrastructure, weapons, combat equipment, and a drone launcher.[10] Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters detonated an explosively-rigged tunnel and a house-borne improvised explosive device (HBIED) targeting Israeli forces in Qarara.[11] The Wall Street Journal published a map of the tunnel network in the Gaza Strip from 2014, which does not include any tunnels in Qarara.[12] The New York Times reported in January 2023 that the IDF now believes that there are more tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip than previously thought.[13]

The Qatari Foreign Affairs Minister said on March 12 that Israel and Hamas are “nowhere near a deal” regarding a ceasefire deal and prisoner-for-hostage exchange.[14] The minister also noted that Qatar is engaged in a “constructive” dialogue with Israel and Hamas. CIA Director William Burns said on March 12 that a potential ceasefire deal “is still a possibility” despite the difficult process of negotiations.[15] Hamas’ maximalist demands for a permanent ceasefire, return of displaced people, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces, and sufficient humanitarian aid do not align with Israeli plans to continue clearing operations in the Gaza Strip until Hamas is defeated.

Israeli media reported that Senior Hamas Political Bureau official Mohammad Nazzal told al Jazeera that ceasefire negotiations are ongoing.[16] Nazzal said that the talks ”had reached an impasse“ but that international mediators are continuing their work. He also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of impeding progress on negotiations and affirmed that there will be no deal until Israel agrees to Hamas’ terms.

IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani alluded to the need for Hamas to “negotiate firmly” in the ceasefire negotiations, possibly indicating support for the maximalist position that Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh presented on March 10.[17]

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put forth the head of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) General Intelligence Service, Majed Faraj, as a candidate to temporarily manage civilian life in the Gaza Strip.[18] Faraj is a member of Fatah‘s Revolutionary Council and considered a possible successor to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.[19] Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has consistently opposed the PA’s involvement in governing the Gaza Strip.[20] However, his post-war plan does not explicitly rule out the role for the PA.[21] Israel previously discussed turning to former PA security official Mohammad Dahlan for governance in the Gaza Strip.[22] Dahlan said in a November 2023 interview with Time that he would not participate in a future Palestinian government but that he would help rebuild the Palestinian political system.[23]

Israel reported that a Palestinian fighter launched mortars from the southern Gaza Strip into Israel on March 12.[24] Palestinian militias have not claimed the attack at the time of this writing. Israeli forces monitored the source of fire and directed an airstrike to target the perpetrator. The IDF Air Force conducted airstrikes targeting military infrastructure in the strip in retaliation for the attack.[25]

West Bank

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Israeli forces have clashed with Palestinian fighters at least five times in the West Bank since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on March 11.[26] The al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades detonated an IED in the Psagot settlement on March 11.[27] An unspecified individual separately attempted to stab an Israeli civilian in Givat Ronen.[28]

Israeli forces detained 10 wanted individuals during operations across the West Bank on March 12.[29] The IDF said that Israeli forces detained PIJ fighter Mehdi Fayyad, who has conducted previous attacks on Israeli forces, according to the IDF.[30] Israeli forces also located four lathes for manufacturing weapons in Urif village south of Nablus.[31]

IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani claimed that the Israeli fear of Palestinian operations in the West Bank “reached its peak” in the current Persian calendar year (March 2023-March 2024) during an interview with Iranian state media on March 12.[32]

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

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Iranian-backed militias, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted at least 14 attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel since CTP-ISW's last data cutoff on March 11.[33] Hezbollah launched over 100 rockets targeting Israeli forces in the Golan Heights.[34] This attack was one of the largest Hezbollah has conducted since the war began.

The IDF Air Force conducted airstrikes targeting Hezbollah military infrastructure in Beqaa and Baalbek Governorates, Lebanon, on March 11 and March 12, respectively.[35] The Baalbek Governorate is approximately 100 km north of the Israel-Lebanon border.[36] The IDF said that the strikes were in response to Hezbollah’s attacks targeting northern Israel. The IDF separately published a summary of its air campaign in Lebanon and Syria over the past five months.[37] The IDF reported that its attacks in northern Lebanon “harm Hezbollah’s air and ground capabilities as well as its top command.”

An unspecified Lebanese Hezbollah parliamentary source said that the group is “prepared for any expansion of hostilities” with Israel in a statement to al Araby on March 12.[38] The source said that “Hezbollah will not be silent about the Israeli attacks.” Hezbollah launched at least 60 rockets targeting an IDF site in the Golan Heights on February 26 in retaliation for the IDF’s only other airstrike near Baalbek.[39]

Lebanese Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah met with a delegation of Hamas officials in Beirut, Lebanon, on March 12.[40] Hamas’ Deputy Political Bureau leader for the Gaza Strip Khalil al Hayya led discussions on Hamas’ operations in the Gaza Strip as well as on the Israel-Hamas negotiations. Nasrallah and the Hamas delegation discussed the developments in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as well as the ”multiple support fronts,” likely referring to the Iranian-backed attacks from Iraq, Syria, and Yemen targeting Israel.

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

Iran and Axis of Resistance

Axis of Resistance campaign objectives:

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

Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul Amir al Shammari discussed “security and training” cooperation with Russian Ambassador to Iraq Elbrus Kutrashev in Baghdad on March 12, possibly as part of a Russian effort to supplant the United States as a security guarantor in Iraq.[41] Kutrashev has met with at least six Iraqi officials, including senior security leaders, since January 2024.[42] CTP-ISW previously assessed that Russia may be setting conditions to try to supplant the United States in anticipation of the United States reducing its military presence there.[43] Kutrashev previously told Russian media in January 2024 that Russia seeks to expand its “presence” in Iraq and “invest additional resources in areas related to security.”[44] The Iraqi Interior Ministry, which is largely controlled by the Iranian-backed Badr Organization, is responsible for domestic law enforcement and oversees the Federal Police.[45] Shammari is affiliated with the Shia Coordination Framework—a loose coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi political parties—and previously served as the deputy commander of the Joint Operations Command for Iraq.[46]

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—claimed a drone attack targeting Ben Gurion Airport in Lod, Israel, on March 11.[47] The group described the attack as part of its “second phase of operations” to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.[48] CTP-ISW previously reported that the Islamic Resistance in Iraq appears to have refocused its attacks to target primarily Israel rather than US forces for the moment.[49] The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has not attacked US forces since February 4 but has claimed 10 attacks targeting Israel during this same period.[50] It is unclear, however, how many of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq’s attacks targeting Israel have succeeded.

The Jordanian armed forces reportedly intercepted the Islamic Resistance in Iraq’s drone after it entered Jordanian airspace from Syria.[51] A Jordanian security official stated on March 12 that the Jordanian armed forces had located drone fragments near the city of Irbid near the Jordan-Syria border.[52]

Iraqi National Security Adviser Qasim al Araji claimed that ending the US-led international coalition mission in Iraq will not affect NATO’s mission in Iraq during a meeting with the Dutch, German, Italian, and NATO mission ambassadors to Iraq on March 11.[53] Washington and Baghdad began talks to evaluate the status of the US-led international coalition in Iraq in late January 2024.[54] Araji called for greater cooperation between the NATO Mission in Iraq and the Iraqi defense and interior ministries.[55] An Iraqi Parliamentary Security and Defense Committee member separately claimed on March 12 that the NATO Mission in Iraq does not present “a threat to Iraq’s security and stability” like the US-led international coalition allegedly does.[56]

The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) assessed that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias will “almost certainly” resume attacks targeting US forces in Iraq and Syria.[57] The ODNI published its findings in the 2024 Annual Threat Assessment on March 11. These militias suspended their attacks targeting US forces following a one-way drone attack that killed three US servicemembers in northeastern Jordan in late January 2024.[58] IRGC Quds Force Commander Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani traveled to Baghdad after the attack and instructed the militias to pause their attacks. Numerous Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have signaled in recent weeks that they will resume conducting attacks targeting US forces in the region.[59] The ODNI’s assessment is consistent with CTP-ISW's assessment that Iranian-backed Iraqi militias are using US support for Israel in the current war as an excuse to attack US forces. The militias’ actual objective of these attacks is to advance Iran’s long-standing effort to erode US influence in the Middle East.[60] Iran and its Axis of Resistance will almost certainly continue their decades-long effort to expel US forces from the Middle East regardless of whether there is a ceasefire agreement in the Israel-Hamas war.

The ODNI assessed in its annual report on March 11 that Iran is not currently pursuing nuclear weapons.[61] The DNI stated specifically that Iran is not conducting the “key nuclear weapons-development activities” for a testable nuclear explosive. The DNI also stated that Iran will likely pursue further nuclear advancements to “build negotiating leverage” and in response to “additional sanctions, attacks, or censure against its nuclear program.”

Iran has continued to expand its nuclear program since 2021. Iran has produced enriched uranium metal at its uranium conversion facility in Esfahan.[62] Enriched uranium metal can be used to develop the core for nuclear weapons.[63] Iran has also stockpiled several significant quantities (or bombs’ worth) of highly enriched uranium, which it can use in a nuclear weapon.[64] Iran has additionally amassed a large stockpile of low-enriched uranium, which it can enrich to higher levels in a short period of time given its current enrichment capacity.[65] The graph below illustrates Iran’s current uranium stockpile, the number of significant quantities therein, and how quickly it can enrich those stockpiles to weapons-grade uranium:

Note: The above graph reflects the estimates reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its November 2023 verification and monitoring report.

The Houthi movement launched two anti-ship missiles on March 11 that targeted a Singaporean-owned, Liberian-flagged merchant vessel in the Red Sea.[66] US CENTCOM confirmed that the missiles did not impact the merchant vessel, Pinocchio.[67] The Houthi military spokesperson falsely claimed that the vessel is an “American ship.” The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported an explosion near a vessel in the Red Sea on March 11.[68]

The Houthi military spokesperson said on March 11 that the group will escalate its military operations during Ramadan, which he called the “month of Jihad.”[69] The spokesperson was presumably referring to Houthi attacks targeting international shipping and Israel. Houthi Supreme Leader Abdulmalik al Houthi previously alluded to an expansion of attacks on March 7.[70]

US CENTCOM confirmed that it conducted preemptive strikes targeting 18 Houthi anti-ship missiles and an unmanned underwater vessel in Houthi-controlled Yemen on March 11.[71] CTP-ISW previously reported the preemptive strikes impacted around Ras Issa, al Urj, and Jabanah in Hudaydah Governorate on March 11.[72]

Western media reported on March 12 that the European Union is prepared to impose “new and significant measures” against Iran in response to reports that Iran may transfer ballistic missiles to Russia.[73] Reuters reported that EU leaders expressed concern in a draft conclusion for their upcoming March 21-22 summit that “Iran may transfer ballistic missiles and related technology to Russia.” Reuters also reported that the European Union in the draft text called on unspecified third parties to cease “providing material support to Russia” and that the European Union “is prepared to respond swiftly. . . with new and significant measures against Iran,” including further sanctions.

Iranian sources told Reuters on February 21 that Iran provided hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) to Russia in early January 2024.[74] The Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson said on February 21 that Ukraine does not possess any information confirming that Iran has transferred missiles to Russia.[75] The US National Security Council spokesperson similarly said on February 22 that the United States has yet to confirm that Iran has transferred missiles to Russia.[76]

The United States and Bahrain jointly sanctioned several Iran-based individuals on March 12 for supporting the Iranian-backed al Ashtar Brigades.[77] The US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) noted that the sanctions are meant to demonstrate “the critical role that the Iranian regime plays in providing support to Al-Ashtar Brigades.” OFAC and Bahrain sanctioned the following Iran-based individuals:

• Hussein Ahmad Abdallah Ahmad Hussein Al Dammami for facilitating “lethal aid” into Bahrain to support the al Ashtar Brigades
• Al Ashtar Brigades member Ali Abdulnabi Ahmed Ebrahim M Alshofa for facilitating “lethal aid”
• Al Ashtar Brigades member Hasan Ahmed Radhi Husain Sarhan for “plotting terrorist operations” in Bahrain
• Al Ashtar Brigades financier Isa Saleh Isa Mohamed Salman for involvement in money transfers

The al Ashtar Brigades is an Iranian-backed Shia militant group operating in Bahrain.[78] The US State Department previously designated the al Ashtar Brigades as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2018.[79]

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reiterated on March 12 his call for Muslim countries to cut political and economic ties with Israel.[80] Khamenei also reiterated his calls for Muslim countries to help Palestinians. Khamenei has repeatedly called on Muslim states to impose an international embargo on Israel since the Israel-Hamas war began.[81] Khamenei further expressed his desire for the Axis of Resistance to destroy the Israeli state.

3. Gen. Mark Milley’s Second Act: Multimillionaire

Good work if you can get it I suppose.

Gen. Mark Milley’s Second Act: Multimillionaire

In the classroom, the boardroom, and at the speaker’s dais, the former chair of the joint chiefs cashes in.

The Intercept · by Ken Klippenstein · March 11, 2024

Since retiring from the military last year, former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley has become a senior adviser to JPMorgan Chase bank, joined the faculties of Princeton and Georgetown, and embraced the lucrative paid speaking circuit. From military pay of $204,000 a year, Milley is sure to skyrocket to compensation in the millions, especially because he is represented by the same high-powered speakers’ agency as Hillary Clinton, who faced criticism in 2016 for her paid speeches to investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Called “cashing in” by military officers, transitioning from capped government salaries to defense industry, private consulting for global risk management, or work with venture capital brings in lavish paydays. For retired generals, the invasion is swift. The recently retired chief of space operations for the Space Force, Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, for example, has joined the board of directors for aerospace companies Impulse Space and Axiom Space, as well as becoming senior managing director for investment firm Cerberus Capital Management. Gen. James C. McConville, who served as chief of staff of the Army before retiring last year, has joined the board of directors of drone manufacturer Edge Autonomy and aerospace investment firm AE Industrial Partners, as an operating partner.

Milley’s speaker’s agency, Harry Walker Agency is touting the retired general, who crossed swords with former President Donald Trump and continues to be a polarizing figure, for his insights on leadership and international conflicts. “His perspective is invaluable for audiences looking to understand the impact of current conflicts and managing risks on boards of directors and leadership teams who are responsible for making strategic decisions and identifying vulnerabilities,” the website says.

According to the speaker’s agency, Milley recently participated in a Q&A at a gathering of 160 CEOs organized by investment bank Moelis & Company, where he provided his “insider’s perspective on world affairs.”

The engagement has not been previously reported.

“He was terrific — we loved him!” said Moelis & Company, a global investment bank, in a review featured on the agency website. “It was fantastic!”

According to the agency website, Milley “provided crucial perspective to business leaders,” but provided little more detail.

On March 4, Milley also spoke at the American Council on Education’s 2024 Presidents and Chancellors Summit at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C., according to an event page. A portrait of Milley appears on the list of major speakers and links to his Harry Walker Agency page.

His speech at the summit was sponsored by Deloitte, one of the world’s largest consulting and accounting firms, an event page notes. The page describes his speech as exploring “the convergence of democracy, higher education, and moral leadership during times of crisis”; as well as “emphasizing the responsibilities of leaders to uphold democratic principles and inspire resilience in challenging times.”

“The Summit was exclusively for presidents and chancellors, and there is no transcript,” Jonathan Riskind, vice president of public affairs and strategic communications for the American Council on Education, told The Intercept in response to a query.

Asked for transcripts of this and other speaking engagements, and for Milley’s compensation, Moelis & Company, the Harry Walker Agency, and Milley himself did not respond to requests for comment.

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Speaker’s fees for former top officials like Milley are often substantial. During the 2016 presidential election, Democratic nominee Clinton came under fire for receiving over $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs alone in one year. Along with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, the couple raked in over $153 million in speaking fees since leaving the White House.

Milley has emerged as an ardent critic of Trump — unusual for high-ranking military officers who typically eschew politics. In his final speech as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year, in a swipe at Trump, Milley said that “we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”

Trump replied with a statement on his social media platform Truth Social: “Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, costing many lives, leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, and handing over BILLIONS of dollars of the finest military equipment ever made, will be leaving the military next week.”

Clinton’s speeches reportedly earned her around $200,000 a pop — about the same as Milley’s annual salary when he was in uniform.

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The Intercept · by Ken Klippenstein · March 11, 2024

4. America’s Leaders Don’t Understand Nuclear Weapons

Excerpts:

Washington must restore the cultural relevance of nuclear deterrence. Americans lack a tragic sensibility that was more familiar to the generations that defeated fascism and then confronted Soviet communism. In the fraught period ahead, the nation might be tested in crises analogous to those of the early Cold War. It is well past time for a presidential address that explains the stakes at hand, and the irreplaceable role of nuclear deterrence in peacefully advancing American interests.

But the words in such an address must be chosen carefully. Public discourse should avoid doom-laden scenarios and, instead, focus on the peaceful role played by the nation’s nuclear deterrent. Nuclear weapons are the bedrock of the U.S. defense posture, which preserves an international environment favorable to the American way of life. Washington would do well to avoid hysterics and instead emphasize how nuclear weapons underwrite the nation’s security. Otherwise, it will jeopardize the public’s support for American nuclear policy in the long run.

America’s Leaders Don’t Understand Nuclear Weapons

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/03/americas-leaders-dont-understand-nuclear-weapons/

By KYLE BALZER

March 12, 2024 6:30 AM

Recent comments by both Trump and Biden reveal that America’s nuclear rhetoric is woefully inadequate for a new era of great-power competition.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has laid bare several uncomfortable realities about nuclear weapons. By slamming the door shut on the post-Cold War holiday from history, the war has unquestionably ushered in a new era of great-power nuclear competition. Gone are the more tranquil days when Russia was considered a reliable arms-control partner, and China just a rudimentary nuclear power. Moscow now exhibits no inhibitions about rattling every nuclear saber at its disposal, and Beijing has undertaken a rapid nuclear expansion to advance its revisionist agenda in the Asia-Pacific and beyond.

But the Russo–Ukrainian War has also revealed another unpleasant reality closer to home: America’s nuclear rhetoric is woefully inadequate for a new era of great-power competition. U.S. leaders must redress the way they talk about nuclear war — or risk losing the public support required to compete in the nuclear shadow.

Take, for example, Donald J. Trump’s recent suggestion at a campaign rally that he might expose America’s European allies to Russian predations. The former president’s remark — which follows the recent revelation that Trump believes Americans risk nuclear war if they don’t reelect him — has provoked an open debate in Germany about the merits of an all-European nuclear arsenal. At a time when Washington would prefer Europe to focus on conventional capabilities, the allies are, instead, speculating about an independent nuclear deterrent to hedge against Trump 2.0.

Notwithstanding today’s hyper-partisan politics, however, America’s loose rhetoric is unquestionably a bipartisan affair. Consider President Biden’s invocations of World War III in response to Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling earlier in the Ukraine war. When Ukraine was gearing up for its 2022 counteroffensive, which would throw Russian lines into disarray, the White House refused to arm Kyiv with long-range weapons for fear of igniting an escalatory spiral. The nuclear specter undoubtedly shaped the Biden administration’s risk-aversion — with the president warning at the time, “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

Unsurprisingly, U.S. public opinion mirrors Biden’s and Trump’s shared nuclear anxiety. As Russia reinforced its lines in the final months of 2022, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s annual defense survey recorded a rising fear of nuclear escalation among Americans. Nearly 70 percent of those surveyed expressed concern about the prospect of nuclear war in the next five years. The Reagan Institute’s 2023 poll recorded that 74 percent were worried about the possibility of a Russian nuclear attack.

More concerning, however, is public ambivalence about U.S. nuclear policy. According to a joint Chicago Council–Carnegie Corporation survey conducted in 2023, less than half of the respondents (47 percent) believed that nuclear weapons made them safer. Nearly the same share of respondents (43 percent) either believed nuclear weapons didn’t improve their safety or said they lacked the knowledge to register an informed opinion. What’s more, those with little or no memory of the Cold War were more likely to doubt that nuclear weapons made a difference. A silver lining, though, is that the majority of respondents expressed an interest in learning more about the subject.

The Biden administration — or its prospective successor — should take this public interest as an opportunity to educate a generation of Americans who came of age when nuclear weapons were an afterthought. This generation, like their forerunners who prevailed in the Cold War, will be asked to support the long-term sustainment and possible expansion of the nuclear arsenal. It is this generation, then, which Washington must engage to explain why the nation invests in weapons with such awesome power. And it is this generation whose support will be required for the country to run the calculated risks inherent in great-power competition.

Washington must restore the cultural relevance of nuclear deterrence. Americans lack a tragic sensibility that was more familiar to the generations that defeated fascism and then confronted Soviet communism. In the fraught period ahead, the nation might be tested in crises analogous to those of the early Cold War. It is well past time for a presidential address that explains the stakes at hand, and the irreplaceable role of nuclear deterrence in peacefully advancing American interests.

But the words in such an address must be chosen carefully. Public discourse should avoid doom-laden scenarios and, instead, focus on the peaceful role played by the nation’s nuclear deterrent. Nuclear weapons are the bedrock of the U.S. defense posture, which preserves an international environment favorable to the American way of life. Washington would do well to avoid hysterics and instead emphasize how nuclear weapons underwrite the nation’s security. Otherwise, it will jeopardize the public’s support for American nuclear policy in the long run.

KYLE BALZER is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he specializes in nuclear strategy and policy.

5. Competing for Advantage: The Chinese Communist Party, Statecraft, and Special Operations

I just downloaded this but have not yet read it. This is from the Joint Special Operations UNiversity (JSOU).

The 292 page report can be accessed here: https://jsouapplicationstorage.blob.core.windows.net/press/474/CCP_book_Final_030724.pdf

Competing for Advantage: The Chinese Communist Party, Statecraft, and Special Operations

https://www.jsou.edu/Press/PublicationDashboard/244?utm

Authored by:

Barkin, Samuel; Conrad, Justin; Horowitz, Shale; Ye, Min; Reardon, Lawrence; Irwin, Will; Craft, Stephen; Black, Charles; Ellis, David

Edited by:

Ellis, David

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Edited Volumes

Published on 3/11/2024

Digital Only

This edited volume highlights key challenges the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) faces in its rise and contextualizes the potential contributions of special operations to compete for advantage based on the CCP’s interests and vulnerabilities. Competing for advantage means accruing power and influence in such a way that the adversary’s plans cannot be realized. This volume focuses primarily on appreciating the CCP’s worldview, interests, and political culture while promoting a strategic vision for the future—a future where SOF will need to reinterpret their value from providing a military effect to providing a political effect through military means. 

Topics

GPC

AORs

INDOPACOM

6. Exposing China’s bad behavior won’t lead to war’

Good messaging from our ally here:

“Exposing China’s aggressive behavior, illegal presence and bullying tactics in the West Philippine Sea is aimed at supporting the Philippines’ principled position – that disputes must be resolved through peaceful means in accordance with international law,” Tarriela pointed out.

He added that the Philippines, like other countries, is committed to maintaining peace and stability in the region.

China, for its part, should “abide by international law and refrain from altering the status quo by coercion and intimidation,” he said.

He also clarified that contrary to what Uy was saying in the Global Times report, the Philippines is not being pressured to expose China’s coercion and blatant violation of international law.

The Philippines, he added, is only fighting for its sovereign rights.

‘Exposing China’s bad behavior won’t lead to war’

philstar.com · by Evelyn Macairan

MANILA, Philippines — It is “illogical” and “preposterous” to conclude that exposing China’s bad behavior in the West Philippine Sea would lead to World War III, Commodore Jay Tarriela of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said yesterday.

Tarriela, who is also PCG spokesman on the West Philippine Sea, was reacting to a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) by the Beijing-run English newspaper Global Times showing an executive of a pro-China think-tank claiming that the United States’ provocation of the Philippines against China could lead to world war.

“A third country like the United States come into the picture and push and push the Philippines to provoke China. For that matter, a Third World War is possible,” Anna Malindog-Uy, vice president for external affairs of the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute, said in the Global Times report posted on X.

But Tarriela disagreed.

“It is illogical to argue that the Philippines’ policy of exposing China’s bad behavior at sea would lead to a ‘Third World War,’ ” the PCG official said on X. “It is a preposterous claim lacking empirics.”

“Exposing China’s aggressive behavior, illegal presence and bullying tactics in the West Philippine Sea is aimed at supporting the Philippines’ principled position – that disputes must be resolved through peaceful means in accordance with international law,” Tarriela pointed out.

He added that the Philippines, like other countries, is committed to maintaining peace and stability in the region.

China, for its part, should “abide by international law and refrain from altering the status quo by coercion and intimidation,” he said.

He also clarified that contrary to what Uy was saying in the Global Times report, the Philippines is not being pressured to expose China’s coercion and blatant violation of international law.

The Philippines, he added, is only fighting for its sovereign rights.

“Any nation worthy of its name will resist when its sovereignty and sovereign rights are being taken away. The fact is inconvertible,” he stressed.

“Likewise, China does not need any ‘push’ to blatantly violate international law. It has been their strategy from the very beginning to change the status quo by coercion and erode the established rules-based order,” he added.

Supply runs

As this developed, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said it is preparing to launch more supply runs to the West Philippine Sea to support Filipino troops and fishermen.

AFP spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said rotation and resupply operations or RORE are set for this month for the Rizal Reef and Likas stations and for Pagasa Island, Kota, Panata and Parola in the first week of April.

The announcement came a week after the Chinese again tried to prevent Filipino vessels from reaching the BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal to unload supplies and provisions for Filipino troops stationed on the beached World War II era transport ship.

The Chinese used water cannons and made dangerous maneuver to drive away the Filipino boats.

“The AFP will continue its rotation and re-provision or the RORE missions in other islands and features in the WPS,” she told reporters yesterday.

She also reported the presence of Chinese vessels in Philippine waters – five China Coast Guard (CCG) ships, 18 maritime militia vessels and 10 smaller boats around Panatag Shoal.

One CCG ship and six fishing vessels were spotted in the vicinity of Ayungin Shoal while one CCG ship and six fishing vessels were also sighted around Pagasa Island, she said. Seven Chinese fishing vessels were sighted in Panata Island.

The Philippine Navy said it expects the Chinese to continue harassing Filipino resupply vessels, but its spokesman for the WPS, Commodore Roy Vincent Trinidad, said the Ayungin incident on March 5 was not as intense as what happened in 1993 and 1994.

“In 1993-1994 in Mischief (Panganiban) Reef, it was gray on gray,” he explained, referring to the term used for naval ships.

“When China first occupied Mischief Reef, before they put up the fishermen shelters, before they had a reclamation, they stationed Navy ships inside Mischief Reef and they barred our ships from going in. There were a couple of standoffs in 1993-1994 between (Philippine) Navy ships and PLA (People’s Liberation Army) Navy ships. That was intense,” he said.

He described last week’s incident as “normal water cannon incidents,” except that they caused injuries – although minor – and caused slight damage to Filipino boats.

He emphasized the Chinese actions on March 5 were illegal, unprofessional and uncalled for.

Trinidad said recent developments have “minimal” impact on the overall security situation, as such incidents have become “the new normal, the new operating environment” that the military has to deal with.

Unacceptable

Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it took seriously confidential bilateral discussions with Beijing, which the latter had made public, but found several points unacceptable.

In one of the points raised, the DFA said China “insisted on actions that would be deemed as acquiescence or recognition of China’s control and administration over Ayungin Shoal as China’s territory.”

“As Ayungin Shoal is a part of the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, the proposal of China could not be considered by the Philippines without violating the Philippine Constitution or international law,” the DFA said in a statement.

“It should be noted that any agreement or understanding to be reached with any foreign government should not only be in accordance with our mutual interests, but should also not undermine the Philippine Constitution or denigrate the legally-settled rights of the Philippines under international law, particularly the 1982 UNCLOS and the 2016 Arbitral Award,” the DFA said.

The same proposal was raised by Chinese vice foreign minister Sun Weidong in March 2023, which the official called “gentleman’s agreement.”

“From the outset, the DFA wishes to underscore that the Philippines is approaching these confidential negotiations with utmost sincerity and good faith. We were, therefore, surprised by China’s disclosure of sensitive details of our bilateral discussions,” the DFA said.

The DFA said it received last year a number of concept papers from China on various maritime-related proposals.

“In no way did the Philippine government ignore China’s proposals,” the department said.

It said that upon receipt of the Chinese proposals, the Philippine government immediately undertook serious study and consideration of all of them.

The DFA said it had lengthy and in-depth consultations with various concerned agencies with primary competence or functional mandate over the topics and issues raised in the Chinese concept papers.

Several rounds of internal discussions and deliberations were also undertaken within the DFA to consider the Chinese proposals.

“While a few proposals were deemed somewhat workable, many of the remaining Chinese proposals were determined, after careful study, scrutiny and deliberation within the Philippine government, to be contrary to our national interests,” the DFA said.

Instead of considering the counter-proposals submitted by the Philippines, China presented its own counter-proposals, which again “did not reflect our interests, especially on issues such as the South China Sea,” according to the DFA. – Michael Punongbayan, Pia Lee-Brago

philstar.com · by Evelyn Macairan

7. US Key to Philippines’ Plan to Tap Oil, Gas in South China Sea

Will competition over energy resources lead to conflict?

US Key to Philippines’ Plan to Tap Oil, Gas in South China Sea

gcaptain.com · by Bloomberg · March 11, 2024

A Philippine Coast Guard ship is seen surrounded by Chinese maritime militia vessels and a Chinese Coast Guard ship during a resupply mission for Filipino troops stationed at a grounded warship in the South China Sea, October 4, 2023. REUTERS/Adrian Portugal

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March 10, 2024

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By Andreo Calonzo and Manolo Serapio Jr.

Mar 10, 2024 (Bloomberg) –The Philippines is counting on the US and its allies to play a crucial role in its plans to explore energy resources in the disputed South China Sea, according to Manila’s envoy to Washington.

The country is seeking to parlay its deepening security ties with Washington into broader economic benefits, said Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez.

“When the time comes that we are going to start exploring it, we’ll have the options to be able to see how we can secure the expedition,” Romualdez said in an interview in Manila. “We’re working closely with our allies, not only the US but also Japan and Australia,” he said.

Related Article: Australia, Philippines Sign Maritime Accord as China Rises

The Philippines is exploring several options in its quest to tap the resource-rich South China Sea, waters that China claims almost in its entirety. The body of water is estimated to hold significant quantities of oil and gas, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Inviting US companies to invest in the exploration as well as development efforts and discussions with countries like Vietnam that also have overlapping claims with China are among the possible courses of action, he said on March 5.

The Philippines imports almost all its fuel needs and has been trying for years to start energy exploration in the disputed waters, including through a partnership with China. Negotiations between Manila and Beijing have, however, stalled amid heightened tensions, with their coast guard vessels recently clashing again at sea.

Calculated Way

Now the Philippines and its allies are “moving in a calculated way,” the envoy said declining to provide more details on the energy plan, except to say that it will likely happen within President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s term ending in 2028. “It’s part of our energy package,” he said, referring to a broad strategy to bring power costs — among the highest in the region — lower to attract investors.

As the Philippines builds its security alliances amid tensions with Beijing, it wants these partnerships to yield more trade and investment, said Romualdez. “While we have all these defense ties, the bottom line is economic prosperity. If we do not have economic security, we can have all these defense agreements and it would mean nothing to us,” the envoy, a cousin of Marcos, said.

China is also keen on reaping benefits from the resource-rich waters. President Xi Jinping has called on the military to align its maritime strategy with economic development, in what may further intensify its dispute with the Philippines.

In a wide-ranging interview ahead of the US trade and investment mission this week, Romualdez said Marcos is trying to leverage his rising influence on the global stage to win deals for the country. Over the past year, Marcos has deepened security ties with the US. The Philippine leader last month addressed the Australian parliament and in May will be the keynote speaker at regional security forum.

Marcos is scheduled to meet with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo on Monday before he heads to Germany for meetings with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, alongside other Southeast Asian leaders.

“President Marcos is very, very keen on trying to catch these investment opportunities open to us now because we’re in the center,” Romualdez said. Even European countries are taking interest, he added.

Raimondo will lead a delegation to Manila that also includes about 20 American executives from Microsoft Corp., United Airlines Holdings Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and some energy firms, aiming to strengthen economic relations and spur investment into an increasingly important ally. Raimondo will then proceed to Thailand, in hopes of boosting ties in areas including supply chain diversification.

While the Philippines’ strong relations with the US is an advantage, competition for investment among Southeast Asian nations is intense. Marcos has to prove that his government can provide a conducive business environment including less red tape and lower electricity costs, the envoy said.

High power costs remain one of the biggest hurdles for investors, according to Romualdez, and is one of the incentives driving the Philippines’ push to explore its own energy resources.

Marcos’s defense chief, earlier this year, said that it’s increasingly urgent for the Philippines to pursue resource exploration in contested waters, as a key gas field nears depletion.

Last month, the nation’s foreign affairs secretary signaled openness to energy talks with Beijing, while maintaining that Manila would not yield control of any venture to China.

For Philippine Ambassador Romualdez, the time for being soft with Beijing is over.

“What is ours is ours, and we’re not going to stop,” he said of the nation’s plans to explore resources in its exclusive economic zone. “We’ll do it when we feel like it’s time for us to do it,” he said.

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

8. Call for Articles: Military Review Special Edition on Irregular Warfare

Excellent initiative from Army Press, Military Review and the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.

Now it is time to contribute, ladies and gentlemen.

 Call for Articles: Military Review Special Edition on Irregular Warfare 

Army University Press and the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School invite submissions for a special edition of Military Review focused on Irregular Warfare. They're looking for insights from academia and the field to expand the understanding of IW. Topics include policy, training, future trends, digital age effects, space, cyber, and more.

 Deadline: 15 May 2024

 Submit to: usasoc.milreview.submissions.shdmbx@socom.mil

Let's contribute to a comprehensive discourse on IW's evolving landscape. #IrregularWarfare #MilitaryReview #CallForArticles #ArmyUniversityPress

Army University Press and the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School seek articles on Irregular Warfare (IW) from academia and the field for a collaborative special edition of Military Review. We invite you to write on one of the research questions below, current and historical case studies, or other relevant topics to grow understanding of IW.

Irregular Warfare is:

“a form of warfare where states and non-state actors campaign to assure or coerce state or other groups through indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional warfare.”

-    Joint Publication 1, Volume 1, Joint Warfighting (27 AUG 23)

“the overt, clandestine, and covert employment of military and non-military capabilities across multiple domains by state and non-state actors through methods other than military domination of an adversary, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional warfare.”

-    FM 3-0: Operations (HQDA, October 2022)

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

-       Examine the role of policy, doctrine, training, and education in understanding and operationalizing Irregular Warfare.

-       Explore case studies of recent Irregular Warfare challenges to gain insights into contemporary issues and strategies.

-       Consider future trends and the effects of the digital age on the Irregular Warfare landscape.

-       Space and Cyber in Irregular Warfare.

-       Civil-Military Relations and Irregular Warfare.

-       Special Operations, Conventional, and Interagency convergence in Irregular Warfare.

-       Military Information Support Operations (MISO): opportunities and obstacles in Irregular Warfare employment.

-       Identifying Gaps and what is needed for the future Irregular Warfare fight and competition.

-       Ethical and legal considerations in Irregular Warfare: Rules, norms, and human rights.

-       Information Advantage in Irregular Warfare.

-       Translating Human Advantage to the Physical Dimension.

-       Stability Operations: the challenge of keeping the peace in an Irregular Warfare context.

-       Proxy Warfare: how state and non-state actors use proxies in Irregular Warfare.

-       The logistics of Irregular Warfare: resourcing and sustaining.

-       Austere medicine: keeping the force in the fight in Irregular Warfare settings.

Prepare articles in accordance with the Military Review Submission Guide at https://www.armyupress. army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/MR-Article-Submission- Guide/

Submission Deadline: 15 May 2024

Publication: September 2024

Send Submissions to: usasoc.milreview.submissions.shdmbx@socom.mil

9. How Israel Mastered Information Warfare in Gaza

Is there any bias or misinformation ( or actually disinformation) in this article?

Excerpts:

By all appearances, Israel’s social media strategy has been a tactical success. It has helped channel its supporters into one information universe, while leaving its critics and enemies in another. Within their bubble, Israel and its proxies can at the same time boast about the destruction of Gaza, deflect responsibility for their actions, and shrug off denunciations as missing the point. While the creation of social media echo chambers is not new, it is noteworthy that Israel’s superior resources and technology has helped it insulate its supporters against a powerful and well-documented counternarrative.

The strategy could be a case study for conflict parties in wars to come. Those who wish to prevent and resolve wars should also study it. After all, the more belligerents are able to disseminate parallel realities to their publics, the fewer opportunities there may be to make peace.

How Israel Mastered Information Warfare in Gaza

Pro-Israel misinformation aimed at dismissing and discrediting Palestinian narratives is the fruit of a decade-long effort.

MARCH 11, 2024, 3:00 AM

By Alessandro Accorsi, a senior analyst for technology and conflict with the International Crisis Group.

Foreign Policy · by Alessandro Accorsi

The images of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel—during which around 1,200 men, women and children were killed—instantly became the centerpiece of an intense information warfare campaign. For the first time since the Second Intifada, global public opinion was exposed to mass Israeli civilian casualties as images of atrocities committed by Hamas and other armed groups as well as Gazan civilians circulated widely on social media.

The images of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel—during which around 1,200 men, women and children were killed—instantly became the centerpiece of an intense information warfare campaign. For the first time since the Second Intifada, global public opinion was exposed to mass Israeli civilian casualties as images of atrocities committed by Hamas and other armed groups as well as Gazan civilians circulated widely on social media.

Israel and pro-Israeli advocacy groups emphasized the horror of the massacre by distributing the images, mostly to western audiences , through paid advertisement videos on YouTube and X (formerly known as Twitter), in family-oriented videogames, and in screenings of a 45-minute supercut of the footage for select audiences, including in Washington, D.C. and Hollywood. The goal was not solely to raise awareness of the shocking events of Oct. 7, however. Instead, with the ads, the government claimed a right to defend its people and implied that the attacks extended a carte blanche for retaliation.

The use of social media as a tool of information warfare is not new in Israel. Since Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which killed more than 1,000 Gazans in December 2008 and January 2009, a battle of narratives on social media has become an essential part of the fractious discourse between Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinians and their supporters started using social media to disseminate evidence—texts, photographs, and videos—of civilian deaths and widespread destruction in Gaza to mobilize global public opinion against Israel. And the Israeli government, Israelis, and their supporters started employing social media to counter the Palestinians and their supporters in the digital space.

Israel subsequently started to place greater emphasis on dominating the flow of information during conflict to ensure superiority on the battlefield and to build support for its war efforts. With social media conscripting the broader public into war efforts, over the next decade the Israeli state and its supporters sought to shape the global narrative around Israel’s military operations, particularly during escalations with militants in Gaza. Yet for some time the Israeli efforts weren’t quite as successful at influencing global public opinion as the organic and dynamic, albeit less organized, pro-Palestinian campaigns.

Roughly a decade ago, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs began to oversee a network of influencers and pro-Israeli organizations that advanced the Israeli state’s message against the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign and other critics of the occupation, through deceptive, coordinated campaigns designed to appear grassroots-driven and spontaneous.

During Israel’s 2021 war with Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces ran a covert social media campaign praising its bombing of Gaza to improve perception of its performance among the Israeli public. And Israel increased its digital diplomacy outreach to major Western technology companies. A Meta internal audit found that in 2021 the company censored Arabic content at a higher rate than Hebrew content, apparently in response to Israeli government requests.

Social media’s fragmentation and deterioration transformed the digital battlefield after Elon Musk purchased what was then Twitter in October 2022 and Meta laid off thousands of workers and divested from moderation and fact-checking in 2023. Even before these changes, algorithms used by social media platforms favored content that triggered strong emotions, particularly anger. Musk has, in practice, abandoned X’s stated ambition to be a global public sphere and removed checks that reined in outrage and misinformation. The platforms now function less as marketplaces of ideas and more as spaces to lock down one’s own base and discredit those one believes are hostile to it.

Israeli and pro-Israeli actors have adeptly navigated these changes, leveraging the altered dynamics of social media to their advantage.

An aerial photo shows more than a dozen abandoned cars sitting on and around a dusty road that cuts through a desert landscape. Some of the cars bear scorch marks and other damage, and most have their doors flung open.

Vehicles sit abandoned and torched at the site of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas militants on the Supernova music festival in the Negev Desert, seen in southern Israel on Oct. 13, 2023. JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images

Hamas’s graphic and live-streamed massacre on Oct. 7 last year, followed by Israel’s extensive destruction of Gaza, provided a huge volume of images that served as ready-made content for this new digital environment. Israel has followed a four-pronged strategy in its information warfare: emphasize the horrors of the Oct. 7 massacre; discredit pro-Palestinian voices and justify the bombing of Gaza; limit the flow of information about the conflict coming out of Gaza; and rally the Israeli public by advertising its military prowess and destruction of Gaza.

Israel’s investments over the past decade began to pay off as the details of the Oct. 7 massacre spilled over into the policy discourse. Several artificial intelligence (AI) companies in Israel and the United States that were supporting Israeli information warfare before the war began were ready to roll into action. Within days of the Hamas attack, Akooda, an Israeli technology company, created Words of Iron, an AI-powered application users could use to amplify social media posts and narratives supporting Israel and report posts critical of Israel—all while seeming grassroots and authentic.

U.S. President Joe Biden repeated at least twice misleading claims that first circulated on social media, including by top Israeli officials. On Oct. 10, Biden claimed to have seen pictures proving that Hamas had beheaded 40 children in the Oct. 7 attack—a charge that was disproved. That same night, the White House clarified that Biden had not seen the pictures. Then, on Oct. 28, Biden said that he had “no confidence” in casualty figures reported by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. The figures have turned out to be accurate.

The Oct. 7 massacre rapidly became the cornerstone of an Israeli social media campaign. The narratives circulating online drew parallels between Hamas and the Islamic State, blurred the line between civilians and combatants, claimed that Palestinians reject coexistence, and framed Israel’s campaign as a humanitarian fight to free Palestinians from Hamas. Emphasizing the violence of Hamas’ attacks helped Israel tell a one-dimensional story of a multi-dimensional conflict—one that left out its decades of occupation, blockade of Gaza, and systematic violence against the Palestinians.

A large crowd of people hold up posters and Israeli flags as they stand on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Most of the posters show the photos or names of hostages held by Hamas following the Oct. 7 attack.

Participants hold up posters of Hamas-held hostages during the March for Israel on the National Mall in Washington on Nov. 14, 2023. Noam Galai/Getty Images

Five months into the war, Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, injured more than 70,000, and displaced around 1.9 million from their homes. The Israeli airstrikes have created a level of urban destruction more severe than in Aleppo in Syria or Mariupol in Ukraine, destroying or damaging close to one-third of buildings in Gaza. As the extraordinary scale of civilian killings and destruction of homes in Gaza became visible on social media and protesters filled the streets in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, Israel’s information warfare strategy focused on deflecting attention from it.

To this end, Israel has capitalized on polarization in Europe and the United States by pushing a simple narrative: Criticizing the war is anti-Semitic and protesting the mass killing of Palestinians is to do the bidding of Hamas. Israel ran advertisement campaigns estimated to cost up to $7.1 million in October to accuse Palestinian supporters of being complicit in Hamas’ crimes. The government efforts were supported by pro-Israeli groups, which in the United States spent more than $2 million in advertisements on social media, spending roughly 100 times more than Palestinian advocacy groups.

Israel’s bid was partly helped by Palestinian supporters’ own efforts to manipulate the information environment. Pro-Palestinian groups increasingly resorted to using misinformation themselves. Extremist voices and so-called truthers used anger at the apparent lack of empathy among Western media and politicians for the suffering of Gazans to gain space. Groups from the far-right and the far-left—including Holocaust deniers—started spreading conspiracy theories framing the Oct. 7 attack as a “false flag” operation carried out by the Israeli army. Many pro-Palestinian voices amplified these claims and other misleading content.

Read More

A drawn illustration of a Russian soldier's hand using the "X" logo as a puppeteer.

A drawn illustration of a Russian soldier's hand using the "X" logo as a puppeteer.

The West Is Still Oblivious to Russia’s Information War

Paralyzed by free speech concerns, Western governments are loath to act.

Activists project an image of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg onto a wall outside King’s Cross St. Pancras subway station. The text on the image reads "Meta is destroying Brazilian democracy."

Activists project an image of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg onto a wall outside King’s Cross St. Pancras subway station. The text on the image reads "Meta is destroying Brazilian democracy."

Disinformation Isn’t Just a Problem for Elections

2024 may be a big year for voting, but social media risks don’t fit neatly into electoral cycles.

A Syrian refugee has coffee and cake in Sweden.

A Syrian refugee has coffee and cake in Sweden.

Swedengate Was a Lesson in How Easily Misinformation Spreads

One person’s anecdote became a false lesson in national character.

Since Oct. 7, members of Israel’s cabinet and parliament have used increasingly dehumanizing language about Palestinians and Gaza aimed at blurring the line between Hamas combatants and Gaza’s civilian population—some of which was cited in South Africa’s filing against Israel at the International Court of Justice. This has been reflected on social media, where calls for Gaza to be “flattened,” “erased” or “destroyed” were put out about 18,000 times in Hebrew posts on X in the first month of the war, compared to an average of 16 monthly mentions before the war.

While the Israeli government insisted that the use of such language wasn’t official policy, Israel seems to have encouraged it as part of its social media strategy. In October, a psychological warfare unit of the Israel Defense Forces reportedly started a covert Telegram channel targeting the Israeli public, which posted thousands of images of soldiers killing Hamas militants and the destruction of Gaza. As the war progressed, an increasing number of Israeli soldiers posted videos from Gaza, gleefully boasting about killing Palestinians, dancing, or desecrating Palestinian graveyards.

Meanwhile, Israel continued running social media campaigns seeking to deflect criticism for the staggering death toll it has inflicted on Gaza’s population. The official Israel account on X shared a video viewed nearly 10 million times of an alleged armed Hamas militant in the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza. The video actually showed a man holding a baton or crutch.

Journalists and humanitarian workers have been falsely accused of being complicit in crimes committed by Hamas. The Israeli advocacy group Honest Reporting accused Palestinian photographers working for major international news outlets of being embedded with Hamas militants during the Oct. 7 attack and even carrying weapons. Even though Honest Reporting later backtracked on the claims, Israel’s X account has not removed its posts promoting those discredited claims nor added a reference to Honest Reporting’s clarifications.

Daniel Higari, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, wears a green uniform as he points to the opening of a tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip. The opening appears as a dark hole in the side of a sandy hill in a desert landscape, with tents and low buildings visible in the background.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, stands at the opening to a tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip, near the border with Israel, on Dec. 15, 2023. Amir Levy/Getty Images

The Israeli government understands that confused audiences gravitate toward selective facts that reinforce their existing notions of the conflict. Israel has controlled the flow of information by limiting international media access to Gaza, targeting communication infrastructure in Gaza, causing electricity blackouts, depleting users and internet providers of fuel needed to charge phones and servers, and imposing long internet blackouts. While it can’t completely take Palestinians offline, the Israeli government has limited the amount of reliable information coming from the ground. At the same time, 70 Palestinian journalists were killed in the first two months of the war by Israeli airstrikes—a number that has since risen to 90.

Israel also vigorously lobbied social media platforms to take down content from Palestinians and their supporters, often labeling it as promoting terrorism. Human Rights Watch documented 1,050 takedowns of pro-Palestinian content by Meta in October and November 2023. Meta increasingly relied on AI-moderation systems that led to significantly reducing the visibility of pro-Palestinian posts, and to translating “Palestinian” into “terrorist” on Instagram.

In a polarized social media space, every fact has become contested. It seems that for every investigation into an Israeli airstrike or a firefight, there is an alternative framing of events. When an Israeli airstrike most probably hit a convoy of civilians fleeing on an evacuation route, hundreds of pro-Israel users and accounts pretending they were open source investigators worked to shift the focus to videos of an unrelated side-road explosion for which they blamed Hamas. One such tweet was viewed more than 1.1 million times.

On Feb. 29, Israeli troops fired at starving Palestinians trying to get food from an aid convoy in Gaza in an incident that saw more than 100 people killed and around 700 injured, with the precise breakdown between the number felled by Israeli bullets and those dying in the subsequent stampede unclear. Israel claimed all the casualties resulted from the stampede despite evidence showing that many casualties resulted from Israeli forces opening fire. The army released highly edited drone footage but did little to support Israel’s contention about what happened. Pro-Israel accounts blamed civilians for threatening Israeli troops and tried to sow doubt about whether shots were fired.

The pattern of information manipulation has repeated during several other incidents. As researchers and journalists rely on images from social media to conduct investigations, the widespread misinformation complicates their work and undermines their findings.

Israel’s social media campaign also seeks to push back against the country’s anti-war minority and pander to the right-wing electorate. The government cracked down on critics by passing an amendment to Israel’s anti-terrorism law criminalizing consumption of anti-war content on social media and threatening shutdowns of television channels and their websites. Journalists have been harassed by right-wing mobs

By all appearances, Israel’s social media strategy has been a tactical success. It has helped channel its supporters into one information universe, while leaving its critics and enemies in another. Within their bubble, Israel and its proxies can at the same time boast about the destruction of Gaza, deflect responsibility for their actions, and shrug off denunciations as missing the point. While the creation of social media echo chambers is not new, it is noteworthy that Israel’s superior resources and technology has helped it insulate its supporters against a powerful and well-documented counternarrative.

The strategy could be a case study for conflict parties in wars to come. Those who wish to prevent and resolve wars should also study it. After all, the more belligerents are able to disseminate parallel realities to their publics, the fewer opportunities there may be to make peace

Foreign Policy · by Alessandro Accorsi

10. The West Is Still Oblivious to Russia’s Information War

But should we compromise free speech rights? Isn't that one effect that Russia (and other authoritarian dictatorships) like to achieve? Don't we play right into their hands when we compromise our values and principles?

And the irony may be the techniques we use to fight the information war that compromise our values are unlikely to be effective anyway.

I could get behind the call for widespread civic education to reinforce and teach people to protect our values and principles.

And like a broken record I will call again for all of us to remember these words in the 2017 NSS to reinforce the first paragraph excerpted below:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

Excerpts:

Finally, Western governments must move beyond ineffective fact-checking to embark on a mass program of civic education through schools, universities, and public advertising. Such a program should relentlessly emphasize the threat that Russia’s influence poses, clearly label it as an ongoing war, and give the public tools for understanding and countering Russian attacks in their varied forms. A recent Canadian government campaign was a good start, but framed disinformation as a vague threat that “hides well”—rather than exposing it as the tool of a foreign government attacking Western societies. Ukraine’s program of anti-disinformation education has proved robust and could serve as a model.

Of course, some Western citizens could still choose to access Russian propaganda through non-Western services, such as Telegram and TikTok. A truly bold government would respond to the Russian threat not just defensively but in kind—for instance, by flooding pro-Russian channels on Telegram with Western messaging and establishing other channels that subtly spread anti-Russian narratives.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin spent millions of dollars on trolls to spread its messaging online. For Putin, the money was well spent. Since then, Russia’s approach has been constantly refined, reaching deeply into electoral processes and public debates—ultimately affecting decisions about how and whether to aid Ukraine. Yet Western policymakers are still letting themselves be caught on the back foot, because they either do not or will not confront the reality that the Kremlin is waging a war on the West in which all citizens are already a part. Resolving this problem will require bold and potentially unpopular action.

As artificial intelligence and other technologies make the dissemination of messaging to Western audiences ever easier—and as the tide appears to be turning in Moscow’s favor on the battlefield in Ukraine—it is time for Western governments to act. Otherwise, Moscow will win not only a military war in Ukraine but a hybrid one all across the West.

The West Is Still Oblivious to Russia’s Information War

Paralyzed by free speech concerns, Western governments are loath to act.

MARCH 9, 2024, 7:00 AM

By Ian Garner, a historian and translator of Russian war propaganda.

Foreign Policy · by Ian Garner

• Russia

A few weeks ago, a Russian autocrat addressed millions of Western citizens in a propaganda event that would have been unthinkable a generation ago—yet is so normal today as to be almost unremarkable. Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin has now been viewed more than 120 million times on YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter. Despite the tedium of Putin’s two-hour-long lecture about an imaginary Russian and Ukrainian history, the streaming and promotion of the interview by Western platforms is only the latest successful foray in Russia’s information war against the West, which Moscow is showing every sign of winning. And in this war, the Kremlin is not just weaponizing social media, but relying on Westerners themselves to spread its messages far and wide.

A decade into Russia’s all-out information war, the social media companies seem to have forgotten their promises to act after the 2016 U.S. presidential election interference scandal, when Russian-sponsored posts reached 126 million Americans on Facebook alone. Policymakers not only seem oblivious to the full breadth and scope of Russia’s information war, but fears about stifling freedom of speech and contributing to political polarization have led them and the social media companies to largely refrain from any action to stop Russia’s ongoing campaign.

This inaction comes amid growing signs of Russian influence operations that have deeply penetrated Western politics and society. Dozens—if not hundreds or more—of Russian agents have been observed everywhere from English towns to Canadian universities. Many of these agents are low-level and appear to achieve little individually, but occasionally they penetrate institutions, companies, and governments. Meanwhile, a flood of money props up Moscow’s ambitions, including hundreds of millions of dollars the Kremlin is pouring into influencing elections, with some of that money covertly (and overtly) funneled to political parties and individual politicians. For many decades, Western societies have been deluged with every sort of influence imaginable.

While there have been some countermeasures since the start of Russia’s latest war—including the United States and European Union shutting off access to Russian media networks such as RT and Sputnik in early 2022—these small, ineffective steps are the equivalent of information war virtue signaling. They do not fundamentally change Western governments’ lack of any coherent approach to the many vectors of Russian disinformation and hybrid warfare. At the very moment when Kremlin narratives on social media are beginning to seriously undermine support for Ukraine, Western governments’ handle on the disinformation crisis seems to be getting weaker by the day.

For Putin’s Russia, “information-psychological warfare”—as a Russian military textbook calls it—is intended to “erode the morale and psychological spirit” of an enemy population. A central aspect of a wider war against the West, it is conducted online through relentless barrages of fake, real, and misrepresented news, through a cultivated network of witting and unwitting shills such as Carlson. The Kremlin’s messaging has an extraordinary reach: In the first year of the Ukraine war alone, posts by Kremlin-linked accounts were viewed at least 16 billion times by Westerners. Every one of those views is part of a full-spectrum attack against the West designed not just to undermine support for Ukraine, but to actively damage Western democratic systems.

A behind the scenes photo from the TV interview of Vladimir Putin and Tucker Carlson, the two face each other seated in chairs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives an interview to talk show host Tucker Carlson at the Kremlin in Moscow in this image provided by the Russian state agency Sputnik, on Feb. 6. Gavriil Grigorov/AFP via Getty Images

Moscow launches its attacks using a playbook familiar to anyone who watched the disinformation campaigns linked to the 2014 invasion of Crimea and the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Bots, trolls, targeted ad campaigns, fake news organizations, and doppelganger accounts of real Western politicians and pundits spread stories concocted in Moscow—or in St. Petersburg, where then-Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin ran an army of trolls posting on Western social media. If the specific technologies are new, Russia’s strategy of information warfare is not. During World War II, Soviet propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg memorably described the pen as “a weapon made not for anthologies, but for war.” From the early Bolshevik era to the end of the Cold War, his peers spent decades spreading disinformation abroad in hopes that countries targeted by Russia would be unable to “defend … themselves, their family, their community, and their country,” as Soviet journalist turned defector Yuri Bezmenov put it.

What is undoubtedly new is a polarized Western public’s enthusiasm for re-centering its own identity around Moscow’s narratives—and becoming an unwitting weapon in the information war. Take, for example, the QAnon movement, whose supporters have long gathered critical energy from talking points supplied and amplified by Moscow through social media. QAnon supporters espouse a range of grievances familiar from Russian propaganda: anti-LGBTQ+, anti-liberal, and especially anti-Ukraine sentiments. QAnon channels on the messaging app Telegram, for example, rapidly turned into fora for anti-Ukraine and pro-war sentiment.

While ordinary users are certain that they are merely speaking their minds, a domestic policy issue has ultimately turned into a vehicle for Moscow to exert influence over national security decisions. QAnon support has spread from the United States to countries across the West—and each group of adherents, regardless of location and platform, seems to espouse the same pro-Putin sentiments and the same skepticism about providing support for Ukraine.

Such phenomena are all too familiar, whether they relate to the U.S. presidential election influence scandal, to the constant reiteration of Moscow’s talking points about NATO, or to the web of useful idiots—from quasi-journalists to rappers—who seem to function as mouthpieces for the Kremlin by consistently spreading favorable narratives under the guise of asking questions or presenting two sides of a story.

Moscow also exploits non-Western networks, such as Telegram and TikTok, to its own advantage. Today, 14 percent of adult Americans regularly consume news from Chinese-owned TikTok, where thousands of fake accounts spread Russian talking points—and where Russian propagandists can count hundreds of thousands of followers. TikTok has occasionally revealed Russian bot networks, but its efforts to stop the spread of Kremlin-aligned content have been lackluster and ineffective. Millions of Americans hoover up material created by Moscow’s propagandists, bonding with influencers and other users who also share this material, constantly propagating Moscow’s viewpoint on Ukraine. TikTok’s unwillingness to cooperate on countering such disinformation has left U.S. lawmakers with little choice but to mull an outright ban of the network—and even then, that would largely be over China-related concerns, not because lawmakers recognize the crucial role TikTok plays for the Kremlin.

Even where they ostensibly have more control, U.S. policymakers have been unwilling to do much to stem the tide of pro-Russian propaganda. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter and renamed it X, the network has all but openly welcomed Russian influence campaigns onto its servers. The platform even hosts Kremlin-aligned neo-fascists such as Alexander Dugin, who uses it to spread his apocalyptic vision of the war in Ukraine to his 180,000 followers, including via discussion spaces in English. Hundreds of accounts—many belonging to ordinary Westerners—boost Dugin’s reach (and that of similar figures) by following him as well as liking or commenting on posts. X’s streaming and promotion of the Carlson interview and Musk’s own echoing of Russian talking points—such as highly specific claims about Ukraine using phrasing normally employed only by Russian officials—have come in for heavy criticism. But just as damaging are the smaller communities created around figures such as Dugin, where Western users do much to spread an anti-Ukraine message.

A man holds a sign reading “No to Russian propaganda” during a demonstration.

A man holds a sign reading “No to Russian propaganda” during a protest in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 24. Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images

As we enter the third year of Russia’s attempt to conquer Ukraine, it has become apparent that the Kremlin’s information war is fully integrated into the military one. Some of that is aimed at Ukraine, with Russian disinformation campaigns attempting to sow distrust in the country’s political and military leadership. But for the Kremlin, the information war against the West is key. That’s because Putin’s theory of victory in Ukraine runs through Western capitals: If Western support can be undermined over time, Kyiv will lack the weapons and resources to keep fighting. The war over Western opinion is therefore at least as existential for Putin as the fight on the ground in Ukraine.

Yet despite abundant examples of Russian narratives showing up in Western debates, there is almost no serious discussion within governments or among the public about how to end Russia’s information war on the West. Many in the West worry that interfering online will lead them down the slippery slope of repressing free speech. Perhaps they cannot see the conceptual link between information war and military war—and refuse to recognize that the West is already at war with Russia, even if that war is not a military one.

If anything, there are signs that governments are taking Russia’s influence campaigns less seriously today than in the past. The British government first stymied the release of a damning report on Russian interference in British politics—and once the report was released, it did little to act on the findings. In Washington, the Biden administration is scaling back its efforts to head off Russian disinformation. Flummoxed by a barrage of criticism reflecting freedom of speech concerns, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security shuttered its Disinformation Governance Board in August 2022, even as Americans were being barraged by an unprecedented wave of pro-war and anti-Ukraine propaganda on social media. Since then, the U.S. State Department’s parsimonious funding has chiefly gone to small-scale nongovernmental organizations offering fact-checking and disinformation tracking services—a drop in the bucket at best.

Read More

An illustration shows Elon Musk caught in a tangle of scribbles with Twitter logo and blue checkmarks

An illustration shows Elon Musk caught in a tangle of scribbles with Twitter logo and blue checkmarks

Elon Musk’s Twitter Is Becoming a Sewer of Disinformation

Changes to the platform have systematically amplified authoritarian state propaganda.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends a gala event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on May 2.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends a gala event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on May 2.

Kremlin Talking Points Are Back in the U.S. Debate

Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and midterm candidates are peddling Russian propaganda on Ukraine.

Children attend an official initiation ceremony for the youth organization Young Pioneers in Moscow's Red Square.

Children attend an official initiation ceremony for the youth organization Young Pioneers in Moscow's Red Square.

Russia’s Frighteningly Fascist Youth

A new generation of Russians glorifies war, death, and Vladimir Putin.

When Western governments do address foreign hybrid threats, such as cybersecurity and election interference, they are increasingly focused on China. And invariably, they still identify such threats merely as “influence” or “interference,” rather than as part of a larger, concerted military effort. Their responses thus mistakenly circumscribe Russia’s hybrid warfare as a discrete, restricted, and targeted policy of disruption. In reality, it is an ongoing, fluid, and broad phenomenon that invites continued violence.

Any Western vision for future peace in Ukraine—and any discussion of a return to business as usual with Russia—must be paired with restrictions on Russian interference and influence in Western daily life. Ukraine, which has been actively battling Russian influence as part of its war against Moscow since 2014, has already developed approaches from which the West could learn.

First, Ukraine has taken to heart that “information is a weapon that Russia is using against the West,” as Ihor Solovey, head of Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, put it to Foreign Policy. The West, too, must reframe Russia’s disinformation campaigns and other influence activities in the language of war. Academics arrested in Norway and Estonia, Western politicians serving Kremlin-controlled companies, and fake Facebook groups all function—for Moscow—as part of the same military spectrum that includes soldiers and tanks. When an agent or influence operation is uncovered—such as the German Wirecard executive exposed as a Russian spy—politicians should be clear in stating that the West is under attack from Russia.

Second, Western policymakers must act in concert—forming a coalition analogous to the Ramstein group that coordinates military aid to Ukraine—to pass laws and take other measures to ensure that Russia is not able to feed its information directly to Western citizens through social media. Although citizens should be free to discuss any stories they like, enemy combatants should not have the right to free speech in the West. That means that figures such as ultranationalist Dugin should not be welcome on Western social media. The platforms should be threatened with paralyzing penalties for allowing Moscow’s propaganda to spread.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks to Congress.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks to the U.S. Congress about Russian disinformation and the leak of data of tens of millions of Facebook users in Washington, on April 10, 2018.

The U.S. State Department’s recently released framework for combatting disinformation falls far short in this regard. When Moscow is already fighting its hybrid war deep inside Western societies, restricting Moscow’s access to social media portals is an urgent and essential act of national defense. The time for vague plans, investigations, and reports is over. It is time to use the West’s superior technical capacity to ensure that no Russian bots, trolls, or fake accounts are able to access X, Facebook, and other platforms again.

Finally, Western governments must move beyond ineffective fact-checking to embark on a mass program of civic education through schools, universities, and public advertising. Such a program should relentlessly emphasize the threat that Russia’s influence poses, clearly label it as an ongoing war, and give the public tools for understanding and countering Russian attacks in their varied forms. A recent Canadian government campaign was a good start, but framed disinformation as a vague threat that “hides well”—rather than exposing it as the tool of a foreign government attacking Western societies. Ukraine’s program of anti-disinformation education has proved robust and could serve as a model.

Of course, some Western citizens could still choose to access Russian propaganda through non-Western services, such as Telegram and TikTok. A truly bold government would respond to the Russian threat not just defensively but in kind—for instance, by flooding pro-Russian channels on Telegram with Western messaging and establishing other channels that subtly spread anti-Russian narratives.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the Kremlin spent millions of dollars on trolls to spread its messaging online. For Putin, the money was well spent. Since then, Russia’s approach has been constantly refined, reaching deeply into electoral processes and public debates—ultimately affecting decisions about how and whether to aid Ukraine. Yet Western policymakers are still letting themselves be caught on the back foot, because they either do not or will not confront the reality that the Kremlin is waging a war on the West in which all citizens are already a part. Resolving this problem will require bold and potentially unpopular action.

As artificial intelligence and other technologies make the dissemination of messaging to Western audiences ever easier—and as the tide appears to be turning in Moscow’s favor on the battlefield in Ukraine—it is time for Western governments to act. Otherwise, Moscow will win not only a military war in Ukraine but a hybrid one all across the West.

Foreign Policy · by Ian Garner

11. Israel Needs a New Strategy

Excerpt:

This is an imposing list of tasks that requires intensive and carefully coordinated efforts, which will need a whole U.S. government effort. Just as it organized itself to support Ukraine before and after the Russian invasion, so, too, must Washington do now to support Gaza and the Middle East. The catastrophe of October 7 and its aftermath calls for nothing less.

Israel Needs a New Strategy

Total Victory Is Not Possible—but Demilitarizing Hamas and Stabilizing Gaza Still Are

By Dennis Ross

March 13, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Dennis Ross · March 13, 2024

In February, Israeli military intelligence reportedly informed the country’s leaders that Hamas will survive as a terrorist group after the war. Despite this assessment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to declare that there will be “total victory” over Hamas, and that it will take “months, not years” to achieve.

In part, this is because October 7 changed Israel, inflicting trauma and hardening Israelis’ belief that they cannot live with Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip. Israel’s air and ground campaign into Gaza seemed designed to root Hamas out—a daunting task given its extensive labyrinth of tunnels and its cynical use of the entire population of the strip as its shield. The price Palestinians have paid is a terrible one, as Israel strives to make certain that Hamas can never again threaten it from Gaza—which, as Netanyahu has said, still requires Israel to send troops into the southern city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt. U.S. President Joe Biden has insisted that this movement must not take place until after there is a credible evacuation plan for the 1.3 million Gazans who are now crammed into this area.

If Hamas is going to persist as a terrorist group in Gaza, as Israeli military intelligence forecasts, then Netanyahu must come to terms with the fact that no victory in the territory can be total. Similarly, while making sure that Hamas is not able to preserve its military presence in Rafah, Israel also must ensure that the border with Egypt is no longer a sieve through which huge amounts of material can be smuggled into Gaza. If nothing else, that imperative points to working out a joint regime or a coordinated approach with Egypt to stop the smuggling from the Sinai into Gaza. As such, Israel needs a strategy, not slogans, for ensuring that its military efforts (and achievements) in Gaza translate into a new political reality—a reality that means Israel will no longer be threatened from the strip.

WHILE THE BATTLE RAGES

The starting point for an effective strategy is framing the objective differently. It is time for Israeli leaders to recognize that they will never be able to eradicate or eliminate Hamas. As the United States discovered in its efforts to eradicate ISIS, one does not eliminate an ideology—however repugnant it may be. The United States defeated ISIS militarily, but it still keeps roughly 3,000 soldiers in Iraq and 900 in Syria to ensure that the group does not reconstitute itself.

Israel will not be able to retain a presence in Gaza if it wants the strip to be transformed. Nor does Israel want to be responsible for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza, let alone have to cope with an insurgency that would almost certainly result from any reoccupation of Gaza. Having said that, Israel should not leave Gaza before it knows that Hamas is not in a position to reconstitute itself, its military means, and its political control. That does not require the elimination of Hamas. It does, however, require that the organization’s military infrastructure, weapons depots, military industrial base, systems of command and control, and organizational coherence are largely destroyed. Furthermore, it requires the establishment of an alternative to Hamas that is able to preside over day-to-day administration, and to provide the law and order necessary for reconstruction. In other words, Israel’s objective—and the United States’—needs to be a permanently demilitarized Gaza, which can never again be used as a platform for attacks against Israel. That will have the virtue of sparing Israelis and Palestinians alike, as Israel will have no need either to quarantine Gaza or strike against it.

The good news is that the Israeli military is succeeding in demilitarizing Gaza and dismantling Hamas’s military capability. Israel’s forces have already destroyed 18 of the 24 Hamas battalions. Not all of the battalions’ fighters have been killed or captured, but their units no longer exist and they are no longer part of an organized resistance. Of course, armed Hamas operatives can still pose a threat, meaning that some security presence will remain necessary for the time being, even in those areas where Hamas forces have been largely defeated.

A GRAND COALITION

It is these areas, starting in the northern part of Gaza, to which the evacuees from Rafah need to move. Many of these people were evacuated in the early days of the conflict, when Israel began its campaign in Gaza City, Beit Hanoun, and the Jabalia refugee camp. These evacuees would, no doubt, like to return to their homes. The problem is that 70 percent of all the buildings in the north have either been destroyed or made uninhabitable. That is why step one of the strategy must be the creation of a humanitarian mechanism, led by the United States, and in partnership with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. This must provide immediate assistance in terms of temporary and portable housing. The Saudis—given their experience in handling the very large numbers that come into the kingdom for the hajj and for whom shelter is often provided—can certainly be helpful in this effort. The Emiratis and Qataris, too, can finance caravans, trailers, and prefabricated housing.

True, the Gulf states have said they will not provide reconstruction assistance unless it is tied to a plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But they are already providing humanitarian assistance, and nothing is more basic in meeting humanitarian needs than providing food and shelter. These countries can certainly justify their actions as necessary to relieve Palestinian suffering. The Gulf states, with Egypt, the European Union, Jordan, and the United States, should work with the bureaucratic structure in Gaza that was first established by the Palestinian Authority in 1994and has continued to operate under Hamas. This structure’s role has been administrative, not political, managing daily needs. Palestinian businesspeople from within and outside Gaza should also be included in the territory’s administration, and the humanitarian mechanism should work with them to distribute assistance and stimulate the beginnings of commercial activity.

Security for the delivery and distribution of humanitarian aid will be needed—as demonstrated by the recent crush to reach trucks carrying food in northern Gaza that left almost a hundred dead. Although the members of the humanitarian grouping are unlikely to put their forces on the ground, they can provide outside contractors with security experience, and local non-Hamas Palestinians can be hired. Contracting for security with local Palestinians may be possible because, as one senior UN official told me, those on the ground in Gaza want relief and many are angry with Hamas. When its fighters appear, people often throw stones at them. This security should be structured in accordance with best practices derived from existing models. The United Arab Emirates, for example, is providing security for the field hospital it has set up in Gaza, and will apparently do the same for the five automated bakeries it is now sending to meet food needs. These zones could even be expanded. Through these efforts, the areas in the north to which evacuees will return can become successful pilot projects, demonstrating that life and recovery is possible as long as Hamas is not in control.

Parallel to the establishment of the humanitarian mechanism, the Biden administration should immediately broker understandings between Egypt and Israel to prevent the smuggling of covert supplies to Hamas. Even if Israel acts to take out the four Hamas battalions in this area, a new approach to Rafah will be essential to prevent the remilitarization of Gaza. Simultaneously, in the West Bank, Washington must act to encourage the reform of the Palestinian Authority. As long as 91 percent of Palestinians believe that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas should resign and 80 percent are convinced that the PA is corrupt, it is pointless to talk about a political horizon or an endgame. The PA must be overhauled. It was done in 2007, when the Bush administration mobilized all of the PA’s donors to collectively insist that Abbas appoint an empowered prime minister. Abbas conceded and appointed Salam Fayyad, who cleaned up the PA. This must be done again without delay—especially if other critical aims are to be achieved. For example, Gaza’s reconstruction and Saudi normalization with Israel will not be achievable without a political reunification of Gaza and the West Bank. Of course, these two goals also depend on ending the war in Gaza. Washington is hoping that a hostage deal can produce an extended pause that leads either to a permanent cease-fire or a fundamental change in the character of the war.

REBUILD AND DISARM

The Israeli military speaks of four phases in its Gaza campaign. The first three are the initial air campaign, the high-intensity ground intervention, which involved over five divisions in Gaza, and the more limited and targeted ground involvement, in which the presence today has shrunk to five brigades. The final phase will see withdrawal from Gaza with a narrow buffer established around the kibbutzim, and Israel reserving the right to go in and out as necessary either to target Hamas leaders who remain in the tunnels or to prevent pockets of Hamas from reemerging and becoming a threat. In theory, phase four could be characterized as the end of the military campaign. If nothing else, it is likely to mark the return of politics in Israel, with Israeli Ministers without Portfolio Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot probably leaving the war cabinet, and leading security officials resigning to assume responsibility for the failure of October 7. These changes could set in motion events that lead to an election and the formation of a different government. Their timing very much depends on when phase four begins, which could be as the result of either a hostage deal or Israel’s destruction of the remaining six Hamas battalions. At that point, reconstruction, with the necessary monitoring mechanisms to ensure no diversion, must begin.

Necessarily, the reconstruction of Gaza will require the involvement of numerous international and regional actors. This will present challenges to Israel, as these agencies, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations may be unwilling to stay and manage reconstruction if Israeli forces continue to operate in Gaza. Ensuring Gaza’s permanent demilitarization should be Israel’s foremost objective, and at some point Israeli officials will want this done by others. As they will perceive it, demilitarization has been accomplished, and they do not want to stay in Gaza to ensure that there is no remilitarization. But this will require Israel nonetheless cooperating with a robust international approach to reconstruction and monitoring what comes into Gaza.

The basic formula must be massive reconstruction for demilitarization. At a minimum, that will require an international coalition of countries to bring in large amounts of material. Biden’s recent decision to create a pier to provide means for delivering material assistance will certainly set the stage for providing reconstruction materials later on. Supplies for reconstruction must be managed and monitored from the time of entry into Gaza to their storage and eventual use. The violation and diversion of supplies by Hamas or those with guns should bring an immediate halt to reconstruction and the entry of new material. Countries including Canada, which is experienced in postconflict situations, could assume a leading role in developing the needed onsite and online monitoring systems. These should be used to ensure that Hamas does not try to reassert itself. No donor will invest in Gaza if Hamas is in control or siphoning away supplies. Everyone knows that Hamas will seek to divert the assistance and to reconstitute itself and its military machine—so, publicly, a condition for reconstruction must be a genuinely different administration in Gaza.

The reconstruction of Gaza will require the involvement of numerous international and regional actors.

Finally, there is the issue of Saudi normalization with Israel. Prior to October 7, Riyadh had an interest in showing that it had delivered at least something symbolic for the Palestinians. Today, the Saudis understand they need something more. October 7 had two very different sets of consequences. For the Saudis and the Arabs more generally, the death and destruction in Gaza has awakened their publics to the need to address the Palestinian issue—and governments understand that they cannot ignore it. With that in mind, they want a clear endgame that is different from the previous processes, including the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995, which failed to deliver a lasting solution. Hence these governments’ talk of an assured path to Palestinian statehood.

In Israel, there is the opposite view. Because of October 7, Israelis across the political spectrum are convinced that a Palestinian state will end up being dominated or led by Hamas or Hamas-like groups. Presently, they do not see a distinction between Hamas and Palestinians—especially given polling that shows Palestinian support for what Hamas did on October 7 and statements denying the atrocities. Add to that Iran’s determination to use its proxies to continue to confront Israel, and Israelis see a Palestinian state as a profound threat. Moreover, there is deep opposition to the idea that the result of October 7 should be a reward for Palestinians or Hamas in the form of assured statehood.

A TIME TO COMPROMISE

Israeli fears are understandable and need to be recognized. That said, it is incorrect to argue that a Palestinian state as part of a two-state outcome would be a reward for Hamas. The real reward for Hamas would be the death of a two-state outcome. This is because its leaders countenance only one state, as they reject Israel’s right to exist. Ironically, ongoing Israeli opposition to a Palestinian state will ensure a one-state outcome.

Still, Israelis need to see that a Palestinian state is not going to be a threat, even if the reality of statehood is a long way off. That is because much would have to be done before there could be a Palestinian state. Institutions would have to be built to ensure that it does not become a failed state. Today or any time soon, a Palestinian state would almost certainly be a failed state. More than that, there are a number of conditions that must be met before a Palestinian state can come into being. First, it cannot be led or dominated by Hamas or Hamas-like groups, nor can it be allowed to form alliances with states hostile to Israel. Second, it must accept two states for two peoples. Palestinian leaders have never acknowledged that the Jews are a people entitled to self-determination, meaning that they have never accepted the legitimacy of Israel; they have simply acknowledged Israel’s existence as a fact. That makes incitement against it easier to justify, and it is time for Palestinian leaders to end incitement and the socialization of hostility. Finally, theirs should be a nonmilitarized state. It can have police and security forces but no army.

For Israelis to accept the prospect of a Palestinian state, they must be reassured. The process of doing so can begin with steps on the ground designed to build a new, demilitarized Gaza, with Arab countries playing an active role in that effort, helping to foster and sustain an alternative to Hamas control. At some point, these countries must be prepared to condemn what Hamas did on October 7. Today, no Arab leader wants to look as though he is defending Israeli actions in Gaza, but there must come a time when it will be possible to condemn Hamas. The inability to do so sends a message to Israelis that, ultimately, Arabs are not prepared to delegitimize Hamas or groups like it.

Saudi normalization with Israel will be an essential element of reassurance. Indeed, normalization offers more than just reassurance because it promises to transform the region and provide the basis for a coalition to counter the Iranians and their proxies. This, Israelis understand, can enhance their security, particularly because it could mean that there is a collective approach to countering Iran—and one that does not leave Israel isolated in dealing with Iranian proxies.

To be sure, Israel, too, must have obligations. The war in Gaza has produced profound trauma for Palestinians, and they need to see that Israel recognizes, in principle, their right to statehood. Beyond this, Israel must not act in ways that make a Palestinian state impossible. That means that Israel must stop settlement expansion, especially outside of the blocs. There also needs to be much greater territorial contiguity for Palestinians in the West Bank, and Israel must support reforming the Palestinian Authority, to help build the authority of a new empowered prime minister. Similarly, lifting constraints on Palestinian movement, trade, and investment in infrastructure, particularly in roads and water, could also help to show that the reformed PA is working. The same would be true of allowing much greater Palestinian economic activity in those parts of the West Bank where the Israelis retain total civil and security responsibility. And, with Palestinians fearful that they are unprotected from extremist settlers, Israeli leaders must no longer tolerate lawlessness by the hilltop youth and others. Those who attack or threaten Palestinians should be prosecuted, and those responsible for incitement condemned.

FIRST FOR UKRAINE, NOW FOR GAZA

Out of the trauma of October 7 and its aftermath can come an opportunity to transform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the region for the better. But it will not happen on its own. The Biden administration has often talked about how it is committed to waging “relentless” diplomacy. It certainly demonstrated that before and after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Swiftly, Washington mobilized and organized sanctions, acted to minimize the consequences of limiting Russian oil and gas sales, created a logistics hub for getting military assistance to Ukraine, coordinated and dispatched massive economic assistance to Kyiv, enhanced NATO’s deterrence with forward deployments, worked to absorb both Sweden and Finland into the alliance, and ramped up defense industries.

Washington had allies who were prepared to do their part, but it took the United States to lead and organize them. A similar effort is now needed in the Middle East. The scale of the challenge is daunting, for the Biden administration must broker Egyptian-Israeli understandings on Rafah, organize the humanitarian mechanism with Gulf states, and coordinate with the Israelis to permit evacuees to return to the north. At the same time, Washington must make sure that all necessary assistance, especially shelter and food, is being provided and can get into the area, while working with those who can organize security. In addition, the United States must reach an understanding with Israel on what constitutes sufficient demilitarization of Hamas and Gaza for the military campaign to end, or for phase four to begin. All this must be done, and Washington must continue to do all it can to get Israeli hostages released, and to create a plan for reconstructing Gaza with sufficient monitoring and enforcement to ensure that there is no diversion of material. This will also require the mobilization of the Arabs and Europeans to join in insisting on reform of the PA and the institution of an empowered prime minister—even as the administration works to reach the normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and conveys to Hezbollah and Iran the cost of escalation. Both need to understand the reality that Israel after October 7 is not the same as it was before. Its tolerance level for threats is low—and so is that of the United States.

This is an imposing list of tasks that requires intensive and carefully coordinated efforts, which will need a whole U.S. government effort. Just as it organized itself to support Ukraine before and after the Russian invasion, so, too, must Washington do now to support Gaza and the Middle East. The catastrophe of October 7 and its aftermath calls for nothing less.

• DENNIS ROSS is Counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a Professor at Georgetown University. A former U.S. Envoy to the Middle East, he served in senior national security positions in the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations.

Foreign Affairs · by Dennis Ross · March 13, 2024

12. Forever Putinism

Excerpts:

Allowing for the vicissitudes of war, markets, and politics, the depth and scope of forever Putinism is striking. So far, the war has made Putinism stronger. Should the Russian military start to achieve something closer to victory in Ukraine, the Putinist system will become more assertive at home and abroad. Even if Putin were to pass suddenly from the scene, the instruments of coercion will likely remain where he has planted them: in the Kremlin, in the security services, and in the military. Whether anyone other than Putin can capably manage these instruments is unknowable, but with or without Putin, these instruments align with many vested interests and many past precedents. They will not be handed over peacefully to the stewards of some other system.

When Joseph Stalin died in 1953, after decades of tyranny, the battle for succession was chaotic and bloody. His eventual successor, Nikita Khrushchev, superseded his rivals and had the most formidable of them, Lavrentiy Beria, executed. Khrushchev was later toppled by his own elite. He was succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev, who embraced the principle of collective leadership. What survived, as leadership changed, was the Communist Party, the pillar of the Soviet Union. So, too, did the Soviet ideology, the Soviet army, and the many administrative institutions that existed within the Soviet government. The Soviet Union of the 1950s and 1960s did not descend into civil war. It did not opt out of the Cold War, and it did not disappear from the map.

This is a pattern that forever Putinism might replicate. Because Putin has anointed no successor, a struggle for power could well follow Putin’s exit from the scene. Those within this struggle, if they can prevent a bloodbath, would have many incentives to perpetuate the existing system. They would keep their grip on the powers lodged in the military and the security services. They would not want to see internal strife imperil Russia’s geopolitical position, and they would not want to give up the ideological constructs Putin has assembled. This raises the sobering possibility that forever Putinism, which now revolves around a single man, could outlast the tenure of Putin himself. Putin has done enough to ensure that whoever follows him is likely to be his heir.

Forever Putinism

The Russian Autocrat’s Answer to the Problem of Succession

By Michael Kimmage and Maria Lipman

March 13, 2024

Foreign Affairs · by Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability · March 13, 2024

In 2012, Vladimir Putin, after four years as prime minister, once again became Russia's president. Many Russians resented his engineered return: prior to the 2012 presidential election, “Russia Without Putin” had been a popular sign at protest rallies. Their discontent had something to do with Putin himself and much to do with Russia’s evolving political system. There was no institution or clause in the Russian constitution that could constrain Putin. Nobody stood in his way.

Early-stage Putinism was marked by a mix of public complacency and indifference. Complacency flourished when the Russian economy expanded between 2000 and 2008, the first eight years of Putin’s presidency, enabling the rise of a Russian middle class. Indifference, which the Kremlin inculcated in part by discouraging public participation in politics, assisted in the regime’s creeping authoritarianism. One need not love Putin; it was sufficient to merely not care how he stayed in power. By 2022, Russia had arrived at something new: wartime Putinism. It was fully authoritarian and partially mobilized for war, yet with space left for degrees of complacency and indifference.

From March 15 to March 17, a putative presidential election will again be held in Russia. The procedural formalities—candidates, campaigns, the ballot box itself—will not affect the Kremlin’s preordained result. Now in his 25th year in power, Putin will serve another six-year term. At the end of it, he will be eligible to run again and to extend his reign to 2036.

Through tight management, the Kremlin has tried to make the election as uneventful as possible. Although Putin would likely win a fair election in 2024, an unmanaged election would foster genuine political contestation and criticism of the president, which the Kremlin had long been keeping off-limits.. Meaningful criticism would open the door to another possibility: namely, that Putin’s edicts may not reflect the united will of the Russian people and that he may not be destined to rule Russia in perpetuity.

In his quarter century in power, Putin has pursued two separate goals. The first has been to create a vast machinery of repression, eliminating any domestic forces that oppose him or that have the potential to do so. This process has entailed the murder of journalists, the arrest of insufficiently loyal oligarchs, and the persecution of any viable political alternative to Putin. The liberal politician Boris Nemtsov was killed outside the Kremlin in 2016. The political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been imprisoned since the start of the war in Ukraine. And after displaying unyielding political courage, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny died at the age of 47 in a penal colony in the Russian Arctic. He had survived an attempted assassination by poisoning, in 2020. A year later, after receiving medical care in Germany, he returned to Russia, aware of the risks he was taking.

Putin’s other goal has been to deprive most Russians of the ability to imagine a future without him. Because it is impossible to counter him today, the thinking goes, it will be impossible to counter him tomorrow. No longer hemmed in by a parliament, a constitution, or a political opposition, Putin is at the height of his power. A prevailing sense of “forever Putinism” provides many Russians with a sense of stability; it is the political continuity they know best. For a minority, it induces despair or rage.

Forever Putinism has its vulnerabilities. Any regime that promises to live forever cannot let itself be perceived as failing. To endure, Putin’s regime must maintain the illusion not just of its inevitability, which it has already achieved, but also of its own immortality, which it cannot achieve. Visible cracks in the myth have the potential to undermine the myth itself. Putin’s presentation of himself as an omnipotent savior—the only one who can steer Russia’s destiny—thus presents a long-term risk for the regime.

A MIRAGE OF INVINCIBILITY

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine was an instrumental step in the construction of forever Putinism. The war has strengthened the Russian leader less by augmenting the Kremlin’s already formidable power than by radically diminishing the scope of civil society. Whereas until recently political elites had a degree of decision-making power, the war has made them into the executors of Putin’s will, mere adjutants to the generalissimo.

Today, Russian institutions cannot serve as vehicles for questioning official policy. They are expected to show their commitment to the war effort; any expression of dissent with respect to the war has been criminalized. Many Russians now accept the following propositions as doctrinal truths: Putin is capably fighting a necessary war, Putin is the only one who can lead Russia, and Putin owns Russia’s political future. Anyone who suggests otherwise does so at great risk.

The war has significantly militarized Russian politics and society. Around the country, billboards and posters glamorize soldiering. State media demonize the “collective West,” which has turned Ukraine into its puppet, forcing Russia into a defensive war. In the Kremlin’s telling, Putin is the irreplaceable commander in chief, the strategist and diplomat who can carry the country on his shoulders, and the purveyor of order who will lead the country to victory. Even among Russians who long for peace, many believe that only Putin can deliver it.

At home, the war in Ukraine has reinforced Putin’s image as a defender of Russia’s national interests.

The militarization of Russian society can be selective. It does not mean that everyone must passionately support or enlist in the war effort. Demanding acquiescence, the Kremlin understands that the war effort can also be ignored or put out of mind. Such piecemeal militarization is the defining feature of wartime Putinism, which is repressive but only episodically Orwellian.

Through its media infrastructure, the Kremlin repeats its talking points daily. It claims, not without justification, that Russia has gained the upper hand on the battlefield; that outside the U.S.-led West, public opinion is more sympathetic toward Russia’s position; and that the Russian economy is in good shape, a point bolstered by low unemployment and rising wages. In the eyes of his domestic audience, Putin has passed an important test: he has stood up to the West, defying its criticism, its sanctions, and its military aid to Ukraine. This projection of strength necessitates that Moscow consolidate its battlefield victories. Were Putin’s army to fail, the leader’s competence at home could well be questioned.

In the early months of 2024, however, and given the course of events, the war and forever Putinism are mutually reinforcing. Putin has positioned himself as the singular man who has synthesized the best strands of imperial Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet history, the history of a great country that has never been conquered; the president who restored pride in Russia and Russianness; the defender of traditional values against decadence; and the statesman who has given Russia (just barely) the strength necessary to contend with the perfidious West. Hostile to the West instead of envious, Putin’s Russia is far more secure in 2024 than the Soviet Union was in the 1980s.

Whatever Putin does is what Russia needs to do. His words and actions determine the nature of the ideology, not the other way around. The war in Ukraine has further reinforced Putin’s image as a defender of Russia’s national interests. The war has been fashioned into the keystone of a state-sponsored ideology, yet another event in the continuum of forever Putinism.

CRACKS IN THE FACADE

Even a timid oppositionist, such as Boris Nadezhdin, with no record of rebellion against the powers that be, was an affront to the aesthetic of forever Putinism. In the presidential election, Nadezhdin was not given even the shortest leash to run as an opposition candidate to Putin. When Nadezhdin’s campaign unexpectedly encouraged tens of thousands to sign onto his candidacy and antiwar sentiment began crystallizing around his person, Nadezhdin had to be removed from contention, revealing a dilemma of dictatorships, which can comfortably move only toward greater repression. Dictatorial governments endanger themselves more by loosening up than by cracking down.

Unlike Nadezhdin’s short-lived campaign, the death of Navalny is a real ripple on the surface of forever Putinism, and it will not be effortless for the regime to accommodate it. By 2024, Navalny had run out of room: he had long been barred from running for office, he had been denied access to the public in all but the most truncated of ways, and then he lost his life. The Kremlin has treated Navalny’s death as a nonevent, although tens of thousands in Moscow and other cities, overcoming fear of repression, expressed their grief in public and chanted Navalny’s name. For three consecutive days, mourners came to his grave in Moscow, creating a mountain of flowers.

The Russian state defeated Navalny, turning his unique biography into the story of a secular saint. His memory embodies two principles that will militate against forever Putinism: the refusal to tolerate apathy and the refusal to accept that Russian politics is entirely a top-down operation.

The death of Navalny is the Kremlin’s sign that forever Putinism is not hiding itself from view, not masking itself, not pretending to be democratic or subject to outside influence. The Kremlin assumes that it can act with impunity. Many inside Russia, although they understand, of course, that Putin is mortal, still cannot conceive of a future without him. This year’s presidential election, then, is not just a ritual exercise validating another six years under Putin. It should be interpreted as a final farewell to those vestiges of the political past that preceded or that complicated the arrival of forever Putinism. The emperor is on his throne, and all that can be said is, “Hail, Caesar!”

THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN

To borrow a phrase from Karl Marx, forever Putinism may contain the seeds of its own destruction. In an unapologetic dictatorship, there is much that can go wrong. The war in Ukraine oscillates every few months, and Russia’s fortunes there could well deteriorate. Wartime societies have breaking points that become visible only when they are reached, and Putin’s war has already brought staggering levels of human loss to Russia.

Russia’s economy also remains subject to upheaval and vulnerable to Western sanctions. Forever Putinism could slide into overreach. Autocratic governments can enrich themselves unwisely. They can lose contact with those they govern, becoming progressively less secretive about the coercion and repression that is the foundation of their rule.

Allowing for the vicissitudes of war, markets, and politics, the depth and scope of forever Putinism is striking. So far, the war has made Putinism stronger. Should the Russian military start to achieve something closer to victory in Ukraine, the Putinist system will become more assertive at home and abroad. Even if Putin were to pass suddenly from the scene, the instruments of coercion will likely remain where he has planted them: in the Kremlin, in the security services, and in the military. Whether anyone other than Putin can capably manage these instruments is unknowable, but with or without Putin, these instruments align with many vested interests and many past precedents. They will not be handed over peacefully to the stewards of some other system.

When Joseph Stalin died in 1953, after decades of tyranny, the battle for succession was chaotic and bloody. His eventual successor, Nikita Khrushchev, superseded his rivals and had the most formidable of them, Lavrentiy Beria, executed. Khrushchev was later toppled by his own elite. He was succeeded by Leonid Brezhnev, who embraced the principle of collective leadership. What survived, as leadership changed, was the Communist Party, the pillar of the Soviet Union. So, too, did the Soviet ideology, the Soviet army, and the many administrative institutions that existed within the Soviet government. The Soviet Union of the 1950s and 1960s did not descend into civil war. It did not opt out of the Cold War, and it did not disappear from the map.

This is a pattern that forever Putinism might replicate. Because Putin has anointed no successor, a struggle for power could well follow Putin’s exit from the scene. Those within this struggle, if they can prevent a bloodbath, would have many incentives to perpetuate the existing system. They would keep their grip on the powers lodged in the military and the security services. They would not want to see internal strife imperil Russia’s geopolitical position, and they would not want to give up the ideological constructs Putin has assembled. This raises the sobering possibility that forever Putinism, which now revolves around a single man, could outlast the tenure of Putin himself. Putin has done enough to ensure that whoever follows him is likely to be his heir.

• MICHAEL KIMMAGE is Professor of History at the Catholic University of America and a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is the author of Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability.
• MARIA LIPMAN is a Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute of European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the George Washington University and Co-Editor of the Institute’s website, Russia.Post.

Foreign Affairs · by Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability · March 13, 2024

13. Could a TikTok Ban Actually Happen?

Face major hurdles? E.g., Like every person between the age of 10 and 30.

Even the Biden campaign has joined TikTok because they "must go to where the people are." That surely is an acknowledgement that a large segment of the American people are on TikTok and they must believe it is an effective way to communicate with them.

I wonder what the challenge in court will be like. Is this the government infringing on the free speech rights of Americans who wish to post on TikTok?

Excerpts:

If the bill ends up passing, its provisions would set a clear domestic precedent: Other foreign-run platforms could be subject to similar actions. Ruane is concerned about what such a ban would mean abroad too. Already, American-owned digital platforms have been blocked in other countries, including China, and a TikTok ban could give authoritarian regimes the license to ban others for “pretextual” reasons. The potential fallout, she told me, could further limit users’ access to information and freedom of expression across the world.

Because many voters are cold on China, Kreps said that backing anti-China legislation could help lawmakers politically. But banning TikTok outright, Ruane argued, would not actually solve the core issue of the Chinese government being able to access American user data through other means online. In her view, a better way to safeguard those data would be to create comprehensive consumer-privacy laws that would require apps including TikTok, as well as American companies such as Facebook, to face more restrictions on how they handle user data. That kind of comprehensive approach, although perhaps less politically punchy than the House bill, may well improve life on the internet beyond TikTok too.

Could a TikTok Ban Actually Happen?

The push to curtail the platform has bipartisan support, but it faces major hurdles.

By Lora Kelley

The Atlantic · by Lora Kelley · March 12, 2024

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Efforts to crack down on TikTok are picking up momentum in Congress. What was once a Trump-led effort boosted by Republicans has since become a bipartisan priority for lawmakers hoping to look tough on China in an election year.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

• The return of measles
• QAnon for wine moms
• Trump repeats Obama’s mistake.
• Are Gen Z men and women really drifting apart?

New Momentum

Efforts to ban TikTok in the United States—or at least to attempt to force the Chinese-founded company ByteDance to divest TikTok—have recently picked up momentum. What once seemed like a quixotic, Trumpian endeavor has now shaped into a congressional bill that a bipartisan House committee voted unanimously to advance last week. The bill’s pointed provisions, which will most likely be brought to a broader House vote this week, refer to TikTok by name and would force other large apps owned by foreign adversaries to sell to a domestic owner or else be shut down.

Lawmakers’ motives for taking on the app boil down to a fear that TikTok could feed data on American users to the Chinese government, and that the platform could be used to spread misinformation and censor American users. (The company denies the validity of both concerns, referencing “Project Texas,” its initiative to store Americans’ user data and review its algorithmic recommendations through the American-run company Oracle.) President Joe Biden said last week that he would support the bill if it passed through the Senate, which has not yet introduced companion legislation.

In spite of its bipartisan backing in the House, the bill still faces a blend of legal, logistical, and political barriers. Any legislation that might curtail free speech will be under tight legal scrutiny. Previous efforts to ban the app—including a Trump-era executive order and a state law in Montana—quickly ran into First Amendment challenges. “There is a very high bar to restrict speech in the United States,” Caitlin Chin-Rothmann, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me in an email. “The U.S. government would need to prove that a TikTok ban is narrowly tailored to advance a significant government interest, and that there are no less restrictive means of advancing that interest.” The current bill frames its intention as a forced sale rather than an outright ban—a move that aims in part “to circumvent those types of legal challenges,” according to Kate Ruane, the director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, which opposes the House bill.

How a sale of TikTok would actually work is unclear. The bill gives TikTok roughly six months to find a new American owner, but landing a buyer might prove tough—and a sale may not go over well in China. Few American companies could afford to spend billions on such a purchase. And the large tech companies that could swing it might not be interested in such a massive purchase—or willing to take on the legal risk. Any acquisition from a competitor would likely face antitrust challenges. A spokesperson for TikTok said that it sees this congressional move as effectively a ban.

Young people, as you may have heard, love TikTok, and banning the app in an election year seems like an easy way to invoke their ire. (Donald Trump, after zealous efforts to take down the app while president, recently pivoted in his views, saying yesterday that young people would “go crazy” without TikTok.) But the bipartisan consensus so far in the House “inoculates members from electoral retribution” from annoyed TikTok users who can’t pin the blame on one party, Sarah Kreps, a Cornell University professor and the director of its Tech Policy Institute, told me in an email. Still, the whole episode hasn’t done much to assuage concerns that politicians don’t understand the importance of social media and internet culture. “Some TikTok users have bemoaned that Congress still believes that TikTok is comprised of ‘young people dancing videos,’ rather than as a space for legitimate cultural and political expression,” Robyn Caplan, an assistant professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, told me in an email.

If the bill ends up passing, its provisions would set a clear domestic precedent: Other foreign-run platforms could be subject to similar actions. Ruane is concerned about what such a ban would mean abroad too. Already, American-owned digital platforms have been blocked in other countries, including China, and a TikTok ban could give authoritarian regimes the license to ban others for “pretextual” reasons. The potential fallout, she told me, could further limit users’ access to information and freedom of expression across the world.

Because many voters are cold on China, Kreps said that backing anti-China legislation could help lawmakers politically. But banning TikTok outright, Ruane argued, would not actually solve the core issue of the Chinese government being able to access American user data through other means online. In her view, a better way to safeguard those data would be to create comprehensive consumer-privacy laws that would require apps including TikTok, as well as American companies such as Facebook, to face more restrictions on how they handle user data. That kind of comprehensive approach, although perhaps less politically punchy than the House bill, may well improve life on the internet beyond TikTok too.

Related:

• TikTok is too popular to ban. (From 2023)
• You’re looking at TikTok all wrong.

14.

15.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com